Since 1997

George Imirie's
PINK PAGES
About Me   [Top]
My name is Pete Chrisbacher, and I've been keeping bees since 2004. Depending on the time of
year, I have between 20 and 30 hives and nucs, which are split across three bee yards in
Royersford, Montgomery County, PA and Kennett Square, Chester County, PA. Nearly all of my
colonies are by this point descended from removals and swarm captures I have done here in
southeast Pennsylvania. It is my hope that many of my bees are from surviving feral stock and as
a result have the genetic diversity and/or resistance to tolerate the many diseases, pests and other
pressures that plague honeybees here in North America. I manage my bees "my way," though I
have been heavily influenced by the management practices and teachings of both Michael Bush
and Michael Palmer.

I am also an experienced Agile Coach, available to coach agile organizational transformation and
software development engagements as Chrisbacher Consulting LLC.

Important Note!
The intent of this archive is to provide access to what I believe is a valuable repository of
beekeeping information compiled and documented by George Imirie. Yet as I write this (2013),
even the most recent of George Imirie's "Pink Pages" is nearly 10 years old; much has been
learned and many things have changed (e.g. CCD, SHB) with regard to beekeeping since
George's passing. I still believe much of the information in George's "Pink Pages" is valuable,
but I also think it's crucial to read George's recommendations with the added context of current
information and knowledge. For example, varoa treatments have changed considerably since
2005 and earlier when George compiled his recommendations.

Please enjoy the information you find here. But please also take the time to expand your
beekeeping horizons using current information and literature. Consider subscribing to one of the
beekeeping magazines to keep up on the latest research. Join one or more of the numerous
beekeeping forums like beesource.com and beemaster.com, and seek out one or more of the
excellent beekeeping websites like Michael Bush's fantastic site (my personal favorite). And of
course, consider joining your local beekeeping organization, which in the case of the
Montgomery County (MD) Beekeeper's Association was the original recipient of George's hard-
won wisdom via his "Pink Pages."

Many thanks to David Winkler, a friend of George Imirie who took the time to send me scans of
18 issues I did not have in my archive. All of these "new" issues have been converted to html and
posted on the site.

About This Project   [Top]

When I first stumbled upon copies of George Imirie's Pink Pages online, I knew I'd discovered a
valuable source of beekeeping information. Add to that the fact that George's opinions were
often quite entertaining, and I knew I'd have to read more.
Unfortunately, there was no single site where I could go to read all of George's Pink Pages
newsletters. Even worse, when I found copies scattered across the web, they were always in
widely differing formats and often difficult to read, difficult to print, or both. And of course
without a single source, there was no alphabetical index that let me quickly find information on a
specific topic.

So I started scouring the web for copies of Pink Pages newsletters. George's own site was the
source of many of the copies I found, but even George didn't have them all, and while he did
have a table of contents, he didn't have an index. I also found issues of Pink Pages on various
other sites across the web, in all sorts of different formats. I downloaded every issue I could find
and began the painful task of reformatting every one into html so I could present them on this
site. By now my goals for this project had become:

 Provide a single site containing all known issues of George Imirie's Pink Pages
 Present George's Pink Pages such that they are:
o Cleanly and consistently formatted (per w3c specifications)
o Indexed!
o Easily read in a browser
o Easily and clearly printed for binding in a 3-ring binder
o Cross-browser compliant
o Lightweight (minimally formatted, for quick page loads via dial-up)

I first put up my newly formatted copies of Pink Pages in late 2005, before I'd found all the
issues I have now, and before I'd indexed very many issues at all. I indexed when I had time, but
typing, reformatting, and indexing was time-consuming and I eventually let it fall by the wayside
after indexing only back through 2002. I got back into the indexing job again in late 2006, but
didn't finish due to other priorities, and I lost my personal site in 2008 when I cancelled my
Comcast subscription.

Fast-forward to December 2009. I have Comcast again, and when I did a recent Google search
for some information on George Imirie, my old page came up #1 on the list! Apparently some of
you found this information valuable enough to mention it and link to my pages, so (after nearly
two full days of html and css cleanup - my original html/css was a MESS!) I've put this content
back online.

By now I've put quite a bit of time into this effort, which I hope others find useful; I will do my
best to keep this site up and available for as long as I have internet space. Until I decide to
purchase a site specifically for this and other beekeeping content, this material will be available
here. If you like this site, please send me an email at   and let me
know!

Status of This Project   [Top]

While I still have quite a bit of work to do here, all Pink Pages content in my possession as of
December 2015 has been converted, cleaned up, formatted, and uploaded to this archive (see
checklist below). All pages should be displaying correctly. If you run across a problem with any
of these pages, please email me at   with the details and I will do my
best to correct the problem as quickly as possible. I have also added a custom Google search bar
to allow easy searching of the archive. The one outstanding task is indexing, which is extremely
time-consuming, and I do not expect to get back to it any time soon. That said, enough issues
have been indexed that most important topics are included in the index at least once.

Update (2015-12-02): I have completed conversion, cleanup, formatting, and upload of all
remaining issues in my possession. Look for the "NEW 2015!" tag on the TOC and Monthly
Index pages for the newly-converted and uploaded issues. I have also added a custom Google
search bar to allow easy searching of the archive. Got back issues I don't have? Send them to me!

Update (2013-11-04): I just converted and put up two additional pages (Jan/Mar 2005) from my
18 scanned issue backlog, which leaves 16 issues remaining to be converted and uploaded. I
hope to complete these over the next month or two (ETC by the end of 2013).

Update (2009-12-08): Over the past day I've gone through EVERY page and updated it so it is
properly formatted XHTML. This means it should look correct and work properly in most
modern browsers. I haven't had a chance to check EVERY page in EVERY browser (and I
won't!), so if you run across a problem, please let me know. I do test the major page functionality
(e.g. overall layout, the menu and links) in the latest versions of Firefox and Google Chrome.

Table of Contents
George W. Imirie Jr. was a lifelong beekeeper and founder of the Montgomery County (MD)
Beekeepers Association. Over a decade or more, George wrote and published detailed articles
about beekeeping which he titled "Pink Pages." These articles contain broad and deep wisdom
about bees and beekeeping, along with George's rather strong opinions and spicy rhetoric. I
believe this is the most complete archive of Pink Pages on the internet. Material was sourced
from original Pink Pages scans, George's Pink Pages website, and elsewhere on the internet. In
addition to the articles, I have compiled multiple indexes facilitating easy access to George's
wealth of beekeeping knowledge. I hope you enjoy this archive. Please see the About This
Project page for additional information.
 October, 1997

IMPORTANCE OF A WINTER UPPER ENTRANCE

I have written about this many times, but people "forget", "Daddy didn't have it", and some new
beeHAVERS have not heard it before; so here it is again. Frankly, I am tired of hearing all this
CRAP about a hard, cold winter killing bees. How do you think wild bees survive in a hollow
tree, and there are many beekeepers in northern states that do not pack their bees in boxes,
cellars, or tar paper wrap. If you are a keeper of your bees instead of a haver, your bees will
survive 20° below and will have an UPPER ENTRANCE 365 days/year, particularly in the
winter!

WHY an upper entrance? Surely you have seen people blow their hot breath on their glasses to
moisten them in order to clean them. Your exhaled breath contains water vapor, and the same is
true of a bee's exhaled breath. YOUR HOUSE, the inside of a beehive is NOT HEATED and the
wood walls and inner cover are cold. Everybody knows hot air goes UP (hot air balloons!). What
happens to the exhaled WATER VAPOR breath of 20,000 warm clustered bees when it goes UP
and hits that cold inner cover? It CONDENSES into water droplets on the inner cover surface;
and when enough is condensed these droplets become drop size and this cold water "rains" down
on the warm clustered bees? Wow, the thought makes me shiver! Let's consider something else
that has happened a few winters in my 65 years of beekeeping: It snows and that is followed by a
sleet storm and all of this freezes the bottom board entrance closed, and this may last for several
days until things warm up. Without an upper entrance, your bees might suffocate, or if the
temperature suddenly shot up to 50° for an hour or so, your bees can fly out and cleanse
themselves. So PLEASE provide your colonies with a 365 day UPPER ENTRANCE, just
another upgrade from beeHAVER to beeKEEPER!

HOW TO DO IT? I HATE holes drilled in my hive bodies or supers ('cause I get stung putting
my hand over the hole plus it is a great entrance for robbing bees). Putting sticks, twigs, or nails
under the edge of the inner cover to lift it is sloppy, too much trouble, easily knocked apart, and
just unprofessional! Here is the BEST system. An inner cover outside frame is 3/4" thick and
most have an 1/8th inch piece of Masonite in the frame. On the end that is 16-1/4" wide, notch
out a piece of the frame about 5/16" high by 1-1/2" wide in the center of the 16-1/4" end. That is
it! Leave that inner cover, notch DOWN, in place 365 days a year!

There is always some SMART ALEC, WISE GUY, or KNOW-IT-ALL beeHAVER who will
say: "The bees will build burr comb between the frame top bars and the inner cover." If they do,
your bees are TOO CROWDED for comb space, or you are using foundation instead of drawn
comb, or most of the time there is not enough super space. You can come to any of my apiaries
in Maryland or Virginia, and every colony has this inner cover in place the year around, and
never is there any gross amount of burr comb present; and I have done this over 50 years.

MY BEES WINTER WARMLY, DRY, AND HEALTHY!

ARE VIRGIN QUEENS BEING PROPERLY BRED?

I wrote a little about this in the PINK PAGES earlier this year; but numerous EAS beekeepers
directed numerous questions to me at the July meeting, plus several Montgomery County
beekeepers have found numerous queenless colonies recently, plus the American Beekeeping
Federation just announced a major discussion of this problem will be held in January at Colorado
Springs, PLUS upon putting menthol in my 35 colonies in Rockville, I was SHOCKED to find
FIVE QUEENLESS colonies!

Although there are still some uninformed, even a few NON believers about mite damage, MOST
apians have upgraded themselves to competent beeKEEPERS and have mites under control.
However the wild (feral) bees do NOT have this beekeeper medical care, and the wild bees are
DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! Hence, there is a severe shortage of drones to breed our virgin queens.
Without going into the complexities of successful queen breeding, let me just say that it
is ."nature's way", that rarely do queens breed with their brothers (drones from their colony).
Also, I remind you that recent experimentation has proven that a virgin queen mates with about
12-18 drones on her wedding flight. If most feral bees are dead and you have only one or two
colonies, are there enough drones around for breeding. Further, since it is well established that
mites prefer living with drone pupa rather that worker brood, have mites damaged the drones
breeding ability? Most researchers have seen a queen with one or more mites embedded on her,
hosting on her hemolymph (blood). Don't you think that the workers will try to supersede this
damaged or dead queen? What time of year, is it? Are there drones around to breed to a virgin
queen? Further, we all know that most emergency queens (raised from an older larva) are usually
not very good, but now SINCE THE MITES how available are competent drones for breeding?

Suppose your total income was derived from queen breeding. Wouldn't you be very alarmed
about the quality of your "product" and how to find the methods and funds to "guarantee" a
certain product quality? I know some very reputable queen breeders who are pleading for
scientific help!

Here I go again: Are you a beeHAVER or beeKEEPER? Now it October, and a colony is making
preparations for a long winter. What is the AGE of your queen; and unless she is MARKED, you
have NO IDEA. Is 'your colony queenLESS? Maybe you have not looked since you removed the
honey.

What do you do if you find a queenless colony? Combine it with a queenrite colony via the
newspaper method.

While I am talking about Queens, although I like fall requeening, some still want to requeen or
start splits in April. If you order in March, you are going to be MAD, if the supplier can't ship
until May 5th. You ordered too LATE. Order NOW or before Christmas and get MARKED
queens (1998 is RED). I pay attention to year after year quality, not price. I suggest: Wilbanks or
Rossman for Italians; Heitkam or Kona for New World Carniolans; and Binford Weaver for
Buckfast.
WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO and WOW! I AM TIRED OUT!

As mentioned last month, I attended the annual meeting of the NATIONAL HONEY BOARD in
Phoenix, Arizona (temperature over 100°) for 5 days, working my mind to a frazzle, wearing my
voice to hoarseness (only one vocal chord), but came home feeling so satisfied with the NO-PAY
VOLUNTEER dedication of the delegates from each state. (I represent Maryland and next year
is my last year of 6 wonderful years.) It is our job to select candidates for the National Honey
Board and submit these names to the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture for selection.

But the important thing is that we are allowed to attend the meetings of the Board, and become
enthralled by what these chosen 14 selected people do to advance honey production, maintain the
known purity of honey, find more uses for honey, and increase the demand for honey through
advertising, promotion, and research; and they serve WITHOUT COMPENSATION!

Just as important is the small paid staff of the NHB. As a business employer, I wish I had the
know-how to assemble such a wonderful group of dedicated (I imagine underpaid) workers. The
NHB members simply gives them an outline of what they would like to accomplish, and
this'staff gets it done!

Although, not a member, everyone knows Ann and her many beekeeping positions, so the NHB
allowed Ann to "get me to and from" and procure all my meals from the buffets. I could not have
"done it" without Ann.

I wish Ann could have pushed my wheel chair from the plane to Dulles Airport front door,
because the SPEED I was given by the paid airline attendant gave me 10 new gray hairs! Wow!

I was allowed four "whole days to recover" before I departed 430 miles to Ripley, West Virginia
to the semi annual meeting of the West Virginia State Beekeepers Assn. two day meeting. I
drove the 75 miles to Ann's house, and she drove the remaining 360 miles in 8-1/2 hours. They
had dinner waiting for us, and the accommodations were super nice, and I quickly fell asleep
watching TV. Ann and I were the keynote speakers. Ann had lots of slides and graphics about
her trips to Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America; all about swarming, and "what do DEAD
BEES tell you?" I told them the JOYS OF BEEKEEPING, and of course there was no way that I
could end without saying, "beeHAVERS don't have near the enjoyment received by
beeKEEPERS". From that point on, they wanted to know more. That poor one vocal chord took
a real beating, but I felt quite rewarded. The new President asked if we could come to their
spring meeting in Morgantown next year. If Ann can still drive, maybe we will!

Although I still believe in scientific proof of success like menthol for tracheal mites and Apistan
for Varroa mites, Dr. James Amrine, University of West Va. entomologist made quite a case (not
proof) for using various concoctions of things using the oil of Wintergreen as another pesticide.
Beekeeping needs several new pesticides, so I will monitor his progress.
WINTERING WITH "OLD" QUEENS
A queen more than 12 months old is an OLD queen!

Many of you are not familiar with Dr, Basil Furgala of the University of Minnesota, who died
young a couple of years ago. Many of his contemporaries considered him among the most pre-
eminent of honey bee researchers. I invite you to read a little of his writings found in The Hive
and the Honey Bee.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL WINTERING

Young Productive Queen

Installing a young queen does not ensure the beekeeper that he has a productive queen. Despite
this disadvantage, beekeepers should replace queens at regular intervals or face a greater
disadvantage, namely, having old queens in colonies during fall and winter, a condition that too
often brings about:

1. A supersedure in the fall, too late for a virgin queen to be mated. This results in a drone
layer.
2. A failing old queen in late-winter or early spring. In the north (probably Maryland), this
happens too early for the virgin to mate and too early for the beekeeper to requeen the
colony. A more serious effect is that a void in egg laying occurs during a period when
accelerated brood production is requisite to the proper development of the colony.
3. The death of an old queen during the winter, leaving the colony queenless.

Many beekeepers requeen annually. Others allow a queen to lay through two summer
periods and one winter period (requeening just prior to the spring,nectar flow); or two
winter periods and two summer periods (requeening during the late summer flow).
[Maryland does not have a late summer flow, so requeening has to be done in early
September with 1:1 sugar feeding.

Most honey producers requeen every year. Unfortunately, too many beekeepers (They are
beeHAVERS) allow colonies to requeen by supersedure THIS IS NOT ADVISABLE.

How often should a colony be requeened to preclude the failing and/or replacement of an
established queen? Much depends on the pressure that has been placed on the egg-laying
activities of the queen. In a climate where the season is short and honey flow is brief,
queens may remain prolific for two seasons. [This is NOT Maryland, our climate season
is long.] On the other hand, where the season is prolonged and/or where egg laying is
needed to build up colonies to exploit nectar flows, requeening must be more frequent
since the queen will be superseded much sooner. Recent studies in Minnesota indicate
that depending on the source of queens, as many as 66% are superseded or missing after
16 months.

I hope all of you will read and reread these chosen lines and use it to UPGRADE YOUR
BEE KNOWLEDGE!
 Furgala did not even bother to mention that young queens rarely SWARM compared to
older queens, and that you only learn these things by using MARKED queens, I hope that
you better understand why I believe in requeening EVERY year, FALL requeening to get
lots of young winter bees, and MARKED queens.

ADVANCED BEEKEEPING

My walking is poor at best; a paralyzed vocal chord holds me back from yelling loud or "making
love" (can't whisper), but my 65 years of apian knowledge has not drained away and my mind
seems very active. Often I have said "Beekeeping is keeping me alive, because I am still
needed." I have been so rewarded by watching so many of my "students" upgrade their apian
knowledge; but the grade of C or even B is just not good enough. Why not get in the A class?
Then, you really appreciate the wonderment of nature demonstrated by understanding so much
more about apis mellifera; not to mention your own self esteem in having that knowledge. I am
not talking about becoming an entomologist or professional apiculturist; but rather a darn good
beekeeper who can teach others, solve problems, and attain personal goals in your elective time
of recreation.

Langstroth was a preacher, neither Dadant or Root had a great deal of schooling, Quimby,
inventor of the smoker, did not have degree in thermal emission, Reg Wilbanks has a degree in
Business, Danny Weaver (Buckfast fame) is a lawyer, and I am just an atomic physicist who
never had a course in biology. The single common denominator in this group is the DESIRE TO
LEARN! You can too!

Wouldn't you like to thoroughly understand identification and treatment of bee disease, queen
rearing, differences in races, BEE BEHAVIOR (my favorite), honey production, all the different
pheromones and their importance, important local flora, other stinging insects that you must
contend with to answer the public's questions, allergies, practical pollination, and etc., etc.

I am proposing that the NINE MASTER BEEKEEPERS of MC accept this teaching task as their
gift to our membership! We could start in February and go for about 12 weeks plus work in
various colonies using everybody's 'hand's on".

Not all applicants will be acceptable. You will tell us that you would like to attend, and we will
tell you if we think you are qualified or wait until next year. UNFAIR! you say. Shucks, look my
position of acting as God, but that is why some lead and others follow. I have great hopes that I
will serve only as Socrates to many of you, Aristotles. Further, maybe we might charge an
"admission fee" of $30-$50 to show sincere interest that we might spend in new queens, or new
equipment FOR YOU; so you are home free except I hold your deposit for a while. If you find
this "money thing" objectionable, so be it, stay a HAVER. If some of we Master Beekeepers put
forth this effort "out of the goodness of our heart", you have to bend a little too.

Who knows, maybe we could have some help from Shim or Dave Knox. Maybe some queen
breeder might provide us with queens to "experiment with". Maybe we could persuade Oliver
Collins to tell us the fine points about pollination, or catch a queen breeder attending a
Washington conference to lecture us in successful queen breeding. The possibilities are
boundless in the beginning, and we might be starting a program that the rest of the country can
learn from.

At the September meeting, I asked how many would like a course in ADVANCED
BEEKEEPING. I was dumbfounded when about 30 hands went up. Also, I was personally
DELIGHTED! Golly, beekeeping needs all the expertise it can find today, particularly in the area
of public fear and ignorance.

At the Oct. 8th meeting plus letters mailed to me before Oct. 20th, I want to know a more
defined number of "who is interested in attending a long course in ADVANCED
BEEKEEPING?"

Stray Thoughts of Importance

Don't leave a queen excluder in a colony during the winter, or the queen will freeze to death.

2:1 sugar feed is 2 pounds of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water. This requires BOILING water
(not hot spigot water) to dissolve the sugar. I like to weaken the solution just a tad to make things
easier, such as 11 five pound bags of sugar (71 pounds) placed in a 1 gallon jar and add 4 pints of
boiling water, and stir until dissolved. I also add a rounded teaspoon of Fumadil B to control
Nosema, AFTER THE SOLUTION COOLS.

The condition of a colony CANNOT be determined by observing the outside activity on a warm
day. Many times, the colony is dead, and you see ROBBING BEES stealing the left behind
honey and maybe spreading disease also. On days when the outside temperature is 45° or more,
open the hive, remove the inner cover and LOOK. If the bees are moving and not up close to the
top, GOOD, put the top on. Check again in 2 weeks. If the bees are right up near the top,,their
food supply may be exhausted and emergency feeding is needed. When the temperature is below
40°, still check your bees by looking through the hole in the inner cover or rapping on the hive
while your ear is against the hive and listen for a strong buzz. Hives should be checked INSIDE
THE HIVE at least twice in December, twice in January, weekly in February and March.
Tracheal mite death generally happens in December or January; whereas most winter death is
caused by starvation which occurs during heavy brood rearing as in March and April. Bees lost
to starvation is TOTALLY YOUR FAULT! SHAME ON YOU!

I remind you: Bees do NOT warm up their hive space like you warm your house. They warm
ONLY the cluster of bees, where the area of egg-laying must be at least 91° although the outer
bees in the cluster are only in warmth of about 47°-50°, and the side wall of the hive body might
be 32°. DO NOT BREAK (separate) the cluster in temperatures below 45°-50°.

COLD will not kill a strong colony!!! But it can kill a weak colony. More next month
 1998

Why MARK Queens?

Maybe some don't even know what a "MARKED" queen is, so I better explain that first. You
paint the top side of the thorax of the queen bee with honest to goodness fast drying paint that
will not wear off in the life span of the queen, nor does the paint seem to damage the queen in
any way. There are some bee people who claim that a marked queen is quickly superceded, but I
have never found anyone who can PROVE that statement. Researchers and scientists have used
marked queens for years and they never mention supersedure problems. Also, some people
including myself GLUE a colored number on the thorax of our queens for some studies. I have
never seen a disc come off a queen, and obviously the glue doesn't hurt her.

I going to ask you a simple question, and you give serious thought to the answer: As you inspect
a colony and see the queen, even examine her quite carefully, can you really tell whether that is
the same queen that you saw in that colony last month or last year? If answered truthfully, 95%
of even skilled beekeepers would answer "NO"! By using marked queens, researchers have
shown that as many as half of all queens are replaced by the bees before they are six months old!
To prove that paint marking was not a cause of queen replacement, other marking procedures
have been used: slightly notching one wing, cutting away one leg and even putting a visible drop
of glue on one leg. (If queens can be artificially inseminated, then marking a queen without
injuring her is simple!)

A MARKED queen is much, much easier to find particularly if she is a dark race; e.g.,
Carniolan, Caucasian, Midnite, and some Buckfast. You certainly want a marked queen in an
observation hive so everybody can find her easily and watch her. But for you, the beekeeper, you
can keep records about this particular queen and most important, her marking clearly tells you
that she is your queen and has not been replaced. What SHOULD BE OF GREAT
IMPORTANCE TO YOUR SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT is that the color of the marking
tells you how old that queen is because it is best to use a different color paint each year. The
"accepted" color code system is as follows:

Year   Color  

  1998 & 2003     Red  

  1999 & 2004   Green

  2000 & 2005   Blue

  2001 & 2006   White

  2002 & 2007   Yellow  

A pretty bright red is a nice color to get started with here in 1998. Everybody is surely going to have
some different idea, but I will tell you what I have used for years as do many queen breeders: TESTER'S
MODEL PAINT found in all hobby shops used to paint model airplanes, boats, cars, etc. It comes either
in a bottle with brush or in a tube with a felt tip end. I much prefer the tube, and there are hundreds of
different colors. Just hold the queen carefully in your left thumb and index finger, and with the tube in
your right hand, just touch the tip of the felt on the thorax; hold the queen for perhaps a minute and
release back to her bees. Simple! Just do NOT get any paint on her antenna, legs, wings, or eyes. It is
easier for you to pay the queen breeder 50 cents to mark her when you buy a new queen.

Let me go a step further: I catch all the swarms that I can catch primarily to draw foundation.
About a week or so after I have hived the swarm and I inspect to make sure the queen is laying, I
MARK HER and a use the color SILVER or LIGHT GRAY so that tells me it is an unknown
swarm queen and I don't want her mixed up with my Carniolans. A month later, if I find an
unmarked queen in that hive, I know that my SILVER MARKED queen has bee superceded, and
she will probably be LOUZY as are most mid or late summer new queens.

MARKED QUEENS WILL TEACH YOU!

January 1998

Having your Cake and Eating it too! & Think-Learn-Enjoy

In our area this past spring, our nectar flow was about three weeks late, and many colonies
swarmed before the flow. Further, some beekeepers judged the year as a loss about June 1st, and
lost interest in hive management; and when the nectar flow suddenly materialized in June,
colonies which had swarmed were not strong enough to produce a good crop, and those colonies
who had not swarmed in May did swarm in June because the super space was inadequate! Many
local beekeepers were unhappy about the loss of SWARMS and HONEY; and when you coupled
these problems with the management and cost (menthol & Apistan) of freeing of bees with mites,
some even said: "enough is enough!" All of this COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, and to
UPGRADE your management knowledge, I'll tell you how. MAKE a spring SPLIT and
RECOMBINE in late SUMMER! I will "broadly" explain this month and provide you with
DETAILS next month. However, I don't believe in just telling you WHAT TO DO, but rather it
is more important that you understand WHY to do these "things", so follow my thoughts below:

To produce a good honey crop, a colony must have a tremendous number of FORAGING AGE
bees (over 19 days old), and the total colony strength in May should be at least 40,000, and
60,000 is much better. If a foraging bee is on site on May 1st, the queen had to lay "its" egg 40
days before, March 21st. Next month I will give details on how to get the queen laying hard in
February and March - you watch for 5 pound bag of sugar on sale...and buy about 5 of them for
each colony.

The NUMBER ONE cause of swarming is BROOD CHAMBER CONGESTION (not super
space).

The NUMBER TWO cause of swarming is the age of the queen (a two year old queen is
"ancient", and a thirteen month old queen not unlike a 40-45 year old beautiful woman.) Real
young queens can lay more eggs and produce higher quantities of queen pheromone to spread a
among a larger group of worker bees thereby retarding thoughts of swarming.

The NUMBER THREE cause of swarming which occurs DURING THE NECTAR FLOW (not
before) is the lack of super space for NECTAR STORAGE, while they wait for the nectar to be
cured to thick honey. As I have repeatedly told you, a beekeepers most valued possession is
DRAWN COMB, and don't forget it! There is only one sure way to make bees build comb from
foundation, and that is: They need comb either to raise brood or store nectar: so there must be a
nectar flow (real or artificial nectar) to force the bees to build comb! Although all bees,
regardless of age, can build comb, the most proficient wax producers are nesting bees,
particularly 12 day old bees. Now you know why a freshly hived swarm builds comb like crazy -
they NEED comb QUICKLY!

A good beekeeper just does not stand for some "unknown" queen bred to to unknown "fly-by-
night" drone to take over a colony after it swarmed or or the old queen was supercede because
most of the time such a queen is not very good and your colony will not produce very well in the
future. You either raise your queens (silly thought) or spend $8-$10 for a new real young
MARKED queen with a good "pedigree".. maybe you don't care whether it is Italian or Buckfast,
but have about a "killer", Africanized Scutellata. That would be enough to make your neighbors
petition the county to "outlaw beekeeping".

When you RECOMBINE the split colony later in the summer, you will kill the old queen and
replace her with the new queen that you just got in April - you have REQUEENED. What are
you going to need to accomplish this "have your cake and eat it too" program of splitting a
colony into two colonies for three-four months and then recombine back to one? A) Most
important - Believe that I am correct. believe that YOU can do it, do it "my" way as I instruct
you to, don't Cheat by substituting. do it by my time schedule (not when it is convenient to you),
and Congratulate yourself on the UPGRADE of your apian skills when it is proven successful!
Now (right now) ORDER a "pedigree" MARKED queen from a highly reputable queen breeder
(price is UNimportant) for the delivery on TAX DAY, April 15th. I suggest Pat Heitkam or Kona
Queen for Carniolans, Binford Weaver for Buckfast, and Reg Wilbanks or Fred Rossman for
Italians. If you tell them that I am following George Imirie's ideas, in my conceit, I'll say it might
help you, because I am respected. Although I believe that Carniolans are the very best bee for
our very early spring crop, Carniolans are NOT the very best bee for an unskilled or novice or
careless beekeeper, because you will lose swarms. You are no longer a beeHAVER when you
can successfully manage Carniolans.

You will need a complete "new" hive of 2 deeps (or 3 Illinois), 10 new frames per body (NOT
9), new foundation (suit yourself, but why don't you try Plasticell (Dadant), 2 new Apistan strips,
about 25 pounds of sugar, about 2 pounds pollen substitute (Bee Pro), and maybe a queen
excluder and one super.

You might say, "George, why all this stuff cost about $100 to $150 bucks. What do I gain ?"
Next year and the years after, you will only purchase another Marked queen and sugar. However,
you have prevented the parent colony from swarming, it will produce perhaps 100-150 pounds of
honey selling for $3.50 per pound, and you have REQUEENED with a fairly young "pedigree"
queen, and you have UPGRADED YOURSELF and you have GAINED FAME, plus you had
FUN!

Think-Learn-Enjoy
How about this weather! This past weekend I opened my 15 colonies and found them boiling with bees in
some young brood in most. I will admit they went into fall strong, plus I combined some, and they are
Carniolans (guess I shouldn't say that) which get going early while other races are still resting.

I will split every colony this spring, because my strokes would not allow me to make my normal
fall requeening. this will prevent swarming in April and May. But this is not my only joy of the
weekend, because there was a surprise phone call for me from Marcia McCutcheon, Past
President of Central Maryland Beekeepers up around Baltimore. She called to tell me that she
and her husband have been "memorizing" my Pink Pages for a couple of years, changed her
programs to fit my thoughts of better beekeeping, and NOW was enjoying her bees. It is
wonderful for me to see these people who have been taking my FREE advice and don't lose bees
to mites and disease, make tubs of honey, and finally learn this most important part of
beekeeping - Having Fun and Enjoying their Accomplishments!

You can do it too! All you have to do is QUIT BITCHING about bad queens, bad weather, no-
good mites, stings, gotta buy stuff, can't sell the honey if I get any and 50 other "lame-brain"
excuses for being lazy and embarrassed. George, what do you mean "lazy and embarrassed"?
There are non-believers out there that think there is "nothing to beekeeping," uneducated farmers
kept bees for centuries, "Ma Daddy did it, and he didn't have to learn anything more than his
Daddy knew". BUT THIS IS 1998!

Movable frames (just 140 years ago), the smoker and extractor are about 120 years old, the mites
did not come until 13 years ago, the Africanized honeybee had not crossed the Rio Grande 15
years ago, and the AMERICAN PUBLIC was not put into panic about bee stings until the news
media and the grocery store tabloids found that lies, exageration, and fear of the unknown sold to
non-thinking people. You find yourself embarassed by your LACK of knowledge about bee
behavior, lifestyle, pollination ability, working without fear of stings, colony management,
disease and its contol, and fear of being censured by your neighbors..

When I and other MCBA Master Beekeepers, the Maryland State Beekeepers Association beg
you to join in and upgrade yourself from HAVER to KEEPER, plus attending EAS annual
conferences filled with researchers, entomologists and scientists all trying to improve (update)
your knowledge and doing this FREE OF CHARGE FOR YOU, and you don't bother to come in
and learn, then I will stand pat and say "you are lazy"!

Like a New Years Resolution, why don't you say to yourself: Boy, I am not going to give George
any satisfaction by admitting that maybe that he is right, so I am going to start going to meetings
with an open mind, listen to what these scientists say, and see if I can upgrade my apian skills.

I promise you that you wil learn the fun and enjoyment as you learn more, and you will suddenly
be ten feet tall! Although this is January of 1998, which to humans is the New Year; however, a
honeybees New year is late September and early October because that is when a good beekeeper
gets his bees ready for the coming year!

With that in mind, I will give the important things you can still do to start your program of
UPGRADING yourself: Order a new Marked queen now for delivery about April 15th, and plan
on splitting your colony when that queen arrives which will probably stop the parent colony from
swarming. About February 1st, start feeding your colony 1:1 sugar syrup to encourage the queen
to lay. Put in a patty of pollen substitute just in case your colony is short. If you have drawn
comb frames, get at least 3 nine-frame supers ready to put the bees on April 15th (tax day). If no
drawn comb, put on one 10 frame super of foundation on by April 15th, followed by each
succeeding week or 10 days with another foundation super for a total of at least 3, 5 is better.
Starting Feb. 1st, reverse your brood chambers about every 10 days, so that the queen and egg
laying space is more-or-less always on the bottom and the capped brood on top. Continue
reversing until good nectar flow starts, late April - early May. Attend every meeting possible to
learn and ask questions of Master Beekeepers. Don't go to dentist Dr. Smith for a tonsilectomy,
or Elvis Presley to hear a Strauss waltz. Hunt up your Master Beekeepers. They want to help you
and know how. Read my Pink Pages. I will keep writing as long as possible.

Cake & Eating it Too! Part ll

I hope you enjoyed Part l in January, and as promised, this part will provide you with details of
the most important procedures. However, not unlike your elementary school teachers, I will first
remind you of some salient principles that I hope you will never forget!

These are: A colony must have a Lot of forager age bees to gather a crop, and our main
Maryland crops are only in April and May; there are 40 days between the laying of an egg and
that bee produced becoming a forager, meaning if you want a forager bee by April 20th, the
queen has to lay the egg before March 10th; the younger the queen, the more eggs she can
produce and the more pheromone she can produce to "glue" her progeny together to prevent
swarming-a 12 months old queen is NOT considered a young queen; contrary to most thinking,
Swarming is considered and planned by the worker bees as much as 10-14 days in advance of
swarming and not a great deal of productive work is done by the colony during this time
including egg laying and cell construction; bees and particularly larvae eat nectar and pollen-
they only eat honey if it's diluted with water to a nectar consistency-hence, a pollen supply is a
must and the storage of thin nectar requires a lot of cell space until it can be cured into thick
honey. This is why 1:1 sugar syrup is used as artificial nectar. Remember,in the case of real
nectar, 1:1 sugar syrup, and honey, bees will favor them in THAT order, honey last! NEVER
FORGET THESE IMPORTANT FACTS!

Now let's stagger through the details: First, we 'trick" (fool) the bees into believing that "spring is
here" by feeding them artificial nectar, 1:1 sugar syrup starting about Feb 15th but no later than
March 1st (in Montgomery County, Md.) I prefer 5 lb. bags over all other sizes because of ease
of handling (spilling sugar on the kitchen floor makes my wife furious). Put a bag plus a half bag
(7-1/2 lbs.) in a gallon glass jar or can, fill with warm water and stir. Punch four holes in lid with
frame nail or drill 1/32 holes. Throw away all boardman feeders! Invert that jar over the inner
cover hole, or right on top the 10 brood frames. Check every other day.

Reversing:
Start reversing brood bodies about Feb 1st and continue every 10-14 days (with deep bodies) or every 7-
11 days (with Illinois) and don't stop until you make the split in April. By doing this, you are trying to
keep the queen in the bottom story along with the nursing bees and the capped brood up in the second
story. As the brood hatches out in the second story, the queen will move up to that new laying space, and
you reverse again, etc. etc. Reversing is puzzling to many people, so ask any Master beekeeper to help
(not good old Tom because he has had bees for a long time, 'cause maybe old "Tom" has never heard of
reversing - Find a Master beekeeper).

Splitting:
Don't be scared. It is simple if you follow my directions, and you will learn! You should have ordered
your new queen already and have a known date of arrival. If you have not, do it Now and tell them
George said "please and Marked!" Ten days before the queen's arrival, divide your brood chambers with
queen excluders to isolate your old queen to make it easy to find 10 days later. Finally, your new marked
queen arrives. Give her 1-2 drops of water for a drink (not on the candy and not too much), put the cage
in a dark, cool spot (your basement,maybe) .

You should have already set up your new hive outside ready for a new queen and bees, brood,
pollen and food from your parent colony, plus 1:1 sugar syrup. In the warmest part of the day,
carefully examine the brood in your parent colony using as little smoke as possible, and
whichever hive body has OPEN brood (eggs or larvae) is where the queen is. Find her, and place
that frame in a separate closed hive temporarily, so now you can go through the parent at will
with no fear of damaging the queen.

Go through the frames of the parent hive and select 2 frames of CAPPED brood with the
adhering nurse bees, 2 frames of larvae with adhering bees and place these 4 frames with 2
larvae frames in between 2 capped brood frames in the NEW HIVE along with 5-6 frames of
foundation or preferably drawn comb.

Then select 2-3 other frames from the parent hive and shake the adhering bees off of them onto
the frames in the NEW HIVE. The nurse bees (less than 19 days old) will stay in the new hive,
while the others will return to the parent hive.

Put 4 new frames in the parent hive, remove the queen excluders, and finally replace the queen
cage in between the two larvae frames, put the feeder jar in place, and DON'T TOUCH THIS
HIVE FOR AT LEAST 3 DAYS.

If the queen is released, do NOTHING except remove the queen cage and refill the syrup jar. If
the queen is not released, close up and check 3 days later. Super the parent colony now. Your
new Colony: keep feeding 1:1 as long as the bees will take it (maybe until fall), but put second
brood chamber in place about 2-3 weeks after you installed the queen.

Also, since none of this honey will be used for humans, I put 2 strips of Apistan in this new
colony and remove it after 56 days, near the 4th of July. Now you have almost assuredly
prevented the parent colony from swarming, it will produce good honey crop, and you have
EITHER an added colony or a colony with a new queen that can be united with the parent colony
before fall.

Ad nauseum, I have written about "how to get drawn comb". Repeating, the bees will not draw
comb unless they have immediate need for it - either brood or nectar! Hence, there must be some
kind of nectar flow on, real or artificial (1:1 sugar syrup), or the queen laying space to make bees
build comb. Swarms are super comb builders on foundation if they are feed 1:1 sugar syrup,
because they are starting a new colony fresh and need queen laying space plus nectar storage
space. Since, in Maryland, our early nectar flow does lend itself to making surplus honey, I catch
swarms for the purpose of building comb from foundation, and I do not want that old queen
anyhow. I use this new drawn comb to replace old comb in existing colonies.

Keep a "pedigreed" queen on hand from early spring to fall just in case you suddenly need a
laying queen for one of your colonies, or to replace an unknown swarm queen.

How? In the spring, buy a pedigreed marked queen and start her in a split as above, and just treat
her as a new colony, except if you suddenly need a good queen for an observation hive, to
replace an accidentally killed queen, or to replace one of your queens that is producing nasty
worker bees, or a dozen other reasons, YOU HAVE A PROVEN MARKED QUEEN IN YOUR
BACKYARD at a cost of only about $9. Anyone with 5 or more colonies is foolish not to have a
spare queen on hand! Nine dollars is expensive you say. It is just 3 jars of honey @ $3/pound.

That's it!! Simple, just follow the directions in Part I and Part II. By asking master beekeepers for
advice, you will requeen, make more honey, curtail swarming, upgrade your bee knowledge and
have FUN!
 September, 1998

How Old Is Your Queen?

How old is your Queen? Most of you do not have a MARKED queen, and hence you do not
know whether your queen is 2 weeks, 2 months, or 2 years old. Many of you are saying:
"George, so what?" Rudely, I could reply: " Why do you think that almost all commercial honey
producers requeen every year; and some migratory beekeepers requeen twice each year!" The
obvious reason for this extra work and extra expense has to be that a young queen has great
advantages over an old queen.

Now, we approach another question: How old is an "OLD" queen? Further, does a queen have
any more desirable attributes other than the ability to lay vast quantities of eggs? And, if so, what
is the effect of age on this attribute? As it has been with most scientific findings, often there is a
lengthy lag time existing between the announcing of a finding or discovery and convincing the
users of the value of dip new discernment. It is very difficult to change people's thoughts from
the ways that society has historically taught by "common agreement". Noteworthy examples of
this are: Although an Atlanta doctor demonstrated diethyl ether putting people in a sound steep,
skepticism by doctors backward in scientific thinking were unwilling to use it to relieve the pain
of amputation in the Civil War of just 135 years ago. When I started beekeeping in 1933, the
great majority of Americans were afraid to fly in an airplane and took 7 days of train travel to
visit their son in California. Now, in 1998, we still have people who think that X-ray or isotope
irradiation of a beehive to kill American Foul Brood spores will MELT THE BEESWAX by the
"heat" of radiation. Time Changes Things! If it were not so, we would be bled to death like
George Washington instead of getting a blood transfusion to combat infection.

Scientists found and described the queen bee pheromone a number of years ago, but few paid
much attention to it. In more recent years, it was ascertained that this pheromone is the "glue"
that bonds all of the queen's progeny into a single functioning unit (a colony), and even more
important, the queen loses her :ability to manufacture this pheromone as she ages. Hence, after 2
or 3 months of strenuous heavy egg laying and producing large quantities of queen pheromone in
that first spring season, although only a few months old, she has lost the "vim and vigor" of
youth and is now well on the way to being an "old queen". I am reminded that all the Miss
America winners and most contestants were teen age or not yet 21; and that the world famous
Jesse Owens was only 22 when he electrified the world with his running speed in the 1936
Olympics.

Each spring, I witness beekeepers whose bees produced little honey because their bees swarmed
just before the peak of the major spring nectar flow; and the spring of 1998 was worse. I saw so
many of my friends having nothing but empty supers and lowered bee populations and,
shamefully admitted to me that they had not requeened, little knowledge of the age of their
queen, and she was not marked. It is tough to see a man cry! In my home yard, I had 31 young
marked queens, and today, in September, I still have 30 of those 31. I lost one queen and the yard
produced over 3000 pounds of honey. Now, I am in the process of requeening with nice fresh
young queens, since my queens are "OLD" at age of 12 months. I think a $10 new queen cost is
worth the expense if her youth provides enough queen pheromone to prevent spring swarming
and her bees produce 100 pounds of$4.00/pound honey, don't you?

Let me go a step further on the subject of "HOW OLD IS YOUR QUEEN?" Times Change!. The
queen's of 20 years ago did not have the stresses of mites, viruses, pesticides, urban environment,
urban pollution, urban vandalism, UNSKILLED new beeHAVER's and their mistakes, and the
use of everything from castor oil to tobacco as a medicine to treat any or all the diseases. Bees
are being subjected to treatments with MINERAL OIL, ESSENTIAL OILS, FORMIC ACID,
TOBACCO SMOKE, and Lord knows "what else", NONE OF WHICH ARE APPROVED BY
GOVERNMENT RESEARCH, in addition to approved Apistan and menthol. BeeHAVERS,
either because of lack of knowledge or their refusal to accept the changes of time, have placed
increased demand for new bees and queens on the bee breeders far exceeding the orders of 10
years ago. Further, mites have decimated most feral bees thereby limiting the drone population
needed for virgin queen mating. Faced with increased demand coupled with a nature's shortage
of drones, not to mention the buyers demand of early delivery in March or April, the bee and
queen breeders are faced with a gigantic problem of BOTH quantity and quality production of
bees and/or queens.

You can not keep bees in 1998 like Daddy kept bees, because Daddy did not have all these new
problems that exist today; and unfortunately, many "Daddies" have not bothered to change, nor
have they kept up with the NEED TO CHANGE

Just this week I noticed a writing about this same subject from Jim Bach, the Professional
Apiculturist and Bee Inspector of Washington State. I would like to quote few lines of his
writing for you:

"Unfortunately, queen losses between spring introduction and fall (October) is much more
common than it used to be. Back 15 to 20 years ago queens used to last 2 years easily. Now most
beekeepers say that only 50 percent of their introduced queens last a year. Of course, this data is
not quite reliable since most beekeepers do not use marked queens. -------- I have used marked
queens for 25 years, but now find that usually only about 10% to 25% of the queens last from
April introduction to June of the following year (which is just 15 months). Further, I usually find
that 25% of my newly purchased queens don't make it to July." As a hobbyist beekeeper, it is
not,for you or I to "fix the blame" for this new era problem, but accept the fact that for unknown
reasons, to be successful in honey production, pollination service, or just counting on your bees
being alive year after year, you MUST CHANGE YOUR MANAGEMENT TO THE NEW ERA
PROGRAM. This means using MARKED Queens, REQUEEN annually or (at the very least)
every two years, and prevent swarming and/or supercedure by exercising GOOD
MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES.

George Imirie

SALE OF A LOT OF "GOOD STUFF"

Much to my disappointment, Frank and Helen Stottlemyer, 301 434-XXXX, have decided to
retire after many years of good beekeeping. He has many things for sale, and this list is just some
of the items. Telephone for more information. Observation Hive; Bee Blower; queen excluders;
feeders; deep super with 10 frames of wired foundation, other foundation; bee escapes; screens;
med. frame display case; hive stands; benzaldehyde, buckets, jars, bears, glue, spacers, etc. JUST
ASK FRANK!

HAPPY NEW YEAR APIS MELLIFERA

Yes, I just had a birthday during the Montgomery County Fair and it is sort of tough to examine
knocking on the doors of 80 until you are reminded that you have been scientifically evaluating
honey bees of all races and numerous management techniques for over 65 years and my wife has
put up with propolis stains, sticky door knobs, and smoky smelling clothes for 55 years. NO! I
am not in my second childhood in celebrating NEW YEAR in SEPTEMBER! A smart beekeeper
starts planning his next season's honey crop by planning for successful wintering of his "gals" in
September.

Is he requeening with a young MARKED queen this month or is he going to wait until April and
prevent swarming by making a split from his colony?

Has he made a decision about what race of queen to buy and what breeder to buy from? Or is he
going to buy a NUC, from who, and has he talked to that person yet about the cost and the details
of acquisition?

Surely, by now, menthol has been installed to kill the tracheal mite, and he is going to continue
feeding grease patties 12 months of the year to help CONTROL those mites not killed by the
menthol. He has ordered at least 4 Apistan strips for each colony to be installed by October 1st
here in this area near Washington, DC to kill hopefully over 95% of all the Varroa mites. The
November Honey Pot will remind everyone to REMOVE those strips by Thanksgiving Day to
prevent creating mites that are resistant to Apistan.

The American Beekeeping Federation Queen Bee Symposium last January clearly pointed out
that over 60% of all the bees in the United States are materially weakened and suffer shortened
lives by the nosema spore disease, and it is so easily treated by feeding Fumadil B in 2:1 heavy
sugar syrup in November. Hence, we will have to buy about a tablespoon of Fumadil B powder
to feed each colony; and then our spring bees will be strong and healthy ready to collect lots of
early spring nectar and pollen.

Speaking of pollen, bees can never have too much, and the queen won't lay copious amounts of
eggs without the protein of pollen, so it is always best (like an insurance policy) to have a small
package of Mann Lake's Bee PRO pollen substitute to lay in the brood chamber in January.

Brrr! January can be cold, the cold winds can blow hard. The bees are starting to eat a lot of
honey in order to produce heat to warm the cluster to about 95 degrees so the queen (particularly
the Carniolan queens) will lay eggs to build that very early force of nectar collectors. Is the hive
protected by some kind of windbreak like a hedge or fence from the prevailing northwest wind?
Has the colony got an upper entrance to exhaust all that rising warm air and exhaled warm breath
of the clustered bees or are you going to let that moist air condense into cold water drops and
"rain down" from the inner cover on the bees? George Imirie's inner covers have a 1 inch long
slot cut in the front edge of the inner cover that provides ventilation as well as an upper entrance
all 365 days of the year.

EATING HONEY! Wow, those bees can really consume a lot when they have to raise that
cluster temperature for brood rearing, not even mentioning the large amount of honey consumed
by the newly created larvae to make all those 50,000 bees ready to "attack" a flow of sweet
nectar in April or early May! Has your colony entered the winter in December weighing about
130-160 pounds gross weight which includes about 70 pounds honey (about 12 full deep frames
or 18 full Illinois frames)? If you don't have this much, in early November start feeding gallons
of 2:1 heavy sugar syrup until you are sure that your colony has the equivalent of 70 pounds of
honey for winter feed.

Don't forget to prevent your bees being killed by mice making a nest in your warm brood
chamber. The easiest and reusable mouse guard is a piece of 1/2 inch gap hardware cloth (Home
Depot, Lowes, or Hechingers). Cut a piece the inside width of a hive body, 14 1/2", by about a 2"
height and staple it over the front entrance in early October. Remove it in the spring and reuse it
next year.

Although I feel quite confident that few will take my last advice, I give it anyhow and after
gaining experience you will find that I was right. Unite two weak colonies by the newspaper
method in September into one nice size colony. Not only is it quite difficult to get a weak colony
through the winter, primarily because it is not populous enough to warm the cluster properly or
particularly to expand the size of the cluster with brood, these weak hives rarely produce much
honey from our Maryland early nectar flow_ One good size populous colony can winter easily,
build up rapidly in the spring and make a good honey crop!

If you have done all that I do, and suggest that you do, as written above, you will enjoy a spring
of great success with a fine honey crop and little swarming: and now you know why my bees
celebrate New Years in September! GOOD LUCK!

Some of you now have Carniolan bees,but you will never be happy with them unless you
understand their differences from other races, notably Italians. I thought that I might mention
some of these differences here to help you.

1. Unlike Italians, Carniolans prefer to enter winter quarters with a much smaller population
of bees than you are used to seeing. They "make up" for this difference early in January
when the queen starts intensive brood rearing 2-3 weeks ahead of Italians. Of course, this
means that they are using up their winter stores more rapidly by feeding vast quantities of
 larvae in February and March, and hence, you must keep an eagle eye on their provisions
in these mid-winter months.
2. If you have had other bees and this is your first time with Carniolans, know well that you
must do all management programs 2-3 weeks ahead of when you would have done those
procedures for the slower developing Italians or Buckfast. And never forget that Carnies
might swarm on a warm Christmas Day, so be swarm wary.

MASTER BEEKEEPER ANN HARMAN TRAVELING AGAIN

Russia seems to have more than economic problems. My bee partner, Ann, was summoned away
from the Fair to teach advance beekeeping for 10 days in East Prussia (the ancestral home of the
old German military leaders) followed by 10 days over at the Ural Mountains (near the Siberian
border), back home for just 6 days; and then off again for almost a month to Armenia, a small
mountainous country surrounded by Turkey, Iran, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.
 1999

Report on 1999 EAS Meeting in Tennessee

It was a fine meeting, held on a beautiful old (1819) Presbyterian college campus with fine
buildings, lots of trees, and easy to get from place to place.

I am always "taken" by the excellence of the 2 and half day Short Course, always using
presenters (teachers) of national status in bee knowledge and aided by high quality EAS Master
Beekeepers. There were even 40 colonies of bees brought in from the University of Tennessee
for the teachers to use in demonstrating management techniques. Queen Breeder Sue Cobey,
helped by Master Beekeeper Bob Cole, showed a part of a queen rearing procedure that included
dumping TWO 3 pound packages of bees in one 10 frame Illinois Super, and Sue complained
that she preferred ANOTHER 6 pounds in that same one super. You can really learn by watching
these professionals work, and so rapidly, handling the bees as if they were grains of corn, and get
NO STINGS. As usual the Short Course was divided into two separate groups, the novices and
the advanced. Each group had about 40-45 members plus an array of instructors.

There were many subjects covered in the 5 days, including the proper use of apistan and
coumaphos, the treatment for the new small hive beetle which we will probably get in Maryland,
queen problems, and just lots of honey bee subjects.

My interest is always aroused by who I know that takes the Master Beekeeper 3 part tests and
who becomes Certified. Thirteen people were candidates this year, some trying for the second or
third time, and just 5 passed. One of the 5 was Baltimore's Bob Crouse, known as a comb honey
producer and a nice guy, and it was Bob who GAVE me the official Maryland Beekeepers
License Plate for my electric scooter which EVERY EAS member saw as I roamed the campus
from place to place.

Our Master Beekeeper Dave Bernard was in "full bloom", as a short course instructor, a
conference speaker, and an attendee at EVERYTHING. Dave is next year's EAS President for
the Year 2000 Maryland Meeting, July 31-August 4 (write those dates down), and I could tell
that he was "sizing up" the things that the attendees liked the most to make sure that those things
are on the Maryland program, as well as avoiding those things that people did not like.

EAS had a bus tour of Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Thursday afternoon; and since I was
sent there by the Army to work in 1944 in purifying enriched uranium and plutonium for our
atomic bombs, I JUST HAD TO TAKE THE BUS to see my old "stomping grounds" of 55 years
ago and "WOW, IT HAS SURE CHANGED"

Our MCBA was well represented by Master Beekeepers Barry Thompson, Bill Miller, Ann
Harman, Dave Bernard, and myself, plus we had a new member, Jody Garbe who "did it all".
State of Maryland attendees were Inspector Bart Smith, Master Beekeepers Bill and Nancy
Troup, Bill Evans, and our newest, Bob Crouse.
EVERYBODY START MAKING THEIR PLANS TO LEARN (and maybe to teach) at EAS
2000 in Salisbury, Maryland next July 31- August 4. The kids can go to Ocean City or the
Chesapeake Bay for fun while we have fun with bees and nice beekeepers.

Optimizing Honey Production

This was originally assigned to my Bee Partner, Ann Harman, to present; but last week Troy
Fore found a more important job for her and he asked me to substitute for Ann, knowing fully
well that my strokes have given me some voice problems, so let us work together and see how it
goes.

I reckon that I am different than others, but I have trouble talking about honey production
without talking about the sale of honey. I don't believe that most honey is produced to be given
away, and when you sell honey, you want as much money as you can get HOPEFULLY. Hence,
I intend to talk about both the production and the sale of honey. There is little sense in even
mentioning the weather, because that is a variable that you cannot change. However, most of the
other variables of honey production are under your control and it is these that we want to talk
about.

There is little argument that the singular most important asset to high yield honey production is
colony strength of foraging age bees! It is a well proven fact that one colony of 60,000 bees can
produce double or triple the amount of honey as two 30,000 bee colonies can produce. A bee is
basically a "house" bee or "nurse" bee for almost the first 3 weeks of its life and only functions
as a forager during the final three weeks of its life. From the day that the queen lays a worker bee
egg until that worker becomes a foraging bee is 40 days, 21 days gestation and about 19 days as
a "house" bee. Hence, if your main nectar flow starts about May 10th and lasts for three weeks
(May 31st), the egg to produce a foraging bee ready to forage on May 10th had to be layed
BEFORE APRIL 1ST!

If your location is similar to central Maryland which has a cold winter, a very short spring, and
an EARLY nectar flow is your Main crop. To gain this early large population, you have to use
three procedures: feed 1:1 sugar syrup beginning about Feb. 1st to stimulate queen egg laying;
have a 1st year young queen to retard swarming; and feed a pollen substitute or real pollen
beginning Feb. 1st, particularly if you are using Carniolans because they are extremely pollen
dependant. Doing this, you are pushing the bees rapidly right into the normal swarming season
(the period just before a strong nectar flow). Hence, you have to use some or all the swarm
prevention methods that are known, but mainly, you must prevent brood chamber congestion.
REVERSING brood chambers is very important, and may have to be done 3 or even 4 times.
Replacing frames of capped brood with empty drawn comb frames might have to be done. This
is the work of a talented beekeeper, not a task for a beginner or a beeHAVER. Basically what
you are doing are forcing your bees into a population "explosion" with out letting them get into a
swarming mode, a program similar to producing GOOD comb honey sections (which is how I
started in the Depression Days of 1933 -36). Repeating: queen must be young; feed1:1 syrup;
feed pollen, use swarm prevention techniques

Install supers of DRAWN COMB all at one time just before the start of the strong nectar flow.
Honey is only about 16-17% water, but nectar might be as much as 80% water. Hence, bees have
to have EXCESS super space in order to store the nectar until they can ripen it into honey. I use
about 60% more supers than will be finally filled with honey: e. g., from past experience, my
bees will average about 120-130 pounds of honey yield/colony in May. A 6 5/8" (Illinois) super
holds about 40 pounds of honey when filled, so I produce about 3 full supers/colony. To allow
plenty of storage for the nectar, I super each colony on April 15th (helps me forget it is TAX
day) with 5 supers of drawn comb. You can NOT use foundation! You must develop methods of
having bees make foundation into DRAWN COMB, and then protect it for the next 10 months.
Drawn Comb is a beekeeper's most valuable possession!

To help foraging bees get in and back out of the supers in a hurry and without adding congestion
to the brood chamber, I install 2 IMIRIE SHIMS (pictured in Brushy Mountain Catalog) and a
top entrance cut in my inner cover to give the foraging bees 3 additional entrances to the
standard bottom board entrance. (I hate holes in my super bodies and the Imirie Shim provides
an entrance which foraging bees learn to use).

As the nectar flow begins to slow down, that means that the flow will be about 90-95% finished
within a week. I remove at least one super of any empty of partially filled frames, leaving behind
fully capped frames and those whose capping is not complete. By removing those empty and
slightly filled frames near the end of the nectar flow, you force the bees to finish the capping and
store any extra nectar down in the brood chamber. DON'T WAIT more than a week or so to
harvest the capped honey before it gets all travel stained with the tracks of bees dirty feet. Get
that honey extracted before July 4th, put all those extracted supers on one or two colonies for
cleanup and drying of frames, and put just one super of partially filled frames on other colonies
in case there is some minor flow in future. If there is none, these frames can be comb scratched
and put over an inner cover in October and the bees will rob out those frames for winter stores.
There is a valid old saying: Have EXCESS super space at nectar flow start and NOT ENOUGH
super space at nectar flow end.

Anyone with a serious interest in judging the beginning and ending of a honey flow plus how
strong is it (weight increase per day) should keep a colony permanently mounted on a platform
scale, and the weight recorded after dark every night. Why guess, when you can find a platform
feed scale at a farm auction for as cheap as $25-$50. Guessing is a very poor substitute for
accuracy or losing a swarm.

Because of the necessity of treatment to kill both the tracheal mite and the varroa mite in WARM
weather, NO LONGER can you keep supers on from spring nectar flow into the fall nectar flow.
Hence get your spring or early summer honey harvested, treat your bees to kill mites, and then
put supers back on for late summer nectar.
There is SO MUCH MORE DETAIL to Good Honey Production Management, but what I have
said are the basics of good production technique. Obviously, your location, floral sources, and
the weather will be different than the dates I have used above, but the basics are the SAME.

Optimizing Honey Sales

Everybody has heard of "One Stop Shopping", and that is why most people go to malls to do
their purchasing. It is the same reason that many gasoline stations sell FOOD, ICE, DRINKS,
NEWSPAPERS, even TOILET PAPER, but they don't fix tires any more. CHANGING TIMES!

Your local food store sells honey, maybe Sue Bee; but does it sell orange blossom, Eucalyptus,
Tulip Polar, or Basswood honeys? Does it sell Creamed Honey, Comb Honey, or Honey Sticks?
Probably not. I am very sure that your grocery store does not have an OBSERVATION HIVE,
Honey Gift Packages, or a beekeeper who answers all these questions that city people ask about
bees. Hence, your grocery store is NOT one stop shopping for different honey, plus the honey is
not local honey that hay fever sufferers want. The grocery store honey has been heated and
filtered to retard crystallization, and it may even be Chinese Honey. Hence, grocery store honey
is just a heavily filtered, heated, light amber clover honey for $2.49/ pound. Surely, what I have
just said must give you some ideas. I will tell you what the best honey in the world is - can you
guess - The best honey in the world has a label that reads BEE PARTNERS HONEY produced
by George Imirie and Ann Harman. If you think your is as good or even better, why aren't you
selling it for up to $15/pound. Do you have Gift Packages, Comb Honey, Honey Stix, and an
OBSERVATION HIVE? Aren't you proud of your product? Shame on you!

Unfortunately, as a group, beekeepers are not known to be good sales people - In fact many are
introverts who almost believe "selling" is sinful or the art of circus barkers and used car
salesmen. Can't you tell someone how the bees make honey, why there are different colors of
honey and different taste? Do you know that most people under the age of 60 have to summon
their courage and ask me " HOW do you eat comb honey? Or HOW do you get the honey out of
that comb to put it on my hot biscuit?" The kids see the OBSERVATION HIVE and all want to
find the MARKED QUEEN, then they want to show the queen to their father and mother who
are the ones that HAVE THE MONEY. You would be surprised at how many crates of assorted
honeys we sell in November and December and their price is about $12-$15 per pound of honey.
We sell Cut Comb honey for $1.00 + 25cents/ounce. Hence a 16 ounce pieces sells for #1.00 +
16 x 25 = $5.00. We sell Honey Stix for 20cents each, 2 for 35, 3 for 50, or 7 for $1.00, and our
cost is just over nickel each. We sell primarily at county fairs and we average about $100/hour in
sales. Out total sales at the week long Montgomery County Fair is over $1,000/day

Enough of that! Let me tell you what is important about this type of selling. Not only are you
making some pin money for yourself, but you are explaining THE IMPORTANCE OF APIS
MELLIFERA to the public maybe preventing them from casting a vote to outlaw bees in your
town. You are aiding the commercial beekeepers by explaining the goodness of honey to
humans, You are explaining the importance of honey bee pollination for 35% of the food we
humans consume (The lawmakers can't do this, because they don't know about it themselves.)
Why don't you help the bees who are helping you?
Don't ever try to compete with the grocery store price! You can offer so much more: more
products, more knowledge, it is local (maybe right out of their garden), and YOUR HONEY IS
NATURE'S BEST HONEY and tell them so!

I love to tell stories that people may not know because they aren't old enough. Back in the 30's,
there wasn't much bottled honey around because jars cost too much and most people couldn't
afford an extractor. With Dr. James I. Hambleton instructing me in beekeeping, I produced
beautiful basswood comb honey sections. I sold them for 25 cents each, but my mother took the
money and put it in the bank where it stayed forgotten until she gave it to me on my wedding day
55 years ago. In those days of nickel cokes, nickel telephone calls, 15 cents for a gallon of gas, a
quart of milk was 8 cents. 25 cents for a 12 ounce square section of honey was a fortune, and
putting that money in the bank instead of buying ice cream or candy was the training of my
Scottish parents that taught me the value of a dollar. I was so fortunate!

Don't be satisfied with just HAVING bees. Be proud of being a fine KEEPER of bees. Your
reward will be THE JOYS OF BEEKEEPING!

Are your bees ALIVE?

In this wonderful Season of the Year that features Joy, Happiness, Thankfulness, and Hope, I
feel sad and guilty about asking about the condition of your bees. In the long analysis, if your
bees are weak or already dead, is it an Act of God, or is it your fault? I did not seek this task of of
attempting to upgrade your knowledge about bees, but was rather forced into the "teaching" and
"instruction" of the revised apiary management procedures that have become necessary during
the last 15 years caused by the appearance of mites in the U.S. But, why me? Not only had I
already been keeping bees for 50 years when the mites arrived, but I was a retired scientist who
had the time and (hopefully) enough scientific brain power to seek out, examine, try out, and
select the management techniques that would best serve you to KEEP YOUR BEES ALIVE.
Suffering the indignities that others have experienced in introducing new thoughts and changing
long used standard procedures was difficult for me in that it is not my desire to hurt one's
feelings. However, seeing the happiness of those that upgraded their knowledge and accepted my
management procedures when their bees not only stayed alive year after year plus scoring record
honey yields for them, was enough reward for me to just continue. Further reward is found in the
number of Master Beekeepers, NINE, in the membership of MCBA, whereas no other local bee
association in the U.S. has more than TWO; and there are only 118 Certified Master Beekeepers
in the U.S.

Not only was 1998 a lousy year of honey production for many Maryland apiarists, but there was
little fall nectar from Goldenrod and Aster to provide adequate winter stores. Then, of course,
unfortunately there are still some non-believers in the value of Menthol and the necessity of
installing it before September 1st. Since most deaths by tracheal mites occur in January, maybe
you should inspect the health of your colonies on the first day (not a weekend day) that the
temperature goes over 50 degrees and no wind. Hive condition can NOT be determined by
viewing flight activity OUTSIDE the colony! You must take off the inner cover and peer down
the space between the frames! If there are frames of honey near the outside wails of the hive and
the center frames are EMPTY (no honey or brood) and the bees are NOT well clustered, switch
the frames so that the bees can cluster around honey in the center of the hive. Apparently some
people don't understand winter food consumption, so let me explain it SIMPLY. Flightless bees
and no brood are normal December conditions and the bees eat VERY LITTLE honey due to
lack of activity and need. Normally, bees eat more honey in January as they start raising the
cluster temperature to 91-96 degrees so the queen can lay eggs, and this new brood requires
LOTS OF FOOD, When February arrives, on those flight temperature days, foraging bees find
pollen and the bees "blow whistles and wave flags" to announce the coming spring and now food
consumption really increases dramatically. Not only are flight bees using food for flying energy,
adult bees are eating lots of honey to raise body heat to increase cluster temperature for queen
laying to expand the brood nest, and (wow!) those bee larvae need a tremendous amount of food.
A very high percentage of bee death by starvation occurs in late February and March

I have been asked many times "How come your bees are so strong (heavy population) by April
15th?" I have always supered my colonies on April 15th in preparation for an early April crop.
Not only do I use Carniolans because of their "explosive" early spring build up, but I start
feeding 1:1 sugar syrup on Feb. 1st to stimulate queen egg laying. Hence, my bees are in superb
condition for our main nectar crop in May. Provided you are very wise about swarm prevention
management, you do REVERSING, and you have a queen less than a year old, I encourage you
do do the same: FEED 1:1 sugar syrup to stimulate queen laying. You must accept the fact that if
you follow my feeding procedure, you are taking a chance of losing most of your honey crop if
your bees swarm, but maybe making a record crop if they don't swarm. I can only teach you the
management methods, but success or failure will be determined by weather conditions, your
apiary location, your race of bees, age of your queen, and your own ability to alter my
management methods to fit these other variables.

I am sorry I will not be at our Jan. 13th meeting, but I will ask some of the other Master
Beekeepers to help me demonstrate the fine points of REVERSING and other swarm prevention
procedures at our February 10th meeting. MAKE SURE YOU ARE THERE! I have been asked
to discuss spring requeening and making splits, so I will ask some of our Master Beekeepers to
help me put on a meaningful demonstration of these procedures at our MARCH 10th meeting.
NOW YOU HAVE TWO IMPORTANT DATES TO UPDATE YOUR KNOWLEDGE, FEB.
10th and MAR. 10th.

I eagerly await the American Beekeepers Federation meeting Jan. 7 - 13, and feel very confident
that Ann, Barry, and I will bring back to you "THE LATEST SCOOP AND EXPERTISE" about
all kinds of things including information about the NEW PEST, the HIVE BEETLE. That is
another thing that "Daddy did not have to worry about".
 Getting Ready For Spring
As often as I have written it or said it LOUD AND CLEAR, more bees die of starvation in late
February or March than any other time of year. It still happens! It is not the fault of the bees, it is
not the fault of the weather, it is not the fault of the mites, but if that hive is out of honey and you
find dead bees HEAD FIRST down in cells, IT IS YOUR FAULT, you killed them by your
negligence or lack of knowledge.

Negligence is bad enough, but there is no excuse for lack of knowledge when your association
meets the year around and you don't bother to attend meetings or read my PINK PAGES. MCBA
has NINE master beekeepers to provide you with enough knowledge to write your own book
about beekeeping so lack of knowledge is just an excuse for lazyness or Don't Give A Damn
Attitude.

Recently, a man wrote me and asked "Who did I think I was?"; and I replied "Just a good
beekeeper and very proud of it. Are you proud of your beekeeping?" He didn't answer - he didn't
have to.

Bees don't eat very much when they are INactive in the months of November and December
when the Queen is not laying! The easiest winter, when very little food is used, is when it gets
real cold at Halloween and STAYS, cold. so the bees practically don't move around at all and
just huddle up sharing warmth in a nice cluster.

Don't ask me "if bees have a calendar" that tells them about New Years Day, January 1st or,
Robt. E. Lee's Birthday, January 19th, and I doubt that Punxsutawney Bill would tell the bees
"it's Ground Hog Day, Feb. 2nd".

But in central Maryland, honey bee genetics sort of gets those bees, a goin' in early January
thinkin' about all dem yunguns they has got to have to go nectar collectin'. The worker bees, even
though there might be snow and wind outside, somehow know that "resting time" is over and
they start polishing a few cells for the queen to lay in, arouse the queen's ovaries to start spring
work by feeding the queen a little more each day, and nature arouses the worker bees
hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands to manufacture the larval food necessary to feed the
worker bee larva that will be produced by the new eggs the queen is about to lay.

Now, you should know that even though it is still winter outside, the bees are planning ahead
(LIKE YOU SHOULD) and this activity requires energy, and energy requires eating, and the
honey stores that were put away last fall are suddenly needed and rapidly used to feed the queen
to produce more eggs to feed the workers to give energy and for their glands to make copius
quantities of larval food to nurse the new worker bee larvae to adulthood.

This was all planned by nature IN ADVANCE so that there will be a large population of nectar
collectors ready for hard foraging for next winter's food stores. He who thinks those bees are
making honey for we humans to harvest, better sign up for my "special classes" to UPGRADE
your knowledge of bees, or talk with another MASTER BEEKEEPER.
The sudden building of a colony population requires a tremendous amount of food and winter
stores are rapidly expended. The late winter-early spring activities of a honey bee colony was
part of the program that included the creation of Adam and Eve, but the Almighty never got to
that chapter about "holding back by rationing the food", so it was up to you, the beekeeper, either
not to have harvested too much last year, or benevolently buy some sugar and feed those critters
before they starve.

DO NOT FEED HONEY unless it is YOUR honey that you know has no foul brood spores!
Sugar syrup is better food anyhow because there is less chance of diarrhea. Feed 1:1 syrup
because it is like artificial nectar that stimulates Queen laying; but throw that Boardman feeder
away to prevent robbing and feed from a 1 gallon jar inverted over the hole in the inner cover.
1:1 syrup is 5 lbs of sugar dissolved in 5 pints of water.

NOT FOR BEGINNERS - ONLY KNOWLEDGEABLE BEEKEEPERS TRY!

To make a record crop or a real good yield requires having a lot of foraging age (19 days old or older)
bees ready at nectar flow time. To be ready for our major nectar flow about May 1st, the egg to produce
that foraging bee had to be laid 40 days before, which is March 21st.

Eggs laid after March 21st do not make bees that will go out and gather nectar on May 1st.
Hence, the beekeeper has to do all he can to build a big population starting back in February and
getting very strong in March.

This involves having Carniolans, a very young queen, early feeding of 1:1 syrup, 20 good deep
frames of drawn comb or 30 drawn comb Illinois frames, and continuous reversal of brood
chambers as needed during February, March, and April.

For this year, 1999, you can't change now to Carniolans, and you can't put a new YOUNG queen
in before March 21 st; BUT you can feed CONTINUOUSLY 1:1 sugar syrup unitil SUPERING
on April 15th you should have lots of good frames and I (with help from other Master
Beekeepers) will TEACH you the fine points of proper REVERSING at our February 10th
meeting, so be there!

Everybody that follows "my" instructions makes more than they ever made before - just ask them
or maybe they will speak up and tell you.

How many of you can average 130 pounds per colony per year after year near Washington, DC?
And I do it on a bipartisan basis, regardless of whether the DEMOCRATS or REPUBLICANS
are in.

OTHER LATE WINTER - EARLY SPRING TASKS

 Provide a continuous water supply for the bees before your bees select your neighbors swimming
pool or the outdoor carpeting on the neighbor's porch. Note: Once the bees select their water
source,it is extremely difficult to change it until NEXT YEAR, so do it now.
  Replace any damaged frames with new foundation or drawn comb. Remove the entrance mouse
guard. Make sure that you have an absoulte minium of three supers, frames and foundation per
colony and get 2-3 fresh coats of good paint on the outside.
 If your colony did NOT have an upper entrance, some parts of the interior of the colony may be
damp or wet.
 Check the level of the hive to make sure it is slightly tilted forward; dry or change the wet or
damp parts; cut an upper entrance in the front edge of the inner cover.
 I should not have to tell you to check for disease or an OLD QUEEN, so DO IT!
 Think about REQUEENING, with a MARKED queen.
 If you see LOTS of brown stains all over the front of your hive, maybe your bees have nosema,
suggesting that you did not treat with Fumidil-b.
 If you see bees on the ground near the hive front that just can't seem to fly, maybe your bees are
heavily infected with tracheal mites

IF YOU TAKE CARE OF THESE MANY THINGS YOUR BEES WILL MAKE HONEY!

Special Edition: The Small Hive Beetle

Maryland is NOT too cold for this new "critter", nor is Maine, Ohio or Minnesota (who has
already filed or special exception to treat). How well I remember those days of 1984 when
tracheal mites were first found in the U.S., and the reaction of many beekeepers. Most ignored
the announcement, some said "so what", some bought more Terramycin, some stop buying
packages or queens, two states tried to stop trucks of bees from entering their highways or
banned bees from out-of-state, others said "my bees are healthy and are not moved from their
safe home so they will be OK", and a few of us who had listened long and hard to the scientists
went to chemical houses, bought menthol, and treated our bees.

Even in spite of the heavy losses by tracheal mite infection during the next 3 years, in 1987
beekeepers reacted the same way with the appearance of the varroa mite! We all know that many
thousands of colonies have been sacrificed to man's unwillingness to pay attention to the bee
experts, the scientists, or the extension people; and persisted in believing that time worn-out
philosophy that "it won't happen to me".

Sticking with my crusade of attempting to "Upgrade Havers into Keepers", I am writing this
article early to put you on the alert that the small hive beetle is a real killer of bees and whole
apiaries can be wiped out in a very short period of time, "overnight" is the word used by the
Florida Dept. of Agriculture.

I will try to summarize my knowledge about the beetle that was learned by spending several
hours in Nashville at the American Beekeeping Federation's Convention listening to highly
skilled beekeeping investigators who have been researching this new beetle for the past 8
months.
Some of the very prominent investigators included: Dr. Shimanuki of Beltsville Lab; Drs.
Wilson & Eischen of Weslaco Lab; Laurence Cutts and David Westervelt, State Apiarists of
Florida; Jim Baxter of Weslaco Lab; and Jack Thomas of Mann Lake Ltd. plus numerous others
who presented their findings to the meeting of the Honey Producers Assn. meeting which was
held earlier in the week at Baton Rouge, LA.

I spent a lot of personal time with Florida's #1"beetle" man, David Westervelt and Dr. Bill
Wilson, who was sent from Weslaco Lab to investigate the resistant varroa mite and got heavily
involved with the hive beetle. It is interesting that David Westervelt comes from a migratory
beekeeping family, so he has great knowledge about bees and the movement of bees.

Before you lose interest in my long-windyness statement about this devastating pest, let me tell
you how your colonies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, or any other area are going to
get this beetle.

It can fly, estimated up to 5 miles, it very happily lives in a bee colony or just among bees like
migratory hives, pollinating hives, "nuc" hives, or packages. Although in emergency, the adult
beetles will eat cantaloupe or other fruit, they prefer HONEY or POLLEN, and the larvae burrow
through the comb of both super frames and brood frames to get it, thereby destroying the bee
brood.

The beetle larvae also may burrow into the ground near colonies to pupate. In tests, beetle larvae
have survived being frozen for 0 days at -5 degrees, and upon warming became adult beetles.
Hence, beetles traveling in a colony of migratory, pollinating, nuc or package bees can come into
your state this spring or summer, drop off into the ground, pupate, and fly to some resident
colony of bees, maybe YOURS!

This beetle, Aethina tumida Murray, is known as an apiary pest in South Africa, where it is
called the small hive beetle. With total difference of honey bee species in South Africa other than
our European types, the normal habits of their bees, notably absconding rather than building up
to a large population and then swarming, the hive beetle is considered an annoying pest rather
than a devastating colony killer. The adult beetle is broad, flattened about 3/16" - 1/4" long, dark
brown to nearly black in color, has 6 legs, and can scurry away to hide rather quickly.

Unlike our bees, the gestation period of the small hive beetle is weather dependent and highly
variable, from 38 to 81 days. Hence, you can see that the population can be EXPLOSIVE in the
warm months of May through September, with each female laying 1000's of eggs.

In 1998, beetles were found in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina and scattered
reports of sightings in several other states.

The effect upon a beetle by DISTURBING A BEE HIVE is most unusual and surely works
AGAINST a beekeeper. After the beetle "takes up residence" in a particular bee hive, it seems to
coexist rather well without much breeding and multiplication, but when that colony is
DISTURBED perhaps by a beekeeper's inspection or move by truck, the beetles suddenly mate
and shortly thereafter the colony is overwhelmed by the increased number of beetle larvae eating
through the comb and brood to the demise of the colony. Just as interesting is the speculation that
beetles are attracted to disturbed colonies, i. e. leaving an undisturbed hive where they coexist
with the bees there and fly to a disturbed hive and mate resulting in a sudden reproduced increase
in beetle population.

Quoting a paragraph from the SpeedyBee: "In the field, the researchers noticed that hives which
were intensely manipulated one day would be seen succumbing to beetles the next day. It is
thought that a strong, stable colony is able to stay abreast of the infestation and eat/kill the
emerging beetle larvae; however, in the wake of intense manipulation, the colony becomes
disoriented for a period, during which the beetle population overcomes the bees.

To "put icing on the cake", a beekeeper had an infestation of beetles in his honey house and the
larvae had crawled to the soil outside of the house, pupated, and emerged as adults to perpetuate
and spread a heavy infestation of beetles over a large area!

WHAT IS THE TREATMENT? Many chemicals have been tried to kill the beetles without
damage to bees, and to date, only one has been found - cournaphos, an organophospate. The EPA
has ALL organophosphates under review due to the Food Quality Protection Act which means
EPA is highly resistant to release any organophosphate for any use unless a very special need
exists and the use of that chemical is HIGHLY CONTROLLED. Scientists at Weslaco Lab had
found that Cournaphos will kill the Apistan resistant varroa mite. Hence, Bob
Crawford,Commissioner of the Florida Dept. of Agriculture appealed to EPA to use Cournaphos
in Florida, and apply for colonies troubled with resistant varroa mites and/or SMALL HIVE
BEETLES. All other states will have to show just cause in their filings. Maryland State Apiarist,
Bart Smith, told me in Nashville, that Maryland will file quickly because we now have varroa
mites resistant to Apistan in Anne Arundel County.

Only one commercial firm, Mann Lake, Ltd. of Hackensack, Minnesota is licensed to sell
Cournaphos strips and their cost will be from $1.7S - $2.40 each, dependent on quantity
purchased. These strips will not be available for "open purchase", but only by permit. The strips
are NOT used like Apistan strips. Since Hive Beetles like to HIDE and are very mobile,one strip
is to be put under the ends of the top bars, both front and rear of the hive, and the 3rd strip is to
be placed UNDER CARDBOARD at the front entrance to the colony. Staying "true to form" of
"letting the chips fall regardless of where", I want to say that certain beekeepers(Know-it-alls)
abused the use of Miti-Cur a few years ago, causing the manufacturer to withdraw it from
sale.Miti-Cur strips contained Amitraz which, effective on both tracheal and varroa mites, was a
fine mite control chemical, and I hated to see it taken off the market. This was caused by the
"back yard good-old boys" trying to play "scientist" who figured if 10 was a good dose, then 50
would be better and 5 times faster, and they killed their bees and then had the GALL to sue the
manufacturer claiming "defective chemical". Rather than waste money in court defending Miti-
Cur, the manufacturer simply removed Miti-Cur from the market. DON'T LET THE SAME
THING HAPPEN TO COUMAPHOS! I end this long epistle by saying: Now beginning my 66th
year of beekeeping, I have seen many things, both good and bad, come and go; but our stomachs
need the food secured by honey bee pollination, and my mind has been often blessed by the Joys
of Good Beekeeping. So, just as one "climbs a mountain just to get to the top", let us all try to
Upgrade our thinking from beeHAVER to beeKEEPER!

How Good is Your Swarming Knowledge?

We have some new members since last spring and we have some novices that tend to forget. In
my effort to UPGRADE all beekeepers to be BETTER, and attempting to prevent some
disappointment and discouragement, I thought it might be a fine idea to repeat two of the items
that appeared in last year's March edition of the PINK PAGES.

Getting foundation built into DRAWN COMB and SWARM PREVENTION are surely two
functions that need much explanation as well as much understanding.

I want to strongly impress on every reader that what I have written in the PINK PAGES are NOT
ideas that I have developed myself, but generally are the programs that have been investigated
and worked out for many recent years by bee scientists, bee researchers, and professional
apiculturists. Examination of any book recently written by any number of famous beekeepers,
such as Roger Morse, Mark Winston, Diana Sammataro, Dewey Caron, or both Norm Gary and
John Ambrose chapters in the 1992 edition of "The Hive and Honey Bee" will demonstrate that
my PINK PAGES are just my style of writing about these things with which all of these famous
apian researchers agree. The definitive difference is that my PINK PAGES are related to the
events in Montgomery County and the surrounding area of central Maryland.

I also want to mention that our year 2000 Short Course is almost complete, and we have had 14
very interested and hard studying adult "students" instructed by Master Beekeepers Ernie Miner,
Barry Thompson, David Bernard, Nancy and Bill Troup, Bill Miller, myself, and Chief Bee
Inspector Bart Smith. When you are taught by 7 Master Beekeepers + Bart, you should learn a
great deal. Although not all are from Montgomery County, I have asked them to join MCBA and
attend our monthly meetings.

I will not be able to attend the outside work session scheduled for Saturday, April 8th, as I have
been asked to repeat as the speaker for the spring meeting of the Illinois Beekeepers in Peoria,
Illinois. Since no one in their right mind can say they like my stroke disabled voice (I HATE IT),
I am taking my Bee Partner, Ann Harman, with me so she can share in the program. It would not
be a surprise if they asked her to come back in 2001, because she is a fine speaker and a lot better
looking than me.

I have asked Bill Miller to "run" the April 12th meeting and to use the help and knowledge of
our other Master Beekeepers on the broad subject of "Honey Production in central Maryland".
As I have said before, come to the meetings and let us help you, or YOU help us!
How Good is Your Swarming Knowledge?
Swarming is the natural program of honeybees for two purposes: to increase the population of honeybees
over the world, and for bees to spread out away from home to new territory. Some humans have rendered
a truly anthropomorphic reason: two "queen mothers" can't confortably live in the same house.

A main goal of 20th century bee scientists and professional apiculturists was to determine the
primary reasons for swarming and formulate colony management techniques to either prevent or
diminish the tendency of bees to swarm. Prior to this century, the lack of sound knowledge about
swarming often made it necessary to keep 3 or 4 colonies in order to produce 100 pounds of
honey each year; but there were some skilled beekeepers who could constantly produce over 100
pounds of Honey per colony every year and almost in any part of the country.

Changing the established procedures of the times and scientifically researching many possible
reasons for swarming as well as the management techniques to prevent or retard swarming, much
helpful knowledge has been made during the past 50 years to control swarming in order to help a
colony of bees to produce 100 pounds, or more, of honey each year.

The following points have been firmly established:

1. There is a definite SWARM SEASON for all apis mellifera ; which is generally defined as that
period in the spring when brood rearing is at its peak; and in most areas, that is the 4-6 week
period just ahead of a major nectar flow.
2. Some races of Apis have 'a higher propensity to swarm than other races. The same can be said
regarding the different stocks (strains) of a race: This is not a problem for a skilled beekeeper, but
can be a major problem for an uninformed apiarist.
3. The Number One reason for swarming is over crowding or congestion tion in the BROOD
CHAMBER . This has nothing to do with the supers, which is a totally different problem!
4. The Number Two reason for swarming - is the age of the Queen. In addition to her task of laying
eggs, it is her job to produce and spread the queen pheromone (queen substance, also called
'queen odor') which acts as a "glue"' to seal all of her 50-60,000 progeny together as one single
functioning unit. Research has clearly proven that the production of this queen pheromone
DIMINISHES every day from her mating day, and the older she becomes results in the lesser
bees she can control. Bees rarely swarm when headed by aqueen less than a year old
5. It is not natural for bees to swarm during a nectar flow, because they would leave the very thing
they are trying to collect to provide for colony survival in the coming winter. However, there
must be enough super space to store this thin watery nectar until the bees can evaporate its water
content and ripen it into thick honey. If adequate super space is not available and since idleness or
loafing are unknown in the genetic make-up of the honeybee, they swarm during a nectar flow.
This is totally 100% BEEKEEPER'S FAULT.
6. Many beekeepers have concluded that swarming is a "sudden happening", or that there were few
warning signs to the beekeeper, and swarming is just one of those unfortunate problems of
beekeeping. None of these statements have any meaning or truth in them. When the BROOD
CHAMBER becomes congested with too much brood, too many nurse bees,not enough laying
space for the queen, no space cell space for pollen or nectar, and the .foraging bees "fighting their
way through crowd" to get to and from the front entrance, the bees initiate their swarming
program. For a period of perhaps 7-12 days in advance of, the swarm issue, bees have to build
swarm cells, produce lots of royal jelly to feed the larvae, reduce or even stop the queen from
laying eggs so she reduce weight in order to fly with the swarm, send out scouts looking for a
 new home, and gorge themselves with honey to carry along to their new home. Hence, they
partially give up foraging in the field and just sit around the hive waiting for the "signal" to
swarm. This is the swarming program in SWARM SEASON before a main nectar flow.

When a nectar flow comes about, bees give up all thoughts of swarming and concentrate on
nectar collecting. If the beekeeper has not provided enough Super space, the bees try to make
storage space by building burr comb in every nook and crany, and finally stop the queen from
laying eggs by fiUing empty brood cells with nectar, and they build queen cells arid all the rest
of the program mentioned above anch swarm because the beekeeper was too lazy or not smart
enough to provide adequate super space at the right time, WHICH WAS AT LEAST 7-10 DAYS
BEFORE THE SWARM.

Some Leaders will surely say: "George is crazy, out of his mind about swarming and swarm
control". If that is so, then most commercial migratory beekeepers who have 5000 colonies or
25,000 colonies moving bees all over the U. S., and the pollinators who move 1000 colonies to
New Jersey one week, move them two weeks later to New York, three weeks later move them up
to Maine and then back to Florida to make a crop of orange blossom honey must all be CRAZY
too. BeeKEEPING is their total income and they can't make mistakes by allowing swarming.
Some of them even requeen a colony twice each year to make sure that the queen is very young
to she can lay lots of eggs and produce lots of queen pheromone to retard swarming. Almost all
of them buy queens from a highly skilled queen breeder and requeen in the fall so they don't
"mess up" the spring honey flow or pollination contract. If you attend the meetings of the
American Beekeeping Federation, you can talk to these people yourself like I do and find out
how knowledgeable they are!

This is already March, so you can't do anything until next year, but you can sure plan for this
years after this one. Here are the things you should do:

1. Prevent brood congestion by reversing the brood chambers as needed during February,March and
April. You should either use 2 deep hive bodies or 3 medium Illinois hive bodies for your brood
chamber space.
2. Supers are no good in your garage or in your basement. Bees may need additional space in the
BROOD chamber, so put at leats one super in place in early April so that the bees can more
nectar or honey up to that super out of the brood chamber if they need space.Put 5 Illinois supers
of drawn comb on each colony about April 15th. Do not use foundation.
3. Plan on requeening every year and see my PINK PAGES about Almost 100% Foolproof
Requeening in September and contact your queen supplier and order by July.
4. Read, read, read; but especially read Diana Sammantaro's 1998 3rd Edition, The Beekeeper's
Handbook; primarily aimed at beginners and intermediate. beekeepers. It is maybe the BEST
book for beginner's ever written. You are silly if you do not have a DESK COPY of The Hive and
Honey Bee Revised 1 992 Edition, for your advanced studies with 1300 pages written by 34 of
the greatest beekeepers and bee scientists in the US. Many call it the beekeepers' Bible. I think
Dr.Norm Gary's Chapter 8 about BEE BEHAVIOR is one of the world's greatest writings and
Chanter 9 about Pheromones is the target for 2 1 st century understanding more about bees.
PLEASE NOTE MY FOIIOWLNG THOuGHS: The mites were. not found in the USA until
1984 and 1987; the Africanized bees did not enter the USA until October 1990, and the
tremendous importance of pheromones was just broached in recent years. Hence; BOOKS
WRITTEN BEFORE ABOUT 1982 ARE NOT OF MUCH VALUE TO YOU BECAUSE THEY
 DON'T DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS OF MITES, AFRICANIZED BEES, AND
PHEROMENES. Therefore; in spite of the fame of some particular book, don't read about how to
improve the speed and endurance of a Nash Rambler automobile or correct the steering problems
of Ralph Nader's Chevrolet Corvair; when you might be driving a fuel injected Ford Mustang or a
Cadillac Northstar in 1999. Buy a book that is written by a bee researcher, professional
apiculturist; or bee scientist that features the necessary new management techniques needed in
2000 beekeeping.

Some Swarming Truths and Falsities

For many years, beekeepers practiced removing all swarm cells about once each week to prohibit
swarming- Although that program might delay swarming; usually the swarm issues and leave a queenless
colony behind. Further; most often the beekeeper overlooked one queen cell when doing his removal
procedure and the bees swarmed right on schedule. REMOVING QUEENN CELLS DOES NOT STOP
SWARMING!

Many beekeepers clip a queen's wings so she cannot fly and believe this procedure is a swarm
control technique. When the bees find the queen is not part of the swarm, they return to the hive
with the idea of trying again tommorrow. This action may happen for a day or so; but usually a
new virgin queen emerges and the swarm leaves the old homestead headed by a new virgin
queen- CLIPPING THE QUFFN'S WINGS DOES NOT STOP SWARMING!

Not unlike the addiction of some humans to alcohol or drugs; after the bees set their program on
the urge to swarm and perform many of their necessary PRE-swarm steps, it is is extremely
difficult to stop this colony of bees from swarming unless drastic measures are used- These.
measures might include dividing the colony into two parts, removing the queen, removing all
brood and other labor intensive tasks; even then they may not, work. If you observe queen larvae
floating in royal jelly in a queen cell, the swarm program is well established; and stopping
swarming will be difficult. Further; if you see CAPPFED queen cells; you can forget any
prevention technique; because that colony will swarm within 24 hours unless the weather is bad.
One might Say that "Bees have a one-track mind", and if they have made swarm preparations, it
is very difficult to re-orient their thinking to some mundane task like nectar collecting.

Although not often seen here in Maryland, bees may swarm in the summer or even the fall due to
certain unusual circumstances. In total desperation, bees may have a "hunger swarm" in the
summer if their colony stores are down to zero, caused by either the beekeeper removing too
much honey or a very bad, long dearth of nectar. Further, every now and then, a fall nectar flow
or September that is intense and long lasting might cause a fall swarm. Although there are
swarms that occur at tines other than springtime, if you have sufficient knowledge and skill to
prevent or control normal spring swarming, you do not have to concern yourself with these
unusual out-the-ordinary happenings.
 Retard Swarming By Making A Split
Swarming, a beekeeper's nemesis because of the loss of honey crop, can usually be prevented by
"splitting" a colony into two parts.

Bee scientists have now well proven that the two major reasons for a swarm are, in order of
importance:

1. BROOD Chamber congestion, having nothing to do with Super space, and

2. The age of the queen, because starting from the day of her mating, ever after she daily loses a
little of her ability to produce the queen pheromone which is that "glue" that welds a large group
of bees into a single functioning colony. In most instances, the purpose of "splitting" a colony
into two is to increase colony number rather than a technique to prevent swarming but properly
done at the correct time, splitting can be a - case of "having, your cake and eating it-too."

If you use "splitting" as a swarm retarding technique with no desire to increase your colony
number, you can also replace the old queen in the original parent colony with the new queen in
the split that you have made: Further, you have even gained an "extra gift!', fresh nicely drawn
comb from the foundation you placed in the split colony.

Let me explain the best way to split a colony in the Central Maryland area, because other areas
like North Carolina, New York, and even Western Maryland or Southern Maryland or Eastern
Shore have different temperatures and different flora and hence require different dates to split.

Of paramount importance is the colony to be split must be a strong colony which has BROOD
(eggs, larva, & capped pupa) occupying about 800 square inches of comb space on one side. (A
deep frame has 140 sq. in. of comb on each side )

In addition to brood, the comb also has cells filled with pollen, nectar, and honey. Mentally
estimate how many sq. in. of all three types of brood there are among all the 20 frames of the
brood chamber. About mid April, you should have brood in various amounts on 6 to 10 frames
primarily in the middle of the two hive bodies; and you should have maybe 20% less about April
1st.

By the way, you should know that there are 55.3 cells per square inch counting BOTH sides of
the comb; so when you measure 800 sq. inches on ONE SIDE of the comb, you are looking at
about 27.6 cells x 800 = 22,000 future bees meaning your queen has been laying about 1000 eggs
each day for the past 21 days.

If the queen breeder can supply on time (and I use dependable ,breeders that try hard), I want a
new MARKED (GREEN for 1999) queen delivered to me between April 10 and April 20. About
April 5, I put a queen excluder between the two brood chambers so I can find the queen more
easily the following week.
When the queen arrives, I give her a drink of water, put her in a dark cool spot in my house, and
gather up my equipment for the split which will require 10 frames of DRAWN COMB, a
complete hive, a gallon jar of 1:1 sugar syrup, and an entrance reducer.

Whether I make the split that day or the next day (forget waiting for the weekend) depends on
the weather and time of day which should be above 50 degrees, no wind, and sunny.

I first locate the old queen (she will be in which ever hive body that has eggs and real young
larva) and put the frame she is on in a separate hive body I have just to isolate her so there is no
question about her location.

Now, I am free to do what I desire with any of the remaining 19 frames. I want to remove about
4 frames of brood, 1 capped plus 3 with open (eggs & larvae) brood plus at least 2 frames of
honey and put these 6 frames in the new split with 4 frames of drawn, comb on the outsides of
the new 6.

All of these frames hopefully were moved with the clinging adult bees attached; but just to make
sure, take another pair of frames and shakes the bees off of them into the the new split hive. On
the first flight out of the split, the foraging age bees will return to the parent colony while the
bees less than 19 days old are nurse bees and they will stay with the split.

Your old parent colony now is short 6 frames plus the one the old queen is on. In the bottom box,
put the frame with the queen surrounded by 3 frames with some brood plus 6 frames of drawn
comb for her to lay, and put the the other body of ten frames on top and close up.

Go to the house and get your new queen, remove the cork from the candy end and place that
introduction box no-cork end up towards the rear of the hive between frames 5 & 6 (the #10
frame has to be left out for several days until the queen introduction box is removed), have the
entrance reducer place, put on your inner cover with the gallon of syrup over the inner cover hole
(make sure the queen cage is not right there), and close up.

Wait 5 days, and at noon to 2 PM using NO smoke, ever so carefully inspect to see if the queen
is released. She should be, so carefully remove the queen cage and replace the #10 frame. Wait
for 4-6 days before you inspect to see if the queen is laying and do it at noon to 3 PM without
smoke if you can. After about a week from making the split, super the old colony so they have
plenty of nectar storage space.

After you have harvested your honey from the parent colony, you can REQUEEN this parent
colony and combine the two colonies into one strong colony to get through the coming winter.
Go through the old parent colony, find the queen and "get rid of her" (kill, give away, put in an
observation hive, etc.), and wait until the next day so all her bees know she is gone.

Place a single sheet of newspaper on top of the open top hive body, poke 1-2 nail holes through
the paper, remove the bottom board from the split and transfer the two split hive bodies right on
top of the newspaper, and close Up.
Inspect for the queen in a week by just looking for eggs or young larva. You don't have to see the
queen, and with these two strong colonies she might be hard to find anyhow.

If you find any supercedure cells, call me for advice

Use good inspection technique of mid-day (when foraging bees are away), minimal smoke (don't
distress them), and do everything quite carefully and slowly so as not to disturb the bees and
make them ball (kill) the queen. I have been doing this for many years with many colonies and
rarely have any trouble. I try to do it shortly after I have finished harvesting which is almost
always by July 4th.

Supering
WHEN? HOW MANY? COMB or FOUNDATION? SUPER SIZE? 9 or 10 FRAMES? QUEEN
EXCLUDER or HONEY EXCLUDER? HARVEST TIME? PROTECTING COMB?

Year after year, all of these points are answered, books are filled with pages of information, my
previous PINK PAGES are old and voluminous, but every year, it seems like every beekeeper in
APRIL still has questions about two things: Income Taxes and Supering. The great majority of
you do NOT have a scale hive like some of us have to tell the exact moment a nectar flow
"comes to life" for OUR apiary, not YOURS. So What? A super should be in place BEFORE a
nectar flow starts in order to provide space for bees to move honey or initial nectar OUT of the
BROOD chamber so the queen has laying space. In the Washington, DC area, this will be around
Cherry Blossom Festival time or our first abundant dandelion bloom which is about the 2nd
week in April. For many years, I have supered on April 15th.

I remind you that the period before the real nectar FLOW is SWARM SEASON and many a
swarm might not have been lost, if a super was in place a week or so before the nectar flow starts
to prevent BROOD CHAMBER CONGESTION, the Number ONE cause of swarming. What
good is that super sitting in your garage or basement?

For many years, beekeepers added another super when the first super was about half or 2/3 full,
maybe due to lack of supers, lack of research to investigate this, or more likely "it was the way
that Daddy did it". However, since migratory beekeeping has become popular and the US Dept.
of Agriculture has researched supering techniques during the past few decades, research has
clearly shown that due to the "hoarding" instinct of the honey bee, the placement of several
supers of DRAWN COMB (NOT foundation) on a colony all at one time results in more honey
production and less swarming during a nectar flow than adding one super to another as they are
needed. I put 5 Illinois supers of DRAWN COMB on each colony on or before April 30th. Page
618 of the 1992 Revised Edition of The Hive and Honey Bee agrees and recommends the use of
multiple supers of drawn comb rather than single supering.
It is very apparent from questions asked and statements made that many beekeepers just do not
understand the bee's need of STORAGE SPACE. Many are puzzled by knowing that their bees
will normally produce about 3 supers of honey during April, May, and early June, why then
should a colony have 4 or 5 supers in place during the entire nectar flow? Honey bees do NOT
collect thick, viscous honey which is only about 18% water and bring it to the hive and super it.
They collect thin, slippery nectar which might be 80% water and bring it to the hive to STORE it
until they can ripen (cure) it and reduce its volume from 80% to 18% water, hence making
honey. Storing all this thin watery nectar requires a lot of storage space, and if there is none
present in the hive, first the bees will build lots of burr comb even partially filling up bee space
and then, THEY WILL SWARM!

Swarming during a nectar flow is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than a swarm in that "swarm season"
just before the nectar flow which is primarily due to brood chamber congestion. A swarm
produced during a nectar flow is caused by a single problem - LACK OF STORAGE ROOM
FOR THE NECTAR. Such a swarm is 100% FAULT OF THE BEEKEEPER in failure to
provide enough super space, and that space when the bees needed it!

I have written ad nauseum that FOUNDATION is NOT the same as drawn comb, and has to be
used with a totally different technique. You must not have more than one super of 10 frames of
foundation on a colony at any time, because the bees will make holes in some, only draw the
center frames and ignore the side frames, or only partially draw some frames - all of this
resulting in a MESS. If you do not have adequate drawn comb and have to use Foundation, you
wait until the top super is about 1/3 to 1/2 filled with nectar and then add another super of 10
(never 9) frames of foundation on top of the partially filled super, and repeat as necessary.

Many good beekeepers only use 9 frames properly spaced in a super because the drawn frames
are wider (thicker) and makes upcapping easier; but you can do this with frames of drawn comb
ONLY, and never, ever, with foundation!

Some are confused about the definition of a super and the various sizes of these supers. A super
is a box of frames used to store honey only, and hence, it is SUPER imposed on the top of the
brood chamber area. Any size hive body that you like can be used as a super. Many migratory
beekeepers who have young strong employees use the standard deep 9 1/8" frame in a deep hive
body as a super; but when filled, it weighs about 90 pounds (and if it is the top body, full of bees
too, a hot humid day, and 100' carry to your truck, you will swear that it weighs 200 pounds.) I
use the popular medium (Illinois) 6 1/4" frame in a medium (Illinois) 6 5/8" super body, and
when filled with honey, it weighs about 50 pounds. The last size used for extracted honey is the
Shallow 5 3/8" frame in a Shallow 5 11/16" super body and when filled with honey, it weighs
about 40 pounds; but this Shallow Size, while still in use, is rapidly being replaced by the
medium (Illinios) size.

In recent years, many beekeepers have switched to using the 6 5/8" medium (illinois) body for
everything: brood and honey. By doing this, all bodies and all frames are interchangeable
because everything is ONE SIZE. I switched 15 years ago (wish I had done it 66 years ago) and
now always have the correct size frame for everything. I predict that this will be the standard
hive in our next century (not affected by the Y2K syndrome either).
Many of the "old time" beekeepers refused to use a queen excluder, referring to them as "honey
excluders" because they believed that the bees have a difficult time going through an excluder.
Research has never been able to confirm this; and the great majority of beekeepers of today use
excluders. Back in the days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I did not use an excluder
because I was primarily raising 4" x 4" Square Section Comb Honey and queens do like to be
confined to these small areas. However, when I started doing research about bee behavior and
management techniques, I used queen excluders because I wanted to specifically limit the queen
to my selection of her location. I firmly believe in the advantages of using an excluder for all
beekeeping; and I much prefer the wood bound excluder to the newer metal bound or plastic
excluder because I have seen the thin metal bound or plastic excluders violate bee space and
cause burr comb. Also, wood bound excluders (I paint them RED) are quite visible from an
outside view of a colony, whereas a thin excluder might not be seen and left on a colony by
mistake maybe resulting in a dead queen.

In our Maryland area, there is little if any saleable honey made after about June 10th in most
years. I harvest before July 4th by using a fume board with benzaldehyde, and/or an air blower,
but only extract frames that are 90% capped. Those frames that are not fully capped are put back
in supers and put back on my strongest colonies, and these can be extracted later if needed or left
for winter feed if you feel you might want a backup supply.

Remember that drawn comb is a beekeepers most valuable possession, so CAREFULLY protect
your extracted frames. in the paragraph above, I mentioned frames of UNcapped honey being
placed back on strong colonies. Keeping the INNER COVER in place on top of those uncapped
frames, put the supers of dripping wet extracted frames on top of the inner cover and seal the top
super shut to prevent robbing with a double screen plus a telescoping cover and leave everything
in place for about a week. Those extracted frames should then be completely empty, clean of
honey, and dry; and, if so, remove them and take them to your basement, your garage, or garden
house. Stack them tightly and treat them with para-dichloro-benzene (PDB), and seal them up so
that the wax moths are killed. These may have to be retreated with PDB every 30 days until it
gets cold in November; but PROTECT THAT DRAWN COMB!

This covers most details about supering, and I hope it is useful to you.
 Colony Management during May Nectar Flow
Take that long awaited trip to the Carribean Islands of Jamaica and Nassau before the
temperature gets too hot and before the kids get out of school. You can leave tomorrow if you
had started planning your 1999 "honey bee plans" last fall by requeening with a young queen,
treated your colonies with Apistan for the 8 weeks of October and November thereby killing
about 99% of all Varroa mites, began 1:1 sugar syrup feeding in February to initiate egg laing by
your queen, start brood chamber reversal in February and faithfully continued it until now,
installed a queen excluder and one super of drawn comb by about April 1st and added another 4
supers of drawn comb before May 1st, attended the Maryland STATE bee meetings and the
monthly instructional meetings of the MCBA, and lastly, helped all those beginning beekeepers
that need your help so badly and provided talks to our local school students about the importance
of honey bee pollination to the food for humans.

I am ready to go to the Carribean right now, but maybe my electric (wheelchair) scooter would
not do very well in the salt water and sand. You tell me what I missed when you return.

For those other people whose responsibilities of life prevented you from performing all my fall
and winter suggestions for making a fine spring honey crop, let me see if I can help, prevent a
disaster, and renew your enthusiasm. SWARM PREVENTION may be of great concern. It is
extremely late in the Maryland area to practice swarm control in place of a MAJOR
IMMEDIATE action of swarm prevention. Quickly inspect your brood chambers, and if swarm
cells with visible royal jelly and larvae are present, the bees have already entered the swarm
"mode" perhaps 10 days ago, and you have NO choice but SPLIT THAT COLONY instantly or
you are about to lose a swarm. Maybe you don't want another colony or you don't have the
equipment for another colony; but you don't want to lose that honey crop either. There is no
problem here, the honey bee supply houses have plenty of equip- ment for sale, you can sell the
honey crop to pay for the equipment, and recombine the two colonies after July 4th into just one
colony WITH THE NEW YOUNG QUEEN. Further, most beekeepers are short of DRAWN
COMB; and this new "temporary" colony has drawn maybe 20-30 sheets of foundation into
DRAWN COMB and all you have to do is protect it from wax moths until next spring.

HOW do you make this sudden split, get a new queen, and don't lose your honey crop? Find the
OLD queen and transfer the frame she is on PLUS most (not all) of the frames that contain
BROOD and all the adhering bees into a new hive body with a super of foundation on top of that,
and set this new colony on a new stand and feed it 1:1 sugar syrup. The older foraging bees that
you have transferred to this new colony will go out to forage but return to the old colony by
"habit". The result is that your "new" colony consists of your old queen, the brood, and the non-
foraging nurse bees who will feed the brood larva and draw foundation because of the sugar
syrup feed and the incoming May nectar. You may even have to add an excluder and a super of
foundation on this "new" colony in about 10 days. ALWAYS THINK AHEAD OF YOUR
BEES! In the old parent colony, you can either have left a frame with a big swarm cell on it or
telephone for a new MARKED queen with 48 hour delivery ( my choice), you have all the
foraging bees to make your honey crop, and you have replaced the brood frames with either
empty drawn comb or foundation (all together, not mixed with drawn frames). Neither of these
colonies will swarm, because you have eliminated the causes of swarming during a nectar flow
which are twofold: an older queen who cannot produce enough queen pheromone to "glue" a
large bunch of bees into a single functioning unit, and you have given both units lots of super
space and foundation for them to draw and store the thin nectar. The parent colony might make
3/4 of the honey yield that a non swarming colony might make and it has a NEW queen, while
the new "temporary" colony might make 1-2 supers of honey and lots of drawn comb for use
next year.

In spite of past practice, honey bee research has proven that destroying swarm cells will probably
NOT stop swarming; but if the colony does swarm, your colony is left QUEENLESS because
you destroyed the swarm cells and the old queen had stopped laying eggs in order to lose weight
to fly with the swarm. In the past, many beekeepers clipped a queen's wings feeling that a "non-
flying" queen prevented swarming; but research has shown that this practice might only delay a
swarm 3-4 days, and the colony may kill the clipped queen and swarm with the first virgin queen
that emerges.

I have written paper after paper that you CANNOT substitute foundation for drawn comb. If you
do NOT have DRAWN COMB and have to use foundation, you HAVE to install a super of 10
frames (never 9) of foundation when the prior super is about 1/2 - 2/3 full. You will have a
kingsize mess on your hands if you install more than one super of founda- tion at a time, but your
bees might well go in to a swarming mode if your prior supers are filled up before adding an
empty super I like to install a new super of 10 frames as soon as the bees have filled (not capped,
just filled) the 6 center frames of the prior super, and I reposition those 6 frames by placing 3
filled frames on either side of 4 empty frames in the center before adding the new super. By
doing this, all 10 frames of the prior super are filled and capping started before much filling is
done on the new 10 frames above.

Over many years, I have listened to novices (not beginners) complain that their bees did not
produce the crop that mine or some neighbor's bees yield; and they blame it on the race, a poor
queen, El Nino, or a dozen other reasons. When I have gone to their apiary to inspect their bees
or listen to the long stories about the amount of attention that they give their colonies during a
nectar flow, quite often I find the answer to their problem. The beekeeper, anxious to help his
bees make a large and beautiful honey crop, lights his smoker, opens the colony, checks almost
every frame, even repositioning some, and repeats the procedure later that week and again next
week, etc. Could you have your home ready for a party of 50 people once each week for 4-6
weeks and still perform your normal employment? Of course not, and neither can your bees!
When you inspect your bees and use a smoker during a nectar flow, you have totally disrupted
the normal bee activity for 24-48 hours while the bees repair the broken comb or cappings you
broke, air out the smoke so they can smell queen pheromones again, regurgitate all the honey
they gorged themselves with thinking they might have to fly to a new home from theirs that is
apparently "burning", restart queen laying in freshly polished cells, and fix a dozen other things
that curtailed nectar collecting to make honey!

All of you know my heavy use of that word: anthropomorphic. STOP being anthropo- morphic
and learn to "think like a bee". Bees know what they are doing, and it your job to LEARN from
them and don't try and teach them a thing! Maybe a little removed from the subject, but so very,
very important: Over 60 years ago, my mentor, Dr. James I Hambleton, Chief of the Honey Bee
Division of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, would say to me "Just inspect UNDER the queen
excluder and if you have made everything correct for the bees down there, the bees will take care
of everything above the excluder themselves without your help" What a superb instructor he was,
and now 60+ years later I still keep bees with the science that I was taught then, later, and
TODAY.

Colony Management during May Nectar Flow

Take that long awaited trip to the Carribean Islands of Jamaica and Nassau before the
temperature gets too hot and before the kids get out of school. You can leave tomorrow if you
had started planning your 1999 "honey bee plans" last fall by requeening with a young queen,
treated your colonies with Apistan for the 8 weeks of October and November thereby killing
about 99% of all Varroa mites, began 1:1 sugar syrup feeding in February to initiate egg laing by
your queen, start brood chamber reversal in February and faithfully continued it until now,
installed a queen excluder and one super of drawn comb by about April 1st and added another 4
supers of drawn comb before May 1st, attended the Maryland STATE bee meetings and the
monthly instructional meetings of the MCBA, and lastly, helped all those beginning beekeepers
that need your help so badly and provided talks to our local school students about the importance
of honey bee pollination to the food for humans.

I am ready to go to the Carribean right now, but maybe my electric (wheelchair) scooter would
not do very well in the salt water and sand. You tell me what I missed when you return.

For those other people whose responsibilities of life prevented you from performing all my fall
and winter suggestions for making a fine spring honey crop, let me see if I can help, prevent a
disaster, and renew your enthusiasm. SWARM PREVENTION may be of great concern. It is
extremely late in the Maryland area to practice swarm control in place of a MAJOR
IMMEDIATE action of swarm prevention. Quickly inspect your brood chambers, and if swarm
cells with visible royal jelly and larvae are present, the bees have already entered the swarm
"mode" perhaps 10 days ago, and you have NO choice but SPLIT THAT COLONY instantly or
you are about to lose a swarm. Maybe you don't want another colony or you don't have the
equipment for another colony; but you don't want to lose that honey crop either. There is no
problem here, the honey bee supply houses have plenty of equip- ment for sale, you can sell the
honey crop to pay for the equipment, and recombine the two colonies after July 4th into just one
colony WITH THE NEW YOUNG QUEEN. Further, most beekeepers are short of DRAWN
COMB; and this new "temporary" colony has drawn maybe 20-30 sheets of foundation into
DRAWN COMB and all you have to do is protect it from wax moths until next spring.

HOW do you make this sudden split, get a new queen, and don't lose your honey crop? Find the
OLD queen and transfer the frame she is on PLUS most (not all) of the frames that contain
BROOD and all the adhering bees into a new hive body with a super of foundation on top of that,
and set this new colony on a new stand and feed it 1:1 sugar syrup. The older foraging bees that
you have transferred to this new colony will go out to forage but return to the old colony by
"habit". The result is that your "new" colony consists of your old queen, the brood, and the non-
foraging nurse bees who will feed the brood larva and draw foundation because of the sugar
syrup feed and the incoming May nectar. You may even have to add an excluder and a super of
foundation on this "new" colony in about 10 days. ALWAYS THINK AHEAD OF YOUR
BEES! In the old parent colony, you can either have left a frame with a big swarm cell on it or
telephone for a new MARKED queen with 48 hour delivery ( my choice), you have all the
foraging bees to make your honey crop, and you have replaced the brood frames with either
empty drawn comb or foundation (all together, not mixed with drawn frames). Neither of these
colonies will swarm, because you have eliminated the causes of swarming during a nectar flow
which are twofold: an older queen who cannot produce enough queen pheromone to "glue" a
large bunch of bees into a single functioning unit, and you have given both units lots of super
space and foundation for them to draw and store the thin nectar. The parent colony might make
3/4 of the honey yield that a non swarming colony might make and it has a NEW queen, while
the new "temporary" colony might make 1-2 supers of honey and lots of drawn comb for use
next year.

In spite of past practice, honey bee research has proven that destroying swarm cells will probably
NOT stop swarming; but if the colony does swarm, your colony is left QUEENLESS because
you destroyed the swarm cells and the old queen had stopped laying eggs in order to lose weight
to fly with the swarm. In the past, many beekeepers clipped a queen's wings feeling that a "non-
flying" queen prevented swarming; but research has shown that this practice might only delay a
swarm 3-4 days, and the colony may kill the clipped queen and swarm with the first virgin queen
that emerges.

I have written paper after paper that you CANNOT substitute foundation for drawn comb. If you
do NOT have DRAWN COMB and have to use foundation, you HAVE to install a super of 10
frames (never 9) of foundation when the prior super is about 1/2 - 2/3 full. You will have a
kingsize mess on your hands if you install more than one super of founda- tion at a time, but your
bees might well go in to a swarming mode if your prior supers are filled up before adding an
empty super I like to install a new super of 10 frames as soon as the bees have filled (not capped,
just filled) the 6 center frames of the prior super, and I reposition those 6 frames by placing 3
filled frames on either side of 4 empty frames in the center before adding the new super. By
doing this, all 10 frames of the prior super are filled and capping started before much filling is
done on the new 10 frames above.

Over many years, I have listened to novices (not beginners) complain that their bees did not
produce the crop that mine or some neighbor's bees yield; and they blame it on the race, a poor
queen, El Nino, or a dozen other reasons. When I have gone to their apiary to inspect their bees
or listen to the long stories about the amount of attention that they give their colonies during a
nectar flow, quite often I find the answer to their problem. The beekeeper, anxious to help his
bees make a large and beautiful honey crop, lights his smoker, opens the colony, checks almost
every frame, even repositioning some, and repeats the procedure later that week and again next
week, etc. Could you have your home ready for a party of 50 people once each week for 4-6
weeks and still perform your normal employment? Of course not, and neither can your bees!
When you inspect your bees and use a smoker during a nectar flow, you have totally disrupted
the normal bee activity for 24-48 hours while the bees repair the broken comb or cappings you
broke, air out the smoke so they can smell queen pheromones again, regurgitate all the honey
they gorged themselves with thinking they might have to fly to a new home from theirs that is
apparently "burning", restart queen laying in freshly polished cells, and fix a dozen other things
that curtailed nectar collecting to make honey!

All of you know my heavy use of that word: anthropomorphic. STOP being anthropo- morphic
and learn to "think like a bee". Bees know what they are doing, and it your job to LEARN from
them and don't try and teach them a thing! Maybe a little removed from the subject, but so very,
very important: Over 60 years ago, my mentor, Dr. James I Hambleton, Chief of the Honey Bee
Division of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, would say to me "Just inspect UNDER the queen
excluder and if you have made everything correct for the bees down there, the bees will take care
of everything above the excluder themselves without your help" What a superb instructor he was,
and now 60+ years later I still keep bees with the science that I was taught then, later, and
TODAY.

Concern About Swarming

Perhaps I shouldn't bother to address you like a "school teacher" to a class of children; but each
year, I see the downtrodden faces of those that lost swarms and hence much of their honey crop.
They become discouraged, and I blame myself for my poor instruction methods. Therefore,
allow me to assist your thinking.

Today, Tuesday May 18th, I checked my supers and was astounded to see the honey gathered
and even capped so quickly from the black locust that has been in bloom for just a week. Some
of my colonies have THREE FULL ILLINOIS SUPERS and the rest have TWO FULL
SUPERS! My tulip poplar trees are almost ready to go into full bloom and then the nectar will
really flow if this fine weather holds up. Hence, I am hunting up a 6th super for each colony just
in case. You better check yours.

Let me REITERATE why swarming occurrs during a nectar flow. Bees do NOT gather honey,
but they collect thin watery nectar that requires a lot of storage space and time before the bees
can "cure", or "ripen", the nectar into thick heavy honey. Unlike we humans who can plan ahead,
if the bees do NOT have storage space (empty supers) for this nectar, they swarm and usually die
of starvation by not having enough stores to get through the coming winter. When this happens
to your colony, you are left with a poor yield, fewer bees, and an UNKNOWN new queen; all of
which causes discouragement.
What options do you have? The first and best is to install another super of drawn comb. Not
having drawn comb, use foundation, but only ONE super per colony and 10 frames (never 9) in
the super. In the event, you don't have a super, frames, or foundation, there is always ERNIE'S
BEE SUPPLY or Brushy Mountain Bee Supply RUSH ORDER, telephone 1-800-BEESWAX.
There is another program, but labor intensive and sure disrupts the bee's "nectar collecting", and
that is: Get frames, install foundation, and swap those with FULLY CAPPED frames of honey in
your colony. You can either store these fully capped frames in your freezer or extract them early
and give them back to your bees for a REFILL.

By the way, for the same reason that I am sending this PINK PAGE to you at a 33 cent extra
cost, you can NOT WAIT until it is a "convenient" time for you to inspect your colony, and upon
finding little or no super space left, you have to make a choice. Leave your job for a day, get
equipment and install it OR LOSE A SWARM.

All of this honey should give you great enthusiasm to win lots of blue ribbons at the
Montgomery County Fair in August, as well as entering it in the EAS Honey Show in July down
in Tennessee where I will surely be.

FINISHING OUT SUPERS

This is Memorial Day weekend and we are rapidly nearing the end of our spring nectar flow.
Your super frames will be in various condtions: many TOTALLY capped, some maybe 90%
capped, others partially capped, and others empty. It is a mistake just to remove all the supers
now, and also a mistake just to wait another week or month. The best program, of course, is more
work; and that is remove ONLY the totally capped frames thereby reducing the number of supers
left on the colony which, of course, crowds the bees into less space. Since the swarming season
is long past and the nectar flow greatly diminished, there is little fear of swarming. Depending on
how many supers you had on a colony, your ultimate aim is to have the almost capped frames
close to the queen excluder, the partially filled frames above those, and the empty frames stored
away until next year. This arrangement forces the bees to cap the ripened honey, move widely
spread honey to a centralized location and cap it, store the meager remaining incoming nectar in
the brood chamber area for early winter preparation. Most of the "almost totally capped" frames
and even some of the partially filled frames will be totally capped, and hence ready for
harvesting in about two weeks or so. This format arrangement provides you with two different
extraction options:

1. Extract the totally capped frames the same day as you remove them; and make a second
extraction of the other frames after they are totally capped 2 to 4 weeks later; or
2. safely store the first harvest of totally capped frames for 2-4 weeks and merge them with the later
removed frames to make just one extraction for the season.
WHY TOTALLY CAPPED FRAMES ONLY? Honey with a moisture content over about 19%
might ferment, and depending on our weather, totally capped honey has a water content of about
16% to 18.5% before you uncap it for extraction. When you consider our normal high humidity
in Central Maryland and the fact that honey is HYGROSCOPIC (it absorbs moitsure out of the
air), the moisture content of our Maryland honey is normally increased in the time period
between extraction and bottling. UNcapped honey has a high moisture content and is not yet
ripened, and hence including that uncapped honey with fully ripened capped honey may well
raise the moisture content causing fermentation of the total batch.

Back in the "good old days", honey was not harvested until the coolness of September because
the beekeeper "hoped" he might get a bigger crop if he left the supers on after June; not to
mention the fact that in those "good old days" there was lots of alfalfa and summer clover
planted as cattle feed on the many dairy farms in Central Marylnd which are now occupied by
cities, industries, and schools. TIMES CHANGE, including the acquisition of MITES, viruses,
understanding pheromones, and public fear of bees.

HARVESTING HONEY
Even in 1999 and considering all those UNINFORMED American neighbors plus the hard work, some
beekeepers still use a BEE BRUSH as a principle harvesting tool. The use of a bee brush makes bees
MAD and excites them to sting. The bee brush falls in that category of "things of the past" like auto tire
innertubes, typewriters, wood cooking stoves, fountain pen ink, and a drugstore soda fountain. Some
beginners even have and think they can use a Porter Bee Escape in that inner cover hole not knowing that
success depends on chilly nights to make the bees leave the supers to cluster with the queen.

In our "changing times", harvesting honey is done by removing the bees away from honey by use
of an expensive "bee blower" (like a powerful leaf blower) or making them retreat from the smell
of certain chemicals, namely Bee-Go or Honey Robber, or my hard-to-find favorite,
benzaldehyde. Bee-Go is primarily Butyric Anhydride which has a "stink" that defies further
explanation (far worse than a skunk odor), and Honey Robber is the same chemical, but the odor
is reduced by the addition of an odor of cherries. Benzaldehyde, available only from Mann Lake
Bee Supply, is the wonderful odor of oil of almonds. You can either buy a FUME BOARD or
make one by cutting a piece of 1/2" plywood the size of an inner cover and stapling on a cover of
an old burlap sack, a piece of felt, or even old winter cotton pajamas or underwear. Sprinkle
whichever chemical you chose over several places on the cloth (no more than 2 tablespoons of
chemical), remove the hive top and inner cover and place this Fume Board down on the top super
and leave in place for about 5-6 minutes, remove the top super and place your Fume Board on
the next super, etc. Tightly cover those removed supers with NO BEES INSIDE and take them to
some bee-free area. Any of these chemicals cost about $15-20 per quart, but, properly used, a
couple of tablespoons is enough to remove perhaps 10-20 supers of honey depending on how
warm it is and how long you leave it on.

The easiest, fastest, and most expensive harvesting tool is the bee blower. You simply remove a
super prop it up near the front of the colony and BLOW the bees out of the super onto the grass
where they can easily walk back into the colony. The bees do NOT object and hence do not sting
or get excited, but the bee blower requires electricity and costs about $200+ (gasoline powered
are heavy and more expensive).

Actually, I use both, benzaldehyde fume board and "finish off" with my bee blower to harvest
honey. It is very rapid and I don't have any mad bees that get excited to sting that using a bee
brush would cause.

EXTRACTING, FILTRATION, SETTLING to JARRING

Let me start off with a point of discussion, but there should be NO argument when you finish reading the
next few lines. Today, due a lack of knowledge, there are some people that won't buy honey if it has been
"heated", justifying their position by stating that "heated" honey is "NOT natural". Surely, they are correct
if the beekeeper has processed his honey at temperatures of150-180 degrees. However, honey
temperatures often go to 100-110 degrees in nature. I suggest that you prove this to yourslf by measuring
the temperature inside a honey super at the top of a colony under a brilliant sun on a summer day when
the weather bureau is reporting an official temperature reading of 95-98 degrees in your area. Your bees
are working like tigers gathering water, spreading it around on frame tops, and furiously fanning their
wings at the entrances to cool the colony. By contrast, a queen bee will not lay eggs at a temperature of
less than 91 degrees and prefers a temperature closer to 94-96 degrees; but I doubt that these "naturalists"
know that, or even care maybe because of their anthropomorphic thinking.

It does not require rocket scientist thinking to thoroughly understand that extraction of honey
when its temperature is 90-100 degrees to very easy, fast, and thorough; whereas extraction of
honey which is at a room temperature of perhaps 75 degrees is difficult, slow, and not very
thorough. Hence, always extract your honey when it is at hive temperature of 90 degrees or
above. This is easy to do by carefully sealing the supers so that they are safe from any bee
entering and then set these supers in full sun for at least a day and extract after dark. Uncapping
proceeds rapidly because the wax cuts easily, the frames to not have to spun as fast or as long,
and the frames are left with very little honey clinging to the wax.

The temperature of the honey is even more important when it is being FILTERED, which means
the removal of essentially ALL solids, even almost microscopic pollen and surely crystals; or
when it is being STRAINED, which means the removal of big things, "nuts and bolts" like bee
legs, bee wings, pieces of wax, slivers of wood frame and any other visible solid. There are
advantages and disadvantages to both filtering and straining. Filtering is normally done by the
commercial honey producer to retard honey crystallization which gives the honey longer shelf
life; but it also removes the pollen that some buyer might want to alleviate his allergy to local
flora. By contrast, straining is the procedure used by most hobbyist beekeepers to remove the
visible solids but straining leaves the microscopic pollen particles that not only might help
someone's allergy, but also cause faster crystallization of most honeys. However, again, the
temperature to which I refer is a temperature no higher than that which might be found in a
honey super under a scorching sun on a hot day or maybe 110 degrees. Honey at room
temperature filters not much faster than warm axle grease, whereas honey warmed to 100
degrees filters like water running through mosquito netting.
As my honey leaves the extractor, it goes through one course mesh screen followed by a fine
mesh screen to remove all the visible solids, (the "nuts and bolts"). There are many different
filtering or straining materials in use by many, and cheesecloth is an old stable; but I dispise
using cheesecloth because it leaves lint in the honey. I prefer using a man-made material like
nylon because of its strength, the ease of cleaning, and it does not leave any lint. Nylon material
can be purchased in all grades of various meshes, so that you can get extremely fine filtration
when using a woman's slip material or 140 dineer sheer nylon pantihose or stocking. Of course
this fine filtering is slow even with 90 degree honey. This is how I prepare "show" honey. For
routine honey filtration I use a nylon bridal veil fine net material called "marquisette" and filter
my warm honey through about 3 folded layers of that, and the honey runs through at a workable
speed. How do I heat this honey? After the honey comes out of my extractor through two
different mesh screens, I put this honey in 60 pound 5 gallon buckets, put a top on them, set them
out in the hot sun for at least a day (preferably two), skim the froth off the top with a "skimmer
paddle", and filter them through the nylon after dinner while the honey is still quite warm.

This honey is transferred to a 300 pound bottling tank, covered to keep moist air out, and
allowed to sit and settle for at least 3 days before it is skimmed of froth again. At that point, it is
ready to be bottled, and then put in my three 24 cubic feet freezers until sale time.

CLEANING, DRYING, & STORING DRAWN COMB FRAMES

All have heard me say that "drawn comb is a beekeeper's most valuable possession," and now I will
explain how to do it.

After you extract, clean the propolis and burr comb off the super boxes and load them with your
"wet" extracted frames. Pick out one of your strongest colonies, remove the telescoping cover,
but leave the inner cover in place, add a totally EMPTY box, and then place several of your wet
supers on top of this followed by a telescoping cover. At the end of a week or less, the colony
bees should have gone through the inner cover center hole and thoroughly cleaned out all the
wax cells and wooden frames of any honey and taken it into their colony below. Take these
supers of clean dry frames into their winter storage location, and stack them 10 super bodies high
putting a teaspoon of PDP, para-dichloro-benzene, on a piece of paper on top of the frames of
EACH super with 2 tablespoons of PDP on the the top of the tallest super, seal a cover on and
seal the cracks between supers with sticky tape. These will have to be checked each month until
cold weather and additional PDP added if needed. If all of this is properly done, when you need
supers next April, they will be right there with no mice damage, no wax moth damage, dry and
clean, just ready for next season's honey. The smell of PDP will be gone by setting the supers
outside individually to air out for 24-48 hours before installation on a colony.

LAST CALL FOR CURRENT DUES!

The so-called "fiscal" year for MCBA runs from May through April, and hence I try to get all dues paid
before June. The dues of $10/year covers 11 monthly meetings, 12 Honey Pot Monthly Newsletters and
12 Monthly Editions of George's PINK PAGES of Honey Bee Care and Management. It should be
obvious that $10 per year does not begin to cover the total cost of printing and mailing, but by my own
choice as my gift of helping to UPGRADE your knowledge of apis mellifera, I underwrite the cost from
my own pocket. However, if you feel that the PINK PAGES have value to you, you are asked to submit
some nominal amount greater than the $10 fee to aid in paying for the Pink Pages, and I THANK YOU!

If You see a CIRCLE OF RED INK around your dues date on the mailing label of the Honey
Pot, it means that your dues are NOT current and payment is requested.

Upgrading from a beeHAVER to a beeKeeper

You can't keep bees like Daddy kept bees! I want you to notice that word "kept". Anybody can
"have" bees on their property today, and buy some more when those die; and I am concerned
with that vast number who can't seem to KEEP their bees today. The package bee producers
surely have learned what new techniques and management changes are needed to keep bees alive
and healthy, or they would be in some other line of work today. I am talking about CHANGING
TIMES; and I am specifically challenging you to accept the need to change your present
management techniques if you have the desire to UPGRADE yourself from a beeHAVER to a
beeKEEPER!

I started beekeeping on May 6, 1933, sixty six years ago, just two months after attending the
Presidential Inaugural Ceremony for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington, DC. I am sure
that most of the people in this audience are not even 66 years old; and hence, I am going to
confine my CHANGING TIMES to the changes in the past 25-30 years, and I want to rapidly
mention some things that should be familiar to all of you. Most of you are wearing a watch that
has a quartz movement which keeps almost perfect time, a far cry from the expensive 21 jewel
watch of 30 years ago that didn't keep very good time anyhow. Perhaps most of you enjoy
CABLE tv to your home that did not exist 30 years ago. When was the last time you went to a
drive-in movie - maybe 30 years ago. Think about the present Yugoslavia situation and our ALL
VOLUNTEER ARMY of today, compared to being drafted into the army 30 years ago or
become a draft dodger. Most of you drove a vehicle to this bee meeting and your vehicle
probably has front-wheel drive only matching the Cadillac Eldorado of 30 years ago, disk brakes
instead of drum brakes, fuel injection instead of a carburetor, radial tires rather than bias tires,
and gasoline was only 30-35 cents per gallon in 1970. I have two beekeeper friends who have
had kidney transplants, a surgical procedure unknown 30 years ago. Did you have a computer, a
microwave oven in your kitchen, or VCR machine 30 years ago? Most of you have these things
now. There were few birth control pills in use 30 years ago, and condums surely were NOT
displayed at the grocery store checkout counter as they are today. In 1970, you had to constantly
HOE your garden to keep the weeds down, whereas today many crops are made from hybrid
"no-till" seed. My mother died 3 years ago at age 99, and I miss her tremendously, because she
used to transcribe my speeches about atomic energy or bees from her perfect use of Gregg
Shorthand that is probably unknown today. TIMES CHANGE, and difficult or not, either you
learn to adapt to these changes or you become out-of-step with success.
Now, let us think about apis mellifera, our honey bee. WOW! Let us look at the findings or
happenings of just the past 15 years that have profoundly forced changes in honey bee
management procedures. In 1984, the TRACHEAL MITE, acarapis woodi, was first found in the
U.S.; and three years later, 1987, the more dangerous mite was found, the VARROA MITE,
varroa jacobsoni. Three years later, 1990, the dreaded Africanized Honey Bee, apis mellifera
scutellata, crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas and today, just 9 years later, it has
been found in four other states, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Nevada. Many people on
the east coast or midwest took the attitude of: "So what, they are not in my backyard or a nearby
state, so I don't have to worry about the AHB". When the tabloid magazines coined the term
"killer bee" and Hollywood produced exaggerated and totally false movies about the AHB,
beekeepers all over the U. S. suddenly found than almost every living person was "allergic" to a
single bee sting and in the interest of their personal safety started actions to create laws
forbidding beekeeping in their town, their county, or even their state. The urban population of
today compared to the era of our parents knows nothing about bees and really DON'T WANT
TO KNOW - just keep them some place else, but "not in my backyard". Anyone of these
happenings, much less ALL of them, dramatically forces one to give up any idea of "keeping
bees just like Daddy kept bees" because Daddy did not have any of these things to contend with.

In contrast with all these new problems that have come to light in the past couple of decades, I
want to mention some favorable things that have been found during this same time. In spite of
the difficulty of funding money for research, the problems caused by mites, Africanized Bees,
and public fear of being stung has forced the researchers, scientists, extension agents, inspection
service to be more specific about securing gentle bees, swarm reduction, requeening with a
honey bee race rather than with hybrids or allowing the bees to requeen themselves. These very
things are encouraging people to learn more about good beekeeping. I want to make a prediction
about beekeeping in the 21st century that, as a scientist, I find very exciting and wish I were
young again to get back into research. The prediction is: research will discover more and more
importance of honey bee PHEROMONES, and armed with this increased knowledge of the
function of these pheromones, the result will be better beekeeper management, improved
handling techniques, healthier bees and higher crop yields. I am jealous of that future that
perhaps I will never see.

WHAT ARE THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITIES TO MAKE A GOOD HONEY

CROP?

1. A very large number of foraging age bees available at the nectar flow time
2. Elimination of the conditions that cause swarming
3. A surplus amount of drawn comb on the colony just before the start of the nectar flow
4. Healthy bees with little or no mites, nosema free, young vigorous queen

Some people have difficulty because they don't plan ahead, and suffering a lack of knowledge
about bee BEHAVIOR, they really don't do much for their bees until the first sign of dandelions.
They are about 6 months too late to guarantee a good season. Years ago, Dr. Roger Morse wrote
in one of his many books that "the proper planning for the next season commenses in
September". I have been using September as the bee's New Year for many years, because my
total honey crop in Maryland is produced very early in the spring and is finished by about June
1st. I am positive that the honey yield in the Illinois area is somewhat different, starting later and
lasting longer, but those facts don't change any of the absolute necessities to make a good crop!
Therefore, let me detail these management techniques from a September starting point until the
following September.

REQUEENING
I much prefer September requeening than spring requeening, because the queen arrival date at
my house can be predicted months in advance, the queens have much better open breeding
because there are more drones in the later summer, and the queen breeders are not under that
intense spring pressure of getting lots of queens delivered "yesterday". Further, perfectionist that
I am, the Imirie Requeening Method guarantees almost 100% acceptance and it has both the old
queen and the new queen laying in the same colony for about 6 weeks which builds a large group
of young worker bees to enter the winter inactive season. I have a separate paper detailing the
IMIRIE REQUEEN METHOD that you can have today.

Recent bee research has proven that in addition to the egg laying ability of a queen, the
production of the queen pheromone is of vital importance in swarm prevention. The pheromone
is the "glue" that has the ability to bind thousands of worker bees into one single functioning
unit; but the production of that pheromone diminishes a little each day of the queen's life from
the day of her mating. Hence, although a second season queen might well be able to produce
1500 eggs per day, but not being able to produce an adequate amount of queen pheromone to
bind this large number of workers into a single functioning unit, the bees swarm, thereby making
two units: the swarm in a new location leaving a new queen and some bees back at the "old
homestead". It has been shown that a second season queen is three times more apt to swarm than
a first season queen. Because of Maryland's very early honey crop, 51 years ago,1948, Steve
Tabor convinced me to switch from the Italian race I had used for the first 15 years of
beekeeping to Carniolans, who are renouned for their "explosive" early spring buildup.
Unfortunately, the Carniolan is equally well known for its high propensity to swarm, and
successful honey cropping with Carniolans almost dictates never allowing a queen to live longer
than 12-13 months.

Apistan Use for Killing Varroa Mites

One should thoroughly understand the Varroa life cycle to properly control the degree of colony
infection with the Varroa mite. Unlike the tracheal mite which lives almost its entire life
internally in an adult bee, the Varroa mite is born in a bee larva, matures to adulthood nursing
itself from a bee pupa, and than lives externally on a bee's body. Hence, the greater the number
of honey bee larva and pupa available, the greater there is a source of food for the varroa mite to
multiply. In contrast, there is very little honey bee larva available in the later fall months of
October and November or the winter months of December and January. One can get a 95% kill
of mites rather easily, but securing a100% kill is next to impossible, and therefore, we are always
going to have mites, year after year, and contolling their growth is a year around program and
probably is not going to get any better. Since the best time to kill the most mites is when there is
little or no bee larva for mite food, obviously the most effective varroa mite kill time is October
and November.
Hence, I install 4 apistan strips, 2 in each of the 2 brood chamber boxes, on October 1st, leave
them for 8 weeks, and remove them in time to eat Thanksgiving turkey. I am well known in
Maryland as a vigilante, because if I find that some beeHAVER or even a beeKEEPER has
gotten lazy or forgotten to remove the Apistan strips and left them in the colony for the winter,
he gets my 3 hour lecture in public; because we certainly don't want to make the mites resistant
to Apistan because of over exposure to the fluvalinate chemical in the strip. Prior to my strokes,
guilty people could not walk away from my chastisement, because I would follow and continue
my beratement, and no body was going to punch an old man with glasses and a college letter in
boxing. Now they are safe, because I can't even talk, much less YELL. Strokes and Old Age will
be the death of me yet.

Bee research has shown that varroa mite growth is temperature dependent meaning that it those
states with the least winter and cold months, the Varroa mite growth is enhanced. Honey bee
colonies in Florida or Texas might have to be treated with Apistan twice or even three times a
year, whereas, in the Illinois area, assuming the fall Apistan treatment is done at the correct time
for 8 weeks, maybe the one treatment might be enough for the year. But don't be lazy or
unknowing about the degree of mite infestation of your colonies. In March and again in July,
TEST for mites using either the ether roll test or the sticky board test, BUT TEST! If you find
too many mites, cease your honey production temporarily and treat with Apistan for perhaps just
two weeks so your bees don't die. There are many, many cases in print that a colony of bees that
had been treated the previous year with Apistan, made a record crop of honey in late spring and
early summer and was dead from Varroa mite infection in August. Gosh, you test yourself with a
thermometer for a fever, the doctor tests your blood pressure, the optician tests your eyes, the vet
tests your dog for worms, you treat your plants and vegetables for disease, why not test your bees
for mites that are going to kill the bees if you don't control the mites? I repeat for clarity: Without
testing, I treat my bees with Apistan strips for 8 weeks beginning October 1st, I test for Varroa
mite infection on March 1st and July 1st and treat right then for 2-6 weeks if indicated. I know of
case after case of gready beekeepers who didn't want to lose a single ounce of that quick
crystalizing fall honey and did not get a good Apistan treatment done, and the bees died of mite
infection. One beekeeper fumed and cussed about having to buy more bees next year, and I
clapped and laughed in his face and told him "It serves you right, because you cared more about
a few measly dollars than you did for the health of your bees!"

Building a population of foraging age bees by nectar flow time

The great majority of apian followers don't understand that from the day a worker bee egg is
layed, 40 days (almost 6 weeks) elapses before that worker bee makes it first nectar collecting
flight! 40 DAYS! Why? The gestation period of the honey bee is 21 days, and its genetically
programmed life has it doing "house duties" like comb building, nursing larva, pollen packing,
ripening nectar into honey, and serving guard duty at the hive entrance for the first 18 days of
life before it ever makes its first nectar collecting flight which occurs on the 40th day since its
egg was layed. For example, in Maryland, if the black locust bloom opens on April 25th, the egg
of that bee that forages for that black locust nectar had to be layed 40 days or more before, or
March 15th when there might be snow on the ground and baseball season had not opened yet. If
you came to this meeting to LEARN, and I hope you did, then don't you ever forget the
importance of this particular 40 days that may decide the yield of your honey crop.
Most people don't understand how you get a queen laying eggs in cold weather like February.
Let me shock you! The queen does NOT make that decision. Her daughters, the worker bees,
make almost all colony decisions and they totally control the queen's actions by how much they
feed her, how much comb they build, and how many cells they clean and polish to receive her
eggs! Further, worker bees won't do any of these things until there is available pollen and nectar
for food. In walks Mr. Smart Beekeeper, who creates an artificial nectar flow by feeding 1:1
sugar syrup (1 pound of plain sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water) and even supplies a pollen
substitute like Mann Lakes Bee Pro. When these artificial nectar and pollen substitute are put in
a hive as I do about February 1st, the worker bees are fooled in to thinking early spring is here,
the nectar flow that will supply them with next winters food supply is close at hand, so we gals
better wake up our queen and get her laying eggs in a bigtime way. They start eating large
quantities of the 1:1 sugar syrup (ignoring all that stored honey that is like emergency "hard tact"
compared to thin delicious nectar - You did not know that nectar is the bees choice of food rather
than honey, did you?) This raises the body temperature of the bees so they can warm the brood
area to the maternity room desired temperature of 91-96 degrees, start "stuffing food down the
queen's gullet" which activates the queen's egg production apparatus, and finally cleaning and
polishing cells for the queen to inspect and then lay eggs. Early spring population increase has
been started in the cold of February and snow may be all over the hive tops!

Research has not only shown but positively proven that the number one cause of swarming is
brood chamber congestion! Please note that I did not say a word about additional space or super
space - I repeat: brood chamber congestion! I cannot explain God's reasoning, but God
genetically programmed the queen to always travel UP, never down. (As the winter approachs,
the bees stop feeding the queen so she can't lay eggs and they start packing the upper frames of
comb with honey stores for winter, which drives the "tired" queen down incolony to rest for a
month or so before spring laying starts). Now we are back to early spring egg laying in February.
When the queen finishes laying the center frames of the 1st story, using the chimney effect of
warming, she moves up into the second story frames for more egg laying. If she lays out the most
of the center of the 2nd story and the inner cover stops her from going further UP, even though
the first story might be totally empty or stuffed with pollen, the bees SWARM because of brood
chamber CONGESTION. Just imagine the chaos of a 2 bedroom home for a family that has 5 or
6 small children. That is congestion!

A smart beekeeper prevents this conjestion by REVERSING the brood chambers 2,3, or 4 times
in the spring as needed to move the frames the queen is presently laying DOWN so she can move
UP as those cells in the second story are made empty by emerging bees. Dependent on the
weather, colony strength, and ability of the queen, the first reversal might have to made in 3
weeks after 1:1 feeding is initiated, and that time shrinks as the weather warms and hive
population increases; but it is constantly done until the nectar flow gets well started and supers
are in place. You will note that because the bees can only "incubate" the eggs and larva by
clustering around it to provide warmth, all of this effort is done around only the center frames
and as the weather warms and the bee population increases, the cluster can extend its
"incubation" space to include more of the frames closer to the outer hive walls. There is no way
that a mentor can tell a beekeeper when to reverse because each hive is a different enity in a
different weather condition; and hence, a beekeeper must understand the principle of reversing
and make his own decisions. The major mistake always made is to reverse too soon and thereby
SPLIT the brood into two divided parts, so that one part of the brood is close to the inner cover
while the other half is close to the hive floor. The bees will cluster where ever the queen is and
not being able to cover both divided parts of brood, one part is kept warm and the other part dies
of cold. To help you visualize this, look at the face of a wall clock and imagine that the bottom
frame covers the area DOWN from the numbers 9 and 3, and the upper frame covers the area UP
from the numbers 9 and 3. Suppose the total area of space between the 10 and 8 and between the
2 and 4 was fresh open brood, and you reversed at that time. The lower frame with brood above
the line drawn between 8 and 4 would now be the upper frame putting that brood close to the
inner cover; but that former upper frame with brood DOWN from a line between 10 and 2 would
now be a lower frame and that brood would be close to the hive floor. You have SPLIT THE
BROOD and one part will die and one part will live. The ideal time to reverse (rarely possible)
would be when ALL of the brood is above the line drawn between 9 and 3, and after reversal all
of the brood is below the line drawn between 9 and 3.

WHEN, and HOW, to INSTALL SUPERS OF DRAWN COMB for EXTRACTED

HONEY
The use of foundation or anything that requires comb building necessitates a totally different
program. Again, I want you to LEARN that you cannot use foundation as if it were empty drawn
comb, nor can you mix foundation and drawn comb frames in the same super without bad
results.

When a nectar flow commenses and improves, swarming season is OVER and the bees mentally
shift programs from swarming for reproduction puposes to nectar collecting to make honey for
winter feed. However, if there is not enough super space for the bees to store all this thin watery
nectar (maybe 20 pounds per day) until they have time to ripen the nectar to thick, heavy honey,
they are going to SWARM. A swarm during a nectar flow is the 100% FAULT of the beekeeper
in failing to provide enough super space when needed; and is totally different than a swarm in
swarming season which is caused by brood chamber conjestion. In Maryland, I know that a
nectar flow is going to get underway sometime in mid to late April, so I put one super of drawn
comb in place about April 1st followed by 4 more supers of drawn comb put on ALL AT ONE
TIME before May 1st Research has proven that the hoarding instinct of bees makes the presence
of lots of empty drawn comb a challenge to the bees and they work harder and faster and hence
produce a better yield than having empty drawn comb supers added one at a time as needed..
Why do I have 5 supers of drawn comb installed before May 1st when the bees only make maybe
4 full supers of honey in a good year? Bees do NOT collect heavy, thick honey, but collect thin,
maybe 80% water nectar than takes up lots of super space until the bees can ripen it into thick
honey, and these extra supers provide that storage space which aids in swarm prevention.

How to install supers of foundation

This program requires less supers for the same amount of honey, but requires more labor time
and more inspection to establish the need for another super. Bees have to eat about 8 pounds of
honey to develop the energy necessary to produce and build one pound of wax comb. Bees, in
their genetic way, can't think like humans and do things in the same manner as their ancesters did
back with Adam and Eve in the Garden. All bees work within the limits of what we call BEE
SPACE, the discovery of Dr. Langstroth that caused him to develop the first removalable frame
hive. Bee Space is about 5/16", which is travel space for a bee, meaning they will build comb or
fill up spaces smaller than 1/4" or larger than 3/8". This concept is very important in drawing
foundation into comb. Even if you prefer and use only 9 frames in a body, you must use all 10
frames of foundation to build the comb, or you will have a mess because you violated "bee
space". This is also the same reason that you cannot mix drawn comb frames in a super with
sheets of foundation, or you cannot install 4 or 5 supers of foundation all at the same time,
because the bees will build comb in the strangest of places and you will have one great big mess
that you cannot separate. The only proper way to install foundation is to put one 10 frame super
in place, wait until about 6 of its center frames are drawn comb and filled with nectar, reposition
those frames by moving the filled frames towards the outer box walls and placing the undrawn
frames in the center. At that point, add the 2nd 10 frame super of foundation, and so on for the
3rd or 4th super of foundation. Reduntantly, I say getting foundation drawn into comb requires
more labor time and a lot more inspections to determine correct timing for each super
installation. All of these problems is what makes the production of comb honey into a specialty
that can only be done by highly knowledgeable beekeepers like Gene Killion and his father, Carl.
Today, you can almost tell if a person is over 50 years old or under 50 years old. The younger
people keep studying a comb honey section and finally ask some stupid question like: What do
you do with that "thing"? or How do you get the honey OUT? or What do you do with the wax
after you have eaten the honey out of it? or Do you eat it with your fingers, spoon, or fork; and
how do you spread it on toast? When I started beekeeping back in those depression days of 1933,
many people didn't have a job, so there wasn't much bottled honey around because bottles cost
money and extractors cost a fortune. Hence, all of my honey was produced in 4" x 4" basswood
comb sections which I was able to sell for the small fortune of 25 cents for a 12 ounce comb
section and that 25 cents provided my 15 cent Saturday matinee movie ticket and a 10 cent bag
of popcorn and that was really living "high on the hog". The truth of my story is my Scottish
mother took the money and put it in the Bank of Bethesda drawing 1% interest, and she gave it
back to me on my wedding day in 1943 as a wedding surprise just before I was sent away to be a
scientist for The Manhatton Project to build the atomic bombs used on Japan. False teeth and
eating comb honey are not a good pair, but I grew up on comb honey and still eat a lot (the size
of my stomach indicates TOO much) even with false teeth.
KILLING or CONTROL of the TRACHEAL MITE
Many beeHAVERS and even some beeKEEPERS don't bother to treat for the Tracheal mite.
Since it is microscopic and hence not seen by humans, their bees are assumed clean and not
infected by this pest. When the colony is found dead usually in January with few dead bees in the
hive, but plenty of honey still present, generally the Tracheal mite has "won" again. The only
government approved treatment for the Tracheal mite is insertion of 50 grams of menthol in the
brood chamber in warm to hot weather, which I would think would be in mid-August in the
Illinois area. Menthol installed in Maryland AFTER SEPTEMBER 1st usually fails to work. If
the use of menthol interferes with nectar collection of alfalfa or goldenrod or some other crop,
you will have to decide whether you want the honey or dead bees. The use of menthol at
temperatures lower than about 80 degrees does NOT work, because the menthol does not
sublime from a solid into a gas until it is heated to 85 degrees. Menthol KILLS the tracheal mite!
Dr. Diana Sammataro has pioneered the use of grease patties (plain, NO terramycin) for the
CONTROL of the Tracheal mite; but the patties do NOT kill the mites, just "confuses" which
bee host to cling to. These patties HAVE TO BE present in the brood chamber continuously all
12 months of the year , including nectar flow periods, to be effective! Grease patties do control
the Tracheal Mite, but their use is labor intensive for the beekeeper, because unless they are
constantly present all year the bees become overwhelmed by the mites. I much prefer using
Menthol on August 15th and I have never lost a colony to tracheal mites.
ONE OTHER IMPORTANT DISEASE USUALLY OVERLOOKED
NOSEMA disease, although rarely killing a colony, weakens the health of the bees that shortens
their lives dramatically and reduces their activity so they just can't make a decent crop of honey.
This is a disease of the gut and causes the bee to suffer diarrhea. I ask you - How much work can
you do when you have the "runs"? Researchers have estimated that approximately 60% (over
half) of all the bees in the country suffer nosema disease in the spring after a long winter
confinement. For a cheap price of about $2/colony, you can feed the colony 2 teaspoons of
Fumidil-B dissolved in 2 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup in October or November, and your bees will
be free of the Nosema disease the following year. I don't guess whether my bees are infected or
not; I automatically treat with Fumidil-B every fall, because I would rather make a good crop of
honey rather than save $2/colony.
HARVESTING and PROTECTING DRAWN COMB
Honey should NOT be removed from the colony until it is CAPPED with wax, because
uncapped honey is not yet "ripe" and the moisture content of unripe honey is too high, so the
honey might ferment and spoil. Leave the uncapped honey on the bees for their winter stores. I
like to get my honey harvested and stored by July 4th, primarily because it is so much easier to
extract when it is warm like 90-95 degrees than when the honey cools to 70-75 degrees. There
are about 4 different methods used for harvesting, but only two are fast and easy, while the other
two are slow or cause stinging. Theoretically, by inserting a Porter Bee Escape in the inner cover
hole, the bees will leave the honey supers and go below into the brood chamber, but it does NOT
work unless the temperature is chilly and bee wants the warmth of the cluster, so there is little
use for this bee escape in our state. Most new hobbiest harvest using a bee brush to brush away
the bees off a frame, and these bees can become very angry and reciprocate with a sting. You
would too, if someone knocked you out of your chair with a broom. In these times of public fear
of bees, don't upset your neighbors by making your bees mad, or you may find yourself facing a
new town or county ordinance that says "Beekeeping is prohibited in this area". The best harvest
procedures are the use of a Fume Board and chemical or a bee blower. The chemicals STINK,
and the bee blower is expensive. A fume board is much like an framed inner cover with a piece
of absorbent cloth over the inner cover face. You sprinkle one or 2 teaspoons of BEE-GO on the
cloth, place the fume board on the top super, wait 3-4 minutes, remove the super now empty of
bees, and go to the next super. If you are rich enough to afford about $250, buy a BEE
BLOWER. Remove a super, stand it on end near the hive front, and blow the bees out of the
super into the grass. Unlike humans, they don't get mad, because they don't understand that this
is robbing. BEE-GO is butyric anhydride which has an odor much worse than rotten eggs, vomit,
or skunk; and it does not wash away very easily; but it works! Don't get "sucked in" by HONEY
ROBBER, which is nothing more than Bee-Go with the addition of Oil of Cherries to mask the
odor of butyric anhydride, but it still STINKS. I much prefer benzaldehyde, the odor of oil of
almonds, very pleasant; but very difficult to find. My partner and I can use two Fume Boards,
putting just 2 teaspoons of any of chemicals on each board, and remove 20 supers per hour, one
each 3 minutes!

After you have extracted this honey, you have a sticky mess and drippy frames. Let your bees do
the cleanup of the frames, comb, and supers by piling 5-6 of these wet supers on the inner cover
of a strong colony, and of course seal all openings that allow the entry of robber bees. The
frames will be dry and very clean in a few days, and the honey that is saved will be winter food
for your colony below.

For years, I have written, talked, and even preached that "DRAWN COMB IS A BEEKEEPER'S
MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION, and still people let the wax mothes ruin their combs before
next season. It is so simple to protect your drawn comb. Select the place you are going to keep
these supers of comb for the next 9 months, stack them 10 high with a teaspoon of the chemical
para-dicloro-benzene (PDB) on the tops of the frames of each super and 3-4 teaspoons of PDB
on the frames of the top super, cover the stack and seal the cracks between supers with masking
tape. This might have to repeated every 4-6 weeks in warm weather, but it will not have to be
touched after the average temperature is below about 50 degrees. Next April, just let the supers
"air-out" for 1-2 days before installation.

MARKETING HONEY
Unfortunately, most beekeepers are lousy salesmen and don't like "selling" in general, some even
thinking it is the next thing to being sinful. In 66 years, I have never sold a jar of honey, creamed
honey, comb honey, or a honey stick; but I am a powerful salesman of the DESIRE to eat George
Imirie's Honey. Not only, do I divide my extracted honey by color and source, but I sell chunk
honey, creamed honey, cut comb honey, 4 x 4 section honey, honeysticks, and beeswax candles.
Further, to "cover all tastes", I buy and sell the specialty honeys that I can't make in Maryland,
like Orange Blossum, Tupelo (because it will not crystallize), and eucalyptus; and I do this on
the theory of "one-stop" shopping. Informative signs cover my booth, e.g., "Never put Honey in
refrigerator", "Buy this National Honey Board Honey Cookbook", "Buy now, we will hold, you
pick up later", "Buy this Christmas Gift now, put in your freezer until Christmas Time". You
MUST have a fine OBSERVATION HIVE which attracts the children, who in turn fetch the
parents with money, and you willingly "talk yourself to death" about the life of a bee, and the
importance of their pollination to human food supply. This helps the people that are frightened of
bees because of the darn "killer bee" movies, and aids in their knowing how important our bees
are. None of my honey is cheaper than $3.50/pound, and people come to my booth or my home
and pay this instead of buying Sue Bee Honey at $2.59 at the grocery store. SELL YOURSELF
AND YOUR PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE, NOT JUST HONEY!
WHERE DO YOU LEARN?
Except for tremendous losses of bees at the beginning of this 20th century by the Tracheal Mite
in England at the end of World War I and the rapid spread of American Foul Brood around the
turn of the century, no great changes have been necessary in learning beekeeping since
Langstroth designed the movable frame hive in 1857 until now. In just 15 years, U.S. beekeeping
has been "introduced" to the microscopic Tracheal Mite, the easily spread Varroa mite, the
aggressive Africanized HoneyBee, the resulting fear of bees to the public where 90% of the total
no longer live a rural life, but a urbanized life where the government is charged with their
protection from murder to mosquito bites, from cancer to the common cold, training on-the-job
to trade schools, junior colleges, or universities. TIMES CHANGE, and BEEKEEPING HAS TO
CHANGE WITH IT TO SURVIVE!

The Federal Goverment has 6 laboratories staffed by scientists paid to research beekeeper's
problems and their solution. Some Universites still teach the sciences vital to beekeeping:
biology, entomology, virology, biochemistry, etc. State Departments of Agriculture employ
Extension Agents to work on-site of agriculture products (honey). Some of these scientists whose
entire life evolves around our honey bee write detailed books that explain PROPER beekeeping
methods, tools needed, seasons to be used, management techniques, diagnosis and treatment of
diseases, and how to work in harmony with the bee. However, today we are primarily concerned
with these new maladies of the past 15 years, beginning in 1984. I ask you: How much value for
your learning is one of the fine old books that was written prior to 1984? The fact is that these
older books have broad basic knowledge, but do not cover the problems that are damaging bees
and beekeeping in 1999. I do not feel that any book written prior to about 1992 has much value,
in that it was not able to properly address the treatment of mites, the public fear of Africanized
Bees, and wonderful new research findings regarding the value of PHEROMONES. The hard
work done by the research people during these troubled 15 years leads almost everyday to some
new finding of value in our search for better ways to KEEP bees. Hence, I strongly recommend
to beginners and novices (Roger Morse suggests "old timers" also) the 3rd Edition (April 1998)
of THE BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK writtened by Dr, Diana Sammataro. Not only are her
statements accuate, but her drawings and sketches of "what is going on inside a hive" are so
definitive, it is one of the finest 190 page book I have ever read, and the price of $29.95 is not
expensive. Further, every beekeeper that is serious about his beekeeping should have some sort
of "bible" about bees, and the BEST is surely the 1992 Edition of THE HIVE AND THE
HONEY BEE put together by Joe Graham of Dadant right here in Illinois, but authored by the
TOP 33 bee "experts" of the world in 1992, which includes your Gene Killion. The knowledge
put forth in the 1300 pages of this book is dumbfounding and $36 is cheap.

ENDING NOW

There is nothing written by me without my injecting a strong personal feeling. I haven't worn
gloves or a bee suit more than a couple of times in 40 years, and usually work with a Tee-Shirt
and no veil. I put on hive opening demonstrations every year at the county FAIR showing the
audience all wonders of the insides of a hive 4 times a day for 9 days with no veil, and I have
only been stung a few times in 10 years of this demonstration. Then of course, there are
exhibitions of bee beards. Are we CRAZY, or do we have some tricks? The answer is
emphatically, NO! We have learned not to be ANTHROPOMORPHIC, but rather be a good
student of BEE BEHAVIOR! Learn how a "bee thinks", so you can understand what that bee
thinks is happening when you are manipulating those gals around. Most readers get to Chapter 8
in The Hive and the Honey Bee entitled "Activities and Behavior of Honey Bees", written by the
eminent entomologist, Dr. Norman Gary, and say: "That is boring stuff, I just want that part that
tells how to get more honey," and skip reading it. They might remain a beeHAVER for the rest
of their lives, never learning about BEE BEHAVIOR and hence not being able to appreciate
KEEPING bees. I strongly urge every person to read the words by Dr. Gary, and when you throw
away your ANTHROPOMORPHIC thoughts and understand BEE BEHAVIOR, only then will
you find the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

CAN YOU THINK LIKE A BEE?

Maybe I should "rattle" your brain by asking you: "Can a bee really THINK?" When you
HARVEST honey, do the bees interpret that action as robbing them of something they have
collected and made? Does a bee know it is going to DIE if it stings you? If a bee stings you, was
that bee ANGRY with you? If a bee emerges from its birth cell on a warm May 15th and lives its
short life of just 6 weeks, it is dead before July 4th; hence WHAT DOES IT KNOW ABOUT
THE COLD OF WINTER, or why is it "busy as a bee" nectar collecting for colony survival?
WHO or WHAT directs a bee to perform a certain task; e.g., cleaning a cell, comb building,
feeding larva, or guarding the hive entrance? Which bees go off with a swarm and which adult
bees stay behind? Who picks out the location of the new home for the swarm? Who supervises
worker cell comb building, so that regardless of whether the bees are Italians, Carniolans,
Buckfast, or even Uncle Charlie's, there are always 55.3 cells per square inch; and they do this
without a set of plans or a ruler. Have YOU thought about these things during the time of your
experience with bees?

When you "can THINK like a bee", you are beginning to understand the complexities of bee
behavior which I firmly believe is the "dividing line" between being thought of as a beeHAVER
or a beeKEEPER. Perhaps the beeHAVER's bees sometimes might produce some surplus honey,
or indeed, even a record crop; however, only the beeKEEPER will ever experience the many
diverse JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

HOW does a bee think? I assure you that a bee does NOT think like a human. Much of our
human thinking processes are initiated and deeply used as a result of our human senses of sight
and hearing, whereas our sense of smell does not seem very important to us. In complete contrast
to the important senses of the human is the fact that a bee has no sense of hearing and has
relatively poor eyesight even with its five eyes; but its sense of smell, olfactory nerves, is the
most highly developed sense of a honey bee. A bee uses its sense of odor to determine if another
bee is her hive mate or a stranger, the odor of a flower guides a bee to the nectar of the flower, a
"lost" colony member is guided home by other bees fanning the odor of their Nassanoff gland
towards their lost sisters or brothers, the odor of bee venom (as in banana oil), primarily iso-
pentyl acetate is the well known "sting alarm" of the bee, and now we use the chemical, geraniol,
as an artificial pheromone for attracting swarms.
Unfortunately, we humans are inherently biased; and hence we tend to ascribe human attributes
to bees. We believe that bees think as we think, have an awareness of events or other happenings
around their home or their "work place" as they gather nectar or pollen, that they can plan ahead
(like their gathering of nectar in May to make winter food), or that they can easily solve how to
return to a hive after leaving via a cone shaped escape device. If you believe that a bee will do all
those things that we humans would do under the same circumstances, that is
ANTHROPOMORPHISM at its best! Bees have brains designed to direct the bee to best do the
jobs that nature intended bees to do, and that does not require the human brain. Further, the
deviations inherent in the human brain cause 10 people to use 10 different procedures to get to
the same point, whereas, the thinking of a 24 day old worker bee for a given situation is identical
for all other 24 day old worker bees confronting the same situation. Honey bees are social insects
who live for the good of the colony without individualistic concern for themselves; and their
actions are governed by polyethism, i.e., perform tasks based on their age since their day of
emergence.

Is today's bee any different than the honey bee of biblical time when Moses spoke of a certain
area as "the land of milk and honey"? I do not know of any changes in man, horses, birds, or
other animals, so there is good reason to think that the honey bee of today is no different than
that which was in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. We humans, armed with our ability to
think, have made much progress in our style of living, because we have used our thinking ability
to invent things, even the WHEEL. However, I am sure that there are no basic differences
between Adam and Eve, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Accepting
this premise, then we must realize that our only course of becoming a good beekeeper is to
LEARN TO THINK LIKE A BEE, or study what researchers call "BEE BEHAVIOR".

You will perhaps think that I have "lost my mind" when I say that the arrival of the tracheal mite
and the varroa mite into the U. S. just 15 years ago was maybe a "blessing in disguise". Why?
The death of so many colonies of bees put great demand upon all phases of honey bee research to
find a treatment for these mite pests, and this research opened channels of thought utilizing some
of our ultra modern scientific tools of today; e. g. radar tracking of bee flight, and gluing a
computer chip on a bee to follow all of its actions in the 6 weeks of life. As a scientist myself, I
want you to be much aware of a severe human "natural" mistake that paralyzes research. During
times when no new tools become available to gather factual information, we are left with only
our imaginations to fill in the missing pages of the behavioral pattern of a bee. Over a period of
time, these oft-repeated speculations and theories initiated by imaginations develop into the
status of a FACT! This stifles further research because the question arises: Why investigate
something when everybody thinks the answer is already known? Let me touch upon a major
practical aspect to help you understand. HOW can you investigate the normal happenings inside
a dark, closed beehive? We know that the slightest trace of smoke totally interrupts and changes
the normal jobs of the bees in a hive. Further, since nature's home for a bee is the dark inside of a
tree hollow and our Langstroth bee hives are dark inside, a glass observation hive in a lighted
room is totally unnatural. Although some investigative studies have enlightened us greatly, using
smoke or light for us to study bee behavior disrupts that behavior so that our findings might be
meaningless. Now, micro chip transmitters coupled to a computer have entered the scene to
illuminate new avenues of research of bee behavior. Oh, I wish I were younger, so that I reinstate
myself as a research scientist. It makes me wonder how Sir Issac Newton, the discoverer of
gravity, would enjoy being one of today's astronauts floating gravity-free in space.

Until recently, one problem in interpreting bee behavior has been caused by our rather sketchy
knowledge of precisely how the bee senses its own world via its senses of vision, taste, smell,
vibration (hearing), and touch. In the absence of this know- ledge, we were reduced to
speculation, and in doing so, we tended to apply our own human values, which were not
objective. However, in the light of our present know- ledge, no longer is there an excuse for such
speculation. Bees, like other insects, are reacting like tiny robots to signals in their environment,
because they are programmed genetically to react in a prescribed manner. In all probability bees
are reacting with- out thought or awareness of the consequences of their behavior. Therefore, the
use of bee handling techniques and colony management based upon the precepts designed by
humans who have little knowledge of bee behavior usually results in many, or even, continuous
failures and only continues the human as a beeHANDLER rather than a beeKEEPER You must
LEARN to THINK LIKE A BEE!.

Many of you readers have computers that gain almost instant information. Your parents had the
telephone or the U.S. mail, and your grandparents used telegrams. Perhaps some of your
ancestors communicated by Pony Express or Smoke Signals. TIME CHANGES THINGS!
Because of the explosion of new findings due to the research demanded because of mites,
viruses, and Africanized bees in the U. S., the writings and talks given by bee researchers,
entomologists, geneticists, biologists, and other scientists should be given priority by you over all
other learning methods so that you can become skilled in the correct procedures and techniques
necessary for today's bee- keepers Up until the past 15 years, we put our greatest trusts in the bee
association meetings of the local beekeepers and the writings of many non-science oriented
writers. Just as we use computers or word processors in place of typewriters, fuel injection in
place of carburetors, microwave ovens in place of wood or coal fired stoves, ready to wear
clothes instead of starch and ironing, and airplanes rather than trains to go across the U. S., we
have to cast aside the "truths" and ways of the "good old boy" beekeeper and the books written
prior to about 1992 because they are obsolete in not discussing the problems or wonders of the
coming 21st century: such as mites, public fear of bees due to the Africanized Honey Bee, and
the almost "untouched" knowledge of the importance of PHEROMONES to all BEE
BEHAVIOR, and hence to good beekeeping!

VARROA KILLS IN JULY

It is most discouraging to have a strong colony of bees make a wonderful crop of honey in May
and early June, maybe even a record crop for some, and then find the colony DEAD in July! This
is happening all over the country, and Maryland is no exception. WHY?
Examine the life and source of food of the Varroa Mite. Female mites feed on adult bees for 1-2
weeks before moving into an open bee larva cell just before the cell is capped. After the cell is
capped the female mite feeds on the developing bee for several days, and then begins producing
young mites which also feed on the pupal bee. When the young adult bee emerges, probably
injured by the mites, so do the mature mites emerge. On an average, when an adult female mite
enters a workerbee cell to reproduce, 2 new fertile female mites are produced, and perhaps 3 new
mites are produced from a drone cell because the 24 day gestation period for drones is 3 days
longer than for worker bees. Obviously, mite population increases very rapidly during honey bee
brood rearing, especially when drone brood is available.

Varroa mite "feasting" upon bee brood leads to dead bee pupae or deformed, under- nourished
adult bees. Often, small deformed wings on young adult bees are a common sign of heavy
infestation. These colonies usually collapse and die-off in mid summer to autumn, or very shortly
after the main nectar flow ends. Further, if a colony begins collapsing from mite infestation,
nearby colonies are reinfested through robbing and drifting bees.

If you are really a beeKEEPER rather than a beeHAVER, you will want to save your bees from
death. This simply means TESTING FOR VARROA MITE INFESTATION, and that does not
mean the bee inspector. They are your bees, so you make the test. You test everything else like
checking for a fever with a thermometer, checking the dip stick of your car's oil, checking your
dog for worms; so surely you can check your bees. HOW? There are TWO different ways: A)
The sticky board test which is the most accurate, but the most work and requires the use an an
Apistan Strip., and 2) The ether roll test that kills about 300-500 of your bees (and even your
queen if you are not observant) and is not very accurate, but gives an indication. I will describe
both tests.

Sticky Board Test: Cut a piece of cardboard, masonite, or thin plywood about 1/2" smaller than
the inside measurements of your bottom board. Also, cut a piece of freezer paper and 1/8"
hardware cloth or screen wire to about the same size. Spray PAM (a cooking oil) on one side of
the freezer paper and lay it flat on the piece of card- board, place about 4-5 spacers (each about
1/4" high) at the corners and center of the paper, and place the hardware cloth or screen on top of
these spacers. (The spacers are present to keep the bees from being stuck on the paper or
removing any mites that fall on the paper.) Insert all of this on the hive bottom board. Now insert
one or two Apistan strips between the brood chamber frames, and leave for 24 hours. If you can
count 100 mites or more on the sticky paper after a 24 hour test, your bees are badly infected and
should be treated with 2 Apistan strips in each brood body immediately and with NO SUPERS
ON THE COLONY; and the word "immediately" does not mean next week or next month or
your bees might be dead by then. Once a colony is so infested that collapsing is close at hand,
emergency treatment is needed to save it.

Ether Roll Test: Scrape or shake about 300 bees off of 3 or 4 brood combs near the center of the
brood nest into a quart jar. Shake them to the bottom of the jar and spray them for just 1 or 2
seconds with ether, engine starting fluid which immediately kills both the bees and mites. Close
the jar and shake it vigorously for 30 seconds, then hold the jar in a horizonal position and roll it
a few times. Most of the mites will be dislodged and stick to the sides of the glass jar where they
can be easily counted. This test is not nearly as accuate as the Sticky Board Test, but it does give
a crude indica- tion of mite infestation. If you find more that 15-20 mites in the jar, immediate
Apistan treatment should be started

It should be noted that Varroa infestation is temperature dependent because colder areas have
less brood time than warm or hot areas. Hence, areas near the Canandian border usually only
require one Apistan Treatment each year preferably in the late fall or early spring. Contrastingly,
areas in the South like Florida or Texas will require two separate Apistan treatments each year.
In the Maryland area, a good 8 week apistan treatment beginning October 1st and ending about
Thanksgiving is usually sufficient each year, but colonies should be tested by either the Sticky
Board Test or the Ether Roll Test on March 1st and again about July 4th and treated again with
Apistan if the test indicates a high mite infection.

If you lose your bees because your laziness prevented testing, you not only will have to spend
about $50 next spring for a new package of bees, but those bees will not produce much honey for
you for that entire year. TEST FOR VARROA IN JULY!

Proper Use of the Imirie Shim

Ever since my shim was endorsed and put on the commercial market, many users have contacted
me by phone, E-mail, or letter asking me for advice about some problem with their beekeeping;
and they use their purchase of the shim as a "justification" for contacting me. Let me say LOUD
AND PUBLICLY that no one needs any justification to ask me for help with their bee problems
provided that they are indeed attempting to UPGRADE their knowledge, and not to argue the
merits of the BEST bee, annual or biennial requeening, or the use of Terramycin.

However, I have found that many of these inquirers are using the shim for some purpose that has
little to do with its intended purpose and hence my reason for its use; and then I am chastised or
insulted that the shim "does not work" or it "makes new problems". The ONLY purpose for the
shim is to relieve brood chamber congestion by providing ingress and egress to the SUPER
AREA and the shim should only be on a colony when supers are in place! It should NOT BE
USED in the BROOD AREA! It should NOT BE USED as an upper entrance in the fall or
winter. It should not be used between supers of FOUNDATION (which is far different from
DRAWN COMB). The shim should never be in contact with a queen excluder!

The proper use of a shim is as follows: Use with supers of DRAWN COMB only. Put 2 supers
over the queen excluder, then add a shim, add a 3rd and a 4th super, then add another shim, add a
5th super, install the inner cover that has an upper entrance made into the edge of it, and top this
off with the telescoping cover and a brick..

The shim is 3/4" inch high, and hence its placement is defying the "rules" of BEE SPACE, and
bees will build BURR comb on top of frames if the shim is used IMPROPERLY, particularly if
it is used in the brood area. If the shim is placed between supers of FOUNDATION, the bees
(having no construction blueprints) will build burr comb within the 3/4" inch space of the shim,
and "weld" the upper super to the lower super with burr comb as they draw foundation.

Lastly, and this should be very instructional for some readers: If you are using DRAWN COMB
in your supers, but you are still getting burr comb built in the shim space, the bees are really
trying hard to tell you something, and that is: WE NEED MORE SUPER SPACE! It is hard
work, time consuming, and requires a lot of nectar EATING for bees to build comb; and, hence,
if your bees have plenty of drawn comb super space for them to temporarily unload lots of nectar
for storage until they can ripen it into thick honey, the bees will not trouble themselves to build
burr comb in the shim area between supers of empty drawn comb!

I have been using my shim for 30-40 years on all my colonies supered for extracted honey
production with little or no burr comb construction; and it materially helps in the two things I
designed it to do: Aid in swarm prevention because it relieves brood chamber congestion from
forager bees, and increases honey production because foraging bees can enter and leave the
colony via the shim entrances directly into the super area faster than using the bottomboard
entrance.

Install shims when supers are installed, and remove shims when supers are harvested.

Robbing and Being MAD go together!

August 1999
Back in those "pre-historic" days of 1933 when I started beekeeping, most bees were on farm
properties and tended by the farmers of that day. Hence, who was really bothered or even knew
about MAD, STINGING BEES when they were under 1-2 acres of orchard trees on a 200 acre
farm? Just "another one of those CHANGING TIMES" that I often have to talk about to our
primarily URBAN society of today.

So that you and I "are on the same page", I am NOT referring to harvesting your honey crop as
"robbing". I am referring to foraging bees, upon finding no nectar in the field. but detecting the
strong odor of lots of nectar or honey in a neighboring colony, fights with the colonies guard
bees and even kills the colony residents in order to STEAL those "golden goodies" and take this
sweet liquid to her colony.

For many diverse reasons, often a hobbyist beekeeper has colonies of totally different population
strength almost side by side in the same apiary. The very genetic nature of the worker bee
dictates that she collects honey ANY place she can find it and bring it home to provide winter
stores for her colony. She does not recognize privacy or "stealing" something that has been
gathered and kept by others as "wrong", but rather she is genetically trained to TAKE what ever
she can get for the good of her colony, and if TAKING causes a fight with the bees of another
colony, then she is going to FIGHT, KILL, or BE KILLED in the struggle to gain that property.
Surely, it does not require rocket science knowledge to understand that it is fairly easy for a large
established colony of perhaps 30,000 bees to overwhelm and kill a new colony of perhaps only
10,000 bees, "robbing out" all the nectar and honey stored in the small colony and storing it away
in the big colony.

Like so many other mistakes, generally robbing is caused by the BEEKEEPER who does
something STUPID, like leaving honey exposed to all the bees in the neighborhood, setting a
frame on the ground and letting it drip honey in the grass, feeding sugar syrup improperly so it
leaks and runs outside the hive, or using damaged hive bodies so that there are cracks between
bodies large enough to allow bee entry and hence the guard bees have too any places to defend.
Being simplistic, when there is a natural dearth of honey (like July and August in Maryland), the
beekeeper meticulously cleans up any spills of honey, and certainly never leaves a super or brood
body OPEN where it can be easily entered by any number of bees from any place in the
neighborhood. You just be a GOOD HOUSEKEEPER, and quickly clean up anything out of
place that even smells like honey.

Once you have witnessed a bad robbing foray, you will never forget it. NOR WILL YOUR
NEIGHBORS. NOR WILL THE POLICE. NOR WILL THE ZONING BOARD. NOR WILL
THE LAWYERS. I don't think that these things are exactly "your cup of tea".

PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER

I don't like things left until the last minute, particularly when you positively know that cold
weather is surely coming and we might have frost in October and surely in November. Maybe
you have someone to put up your storm windows, add antifreeze to your boat engine or your car,
get your boots, gloves, scarfs,sleds, and skiis down from the attic, cook your Thanksgiving
turkey, and do your Christmas shopping; but I will bet that you have to prepare your bee colonies
for the winter all by yourself! Hence, let me help you by telling you WHAT I do and give you
the REASONS why I do it.

STORES:
In our Maryland weather, I like to have 70 pounds of honey on the colony before November 1st.
If we have a long winter of continuous cold and very few days of temperatures over 50 degrees,
70 pounds of honey is more than enough to last until the spring nectar flow. However, if we have
one of these "warm" winters where the tempera- ture goes up and down like a yo-yo and there
are quite a few days that the temperature goes over 50 degrees or even 60 or 70, this is very
stressful on the bees and they break cluster and have to re-cluster, even start early brood rearing,
go out on cleansing flights, fly long distances hunting nectar or pollen for brood rearing, and all
this activity really uses of 70 pounds of honey rapidly, even requiring additional feeding in late
winter. Many beekeepers depend on the fall flow of goldenrod and/or aster honey for winter
stores. However, it is not unusual that these two floral sources don't yield nectar some years, but
this honey crystallizes rather quickly which makes it poor quality for winter stores. I much prefer
feeding heavy (2:1) sugar syrup for winter stores because it will remain liquid and the absence of
certain minerals found in the fall honeys lessen the chance of dysentery with the bees. What
could be worse than loose bowels when it is too cold to go outside for a cleansing flight? Heavy
(2:1) sugar syrup is 10 pounds of granulated sugar dissolved in 5 pints of BOILING water (and
that water has to be really boiling to dissolve the sugar (not just hot water, but 212 degree
BOILING water). I cheat a little bit (just to make the job slightly easier) by dissolving 15 pounds
sugar (3 five pound bags) in 1 gallon of BOILING WATER. (1 gallon = 8 pints = 8 pounds of
water). DON'T EVER FEED YOUR BEES ANY HONEY EXCEPT YOUR OWN HONEY,
because it might be filled with American oul Brood spores! (Most commercial honey is loaded
with AFB bacteria, because the bees are normally treated with Terramycin which just hides the
AFB symptoms, but does not CURE AFB. That is why I hate Terramycin and refuse to use it.)

How much is 70 pounds of Honey? Depending on the thickness of the comb, a deep frame holds
about 6 pounds of honey, so your colony needs about 12 deep frames of honey to equal 72
pounds. If you keep your bees in all Illinois boxes (with 6 1/4" frames) like I do, each frame
holds about 4 pounds of honey, so you need about 18 frames to make 72 pounds of honey.

Let me mention something rarely mentioned. CLUSTERED bees move UP, but have difficulty
spreading sideways. Hence, it is far wiser to have all FULL frames of honey stored near the
center of the hive, like frames 3,4,5,6,7,&8 of each box, while frames 1,2,9,&10 of each box are
empty or partially filled.

Another fact: a colony of 2 deep bodies ready for winter should have a gross weight of about 130
pounds, whereas a colony of 3 Illinois boxes ready for winter should have a gross weight of
about 145 pounds.

Don't wait for cold weather when the bees can NOT cure or properly distribute their stores in the
colony space. If you are going to use 2:1 sugar syrup, start feeding in the warmth of September,
so the bees can handle it properly!

TREATMENTS:
I assume that you have followed my advice and installed 50 grams of MENTHOL in the brood
chamber between August 15th and August 31st. As I have clearly stated, installation AFTER
August is usually NOT EFFECTIVE, because the temperature is not warm enough to convert the
solid menthol into a gas (vapor) that the bees breathe to kill the microscopic tracheal mites in
their lungs. If you find your colony dead in late December or January, but the hive still has
plenty of honey, there is a 90% chance that your bees died of tracheal mite infestation; and you
will remember in future years to install menthol in August to kill the mites. Although September
is very, very late to start treating with grease patties in place of menthol, because the cost is so
small, you might try. Just make a "big hamburger" pattie from 2 parts of granulated sugar mixed
with1 part of Crisco shortening and place it on the frame top bars of the bottom hive body, and
replace it as soon as it is gone, maybe in October or November. The successful use of grease
patties in place of menthol requires their presence in the colony 365 days of the year, even during
your nectar flows. Their use is quite labor intensive; but Dr. Diana Sammataro Ph.D. thesis
showed that continuous use of plain grease patties pre- vented the extensive breeding of the
tracheal mite (but not kill it) so that a colony could survive and function, although not at full
strength. Too many beekeepers ASSUME their bees are free of tracheal mites, because they are
microscopic and can not be seen; and hence their bees die. Tracheal mites are still out there from
Maine to California, so kill them with menthol.

Varroa mites have now been seen by almost everyone (ugly, aren't they); but not everyone has
accepted the best TIME or TIMES to treat for them. Worse than that, unfor- tunately, there are
some lazy, know-it-all, hard-headed, socalled "experts" that OVER TREAT with Apistan strips
by using too many, or particularly, leaving them in the colony TOO LONG, which is longer than
42 days (6 weeks). As a result, some mites have become resistant to fluvalinate, the active
chemical in a Apistan strip, and the strips no longer are effective and the bees die. It is my
contention that this beeHAVER (proof he is not a beeKEEPER) killed his bees by not following
directions on the label, or what scientists like me have explained ad nauseum. I'll do it again:
Varroa mites are MOST active and can produce new mites faster than bees can be produced
during the heavy brood rearing time of a colony. Contrary to this, since varroa mite eggs are
layed in the late stages of bee larva development and uses this bee larva as food to develop into
an adult varroa mite, the most effective time to kill varroa mites so they can't reproduce is when
there is no bee larva to serve as their food host. In Maryland, generally the queen is "taking a
break", slowing down her egg laying in October and curtailing all egg laying for about 6 weeks
from November 15th to about January 1st. Hence, THIS IS THE BEST TIME TO GET THE
MAXIMUM KILL OF VARROA MITES. Therefore, put 4 strips of Apistan (2 in each brood
chamber hive body) in your colony on October 1st and REMOVE them after 6 weeks (Nov 12).
If it is below 50 degrees on November 12th, the bees are clustered, so wait a few days until it
warms and the bees break cluster so it is easy to remove the strips. If you are one of those who
can't take time off from work and only do bee work on weekends, perhaps you should not have
bees, but you MUST remove those strips even if you have to break the cluster. Not following
these directions is UNFAIR to the beekeepers who are acting correctly, because you might be
creating resistant mites that can destroy my bees or other duty bound beekeepers. I have been
using this treatment of placing my strips in my colonies on October 1st for over 10 years in all of
my 100+ colonies in 4 counties and two states, rarely having to ever make any 2nd treatment,
and have never lost a colony to varroa mites, so I know that a single 6 week long treatment
beginning October 1st and ending about November 12th works very well.

How do I average 132 pounds of honey per colony each year and you don't? Are your bees
slightly sick with an upset stomach or loose bowels? How well can you work if you suffer an
intestinal upset? Bee researchers and scientists estimate that about 60% of all the hived bees in
the country have NOSEMA disease, a gut infection that often appears in the spring after a winter
confinement. Although this disease rarely kills a colony, it surely weakens it and shortens the
already short 42 day life expectancy of the worker bee. Just one chemical, fumagillin, has been
found effective for prevention and control of nosema disease. This is packaged under the name
Fumidil-B, and the suggested dose is to feed 2 gallons of 2:1 heavy sugar syrup containing 2
rounded teaspoons of Fumidil-B in the fall. I like to start this feeding anytime after October 1st
so the bees will store it away for winter feed and hence get the benefit of being treated almost
every day during the winter confinement as they eat this food. It costs about $2.00 per colony per
year, and if that keeps my bees from feeling sick so they can collect 132 pounds of honey each
spring, then that $2.00 expense turns into many extra dollars of honey receipts.

WEATHER:
Forget you anthropomorphic thinking and forget trying to warm a bee hive like you warm your
house. Bees have been doing fine when man lived in caves. Your major concerns are WIND and
DAMPNESS. Your hives should not be subject to the prevail- ing northwest winds that also
bring rain and snow. If they are not already shielded by some natural barrier, make a temporary
artificial one with snow fence or something to break down the wind force. Surely, you have
entered a long closed up house like a beach house and it felt damp, cold, and dreary; and you
remedied that by throwing open the doors and windows and let it "air out". Provide the SAME
THING for your bees which are cluster confined in the winter, by providing an UPPER
ENTRANCE with a slot in the front edge of the inner cover. Warm air rises and the bee's breath
is both warm and damp with moisture, just like yours, so an upper entrance allows hive
ventilation letting this damp air escape the colony to outside; and the bees keep warm by
clustering rather than having their whole hive interior warm. I do not believe in constricting the
bottom board entrance with an entrance reducer or turning the bottom board over, because I think
good ventilation is far more important that reducing entrance space. After all, feral bees living in
a hollow tree don't change their entrance space when winter arises.

One item often forgotten is to make sure the colony tilts slightly forward, so that rain water does
not run in the front door and puddle on the floor.

MICE:
In cold weather, what place could be nicer than a nice quiet, dry, wind-free, secure home than a
beehive for a field mouse? Further, if the mouse is pregnant, surely she will make her nursery
within the protection of hollowed out brood frame. Mice have sharp teeth and can gnaw away
wood to enlarge the open space of your wooden entrance reducer to let mice in. I go to the
hardware store and buy 1/2" hardware cloth (rat wire), cut a piece to about 14 3/4" long and 2-3"
high and staple it with 4 staples to the hive front over the entrance. This allows plenty of space
for bees to enter and exit, it breaks up strong wind, and keeps mice out of the colony. These
should be put on in October before "mother mouse" starts looking for a nice dry wind-free winter
home.
QUEEN EXCLUDERS, BEE ESCAPES, "stupid" BOARDMAN FEEDERS, and
other add-ons:
None of these should be on a hive during the winter, particularly the queen excluder (that is why
mine are paited RED) unless you want a dead queen in late winter as the cluster has move up to
get more honey leaving thequeen on the wrong side of the excluder. Boardman feeders are
absolutely useless in the winter, because bees cannot leave the warm cluster and walk
"downstairs" to get some sugar syrup.

Lastly, remove all the weeds, trim the grass, make it look like a well managed apiary, and don't
forget to put a brick on the top of each colony to keep a strong wind from blowing their "hat"
away. Now go and watch football on TV.
Montgomery County Fair THANKS!
The FAIR is over and it was a great success due to the volunteer help from about 40 of you
members, even some first year beekeepers. I am not going to name all the help, because they
know how much it was appreciated plus I think they enjoyed it. However, I do want to mention 3
people. The decorum and items shown at Old MacDonalds Barn was created and done by Master
Beekeeper Barry Thompson and it certainly deserves THANKS from every member of MCBA.
Barry, it was OUTSTANDING! JoAnne Leatherman, the FAIR Director, was concerned about
the effect of the sun on my bees in the screen cage DEMO BOOTH, so she suggested moving it
to the shade in Farmer's Triangle. Not only was their little bee death, but I had crowds of over
100 people at some of the 3 demonstrations each day, which was far, far better than previous
years. Knowing of Jimmie Powell's enthusiasm, I suggested that he help me on Tuesday night,
and he agreed but said that he had to wear a veil and not be "naked" like me. I got him in the
cage and his enthusiasm overuled his temerity and he opened the colony, found the queen,
moved the bees around with his bare fingers, and FORGET TO PUT HIS VEIL ON! Of course,
neither of got stung because Jimmie has paid attention to my teaching and did nothing wrong. On
Friday night, "about to be Master Beekeeper Susie Robinson" appeared, and after performing 3
times a day for 7 days, I needed a rest. So I asked Susie if she would make the DEMO while I
went home to bed. Several reported to me that she did a wonderful job and entertained a large
audience with her talk, knowledge, and performing in T-shirt and shorts. That is why Susie will
be our next (10th) Master Beekeeper.

If there was any disappointment, it was the absence of honey and honey related entries in Fair
competition. We have talked about it for months, I have written about it, Bill Miller has offered
free transportation of entries to Howard County Fair, our Montgomery County Fair, and the
Maryland State Fair, and still there were less entries than previous years. The drought hasn't been
that bad. My bees averaged 4 supers per colony, but I did not make any entries in fear of being
accused of UNFAIRNESS. Gosh, I should have entered and won a lot of that prize money.

I hope you get thinking about next year. I already have made some serious plans, and my age and
stroke disablement indicate that I have earned the right to take it easy. However, as long as
beeHAVERS need help, the public needs to be informed about the value of honey bee pollination
to our human food supply, and the nice people I meet, I am going to keep "working at the FAIR".

My Thoughts about Bee Diseases, Mites, and Pests

There are volumes written by hundreds of authors on these subjects and no one has the time or
fortitude to read all of them. Hence, to make it simple, at the request of many beekeepers, I will
write a simplistic, but explanatory, outline of the diseases, mites, and pests that have to be dealt
with in Central Maryland (the Baltimore-Washington DC area).
BACTERIAL DISEASES - American Foulbrood and European Foulbrood
AFB was such a major problem back in World War I days when it was estimated that 1 out of
every 3 colonies in the country were infected with this highly infectious disease that the Federal
Government initiated our present bee inspection program in 1922 in an attempt to control and
stop the spread of AFB. As you know, over the past 20-30 years, most states have eliminated
AFB to about 1-2% of the colonies inspected. However, even in 1999, there is NO KNOWN
CURE FOR AFB. Further, the only known methods of killing the AFB spore that has infected
the wood of a hive body are drastic and difficult: Char the surface of the wood with fire, boil the
wood in a solution of lye, irradiate the wood with Cobalt 60 radiation or high energy electrons,
or in Maryland, Maine, and North Carolina the wood can be sterilyzed with ethylene oxide gas
by our Bee Inspection Department. Note that I did not mention Terramycin, because Terramycin
WILL NOT KILL the AFB spore. Terramycin only has the ability to CONTROL the spread of
AFB, but once started, its use has to be continued at least once each year, but all honey, wax,
frames, bottom boards, hive bodies, and even your clothes, hive tool, and smoker are infected
with active AFB spores which, of course, infect any new bees you might buy or obtain.
Terramycin ONLY CONTROLS AFB just as a shot of insulin every day can control diabetes in
humans, but the human dies of diabetes if the daily insulin shots are stopped.

Personally, I do not believe in the use of Terramycin and have never used it in my 66 years of
beekeeping. I want my bees, my honey, and my wooden ware free of disease; and hence, when
one of my colonies becomes infected with AFB by coming in contact with a diseased bee or
infected feral honey, I recognize the problem quickly, destroy the bees, treat the wooden ware
with Maryland's ethylene oxide, and the rest of my apiary remains nice and CLEAN of disease.

I suggest do exactly whatever your bee inspector suggests if either he or you find AFB in one of
your colonies, but I hope he does not suggest using Terramycin, particularly if your bees are
close to mine.

European Foulbrood can be treated with Terramycin for control and REQUEENING will
generally cure EFB because there is NO spore as there is with AFB.

FUNGUS:
In recent years, more and more cases of CHALKBROOD DISEASE are seen. This is easily
identified when you see hard (chalk like) bodies of brood (pupa) out on the doorstep of the
bottom board or see these same hard bodies still in the brood comb.

There is no chemotherapeutic agent to treat this disease. It is believed that certain stocks of bees
are more prone than other stocks to become infected with chalkbrood disease, and hence
requeening with a queen of different stock is indicated.

PROTOZOAN:
Nosema disease is by far the most widespread of all adult bee diseases. It has been estimated that
has many as 60% of all bee colonies have nosema disease present in the spring. Although
nosema will rarely kill a colony, it will dramatically weaken the colony so that the colony does
not produce the honey that it would be capable of producing if it were disease free. Nosema is a
disease of the GUT and it tends to give the bee "loose bowels", which weakens the bee and
shortens its life. Ask yourself: Can you do a GOOD DAY'S WORK when you have loose
bowels? Unfortunately, most hobbyist beekeepers are not aware of nosema disease and overlook
it resulting in poor honey crops. It is easily treated and inexpensive too. Feed 2 gallons of 2:1
sugar syrup to a colony in October and November with each gallon containing a rounded
teaspoon of Fumidil-B dis- solved in it. This costs about $2/colony and the bees should be free of
nosema until next fall.
PARASITIC MITES:
Two mites, the microscopic tracheal mite and the more serious Varroa mite , which were first
found in the United States in 1984 and 1987 have become a major problem for all beekeepers.
They are found in 49 of our 50 states, in all counties, and have killed over 90% of all the
untreated colonies in the country. The biggest problem is that the CORRECT treatment of either
of these mites necessitates a totally different management technique, particularly treatment
TIME DATES, than what beekeepers are used to or what books written prior to about 1990 state.
Hence, many GOOD beekeepers, stubbornly refusing to change management style, have lost
80% or 90% of their total colonies in just one year. In some areas, depending on the nectar
source, a beekeeper must make a simple decision, i. e., "Either treat for mites at the time
specified and lose some of my honey crop, OR lose my bees!" It just doesn't get any more simple
than that! Hence, let me talk about the only proper way to treat for both of these mites.

The tracheal mite is invisible to the human eye, and is born and lives in the trachea of the bee.
Think of the trachea as your lungs, and then think about a human whose lungs don't work very
well because of emphysema disease and he is literally strangling. The mites reproduce in the
bee's trachea, and finally just stop the bee from breathing and it dies. The ONLY APPROVED
chemical by the government to kill the tracheal mite is menthol. Menthol works and works well,
but it MUST BE USED IN WARM WEATHER! Menthol is a solid crystal that sublimes (goes
from solid to gas without becoming liquid) at 85 degrees. Hence, in our central Maryland area,
menthol MUST BE installed in the brood area about AUGUST 15th, BUT BEFORE
SEPTEMBER 1st. If menthol is installed after September 1st, there is little chance of subliming
into a gas that the bees can breathe into their trachea to KILL the tracheal mites, and the bees die
usually in January leaving lots of honey and the menthol crystals still in the hive. The bag of 50
grams of menthol should be placed on the tops of the frames of the LOWEST brood chamber on
August 15th and left there until you remove the bag the following spring. If you are definitely
NOT going to use any honey for HUMAN CONSUMPTION, but keep it just for bee feed, you
can install the menthol on August 15th even with supers still on; but removing that honey for
human food is just inviting the inspection and punishment to YOU by the Federal or State
Govern- ment food authorities. Contrary to anything you have heard, menthol works and works
well but it has to be present when daytime temperatures will hit 85 degrees for several days after
the menthol is installed!

If you don't want to use menthol, you can try the labor intensive use of grease patties
scientifically studied by Dr. Diana Sammataro. Grease patties are made of 1 pound of CRISCO
mixed with 2 pounds of table sugar and shaped into hamburger size patties, which are placed on
top of brood frames and replaced as needed all 12 months of the year, even during a nectar flow.
Unlike menthol, grease patties do NOT kill the tracheal mites butjust control their population by
confusing the mite as to which bee to select as its host to invade its trachea. This method works
provided that you often inspect the brood chamber to see if an old pattie needs replacement ALL
12 MONTHS OF THE YEAR . Don't be a "wise guy" and think you can start using grease
patties in late August, replace them once or twice in the fall, make some fall honey and think
your bees are going to survive the tracheal mite infestation; because your bees probably will not
survive the winter. Since grease patties do not KILL the mites, but just confuse them, the
treatment has to be used for many months in advance of winter to lower the mite population to a
NON-LETHAL number that allows your bees to live through the winter. But even further, since
grease patties do NOT kill tracheal mites, even if your bees make it through the winter, they are
"sick" enough from mite infection that they have a difficult time developing into a strong colony
that can make you a fine crop of honey.

Unless you are just "bent on" getting some of that quick crystallizing goldenrod or aster fall
honey, I suggest that you make your honey crop between April and August, install menthol on
August 15th which KILLS about 95% of all tracheal mites, and look forward to a strong colony
in the spring that can produce another record yield of honey; and forget any other suggestions for
tracheal mite curtailment until research scientists can prove the value of something else.

In spite of the fact that the varroa mite is highly visible to humans, it has proven itself the more
serious of the two mites primarily because beekeepers just can't seem to follow simple directions,
don't bother to treat, treat at the wrong times, or treat with an ineffective material. This is like a
hunter hiding in a duck blind but having a lead slug in his gun shells instead of bird shot; or a
fisherman with bait, hooks, and sinker for bottom fishing when the fish are up "breaking" on the
surface feeding on schools of surface fish. You don't have to inspect your bees to see if they are
infected with varroa mites, because almost every colony in the country has Varroa mites. There
is little guesswork about the choice of treatment, since Apistan works very effectively in
probably over 95% of all the areas of our country and when used at the time designated by
research scientists. There are ONLY A FEW spots in the whole country where varroa mites have
been found truly resistant of Apistan, and this resistance has generally been caused by beekeeper
abuse of written label directions, particularly that one that says "NEVER LEAVE ON MORE
THAN 42 DAYS OR ALL WINTER". On three separate occasions, I did sticky board tests for
mites "supposedly resistant to Apistan"; and using MY Apistan strips, I proved that the mites
were not resistant to Apistan; but the beekeeper had bought the Apistan strips several years ago
and left them laying open in the heat and sunlight of his truck or garage and another beekeeper
who was trying to use the strips a second time after washing them. A pamphlet put out by the
American Association of Professional Apiculturists clearly describes the whole theory behind the
population increase of varroa mites and when to treat a colony to kill these mites in different
parts of the country. Briefly, one female mite can lay eggs in one bee cell and either 2 or 3 mites
are produced from that one bee cell. Hence, when the bees are quickly building a large bee
population in the spring and early summer, the varroa mite population is developing FASTER
than the bee population and sooner or later, maybe in August, the colony which just made a
record crop of honey before July 4th, suddenly COLLAPSES AND DIES! The fact that the eggs
of the mites are layed with a 4 day old bee larva and feeds off the capped bee pupa as its host,
sometimes killing or disabling the new bee, it is obvious that the sudden growth of mites
increases rapidly with heavy bee brood pro- duction. Compared to almost constant queen laying
in the warm southern states, there is just a short time of heavy brood production in the cooler
northern states. This means that Maine bees can be protected by just one treatment with Apistan,
whereas Florida bees may require 3 different treatments. The time of year Apistan treatment is
VERY important to gain the best results with the least use of Apistan on the bees. Obviously, the
BEST time to use Apistan to KILL varroa mites so they cannot reproduce rapidly is when there
is little or no bee brood to serve as host to the mites. In Maryland, queens are normally not laying
very much in October and almost nothing in November. Hence, I install Apistan on October 1st
and remove it on November 15th; and this treatment during this time of almost no bee brood
results in very few varroa mites being present to produce mite brood in the spring and early
summer. Hence, I have rarely found any need for any other Apistan treatment except this one
annual treatment done in October and early November.

There seems to be a reluctance on the part of many to open a hive in November to remove
Apistan strips; and yet many of these same people use division board feeders which certainly
require hive opening for refilling. In central Maryland, normally there are quite a few days in
November that the temperature gets to 50 degrees or above, and it is certainly easy to dash home,
open a 2 or 3 story colony and snatch out 2 or 4 strips of Apistan in less than a minute. UNDER
NO CIRCUMSTANCES, DO NOT LEAVE THESE STRIPS IN THE COLONY UNTIL NEXT
SPRING. If you do, your name should be well published to all beekeepers that maybe it was
YOUR NEGLIGENCE that created mites resistant to Apistan!

You use a thermometer to see it you have a fever, you pull your automobile's dipstick to check
your crankcase oil, you test your garden soil for acidity with a pH meter to make sure that your
vegetables or flowers grow well, and your doctor weighs you to see if you are overweight. Why
then, don't you TEST for mites to ascertain just how badly your bees are infected? There are
TWO simple tests: the ether roll test and the sticky board test. Although many people, and our
bee inspectors, use the Ether roll test because it is done instantly, I don't like it or use it, because
it is not accurate enough, it kills several hundred bees, and there is a chance of killing the queen.
I make a Sticky Board test on each colony on March 1st and July 1st. I do not bother to test on
Oct. 1st , because I am positively going to start Apistan treatment on that date.

What is a Sticky Board Test? Cut a piece of freezer paper to slightly less than the inside bottom
board measurements, about 14" x 19" and spray one side of that paper with PAM. Slide it on to
the bottom board. Add a screen of 1/8" hardware cloth on top of the sticky surface (elevate the
screen bout 1/4" with spacers) to prevent the bees from getting stuck themselves and prevent
them from removing mites that have fallen on the paper. Place either 1 or 2 Apistan strips in the
active brood area. REMOVE both the Sticky paper and the Apistan strips after just 24 hours and
count the mites on the sheet. If the mite count exceeds 100, immediately start an Apistan strip
treatment of the colony with NO honey supers on the colony! Test for just 24 hours, not 30 or 48,
but 24! If you have done a GOOD six weeks treatment last October and November, your March
1st test might only show 5-10 mites and your July 1st test might only show 40-60 mites, so you
don't have do any Apistan treatment in March or July, because you had done a great job in
October and November. However, suppose your July 1st test came up with 250 mites, indicating
a high infestation; and you want to make some honey from basswood and alfalfa during July and
August. Remove all honey supers, install 4 Apistan strips among the brood, leave them there just
7-10 days, remove the strips, and re-install your honey supers. Let me explain: Your normal
Apistan treatment of 6 weeks is designed to cover all the mites that might be present during two
21 day bee brood cycles. However, the greatest kill of mites is the first 24 hours the strips are
present, and the kill rate diminishes exponentially each day after the installation. Hence, a 7-10
Apistan treat- ment kills a very large number of adult mites, but does not kill all or any of the
mite eggs or larva that are sealed in capped bee cells feeding on bee pupa. However, this
emergency treatment, although labor intensive and costing extra Apistan strips, may save your
bees from death, and also allow you to make a late honey crop. However, you still MUST make
the full 6 week Apistan treatment in October and November and using NEW, FRESH Apistan
strips!

I want to end this writing about mites by saying: Both the tracheal and varroa mites are in 49 of
our 50 states and will continue to destroy our bees until our research scientists find better ways to
destroy them. Until that time, you are very foolish to use any treatment except menthol for the
tracheal mite and Apistan for the varroa mite unless our Department of Bee Inspection reports
some additional APPROVED treatments. I do not love my bees like I love my family, my dog,
my cat, or my horses; but I do love what these insects can DO for me by pollinating my garden
and my ornamentals as well as providing me with that "nectar of the Gods" - honey. Hence, I
will try to provide for their health with the same zeal I use to keep my family and pets healthy. I
hope that you feel the same way.

PESTS: The Greater Wax Moth, and ???

Often, we hear someone say "wax moths killed my bees last winter". How WRONG they are!
Some phase of wax moths, either adult, larva, or egg, are probably in every colony of bees in the
country. However, a healthy colony of bees destroys or controls the adults and larvae so that we
rarely see either of them. However, the wax moth eggs are always present and will develop into
destructive larvae if or when the bee population becomes so weak that it cannot maintain
surveillance over all parts of the colony. Hence, any situation from disease, loss of a queen,
starvation, or "what-have-you" that de-populates the colony or weakens it, the here-to-fore latent
wax moths appear on the scene and take over feasting on left-behind pupal sacs in the brood
frames and tunnel their way through the wax frames getting from one pupal sac to another. Wax
moths are only active in warm temperatures and prefer dark closed spaces. Frames of DRAWN
COMB can be protected from wax moth damage by being closed up tight with PDB, para-
dichloro-benzene and kept from extraction until next spring's use, when they can placed in a
colony after just "airing out" for 24-48 hours. These frames of DRAWN COMB are a
beekeeper's MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION!

Now let me mention the worst pest of all, which I referred to above as ???. The dictionary
defines a PEST as: something or someone that is annoying or troublesome. When a beekeeper
removes a center brood frame without first making space by removing frame number 1 or 2, he
may "roll" the queen and kill her. When the second story brood frames are filled with brood, but
the first story frames are empty, the bees swarm because the beekeeper had not reversed the
brood boxes. The bees have made 2 supers of honey, built burr comb under the inner cover and
swarm, because the beekeeper did NOT provide enough super space. Those "nice" gentle bees of
last year have suddenly become mean and nasty, but the queen "appears to be allright"; but if she
is not marked, how do you know whether she is last year's queen? A friend told you that the
nectar flow has begun, so you inspect your colony about twice a week when you get home from
work and use a smoker to quiet them and wear gloves to prevent stingers in your fingers; and
disrupt the bees normal routine for about 24 hours everytime you open the lid. It is still chilly on
April 15th, so you decide to wait until May to add supers, but your bees swarm on April 25th.
You don't like the smell of BEE-GO and you don't have a fume board anyhow, so you remove
honey by brushing the bees off of the frames one at a time, and your neighbors call the police
about your nasty bees in their neighborhood. ETC, ETC, MORE, MORE! What is the
significance of my ??? above, or who is being annoying or troublesome to the bees? It is that
large group of so-called beekeepers that have not bothered to upgrade their beeHAVER
knowledge to that of a beeKEEPER, or that group who still do not believe that "Bees can no
longer be kept like Daddy used to keep bees"! More queens are killed every year by care-less bee
handling than are killed by any other predator or pest. More bees die every year from the lack of
care or disease treatment by beeHAVERS "too busy" to properly take care of their bees than any
other single reason. Back in the days when I started beekeeping in 1933, keeping bees ALIVE
was vitally important because they could provide added income to your $5 -$10 per week salary
IF you had a job. Maybe their livelihood is no longer important, because we all have too many
more important things to do like partying, sport games, vacationing, going to the seashore or the
mountains, or breaking in a new computer. Stamp Collecting might be better for us, because
things don't have to be done on schedule, there are no diseases to contend with, and the
neighbors won't complain or try to "ZONE" my hobby away. But what am going to tell my
Montgomery County farmer friends that I no longer have bees to pollinate their crops FREE?
Am I going to miss the wonderment of adults and their applause as they watch me work my bees,
find and show them the MARKED QUEEN BEE, when I have NO protective clothes on, not
even a veil? Am I going to miss taking one of my observation hives to the schools and explain
the importance of honey bee pollination to the stomachs of those kids, and telling them that
without bees, they may not have orange juice, blueberry muffins, watermelon, or even ice
cream? Lastly, am I the shirker that will give up my "calling" in life of TEACHING
RESPONSIBLE BEEKEEPING just because I have not been able to upgrade as many
beeHAVERS that need upgrading as I would like, taking the "easy" way out by saying " I quit
because a have been disabled by strokes and I am old enough to rest." Hell, NO, I don't want to
die as a loser, and there are many beeHAVERS out there that I can help, so get out of my way,
because I am going to keep on trying to improve their procedures and learn more for my self by
always attending meetings with the scientists, breeders, and truly professional apiculturists.

I TALK TOO MUCH!

George Imirie
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper

Small Hive Beetle Danger Downgraded

Bob Lewis, a member of MCBA, mailed me a news article about a speech given to Nova Scotia
beekeepers by Dr. Hachiro Shimanuki in late August. Shim reported that small beetle
populations were NOT expanding in those states experimenting with beetles, New Jersey,
Minnesota, and Iowa. Further, no new infestations have been found in South Carolina. This was
GOOD NEWS; and then Shim provided the "bad news".

Terramycin has been widely used for 40 years, and RESISTANCE first appeared in European
Foulbrood treatments in Argentina in 1989, and that resistance has been spreading very steadily
ever since. Further, the Bee Parasitic Mite Syndrome is becoming more prominent and little is
known about viruses, their symptoms, or diagnostic measures. However, the last was the worst -
the Cape Bee! Cape Bees are worker bees with the abilty to lay "diploid eggs", so pretty soon
you have a colony of all queens and NO workers! Shim considers the Cape Bee to be the "most
serious problem in beekeeping"; and all that is needed is just one ship from South Africa holding
a hidden swarm which flies ashore as the ship is anchored in a U. S. seaport.

MCBA's Alexis Park is now doing his graduate work under Dr. Dewey Caron at the University
of Delaware hopefully to do honey bee research in the future. We need all the research scientists
to study Honey bees that we can get. Study Hard, ALEXIS!

Pheromones
1) WHAT are they?
2) WHAT do they do?
3) How much do YOU know about them?
4) How important are they for good bee MANAGEMENT?
5) Will they be MORE important for bee management in the 21st century?
6) How much more SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH has to be done?

The word PHEROMONE was first used in regard to honey bees just 40 years ago in 1959.
During the first 35 years, 1959-1984, honey bee research money was steadily being reduced not
only in our federal laboratories, e. g. Beltsville Bee Lab, but much more so in the university
research facilities around the nation. This was due to many things, but surely the fact that all bee
diseases were well under control primarily due to state inspection programs, and the fact that it
was difficult to "sell" the importance of honey bee pollination of our food crops to university
administrations. The arrival of the tracheal mite in 1984 coupled with an almost immediate
multitudinous loss of colonies, followed by the more serious Varroa mite in 1987 materially
altered the subjects of honey bee research almost overnight due to the carnage caused by these
two mites in 49 of our 50 states. The research scientist, particularly the biochemists, biologists,
and organic chemists had to leave the sanctity of their laboratories and work with professional
apiculturists, queen breeders, and even some hobbyist scientists like me to further understand the
natural BEHAVIOR of the honey bee. This research quickly produced Amitraz, Apistan,
Menthol and more recently Formic acid and Coumaphos, which are the ONLY APPROVED
chemicals for use against the mites today. However, perhaps of greater importance, the research
for these colony saving chemicals led to scientists uncovering the role of honey bee pheromones
and some of the chemical formulas that made up these pheromones, so that we can now even
synthesize some of these important chemicals to create artificial pheromones.

I feel strongly that the beekeepers of 21st century will find that knowledge of honey bee
pheromones is as important to successful beekeeping as computers have become to our mode of
life over the past few years, or how the micro wave oven has totally changed our cooking
methods during these same years. Hence, let's talk about these CHANGING TIMES and learn
more about PHEROMONES.

1) WHAT are they?

I am sure that you have told your wife that you loved her; or told your children the evils of
premarital sex; or told your restaurant that "the soup was cold"; or telephoned your distant
parents on Mother's Day; or wrote a letter of explanation to Internal Revenue Service about the
tax deduction you took. You COMMUNICATED! You transferred your thoughts to another
human being by using your voice, or telephone, or by writing a letter. Make a note that this
communication can only be done between members of the same species, and it would fail if you
tried to communicate with your pet canary, cat, hog, a passing deer, or your honey bees.
Pheromones are chemical MESSENGERS, secreted by one honey bee that elicits a behavioral or
physiological response by another honey bee. It is produced as a liquid and transmitted by direct
contact as a liquid or as a gas (a smell as we think of pretty perfume or the stink of a skunk).
Honey bees use pheromones to COMMUNICATE with each other in much the same way we
humans use our voice. This communication is primarily used for the interactions of members of
the same colony; and it is thought (but not yet proven) that the colony is regulated chemically by
the pheromones produced by the queen. We now know that worker bees and drones produce as
well as respond to pheromones, and, equally we know that the queen produces and uses
pheromones considerably more than the other two castes.

Pheromones are NOT single chemicals (unfortunately), but rather a complex mixture of
numerous chemicals in various different percentages of the total. Further, one single pheromone
may have multiple functions, and, in contrast, a single behavioral response probably involves
more than one pheromone. I trust that you will note the intense com- plexity caused by these
many variables; and then when you consider the extremely minute amount of a given chemical
that is a portion of the issue of one bee as a message to the other colony members, you can begin
to appreciate the difficult task presented to a chemist to identify or synthesize these chemicals.
However, technology has had almost exponential growth over the last 50 years, and the chemists
of the next century will identify these now unknown chemicals and even synthesize them. After
all, who had ever heard of atomic energy or fission when I reported to Oak Ridge National Lab
to develop new methods of purifying uranium and man made plutonium 55 years ago in 1944?

Pheromones must be divided into two different classifications: RELEASER pheromones that
trigger an almost immediate behavioral response from the receiving bee; and the PRIMER
pheromones which cause the receiver bee to exhibit an ALTERED BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE
at some future time. Although this division of releaser and primer pheromones is our current
understanding of their actions, it is important to realize that a single pheromone can function as
BOTH a releaser and primer under certain specific conditions.

2) WHAT do they do?

In BROAD generalities, pheromones affect many things, such as: mating, swarming, alarm
behavior, security, social togetherness, sexual attractant, inhibition of queen rearing and ovarian
development in workers, the glue that holds a large population of bees together as a single
functioning unit, a "homing" message to other colony members, queen super- sedure caused by
loss of pheromone, inhibition of queen cell development on the "face" of the comb, and
numerous other actions. Let's talk about the more important pheromone effects. Perhaps the most
important pheromones to most beekeepers are two of the many chemicals produced in the
Mandibular Glands of the Queen:

9-ODA (9-oxo-2-decenoic acid): This chemical not only inhibits queen rearing as well as
ovarian development in worker bees, but is a strong sexual attractant for drones when on a
nuptial flight. It is critical to worker recognition of the presence of a queen in the hive.

9-HDA (9-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid): This chemical promotes stability of a swarm, or a

"calming" influence to the natural excitement of a swarm. These two chemicals, 9-ODA and 9-
HDA, are often referred to as "queen substance". We know that this COMBINATION perform
critical functions of worker retinue formation and development of colony cohesion. It is this
combination that acts as the "glue" that binds all the elements of colony segments, even very
large populations, into a SINGLE functioning colony unit.

A QUEEN LOSES THE ABILITY TO MAKE "QUEEN SUBSTANCE" EVERY DAY OF

HER LIFE AS SHE AGES! Hence, a 12 months old queen is an "OLD" queen who cannot
produce enough queen substance to prevent swarming when the population begins to become
large. This might be "nature's way" of honey bee expansion, but it sure ruins a good honey yield
for that season. A new queen, produced in August or March will rarely swarm in the buildup
period of April, May, and June because they are young enough to produce adequate supplies of
queen substance which prevents swarming.

Often overlooked, is the "footprint pheromone", the oily secretion of the queen's tarsal glands
that is deposited on the comb as the queen walks across them. This pheromone, which also
diminishes as the queen ages, inhibits queen cell construction (thereby inhibiting swarming)

Many beekeepers are familiar with the Nasonov (Nassanoff) Gland Pheromone, and often
remark about seeing bees "scenting". This gland produces at least 7 different terpenoids, the most
abundant being geraniol and citral. These are easily synthesized cheaply and are used as swarm
attractants or "homing" pheromones to a swarm trap. In normal use the worker bees spread the
Nasonov scent when foraging for water to aid other water foragers to the site, "scenting" at the
doorstep of the colony to guide colony bees home, and scenting at a new site during a swarming
procedure to notify other swarm members "Here we are, over here!". The queen is not thought to
produce this pheromone; and is able to utilize her queen substance to aid workers to find her if
need be.

All beekeepers are quite familiar with the STING ALARM, although many are not aware that
this is a pheromonal action. The KOSCHEVNIKOV gland, near the sting shaft, pro- duces an
alarm pheromone consisting of more than 40 chemical compounds, of which isopentyl acetate
(IPA) is note worthy due to its banana odor. When a bee stings you, the stinger and venom sac is
left impaled in your flesh; and the banana odor of the alarm pheromone signals to other workers
to aid in the attack and plant another sting close to the impaled stinger emitting the odor. It is of
interest that IPA inhibits bees from scenting with the Nasonov gland. Hence queenless workers
can find their queen by Nasonov scenting, but release sting alarm pheromones upon finding a
foreign queen, and this IPA is used to promote aggression against an alien queen. Does this
explain why a new queen must be INTRODUCED for several days to a colony before she will be
accepted?

It is known that comb building worker bees synthesize certain oxygenated compounds in the new
comb as they construct it. We now believe that these compounds give freshly prepared wax
comb its characteristic odor that pheromonally stimulate the hoarding behavior of foraging bees.

Drones produce a pheromone that attracts other flying drones to promote the formulation of
drone aggregations at sites suitable for mating with virgin queens.

Believe it or not, there are BROOD pheromones. The presence of brood (both larvae and pupae)
in a colony inhibits the ovarian development in worker bees. Hence, you rarely find evidence of
a laying worker in a colony that still has live brood. Further, nurse bees can readily distinguish
worker and drone larvae and pupae is correlated with the presence of brood recognition
pheromones.

And there are more, and then, MORE; but in 1999, research scientists just have not yet had the
time or funds to delve into these fascinating "mysteries" of "the life of the honey bee". As I have
said many times, it is only now that I regret my advanced age knowing that I will not be on the
scene as science throws light into this now darkened area. Wow, wouldn't it be great to be a
young scientist at the beginning of this 21st century to explore the underpinnings of the ice berg
tip in honey bee pheromones, outer space, medical advancement, and learning to live in the
speed of the computer age.

3) How much do YOU know about pheromones?

If you have made it this far reading my writings, you surely know more than most other
beekeepers. I only hope that I have awakened your appetite to read some more and pheromone
research
4) How important are they to good bee MANAGEMENT?
With a better understanding of pheromones, a beekeeper would have many less swarms, have
higher forager populations, increased honey production, receive less stings, learn to manage bees
without wearing all those hot protective clothes, and find the JOYS OF BEEKEEPING! If all
those things are not enough to excite you to learn more about pheromones, I suggest that you
find another less scintillating hobby like stamp collecting or identification of rocks or something
else that is dead rather than vibrantly alive because of your knowledge and aid to honey bee
survival.
5) Will they be MORE important in honey bee management in the 21st century?
Just ask your neighbors or a group of unknowns on Main Street in America: Do you object to
honey bees on your neighbors lot, or are you allergic to bee stings? America is no longer a rural
country and over 80% of our population are city dwellers. Many adults have never experienced a
single bee sting in their lives, and the Hollywood "terror" films about "killer bees" have made the
American public almost frantic in fear of a single bee sting. Hence, the old saying of "not in my
back yard" comes into play. By you knowing more about pheromones, you will better MANAGE
your bees; and hence, you will have less swarms than now that might wind up in your neighbor's
yard or even under the eaves of his roof. Further, by you working your bees with little or no
protective clothing will demonstrate to the public that their fear of honey bees is unfounded.
Lastly, because of your pheromonal knowledge, your bees will make much more honey because
of your improved management skills, and, hence you will have plenty of honey "gifts" for your
neighbors, church, and clubs.
6) How much more SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH has to be done?
Maybe you can tell me how much more scientific research we have to do before we establish
living facilities on the planet MARS; or how much more until we find a shot that prevents
cancer, or how much more before we can go over to London for lunch and be back home in a
couple of hours. There is a tremendous amount of research yet to be done regarding the role of
pheromones in the life of the honey bee colony, but the hard part, i.e., just knowing that
pheromones play a very important role in the lives of honey bees, is already done. Now, it is just
a matter of finding the money to support pheromonal research among honey bees in our schools
of scientific learning today.

I hope that I have made a good case for you to learn more about the role of pheromones in
beekeeping; and I will give you some time to digest this. Probably my next topic has even greater
bearing on UPGRADING BEEKEEPER'S KNOWLEDGE, and that is:

Understanding BEE BEHAVIOR

More Honey and More Gentle Bees

THAT is what everybody wants to know! HOW does a beekeeper produce more honey, and how
to work his bees with fewer stings! You expect me, or famous Roger Morse, or Mark Winston,
or your local bee group, or the Internet Bee-L just to say a short speech or write a few notes and
THEN you will know. You must be kidding, because IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN!

A surgeon just doesn't learn how to cut with a scalpel; but, he has to learn all about
pharmaceutical drugs so that he prescribe them. An astronaut is not just an accomplished jet-
pilot; but, he as to study astronomy and trigonometry. Your auto mechanic today must
understand fuel injection as well as carburetion and know that 12mm wrench won't turn a 1/2"
nut.

If you really want to be a beeKEEPER rather than just a beeHAVER, so that you can truly
produce more honey than others, work your bees dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, or not have
your bees die of diseases or pests, you will have to LEARN more than putting some supers in
place in the spring and removing them in late summer.
If this article was titled: BEE BEHAVIOR, many of you would have laid it aside for future
reading or even thrown it in the trash. If you were a beeHAVER last year, you will still be a
beeHAVER next year; and you will never find the true JOYS OF BEEKEEPING until you
understand bee behavior! More important, perhaps, will be MY feeling that "I have failed to
upgrade you" from the foolishness of just "having" bees, buying more bees when they die,
wearing a hot suit and gloves, losing swarms, not making at least 100 pounds of honey per
colony each year, and unable to publicly demonstrate your knowledge of bees by performing an
open hive inspection to prove to the neighbors that honey bees are not naturally aggressive.

Let me stop this embarrassing rhetoric, and give you an initial understanding of:

Bee Behavior
Honey bees don't think like humans, nor do they understand ANGER, KINDNESS, GIFTS, STEALING,
CHEATING, INDIVIDUALITY, LOAFING, RETIREMENT or DEATH. Hence, one of the major
mistakes made by bee novices is being anthropomorphic, i.e., ascribing human characteristics to
nonhuman things. Bees think like bees, not like humans! You have to learn to think like a bee, because a
bee can never learn to think like a human. Honey bees do have brains, but their knowledge was "put there
when they were CREATED", and they have minimal learning ability in their short six weeks of life. From
the very instant that they emerge from their wax cell, they know WHAT to do, WHEN to do it, and HOW
to do it! They do NOT have to be taught, shown, or supervised! In contrast, I hope that I can tell you
WHAT you can do and not do, WHEN to do it and not to, and HOW to do it as well as HOW NOT to do
it.

A paramount difference between how we humans think about the prime purpose of our lives as
compared to how a honey bee feels about life is about as different as salt and pepper. Although
humans have many purposes for living, some more important than others, they are far distant
from the single purpose of living of a bee. That single purpose of a worker bee's life is to provide
for the continuation and expansion of the COLONY! COLONY! COLONY! Think about these
examples: A worker bee is "born" on May 1st at the start of the main nectar flow and drops dead
from overwork six weeks later on June 15th. All that nectar she collected was done to provide
honey to get the colony through the coming winter, but she never felt a cold day in her life, and
hence has no idea of what "winter" is. A foraging bee upon smelling the alarm pheromone,
isopentyl acetate, stops foraging, and in order to protect the colony's future, sacrifices her life by
stinging the beekeeper who was disturbing the colony. A worker bee takes part in killing the old
queen, her mother, who is being superseded by a new, younger, highly, virile queen so that the
colony can survive and expand. The great majority of humans think only of themselves "getting
ahead" rather than sacrificing their lives for their sisters or half brother, or "working themselves
to death" to provide for future generations who are not their children or grandchildren. 

BEE BEHAVIOR cannot be studied by OPENING a hive or using SMOKE, because both of
these unnatural things disrupt normal behavior! The use of a glass Observation Hive "opened the
door" to be able to delve into bee behavior; and now in our day of advanced technology, we can
use RADAR and even microchip transmitters. As in so many other areas of life, often repeated
speculation and theories found in the beekeeping literature gradually assumes the status of
FACT, and this stifles further research. WHY investigate something that is ALREADY
"KNOWN"? These assumed FACTS have usually been advanced by well thought of or well
spoken beekeepers who are NOT investigative SCIENTISTS, and these assumed facts delay
research for long periods of time. Like all scientists, I find it interesting that the more we know,
the more we want to know!

Almost 100% of all beekeepers begin their association with apis mellifera with anthropomorphic
thinking, and unfortunately only a few ever fully free themselves of this faulty analysis of the
rationale of apian actions. Such thinking indicates that a bee stings because it is ANGRY; or that
the ability of honey bees to build a perfect wax comb without plans or instruction indicates a bee
is CLEVER; or a bee who works 24 hours each day for the benefit of the colony and dies of
cardiac arrest carrying a heavy load of nectar in flight is AMBITIOUS. Nothing could be further
from the truth! Bees react like biological robots to the stimuli of their environment, because their
nervous system is programmed genetically to react in a prescribed manner. Bees react without
thought or awareness of the mechanisms and consequences of their behavior! Since there is no
"king, president, ruler, boss, supervisor, or teacher" who dictates "who does what and when",
what is it that directs the activities of the colony? We know that it is not the queen, because we
know that the activities of a colony proceed normally for several days in the absence of a queen.
Further, scientists have placed brood combs and a queen cell in an incubator without a single
ADULT bee present, and observed the actions of the bees and queen AFTER they had emerged
from their cells. Although totally deprived of contact with any experienced adult bee, these new
bees behaved EXACTLY in the same manner as a normal colony after the bees become old
enough to behave in normal ways. This is difficult for humans to understand, because we are
NOT programmed at birth, but have to be taught and learn as we age. One can only conclude that
bees are genetically taught and demonstrate the identical behavioral manners in the year 2000 as
they did in the days of Caesar and Cleopatra. Hence, again I say: Since a honey bee basically can
NOT learn anything, a beekeeper can not change anything in the programmed life of a bee. Only
by learning and understanding BEE BEHAVIOR or "thinking like a bee" will a person become a
highly successful beekeeper! 

Why don't you take a "break" here, rest your eyes, get a coke, take a bite of cut comb honey to
give you energy and then I will provide you with many of the details of bee behavior with which
you should really be very conversant. These are just the basic behavioral factors that anyone
"alluding to be a KEEPER of bees rather than HAVING bees" should know. There are many
writings, notably by Gary, Seely, Winston, and others, than you can avail yourself to in order to
learn more.

INTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING BEHAVIOR:

The AGE of a bee is a major control of her wax glands, flight muscles, honey stomach stretching, stinger
development, and other parts or uses of them. Of PRIME IMPORTANCE is the difference between a
"nurse" bee and a forager bee. After emerging from its cell through the next 18 days, this is a house bee or
"nurse" bee since nursing young larvae is it's principle duty. During these 18 days, it does many different
house duties beginning with cleaning and polishing cells before a queen will lay eggs in them, building
comb, cleaning house including carrying away the dead, guard duty at the entrance, receiving nectar or
pollen, storing them away, ripening nectar into honey, feeding and grooming the queen, and a dozen other
jobs. After these 18 days of "house" duties, the bee has "earned her wings" and becomes a forager for
pollen, nectar, water, and even propolis and remains a forager for the remaining 24 days of her life. I will
wager that you never realized that the longest a bee ever forages is only 24 days and then it dies of
overwork!

Another internal factor affecting behavior is the GENETIC makeup of the bee is based upon its
race or the stock of the race it came from. Let me give you an example of the differences in stock
that you are familiar with: Consider three HUMANS of the white Caucasian race, but of three
different "stocks": English, Norwegian, and Italian and all three are bankers. The English man
probably dresses in a suit with a vest, smokes a pipe, drinks sherry wine, and enjoys quietness in
his club. The Norwegian banker also wears a suit, doesn't smoke at all, drinks brandy, loves the
outdoors, and probably is tall, thin, blonde and has blue eyes. The Italian banker hates the
indoors, conducts business on the sidewalk dressed only in a loose shirt, chain smokes cigarettes,
drinks Chianti wine, is bald, brown eyes, has tanned skin, and talks incessantly in a loud voice
emphasizing many words with lots of arm waving and hand action. All three are of the white
Caucasian race but of three different stocks. Both race of bee and the stock of that race have very
specific differing characteristics such as gentleness, wintering ability, hygienic (housecleaning)
behavior, disease resistance, foraging ability, population control, use of propolis, swarming
propensity, and many more differences.

EXTERNAL FACTORS:
Wow, there are SO MANY like odors, touch, light, magnetic fields, etc and the honey bee has thousands
of specialized sensory cells to detect any of these many external factors. These cells can behave in
different ways dependent on the intensity of the stimuli or its duration. Further, these cells are subject to
fatigue and then the stimuli is not answered by any action. Examples of this are the use of TOO MUCH
smoke or TOO MUCH Bee-Go, because the use of TOO MUCH of either make the bees aggressive
(nasty)!

TIME is a behavioral factor. It is known that certain flora yield nectar only in the morning hours,
whereas other flora are barren in the morning but yield copiously in the late afternoon. By
painting foraging bees, research has shown that bees having found a flora source that bares
nectar at a given time of day only visit that source during those productive hours and either rest
or do another task during the dearth hours. It is rather interesting that bees have been found to be
quite "source true", meaning that a bee will NOT visit more than one kind of pollen or nectar
source on a single trip. This implies that a bee will continue to work a single source on
continuous trips even though other sources all around the initial source have started to yield.

COMMUNICATION:
I am communicating with you by writing this paper. Since bees can't write, talk, or hear (they are very
sensitive to vibration), their prime sense is olfactory (smell). The prime example is a flower blooms and
bears nectar. The bee finds the nectar by its odor and in the process of sucking up that nectar brushes its
fuzzy body about the flower and hence pollinates it to produce fruit. Upon returning home, it alerts other
colony foragers of its find by distributing tastes of the nectar to numerous other foragers and than
performs the famous von Frisch "dance" on the comb to indicate the distance and direction of the source
from the hive. In the dark interior of the hive, the "dancing" bee plots the direction to the source by
dancing up the comb on an imaginary line that portrays the angle of direction from the position of the sun
(bees do this in the dark, and most humans couldn't do it at all). I have found it VERY INTERESTING
that scientists have transferred forager age bees from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern
Hemisphere and found the bees to be totally confused in direction in this hemisphere. This proves that
navigation by the bees during their "play flights" under the SOUTHERN sun prior to forager age does not
allow a bee to "change this genetically programmed learning"! When bees fly on badly clouded days, they
travel by apparently memorized local landmarks.

ACTIVITIES relative to behavior:

Comb Building:
Worker bees have 4 wax glands on their lower abdomen, each able to produce 2 wax scales
approximately 2mm x 2mm. These scales are mixed with the secretion of the mandibular gland while
being masticated by the mandibles. (That is a high-powered way of saying "being chewed with spit".) It
takes a bee about 4 minutes to remove one scale, masticate it, and affix it to the comb. Hence, it requires
many bees to construct just one wax cell! This is the work of young bees, normally 12-18 days old. About
8 pounds of honey are consumed by these comb building bees to produce 1 pound of bees wax! This
explains HOW VALUABLE DRAWN COMB IS TO THE BEEKEEPER!

Feeding Brood:
This is a TREMENDOUS amount of work done primarily by bees aged from 3 days to 13 days old. As
soon as the egg hatches into a larva, it is visited and fed over 1000 times per day, or more than 10,000
times in the 8 day period before the cell is capped. Lindauer(1953) found that 2,785 worker bees spent
over 10 hours rearing just one larva in those 8 days! (I won't complain about dinner being late any more.)

Sharing Food:
During the 18 days from emergence to foraging age, bees donate food to each other, at the same time
continuously tapping each other with their antennae. It has be found that the odor of each bee's head is
quite important. This sharing of food accompanied by touching antennae to the head area seems to be a
medium of sharing pheromones (communicating).

Colony Defense:
(Many readers should read this section several times so they better understand why they get stung.)
Humans have difficulty understanding "colony defense", confusing "defense" with "aggression". Honey
bees have many invaders, including other insects, animals, and humans, due to the ODOR of honey
around a colony. The amount of defense is directly related to the intensity (or lack of) of a nectar flow.
There are very few guard bees "on duty" during a strong nectar flow, and even foragers from other
colonies that are loaded with either pollen or nectar can enter without being "examined" or "attacked".
However, some abnormal disturbance by humans, animals, insects, or "robber honey bees" alerts the
guard bees to perform detailed "examination" of all entering "critters" and their colony will be
DEFENDED by driving away the interloper or stinging them. You would defend your home the same
way, and this is not AGGRESSION! It is interesting to note that young bees submit easily to examination,
but the "old foragers" are reluctant to be "examined". Bees do NOT get "angry" or "seek revenge"
because of human disturbance of colonies; but simply react instinctively in a predictable behavioral
pattern! Unlike Africanized bees, all of this defensive behavior occurs in the immediate vicinity of the
colony, and the European bee does NOT chase the intruder very far away. Bees that are foraging or
searching when they are away from the colony are NOT sting threats to humans unless there is some
collision or entrapment. Further, even when subjected to careless manipulation by a beekeeper, it
generally is only the GUARD bees that are stimulated to defend the colony. However, the other bees can
be easily aroused to a defensive position if the human intruder uses POOR management techniques such
as: wearing dark colors, emitting strange odors like body lotion, perfume, hair tonic, using "fuzzy"
clothing like a wool sweater or having loose long hair that can entrap a bee, and PARTICULARLY
moving their hands TOO RAPIDLY or using tools that shine so the bee's poor eyesight can easily see that
movement. Lastly, and perhaps most important, a sting deposited in your skin or your clothes causes the
immediate release of ALARM PHEROMONES that trigger other bees to help defend the colony. The
stinger should be removed as quick as possible and the alarm pheromone odor emanating from the sting
site should be "hidden" by abundant use of smoke on the sting site. To open a colony without being stung,
blow dense, cool, white smoke into all colony entrances, and then.............DO NOTHING FOR AT
LEAST ONE MINUTE, TWO IS BETTER and then proceed. (Waiting is VERY DIFFICULT for
many beekeepers)

Since STINGING is the greatest deterrent of beekeeping as well as the fear of your neighbors
and the public, you should be much aware of those circumstances that quickly trigger a defensive
response of a colony. Some of these things are:

1. High colony population

2. Colony manipulations at the WRONG TIME OF DAY: too early in the morning or too late in the
afternoon, and never at night.
3. POOR QUALITY of smoke. Should be dense, white, and cool!
4. REDUCED flight activity at the entrance, which normally indicates poor foraging conditions, or
approaching inclement weather.
5. Bees crushed by careless equipment handling, including your GLOVES.
6. Colonies frequently bothered by pests: dogs, skunks, ants, or unskilled HUMANS
7. Quick movements, dark or fuzzy clothes, shiny rings or watches, or long hair
8. Failure to remove or hide the alarm odor from a sting

Robbing Behavior:
Many beekeepers simply don't understand this, even though a fine colony of bees can be totally killed in
just a few hours in a bad robbing situation. From the moment of their creation, bees are genetically
trained to seek out and gather all nectar or honey to provide their colony with abundant winter stores, not
for themselves, but for expansion and increase of honey bees throughout the area. Most robbing occurs
during dearth conditions. Some races or stocks of bees are more prone to robbing than other races. It is a
well known fact that the Italian race has earned the number one title of this offense in spite of their other
good points. If a beekeeper opens a colony, lays frames or supers out UNPROTECTED, keeps the colony
OPEN TOO LONG, or drips honey on the GROUND, bees from other colonies detect the odor of honey
coming from this "disturbed" colony, dashes back to their colony and alerts colony members to "run over
and get some 'free' goodies". Why did I use the word "disturbed" colony? The beekeeper has demoralized
the colony with smoke, manhandled the colony "furniture" of frames and bodies, divided the normal
position of bee's living space, and opened the door to "thieves". Imagine what might happen if a small
new split of only 3-4 pounds of bees being fed a big gallon of sugar syrup had a big wide front entrance,
and was next door to a strong honey production colony of 12-15 pounds of bees and the nectar flow
suddenly dried up! Robbing is almost always the BEEKEEPER'S FAULT! It has been shown that feral
colonies are almost NEVER robbed unless their bee population is depleted by disease or death of the
queen.

Fanning:
Your house environment is controlled by air conditioning, humidifier, and kitchen exhaust fan. The honey
bee does likewise by fanning. Fanning controls the hive temperature and humidity, evaporates water from
nectar, removes exhaled bee breath, and distributes PHEROMONES throughout the colony which is
important for communicating vital information QUICKLY to all colony members present in the hive.

Scent Fanning:
Some the bees elevate their abdomen, opening their Nassanoff Gland, which exposes a membrane moist
with a secretion whose odor is highly attractive to other bees and says "Come here to me". The "scenting"
bee FANS this aroma about with her wings which directs "lost" colony members home. "Scenting" bees
are very valuable when hiving a new swarm, and particularly important to direct the queen to her new
home.

Hygienic Bees:
We are going to hear more and more about the benefits of hygienic bees in the coming 21st century. Dr.
Marla Spivak of University of Minnesota is very active in this work, and Pat Heitkam features "hygienic"
bees in his advertisements for the sale of bees. About 40 years ago, both Steve Taber and Walter
Rothenbuhler showed that some bees are better housekeepers than others. They observed that some bees
remove dead brood from a colony faster than some other stocks of bees. Now we know that efficient
housekeeping behavior contributes greatly to the RESISTANCE of bees to various diseases. Many
scientists and beekeepers feel very strongly that using bees that are disease resistant is the ultimate answer
to many of our disease problems and that their use will eliminate the need for chemical treatments.

Making Honey:
Nectar is the sweet liquid secreted by the flower to attract a bee to it who will POLLINATE the flower in
the act of sucking up the nectar. A bee can carry as much as 70 milligrams of nectar in her honey
stomach, which is almost equal to her body weight of about 82 milligrams! Most humans can't lift this
figure of 85% of body weight much less fly away with it! Although there are great variations, the
AVERAGE load has been shown to be 25 - 40 milligrams. Hurrying back to the hive, this heavily loaded
bee injects the enzyme invertase into the nectar to convert the complex double sugar, sucrose, into two
simple sugars, glucose and fructose and enters the colony. If she has found a "new" location for nectar,
she "passes out samples for other to taste", and then gives flight directions to it by performing the von
Frisch Dance on the comb. Then, she transfers the load of nectar to several "house" bees who widely
distribute it among many cells to make water evaporation from the thin nectar easier and faster by
fanning. The house bee may also added more invertase into the nectar if needed and water evaporation is
continued until its content is less than 19% where upon this new HONEY is sealed in its cell with a wax
capping. Since perhaps 60 pounds of nectar only yields about 15 pounds of honey, it does not take a
rocket scientist to understand why EXCESS super space should always be present to provide storage
space for this thin UNPROCESSED YET-TO-BE honey. Further, many scientists, particularly Rinderer,
have shown that the presence of large amounts of empty COMB, not foundation, stimulates greater
foraging activity for more nectar.

Need for Water:

The most important need for water is to THIN honey to make food to feed larvae! At the high brood
rearing time in spring, it is estimated that the average hive uses about 150 grams of water each day; and
since a bee normally carries 25 milligrams per trip, 150 grams will require about 6000 foraging trips for
water EACH DAY. Water is sometimes necessary to COOL the hive on a hot day, so the bees forage for
water, distribute small droplets of it around the hive interior and then FAN. Honey bees invented air
conditioning - not man! To cool a strong colony on a dry hot day might require a kilogram (2.2 pounds)
of water, or about 40,000 foraging trips per day! IMPORTANT NOTE: Brood rearing in Maryland starts
in January or early February. You MUST have some water source near your bees THEN even in this cold
weather, because once they have found a source of water, it is almost impossible to switch them to some
other source anytime the rest of the year! Pay attention to this unless you don't care about your neighbor's
swimming pool! You do not have to provide distilled water or bottled water. In nature, bees prefer
barnyard puddles or farm lane ditches because of the vitamins and minerals in the water. Further, you
don't want running water or a pan of water where the bees might drown; but you need a very damp
surface or a faucet that has a very tiny leak dripping on some sand mixed with pebbles and small stones
for the bees to light on without getting wet feet

Swarming Behavior:
We all know that swarming is the honey bee's natural mechanism for reproduction. Swarming either
expands the boundaries of that particular colony by making two colonies out of one, or replaces a colony
previously lost by natural causes; but how much do you know about the behavior of the bees at swarm
time? Swarm season is that 4-6 week occurring shortly after both pollen and nectar sources have become
abundantly available. In central Maryland, our swarm season is generally between April 15th and May
31st. Whether or not the bees actually swarm primarily depends on the managerial ability of the
beekeeper! Frankly, I consider swarms UNUSUAL in my apiary. In January and particularly February, in
anticipation of spring arrival and the need of lots of bees for colony expansion by swarming, the workers
overfeed the queen making her intensify her egg laying, and this will result in a highly congested brood
chamber. Eggs are laid in every nook and cranny, including the queen cups that are built near the frame
bottoms, usually 6 to 12 or even 20. As soon as eggs are laid in these queen cups, 3 things are going to
happen within the next 10-15 days: 1) the queen cups are lavishly filled with royal jelly. 2) feeding the
queen is slowed considerably and finally curtailed, hence stopping egg laying, so the queen can lose
weight in order to fly with the swarm. 3) scout bees leave the hive and search first for a close by location
for the swarm bees and queen to meet and organize, stay just a few hours while the scouts continue their
search for a new permanent home before they take off and fly to it. Since young bees don't begin foraging
until they are 19 days old, the queen has been heavily laying for several weeks, and diminished egg laying
the past 10-15 days resulting in less larval feeding jobs of these young bees, they are just "standing
around loafing" in the hive, impeding the work of the foragers and making tremendous congestion. Just a
day or so before the first virgin queen is about to emerge, if the weather is nice, with great
EXCITEMENT and a "WHIRRING" sound, half or more of all the bees and the old queen leave the hive
and form a swarm cluster in some nearby tree or on some post. After settling down and ascertaining that
the queen is with them, scouts are sent out to find a new home; and after several hours or maybe the next
day, the bees leave for their new home. This new home is BARE, just walls and roof with no comb, no
pollen or honey, and no brood. The swarm bees must go into a "crash priority" of comb building for space
to store some food and cells for the queen to lay worker bee eggs to replace themselves who will all be
dead within no more than 6 weeks! Since the average swarm is largely composed of YOUNG bees rather
than the old forager bees, wax comb is built in a hurry, the new young larvae is well fed, and by the time
all this new brood emerges in this new home, all the bees that formed the swarm will either be of foraging
age or dead of old age. It should be said that swarming bees (contrary to public opinion) are LESS
LIKELY TO STING than any other time of their lives, because not only are they stuffed with food
provisions for their new home, but they have "no HOME and no BROOD to defend"!

Behavior of Queenless Bees:

Although the queen is not the boss, leader, or supervisor of a colony, she has considerable influence on
the orderly processes in the colony! When a colony becomes queenless, the bees become quite agitated
and commence scent fanning hoping to "direct their queen back home" in case she is lost, and most
normal activities are stopped. After several hours of queenlessness, the bees start building "emergency"
queen cells from EXISTING worker bee cells that already hold an egg or a larva; and the resulting queen
produced may well be a "lousy" queen because the bees selected an older larva rather than an egg or very
young larva so that the larva did not receive a quality feeding of royal jelly for favorable development. In
those cases where there are no eggs or young larva present when the queen disappears, such as a virgin
queen NOT returning from her mating flight, there is NO HOPE for colony survival; and shortly the
queen pheromone that inhibits worker bees from laying eggs will be gone. Some worker bees begin
laying eggs, but since they have never been mated with a drone, they cannot fertilize the eggs they lay,
and hence, all these eggs can only be drones. The eggs are NOT laid in an orderly pattern but badly
scattered, more than one egg in a single cell, and the egg is rarely fastened to the bottom of the cell as it
would be if laid by a queen. Unfortunately, the colony accepts these laying workers as queens which
makes the colony almost impossible to requeen with a real queen! In most instances, the best thing to do
is either destroy the bees or try to unite the whole colony with a strong queenrite colony. Colonies
become queenless much more often than most beekeepers think, so the beekeeper should be well aware of
these symptoms in order to make quick corrections.

Winter Behavioral Activities:

Unfortunately, most beeHAVERS as well as some beekeepers misunderstand the life of a bee in the
winter or think anthropomorphically. Except in our Southern warmer states, brood rearing ceases for
about 30-45 days some time between the end of November and Mid January in Central Maryland. When
outside temperatures become about 55-60 degrees, bees start to form a cluster around the brood nest and
this cluster becomes tighter and hence smaller in size as the temperature goes down. Bees do NOT heat
the space inside a hive body or the area surrounding the cluster! Temperature inside a broodless cluster
remain between 68 and 86 degrees even when the temperature go as low as -25 (25 below zero). In late
fall, the cluster is first formed in the front lower part of the hive and the upper part of the cluster is in
contact with stored honey. As honey is consumed as the winter progresses, the cluster moves upward and
towards the rear of the hive, distancing itself from the front entrance. Honey is converted into heat by the
metabolic processes of the bees inside the cluster and this heat is conserved by the insulating qualities of
the CLUSTER as well as the enclosed comb! Obviously, those bees most interior within the cluster rotate
with the outermost bees so that all the clustered bees get some honey to eat and distribute the heat they
produce to the others. Because the bees are dependent on the warmth of the cluster to remain mobile, they
dare not leave the safety of the cluster for even an inch to secure more honey. Therefore, bees have
difficulty moving HORIZONTALLY (sideways) to encompass a side frame. This creates a "chimney"
effect of honey use in the colony; i.e., consuming honey VERTICALLY rather than horizontally. Bees
don't defecate in the hive, so when the temperature raises to about 45 degrees or above and if the sun is
shining, the bees will take a very short "cleansing flight", but return quickly before they become chilled
and can't fly. Bees can begin foraging for pollen, nectar, or water when ever the temperature becomes 50-
55 degrees. When brood rearing is in progress, in spite of the outside temperature, the brood must be kept
at 91-96 degrees; and feeding this new brood rapidly depletes the store of honey in the colony. This is the
reason that more colonies die of starvation in March in the Maryland area than any other month of the
year.

Behavioral Activities of Queens:

Let's start right at the beginning of the queen's life: Newly emerged queens are very active to be sure that
they are the only queen in the colony. Unless prevented by the worker bees the first emerged virgin queen
travels through the colony and eats through the side wall of every queen cell she can find and stings her
"rival" sister queen to death. She becomes sexually mature when she is 6 days old, and she mate on any
day that the afternoon temperature is above 65 degrees. Mating is always done in the afternoon and never
in the morning. The whole hive becomes involved, flying and foraging are reduced, worker bee stand at
the entrance scent fanning to attract the new queen outside, other worker bees literally assault her, push
her, and even bite at her legs to "force" the queen outside and becomes airborne on her nuptial flight.
Generally the queen mates with several different drones on her first flight which occurs at a drone
gathering area 1-3 miles from the colony, and the entire flight rarely lasts more than 30 minutes. Upon
returning to the hive, she might rest for a few minutes and then return to the drone area for more mating,
and quitting after she has mated with 10-17 different drones. Now her spermatheca is filled with 4-6
million sperm from numerous drones, enough to last her entire life, and she is expected to lay up to
200,000 eggs per year! She begins laying eggs about 3 days after her last mating. Hence, depending on
the weather, from the day a colony swarms until the new queen lays her first egg back in the old hive is
about 10 days or more, 12-14 days being average. Many, many researchers and beekeepers have tried to
measure the egg production of a queen. Although the figure of 1924 eggs laid in 24 hours is the highest
recorded, bee scientists agree that the average queen lays 1000 to 1500 eggs per day during the MOST
ACTIVE brood rearing period which is probably April and May in Maryland. The MAXIMUM colony
population that is attainable is: Assume the average worker's life span is 40 days and a queen lays 1500
eggs/day yields a total of 60,000 bees. Obviously, this 60,000 is a high ideal figure, and not an average.
40,000 - 50,000 might be the best figure for fine colonies having a young, well bred queen managed by a
good beekeeper. Egg laying ability declines with age. Even more important, the queen's ability to produce
enough queen pheromone to "glue" a huge population of bees into a single functioning unit without
swarming radically declines with age! Hence, the "smart" beekeeper requeens a colony EVERY YEAR
regardless of how good that queen was the first season. A real young queen not only can produce a larger
quantity of bees who can produce a higher yield of honey, but the beekeeper is not bothered by swarming
because a real young queen can produce a great amount of queen pheromone. WOW! I am worn out just
trying to think of all these behavioral things that are so important. It has been difficult for me is to try and
present them to you, most of whom do not have a scientific background, in a form and words that you can
understand.

I have some hope that you will not think of me as a priest or preacher trying to make each and
every one of you perfect and a super beekeeper, because I know that this is impossible. However,
I do feel quite strongly that a good understanding of the behavior of bees in various
circumstances is the real difference between just having bees as compared to really keeping bees
which pays you that extra dividend of discovering the myriad JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

Have a Fine Holiday and A Happy New Year

 Vacation 2000

PLANNING YOUR VACATION FOR 2000

Just like adding gasoline to your car before the gage is on E, or buying the 12 roll pack of "On-
Sale" toilet paper before you run out, planning ahead is SMART.

The EAS meeting for the year 2000 will be held at the beautiful campus of Salisbury University
on the Maryland Eastern Shore from July 31 through August 4 in 2000. Hmmpf, I thought I
heard someone "mutter" the words "So What?" A person that has that much of a negative attitude
either has never attended a recent EAS meeting, or is someone who is still buying new packages
of bees every year or so because he keeps losing them

Years ago, recognizing the need for a VERY PROFESSIONAL and BROAD BASED school of
instruction to upgrade beekeeper knowledge and beekeeping techniques and management, EAS
divided the 5 day week into two different divisions, a 2 and a half day Short Course, followed by
the 2 and a half day conference of talks, films, and workshops on many diverse subjects. You can
attend either one or both. However, I will say the Short Course always has a limited number of
open invitations in order to give each person some element of "personal instruction", and hence
one should apply early before all the open slots are filled. I have never missed attending the EAS
Short Course, either as a student or an instructor, for 20 years, and I learn something new and
valuable every year. Hence, even though I am stroke disabled, I will be there on my electric
scooter and opening bee hives to locate a queen, find disease, setup a requeening method, or
demonstrating the better ways of making a split.

One might say "What do I do with my wife and kids who are not interested in bees?" That is the
great advantage of Salisbury: Ocean City and its beaches are just 25 miles away along with their
golf courses, horse racing track, amusement park with ferris wheel and taffy. Or if you like
Nature, there is Assateague Island National Sea Shore adjoining Ocean City. Crisfield, the
heartland of Chesapeake Bay famous crabs is a mere 30 miles away plus there are pleasure boat
trips to the Elizabethan speech still found on Tangier Island in the Bay. Of course, once in the
driving vicinity, no American should ever miss seeing the ultra-famous Williamsburg, which is a
3 hour drive (170 miles) south; and as you pass through Norfolk on the way, you can stop and
visit the largest U. S. Navy Yard in the country and find a tour of a aircraft carrier, battleship, or
submarine.

Most important is "What are the facilities like at Salisbury University for you?" Everything is
AIR CONDITIONED. I have seen many motel rooms that are far inferior to the classy rooms of
Salisbury. The campus grounds are magnificent with their gardens and planting; and you will get
fat from all the tremendous "goodies" of the campus restaurant.

That is enough for now; and I hope I have wetted your appetite for a Salisbury area vacation. As
EAS President David Bernard molds the final program into shape, I will let you know more.
Thank God, I was born in Maryland - the land of pleasant living!
 January Projects
I can hear some beeHAVERS saying or thinking " George, are you nuts? It is winter and cold
and my bees have no thoughts of spring and nectar gathering yet!" Then there are some
beekeepers that are too lazy to think about any bee work in January or even February, and their
bees might be dead and they don't know that. So what has to be done in January?

INSPECT YOUR BEES!

There is going to be 1 or 2 days that the early afternoon temperature is going to get up to 50
degrees or above and sunny. TAKE OFF FROM WORK and inspect your bees. "Inspect" means
OPENING UP THE HIVE and looking in the center of the brood chamber for BROOD, or the
queen, FOOD, DISEASE and adult bee population, large or small? The two most important
things you want to find out are: Is the queen alive, and does the colony have plenty of food. Year
after year, I have had people tell me that they "knew" their bees were alive because they saw
bees flying in and out of their colony on warm days, but there were no bees there when they
finally opened on a warm April weekend. What they saw flying in and out on warm days in
January and February were ROBBER bees, because their bees were DEAD. Unless you have X-
RAY eyes, your bees can NOT be inspected by observing them from the outside of their colony!

Brood rearing normally starts in January in our Maryland area in spite of night temperatures
below freezing or even down near zero. Raising brood requires a tremendous amount of food,
and more bees in Maryland starve to death in late February and March than any other month.
Hence, carefully check the colony's food supply when you open it in January and feed 1:1 sugar
syrup if needed.

GET THE QUEEN LAYING!

With our Maryland nectar flow primarily yielding in late April and all of May, you MUST
realize that the bees that are going to gather this nectar have to emerged from their wax cell by
about April 10th, which means that the queen had to lay the their egg about March 20th. Don't
lose sight of the fact that there has to be a lot of bees around in early March to warm the brood
nest and feed the brood. One MUST realize that if you are going to get a big crop from our very
early nectar yield in Maryland, the queen has to be laying pretty well in February and March.
Queens are stimulated to lay eggs by the collection of pollen and nectar. 1:1 sugar syrup is
artificial nectar, or a substitute for real nectar.

If you deem yourself a skilled beekeeper, have a YOUNG queen in the colony, always AHEAD
of your bees, and skilled in swarm prevention, then do as I do and start feeding 1:1 sugar syrup
in late January or early February. However, in any event, get your queen going by starting 1:1
feeding in March.

REVERSING:
It is well known and almost totally accepted that Reversing of brood chambers is one of the most
helpful of swarm prevention techniques; and if your bees swarm in April or early May in
Maryland, you have basically lost your honey crop for an entire year. However, many, many
people seem to have lots of problems figuring out just how to reverse, when, and how often; so I
am going to try to explain it in writing (it is easy if we were inspecting one of my colonies
together and then I could show you and explain as we did it)

It has been well proven that one of the strongest reasons for swarming is CONGESTION IN
THE BROOD CHAMBER - Note, I said BROOD chamber, and nothing about super space. Let
me stop here and make you think. It is late January, February, or March, the weather is cold or
chilly, but the brood must be kept at 91-96 degrees to stay alive, bees like to keep nectar close to
the brood for easier feeding, so the brood area is highly congested with lots of nurse bees feeding
brood and warming the brood nest. Meanwhile, the old foragers are bringing in needed pollen
from skunk cabbage, maples, and alders. If there is no 1:1 syrup, but just honey, bees have to fly
out and find water to dilute the honey to nectar consistency for brood food. This whole scene is
just a mess of congestion, which is the number ONE cause of swarming.

Back in November, the worker bees began storing honey near the top of the colony and driving
the queen down to the bottom hive body for any brood laying that she might do; and hence initial
clustering of the bees as the weather moved down into the 40's or 30's was around the queen on
the frames of the lowest hive body. Just imagine a cluster of packed bees about the size of a
basketball or soccer ball enveloping most of frames #5 & #6, some of frames #4 & #7, and
smaller portions of frames #3 & #8. As the winter progresses, the bees slowly move UP (not
sideways) and by January, they have consumed most of the stores in the lower frames and are
now starting to eat the stores in the frames of the top hive body (regardless of whether you are
using 2 deep bodies for brood chambers or 3 Illinois Bodies (like I use) for brood chambers.

It is Nature's Way or Bee Behavior that bees like to move UPWARDS, and more or less have to
be FORCED DOWNWARDS. Hence, when the space in the upper frames is filled up with brood
or honey, even though there is plenty of empty space in lower frames, the bees and particularly
the queen resist moving their brood rearing to the lower frames. Hence, the worker bees either
stop the queen from egg laying, or even prepare to swarm. Therefore, it becomes the
BEEKEEPER'S task to reposition the frames so that there is always empty laying space ABOVE
where the queen is laying. However, the position of the frames that contain brood is VITALLY
IMPORTANT before you start REpositioning those frames.

To aid you in trying to picture brood location in a colony, I want you to think of a big round
CLOCK in the place of All (either 2 or 3) of Frames #5, where the number 12 is close to the
inner cover and the number 6 is close to bottom board. Draw an imaginary line through the 3 &
9, and that indicate the space between the bottom hive and the top hive if you are using 2 deep
bodies, or the center of the middle body frames if you are using 3 Illinois bodies. It is most
important that you understand where this 3 to 9 imaginary line is for my written explanation of
REVERSING.

Upon examination, if about 80% of the brood is in UPPER frames and the remaining 20% brood,
probably capped, is in the LOWER frames, REVERSE the positions of the top body with the
bottom body. You might have to do it again in just 7 days or maybe not for 17 days depending
on the weather, the age of the queen, the size of the frame, the race of the bee, and a dozen other
reasons. However, you open the colony, examine the location of the brood as well as the empty
space, and decide whether to reverse bodies that day or wait 2-3 days. Obviously the beeHAVER
won't do as well as a knowledgeable beeKEEPER.

I start reversing in late January (late February might be best for most readers) and continue it
until the nectar flow is strong, usually about May 1st. I usually make about 4 or 5 reversals of a
colony in that period of late January to May; but many beekeepers using 2 deep bodies as brood
chambers get by with just 2 reversals. However, since I don't want to contend with any swarming
problems, I might reverse more often than someone else.

Reversing too soon is the important danger to the technique, because much of the new brood will
be killed by being chilled because it is away from the heat of the bee cluster. Think of the
imaginary clock: Brood is located in between the lines of 10 - 2 and 7 - 5, and you reverse the
bodies. The frames with the brood up to 10-2 where the queen is laying is now in the bottom
body and the bees are clustered about her to keep her warm, but the frame with brood that was
down to the 7-5 line is now in the upper body and that brood is close to the inner cover and away
from the cluster of bees, so it dies of chill. This mistake is referred to as SPLITTING THE
BROOD, and you should remember it. Using the example just given, do not reverse until the
brood is located between lines of 11-1 and 8-4 or even better when all the brood is in an upper
frame and NO brood in the lower frame.

REVERSING is one of the most valuable techniques used in beekeeping not only helping to
prevent swarming, but to aid your bees in building a larger population to enhance your honey
yield. However, it is like learning to drive, it takes practice; but I strongly urge everyone who
really wants to find the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING to learn and perform the reversing
procedure.

As you might remember, I will NOT be at our January meeting of MCBA as I will be giving a
workshop (in spite of my stroke damaged voice) at the annual meeting of the American
Beekeeping Federation in Fort Worth, Texas. Much more important, I will be in close commune
with the leading scientists, professional apiculturists, queen breeders, equipment makers, and
government officials of our entire "bee world" of today for 5 days of learning, so that I can bring
that knowledge back home to Maryland and teach you the latest findings. My bee partner, Master
Beekeeper Ann Harman, will accompany me; and also be part of a Honey Packing workshop in
addition to getting me on and off the airplane, helping me walk when needed, etc.

Master Beekeeper Bill Miller plus some of our other Master Beekeepers will conduct the
meeting. I have spent $120 to purchase some slides about bee diseases that will be shown and
discussed at the January 12th meeting plus I have asked Bill to demonstrate REVERSING as
well as answer questions. Therefore, if you REALLY desire to be a BETTER BEEKEEPER than
you are now, temporarily forget my PINK PAGES and be at the meeting 7:30 sharp, and
LEARN!
Our famous SHORT COURSE, the only one in the whole U. S. taught exclusively by MASTER
BEEKEEPERS will meet on 5 or 6 consecutive Tuesday nights beginning March 6th. On
Saturday, April 6th, we will start two new colonies with packages, one on 2 deep bodies with
wax foundation and the other with 3 Illinois bodies with plasticell foundation to allow all to
compare the merits or demerits of the differences. I have ordered UNmarked queens, so that you
can watch how to we mark queens and BLUE is the correct color for the year 2000. You will
also see the PROPER way to install package bees. These 2 new colonies will add to our existing
colonies in our club apiary, and I hope to have our Master Beekeepers plus myself work with
YOU on weekends this coming year so you can learn MORE and BETTER techniques, plus
helping me up when I fall. HaHa

In the February and March PINK PAGES, I will talk about SPLITTING COLONIES either to
increase numbers or to prevent swarming, and SUPERING, when, how many, and the
differences between using foundation and drawn comb.

Who knows, by the EAS meeting in Salisbury, Maryland from July 31 to August 4th, I may have
more people ready to take the MASTER BEEKEEPER examinations to add to our present NINE
(which is already 7 more than any other bee club in the world). You be in Salisbury to either take
the tests yourself or cheer for our members who become CERTIFIED.

Before you ask, my voice is improving, but not near as rapidly as I had hoped. But at least I am
not dead, which the doctors say is remarkable for having suffered 5 distinct strokes, the first a
minor one in 1990, followed by two major ones in 1996 and 1997, and 2 minor ones in 1998. A
friend of mine told me that the only reason that I am still alive is "the Lord is not sure just what
to do with me and the Devil is afraid of me"; and I told my friend that the real reason that I am
still alive is that I haven't finished UPGRADING enough beeHAVERS into good beeKEEPERS
yet so that my Great Grandchildren won't become hungry due to lack of honey bee pollination.

February 2000

NEW Mite Treatments for Year 2000!

These past 15 years, beginning with the entrance of the Tracheal Mite in 1984, the appearance of
the Varroa Mite in 1987, and the killing of bees by the viruses as a result of PMS (parasitic mite
syndrome), has totally altered most of the beekeeping techniques that had been in use since the
beginning of the century. The infestation of bee colonies by BOTH mites spread across the 48
continental states with the speed of a wind blown prairie fire, so that in a few years, there hardly
was a county in the country that was free of mites. Many commercial beekeepers lost 50-75% of
their colonies almost overnight, and many hobbyists lost 100% and gave up beekeeping.
Beekeepers sought help from their bee inspectors, their extension agents, professional
apiculturists, and university beekeeping departments to find some pesticide (miticide) to kill or at
least control these bee-destroying mites. Of course, many beekeepers tried every known (or even
unknown) homeopathic treatment, garden "bug" or insect spray, and even very dangerous drugs
or chemicals to kill the mites; and all of this had the same net result: either the unauthorized use
of these drugs killed the bees, or the drugs did not kill the mites so the bees died. In desperation,
beekeepers as well as the inspectors, exten- sion agents, and professional apiculturists appealed
to the government for help from the scientists in the 6 honey bee labs in various parts of the
country. These scientists set aside their normal work, researched all known information about the
mites, tested many chemicals, researched their effect on the bees, the honey, the safety of use for
the bee- keeper, the availability, the method of application and the cost. Of course, under our
protective systems in the U. S., any chemical or drug found useful as a miticide must be
approved by both the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protective
Agency (EPA); and past history has proven that both these agencies work VERY SLOWLY.
Hence, during these exasperating 15 years, only TWO chemicals have been approved as
miticides that can be used inside a colony of bees: MENTHOL for the Tracheal Mite and Apistan
(fluvalinate) for the Varroa Mite; and neither of these can be used during a nectar flow for fear of
contamination of the honey.

NO BEEKEEPER wants to put any drug, chemical, or unnatural material in a bee hive in fear of
destroying the most important asset of honey: Nature's purity, or it Naturalness. Every beekeeper
has hoped for a strain of bees that was resistant to mites, and much scientific research is being
done on that, starting with the ARS-Y-C-1 Carniolan Hybrid, and now the new Russian bees;
but, to date, no proof has been evident. Even more research is being pursued regarding the
selection of "natural hygienic" bees, and to date, it looks promising. However, even if any of
these thoughts prove successful, it will be years before the "pipe lines of supply" could ever
reach down to every beekeeper with two colonies in his backyard.

If I make anyone mad here, so be it. If the shoe fits, you wear it! Many of us remem- ber DDT,
and it was withdrawn from the market place. It had become so OVER used, that flies and some
other insects had become resistant to it and they "could eat DDT for break- fast without harm".
Unfortunately, the same thing has begun to happen to Apistan, and mites have became resistant
to it. Researchers, bee scientists, the Apistan written label, bee inspectors, Bee Culture,
American Bee Journal and my PINK PAGES have written in great detail that the OVER use of
Apistan, particularly leaving the strips in a hive too long, using them too often, or using too
many strips/colony will result in mites that become resistant to Apistan. Yet every inspector is
fully aware that some beekeepers have kept Apistan strips in a hive for 6 or 8 months, and some
even leaving them in place during a nectar flow. These socalled "beekeepers" obviously don't
care about their bees, their honey, purchasers of their honey, other people's bees, or the LAW. I
guess these people also drive 80 mph on I-270 or I-495 around Washington DC where the speed
limit is only 55, because they think only of themselves, disregarding all others and the law.

Well, the government has just approved for use in the year 2000 TWO new miticides: CheckMite
(coumaphos) for Varroa mites and Apicure (formic acid gel) for BOTH Varroa mites and
Tracheal mites!

CheckMite was originally designed to kill the small hive beetle found in Florida, Georgia, and
South Carolina just 18 months ago; and then CheckMite was found a very effective killer of the
Varroa Mite. The government issued temporary Section 18 Emergency Permit use for
CheckMite to those states having Varroa mites resistant to Apistan, and these permits will have
to be re-issued each year. Perhaps the reason for this caution is the fact that CheckMite is
coumaphos, which is a dangerous organo- phosphate that requires very delicate human handling
WITH GLOVES; and, maybe more important, if it were found in honey, that might open
"pandora's box" to inspection of honey by the FDA or EPA before you could sell it, or even give
it away. Personally, know- ing how beekeepers have violated the law and the label instructions in
the use of Apistan strips, I am sorry that CheckMite strips ever received approval for any
purpose other than small beetle control. The only supplier of CheckMite is Mann Lake Ltd. The
owners of Mann Lake, Betty and Jack Thomas, are absolutely wonderful people and work hard
to aid our industry, but unfortunately they cannot control the lack of care of some beekeepers.

Apicure is 65% formic acid in a gel form packed in a pouch made of three layers of a special
anti-corrosive plastic. This pouch is laid on the top bars of the brood chamber, slit open with a
knife, and the gel gradually releases formic acid fumes over a three or four week period. Formic
Acid, already a natural constituent of honey, was exempt from tolerance level studies by the
EPA. One pouch costs $2.50 and can be placed in the brood chamber in March, left for 3 weeks,
and removed by about April 15th which should be ahead of our main nectar flow in May.
Because the Varroa mite is raised and feeds off a honey bee larva and pupa prior to the
emergence of an adult bee, the most effective time to kill varroa mites is the period of little or no
brood. Hence, the best time to use any miticide is in the fall after supers are removed. A
treatment in October plus another treatment in March should be excellent control of BOTH the
tracheal and Varroa mites. Formic acid in its liquid form has been used quite successfully in
Europe for over 20 years and no resistance has developed yet. However, the EPA refused to
allow the use of liquid formic acid in fear of hazard to the beekeeper. Hence, it was our own
Beltsville Maryland Bee Laboratory personnel, Doctors Jan Kochansky, Hachiro Shimanuki,
Mark Feldlaufer, and Jeff Pettis who did the research and developed the gel pack. It was tested in
Mexico by Dr. Frank Eischen of the Weslaco Bee Lab in Texas. By the way, it is my pleasure
and good fortune to serve with Drs. Shimanuki, Feldlaufer, Pettis, and Eischen on the Research
Committee of the American Beekeeping Federation. Apicure, although "pushed" and created by
Bob Stevens of BetterBee of Greenwich, N. Y., will be available from several different bee
supply houses like Brushy Mountain Bee Farm; and initial supplies are expected in the next
month or so. I have already ordered some for my bees as well as our MCBA apiary bees, and
will notify you upon receipt so that you can help me install the gel packages.

The chances that the mites in your colonies being resistant to Apistan are not very high, but there
is no sense of waiting until the mites become resistant and kill your bees. Hence, now that we
have more than one product approved by the government as a miticide, it is high time to began a
miticide alternating program of using one chemical this year and another chemical next year. By
doing this, we might never have resistant mites and our bees will stay alive until the bee
researchers finally find a strain of honey bee that is mite resistant or a hygienic stock of each race
that is mite resistant.

For those of you that have an interest in "hygienic bee stock", as I do, Pat Heitkam of Heitkams
Honey Bees has heavily participated in the research of Dr. Marla Spivac of The University of
Minnesota's study of how "hygienic bees" resist the pathogens related to American Foul Brood.
The famous Dr. W. C. Rothenbuhler of Ohio State and the famous Steve Taber became highly
interested in the study of "hygienic bees" over 40 years ago, in the 50's, but then, there was no
money available or enough interest to pursue further investigation. Could it be that finding a
solution for the mite problems as well as the new resistant strain of AFB has re-opened the door
to the increased study of "hygienic bees" being naturally resistant to certain diseases? If these
studies produce findings that certain stocks of "hygienic" bees resist mites and/or AFB, we may
want to award a Gold Star to the mites for pointing the path to our scientists as well as making
better beekeepers out of so many previous beeHAVERS. Let each of us never forget to thank
these dedicated underpaid bee scientists for their work in helping the beekeeper.

I strongly recommend that each of you consider a plan for the treatment of your colonies for both
tracheal and Varroa mites in this year of 2000. I intend to seal my supply of new Apistan strips in
a jar and place it in my freezer until probably the fall of 2001. I will use the Apicure Gel pack
this spring and fall and again in the spring of 2001 followed by Apistan in the fall of 2001.
Because of the possibility of honey adulteration by coumaphos as well as the possibility of losing
the Section 18 Permit for use, I do not plan to use any CheckMite strips. You will be wise to plan
AHEAD!

March 2000

Using Powdered Sugar to Detect Varroa Mites

While seeking new ways to recover Varroa mites from bees for laboratory assays, Paula Macedo,
a University of Nebraska Graduate Student, found a new way to check colonies for Varroa mites
that is more efficient than ether roll, and NOT necessary to kill bees to conduct the test.

You will need the following:

1. A wide mouth canning jar (quart or pint) with a two piece lid.
2. #8 mesh hardware cloth (or any mesh that will retain bees, but pass Varroa
3. Window Screen (or any fine mesh that will retain Varroa, but pass powdered sugar)

Retain the metal ring of the two piece lid and discard the center portion. Cut a circle of #8 mesh
hardware cloth to fit the inside of the ring. Collect 200-300 bees in the jar. Add powdered sugar
(enough to coat the bees, about I tsp. to I tbsp.) through the #8 mesh hardware cloth lid. Roll the
jar about to distribute the sugar. Allow the jar to sit for a few minutes (NOT just a few seconds).
Then invert the jar over a piece of paper and shake to recover the mites. The bees will remain in
the jar, but the mites and sugar will pass through the #8 mesh to the paper. The sugar will make it
difficult to count the mites. Hence, pour the sugar and mites into another jar with a fine mesh lid.
Shake again and allow the sugar to escape through the mesh. A brief shaking will usually recover
about 70% of the mites, but longer shaking will produce about 90% recovery. Dump the mites on
a clean sheet of paper and count them.

There are three possible reasons for the efficacy of this technique:

1. Varroa mite legs have a sticky pad called the empodium that helps them adhere to their host bee.
The presence of powdered sugar could make it difficult for mites to adhere to their host bee.
2. Powdered sugar stimulates the bees' natural grooming behavior.
3. The powdered sugar on the mite's body stimulates mites to release from feeding on the host bee to
groom themselves.

Plans for future studies: Powdered sugar applied to a whole colony will dislodge a few mites
from their host bees, but it is not efficient. Furthermore, the mites will eventually recover and
return to their hosts. However, when bees are isolated from nest materials, the might recovery
from exposing them to powdered sugar is impressive. Hence, in the future, we will examine the
efficiency of the technique in bulk bee cages. One limitation to using this technique is that it is
only efficient when brood is not present. When brood is present, 70-80% of the mites will be in
sealed brood cells.

We know that the powdered sugar technique of Varroa detection is a safe, inexpensive, and
highly efficient way to check adult bees for mites. We hope that you can find creative ways to
use the technique to lower Varroa mite infestations and reduce the frequency of chemical
treatments. Dare we even dream of eliminating them altogether?

Editor's Note: In a private communication to me, Dr. Marion Ellis, Extension Apiculture
Specialist for Nebraska, told me that he uses this survey method for varroa detection and prefers
it to any other method. I will test it in my apiary on July 1st with Sticky Boards used as Controls
and publish my results in August. I strongly suggest that you try it too.

ROBUST VARROA MANAGEMENT

If you have not heard about the excitement, research, and writings about Integrated Pest (mite)
Management over the past year, you must read only the Sport Pages or the Comics. It s a major
undertaking by our Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium (MAAREC) including
our Beltsville Bee Research Lab.

Confined to the house because of the. darn snow, I carefully examined the Internet Bee-Line for
something exciting; and I FOUND IT! One of our most respected scientist (and my friend), Dr.
Medhat Nasr, Research Scientist of University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, had replied to
someone on the subject of "Robust Varroa Management". Medhat had written a quick, "off the-
top-of- his-head" reply, and he gave me his permission to publish it in my PINK PAGES. Here it
is, with minor grammatical changes:

My definition of robust varroa management is an integrated mite management system. In

Ontario, we have been using, annually, a combination of several methods for management of
both varroa and tracheal mites. These methods include:
 1. requeening colonies every TWO years with tracheal mite-resistant hygienic bee stock (1/2 of the
operation each year)
2. spring treatment of formic acid in a mite-away pad (a single application formic acid pad that was
developed and LEGALLY used in Ontario since 1996-97).
3. use of 1-2 frames of drone foundation to trap mites in drone brood in the summer and early fall, if
needed. (Ed: Several bee equipment houses can supply)
4. fall treatment with APISTAN.

Our research results for evaluating the efficacy of applying this system showed that:

1. the use of tracheal mite-resistant h ienic bees slows the mite development in bee colonies.
Tracheal mite population will build very slowly and it will take more than two years to reach a
damaging level. Hygienic bees which are able to remove greater than 75% of freeze killed drone
brood are able to reduce the varroa mite population by 30%
2. the use of a single application of formic acid in the spring is good for a full year for tracheal mite
control, and good to kill the varroa in the spring without the need to use any Apistan strips in the
spring.
3. using this system has helped Ontario beekeepers to achieve the following:
1. Reduction of the annual colony mortality from 25-40% to less than 10%
2. No sign of varroa mites developing resistance to Apistan which has been used in Ontario
for 8 years. We tested varroa mite resistance to Apistan, which showed Apistan is still
effective and kills >95% of varroa mites.
3. No Apistan residues have been found in honey samples; and we are now in the' process
of testing for Apistan residues in the wax.
4. Beekeepers diversified their management and activities. We have a group of queen
producers of Buckfast, Carniolan, And Ontario bees who are involved in the breeding
program to measure mite resistance. These beekeepers make their income from selling
more than 15,000 queens/year and 6,000 'nucs'/year.
5. The total number of bee colonies is increasing for the past two years.
6. Honey production per colony has been increased by 10-20%.

When you total the costs of colony replacement (killed by mites), 2 Apistan treatments, and loss
of honey production before this new "robust mite management" program, this new method is
economically viable and sustainable. This system is far more robust than relying on the use of
the same miticide (Apistan or Coumaphos) year after year. Also, this program maintains healthy
producing colonies year after year.

Cheers, from Medhat Nasr

Proper Supering
I can hear the screams now: "What the hunk does George mean when he says "proper"? Doesn't he think I
know what I am doing?"

Year after year, I hear of people who have lost their honey crop because their bees swarmed, or
their brood chamber was honey bound, or their foundation was all sealed together by burr comb
and bridge comb. In most instances, the blame was placed on all kinds of crazy or wrong
reasons, because the real reason was IMPROPER supering. Although well discussed in previous
PINK PAGES, I will repeat the cardinal points about supering, including WHEN to super, HOW
MANY supers, DRAWN COMB or FOUNDATION, and bee ENTRANCES.

FOUNDATION can NOT be used like drawn comb! When using foundation there MUST be IO
frames of foundation (NEVER NINE) in a super to get it PROPERLY drawn. If you have less
than I 0, you have violated "bee space" and the bees will build bridge comb, burr comb, and all
kinds of strange comb in between the frames. Further, you can NOT put on MORE THAN ONE
super of foundation at a time. At least 6 or 7 frames of foundation must be drawn and almost
filled before you move the undrawn frames into the center position and then add a second super,
and likewise with the 3rd super, and the 4th, etc. Obviously, it is easier to use DRAWN COMB.
After the bees have drawn comb, it is YOUR JOB to protect it from damage by wax moths or
mice, because it is the beekeeper's MOST VALUABLE ASSET.

WHEN to super: In Maryland, I install my FIRST super on April I st with NO QUEEN

EXCLUDER under it. On April 1 5th (Income Tax Day), that first super should have 6-7 of the
frames filled with nectar or may )e even vouna hrnnri (larvae or eggs). I very full make sure the
queen is NOT in that super (but down below in the brood chamber area) and place a queen
excluder under that super. Then I add 4 more supers of rawn omb plus 2 Imirie Shims on top of
the first super. By putting the supers in place ALL AT ONE TIME stimulates the bees hoarding
instinct making them work harder ' but much more important, multiple supers provides LOTS of
storage room for them to store the thin wate ectar until they have time to ripen it into honey.

In you are normal, you don't like to get hung up in a traffic jam or wait in line to get into a
movie, so you try to avoid traffic congestion or lines of people. Bees do the same thing. The
forager age bee (over 19 days of age) does little more than forage, and does not do much work in
the brood chamber (bee nursery). That forager bee gets irked battling through that highly
congested brood chamber with all those nurse bees feeding larva, building cell cappings,
cleaning cells for the queen to lay eggs, guarding the front entrance, etc, and would use another
entrance to go to and from the super area if it was available. That is the exact purpose of the
Imirie Shim a nd the upper entrance in the edge of the inner cover. An lmirie Shim is NEVER,

EVER used anywhere on a colony except in between supers (never in the brood area). I put a
Shim between the I st and 2nd supers and another one between the 3rd and 4th supers; and hence
my foraging bees have 3 entrances to use other than the bottom board entrance: 2 lmirie Shims +
the entrance cut in the inner cover.

Even if you think it won't work, your bees will swarm anyhow, that is not the way TOM, DICK,
or HARRY supers their bees, and surely not the way DADDY used to keep bees, why don't you
stop talking and just try it. You might find out how I rarely have any swarms and average 130
pounds of honey each year per colony in MARYLAND where the official average yield is a
paltry 29 pounds. I have led you to the water, now you must decide whether to drink or not.

April 2000
 Ready or Not, It is Supering Time
I said SUPERING, not Swarming. That is, if you have a young queen, reversed brood chambers
to reduce brood chamber congestion, and follow the rules that will be given in today's PINK
PAGES, your chances of a swarm in our April swarm SEASON will be minimized.

With our warm weather in early March, maples, alders, and willow trees have provided much
pollen needed for brood rearing. My colonies have 9-12 Illinois frames filled with brood, so the
brood area is about to get heavily congested, which is the number ONE cause of swarming. This
congestion needs relief, and I will explain HOW.

If you can reverse your brood chambers right now without splitting the brood, reverse so the,
queen's laying space is in the bottom brood chamber and capped brood s in the top brood
chamber, add ONE super of preferably drawn comb (or foundation if there is no drawn comb
available) and NO queen excluder, and wait one week. At the end of one week, something
should have happened in that new super: If it was drawn comb, some nectar and maybe some
OPEN BROOD can be found on the center frames of that 3uper. If you find 3-4 frames will
nectar or brood in them, MAKE SURE THE QUEEN IS 40T IN THAT SUPER, and place a
queen excluder under that super. Now that super is "baited" and the bees will continue to take
care of it going back and forth through the excluder. If you have to use foundation, it will take
longer and you should be feeding 1:1 sugar syrup through the inner cover hole to aid in drawing
the foundation into comb. When 6-7 of the center frames are drawn and filled with something,
nectar or OPEN BROOD-, move the untouched frames to the center and the drawn frames
towards -.he outside, make sure the queen is below, and put a queen excluder under this super.

The addition of one super about April 1st relieves congestion by providing space for the worker
bees to MOVE nectar out of the brood frames, deposit it "upstairs" in this super, and open up
cells in the brood area frames for the queen to lay fresh eggs. bees WILL MOVE NECTAR OR
HONEY to new locations in a bee colony in order to give the queen additional laying space in
the brood chamber area!

In this SWARM SEASON period, the queen is laying eggs at her peak and can fill 10 deep
frames or 15 Illinois frames with brood in a 21 day worker bee gestation period The other brood
area frames are filled with pollen, and nectar surrounding the brood making larvae feeding easier
for the workaholic nurse bees.

However, a major nectar flow can start as early as April 1 5th here near the nation's capitol of
Washington DC, and surely by May 1st. Supers of drawn comb have little or no value sitting in
your garage or basement, so add 4 supers of drawn comb to that one super on the bees on
INCOME TAX DAY, April 15th; and don't forget some entrances in the super area, either Imirie
shims or holes in the supers, and an upper entrance. This will keep the forager bees from
"drudging back and forth" through the brood chamber and creating MORE congestion than
already exists there. I have been asked "where" I put Imirie Shims: On top of the queen excluder
are two supers, then a shim, another 2 supers and then a second shim, then the 5th super topped
with an upper entrance cut in the inner cover.
Lastly, for those that still don't understand "WHY 5 SUPERS?" Nectar is thin and about 80%
water, but there has to be a lot of storage space to hold all this nectar until the bees can ripen it
into thick honey that is only about 1 6-1 8% water. If there is not enough super space to store all
this thin watery nectar, the bees will stop gathering nectar and prepare to swarm. If your colony
swarms during a major nectar flow, it was not a bad queen or crazy bees, it was I 00% YOUR
FAULT, because you did not provide enough super space AHEAD OF TIME.

GET YOUR SUPERS ON!

Disturbing Your Bees Too Much

Almost 70, years ago, I have never forgotten some wisdom Dr. James I. Hambleton gave me: He
said, "Get all your hive work done by the time the nectar flow starts, then leave the bees alone,
let them work and don't disturb them with inspections." When you light your smoker, gently
smoke the bees, remove and inspect some frames, you have totally disrupted that colony for the
rest of the day and they cease foraging for nectar while they try and clear the hive of smoke,
empty their stomachs of honey that they have sucked up in preperation of flying to a new home,
repairing the broken comb that you caused by moving frames, and resealing things with propolis
to keep the weather outside where it belongs.

If you inspect your colony one day each week during a nectar flow, you might lose 1/7th of your
honey yield because you stopped their normal work schedule for a whole day out of seven.

Is the queen that you see on July 4th the SAME QUEEN that you saw on April 1st?

MARK YOUR QUEENS!

May 2000

Nectar Flow "Must Do" Items

The NECTAR FLOW IS ON!
You should have put about 5 supers of drawn comb on your colonies before the first of May, but
if you did not, and if your bees HAVE NOT ALREADY SWARMED, you should do it
tomorrow rain or shine, or give up beeHAVING because you certainly don't assist your bees
when they need assistance. With no super space or INADEQUATE super space, those bees are
going to swarm and find a new home. If you think your bees can produce 2-3 supers of honey in
May, that means that you must have 4-5 supers of drawn comb in place to store all that thin
watery nectar until the bees can evaporate the water and convert the nectar into honey.
Some members do not have drawn comb (the most valuable possession of a beekeeper), and have
to use foundation, which is a whole "new story", because you can NOT use foundation as if it
were drawn comb. TEN frames of foundation (never nine) must be in a super to get the
foundation properly drawn, and only ONE super of foundation on a colony at one time. When
the bees have drawn 6-7 frames and partially filled them with nectar, move the untouched
foundation to the center of the super and the partially filled frames to the outside, and THEN add
a second super of 10 frames of foundation, and repeat the process for the 3rd super, etc..

There is a true old saying: A good beekeeper has Too Many Supers in place when a nectar flow
begins, and Too Few Supers in place when the nectar flow begins to end. As a nectar flow starts
to end (about May 31st in Montgomery County), remove some frames (about 10) that are empty
or slightly filled with nectar, and move your fully capped frames to the outside positions of a
super and the uncapped frames to the center of the super. This encourages capping of all super
frames. More important however, if there is no room in the supers left for any more nectar
storage, the bees will push the queen towards the bottom brood chamber, so they can store the
ending nectar down in the brood chamber. THAT is GOOD, because you really don't need any
more bees until next year, plus food in the brood chamber prevents the bees from starving in the
nectar dearth of July and August. Further, with little or no nectar flow, the worker bees stop
feeding the queen so she won't lay very much brood that uses up winter stores. Most new and
novice beekeepers have never realized the importance of getting some stores into the brood
chamber area for the dearth of late summer.

Lastly, many beekeepers lose much of their honey crop because they inspected their colonies
TOO MUCH during the nectar flow! When you blow just a little bit of smoke in a colony to "see
how they are doing", essentially you have stopped most of their work of foraging, evaporating
nectar, ripening honey, and comb building for 12-24 hours as they blow away the smoke, repair
comb that you damaged, reseal seams with propolis, and regurgitate honey that they had
swallowed in preparation for finding a new home. If you had done the many jobs necessary ON
TIME prior to the nectar flow, there is little need of inspection during the flow.

May 2000

SOURCE of  INFORMATION

Often I am asked "Where do you get your information about bees, equipment, management
techniques and other things?" Other times, people in the audience reveal in their eyes or
questioning voice that they think some of my "teaching" is derived from some place "out in
space" and they are just going to continue doing "what Daddy did" or listen to Cousin Bill or Mr.
Sheetz who has had some bees on his farm off and on for some years. Then, come next year, and
I hear that they lost their bees and are getting new packages. Meanwhile, I either sell bees or give
them away because I don't lose any.
As much as I have suggested that you buy the 1992 Edition of the HIVE and HONEY BEE as
your "bible" for beekeeping, many of you have not. Even though I have read all 1300+ pages of
it several times, I refer to it constantly. Because our nectar flow has begun and bees will be
extremely busy for the ensuing 30 days converting that nectar into honey, I thought I would read
the 55 pages of Chapter 14, authored by Dr. John Ambrose of North Carolina entitled
"MANAGEMENT FOR HONEY PRODUCTION", just to make sure that I had not forgotten
anything. In so doing, the very first 5 paragraphs of the chapter covers so much of what I have
tried to impart to you, I thought it worthwhile to present it here in my PINK PAGES hoping that
the writings of one of the select 31 authors of the book would give you justifiable reason to
practice the honey bee management philosophies that I teach. Here they are:

Beekeeping and bee management for honey production is an art, not a science. It may be a
science one day when bee researchers and beekeepers have a more complete understanding of
bee biology and bee behavior and the environment in which bees live, but that is not yet the case.

The honey bee is not a domesticated animal and most of the "bee management" practiced by
beekeepers is really just a matter of accommodating the natural biology and behavior of the bee.
F. E. Moeller, in the 1980 issue of the USDA Beekeeping Handbook #335, stated: "Beekeepers
in managing or manipulating colonies, are merely facilitating normal biological colony changes
to suit their purposes." Management for honey production definitely fits into his description.

Honey bees naturally collect nectar and store surplus honey. Management for honey production
by the beekeeper is in reality a system that assists the bees in the process. By providing adequate
storage space for the honey surplus, by assuring that the colony have young viable queens, by
minimizing bee losses due to diseases, pests, and pesticides, and by other similar activities, the
beekeeper is enhancing the honey bee colony's ability to make surplus honey. This necessitates
the beekeeper having some knowledge of bee biology and bee behavior as well as some
understanding of local plant (floral) sources in order to be a really successful honey producer.

The more the beekeeper knows about his bees, the better he will be in "managing" his bees. For
example, swarm prevention is an essential part of good beekeeping management, and the
successful beekeeper will develop an understanding of what conditions lead to swarming. Time
of year, nectar and pollen availability, and congestion in the hive are just some of the factors
contributing to swarming. Unsuccessful swarm prevention management results in decreased
honey production because of the decrease in colony size. This can be minimized with a good
management system and an under- standing of the bees.

There is no set formula or recipe for good bee management, but there are general procedures that
should be considered and understood. One consideration is that nectar- and pollen-producing
flora vary considerably from area to area and even within area due to elevation and other factors.
However, in order for the bees to make surplus honey they must be able to take advantage of the
nectar and pollen flows that do occur. Each beekeeper must take these flows into consideration in
developing a management system.
Everyone who has ever listened to me for just a short while or those who have watched me work
bees knows of the importance I attach to understanding bee behavior. Now, you note that Dr.
Ambrose stresses this also. The "keynote" speaker at EAS 2000 in Salisbury, Maryland just 3
months from now is Dr. Norm Gary, author of Chapter 8 in The Hive and Honey Bee (the most
important chapter in the book by my standards), and he is the nation's principal exponent of bee
behavior, making him one of my "hero's". If you come to EAS (as you should), you can sit down
with Dr. Gary and "quiz him" yourself. It can only result in you becoming a BETTER
beeKEEPER or "graduating" from the status of beeHAVER; plus you will begin to find the real
JOYS OF BEEKEEPING!

Again, I want to say, when we consider all of the NEW problems, NEW chemicals, NEW
management techniques that have appeared in just the past 15 years; e. g., mites, Apistan,
Menthol, CheckMite, Apicure, grease patties, parasitic mite syndrome, Africanized bees entering
the U. S., small hive beetle, resistant American Foul Brood, the FEAR of being stung by most of
the American Public, and more knowledge about pheromones: older books, magazine articles or
publications are of little value because they do not cover the items above. Hence, irrespective of
the fame of an author or the great acceptance of his book or articles, unless a new addition has
been written in the last 8-10 years, the writing is obsolete as far as bee management is concerned
in this new 21st century. Further, because of the complexities particularly regarding legal use of
treatment material, it is not wise to pay much heed to the sayings of those who are not bee
scientists, researchers, or professional apiculturists. I feel that if all beekeepers have a copy of the
3rd Edition (April 1998) of the Beekeepers Hand- book by Dr. Diana Sammaturo plus the 1992
Revised Edition of the Hive and the Honey Bee and thoroughly read both, you will be a
successful beekeeper. My PINK PAGES will no longer be needed, and the book that I am
writing will be my waste of time.

At least, I hope that you would not bother to read Ralph Nader's famous book, Unsafe at Any
Speed, written in 1963 about the Chevrolet Corvair to determine how to fix the brake system on
your 1998 Chevrolet Monte Carlo which has both power brakes and disc pads rather than the
drums, shoes and lack of power brake of the Corvair.

Kiplinger's CHANGING TIMES is not confined to the money market, but is apropos to
communication by computer, heating your sandwich by micro wave, organ trans- plants,
successful beekeeping, and my travels and beekeeping on an electric scooter rather than
remaining home on crutches. TIMES CHANGE - ARE YOU?

June 2000

HARVESTING HONEY
No longer do we harvest honey like "Daddy did" years ago. We have learned new techniques
(hopefully), new methods have been developed bees make MORE honey QUICKER in LESS
time than days gone by, because we MANAGE our bees BETTER than Daddy did. Back in
World War 11 days, one colony might produce two or maybe three supers of honey in the 5
month period of May through September in Montgomery County. Now, it is fairly easy to
produce three, four, or even five supers of honey and harvest it by July 4th; and if you can't, you
are doing something wrong, but "that" is another story. If your bees swarmed after the nectar
flow started about May 1st, you did not have enough supers on the colony soon enough, because
bees just don't swarm during a good nectar flow if they have adequate super space. Assuming
that you have some supers of nectar and honey on the colony, unless we have an most unusual
year, the nectar flow is almost finished by June 1st, and surely finished by June 1 5th-20th.
GOOD MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE means for you to consolidate the frames in the supers,
moving fully capped ones to the outside of the supers, filled but not fully capped frames moved
to the center, and empty frames or partly filled frames REMOVED from the colonies so you
have reduced the available space left for bees to store the ending nectar flow and maybe even
force them to store some in the BROOD CHAMBER. By doing this, you will have all frames
full and completely capped ready for harvesting by July 4th.

Many ask me, "George, why do you want to harvest by July 4th, it is so early? Why not wait
until September or October after the goldenrod flow and its cooler?" 90% of all the honey made
in central Maryland is ready for harvest by July 4th. If we do indeed get a goldenrod flow, that
honey crystallizes quickly and I don't like it as a saleable honey, so I leave it for winter stores for
the bees. Further, maybe "cooler" is nice for humans, but more bees are "at home" rather than out
foraging, removing frames of honey free of bees is much more difficult, the pretty white comb
cappings are all yellow from being walked on, the bees have broken some cappings and moved
the honey below into the brood chamber in anticipation of winter, and you could not use Menthol
to kill the tracheal mite in August when it should be done, the extraction of just warm honey is
difficult, and you have no honey to enter in the Fairs and win prizes. Maybe it has never occurred
to you that EAS is always in August, and the central Maryland County Fairs are in August and
September, because most beekeeping is OVER by July 4th.

Plan your HARVESTING when the foraging bees are OUT foraging, the sun is out bright, and
you don't have to use any smoke or very little. [Smoke makes bees break into cell cappings and
causes leaking honey.] Brushing bees off of frames of honey with a bee brush is pretty obsolete
in today's times. [ Your car is fuel injected and no longer has a carburetor, you probably have a
micro-wave oven at home that is used more than the big stove oven, and you probably have a
computer in these CHANGING TIMES.] Although bee-blowers are best and fastest for honey
harvesting, they are expensive ($300) and generally only used by commercial beekeepers. In
today's: times, the use of a fume board (pad) and a "smelly chemical" is far and away the easiest,
fastest, safest, no sting way to harvest honey. Brushy Mountain Bee Supply has a Fume board
and pad for $7.75, and a pint of STINKING Bee-Go for $9.25. Select a day with bright sun and a
time when the forager bees are OUT foraging, put a few drops of Bee-Go, Honey-Robber, or my
favorite Benzaldehyde on the fume board pad, place it on the top super, and WAIT 3-5 minutes.
Remove the super, NOW EMPTY OF BEES, and repeat the process on the next super. Only
Mann Lake, Ltd. sells Benzaldehyde, which does NOT STINK, but has the beautiful odor of Oil
of Almonds. Unless they have changed, Better Bee, Brushy Mountain, Dadant, or Kelly sells the
sweet smelling Benzaldehyde because the price of a permit to sell each of these chemicals is so
high and hence, they all sell the one chemical best known as Bee-Go, which is the trade name for
the chemical: butyric anhydride which has the odor of skunk musk and vomit. UGH!

Lets talk about your extraction: Some beginners have mistakenly done this JUST ONE TIME
outside so they did not mess up the kitchen with honey; but when the robber bees chased them
inside, the neighbors called the police and Dad got badly stung bringing the supers and frames
inside, the lesson was well learned. The temperature of honey to be extracted is very important,
because warm honey of 900 extracts VERY EASILY, but room temperature honey at 70' is
difficult to extract and can result in broken combs and not fully extracted frames. Hence have an
EXTRACTION DAY party. Stack you filled supers outside, SEALED SO NO BEES CAN GET
INSIDE, and let them heat up under a bright sun for 1-2 days, and bring inside just one super at a
time for extraction. HONEY IS VERY HYGROSCOPIC [Sucks up moisture out of the air.], so
you must keep all containers of honey covered with a lid as much as possible. After the honey is
extracted strain it through a fine sieve to get the "nuts and bolts" out [bee legs, wax, wood chips,
etc.]; and then, while still warm, filter the honey through some nylon or rayon material that is
fine or shear like a woman's slip material or woman's panty hose. I use several layers of bridal
lace material called marquisette. In the "old days", cheesecloth was used because it was cheap
and nylon was expensive, but cheesecloth is made of cotton which leaves tiny fibers in the honey
that encourages crystallization. USE ONLY a man made fiber like NYLON or RAYON. After
filtering is completed, cover the honey to curtail hygroscopic action and let the honey sit and
settle for at least 3 days, skim off the foam on the surface of the honey, and start filling
containers with your honey.

To keep your wife happy, grab a pan of clean water, a wash cloth, and a dry towel and go and
clean off the honey on all the door knobs, light switches, toilet handles, and drawer handles in
your house, because a drop or two of honey on your hands can go a long way and is not only
sticky, but attracts ants or flies. That is why I converted my horse barn into my honey house,
saving my marriage of 56 years. I hope you are aware that Dr. Dyce of Cornell University in his
study of making honey spread (creamed honey) found that the most ideal temperature to help
honey crystallize is 57 . Hence, never try and store your honey in your cool basement or out in
your garage. Store honey in the FREEZER or out in the warm sunlight, one or the other, but not
in some cool place. I store 20 supers of comb honey in a freezer for a year or more for sales at
shows and many cases of creamed honey are in another freezer; and the honey is always as fresh
as the day I took it from the bees. Some say they don't have a big freezer, and my answer is there
is a frozen food locker in most towns that rent space by the week, month, or year. However, the
best place to keep a 60 pound-bucket of honey is out in the sun or at least behind a sunny
window. Or did you forget that a queen bee will not la eggs unless the brood temperature is 91-
96', so our warmest Washington, DC temperature is never going to hurt honey, plus it will stop it
- from- crystallizing.

Have fun and don't get sick from too much honey tasting while you are extracting.

Did You FORGET Paying Your Dues?

Surely, some people forgot, because there are a lot RED marks on my NOT PAID list. Our
yearly dues are $10, due in MAY, and you get 1 1 monthly meetings, the ownership and
opportunity to work with our 4 colonies at Brookside Nature Center upon asking me, and 12 of
George's PINK PAGES. Further, most associations don't have a single Master Beekeeper
member, whereas we have NINE, any of which can help you. $10 seems pretty cheap for all of
that, less that $1 per month. The PINK PAGES are a FREE extra, but any amount of money you
send will materially help paying for their printing and mailing. I am OLD, a scientist, a
beeKEEPER, and generous with my time and knowledge, but I am not a book keeper plus I don't
like keeping "tabs" on people. Hence, please mail me your yearly dues! If I have put a RED
CIRCLE around the date like "00/5" on the Honey Pot mailing label, that RED should be your
reminder to mail me your check quickly.

Note that I have not mentioned EAS 2000. I will just count on seeing all of you in Salisbury
LEARNING all about the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

NEW QUEENS?
Some colonies have swarmed, and left you with a new queen in the parent colony. Maybe you
have been summoned to catch a swarm, and you have a new colony with an unknown queen.
Unless you have a MARKED queen, how do you know that the Qlueen that you saw yesterday is
the same queen that was there in April? Are you sure that your bees are Italian? or Carniolan? or
Buckfast? or just "Uncle Billy's"?

Maybe I should ask you: DO YOU REALLY CARE?

It is almost universally agreed that the genetic makeup of the queen basically sets the tone of the
colony; which includes such things as gentleness, honey productivity, disease resistance,
wintering ability, comb production, swarming tendency, food consumption, population buildup
and other traits. Unless you are an a beginner surely you know that the Africanized bee as well as
the old, dark Mellifera Mellifera bee brought here in the 17th and 18th centuries from Europe
was nasty, disease prone and not a great honey producer. Scientific research and skilled queen
breeding by many dedicated people have now made it possible for each of us to have backyard
bees that suit our desires rather than just letting nature decide.

You MUST understand that bees are not particular about a queen, but just want "any" queen to
be the head of their colony. Hence if you are satisfied with this sort of colony leadership, you are
admitting that any queen irrespective of her genetic characteristics is good enough to head up
your honey bee colony. You are NOT in charge of your bees THEY are in charge of you!

By now you know (or should know) that the commercial honey producers that own large
numbers of colonies, e. g. 5,000 or 1 0,000 colonies requeen each colony EVERY YEAR with
queens of the genetic characteristics they desire that they purchase from a queen breeder.
Purchasing these queens is an expense to the, honey producer, but that cost is easily made up by
increased honey production as well as saving the costs of certain undesirable traits like
swarming, high food consumption, or disease treatment.
Don't you think it is high time for you to consider IN CHARGE of your bees and being a
KEEPER of bees rather than just being a HAVER of bees? Read the many writings regarding the
good points and bad points about bee RACES and the STOCKS of these races, take a position
based on your own time and ability plus the location of your bees to select those traits that you
most desire, and then select a breeder of the queen that best fits all these hopes, and decide on a
requeening program' Although I personally prefer late August and early September requeening,
most people prefer to requeen in April. You now have time to think all of this over. GOOD
LUCK!

July 2000

beeHAVER or beeKEEPER?
Managing Your Bees For the Next 9 Months
Unfortunately, far too many people forget their bees after the honey harvest around July 4th in
Maryland, not unlike putting your bathing suit in the attic until next summer. Maybe these
people are satisfied with just "having" bees, because they surely are NOT doing those things
necessary to "keep" bees or those things to retard swarming next spring or to produce a record
honey crop next year. Maybe these people really don't understand what happens inside the
colony during these 9 months of July through March; so let's talk about each of these 9 months
as if we were on the inside of the hive ourselves.

July:
Harvesting honey, extracting, bottling, freezing comb honey to kill wax moth eggs, preparing creamed
honey for sale, storing and protecting drawn comb with PDB (para-dichloro-benzene), testing for Varroa
mites with a Sticky Board and treating for mites if the test is positive, planning entries for all the coming
Honey Shows and Fairs, and give thanks for America on July 4th.

August:
Attend the EAS meeting and LEARN more about good beekeeping, enter honey and hive products in the
COUNTY FAIR, help in our Association Booth at the Fair to tell all the attendees about WHAT our
honey bees do for their gardens and for our human food supply by pollination (not to mention how to
COOK with honey) and our bees are not aggressive "killer Bees" but just defensive, install MENTHOL
(cost $2) in each colony BEFORE September to kill tracheal mites, refill PDB on stored drawn comb if
necessary

September:
Requeen your colonies, refill PDB on stored comb if necessary

October:
Remove all supers and excluders, Install Apistan strips on October 1st, start feeding 2:1 sugar syrup to
make sure that bees have 70 pounds of honey for winter stores, cut grass and make hive windbreaks if
needed, refill PDB on stored comb if needed, put mouse guards over hive entrance

November:
Feed 1 gallon 2:1 sugar syrup containing Fumadil-B (cost $2) to prevent Nosema Disease, POSITIVELY
REMOVE APISTAN STRIPS on some warm (50°) day after November 15th

December:
Start cleaning, repairing, and painting hive boxes and all wooden ware, Removing propolis when it is cold
is EASY (not difficult as it is in warm weather), PLAN your spring, Are you going to try something new -
READ about it before you try, write to queen breeders and inquire how soon they could ship and costs

January:
Select some day when the temperature is over 50°, sunny, wind calm, take off from work, and OPEN up a
colony and make a QUICK inspection for brood, disease, and food

February:
Start your REVERSING program to curtail swarming, begin feeding 1:1 sugar syrup to get the queen
laying rapidly; positively do an OPEN HIVE inspection on some day when the temperature is over 50°.
LOOKING AT THE OUTSIDE OF A COLONY TELLS YOU NOTHING. Your colony might be dead,
and the activity you see could be ROBBER BEES. OPEN THE COLONY AND INSPECT!

March:
Continue the REVERSING and the 1:1 FEEDING. In the warmth of your house, start inserting
foundation into the frames you intend to use on April 1st and April 15th

Based on the myriad number of questions that I hear asked, it is quite apparent that only a few
people seem to understand just what is going on inside a beehive at different months of the year.
They would be better beekeepers if they were more informed about the difference between May
and August for example, or April and October. Of particular importance is the AVERAGE AGE
of the bee in any given month, because there is a VAST difference in a hive that has many, many
nurse age bees (less than 19 days old) as compared to a hive that has more forager age bees (over
19 days old) than nurse bees.

In our Central Maryland area, unless the bees have been fed 1:1 sugar syrup in February and
March to stimulate brood rearing, colony population is at its highest in June or early July and at
its lowest in January or early February. The peak laying months of a queen are April and May;
and her rest period, when she is laying very little or not at all, is late November and December.
Carniolan queens, which are noted for their very early brood rearing, will start laying in January,
while most other queens generally wait until February. Young nurse bees DON'T GO OUT
FORAGING, and there are 40 days between the time an egg is laid and the resulting bee goes out
FORAGING. Hence, if our Black Locust bloom appears on April 20th, the egg to produce a
foraging bee to gather nectar on that date had to be laid before March 11th, which is 40 days
prior to April 20th. Further, if our nectar flow is essentially over by June 15th, than we really
don't have any use for the bees whose eggs were laid after May 6th. As soon as the nectar flow
slows down or stops, the bees reduce brood cell preparation and feeding the queen, and hence
egg laying begins to slow down in late May and is materially reduced by the end of June. Let's
consider Varroa mite population: Varroa mite eggs are laid with 4 day old bee larva and feed off
of that. With the peak honey bee brood months being April and May, there are many, many
Varroa mite produced with all this bee brood; but the mites have a longer life than a honey bee.
Therefore, as the queen reduces brood laying and worker bees die off at the old age of 42 days,
the Varroa mite has an excellent chance of killing off the colony in July or August by just having
over- whelming numbers of mites feeding on adult bees.

In spite of all the flowers you might see in July and August in all parts of Central Maryland,
there is almost NO nectar flow during these two months to the point that some bees have starved
to death because a beekeeper removed TOO much of the honey from the bees. Most bees,
particularly Carniolans, reduce brood rearing during this time because there is so little nectar to
feed the brood (brood is fed nectar, NOT honey). Possibly some species of goldenrod that
produces nectar might bloom in late August or September as well as aster; but these honeys
crystallizes so rapidly, they have no great sales value and are better left for winter food stores for
the bees. Of course, the appearance of this new nectar encourages the bees to start brood rearing
again that produces new young bees to winter the approaching long winter. During October and
November, all nectar sources cease and brood rearing dramatically slows and normally will
totally stop around Thanksgiving. In December,the bees are clustered, the queen is not laying,
and very little honey is being eaten due to lack of activity of the bees and even the cluster
temperature is lowered because there is no brood to incubate. If you have followed my
suggestions and installed Apistan on October 1st and left it in place for 6 weeks and removed it
before December 1st, there was very little bee brood during this time. Since new Varroa mite
eggs are laid with a 4 day old bee larva, there basically are almost zero mites remaining
anywhere in your colony of bees. What a wonderful situation!

In spite of the fact that January and early February are the coldest time of our winter, surprising
things are happening in our hives. Don't ask me to explain how the bees know that "spring is just
around the corner and they HAVE to be ready for it to gather enough honey to get through the
following winter, still a year away". Only GOD can explain how the bees know what must be
done in cold January and February. I can only answer that this is part of the genetics of apis
mellifera. In spite of the cold, the bees begin to eat honey, microscopically flex muscles thereby
developing body heat that spreads through the cluster, raise the core of the cluster to 91°-96°,
heavily feed the queen, and the queen starts laying eggs. It is interesting that all of these bees at
this time are OLD bees, much older than 42 days, but are still alive because they haven't suffered
the stress of flight to collect nectar and pollen. Brood rearing proceeds slowly due to lack of
nurse bees and enough bees to keep large areas of brood warm. During this period, there will be
a few days that the weather is warm enough to allow the bees to break cluster and go forth to
collect pollen from skunk cabbage, alders, maples and other winter bearing blooms; and this acts
as a shot of adrenaline to the bees to increase brood rearing tremendously. This requires warmth
in the broodchamber and the bees eat a great deal of honey to produce that warmth. Further, the
bee larva must be heavily fed with nectar, so the bees use honey diluted with water. If the
beekeeper has been careless and not left a full 70 pounds of honey with the bees as winter stores,
and they are eating up vast quantities of honey to raise all this brood in February and particularly
March, is there any wonder why more colonies starve to death in March than any other month of
the year. We humans would turn the heat down, wear more warm clothes, and not think about
raising more children; but bees don't think like that, but follow the same program that their
ancestors have followed without change for millenniums.

I hope I have given you a "smattering" of the things a good beeKEEPER does from July through
next March; and I trust I have helped the beeHAVERS.

Invest $2 and Save Your Hive from Tracheal Mite Death

A lot of people think the tracheal mite is not in Maryland, or death reports were over done, or
that their bees are resistant. The major reason that so many people feel this way is because the
tracheal mite is microscopic and they can't see it. Hence, the old adage comes to mind: If you
can't see it, it must not be there. I hope they don't feel the same way about a cancer pathogen, or
e. coli in their hamburger. So often I hear about the loss of bees due to the cold winter or heavy
snow or our long winter. I don't hear the beekeepers in Alaska, Hudson Bay, or Russia
mentioning colony losses for these reasons. One of our EAS Master Beekeepers keeps bees in
Fairbanks, Alaska, when I represented Maryland on the National Honey Board, Idaho member,
Randy Johnson, went to Siberia each year to work with Russian beekeepers, and I have delved
deep among these "far north" beekeepers about winter losses. Frankly, they don't lose colonies to
cold, heavy snow, or long winters. Honey bees that are free of disease or pests and have plenty of
winter stores arrive in the spring "hale and hearty". The fact that tracheal mites live ONLY in
adult bees (never in the brood) and weaken the bee as the bee ages and there are no new
replacement bees in December or January creates the situation that most colonies infected with
tracheal mitesdie in January! Hence, it is important to kill as many tracheal mites as possible
BEFORE the mites can so thoroughly "clog-up" the breathing of the bee that it dies of
strangulation. During the past 16 years, the Federal government has only APPROVED two
chemicals to kill tracheal mites, menthol in 1984 and Apicure (formic acid) in 2000. However,
there are some packaging problems with Apicure so it might not be available until 2001. WHEN
USED AT THE CORRECT TIME, menthol works like a charm and kills 99% of all tracheal
mite infection. Menthol sublimes (turns from solid into gas without becoming liquid) at 84°; and
hence, in Central Maryland, menthol must be installed in a colony BEFORE SEPTEMBER 1st,
when there are still enough hot days to convert those 50 grams (about 2 ounces) on menthol into
a gas that the bees can breath and hence kill the tracheal mites infesting their "breathing
apparatus" (Bees don't have lungs like humans). Many beekeepers have delayed menthol
installation until September or even October, their bees died, and they had the gall to announce
that "menthol does NOT work". Baloney! Menthol works like a charm, but it MUST be used at
the correct time of year for the area involved. I install menthol in my Montgomery County area
on August 15th, and have never lost a colony to tracheal mites.

You can do the same by spending about $2 and buy one 50 gram package of menthol for each
colony and place it on top of the brood frames in your bottom story of your colony BEFORE
SEPTEMBER 1st!

If you want to be "double sure" of protecting your bees from death by tracheal mites, you can use
menthol PLUS a continuous exposure from July to December of GREASE PATTIES kept in the
brood chamber of the colony. These GREASE PATTIES contain NO Terramycin, but only 2
parts of plain sugar mixed with 1 part of Crisco and this mixture made into a hamburger size
pattie and kept on the frame tops of brood frames CONTINUOUSLY for 6 months. Dr. Diana
Sammataro earned her Ph.D. at Ohio State University for the research on using grease patties to
control tracheal mite population.

Be assured that if I hear of you losing your bees during this coming winter, I will embarrass you
by asking you: Did you use menthol? When? It is high time that you spend $2.00 on something
that works rather than taking a chance, your bees die, and then pay $40 to buy a new 3 pound
package of bees, not to mention losing your honey. crop. I don't believe that you are so "hard-
headed" not to use menthol just to save two bucks.

Just some things you should positively KNOW!

1. The favorite food of the honey bee is NOT honey, but fresh nectar or even 1:1 sugar syrup.
Honey is a stored food for winter use.
2. There MUST be a nectar flow of some kind present in order to make the bees draw foundation
into drawn comb.
3. Allowing your colonies to requeen themselves is about as obsolete as a typewriter or as unusual
as seeing women's hats. This is particularly true in the absence of many drones due to so much
death my mites. It might surprise you, but just as it is highly irregular for a human brother and
sister to mate, virgin queens rarely mate with drones that came from the virgin queen's hive.
Further, bee researcher has positively shown that when a colony finds itself queenless, in their
desire to become queenrite QUICKLY, the worker bees select an older larva (perhaps 2 days old)
rather than an egg to receive the royal jelly that will convert this worker egg into a queen. Due to
lack of enough royal jelly feeding, the resulting queen is often poor. Queens reared by a skilled
queen breeder are generally far superior to any queen that you could raise, and you are
introducing new genetic lines into your apiary, hence preventing inbreeding.
4. COOL smoke is normally white like cotton, but never blue or red which has some flame in it. Use
a tightly packed fuel that smolders rather than something loosely packed that emits flame or
sparks. Packed Pine Needles is my favorite.
5. Supers are deemed quite important by beeHAVERS. However, the real beeKEEPER pays very
little attention to the supers knowing that ALL PROBLEMS as well as ALL SUCCESSES start in
the BROOD CHAMBER. If the apiarist provides comb space before it is needed, keeps the bees
HEALTHY by using approved treatments on time, learns and uses the new management
techniques, and always has a YOUNG queen ready for early spring laying, the SUPERS will
"take care of themselves" provided that there are enough in place at the correct time.

EAS Master Beekeeper Creator and Founder Dead

Dr. Roger Morse, age 72, died in his sleep on May 12th. Cornell University awarded him a
Bachelor's degree in 1950, his Master's in 1953, and his doctorate in 1955. In 1958, he went to
work as an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology, later promoted to associate
professor and then professor, and served as Chairman of the Department from 1986-89. He was
honored as a visiting professor by universities in Brazil, Finland, and the Philippines.
Roger had that ability of communication with the "common man", understanding the problems
and questions of oftentimes "blue collar" beekeepers and replying to them in words and
examples that was very understandable. In this regard, he introduced the science of beekeeping
to the practice of beekeeping. Morse is perhaps best known for his many writings, all concerned
about the betterment of beekeeping as scientific research continued to open new knowledge
about apis mellifera. His writings are far too numerous to mention here.

Back in the 1970's, Roger was concerned about HOW to get beekeeping knowledge out to the
beekeepers who had learned the basics from their fathers or grandfathers and simply could not
afford the time or cost to attend college instruction. In addition, Roger knew very well that many
of the beekeeping practices of the day were just carryovers from previous years and really
outdated. Hence, at Cornell University and basically utilizing only New York State beekeepers,
he created the original Master Beekeeping program. His idea was that he would certify some
individual that had proven by passing difficult tests on all phases of beekeeping to be a
MASTER BEEKEEPER; and this person could then teach responsible beekeeping techniques to
beekeepers in his geographic location in New York State. This program became so popular and
successful with New York beekeepers, Roger offered the program to EAS so that EAS could
spread the idea throughout its coverage of 20+ Eastern States and five Canadian provinces. EAS
assumed the leadership in the MASTER BEEKEEPER program in 1981, and the first two people
to be CERTIFIED were my own Bee Partner, Ann Harman, and Maryland's Ernie Miner, both of
which are members of our Montgomery County Beekeepers Association. Now 20 years later,
there are a total of 130 EAS CERTIFIED MASTER BEEKEEPERS in the world (even from
Alaska and Nevada) and there are NINE who are members of our MCBA.

Because of my personal interest in teaching responsible beekeeping and trying to upgrade the
many beeHAVERS to beeKEEPERS, I will miss Roger a great deal. Whether he was in New
York or wintering in Florida, he was always available to me if I had a question. Roger was a
MAN among many, and he will be sorely missed.

August 2000

What do you know about QUEENS

I just always assumed that beekeepers knew "all about Queens" until I got heavily involved
reading the questions, answers, comments, and advice given on the Internet Bee-L. Then, I
started to pay more attention to questions and answers of Maryland and other beekeepers, and to
my surprise and alarm, I learned that most people are seriously lacking much needed knowledge
about the queen bee. Further, I found that many people are reluctant to READ the books or
writings of bee scientists or bee researchers in fear that the text might contain unfamiliar words
or that the findings might be based on an unfamiliar theory, or frankly, the writing is just too
difficult to understand. Even though I am a scientist myself, I have worked with the "so-called
average man" long enough, I think I can "speak his language"; and with that in mind, I want to
tell you much about the queen bee that obviously has confused many people.
How many remember one of my favorite words: ANTHROPOMORPHIC? It means ascribing
human characteristics to non-human things, like bees. Unlike humans, bees, including the queen
bee, have very little, if any, ability to learn anything. They are "born" with all the information
that they will ever have to know, and never require any boss, teacher, instruction, condemnation
or praise. If you understand that a worker bee can build comb without instruction, fly-out to
forage for either pollen, nectar, or water as needed without instruction, raise a new queen when
needed without instruction, and gather nectar in May to make honey for winter feed when they
will be dead by July, then you might have a better chance of understanding the many things that
are so important about a queen bee. This can only make you a BETTER BEEKEEPER and
enable you to partake in the REAL JOYS OF BEEKEEPING as I have known for 68 years.

WHERE DO QUEENS COME FROM: A queen lays a fertilized egg that would normally
become a worker bee. When that egg is 3 days old, it hatches into a larva. During the four and
half day uncapped larval period, the larva is fed 100's of times each day a rich food of royal jelly,
a secretion manufactured in the hypophyrngeal glands of young worker bees. This specialized
larval diet fully develops the female reproductive organs, making the body larger including the
wings, and develops the queen's ability to manufacture and disperse the queen PHEROMONE,
or queen substance which is that odor that identifies her as the queen as well as exercising
control over her progeny. To paraphrase all of that, let's just say that: When a normal worker bee
larva is fed a total diet of royal jelly, this transforms the regular underdeveloped female worker
bee into a fully developed female that can mate and then reproduce bees. ANY worker bee larva
can become a queen bee if fed the royal jelly diet for its entire 4+ day uncapped larval period.

DOES A QUEEN HAVE LEADERSHIP OR RULE OVER HER COLONY? No! (surprise?) A
queen bee is much like the queen of England: She reigns but does NOT rule. The English
parliament makes decisions and rules. In a bee colony, it is the worker bees that make decisions
and control the queen by how much and how often they feed the queen. For example, when a
colony is crowded for brood space or nectar space and decides to swarm, the workers stop
feeding the queen so she ceases egg laying and reduces weight so she can fly, but the worker
bees literally have to force her away from the hive to the initial swarm congregating location. If
she joins the swarm, scout bees go out to find a new permanent home and off they disappear.

WHAT DOES A QUEEN DO? Up until about 20 years ago, we knew little more than the queen
was an egg laying machine capable of laying 2000 eggs per day one at a time or about one egg
every 43 seconds during the peak of the brood year, generally May. She lays various quantities
of eggs almost every day for about 10 months of the year, but rests from about Thanksgiving
until mid January. It has been estimated that she might lay 200,000 eggs each year. By the way,
she only breeds basically one day of her life, usually when she is about 6 days old; and she
breeds with about a dozen or more different drones who deposit about 4-5 million sperm in her
spermatheca gland where she keeps them alive for her entire life and releases one sperm to
fertilize an egg as she lays it which will result in a worker bee. This is pretty interesting "stuff",
but not as interesting as the researcher's findings during the past 20 years about the queen
PHEROMONE, or queen substance. A queen bee has the ability to produce a scent or an odor
that acts as a glue to bind perhaps 40,000-50,000 bees together as one functioning working unit
rather that splitting up by swarming. Further, the pheromone suppresses the sexually immature
worker bees from laying eggs, as well as suppressing the natural worker bee aggression to other
bees to a feeling of cohesion with the queen, and finally, the pheromone is a stabilizing influence
within a swarm that provides the worker bees the justification for swarming. It is thought by
some that the function of the queen PHEROMONE is more important than the laying ability of a
queen because of swarm prevention. Unfortunately, it has been proven that the ability of a queen
to produce this pheromone is at it's height on her mating flight and diminishes a little each day
for the rest of her life. Hence, a real young queen can prevent swarming better than a 1 year old
queen, and much better than a two year old queen. This is one of the reasons why present day
commercial beekeepers, highly dependent on honey production, requeen annually and rarely let a
queen live a second season.

WHAT IS THE LIFESPAN OF A QUEEN? THE USEFUL SPAN? There has been reports of
queens living as much as 5 years, and many cases of queens lasting 3 years. If one is not upset by
swarming, keeping a queen for 2 years is not unusual. However, if you are desirous of high
honey production, your colony has to have a high population and not given to swarming, and
both of these requirements need the services of a very young queen, only a few months old.

WHY HAVE A MARKED QUEEN? Unlike humans, dogs, or cats, queen bees are more like
robins, rabbits, or bass fish in that "they all look alike" unless they are of different races. After 68
years of beekeeping, I still don't know whether to think of a beekeeper who tells me that he
knows his unmarked queen is 3 years old and still going strong, is a genius or a liar. Several
times in my life, for requeening, I have purchased 50 queens from two different queen breeders,
and as I examined them, I could not tell one from any other - they were all pretty much identical.
If one of my colonies swarms, I want to know it. If one supersedes the queen, I want to know it.
If one group of colonies all headed by queens from one breeder produces more honey or
becomes infected with some disease more than some other group of colonies with queens from a
different breeder, I want to know that. I want each of queens to have a "social security" number,
so I have nothing but MARKED QUEENS and every good beekeeper should do likewise. Not
only is a marked queen much easier to locate in a colony, but the color of her mark tells you her
age, or the breeder who produced her. When I catch a wild swarm, I mark the queen SILVER
(light GRAY) so I know she is not a known "pedigreed" queen, and I use her in a comb building
hive or in an observation hive at my honey sales booth or school demonstrations. I mark my own
queens, but you can buy marked queens by paying just $1 more. When I constantly hear people
say they "can't find their queen", or people say they lost their honey crop because the bees
swarmed, I wonder how important that $1 must be to them. Even worse, when most queens cost
about $10-$12, I just don't understand why anyone would take a chance on losing a several
hundred dollar honey crop rather than pay $10-$12 for a new, young queen. MARK YOUR
QUEENS!

WHAT IS A SUPERSEDURE QUEEN? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER MOTHER? WHY?

Maybe the "average life span" of a human is about 75 years, and the average life span of a queen
bee is perhaps 3-4 years, but some humans never see 50 or even 20, and some queen bees never
reach 2 or even 1. Hence, just because you bought a new queen last April, why are you so
surprised to find a NEW UNmarked queen in your colony this April. Where did she come from?
Is she any good? Will she still be there next April? Queens die primarily from any of several
reasons: accidentally injured or crushed by the beekeeper, disease, poorly bred and not doing an
adequate laying job so the workers initiate supersedure, or lost on her mating flight. When a
colony has become successful enough to be overly populated and short of space, they "look
forward" to swarming and plan ahead to leave a WELL NURTURED virgin queen behind to
take over the parent colony; therefore, building large swarm cells and STUFFING ROYAL
JELLY into these cells as soon as an EGG is laid in one. The egg hatches 3 days later into a larva
and this new larva enjoys "feasting" on an abundant supply of royal jelly for the next 4.5 days
until the cell is capped and even has enough royal jelly to continue feasting for another day in the
newly capped cell before it commences its pupal life and emerges about 7 days later as a virgin
queen. The prenatal history of a supersedure queen is not well orchestrated nor planned ahead.
When a colony suddenly finds itself queenLESS, regardless of the reason, the worker bees so
badly want a queen mother that they RUSH against time to develop a queen who will restore
colony morale. Hence, they select a worker egg or even a 2 day old larva on the face of a brood
comb, build a wax cup around that egg or larva, deposit royal jelly in the cell and "hope." It is
obvious that this underdeveloped larva does not get the full ration of royal jelly that occurs in a
swarm cell, and hence the resulting queen may be inferior. Note that I did not say "is" inferior,
but I said "may be" inferior. So you have a supersedure queen - is she any good? It will take you
the best part of a year to find out, which may mean the loss of honey production, pollination, or
enjoyment for that year. Although almost EVERY bee researcher, honey bee scientist, and
commercial honey producers requeen EVERY year, there are still the "old timers", the hobbyist,
and the beeHAVERS who still think requeening every two years is adequate and/or that by not
having marked queens and hence allowing colonies to requeen themselves is OK, even possibly
getting inferior superseded queens. Well, suit yourself, but I don't start a vacation drive to the
beach with smooth tires, old crankcase oil, short of freon in my air conditioning, and a torn wiper
blade. Dr. Basil Furgala, the very famous bee researcher from Univ. of Minnesota wrote: Having
old queens in colonies during the fall and winter too often brings about:

1. A supersedure in the fall, too late for the virgin queen to be mated, resulting in a drone layer.
2. A failing old queen in the late winter or early spring resulting in a void in egg laying occurring
when accelerated brood production is a necessity for proper development of the colony.
3. The death of the old queen during the winter, leaving the colony queenless.

Does a QUEEN Bee sting? Another Bee? Another Queen? A Human? Of course, a queen bee
can sting, but unlike a worker bee, the stinger is smooth and does not have any barbs on it so that
it be used more than once. Like the old adage that "two women in the same house means
trouble", if two queens suddenly meet in the same colony, one will fatally sting the other within a
few minutes. As for worker bees or a human, there is no reason for a queen to sting a worker bee
of her own colony whose job it is to protect their queen; and, although their have been a very few
cases of a virgin queen stinging a human, there is almost no record of a human being stung by a
queen bee. That is why one should not hesitate to pick up a queen with your bare hand avoiding
her abdomen and carefully hold her by the thorax to mark her, or put her in a queen cage.

Time elapse between the queen laying a worker egg and a foraging bee? Too many beekeepers
lose much of their honey crop because their queen started laying brood too late in the spring. A
worker bee does NOT become a nectar forager for honey production until FORTY DAYS after
the egg was layed. Hence, if black locust bloomed on April 15th, a foraging bee egg had to have
been layed before March 6th. Never forget that 40 days!
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE IN RACES? Since the genetic differences of each race is
determined by the breeding of the queen bee, each race has certain good points as well as
negative points, and YOU should choose your race based in the most important good points and
the least important bad points based on YOUR ABILITY in beekeeping. The only races that I
will mention are Carniolan, Caucasian, Italian which are the only three that are "somewhat pure"
in the U. S. today. All the other well known names are MAN PRODUCED hybrids that can NOT
reproduce themselves, such as Buckfast, Midnite, Starline, and the new Russian and all of these
can only be replaced by buying a new queen from a queen breeder who produces that hybrid. In
general, all hybrids get nasty and more nasty if they allowed to reproduce on-their-own. Of
course, one can not define the good or the bad qualities of Aunt Eva's bees, Uncle Tom's bees, or
anyone else who allows their bees to reproduce themselves resulting in sort of a League of
Nations bee, because nobody knows who were the many Daddys and Granddaddy's over recent
years. Just some of the more important good points to be considered are: gentleness, disease
resistance, honey production, wintering ability, comb building, etc. Some of the important bad
points to be considered are: excessive swarming, robbing, excessive use of propolis, poor wax
cappings, and disease proneness. The Carniolan is noted for its unusual gentleness, wintering
ability, and maybe disease resistance; but it is also known to have a high propensity to swarm.
The Caucasian is known to be gentle, good wintering ability; but is also well known for an over
abundant use of propolis which makes hive management difficult and is subject to Nosema
disease more than most other bees. The Italian is mostly known as a "pretty" 3 striped yellow
bee, moderately gentle, good honey production, good comb builder; but is also known as "the
King of Robber Bees" and over production of brood resulting in heavy use of honey stores. One
should never select a race because "George said it was the best" or because "most of the local
club members use the xyz race" or because "queen breeder Joe Jones impressed me". Far better
is you reading the myriad number of good and bad points of bees written by bee scientists and
researchers, and select the race based upon what is most important to you and fits in with your
ability to manage your bees properly.

How to Requeen? When?

Many beekeepers LOSE their new $10 queen, because their colony is NOT queenless or they are
trying to requeen a colony during a lousy nectar flow that has a lot of unhappy foraging aged
bees. The almost sure way to determine whether a colony is truly queenless is to insert a frame of
EGGS OR 1 DAY OLD LARVAE IN IT and see if the bees try and develop a supersedure queen
cell. If they do, the colony is queenless; but if no supersedure cell is built, there is some bee in
that colony that the other bees recognize as a queen, and any new queen you try to introduce will
be killed. It could be a virgin queen or a laying worker. It is always easy to add a queen to a nuc
of young nurse bees with few foragers. After this new queen is accepted and laying well in the
nuc, you kill the old queen in the parent colony and unite the parent colony with the nuc. Most
people like to requeen in the spring, when the colonies are still small and the bees gentle because
of a nectar flow. Because I don't want to interfere with my Maryland nectar flow of April and
May, plus the fact that it is very difficult to get well bred queens in March, I prefer fall
requeening. While it is true that late summer and early fall is a tougher time to requeen than
spring because the colonies are bigger and harder to handle, queen breeders can get better queen
breeding in the summer and they can ship to me on an exact date with no guesswork. My
IMIRIE ALMOST FOOLPROOF REQUEENING method, shown below, allows me to approve
the new queen before I kill the old queen plus having two queens laying in the same colony for
about 6 weeks prior to winter provides many young bees for winter and warm early brood in late
winter to gain a large population of foragers for the April-May nectar flow.

IMIRIE REQUEENING METHOD (ALMOST FOOLPROOF)

Select an exact date for your new queen to arrive and make it known to your queen breeder, and
get a MARKED QUEEN. TEN days before the new queen is to arrive, insert queen excluders in
between any two boxes where your old queen can go. When your new queen arrives, water her
and store her in a cool dark place until needed. Gather up a double screen board, an empty hive
body, 10 drawn combs, and a feeder with a gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup. Find the OLD queen
(which ever brood box has larva is where the queen will be found) in the colony you want to
requeen. Set her ASIDE away from the colony, so that you free to manipulate all the other
frames in the colony. Select 3 frames of brood: 1 capped and 2 of eggs and larva, all with the
covering nurse bees. Place these in the center of the empty hive body. Now add 6 more frames,
as follows:

 2 empty drawn comb, (one on each side of the brood frames)

 2 frames of pollen and honey, (one on each side of the drawn comb)
 then 2 more empty drawn comb, (one on each side of the honey-pollen frames).

This totals 9 frames leaving space for the queen cage. Now take several frames of brood ...remaining in
the old colony...and shake the nurse bees into the new 9 frame nuc. Cover the nuc and set it aside for a
while. Return the frame with the OLD queen to her home hive and replace the 5 frames you removed (3
of brood + 2 of honey-pollen) with empty drawn frames.

Now put the double screen board on top of the old colony so that its entrance faces to the rear of
the parent colony. Set the new 9 frame nuc on top and install the new queen (make sure you
remove the cork from the candy end). Start feeding the new nuc immediately. After about 3-5
days, check the queen cage very quickly using little or no smoke to see if the queen has been
released. If she has not, you release her from the cage. Do NOT disturb for another 5-7 days and
then check with as little disturbance and smoke as possible tooking for eggs and larva. Add the
10th frame and remove the queen cage. During the next few weeks (I like about 5-6) check the
brood pattern of the new queen. If you like it and want to accept that new queen, find the old
queen down below the double screen, kill her, and remove the double screen board. This method
has a couple of advantages:

1. if something is wrong with the new queen, you kill her and the colony has a backup with the old
queen; and you requeen the colony at a later date, and
2. for about 5-6 weeks, you have 2 queens laying eggs that increase the number of bees which will
make the hive stronger for winter and reduce the stresses of Winter.

Note: If you don't have a Double Screen Board - You should. If you are not sure how it is made,
imagine a wooden queen excluder frame without the metal wires, covered on both sides by 8
mesh wire - A DOUBLE SCREEN BOARD. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in North Carolina
makes and sells a fancy, very, nice one.

September 2000

HEALTHY BEES OR SICK BEES IN THE COMING SPRING?

My entire month of August was spent at the annual Eastern Apicultural Society (EAS) meeting,
and my own 9 day long Montgomery County Agricultural Fair, during which my basic "job" was
teaching successful beeKEEPING. I never cease to be amazed at how little many people know of
the CHANGES in programs that confront them almost daily; and choose to either ignore up-to-
date scientific suggested advice, go ask old retired "Uncle Ben" for his suggestion of a solution,
or just ignore the problem and hope it does not repeat itself. Such is the case about the treatment
of the tracheal mite and the Varroa mite, BOTH of which are still highly prevalent among all the
bees in the United States, whether Montgomery County, Maryland, Alabama, New York, Texas,
or Alaska.

Then, there are always those that are too "stingy" to spend any money to protect the lives of their
bees, and there are those that don't want to put any "chemicals" in their hives; so they either
DON'T TREAT their bees at all, or treat with so-called NON-CHEMI- CALS like FGMO (food
grade mineral oil) or "essential oils" like wintergreen, thymol, cinnamon, peppermint, or a dozen
others even including Halls Mentholated Cough Drops. Pray tell, aren't these products
CHEMICALS? There seems to be a feeling that if a product such as FGMO or peppermint is OK
for humans, than it must be OK for bees; but do these products kill or control the mites is the
question of importance? Yet, I will wager that these same people take aspirin or Tylenol for
headaches, Pepto-Bismol for an upset stomach, Imodium for diarrhea, many different antibiotics
for various infections, and even nitroglycerine pills for certain heart problems. By the way, none
of these everyday used drugs were "discovered" by "Uncle Ben" or "Aunt Sadie", but were
produced by re- search scientists who were paid to find and develop products suitable for
overcoming human health problems.

Who are these research scientists and who pays them to delve into the ways of destroy- ing the
predators, sicknesses, or pests of our apis mellifera , and without harm to our bees or adulteration
of the honey they produce? Since the beginning of time, few research scientists have done their
job for a financial return, but rather they have done it to answer the age old questions of: What is
on the 'other side'? How high is 'up'? What is 'atomic energy', and how can it be controlled and
used? What is 'gravity', and how does it effect the fall of a feather versus a paper-clip in a
vacuum? Research oriented people are naturally curious about everything and anything just to
"see what is on the other side of the hill". The Federal Government has 5 Bee Research
Laboratories each staffed with numerous Ph.D. scientists in the fields of entomology, chemistry,
bio- chemistry, micro-physics, and other scientific specialties. Most states have similar scientists
engaged in honey bee research on the problems of the honey bee in their area (after all, Maine or
Minnesota have problems with cold weather that Florida or Texas never experience; and 5
Southwest states have the Africanized honey bee that has not yet entered our other 45 states). Let
us never forget the Universities spread over the entire country that have students doing guided
research about honey bee problems to enable them to secure a Ph.D. in one of the sciences. I am
quickly reminded of Diana Sammataro who gained her Ph. D. in entomology by research on the
effect of grease patties on the tracheal mite; and I am watching our own Montgomery County
Alexis Park studying under Dr. Dewey Caron at the University of Delaware. Lastly, there are a
few chemical companies looking for chemicals to use in treatments for honey bee problems; but
these companies are few and far between simply because the treatment of honey bees does not
offer enough profit to justify expensive research. Sadly, because of a few "self appointed
'doctors' of honey bee diseases", who refused to follow written directions about the use of certain
chemicals, notably MITICUR, as well as an effort to do a treat- ment FASTER and CHEAPER,
the manufacturer simply withdrew the product from market and said "the hell with beekeepers".
Just a few rotten apples can spoil a whole barrel!

If any of these non-approved products, like wintergreen, FGMO, or numerous others, worked to
control or kill the tracheal and Varroa mites, don't you think it would have been loudly
announced and publicized by our trade journals, newspapers, honey producers, and even ME?
Our federal labs, notably Beltsville, or state extension service scientists, and our many university
labs have all tested and "played with" these non-approved treatment products over the past 16
years, and to-date, none of these suggested products have been scientifically proved successful
for use in control of our honey bee mite problems. As a scientist myself, although long retired, if
I or members of my family are exposed to a life threatening pest or disease, I am going the seek
advice from the medical profession and do as they say, and IGNORE the comments or
suggestions of my nonmedical friends, my auto repairman, my friendly butcher, my Uncle Ben
or Aunt Sadie or even my pastor. I want to listen to that segment of people who have spent their
lives working as scientists to find the proper treatment to restore my health, irrespective of my
relationship with all others. Off the subject a bit, but a little levity is good for us: While at EAS,
an out of state attendee said to a friend of mine: I have been told that George Imirie has been
hospitalized 5 times over the past decade with strokes; but he is still here on his electric scooter
teaching proper beeKEEPING. Why isn't he DEAD? My friend replied: beeHAVERS still need
George, God is not sure just what to do with him, and the Devil is afraid of George. Only you
can decide who is correct; but meanwhile I will keep "preaching" to you.

Some people seem to be OVER concerned about the monetary cost of treating a colony for
mites, and that is like failing to buy new tires before starting your vacation of traveling cross
country in your three year old car. The cost of a yearly dose of menthol to KILL tracheal mites is
about $2.00 per colony, and the cost of 4 strips of Apistan to kill about 99% of the Varroa mites
(if used at the RIGHT time) is about $8.00. If you give a fall treatment of Fumidil B to control
the ever present Nosema disease, the cost is about $2.00 per colony. Hence, the TOTAL yearly
costs of disease treatments using USDA APPROVED chemicals is only about $12.00 per colony.
Healthy bees produce honey and do not HAVE to be replaced. Maybe your colony only produces
a measly 50 pounds of honey, and you literally "give-it-away" for $2.00 per pound, which equals
a total of $100 and your bees are not only healthy and ready for next year, but you can split one
colony into 2 colonies or sell 4 frame "nucs" for $50 each, and STILL HAVE your bees. Further,
maybe you or your neighbor is a vegetable gardener; and due to the absence of wild bees,
perhaps the garden did not produce many vegetables like cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers,
squash, carrots, broccoli, onions, apples, cherries and many other veggies and fruit, because of
the lack of plant pollination. How do you measure "this" in dollars and cents? I have often
wondered if the average hobbyist beekeeper has ever thought of the package bee industry, where
these operators only income might be from the sale of bees which certainly means that they dare
not fail to PROPERLY medicate their bees against things like mites, and you can be assured that
they don't use some "Uncle Ben" remedy, fail to miss a treatment, treat on time with an approved
chemical, and follow the directions of the research scientists that developed these approved
chemicals. WHY DON'T YOU DO LIKEWISE?

Lastly, there are always those people that want to "ring every drop of honey out of a season", and
keep their supers in action continuously from April through September. Then they treat their
bees with approved chemicals like menthol and Apistan in late September or next March. Their
bees die or arrive in the spring sickly, and these people have the unmitigated nerve to declare that
"I treated with menthol and Apistan and my bees died, so menthol and Apistan are no damned
good". It is hard to tell these self appointed experts that they did not treat at the specific time of
year for their area that the scientists recommended. One simply has to decide whether to treat at
the correct time and lose some of the honey crop, or treat at a poor time of the year, make a few
extra pounds of honey, but your bees are either dead or sickly enough to have a very poor spring
next year. Master Beekeeper Tom Muncey, representing the State of Nevada, served on the
National Honey Board with me, and my talks with him revealed that the legalized gambling of
Nevada had clearly shown him to never gamble with treatment of bees, but follow the approved
treatment recommendations to the written letter. Tom's total income is from his commercial
honey production in the Nevada area.

What are the Suggested and Approved treatments for mites in our central
Maryland area near Washington DC and Baltimore:
TRACHEAL MITE:

Apply 50 grams of menthol on top of brood chamber frames about AUGUST 15th, but before
September 1st. Solid menthol crystals sublime (turn to vapor without becoming liquid) at a
temperature of 84°, and it is this vapor that enters the breathing "tubes" of the adult bee and
KILLS the tracheal mites in the trachea of the bee. There are not many days of temperatures over
84° after September 1st to permit menthol to become a gas and enter the "lungs" of the bee to kill
tracheal mites. Bees infected with tracheal mites usually die of strangulation (like emphysema in
humans) in midwinter: late December, January, or February and leave abundant quantities of
winter honey stores in the colony. If you inspect a suspicious colony on a warm winter day, and
find a colony whose population has just dwindled away to a small group of bees and queen and
there are plenty of honey stores still in the hive, this is a classic case of death by tracheal mite
infestation. But don't GUESS at the cause of death, dissect some bees and examine their tracheas
under a microscope at your local high school lab, or send a sample of the bees to Beltsville for
tests.

In the spring of 2000, APICURE (formic acid) was APPROVED for treatment of both tracheal
and varroa mites, and Apicure can be used at temperatures lower than 84° and will KILL about
100% of tracheal mites and perhaps 70% of Varroa mites. Unfortunately, APICURE experienced
some leaking package problems and has been temporarily removed from the market until reliable
packaging methods are found. If you did NOT use menthol on time and you can still find some
unsold packages of APICURE, you can certainly use this in September and early October.

Although LABOR INTENSIVE, many use plain grease patties (2 parts of plain sugar mixed
with1 part of Crisco) to control (not kill) tracheal mite population so that they do not get strong
enough to kill a colony. Unfortunately, a plain grease pattie must be CONSTANTLY present on
the top of brood chamber frames from about July to December and this requires many colony
inspections of the brood chamber during these months to make sure that a grease pattie is not
used up. Dr. Diana Sammataro has well proven that PLAIN grease patties (no Terramycin)
constantly present in a colony (even during a nectar flow) control the tracheal mite population so
the bees can stay alive and function, but this system has NOT been approved by the government
as a tracheal mite treatment because it does not KILL the mite, but just controls its population.

When $2.00 of APPROVED menthol used in August, or $2.00 of APPROVED APICURE

(formic acid) used in August, September, or early October, or $2.00 of grease patties used CON-
TINUOUSLY from July to December will either KILL or control tracheal mites, then you have
NO EXCUSE to lose any bees from tracheal mites! Bee Research Scientists have PROVED that
treatments with any of the three products listed above WORK to control or eliminate tracheal
mite infestation provided you follow the exact written directions, particularly the time to be used,
and the rest is up to you.

VARROA MITE:

Research has clearly shown that most of our problems in treating Varroa mites with Apistan
result from the OVERUSE of Apistan thereby creating resistant mites, and the use of Apistan at
the WRONG time of year to effectively kill Varroa mites. Applying Apistan strips in the fall and
just leaving them in the colony until spring or any time frame longer than the suggested 6 weeks
is just plain IRRESPONSIBLE and downright "illegal", because this long term constant
exposure of the mites to the effective chemical in Apistan strips, fluvalinate, simply breeds mites
resistant to death by Apistan treat- ments. Maybe you travel our highways every day at 70 mph
and just pay your fines; so you "illegally" use Apistan strips and create resistant mites that kill
your bees, and you just buy more bees. Apiculture does not need people like you, so get out!

It might surprise you that TEMPERATURE plays a very important role in the BEST time to use
Apistan. Female Varroa mites lay their eggs to produce more mites in just ONE place: the open
brood cell of a new honey bee on the day just before the cell is capped to com- mence the pupal
stage of the honey bee and reaching fruition 12 days later when the new honey bee emerges.
During this 12-13 day period, the female adult mite lays 2, 3, or even 4 baby mites in this one
bee cell; and these baby Varroa mites feed on the hemolymph (blood) of the pupal bee host and
emerge from the cell with the new adult, but damaged, honey bee. Note right here that just one
new honey bee arrival might also present 2. 3. or even 4 new Varroa mites to the colony, and it is
extremely important that you understand this population inequality so that you can PROPERLY
treat for Varroa mites. If there is NO honey bee brood in the hive, no new mites can be
accumulated, because the baby mites have no host to feed upon. What time of year is there little
or NO honey bee brood present in a colony? In Central Maryland, the worker bees begin slowing
the queen's egg laying about October 1st and generally the queen bee totally stops all egg laying
about mid November. Hence, there is less and less bee brood present in a colony beginning in
early October and becoming zero by about Thanksgiving Day. THIS PERIOD from October 1st
to about November 15th is the IDEAL TIME to kill Varroa mites, because precious few NEW
mites can be raised in the absence of most honey bee brood. The reason for exposing a colony to
Apistan strips for 6 long weeks is to cover both ends of two 21 day honey bee gestation periods
where any new mite emerging with a new honey bee is quickly killed by contact with the
Apistan strip. Research bee scientists have clearly shown and published papers that the best time
to use any Varroa mite killing agent is at the time of year where there is the least honey bee
brood; and if properly done, this ONE treatment will probably be adequate for a whole year. One
fall treatment is usually adequate for states in the north like New York or Michigan, sometimes
two treatments are required in our central states like North Carolina or Arkansas, and the
"tropical" areas of our southern states like Florida or Texas always have to have two treatments
or maybe even three.

Now, after reading the explanation above, it should be easy for you to understand that Varroa
mite population INCREASES dramatically as honey bee production increases; and becomes a
severe infestation when the queen starts slowing her egg production in mid summer because the
life expectancy of a Varroa mite is LONGER than the 42 day life expectancy of our honey bees!
Hence there is case after case on record of a colony producing a record crop of honey which was
is harvested by July 4th, and the colony suddenly DIES in August or September. This is SO
different than the tracheal mite, because the Varroa mite population is totally dependent on an
increasing honey bee brood population, whereas the tracheal mite never is hosted by anything
but ADULT honey bees.

In Central Maryland, the BEST time or IDEAL time to treat Varroa mites with Apistan is to
install 4 strips of Apistan in the colony brood chamber on October 1st and remove those strips on
any warm day (above 50°) after November 15th, but POSITIVELY REMOVE THEM so that
you don't create resistant mites.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE BEING SPENT BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND
THE STATE GOVERNMENTS TO EMPLOY HONEY BEE RESEARCH SCIENTISTS TO
STUDY AND SELECT THE BEST PRODUCTS, DOSE, AND TIME OF USE TO
DECREASE THE MITE POPULATION WITHOUT HURTING THE BEES OR HONEY! Use
their suggestions rather than be so damned STUBBORN like a spoiled child.

p.s. - My wife proof read this article for me and objected to my language and "being so nasty".
My interest is SAVING OUR HONEY BEES SO THEIR DESCENDANTS WILL BE ALIVE
TO POLLINATE FOOD FOR MY HEIRS TO EAT, and if it takes this kind of strong writing to
gain the attention of poorly informed beekeepers, then I stand ready to accept your criticism.
SAVE YOUR BEES!

EAS Awards SURPRISE Unannounced Plaque to George Imirie for "his" PINK
PAGES!
The very last event of every EAS week-long annual gathering of LEARNING is the gala EAS
Banquet with its specialized `entre, filet of sole stuffed with crab meat, a top-line speaker, Dr.
Marion Ellis presenting a slide presentation of the 60 years of honey bee envolvement in postal
service philatelics, presentations of special honors to committees and particularly volunteers,
introduction of the 4 new EAS MASTER BEEKEEPERS who "made it" from the 17 who took
the tests, and a "final" speech by EAS President David Bernard thanking ALL for the "jobs" they
performed (even learning). I busied myself finding personal effects to I could get to my electric
scooter and head for bed and home the next day, when suddenly the LOUD voice of Master
Beekeeper Bill Troup shattered the quietness, saying "Mr. President, there is a VERY SPECIAL
Award yet to be presented" and he took the podium. Bill gave a short talk about the value of
learning, asked to see the hands of the audience of 300+ who routinely read the PINK PAGES
(about 200+) and forced me to stumble my way up to the rostrum. Totally caught off guard, I
could do nothing but CRY like a baby. What a superb HONOR!

It is a beautiful plaque, now hanging in my den doing "watch" over my computer; and it is
inscribed:

Presented to GEORGE W. IMIRIE, JR. For your endless commitment as an EAS MASTER
BEEKEEPER by publishing "The Pink Pages" August 2000

October 2000

Bee Management
or
HOW does a Beekeeper HELP his bees?
Most of you have heard of beekeepers (right in your area) having annual yields of 100, 125, or
even 150 pounds of honey in most years; whereas your colonies seem only to produce 40, 60, or
80 pounds in most years. Your natural inclination is say "Somebody is telling tall tales" (just
plain lying), but suppose you personally visited his apiary on May 31st and found that his
colonies each had 4 or 5 Illinois supers FULL, but your colonies only had 2 or 3, and both of you
had bought new queens from the same queen breeder! WHAT would you think then? Could it be
that his bee management technique is better than yours?
WHAT is bee management? Let's talk about it; as well as bring you up-to-date to honey
production techniques learned in the past 50 years. When I began keeping bees in Bethesda,
Maryland back in the Depression Days of 1933, the great majority of apiarists were just bee
HAVERS. They HAD bees, and frankly knew very little about bee management, suffered with
"eternal" swarming, were always short of equipment, usually waited too late in the season to do
those things that should have been done, never requeened, and were happy with a average annual
honey yield of 25 -50 pounds. However, the hives of my mentor, Dr. James I. Hambleton, Chief
of the Bethesda Bee Laboratory (precursor of Beltsville Bee Lab), just 2 miles from my house,
were producing 75-100 pds. every year and rarely swarmed. Dr. Hambleton made it very clear to
me back in those days the importance of bee management; and although bees that are just left
alone, like wild bees, can survive and produce 25-50 pounds of SURPLUS honey annually, they
need a knowledgeable beekeeper's help to produce more surplus honey than that and keep
swarming at a minimum.

During these past 50 years, particularly during the past 15 years due to research about mites, bee
research has proven that the number one cause of swarming is a CROWDED, CONGESTED
BROOD CHAMBER.

Secondly, a very young queen (less than 12 months old) is un- likely to swarm because queen
pheromone production is so high that it can "glue" 40,000 to 60,000 worker bees into a single
functioning unit. Thirdly, lots of empty drawn comb must be in place on the hive at the start of
the nectar flow to store the thin watery nectar until it can be ripened into honey. Finally, your
bees must be HEALTHY bees, free of bee diseases like Nosema, foulbrood, chalkbrood, etc.,
and relatively free of pests like both Tracheal and Varroa mites, skunks, mice, small hive beetles,
etc.

Honey production requires LOTS of foraging age bees (bees over 19 days old) and having these
foragers ready for "work" when the major nectar flow starts in Montgomery County, MD about
April 20th means that the egg to produce this foraging age bee has to be laid by the queen 40
days in advance of April 20th, which is March 11th. Normally, in our area, queens might start
laying in January, but are not laying heavily until late February. A beekeeper can HELP his
colony get earlier egg laying by feeding 1:1 sugar syrup by February 1st as a brood production
stimulant. The perfectly normal movement of bees in a colony during the winter is UP. They
consume their stores in the bottom brood chamber in early winter and leave it completely empty
as they eat their way up into the second brood chamber as the winter progresses, and the queen
starts laying in the upper brood chamber. Feeding brood requires tremendous amounts of
NECTAR (or honey diluted by water gathered by the bees). BEE LARVA DOES NOT EAT
HONEY! The 1:1 sugar syrup is artificial nectar, and the bees don't have to wait until a warm
day to fly out and collect water to dilute the honey in the hive to feed the brood. Bees don't store
nectar or sugar syrup AWAY from the brood where it will get cold, but store it close-by,
surrounding the area that they are warming to 91-96° for the queen to lay eggs. When they get
the upper brood chamber filled with as much brood as they can keep warm, they STOP the queen
from laying until open cells are available; but will NOT move the queen back DOWN to the
empty lower brood chamber because it is empty of nectar, honey, sugar syrup, pollen and cold
Here too, the beekeeper can HELP his bees by providing laying space for the queen and their
normal UP-WARD movement of the brood nest by REVERSING the position of the brood
chambers when indicated (3-5 times between January and May). REVERSING is simply moving
the top brood chamber which has center frames of brood and the queen into the lower brood
chamber position, so that now the upper brood chamber is empty and is warmed because heat
moves upward so the worker bees ready these upper cells for the queen to move up there to lay,
leaving the capped brood in the lower body to emerge and then REVERSE again. Reversing is a
system that always provides laying space for the queen, space for nectar or sugar syrup close by,
and warmth for the larva. This provides LOTS of foraging age bees on time for the major nectar
flow in late April and all of May. It also promotes swarming because the hive is getting
congested with lots of bees and brood, so the beekeeper has to stop swarming impulses. HOW?

Get the foraging age bees OUT of the BROOD CHAMBER SPACE, by putting a super of drawn
comb in place over the brood chamber about April 1st, let the bees move some nectar into it or
even a smattering of brood and then put a queen excluder in place under it (make sure the queen
is back down in the brood area) and make sure there is either an upper entrance or an Imirie
Shim in this super area as an entrance and exit for the forager bees rather than forcing their way
back and forth through the congested brood area. Put ALL of your supers of drawn comb (no
foundation) in place about April 15th, surely before May 1st. Bees do NOT collect honey and
bring it into the hive! They collect thin, watery nectar (perhaps 80% water), store it temporarily
in the supers until they have time to evaporate the water down to thick honey (about 16-18%
water). Hence, they need lots of storage space for the nectar or they will quit work and start
making swarm preparations. I put 5 Illinois supers of drawn comb in place on April 15th. Many
readers do not have DRAWN COMB and have to use foundation. Read earlier PINK PAGES
about how to use foundation, but YOU CAN ONLY USE ONE SUPER OF 10 FRAMES OF
FOUNDATION AT A TIME, and not add a second super of foundation until the first super is
about 70% drawn. Your job is get foundation drawn into comb, and then PROTECT it from wax
moths as you store it until next year, explained in other PINK PAGES.

Now let us start an argument. Requeen EVERY year, so no queen is over 12 months old. Fall
requeening is perhaps more difficult than spring requeening, but it has so many advantages over
spring requeening that it is worth it. The great majority of professional honey producers requeen
every 12 months or sometimes twice each year. These guys that have 5000 colonies or 20,000
colonies and make their total income from honey production would not bother to requeen every
year if it was not a good reason. If you join the American Beekeeping Federation, attend their
annual meeting, sit down with these professional honey producers and talk, they will tell you to
requeen EVERY year and give you the reasons. So a new queen costs $10-$12, but it might
prevent losing a swarm and a year's honey crop. That, by itself, is good enough for me. Further,
bee researchers have shown that about 60% of unmanaged colonies supersede their queen
sometime during her first year. The great majority of superseded queens are developed from 2
day old larva rather than new larva and hence are poorly bred queens who just can't produce lots
of brood to make a good honey crop; and if you live in Texas, maybe your new queen mated
with an africanized drone, which endangers you to being sued for keeping non-european bees.

I can't explain everything, so when you go in your colony, enter with the idea of LEARNING
something by shrewd observation. Let me give you an example that many people just don't seem
to grasp. In the late winter or early spring, bees rarely lay brood in 1,2 and 9, 10 or even 1, 2, 3
and 8, 9, 10, but lay brood in the CENTER frames of perhaps two stories or even three stories
when using Illinois size frames like I do. WHY? The queen can not lay eggs at a temperature
under 91°, the eggs and larva must be kept that warm to mature, the nectar (or sugar syrup) used
to feed the larva must be kept warm, and the only heat available is the body heat of the clustered
bees. Heat rises and does not spread sideways towards the cold hive body sides, so the bees
cluster around the center frames in a chimney effect rather than a warm wide body first floor and
a cold wide body second floor or vice-versa. On a chilly March day, I have witnessed brood on
12 Illinois frames, the 4 centermost frames in broodbox #1, broodbox #2, and broodbox #3, and
little to nothing on any of the outer frames in any of the 3 broodboxes.

Further, particularly during the late winter and early spring period, DON'T YOU RE-ARRANGE
THE "FURNITURE". The bees know far better than you just where they want the brood in
relationship to nectar, pollen, outside walls., etc. It is OK to reverse brood boxes up and down,
but don't move frames to different positions sideways.

I want to leave you with a final thought, and I strongly suggest that you read Dr. Norman Gary's
Chapter 8 in the 1992 Revised Edition of The Hive and The Honey Bee about BEE BEHAVIOR.
The bee emerges from its cell with all the "brains" or knowledge that it will ever for its 6 weeks
of life in flying weather. The bee is incapable of learning anything from you or knowing who
you are, or whether you are gentle or nasty. It's mind was programmed by GOD back before
Adam and Eve and it has not changed one iota since. Every action that our bee performs is based
on what is NATURE'S way of doing and it does these things NOT by direction from some boss,
queen, or older bee, but by the instinct that was given to it at its creation. No one teaches it how
to build comb, how to fly or sting, how to feed larva, how to convert nectar into honey, or when
to stop producing honey, because she never stops if there is a nectar flow. However, we humans
are honored with the ability to think and LEARN. All we have to do is open our minds to accept
new thoughts and then get off our lazy butts and LEARN. We can learn how to get our bees to
produce more honey than they would if left to their own management. This is what BEE
MANAGEMENT is all about. We don't alter any phase of the normal operation of a bees action,
but we HELP the bee to perform these actions for a longer time period in the same location
rather than swarm or wait through the winter until the weather warms to lay lots of brood, or
provide them with a younger well bred queen that can lay more eggs daily. Like so many famous
beekeepers that I have talked to or read their works like Roger Morse, Brother Adam, or
Freidrich Ruttner indicate that as we learn more about our bees, we dismiss the many ideas that
our problems have been caused by bad weather, bad queen breeders, a lousy choice of race or
stock, bad governmental decisions, or any other bad "this" or lousy "that", and we finally realize
that 90% of our problems was our own lack of knowledge about apis mellifera and our lack of
willingness to accept the new findings each day by bee scientists and bee researchers.

I have but one regret after 68 years of wonderful beekeeping, and that is I am still learning each
year more and more about my bees, but my time is running out and I won't be able to enjoy the
new findings of this 21st century.

Christmas is Coming
There are lots of books about bees, many of which are quite famous and respected. But since our
biggest problems seem to be the mites and parasitic mite syndrome (PMS), books written before
about 1992 are essentially obsolete because the Tracheal mite was first found in the U.S. in late
1984 and the more damaging Varroa mite was first found in the U.S. in 1987. It took several
years to find any treatment procedures for these mites. Further, although the queen pheromone
was first suggested about 40 years ago, little was really known about its importance until about
1990, and now in 2000 we know how very important the queen pheromone is as well as some
other bee pheromones. Reading a book authored by Chevrolet in 1985 about repairing the
carburetor or installing new brakes would be useless today, because all cars built since about
1990 have fuel injection and disc brakes rather than carburetors or drum brakes. Hence, for
reliable information, read only the bee books published or revised in the last few years. Every
beekeeper should have a bee "bible" on his desk. There is nothing better then the 1992
Extensively Revised Edition of THE HIVE AND HONEY BEE whose 1300+ pages are written
by 34 of the TOP bee scientists or researchers in the U. S. and it is only $36.00.

"Things" about Honey

As I listen to people talk about honey, particularly when they are trying to sell some of their
crop, I am appalled at how little people seem to know about their product. Hence, I thought you
should know the answers to some of the questions that often are asked, as well as showing your
interest in helping a customer by telling them things they should know.
1) HOW IS HONEY MADE, AND WHAT DOES THE BEEKEEPER HAVE TO
DO WITH IT?
Unless you are a chemist, you think that sugar is that white powder in the sugar bowl on your
table. You are right, since table sugar is chemically the di-saccharide, SUCROSE. However,
there are many, many different sugars, some very complex poly-saccharides, and others are
simple mono-saccharide like glucose and fructose; and strangely, some are sweeter than others.
The nectar of a flower from a plant, tree, or shrub is primarily 80%-90% water and the di-
saccharide chemical, sucrose. A honey bee's stomach emits an enzyme, invertase, that chemically
breaks down the di-saccharide into two different mono- saccharides, GLUCOSE and
FRUCTOSE. After the worker bee adds the microscopic amount of invertase to the nectar and
evaporates the water concentration to only about 16-18% water, we now have HONEY! Hence,
honey consists of primarily two simple sugars, glucose and fructose dissolved in about 16-18%
water. Just like you might keep a food like orange juice in a sealed bottle, the bee keeps the
honey in a sealed wax comb that they have made. The ONLY thing that a beekeeper does to the
honey is remove the combs of honey from the bees, cut off the wax cappings of the comb, drain
(extract) the honey from the comb, filter out any particles of wax and bottle it - READY FOR
YOU TO EAT! When I mention the enzyme, invertase, some people get a little squeamish, but
you should not; because your own body does exactly the same thing with table sugar, sucrose.
Your pancreas manufac- tures invertase, and when you eat sugar, like in tea or candy, the
invertase breaks that sucrose down into glucose and fructose which is sometimes called "blood
sugar" and is found in your blood. I'll bet you did know how much we are like bees in handling
of sugar.

Every beekeeper should be able to explain "How honey is made"!

2) HOW MUCH DOES HONEY WEIGH?

Since the density of honey varies slightly with the percentage water that is in the honey, a
"specific gravity" figure cannot be given. How- ever, for the most part, honey is half again
heavier than water. Hence, a 5 gallon can of honey contains 60 pounds of honey, but it would
only hold about 40 pounds of water. The 1 pound "queenline" honey jar that we are familiar with
holds 16 ounces of honey, but only about 11 ounces of water. Old Timers used to sell honey in
pint or quart Mason Jars (same as "moonshine" whiskey), but a pint Mason jar contains about 24
ounces (1 1/2 pounds) of honey which makes pricing difficult. It is always best to bottle honey in
1/2 lb., 1 lb., 2 lb., or 5 lb. honey jars, just like we sell eggs by the dozen, and never just 10 or 15
eggs.
3) WHY DOES HONEY COME IN DIFFERENT COLORS?
Although the nectar of two different flowers of a plant like clover or buckwheat essentially
consist of maybe 85% water and 14% sucrose (sugar), that other 1% or less has all kinds of many
different things in it, like minerals in tiny quantities. Dependent on what these different minerals
are as well as how much of them are present, such as sodium, calcium, iron, or copper, etc. will
determine the color of the honey. For example, clover honey is a light amber color, whereas
buckwheat honey coming from a tiny white flower is almost pitch black in color, like old axle
grease. Although not totally true, generally one can say that "THE DARKER THE COLOR,
THE STRONGER THE FLAVOR". I don't want to start any arguments, but most beekeepers
prefer the darker honeys for their own eating and ignore the light colored honeys as "sweet like
sugar syrup, but little flavor". My favorite is Tulip Poplar, and it has a pronounced reddish caste
to its color in the bright sunlight.

Some foolish people have said the "dark honey is OLD honey". They are WRONG!

4) WHY DOES HONEY CRYSTALLIZE, GRANULATE, OR TURN TO SUGAR?

HAS IT GONE BAD?
Almost all honey will crystallize if left long enough with the exception of sage honey or tupelo
honey. Honey is composed of a mixture of glucose and fructose, and the relative percentage of
each determines whether it crystallizes slowly or rapidly. In nature, glucose is normally found as
a solid, whereas fructose is normally found as a liquid. Hence, when a honey has a relatively
high relationship of glucose to fructose, the honey crystallizes quickly, like goldenrod honey or
alfalfa honey. Oppositely, honey that is lower in glucose compared to fructose tend to be quite
slow to crystallize, like tulip poplar or locust honey. Based on White et al in 1962, the list below
gives the relative speed of crystallization in descending order of various honeys found in
Maryland:
Type Crystalization Time Color
Tulip Poplar Very slow Dark Amber with reddish caste
Locust Very slow White to Light Amber
Holly Very slow Light Amber to Amber
Basswood Medium speed Light Amber
Clover Medium speed White to Light Amber
Buckwheat Medium speed Buckwheat
Goldenrod Rapid  Amber
Wildflower(1) Anybody's Guess Any color of the rainbow

(1) this is the honey you get when you mix nectars from different floral sources

Has water gone "bad" when it freezes to ice? Of course not. Just warm the ice, and it turns back
to water. The same is true for crystallized honey, just warm it SLOWLY in a double boiler to no
more than 120° and you convert those solid crystals to liquid honey again. Don't use a
microwave oven, because you might burn the honey.

5) WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO KEEP HONEY?

Well, the WORST place is a temperature near 57°F, because that is the temperature that Dr.
Dyce of Cornell University found was the absolutely best temperature to make honey crystallize
the fastest. Hence, probably the worst place around a home is in the basement, garage, or outside
shed. The best place to keep honey that is being used often is in a sealed bear or jar sitting on a
sunny table or on a sunny shelf. If you want to keep honey for several weeks or months, put it in
your freezer and keep it near 0°. NEVER PUT HONEY IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR! Make
sure that you tell your customer's to never put honey in a refrigerator, but a freezer is fine!
6) HOW DO YOU EAT COMB HONEY?
At my old age, that is such a silly question, but people under about 50 years old ask it all the
time, or look at it as if it had "bugs" in it. During the Depression days of 1930-36 when many
were unemployed, if you had a 60 hour/week job, your pay was $5/week, a quart of milk
delivered to you home was just 8¢, bus fare all over Washington DC was 3¢, and double feature
movies were 15¢. Honey producers could not afford to buy jars or an extractor, so almost all
honey was sold as 4"x4" wooden section comb honey for 25¢ each if you were lucky. You laid
the section flat on a dish, dipped into the wax comb with a fork or spoon, and spread it on hot
rolls, corn- bread, toast, blueberry muffins, or best of all - JUST RIGHT IN YOUR MOUTH.
The honey that dripped into the dish, you used to sweeten your tea or lemonade or the sweetener
to make fruitcake. Most everybody swallowed the wax, and because it totally inert, you did not
have to spend money for some fancy cereal to "put bulk in your diet". Chewing gum was 5¢ a
package, so we used to call comb honey "poor man's chewing gum". I still love to eat comb
honey, but my dentures don't like it, because the wax sticks to false teeth. You "ain't lived" until
you just take a big bite of comb honey, swirl the delectable honey around in your mouth, chew
on the wax for the next half hour, and then swallow. WOW! I also love to eat raw oysters - after
all, Maryland is Chesapeake Bay country, the "the land of pleasant living"! Now I sell comb
honey for $5.00/pound or a 3 ounce sample for $8.00/pound. How much are you selling your
honey for? Seeing a comb honey section of nice clean white (not dirty yellow) wax reminds me
of the prom queen dressed in a white satin evening gown. Yum Yum!
7) DOES HONEY HAVE ANY MEDICAL OR HEALTH USES?
You gotta be kidding! Didn't your grandmother treat your sore throat with hot tea, lemon, and
honey? Mine did! Now, we have been taught to rely on antibiotics to cure everything from too
much flatulence to a hang nail. For centuries, in the days before guns, when the sword was a
major weapon, honey was known for its healing properties and effective antimicrobial agent, and
hence was used as a dressing for wounds and burns. Germs have difficulty living in antimicrobial
agents, and since honey has relatively high acid content, pH about 4.0, and even the presence of
a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide, a dressing of honey promotes healing, helps prevent
scarring, and keeps a wound from adhering to a bandage. No sense buying Neosporin when there
is plenty of honey around. DOES EATING LOCAL HONEY HELP ALLERGY (HAY FEVER)
SUFFERERS? Yes and no. If you are allergic to the pollen of some flower visited by honey bees
in their searches for pollen or nectar, eating of the local honey from that area may desensitize
your immune system and hence, work like a vaccine. But if one gets hay fever from some floral
source that honey bees don't visit, eating all the honey in the world will have no effect on that
allergy. Recently, many of us saw on television the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia with
those sport people "burning the candle at both ends" in energy consumption. It is amazing how
many of these athletes swallowed a teaspoon of honey just before their event to get a sudden
boost of energy, and many of the marathon racers by foot or on bicycles added a teaspoon of
honey to their water bottle, not because it tasted good, but to give them "instant energy". Just
"plain old sugar" won't so that, because the body has to break this sucrose down into the simple
sugars glucose and fructose (blood sugars) before it will provide energy to a human.
8) OTHER THAN "JUST EATING IT", WHERE ELSE IS HONEY FOUND?
It is used as a topping on biscuits, muffins, rolls, cornbread, and toast. It is a sweetener in tea,
barbecue sauces, and ham glazes. It is an ingredient when used in honey beers, honey breads,
honey cereals, honey mustards, honey salad dressings, honey cough syrup, and honey shampoo.
Half of all the honey sold in the U. S. is used in manufactured products!
9) WHAT IS "CREAMED" HONEY OR HONEY "SPREAD"?
First, let my say it is NOT honey butter or "spun" honey. Honey butter is honey mixed with
butter and "spun" honey is honey mixed with air and looks like a cobweb on a stick. As
previously said, all honeys will eventually crystallize except tupelo or sage honey; but when they
crystallize naturally, the crystals are large and coarse, and feels like sand in your mouth. A
beekeeper selects some of these large coarse crystals of a honey he likes, and GRINDS them
with a pestle in a mortar until they are a tiny, fine crystal almost like talcum powder. This is used
as the seed to make a jar of selected honey crystallize into a "cream" or "spread" of honey, whose
crystals are tiny and not sharp. About 2 ounces of this ground "seed" honey is added to about to
about 14 ounces of the honey you want to make into honey spread, placed in a controlled
temperature of 57° and kept there about 10 days, and VOILA, you have a pound of honey spread.
It is 100% honey - nothing has been added, nor anything removed! Honey spread MUST be kept
at a temperature of less than about 70° or it will go right back to liquid honey. Now if you want
to get real fancy, you can flavor this honey spread with cinnamon, straw- berries or other tasty
things. It may come as quite a surprise to you, but outside the U.S., particularly in Europe, the
great majority of honey sold is honey spread rather than liquid honey. I love it, because it doesn't
drip and spill on your clothes, and it is so spreadable with a knife like peanut butter, and I sell it
for $5.00 per pound.
10) HOW DOES ONE GET ALL CLOVER HONEY, OR ALL BUCKWHEAT
HONEY, OR ALL TULIP POPLAR HONEY?
First and most important, different nectar sources bloom at different times, e.g., Tulip poplar
blooms in May, clover blooms in June, and buckwheat blooms in August. In advance, you find a
farmer who plants these crops and ask his permission for you to set your beehives in his fields
during the bloom. Generally, he is delighted to get the pollination of his crop done free by your
bees. Sometimes, two different floral sources might bloom a the same time. Then you have to be
satisfied with the one with giving the nectar with the highest sugar content, because that is where
the bees are going to select as long as the bloom produces.

November 2000

HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR
I have written a great deal about the importance of new findings about bees for the 21st century,
particularly PHEROMONES. However, and perhaps even more important to the beekeeper, who
has been beleaguered with mites and now resistant American Foul Brood, is the "hygienic
behavior" of his selected race or stock of bees. You know people who are always neat, tidy, and
clean, and you really don't expect them to be "sickly", because they obviously use a lot of soap
and water and keep away from garbage, refuse, and other sites that breed germs and disease.
Conversely, there are those people that don't even bother to wash their hands after using the rest
room, or don't protect a cut on their finger with an antiseptic and band aid.

There are very few things that we ALL agree on, but curtailing the use of chemicals to treat
against tracheal and/or Varroa mites surely is one thing all of us would like. Based on the work
of numerous bee scientists and researchers going back over 40 years, but gaining strong support
during the past 5-6 years, I strongly believe that the use of hygienic bees will greatly diminish
the need of any chemicals. You certainly are going to ask "Where do we get hygienic bees?"
Right now, there are only two breeders who are advertising hygienically bred bees or queens:
Heitkam's New World Carniolan field bred queens in the $10-$12 price range, and Glenn
Apiaries Artificially inseminated Italian queens for $40. There has to be a major push or demand
put upon the queen breeders of the country to modify their breeding procedures to select only
those bees demonstrating "hygienic behavior" for them to use as larval sources for queen
production. Your personal letters, a "drive" by American Beekeeper's Federation, as well as a
"drive" by Eastern Apicultural Society, hopefully will get the reticent queen breeders "off their
butt" and into the 21st century way of doing things. Of course, you know that all will hear from
"Old George". The American Public would like more U.S. honey, the vegetable and fruit
growers need more pollination of their crops, beeKEEPERS need bees that are not sickly,
beeHAVERS need bees that don't have to be treated, and our bee breeders need the mental uplift
that they would get from HEALTHY bees that don't need any chemical treatment that stresses
the bee.

If you (and I hope you do) read Bee Culture, American Bee Journal, Speedy Bee, some states
WEB sites, and George's PINK PAGES, you are going to see more and more articles about
HYGIENIC BEES. This is your time to get on the "first floor" about the importance of hygienic
behavior and its value to the bee itself, and the relieving of you "doctoring" your bees. BE
INFORMED, BE A "KEEPER" RATHER THAN A "HAVER" of apis mellifera !

Although numerous famous scientists "toyed" with the term 'hygienic behavior', perhaps the
principal exponents of "hygienic behavior" over 40 years ago were W. C. Rothenbuhler, S.
Taber, and M. Gilliam. Although working independently of each other, their work was all
pointed in the same direction, i.e., that certain stocks of bees who demonstrated quick and
constant removal from the hive of "unclean" things like dead brood, dead bees, wax cappings and
all those things that might have pathogens, tended to be more resistant to disease than the stocks
of bees who were not tidy or clean. Their work was aimed at the abatement of American Foul
Brood and Chalk Brood. Many other researchers worked on this same assumption, but I don't
want to name names in fear of slighting someone. However, due to the lack of research funds,
and indeed, the lack of interest of most benefactors, this work was "put on the back burner", until
the "devilish" mites arrived just 15 years ago. Struggling to find bees resistant to mites as well as
resistant to chemicals used in treatment for mites, initiated research again on "hygienic
behavior".
How do bees demonstrate "hygienic behavior", or WHAT CHARACTERISTICS should be
looked for? Sammataro and Avitabile write in their BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK the following:
Nest cleaning activities include cleaning cells in preparation for egg deposition and keeping the
nest free from debris and disease, as well as removing dead brood and even HEALTHY brood
when there is a dearth of nectar or when the colony can no longer take care of the brood. Another
nest-cleaning activity is coating the interior hive parts and the entrance with propolis .

Cells are polished (well-cleaned) before anything (eggs, nectar, pollen, or honey) are put in them.
Cell preparation is accomplished by very young workers, only a few hours old. These young
bees remove cocoon remains and larval feces from brood cells. The cleaned cells are then
acceptable by the queen, who will lay eggs in them. Honey, nectar, and pollen will also be placed
in these cleaned cells. Any remaining or uncleanable surface is covered by fresh wax or propolis.

Cleaning, or hygienic, behavior is a genetic trait, one that is desirable for beekeepers to
perpetuate. For example, the continual quick removal of dead brood from the cells or the bottom
board is considered hygienic behavior. Colonies whose workers demonstrate good hygiene are
more likely to be free from some diseases, and such behavior may also help reduce mite levels.

Older workers take on the tasks of keeping the rest of the hive clean. Some examples are:

1. Removing dead or dying brood and adult bees from the hive. Some bee colonies recognize
varroa-killed brood and remove it.
2. Removing debris such as pieces of grass of leaves as well as old comb and cappings.
3. Removing granulated honey or dry sugar and moldy pollen.
4. Coating the inside of the hive and wax cells with propolis.
5. Propolizing cracks and movable hive parts, including bottom board and inner cover.
6. Removing healthy drone brood or drone adults when the colony is starving.

Laidlaw and Page in their 1997 book, Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding, have a good bit to say
regarding Hygienic Behavior in Chapter IX, The Genetic Basis of Disease Resistance.
Beekeeping problems resulting from diseases and parasites are continually becoming more
abundant, costly, and difficult to control. Typically, the solutions have been chemical
applications to hives with the inherent risks of contaminating wax and honey, and developing
pesticide resistance in the target organism. The use of chemical remedies is also becoming less
acceptable to the public, leading to increasingly more restrictions in their use, particularly around
food products like honey. Therefore, in the future, breeding resistant stocks of honey bees will
become increasingly important for maintaining a viable beekeeping industry.

The basis of all resistance to diseases and parasites is some mechanism whereby the host, the
honey bee, defeats the disease agent. In order to select for resistance, there must be genetic
variability for a mechanism. Genetic variability has been demonstrated for three general classes
of disease resistance in honey bees: physiological, behavioral, and anatomical.

The best known example of disease resistance in honey bees is the hygienic behavior first
described by O.W. Park in 1937. Apparently, there are two independent behavioral activities:
uncapping cells and removing diseased larvae from uncapped cells. These two activities were
shown by Rothenbuhler in 1964 to be under the control of two independent genetic mechanisms.
Hygienic behavior has also been shown to be an effective behavioral mechanism against
chalkbrood disease and infestations of varroa.

There are remarkably few documented examples of controlled breeding for resistance to honey
bee diseases and parasites. This is unexpected when considering the economic importance of
honey bees, and the dramatic results obtained in those few cases where selective breeding was
practiced. The first successful breeding program for resistance to AFB was implemented in 1934
by O.W. Park et al. Over the next 15 years, they successfully selected a resistant stock. The
percentage of AFB innoculated colonies that became diseased dropped from 70% to 10% at the
end of 5 years and to 0% t the end of 15 years! Park demonstrated that one mechanism of
resistance was behavioral. He found some colonies quickly tore down and removed comb inserts
containing scales of AFB that had been purposely paced there. Those hives that removed the
diseased combs had a lower incidence of AFB disease. Park also demonstrated that the bees were
responding to the presence of the disease, not just the foreign comb.

Rothenbuhler, after reviewing the work of Park, also believed that hygienic behavior alone was
not sufficient to explain all resistance to AFB. As a consequence, he started a breeding program
in 1954 specifically to study the potential genetic mechanisms of resistance. Using resistant and
susceptible strains, Rothenbuhler demonstrated one behavioral, three physiological, and one
anatomical mechanism. The results of studies of AFB resistance demonstrate the diversity of
resistance mechanisms that can simultaneously occur when colony selection is used. Colony
selection focuses on the occurrence of the disease, not the specific mechanisms responsible for
resistance. Single factor resistance may occur if only a single mechanism is selected, e.g.,
hygienic behavior. However, multifactor resistance is probably more effective.

Colony infestation with Varroa mites is the most serious problem for beekeeping, worldwide. As
a consequence, it is remarkable that there are no examples of successful artificial selection for
resistance. However, much is known about the biology of varroa. This understanding of biology
suggests potential mechanisms of resistance, some of which have demonstrated to vary
genetically. An Example of Hygienic Behavior: apis cerana workers are able to detect capped
brood cells that are infested with mites. They open the cells, remove, and kill the mites. apis
mellifera workers apparently can also detect and remove varroa mites from infested brood cells
in a way similar to apis cerana. If an infested cell is uncapped, the immature mites die, and the
adult female mites must search for another larval cell, or are killed by the bees. This should slow
the population growth of varroa mites in the colony.

The worldwide eradication of any honey bee disease is unrealistic. Therefore, in order to reduce
economic damage, the beekeeping industry must depend on methods that maintain pathogens
and parasites at reduced levels, now thought of as IPM, integrated pest management. The
widespread use of chemical treatments has serious potential costs and risks resulting from the
evolution of chemically resistant strains of disease agents, and the chemical contamination of
hive products. Thus, the development of control methods that do not depend on chemicals should
receive more attention. The evidence presented suggests that there is sufficient variability for
resistance to diseases to make selective breeding a viable component of commercial honey bee
management.
The work of Dr. Marla Spivak, Professor and Extension Specialist at the University of Minnesota
is noteworthy. She has bred selected stocks of bees that can produce queens whose progeny
exhibit habits of "hygienic behavior"; and these artificially inseminated Italian queens were made
available through Glenn Apiaries in California this year, 2000. At this time, I do not know of any
naturally mated queens for sale. Further, one queen breeder and package producer, Heitkam's
Honey Bees, also in California, has been espousing and advertising "We are selecting for
hygienic behavior".

Dr. Marla Spivak has given me permission to print out for you PINK PAGE readers a few
paragraphs from her recent paper, The Hygiene Queen. Gary Reuter is a Research Technician
who works with Marla.

THE HYGIENE QUEEN by Marla Spivak & Gary Reuter

Hygienic behavior of honey bees is the primary natural defense against American foulbrood (Park et al.,
1937; Woodrow and Holst, 1942; Rothenbuhler, 1964) and chalkbrood (Gilliam et al., 1983). Hygienic
bees detect, uncap, and remove diseased brood from the combs before the disease becomes infectious.
Hygienic behavior also is one defense against Varroa mites (Peng et al., 1987), and although it is not the
main mechanism of resistance to the mites (Harbo and Hoopingarner, 1997), it appears to limit their
reproduction and population growth to some degree. Our studies have shown that it is possible to select
for hygienic behavior without compromising honey production or gentleness (Spivak, 1996; Spivak and
Reuter, in press). The trait can be found in approximately 10 percent of the managed colonies found in the
United States, in any race or stock of bees. We feel it would benefit the beekeeping industry to have
hygienic lines of bees commercially available.

In this article, we present a simple way of screening colonies for hygienic behavior. We also
discuss some frequently asked questions about the behavior, and how to breed hygienic colonies.

For years, we screened colonies for hygienic behavior by cutting out a section of comb (2 x 2.5
inches) containing sealed brood, freezing it for 24 hours, then placing the frozen comb section in
the colony to be tested. If the test colony was hygienic, the bees would uncap and remove the
freeze-killed brood within 48 hours when tested repeatedly (Taber, 1982; Spivak and Downey,
1998). Cutting comb sections out of frames is relatively messy and damages the combs, so we
sought a better way of killing brood without having to handle the combs.

Dr. Jerry Bromenshank at the University of Montana was the first to suggest using liquid
nitrogen (N2) to freeze a section of sealed brood within the frame. He found that freezing the
brood this way was more efficient than cutting, freezing, and replacing comb inserts. Based on
his suggestions, we conducted several tests to determine how much liquid N2 was necessary to
completely kill the brood, and whether the test yielded the same results as cutting and freezing
comb sections. We are now convinced that freezing brood with liquid N2 is the best screening
procedure found to date for assaying hygienic behavior.

Frequently Asked Questions

Often we are asked if hygienic colonies tend to have clean bottomboards, or if they tend to remove debris
(such as wax paper, newspaper or cardboard) from the colony more quickly than other colonies. Mayer
(1996) suggested that if colonies eat grease patties quickly, they might be hygienic. Removing debris
from the hive is a form of cleanliness, but it is not necessarily a sign that the bees carry the hygienic trait.

Although the common usage of the word hygienic denotes cleanliness, hygienic behavior is a
specific response by the bees to diseased and parasitized brood. A colony that keeps its hive
clean does not imply that it will be resistant to diseases. Colonies must be screened for hygienic
behavior using an assay such as the one described above. If a colony removes all of the freeze-
killed brood within 48 hours, the colony will probably be resistant to diseases and will tend to
remove mite-infested pupae. To determine whether they can actually resist the diseases or mites,
the colony would have to be challenged with American foulbrood, chalkbrood or mites.

Another question we encounter concerns the difference between hygienic and grooming
behaviors. Grooming behavior involves an interaction between adult bees; one bee removes
mites or debris from the body of another bee. Alternatively, a bee may groom herself. Grooming
and hygienic behaviors are different traits, and selecting for one does not imply selection for the
other.

It is assumed by some beekeepers that hygienic behavior is associated with a high degree of
defensive (stinging) behavior. This assumption stems from the reputation of the Brown line of
hygienic bees studied by Rothenbuhler. Rothenbuhler (1964) showed that stinging behavior and
hygienic behavior are inherited separately. Our experience has shown that hygienic colonies are
as gentle as the stock from which they were bred.

Propagating Hygienic Colonies

Any race or line of bees can be bred for hygienic behavior. We recommend that bee breeders select for
hygienic behavior from among their best breeder colonies; i.e., from those that have proven to be
productive, gentle, and that display all the characteristics desired by the breeder. A breeder can get a head
start on selecting for hygienic behavior simply by rearing queens from colonies that do not have
chalkbrood.

Beekeepers should rear queens from unrelated hygienic colonies each year to avoid the negative
effects of inbreeding. In time, if many bee breeders select for hygienic behavior, the frequency of
the trait should increase in the general population of bees, which will increase the chances that
any queen will encounter drones that carry the trait.

The effects of American foulbrood, chalkbrood and Varroa mites can be alleviated if queen
producers select for hygienic behavior from their own lines of bees. Because a small percentage
of the managed colonies today express hygienic behavior, it is important for many bee breeders
to select for the behavior to maintain genetic variability within and among bee lines. Our
experience has shown there are no apparent negative characteristics that accompany the trait.
Years of research experience have shown it would greatly benefit the beekeeping industry if
productive, hygienic lines were available commercially.
Marla is the Secretary of the American Association of Professional Apiculturists, of which I am a
member; and both Gary and I are on the RESEARCH committee of the American Beekeepers
Federation (and you should be a member of ABF, too). Beekeeping needs lots of research and
research costs lots of money. YOU, beeHAVERS and beeKEEPERS need the ABF, and ABF
needs your $25 for membership. Just ask ME, and I will send you the membership forms and my
personal thanks!

I will end this now, hoping that you understand why I feel so strongly that honey bee stock that is
selected because of its HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR might well be the solution to our present disease
and pest problems and "freeing" the bees from the use of those NASTY chemicals.
Unfortunately, my age coupled with the strokes I have already suffered probably will prevent my
witnessing this great accomplishment, but at least I know right now that some scientists are
actively including "hygienic behavior" as a highly desirable criteria for selection of breeder
queens for queen breeders.

December 2000

History of Honey Bees

SURPRISE! Apis mellifera were not indigenous to our western hemisphere, and the followers of
Capt. John Smith as well as Miles Standish had to import honey bees from England in the early
1600's so that the new settlers could have some "sweets" in their diet. Unfortunately, some
Americans put the existence of sugar in the same category as air and water, but the facts are that
sugar was an imported expensive luxury from the South Pacific in 17th century Europe and was
not introduced into the U. S. until 1751 in Louisiana, just 25 years before Jefferson wrote the
Declaration of Independence. Imagine us today without candy, ice cream, pie, cake, cookies,
Coca Cola or even sugar-cured hams! Honey, and hence "honey bees", was a vital necessity for
early Americans; and now, in 2000, still a vital necessity in the pollination of our human food
supply

Today, honey bees live in all parts of the world except the extreme polar regions near the North
Pole and South Pole. There are many colonies of bees kept in both Alaska and Siberia, in fact
Steve Peterson of Fairbanks, AK is an EAS Master Beekeeper, like me. Primitive man, maybe
even Adam and Eve, harvested honey from bee's nests in hollow trees and rock crevices, and is
portrayed in many rock paintings in Africa and Europe. Beekeeping, as we think of today,
commenced when man learned to safeguard the future of swarms, established colonies from
them, and even built some type of dwelling for them, perhaps in pottery vessels as shown in a
wall painting about 1500 B.C. which shows smoke being used to harvest honey. Different parts
of the world housed bees in those items readily available in their area, I. e., pottery, parts of
hollow trees, baskets made of straw or wicker later improved to woven skeps, and even
horizontal hives made out of hollowed out logs or stone discs.

Important Events in the 250 years between 1600 and 1851

Honey bees were imported to the New World, England's American Colonies. Beekeepers began
to recognize the worth and quality of honey bees. Developments in beekeeping methods and
management techniques gave the beekeeper more control over his bees, as well as viewing them
INSIDE the hive.

Honey bees, the old "DARK" bee, apis mellifera mellifera, were first brought to America in
1622, to the Virgin Islands and Guadeloupe in 1688, to Australia in 1839, and to California in the
early 1850's.

In Germany, Nickel Jakob wrote in 1568 that honey bees could raise a queen from eggs or very
young larvae. In 1586, Luis Mendez of Spain was first to describe a queen as a female that laid
eggs and the mother of all bees. In 1609, Englishman Charles Butler showed that drones were
male bees; and Richard Remnant in 1637 showed that workers were females. It is interesting that
nothing was known about the mating of a queen with a drone for about 150 years until Anton
Janscha of Slovenia described the act in 1771. Prior to 1744, beeswax was confused with light
yellow pollen until Hornbostel of Germany detailed the origin of beeswax. Nectar was assumed
to fall from the sky until Frenchman, Vaillant, showed in 1717 that nectar is produced in flowers.
It wasn't until 1750 that Irishman Arthur Dobbs reported that the pollen collected by bees is the
"male seed" of the flower which fertilizes the ovum. It took another 43 years (1793) before
Sprengel clearly established the part played by bees in fertilizing flowers.

Francois Huber, a blind Swiss beekeeper, published his Observations in 1792, which properly
laid the foundations of modern day bee science. I am the proud owner of an English translation
published in 1821. It is absolutely "mind-boggling" what a BLIND scientist could fathom from
the descriptions of bee activity by his sighted helper! Huber "invented" the "leaf-hive" which
consisted of a number of frames hinged together at one side like the leaves of a book, and the
bees built combs in these frames

Many other quasi famous beekeepers created many different types of hives during this 250 years,
but all suffered the same problem: the combs were not removable from the hive except by
CUTTING THEM AWAY FROM THE HIVE BODY.

Modern Beekeeping: 1851 to the Present

Perhaps there are a few who would disagree, but surely most would concur that Rev. Lorenzo
Lorraine Langstroth did more for successful modern day beekeeping than any other individual in
the world. Erroneously, he is most noted for building the first hive that featured removable
frames as well as a desirable size. However, the removable frame and hive size were very
secondary to his major discovery of: BEE SPACE. That "magical space" is defined as "greater
than 1/4 inch, but smaller than 3/8 inch", and is recognized by the bees as OPEN space for
occupation by bees only and any spaces smaller or larger are subject to having comb built in
them. By utilizing this new finding, called BEE SPACE, Langstroth was able to design a hive
where the bees did not seal parts together by burr comb, hence allowing frames to be removed
one by one, inner covers not sealed down to frame tops, and bee walk space on the tops of
frames that had another hive body with frames on top of the lower hive body. A Langstroth hive
filled with bees could be disassembled, each part inspected for status or disease, and reassembled
without damage to comb or bees. This could NOT be done with any other "housing" for bees that
existed in 1851!

Just as the invention of the telephone opened the door to home to home communication, and the
invention of the automobile opened the door for family visits with friends miles apart, the
introduction of the Langstroth designed hive featuring BEE SPACE opened the door for easy
beekeeping to every type of human: male or female, educated or uneducated, rich or poor, and
those with investigative minds as well as those with status quo minds. Hence, the next 50 years
were the years of inventing needed bee equipment and bettering existing bee equipment. Some of
the more important things are:

M. Hruschka, an Austrian, invented the first frame extractor in 1865, which was followed by L.
L. Langstroth's extractor in 1867. Moses Quinby invented the first bellows smoker in 1870. J.
Mehring of Germany stamped out the first beeswax foundation in 1857, which was followed by
A. I. Root and A. Washburn developing the first machine roll foundation in 1875 using the idea
of the twin roll clothes dryer. H. Laidlaw developed the first machine operated artificial
inseminator of queens in 1944. L. L. Langstroth was part of a group that imported the first Italian
Queens to the U. S. in 1860, and their "golden" color captured the desires of American
beekeepers. F. Benton imported the first Carniolan bees to the U. S. from Germany in 1891.

In 1990, Dr. Eva Crane published a paper named Bees and beekeeping: science, practice, and
world resources. I want to mention some of the figures and statements made in this paper:

The world now produces over 2 billion pounds of honey each year from 50 million hives
indicating that the average hive production per year is 40 pounds. The population of humans in
our world is estimated to be 5 billion people which indicates that there are 100 humans for each
bee hive in the world. Beekeeping is practiced over a greater area of the earth's surface than any
other single branch of agriculture; and the success of some parts of other branches of agriculture
depend on beekeeping, because of pollination! WOW! The OLD World (Europe, Asia, and
Africa) is more densely populated with honey bees as it is with people, but the NEW World
(North and South America plus Australia) gives richer honey harvests, 48 pounds/year compared
to only 31 pounds/year in the Old World. In the NEW World, because labor is so expensive,
beekeeping equipment tends to be simple, standardized, and mechanized which contrasts with
the OLD Worlds use of many different sizes, complicated, and much less mechanization. In the
U. S., one skilled beekeeper can manage up to 1000, or even 2000 hives, whereas in Europe one
man can look after only 100-300 hives. In the NEW World, there are more commercial
beekeepers, although numbering less than 10% of the total. Average honey yield in individual
countries vary from 40 pounds to 80 pounds per colony, but in the best beekeeping areas these
production figures are 200 or even 300 pounds. The OLD World has a high proportion of hobby
beekeepers who have an annual harvest of 10 to 40 pounds of honey per year.
In good areas, beekeeping can be done without the beekeeper (beeHAVER) knowing a great deal
about the bees themselves, and maybe not really interested in the bees, or in beekeeper
organizations. In complete contrast to this, the strongest beekeeper organizations are in the
European countries with a high density of hives, but each providing only a small return. Such
beekeepers often need a good knowledge of bees in order to maintain their colonies at all!
WOW, what a difference in thinking! In spite of all our new and wonderful things of the 20th
century like automobiles, planes, computers, antibiotics, wash & wear clothes, etc., one strong
adverse factor stands out for beekeeping since World War II - the ever increasing speed and
availability of air transport. This enabled honey bees to be taken relatively easily from one
country or continent to another, and , unfortunately, diseases and parasitic mites went right along
with the bees. South America imported African queen bees in 1957 for study, but an unskilled
attendant let them escape into the wild, and Africanized honey bees entered the U. S. in 1990.
The tracheal mite was first found in the U.S. in 1984, the Varroa mite in 1987, and the small hive
beetle in 1998. Now in 2001, smart beekeepers and wary bee scientists are worried about the
spreading of another mite, tropilaelaps clareae which is spreading around the world; but I am
more concerned about the CAPE BEE, apis mellifera capensis which can produce worker bees
without the fertilization of drone bee spermatozoa. The entrance of the Cape Bee into the U. S.
would have the same effect of declaring by law that we all stop speaking the English language
and speak only in Swahili. We throw away all the existing bee books and start over. Since the
world now functions on a "global" basis rather than a hemisphere basis or country basis, let me
touch on the state of beekeeping over the world, and some facts might astound you. Europe
(excluding the U.S.S.R.) has about 15 million bee hives with a density of over 8 hives per square
mile compared to a world average of just over 1 hive per square mile, but the average honey
yield is a measly 24 pounds per hive This 24 pounds per hive results in a total production of only
360 million pounds which is only half the demand of Europeans for honey, and hence they
import an additional 340 million pounds from the NEW world and China. Although beekeeping
was "wiped out" in the U.S.S.R. during World War II, honey is a strong part of the Russian life
style; and now they are back up to about 8 million bee hives, averaging 50 pounds per hive,
totaling 400 million pounds. It is difficult to get good statistics on the Asian countries, but
estimates of 13 million bee hives yielding 40 pounds per colony totaling about 550 million
pounds of honey have been made. However, we know that China is rapidly increasing their
number of colonies and hence their honey production for export purpose. Beekeeping conditions
in Africa differ from the rest of the world in that many of the beekeepers have not switched to
modern hives and still use traditional hives and traditional methods of honey collection. This
includes gathering lots of comb, pressing or squeezing the honey from it and selling the wax. The
total wax yield, the largest on the world market, is several thousand metric tons each year. We
have estimates of 14 million bee hives producing 200 million pounds of honey each year, which
is only about 14 pounds of honey per hive. These figures do NOT include the small Southern
area of Africa where the CAPE BEE predominates. Although South America and particularly
Central America primarily have only the Africanized Bee, the beekeepers have learned how to
utilize this aggressive bee for honey production. They have about 8 million hives, averaging
about 42 pounds honey per hive, totaling 320 million pounds, and they export about 70% of that,
or 230 million pounds. Have I saved the BEST for last when I talk about The United States and
Canada? That depends on your point of view. The U. S. and Canada combined only have 5
million hives. The average yield in the U. S. is only 40 pounds per colony, but Canada has the
highest average in the world of 140 pounds per hive! Although beekeeping is still predominantly
a hobbyist pursuit, there are several thousand professional beekeepers. Many of them own 5,000
or more colonies and Richard Adee of South Dakota has 60,000 colonies. It is interesting that in
the areas in the East, the climate is more like that in Europe, honey yields are lower than the
West, holdings are smaller, but, as in Europe, the people tend to have a greater interest in the
bees themselves rather than the honey production.

What about the Future? In spite of all the changes of the last several hundred years or even
several thousand years, there are two things that have NOT changed: the climate which
determines which bee forage will flourish, and the habits of the bees themselves. The pattern of
beekeeping has changed through the centuries with man's colonization of new regions of the
world, and which now changes almost every decade with changing agricultural practices,
because THESE affect the forage which provides the bees - and the beekeeper - their honey
harvest! The promotion of greater crop yield per acre, the promotion of clean agriculture by
killing nectar bearing weeds before they flower, and the rapid harvesting of fodder crops, all
reduce the bee's forage area. In some areas, the control of insects which damage agricultural
crops has destroyed wild bees and other beneficial insects whose nesting places may be
endangered by the reduction of waste land. This has left the so-called domesticated honey bee as
the ONLY pollinator available in large numbers, and will bring a new form of financial return to
the beekeeper in pollination rental.

Right back to the all that I have been "preaching" for the past 20 years - CHANGING TIMES.
You have a choice: Do what Daddy did, and FAIL; or LEARN and CHANGE, and survive. It is
up to you!

Why have an UPPER ENTRANCE?

In spite of the fact that almost every bee scientist, bee researcher, professional apiculturists, and
every bee book strongly recommends an upper entrance for every colony of bees in BOTH
summer and particularly winter, hobbyist beekeepers seem to either overlook this or ignore the
advice. Maybe it is just another example of anthropomorphic thinking about "letting the 'house'
get cold". Years ago, Root made inner covers with half an auger hole drilled in the front edge of
the cover to serve as an upper entrance, but Root discontinued hive manufacturing about 1990.
Recently, I persuaded Steve Forrest to manufacture the Brushy Mountain Bee Farm inner cover
with this same upper entrance.

Surely, you must know how important hive ventilation in BOTH summer and winter is to
successful beekeeping. How can anything be well ventilated with just one "entrance"? If you
want fresh air in, you must create an "exit" for the "old" air to go out. We all know that hot air
rises, so we install an attic fan in our house. Further, why should a forager bee returning with a
heavy load of nectar "fight her way" through the highly congested brood chamber to get up in the
supers to deposit her load of nectar, and then repeat her "fight" through the congested brood
chamber to go out and do more foraging? Why not have an UPPER ENTRANCE that allows the
forager bee to enter or leave the hive without going through the brood chamber congestion?

Some beekeepers like to drill a 1" hole near the hand hold in a super, and I don't like that for
TWO reasons: 1) the hole becomes an entrance for mice, adult wax moths, and other pests when
I have my supers stored in the winter, and 2) I forget about the hole and put my hand there to
move the super and get stung. Then, there are other beekeepers who like to prop open the inner
cover by inserting sticks or twigs between the edge of the super and inner cover. Invariably,
those sticks or twigs will get "lost" any time you try to remove the inner cover.

JUST MAKE A PERMANENT UPPER ENTRANCE IN ONE EDGE OF THE INNER

COVER! Most inner covers have a 3/4" edge around a sheet of thin masonite or plywood, and
this sheet material is NOT in the center of the 3/4" edge boards, but generally is placed so that
the inner cover has a "shallow side" supposedly for summer use and a "deep side" for winter use.
This is just silly, and no body bothers! Just chisel out a piece of wood about 1/4" to 3/8" thick,
and the size of a postage stamp from the center of the 16" side of the inner board. Just imagine an
IMIRIE SHIM with a sheet of masonite in the center of it.

Use it on the top most super, entrance on the down side the year around, summer and particularly
winter, and have the telescoping top PUSHED FORWARD so that bees can walk out of the
entrance hole, walk down the face of the super about 2" and fly away. Why do I continue to say
"particularly WINTER"? Clustered bees eat honey to keep warm in the winter. Their exhaled
breath is both damp and warm, just like you exhaling warm breath on your glasses to clean them.
Warm air RISES, and it need an upper exit to leave the hive so that the damp air does not
condense into cold water droplets on the cold inner cover and rain down on the bee cluster. Of
course in the summer during nectar gathering season, this upper entrance does the same job for
the top super that IMIRIE SHIMS do for the supers beneath the top super.

EVERY COLONY OF BEES SHOULD HAVE AN UPPER ENTRANCE IN PLACE ALL 365
DAYS OF THE YEAR!
January 2001

Special Paper for Tennessee Beekeepers

I was honored (and SURPRISED) in October when the Tennessee Beekeepers Assn. presented
me with a KEY to the City of Oak Ridge plus a Certificate of Honorary Citizenship, just because
I was sent by the Army in 1944 to X-10 Laboratory to work as a scientist to purify plutonium. I
only had 30 colonies of bees at that time, and I had taught my father how to look after them
while I was serving our country and "winning the war". Hence, being a "two-way street", I
thought I might surprise you with some knowledge about how to have a record crop of honey,
diminish swarming, and save the bees from some "mysterious" unknown death. Many know that
BREVITY is not one of my virtues, so this will be a l-o-n-g paper. Some know that, as a typical
scientist, there is no "gray area"; but everything is either "black or white". I am BLUNT, not to
hurt your feelings, but make you MAD so that I make you THINK! This year of 2001 begins my
69th year in scientific beekeeping, having kept 8 different races of bees to PROVE which was
the best race for the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, having worked with the Africanized
bees in South America, and having made talks and demonstrations at the request of various
associations over most of the U.S. and some overseas. During most of these years (until I
suffered several strokes), I kept about 135 colonies and produced between 10,000 and 12,000
pounds of honey each year; and although I did not need the money, I learned how to sell the
honey that averaged 132 pounds per honey production colony each year.

Unfortunately, with the exception of better control of American Foul Brood done by the state bee
inspection laws started in 1922, there really has not been many changes in beekeeping during this
century past. In fact, up until 15 years ago when the tracheal mite was first found in the U. S.,
bees were kept "just like Daddy kept bees". But DADDY did NOT have mites, Africanized bees,
PMS (parasitic mite syndrome), small hive beetles, viruses, or the almost universal public FEAR
of a bee sting. Today, in 2001, we have all of these beekeeping problems PLUS there are almost
no feral bees left and new queens are being badly superseded; and this has resulted in a major
reduction of bee colonies in the country and many less beekeepers. American beekeepers, always
very independent and resistive to any change in long used established procedures, simply
REFUSED to accept any treatments recommended by scientists, but used "homeopathic"
substitute "medicines" or time of treatment; and this resulted in the death of their bees, cost of
annual replacement, and discouragement to the point that they gave up beekeeping or changed
over to raising pigeons, growing tomatoes, or capturing butterflies. During these past 15 years
most of us have many "new" things that "Daddy" never had, or used, like: microwave oven,
computer or word processor instead of a typewriter, mobile phone, fuel injection rather than a
carburetor on your car, no-till farming rather than constant hoeing, e-mail instead of 33 cent
stamps, getting cash with an ATM card rather than going inside a bank, and let's not forget organ
transplants. TIMES CHANGE and THINGS CHANGE, and you have a choice: Either fall
behind the rest of the world or LEARN and USE the new material or program. I don't think you
are the type to ask your friendly neighborhood butcher to remove your appendix, or ask the
service station gas jockey to repair the "blown" automatic transmission in your Sunday Cadillac.
That being the case, there is no reason to try and keep bees "like Daddy kept bees" or take
suggestions from other neighboring beekeepers who has probably had to buy new package bees
to replace the dead colonies that he has suffered for several years. Lastly, before I tell you the
new things necessary to upgrade your beekeeping, let me tell you about READING MATERIAL
or BOOKS. Since almost every new beekeeping problem has surfaced within the past 15 years:
tracheal mite in 1984, Varroa mite in 1987, Africanized bees entering Texas in 1990, small hive
beetle in 1998, then no book published prior to 1984 even mentions these items because they
were unknown in the U.S. Since it takes several years to investigate these new problems and
recommend treatment plus the year or so for publishing this work, it is pretty fair to say that
regardless of the acceptance of a book or fame of the author, a book is more or less OBSOLETE
if it was written much before about 1992. In that regard, I believe that the 1992 REVISED
EDITION of the HIVE AND HONEY BEE written by perhaps the worlds 31 best bee scientists
and professional beekeepers and published by Dadant might be the finest bee book ever written.

All is not lost as we enter this new millennium, because many very important things have been
discovered in these past 15 years due to the feverish work done by the bee scientists, researchers,
queen breeders, and extension agents to overcome all of these new problems. In spite of the
difficulty of funding money for research, the problems caused by the mites, Africanized bees,
and public fear of being stung FORCED research to be more specific about securing gentle bees,
swarm reduction, and requeening with a specific stock of honey bees rather than allowing the
bees to requeen themselves. These very things are encouraging people to UPGRADE their
knowledge about beekeeping. As an "old" scientist, I predict that research done in the 21st
century will redirected to determine more about honey bee PHEROMONES, and armed with
these new findings about the part played by pheromones in the life of honey bees, the results will
be better beekeeper management, improved handling techniques, healthier bees, and higher crop
yields! I am jealous of that future that perhaps I will never see.

My home is in Maryland just 15 miles north of the WHITE HOUSE in Washington,

DC, so I can't talk to you about specific dates in seasons, but I will use general terms
and you will have to interpret the time or month it fits into your area whether it is
Knoxville, Nashville, or Memphis. My Maryland weather is close to that of Oak
Ridge, Saint Louis, or San Sacremento where we have a cold, but short winter, a very
early major nectar flow from April 15 to June 15 and almost nothing afterwards until
possibly goldenrod in September. No saleable honey is made in Maryland after June
15th, so timing is very important, because all the crop has to made in less than two
months shortly after a cold winter. However, what I am about to say is true regardless
of your location.

WHAT ARE THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITIES TO MAKE A GOOD HONEY

CROP?

1. Healthy bees with little or no mites, Nosema free, and a YOUNG vigorous
queen
2. A surplus amount of DRAWN COMB in the supers just before the nectar flow
3. A very large number of foraging age bees available at nectar flow time
4. Elimination of those conditions that cause swarming
A YOUNG VIGOROUS QUEEN
More and more highly successful beekeepers have started to requeen every 12 months
to attain larger honey yields, some migratory operators even requeening twice a year.
Because of Maryland's very early honey crop, Steve Taber convinced me 52 years ago
in 1948 to switch from the Italians I had used for 15 years to Carniolans in order to
take advantage of their renowned "explosive" early spring buildup. Unfortunately, the
Carniolan is equally well known for its high propensity to swarm. Recent bee research
has PROVEN that in addition to the egg laying ability of a queen, her production of
the queen pheromone is of vital importance in swarm prevention. Among other things,
the pheromone is the "glue" that binds thousands of worker bees into one single
functioning unit; but the queen's ability to produce that pheromone diminishes a little
each day from the day of her mating. Hence, although a second season queen might be
able to produce 1500 eggs per day, but NOT being able to produce enough queen
pheromone to bind this large group of workers into a single functioning unit, the bees
swarm, and a good honey crop is lost. Researchers have shown that a second season
queen is three times more apt to swarm than a first season queen. It doesn't make good
sense to take a chance on losing a 100 or 200 pound honey crop because you were too
cheap to requeen with a high quality queen that costs $10. Further, I much prefer
September requeening rather than spring requeening, because the queen can arrive in
the mail at my house on the exact date that I ask, the queens are better bred because of
better larval feeding, the presence of more drones for breeding, and the queen
breeders are not under that intense spring pressure of getting lots of queens delivered
"yesterday". Further, perfectionist that I am, the Imirie Requeening Method (described
at the end of this paper) guarantees almost 100% acceptance plus it has BOTH the old
queen and the new queen laying in the same colony for about 6 weeks in September
and October which builds a large group of young worker bees to enter the winter
inactive season!
HEALTHY BEES with little or no MITES (tracheal or Varroa)
Contrary to what some people think, the tracheal mite (acarapis woodi) is STILL HERE in the U. S. Since
it is microscopic and hence not seen by humans, the bees are assumed clean and not infected by this pest.
When the colony is found dead, usually in January, with just a few dead bees in the hive, but plenty of
honey still present, generally the tracheal mite has "won" again. Of course, the beekeeper blames the
death on El Nino, cold weather, high wind, lousy queen, or the revenge of his mother-in-law; and to
further confuse himself and neighborly beekeepers, he does do not perform an autopsy on the dead bees
because he doesn't have a microscope or know the technique to look for tracheal mites. The technique of
isolating the trachea of a bee is easy to learn, and the gift of a pound of honey to the high school science
teacher will usually allow you the use of a microscope to be an "apian forensic scientist". It would have
been so much easier (and cheaper too) to PROPERLY TREAT and KILL the tracheal mites before they
overwhelmed the worker bees in December or January. Just put 50 grams of Menthol (cost about $1.50)
on top of the brood chamber frames in WARM or HOT weather, which is probably August, but no later
than September 15th. Now hear this: Menthol does NOT work at temperatures lower than about 84
degrees, because menthol sublimes (change from a solid into a gas) at a temperature of 84 degrees! There
are lots of beeHAVERS out there, who not wanting to lose any of their August or September honey crop
installed Menthol in October and their bees died. Of course, they told everyone that Menthol treatment
does not work. Menthol DOES work, and it KILLS tracheal mites, but it has to be used at the right time,
not when it is convenient for you. Although Menthol is the approved government treatment for tracheal
mite treatment, Dr. Diana Sammataro has pioneered the use of PLAIN (no Terramycin) grease patties to
CONTROL the degree of tracheal mite infection in a colony so that the mites are not strong enough to kill
the bees. The grease patties do NOT KILL the mites, but "confuses" the mite in selection of a host bee to
infect. Unfortunately, the use of grease patties is labor intensive in that they must be used
CONTINUOUSLY (without interruption) from mid summer to early winter. However, they can be used
even during a nectar flow. Grease patties are made by mixing 2 pounds of granulated sugar with 1 pound
of Crisco, make into hamburger size patties on a piece of wax paper, and place the patty on top of the
brood frames. I have used Menthol on August 15th on up to 100 colonies for over 10 years and have
never lost a colony to tracheal mite infection, whereas other neighboring beekeepers who ignored the
proper timing of application, lost many colonies. Early in 2000, the government approved a second
chemical, APICURE, for the treatment of tracheal mites, but unfortunately it was recalled because the
plastic package developed leaks. I hope APICURE will be available in 2001, because it can be used at
temperatures less than 84°, and hence could be used in September or October perhaps.

The VARROA MITE

Far worse than the tracheal mite because it multiplies so rapidly, but at least, it is not microscopic and can
be easily seen. One should thoroughly understand the LIFE CYCLE of the Varroa mite to properly
control the mite infection of a honey bee colony. UNLIKE the tracheal mite which lives almost its entire
life INTERNALLY in an adult bee, the Varroa mite is born with a bee larva, matures to adulthood
nursing itself on the honey bee pupa in its capped cell, emerges into our world when the new honey bee
emerges, and then attaches itself to some adult bee and lives externally on that bee eating the hemolymph
(blood) of that bee. Hence, the greater the number of honey bee LARVAE and PUPAE in a colony, the
greater there is a source of food for the varroa mite to multiply! (That is a VERY IMPORTANT fact that
you should know!) Further, the female mite usually lays 2, 3, or even 4 female mite eggs in one bee larva
cell, meaning that as every new bee emerges from its capped cell, maybe 2, 3, or even 4 new adult female
mites might accompany the bee into the bee society. It should not take rocket science thinking to
understand that the most effective time to kill mites is when there is little or no bee brood (November 15
to December 31 in MD), and this allows healthy, non deformed bees to be "born" in late winter and early
spring. In Maryland, brood production is being shut down rapidly beginning about October and generally
is stopped by November 15th. Hence, I place 2 strips of Apistan in each brood chamber on October 1st
and ABSOLUTELY remove them on the first 45-50 degree day after November 15th. Leaving strips in a
colony more than 6-8 weeks leads to the creation of mites resistant to Apistan, and a beekeeper who
would be this inconsiderate of other beekeeper's bees, or just too lazy to remove the strips, should be
publicly tarred and feathered as well as named on nationwide e-mail if it was my decision to make. We
have already lost a wonderful miticide, Miticur, due to a group beekeepers who thought they knew more
than the scientists and just plain ignored the printed rules for the proper use of Miticur. It would appear
that the same thing might be happening now in the use of Apistan, as we have heard of a few isolated
spots that Varroa mites are apparently resistant to Apistan.

Bee research has positively shown that Varroa mite growth is temperature dependent, meaning
that in those areas that have the LEAST winter and cold months, Varroa mite growth is
enhanced. Honey bee colonies in places known for warmth like Texas or Florida might have to
be treated with Apistan 2 or even 3 times each year to control mites, whereas colonies in the
colder climates of New York or the Dakotas probably require only one treatment each year. In
any event, DON'T GUESS AT THE MITE INFECTION OF YOUR COLONIES - TEST FOR
MITES IN MARCH AND JULY. Being a scientist, I don't like doing anything half way, and
hence I don't like the ether roll test, so I make a STICKY BOARD test on all my colonies on
March 1st and particularly July 1st. There are many, many cases reported in the literature that a
colony of bees that had been treated the previous year with Apistan, made a record crop of honey
in late spring and early summer, but was found dead of massive Varroa mite infection in August.
If I lived in an area that had a nectar flow from summer clover or alfalfa in July and August, but
my July 1st test for Varroa was high, I have a decision to make: Do I NOT treat and take a
chance of losing the colony, or do I remove all supers for just 2 weeks, make an quick
emergency treatment with Apistan for 2 weeks, and re-super? The cost of new bees and
aggravation of building up a new strong production colony is much greater than cutting my
honey production back maybe 25-50%, so I would make the 2 week Apistan treatment, do a
regular 6-8 week Apistan treatment in the fall, and save my bees for next year. People seem
surprised when I say "TEST" for mites. Gosh, you test yourself with a thermometer for a fever,
the doctor tests your blood pressure, the optician tests your eyes, the vet tests your dog for
worms, you test your garden for the pH of your soil, pray tell me why you won't test your bee
colony for mite infection that is going to kill your bees unless the mite population is controlled?
You can't keep bees like Daddy kept bees any more! You MUST CHANGE to be successful!

NOSEMA DISEASE
This important disease, although rarely killing a colony, weakens the health of the bees that shortens their
lives dramatically and reduces their activity so they just can't make a good crop of honey. Nosema is a
disease of the gut and causes the bee to suffer diarrhea. I ask you - How much work can you do when you
have the "runs"? Researchers have estimated that approximately 60% (over half) of all the bees in the
country suffer some Nosema disease in the spring after a winter confinement, but treatment is generally
ignored. For the cheap price of about $2 per colony, you can feed a colony 2 teaspoons of Fumidil-B
dissolved in 2 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup in late fall, and your bees will be free of Nosema disease next
year. I don't take any chances of hurting my honey crop, so my colonies get the $2 Fumidil-B treatment
every fall. Regardless of the price of honey, $1/pound or $4/pound, my healthy bees make more pounds
of honey for me to offset the cost of the Fumidil-B treatment.

SURPLUS AMOUNT OF DRAWN COMB in the supers before the nectar flow.
First, I will talk about the WHY, WHEN, and HOW of installing supers of DRAWN COMB for extracted
honey production. The use of foundation or anything that requires comb building is a totally different
program, and I will talk about that separately. However, I want to impress upon you at this time that
foundation can NOT be used as if it were empty drawn comb, nor can you mix foundation and drawn
comb in the same super without bad results. Fix in your mind that it is not HONEY that foraging bees
bring home; but bees collect thin, watery nectar, temporarily store it until they get the time to ripen it into
thick, viscous honey, and then store it in capped cells.

When a nectar flow gets under way and improves, swarming season is OVER and the bees
mentally shift programs from swarming for reproduction purposes to nectar collecting to make
honey for winter feed. However, if there is not enough super space for the bees to store all of this
thin, watery nectar (maybe 20 pounds per day) until they have time to ripen the nectar to thick,
viscous honey, they are going to SWARM. A swarm during a nectar flow is 100% FAULT of the
beekeeper in failing to provide enough super space when needed; and is totally different than a
swarm in swarming season which is caused primarily by brood chamber congestion. In
Maryland, I know that a nectar flow is going to get underway in mid to late April, so I put ONE
super of drawn comb in place early, about April 1st, followed by 4 more supers of drawn comb
put on ALL AT ONE TIME about May 1st. Research, notably by Dr. Tom Rinderer of Baton
Rouge Lab, has proven that the hoarding instinct of honey bees makes the presence of lots of
drawn comb a challenge to the bees and they work harder and faster producing a higher yield of
honey than having empty drawn comb supers added one at a time as needed. I use 5 or
sometimes 6 supers, because I know that my bees will normally produce 3 full supers or maybe
even 4 supers of capped honey during that major nectar flow; but they need the space of at least
5, or maybe 6 supers, to store all that thin watery nectar until they have time to evaporate the
water from the nectar to convert it to honey. Some will say, "I only have 3 supers, why can't I
just extract the bottom one and use it as the 4th empty super, etc?" It takes a lot of time for the
bees to fully cap all ten (or nine) frames in a super, and if you extract uncapped honey, that
honey is not yet ripe and may ferment. After all my time and hard work, I am not going to let the
cost of 1 or 2 supers cause my bees to swarm, thereby losing some of my honey crop and maybe
the bees. Hence, when I planned on increasing my colonies from 50 colonies to 60 colonies, I
bought 50 more supers, so each of the new 10 colonies had at least 5 for use every spring; and I
rarely had a swarm.

HOW TO INSTALL SUPERS OF FOUNDATION

Using foundation requires less supers for the same amount nectar collection than using drawn comb,
because the bees have to eat about 8 pounds of honey (equal to maybe 30 pounds of nectar) to develop the
energy to produce and construct one pound of wax comb! Further, using foundation requires more labor
time and frequent inspection to establish the need for another super. Bees, in their genetic way, can't think
like humans or change like humans (I hope you can) and hence do things in the same manner of their
ancestors back with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. All bees work within the limits of what we call
BEE SPACE, the discovery of Dr. Langstroth that enabled him to develop the first removable frame hive.
Bee Space is about 5/16", which is the travel space for a bee, meaning that they will build comb or fill up
spaces smaller than 1/4" or larger than 3/8". This concept is very important in drawing foundation into
comb! Even if you prefer and use only 9 frames in a body, you must use 10 frames of foundation to build
the comb, or you will have a mess because you violated "bee space". This is the same reason that you
cannot mix drawn comb frames with frames of foundation in the same super, nor can you install 4 or 5
supers of foundation all at the same time, because the bees will build comb in the strangest of places and
you will have one great big mess that you cannot separate and the foundation is totally ruined. The only
proper way to install supers of foundation is to put just one super of 10 frames in place, wait until about 6
of its center frames are drawn and partially filled with nectar, reposition those frames by moving the filled
frames towards the outer box walls and placing the undrawn frames in the center. At that point, put the
2nd super of 10 frames of foundation on top of the 1st super, and so on for the 3rd and 4th supers.
Redundantly, I say getting foundation drawn into comb requires more of your labor time and a lot more
inspections to determine the correct timing for another super installation. I want to point out an absolute
fact here that beeHAVERS just don't seem to understand: There is NO WAY that you can make bees
draw foundation unless they have an immediate need for a wax cell, such as storing nectar, pollen, or a
place for the queen to lay an egg, and therefore, there MUST, and I repeat, there MUST be a nectar flow
on (or a sugar syrup substitute) for bees to draw foundation! I cannot overemphasize this fact!
Another point: Collecting swarms at a time of year AFTER the main nectar flow often
is a waste of time and money, because the old queen is probably going to be
superseded rather soon anyhow, and you will probably have to feed a LOT of sugar to
get them through the winter, etc., etc.; but I ALWAYS get in my car and go out to
collect a swarm. Why? A swarm has no home, but more important is that it has NO
COMB and has to build comb in a hurry so it can survive. Hence, I catch a swarm, put
it on 10 frames of foundation, and feed it heavily with 1:1 sugar syrup for the sole
purpose of drawing that foundation into drawn comb for use next year. I usually
divide up bees and brood among other colonies and destroy the queen. Another point:
I never feed honey to bees. Sugar costs about 30-35 cents per pound, whereas I can
sell honey for at least $3.50 per pound. A swarm is desperate for food that they have
to consume to have the energy to produce wax and construct comb. Remember, bees
have to eat 8 pounds of honey to make one pound of wax.

LARGE NUMBER OF FORAGING AGE BEES AVAILABLE AT NECTAR

FLOW TIME
Many apian followers don't understand that from the day a worker bee egg is layed, 40 days (almost 6
weeks) elapses before that worker bee makes its first nectar gathering flight! 40 DAYS! Why? The
gestation period of the honey bee is 21 days, and its genetically programmed life has it doing "house
duties" like comb building, nursing larvae, pollen packing, ripening nectar into honey, and serving guard
duty at the hive entrance for the first 18 days of its life before it ever makes its first nectar gathering
flight, which occurs on the 40th day after the egg was layed. For example, in Maryland, if the black locust
bloom opens on April 25th, the egg of the bee that forages for that black locust nectar has to be layed 40
or more days before, or March 15th at the latest, when there might have been 6 inches of snow on the
ground and baseball season has not yet opened. If you came to this meeting to LEARN, and I hope you
did, then don't you ever forget the importance of this particular 40 days that may decide the yield of your
honey crop!

Most people don't understand how to get a queen to lay eggs in the cold weather of February. Let
me shock you! The queen does NOT make that decision! Her daughters, the worker bees, make
almost all colony decisions and they totally control the queen's actions by how much they feed
her, how much comb they build, and how many cells they CLEAN AND POLISH to receive her
eggs! Further, worker bees won't do any of these things until there is pollen and nectar for food!
In walks Mr. Smart Beekeeper, who creates an artificial nectar flow by feeding 1:1 sugar syrup
(1 pound of plain sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water) and even supplies a pollen substitute like
Mann Lakes Bee Pro. When these artificial nectar and pollen substitute are put in a hive, as I do
about February 1st, the worker bees are fooled in to thinking that "early spring" is here, the
strong nectar flow will soon start that will supply next winter's food, so "we gals better wake up
our queen and get her laying eggs in a bigtime way". They start eating large quantities of the 1:1
sugar syrup, ignoring all that stored honey that is like emergency "hard tact" compared to thin
delicious nectar. (You did not know that nectar is the bees choice of food rather than honey, did
you?) Eating all these calories and microscopically exercising raises the body temperature of the
bees so they can warm the brood area to a maternity room desired temperature of 91-96 degrees,
start "stuffing food down the queen's gullet" which activates the queen's egg laying "apparatus",
and finally clean and polish cells into which the queen can lay eggs. Early spring population
increase has been started in the cold of February and snow may be all over the hive tops! Feeding
this 1:1 sugar syrup continues well into dandelion time to keep that queen laying.

ELIMINATION OF THOSE CONDITIONS THAT CAUSE SWARMING

First, let me point out that swarming is the natural program of honey bees for two purposes: to increase
the population of honey bees over the world, and for bees to spread away from home into new territory,
thereby providing pollination throughout the world. Back in the 19th century, the lack of sound
knowledge about swarming often made it necessary to maybe 10 colonies in order to produce a total of
100 pounds of honey each year. The main goal of the 20th century bee scientists and professional
apiculturists has been to determine the primary reasons for swarming and formulate colony management
techniques to either prevent or diminish the tendency of bees to swarm. Much helpful knowledge has
been made particularly in the last 50 years to control swarming so that a colony can be expected to
produce 100 pounds or more of honey year after year in most parts of the country. The following points
have been firmly established:

1. There is a definite SWARM SEASON for all apis mellifera ; which is generally defined as that
period in the spring when brood rearing is at its peak, which, in most areas, is the 4-6 week period
just ahead of a major nectar flow.
2. Some races of apis, notably Carniolans, genetically have a higher propensity to swarm than other
races. The same can be said about different stocks (strains) of the same race. Swarming may not
be a problem for a skilled beekeeper, but can be a major problem for the unskilled or careless
apiarist.
3. (This will surprise you.) The Number ONE reason for swarming is congestion in the BROOD
CHAMBER! This has nothing to do with any activity in the supers, which is a totally different
problem.
4. (This will also surprise you.) The Number TWO reason for swarming is the age of the queen. In
addition to laying eggs, the queen has to be able to produce enough queen pheromone to "glue" or
seal all of 40,000 - 60,000 progeny together as one single functioning unit, and her ability to
produce that pheromone diminishes a little each day of her life. Colonies headed by a queen less
than one year old rarely swarm, if the beekeeper has eliminated all other causes of swarming.
5. It is NOT natural for bees to swarm during a nectar flow, because, in doing so, they are leaving
the very thing that they are working so hard to collect to provide for colony survival in the
coming winter. However, there MUST ALWAYS BE enough super space to temporarily store the
thin watery nectar until the bees can evaporate the water from it and ripen it into honey. If the
space is not available when they need it, they will swarm.

Many beekeepers have concluded that swarming is a "sudden happening", or that there are few
warning signs for the beekeeper, and therefore, swarming is just one of those unfortunate
problems in beekeeping. None of this is true? When the BROOD AREA becomes badly
congested with nurse bees feeding larvae, little or no nectar or pollen storage space available,
foraging age bees pushing their way to and from as they travel out to forage, and
PARTICULARLY no laying space for the queen, the bees initiate their swarming program which
is not difficult to recognize if the apiarist knows what to look for. For a period of up to 12 days
before a swarm issues, bees have to build swarm cells, produce lots of royal jelly to feed this
potential new queen larvae, reduce or even stop feeding the queen (and hence egg laying) so she
reduces weight in order to fly with the swarm, send out scouts looking for a nearby place to have
the swarm cluster in order to organize, and finally gorge themselves with honey to carry along to
their new home. Hence, not much work is done "out in the field" and the bees just sort of "hang
around" the hive waiting for the "signal" to swarm. This is the swarming program done in
SWARM SEASON before a nectar flow.

Swarming during the nectar flow is NOT caused by brood chamber congestion, but caused by
lack of super space to store the incoming nectar. In this case, the bees will build burr comb in
any space they can find that is not travel space and fill it with nectar. What techniques are used to
try and prevent swarming? In the SWARM SEASON prior to the nectar flow, the most important
thing is to provide the queen laying space and diminish brood chamber congestion by
REVERSING THE BROOD CHAMBERS. Since creation, the rule of "food over brood" simply
means that genetically bees like to move UP as they eat the honey stored above them and when
they run out of space ABOVE for the queen to lay eggs, they swarm, even though the lower
frames may be empty. Hence, the beekeeper REVERSES the two brood chambers so that the
bottom chamber which is almost empty of brood is now the top chamber and the queen can just
go right up and lay eggs. Depending on many different things, you might have to reverse brood
changes only once or twice each spring, or maybe 4 or 5 times each spring. See REVERSING at
the end of this paper for details. Further, a week or so before a nectar flow starts, put a super on
top of the brood chambers, so that bees can begin to store incoming nectar in the super rather
than take up queen laying space below. To prevent swarming during a nectar flow, for the
umpteenth time I say have lots of supers installed AHEAD of the need for storage space.

Lastly, maybe none of these things will prevent swarming if the queen is over 12 months old,
because no matter how good her egg laying abilities are, an older queen just cannot produce
enough queen pheromone to bind a large number of bees into a single working group. Hence,
requeen every year so you always have a young queen.

SOME SWARMING TRUTHS AND FALSITIES:

1. For many years, beekeepers practiced removing all swarm cells about once each week to prohibit
swarming, and many novices still try that today. Although that program may delay swarming,
usually the swarm issues and leaves a QUEENLESS colony behind. Further, most often the
beekeeper overlooked one queen cell when doing one of his removal procedures and the bees
swarmed right on schedule. REMOVING QUEEN CELLS DOES NOT STOP SWARMING!
2. Many beekeepers clip a queen's wings so she cannot fly and believe that this procedure is a
reliable swarm prevention technique. When the swarm bees discover that the queen is not part of
the swarm, they disband and return to the hive with the idea of trying again tomorrow. This action
may happen for a day or so, but usually a new virgin queen emerges from her queen cell and the
swarm leaves the "old homestead" headed by a new virgin queen. Often the old clipped wing
queen is lost or killed, so in addition to losing a swarm, the parent colony is left queenless.
CLIPPING THE QUEEN'S WINGS DOES NOT STOP SWARMING!
3. Not unlike the addiction of some humans to alcohol or drugs, after the bees set their program into
a swarm mode and perform many of their necessary PRE-swarm steps, it is extremely difficult to
stop this colony of bees from swarming unless drastic measures are used. Such measures might
include splitting the colony into two parts, removing the queen, removing all brood, and other
labor intensive tasks, and even then, the colony might swarm anyhow. If you observe queen
larvae floating in royal jelly in a queen cell, the bee's swarm program is nearing its final stages,
and swarm prevention will be difficult. Finally, if you see CAPPED QUEEN CELLS, you can
 forget any swarm prevention procedures, because that colony will swarm within 24 hours unless
the weather is bad. One might say that "bees have a one-track mind", and if they have made
swarm preparations, it is very difficult to re-orient their thinking to some mundane task like
nectar collecting.

HARVESTING HONEY
Honey should NOT be removed from the colony until it is close to 100% CAPPED with wax, because
uncapped honey is not yet "ripe". The moisture content of unripened honey is too high allowing yeasts to
grow, so the honey might ferment and spoil. Leave uncapped honey on the bees so they will ripen it and
use it for winter stores. The warmer honey is, the easier it is to extract, so remove your honey in the
summer rather than waiting until fall; and, also, then there will be no problem using Menthol when it
should be used to kill the tracheal mites. There are about 4 different methods used for harvesting, but only
two methods are fast and easy, while the other two methods are either too slow or cause stinging.
Theoretically, by inserting a Porter Bee Escape in the inner cover hole, the bees will leave the supers
through this one way device and enter the brood chamber; but the bees will not leave the supers unless
they are chilly and want the warmth of the cluster below, so the Porter Bee Escape is not a satisfactory
means of getting bees out of the supers except in Northern states. Most new hobbyist harvest the honey
using a bee brush to brush away the bees off of a frame, and these bees can become very angry and
reciprocate with a sting. You would too, if someone knocked you out of your chair with a broom. In these
times of public fear of bees, don't upset your neighbors by making your bees mad, or you may find
yourself facing a new town or county ordinance that says "Beekeeping is Prohibited in this Area". The
best two harvesting methods are the use of a Fume Board with a chemical, or to use a $250 bee blower. If
you can afford a bee blower, remove a super, stand it on end near the hive front, and blow the bees out of
the super on to the grass. Unlike humans, bees don't get mad, because they do not understand that they are
being robbed. I have a bee blower, but I much prefer to use the Fume Board with Chemical method. A
fume board is much like a framed inner cover with a piece of absorbent cloth covering the inner cover
face. Sprinkle one or two teaspoons of chemical all over the cloth, place the fume board on the top super
cloth side down, wait 3-4 minutes, remove the super now empty of bees, and go to the next super. My
partner, Ann Harman, and I use two fume boards and we can remove 20 supers per hour, one each three
minutes? What are these chemicals that are used on the fume board? The most well-known is BEE-GO,
which is butyric anhydride that has an odor worse than rotten eggs, vomit, or skunk musk, and it does not
wash away very easily; but it WORKS. Another name is HONEY ROBBER, which is nothing more than
Bee-Go with the addition of Oil of Cherries to mask the odor of butyric anhydride, but it still STINKS! I
much prefer benzaldehyde, which has the odor of oil of almonds, a very delightful odor; but
benzaldehyde is very difficult to find. Both butyric anhydride and benzaldehyde work extremely well to
remove bees from supers, and they cost about the same, but anything that contains butyric anhydride
"STINKS" grossly, but most honey producers use it. I think Mann Lake Bee Co. might be the only
supplier left still selling Benzaldehyde, because the Federal Taxes on all of these fume board chemicals is
so high that most just sell Bee-Go.

PROTECTING YOUR DRAWN COMB

After you have extracted your honey, you have a sticky mess and drippy frames. Don't put them outside
and start all the bees within 3 miles robbing and killing each other in addition to neighbors calling the
police about your stinging bees. Before dark, select your strongest colony, remove the telescoping top but
leave your inner cover in place, add a total empty hive body on top of the inner cover, and then put 5 or 6
of these wet drippy supers with frames on top of the empty hive body, put on the telescoping top and seal
all cracks that robber bees might enter.In just a few days all of your supers and frames will be totally
clean of honey and dry, and the drippy honey is all nicely stored away in the strong colony below, and
nobody was bothered in the slightest. Now, what are you going to do with that DRAWN COMB?

DRAWN COMB IS A BEEKEEPER'S MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION, and yet beekeepers

let the wax moths destroy it before next season. There is no excuse for this! Select the place that
you are going to store these supers for the next 6-9 months, stack them 10 high with a teaspoon
of para-dichloro-benzene (PDB) on the frame top bars of each super with 3-4 teaspoons on the
highest super, cover the stack and seal the cracks between the supers with masking tape. The
PDB might have to be replaced about monthly until the temperature stays below 45-50 degrees
most of the time. Next April, or when ever you need them, just let the supers "air out" for 1-2
days before installation. Make sure that the chemical you use is paradicloro- benzene, and can be
found in some drug stores or hardware stores as a type of moth crystals or in urinal blocks used
to deodorize men's urinals. PDB is NOT expensive and totally protects your drawn comb.

MARKETING HONEY
Unfortunately, most beekeepers are lousy salesmen and don't like "selling" in general, some even thinking
it is the next thing to being sinful. In 67 years, I have never sold a jar of honey, creamed honey, comb
honey, or a honey stick; but I am a powerful salesman of the DESIRE to eat George Imirie's Honey. Not
only do I divide my extracted honey by color and source, but I sell chunk honey, creamed honey, cut
comb honey, 4 x 4 section honey, honey sticks, and beeswax candles. Further, to "cover all tastes", I buy
and sell the specialty honeys that I can't make in Maryland, like Orange Blossom, Tupelo, eucalyptus,
sour wood, alfalfa, and blueberry; and I do this on the theory of "one stop" shopping. Informative signs
cover my booth, e. g., "Never put Honey in the refrigerator", "Buy this National Honey Board
Cookbook", "Buy now, we will hold, you can pick up later", "Buy this Christmas Gift today, put in your
freezer until Christmas Time". You MUST have a nice OBSERVATION HIVE which attracts the
children, who in turn fetch the parents with money, and you willingly "talk yourself to death" about the
life of a bee, and the importance of their pollination to human food supply. This helps the people that are
frightened of bees because of the darn "killer bee" movies, and aids in their knowing how important our
bees are. None of my honey is cheaper than $3.50/pound, and people come to my booth or my home and
pay this instead of buying Sue Bee Honey at $2.59 at the grocery store. SELL YOURSELF AND YOUR
PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE, NOT JUST HONEY!

WHERE DO YOU LEARN?

Our society is so different today than it was just a couple of generations ago when the bulk of people
lived a rural life or in small towns. People did a lot of farming or gardening and bees were just a part of
their lives; and you were taught "on the job" by your family, neighbors, and local people. Today the bulk
of people are highly urbanized knowing little or nothing about farm life or agriculture; and thickly
populated areas control the national vote directing the government to protect all people from everything
from murder to a mosquito bite, from cancer to the common cold, training-on-the-job to trade schools,
junior colleges, or universities. TIMES CHANGE, and BEEKEEPING HAS TO CHANGE WITH IT TO
SURVIVE! The Federal Government has 6 bee laboratories spread around the U. S. staffed by scientists
paid to research beekeeping problems and their solutions. Some universities still teach the sciences vital
to beekeeping: biology, chemistry, biochemistry, entomology, virology, etc. State Departments of
Agriculture employ Extension Agents to work on-site of agriculture products such as HONEY. Some of
these scientists whose entire life evolves around our honey bees write detailed books that explain proper
beekeeping procedures, tools needed, seasons to be used, management techniques, diagnosis and
treatment of bee diseases, and how to work in harmony with the bee. I have already mentioned that it is
these scientists that have done so much research these past 15 troubled years that have "kept us afloat"
today with solutions for our problems (maybe not the best solution yet, but at least something that works
fairly well); and now, almost every day, they are discovering some new finding of value in our search for
better ways to KEEP bees. I have already stated that I think the 1992 REVISED EDITION of the Hive
and Honey Bee should be every beekeeper's "bible"; but I want to mention what I think is the best
beginners and novices (Roger Morse suggests "old timers" also) book ever written. It is the 3rd Edition
(April 1998) of the BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK by Dr. Diana Sammataro. Not only are her statements
accurate, but her drawings and sketches of "what is going on inside a hive" are so definitive, it is one of
the finest books that I have ever read, and the price of $29.95 is not expensive. Diana is best known as the
pioneer or discoverer of the use of grease patties to control the tracheal mite, and her photographs and
even movies of these microscopic critters taken with an electron microscope are mind boggling.

ENDING NOW (finally! some might say)

There is little written by me without injecting a strong personal feeling. In taking care of my 50 or more
colonies, I haven't worn gloves or a bee suit more than a few times in the past 40 years, and usually work
in a Tee-shirt and no veil. My county sponsors the largest agricultural fair east of the Mississippi lasting 9
days and drawing over a million paying attendees. Inside a screen booth that has a pair of two story
colonies of live bees, I put on 4 demonstrations each day of opening these hives, describing all the
"happenings" inside the colonies, finding the queen and taking her over close to the audience of 100 or
more at each demonstration so they can view her closely; and I am constantly talking into a microphone
tied around my neck about bees, beekeeping and pollination. I do this dressed in a T-shirt and shorts with
no veil, and I have only been stung a few times while doing this for over 10 years. Then, of course some
people put on exhibitions of bee beards, but that does not allow the person to talk and move around as I
like to do. Is this trickery? Do we get PAID? Are we CRAZY? The answer is emphatically, NO! We are
good students of BEE BEHAVIOR, who have learned "HOW A BEE THINKS" and have eliminated all
ANTHROPOMORPHIC thinking about bees. Most readers go to Chapter 8 in The Hive And Honey Bee
entitled "Activities and Behavior of Honey Bees" written by the eminent entomologist, Dr. Norman Gary,
and say to themselves "This is boring stuff, I just want to get to the part that tells me how to get more
honey", and skip reading the chapter. They might remain a beeHAVER the rest of their lives, never
learning about BEE BEHAVIOR and hence not able to appreciate KEEPING bees. I strongly urge every
person to read the words of Dr. Gary, and when you throw away your ANTHROPOMORPHIC thoughts
and understand BEE BEHAVIOR, only then will you find the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING!

REVERSING:
It is well known and almost totally accepted that Reversing of brood chambers is one of the most helpful
of swarm prevention techniques; and if your bees swarm in April or early May in Maryland, you have
basically lost your honey crop for an entire year. However, many, many people seem to have lots of
problems figuring out just how to reverse, when, and how often; so I am going to try to explain it in
writing (it is easy if we were inspecting one of my colonies together and then I could show you and
explain as we did it) It has been well proven that one of the strongest reasons for swarming is
CONGESTION IN THE BROOD CHAMBER - Note, I said BROOD chamber, and nothing about super
space.

Let me stop here and make you think. It is late January, February, or March, the weather is cold
or chilly, but the brood must be kept at 91-96 degrees to stay alive, bees like to keep nectar close
to the brood for easier feeding, so the brood area is highly congested with lots of nurse bees
feeding brood and warming the brood nest. Meanwhile, the old foragers are bringing in needed
pollen from skunk cabbage, maples, and alders. If there is no 1:1 syrup, but just honey, bees have
to fly out and find water to dilute the honey to nectar consistency for brood food. This whole
scene is just a mess of congestion, which is the number ONE cause of swarming.

Back in November, the worker bees began storing honey near the top of the colony and driving
the queen down to the bottom hive body for any brood laying that she might do; and hence initial
clustering of the bees as the weather moved down into the 40's or 30's was around the queen on
the frames of the lowest hive body. Just imagine a cluster of packed bees about the size of a
basketball or soccer ball enveloping most of frames #5 & #6, some of frames #4 & #7, and
smaller portions of frames #3 & #8. As the winter progresses, the bees slowly move UP (not
sideways) and by January, they have consumed most of the stores in the lower frames and are
now starting to eat the stores in the frames of the top hive body (regardless of whether you are
using 2 deep bodies for brood chambers or 3 Illinois Bodies (like I use) for brood chambers.

It is Nature's Way or Bee Behavior that bees like to move UPWARDS, and more or less have to
be FORCED DOWNWARDS. Hence, when the space in the upper frames is filled up with brood
or honey, even though there is plenty of empty space in lower frames, the bees and particularly
the queen resist moving their brood rearing to the lower frames. Hence, the worker bees either
stop the queen from egg laying, or even prepare to swarm. Therefore, it becomes the
BEEKEEPER'S task to reposition the frames so that there is always empty laying space ABOVE
where the queen is laying. However, the position of the frames that contain brood is VITALLY
IMPORTANT before you start Repositioning those frames.

To aid you in trying to picture brood location in a colony, I want you to think of a big round
CLOCK in the place of All (either 2 or 3) of Frames #5, where the number 12 is close to the
inner cover and the number 6 is close to bottom board. Draw an imaginary line through the 3 &
9, and that indicate the space between the bottom hive and the top hive if you are using 2 deep
bodies, or the center of the middle body frames if you are using 3 Illinois bodies. It is most
important that you understand where this 3 to 9 imaginary line is for my written explanation of
REVERSING.

Upon examination, if about 80% of the brood is in UPPER frames and the remaining 20% brood,
probably capped, is in the LOWER frames, REVERSE the positions of the top body with the
bottom body. You might have to do it again in just 7 days or maybe not for 17 days depending
on the weather, the age of the queen, the size of the frame, the race of the bee, and a dozen other
reasons. However, you open the colony, examine the location of the brood as well as the empty
space, and decide whether to reverse bodies that day or wait 2-3 days. Obviously the beeHAVER
won't do as well as a knowledgeable beeKEEPER.

I start reversing in late January (late February might be best for most readers) and continue it
until the nectar flow is strong, usually about May 1st. I usually make about 4 or 5 reversals of a
colony in that period of late January to May; but many beekeepers using 2 deep bodies as brood
chambers get by with just 2 reversals. However, since I don't want to contend with any swarming
problems, I might reverse more often than someone else.
Reversing too soon is the important danger to the technique, because much of the new brood will
be killed by being chilled because it is away from the heat of the bee cluster. Think of the
imaginary clock: Brood is located in between the lines of 10 - 2 and 7 - 5, and you reverse the
bodies. The frames with the brood up to 10-2 where the queen is laying is now in the bottom
body and the bees are clustered about her to keep her warm, but the frame with brood that was
down to the 7-5 line is now in the upper body and that brood is close to the inner cover and away
from the cluster of bees, so it dies of chill. This mistake is referred to as SPLITTING THE
BROOD, and you should remember it. Using the example just given, do not reverse until the
brood is located between lines of 11-1 and 8-4 or even better when all the brood is in an upper
frame and NO brood in the lower frame.

REVERSING is one of the most valuable techniques used in beekeeping not only helping to
prevent swarming, but to aid your bees in building a larger population to enhance your honey
yield. However, it is like learning to drive, it takes practice; but I strongly urge everyone who
really wants to find the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING to learn and perform the reversing
procedure.

IMIRIE REQUEENING METHOD (ALMOST FOOLPROOF)

Select an exact date for your new queen to arrive and make it known to your queen breeder, and get a
MARKED QUEEN. TEN days before the new queen is to arrive, insert queen excluders in between any
two boxes where your old queen can go. When your new queen arrives, water her and store her in a cool
dark place until needed. Gather up a double screen board, an empty hive body, 10 drawn combs, and a
feeder with a gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup. Find the OLD queen (which ever brood box has larva is where the
queen will be found) in the colony you want to requeen. Set her ASIDE away from the colony, so that
you free to manipulate all the other frames in the colony. Select 3 frames of brood: 1 capped and 2 of
eggs and larva, all with the covering nurse bees. Place these in the center of the empty hive body. Now
add 6 more frames, as follows: 2 empty drawn comb, (one on each side of the brood frames), 2 frames of
pollen and honey, (one on each side of the drawn comb), then 2 more empty drawn comb, (one on each
side of the honey-pollen frames). This totals 9 frames leaving space for the queen cage. Now take several
frames of brood ...remaining in the old colony...and shake the nurse bees into the new 9 frame nuc. Cover
the nuc and set it aside for a while. Return the frame with the OLD queen to her home hive and replace
the 5 frames you removed (3 of brood + 2 of honey-pollen) with empty drawn frames

Now put the double screen board on top of the old colony so that its entrance faces to the rear of
the parent colony. Set the new 9 frame nuc on top and install the new queen (make sure you
remove the cork from the candy end). Start feeding the new nuc immediately. After about 3-5
days, check the queen cage very quickly using little or no smoke to see if the queen has been
released. If she has not, you release her from the cage. Do NOT disturb for another 5-7 days and
then check with as little disturbance and smoke as possible tooking for eggs and larva. Add the
10th frame and remove the queen cage. During the next few weeks (I like about 5-6) check the
brood pattern of the new queen. If you like it and want to accept that new queen, find the old
queen down below the double screen, kill her, and remove the double screen board.

This method has a couple of advantages:

 1. If something is wrong with the new queen, you kill her and the colony has a backup with the old
queen; and you requeen the colony at a later date, and
2. for about 5-6 weeks, you have 2 queens laying eggs that increase the number of bees which will
make the hive stronger for winter and reduce the stresses of Winter.

Note: If you don't have a Double Screen Board - You should. If you are not sure how
it is made, imagine a wooden queen excluder frame without the metal wires, covered
on both sides by 8 mesh wire - A DOUBLE SCREEN BOARD. Brushy Mountain
Bee Farm in North Carolina makes and sells a fancy, very, nice one.

Start the New Year RIGHT

IT IS NOW JANUARY OF THE YEAR 2001! Are your bees ALIVE? Depleted in population?
Hungry? Is there still 40-50 pounds of food still present? Diseased? Is there any brood? Is the
queen alive? Is is she more than a year old? Is the bottom brood chamber EMPTY of brood and
honey? Have you removed all Apistan strips or Check Mite strips? Has the hive tilted so
rainwater can lay on the bottom board? Did you get new bee books for Christmas? Have you
read the parts about disease, reversing, requeening, outside water supply yet, or just that part
about "how to make more honey?

There are 13 questions above. Most beeKEEPERS could honestly answer at least 10-11; but
most beeHAVERS probably could not honestly answer more than 2-3. This is early January, so it
is not too late for every reader to be able to honestly answer every question before February 1st. I
will help you in my writing with descriptions.

First, and MOST IMPORTANT, you cannot determine the health of a hive by looking
at the outside. Even your doctor checks your temperature, looks at your tongue, listens
to your heart and lungs rather than just looking at your face and shaking your hand.
LOOK INSIDE your hive! Take off 2-3 hours from work on a nice SUNNY day with
NO wind when the temperature is over 50°, preferably 60°. Look for BROOD - you
don't have to see the queen. Examine the BROOD frames for disease: Foul Brood,
Chalk Brood, Chilled brood, laying workers, and a solid pattern of brood or scattered
like pepper. A tremendous number of beeHAVERS think their hive is alive because
they see bees flying in and out of the entrance on every warm day, but the truth is:
their bees are dead and the flying bees are bees robbing the honey and taking it back
to their home. If you just can't find the time to open a hive on a warm day, go to the
hive at night or a cold day, put your ear up against the hive wall and bang on the hive
with your fist or a stick. If the hive is alive with lots of bees, you will hear a ROAR of
noisy bees; if the noise is not much or quite soft, you better MAKE a warm day to go
inside the hive and inspect for the problem that has caused lost population; If you hear
no noise, the bees are dead and probably died of tracheal mite infection which usually
kills in December or January. Look inside, and if you find just a cup full of bees with
a queen and plenty of honey still there, 9 times out of 10, your bees died of tracheal
mite infection because YOU did not install MENTHOL in August, but waited until
September or didn't use menthol at all. It is YOUR fault, not the bees fault, or the
weather, or the queen, and not even bad luck. It is YOUR LACK OF CARE!

More bees starve to death in the month of March than any other month of the year!
Why? That is simple to answer. The queen should have started laying in January
regardless of how cold it was or how much snow is on top of the hive. The adult bees
had to eat a heck of a lot of honey to raise that brood comb temperature to 91°-96° so
the queen could lay eggs and to keep the resulting larvae and pupae alive. Further, bee
larva eat "tons" of food, actually increasing their size over 1200% in just 5 days. A
hive enters the winter period on October 1st with 70 pounds of stores. 3 months later,
on January 1st, the hive has only consumed about 15-20 pounds of honey in those 3
months, but they might use 10-15 pounds of store in January, more in February, and
even more in March. If your bees die of STARVATION, don't blame anything or
anybody but YOURSELF. YOU just didn't care enough to inspect, or take 2-3 hours
off from work to inspect during a warm day in January and February. I have listened
to people who just couldn't take time off from work, but they took several days off to
go deer hunting or travel south to see a Bowl Game. One just has to decide whether
they are going to KEEP bees or just HAVE bees.

I have written over and over that it is the NATURAL NATURE OF BEES to store
food over brood, in other words store food in the highest bodies and raise brood in the
bottommost body and the bees "eat their way uphill" as the winter progresses into
spring. This is not hard to understand, nor hard to inspect. On a cold day in January or
February, you remove the top and find a great big bunch of bees in the hole of the
inner cover should surely tell you something: the bees are high up in the top body and
that means that they are short on' stores and need feed NOW, not next week.

When you examine the winners of the Olympic events, the armed service personnel,
or the rapid learners of computer use, they are all YOUNG people; and all Kentucky
Derby horses are 3 year olds. In April, if your queen is more than 12 months old, she
is an OLD LADY. Most commercial beekeepers, whose annual income depends on
the performance of their bees requeen every 12 months or sometimes twice each year.
The writings of most bee researchers or bee scientists during the past decade clearly
endorse annual requeening. Further, I can't name any prominent bee authority that
endorse the self requeening of a colony by the bees themselves which fosters
inbreeding which results in bringing forward the worst traits of bees and suppressing
the sought after good points. Keeping a queen only one year is much more important
dependent not only on the race of bees, but the date of your major nectar flow. WHY?
The younger the queen, the less likely the bees will swarm. Hence, if your nectar flow
is early, like April and May, and hence you need a lot of forager aged bees in early
spring to gather that crop, you might use the Carniolan race who has the explosive
early spring build-up, and Carniolans are known for their high propensity for
swarming. Let's suppose your nectar flow is not early in the spring or that you are not
wild about making a large honey crop and you like Italian bees "golden" color or a
dozen other reasons for not requeening, but you DON'T like all that treatment with
chemicals that is necessary today to keep your bees alive. Bees that are bred for their
Hygienic Behavior have shown that they can survive and prosper without the help of
so much treatment with chemicals. More and more Queen Breeders and Package Bee
Suppliers are now making hygienic behavior a vital part of the traits that they select
for BREEDER QUEENS. That in itself, should be a good reason to requeen your
colonies. The only "trick" will be to determine which breeders are truly developing
bees that demonstrate hygienic behavior as opposed to those who just advertise
hygienic behavior, but their bees are just the same as they used to be. It is possible,
that some commercial beekeepers will greatly pursue bees of hygienic behavior to
avoid the time consuming and expensive treatment of using chemicals, and the word
will "get out" just which breeder's bees they are using.

The fact is that most of you readers have colonies that badly need requeening. You
just have to decide to do it, when, which race, and with which procedure, and you are
only talking about spending perhaps $12, the cost of just 4 jars of honey @ $3/jar. I
will write more about requeening methods next month, but right now, why don't you
contact the breeder of your choice and select a time to receive your new queens. For
golly sake, get MARKED queens so you see an unmarked queen in your colony one
day, you know that your bees have swarmed or your marked queen was superseded.
The proper color of marking for 2001 is WHITE.

Why don't you REALLY TRY to make a lot of honey this coming season? You
simply can't get a good crop unless you have a large number of foraging age bees
ready to collect nectar during the nectar flow; and that takes some planning by the
beekeeper, particularly in the central Maryland area where our major nectar flow
starts as early as April 15th and ends about May 31st. Forager age bees are bees over
19 days old. Hence, this means if you want a bee to start foraging on May 1st, the
queen has to lay the egg that produces this bee on March 21st (40 days before May
1st). It is also going to require a lot of young nurse bees to feed all this new bee larvae
and keep the brood and queen warm (91°-96°). Hence, I want to get my queens laying
quite well during the entire month of February, so I start feeding 1:1 sugar syrup as an
egg laying stimulant about February 1st. Further, since bees and queens move
UPWARD with time, you must start REVERSING brood chambers just before you
start feeding the syrup, and the reversing might have to done 3, 4, or even 5 times
between February 1 and May 1st.

REVERSING is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT not only for promoting egg laying by

the queen, but also reversing is a very positive swarm control technique. Let me give
you just a bit of explanation. In the absence of any nectar flow, the entire cluster of
bees which also includes brood and the queen moves UPWARD as they consume the
honey stored about them, thereby leaving the bottom hive body empty, because they
need to keep feed near the larva that they are feeding. As the queen's egg laying get
blocked by the honey above her, the bees stop her from laying until space becomes
available, EVEN THOUGH the whole bottom hive body is empty! Hence, about
February 1st, simply reverse the positions of the two hive bodies. Immediately after
reversing, the queen, brood, nurse bees, and honey stores are now in the bottom hive
body, while the old EMPTY bottom hive body is now on top, 1:1 sugar syrup can be
fed through the inner cover hole and there is lots of storage space in this empty body
for the bees to store the syrup. Reversing again might have to be done in 30 days or 7
days, dependent upon the weather, the bee population, the egg laying ability of the
queen, the frame size, and the amount of 1:1 syrup given daily. Beekeeper experience
or knowledge is required here so "the brood is NOT split". When the queen is laying
in the top hive body, most of the brood is OPEN brood and some light colored capped
brood, and there is just a small amount of darker CAPPED BROOD left in the bottom
hive body, it is time to reverse again. Two factors make a tremendous difference in
how often you have to reverse: Cluster size and frame size. Using 3 hive bodies of 6
5/8" frames, my first reversal is February 1st, my second reversal is about 3 weeks
later and my 4th or 5th reversal near May 1st might just 7-8 days after the previous.
Don't stop the feeding or reversing before April 15th; and if a strong nectar flow starts

The bees will stop taking 1:1 syrup during flying weather. All this stimulative feeding
and reversing is going to cause a tremendous explosion in population which is a major
cause of swarming, so make sure that the bees have plenty of colony space by
installing an empty super on top of the brood chamber boxes WITHOUT a queen
excluder about April 1st. Examine this super at least once each week, and when 3-4
center frames are partially filled with nectar or brood, put a queen excluder under the
super and make sure that the queen is down below it. Put on 4 more supers of drawn
comb (not foundation) ALL AT ONCE about April 15th but before May 1st. Make
sure your extractor is in good shape, you have lots of honey jars and labels, and
practice your "selling" technique!

If you do NOT have drawn comb and have to use foundation, that is a whole "new
ball game". See my previous PINK PAGES. Foundation can only be used one super at
a time, and you dare not mix frames of foundation with drawn comb frames in the
same super, or you will have a king size MESS.

Many of you are going to either say or unfortunately experience that the use of 1:1
sugar syrup and reversing of brood bodies is going to encourage SWARMING with
this population "explosion", and you are absolutely CORRECT! Good beekeeping is
utilizing proper bee management methods so that you have a very large number of
forager age bees ready to collect nectar when the nectar flow is strong, but you also
MUST UNDERSTAND that bees have one tract minds; i. e., they are either in a
swarming program or in a nectar collecting program, but never the two programs at
the same time.

Let me remind you of my previous lengthy writings about swarming. There is a

swarm SEASON, and that is generally early spring about dandelion bloom time, but
before the major nectar flow. Swarming at that time is caused by congestion in the
brood chamber and/or an older queen, and has nothing to do with space in the
SUPERS. Beekeepers can diminish the possibility of swarming by having only a
young queen and reversing brood chambers, but sometimes additional techniques
have to be employed. In this SWARM SEASON, bees are not thinking very much
about nectar collecting, but are absorbed in preparing to swarm which is their
NORMAL means of REPRODUCTION. Once the nectar flow starts in earnest, the
bees switch their "program" from swarming to nectar collection which provides them
with stores to get future generations through the winter coming in about 6 months.
Swarming during a major nectar flow is usually caused by a single reason - LACK OF
SUPER SPACE, which is 100% beekeeper FAULT.

Honey bees PLAN AHEAD by getting the queen to start laying eggs in January. YOU
should plan ahead also on all bee matters to become successful. I will write more
about honey production next month, but now I wish you and yours HAPPY NEW
YEAR!

February 2001

SPRING IS NEAR
Are your bees ready? Are YOU ready?
For many years, I have taught that success in beekeeping is a result of both bees and beekeeper
being READY at the beginning of our major nectar flow, which in Central Maryland is quite
early, about April 15th. In spite of my writings and talks, often the bees have not built to strength
for heavy nectar collection because the beekeeper did NOTHING to aid them. Further, the
beekeeper does not have his equipment ready for installation prior to April 15th, or more
particularly, just does not have enough equipment built and painted to install before the bees
decide they are too crowded and make swarming plans. If the bees can PLAN AHEAD, why
can't educated people who have calendars, TV weather reports, and "learning" brains do
likewise? Then, for some of us who do plan ahead, we have to hear all these devious excuses of
the NON-PLANNERS that their bees swarmed because of the high May temperatures, or that
their bees died from resistant mites to Apistan that they had installed on Labor Day in early
September, or that the severe cold of December and January had weakened their bees, or the
sunspots on the moon, or the new Bush administration, or El Nino, or 1000 other WRONG
excuses. The truth of the matter is they are not beeKEEPERS, just beeHAVERS who have not
earnestly tried to learn. If that were not so, how is it that most Master Beekeepers rarely lose
many bees and usually have a good honey crop?

I checked my bees, INSIDE THE HIVE, just after I returned from the American Beekeepers
Federation meeting on January 19th, found queens had started to lay eggs, and put a gallon of 1:1
sugar syrup on each colony to entice the worker bees to clean and polish more cells for the queen
to lay eggs. I also added several ounces of BeePro, a pollen substitute to the tops of brood
frames. On January 31st, while Mr. Greenspan was cutting short term interest rate by a half a
point, the temperature was 54°, so I was out REVERSING my brood chambers and making more
detailed hive inspections. All my marked queens are still alive, so I know that none of my new
September queens have been replaced. I will check them again after Feb. 15th on the first day the
temperature exceeds 55° to see if they need REVERSING again, and, of course, continue the 1:1
sugar syrup feeding. During February and March, I will clean and de-propolize frames for my
supers, because it is so EASY when the frames are COLD, melt down some bad or old comb,
install new plasticell foundation in some frames, repair hive bodies with auto body repair putty
and repaint, renail any loose nails in hive bodies, and have all ready for use by April 1st. I have
to have 5 supers, each containing 9 frames, ready for each colony. That is easy, and my radio
will keep me entertained while I work. The hard work is cleaning up my workshop when the
cleaning and repair work is done. My wife, sons, and grandchildren will extract the honey before
July 4th, bottle it, and have it ready for sale at the Montgomery County Fair in early August.
When you are OLD and stroke disabled, I get help from my family with all that boring work and
leave the exciting FUN work of "keeping bees" for myself to do.

Where is your left over Apistan? When did you last requeen? Have you got at least 4 supers for
each colony? Have you spare foundation on hand? Are you prepared to NOT use gloves, since
they just cause more stinging? Have you thought about preparing entries for the county FAIR?
Have you studied any more about diseases, bee behavior, swarm control, and honey preparation
so that you can sell at a high price or give a fine GIFT? I thought you wanted to be a true
beeKEEPER rather than just a beeHAVER!

Speaking of Apistan: The Apistan strip is impregnated with 10% fluvalinate, which is
the active miticide. Fluvalinate is damaged (made impotent) by both sunlight and heat,
and there is no Viagra pill to fix it. If you have left unused strips in the light for very
long or exposed to excess heat, the strips are probably of little value. I keep my strips
in their closed box in my freezer until want to use them. Some people have claimed
that their mites are resistant to Apistan and started to use the very dangerous
CheckMite. If the truth were known, some of them had used unprotected Apistan and
could have had excellent results with new, protected Apistan strips. If your queen is
more than a year old, particularly Carniolan, LOOK OUT FOR SWARMING! My
bees make an average honey crop of about 130 lbs. each year in April and May which
fills 3 Illinois supers. However, if I did not install 4 or preferably 5 supers all at one
time to hold all that THIN, WATERY NECTAR that the bees collect before they
evaporate the water out of it to ripen it into honey, they would have SWARMED due
to lack of storage space. Get 5 supers of DRAWN COMB (NOT FOUNDATION) on
your colonies by about April 15th. Unless you are a surgeon, you can survive for a
day or two with a swollen finger from a bee sting, and this will start your sting
immunity process. There is almost no excuse for wearing gloves. Gloves can carry
disease from one colony to another, the smell of been venom in the glove alerts other
bees that they may have to aid in defense of their hive from your intervention, and you
can't pick up the queen to mark her or move her without injury if you are wearing
gloves. A farmer can cut his finger when sharpening a tool, a gardener can get thorns
in his fingers when picking berries, and a fisherman can get a fish hook stuck in his
finger; and you can easily handle bees without stings when using bare hands, and a
sting is surely not a broken leg. Just "how good" is your honey, your bottling,or your
name if your honey is NOT entered in the county FAIR to compete against others?
Many of us have competed and won many ribbons and prises so that our name and
honey is known and respected, so we are easily able to sell our honey for a minimum
of $3.50-$4.00 per pound, and many of us run out of saleable honey. If you have
something that is well known and respected, customers will hunt for you, and pay
higher prices because it is something "special". A Cadillac won't get to the beach any
faster than a Chevrolet and it costs twice as much, but there are still many Cadillac's
sold every year! Don't you think that you should "get off your butt", and plan on
entering your honey in the county FAIR this August? Many of you have seen me at
the county FAIR opening bee colonies in a screen cage while wearing only shoes,
shorts, Tee-shirt and NO VEIL, finding the queen and picking her up, placing her on
my arm or chest, she crawls around my arms, face, or chest while "looking for home",
and worker bees come to be with her, but I rarely get stung even though I do this 4
times a day for 9 consecutive days! I make these demonstrations without a veil ONLY
to attract attention so I can tell the audience how important honey bee pollination is to
HUMAN food supply; BUT I strongly believe that everyone should wear a veil when
they open a hive! At EAS this past August, many of you saw Dr. Norm Gary, who
puts over a 100 bees in his closed mouth and releases them one-at-a-time and never
gets stung. Both of us have a good understanding of BEE BEHAVIOR, which is the
principle subject of Chapter 8 of The Hive and Honey Bee. Have you failed to read
this 1300+ page "bible of beekeeping", or skipped over Chapter 8 as "too boring", and
went quickly to that chapter about "how to produce more honey"? You will never find
the real JOYS of BEEKEEPING until you understand BEE BEHAVIOR; and maybe
you let this winter pass right by without READING and STUDYING Chapter 8
during these past 3 months. SHAME ON YOU!

Recently, one of our members asked me "Is February or March the best time for "the
spring treatment" of Apistan?" I knew that her bees had been treated in October and
November, so I asked her "Why do you want to treat them in the spring? How do you
know that they have mites?" This was her answer: "Everybody on the INTERNET
keeps mentioning 'the spring treatment', and I just assume that my bees have mites."
Has the Internet become the new dictionary, encyclopedia, medical textbook, and
bible? Any uninformed person, jerk, or trouble maker can use the internet, and some
people accept their statements as if "cast in stone". Yet we have books, articles, and
research papers written by apiculturists, researchers, scientists, extension agents, and
master bee- keepers; and we have the meetings of EAS, ABF, MSBA, and our own
MCBA, all of which feature known bee authorities, but the INTERNET soundings
seem to take preference over all the teachings of people skilled in knowledge about
apis mellifera. On the same day, another member called me about the use of essential
oils that he had read about on the Internet. That was too much for me in one day and I
exploded, and asked him a very simple question: "If the essential oils are really
successful, why don't you think all of our well paid government research scientists as
well as university scientists working on grant moneys would publish that information
and we could get rid of Apistan, menthol, formic acid, and CheckMite? Did you know
that the Beltsville scientists worked on essential oils for over 10 years and quit,
because the results could never be duplicated." Being one of the scientists on the
Manhattan Project developing the bombs we dropped on Japan, I am certainly glad
that we did not have the Internet then, because maybe every Tom, Dick, and Harry
would have been trying to make an atomic bomb in their garage. I am not condemning
the INTERNET, I have a computer and put the PINK PAGES on it by request of
many groups both here and abroad, but I do FIND FAULT with those people who
take the easy way and believe what they like to believe, or the cheaper way, if it on
the Internet rather than take accept the wisdom, years of study, and hard work of
honey bee scientists, researchers, and apiculturists. Shucks, maybe you would except
the advice of your local butcher about spaying your female puppy rather than have the
service of a veterinarian. I have just proved to all the readers of the PINK PAGES that
I could never be either a politician or a preacher, because I believe that all things are
either black or white, but never gray.

Where was I? Oh, yes, when to use Apistan (for the umpteenth time). Scientists have
shown that the female varroa mite lays new mite eggs ONLY in a cell with a honey
bee LARVA! Hence, if Apistan is used in October and November when a queen bee is
laying FEW eggs or NO eggs, this is the prime time for Apistan to kill close to 100%
of all the mites in the colony, and there be very little chance of the colony developing
many mites until the queen bee is heavily laying eggs, e. g., April, May, And June.
However, this is NOT true if you installed Apistan in September and removed it in
mid October, because the queen bee was still laying some eggs then, and the female
mites could lay mite eggs with bee LARVA. If the bee scientist's time of Apistan use
is followed, then there will be no need for a spring Apistan treatment. When you get a
yearly physical exam, the doctor TESTS your temperature, TESTS your blood
pressure, listens (TEST) to your heart, and might even TEST your urine. A 1 day
sticky board TEST is done on my bees on April 15th and again on July 1st; and they
have never needed a treatment for Varroa mites in April, and only once in July.
MAKE A NOTE! The point is NOT when to treat, but whether treat- ment is needed
at all! Using medicine when it is not necessary is just BUILDING a RESISTANCE to
that medicine, so when it is really needed, it does NOT work! Perhaps I can bring a
sticky board to our next meeting and explain its use to you. You can make your own
sticky board, or buy Brushy Mountains #260, Dadant's #M0036, or Mann Lake's
#DC680, all priced at $4.50. TEST! TEST! TEST! Don't just treat when the bees don't
need treatment, or just because someone on the Internet said "Now is the time for
Varroa treatment". Use your own brain - that is why God gave it to you.

Perhaps this is a good place to mention some fairly new research that is being strongly
endorsed by one of our well known bee scientist, Dr. Dewey Caron. It is called IPM,
the abbreviation for INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT. At a later date, I will
give you a detailed PINK PAGE about IPM, but I will just pass on the basic principle
behind IPM at this writing. All living things, including both you and I, have disease
germs on our bodies or in our bodies, but they are not of sufficient number to make us
ill or die. As long as we eat healthy food, get proper exercise, and live in a healthy
environ- ment, we might live to be 100 years old and feel good most of the time so
that we enjoy a high quality of life. We live under these conditions without taking any
medicines to kill all of the germs, and our body tolerates this smaller number. This is
the exact principle that is formulated in the use of grease patties for the population
CONTROL of the tracheal mite, acarapis woodi, discovered by Dr. Diana Sammataro,
the author of the famous BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK that we use as our short
course textbook. It is NOT necessary to KILL 100% of all the mites in a colony to
maintain it as a healthy productive colony year after year. It is only necessary to kill
enough mites that the disease fighting agents of the bees own body can maintain the
health of the bee, so that the use of chemicals or other medicines can be greatly
reduced or hopefully even negated. Yes, this might turn out to be labor intensive,
maybe expensive, maybe too complicated for some beekeepers, but if IPM can be
developed so that our bees just don't die unless we treat them with harsh chemicals, it
will be worth the effort. I have high hopes that we can create enough collaboration
between the bee scientists and bee breeders to develop bees of greatly increased
HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR, so that no chemicals or very few chemicals will have to be
used in beekeeping. However, the time is NOW, and NOW, we still have both the
tracheal mite and the Varroa mite, in almost every county of 49 of our 50 states, and
chemicals HAVE to be used and used at the correct times and dosage when needed, or
you have DEAD BEES. In my 69th year of beekeeping, I have had to use far more
chemicals in the past 15 years to keep my bees healthy than I had to use in the first
50+ years. Hopefully, our scientists are going to change that soon. It is OFF THE
SUBJECT, but you can help the industry and yourselves by buying queens and bees
ONLY FROM BREEDER'S who are working with bees with proven HYGIENIC
BEHAVIOR.

WELL, BACK TO THE SALT MINES: Your most important February task, if you
want a big honey crop, is REVERSING your brood bodies that encourages queen
laying and aids swarm prevention. I discussed this strongly in the January Pink Pages,
and I want to emphasize that you just can't decide that you are going to reverse your
brood one day next weekend when you are off from work, because if it is done at the
wrong time, there is a strong possibility that much of the brood will become chilled
and die. You MUST inspect the brood carefully and when you find the great majority
of the brood in the UPPER frames to be OPEN brood (eggs and larva) and the
LOWER frames to primarily be CAPPED brood and empty cells, that is the time to
switch. You might inspect on a weekend day, determine that reversing should not be
done for another 3-4 days, dash home from work for a few minutes in the heat of the
day, reverse, and do the same thing all over about 10-14 days later. If you brood
bodies are deep hive bodies, you will probably have to make 2-3 reversals between
now and May 1st; but if your brood bodies are medium (Illinois) super bodies, like
mine, you may have to make 3-5 reversals before May 1st. However, if you want a
large crop of honey and your queen is over a year old, you are probably going to have
swarms, so be aware of that. I will demonstrate this at the next meeting, as well as
bringing a sticky board for you to see. As I have said previously, you MUST have a
strong population of forager bees at the nectar flow time in order to get a god crop of
honey, and a strong population of bees is a major cause of swarming. This is like
balancing a cup of hot coffee on one knee and a dish of cold ice cream on the other
knee while eating your dinner. It is your job to always keep empty laying space
ABOVE the queen so that she always has empty laying space to move UP to, because
bees are reluctant to push a queen DOWN in the early spring laying time, and you do
this by REVERSING brood chambers.

I must repeat here that you cannot decide to do reversing every other weekend, or
every 3 weeks, or go by a calendar, or judge it by what day you reversed Hive
Number 1; but it has to be done to each colony when the location of open brood in
that particular colony indicates it is time to reverse. This is the best reason to write
down notes about each colony as you inspect it, so you don't make stupid mistakes. I
use a portable tape recorder, now well disguised by propolis, as I inspect. I am an
OLD man and my memory is not what it used to be, and I'll bet many of you are the
same. Your other major task in February is keep that 1:1 sugar syrup feed going, not
only the stimulate egg laying, but keep the bees from starving because they are using
tremendous amounts of food to feed all the new larvae. More Maryland bees die of
starvation in MARCH than any other month, because of brood rearing, so don't slack
up on the sugar syrup. You might start thinking about just how you are going to have
a steady supply of water available for bees BEFORE THEY FIND THE NEXT
DOOR NEIGHBOR'S SWIMMING POOL. Bees have to have water to dilute the
stored honey into something like nectar to feed the larvae, and once they select their
supply point in the EARLY spring, you CAN'T CHANGE IT without great difficulty.
Hence, start planning your water supply system in February when you are not TOO
busy.

Although boring to some, there are enough new members that the PROPER use of
founda- tion should be again described. FIRST OFF, FOUNDATION IS NOT
DRAWN COMB AND AB- SOLUTELY HAS TO BE USED UNDER A
DIFFERENT SET OF CRITERIA! Making foundation into drawn comb is hard work
for the bees and requires that they consume about 8 pounds of honey to get the energy
to produce 1 pound of bees wax! Hence, bees will NOT build comb on foundation
unless there is a strong nectar flow on, or you can use 1:1 sugar syrup as an artificial
nectar. Why beeHAVERS and beginners can't understand that is a mystery to me, but
so many bitterly complain that their bees just won't build foundation into drawn comb.
Further, although the Carniolan race is my favorite bee, it is a lousy comb builder,
whereas the Italian race is by far the best comb builder. You can't have several supers
of foundation on a hive at one time, or they will make a gosh awful mess of the
foundation with burr comb, brace comb, comb in bee space, and just a mess. You put
a super of 10 (MUST be 10, not 9) frames on top of the upper brood box with NO
queen excluder about April 1st, and keep checking it at least twice each week. When
you find about 6-7 frames drawn rather well and "something" (nectar, pollen, or
brood) in many of the cells, move the drawn cob frames to the outside position and
the undrawn frames to the center, make sure that the queen is down below in the
brood chambers, and install a queen excluder. Now you have "baited" the super, so
that bees will regularly come through the queen excluder, and it is now time to add
another super of 10 frames of foundation and repeat the same as super #1 except you
are not going to move the ex- cluder and let the queen up there again. AFTER you get
10 frames of foundation drawn into comb in each super, then you can only use 9
frames in a super if you desire. In spite of what someone else might tell you, mixing
drawn comb frames and frames of foundation in the same super usually results an
awful mess in which you cannot recover the honey or use the foundation again.
People ask me "What foundation do you like?" I use THIN SURPLUS on those
frames making CUT COMB honey, and Dadant's Plasticell foundation on ALL other
frames, both extracted honey frames and brood frames; and I am so pleased with
Dadant's Plasticell, I wish it had been invented when I started in 1933 instead of just
20 years ago. It is wonderful and NO frame wiring is necessary. REMEMBER, you
MUST have some kind of nectar flow going on, or bees will absolutely NOT draw
foundation! After you have gone to all this trouble to get foundation drawn into comb,
for golly sake, protect it from wax moths after you extract and store it for the winter.
Use only para-dichloro-benzene to kill wax moths, never napthalene which is used in
most moth balls.

March 2001

How Much Do You Know About Feeding?

When do most colonies die of STARVATION?

What is the BEST feed?
What makes the BEST feed?
When should you feed?
Why should you feed?
What is the BEST type of feeder?
When do you stop feeding?
What problems can feeding cause?

It is quite amazing to find that most beekeepers will testify that they "know ALL
things regarding feeding", but observance of their bees and hearing their statements
about feeding reveal a VAST LACK OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT FEEDING. Hence,
this paper will attempt to delineate the many "good and bad" points about properly
feeding bees.

WHEN DO MOST COLONIES DIE OF STARVATION?

This, of course, will heavily depend on where your bees are located; but more bees in
Maryland die of starvation in MARCH than any other month. Generally, there are not
too many days in March that are free of wind, rain, clouds, or temperatures higher
than 55°, and hence bees are not able to go outside and forage for food. However,
bees have found some early nectar and pollen from perhaps maples and skunk
cabbage on one of two days back in February and this has initiated brood rearing
because "spring is close by". Bees foraging for water or pollen need food for flying,
bees producing bees wax for comb building needs lots of food, and all that new brood
larva being so lavishly fed with royal jelly, nectar, and pollen uses up tremendous
quantities of stores. We humans, who have minds so we can think and plan, would
ration our food supplies and hold back that population increase until weather
improved thereby providing nectar; but honey bees do not have the minds of humans
and hence cannot think and plan ahead. Hence, if the colony entered the "quiet time"
of late fall and winter confinement without adequate stored food (honey), the colony
is bound to die of starvation in late winter or early spring.
WHAT IS THE BEST FOOD?
For that large segment of readers who answer: honey, you are WRONG! Honey is
NOT the best food for a bee, nor is it the most desired food of the bee! Honey for a
bee is very much like hardtack for a sailor or a K ration for a soldier. Honey is a
stored food for winter use. The choice food of all honey bees is NECTAR! What is
the chemical makeup of nectar? Nectar is a watery solution of several different
chemical sugars: sucrose (common table sugar) is the predominant sugar followed by
small percentages of other sugars, fructose and dextrose; and trace amounts of about
20 other sugars. Depending on the floral source, humidity, time of day, and many
other components, nectar may vary from a skimpy 4% sugar solution to a very high
60% sugar solution. Within every nectar, there is some minute quantity of a substance,
herb or oil, that gives the nectar an odor or taste that attracts the bees to it. The
singular most important thing that a beekeeper should know is that nectar is the most
desired food of a honey bee, whereas honey is an emergency winter food.
WHAT MAKES THE BEST FEED?
Just about anything sweet has been tried by bee- keepers over many years, and here
are the names of some: honey, table sugar (sucrose) syrup, hi-fructose corn syrup,
coke syrup, molasses, pancake syrup, candy, and just plain dry sugar. With the
exception of table sugar syrup, all of the other items mentioned above, have some
problem that may not make them desirable feed for honey bees. Honey may contain
bacteria or disease pathogens (and probably does if it came from a commercial
packer), hi-fructose corn syrup is made by chemically converting potato starch into
glucose followed by converting glucose into fructose, and coke syrup, molasses.
pancake syrup, and candy all contain some ingredients that provide the taste
characteristic to the product. All of these products except plain sugar syrup contain
components such as starches or sugars other than sucrose that may present problems
for bees, notably dysentery. Plain table sugar is SUCROSE, just as in nectar, and is
totally digestible by the bee which converts the sucrose into the two simple sugars of
fructose and glucose, which are the sugars contained in honey. When 1 pound of sugar
is dissolved in 1 pound of water (same as 1 pint), that is referred to as 1:1 sugar syrup,
and is considered artificial nectar by the bees which stimulates brood rearing. When 2
pounds of sugar is dissolved in 1 pound of water, that is referred to as 2:1 sugar syrup,
and is quite similar to honey and is used for winter storage rather than nursery feed.
Even though you might save money by purchasing hi-fructose corn syrup, coke syrup,
or be given candy refuse or other sweet products, there is little question that table
sugar syrup is the safest food you can give to bees and hence table sugar makes the
BEST FEED!
WHEN SHOULD YOU FEED?
There is no special time. You feed bees whenever it is beneficial for the bees and
helpful for the beekeeper! Obviously, feeding is necessary when the bees are short of
winter stores, so you either feed in cold January or February or let the bees starve to
death. Bees absolutely will NOT build comb unless there is a nectar flow in progress,
so if you are trying to get foundation drawn into comb, you feed 1:1 sugar syrup as an
artificial nectar regardless of whether the time is spring, summer, or fall. One of the
most important times to feed is when starting new colonies and trying to build up their
population strength, their comb, and their winter stores. Many beekeepers don't bother
to feed new colonies in June, July, or August figuring that nature will provide nectar.
In Central Maryland, there is rarely any nectar for bees available in July and August;
and what about those rainy days when bees can't fly? In almost any part of the U. S.,
there are some warm months that have very little nectar flow, and new colonies will
suffer if not fed during this time.
WHY SHOULD YOU FEED?
Feeding is aiding your bees when Mother Nature is not cooperating, e. g., a drought or
a long cold winter, so bees can eat and build comb 24 hours/day rather just during
flight days, or getting medicine into their stomachs like Fumidil-B. If you want your
bees to produce a large honey crop for you to sell, take good care of them, and feed
them to make them strong.
WHAT IS THE BEST TYPE OF FEEDER?
Before even mentioning the various types of feeders, ROBBING must be understood.
If you are trying to feed a new or weak colony that has other strong colonies nearby,
there is a strong chance that your new or weak colony will be KILLED by robber
bees, unless the colony being fed has small entrance areas that can be easily defended.
Further, if the beekeeper spills feed on the ground or a place that robber bees can
easily locate, disaster of a weak hive is being invited! Further, and so many
beekeepers just don't understand this, if you are trying to feed bees in cold weather
(anything below about 30°-40°), the bees are "huddled" into a cluster to keep warm. In
spite of perhaps being hungry, the bees will starve to death rather than leave the
cluster warmth and travel 4"-6" away to a source of sugar syrup. Now, with these two
problems understood, types of feeders will be presented.

There are basically five different types of feeders:

1. the Baggie feeder

2. the Hive Top feeder
3. the Jar or Pail feeder
4. the Boardman Entrance feeder
5. the Division Board feeder

Using the Jar or Pail feeder probably gets the sugar syrup closer to the bees than any
other type of feeder. The Jar or Pail can be inverted over the hole in the Inner Cover
center, or remove the inner cover and place the several Jars or Pails right on the Frame
Tops. Of course, an empty hive body must surround these jars to keep the weather
and/or robber bees outside where they belong. This type of feeder is easily replaced
with a full feeder without opening the brood area of the colony!

The Boardman Entrance feeder has very limited use, because it is an easy target for
robber bees, and the bees can NOT get to it in cold weather. It should never be
considered for any serious feeding problem.

The Division Board Feeder takes the place of one or two frames in a hive and tend to
drown a lot of bees, can be too far away from clustered bees for bees to retrieve sugar
syrup from it, and the hive has to be totally opened up by the beekeeper for refilling
with sugar syrup.

Both the Baggie feeder and the Hive Top feeder are boxes with a closed bottom
shaped very much like a shallow super which holds either about 2 gallons of sugar
syrup or a pair of gallon plastic bags of sugar syrup; and both boxes have an entrance
way from the brood area to the top of the feeder for the bees to get sugar syrup. The
biggest problem here is leakage of the feeders and "flooding" the bees below with
syrup, and in cold weather the bees will not break cluster to climb up to the top of the
feeder to get syrup. Some people remove the inner cover, place a plastic bag filled
with sugar syrup on the frame tops, carefully cut slits in the top of the plastic, and
cover up. This requires very careful placement of the bag without crushing bees, and
very careful cutting of the bag to provide bee access without a "flood" of syrup.
In the final analysis, a gallon size GLASS (not plastic) jar with 4-5 one sixteenth inch
holes punched in the cap is hard to beat as a feeder, because it can be placed right on
the bees, syrup level is visible to the beekeeper, and the hive does not have to be
opened to replace the feed. Used gallon GLASS jars are used by delicatessens for hot
sausages, pickles, and pig knuckles and are thrown in the trash when empty, unless a
beekeeper swaps them for a jar of his honey. Plastic jars (like milk jars) tend to lose
the inverted suction from the syrup, collapse, and "flood" the bees with syrup, so use
only GLASS jars.

WHEN DO YOU STOP FEEDING?

It is inherently natural for a honey bee to want to get outside and fly to gather
odoriferous natural nectar and pollen rather than being cooped up in a hive eating
artificial nectar (sugar syrup) and/or old stored honey. Hence, you can stop feeding
when the bees won't take feed anymore. However, this is NOT true in the case of new
colonies started in April or May with nothing but foundation. Please note that bees
WILL NOT BUILD COMB (draw foundation) in the absence of a nectar flow! Quite
often, and particularly in Central Maryland with its nectar flow limited to only April,
May, and maybe 10 days of June, if this new colony is not continuously fed sugar
syrup (artificial nectar) from the day it was started until September, there will be very
little foundation drawn, and maybe not enough to hold 50-60 pounds of winter stores
needed to get to next spring!
WHAT PROBLEMS CAN FEEDING CAUSE?
A feed made ONLY from SUCROSE (common table sugar) will NOT cause any
health problems for a bee; but a feed made from any other type of sweetener like Hi-
Fructose corn syrup, coke syrup, molasses, pancake syrup, or candy may disturb the
digestive system of the bee and cause diarrhea. (You can't work very well with a case
of diarrhea, and neither can a bee!) The other major problem is ROBBING, which can
badly weaken or even kill small colonies, cause the stinging of neighbors in their own
yards, and spread bee diseases. In other words, you don't want to do anything that will
promote ROBBING.

At the risk of being anthropomorphic, let us compare the feeding of humans to the
feeding of bees. When humans expend high energy like playing football, they eat
large quantities of nutritious bacteria free food, and bees are no different in that they
need continuous quantities of good food to have the energy to fly and carry heavy
loads of nectar or pollen, and to grow bees wax scales for comb building. A pregnant
woman requires large amounts of good food just as required by brood larva being
raised in the early spring. It has been estimated that in those areas of only wild (feral)
bees, not more than 10% of all swarms make it to the following year, because most of
them starve to death. The task of a good beekeeper is aiding or assisting his bees to
survive by preventing starvation, not introducing poisons or disease to them, nor being
careless about spilled food that might cause death from being ROBBED. Isn't that
what our friends, police, doctors, and preachers do for we humans? Let us all help apis
mellifera with proper feeding!

April 2001

ARE CHEMICALS PAST HISTORY?

All Beekeepers want to see the end of using chemicals for killing mites, and I predict that we are
close to accomplishing that.

I am very proud of my Scottish ancestry as well as being a scientist; and this reminds me of the
story of penicillin. A Scottish biologist, Dr. Alexander Fleming dis- covered penicillin in 1928,
but no one made any attempt to make good use of it until the wound problems of World War II.
This scenario might by duplicated by the increased development of hygienic bees (HYG) and
aided by the management "tool" of Integrate Pest Management (IPM)

Pray tell, what are HYG bees? Where do they come from? Which scientists have actively
pursued this concept? HYG bees are NOT bees that use a lot of soap or scrub behind their ears
for those thinking in an anthropomorphic sense. HYG bees are those that quickly clean the "nest"
of abnormal items that may be deleterious to the health of the colony or items containing
pathogens that may promote disease. Bees that quickly determine that some brood is dead and
make haste in removing it to perhaps distance of 100 yards or more from the colony are a good
example of hygienic bees. All of us have seen humans that are just naturally neat and clean,
while others are disorganized and messy. Bees are the same, and there is evidence that indicates
that the breeding of the bee is the primary discerning factor between "clean" bees and "messy"
bees. I have seen auto mechanics that can change the clutch in a car and not have a spot of dirt or
grease anywhere on his clothes or body except his hands; whereas there are others that just get in
your car to look at the odometer and leave grease spots on the upholstery and grease on the
steering wheel. Some people, as well as bees, just have a knack for being clean and organized,
while others do not. Back in the Great Depression Days of 1934-35, when scientists were badly
underpaid but carried on out of love of science, Drs. Park, Pellett, and Paddock found 25
colonies from various parts of the U.S. which were believed to show some resistance to the
violently deprivating disease of that time, American Foul Brood. They introduced spores of AFB
into these so-called resistant colonies along with 6 regular non-resistant colonies as a "control",
and found that all 6 of the control colonies were infected with AFB disease at the end of the year,
but 7 (28%) of the so-called resistant colonies were free of disease at year's end. They moved
these resistant colonies to an isolated mating station in Texas where a new generation of queens
and drones were allowed to mate and the resulting colonies were tested as before. This was done
for the next 14 years, ending in 1949, and using as many as 148 resistant colonies in 1939 and
101 in 1946. The colonies that stayed free of the AFB disease kept increasing year after year to
98% disease free in 1949! Based on that work, Dr. W. C. Rothenbuhler of Ohio State University
initiated a similar program in the 1960's, but used a controlled mating technique by artificially
inseminating the queens with semen from selected drones. This work by Rothenbuhler and Steve
Taber had to be terminated because of inbreeding depression, and the lack of money to enlarge
the research program, because the use of Terramycin to control the advancement of AFB seemed
to be satisfactory to the beekeeping "fraternity". However, the work of Park, Rothenbuhler, and
others clearly indicated that there is a genetic factor in the characteristics of each bee that has
some control over things like disease control, or honey production; and if these factors were
researched further, the queen and bee breeders' task of supplying the after-market HYGIENIC
BEES, or higher honey producing bees, would become much easier. No one seemed interested in
pursuing this approach for about the next 30 years, when the whole program of beekeeping had
to be revamped to offset the massive death of bees caused by the tracheal mite and the varroa
mite. About 5-10 years ago, Dr. Marla Spivak, Extension agent at the University of Minnesota
became interested in bees with HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR. She too, following the precepts set by
Park, and Rothenbuhler back in the 30's to 60's developed bees that are clearly "clean" bees,
known as Minnesota Hygienic Italian, and Artificially Inseminated Queens of these bees are for
sale by Glenn Apiaries in California.

Let me make it quite clear, that just because you purchase something that is adver- tised as
exhibiting hygienic behavior doe NOT mean that your bees will be "clean" bees. It only means
that the your bees came from a line that exhibits the genetic trait of good hygienic behavior and
hence the chances of your bees truly being clean bees are much enhanced over others. However,
as Steve Taber has recently pointed out in Bee Culture Magazine articles, YOU should test your
bees yourself. This is done by cutting out a small section of brood, freeze it to kill the brood, and
replace the cut-out section back in the frame all within 24 hours, and determine how long before
the bees clean out the dead brood. If it is gone within 24 hours, you have clean bees; but if it
takes 48 hours or more, you bees are NOT clean bees. If you can't do a simple thing like that,
you are more of a beeHAVER than a beeKEEPER, and you would prefer just to buy a pill to
give the bees that would free them of mites or disease.

What is I.P.M.? Integrated Pest Management means using various management techniques that
reduce the population of mites to tolerable levels. This is essentially the theory of using grease
patties to control the population of tracheal mites to the level that the natural body defense
mechanisms of the bee can enable the bee to live and productively function without killing the
mites. So many chemicals that might be used to kill mites might also injure the bee. Further, as
with the case of DDT, scientists have always been aware that the continued use of almost any
chemical results in the quarry that is trying to be killed becomes resistant to that chemical. By the
way, just because many people think of some things like food grade mineral oil (FGMO),
essential oils like wintergreen, peppermint, cloves, mint, canola oil, or vegetable shortening as
"non-chemical" because they can be safely eaten, it surely does not mean that they are NOT
chemicals. There are millions of people who would not dream of using 3% acetic acid on their
salad, yet that is exactly what vinegar is, 3% acetic acid; or who would think of taking acetyl
salicylic acid for a headache, but they use aspirin often which is acetyl salicylic acid. Oh, the fear
of the UNKNOWN is so strong with people who lack knowledge! Scientists might have been the
very first group of people who did NOT want to use chemicals to kill mites, and preferred to find
other means, but those other means took research TIME and research MONEY. Beekeepers
demanded a "CHEAP QUICK fix", and mite killing chemicals is what they got, even though the
scientists knew that this was going to be temporary. Some beekeepers totally ABUSED and/or
MISUSED the chemicals, so more bees were killed by their illegal action and some chemical
manu- factureres (Miticur) withdrew their fine working chemical (Amitraz) rather than face
litigation from a bevy of unhappy beekeepers who had misused the chemical and killed their own
bees. The ideal chemical is one that kills the mite but does not damage the bee or the honey, but
all pesticides are under the scrutiny of the Environmental Protective Agency (EPA), who might
rule out a fine chemical that killed mites and did no injury to bees or honey, BUT is deadly to
some endangered species of a cockroach or mosquito. Yes, I am no lover of EPA! Although not
yet "caste in stone" there is a good bit of evidence that the use of 8 mesh wire screen bottom
boards on colonies will result in a large enough natural drop off of mites to enable bees to live
comfortably with a few mites still on their bodies. Further, because the only place that varroa
mite eggs are laid is with the bee larva to provide both food and warmth for the mite eggs to
hatch and become adult mites, the female adult mite much prefers to lay mite eggs with drone
bee larva rather than worker larva. IPM management would have the beekeeper install one frame
of drone size foundation in the brood chamber, wait for the foundation to be drawn into drone
cells and the queen to lay it full of drone eggs, and the beekeeper remove the frame of drone
brood and destroy it. Repeat as necessary. This would limit the number of varroa mites in a
colony to tolerable levels without the use of chemicals. Lastly, starting with the Buckfast hybrid,
then the YC-2k Yugo hybrid, and now the Russian hybrid there has been much research done on
finding a race of bees or strain of bees that is mite resistant, but to date, there is little evidence
that any of stock or race is mite resistant to the point that bees can be kept free of some chemical
treatment.

Although at my advanced age, I may not enjoy the fruits of scientific research, I predict that
within the next 10-20 years, we will be able to do away with chemicals to kill mites and maybe
even some other problems by the use of I.P.M. tools and purchasing of bees with proven
HYGIENIC BEHAVIORAL genetic traits.

April 2001

ARE YOU READY FOR THE NECTAR FLOW?

Have you got enough Supers?
Are you using drawn comb or foundation?
How old is your queen?
Are your colonies strong enough in forager age bees?
Are you going to be AHEAD of your bees, or behind of their actions?
Do you really know WHAT causes swarming, and how to reduce the chances?
Is April 1st too late to know all of the above, or when should I have started to prepare?

Your success in obtaining a strong honey crop is dependent on how you handled the questions
listed above. If you are satisfied with 25-50 pounds of honey every year or so (even less in some
years), then you are satisfied in driving a Nash Rambler, Chevrolet Corvair, or Ford Falcon; or
maybe, you don't care about honey, but just want to watch the bees work. Unusual, but nothing
wrong with that. There are some people that rent a room for a week in a hotel just 10 miles from
their home to escape the drudgery of home ownership, and call that week a VACATION.
Unusual, but nothing wrong with that.

However, most people have bees for the purpose of producing lots of honey so they can sell
some, give some away to friends, eat some themselves, use for medicinal reasons like a sore
throat, and all want honey as evidence to BRAG that they are a big, brave beekeeper who is not
afraid of being stung. Then there is the hunter who has a mounted deer head on his wall, or the
fisherman with a mounted sailfish that he could not eat for dinner. Don't you wonder about the
total cost in equipment and time it costs to get that deer or that sailfish? Bees and equipment cost
money too, but you can SELL honey and STILL BRAG about being stung.

Hoping that I have provided you with a chuckle, but more importantly, I hope that I make you
THINK about the things that should done NEXT YEAR to be better than this year. Let's take
them in order:

Have you got enough supers?

In our central Maryland area, our total nectar flow is short, but intense - starting about April 15th
and ending about May 31st, but no later than June 15th. Each colony should be able to produce
125 pounds of honey most years, if you have followed the management techniques of bee
scientists and researchers and forgotten the ways that "Daddy kept bees". In this short 6 week
period of nectar production, bees don't have the time to quickly ripen the nectar into honey, and
hence need a good bit of extra super space just to store that nectar until they can ripen it into
honey. Since honey is only about 16%-18% water, but nectar is 60%-80% water, it takes a lot of
space to store all that thin, watery nectar. Hence, a strong colony of bees should have about 5
(yes, five) supers of drawn comb (not foundation) installed about April 1 -15th, but certainly no
later than May 1st. If you were in a location that provided you with a long, drawn out nectar flow
without much intensity, you could put on just 2-3 supers, remove 1-2 and extract, and reuse them
again; but not in our short, but intense flow of central Maryland. If bees don't have enough
storage space for the nectar, they don't just quit and sit on the front porch, they swarm to a new
home and can build new storage space. You are left "Holding the Bag".
Are you using drawn comb or foundation?
I have problems understanding how anyone can believe that these two things are the same or
equal; but some people certainly don't realize the difference! Drawn comb can be used year after
year PROVIDED YOU TAKE CARE OF IT when it is not in the hive. However, if you do not
have any drawn comb, you must use foundation. Supers of foundation can only be installed ONE
AT A TIME. You dare not try to draw just 9 frames of foundation instead of ten, or you will
have a king sized mess that probably will have to be trashed. Put 10 frames of foundation, never
mix it with drawn comb, in a super, install it directly on top of the brood nest (with no queen
excluder), wait until the bees have drawn out 3-4 frames of foundation and added either nectar or
SOME BROOD in them, make sure the queen is put back in the brood chamber, install a queen
excluder, and put this now BAITED super of foundation back on top of the queen excluder.
When the bees have drawn about 6-7 frames of foundation, move the Undrawn frames to the
center and the drawn frames towards the outside, and add a second super of 10 frames of
foundation. Now your super area is well BAITED with nectar, so you no longer remove the
queen excluder to let the bees in. After you get 10 frames of drawn comb made in the super, you
can then switch back to using only 9 frames if you like that. BEES WILL NOT DRAW
FOUNDATION FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER UNLESS THERE IS A NECTAR
FLOW ON OR A FEEDER OF 1:1 SUGAR SYRUP (artificial nectar). For some unknown
reason, so many beekeepers just don't seem to understand this and still don't have any drawn
comb in October to store honey for the coming winter. In central Maryland there is NO
NECTAR FLOW in July and August, so you have to feed 1:1 sugar syrup then if you want
foundation drawn into comb. If you understand bee biology, this fact is easy to explain: Bees
have to consume (eat) about 8 pounds of honey (equal to maybe 30 pounds of nectar) to produce
1 pound of bees wax that they build into comb! Isn't that simple? Now, I hope you understand!
Further, I don't want you to forget that you can NOT install two, three, or 4 supers of foundation
all at the same time; but you HAVE TO INSTALL JUST ONE SUPER OF 10 FRAMES OF
FOUNDATION, get it about 70% drawn and then add another super of 10 frames of foundation,
and then a third super, followed by a fourth super, etc.
How old is your Queen?
I don't want to argue with you, but during the past 15 years, the most eminent bee scientists and
bee researchers in the country have found that the major thing that controls swarming or not
swarming is the amount of queen pheromone that the queen can produce every day, and they
have proved that a queen's ability to produce this queen pheromone DIMINISHES a little bit
each day of life starting with the day she was bred. Hence, trying to put this in "gambling" terms:
a queen starting her second spring season of laying eggs is more than twice liable to swarm than
a queen starting her first spring laying season; and the chances of swarming by a queen starting
her third spring laying season are "astronomical" compared to a young queen. Further, and this
has been known for many years, some races of honey bees like Carniolans have a higher
propensity to swarm than other races. Many famous migratory honey producers who carry bees
all over the U. S. following different crop blooms requeen their colonies TWICE each year to
prevent swarming; and essentially all professional honey producers requeen their colonies every
12 months! WHY? The more bees in a colony, the more honey it can produce, and everyone
knows that a young 18 year old girl can get pregnant faster than a 35 year old woman; so a
younger queen can lay more eggs than an older queen. Perhaps more important is losing a swarm
in April or May in Maryland means losing most of your year's honey crop, and a real young
queen is not likely to swarm.

The net result of all this writing is to say that your bees will reward you with much more honey
and little or no swarming if your queen is never more than 12 months old. Suit yourself, but I
strongly recommend requeening every year. Speaking for myself, I don't like anything
interfering with my short, early Maryland nectar flow in April and May, so I requeen in very late
August and early September using "Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening Method" described in
an old PINK PAGE, and in the Brushy MountainBee Farm Catalog several years ago.

Are your colonies strong enough in FORAGER AGE bees?

Your children don't go out to work when they are 10, 12, or 15 years old, but I certainly hope
they do some house duties like cutting grass, making their bed, or sweeping the floor when Mom
is sick. Well, honey bees have HIVE DUTIES to do inside the hive until they are about 19 days
old, when they "get their WINGS" and become forager bees, flying out looking for nectar and
pollen. The life span of a bee in flying weather is only 42 days, and it spends the first 19 days
doing hive work like building comb, feeding brood, cleaning the hive, feeding the queen,
cleaning cells for the queen to lay in, guard duty at the front door, unloading nectar from
foraging bees, ripening nectar into honey, and many other house duties. Hence, a bee only
forages the last 23 days of its life - JUST 3 SHORT WEEKS! Now use your mathematical mind:
If our nectar flow ends on May 31st, an egg laid by the queen anytime after April 21st is
USELESS to the hive for nectar "collecting" to make honey. An egg laid on April 22nd emerges
as a worker bee 21 days later which is May 12th, and it spends the next 19 days inside the hive
doing house duties, and graduates to the status of a foraging bee on May 31st, the day the nectar
flow ends! If the 2-3 week period of May 5th - May 25th is the height of your nectar flow the
queen must lay eggs to produce foraging age bees for this period 40 days ahead, or about March
26th. Making it simple: The egg of a forager bee must be laid by the queen 40 days in advance of
the date it goes out to forage. Hence in central Maryland, it is very important to get a queen
laying well in February to produce the bees that can keep the brood area nice and warm so the
queen can really start HEAVY LAYING in March in order to produce lots of forager age bees to
gather all that pollen and nectar that is only available the last of April and all of May. When your
colonies have lots of bees in June or July, you are losing lots of your honey crop, because all
those bees are just eating the honey that was collected in May. It is a totally different subject, but
worth mentioning right here. One great advantage of Carniolans is the queen drastically stops
laying eggs when a pollen source slows, but the Italian queen just keeps on laying eggs
producing more bees that eat up much of the crop collected in April and May. Any decent bee
book will explain that to you, so you don't have the idea that I am praising my Carniolans at the
expense of the Italian race, or Buckfast hybrid since the Buckfast is primarily Italian. This
curtailment in brood production by the Carniolan is well described on Page 57 of the 1992
Revised Edition of The Hive and The Honey Bee, and the continued brood production by the
Italian queen is described near the bottom of Page 58. I feel that you should be aware of the
differences between bee races, and stop thinking that "all bees are the same", which is a total
MULARKEY.
Are you going to be AHEAD of your bees, or behind in their actions?
So many people, maybe even with good intentions, just don't seem to anticipate the needs of
their bees in trying to help them in honey production or lack of swarming, and the result is a
lousy honey crop or losing a swarm. I am aware that there are people who will be late for their
own funeral, but I am talking to the rest of you. My PINK PAGES, bee books, magazine articles,
Certified Master Beekeepers, and even some older beekeepers can describe to you when to do
this and when not to do that, and YOU FOLLOW THOSE INSTRUCTIONS without putting off
until tomorrow what should be done today. Bees do have a calendar hanging in their hive, nor do
they know what day of the week it is, so it is your job to ANTICIPATE a need for supers before
they are really needed and provide them before your colony swarms. I have made many people
mad by pointing out that the loss of a swarm during the nectar flow is 100% beekeeper's
FAULT, and not weather, El Nino, drought, bad queen, or race of bees. The job of a beekeeper is
to HELP his bees, and prevent them from following the ways of primitive nature, which was to
swarm and rarely live through the winter. Reverse your colonies in early February to provide
laying space for the queen, start feeding 1:1 sugar syrup in February to stimulate queen laying,
put your supers in place BEFORE the nectar flow (not after it starts), extract your honey before
the dirty feet of the bees turn the pretty white cappings yellow or brown, put your Menthol in
place BEFORE September 1st so it kills the tracheal mites, etc, etc. PLAN AHEAD AND DO
IT!
Do you really know what causes swarming, and how to control it?
It is fairly safe to say that most beekeepers do not want any swarms, because that generally ruins
the honey crop for the entire year; and hence, you would think that they would seek out the
knowledge of experts like bee scientists, bee researchers, master beekeepers, or professional
honey producers. Maybe they are just shy or embarrassed to ask any of these people, but they
will listen to the advice of some old timer who loses swarms most years and has to buy new bees
every year or so. This is foolish, so let me tell you what causes swarming. By the way, swarming
just does not happen, but bees swarm because something is wrong in the makeup of the hive, and
this can be corrected IN ADVANCE by a knowledgeable beekeeper. Bees swarm at two
different portions of the spring. The first, we call SWARM SEASON, is that period where pollen
is being collected and a little bit of nectar is around like in dandelions. The worker bees are
forcing the queen to lay high numbers of eggs, 1500 - 2000 eggs every day, and the queen
suddenly runs out of "desirable" laying space in the brood chamber, resulting in CONGESTION
IN THE BROOD CHAMBER. By the time of the year of February, the bottom brood chamber is
EMPTY and the queen is laying only in the top half of the brood chamber, and brood is now up
against the inner cover. The worker bees are NOT going to push that queen down to the empty
bottom brood box where there is no pollen, no nectar, no honey, and chilly near the front
entrance where they can't keep the brood warm, so they either stop the queen from laying or
swarm. You can quickly solve this problem by REVERSING THE BROOD BOXES, so the
empty box is now on top and the queen can just move upward into it as the workers gather pollen
for it and either a little nectar or sugar syrup to feed the new brood. You may have to REVERSE
2-3 times prior to April 15th; but by doing this, you have reduced congestion in the brood
chamber by continually providing more laying space for the queen. CONGESTION IN THE
BROOD CHAMBER has been proven the Number One cause of swarming during swarm season
by bee research. The number two cause of swarming is the age of a queen! If your queen is over
12 months old, she just cannot produce enough Queen Pheromone to "glue" a large number of
bees together as a singular functioning unit, so they swarm. You could have prevented this by
having a new queen in place in the spring. By "new" I mean a queen that is less than 8 months
old. Please note that I have never mentioned supers here. Supers and super space doesn't mean
"doodily" when there is no or very little nectar flow. The bees are only living and functioning in
the brood chamber area, which should be either 2 deep boxes or 3 medium (illinois) super boxes.
By REVERSING, a beekeeper has HELPED his bees by building a large population without
having a swarm!

Sometime about mid April, the nectar flow gets going regularly, and the bees DROP all thoughts
of swarming and start thinking about nectar collecting to provide lots of winter stores of honey
for future bees (It is interesting that a bee collecting nectar in May has never experienced cold
weather and will die in June; but collects the nectar, not for herself and NOT for you, but for
future bees to live through next winter). Nectar is very thin and might be 80% water, whereas
honey is only 16%-18% water. Storing all this thin, watery nectar until the bees can find time to
ripen it into thick honey by evaporating most of the water can require a lot of super space filled
with empty drawn comb. If the supers are not there exactly when the bees need all this space,
they SWARM! Whose fault? 100% Beekeeper's Fault! Supers sitting in his garage or basement
did not stop the bees from swarming, and they are not going to wait for his weekend off from
work. He did NOT HELP his bees, so they left! When I hear tales like this, although I
sympathize with the beeHAVER, I laugh in his face when he tries to blame the swarm on the
queen breeder, the weather, the government, or he had tickets to go to the ballgame and went to
Mother's home for Mother's Day. He just did not PLAN AHEAD!

Is April 1st too late to know all of the above, or when should I have started to prepare?
This is my 69th year of beekeeping, and I am still learning responsible beekeeping and changing
with the times as the bee scientists and researchers learn more and more about our wonderful
apis mellifera . For beginners who are just getting their first bees now, pay attention to what I
have written here, read only RECENTLY written books and articles which are not behind the
times, and seek out Certified Master Beekeepers, bee scientists, or researchers for advice. Once
you have bees, do what the famous Dr. Roger Morse wrote: start planning for next year in
September, which he calls the Honey Bee's NEW YEAR. I do that by requeening all my hives in
September, so I have almost no swarming in the spring.

I hope that I have helped some people, but for you more experienced people, continue on as I
talk about making splits to either increase the number of colonies or as a STRONG management
tool to prevent swarming in an emergency.

Splitting a Colony
Swarming, a beekeeper's nemesis because of the loss of honey crop, can usually be prevented by
"splitting" a colony into two parts. Bee scientists have now well proven that the two major
reasons for a swarm are, in order of importance:

1. BROOD CHAMBER congestion, having nothing to do with Super space, and

2. The age of the queen, because starting from the day of her mating, ever after she daily
loses a little of her ability to produce the queen pheromone which is that "glue" that
welds a large group of bees into a single functioning colony.
In most instances, the purpose of "splitting" a colony into two parts is to increase colony number
rather than a technique to prevent swarming; but properly done at the correct time, splitting can
be a case of "having your cake and eating it too". If you use "splitting" as a swarm retarding
technique with no desire to increase your colony number, you can also replace the old queen in
the original parent colony with the new queen in the split that you have made. Further, you have
even gained an "extra gift", fresh nicely drawn comb from the foundation you placed in the split
colony. Let me explain the best way to split a colony in the Central Maryland area, because other
areas like North Carolina, New York, and even Western Maryland, Southern Maryland or
Eastern Shore have different temperatures and different flora and hence require different dates to
split.

Of paramount importance is the colony to be split must be a strong colony which has BROOD
(eggs, larva, & capped pupa) occupying about 800 square inches of comb space on one side. (A
deep frame has 140 sq. in. of comb on each side.) In addition to brood, the comb also has cells
filled with pollen, nectar, and honey. Mentally estimate how many sq. in. of all three types of
brood there are among all the 20 frames of the brood chamber. About mid April, you should
have brood in various amounts on 6 to 10 frames primarily in the middle of the two hive bodies;
and you should have maybe 20% less about April 1st. By the way, you should know that there
are 55.3 cells per square Inch counting BOTH sides of the comb; so when you measure 800 sq.
inches on ONE SIDE of the comb, you are looking at about 27.6 cells x 800 = 22,000 future bees
meaning your queen has been laying about 1000 eggs each day for the past 21 days. If the queen
breeder can supply on time (and I use dependable breeders that try hard), I want a new
MARKED (White for 2001) queen delivered to me between April 10 and April 20. About April
3, I put a queen excluder between the two brood chambers so I can find the queen more easily
the following week. When the queen arrives, I give her a drink of water, put her in a dark cool
spot in my house, and gather up my equipment for the split which will require 10 frames of
DRAWN COMB or foundation, a complete hive, a gallon jar of 1:1 sugar syrup, and an entrance
reducer. Whether I make the split that day or the next day (forget waiting for the weekend)
depends on the weather and time of day which should be above 50 degrees, no wind, and sunny.

I first locate the old queen (she will be in which ever hive body that has eggs and real young
larva) and put the frame she is on in a empty separate hive body to isolate her so there is no
question about her location. Now, I am free to do what I desire with any of the remaining19
frames. I want to remove about 4 frames of brood, 1 capped plus 3 with open (eggs & larvae)
brood, plus 2 frames of honey and put these 6 frames in the new split with 4 frames of drawn
comb on the outsides of the new 6. All of these frames hopefully were moved with the clinging
bees attached; but just to make sure, take another pair of frames and shakes the bees off of them
into the new split hive. On the first flight out of the split, the foraging age bees will return to the
parent colony while the bees less than 19 days old are nurse bees and they will stay with the split.
Your old parent colony now is short 6 frames plus the one the old queen is on. In the bottom box,
put the frame with the queen surrounded by 3 frames with some brood plus 6 frames of drawn
comb for her to lay, and put the other brood body of ten frames on top and close up. Go to the
house and get your new queen, remove the cork from the candy end and place that introduction
box no-cork end up near the rear of the hive between frames 5 & 6 (the #10 frame has to be left
out for several days until the queen introduction box is removed), have the ent- rance reducer in
place, put on your inner cover with the gallon of syrup over the inner cover hole (make sure the
queen cage is not right there), and close up. Wait 5 days, and at noon to 2 PM using NO smoke,
ever so carefully inspect to see if the queen is released. She should be, so carefully remove the
queen cage and replace the #10 frame. Wait for 4-6 days before you inspect to see if the queen is
laying and do it at noon to 3 PM without smoke if you can.

After about a week from making the split, add your honey supers to the old colony so they have
plenty of nectar storage space.

After you have harvested your honey from the parent colony which should be done before July
4th in central Maryland, you can REQUEEN this parent colony and combine the two colonies
into one strong colony to get through the coming winter. Go through the old parent colony, find
the queen and "get rid of her" (kill, give away, put in an observation hive, etc.), and wait until the
next day so all her bees know she is gone. Place a single sheet of newspaper on top of the open
top hive body, poke 1-2 nail holes through the paper, remove the bottom board from the split and
transfer the two split hive bodies right on top of the newspaper, and close up. Inspect for the
queen in a week or 10 days by just looking for eggs or young larva. You don't have to see the
queen, and with these two strong colonies put together, she might be hard to find anyhow. If you
find any supersedure cells, call me for advice. Use good inspection technique of midday, from
about 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM (when foraging bees are away), minimal smoke (don't distress the
bees), and do everything quite carefully and slowly so as not to disturb the bees and make them
ball (kill) the queen. I have been doing this for many years with many colonies and rarely have
any trouble. I try to do it shortly after I have finished harvesting which is almost always by July
4th.

Closing Short Surprising Notes

It seems like everybody thinks that HONEY is a bee's favorite food, and they are totally
WRONG. Honey is a winter storage item, just like hardtack is for a sailor or a K-Ration for a
soldier. The favorite food of the honey bee is NECTAR, which is a watery solution of
SUCROSE (table sugar) plus a few odorous chemical compounds that provide the odor to attract
the bee to the flower. The next favorite food of the honey bee is 1:1 sugar syrup (SURPRISE),
and honey is the third place choice. If you want to prove it, put a teaspoon of each on a saucer
and place the three saucers on a table about 100 yards away from your colony and watch which
item disappears the fastest or has the most bees trying to eat it.

Next month, we will talk a good bit about swarms, but let me tease your thinking. Many people
try to attract a swarm of bees to a frame of honey. What a joke that is! Swarm bees are flying to a
new home but don't have any lunch boxes to carry food along on their trip, so they have
STUFFED their honey stomachs with honey before they left their old home, and are gorged.
Further, why use any smoke on swarm bees? Smoke just makes them take flight into the air, and
they are so gorged with honey, they would much prefer to quietly sit until the scout bees checked
in and reported the location of the new home for them to fly to. Gorged bees are quiet bees, who
have no good reason to sting anyone unless somebody is disturbing them. So you really don't
need a frame of honey, a smoker, or even a veil to house a swarm in a box.

May 2001

The GOOD and BAD of Swarms!

If you have LOST a swarm from one of your colonies, you can't say anything GOOD about
swarming. If you have just retrieved a swarm that was found hanging in a tree near the county
police department, you can't say anything BAD about swarming.

Bees swarmed back in the Garden of Eden as their way of reproduction and making new homes
over the vast expanse of the whole world; and they HAVE NO CHANGED THEIR PROGRAM
ONE IOTA! The will still be doing the same in the future unless the are made extinct by
Americans who have seen too many Hollywoodized "killer bee" movies, and self-declared
themselves, their children, and even their pet dog ALLERGIC to bee stings.

If you have carefully followed, not only, my PINK PAGES, but the findings of almost every bee
researcher or scientist about the management techniques of swarm prevention, your bees will not
swarm very often, but rather always make a fine honey crop. The cardinal points of swarm
prevention are:

1. Prevent brood nest congestion by early spring reversing of brood bodies;

2. Have a queen less than 1 year old; and
3. have EXCESS supers of drawn comb in place on the colony just prior to the beginning of
the major nectar flow (about April 15th for Montgomery County, MD).

Those in doubt of these 3 steps should read pages 618 and 623 of the 1992 Extensively Revised
Edition of The Hive and Honey Bee. Since that was written, researchers, scientists, and even
commercial honey producers now favor YEARLY requeening instead of requeening every two
years. This is not the time or place to debate the value of requeening; but if you allow your bees
to re-queen themselves, in these times of lack of feral bees and hence few drones around, your
bees are probably badly inbred with your own drones which can lead to various undesirable traits
like poor honey production, mean and nasty, or just "sickly". This is one of the reasons that those
bee breeders that possess great knowledge and integrity swap queens annually with other
breeders in order to produce drones away from their own line and hence reduce inbreeding.

Much to my dismay, I have found that most beeHAVERS and some beeKEEPERS are NOT
aware of the fact that most swarms are headed by an old queen who probably will be superseded
in a few months after swarming or die during the coming winter. In nature, only a few swarms
survive and are still alive a year later. Perhaps this is nature's way of preventing inbreeding.
Further, although heavily debated, the quality of queens resulting from supersedure of the old
queen is highly questioned.

However, there is much GOOD that can be attributed to a new swarm. A captured swarm is
placed in a hive consisting only of ten frames of foundation. Since the life expectancy of a bee
during flying weather is a mere 6 weeks, this means that more than half of all the swarm bees are
going to be dead before the first new worker bee emerges from her 21 day (3 week) gestation
period. The queen can't lay eggs on foundation until the bees draw that foundation into comb,
and the bees need lots of nectar in great haste to acquire the energy to produce the beeswax
scales to build comb. Further, comb has to be build to hold the nectar that is collected. The
POINT is: A swarm of bees is DESPERATE and in great hurry to draw foundation and build
comb, and works "overtime" to find nectar to accomplish this. Hence, a swarm is extremely
valuable to get frames of foundation drawn into drawn comb that you can use in your other bee
colonies; and you can destroy the bees and queen when they finish "their job" of drawing
foundation unless you want another colony of bees for yourself.

Another value of a swarm is as a gift to someone who might be interested in beekeeping. That is
exactly how Master Beekeeper Ann Harman got started in beekeeping in the late 70's, and today,
she is an international consultant in beekeeping. I often use a caught swarm in observation hives
rather than deplete my honey production colonies. Of course, the value of transferring frames of
brood from a hive of swarm bees to one of your weak colonies is obvious. If you want to
experiment, try a new idea, prove some management technique, or even do something
"forbidden", do any of these things with a swarm rather than with your own "pedigreed" valuable
bees. One might remember the old adage: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Acquiring a
swarm of bees that did not come from your colonies is a very valuable asset for you that can
have lots of different uses, some of which will help your own colonies and others of which might
help your learning of better beekeeping. Make an effort to catch every swarm possible as it can
serve beekeeping in so many valued ways when in the hands of a beekeeper, whereas its chances
of feral survival are next to zero due to the universal presence of mites over the entire U. S.

Unfortunately, the great majority of all beekeepers, both novice and experienced, have accepted
swarming as "one of those surprise unfortunate events in beekeeping that is very difficult to
prevent"; and they are WRONG! Swarming is NOT a surprise to a beekeeper who is aware of the
recent findings of researchers about swarming and uses the bee management techniques
recommended by those researchers, thereby PREVENTING most swarms! Yes, there are still
some people who practice cutting out swarm cells and clipping of a queen's wings as swarm
prevention techniques; and these systems are as obsolete as women's corsets, an Underwood #5
typewriter, or a car with a manual choke. Rather than spending their time "bitching and
complaining", they should spend their time LEARNING swarm prevention techniques of our
new 21st century.

There are so many things that beekeepers either don't know about swarming, or believe in the
many "old wive's tales", or use anthropomorphic thinking to explain why their bees swarmed.
The result is that these people lose swarms, fail to produce much honey, and pass on their lack of
bee knowledge to other people. The errors of our honey bee thinking of 50 years ago have
grossly come to light in the past 20 years due to the increased vigor of research by bee scientists
to solve problems caused by appearance of mites, small hive beetles, resistant AFB, Africanized
bees, etc. Now, armed with these new findings, much of our older thinking about swarming can
be discarded and replaced with new techniques that have been developed due to the new
findings. For example, queens do NOT decide to swarm, but it is her daughters, the worker bees,
that make the decision to swarm, stop feeding the queen so she can reduce weight in order to fly,
prepare swarm cells, force the queen to lay in the cell, prepare drone size cells for drones to mate
with a new virgin queen, partially suspend field foraging for nectar, send out scouts looking for
possible new home sites, prevent the old queen from destroying the new swarm cells, and a
dozen other swarm preparations. These are programs started 2-3 weeks in advance of the swarm
issuance, and 2-3 weeks is NOT some sudden action of the bees that many people think is what
happens about the act of swarming. Now, we know that clipping a queen's wings will NOT
prevent swarming, because the bees will kill their mother and swarm with the first virgin queen
that emerges. In bygone days we used to think that swarms were disease free, but now we know
that they carry large loads of mites with them to new homes and will probably die shortly
because they are no longer treated for mites. This new research has proved that a queen bee
makes almost NO decisions about the affairs of the colony, and about 95% of ALL decisions are
made by the worker bees based upon the circumstances found within the colony at specific times.
All of this is thoroughly discussed in many recent books as well as my PINK PAGES, but many
beekeepers just cannot abandon the beliefs of the "old timers", and accept the findings of recent
scientific research. As a former Manhattan Project scientist, no wonder we kept the building of
atom bombs so secret, because had we not, the American people surely could not be convinced
of atom energy without SEEING IT IN USE and the voters might have failed to re-elect
President Roosevelt in 1944. By the way, not even Vice President Harry Truman knew a single
thing about the Manhattan Project until a few hours after he was sworn in as the new President
after the sudden death of Roosevelt. I was "locked-in" at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
developing methods to purify Uranium 235 then, along with 75,000 other workers who were
UNKNOWN to Truman, most senators and congressmen, and ALL of the American public. It is
"high time" that you avail yourself to the literature and talks about the new advanced findings of
bee research over the past 20 years if you are to upgrade your status of beeHAVER to
beeKEEPER, not to mention the appreciation of the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

I have a new, great big, golden queen now in my apiary. The telephone rang on late Monday
afternoon, April 16th from a lady in Alexandria, VA asking me if I could PLEASE "come and
remove a swarm of bees clustered on her chain link yard fence before they stung somebody?".
No longer can I do this since being disabled by strokes, but my eldest son "volunteered" to take
my electric vacuum swarm retriever and drive to Alexandria that night and get them. He brought
home a fine 4 pound swarm, and I installed them on 10 sheets of foundation the next day. Upon
inspection on Friday, April 27th, I found a big golden queen who has layed some brood on 3
frames and foundation drawn on a total of 7 frames filled with sugar syrup that I have been
feeding, and all of this just 10 days after I installed them and we have had freezing weather at
night. By the way, since I will not remove any honey from them this year, I have Apistan strips
in the hive now.
Why Use MARKED Queens?
Be Smart - Not Stubborn - Read
For centuries, most people thought that all bees were the same, and the only things they really
knew about bees were they STUNG and MADE HONEY. It was not until the Italian race of bees
was imported to the U.S. in 1856 and people saw its "golden" color did they recognize that this
honey bee was different than the dull brown old English bee that had been brought to this
country from England by the first settlers in Virginia and Massachusetts. About the time that the
Wright brothers flew the first airplane and Henry Ford made his first car, the gentle, dark
Carniolan bee and the dark, propolis collecting Caucasian bee were introduced into the U. S. In
the early part of the 20th century, in efforts to breed a "better" bee (better honey producer, more
gentle, disease resistant, brighter colors, and superior wintering ability) ALL the races were cross
bred, out crossed, in crossed, as well as crossed OFF in breeding of various hybrids like
Buckfast, Midnite, Starline and Double Hybrid. Now 100 years later, we know that there is no
such thing as the "BEST" bee, and that a well bred Italian or a well bred Carniolan bee is the
most successful of bees the world over. Further, bee scientists have shown that when bee races or
bee stocks are crossed, the progeny almost always lose their good points and demonstrate
undesirable points. During the past 10 years, the entry of the Africanized Honey Bee (killer bee)
into the U. S. has convinced almost everyone that honey bees are different and are "not all the
same".

If you are truly honest with yourself (not me), you have to admit that it is very difficult to swear
that a queen bee that is in your colony today is the same queen that was present 6 months ago or
a year ago, UNLESS SHE IS SOMEHOW MARKED. In addition, if you have several colonies,
all with unmarked queens, how old is the queen in Hive A, how old is the queen in Hive B, in C,
in D, and in E? If you don't know the age of your queens, no wonder that they SWARM, since
bee scientists now state that queens over a year old are very likely to swarm because they have
lost the ability to produce enough queen pheromone to inhibit swarming.

Lastly, in the event of the contested ownership of a swarm, surely a marked queen of known
color mark is a strong point for the rightful owner.

Although color selection of the mark is not caste in stone, there is an International Color Code
for Queens that is widely used:

Year
Ending Color
Digit

0 or 5 Blue

1 or 6 White

2 or 7 Yellow
 3 or 8 Red

4 or 9 Green

When I find an unmarked queen in a colony, I mark her light gray or silver to indicate to me that
she has to be replaced by a pedigreed queen and the marking makes her easier to locate.

Marking queens yourself is easy, or you can pay the queen breeder to do it for you at a cost of
about $1. Betterbee Company makes a fine queen holder for marking that costs less than $5 and
prevents injuring a queen. Don't use some "junk" like typing WipeOut, fingernail polish, or water
base paint for marking material. Fast drying model airplane paint in hundreds of colors is sold in
felt tip marking pens made by TESTORS, and can be found in any hobby store and some
hardware stores. One pen will mark thousands of queens with one color, so 5 pens with 5 colors
should last you a lifetime.

Protect your race of bees by MARKING your queen so you are sure that she is the queen that
you purchased as a pedigreed race, and not the result of one of your virgin queens being bred by
all the boys on the "back street". Then your Carniolans will be Carniolan gentle, and your
Italians will be fine comb builders that is an Italian trait. Further, if you need proof yourself, you
will find that colonies headed by real young queens rarely swarm, whereas colonies with 2 year
old queens swarm easily, but you must have MARKED queens to know the age of the queen.

This is all part of being a beeKEEPER instead of being a beeHAVER! Stop your bitching and
put into practice what you have been taught.

The Governor of Maryland to Honor George Imirie

In mid April, a telephone call from the Governor's Office informed me that I had been selected
for a special award for my Volunteer work in Beekeeping and a following letter would explain
more. The letter is reprinted on the other side of this page. I could not imagine who had
nominated me, nor how a ultra conservative Republican could be honored by a Democratic
Governor. Upon asking many questions of the Governor's staff, I finally learned that the
Executive Director of the Montgomery County Fair, JoAnne Leatherman, had nominated me.

I expect ALL of you to help me THANK JoAnne for this honor by attending and participating in
the LARGEST AGRICULTURAL FAIR EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI this year from Friday,
August 10th through Saturday, August 18th. We want a HUGE number of entries of honey and
related beekeeping items from you so you can win huge cash prizes and beautiful ribbons. The
MCBA will have quite a display of live bees, extractor, bee hives, video bee films, and
photographs at our booth in Old MacDonald's Barn all headed by Master Beekeeper Barry
Thompson. Don't say "no" to Barry when he asks you for help at the FAIR. I will be putting on
FOUR demonstrations each day in a new wider aperature screened cage of opening bee hives,
showing the queen, EXPLAINING THE VALUE OF BEES TO OUR HUMAN FOOD
SUPPLY, while I wear NO VEIL and work in a Tee Shirt and Shorts. Next door in George's
Honey House is the sale of many flavors, colors, and quantities of honey, comb honey, creamed
honey all done by my wife, sons, and daughter-in-law.

June 2001

Proper Time and Techniques of Harvesting Honey

Part 1 - Harvesting Honey
Part 2 - No Brood & No Queen! Do You Requeen?
Part 3 - Some IMPORTANT FUTURE DATES

Proper Time and Techniques of Harvesting Honey

Some might say, just suit up, light a big smoker, get a big bee brush, and ROB the honey in a big
hurry. That was the standard procedure for centuries, but that can't be the standard procedure in
an urban area where there are neighbor's and children around, people who are frightened of bees
and are willing to call the police or sue you. Further, if you don't harvest honey at the correct
time, you might remove honey before it is fully ripened and well capped which might cause it to
ferment; or you might remove too much of the colony's honey and the bee's shut down their
brood production and hence enter the winter with very light stores; or you might wait too long
for harvesting and the bees move the honey from the supers into the brood chamber area.

In other words, harvesting honey is very much like cooking turkey or baking a cake. The are
good ways and bad ways, and you can cook it too long or not enough. Hence, why not "do it
RIGHT?"

In central Maryland, our nectar flow is usually over around May 31st and surely by June 15th.
You may talk about all kinds of flora that you see at the Fourth of July, but year after year of
daily observation of weight increase of a scale hive clearly indicates that there is little nectar
gathered in the month of June with the possible exception of the time near May 31st.

Why is "time" of harvesting SO IMPORTANT? First of all, if you just don't bother to harvest
until it gets cooler in September or even October, because you are hoping for a fall nectar flow,
or it interferes with your summer vacation, or some 'old timer" told you that fall harvesting was
"best", many detrimental things can happen to your bees and I can't think of anything good about
waiting past about July 4th. If you harvest LATE, perhaps the bees have removed the honey from
the supers and packed the brood chamber with honey, maybe your bees are very seriously
infected with tracheal mites because you did not treat them with menthol in August when it is the
CORRECT time to do it in central Maryland, or maybe they are next to death from Varroa mites
because the queen has dramatically slowed her egg laying, your pretty white comb cappings are
now all yellow with dirty feet travel stains, or maybe some of the fast crystallizing honey has
already crystallized in the comb. Honey is easy to extract when very warm as in July, but very
difficult when it is cool, as in September or October. You could not do late summer requeening
(that I think is the best time) if the honey is still on the colonies. You could not enter your honey
in any of the county FAIRS around the country side to show other people of your handiwork. To
avoid all the above mentioned negative reasons for harvesting late, just harvest shortly after your
major nectar flow ends, which means to harvest about the end of June for central Maryland.
However, don't harvest too soon, which is that time when all the honey is not yet fully ripened,
because this may cause your entire crop of honey to ferment and good for nothing unless you
like vinegar. The bees will build a white capping over each honey cell when the honey in that
cell has been ripened; and then it is safe for you to harvest. Some people take chances and extract
frames that are only 60%-70% capped, and their greed often catches them and their honey
ferments. I don't extract a frame unless it is 90% fully capped, and never "put-up" a piece of
comb honey that is not 100% capped.

I go into my supers about May 25th and remove any empty or nearly empty frames so that I
reduce the number of supers on the colony by at least one super (10 frames). I might move all the
frames not fully capped to the super next to the queen excluder, so these frames get quickly
ripened and fully capped. This is the time to CROWD the bees, taking away as much empty
space as possible, forcing the bees to fully fill what little space is left to fill and then fully cap the
frame. Reference to this can be found on Page 618 of the 1992 Edition of The Hive and Honey
Bee which states: "....the best approach may be to oversuper in the spring and to undersuper at
the end of the honey flow. This will encourage rapid filling of the frames at the beginning of the
major flow and will encourage consolidation of the honey stores at the end of the flow."

Years ago, most people removed the honey from a hive by removing one frame at a time and
brushing the bees off, or using a Porter Bee Escape in the inner cover hole and "hoping" it would
get cool enough at night, which it rarely does in central Maryland, for the bees to leave the
supers via the Bee Escape. Today, these methods are about as obsolete as using your car's
bumper jack to change a flat tire while out on I 95. Other than blowing the bees out of a super
with an expensive ($300) bee blower, the BEST way, the FASTEST way, and the way that
avoids bee STINGS is to use a fume board and one of chemicals that bees move away from:
BeeGo, Honey Robber, or my favorite, Benzaldehyde. One or two ounces of any of these
repellents on a fume board will "chase" the bees out of a super in 3-4 minutes and can be used
many times for perhaps an hour before more repellent has to be added to the fume board. These
repellents do not leave any odor with the honey.

The use of SMOKE during honey harvesting is not wise, because the bees may break into some
of the capped honey to gorge themselves in the event they had to fly to a new home. If you select
a good day for harvesting and the bees are busy and many out searching for more nectar, you
simply remove the telescoping cover and the inner board, install your treated fume board, wait
several minutes, remove that super, put the fume board in place on top of the next super down,
then on the third super, etc., and there is almost no need for any smoke nor have you upset the
bees. I must remind you that, unlike humans, bees do not think of removing of this honey as
stealing or robbing, and are NOT upset or mad at you. Caste aside your anthropomorphic
thinking!
Be VERY SURE that you cover the super immediately with some bee-proof screen or top to
prevent both your bees and robbing bees from trying to "steal" that honey away from you. If not,
prepare for mad neighbors and maybe even the police.

The BEST TIME to extract is at the same time you are removing supers, because the honey is
"hive warm" and hence easy to extract. If you must wait to another day, stack the supers 5 or 10
supers tall, SEAL ALL POSSIBLE BEE ENTRANCES, and let the supers sit out in the broiling
sun until the honey is quite warm, and then extract. If you just can't extract in warm weather,
clean out a closet, stack the supers of honey in the closet, put a lighted 60 watt or 100 watt light
bulb inside the closet, close the closet door, and let that honey warm for 24 hours.

You will have some frames that are NOT 90% or more fully capped. DON'T EXTRACT THEM.
Put 9 of these frames in a super, and put that super back on a strong colony of bees over a queen
excluder. The bees may fill that super and fully cap the frames if another little nectar flow
develops, or they might remove the honey from the super and pack it in the brood chamber
frames as winter stores. In either case, it hasn't been "lost", but will be available to either you or
the bees at a later date. So often bees of a greedy beekeeper die during the winter from
starvation, or the beekeeper has to buy lots of sugar and feed his bees during the cold of February
and March because his greed left the bees short of winter stores.

Only a fool would advise you to process your honey by heating it or NOT heating it. This brings
on "wars" of different opinion and even fist fights. It is true that honey being processed for
commercial sales is heated to temperatures as high as 160° and filtered through a commercial
filter to remove any seeds of crystallization of the honey, thereby giving it prolonged "shelf life".
The brood temperature of a bee hive averages about 94°, and super temperatures on a bright
sunny hot July day may be 100° - 110°; and hence honey that is heated to a maximum of 100° -
110° is perfectly "natural". However, I DON'T use cheesecloth for filtering (straining) my honey
because cheesecloth gives rise to tiny pieces of thread that act as starters for crystallization. I use
only MANMADE fabrics like nylon or rayon to filter my honey, because it contains NO lint.
You can buy these fabrics with all different kinds of mesh, some fine and slow filtering while
others are coarse and therefore faster filtering. Some people use womens panty hose as a filter. I
use 3 layers of marquisette (bridal net) for regular filtering, and I use women's slip material for
special needs like "competition" honey.

Finally, what is the proper thing to do with all the sticky, wet extracted frames? Don't just set
them out in the open for the bees to "rob", or you will start a new war like World War III among
the your bees, other local bees, and your NEIGHBORS. Let one of your strongest colonies
completely clean those frames "dry", but under controlled conditions that you arrange! Place a
totally empty hive body on the inner cover, and then place 5-6 wet supers on top of that empty
hive body, cover with a good top, and SEAL any top entrances. In a few days, all your supers
will be nicely cleaned and "dried" so that you can remove them, treat them with para-
dichlorobenzene to kill wax moth larvae, and store them for winter.

Let the whole world see the work that you, GOD, and your bees have provided for all people to
enjoy by entering your honey and other hive products in the local county FAIRS. The winning
ribbons are a fond remembrance and the money prizes are often enough to buy another super or
two. And just think of all those nice people that you can meet and talk too at the FAIR, not only
about bees, but flowers, veggies, wine, cheese, afghans, bed spreads, see the ribbon winning
cows, horses, rabbits, and don't forget the pigs, and let your memories run rampant as you ponder
the mysteries of the array of "old" things in the "Old Timers" display (maybe where I belong).

A June Inspection - No Brood & No Queen Found - Do You Requeen? - How Soon?
Every year, I am besieged with inquiries from local people and e-mail inquiries from beekeepers
over much of the U.S. and even some foreign countries with the question in this article's title.

If you can't find much brood, particularly "open brood" (eggs and larva), in a colony in May or
June, something has happened to your queen. She has either swarmed or has died. Are there any
swarm queen cells, supersedure queen cells, or emergency cells? If you find any queen cells of
any kind, are any of them capped, or has the capping been torn off? Finding a queen cell with a
capping removed tells you that there is a virgin queen in your hive.

Many beekeepers, regardless of how long they have been keeping bees, have some difficulty
finding a queen in their colony, particularly if she is NOT marked; and this problem is even
worse when the worker bee population is high as it is in May or June. When one realizes that a
virgin queen looks very much like a worker bee and does not really look like a queen bee until
after she has been bred, this makes finding a virgin queen in your colony extremely difficult.

I have heard 100's of stories about telephoning a queen breeder and getting an emergency
shipment of a new queen, installing her, and the bees kill her right away. Then there are the
stories about transferring a frame of eggs from another colony to this "queenless" colony so they
can raise a new queen, but the bees won't build a queen cell on the frame.

All of these frustrating experiences just prove that some beekeepers know very little about honey
bee biology. I will explain the delay in laying.

Any time that you find a colony of bees with no "open" brood (eggs or larvae) present,
particularly in the spring, DON'T ASSUME THE COLONY IS QUEENLESS, because in the
great majority of cases, there is a queen present, but just hasn't started to lay eggs yet! Maybe the
colony swarmed and left a virgin queen behind to take over the colony; or if the queen died
naturally or by accident, the bees would raise a new virgin queen to replace their dead mother. I
repeat - It is rare to find a truly queenLESS colony in the spring or summer months. Instead of
thinking the colony is queenless, think that you have made a mistake and just could not find the
new queen of the colony.

When a colony swarms, the old queen has layed very few eggs during the week before swarming
in order to lose weight so she can fly. Hence on the day of the swarm, there is very little open
brood present. Maybe the new virgin queen emerges from her swarm cell 4-5 days after the
swarm leaves, and she does not gain sexual maturity until she is about 6 days old. If the weather
is nice on the day the new queen turns 6-7 days old, she takes her nuptial flight to be mated; but
if the weather is cool or rainy, she might not go out on her nuptial flight for several additional
days. Once she is bred, she starts laying a few eggs, not many, about two days later. An egg
remains an egg for 3 full days before it hatches into a larva. So, let's start counting time
beginning with swarm PLANS:

 Day 0 - Bees begin swarm planning and restrict feeding the queen, and eggs are layed in
swarm cells
 Day 9 - Swarm cells are capped, and swarm issues
 Day16 - Virgin Queen emerges
 Day23 - Virgin queen takes her nuptial flight
 Day25 - Queen lays a few eggs
 Day28 - These first eggs hatch into larvae, which is more easily seen by a beekeeper.

The example above assumes every happening takes place as soon as possible, and yet there are
absolutely no eggs visible for 16 days (Day 9 - Day 25). In most cases, the time without any eggs
being present is longer than 16 days and can be as long as 31 days in extreme situations.

If the old queen did not swarm but was superseded, essentially the same absence of open brood is
about the same as the case of loss of queen by swarming, or 2-3 weeks.

Since the life span of a worker bee is just 6 short weeks, and the gestation period of a new bee is
3 weeks, it does not make good sense to install a new queen in a colony that has been barren of
CAPPED BROOD for 3 weeks, because all bees will be dead before any of the new queen's
brood emerges.

It is easy to TEST to see if a colony is queenless: Select a frame of eggs and VERY YOUNG
larvae from another hive and place it in the suspicious colony. If the bees start building
EMERGENCY CELLS on the face surface of the comb of that frame and surround a larva with
royal jelly, the colony is queenless. However, it will take a minimum of 21 days for a new queen
to emerge, breed, and starts laying eggs; and is she going to be a good queen or a bum? Speaking
for myself, if I found a positive EMERGENCY CELL on the TEST frame, I would "run" to the
phone and order a new queen from my queen breeder and I would expect her to be in my hands
within 3 days and laying eggs a week later. Further, I would have confidence that my queen
breeder is trying hard to breed HYGIENIC bees and that my choice of bee race is being
maintained. I am not satisfied with just some unknown queen bred by some unknown drones,
because they probably will not perform in the manner to which I have come to respect.

I end this note with an admonishment: Just because you don't see OPEN brood, don't ASSUME
the colony is queenLESS! You can always TEST to prove the presence of a queen or not.
ASSUMING things is a mark of a beeHAVER, not a beeKEEPER.
July, 2001

ANTICIPATION, NOT REACTION

This was a quote from an address made by Dr. Dewey Caron at a MAAREC Short Course last
week that said in three short words what it takes me pages to say! Wow, I was impressed! Do
you understand this saying, or need some help?

I am reminded of the difference in raising Carniolans from any other race of bees. If you don't
ANTICIPATE a happening and prepare for it ahead of time, the bees have left in a swarm; and
then REACTION is of little value. In the past, various slogans have been worked to death like:
Closing the barn door after the horse is gone. Crying over spilt milk. and Planning Ahea........d.
Every day, we see victims of REACTION to some event in life when we witness a driver trying
to hook up his auto seat belt as the cop approaches the car door, or a young unmarried girl with a
guilty look approaching an abortion clinic door, or the person ambulanced to the Salisbury
Hospital because he forgot his sun screen lotion when he sun bathed all day at Ocean City. All of
these events could have been easily prevented if one had paid attention to ANTICIPATION.

What has this got to do with beekeeping in July? Everything! Planning ahead what SHOULD be
done during the remainder of this year, what might be done to improve your beekeeping next
year, and what can be done to improve your knowledge about bees, so that your bees don't die
unexpectedly or depart in a swarm or fail to make a good honey crop or sting you and your
neighbors or become work rather than fun. Enjoying your work with bees should be like visiting
a museum to see how fortunate you are not to have to live under the conditions of the past.
LEARNING is that wonderful experience that allows you to see a rainbow after every storm, and
hence the yearning to LEARN more.

Although invisible to the human eye, the tracheal mite is still here and still killing colonies
generally in December or January. In ANTICIPATION of this death, some believe caused by the
cold, one can eliminate the REACTION of becoming MAD and making excuses for your loss of
bees simply by treating with MENTHOL on the 1 5th of August in Central Maryland!
MENTHOL is a wonderful, highly successful KILLER of tracheal mites, BUT IT MUST BE
USED IN HOT WEATHER, and will not normally work if installed after Sept. 1st! If you don't
want to use it, because you still have supers on trying to collect some of that undependable,
quickly crystallizing fall honey, go right ahead, but start saving money to buy a new package of
bees to replace the dead colony that died of invisible tracheal mites. By the way, the tracheal
mite is not invisible to some of us who have learned how to dissect a bee, pull out the trachea, go
to the local high school, give the science teacher a jar of your honey, and see the tracheal mites
with the high school's microscope. You don't have to be an astronaut or atomic scientist to learn
this simple procedure so that you, too, can see tracheal mites in your own bees. Just attend some
short courses, EAS meetings, ask a MASTER BEEKEEPER for instructions, rather than
attending a local "pot belly stove meeting" of beeHAVERS telling tall tales and finding fault
with every new idea that has come down the road. Back to ANTICIPATION: Without some
treatment for tracheal mites; either labor intensive 6 months of continual application of grease
patties, the use of formic acid (if Betterbee ever gets a suitable delivery system solved), or the
sure fire use of MENTHOL if installed in August; your bees will suffer the REACTION of death
by tracheal mite infection. Don't say that I did not warn you in advance.

If you want an explanation of WHY menthol has to be used in "hot" weather, here it is. The
fumes of menthol have to get inside the "lungs" of the bee to kill the tracheal mites in the trachea
of the bee. Menthol sublimes (converts from solid form into gaseous form without becoming a
liquid) at a temperature of 84° and the menthol gas fumes should be present for at least 3 weeks
to kill all tracheal mites. In our Central Maryland area, there are not too many days in September
where the temperature stays above 84° for any length of time, so menthol should be used in the
heat of August. Bees don't have "lungs", but I used the word to help you understand.

Next on the list of things to be done is REQUEENING on September 1st; and I strongly suggest
that you use "Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening Method" ( a copy is attached) rather than
"screw it up" and lose a queen and maybe the whole colony. I don't care what bee scientist or bee
researcher you hear, the great majority NOW suggest ANNUAL REQUEENING is the preferred
schedule rather than every other year. I believe that this shift in thinking is primarily due to
understanding of the importance of the young queen's increased amount of queen pheromone that
prevents or lessens swarming.

One of the now deceased Dr. Roger Morse's great innovations was naming the month of
September as the honey bee's NEW YEAR, because that is the time that one should make all his
plans for the ensuing next year of number of colonies of LIVE, HEALTHY bees making large
crops of honey that can be sold for high profit as well as win blue ribbons at county fairs. I
heartily endorse Dr. Morse's thinking AHEAD; and thinking AHEAD leads me to WHEN to get
the greatest killing of the deadly Varroa mites.

Bee scientists have clearly shown that all Varroa mites are "born" in a honey bee cell with a bee
larva and feeds off of that honey bee pupa while both the bee and the mite develop to adulthood.
An adult female Varroa mite enters a honey bee cell when the bee larva is 4 days old and the cell
is just one day from being capped; and the female mite lays mite eggs here after the capping of
the cell. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that if there are few or no honey
bee larvae present in a colony, then there is no place for the female Varroa mite to lay eggs to
produce more mites. Obviously then, a good time to kill all mites and not have any "baby" mites
to replace the old adults would be that time when there is no honey bee larvae. Although local
area may be slightly different and the race of bees is different, queen bees generally dramatically
slow down their laying of bee eggs in September and usually totally stop in November. Taking
advantage of everything that Mother Nature has to offer, for many years I have installed my
Apistan strips on October 1st (NEVER in September) and removed them the first warm day, 50°,
after November 15th. (It is amazing the number of people that are afraid to open a colony for 1
minute to snatch out 4 strips of Apistan when it is 50°, a colony with no brood to chill. Probably
just a feeble excuse of not wanting to fool with bees after warm weather). When I perform my
sticky board tests for Varroa mites on April 1st, I almost always have NONE, and when I test
again on July 1st, I don't have near enough to be alarmed. Hence, by installing Apistan strips on
Oct. 1st and removing them after November 15th, but definitely before December 1st, I have
been successful at treating only once each year and have never lost a colony to Varroa mite
infection. You too can ANTICIPATE and succeed rather than having a REACTION to the death
of a colony by Varroa mites.

As you know, I have suggested a fall treatment for Nosema disease ad nauseum in my many
writings stating that bee scientists estimate that 60% of ALL bee colonies have some Nosema
disease, but it is rarely treated simply because ilk rarely kills a colony. It is so simple and cheap
to feed a colony a teaspoon of Fumidil-B, cost of about $2.00, in a gallon of 2:1 sugar syrup in
October and November. At the recent MAAREC short course, which was absolutely wonderful
and I am still LEARNING after 69 years of beekeeping, recently retired Dr. Shimanuki declared
that he thought Nosema was a greater problem for beekeeping success than American Foul
Brood! Wow, that made audience stop and think, and Shim when into great detail for his
reasoning. Do you have to hear it from Shim, or take it from me to ANTICIPATE that your
colonies probably have some Nosema disease and treat for it in advance in October and
November rather than have a REACTION to a lowered honey yield or a poorly populated colony
due to sickness from Nosema? My mother gave me Cod Liver Oil before there were Vitamin
tablets and I got Dr. Salk's Polio vaccine in the 1950's; and I am going to provide the scientist's
suggestions for my bees to keep them healthy.

Due to the deaths of so many bee colonies this past year, the package bee providers and queen
bee breeders were swamped with late orders for bees and queens, and they just could not provide
bees on time or at all. BeeHAVERS and beeKEEPERS bitched and complained to no avail, and
many in Maryland just did not get bees in time to get a honey crop or start splits. This same thing
is going to CONTINUE because so many people simply refuse to accept advice, so if you don't
want to be caught without bees or queens next spring, make your plans this fall and ORDER
EARLY like December or January. I'll bet that I have just wasted words and printer's ink by
saying that.

BTW, research and much testing has proven that HEALTHY honey bees DON'T die from
COLD. Bees have been subjected to temperatures of -40°, -60°, and even -80° for periods up to a
month, and survived in GREAT SHAPE. Bees that are sick or infected with pests might die in
warm temperatures much less cold temperatures, so it is YOUR job to see that your bees are not
sick or pest infected. Bees are damaged in the winter by cold winds that destroy their cluster
heat, and particularly by dampness. Hence make sure that your colonies are protected from cold
northerly winds in the winter and SURELY have an UPPER ENTRANCE in the colony to let the
dampness of expelled bee breath escape from the hive. For many of you doubters regarding bee
warmth in cold weather, you are about to see more and more bee hives having only 8 mesh wire
screen bottom boards in the winter replacing the standard wooden bottom board. ANTICIPATE
now that winter is coming, and prepare against its ravishes rather than having a dead colony and
blaming it on the cold winter.

ANTICIPATE learning all kinds of things about beekeeping that you did not know like meeting
and talking to people who have 10,000 colonies of bees, queen breeders who sell 10,000 queens
each year, honey packers that package 10 or 20 million pounds of honey each year, visiting a
queen breeders facilities and observing how queens are bred, and enjoying the history and sights
of the OLD SOUTH. You can do this and get out of the doldrums of winter and the Christmas
shock of shopping by joining me at the annual meeting of the American Beekeeping Federation
in mid January, 2002 at the jewel of southern cities, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA. Savannah i%just
a short 568 miles straight down 1-95 from Washington, DC.; but I won't go on my electric
scooter because it won't go 65 mph and my fancy honey bee "windsock" might blow away.
However, I'll be there if I am still alive, because the "big bosses" say they have several jobs for
me like directing people to Charleston to visit Ft. Sumter and my old pre-Pearl Harbor school of
The Citadel, carrying people to Wilbanks Apiaries to steal a queen bee, touring the Savannah
River Atomic Plant using one of my old passes, or walking visitor's dogs because I walk very
slowly.

Note that I did not mention our 9 day Montgomery County Fair, the largest agricultural fair east
of the Mississippi, because I ANTICIPATE you will be there to enter your honey to win ribbons,
to work 4 hours at Old MacDonalds Barn in our Display booth to talk to the public about the
value of honey bee pollination for human food and to tell the kids all about the happenings in the
observation hive as well as the wall charts and pictures, and lastly to direct the public to watch
Old George open up hives of bees in a screened cage, find the queen, and show all the insides of
a hive to the crowd while OLD George does this in shorts, tee-shirt and NO VEIL 4 times every
day in spite of being disabled by strokes. Hopefully, your REACTION to all of this will be "I
have done my volunteer service in behalf of protecting honey bees and informing the public of
the wonderments of our little critter; and I have had a wonderful LEARNING experience
myself".

Sine Die

George W. Imirie EAS Certified Master Beekeeper

IMIRIE'S REQUEENING METHOD (ALMOST FOULPROOF)

Select an exact date for your new queen to arrive and make it known to your queen breeder, and
get a MARKED QUEEN. TEN days before the new queen is to arrive, insert queen excluders in
between any two boxes where your old queen can go. When your new queen arrives, water her
and store her in a cool dark place until needed. Gather up a double screen board, an empty hive
body, 10 drawn combs, and a feeder with a gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup. Find the OLD queen
(which ever brood box has larva is where the queen will be found) in the colony you want to
requeen. Set her ASIDE away from the colony, so that you free to manipulate all the other
frames in the colony. Select 3 frames of brood: 1 capped and 2 of eggs and larva, all with the
covering nurse bees. Place these in the center of the empty hive body. Now add 6 mire frames, as
follows: 2 empty drawn comb, (one on each side of the brood frames), 2 frames of pollen and
honey, (one on each side of the drawn comb), then 2 more empty drawn comb, (one on each side
of the honey-pollen frames). This totals 9 frames leaving space for the queen cage. Now take
several frames of brood ...remaining in the old colony...and shake the nurse bees into the new 9
frame nuc. Cover the nuc and set it aside for a while. Return the frame with the OLD queen to
her home hive and replace the 5 frames you removed (3 of brood + 2 of honey-pollen) with
empty drawn frames Now put the double screen board on top of the old colony so that its
entrance faces to the rear of the parent colony. Set the new 9 frame nuc on top and install the
new queen (make sure you remove the cork from the candy end). Start feeding the new nuc
immediately. After about 3-5 days, check the queen cage very quickly using little or no smoke to
see if the queen has been released. If she has not, you release her from the cage. Do NOT disturb
for another 5-7 days and then check with as little disturbance and smoke as possible looking for
eggs and larva. Add the 10th frame and remove the queen cage. During the next few weeks (I
like about 5-6) check the brood pattern of the new queen. If you like it and want to accept that
new queen, find the old queen down below the double screen, kill her, and remove the double
screen board. This method has a couple of advantages: 1) if something is wrong with the new
queen, you kill her and the colony has a backup with the old queen; and you requeen the colony
at a later date, and 2) for about 5-6 weeks, you have 2 queens laying eggs that increase the
number of bees which will make the hive stronger for winter and reduce the stresses of Winter.

Note: If you don't have a Double Screen Board - You should. If you are not sure how it is made,
imagine a wooden queen excluder frame without the metal wires, covered on both sides by 8
mesh wire - A DOUBLE SCREEN BOARD. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in North Carolina
makes and sells a fancy, very, nice one.

August 2001

Beekeeper Burnout?
In recent articles of Bee Culture and American Bee Journal, some notable beekeepers have
written about beekeeper burnout, pointing out that so many beginners start out with great
enthusiasm, attend local bee meetings, lose some bees to improper maintenance, failure to treat
pests with either correct chemicals or treat at the wrong time, their bees swarm, and they
discover much to their chagrin that there is a lot of hard work in the hot, humid summer to
produce a saleable crop of honey or a lot of unknown expenses related to properly preparing their
honey as gifts to neighbors and friends. These writers imply that people today are no longer
really interested in hard physical labor, but rather prefer a computer job with high pay, short
hours, in an air conditioned environment. Therefore, the conditions of beekeeping cause so much
beekeeper burnout, and we are losing more and more beekeepers and bee colonies. Is this true? If
so, does it make a difference? What is so different about beekeeping in 2001 than it was 20 years
ago?

Having been a beekeeper in Maryland for almost 70 years, beginning in May,1933, under the
direction of Dr. James I. Hambleton, the Chief of the future Beltsville Bee Lab, there were not
any great earth shaking bee problems until almost 20 years ago when the tracheal mite was found
in 1984, to be followed by the Varroa mite in 1987. If these two mites were not enough misery
and confusion to beekeepers and causing 80% losses of bees in many apiaries, in 1990 the
Africanized Honey bee entered Texas and now 4 other states, followed by a new disease,
Parasitic Mite Syndrome in 1995, the Small Hive Beetle in 98, and the Resistant American Foul
Brood disease in 2000. This past 16 years, one problem after another caused some previously
successful beekeepers to give up, some new aspiring beekeepers to give up, and many young
people looking for a hobby or even training to become a professional honey producer to search
for another interest. In those years before the discovery of mites, "newbies" had learned
beekeeping from the midst of successful beekeepers at that time, attendance at meetings of the
local bee association, and reading some of the pamphlets sent out by bee equipment suppliers.
This was a father and son experience, and "on-the-job" training; but this type of learning to be a
beekeeper totally disappeared because "Daddy had never seen a mite, an Africanized Honey bee,
a small hive beetle or even heard of Apistan, Check-Mite, formic acid or all the other new
chemicals, new procedures, new treatments, or new everything". A whole new stage had been
set, and the old performers would have to "learn new lines", the beginner would have to start by
referring to new books and new articles written by bee scientists, bee researchers, and some
enlightened Master beekeepers rather than support the outmoded teachings of the local bee
associations which generally are led by one or more of the "old timer successful beekeeper" who
unfortunately refused to change their procedures.

Perhaps the most abused new way of doing things is the failure to perform a task or give a
treatment at the EXACT TIME with the EXACT quantity of chemical that the bee scientists and
bee researchers have reported. Perhaps a suggested treatment interfered with a fall honey crop, or
a planned vacation trip for the beekeeper, or the theory that giving twice the prescribed dose
would shorten the treatment time by half, or a thousand other ways to be in conflict with the
prescribed treatment made by bee scientists and bee researchers who were PAID by the
government, university grants, commercially interested bee companies, or gifts from bee
organizations like EAS and ABF.

Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps some of these "problems", new in past 16 years, were in
reality beneficial to beekeeping? Many beeHAVERS and surely some of those beeKEEPERS of
the past who were too stubborn to change lost many of their bees at some point, bought new
bees, lost them a second time, and then GAVE UP and decided to pursue some less humbling
hobby or business. In spite of the fact that state upon state testifies that they have less beekeepers
in 2001 than they did 16 years ago, the number of people maintaining bees today must be
BETTER beekeepers than they were 16 years ago, because government records show that
professional honey producers in this country are producing record crops of honey in spite of
diminished crop acreage. No longer are "newbies" or beeHAVERS practicing beekeeping as
"Daddy did", but they are reading more up-to-date writings about the new treatments, new bees,
new management tools, and treating at the TIME recommended rather than at a time personally
convenient to them; and these new BETTER BEEKEEPERS are being rewarded by healthy bees
and fewer losses of bees.

Another MAJOR help that all this many problems has created is a great deal more investigative
research on a few things that had ONLY been mentioned 40-50 years ago but had fallen by the
wayside because of lack of commercial interest. Two of these very important things, which I
predict will greatly change future beekeeping and remove us from the chore of changing
chemicals like we change socks as well as understanding our bees better are: HYGIENIC
BEHAVIOR and hence, hygienic bees, which can deal with certain diseases naturally without
much beeKEEPER assistance; and increased knowledge about PHEROMONES, not only the
QUEEN PHEROMONE, but a WORKER pheromone, and a DRONE pheromone.
It is the DUTY of every beekeeper to CONTACT your Federal legislators, your State legislators,
and even your County legislators, and tell them of the importance of the honey bee to human
ecology due to honey bee pollination of food for humans, and DEMAND that they support any
legislative bill that authorizes more research money about honey bees; and REJECT any
legislative bill that authorizes pesticides that can kill honey bees. If you claim to be a
BEEKEEPER, GET INVOLVED and help these legislators understand that apis mellifera is
NOT a bee like a sweat bee, a Carpenter Bee, or a Bumble bee; and certainly different than the
carnivorous Yellow Jack, which is not a bee, but part of the wasp family. How much do you
know about law or surgery? Could you defend a thief in court, or could you remove someone's
appendix? Of course not! What make you think that an elected legislator knows anything about a
honey bee? If he is normal, he knows two things that perhaps his grandmother told him when he
was a boy: Honey bees make honey and they STING. Millions of farmers depend upon the
honey bee to pollinate their cash crops, and each of these farmers has a VOTE. The honey bee is
the principle pollinator of alfalfa hay, and both dairy cattle and beef cattle need lots of high
protein alfalfa hay to make prime beef and rich milk. The loss of honey bees could cause the
demise of McDonald's Hamburgers or Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream, and the legislators surely
won't get the vote of kids after they become of voting age.

What am I saying? My glass of water is half FULL, not half EMPTY! In my bee association as
well as others with whom I am familiar, I find fewer members still trying to "keep bees like
Daddy kept bees" and more potential beekeepers buying and studying recent books and articles
written by bee scientists, bee researchers, and Master bee- keepers, many more attending those
meetings that feature talks by these same highly educated apiarists (To set the record straight:
Many Master Beekeepers do not have some fancy college degree, but have proven their "high
education about beekeeping" by passing the difficult EAS tests to become a Certified Master
Beekeeper). You don't have to be a professional writer to address a letter to a legislator, so send
them a letter about the value of honey bee pollination which supplies 35% of the food that
humans eat, and who vote for our legislators. Don't let him continue to think that the importance
of a honey bee ends with two things: honey and sting. Volunteer a few hours of your time to
work at Old Mac Donald's barn at the Montgomery County Fair to tell the public that our bees
are not like the "killer bee" movies, and explain their VALUE to our human food supply; and
volunteer to talk about honey bees to our children at their schools.

It would not be George if he did not tell you instructions to do something that might keep your
bees alive. In Maryland, the BEST time to kill 99% of your tracheal mites is to install 50 grams
of menthol in a colony close to August 15th, but before September 1st! Menthol is far and away
the best tracheal mite control, but it MUST be installed in hot weather or it will not work.
Although today is August 1st, some bees are DYING RIGHT NOW due to lack of food, because
of horrible nectar conditions for the past two months. You better check your food supply in each
colony TODAY and forget that undependable fall nectar flow.

If I told you that I have never lost a colony to Varroa mites, no doubt some people that will say
"he is a liar." The fact is, although maintaining as many as 60 colonies these past 16 years, since
the tracheal mite, I have never lost a colony to either mite, BUT I HAVE FOLLOWED THE
SUGGESTIONS OF BEE SCIENTISTS regarding the best time and how often to treat to kill the
greatest percentage of mites rather than selecting a time that is convenient to ME or a time that
might not interfere with some nectar collecting. In the central area of Maryland which includes
all of the state except the higher elevation western counties, Apistan strips should be installed as
late in the year as possible so that the queen has either drastically slowed down in laying new
worker eggs or actually stopped laying, and therefore there is little or no bee larvae for the
female Varroa mite to lay new mite eggs that can feed on the bee larvae. Hence, I install my
Apistan, 1 strip for every 5 frames of brood, on OCTOBER 1st and allow it to stay in place for a
full 6 weeks, but surely remove it by December 1st. Too many people say that they stop
beekeeping by October and think about it again about April. If you are one of those people, ask
yourself "Are you a beeHAVER, or a beeKEEPER?" Some folks are reluctant to try and remove
Apistan strips in November for fear that it is too chilly for the bees. Bees are not clustered in a
winter cluster at temperatures of over 50°, and there are numerous days in the last half of
November, around Thanksgiving time that have afternoon temperatures of over 50°. This might
even mean that you have to leave work for 3-4 hours, come home, and take care of your bees
health, just as you take off to go deer hunting, quail shooting, or to a football game. The reason
that you definitely DON'T DARE LEAVE THE APISTAN IN PLACE LONGER THAN 6-8
WEEKS is that the longer time is the THING that creates RESISTANT MITES that Apistan
cannot kill! TAKE APISTAN OUT BEFORE DECEMBER 1st!

Please make a point of saying "hello" to me at the Montgomery County FAIR, and go to all the
fairs that you can to help spread the word about the importance of apis mellifera to our human
food supply. By the way, the FAIR has found a good use for this old stroke disabled beekeeper:
They have honored me as GRAND MARSHALL of the FAIR PARADE which is held at 6:00 P.
M. on Sunday night, August 12th. In spite of difficulty walking, I even have to CROWN the new
KING and QUEEN of the FAIR. By the way, the FAIR is making my NEW BEE
DEMONSTRATION SCREENED CAGE in Farmer's Triangle section a permanent part of the
FAIR. There, four times each day for 9 days, I will open colonies of live bees, show the marked
queen to the spectators, talk about bees, their life, their behavior, and their value to the human
race while I am dressed only in shoes, shorts, tee-shirt and NO VEIL. As a disabled old man, I
need all the help I can get so someone can take my place after my death. Have I got any
volunteers to help me or take my place?

Site Locations for Bees and Honey at the FAIR:

1. Honey, hive products, and display competition is in the Farm and Garden Building #2
2. MCBA booth about Honey Bees, Equipment, Pictures and Observation Hive is in the #1 booth on
the west side of Old MacDonald'd Barn, and Master Beekeeper Barry Thompson needs 40
volunteers to do a 4 hour shift of talking to the kids about bees which almost everyone of you
CAN do. Please contact Barry at 301 947-4652
3. George's NEW Demonstration Cage and George's Honey House is just 50 yards east of Old
MacDonald's Barn in Farmer's Triangle adjoining the John Deere Tractor Display. Why not visit
and help George answer all the questions from children and adults, the Number 1 question is
always: "Why don't the bees sting you?" or "Aren't you afraid of being stung?" or "Do the bees
KNOW you?" My stroke disabled voice can use some help!
September 2001

ALIVE or DEAD NEXT SPRING?

Since I have already lived longer than the average life expectancy of the American male and am
disabled by strokes, I doubt that I am a good bet to be around next spring; but MY BEES will be
ready, willing, and "chomping at the bit" to gather that first skunk cabbage pollen in February
and first black locust nectar in April, because they are being well prepared for winter. Are
YOURS?

With all the new exciting findings by our bee scientists during the past year or so, maybe the
beekeepers of 2010 won't have to worry about chemical treatments anymore. The work with
IPM, Integrated Pest Management, HYGIENIC QUEENS and BEES, and the new SMR queens,
SUPPRESSIVE MITE REDUCTION gives me high hope that the days of using several different
chemicals to keep our bees alive are slowly drawing to a close. Meanwhile, here in 2001, we
MUST continue to use chemicals and use them in the correct quantity and at the right time or our
bees won't be alive in the spring of 2002. One thing you can surely do as the doldrums of winter
settle in is to read all you can or attend all the meetings you can about these new scientific
findings: IPM, HYGIENIC BEES, and SMR QUEENS.

What chemicals am I referring to? Menthol for Tracheal Mites, Apistan for Varroa Mites, and
Fumidil-B for Nosema Disease. Note that I did not mention Terramycin, because I am very
opposed to its use as it only masks the symptoms of American Foul Brood disease and does NOT
kill ft. My 69 years of beekeeping up to 100 colonies per season, and never using TM is proof
that TM is NOT needed.

Just because the Tracheal Mite is NOT visible to the human eye, too often the beeHAVER
assumes there are no tracheal mites in his colonies. Usually in January or maybe February, he
discovers that there are tracheal mites around when he discovers his colony dead with only a few
bees left in the colony and surrounded by plenty of honey stores. In Central Maryland, he could
have prevented this by installing 50 grams of Menthol (cost about $2) on the tops of his brood
chamber frames on August 15th. September is usually too late and hence does not kill the mites
because the weather is not hot enough to vaporize the menthol into a gas. If you are willing to
lose a nice hive of bees and next year's honey crop because you didn't want to spend about $2 for
Menthol, you are a lousy gambler!

It has been said that there are Varroa mites around that are RESISTANT to Apistan. While true
in a few instances, the great majority of the problem has been people using old Apistan or
Apistan strips that have been left exposed to LIGHT or excess HEAT which destroys the active
chemical (fluvalinate) in the strip. In Central Maryland, the best time to install Apistan strips is
on October 1st, but REMOVE THEM by November 30th, or your failure to remove may well
create resistant mites because the mites are being exposed to a low dosage of fluvalinate over a
long period of time. Some one might ask: Isn't October 1st LATE for installation of Apistan, and
Thanksgiving time is late to remove the Apistan? It depends on what you mean by the word
LATE. Let me explain: The female varroa mite lays eggs ONLY in the cell of a 5 day old honey
bee larva just before that cell is capped. If there are only a few honey bee larvae in the hive, or
none, there is no place for new mite eggs to be laid and new mites grown. In central Maryland,
most queen bees have greatly curtailed their egg laying by October 1st and have totally stopped
laying eggs by November 15th. Hence, installing Apistan on October 1st and finding a day when
the temperature is above 50° between 11/15 and 11/30 to remove the strips provides the
maximum kill of all varroa mites, and finding an hour to remove the strips at 50° or more is not
difficult. This treatment is usually so successful that no other treatment has to be done until the
following October 1st, but I do a sticky board test for Varroa mites on July 1st to make sure.

At a Joint Short Course meeting of MAAREC held June 22nd and 23rd, retired Dr. Shiminuki
literally "shocked" most attendees when he said that Nosema disease caused more loss of honey
production that American Foulbrood disease. Wow, that really opened some eyes, and there were
many questions. Shim pointed out that about 60% of all the colonies in the country have Nosema
disease every spring, but most beeHAVERS and even many beeKEEPERS are not aware of it
because Nosema rarely kills a colony. It hurts honey production because it shortens the life
expectancy of the foraging honey bee by as much as 1 or 2 weeks. A major symptom of Nosema
disease is diarrhea, and I ask you: How much work can you do when you "have the runs"? Just
dissolve about 200 milligrams of Fumidil-B in 2 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup and feed it in October
and November to your bees. This costs only about $2 per colony or the price of a few ounces of
honey. To those, who have never used FUMIDIL-B, it is very difficult to dissolve. Put your dose
of Fumidil-B in a about a cup full of warm (not hot) water and stir strongly, and after all is
dissolved, stir this into the 2:1 sugar syrup.

Lastly, a colony can NOT gather any food during the winter. Maybe you removed too much
honey for extraction, or maybe the so-called fall nectar flow from goldenrod and aster never
materializes, will your bees have at least 70 pounds of capped honey in their colony by
November 1st to get through the winter? 70 pounds = about 12 fully capped deep frames, or 18
fully capped medium frames. Feeding for survival in January or February is very difficult, so you
better think about feeding in October and November before it gets real cold when the bees can't
break cluster to feed.

I am so reminded of the "preaching" of the deceased Dr. Roger Morse, who decreed that each
September (not January) was really the First month of a honey bee's NEW year. He pointed out
so clearly that if you properly prepare your bees for the coming winter, your reward will be live
bees "rearing to go to work in the spring". Although some bees die between now and next spring
from the death of a queen, extremely bad weather, or molestation by animals or vandals, the
GREAT majority of bee loss is the human failure to properly prepare his bees for winter. It is up
to YOU, not the weather, not the location, not the government, and not luck as to whether your
bees will be alive next spring, so don't put off until tomorrow what should be done today.

October 2001
 Terror Time for Bees
September 11th will not be forgotten by most of us, just as December 7, 1941 is still quite vivid
in the minds of we older folks. As a Citadel cadet in Charleston, SC, I was eating a banana split
in Raley's Drug Store on King Street in Charleston when the notice came on the radio that
Sunday afternoon of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. War was here and I was studying to be
a scientist and 2nd Lieutenant in the U. S. Army, so I hurried back to barracks.

Starving to death is surely a horrible way to die, and who is not to say that a beekeeper who
allows his bees to enter the winter without enough food for them to make it through the winter is
not some kind of terrorist? For what it is worth, the "famous" Hagerstown Almanac predicts that
we will have a long cold and snowy winter. In Maryland, a colony of bees needs about 70
pounds of honey, 14 capped deep frames or 21 capped medium frames, to make it from now to
April. Do your colonies have that much stores on board? In the past couple of months, as cripple
as I am, I have had reasons to visit with some beekeepers and see their colonies, and know that
their colonies were very light in stores and I mentioned looking for sales on sugar to feed them. I
know that after I removed my honey crop from my dozen colonies in late June, that there has
been little or no nectar collected since and I have been feeding since Montgomery County FAIR
time in mid August.

For the benefit of both beginners and experienced beekeepers, let me review how to feed your
bees now that it is October, when there could be severe robbing on a flight day. This is NOT the
time to feed 1:1 thin sugar syrup, but the bees need sugar syrup similar to honey which is 2:1
heavy syrup, 2 pounds of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water. That is so concentrated that it is
difficult to get 2 pounds of sugar dissolved in any heated water unless the water is BOILING.
Further, you dare not try to add sugar to boiling water while it is on the stove because you will
probably burn the sugar and caramelize it like making fudge, which will make bees SICK. As a
typical scientist, I use a thermometer, dissolve 1 pound of sugar in a pint of hot water, bring that
solution to a BOIL at 212°F, and then add another pound of sugar with a lot of stirring. (A real
pain in the fanny, but so is anything that is of value). Those are the basic formula and rules, but I
prepare everything for 1 gallon glass jugs; so I dissolve 7 1/2 pounds of sugar in 2 quarts (4
pints) of boiling water, which is a sugar to water ratio of 1.88.

What type of feeder are you going to use? There are basically 5 different types of feeders, but I
personally think an upside down glass jar or pail is the ONLY one to use because there are far
too many problems with any of the other 4 types. I will explain. By my standards, the
ENTRANCE feeder is a total joke! It is not big enough, it attracts all kinds of robbers, but
mainly bees will NOT leave a warm cluster to go down to the cold front entrance to get feed! It
should NEVER be used for anything but firewood. The HIVE TOP feeder is a fine feeder in
WARM WEATHER, but is totally useless in cold weather because bees will starve to death
rather than break a warm cluster to go to food. There is the BAGGIE feeder that holds one or two
gallon plastic bags of sugar syrup, but it suffers the same complaint as the Hive Top feeder that
bees will not leave a warm cluster to travel several inches to the bags of sugar syrup. Lastly,
there is the DIVISION BOARD feeder which is the worst of all feeders for use in cold weather;
because the beekeeper has to totally open the hive to either inspect or refill the feeder, if it is
warm enough for the bees to go to the feeder, many bees drown in the syrup, and like the
Entrance, Hive Top, and Baggie feeders, bees will not leave a warm cluster and travel several
inches to the Division Board feeder in cold weather.

Go to a deli and ask the owner for empty gallon, GLASS jars that held dill pickles, pigs feet,
mustard, or potato salad. He trashes them, but give him a jar of your honey and he will save them
for you. Why GLASS, and not PLASTIC? When turned upside down, the weight of the sugar
syrup tends to cause the plastic shape to collapse, and suddenly the syrup runs into the hive like
"dumping a pail of water". Drill about 4 holes in the jar lid using a bit no larger than 1/16" or
3/32". A hole 1/8" is too large and the syrup might run all over the bees, which will kill them if
clustered. If there is no emergency for you to feed, you simply invert the gallon jar over the hole
in the inner cover. I put two little sticks, about 1/4" in diameter, near either end of the inner cover
hole ON TOP OF THE FRAMES, so that the weight of the jug of sugar syrup can't bend the
inner cover down on top of the frames below it. If you need to give the bees a LOT of syrup in a
hurry, do away with the inner cover, and invert 1, 2, 3, or even 4 gallon jugs of syrup directly of
top of the 10 frames and surround these jars with an empty deep hive body or 2 medium hive
bodies to keep out the wind, rain, or snow. Feeding this way is so easy, because the jars are
sitting right on top of the frames that hold the bees and the bees can feed themselves and store
away feed without breaking cluster! Just in case you don't really understand bees "clustering" or
the term "tight cluster": The wing muscles of a honey bee become paralyzed at temperatures
below 50°, so when the outside temperature drops below 50°, bees think about "huddling up" to
keep warm. When the temperature inside the hive gets down to about 40°, bees begin to cluster
together tightly, and won't even move a distance of just 1-2 inches away from the cluster in fear
of losing cluster warmth and becoming even leg paralyzed so they can't move at all and die. 1-2
inches is not very much distance, and that is very reason that the ENTRANCE feeder, HIVE
TOP feeder, BAGGIE feeder, and DIVISION BOARD feeder all FAIL TO FEED BEES when it
is cold, because the bees just can't travel the 5"-6" from the cluster to these feeders!

Lastly, don't tell me or others that a cold winter killed your bees, because you are just showing
your lack of knowledge about bees. COLD temperatures, not even 60° below zero, killed healthy
bees in tests conducted by numerous bee scientists, and this has been well documented in
numerous bee books. Winter losses are primarily due to lack of AVAILABLE food, disease,
mites (particularly the tracheal mite), death of an old queen, a hive weak in population going into
the winter, lack of ventilation and DAMPNESS. Every colony should have an upper entrance at
the inner cover level to release the damp exhaled breath of the clustered bees. Don't think of
keeping warmth in a bee hive like keeping warmth in your house. Recently, we have learned that
a SCREENED bottom board provides more ventilation and hence better winter protection for
bees than the standard wooden bottom board. Talk to the working bee scientists and bee
researchers of today if you doubt me. We learn new things in our CHANGING TIMES. For
example, when I was born, new mothers were kept at bed rest in the hospital for 10 days before
they could go home. The first heart transplant was just 40 years ago, and now we even have
multiple transplants of lungs, kidneys, and liver. My wife has new plastic knees. Now, artificial
insemination of queen bees has become a major tool in the breeding of bees to gain desirable
traits or curtail undesirable traits (look at ads in Bee Culture or the American Bee Journal about
the sale of breeder queens, hygienic queens, SMR queens, and others).
Don't be a TERRORIST and let your bees die of starvation, because you were too lazy to feed
them. I have given you fair warning that I have seen a lot of light weight colonies out there that
could be saved by feeding heavy sugar syrup in October and November. And while you are
about it, don't forget to feed Fumidil-B to kill the spores of NOSEMA disease which normally
damages honey production the following year; and bee scientists estimate that over half of all
bee colonies in the entire country have some nosema disease every spring because people are
careless and don't treat for it in October and November.

I hope that you don't think that this article is just the "prattlings of a nasty, old man" who really
should not make all these blunt statements; but I am willing to be DEMANDING and BLUNT
even if it makes you mad at me so that you react, attend to your bees if they are light in stores
and hence become a better beeKEEPER and not just a beeHAVER. Then, you too can join with
me in knowing the JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

I have mentioned bee scientists and bee researchers several times. Many, many of them attend
the annual meeting of the American Beekeeping Federation to be held in one of the jewel cities
of the South this coming January in Savannah, Georgia. Why don't you join me there, and we
can lunch with them, or just get them aside and talk with them. Further, many of the major honey
producers of our country will be present and you can talk with them and hear how they manage
20,000 colonies, hear how much honey they produce per colony, hear how often they requeen,
and hear how they treat diseases. Further, you can visit Wilbanks Apiary FREE OF CHARGE
and see their queen production facilities that produce tens of thousands of queens each year, or
you can take a two day tour of some Georgia and Florida Apiaries after the 4 day meeting is
over, again FREE OF CHARGE. You will hear presentations of some of the finest bee scientists,
researchers, breeders, and honey producers in the world, sit with them and talk with them; and
you will not be expected to listen to any of my presentations because you can hear me anytime.
WHAT A TIME FOR A VACATION - IN THE SUNNY SOUTH AFTER CHRISTMAS. I sure
hope to see every one of you in Savannah just 3 months from now!

November 2001

Answers to Repeated Questions

There are certain questions that are asked at any meeting of beekeepers that you attend and they
are asked not only by beginners and novices, but sometimes by someone who has had some
colonies for several years. As in most cases, these questions come from someone who has just
not paid enough attention to the studies of bee biology or bee behavior, and it "shows" in their
lack of ability to "keep" bees or make a prosperous honey crop year after year. Every "true"
beekeeper should be able to answer these oft repeated questions with ease, but in case you have
forgotten, here are some of those questions and the answers to them.
Question #1 : This summer, suddenly I found my colony with little brood and
queenless, so I hurriedly bought a new queen and introduced her, but my bees killed
her. WHY?
Although you did not see a swarm or think there are less bees now than when the colony was
queen-right, the absence of brood and no queen to be found is a strong indication that the colony
swarmed. A swarm is planned ahead by the bees. It just does not happen on the spur of the
moment. Bees stop feeding their queen, reducing her weight so she can fly, a week or so before
the swarm, and this results in the laying of very little brood. The swarm may take place 3-4 days
before a virgin queen emerges from her queen cell. After emergence, the virgin queen wanders
about the colony for several days and even takes a few 5 minute orientation flights around her
hive to get the "lay of the land".

She does not become sexually mature until 6-7 days after emergence, and hence does not take
her nuptial flight to the drone gathering area until the first nice, warm after- noon after she is 6
days old. After breeding with 5-15 different drones (we used to believe it was just one), she
returns to the hive and lays the first few eggs 3 days later. If you now count the number of days
between the day the old queen stopped laying eggs and the day the new queen started to lay eggs,
you come up with a number like 18-25 days. Further, since some beekeepers have trouble seeing
"open brood" and only see CAPPED brood, add another 10 days making a total of 28-38 days.
Further, a virgin queen is very difficult to see, since her abdomen is not large and elongated by
holding the eggs she will later lay, so she almost looks like just another worker bee.

You have opened your colony, and finding no evidence of a laying queen, introduced a new
queen, and she was killed. Of course she was killed, because the bees already had a new queen
(maybe still a virgin) in their colony and did not need some "foreigner". You could have saved
$15 dollars spent on a replacement queen, by TESTING the colony to see if it was queenless by
just adding a frame of worker eggs or 1 day old larvae from another colony to the brood chamber
of the suspect colony, wait 2-3 days and inspect whether the bees have started to build
EMERGENCY queen cells on the face of the new frame. If new emergency cells are found, your
colony was queenless and now they are raising a new emergency queen to replace the old queen;
but if no emergency cells have been started, the bees are "telling" you that they have a queen and
you just have not seen her yet, so new brood will start to be evident in 2-3 weeks.

Question #2: My bees just won't build comb out of foundation, and even eat holes in
the foundation. WHY?
Building comb is hard work, requiring lots of young bees (12-18 days old), and the bees have to
EAT about 8 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of comb! Bees don't waste their time and energy
to do this hard work unless there is an immediate NEED for drawn comb! What is immediate
need for comb? Cells for the queen to lay brood, or cells to store nectar which will be made into
honey. Hence, there must be a nectar flow present or maybe an ARTIFICIAL nectar flow (1:2 or
1:1 sugar syrup, not heavy 2:1) for bees to draw foundation into drawn comb! Even if you do not
want more bees, collection of a swarm is the greatest comb builder you can find, because those
bees HAVE TO BUILD COMB IN A BIG HURRY so the queen has cells to lay in and storage
space for nectar to feed these new bees. Never look a GIFT HORSE in the mouth! Always place
a new swarm on foundation with lots of thin sugar syrup.
Question #3: Is plain sugar a good winter feed? Some say use honey only, and others
use high fructose corn syrup because it is cheap, and some have used soft drink
sweetner, old Jello sweetner or chewing gum sweetner. WHAT IS THE BEST FEED
MATERIAL?
Plain "old table" sugar, which is over 95% sucrose is considered the best and safest winter feed
of ALL feeds, including honey. Plain sugar is converted to honey as the bees store it, and plain
sugar is bee disease free, and has no indigestible contaminants that might occur in honey from
unknown sources or any of the manmade sweetners. Plain sugar will never give a bee dysentery,
which often occurs to bees during a long winter confinement and fed on disease free honey or
any of the manmade sweetners. Maybe you have forgotten that all nectars are primarily made of
water and SUCROSE (plain old table sugar), and this is what the bees bring home to be
converted into the two simpler sugars, fructose and glucose, that make up honey.
Question #4: What is the "secret or trick" to have lots of FORAGER AGE bees
ready at the time of a major nectar flow? For example, I have placed colonies of my
bees on the same lot as George Imirie's bees, but his bees always produce much
more honey than mine. WHY?
There is a 40 day period of time between the time an egg is laid and the worker bee it produces is
of foraging age (over 19 days old)! Hence, if your major honey flow starts about May 10th, the
egg that produces a forager age bee who can forage on that nectar flow has to be laid before
April 1st, and hence you want your queen to be heavily laying eggs during all of MARCH.
However, March is still pretty chilly, and hence, lots of nurse bees are needed then to keep the
cluster warmed to 95° for the queen to lay eggs. By starting to feed 1:1 sugar syrup as a egg
laying stimulant for the queen from a gallon jar directly over the bee cluster in early February,
you get a sizable number of new bees emerged in early March to expand and warm the bee
cluster so the queen can lay more strongly during all of March that will produce a large number
of forager age bees ready to gather the nectar of a major nectar flow that begins about May 10th.
Of course, to prevent swarming, the brood chamber frames must constantly be REVERSED
during this entire period so that the queen essentially always has open laying space ABOVE her.
Having a "ton" of bees in a colony is NOT the answer to your question. The "trick" is to have
lots of FORAGER AGE bees at the correct time, and the "secret" of that is to start early feeding
of stimulated feed, 1:1 sugar syrup, right on top of the cluster, and REVERSE brood chambers
constantly as needed to prevent swarming.
Question #5: Sometimes my bees have superseded a perfectly fine, high production
queen. WHY?
Maybe you answered your own question when you said "high production" queen implying that
she laid large quantities of worker bees resulting in a high honey yield. You also said "perfectly
fine". To who? You, or the bees? As cruel as it may be, knowledge of bee biology and bee
behavior will clearly point out to you that worker bees will destroy their own mother and raise a
new queen if they are dissatisfied with the performance of their mother. Maybe the queen has
been injured (even by a careless beekeeper), or was poorly bred so her egg laying ability has
fallen off, or has some disease, or it is just her "time" to die. We only know that worker bees
anticipate and EXPECT certain high standards of egg laying from a queen, and if she cannot
reach those standards, the bees will supersede her with a new queen. Just because you have heard
stories of some queen laying 3000 eggs/day, and queens still performing well in their 3rd year
and not being superseded doesn't necessarily mean that these performances actually happened, or
these statements have been observed by scientists who were using a MARKED queen and daily
removing all laid brood for counting. Scientists have estimated (not proven) that as many as 60%
of all queens live no longer than 16 months. Why 16 months? Emerged (born) in April, year
1990, performed well during all of 1990 and spring of 1991, but was superseded before
September 1991, a period of 16 months. We do know that queens "born" in the EARLY spring
might not be as well prepared for a long productive life as a queen born in the summer, because
her entire prenatal care has been "aimed" at an early laying date by the queen breeder. Further,
who is it that can say without fear of contradiction that the laying of approximately 200,000 eggs
per year, one at a time, doesn't "take something out of you", so you are not equally prepared to
lay another 200,000 eggs the following year?

Bee scientists have clearly proven that a first year queen is superior in all respects to a second
year queen, and far, far, superior to a third year queen. Most important of these differences is the
first year queen rarely swarms when compared to older queens, and this is why so many honey
producers requeen EVERY year and sometimes twice in a year. Queen substance, 9-ODA (9-
oxo-2-decenoic acid), all though first identified in 1960 has been heavily researched in more
recent years, and this pheromone which inhibits queen rearing to produce swarms by the workers
exists at its highest point immediately after breeding and reduces in volume a little each day in
the life of a queen. Hence, not only is a very young queen capable of laying many, many eggs,
but she also produces enough queen pheromone that swarming is greatly reduced when
compared to an older queen.

Question #6: There seems to be so many different methods of requeening. Are there
some parameters that should be avoided and others to be utilized for almost fool-
proof requeening? Is there a "best" system?
Although some have observed two queens in the same hive, usually after supersedure, this is
unusual, because 99% of the time, honey bees will not tolerate more than one queen in the same
brood chamber. Two queens, separated by a double screen and each occupying a separate brood
chamber is a totally different subject. The makeup of a colony as ordained by nature is ONE
queen, maybe 500-800 drones, and up to 60,000 worker bees. There are some parameters to be
considered relative to requeening. The favorite food of a worker bee is NECTAR, not honey
which is only a stored winter food for survival. Hence, bees are happy and contented during a
nectar flow, but grumpy during a dearth of nectar. Bee management of the brood is easy for them
when the weather is warm, but becomes difficult as the temperature cools. As a worker bee ages,
its tasks, responsibilities, and capabilities change. A bee less than 19 days old, is a house bee
whose principle jobs are feeding the bee larvae, comb building, ripening nectar into honey,
grooming the queen, cleaning and polishing cells for the queen to lay eggs in, housecleaning,
temperature regulation of the hive, and guard bee; but to sum up all her duties, this "house or
nurse bee" primarily takes care of the queen and her brood. The jobs of the bee older than 19
days is foraging for nectar, pollen, propolis, or water; and has little to do with the queen or caring
for the brood. Hence, young nurse bees are desirable to be with the new queen when requeening,
but avoid the forager age bees. Since bees principle sense is olfactory (sense of smell) rather than
sight and the inside of the bee nest is very dark, the new queen has to be pro- tected upon
introduction so most of the bees can smell her and touch her to aid them to "warm up to the new
queen" rather than killing this new foreigner with the odd smell. It is most helpful if the weather
is warm, sunny, with a nectar flow that keeps the older foraging bees outside foraging and the
house bees inside happily doing their predestined jobs rather than the weather being cool, rainy,
windy, or a dearth of nectar where "everybody" is miserable and discontent. Unlike humans, the
bee is extremely dependent on the weather. The most important job of the queen is egg laying, so
a laying queen is far easier to introduce to new bees than a non-laying queen. Based on that
which is stated above, the best requeening procedure is to introduce the new queen into a nucleus
of only nurse bees, which is being continuously fed 1:1 sugar syrup, let her start laying some
eggs for several days, then place the nuc over a double screen on top of the colony to be
requeened and leave it undisturbed for 4-5 days and continue the 1:1 feeding. Then, find the old
queen and destroy her, remove the double screen 24 hours later, and the colony is requeened
successfully about 99% of the time.

For FALL REQUEENING, which I strongly prefer over spring requeening, see an old
PINK PAGE entitled "Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening".

December 2001

What will be Important in 2002?

As a scientist, I was taught to deal in cold hard facts, using no assumptions, no guesses, ignore
anecdotes, and avoid "gray" areas. As a result, I go to Las Vegas only to see the shows, ignore
the football point spread, don't play any lotteries, and don't allow any "strange" queens in my
hives. Then, WHY do I dare PROGNOSTICATE what I think might be important in 2002?
Based on what bee scientists have found in very recent years, then I dare predict there will be
more good news about the control of mites without the use of many chemicals, less bee death
caused by mites, more beeHAVERS upgrading to beeKEEPERS, and a generally improved
beekeeping in the U. S.

Since the queen bee is the most important "critter" in a colony, let me briefly, (being 'brief' is
tough for me) tell you about TWO noteworthy types of queens. These queen "types" have
nothing to do with the race of bees, like Italian, Carniolan or Russian hybrids, but rather a
different genetic factor that can be present in any race. I am speaking about HYGIENIC queens,
and SMR queens.

Almost 40 years ago, the famous Dr. W. C.. Rothenbuhler of Ohio State University found that
certain bees would remove dead larvae from cells, and another group of bees would remove dead
pupae from capped cells, and ANOTHER GROUP would perform BOTH "cleanup" functions.
Rothenbuhler's research showed that bees who possessed BOTH of hese cleanup functions were
quite resistant to American Foul Brood disease. About the same time, Steve Taber and Martha
Gilliam, working independently of each other found the same thing. Why wasn't this discovery
pursued at that time? LACK OF MONEY FOR RESEARCH! Terramycin had just been found a
few years before Rothenbuhler's work and the use of this seemed to have the problems of AFB
temporarily solved, so this research concerning bees "cleaning" their nest site (hence,
HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR) was "put on the back shelf" to collect dust.

However, about 10-15 years ago, Dr. Marla Spivak of the University of Minnesota, desperate to
find non chemical methods of Varroa mite reduction, started intensive research on
Rothenbuhler's findings. Armed with her findings that only the bees from certain queens
exhibited this "nest cleaning" genetic difference, she bred breeder queens via artificial
insemination of the drones produced by these certain queens to the point that the University of
Minnesota's apiary of Italian bees now has colonies that exhibit HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR. Dr.
Spivak provides HYGIENIC breeder queens to Glenn Apiaries in California who will sell you
new queens that they have been produced from these Minnesota HYGIENIC queens. At this
time, these queens are rather expensive for hobbyist beekeepers, but who knows, if some
respected commercial beekeepers or well known side-liners and/or hobbyist beekeepers enjoy
success of having bees that can stay alive and produce without the use of chemicals to control
mite population, this will be as important as finding Terramycin. Further, if it is found that these
HYGIENIC bees are resistant to other diseases like American Foul Brood, Chalk Brood,
Nosema, etc., this finding might equal Langstroth's discovery of "bee space".

In the past 5 years, Drs. Harbo and Harris of the Baton Rouge Bee Laboratory, have found that
there are certain queen bees that posses a genetic difference that Suppresses Mite Reproduction,
SMR. Many identical colonies, but headed by different queens, were examined and it was found
that some colonies had many fewer mites than others. Therefore, the queens of the colonies with
the fewest mites were used as breeder queens to try to isolate this genetic difference, and this was
repeated over and over until colonies are now established that have very few mites present even
under harsh conditions. Briefly (that word again), it was found that not every female mite that
enters a bee larval cell produces any ADULT mite progeny. This fact can be divided into 5
categories: a) mites how don't lay any eggs, b) mites who die before laying any eggs, c) mites
who only produce a son and no daughters, d) mites whose progeny die beforereaching mite
adulthood. and e) mites whose progeny has been laid too late to reach mite adulthood.

Science cannot yet explain this genetic difference in queens, but as long as a queen that
possesses this genetic attribute can also produce gentle bees, high honey production, and other
desired qualities, do we need an explanation of this difference now? If SMR queens, regardless
of whether they are Italians, Carniolans, Russian or what-have-you can live and perform without
the use of chemicals to control varroa mites, I think that is fine. SMR queens are available from
Glenn Apiaries in California, and other sources found in the monthly bee magazines.  Do I have
either HYGIENIC queens or SMR queens yet? No, but I surely will soon! Surely, you should
realize that there are some queen breeders that are going to put a great deal of emphasis on
producing your $12 queen from a HYGIENIC or SMR breeder queen; while there are others who
say or even advertise that their queens are HYGIENIC or SMR queens, but they have never
bought a single breeder queen that fits these new genetic differences. The well storied "use car
salesman" is not the only liar in this world.

This coming spring, one of my PINK PAGES will contain a detailed description of how YOU
can test your own colonies to determine if your queen is HYGIENIC or not. You do not have to
be a scientist to make the test, but just follow the directions of a scientist.
A NEW BOOK is out, and it costs only $15, cost of a restaurant dinner. Dr. Jim Tew, the
Alabama "boy" who was smart enough to earn is Ph. D. at the University of Maryland before Dr.
Dewey Caron "absconded" to Delaware, has written the "brief" (that word again) 225 page book
entitled BEEKEEPING PRINCIPLES. It was partially designed to replace Walter T. Kelly's
famous "Starting Right With Bees", a book for beginners; but knowledgeable Jim Tew just had
to do more than write for beginner's and he did. The book is written totally different than my l-o-
n-g way of writing, and is written in concise detail, but covering almost all subjects that a
hobbyist beekeeper needs to know. I hardily recommend the book!

Although not my favorite President, I am constantly reminded of a statement in John F.

Kennedy's Inaugural Address which says ......Not what the country can do for you, but what you
can do for your country. Good beekeeping is "Not what the bees can do for you, but what you
can do for your bees". It is a beeKEEPER'S job to HELP his bees.

Still, even in the year 2001, we find so many beeHAVERS and even some beeKEEPERS who
are still trying to raise bees like "Daddy did", don't read any recent bee books, don't attend bee
meetings that have presentations by bee scientists and researchers, or don't attend meetings at all.
Their bees die, and they wonder why, or explain to all about the bad winter, the summer drought,
the lousy queen they bought, or that they could only look at their bees on Saturdays. There is no
excuse for beeHAVERS when there are some fine recent books for sale, and some Master
Beekeepers around who want to help. Why do I keep using that word recent? So many MAJOR
PROBLEMS have appeared in these past 17 years, beginning with the tracheal mite in 1984, the
Varroa mite in 1987, the entrance of the Africanized Bee into the U. S. in 1990, the small hive
beetle in 1998, resistant American Foul Brood in 2000, plus other new problems. Just as
computers have made the typewriter almost obsolete, books and articles written before about
1992, regardless of how famous the author was, are essentially OBSOLETE because they do
NOT cover these subjects that are causing mayhem today. I think all beekeepers except the real
beginners should have The BEEKEEPERS HANDBOOK, 3rd Edition of April 1998 by Dr.
Diana Sammataro, cost $30; the beekeeper's "desk Bible", THE HIVE AND HONEY BEE, 1992
Extensively Revised Edition, arranged by Dadant's Joe Graham and its 1300+ pages written by
the top 33 bee scientists and researchers of the U.S., cost $36; and finally Dr. Jim Tew's new
book, BEEKEEPING PRINCIPLES for $15. Surely somebody might want to give you a book
for Christmas. All the bee equipment houses sell the first two books, and Jim Tew's book is
available from Walter T. Kelly Co in Clarkson, KY

Speaking of attending meetings, I have two meetings in my mind that I want to call to your
attention: January 9th, the January meeting of MCBA. I have purchased 125 SUPER slides made
by MAAREC, Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium, whose principals
are Doctors Scott Camazine, Dewey Caron, Maryann Frazier, Jeff Pettis, and Diana Sammataro.
52 slides are about Honey Bee Diseases, and the other 73 slides are about Honey Bee Parasites,
Pests, and Predators. I will show half of these slides along with explanatory discussion on
January 9th., and perhaps the remaining half at our February 13th meeting. Some members have
missed quite a few meetings lately (my PINK PAGES can NOT take the place of a good
discussion), so I hope you can attend.

Wednesday, January 16th is opening day for the annual meeting of the American Beekeeping
Federation in Savannah, Georgia, and it ends on Saturday night, January 19th. Here will be
gathered perhaps 500-700 beekeepers and their wives together with queen breeders, honey
producers, scientists, researchers, equipment manufacturers and a trade show, package bee
suppliers, and honey packers. National Honey Board officials will be there. YOU can sit down
and talk with all of these people and LEARN almost anything you want to know. There are talks,
slides, panel discussions, and workshops about all kinds of subjects. Ask the commercial
beekeeper who owns 10,000 colonies why he requeens every year; or ask the Director of the
Apistan Company what can you do if your mites are resistant to Apistan; or ask a package bee
company what they are going to do about shipping now after changes in U. S. Postal Service; or
talk to Dave Westervelt, the small hive beetle expert, how to avoid the SHB; or talk to a producer
of a million pounds of honey every year about how many supers he installs on a colony all at one
time, or talk to Dr. Marla Spivak about HYGIENIC bees; or talk about any subject that puzzles
you.

I won't expect you to attend my 4 hour workshop about improving your management skills,
because you hear enough of me at home. In addition to all of this, there are two special programs
BEFORE and AFTER the official dates of January 16th - January 19th. On Tuesday, January
15th, there is a tour of Willbanks Apiaries via special bus (just 20 miles away) and how he raises
and sells thousands and thousands of queens every year PLUS thousands of packages of bees;
and REG Willbanks is going to be the HEAD guide and MAIN speaker, including a "Low
Country boil (shrimp, corn, potatoes, sausage) and oyster roast, arriving back "home" in
Savannah at 8 P.M. After the meeting ends on Saturday night, you can take a three day bus tour
of Georgia and Florida apiaries, bee related companies and famous sites. You can forget the cold
of Montgomery County, escape the horrible traffic into Washington, and get fat on that
SOUTHERN COOKING with its Fried Chicken, Country Ham, Shoo Fly Pie, saltwater seafood,
and of course, grits. Savannah itself was one of the few towns in the South that was not damaged
in the Civil War and the beauty of the old South "stands out like a sore thumb" in and around
Savannah. Hilton Head Island is just 50 miles away and Charleston, SC where I attended the
Citadel before Pearl Harbor Day, and where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, is just 100
miles north. After the Terrorist Day of September 11th, don't you think it would be nice to see
much of the country that made the U. S. the greatest country in the world! Lord willing, I will be
whizzing around Savannah on my electric scooter and talking to my beekeeping friends from
almost every state in the union; and I hope that you are one of them. Just watch for my honey-
bee windsock on my scooter.
 January 2002

Starting The Year Right!

It is a NEW YEAR, so some changes have been made. Let us start off with an INDEX of this
month's PINK PAGES subjects:

1.) Reversing Brood Chambers - Perhaps the most important technique to prevent swarming, but
it has to be started in February.
2.) Feeding: Why? When? What? How Much? - Many beekeepers just don't feed their bees. Are
they uninformed, lazy, or too cheap?
3.) Which Month Do Most Bees Starve? - Many people guess January or February because it is
so cold, but they are wrong.
4.) November and First Half of December have had 70° and 80° Days - Is this unseasonable
warm weather good or bad for your bees and their winter stores of honey?

Reversing Brood Chambers

Of all the many techniques and management systems used to prevent swarming, REVERSING
THE BROOD CHAMBERS is perhaps the most important manipulation, but the time to do it is
VERY IMPORTANT. In our Washington, DC area, I like to make my first reversal on the first
day in February when the temperature exceeds 50°. YES, I said February!

WHAT is "reversing" the brood chambers? During the course of the late fall and winter
(November through March), the cluster of bees in the lowest brood body slowly move
UPWARD into the top brood body, leaving the lower brood body empty. For some strange
reason, when the queen has no more egg laying space in the upper body, the bees either stop the
queen from laying or they swarm rather than going to the empty lower body to lay. Bee scientists
cannot explain this characteristic, but know it exists. In these cool months, even though the bees
can fly outside on warmer days, bees just want to keep their brood area moving UPWARDS,
rarely down. Hence, a "smart" beekeeper helps his bees by reversing the positions of the almost-
full top brood body with the empty lower brood body. This does not require moving individual
frames, but just switching positions of the brood bodies.

How many reversals are necessary in a season? There are many, many variables involved here, e.
g., what size brood bodies, hive population, weather temperature, race of bees, queen fecundity,
food availability, etc.; and therefore, one cannot say "reverse every 2 weeks", or "once a month".
Reversals are made WHEN NEEDED. The hive population is extremely important, because
there must be a large number of bees to protect the brood from being chilled. I use ALL
MEDIUM bodies (no deeps), and the 2nd reversal is usually about 3 weeks after the first
reversal, whereas reversals done in April or May might be needed as often as 10 days apart. If
you use deep bodies for brood and make the first reversal in February, you will probably make a
total of 3 reversals before the nectar flow is strong in May. If you are using medium bodies, 6
5/8", you will probably make 4-5 total reversals.
What does one have to be CAUTIOUS about? NEVER REVERSE WHEN THE OUTSIDE
TEMPERATURE IS BELOW 50°. You don't dare "split the brood", or some of it will chill and
die. What is "splitting the brood"? If brood is in BOTH the top body and the lower body, DON'T
reverse because the brood will be split away from being close together into two "islands" of
brood wide apart, one island close to the bottom board and the other island close to the inner
cover. Wait a few more days until you find 90%-100% of the brood in the top body and almost
zero brood in the lower body, and then, REVERSE.

There are many people who just "can't be bothered to do all this reversing" in the cool months of
February and March, and then WONDER WHY their bees did not make a sizable honey crop
while nearby beekeepers enjoyed a record breaking crop. In our Maryland area, our nectar flow
starts quite early, about April 15th and is almost always over by June 1st or June 10th. Gathering
as much as 20-25 pounds of nectar per day to make a high yield honey crop requires a LARGE
number of FORAGING AGE bees (FORAGERS, not just bees). A foraging age bee is a bee
older than 19 days old! The gestation period of a worker bee is 21 days, and it spends the first 18
days of its life doing hive duties, mainly being a nurse bee of the brood larvae; and does not go
out foraging for nectar or pollen until it is 19 days old. 21 days gestation period plus 19 days of
hive duty equal FORTY DAYS between the time its egg was laid and foraging. Therefore, if you
want a foraging age bee ready for foraging at the start of a major nectar flow on April 15th, the
queen had to lay "it's" egg 40 days prior to April 15th, meaning before MARCH 6th! March 6th!
March 6th!

One might say: "All the above is very nice, but how do you get a queen to lay eggs in the cold of
February and early March?" Bees do not use calendars, but their actions are predicated by the
weather conditions. When the skunk cabbage, alders, and maples start producing pollen in late
January, followed by a small amount of weak nectar from maples or dandelions, these are signals
to the bees that spring time is just around the corner; and that means nectar collecting to make
honey for next winter's survival and that require a tremendous number of worker bees to gather
that nectar. Hence, the worker bees start heavy feeding of their queen to produce large quantities
of eggs, plus cleaning and polishing of thousands of brood cells for the queen to lay eggs in.
Again, the "smart" beekeeper helps his bees by "tricking" them in the belief of an early spring by
feeding them a light sugar syrup, 1 pound of sugar in 2 pints of water, and adding a teaspoon or
so of pollen substitute to the tops of brood frames. The worker bees interpret this light sugar feed
and pollen substitute as the real thing of nectar and pollen, and get "Mother Queen" rapidly
laying eggs in cold February.

Reversing brood chambers plus feeding egg laying stimulants sugar and pollen substitute is a
very positive way of increasing brood production and heavy colony population which is the basic
key to making a large honey crop, provided that the colony does NOT swarm. What else is
necessary to help prevent swarming? Of course, we now know that a major deterrent to
swarming is to have a queen that is less than 12 months old. Another swarm deterrent is to have
super space on the colony for nectar storage that relieves the brood chamber of being crowded
with stored nectar. Having a young queen means requeening the colony every year, and I
personally prefer to do this every September 1st rather than stress my bees in the spring and
interrupt honey production. However, having just one super of drawn comb on the colony ahead
of the major nectar flow is a good insurance policy against swarming. However, so many people
complain that the bees won't go through the queen excluder to make use of the super, and some
unknowledgeable people have even referred to a queen excluder as a "honey excluder". They are
unknowlegeable because they don't know how or just refuse to "BAIT" a super so that bees will
not resist going through a queen excluder to get to the super. Baiting a super is very simple! On
April 1st, set a super directly on the top brood body WITHOUT a queen excluder, and inspect it
at the end of a week. After you find two or three frames of that super partially filled with
something, either nectar or maybe brood, make sure the queen is back in the brood chamber and
add a queen excluder under that super, because the super is now baited and the bees will freely
go through the excluder now to do their jobs. Of course, you should have an upper entrance in
the front edge of the inner cover so that forager age bees can come and go from the super without
having to travel through the queen excluder causing congestion in the brood chamber, or you
might use an Imirie Shim if you do not have an upper entrance slot in the inner cover. I use
BOTH: an Imirie Shim between supers #1 & #2, a second Imirie Shim between supers #3 & #4,
and an upper entrance slot in my inner cover, so my foraging bees have can come and go to the
supers via 3 entrance holes without ever going through the brood chamber area. I put the first
super, the bait super, on about April 1st and add another 4 supers of drawn comb on April 15th. I
don't stop the continuous feeding of light sugar syrup until April 15th when I add the 4 supers,
because the nectar flow should take over now.

If you do all this help for your bees, reversing, feeding artificial nectar and pollen, providing
plenty of super space EARLY, and having a queen, you have lessened the chance of swarming
and greatly enhanced the production of a superior yield of honey. Isn't that what you want to do?

Of course, we still have those who say:" Ma Daddy didn't do all that stuff"; and they are
probably correct, but Daddy's bees rarely produced more than 25-50 pounds of honey per season
instead of the 120-150 pounds/year that my bees normally produce.

With pound jars of honey selling for $3.50 or $4.00 each, that 120-150 pound yield sure looks
better to me than a 25-50 pound yield. Like leading a horse to water, it is up to him whether he
drinks or not; so I have explained REVERSING in great detail, now the rest is up to you.

Don't just HAVE bees - be a PROUD beeKEEPER!

Feeding: Why? When? With What? How Much?

You have to eat, don't you? Your dog has to eat, doesn't it? Your car has to "eat" gasoline, or it
won't run. Cockroaches eat your birthday cake crumbs unless they are cleaned up. Varroa mites
"ride around" on worker bees and feed on the bee's "blood", injuring the bee. Even germs and
bacteria have to feed to stay alive. When anything doesn't get fed, it becomes weak or sick, and
can no longer work very well or it dies.

MUCH TOO OFTEN, a colony of honey bees does not get fed by the beekeeper and it gets weak
or dies. Package bees, a swarm, a nuc, or a split is put in a hive of foundation and the bees are
expected to make that foundation into drawn comb, and the beekeeper provides them with a pint
of sugar water - ONE PINT! Bees have to consume 8 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of wax.
TOO MANY beekeepers believe that nature is going to provide enough nectar that the bees can
do all of this work without any supplemental feed. Can bees gather nectar in cold weather, rain,
nighttime, or during a dearth? If you want the bees to produce honey for you, don't you think that
you owe them the feed to help them build the comb (furniture), a large population of workers to
get through the winter, something that contains Fumadil-B to prevent Nosema disease, and some
Back-Up food stores in case the fall nectar flow is meager? Have you forgotten that bees
positively will not build comb (draw foundation) without a nectar flow, or an artificial nectar
flow of sugar syrup? Are you in good spirits when there is "nothing to do"? Don't try to requeen
a hive when the bees have "nothing to do" like out foraging, so you feed bees when you try to
requeen. Brood rearing requires a tremendous amount of feed to raise all those eggs and larvae
into adult bees, so if you want your queen to heavily lay eggs, feed your bees!

Basically, when you want your bees to do something that you have dreamed-up and it did not
come to past naturally, like requeening, building foundation into comb, getting them to eat
certain medicines, or increasing their population, FEED THEM and feed them long enough to
get the job done.

Starting a new colony in April with a package of bees is a good example. That colony is going to
require the building of at least 20 deep frames of foundation into drawn comb that will hold a
minimum of 70 pounds of honey to get it through the coming winter, and all this work will
require a large population of bees to get it done. Yet beekeeper after beekeeper only feeds this
new colony maybe one jar of sugar syrup. The proper way to prepare a really strong colony is to
feed it CONTINUOUSLY, WITHOUT STOPPING, from the day it began in April for another 4
months into September! You might even get some foundation drawn for supers. This might
require about 50 pounds of sugar which costs about 30¢/pound or $15. Isn't building a real strong
colony ready to really produce a large honey crop next year worth an extra $15, rather than have
a pitiful weak colony that might not make it through the winter? Are you a beeHAVER or a
beeKEEPER?

WHAT do you feed? Just plain table sugar is by far the best feed you can use. Any thing else,
such as honey, high fructose, coke syrup, left over candies, molasses, or you-name-it might have
disease germs like Foul Brood spores, or starches or indigestible minerals that give a bee
diarrhea. Just plain sucrose (table sugar) dissolved in water is absolutely the BEST feed.
Someone is going to ask: Why not honey that they made themselves, and hence it is their
"favorite" food. Honey is NOT the favorite food of a bee! Honey is an emergency food used in
the winter when no nectar is available. NECTAR, which is a watery solution of primarily
SUCROSE (table sugar) is the favorite food of a bee!

Sugar syrup can be made up into three different strengths, and you use different strengths for
different purposes and at different times of the year, as follows:

 1:2 - 1 pound of sugar dissolved in 2 pints of water is primarily used as a egg laying
stimulant for the queen in late winter and early spring
 1:1 - 1 pound of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water is primarily used as an artificial nectar
to get bees to build comb and feed brood larvae in spring and summer
  2:1 - 2 pounds of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water is a winter feed substituting for honey
in the fall or early winter

Which Month Do Most Bees Starve and Why?

Records show that more colonies of bees die of starvation during the month of March than any
other month, with February running a close second. Many beginners think that January is the
most difficult month because it is so cold, and the bees have to eat more honey to keep warm.
That is not true, and what is the reason that March is so bad?

Bee scientists have investigated this for 200-300 years, and all have shown that bees actually eat
practically nothing during November, December, and early January when they are generally
tightly clustered to maintain body warmth, and there is little or no brood being raised during this
time. But when the queen starts laying eggs in January, brood rearing requires a lot of "heat",
because the brood nest must be kept at a temperature of 91°-96° for the queen to lay eggs, and
feeding all those thousands of bee larvae for 6 days when their weight increases from 1
milligram to about 100 milligrams each requires a tremendous about of feed. By the time March
gets around, the queen is laying at an accelerated pace, maybe 1500 eggs per day, and this means
the bees have to warm a much larger area brood nest to 91°-96° and feed a tremendous number
of larvae each of which increases its egg weight 100 times in 6 days. There is a tremendous use
of food supplies in February and much more in March; and there is very little nectar available in
March to replace that stored winter honey.

If you remove the telescoping top cover of a colony during the winter months and you see a large
number of bees through the inner cover hole, immediately begin to be concerned that the colony
is SHORT of honey stores, because the bees should not have eaten honey that far up in the
colony before the spring nectar flow. Immediately (not tomorrow) put a feeder of sugar syrup
over that inner cover hole. On the next day (not the next weekend) that the temperature is over
50°, take off that inner cover and inspect the frames in that top body for stored honey. If the
outside frames have honey, but the center frames are almost empty, switch these frames. When it
is cold and the bees are clustered, bees will NOT move to the outside frames for honey, but
starve to death on the center frames. A bee cluster moves UPWARDS in a colony like smoke in
a chimney, and does not spread out sideways.

Why do I insist that you do something IMMEDIATELY, or the first day the temperature is over
50° and NOT wait for a weekend? 24 hours may be the difference between live bees or dead
bees, and if they died because they were short on stored food, it was not an Act of God or an
unusual cold spell, but rather, IT WAS YOUR FAULT! You killed your bees, because you did
not have a full 70 pounds of honey in the colony by December 1st for them to get through the
winter!

70 and 80 degree Temperatures in December!

I was removing the last few strips of Apistan from my colonies during the first week of
December when the temperature hit 80°, and I found frames with open brood in quantities the
size of my hand! Is this good or not good? It is good to have nice young new bees going into the
cold winter, because they will have a longer life span to warm the brood nest when the queen
starts heavy laying in February. However, it is bad to have weather warm enough to have brood,
because it opens the door to female varroa mites to lay new mite eggs with the bee larvae, and
these new adult mites will feed on the new adult bees during the winter. This unseasonable warm
weather plays havoc with the winter feed stores for the bees, because it is brood rearing that uses
so much stored honey.

KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR WINTER FOOD SUPPLY.

February 2002

Major Honey Crop or Dead Bees in 2002?

It Is Up To You!
After arriving home from the week long American Beekeeping Federation meeting in Savannah
GA, my computer was crammed with e-mail and asking for help. I drove over to a beekeeper's
home to see his one colony of bees. I found just a hand full of dead bees and the dead queen in a
2 story hive that still had 30-40 lbs. of honey in it. Dead in January, very small cluster of bees,
and still plenty of winter honey stores are the classic symptoms of tracheal mite infection. When
I asked if he had treated with MENTHOL in August or Grease Patties since July, I got a
disgusting, sad reply from this beeHAVER (certainly not a beeKEEPER) when he replied "Some
other beekeepers said that there aren't tracheal mites around here." I thought to myself, "Am I
wasting my time trying to upgrade beeHAVERS into beeKEEPERS?" In this case, I am glad that
much of both January and December had been warm, for otherwise I am sure that the death of
this colony would have been blamed on "cold weather"; and I have explained ad nauseum that
cold does not kill healthy bees.

Now it is February, and the weather forecast is seasonable cold weather for both February and
March, which is far better for bees than this unseasonable warm weather we have had for the last
3 months. Will your bees be ready to make a good honey crop here in central Maryland in April
and May? Mine will! In conversation with some of my Master Beekeepers, we ALL agree that
this devilish warm weather and even raising some brood has used up a lot of winter stored honey
and many bees will die of starvation unless the beekeeper starts feeding his bees in February.
What a sad death it must be to STARVE, and you can prevent it by feeding sugar syrup! Of
course, my bees will be fed anyhow starting now in order to stimulate queen egg laying, but
unfortunately, many beekeepers just "can't be bothered" to stimulate egg laying in February, and
then wonder why there honey crop is so low compared to mine. One should realize that, unlike
other parts of the country, essentially 90% of the honey produced in Maryland is made mostly in
April and May, maybe some sweet clover in June, and that is all. No longer can we count on
alfalfa or goldenrod, because there is little pasture for these blooms. Hence, it is very important
to have your colony population as strong as possible by mid April.

By way of review: Why stimulate egg laying in February or early March? To gain a good honey
crop, like 100-150 pounds/colony, there must be a LOT of foraging age bees. Foraging age
begins when a bee becomes 19 days old. The first 18 days of it life, the worker bee does NOT
forage for nectar, pollen, propolis, or water, but remains IN the hive during "house work" like
cleaning and polishing cells for the queen to lay eggs, feeding bee larvae several hundred times
for 6 days, comb building, packing nectar in cells, ripening nectar into honey, feeding and
grooming the queen, etc., etc. The gestation period of a worker bee is 21 days, but that new bee
does house work for 18 days, and does not go out foraging until the 40th day after its egg was
laid. That FORTY DAYS is as important as your social security number if you are to be a good
beekeeper! Hence, if a major nectar flow from black locust, tulip poplar, or blackberry starts on
May 1st, the worker bee egg that is going to make a forager age bee by May 1st has to be laid
before MARCH 21st, which is 40 days before May 1st. Further, the queen will not lay eggs in
comb space that is less than about 95°, and it take a lot of house bees to warm to warm a lot of
comb for the queen to lay in. Now you can understand why I start feeding 1:1 sugar syrup or 1:2
thinner sugar syrup + pollen substitute (I spread 3-4 tablespoons of Mann Lake Bee-Pro on frame
tops) to my bees early in February.

I do trust that you understand that there is a fine line between having a colony strong enough to
make a heavy yield of honey or swarming; and this is the reason I continue to talk about swarm
control. In the January edition of the PINK PAGES, I wrote a good bit about REVERSING.
Reversing is a major anti-swarm management tool that you should be using to break up brood
chamber congestion which is now considered the number ONE cause of swarming. Age of your
queen is considered the number TWO cause of swarming in swarm SEASON, which is April and
early May in central Maryland. Swarming during a good honey flow in middle to late May is due
to lack of enough supers of DRAWN COMB in place AHEAD of the bee's need for space, which
is all YOUR FAULT, not the bees.

You don't take a pill of penicillin or some antibiotic every day to prevent you from having the
flu, do you? Then why do you treat your bees with Apistan or CheckMite without TESTING the
colony for mite population? By treating when the bees don't need treatment, you are shortening
the bees life plus increasing the resistance of the mites so that your treatment won't work the next
time you need it. DON'T TREAT WITHOUT TESTING FIRST FOR MITE POPULATION!
For several years, I do a 24 TEST for varroa mites with one strip of Apistan on April 1st and July
1st and I have only had to make a treatment on just one hive in July. My use of Apistan for 6
weeks from October 1 to November 15th really does a fine killing job, so spring and summer
treatments are not necessary; BUT I TEST IN APRIL AND JULY TO PROVE THAT
TREATMENT IS NOT NEEDED RATHER THAN JUST ASSUME IT! I don't like the ether-
roll test or the powdered sugar test, so I use the STICKY BOARD TEST to get accuracy.

I hope every reader has a record honey crop in 2002!

I am having surgery on my stroke disabled vocal cord on February 28th which is the next thing
to being experimental. If successful, maybe I will be able to CHEER for you for each of your
successes and YELL at you when you foul up!

I hope the surgery does not negate my typing, because I plan on telling you all about HYGIENIC
bees in the March Pink Pages, and how you can test your own bees to see if they have good
"hygiene". Many bee scientists believe that the use of HYGIENIC bees will be the solution to
curtail use of chemicals for mite control. I surely hope so!

March 2002

A MAGIC BULLET???
This monthly edition of my PINK PAGES is a different one because I have resorted to
something I have never done before - I have REPEATED a previous PINK PAGE and added
some pages of more explanation of the problem in the hopes that my readers will see the
importance of SAVING apis mellifera and how to do it

It has been 17 years since the tracheal mite, acarapis woodi, was found in the U.S., and 14 years
since the more dangerous varroa mite, varroa jacobsoni, arrived here. These mites have created
far more problems for beekeeping than American Foul Brood ever did. Part of the problems
caused by the mites is the completely different environment enjoyed by adults after World War
II in contrast to the environment of adults prior to the war. Prior to the Great War, the great
majority of adults were raised in a rural area where many farms had bees, feral bees (wild bees)
were literally everywhere even in downtown city trees, a normal work week was 50-60 hours,
honey sales were important income "help", almost nobody was afraid of being stung, and "on-
the-job" training by someone with great experience (in lieu of education) was the normal way of
life. Sons were taught beekeeping by Daddy, who had been taught by Grampa; or taught by a
group of "good old boys" in the spirit of friendliness.

In spite of the apparent success of those beekeepers of that era, most were only beeHAVERS,
knowing precious little about bee biology, bee behavior, bee diseases, and having meager
knowledge of the overall importance of honey bee pollination to our human food ecology. In the
post war years leading up to the findings of mites in this country, adults had a much higher
standing of income, education, vacation time, and less concerns.

Now most problems could be solved by just "spending money', "buying a quick-fix", or search
your computer for the answer. No longer are people willing to work more than 40 hours/week, or
do anything that interferes with their vacation time, weekends at the beach, or their TV time.
They want a MAGIC BULLET to correct all their honey bee problems; and it is O.K. if this
Magic Bullet costs a little money as long as it does not require any of the beekeeper's TIME!
Since the arrival of mites, no feral bees are left, millions and millions of honey bee colonies have
died by mite infection, some beekeepers losing 90% of all the hives in his apiary, thousands of
yesterday's beekeepers giving up in despair, the entry of cheaper imported honey into the U. S.,
trailer loads of colonies being carried up the coast of our country "following the bloom" for crop
pollination, a million colonies being brought into California each February just to pollinate
almonds, apple orchards becoming non-productive due to lack of bees, and beekeepers trying
almost anything from Dentyne gum to vinegar spray to kill the mites. Our MAGIC BULLETS
have included Miticur, Apistan, CheckMite, Apicure, menthol, grease patties, of course more
concentrated Terramycin, food grade mineral oil, wintergreen, thymol, eucalyptus, numerous
essential oils, and probably Uncle Tom's dirty socks. Recently, there has been much ballyhoo
about Russian queens (just another Carniolan strain), SMR queens (but since it takes "two to
tango", where are the SMR drones?), and reduced cell size to 4.9 mm.; and perhaps one of these
might work in a scientist's apiary, but can they work for the hardworking beekeeper whose
interest is keeping his bees alive to make a crop of honey? Just because John Glenn can pilot a
space capsule to the moon does not imply that these flights will soon be offered to the public for
a weekend retreat. Like a drowning person grabbing for a straw, you name something, and
somebody has already tried that, so the beekeeper defends his apparent knowledge of bees by
reporting that his bees died from a cold, hard winter. LET US FACE IT - NO MAGIC BULLET
HAS YET BEEN FOUND.

People want to know "what are all these high salaried government scientists have been doing,
and why haven't they found a QUICK FIX that is CHEAP?" First there are precious few bee
scientists in our country, because our legislators know almost nothing about a honey bee, other
than HONEY and STING, so bees are deemed quite UNIMPORTANT except for the trial lawyer
who sues a beekeeper for millions of dollars because his bees stung someone who was
vandalizing an apiary. Further, research is a SLOW process, and an expensive process; but
primarily, the MAGIC BULLET has to kill the mites, but NOT kill the bees, NOT adulterate the
honey, NOT be absorbed in the bees wax comb, NOT be dangerous in handling by the
beekeeper, and CHEAP IN PRICE! That is a TALL ORDER! Just 2 weeks ago, the Federal
Government is proposing the closure of all BEE LABS except Weslaco, Texas. That is implying
to me that our government is saying: "We don't need U.S. honey, when we can get along with
foreign honey; and we don't need U.S. crops of fruit and vegetables, when we can import those
fruits and vegetables." I, too, can say "Mr. Legislator, I don't need YOU either if you are so
uninformed that you are unaware of the importance of honey bee pollination to our HUMAN
food supply and jobs for people in beekeeping". (I better shut-up; I am just a old, retired
scientist, who does not understand the new ways of GLOBAL ECONOMY.)

But by GOLLY, there is something that I DO UNDERSTAND and that is BEE BEHAVIOR! It
is almost crucial today that a beekeeper can "think like a bee", put away those feelings of
anthropomorphism, so he understand what a bee does, why she does it, and when she is going to
do it. If you are to be a real beeKEEPER in this 21st century, you are going to have to forget how
"Daddy did It', and adopt the new bee management methods and techniques that our bee
scientists and researchers have developed in this last decade. THERE IS NO SINGLE MAGIC
BULLET to cure all the problems caused by the arrival of the mites! In addition to the damage to
bees caused by the mites themselves, we now have PMS, parasitic mite syndrome, which is a
"secondary infection" of a colony infected with varroa mites which causes adult bee population
reduction, queen supersedure, and spotty brood distribution. Further, a new predator was found
in 1998, the small hive beetle, and is now found in about 25 states including some northern
states, and this beetle can cause a strong hive to abscond, adulterate the honey, and destroy
comb. WOW!

Two of these new management techniques are the use of IPM, Integrated Pest Management; and,
the keeping of bees that possess the genetic factor of HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR, and HB is what I
want to address you with now. Forget just BUYING a new queen or switching to a different race
of bees to gain HB, because it does NOT work that way. Too many people have bought a new
SMR queen or switched to Russian bees (which is a Carniolan strain) hoping to have hygienic
bees that didn't need any chemical treatments, and their bees died.

Good hygiene is a genetic factor found in every race of bees, and this factor can be passed on in
a queen's progeny if the drones that mated with the queen were also hygienically clean. This is
going to take several years of selecting queens for breeding by queen breeders so that a high
percentage of the queens that breeders produce possess this hygienic trait rather than the small
percentage that have it today. No one can ORDER or DEMAND a queen breeder to supply you
with a hygienically clean queen, but questioning by a large number of potential customers may
well force a queen breeder into doing some research of his own breeding stock to comply with
customer requests.

Knowing a great many of the paramount queen breeders of the U.S., I am not worried about a
compliance failure on their part, but I am concerned about the many, many queen PRODUCERS
in the country who allege that they know as much about queen breeding as Dr. Harry Laidlaw or
Dr. Robert Page; but the fact is that they know little more about genetics than you or I, but
advertise their expertise hoping you will buy. If enough beekeepers test their bees for hygienic
behavior, and find little or none, demand a refund from these charlatans or new bees no charge,
and e-mail or tell other beekeepers about their dealings with "Mr. Charlatan", we may either get
rid of some queen producers or get hygienically clean queens.

HOW CAN YOU TEST YOUR PRESENT BEES FOR HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR? You select a
2 square inch area (which is about 1.5 inches x 1.5 inches) of CAPPED brood (which contains
about 60 cells on each side of the comb, or 120 cells total), and you CUT IT OUT OF THE
FRAME, place it in your freezer for at least 24 hours, and then replace it in the frame where you
removed it. Hygienically clean bees will open the cappings, remove all the dead pupae or larvae
inside, and clean the cell within 48 hours, making it available to the queen for a new egg. If it
takes longer, your bees are lacking the genetic factor of HB, so requeen and test again the capped
brood that has been laid by the new queen. Someone is going to ask: Eh, so what? If my bees
possess this HB genetic factor, what does that have to do with varroa mites. If your bees are
clean bees, they will find and destroy varroa mites before the mites can damage the colony and
coupled with the good management techniques of IPM, you might not have to use any chemicals
like Apistan, CheckMite, Apicure, etc. except in some emergency situation.

Isn't that worth your efforts, or do you want to be stubborn and keep trying to buy a MAGIC
BULLET that does not exist.
TESTING PROBLEMS FOR HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR?
There always seems to be as stumbling block that confuses people right at the beginning, so we
will solve that problem right at the start - and that stumbling block is the use of todays PLASTIC
foundation, such as Dadant's Plasticell, Pierco's Snap-In, Mann Lakes Rite-Cell, etc. Like me,
many of you use plastic foundation or even all plastic frames, and these plastics can't be cut,
particularly when covered with live bees, so what can you do? Always paying strong attention to
what the leading scientists recommend, I e-mailed Dr. Marla Spivak, who is on semester leave
from Univ. of Minnesota and lecturing in Brazil, inquiring about a hobbyist testing procedure
and she discouraged my thoughts of killing the capped brood by pin-pricking each cell, saying it
would work but results would be questionable. Hence, I contacted her assistant and co-author,
Gary Reuter, who, recognizing the plastic foundation problem, suggested placing just one frame
with a sheet of beeswax foundation in the brood chamber of a colony during a strong nectar flow
and egg laying period, watch it until there is capped brood in it, and volia, you have a test sample
to cut out. Since you are only going to cut out a piece about1.5" x 1.5", freeze it for 24 hours, put
it back in place and temporarily hold it there with string until the bees reseal it, this one frame of
plain beeswax will be available for many future tests of HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR.

Now let's suppose that you make the test, and it shows that your bees do NOT have the genetic
factor of Hygienic Behavior, what are you going to do? I would telephone my queen breeder,
explain to him in detail that the test made on the bees that he supplied to me, indicate that the
bees are NOT HYGIENICALLY CLEAN, and I am not only UNHAPPY, but I am discouraged
with his lack of care in producing bees that lack this valuable factor. I will spend an additional
$10-$12 and purchase another queen from him, requeen my colony, test the brood for
HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR, and if I find little, I will no longer purchase from him, and will report
my complaint far and wide through my bee association, my bee friends, and all other interested
parties.

A queen producer who ignores a customer's action of this type will have but two choices: Find
another source of income, or start producing bees with the genetic factor of HYGIENIC
BEHAVIOR. Some might say that this is too demanding of a queen producer. Gosh, when you
purchase a new car, surely you ask about the horsepower, gas mileage, warranty, tire pressure,
repair hours and costs. Pray tell, what is wrong with asking a queen producer if he is testing for
and producing queens and bees that possess HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR? By the way, that $10-$12
cost for a new queen is a lot cheaper than buying more chemicals that probably aren't going to
work anyhow. Further, you will have the experience of REQUEENING, so your bee's temptation
to swarm is much less, and you can now serve as a requeening expert to the newer beekeepers in
your area. To help you in this regard, I enclose a copy of George's Almost Foolproof Requeening
Procedure that I use every September 1st, but of course, can be used at ANY time
 April 2002

Supering, Swarming, and Splitting

In any part of Maryland, during April the beekeeper's mind is focused on a single thought -
honey production! Unfortunately, although they have known about installing supers in April for
months in advance, their supers are STILL NOT prepared for installing on the bee colonies; and
particularly this year of 2002 when we have had almost the warmest winter on record and things
are blooming 3-4 weeks in advance of their normal blooming time. My bees are so strong in
population that I had to install one super on each colony on March 15th to free up brood chamber
space. Writing about an UNUSUAL time will only confuse you, so my remarks are applicable to
a NORMAL SEASON.

Far too many beekeepers install their supers LATER than they should, or don't install enough
supers, or don't install them ALL AT ONE TIME, or install more than one super of foundation.
ANY ONE of the aforementioned installation errors result in less honey production or swarming,
or both; and it is always the BEES that get blamed, when about 90% of the time, it is the fault of
the beekeeper in his failure to install supers at the proper time, install enough supers, and
installing frames of foundation as if they were frames of drawn comb.

Over 90% of our honey is made during the months of April and predominantly May, and maybe
a smidgen more the first 10 days of June, unless there is some very special circumstance in your
particular area. Assuming that some beekeepers have adequate frames of DRAWN COMB and
are NOT using foundation, the following procedures are my strong recommendation: Install the
first super on April 1st directly on top of the upper brood chamber with NO queen excluder
under it. Examine it a week or 2 weeks later and if bees are actively working on the frames in
that super evidenced by seeing nectar in several frames or eggs and larvae, the super is BAITED
and you now install the queen excluder under that super (making sure the queen is down below).
Bees will not hesitate to come through the excluder if the super is BAITED with fresh incoming
nectar or open brood. Sometime between April 15th and April 25th, install an Imirie Shim on top
of this super, and install at least 2 more supers of drawn comb over the Shim (I prefer 4 more
making a total of 5 plus a second Imirie Shim). Dr. Tom Rinderer, of the Baton Rouge Bee Lab,
PROVED that installation of supers ALL AT ONE TIME made the bees bring in more nectar
than installing supers one at a time on different dates. The Imirie Shim is used to give the
foraging bees quick ingress and egress to the supers without "fighting their way to and from the
congested brood chamber area" in order to use the front bottom board entrance. Back in the "old
days", some beekeepers used to drill "entrance" holes in the front of supers, but I hate holes in
my hive bodies so I started building my own Shims about 40 years ago. About 5 years ago,
Brushy Mountain Bee Supply asked my permission to build Imirie Shims for sale to other
beekeepers, and Steve Forrest says he sells a "bundle"of them now. By the way, bees will NOT
build burr comb in the empty space of Imirie Shim if there is enough empty super space present.
"Smart bees" don't waste time and energy building burr comb when empty comb space is
present.
If you do NOT have DRAWN COMB and have to use frames of foundation, that is a whole
"new ball game" that must be handled completely different. If you try to treat foundation as if it
were drawn comb or if you try to mix frames of foundation with frames of drawn comb, WHAT
A HORRIBLE MESS THE BEES WILL MAKE OF THIS, and you will have to destroy it, put
in new foundation, and start over again. When trying to get bees to build foundation into drawn
comb, there MUST POSITIVELY be a strong nectar flow in progress, and there MUST be all 10
frames (never 9) of foundation in a super tightly packed together endbar-to-endbar with any
empty space left near the side walls of the super. You can only draw ONE super of foundation at
a time, NEVER 2 or 3 or 4. You install just ONE super of 10 tightly packed frames of
foundation, when the 6 center frames are close to fully drawn and partially filled with nectar,
move them towards the outer walls of the super and put the undrawn foundation frames in the
center. When the center frames are about 60%-70% drawn and contain nectar, now is the time to
add the 2nd super of 10 frames of foundation and do to this 2nd super exactly what you did with
the 1st super, and the same for the 3rd or 4th super. Maybe now, you understand why I refer to
frames of drawn comb as "a beekeeper's MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION", because it is an
exhausting process to get properly drawn comb from foundation! So don't let the wax moths
destroy it after it is extracted, by protecting it with para-dichloro-benzene until you need it next
year.

Of course, you are not going to get very much honey anyhow if you have been lazy and not used
the accepted swarm prevention techniques which are primarily reversing of brood chamber
positions several times starting back in February to provide the queen with constant new empty
laying space, and secondly, having a real young queen (less than a year old) present. Good bee
management is applying prevention methods BEFORE the bees program swarming. If you have
not reversed the brood chambers and/or if your queen is over a year old, you don't have much
choice of methods of swarm prevention. For many years, people have clipped off a wing of the
queen so she can't fly, or opened a colony as often as every 8 days, examined all the brood
frames, and cut out every queen cell that could be found. Both of these procedures failed quite
often and the bees flew away in a swarm, because the bees killed the clipped queen and swarmed
with the virgin queen just a few days after she emerged from the queen cell, and in the procedure
of cutting out queen cells, the beekeeper accidentally missed one cell.

However, with luck, "you can have your cake and eat it too" by splitting the colony, temporarily
making two colonies for a couple of months, then killing off the old queen and uniting the two
colonies into one headed by the new queen you got to make the split. Not only will this probably
prevent swarming, you probably will save the great majority of the honey crop that you had
hoped for, and you have either increased your colonies from one to two, or you have requeened
the original colony with a young queen if you decide to unite the two colonies into one colony.
How do you make a split that does all this? Keep in mind TWO things: First, bees are unlikely to
swarm if the brood chamber is NOT congested and the queen has ample laying space; and
second, bees under the age of about 19 days are house bees and do NOT go out foraging for
nectar. Select a day with nice warm weather, little wind, and make the split between the hours of
about 10 AM and 3 PM (when most of the foraging bees are out foraging). Find the old queen
and set the frame she is on in some separate hive body off by itself. Now, you are free to do
anything you want with the remaining 19 deep brood frames or 29 medium brood frames if you
have ALL medium hive bodies like I have. Move 4-6 frames of OPEN brood with all the
covering bees, and at least1 frame of capped brood with covering bees to a new hive body and
add drawn comb frames to total 9 frames, and set this new colony next door to the parent colony
if you plan to reunite the two colonies 2-3 months later, or any distance away if you plan on
colony increase. Make sure that you cut away any queen cells that are on any of these 9 frames.
Carefully inspect the remaining frames of the original colony and cut out all the queen cells you
can find. Replace the frames that you took away with empty frames of drawn comb and add the
frame with the old queen on it and place all of these in the lower brood chamber. You have now
stopped the original colony from swarming and have not removed any foraging aged bees that
will make your honey crop. Go in your house and get the new MARKED queen that you just got
plus a gallon feeder of 1:1 sugar syrup, and place that queen introduction cage in the center rear
of the new hive with the gallon feeder jar over the inner cover hole, and add an entrance reducer
stick to the front entrance. Do NOT examine or disturb this new colony for at least 3 days and
better 5 days. Then, with little or no smoke, inspect to see if the queen is out of the introduction
cage, and if so, remove the cage and add a 10th frame of drawn comb. Wait another 5-7 days and
then carefully inspect that colony for eggs and/or larvae which proves your new queen is alive
and laying. Keep that 1:1 sugar syrup feed going and add a second body of 10 frames of
foundation in about 3-4 weeks.

Gosh! Wasn't that simple!

Before I end, it would be well to repeat some facts about swarming that a great many beekeepers
just don't seem to understand, but are very important that you know. First, swarms just don't
suddenly happen, but rather, the bees have programed and planned to swarm for about 10-14
days in advance of the swarm happening. During that 10-14 days, they have constructed queen
cells, reduced feeding the queen so she lays fewer eggs and also reduces weight so she can fly,
foragers stop foraging so they can be near the hive to join in the swarm when it occurs, and
scouts go out looking for a new location for "home". An observant, knowledgeable beekeeper
can detect these things long before a swarm happens. Further, swarms occur at TWO distinctly
different times and for distinctly different reasons. The first time for swarming is in "swarm
season" which is that period of tremendous brood production which was stimulated by the
gathering of late winter pollen, and prior to the start of a major nectar flow. Swarming during
swarm season occurs because it is the natural act of propagation of the species. This is caused by
brood chamber congestion, and age of the queen that controls her ability to produce enough
queen pheromone to "glue" a large number of bees into a single functioning unit, and has
NOTHING TO DO with super space. The second time for swarming is after the swarm season
and occurs during a strong nectar flow! This occurs because the beekeeper has not provided
ENOUGH SUPER SPACE AT THE TIME THAT THE BEES NEEDED SPACE to store a
great deal of thin, watery nectar until they can ripen that nectar into thick honey. When a swarm
occurs in a nectar flow, it is 100% fault of the beekeeper because he did not have enough supers
present when the bees needed them, and NOT the fault of bees!

I hope that I have helped you to make a record honey crop and not lose a swarm. The results are
up to you. I have told you HOW to succeed, but succeeding is YOUR JOB.
George Imirie
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper
GImasterBK@aol.com

FLASH! - Today is Saturday, March 29th. Bill Miller telephoned me from Alabama to tell me
that one of his hives HERE in Rockville just SWARMED on March 28th. His son, Jeremy, was
going to try and catch the swarm this morning. As near as I can remember, my earliest swarm
here in Rockville was April 5th and it weighed 6 pounds, a real buster. Darn shame that Bill got
called away on business for 4 months, because he was doing everything right to get a good honey
crop, reversing and having a young queen.

My colonies are going gang-busters, so I will be adding about 4 supers to each within the next 10
days and make my last reversal of the brood chambers. I have 6 new Carniolan queens coming in
from Heitkam about April 25th to prepare OBSERVATION Hives for the MONTGOMERY
COUNTY FAIR from August 8-17. By the way, I hope that you will be a VOLUNTEER at the
FAIR to tell all those million attendees the importance of our bees in the pollination of food for
humans to eat. We need at least 54 volunteers, and I hope we don't have to telephone you and
BEG you to donate 4 hours of your time.

Dave and Evelyn Bernard, BOTH Ceritified EAS Master Beekeepers, will be our "head-liners"
for the April 10th meeting, because I can't talk after my throat surgery, and Bill is in Alabama.
WE all hope you SHOW-UP and ask questions!

May 2002

Top or Bottom Supering?

Do you just add one super on top of the previous super, which is called TOP supering, or do you
lift the previous supers and put a new super next to the brood chamber, which is bottom
supering? This difference has been argued for years with the same intensity as arguing about
religion or politics. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, not to mention that a
particular method might be better for comb honey production, while the opposite might be true
for a steady but weak nectar flow in extracted honey production.

Let's start with TOP SUPERING. It is certainly easier, just "plopping" an empty super on top of
a filled or partially filled super. However, unless many of the bees are using some type of upper
entrance to the super area, the lower supers that are closer to the brood chamber will surely get a
lot of travel stain on the pretty white comb from the dirty feet of the bees constantly walking on
it. TOP SUPERING has the advantage of a quick inspection of the uppermost super to determine
if another empty super is needed. Further, if you do not use a queen excluder, you will rarely find
a queen laying eggs in any super except the super adjoining the brood nest hive body.
BOTTOM SUPERING is certainly more difficult, because you have to lift all the supers that are
on a colony before you can place a new empty super next to the brood nest or on the queen
excluder. Not only may each full super weigh 40-50 pounds, but it has a lot of bees in it.
However, bottom supering prevents a lot of travel stain on the white wax, so bottom supering is
advantageous when producing comb honey. The tremendous disadvant- age is the difficulty of
inspecting the bottom super to determine if it is near full or still quite empty. If your honey crop
is derived from a long, steady, but weak nectar flow bottom supering can be frustrating because
you may have to make several inspections to determine the condition of the bottom super. When
using a queen excluder, bees may be resistant to go through the excluder into an empty super
unless it is "baited" by the beekeeper. However, if no queen excluder is used, if the brood nest
area is crowded for laying space, the queen is certainly going to lay eggs in this empty bottom
super.

Speaking for myself and the nectar flows in central Maryland, I am a great believer in queen
excluder use because I want to always know exactly where that queen is, so I

Adding Supers One-at-a-Time or Multiple

As you know, for many years I have advocated installing supers ALL at-one-time rather than
adding one super when needed. I have done this primarily to inhibit swarming, but also to
increase colony honey production. Bees need a tremendous amount of space to spread incoming
nectar around so they can ripen it and evaporate the water from it to make honey, so this extra
space inhibits swarming during a nectar flow. Let me show you a few lines from page 618 of the
1992 Edition of The Hive and Honey Bee: .....This is the time to place supers of drawn combs on
the hive for honey surplus. The number of supers to use is still a matter of discussion among
some beekeepers. Some individuals believe it is best to add one super at a time while others will
add multiple supers. Researchers for the Department of Agriculture conducted some very
practical research in which they demonstrated that the "honey hoarding" instinct of the bees was
actually increased if the amount of storage space (drawn comb) was increased. A colony with
two or three supers of drawn comb will store more honey than a colony with one super of drawn
comb during the same period of time, assuming the colonies are of equal size. An important
consideration is that the hoarding instinct of the bees is increased only when drawn comb is used,
and the use of foundation does not show any positive effect.....

This was written by John Ambrose, Ph.D., Professor of Entomology and Extension Apiarist,
North Carolina State University. Dr. Ambrose was Director of the EAS Master Beekeeper
program from 1990 to 1997.

How Old is Your Queen?

Did you lose any swarms this year? Was your queen MARKED? If not, how do you know
whether you know that you did not lose a swarm? Did you have a weak honey crop? If you lost a
swarm in March or April, you surely won't get your share of the honey crop.
What does all this talk have to do with the age of your queen? Forty or fifty years ago, some
beekeepers became concerned that colonies headed by older queens often swarmed, whereas
colonies with young queens rarely swarmed. With all the many problems started by the
appearance of the tracheal mite in 1984 and the varroa mite in 1987, bee scientists and bee
researchers have done more bee research work in the past 15-16 years than ever before, and
FOUND truth in some of the things that had been suspicioned, notably that the age of a queen
has a great deal to do with whether a colony swarms or not. Research found that a queen loses
her ability to produce the queen pheromone that inhibits swarming as she grows older. Tests
showed that a colony headed by 2 year old queen was 3 times more prevalent to swarm than a
colony headed by a 1 year old queen; and a colony headed by a queen that was a new queen
during the spring of the previous year was twice as likely to swarm during the spring of the next
year as compared to a new queen that was installed in the late summer like August or September.
Hence, read almost any bee-book written recently (last 10 years), and the great majority strongly
suggest ANNUAL REQUEENING, which means "never keep a queen more than 13 months"!
The great majority of commercial honey producers (those guys with 5,000 or 20,000 colonies
whose income is totally dependent on their honey bees) requeen every year and some even
requeen twice each year! If you doubt me, attend the January meeting of the American
Beekeeping Federation and ask them yourself! As many of you know, I have practiced
requeening all my colonies on September 1st for quite a few years, and I don't have many
swarms.

Easy Queen Marking

My e-mail is filled with questions about what paint to use to mark queens. It is so simple, you
use a TESTER'S MARKING PEN that is available in dozens of different colors. Tester made the
fast drying enamel paint that I used to paint model airplanes about 70 years ago. Most of the bee
supply houses have some sort of queen marking device or tool, but I like Better Bee Company's
Queen Marking Tube which is a 1" diameter plastic tube closed on one end with a plastic screen
with "holes" about 1/8" apart and a sponge plunger. Just drop the queen in the tube and gently
move the plunger towards the screen until she becomes immobile, touch her thorax with paint
with Tester Marking Pen, let the paint dry for about 1-2 minutes, and release her back to her
colony. Unlike typing Wipe-Out, water colors, or fingernail polish, the Testers paint MARK will
last the life of the queen. The Better Bee Catalog Number is QMT1, and costs $4.95.

There are still some folks out there that are AFRAID to pick up their queen. SHAME ON YOU!
First, a queen bee will not sting a human - she only stings another queen. Second, DON'T
TOUCH HER ABDOMEN (that is like punching a pregnant woman's stomach). Just grab her by
her wings or thorax, and drop her in the marking tube.

How Long Do You Feed a New Colony?

Most new colonies are started in April or May on frames of foundation rather than drawn comb.
Far too many only feed these new bees 1:1 sugar syrup until the May nectar flow starts, and then
they wonder why they still have lots of untouched foundation still in their hive in July, August,
or September. If I have said it once, I have said a thousand times "Bees will NOT draw
foundation or build comb without a nectar flow"! 1:1 sugar syrup is an artificial nectar flow.
Hence, you CONTINUOUSLY FEED BEES 1:1 SUGAR SYRUP from the day you start the
colony until about September, and that generally requires about 20-30 pounds of sugar or about
$10. When the nectar flow is present, the bees prefer that to sugar syrup and hence won't take
any of the syrup; but what to they do on rainy days or at night? In Maryland, there might be lots
of pretty flowers out there for you to see, but there is essentially NO NECTAR FLOW after June
15th. Hence, if you want a nice strong colony to get through the coming winter, it has to have a
lot of drawn comb (at least 20 fully drawn deep frames or 30 fully drawn medium frames) to
hold the 60-70 pounds of honey needed for fall and winter stores; so FEED YOUR BEES
SUGAR SYRUP CONTINUOUSLY until at least September. If we were in an area that had
several different nectar flows stretched over several months, or if we moved our bees to gather
different crops, little feeding would be necessary, but that is not the case for hobbyists in the
Maryland area. Isn't a strong colony with 30-40 frames of drawn comb worth the $10-$15 of
sugar it will take to get that? You come to the MCBA Apiary at Brookside Nature Center and
examine the two colonies the Short Course students started on April 13th, one in 2 deeps and the
other in 3 mediums, and these colonies will always have 1:1 sugar syrup feeders on them until
Labor Day.

How Long Before New Queen Lays Eggs?

Beekeepers surely are confused about how long the new daughter queen of a swarm queen
begins laying eggs; and so many dash off, purchase a new queen, install it, and it is killed,
because there is already a new queen in their hive. Let me explain why this might take as long as
16-23 days before the new queen lays her first egg, or 25-32 days before those eggs are capped
so that "tired, old beekeeper's eyes" can see proof of the queen laying.

Assuming that a colony is "hot" to swarm and the weather is warm and sunny, the swarm might
occur on the day the first queen cell is capped, which we will call DAY 0. A queen cell is capped
about 8th day after the egg was laid, and the new virgin queen emerges 8 days later, DAY 8,
which is the 16th day after the swarm queen laid this egg. Queens do not become sexually
mature until they are 6 days old, and if the weather is warm and sunny she flies out to a drone
congregation area and mates in the air with several drones, or about 7-17 different drones. This is
now DAY 14. She lays her first egg about 2 days later or DAY 16! Worker bee eggs remain as
eggs for 3 days, DAY 19, hatch into a larva which is heavily fed by the nurse bees for about 6
days until the cell is capped on the 9th day, now DAY 25, and finally emerges as an adult worker
bee 12 days later, which is DAY 37 from the day the swarm left. Suppose that the weather was
chilly and rainy and the virgin queen could not go out and mate for a week; and this would
increase the date of laying her first egg to DAY 23 and the first capped worker bee cell to 32
days.

A beekeeper inspects a colony and determines that the colony has recently swarmed, and orders a
new queen. The new queen is introduced via the queen cage method to the colony, but it is
killed. WHY? There was already a queen in the colony, maybe still a virgin, but was accepted
already by the worker bees as the queen of that colony, and the fancy, new queen in the
introduction cage is an "interloper". Remember the Chinese adage: Two women in the same
house is WAR.

Of course, if you are installing a new, laying queen in a new split or a new package of bees, that
queen will lay her first eggs about 5 days after installation, using up about 3 days to escape from
the introduction cage and 2 days "getting-to-know" her subjects, and a "tire, old beekeeper"
should see the first capped worker bee cells on DAY 14.

I hope I have helped you!

June 2002

A June Inspection - No Brood and No Queen Found

Do You Requeen? - How Soon?
Every year, I am besieged with inquiries from local people and e-mail inquiries from beekeepers
over much of the U.S. and even some foreign countries with the question in this article's title.

If you can't find much brood, particularly "open brood" (eggs and larva), in a colony in May or
June, something has happened to your queen. She has either swarmed or has died. Are there any
swarm queen cells, supersedure queen cells, or emergency cells? If you find any queen cells of
any kind, are any of them capped, or has the capping been torn off? Finding a queen cell with a
capping removed tells you that there is a virgin queen in your hive.

Many beekeepers, regardless of how long they have been keeping bees, have some difficulty
finding a queen in their colony, particularly if she is NOT marked; and this problem is even
worse when the worker bee population is high as it is in May or June. When one realizes that a
virgin queen looks very much like a worker bee and does not really look like a queen bee until
after she has been bred, this makes finding a virgin queen in your colony extremely difficult.

I have heard 100's of stories about telephoning a queen breeder and getting an emergency
shipment of a new queen, installing her, and the bees kill her right away. Then there are the
stories about transferring a frame of eggs from another colony to this "queenless" colony so they
can raise a new queen, but the bees won't build a queen cell on the frame.

All of these frustrating experiences just prove that some beekeepers know very little about honey
bee biology. I will explain the delay in laying.
Any time that you find a colony of bees with no "open" brood (eggs or larvae) present,
particularly in the spring, DON'T ASSUME THE COLONY IS QUEENLESS, because in the
great majority of cases, there is a queen present, but just hasn't started to lay eggs yet! Maybe the
colony swarmed and left a virgin queen behind to take over the colony; or if the queen died
naturally or by accident, the bees would raise a new virgin queen to replace their dead mother. I
repeat - It is rare to find a truly queenLESS colony in the spring or summer months. Instead of
thinking the colony is queenless, think that you have made a mistake and just could not find the
new queen of the colony.

When a colony swarms, the old queen has laid very few eggs during the week before swarming
in order to lose weight so she can fly. Hence on the day of the swarm, there is very little open
brood present. Maybe the new virgin queen emerges from her swarm cell 4-5 days after the
swarm leaves, and she does not gain sexual maturity until she is about 6 days old. If the weather
is nice on the day the new queen turns 6-7 days old, she takes her nuptial flight to be mated; but
if the weather is cool or rainy, she might not go out on her nuptial flight for several additional
days. Once she is bred, she starts laying a few eggs, not many, about two days later. An egg
remains an egg for 3 full days before it hatches into a larva. So, let's start counting time
beginning with swarm PLANS:

 Day 0 - Bees begin swarm planning and restrict feeding the queen, and eggs are laid in
swarm cells
 Day 8 - Swarm cells are capped, and swarm issues
 Day16 - Virgin Queen emerges
 Day23 - Virgin queen takes her nuptial flight
 Day25 - Queen lays a few eggs
 Day28 - These first eggs hatch into larvae, which is more easily seen by a beekeeper.

The example above assumes every happening takes place as soon as possible, and yet there are
absolutely no eggs visible for 17 days (Day 8 - Day 25). In most cases, the time without any eggs
being present is longer than 17 days and can be as long as 31 days in extreme situations.

If the old queen did not swarm but was superseded, essentially the same absence of open brood is
about the same as the case of loss of queen by swarming, or 2-3 weeks.

Since the life span of a worker bee is just 6 short weeks, and the gestation period of a new bee is
3 weeks, it does not make good sense to install a new queen in a colony that has been barren of
CAPPED BROOD for 3 weeks, because all bees will be dead before any of the new queen's
brood emerges.

It is easy to TEST to see if a colony is queenless: Select a frame of eggs and VERY YOUNG
larvae from another hive and place it in the suspicious colony. If the bees start building
EMERGENCY CELLS on the face surface of the comb of that frame and surround a larva with
royal jelly, the colony is queenless. However, it will take a minimum of 21 days for a new queen
to emerge, breed, and starts laying eggs; and is she going to be a good queen or a bum? Speaking
for myself, if I found a positive EMERGENCY CELL on the TEST frame, I would "run" to the
phone and order a new queen from my queen breeder and I would expect her to be in my hands
within 3 days and laying eggs a week later. Further, I would have confidence that my queen
breeder is trying hard to breed HYGIENIC bees and that my choice of bee race is being
maintained. I am not satisfied with just some unknown queen bred by some unknown drones,
because they probably will not perform in the manner to which I have come to respect.

I end this note with an admonishment: Just because you don't see OPEN brood, don't ASSUME
the colony is queenLESS! You can always TEST to prove the presence of a queen or not.
ASSUMING things is a mark of a beeHAVER, not a beeKEEPER.

Package Bee Colony Performance in First Year

It is very obvious that most beginners just don't understand the progress, or lack of progress of a
new package bee colony, particularly if it is being started on foundation rather than drawn comb.
Let me "set the stage" for you of what is entailed for this new colony to become successful and
prosper.

First, a 3 pound package of bees is only about 10,500 bees, which is much too small a group to
make very much honey even if there is wonderful nectar flow. A high production colony has
50,000-60,000 bees, or 14-17 pounds of bees.

Worker bees only live 42 days (6 weeks) in flight weather, and the gestation period for new bees
to arrive is 21 days from the day the queen started laying. Hence, over half of all the bees that
came in the package are dead before your first new worker bee emerges from its cell! Even if the
queen is a very fine, high production egg layer, she just can't lay too many eggs because there are
not enough adult worker bees to keep the brood warm on a chilly night; and surely not enough
worker bees to nurse the new bee larva on the 1200 feedings of a little royal jelly plus lots of
nectar and pollen during the 5-6 day larval period.

On top of these problems is the fact that the package bees must secrete wax to build the comb on
the foundation for the queen to lay in and comb to store pollen and nectar. Bees must consume
about 8 pounds of honey (about 40 pounds of nectar) to make and construct one pound of wax
comb! I hope that last line shows you the importance of continued feeding of 1:1 sugar syrup,
which is classed as artificial nectar! So many beginners contact me very upset that they don't see
very many bees flying in and out of their new hive that was started 3-4 weeks ago, and hence
should have some new bees emerged to replace the now dead package bees. Worker bees do
NOT go out foraging for nectar, pollen, or water until they are about 19 days old, or almost half
of their expected life of 42 days. During those first 19 days of life, they are NURSE bees feeding
the larva, secreting wax, building comb, feeding the queen, storing away nectar from older
forager bees, cooling the hot hive, cleaning the comb of debris including dead bees and repairing
the damage to the frames and comb that YOU MADE during your inspections of bee progress!
It is estimated that over 90% of all swarms of bees do NOT make it through the following winter
because of the obstacles sited above and their lack of food to build enough comb to store winter
supplies.

Hence, if you are a real beeKEEPER rather than a beeHAVER, you will give lots of assistance to
your package bees by CONTINUOUSLY FEEDING 1:1 SUGAR SYRUP from the time you
started the colony, probably in April, to sometime in September. By doing this, you will get
perhaps 20 DEEP, 8 1/2 inch frames built of drawn comb and packed reasonably well with
honey made from the sugar syrup, or you will get 30 or more MEDIUM, 5 1/2 inch frames built
of drawn comb and packed with some brood, some pollen, and a lot of honey made from the
sugar syrup. Don't feed TOO MUCH at a time, but feed CONTINUOUSLY through 4-5 holes in
a top feeding jar that are only the diameter of a frame nail, about 5/64". You don't want to
"drown" the bees, but rather have a source of food always handy to use as they need it.

If you do this and have a good queen next spring, you have established the real basics needed for
a high production colony that can make 100-200 pounds of honey next year.

Please note that all of my writings are written for the weather, nectar sources, and conditions of
the Central Maryland area that includes Washington, DC and Baltimore. Other areas obviously
may be different.

RED CIRCLE on your ADDRESS LABEL?

If there is a RED CIRCLE around a figure like 02/5, it simply means that you have NOT paid
your $10 dues for the fiscal year of May 2002-April 2003 and this dues was due in May.

Our May meeting was SPECTACULAR with MASTER BEEKEEPERS Nancy and Bill Troup
of Williamsport, MD giving a fantastic talk about "QUEENS, Queens, queens" to about 60
members. If you were NOT there - you missed a fine meeting. I missed it too, because my throat
surgeon unexpectedly wanted to do surgery on me that night. Our June 12th meeting will be
Greg Gochnour, our Bee Inspector for the past 20 years who will talk about Honey Shows, WHY
you are losing bees, and the FUTURE if the BEE LABS like Beltsville are all closed as planned
in September of this year. YOU SHOULD ATTEND! Our July 10th meeting will feature
MASTER BEEKEEPER and Super Photographer Steve McDaniel in a talk about the Secrets of
Bees with 100's of his famous photos on display. You can talk with him about photography or
get ADVICE about your bees from a highly successful MASTER BEEKEEPER.

Because of the conflict of dates of our normal August meeting and the MONTGOMERY
COUNTY FAIR (where I hope you volunteer some help), I am RE-scheduling the meeting to
AUGUST 21st. MAKE A NOTE OF THIS! I hope to have MASTER BEEKEEPER Barry
Thompson prepared to talk about "Starting to plan AHEAD for the 2003 season" Barry is a
terrific speaker, a former commercial beekeeper in Mississippi, a retired M.D., this year's MSBA
Prexy, and has a gorgeous, highly intelligent wife. Last week, in the absence of Barry's sojourn
in England, Jo-Ann called my home for help with 3 colonies blown over by the mild tornado in
Upper Potomac. My son, Arthur, went to help Jo-Ann and found colonies with 3 medium brood
chambers plus SIX medium FULL SUPERS. Does Barry know about making honey or not? Plan
on ATTENDING Barry's talk on August 21st! Maybe I'll have a voice back by September and
talk about Requeening, PROPER USE OF any VARROA MITICIDE, and maybe MASTER
BEEKEEPER Bill Miller will be back from his 4 months special work in an Alabama nuclear
reactor to tell us about southern beekeeping.

Saving November 15th for something special, I have asked my former bee partner for many
years, MASTER BEEKEEPER Ann Harman, to talk about all kinds of things in her new world
of "international consultant about honey bees". After she hears things at the EAS meeting in
August at Cornell University, and maybe our U. S. Bee Labs will be closed or changed, Ann will
in a position to help you and me plan for the future in our own beekeeping based on her
knowledge of beekeeping practices she has seen in FIVE continents and dozens of different
countries during the past 15 years.

December is an idle month for MCBA meetings, but not for me or Ann Harman. We are both
active members of American Association of Professional Apiculturists and will attend the
December meeting in Niagara Falls, NY, to consult with other scientists about the better
beekeeping techniques and management in 2003 for ourselves and YOU. In January, I will
AGAIN give talks at the American Beekeeping Federation Meeting in Kansas City. I hope to see
"your smiling face" there as we personally talk to the bee scientists, bee researchers, professional
honey producers, and queen breeders about how to IMPROVE all industry problems in the new
year of 2003.

SEE WHY I WANT MY VOICE BACK!

This is what you get for only $10 Annual Dues, and Contributions for My PINK PAGES. If
these MONTHLY programs aren't worth $10 bucks to you, pay it NOW, or take up some other
hobby, because you have proved to most that you are still living in the days of Model T Fords,
typewriters, and dead bees every year or so RATHER THAN LEARNING THE NEW
MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES OF NOT LOSING BEES TO DISEASE OR SWARMS AND
WHOSE COLONIES MAKE 100-200 POUNDS OF HONEY YEAR AFTER YEAR.

By-the-way, during the past 25 years, over a thousand beekeepers have taken some parts of the 4
phase difficult tests to become a CERTIFIED EAS MASTER BEEKEEPER and the great
majority have failed and only 139 people have passed the tests. Maybe with my help and
prodding, MCBA has TEN MASTER BEEKEEPERS, but no other bee association in the whole
country can boast more than 2. Membership in MCBA is "the place" to LEARN GOOD
BEEKEEPING MANAGEMENT AND TECHNIQUE.

Oh, Doctor and Surgeon - Please Give My Speaker's Voice Back To Me!

What is the BEST bee?

Is a Chevrolet better than a Ford? Is French wine better than American wine? Is aspirin better
than Tylenol? I drink "gallons" of Coca Cola, but think Pepsi Cola stinks. Do you agree? Most
people swear by an Italian bee, but have not requeened any of their colonies in years. Do they
really have Italian bees? Weaver Apiaries would make you believe that Brother Adam's
BUCKFAST hybrid has no equal. Maybe you do not know that the Star hybrid raises lots of
brood in most months of the year, or the Midnite hybrid is said to be gentle enough for children
to handle. Recently, the Baton Rouge Bee Lab released the descendants of Russian queen bees
for sale, and buyers flocked to the sale as if they were getting dollar bills for a quarter. Drs.
Harbo and Harris of the Baton Rouge Bee Lab have recently bred queens than suppress mite
reproduction, and buyers are "fighting" to buy these SMR queens. Meanwhile, I still like New
World Carniolans for my central Maryland apiaries. Am I "behind the times", or just plain
"stubborn"?

The saddest part of all of this is that the average hobbyist beekeeper hasn't the foggiest idea of
what is the best bee for HIM when one considers the location of his bees, is he making comb
honey or extracted, is he a beginner or a real apiarist, does he "live with his bees" or are they in
out-apiaries, is gentleness more important than disease resistance, or does he expect to make as
profit in beekeeping? Generally, he has the same bees as the "good old boys" of the local bee
club has, because they showed him his first queen bee; and he has been told by "everyone" that
one bee is as good as the next, but there would be a fight if someone said that Miller HiLife beer
was as good as Budweiser.

Up until Reverend Langstroth introduced the movable frame hive in about 1855, the only bees in
the U. S. were the disease prone, downright nasty old English bee, apis mellifera mellifera, all
descendants from the first bees brought here from England in the early colonial days. Rev.
Langstroth acquired a recently imported ITALIAN queen bee in 1859, and visitors were greatly
excited by the COLOR of this new bee - it was GOLDEN. That was like selling a new Cadillac
with leopard skin upholstery - everybody wanted it! GOLDEN BEES, and that set the stage for
the Italian bee to be considered the BEST bee in the country - no other reason.

There are good Italian bees, and there are bad Italian bees, just as there have been some good
Italian people and some bad Italian gangsters. The same is true of good Carniolans, and bad
Carniolans; or very nasty Africanized "scutellata" bees and "killer" bees that can be handled and
hived if done carefully. In addition to these races of bees, there are hybrid bees like Buckfast,
Starline, Midnite which are bees of two different races bred by queen breeders to serve a special
market and these hybrids can NOT repro- duce themselves!

Just as we have numerous races of people in our U. S., some are easily defined because of
obvious differences like negroes or orientals or American Indians. We also have different
STOCKS of the same race of people who have different cultures like English people, Germans,
French, Italians, or Russians; and these cultures are made different due to the climate of the
country, its geographical features like mountains or desert or water, and other variables.

WHAT IS THE POINT of all this writing? Contrary to what some people think, honey bees are
NOT all the same, but are as different as night and day. Honey bees dramatically differ regarding
gentleness, disease resistance, swarming propensity, calmness on the comb, honey production,
wintering ability, colony size, and of course, color. There is NO SUCH THING AS THE BEST
BEE! If you live in a neighborhood among lots of homes, your major concern should be
gentleness. If you live in an area like central Maryland which has a very EARLY but short nectar
season, you want a bee that explodes in early population to exploit that nectar collection. If you
are a migratory honey producer, you want bees designed to constantly build a large population to
be ready to collect nectar at each move to a new location. If your interest is comb honey
production, you want a bee that rapidly builds beautiful white comb rather than yellow comb or
comb with thin watery appearing capping. What is the "best" bee for me may be a lousy choice
for you, and vice versa. After having Italian bees for 15 years, Steve Taber convinced me that I
would be better satisfied with the "explosive" late winter, early spring population buildup of the
Carniolan race for honey production in the Central Maryland area, so I switched from Italians to
all Carniolans 54 years ago, 1948; and in spite of their propensity to swarm, the Carniolan is the
"best" bee for "Old George".

Some might want to know the most important characteristics of the Italians and the Carniolans,
which happen to be the two most important races in the whole world's honey production,
particularly in the United States. The advantages of the Italian bee are it is relatively gentle and
calm, has a strong disposition to brood rearing resulting in large populations able to gather a
considerable amount of nectar in a short time, it uses little propolis, is an excellent forager, good
comb builder, and covers the honey with brilliant white wax cappings. However, the Italian bee
has some serious defects such as continued breeding at the end of a main nectar flow which
causes high food consumption. It does NOT overwinter well in areas with long and cold winters.
The Italian has a poor sense of orientation causing her to drift from one colony to another and
usually from a weak colony to a strong colony. The excellent ability of the Italian to locate food
sources often results in a grand scale ROBBING of a weak colony, not to mention the robbing of
some neighbor's birthday party sweets; and lastly, the Italian bee are also well known to angrily
fly about the head of a beekeeper during colony manipulations in the apiary. However, in spite of
my use of Carniolans, I still favor the use of a WELL BRED Italian bee for a beginner or novice
beekeeper.

The Carniolan bee is a grayish-black version of the Italian bee, and its home territory is north of
Italy primarily in the lower Alps of Austria and extending into the former Yugoslavia, Rumania,
Bulgaria, Hungary, and parts of Russia. It is a slender bee with a long tongue measuring 6.4-6.8
mm. Perhaps the most outstanding trait of the Carniolan is its exceptional docility, or gentleness
so it is easily worked without stings to the beekeeper. Brother Adam describes the Carniolan late
winter, early spring population "explosion" as "par excellence" exceeding all other races of
honey bees. The Carniolan minimizes brood production during a nectar shortage, forming a
small colonies in the fall enabling it to winter on a minimum of stores, which is distinctly
different from the Italian bee that requires large stores for the winter period. Other important
beneficial characteristics of the Carniolan include longevity, hardiness, foraging ability, and
wintering ability. The Carniolan bee is not only an excellent honey producer and comb builder,
but also caps the cells of honey with paper white wax cappings. Unlike the Italian, the Carniolan
bee has an excellent sense of orientation and hence is NOT inclined to robbing. The Carniolan
bee collects LESS propolis than any other European race. The major deficiency of the Carniolan
bee that prevents it from being everybody "best" bee is its strong disposition to swarming due to
its great vitality and fast development of its colony. I have often said that a colony of Carnies
might swarm on a warm Christmas Day. To many Americans being used to the golden color of
Italian bees and "golden" queens, the dark color of the Carniolan and the dark orange color of the
Carnie queen is a disadvantage during colony inspection. However, the explosive early spring
buildup gives the Carniolan an advantage in honey production in areas of a short, but early nectar
flow like central Maryland; and the Carniolan's better wintering ability than the Italian bee gives
the Carniolan an advantage as one proceeds north in the U. S. towards Canada.

The BEST bee is the bee that best suits your style of beekeeping need and not that bee
proclaimed the "best" by any writer (including me), or your friend Uncle Tom, or even the
world's greatest bee scientist who may have more knowledge of honey bees than you have.
Consider your knowledge of bees and what you expect of your bees, and pick a race or a hybrid
that best satisfies your desires; and then do what a fine bee KEEPER does, STUDY your bees,
and learn all the information you can about your bees.

The Famous Montgomery County FAIR is August 9th - 17th

In our highly educated county, it is hard to believe that the great majority of ADULT Americans,
including our legislators, know very little about a honey bee other than it makes honey and it
stings. What a shame it is that these people are NOT aware of the importance of honey bee
pollination of 35% of all the food we humans eat. A few people know of honey bee pollination
of some fruit like oranges or blueberries, but don't know about cranberries, raspberries,
grapefruit, lemons, cherries and numerous other fruits. Very, very few know that honey bees
heavily pollinate watermelons, cantaloupe, squash, cucumbers, and even carrots, onions,
broccoli, and other vegetables. Precious few people know that 98% of all alfalfa is honey bee
pollinated, and without the high protein alfalfa hay, beef cattle won't have much good meat and
dairy cattle won't have very good milk. Hence, no prime rib dinners or ice cream for birthday
parties. Suddenly, that "lowly" honey bee has become a pretty important "critter"!

But who is going to tell the million attendees to our 9 day FAIR unless YOU are there
VOLUNTEERING 4 short hours in our booth to explain the importance of honey bees to all
mankind? Hence, when Barry Thompson issues the call for help at the FAIR - VOLUNTEER!
We need about 50 "helpers", and you get a free meal of fresh food for your services.

And as long as you are going to come as a VOLUNTEER, you might as well enter some of your
liquid honey, comb honey, creamed honey, bees wax, candles, gift arrangement, educational
exhibit, photographs of bees, or gadgets to assist beekeepers into competition for award ribbons
and MONEY prizes. There are THIRTY different classes, so surely there is a place to display
some of your bee products, and be a PROUD BEEKEEPER! You can't WIN unless you enter, so
get thinking about all the things you can enter.

Bye now - it is a l-o-n-g writing, but it was FUN!

 July 2002

The "Show is Over" - What's Next?

In our central Maryland area, my scale hive stopped showing any increase in weight right on
time, May 31st. It lost 7 pounds during the next 21 days, and now the dearth of nectar during
July and August will be upon us making bees frustrated and cranky just like you get in the hot,
sticky weather of this time of year in Washington, DC. It is a fine time of year to harvest the
honey, and stay away from your bees to give both you and the bees a rest until mid August.

Newer beekeepers, and indeed some of the older beekeepers, see all the bloom of flowers,
shrubs, vegetables and just can't believe that there is little or no nectar being produced to make
honey. Those of us, who have made constant use of scale hive observations for many years can
assure you that with a few rare exceptions, no honey is made in our area from about June 10th
until the goldenrod makes its appearance about mid August. This is the reason that the EAS
annual meeting is held in August and the county FAIRS are held in August and September. In
isolated areas in Washington County or Frederick County, one might find some basswood nectar
in early July, and years ago when alfalfa was cut with horse drawn equipment rather than
tractors, one might get Alfalfa nectar in August. But like computers have replaced typewriters
and most people walk around carrying a cell phone today, TIMES CHANGE, and things just
"ain't" like they used to be.

Harvest your honey NOW, around July 4th, before the wax is travel stained, and it is HOT, so
extraction is so much easier than trying to do it with 70° honey. Don't extract a frame that isn't
about 90% capped, or you run the risk of having the NON ripened honey cause all your ripened
honey to ferment. Further, since all honey is hygroscopic (absorbs water out of the air), while
you are extracting, straining, settling, and bottling, keep the honey covered at all times so it
doesn't get a chance to absorb any water vapor that might change its quality from a desirable
16%-17% moisture concentration to a moisture over 18.6% which causes the honey to ferment.
Without going into great detail, let me explain fermentation. All honey is made up of several
different sugars, the two most important ones are liquid Fructose which might run from 35%-
50% and normally solid Glucose which might run from 25%-40%. Dust, small pieces of wax,
pollen, or air that are in the extracted honey act as a starting point for the dissolved glucose to
crystallize back to its normal solid state and this raises the moisture concentration of the rest of
the honey mixture where natural yeasts can grow that cause the honey to ferment into vinegar or
controlled into alcoholic mead. The "lesson" here is "Don't allow your honey to be exposed to
humid air any more than possible, and don't give fermentation a good start by extracting frames
that are less than about 90% capped".

Be a PROUD beekeeper and show the world what your bees have produced for you, and your
skills in bringing that honey to market or gift by EXHIBITING the honey at our local county
FAIR; and you might WIN SOME MONEY PRIZES and surely a fancy ribbon. And since you
are at the FAIR hoping all will see your BEST OF SHOW ribbon, you are badly needed to give
the FAIR attendees just 4 hours of your time as a volunteer explaining the importance of honey
bee pollination of our human food supply. By the way, California wanted 1 million colonies of
bees to pollinate their almond crop this past February, but were only able to get about 650,000
colonies which means poor pollination resulting in increased prices for almonds this year. The
same thing could happen to the pollination of apples, oranges, cranberries, blueberries,
cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupe, squash, lima beans, broccoli, and numerous other fruit or
vegetables. Our honey bees pollinate 35% of all our human food, so they are pretty important
"critters"; but the UNINFORMED people, including our legislators, only think of our bees as
"honey and sting". It is your RESPONSIBILITY to correct the public thinking about honey bees,
because "old George" can't do everything.

You don't want to have to buy new bees for next year, so why let your bees be killed by mites,
PMS (parasitic mite syndrome), or an old queen that dies in the fall or winter. So be a
beeKEEPER, not a beeHAVER. Right after harvesting your honey, examine their varroa mite
infection using the sticky board test or (I hate) the ether roll test, and if the varroa mite infection
is high, add APISTAN strips right away in July to kill these mites. Further, since the Tracheal
mite is microscopic and hence invisible to the human eye, too many beekeepers just don't bother
to treat for tracheal mites, and then blame the death of their bees in January on cold weather, just
proving their ignorance of honey bee diseases. It is so simple to kill tracheal mites by just placing
50 grams of MENTHOL in the brood chamber on AUGUST 15th in our area. September IS
TOO LATE and the tracheal mites will NOT be killed because the honey bees have to breath the
gaseous fumes of the menthol, and menthol does not sublime from solid state to gaseous state
until it reaches a temperature of 84°, and there are not many days in September that go to 84°.
Don't pay any attention to some of these non-scientists that say that menthol does not work. Most
of them were trying to get some late honey and did not put menthol in the colony until
September or even October, and this poor management just killed their bees, and they blamed the
death on cold weather. BALONEY!

In the last 20 years, it had been WELL PROVEN by bee scientists, researchers, and professional
apiculturists that swarming with the normal loss of honey crop can be drastically reduced by
REQUEENING every year, never allowing a queen to live longer than 12 months. Almost all
professional honey producers requeen every 12 months and some migratory honey producers
requeen twice each year to minimize swarming. Many of these professionals requeen in the fall,
so they don't "screw up" their spring honey production. I have always requeened by Labor Day
in September, because fall queens are far better bred than spring queens, cheaper to buy, and the
queen breeder will deliver them to you on the EXACT date that you request because he is not so
busy. I enclose an old PINK PAGE about Imirie's Almost Foolproof Method of Requeening.

Lastly, kill as many Varroa mites as possible, so your bees enter the winter free of mites, and
will remain almost free of mites during the spring nectar flow time. Varroa mite eggs are ONLY
laid in with honey bee larva about 1 day before the honey bee larva cell is capped. Queens
dramatically reduce their egg laying about October 1st and totally stop about mid November.
When there is little or no honey bee larvae in a colony, there is no place for the Varroa mite to
lay new mite eggs. Hence, wait as late as possible to install Apistan strips to your colonies, so
that is present during the time the queen bee is curtailing her laying eggs. I install my Apistan
strips on October 1st, leave them in place for 6 weeks, or about November 15th, BUT ALWAYS
REMOVE THEM BEFORE DECEMBER 1ST to prevent growing RESISTANT MITES. There
are ALWAYS some afternoons between November 15th and December 1st that the temperature
exceeds 50°, and you can dash home from work and remove those Apistan strips. Gosh, people
take a few hours off their job to go to the dentist, do some shopping, go to a birthday party,
pickup the kids at school or take them to soccer practice. Aren't your bees IMPORTANT enough
to you that you can't properly manage their health by taking a few hours off from work on a
warm afternoon to remove these strips? The scientists have CLEARLY PROVEN that leaving
the strips in place longer than the 6-8 weeks treatment time creates mites that are resistant to
Apistan , so you have to switch to some other chemical to protect your bees from varroa mites,
and if you are still careless with leaving that new chemical in place during the next year or so,
you may not be able to find another chemical to kill varroa mites; and the only blame for your
loss of bees was YOUR OWN POOR MANAGEMENT after being told the proper way of
management. You EXECUTED YOUR OWN BEES! Some want to argue, but Reg Wilbanks
doesn't lose any bees to mites, nor does Binford Weaver, or Fred Rossman, or Pat Heitkam, or
Sue Cobey, or Marla Spivak, or frankly, me. Our bees are MANAGED by the up-to-date
findings of our bee scientists and we have changed our management techniques with each new
PROVEN finding. Since I founded the present Montgomery County Beekeepers Association 18
years ago, this is what I have been continually trying to teach you the necessary management
techniques to be a successful beekeeper since the introduction of the tracheal mite in 1984, the
varroa mite in 1987, the Africanized Honey Bee in 1990 which has badly frightened the
American public with the "killer" bee, PMS (parasitic Mite Syndrome in 1995), the small hive
beetle in 1998, and resistant American Foul brood in 2000. I am very pleased in the performance
of many of our 150+ members, but very upset by some of our NON LEARNING procrastinators.

So many people just don't understand we scientists who drove our mothers "nuts" by asking
"why" about everything and anything, and when you get to my ancient age, you are STILL
TRYING TO LEARN WHAT IS NEW EACH DAY! The day that I stop trying to LEARN, you
can find me at Pumphrey's Funeral Home. Bet you did not know that Bob Pumphrey, now dead,
was my roommate back in the 30's at Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Virginia,
and my father learned beekeeping from my letters to him and became a fine beekeeper who
didn't stop until he turned 90.

Christmas will be coming shortly. Throw away any of those bee books that you have that were
written prior to 1990, no matter how famous the author was, because you can no longer keep
bees "like Daddy Kept bees", and you must use the new found management techniques that have
been scientifically PROVEN during these past 18 years in order to be successful today. Tell your
family that you want a Christmas present of the 1992 Extensively Revised Edition of the 1300+
page Hive and the Honey Bee for just $36, or Dr. Dewey Caron's 1999 book, Honey Bee
Biology and Beekeeping, for about the same price. You couldn't repair your car's INJECTED
FUEL system by reading an old book about a carburetor fuel system; and you cannot keep bees
like bees were kept 20 years ago. If you cannot accept this, I suggest you learn raising pigeons or
catching butterflies because nothing has changed here in the last 100 years.

Suffering 5 strokes in the past 12 years and having 5 surgeries (3 this year) for restoring of my
speech, I have to think of doing less for you, and hence I hope that I have set a strong pattern for
you to follow to be as successful as some of us that have been willing to CHANGE WITH THE
TIMES during these tortuous past 18 years. I don't have the slightest desire to "slow down", but
my "golden" years have turned into "rusting" years, and that burden will slow me dramatically. I
will just have to develop some more MASTER BEEKEEPERS who can take my place.

This is your final Honey Pot unless your dues are paid! The $10 dues was due in May. You were
notified in April, May, and June, and that is ENOUGH. If there is a RED circle on your address
label of this Honey Pot, unless I have made a mistake in my records, you have not paid the dues,
so reluctantly, you will be dropped from membership in our association, but I wish you well and
hope that you have LEARNED much about good beekeeping in your stay of membership. I AM
JUST ANOTHER HUMAN, AND DO MAKE MISTAKES. If I have "screwed up", don't get
mad, just tell me, so I don't drop your membership.

Hopefully, you have just forgotten to pay, and if that is so, try to add a little something extra to
the $10 dues to help pay the cost of printing and mailing of the PINK PAGES; BUT DO IT
RIGHT AWAY!

Don't miss the July 10th meeting featuring Master Beekeeper and Famous Photographer Steve
McDaniel!

August 2002

Will your Bees be Alive next Spring?

August, September, and October are the three months that will determine not only whether your
bees will be alive next April, but how strong they will be to gather the spring crop of nectar. Dr.
Roger Morse wrote a book about a honey bee's NEW YEAR starts in September, but the mites
were not around when that book was written. Hence, let's start our spring program in August
about mite control, because the mite population MUST be dramatically reduced before the winter
months if we are to have alive, strong colonies in April.

You MUST UNDERSTAND that the mite population increases much faster than the honey bee
population right after the queen bee reduces her laying of brood, which is shortly after our major
nectar flow. If the mite population gets too high, there is just so much damage done to the bees
that they are sick and weakly and just cannot get through the cold months of winter. Too often,
UNknowledgeable beekeepers blame the death of a colony during the winter on a "hard winter",
a "cold winter" , or a "very long winter". The truth is that the beekeeper did NOT reduce the mite
population by proper mite treatment. The famous Dr. Edward Southwick subjected bees to
temperature studies and kept bees at -40° (yes, -40°) for periods as long as a month with no ill
effect! The point is that cold weather does not kill HEALTHY bees!

Perhaps you ASSUME that there are no tracheal mites around, because you have not seen any.
How can you? They are microscopic, like a germ, and live only in the adult bee's trachea. Here
they "clog up" the breathing of the bee, just like a person suffering from emphysema, and the bee
simply strangles to death. UGH, what an awful way to die! These tracheal mites are easily killed
by the fumes of MENTHOL placed in the brood chamber of a colony. However, since menthol
does not sublime (become a gaseous vapor) unless the temperature is OVER 84°, menthol must
be in- stalled in your colony around AUGUST 15th in Maryland and certainly BEFORE
September 1st! Installing menthol in September or October is a waste of time and money,
because it does get hot enough, long enough to covert the menthol crystals into vapor that the
bees can breath which kills the tracheal mites in the trachea. A packet of 50 grams of menthol
costs less that $2. Isn't your colony of bees worth $2?

Now let's talk about the varroa mite, that brownish red critter with 8 legs that you can see like a
flea on a dog. Let's get right to the NITTY GRITTY, and stop fooling around. The ONLY place
that the female varroa mite lays new mite eggs is in a honey bee cell with a honey bee LARVA
just a few hours before the cell is capped. Here, she lays 2-3 female mite eggs that feed on the
bee larva and these 2-3 mite eggs become adult mites in about 10 days and emerge with the
damaged honey bee. Note that 2-3 adult varroa mites are being produced with just one adult
honey bee, and that the honey bee has been damaged by the mites "eating upon it". Obviously,
when there are few or no honey bee larvae in a colony, the female mites have no place to lay
more mite eggs, and in Maryland, the laying of a queen bee is sharply reduced by October 1st
and generally totally stopped by November 15th, and does not begin again until January. It does
not require rocket scientist brains to understand that the best time to kill the highest percentage of
varroa mites in a colony is during this period when there is little or no honey bee larvae present..
Hence, on OCTOBER 1st, I install 1 strip of Apistan in the brood chamber for every 5 frames
that have brood on them, leave them for a minimum of 6 weeks (2 brood honey bee brood
cycles), and ABSOLUTELY remove them before December 1st (8 weeks), so that I don't
CREATE mites resistant to Apistan. During the past 15 years of treatment of my many colonies,
this single treatment with Apistan each year has been enough control of Varroa mites that rarely
has any colony needed a summer treatment and no colony has ever needed a spring treatment. I
was born in Maryland, and there are always a few days between November 15th and December
1st that the temperature will go above 50° for a few afternoon hours and you can dash home from
work and pull out the Apistan strips, or aren't your bees worth a few hours of leave from your
job? It might be cold on the weekends, and it is dark by 5 PM in November, so you have to leave
work for a few hours on some warm weekday afternoon. If you just do can't this, give up
beekeeping and take up some other hobby that you can do when it is CONVENIENT FOR YOU
since you don't care about bees living or dying.

So much for the mites - now let's get to the other important things. As I have said repeatedly,
requeening every colony ANNUALLY is the recommended colony management for the 21st
century; practically 99% of commercial honey producers requeen each year and some even
requeen twice each year. With Maryland's very early spring nectar flow in April, I refuse to
"screw up my honey crop" by requeening in the spring, and much prefer to requeen on
September 1st. Then, queens are better bred than spring queens, arrive in the mail on time, and
are cheaper, if that is important to you. Hence, think about fall requeening, but you better know
what you are doing, because requeening a colony with lots of forager age bees and little nectar
flow requires some skill. See my PINK PAGES about Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening
Method, which is basically putting a new queen into a nuc above a double screen on the parent
colony.

In Maryland, a colony should have about 70 pounds of honey (not thin nectar or syrup) to make
it through the winter. 70 pounds honey ='s about 12 FULL deep frames or 18 medium, 6 5/8"
frames. Don't wait until October or November to start feeding 2:1 sugar syrup. Bees do NOT
store heavy sugar syrup! Bet you did not know that! They treat that 2:1 syrup just like nectar,
where they inject the enzyme invertase into it to convert the sugar sucrose into the simple sugars
fructose and glucose, evaporate the excess water from it and store it as honey made from sugar.
Your bees need time and weather above 50° to do this, so start feeding in September.

If you are raising Italian bees, you must be very careful about ROBBING, because robbing is a
major fault of Italian bees. Make sure a weak hive has no big entrances that require house bee
guards, and reduce those entrance sizes. ALL races of bees, including my Carniolans, will rob,
but not as quick or with as much vigor as the Italians. A strong colony can easily rob and kill a
weak colony in 1-2 days.

Bee scientists and researchers have found that about 60% of all hived bees suffer NOSEMA
disease to some extent. Nosema rarely kills a colony, but the disease badly weakens a colony
with diarrhea, so the worker bees just can't work very hard. How well can YOU work when you
have a "case of the runs?" Nosema is easily prevented by feeding about $2 worth of FUMIDIL B
dissolved in a gallon of 2:1 sugar syrup. I like to feed that in late October and November rather
than earlier so the bees don't consume all of it in the fall, but store it in the winter stores so the
bees are still getting some each day in February and March. As a result, my bees are healthy with
no diarrhea and work hard to make an early spring crop of honey, and for just $2/colony.

Lastly, it is foolish to have one colony with a strong population and another colony that is weak
in population going into the fall period. BEING VERY CAREFUL THAT YOU DON'T MOVE
THE QUEEN BEE, equalize those colonies by robbing some brood from the strong colony and
give to the weak colony.

Summarizing, if you treat for tracheal mites with menthol in August, treat for Varroa mites on
October 1st, treat for Nosema in late October or November, prevent robbing before it starts,
equalize your colony populations, feed 2:1 sugar syrup to provide 70 pounds of winter stores,
and requeen your colonies in late August or September 1st, you will have NO DEAD BEES IN
THE WINTER, and big, strong, HEALTHY colonies ready to make a record crop in the spring.
Isn't that what successful beekeeping is all about: honey production, pollination of fruit, flowers,
and vegetables, and the JOY of your accomplishments?
 September 2002

"What" about Wax Moths?

Subjects Presented:
1. "What" about Wax Moths?
2. Should you treat for Nosema Disease?
3. Feed Now - Not in November
4. Some Winter Items Often FORGOTTEN

"What" about Wax Moths

Just about now, I often hear some one say, "The Wax Moths have KILLED my hive of bees!"

They are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Wax moths can NOT kill a healthy colony of bees! In
fact, the wax moth larvae can not even stay alive in a healthy colony of bees. Wax moths can
only "come to life" and begin destroying old brood frames in a SICK hive of bees, particularly
one that is not producing any healthy brood.

Let me tell you all about THE GREATER WAX MOTH, Galleria mellonella. At least the Latin
name is pretty, even if the wax moth larva is just a nasty looking grayish, white worm, that
makes excellent fish bait.

The wax moth is not a great problem in our northern states, but can be a bad problem in our
warmer southern states. In any case, it is not much of a problem for a beeKEEPER, but can be
sure wreck the frames of a beeHAVER or the colonies in an out-apiary whose bees don't get
inspected very often.

The adult female moth, 1/2"-3/4" long, emerge from their nest at night, dash outside to mate high
up in the trees, return to bee hives and start laying up to 300 eggs before leaving shortly before
daylight. These eggs can hatch into larvae in as little as 3-5 days if the temperature is 90°, but
remain as eggs for 30 days or more if he temperature is only 60°. The larva, that white worm,
feeds on honey within an hour after hatching and then go hide themselves from the bees by
burrowing under pollen and later migrating to the mid rib area of the comb. From here they
construct silk lined tunnels through the cell walls as they search for their choice of food, honey
bee larval skins which were cast-off when the bee was pupating in a capped brood cell.
Depending on how warm the tempera- ture is, this larval period of constructing tunnels and
eating honey bee larval skins might be as short as 18 days or as long as 3 months; and the white
worm finally becomes 1 inch long. When it reaches this size, it is a mature larva and spins a
white cocoon attached to the inside hive body, inner cover, or on the exposed wooden part of a
frame. In this cocoon the wax moth larva transforms into a pupa and an adult moth may emerge
within 7-8 days in very warm weather or last for up to 4 months if it does not freeze.

The MOST IMPORTANT POINT FOR YOU TO KNOW is that a strong colony of healthy bees
will NOT tolerate the presence of wax moth larvae, and will quickly dispose of a larva they
locate before it does any damage by building silken tunnels through frames. However, if the
colony is weak because of an inferior queen, a dead queen, brood dying from disease, poisoning,
or starvation, then the wax moth larva thrives because there just aren't enough bees to kill and
dispose of the wax moth larvae. Wax Moths

Control and Treatment of the Wax Moth - If you find frames with the beginning of wax moth
silken tunnels, you therefore should know that the colony is weak for some reason, and transfer
these frames to a very strong colony who will clean them up and kill active wax moth larvae.
However, you must be sure that the colony weakness is not caused by American Foul Brood, and
the transfer of its frames to a strong colony for cleanup might infect the strong colony with AFB.

It is easy to protect empty drawn combs from wax moth infection by the use of PDB, para-
dichlorobenzene. Put a tablespoon of PDB on a piece of paper and lay that paper on the frame
tops in a super, construct a column of 5-10 of these supers, each with the tablespoon of PDB,
seal all the cracks between supers with masking tape, so you have a closed "fumigation" chamber
of PDB killing wax moth larvae. Depending on the tempera- ture, you may have to repeat this
procedure every 30 days until the average temperature is down to about 60°. These frames will
be ready to re-install in hives next spring by just letting them air out for 24-48 hours before
installation on hives.

I want to REPEAT, so you positively understand. WAX MOTHS cannot KILL a colony of
HEALTHY bees. If you find wax moths have destroyed the frames in a colony, the colony was
weak and SICK from something, and I suggest that you do your best to determine if the sickness
was caused by DISEASE or the death of the queen.

Now you know the "WHAT" about Wax Moths!

Should Colonies be Treated for Nosema Disease?

A SMART beekeeper knows that sick bees do not pollinate very well and don't collect near as
much nectar as healthy bees; and hence, he automatically treats every colony for Nosema in the
fall with Fumidil-B at a cost of about $3/colony. Now the question is: Are you SMART or too
cheap to spend $3?

Bee scientists and bee researchers have estimated that over half of all bee colonies have some
infection of the Nosema disease, and although the disease rarely kills a colony, it badly weakens
most of the bees in the colony with a "bellyache" and diarrhea. These sick bees just can't attack a
good nectar flow with a great deal of vigor. Think about it - How well do you work when you
have a case of the "runs"? Also, the disease shortens the already short 42 day life span of the
worker bee; and this sickness is just one more of those secondary illnesses associated with PMS,
parasitic mite syndrome. A sick bee is much more likely than a healthy bee to be infected by
mites or Foul Brood which eventually kills the colony.

It is so simple to treat the bees ONCE each year with Fumidil-B and so cheap, I think that a
beekeeper who can't be bothered to treat either doesn't give a damn what happens to his bees or
has some mental sickness himself or maybe is the LAZIEST person around. In Central
Maryland, I like to wait until the last part of October to start treatment, so that much of the
treated syrup is NOT CONSUMED right away, but stored as a winter food and hence consumed
during much of the total winter months. You feed 2 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup that has 2
tablespoons of Fumidil-B dissolved in each gallon. By the way, Fumidil-B is very difficult to
dissolve, so you spoon the fumidil into a cup of warm (NOT HOT) warm and stir vigorously for
a long time until it is dissolved, and then pour this cup of dissolved fumidil into the COOLED
2:1 sugar syrup. Too much heat destroys fumidil, so avoid any heat over about 110°F.

Fumidil-B comes in 3 different size containers: the smallest is enough for about 6 gallons of
syrup, the middle size is enough for about 20-24 gallons of syrup, and the large size is enough
for about 95-115 gallons of syrup.. Obviously, the largest size is the cheapest cost per colony to
buy. I keep my fumidil in my home freezer all year around to protect it from deteriorating by
time and warmth.

Perhaps you get a flu shot every year to prevent being sick with influenza. Your dog gets a
heartworm pill every year to prevent illness from worms. Even your car gets antifreeze in the
radiator to prevent a frozen motor. Why not treat your bees with fumidil to prevent Nosema
disease and maintain their health rather than being sick and weak from diarrhea?

Feed NOW - Don't wait until November!

I wish someone would explain to me the opposition or resistance of the average beekeeper to
feeding his bees sugar syrup. It has been PROVEN (not guessed) that sugar syrup is a BETTER
winter food than honey, and never causes any gut problems to a bee that some honies do,
particularly fall honies. Further, it does NOT require rocket science to understand that it much
easier for bees to accept and STORE any feed in the warmth of September than it is in the chill
of November. Maybe beekeepers are hoping the bees get a fall crop of goldenrod or aster honey
(they crystallize rapidly and "stink"), and then, they would not have to buy sugar at 30¢-
35¢/pound.

I grew up during the GREAT DEPRESSION, and I would rather sell my honey for $3.50 per
pound and feed bees sugar syrup that only costs 30¢-35¢/pound; and that does not require the
thinking of a scientist - at least, I hope not.

Further, it seems some beekeepers believe that the bees store sugar syrup as sugar syrup. This is
NOT true. The bees add invertase to the sugar syrup which converts the di-saccharide, sucrose,
to two mono-saccharides, fructose and glucose, and evapor- ate the excess water down to 16%-
18%, and then this is stored in wax cells near the center of their brood area.

If you keep your bees in two DEEP bodies for the winter, the bees should have a minimum of 12
frames completely full of stored honey, which equals 18 medium size frames if you keep your
bees in three Medium bodies like I do.

Can you think of any death worse than STARVING to death - I can't!
Winter Items That Might Be Forgotten - But DON'T!
Remove all queen excluders or division screens! If left in, the queen can be left below and starve
as the bees eat upward.

You don't want a mother mouse making a nice warm crib for her baby mice in your wax frames,
so install 1/2" hardware wire screen over your front entrance. The entrance reducer "stick" that
came with your hive can be chewed by mice allowing their entry.

Maybe "somebody" reverses the bottom board to the shallow entrance, but this act is as obsolete
as grandma's bustle. Science has now proved that good VENTILATION is very healthy for bees,
so DON'T reverse the bottom board to the narrow side.

Speaking of VENTILATION, it is so well proven that a TOP ENTRANCE to a colony is

extremely important particularly for the escape of WARM HUMID bee breath so that breath
does not condense into water droplets against a cold top and "rain" back down on the clustered
bees when the outside temperature might be freezing. Make sure that your inner cover has a slot
or half auger hole cut in the front edge not only to allow the escape of air and moisture, but the
escape of bees if the lower entrance is blocked.

Although INNER COVERS vary in their design dependent on the manufacturer, most have a
"deep" side and a "shallow" side. In the winter, it is FAR BETTER to have the "deep" side facing
DOWN which increases the space between the frame tops and the inner cover providing an area
for bee movement in going after food and increased clustering space. Somebody is going to say
"the bees will build burr comb in this larger space"; but bees DON'T build comb in the winter or
without a nectar flow.

October 2002

Some of the MAJOR problems that I have seen over the past 70 years that seem to "bam boozle"
many beekeepers, so I mention them for you to think about.

"Correct" Bees for April-May Nectar Flow

Will your bees be of forager age to gather the early spring nectar flow, or will they still be young
"nurse" bees? If you are the average uninformed beekeeper (really, a beeHAVER), you don't
know what I am even talking about; so why don't you LEARN some-thing IMPORTANT right
now!

During flying weather, the life expectancy of a worker bee is only 42 days, just 6 short weeks.
However, she spends the first 18 days of her adult life doing "hive duties" feeding and grooming
the queen, building comb, NURSiNG bee larvae which are visited several hundred times each 24
hours, receiving watery nectar from forager age bees, ripening that nectar into honey, hive
cleaning, hive protection against interlopers like robber bees, skunks, or a ROUGH
BEEKEEPER, and many other hive duties. Finally, when these bees become 19 days old, they
"get their wings" and become foraging bees, searching for nectar, pollen, propolis, and water;
and they remain in the position of FORAGER for the remaining 23 days of life expectancy. You
should note, better that you memorize the fact, that it takes 40 days (yes, FORTY days) from the
time the queen lays a worker egg until the bee that egg produces is able to go out FORAGING
for nectar: 21 days gestation period + 19 days of "hive duties" ='s 40 days. Hence, if a nectar
flow starts in your area on May 1st, the queen had to lay a worker egg 40 days before, which is
March 21st, if that bee is going to forage for nectar on May 1st.

Now let's explain a few more facts that most beeHAVERS have not thought about. Just as a
chicken never leaves the eggs she is trying to hatch for fear of them getting cold and killing the
unhatched chicken, the honey bees must have ENOUGH bees in the colony in February and
March to cover the brood the queen has laid and keep it WARM, 91-96°. Bees that were "born"
back in the fall are dying off rapidly in February and March and the queen must lay eggs for
NEW bees in order for the colony to survive. If the queen does not start intense laying of worker
brood until the weather warms in April, the colony will probably survive, but produce very little
SURPLUS honey for the beekeeper. Too often, beekeepers lay the blame for this problem on a
poor location, a poor queen, a bad winter, a drought, or any of a dozen other reasons; when the
truth of the matter is that the beekeeper did nothing to AID HIS BEES! What is this AID? Start
feeding 1:1 sugar syrup or even real thin 1:2 (1 pound sugar dissolved in 2 pints of water) sugar
syrup in February to stimulate the laying of the queen. Maintain plenty of queen laying space in
the brood area by reversing brood chambers during February, March, and April so that the queen
always has laying space ABOVE her position. Always have a queen that is LESS THAN 6
MONTHS OLD during the spring buildup, because young queens rarely swarm, whereas older
queens just can't produce enough queen pheromone to spread throughout the colony to prevent
the worker bees from constructing swarm cells. None of these management techniques change
the normal pattern of the bees natural way of doing things, but just HELPS THEM DO IT
EASIER. This is being a beeKEEPER instead of a beeHAVER.

NEVER FORGET THE IMPORTANCE OF THOSE 40 DAYS!

Finding a Colony with No Brood and No Queen Should you Order a New Queen?

Very often, a beekeeper inspects a colony in May or June and finds little or no brood and no
visible queen, so he quickly orders a new $12 MARKED queen, installs her, and upon inspection
to see "how she is doing", the new marked queen is NOT THERE, but a shiny new UNmarked
queen is busy laying eggs. WHERE DID SHE COME FROM?

Bees just don't decide on a given day to swarm and do it. Based on the age of the queen, crowded
conditions in the brood chamber (I did NOT say anything about the super space), the bees plan
ahead 1-2 weeks before swarming. The worker bees stop feeding the queen so she can reduce
weight and fly with the swarm, construct swarm cells and pack enormous amounts of royal jelly
in them with a worker egg, cap the queen cells, and then swarm. A new virgin queen emerges
maybe 6 days later. She "hangs around the hive" to become sexually mature for 6-10 days, goes
out to mate, and lays her first eggs 2-3 days after which develop into worker larva after 3 days.
This might total 22 days after the colony swarmed, just time enough for you to install a new
marked, laying queen and have her killed by this "new baby" queen that was in there all the time.

You should have TESTED the colony to see if it was queenLESS before you ordered a new
queen. Just take a frame of EGGS from a queenRITE colony, insert it in the brood area of the
suspicious colony, and inspect it 2-3 days later. If the colony has a virgin queen present,
NOTHING will be done with the frame of eggs you installed. However, if the colony was indeed
queenLESS, anxious to replace a queen, the bees will have selected 1 or 2 eggs, and constructed
emergency cells of wax around them and started to pack royal jelly around the larva there in
order to produce a new queen. These emergency cells will be right on the face of the comb, not
hanging down along the bottom edge. The bees will single out either an egg or a larva less than
48 hours old for queen production, so the beekeeper must be SURE that the test frame has EGGS
or VERY YOUNG LARVAE on it. You test for a fever with a thermometer, the optician tests
your eyes for glasses, tests your blood for sickness, your car dipstick tests to see if you have
enough oil in the crankcase. WHY NOT TEST FOR A QUEEN?

By the way, EVERY queen should be MARKED, not only to make her easier for you to locate
when inspecting, but also to tell you that she is the same queen that you installed 6 months ago
and not some gal that has been mated by all the boys in the neighborhood, so your bees are no
longer Italian, Carniolan, Buckfast or whatever you wanted. ALWAYS HAVE A MARKED
QUEEN! Don't let someone tell you that old wives tale that marked queens are superseded
quickly, which is BALONEY! Mark your queens with Tester's Hobby Paint, and it will last for
years. White-Out is a joke, and quickly wears away!

Bees MUST Have a Nectar Flow to Draw Foundation!

Bees have SO MUCH to do in their short lives that they don't do anything ahead of time, but
wait until it is needed. Bees have to eat about 8 pounds of honey to get the I energy to produce
and build one pound of wax comb; so they are not going to eat up their honey stores to 'draw
foundation unless there is a need for it► There are only two needs for drawn comb: cells for the
queen to lay eggs, and cells to store nectar or honey.

Year after year, beeHAVERS complain that their bees won't build, foundation into drawn comb.
Regardless of the location of your bees, there are only a few weeks when nectar is flowing, and
the great majority of time, there is a dearth of nectar, so the bees will NOT build drawn comb
from foundation.

This can be changed by "fooling" the bees. Feed them 1:1 sugar syrup, which is a substitute for
nectar, and they will build foundation into drawn comb. You don't want to make the syrup TOO
available, which can cause other BAD problems, but feed just a little sugar syrup 24 hours/day
every day until you, get the foundation drawn that you want. I drill 4-6 holes, 5/64" diameter (a
1/8" is TOO big), in the cap of a gallon jar and invert that jar over the inner cover hole of a
colony. A gallon of 1:1 syrup usually lasts about 6-10 days depending on the strength of the
colony and weather.

PLEASE NOTE THIS, and save yourself from being MAD at your DUMB BEES. When trying
to get foundation drawn into drawn comb, even though you only intend to install 9 frames in a
super, you MUST use 10 frames of foundation TIGHTLY PACKED TOGETHER to get frames
nicely drawn without Burr comb connected between frames. After the frames are nicely drawn,
then you can space them 9 frames to the super or 8 frames to the super; BUT YOU MUST USE
ALL 10 FRAMES TIGHTLY PACKED TOGETHER TO GET FOUNDATION PROPERLY
DRAWN!

What Part of a Colony is Important to Inspect?

Something I have NEVER forgotten. 70 years ago, my mentor was Dr. James I. Hambleton, the
predecessor of Dr. Shimanuki at the Beltsville Bee Lab, and he told me quite strongly, inspect
only the BROOD CHAMBER, because that is the location of all problems like disease, swarm
preparations, poor queen, lack of stores, etc., and ignore the supers because they will take care of
themselves if all is correct in the BROOD AREA. I have been doing just that for the last 69
years, and most people know of my above average honey yields and the rare loss of a colony for
any reason.

FORGET INSPECTING THE SUPERS - INSPECT THE BROOD AREA TO FIND THE
CONDITION OF YOUR COLONY.

Ann Harman's Talk on October 9th

I have to explain why more was not said in the Honey Pot. In August, I asked Ann if she would
talk to MCBA on October 9th, and she agreed, stating that she thought a "travelog" of some of
her MANY, MANY travels would be of interest. In mid September, I e-mailed a note to Ann to
forward a synopsis of her talk to John Seets for publishing in the Honey Pot. Little did I know
that she was away on another trip to Nepal, and hence John did not receive any communication
from Ann. Lo and behold, she arrived back home on Wednesday, Sept. 25th and quickly
contacted me. She is going to talk about beekeeping in the Republic of Georgia, Nigeria, and
Nepal.

She also corrected me on some dates, and I like accuracy, so here are corrections: She has been
sent as a VOLUNTEER to 5 continents to teach beekeeping during the period of 1993-2002, and
still President of the Northern Piedmont Bee Association. We were business partners from 1984
to1992 when she moved to Virginia. She was a member of the FIRST certified Master
Beekeepers sanctioned by EAS in 1981, and was the first Woman. Although her monthly articles
in Bee Culture were about cooking with honey for many years, she now writes about various
phases of beekeeping.
Ann knows more about bees and beekeeping than most people will ever learn, and I owe her so
much, I am not ashamed to admit it, even though I wish she would spend her time helping
AMERICANS rather than the damned foreigners who really don't appreciate it.

December 2002

Queens, Queens, Queens!

You don't have to tell me that I am TOO long winded, but scientists like to "cover all bases";
and, who knows, I might tell you something that you did NOT know. If so, then I feel good,
because I have helped you LEARN; and in today's times, successful beekeeping requires more
beekeeper KNOWLEDGE than what was adequate before the mites arrived.

All of you know that the queen is the only bee who lays worker eggs, and that her RACE
(ancestry) has very specific genetic differences from other races, some good and others bad. I
don't think any of us want apis mellifera scutellata, the "killer bee" in our apiary or even in our
state. Contrasting, a colony headed by an Italian queen, apis mellifera ligustica , or a Carniolan
queen, apis mellifera carnica, is an excellent choice for almost any place in the U.S. Perhaps the
best features of the Italians are their high yields of honey production and their "golden" color,
and the Carniolan is best known for its "explosive", early spring buildup and the most gentle of
all bees. Even these fine races have some faults, e.g., Italians are noted for being intense
ROBBERS, and even killing a weak colony when robbing it; and the Carniolans are noted for
their high propensity to SWARM. The use of a Caucasian queen, apis mellifera caucasian, is rare
because it does not start intense brood rearing until quite late, like May or June, and hence is
useful only on nectar sources that yield in late summer or early fall. Regarding the HYBRID
lines, Buckfast, Midnite, and Starline, since these are the result of a manmade breeding of two
different genetically different bees, they "cannot reproduce themselves", and were designed for a
VERY SPECIFIC PURPOSE rather than a bee for the average hobbyist.

Aside from laying 1500 eggs per day (one at a time - equals 1 every minute) during the height of
the egg laying period, the queen has numerous other necessary qualities that determine the
quality of a colony (similar to the performance of a working mother being a soccer "mom"
today). Why one queen is golden and another is almost black, or the progeny of one queen are
nasty and mean while the progeny of another queen are calm and gentle, or why one group of
workers winters well and another group winters poorly, or the fact that one group of bees might
be disease resistant whereas another group of bees is disease prone, or any of another thousand
deviations is all due to the GENETIC makeup of the queen plus the drones that mated with her.
SUDDENLY, IT SHOULD BE IMPORTANT TO YOU TO KNOW WHO THESE DRONES
WERE! If you purchase a "pedigreed" Carniolan queen from Sue Cobey, and one of her daughter
virgin queens "runs off" and mates with all the "neighborhood boys", your bees are no longer
Carniolan nor have the attributes of the Carniolan race of bees. You might as well have wild
honey bees that swarmed from Aunt Suzie's big old oak tree that have had bees in it for the past
30 years, which surely has a "league of nations" ancestry. Has it occurred to you that ONLY
THOROUGHBRED horses have won the Kentucky Derby, and all the other races of horses like
Hanovarian, quarter horse, or Clydesdale (and you never saw thoroughbred horses pulling a
Budweiser Beer Wagon) just don't have the speed and endurance of the thoroughbred? Different
horses for different types of use, and different honey bees for different types of use.

What are these other important qualities of a queen bee? The most important "new" finding is the
queen PHEROMONES, first mentioned by Dr. Free in 1974, and heavily researched during the
last 25 years. Many of the bee scientists think that we have only "scratched the surface" in our
knowledge of honey bee pheromones; and they play an extremely important part in the life of a
colony. What is a queen PHEROMONE? It is a chemical substance produced by the queen and
released externally which stimulates a specific response by other honey bees. This group of very
complex chemicals is received by the other honey bees as an odor or a taste and is microscopic in
quantity, but highly active on the bees. The Queen PHEROMONE identifies the queen as THE
QUEEN and that she is PRESENT among all of HER bees. It maintains the MORALE of the
colony, or "keeping it CALM". (A queenLESS colony is easily identified because it is NOT
calm, but noisy, and easily agitated.) The pheromone prevents worker bee's ovaries from
developing so no eggs are laid. The pheromone is a sex attractant to drones when the virgin
queen takes her mating flight. It suppresses the worker bees from building queen cells until the
necessity to swarm cannot be overlooked. The pheromone ATTRACTS worker bees to function
100% in behalf of colony survival. The pheromone produces swarm cohesion, i. e., bees will
NOT swarm without a queen present in the swarm. The queen pheromone has a role in hive
functions too, e. g., comb building, foraging, and food storage. Further, the pheromone affects
worker bee longevity. Small colony units, such as new swarms or new splits, receive more
pheromone per bee than full size colonies, which may cause them to work faster, harder, and
longer, which is important to insure survival. Again, most bee scientists, in 2002, feel that our
knowledge of honey bee pheromones is minuscule, and there is so MUCH MORE to be learned
about them.

The amount of queen pheromone that a queen can produce each day of her life is at its peak just
after the queen is mated, and DIMINISHES a little bit each day thereafter as long as she lives.
Hence, a very young queen has the ability to produce enough of her queen pheromone to spread
over all the bees in a large population; and this is the VERY REASON that a colony headed by a
VERY YOUNG QUEEN rarely swarms. It is estimated that a 13 month old queen is twice as
likely to swarm as a 1 month old queen, and a 24 month old queen is three times more likely to
swarm than the 1 month old queen. THIS FACT alone is the reason that today most commercial
beekeepers requeen a colony EVERY YEAR!

More and more enlightened hobbyist beekeepers are requeening annually. I requeen all my
colonies every September 1st; and this not only gives me a fine YOUNG queen for the early
spring buildup, but it also gives me a whole bunch of new bees in October to be the winter bees
of the colony. Since our central Maryland nectar flow arrives in April and is over for the year by
about June 10th (only about 6 weeks long), I don't like spring re- queening, because it may
damage my honey crop; and selected delivery times for queen bees are much harder to secure in
the spring than August or September.
I want to mention RUSSIAN queens here, because there are many beekeepers that think the
Russian bees are some new race or even some new species of a bee. The Russian bee is a
Carniolan, but of a different "stock". This is identical to saying that Wooten's bees in California
and Wilbanks bees in Georgia are BOTH Italian race, but different "stocks", i.e., Wootens
Italians are a stock of Italian bees developed over 70 years by the Homer Park family, and
Wilbanks Italians are a stock of Italian bees developed over 70 years by the Wilbanks family.
What do queen breeders do to develop a STOCK of their own choosing? There are many
different characteristics of honey bees such as: gentleness, not prone to swarm, winters well,
ripens nectar into honey rapidly, excels in honey production, caps the honey white, uses
minimum burr comb, uses propolis sparingly, and disease resistance. Maybe a given breeder's
interest is maximum honey production, while a second breeder's interest is gentleness, and a third
breeder's major interest is minimum use of propolis. Each year, these breeders select their new
breeder queens and select their queens for drone production (bet some did not know that) based
on the previous year knowledge of the performance of their stock in regard to that characteristic
that they value as most important. As I have written and stated many times, in the U. S. there are
many great queen breeders, but, unfortunately, there are a bundle of queen producers with
limited knowledge of characteristic selection and control. I suspect that a queen breeder whose
primary business is the sale of queens to commercial beekeepers produces queens whose
principal quality is high honey production, whereas queen breeders who sell to a large number of
hobbyist beekeepers over a wide area of our country produces queens whose bees are noted for
gentleness.

Now I want to mention two relatively new findings about queen bee genetics that I feel are going
to be the ultimate answer to our problems with mite infection and colony death from mites, and
these are bees with high Hygienic Behavior, and bees with Suppressed Mite Resistance (SMR). I
have written a good bit about both of these qualities recently, but I will briefly explain each of
these "geno-types' here. Fifty years ago, while trying to find a cure for American Foul Brood, Dr.
Walter Rothenbuhler found that certain stocks of bees, irrespective of race, were "super nest
cleaners" that cleaned out diseased brood and carried it away outside the hive before it could
infect the colony with American Foul Brood. Unfortunately, the "discovery" of Terramycin at the
same time caused the research of Rothenbuhler to be "put on the back burner". About 10-15
years ago, Dr. Marla Spivak of the University of Minnesota wondered if this nest cleaning
quality of certain stocks of bees would cause them to remove and destroy varroa mites like a
monkey picking fleas off another monkey. She has intensely researched this for the last decade,
and has developed a hygienically clean stock of bees that is sold today by Glenn Apiaries in
California. Perhaps more important however, is Dr. Spivak has published a paper describing how
YOU can test your OWN bees for their Hygienic Behavior and how YOU can develop YOUR
OWN STOCK of hygienic bees. Regarding the SMR bees, Drs. Harbo and Harris of the Baton
Rouge Lab determined that some varroa mites can NOT reproduce and this characteristic is
INHERITABLE! By intensive selection of bees, bees can be raised (irrespective of race) that do
not allow the growth of a mite population which would eventually destroy the colony.
Unfortunately, the development of SMR bees is still in the hands of highly knowledgeable
scientists and is not ready for beekeepers to develop SMR bees themselves. However, as more
and more queen breeders become skilled in the production of SMR queens, perhaps some future
day SMR queens might be readily available on the market for a reasonable price that could put a
halt to the wide existence of the varroa mite. Meanwhile, why don't you look for Dr. Marla
Spivak's paper about how YOU can raise your own hygienically clean bees!

In this paper called Queens, Queens, Queens!, it would be unfair not to mention how many
queens are superseded every year, including YOUR queens, and why successful beekeepers use
MARKED queens. To the surprise of many beekeepers, research has indicated that OVER
HALF of all new queens are superseded before 12 months have expired! Unless a queen has
some very distinguishing appearance, it is pretty safe to say that all queens of the same race look
pretty much alike, and hence are very difficult to tell apart. Regardless of how good your
eyesight is or how smart you are, I question how many unmarked queens that a beekeeper sees in
his hive in September are the same queen that was present in April. Some beekeepers are going
to say "So What?" If you have purchased a pedigreed, hygienic or SMR queen from a skilled
queen breeder of Italian bees and she leaves in a swarm or is superseded before September,
WHAT IS THE BREEDING OF THIS NEW QUEEN IN YOUR COLONY? Did the drones that
she bred with have any "killer bee" blood in them? or Carniolan blood? or Uncle Tom's old
German bee blood? Shucks, maybe your new queen bred with ALL of these strange drones, and
don't think that could not happen. After all, a virgin queen mates with 7-17 drones, averaging
about 12 different drones. The great majority of informed beekeepers use MARKED queens.
There are those who will tell you that marked queens cause them to be superseded early. Maybe
these same beekeepers still ring bells and pound pans to bring down a swarm. Bee scientists and
researchers have proven for years that a properly marked queen is not unfavorably selected for
supersedure. Marked with some "junk" like WHITE OUT or fingernail polish is unsatisfactory
because it either does not last or injures the queen. Good marking is to use Tester's quick drying
hobby paint and put a dot on the thorax ONLY, not on the head, legs, or wings. There is an
International Code of Colors to use denoting years: years ending in 1 & 6 is white, 2 & 7 is
yellow, 3 & 8 is red, 4 & 8 is green, and 5 & 0 is blue. You can remember the sequence by
thinking of this line: Will You Read Good Books. If I find a strange queen in one of my colonies,
I mark her with light GRAY paint temporarily until I replace her with a pedigreed Carniolan
queen. Another advantage of a marked queen is FINDING the queen in your colony, because a
MARKED queen stands out like a sore thumb.

I have heard the old story many times that "There are NO 'pure' Italian, Carniolan, or Caucasian
bees today because the bees of the U. S. have 'run wild' for 100 + years with the queens breeding
with every drone that came down the highway". This is not exactly correct. Some highly
scientific bee researchers and/or queen breeders who had great genetic knowledge of honey bees
have bred thousands of queens with those drones that exhibited a genetic trait that was
historically known to exist in that particular race of honey bees. In so doing, these breeders have
established a line of Italian bees that is about as true as the original Italian bee first brought to the
U. S. about 1851. Sue Cobey and/or Al Dietz have done exactly this using artificial insemination
for "purification" of the Carniolan race. Queen breeders such as Reg Wilbanks or Fred Rossman
have done exactly the same thing for the Italian race of bees. I have just used these names as
examples, but there are other highly knowledgeable and dedicated breeders out there.
Unfortunately, it is YOUR job to locate these "princes of 'pedigree' breeding of queens" in
contrast to that great number of queen producers who have limited knowledge of the genetic
make-up of a particular race of honey bees.
There is an old adage that is still true: "The proof is in the eating." or one can say: "The proof is
in the breeding." If you use MARKED PEDIGREED queens, annually requeen with them, forget
the bee management techniques prior to 1984, and use the newer bee management techniques
that have been developed in these past 18 years, you will have healthier bees, less swarming,
higher honey production, and a lot MORE BEEKEEPER JOY!

I get a real bang out of these silly oafs that say: "Why should I spend $15 to requeen when I can
raise my own queens?" or those who say: "Why should I spend $15 to requeen when my present
queen is only 12 months old and is a terrific brood producing queen?" If you sell your honey for
a cheap $3.00/pound jar, $15 is only equivalent to 5 pounds of honey. Don't you believe what the
bee scientists and researchers have PROVEN that a very young queen is a better laying queen
than an older queen and is much less likely to swarm? If $15 is that important to you, how do
you justify that new SUV you drive with those fancy (expensive) hubcaps? How do you digest
that expensive $30 dinner of filet mignon, when you could have had the roast beef for just $12? I
know honey producers that have 10,000 colonies of bees and BUY queens to requeen these
colonies every 12 months. There has to be GOOD REASON for them to spend that much money
every year on their bees! WHY DON'T YOU REQUEEN, and ONLY with a PEDIGREED
MARKED queen bought from a skilled queen breeder rather than that "good ole boy" queen
"producer" who has difficulty spelling GENETICS.

I'd like to tell a true personal story about "changing times". My maternal grandfather was born in
1857 and died in 1953 and had been a farmer his entire life on property that has been in my
family since 1736. Papa was a highly successful farmer plowing his 100 acres with a 3 horse
team (never had a fancy tractor). After I came home from building the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
atom bombs, my new wife and I rented a house until we got our new home custom built, and I
grew tomatoes and trained them to "climb up poles" as was done in the Victory Gardens during
World War II. Wow, did I get LOTS of beautiful BIG tomatoes! I told my grandfather about
them, how many were ripe on a vine and how big they were, and he did NOT believe me, saying
he had grown tomatoes for over 70 years and they were grown on the ground, not on a pole and
you always had some that were blemished. In total frustration, I persuaded him to get in my car
and travel 4 miles to my rented home and see my tomatoes for himself and my 20 colonies of
honey bees. This was 1947 when he was 90 years old. When he saw my "poled" tomatoes
heavily laden with big, fat, red tomatoes with no blemishes, he was dumbfounded; and told his
friends and neighbors about George's POLED tomatoes when they visited him. World War II
caused new management techniques for raising tomatoes from the time honored acceptable ways
of the past. Of course, he got some of my fancy comb honey as my reward for him to come and
see my tomatoes. 55 years ago - FOND MEMORIES! By the way, all of this was in Bethesda,
Maryland, which is just 10 miles north of the White House and U. S. Capitol, and home of the
National Institutes of Health.

Ending now, I am greatly concerned about beeHAVERS and even beeKEEPERS changing
queen lines like changing socks, or the Redskins football team changing quarterbacks almost
every game, or Elizabeth Taylor changing husbands eight times. Not only is this practice foolish,
but it clearly demonstrates that the apiarist is grasping for a "life-preserver" and has no idea of
just what he is doing.
Most are just following persuasive advertising or the lead of one of the local "good ole boys",
just spending money foolishly. Come on guys, you have a brain, STUDY the latest findings of
bee scientists and/or bee researchers, talk to one or more MASTER BEEKEEPERS, and then
USE YOUR OWN BRAIN to make a decision. The latest queens in the news are the Russian
queens and the SMR queens. The Russian queens are just a hybridized queen descendant from an
imported queen that was CARNIOLAN from a stock of bees in Eastern Russia; and the SMR
queen is nothing more than a descendant from a queen that exhibited the ability to live among
mites who did not breed very well. What makes you think that the Russian or SMR queen you
buy for $15-$20 is going to have these qualities? Sooner or later, after more queen breeders raise
a "slew" of these critters and select the best for their breeder queens, hopefully maybe the
Russian queens or the SMR queens will, in fact, be mite resistant. Won't that be wonderful?
However, who knows whether these Russian queens or SMR queens are good brood producers,
good honey producers, disease resistant, winter well, and what about their gentleness? Do you
know? Of course not. When buying a Russian queen or an SMR queen right now, you are buying
the proverbial "pig in a poke"! START USING YOUR BRAIN! Of course, if you don't want to
do any WORK or STUDY, but just spend money, go ahead, buy the moon if you want. However,
if you really want to save your bees from mites and the use of chemicals to kill the mites, buy a
new pedigreed, marked queen from a knowledgeable queen breeder and study Dr. Marla Spivak's
directions for testing bees for their HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR, and TEST your bees YOURSELF!
If you find the new queen that you bought produces bees with great hygienic behavior, try
raising some queens from her, or making splits using swarm cells. You will be the "talk of the
town" and the most respected beekeeper in your state if you wind up with a whole bunch of
colonies that survive mites without chemical treatment. I wish I was 10 years younger so I could
try before I die. You do it, and just say that you were "challenged" by George Imirie to give it a
try; and that would make me VERY HAPPY!
January 2003

Will Your Bees Be Ready For The Spring Nectar Flow?

Successful beekeepers start "doing things" with their bees 2-3 months in advance of the spring
nectar flow. Since our central Maryland only major nectar flow occurs in April and May, this
means that responsible beekeeping begins in January or no later than February 1st, and not on the
calendar's first day of spring, March 21st! People often ask me "What can be done in the cold
weather of January?" First, take 10 minutes of a warm, windless, sunny day, 50° or more, and
OPEN the hive and make sure the bees are ALIVE and still have PLENTY OF FOOD. If they
are NOT alive, look for symptoms of what killed them, rather than guess or cite that old wrong
reason of "the bad cold weather". If there was still plenty of stores but only a handful of dead
bees in the ive, these facts would indicate death by tracheal mite infection. Maybe you forgot to
treat with menthol in August (September is too late); or maybe you did not start treating with
grease patties in July and continue the treatment until Christmas! These are the only two legal
treatments for tracheal mite control, which are still destroying untreated colonies in 49 states. If
some brood frames still had CAPPED cells and some of these cells had small holes in the
cappings which also might be slightly sunken, this is a strong indication of American Foul Brood
disease. AFB does NOT appear suddenly and kill quickly. Quite the opposite in fact. Generally,
from the time of becoming exposed to AFB spores until death of the colony requires over a year;
and hence you should have seen these signs of perforated brood cell cappings sometime last
summer or autumn BEFORE you prepared the colony for winter. Was this colony STRONG
enough in population back in October, i.e., did it have the equivalent of two 3 pound packages of
bees; and what was the age of the queen, Le., older that 18 months? A colony headed by an old
queen or weak in population often dies simply because it cannot maintain cluster heat, and the
old queen had not produced enough young bees back in October and November to get through
the winter. No one can examine a colony by observing it from OUTSIDE! You MUST go
INSIDE a hive to properly examine it! Something I have said and written 10,000 times, I guess!

A colony must be "boiling" with a "multitude" of bees, like 40,000-0,000, to gather a large crop
of nectar to make a good yield of honey. A "multitude" of bees can NOT be made "over night",
but takes some time. Let me explain some things that maybe you have not considered.
Regardless of how great your queen is at brood laying, there must be a lot of bees in the winter
cluster to keep a large area of brood warm while it develops in 21 days. Hence, it is desirable to
force your queen to lay brood in late January or early February to get more new bees added to
the winter cluster to provide warmth for more intense queen laying to have a LARGE number of
"foraging age bees" ready to collect nectar on April 15th. Since a worker bee does "hive duties"
and no foraging for the first 18 days of its life, and the gestation time of a worker bee is 21 days,
that means that an egg must be laid at least FORTY DAYS before that bee becomes a forager.
An egg that will produce a foraging age bee for April 1 5th foraging must be laid before
MARCH 6th! (Never forget those 40 days!) Now, you see why it is best to FORCE the queen to
begin egg laying early by feeding the bees 1:1 sugar syrup or even 1:2 sugar syrup (1 pound of
sugar dissolved in 2 pints of water) in late January or early February! I always spread a few
ounces of Bee Pro (a pollen substitute) on the tops of brood frames just to make sure that the
bees have plenty of pollen, because queens, particularly Carniolans, just won't lay very well
without plenty of pollen. Let us NOT confuse sugar syrup ratios: 2:1 syrup (2 parts sugar to 1
part water) is a WINTER FEED like honey and definitely will NOT stimulate queen laying of
eggs. Bees start forcing the queen to eat so she will lay more eggs as soon as they are able to get
pollen and a little bit of nectar from early blooms like skunk cabbage, alders, and maples. 1:2
syrup (1 part sugar to 2 parts water) is a thin syrup like a early nectar, in other words, 1:2 syrup
or 1:1 syrup is an artificial nectar, which is just what the bees need to force the queen to lay. You
4 don't want to "drown" the bees with too fast a delivery of this artificial nectar, because they
will just store it away and try to convert it to honey. You want to "tease" or "excite" the bees
with just a slow delivery system of this thin sugar syrup. I like to drill 4-6 holes with a 3132"
drill bit in the top of a gallon jar and set this over the hole in the inner cover so the bees get a
slow delivery of syrup.

You MUST realize that by building this multitudinous population of bees which is the "key" to
making an abundant honey crop from April and May nectar flows, the chances of having a
swarm are greatly increased. This is "no big deal" as long as you properly manage the swarm
controls that I have mentioned many times in the past, namely: have a queen less than 12 months
old; start reversals of the brood chambers in February and continue it as needed until at least
April 15th; put on at least one super of DRAWN COMB on April 15th; if you have 40 super
frames of DRAWN comb (not foundation), install 4 supers of drawn comb all at one time no
later than May 1st. REVERSING of the brood chambers is the most important swarm control,
and this might have to be 3-5 times between February 1st and April 15th depending upon
weather, race of bees, size of brood frame, queen fecundity, and population on Thanksgiving
Day when the queen has stopped laying. Pages 617 and 618 of the 1992 Extensively Revised
Edition of The Hive and Honey Bee support my feelings about REVERSING rather strongly,
and I suggest you read it as well as several pages before and after 617-618..

Just 100 years ago, when little was known about the IMPORTANT parts of swarm prevention or
swarm control, most beekeepers lost about half of their "hoped for" honey production because of
swarming. During the past 50 years and particularly the past few years since the arrival of mites
which created a tremendous amount of bee scientist research, most successful beekeepers have
stopped using the Demaree Plan, have stopped clipping queens, have stopped adding supers as
the top super was getting filled, and are using the NEW MANAGEMENT techniques that I have
just written above. Could this be the reason that my colonies usually produce a much greater
crop of honey than comes from colonies in neighboring apiaries? Yes, there is NO way to
prevent all swarming as this is a strong part of the honey bee's natural reproduction system, but a
skilled beekeeper can materially decrease the swarming that occurs in swarm season, which is
defined as that time period of great increased brood production and just prior to a major nectar
flow. Swarming during the major nectar flow is almost 100% the fault of the beekeeper because
supers were added to LATE or NOT ENOUGH. A smart medical surgeon does not delay an
appendecomy until the next day because it interferes with his fancy dinner party for fear the
patient's appendix will rupture and the patient dies.

Successful beekeeping is BOTH an art an a science. A beeHAVER starts a package in April and
hopes for their success, plants his garden, fills his swimming pool, adds one super to his bees and
hopes for their success, observes his bees from the back of his lawn mower before he leaves for
vacation at the beach and hopes for their success, harvests his tomatoes, squash, cantaloupes in
the cool of an August evening and hopes for the success of his bees, waits for a cool September
weekend to collect his honey and finds that his bees only made about 10 pounds of honey, and
BLAMES the queen producer who sold him the package of bees. In contrast, a beeKEEPER
reads the writings of bee researchers and bee scientists and follows their new findings of
management techniques, cares for the health of his bees by administering medical treatments that
the scientists suggest and DO IT WHEN THE SCIENTIST SAYS TO DO IT, does not relegate
his bee work to weekends but performs the needed work on what ever day is best for the bees,
and attends bee meetings at many different sites to LEARN, LEARN, LEARN! What do you get
for all this? Your reward is the self PRIDE of being successful, and enjoying the JOYS OF
BEEKEEPING!

George W. Imirie, Jr. Certified EAS Master Beekeeper

Attend an Exciting Meeting!

At our FIRST meeting of 2003 on Wednesday, January 8th , CERTIFIED EAS MASTER
BEEKEEPER Evelyn Hogg Bernard is going to be our speaker, and the title of the talk "Talking
about bees: A Little Knowledge Goes A Long Way!" just excites me tremendously, because I
constantly mention getting knowledge, but that word 'little" bothers me. MI wager that you and
the post office wonder why I always write TOO much if just a 'little' will go a long way. I will be
there with my hearing aids turned on HIGH.

I have known Evelyn for many years, long before she married Master Beekeeper Dave. Both of
them had bees, and were even moving colonies into fields for crop pollination before they were
married. Who knows, maybe they married to consolidate the wealth of knowledge that both of
them had about bees, plus saving telephone time for their long communications. Now, in
addition to her job as a biological scientist, Evelyn has THREE cute daughters who are now in
grade school. I don't know where she gets the time and energy, but she also does volunteer work
of going to Montgomery County schools and giving talks about bees and showing bees in an
observation hive.

If Evelyn can give up an evening to come to Brookside Nature Center to talk to you about better
beekeeping, when she has a regular 40 hour week job and still takes care of all the needs of 3
school age daughters in addition to her bee work, I think she deserves your attendance so you too
can improve your knowledge about apis mellifera.

All over the country, whether you are talking about Montgomery County, Ocean City, or
Northern Virginia, large numbers of people are asking "Where are the bees; I haven't seen hardly
any honey bees in my garden for several years?" Surely, the farmers who grow cucumbers,
watermelon, cantaloupe, squash, apples, lima beans, and strawberries are greatly aware of the
LACK of honey bees, and they have finally learned that the feral honey bees are gone and there
is no evidence that they will return anytime soon, if at all. Some of these farmers have learned
the value of pollination in making them a salable crop of these fruits and vegetables; and have
been asking about the cost of placing some colonies of bees on their land for pollination. Of
course, that farmer with 100 acres or more of crop farmland is going to be looking for many
colonies, like 50 or 200, and he will have to contact one of the migratory beekeepers who brings
hundreds of colonies up the Atlantic coast. But can't you help that grower who just has a few
acres and would only need a few colonies? Although the price is negotiable, many pollinators
have been getting $50/colony for perhaps a month of pollination. With the sale price of honey
remaining low, in our CHANGING TIMES, maybe crop pollination is the way for local
beekeepers to pick up a few extra dollars.

Many people have complained that the drought all over the Maryland-Virginia region in 2002
was the prime cause for a lousy honey crop and a very poor year for this winter stores. The over
abundant precipitation of October, November, and December have refilled the reservoirs and
rivers, so maybe 2003 will be a banner year of honey production. Always the optimist, I am
preparing for big yields.

February 2003

Feeding Bees: What, When, Why & HOW

Often there is a hue and cry by many that say "Let the bees be natural as they do things in
nature." If you follow that line of reasoning, you lose a lot of bees and don't produce much
honey. You are not aware of the fact that only about 10% of all feral bee swarms (same as a
package of bees) survive for 12 months? Most die because of lack of bee population due to lack
of food in the summer, and starving to death in the winter. Hence, I WANT you to thoroughly
understand all the good things and the bad things about feeding of bees, and I am sure some
things will greatly 4 surprise you; e.g., one of the BAD things about the Italian race of bees is
they are fierce "robbers" and you have to be very careful when feeding Italian bees. Hoping that
my surprise example has interested you, let's learn all we can about feeding.

As cheap as regular table sugar is in the grocery store, about 3¢/pound, many people try to feed
something else like honey, corn syrup, coke syrup, or candy and quite often wind up with sick
bees, diseased bees, or dead bees. After all, what we call table sugar, which is the disaccharide
chemical named sucrose, is the exact sugar that is in natural NECTAR. The honey bee gathers
this nectar, takes it home to the hive, injects it with the enzyme INVERTASE which chemically
divides the sucrose into two simple, mono-saccharides, fructose and glucose, and it is these two
simple sugars plus minute amounts of other products that make what we call HONEY.
Obviously then, the best feed is sucrose, table sugar, because it won't make the bees sick, give
them any disease, or kill them. Another surprise: Honey is NOT the favorite food of honey bee!
Honey is just a method of winter storage of nectar; and NECTAR is the favorite food of the bee.
I want to impress upon you here that nectar is very THIN and WATERY; in fact it can be as high
as 80% water and only 20% sucrose whereas honey is only about 16%-18% water. Hence, when
you feed bees, it depends upon just what you want to accomplish that determines the thickness of
the sugar syrup used. If your bees are short of winter stores like honey, you feed them HEAVY
syrup which is a 2:1 ratio, 2 pounds of sugar dissolved in 1 pound of water, or 16 pounds of
sugar dissolved in 1 gallon of water. Note: a pint of water weighs 1 pound, and there are 8 pints
to a gallon. Bees will NOT build comb unless there is a nectar flow present, nor will a queen lay
eggs unless there is a nectar flow present (and far too many beeHAVERS just don't seem to
understand these two facts). Hence, using table sugar, you "trick" the bees by making an
ARTIFICIAL nectar of 1:1 ratio or 1:2 ratio, which are 1 pound of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of
water, or 1 pound of sugar dissolved in 2 pints of water. I use 1:2 very thin syrup in February and
March as a stimulative feed to get the queen laying. Since building comb requires so much
energy from the bees, I prefer to use a little stronger syrup, like 1:1, to get the bees to draw
foundation into drawn comb How about another surprise? It is WELL KNOWN, and
scientifically PROVEN, that bees winter BETTER on heavy 2:1 sugar syrup than they do on
honey, because honey sometimes causes diarrhea whereas sugar never causes diarrhea. In
summation, plain table sugar is the best feed for honey bees, and you vary the concentration of
the sugar depending on what you are trying to HELP the bees to do.

It is amazing to me that a lot of people just don't seem to understand the REASONS for feeding
bees. It is quite simple. You feed bees to HELP them progress because "nature" was not
cooperating very well by NOT yielding much nectar, or too much rain, or too much drought, or
too hot, or too cold, or anything that impedes the bees from building up their population, getting
foundation drawn into drawn comb, or providing adequate winter stores. FEEDING is your
HELP for your bees! One area that most new beeHAVERS badly fail is the start-up of a new
colony on all new foundation. Remember that bees will NOT build comb unless there is a nectar
flow! The MUST HAVE A REASON to build comb, and there are basically only two reasons: to
make cells for brood rearing or cells to store food like nectar, honey, or pollen. Here in
Maryland, while you may see many flowers blooming in July and August, there is basically NO
nectar flow, so the bees just sort of sit around the hive doing nothing. Since no nectar is being
collected, the queen dramatically reduces her egg laying, and hence no new comb is needed for
brood rearing or to store nectar, and the bees do NOT build comb on the foundation. The "cure"
for this is to FEED light 1:1 sugar syrup from the day you hive the bees, probably in April or
May, CONTINUOUSLY without stopping until about September. By then, you will have a good
population of bees to go into winter quarters, all 20 of your deep brood frames of foundation
DRAWN (or 30 medium frames), and perhaps 20 of your super frames drawn and filled with
honey made from the sugar. (Yes, the bees make honey from the sugar syrup just as if it were
nectar.) NOW, your colony is well populated with worker bees, and the DRAWN COMB
"furniture is all in place" ready for the big yield of nectar that is due to arrive next April and
May!

Feeding is a morale booster for a colony, gets bees ACTIVELY doing "things", calms them, and,
of course, improves their overall health. Aren't you more happy with a full tummy than suffering
hunger pangs? Hence, you should ALWAYS feed bees when you requeen, and certainly when
you make a new split. Lastly, and considered "most" important by some folks (but I don't) is the
case of feeding to rectify a shortage of winter stores. Here, you are simply "pushing feed" (heavy
2:1 sugar syrup) into the hive, and the workers have to select a site in the colony to STORE it for
winter use. This is a totally different concept than feeding light 1:1 or 1:2 sugar syrup, which is
designed to promote the queen to lay brood, promote the worker bees to build comb or draw
foundation, provide instant food to be fed to worker larvae, and lift the morale of a colony; and,
in my opinion, these uses of light sugar syrup are far more important than feeding heavy syrup
for winter feed. Feeding of bees is a necessary and important activity for a beekeeper to properly
manage his bees, so a conscientious beekeeper should thoroughly understand all the differences
of feeding.

Speaking of differences, I will "attempt" to explain how to feed the correct volume or correct
delivery rate of the feed, which is EXTREMELY important and often done in-correctly resulting
in trouble. Feeding of heavy sugar syrup winter feed is not much of a problem, because you can
feed it just as fast as the bees can store, or just as fast as , does run out on to the floor of the hive.
Entirely different is the feeding of light sugar syrup 1:1 or 1:2 ratio. Imagine if you can the start
of the first nectar flow in the late winter or very early spring. There is only a meager amount of
nectar available at the beginning, the flow lasts for just a few hours, and its sugar content is low.
THAT is exactly the "tease" that you want to give the bees to promote brood rearing and lift
colony morale. You want to "make the bees work hard" to get some of this light sugar syrup, so
you never use a hive top feeder or a division board feeder, or "baggies" with large cuts in them;
but use a gallon jar inverted over the inner cover hole that has only 3-5 tiny holes in the cap.
These holes should not be any larger than 3/32". You don't I want to "drown" the bees with sugar
syrup, but delicately feed them!

Lastly, what equipment is best for feeding bees, and what is wrong with some types of feeders?
First and VERY IMPORTANT: Bees began to form together in a CLUSTER when the
temperature goes below 50°, and the cluster becomes very tight as the outside temperature goes
down to 32° or below In spite of what you think or might have heard, bees that are extremely
hungry will NOT break the cluster and travel even 2 inches away from cluster warmth to get
food. Hence, they DIE! Therefore, in cold weather the sugar syrup has to be just about touching
the cluster before the bees can take any of it. Every beekeeper should thoroughly understand this!

Basically there are five different feeding systems known and I will give my opinion of all of
them:

1. Entrance Feeder (Boardman Feeder): Throw it away! It invites robbing, and bees cannot get to it
when it is chilly, much less COLD.
2. Division Board Feeder: I refuse to use them' because they drown a lot of bees, they occupy the
space of a good brood frame, and mainly, the hive has to be opened to the weather to refill or to
inspect. Further, the bees can NOT get to it if it is real cold.
3. Hive Top Feeder: A fine feeder in WARM weather, but bees can NOT get to it when weather is
cold. This feeder is useful for feeding large amounts of HEAVY SYRUP for winter stores if the
weather is still above 50° and bees can fly. However, I do not like it for feeding LIGHT SYRUP
which is sometimes done in cold weather, and bees can drown in it in warm weather. It is popular
with some beekeepers, but I don't like it.
4. Baggies: These are ziplock, sandwich bags filled with sugar syrup placed on the tops of brood
frames with knife slits in them for bees to feed. Again, you have to open the hive in the cold to
add more, and the possible breakage and flooding scares me.
5. A gallon glass or metal jar with about 4 tiny frame nail holes punched through the lid inverted
over the inner cover hole, and that enclosed by an empty deep body is my choice of feeding
technique. If bees need a tremendous amount of feed in a hurry, remove the inner cover and
invert 4 of these jars right on top of the frames. Unless you have too many holes in the lid or
 holes that are too large (any size exceeding 3/32" is too large), there is little chance of any
leakage, the holes are VERY close to the bees, the cluster heat warms the syrup, and the syrup is
well protected from robbing. When these jars are inverted, a non-scientist might think the syrup
would just run out of the holes by gravity. However, it does not because the vacuum created in
the jar as some syrup is removed by the bees holds the syrup securely in the jar. This is exactly
the reason that you can NOT use plastic jars such as milk containers, because plastic will
collapse, releasing the vacuum, and the syrup will simply run into the hive. USE ONLY GLASS
JARS OR METAL CANS for feeding. Where do you get them? Most deli's buy gallon GLASS
JARS of pickles, peppers, olives, pig's feet, etc. and throw them away when empty. Give the deli
owner a jar of your honey, and he will be happy to save the jars and lids for you.

Ending: My mentor back in the 1930's, Dr. James I Hambleton, told me to always feed a little bit
of pollen or pollen substitute, like Beltsville supplement or Bee-Pro, when you are feeding light
syrup for the purpose of stimulating queen laying. I have always done that, but I had forgotten
the reason for it. Recently, I talked with Lloyd Spear, the owner of Ross Rounds and a very well
known and respected comb honey expert producer, and I discovered that he has an article in the
February issue of Bee Culture that details why it is a fine idea to feed a pollen supplement or
pollen when you are feeding a LIGHT syrup. It would be unfair to Lloyd for me to explain the
reasons for feeding pollen or pollen supplement to bees when feeding them to stimulate queen
laying, so look in his article in Bee Culture, which I have been reading for about 70 years.

Isn't beeKEEPING wonderful! 2003 will be my 71st year in beekeeping, and I am still
LEARNING. There is still SO MUCH that we just don't know yet about honey bees, and its up
to you younger people to scientifically investigate new ideas of bee management and disease
treatments so that more and more hobbyists can get involved in the JOYS of BEEKEEPING!

George W. Imirie, Jr. Certified EAS Master Beekeeper

Three IMPORTANT February Dates

Wednesday, Feb. 12th - GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUTT, and come to the monthly meeting of
MCBA, listen to another of our CERTIFIED MASTER BEEKEEPERS, David Morris, and
LEARN!

Sunday, Feb. 16th - From 1:00 - 4:00 PM, MCBA will hold an "OPEN HOUSE" for ALL adults
interested in becoming a beeKEEPER (not a beeHAVER). Headed by Master Beekeeper David
Bernard and assisted by other Master Beekeepers, we will explain to attendees that they can no
longer keep bees "like Daddy. kept bees", and why they should attend our FREE, FREE, FREE,
course of 5 Two Hour Tuesday night lectures and demonstrations plus TWO Three Hour
Saturday Afternoon April HANDS ON work with bees in our MCBA apiary to LEARN!

Saturday, Feb. 22nd - The Maryland STATE Beekeepers meeting at Howard County Fair-
grounds. I have not asked YET, but I intend to give a short talk about the use of formic acid for
mite control + touch on the importance of GOOD queens, if my DISABLED voice can "work"
that day. Regardless of my attendance or not, YOU SHOULD BE THERE, if you truly want to
LEARN.

Magazine Compliments

There is a FIRST time for everything - "me" extending compliments to a magazine!

I have reading BEE CULTURE, formerly Gleanings in Bee Culture, for almost 70 years, and
other trade organs as well, but not as long. Most of the articles were of interest to me, but not
greatly instructive, or "made one THINK". The JANUARY, 2003 of Bee Culture CHANGED
my opinion, and I want to publicly compliment Editor Kim Flottom! Let me briefly explain what
I found of GREAT interest, and it would surely help YOU too.

1. Page 21: Sue Cobey and Her New World Carniolans, written by the expert Dr. Malcom Sanford.
Why is Sue Cobey "famous"? Did her selection of the race carnica make Sue a well respected
scientist, or did Sue make the Carniolan race highly acceptable to the American beekeeper? After
you read the article, you will soon know that Sue could have done the exact same thing and with
the same success if she had used Italians or any other race. Sue Cobey is not a queen "producer",
but she is a gifted, knowledgeable queen "breeder" who produces the breeder queens for her
selected dealers who pay her in the realm of $500 for each queen. Although I switched to
Carniolans back in 1948, before Sue was even born, one can understand why I think so highly of
her when you read just what she has done in the interest of selected breeding to maintain the
genetic qualities of a honey bee that most beekeepers secretively want. I want to thank Tom
Sanford for writing this wonderful article. I also suggest you examine: http://iris.biosci.ohio-
state.edu/honeybee/breeding
2. Page 41: Research Symposium Wrap-Up I was supposed to be in attendance at this meeting, but
the death of my wife during that very week negated my plans . I am so happy about Kim's report
on this meeting. Wow, the things that our scientists have found lately and mind boggling, and you
have to read the whole article. However, I want to point out a phrase that is used over and over by
almost all the scientists mentioned before you get to the very last line on page 43 beginning with:
Dr. Marla Spivak That phrase is HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR, that "thing" that Marla has made
important in very recent years; and something that EVERY beeKEEPER, with one colony or 100
colonies, could do himself, if he would get off his lazy butt and stop looking for another $5
chemical to put in his colonies. I hope you read every word of page 44 and re-read it. In many
ways, Marla is blunt like I am with the hope that the bluntness makes a point. We have all heard
of IPM (Integrated Pest Management), but Marla's definition for IPM is TWOFOLD: Integrated
Pet Peeve of Mine, and then becoming serious with Integrated Prevention Measures, which
features the use of bees that have excellent HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR. READ WHAT OUR BEE
SCIENTISTS AND BEE RESEARCHERS ARE DOING!
3. Page 49: DO YOU KNOW? I have always thought highly of Dr. Clarence Collison's monthly
article, particularly if you have thoughts of becoming a MASTER BEEKEEPER. When you can
talk intelligently to perspective buyer's of your honey about "What is Honey", "How do the bees
make it?" "What are the chemical properties of Honey?", you will not only SELL more honey,
but you have gained respect as a beeKEEPER, and hopefully, you can HELP beginners to
become better beeKEEPERS.
4. Page 51: A Taste of Honey ask YOU. "What does chocolate tastes like?" As almost everyone
knows, until I became disabled by strokes, Ann Harman and I were known as the BEE
PARTNERS for 15 years. When you read this article about The Taste of Honey, you can
understand my attraction to Ann. SHE MAKES YOU THINK! How do you describe the
 difference in taste between clover honey and tulip poplar honey? I hope I never meet that little
green man from Mars that Ann mentions, because I might be speechless) CAN YOU IMAGINE
GEORGE SPEECHLESS?

I am often asked "George, where can one learn all these things about honey bees that you
know?" Well, surely this January 2003 edition of Bee Culture is a good place to start, because it
is STRESSING the findings of honey bee scientists and research rather than the tales and hive
pictures of the beekeepers PRIOR TO THE ARRIVAL OF MITES, SMALL HIVE BEETLE,
AHB, RESISTANT AFB, and prior to the knowledge of the importance of PHEROMONES,
HYGIENIC BEHAVIOR, SMR bees, and QUEEN BREEDING FOR SELECTED GENETIC
QUALITIES. One learns by reading, listening, and attending meetings that feature beekeepers
who have proven their knowledge rather than having some "good old boy" as your mentor.

I can't end this note without straightening out a common error of many. The new RUSSIAN bees
are NOT some new race of honey bees found in Russia. They are CARNIOLANS raised by a
beekeeper named Primorski, just like Sue Cobey's Carniolans could be referred to as the Cobey
line rather than New World Carniolans. Both George Bush and Queen Elizabeth of England are
members of the white caucasian race, Emperor Hirohito of Japan and Chiang Kai Chek of China
were both members of the asian race, and Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall were both
members of the negro race, and each race has certain, distinct, different genetics and qualities,
those members of a same race have the same genetics, but their qualities may differ due to
culture, climate, or training which establishes them as a LINE of a specific race. The RUSSIAN
bee is a CARNIOLAN.

April 2003

Cocked and Ready?

Beginning last November, Commander-and-Chief George Bush ordered the Pentagon to get
troops well prepared for the possible invasion of Iraq. Repeatedly, I have warned beekeepers that
you start preparing your bee colonies for an April-May nectar collection in September, not
March. As I write this in March, pollen is coming into colonies in great quantities, my colonies
have 4-6 frames of brood, I am feeding 1:1 sugar syrup to keep the queen bee laying brood, the
famous cherry blossom festival around the Washington Tidal Basin is just 3 weeks off, and buds
are all over my willows, maples, alders, forsythia, tulips, crocus, etc. SPRING IS HERE, and the
ground is "full of water' implying we are going to have nectar "flowing out on the ground".

Unfortunately, there are those non-caring or non-learning people out there who lost many
colonies during the cold winter, and, of course, blame it all on the "cold winter" and NEVER
themselves. Meanwhile, local beekeepers like Barry Thompson, Bill Troup, or David Bernard
didn't lose any bees and their bees are so strong that they are selling 'nuc' colonies. Doesn't that
make you wonder just what successful beekeepers do that you don't? I noted the puzzled look on
the faces of the 30 Short Course members when 2-3 of the Master Beekeeper instructors pointed
out that this prolonged cold winter weather was "wonderful and calming" for their bees rather
than a mild winter that changed from day to day from 20° to 60°, which causes chilled brood and
excess use of honey stores. My queens were laying in January, surrounded by plenty of bees for
clustering warmth of brood, and eating very little because of lack of flight weather. It was a great
winter for bees if you had properly prepared them for it with a menthol treatment for tracheal
mites in August (not September), 1:1 sugar syrup feeding in September to stimulate queen laying
for young winter bees, hopefully a new queen installed in late August, Apistan strips installed on
October 1st AND REMOVAL BEFORE DECEMBER to kill over 95% of all Varroa mites,
Fumadil-B in November to prevent spring Nosema, and 2:1 sugar syrup in October and
November to insure the colony with at least 70 pounds of winter stores. WHAT IS SO TOUGH
ABOUT THAT? Are you satisfied with just being a beeHAVER and having to buy new
EXPENSIVE bees every year or so? With your intelligence, you could be a real fine
beeKEEPER if you just paid as much attention to your bees as you do to the Redskin football
games, Oriole baseball games, Wizard basketball games, and the TV "who done its". Don't you
want to find the excitement and JOYS OF BEEKEEPING that I have had for 70+ years?

I guess I have chastised some of you enough and bored those that did not lose colonies this
winter, so let me talk about things you should do NOW to get these gallons of nectar converted
into honey in you hives. By the way, when I use the word NOW, I don't mean some nice
weekend in April or May - I mean NOW, like tomorrow regardless of whether it is a workday or
not, because it might be raining on the weekend. If you have been REVERSING YOUR
BROOD CHAMBERS as I have "begged you to do" to prevent swarming, and if you have been
feeding 1:2 or 1:1 sugar syrup to stimulate queen laying as I have "begged you to do", your bee
population should be strong and they might think about swarming in early April UNLESS YOU
GIVE THEM MORE ROOM. Install just one super of drawn comb or 10 tightly packed together
frames of foundation NOW, NOW, NOW without any queen excluder! REVERSE the Brood
chambers so the queen is laying in the bottom chamber, add a 1:1 sugar syrup feeder over the
inner cover hole, and the bees will start to draw the foundation or pack the sugar syrup in the
drawn comb. This feeder should have TINY holes because you just want to tease the bees with
sugar syrup, not "drown" them. In central Maryland, this should be done on April 1st, NOT
APRIL 15TH or the nice weekend of April 19-20. When the frames in that super are about 50%-
75% filled with nectar or young brood, which will be about April 15th, but surely before May
1st, make sure that the queen is put "downstairs' in the brood area and install a queen excluder
under that first super, and then add either 3-4 more supers of DRAWN COMB, or just one super
of 10 frames of tightly packed frames of foundation. When that super of foundation is about 70%
filled, add ONE more super of 10 tightly packed frames of foundation, etc.

The single thing that defeats so many beginners or beeHAVERS is they don't STAY AHEAD of
their bees, and upon discovering a need, they try to play "catch-up". Often the bees SWARM.
PLAN AHEAD AND STAY AHEAD OF YOUR BEES, so they have no reason to swarm.
Frames of drawn comb or frames or foundation sitting in your basement or your garage attracts
nothing more than dust, and maybe your bees swarm because they were not in place on you
colony at the right time. Now, you have no excuse, because I have told you the RIGHT TIMES
to install supers in Montgomery County , MD and other surrounding Maryland and Virginia
counties.
I want to REPEAT something I have said thousands of times, but some people just don't seem to
understand. BEES DO NOT GATHER HONEY! THEY GATHER THIN, WATERY NECTAR!
Since nectar might be 80% water and honey is only about 16%-18% water, bees might require 5
supers of drawn comb to store all that thin watery nectar until they have time to evaporate the
water from the nectar and ripen it into honey that makes just 2-3 supers of honey. If there is NOT
enough super space for the bees to store all this thin watery nectar, maybe collecting as much as
20 pounds a day, they will build BURR comb in every nook and cranny of the colony
WARNING YOU THAT THEY NEED ROOM, and finding no more space, SWARM. Was that
the bee's FAULT or yours? Take out "insurance" by providing too much space and provide it
AHEAD OF TIME.

Regardless of what you have been told, there is almost no nectar collected after May 31st in
Montgomery County, and essentially ZERO after June 15th, so your honey should be harvested
and bottled around July 4th. I will talk about this in the May PINK PAGES.

Is Your Queen MARKED?

If your queen is NOT marked, how to you know that the queen you see tomorrow is the same
queen that you bought and installed 6 months ago? Face it - YOU DON'T KNOW! If the queen
you purchased was an Italian queen, and the one you see now is unmarked, WHAT DRONES
DID SHE MATE WITH? Were they my Carniolans, or Bob's Caucasians, or Harry's "County
Specials", or maybe a Africanized drone that escaped from a migratory beekeeper's truck when
passing by your apiary? Not only does this bad breeding really mess up the genetic traits that you
want with your bees, but a MARKED queen is so much EASIER TO SEE a you inspect your
colony. Buy a Queen marking Kit from BetterBee, Part Number QMT1 for $3.95 and mark your
queens from now on. RED is the color for 2003. If you don't know how to pick up a queen and
place her in the marking tube, ask some Master Beekeeper for a demonstration; but every
beeKEEPER should certainly know how to pick up a queen without hurting her or losing her.

A Major Reason for Requeening

You should know that I requeen every colony every year in order to MINIMIZE SWARMING.
However, I refuse to requeen in the spring because I don't want anything to "screw up" my honey
production. I much prefer requeening in late August (before Labor day), so that young queen
lays a bunch of new bees for the winter bees that makes a bigger cluster which enables the bees
to keep a larger brood area open for queen laying in January and February. I think you should
consider this, and there is an old PINK PAGE that totally describes my "ALMOST
FOOLPROOF REQUEENING METHOD."

Just in case you have forgotten, all queens emit a pheromone that inhibits the worker bees from
building queen cells, and the ability of the queen to make this pheromone REDUCES a little bit
every day of her life. Hence, a 13 month old queen is 3 times more likely to swarm than a 1
month old queen; and the probability of a 25 month old queen swarming is almost astronomical.
A new queen only costs about $10-$15, and you lose your honey crop if bees swarm. Losing a
50-100 pound honey crop that you can sell for $3.50/lb. which is $175-$350 because you
wouldn't spend $10-$15 for a new queen doesn't make good sense. If you want a copy of Imirie's
Almost Foolproof Requeening Method, e-mail or telephone me for a copy.

How to MAKE a Split

A split is made to either increase colony numbers or to prevent swarming. In either case, a
colony is NOT split unless it is strong in numbers of worker bees, has a prolific queen, and is
healthy. Although sometimes desirable to be done in very early spring, a split should NOT be
made until decent flight weather for pollen or nectar collecting in the spring. In Maryland,
because our total honey crop is made in April and May, and little, if any, is collected during the
rest of the year, the new split is NOT going to produce any honey in its first year. This might be
dramatically different in states that have nectar collection during the summer and/or fall.

Order a new queen, preferably MARKED, and upon its arrival, give the queen a drink of water
and put her in a cool, dark place until the next day. Go to the colony you want to split, find the
queen and ISOLATE the frame she is on and the adhering bees in a spare hive body while you
select the frames you want to remove and move them to the new split. I select 2 frames of honey,
2 frames of CAPPED brood, 1 frame of OPEN brood, and 1 frame of nectar and pollen ALL
WITH ADHERING BEES which is a total of 6 frames. Put these 6 frames in a new hive body
and add 3 more frames of drawn comb, totaling 9 frames, put the new queen cage in place
between the frame of OPEN BROOD and the frame of nectar, and then SHAKE the adhering
bees off 2 BROOD frames from the old colony. Add a bottle of 1:1 sugar syrup and do not touch
for at least 3 days and if the queen is out of her queen cage, remove it, and put the 10th frame of
drawn comb in place. Going back to the original colony, return the old queen on her frame to the
colony and replace the 6 frames you have removed for the split with 6 frames of drawn comb.
YOU HAVE A SPLIT!

If you do NOT have drawn comb frames, if you are LUCKY, you might get by using foundation,
but there MUST BE A STRONG NECTAR FLOW PRESENT and/or a CONTINUOUS FEED
OF 1:1 SUGAR SYRUP to get that foundation drawn and drawn properly. As I have repeatedly
said for over 40 years FOUNDATION IS NOT DRAWN COMB.

Feeding NEW Colonies

New colonies started in April from packages or nucs, particularly if the frames are foundation
rather than drawn comb, just have a very difficult time building a strong population, finding
enough food, and making foundation into drawn comb in our Maryland area because our ONLY
major nectar flows are in April, May, and maybe early June and then NOTHING until next year.
You can't do much work without food, and neither can bees. Bees have to consume about 8
pounds of honey (NOT NECTAR) to produce and construct just ONE pound of wax comb! Bees
will NOT, will NOT, will NOT build comb without a strong nectar flow or an artificial nectar of
1:1 sugar syrup, and sugar is only 30¢/lb. Not only do brood frames have to be built, but super
frames of drawn comb have to be built for next year; and don't forget that those bees have to
make about 50-70 lbs. of honey before November 1st in order to get through the coming winter!
The solution to this problem is EASY. CONTINUE FEEDING THE BEES FROM THE DAY
THE COLONY IS STARTED WITHOUT STOPPING UNTIL LABOR DAY IN
SEPTEMBER. There are people out there that will tell you "George has lost his marbles to say
continuously feed for 4 months". Let's compare my new colonies with theirs next March and see
which is ready to make lots of honey in the spring of 2004!

May 2003

The Do's and Don'ts of Harvesting Honey

Part 1: Getting most nectar capped
Part 2: Four methods of removing honey
Part 3: Extracting procedures and tricks
Part 4: Cleaning the extracted frames
Part 5: Storing drawn comb until next year

Getting most nectar capped

Beekeepers destroy so much good honey each year by extracting UNCAPPED nectar, which
causes the honey to be higher than 19.6 specific gravity and the honey ferments. Bees do NOT
CAP their honey until they have removed most of its water content and have allowed the
necessary time for the enzyme, invertase, which they have added to the nectar to convert the
nectar sugar, sucrose, into two simpler sugars, glucose and fructose, a process often referred to as
"curing" or "ripening". Only when the nectar is totally cured or ripened do the bees CAP the cell
which preserves it for its intended purpose - winter stores. The bees never did plan it for YOU!

The task of curing honey is difficult for bees in our high humidity area over most of Maryland,
so we can give the bees some help. Near the end of our nectar flow, which is about the last week
in May for most of Maryland, "shrink" the storage space in the supers by removing all slightly
filled or zero filled frames, and move the UNCAPPED (but almost full) frames to the lowest
super (the one next to the brood chamber), and leave everything quiet for a week or ten days
until EXTRACTION TIME. The frames that you removed can be stored on another colony (like
a swarm you caught) OVER the inner cover; and the bees of that colony will go through the
inner cover hole, remove the nectar or honey and take it below for brood chamber feeding.

Near the end of June, and the year's crop of honey for human consumption is over, all your
frames are at least 90-95% fully capped, your extraction equipment is clean and you are ready to
extract. Now all you have to do is get that honey off your colonies, and get it to the extractor
while it is still WARM, because uncapping and extracting is so much easier with WARM honey.

Four methods of removing honey

There are primarily FOUR ways of removing honey from bee hives: Using the Porter Bee
Escape; brushing bees off of frames of honey; using an electric bee blower to blow the bees off
of the frames; and, using some chemical like BeeGo, HoneyRobber, Benz- aldehyde, or Bee
Quick to drive the bees away from the frames of honey with a smell they don't like.

The use of the Porter Bee Escape in the hole of the inner cover SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK IN
OUR WARM MARYLAND NIGHTS, so I will not waste your time describing its function. It
can only be used in places of warm days and CHILLY nights.

Many of you have concern about your neighbors feelings about your bees stinging them or their
guests particularly when having a swim party, outdoor reception, or a cook-out. I strongly
suggest that you do NOT brush your bees off of frames to harvest your honey, because you will
lose your status of a community friend! Irregardless of how good a Bee Brush you have
purchased or the care that you use with the brush, bees interpret your action as aggressive and
perform their genetic duty and DEFEND their colony so it may survive. This action can involve
a large area and hence maybe a large number of people, many of which think that the only place
for bees is FAR, FAR AWAY. However, some die-hards are going to brush bees anyhow; so I
have to tell you some tricks that might help. Have an empty super sitting in a hive top and some
big WET TOWELS. Remove one frame of honey, "Rap it" or "Hit it" on its end against the
ground close to the front entrance of the colony to jar most of the bees off the frame, brush it
quickly, but lightly, put it in the empty super, and quickly cover the super with the wet towel.
Repeat this same procedure for each frame, one at a time. Do not try to brush EVERY bee off of
each frame because you will just get the bees more and more excited and defensive. When you
get the super inside your house, remove the wet towel, most of the bees will fly right to a
window or door. NEVER LEAVE A SUPER OF HONEY OUTSIDE FOR LONG - As soon as
you fill the super, take it inside, and bring out an empty super for the next load of honey, or use
the super that you just emptied of bees and honey.

Hopefully, some one else is in the house to start the uncapping and extracting work while the
honey is still "hive temperature" warm; while you secure the 2nd super, etc. Many hands make
light work!

Few beekeepers have a bee blower because of expense; but it is the best, easiest, and fastest of all
honey removal systems. It doesn't seem to bother the bees any more than a windy breeze bothers
them. You remove the super, stand it up on its end, point the blower nozzle at the spaces between
frames and BLOW the bees out who will just fly home. Some times, you have to blow from both
the frame tops and the frame bottoms to get those last "hold-on hard" bees, but you can usually
blow 98-99% of all the bees out before you put the super on your cart and cover it. I recommend
a bee-blower if you can justify the $250-$350 cost and have a source of electricity at your apiary.

Lastly, the chemical on a fume board is far and away the best system for everybody that does not
have a bee blower. Let me explain the many good points! It works "automatically" freeing the
super of bees while you just stand and rest; and you use NO SMOKE that will make the bees
break the cappings. You buy or construct a FUME BOARD. A fume-board is identical with a
hive top except its outside dimensions are those of a hive body, and the inside of the top has
some absorbent material like burlap, a blanket, or an old winter cloth coat. The absorbent
material is there to absorb and hold the liquid chemical that drive the bees away from it. How do
you use this "critter"? You drip perhaps 1,2,or 3 teaspoons of the SMELLY chemical all over the
absorbent - Don't use too much or it will stupefy the bees before they can move away. Remove
the colony inner cover, using NO SMOKE, put the fume board on in place of the inner cover,
and go get the mail, smoke a cigarette, eat a piece of pie, or just wait 5-10 minutes. VERY
HARD TO DO! Remove the fume-board and remove the super under it (which should be
completely empty of bees now), and put the super in some bee proof place. Repeat the process
on the 2nd super, etc., etc. The amount of chemical you use for success will depend on your plan
based on the temperature, the chemical used and amount of chemical, how long you left the fume
board in place, and the number of bees in the colony and how easy or hard it is for them to
confine themselves to less space, e. g., just two brood boxes and no supers. If you use too much
chemical on a HOT humid day, you will stupefy some bees before they can "get below" in
fresher air, or if you leave the fume-board on too long, you will find most of the bees outside of
the hive clinging to the colony sides to get some fresh air. Neither of these events hurts or
endangers the bees, they just have to wait until the air inside clears of chemical smell.
Conversely, if you use too little of the chemical, or the temperature is cool, or you did not let it
work a long enough time, you will find the bees have not totally left the super, and you will have
to re-adjust one of the aforementioned variables. Once you "get the knack of it", you can remove
a super totally free of bees about every 5-7 minutes; or use TWO separate fume boards and do
two colonies at one time.

At this point, many of you are saying "Why is George being so evasive or non specific about
what chemical to use?" Well, I delineated all the "goodies" about fume board removal of honey
first, and I have left the SMELLS, the cost, the shipping restrictions to last. Here they are: The
SMELLY ONE is butyric anhydride (my first college degree was chemistry) called BEE GO;
and some suppliers have added oil of cherries to BEE GO to "soften" the STINK and named that
Honey Robber. They both cost the same, about $16 per quart or $50/gallon plus shipping, and
shipping is a problem. US POST OFFICE will not accept either chemical, and UPS charges an
EXTRA SURCHARGE of $12 and only allows one quart in a shipment. WOW! Why? If you get
some on your clothes, you can wash them a dozen times in Clorox, tomato juice, or gasoline, and
you can still smell something akin to rotten eggs. IF you spilled some in your car or cab of your
truck, you will either always drive alone or buy a new set of wheels. Take it from an old chemist
- butyric anhydride STINKS!

Let me mention a beautiful odor - the oil of almonds - it is a lovely smell - it is the chemical,
benzaldehyde. To my knowledge, Mann Lake Ltd., 1-800-233-6663 or e-mail:
beekeepr@mannlakeltd.com is the only supplier left, and it cost the same as Bee Go, $52 /gallon,
no quarts that I know of - you would have to ask. I have used Benzaldehyde for umpteen years
and would not even consider that STINKY BEE GO. There is also a NEW, fine smelling product
out there named BEE QUICK that I am told, works great.

It is most interesting that as much as these chemicals STINK or smell pretty, if used correctly as
I have described above, they leave absolutely no odor at all in your honey, beeswax, or frames -
BUT IT WILL CERTAINLY STAY ON YOU if you get it on you!

Extracting procedures and tricks

All these "organic" people of today are concerned with "Was the honey HEATED or not" before
it was bottled. I wish they knew as much about the chemical properties of honey as they know
about how to formulate asinine rules for concerning the fitness of product. Do they know that the
interior temperature of the brood nest must be maintained at 92-96 degrees for the queen to lay
eggs and the brood to survive? When the temperature in the shade is 95 degrees, what does this
"organic" seeker think the super temperature is on a colony sitting out in the sun? There is no
argument that excess heat damages honey: kills some nutrients, darkens the color, changes the
flavor, etc. BUT, HOW MUCH DOES THE WORD "EXCESS" MEAN? Surely, in nature, the
highest outer range of honey temperature might be 120 degrees, and 100 degrees might be the
temperature in the sun in May or June, whereas 80 degrees would be a warm, non air conditioned
house temperature. Numerous physicists (my post graduate degrees are physics) have researched
honey under all sorts of various conditions concerning viscosity (meaning resistance to
movement), effect of temperature on viscosity change, and pressure applied. Keeping it simple
for all you non-scientists, research on honey at these three temperatures with no pressure applied
(in other words - how thick is it) shows the following: Honey will flow through a large pipe over
twice as fast at 100° than at 80 degrees, and over five times faster at 120° than at 80 degrees.
Forget science, and limit ourselves to the difficulties of extraction at temperatures we can handle.
If we can rush our honey from the hive right to the extractor in a room of about 80° degrees,
extraction can be done with a little effort and sweat; but if we let that honey sit overnight and it
cools to say 70 degrees, extraction and handling honey is going to be slow, tedious and
maddening. Now, knowing how important heat is in honey handling, let us stack the supers in a
tightly closed empty closet in your house (or make one from plywood), and put a lighted 100
watt bulb inside that closet WITH A THERMOMETER and leave it over night or 48 hours. It is
easy to get honey up to 100 degrees (still lower temperature than out in the sunny field in June).
Maybe you only need a 60 watt bulb, or maybe your closet leaks air, so you have to use 150 watt
bulb. So what? All you want is your honey to be 95-100 degrees so it will extract easily and
rapidly, go through a strainer rapidly, and settle rapidly allowing the "trash" to come to the top as
foam. YOU HAVE USED THE TEMPERATURES THAT HONEY WOULD BE EXPOSED
TO IN NATURE, so it is Natural Honey. The "organic" nuts can go {someplace}, but my
customers will buy my honey because they trust ME.

Let me tell you about "straining" or "filtering" honey. Filtering is just a higher form of straining
in that filtering removes smaller pieces, e.g. pollen , whereas, straining only removes the "nuts
and bolts" left in the honey after extraction, e.g., pieces of frame wood, propolis, bee leg or wing,
or a piece of brood. I do both straining and filtering; straining because few people want a bee leg
in their honey, and filtering because I try to remove much of the pollen in order to slow
crystallization particularly with high glucose clover honey and surely with fast crystallizing
goldenrod honey, if I was forced to keep it for human consumption. When the honey comes out
of the extractor drain, it goes into a 5 gallon bucket that has a screen wire honey strainer on top
of the bucket which removes about 90% of the "nuts and bolts". This honey goes back in the
warming closet overnight to get its temperature back to about 95-100 degrees. I hope most of
you remember your grandmothers crochetting hoops, which are two interlocked wooden round
hoops that you put material tight across the surface in order to crochette patterns of colored
thread onto it to make a pillow cover, e.g. Depending on how fine I want to filter the honey (not
very fine for locust or tulip poplar, finer for clover, and real fine for fast crystallizing goldenrod),
I stretch various materials over these hoops to run the honey through them. I use high denier
(shear) nylon panty hose, or nylon slip material, or several layers of thin bridal veil, marquisette.
NEVER EVER use CHEESECLOTH because this animal fiber will leave LINT in the honey.
Always use some MAN MADE fiber like nylon or rayon, but not silk (made from silk worm web
which leaves lint). Your 95-100 degree honey will pass this filtration quickly, but not rapidly
into clean 5 gallon buckets. Close them up to keep the honey from sucking moisture out of the
air and let the honey settle for at least 3 days, a week is better. Open them up, skim off the foam
top with a skimmer and prepare to bottle from the bottom drain, so that you get no foam in your
jar.

Finally, when your bees have worked until they died to gain this GOLDEN HARVEST of
Mother Natures, and you have worked in heat, missed your dinner, got all the doorknobs of the
house sticky, prove to the world that you are a beeKEEPER who is trying hard to save honey
bees for their pollination efficiencies so we humans don't run out of food; then don't ruin the
whole program by packing the honey in some old peanut butter or pickle jar, adding some stupid
computer label, and INSULT the value of both you and your bees by selling this "jar of golden
delight" for a degrading $2 or $3 per pound! BE PROUD - SELL YOURSELF - I think you are
worth more than $2-$3/pd. - DON'T YOU?

Cleaning the extracted frames

Let me assure you that the bees will do a far better job cleaning frames than ever you could do.
Further, you may well change their stretch points, loosen the beeswax hold to the wood, or
introduce some foreign substance onto the wax; and lastly, the presence of bees clearly indicates
to the greater wax moth: I AM NOT WANTED HERE So, how do you clean the frames the easy
way - the natural way - the bee way? Select one of your good strong hives, remove the
telescoping cover, but leave the inner cover in place and the center hole open. Pile your dirty,
honey wet, supers filled with either 9 or10 empty frames on top of the inner cover, 5-6 supers
high if you want, and seal a top on the topmost super so no bee can enter the stack. The bees
should have these supers sparkly clean, ready for next years "fill up" of new honey, in less than a
week, However, because I am lazy, I usually leave them on there longer for two reasons: The
bees prohibit the entrance of the wax moth, and if for some unknown crazy reason, bees locate
some nectar source, they have all this empty place to store it, and I can use that for winter feed. I
remove these supers when I put menthol in my colonies on August 15th, and tightly stack them
in my honey barn protected from wax moths by PDB (para- dicloro-benzene) which is the
subject of Part 5 of these PINK PAGES.
Storing drawn comb until next year
How many dozen times have I told you that "Drawn comb is the beekeepers most valuable
possession"? EVERY ONE of you has had trouble making bees drawn foundation and has made
mistake after mistake trying until you finally broke down and went back to the basics that I have
repeated ad nauseum. So, saying THAT and reminding you that I am correct and your lack of
attention to detail has caused you to LOSE YOUR DRAWN COMB TO WAX MOTHS! It is so
simple to do, so GET OFF YOUR FAT BUTT, and do it. Don't go off halfcocked again and be
persuaded to get the WRONG stuff because it was cheaper, some friend said it was better, or old
Joe, that mountain man who has kept bees in gums for 100 years told you that he just stores his
comb out in cold shed with his moonshine whiskey and creosote fence post preservative. If you
lose your comb this winter, don't look for me 'cause I'm tired of repeating instructions over and
over and over again and again. The chemical you want (NO SUBSTITUTES) is PDB which
stands for para-dichloro-benzene. It is a white crystalline material that sublimes (turns from solid
to gas bypassing the liquid stage) at high room temperature. It has two common uses that you see
quite often: it is the better type of moth balls to keep the moths out of Grandad's bedroom winter
rug and it keeps moths out of Grandmothers winter lamb wool coat while hanging in the summer
hot attic. It is also used as a 99% concentrate formed brick as a deodorant in men' urinals in
restrooms You can buy PDB from the bee supply houses for about $2.50/pound + shipping; or
any hardware store should have it if they sell rugs or urinals, and even the Giant and Safeway
grocery stores sell it. BUT READ THE FINE PRINT TO MAKE SURE THE PRODUCT IS
PDB (paradichlorobenzene) AND NOT SOME PETROLEUM PRODUCT. It is much easier to
use the small crystals than pieces of a big solid block, so I prefer the crystals for rugs or clothes
rather than the urinal block which I have to break up with a hammer. Now there is NO TRICK to
its use - just exactly follow my directions. Fit a super with frames into an upside down hive top,
add a second super of frames, put 2-3 teaspoons of PDB crystals on a 8x11 piece of paper and set
that paper on top of the frames of super #2, on supers 3 and 4 put another piece of paper with 2-3
teaspoons of PDB crystals on top of frames in super #4, repeat for supers 5&6. Put a Hive top or
board on the topmost super and seal it on with masking tape. Now take masking tape and seal the
crack all way around between supers. When the crystals of PDB turn into gas, it is HEAVIER
than AIR, so it goes down towards the floor; but it performs all of this in a sealed unit with
masking tape. Since wax moths are a warm weather critter, they are not active in cold weather.
Hence, make this stack of sealed supers with PDB in your barn, your garden shed, your carport,
your outdoor porch, or your cool basement - but the colder the better. I do this on August 15th
(when I install Menthol on the bees), and I repeat it about October 1st when I put my winter
Apistan strips on my bees for 8 weeks. I sometimes have to repeat it again about the time I start
feeding 1:1 sugar syrup which is about February 15th. When I install supers for next years crop
on April 15 of every year, I break open these sealed up supers 3-4 days in advance of 4/15 and
let them air out in the sun and breezes. YOU HAVE PRESERVED YOUR PRICELESS
POSSESSION, DRAWN COMB; AND YOU CAN ALMOST FORGET ALL THAT
FOUNDATION TROUBLE!

June 2003

CARE For Honey During and After Harvesting From Bees

All of us know that iron rusts if not painted, bread gets stale if left in the open, meat has to be
refrigerated, and you sunburn unless you use sun protection. HONEY IS NO DIFFERENT! IT
REQUIRES PROPER CARE AGAINST FERMENTING, or CRYSTALLIZING, or
DARKENING IN COLOR, or FLAVOR LOSS. Hence, let me mention the EASY ways for the
"backyard" hobbyist beekeeper to properly handle honey.

I think we all know the BEST honey is freshly made CAPPED COMB HONEY, because it is
protected by the CAPPINGS from increased moisture content, seeding for crystallization by dust
or debris, and protected from overheating by the bees. However, Americans have not "learned"
how to eat and enjoy COMB Honey, so the majority want extracted honey.

You certainly should know that honey is quite HYGROSCOPIC, that is it absorbs and condenses
water vapor out of the air thereby increasing the water content of honey. Talking in "ROUND"
figures rather than specific figures, bees attempt to "ripen" honey down to a water content of
about 16% before they CAP it; and honey with a water content over about 19% will probably
FERMENT and eventually turn to vinegar. In the normal HUMID summer of Maryland, the bees
often CAP the honey at 17%-18% water content, because they just can't lower the water content
in our high humidity. WHY SHOULD YOU KNOW THIS? First, you should NOT extract any
frames of honey that are not FULLY CAPPED or maybe 90% CAPPED, because the UNcapped
honey is not fully "ripened" by the bees and its HIGH moisture content might increase the
overall moisture content of all the honey to the point of fermentation. THIS is the reason that a
honey judge at a Fair tests your honey entry's moisture content with a refractometer, and deducts
show points for moisture content higher than 16% and possibly ELIMINATING entries with a
moisture content of about 19%. Secondly, and perhaps more important than "showing" honey is
the care given honey between the time it is extracted and the time it is bottled. During all of that
time, the honey is "open" to the atmosphere, and it is YOUR JOB to keep it covered as much as
possible, particularly during those 3-4 days that you have to let it just SIT and settle with the
FOAM and debris rising to the surface to be "skimmed off". It is a horrible shame to ask your
bees to do all "that work" of nectar collecting and making honey, and you, by lack of knowledge
or lack of discipline, let their wonderful honey get ruined by high moisture content. DON'T GET
MAD AT ME; I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!

The majority of the American public don't understand the crystallization of honey, think it has
"gone bad", and trash it. Honey is "basically" a combination of TWO simple sugars, glucose and
fructose. At room temperatures, although fructose is a liquid sugar, glucose is a solid sugar (like
crystals). All nectar sources produce nectar that have a specific ratio of glucose to fructose
relevant to the flower that produced the nectar.

Obviously, those nectars that are rich in glucose tend to crystallize rapidly like GOLDENROD,
those with somewhat less glucose like CLOVER will crystallize less rapid, and those with a lot
less glucose like TULIP POPLAR or BLACK LOCUST are very slow to crystallize, and
TUPELO honey, which is very low in glucose, almost refuses to crystallize. ALL crystallized
honey will become liquid honey again without any damage if it is SLOWLY warmed to about
100°. Crystallization of all honeys is EXTREMELY dependent on temperature. In 1931, Dr. E. J.
Dyce of Cornell University found that the very best temperature to encourage honey
crystallization was 57°, which should tell you that your basement or your garage is NOT a good
place to store bottled honey. Oppositely, liquid honey can be kept in your FREEZER at -20° for
years without any change, BUT NEVER IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR! Most, not all, honeys
will not crystallize at temperatures above about 80°. However, temperatures higher than about
120° will darken you honey, and diminish its flavor, and these changes depend on HOW HIGH
is the temperature and HOW LONG was the honey kept in these higher temperatures.
Commercial honey is fast heated to temperatures as high as 150°-160° and quickly cooled to
liquefy all possible seed crystals to give the honey long "shelf life" on the store shelf before
crystallization begins. NOW, TO GET INTO AN ARGUMENTATIVE AREA ABOUT HEAT
AND NATURAL HONEY. How high a temperature is UNnatural?

Today, there are all these "nuts" out there that want only NATURAL honey, and won't buy or eat
"heated" honey. In talking with many of them, I have found that the GREAT majority have no
idea about NATURAL colony internal temperature on a warm July day, or the temperature that
damages honey, and haven't the foggiest notion of what temperature is used by commercial
beekeepers to retard crystallization. The height of this stupidity is quite evident when a person
asks for "Pasteurized" honey that has not been heated. I turn away, turn up the volume of my
radio and listen to the Redskin foot- ball report which makes better sense. YES, HEAT
DAMAGES HONEY, but HOW HIGH is DAMAGING HEAT? Too much salt is not good for
humans with high blood pressure, but HOW MUCH is too much? A queen bee cannot lay eggs at
any temperature less than 91° and the worker bees maintain a temperature in the brood chamber
of 91°-96° irregard- less of whether the outside temperature is 50° or 100°; and heat RISES and
honey supers are ABOVE the brood chamber. What do you think the temperature of honey
supers are on a hot July day of a colony outside in the broiling sun? Bee scientists have checked
this many times and have found honey in the supers with temperatures of 100°-110° -
WONDERFUL HIGH QUALITY NATURAL HONEY. Heat LESS than about 120° and kept at
that temperature for just an hour or so (just like nature) does NOT damage honey!

Ending: To properly CARE for your honey, don't extract frames that are not FULLY CAPPED,
keep liquid honey covered to protect it against moisture absorption, and never heat honey higher
that 120° for any reason and then for only a very short time.

"THINGS" for you to THINK about and DO

Although this is early June, August is "just around the corner" and there is SO MUCH to do in
AUGUST - I mean BEFORE SEPTEMBER, because September is TOO LATE.

Get your extraction and bottling done by JULY 4th. There is NO nectar flow in the central
Maryland area after June 1-15th. If you don't believe me, I can show you graphs of my the
weight increase of my scale hive for many years. Sometimes people see the yellow summer
clover in June and believe that it will provide honey, but it RARELY does. When you harvest
your honey, ONLY TAKE THE FULLY CAPPED FRAMES, and leave the rest for the bees,
because they might STARVE in the dearth of July and early August. Further, FULLY CAPPED
honey is fully ripened and you won't have any excess amount of moisture in the honey that could
cause spoilage and fermentation. DON'T BE GREEDY!

Demonstrate your "know-how" and your success by entering your honey in the Mont- gomery
County Fair from August 9-16, and WIN CASH MONEY plus a RIBBON. Even better would be
to enter an education exhibit about beekeeping - You are smart, have ideas, so show the public
the IMPORTANCE of honey bees in the POLLINATION of our food! How some photographs
of bees from your "fancy new camera's" and win MONEY. How about showing a beautiful
FRAME of CAPPED HONEY, and win MONEY? See pages 87-88 of the FAIR catalog for
other entries - there are all kinds!
Don't forget to VOLUNTEER just 4 hours of your time to help Barry Thompson at the MCBA
booth in OLD MACDONALD'S BARN tell the public all the good points about honey bees and
the MASSIVE IMPORTANCE of their POLLINATION of our human food! You don't have to
be a master beekeeper to answer the questions of the public. And the FAIR will give you a FREE
lunch or dinner for volunteering!

Speaking of master beekeepers, those people that attend the August 4-8 EAS meeting in Maine
will LEARN so much by attending SUPER SHORT COURSE, listening to the expert speakers at
the convention, and participating in the workshops, you might be one of our new MASTER
BEEKEEPERS shortly.

Since the TRACHEAL MITE is microscopic in size and hence INVISIBLE, many WRONGLY
surmise that their bees don't have any TRACHEAL mites so they DON'T bother to treat for
them. Lo and behold, they find their colony dead in January or February, and make their second
mistake by thinking the cold weather killed their bees. All they had to do to KILL about 98% of
all the tracheal mites was to put $2.00 of MENTHOL crystals in the colony on AUGUST 15th
when it is good and WARM. SEPTEMBER IS TOO LATE and the menthol will not work in the
coolness of September. Spend just $2.00 and save your bees from tracheal mite death!

I know that some of you had swarms this year in April or May. They ruined your honey crop and
some lost the swarms and left your colony VERY WEAK. When are you going to start
LISTENING to ME, bee RESEARCHERS, bee SCIENTISTS, and many big time
COMMERCIAL beekeepers about real YOUNG queens RARELY SWARM, and starting a new
queen in September rather than April or May is MUCH MUCH BETTER, plus you get better
laying in September and October that produces a larger, younger crop of worker bees to winter
through the long winter? These new queens can produce enough queen pheromone to retard
queen cell construction and weld a large population of worker bees into a well functioning unit
that produces a lot of honey! However, many queen breeders cut back queen production by the
end of June, so you have to ask your queen supplier in June whether he can supply you with new
queens in mid to late August, and if so, order them and pay for them now so delivery is
guaranteed on the August date that you name. Requeening a colony with a lot of forager age bees
is TOUGH, but if you do it by introducing a new queen to nuc of nurse bees and later unite that
nuc with the entire colony, you can usually get almost 100% success. If you do not have a copy
of my article entitled "Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening Method", just ask me to e-mail you
one. I have used this method for over 20 years to requeen 100's of colonies and rarely lose a
queen. You CAN"T wait until the last minute to requeen, because you have to do certain things
to the colony about 10-12 days before you get the new queen. Hence now is the time to plan to
do fall requeening! By the way, a new queen that you bought in April of this year is NOT a
young queen in April of 2004, because her ability to produce large quantities of queen
pheromone that helps prevent swarming is greatly diminished, because she is a year old in April
2004, an old lady! Why does Richard Adee, the largest commercial beekeeper in the world with
his 60,000 colonies requeen them every September in Mississippi; or why does Dave
Hackenburg, past President of American Beekeeping Federation, requeen all of his 5000 colonies
every year and some of them TWICE each year? They will tell you that they do it to retard
swarming! WHY DON"T YOU SPEND $10 FOR A NEW QUEEN AND REQUEEN A
COLONY THIS AUGUST?
I am SO P-L-E-A-S-E-D, my voice is getting stronger and stronger. Surgery was May 1st, 3
weeks ago today and the swelling in my throat is almost gone. However, I am going to
Williamsburg for 3 whole weeks and commune with our founding fathers, George Washington,
Patrick Henry, and Tom Jefferson and learn more about the ways that such a few men from each
of the 13 colonies were able to form our GREAT Nation. Who knows, maybe I can give some
volunteer help to President Bush regarding making our country even more satisfying as the home
of the brave and the free. But none of us can sit on our duffs and do nothing, because we will
always have to fight those that are jealous of our 200+ years of success. Has it ever ocurred to
those "cmplainers" that so many people want to immigrate to the U.S., but darn few want
emigrate away from the U. S. Must be a good reason for that. Although my ancestors came from
Scotland,I am a PROUD AMERICAN!

July 2003

NASTY LETTER TO MONTGOMERY COUNTY MEMBERS

I am "MAD as hell" with many of you, in fact MOST of you. UNlike politicians, which I
intensely DISLIKE, I call a "spade" a "spade", and not an "agricultural instrument". In other
words, I speak rather bluntly, and hence confuse no one. I don't win any popularity contests, just
those based on ability which suits me fine. WHY AM I MAD?

I have always tried to arrange INFORMATIVE monthly meetings for the Montgomery County
members to improve your knowledge of proper beekeeping. At NO cost to you and none of your
dues money is spent to secure MASTER BEEKEEPERS, some of which drive over 100 miles to
the Brookside Nature Center meetings, bee RESEARCHERS, bee SCIENTISTS who bring their
own equipment for demonstrations, their own slides to show you, but most important they bring
you KNOWLEDGE AND PROVEN EXPERTISE at no cost to you, AND YOU DON'T
ATTEND! This has happened twice in this month. On June 11th, Master Beekeeper Steve
McDaniel drove from his home near the Maryland-Pennsylvania line to Wheaton to dispense his
KNOWLEDGE and aside from other Master Beekeepers and Virginia guests, there were less
than a dozen Montgomery County members present out of almost 150 members. Master
Beekeepers Bill and Nancy Troup had driven 70 miles from their home to fill-in for Steve in case
he was delayed, BUT YOU WERE TO LAZY TO ATTEND! The real payoff was on Friday and
Saturday, June 20-21, at the Joint meeting of the Maryland-Virginia Beekeepers at Manassas,
just a 45 minute drive from Rockville. Here, there were FIVE expert honey bee
RESEARCHERS holding Ph.D's in Entomology who gave talks on why there a few GOOD
queens and a lot of BAD queens and what action you can take to get better queens, how to
PROPERLY inspect a colony, WHAT serious diseases there are and how you can identify them
and TREAT them, how to prevent SWARMING, HOW and WHEN and with WHAT is best to
medicate your bees against diseases and predators, and all kinds of time for you to ask personal
questions. Except for the FIVE Master Beekeepers present, I saw just ONE Montgomery County
member. This is DISGRACEFUL! You were either too CHEAP to come, too LAZY, or don't
give a damn about your bees; and I don't consider myself a totalitarian, but if you are too busy
with other things in your life that you can't afford a few bucks and a few hours to gain more
knowledge about your bees, then I suggest you get rid of them and take up some more mundane
hobby like raising pigeons or catching butterflies or collecting stamps. You can't grow a good
garden without watering it, hoeing out the weeds, and killing the fruit diseases. In other words,
do a little work, and good beekeeping requires the same effort - a little work and lots of
KNOWLEDGE.

Now you know why I am boiling MAD; and I don't really give a damn if you don't like my
"reading you off". If the shoe fits, wear it! Some of us give our TIME, our MONEY, our
KNOWLEDGE to the membership FREE OF CHARGE asking only that you attend meetings to
LEARN to be a beeKEEPER rather than just a beeHAVER that anybody can do by buying a $40
package of bees and HOPE that nature does all the rest. THOSE DAYS NEVER EXISTED, but
beekeeping has been made much more difficult today because of the mites, so one HAS TO
LEARN to be successful.

Going further while I am still boiling MAD: When all this FREE advice is offered to you by
EXPERTS, NOTABLE bee scientists, bee researchers, and Certified Master Beekeepers, why is
it you accept the advice of some old codger who proclaims his expertise, but has to buy new bees
every year or so, or someone who is still trying to keep bees "like Daddy kept bees" when it has
been dramatically proven that successful beekeeping is far different now than it was prior to the
introduction of mites in the U.S. in 1984 and 1987, just 19 years ago. Why does one read
beekeeping books, and swear by them, that were written prior to the arrival of mites? Isn't that
like reading how to repair the brakes on your 2002 Chevrolet by reading a Chevrolet book
written in 1980? Why do you buy queens or package bees from some queen "producer" rather
than a queen "breeder", just because they are $5 cheaper? Do you ask your queen producer if he
is breeding the new "hygienic" bee, and if not, why don't you switch suppliers? When almost
EVERY commercial beekeeper nationwide is now requeening EVERY year, almost all bee
scientists and researchers are requeening EVERY year, when most Master Beekeepers are
requeening EVERY year, and NONE OF THE ABOVE are allowing their bees to requeen
themselves, WHY DON'T YOU REQUEEN EVERY YEAR? You say that a new queen costs
$15 and it is extra work to requeen, so you don't requeen, and your bees SWARM and you lost
your honey crop. Whose fault is that? Researchers and honey bee scientists have worked long
and hard to determine the best TIME or TIMES of the year to kill mites and have disseminated
this information in writing, in speeches at beekeeper meetings, in written instructions
accompanying the treatment material, but YOU ignore these stated TIMES and treat when it is
MOST CONVENIENT TO YOU, and your bees die or are so unhealthy that they can't get
through the winter; and YOU blame it on a cold winter. Dr. Southwick placed colonies of bees in
refrigerated cold chambers for 30 days at temperatures as low as -80°, yes, I said 80 below, and
healthy bees survived easily. COLD WEATHER DOES NOT KILL HEALTHY BEES; and
attendance at meetings would have explained that to you. Now let's talk about FEEDING, and
even State Apiarist Jerry Fischer or former State Apiarist Bart Smith will tell you that more of
YOUR bees died from STARVATION than all other reasons!. Starvation is NOT necessarily
caused by lack of honey or sugar syrup in the colony, but more often is caused by WHERE IN
THE COLONY IS THAT FOOD STORED; the problem was generally CAUSED BY YOU by
not feeding at the CORRECT time, by using feeders out of the reach of the bees, or YOU
moving the frames of honey that the bees had positioned for the winter. YES, it was YOUR fault
again, because you did not ATTEND meetings that could have demonstrated proper winter
FEEDING. By the way, the 2003 honey crop in most of central Maryland was NONEXISTENT,
and your bees should be getting fed NOW, in July and August, for bees to properly ripen that
feed and PROPERLY store it. Feeding in September and October will be too late, and your bees
might not make it through the winter. If you think I am wrong, you ask other MASTER
BEEKEEPERS, bee researchers or bee scientists, and NOT your good buddy, jim, bill, harry, or
Susie in your local neighborhood who have had bees for 10-20 years. Jerry Fischers report
NEXT SPRING about bee death this coming winter will be most interesting to ME, because my
bees don't die in the winter. PLEASE TAKE MY ADVICE, AND CHECK OUT MY
FEELINGS WITH SOME OTHER MASTER BEEKEEPERS, OR BELTSVILLE
SCIENTISTS. Bees will NOT leave a cluster and move 6 inches to a "division board feeder"
filled with delicious sugar syrup, or go up to a "super-like" hive top feeder when the temperature
is below about 40°. After all, bees began to cluster when the temperature drops to 50°, because
they don't have a furnace like we do.

I am really going to "test" you regarding whether you really want to acquire true knowledge
about PROPER AND SUCCESSFUL beeKEEPING, or whether just being a beeHAVER is good
enough for you. HOW? On our regular 2nd Wednesday night of SEPTEMBER 10th, I have
asked Dr. Jeff Pettis, a foremost Beltsville Lab honey bee researcher and entomologist to be our
speaker regarding many of the subjects I have mentioned above. He might talk for 2 hours
interrupted by some cookies and drinks, answer your questions including that one about "Does
George really know what he is talking about?", and then hope that you can become a better
beekeeper; so you better be present.

I can NOT forget the EAS meeting in Maine on August 4th - 8th. I did not miss a meeting for
over 20 years until 2 years ago when the EAS date conflicted with our Montgomery County
FAIR date. EAS is a WONDERFUL learning experience about apis mellifera and every
beekeeper should go. In 2004, it will be in Pennsylvania.

Speaking of our Montgomery County FAIR, you can "get back in my good graces" by
VOLUNTEERING (don't wait to be ASKED) to spend as little as 4 hours in our MCBA booth
directed by Master Beekeeper Barry Thompson talking to the PUBLIC about the importance of
honey bee POLLINATION of fruits and veggies to the HUMAN FOOD SUPPLY. Most of the
ADULT PUBLIC today has seen to many Hollywoodized movies about "killer bees" and are
very frightened at the thought of a bee sting. Just a bunch of LIES, but a sensational way for
Hollywood to make money. YOU ARE NEEDED to be in our booth for 4 hours to talk to the
public, explain an OBSERVATION HIVE, and answer simple questions like "how many bees
are in a hive? Is there only ONE queen? How many eggs does she lay' in a day? How long do
bees live? Is honey as sweet as sugar? Is dark honey OLD honey? How does George, up in that
bee cage, handle all those bees without being stung, but he has no veil and only wears a tee-shirt?
Is it true that extremely few people are really allergic to bee stings? How much honey can one
hive of bees make in a year? Do bees hibernate in the winter like bears? ANY ONE OF YOU
CAN ANSWER THESE SIMPLE QUESTIONS, or do you want the voters in Montgomery
county to OUTLAW beekeeping here? BeeKEEPING needs HELP, and it is your
RESPONSIBILITY to come to its aid, and NOT after the "horse has left the barn"!
VOLUNTEER FOR JUST 4 HOURS TO BARRY AT 301 947-4652, AND ENJOY A FREE
LUNCH OR DINNER, COMPLIMENTS OF THE FAIR

Lastly, some of we MASTER BEEKEEPERS attend the yearly meeting of the American
Beekeeping Federation, which is predominantly commercial beekeepers from every state in the
union, but also has a hobbyist division. The next meeting will be during the second week in
January in Jacksonville, FL. For all you people, who want to experience the warmth of Florida
just after Christmas, come to the ABF meeting and I will introduce you to the largest commercial
beekeepers in the country and you can ask them about the importance of annual requeening,
diseases, mite problems, the "best" bee, who has more than 10,000 colonies, and any question
you want. COME ON DOWN WITH ME, and LEARN, LEARN, LEARN.

Ending: (Aren't you GLAD?)

1. Am I smarter than you? I doubt it.

2. Is your health better than mine? I am almost positive your health is better than mine, because I
have become disabled from 5 different strokes during the past 13 years, but I am still attending
meetings to try to learn more about bees.
3. Have I kept bees longer than you? Yes, unless you started more than 71 yeas ago, when I
installed my first package in June 1933, just 90 days after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was
inaugurated President of the U.S.
4. Was your mentor more knowledgeable than mine? Maybe, who knows. Mine was Dr. James I.
Hambleton, Chief Apiarist of the U. S. Government from 1922-66.
5. Does years of experience make one more knowledgeable about beekeeping? NO! Only reading,
attending meetings, studying, and LEARNING improves your knowledge.
6. Is SUCCESSFUL beekeeping more difficult today than 20 years ago? You BETCHA! The arrival
of mites in 1984 and 1987 changed everything and today, one must follow the findings of bee
scientists and researchers during these past 19 years to be successful.
7. Can a hobbyist make a profit in beekeeping? Yes, if he is willing to work for a salary of a penny
per hour.
8. Is there any FUN or JOY in beekeeping today? If your hive management prevents colony death,
produce lots of honey almost every year, enjoy helping beginning beekeepers, win some show
ribbons at the fair, love to sit near the hive and observe the functions of various bees there, thrill
at watching the queen lay eggs as you hold the frame close to your face or watch a new worker
struggle to emerge from her pupal cell, enjoy sampling and trying to identify the many different
honeys, you are thrilled with your fine knowledge of successful beekeeping but crave more
knowledge, THEN, YOU HAVE FOUND THE FUN AND JOY OF BEEKEEPING

Albert Einstein was not a nuclear scientist like me, but he was a brilliant scientist about many
things. Before his death, he wrote: "If honey bees become extinct, the human race will become
extinct from hunger four years later." Can you say that he was crazy? He gave us "e=mc
squared" in 1905; and 40 years later we, atomic scientists, produced atomic bombs.

INCREASE YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO UPGRADE YOURSELF FROM

beeHAVER TO beeKEEPER!
Do I want to lose you as a member of MCBA? Of course not! But I am not satisfied with anyone
who has no interest in improving their knowledge. All things must improve as life goes on, and
just standing still is not good enough, so one just dies.

September 2003

The Good, the Bad, the Nasty, and ME!

WHAT am I trying to say? It is mid August, the 9 day Montgomery County FAIR is over. What
a Wonderful FAIR (good), Barry Thompson driving 12 hours back from a poorly attended EAS
meeting in Maine designed and built a SPECTACULAR display about honey bees in Old
MacDonald's Barn and "staffed" it with many folks from MCBA who did a fine job all week
(good). The honey SHOW up in Building 2 was something to be proud of. Although the number
of entries was down (bad), the exhibits were some of the best I have seen in many years (good),
and guess WHO really EXCELLED and won a ton of ribbons - our MCBA short course students
over the past 3 years (good). I AM DELIGHTED! However, where was your entry? (bad) Are
you that LAZY or that SHY? (Yes, I am NASTY to say that, but I am trying so hard to help you
find the 'Joys of Beekeeping'). As for myself, I put on three demonstrations for 9 days, missing
EAS, and had extremely large audiences, even 100+ (good), who diligently sat and listened to
this OLD man with a badly disabled voice (bad) talking about the importance of honey bee
POLLINATION of food for humans (good) and intently watching this disabled OLD man with
NO protective clothes and bees crawling on his fingers, arms, face, neck, and of course his pant
leg (good, bad, and just ME). All I was trying to prove is that honey bees are NOT aggressive,
but only defensive just as the great majority of Americans practice. It was a GREAT FAIR! If
you were NOT there, it is YOUR loss. You SHOULD HAVE BEEN, hopefully next year.

When one has kept bees for 71 years as I have, you know a lot of beeKEEPERS and a host of
beeHAVERS; and each comes to you and relates some story of disaster about their loss of hives
(bad), or a story about their success in increasing their colony numbers and NO losses over the
last year (good). It is so sad when I hear all these "excuses" about the death of their bees and
listen to their recitation of "the cold winter", the"bad queen", the "drought", the "mite problem",
and a thousand other meaningless excuses (bad); when the TRUTH is, in most cases, that the
beeHAVER or lousy beeKEEPER did not pay as much attention to his bees as he paid to the
long range weather forecast for his vacation, and the bees WOULD HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF
THEMSELVES. (I know not whether this is GOOD, BAD, or SAD, but all can say it is NASTY
ME) In the past month, I received a long passionate letter from the President of another local
Maryland bee association "scolding" me and "giving me hell" for my NASTY July letter about
poor attendance at bee meetings, and suggesting that "I lightened up" on my association
members and talk about "fun" with bees, and asking me to REPLY to his criticism. I cannot be
bothered by one person's opinion, as I am much more interested in producing beeKEEPERS out
of beeHAVERS for TWO reasons: so that my "students" find the real JOYS OF BEEKEEPING,
and our bees stay alive to pollinate 35% of the food that we humans eat. Hence, I will not
"LIGHTEN UP" in my chastisement of lazy beeHAVERS, including the condemning association
president (Maybe OLD, blind in an eye, disabled in voice and walking, but I stand tall, because I
am ME.). When one is born blind in one eye as I was, one learns never to START a fight, but,
equally, NEVER WALK AWAY from one, if success and/or respect is sought in your life.

The "hunk" with all this garbage, let me talk about IMPORTANT stuff - the life of your bees.
September is a VERY IMPORTANT MONTH for successful beekeeping in the ensuing year!
WHAT are these important things? In our Maryland -Virginia, Menthol must be installed before
LABOR DAY to be effective in killing tracheal mites, and tracheal mites are here whether you
believe that or not. All spring and summer, I heard story after story about colonies dying in
January showing only a hand full of dead bees but 40-50 pounds of honey stores still in the hive.
These are the CLASSIC evidence of the infection by the microscopic INVISIBLE tracheal mite
that kills the bee by suffocation (a nasty way to die) Late August and early September is the best
time to REQUEEN a colony, but I will admit that most requeening is done in the spring. By
having TWO queens (both the old and the new) laying eggs in the colony for about 30 days in
September and early October, my I colonies get a major thrust of young bees to warm large areas
of brood rearing in February to render large populations of forager bees in our April and May
nectar flows. September is the ideal time to combine 2 weak colonies into a single colony to
provide it with strength to get it through the winter and be strong for the spring nectar flows.
Colonies with small populations in September never acquire honey production size population
strength until about June, when our Montgomery County nectar flow is essentially over (done)
for the rest of the year. So many people just don't believe that 90% of all the honey made in our
area (and in most of Maryland-Virginia) is made before June 15th, so your bees should be strong
by April 1st if you are to get a good yield; and that program depends a lot on just what you do
with your bees in SEPTEMBER.

It is going to be very interesting to hear the report of the Maryland Chief Bee Inspector, Jerry
Fischer when he makes his report of about the CONDITIONS OF BEES at the beginning of the
year 2004. I know that many colonies already have STARVED to death, absconded in June or
July, or presently in very poor condition due to LACK of honey stores. All over our region, the
incessant rains or volumes of snow in February, March, April was OK, but tons of rain in May
and June kept bees in their colonies, so honey production was EXTREMELY poor. Bees MUST
BE FED STRONGLY if they are to get through the coming winter, and NEVER count on a
goldenrod harvest! Bees CAN'T store honey on frames of foundation, nor can bees get to
Boardman feeders or hive-top super type feeders when the outside temperature gets under 50° (I
said 50°, NOT 32°). SEPTEMBER is a FAR BETTER time to feed than October or November.
You can start feeding 1:1 sugar syrup to encourage egg laying by the queen in September, and
then switch the feed to 2:1 sugar syrup on October 1st for winter stores. A colony should have a
MINIMUM of 10 deep frames, or 15 medium 6" 5/8 frames, totally filled with capped honey by
November to be adequately prepared for winter. Lastly, protect your bees from the Nosema
disease, by feeding them about $2 worth of Fumadil-B, and DON'T install Apistan strips in
September for Varroa mite control, but wait until October 1st when queens have almost stopped
laying eggs, to install them, but POSITIVELY REMOVE them by November 30th.
Just because summer is over, the FAIR is over, EAS is over, it does not mean that your work is
over to guarantee the survival of your bees for next spring, and I AM STILL ALIVE to help you,
so why not think about and DO what I have just written; and I wish you SUCCESS.

George Imirie, a Proud Master Beekeeper

A FAIRY TALE INVOLVING GEORGE

All of you know of my wife's death of pancreatic cancer in December after over 59 years of
marriage, and many of you honored my grief by coming to the funeral home or sending me a
sympathy card or letter, not to mention the financial gifts to the EAS Honey Bee Research Fund
or to the Montgomery County Hospice Society.. So humbly, I appreciate everyone's concern; and
I THANK YOU.

However, in 1955 when I was a head scientist testing atomic weapons at the Mercury Test Site in
Nevada, a young 24 year old Mormon girl, engaged to be married shortly, was detailed to me as
a special telephone operator for my numerous calls to the Atomic Energy Commission in DC. I
had been married 12 years, and fathered two sons, and she talked with my wife on the phone
while awaiting for me to get to the phone. During our 4 months testing program, I accompanied
her to Las Vegas in her new 1955 Ford car as her companion and protector. A month after I left
Nevada to return to Maryland, she married her Mormon fiance, Bobby G. Laub. I never talked to
her or heard from her again, but 36 years later, I tested a Nevada commercial beekeeper for
certification as an EAS Master Beekeeper. He was too was a Mormon, and when we both were
elected to serve on the National Honey Board, I told him of my knowledge about the Mormon
faith from my experience with MarJeanne McMullin Laub, because I had attended church with
her and she had attended Presbyterian church with me. Four months after the death of my wife,
the Nevada beekeeper e-mailed me and told me that a Mormon Newsletter reported the death of
a Bobby G. Laub in Las Vegas, and could that be the husband of MarJeanne McMullin? I
contacted the St. George, Utah Chamber of Commerce seeking information and MarJeanne's
nephew confirmed the death of Bobby Laub, told me of MarJeanne's huge expensive home with
swimming pool in Las Vegas and living there ALONE, but having 3 children and 6
grandchildren nearby in Las Vegas. I telephoned her, and she recognized my voice instantly after
48 years. In June, she flew here to visit me and stay with me in my Williamsburg, VA "home"
for 3 weeks. Although I am 8 years older and have 4 GREAT grandchildren compared to her 6
grandchildren, we are both SO LONELY after the deaths of our spouses, the two of us are like
"kids with a new toy". I will return from three weeks in Las Vegas just 24 hours before the
September 10th meeting with Dr. Jeff Pettis. Hence, if I can give up an extended sojourn with
my "old" Las Vegas Mormon "companion", I have high hopes that you too can come and enjoy
Jeff's wisdom.

GULP - the SECRET IS OUT!

 October 2003

Are Your BEES Ready For WINTER?

surely, most beekeepers in Maryland and Northern Virginia will remember 2003 as one of the
worst honey production years of the past 50 years, and then "insulted" by Hurricane Isabel in mid
September. Many colonies STARVED in May and June simply because continuous rain kept
bees from flying, more were lost in the anticipated dearth of nectar in July and August, some
hives were simply blown away in the strong winds of Hurricane Isabel, and some people were
out of electrical service for days and just did not even think about their bees.

There is little doubt that many colonies that are still alive just aren't going to make it through the
winter, but maybe some can be saved by intensive work in October.

If you did NOT treat your bees with Menthol for tracheal mites during AUGUST, or have not
had grease patties in place continuously since July 1st, I am afraid that your only help might be
PRAY and PRAY hard.

Based on the findings of numerous famous honey bee scientists and researchers, I STILL
BELIEVE that the BEST time to install Apistan in our area around Washington, DC is
OCTOBER 1st, because queen laying is dramatically diminishing or even stopped and the
ONLY place that the female varroa mite lays eggs is in a honeybee cell with a 4-5 day old honey
bee larvae. When there are no or very few honey bee LARVAE, there are no new mites being
born to hurt your bees and the Apistan strips will kill perhaps 99% of all the adult mites in the
colony. HOWEVER, don't leave those strips in the colony past December 1st, as THIS LONG
EXPOSURE is the very thing that makes the mites RESISTANT to Apistan, or any other
miticide in case you don't trust Apistan. Frankly, I have had absolutely no trouble with Apistan
and it always works, BUT I always use FRESH Apistan, and not some that is a carryover from
last year, but if I have some left from last year, it has been carefully resealed in its original
package, frozen and protected from light (as the DIRECTIONS say) for the past 11 months. By
waiting to install the Apistan strips until October for the Washington, DC area, when the queen
bee is dramatically laying fewer eggs, that system surely must be working well, as my sticky
board tests later in the year always indicate almost ZERO varroa mites. test for varroa mites with
a sticky board on April 1st and again on July 1st, and in 18 years I have never had to make a
second treatment of a colony for a varroa mite infestation. Some people have told me that they
are afraid to open a colony in late November to remove the strips. Of course, you can't do it on a
weekend when you are off or interrupt your Thanksgiving Dinner to do it, but there are always a
few hours on a few days in November when the temperature "soars" to 500 or even 600, and you
just take a few hours leave from work, DASH home, PULL those strips, and SAVE your bees
from mites! You would leave work for a few hours to consult with your child's school teacher,
see your dentist, get your car battery replaced, so why not take good care of your bees? But then
there are always those that forget to put antifreeze in their car, forget to check their auto tire
pressure before dashing off 100 miles to Aunt Suzies for Christmas, forgot to let the dog back in
the house even though the weather was going to 100 that night, and not to mention those who are
sick each winter with the FLU because they are "too busy" to get their FLU SHOT in October at
the local drugstore. Some people don't like my bluntness or chide them about "doing 'bee stuff'
when it is the OPTIMUM time to do it, rather than when it is most convenient for you. That does
not bother my even a little bit, because I am trying as hard as I can to tell you "in a few words"
those things that our hardworking (and underpaid) bee scientists and bee researchers have
learned from year's of exhaustive work. So much for varroa.

Before I talk about FEEDING, I want to redundantly tell you how to protect your bees from the
sickness of NOSEMA. Bee scientists and researchers estimate that Nosema is the most
widespread and prevalent of all bee diseases, infecting as many as 60% of all colonies in the U.
S. every spring. Nosema is a disease of the bee's gut that rarely kills them, and perhaps therefore
OVERLOOKED by most beekeepers, but causes them diarrhea right at brood rearing time and
nectar collecting time. Now I ask you: How good a job can do in your line of work when you
have a case of the "runs"? In November give your bees just $2 worth of Fumadil-B dissolved in 2
gallons of sugar syrup; and your bees will be free of Nosema in the following spring "rearing to
go nectar collecting". Dissolving that Fumadil-B is tricky, so just closely follow the directions.

I left FEEDING to the last comments, because it is the most important and least understood by
many. Let me outline a few statements first:

a. You feed 2 parts of sugar to 1 part of water, which is winter feed, NOT that 1:1 ratio that is used
in the spring and summer. What do I mean by "parts"? One pint of water weighs one pound, or 8
pints of water weigh 8 pounds. Hence, a ratio of 2:1 equals dissolving 16 pounds of sugar in 8
pints of water or 10 pounds of sugar in 5 pints of water, or 5 pounds of sugar in 2 1/2 pints of
water.
b. In our Washington, DC area, a colony needs about 50 pounds of honey or heavy sugar syrup to
get through most winters, but I play it safe and try to have 70 pounds of feed "aboard" by
December 1st. Hence I don't have winter starvation death. A colony of two deep bodies consisting
of 20 deep frames should weigh about 120 pounds gross Weight on December 1st, and a colony
of 3 Mediums using 30 medium frames (like I use) should weigh about 130 pounds on December
1st.
c. The time to feed is NOW, NOW, NOW, not in January or March.
d. Bees are NOT warm blooded like humans, but cold blooded that requires warmth to move
around. If the temperature falls below about 500, the bees ability to move around is severely
limited. When bees are CLUSTERED for winter warmth, starting about 500 (NOT at 321, bees
cannot or will not move away from their cluster even 2 inches (yes, 2 inches) to get food. Hence
the TYPE of feeder that you use is extremely important, because it almost MUST be in contact
with the cluster and not some distance of several inches away.
e. NEVER, NEVER feed commercially made honey because the great majority of it is contaminated
with American Foul Brood Disease, because almost all commercial beekeepers medicate their
bees with TERRAMYCIN to prevent the death of their bees from AFB, but their bees HAVE
AFB spores in the honey which will kill your bees. I am reminded here that as long as a diabetic
person (like my now dead wife) gets their shot of insulin every day, they might live to be 100, but
they still have diabetes and must have that insulin to stay alive. Terramycin is more or less quite
similar to insulin. As long as beekeeper continues to treat his bees with Terramycin, the bees live
and thrive, but if he misses the dose of Terramycin, his bees are DEAD because every part of his
colony including the wood, the honey, the wax, and of course the bees are heavily infected with
the spores of AFB! For many, many years bee scientists and bee researchers have WELL
PROVEN that the feeding of sucrose, common garden variety table sugar, is the BEST bee food
 that you can buy that has no side effects that are often found by those who are using fructose,
coke syrup, candy, and all those other concoctions that have been tried.

Now that those quick remarks are done, let me add some important details to them. Starting with:

a. concerning the constituents of 2:1 heavy sugar syrup, winter feed. Dissolving 2 pounds of sugar
in just 1 pint of water is a problem, or 16 pounds in just 8 pints of water. The water has to be
BOILING HOT, and hot water tap water just will not dissolve the sugar. Further, you don't want
to BURN the sugar. Hence, I like to get exact amount of water come to a close boil, like 200°,
and start adding the correct amount of sugar with CONSTANT STIRRING (very important), and
watch my thermometer so the temperature never goes over about 210°
b. About 12 deep frames totally filled and capped yield about 70 pounds of honey; or about18
medium frames totally filled and capped also yield about 70 pounds of honey.
c. Bees can be fed easily when the temperature is above 50°, but when the temperature is 20°- 40°,
feeding is TOUGH not only for the bees, but for YOU. Feed NOW!
d. Wow, I am going to get arguments about this, but You will not change my 71 years of
observance. Feed has to put extremely close (like touching) the bees for them to get any to store
away in cells. Hence, forget the BOARDMAN feeder (that "critter" with the pint jar that sits
ouside the hive front entrance and portrudes inside the front entrance), because the front entrance
of the hive is cold and a long way away from the cluster. Forget the hive feeder shaped like a
super, because the bees have to leave their cluster, crawl UP 4-6" to get to the syrup in the feeder,
and they just won't do it when the bees are clustered in the brood area. Forget the Division Board
Feeder, because if it is not in the center of the cluster, the bees will not break cluster to visit the
feeder, plus the feeder drowns many bees. Some people speak highly of using zip-lock bags of
sugar syrup placed on top of frames between hive bodies. I don't like them because I have to
break the propolis sealing between hive bodies to install new ones and remove old empties, plus
the fact that a feeding slot in the bag that has been cut too large can drown or chill a whole bunch
of bees. Bart Smith, who I think is an expert beekeeper, uses zip-lock bags, but he is an expert,
maybe you and I are not. I still think an inverted gallon GLASS jug whose cap have no more that
3-4 holes punched with a frame nail (very small, like only 1/16" or 5/64") directly on top of the
inner cover center hole is the best feeder possible. To prevent inner cover sag, I place 2 quarter
inch thick sticks on top of the frames at each end of the inner cover hole, so that the bees can
always have walking room on the frame tops and still nestle right up to the holes of sugar syrup.
Of course this feeder jug is surrounded by an empty deep body or 2 empty medium bodies for
protection; and all I do to see if the jug is empty or needs additional sugar syrup is simply remove
the colony telescoping cover and look. I can change jars in a snow storm at 20° without a bee
getting cold. In EXTREME cases of need of quick food, remove the inner cover, and place as
many as FOUR gallon jugs of heavy syrup directly on top of the frames. In my71 years with bees,
I have done this a couple of times with success, BUT IT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN
NECESSARY IN THE FIRST PLACE if I was a good beekeeper. LIVE and LEARN!
e. During the past few months, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion about the BEST
winter feed. I have watched this with great interest, because so many NON scientific beekeepers
are searching for CHEAPER and easier things to winter feed than plain old table sugar, sucrose.
Vilhen the scientists and honey bee researchers finally get mad enough at all this penny saving
frivolity of using everything from Goldilock's shoes to the wash waters of wine barrels, they
appear on the Internet or private writing stating that "THERE IS NO BETTER WINTER FOOD
THAN PLAIN OLD TABLE SUGAR" that you put in your coffee every morning.

Lastly, and I'll bet I have said it over 1000 times in my life, but few seem to listen. NEVER
JUDGE THE CONDITION OF A COLONY, PARTICULARLY WHETHER IT IS ALIVE OR
DEAD, BY JUST LOOKING AT THE OUTSIDE OR ITS ENTRANCES. The bees you see
may be robber bees, and your bees may be dead. You MUST remove your inner cover, remove
an outer frame and then examine the inner frames for BROOD if you are really going to
determine the colony condition. You can ALWAYS do this when the outside temperature is over
50°, the sun is shining, and there is NO wind; and there are numerous days in November and
even February when these days occur. Way back, over 65 years ago, my mentor and teacher, Dr.
James I. Hambleton, Chief Apiculturist of the U. S. Government, told me "George, NEVER
bother to look into the supers for anything, because if your bees are healthy, the BROOD area
will show it, but if your bees are sick or infected, it is the same BROOD area that will define the
problem." Now starting my 72nd year of beekeeping in 2004, I totally agree with Dr. Hambleton.
ALL of your bee problems or successes occur in the BROOD chamber area, and the supers take
care of themselves based on the conditions in the BROOD area. Just try to remember that
HEALTHY bees headed by a young genetically selected queen stay healthy and make more
honey than most other beekeepers near you; and you locate all the good points and bad points by
examining the BROOD area of the colony.

November 2003

TIMING is so Very Important

1. There is little question among scientists that menthol is the most effective killer of the
TRACHEAL mite; and in spite of what you may have heard, tracheal mites are still in
most states, counties, and surely, in central Maryland. However, menthol MUST be used
at the RIGHT time, or it does not work at all; and that time for Montgomery County is
installation in the BROOD nest area on AUGUST 15th and BEFORE SEPTEMBER 1st.
Why? The infected worker bee has to breathe the menthol GAS (not the smell) to kill the
mites trapped in the trachea of the bee, and this GAS has to be present over many days to
effectively reach all the worker bees.

Here is the problem: Menthol does not sublime (turn from solid crystals into a GAS) until
it reaches a temperature of 85°F! There are very few days after September 1st that the
temperature goes over 85° and hence menthol just does not kill many tracheal mites if it
is installed after September 1st.

Suppose you don't want to use menthol, but prefer the GREASE PATTIE treatment
discovered by Dr. Diana Sammataro. Here too, timing is important. Grease Patties (NOT
Extender patties which are made with Terramycin) MUST be CONTINUOUSLY used
from July 1st through Christmas to effectively control tracheal mites. In other words, they
have to be continuously present in the brood chamber of the colony for SIX MONTHS.

Grease Patties are made from 2 parts of table sugar mixed with one part of Crisco. On
some warm, calm day, like 50° in JANUARY 2004, you open your colony to casually
 inspect it, and there is still lots of stored capped honey, but only a cup full of dead bees
and queen. The TRACHEAL mites have killed your bees, because you did NOT follow
the dates that I described or maybe you believed all those NON scientists that told you
that Montgomery County was free of acarapis woodi.

By the way, cold weather does NOT kill healthy bees, in case you want to use that as an
excuse for the loss of your bees. The famous entomologist and bee researcher, Dr. E.
Southwick, exposed bees to various low temperatures for various sustained periods up to
several months and as low as -60°, and proved that cold does not kill healthy bees.
Maryland rarely has a day that is 0° or -10°; and equally rare is having any 30 day period
that the temperature doesn't go above 50° for at least one day. There is NO excuse for not
taking a few hours off from work and OPEN your colonies and quickly inspect them on
some day in January or February when the temperature goes over 50°, or don't you care if
they die?

Why do I say that? So many of the Hive Management procedures just DON'T work AT
ALL or work poorly if they are NOT done at the right time! The date that each procedure
is done is VERY dependent on the weather, colony location, altitude, and geographic
location. Hence, the times I name probably are not valid for places like our western
Maryland mountains, New York, or South Carolina; but will normally be QUITE VALID
for Montgomery County and other central Maryland locations. Let me tell you of a few,
and I will give you the SCIENTIFIC reasons for why a certain date is the CORRECT,
RIGHT, or BEST time for the beekeeper to do the procedure.

2. There is little question that the Varroa mite is a more serious problem then the tracheal
mite. Here again, people are treating varroa jacobsoni with several different products
including some PROVEN absolutely valueless by honey bee scientists or researchers, and
almost everyone is treating at the WRONG time or treating multiple times, because it is
INCONVENIENT for them to do it at the CORRECT time with a proven chemical, and
treat only ONCE each year.

Let me explain the SCIENCE of treating "late" in the year, and thereby only having to
treat ONCE each year. What is the CORRECT time for treatment in Montgomery
County, and with what chemical? The BEST time to install either Apistan or CheckMite
(which I don't like) is October 1st up to perhaps October 15th, and those strips MUST be
left in place for a minimum of 6 weeks, but no longer than 8 weeks. This treatment will
kill 99% of all varroa mites; but you dare not leave those trips in after December 1st
because you will make the remaining FEW live mites RESISTANT to the pesticide used.

You can find a warm 50° day in late November when you leave work early, dash home,
and quickly open a colony and remove the 4 strips. Let me explain why October (not
September, or April, or any other month) is the BEST month for Varroa treatment.

All of our pesticides; Apistan, CheckMite, or ApiLife, are CONTACT KILLERS, where
the bee must touch the strip in order for the chemical to kill the mite. Hence, the chemical
does NOT kill any mites in a capped bee cell of the brood chamber, and THIS IS THE
 LOCATION of ALL baby mites! The female mite will ONLY lay new mite eggs in just
one location, a honey bee larval cell just one day before the bees cap that cell. Here, the
mite eggs hatch, become larva that feed on the "baby" bee's hemolymph, become adults
and emerge as adult mites when the now deformed and weak honey bee emerges from its
cell. It should be obvious that the BEST time to kill 99% of all adult mites and not have
any baby mites developing is when the QUEEN BEE has greatly diminished her egg
laying or completely stopped egg laying! In Montgomery County, queens are laying very
little after October 1st, and generally completely stop about mid ovember. Hence, using
this procedure, my bees have almost ZERO varroa mites through the winter and early
spring months, and what mites they acquire during the summer and early fall, the bees
can handle themselves without more treatment. HERE AGAIN, the TIME that you treat
is so important, and treating at YOUR convenience rather than a TIME based on
scientific facts is usually in error.

By the way, if FGMO or essential oils like wintergreen, truly worked to kill varroa mites,
don't you think that some or all the honey bee scientists/researchers would have
announced it and supported it years ago. In private talks that I have had with many of the
scientists working in our bee labs as well as our universities, many have told me, that
they had tried these things for years, and they could NOT endorse them, because all of
them were so NON dependable, killing mites in some colonies but not in others, killing
mites one year, but not the next, or sometimes requiring rags or paper soaked in the
chemical, but other times requiring an electric fogger to be used in the colony.

Meanwhile, FRESH Apistan or CheckMite always kills mites UNLESS careless

beekeepers have created resistant mites by exposing them to long term contact with the
pesticide by leaving the strips in the colony all winter; or have left unused strips out in
the sun or subjected to heat by leaving the package laying round in the hot sun in their car
or garage. APISTAN and/or CHECKMITE deteriorates when left out to air exposure, sun
shine, or heat. OCTOBER 1st IS THE BEST DATE TO INSTALL APISTAN OR
CHECKMITE IN YOUR COLONY IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

3. How well can you work when you have diarrhea? Worker bees don't do a very good job
of nectar collecting if they have diarrhea; and bee scientists have estimated that 60% of
all the hived bees in the U.S. have Nosema disease in the spring, and a major symptom of
Nosema is DIARRHEA. Nosema rarely kills a colony, but it can surely weaken its
effectiveness in honey production. $2 of Fumadil-B is the only treatment for Nosema, but
when do you give it to the bees? Our spring buildup time is February and March to be
STRONG for our April and May nectar collection.

Bees that are sick with Nosema in February and March, and hence are suffering with
diarrhea, just are not strong enough to raise much brood, keep the brood warm, take good
care of the queen, or collect pollen. Therefore, the BEST time to feed the $2 dose of
Fumadil-B to your bees is in the sugar syrup that you feed in LATE October and all of
November, so the bees store this away as winter survival food, and as they eat in the
months of December and January, they are getting constant continuous doses of Fumadil-
 B so-they are free of Nosema disease. There is a BEST time for treatment of
EVERYTHING!

4. In Montgomery County, Dandelion blooms in late March or early April. Our MAJOR
nectar sources are Black Locust which might bloom by April 15th and surely before May
1st, and this is followed 2-3 weeks later by Tulip Poplar, and ALL of this ENDS about
June 1st. This a very short time for the bees to make 100 or maybe 150 pounds of honey,
so your supers sitting in the garage or basement or non-painted aren't helping your bees at
all, so they SWARM. They weren't "bad" bees, but they had a "bad" beekeeper who did
not pay attention to the proper TIME to install supers.. tempus fugit or "time marches
on". Perhaps, Saint Patrick's Day Parties on March 17th, or EASTER Sunday on April
11th or working on your income tax for April 15th took too much of your time to worry
about your bees. Who are YOU going to blame when your bees swarm and/or produce
little honey? TIMING IS IMPORTANT! Install your first medium super without any
queen excluder on April 1st, FOOL'S DAY, and place a queen excluder under that super
on April 15th and add FOUR MORE medium supers of drawn comb ALL AT ONE
TIME. Now your bees are ready to make you 3-4 full supers of capped honey for you to
extract on July 4th. You CAN'T do this using foundation. You MUST use frames of
drawn comb. WHY use 5 supers if the harvest is only 3-4 supers? Bees do not fly out and
gather HONEY. They gather thin, watery nectar, as much as 25 pounds in one day, bring
it to the hive and store it until the bees can evaporate perhaps 80% of the water and ripen
it into thick wonderful HONEY. If the bees have no space (extra supers) to store this
nectar until they can ripen it, they STOP working and SWARM. THIS is why you install
5 supers to make 3-4 supers of honey! Known for my bluntness and never apologizing in
my efforts to make you into a better beekeeper, I will say that there is NO WAY that you
can save money by only using 2-3 supers, and almost daily removing the capped frames
of honey, replacing them with empty frames of drawn comb, because the bees just can't
do the work of evaporating water from the nectar, ripening the honey, and capping the
cells with wax, as fast as more space is needed to store more nectar. Hence, don't be
CHEAP, buy 5 medium supers, frames, and foundation for every colony!
5. Why do you REQUEEN in the spring? Queens are expensive, may not be well bred,
rarely delivered to you on time, and certainly "screws up" a colony right in the midst of
our ONLY yearly nectar flow? Spring requeening in Montgomery County is just
ridiculous. The great majority of commercial beekeepers which might have 5000 or
10,000 colonies requeen in the fa II. These beekeepers make a living from their bees and
depend on honey production, so they requeen EVERY YEAR, but always in the late
summer or early fall. If you doubt me, come to the January meeting of the American
Beekeeping Federation in Jacksonville, FL, and talk to these commercial beekeepers who
have anywhere from 5000 colonies to 60,000 colonies (Yes, Richard Adee has 60,000
colonies and requeens all of them every fall). Doesn't THAT tell you something! Fall
queens are BETTER BRED, are delivered on whatever day you prescribe, do not
interfere with your nectar flow, and are cheaper (which should NOT be important to we
hobbyists). Late Summer or Fall requeening is much better for everything about success
with bees than any spring requeeningl I will agree that fall requeening runs the risk of a
new queen being killed, but NOT if you requeen via the nucleus method such as "Imirie's
Almost Foolproof Requeening Method" that I have used for over 40 years and rarely lose
 a queen. What are its "other features"? I have TWO queens, both the old and the new
queen, laying brood for about 4-6 weeks in September to give me a large number of
young bees to winter, warm the colony, take care of the queen, and WARM the new
brood; but the most important thing is the fact that this NEW queen is so young that she
can produce enough queen pheromone in the spring brood rearing season that the
pheromone retards all SWARMING impulses by the worker bees. If THAT is not
important to you, I suggest you give up beekeeping and take up something like raising
pigeons or catching butterflies. Have I insulted you? Good, I am trying hard to make you
a better beekeeper! Why is beekeeping so important to me, and hopefully YOU. I like
orange juice for breakfast, a salad for lunch that has cucumbers, onions, a smidge of
broccoli, and a wedge of cantaloupe or watermelon, and a protein dinner of filet mignon
steak followed by pumpkin pie or apple pie with vanilla ice cream ala mode. You are
supposed to know ALL about honey bees. Don't you know that without honey bee
pollination, none those meal menu's I described would be available at your local grocery
store except at very high prices? And I love ICE CREAM, but without that high protein
alfalfa hay, pollinated by honey bees, that dairy cow is not gong to produce much quality
milk with lots of cream. Here, again is Hard-Nose George begging you to maintain the
health of your bees as if they were your children.

'nough Said!

December 2003

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Isn't it great to see this COLD winter weather arrive! While my bees are all snuggled in their
winter cluster just keeping warm and eating very little, because the queen is not laying any
brood, it is time for OLD GEORGE to relax and have some FUN for myself before I again have
honey bee "responsibilities" in late January.

Some might say, "WHAT responsibilities in late January when it is SO cold, maybe even snow
covering the hives?" Maybe you are content with a colony production of only 40-50 pounds of
honey made in April and May; but for years, my colonies average over 125 pounds/colony and
my sons sell it at the Montgomery County Fair for an average of $3.50/pound, and this puts
"extra 'change' in their pocket". WHAT do I do in late January, and WHY do I do it?

In Montgomery County, our nectar flow normally begins when dandelions appear about April
15th, and ENDS in 6-8 weeks which is June 15th. Most people, seeing all the blooming flowers
and trees just DO NOT UNDERSTAND why honey is not made in late June, July, or August.
Honey bees only gather nectar from particular blooms, and none of these particular blooms occur
after about June 15th in our county. Hence, all of our honey has to be made in the very short 6-8
weeks between April 15th and June 15th. Knowledgeable beekeepers recognize the fact that a
bee does not become a foraging bee until FORTY DAYS after the queen lays the worker egg!
FORTY DAYS! FORTY DAYS! Hence, if a bee is old enough to forage on April 15th, the egg
that produced that bee had to be laid by the queen before MARCH 6th (3/6 to 4/15 = 40 days).

It requires a lot of cluster heating bees to raise the cluster temperature to 91°-96° for the queen to
lay eggs. Also, there MUST be LOTS of stored food in the colony to feed all this newly laid
brood. Camiolan queens will start laying eggs shortly after January 1st, and Italian queens will
start laying 2-3 weeks later, or near February 1st IN OUR COUNTY (Cumberland, MD, St.
Marys, MD, or Richmond, VA are all going to be earlier or later than Montgomery County
because of their location or altitude). You can FOOL the bees into thinking early spring has
arrived by FEEDING them 1:1 or even 1:2 THIN sugar syrup, and they will get the queen laying.
I hope you remember that the worker bees have total control over the queen's action by
controlling how much they feed her. Knowing that most of the worker bees produced from eggs
laid in late January or early February will NOT be foraging bees, but they are VITALLY
necessary to keep many frames of brood warm enough so that the brood is not killed by
CHILLING, and hence I start sugar feeding of very thin syrup in late January to get my queens
laying brood. By doing this, I have a STRONG force of foraging bees in late April and all of
May. Of course, when doing this, you are promoting swarming, so you have to use all the swarm
control techniques that science has taught us; and of course the Number ONE swarm control
technique is to have a VERY YOUNG QUEEN (less than 6-8 months old, and that is why like
FALL requeening instead of spring requeening).

AD NAUSEUM, I have preached that you cannot determine whether a colony is alive or dead by
looking at the front entrance to see if they are flying on a warm day in January. The colony might
be dead, and the bees you see flying in and out are robber bees from some other colony. Select
some warm day, over 55° and no wind, take off the inner cover and inspect for BROOD. If brood
is present, close the hive, give thanks, and relax. You can do that in 10 minutes.

More bees STARVE TO DEATH in MARCH than any other month, because brood rearing is
intense and brood rearing requires a lot of food for the bee larvae, and a lot of food for the bees
to maintain colony warmth so the brood will not chill. Don't let your bees STARVE - How
would like to starve to death? That is why you should buy sugar every time it is on sale CHEAP,
so you have it ready if your bees need feed. Further, when the temperature is below 50°, bees
WON'T or CAN'T move 2 inches away from their warming cluster to get feed, so FORGET that
"super-like hive top feeder", that stupid DIVISION BOARD feeder, and that ridiculous
Boardman front entrance feeder. You MUST get your feeder almost touching the bees, like an
upside jar of syrup on the inner cover hole or right on top the frames after the inner cover is
removed. Can't you spend $1.50 to buy a 5 pound sack of sugar to keep your bees alive? Shucks,
if the bees don't need it, you make lots of cookies or cakes for your family or the church auction.
DON'T LET YOUR BEES STARVE TO DEATH!

NO December Meeting
but
The January 14th Meeting will be a "ducey"
Headlined by EAS's newest MASTER BEEKEEPER, Pat Haskell, supported by Master
Beekeeper Billy Davis (a master of many things), and maybe Master Beekeeper Bill Troup (a
Maryland Bee Inspector) and Master Beekeeper Nancy Troup, who equals Bill in bee
knowledge, but "hides" in the background and still teaches school. ALL will be finalized in your
January Honey Pot regarding TALK TITLE, WHO TALKS, and WHY it is important for YOU
to be there. I will write all of that info to you in the January Honey Pot while I am in
Williamsburg for Christmas And New Years and proceeding further SOUTH to Charleston, SC;
Savannah, GA; ending in Jacksonville, FL for the annual meeting of the American Beekeepers
Federation and TALK to queen breeders, honey producers, scientists and researchers, equipment
suppliers, and a whole bunch of long time beekeeping friends. Since "the cat is already out of the
bag", my old Mormon employee of 48 years ago from Utah and Las Vegas when I was a head
scientist testing atomic bombs in Nevada is now widowed with 6 grandchildren just like I am,
but I have 4 great grandchildren, and both of us are VERY LONELY, so together we leave for 4-
6 weeks in my van with my electric scooter TOURING the sites of 6 southern states. We might
even buy a home in Williamsburg, and then "YOU ARE RID OF ME". What will
OCTOGENARIANS like me do next?
 2004

Short Course 2004

It has long been known that successful beekeeping is a combination of an ART and SCIENCE.
There was precious little scientific knowledge about a honey bee until the last 100 years, and
more particularly the past 20 years when bee science was FORCED into finding management
techniques, equipment changes, better bred queens, and more studious beekeepers than the field
had ever had. The great majority of successful beekeepers of the past were ARTISTS in their
handling of bees and honey production, but badly lacking in the understanding of the SCIENCE
of beekeeping.

Now, in this new 21st century, many of these men are dead, retired, quit beekeeping, still
fighting the losing battle against all the new problems beginning with the arrival of the tracheal
mite in 1984, the more deadly bee pest, the Varroa mite in 1987, and the Small Hive Beetle in
1998. Finally, a few of us, who "saw the light" back in 1984, changed with the times, and paid
intense attention to the findings of bee scientists and bee research. Of course, some say that I had
an advantage in that I was a highly trained scientist. That is a bunch of "bull"!

You don't have to be a scientist yourself to be a fine beekeeper; but you have to LISTEN to what
the findings of scientists are, ignore what the "good old guys" tell you, and be willing to change
your management to fit. I want to mention some things that you will NOT find in a book, or from
the lips of most speakers, but of great importance.

NOT in order of importance, but in order as I think of them:

1) You are going to be STUNG

If that bothers you, get out now. You can't work in a vegetable garden without getting your hands
dirty and a broken fingernail. If you go skiing, you might break a leg. Honey bees DIE when
they sting, leaving the stinger in YOU. Hence, honey bees are NOT aggressive, but only sting in
protection of their hive, exactly as you protect YOUR home. Honey bees are only DEFENSIVE!
A sting in the face, particularly around the eyes, ears, and nose is not only painful, but normally
your entire face will badly swell, if you do not normally get very many stings than tend to
immunize ,you against bad swelling. I encourage you to wear a nice veil to protect your face,
irregardless of seeing me without a veil. I am my own worst enemy. However, I STRONGLY
encourage you to FORGET WEARING GLOVES. You can't thread a sewing needle or squeeze
a blackhead off your nose while wearing gloves; nor can you handle frames of bees or pick up
the queen while wearing gloves.
2) What do you do about stings?
When the bee suddenly stings your finger, DON"T DROP THAT FRAME!, stand there, cuss a
bit, and replace the frame to.its proper place. THEN, remove the stinger from your finger, and
blow smoke on your finger to destroy the scent of bee venom. Pain, swelling, and subsequent
itching is NORMAL reaction to a sting lasting from a few minutes to a couple of days,
depending on how often you get stung.
Beekeepers, who are often stung several times each week, rarely swell and the pain lasts just a
few minutes. In this LEARNING PROCESS, just make sure that you do not REPEAT whatever
you did that made the bee sting you and caused her to DIE.

3) DOES SMOKE HAVE SOME CONTROL OVER BEES?

From Day One, bees have lived in a hollow tree in the woods. Often a lightning strike sets a
woods on fire. Bees smell the smoke and not wanting to be burned to death, they prepare to fly
away to some new home if necessary. However, there are no restaurants along the way for them
to get lunch "on the road", so they carry their own provisions to their new home; and hence they
go to the honey stored in their own hive and GORGE themselves with honey. Now I ask you,
"How do you feel after a big Thanksgiving Day dinner?" You don't want to "run any races", but
you would rather snooze in a big chair while watching a football game on TV. This is the case
with a bee that has their honey stomach filled with honey - They are not very active and are
much more placid.

A SMART man uses this to his advantage when working bees. You approach the colony that you
want to inspect, and blow several whiffs of smoke directly into every entrance that the bees may
have into the hive. NOW, YOU DO SOMETHING EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR MOST
BEEKEEPERS - YOU GO AWAY, HAVE A COKE, WATCH THE BIRDS, OR LOOK FOR 4
LEAF CLOVERS FOR AT LEAST 60 SECONDS, BUT 2 MINUTES IS BETTER. When you
return to the hive, you carefully blow a tiny whiff of smoke in the entrance, remove the inner
cover, allow a whiff of smoke to drift across the bees on top of the frames and began frame
removal for inspection. T00 MUCH SMOKE FORCES BEES TO FLY INTO THE AIR, AND
THEY ARE MAD, SO THEY MIGHT STING YOU.

Use just a little smoke often to keep them quiet and placid; and use nice, COOL, white, smoke,
not hot, blue smoke with flames that BURN the bees and MAKE THEM STING.

So many people have told me that they have watched their bee inspectors look at their bees, or
observed commercial honey producers working colonies and they DON'T do any WAITING.
There is a difference: These people are paid by the hour to do a job and they get enough stings
every year that stings don't bother them as much as a hobbyist, so they work in a hurry and get a
few stings. The choice of methods is up to you. I work my bees to have FUN, enjoy myself, and
commune with nature.

When we have our FIELD days in April, I will show you how to "light a smoker and PACK it
tightly with a lot of fuel so it will not go out", WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT. The PROPER
use of a smoker and the choice of smoker fuel are vital to good beekeeping, and unfortunately,
too many people are not well skilled in the use of smoke. BTW, rather than matches, I use a
propane fireplace lighter to light my smoker, and that is so much easier than fooling around with
matches that might be wet from sweat or forgotten

4) What is the best SMOKER FUEL?

Many of us think pine needles are the NUMBER ONE smoker fuel of all fuels. It is very easy to
light, stays lit, and makes dense COOL, white smoke. Never work bees without a lit smoker. A
lit smoker does not mean you have to use smoke, but it does mean that you have smoke instantly
IF smoke is needed. Frankly, I prefer to use little or no smoke when working bees, and too much
smoke can make bees very nasty. Smoking bees is an ART, and can't be taught by writing about
it; but the choice of fuel is important.
5) FORGET HONEY!
Everybody is talking about sampling some of THEIR BEES HONEY, and can hardly wait.
Young boys want to drive a car, but have to wait until they are 16-18 years old.

FORGET HONEY! YOUR job with your bees during the entire FIRST year is to AID them to
"build their house tight and strong, filled with winter stores (honey) to get them into next spring,
and protect them from being killed by mites or disease!"

6) Feeding your new bees:

Ask one of the "good old boys" or even one of the socalled "beekeepers" that are everywhere
today, and you will get a bad assortment of answers, ranging from 1 pint, or feed up to the real
nectar flow, or feed up to hot weather, or feeding is not necessary after April 15th. WHAT A
BUNCH OF CRAP!

You are building a brand new colony, and trying to get 30 or 40 frames of foundation drawn into
DRAWN COMB. There is NO WAY that bees are going to accomplish your desires unless they
get a lot of CONTINUOUS feeding of 1:1 sugar syrup. which is artificial nectar. You feed
continuously until about LABOR DAY, and then switch the feed to HEAVY syrup, 2 pounds of
sugar dissolved into just 1 pint of water.

The grocery stores often have sugar on sale for $1.59 for 5 pounds. Between April and
September, you might have to feed 40-50 pounds of sugar to one colony, which is only $12-$15
sugar cost; BUT this makes the difference between a weak colony and a big strong colony.

If you can't spend $12-$15 and the time to do this for 4 months, you will just be a beeHAVER,
and not a beeKEEPER.

During a real nectar flow (in April and May), bees won't take too much sugar syrup as the prefer
the real nectar; but they will take the syrup at NIGHT or when it rains in the daytime. When it
gets hot, like July and August, the sugar syrup might get black mold in it which will NOT hurt
the bees, but nasty to think about. Just add a teaspoon of CREAM OF TARTER to a gallon of
sugar syrup and that prevents the mold.

7) Almost nobody understands the presence of a NECTAR FLOW

...which is the "stuff' that is made into honey. The nectar flow in central Maryland and Northern
Virginia occurs in mid April to maybe June 15th, and might re-occur in September. However, in
spite of all the flowers you see in bloom late June, July, August, and early September, generally
there is NO NECTAR during these months, and the bees can even starve during that time if the
beekeeper has harvested too much of the spring honey: How do you feel on a hot July day with
high humidity and you are hungry?
Now you know why it is usually not advisable to do much bee work in July or August, because
those bees are uncomfortable, bored, and mad; and they prefer that you just stay away from them
or they might sting. In contrast, during a strong nectar flow, the bees are so busy and happy, that
nothing seems to make them defensive, and you can do all kinds of things with them. Who was it
that said 'Food calms the savage beast."

8) WHAT is honey?
A beekeeper should be able to explain this in great detail to all listeners, in spite of the science
involved.

Here goes: If you are a NON scientist, the word SUGAR means that white stuff in the bowl that
you put in your coffee. Table sugar is the polysaccharide, SUCROSE. When you eat sugar, your
body has the enzyme, INVERTASE, which chemically breaks down SUCROSE into two simple
saccharides (sugars), named FRUCTOSE and GLUCOSE, which your doctor calls "blood
sugars" when you get your blood examination. Now let us go back to the bee:

The black locust is in bloom, and the odor of its NECTAR attracts the bee to the flower. She
gathers this nectar (about 80% water and 20% SUCROSE) into her honey stomach and flies back
to her hive. On the way back home, the bee injects the enzyme INVERTASE into the nectar,
which begins the ripening process of the nectar into honey.

The SUCROSE is broken down into two simple sugars, FRUCTOSE and GLUCOSE, the
relative percentage of the two is dependent on the tree that made the original nectar. At room
temperature, FRUCTOSE is a liquid and GLUCOSE is a solid, so if the nectar source was
heavily oriented towards FRUCTOSE (like black locust) the resulting honey will be slow to
crystallize in the jar "to sugar".

In contrast, suppose the original nectar came from the goldenrod bush and its nectar is oriented
towards GLUCOSE, the resulting honey will rapidly crystallize in the jar "to sugar".

All one has to do to restore this crystallized honey to liquid honey is just gently, slowly, warm it
to a temperature of about 100°, and you are back to pure wonderful honey again. The difference
in honey flavors and colors are due to the microscopic amounts of other chemicals secreted by
each nectar source when the bees gathered the nectar.

Hence, honey made from buckwheat is of STRONG FLAVOR (like molasses) and is almost
black in color whereas locust honey is very mild, very sweet, and almost water white in color.
Yet both of these might share the same relative percentage of FRUCTOSE and GLUCOSE
which are the sugars that control the speed of crystallization. You know how just a few grains of
salt can totally change the taste of steak.

It just takes a minuscule amount of these "other chemicals in nectar" to make the resulting honey
mild or strong, colorless or dark. Contrary to what you may have heard, dark honey is not "old"
honey, or "bad" honey.
In fact the great majority of real honey eaters much prefer dark honeys to the mild, light colored
honeys. Now, you can expertly inform people HOW honey is made!

9) There are 3500 bees to the pound

So there are about 219 bees in an ounce. Pretty small, isn't she!

A worker bee weighs about 130 milligrams, but can carry a load of nectar back to the hive that
weighs an additional 80 milligrams. If you are a woman that weighs about130 pounds, can you
carry home a weight of 80 pounds and FLY? Bees are REMARKABLE!

It requires 12 bees their ENTIRE life to gather just one teaspoon of honey! Since a bee only lives
about 42 days in flying weather, and only goes out searching for nectar about the last 23 days of
its life, it take an awful lot of bees for them to make a honey yield for you of 100 pounds of
honey!

Now do you understand why success in beekeeping is for YOU to provide the AIDS to help the
bees build a huge population of foraging bees ready at the start of a nectar flow!

THIS IS WHAT YOUR JOB IS!

Select the queen and provide the late winter stimulus for her to lay the eggs which will produce
about 40,000-60,0000 worker bees "chafing at the bit" to gather nectar!

Why MARK your queen?

Nobody, can really tell one queen bee from another, unless they are of different races. They all
look alike.

Hence, is the queen you saw in your colony on July 4th the queen that you bought for $14 in
April? Or is the queen that you see on October 15th the same queen that was in that big swarm
that you caught in May?

If you can't tell, are they new queens? Did they mate with Italian drones, Carniolan drones,
"mongrel" drones, healthy or sick drones, or just one drone or 15?

If your valuable queen has been superseded by another queen, did she come from a three day old
larva or an 18 hour old larva, and hence is she any good?

You can't tell and DON'T KNOW what kind of bees an unmarked queen is going to produce in
your hive!

During the past 20 years, bee scientists have done a lot of research on the supersedure or death of
queens because of the mites and chemicals in use, and the shortage of drones for mating. Even
they were surprised to find that in some instances, over half of ail new queens are being
superseded during their first year in a colony!

Use only MARKED queens, so you know what is going on in your colony; and mark them with
Testor's model paint that lasts a LIFETIME.

10) AMERICAN FOUL BROOD

Surely, you have heard about the "dreaded" disease of AMERICAN FOUL BROOD. What can
you do about it? Thousands of people will tell you to treat with TERRAMYCIN, and I am going
to tell you they are WRONG!

Let me explain. DOES TERRAMYCIN KILL AFB? It has always been a mystery to me, that
bee inspectors, and particularly commercial honey producers will never come right out and say
N0; but they "beat around the bush" and say, it controls the spread of AFB so the bees stay alive,
can produce honey, and many beekeepers use Terramycin.

They never mention that Terramycin just HIDES the symptoms of AFB, and hence ALL of your
wooden ware in your apiary, your hive tool, gloves, bee suit, honey house, and
PARTICULARLY ALL YOUR HONEY is infected with AFB and the bees will die if you ever
stop using Terramycin.

The only way that you can sterilize your wooden ware is by ETO fumigation in Maryland only,
radiation, or boiling in lye.

TERRAMYCIN will control the vegetative state of bacillus larvae but will NOT kill the devilish
spores that can stay alive as long as 80 years that we know. I don't know why the officials are
reluctant to tell you what 1 just said, but they are. ASK THEM!

I have never used Terramycin in 72 years of beekeeping, and I destroy a colony the instant I see
any symptom of AFB, so that it does not contaminate any of my other colonies or equipment; or
infect my NEIGHBOR'S bee colonies

11) Thinking Like A Bee

This is a TOUGH one! In my opinion, the most important chapter in the 1992 EXTENSIVELY
REVISED edition of THE HIVE AND HONEY BEE is Chapter 8, by Dr. Norm Gary and it is
all about BEE BEHAVIOR, or as I call it, "thinking like a bee".

Most readers of the 1300+ pages of the H & HB pass by Chapter 8 as "boring" and precede to the
part of the book about "making more honey". Many of those readers are still beeHAVERS years
later, because they ignored to learn about BEE BEHAVIOR.

I will touch on a few highlights about BB.

A bee "emerges into our world" without help, no boss to show her WHAT to do, HOW to do it,
WHEN to do it, or WHY to do it.
God created a bee with this instinctive knowledge, and the bee of 2004 is identical to the bee
found in the Garden of Eden and now surrounded by billions of human beings has not learned
one single thing from we humans and still does the things she was taught to do by her Creator at
the moment of her entrance into our world. BTW, this was very simply proved by scientists, who
placed several frames of capped brood and NO LIVE BEES in an incubator, and observed their
actions upon "emerging".

They all did just what the bees in your colony do every day. In other words, God has provided all
the intelligence that a bee needs, and there is nothing that you can do to change that. A bee does
NOT have the ability to LEARN.

The "trick" to being a successful beekeeper is for YOU to LEARN those things that a bee will
tolerate and, contrastingly. those things that a bee finds offensive.

YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO LEARN (I hope), and being intelligent, you use your gift of
knowledge to manipulate and manage your bees so that they do MORE than make winter stores
of honey for themselves, but make an extra 100-200 pounds for YOU.

We humans are highly dependent on the sense of SIGHT and HEARING and very little of our
lives are concerned about the sense of SMELL, unless it is a rotten egg or a seductive woman's
perfume.

However, even though having 5 eyes (bet you did not know that), the honey bee has lousy
eyesight and is blind to the color RED, and does not even have any EARS to hear with! Of
course, bees work inside a totally DARK hive with those lousy eyes, so it becomes obvious that
the SENSE of SIGHT in not important to a bee. What is important?

The OLFACTORY sense (SMELL) of the bee is by far it's most important sense. It SMELLS
nectar, and then pollinates crops by accident in the process of collecting that nectar, it knows its
queen is alive and well by SMELLING the pheromone produced by the queen, the bee must have
the CORRECT hive odor to pass by the guard bees as it enters a hive after flying, it is attracted
to help other bees defend their colony if the alarm pheromone SMELL is in the air, and lastly,
beekeepers who wear perfume, hair tonic, body lotion, or just stinking sweat INVITE stings
because those odors are foreign to the nature of the bee.

Speaking of BEE BEHAVIOR, the great majority of people think of a bee by using
ANTHROPOMORPHIC thinking which is wrong, wrong! Bees can NOT be viewed or dealt
with as if they were humans, because they are NOT humans, don't think like humans, and don't
understand how to adjust the things that humans try to "saddle" on them.

I have hope that you will pay $36 for a 1992 EXTENSIVELY REVISED Edition of THE HIVE
and HONEY BEE and read the 105 pages of Dr. Norm Gary's Chapter 8 regarding BEE
BEHAVIOR. It is tough reading, no question about that, but aren't most things of great value
TOUGH?
12) Are all honey bees the same?
Is a bee just a bee? Is one bee as good as another bee?

Heavens, NO!

Bees have genetic differences, having good points and bad points, just the same as you and I.
Some things are obvious, while others are not. Surely if you were shown a room filled with
people who were white caucasian, black negro, American Indian, oriental, Polynesian, and
Eskimo, you could differentiate between them.

Likewise, there are different STRAINS of people from the same race, and they differ. Think of
an English man, a German man, and an Italian man, all members of the white Caucasian race,
but all quite different. The English man dresses in a 3 piece suit, drinks Scotch, smokes a pipe,
and is generally quiet of speech. The German man is blonde, blue eyed, wears a sweater, drinks
beer, smokes cigarettes, and loves to sing and dance. The Italian man dressed in a golf shirt,
stands on a corner waving a bottle of Chianti wine, shouting and talking to the whole block of
people.

All three are white Caucasions, but have different STRAINS. Breeders intently study genetic
differences and by using controlled matings, they can emphasize good points in the resulting
progeny, as well as minimize undesirable points. What are the good and bad points of a honey
bee that skilled queen breeders are always hunting for?

Good points include gentleness, wintering well, not prone to swarming, ripens its honey rapidly,
makes white comb cappings, uses little burr comb, and is somewhat disease resistant. Bad points
might include excessive use of propolis, excess swarming, prone to many diseases, poor
population builders, poor comb builders, and just plain NASTY.

The hobbyist beekeeper in Florida is not interested in wintering ability, the professional honey
producer cares more about disease resistance than excess burr comb production, out-apiary
owners are more concerned about excess swarming than home apiary owners, and most
hobbyists are more interested in gentleness than any other difference.

So much has changed in beekeeping the past 20 years, CONTROLLED BREEDING by using
artificial insemination of queens has greatly enhanced the ability of queen breeders to select for
desirable attributes in bees that couldn't be done in the days of field breeding.

In the better queen breeder apiaries of today, the breeder buys some highly selected
ARTIFICIALLY INSEMINATED queens as breeder queens and grafts their eggs into queen
production nucs that produce the queens that are field bred by highly selected drones to produce
the laying queen that you purchase.

Maybe the day will come that most queens that you buy will be artificially inseminated rather
than field bred, and then each beekeeper might be able to select a queen that provides the most
genetic good points that he wants from his bees and minimizes most of those things considered
bad points. The FUTURE is so exciting!

13) Lastly, don't be CHEAP about buying QUALITY bees.

Buy the best bees you can find, bred by a famous queen breeder, a man of highly respected
ability and business principles. Sure, you can find queens out there for $11 instead of $15, or a
package for $40 instead of $50, but you might be buying a proverbial "junkyard" dog. 1 strongly
believe that all beginners are better off with a quality Italian bee than any other bee, and many,
many people PRODUCE Italian bees.

But for a few bucks more, you can buy Italian bees that have a strong pedigree of good points
and a minimum of bad points that was decided by the knowledgeable queen BREEDER when he
chose to emphasize the desirable good points of a bee that people want, and selected the line of
drones that he wanted to field breed your new queen.

I do know this: There are a lot of firms out here that are selling queens and bees that know little
about honey bee genetics, and I refer to them as queen PRODUCERS, surely not queen
BREEDERS.

Basically, we have only three RACES of bees in the U. S.: Italian, Carniolan, and Caucasian. Of
course, there is the Africanized Honey Bee, apis mellifera scutellata, the "killer bee", which you
DON'T WANT!

The other bees that you have heard of are HYBRIDS, a man-made bee that cannot reproduce
itself, but must be bred by a queen breeder,with names like Buckfast, Starlines, or Midnites.
These are specialized bees, designed for special uses, and should not be considered by a hobbyist
beginner.

Then of course, there is that great bulk of bees of unknown parentage that some of the old timers
still revel about such as Aunt Mary's, Uncle Tom's, Honey Girls, and you name it. With few
exceptions, most of these "mongrel" bees are disease prone, nasty, poor honey producers, and
just the bottom of the barrel of bees.

BUY QUALITY NOT JUNK!

I want to repeat: In spite of the fact that I personally prefer Carniolans for this area, I
STRONGLY ADVISE every beginner or novice to ONLY have a HIGH QUALITY bred
ITALIAN race until they become more knowledgeable about honey bees, bee behavior, and bee
management before trying Carniolans, Russians, SMR, or any of the hybrids.

LEARN to walk WELL, before trying to run a marathon race!

I hope that 1 have helped you, because it is what I have dedicated myself to do.
 January 2004

New Year Resolutions

Do you remember in years past that many people made all kinds of RESOLVES that they were
going to do this, NOT going to do that, stop drinking, stop smoking, clean the garage, DAILY
tell my wife "I LOVE YOU", go to church, stop cheating on my income tax before I get caught,
and a myriad number of other "wishful" desires. But DESIRES don't come about accidentally,
rather YOU have to WORK AT IT to get something accomplished! In our liberal society
thinking of today, rarely do we hear of New Year's Resolutions, because it seems everyone wants
something "handed to them" FREE for no work what so ever. With a precious few exceptions, it
is safe to say that one cannot gain either substance or knowledge without WORKING FOR IT.
Pray tell, what has all this crap about RESOLUTIONS and WORK got to do with keeping honey
bees?

There are other beekeepers close by to your bees (Not the next county, next state, or next town,
but just 4-5 miles away) whose colonies DON'T die, rarely swarm, produce high honey yields
year after year, and have such strong colonies that they can sell you nucs and not seriously
diminish their colony's honey production. WHY IS THAT? Is "he" just lucky? Has "he" got a
better location? Maybe his "local" bees are better than my "bought" bees. Maybe he has
requeened with those fancy new SMR queens or those new Russian queens. WHY AREN'T MY
BEES PERFORMING? WHY ARE MY BEES DYING? WHY DON'T MY BEES MAKE
OVER 100 POUNDS OF HONEY PER COLONY? WHY DO MY BEES KEEP SWARMING?
WHY DON'T MY BEES DRAW 30 FRAMES OF FOUNDATION THE FIRST YEAR? AND
ANOTHER 100 QUESTIONS. In NATURE, bees swarm, bees die of mites or disease, normal
honey yields rarely exceed 50 pounds. However, the science of GOOD beekeeping is NOT
designed to CHANGE natural bee BEHAVIOR, but rather for the beeHAVER to LEARN
enough about proper hive management and management care and technique that he becomes a
beeKEEPER whose bees can do all those desirable things rather than die, swarm, or make very
little honey MY POINT IS RATHER SIMPLE - YOU HAVE TO LEARN MANAGEMENT
CARE, HIVE TECHNIQUES, DISEASE TREATMENTS, BEE BEHAVIOR, HONEY
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT, and maybe most important, SELECTION OF A GOOD
QUEEN.

It is so easy, and normal for most folks, to place the BLAME for all their problems on the
weather, rain, snow, freezing, drought; or a NO GOOD queen from the famous XYZ bee
company; or mite resistance to ALL the miticides, or that it is LEAP YEAR. In the final analysis,
whether you like it or not, the fact remains that some MASTER BEEKEEPER close to you has
NOT had these problems, and his bees are always alive and producing high yield of honey. It
does not require rocket science intelligence to determine that your problem is YOU, not the bees.

Why not make a New Year's RESOLUTION to start ATTENDING the meetings of the
Montgomery County Beekeepers Association and LEARN, LEARN, LEARN. Over the years I
have brought you HIGHLY prominent and knowledgeable SUCCESSFUL beekeepers to speak
to you. Not only am I an octogenarian, but no longer have a voice (perhaps many are thankful),
but personally knowing so many REALLY SUCCESSFUL BEEKEEPERS who are bee
scientists, bee researchers, queen breeders, Master Beekeepers, or "you name it" in the bee world
of the whole U. S., I will keep bringing you these people to our meetings FOR YOU TO
LEARN, provided you can 'get off your butt' and attend!

January 14th is a great example. You won't even have to listen to me as I will be LEARNING
more new bee research findings at the American Beekeeping Federation meeting in Florida; but
you will hear, AND ASK QUESTIONS, of FOUR of my invited speakers, ALL Certified Master
Beekeepers, led by Pat Haskell, and assisted by Billy Davis, bee inspector Bill Troup, and Nancy
Troup, and it's ALL FREE. You don't have to spend money to go to an EAS meeting several
hundred miles away to get this much knowledge that my invited speakers are going to give you
FREE.

Make yourself a better skilled beeKEEPER to better understand the real JOYS of
BEEKEEPING, and make me PROUD of you as a member of the Association I founded, JUST
BY ATTENDING THE JANUARY 14th meeting!

Found in my Doctor's Office

A lack of prior planning on your part
Does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Remember my recent PINK PAGE about there is a RIGHT time for everything, and if you miss
it, your bees might die, swarm, or produce little honey. You CAN'T do things when it
CONVENIENT for you to do it, but to be successful, the "thing" MUST be done at the PROPER
time decided by nature. Don't put off until tomorrow what you should do today! Remember
January 14th!

January Tasks
The MOST IMPORTANT thing is make sure your bees have enough FEED to get them through
the next 3 months until dandelions bloom; and find a day that is over 55° and NO wind, remove
the INNER COVER and check for BROOD. If brood is present, shut the hive up, and repeat it on
a warm day in February, but this time, really check out the amount of food supplies, because
brood rearing requires a BUNCH. If you are going to order queens or package bees, you might
already be too late to get a decent delivery date like April 15th. MONEY helps, so contact your
supplier and offer to PAY NOW IN FULL for an early delivery date. PLAN AHEAD - Buy your
supers NOW, build and paint to be ready by April 15th

MSBA Meeting on February 21st

Come as my guest, and I will PAY for your membership, if you are not a member. WHAT
EXCITING SPEAKERS and TOPICS! WOW! Dr's. Marla Spivak and Rick Fell. Gosh,' can't get
much better than those two. Marla will talk about QUEENS (what is more important than a good
queen?), and Breeding Bees for Resistance to Disease and Mites. Rick will talk about HIVE
EVALUATION and honey bee PHEROMONES. I will see Marla at the ABF meeting and
inform her of what a HUGE crowd she will have to talk about HYGIENIC Queens, so you
BETTER BE THERE! How much do YOU know about the importance of honey bee
PHEROMONES? Rick Fell does, so let him tell you.
YOU JUST BE THERE AT THE HOWARD COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS

OLD Master Beekeeper George Imirie - the "hard driver"

February 2004

Are Your Bees Alive?

I have lived in Montgomery County over 80 years and kept bees here for 71 of those years; and I
am an "old retiree scientist" that "notes" things that perhaps many people ignore. I have seen
much colder weather than any we have experienced these past two months of December and
January. However, there has ALWAYS been 2-5 days during each of these 2 months when the
temperature went over 50° or even 60° so one could inspect bees, remove Apistan strips that
were installed during October, and let the bees fly to empty themselves; but the c-o-n-t-i-n-u-o-u-
s downright chilly or even COLD weather during the last half of December and ALL of January
is MOST UNUSUAL and totally upsets my plans, and I am sure that I am not alone.

Today, Monday February 2nd, temperature is below freezing, snow, predicted for tonight and
again on Thursday and the coming weekend. I can't INSPECT my bees, nor can I get to my
apiary on my electric scooter or golf cart because of the snow, and the damned five strokes I
have suffered have ended my WALKING forever, I guess. However, I am not "throwing in the
sponge" and quitting yet; because there are still T00 MANY beeHAVERS out there that need my
help to become respectable beeKEEPERS!

Food isn't produced in the grocery store or a laboratory, but out in NATURE as God ordained it
when he created the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve. Mention of Adam and Eve denote SEX
to some people; so let me talk about the SEX of flowers, vegetables, shrubs, and trees that
terminate in the term POLLINATION; and why our honey bee is SO IMPORTANT to our
human food supply!

Every FLOWER, irrespective of whether it is on a tree, bush, shrub, or vegetable has either male
organs or female organs, which like we humans produce either sperm or ovales (eggs); and if
these sperm and ovales are brought together, FRUIT or offpring is produced. The flowers
produce sweet tasting, wonderful smellng NECTAR that attracts bees to gather, and make into
their winter survival food HONEY. In gathering this delightful nectar, the bee brushes its hairy
body against stamens of pollen that are the sperm of the male flower and it brushes off onto the
hairs of the bee. The bee then visits another sweet smelling flower to collect its nectar, but this is
a female flower and some of the pollen held on the hair of the bee is trapped by the pistil that
contains the ovary of t-he flower, and THIS IS POLLINATION that produces the offspring
(fruit) of this flower. The offpring might be an ALMOND nut, a berry, a root like a beet, or a
fruit like an orange. That is your SEX education about the the vital importance of honey bee
pollination of HUMAN FOOD like carrots squash onions, Halloween pumpkins, Thanksgiving
cranberry sauce, Christmas apple pie, spring salads of cucumbers, pickles, lettuce broccoli,
strawberries, blueberry muffins for breakfast treats and who can do without orange juice or
grapefruit for breakfast or lemonade on a hot summer outing?

Lastly, everybody likes ICE CREAM. My 85th birthday is not too far off, and I want ICE
CREAM, lots of it! It requires a well-fed cow to make lots of rich milk and cream. A wellfed
cow HAS TO HAVE HIGH PROTEIN ALFALFA HAY, and our honey bee pollinates about
98% of all the alfafa seed in this country that the seed companies produce. We have so many
brilliant horticulturists, entomologists, biologists, "out there", who may want to "add to my
description" of a sex education about flowers and pollination, but I, for the most part, talk to just
WONDERFUL AMERICAN beeHAVERS who may not be as skilled in all the sciences as some
are.

If you want to know exactly how to build an atomic bomb or debate the accuracy of Avogadro's
number, come see me sometime and we will discuss. Believing STRONGLY that one who stops
LEARNING might as well be dead, my newest interest, BUT NEVER EQUALLING MY
INTEREST in apis mellifera, is nannotechnology, making "things", engines, parts, instruments
from items smaller than one thousandth of the width of one human hair, AND IT IS BEING
DONE! Science is WONDERFUL.

Are Your Bees Alive? No one else gives a damn but you - Or do YOU? Place your ear tightly
against the hive body and wrap on the outside of the hive body with a small hammer, a screw
driver handle, or your knucles. If you hear a buzz, they are ALIVE, but HOW MANY, and FOR
HOW LONG? ARE THEY HUNGRY? IS THE QUEEN ALIVE? IS THE QUEEN LAYING?
Have they got MITES? Do they have DIARRHEA? And finally, do they have the dreaded
American Foul Brood? Are you skilled enough to properly indentify and understand all these
things? Are you still one of those jerks that are trying to keep bees "like Daddy did before
MITES" and really thought that beekeeping was just getting all protected by a bee suit, throw
some supers in place in May, HOPE THE BEES DON"T SWARM, wait until the cool evening
in September, put on your protective clothing, dash out, throw the supers in your wheelbarrow
and HEAD FOR THE BARN? Then you would spend the rest of the winter telling all listeners
what an expert beekeeper you are, not afraid of bee stings, and your bees made umpteen pounds
of honey, when the truth was that you were lucky to get a full super of 50 pounds.

I watched the Super Bowl last night, my first night home after my 6 weeks vacation in five
Southern states. Those players did NOT kid anybody - they played their guts out, and win or
lose, came away PROUD OF THEMSELVES. I, too, am PROUD of my beekeeping expertise,
and you SHOULD BE; and all YOU have to do is listen to "my great" contingent of ten
CERTIFIED MASTER BEEKEEPERS, and you, too, will learn the real JOYS OF
BEEKEEPING. NOW, LET'S GET DOWN TO THE REAL "NITTY GRITTY"!.

If your bees need FOOD, feed them tonight, tomorrow even if it is snowing. DON"T WAIT FOR
THE WEEKEND BECAUSE THEY MIGHT BE DEAD BY THEN! How? Mix 1 pound of
sugar in 1 pint of warm water (This is 1:1 ratio to provide INSTANT feed, but getting the queen
to start laying.) Put that feed in gallon glass jugs or mason jars, all with 4-6 holes in the cap with
a diameter NO BIGGER THAN 1/8th inch - better l/16th - BEST 5/64ths or 3/32nds. Take off
the inner cover, and put these jars right on top of the brood frames right over the bees, and
protect those jars by surrounding them with an empty hive body. DO IT AGAIN AS SOON AS
THE JARS ARE EMPTY, and keep feeding until dandelions bloom.

If you find a "dead-out", EXAMINE ALL CONDITIONS to find out WHY! INVESTIGATE,
ASK EXPERTS FOR HELP, DO AN AUTOPSY! Don't be a jerk, and say "Cold weather killed
my bees". COLD, even -40° for a month will NOT kill healthy bees, Dr. Southwick did heavy
research on cold weather and proved that temperatures as low as -80° for a month did NOT
KILL BEES. If you find just a FEW bees in your colony, including the queen, but still numerous
frames of honey, 99% of the time your bees died of TRACHEAL mites, usually in January.

I will bet that you did NOT treat with menthol at all, or you waited until after AUGUST
(September is too late), or you did NOT keep grease patties in your colony CONTINUOUSLY
from July until Christmas. I hope you don't doctor your children with the same disregard!

If you find lots of bees HEADFIRST down in their cells, your bees STARVED TO DEATH. If
you find all kinds of nasty brown stains all over the front entrance of your colony, but your bees
are still alive, they are sick with NOSEMA, because you were TOO CHEAP to spend $2 on
FUMIDIL B and feed it to them in November.

I am not even going to talk about American Foul Brood, because I doubt if you would believe
anything I say. It is insidious, it is NOT TREATABLE with anything known by science yet here
in 2004. Like using insulin to keep a diabetic patient alive, but the patient STILL HAS THE
DISEASE OF DIABETES, you can keep the HIGHLY CONTAGEOUS disease of AFB under
control by feeding TERRAMYCIN to your bees at least twice yearly, but you MUST understand
that Terramycin WILL NOT KILL AFB and, because AFB is so highly contageous, you are
extremely foolish NOT TO DESTROY THOSE BEES AND WOODENWARE PARTS as quick
as possible.

Old Timers, experimentalists, know-it-alls, and fools have tried every concoction known to the
the Devil himself to cure or treat AFB for over 100 years, and NOTHING HAS YET BEEN
FOUND that will kill the AFB spore without also killing the bees! Maryland has a vaporizing
chamber that uses ethylene oxide that kills the AFB spore and sterilize the wooden components
of a hive, but almost ALL states BURN THE ENTIRE HIVE, BEES, HONEY, AND associated
hive products. AFB is not something to play with. I have personally seen apiaries of 100+
colonies wiped out by AFB in just one year who were owned by irresponsible beekeepers.

The seriousness of AFB is the exact reason that my mentor of 70 years ago, Dr. James I.
Hambleton, Chief Apiculturist of the U.S. Government started the state bee inspection program
in 1922 when 1/3 of all bees in the country had AFB and it is now down to about 1%-2%.

It is my personal scientific opinion that annually only 10% of all U.S. bees die from bee diseases,
while 90% die from beekeeper stupidity or lack of care. Much of these problems can be
corrected by beekeepers getting off their lazy butt and learning something with the brain that
God GAVE them and so many refuse to use it.

ENDING WITH SOMETHING OF IMPORTANCE: Our central Maryland nectar flow begins in
mid April, lasts only a few short 6 weeks, ending about May 31st and surely by June 15th. There
is no other nectar flow that bees can gather surplus, with the possible, never dependable, fall
flow of goldenrod. But who wants that QUICKLY crystalizing nectar that is not very good for
bees. Hence, our honey has to be made during April, all of May, and maybe early June. It
requires a LOT of bees to make a good yield. It is 40 days (FORTY DAYS) between the time an
egg is laid by the queen and the worker bee produced by that egg goes out as a foraging bee for
nectar. A worker bee has a 21 day GESTATION period and remains a "nurse bee" working
inside the hive for another 18-19 days before it ever goes out to nectar collect. Hence, if a serious
nectar flow stars on April 15th, the egg that could produce a bee old enough to forage for nectar
on April 15th has to be layed by the queen before March 6th!

How many of you beeHAVERS are going to have a queen bee laying heavily and for a lengthy
period prior to March 6th? And suppose you do, can you control or stop SWARMING?

Start feeding 1:1 sugar syrup to your bees in EARLY FEBRUARY to get your queen laying; and
then start swarm control. You MUST UNDERSTAND that there is a very thin line between
having a LOT OF BEES (50,000-60,000) and SWARMING. Swarming is the prime failure of
beginners, beeHAVERS, some beeKEEPERS and even a few Master Beekeepers. We NOW
have essentially proven that the major causes of swarming is Number 1, age of the queen, and
Number 2, conjestion in the BROOD CHAMBER, and Number 3, not enough SUPER space;
and IN THAT order. Why? A good queen can lay 1500, or even 2000, eggs every 24 hours; but
more important, she produces a certain quantity of queen pheromone every day of her life. This
pheromone INHIBITS bees from building swarm cells, but it DIMINISHES a little each day of
her life. Hence, when she is VERY YOUNG, like just a month old, she can produce so much of
her queen pheromone that it can be spread all over 50,000-60,000 bees that her progeny don't
even think about building swarm cells or swarming.

A one year old queen has lost the ability to make too much of this queen pheromone and hence,
the worker bees think about swarming when there are only 30,000-40,000 bees in the colony;
and you can FORGET the swarm control of a 2 year old queen, because they might swarm with
only 1 pound of bees leaving just 2 pounds of bees and a virgin queen in the old colony. Hence, I
STRONGLY believe in fall requeening (late August and early September) so that new queen has
lots of pheromone in March, April, and May that greatly inhibits swarming during nectar
collecting season. That is how I produce so much more honey/colony each year than most local
bee keepers, and am able to sell so much at up to $4.00/pound or $6.00/pound for comb honey.

You will hear so many beekeepers say "to diminish swarming, give the bees MORE room", but
they don't mention WHAT KIND OF ROOM or WHERE THAT ROOM IS SUPPOSED TO
BE. What a bunch of poor informational baloney! First of all, queens can't lay eggs and bees
cannot deposit nectar on FOUNDATION - both functions require DRAWN COMB, a
beekeeper's MOST VALUABLE POSESSION.

Before the actual start of a nectar flow, the queen needs LAYING SPACE OF VACANT
CELLS. After the nectar flow starts, bees lose interest in the laying of their queen and want
nectar depositing space of DRAWN COMB. Note that I did not say space for HONEY! I said
space for that THIN, WATERY nectar than bees will eventually evaporate about 80% of of the
water and ripen this watery nectar into thick honey. If you expect to make about two supers of
honey, you should have at least FOUR supers of drawn comb in place on you colony to give
them to room to store all this thin watery nectar until they have time to convert it into two supers
of honey. What is so damn hard about understanding this volume problem? It amazes me that so
many smart people, even with multiple college degrees, can't seem to get this simplistic fact
through their heads.

March 2004

Wow, this will be a l-o-n-g edition of the PINK PAGES, because

In Maryland, MARCH is a VERY IMPORTANT Month

for the Beekeeper's PREPARATION for APRIL NECTAR

Some of the things I am going to mention are: Starvation, Testing for mites, Super preparation,
REVERSING and REVERSING, Feeding to get the queen laying, Disease cleanup, Colony
equalization, Splitting colonies, Buying queens, nucs or packages, Colony Inspection,
Temperature and Wind.

Sure, I am going to "preach" a little "fire and brimstone", 'cause people just seem to pay NOT
much attention to "being nice"; so, I have to irritate you just a bit to force you to THINK, and
hopefully RE-ACT.

STARVATION: No brood was being raised in November or December, so the bees ate very little
of their stored honey. However, in -spite of what you thought about the cold and chill of January
and February, brood rearing STARTED in January and intensified in February. Bees had to eat a
lot of honey to raise the duster temperature to 91°-96° for the queen to lay eggs, and then the
bees had to really use a lot of stored honey to FEED all of this newly laid brood. More colonies
of bees DIE of starvation in MARCH than any other month of the year, because the brood
rearing is just exhausting their stores. What a NASTY way to die, and it is the FAULT of the
BEEKEEPER because he did not provide enough winter stores for the bees; and/or TOO LAZY
to check their stores in January and February on "those one, two, or three" days that the
temperature went over 50° between 1 PM - 3 PM, when the beekeeper could have left work early
to check on his bees.
TESTING FOR MITES: I doubt that you take an aspirin or Tylenol to reduce a fever unless you
have "taken your temperature with a fever thermometer". You don't put oil in your car crankcase
until you have checked the dip stick, I hope. The gas gauge in your car "tests" the gas tank to
determine how much gasoline is left in the tank. Rather than just putting some Apistan strips or
CheckMite strips in your hive in the spring, WHY DON'T YOU TEST and see how bad your
mite infection is? Don't treat your bees if the mite infection is very low! To test, just make a
STICKY BOARD test for mites on April 1st (April's Fool Day) for no longer than 24 hours
using ONE Apistan or CheckMite strip hanging in the brood chamber. I hate to name a mite
count figure for whether to treat or not treat, because colony size, previous treatment TIME, bee
health, location are all important factors. But if find a sticky board on April 1st, holding over 200
mites after a 24 hour (not 36 or 48) treatment with one miticide strip, then I am going to treat that
colony to save it and forget honey production for that year. Haven't you ever had to cancel your
night out, a football game, or a weekend vacation, because you came down with a fever
indicating that you had some "germ" that you better rid yourself of? TEST FOR MITES WITH
A STICKY BOARD TEST OR A SUGAR DUST TEST BEFORE YOU GO OFF HALF-
COCKED and use a miticide. NOTE HERE, THAT I AM ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE
VARROA MITE, NOT THE INVISIBLE TRACHEAL MITE THAT IS STILL HERE IN
MARYLAND AND ELSEWHERE.

SUPER PREPARATION: Commercial beekeepers who make their living off of honey
production "guard their frames of DRAWN COMB like Brinks guard banks" In Central
Maryland (Baltimore-Washington, DC area), dandelions appear in late March or early April and
this "sets the stage" for the up-coming nectar crop of black locust, tulip poplar, and of course,
myriads of "wildflowers". Unfortunately, in comparison to other states, this April, May, and
maybe early June is OUR ONLY SURPLUS HONEY CROP. Hence, if you are going to be
successful, you have to ANTICIPATE and BE AHEAD OF YOUR BEES, it never BEHIND.
Assuming that you have healthy, STRONG population of bees, and have been REVERSING
brood chambers starting in February to prevent swarming as well as increase brood production,
install ONE super of DRAWN Comb on April 1st and NO queen excluder. Just 2 weeks later,
April 15th (income tax day), make sure that the queen is NOT in that single super or move her
down to the brood chamber area, put on a queen excluder UNDER that single super (which is
now a "bait" super to entice other bees to come through the queen excluder), and add FOUR (4)
more supers of DRAWN Comb on top of that first super. Of course, I recommend that you install
two IMIRIE SHIMS, one over the Number 2 super and the other over the Number 4 super. Now,
you are all set to make a wonderful honey crop and normally without swarms unless your queen
is over one year old. NONE OF WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN APPLIES TO USING
FOUNDATION! Foundation MUST be made into DRAWN comb, and that is a whole different
scenario from that what is described above. See my previous PINK PAGES for how to use
FOUNDATION. By the way, Dr. Tom Rinderer, as well as other scientists, have proven (found)
that bees produce higher yields of honey when they have MANY EMPTY SUPERS OF
DRAWN COMB INSTALLED ALL AT ONE TIME rather than the former "antique" method of
installing a new super over a already half filled super, etc., etc.; and more important, at least for
me, is lots of super space materially diminishes SWARMING.. In Maryland, without any nectar
producing blooms that will produce SURPLUS honey after about June 15th, it is VERY
important to avoid swarms, because a new colony has an EXTREMELY DIFFICULT time to
make it through the coming winter. In Maryland, the chances of survival through the coming
winter of any new colony whether natural in nature in a bee-tree or in a beekeeper's hive is very
REMOTE, unless cared for by a SKILLED beekeeper. Hence,do what you can to avoid
swarming and loss of bees!

REVERSING, REVERSING: a very controversial subject, NOT because it doesn't work, but
because of the LAZINESS of the average beeKEEPER and particularly the average beeHAVER.
If you don't like "old George's" thoughts about REVERSING, read page 618 in the extensively
revised 1992 edition of THE HIVE AND HONEY BEE, where Dr. John Ambrose, a bee
researcher, writes "Reversing is the most effective swarm control processes that beekeepers can
perform". Back to "old George": In the late winter or early spring, bees don't like to move
downward, but always move UPWARDS in the colony, filling the upper brood chamber with
brood and immediately think about SWARMING rather than simply go down to the empty brood
chamber below. If you REVERSE these bodies, suddenly the bees find a new place ABOVE
THEM to go to that is EMPTY and just "begging" to be filled with brood, pollen, and nectar.
One, two, or three weeks later depending on the weather, strength of the colony, and the
fecundity of the queen, you may find the upper body well filled and the lower body beginning to
empty, so it is time to REVERSE AGAIN. You might have to do this 2, 3, or even 4 times until
the nectar flow becomes strong in late April or early May to prevent SWARMING. There is NO
SET TIME to do this! When the upper brood chamber is pretty well filled with eggs, larvae, and
a few capped cells, and the bottom brood chamber has no eggs, larvae, but lots of capped cells
and maybe even some empty cells, REVERSE, REVERSE, REVERSE!

FEEDING TO GET THE QUEEN LAYING: Think about it: There is no reason for a queen to
lay eggs to produce brood in the cold months when there is no nectar to gather, so the queen
relaxes and does not lay eggs. However, the first pollen: skunk cabbage, alders, maples, that the
worker bees find on a Warm flying day in January or early February alerts the colony that spring
is just around the corner. Then the first NECTAR that the bees find really gets the colony in
"high-gear" thinking about intense brood rearing. PLEASE NOTE: The QUEEN does NOT
make this decision Her WORKER BEE DAUGHTERS make that decision and they start feeding
the queen lavishly to stimulate egg laying! FEEDING the queen forces her to lay eggs to produce
enough bees to gather the coming nectar crop, that is going to provide the stores for "next"
winter that ensures the continuance of apis mellifera in this area. What is NECTAR? From your
point of view, nectar is the beginning of honey; but from the bees point of view, it is their
FAVORITE food for everyday eating plus feeding the brood larvae, and it is the material that
they make into winter survival food called HONEY. Nectar is the starting point for major egg
laying by the queen. Since Maryland's ONLY surplus nectar flow is so early, April and May, it is
very important to get the queen laying as early as possible to build a large contingent of forager
age bees. By mixing 1 pound of sugar in 1 pint of water (1:1 mixture), this is artificial nectar, so
we fool the bees by feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup in February and March to make them think
spring is about to arrive and hence they get their queen laying rapidly. I start feeding in Late
January to really get my colonies strong by April. It is very important that you must realize that it
is FORTY (40) days between the time the queen lays a worker egg and the worker bee it
produces goes out of the hive foraging. because the bee does inside hive work, primarily feeding
the brood larvae for about 18-19 days before it becomes a foraging bee! Hence, if a nectar flow
starts on April 15th, the egg that becomes a worker bee had to be laid by the queen BEFORE
MARCH 6th!
DISEASE CLEANUP: CAN YOU IDENTIFY A BEE DISEASE? If not, you better get off your
butt, and learn how. Our Maryland Bee Inspectors, Jerry Fischer, Greg Gochnauer, and Bill
Troup (just to name 3) are NOT educated entomologists, but highly skilled beekeepers who
became successful because they studied and understood bee diseases. I REALLY ADMIRE
them, because all three of them did it, NOT FOR A JOB, but because of their personal interest in
aiding apiculture. YOU can do it too. I am not going to talk about chalkbrood, sacbrood,
dysentery, mites or lesser diseases, but confine my remarks to just two diseases; American Foul
Brood, the ABSOLUTE KILLER of bees, and Nosema, the disease that effects about 60% of all
the bees in the U. S. that rarely kills a colony, but badly weakens it so it has great difficulty in
honey production or pollination. There is absolutely NO cure or treatment to destroy the
infection of a colony that has AFB, and this includes Terramycin. Like giving INSULIN to a
human diabetic EVERY DAY, the diabetic can stay alive; but still has diabetes which is finally
going to kill the patient. Terramycin treatment for AFB is almost identical, in that the bees are
going to stay alive and productive as long as they are constantly treated with Terramycin.
However, every piece of equipment owned by the bee keeper is contaminated with AFB spores,
and hence, every colony in his apiaries will become infected with AFB, even including all the
honey his bees make. Hence, tell ALL beekeepers in your area, your county, and your state, that
you believe in QUICKLY DESTROYING ANY COLONY INFECTED WITH AFB! You might
lose a colony worth $100, but you will gain a lot of friends; and conversely, if they don't destroy
those infected bees, OLD GEORGE will lead the parade of beekeepers on his electric scooter to
run them out of town. The Government is spending millions of dollars to find a cure for cancer,
and AFB of a colony of bees is much like cancer and has defied a cure, but we beekeepers don't
have a million dollars to spend; so you will get vigilante justice. NOSEMA rarely kills a colony,
but it weakens it so bad, that the colony is a poor honey producer. If you had fed $2 of Fumadil-
B to the colony each November, there would be no NOSEMA. However, if the front of your
hives are all covered with nasty looking brown spots, your bees had diarrhea from NOSEMA
disease. Look inside and see if the inside of the hive and frames are also stain marked with bee
feces. If so, put some new clean frames in the colony, destroy the wax in the old frames, and
clean the wood frame with hot soapy water, add some bees and brood from another colony, and
maybe requeen. Clean the hive body the same way. Although, NOSEMA rarely kills bees, you
don't want your bees walking around in bee feces from diarrhea. At least I HOPE not. Don't
depend on the bee inspector to diagnose a bee disease in YOUR colony. That is YOUR job. You
don't call the doctor or hospital when your child has a small fever and a runny nose, but give
them aspirin for the fever, maybe rub their chest with Vicks Vaporub, feed soup, and keep in bed
for a day or so. YOU LEARN about bee diseases and treat them yourself. That is part of being a
beeKEEPER rather than a beeHAVER.

COLONY EQUALIZATION: It doesn't make much sense to have one WEAK, but healthy,
colony in the same yard with 3 or 4 strong, healthy colonies. Give some help to that weak colony
by transferring some capped brood to it and maybe even some of the adhering adult bees. I don't
like transferring OPEN brood of larvae and eggs because a weak colony may not be in a position
to maintain WARMTH to that brood on a chilly night. Of course, if a colony is WEAK because
of some DISEASE, don't equalize but determine WHAT DISEASE and treat.

SPLITTING COLONIES: There are TWO reasons to make spring splits: 1.) to increase the
number of colonies, and 2.) as a SWARM preventive effort, and you can always re-unite the two
colonies at the end of the nectar flow. How do you make a split? First, order a new MARKED
queen to arrive on a given date. Seven to ten days prior to that date, separate the brood boxes
with queen excluders, when the new queen arrives, give her drop of water to drink and put the
cage in a dark, cool place in your house. Go to the colony to be split, and the queen is in which
ever brood box you find eggs or larva. Find that queen, and move that frame to a separate hive
box so she is CONFINED while you split the parent colony. Select about 4 frames of brood
including the adhering bees, plus 2 frames of honey, and put these 6 frames PLUS 3 new frames
of foundation or drawn comb in a new brood box, and place this new colony on a bottom board
in its new location, and allow it to "settle down" for 24 hours with 1:1 sugar syrup feed over the
inner cover hole. Replace the old queen back in her parent colony with 6 new frames to replace
those that you removed. 24 hours later, get your new queen from your house, remove the cork
from the candy end of the cage and install the cage near the center of the cluster of bees in the
new split. The cage should be empty and the new queen laying in 3-5 days, so remove the cage,
and add the 10th frame to the box.

BUYING NEW QUEENS, NUCS, or PACKAGES: Any JERK can go in business and raise
queens and bees; but ARE THEY ANY GOOD? _ Will they be delivered on time?- Are they
disease free? Flow well was the queen BRED? Was the drone population open to all types of
honey bee races, Italian, Carnioian, Africanized, etc., etc.? Why not buy from one of those highly
knowledgeable queen BREEDERS that has made a life long study of honey bee GENETICS, and
his bees, his reputation AMONG OTHER QUEEN BREEDERS is well known, and his
WRITINGS and elected position in national bee associations are all TESTIMONY of raising
excellent bees? If you have a fault with his bees that was not caused by some STUPIDITY on
your part, that breeder is going to re-supply you perhaps at no charge to protect his own
reputation.

Buy a new queen EVERY YEAR to control swarming, and ALWAYS either buy a MARKED
queen or mark her yourself with Testor's paint so if you see an UNmarked queen in your colony,
you know that SOMETHING happened to your purchased queen; and WHO is the new
UNmarked queen bred to?

COLONY INSPECTION: Back in 1933, my mentor, Dr. James I. Hambleton, told me "don't
bother to look into the supers where the honey is, because that does not tell you a single thing
"good or bad" about the colony. Always INSPECT where the "action is". in the BROOD AREA..
If there is disease, it will be found in the brood area. If the bees are planning a SWARM, you
will find that in the brood area. If the colony is queenless, you will find that in the brood area. If
the bees have superseded the queen, you will find that in the brood area. Etc, etc. etc! Every time
you open a colony, IGNORE the supers, and look at the brood area to find any GOOD things or
BAD problems. Above all other considerations, check for perforated capped cells which could be
AFB, or look for scattered brood cappings which indicates a failing queen, and, above all else,
look at the COLOR of the bee larvae which should be PEARLY WHITE; and if it is the slightest
bit yellow or brown, YOUR BEES ARE VERY SICK. Pull a frame, get the sun BEHIND you,
and hold that frame up so you can peer own into each cell and INSPECT!

TEMPERATURE AND WIND: It is IMPORTANT that you know certain things about the
weather effect on bees. First, the wing muscles of a bee are paralyzed at about 500 and she
cannot fly. Many will deny that and say BALONEY, "I had a bee fly right up out of the hive and
sting my face". Of course, the bee was warmed by the cluster heat IN the hive and that body heat
gave the wing muscles strength enough to fly right in to your face TO PROTECT THE
COLONY. Let's talk about temperature. Flowers bloom, pollen is produced, and NECTAR is
produced at temperatures over 500-600, and when the temperatures get into the 70's or 80's, the
bee think they are in heaven; and are so busy and calm as they work like crazy going from flower
to flower hunting for NECTAR, their favorite food for themselves, not to mention a NEED for
LARVAL brood. However, WIND is a "whole new ball game". Bees top speed in flying is only
15 mph, so flying against a strong wind might prevent them from returning home to their hive;
but more important, wind DRIES UP NECTAR and prevents the bee from finding the ODOR of
nectar; and I guess, it frustrates the bee, "speaking as a human", and working bees in the wind is
a sure way of getting STUNG. Select a day with brilliant sunshine, temperature over 70°, and
NO wind to work your bees; and they won't even know you are near their hive.. You might even
have to take off a few hours from work to do this, just as you would do to go to an important
baseball game or Redskins football game..

If you did not attend the MSBA meeting on February 21st at Howard County Fair Grounds,
SHAME ON YOU. I even offered to pay your 2004 dues to MSBA if you were not a member.
You missed a WONDERFUL meeting attended by over 200 Maryland beekeepers PLUS a "bus"
of about a dozen Virginia beekeepers from as far away as the Shenendoah Valley. Dr. Marla
Spivac EXCITED the audience with her talks about QUEENS and HYGIENIC bees. DR. Rick
Feld enthralled the audience with his talks about hive evaluation, queen quality, and
PHEROMONES. Master Beekeeper Steve McDaniel SPELLBOUND the audience with his
professional photography of bees with the color, magnification of things like the "toenails" of a
bee, and the clarity of the pictures PLUS his superb comments.

WHAT AN EXCITING DAY OF LEARNING WAS FOUND AT THAT MSBA MEETING! I

salute the new officers of MSBA for having such FANTASTIC speakers on such IMPORTANT
subjects. There was not a person there that did not LEARN something new and exciting!

April 2004

Beekeepers' Duties
Beekeeper's Duties concerning Supering and Swarming in the Maryland-Virginia area near
Washington DC UNlike about 90% of the rest of the U.S., our nectar flow is VERY EARLY,
VERY INTENSE, VERY SHORT, and is TOTALLY OVER SHORTLY AFTER JUNE 1st.
If you don't believe me, get a SCALE HIVE, and weigh that "critter" EVERY night after dark,
and PROVE it to yourself! Our nectar flow "normally" starts just after April 1st, normally
becomes very strong before May 1st, and almost ends about June 1st or June 10th; and surely is
NONEXISTENT after June 15th to September 1st.

Again, check with a "scale hive". Rarely is any honey made during the rest of our year, unless
"we luck out" on some goldenrod nectar around September 1st, BUT DON'T COUNT ON IT!
How many supers do you have "ready to install" on your bees? Are the frames already DRAWN
into comb, or are they just foundation? WHEN do plan to install them? Do you plan to install
supers "as they are needed" as your Daddy or Grand-daddy did", or install 3-5 all supers ALL
AT ONE TIME on the same day?

If you answered these questions in writing to me, less than 10% would be correct. Let me
explain: ALWAYS be "ahead" of your bees - get things IN PLACE before they have a need.
History shows that there is some nectar, not much, beginning as early as April 1st; and hopefully,
your brood chambers are already crowded with bees, brood, pollen, and nectar so the queen is
already short of laying space. What a grand cause for a SWARM! Put on your first super on
April 1st, with NO queen excluder under it, and 14 days later, April 15th, make sure the queen is
NOT in that first super, put a Queen Excluder under it, and add FOUR more supers of frames of
DRAWN COMB on top of that first super ALL AT ONCE!

If you think that I am "nuts", ask Dr. Tom Rinderer, Chief of the Baton Rouge Bee Laboratory or
read his writings. Tom, and other INDEPENDENT scientists have proven that installing several
supers of omy DRAWN COMB frames rather than installing "more as needed" results in
HIGHER honey yields and DECREASED swarming.

Now if you are a beginner (or a careless beekeeper) and don't have any frames of DRAWN
COMB, and have to use foundation, that is a "whole NEW ballgame".

BEES WILL NOT DRAW FOUNDATION INTO COMB IN THE ABSENCE OF A NECTAR
FLOW OR A FEEDING OF 1:1 SUGAR SYRUP!!!!

Further, the super MUST contain 10 frames of foundation (NEVER 9) and these frames MUST
be TIGHTLY bound together endbar touching endbar with NO space between endbars! After
that first super of foundation has 6-8 frames drawn with SOMETHING in the cells (nectar,
pollen, or BROOD), move the outer frames of foundation to the center, and install a QUEEN
EXCLUDER under that super.

No doubt you have heard that some beekeepers refer to a queen excluder as a HONEY excluder
and don't use them. That is because they don't know HOW to use an excluder. I will admit that
bees resist going through the excluder, but if there is a super over the excluder that has brood in
it or fresh nectar that needs ripening, that is the "bait" that entices the bees to move through an
excluder with no resistance. Suit yourself, but I don't want bee LARVA in my frames of honey.
Back to the subject of adding the second super or 3rd or 4th super. AFTER that first super is
about 75% drawn and cells filled with "something" and you have installed a queen excluder
under it, install the 2nd super of 10 frames of foundation , and when 6-8 of these 10 frames are
drawn and filled with nectar, then add the 3rd super and repeat.

NOTE: I have NEVER used the term HONEY FLOW, because bees do not go out and forage for
thick honey, but forage for THIN, watery nectar that requires a LOT of drawn- comb storage
space until the bees can evaporate about 75% of the nectar water content and RIPEN the
remainder into HONEY.

THIS FACT is why you need 5 supers when you only get 2-3 full supers of honey! Without
STORAGE SPACE for that THIN, WATERY nectar while the . bees are trying very hard to
EVAPORATE all that nectar water and ripen it into honey, they will SWARM due to LACK of
space to store that nectar!

If they swarm during a nectar flow, it was NOT lousy bees, but it was 100/o YOUR fault,
because YOU were too cheap, too careless, or just not smart enough to provide your bees with
sufficient space to prevent swarming.

I make NO apologies for being BLUNT; because highly educated, well paid bee scientists will
agree with all I have said. ASK THEM!

Now let's talk about a MUCH MORE CONFUSING subject of SWARMING. Perhaps the
advent of the "killer" bee arrival in the U.S.in 1990, plus the arrival of the mites in the U.S.,
tracheal mite in 1984 and varroa mite in 1987 did MORE for beekeeping RESEARCH than we
had known for the previous 50-100 years. Bee scientists and bee researchers found all kinds of
new concepts, proved some previous ideas, and found many previous ideas in total error.

If you doubt me, examine the record of United States honey production from 1990-2000
compared to any 10 year period prior to 1990, and COLONY honey production is higher today
than it has ever been. This was accomplished by the "smart" beekeepers who listened to the
findings of the bee scientists while the others "went out of business" or just "QUIT" beekeeping.

Now, I want to try to explain the many complexities of SWARMING. Let me help you "get your
mind working". Do you like SEX? Everything about sex basically ends up in
"REPRODUCTION" of our species. You want children and wish for grandchildren. When you
first married, you had a one bedroom apartment, followed by a 2-3 bedroom home to care for
your "increasing" family, and finally, due to CROWDED conditions, someone (you or the
children) HAD to leave; and these children marry and produce your grandchildren.

BEES DO THE SAME THING! In late winter and very early spring, GOD has programmed
them to produce lots of "baby" bees who can forage for the coming winter food supply of honey.
As their "home" gets crowded and congested with too many bees, plus they run out of "pantry"
space to store all the incoming nectar, the queen and half or more of the bees SWARM off to
some new home probably in the local woods, leaving behind some virgin queen to "take over"
the old homestead hive after she mates.

SWARMING IS THE NATURAL WAY OF COLONY REPRODUCTION AND HONEY BEE

EXPANSION! -The findings of bee scientists indicate that the MAJOR cause of swarming is
CONGESTION in the brood chamber (forget the supers) and a loss of queen laying space,
because brood chamber cells are being filled with both pollen and nectar. Further, many of the
world's TOP bee scientists have proven that a queen bee produces a pheromone (odor) that does
MANY things to the worker bees like INHIBITING queen cell building, maintaining colony
SECURITY of knowing that "MOTHER is alive and functioning well", and that NO OTHER
QUEEN smells like their own queen.

SO WHAT? You say! This pheromone odor has to be spread by contact among ALL of the bees
(even if there are 40,000-60,000 bees) in the colony to maintain happiness and security. HOLD
ON, scientists have proven that every queen (or any queen) loses her ability to produce this
queen pheromone a little bit every day of her life from the day she was bred. Hence, a very
young laying queen can produce enough pheromone to "glue" together 50,000-60,000 bees as a
single functioning unit with no thought of swarming; whereas a 12 month old queen can NOT
produce enough of the queen pheromone to "bind" a large number of bees into a single
functioning, happy unit, ,: so they SWARM.

In summary, the YOUNGER the queen, the less chance of swarming; and the older the queen,
the GREATER is the chance of swarming. WANT PROOF? Talk to a commercial honey
producer beekeeper whose sole income is from his 5,000, 10,000, or 30,000 colonies, and he will
tell you that he requeens ANNUALLY, and some of them even requeen twice in 12 months.

I have talked to MANY about this, and even Richard Adee requeens all of his 60,000 colonies
every year, because he wants HONEY production, NOT SWARMS. So-called SWARMING
season is that short period right after the dandelion bloom and a good nectar flow commences.

If you have provided laying space for the queen in the BROOD chamber area that is not
encumbered by pollen or filled nectar cells, and if she is YOUNG enough to produce adequate
queen pheromone, you probably will not suffer a swarm. Once a GOOD nectar flow gets going,
byes stop thinking about swarming and concentrate on nectar gathering. PROVIDED THAT
YOU HAVE GIVEN YOUR BEES PLENTY OF SPACE (in advance of need) FOR STORAGE
OF NECTAR until they have time to ripen it into honey, you probably will not suffer any
swarming. However, if your bees swarm during a good nectar flow, IT IS YOUR FAULT!

Lastly, I find it fascinating that so many beekeepers believe that it is the QUEEN that decides to
swarm; or that the bees swarm on a sudden impulse without reason or any advance planning.
BOTH of these thoughts are VIOLENTLY WRONG!

A queen bee makes NO decisions on her own, but is fully controlled by her daughter worker bees
based on how much they feed their mother, or how much comb they build for her to lay eggs in.
When bees swarm, generally the queen is almost the last bee to leave the parent hive, and often
has to be "pushed out" by the worker bees. The worker bees have also been busy PLANNING
the swarm for about 15-20 days before it happens.

First, they slow down their FORAGING activities and linger around the hive, they build queen
cells or enlarge previously built queen cups and direct the queen to lay in them. After the queen
has layed eggs in many of these queen cells (maybe 5-20), the bees STOP feeding the queen so
she loses weight and can fly. After some of the queen cells are CAPPED, the bees wait for a nice
sunny, warm day and the swarm suddenly issues between about 10 AM and 2 PM and forms a
nice cluster in some nearby tree, bush, or hedge and await the old queen to join with them.

After she joins the cluster, the scout bees go out to search for a new home site, and upon finding
one several hours later, the cluster and queen DEPART INTO UNKNOWN TERRITORY,
leaving YOU with a colony badly depleted of bees and a yet non-emerged virgin queen who will
not be bred and lay her first egg for perhaps 10-20 days. NO HONEY CROP FOR YOU FROM
THIS COLONY!

Swarm prevention or swarm control is a very complicated and highly misunderstood

phenomenon, and this short note is not the time or place for it. However, I do want to mention
TWO ancient swarm control procedures that were used for eons, but quite often left YOU with a
queenLESS colony. First, beekeepers tried to CUT out every queen cell they could find about
every 7 days; but the bees swarmed anyhow and left the colony with no virgin queen to take
over, so the colony dies. Second, lots of beekeepers clip the wings of a queen so she can't fly and
the poor old queen gets lost walking around in the grass outside the colony and dies; and a few
days later the swarm takes place headed by a newly emerged virgin queen leaving your colony
queenLESS and it dies. The lesson here is learn ALL YOU CAN about swarming prevention and
control; and don't trust cutting out queen cells or clipping queen's wings because quite often
those procedures fail.

ENJOY, but hopefully LEARN! Although now an octogenarian, there are so many fine, exciting,
wonderful things to LEARN about apis mellifera that have still NOT been discovered, my
passion in life to to LEARN MORE of the successes of bee research findings. N0, the mite
problem is still not solved; but neither has human death from cancer. SCIENCE moves slowly,
but always FORWARD to better things.

May 2004

SWARMING Disaster
(I strongly suggest you read my remarks) SWARMING Disaster, Disgusting, Depleted honey
yield, DAMN!
It amazes me that we have highly intelligent beginners, beeHAVERS, and even some crusty old
beeKEEPERS that are doctors, teachers, executives, computer guru's, bankers, salesmen,
lawyers, and ad infinitum; and they let their bees swarm, but CANNOT EXPLAIN WHY THEY
SWARMED!

Remember your youth and the stories about the birds and bees in trying to explain SEX? Just tike
you, you like sex and want to REPRODUCE as directed by your GOD (whoever that might be).
So do cats, dogs, horses, tigers, fish, germs, and BEES.

However, honey bees are just a bit different. Unlike we mammals who are SEX driven to
reproduce, honey bees vacate their home primarily because of CONGESTION in their
NURSERY (brood chamber), toss of contact with mother QUEEN bee because her age prevents
the dissemination of QUEEN PHEROMONE throughout her 40.000-60,000 "children". and lack
of brood rearing space.

All of these 3 causes occur in our Montgomery County, MD area in April, and maybe early May.
This is called SWARM SEASON, which occurs BEFORE a major nectar flow, and when the
queen is laying eggs at a feverish rate so that there will be multitudes of "nectar collecting" bees
when the nectar flow finally occurs.

Let me STOP YOU HERE, to make sure that you understand that a swarm during swarm season
(which is prior to a major nectar flow) happens for a TOTALLY DIFFERENT reason than a
swarm during a nectar flow. I plead with you to try to understand this difference! As stated
above, a swarm that occurs during swarm season (before a nectar flow) occurs because of
problems in the BROOD AREA, and has absolutely NOTHING to do with SUPER space; and
these bees are mentally programmed to find a new home because of the CROWDED conditions
in the BROOD AREA.

They plan to leave behind a virgin queen to take over their "old homestead". They go off to parts
unknown like a hollow tree in the woods that has no "furniture" (comb for queen laying aid
nectar storage), so they have to QUICKLY build comb, and HOPE for enough nectar collection
to store up 40-70 pounds of honey to get them through the coming winter. By the way, many
honey bee scientists have indicated that less than 10% of these swarms survive the winter which
will come in about 8 months.

So many non-thinking beekeepers really think a swarm is a spontaneous event that just happens.
BALONEY! The workers start planning the swarm 10-20 days in advance of swarming.

WHY? There is not enough empty comb in the BROOD area for the queen to lay eggs, the
BROOD area is badly congested with too many bees (like the Washington Beltway), and the
workers can't seem to find the queen mother because her AGE precludes her ability to produce
adequate QUEEN PHEROMONE throughout the entire colony. ENTER THE SMART,
INTELLIGENT, WILLING-TO-WORK BEEKEEPER: He requeens his colony EVERY 12
MONTHS, preferably in the late summer, so his queen is a well mated, young, vigorous queen
who can lay eggs STRONGLY starting in January and hitting her peak in March in preparation
for the spring nectar flow.

REQUEENING every year was UNHEARD of just 20 years ago, but as the bee scientists proved
that year old queens could not produce adequate queen PHEROMONE to "control" a large
worker bee population, the great majority of commercial honey producing beekeepers requeen
EVERY 12 MONTHS, and some twice/year.

Even more important is to provide DRAWN COMB laying space for the queen. Bees and/or
queen like to move UPWARDS in their colony and RESIST traveling DOWN. Hence, with the
TOP brood chamber is well layed with OPEN brood (eggs and larvae), the BOTTOM brood
chamber is either empty of brood or filled with ready to emerge CAPPED brood. REVERSING
those two brood boxes, so the queen has the opportunity to go UPWARDS into the emptying
brood chamber as she runs out of laying space in the lower brood box, is well recognized by bee
scientists as the major prevention of swarming during swarm season.

You might have to do this 2-3 times during February, March and early April. Repeating,
reversing only involves the BROOD boxes, and has NOTHING to do with super space. What I
have written above is the story of swarming during Swarm Season, which is BEFORE the major
nectar flow, and it TOTALLY different that swarming during a nectar flow.

Basically, YOUR job is:

1. REVERSE the brood chambers as needed so the queen can ALWAYS go UP to empty
laying space.

2. Have a YOUNG QUEEN, just a few months old, but not 12 months old.

3. Use DRAWN COMB and not foundation and have spare supplies ready to use if needed.
WHAT happens when a STEADY nectar flow begins, which is normally black locust
about April 15th to May 1 st in Montgomery County? Almost over-night, the worker bees
"shift gears" and change their program from swarming to nectar collecting. Now the
foraging bees are finding nectar, bringing it home to the colony, and the nurse bees
receive it, begin the ripening process of converting nectar into honey, storing it in cells,
and capping that cell when the ripening process is complete. All honeybee minds are now
on honey, and swarming is almost forgotten, PROVIDED THAT YOU HAVE
PROVIDED ENOUGH SUPER SPACE IN ADVANCE to store all than thin nectar
which is about 80% water until the bees get time to evaporate the water percentage down
to about 16% now known as HONEY.

Basically, 25 pounds of nectar makes only about 6 pounds of honey, and that ripening process
may take only a few days, but if the humidity is high (always high in our area), ripening might
take 10-20 days. !n each of my apiaries, I have always had a SCALE hive that can be weighed
EVERY night to see how much weight increase there is for each day. On a good nectar flow, I
strong colony can bring in 25 pounds of nectar in ONE day or 50 pounds in 2 days.
Ten 6 5/8" medium frames will be totally filled to hold that much nectar; and after ripening yield
only about 12 pounds of honey and that process might take several days. What is going to
happen if you still have supers stored in your garage instead of where needed - on your hive? Or
too cheap to buy adequate supers? Or too careless to protect last years DRAWN COMB from
wax moth damage?

Your bees are going to SWARM during the nectar flow; and it is 100% YOUR FAULT, because
you did not have enough supers on your colony during the nectar flow. As a rule of thumb, I
have 5 supers of drawn comb on every colony before April 30th, and I expect to get 2-3 full
supers of honey from each colony, BUT NO SWARMS. 1 can't seem to emphasize the
importance of having LOTS of supers, DRAWN COMB, not foundation, in place on a colony
well in advance of the nectar flow, if one is to avoid swarming during the nectar flow.

Back in 1933, when I began beekeeping in Bethesda, it was THE GREAT DEPRESSION, and
people could not afford to buy extra supers, replace queens every year, produced comb honey
instead of extracted honey due to lack of an extractor, so most beekeepers did not get a honey
yield of more than 1 super/year. THEN, beekeeping was 90% ART, and 10% science.

The advent of mites in 1984 and 1987 dramatically strengthened bee RESEARCH nationwide,
and today's INFORMED beekeeper who practices scientific beekeeping in addition to the ART
of beekeeping is able to produce over 100 pounds of honey per colony here in Maryland; and
double that in ;daces like Florida, California, Minnesota, the Dakota's, etc.

TIME CHANGES THINGS (forget my wrinkled old skin). We now have fuel injected cars
instead of carburetors; and everyone seems to have cell phone. Most people communicate via e-
mail instead of a 37¢ stamp snail-mail. Iodine used for cuts is replaced by Neosporin. The
Croakers (hardheads) have come back to Chesapeake Bay, but crabs have disappeared. Amoco
gasoline is now BP. My GREAT grandchildren are fascinated with my bees, whereas my
grandchildren were not interested.

THE POINT IS THAT YOU CANNOT KEEP BEES LIKE YOUR DADDY OR
GRANDDADDY KEPT BEES, because we have LEARNED so much about better beekeeping
techniques and procedures during these past 20 years. If you have FAILED TO KEEP UP with
the positive thinking of scientist's findings regarding beekeeping over the last 20 years, you are
NOT a beeKEEPER, but just a beeHAVER. You will receive this note in early MAY which
should be a nectar flow in progress.

Have you got enough supers of drawn comb on your colonies, or are they going to SWARM due
to lack of storage space?
 June 2004

Harvesting Honey
Just because the weather is warm from April to October over much of the U.S. has NOTHING to
do with WHAT plants make a nectar yield in your part of the country. In central Maryland,
basically there is zero nectar yield after June 15th, whereas the Illinois clover nectar yield is
strong in June and July, and beekeepers get a great goldenrod nectar yield in September in
Eastern Pennsylvania. Hence, YOUR harvest time has NOTHING to do with harvests in other
places, but is dependent on just what nectar crops provide you with surplus honey, because the
bloom time is SO DIFFERENT.

For years, many beekeepers have put supers on in the spring and waited until September or even
October to remove them, of course, hoping that they would get a larger yield of honey by leaving
supers in place longer. They made FOOLS of themselves due to lack of knowledge about
beekeeping.

WHY?

In late summer or very early fall, the bees, knowing winter is coming, stopped feeding the queen
so she wouldn't lay eggs for more brood. This left EMPTY space in the brood chamber; and the
bees, desirous of having honey close to their CLUSTER area, moved honey OUT OF THE
SUPERS down into the brood area, hence leaving supers diminished of honey that might have
been sold. Not only that, but the wax white cappings were all darkened by the bees dirty feet
walking over them for a month or so; and further, in the cooler weather, the honey was MUCH
MORE difficult to extract, and maybe the combs BROKE when being extracted. DON'T WAIT
UNTIL LATE SUMMER OR EARLY FALL TO HARVEST THE HONEY?

By asking local beekeepers, or weighing a scale hive EVERY night (my favorite method), you
can determine the END of your prime nectar flow, and start harvesting your honey just 2-3
weeks later. Sure, it might be HOT and humid, or interfere with your vacation, but if you want a
great crop of honey, with nice white wax cappings (great for candle making), and easy
extraction, because the honey is quite warm, THEN, HARVEST WITHOUT DELAY!

HOW to harvest?
This seems to puzzle most hobbyists, and they do all kinds of foolish things that causes
STINGING.

First principle is "harvest when MOST bees are AWAY from the hive OUT FORAGING, which
would be a nice sunny warm day between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM, NOT AFTER YOU GET
HOME FROM WORK!
Second, no matter what system you use, NEVER leave honey EXPOSED that will probably
cause ROBBING, meaning keep all honey somehow COVERED up as much as possible.

Third, you WANT essentially NO bees on your frames to "take home". This REMOVAL of bees
from frames of honey can be done in 4 ways; of which #1 rarely works, #2 causes stinging, #3 is
expensive, and #4 is easy, simple, no stings, no loss of bees, and fast. Let me explain:

1. Using a Porter Bee Escape in the inner cover hole under the supers is a total JOKE,
unless you are in some state where the night time temperatures are quite chilly. Bees are
not going to leave honey unless they need the warmth of the cluster. Hence, FORGET a
Porter Bee Escape!

2. Using a Bee Brush is definitely the most popular method of cleaning bees from frames of
honey by beginners and hobbyists; and EQUALLY the system that causes the most stings
to the beekeeper, and ALL THE NEIGHBORS ON THE BLOCK which just INVITES a
legal confrontation.

Using a bee brush, as our ancestors did, is like trying to remove a splinter in your finger
with a dinner knife. Unless you don't mind being stung and have no love of other people,
use the BEE BRUSH. Probably you will quit beekeeping in a year or so (GOOD
RIDDANCE), or the police will curtail your stupid practice because your MAD bees
stung innocent neighbors. The BEE BRUSH was fine 100 years ago when most
beekeepers lived out in the farming area, but today, most hobbyists have bees on some
small propeiy like an acre, anti nia ny neighbors just a hundred yards away.

THINK ABOUT BEE BEHAVIOR, and if you know anything about it, you will know
that bees become VERY DEFENSIVE at anything "swatting" at them or "knocking"
them around. And don't be become ANTHROPOMORPHIC and believe that bees sting
because you are STEALING their honey, because they have no concept of stealing.

They DEFEND their hive. because they look upon the brush as a foreign object in their
home, and the movement of it as an AGGRESSIVE movement against their colony
(home).

3. There is little question that BLOWING bees out of a super is the LEAST disturbing and
FASTEST means of removing bees from a super, but are you willing to pay about $400
for a Gasoline powered BEE BLOWER or $200 for an electric powered BEE BLOWER
plus many, many feet of electric cable? Since bees do NOT object to strong wind and do
not consider BLOWING wind an AGGRESSIVE thing, the BEE BLOWER is the
safest,fastest, easiest, and most thorough means of removing bees from a super, but it is
an EXPENSIVE piece of equipment normally used only by professional honey
producers.

4. In my opinion and shared by the majority of MASTER BEEKEEPERS and side-liners

who have many colonies, like 20-100, the absolute best method of removing bees from
your supers is the use of a bee repellent applied to a fume board. A fume board is like an
 abbreviated telescoping cover, in that it has outside dimensions identical to the outside
dimensions of a super body; and it, has a "felt" inside "ceiling" made of burlap, old
flannel pajamas, thin sponge, or even Kotex napkins. This absorbent material will hold
the liquid bee repellent that you apply on it. The repellents, available at any bee
equipment supply company have names like BEE-GO, HONEY ROBBER, BEE QUICK;
or BENZALDEHYDE.

My personal favorite is BENZALDEHYDE, the Oil of Almonds, a PRETTY smell; but it

is now very hard to find because overly-cautious EPA thinks it might "burn" your fingers.
SHUCKS, so will vinegar! EPA gives me a pain in my butt!

BEE QUICK is new, I do not know all of the ingredients, but I suspect benzaldehyde is
present because of the pleasant odor. The other two, and most popular, are Bee-Go and
Honey Robber, which is butyric anhydride, a chemical that smells like rotten eggs and
vomit mixed together; and if you spill it in your car, in your honey house, or on your
clothes: buy a new car, rebuild your house, or burn your clothes. That smell is TOUGH to
remove - no wonder bees don't like it!

HOW do you use a fume board?

Select a WARM day (the hotter, the better) apply about 20-25 cc's (one ounce or less) to the
fume board absorbent remove the inner cover with a small amount of smoke, apply the fume
board, WAIT about 5-15 minutes (depending on colony strength, temperature, amount of
repellent, etc.), remove the top super which should be totally empty of bees, replace the fume
board on the next super and repeat. I use two fume boards on different colonies at the same time,
and I can remove about 20 full supers in an hour. The bees are NOT UNHAPPY, but just
crowded down into the brood chambers or hanging outside on the hive front to get away from
that odor. The use of the FUME BOARD and BEE REPELLENT CHEMICAL is surely the best
honey harvesting technique for beginners, novices, and those with under 100-200 colonies.

This is 2004, and we have cell phones, computers, microwave ovens, fuel injected cars, and
kidney transplants. DADDY did not have these modern things, so he used a Bee Brush., or
waited until September to harvest "so he could use a Porter Bee Escape, and a Bee Blower had
not been yet invented, so he got stung trying to brush bees off of frames. Harvest the EASY, safe
way by using a fume board, and preferably a repellent of BENZALDEHYDE (if you can find it)
or Bee Quick rather than that FOUL smelling BEE-GO or HONEY ROBBER.

I want to mention the MISTAKES that all hobbyists seem to make, because they have just been
too lazy or careless to LEARN correctness:

1. Bees DON'T put a capping on a cell until that honey RIPENED. Hence, you should never
extract a frame of honey unless it is about 95% CAPPED. If you are careless or greedy
and extract frames with lots of UNcapped cells, your entire crop might FERMENT by
 having NON-ripened honey in it. Even if you luck out, and your honey does not ferment,
who wants thin, watery honey that is supposed to be thick and heavy?

2. Honey is very HYGROSCOPIC, meaning that ABSORBS moisture out of the air. SO
WHAT, some might say? Bees, instructed genetically by GOD, evaporate the water from
the nectar they have collected until they get the percentage water down to 160/0-18%
before they CAP the cell. UNCAPPED honey with a water content exceeding "about"
19% tends to ferment and spoil. Since honey is hygroscopic and likes to absorb moisture
from our humid summer air, when extracting and, before bottling, KEEP YOUR HONEY
COVERED as much as possible to protect it from humid air. Put a top on an open pail of
honey, put a raincoat or a plastic tablecloth over your extractor that has honey left in it,
put a cap on a bottle of honey immediately after filling the bottle rather than letting the
bottle stand open for several hours, and, if possible, do your extraction, settling, and
bottling in a room with a DE-humidifier.

3. Would you like a gift of some delicate, beautiful thing if it came wrapped in DIRTY
paper or old newspaper? What would be your impression of the GIVER? Man has never
been able to synthesize honey (thank God), and honey perhaps is the purest product on
earth. Don't defile it, or identify your cheapness in gift giving, by putting YOUR special,
locally produced, high-grade honey in some old washed out peanut butter jar,a Mason jar
better known for bootleg "white lightning", or some old ketchup bottle that honey pours
from BADLY.. And, in your conceit, don't you want the gifted party to know exactly who
was the "giver"? Put a fancy LABEL on your jar, giving the net weight of honey, but
more important YOUR NAME and TELEPHONE NUMBER so they might call for more
and tell neighbors. DON'T HIDE UNDER A BUSHEL, I was told as a child. 1 am
PROUD of my honey, and my prize ribbons from FAIRS prove it; and that makes me
very happy to be part of mankind. WHY DON'T YOU TRY IT TOO?

4. Let me talk about a VERY CONTROVERSIAL subject - The PRICE that you charge for
your honey when you sell it. I have seen so many beekeepers literally "give their honey
away" by selling it CHEAPER than the grocery store price. That is RIDICULOUS!
Grocery store honey, no matter what name is on the jar, is usually a FOREIGN imported
honey from China or South America. YOURS is better because it is AMERICAN!
YOURS is better, because it is LOCAL and perhaps made from the nectar of your
neighbor's flowers, trees, bushes and plants. YOURS is better because it is FRESHER.
YOURS is better because YOU can tell the customer ALL ABOUT BEES, how honey is
MADE, why some is light color and other is dark, why the tastes differ, recipes for
cooking with honey, and tales (or lies) about handling bees without being stung. CAN A
GROCERY STORE CLERK DO THIS ABOUT THE STORE HONEY?

I have never sold a jar of honey in my life - but I sell MY KNOWLEDGE about honey
and bees; and honey is ALWAYS priced at least $1 per pound HIGHER than the grocery
store; and my daily sales at my county FAIR average about $1000/day, and I sometimes
run out of some items. I no longer do any selling because of my stroke disabled voice, so
my sons do the selling and they take the profits home as my gift to them.
 DON'T SELL HONEY - SELL YOURSELF and YOUR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT
HONEY AND BEES!

5. LACK of ADVERTISING is a major mistake of most beekeepers. How do people know

anything about bees or honey unless YOU tell them? Get an OBSERVATION HIVE,
load it with frames of brood, bees, and honey and take it to schools and give talks about
bees and watch the FASCINATION of the kids and the APPRECIATION of the teacher.
It won't be long before you are known and respected "all over town"

Next is the County Fair. Buy a space, have lots of honey in various jars and sizes on
display, featuring honey STIR right out FRONT to ATTRACT the kids, and you MUST
have an OBSERVATION HIVE. What happens? it is hot, you wish you were home, the
FAIR opens, . y people come in and ignore you, but some kids see the honey STIX and
the OBSERVATION HIVE and YOU are about to "score". The kids dash over to their
parents asking for money to buy honey STIX and SEE the observation hive, and
reluctantly the parents come to YOUR table, and YOU SHOW YOUR KNOWLEDGE
ABOUT BEES AND HONEY. When finished, they buy several items, never object to
the price, and and tell their neighbors about the honey, the OBSERVATION HIVE, and
YOU. If you had your telephone number on your honey jar label, several months later
you will have a call for more of YOUR honey and they will drive by your home to pick it
up, and MAYBE look at your bees.

ADVERTISING is just a way of identifying a person, a thing, or a product to get the

attention of a potential customer. Coca-Cola had an odd shaped bottle: Viagra pills are
colored BLUE, Cadillac hood ornament is a coat-of-arms surrounded by a
crescent:everybody recognizes the silver wrapped chocolate dollop as a Hershey's kiss:
Who doesn't know that WONDER-BRA gives a woman a "lift"?: John Deere tractor runs
a deer: and thousands of others that make you REMEMBER a good product.

ADVERTISE - LET PEOPLE KNOW YOU AND YOUR ABILITY WITH BEES AND
HONEY!

PROTECT YOUR DRAWN COMB FRAMES

It is a lot of HARD work, time consuming, as well as honey consuming for bees to draw
foundation into drawn comb - a beekeeper's MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION! Yet, year after
year I see careless beekeepers let wax moths ruin their drawn comb in the warm months of July,
August and September. HOW DO YOU PROTECT YOUR DRAWN COMB?

Immediately after you finish extraction, the frames are still wet and sticky with honey, select a
strong hive in your apiary, place a TOTALLY EMPTY hive body on top of the inner cover, then
put several supers of wet extracted frames of drawn comb on top of this EMPTY hive body, and
put a tight cover on the top super. In one or two days, the hive bees below will travel through the
inner cover hole and clean every smidgen of honey out of all those supers and take it down into
their brood nest below, leaving your frames very dry and clean. However, the WAX MOTH eggs
are hidden there in those frames and just waiting to hatch into wax moth larva who will tunnel
through the wax to eat the bee pupae cocoons that are fixed on the wail of any cell that had brood
raised in it. If this happens, your frames of DRAWN COMB are nothing more than a "netted
MESS".

After just a very few days of meticulous cleaning by bees, your frames of DRAWN COMB have
to be removed and PROTECTED until next spring. Now it is YOUR time to go to work!
Purchase some PDB, para-dichloro-benzene. Every bee supply house sells it; or you can often
find it in large grocery stores, hardware stores, or Home Depot as a MOTH preventative for
protection of wool clothes and furs; but you DON'T dare get the moth crystals made from
NAPTHALENE! ONLY buy those that are made of PDB!. Pick a location in your shed, garage,
basement, or honey house and stack your supers of DRAWN COMB about 5 high, and sprinkle
about a tablespoon of PDB crystals on the top bars of the 10 frames in each super, and put maybe
2 tablespoons on the top bars of the highest super, and seal the stack of supers with a cover. Also,
wrap masking tape around the seams between the supers, so this stack of supers of DRAWN
COMB is more or less air-tight. Depending upon the month, the heat, and how well you sealed
the stack, you may have to redo this every 30 days until cold weather, 50° and below, takes
place, and then you are safe from wax moths until they are needed again in April or May. YOU
HAVE NOW SAVED YOUR DRAWN COMB! You are becoming a beeKEEPER instead of a
beeHAVER.

Will you REQUEEN on Sept. 1st? You SHOULD!

Read what almost every bee scientist or bee researcher has written during the past 20 years. "The
YOUNGER the queen, the LESS swarming you have!" This has NOTHING to do with egg
laying ability; but is concerned with the LACK of ability to produce queen PHEROMONE that
inhibits swarming as the, queen ages from the very day of her breeding

Either a swarm in May or a dead queen in the winter ELIMINATES a honey crop to be extracted
on July 4th, and you could have bought a NEW, YOUNG, VIGOROUS, HIGH PHEROMONE
PRODUCING Queen in late August for a measly $10-$15. You don't PLAN AHEAD very well!
Queens reared in July or August are ALWAYS better bred than early spring queens, because
drones are more abundant for mating and queen breeders have more time to SELECT better
larvae for grafting, the maturing larvae is BETTER FED, and you can receive your new queen on
an EXACT desired date! LATE SUMMER queens are so much better than early spring queens -
just ask the bee scientists.

Now, June is the time for you to order a new queen from your favorite queen BREEDER. You
inquire of him whether he believes in HYGIENIC bees, whether you will get a "banked" queen
or a fresh queen if paid for in advance, and can you get delivery on "such and such date?"
ORDER NOW AND PAY IN ADVANCE to establish integrity.
 July 2004

Where is the Honey?

About 20-25 years ago, Wendy's Hamburgers electrified the world with its TV and radio
advertisement with a grouchy old woman disgustingly saying: Where is the BEEF? Today is July
1st, and the nectar flow and honey crop for central Maryland is O-V-E-R. True, there might be
some very tiny, isolated areas in western Maryland that might make some basswood honey in
early July, but in 98% of the central Maryland area, there is NO honey produced after about June
15th, and you must wait until NEXT year.

Don't argue with my 72 years of beekeeping in Montgomery County, St, Mary's County, Calvert
County, Howard County, or Rappahanock County, VA, where I have always kept a scale hive in
each apiary for many years.

Best that you, too, find and buy a hardware store platform scale if you want to know WHEN a
nectar flow starts, when it peaks, and when it ends; and, by golly, you too, will discover that
essentially NO honey is produced after about June 15th in central Maryland; and SURELY
NONE in July or August.

Some of you can tell tales and stories of superb honey crops being made in July, August and
even September; and you are absolutely correct, but this honey was NOT produced in either
central Maryland or Northern Virginia. The bygone days of crop land featuring clover, alfalfa, or
buckwheat, those crops that produce nectar during the summer months are now replaced by
houses, towns, and blacktop roads.

Those large honey producing areas like upper New York state, midwest states like IL, MI, MN,
ND, SD are very agricultural areas featuring thousands of acres of clover and alfalfa, who bear
nectar for many weeks from June through August; but they don't have our wonderful very light,
slow crystallizing BLACK LOCUST or our REGAL tasting TULIP POPLAR honeys!

Now to the POINT of my LESSON to you: Whatever honey your bees have made is now in your
supers; but unless you HARVEST it almost immediately, is not going to be there very long!
Your bees are going to move that honey OUT of the supers and take it down below into the
brood chamber area! WHY? (You better learn the intricacies of bee BEHAVIOR) Didn't your
sexual desire for reproduction diminish as you aged from youth?

Genetically bred into the queen by GOD is the desire to reproduce, and hence she feverishly lays
eggs in the late winter months and very early spring bent on the idea of SWARMING to cover a
greater area of foraging. When the nectar flow really gets going, thoughts of swarming are
replaced by nectar collecting, and the queen laying is somewhat reduced. When the nectar flow
stops or becomes minuscule, the workers dramatically reduce the queen laying by reducing her
daily food intake.
This is much more prominent with Carniolans than Italians, but both races slow their brood
production. The lack of brood production leaves a lot of EMPTY CELL space in the brood
chamber area; and the worker bees remove honey from the supers and take it down into the
brood area; obviously preparing for the coming drought months and the coming winter where
they want food supplies within the "cluster" area.

Some are going to say "My bees did not produce much honey for me"; but the smart beekeeper is
going to remove all the capped honey in late June for himself, leaving the UNcapped (hence,
UNripened) honey for the bees and then begin feeding 2:1 thick sugar syrup for winter stores of
60-70 pounds. Why can't the bee scientists and research people convince you that 2:1 sugar syrup
feed for wintering is FAR SUPERIOR bee feed than honey?

Old timers not only thought honey was best because it is "natural", but they did NOT want to
spend money for sugar. However, the past 20-30 years of bee research has definitely proven that
just plain sugar (sucrose) that you use in your coffee and tea is the absolute BEST winter feed for
bees, because it contains none of those things sometimes found in natural honey that causes bee
sickness, notably diarrhea.

I forgot to mention that you can sell your honey for about $3.50-$4.00 per pound and buy sugar
at any grocery store for about $1.59-$1.99 per 5 pounds .

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know the difference between $3.50-$4.00/ pound. Start
that feeding of 2:1 sugar syrup in late September and DON'T wait until the cold weather of
November. However, put your Fumadil-B, treatment for NOSEMA, in your 2:1 sugar syrup in
the November feeding, so it stays in the feed all winter long thereby eliminating nosema disease.

Upon my return this week from 4 weeks of traveling in VA, NC, TN, GA, and MD, I found over
800 e-mail notes on my computer, and MANY of them had to do with getting foundation drawn
into DRAWN COMB. Over the last 20 years, I have addressed this question in PINK PAGES
and TALKS ad infinitum. All the books have written about it, the monthly magazines have
addressed the same question. Doesn't anyone "listen" anymore? I'll do it one more time! Bees,
like some humans, do NOT plan A-H-E-A-D, but only do things as the "need" presents itself.
Hence, there is absolutely NO NEED for drawn comb except for TWO reasons: brood
production and food storage.

Queens cannot lay eggs and bees can't store nectar on UNDRAWN foundation, so bees MUST
build comb on foundation for queen laying and nectar storage. When a nectar flow quits, bees
stop drawing foundation, because there is no longer any need. We can "fool" the bees by feeding
a manmade, artificial nectar of 1:1 sugar syrup, so they will continue to build comb out on
foundation.

I will grant you that they will not perform as well as if a real, true nectar flow was on, but a 1:1
sugar syrup enhanced with a dissolved peppermint or a few drops of vanilla extract to give the
syrup an sweet odor will make the bees willingly draw comb to store that 1:1 sugar syrup, which
to your surprise, THEY WILL CONVERT THAT INTO HONEY, and it will NOT be stored as
sugar syrup. Perhaps I should have mentioned the conversion of sugar syrup into honey first, but
YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT if you are going to be a beeKEEPER instead of a beeHAVER!
Your own body does the same thing: When you put sugar (sucrose) in your coffee, your pancreas
gland makes the enzyme, invertase, which breaks down that disaccharide sucrose into two mono-
saccharide sugars, FRUCTOSE and GLUCOSE, and these "blood sugars" is what your doctor
finds on examination of your blood.

In finality, HONEY is made from sugar (sucrose), the natural sugar found in all NECTAR, and
the bees CONVERT sucrose into the two sugars named FRUCTOSE and GLUCOSE by
injecting the enzyme INVERTASE into the nectar as they fly home.

Likewise, bees do NOT store 1:1 sugar syrup, but evaporate the water from it, add invertase,
which converts it into FRUCTOSE and GLUCOSE, hence HONEY, exactly the same thing they
do with locust nectar, tulip poplar nectar, clover nectar, or any other nectar! How about THAT
for a LESSON?

CHANGE OF SUBJECT:
Are you going to PROTECT your extracted frames from being destroyed by wax moths? It is
estimated that bees can produce 160 pounds of honey stored in drawn comb frames, but only 100
pounds if they have to build foundation into comb; hence, PROTECT YOUR DRAWN
FRAMES! Extract, put an EMPTY super on top of the inner cover, and your wet frame super on
top of that, and tightly cover with your hive cover. Leave it there for 2-3 days, and the bees will
meticulously clean the frames almost totally dry.

Then, place the supers out in the sun light with lots of air circulation for another 2-3 days. Then,
stack them in your garage or basement, add 1-2 tablespoons of PDB, para-dichloro-benzene, to
each super and seal them up. Repeat in 30-45 days, but not necessary after November 1st.

Your frames will be roaring to go in April for a full crop of next years honey! Procedures to be
done prior to December Why do I mention this in July?

I plan a-h-e-a-d, plus some don't follow my suggestions about the TIME to do things, resulting in
FAILURES.

This my last chance to HELP YOU!

1. Remove all frames of capped honey RIGHT NOW!

2. Install Menthol to kill tracheal mites on August 15th - September is TOO LATE
3. REQUEEN colonies in late August before September Labor Day
4. COMBINE a weak colony with a strong colony during September. Not only is a weak
colony a lot of work attempting to get it through the winter, but it will not be able to build
 up to capture our April-May nectar flow. Strong colonies in October will be strong
colonies in April, whereas a weak colony in October even if it gets through the winter,
lacks bees, hence preventing brood rearing in February and March because of lack of
cluster heat to prevent brood chill.
5. Start feeding 2:1 sugar syrup in September with the aim of having 14 DEEP frames filled
by December 1st, or 20 MEDIUM frames.
6. Feed Fumadil-B in late October and November dissolved in your 2:1 sugar syrup to
prevent NOSEMA infection in the coming spring.

The TIME that you install either Apistan or CheckMite to kill Varroa mites is CRITICAL if you
expect to get a good treatment! I cannot OVER-EMPHASIZE that fact! WHY? The 0NLY place
that a female varroa mite lays eggs to produce more varroa mites is in a honeybee LARVAL cell
lust a few hours before that cell is capped by the bees for that bee larva to become a pupae and
emerge as a worker bee 12 days later.

THAT last sentence is the most important sentence in this letter. If the queen bee has
dramatically reduced her laying, or STOPPED laying, there are very few bee larvae or NO bee
larvae present, and hence the female Varroa mite has NO place to lay Varroa eggs!

In our Central Maryland area, most queen bee egg laying is either dramatically diminished or
over before November 1st. Hence, if you install Apistan or CheckMite on October 1 st - October
15th, follow the written directions of leaving the strips in place for 6 weeks, but NEVER longer
than 8 weeks (which will create RESISTANT mites), your colonies will enter December with
essentially zero mite population, and generally you will not have to treat again until NEXT
October.

This means that you MUST remove those strips after 6-8 weeks which will be sometime between
November 15th and December 15th. There is ALWAYS some day during that time that the
temperature is 50° or higher, and you can whiz home from work and snap those strips out of the
hives.

So many people pay no attention to proper TIMING, and install mite strips at their convenience
in September, and then wonder why they find Varroa mites on their bees next spring or next
July, and treat them again. To be successful, you must learn to do things at the PROPER time,
not at a time that is CONVENIENT TO YOU.

THOUGHTS ABOUT RETIRING:

I have never said the following before, but maybe now is the time: Being blind in one eye and
hence unskilled in sports and unpleasant in appearance, I was highly encouraged from grade
school on to aspire to be a straight A student and spend every waking hour to gain additional
education, which I did, and that effort resulted in my work on the Manhattan Project of
producing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, and my fortune of being mentored by
perhaps America's greatest bee expert, Dr. James I.Hambleton, Chief Apiculturist of the U.S.
from 1922-1966, who "put me under his wing" in May of 1933. During those days of the Great
Depression from 1929-1938, I learned to be educated, responsible, attentive, inquiring, always
seeking, accepting scientists reports and rejecting layman's "old wive's tales", and generally
"being DIFFERENT than most other people".

Further, I am a real NATIVE of Montgomery County, being born on the same property that was
granted to my maternal SCOTTISH ancestry in 1736 where Montgomery Mall stands today, and
the house built in 1770,

LOCUST GROVE, still stands today at MAGRUDER'S DISCOVERY, my maternal name. My

grandchildren are the 10th generation born on this property that began 268 years ago, and now
gifted to Montgomery County Historical Trust for preservation.

But what about bees? Back in 1933, Dr. Hambleton recognized my intense interest in science, of
course hoping I would pursue Entomology. Even though I chose Chemistry for my BS, Physics
for my MS, and Nuclear Physics for my Ph.D., I remember Dr. Hambleton's constant saying to
me, "Forget the supers, and pay strong attention to the BROOD CHAMBER, because that is
where the 'action' is, both good and bad; make sure you have a fine young queen, identify and
treat any and all bee diseases, be conscious of swarm prevention, HELP the bees in their normal
pursuit of nature's calling, but never try to REORGANIZE their way of doing things; and, having
done all this, your supers will spill over with success"

I have NEVER FORGOTTEN these words of wisdom from Dr. Hambleton. When I left home
for Preparatory school in 1937, college in 1939, Manhattan Project in 1944, as often as each
week, I would mail a letter, 31t then, to my father of what to do with my 20+ colonies.. He
learned beekeeping on a "correspondence course" from me, and he kept bees for himself for the
next 40 years and became a fine beekeeper, in spite of his lawyer's training. Ha Ha! During the
ensuing 40 years, with help from my wife, we kept up to 60 colonies on several local apiary
sites, always producing lots of honey and almost sold before the bees produced it.

In 1984, the tracheal mite arrived, and I soon found bewildered, UNknowledgeable beeHAVERS
in Montgomery County. Never a "joiner" of associations or clubs due to my blind eye, I
FOUNDED the present MCBA, with no officers, no directors, no bylaws or constitution, no
parties, no door prizes, BUT an instructional, learning meeting 11 months out of each year, no
December meeting.

Now, 20 years later, MCBA has the largest membership of any of the other 12 Maryland Bee
Associations, and the ONLY bee association in the ENTIRE United States with more than TWO
Master Beekeepers, and MCBA has TEN Master Beekeepers! DAMN, I AM SO PROUD! All
10 of these people can speak, talk, or demonstrate about bees EQUALLY with the today's best
bee scientists!

Although not retired as I have been for many years, these 10 have the same up-to-date, scientific
knowledge about bees that l have, and they have a VOICE that is not disabled, and they can walk
and demonstrate without assistance. I am sure you will be in GOOD hands when I leave you.
Perhaps for the last time, I will be in my screen cage, with NO protective clothing and NO veil,
opening one of my colonies, showing all viewers the insides of a hive including the brood,
20,000 worker bees, and, of course, her majesty, the QUEEN. As everything else I do, this is
INSTRUCTIONAL to the public to dispel their fear of honey bee stings that they have been
taught by Hollywood movies about Africanized bees. You are invited to help me in the cage,
provided you do what I ask of you, or surely talk with the audience outside the cage about the
importance of honey bees in the pollination of our human food supplies.

Next Meeting is September 8th. This is the meeting that I might step down as "benevolent
DICTATOR" of MCBA, and name my appointee as replacement. The deceased Dr. Roger
Morse, considered by many as one of America's greatest apiculturists, surely the most well
renowned professor of beekeeping in the world, and perhaps the most famous of all authors
about bees and beekeeping defined the month of September as the start of the NEW YEAR for
ensuing next spring, strongly emphasizing that the success of a colony was . greatly dependent
on its condition in September.

Hence, I think that September is a good time for me to "pass the torch" to my successor. Then,
my truly hard work begins in Williamsburg, VA of moving into a new home with a new, slightly
younger wife, and giving her a crash course in installing new packages of Wilbanks Italian bees
in April and requeening them with Sue Cobey's New World Carniolans in late August; and
"demanding" NO GLOVES, plus learn to TOUCH the bees without fear.

I am so reminded of what my great hero, General George Patton, said about war: "God, I love it"
Likewise, I can say that about my 72 years of beeKEEPING, NEVER beeHAVING: "God, I love
It." Now, I BEG you, BEG you! After about 40 years of CONTINUOUS VOLUNTEER service
to the Montgomery County FAIR (the largest agricultural fair on the entire east coast), Arthur
Strang, due to age (slightly my senior) has resigned as HONEY SHOW SUPERINTENDANT.

No thinking person wants the honey show to vanish, but it surely WILL without some
knowlegeable beekeeper to supervise it. Of course, I want to, but my age and disability prevent
that. Master Beekeeper David Bernard , has volunteered to "step-in" as Strang's replacement to
give "new life" to the honey show. Dave will need a lot of help, and he (and me,too) want LOTS
OF ENTRIES for the show to make it a FAIR SPECTACULAR of what we Montgomery
County Beekeepers can do.

Isn't it about time that YOU volunteered some of your time to assist DAVE? Nor should Master
Beekeeper Barry Thompson be denied HELP in the MCBA booth in Old MacDonalds Barn that
attracts ail the kids and parents to learn the importance of honey bees to our food supply, as well
as prove to spectators that honey bees are not those "monsters" that attact thousands of people in
cities as portrayed in many Hollywood movies.
 September 2004

SEPTEMBER IS A VERY IMPORTANT MONTH

September, NOT April, is the month that determines the success of your honey bee colony next
spring!!! I say that for all the colonies within 100 miles of Washington, DC.

I surely AM NOT KNOWN FOR BREVITY, but this "edition" of PINK PAGES will be BRIEF,
as I, and many other scientists, have written about the importance of fall preparation ad nauseum.
Everybody knows that summer is over and winter is coming, and yet there is always some
procrastinator who forgets to put antifreeze in his tractor, boat engine, or even his old car until
the weather forecast for December 15th is well below freezing! But that procrastinator just had to
drive to Skyline Drive to view the beauty of the autumn leaves, and he just HAD TO spend
Saturdays watching Waryland, Virginia Tech, or Notre Dame football games, and every Sunday
watching either the Washington REDSKINS or the Baltimore RAVENS. Meanwhile, his bees
were FORGOTTEN; and next spring, we successful beekeepers have to listen to this man's
"tales" of why his bees are dead, usually beginning with an "unseasonable cold winter", or those
purchased queens were NO GOOD, or Apistan or CheckMite are NO GOOD because they did
not kill the mites, or any of another 100 "lame excuses". Of course, 99% of the time, the cause of
colony death or spring weakness is IMPROPER FALL PREPARATION of the bees, which is
nothing more that beekeeper FAULT or NEGLECT!

Let's start with the date of AUGUST 15th, during the Montgomery County FAIR, did you treat
your colonies with MENTHOL to kill the tracheal mite, or do you believe that they have
disappeared? If you OPEN your colony on Sunday, January 30, 2005 and find essentially NO
bees (or just a handful), but there is still LOTS of honey in the hive, the TRACHEAL MITE has
defeated you.

Did you REqueen about September 1st to provide lots of new winter bees to warm the winter
cluster, so the queen could lay well in late January and all of February? By the way, HOW OLD
is your queen? After all, winter is hard on we "old folks", and a 2 year old queen is "ancient".
Further, is your queen MARKED? If not, you don't know whether she is. 24 months old, 12
months old, or 6 months old; or whether she is a Wilbanks Italian, a half Carniolan, or a "red-hot
mama" that had 5 minute "stands" with every local drone in the area.

Bee scientists and researchers have PROVED (I said PROVED!) that plain granulated SUGAR
(5 lb. bag for $1.59) is the BEST winter feed that a bee can have - FAR BETTER than honey!
Yet beekeepers are now paying $2.00/gallon for gasoline to dash off for a weekend at Ocean
City for $150/night; but BITCH and RESIST buying sugar to feed their bees. FORGET the fall
nectar flow from goldenrod and/or aster because it has become VERY UNdependable in this
area; and also is LOUSY honey for bees because it crystallizes so quick. Bees start to CLUSTER
at temperatures of 45°-50°, and they can't feed or store sugar syrup then, but September is still
warm enough that bees can readily accept sugar syrup, RIPEN IT into honey, and then STORE it
away in capped cells. In our Washington - Baltimore area, bees should have 70 pounds of honey
to get through the winter. 70 lbs. is about 12 CAPPED deep frames or 18 CAPPED medium
frames; or a two story colony of 20 deep frames would weigh about 120 lbs, or a three story
colony of 30 medium frames should weigh about 130 lbs. on December 1st. FEED YOUR BEES
SUGAR SYRUP (10 lbs. sugar dissolved in 5 pints of water) in SEPTEMBER, not October or
November. They need TIME and temperatures over 50° to accept and process this syrup. And for
all you "penny pinchers" (who spend $200 to go to a Redskin game), suppose you have to buy 50
pounds of sugar for each colony; you can buy 50 lbs for about $16, and a new 3 lb. package of
bees next April will cost you about $50. Even a dying man before he is electrocuted gets fed a
meal of his choice before death - Can't you FEED your bees to prevent their death. NOW, you
know why I created the terms beeHAVER and beeKEEPER. Any jerk can HAVE bees, but it
takes just a little bit of WORK and some UNDERSTANDING to be a beeKEEPER, and that
work must be done on BEE-TIME, not on the TIME most convenient for you.

How much work can YOU do when you have the "runs"? Bees can't either. The disease of
NOSEMA causes diarrhea to the bees, and researchers have estimated that as much as SIXTY
percent of all surviving spring bees have some NOSEMA disease. The queen can't lay eggs very
well, and the workers can't build comb or nurse larva very well, much less the simplistic needs of
drawing foundation or foraging. For an average cost of $2, you can feed FUMIDIL-B to a
colony, preferably in October and November, that will destroy NOSEMA for the entire next 12
months. Read pages 1097-1104 of the 1992 Edition of The Hive and Honey Bee. I call that
EXTENSIVELY REVISED Edition, the beekeeper's BIBLE, its 1300+ pages written by 35 of
our TOP American bee RESEARCH scientists. Come on - if you can afford to pay $2 for a
gallon of gas, you can surely afford $2 to keep a colony of bees healthy for a year from
NOSEMA disease that historically attacks 60% of all bee colonies in the nation.

Lastly, and MOST important, killing the dreaded VARROA mite. DON'T use Apistan or
CheckMite or any other Varroa pesticide in September, because September is TOO EARLY to
get a decent kill of Varroa mites! WHY? The female Tracheal mite only lays eggs for new mites
in just ONE PLACE - with a honey bee LARVA just the day before the cell is capped. When
there are NO honey bee larvae in the colony, the tracheal mite has NO place to lay eggs. In the
Washington, DC area, honey bee queens are laying very little about October 1st, and maybe
almost zero by October 15th, and ZERO by November. Hence, apply any VARROA mite
pesticide between October 1st - 15th, leave it in place for SIX weeks (covering 2 brood cycles),
and POSITIVELY REMOVE IT by December 1st. FORGET doing things that are at a
CONVENIENT time for YOU, and perform tasks when they get the BEST results. You will
NOT have to treat again until NEXT October. Since Varroa mites arrived almost 20 years ago in
1987, I have never lost any of my 100+ colonies to Varroa mites, and neither do the prominent
queen and bee suppliers like Wilbanks, or they would be "out of business". There is ALWAYS
some warm afternoon above 50° in late November or early December that you can whiz home at
noon, pull out your Varroa pesticide strips, and dash back to work. You have choice: follow my
directions and be successful, or ignore directions and have DEAD, or sick, bees.

I refuse to say GOOD LUCK, because successful beekeeping is NOT luck, but knowledge of
WHAT to do and most important, WHEN to do it.
George's BLUE pages - that should make you curious
September 2004

My "AFFAIR" with beeHAVERS resulting in Many Fine

beeKEEPERS!
As I "just fade away" as General Douglas MacArthur said, as a one-eye blind person who has
had to "fight and scrap" during my 80+ years of life just to be recognized, there is no way that I
am going to CHANGE my attitude because of my departure. I will still be BLUNT and
demanding that you "get off your ass" and LEARN. WHY?

Seventy Two years ago, Dr. James I. Hambleton, Chief Apiarist of the US Department of
Agriculture "took me under his wing" and mentored me into Asuccessful beeKEEPER. This was
BEFORE mites, BEFORE Terramycin, BEFORE advice on the BEE-LINE, BEFORE much
knowledge of bee RACE, BEFORE Africanized Bees, and BEFORE honey cost more than
25¢/lb, or a 3 lb pound package with queen cost more than $5, Twenty Five years later, and
successful with 30 colonies in Bethesda, in 1948, the "famous" Steve Tabor enticed me to switch
my Italians to Carniolans to take advantage of their EXPLOSIVE early spring buildup in order to
secure high yields of our Maryland Locust, Tulip Poplar, and Blackberry nectar flows starting in
mid April and OVER by May 31st. Although "experimenting" on my own from 1933-1948, this
switch to the "swarm inclined, black Carniolan" excited my now well-developed scientific
interest. In 1944, I was "chosen" to be part of the Manhattan Project and sent to Oak Ridge, TN
to help purify Plutonium; followed by being sent to Los Alamos in April 1945 to design and
build ionization chamber gamma ray recorders for Dr. Robt Oppenheimer's health physics group
in building our first atomic bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From that point on, my interest
in beekeeping became one of management improvement, queen improvement, disease control,
swarm control, improving beekeeper KNOWLEDGE, and LESS interest in honey production.
Now 60 years later, I still have not altered my thinking. I am so reminded of Dr. Hambleton's
teaching where he said: "FORGET THE SUPERS, examine only the brood chamber where all
the good and the bad are created, and if your skill and knowledge of bees can properly
MANAGE your brood chamber, the SUPERS and honey production will 'take care of
themselves'". Now 60 years later, my bees exceed almost any Maryland honey production figures
year after year, rarely any disease, almost no winter death, and very little swarming even with
my Carniolans.

With the advent of tracheal mites in 1984, Master Beekeeper Ann Harman and I founded the
MCBA to impart our knowledge to all members who would listen. You know the rest of the
story: An educational meeting EVERY month, no parties, no dinners, no doorprises, but JUST a
bee educational meeting of explaining SUCCESSFUL beeKEEPING; and ALL for only
$10/year including my PINK PAGES. Was my idea successful? We have over 1 50 PAID
members, we have TEN Master Beekeeper members and no other bee association in the ENTIRE
USA has more than Two, during the past 14 years, 4 MC members have been STATE Presidents,
and TWO have been EAS Presidents. What other bee association has a SHORT COURSE of 5
two hour lectures by MASTER BEEKEEPERS + 2 April weekends of HANDS-ON instruction
of students supervised by MASTER BEEKEEPERS, and almost nobody wears gloves? YES, I
DEMAND! And I have gotten fabulous results, and I am so PROUD of my "students". The days
of keeping bees like "Daddy kept bees" are GONE. The days of keeping bees without some
formal Short Course or recent book instruction are GONE. 2/3 of all the Maryland beekeepers of
1980 are GONE, not because of death, but because they resisted LEARNING. However, those of
us who CONTINUE TO LEARN yearly produce more honey that sells at a higher price than
ever before, and most of us still go to meetings everywhere to LEARN MORE.

However, my age, my stroke disabilities of no walking and poor talking, plus the excitement of
an impending marriage to a new "young" widow who I first met 49 years ago when I was a lead
scientist testing atomic bombs in Nevada, "force" (Ha Ha) me to turn the leadership of
Montgomery County Beekeepers over to a person of MY choice, Master Beekeeper David
Bernard.. David, a research biologist coupled with a wife of equal biology interest in research is
not only 40 years younger than me, but enjoys a proven record of melding together beekeepers
interests in LEARNING. He, with the always "present" help from Master Beekeeper, Dr. Barry
Thompson, should make MCBA mature beyond my expectations. GET OFF YOUR BUTT,
JOIN IN, & LEARN! For my own PERSONAL reasons, I did not want this "edition" of my
PINK PAGES to accompany the HONEY POT. However, in discussion with David, I feel sure
that the October HONEY POT will arrive ON TIME, and with a format of additional writers. If I
am asked to submit my monthly PINK PAGES, of course I will, NO CHARGE. Further, ANY
member of Montgomery County can always seek my advice without obligation, because my
interest is singular: LEARN TO BE A BETTER BEEKEEPER. However, I am NOT a pioneer
like Langstroth, an author like Roger Morse, a teacher like Dewey Caron or Mark Winston, a bee
researcher like Laidlaw or Page, a queen breeder like Reg Wilbanks, or a bee race DEVELOPER
like Sue Cobey and her NEW WORLD CARNIOLANS. Rather, I am just a simple OLD atomic
scientist who wants to know MORE about apis mellifera, because they fascinate me; and GIVE
my findings to you.

OLD beeKEEPER GEORGE

October-November 2004

Will your bees make it into Spring 05?

Today is October 21st, and would be my 61st wedding anniversary if Valerie had not died of
cancer two years ago. I am VERY lonely. Nectar flows are long since OVER. Winter is just
around the corner. Most members are concerned about the Redskins or the Ravens. Wives are
planning Thanksgiving festivities. Kids are thinking about Christmas gifts. After 5 strokes during
these past 14 years and losing my ability to walk or talk very well, now in my 80+ years of life
and thinking of a new marriage to my "young" 72 year old Las Vegas "best friend", my thoughts
are "Will I be alive in Spring 05?" Have I properly sought PROFESSIONAL knowledge about
diseases and health, or ignored possible death?
This makes me think of wintering bees. UNLIKE the last 397 years, since 1607, in the United
States when there were no MITES, no small hive- beetles, no resistant foul brood, and thousands
of wild, feral bees in every woods in the 48 states, honey bees easily survived without much help
fr m man; but since the arrival of mites in 1984, bees NEED the HELP of man to survive! If you
doubt me, show me some live wild bees that have been in place more than a year. Basically, they
are nonexistent anywhere in the U.S. HONEY BEES NEED YOUR CARE IF THEY ARE TO
EXIST! What you CAN do, SHOULD do, or SHOULD HAVE DONE?

Back on August 15th, during the Montgomery County Fair, you SHOULD have treated your
bees with MENTHOL to kill all TRACHEAL mites! Since the tracheal mite is micro-scopic and
NOT visible to the human eye, most beekeepers ASSUME that there are no tracheal mites, and
hence DON'T BOTHER TO TREAT. If you OPEN a colony on a warm day in January or early
February and find LOTS of honey, a queen, and just a handful of bees your bees were killed by
TRACHEAL mites. Don't give us all that B.S. about a COLD WINTER! To a knowledgeable
beekeeper, such a statement about a COLD WINTER just tells everybody how
UNKNOWLEDGEABLE you are about bees. Shortly before Dr. Southwick's death about 10
years ago, he subjected many colonies to temperatures of 00, -200, and -400 for periods of 10
days, 20 Hays, and even 30 consecutive days, and NONE died. COLD does not kill healthy bees!

Have you got at least 12 deep frames, or 18 Illinois 6 518" frames, FULLY CAPPED frames of
honey in your colony TODAY? Why not? Why did you NOT spend $10-$15 per colony for
sugar and feed your bees back in September and October? Are you going to try and feed them in
cold December and January or just let them starve t death? What a NASTY way to die, and YOU
could have prevented it. If you are wintering in 2 DEEP bodies, the colony should weigh about
120 lbs now, or wintering in 3 ILLINOIS bodies, the colony should weigh about 130 lbs now.

Hopefully, you remember seeing a 3 lb package of bees (10,500 bees). At this time, late October
and queen laying is almost stopped, your colony should have a minimum of 6 lbs. of bees (20-
21,000) present if it to get though the winter. Bees have t cluster and eat honey to raise the
temperature to 91°-96° for the queen to lay eggs in January and February and the bees MUST
keep this brood warm for 21 days, so that requires MANY winter bees to get that colony
successfully through the winter. Why didn't you COMBINE two weak hives back in September?
It is easy to get a strong colony through the winter, but very difficult (maybe impossible) to get
two weak colonies through the winter; and even if you do, how strong are they going to be in
April and May for our ONLY nectar flow?

Did you put Varroa miticide strips, Apistan or CheckMite, in your colonies BEFORE October
1st? WHY? I have written and talked ad infinitum about waiting until at least 10/1 or 1 0/1 5 so
that there is NO bee larvae present for the female mite to lay new mite eggs. I have steadfastly
informed you to install micide strips between 10/1 and 10/15 and ABSOLUTELY remove them
on some warm day between 11/15 and 11/30. If you find lots of varroa mites in April, it just
shows that you put strips in the colony TOO EARLY to get a good kill of varroa.

Lastly, how well do you work when you are suffering diarrhea? Bees don't do any better than
you when they have the "runs". Why didn't you spend $2.00 for a dose of Fumadil-B and feed it
to your bees beginning October 15th- November 15th, so your bees will be healthy in the spring?
Ending, FORGET all those writings and stories of the "natural" keeping of bees prior to 1984,
which was the mite arrival in the U.S. Now 24 years later, bees CAN'T MAKE IT ON THEIR
OWN (or Naturally), but MUST HAVE YOUR HELP! If you are UNwilling to give help to your
bees, GIVE UP AND GET OUT! If you think that I am wrong or too conservative, I BEG you to
consult authorities like Dewey Caron, Jerry Fischer, Bart Smith, Bee Inspectors Bill Troup or
Greg Gochnour, or ANY of the STATE APIARISTS in the surrounding states of Virginia or
Pennsylvania. Show them this PINK PAGE and ask them if I am right or wrong - I dare you!

I have enjoyed these past 20 years of converting beeHAVERS-into beeKEEPERS, and

particularly enjoyed watching some of my "students" become fine beekeepers or even MASTER
BEEKEEPERS. However, I admit that so often I feel like a preacher or priest who delivers a
sermon each Sunday and then observes his parishioners IGNORING every thing that was said
for the next 6 days. I am no longer mentally strong enough to handle this type of refusal to
LEARN. For 20 years, I have TAUGHT good beekeeping practices and techniques FREE of
charge, and never wanting any reward except to witness the perfection of someone to really learn
the secrets of successful beekeeping and its JOYS.

As long as I am able, I will continue my PINK PAGES still FREE of charge, but also I will no
longer be "quiet" when I see or hear of something totally wrong, particularly in the Honey Pot.
As an ultra conservative, the lies and negative remarks almost hourly in our presidential election
are downright frightening. Are all politicians so interested in self greed, that our system of
democracy could be destroyed.. Did George Washington, Tom Jefferson, Hamilton, etc. ever
draw a salary from 1776-1789? I remember so well the number of experts that left their jobs
during World War II and came to work in Washington for a salary of $1 /year. When I worked at
Las Alamos in 1945 designing and constructing our first atomic bombs, I know that some of the
scientists worked FREE and "Head Honshu" Dr. Robert Oppenheimer was paid less than
$10,000.

Final thought: GOOD queen breeders are overwhelmed by demand and just can't supply you a
queen in April when you wait until March to place an order; and then you BITCH and malign the
queen breeder. Why don't you order a queen or queens NOW in November to be delivered by
April 15th, and send $10/queen "good faith" money? ADVANCE money TALKS very loudly.
AND ONLY GET A 14ARKED QUEEN which is BLUE for 2005. Blue is hard to see, so
demand a BRIGHT BLUE. I have TOLD you what to do, so I don't want to hear any crying or
bitching next April, but trust my knowledge. If you really want to be a perfectionist, requeen in
late August when you can buy far better bred queens, delivered on the exact date you requested,
and allow your new queen and old queen to lay during September to provide your colony with a
"ton" of wintering bees that gives your colony super extra strength for the April-May nectar
flow. See "Imirie's Almost Foolproof Requeening Method" published many years ago.

'nough Said

George imirie, Certified Master Beekeeper

Shucks, being a 100% SCOT, I am not going to leave all this empty page space without words,
so I will tell you of my excitement and good fortune DUE TO BEES of the past two years.
Watch how BEES played such a vital part.

Upon the death of my wife after 59 years of marriage, I was VERY lonely in my 5 bedroom
home, disabled in walking, semi-disabled in voice due to strokes, and totally impotent from my
high blood pressure pills, suicide was a constant thought. During the early 90's, I tested and
certified a MORMON named Tom Muncey of Sparks, Nevada as a Master Beekeeper. Later,
Tom was elected to the National Honey Board where I had been for several years, and he wanted
to know how I knew so much about the Mormon church since I am a strong Presbyterian. I
related to him my story of when I was a lead scientist testing atomic bombs in Nevada in 1955, a
young, ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED Mormon girl was assigned to me as my telephone
operator. During those next 4 months, she went to the Presbyterian church with me, and I went
the Mormon church services with her. When I left the Nevada Test Site in May of 1955, I never
expected to ever see MarJeanne McMullin again, who would be married to Bobby G. Laub
shortly after I left. Four months after my wife's death in 2002, beekeeper Tom Muncey e-mailed
me that the MORMON NEWS reported the death of a B. G. Laub in Las Vegas. I telephoned the
Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah told them my story of 48 years ago, and they gave
me the address and phone number of MarJeanne, my Mormon telephone operator of 48 years
ago. I telephoned her, and she too is VERY LONELY in her huge new home with a huge
swimming pool in a upscale part of Las Vegas. She has 3 children and 6 grandchildren, none of
which live close by. In May of 2003, she flew here to visit with me for 6 weeks. I have stayed in
her Las Vegas home for over a month; and she and I have spent about 5 of the past 10 months
touring every state from New York south east of the Mississippi, including being heavily
involved with the week long American Beekeeping Federation meeting near Jacksonville, FL.
She even made friends with the new President's wife from Minnesota, but MarJeanne has never
really seen a honey bee, but she is now learning FAST. Now, we are seriously hunting for a
home in my favorite place of Williamsburg, Virginia with no steps, but room for bees in a big
GRASS yard (Nevada has no grass - only desert and rock). We will be there during the entire
month of November. We intend to marry, be active in both the Presbyterian Church and the
Church of Latter Day Saints, become authorities concerning the founding of our GREAT nation
by researching all the facilities of Colonial Williamsburg, and mutually take care of each other in
those few short years that we might live. Both of us intend to leave our huge homes to our
children, while we purchase a smaller home just for we two old people.

I wrote above how bees would play such a vital part in this "almost fairy tale" story. In the early
90's, I was detailed by EAS to TEST Tom Muncey, a MORMON commercial Nevada beekeeper,
for his Master Beekeeper certification Later, both he and I were elected to the National Honey
Board. Much later, he e-mailed me about the death of MarJeanne's husband; and I had no
knowledge of any kind about MarJeanne for 48 years. Does not the LORD work in mysterious
ways!
 November 2004

U.S. Honey Bees Need Your Care

Today is October 21st, and would be my 61st wedding anniversary if Valerie had not died of
cancer two years ago. I am VERY lonely. Nectar flows are long since OVER. Winter is just
around the corner.

Most members are concerned about the Redskins or the Ravens.Wives are planning
Thanksgiving festivities. Kids are thinking about Christmas gifts.

After 5 strokes during these past 14 years and losing my ability to walk or talk very well, Now in
my 80+ years of life and thinking of a new marriage to my "young" 72 year old Las Vegas "best
friend", my thoughts are "Will I be alive in Spring 05?"

Have I properly sought PROFESSIONAL knowledge about diseases and health, or ignored
possible death? This makes me think of wintering bees.

UNLIKE the last 397 years, since 1607, in the United States when there were no MITES, no
small hive beetles, no resistant foul brood, and thousands of wild, feral bees in every woods in
the 48 states, honey bees easily survived without much help from man; but since the arrival of
mites in 1984, bees NEED the HELP of man to survive!

If you doubt me, show me some live wild bees that have been in place more than a year.
Basically, they are nonexistent anywhere in the U.S. HONEY BEES NEED YOUR CARE IF
THEY ARE TO EXIST! What you CAN do, SHOULD do, or SHOULD HAVE DONE?

Back on August 15th, during the Montgomery County Fair, you SHOULD, have treated your
bees with MENTHOL to kill all TRACHEAL mites! Since the tracheal mite is microscopic and
NOT visible to the human eye, most beekeepers ASSUME that there are no tracheal mites, and
hence DON'T BOTHER TO TREAT.

If you OPEN a colony on a warm day in January or early February and find LOTS of honey, a
queen, and just a handful of bees, your bees were killed by TRACHEAL mites. Don't give us all
that B.S. about a COLD WINTER!

To a knowledgeable beekeeper, such a statement about a COLD WINTER just tells everybody
how UNKNOWLEDGEABLE you are about bees.

Shortly before Dr. Southwick's death about 10 years ago, he subjected many colonies to
temperatures of -20° and -40° for periods of 10days, 20-days, and even 30 consecutive days, and
NONE died. COLD does not kill healthy bees!
Have you got at least 12 deep frames, or 18 Illinois 6 5/8" frames, FULLY CAPPED frames of
honey in your colony TODAY? Why not? Why did you NOT spend $10-$15 per colony for
sugar and feed your bees back in September and October?

Are you going to try and feed them in cold December and January or just let them starve to
death? What a NASTY way to die and YOU could have prevented it.

If you are wintering in 2 DEEP bodies, the colony should weigh about 120 lbs now, or wintering
in 3 ILLINOIS bodies, the colony should weigh about 130 lbs now. of 6 lbs. of bees (20-21,000)
present if it to get though the winter.

Bees have to cluster and eat honey to raise the temperature to 91°-96° for the queen to lay eggs
in January and February and the bees MUST keep this brood warm for 21 days, so that requires
MANY winter bees to get that colony successfully through the winter. Why didn't you-
COMBINE two weak hives back in September?

It is easy to get a strong colony through the winter, but very difficult (maybe impossible) to get
two weak colonies through the winter; and even if you do, how strong are they going to be in
April and May for our ONLY nectar flow?

Did you put Varroa miticide strips, Apistan or CheckMite, in your colonies BEFORE October
1st? WHY?

I have written and talked ad infinitum about waiting until at least 10/1 or 10/15 so that there is
NO bee larvae present for the female mite to lay new mite eggs. I have steadfastly informed you
to install miticide strips between 10/1 and 10/15 and ABSOLUTELY remove them on some
warm day between 11/15 and 11/30.

If you find lots of varroa mites in April, it just shows that you put strips in the colony T00
EARLY to get a good kill of varroa. Lastly, how well do you work when you are suffering
diarrhea?

Bees don't do any better than you when they have the "runs". Why didn't you spend $2.00 for a
dose of Fumadil-B and feed it to your bees beginning October 15th - November 15th, so your
bees will be healthy in the spring? Ending, FORGET all those writings and stories of the
"natural" keeping of bees prior to 1984, which was the mite arrival in the U.S. Now 24 years
later, bees CAN'T MAKE IT ON THEIR OWN (or Naturally), but MUST HAVE YOUR HELP!

If you are UNwilling to give help to your bees, GIVE UP AND GET OUT! If you think that I am
wrong or too conservative, I BEG you to consult authorities like Dewey Caron, Jerry Fischer,
Bart Smith, Bee Inspectors Bill Troup or Greg Gochnour, or ANY of the STATE APIARISTS in
the surrounding states of Virginia or Pennsylvania.
Show them this PINK PAGE and ask them if I am right or wrong - I dare you! I have enjoyed
these 20years of converting_beeHAVES into beeKEEPERS, and particularly enjoyed watching
some of my "students" become fine beekeepers or even MASTER BEEKEEPERS.

However, I admit that so often I feel like a preacher or priest who delivers a sermon each Sunday
and then observes his parishioners IGNORING every thing that was said for the next 6 days. I
am no longer mentally strong enough to handle this type of refusal to LEARN. For 20 years, I
have TAUGHT good beekeeping practices and techniques FREE of charge, and never wanting
any reward except to witness the perfection of someone to really learn the secrets of successful
beekeeping and its JOYS. .

As long as I am able, I will continue my PINK PAGES still FREE of charge, but also I will no
longer be "quiet" when I see or hear of something totally wrong, particularly in the Honey Pot.
As an ultra conservative, the lies and negative remarks almost hourly in our presidential election
are downright frightening. Are all politicians so interested in self greed, that our system of
democracy could be destroyed.

Did George Washington, Tom Jefferson, Hamilton, etc. ever draw a salary from 1776-1789? I
remember so well the number of experts that left their jobs during World War II and came to
work in Washington for a salary of $1/year.

When I worked at Las Alamos in 1945 designing and constructing our first atomic bombs; I
know that some of the scientists worked FREE and "Head Honshu" Dr. Robert Oppenheimer
was paid less than $10,000.

Final thought: GOOD queen breeders are overwhelmed by demand and just can't supply you a
queen in April when you wait until March to place an order and then you BITCH and malign the
queen breeder.

Why don't you order a queen or queens NOW in November to be delivered by April 15th, and
send $10/queen "good faith" money? ADVANCE money TALKS very loudly. AND ONLY
GET A MARKED QUEEN which is BLUE for 2005. Blue is hard to see, so demand a BRIGHT
BLUE.

I have TOLD you what so I don't want to hear any crying or bitching next April, but trust my
knowledge. If YOU really to be a perfectionist requeen in late August when you can buy far
better bred queens, delivered on the exact date you requested, and allow your new queen and old
queen to lay during September to provide your colony with a "ton" of wintering bees that gives
your colony super extra strength for the April-May nectar flow. See "Imirie's Almost Foolproof
Requeening Method" published many years ago.

Enough Said
 January 2005

Education ????? of BeeKeepers!

PREFACE:
Although I have written these PINK PAGES for over 20 years as a written instrument to aid MY
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND beeHAVERS to become competent beeKEEPERS, for
years, these PINK PAGES have appeared monthly on various websites over the U.S. suggesting 20,000
"hits" per month. Of course, I am gratified by all those trusting my FREE knowledge; and am ELATED
that my Montgomery County Beekeeper Association has TEN Certified Master Beekeepers, whereas no
other bee association in the entire U. S. has more than TWO! It humbles me, and I am so PROUD of ALL
Master Beekeepers! THIS WAS THE EXACT REASONING of Dr. Roger Morse when he propose the
creation of Master Beekeepers 30 years ago, a mechanism to LEARN successful beekeeping through the
leadership of Certified Master Beekeepers rather than having to leave your home and attend college
classes in beekeeping and entomology.

Am I implying that one has to have a college degree or even be a high school graduate to be a
fine beekeeper? HELL, NO! and I repeat: OF COURSE NOT! Did you know that Henry Ford,
Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie and Alexander Graham Bell never went to college? And
Langstroth was a Congregationalist Church (Methodist) minister! These men layed aside the
normal person's pursuits in life, and READ, READ, READ to gain knowledge so they could
become a "master" in their chosen objective.

YOU can do likewise, if you just get off your lazy BUTT!

A Touch of History
Prior to 1984 (just 20 years ago), beekeeping did not require much knowledge, just hardwork. (I know
because I got my first hive in June 1933, 3 months after FDR became President) We ONLY had
American Foulbrood to worry about, and one hive out of every 3 in the whole U. S. had AFB! But trees
were filled with wild bees, and these clusters were loaded with swarm cells in May, so you simply
replaced your dead colony from AFB with a fresh swarm,, and it was FREE Beekeepers did not have to
know much. They just donned gloves, veils, lots of clothes, rubber bands around their pants at the ankles,
loaded 1-2 supers on their wheel barrow, waited til dusk when bees were quiet, dashed to the apiary,
smoked hell out the bees with oily rags from the garage, dropped supers on, and did not TOUCH those
colonies again for 3-4 or even 5 months. Then, repeating again, but in reverse, they dashed out and
recovered those supers and hopefully got a total of 30-50 pounds of honey. Of course, the famous people
did not do that and made lots more honey than 30-50 pounds, but these "experts" were few and far
between; so I am telling you about the "average hobbyist" of that period on either side of World War II,
like 1920-1980. By the way, I sold gorgeous square section comb honey in Bethesda for 250/pound in the
1930's and my picture often appeared in the Washington Post or Evening Star, always showing my
colonies and me without a VEIL. I forgot, people would bring Mason Jars to my law house and I would
charge them 1O¢/pound for extracted honey. WHAT WONDERFUL DAYS, and they prompted me to
READ, READ, READ, and learn more and more about successful beekeeping.
Just another SIDE-ISSUE. From 1933 to 1948, my 25 colonies were are Italians, and I requeened
every few years with queens from York Bee Co. or VVilbanks, and my bees always did well
getting maybe 100 pounds/colony; but those colonies were NOT BIG and STRONG until May,
and our early nectar flow always started in early or mid April. Always reading and studying
about bees, even though I was still testing and designing atomic bombs in my job with Atomic
Energy Commission, the "famous" Steve Taber convinced me in 1948 to change my bees from
Italians to Carniolans to take advantage of their late winter-early spring "explosive" brood
increase to build STRONG colonies 2-3 weeks in advance of Italians. It took my next 5 years
burning a lot of midnight oil READING and LEARNING about SWARM CONTROL, because
CARNIES might swarm on a warm Christmas Day. After learning, and requeening EVERY
YEAR so no queen of mine is ever 13 months old, my 10 year average yield got to be 132
pounds honey /colony in Maryland which has an average yield of only 29 pounds/colony.
Carniolans are a fine bee, but require a lot of understanding and surely NOT the bee for an
unskilled hobbyist, a beeHAVER, or a lazy beeKEEPER; but I love their quietness and docility
on the comb. But ONLY New World Carniolans developed by SUE COBEY, and REQUEEN
every 12 months, preferably in late August, but that is "another" subject of WHY?

What Happened in 1984 that CHANGED BEEKEEPING NATIONWIDE?

Somehow, lots of guess's, but no 'one really knows, the microScopic, invisible to our human eye,
TRACHEAL mite, ACARAPIS WOOD!, was found in the U.S. In spite of warnings by ARS and the 5
Federal Beekeeping Laboratories in the U. S., 95% of all beekeepers, both hobbyist and commercial
operations, IGNORED these warnings and in 1985, some commercial beekeepers owning 5,000 or 10,000
colonies had lost 90%, and many hobbyists had lost 100%. More important, the wild honey bees nestled
in every tree forest of the entire U.S. rapidly disappeared, and for the first time in history, vegetable
growers in the U.S. found LOUSY CROPS because of lack of honey bee POLLINATION. The years of
1985 and 1986 were years of total perplexity, confusion, or bewilderment. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY
BEES? was the hue and cry. Many just said the HELL WITH IT, and quit.

Beekeepers, already down for a count of 8, struggled in the hope that 1987 would be better. But
ALAS, the dreaded Varroa mite, VARROA JACOBSON', was found in the U. S., but so many
beekeepers thought that this would be an easy problem to beat, because this mite was visible to
our human eye, an ugly reddish brown, with 8 legs like a good Chesapeake Bay Crab (Yes, I
love to eat Maryland crabs). NOT SO! How do you kill a mite on a bee without killing the bee or
adulterating the honey? Now the bee scientists, the bee researchers, and the college
entomologists had to forget all their academic research about apis mellifera, and get practical to
aid all those suffering beekeepers and beehavers. They found fluvalinate made into Apistan strips
and we were on our way to recovery, provided that you followed the scientist's rules stated on
the box, and not except some "jerk" laymen's ideas about cures which used everything from
vinegar, Hall's mentholated cough drops, to syringe drips of penicillin on hive top bars. Of
course, many more colonies were lost, and many beekeepers QUIT, Thank God to get rid of
these nonconformists; but it left behind beekeepers who were willing to READ, LISTEN TO
SCIENTISTS, and LEARN! Now in 2004, there are less beekeepers in the U.S. (Maryland only
has 900+ compared to 3000 in 1984), but honey production is greater than ever before, simply
meaning that successful beekeepers are more LEARNED beekeepers than in the past.

What do mean by the terms: MORE _EARNED or EDUCATED?

You READ, READ, and LISTEN to scientific beekeepers, and LEARN! The HELL with those local
association meetings with those grand old guys‘that have had bees for 50 years! Ask them how many
packages they have to buy every year or so to replace their losses; or ask them how many nucs can you
sell each year. A GOOD beekeeper does NOT lose colonies, and always has bees to SELL, rather than
buy new ones to replenish his losses. Think about it - How could a queen breeder or package bee supplier
lose his bees "to a bad winter" every year or so? Skilled beekeepers DON'T LOSE BEES TO MITES OR
"BAD WINTERS". Many of these highly skilled professional beekeepers are NOT college trained, but
were smart enough to carefully follow the findings of the bee researchers and bee scientists, as well as
ABSORB GOOD BOOKS like lhe 1992 Extensively Revised Edition of the Hive and Honey Bee,
published by Dadant's Joe Graham and authored by perhaps the greatest collection of 34 bee researchers
and bee scientists in the U.S. By the way, how many of you readers have ever read Chapter 8 of the H &
HB written by Dr. Norm Gary? It is BORING reading, tell you nothing about "how to make more honey",
but it details BEE BEHAVIOR requiring 105 difficult pages or reading. You have watched me work bees
at Montgomery County Fair year after year dressed in shorts and no veil, find the queen, pick her up and
show the audience, and almost NEVER get stung. I am not LUCKY, but I do understand BEE
BEHAVIOR; and you too can start learning by reading NORM GARY'S Chapter 8 in the 1300+ page
book of The Hive and Honey Bee.

LISTEN to the talks by our Master Beekeepers of Montgomery County, hear M.B. Wayne Esaias
at Howard County, or Steve Mc Daniel at Carroll County, Bill Troup or Nancy Troup at
Hagerstown, Bob Crouse of Baltimore, Dean Burroughs of Salisbury, Billy Daniel of Loudon
County, VA, of course, always my old bee partner, Ann Harman of Upper Piedmont, Va.. Why
listen to someone WITHOUT PROVEN CREDENTIALS OF BEEKEEPING KNOWLEDGE
rather than SOME ONE WHO HAS PROVEN THEMSELVES BY CERTIFICATION AS A
MASTER BEEKEEPER, or pay attention to some local yokel who is a great guy, but cannot
show you one strand of evidence of beekeeping knowledge.

Wow, I made a lot of people MAD with my criticism of knowledge lacking grand old time
beekeepers. So did George W. Bush and John Kerry, or should I mention Abe Lincoln versus the
Confederacy, or the killing of Hamilton by Aaron Burr. Difference of opinion started with Cain
killing Abel, Ben Franklin changing sides from support of Great Britain to become a
revolutionary "giant", Patrick Henry's proclamation of "Give me Liberty or give me Death", and
now, I include the RECENT findings about honey bees of people like Sue Cobey, Mark Winston,
Tom Rinderer, Norm Gary, Harris and Hopkins, Morse, Caron, Calderone, Brother Adam, Cale,
and I never want to forget Friedrich Ruttner, perhaps the greatest bee geneticist of the past 100
years. There are so many more of these brilliant scientists whose research has changed and
strengthened all beekeeping. I can not leave without telling you about one more famous scientist,
who wrote a very famous book about 1800 (and my copy was printed in my ancestral home of
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1832). His name was Francois HUBER, and he lived in Switzerland, and
he was TOTALLY BLIND; but he studied honey bees based on the findings of his "good eye"
assistant. Imagine sitting in a chair in the sunshine, and TOTALLY BLIND asking your assistant
to remove combs from a hive and detail what he saw, "allowing those spoken findings to 'soak
into his brain'", and then WRITE a book (Blind, and no typewriter or computer). WOWEE! I will
bet that I have read the book 20 times, and it is amazingly accurate even by today's findings.
HUBER did NOT have an education, even as we know public school education in 2004, BUT
HE GOT OFF HIS ASS AND LEARNED BY LISTENING TO THE SCHOLARS OF 1800.
Both YOU and I can do likewise. I am ONLY BLIND in one eye!

Ending: What do mean about "Education about Honey Bees"?

It means effort, study, reading, work, listening ONLY to knowledge people irrespective of their fame,
notoriety, position, or POPULARITY. I want you to forget the junk in the library, forget the badly
outdated ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping (in spite of my friendship with Roger Morse and Kim Flottom)
who revised that "once famous" book of beekeeping from the A. I. Root Family, and the greatest-part of
my 100's of hive bodies are Root made, the "Cadillac" of bee woodware when I started beekeeping 70+
years ago., and get "UP-TO-DATE". Start by buying (about $25) Dr. Diana Sammataro's BEEKEEPERS
HANDBOOK, 3rd Edition, which many consider the finest beginner's book ever written, and a must for
those "want-to-be" old timers who just ignored LEARNING. Next, just like having the Bible beside your
bed, a LEARNING beekeeper should have the 1992 EXTENSIVELY REVISED EDITION of The Hive
and Honey Bee right on top of his desk, beside the computer, and within one year, its pages should be
dirty or tattered by constant referral in this LEARNING process. Shucks, if you do not know what the
"spiracles" of a worker bee respiratory system or how to describe the functions of the sting stylet and
lancets, or the "dangerous" orthophosphate chemical in CHECKMITE, just ask me or any other Master
Beekeeper. DON'T BE EMBARRASSED, it is the "job" of a Master Beekeeper to TEACH YOU, and
FREE of charge.

What are those things that you should know as well as your Social Security Number; and
SHOCKINGLY, most beeHAVERS and many beeKEEPERS don't know:

1. Development stages of the worker bee, queen bee, and drone bee
2. Differences in the races of honey bees, and all about man-made HYBRIDS like Buckfast,
Starlines. Midnights, AFRICANIZED honey bees, and "UNCLE CHARLIES", or "Tennessee
Bangers" or "Maryland's Best"
3. SUPERING: Particularly WHEN, and HOW MANY, and WHY SWARMING: Why? control?
prevention? race difference? and WHEN? There is a HELL of difference between swarming
BEFORE a nectar flow and swarming AFTER the nectar flow is in high gear
4. DISEASES: Identification and treatment, and CAUSED BY WHAT?

Note that I never mentioned HONEY PRODUCTION. Back in 1932, my mentor, Dr.. James I.
Hambleton, said repeatedly "All the action, both good and bad, is in the BROOD chamber.
FORGET THE SUPERS, and pay strong attention to the actions in the BROOD chamber, and
healthy bees will fill those supers". I have never forgotten, and my bees have always been
healthy for over 70 years, because I recognized AFB and DESTROYED the colony before it
infected others, I treated at the RIGHT TIME for mites (not when it was just convenient to me).

In today's times, you MUST accept the fact that our bees need HELP to survive, and I did NOT
say, "change their lifestyle to modern day thinking". Since the days of Adam and Eve, Cleopatra,
Columbus, George Washington, or Bill Clinton, honey bees have NOT changed one iota, or
learned a single new thing. How much can you learn in 42 days? How big is the honey bee
brain? How did it survive in the Swiss Alps, Siberia, or Alaska for centuries without our help?
Why do they need OUR HELP? Modern day "know-nothings", constantly striving for another
"buck, have led beginning beekeepers down that figmented road of riches via bees, and set good,
successful beekeeping difficult to accomplish. MY PARAMOUNT concern about this is the fact
that beginning beekeepers, and those old "fogies" out there, just ignore the scientific fact that
honey bees have a total 1N-ABILITY to LEARN and hence can not change their life-styles to fit
this 21st century. We SMART-ASS humans who have built computers, atomic bombs,
transferred hearts and kidneys, gone to the moon, made polio obsolete, and can fly from
Washington DC to gamble in Las Vegas in just 5 hours, have YET to accept the fact that
successful beekeeping REQUIRES that the HUMAN must LEARN all about honey bees, their
lifestyle, their diseases, their race differences, their BEE BEHAVIOR, and a thousand other
LEARNABLE things about bees. All of what I have said means "YOU, I repeat YOU, have to
get off your lazy butt, and LEARN if you want to be successful as a beekeeper. Valuable Post
Script about Maryland STATE Beekeepers Assn. Some of you are NOT members of MSBA, and
I cannot understand that! You say that you want to be a knowledgeable beeKEEPER, yet you
won't go to hear EXPERTS talk or read the writings of EXPERT Master Beekeepers. In the
January 2005 BEELINE, the MSBA Newsletter, Master Beekeeper Bill Miller wrote about Dr.
Tom Rinderer interpretation of "sound apiculture research with controlled experiments and the
interpretation of those results." Gary Reuter of the Univ. of Minnesota described an interesting
management scheme whereby an overwintered colony is split, the parent colony becomes the
honey producer and the split has a new queen, gets strong and becomes NEXT year's honey
producer. Dr. Nick Calderone of Cornell described all the factors of interpreting "sticky" board,
ether roll, and alcohol wash TESTS to establish the % of Varroa infected bees.

He further talked about the efficiency of screened bottom boards. Dr. Jeff Pettis gave two talks
about the effect of miticides on the health of queens, and that "hygienic" queens DO keep AFB
under control, but only about half of all "supposedly" hygienic queens sold are truly hygienic!
BILL MILLER, I SALUTE YOU FOR A SUPERB ARTICLE.

Not to be outdone by Bill Miller, Master Beekeeper Bill Troup wrote a FANTASTIC article
about many of the chemicals used by beekeepers today, and a discussion of the GOOD and BAD
points of these chemical. The list included Bee-Go, Honey Robber, Apistan, CheckMite, API
Life-Var, Apicure, Mite-A-Thol, Sucrocide, Terramycin, Fumagillin-B, Para-Moth, Gardstar
40%, and talked much about Butyric Anhydride. WHAT A SUPERB JOB BILL TROUP HAS
DONE WITH THIS ARTICLE, and I SALUTE YOU!

Jerry Fischer and MSBA President David Smith are inquiring about the interest of members in a
ONE DAY course in ADVANCE BEEKEEPING to be held in June in which MASTER
BEEKEEPERS would be heavily involved as instructors.

Our February 19th Winter Meeting at Howard county Fairgrounds is EXCITING provided YOU
want to LEARN. It features TWO great researchers: Dr. Marion Ellis of University of Nebraska
talking about colony MANAGEMENT for honey production and swarm and supersedure
biology of bees. WOW! The second dynamite speaker is our "own" Dr. Dewey Caron of the
Univ. of Delaware, and he will take about REQUEENING (one of my favorite subjects)

Lastly the Treasurer's Report shows a balance of $4,000 in the George Imirie Education Fund. It
can always use some more money to aid in beeKEEPER education! Can't you find a few bucks
to give to that fund, PLUS JOIN MSBA?
This BEELINE Newsletter is the FINEST that I have seen in years ABOUT EDUCATION! I
SALUTE THE EDITOR AND PRESIDENT! For any of you Montgomery County members
who did not receive it, just ask ME and I will make copies for you at my own expense and mail
them to you, but HURRY, because I will be traveling all over the U. S. and visiting queen
breeders and bee equipment houses with my new Las Vegas fiancee.

Rather TYPICAL of me, I make NO apologies for rudeness. Someone had to do it eventually to
gain a proper dedication of others to successful beekeeping.

I end this tirade with THANKS to all those many fine beeHAVERS who followed my thoughts
over the last 20 years, and some even became teaching CERTIFIED Master Beekeepers and
many more became good beekeepers. That HUMBLES me.

February 2005

It is FEBRUARY and COLD. Are your bees ALIVE?

or
How much HELP have YOU been since August?
Never known for being nice or complimentary to EVERYONE (like politicians campaigning for
votes and money), my thoughts are to TEACH, EDUCATE, INSTRUCT, and INFORM all
beeHAVERS and some beeKEEPERS the methods used to be a successful beekeeper in central
MARYLAND; and hence, sometimes, I am TOUGH and DEMANDING in order to get your
ATTENTION (even MAD) in order to force you to THINK. Being nice lulls you to doze or let
your mind agree that everything you do is correct; but being CHALLENGED elevates your
adrenaline and puts your mind in high-gear thinking.

With that said, have you INSPECTED your bees in January? Don't give me that crap that it is too
cold!

Over and over, we hear the stories,I KNOW that my bees are alive, because I saw them flying in
and out of the hive. Too often, your colony is dead, and what you saw was ROBBER bees. You
CANNOT tell the colony condition without going INSIDE and inspecting! THAT IS A MUST!
Just wait for a day that has a temperature over 55°-6O° and open the hive for a quick inspection -
SO SIMPLE!

A queen laying in cold January? A young Carniolan queen will start laying in early January, and
a young Italian queen might start laying by February 1st. WHY the difference? Southern homes
have air conditioning and few furnaces, whereas northern homes have big furnaces and small air
conditioners.
Or the north has elk and bear, whereas the south has flamingo and race horses . The Italian race
of bees home territory is southern Italy surrounded by the warm Mediterranean Sea, whereas the
home territory of the Carniolan race of bees is at the base of the ALPs in the Carniolan Mountain
range in Austria and Yugoslavia (now Croatia and Serbia). Hence, the Carniolan race is geared
to flying in cooler weather than the Italian race, and hence starts brood rearing earlier. Isn't
Nature WONDERFUL!

EVERY spring, one always hears the standard beekeeper excuse that the cold winter killed his
bees. WHAT A BUNCH OF BALONEY! This is only MARYLAND. How do the WILD bees
survive in Maine, Minnesota, Canada,Scotland, or Siberia?

DR. Southwick, before his death, kept colonies in freezers with temperatures as low as -6O° for
as long as a month, and PROVED that very cold temperatures does NOT kill HEALTHY bees!

Note that word: HEALTHY! Had YOU killed both the tracheal mites and the varroa mites before
November? Was your queen less than 2 years old, or preferably less than 1 year old? Did YOU
have at feast 70 pounds of honey in the colony in November?

Did YOU have an UPPER ENTRANCE to allow HUMIDITY to escape the colony? Was the
colony protected from northwest winds? Did the colony SLOPE FORWARD so rain or snow
could drain out the front door?

Was there at least 20,000 bees in the colony in NOVEMBER? Are you SURE that the colony did
not have AFB, or are YOU dependent on a bee inspector to identify AFB?

Please note that I did NOT mention any other diseases such as Nosema, because all other
diseases except AFB don't kill, particularly in the cold months. Sure, there are cases where a
healthy colony died in the winter because the queen dropped dead, just like a few 20-40 year
humans drop dead, but these are exceptions.

Go ahead, HATE me for saying it; but most winter deaths are caused by INSUFFICIENT food,
WEAK hives entering November, forgetting tracheal mite kill in August, and POOR TIMING in
varroa mite kill; and You, and I repeat YOU, could have prevented these deaths if you just were
better EDUCATED in successful beeKEEPING.

This is easily done by attending meetings where bee scientists and Master Beekeepers are the
speakers or demonstrators; and by reading UP-TO-DATE books like the 1992 EXTENSIVELY
REVISED Edition of THE HIVE AND HONEY BEE. Books, written before about 1992, are
basically useless because the did NOT cover MITES, SMALL HIVE BEETLES, or
RESISTANT AFB. Don't try to "tune" the engine of your 2000 model Chevrolet by using a GM
service manual for a 1980 Chevrolet.

WHY is BROOD rearing so important in late January and surely early February? (Those 40
DAYS that I constantly mention.) Contrary to whatever else you have heard or read, in central
Maryland our ONLY real nectar flow that yields any surplus honey is collected between April
15th and June 15th; and there is NO honey made after those 2 months. Some diehards are going
to say “what about the clover in July or the goldenrod in late August?" Yes, there are isolated
instances that these crops are possible, but rarely and totally UNdependable! (Back to 40
DAYS).

A worker bee does NOT go out to forage for nectar or pollen until it is 19 days old, because it
spends the first 18 days of its life as a nurse bee doing hive duties INSIDE the hive. The
gestation period for a worker bee is 21 days. Hence, from the day the queen lays the worker egg
until that bee begins to forage for nectar is 21 days + 19 days that equals 40 DAYS. Hence, if
you want a bee ready to ATTACK a strong nectar flow that starts on April 15th, the queen bee
had to lay that worker bee egg by MARCH 6th, and 40 days later is April 15th!

WHAT CAUSES THE QUEEN TO LAY BROOD? Some people STILL do not know that a
queen bee makes NO decisions, but is TOTALLY directed and controlled by the worker bees!
The workers "exercise" this direction by HOW MUCH and HOW OFTEN they FEED the queen.

Since pollen is the sole source of PROTEIN in a bee diet, the first pollen found by flying worker
bees on a warm winter day from such flora as maples, alders, skunk cabbage, or willows signals
the colony that spring is coming.

The very first nectar collected is very thin in sugar collected, the beekeeper can really get the
worker bees excited about "spring is almost here" by feeding the bees thin (1:2) sugar syrup (1
pound of sugar in 2 pints of water), and a pollen substitute like BeePro in January and early
February, and then switch to 1:1 sugar syrup (1 lb. sugar in 1 pint of water) in mid February.

This treatment will greatly enhance queen laying provided that there are ENOUGH bees in the
colony to maintain and WARM a large brood nest area! (Maybe now you understand why there
should be a lot of young worker bees in November who will keep the late winter brood warm.)

You MUST understand that this early feeding to get the heavy brood rearing that is necessary to
get a heavy yield of honey is also going to cause SWARMING problems!

Here too, most beekeepers lack knowledge about swarm control, which has basically two
parameters: have a queen LESS THAN 6-8 months old, and two, for the beekeeper to always
have queen LAYING space ABOVE the queen as she tries to move UP in the colony.

There is a LOT of work for the beekeeper in February, March, and particularly April.

THIS is the MOST work of the year for a successful beekeeper, and it is normally still CHILLY.
If you thought that bee work was on nice warm weekends, maybe that is why you have not
gained much honey or the bees swarmed. AS ALWAYS, the more bee education you get, the
more successful you will be.

Shucks, I will give you just one thought, BUT very important, regarding swarm control that
should be done in February rather than waiting until March; and that is REVERSING of the
brood boxes. Many of you are using TWO deep bodies for brood boxes, and others are agreeing
with my thoughts and using THREE medium bodies for brood boxes.

BOTH systems have EXACTLY the same amount of comb space for brood; except the 3
medium bodies give you MORE FLEXIBILITY of movement than do the 2 deep bodies, and
each medium body is only 2/3 the weight of a deep body, which is great for the ladies or the
older gentlemen.

By February, the bottom brood body should be EMPTY of everything, particularly BROOD, and
the bees are working in the top body and getting close to the hole in the inner cover. It is the
perfect time to REVERSE those brood bodies, because bees always want to go UP, and rarely
down. Hence, you slide out the bottom body and simply put it up on top of the other deep brood
box or on top of the other 2 medium brood boxes.

Now, your queen has empty space to move UP into, and YOU have empty comb space for the
bees to install the FEED that I hope you are feeding them. REVERSING is considered by most
experts the Number One swarm control technique, but it is an "art" and cannot be explained in
just a few words. I have just given you the FIRST step of reversing, and it should be done in
FEBRUARY (not March).

Speaking of FEEDING, I have to AGAIN mention the types of FEEDERS. A bee HAS TO GET
TO THE SYRUP to take any. At outside temperatures of less than about 40° bees are well
clustered and they will NOT move more than an inch or so away from that warm cluster to get
food, so they STARVE.

The sugar syrup must be in contact with the cluster for them to feed. This FACT negates the use
of front door feeders, hive top feeders, and most division board feeders BECAUSE THE SYRUP
IN THESE FEEDERS IS SEVERAL INCHES AWAY FROM THE BEES.

The only POSITIVE type of feeder that works in cold weather is the PAIL FEEDER or
INVERTED GLASS BOTTLE FEEDER both of which can be placed directly on top of the tops
of brood frames in direct contact with the bees. It just seems that so many beekeepers just don't
understand the fact that a bee will NOT travel away from a warm cluster even 2-3 inches to get
food, so the food has to put in direct contact with the bees to be effective!

Too many people think a bee colony is like their bay fishing boat, where you bring it back home
on the trailer in October and just sit in your back yard until the weather warms up in April.
Honey bees are alive, active, and EATING 365 days of the year, and maybe YOU have to help
them get through the winter.

I will end with perhaps a surprise. If you are going to order any packages of bees this year and
expect to get them anytime before early MAY, you might already be TOO LATE. Because of the
increased demand for bees and the dismal shipping problems, many bee suppliers already have
FULL RESERVATIONS for early shipments.
 March 2005

SERIOUSLY, HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT SWARMING?

In our Montgomery County, Maryland, WITHOUT beekeeper KNOWLEDGE about swarming,
some of you, during April and particularly MAY, are going to lose much of your honey crop and
perhaps YOUR BEES because they SWARMED. I have heard many say "isn't that NORMAL,
part of the game?" My reply is: Could a professional honey producer, whose entire income is
based on honey production, tolerate swarming? Hence, I am saying that swarms can be prevented
by knowledgeable beekeepers, but probably not by beeHAVERS or those too lazy to LEARN.

Losing a swarm in late March or April, BEFORE the major nectar flow in May, should be SELF
proof to yourself that you do NOT understand much about swarming. It is my purpose to try to
"educate" you in BEE BEHAVIOR, so you learn to "think like a bee", and hence, prevent
swarming, maintain a strong colony for next year, but still have a SUCCESSFUL honey crop
which can be sold, gifted, or "make you fat".

Every LEARNING episode needs some BASIC UNDERSTANDING, without which the
"student" is lost. Hence, follow what I am going to say: Swarming is a very NATURAL
occurrence that started eons ago when ALL bees lived in the natural hollows of trees. There, in
this small enclosure (about the size of one deep hive body-or smaller),- the queen layed brood
heavily to provide bees to collect nectar which would provide food for next year's winter. In
early spring, this "house" suddenly was VERY CROWDED with far too many bees (like a one
bedroom apartment with 6 children), so the worker bees fed "royal jelly" to eggs deposited in
queen cups, STOPPED the queen from laying, and just a day or so BEFORE a new virgin queen
was supposed to emerge, about 50% of the adult bees, PUSHED THEIR QUEEN MOTHER out
the door and said " Come on, SWARM to some new home with us." NOTE RIGHT HERE: The
queen does NOT lead the worker bees in their action, but the queen HAS to be PUSHED to go
along. The queen leaves ALL decisions to the worker bees, and the queen.is simply an "EGG
LAYING MACHINE" whose progeny are part of the GENETICS of her parents and the 7-1 5
drones that mated with her. Further, some bee RACES will swarm sooner than others, and raise
brood sooner than other races. A notable example of this difference is the Carniolan race, whose
"home" is in the foothills of the ALPS along the Danube River where it is cooler than Italy and
the nectar season much shorter. The Carnies that are used in the U.S. are well known to enter the
winter with a smaller cluster, eat less winter stores, and EXPLODE with early brood rearing 2-3
weeks before the Italian race. This pattern is ideal for our central Maryland MAJOR nectar flow
in April and May, which persuaded me to switch my 60 colonies in 1948 (57 years ago) from
Italians to Carniolans. OBVIOUSLY, when one has Carniolan bees, he must have great
understanding of SWARMING; and therefore, the Carniolan is NOT a good bee for a beginner
or beeHAVER. However, all races of honey bees SWARM and ALL for the SAME REASONS,
so let's talk about THOSE reasons, and those reasons are SO DIFFERENT depending on the
presence of a nectar flow or the absense of a nectar flow. You MUST understand that no
beekeeper can truly PREVENT swarming, but a LEARNED beekeeper can dramatically inhibit
swarming so he loses very few swarms from his apiary whether it consists of 5 colonies, 50
colonies, or 500 colonies.

As I write this, I am so reminded of those days 60-70 years ago when I listened to the the talks of
those great "old timers" advising all listeners that the best swarm prevention techniques were to
always have a "clipped" queen, so she could not fly; and always provide EXTRA SPACE. We
have LEARNED so much more about swarming since those days. Now we know that a
CLIPPED queen will NOT prevent swarming, but maybe delay it for a few days; because the
bees, so intent to swarm,vovill kill the old queen and swarm with the first virgin queen that
emerges. What does SPACE mean, (kitchen space, bedroom space, apartment space, or front-
door space????) Without explanation, most beekeepers just put on a super of foundation (MORE
space), and the bees SWARMED. Of course, the QUEEN was blamed, which is like grabbing for
straws in a hurricane. If one would just "get off their butt" and LEARN what bee scientists teach
every day, they would know just what SPACE is. SPACE means "BROOD REARING" space,
which is NOT done in supers, but down in the brood chambers of the colony where bees are
maintaining a 90°-96° temperature for queen egg laying and brood survival.

Now, I will "set a stage" for you to dwell on: Regardless of whether you are using two deep
bodies or three medium bodies for wintering colonies, in either case, the UPPER half of the
colony was all capped honey in November, and the lower area was some brood, some capped
honey, and the CLUSTER of bees. As the winter progressed, the cluster slowly moved
ALWAYS UPWARD (never sideways) and by February the cluster should be in the upper box
and leaving the BOTTOM HIVE BODY TOTALLY EMPTY OF ANY THING. Brood rearing
is well underway, honey stores being rapidly used, dandelion nectar is about to appear, pollen is
available, winter bees are dying, young bees are becoming VERY numerous, and the
IMPORTANT thing for the bee is NOT honey, but BROOD rearing! In spite of all that empty
cell space in the EMPTY bottom brood box, bees just REFUSE to go DOWN during those chilly
months, but if they run out of queen laying space in that upper brood box, they will SWARM
(and probably die of starvation); Science has NOT YET deciphered why the bees will NOT go
DOWN in the early spring, but swarm instead. YOU, the beekeeper, could have easily prevented
this swarm by simply REVERSING the two brood boxes, so the box with all the brood, queen,
and the bees are now in the BOTTOM box position and the former EMPTY bottom box is now
in the TOP box position, and NOW the queen can move UP and have LOTS of SPACE for
laying eggs. YOU only have to provide 1:1 sugar syrup through the inner cover hole to provide
lots of food to the bees who are making their brood nest just under that inner cover hole! I have
just described maybe the most important anti-swarming technique called REVERSING. Some
lazy beekeepers have just added another empty brood box on top of the existing boxes rather
than REVERSE. History has shown that this is harmful because it just increases the box volume
that bee cluster heat has to warm up; so REVERSE! Now, I hope you know the proper definition
of "SPACE".

How often does the beekeeper have to REVERSE? How often do you have to fill your car with
gas? REVERSING is dependent on colony STRENGTH, location, deep frames or medium
frames in the brood chamber, fecundity of the queen, race of bees, average temperature, and
maybe some more variables. Hence there is NO WAY to say figures like "every 2 weeks", "once
each month", or "twice" each spring, or any other figure. You INSPECT YOUR BEES, and
when you find the upper brood box well filled with brood, bees, queen, and food, and the lower
brood box mostly empty or ONLY old Capped brood, REVERSE! I make my first REVERSE in
mid January, and my last REVERSE usually about April 15th or May 1st, some years I have
only reversed 3 times, but other years 5 times. It is IMPORTANT for you to LEARN these
things to become more and more successful at beeKEEPING.

The FOREGOING was just PART ONE of this writing. Now, let me talk about that spring
period during a major nectar flow, when MOST swarms occur. LEARN ABOUT BEE
BEHAVIOR! Specifically, once that great NECTAR flow gets underway, the bees, NOW
"graduating" from 'nurse' bees into 'forager' bees, forget thoughts of brood chamber space for
raising brood, and switch their thinking to nectar collection to ripen into honey which will
provide winter survival stores for their "family" long after they are DEAD. READERS, think
about this - Is not this what you attempt to do for your grandchildren and heirs? Now, when bees
have switched their thoughts totally to nectar collection, WHERE are they going to store this
THIN, WATERY SUCROSE solution that might be as much' as 25 pounds per day until they
can evaporate the 50%-80% water from it and ripen it into honey? Have YOU provided the
DRAWN COMB (like a cabinet) needed to store all these "goodies"? FOUNDATION is NOT
going to take the place of DRAWN COMB, just like expensive fancy lumber will not take the
place of a chair when you need to sit down. Although forager age bees, those over 19 days old,
can secrete wax and build foundation into drawn comb, it is NOT their interest, and they will
decide. to SWARM and start all over again. Irrespective of which size super you use, shallow
that holds about 35 pounds, medium that holds about 40 pounds, or a deep that holds about 60
pounds, if your bees bring in 20-25 pounds of nectar each day for 2-3 days, and find NO SPACE
to store this nectar, it is time to "get out of this dilemma" and SWARM, SWARM, SWARM.
Don't BLAME the bees, YOU caused that swarm in failure to provide super space; and that
space had to hold large quantities of THIN, WATERY NECTAR until your bees got time to
EVAPORATE the water, inject the solution with the enzyme INVERTASE, and ripen the
converted sucrose to a combination of glucose and fructose, NOW CALLED HONEY. How
many supers should you install and WHEN? Think in terms of producing 80-120 pounds of
honey, which is 2-3 medium supers filled with HONEY (not nectar). Hence, install FIVE
medium supers of drawn comb, NOT FOUNDATION, about April 15th, but before May 1st. so
your bees, seeing all that VAST storage area above their brood chamber, forget about swarming
and concentrate on FILLING all that space with nectar. I want you to note that bee research has
definitely proven that it is far better to install your supers ALL AT ONE TIME then trying to add
them one at a time as the first ones get filled., but the frames MUST BE DRAWN COMB and
NOT foundation. (see page 620 of the 1992 Hive and Honey Bee)

Many of you don't have frames of DRAWN COMB, and some don't know how to get foundation
drawn into comb, and others let wax moths destroy drawn comb after the honey harvest. I want
to TEACH beginners how to convert foundation into DRAWN COMB, and I want to "kick butt"
of the lazy beeHAVERS how allow wax moths to destroy drawn comb. I AM NOT RUNNING
FOR OFFICE, BUT TRYING TO TEACH YOU HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL
BEEKEEPER; and it is YOUR decision.
You cannot CHANGE nature - bees will ONLY build comb if th-t e is a NECTAR flow in
progress, and NO OTHER TIME! We can "trick" the bees by Teeding sugar syrup as an artificial
nectar flow; but in EITHER case, if there is "nothing coming INTO the hive in the form of
nectar", the bees are not going to build a single cell of foundation into comb. Further, comb
building is HARD WORK and TIME CONSUMING for bees, and they have to consume about 8
lbs of honey to produce one pound of wax. Further, all of this work is primarily done by young,
nurse bees, not by those "old" foragers that are over 19 days old. Since bees will only WORK on
just what is needed for that day (can't PLAN AHEAD), you can only install ONE super of
foundation, and those 10 frames MUST BE TIGHTLY PACKED TOGETHER with NO SPACE
between the end bars. Inspect the progress every 3-4 days, and when that super of foundation is
about 2/3 drawn and filled with nectar, move the center filled frames OUT and the outside
UNfilled frames to the center, and THEN, add a second super of all foundation, and continue this
procedure until the nectar flow stops. If you have a very strong colony, it may be possible to get
50 frames of foundation drawn into comb in a single year; but it is better to figure on 2-3 years to
get 50 frames of DRAWN COMB.

Assuming that you have tried very hard and followed directions in getting foundation made into
DRAWN COMB that holds a honey crop, and you (with great delight in your success) extract
the honey, YOU now can give some away, sell some, and even win a ribbon at the fair with
some. MY GOD, why then would you let the wax moths destroy all the hard work by the bees in
comb building, as well as your "sufferance?' WHAT IS THE CURE FOR THIS? After you
extract, put the super of wet frames over the inner cover of one of your strong hives and let them
CLEAN OUT every drop of honey for the next 3-4 days. You take these clean honey supers into
your shed, garage, or basement, stack them 5-10 supers tall, place a tablespoon of PDB (para-
dichloro-benzene) on the frame top bars of each super, seal the supers together with masking
tape, and VOILA, your drawn comb is protected from wax moths until next spring. If you do this
in July, you MIGHT have to add more PDB in late August or September. Personally, I don't take
chances, I always add a second dose of PDB.

I left "perhaps the MOST important swarm PREVENTION technique" to my ending remarks,
because it apparently is very difficult for most hobbyist beekeepers to understand. You have to
understand that a colony of honey bees is a singular "total FAMILY" all of whom are devoted to
one purpose - colony survival and its future! When you have 20,000, 40,000, or 603000 bees all
living in the same "house", and none of them "talk" or communicate with each other, HOW DO
THEY KNOW THAT THEIR QUEEN IS PRESENT? in recent years bee scientists have
PROVEN that each queen produces a specific "scent", "odor", "substance" or what-have-you
now called the queen PHEROMONE. As long as her bees can detect that pheromone, they are
happy, dedicated workers; but in failure to detect that pheromone, they want to raise a NEW
queen and swarm. MY NEXT SENTENCE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: The scientists
have PROVEN that the queen's ability to produce this wonderful scent DECREASES EVERY
DAY OF HER LIFE from the day of her mating. Hence, a very young queen can successfully
bind 50,000-60,000 of her progeny into a functioNing, working, unit without ideas of
SWARMING, because she has enough queen pheromone to spread over a vast number of bees.
However, as she ages, she has less and less control over the bees who want to replace her with a
NEW queen and SWARM. It has been shown that a 12 months old queen is 2 times more likely
to swarm than a 1 month old queen, and a 24 month old queen is 4 tithes more likely to swarm
than a 1 month old queen. Further, queens should not be aged by number of months alive, but by
how many EGGS THEY HAVE LAYED, of course the most being in the spring of each year
Hence, a queen that you buy in April and lays 1500-2000 eggs every day for the next 2-3 months
is no longer a "young" queen the following April. Since queens are not expected to lay very
strongly in fall or winter, a queen .born in late summer and installed in your colony in Augustor
September is Still a "YOUNG" cfueen the following April, and capable of producing vast
quantities of queen pheromone that inhibits swarming. You SHOULD BE AWARE that the
-great Majority of commercial honey producing beekeepers, even those that have as many
colonies as Richard Adee's 60,000 colonies REQUEEN EVERY 12 MONTHS and generally in
the LATE SUMMER or EARLY FALL. I'm referring to those beekeepers who have 5000,
10,000, 30,000 colonies or more and derive their TOTAL income from their bees, not these
"side-liners" with only 1000, or 3000 colonies and a regular job. If a beekeeper with 10,000
colonies buys 10,000 queens each year, or a beekeeper with 30,000 colonies buying 30,000 new
queen each year to inhibit swarming, why can't you do the same for your few colonies and
PROTECT your honey crop? Want to find out FIRST HAND? Just attend the January 2006
meeting in Louisville, Kentucky of the American Beekeeping Federation and ASK those
commercial honey producers "How often do you requeen, what time of year, and WHY?"
AFTER YOU HAVE DONE THAT, you are free to disagree with me about swarm control.
Meanwhile, with MARKED queens, I KNOW that I lose precious few swarms; and hence
produce a great deal of honey each year. So ALWAYS HAVE A MARKED QUEEN!

SUPPOSE THEY SWARM - HOW DO YOU RECOVER THEM? There is the swarm hanging
on the limb of a nearby tree, or maybe wrapped around a fence post, or hidden in the hedge
around your house. Depending on the time of day, temperature, HOW LONG THEY HAVE
BEEN THERE, they are NOT GOING TO STAY PUT VERY LONG, maybe just a few minutes
and as long as 24 hours (longer if it rains). So many UNINFORMED try to entice them into a
box with HONEY. WHAT A JOKE THAT 1St These bees are already "gorged to the gills" with
honey that they will use in their new home for food and comb building. (How active are you
after a big Thanksgiving Dinner?) Not only are these bees "stuffed with food", but they are in "a
few hour" rest space which is NOT a home to defend. A SWARM OF BEES IS EXTREMELY
CALM AND NOT INTERESTED IN STINGING, and generally can be handled like a hungry
kitten. These bees are looking for a HOME - not food. DON'T RILE THEM UP WITH A
SMOKER! They are as calm as bees ever get. A frame of larva and eggs is almost like an
aphrosdisiac to bees - they have great desire to "get aboard" that frame and take care of those
"baby bees". In NO need of food, just wanting a shelter to call home, start comb building so the
queen can lay, all you have to do is !lace a hive body close by with a frame or two of EIDRAWN
COMB (not foundation) and BEST OF ALL, a frame of "open brood" from one of your other
hives, either shake the limb that holds the swarm so the bees drop into your hive body, or put it
against the fence post holding the swarm, and using your fingers slowly push some of those bees
into your hive body, or if they are the hedge, push the hive body tight against the bee cluster and
then GENTLY, GENTLY, smoke from the other side so they go to the hive body to get away
from the smoke. Again, I say LEARN BEE BEHAVIOR! I see people trying to recover a swarm
using VOLUMES OF SMOKE, GLOVES ON THEIR HANDS, A HOT, FULL BEE SUIT ON
and that is like calling out the National Guard to protect the 6 year old child's lemonade stand.
Those people have ZERO understanding about bees - they are only beeHAVERS or worse.
Of course, the ideal swarm recovery method, IF YOU CAN AFFORD ABOUT $300, is have an
electric powered swarm VACUUM box like a vacuum cleaner, where you just stick the nozzle
into the swarm and SUCK the bees into a carry box which you take home and dump the bees into
a nice new hive of DRAWN COMB frames and some 1:1 sugar syrup as a nectar attractant. If
you have about 200 feet of electric extension cord, about 90% of the time, you can find a 110V
plug to get electricity, and MOST people are very willing, and even enthused, to HELP you, and
"admire" your BRAVERY in swarm capture

Will YOUR bees swarm this year, or have you LEARNED something?

April 2005

WHEN? HOW MANY? WHICH FOUNDATION? SIZE?

Surely WHEN and HOW MANY are the most important considerations on this subject.
Although I write this for my Montgomery County, MD beekeepers, the entire writing is apropos
in every part of the country by just changing the starting date according to your local weather.
For my home county, APRIL 1 is the very important date!

Hopefully, you have "digested" my March article about swarming; because if you have not, this
April article regarding SUPERING might be a "waste of time". Further, my remarks are
concerned with the use of frames of DRAWN COMB, and NOT frames of foundation. The
proper use of FOUNDATION is a "WHOLE NEW SUBJECT."

What value is a snow shovel on July 4th? What value is a bikini bathing suit on Christmas Day?
DON'T LAUGH! What value are supers of drawn comb sitting in your shed, garage, or basement
during the month of APRIL? Perhaps the weather on April 1st is still chilly, your furnace is still
running, Daylight Savings time is not yet here, beach parties at Rehobeth or Ocean City are a
long way off; BUT YOUR BEES, if they were disease free and strong back in November, have
been raising new BROOD all during cold February and March, and those colonies should be
"busting" with young bees and more brood. Although these bees will be dead before June, they,
as nature dictates, are trying to "put away" the spring nectar crop as honey winter stores for the
future bees in 2006.

Don't you do likewise fo your heirs? By April 1st, your bees should be getting very strong, and
have collected LOTS of late winter pollen, packed it away in cells for future use, dandelion has
bloomed and on warm days excited your bees with fresh nectar, and your bees should be
"busting" with excitement and DOING THINGS such as swarming due to lack of open brood
space and your queen is being lavishly fed so she is laying 1500-2000 eggs every day. TIME
FOR YOU TO DO SOMETHING!
Go in your shed, dust off at least ONE super of drawn comb, get to your colony even if the
afternoon temperature is only 45°-50°, forget the smoke, remove the inner cover, PUT THAT
SUPER IN PLACE, replace the inner cover, put 1:1 syrup in place over the inner cover hole, and
go inside for a cup of hot coffee. WHAT HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED?

You have provided new space for the queen to lay, you have provide new space for early nectar
flows, you have provided new space for pollen, NEEDED FOR GOOD BROOD REARING -
PROTEIN!, and you might have prevented an early swarm, and you have BAITED a super to
continue to attract bees into additional supers! All of this was done on APRIL 1, not April 5th, or
10th, or some nice warm weekend.

During the next 15 days, April 1-15, you thoroughly clean a queen excluder, and find 4 more
supers of DRAWN COMB FRAMES. On April 15th, MAIL YOUR INCOME TAX, and try to
relax with just a whisp of smoke on your bees, your super of April 1st will surely have perhaps
some eggs or larvae plus nectar in the cells, get that queen back down in the brood chamber,
INSTALL THE QUEEN EXCLUDER, place that BAIT super on top, and then add ALL AT
ONE TIME 4 more supers of DRAWN COMB; and all of this on April 15th in Montgomery
County, MD.

WHAT HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED? Unless you have some 2 year "old Lady" for a queen,
you have prevented swarming, you have provided extra laying space for the queen to provide
more worker bees, and you have CHALLENGED the worker bees to FILL all those 4 supers of
empty space above that first super.. Dr. Tom Rinderer of the Baton Rouge Bee Lab was first to
PROVE this about 15-20 years ago, and now other honey bee researchers STRONGLY
ENDORSE putting on multiple supers all at once rather than trying to install them one at a time.
Why 5 supers in Montgomery County, where you might only get 2 or maybe 3 supers of honey?

Bees DON'T COLLECT HONEY, but collect THIN WATERY NECTAR that requires storage
space until the bees can evaporate the water and ripen the nectar into honey.

I will end with "controversial" subjects, like are blondes better lovers than brunettes, or are all
red-heads "hot mamas?" There is no question than bees prefer natural beeswax FOUNDATION
to all other foundation. However, the wiring of frames, the fastening of sheets of beeswax to the
wires, the placement of support studs in the the frame endbars to help prevent hot-weather
SAGGING is a real "pain in the butt!"

MUCH TO MY DISTASTE, I did all that with about 3000 frames from 1933 - about 1980, when
I "discovered" Dadant's PLASTICELL Foundation. What a WONDERFUL find for me! It is
absolutely indestructible, just SNAP it in to your wood frames with no wiring or support studs,
just scrape away bad comb with your hive tool and bees will REBUILD beautiful worker comb,
you can't BREAK it by high speed extraction, and it lasts forever (at least 25 years that I have
had it). Bees are more reluctant to build comb on it than natural bees wax foundation, but if you
provide PLASTICELL foundation to your bees during a good nectar flow, they are anxious to
build comb on anything available. On course for those of US (me included) who like to produce
cut-comb or 4"x 4" wooden section boxes (what nostalgia for me), there is no substitute for thin
beeswax foundation in spite of its many problems.
Lastly, as an old scientist, and trying total PLASTIC frames, both black and white, I think they
are the "pits" of successful beekeeping and just the "handyman" of the lazy beeHAVER.

I forgot to mention Dadant's DURAGILT. So it is slightly cheaper and has metal ends to prevent
sagging, but it is just plain JUNK. Once your bees remove the beewax from that thin plastic
sheet, there is NO WAY that you can ever entice your bees to rebuild over that spot.

In finality, if I were again young (I am 84), had a helping wife (I am a widower), and just 5-10
colonies, I would still use ALL BEESWAX Foundation, and do the wiring, install the side
support pins, and REPLACE the sheets if the bees ate holes through them, and probably CUSS
some. However, in our lazy working 21st century, I would devote myself to LEARNING more
about BEE BEHAVIOR and COMB BUILDING, and then use Dadant's PLASTICELL
foundation.

I left SIZE to last, because most people just follow history, assuming that is best, without
thinking for themselves. ALL SUPERS (except comb honey specialty supers) are either the
standard size DEEP hive body, the MEDIUM size Illinios 6 5/8" body, or the now disappearing
SHALLOW body.

A FULL deep weighs about 80 pounds, a full MEDIUM Illinois weighs about 50 pounds, and a
SHALLOW weighs about 40+ pounds.

Perhaps those weights are important to old men (like me) or women beekeepers, or school age
beginners. In spite of my elderly age, I can still lift an 80 pound full hive body over my head, but
THAT is so UNIMPORTANT.

The great majority of you are using DEEP frames and bodies for your BROOD chambers, and
using either MEDIUM supers or SHALLOW supers for honey, and hence you have MULTIPLE
frame sizes that are NOT interchangeable from one body with another.

About 25 years ago, I became so FRUSTRATED about not having a quickly obtainable
CORRECT size frame to replace a bad frame in a colony, I just said "the HELL with so called
"normal" methods", and threw away ALL of my DEEP bodies and DEEP frames, and converted
my total 3 apiaries of over 60 colonies to a ONE SIZE BODY AND ONE SIZE FRAME, the
Medium Illinois, 6-5/8."

Now, ALL of my brood chambers are 3 Mediums instead of 2 Deeps, which gives me
IDENTICAL comb space, but I have to inspect 30 frames rather than 20 frames. However, the
handling of 30 lighter weight frames is easier than the handling of 20 heavy deep frames.

DO YOUR BEES CARE ABOUT FRAME SIZE OR WEIGHT? Of course not! Their only
interest is supplying honey for their heirs in 2006. Hence, HAVE YOU GOT YOUR SUPERS
IN PLACE for nectar storage, or are you going to FORCE a swarm?
 Undated

Anthropomorphic
Don't you dare skip reading this page! Understanding that word, and then reacting to it, is a
MAJOR STEP in the upgrading process from HAVER to KEEPER. OK-What does it mean? An-
thro-po-mor-phic means to ascribe or to refer HUMAN characteristics to NON-HUMAN things.
This is a very narrow human way of viewing the things in the world. See, I told you it was
simple, isn't it? I'll bet your cat's eyebrow's arch upwards as , the corners of its mouth roll
backwards and upwards as the cat loudly laughs when you trip over the rug and fall flat on your
rump. Well, doesn't he enjoy a laugh like you? Humans think like humans, NOT LIKE BEES!

Bees think like bees, NOT LIKE HUMANS! Humans have brains that can be changed,
upgraded, absorb new knowledge, and are receptive to improvement. Bees have brains that can
NOT be changed, can NOT be upgraded, can Not absorb new knowledge, and are Not receptive
to improvement-or even understand any change. Their brain has been genetically programmed
by God at their conception.

Ad nauseam, I have encouraged you to THINK LIKE A BEE and forget any comparison to
human actions. THIS UNDERSTANDING, BY ITSELF, WILL MATERIALLY HASTEN
YOUR UPGRADE FROM "HAVER" TO "KEEPER"! I don't want to hear all that crap about "I
can't" because most of you have many talents that I do not do well or at all: like building a
straight brick wall, working the computer (Internet), painting pictures, gourmet cooking, playing
a piano, speaking several languages, etc. It is all a matter of DESIRE-HOW BADLY DO YOU
WANT TO BE A BEEKEEPER? One of my favorite books is the NEW EDITION of THE
HIVE AND HONEYBEE. It has 1269 pages, 27 chapters, authored by 36 very famous honey
bee scientists. The average chapter is 47 pages long. To me, it is noteworthy that the famous Dr.
Norman Gary, Professor of Entomology and Apiculture, University of California and author of
100 scientific papers about honey bees wrote the LONGEST chapter, 103 pages, entitled
ACTIVITIES AND BEHAVIOR OF HONEY BEES. This is "tough, slow, thought provoking
reading", but it OPENS YOUR EYES AND MIND to understanding bees and hence "how to
think like a bee". I plead with with you to buy or borrow this book and spend these cold winter
months reading, rereading, and digesting Norm Gary's great analysis of bee thinking or bee
behavior. Doing this puts you on the trail of becoming a good beekeeper, so YOU can teach
others! A new copy sells for about $36, and you have a wonderful textbook.

Let me get you thinking about the antithesis of anthropomorphic or more simply said how we
humans WRONGLY think of honey bees behavior and hence we are comparing apples with
oranges: Humans have ears and can hear kind words sound quite different than mad words. Bees
have no ears and hence cannot hear even words of love, the strains of a Stradivarius violin, a rifle
shot, or the tick of a watch. How do you explain the people that claim to calm bees with
lullabies? But why does a loud ticking clock placed on top of a hive get bees excited? That the
clock vibration (not sound) is unnatural to a bee and hence disturbing.
You have two eyes, whereas the bee has five eyes. Yet the bee cannot see near as well as you
can, nor does it notice SLOW movement, and it cannot see the color red. However, it can see
ultraviolet light, and I'll bet you wish you could so you would not get sunburned. Blindfolded,
could you identify other tenants of your office, apartment house, or home by their smell? A bee
can and that is how they kept strangers out of their colony, or when swarming elevate their body
and fan the odor of their Nasanoff gland to alert other colony members "Our queen mother is
here with me. Join up."

How about this one: The queen lays a worker egg on April 10th, and the bee "hatches" (emerges)
on May 1st. In the next week or so, it builds comb, feeds larva, unloads and packs pollen,
unloads and packs nectar into cells and then fans air to evaporate water from it, caps cured
honey, carries trash outside away from the hive, and stings you because you roughly removed the
inner cover. If she had not died from stinging you, she might have spent the last three weeks of
her short life gathering nectar in May and early June to make honey to feed the winter bees 6
months after she dies. WHO TAUGHT THIS BEE ALL THESE JOBS? WHO DIRECTED HER
WHAT TO DO AND WHEN TO DO IT? WHY DID SHE DO ANYTHING AT ALL
WORKING HERSELF TO DEATH IN BEHALF OF SOME FUTURE PROGENY AT SOME
STRANGE TIME OF COLD WEATHER? Read Norm Gary's thoughts about bee behavior and
gain beekeeping knowledge.

Lord knows that I am not Norm Gary, but I teach bee behavior when I can, and I feel very
strongly that any Short Course (as boring as it may be for beginners) would be enhanced by
steering beeHAVERS away from anthropomorphic thinking towards bee behavior or bee
genetics or even better "to learn to THINK LIKE A BEE". If you come to any of my short
courses, you will suffer my dose of bee behavior to your mind. The honey bee pollination is so
important to our human stomachs, that I want lots of competent beekeepers around protecting
honey bees to aid the living of my great grandchildren. Hence I ask for your help by upgrading
your apian skills and the ability to teach others after I am gone.

Thank You!

Bee Behavior
In today's society, we sort of wonder when we see that word "behavior", because it often
indicates some bad action that might require the use of discipline. Frankly, I really prefer the
phrase of "THINKING LIKE A BEE". Now I have introduced a secondary thought was is: Can a
bee think? Now there are TWO questions: HOW? and CAN? Since our interest is primarily the
art of making HONEY and how to KEEP bees; and knowing that we humans have the ability to
think (but sometimes I wonder), maybe we can make the premise easier by asking: "Can we
learn to think like a bee?"
Does a hungry lion or tiger kill a man rather than a woman out of a sense of not destroying a
possible mother? After a beaver finishes damming up a pond and building his winter lodge, does
he hold a party for the other beavers to demonstrate his ability? When a horse wins the
Kentucky, would he like to go out in the fields and party all night with other horses? When a
sport fisherman catches a fish, photographs the fish, and then releases that fish back into the sea,
will that same fish bite again at the same lure? You lay down in your hammock for a snooze, but
have to continually kill flies that bite at you; yet nothing you do discourages other flies from
trying to feed upon you? Humans have their rules of life, some provided by the genetics of being
homo sapiens, some provided by the society we live in, and still other rules are made because we
have the ability to be different, by choice. Animals, not even domesticated animals like your dog
or cat, have the ability to THINK as we humans think. I have yet to see a dog dashing around
sniffing at various flowers to enjoy their odor, or refuse to lay down upon them for fear they
would be crushed. Describe to me how an animal or insect LAUGHS, or DO THEY?

No I am NOT conducting a lesson in ENGLISH or spelling, but ANTHROPOMORPHISM is

something that most people do and its application to honey bees is quite erroneous.
Anthropomorphism is to abscribe human characteristics to non-human things. Have you ever
seen a queen bee with a sign that says: My daughters won HONORS at George Imirie's Apiary?
Enough of this preliminary, boring chatter - let us get to the important "stuff" of "thinking like a
bee" so you can not only become a better beekeeper, but become wonderfully enamored with the
JOYS of beekeeping

Winter Behavioral Activities

Unfortunately, most beeHAVERS as well as some beekeepers misunderstand the life of a bee in
the winter or think anthropomorphically. Except in our Southern warmer states, brood rearing
ceases for about 30-45 days sometime between the end of November and Mid January in Central
Maryland. When outside temperatures become about 55-60 degrees, bees start to form a cluster
around the brood nest and this cluster becomes tighter and hence smaller in size as the
temperature goes down. Bees do NOT heat the space inside a hive body or the area surrounding
the cluster! Temperature inside a broodless cluster remain between 68 and 86 degrees even when
the temperature go as low as -25 (25 below zero). In late fall, the cluster is first formed in the
front lower part of the hive and the upper part of the cluster is in contact with stored honey. AS
honey is consumed as the winter progresses, the cluster moves upward and towards the rear of
the hive, distancing itself from the front entrance. Honey is converted into heat by the metabolic
processes of the bees inside the cluster and this heat is conserved by the insulating qualities of
the CLUSTER as well as the enclosed comb!

Obviously, those bees most interior within the cluster rotate with the outermost bees so that all
the clustered bees get some honey to eat and distribute the heat they produce to the others.
Because the bees are dependent on the warmth of the cluster to remain mobile, they dare not
leave the safety of the cluster for even an inch to secure more honey. Therefore, bees have
difficulty moving HORIZONALLY (sideways) to encompass a side frame. This creates a
"chimney" effect of honey use in the colony; i.e., consuming honey VERTICALLY rather than
horizontally. Bees do defecate in the hive, so when the temperature raises to about 45 degrees or
above and if the sun is shining, the bees will take a very short "cleansing flight", but return
quickly before they become chilled and can't fly. Bees can begin foraging for pollen, nectar, or
water whenever the temperature becomes 50-55 degrees. When brood rearing is in progress, in
spite of the outside temperature, the brood must be kept at 91-96 degrees; and feeding this new
brood rapidly depletes the store of honey in the colony. This is the reason that more colonies die
of starvation in March in the Maryland area than any other month of the year. Behavioral
Activities of Queens

Let's start right at the beginning of the queen's life: Newly emerged queens are very active to be
sure that they are the only queen in the colony. Unless prevented by the worker bees the first
emerged virgin queen travels through the colony and eats through the side wall of every queen
cell she can find and stings her "rival" sister queen to death. She becomes sexually mature when
she is 6 days old, and she mate on any day that the afternoon temperature is above 65 degrees.
Mating is always done in the afternoon and never in the morning. The whole hive becomes
involved, flying and foraging are reduced, worker bee stand at the entrance scent fanning to
attract the new queen outside, other worker bees literally assault her, push her, and even bite at
her legs to "force" the queen outside and becomes airborne on her nuptial flight. Generally the
queen mates with several different drones on her first flight which occurs at a drone gathering
area 1-3 miles from the colony, and the entire flight rarely lasts more than 30 minutes. Upon
returning to the hive, she might rest for a few minutes and then return to the drone area for more
mating, and quitting after she has mated with 10-17 different drones. Now her spermatheca is
filled with 4-6 million sperm from numerous drones, enough to last her entire life, and she is
expected to lay up to 200,000 eggs per year! She begins laying eggs about 3 days after her last
mating. Hence, depending on the weather, from the day a colony swarms until the new queen
lays her first egg back in the old hive is about 10 days or more, 12-14 days being average. Many,
many researchers and beekeepers have tried to measure the egg production of a queen. Although
the figure of 1924 eggs laid in 24 hours is the highest recorded, bee scientists agree that the
average queen lays 1000 to 1500 eggs per day during the MOST ACTIVE brood rearing period
which is probably April and May in Maryland. The MAXIMUM colony population that is
attainable is: Assume the average worker's life span is 40 days and a queen lays 1500 eggs/day
yields a total of 60,000 bees. Obviously, this 60,000 is a high ideal figure, and not an average.
40,000 - 50,000 might be the best figure for fine colonies having a young, well bred queen
managed by a good beekeeper. Egg laying ability declines with age. Even more important, the
queen's ability to produce enough queen pheromone to "glue" a huge population of bees into a
single functioning unit without swarming radically declines with age! Hence, the "smart"
beekeeper requeens a colony EVERY YEAR regardless of how good that queen was the first
season. A real young queen not only can produce a larger quantity of bees who can produce a
higher yield of honey, but the beekeeper is not bothered by swarming because a real young
queen can produce a great amount of queen pheromone.

WOW! I am worn out just trying to think of all these behavioral things that are so important. It
has been difficult for me is to try and present them to you, most of whom do not have a scientific
background, in a form and words that you can understand.
I have some hope that you will not think of me as a priest or preacher trying to make each and
every one of you perfect and a super beekeeper, because I know that this is impossible. However,
I do feel quite strongly that a good understanding of the behavior of bees in various
circumstances is the real difference between just having bees as compared to really keeping bees
which pays you that extra dividend of discovering the myriad JOYS OF BEEKEEPING.

Bee Stings
Let's talk about stings 'secretly", just so you can maintain your superior masculinity and nobody
will ever know that you hate to get stung. Get stung, it makes you more appreciative of your
expertise after you learn to work your bees using little or no protective clothing and getting FEW
or NO stings! Don't lose faith now - let me teach you how to enjoy your bees, and make you feel
9' tall! Get rid of all those anthropomorphic ideas about bees, and depend on your knowledge of
bee behavior gained from your understanding of the genetic stimuli of apis mellifera provided by
their Maker.

Let me put all that in "plain talk". Since our honeybee is a social insect in contrast to being
individualistic, it's whole emphasis in life is based upon colony survival rather than self survival;
but I believe that she accepts her own death if need be to accomplish this genetic goal.

Hence, she is not aggressive, daring you, the beekeeper, or even a mother mouse building a nest
in the brood chamber. However, she accepts her own death if need be to defend the colony.
hence, the genetic behavior of a bee is non-aggressive but very defensive of the colony. I do not
have to explain to you the importance of the senses of sight, smell, and touch to we humans. Are
not they at least the same for bees with some variation?

The chief sense of a bee is ODOR (smell) rather than sight. It finds the clover bloom or tulip
poplar big yellow flower NOT by sight, but by the odor of the nectar. A worker bee feels secure
way up in a super by the smell of queen pheromone coming from the brood chamber below, not
by sight and in the dark too. Perhaps you have smoke alarms in your house (check the batteries).
In the dark, you would know if your partner peeled a banana, wouldn't you?

One of the many chemicals of bee venom is isopentyl acetate, like oil of banana, and when a bee
leaves a sting in you, your gloves, your pants,etc, the other bees think to themselves: "One of my
sisters is in trouble and had to sting something - I better dash off to there and standby to give
help if needed to protect our society, the colony!" In the dark as well as light - no difference. At
the risk of you thinking I am anthropomorphic (I am not), let me ask you how you feel by being
squeezed, slapped at, stepped on, or having a blanket thrown on you head.

How do you imagine a bee feels if you slap at it because it is buzzing your nose, or squeezed as
you move a frame around in the hive, or get its wing or legs caught up in the long fibers of your
beautiful wool sweater. Further, I don't imagine you are Babe Ruth with a baseball if you had
lousy eyesight. In spite of the fact that our bee has five eyes (hope you knew), they don't see
SLOW movement very well, you (particularly your hands) should always be in first gear and
surely don't wear red clothes in the apiary, because being red blind, they will bump right into
you.

Take 5 and get a coke to give yourself strength for the next part. You gotta know these things
and use the knowledge to enjoy your bees as you work them in your bathing suit. I need you to
put on these demonstrations since I can't perform very well with these blasted strokes. It is our
JOB to convince the public of the importance of bees and their safety.

Why does EAS and Montgomery County Fair ruin your vacation by scheduling their events in
late July and August? Not only are those months generally poor honey production months, but it
is hot and humid. With no nectar flow, plus hot and humid weather, bees don't go out foraging
very enthusiastically plus they would have a hard time curing that nectar into honey in hot,
humid conditions..

Hence, bees are "home" and "cranky", so rather you working them at the wrong time and getting
stung, it is better for you to go to EAS and the county fair to learn more yourself and for you to
explain the wonders of beekeeping to the public. How much do you know about botany, that is
the science of plants?

A good beekeeper is aided by having a working knowledge of botany. For example, what time of
day, or under what circumstances, does a plant yield nectar? Morning? Afternoon? All day?
Bright sun, cloudy drought, after rain?

You might ask "SO WHAT?" When foragers are home, the colony is crowded, and you are
going to accidentally crush bees and set off a sting alarm, not to mention having difficulty seeing
things easily because the frames are crowded with bees. Didn't you get mad with the crowds
when Christmas shopping? Speaking of shopping, I'll bet you and yours have wonderful
expensive "smelly-stuff" like perfume hair spray, deodorant, after shave, fancy soap, powder and
even chewing gum. Wonderful for you, but are any of these smells naturally found in nature?
Perhaps, although delightful to you, they might be offensive to a bee and looked upon as a
colony threat. Hence, the defensive attitude rears its head and you get stung because you wore
Chanel #5 perfume or Old Spice Aftershave lotion.

Here is more education for you: your exhaled breath contains carbon dioxide, which can be used
as an anesthesia for bees, and since they don't like it, they become aggressive. This is why a bee
constantly "flits' around your face, because it is aggressively aroused. Remember that the next
time you think about moving bees by blowing your breath on them.

If you want to look for eggs or small larvae in brood cells covered by bees, forget breath
blowing, just but your bare fingers on the bees over the cells you want to inspect, and they will
nicely move away from your fingers particularly if they smell natural (soiled with propolis). I am
still on the subject of STINGS, so keep reading.
What I am about to say is not "old wives Tales or the reasonings of some old non science trained
by his Daddy beekeeper, but the thoughts of maybe the world's greatest medical allergists, Drs.
Golden (retired) and Valentine of Johns Hopkins Research Hospital. The number of truly allergic
humans to bee stings is less than 0.1% (almost zero). When you are stung on your finger and
your arm swells up to your elbow or even your shoulder, that is NOT an allergic reaction but
rather it indicates that your immune system is working well, and beekeepers should get stung in
order to build a natural tolerance to the sting.

Most allergists mention 250 stings per year as a good number. A bad situation can innocently
happen, as it did to me. I started beekeeping in Bethesda in 1933 (before most of you were born)
and got a lot of stings through my clothes, under my veil, through my gloves and mostly with no
protection because there was nobody to teach me as I teach you. Swelling got less and less as the
years marched by and I soon said it was too hot for a bee suit and a veil and I couldn't mark a
queen with gloves on, so after about 15 or 20 years, I rarely used any bee clothes, and because I
became a better and better beekeeper. I wasn't getting very many stings from my 30-40 hives
until May, 1963 (30 years since I started).

I was experimenting with a SHAKE-SWARM and suddenly got 30-40 stings and went into
anaphylatic shock. Suburban Hospital gave me adrenalin and I went home the next day, told to
STOP BEEKEEPING!! I went to see Dr. Golden at John Hopkins who desensitized me with a
massive series of injections of diluted venom and he described my problem: As I become a better
beekeper, I got less stings and my anti-venom titer fell too low, so that when i get a bunch of
stings at once, my body reacted to shock. The treatment was: Get more stings. Maybe a sting a
day, even in winter. Diabetics (my wife) have to take insulin shots every day.

Why can't I take a sting a day? I do! I know that I have gone to the extreme, but it works. I enjoy
my bees and I don't get hot with all that protective clothes. Approaching the end of this long
epistle, in watching, teaching, and training beehavers over these many years I can safely
conclude that 95% of their bee problems stem from one principle reason followed by perhaps
just two secondary reasons: The principal reason for poor beekeeping and gettin stung is the
FAILURE to accept and understand anthropomorhism and genetic bee behavior. The two
secondary reasons attributing to poor management and being stung are cloaking yourself with
protective gear and then trying to handle the bees with total disregard for nature's way and hence
forcing them into defensive posture of stinging for colony protection.

The purpose of an alarm pheromne is to summon help from other bees to protect the colony.
When a beeHAVER wears gloves to avoid stings, what happens when he carelessly crushes a
bee, or moves too abruptly that he dares the bee to sting?

His glove is suddenly covered by the odor of isopentyl acetate which encourages other bees to
help by stinging. The other secondary reason for being stung is ignoring natural bee behavior by
moving TOO FAST (they can detect fast movement), wearing offensive (to a bee) smells, colors
and fabrics; and don't forget they are worked at convenience of man's time (like after work or a
cloudy Saturday) rather than on bee time (like when foragers are out in the field nectar
collecting). I will end this by perhaps offering you (the truth that hurts) when I say: just as "dirty
hands are a part of farming" and "greasy hands are part of auto repair", "bee stings of the hands
are part of beekeeping": and he who tries to avoid stings by protective clothing rather than
minimizing the number of stings by having a good knowledge of genetics and bee behavior will
always be a beeHAVER and never gain enjoyment of being a good beeKEEPER.

If I have bored you, although you are the loser, I apologize. If you say, "wowee, I am scared, but
George, I have watched you handle bees and seen your enjoyment as you told the public about
the importance of honey bee pollination to our human stomachs, so I am going to try to learn and
become a KEEPER instead of a HAVER", you have just made my day!!!

Important Events
On November 19th and 20th, the U. S. Department of Agriculture Division of ARS, Agricultural
Research Service hosted a "special" meeting at the Holiday Inn in College Park, MD. Its purpose
was for the scientists of ARS to hear from representatives of ALL SEGMENTS of our honey bee
industry of just what our needs are in the promotion of crop pollination. There were 30 speakers
representing almost every phase of beekeeping, including honey producers, pollinators, queen
breeders, package bee suppliers, the farm bureau, researchers, and scientists. The American
Beekeepers Federation whose members are "on the front line" of bee problems was well
represented by their outgoing and incoming Presidents plus Executive Director, Troy Fore.
Because of intertwining of crop pollination with honey production, the talks covered many
phases of the bee industry including our problems with disease, pests, honey adulteration,
imported honey prices, queen and bee shipping problems, arbitrary state laws, etc.

I was there as an invited guest as was my bee partner, Ann Harman, and I assume we were asked
because of my long scientific interest in honey bees and research and Ann's long interest in the
betterment of beekeeping through EAS, which she serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of
Directors. I felt quite honored to be included with this wild array of eminent beekeepers and
highly skilled professional scientists.

The afternoon session was broken down into participation in one of three different critical issue
groups to determine those points that were deemed most critical and hence urgently needed
scientific help. Those three groups were:

1. Bee Management
2. Pollination
3. Pest Management

Because of my long work in trying to upgrade beekeeper's knowledge about good management
and proper techniques, I became part of the Bee Management group where I was able to make
the point that perhaps our major problem today is queen improvement in the face of lack of
quality drones. After much discussion and overnight thought, the next day my points regarding
queens was selected as the Number One critical issue, and I was humbled.

The most important feeling I had of the entire meeting was that ALL attendees were not there for
fun or to be seen, but were there with a purpose. I left with a feeling that the scientists had
TRULY listened to the needs of beekeeping, and our government might give us some positive
help in the future!

FEEDING METHODS & SAFEGUARDS

Basically there are five different feeding systems known and I will give my opinion of all of
them:

1. Entrance Feeder (Boardman Feeder): Throw it away! It invites robbing, and bees

cannot get to it when it is chilly.
2. Division Board Feeder: I refuse to use them because they drown a lot of bees, they
occupy the space of a good brood frame, and mainly, the hive has to be opened to the
weather to refill or to inspect, and the bees can NOT get to it if it is real cold.
3. Hive Top Feeder: A fine feeder in warm weather, but bees can NOT get to it when
weather is cold.
4. Baggies: These are ziplock, sandwich bags filled with sugar syrup placed on the tops of
brood frames with knife slits in them for bees to feed. Again, you have to open the hive in
the cold to add more, and the possible breakage and flooding scares me.
5. Glass Jar Hive-top Feeder: A gallon glass or metal jar with about 4 tiny frame nail
holes punched through the lid inverted over the inner cover hole, and that enclosed by an
empty deep body is my choice of feeding technique. If bees need a tremendous amount of
feed in a hurry, remove the inner cover and invert 4 of these jars right on top of the
frames.

Foundation is NOT Drawn Comb!

At this time of year, I constantly seem to trip into 2nd season or even 3rd season novices trying
to treat foundation and drawn comb as equals; and I explain that they are like nickels and
quarters, while both are coins, they are not the same.

The quarter would NOT fit in the nickel slot of a pay telephone, and the nickel only has 1/5 the
value of a quarter.
If you put one frame of foundation in between two frames of drawn comb, what a mess you will
have; the drawn comb cells will be extended in length so that they overextend the width of the
top bar or end bar, and the foundation cells might be so shallow they hold little honey and maybe
no brood. Some have been told that it is easier to extract frames that are supered 9 to a super
rather 10 to a super; and hence they put only 9 sheets of foundation in a super and wonder why
the bees sealed the frames together with burr comb and brace comb, or even built shallow depth
comb on the foundation facing each other with a separate comb built in between.

Then there are those that follow advice gained by bee researchers of putting supers in place all at
one time rather than adding another super when the first one is half full, but seem to FORGET
that they must use all DRAWN COMB and not foundation.

We have heard of Queen Excluders being referred to as Honey Excluders. Well, excluders may
be just that if you place a super of all foundation on a queen excluder and expect the bees to
come up and draw that foundation into comb before they decide to swarm.

Thoughout my years of teaching beekeeping, most people are sick of hearing me refer to drawn
comb as: A beekeeper's MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION. Yet many of them don't take good
care of it and it becomes ruined by wax moths or other reasons; and then they try to make a
direct replacement or interchange with foundation.

When the foundation has holes eaten through by the bees, drawn into strange shapes, or the bees
swarm rather than drawing foundation, guess who gets the blame? Of course it is those stupid
bees or that LOUDMOUTH lying instructor, but never this beeHAVER who thinks he knows
everything.

Bees have to eat about 8 pounds of honey to get the energy to produce 1 pound of wax. Further,
and most IMPORTANT, bees cannot be made to draw foundation without a nectar flow being in
progress.

Their genetic makeup, ordained by THE ALMIGHTY, programs them to "perform upon need"
not on the basis of "planning ahead". The only need of comb that bees have is for brood and for
stores (pollen, nectar, and honey).

Further, just because the calendar says April 1st, the bees are not going to build comb on some
day in mid March to store that nectar that is supposed to arrive on April 1st, but they wait until
they smell it and taste it before they will build comb to store it.

Rev. Langstroth has been posthumously credited with "discovering" or "defining" BEESPACE
as that 1/4" to 3/8" area that bees will leave open while filling any other smaller or larger space
with comb.

Hence, when we beekeepers desire to have comb built exactly in a place selected by us (not the
bee), we, too, must be guided by these BEESPACE parameters.
Hence, having said all of that, now I will detail some DO's and DON'Ts:

1. NEVER mix a sheet of foundation in with drawn comb.

2. ALWAYS draw 10 sheets of foundation in a super, NEVER 9 sheets.

3. Always keep used dry drawn comb protected from wax moths, dampness, heat,
accidentially bumped or knocked down, etc. for use next season.

4. Research has shown that bees make more honey and swarm less if several empty supers
of drawn comb are put on a colony ALL AT ONE TIME rather than putting supers on
one at a time as the nectar flow continues; but you CANNOT do this using foundation.

5. Since bees will NOT build comb until they have need of it, and they find no excuse to go
through a queen excluder; when supering with foundation ONLY, put a super of 10
frames of foundation on top of the brood chambers and carefully inspect it at least weekly
for frame drawing and perhaps the queen and eggs.

If you find the queen in that super or several drawn frames with nectar, move the queen
down into the brood chamber, put a queen excluder in place and then plan on adding
another super of foundation on top of the first one when the first super is 50-60% filled
with nectar, and a third super of 10 sheets of foundation when the 2nd super is 50-60%
filled, etc.

6. It is SMART to catch a swarm, install it in a hive of 10 frames of foundation and a gallon

of 1:1 sugar syrup and the bees, HAVING GREAT NEED OF COMB FOR EGGS AND
NECTAR, will draw out that foundation rapidly and beautifully provided you
continuously feed 1:1 sugar syrup.

When the bees have drawn about 6-7 frames, add a second story of 10 frames of foundation and
continue the feeding of 1:1 syrup. After securing much drawn comb, you can destroy the bees,
give them away, or unite them with another hive, and PROTECT THIS NICE DRAWN COMB
as if it was diamonds.

1:1 sugar syrup serves as an "artificial nectar", and it MUST BE AVAILABLE in rain or windy
non-flying weather or a dearth of nectar if you expect to get COMB BUILT from foundation.

1:1 sugar syrup is 1 pound of sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water.

There is "good" foundation, and "lousy" foundation. The most significant attributes that
foundation should have are ease of installation in a frame, strength particularly during extraction,
and will bees replace damaged comb.

Plasticel Foundation by Dadant excels in these attributes; whereas Dadant's DuraGilt, once
damaged stays permanently beyond repair. ALL wax base foundations, except when used for
comb honey, MUST be supported by wires or frame end clips, and always protected from
dropping.

IMIRIE REQUEENING METHOD (ALMOST FOOLPROOF)

Select an exact date for your new queen to arrive and make it known to your queen breeder, and
get a MARKED QUEEN. TEN days before the new queen is to arrive, insert queen excluders in
between any two boxes where your old queen can go. When your new queen arrives, water her
and store her in a cool dark place until needed. Gather up a double screen board, an empty hive
body, 10 drawn combs, and a feeder with a gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup. Find the OLD queen
(which ever brood box has larva is where the queen will be found) in the colony you want to
requeen. Set her ASIDE away from the colony, so that you free to manipulate all the other
frames in the colony. Select 3 frames of brood: 1 capped and 2 of eggs and larva, all with the
covering nurse bees. Place these in the center of the empty hive body. Now add 6 more frames,
as follows: 2 empty drawn comb, (one on each side of the brood frames), 2 frames of pollen and
honey, (one on each side of the drawn comb), then 2 more empty drawn comb, (one on each side
of the honey-pollen frames). This totals 9 frames leaving space for the queen cage. Now take
several frames of brood ...remaining in the old colony...and shake the nurse bees into the new 9
frame nuc. Cover the nuc and set it aside for a while. Return the frame with the OLD queen to
her home hive and replace the 5 frames you removed (3 of brood + 2 of honey-pollen) with
empty drawn frames

Now put the double screen board on top of the old colony so that its entrance faces to the rear of
the parent colony. Set the new 9 frame nuc on top and install the new queen (make sure you
remove the cork from the candy end). Start feeding the new nuc immediately. After about 3-5
days, check the queen cage very quickly using little or no smoke to see if the queen has been
released. If she has not, you release her from the cage. Do NOT disturb for another 5-7 days and
then check with as little disturbance and smoke as possible tooking for eggs and larva. Add the
10th frame and remove the queen cage. During the next few weeks (I like about 5-6) check the
brood pattern of the new queen. If you like it and want to accept that new queen, find the old
queen down below the double screen, kill her, and remove the double screen board.

This method has a couple of advantages:

1. If something is wrong with the new queen, you kill her and the colony has a backup with
the old queen; and you requeen the colony at a later date, and
2. for about 5-6 weeks, you have 2 queens laying eggs that increase the number of bees
which will make the hive stronger for winter and reduce the stresses of Winter.

Note: If you don't have a Double Screen Board - You should. If you are not sure how it is made,
imagine a wooden queen excluder frame without the metal wires, covered on both sides by 8
mesh wire - A DOUBLE SCREEN BOARD. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm in North Carolina
makes and sells a fancy, very, nice one.

INSPECT YOUR BEES WHEN THERE IS SNOW

How do you know your bees are alive? Do they have enough food? Is the queen laying brood?
Will there be enough foraging age bees present in the May nectar flow? Will there be enough
nurse bees present in late March and early April to feed all these future forager bees?

"But George, it is SUPER BOWL Sunday and it snowing hard outside on top of the 8" we got on
Tuesday! How can I inspect bees when it is freezing and there is 10" of snow on top of the
telescoping cover of the hive?"

Are you one of those beeHAVERS that don't know that most Northern hobbyists and even some
commercial beekeepers keep their bees outside just like yours in the cold and snowy Montana,
Minnesota, Maine, CANADA, and even ALASKA? They might have snow on top of their hives
continuously and below freezing for several months, rather then just a few days! Just being
COLD, even at 20 or 30 BELOW zero does NOT kill bees, and they can even raise the cluster
temperature to 95 degrees so the queen starts laying eggs in these cold outside temperatures!
They don't need a furnace like your house to warm the whole hive. They just need FOOD that
they can get to, and they will make their own warmth after eating; and after warming the bee
cluster, they will feed the queen and prepare cells for the queen to lay brood. All you have to do
is make sure that they are NOT low on food supplies, and this is easy!

Surely, NOT for a beginner or novice, but veteran beekeepers can get a fair estimate of food
supplies by "hefting" a hive to see about how heavy it is. Then, brush the snow off the top and
remove it, and look into the inner cover hole. If the bees are right up in inner cover hole, start to
worry, because this might indicate that they are VERY short on food supplies and need
immediate help. If it is snowing, windy and cold, you should not remove the inner cover and
check any further. Just quickly prepare a gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup in a jar and invert it over the
inner cover hole, so the bees can get a very quick feed. During the next 15 days, one of those
days might get to 50 degrees in the sunny afternoon, take from work, and inspect your bees. That
would be a good time to move outer frames of honey over to the center frames position so the
bees again have plenty of food ABOVE them. It is also a good time to REVERSE your brood
chambers (see George's PINK PAGES about reversing).

I want you to think strongly about some things that I continually mention: You can NOT tell if
your bees are alive by looking at the bees flying in and out on a warm day, because your bees
may be DEAD and the bees you see are robber bees robbing out the honey in the colony. You
MUST go INSIDE your colony to inspect it! Remember that your colony can NOT make a good
honey crop unless it has a lot of foraging age bees ready to go out and forage when the nectar
flow is in progress; and that means the egg that produces this forager must have been laid by the
queen 40 days before it can go foraging! Also, remember that there must be a lot of NURSE bees
present to WARM the colony and to feed the brood that will later become forager bees; and
hence feeding 1:1 sugar syrup back in February and March to stimulate queen laying may be
desirable.

INSPECT YOUR BEES IN FEBRUARY!

Good Luck!

Keeping Your Bees Alive

President Robert Elwood asked me to talk about this subject at the October 2001 Meeting in
Nashville; but I might not be alive then, so I said that I would write about it right now, so you
have all summer to "solve the problem of bees dying in the winter". What makes you think that
cold weather kills bees? Good beekeepers in Alaska, Canada, Scotland, or Moscow have long,
hard, -40° temperatures and they don't lose many bees. COLD WEATHER DOES NOT KILL
HEALTHY, PROTECTED BEES!

Some of the finest honey in the whole world is produced by bees in the European ALPS of
Austria, and former Yugoslavia, and hopefully the hives don't get knocked down by people
skiing around them. Ha Ha!

The Lord works in wondrous ways. Bears hibernate, birds fly south, horses grow heavy coats of
hair, humans turn on the furnace, and healthy bees just cluster. The Great Creator has a far better
program for wintering of bees than we foolish humans can devise. Bees had been found wild in
the cold regions of Canada, Europe, and Asia long before Captain John Smith brought skeps of
bees on sailing ships from cold England to Virginia in the early 17th century.

However, in those days there were no mites that killed bees, there were no trucks to haul bees
from place to place carrying disease or pests like Small Hive Beetles from Florida to Wisconsin,
and there was all kinds of natural healthy forage everywhere for bees that had not been sprayed
with pesticides, and people did not live in cities like today, but lived rurally and accepted getting
stung as part of their agricultural life as they picked apples, blueberries, or melons. The world
has CHANGED, we humans have CHANGED, but honey bees have NOT changed. In spite of
the human brilliance that has made atomic bombs, created space capsules to travel to the moon,
synthesized polio vaccine, and put a computer at every ones finger tips, the advancement of
human capabilities has caused many new problems for the honey bee.
No longer can the honey bee survive in the hands of the beeHAVER, because today the honey
bee needs the assistance of a beeKEEPER to stay alive and reproduce. The apian of the 21st
century has to insure the health of his bees by treating them with the "medicines" ONLY
APPROVED by our bee scientists and treat them WHEN the scientist says "treat now, not next
month", and treat with exactly the quantity of "medicine" prescribed, not how much you are
willing to buy. You have to go to a motel on a cold night if your furnace runs out of fuel, but
bees die if they run out of honey stores on a cold night because eating honey keeps them warm.
And since it requires a lot of bees to form a nice warm cluster, are you sure that your OLD queen
can lay all the eggs necessary to make a lot of young worker bees for the winter cluster? Is your
queen on Social Security and living on Medicare?

Enough of all that chatter, or soon I will be telling you all about one of my greatgrandfathers
leaving Scotland in 1736 (40 years before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence) and
coming to Maryland to farm and how he kept bees to supply his table with food. Let me get
serious about how to keep your bees alive.

The tracheal mite was first found in the U. S. in 1984, followed by the varroa mite in 1987. Due
to lack of concern by the beekeepers and the lack of money for research to find a quick cure for
our bees, both mites were soon found in almost every county (including yours in TN) of 49 of
our 50 states (Hawaii is free of mites). Today, there are essentially no, or very few, feral bees left
anywhere in any of the 49 states as there has been no way to kill the mites on wild bees. Just
because the microscopic tracheal mite is invisible to the human eye, many beekeepers just
assumed that their bees were clean of tracheal mites, and when they found their bees dead in
January with a hive still full of honey stores, they blamed the cold winter. HORSEFEATHERS!
The tracheal mites just strangled those old bees to death in the winter when there were no young
bees to take their place. DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING! You treat for tracheal mites EVERY
YEAR with MENTHOL in late AUGUST (September is too late), APICURE (formic acid), if it
is put back on the market, or plain (no Terramycin) grease patties CONTINUOUSLY from June
to Christmas EVERY YEAR. You can stop all this when Dr. John Skinner tells you that the
tracheal mite is under control, BUT NOT UNTIL THEN!

If you are not treating to control the varroa mite with either Apistan or CheckMite strips, you
don't care about the death of you bees, because the varroa mite will kill brand new bees in 2
years or less unless they are PROPERLY TREATED EVERY YEAR!. It is so easy if you pay
attention to what I say about the TIME of treatment. The ONLY place that the female varroa
mite lays new mite eggs is with the honey bee larva on the last day before the bees cap the cell.
Therefore, when the queen bee is curtailing her egg laying in October and November and hence
providing very few places for the female mites to lay their eggs, THAT IS THE CHOICE TIME
TO REALLY KILL A GREAT PERCENTAGE OF MITES. Hence, install your APISTAN or
CHECKMITE strips on October 1st and remove them on some warm day, over 50°, after
November 15th, but POSITIVELY REMOVE THEM SO THAT YOU DON'T CREATE
RESISTANT MITES by leaving the strips in place too long. If you are as fortunate as I have
been, that ONCE a year treatment has been enough to control varroa mite infestation, but it must
be done EVERY YEAR
Now, if your time schedule or your need for late season honey is such that you just can't install
MENTHOL for tracheal mites before September 1st or install strips for varroa control on
October 1st and remove them by Thanksgiving, you should give up trying to be a beeKEEPER
and take up catching butterflies or raising pigeons. I want to IMPRESS you strongly that the
timing to effectively kill both of these mites is very critical, and is "not when you get around to
it". You just have to decide whether you want to HAVE bees, but replace dead bees year after to
year, or whether you want to KEEP bees and have a surplus of bees that you can sell or give
away every year.

As long as you are reading this SPECIAL paper for TN beekeepers, nosema disease should be
mentioned. Nosema, a disease of the gut, rarely kills a colony, but it can materially weaken the
bees by diarrhea so that the colony just can never get strong in the spring or early summer. (I
can't work very well either when I have a case of loose bowels.) Researchers have estimated that
over half of all the colonies in the U.S. have some touch of nosema disease in the spring after
winter confinement. Bees that are located in an area of dampness are particularly susceptible to
nosema. It is so CHEAP and easy to prevent nosema by feeding the bees 1 gallon of 2:1 sugar
syrup in November that has a tablespoon (cost about $2) of Fumidil-B dissolved in it. By feeding
this in the fall in heavy syrup, this syrup is stored away by the bees, who feed on it over the long
winter period, and hence, are HEALTHY bees when spring arrives.

Some years ago, when sugar was cheap and package bees were only $10-$15 for 3 lbs and a
queen, some beekeepers removed ALL the honey in October to sell it, killed the bees, and started
fresh the following spring with packages because they did not want to leave 60-70 lbs on honey
on their colonies for winter stores. Now, with the $40-$50 cost of a package of bees, that is no
longer done, but the beekeeper MUST either leave 60-70 lbs. of honey on each colony or feed
sugar syrup in October and November to the point of having the equivalent of 60-70 lbs. of
honey for winter stores. In terms of frames of honey, the average deep frame holds about 6
pounds of honey and the average medium, 6 5/8", frame holds about 4 pounds of honey. Hence,
proper winter stores for a colony in Tennessee is about 10-12 Deep frames of honey or 15-18
Medium frames. When you can buy sugar for 30¢-40¢/lb, you can make 60 lbs of heavy 2:1
sugar syrup from about 40 lbs of dry sugar at a cost of 40¢/lb = $16 to save a whole colony of
bees through the entire winter rather than spend $50 for a 3 lb. package that is not going to make
much honey the first year. Even a child knows the difference between $50 and $16, so that
suggests that a beekeeper who loses his bees because of lack of stores is careless or stupid, or
both. I make no apologies for rudeness. I am giving you FREE advice about how to keep your
bees from dying - not win a popularity contest.

Maybe your brother owns a bee supply company so you can get the finest bee equipment in the
world for cost, and maybe your bees are in Tennessee's most productive nectar producing
country, and you have cinched up a contract to sell a lot of honey at a great price, but what
happens if the queen dies during the winter? Everybody, even you, has to die sometime, but it is
fairly safe to say that you are going to die before your children die because you are older.
Further, your wife probably can not have as many babies as the girl in the local high school,
because your wife is older. Research has clearly shown that not only can a very young queen bee
lay more eggs in her first year of laying than she can during her second year, but her ability to
produce the queen pheromone that prevents swarming diminishes a little more each day from the
day the queen was bred. Than pray tell, why do you not requeen your colony EVERY YEAR for
a mere $10 rather than take a chance on the bees swarming and losing your honey crop, or the
queen dying of "old age" during the winter and you lose both the bees and honey crop!

Then are those that are satisfied with a colony just requeening itself by superseding the old
queen. Research in many countries done under all kinds of situations where the bees raised a new
queen to replace an old queen or dead queen has shown that the chances of getting a prolific
queen by this system is not very high. Unfortunately, the beekeepers who maintain their bees in
this manner really don't know the difference between their colonies and requeened colonies,
because they have not had anything to compare with.

In ending, if you properly medicate your bees AT THE CORRECT TIME OF YEAR for both
the tracheal and varroa mite, treat your bees in November with Fumidil-B to prevent nosema
disease and the diarrhea that goes with it, have 60-70 lbs of winter stores on board by November
1st, have a new queen every year, protect your hives from north west winter winds, and move
them away from any areas that might be damp or in FULL shade, you will rarely ever have dead
bees and the colony will make tons of honey, and you will find the true JOYS OF
BEEKEEPING.

I hope that I have helped.

"Lousy Queens"
In spite of my continuing disapproval of the use of UNKNOWN queens in contrast to purchasing
a good queen from a reliable professional queen breeder and marking her(so you can identify
her), there are still some beeHAVERS living in the "days of Daddy" who don't requeen,and
probably do not know how. Now the evil mites have again caused a major problem to the life of
the bees - lack of drones for breeding of virgin queens. Researchers have PROVEN that the
nuptial flights of a virgin queen might take two or even three days and she usually receives and
stores the drone semen containing up to about 4 million sperm from 10-15 different drones.
Unlike humans, the queen bee has a special sac, the spermatheca, that maintains these millions of
live sperm, a few of which are released to fertilize each egg-destined to be a worker bee as the
egg is laid. Virgin queens do not mate with her brothers - she must locate drones from other
colonies.

Most beeHAVERS do not understand that the queen of prime swarm is probably an old queen
who will be superceded in a month or so after swarming. You should understand that rarely is the
new queen resulting from supercedure of much value and the colony suffers or dies! Starting a
few years ago, but increasing each year since, I hear of more and more queens, even some
purchased marked queens, become drone layers! This could only happen as a result of poor
mating and hence receiving an inadequate supply of sperm! By the time you detect this, "kiss
that whole colony bye-bye, and you have lost another year!"

This LOUSY breeding of queens is primarily due to the lack of drones because of the mite kill of
almost all feral bees, as well as the large number of unskilled (non-listening) beeHAVERS who
have given up bees in favor of pigeons and fish. Every part of our 48 States has both mites,
tracheal and varroa. Mites have changed everything, not only the killing bees, but the lack of
pollination of our human food supply which could effect not only what we eat, but the cost of
our food, and surely the mites are requiring that anyone interested in keeping bees UPGRADE
their knowledge about all facets of fundamental beekeeping.

Now I have given you even more reasons to purchase "pedigree", marked queens from a proven
professional queen breeder, and preferably, requeen EVERY year (particularly Carniolans) and
surely never less than every two years.

I titled this article "Lousy Queens"; now, think about this fact. A queen breeder's income
depends on how good his queens are. Hence, he purposely raises thousands of selectively bred
drones near his queen nuc yards to almost guarantee a queen being bred by a selected choice of
drones. Certain breeders work to build large yards of drones of the race and stock of bees they
are selling to almost insure that your queen has been well bred and that her bees will inherit a
desirable "pedigree". Isn't a $8-$10 investment for a young, marked, pedigreed queen worth the
death of a colony, lousy honey production, nasty bees, and predictable style because you selected
the race of bee to fit your needs?

MONTGOMERY COUNTY FAIR PARTICIPATION

What is so important about our Fair? It is NOT "just a county fair"! It happens to be the
LARGEST agricultural fair east of the Mississippi River! That just did not happen by itself, but
required the intensive, dedicated work of a whole gang of volunteer help LIKE YOU, I hope, for
the past 50 years.

You know that a total combination of things that have happened over the last 15 years have hurt
beekeeping, such as: the tracheal mite followed by the Varroa mite, the entry of the Africanized
Honey Bee into the United States and the resulting public fear of bees that has been created by
this so called "killer bee", and of course, the loss of farms and increased urbanization of people
today in our area.

However, none of these happenings have changed the fact that over one third (35%) of all our
human food is dependent or enhanced by honey bee pollination. Specifically, just to name a few,
WITHOUT honey bee pollination there would be a shortage of oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and
other citrus, fewer blueberries for blueberry buns, little cranberries for Thanksgiving, fewer
apples or peaches, what is summer without squash, cucumbers, pickles, watermelon, or
cantaloupe, less broccoli and carrots, and maybe no hamburgers or ice cream if there are no
honey bees to pollinate high protein alfalfa needed by cattle to make lots of milk or good beef. I
would surely miss my prime rib dinners, and ice cream is the best thing left for a birthday at an
advanced age like mine. Years ago, perhaps most people knew of honey bee pollination because
then MOST people came from farms, but our urban society thinks Giant Food or Safeway
manufactures things like EGGS, and they know little about honey bee pollination. THAT IS
YOUR JOB, TELL THEM THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR HONEY BEES!

Further, why not enter your honey, your gadget, or you bee display in the fair, not only to win a
ribbon and prize money, but to let the whole world know that you are helping your neighbor's
vegetable garden and flowers by having pollinating honey bees service his crops FREE OF
CHARGE.

There are FOUR different honey bee features at the Fair: the entry of honey bee products into
competition, the MCBA Educational booth in Old MacDonalds Barn headed up by Master
Beekeeper Barry Thompson and where YOU ARE NEEDED, the screened bee booth in a new
location near Mac Donalds Barn this year where I and some helpers will open bee colonies at 1,
4, and 7 P.M. each day, and explain the happenings inside a hive, and the sale of fancy honey at
the Farm and Garden Building by my family and the Strangs.

With my strokes and disabilities, my mind is strong but the flesh is weak, so I can use lots of
help. I need 40 people to work just 4 hours at Old MacDonalds Barn and get a free pass and a
free meal. If you have not yet signed up, telephone me.

OUTLOOK FOR MY VOICE

Most of you know that one of the strokes that I have suffered paralyzed one of my two vocal
cords, which materially diminished my normal loud, resonating speaker's voice. A surgeon who
specialized in various throat surgery suggested a procedure that might restore my voice to almost
pre-stroke condition; and I had that surgery at the beginning of April. It was NOT successful! In
fact, now I have difficulty whispering, surely not giving any speeches as before. After passing
out typewritten copies of my 12 page talk to the Illinois State Beekeepers on June 20th, I was so
upset, I reverted to my General George Patton's approach and DEMANDED surgery to restore
my voice. The Chief Surgeon, Division of Otolaryngology, of George Washington University
Hospital has accepted the job and will operate on my voice box on July 15th (I wanted it sooner,
but early scheduling is tough); and he guarantees that, although sore, I will be able to talk at
EAS, 10 days later. Further, I will be able to YELL at the audience (to gain their attention to see
our bees) at the Montgomery County Fair from August 13-21.

By the way, if you would like to read my Illinois talk about Upgrading from beeHAVER to
beeKEEPER, look at the Internet: http://www.beekeeper.org
At least I can still get around on my electric scooter to take the place of trying to walk very well
with a partially paralyzed leg, and MY BEES DON'T OBJECT to this "stranger" "motoring up"
beside their hive for me to work my colonies.

LAST CALL FOR DUES!

I HATE THIS! Our dues are $10/year from May through April. I have asked you to add a extra
few dollars to cover the costs of the PINK PAGES and the extra postage if you feel that the Pink
Pages are of value to you.

I am dumbfounded that some of you have not paid your dues! Maybe you paid me in cash, and
being human, I DO MAKE MISTAKES SOMETIMES, and have not recorded it. You must
remind me before your membership is dropped. According to my records, if I have put a big
RED INK circle on your mailing sticker, your dues have not been paid, and continuing to mail
you the Honey Pot + Pink Pages is UNFAIR to those people who have paid on time. Hence, your
name will be dropped from the records unless you send ME your dues before our August issue or
call me about a mistake in my records. If you have given up beekeeping, we would like to know
that too, so leave a message on my voice phone at 301 424-5709. Be kind - don't leave me
confused!

Queen Introduction Problems

It is quite apparent from the questions seen on E-mail and the questions asked at bee association
meetings that many Beekeepers need an understanding of favorable or unfavorable conditions
when trying to requeen a colony.

Two PRIME problems quickly come to mind:

1. YOUNG bees, just a few days old accept a new queen quite readily, whereas an OLD
foraging age bee of 3-4 weeks of age doesn't care very much for this new
STEPMOTHER. Hence, it is ALWAYS better to introduce a new queen among young
bees in a nuc, get her accepted and laying, and then unite that small nuc with the larger
QUEEN LESS colony. The important KEY here is YOUNG bees accept a new queen
much better than OLD bees!
2. If there is just a small nectar flow on, or worse, a dearth of nectar, the bees are "mad at
the world" and don't want the aggravation of "getting to know" a new STEPMOTHER.
1:1 sugar syrup is an artificial nectar and it should always be fed during any queen
introduction procedure. This statement surely sound ANTHROPOMORPHIC, but it
helps your thinking, I use it. A source of food makes the bees "happy", and being "happy"
makes queen introduction much more successful.
All of my followers know that I much prefer FALL REQUEENING over "screwing-up" my
early spring honey crop by trying to requeen in the spring. Further, fall bred queens are usually
better mated because of more drones available; and the queen introduced in September is
"rearing" to go laying lots of early spring eggs and she has not used up much of her queen
PHEROMONE, that "glue" that holds a large population of adult worker bees together as a
functioning unit rather than dividing by swarming.

Ready or Not--Swarm Season

READY OR NOT --- IT IS swarm season Did you know that prior to a hundred years ago,
beekeepers wanted their bees to swarm? Were they "nuts", or just wanted to create neighborhood
FUN? Neither.

Up until Rev. Langstroth invented the movable frame hives were kept in straw skeps or old gum
tree hives where the bees had to be destroyed to remove the honey.

In those distructive harvest days,the beekeeper depended on his bees to swarm so that he could
have bees for NEXT years crop and he destroyed the colony that had swarmed to collect its
honey, which was not a large yield in those days..

During most of.the 20th century, there have been all kinds of good thoughts and wrong thoughts
about the causes of swarming, and the prevention or control of swarming.

Swarming has been intensely researched, millions of words written about it, and yet, I find that
many beekeepers are still confused about it.

Hence, I feel it is,my task to explain as much about swarming as much as possible and I assure
you that there are things that you did NOT know.

I must say here: A beekeeper must thoroughly understand swarming to be successful with
Carniolan bees!

Swarming is nature's genetic way of reproduction. In nature's habitat, swarming brings a

diversified line of genes into the picture because the drones mating with the new queen of the
parent colony are probably from diverse sources; and normally the swarm flies a long distance to
its new home site, thereby populating a larger area than that of the parent colony.

This is just one more example of the continuing way of nature to inhibit in-line-breeding and the
break-up of disease patterns by promoting survival of the fittest. Hence, swarming has perhaps a
value not known to you before.
When is this swarm season and what influences it? Obviously, climate plays a major role, not
only involving the temperature and bee flight weather, but the climate that produces FOOD for
the bees, both nectar and pollen.

In our Maryland area, swarm season is April and early May. When we see dandelions, forsythia,
jonquils, crocus, etc.. in bloom, our swarm season is almost upon us. LET US MAKE SURE
THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SWARM SEASON IS BEFORE a major nectar flow!

There are those who will state that their bees swarmed right in the peak of a heavy nectar flow,
and a few paragraphs later, I will explain that swarming is the fault of the beekeeper!

Just like our computer programing today, a colony of bees is genetically programmed by nature
to swarm under certain conditions and as these conditions come about the swarming program is
set into motion.

It will surprise many of you to know that bees plan ahead and do many unique things taking as
much time as 10-14 days prior to swarm issuance! Yep, 10-14 days of preparation time. I will
explain some of these pre-planned programs for the colony survival into next year's winter
season, about 8 months from now.

Pray tell, for who do you think these "critters" with only a 6 week life span are gathering all this
nectar for? The COLONY! Surely, not YOU!

You must learn to "THINK Like a Bee" and stop being anthropomorphic!

Emerging from the doldrums of winter confinement and finding some pollen from maples,
alders, skunk cabbage followed by a smidgen of sweet nectar from dandelion, apple blossom,
etc., the worker bees rush to polish cells, stoke food into the queen, raise the brood nest
temperature to 95° (even though it is freezing outside), and prepare to raise a multitude of new
bees.

Busy as a bee - things are really humming!

The workers get into a fever pitch of urgency, demanding more of their queen and stuff her with
more and more food so maybe she is laying 2000 eggs every 24 hours; and after several weeks of
this, there is a population "explosion" of young workers who do their assigned duty of nurse bee
in feeding all these thousands of larvae, each one getting as much as 1200 feedings in 24 hours
before the cell is capped on the 10th day.

Wow, what a brood area CONGESTION of nurse bees feeding larvae,cell builders, cell
polishers, foraging bees delivering nectar and pollen, glands working hard to produce royal jelly
for larvae food and the queen bee trying to force her way through this congestion to lay more
eggs.. if bees could talk, we would hear one work loud and clear-Frustration.

Congestion! Brood chamber! (forget the supers) is the number #1 reason for swarming, and in
nature's way,all the bees worked very hard to create this congestion because their entire aim is to
Reproduce and that takes planning, hard work, lots of bees, Brood Space, nectar for larval
feeding, and a new, virgin queen to take over the old homestead.

Speaking of QUEENS, how old is your queen? You don't have to be a "rocket scientist" to know
that an eighteen year old girl will get pregnant faster than a 35 year old woman. Not only do the
ovaries of the queen commence losing ability to manufacture eggs as she ages from her nuptial
flight, but in just the last decade or so, we have learned the importance of queen pheromones in
maintaining colony togetherness (I call it "the Glue")

I am not going into some detailed mathematical explanation of colony population, broadly think
of these numbers:

 Worker bee life: 42 days or 6 weeks,

 Worker bee gestation period is 21 days or 3 weeks
 A queen laying 1500 eggs every day lays 31,500 in that 21 day period or 63,000 bees in
two gestation periods: but bees have been dying all those two 21 day periods.

So you can see why a population of 60,000 is very difficult to reach requiring a very healthy
queen.

But just like losing egg production ability with aging, the queen also loses the ability to produce
larvae amounts of queen pheromone, queen substance, queen odor, whatever you want to call it,
AS SHE AGES.

A 12 months old queen just cannot lay as many eggs or produce as much "glue" as a month old
queen!

Hence, as she starts her second season of life, this 13 month old queen not only can not lay as
well as her first season, but she can't produce enough "glue" pheromone to hold together a
colony as a colony unit some some large group of bees - So the workers prepare to swarm.

Now you should realize that the age of the queen is the 2nd most important reason for swarming.
Researchers over the last century and in several foreign countries have announced that a 2nd
season queen is 3 times more apt to swarm than a first season queen! I don't even want to
mention the figures for a queen in her third season.

In addition to REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT, BROOD CHAMBER CONGESTION, and AGE

OF THE QUEEN, there are several other reasons for swarming that YOU can control: bee's race
(Carniolan's have a high propensity of swarming ) - ventilation of the colony and super space
(only when the nectar flow is on).

Other reasons beyond your control is weather and intensity of the nectar flow (fast and heavy or
slow and light).
In a fast and heavy nectar flow, maybe the bees can't cure the nectar and store it fast enough, so
they swarm because of lack of storage space in the supers. (I told you on the first page that I
would mention swarming because of poor super space.)

Now you know the REASONS for swarming, let me tell you about the swarm preparation in the
colony, and how it will really foul up your hopes. I hope that you understand that our I queen bee
is very much akin to Queen Elizabeth ll of England who is a FIGUREHEAD only, making no
decisions, because the common man of PARLIAMENT makes all decisions.

Our queen bee is not a LEADER, but rather an egg laying machine and pheromone producer that
combines all these thousand of workers into a single functioning almost socialistic colony held
together by a single aim - to produce bees in the world.

Don't be anthropomorphic now, and imagine that foraging bees POLLINATE ON PURPOSE.
They pollinate by accident in nectar collection and getting pollen for their protein food. The
worker bees, having decided to swarm, construct queen cells, stop comb, building, STOP
FEEDING THE QUEEN so she loses weight to fly, send out new home site seekers, and stay
home from foraging for fear of being left out of swarming (wow! anthropomorphism!), and start
producing. "gallons" of royal jelly to feed all those new queen larvae:meaning of course, they are
doing NOTHING to help the beekeeper for up to 10 days before swarming.

Finally, the first queen cell is 9 days old and the cell is CAPPED. If the weather is nice the very
next day, there is suddenly an excited noisy whirring sound and bees are literally failing out of
the hive and taking wing to a nearby tree, bush, fencepost or what have you.

Why? They are hunting for the queen, to make sure she got pushed out of the hive and is with
them.

If they cannot find her in their cluster in about an hour, they break up and return the hive looking
for her.

If her wings had been clipped and she couldn't fly,or if she got lost, the bees will wait about 4-5
days: (again doing nothing for the beekeeper) until the first Virgin queen emerges from her
queen cell, force her out side ,with out allowing her mating time, and they swarm with her.

The clustered bees may stay in this temporary tree or bush for an hour, a day, or even several
days in bad weather, but they are NOT IDLE.

SEARCH BEES are sent out looking for a new home (maybe inside the walls of YOUR house).
They are looking at areas a mile or more from your apiary, a space of 1 000-5000 cubic inches (a
deep hive body= about 2500 cubic inches), about 10-15 ft high, slightly shaded, WIND Free, and
hidden.

As these search bees return,they do round wag-tail dance CONTINUOUSLY(not like a food
dance) trying to persuade others of the best location.
Finally, with a whir, off they go, and in Maryland-your honey crop for that year is probably
GONE. There is always next year,but there is still menthol, Apistan, fumadil-B, requeening, and
sugar feeding to be done before next April.

A sad picture, isn't it. Well, what can you. do about it? There is both swarm PREVENTION and
swarm CONTROL, so lets talk about them.

PREVENTION is providing plenty of BROOD space (not supers), by reversing the brood boxes
often from March into May so the queen can always move up to lay in open cells, have a queen
that is less than 9 months old, clip a queens wings (I do not like that as my personal way of
management but many beekeepers clip wings), and in dire emergency,but capped brood up in the
bottom-most super and fresh drawn comb in the brood chamber(rarely done).

Before I mention swarm control, let me state STRONGLY that egg-laying by the queen at nectar
flow time in Maryland and a lot of other eastern states is a TOTAL WASTE of bees,because
these bees will never be alive to forage for nectar in the future, just eat up stores, make beekeeper
management difficult, and really it would be almost desirable to stop her from laying.

OK, now Swarm control.

You must understand that any type of control is going to cause some honey production loss or
cause a difficult management problem. You can CAGE the queen on a brood frame to prevent
her egg laying. If you have more patience than the bees and you have eyes better than 20/20 you
can cut out queen cells every 8 days (never longer than 8 days) and don't miss a single one, you
can split your colony into two separate units and recombine them to a single unit in August (that
is my choice), and if you really are strong, young, full of ambition, and CRAZY, you can save all
your honey crop and not lose a swarm by using the DEMAREE method. I did it when I was
young and foolish, and never again! You can look it up in a book if you,want.

This gives you a birdseye view of swarming. I cannot cover everything for two reasons: I would
confuse you, and I expect you to use your brain and think out some of these things yourself.

However, before I just stop, I want to mention a few things of importance to some, unimportant
to others, that I have not covered above.

My remarks are made on the basis os situations in Central Maryland But they can be applied to
any place in the world if you account for the weather:and type of flora.

1. A dramatic difference in two stocks of bees: Carniolan and Starline Hybrid. The Carnie
queen slows her laying in a dearth of nectar flow, so Carnie bees don't have a large store
consuming bunch of bees going into winter. Oppositely, the Starline is a man-created
hybrid to gather nectar 12 months of the year and is used by migratory beekeepers
moving their bees from flora to flora. But this whole bunch of bees is eating a lot of food
the whole 12 months and is a very poor choice for hobbyist beekeepers.
 2. If you see a capped queen cell, the die is cast and a swarm will happen in a matter of
hours unless you stop it. Cage the queen, split the colony, Demaree it and don't wait until
tomorrow. Too late! If you see a big larvae floating in royal jelly, but not yet capped, you
might leave the hive queenLESS if you cut that cell. Better to use the stringent controls
above.
3. You can help to ease brood chamber congestion, plus increasing the efficiency of
foraging bees by providing several additional colony entrances. Use Imirie Shims
(available from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm) in between your supers; and the foragers
will learn to use those to leave and enter rather than battle up through the brood nest.
4. Always try to have a Class A, near perfect, worker cell drawn comb in your brood nest.
Leaving badly formed comb, or a lot of drone cells in the brood nest area diminishes the
laying space for the queen.
5. Have swarm clear and equipment READY TO USE RIGHT NOW, not an hour from now
as you find and collect it. You might watch the swarm fly away just because you put off
until tomorrow. YOU MUST BE READY TO ACT IMMEDIATELY IN SWARM
SEASON!
6. I have saved this to last, because it is so important. SWARMS ARE THE BEST OF ALL
COMB BUILDERS! When you catch a swarm always put them in hive of ten frames of
foundation with continuous feeding of l:l sugar syrup and plan on getting a new queen by
September. This old swarm queen and the swarm need SUDDEN COMB for queen
laying and storage space for food to feed these young larvae, and all of these swarm bees
will be dead in just 6 weeks, so they will work rapidly and have new bees hatching out in
about 30 days after hiving.

Since this swarm will not produce any honey for human use this year, it is best to put at least one
fresh Apistan strip in the center of the brood area and leave it for 6-8 weeks, NO LONGER, and
then REQUEEN it with a good pedigree marked queen!

This group might be next year's biggest honey producer. If you don't want more colonies, just
use this swarm to produce drawn comb for future use, and destroy the bees in late summer or
unite them with some other colony.

This is the greatest value of a swarm!

Now, since you all are swarm experts,I can rest and take a nap. I have had fun, and I hope you
have learned!

Testing For Varroa Mites

Your doctor always takes your temperature with a thermometer to "test" for a fever. If telephone
book numbers get harder to see, you go to the ophthalmologist who puts drops in your eyes,
darkens the room, and then "tests" your eyes with an ophthalmoscope.

Your dog runs across your driveway and you accidentally hit him; and the veterinarian "tests" for
leg damage with an X-Ray. Your car has to have an emission "test" every two years. Airplane
pilots have to be "tested" before they can be licenced.

Since mites are in 49 of our 50 states (not yet found in Hawaii), don't you think it is high time for
you to test your own bees to see how bad they are infected with mites?

Testing for mites is so easy, and you can chose between two different tests: the ether roll test
(which I despise because it is not very accurate, kills bees, and often kills the queen because of
beekeeper carelessness); and the sticky board test, which I will describe.

Bee scientists and researchers have proven that the most important time to kill varroa mites is at
the end of flying weather when brood rearing is about to stop, which in Central Maryland is
October and November, so my bees are always treated with Apistan beginning Oct.1 for 8 weeks
ending about Thanksgiving.

Since this is "AUTOMATIC", I don't test for mites prior to treating. However, depending on the
weather, location, colony strength, etc., bees may become mite infected before the spring honey
flow and probably are infected by July, because the mites "favorite food", bee larvae & pupae, is
so available because the queen bee has been laying eggs in abundance for several months.

There has been a large number of colony losses to mites in July or August, even after the bees
made a record crop of honey. Hence,- I always perform a sticky board test for mites on March
1st and usually find zero or very few; and I absolutely test on July 4th (after I have harvested
honey) and always find some mites, but rarely enough to indicate treatment, so the colonies are
can wait until the "automatic" October 1st treatment which lasts 8 weeks.

How do you make a sticky board? It is quite simple and cheap. Inside measurements of a hive
body are 14 1/2"x 1 8 1/2". Cut a piece of 1/8" masonite or wallboard to 14" x 18". Cut 3 pieces
of wood (like big popcicle sticks) about 1/8" thick and, mount these on both the 18" lengths of
the masonite and just one of the 14" length.

Cut a piece of 8 mesh wire or screen wire to 14 x18 and staple this on the "popcicle stick edges".

Cut a piece of freezer wax paper to a size of 12" x 16", spray the wax side with PAM, and insert
that in the "envelope" PAM side up, made by the screen wire and masonite; and your sticky
board is ready for use.

Open up your colony, so only the bottom story shows, and insert one Apistan strip between
frames 5-6 or insert two Apistan strips between frames 4-5 and 6-7, and put colony back as it
was.
Slide the sticky board in the hive front entrance on the hive bottom board and leave it there 1-3
days (I like 48 hours) and remove it.

Count the number of mites you find on the paper, and if there are more than 50 mites, add two
more Apistan strips to the second story and leave until supering time. Then remove all strips and
put on supers.

You probably will not have more than 50 mites for your March test if your fall treatment was
good. Regarding your July test, by now you will have mites, but how many?

If your test shows 100 mites, make sure no supers are present, add 4 Apistan strips and treat for
just 10-14 days, remove the strips, and if you are determined to get some of that crystalizing
goldenrod honey, put supers back in place.

Treating with Apistan for 10-14 days will NOT protect the bees through the fall and winter; but
is just an emergency use to keep your bees from suddenly dying of mite infestation. You will still
have to put NEW strips in your colony on October 1 and leave them there 6-8 weeks, but NO
LONGER because you might make mites resistant to APISTAN, which is our only licenced
chemical treatment.

I doubt that this will happen, BUT if your July test shows a large number of mites like 200- 500,
or more; forget the supers because those bees have to have a full 6-8 week treatment with
APISTAN IMMEDIATELY if you are going to save your bees from sudden death.

It has come to my attention that many people do not understand why you cannot RE-USE
Apistan strips if they have only been used a few days.

The Apistan strip is a plastic that has 10% fluvalinate absorbed in it. The effective varroa mite
killing fluvalinate is leached out (extracted from) the plastic by honey bees walking on it or the
mite touching the plastic or by sunlight; and hence the Apistan strip is a CONTACT miticide.

Obviously, most of the chemical is near the surface of the strip, and its effectiveness decreases
rapidly the moment it is first taken out of its sealed wrapper.

Further, the chemical deteriorates with age and more rapidly from heat, and hence, hanging in a
hive covered over by 90-95 degree warm bees for just a few days really diminishes its
effectiveness rather quickly.

You might ask, "Pray tell, why is the treatment time of 6-8 weeks the suggested treatment time,
if the strip loses its effectiveness so quickly?" Since a varroa mite is "born" in the larval or pupal
cell of a bee, emerges as an adult, travels around feeding on an adult bee perhaps for a few days
before more eggs are laid in DIFFERENT larval or pupal bee cells 2-3 weeks later, it is best to
keep apistan on the scene for 6-8 weeks in an attempt to get to get close to a 95% kill as possible.
Mite increase is far faster and greater than honey bee increase because there can be as many 2, 3,
or 4 mites raised in many bee cells, so the more we can kill per treatment, the healthier our bees
will be.

The Best Bee

Italian? Carniolan? Buckfast? Caucasian? Midnite? Starline? Uncle Joe's?
What do you want or expect from your bees? Just as German people are known for their blue
eyes and blonde hair, the Negro is known for their big round eyes and curly black hair, and the
Oriental is distinguished by "slanted" eyes and black hair. Equally, a duck hunter uses a Labrador
retriever to recover the fallen fowl from Chesapeake Bay, because the dog's coat is warm and
waterproof; whereas the same hunter uses an Irish Setter to recover fallen fowl when he hunts
over dry land. So it is with our honey bees, in that each race (there are numerous) as well as each
"stock" (even more numerous) has certain differing characteristics from each other, and it
behooves you to select the race or stock that best suits your desires of apis mellifera.

Maybe we are lucky that all honey bees are not the same, for if so, I would have nothing to write
about, nor would you have anything to argue about. Hence, let me mention some of the
characteristics that may be important to you to aid you in selecting a bee BEST SUITED to your
desires:

 Gentleness or excitability
 Resistance to various diseases and the tracheal mite plus the Varroa mite
 Early spring buildup in population
 Wintering ability
 Not prone to excess swarming
 Ripens honey rapidly
 Honeycomb cappings are white
 Minimal use of propolis
 Availability and queen cost
 COLOR (At least to me, it is UNFORTUNATE that many beekeepers emphasize this
characteristic as important. Sounds like buying a new car, a new evening gown,
repainting the living room walls. or dyeing your hair platinum blonde). I will admit that a
queen bee is easier to find among golden workers than among black workers; but you
should have a MARKED queen anyhow which is very visible among black or gold. Just
one more reason for MARKING a queen!

Look that list over and select the importance of each of these differing characteristics are very
important to you and the location of your bees, and which of the characteristics are not very
important. For example, if your bees are located in an urban area, surely you want gentle bees,
bees not given to robbing, or bees that seem to want to swarm on a warm Christmas Day making
a new home in your neighbors old doghouse or worse, in his bedroom wall siding. Perhaps,
white honeycomb cappings are not important if you do not produce or sell any comb honey.
Before I tell you the good points and the bad points of each race, let me "go out on a limb" and
say that to date there is no scientific evidence that substantiates that a particular race has any
more resistance to mites than any other race. We all hoped the YC2 stock of Carniolan bees
might prove resistant under the conditions used in the U.S. to mite infestation, but the literature
does not support that hope. In 1998, science has not yet found an identifiable resistance to mites
by any race. To date, no ways have been found to transfer any apparent resistance of a stock to
the progeny of that stock. Unfortunately, until science finds this "key" to mite resistance, killing
and controlling (note I said both killing and controlling) mites is our only alternative to
beekeeping without bee death from mites.

Let us talk about the good and bad characteristics of each race, and I will present a large part to
the most popular races in our country: Italian, Carniolan, and Buckfast. ITALIAN: apis mellifera
ligustica was first brought to this country in 1859, and gained immediate attention. Up until that
time, all of our bees were descended of the bees brought here by old English ships: the nasty,
disease prone, dark English bee, apis mellifera mellifera (I'd be nasty too with a double name like
that). The "new" Italian bee was much more gentle, disease resistant to the diseases prevalent at
that time, and was GOLDEN IN COLOR which made this new "farm bug" almost attractive. In
general, there are many different stocks of the Italian race primarily due to selective breeding by
queen breeders which of course magnifies or diminishes the characteristics common to Italians;
e. g. there are three distinct varieties of color: (1) the leather color (deemed the best by Brother
Adam); (2) the bright yellow (Golden) type (which captivated Americans, and still does in 1998
to a few); and (3) the very pale lemon-colored variety. Forgetting that unimportant color, lets talk
about the discerning factors of the Italian's behavior! It is relatively gentle and rather calm. It has
a strong disposition to brood rearing, which, although providing a large population for nectar
collection, continues even during nectar dearths, resulting in high food consumption, even
including the long inactive winter months. Often this strong brood rearing disposition and large
food consumption in late winter or early spring causes spring dwindling and hence slow or tardy
spring development. The Italian is known as an excellent housekeeper (which some scientists
think might be a factor in disease resistance), uses little propolis, are excellent foragers, superb
comb builders and cover the honey with brilliant white cappings. Sure sounds like the BEST bee
for all, but now let me tell you of her serious defects.

All professional apiculturists and researchers agree that of all honey bee races, the Italian has
earned the infamous title of "king of the robbers". Perhaps due to its shrewdness in locating
stores, if the beekeeper accidentally or carelessly leaves honey or nectar exposed, particularly
during a dearth, it is the Italian "girls" that are first on the scene and in moments the area is not
fit for man (particularly neighbors) or beasts. Similar to this detrimental characteristic, Italian
bees are often very annoying because they angrily fly about the head of the beekeeper as he is
making colony manipulations in the apiary. Maybe Italian bees dislike the odor of discharged
human breath more than other races - who knows? The Italian bee is the "child" of the
Mediterranean climate: short, mild, humid winters and dry summers with long honeyflows. That
does NOT sound like our typical Maryland weather. The biggest difference, of course, is our
only honey flow is early in the spring and SHORT. (It would be nice to have some nectar crop in
June, July, and August before the Goldenrod comes to life). Surely our winters are not like
Michigan or New York, but neither are they normally short, mild, and humid. Our normal
winters are just not like the normal Mediterranean winter, and perhaps the Italian bee may not be
the best bee for our climate and early spring short nectar flow.

Before all you Italian adherents, knowing of my use of Carniolans, descend here armed with tar
and feathers, I still think a GOOD well-bred Italian bee is an excellent choice for many
beekeepers, and (SURPRISE) I use some Italians myself for special purposes, notably for
drawing foundation and making late crop comb honey - but then I re-queen them with Carnies.
That Tar and Feathers scares me!

CARNIOLAN: apis mellifera carnica is the most popular race of bees in all of Europe and
perhaps the 2nd most popular in the world. Its original home is the Carniolan Mountains at the
eastern side of the Alps in Eastern Austria, Croatia, Eastern Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria
and Romania (the entire Danube River valley). It is one of the black bees (as opposed to the
yellow or golden Italian) and its geographical heritage makes it better suited to normally cooler
climates than the Mediterranean area. Like the Italian race, due to geographic location
differences as well as selective queen breeding, there are many different "stocks" of Carniolan
bees resulting in slightly variable characteristics depending on the stock; e. g. the Austrian stocks
produce more propolis than any of the other Carniolan stocks which produce very little propolis.

Although I switched from raising Italian bees to Carniolans 49 years ago (1949) and feel that I
know much about them, I will give you the statements and writings about Carniolans from some
of the renowned geneticists and apiculturists of the world. Two attributes of the Carniolan that
are universally agreed are (1) its exceptional docility (Brother Adam (1966) said that Carnica
was the quietest and most gentle of all bee races), and (2) Carniolans are known for their
"explosive" early spring buildup at the first sign of pollen. Brother Adam's book, "In Search of
the Best Strains of Honey Bees", refers to the Carniolan bee as "the spring flow bee per
excellence" because of its early spring buildup. A major difference between Carniolans and other
races is they seem to apportion their energies and their food stores with almost human thought, in
that during a slowdown of nectar or particularly the dearth times of hot dry summer, they
materially reduce brood production thereby saving food. This summertime trait of 'taking it easy
and rockin' in the porch swing" enhances the bee's longevity which is a benefit to add to natural
foraging ability, its hardiness and wintering ability. Hence, the Carniolan winters with a much
smaller cluster than other bees and hence uses much less winter stores. Honey bee geneticist
Ruttner (75) and researcher Deitz (68) wrote a great deal about this difference from other bees
and pointed out the Carniolan's heavy dependence on pollen availability which triggers an
explosive brood rearing cycle. (Needless to say, although Maryland is rich in pollen availability,
my bees have pollen substitute patties in place shortly after Christmas.) In contrast to Italians,
The Carniolan has a great sense of orientation so that it does not enter the wrong colony or
deplete a weak colony by mistakenly entering a strong colony. Perhaps this strong orientation
sense is related to the NONROBBING attribute of the Carniolan. (This does not mean that you
can pour honey all over the apiary ground in August and not have robbing, but it does mean you
can inspect or manipulate your colonies in August without the fear of being chased into the next
county.) Like the Italians, Carnies produce brilliant white honeycomb cappings. What a
spectacle! Finally, brood diseases are almost unknown in the heartland of the Carniolan bee, and
somewhat disease resistant in the rest of the world.
Oh my, now I have to explain why the Carniolan is not considered the BEST bee for all
beekeepers, and it is not! I joke about its major fault when I tell people that the swarming
propensity is so strong that it would not surprise me to have a swarm on a warm Christmas Day.
Reminding you that swarm season is just before the major spring nectar flow (swarming at the
height of a nectar flow is the fault of the beekeeper, not the bees), this major deficiency of the
Carniolan is its strong disposition to swarming caused by its great vitality and the rapid
development of its colonies. However, this excessive swarming tendency can be reduced to
tolerable limits by the knowledge of bee behavior principles, good apiary management, always
available brood space for the queen, and no queen over one year old (Brother Adam, 1951:
Ruttner, 1975; Imirie, 1994). Further, compared to the Italian, the Carniolan is not a proficient
comb builder and hence may not be very good for comb honey production or drawing
foundation. I mentioned above that I used Italian bees to draw foundation and make late comb
honey. Lastly, as much as I prefer Carnies to any other bee, I don't get any pizzazz out of that
black color, and silently wish she was GOLDEN.

Is the Buckfast a "race" or a good "hybrid"? I have listened to experts argue the point to no real
conclusion. I have wanted to be the fly on the wall of a room holding Brother Adam, the
developer of the Buckfast bee; Gladstone Cale, the developer of the Starline bee; and Freidrich
Ruttner, an exponent of the Midnight Bee and listen to their debate whether the Buckfast is a
race or a hybrid. As only a novice of genetics, I would have to say the Buckfast is a hybrid, and a
good one, but not a race. However, who cares as long as one is smart enough not to use daughter
queens, but only use queens ideally coming from artificial insemination with so called "pure"
drone stock. After acarine disease (now we know it was tracheal mites) destroyed about 95% of
all English bees in 1920, Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England was charged with
developing a successor to the old English dark bee, apis mellifera mellifera. He spent the rest of
his life traveling the entire world, notably Europe and Africa, interviewing the apiculturists and
breeders of that day plus collecting thousands of various queens to breed away the bad points and
maintain the good points. Although the resulting Buckfast bee has numerous diverse lines of
forebearers including some of the African bees, the basic bee is primarily Italian with certain
changes to make it better suited for beekeeping in the climate and environment of the British
Isles. In 1922, our government passed a law prohibiting the entrance of any bees from foreign
countries into the U. S., and hence, we could not have the Buckfast bee to try it out. However, in
the early 1980's, Weaver Apiaries of Navasota, Texas entered into a contractual deal with
Brother Adam to gain Buckfast bees in the U. S. Starting with a small government approved
colony, Brother Adam often ships frozen Buckfast drone semen to Weavers, who artificially
inseminates virgin queens produced from Weaver's original colony of Buckfast bees. Weaver's
are the only licensed suppliers of Buckfast bees in this country.

Purely for a scientific test of what was the "best bee" for my Maryland area, my Bee Partner,
Master Beekeeper Ann Harman and I, purchased10 Buckfast queens back in 1986 to see what
they were like compared to Ann's Italians and my Carniolans. It was our plan to continue these
tests for 5 consecutive years re-queening every colony each year; but the arrival of the Varroa
mite redirected our attention to mite control and we had to terminate our trial of Buckfast after
just 3 years. I can tell you of our conclusions about Buckfast. They are a nice bee having most of
the good points of Italians, but not as gentle as a good stock of Italians (note I said "good stock")
and surely not as gentle and calm as a Carniolan. However, they don't have the swarming
propensity of Carnies, which is in their favor. Like Italians, or any other race except Carniolans,
Buckfast are not up to full strength to do a good job on an early crop like black locust or holly.
They do not peak until mid May when our normal nectar flow is about half gone all ready. We
could not get a good test for robbing, because both Ann and I are quite meticulous in avoiding
any cause for robbing. They are not the bright yellow or golden bee that is attractive to many
Americans. I have no idea of their mite resistance, if any, because I have always used menthol
for tracheal mites since 87 and Apistan (following Miticur) since 90, and don't lose bees to mites.
When we stopped experimenting, we did not re-queen and allowed those 10 colonies to re-queen
themselves and the problem with using hybrids was well proved. Those F1 and F2 daughters
produced nasty workers, and hence we re-queened them with Italian and Carniolan queens to
regain some nice gentle bees. If I were to move to an area without a real early nectar flow and
particularly in a area with a LONG sustained nectar flow and since I use annual re-queening as a
major factor of swarm prevention, I would use Buckfast bees and re-queen every year which
might avoid that continuous brood laying and high food consumption of the Italians. I do not
think the Buckfast is a desirable bee for a novice or a beeHAVER, but they are fine for a
thinking, planning person or an established beeKEEPER.

Now, let me say a few words about a relatively unpopular race of bees, the Caucasian Race
whose original home was the lower steppes of the Ural Mountains, near the Caspian sea. The
Caucasian bee doesn't really "wake up and come to life" until much later than all other bees,
almost June in Maryland, and it seems to attract European Foul Brood as well as Nosema. It is
best known for the good point of having perhaps the longest tongue (6.8 -7.4 mm.) of any bee,
and one very "sticky", undesirable point of using a massive amount of propolis sealing every
element of a colony into a sealed unit. It is extremely gentle, but not used much by beekeepers
because of its inherited problems. Perhaps it largest use is to make up the hybrid, Midnite bee,
which is a combination of Caucasian and Carniolan. Unless you have a major market for the sale
of propolis, not to mention being comfortable with dirty, sticky fingers, you don't want
Caucasian bees.

Having mentioned the Buckfast and the Midnite, I might as well mention the other hybrids found
in the U. S. - The Starline, The Double Hybrid, and of course Uncle Joe's, Cousin Bill's, Aunt
Mary's, or YOURS in you don't have a planned re-queening program. If you just allow your bees
to take whatever nature provides for them via your virgin queen being bred by a whole flock of
boys just drifting along the flyways in your area maybe carrying all kinds of disease germs,
mites, another race and who knows, maybe an Africanized drone from a swarm that escaped
from a tanker cruising up Chesapeake Bay, you are the classic example of a beeHAVER and
certainly not a beekeeper! The Africanized bees were not brought across the Rio Grande in a
chauffeur driven limousine, but rather swarmed across the river from Mexico unnoticed.

All of the commercially available hybrids have been specially bred by someone in the hopes of
either bettering some deficiency or lessoning some problem point. A knowledge beekeeper with
some understanding of genetic principles can use the different characteristics of each race to
make the resulting hybrid "best" for a specific purpose, and usually that purpose at the sacrifice
of some of the other characteristics. It has been said that the Midnite hybrid (Carniolan -
Caucasian) was bred in an attempt to lesson the Carniolan's desire to swarm and lessen the
Caucasian's overuse of propolis while maintaining the superb gentleness and calmness of both
races. This was accomplished to some extent, but some of the other race good characteristics
were lessoned and some of the bad characteristics were intensified. One has to accept the fact
that "what might be good for George or Bill might be bad for Dick and Harry", so one cannot say
" That hybrid is really good! " or " That hybrid is really lousy!" "Good or bad" is an individual
choice of what that person wants and desires of a bee! There is only one thing for sure about any
hybrid and that is the queen must be bred by a talented queen breeder; because allowing a hybrid
virgin queen to field breed will almost always result in nasty progeny which makes any
beekeeping a chore rather than pleasant work. The Starline was developed by Dadant Co. Dr.
Gladstone Cale as a bee designed for the migratory beekeeper whose bees were always supposed
to bring in large crops of honey month after month plus have all the other desirable qualities you
can think of and of course none of the unfavorable traits. No queen was expected to last very
long, because swarms were surely not wanted, so colonies must be re-queened each year or even
twice a year. This hybrid is a product of breeding two different inline progeny of Italians; and it
was quite popular 20 years ago and has lost favor since.

I want to end this report by saying you should NOT select a race or a stock because George said
it was best, or because commercial beekeeper Charlie uses XYZ bee so that must be the best, or
Professional apiculturist John only buys bees from High Jinks Bee Company, so they must have
the best bees, and lastly, don't buy because it is the cheapest (if cars were bought that way, we
would all have the EZride sedan and no one would have a Cadillac or a Mercedes). God gave
you a mind - use it! What bee characteristics do you want the most? Which bad points do you
want to avoid? You have read what I have written, particularly for Maryland; and you can read
what the famous apiculturists say, like: Roger Morse, Keith Delaplane, Steve Taber, Mark
Winston and read the books like Hive and the Honeybee, ABC & XYZ of Bee Keeping, etc, and
talk to people who have known beekeeping skills (not just friendly beekeepers in your club or
your neighborhood - I hope you don't consult your butcher or your computer teacher for advice
about having an appendectomy). After doing all these things, make your decision and then ask
these same knowledgeable people "Which queen breeder do you use, so I can get some like
yours?" Again, forget what your good buddy in the bee club says - maybe you are debating
between getting a Lincoln and a Lexus, and your good buddy drives a beat-up old Rambler
because he is quick to tell you: "It is the BEST!"

You have all winter to think about this. I strongly suggest that you have your order in to the
supplier of your choice before February so you can get a decent shipment date. I will not give
you any advice regarding queen breeders for fear of offending some, but I will talk with you
about it if you call me. GOOD queen breeding is a talent and art that require a lot of ability and
hard work to get good at it. I know most of the better ones and I know some that I would avoid at
all costs. It might make a difference if you told your selected supplier that you were following
George Imirie's advice, because most of the breeders in the country know me and know how
much I demand, not only of them, but the demands that I place on the queens, and MYSELF! I
am planning on having a great 1999 in spite of my slowdown from age and strokes, and I wish
you an even better year!
 Upper Entrances
Wow, you are talking my language when you mention UPPER ENTRANCE. I think every
colony in the world should have an upper entrance 365 days of the year. I am in my 65th year of
beekeeping, spending much of the last 20 years teaching beekeeping all over the world FREE OF
CHARGE; and still do it in the U.S. in spite of being disabled by strokes.

I hate and despise drilling holes in my supers for upper entrances as a lot of people have done. I
cut a piece of wood out of the front edge of the inner cover that leaves a hole 5/16" high x 1-1/2"
long into the top body, be it a super or brood body. Someone might say there is a shallow and a
thick side to an inner cover and the shallow side should always be down. That is baloney! I put
the thick side down so there is about 3/8" of space between the inner cover surface and the tops
of frames. Bees will only build burr comb there if they are short on super space - no other reason.
So they stay in that position 365 days of the year.

What are the advantages: Primarily two, and both quite simple. Talk about summertime first.
Why make foraging bees enter the front door, climb up through the congested brood nest to put
nectar in the supers. A foraging bee's only work is nectar gathering - it does nothing else! When
it has an upper entrance (particularly if you are not using "Imirie Shims" between supers), the
forager learns to leave and return through that upper entrance and not add further congestion to
the brood nest. This results in more flights per day per bee and certainly tends to reduce the main
cause of swarming - congestion of the brood nest!

How would you react on a cold winter night if someone poured freezing water on your bare
back? When air is breathed into the lungs and than discharged out, one of the products is water
vapor (clean your eye glasses by blowing your breath on them). This warm vapor goes up
(everybody knows heat rises), and in the winter this warm vapor rises and contacts the cold inner
cover where it liquifies into a drop of cold water. In time more drops of cold water accumulate
and finally it rains of the cluster of warm bees below, and many freeze to death. If there is an
upper entrance in place, that warm rising vapor from the bees breathing has a way to escape from
the hive by going out of the entrance to outside. Lastly, sometimes (but not very often) the front
entrance of a colony is covered by snow or sleet and the weather suddenly warms to flight
weather for an hour or so. But the bees are penned inside by several inches of snow and sleet,
which hasn't melted yet. If there was an upper entrance, the bees can fly on a cleansing flight.

I have used Upper entrances on my 100+ colonies for at least 50 years, and just think everybody
would be wiser if they used upper entrances too.

Drawing Foundation and Proper Supering

Why do I combine drawing foundation and proper supering into a single subject? Unlike we
humans, honey bees are mentally able to plan ahead, and do all their duties only when there is a
need. Drawn comb is only needed for either of two reasons: cells for brood rearing, or cells to
store food: nectar, honey, or pollen. In my writings over the past 40 years, time after time, I have
said, "Frames of drawn comb are every beekeeper's most valuable possession." The secretion of
bees wax by worker bees and then constructing drawn comb with that wax on the foundation
surface is not only hard work, but lengthy work, and bees have to consume 8 pounds of honey to
make just 1 pound of wax! Yet, year after year, beehavers and even some careless beekeepers let
their drawn combs be destroyed by careless uncapping and/or extraction, handling damage, and
wax moth infestation. How do you get new foundation drawn into comb?

Bees will not build foundation into comb unless there is a nectar flow going on! In the absence of
a nectar flow, an informed beekeeper can "fool" the bees by making an artificial nectar flow by
feeding 1:1 (1 lb. sugar in 1 pint water) sugar syrup. Nowhere in the whole United States is there
a continuous nectar flow, and in most areas, the nectar flows might be only 4-8 weeks long, or
even shorter like my central Maryland area. Sheets of beeswax foundation are quite often
destroyed by bees if they are in place in the absence of a nectar flow; and sheets of plastic
foundation are made comb-building resistant by bees walking on the plastic with "dirty" feet.
Strongly, I repeat, there must be a nectar flow present to get bees to draw foundation into drawn
comb, and there is no other way, regardless of what someone else has told you!

So how does a novice beekeeper get 20 or 30 frames of foundation made into drawn comb from
a package of bees, or the extra frames of foundation made into drawn comb from a nuc? Never,
ever, install more than one super of all 10 frames of foundation on a colony! These 10 frames
(never 9) must be tightly closed together, end bar tightly touching end bar, leaving any unused
space over by the sides of the super. Feed 1:1 sugar syrup, preferably using an inverted glass
gallon jar over the inner cover hole. The jar lid should be drilled with very fine, 5/64" holes (you
want to feed them, not drown them). Now hear this! Feed 1:1 sugar syrup continuously, with no
stops, from April to September. This is the only way that you can force the bees to build 20-30
frames of foundation into drawn comb; and if a real nectar flow occurs, the bees will stop taking
the sugar syrup because they like the real nectar better, but they will still use the sugar syrup at
night or a rainy day when they can't fly. After, but not before, about 6-7 of these frames of
foundation are well drawn into drawn comb, move the undrawn frames into the center and the
fully drawn frames to the side, and then add a second super of foundation. Repeat this same
procedure for a third or fourth super.

Summarizing: Foundation cannot be drawn without a nectar flow! It is rare that you can mix
frames of foundation with drawn comb without a "mess" being made of both the foundation and
the drawn comb; so you should always put 10 frames of foundation, tightly packed together, into
a super. Never, never, try to draw more than one super of foundation at a time.

And, a caution: Whatever honey (and sugar syrup) that is stored in these newly drawn combs
should be stored for bee feed in the winter - or kept in the freezer and used in nucs or splits the
following spring.