Hive of eccentricbeekeeper.com Foundationless Of course it’s more natural for bees to build their own combs. But is it the best for bees and beekeepers? There’s been a lot of discussion about natural beekeeping. First let us be clear. Natural
Searching for resistant bees
Kenya I started long before the mite arrived to focus on increasing the varroa resistance in my stock. 1989 I went to the mountains of Kenya to get genetic material that were more related to the resistant bees in South
My VSH-test number 2
VSH – Varroa Sensitive Hygiene – is a very valuable trait and VSH-test is a very valuable way of finding out if a colony is an eventual breeder colony. You can read about that and my first VSH-test here: http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=154
Feral bees on corn and GMO
A lot of discussion is going on which role neonicotinoides and gmo play for die offs and ccd of bee colonies. A poison is never beneficial, neither for bees nor for man (well, many are used as plant protection). And
Quick and cheap to small cellsize
Do you want to regress your bees back down to a more natural cellsize in the broodnest? It can take some time and sometimes it’s a little bit tricky. Most often they fail to directly from what’s been most common
The Bee colony that refused to die 2
Two weeks after the first check after winter ( a week ago) I visited Karin again and checked the colony. See the first post on this subject for a background. But this colony has been on its own on
Resistant Bees on Canary Island
Stephan Braun on the island La Palma in the Canary Islands shows us how he has aquired resistant bees against the Varroa mite. Read his website and learn how he is doing. He works with the native Canarian bee, which
Analysis of small cell test designs
Cellsize of the worker brood is a hot topic for many. Some don’t bother, others seem to be fighting downsizing of the bees to a more natural smaller cell size in the brood area. And there are those that say