[susan rudnicki]

HI, Tom—thanks for listing the size/number of boxes of your hive. This would also be about the capacity of 2 deeps. We have a LOT of newbees trolling this site, so to make posts as educational as possible, we want to use full descriptions of colonies, whether being offered for sale, give-away or problem solving.
Would you please give a few more facts about the colony so as to better describe the situation?
1) How old is it and from a swarm or cutout?
2) How often have in-hive inspections been done? Brood nest and honey storage areas
3) You mention “active” a couple times—what would be your assessment of the colony’s attitude to inspection? With proper smoking and preparation, of course.

Thanks for helping us learn Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Hi, Steve—you may have missed this earlier post about the wisdom of feeding syrup. So, I will re-post it for everyone. One of the problems associated with sugar/HFCS is the pH alters the gut environment, thereby disrupting the gut bacteria that foster good immune system health in the honeybee. Honey is pH about 4.6 and syrup is 7.0 or more alkaline. When there is NO OTHER choice and you must prevent starvation, of course you may have to rely on it. But bees natural food is honey, and feeding inside the hive with a baggie feeder on the floor for a TBH is much better for establishing the colony health. Natural pollen should also be used over soy-based pollen substitutes. Here is the link to the study on syrup/HFCS—

——————-

Beekeepers often feed high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or sucrose after harvesting honey or during periods of nectar dearth. We report that, relative to honey, chronic feeding of either of these two alternative carbohydrate sources elicited hundreds of differences in gene expression in the fat body, a peripheral nutrient-sensing tissue analogous to vertebrate liver and adipose tissues. These expression differences included genes involved in protein metabolism and oxidation-reduction, including some involved in tyrosine and phenylalanine metabolism. Differences between HFCS and sucrose diets were much more subtle and included a few genes involved in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Our results suggest that bees receive nutritional components from honey that are not provided by alternative food sources widely used in apiculture.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140717/srep05726/full/srep05726.html

[susan rudnicki]

olivia—I have tried to call your phone 7 times—no outgoing message and a recording that says, “Sorry, please call again later” Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Sean Easton took these

[susan rudnicki]

For the benefit of newbees and all who may not be lingo saavy—

General rule when speaking of hive body sizes—“supers” means simply “above” (as the pre-fix “sub” means “below”) so can be a deep, a medium, or a shallow hive body. These take different frame sizes and though a medium frame can be used in a deep, the reverse is not possible. Please always use specific designations. Ditto for the “full frames”—one does not know what size these are—deeps or mediums—the most commonly used sizes.
A “nuke box” (actually “nuc” or short for “nucleus hive box”) is a 5 frame (deeps or mediums will work) box used for small cutouts or swarms or raising queens—so half the size of a full Langstroth hive. The smaller size allows the bees to easily patrol their home for invaders, keep the brood nest warm, and grow till enough vigor to occupy a full hive body—deep or medium.
Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Josip took these

[susan rudnicki]

Josip took these

[susan rudnicki]

HI, Brian—Susan here, who handed off some swarm boxes to you at one time. Sounds like a good group you are selling. Have you been managing them well with at least monthly inspections of the colony brood nest and comb straightness issues? It would be helpful to responders to describe the hives themselves in more detail, as we have many more inexperienced beeks than knowledgeable ones.

1) how old are they?
2) what kind of hives (TBH or Langs) and the size of the hive bodies and number of boxes?
3) what kind of management have you done with them?

It sounds like you have some lead time on this sale project, so please try to interview prospective buyers for suitability to take hives—education, experience, mentoring, possession of protective clothing and tools, etc. We want to promote a safe and careful community of beeks that shows urban beekeeping in the best light. This will happen with thoughtful placement and training. Thanks a lot Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Gary—OK, we have the first couple important questions answered, but the last 3 are not addressed in your reply. We have a lot of newbees with need for guidance, so to be safe and responsible about cutouts and other bee rescues, this information is fundamentally important. Please post to the list the responses needed to fill in the blanks. Again, from the earlier post—

Whose property is this on and what is the relationship with the property owner?

Is the property owner willing to pay for the work to be done?

The mentoring of a newbee to get the swarm or do a cutout is fundamentally important for the safety of the public and protection of reputations. Is the poster offering to mentor? If not, please clearly state this position

Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Beeks—when posting like this, you will help the responder much more by giving DETAILED information about the bees.

Is it a open air hive?

Is it a hive within structure?

How long has it been there?

How high is it?

The words “swarm” and “hive” are often used interchangeably, but they mean different things—these terms are not the same thing.

Whose property is this on and what is the relationship with the property owner?

Is the property owner willing to for the work to be done?

The mentoring of a newbee to get the swarm or do a cutout is fundamentally important for the safety of the public and protection of reputations. Is the poster offering to mentor? If not, please clearly state this position.

Chelsea just posted on July 9th the underlying important principles—printed here again.

Education (both research and hands on) and getting all necessary beekeeping gear (including a suit and a well stocked first aid kit/EpiPen) are the first steps to becoming a responsible urban beekeeper. We all need to do our part to keep the beekeeping community in the best of standing with our neighbors and the city!

Here is a list of recommendations we put together before thinking of getting your own bees:
http://honeylove.org/organic-beekeeping-kit/
beekeeping equipment

We also encourage you to join us each month at the HoneyLove Sanctuary to learn hands on how to handle bees BEFORE getting them in your own backyard: http://www.meetup.com/HoneyLove/events/187206002/

Please help us to make LA a safe and responsible place for urban beekeeping to thrive!

[susan rudnicki]

Elisha—I am sorry to say, either this pro-beekeeper has some prejudices about Africanized bees and their swarming proclivities (this is a common myth) or you could have misunderstood his words. Bees swarm—this is Nature’s way of helping them procreate. Healthy hives have the population and reserves to throw a swarm and will do it when a certain level of crowding sets off the process. ALL bees swarm under the right conditions, and all bees come from a swarm in Nature. We humans have waylaid that process by breeding bees, selling them in packages, and controlling the mating of the queens artificially. Michael Bush cautions that many times, purchased queens have not been mated adequately and are shipped with ovarioles in not fully developed status. This impedes their reproductive capabilities.
Please access on the computer Michael Bush’s entire book—you do not have to buy anything, it is all there—at bushfarms.com/bees.htm
It is a complete and thorough compendium of common sense management and keeping of honeybees, and is a source of treatment free and feral genetics information.
The book is titled—“the Practical Beekeeper, Beekeeping Naturally” by Michael Bush. He did a workshop with one of our clubs in 2012.
By the way, none of us will ever know it all, and learning constantly is a lifelong process to be greatly enjoyed! Susan

[susan rudnicki]

Elisha—you are advocating a very seriously flawed rationale here–

“I understand that some people are rich and can pay for a suit in no time, but i bought mine after i got bees but got atleast 15 stings before i got it.The bee venom is very healthy for you, the bees dont charge money.”

If a person is anaphylactic (deadly reaction to bee venom–the airway shuts down) then, bee venom is not “very healthy for you” Not only that, the rich as well as the poor are equally affected and it can be severely costly in comparison to the payment for a bee suit. There have been club members associated with this group who have developed anaphylaxis over time and in response to several stinging incidents. They DID NOT KNOW they had this tendency. The responsible course, and the one HoneyLove advocates, is the use of a bee suit as cheap insurance. This is not snarky or a condescending attitude as one poster has put it—new beekeepers NEED to hear the facts as well as know–the is no end to learning about this craft. If one poster believes that “we were all “experts” then a discussion like this would be inherently unnecessary” I would direct her to the MANY expansive beek groups such as “BeeSource” “Organic Beekeepers Yahoo group” and lots of others where experts discuss the “inherently unnecessary” over and over. Everyone starts out as a beginner, but it is helpful to open the mind to learning everything many times.

[susan rudnicki]

Valerie took these

[susan rudnicki]

Enci—you do not need to find the queen. The evidence that she is there is the presence of eggs, open brood and capped brood. Every time you do an inspection, this is what you WANT TO SEE. ALL STAGES OF BROOD—then you know your queen is right and doing her job.
Also, giving your hive, as it grows, another box plunked on top, will not necessarily head off the impulse to swarm. They can still become crowded, draw swarm queen cells, and swarm. This is a common mistake for new beeks to make. When adding the second brood box, you need to move a few of the brood frames from the lower box up into the next box— into the Center of the Next box. Replace the open spaces below with empty frames. This is called “brooding up” and is discussed by Michael Bush in his book here—
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

Please consider coming to the meetings put on by HoneyLove for helping people get bee mentoring, questions answered, and networking with all sorts of beekeepers.

[susan rudnicki]

Regarding this message—please read my reply again.

Ok Susan, I have experience with feral bees.If you dont know that feral bees will bee afracanized(killer bees).A bee swarm will have a just mated queen and she will lay eggs right away.Bee swarms will build queen cells rite away because they are used to swarming.The only thing you can do about that is by changing that Queen with a european bee(i suggest).I have afracanized bees, they will sting thru your suit if your without a smoker. i got stung on my hand 10 times and my hand couldnt fit into the glove.Afracanizwd bees will kill if your without a suit.

The feral bees in most southern states of the US are now Africanized. The differences can only be detected by lab genetics analysis. This information is from many sources—the Ag Commission, the Tucson Bee Lab, etc.
You are not correct in asserting that all swarms have a “just mated queen” The primary swarm from a mother hive leaves with the old queen, who IS mated. Secondary and any following swarms have VIRGIN, UNMATED QUEENS, and sometimes swarms will contain combinations of mated and unmated queens. This issue was just discussed in a series of posts from the acknowledged expert, Michael Bush. Here are the links to documents you may like to read—

Multiple queens in a swarm have been observed as far back as Huber at
least…

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#MultipleQueensInSwarm

Bee swarms DO NOT build queen cells “right away” They build comb for the queen they have to lay eggs in, or if she is a virgin, they must wait for her to take mating flights to become mated and this can take up to 2 weeks. Queen cells can only be built if there is a laying queen or if the workers have access to eggs from a queen that may be failing—a supercedure. Since swarms are trying to “set up housekeeping” the impulse to build a queen cell is not logical sense or a phenomenon observed historically.

Also, the “killer bee” epithet is extreme and outdated. I have 8 hives of feral, Africanized bees, rescued from situations of conflict with humans, and all have their own Africanized queen. All are about 3 years old, are all at least 3 deeps in size and do not sting with the ferocity you cite. I would not keep them if they did. Feral bees differ in their genetics and temper. I and some of the folks in this group are rescuing ferals and mentoring others with these same bees every day of the week. These bees do not need European queen replacements, and would not benefit from such a management technique anyway. European bees are poorly resistant to varroa mite and its vectored disease, Africanized bees are strongly resistant—I don’t want to have bees that die from these parasites, nor do I want to be treating with chemicals, so this is the advantage of Africanized ferals.

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