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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Mon, 3 Nov 2003 07:26:47 -0500
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Adrian said:

> He should easily be able to train 5 (five) marked forages to collect
> mildly scented sugar solution at a feeding station located 500
> meters/yards DOWNWIND from a bee colony and allow no unmarked bees
> to return from that station to their colony.

> I can predict that he will obtain essentially no new recruits to
> that station during a three-hour period -- "bee language" or not.

Heck with the warm weather we are having, many on the East Coast
could do this experiment this week, and avoid the distraction of
having competing nectar sources.  Here (close to the middle of
Nowhere, Virginia), we will have:

  Sun     79 F
  Today   84 (!!!)
  Tue     77
  Wed     76
  Thu     73
  Fri     61

But as far as tests go, been there, done that, still have
the tee shirt.

Just to make life harder for the girls, I used 100% UNSCENTED sugar
solution in sterile dishes, and trained across the entire length
of my 500 acre field.  Conditions included "no wind", "upwind",
and "downwind".  Lots of recruits, no scent, no distractions (500 acres
of freshly-cut hay stubble).  The bees were NWCs and Weaver Buckfasts,
so it was fairly easy to verify which hive the bees came from, as
anyone can distinguish a (darker) NWC from a (lighter) Buckfast.
The tested hives were within 50 feet of each other.  My shoe size is 8 1/2.

My results were very similar to those cited in "The Honey Bee" by
James L. Gould Carol Grant Gould.

But if one has such warm weather, a better use of one's time might
be to check some colony weights and feed the light colonies.
Yesterday, I pumped two 55-gallon drums of syrup into hive-top feeders
as all this warm weather, combined with zero nectar means that my
colonies will be losing weight.

All in all, the constant rain kept sorties down, washed nectar out of
blossoms, and reduced harvestable honey to well below the reduced harvests
due to the prior 4 years of drought.  The rain also meant little newly drawn
comb.  More supers of foundation deployed this spring went BACK into inventory
for use next spring than went into the stacks of supers of "drawn" comb.

At risk of sounding like a Chicago Cubs fan, there is always next year.  :)


In other news, I see that Kim Flottum has picked a stable location for
the "Sugar" article, complete with artwork, so while I have sent out all
reprints requested to date, I'll continue to mail out reprints only to
those who have no computer, news that will be music to the ethernet
port of my color printer.  Here's the link:

  http://www.beeculture.com/beeculture/SugarReprint.pdf


Also, here's the latest results from the Supercollider, where
bees, politics, law, and random associations of beekeepers
were all accelerated to near the speed of light and smashed
into each other, now even available to those too cheap to
buy a subscription.  Consider it fair notice that you too
have a decent chance of winning a 5-year subscription to
Bee Culture for writing one good, short, snappy line.

  http://www.beeculture.com/beeculture/months/03nov/03nov2.htm


        jim (Exposing "conspiracy theory" conspiracies since 1970)

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