It appears now and then articles in especially the German language stating that the enlarging of cellsize historically never have occurred, but instead what’s happened is going back to normal larger cellsize. And those decreasing cellsize is doing something unnatural.
Bees visit corn for pollen, period. Bees visit canola for pollen. Bees visit potatoes for pollen (Danish tests). Bees visit a lot of flowers for pollen. Bees get what the pollen is enriched with. Neonics are not good for bees.
Last year my friend had a call in July about a swarm that had come from a big old tree. The cavity couldn’t bee very big. And the swarm was not big. http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=235 But the bees in the tree survived the
I have shared the performance of this colony which had almost a box of plastic small cell frames and natural positioning of these frames (as the uppermost broodbox). Which also had a tough experience with mice living in the bottom
Last year I gave almost a whole box of plastic frames 4.95 mm cellsize with natural positioning, http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=384 This colony was a very nice colony, but needed some thymol as it came up with some wingless bees. It gave an
Erickson and Hines in test apiary 2003 Dr Eric Erickson did a great job in the 1990’s in Arizona together with A.H. Atmowidjojo and Lenard Hines (commercial beekeeper with 700 colonies), first showing it’s relatively easy to identify more resistant
You know the MT-colony – testing natural positioning, plastic frames, mostly honey as winter store, and a mouse nest… A couple of days ago, about 12°C (52F) and sunny, still no fresh high value pollen (some from early blooming trees).
You remember the previous post about the “multiple test”(MT)-colony, natural positioning, plastic frames, a mouse (or mice), mild winter and what a good condition this colony came out with now in spring. I’ve been thinking about it. Mild winter Yes
Yes, do struggle for resistant bees. Don’t just talk about it! Or say an easy no, it’s impossible, or an easy yes: ”Just do like I tell you.” Tell me your success story. I tell you mine, well a part
After varroa mites arrived 5+ years ago feral bees disappeared. Actually around here we heard about a few before that, in the church tower and the old water tower at the railway. And when we heard about them it was