This whole discussion has been going on for years. I've been puzzled about
a number of things, but right now of the claim that Dee's bees are AHB. Peter says
Dee's bees are AHB, and Dee says one lab said they were, and others said not.
I recall a series of letters from April 2008 in which Dean showed us some videos
of doing spring splits at Dee's operation. In the first letter he said of the
videos
"...more to come, but these first two didn't require editing. Please note that
hardly any smoke was used, and these hives are huge. I'd be curious to see some
footage of similar sized hives (5-6 deep). There are lots of bees flying...
but there are simply lots of bees (and again, almost no smoke)."
Peter responded,
"...they are really pissed off. I doubt you could be
there without all that protective clothing they're wearing.
I usually work bees wearing street clothes and if they ever got that pissed
off, I'd be taking a sample to see if they were AHB
pb
Dean then said,
"it also must be noted that smoke is hardly being used at all (in order to keep
the nurse bees on the brood frames for splits). do you have a film we could
see of you going into that many hives, that many deep, and no smoke so we can
see "what it's supposed to look like"? also, my recollection is that
africanized bees are supposed to maintain small colonies...are these small
colonies? (and if so, can you please provide a picture of a large colony to
compare it with)?
"all that protective clothing" consists of an inspectors jacket, painters
pants from wallmart, dollar store dishwashing gloves, and some velcro spats.
we are also used to working our bees in street clothes (wearing a veil, jeans
and a tshirt)...but the numbers of bees when the colonies are 5-6 deep is a
different story."
and then Dee added this,
"Well, with half bee suit, rubber dishwashing gloves and leg wraps only, didn't
consider them pissed off, as they weren't stinging. They were just flying
around, and trying to reorient to new locations and old locations at same time,
while flying around forage in area of location. At least the field bees were
doing this, as someone stole a whole box of their brood and hopefully queen
away, though just ripped off and didn't really care if she there or not in
strong hives torn apart.
But if pissed off instead of disorientated, would have supposed that we'd have
been covered from head to foot with stinging bees of which we were not. though
many came to veils due to breathing so close to boxes when opening hives. But
if pissed should have been more, but didn't happen. But yet, there should have
been more to me if pissed, for to me pissed means wanting to sting, and these
bees were not doing that! We were not getting stung, it just put a lot of field
bees in air."
I live in Ontario. I've never been to Arizona or had anything to do with
AHB. But I would agree with Dean
that taking apart and splitting a large hive without much smoke is a good way
to get stung. I watched a documentary some while ago on a pest-removal company
that specialized in feral bees, most of which were AHB. One of the things that
stood out to me was the arm-length leather gloves they were wearing. They held
these up to the camera, and you could see that over the entire arm was a thick
carpet of stingers. And yet Dee and the rest were using dishwashing gloves.
I've done that, and found the bees sting right through them quite easily. So
if they were africanized, why were they not stinging?
Of course, this was almost 5 years ago. Maybe they are now AHB, with all the
swarms coming in.
So Dee, are you still using dishwashing gloves when working bees?
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