Hi Ettamarie-

> The Warre hive makes a lot of sense. I could never use it because I
> am only 5 feet tall and old and weak.

Don't let that stop you, please. I am also old and weak, and run 20
Warre hives up in Alberta. Our weaknesses become the bees' strengths. I
have developed a top bar-less warre-type hive and methodology and these
have become the finest hives I've seen in my 35 years of beekeeping.
This is my second season with them, and they survived their first winter
(a long and cold one) in fine shape. I use no treatments, and no
artificial feeds. My only problems are bears and skunks. Those problems
are easy. I will be happy to elaborate if you'd like.

Regards-
John in Calgary


--- In Natural_Selection_and_the_Honeybee@yahoogroups.com, Ettamarie
Peterson <peterson@...> wrote:
>
> The Warre hive makes a lot of sense. I could never use it because I
> am only 5 feet tall and old and weak.
> On Sep 20, 2009, at 1:16 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
>
> >
> > That is indeed my opinion Ettamarie. For that reason also I use a
> > Warré hive which allows the bees to build all their own comb from
> > top to bottom as is natural.
> > Test have shown that overwintering bees use 20-25 % less honey
> > stores in a Warré hive than in a national type hive, probably due
> > to the Warré being narrower and higher which also makes it more
> > natural since it is much more like a hollow tree than the flat and
> > wide national box.
> > john
> > Reading  John D'hondt's post makes me think he is of the opinion
> > that we would have better bees if we gave them a better place to
> > live. This makes a lot of sense to me. Many diseases are caused by
> > poor living conditions for people as well as other animals and
> > insects. A good water proof, comfortable hive would be a big help
> > to the bees I am sure. Planting a variety of crops, flowers and
> > trees that have a variety of year around blooms would also help.
> > The other thing I think is crucial is to have good local stock that
> > are acclimated to the area. It would make no sense for me to raise
> > Native Irish bees here in the Mediterranean climate of Northern
> > California. That is why I am working towards keeping alive the
> > swarms I catch. We do have bee trees in our neighborhood and feral
> > colonies found in walls of houses and barns, etc. Something is good
> > about them or they would not survive well enough to swarm in the
> > spring.
> >>
> >
> > Ettamarie Peterson  www.petersonsfarm.com and www.liberty4Hbees.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> Ettamarie Peterson  www.petersonsfarm.com and www.liberty4Hbees.com
>

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 09:21:04PM -0700, Ettamarie Peterson wrote:
[On lifting Warres]
> Doesn't lifting those upper boxes bother you or do you make them all
> mediums? Even a medium is 30 pounds if full of honey. Please do
> elaborate.

Perhaps this can help:

http://warre.biobees.com/lift.htm

David Heaf's Warre pages:

http://www.dheaf.plus.com/warrebeekeeping/beeindex.htm

Thanks,

--
dave thorn

I would be very interested to find out more too John in Calgary.
How does this top bar less hive work?
john in Ireland

Hi Ettamarie-

> The Warre hive makes a lot of sense. I could never use it because I
> am only 5 feet tall and old and weak.

Don't let that stop you, please. I am also old and weak, and run 20
Warre hives up in Alberta. Our weaknesses become the bees' strengths. I
have developed a top bar-less warre-type hive and methodology and these
have become the finest hives I've seen in my 35 years of beekeeping.
This is my second season with them, and they survived their first winter
(a long and cold one) in fine shape. I use no treatments, and no
artificial feeds. My only problems are bears and skunks. Those problems
are easy. I will be happy to elaborate if you'd like.

Regards-
John in Calgary


--- In Natural_Selection_and_the_Honeybee@yahoogroups.com, Ettamarie
Peterson <peterson@...> wrote:
>
> The Warre hive makes a lot of sense. I could never use it because I
> am only 5 feet tall and old and weak.
> On Sep 20, 2009, at 1:16 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
>
> >
> > That is indeed my opinion Ettamarie. For that reason also I use a
> > Warré hive which allows the bees to build all their own comb from
> > top to bottom as is natural.
> > Test have shown that overwintering bees use 20-25 % less honey
> > stores in a Warré hive than in a national type hive, probably due
> > to the Warré being narrower and higher which also makes it more
> > natural since it is much more like a hollow tree than the flat and
> > wide national box.
> > john
> > Reading  John D'hondt's post makes me think he is of the opinion
> > that we would have better bees if we gave them a better place to
> > live. This makes a lot of sense to me. Many diseases are caused by
> > poor living conditions for people as well as other animals and
> > insects. A good water proof, comfortable hive would be a big help
> > to the bees I am sure. Planting a variety of crops, flowers and
> > trees that have a variety of year around blooms would also help.
> > The other thing I think is crucial is to have good local stock that
> > are acclimated to the area. It would make no sense for me to raise
> > Native Irish bees here in the Mediterranean climate of Northern
> > California. That is why I am working towards keeping alive the
> > swarms I catch. We do have bee trees in our neighborhood and feral
> > colonies found in walls of houses and barns, etc. Something is good
> > about them or they would not survive well enough to swarm in the
> > spring.
> >>
> >
> > Ettamarie Peterson  www.petersonsfarm.com and www.liberty4Hbees.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> Ettamarie Peterson  www.petersonsfarm.com and www.liberty4Hbees.com
>




------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

There's a John M on the Warré list that now can report that his topbar-less
hive(s) are doing well.

BillSF9c

--- In Natural_Selection_and_the_Honeybee@yahoogroups.com, "John D'hondt"
<dhondt@...> wrote:
>
>
> I would be very interested to find out more too John in Calgary.
> How does this top bar less hive work?
> john in Ireland
>

hey,
how are you ?
Just received  my 2010 Yamaha YZF-R 2010 YZFR1 R1  from this website.
www. excebuy.com much cheaper than others and genuine . if you would
like to get one,you can check it out . They have  many other items .
all the best for 2010

Regards



Afternoon

I recently came across a book containing a passage that supplies authorative
support for the thesis that failure to select for health is resulting in
widespread ill health in bees, and that treatments are massively compounding the
problem.  I've copied the relevant part, and offer it here as a focus for
disussion of the problem.

Best to All,

Mike

Friedrich Ruttner, Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the
Honeybee, translated by Ashleigh and Eric Milner [1]

Chapter II: Selection for Performance

1.  What is breeding?
Queen breeding is, in the first place, simply the increase in the number of
queens.  By regular rejuvenation and keeping a reserve supply of queens the
output of an apiary can be very substantially increased.  The enhanced
productive energy of the young queens is utilized and deficiencies in the
working stock, which result in queenlessness, drone laying, or any other kind of
failure in a queen, are made good.  Queen breeding ranks as the most important
activity in the management of an apiary; by it the apiarist, in the words of
Professor Shillers of Vienna, advances from being a beekeeper to being a bee
breeder.

Yet breeding is not merely a question of reproduction.  Above all, breeding
implies improvement in the bee's performance capability.  No colony is exactly
like another; brood rearing, inclination to swarm, foraging vigour, stinginess,
susceptibility to disease, differ from colony to colony.  Breeding means the
augmentation of the best [the positive variants] and the ELIMINATION OF THE BAD
[the negative variants]. [2]  The aim is the attainment of an apiary which is
uniform and has an above average performance.

Breeding is by no means a human invention.  Nature, which in millions of years
has bought forth this immense diversity of wonderfully adapted creatures, is the
greatest breeder.  It is from her that the present day breeder learnt how it
must be done, excessive production and then ruthless selection, permitting only
the most suitable to survive and eliminating the inferior.  If this harsh rule
of nature is either set aside or relaxed the constraints will within a short
time be broken through, and a species will disintegrate into a large number of
different forms which through divergent colouring and living requirements,
through unusual body forms, will depart from the natural pattern.  In laboratory
animals which are kept only for study and not within a definite breeding
objective, these phenomena can be regularly observed.  At the same time, reduced
fitness for life under natural conditions very quickly results, because in
nature this is only preserved by incessant and rigourous selection.  If this
selection is lacking because the trouble of finding food and warm shelter and
taking care of the young has been removed and protection from enemies has been
provided, the ability to hold its own in nature gradually but inevitably
declines.  What has the wolf, the ancestor of our dogs, turned into during the
course of millennia under the hand of man?  A Dachshund or Poodle would soon be
a pitiful wreck if it had to try to exist on its own.

Nature is also the breeder's greatest instructress as to how to avoid
inbreeding:- no mating within the same colony; mating flights to far distant
assembly places; multiple mating.
[…]

2. The Breeding of Honeybees
Our bees have certainly not yet reached the condition of the domestic animals
just mentioned since even today they still have to maintain the struggle for
existence largely on their own.  Nonetheless, we have gone a very long way
towards making their lives easier, so that the laziest colony or the latest
swarm is not in danger of starving the following winter.  Today the majority of
beekeepers restrict themselves to protecting their bees, but allow them to
increase just as they like.  What is the result?  Stocks with excessive swarming
tendency grow ever more numerous, while the good foragers with weak tendency to
increase, which rejuvenate themselves by supercedure, are driven back  Wit the
Heather bee, and in the Carinthian method of breeding for swarms which produce
bees quite useless for a modern beekeeping business, we see the result of these
practices quite clearly.

[1] Published by the British Isles Bee Breeders Association by Arrangement with
Ehrenwirth Verlag, Munich;1988, pages 45-46
[2] This sentence is italicized in the book.

Hello Mike,

thank you for the info.
________________________________

Just a quick note to introduce myself to the other group members. I am
a Dutch beekeeper since summer 2009.
To me it's very clear that we (as a beekeeper) should support natural
selection by doing nothing. This is risky and we need some courage to
do this. I lost allready two colonies due to the bad summer. I wanted
to feed them but the other colonies instantly started robbing. So I
quit feeding. The two colonies died two weeks ago. But I'm  not sad
about it because it makes room for the other colonies: more flowers,
nectar and pollen for the survivors!. The article you send us supports
me in my basically-doing-nothing-method. And let's face it: Mother
Nature knows what she does!

The funny thing is that this Friedrich Ruttner writes about dogs
(Woolf versus Poodle) and that is the same example I use when I
discuss my "method" with other people.

I still have 6 or 7 colonies to go through this winter. Let's see what happens.

I followed your (Mike) advise:
1 I want to go as far as 10 colonies to compensate for the heavy loss of bees.
2 A friend and I founded a small beebreeding group so (maybe for next
season) we will have about twenty colonies to compensate the heavy
losses of bees.
3 I will go after that (forty year old) feral stock swarming around in
our small village. The seem to do good this season! I'll stay
connected with the lady who lives there. She will warn me when she
sees a swarm coming.

I allready wrote you about it but I would like to share my ideas about
beekeeping with the other Yahoo-group members:

This is my "method":

I do not treat our bees means that I do not treat our bees in any way.
I have two top bar hives. And a couple of other small nucs. All made
form natural materials. 100% poison free and breathable stuff. (wood,
clay, cowdung) I do not treat.
I don't use waxfoundation.
I do not make splits.
I do not collect honey.
I do not disturb the broodnest.
They swarm all the way :-)
I just make sure that they have enough space (I add some extra bars)
And maybe: If they have enough honey I collect some honey in the next
spring. (when there is a flow of nectar)
The only thing I do is: I catch the swarms. (But not all of them)

In my opinion: That's the best pest treatment the bees can get. All
natural. Also: the natural broodgap is in my opinion also very good to
prevent the varroapopulation from growing. Mother Nature will do the
rest by ruthlessly selecting all the genetically inferior (or:
not-so-well-adapted) bloodlines. In the words of Friedrich Ruttner:
separating the Poodles from the Woolfs.

Tjerk van der Meché
Beekeeper
(near Amsterdam, Holland)

I've had lures out all summer here and hardly seen a honey bee in the garden -
not a single one on a large comfrey bed or an extensive borage plantation so I'm
assuming there has been no recovery yet in our once thriving feral population.
However, there were a lot more around in a friend's garden about ten miles away
despite no local bee keepers so I'm going to set up an empty top bar hive with
lures there from the start of next season and see what happens, along with
another one here.

I had two colonies from nukes in a friend's garden about forty miles away, along
with her own, but foul brood hit the area so they had to be destroyed.

I remember my uncle using that method to deter wasps back in the fifties.

kathryn

On 21 Sep 2011, at 08:57, mikebispham@... wrote:

>
>
> Hello Tjerk,
>
> Glad you found that useful.  I love your characterization: separating the
Poodles from the Wolfs!  Spot on!
>
> I've found some more similar stuff in other older books on bee breeding and
honey farming, and I'll copy out the relevant parts as and when I have time and
post them here, and also put them on a new page on my website.  If anyone comes
across passages that make clear statements about the necessity of breeding bees
against pests and diseases, I'd be grateful for details.
>
> Glad to hear you are making progress.  I too have been busy making increase,
collecting swarms and extracting nests, and have 12 colonies ready for the test
of winter.  Early in the year I made contact with a couple of local pest
controllers, and they seem very happy to let me deal with their bee problems.
Usually they collect a fee and I get the bees, and everybody is happy.  I've
picked up 4 nests that were well established, and these, it seems very likely,
have good mite tolerance.  I've noticed that I have had three calls from the
same area in one town, and my guess is that this is a small recovering feral
population.  All these bees seem perfectly well behaved (so far).  Next year I
will have an advert running, and should pick up lots more.  And I'll start
evaluating for mite tolerance and selecting the strongest for increase.  Till
then, absolutely no treatments or manipulations - just feeding to help the small
ones establish and overwinter.
>
> Like you I've had problems with robbing.  I've found a few things that help,
and now seem to be able to feed without problems.  I use slow feeders (glass
jars with 5 holes punched through the lid using a frame nail).  I always allow
the syrup to cool, as warm syrup makes them over-exited and broadcasts the
treasure to all and sundry.  I place the jars on at dusk, when they've stopped
flying, and reduce the entrances to a crack - enough to allow one bee each way.
It seems to me that those colonies that have bees on frames right by the
entrance have an advantage over those whose nest is away from the entrance,
which tends to be only lightly guarded until they've built up a bit.  Wasps were
difficult too for a while, but reducing entrances and putting out a number of
jar-traps seems to have reduced them to an occasional nuisance.
>
> Best to All,
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello Mike,
>
> thank you for the info.
> ________________________________
>
> Just a quick note to introduce myself to the other group members. I am
> a Dutch beekeeper since summer 2009.
> To me it's very clear that we (as a beekeeper) should support natural
> selection by doing nothing. This is risky and we need some courage to
> do this. I lost allready two colonies due to the bad summer. I wanted
> to feed them but the other colonies instantly started robbing. So I
> quit feeding. The two colonies died two weeks ago. But I'm  not sad
> about it because it makes room for the other colonies: more flowers,
> nectar and pollen for the survivors!. The article you send us supports
> me in my basically-doing-nothing-method. And let's face it: Mother
> Nature knows what she does!
>
> The funny thing is that this Friedrich Ruttner writes about dogs
> (Woolf versus Poodle) and that is the same example I use when I
> discuss my "method" with other people.
>
> I still have 6 or 7 colonies to go through this winter. Let's see what
happens.
>
> I followed your (Mike) advise:
> 1 I want to go as far as 10 colonies to compensate for the heavy loss of bees.
> 2 A friend and I founded a small beebreeding group so (maybe for next
> season) we will have about twenty colonies to compensate the heavy
> losses of bees.
> 3 I will go after that (forty year old) feral stock swarming around in
> our small village. The seem to do good this season! I'll stay
> connected with the lady who lives there. She will warn me when she
> sees a swarm coming.
>
> I allready wrote you about it but I would like to share my ideas about
> beekeeping with the other Yahoo-group members:
>
> This is my "method":
>
> I do not treat our bees means that I do not treat our bees in any way.
> I have two top bar hives. And a couple of other small nucs. All made
> form natural materials. 100% poison free and breathable stuff. (wood,
> clay, cowdung) I do not treat.
> I don't use waxfoundation.
> I do not make splits.
> I do not collect honey.
> I do not disturb the broodnest.
> They swarm all the way :-)
> I just make sure that they have enough space (I add some extra bars)
> And maybe: If they have enough honey I collect some honey in the next
> spring. (when there is a flow of nectar)
> The only thing I do is: I catch the swarms. (But not all of them)
>
> In my opinion: That's the best pest treatment the bees can get. All
> natural. Also: the natural broodgap is in my opinion also very good to
> prevent the varroapopulation from growing. Mother Nature will do the
> rest by ruthlessly selecting all the genetically inferior (or:
> not-so-well-adapted) bloodlines. In the words of Friedrich Ruttner:
> separating the Poodles from the Woolfs.
>
> Tjerk van der Meché
> Beekeeper
> (near Amsterdam, Holland)
>
>
>

I've just turned up something I've been looking for for ages - information about
John Kufuss' background and methods.

http://opensourcelife.wikispaces.com/+Kefuss

Very good reading

Mike

--- In Natural_Selection_and_the_Honeybee@yahoogroups.com, Tjerk van der Meché
<t.vandermeche@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Mike,
>
> thank you for the info.
> ________________________________
>
> Just a quick note to introduce myself to the other group members. I am
> a Dutch beekeeper since summer 2009.
> To me it's very clear that we (as a beekeeper) should support natural
> selection by doing nothing. This is risky and we need some courage to
> do this. I lost allready two colonies due to the bad summer. I wanted
> to feed them but the other colonies instantly started robbing. So I
> quit feeding. The two colonies died two weeks ago. But I'm  not sad
> about it because it makes room for the other colonies: more flowers,
> nectar and pollen for the survivors!. The article you send us supports
> me in my basically-doing-nothing-method. And let's face it: Mother
> Nature knows what she does!
>
> The funny thing is that this Friedrich Ruttner writes about dogs
> (Woolf versus Poodle) and that is the same example I use when I
> discuss my "method" with other people.
>
> I still have 6 or 7 colonies to go through this winter. Let's see what
happens.
>
> I followed your (Mike) advise:
> 1 I want to go as far as 10 colonies to compensate for the heavy loss of bees.
> 2 A friend and I founded a small beebreeding group so (maybe for next
> season) we will have about twenty colonies to compensate the heavy
> losses of bees.
> 3 I will go after that (forty year old) feral stock swarming around in
> our small village. The seem to do good this season! I'll stay
> connected with the lady who lives there. She will warn me when she
> sees a swarm coming.
>
> I allready wrote you about it but I would like to share my ideas about
> beekeeping with the other Yahoo-group members:
>
> This is my "method":
>
> I do not treat our bees means that I do not treat our bees in any way.
> I have two top bar hives. And a couple of other small nucs. All made
> form natural materials. 100% poison free and breathable stuff. (wood,
> clay, cowdung) I do not treat.
> I don't use waxfoundation.
> I do not make splits.
> I do not collect honey.
> I do not disturb the broodnest.
> They swarm all the way :-)
> I just make sure that they have enough space (I add some extra bars)
> And maybe: If they have enough honey I collect some honey in the next
> spring. (when there is a flow of nectar)
> The only thing I do is: I catch the swarms. (But not all of them)
>
> In my opinion: That's the best pest treatment the bees can get. All
> natural. Also: the natural broodgap is in my opinion also very good to
> prevent the varroapopulation from growing. Mother Nature will do the
> rest by ruthlessly selecting all the genetically inferior (or:
> not-so-well-adapted) bloodlines. In the words of Friedrich Ruttner:
> separating the Poodles from the Woolfs.
>
> Tjerk van der Meché
> Beekeeper
> (near Amsterdam, Holland)
>

Hello Mike and all,

Information about natural selection and the honeybee is hard to find on the internet. There is no platform, there is no organization.

I think we have to create a platform on our own. It seems to me there is no other option.

I decided to give it a try. I created a facebookpage about Natural Selection and the Honeybee. Why facebook? I think that a lot of new (young) beekeepers have a facebookaccount. There are 80 million facebookmemebers worldwide! So I would like to promote "natural selection and the honeybee" on this socialmedium. If you are a member of facebook; please take a look and search for natural selection and the honeybee.

Facebook is not just a page. You need the network to spread the word. That means: I need a lot of "friends" to build a network and to spread the info. Also I am currently writing topics. May be some of you want to react on this? Please sent me an invitation from your facebook page. Then we can connect.

So:

WHO wants to be ´FRIEND` of the facebookpage - Natural Selection and the Honeybee- ? Please mail me your facebooknames so we can connect.

Hi guys, nice to see that someone found this useful, as I 've put it there (its
my wiki page). but of course it was written by someone else and the original
file can be found here:http://survivorstockqueens.org/

Sasha Mrkailo, Serbia


--- In Natural_Selection_and_the_Honeybee@yahoogroups.com, "Mike"
<mikebispham@...> wrote:
>
> I've just turned up something I've been looking for for ages - information
about John Kufuss' background and methods.
>
> http://opensourcelife.wikispaces.com/+Kefuss
>
> Very good reading
>
> Mike
>

I think there is an easier way. Why dont you split them in late summer, get two
nucs and then make new colonies from them in the next year? You get two things
with this. First you get swarms, which will replace the colonies you lose during
the winter, second for some reason bees have much better chance to survive in
small nucs, which will give you time to develop more resistance or better said
varroa tolerance. Loosing bees constantly is no fun. I have done it. It breaks
your heart.
That is my plan, and is what people like Kirk Webster are doing. Hint: Kirk has
a great website. Lock him if interested.
PS: there is a beekeeper in Serbia who claims he hasn't treated varroa for 20
years. He says varroa problem is solved. Still he is very afraid of nosema
cerana.  Check his video:
http://youtu.be/xSGa9DKraGA

Varroa is just one of the issues. Others will follow. Life is a constant flux...
Merry Christmas!

Sasha

--- In Natural_Selection_and_the_Honeybee@yahoogroups.com, Tjerk van der Meché
<t.vandermeche@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Sacha, (and all)
>
> thanks for the info. I read the site and I read the HIP breeder protocol. I
> do not agree on the HIP breeder protocol because they treat with
> Apistan. The protocol wants to do two things:
> 1 select the best colonies and not to treat them and
> 2 on the other hand "save" the rest of the colonies with Apistan treatment.
>
> Our main goal should be: *selecting out*. That means: select the best and
> let the other colonies die.
>
> How to select?
> In my opinion: mother nature will in the end come up with the best. It's
> just a matter of time. The colonies that do not make it will collapse. I do
> accelerate the process. I do not feed them. (and I do not take any honey
> too)
> That means: only the colonies that are strong enough will make it. That are
> the colonies that "fit" in to local environment. They are adapted to the
> Dutch climate and the Dutch flowers. I mean: why on earth should I try to
> save the Italian bee in Holland?
> I had some colonies flying at zeven degrees Celcius. Bringing pollen to the
> hive. *They will make it*. (hopefully) The other colonies flew at twelve
> degrees Celsius. They apparently do not like the Dutch summer and the wet
> climate. They won't make it.
>
> All I do is catch the swarms of what is left in the next saison. And set up
> a new hive. Let them build there own comb. And I do not disturb in any
> way...
> Tjerk
>
> Please note: I lost five of seven colonies. I do have two colonies still
> 'up and running'
> It looks like we will not get things changed without making our hands
> dirty. So be it.
>

Hello Sacha and Mike,

I also tend to start with nucs as early in the season as possible. So that they have time to settle and build up a strong colony. But I did not create the nucs. I decided to wait for the swarms to come. I think that a swarm has the best chances to build a new nest.

 I do agree that I run a great risk of falling back to zero each season. I agree on the point that the good drones should dominate. Hopefully the next season will be better.

I lost so many colonies due to the bad season in 2011. I could have saved them by starting to feed sugar, but I decided not to do it. When I feed one or two I do have to feed them all to prevent robbing. Second: I think that colonies that are not active enough may also do not harvest enough pollen. I can save them with sugar but in the end the offspring will not get enough protein…

Best wishes for 2012

Tjerk

PS I created an account on facebook. Search for: Natural Selection and the Honeybee

Or: Honeybees Matter