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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 13 Jul 2015 08:35:56 -0400
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>>> the seriously infested "nuisance beekeeping" 
>>> hives, which is why they are so weak, they 
>>> can be robbed out so easily.

>> This is a logical assumption, but totally 
>> unprovable. You can't show anybody these  
>> "nuisance" hives.

Sure I can.  The evidence of robbing is unequivocal, one can see the combs
ripped open and emptied by robbers, so hives that have been robbed out can
be easily surveyed.  One can then tally up what sort of husbandry, if any,
was used to keep these hives alive.  A pattern will quickly emerge.

Randy gave 3 examples:

> Anyone who experienced a fall overload of 
> immigrating mites from collapsing feral 
> colonies in the early days...

> ...anyone sitting next to a commercial operation 
> that isn't controlling their mites (a number of 
> commercial guys have told me that they'll 
> move their bees away [from] a varroa collapse)

> ...a hobbyist in suburbia, surrounded by 
> treatment-free beekeepers who lose 50% 
> of their colonies to mites in the fall, would 
> stand a good chance of picking up a lot 
> of those mites.

But crowding is another thing entirely:

>> "...the crowding of honeybee
>> colonies in an apiary can 
>> boost the drifting of drones 
>> between colonies"

And Wyatt Mangum also did some great work on drifting and varroa, which he
both chalk-talked and printed in ABJ.  But drifting alone does not seem to
infest hives with enough fall mites sufficient to cause a well-cared-for
colony serious problems, and if drifting is the mechanism, then the
beekeeper himself is the one who has failed to control his own mites in his
own yard.

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