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FILENAME: JUNAPIS.96
Florida Extension Beekeeping Newsletter
Apis--Apicultural Information and Issues (ISSN 0889-3764)
Volume 14, Number 6, June 1996
Copyright (c) 1996 M.T. Sanford "All Rights Reserved"
REFLECTIONS ON THE APIS NEWSLETTER
This newsletter, like many things in modern day life, is
continuously changing. What was once only a paper document has
metamorphosed into an electronic publication (see October and
December 1994, December 1995 APIS) with a larger audience than
was ever possible in the past. A recent comment by a reader in
Germany questioned the relevance of articles in the April 1996
number on honey bee domestication and sex determination.
Although entertaining, he asked if the newsletter's function was
not to report serious research from institutions of higher
learning?
In order to better understand this newsletter's mission, the
first thing to keep in mind is that APIS is a Florida Cooperative
Extension Publication. This brings with it certain conditions
imposed by what many simply call "extension." In the broadest
sense, extension is relaying information to people to improve
their lives. Originally, extension was strictly agricultural in
nature, but it has had to change as fewer and fewer people make
their living directly off the land. In the rush to evolve,
however, extension has had to decide what is appropriate for it
to do. The wisdom of the ages tells us there are not enough
resources to be all things to all people. The other key word is
Florida; it should be relevant to interests of persons in the
state as the local citizens help pay the bills to produce the
newsletter.
A recent commentary by Peter Bloome in The Leadership
Journey, National Extension Leadership Development Program, Vol.
5, No. 2, Spring 1996, addresses some of the dos and don'ts as he
sees them:
1. Extension should focus on helping people put knowledge to
work; acquiring, freely sharing, analyzing and applying
knowledge.
2. Extension should concentrate on providing services for
learning; it should only do things that people can't do
themselves.
3. Extension should help people understand the world in broad
terms; it succeeds when people move through its programs and go
on to other learning.
4. Extension should promote a balance between technical
information (perishable knowledge) and learning how to learn
(non-perishable skills); it must be reliable, objective and
responsible.
5. Extension should help develop the private sector and not
compete with it. It should also promote group development, but
not be an advocate for any particular association.
APIS fits the above guidelines pretty well. In keeping with
the goal of extension as a change agent, the newsletter is not
only adapting to changing clientele, but leading the way in
providing quality information in a variety of ways. Beyond that,
I have assiduously worked toward another goal, uniqueness. The
articles mentioned above fall under the latter category. Nowhere
else in literature directed toward beekeepers are essays on the
meaning of domestication or reflections on comparisons between
sex determination in humans and honey bees. I would be
interested in hearing what others in the audience might think
about the content, form and other characteristics of this
newsletter.
MORE ON FORGOTTEN POLLINATORS
A continuous stream of information about one topic across
the Internet is referred to as a "thread." Most recently, the
subject has been lack of honey bees for pollination. One
discussant asked: "Prior to the Europeans coming to the New World
and bringing honey bees along, what was responsible for
pollination? Were there some kind of wild bees here before the
Europeans' arrival?"
Dr. Douglas Yanega, Illinois Natural History Survey,
answered that query: "There were and still are some 3,000 native
North American bee species that got along just fine before
Europeans came along, including specialist pollinators of things
like blueberries, squash, sunflower, and many other native crop
plants. Historically, folks have found it simpler to (in essence)
assume that honeybees were the answer to everything, and work
with them, even if it's a round-peg-in-square-hole sort of fit in
many cases. Alfalfa is one of the few crops where honeybees were
so bad at pollination that people did start long ago to utilize
native pollinators instead, and recently there has been
increasing use of native pollinators for blueberries and apples
(and of course the use of bumblebees as greenhouse pollinators).
On the whole though, funding for research into alternative
pollinators has been quite scarce - perhaps now there will be
more pressure to investigate how to exploit or manage native
pollinators for commercial purposes, but one never knows."
One way that pressure is being applied is through the
Forgotten Pollinators Campaign (see March 1996 APIS). I have
received the campaign's Speakers Directory which lays out the
strategy to inform all parts of society about the importance of
animals that pollinate. It contains a 10-point policy statement
to protect pollination services. A list of distinguished
speakers is available for conferences and other events. Finally,
a slide set and accompanying script are available for two-week
rental at $50. To contact the campaign, write Arizona-Sonora
Desert Museum, 2021 N. Kinney Rd., Tucson, AZ 85743, ph 520/883-
3007, fax 520/883-5200 or email: [log in to unmask]
RESOURCES CATALOG
The Spring/Summer 1996 Resources Catalog has just been
issued by IFAS at the University of Florida. This eye-catching
publication lists a huge array of titles separated into Home and
Garden, Pesticide Training and Safety, and Farm and Industry, for
sale in flash card, handbook, manual and identification guide
format. CD-ROM databases (containing circulars and fact sheets
on beekeeping and dozens of other topics on FAIRS) and
agricultural software are also featured. Of special interest is
an index to phone numbers of all Florida's extension offices and
research and education centers. For a copy of the catalog, phone
352/392-1764 or write IFAS Publications, University of Florida,
P.O. Box 110011, Gainesville, FL 32611-0011.
UPDATED COMPUTER SPREADSHEET MODEL
Although the IFAS Resources Catalog continues to list my
profitability model software (Profitability Model for a Mid-sized
Beekeeping Operation), this will be the last issue to do so. The
information has been incorporated into an updated version by Drs.
Lois Willett and Nicholas Calderone at Cornell University.
Entitled Bee Economics, this model runs under Windows 3.1 on IBM
compatible machines [386 machines with 4 megs of RAM using
Excel(R) 4.0] and Macintosh(R) with 4 megs RAM and Excel(R) 4.0.
Bee Economics consists of three modules, each containing a
suite of spreadsheets. They are Bee Planner, Record Keeping
(Investment, Expense, Revenue and Cashflow) and Enterprise
Analysis. The latter is particularly significant because a
single beekeeping operation can be broken down into several
activities (i.e. honey production and sales, commercial
pollination, package bee and queen production). Each of these
can be analyzed independently of, as well as in conjunction with,
the whole operation. Questions about the model should be
directed to Dr. Willett, Dept. of Agricultural, Resource and
Managerial Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7801,
ph 607/255-4489, fax 607/255-9984, email [log in to unmask]
Bee Economics sells for $39 plus $5 shipping and handling.
Income from sales goes toward future economic research on the
beekeeping industry. Copies are available from Dr. Marion Ellis,
American Association of Professional Apiculturists (AAPA), 210
Plant Industry Building, Lincoln, NE 68583-0816, or the AAPA Home
Page at http://ianrwww.unl.edu/ianr/entomol/beekpg/aapapubs.htm.
That World Wide Web site also has several other publications
available to beekeepers. Although my model has been superseded,
the printed version is still available on the FAIRS CD-ROM and
World Wide Web: http://hammock. ifas.ufl.edu/txt/fairs/617.
GETTING RID OF BEE SWARMS
A new video has been released by the College of Agriculture
at the University of Arizona. That state now has Africanized
honey bees which may swarm/abscond several times per year. This
production informs residents in down-to-earth language about
removing temporary swarms before they become established
colonies.
The Homeowner's Guide to Safe Honey Bee Swarm Control
explains the critical differences between swarms, colonies and
foraging bees. It concludes that foraging bees are not
significant problems, but that established colonies must be
avoided at all costs and only be removed by professionals.
Swarms, on the other hand, because they are usually less
defensive and more exposed, can often be killed by homeowners
before they take up residence, becoming potentially defensive
established colonies. The video takes the do-it-yourselfer
through a step-by-step guide to killing free-standing swarms.
To order this video, send a check payable to The University
of Arizona to Agricultural Communications Systems, Attn: Video
on Swarm Control, The University of Arizona, 715 N. Park Ave.,
Tucson, AZ 85719. I have a more specialized fact sheet on
removing established colonies, ENY 132, Removing Honey Bee Nests.
It is available by mail, on CD-ROM or World Wide Web
(http://hammock.ifas.ufl.edu/txt/fairs/897).
ANOTHER FLORIDIAN WINNER- 4-H ESSAY CONTEST
Congratulations to Nicholas Saconchik-Pytel of Tallahassee,
FL for winning third prize in this year's 4-H Essay Contest
sponsored by the American Beekeeping Federation. This is the
second year that state 4-H'ers have placed third. There were
only eight (8) Florida entrants in 1996 so the odds remain very
high of winning simply by entering.
Next year's competition has been announced. The subject
will be a "news event" in the bee colony. Suggested examples of
titles include: "Bees Robbed of Hoard of Honey" (beekeeper
harvests the honey crop); "Queen and Loyalists Flee Anarchists"
(swarm leaves to set up new colony); "Helpless Drones Cast Out by
Workers" (drones driven from colony in preparation for winter);
"New Queen Takes the Throne" (bees replace failing or dead
queen).
Using a news report format, develop an essay exploring the
"event" and relate it to the honey bee life cycle and the role of
bees in a colony. Essays must be based on facts (referenced by
endnotes), however, the tone might be sensational (tabloid),
straight (evening news) or in-depth feature, including "quotes"
from affected bees. For a complete copy of the rules, contact
the American Beekeeping Federation, P.O. Box 1038, Jesup, GA
31598. Each state decides its own winner which will be forwarded
to the Federation for final judging. Entries forwarded from 4-H
agents are due in my office by February 1, 1997 to be eligible
for the 1997 contest.
MORE ON RISING HONEY PRICES
Escalating honey prices continue to be on many people's
minds. Mr. Roy Sterling, General Manager of Alberta Honey
Producers Cooperative Limited recently published information from
Statistics Canada on honey prices and volumes exported to the
United States. The following graphically shows how precipitous
the increase has been (all figures are U.S. dollars):
Jul 1995 .85 million pounds; average price of 56.0 cents/pound
Aug 1995 3.88 million pounds; average price of 60.4 cents/pound
Sep 1995 3.01 million pounds; average price of 61.1 cents/pound
Oct 1995 2.14 million pounds; average price of 66.6 cents/pound
Nov 1995 1.62 million pounds; average price of 68.5 cents/pound
Dec 1995 1.31 million pounds; average price of 71.8 cents/pound
Jan 1996 1.07 million pounds; average price of 70.9 cents/pound
Mr. Sterling is now seeing quotes of $.93 to $1.04 per pound
for good white clover honey. Besides a reduction in commercial
pollination and increased incentive to economically adulterate as
I stated in the last issue of this newsletter (see May 1996
APIS), Mr. Sterling raises a further concern about the magnitude
of this increase. "I hope the beekeeping industry doesn't price
their product to a point where the consumers find alternatives
for their needs."
SIDEBAR-WORLD WINTER VARROA KILL
World winter Varroa kill estimates taken off the Internet from
Matysek Miroslav of the Czech Republic based on Apimondia
discussions in Rome, May 1996:
World - about 25% (13 of 50 million colonies)
Austria - about 70%
German - about 45 - 50%, local even 80%
Slovakia - about 35 - 40%
Czech republic - about 20%
Sincerely,
Malcolm T. Sanford
Bldg 970, Box 110620
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-0620
Phone (904) 392-1801, Ext. 143
FAX: 904-392-0190
BITNET Address: MTS@IFASGNV; INTERNET Address:
[log in to unmask]
APIS on the World Wide Web--
http://gnv.ifas.ufl.edu/~entweb/apis/apis.htm
Copyright (c) M.T. Sanford 1996 "All Rights Reserved"
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