[susan rudnicki]

Hi, I work with a local bee remover who picks up a lot of swarms in the Spring, boxes them and brings them to my house to hand off to people in the HL club. You just need to watch the postings here. Also, be sure to always leave a phone contact and where you live Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, I am the moderator of the forum but somehow I missed your message—really sorry! I can’t think how this could be done, especially with so few bees—they are sorta wild, you know, and do not take directions well….
Bee Queen pheromone is what I think you are referring to, when stunts like making a “bee beard” on a person is done. Mostly, these would be European purchased honeybees, not the ferals we use.

[susan rudnicki]

I called Evelyn and left a message—unlikely these are “Russian” bees, but hybrid partially
Africanized ferals, sturdy and disease resistant. Hoping someone in the club in the Valley may take the box home and do a cutout. I will alert Phil Jobe in Topanga. Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Thanks for the information on the conference, Rob. Of course, if folks were thinking logically, the issue of ferals would be addressed with the facts of what we already know—there are LOTS of ferals living in the urban environment now, so if they were generally as fierce as portrayed by conventional beeks, there would be constant attacks reported. The “vectors of pests and disease” argument also bears scrutiny—package bees can’t survive without treatments, and ferals don’t get treated so naturally select for the survivor stock. Who has the weak bees?
I have learned (the hard way as a mentor) to keep up with my students and insist from the very beginning that if they are going to be competent and confident, they MUST maintain a regular relationship with a mentor. I have taken hives back after long periods of neglect by some students, and with others, had to arrange “rescue operations” with the aid of other experienced beeks in our club due to their failing these principles. This is a VERY unpleasant, not to say dangerous, situation to be pushed into and I do not like it. I have learned “through the grapevine” of really unsafe and irresponsible situations of former swarm box takers handing off hives to completely unprepared people and giving no mentoring—just dumping the bees on site. Now, I am just much more careful in assessing the actual interest level before getting into it too deeply. So, I am sensitive to the concerns of the conventional beeks in this regard. They are NOT completely wrong in their fears. On some level they must know, though, that it is better to be out in the open to educate wisely than to drive the craft underground.
I agree with you that 2-3 years is about right for becoming confident and this is part of the message I convey when people express interest in learning beekeeping. They must not be led to believe it is a quickly acquired skill.
I have seen that part of this misunderstanding is a side-effect of our too busy lives and sometimes very distracted “plugged in” habits. Beekeeping is a SLOW YOU DOWN thing, and does not work if you are in a hurry. The bees won’t like it and you won’t like what they do to you. This is part of the information students should hear from their mentor. One of the first questions newbees ask is “how much time does it take?” Though it is not as much time as keeping a dog—walking, cleaning up poop, vet visits, grooming, obedience training, flea control—at certain times of year it is very intense. And more importantly, the acquisition of education and knowledge cannot be timed—it is a deep subject. As a example of this, I tell students that getting together the “toolbox” of remedies you need as a beek allows one to address many problems that come up and that may have more than one answer. This “toolbox” building brings confidence but it is complex, and it takes quite awhile to see how different remedies interlink on the flow-chart of a problem analysis. So, one thing they can work on right away is memorizing Bush’s “Bee Math” chart.
Well, the problem with siting a Education Apiary is frustrating—I suppose we have to find somewhere with liability levels that are acceptable, eh? I wonder how other clubs have managed this?
Thanks again Rob

[susan rudnicki]

Thanks for these videos, Rob ! I listened to them and am especially pleased that he emphasized the need to be dedicated to gaining knowledge and facility if you want to keep bees. There are ways to be supportive of bees without having a hive. The county office of apiary inspection is turning more attention to the backyard beeks as I have learned recently. Conrad Burton is the current inspector and called me to ask for a visit to my place to discuss management of urban bees, so I will be meeting him on Tuesday. He has already visited some of our other members. In the past, the registered hives were primarily commercial outfits, but now those comprise only 30 and backyard registrants are 109. Conrad is personally motivated, it seems, to learn more about this larger group (though his primary job is monitoring small business hazardous materials) Therefore, it is incumbent on us to put the best face forward to urban bees. Already, he tells me there are some really sketchy folks out there keeping hives (no suit, afraid of the hive, never inspecting, etc) and this kind of keeping will not serve the craft well in moving our efforts to a acceptable position. My opinion is—there is great need for a verifiable course in basic beekeeping that results in granting a certain level of expertise and knowledge of facts. This is what Les has mentioned is available in New Mexico, and I know some other parts of the country, New York, CT, PA have them too.

[susan rudnicki]

There have been some pretty funny remarks on the OrganicBeekeepers site about this writer’s piece—-

Yeah, and they mate “three times as often as European queens” a
veritable litany of loose living, whore-like proclivities!! From Me
——————–
Those terrible promiscuous AHB! The drones are just as bad. Trolling early, late and longer looking for European queens to shame…

Michael Bush
————————-
Hi,

having lived in Arizona for 21 years, having been interviewed more than once by The Arizona Republic, having been in stories written up in the The Arizona Republic, having been in the room when stories happened,

this is totally normal for the The Arizona Republic.

This is the paper who refused to carry the investigative report about Don Bolles murder. Don Bolles worked for The Arizona Republic, and the The Arizona Republic did not want to embarrass anyone in state for killing one of its own reporters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bolles

I had to buy a copy of The LA Times when I was in High School to read the story.

This is the same paper who hired a phoney “war hero” as publisher, see Duke Tully.. No fact checking here.

My birds would not even shit on The Arizona Republic when it lined the cage till they were ready to explode. Dead fish would scream in pain when wrapped in The Arizona Republic.

OK, so the last 2 are a little like the The Arizona Republic story about bees.

Gregg

Ozarks

[susan rudnicki]

I find this whole issue a good example of the power of “exotic marketing” messages and especially of the false impression of a plant name that is really tied to a common horticultural specimen. I guess the producers would say “but our bees are foraging ONLY on Leptospermum scoparium (Manunka or Australian Tea Tree) so that is the difference” and that may be true. But it is annoying that the botanical name of the plant is not revealed until someone digs it out and then you find it is not some wildly exotic shrub, but something all over the southern US. But the uninitiated will pay the crazy price thinking it must be special because it is so expensive

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, Bianca—please tell us where the hive is located and what are the access rules to your garden. It would also be helpful to post a contact phone
Thanks!

[susan rudnicki]

Alessandra—I think it all depends on what you are looking for and whether shipping costs are justified by the item you are buying. My full suit came from Brushy Mountain in North Carolina, but the need for a strong, bee proof full suit with elastics and zippers around the ankles is why I chose theirs. For cutouts, I want full coverage. Our 2 local suppliers, Pierce-Mieras in Fullerton and LA Honey in east LA have all the bee hiveware and tools I need, but the choices in clothing is more limited. Look over the on-line catalogs and choose the clothing you think best meets your needs, but be prepared to pay shipping from possibly great distance. There are suits made of several layers of loosely woven synthetic materials that boast of being much cooler to wear and are bee proof—the Breeze from Pigeon Mountain is one of these. My bee buddies, both men, really like theirs.
There is a new supplier just started up—TheValleyHive.com–out in Chatsworth, but I do not know how much clothing they have. Susan

[susan rudnicki]

HI, Brie—this has been a discussion topic fairly often, but here are some things to keep track of—hives in shade, on moist ground and struggling in vigor can have problems with SHB. A strong hive can have a few easily, but they will keep the beetles corralled up under the top board, often with “fences” of propolis. SHB is often a signal of a underlying problem, in other words. Two is no big deal.

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, Karim—this is very interesting! Who puts this out? How did you find it? The main problem with all the parameters is that there is too much room for subjective interpretation. Ten people will have ten different opinions. So, that is one reason for finding out the motives of the publisher.
Much more objective info is at this site I have put up many times, from Food Safety News, “Most Store Bought Honey Isn’t Honey” because they had a pollen scientist test the honeys in a lab to find out the adulteration. Also of value is that the list NAMES THE BRANDS that are suspected of adulteration.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.VEUoBXs8t2A Thanks for this!

[susan rudnicki]

I looked into the steps required to meet the registration, and decided the whole thing was WAY too much work. I sell my honey, ( even in a local market) and don’t conform to all the rigamarole. Honey does not need refrigeration or special packing so it is just a way to force licensing fees, in my opinion. My city (Manhattan Beach) is lenient towards beeks, having no regs about keeping, pro or con. I work with the city removing bees from danger and respond to citizen calls without incurring costs to the city government.

[susan rudnicki]

Ceebs—so glad you found this and that the intrepid reporter dug a little deeper to expose the Cascadian Farm/General Mills collusion. It is classic “greenwashing” so well practiced by the likes of Big Ag. Cascadian is one of the brands pumping money into the anti-GMO ballot propositions coming up in the next election in Colorado and Oregon. Now that Annie’s Organics has been sucked up by Big Ag, they are on the anti-labeling law bandwagon, too. These folks try to position their argument as “giving the consumer a choice” but the real reason is behemoths like Unilever (bought out Ben and Jerry’s ice cream) and Horizon Dairy (faux-organic milk on massive confined stock yard operations in the desert) Burt’s Bees (owned by Clorox) and Naked Juices (owned by Pepsi) are trying to garner their share of the profitable Organic Brand without really changing their business model to benefit biodiversity, sustainability or true environmentally protective operations. The Big Ag operatives are also pushing their way onto the Nat’l Organics Standards Board, the ONLY regulation body that upholds the meaning of the “organic” label. They are pushing to get fossil fuel derived additives and other food adulterants allowable for the organic regulations, a devastating assault on the meaning of “organic” (including, as I have written here before, the allowance of formic acid in organic honey production) Here is a link for those interested in learning about the many brands of “organic” that have been taken over, bought out by Big Ag and Big Pharma—
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17306.cfm

[susan rudnicki]

Sad that the comments section is closed after just 2 days—no letters mention the exclusion of the information about Africanized bees exhibiting natural resistance to the varroa mite and the genetics that is avoided by conventional research in looking at this

[susan rudnicki]

SORRY!! The link to sign up for the BIP survey did not transfer—here is the link

http://beeinformed.us3.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=8c627cdbadf8c40e7bf353175&id=3ee3583318

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