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Volume 158 No. 11 November 2018 12 to

Contents
Email 71
info@americanbeejournal.com
Web
www.americanbeejournal.com
Editor - Kirsten Traynor Advertising Manager - Marta Menn
Publishing Department - Dianne Behnke & Susan Nichols
Sampling for Pollen — 1279

● International Honey Market Report

Ron Phipps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1199
● Whats Next for The Classroom?
Hayes Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1215
● What in the World is this Bee Gadget?
Wyatt A. Mangum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1221
● Warwick Kerr (1922-2018): Creator of Killer Bees or Better Bees?
Ron Miksha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223
Articles

Warwick Kerr (1922-2018): Creator

● The Southern Limits of the Distribution of the Africanized Honey Bee in of Killer Bees or Better Bees?— 1223
South America: A Reprint
Warwick Kerr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1229

Departments
● Extended-Release Oxalic Acid Progress Report: Bee Brief . . . . . . . . . . 1183
2018 California Field Trial
Randy Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1235
Letters to the
● So You’re A Beekeeper? Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . 1185
Jerome Zulkoski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1249
● Varroa-Free in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada News & Events . . . . . 1187
Peter Armitage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1257
● The Heft Test and Leaving Them Alone Beekeeping Basics . . 1219
Zac Lamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1263
Classified
● A Visual Approach to Recordkeeping: Drawing Your Hive Inspections
Jennifer Radtke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1271 Advertising . . . . . . . . 1283

● Durham, NH: New England’s First Bee City USA Advertising Index . . . 1286
Melissa Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1275

Columns
The Classroom The Curious Beekeeper
Jerry Hayes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1209 Rusty Burlew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1267
Bees & Beekeeping, Past & Present Notes from the Lab: The Latest Bee Science Distilled
Wyatt A. Mangum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1245 Scott McArt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1279
The Scientific Trenches
Alison McAfee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1253

November Cover Picture

American Bee Journal ISSN 0002-7626
Learning the ins and outs of moving bees into AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL (ISSN 002-7626) is ing to National Archive Publishing Co., 300 N. Zeeb
almond orchards with Lohman Apiaries in published monthly at American Bee Journal, 51 S.
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American antee advertisements in this magazine, but we ask that
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Bernardo Niño. Available in microfilm form at moderate prices by writ-

November 2018 1179

1180 American Bee Journal
 In September I had the pleasure of
attending EurBee 8, a scientific con-
ference in Ghent, Belgium. It ran from
the 18th-20th, three days packed with
informative talks. Most of the present-
ers were scientists and students in Eu-
rope and Asia. A few representatives
from the Americas were also present.
It was my first time attending EurBee,
a much larger and more diverse coun-
terpart to the American Bee Research
Conference. It happens every other
year, alternating with Apimondia.
Unfortunately I missed the first
day, arriving in Ghent in the late af-
ternoon. So I missed the keynote talk
by Phillip Engel, who is from the Uni-
versity of Lausanne, Switzerland. He
employs experimental and genomic
approaches to study honey bee gut
bacteria. Microbial health has become
a forefront of scientific research, as it
seems that microbes are major players
in their host’s health.
I’m currently at an institute for sci-
entific cross-disciplinary research in
Germany and one of the very first
colloquium talks was given by Dr.
Thomas Bosch, from the University
of Kiel, who studies how all animals
and plants are inhabited by microbial
organisms. “There is an increasing ap-
preciation that these resident microbes
influence the fitness of their hosts, ulti-
mately forming a metaorganism.”
In Bosch’s presentation, he spoke
about the history of medicine and
how we’ve overcome a lot of the ail-
ments that used to kill us in early age.
Now we’re predominantly fighting
auto-immune illnesses like cancer, ar-
thritis, obesity, multiple sclerosis, etc.
Bosch believes an underlying cause
of these autoimmune diseases is tied
to dysbiosis, a microbial imbalance
or maladaptation. “Any disturbance
within the complex community of
host and microbial cells has drastic
consequences for the wellbeing of the
individual member of this associa-
September 2018
tion,” he says. This is still a controver-
sial concept that is gaining traction.
This increased focus on gut health
is why honey bees are important as
a model organism. Engel’s lab stud-
ies “the honey bee gut microbiota, a
surprisingly simple, yet conserved
gut community that is experimentally
amenable and shares striking paral-
lels to the mammalian system.”
The honey bee gut recently grabbed
headlines with the research con-
ducted by Nancy Moran’s lab pub-
lished in PNAS, “Glyphosate perturbs
the gut microbiota of honey bees.”
News media highlighted the findings
and some of the details are lost in
the sound bites. The study looked at
how doses of glyphosate fed in sugar
syrup altered gut microbes. One of the
criticisms is the high level of herbicide
used. The experiment was repeated
in a different colony the following
year with similar results, indicating a
level of robustness. Scott McArt will
be addressing this research and plac-
ing it in context in our January issue,
which will focus on pesticides from a
variety of perspectives.
Two of the talks I found very in-
teresting in Ghent were by a PhD
student and senior research fellow,
both from the University of Aberdeen
in Scotland. Ewan Campbell spoke
first on how he “milked” 125 varroa
for saliva as well as an additional 274
salivary glands dissected from varroa.
When varroa feed, they inject bioac-
tive compounds that help the wound
site stay open and not coagulate. They
analyzed the saliva to determine the
types of proteins and found a lot of
similarity with tick saliva, plus vari-
ous pathogens, including DWV.
Craig Christie, who is wrapping
up his PhD, followed, discussing an
artificial feeding system he created to
rear mites in vitro. He can now rear
mites and have them reproduce in his
artificial system. Initially, he had trou-
ble inducing mites to reproduce, but
when he added honey bee larvae into
an arena, so the mites could smell but
not touch them, he succeeded. Mites
reproduced in his artificial set-up. He
could also get mites to lay by provid-
ing a pupa treated with juvenile hor-
mone. From the daughters and sons
reared artificially, he could then get a
2nd generation. Rearing mites in the
lab opens new lines of research.
I’m currently reading Yuval Noah
Harari’s book Sapiens: A Brief History
of Humankind. It’s a fascinating look
at the development of human culture.
I’m about two-thirds through and I
find his insight into how the Scientific
Revolution propelled Europe forward
intriguing. “The discovery of America
was the foundational event of the Sci-
entific Revolution. It not only taught
Europeans to favor present observa-
tions over past traditions, but the de-
sire to conquer America also obliged
Europeans to search for new knowl-
edge at breakneck speed. ...Euro-
pean scholars began to draw maps
with spaces left to fill in. They began
to admit that their theories were not
perfect and that there were important
things they did not know.”
European empires embraced the
idea that research could bring new
knowledge and technology, and that
these results led to increased power.
Scientific research and improving
human lives have been linked inextri-
cably ever since.
Science, at its core, always ques-
tions results. Scientific knowledge
builds on prior results with skepti-
cism, cautious until the evidence is
overwhelming, until others can repro-
duce the same results. These days new
findings often grab headlines, but the
validity of a finding only becomes ap-
parent over time. I’ve learned to take
new findings with a grain of salt until
they stand the test of time.
- Kirsten
1183
 Send your letters to the editor,
Attn: Kirsten Traynor,
Dadant, 51 S. 2nd Street,
Hamilton, IL 62341,
Fax: 1-217-847-3660,
or email: editor@americanbeejournal.com
Due to size and content, we may be unable to publish all information received.
We may also edit your letter to avoid offensive language. Thank You!

NEW HIVE TYPE HOBBYIST QUEENS

I am 75 years old and beekeeping
work is getting more difficult due to
the weight of the boxes. I decided
to make this new type of hive after
reading your magazine . I am send-
ing you a picture. I made the walls
double thick because of our weather.
Bees seem happy. ...will let you know.
Richard Botamer
Photos shown below
Article in September 2018
Great article showing an interesting
alternative application to Dr. Snel-
grove’s technique written in 1934,
titled Swarming - Its Control and
Prevention.
Sincerely,
Robert Lamothe
‘HIGH-YIELD’ FARMING
COULD HELP SPARE
HABITATS AND REDUCE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
down here. We use “Swiffer” pads cut
in half laid across the back of the brood
box to trap small hive beetles. We set
them in sweeping side up. The SHB
get caught in the fibers and give us an
idea as to the level of infestation.
Lastly, I enjoyed the article on the
Long Hive boxes and would like to
know if there is a commercial provid-
er for the hinged top boxes like the
ones highlighted in your article. For
someone like me, this seems a great
chance for a hobbyist beekeeper.
Again thank you for a fine maga-
zine. Keep up the great work and fas-
cinating articles.
Regards
Geoffrey Yamaucai

So intensive farmers would be al- Dear Geoffrey,

lowed to devastate their land and
their water but no one else’s? Well,
IF you can keep them from harming
the water / air / soil of their imme-
diate neighbors and IF you can curb
GREED in humans who are desperate
to make as much profit as they can,
you might have something. Realize
that this was the argument for large
CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding
operations) to start with.
How would you institute rules and
laws to prevent farmers from having
too much land that gets mistreated?
How could you say to the residents
of a county: Nope, you can’t do what
you want with your land, and if you
do, we will revoke your permits and
put you out of business.
Interesting idea, just not practical
or well thought out.
Cécile Stelzer-Johnson
“SWIFFER” TIP
Dear Ms. Traynor,
First, I’d like to tell you how much
I enjoy your magazine; each month I
devour it cover to cover. Secondly, I
wanted to pass on a little trick we use
Most people make their own long
hives using materials available at
the local hardware and lumber store.
The author has the plans available on
her website https://www.abbottsus-
tainablefarms.com/long-langstroth-
hive. I’ve mailed you a copy of the
plans, so you have them. There are a
number of vendors who sell premade
long hives, but they tend to be expen-
sive, starting at around $350.
Best,
Kirsten
APISOIR
Dear Dr. Traynor
My name is Michael Alberty, and I
am a wine writer based in Portland,
Oregon.
My wine background means ter-
roir is an important part of my life.
After reading Rowan Jacobson’s
book “American Terroir: Savoring
the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters,
and Fields,” I became obsessed with
how it relates to my other passion,
honey. I also noticed sea salt and oys-
ter mavens staking out territory with
the word “merroir.” I thought, “why

November 2018 1185

shouldn’t honey have its own word
for terroir?” After a bit of reflection, I
came up with “apisoir.”
To get the ball rolling, I created a
Wikipedia page. Within hours the
page was deleted by a crusty old Eng-
lish Wiki editor who called it a hoax
and threatened to ban me from his
kingdom if I persisted. His claim that
apisoir wasn’t a word led me to ask
how he thought words started? He
said he didn’t care and that unless
apisoir appears in the OED, it wasn’t
going to be allowed on Wikipedia.
I don’t give up easily, so I launched
this campaign.
My goal is to start a conversation
that will lead people to start using the
word “apisoir” in print. I’m reaching
out to “honey influencers” across the
globe, like you, to enlist their help.
If you would like to join me in this
whimsical quest, merely mention api-
soir any time a conversation about
the terroir of honey comes up. If api-
soir appears in print, even better.
I believe honey should have its own
word when it comes to terroir, I hope
you will as well. Thanks for taking
time to consider this crazy scheme.
Cheers,
Michael Alberty
Portland, OR
michaelalberty@gmx.com
Dear Michael,
Not sure the word apisoir will
catch on, but terroir definitely influ-
ences the taste and properties of hon-
ey. For example in New Zealand, the
bees forage on manuka. The location
strongly influences the antibacterial
activity of the honey. From talking
to researchers, there is apparently a
plant and soil interaction that influ-
ences the nectar and thus the honey’s
antibacterial activity.
There is so much still to learn about
the unique properties of honey.
Good luck with your scheme,
Kirsten
GOT WAX? GET PAID!
It’s that simple!
Light and dark.
Rendering services available.
BEE EXCELLENT
Phone (218) 776-3593
Fax (218) 776-3502
E-mail bexcel@gvtel.com
Global inquiries welcome.
1186
U.S. POSTAL SERVICE
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP
MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION
1. Publication Title—American Bee Journal.
2. Publication Number—USPS 017-520.
3. Filing Date of—9/28/18.
4. Issue Frequency of—Monthly.
5. Number of Issues Published Annually—12.
6. Annual subscription price—$28.00.
7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of
Publication—51 South 2nd Street, Hamilton, Illinois
62341.
8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or
General Business Offices of Publisher—51 South
2nd Street, Hamilton, Illinois 62341.
9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of
Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor—
Publisher—Dadant & Sons, Inc, 51 South 2nd
Street, Hamilton, Illinois 62341
Editor—Kirsten Traynor, Dadant & Sons Inc., 51
South 2nd Street, Hamiltion, Illinois 62341.
10. Owner (If the publication is owned by a corporation,
give the name and address of the corporation immedi-
ately followed by the names and addresses of all stock-
holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of the total
amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, give the
names and addresses of the individual owners. If owned
by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, give its
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owner. If the publication is published by a nonprofit
organization, give its full name and address.)—T.C.
Dadant, 700 Eagle Trace, Quincy, IL 62305; T.G. Ross,
302 Hillcrest, Hamilton, IL 62341; N.J. Dadant, #6 Bel-
mont Drive, Hamilton, IL 62341; Marta C. Menn, #5
Belmont Drive, Hamilton, IL 62341; Mary V. Marting,
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West Pinnacle, Dunlap, IL 61525 (Trust); Jennifer M.
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(Trust); Gabriel C. Dadant, 307 Hillcrest., Hamilton,
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pher C. Dadant, 44 Kinley Ave, Santa Rosa Beach,
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Cherokee St. Apt. 3426, Denver, CO 80223 (Trust);
Dorothy D. Irish, Colchester, IL 62326 (Estate); Dadant
& Sons, Inc., 51 South 2nd Street, Hamilton, IL 62341.
11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other
Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or
More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages or
other Securities—None.
12 Tax Status—N/A.
13. Publication Title—American Bee Journal.
14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below—Sept.
BEE HIVE THERMAL
INDUSTRIES
ORGANIC TERMINATION
OF THE VARROA MITE
LEARN MORE AT
www.beehivethermalindustries.com
803-504-9313
lynn@beehivethermalindustries.com
2017-Aug. 2018; Aug. 2018.
15. Extent and nature of circulation—Average No. copies
each issue during preceding 12 months; No. copies of
Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date
A. Total Number of Copies (Net press run);—18,154;
19,053.
B. Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail)—
1. Mailed Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated
on PS Form 3541—13,105; 12,571.
2. Mailed In - County Subscriptions—0;0.
3. Paid distribution Outside the Mails Including
Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street
Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid
Distribution Outside USPS—535; 475.
4. Paid Distribution by Other Classes mailed Through the
USPS—71; 332.
C. Total Paid Distribution—13,711; 13,378.
D. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution — (samples,
complimentary, and other free copies).
1.Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County copies
included on Form 3541—0;0.
2.Free or Nominal Rate In-County copies included
on Form 3541—0;0.
3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies at Other Classes
Through the USPS—24; 16.
4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the
Mail (Carriers or other means)—2,646; 2,115.
E. Total free or Nominal Rate distribution (Sum of
15D)—2,670; 2,131.
F. Total distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e)—16,381;
15,509.
G. Copies not Distributed—1,860; 3,950.
H. Total (Sum of 15f and g.)—18,241; 19,459.
I. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15c.
divided by 15f. times 100)—84%; 86%.
16. Electronic Copy Circulation.
A. Paid Electronic Copies 798, 739.
B. Total Paid Print Copies & Paid Electronic Copies
14,509; 14,450.
C. Total Print Distribution & Paid Electronic Copies
17,179; 16,248.
D. Percent Paid Print & Electronic Copies 84%, 89%.
I certify that 50% of all my distributed copies (elec-
tronic and print) are paid above a nominal fee.
17. Publication of Statement of Ownership will be print-
ed in the November 2018 issue of this publication.
18. Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager,
or Owner—Tim Dadant-Publisher; Date 9/28/18.
I certify that all information furnished on this form is true
and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false
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rial or information requested on the form may be subject to
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American Bee Journal

CHIGGERS COULD END RED MEAT
CONSUMPTION, ALLERGISTS WARN
Chiggers, redbugs, harvest mites - whatever you call
them, they are pesky little bugs whose bites cause really
itchy rashes, usually around the ankles and waistline.
Beekeepers often encounter them while working bees in
outyards. New research suggests they might force you to
become a vegetarian.
In addition to being uncomfortable and annoying, these
bites may also cause a relatively rare allergic reaction to
red meat known as alpha-gal, according to doctors at
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Although the medical community has known for the past
five to 10 years that ticks can cause this allergy, case stud-
ies from Wake Forest Baptist and the University of Virginia
(U.Va.) suggest that chigger bites also may be responsible.
The paper is published in the current issue of The Journal
of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
“If a patient comes in telling me they ate red meat for
dinner and then hours later woke up with anaphylaxis,
I suspect an alpha-gal allergy,” said lead author Russell
A diagram of the stylostome, or the hardened tube of dead cells
formed by chiggers (Larval form of the Trombiculidae) when
feeding. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
November 2018
Scott Traister, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pulmo-
nary, critical care, allergy and immunologic diseases at
Wake Forest Baptist.
“With those symptoms, doctors usually ask if the person
has had a tick bite recently. But we started seeing patients
with the same symptoms who said they hadn’t had a tick
bite, only chigger bites.”
This allergy is a reaction to a carbohydrate molecule on
mammalian meat - beef, pork, venison, etc. - called alpha-
gal. However, unlike most allergic reactions that happen
within minutes, a reaction to alpha-gal occurs after three
to six hours. The only cure is to avoid all mammalian meat,
Traister said.
In addition to case studies seen at Wake Forest Baptist,
Traister cited results reported by U.Va. from 311 patients
who had answered a questionnaire about exposure to tick
or chigger bites before developing an alpha-gal allergy. Of
the 301 who reported either tick or chigger bites in the past
10 years, 5.5 percent reported a history of chigger bites, but
no tick exposure.
Further studies are needed to determine if the alpha-gal
molecule is in the gastrointestinal tracts of chiggers to con-
firm that they, as well as ticks, can cause mammalian meat
allergy.
“In the meantime, we want allergists to be aware that
patients may report chigger bites, and based on that fact
alone should not dismiss alpha-gal sensitization as a pos-
sible diagnosis,” Traister said.
To read the original paper abstract: http://dx.doi.
org/10.1016/j.jaip.2018.07.014
‘HIGH-YIELD’ FARMING COULD HELP
SPARE HABITATS AND
REDUCE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS,
BUT ONLY IF INTENSIVE USE
CURTAILS FARM EXPANSION
“Organic agriculture as being better for the planet. But
what if we minimized the spread of agriculture, preserv-
ing more wild land and intensified our use of current farm
land? Agriculture that appears to be more eco-friendly, but
uses more land, may actually have greater environmental
costs per unit of food than “high-yield” farming that uses
less land, a new study has found.
There is mounting evidence that the best way to meet
rising food demand while conserving biodiversity is to
wring as much food as sustainably possible from the land
we do farm, so that more natural habitats can be “spared
the plough.”
However, this involves intensive farming techniques
thought to create disproportionate levels of pollution, wa-
ter scarcity and soil erosion. Now, a study published in the
journal Nature Sustainability shows this may not necessar-
ily be the case.
Scientists have put together measures for some of the
major “externalities” - such as greenhouse gas emission,
fertilizer and water use - generated by high- and low-yield
farming systems, and compared the environmental costs
of producing a given amount of food in different ways.
Previous research compared these costs by land area. As
high-yield farming needs less land to produce the same
quantity of food, the study’s authors say this approach
overestimates its environmental impact. It would be better
to calculate the cost per unit of food produced.
1187

Their results from four major agricultural sectors sug-
gest that, contrary to many people’s perceptions, more in-
tensive agriculture that uses less land may also produce
fewer pollutants, cause less soil loss and consume less
water.
However, the team behind the study, led by scientists
from the University of Cambridge, caution that if higher
yields are simply used to increase profit or lower prices,
they will only accelerate the extinction crisis we are al-
ready seeing.
“Agriculture is the most significant cause of biodiversity
loss on the planet,” said study lead author Andrew Balm-
ford, Professor of Conservation Science from Cambridge’s
Department of Zoology. “Habitats are continuing to be
cleared to make way for farmland, leaving ever less space
for wildlife.”
“Our results suggest that high-yield farming could be
harnessed to meet the growing demand for food without
destroying more of the natural world. However, if we are
to avert mass extinction it is vital that land-efficient agricul-
ture is linked to more wilderness being spared the plough.”
The Cambridge scientists conducted the study with a
research team from 17 organizations across the UK and
around the globe, including colleagues from Poland, Bra-
zil, Australia, Mexico and Colombia.
The study analyzed information from hundreds of in-
vestigations into four vast food sectors, accounting for
large percentages of the global output for each product:
Asian paddy rice (90%), European wheat (33%), Latin
American beef (23%), and European dairy (53%).
Examples of high-yield strategies include enhanced pas-
ture systems and livestock breeds in beef production, use
of chemical fertilizer on crops, and keeping dairy cows in-
doors for longer.
The scientists found data to be limited, and say more
research is urgently needed on the environmental cost of
different farming systems. Nevertheless, results suggest
many high-yield systems are less ecologically damaging
and, crucially, use much less land.
For example, in field trials, inorganic nitrogen boosted
yields with little to no greenhouse gas “penalty” and low-
er water use per ton of rice. Per ton of beef, the team found
greenhouse gas emissions could be halved in some sys-
tems where yields are boosted by adding trees to provide
shade and forage for cattle.
The study only looked at organic farming in the Euro-
pean dairy sector, but found that - for the same amount
of milk - organic systems caused at least one third more
soil loss, and take up twice as much land, as conventional
dairy farming.
1188
Co-author Professor Phil Garnsworthy from the Univer-
sity of Nottingham, who led the dairy team, said: “Across
all dairy systems we find that higher milk yield per unit
of land generally leads to greater biological and economic
efficiency of production. Dairy farmers should welcome
the news that more efficient systems have lower environ-
mental impact.”
Conservation expert and co-author Dr. David Edwards,
from the University of Sheffield, said: “Organic systems
are often considered to be far more environmentally
friendly than conventional farming, but our work sug-
gested the opposite. By using more land to produce the
same yield, organic may ultimately accrue larger environ-
mental costs.”
The study authors say that high-yield farming must be
combined with mechanisms that limit agricultural expan-
sion if they are to have any environmental benefit. These
could include strict land-use zoning and restructured ru-
ral subsidies.
“These results add to the evidence that sparing natural
habitats by using high-yield farming to produce food is
the least bad way forward,” added Balmford.
“Where agriculture is heavily subsidized, public pay-
ments could be contingent on higher food yields from
land already being farmed, while other land is taken out
of production and restored as natural habitat, for wildlife
and carbon or floodwater storage.”
The authors caution that high-yield will only benefit if
habitat is simultaneously protected. And they urge cau-
tion in interpreting the results as “The useful data are
worryingly limited. We considered only four relatively
well-studied sectors and a narrow set of externalities - not
including important impacts such as soil health or the ef-
fects of pesticide exposure on human health.”
To learn more about the research: http://dx.doi.
org/10.1038/s41893-018-0138-5
ALMOND & SWEET CHERRY GROWERS
GAIN ACCESS TO TRADE MITIGATION
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2018 – U.S. Secretary of Ag-
riculture Sonny Perdue today announced the addition of
commodities to the trade mitigation package aimed at as-
sisting farmers suffering from damage due to unjustified
trade retaliation by foreign nations. Starting Monday, Sept.
24, producers of shelled almonds and fresh sweet cherries
may apply for Market Facilitation Program (MFP) pay-
ments at their local Farm Service Agency (FSA) office.
In July, the USDA announced it would act to aid farm-
American Bee Journal
ers in response to trade damage from unjustified retalia-
tion. President Trump directed Secretary Perdue to craft a
short-term relief strategy to protect agricultural producers
while the Administration works on free, fair, and recipro-
cal trade deals to open more markets in the long run to
help American farmers compete globally. These programs
will assist agricultural producers to meet some of the costs
of disrupted markets.
The sign-up period for MFP for other eligible commodi-
ties is now open and runs through Jan. 15, 2019, with infor-
mation and instructions provided at www.farmers.gov/
mfp. The MFP is established under the statutory authority
of the Commodity Credit Corporation CCC Charter Act
and is under the administration of USDA’s FSA. Eligible
producers should apply after harvest is complete, as pay-
ments will only be issued once production is reported.
A payment will be issued on 50 percent of the produc-
er’s total production, multiplied by the MFP rate for a spe-
cific commodity. A second payment period, if warranted,
will be determined by the USDA.
The initial MFP payment rates starting Sept. 24:
• Shelled Almonds - $0.03 per pound
• Fresh Sweet Cherries - $0.16 per pound
MFP payments are capped per person or legal entity at
a combined $125,000 for shelled almonds and fresh sweet
cherries.
Eligible applicants must have an ownership interest in
the commodity, be actively engaged in farming, and have
an average adjusted gross income (AGI) for tax years 2014,
2015, and 2016 of less than $900,000. Applicants must also
comply with the provisions of the “Highly Erodible Land
and Wetland Conservation” regulations.
To locate or contact your local FSA office, visit www.
farmers.gov.
TRUE SOURCE HONEY APPROVES
PRODUCTS TO USE MADE
WITH TRUE SOURCE HONEY™ LOGO
Products from Honey stinger, unilever and droga
cHocolate are tHe first to earn tHe made WitH
true source Honey™ certification
September, 2018 –
Several major brands
are taking a stance
against honey fraud
and adulteration by
sourcing 100 percent of
the honey used in their
products from True
Source Honey® certi-
fied suppliers. Honey
Stinger, Droga Choco-
lates and Unilever’s
Hellmann’s are the
first brands to earn the
Made With True Source
Honey™ certification.
Makers of food, personal care and over-the-counter
products can show their commitment to responsible hon-
ey sourcing by selecting honey suppliers that have earned
November 2018
independent certification to the True Source Honey pro-
tocol. This voluntary, third-party testing and certifica-
tion program traces honey all the way back to the hive so
wholesale buyers and consumers can be confident about
the origin and authenticity of honey as well as its compli-
ance with U.S. and international trade laws.
“Consumers care where their honey comes from and
deserve pure natural honey – nothing added and noth-
ing taken away,” said Gordon Marks, executive director of
True Source Honey. “It’s the reason we launched the True
Source Honey Certification® program.”
“True Source Honey certification helps honey suppliers
to voluntarily demonstrate their commitment to respon-
sible honey sourcing,” said Marks.
True Source Honey certification combines rigorous
third-party audits with active third-party sampling and
container shipment oversight to trace honey to its origin.
Made With True Source Honey certification verifies that
100 percent of the honey used in a product is True Source
Certified Honey.
The Made With True Source Honey certification mark
can be found on products from the following brands:
Droga Chocolates – “At Droga, we make “better-for-
you” chocolates that combine nostalgic flavors with a
modern twist using only premium, natural ingredients
and we’re committed to making a positive impact on the
world. We are proud to be the first confections brand to
be Made with True Source Certified Honey,” said Greg
Power, General Manager of Las Olas Brands.
Honey Stinger – “At Honey Stinger, we are committed
to establishing trust with our consumers on the origins
and authenticity of our honey products,” said Stinger Co-
owner Rich Hager. “Using the Made With True Source
Honey logo allows us to add another layer of transpar-
ency, supporting our mission to use high-quality, ethically
sourced honey.”
Hellmann’s – Hellmann’s Real Ketchup made with hon-
ey and Best Foods Real Ketchup made with honey
“Even though honey is one of nature’s simplest foods, it
is susceptible to activities, such as adulteration, that com-
promise its wholesomeness. At Hellmann’s/Best Foods,
we want to assure our consumers that we only use pure
honey in our Real Ketchup. It is important to us that our
honey is legally and ethically sourced, and can be traced
from its harvest to its final destination in our delicious
ketchup,” said Ben Crook, Hellmann’s Director.
For more information on True Source Honey certifica-
tion, please visit truesourcehoney.com.
ISHAI ZELDNER OBITUARY
by gene robinson
“Honey Grows Up,” proclaimed the New York Times in
2006, describing the burgeoning interest in single-flower
“varietal” honeys by chefs throughout the country. Twelve
years later, the interest in varietal honeys has gotten even
stronger, due to the potent convergence of “foodieism,”
commitment to locally produced food, and concern about
the honey bee population declines.
Ishai Zeldner (1947-2018) was a pioneer of varietal hon-
eys in the United States, helping to encourage consumer
interest and production by the apiculture industry. Zeld-
ner founded Moon Shine Trading Company (now called Z
1189

Ishai at a local honey tasting
Specialty Food, LLC) in Davis, California in 1979, in order
to promote and market varietal honeys from across the
country, almost 30 years before the publication of the New
York Times article.
Ishai was born and raised in Buffalo, New York steeped
in the food business. His grandmother and father estab-
lished a grocery store in 1926, with a special focus on soul
food and wild game. Ishai worked in the family business
each weekend while growing up, and it’s easy to imagine
that the seeds of his later interest in varietal honeys were
planted in this unique store.
After graduating college with a degree in history from
the University of Buffalo, Ishai went to live on Kibbutz Bet
Hashita in Israel in 1969 (A kibbutz is a type of village,
originally agricultural and communal, now more diverse
in economic and social orientation). It was here that Ishai
first became exposed to bees and honey. He worked with
Yusuf Gidron, one of Israel’s first and most renowned bee-
keepers and a member of its founding generation.
After moving back to the US, Ishai eventually moved
from Buffalo to California in 1978 to get back into bees.
While working for the highly respected California bee-
keeper Clarence Wenner, Ishai discovered Yellow Star
Thistle honey, a Northern California favorite, which got
him thinking about the commercial possibilities for va-
rietal honeys. After finishing a stint with Wenner, he en-
rolled in apiculture classes at UC Davis, but soon realized
that his true calling was to combine his love for bees and
honey with his family background in entrepreneurship
and, therefore, to promote Yellow Star Thistle and other
varietal honeys.
The market for varietal honeys in the US in the 1980’s
was extremely limited. Most honey consumers had not
been exposed to the delightful ways in which varietal hon-
eys differ in color, aroma and taste, and thought simply
that “honey is honey.” Most honey producers therefore
had limited incentives to take the extra time and energy
required to separate their crops on a floral basis. It was in
this environment that Ishai launched Moon Shine Trading
Company, carefully selecting varietal honeys from across
the country and marketing them attractively, over time
to an increasingly receptive market. Moon Shine Trading
Company developed an ever-growing line of varietal hon-
eys and exhibited them at national specialty food shows,
sometimes winning awards, thus increasing the profile of
varietal honeys in North America. Shortly before Ishai’s
death, Z Specialty Food won a coveted 2018 sofiTM Award
from the Specialty Food Association for Northwestern
Meadowfoam Honey.
1190
My own career path intersected fatefully with Ishai’s
in two important ways. I also spent time in Israel and
also ended up on Kibbutz Bet Hashita in 1973, overlap-
ping with Ishai by pure coincidence. A trip home to Buf-
falo required him to find a temporary replacement for
himself to assist Gidron in the apiaries. He asked me to
do this and I accepted immediately, not because of any
childhood love of bees or even insects, but because I was
bored picking grapefruits! Like him, I was immediately
smitten by the bees. I was fortunate to continue working
with Gidron and Ishai for the remainder of my time in
Israel and then returned to America to become trained
as a bee scientist. A few years later, while spending time
working in the bee industry between my undergraduate
and graduate degrees at Cornell University, I was able to
return the favor by arranging for him to join me work-
ing for Wenner. From these shared experiences Ishai and
I were close friends for over 40 years, bonded over our
love of bees.
Ishai’s passion was infectious, affecting many around
him including his family members. His wife, Amina Har-
ris, was his partner in the business and now is Director of
the Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi
Institute for Wine and Food Science, at the University of
California at Davis. Their son Josh has taken over the op-
eration of Z Specialty Food, the fourth generation of food-
related entrepreneurs in the family. The Ishai Zeldner
Memorial Varietal Honey Research Fund has been set up
at the Honey and Pollination Center to honor his impor-
tant contributions to the honey industry. Donations can
be made through: mdhaworth@ucdavis.edu or online at
https://give.ucdavis.edu/AHPC/FSTZELD. Ishai helped
honey grow up in America, leaving us with a sweet legacy
of vision and entrepreneurship.
JOHN “JACK” T. THOMAS OBITUARY
sePtember 27, 1936 - sePtember 17, 2018
“The thoughtful little things you do each day have
an accumulated effect on all our tomorrows.”
- Alexandra Stoddard -
“Jack was almost 82
years young when he
passed away after a hard
fought battle with pancre-
atic cancer. He lived a life
of entrepreneurship, with
a passion for learning and
curiosity.
He was born September
27, 1936 in Northeast Min-
neapolis and attended DE
LaSalle High School.
Jack spent three years as
an intelligence officer in
Taiwan in the late ‘50’s. He
attended the University of Minnesota and Mankato State
University. The field of engineering and an air hydraulics
business filled the following years. In 1972 Jack moved to
Mann Lake, near Hackensack, to live in a 100 year old log
cabin where he had spent many childhood summer hours.
Mann Lake Ltd., a commercial beekeeping manufactur-
ing company, was co-founded by Jack and wife, Betty in
American Bee Journal
1984. The hobby business; started in their garage on Mann
Lake; has grown to an international company, employing
hundreds of individuals in Hackensack and at the U.S.
branch locations. Jacks goal was to make people smile as
he walked through the facilities. He was an icon of the in-
dustry. He innovated products and techniques that made
keeping bees easier. Jack and Mann Lake have been recog-
nized by the industry for the many contributions made.
Jack and Betty have traveled throughout the world, but
there was never a place better than home. Jack spent many
summers enjoying his antique boats, a 1934 runabout Gar
Wood and a 1915 Fay & Bowen motor-launch. They have
been donated to the Maritime Museum in Alexandria, MN
so others may enjoy these rare boats.
Animals have always been a part of Jack and Betty’s
life. In 2012 they decided to work towards building an
animal shelter. They co-founded Paws and Claws Rescue
& Resort, just south of Hackensack, that opened its doors
in 2017. Jack felt that it was important to give back to the
community he lived in.
Jack touched many lives in many ways, he is survived
by his wife, Betty, and their three feline companions. Jack
said many times that “when he died, he wanted to come
back as a cat, taken care of by Betty.”
Jack asks that no flowers be sent. Any memorials should
go to Paws and Claws Rescue & Resort, P.O. Box 175,
Hackensack, MN 56452, Attn: Jack. Memorials will go to-
wards establishing a service dog program using candidate
rescue animals that will aid Veterans with PTSD. This was
very close to Jacks heart as he was a disabled Veteran.
A celebration of Jack’s life will be held Saturday, Sep-
tember 29 from 1pm to 3pm, Paws and Claws Rescue &
Resort community room, Hackensack. # 218-675-7297.
WORLDWIDE
SPECIAL BEEKEEPER TOUR TO CUBA
November 10 - 18, 2018 - featuring visits to apiaries,
witnessing the rearing of queen bees, visiting honey pro-
cessing plants, research centers, an agriculture center, and
packaging plants. Visit with local beekeepers. This is a
unique fully inclusive tour arranged with the cooperation
of the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture and includes: island
transportation, hotels, private homes, meals,and full tour-
ing program. The tour will include visits in and around
Havana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Caonao and Santa Clara.
For the complete itinerary and pricing, please contact:
blubic@transeairtravel.com or call 202 362 6100.
Due to the success of last year’s tour, the trip is being
repeated in 2018. Cuba is very successful in raising bees
as no pesticides are used. Long known for its cigars and
rum, Cuba has added organic honey to its list of key ag-
ricultural exports, creating a buzz among farmers as pes-
ticide use has been linked to declining bee populations
elsewhere. Organic honey has become Cuba’s fourth
most valuable agricultural export behind fish products,
tobacco and drinks, but ahead of the Caribbean island’s
more famous sugar and coffee. All of Cuba’s honey can
be certified as organic. After the collapse in 1991 of the
Soviet Union, Cuba’s main trading partner, the island
was unable to afford pesticides. By necessity, the govern-
ment embraced organic agriculture, and the policies have
largely stuck. Cuba has been immune to the bee die-offs
hitting other regions.
November 2018
REGIONAL
SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND
BEEKEEPER’S ASSEMBLY 2018
groton inn, groton, ct
november 17, 2018
registration $55 late registration $75
WWW.sneba.com
Speakers:
Dr. Jay Evans — Jay Evans is Research Leader at the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Bee
Research Lab in Beltsville, MD, where he has worked for
nearly 20 years. The BRL is focused on the development
of management strategies to help honey bees thrive in the
face of disease, chemical stress, and adequate forage. Lab
members are developing and testing new nutritional and
anti-disease products, and are especially interested in how
bees respond to multiple stress factors and the efforts bee-
keepers might use to help them through these challenges.
Jay’s own research uses genetic techniques and controlled
challenge experiments (often bees in cups) to reduce the
impacts of parasites and pathogens. Current projects in-
volve honey bee immunity, interactions among stress fac-
tors, and the development of novel, safe, controls for mites
and viruses. Jay received his AB in Biology from Princeton
University in 1988 and his PhD in Biology from the Uni-
versity of Utah in 1995.
Dr. Rebecca Masterman — UMN Bee Squad Associ-
ate Program Director Rebecca Masterman first worked
for the UMN Bee Lab as an undergraduate in 1992, and
returned in 2012 as the Bee Squad’s Associate Program
Director and Coordinator. Becky graduated from UMN
Twin Cities with a BA (major in history, minor in biology)
and then obtained a Ph.D. in Entomology studying the
neuroethology of honey bee hygienic behavior under the
direction of Dr. Marla Spivak.
Dr. Lawrence Connor — Well known author, editor and
speaker Larry Connor operates Wicwas Press, the larg-
est North American press focused on quality beekeeping
books. He conducted pollination studies at Michigan State
University, served as Extension Entomologist at The Ohio
State University, and was president of Genetic Systems
Inc., a venture that mass-produced instrumentally insemi-
nated queen bees. He is the author or coauthor of eleven
books, including Queen Rearing Essentials, Bee-Sentials:
A Field Guide, Increase Essentials and Honey Bee Biology
and Beekeeping with Dr. Dewey Caron.
STATES
CALIFORNIA
california state beekeePers association
annual convention
nov. 13-15, 2018
HarraH’s soutHern california in
valley center, ca
A short drive from the Ontario or San Diego Airport.
We are excited to announce a packed schedule with talks
1191
from Ramesh Sagili, Jonathon Snow, Brandon Hopkins
and many more. If you are interested in attending, exhibit-
ing, or sponsoring please contact Karli Quinn at Karli@
agamsi.com.
Details at: http://www.californiastatebeekeepers.com
COLORADO
colorado Professional beekeePing association
“Celebrating Colorado’s Rich & Successful
Beekeeping Heritage”
2018 Fall Meeting – October 20th
The Meeting Place
1450 Dry Creek Drive, Longmont, CO 80503
For Directions & Hotel Reservations:
Call (303) 702-682-2894 or
(303) 845-1367or
(303) 845-1352 (ask for CPBA rate)
Kelsey.Lee@interstatehotels.com
Flannery.hellam@interstatehotls.com
Hotel accommodations will be at Spring Hill Suites
Featured Speakers: Will be Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk of
The University of Montana & Bee Alert Technologies and
Mr. Jon Entine of The Genetic Literacy Project
Please register & prepay with credit card or
PayPal before October 20st
http://coloradoprobeekeeping.org/events/
2018-fall-meeting/
For further info please contact:
CPBA Secretary Jacy Johnston-Eylar (970) 405-0709
jacy@beeyondthehive.com
Or CPBA Communications Director Al Summers
(303) 702-0085
Summers@IchibanEnterprises.org
COLORADO
colorado state beekeePers association
Winter meeting
saturday, oct. 27, 2018
CONNECTICUT
WHere: norfield cHurcH community room,
64 norfield road, Weston, connecticut
WHen: last tuesdays of tHe montH at 7:30Pm
The Back Yard Beekeepers Association (BYBA) has
been educating the public about honey bees and bee-
keeping for 20+ years. With over 400 members, our as-
sociation has grown to become one of the Nation’s larg-
est regional clubs for beekeeping hobbyists. Some of our
members are just getting started as beekeepers, and some
have enjoyed this hobby for years. All share an interest in
the wonderful and remarkable world of the honey bee.
This regional club is dedicated to promoting beekeeping
as a hobby, and spreading the good word about the re-
markable honey bee.
• October 30, 2018 Dewey Caron: Topic TBD
• November 27, 2018 Bill Hesbach: Over-wintering
For more information check our website for the latest
updates www.backyardbeekeepers.com.
ILLINOIS
2018 illinois state fair
The 2018 Illinois State Fair Honey Show was again a
great success! Honey Producers, both professional and
beginner submitted their honey and honey products for
judging and display. Honey ice cream was sold again at
the fair and enjoyed by all.
This year there were three professional entries. These
entries were Fox Valley, Lincolnland Beekeepers and San-
gamon Valley. The professional class is extremely com-
petitive every year with most honey and honey related
items represented. In the professional class, Fox Valley
took home the Sweepstakes for having the highest scores
on their honey products plus the Governor’s Trophy for
the Best Display of Apiary Products.
Since each entry in each category was judged, the judges
worked hard into the second day. Mary Kettlewell was
the Honey Judge and did an excellent job. Not only were
the Professional Booths judged, but the entries in the Open
Class were also judged. The Open Class is a perfect forum
for new beekeepers and experienced beekeepers alike to

douglas county fairgrounds,

castle rock, colorado

Speakers Dr. Diana Cox-Foster, Beth Conrey and Tina

Sebestyen, plus a special showing of the award-winning
film, “Last of the Honey Hunters,” about gathering honey
in Nepal, without a veil, way, way up in the air.

— Big Money honey contest!

— Election of officers
— Make new beekeeper friends and learn a lot!

Details and registration at: www.coloradobeekeepers.org

1192 American Bee Journal


compare themselves with each other. Each year the judg-
ing process is improved with streamlined computer entry
by John Jamison, which allows exhibitors to receive their
scores and judges remarks.
Additional highlights for this year’s judging was the
Carl Killion Award won by Jim and Karen Belli. The Killion
Award is given for highest overall scores in Open Class.
The Grand Champion Honey Award was given to Nan-
cy Sweet of Sweet Honey Ranch. This entry was placed
into the Governor’s Sale of Champions Auction and
brought a whopping $2,600 for three 2 1/2 pound jars of
chunk honey. Nancy graciously awarded her winnings
to something that has touched her life: charities for can-
cer research and Alzheimer’s research. The Governor of
Illinois, Bruce Rauner, was the successful bidder on the
Grand Champion Honey.
Look for the 2019 Illinois State Fair Honey Show to be
even Better!
November 2018
INDIANA
tHe beekeePers of indiana fall conference & WorksHoPs
October 26 & 27 at
Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth, Indiana
Featured speakers for the event include Dr. Rebecca
Masterman, UMN Bee Squad Associate Program Director
and Jerry Hayes, author of “The Classroom: Beekeeping
Questions and Answers” for American Beekeeping Jour-
nal, as well as columnist Michele Colopy, Program Direc-
tor with the Pollinator Stewardship Council. The meeting
will also feature hands-on workshops, including sessions
on making hive equipment, candy boards, candle and
soap making.
The meeting will include a Fall Beekeeping School, which
will focus on the basics of beekeeping and the challenges
new beekeepers may encounter their first year and beyond.
Rooms are available at the resort for overnight stays if
you want to make a weekend of it.
Please go to http://indianabeekeeper.com/ to register
for this great event!
Please join us for a great Fall Conference!
LOUISIANA
louisiana beekeePers association
57tH annual convention
december 6-8, 2018
The Louisiana Beekeepers Association will hold its 57th
Annual Convention at the West-Cal Events Center, 401
Arena Road, Sulphur, LA. The convention begins Thursday
afternoon, December 6, with registration at 1pm, a focus on
commercial beekeeper concerns, and a social hour with a
live band later that evening. Friday morning and afternoon
as well as Saturday morning offer a wide variety of topics
and speakers for all levels of beekeepers. Featured conven-
tion guests and speakers include industry experts Randy
Oliver, Dr. Juliana Rangel, Pierre Lau, among others. Spe-
cific presenters, topics and times could still change and will
be finalized as the convention dates draw closer.
Convention information and registration forms can be
accessed on the Louisiana Beekeepers Association website:
www.labeekeepers.org. There are hotels and motels offer-
ing different types of lodging arrangements very near this
West-Cal Events Center in Sulphur.
We encourage anyone interested in beekeeping to join us
in Sulphur in December for informative presentations on
pest management, pollinator research, medical benefits of
hive products, and many other topics of beekeeper interest.
For additional convention-related information, please con-
tact Jennifer Brown, LBA Vice-President, at (601) 493-3447.
NEW YORK
november 1-3, 2018
emPire state Honey Producers association, inc.
annual fall meeting:
“esHPa 150tH anniversary” 1868-2018
location- Hilton embassy suites- destiny usa,
syracuse, ny 13204
1193
Speakers include:
Dr. Jay Evans USDA Beltsville
Dr. Diana Cox-Foster USDA Logan UT LOHMAN APIARIES
Richard Ball NYS Ag & Markets since 1946
Emma Mullen Cornell U. NY Quality Queens and Packages
Dr. Scott McArt Cornell U. NY
Dr. Dennis Van Engelsdorp U. of Maryland Old World Carniolan
for Over-wintering and Honey Production
2018 Dr. Roger Morse Honey Show
“New” 2018 Honey Bee Art Competition.
Dennis Lohman Apiaries
Bus Tour of “Montezuma Winery and Hidden March 6437 Wagner Road
Distillery” ARBUCKLE, CALIFORNIA 95912
150th Anniversary Reception 530-476-2322
For More information and to register online: Member of California Bee Breeders Association
www.ESHPA.org
Or contact ESHPA Secretary:
Angel Conway
PO Box 175
Orwell, NY 13426
315-263-7501

TENNESSEE
marcH 21- 23, 2019
fountainHead college of tecHnology
3203 tazeWell Pike – knoxville, tn, 37918
For more information and to register for this exciting
event please visit www.honeyconvention.com

Please plan to join us in Knoxville, TN

March 21-23, 2019.
The HONEY Convention is dedicated to educating all
beekeepers and people wanting to help honey bees. With
over 380 people last year at the convention, we are growing
and will be even bigger in 2019. If you are just getting start-
ed or even thinking about honey bees, we have classes for
you. If you are a beekeeper for a year to 50+ years, we have
classes for you. There will be over 20 speakers and over 60
classes to pick and choose to attend.
There will be a FREE beginners beekeeping class that will
talk about what you need to become a beekeeper. We en-
courage all to come! This class is free and open to the public.
The HONEY Convention is a not for profit, 501C-3 chari-
table organization.

1194 American Bee Journal

1198 American Bee Journal
 by RON PHIPPS

The door to the adulteration of honey must be closed

and the door to the positive and creative marketing of authentic honey
in its natural diversity and charm thrown open.

T
he overall global honey market istry of honey. Dr. Schwarzinger is can “complement support of NMR
has received growing attention the author of “Large-scale Screen- by engaging with USP on standards
from the media, governments, ing of Food Products for Quality development and testing strategy.”
scientific laboratories, legal profes- and Authenticity” which states that
sionals and beekeeping associations. “NMR spectroscopy... has recently 1) US Import trendS
The prestigious Economist magazine been introduced into food science US import volumes from all coun-
reported in August 2018, on “The for screening large sets of samples. tries fell about 25% in the first half of
Scourge of Honey Fraud.” A report …NMR indeed may be regarded as 2018 to 177,340,025 lbs. compared to
from the Australian media came out one of the most important technolo- 237,224,927 during January to June
on “Buying Fake Honey…” Leading gies for obtaining large-scale data 2017. Imports from India reached
news sources in India raised con- sets of foods.” 50,000,000 lbs. for the first 6 months
cerns about adulteration of honey in We note that Prof. Michael Rob- of 2018, occupying 28% of the market
the Indian domestic market in their erts of the Resnick Program for Food for that period, almost double the vol-
April 2018, article “Is your honey Law and Policy at the UCLA School ume from Vietnam. Import volumes
pure enough?” of Law, an expert on food fraud, in from Argentina and Brazil were re-
Food authenticity is a subject of his excellent paper “Recommended duced to 16% and 12% market shares,
many media reports in America and Strategies to Address Economic respectively, for the same period.
Europe. The importance of bees to Adulteration of Honey” (2017), rec- US commercial beekeepers have
food security and ecological sustain- ommended that the honey industry reported that in the Dakotas their
ability is often highlighted in Ameri-
can news reports and advertisements. Chart 1. U.S. Honey Import Volumes January to June 2018 and 2017 by Country
The World Honey Congress is devot-
ing attention to the problem of adul-
teration of honey and the future of
beekeepers. All this media attention
and policy awareness suggests a sea
change is emerging.
Deepening the definition of au-
thentic honey, analyzing the sophisti-
cated modes of modern adulteration
in the market, and reviewing more
powerful methods of detecting
honey adulteration are activities be-
ing vigorously undertaken by the
US Pharmacopeia (USP). Professor
Norberto Garcia will serve as chair
of USP’s honey group and Prof. Dr.
Stephan Schwarzinger will add his
scientific expertise on the biochem-

November 2018 1199

2018 white clover honey crops were
25% lower, and in some areas 50%
lower, than in 2017. Despite the sig-
nificant reduction in the white clover
crop, the prices offered by leading
packers fell about 10% compared to
2017 prices. This anomaly reflects
the continuing negative impact of
the international honey market on
domestic honey prices.
During 2018, the market share of
India increased from 22% to 28% and
Vietnam from 14% to 15%; in contrast
market shares for Argentina dropped
from 22% to 16%, Brazil from 14% to
12%, and Ukraine dropped from 10%
to 3%, respectively.
By mid-September, as the Ameri-
can honey crop was completed,
offers appeared from India (Ex-
tra Light Amber at $0.90-95/lb.),
Ukraine (ELA at $0.90-95/lb.), Viet-
nam (LA at $0.70-75/lb.) and Thai-
land (ELA in the mid $0.80 range).
2) the ASIAn mode of honey
prodUctIon.
As cited in previous reports and
meetings, some Asian exporters
have indicated that they are follow-
ing the “China Model” and extract-
ing immature uncapped honey at
high moisture. Some want to use
the euphemism “industrial honey”
to describe such honey. But honey
must be authentic irrespective of its
quality, color or use. In China, as has
been witnessed by American and
European beekeepers, honey is typi-
cally extracted at very high moisture
and reduced in what Walter Hae-
feker, President of the European Bee-
keeping Association has aptly called
“beehive factories.” Such honey is
explicitly called “water honey” in
China.
Vietnamese exporters have said
that they could extract mature,
capped honey, but it would take
much longer, and it would result
in significantly higher prices. The
prices of mature honey would be
higher than US importers and pack-
Chart 3. Non-Traceability
The major purveyor of resin technology, China’s Sunresin, proudly advertises their ability to both “get rid of the
barriers from US” and apply technology to achieve “Non-Traceability in Processed Honey” as the screenshot high-
lighted below from their webpage demonstrates:
1200
Chart 2. Percentage of moisture in harvested honey (laboratory data)
Zone 2013
West 15.6-17 %
Central 16-17% 18-19.4%
Subtropical 16.6-18 %
East 17%
Source: PhD Thesis, Argentina
ers are willing to pay. Indian export-
ers have publicly said that all Indian
honey is extracted immaturely. Some
Asian exporters have erroneously ar-
gued that this is the only possible way
to produce honey in countries that are
close to the equator.
The South Korean Beekeeping As-
sociation explicitly distinguishes ma-
ture honey from immature honey in
statements on their public website,
indicating that “immature honey,
which lacks vitamins and minerals,
is harvested every 2-3 days, and the
moisture level is decreased artificially,
whereas bees fan the honey to evapo-
rate extra moisture for mature honey.”
They furthermore cite the fact that
“mature honey has characteristics
that are superior to those of immature
honey and commands much higher
prices.”
3) modeS of honey prodUctIon In
tropIcAl regIonS
Prof. Enrique Bedascarrasbure of
Argentina has studied the produc-
tion of honey in tropical regions. The
harvest of honey in tropical areas can
occur within 7 days in some regions,
and in equatorial Costa Rica, within
21 to 30 days. Data has been provided
from a doctoral study on the produc-
tion of honey from 2015 to 2017, indi-
cating that the average moisture level
of extracted honey in tropical regions
of Argentina is 18.9%.
Dr. Bedascarrasbure advocates that
honey meet the definition of the Co-
dex, where nothing, including water
may be added or subtracted: “Honey
is the natural sweet substance pro-
duced by honey bees from the nectar
2014 2015 2016
16-18% 15-17% 17%
19.4-18% 18.5%
18-19% 17-18% 16-18%
18% 16-17% 18-19%
of plants or from secretions of living
parts of plants or excretions of plant
sucking insects.”
4) conSeqUenceS of economIcAlly
motIvAted AdUlterAtIon (emA)
The extraction of immature honey
vs. mature honey is not a matter of
geography, but a matter of economics.
To produce genuine authentic honey
in certain regions requires additional
time. The production of immature
honey also occurs in areas at latitudes
very far from the equator, including
in China and South Korea, as cited
above. The quantities of mature, au-
thentic, fully capped honey that can be
produced at tropical latitudes may be
far less than the quantities produced
at latitudes very far from the equa-
tor, in countries such as Canada, the
US, Argentina, Germany, Hungary,
etc. Just because it is harder does not
give these countries a license to pro-
duce fake and adulterated honey. It is
the prevalence of non-authentic honey
sold as the genuine article that creates
the glut of supply. This cheap “honey”
has caused a tremendous collapse in
honey prices, which in turn threatens
the welfare and financial viability of
beekeepers producing genuine honey
around the world.
There are three modern modes of
honey adulteration which have in-
creased over recent years. All three
have contributed to a collapse in the
honey prices and decreased incen-
tive to produce genuine honey. These
three modes of adulteration are 1) the
creation and blending of inexpensive
bio-engineered sweeteners that mimic
the sugar profile of genuine honeys, 2)
American Bee Journal
the use of resin technology to remove
or reduce illegal residues, pesticides,
and antibiotics, to lighten the color
of honey, and remove unattractive
flavors and aromas and 3) the extrac-
tion under the “Chinese” or “Asian”
model of immature, unripened honey,
which is dehydrated to the correct
consistency post-extraction. The price
of these sweetener syrups advertised
on Alibaba, the business website, is
as low as $500 per ton or $0.23/lb.,
and they are specifically engineered
to elude detection.
Resin technology is also advertised
as being able to remove HMF, so that
very low levels of heating appear to
have been used, and the extraction
of immature honey appears to be
absent. The Sunresin claim that “the
use of resin technology for honey has
been approved by the US FDA” was
refuted. As cited in the April 2016,
issue of the ABJ, the FDA asserted
“calling the product that has been
treated with the resin technology
simply “honey” would not accurately
identify the food. …The product
should be labeled with a name that
sufficiently describes its character-
izing properties in a way that distin-
guished it from honey which has not
been treated with resin technology.”
Statement regarding resin technol-
ogy on Alibaba:
Seplite LSF941 adsorbent resin
can effectively remove the HMF in
honey, after treatment by our res-
ins, the HMF level can be reduced
to less than 10mg/kg Which makes
the honey meet the food standard
of USA and Europe market.
Seplite LSF941 adsorbent resin
have been widely used in the
honey processing industry in
China, and it is also success-
fully applied in Asia, Europe, Af-
rica and etc.
The consequences of the continued
employment of the three modes of
adulteration are: 1) there is no ceiling
to available quantities for purchase,
2) no floor to the prices, with a down-
ward rush apparent, 3) no limits to il-
licit profits for those who collude to
adulterate honey, and 4) no future for
honest beekeepers.
If a person has a serious medi-
cal problem, few people would use
the medical technology of 50 or 100
years ago to diagnose, understand
the causes or craft the cure for that
November 2018
Chart 4. Prices of U.S., Indian and Vietnamese honey 2015-2017
medical condition. Instead patients
want doctors and hospitals which
have the most modern and sophisti-
cated technology and methodology
for medical treatment. We should fol-
low in the footsteps of the medical
profession and embrace new techno-
logical advances for ensuring the pu-
rity of our product, as Prof. Roberts
has described in his book Food Law in
the United States (2016) and in lectures
and conferences all over the world.
The international food industry must
employ the broadest range of exper-
tise in order to overcome the epidemic
of food fraud.
Dr. Schwarzinger states: “NMR in-
deed may be regarded as one of the
most important technologies for ob-
taining large-scale data sets of foods.
This has been attributed to techno-
logical advancements, which allow
ease of operations, but most impor-
tantly, to novel analytical challenges
in the food sector: food fraud – that
is unlawful declaration of a product
pretending a higher quality, extra pu-
rity, a specific variety, origin, method
of production, etc. – which has been
a growing threat in the industry…
The loss in consumer confidence even
affects producers and trade who pro-
duce in accordance with guidelines
and regulation.”
Despite the prominence of the
use of NMR in the food industry, ef-
forts continue to disparage and de-
lay implementation of NMR in the
honey industry. This is not because
of a weakness of NMR, but precisely
because of its unprecedented power
to expose illicit modes of production
and sophisticated modes of adultera-
tion, which plagues and distorts the
international honey markets.
The continuous availability of large
quantities of adulterated honey in the
international market manifests the
failure of an industry to effectively
police itself. Concurrently major re-
tailers, food service and manufactur-
ers using honey as an ingredient are
concerned about their social respon-
sibilities, which in the case of honey,
extend far beyond the confines of the
honey industry and into issues of
Food Fraud, Food Security and Eco-
logical Sustainability. These concerns
exist within the demographic context
of consumers demanding integrity
and authenticity in respect to food,
labeling, purity and safety.
5) honey mArketS In SeverAl
coUntrIeS
US Honey
Dr. Stan Daberkow, economist
emeritus of the US Department of Ag-
riculture has provided an economic
analysis of US honey prices:
A Tale of Two Markets
American honey consumption in
2017 was estimated at nearly 600
million lbs. — a 22% increase over
2016. Greater honey consumption
was made possible, not via domestic
beekeepers, but from imports. These
imports now account for 75 % of US
consumption — up from about 60 %
in 2010. In 2010, the difference be-
tween the imported price per lb. of
honey from all countries and prices
paid to beekeepers was about $.40 per
lb. but grew to around $.90 by 2017.
1201
 India and Vietnam combined rep-
resented about 40% of all US imports
and the CIF value per lb. of their
honey is the cheapest source among
all the major bulk exporters to the US
In 2017, beekeepers reported selling
directly to retail customers for prices
ranging from $3.80. to $6.24 per lb.,
depending on the honey’s color class,
compared to the average price for all
honey sold at $2.17. In 2010, the dif-
ference between domestic honey and
Indian honey was $.42 per lb., but by
2017 the spread had grown to $1.23.
Similarly, that spread for Vietnamese
honey had more than doubled from
$.55 to $1.36 per lb.
When market prices decline it can
typically be traced to reduced costs
of production or a decline in demand
somewhere in the market chain. In
the case of honey, we see a contin-
ued growth in demand as reflected
in increased consumption. While US
beekeepers recently received only
modestly higher prices for their prod-
uct and bulk import prices were near
record lows, retail honey prices have
shown steady increases since 2010.
India exported about 89 million lbs.
of bulk light amber and extra light
amber honey to the US in 2017. Let’s
assume that only 25% of that honey,
or 22 million lbs., wound up on retail
grocery shelves, a modest amount. If
all the actors in the honey marketing
chain were willing to accept Indian
honey rather than US honey for their
retail product (and retail prices did
not reflect the cheaper honey source),
the importer, packer, grocery outlet,
or others in the marketing chain could
have reaped a $27 million windfall.
Over the last few years, prices
paid to beekeepers have followed
much different price patterns than
that of imported honey, although
there is some evidence that do-
mestic prices have been adversely
impacted by imports. Evidence of
significant levels of imported adul-
terated honey leads to questions
about whether one can legitimately
compare imported and domestic
honey prices when the two products
are not equivalent in authenticity.
ArgentInA
Argentina’s economy is in great tur-
moil, and the peso is down by nearly
50% since January 2018. Inflation esti-
mates for 2018 have been readjusted
to almost 40%. The International
Monetary Fund has come to the res-
cue of Argentina, but at a great price.
In early September, the Argentine
1202
government imposed an export tax
of 12% on many commodities, includ-
ing honey. One prominent exporter
asserted: “We were watching TV and
suddenly the playing field changed!”
Estimates of the present crop are be-
tween 60,000 and 65,000 tons. Domes-
tic prices have firmed up due to the
lack of offers of honey for sale from
producers and limited unsold sup-
ply of this crop. As of July, exports to
the US represented 47% of all of Ar-
gentina’s honey exports. Prices in the
first half of 2018 were up over 20% on
average compared to 2017, and with
the abrupt imposition of the export
tax, price increases of about 10% were
projected for late 2018. Despite the
price increases, demand from Japan is
strong for very white honey, demand
from Europe is stable and quality re-
quirements are high.
BrAzIl
Exporters commented in September
"the prices for organic honey could go
up soon as there won't be much light
amber organic available in the up-
coming months since most suppliers
have cleared their stocks with honey
from previous crops." In June 2018,
US imports of organic honey from
Brazil reached 9,015,821 kilos, and
Brazil’s total exports of honey from
January to August 2018, were nearly
39,000,000 lbs. (17,664,233 kilos).
Brazilian honey exporters remain
concerned that the temptation in
other nations to adulterate organic
honey with conventional honey re-
mains, though that temptation has
diminished as the price differential
between organic and conventional
honey has collapsed.
mexIco
US imports from Mexico were
3,153,000 lbs. in the first half of 2018,
up from 2,913,000 in the first half of
2017. Colors were primarily white
and extra light amber, with some vol-
ume of organic.
Mexican beekeepers are hoping
to reduce or eliminate planting of
GMO crops in Mexico. This is in di-
rect response to demand from Europe,
which is Mexico's largest and most
lucrative market. European consum-
ers are concerned about potential
negative health impacts of genetically
modified crops and so are demanding
more organic and GMO-free foods.
After working with numerous
scientists, leaders of beekeeping in
Mexico have become very concerned
about the inability of the LC-IRMS
C3/C4 test to reveal adulteration un-
der 49% and have expressed a strong
preference for NMR testing.
AUStrAlIA
- StrIkIng developmentS -
The Australian honey market has
received unexpected and dramatic
attention because of widespread
publicity centered on the country’s
largest supermarket chains facing ac-
cusations of “unwittingly selling fake
honey” (Fairfax Media, Sept. 3, 2018).
“Testing at a leading international
honey lab specializing in honey fraud
detection, analyzed that almost half of
the samples collected from supermar-
ket shelves were adulterated.” The
Australian packer involved “strongly
denied any issues with its products
and criticized the type of test – known
as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.”
Philip McCabe, the President of
Apimondia, believes that “the NMR
test is the most accurate available
and thinks consumers are not getting
what they paid for.”
“QSI lab was commissioned by the
law firm King, Woods and Mallesons,
to conduct 2 types of test of the sam-
pled honey. One used NMR screening
and the second used the official C4
sugar test. …Using the NMR testing
the results showed that 12 of the 28
samples tested were not 100% pure
honey. The same 28 samples were
then tested using the official Austra-
lian test, C4, and all passed. …QSI’s
managing director, Gudrun Beckh,
who has been testing honey for al-
most 30 years, said she was confident
in the NMR test findings. …Fake
honey always existed, but in the past
years it is a growing problem because
of the people who adulterate using
more and more sophisticated meth-
ods. …In the tested samples, it was
the Chinese aspect of the honey that
was adulterated, not the Australian
honey. …There is a groundswell of
international experts, academics and
private companies increasingly rely-
ing on NMR as the test of choice for
detecting fake honey. Apimondia, the
peak body for the sector internation-
ally, recently said it would use NMR
screening as part of its new honey
competition rules. …the Australian
Bee Industry Council wrote to the
Australian Department of Agricul-
ture and Water Resources in July, re-
questing the review of the way it tests
honey, ditching the old C4 test and
moving to NMR.”
Leading Australian brands that
were previously dismissive of NMR
American Bee Journal
have been forced to recognize its ef-
ficacy as Australian retailers and con-
sumers are now demanding more
rigorous testing methodologies with
NMR at the forefront.
Since about 70% of Australian food
production depends upon pollination
of crops by bees, the impact of Aus-
tralian beekeepers competing against
adulterated honey is significant. The
honey from the Australian retail mar-
ket, which was tested as adulterated
was said to contain 70% Chinese
honey.
McCabe, also President of the Irish
Federation of Beekeepers, has esti-
mated that at least 30% of the products
sold as “honey” in the international
honey market are adulterated in mul-
tiple forms, which is fraud. There is a
video on YouTube from the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (www.you-
tube.com/watch?v+gafNOtcShyl)
about the economically motivated
adulteration of honey in Australia
which includes the assertion: “the
consumers are completely blind to
what is happening as a race to the bot-
tom proceeds.”
“Honey fraud has become a phe-
nomenon that is nearly out of con-
trol” stated Norberto L. García (2018)
in his articles The Current Situation
on the International Honey Market,
Bee World.
The internationally acclaimed doc-
umentary on honey available on Net-
flix, “Rotten”, released in 2018, opens
with the calm assertion: “It is fraud,
and it is a crime.” President McCabe,
during his public comment to the
Australian media, indicated that the
phenomena of economically moti-
vated adulteration is so pervasive that
it is being referred to Interpol.
IndIA
In 2017, total US honey imports
from India reached nearly 100,000,000
lbs., far exceeding imports from In-
dia in any previous year. Exporters
report that demand for honey from
the US for the first quarter of 2019
is up, and the monsoon is favorable
for a good crop. Indian government
authorities reported honey produc-
tion in the financial year 2016-2017 at
94,500 metric tons (www.zeebiz.com,
April 10, 2018).
In August 2018, the Indian press
had a major article by a leading Indian
authority, Bibek Debroy, on the prob-
lem of adulteration of honey within
the Indian domestic honey market
(Financial Express, Aug 9, 2018.) He
states: “Apiculture is still so informal
November 2018
and unorganized that we don’t have
credible numbers on the number of
bee colonies and beekeepers, or the
honey produced.”
“For that matter, we aren’t clear
about what we mean by honey,
though consumption is increasing be-
cause of health reasons.” In a general
way, everyone knows what honey
means. For example, in the Prevention
of Food Adulteration Rules (1955),
“honey means [a] natural sweet sub-
stance produced by honey bees from
the nectar of blossoms or from secre-
tions of plants which honey bees col-
lect, transform, and store in honey
combs for ripening.”
“We are also clear about prohibit-
ing contaminants, adulterants, in-
secticides and pesticides, although
Indian exports have sometimes been
banned because exporters violate
these norms. There has been a grow-
ing concern amongst the public of
honey being adulterated with corn or
sugar syrup.”
”Earlier, the FSSAI didn’t have test-
ing methods and parameters to fig-
ure out if the honey was authentic or
not. …The revised standard restricts
heating or processing of honey to an
extent that its essential composition
is changed or its quality is impaired.”
The solution to the growing con-
cern about adulteration of honey en-
tering the Indian domestic and export
markets will inevitably require India’s
production of honey to conform to in-
ternational norms, strictly adhere to
proper modes of production, and to
pass the most sophisticated methods
of detection of adulteration.
chInA
China’s honey exports to the world
were valued at $270,000,000 in 2017,
making it the largest direct exporter
of honey. In some markets, China has
created an explicitly 2-tiered market,
selling honey that will not pass NMR
at a much lower price and in bigger
quantities than honey that will pass
NMR and other tests.
China’s role in the international
honey market is more complex than it
appears on the surface, since China’s
acquisition of other honey companies,
whether open and direct or hidden
through surrogates, allows China to
participate more aggressively in the
international honey market. As indi-
cated in section 2 & 4, Chinese com-
panies are also involved in exporting
sophisticated modes of adulteration.
Beekeepers have direct evidence that
Chinese companies have exported
resin technology to large honey ex-
porting countries active in the North
American market.
“Buying fake honey is as simple
as a google search” stated an article
in the Sydney Morning Herald, which
led to an Alibaba page for a Chinese
company advertising “Bulk liquid
Rice syrup Pass C3 C4.” The price
of sweetener syrups on Alibaba, the
business website, is as low as $500
per ton or $0.23/lb. An entire sub-in-
dustry focused on promoting sophis-
ticated tools of honey adulteration is
clearly active and largely being held
unaccountable.
The trade war between the US and
China, which includes increased tar-
iffs on $200 billion of Chinese exports,
as the US China Business Council re-
ports, has created a freight frenzy to
ship Chinese products into the US
before the imposition of import duties
on September 23, 2018. “Vessels leav-
ing China for the US are full, deliver-
ies to California ports are surging, and
cargo rates are at a 4-year high.” If and
when the current trade war eases, the
underlying tensions between the two
economies will remain and undoubt-
edly flare up. The fundamental reason
concerns increased competition as
China’s economy grows in size and so-
phistication. These tensions have been
exacerbated by food fraud, customs
fraud, circumvention and numerous
forms of intellectual property rights
violations by Chinese companies.
Through both direct investments
and the use of surrogates, Chinese
companies are acquiring strategic re-
sources, including in the global honey
industry. The acquisitions, including
in North America, create horizontal
and vertical integration. China’s her-
alded New Silk Road has led to huge
infrastructure projects in numerous
countries and as the recipient coun-
tries have become unable to repay
their loans, there have been “debt for
equity swaps” allowing Chinese enti-
ties to acquire ports and airports in
Asia and Africa. Public protests have
been reported in countries including
France, Russia, Vietnam, Australia
and New Zealand.
6) mAcro-economIc perSpectIveS
This year the significance of the
evolving geopolitical and macroeco-
nomic climate on the international
honey market has forcefully asserted
itself. The impact is expressed in the
volatility of currency fluctuations and
the inability to service national and
international debt.
1203
 International debt levels have
reached $247 trillion (318% of GDP),
an increase of more than $96 trillion
compared to a decade ago. The two
largest economies, the US and China,
have adopted highly accommodative
policies in order to sustain growth.
In the US, government and corpo-
rate debt levels have ballooned to
unprecedented levels, in which US
government debt has doubled from $9
trillion in 2007 to $21.5 trillion in 2018,
exceeding 100% of GDP for the first
time since WWII. China, which has
accounted for 50% of global growth
over the last ten years, has achieved
this remarkable growth through the
issuance of tens of trillions of dollars
of debt. According to the Institute for
International Finance, between the
fourth quarter of 2008 and the first
quarter of 2018 China’s gross debt ex-
ploded from 171 to 299% of GDP.
Unprecedented levels of accom-
modation afforded by the global debt
bubble have begun to recede, declin-
ing availability of US dollar liquid-
ity globally has led to contagion in
emerging markets, which is most
powerfully expressed in dramatic
drops in the value of their currencies.
Major honey exporters have expe-
rienced significant currency declines,
namely Argentina (-50%), Brazil
(-21%) and India (-10%).
Food manufacturers are becoming
increasingly concerned about their
social responsibilities with respect to
growers and small producers. For ex-
ample, the candy company Mars an-
nounced in September 2018, that the
cocoa industry’s current approach to
sustainability has drawn criticism in
recent months, as years of scattered
actions have done little to improve
the lives of farmers and prevent en-
vironmental degradation. Under the
new sustainability scheme - which
will cost the company $1 billion over
10 years - all the cocoa it buys will be
responsibly sourced by 2025.
In earlier writings, Prof. Garcia and
I have shown the inexplicable contra-
dictions among 1) huge increases in
exports of honey, 2) relative stability
of the numbers of beehives, and 3) de-
cline in productivity per hive. These
inexplicable contradictions lead to the
conclusion that economically moti-
vated adulteration continues to haunt
the international honey market. As
individuals involved in the beekeep-
ing industry, we must become vocal
advocates for better regulations to
protect honey’s purity.
Mr. Phipps is President and founder of CPNA
International, Ltd. He is a former member of
the National Honey Board and Co-Chairman
of the Committee for the Promotion of Honey
and Health. He was a recipient of a National
Science Foundation Fellowship in the Philos-
ophy of Theoretical Physics. In 2017 he was
appointed Vice President of the Apimondia
Scientific Commission on Beekeeping Econ-
omy. He has worked with FDA to develop a
research protocol for the global diversity of
honey. e-mail: info@cpnaglobal.com

conclUSIon
The offer prices cited earlier illus-
trate the fact that, as 2018 races to
its chaotic conclusion, the two-tiered
honey market persists. A market per-
sistently involving both authentic and
adulterated honey has deep implica-
tions to American agriculture, global
food security, and ecological sustain-
ability. This situation will not elude
notice by retailers, who believe in
social responsibilities and consumers,
who demand food safety and an end
to food fraud.
With discussions started by Dr. Jo-
seph Bowden, Prof. Vaughan Bryan,
and others, it has become clear that
due to the diversity of the chemical
and physical profiles of honey, the
industry needs a very vigorous and
more comprehensive traceability sys-
tem. A system which goes beyond
mere geographic movements in the
buying and selling of honey. Those
enhanced traceability systems require
reference to floral sources, regions
of production, modes of extraction,
modes of processing, climate and
other variables. These variables must
be open and readily available.

1204 American Bee Journal

1206 American Bee Journal
March 2018 1207

Q
B401
Hello Jerry,
I have been enjoying your column
for decades. Keep up the good work! :)
I’ve been reading about B401
“Certan” that other countries use to
kill waxmoth caterpillars in stored
frames. How does it work? Is it toxic
to the bees? Do we have to air it out
before we put frames back in the
November 2018
hive? Can we use it once the caterpil-
lars start to damage the wax?
Why isn’t it sold in the USA?
Justin
Ohio
A
Waxmoths are a pain on stored
comb for sure. Can’t really blame
them, as it is food for them. It allows
them to reproduce and feed their lar-
vae, preserve their genetics and grow
the population. Welcome to competi-
tive biological life. It’s competitive,
because we beekeepers don’t want
them to do this, as it destroys comb.
Honey bees have enough chemical
residue load issues in the beeswax
comb from varroa control products,
plus everything they are exposed to
as they forage in the environment.
When possible, when available, we as
beekeeper managers need to use nat-
ural biological products. Years ago, in
the US, there was a product named
B401 which was a biological that
killed waxmoth larvae and was harm-
less to me and you and honey bees. It
just attacked waxmoths.
Registration fees went up and it
became too expensive to re-register.
The company that made it, Vita-Eu-
rope, sells lots all over the world to
beekeepers, just not the US. They are
thinking about reintroducing it here
in the US. It doesn’t need any addi-
tional data or field trials because they
all are on record and valid for this
natural biological product.
I went to the Vita website, vita-
europe.com, and copied the informa-
tion below.
o B401 is a concentrated solution
of Bacillus thuringiensis subspe-
cies aizawai, a micro-organism,
harmless to man & honey bee
alike.
o 100 % efficacy against the larvae
of the wax moth (Galleria mel-
lonella).
o A 100% biological product that
leaves no residue in wax or
honey, does not alter the taste of
honey and is environmentally
friendly.
o Is suitable for organic farm-
ing in accordance with Council
Regulation EEC No 2092/91
modified on 24th June 1991.
o Comes in 120ml or 1 litre con-
tainers
Q
VARROA / VIRUS
LEGACY
Greetings:
Hope all is well within the realm of
beekeeping. A quick question about
one of the viruses we see affecting the
hives this time of year and depleting
the numbers that would be the winter
bees. (I’m in the south-central Ken-
tucky area.) It is the one you see the
pupa has developed but not turned
brown yet and the bees are uncapping
the cell. Tilt the frame forward and the
pupa will not quite fall out of the cell
because of the edge of the opening
holding it and tilt the frame back and
the pupa will fall back into the cell.
I don’t worry about a couple of
cells but when the level gets into the
dozens, the numbers are affecting the
1209
winter bees. The queen always seems
to fill the cells with eggs, but loses
out before complete development of
the bee.
What is the opinion for any course
of action at this time of the year to
assist in strengthening the hives af-
fected? Mite counts are low, and I
don’t practice a lot of chemical ap-
plications for control of mites and the
survival rate for my operation was
average when I was tested with the
Honey Bee Health survey last year.
The study didn’t relate who treated
and who did not, but I was right in
the middle.
Thank you for any reply,
H D Overholt
A keeping cross your fingers. If it were
There are approx. 20+ viruses that
have been ID’d in honey bees and
several of them are now more active
because of Varroa destructor mites.
When varroa can act as a horizontal
vector, transferring viruses between
bees, it allows for the introduction of
new viruses and often causes former-
ly benign or latent viruses that were
already inside the bee to be activated
and escalate out of control.
Any time an organism is exposed to
a ‘new’ virus often that organism gets
sick and even dies. For us humans,
think of the last few years and the
many new viruses: HIV, Ebola, Zika,
Lassa fever, Sars. In livestock we’ve
seen Newcastle disease, bluetongue,
avian virus, equine anemia. The list
goes on and on. Viruses are adapt-
ing and learning how to survive and
thrive in this world of global trade.
They’re moved around freely, allow-
ing viruses to test their genetics out
on us and livestock and pets.
Viruses like the human cold virus
depend on humans being in close con-
tact with each other, which enables
the virus to pass from one to another,
allowing it to spread and reproduce.
Viruses in a beehive need the same
condition. Yes, varroa starts the ball
rolling, but the virus does not depend
on varroa specifically. Honey bees
touch each other, they clean up after
each other, they share food with each
other and all these conditions allow
viruses to be shared around. Once the
viruses get started, you could have
varroa controlled perfectly down to
0 mites in a colony and it would still
take months and months to clear vi-
1210
ral loads out of the communal colony
population.
My free advice is to control varroa
using a less stress producing product
like ApiGuard (thymol gel) and keep
checking to see if it is working to get
varroa below 3 mites per 100 bees
sampled. If not move on to something
more aggressive.
Reducing other stressors, specifi-
cally nutritional stress by feeding 1
to 1 sucrose (sugar) syrup, is a good
idea. You can use a supplemental pro-
tein patty as well to fill in gaps in pol-
len collection. Sometimes replacing
the queen can break a disease cycle,
especially if she is spreading a virus
that is chronically in her and associ-
ated with eggs or semen.
Then, like everything else in bee-
easy, everybody would be doing it.
Hang in there.
Q
POOF, NOTHING
A bee question... My last round of
new queens all started with drone
brood first. Have I just never noticed,
and is this normal? Are they poorly
mated? Once they get going, they lay
a nice, compact brood pattern, with
more drone brood than one might ex-
pect around the edges.
Thanks again,
Tina
A Most of the time a new queen has
trouble with regulating the amount
of semen that she releases as an egg
slides by the spermatheca. More
sperm being the challenge rather than
less. But, you said it was ‘queens’ plu-
ral which is peculiar.
I would say poorly mated, but
not that she/they didn’t mate, but
rather it’s more likely that some of
the drones she mated with may have
sperm with motility issues. Remem-
ber that a virgin queen will typically
mate with 15 to 20 drones, sometimes
more in a DCA (Drone Congregation
Area).
The possibility of not having any
reproductive ability, because of 1
drone being a dud is reduced with
multiple matings. You can still have
a drone ‘shooting blanks’ so to speak,
but the probability of them all shoot-
ing blanks is small, and so survival
of the colony is increased by mating
with lots of potential dads.
Where the drones came from in the
DCA that your virgins used to mate
is unknown, but it is not unrealistic
to think that there could be a drone
producing colony in the area where
the drone’s sperm was dead. So if
his sperm was the first expressed, the
result is unfertilized eggs and thus
more drones.
Q
MAYBE NEW
PRODUCT
Good morning. My name is Doug
Bhatt and I live in east Texas. I am
a new beekeeper with two hives. I
have been reading about a product
called the Bayer ‘Varroa Gate,’ which
is placed at the hive entrance and the
bees pass through it. As they do, it de-
posits a small amount of miticide to
control the mite population in a hive.
I cannot find any beekeeping suppli-
ers that have even heard of this prod-
uct. Your name and email were given
to me by Dadant and I was told you
might know about it. Any informa-
tion would be greatly appreciated.
A There are lots of companies with
connections in or the desire to help
the managed honey bee industry.
Bayer, with the acquisition of Mon-
santo recently, is one of those with
a history in trying to address varroa
mite control. The ‘Varroa Gate’ is an
idea that may or may not make it to
the US to be another part of the mul-
tiple approaches beekeepers have for
varroa control. A device, as you said,
that would fit in the entrance and ap-
ply a chemical varroacide as the bees
walk through it back and forth, in and
out of the colony. Right now, it’s still
an idea in the process of evaluation
and development.
The active ingredients currently
used in the Varroa Gate are flumethrin
and coumaphos. Both don’t currently
work well to control varroa in North
America, as the mites have evolved
resistance. So the device is unlikely to
be distributed here anytime soon
American Bee Journal

Q Q
CHEMICALS IN
MY HIVE
Hello Jerry!
Thank you so much for ALL the
amazing information you share
month after month- your expertise is
priceless! I have gotten to the point
where I pick up the ABJ and turn di-
rectly to your section to read! :)
So this might sound dumb, or per-
haps you have addressed this in the
past, but with all of the treatment
now necessary (in recent years) for
varroa, is there ever any concern of
what our bees might be bringing back
into the hive after say a “robbing” of
a hive that might have a treatment in
progress when we have supers on our
hives?
In other words, someone down the
street is treating mites with a chemi-
cal (and has no supers on), but I have
supers on and my bees rob their hive
and bring back possibly tainted hon-
ey.... I know honey is such a miracle
substance — some things just break
down in it — but with other things,
are they such trace amounts that no
one is concerned? I am actually not
really concerned and will eat the hon-
ey regardless, but wondering if this is
a topic that comes up — it really is a
curious thing how we are harvesting
for the most part what is nectar, but
do we really know what all our sweet
girls are coming home with to fill our
supers? ;)
Thanks again,
Rett in Virginia
A
Good morning Rett. My goal in the
next few paragraphs is to broaden our
viewpoints together and scare us :).
Honey bees are amazing survivors.
Lots of biology that allow them to ex-
ist in a wide range of environments
from desert regions, tropical rainfor-
est, mountains, prairies, swamps,
coast to coast and pole to pole.
First, it is amazing that there is this
relationship between two different
species: plants and these insects work
together and help each other out. We
can’t even get along as a species. One
November 2018
of their success factors is that they are
‘generalist’ pollinators, i.e. they go to
flowering plants that have nectar and
pollen regardless of season or loca-
tion. The location part is important,
because honey bees will generally
travel 2-2.5 miles in search of these
food resources. But, they can go fur-
ther if needed and if the food resourc-
es are valuable enough. Lots of acres
in a 2.5-mile radius of a honey bee
colony. And honey bees even before
‘us’ had to deal with toxins/poisons
that plants produce to protect them-
selves from insects and other pests.
Honey is the miracle substance you
mentioned, because some of these
plant chemical toxins and poisons
have some ancillary health benefits
for us. All that to say in 2018, honey
bees can be exposed to lots of chemi-
cals as they forage for food.
Here is an example. Years ago,
when varroa first became the #1 is-
sue of managed honey bee health, I
was the Chief of the Apiary Section
of the Florida Dept. of Ag. We had a
research apiary that was somewhat
isolated directly from human popu-
lations and activity. We were study-
ing varroa populations and were us-
ing benign powdered sugar on these
new colonies to knock back varroa.
Colonies had new foundation, new
woodenware and were as pristine as
we could make them. One of my col-
leagues was looking at what chemi-
cal varroacides and ag chemicals and
other toxins were appearing in the
beeswax of colonies. I felt pretty good
that these colonies of ours were free
of residues. I sent samples of beeswax
comb in for analysis. It came back
with 144 different chemicals, 4 of
which were not even registered in the
US. So, these honey bee colonies had
come in contact with 144 chemicals
on their foraging adventures, brought
them back to the colony and they
were absorbed by the beeswax comb.
These chemicals were all in small
amounts and were seemingly doing
no harm. But, what happens when
you mix 144 chemicals in the beeswax
matrix of a hive? Nobody knows.
All of this to say, in the typical Jerry
long answer, I would not worry about
any varroacides being brought back
to your colonies from robbing inci-
dents. These have actually been test-
ed, registered and have a functioning
label for direct use. I would be more
concerned about what your neigh-
bors are using on their lawns and gar-
dens, the ChemLawn folks, city road-
side weed control, the golf course, the
elementary school playground, the
mall and on and on and on in the 2.5-
mile radius around your colony.
That’s my story and I am sticking
with it.
WHY THE DROPPED
POLLEN??
Hi Jerry,
Greatly appreciate your dedication
to dealing with all the questions we
beekeepers have. Great job!
What do you know about pollen
loss when using a screened bottom
board? I see a lot of pollen collected
in a tray (or board) inserted under
the screen after only a week, but no-
tice that there is hardly any pollen on
a solid bottom board over the same
time frame. Are the bees that clumsy
with handling pollen and just recol-
lect what falls amongst the detritus on
the solid board? Or, when a screened
board is used, does their travel across
it cause them to just drop more pol-
len? Does any data exist indicating
what impact there may or may not
be to the colony for all the pollen lost
through the screen? I’ve never run
across anything documented about
screen boards having a negative im-
pact, but the quantity I see lost made
me wonder.
Thanks for all you do!
Ron
Virginia
A
I appreciate your compliment and
here is where the confused Jerry
comes out. I am not quite sure what
you are describing. On a properly
designed screened bottom board the
bees cannot get through the screen
mesh as it is too small for them to
do this. Think window screen or a
cousin of it. The screen bottom is de-
signed to allow small particles like
falling varroa mites or other detritus
to fall through on to the ground be-
low and physically remove them for
the colony. Bigger pieces of cappings
or dead SHB or balls of pollen that ac-
cidentally fall off or dead bees won’t
go through the small screen openings
and the house cleaning bees will re-
move these large pieces of garbage
themselves.
If you are talking about the use of
a sticky trap below the screened bot-
1211
tom board you may simply see more
‘garbage’ because it is trapped on the
sticky board and the house cleaning
bees cannot get to it as they can when
the screen holes are smaller and larg-
er pieces are collected on top of the
screen and then can be removed by
the colony.
Help me out here.
RONNIE’s EXPLANATION
Let me see if I can paint this beehive
with a better color….
First, the setup. I have several
colonies that are dealing with large
numbers of SHBs. So, in an attempt
to reduce the stress on the colony of
dealing with them, I decided to try
out a couple of the new 2-in-1 bot-
tom boards that have the “varroa”
screen and a West beetle trap that
slides underneath the screen. I’m re-
moving the tray weekly to clean out
the beetles (and trash) and replace
the liquid. What I’m seeing is lots of
pollen floating in the liquid. So much,
that almost the entire liquid surface
is a nice bright yellow. It seems like a
significant amount.
So, as you said, with a solid bottom
board, we don’t really get a feel for
what falls because of the houseclean-
ers. My first line of questioning was:
Are the bees really that clumsy han-
dling pollen and drop that much? Or,
does the jostling of bees as they move
across the top of the varroa screen
cause more missteps (maybe a leg
with a pollen ball slips between the
wires and the ball gets knocked off)?
Thus does the screen cause a higher
than normal drop in any way?
Second, when using a solid board,
do the housecleaners actually discard
all the dropped pollen or is a signifi-
cant portion recovered? From there
my burr-combed brain leads me to
ponder that if the recovery part hap-
pened to be true, then is the quantity
of pollen lost to the colony through a
screen bottom enough to have a nega-
tive impact to the colony’s resources?
(Similar to using a pollen trap too
much, if you get my drift.)
Then again, maybe it really only
takes a small amount of pollen to cov-
1212
er the liquid surface and I’m making a
molehill out of a pollen ball with this?
Did I help any or just totally con-
fuse you now?
-Ronnie
JERRY’s 2nd Answer
Ronnie, this is a better visual for
me. So, the pollen is not pollen balls
but simply a sheen of dissolved
pollen across the ‘liquid’? If it is a
sheen, then it represents a very small
amount of pollen that was dropped
and dissolved.
In Apis species, a single hair func-
tions as a pin that secures the middle
of the pollen load. Either honey or
nectar is used to moisten the dry pol-
len, producing the product known
as bee bread. The bee with a load of
pollen then enters the colony and
has to maneuver herself through the
crowd of her sisters, bumping into
them and sliding around and climb-
ing over them until she gets to a loca-
tion with other beebread and finds a
cell that has room to accept her load.
She backs in and with her other legs
slides the pollen load off the single
hair. And most of the time this total
process from pollen collection to off
loading works. Sometimes because of
bumping and jostling there may be an
oops moment sliding the pollen ball
off. It may fall off and end up on the
bottom board or whatever is at the
bottom.
Think Shish Kebab. A meal for us
that is pressed onto a single rod/pin/
skewer that you slide off to be able to
eat. Not a totally sure way to access
food without dropping some on your
plate.
Anything that falls to the bot-
tom of the hive is considered trash
to the colony. They don’t try to re-
cover anything in the trash pile. No
recyclers.
Most of the time the colony has
enough of this pollen that is convert-
ed into beebread to cover the needs
of nurse bees as they feed developing
brood. So, if you lose 3% of what is
coming in, it does not have a nega-
tive nutritional effect on the colony as
they have stored inventory.
Q QUEEN GONE?
I have a hive that was just going
good, had a full box of honey and
a lot of brood. Then 2 weeks later I
opened it and there was no brood
besides a few queen cups that were
uncapped and no eggs in them.
Just wondering if you think that it
swarmed or what happened to them
because there are a lot less bees than
there were before.
Jerry D.
A
Some of this may be location de-
pendent and genetics. If you are in
Tucson, AZ my answer is different
than if you are in Minot, ND. Certain-
ly hard guessing at a distance, but
sounds like you lost the queen, i.e.
she died or if you are in a warm lo-
cation with AHB genetics, the colony
could have absconded. If it was only
2 weeks ago you checked, and she is
gone and you haven’t seen maturing
or just opened queen cells check one
more time this weekend for a young
queen and eggs.
If not, at this late date you may
have to combine colonies. Or put in a
frame from another colony with eggs
or one-day-old larvae and hope they
can raise another queen before the
snow flies or you have to apply more
sunscreen.
Q % HONEY BEES
IMPORTANCE
I’ve heard it said that every three
bites of food you eat are available
because of honey bees and other pol-
linators. How would you say this
“every three bites” thing in a per-
centage?
Jeffrey D.
A
The easy number is 30% as a gen-
erality. If you are a vegetarian, its a
higher percentage. If a vegan a dif-
ferent percentage, Paleo another.
And if you are a chicken or a Black
Angus cow, or hog a different number
too, as alfalfa also needs pollinators,
so it might be 100%:)
Here is the 30% figure used. https://
www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/
bees.pdf
American Bee Journal
Q OVERWINTERING ON
THE FARM
I’ve been wondering about using
What do you think?
Thank you
TS
90+ % of wild colonies and will do the
same in managed colonies unless the
beekeeper is on his or her game.
You could make a split on new comb
an old tractor cab to provide some and in a single deep box with 5 lbs of
winter protection here in central Il- bees. Be sure varroa is less than 3 mites
linois for three or four hives of bees. per 100 bees by an alcohol wash, that
Good or bad idea? the queen is young, healthy and lay-
ing well, they have 50+ lbs. of stored
Anonymous in Illinois ‘honey,’ a frame of beebread and are in

A
a protected area during the mild win-
ter of NW Colorado :).
I would agree with you Terry that a

Well, I suppose you could. Your

goals entering winter are for your col-
ony of honey bees to have fewer than
three mites per one hundred bees, at
least 50 lbs. of honey stored and no
other diseases and a wind free south
facing exposure in central Illinois.
Keep the tractor door open a nice sev-
eral inches, as you get breaks in the
weather in winter even in Illinois and
the bees will fly.
My concern is that this might cre-
ate a more greenhouse like environ-
ment than you might want, it being
0˚F outside and warm inside, so the
bees eat up food faster and want to fly
sooner and get chilled as they go out-
side and don’t return. If this isn’t an
issue, because the tractor door is all
the way open, then you can go inside
and watch Netflix all winter.
Some parts of hobby beekeeping
are just fun experimental things like
you are considering, but be sure the
‘winter goals’ above are in place, then
experiment. Don’t shortchange the
colony by not being the solid honey
bee livestock manager you are tasked
with now.
A spring split is a better option. Be sure
that the varroa is under control as
noted above, food resources are there,
and still cross your fingers.
So, you and your buddy are gam-
blers.
Honey bees are survivors and suc-
cessfully live from basically pole to
pole. They have genetically figured
out how to biologically increase their
chances of preserving their colony
genetics by planning months in ad-
vance how to do this before winter,
the most stressful season, comes.
Honey bees do this by asexual repro-
duction (swarming) in spring, which
allows months of buildup in both
population and food storage.
Wrinkles in this plan in the 2000’s
are varroa and the varroa/virus leg-
acy stressors. This is hard to do for a
wild colony as honey bees are live-
stock or pets now and need beekeeper
management skills to control varroa
early or they die. Varroa wiped out

Q A SPLIT IN
SEPTEMBER
First of all, thank you so much for
taking the time to answer our ques-
tions and I really enjoy The Classroom.
This is my first read each month. I
never have done a split in the fall.
Talking to another beekeeper, we
were kicking this idea around about
a split.

#1 The nectar flow is still on in

N.W. Colorado.
#2 The bees are really doing well
for being in a drought.
#3 Part of September is left for a
nectar flow.

My thought is to make the split in

the spring rather than fall.

November 2018 1213


You’ve worn a lot of hats over the
years. What stuck with you the most
about bees, beekeeping, and us crazy
enough to be beekeepers?
Lots of laughs. Yes, several hats
over the years as different opportuni-
ties to contribute to the industry were
placed before me. I have not stayed
in one place for 40 years. I think my
head would have exploded if I had.
I like to solve—or at least address—
challenges in our industry and not get
stuck in the same routine forever.
For me, it has always been amazing
that we can have a partnership with
an insect. An insect that has relation-
ships with other species. For simplic-
ity, let’s say there are two ways plants
can transfer pollen from one flower
to another for reproduction through
forming seeds — wind pollination and
insect or entomophilous pollination.
Science tells us that for the first,
November 2018
A Conversation
The Classroom
author Jerry Hayes
plants figured out that by producing
a lot of pollen, which contains the
genetic carrier ‘sperm’ and releasing
it into the air, it would float around
and be moved by breezes and wind.
Some of it would accidentally land on
the right flower structure on the right
plant and the released sperm would
pollinate the seed embryo, produc-
ing a fertile seed that would fall on
the ground, germinate and make a
new plant. Pine trees do that as does
corn and wheat. The plant makes a
lot of pollen, releases it and the plant
crosses it fingers—leaves—and hopes
it gets to the right place. It takes a lot
of energy to produce this pollen and
most of it is never used, as it never
makes it to the right flower part in
this gamble for pollination.
Some plant, at some time, thought I
don't want to produce all this pollen.
I want to produce a smaller amount,
and have it go right to those flowers
with
over there and get on the flower stig-
ma where it needs to go. I can’t pull
myself out of the ground by the roots,
walk over there, pick out a mate and
have sex. So how can I do this? How
can I have it delivered for me? Some-
how a relationship was created be-
tween these flowers and bees, two
different species. The flower commu-
nicated, “I will give you some food,
so you can be healthy and reproduce
and in return you will take my pol-
len and deliver it to the exact site on
another flower and I can reproduce.
We got a deal?” Two completely dif-
ferent species, a plant and an insect,
that figured out how to cooperate for
each other’s benefit. We can’t even
get along as the same species and
they can!
And we humans, another spe-
cies, have inserted ourselves into the
honey bee’s life. At first, it was for
our ancestors’ survival as they took
honey and protein from wild honey
bee nests. Then I think the model
changed as the honey bee is now us-
ing us, so they can survive and the
populations grow.
All this connection, partnership
and collaboration within the environ-
ment, a plant-rich foraging area of
thousands of acres around a bee hive.
To me, this is amazing, fascinating
and almost magical.
What was your best and worst expe-
rience during your years of working
for a big corporation like Monsanto?
The best experience was working
with so many really smart people,
who had resources and expensive
equipment with the goal of figuring
out if honey bee health could be ad-
dressed in a different way.
1215
 The worst part was working with
so many really smart people, who
were just following instructions and
really didn’t care if the project moved
forward appropriately, because they
were the workers. If leadership said
no, do it this way, even if they had
no earthly idea about honey bees or
the beekeeping industry, the workers
would do it.
Corporate smart people arrogance.
They had no personal skin in the
game like I did, so it didn’t matter.
And I totally understand that people
have families and need to pay the
mortgage and have health insurance,
so without a connection or a face, life
goes on. It’s easier if you keep your
head down and don’t make eye con-
tact. But that is not me.
What lies ahead? Are you going to sit
on your Classroom laurels or do you
have more up the sleeve of your bee
jacket?
Old beekeepers never die… They
just get more obnoxious.
No such thing as laurels in bee-
keeping, because there is sooooo
much yet to accomplish to bring bee-
keeping out of the 50’s... the 1850’s.
Honey bees are critical to the health
of the environment and pollinator-
dependent agricultural.
Beekeeping has always been the
ugly stepchild of agriculture because
honey bees are survivors and bee-
keepers are survivors. Not that this is
a self-supporting or efficient industry
model. It’s one made up of indepen-
dent and smart beekeeper managers,
who always figure out how to show
up in almonds with X number of
colonies. Not that those colonies are
healthy or sustainable, but the grow-
er doesn’t care really. To the grower,
honey bees are simply a production
overhead—no different than fertilizer,
or irrigation or crop protection tools.
The honey bee colonies come in
for a few weeks and leave. Next year
they show up again and pollination
happens. The growers get a crop and
make money. The beekeepers make
money too and they go home and
build the colonies up to do it again.
Not the best model, but it is the mod-
el, because right now we don’t have a
better one.
All that to say I had hoped there
was a honey bee health silver bullet.
There might be, but it isn’t going to
be industry ready for a while. In the
meantime, there is a small company
named Vita Bee Health in the UK
1216
that has some near natural products
like ApiGuard (thymol gel) and soon
B402 a BT control for wax moths.
They also have AFB / EFB Kits that
you can use in partnership with your
Vet to get legal access to antibiotics to
control those bacterial disease. They
also make food supplements and
beetle traps. I am going to help them
bring more awareness to their prod-
ucts in the US and Canada, as they
have a different mode of action and
will have a less stressful impact on
the colony when they are used.
If you were brand new to beekeeping,
what are three things that you would
want to know?
1) Who from, where, and how can
I get the most factual information
about how I can raise this insect?
Honey bees are no different than Fido
or Fluffy anymore. They require some
minimal management for pests, para-
sites, pathogens, and nutrition. The
worst thing that has happened to bee-
keeping is that 3-year beekeeper, who
is now the world’s expert and he or
she has a blog, YouTube channel and
a website.
2) To be a successful beekeeper, you
also have to be a botanist. Is there
enough pollinator-friendly forage
where you are for the number of man-
aged honey bee colonies in a 2-mile
radius? Are you in downtown urban
city USA, or right next to 5,000 acres
of corn, or in suburbia? And what
does that mean nutritionally and for
potential exposure to toxins?
3) Do I really want to be a beekeep-
er? Do I have the time and passion to
become an insect manager? Or would
it be better if I just planted pollinator
friendly forage around my yard or
the field next to me or helped work
with a conservation group to plant
roadsides etc., etc. You don’t have to
be a beekeeper to help pollinators.
If you had a magic crystal ball
that could foresee the future (but it
couldn’t predict sports scores), what
would it tell us about the state of bee-
keeping in 2050?
Honey bee breeding and genet-
ics will have advanced to the point
where we can ‘vaccinate’ them and
have them immune from the varroa/
virus legacy, nosema, and whatever
else shows up in the next 30 years.
Beekeepers won’t have to put pes-
ticides in a bee hive to kill, hurt or
damage that pesky little bug (var-
roa) on a big bug (honey bee). The
40 million acres of suburban lawns
in the US will have grown to 80 mil-
lion, but they aren’t resource sucking
ChemLawn lawns anymore. They
are a pollinator-friendly habit that
everybody in the gated community
embraces and appreciates when they
come home after an afternoon of golf.
You’ve done a lot of media interviews
over the years, from science maga-
zines like Wired to radio shows like
NPR. What do you wish the news
media would ask that they don’t?
Why?
I have to be careful with this one,
Kirsten Traynor, EDITOR of ABJ!
Some media and some writers are
better than others of course. And
I think over the years, I have been
asked the correct questions to provide
insight into the problem of the day,
the reason they sought me out. Most
of the media that have an interest in
honey bees, honey bee health, the en-
vironment, and agriculture connec-
tion are not mainstream media. They
are specialized for a special audience.
You have heard the statement about
the popular media, “if it bleeds, it
leads.” So, my question to you is:
How can the average listener of a fa-
vorite radio network, or TV, or social
media, Facebook or Twitter or Insta-
gram, state that the problem, for the
most part, of why we don’t have a
healthy honey bee or native pollina-
tor population is simply us. How can
they call in, log on and say it? Do we
care enough to want to be a better
beekeeper? Do we care enough about
the environment to plant that spot in
our backyard into pollinator-friendly
flowers? Do we care enough to not
want our front yards to look like the
18th hole at Augusta? Do we care
enough to speak up, again and again,
and again? Or are we faceless, because
it’s easier.
Talk is cheap
Do we want to be the example of
what positive things can be done in
our own yards, neighborhood, com-
munity, city, and state? Talk is cheap.
...I just proved that. All it can do is
bring information and maybe motiva-
tion. The rest is up to us.
American Bee Journal
November 2018 1217
1218 American Bee Journal
 AlwAys leArning
F
all is a beautiful time of year in temperate regions.
It can also be nerve-racking, especially if this is the
first time you’ve readied a colony for winter. In areas
with a real winter, November is too late to be doing much
for your colony’s health. The mite count should be low, the
bees should have appropriate stores for the winter dearth,
and now the beekeeper’s role is patience.
As described in this month’s article by Lamas, the heft
test can be useful to determine if the colony has enough
stores. If they have plenty of feed and you prepared them
properly for the winter, then—like he advises—leave them
alone. If the colony is light, feed fondant as in most north-
ern areas the nights are too cool to feed syrup. If you are in
an area with a warm fall, keep an eye on your colonies as
they can tear through a lot of their food stores.
This time of year is a great opportunity to learn more
about bees and prepare for next year’s season. Pick up
a new book on beekeeping. Invest in your education, so
you can be a good steward of your bees. A book is much
cheaper than a new colony.
grEat BEginnEr BookS
• First Lessons in Beekeeping by Keith Delaplane is a
quick and easy read that is a great introductory
guide to beekeeping.
• The Beekeeper’s Handbook by Diana Sammataro and
Alphonse Avitabile, an informative text with ex-
cellent diagrams. The one drawback is that it lacks
color photographs to help illustrate points.
• Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees by Malcolm
Sanford, a delightful look at beekeeping with some
excellent illustrations and graphics. It integrates
personal stories from a variety of beekeepers, which
helps bring the text to life.
Fun BEE BookS
• A Book of Bees by Sue Hubbell, was a NY Times no-
table book back in the late 1980s. Beekeeping has
changed dramatically since then, but her humor,
intimacy with nature, a wry look at the oddities
in life still make this one of my favorite bee books.
She moved to the Ozarks after a divorce, where she
managed 300 colonies on her own. Part memoir,
part nature journal, and very witty throughout.
• Following the Wild Bees by Tom Seeley explores the
history and joy of hunting for bees known as beelin-
ing, a once popular pastime.
• The Bees in your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s
Bees by Joseph S. Wilson and Olivia J. Messinger
Carril, a visual odyssey that introduces the reader
to the diversity of bees in this country. The image
quality is spectacular.
• Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World
by Sam Droege and Laurence Packer contains stun-
ning stacked images of bee species around the globe.
The colors and diversity surprises and delights.
September 2018
ExcEllEnt BEE SciEncE BookS
• The Wisdom of the Hive by Tom Seeley, an expensive
purchase, but it covers the inner workings of a hive
in expansive detail, describing how honey bees or-
ganize and exploit available resources. A book that
walks you through 15 years of Seeley’s research into
how honey bees communicate and interact.
• The Spirit of the Hive by Robert Page examines the
genetic underpinnings of honey bee behavior. It ex-
plores how group living and sociality emerged from
solitary life, building on existing genes and behav-
iors to evolve complex behaviors.
• A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson explores the fas-
cinating world of bumble bees. Interweaving humor
with anecdotes and personal memoir, this easy read
will give you a new appreciation for the hard work-
ing buzz pollinators and how country living plus
childish curiosity can shape a scientist.
litEraturE FEaturing BEES or BEEkEEpErS
• The Bees by Laline Paull, an otherworldly look at
living in a hive from the perspective of Flora 717,
a worker bee who dares to challenge the queen’s
fecundity. It’s been described as dreamy and mes-
merizing, a dystopian look at hierarchy, challeng-
ing the power of groupthink. Not all beekeepers are
convinced of its merits, as it stretches reality.
• The History of Bees by Maya Lunde, a Norwegian au-
thor. It shot to attention in 2015 when introduced
at the Frankfurt Book Fair and has been a German
bestseller. It details the importance of bees through
three generations from the past, present and future,
interweaving our deep connection with pollinators.
• The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King, an older
book that takes the Sherlock Holmes tradition and
extends it by providing him a female apprentice.
Sherlock has finally met his equal - a 15 year old girl.
A mystery with intriguing twists and turns, smart
and clean. An intellectual caper that modernizes the
timeless sleuth.
• The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by
Dunya Mikhail. A powerful and moving nonfiction
book written by an acclaimed Iraqi poet. The book
details the stories of tens of Yazidi women, who
were abducted and abused by ISIS, then rescued by
a number of strangers, including a beekeeper. It is
a record of atrocity, a tribute to a culture torn apart,
and the ability to survive.
1219
1220 American Bee Journal

H
ere is an interesting apicultur-
al contraption (see Figure 1). It
is a long rectangular wooden
box (solid wood, not plywood) with
a cross section of about two by four
inches, and a total length of 19 inches.
Inside, four thin pieces of wood ex-
tend for most of its length. They end
under a small piece of galvanized
metal, which has a partition under it
made of screen wire. The screen, po-
sitioned across the inside of the de-
vice, separates the long thin compart-
ments from a small rectangular one.
A small metal clip snapped over this
little compartment, covering it com-
pletely. Whatever its function, the
builder took much care to construct
it. The device definitely had a func-
tion. But what?
Sometimes a curious device like
this is found in a honey house of an
old beekeeper, who knew of its use,
but has long since passed away. With-
out the beekeeper’s experience, the
identity of the device becomes a kind
Fig. 1 A couple of strange devices in two positions.
November 2018
What in the World
is this Bee GadGet?
by Dr. Wyatt a. ManguM
University of Mary Washington
e-mail: wmangum@umw.edu
TBHSbyWAM.com
BeeChildTheBook.com
of secret. And people, naturally being
curious, want answers to these little
mysteries.
Luckily, it turned out this particu-
lar device was well known to me. It
is called an Alexander bee feeder,
invented by Mr. E. W. Alexander of
Delanson, New York. He was known
for successfully keeping as many as
700 colonies in one apiary. I have read
several descriptions of his feeder in
the old literature, and have collected
several versions of it. While it’s not
intuitive how it works, it’s actually
quite inventive.
The long compartments shown in
Figure 1 hold sugar water. The thin
pieces of wood, like fins, form the
troughs. The fins help keep the bees
from falling and drowning in the
sugar water, as they can walk up and
down them. The feeder does not hold
much sugar water. It was mainly used
to stimulate brood rearing by feeding
small quantities on a daily basis. The
stroke of genius was in the design,
where the beekeeper could refill with-
out disturbing the bees and robbing
was nearly impossible.
How does the feeder fit to the hive?
Its shape is too awkward and long to
fit inside the hive. The feeder attaches
to the hive in a clever place that is not
at all obvious. To install the feeder, the
beekeeper slides the brood chamber
back a few inches, so it hangs over the
bottom board at the rear of the hive.
The feeder fits under the exposed part
of the brood chamber that hangs over
the bottom board as seen in Figure 2.
The feeder’s length made filling it
quite easy. The little rectangular com-
partment, partitioned by the screen
from the longer compartments, proj-
ects from the side of the hive. Sugar
water poured into this compartment
passes through the little screen par-
tition, and fills the entire feeder. The
bees have access to the syrup, but not
the beekeeper refilling the feeder. The
metal clip fits over this filling com-
partment and prevents bees on the
outside from robbing the feeder. In
Figure 2, Hutchinson shows a small
block of wood covering this compart-
ment.
Several bee supply companies
manufactured the Alexander feeder.
While I am not sure which company
made the ones seen in Figure 1, the
workmanship suggests they were
commercially produced. In 1917, the
Dadant Catalog of Bee Supplies listed
Alexander Feeders for 50 cents each,
or 10 for $2.70.
As our history shows, when it
comes to feeding bees, beekeepers
can be quite inventive. Vessels for
feeding bees come in a wide variety
of shapes and sizes.
1221
Fig. 2 The Alexander feeder installed on a hive. The picture is from Advanced Bee
Culture by W. Z. Hutchinson; the third edition was published in 1905 by the author.
Who would ever think of putting a Dr. Wyatt Mangum,
feeder under the hive? Mr. Alexander author of Top-Bar Hive
did and his feeder was a brilliant de- Beekeeping: Wisdom
sign. and Pleasure Com-
bined, is an internation-
ally known top-bar hive
Acknowledgments beekeeper, who started
The author thanks Suzanne Sumner keeping bees at age 10.
for her comments on the manuscript. He switched all his colonies to top-bar hives
Visit TBHSbyWAM.com and Bee- back in 1986, long before it became popular.
ChildTheBook.com. He is also an apicultural historian, who blends
his knowledge of beekeeping history with his
study of honey bee behavior. email: wmangum
@umw.edu. www.TBHSbyWAM.com

1222 American Bee Journal

 Warwick Kerr
1922-2018
Creator of
Killer Bees
or Better Bees?
by ron MiKsha
T
he man who “created killer
bees” died a few weeks ago.
For decades, he was disparaged
in newspapers, magazines, and even
books, for creating Africanized honey
bees (AHB) after bringing African
stock to Brazil. By some accounts, it
sounded as if he had unleashed the
fifth apocalyptic horseman.
For the importation of Africanized
stock and its subsequent release, Dr.
Warwick Kerr has been described as
malicious, or, more benevolently, as
an inept scientist. Others saw him
differently. To many in Brazil, he was
a hero who ushered in an era of ge-
netic research. When he died on Sat-
urday, September 15, Brazil went into
mourning. Flags were lowered to
half-mast. The Amazon river city of
Manaus began three days of official
mourning – upon the death of a bee
scientist! Kerr was a beekeeper, re-
search scientist, geneticist, educator,
and political activist. The mayor of
Manaus declared the three-day trib-
Dr. Warwick Kerr in his garden with his
granddaughter, Dr. Priscilla Kerr Hatae
November 2018
ute so the city’s two million residents
could honor the man who improved
the welfare of the people of the rain-
forest– and all of Brazil.
Few scientists have been described
from more divergent viewpoints. Did
he create a disaster? Or did he aid
beekeepers in the Americas? With his
recent death, six days past his 96th
birthday, we will try to unravel the
truth about Professor Kerr and look
at his legacy – especially the fallout of
his “killer bees.” To try to understand
the dichotomy of opinion, I spoke
with Kerr’s grandchildren, as well as
people intimate with honey bees in
Africa, California, and Arizona.
If you are familiar with the name
Warwick Kerr, you likely know that
he brought Africanized genetic stock
from southern Africa to Brazil in 1956
to replace the European bees, which
fared poorly in the tropics. His breed-
ing work created a hybrid bee. Since
the introduction of this new strain of
bees, Brazil’s annual honey produc-
tion increased from 15 million to 110
million pounds1 and crop pollination
improved. Beekeepers would eventu-
ally triple their honey crops – from 40
to 120 pounds per hive. But it was a
disruptive change.
Those who knew him, described
Dr. Kerr not only as a beekeeper, and
careful geneticist, who took his role
of educator seriously, but also as an
uncompromising humanitarian. His
granddaughter Priscilla recalled that
on Sunday mornings, he would lead
her and other children into the fave-
las, or slums, of the city to read from
the Bible and deliver food. In the
1960s, when Brazil was controlled
by a military dictatorship, his activi-
ties landed him in prison twice. We
will get to the circumstances, but to
understand them, we have to know
Warwick Kerr’s roots.
Kerr was born into a middle-class
family in 1922 near São Paulo, Brazil.
Some of his Scottish ancestors had set-
tled in the southern USA, then moved
to Brazil at the end of the American
Civil War. At university, he earned an
agricultural engineering degree. He
specialized in genetics and pursued
post-doctoral studies in the United
States. One of his supervisors was
the famous geneticist Theodosius
Dobzhansky, a pioneer of modern
genetics. With Dobzhansky, Kerr re-
searched fruit flies (Drosophila), the ‘go
to’ bug for genetic studies. Their 1954
fruit fly research resulted in one of
the first publications using statistical
genetics. Then Kerr returned to Brazil
and his interest shifted back to bees.
cAstes Among stingless Bees
Kerr spent years researching bees
in the Brazilian rainforest. Some of
Brazil’s poor people were indigenous
honey gatherers, or meleiros, who
were named for their Melipona honey
trees. There were only 7,000 meleiro
people and their precarious hunter-
gatherer existence in the 1940s con-
cerned Dr. Kerr. He hoped that his
studies would draw attention to the
importance of preserving the Melipo-
na bees, the Melipona honey trees, and
the people who lived off those bees.
Understand and help the Melipona
bees, and you help the meleiro peo-
1223
ple, Kerr figured. In turn, the meleiros
helped Kerr. As a young researcher
in his twenties, they led him to elu-
sive bee trees and showed him which
flowers their bees used for forage.
One species which Kerr studied,
Melipona quadrifasciata, is a eusocial
stingless bee, native to southeastern
coastal Brazil. The indigenous me-
leiros call it Mandaçaia, which means
“beautiful guard,” as there are always
guard bees defending the narrow en-
trance of their colony. An example
can be seen in the header image, pho-
tographed by ecologist Elinor Lich-
tenberg in 2006. Melipona build mud
hives inside hollow trees. These have
narrow passages allowing just one bee
to pass at a time. Although they are
stingless, they can give a nasty bite.
Kerr's research resulted in “Genetic
Determination of Castes in Melipona”
which explained the development of
drones, queens, and workers among
Melipona. Kerr found that their caste
development was different from
honey bees (Apis mellifera). Drones in
both species are haploid, but with Me-
lipona, things get complicated for the
girls. Kerr explains:
In Apis mellifera, “a larva develops
into a queen or into a worker de-
pending upon the food it receives.
In Melipona, on the other hand, caste
determination is genotypic. Fertile
females (queens) are heterozygous
in some species for two, and in oth-
er species for three, pairs of genes,
homozygosis for any one of which
makes the individual develop into a
worker.” – Kerr, 1949.
For Melipona, inherited gene com-
binations determine caste. Females
have two sets of each gene, one from
each parent. Genes contain variants,
called alleles (A or a; B or b). Combi-
nations of these in caste-determining
genes determine whether a queen or
worker develops. If they are made of
two different alleles (Aa and Bb), the
female will be a queen; if either set
is identical (AA or BB), she will be a
worker– see the table below. For hon-
ey bees, it’s nutrition; for these sting-
From Kerr’s 1950 Melipona caste paper
1224
less bees, allele combinations make
the difference.2
If you find this confusing, imagine
sorting it out with 1940s technology,
as Kerr did. At the time, DNA had not
even been discovered. Kerr couldn’t
peek beneath the hood to identify the
actual alleles. He solved the mystery
with back-crosses, observations, and
statistics. Publications in the presti-
gious Science and Proceedings of the
American National Academy of Sciences
followed. His work was considered
so significant that he was one of the
first foreign scientists elected to the
US National Academy of Sciences.
He was also one of the youngest. This
was just the start. Kerr’s research led
to 622 published research papers dur-
ing his 60-year career.
creAtion of the AfricAn honey Bees
While working in the rainforests,
Kerr developed a sympathy for the
poverty-stricken aboriginal hunt-
ers and farmers who supplemented
their diets with honey from native
stingless bees. He saw other farmers
struggle to pollinate their crops and
produce honey with imported Euro-
pean honey bees. European strains
were poorly adapted to the tropics. A
few farmers and monks kept the lan-
guid bees, mostly to collect beeswax
for church candles. Kerr felt that an
infusion of tropical genetics would
create a rugged hybrid and improve
the European honey bees.
In 1956, Kerr went to Africa and
assessed prolific honey producers.
Using their progeny at his lab, he be-
gan creating hybrids suited to Brazil.
Reportedly, a technician mistakenly
removed queen excluders from the
breeding hives, allowing some of the
26 imported African queens to escape
with swarms. Others have claimed
that Kerr’s lab distributed queen cells
reared from the stock and shared
them across Brazil. The latter doesn’t
seem likely as the occurrence of the
new AHB radiated from a single
spot at his Rio Claro field lab and not
from a series of ‘hot spots’ appearing
simultaneously across the country.
From their initial appearance, the
population spread in growing con-
centric rings around the lab, advanc-
ing 300 miles each year. There was no
way to put them back in the box once
they escaped into the rainforest.
It seemed like an unmitigated di-
saster. The bees were difficult to man-
age. They stung a lot. Some Brazilian
beekeepers gave up beekeeping. Hive
counts declined. That would change,
but it would take a decade. Mean-
while, Brazil was ruled by a military
dictatorship, which Kerr vocally op-
posed. He was imprisoned in 1964 for
criticizing government corruption.
In 1969 he was again arrested, this
time for protesting that Brazilian sol-
diers, who had raped and tortured a
nun, went unpunished.3 The military
could neither kill Dr. Kerr, nor keep
him imprisoned for long, because of
his international acclaim. Instead, the
Brazilian government set about de-
stroying Kerr’s reputation, claiming
that he had created assassin bees. The
press ran with the story.
Honey bees with African genes are
more aggressive than European bees.
Beekeepers in Brazil had to learn new
management skills. Although the
venom is the same, more bees attack
if their colony is disturbed. People
have died from massive stings. Some
of the traits which make Africanized
bees exceptional pollinators (refined
olfactory sense, quicker movements,
flights in inclement weather, supe-
rior navigation skills) also make them
more likely to sting en masse. In time,
Brazilian farmers learned to manage
them more safely. After the African
bees completely colonized the coun-
try, Brazil’s status as a honey produc-
er went from 43rd in the world to 7th.
Partly due to superior pollination,
Brazil also became a major agricul-
tural producer.
In 1991, Bob Miese, an American
keeping bees in Brazil, produced
the film, “The Workable Africanized
Bee” to expose what he described as
misconceptions about AHB. To build
up his Brazilian business, Miese col-
lected feral swarms, fitting wedges
of brood into conventional frames
and shaking the associated bees into
new hives. He collected AHB from
bushes and cavities, placed them in
Langstroth hives, and trucked them
to melon pollination.
“I’ve heard American scientists
say that the Africanized bees don’t
produce honey. That is wrong. They
produce lots of honey.” Indeed,
American Bee Journal
200-pound crops became common.
AHB kept Bob Miese in business as
a honey-producer and pollinator. In
his film, AHB are noticeably jumpy,
but he and his crew generally worked
without gloves, and often wore
shorts. “The Africanized bee can be
selected to reduce aggressiveness,
just like you would do with Italians,”
said Miese.
In 1994, American entomologist
David de Jong, working at a Brazil-
ian apiculture research station, re-
marked, "Many people take advan-
tage of the sensationalism and fear to
win research funding, but they never
once came to us for management solu-
tions."4 That criticism may have been
sharp, but it reveals the frustration felt
by people in Brazil at the time.
AHB, the hybrid which Dr. Kerr
created, helped turn his impover-
ished homeland of Brazil from a back-
water of food production into one of
the most prolific honey and agricul-
ture countries in the world. In 1994,
L.A. Times headlined: “Brazil’s honey
production has soared since the ornery in-
vaders took over beekeepers’ hives.”4 But
there remained the inescapable fact
that people were being stung – and
killed – by those same bees.
killer Bees: how fAr cAn they go?
The dictatorship discredited Kerr
and the North American press sensa-
tionalized the Brazilian press releases.
In fact, assassin bees, or “killer bees”
as they became known, were danger-
ous. Most attacks occurred at the edge
of AHB’s northward advance.
Some of the tragedies were due to
lack of caution by people unprepared
for the sudden appearance of highly
defensive bees. The worst attacks
usually occurred when AHB arrived
in new territory. Afterwards, the
temperament of the bees, according
to beekeepers on the scene, cooled –
though not to the same level as the old
European stock they replaced. Some
have speculated that this was due
to an F1-hybrid effect. Upon arrival,
some European-Africanized cross-
ing occurs, making a more vigorous
offspring. With time, African genes
dominate over the heterotic hybrid
and the bees become milder. I have
not seen research on this speculation.
Studies of genetics immediately after
arrival, compared to AHB a few years
later, are rare.
Femilarani Antomagesh, a biology
graduate student at the University of
Calgary, told me that people in her
Kenyan homeland don’t worry about
November 2018
bee attacks. She showed me photo-
graphs of the original African bees,
landing on a spoon as she offered a bit
of honey. “Kenyans,” she said, “know
that bees are important for pollina-
tion.” Beekeepers in Africa know that
their bees can be defensive at times,
but they are not called ‘killers’ and fa-
tal stings are rare. This concurs with
suggestions that after the initial wave
of hybrid bees, AHB behaves more
like bees in Africa.
Venezuela provides an example of
this effect. AHB reached Venezuela
in 1975. Three years later, they had
fully colonized the country. That year,
about 100 people were killed. But in
1990, there were 12 fatalities.5 It is
unlikely that the sharp decline was
entirely due to human caution and
education. The milder temperament
of AHB reported by beekeepers prob-
ably played a role.
Nevertheless, Africanized stock
are often called killer bees. The name
arose in 1964. It is probably not a co-
incidence that this was the year that
Kerr went to prison for criticizing
the government. By 1973, the term
“killer bees” was in broad use, clut-
tering more and more ink until 1999
when usage began to fade. The fear of
AHB was also subsiding. Today, the
expression killer bees is less common
in magazines and newspapers than it
was 25 years ago.6
Killer bees were once regular fea-
tures in popular culture, sometimes
earning top billing in thrillers such as
Killer Bees (1974), The Swarm (1978),
Deadly Invasion (1995), and Killer Bees
(2002). The best known of the lot, The
Swarm, based on Arthur Herzog’s
book, is remembered today because
it tops lists of the worst movies ever
made.7 Sometimes killer bees ap-
peared for laughs. Forty years after
African stock was released in Brazil,
Homer Simpson tells Marge not to
worry about their missed flight to
the sunbelt. “It’s okay, Marge,” said
Homer, “We don’t need to go on a
trip. We’ll just wait for the killer bees
to come to us.”8 Twenty-five years
later, Homer is still waiting.
That’s not the way it was supposed
to be. Predictions made in the 1980s
suggested that the Africanized stock
should have been terrorizing people
as far north as Virginia and Oregon by
1997. It was a reasonable forecast, albeit
wildly incorrect. AHB reached Texas in
1990. If it migrated at its predicted pace
(300 miles per year), it would soon be
endemic in all warmer parts of North
America. But an odd thing happened.
The northward expansion slowed. In
2018, AHB was twenty years behind its
expected location.
How far will the Africanized bees
go? It seems mostly dependent on
climate. AHB does not winter well. In
a 1982 American Bee Journal article, re-
printed as the next article in this issue,
Warwick Kerr himself thought that
the general demarcation would be
about 34 degrees latitude – north and
south.9 It’s notable that 60 years since
appearing next door in Brazil, AHB
is still absent in temperate Argentina.
Climate clearly provides a border.
The Legacy of Warwick Kerr’s Bees
Kerr’s Africanized stock is now
a permanent fixture of much of the
Americas’ ecology. Where these bees
have settled, 98% of feral colonies are
AHB with about twelve swarms per
square mile.10 Besides being better
tropical honey producers and pollina-
tors, Africanized colonies don’t suc-
cumb to varroa. Mite medications are
not used on AHB in Brazil. That's be-
cause Africanized workers and queens
spend less time than their European
counterparts developing in their cells.
Since mites only reproduce while hid-
den in capped brood cells, the mites
don’t have as many offspring as when
coupled with slower-developing Eu-
ropean pupae. Because AHB is not
treated, much of the world’s organic
honey is now produced by African-
ized honey bees in Brazil’s forests. The
honey is doubly organic – produced in
remote areas untouched by pesticides
and produced in unmedicated hives.
Africanized stock is now preferred
by some beekeepers in the United
States where its resistance to varroa
and its superior honey production has
made it a favorite. I spoke to California
beekeeper Susan Rudnicki. “I won’t
keep any other type of honey bee,” she
told me. Rudnicki has kept bees for
nine years and has 30 colonies. Some
sit on large estates in Beverly Hills.
Susan Rudnicki operates chemical-free
Africanized stock on foundationless
frames.
1225

Monica King, inspecting a colony which
started as an AHB rescue hive. She re-
queened it with a European queen.
All are fully Africanized. She agrees
that they are more animated than Eu-
ropean stock. “You lift the lid on an
Italian and the bees just sit there. My
African bees are more lively, moving
around on the top bars and sometimes
flying up at me. But in nine years, I’ve
only had two colonies which were too
temperamental to keep in a backyard.
I gave them to a friend who keeps a
hundred AHB hives on the edge of a
big avocado grove.”
She laments that ten years ago a re-
search scientist spoke to a nearby bee
club, claiming that Africanized bees
are so ferocious that they will smash
into a veil and spray venom onto a
beekeeper’s face. That story scared a
lot of beekeepers. I don’t know if it
actually happened to anyone. It’s cer-
tainly not been Rudnicki’s experience.
Susan Rudnicki started with Afri-
canized stock when she began bee-
keeping. An enthusiastic organic gar-
dener, she said that she didn’t want
Warwick Kerr and family on his 95th birthday, 2017.
1226
to have bees that needed miticides
to stay alive. With her biology back-
ground, it made sense to her that un-
treated bees (“survivor stock”) would
have some resistance to pests. Rud-
nicki has seen the occasional phoretic
mite, but they are rare in her hives.
She prefers Africanized stock for their
hardiness and honey production, but
particularly because they survive
without mite treatments.
Meanwhile, my niece, keeping
bees in Arizona, is not so enthralled.
I asked Monica King if she liked AHB.
“Not so much,” she told me. My niece
grew up rearing queens and extract-
ing honey with her father, my brother
David Miksa.
She remembers the gentle stock her
father still breeds in central Florida.
“Beekeeping with Africanized stock
isn’t much fun,” she said. “They are
too unpredictable.” She described
a recent bee rescue. This summer,
at a residence near Tucson, she col-
lected feral AHB on combs while the
homeowner and his family huddled
around her. No one was stung. But
two weeks after the bees were relo-
cated, they became explosive. She
requeened the hive with a European
queen and their manners quickly im-
proved. Her preference is to continue
requeening Africanized stock and
that’s what she teaches beekeepers
whom she mentors.
the reAl wArwick kerr
Warwick Kerr’s seven children
became physicians and professors.
His grandchildren remember hikes
through gardens where he taught
them the Latin names of flowers and
explained how bees visited each type
of blossom. He loved teaching and
was described as spellbinding and
Warwick Kerr, center, at his Ribeirão Pre-
to lab in 1968
charismatic. He was also described
as a bit formal, not one to hug or ex-
press feelings openly – though he had
a good sense of humour.
His students respected his enthusi-
asm and energy (he worked 70-hour
weeks) and he was keenly interested
in their success. But he did not suffer
fools. He would explain something
once, maybe twice, but then you had
better go away and come back prop-
erly prepared.
Kerr’s academic and civic accom-
plishments were formidable. He was
largely responsible for establishing
the study of genetics in Brazil. He
was a director of the National Insti-
tute for Research in the Amazon. At
the University of São Paulo, he estab-
lished the Department of Genetics,
which focuses on entomological and
human genetics, using mathematical
biology and biostatistics. Later, at the
Universidade Estadual do Maranhão,
he created the Department of Biology
and served as Dean of the University.
Kerr had memberships in the Brazil-
ian Academy of Sciences, the Third
World Academy of Science, and the
US National Academy of Sciences.
I became interested in Warwick
Kerr’s story decades ago. Like most
people, I thought he made a mistake
bringing queens from Africa. Then I
investigated his motivation and read
several of his genetics papers. Finally,
I saw the significant positive impact
AHB had on Brazil’s agriculture. I re-
alized his genius and his fearless ded-
ication to the welfare of Brazil’s poor-
est people. Partly due to his influence,
the meleiro people still live on their
tribal lands in southeast Brazil.
Were his Africanized hybrid bees
a tragic failure? The people of Brazil,
who lowered their flags in his honor,
don’t think so.
American Bee Journal
references
1 Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations retrieved from www.fao.
org September 20, 2018.
2 Kerr, Warwick, 1950. “Genetic Determi-
nation of Castes in Melipona”, Genetics
35:143 pp 143-151.
3 Coelho, Marco Antônio, “Warwick Kerr: a
Amazônia, os índios e as abelhas”, 2005.
Estudos Avançados 19 (53), pp 51-69.
4 Margolis, Mac, 1994. “’Killer’ Bees Make
Honey of a Deal With Brazil : Produc-
tion has soared since the ornery invaders
took over beekeepers’ hives”. Los Angeles
Times, April 5, 1994.
5 Winston, Mark, 1992. “The Biology and
Management of Africanized Honey
South Georgia Apiaries
Quality Italian Queens
Queen cells
for pick-up only at:
300 Wisteria Ln.
Baxley, GA 31513
Tel (912) 366-9022
Fax (912) 367-0012
November 2018
Bees”, Annual Review of Entomology make a difference?” Ecology and Evolu-
1992.37 pp 173-193. tion, 6(7):2158–2169.
6 Google N-gram: retrieved September 20,
2018.
7 The Sunday Times described The Swarm as Ron Miksha, a hobby
“simply the worst film ever made” via beekeeper, is currently
The Guardian, April 26, 2001. engaged in bee ecology
8 The Simpsons, “Fear of Flying” Season 6, research at the Univer-
Episode 11, December 18, 1994. sity of Calgary. Ron was
9 Kerr, Warwick, S. de Leon del Rio, M.D. a commercial honey
Barrionuevo. 1982. “The Southern lim- producer and queen
its of the distribution of the Africanized breeder with farms in
honey bee in South America”, American Florida, Saskatchewan,
Bee Journal 122: 196-98. and Alberta. He lives
10 Rangel, Juliana, et al., 2016. “Africaniza- in Calgary with his family which includes a
tion of a feral honey bee (Apis mellifera) recent addition - Misty, the Wonder Dog. Ron
population in South Texas: does a decade can be reached via badbeekeepingblog.com.
South Florida
Bees-N-Honey
18299 Clearbrook Circle
Boca Raton, FL 33498
Queens and Nucs
available for sale
For information and pricing please
call, text or fax.
Credit cards accepted.
Phone: (561) 715-5715
Fax: (561) 423-0304
1227
1228 American Bee Journal
 A reprint of the 1982 ABJ article by Dr. Kerr

The Southern Limits of the

Distribution of the Africanized
Honey Bee in South America
by WARWICK ESTEYAM KERR1 , SAMUEL de LEON DEL RIO,2 and MIGUEL DARDO BARRIONUEYO3

1982 Editor's note - Dr. Kerr is the

one who originally introduced African
bees into Brazil in 1956. He has more
experience with them in South America
than any other single person and has fol-
lowed their migration closely.

INTRODUCTION

T HE maps of the distribution of

the Africanized bee made by
people who have gathered data in
loco show that these bees reached the
region of Pelotas, Argentina about
1968 (Kerr, 1969). The beekeepers of
Vila de Chui (in the southern part of
Brazil) and in the state of Cordoba
(Argentina) have Italians, black bees
(descendents of the German mellifera
mellifera brought to South America
by European settlers). There are fre-
quent incursions of Africanized bees.
The wild colonies and few commer-
cial hives in northern Uruguay still
contain black bees, 10 years after
the arrival of the Africanized bees
in that region. The intent of this
paper is to show the distribution of
Africanized bees in southern South
America today.

LIMITS OF THE DISTRIBUTION

BETWEEN 1968 AND 1980
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

The region of Rio Grande do Sul

between Vilda de Chui, Jaguarao and
Santana do Livramento was checked
by Kerr 12 times between 1968 and
1980. This is the southernmost area

1 Biology Department, Federal Un1versity

of Maranhao, Largo dos Amores, 21.65.00
Sao Luis, Maranhao, Brazil.
2 Regional Experimental Center of Apl cul-
ture, Ibiray, 1011, El Durazno, Uru guays
3 Subsecretary of Agriculture and Live
Legend - Area of high concentration (of Africanized bees); Area of low concentration; stock, Department of Apiculture, Cordo-
Area of contention; Area free of Africanized bees. ba, Argentina.

November 2018 1229

in Brazil. During these years there
always appeared some Africanized
swarms, between December and
March. In February of 1969, Clo-
vis Nascimento, the veterinarian in
charge of apiculture, observed that
there were as many Africanized bees
as black bees in Santana do Livra-
mento. Africans are frequently found
to the east and west of Pelotas. North
of this area the bees are nearly 100
percent African. Despite the long-
term presence of Africanized bees in
the area of Pelotas, I recently received
a queen, two drones, and several
workers from that region which were
reportedly from non-aggressive colo-
nies. These bees had morphological
characteristics of Apis mellifera mel-
lifera, the German black bees.
Uruguay
In Uruguay, beekeeping is not well
developed and for this reason there is
no strong scientific rigor in the infor
mation obtained. Nevertheless, we
know through reports of bees with
African type behavioral patterns of
four appear ances of Africanized bees
(de Leon, 1980).
(a) On December 9, 1975, an African
ized bee colony was found in Mil-
lila, Montevideo in an apiary of
50 colonies of black bees.
(b) In December of 1977, in Cabal
lero, Durazeno, in the apiary of
the Knebel family, one Africanized
bee colony was reported in an api-
ary of 45 colonies. The bees were
very aggressive and pursued their
victim for long distances.
(c) In December, 1979, in Tacuarem
bo, one Africanized colony was
found in an apiary of 100 belong-
ing to Eduardo Porta.
(d) In January, 1980, in the Central
Experiment Station of the Nation-
al Agricultural Department, one
Africanized colony was found .in
an apiary of 50 Italians. The comb
cells of this colony were small
and the bees had a coloration
typical of Africans. They were ag-
gressive but still manageable.
These four examples are probably
not the only ones, yet it is evident
that the phenomenon is rare; that is,
the proportion of Africanized bees in
Uruguay is less than two per cent.
Argentina
In Argentina the Africanized bee
is present from the 30th parallel to
the northern extreme of the country.
1230
There are many Africanized bees in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
apiaries and they also comprise es- We thank our colleague Marcal de
sentially 100 percent of the feral Mendonca for the data and the work-
colonies. South of the 30th parallel er, queen, and male honey bees he
until almost the 33rd there is more sent from Vila de Cui, Rio Grande do
resistance to the Africanized bee be- Sul. We also are grateful to our friends
cause of the well developed beekeep- Prof. Dr. J. Woyke and Medical Vet-
ing and because of the cool, humid erinarian Clovis Nascimento for their
Argentine Pampas. We estimate that correspondence concerning African
there are in this area about 30 percent bees. We thank Dr. David de Jong who
aggressive colonies and 70 percent made the translation into English.
gentle; most of the latter are Italians. This work was assisted by a grant
To the south of the 33rd parallel the from the Brazilian National Counsel
ecological conditions change. The for the Development of Science and
mountains and hills disappear and Technology (CNPQ).
a humid and cold plain begins. The
natural limit for the Africanized bees BIBLIOGRAPHY
in Argentina is between the 33rd and Del Rio, Samuel de Leon. 1980. Razas y
34th parallel in the south between the mesclas de abejas en Uruguay Mitos y
provinces Rios, Santa Fe, Cordoba, Ciencia. Anais do 4° Congresso Nacional
de Apicultura, Vicosa, Brazil. (In press).
and San Luis. Periodic appearances Kerr, Warwick E. 1969. Some aspects of the
to the south of this area are a result of evolution of social bees (Apidae). Evolu-
the traffic of colonies and queens and tionary Biology 3: 119-175. T. Dobzhansky,
not because of natural swarming. In M. K. Hecht, Wm. C. Steeve, Appleton-
the region of Africanized bees there Century-Crofts. New York.
are about 100,000 colonies, while in Kerr, Warwick Estevam and Virgilio de Por-
the region free of Africans there are tugal Ara.Ujo. 1958, Racas de abelhas <la
Africa. Garcia de Orta (Lisboa) 6(1): 5?-59,
about 900,000 colonies.
The Africanized bees arrived in the
center of the country in the region of
Cordoba by 1970. Africanized colo-
nies taken further south in migratory
beekeeping do not become estab-
lished nor do they disperse because
the conditions are too adverse for
their survival.
CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that since 1968, that
is, 12 years ago, the Africanized bee
arrived in the southern part of the
South American Continent up to
the 33rd and 34th parallel, which
has been the absolute natural limit
of its distribution. Occasional incur-
sions to the south may be made dur-
ing the hot months (November, De-
cember, January, and February), but
because of the winter, the wind, and
the rain, the colonies either die out
or migrate to the north. It is known
that the African bee does not make
winter clusters (J. Woyke, personal
communication), which may be
the behavioral factor that limits its
movement to the south.
In Africa, the limit of the distribu
tion of A. m. adansonii is the southern
part of the Kalahari and Carroo des-
erts (30° S), which leaves the prov
ince of the Cape of Good Hope for
A. mellifera capensis (Kerr and Arujo,
1958), which in that region interacts
with A. m. adansonii as if it were a dis-
tinct species, that is, with complete
reproductive isolation.
American Bee Journal
November 2018 1231
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1232 American Bee Journal

November 2018 1233
1234 American Bee Journal
 Extended-Release Oxalic Acid
Progress Report

2018 California Field Trial

Randy Oliver

I’ve handed my beekeeping operation, still headquartered at my

home, over to my sons Eric and Ian, with the provision that I have
the hives at my disposal for research during my “retirement.” This
season I was overly ambitious, running two field trials on oxalic
acid, one on improving the formulation of pollen subs, and one
on the drift of bees and mites associated with collapsing colonies.
That in addition to the roughly 1400 mite washes involved in my
selective breeding for varroa resistance, plus my formally testing
of a bee health product for the manufacturer. I’ll be publishing the
results of all but the last as I get them written up. I’ll start with an
update on my progress with extended-release oxalic acid.

Disclaimer: I’m collaborating with
the USDA-ARS to register this ap-
plication method for oxalic acid, and
have a Pesticide Research Authori-
zation from the State of California.
The method described here is not
yet registered in the U.S. But since
my research is funded by donations
from beekeepers, I feel that I owe a
progress report to those donors. I in
no way encourage the unregistered
application of any pesticide—please
wait until this method is approved
by the EPA and your State before us-
ing it in your own hives.
QUESTIONS YET TO ANSWER ON
EXTENDED-RELEASE OXALIC
We beekeepers are in desperate
need of a mid-to-late-summer varroa
treatment that is effective when there
is brood in the hive and there are hon-
ey supers on, and that can be used in
hot weather. Ideally, it would also not
contaminate the beeswax, nor require
a face shield or gas mask for safe ap-
plication. An extended-release formu-
lation of oxalic acid may fit the bill.
My previous updates on this re-
search are at my website,1 in short, I
found one experimental formulation
of oxalic acid dissolved in glycerin
(OA/gly) to be highly efficacious at
reducing mite levels during the sum-
mer in my California test yards. But
I needed to know whether other for-
mulations might work even better.
So I ran incubator trials last winter,
testing a range of ratios of OA to
glycerin, as well as different degrees
of saturation of the cellulose matrix
(using Scott® shop towel towels), an
alternative solvent/dispersal agent
(propylene glycol), and the effect of
humidity.
I attempted to duplicate bee and
mite exposure in a colony by attach-
ing a measured square of shop towel
to a piece of beeswax-coated plastic
foundation and adding a carefully-
measured amount of different OA/
gly formulations to the towel (Fig. 1).
I then added roughly 150 young
adult honey bees (measured volu-
metrically) to each cup cage. The bees
moved about on the piece of founda-
tion, mostly clustering towards the
top, and thus were exposed to the
OA/gly similarly to how they would
be in a hive (Fig. 2).
I ran eight incubator trials in all,
performing nearly 200 chemical ti-
trations to quantify the amount of
OA residues on the bees’ bodies. I
was frustrated that exposure to even
a small piece of OA/gly towel often
killed all the bees in the cage.
In brief I found that it took very
little OA to kill the mites, but that
it took some amount of glycerin to
expose the mites to the OA. On the
flip side, too much glycerin on the
towel caused excessive “wetting” of
the bees, and jaw-dropping overex-
posure to OA, causing agitation and
death (but not from glycerin alone).
There was also some suggestion that
this adverse effect was exacerbated
by higher humidity.
But I needed to end my cage tri-
als when we put the incubator back
into service for holding queen cells,
and decided to run a springtime field
trial in actual hives instead. I did
run that trial and will write about
it later (since I still need to perform
hundreds of titrations of frozen bee
samples). But before I could finish the
springtime trial, which I hoped would
narrow down the 8 formula options
Fig. 1 Adding a measured amount of a test
formula to a 1-inch square of shop towel.

November 2018 1235


Fig. 2 I maintained the caged bees in a
dark incubator at 32°C and roughly 60%
RH. In some tests I used bees from high-
mite colonies and added a screen to the
bottom, so that I could calculate mite
mortality due to the treatment.
that I was considering, it came time to
start the summer field trial. So I bit the
bullet and tested them all.
So where I stood then was that I
needed:
1. To compare the performances of
various ratios of OA to glycerin, as
well as different saturations of the
shop towels, in order to determine
whether we should pursue last sea-
son’s formulation, the Argentinian
formulation,2 or other ratios or sat-
urations.
2. To test using propylene glycol in-
stead of glycerin as the solvent/
carrier for the OA.
3. To attempt to replicate the efficacy
results from last season’s two tri-
als, under even more field-realistic
conditions, in a number of yards,
on a mixture of colony strengths,
with additional hives present in
the yards, and with exposure to
some mite drift from collapsing
colonies.
4. To compare the extended OA treat-
ment to repeated OA vaporiza-
tions.
1236
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN OF THE
SUMMER TRIAL
the test colonies
We ran the summer trial in 14 dif-
ferent yards, containing from 24-75
colonies in 2-3–story hives, headed
by second-year queens. The colonies
had been last treated for varroa the
previous December with an oxalic
dribble and then run to almonds. In
order to allow the mites to build up,
in early April, we split each second-
year queen off into a nuc to prevent
swarming, and allowed her colony
(and the mite population) to grow
to decent strength by the start of the
trial. In order to get enough test hives,
we needed to also include one yard of
colonies started this season with fresh
queen cells, which had last received
an oxalic dribble in April. Our selec-
tion of the test and control hives is
further described later.
No hives had been treated with
synthetic miticides previously, nor
exposed to ag chemicals other than
possible exposure to fungicides in al-
monds in March.
By mid-June, colony condition var-
ied considerably, as it would in a typi-
cal apiary, with some colonies being
quite strong and productive, others
weaker; but we did not include any
colonies that appeared to be sick,
queenless, or failing. At the start of
the trial, the colonies were full of
brood, and our main honey flow was
underway.
the treAtments
We prepared 9 different formula-
tions to test, as below (Table 1). Based
upon last season’s results, all treat-
ments applied 18 g of oxalic acid to the
hive, other than treatment M, which
tested whether a low OA, high glyc-
erin application would be efficacious.
“Dry” in the table above indicates
that an amount of water equal to the
carrier (glycerin or propylene glycol)
was added, and the solution was then
soaked into twice as many towels, in
order for the towels to be less saturat-
ed (feeling more “dry”) once the wa-
ter evaporated off. I did this because
my previous testing indicated that
bees appear to avoid “wet” towels
fully-saturated with glycerin. The test
formulas thus covered a step-by-step
range of ratios of OA to glycerin (or
propylene glycol), as well as being ei-
ther fully saturated (wet) or half satu-
rated (dry) after the water in the for-
mulation evaporated off (Fig. 3). Note
how we needed to apply twice as
many towels for the “dry” treatments.
field log
From 21 June through 3 July, we
took baseline alcohol washes from
every hive in each yard, and applied
treatments yard by yard, selecting
hives for treatment that had varroa
counts in the range of 5–20 mites
(all mite counts in this article are per
level half cup of bees—typically 320-
340 bees), although as we ran short
on colonies, we included some with
starting counts of up to 28 mites. In
each yard we assigned treatments
in alphabetical order, starting where
we left off at the last yard, so that we
arbitrarily applied each treatment to
approximately 25 hives (other than
Treatment M, which was an after-
thought), evenly distributed between
yards (Figs. 4-6).
Our experience is that it is ex-
tremely safe to handle oxalic acid in
this application method (especially
compared to formic acid or oxalic va-
porization), as there is no danger of
Fig. 3 Prior to testing, we mixed a batch
of each formulation, allowed it to absorb
into a towel, and then held the towel until
it ceased dripping. We then weighed the
towel in order to determine how many
towels would be required to hold 18 g
of OA for each formulation. Note: when
I post this article to my website, I will
include more photos of preparation and
field application.
American Bee Journal
splashing or inhalation. But the glyc-
erin does make it stick to anything it
touches (that’s why we add it), and
you must remember to always wear
nitrile or other resistant gloves (Fig. 6)
During application of the towels,
we noticed that some formulations
were much easier to handle and ap-
ply than others (Table 2). This will be
a consideration as we figure out the
best way to apply this treatment.
Any colonies in the yards that test-
ed at a mite count of over 20 (or 28 in
the last yards) were passed over, but
given a strong formic acid treatment
to reduce their mite counts to nearly
zero, in order to avoid excessive drift
of mites in the yards.
We left untreated 19 colonies with
starting mite counts from zero to 13,
to serve as Controls (and as poten-
Fig. 4 Each formulation required the ap-
plication of a different number of towel
halves or quarters, so we laid them out in
advance on top of each test hive. We’ve
learned that it’s best to designate one
person to wear nitrile gloves and handle
the towels; another to smoke the hives
and open them.
Fig. 5 In each yard, we went down each
row of hives, assigning treatments in
alphabetical order. Here we’d laid out
the towels and were ready for a double
check on proper hive labeling and towel
count prior to application. Most of the
test hives were drawing foundation in the
second box, some in a third. The towels
were applied across the top bars of the
lower brood chamber, with no queen ex-
cluder, since we’ve found that for good
efficacy, that the towels are best applied
in the middle of the cluster. Note in this
photo that we excluded any hives with is-
sues from the trial.
November 2018
Fig. 6 If you get OA/gly on your skin,
you won’t notice for a while. So after
any chance of exposure, we rinse our
hands, hive tools, and smoker with a
solution of baking soda, which imme-
diately neutralizes any acid residues.
A tip: we dust our hands with bak-
ing soda before pulling on the nitrile
gloves (this also makes it much easier
to slide your fingers in), and are careful
not to touch anything else so long as
we have gloves on.
tial mite-resistant breeders), again
distributed through several of the
yards. We did not use Control colo-
nies with high mite counts, since they
might later collapse and corrupt the
trial due to mite drift. Note that the
Control hives, due to their low start-
ing counts, might have been the most
mite resistant, which, if anything,
would later underestimate the efficacy
of the treatments.
After approximately 50 days, we
took ending mite counts, again pro-
gressing through the yards in the
same order. A few colonies had dwin-
dled, and some were in the process of
varroa/DWV collapse. Two yards ap-
peared to have experienced substan-
tial mite drift.
RESULTS
We’ve already collected enough data
on efficacy, lack of adverse effects, and
lack of honey contamination to submit
to the EPA, so all that I’m now trying
to figure out is the optimal formula-
tion and application method.
ANALYSIS OF THE DATA
I read a great number of scientific
papers. I often get the impression that
the researchers so want to get their
paper accepted for publication, or
to make their results appear impor-
tant, or to support some product, that
they’re unable to hide their bias. Since
my research is funded solely by bee-
keeper donations, and since I’ve got
nothing to sell, I’m going to go over
these results with a very critical eye.
My only vested interest is that I want
a midsummer treatment that I can use
in my own operation.
Honey bee field data is often messy,
and a number of factors can affect
mite buildup in a hive. What I’d like
to show you is some of the ways that
I looked at the data, in order to see
what I could learn from this trial.
midpoint results
Both last year’s trial and my spring-
time trial indicated that OA/gly
treatment may not cause mite wash
counts to drop appreciably until after
3 weeks duration, so I didn’t want to
waste time performing midpoint mite
washes on all 225 test hives. Instead,
in order to confirm that the same thing
was occurring in this trial, at Day 21
after applying the towel treatments,
we went to our largest yard (con-
taining 60 test hives), and took mite
washes from three normal-looking
strong colonies from each treatment
group (I skipped over weak hives,
since they would have had greater
OA exposure per bee; there were no
M’s in this yard).
The results are perhaps best dis-
played by simply dividing the mid-
1237

Fig. 7 Fold change in mite wash counts, per each hive, at Day 21 after application of
treatments. Columns below the “no change” value of 1 indicate a reduction in the mite
wash count (missing columns indicate no change). Note that the equal glycerin treat-
ments had in only one hive reduced the mite counts by this time, although half had
gone down in the double glycerin treatments. Note how this correlation flips by Day
50 in the next graph. At this point in time, neither the half-glycerin nor the propylene
glycol treatments were impressive.
point mite count for each hive by its
starting count, which gives the fold
change relative to baseline (e.g., 1.5
means that the average mite count
went up by 50%; 0.5 means that the
ending count was half the starting
count) (Fig. 7).
endpoint results
We waited to take endpoint mite
washes until about 50 days (range 47
1238
-56 days) after applying the towels.
I took field notes on ending colony
strength, disease, productivity, and
number of hive bodies, in order to see
whether there were consistent issues
with any of the treatments. Nothing
stood out.
I also wanted to make sure that the
data wasn’t skewed by the results
of a single yard. Since most of the
14 test yards had roughly the same
distribution of treatment groups, I
checked to see whether the results in
any single yard stood out--none did
(not shown). However, in nearly ev-
ery yard the C and D treatments (1:1
OA:gly) most consistently prevented
mite counts from increasing.
In all but 1 of the 19 Control hives
(remember, we considered most of
the Controls as potential mite-resis-
tant breeders), mite counts increased-
-on average, fivefold. So two ways to
look at the data would be (1) to see the
average fold increase or decrease in
mite count in each treatment group,
and (2) to calculate the percentage
of hives in each group in which mite
counts went up (these could be con-
sidered as inadequate mite control).
I’ve displayed the results in Table 3.
Note that most of the formulations
resulted in some degree of mite re-
duction—but that some sure did a
better job, and that’s exactly what I
was interested in finding out. The
yellow-highlighted 1:1 OA:gly treat-
ments were the standouts.
Practical application: even the best
OA/gly treatments did not prevent
mite counts from increasing to some
extent in about a tenth of the hives.
So what should we make of those
“outliers”?
deAling with the dAnged outliers
A big problem with data analysis of
mite treatments is the “outlier” val-
ues. No matter how effective the mite
treatment, you’re likely to find some
colonies in which the mites were not
controlled. In this trial, the yards were
surrounded by woods and residenc-
es with recreational beekeepers, so
it’s likely that some of the test hives
picked up extra mites from robbing or
drift. As an example, let’s take a look
at the pooled data for the C test group
(Table 4).
As you can see in the above table,
most of the C hives had their mite
counts reduced from high counts
to very acceptable counts. But then
there’s those danged outliers (such
as where the 19 count went up to 25).
We can’t tell whether the treatment
did not work in that one hive, or per-
haps that hive robbed out a collaps-
ing hive, or something else. But that
outlier value has undue influence if
we use the arithmetical mean to rep-
resent the “average.”
For that reason, with mite count
data, I prefer to look at the median
value, since it is more resistant to the
influence of outliers.3 The median rep-
resents the midpoint value of the data
American Bee Journal
set. You can compare the differences
of the two sorts of averages at the bot-
tom of the table.

GRAPHS ARE EASIER TO

VISUALIZE THAN TABLES
It’s far easier for the human brain to
detect patterns in graphical form than
by just looking at a bunch of numbers.
This is why we use charts—to put
numerical data into a more visually-
understandable form. Below (Fig. 8),
I’ve graphed the fold increases by
simply “normalizing” the data (by
dividing each group’s starting and
ending counts by its starting count),
which then makes all groups start at a
value of 1, and easier to compare.
But simple reduction of counts at
the time of year that the trial was run
doesn’t tell the whole story as far as
efficacy of treatment compared to the
Control group, since alcohol wash
mite counts would have been expect-
ed to greatly increase at this time of
year, not only because the mites had
had nearly two months to build up,
but the colonies had also gone from
early honey flow buildup into dearth,
with a resulting shift of mites from
the broodnest to the adult bees, not
to mention the immigration of mites
from collapsing high-mite hives in
the neighborhood. I’ve illustrated this
with a snip from a simulation by my
mite model for the Control hives in
this trial (Fig. 10).
So the reduction of mite increase by
each treatment must take into consid-
eration that the mite counts, without
treatment, would have been expected
to increase fivefold (refer back to Fig. Fig. 8 By normalizing the data to all start at a value of 1, it’s then easy to compare the
8). This is taken into consideration by changes in mite infestation rate for each treatment group over the course of the trial.
the various methods for calculating the Note the huge difference between the Control and C groups—we’ll return to that later.
efficacy of a treatment. I prefer using
the Henderson-Tilton formula,5 using the clear winner, at 99% efficacy, and ment managed to attain 82% efficacy,
median values in order to minimize no overlap of error bars. It was im- despite only containing only 9 grams
the effect of outliers. I’ve graphed the mediately apparent as we took final of acid. The original 2:1 Argentinian
results below (Fig. 11) with the median samples that the C- and D-treated formula did pretty well at about 90%
values for the starting and ending mite colonies generally looked the best, as efficacy. Based upon this single trial,
wash counts shown as columns, and far as health and honey production, I’d hesitate to declare a clear winner,
the calculated efficacies of treatment although there were good and poor but there are other considerations.
in boxes above the columns. colonies in each treatment group.
The above chart is the sort of over- However, the C formula creates a sog- discussion
all representation of the data that a gy towel that is difficult to apply—a Of interest is the performance of
scientist would want to see, since it formula halfway between C and D the Argentinian ratio of 1 g OA to 2
includes error bars, which indicate might be optimal, and would require mL glycerin. In my springtime trial
how well the calculated median val- one full shop towel per hive. (in prep) this formulation stood out
ues actually represent the raw data The low-glycerin A and B treat- since it resulted in what appeared to
with those danged outlier values. ments didn’t fare well, nor did G be (I’ve yet to confirm by titration)
What one looks for is whether the er- and H, which used propylene glycol, an immediate transfer of OA onto
ror bars for any pair of columns over- which is also food grade, but with the bees, causing agitation and in-
lap each other. much less viscosity and surface ten- creased mite drop over the first few
It appears that I got close to choos- sion than glycerin—but there didn’t’ days, with formula C being next be-
ing the best ratio to test last year, since appear to be a benefit. Surprisingly, hind. This confirmed what I observed
in this summer’s trial, formula C was the low oxalic/ high glycerin M treat- in my cage trials (and in last season’s

November 2018 1239


Fig. 9 The percentage distribution of hives exhibiting at least a 75% reduction in mite
count. The chart indicates that in 77% of the C hives, and 54% of the D hives, the mite
count was reduced by at least three quarters (it may take a minute to get your head
around this chart).
Fig. 10 A simulation4 for the mite buildup in the Control colonies. I’ve circled the pre-
dicted counts; the actual median field counts for the 19 Control hives were 4 and 21—
hard data which helps to validate the model.
field trials)—that towels dripping
with glycerin rapidly dispersed the
acid onto the bees and mites (which
may account for the Day 21 perfor-
mance of the E and F groups). But
that rapid dispersion can result in
adult bee agitation and brood kill in
the first week. I have not investigated
this with the hanging strip applica-
tion method, and am not critical of
it. However, based upon the results
of this trial, when applied via shop
towel across the top bars, it appeared
that the lower glycerin ratio gave bet-
ter overall performance.
I’ve now run four separate con-
trolled field trials on OA/gly towels,
under California conditions, in differ-
1240
ent yards, in two different years. In all
four, I obtained at least 90% efficacy
after 42-50 days, using formulations
in the 1:1 range. I’m pretty excited
about getting this application method
approved.
Surprisingly, we get this efficacy
at about 1/5th the dose of oxalic
acid necessary with the Argentinian
strips—18 g per hive vs. 80 g. That 18
g is equivalent to about 9 OA dribbles
or vaporizations, although some of
the OA remains in the towel residues.
compArison to oxAlic VAporizAtion
(suBlimAtion)
I was curious as to how the effect
upon varroa from extended-release
application of 18 g of oxalic acid in
glycerin would compare to repeated
oxalic acid applied by vaporization. In
my springtime trial I had tested two
models of vaporizers on one colony
each, so I extended those repeated va-
porizations through the summer trial.
In all, I applied to those two hives a to-
tal of 9 treatments of 2 g of oxalic acid
each (resulting in the same total of 18
g), at roughly 10-day intervals over a
period of 102 days. I’ve plotted their
mite wash counts below (Fig. 12).
It’s surprising to me how well the
bee colonies handle regular exposure
to oxalic acid. In my towel-treated
hives, the brood looks great at 50
days. Ditto for those hives that re-
ceived 9 vaporizations (Fig. 13).
The bottom line is that the above
data indicate that a single application
of an OA/gly towel may give as good
results as multiple vaporizations, but
without the need to wear a respirator
and eye protection. Vaporizers have
the advantage of being able to apply
the treatment without cracking the
hive, not leaving any remnants to re-
move, and some, such as the ProVap
110 are pretty quick. But those with
any sort of pressure chamber should
be used with caution (Fig. 14).
Be careful when using vaporizers!
pros And cons
The main pros of extended-release
OA/gly are:
• It has high efficacy even when
brood is present (at least in Califor-
nia),
• It appears to exhibit minimal or no
adverse effects on the colony,
• It can be applied while honey su-
pers are on,
• It can be used in hot weather,
• It’s very easy and safe to apply,
• It shouldn’t contaminate the bees-
wax,
• It’s very inexpensive, and
• It’s considered “organic.”
That’s a lot to love! But there are
also some shortcomings and things to
still work out (besides getting it regis-
tered by the EPA).
One problem with OA/gly towels
is that some colonies remove every
bit of the applied towels (Fig. 15),
whereas others barely touch them
(Fig. 16)—meaning that you need to
scrape out the acidic residues with
a hive tool (they are corrosive, but
readily decompose on the ground).
The towels also make inspection of
American Bee Journal
the lower brood chamber more dif-
ficult, but most of us don’t inspect
that chamber during the honey flow
anyway.
The other shortcoming is that it
takes at least 6 weeks to realize the
full effect of the treatment. This is a
treatment best used proactively, rath-
er than after mite counts have already
climbed to high. Don’t expect this
treatment to quickly take care of high
varroa infestations late in the season.
My feeling is that if we manage to
get this application method approved
for putting into our hives just before
we add honey supers, it could be a Fig. 11 This chart shows the actual median starting and ending mite wash counts for
godsend to us in our battle against each group, with the calculated overall efficacy of treatment above each red column.
varroa. Error bars indicate the median absolute deviations. Compared to the huge increase
in mite counts in the Control group, all the treatments exhibited good efficacy. The
moVing on from here standouts were the C and D 1:1 ratio formulations, with up to 99% calculated efficacy.
Let me be clear--I’m not stuck on the
shop towels. Using vertical cardboard
strips was simply too labor intensive
for a large-scale beekeeper, but could
be fine for a hobbyist. Another bee-
keeper outside the U.S. reported to me
that they get better absorption with
another brand of paper towels. I’m
wide open to experimenting with oth-
er towel types or completely different
matrices to hold the OA/gly solution.
As of now, it appears that the
most promising formulation might
be 1:1:0.5 (OA g: glycerin mL: wa-
ter mL). This formulation would be
a compromise between the efficacy
of the C treatment and the handling
characteristics of the D treatment, and
would require 1 fully-saturated shop
towel per hive. I have not yet tested
this formulation.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Maggi group for their
initial work on this application meth-
od, to all the beekeepers who have
donated to my research, to my sons
and crew, my assistant Brooke Molina
(who handles getting things done on
the right dates, plus the mountain of
data sheets), and my ever supportive
wife Stephanie.
references
1 http://scientificbeekeeping.com/beyond-
taktic/
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/extend-
ed-release-oxalic-acid-progress-report-2/
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/extend-
ed-release-oxalic-acid-progress-report-3/
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-var-
roa-problem-part-15/
2 Maggi, M, et al (2015) A new formulation
of oxalic acid for Varroa destructor con-
trol applied in Apis mellifera colonies in
the presence of brood. Apidologie 47(4):
596–605.
Fig. 12 The results of repeated vaporizations of hives with brood. I switched the Varrox
hive to using the ProVap 110 in July (to save me the trouble of using two different elec-
trical sources). I plan to run a more formal trial next year to compare repeated vapor-
izations to dribbles. Thanks to Larry at OxaVap.com for the donation of the vaporizers.
3 In order to minimize the effect of outliers, http://scientificbeekeeping.com/hender-
we can use robust statistics, in which for son-tilton-calculator/
“average” values we calculate the median
instead of the arithmetical mean, and use
the median absolute difference instead of the
standard error of the mean.
4 Using http://scientificbeekeeping.com/ Randy sees beekeep-
randys-varroa-model/ ing through the eyes
5 I’ve created a handy calculator for the use of a biologist. He’s
by other researchers or citizen scientists at kept bees for over
50 years, and with
Disclaimer: ABJ does not edit his sons runs around
Randy Oliver's articles and they are 1500 hives in the Cali-
not submitted for peer review. The fornia foothills. He
opinions expressed are thus his closely follows bee
own and the editorial staff does not research, engages
always agree with his views. In order in some himself, and
to maintain scientific and factual enjoys sharing what
accuracy, Randy invites comments he’s learned with others.
and corrections.

November 2018 1241

 Fig. 14 My friend Bill Hesbach in Con-
necticut was using a vaporizer, and inad-
vertently pressed the vapor exhaust tube
Fig. 13 This photo illustrates the high rate of brood survival in the ProVap 110 colony 10 against an end bar. The vaporizer blew
days after its 9th vapor treatment. My informal observations indicate that colonies can its lid—splattering his face shield with
handle repeated or continual exposure to oxalic acid quite well. I’d hesitate to treat molten oxalic acid. Bill could easily have
colonies continually all year, but oxalic certainly has its place in our arsenal of mite lost his vision.
control tools.

Fig. 15 Some colonies completely re-

moved every trace of the towels by Day Fig. 16 Alas, some colonies apparently have little interest in house cleaning, and bare-
50. I only wish that this were true for all ly remove any of the towel treatment. These residues scrape off easily, but are still
hives. acidic, so your hive tool needs to be rinsed afterwards.

1242 American Bee Journal

November 2018 1243
1244 American Bee Journal
F
or a few cold winters, I lived in crunch, crunch. Yes, I had crunchy cally brought a few mornings in the
an old thin-walled trailer heated carpet, because it froze. And another teens. That was cold enough for taking
by a couple of small kerosene greeting, the walls in my trailer spar- thermal images of my full-size top-bar
heaters many years ago. When bitter, kled from frost. Perhaps I needed bet- observation hives. The colonies were
frigid winds buffeted the trailer, the ter ventilation for my abode, this little wintering in the bee house. I only had
dainty window curtains that hung hive with wheels. The cold had trans- to remove the glass sides, which were
inside twitched out the timing of the formed my trailer into a strange place. merely attached to the hives by a few
blasts. On the mini kitchen counter, How is it for bees? Their hives teem well-worn strips of duct tape. That left
freezing cold transformed common with life when they are warm. Then the colony in full view.
items: a sponge became a little cin- winter comes. Lifeless cold invades As the year changed, remember
der block cemented to one spot; even the hives. What do they do when tem- what happened? I do and so did my
a cup, wet on the bottom, became peratures plummet? Let’s look inside hands, frozen by the cold. Arctic air,
welded to the counter like a pipe a hive in the winter when it is cold. extremely frigid, plunged southward.
sticking out of it. The beginning of last winter Temperatures took a free fall. And for
I was working on my undergradu- (2017/18) had some cold periods; gen- days, we wondered how low they
ate degree at Virginia Tech, and living erally though, by about mid-Decem- would go. Plumbers became superhe-
up in the mountains in Blacksburg, ber, my opportunities for taking ther- roes. They crawled under cold hous-
Virginia. The higher elevation meant mal images had been meager. The cold es, hunting frozen pipes. Crawling
I experienced weather more com- had not yet hit. I was not concerned. around under our house, I held the
mon in regions much further north My Piedmont Virginia location typi- flexible dryer hose disconnected from
with colder, more brutal winters than
what a mid-Atlantic state typically
experiences.
Part of my informal collegiate edu-
cation was learning that household
items changed when subjected to bit-
ter cold. In my frozen trailer, morn-
ings were the most memorable. Of
course, I had frozen pipes, and I fixed
them with my tools, but what about
the unexpected, when one lives alone
in an abode only a little warmer than
the outside?
Physics majors were required to
take a five-hour calculus course. That
meant calculus every school day
(and homework every weeknight to
be ready for the next day). I always
signed up for an 8:00 a.m. class, and
never had a problem finding an open
seat (imagine that). Getting ready to
trudge off to campus early on a bit-
ter cold morning, I learned something
shocking about the indoor carpet that
came furnished with the trailer. The
carpet crunched under my boots. With Fig. 1 The winter cluster in visible light. In the last warm days of fall, the colony was
every step, I heard a faint crunch, strong and covering most of its combs.

November 2018 1245

Fig. 2 The winter cluster shown in heat. The winter cluster is really partitioned up, or Fig. 3 Two images stacked vertically
separated by the intervening combs. Seeing a winter cluster as separated into “slices” showing temperatures on the surface of
becomes relevant when taking the temperature of its surface, which here glows as thin the cluster (upper) and on the edge of
strips withdrawn between the combs. the comb (lower). The two temperature
readings are really next to each other as
indicated by the arrows. Even in the hive,
extreme cold surrounds the cluster.

the outside vent. I aimed it up into the

north wall of the house, where unfor-
tunately the main water pipe went. I
blasted in warm air from the dryer, at-
tempting to unfreeze our pipes. And
the hot air pumped out, but still no
water. Later, we would learn from the
plumbers, our pipes had frozen–un-
derground (in the pump house). Nei-
ther we, nor the previous owners, had
ever taken precautions to protect the
pipes underground, as the cold and
its duration were so unusual.
Fig. 4 Dead bees scattered on the hive floor in winter. During warm periods, the bees While waiting waterless for the
will remove their dead. The light-colored specks on the floor are bits of wax cappings plumbers to get to us, I could think of
from honey storage cells chewed open by the bees. one good diversion–see how the bees
were surviving the intense cold with
thermal images. These images would
mimic what the bees experience in
Canada during their winter; it was
that cold.
I could not manipulate the small
sensitive controls on the iPhone with
bulky winter gloves. (The phone con-
nected to the thermal camera). So no
gloves. That limited my photogra-
phy sessions to only a few minutes
as the temperature could dip down
to around 0°F (-17.8°C) or bottom
out just a little higher. I parked the
bee truck near to colonies, leaving
the heat on. Toward the end of the
brief photography session, my hands
would be aching, my fingers sting-
ing. The truck provided a place for a
Fig. 5 The ambient temperature of 7.5°F (-13.6°C) on the floor of the hive, which is es-
quick warm up. My hands needed it
sentially the outside temperature. desperately.

1246 American Bee Journal

 Figure 1 shows the colony con-
tracted into its winter cluster. While
the winter cluster is easily described
as a big ball of bees, the hidden real-
ity in the darkness of the hive differs
greatly with that simple and pleasant
abstraction. Although bee movement
becomes greatly restricted in the cold,
the winter cluster is in intimate con-
tact with its honeycombs. The winter
cluster and honeycombs form layers
of bees and combs. This layering be-
comes even more pronounced when
seeing the hive’s interior compared
to the heat produced by the bees (see
Figure 2). If the cluster were round,
then the slices of the cluster (between
the combs) would be discs of varying
sizes. (The larger discs would be in
the middle and the smaller ones to-
wards the ends.) Fig. 6 A bee chilling into a coma in less than a minute. Why she left the cluster is an
The morning of January 2, 2018 was important question. It is thought some bees self-evict themselves from the hive (to the
bitterly cold. I was taking thermal im- outside) when they are sick. I have seen some clusters dwindle to weak colonies in the
ages of a strong colony with the spot spring by bees leaving in the cold. For other colonies, like this one, the bee loss was
temperature gauge on. This option re- minor and the colony survived.
corded the temperature from the little
circle in the aiming sight seen on the peratures. The pair of images shows trying to determine from where in the
images. With the cluster contracted how the combs have turned deadly cluster the bees were leaving.
towards the center of the combs, the cold to the bees, anywhere the cluster The bees slowly trickled from the
edge of the combs became exposed to does not occupy them. cluster. Of course that would produce
the cold. The next set of images shows the a scene like Figure 4. Except now the
I wanted to compare the tempera- quick fate of a bee leaving the clus- recently fallen bees would radiate re-
tures of the cold edge of the comb to ter. We are familiar with dead bees sidual heat while they cooled, before
the surface of the cluster. The surface scattering across the floor of the hive blending into the other frozen bees.
of the cluster was withdrawn into a in the winter (see Figure 4). When I In Figure 5, I took an image of the
gap with comb on both sides. That observe winter clusters up close in hive floor with an ambient tempera-
configuration might have affected the these observation hives, I often won- ture of 7.5°F (-13.6°C). Suddenly a
temperature readings on the surface der what factors cause their deaths. In bee, trying to fly, but out of control,
of the cluster. (I discarded tempera- this extreme January cold, I was just crashed where the white arrow be-
ture readings that were obviously
wrong like the one indicating 35°F
(1.7°C), in which the bees would be
nearly frozen solid, yet they were ob-
viously alive.)
Figure 3 shows two images that
I stacked vertically after lining up
the combs’ edges. The upper image
shows the upper sides of the combs.
The lower image shows the lower
sides of the same combs (lined up to
the upper ones). On the upper image,
I recorded a surface temperature on
the cluster of 50.6°F (10.3°C), which
was a typical reading under these
very cold conditions. (The cluster sur-
faces have been reported to be a little
cooler.) A short distance to the edge of
the comb, at its middle (the midrib),
I took another image only moments
later, which is recorded on the lower
image. The edge of the comb tempera-
ture was 9.7°F (-12.7°C).
A pair of white arrows points to Fig. 7 A cluster surface temperature of 84°F (28.9°C). I was aiming at a few warmer
each temperature point (and for each bees. They had just come from the inside of the cluster, probably due to the minor
image). The arrowheads give an esti- disturbances from my photography. To stay this warm, the bees need a large cluster
mation of the separation of the tem- and plenty of food stores.

November 2018 1247

gan. That is her, the white hot bee at
the base of the arrow. She tried to fly
again, and crashed at the arrow point,
where she remained. Figure 6 shows a
sequence of three images of her rapid
cool down. The thermal camera re-
corded the time for all the images at
9:42 a.m., that is, all the images oc-
curred within a minute of each other.
From this sequence of images, we see
that a single bee dies very quickly if
she leaves the warmth of the cluster
during these frigid conditions.
New beekeepers and the general
public typically think bees heat the
hive in the winter like people heat
their houses. We know a warm house
in the winter is nothing like a hive, or
even my old trailer with crunchy car-
pet and frost on the walls. The hive
temperature away from the cluster,
particularly underneath it, tracks the
outside temperature. Bees that leave
the immediate cluster have only a few
seconds where their flight muscles
are still warm enough to rejoin the
cluster. If they venture too far, like the
bee pictured here, they’ll quickly suc-
cumb to the cold.
Back in the bitter cold of early 2018,
the plumbers came as quickly as they
could, sooner than we thought. They
knew exactly where to look for the
1248
frozen pipes and thawed them quick-
ly. The trailer court in Blacksburg is
long gone, replaced by apartments. I
kept thinking about Figure 7, and the
84°F (28.9°C) on the cluster, which
was an interior temperature I was
able to read from bees coming to the
cluster’s surface.
In the cluster it was quite warm,
warmer than our house.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Suzanne Sumner
for her comments on the manuscript.
Visit TBHSbyWAM.com and Bee-
ChildTheBook.com.
Dr. Wyatt Mangum,
author of Top-Bar Hive
Beekeeping: Wisdom
and Pleasure Com-
bined, is an internation-
ally known top-bar hive
beekeeper, who started
keeping bees at age 10.
He switched all his colonies to top-bar hives
back in 1986, long before it became popular.
He is also an apicultural historian, who blends
his knowledge of beekeeping history with his
study of honey bee behavior. email: wmangum
@umw.edu. www.TBHSbyWAM.com
American Bee Journal
So You’re a Beekeeper?

by Jerome Zulkoski

S
“ o you’re a beekeeper? How’d a hovercraft from an old vacuum,” supplies. Where to start? I had saved
that happen?” “Grow your own Sea monkeys,” and my money and when I was ready I
“Bees? Huh, why do want to “Chameleons make a great pet.” I did filled out the paper order form, ad-
do that?” These are just a few of the order some chameleons, but that is a dressed an envelope, licked a stamp
questions I get quite often when peo- different story. and in the mail it went.
ple learn that I keep bees. I often tell One ad in particular really captured My order finally arrived. Two un-
people that I started them as an FFA my attention: “Build a beehive and assembled hive bodies with frames,
project, which is true; however, there raise your own bees.” I kept return- foundation, hat, veil, and gloves to-
was an earlier calling to bees. ing to this small ad and the promise gether with a new copy of “First Les-
The credit (or blame) for my fas- of mail order bees. sons in Beekeeping.” I was so excited!
cination with bees rests squarely on Now this was 1986: no internet, no In no time I had assembled the hives
my grandfathers. I grew up on the credit cards, just a 16-year-old boy, and all the frames. Now all I needed
same farm that my dad did. As a boy, a postage stamp and time, so I sent was some bees.
I played in an underused area of the away for my free beekeeping supply More waiting. Later that spring
farm with an old platform, aban- catalog. After what seemed like an Mom got a call from the post office
doned bee boxes and bits and pieces eternity it finally came. I was mes- while I was in school to come and
of frames. When I asked Dad about merized by my new catalog. All the pick up my bees. When I got home my
it, he said his dad had bees, and told choices of different equipment and new bees were waiting there for me.
a few stories about his dad keeping
bees. He related that when his dad
collected honey he never wore any
veil or gloves, and the bees cleaned
up after the harvest was complete.
Between Dad’s stories and the bits of
old boxes and frames, I was fascinated
and longed to have bees of my own.
My mother’s dad was an old farm-
er as well, and while he didn’t keep
bees, he unknowingly helped set me
on the path to bees. One year at the
appropriate age, Grandpa got me a
subscription to Boys' Life Magazine. I
never was a scout, but really enjoyed
the magazine, especially all the sto-
ries of boys my age going and doing
all these amazing things. I looked for-
ward to each issue and would read
and reread each one.
One section of the magazine that I
really enjoyed was way in the back.
“The Classifieds” had many cryptic
ads that taunted a boy’s wild imagi-
nation. This section had it all! “Build Eugene & Kathy Zulkoski

November 2018 1249

 L-R: JW Schroder, Jerome Zulkoski, Belinda Schroder and Kris Zulkoski
Mom had made sure to tell me how
unhappy the postal workers were to
have bees in their building. The bees
had come in a screened box. I had
read “First Lessons in Beekeeping” so
many times that I had parts memo-
rized. The section on transferring bees
from a screened cage to the new hive
was one section that I had committed
to memory, but I read it one more time
and successfully hived my first pack-
age of bees. I was hooked.
That first season I faithfully fed,
checked, and watched my bees devel-
op into a full hive. My dad had talked
to Rex (a neighbor, who was also a
beekeeper) and borrowed a couple
honey supers from him for my first
attempt at a honey crop. More watch-
ing and waiting. Finally, I removed
the honey supers from my hive and
I was off to Rex’s to extract my first
crop. Dad and I helped Rex all after-
noon in his honey house, extracting
honey from Rex’s bees until later in
the day when Rex turned his atten-
tion to the honey supers that I had
brought.
“Let’s see how you did,” he said,
as he pulled the first frame of honey
from the super. “Looks pretty good.”
He lowered it into the decapper. In
no time all the frames had the wax
cappings removed and were being
transferred to the extractor to have
the honey spun out of the comb. All
afternoon the whole process had fas-
cinated me, but now this was honey
from my bees that we were working
with. How exciting!
When we were done Rex grabbed
a 5-gallon bucket and started filling
it with the new honey. He stopped a
couple inches from the top and said,
Mikayla Zulkoski
“That looks about right.”
He shut the valve and placed a lid on
the bucket. I thanked him and asked
him what I owed him. He replied
that the wax from the cappings was
enough. Dad and I went home with
our prize.
Over the next couple years, I added
hives and continued to go to Rex’s to
extract our honey.
I graduated high school and joined
the military, got married and lived
all over the country. The eight or so
years I was away, Dad kept the bees
going and even expanded to the point
where he was selling a little honey.
When my wife and I were able to
move back to Nebraska, we moved to
a town about an hour away from the
family farm, and within a year Dad
moved 10 hives to where we were liv-
ing. Just like that I was once again a

We all participate when it's time to extract. My parents still help out and the next generation is pitching in too.
Many hands make the work go quickly and there's plenty of time to chat and catch up while extracting..

1250 American Bee Journal

beekeeper. Our two families worked What started as a dream and a sin- Beekeeping can also be frustrating:
together, helping each other with the gle hive of bees has turned into an en- mites, hives that do not successfully
bees. Each continuing to grow our terprise that involves three families. overwinter, queens that fail and the
business. An idea that turned into a lot of work, wayward swarm. You never learn it
At some point Rex was unable to but a labor of love. Beekeeping is la- all, nor truly understand why a bee
continue keeping bees, and we bought bor intensive and time consuming does what a bee does. But, we keep
his bees and equipment. The distance but it’s also the experience of working doing our best to take care of the bees.
was always a challenge, and resulted with the bees, helping to keep them So yes, I tell the curious that I am a
in two honey houses, two bottling healthy, or just bee watching—it’s all beekeeper, and this is how it hap-
labels, and two different businesses, very rewarding (not to mention the pened. Now I wonder if Mom ever
not to mention the travel back and honey that they produce). found those chameleons I lost?
forth. This continued for about twen-
ty years until we were able to move
to Burwell, near the family farm. We
consolidated our resources. I built a
new honey house and we combined TABER’S on the web...
our processing equipment. This was
much easier on everyone. Around
the same time we moved home, my
nephew wanted to learn beekeeping
and has been working with us ever
since. My youngest daughter has
been learning and helping as well and
she enjoys giving informative presen-
tations about bees and the benefits of
honey.

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Package Delivery Available P.O. Box 1672
Member:
California Bee Breeders Assoc.
Vacaville, CA 95696
American Honey Producers Assoc. www.honeybeegenetics.com

November 2018 1251

1252 American Bee Journal
A simple trick could let beekeepers improve their colonies’ pollination efficiency.
L
ast spring, I was walking
through the blueberry fields at
the University of British Co-
lumbia’s farm when I noticed some-
thing peculiar. We have a handful of
research colonies near the edge of the
blueberry patch, the blueberries were
in full bloom, and the bushes were
humming with activity. But it wasn’t
the honey bees who were humming.
It was the bumble bees.
Hardly any of our honey bees were
on the clumps of pink and white blue-
berry bells. Our colonies live at the
UBC farm year-round and weren’t
placed there to pollinate, so we
weren’t concerned about their lack of
interest. But later that week, when I
Honey bees have three ocelli (simple light-sensing organs) located on the top of their
head. Researchers can paint over the ocelli to make the bees much less sensitive to
bright lights, but they can still see complex images with their compound eyes.
November 2018
inspected the bushes at a large-scale
blueberry farm with pallets of bee-
hives brought in specifically for pol-
lination, there weren’t many honey
bees on those flower bells, either.
And because there wasn’t much good
bumble bee habitat, I spotted few
bumbles, too.
Why weren’t the honey bees inter-
ested? Their lack of visitation creates
a bit of a problem. We want the honey
bees to pollinate our crops, because
in an industrial agricultural setting
there often aren’t enough native pol-
linators around. But for some plants,
it’s a bit like trying to get your kid to
eat spinach. The bees are reluctant
to start foraging on the crop—there
are tastier options around, and so
they may explore other sources first,
before visiting the flowers we want.
Sometimes it’s because the flower
shape isn’t great for honey bees.
Sometimes it’s because the nectar re-
ward isn’t up to snuff. Sometimes it’s
because the flowers are on the outer,
rather than the inner, branches of a
tree. But could there be a way to make
the spinach look more like ice cream?
Walter Farina, a professor at the
University of Buenos Aires, Argen-
tina, is in the midst of answering that
question. He and his research group
study foraging behavior in social in-
sects, including the ants Camponotus
mus and Linepithema humile, as well
as stingless bees and honey bees. I
learned about his work at his plena-
ry lecture for the 2018 International
Union for the Study of Social Insects
(IUSSI) meeting in Guarujá, Brazil,
where he told the story of how con-
troversy over von Frisch’s waggle
dance eventually led him and his
team to develop an easy way to en-
hance the pollinating power of honey
bees for specific crops, which they
aptly dubbed “precision pollination.”
They are able to train bees to forage
on specific crops more efficiently,
simply by feeding the colonies crop-
scented syrup before moving them
into the fields.
Today, von Frisch is an iconic name,
but it hasn’t always been. In his 1927
book, The Dancing Bees, he famously
decoded the waggle dance, describ-
ing how distance and direction were
communicated by the length of the
waggle (a one second waggle is ap-
1253
proximately equal to 0.6 mi) and the
angle of the waggle line relative to
the vertical (which communicates the
direction relative to the sun). We take
that as common knowledge, now, but
this straightforward interpretation
was hotly debated as late as the 1960s,
when other researchers criticized
von Frisch’s work for not including
proper controls in his experiments,
and thus not being able to rule out the
role of odor in navigation to forage
sources.1,2 The smell of a floral source
on the dancing bee and the nectar
she shared could be sufficient to en-
able new recruits to find the source,
they argued, especially if the source
was nearby. Von Frisch himself even
showed that foragers leave odor trac-
es, or “scent marks” at nectar sources,
which helps the new recruits locate it.
So, which is more important: the
dance or the perfume? To find out,
researchers have employed a series of
clever tricks to disentangle the roles
of distance, direction, and odor for
finding foraging stations. When all
the information points to the same
forage source, it’s hard to know what
element is most important. Research-
ers have gotten around this by delib-
erately making foragers give confus-
ing signals to new recruits, where the
dance points one way but their scent
marks point another. If, for example,
a dancer smells like the foraging sta-
tion and leaves her odor cues there,
but gives new recruits the wrong di-
rection or distance information, and
the recruits still find the forage, that
suggests odor is playing an important
role in navigation.
James Gould put this idea to the
test in a well-designed experiment,
Forage odors and scent marking can help new recruits find forage sources that are
near the hive, but distance and directional information encoded in the waggle dance
help recruits find forage sources that are distant from the hive.
1254
which was published in Nature back
in 1974.1 He set up a feeding station
and waited for his bees to find it and
begin dancing for new recruits. Then
he shone a bright light inside the
hive, which is known to confuse the
bees and make them re-orient their
waggle to the direction of the light,
rather than to gravity. The recruits
also re-orient how they interpret the
waggle, resulting in no miscommuni-
cation. But if the dancer’s light-sens-
ing eyes (the ocelli) are painted over,
they don’t know the light is there and
will still dance relative to the verti-
cal. The recruits, whose ocelli are not
painted, will interpret the waggle di-
rection relative to the light in the hive.
By controlling the angle of the light,
Gould could control to what degree
the recruits misinterpret the dancer’s
directional information. So the danc-
ers travel to and fro, visiting the for-
aging station, depositing scent marks,
bringing back the flowers’ odor, and
dancing their heart out to an audience
of re-oriented recruits.
If the recruits were getting their lo-
cation information from odor signals
alone, it shouldn’t matter whether
they misinterpret the dance angle –
they should still arrive at the same
scent-marked foraging station visited
by the blinded dancers. However, if
the dance angle dictates direction, the
recruits should instead arrive at a for-
aging station that is off-target by the
same angle as the hive light relative to
the vertical. In his paper, Gould stated
that “most of the recruits arrived at
locations specified by the dances [rela-
tive to the hive light], but not near the
site being frequented by the [blinded]
foragers performing those dances.”
This supported von Frisch’s proposal
for how the directional information
was communicated, but did not sup-
port that odor played an important
role. Other researchers performed sim-
ilar experiments where they induced
dancers’ confusion over distance, rath-
er than direction.3 It turns out, honey
bees perceive distance via “optic flow”
– or how fast images go by as they fly
– so foragers can be tricked into think-
ing they’ve flown farther than they
have by forcing them to fly through
a narrow tube during their journey.
In the end, von Frisch’s translation
of the waggle dance turned out to be
well-supported after all, but the role of
odor cues wouldn’t be elucidated until
decades later.
Wolfgang Kirchner and Andreas
Grasser, at the University of Kon-
stanz, Germany, worked out that
odor cues actually can be important
for finding forage, especially if that
forage is near the colony.4 This is in-
tuitive, since scent is perceived over
relatively short distances, but honey
bees may forage on sources miles
away. Indeed, Kirchner and Grasser
found that while scent enhances local
foraging, the waggle dance enhances
distant foraging. When brought to
farmland for pollination, though, col-
onies are almost always located right
in the middle, or the edge, of the tar-
get crop we want them to forage on.
In that situation, scent could be an im-
portant communication device.
Enter, Walter Farina. Kirchner and
Grasser’s finding, as well as knowl-
edge that honey bees are good at
associating specific odors to sugar
rewards, helped set the stage for Fari-
na’s research on methods to improve
pollination efficiency. “It’s an ineffi-
cient system,” he told the audience at
the IUSSI conference. “There are brief
blooms, but delays to initiate forag-
ing after the colonies arrive. And
improving efficiency is especially im-
portant for less attractive crops.” Like
most applied research, Farina and his
team began by improving their basic
knowledge of how the system works.
When honey bees are presented
with an odor which they have previ-
ously learned to associate with a lucra-
tive foraging station, they will return
to the station even if there hasn’t been
any forage there for days.5 In other
words, the odor alone is sufficient to
stimulate foragers to return to a spe-
cific (nearby) location that they’ve
banked in their memory. Since bees
also share the nectar – and therefore
the forage source’s odor – via trophal-
American Bee Journal
laxis, would the nectar receivers learn
to associate the odor as well, despite
not having traveled there? Farina and
his colleagues set up feeder stations
that were either artificially floral-
scented or unscented. When bees that
received nectar from foragers return-
ing from the floral-scented feeder were
presented with the floral scent (but no
syrup) they reflexively extended their
proboscis as if expecting to receive
some sugar. They responded this way
significantly more often than when
the bees who received syrup from the
odorless station were presented with
the same odor; therefore, they did
not just automatically “like” the flo-
ral scent. They specifically learned to
associate the scent with receiving nec-
tar.6,7 Farina speculated that this “may
help recruits to find a particular food
source faster.”
If Farina and his colleagues were
right, then adding an in-hive feeder
with a specific scent should bias the
bees’ foraging preference to feeding
stations containing that scent, too.
To test this, they gave colonies syrup
for three days with an in-hive feeder,
where the syrup was spiked with one
of two floral odors. They removed the
feeders, waited 24 hours, then set up
two foraging stations – one for each
of the floral odors. Lo and behold, no
matter which odor the in-hive feeder
was spiked with, the bees preferred
to visit the foraging station with the
matching odor.8 The bees were about
twice as likely to visit the matching
station compared to the one with the
unfamiliar odor.
You might be able to see where
I’m going here. In Farina’s newest
research, which is not yet published,
his team uses floral odor profiles that
are specifically blended to mimic
those of real crops, like pear, almond,
or sunflower (honey bees are used for
sunflower hybrid seed production).
These blends are synthetic mixtures
of the most dominant odor molecules
emitted from these flowers, deter-
mined by careful chemical analysis
called gas chromatography mass
spectrometry. The idea is that when
the researchers spike colonies’ feed-
ers with these blends (in what they
call the “training” phase), the bees’
foraging decisions should be biased
towards those crops. And that’s ex-
actly what they found.
A few days after training, the re-
searchers observed increased forag-
ing activity, increased pollen loads
from the target crop, and increased
numbers of bees in the crop com-
November 2018
pared to untrained colonies (which (2005). Social learning of floral odours
were given unscented sugar syrup). inside the honeybee hive. Proceedings: Bio-
For pears and almonds, this directly logical Sciences. 272(1575):1923-8.
7 Farina WM, Gruter C, et al. (2007). Hon-
translated into increased crop yields eybees learn floral odors while receiv-
in the plots using trained honey bee ing nectar from foragers within the hive.
colonies compared to untrained. Naturwissenschaften. 94(1): 55-60.
This work hasn’t been published 8 Arenas A, Vanesa MF, and Farina WM.
yet and the authors haven’t disclosed (2007). Floral odor learning within the
the data on a pre-print server, so we hive affects honeybees’ foraging deci-
can’t yet critique it and we don’t know sions. Naturwissenschaften. 94(3): 218-22.
exactly how well this will translate Alison McAfee began
to industrial applications. But it cer- researching honey
tainly has potential; once odor blends bees in 2013 as a
are developed for specific crops, they biochemistry under-
graduate student at
are very cheap and easy to produce. the University of Brit-
What’s more, the proposed method ish Columbia, where
of training should be feasible for even she is currently pur-
industrial beekeepers to integrate into suing a PhD. She be-
their management scheme, and can came enchanted with the little ladies and is
allow training to begin even before pursuing a degree in genome sciences and
the colonies are delivered to the field technology, specializing in hygienic behav-
ior and its underlying mechanisms. In 2017,
so that they hit the ground flying. she received the Canadian Association of
This is very new research, so there Professional Apiculturists Student Merit
are still floods of questions waiting to Award – a recognition that honors outstand-
be answered. We may wonder if this ing achievements in honey bee research
approach is really what’s best for the and extension. Email her: alison.mcafee@
bees – it could improve crop yields, alumni.ubc.ca and check out her blog: www.
but could it adversely affect colony alisonmcafeeblogs.wordpress.com
health? For example, if we train bees
to forage on blueberries, would that
make them more susceptible to the
diseases that beekeepers report after
engaging in blueberry pollination?
Will this method improve yields of all
crops the bees are trained on, or are
there some stubborn scents that the
bees just won’t respond to? How fast
can we switch a colony from one scent
to another, so they can quickly adapt
to the new crop as they follow a typical
crop pollination sequence (e.g. from
blueberries to cranberries to squash)?
The answers await. But making the
spinach smell like ice cream might
just enable precision pollination in
our future.
references:
1 Gould J. (1974). Honey Bee Communica-
tion. Nature. 252: 300-1.
2 Wenner AM, Wells PH, and Johnson DL.
(1969). Honey bee recruitment to food
sources: Olfaction or language? Science.
164(3875): 84-6.
3 Esch HE, Zhang S, et al. (2001). Honeybee
dances communicate distances measured
by optic flow. Nature. 411: 581-3.
4 Kirchner WH and Grasser A. (1998). The
significance of odor cues and dance lan-
guage information for the food search
behavior of honeybees (Hymenoptera:
Apidae). Journal of Insect Behavior. 11(2):
169-78.
5 Beekman M. (2005). How long will hon-
ey bees (Apis mellifera L.) be stimulated
by scent to revisit past-profitable forage
sites? Journal of Comparative Physiology A.
191(12): 1115-20.
6 Farina WM, Gruter C, and Diaz PC.
1255
1256 American Bee Journal
 VArroA -F ree
in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada
T
he province of Newfound-
land and Labrador (NL) is
the newest member of the Ca-
nadian federation having joined in
1949. While its land mass is about the
same as California’s, its population is
relatively small with approximately
530,000 citizens. The island portion of
the province juts out into the north-
west Atlantic, and because of this, its
climate is influenced by two oceanic
currents. These are the northward
flowing warm Gulf Stream originat-
ing out of the Gulf of Mexico which
influences the south and west coasts
of the island, and more importantly,
the southward flowing cold Labrador
Current, originating out of the Da-
vis Strait, which affects the northeast
November 2018
coast, but also has an overall effect
on the strength of the Gulf Stream as
it approaches eastern Canada (see
Figure 1). Climate and the effects of
glaciation combine to create the eco-
systems in which our beekeeping
activities are embedded; long, cold
winters, very short summers, and
ecosystems heavily dominated by
black spruce (Picea mariana) and bal-
sam fir (Abies balsamea) boreal forests
peppered with extensive marshlands.
It is because of these climatic and
landscape characteristics that beekeep-
ing is relatively new in NL, compared
to the rest of North America. While
our first attempts at beekeeping date
as far back as 1929, nothing significant
in the way of apiculture developed
by Peter ArmitAge
Portland, Bonavista Bay
Newfoundland and Labrador
here until the 1970s. As of September
2018, there were about 700 honey bee
colonies in the province managed by
approximately 130 beekeepers.1
During the last decade, beekeep-
ing has taken off as both a hobby craft
and commercial activity, with seven
beekeepers having a “commercial”
focus and managing approximately
20-100 production colonies each. Col-
ony numbers like this would make
these sideliner operations elsewhere
in North America. However, the pro-
vincial government defines a com-
mercial operation as 20+ production
colonies. There may be only one bee-
keeper in the province who obtains
a substantial portion of his income
from apiculture, including value-
added products.
In addition to offering pollination
services, NL beekeepers sell honey,
beeswax, pollen, and value-added
products directly to local restaurants,
health food and speciality stores, and
to the general public through farm-
ers’ markets and craft fairs. The New-
foundland and Labrador Beekeeping
Association was formed in Novem-
ber 2014 to represent the interests of
all beekeepers. They have a broad
mandate, which includes the promo-
tion of effective beekeeping practices,
education of its members and the
general public, protecting the health
of NL bee stocks and wild pollinators,
expanding apiculture, etc.2
origins of our honey Bee stock
Modern-day apiculture in the prov-
ince owes its origins largely to the pi-
oneering efforts of one person - Wally
Skinner - who started beekeeping in
1974 in the western part of the Island
of Newfoundland (Hicks, 2014). Mr.
1257

Fig. 1 January 2018 temperature and rain data from a Davis Instruments weather
station located at a Bonavista Bay apiary. Erratic weather is common on the east coast
of Newfoundland. Rain = blue bars; temperature = red line.
Skinner, and his daughters, Alison
Van Alten and Andrea Skinner, have
played the primary role in shaping
the genetics of our bees.3 Until re-
cently, Andrea and her partner Paige
Marchant, co-owners of the New-
foundland Bee Company, were the
main purveyors of nucleus colonies
(nucs) and queens to other beekeep-
ers in the province.
Wally Skinner first purchased
honey bees from the neighboring
province of Nova Scotia in ca. 1974
(Hicks, 2014: 13). The Nova Sco-
tian bees were derived from pack-
aged bees imported from the United
States,4 likely Carniolans with some
Buckfast genetics from Weaver Api-
aries of Texas, which were being
used for pollination on the John L.
Bragg blueberry farm operations in
Nova Scotia.
Several NL beekeepers use modified Langstroth hives with “warm” orientation of the
frames, upper entrances, vent holes in the inner covers, and vent boxes © Ian Hussey
1258
Skinner began over-wintering his
bees after 1985, which is when the
provincial government imposed
stringent import restrictions due to
concerns about tracheal mite infes-
tations in the United States (CAPA,
1985; Hicks, 2014: 13).5 Henceforth,
the Skinner family imported queens
and eggs to the province under gov-
ernment permit. Mr. Skinner pur-
chased queens from Nova Scotia as
well as from the now retired Silas
Thompson, who was based in central
Newfoundland. Thompson obtained
his bees from other parts of Canada
(Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia)
as well as from Australia and New
Zealand (Hicks, 2014: 14). In the mid-
2000s, the Skinners imported eggs de-
rived from Ontario bee stock as well
as the Ontario Russian bee breeding
program with the view to enhancing
the disease resistance of their strain.6
Finally, the family imported 10 Ha-
waiian queens in 2008 (Williams,
2010: 3).
On the eastern side of the Island,
Gerard Smith of G & M Family Farm
started selling nucs and queens in
2015 and his stock derives mostly
from the Skinner strain, although he
purchased some bees from another
pioneering beekeeper, Aubrey Gould-
ing, several years ago. Goulding start-
ed beekeeping in 1984 and obtained
bees from New Zealand and Nova
Scotia (Hicks, 2014: 13). He sold nucs
intermittently over the years, but has
not been a major supplier to other
beekeepers in the province.
The NL strain of honey bees has
many desirable traits: it is winter
hardy and the bees are very gentle;
its numbers build gradually in the
spring, but it is an explosive breeder
when the weather improves; and it
is economical in its consumption of
winter stores, yet it is also a good
honey producer. The genetics of this
strain are a bit of a “smorgasbord”
having an Apis mellifera ligustica base,
but with some Carniolan, Buckfast,
and Russian Primorksy ingredients
mixed in.
our speciAl heAlth stAtus
What distinguishes NL from most
of Europe and the rest of North
America is the good health of our
bees, and their freedom from the
pathogens, pests, and diseases that
plague apiculture elsewhere. Thanks
to the Island of Newfoundland’s iso-
lation from mainland North America
and the prudent policies of the pro-
vincial government with its importa-
tion restrictions, the province is free
of Varroa destructor mite, tracheal mite
(Acarapis woodi), small hive beetle
(Aethina tumida), greater wax moth
(Galleria mellonella), lesser wax moth
(Achroia grisella), and American foul-
brood (Paenibacillus larvae). Recent
molecular testing (Polymerase chain
reaction) by the National Bee Diag-
nostic Centre (NBDC) at Beaverlodge,
Alberta, informs us that NL bees are
free of several viruses normally vec-
tored by varroa, such as Acute bee
paralysis virus, Chronic bee paralysis
virus, Deformed wing virus, Israeli
acute paralysis virus, and Kashmir
bee virus, however, some colonies
have tested positive for Sacbrood
virus, and Black queen cell virus is
ubiquitous.
NL bees have also tested positive
for Nosema apis, Nosema ceranae, and
American Bee Journal
European foulbrood (EFB). While
no beekeeper has ever reported EFB
symptoms, at least two have experi-
enced outbreaks of nosemosis or high
Nosema spore counts that required
medication (fumagillin fungicide).
Chalkbrood has also been observed in
the past, but it was never considered
a serious problem and did not turn up
in recent molecular testing.
NL’s honey bee stock was not test-
ed systematically for pathogens, pests
and diseases until 2010 (see Shutler,
et al., 2014). However, the 2016 sam-
pling conducted by the provincial
apiarist and tested at the NBDC now
serves as the baseline for monitor-
ing, and colony management. This
sampling and testing was part of the
Canadian National Honey Bee Health
Survey, “a four year, nation-wide ini-
tiative established to index honey bee
health” (NBDC, 2016: 1).7
forAge And AnnuAl cycle
Despite not having varroa and a
number of other pests and pathogens,
NL’s biggest challenge is its spring
weather and short growing season.
May and June can be very cold and
wet months. This seriously limits the
daily flying time for NL bees which
need at least 46°-54° F and sunshine
to fly in search of nectar and pollen.
The climatic challenge is reflected in
NL’s honey production which is prob-
ably in the range of 30 to 120 lbs. per
colony per season, with an average
of maybe 40 lbs. depending on loca-
tion and year.8 This challenge is also
reflected in queen rearing and mat-
ing; it is difficult if not impossible to
mate virgin queens before the middle
of June, and nucleus colonies thus are
not available for sale until the middle
of July.
In addition to low spring tempera-
tures and humidity, the forage abun-
Spring inspection © P. Armitage
November 2018
dance, distribution, and phenology
also impose limitations on apicul-
ture. The Island of Newfoundland’s
primary forage species, according to
seasonal progression from theoreti-
cal “spring” in early April to frost in
October, are mountain alder (Alnus
crispa) and speckled alder (Alnus ru-
gosa), pussy willow (Salix discolor),
mountain maple (Acer spicatum) and
red maple (Acer rubrum), mouse-ear
hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella), com-
mon dandelion (Taraxacum officinale),
white clover (Trifolium repens), fire-
weed (Chamaenerion angustifolium),
lance-leaved goldenrod (Solidago
graminifolia) and rough-stemmed
goldenrod (Solidago rugosa), and bog
aster (Oclemena nemoralis).
Where my apiaries are located in
Lethbridge-Portland, Bonavista Bay,
many of these species are found ex-
clusively on disturbed landscapes
such as roadside margins, lawns and
gardens, and woodland areas that
have been opened up as a result of
domestic firewood harvesting. The
agricultural landscape in this region
is dominated by hay fields for dairy
cows most of which are seeded with
70% Timothy-grass (Phleum pratense),
15% red clover (Trifolium pratense),
and 15% white clover. Unfortunately,
red clover is of little value to honey
bees because of the large size of the
flower’s corolla, and farmers “take
their hay off” (mow their fields) just
before the white clover blossoms.9
The prime value of these hay fields
for bees is the abundance of dandeli-
on (nectar, pollen) in June and hawk-
weed (pollen) in September.
In general, many apiaries in NL are
surrounded by black spruce and bal-
sam fir forest offering little nectar or
pollen of value to honey bees. That is
why NL beekeepers are interested in
augmenting the “wild” forage with
other species that are easy to plant,
easy to maintain, and provide maxi-
mum nectar and pollen value to the
bees, for example, borage (Borago of-
ficinalis), purple tansy (Phacelia tanac-
etifolia), and white clover.
hiVe designs And
colony mAnAgement
With the exception of a handful of
top-bar hive enthusiasts, the major-
ity of NL’s beekeepers are using some
type of standard, North American
Langstroth configuration. However, a
dozen or so beekeepers are following
the lead of Gerard Smith in adopting
a version of the “D.E. Hive” designed
by David Eyre in Ontario.10 This de-
Red maple (Acer rubrum) in flower, May
14, 2016 © P. Armitage
sign uses standard Langstroth deeps,
in combination with a large landing
board, bottom board, vented inner
cover, vent box, and telescoping out-
er cover with large rims. The frame
orientation is “warm” not “cold,”
which means that frames run paral-
lel to the front entrance not perpen-
dicular. There is no end of debate in
British beekeeping circles about these
two frame orientations. In the end it
may boil down to personal prefer-
ence. I like working my hives from
the back which is my primary reason
for adopting the warm approach. The
vent box can be used to enclose top
feeders during the warmer months or
filled with insulation to facilitate hive
heat retention during the late fall,
winter and early spring.
Whether beekeepers are using this
hive design or not, most recognize
the need for good hive ventilation,
and for this reason, lower entrances
are left open, upper entrances are pro-
vided, and inner covers are shimmed
or otherwise vented to allow humid-
ity to escape the hive. We take very
seriously the adage that “it is not the
cold that kills bees, it’s the humidity.”
Condensation freezing on the inside
of covers, melting, and then dripping
onto the cluster is what kills bees dur-
ing the cold season here in NL.
In general, beekeepers here leave
upper entrances open to allow bees
to egress/ingress for cleansing flights
when snow accumulates above the
lower entrances, which it often does
throughout the province. Entrances
must be screened with ¼ in. mesh
to prevent the insectivorous pigmy
shrew (Sorex hoyi) from eating slug-
gish, clustered bees. They eat the bees
on the outside of the cluster, primar-
ily devouring the thorax. Beekeepers
keep an eye out for lots of heads and
abdomens on the snow in front of the
hive, sure evidence of a shrew feast-
ing inside. Honey is taken off at the
1259

This apiary has a 7,000 volt electric fence and barbed wire to deter moose and black
bears © P. Armitage
end of August or early September
and then colonies are fed 2:1 sugar
syrup until the end of October, so that
they can maximize their winter honey
stores. As a rule of thumb, colonies
should have at least 120 lbs. of honey
stores (in two Langstroth deeps) in
order to survive the winter and early
spring.
For winter protection, we wrap
hives with black roofing felt (tar
paper), “bee cosies,” or some other
wind proofing, insulating material.
The Island of Newfoundland can be
an extremely windy place with wind
velocities sometimes exceeding 60
mph, which means that hives must
be weighted down with heavy rocks
or concrete blocks or secured with
A close-up with hives in the warm orientation.s the author prefers. © Peter Armitage
1260
ratchet straps. Recently, two bee-
keepers built indoor wintering sheds
that control temperature and humid-
ity, in order to reduce winter-spring
mortality.11
With our cold and erratic springs,
we start supplementary feeding with
pollen substitute, fondant, and dry
sugar in March when queens resume
egg-laying. Liquid sugar syrup is
only used again later in the spring
when temperatures rise sufficiently.
the future
In theory, pollination income from
blueberry, cranberry and canola pro-
ducers on the Island of Newfound-
land could contribute significantly to
the economic viability of commercial
beekeeping operations in the prov-
ince, when mixed with income from
the sale of honey, pollen, beeswax,
nucleus colonies and value-added
bee products. However, the opportu-
nities for growth in commercial bee-
keeping appear limited, unless the
amount of land in blueberry, canola,
and cranberry production increases
significantly, and/or other aspects
of beekeeping can be developed and
marketed in innovative ways.12
Nonetheless, NL beekeepers are
optimistic they can overcome such
challenges in order to significantly ex-
pand the number of beekeepers and
colonies in the province during the
next 10 years. Much of this expansion
will be in the form of small-scale bee-
keeping, based in urban and suburban
parts of the province. These beekeep-
ers are the market for NL’s commer-
cial operators, who sell beekeeping
equipment, nucs, and queens. In-
creasingly, they will contribute to the
growth of apiculture through their
small-scale honey production and
sales at local farmers’ markets, craft
fairs, and other small retail outlets.
Collectively, NL beekeepers hope to
improve not only their domestic mar-
ket share of bee-related products but
also offer various products for export
nationally and internationally.
In the absence of pollination con-
tracts, growth in NL’s apicultural
industry is likely to depend on val-
ue-added honey products like honey-
based syrups, mead, cosmetics, and
honey that is either organic or close
to it. Currently NL honey is 100%
free of miticides and antibiotics, and
probably GMO pollen as well. Live
bee exports such as queens and certi-
fied varroa-free packages may also be
development options for NL’s apicul-
tural industry in the future.
Whether NL beekeepers achieve
their apicultural goals will depend in
part on their ability to maintain their
current honey bee health and pest-
free status particularly with respect to
varroa. The track-record elsewhere in
Canada is not good. Either because of
migratory beekeeping practices (pol-
lination services) or the ill-consid-
ered, illegal importation of bees, var-
roa and other pests crossed national
and international borders and spread
rapidly throughout honey bee stocks,
despite mandatory inspections, quar-
antines, import restrictions and other
defensive measures. Can we learn
from the failures of beekeepers and
apicultural management elsewhere?
Only time will tell…. Wish us luck!
American Bee Journal
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Detlef Bieger, Cath-
erine Dempsey, Barry Hicks, Andrea
Skinner, Gerard Smith, Karen Youden-
Walsh, and Steve Walsh for their com-
ments on a previous draft of this arti-
cle. All errors of fact and omission are
entirely the responsibility of the au-
thor. Author correspondence (English
or French) – Peter Armitage, Box 113,
RR#1 Portland, NL, Canada, A0C 1V0,
email – armitage_peter@bellaliant.net
references
Canadian Association of Professional Api-
culturists (CAPA). 1985. Annual Meeting
Minutes. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, No-
vember 18-19, p.9.
Hicks, B.J. 2014. “The History and Present
Status of Honey Bee Keeping in New-
foundland and Labrador.” The Osprey
45(3): 11-14. http://nlbeekeeping.ca/data/
documents/Hicks2014-BeeKeepingNL.
pdf
National Bee Diagnostic Centre (NBDC).
2016. National Honey Bee Health Survey.
https://www.gprc.ab.ca/research/initia-
tives/nbdc/projects/current/nat_survey.
html
Ramsay, J. 2015[1987]. Plants for Beekeeping in
Canada and the Northern USA. Revised edi-
tion, printed by Printorium Bookworks,
Victoria, B.C.
Shutler, D., K. Head, K. L. Burgher-Ma-
cLellan, M. J. Colwell, A. L. Levitt, N.
Ostiguy, G. R. Williams. 2014. “Honey
Bee Apis mellifera Parasites in the Absence
of Nosema ceranae Fungi and Varroa de-
structor Mites.” PLOS One 9(6): E98599.
Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098599.
Williams, G. R. 2010. 2009 Newfoundland
and Labrador Honey Bee Disease Sur-
vey. Report to Forestry and Agrifoods
Agency, Government of Newfoundland
and Labrador. February. http://www.faa.
gov.nl.ca/publications/pdf/honey_bee_
disease_09.pdf
endnotes
1
Currently, there is only one beekeeper
operating in Labrador.
2
Visit the Association’s website for more
information about its mandate and activi-
ties. http://www.nlbeekeeping.ca
3
Wally Skinner personal communication
with Peter Armitage, 10 January 2017.
See also Hicks (2014). Nowadays, Alison
Van Alten is based near Guelph, Ontario,
where she is the owner-operator of the
Tuckamore Bee Company, an impor-
tant supplier of queens, queen cells and
nucleus colonies in Ontario. See http://
www.tuckamorehoney.com/
4
See Al Flemming’s beekeeping biogra-
phy. “Al thinks he has got some good
bees: mainly Carniolans with some Buck-
fast genetics from Weaver Apiaries of
Texas that pre-date Nova Scotia’s flirta-
tion with Brother Adam’s bees, and the
residue of Philip Bishop’s rigorous selec-
tion” http://www.nsbeekeepers.ca/pro-
filesDetail.php?3
5
Prior to importation restrictions in the
1980s, it was common practice for Cana-
November 2018
dian beekeepers to kill off their colonies 11
Indoor wintering sheds are used exten-
in the fall and rebuild stocks the follow- sively in other Canadian provinces (e.g.,
ing spring using packages imported from Quebec).
elsewhere in Canada or the United States. 12
In 2011, the Island of Newfoundland had
6
Ontario imported them from the U.S. See about 1,062 acres in blueberry and 190
http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/2010/ acres in cranberry production. Canola
06/18/russian-honeybees-found-to- was first harvested in 2016, on 30 acres
have-greater-resistance-to-disease and of land. See 2011 Census in Agricul-
http://www.ontariobee.com/outreach/ ture, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/95-
2004Research 640-x/2011001/p1/prov/prov-10-eng.htm,
7
“The purpose of this project, the first of and Government of NL news release,
its kind in Canada, is to document the “Province’s First Canola Field Surpass-
prevalence, intensity and distribution of es Expectations.” 23 Sept. 2018. http://
pests and pathogens in Canadian apiar- www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2016/
ies. This information will help ensure that exec/0923n04.aspx
Canada, as a country, has robust data to
Peter Armitage is a
establish a bee health database – similar
small-scale beekeeper
to other leading beekeeping countries in based on the Bonavista
the world….The information generated Peninsula on the Island
by the Canadian National Honey Bee of Newfoundland in Can-
Health Survey will play a central role in ada, and is a board mem-
developing regional colony health man- ber of the Newfoundland
agement practices and will provide the and Labrador Beekeep-
best opportunity to identify exotic organ- ing Association. http://www.nlbeekeeping.
isms before they establish themselves ca/ To pay the bills he works as a consult-
with Canadian bee populations; main- ing anthropologist in Indigenous communities
tenance of health bee populations will across northern Canada. Originally from Brit-
allow for a sustainable apiculture indus- ish Columbia, he was introduced to beekeep-
try” (NBDC, 2016: 1). ing in the 1960s by his late step-father, Dave
8
Data on honey production have not yet Laidman, and beekeeping pioneer, Leo Fuhr,
been compiled systematically in the both residents of Vernon.
province. These estimates are based on
conversations with two experienced bee-
keepers, one commercial.
9
“The corolla of the red clover flower is lon-
ger than the honeybee’s tongue, and only
a small amount of N [nectar] is accessible
unless it is stolen by way of holes previ-
ously made near the base of the blossom.
The holes are often made by insects col-
lecting N or P [pollen], but not usually by
the honeybee” (Ramsay, 2015: 65). Dairy
farmers want nourishing forage for their
cattle, and the protein content in white clo-
ver is highest just before the plant flowers.
10
See https://www.beeworks.com/mod-kit
-details/
1261
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endeAVors this yeAr

1262 American Bee Journal


I
n most areas of the country there
is a noticeable and sometimes
lengthy summer dearth where
nectar and pollen are scarce. Colonies
may come out of the summer dearth
light on honey stores. They should
still have some available stores within
the hive for brood rearing—if they get
too low on stores, they will start can-
nibalizing brood and can even starve
to death.
As the fall flow begins, bringing
both nectar and pollen, the colony is
in a good position to make its winter
bees. The nectar will be packed away
and converted into honey for the long
winter ahead. Colonies should read-
ily take in nectar from the fall flow if
available or take down syrup when
provided by the beekeeper.
Sometimes I will find a light colony
in a yard not taking down any syrup.
This is a good indicator of some sort
of pre-existing condition. It could be
a queen, mite or disease issue. What-
ever it is, the problem needs to be ad-
dressed now, not later. Light colonies
that don’t take down syrup get an im-
mediate full inspection.
By the end of the fall flow, the colo-
ny should have excess stores to carry
it through the entire winter. These
stores are either provided by the
available forage in your area or if an
area lacks a flow, administered by the
beekeeper. Either way, the bees will
have their winter food supply stored
in the honeycomb above the brood
nest and ensconcing the cluster, so
that the cluster is always in contact
with it, especially as they migrate up
during the winter.
November 2018
The Heft Test &
Leaving Them Alone
At the end of the fall flow the colo-
nies should be heavy. A beekeeper
only has to place their hand under the
bottom board or into the hand hold
of the lowest box and heft the hive,
slightly tilting the colony forward
or to the side. This is the heft test. A
well-fed colony will have a bit of heft
to it. The beekeeper can lower the
colony, and be on his way, happy to
know the colony has all the stores it
needs for the winter.
Remember, heft tests don’t tell you
the actual weight of the hive. The bee-
keeper is judging the weight of the
hive simply by the feel of it. It can be
inaccurate, but it’s a great quick and
easy tool in the bee yard to get a sense
of which colonies are light and need
attention.
reAlity check
Now that was a cute story. We
imagined our colonies were light, but
still with a little food coming out of
the summer dearth. They grew on
the fall flow and put on weight for
the winter. The colonies that could
not put on weight were inspected for
pre-existing conditions, we amended
these issues early in the fall. On a
late fall and cold day, we placed our
hand under the hive and strained as
we tilted the hive up a couple inches.
We walked away in the brisk cool air
knowing everything was fine. We felt
the weight of their honey stores, and
the soft buzzing of the cluster within.
Unfortunately, this isn’t how every
colony approaches the fall. Nor is this
the situation many beekeepers find
themselves in by the late fall. Colonies
by Zac Lamas
with queen or mite issues often leave
the summer dearth in poor shape and
never brood up or store honey before
the fall flow ends.
By November the days are extreme-
ly short. We are approaching the win-
ter solstice, and in much of the coun-
try the weather is cold. At this point
unmanaged mites have already done
their damage and it’s often too cold
for colonies that are light to take down
syrup. The queen suppliers sold their
last queens a month ago. Simply put,
our options are very limited.
This brings me to the second part
of the title: leave them alone. This
was the hardest thing for me to learn.
When I had just a few years of expe-
rience, I always wanted to save colo-
nies late in the fall. I would put syrup
into these small colonies. I would go
Sometimes time gets away on us. We
get caught up with other work and sud-
denly we realize winter is almost on us
and we’re really far behind in our winter
prep. My best “Oh no, what have I done!”
impression.
1263

I heft a colony that had built from a nuc up to a full size colony in Maryland. Most
people tip from behind, but I get a better sense of colony stores from tilting to the side.
through bigger colonies searching for
frames of capped brood I could do-
nate to the weak ones.
I believe this is an endemic problem
with our beekeeping today. We be-
come heroic late in the season, want-
Our feeding goals are different depend-
ing on the season. Feeding one quart at a
time is great for small nucs in the spring.
However, this boardman feeder is never
going to put any significant weight onto
this colony for the fall.
1264
ing to save colonies that in most like-
lihood are all too far gone to be saved.
Instead our management should have
resembled the beginning of this arti-
cle. We should have amended queen,
disease and mite issues earlier at the
start of the fall flow—this is often in
mid-August in many areas when the
goldenrod and aster bloom. Then
our colonies would still have time to
build a population big enough to sur-
vive the winter.
We should have hefted the colonies
far earlier than November, when days
were longer and the temperatures
more conducive to bees taking down
and storing reserves. We should have
united weak colonies together instead
of pulling precious brood resources
before the winter from our stronger
colonies.
Instead many of us are caught in a
pinch, in cold weather and without
time trying to perform a heroic feat.
We seek advice online, and often
get the most imaginative responses.
Everything from pouring dry sugar
into a hive to building a greenhouse
around the colony. So I’d like to take
this moment to share my advice as a
beekeeper, who has been successful
in overwintering hundreds of colo-
nies, and also fortunate to work for
a very successful operation that win-
ters more than 700 colonies—leave
them alone.
things you cAn do in noVemBer
Yes, I say leave them alone, but
there are a couple things you can do
if you have a major issue.
Unites:
Uniting two colonies together late in
the season may very well be your best
option. The beekeeping lingo for this
is—take your losses in the fall. Namely,
if you have two weak colonies and
neither will make it through the win-
ter, it’s better to combine them with
the expectation that united they may
survive. If your nights are cool, com-
bine without newspaper. Otherwise
you can end up with two separate
colonies in a single tower.
Feeding Fondant:
Last fall I prepped some hives in
Maryland for a friend. I fed them, but
the fall was very warm, and the active
bees went through a lot more of their
stores than I expected. The colonies
had great populations, good queens
and the mites managed. They were
just a little short on stores. Placing
fondant onto the hives in cold weath-
er is a great option in a case like this.
Keep the fondant covered with plastic
on top, so it stays moist and pliable.
It’s possible to heft colonies from below,
as seen in the prior photo, or by the hand
hold as I am doing here. Hefting from the
hand hold works well if you haven’t been
in the colony recently and the boxes are
glued together with propolis.
American Bee Journal
This colony has a good size cluster, but
they are far too light. With no fall flow,
they’ve consumed all the stores they had
in the broodnest.
Mouse Guards:
If you haven’t placed your mouse
guards in your entrance, then you
probably have a mouse at this point.
If you’re in a warmer area and your
bees have been more active, then
lucky you. On a warm day, when the
bees have broken cluster, insert the
mouse guard.
Remove Undrawn Equipment:
The bees won’t draw wax now, and
bees cannot cluster on foundation.
That equipment should have already
been off, and most definitely not
checkerboarded in the area where the
bees will cluster.
When feeding syrup, I often use quart
food containers with holes punched into
the lid. Up to 5 fit in a 5-frame nuc.
November 2018
When colonies need a good bit of feed
and the nights are cool, I often feed fon-
dant. It adds a lot of stores to a hungry
colony quickly.
cAVeAt to fAll mAnAgement
I do want to put in a caveat—win-
ter is different for different regions
of the country. A subscriber in south
Florida probably did not get much
use from this article. I do hope though
that beekeepers in cold climates
found it helpful, and that beekeep-
ers in semi-warm areas think of the
advice. I overwinter some yards in
North Carolina. This is still a period
of stress, often with lengthy wet pe-
riods and cloudy, raw days. Queen
and mite issues exasperate during
this time, and colonies most definitely
can still starve to death, even though
there are often days warm enough to
Here I united two colonies that were
small, but healthy, taking my winter loss-
es in the fall under my control.
Here I add a good 15-20 lbs. of fondant
right above the colony in an empty su-
per. To keep the fondant from drying out,
I cover the top with plastic or cardboard.
fly. There just isn’t enough around to
feed multiple hungry colonies at that
time of year.
Zachary Lamas
recently joined the
vanEngelsdorp
Lab at the Univer-
sity of Maryland
to pursue a PhD.
Previously Zac
worked for French
Hill Apiaries, man-
aging honey and
nucleus colony production, while simultane-
ously running Sun Hill Farms, his own 300
colony operation. Zac has a passion for bio-
dynamic farming systems, and operated a
mixed-use farm focused on free range animals
and crop production in New England.
The combined colony with plenty of
population and food stores to survive the
winter. It can be split back out in spring.
1265
1266 American Bee Journal
T
he room was fluttering with bee Although I prefer to attend any kind wrong on Both ends
conservationists. The seats were of bee meeting incognito, at least two Many bee conservationists believe
occupied by men and women people in the room knew me. I held that beekeepers are the source of all
from all over the Pacific Northwest my breath until the silence was bro- their problems. They claim beekeep-
who had agreed to donate consid- ken by the group leader who said, ers invade pristine acreage, swipe all
erable sums of personal time and “Thank you for disclosing.” the available forage, spread disease,
money to tramp across the tristate Disclosing? Really? I wanted to and generally displace the native spe-
area and survey bumble bees. Butter- shout, “She’s a beekeeper, not a cies. For their part, some beekeepers
fly nets, catch jars, and t-shirts were criminal.” Although I was annoyed, complain that conservationists col-
stacked next to doughnuts, coffee, I wasn’t surprised. As someone in- lude to keep them off the best forage
and printed manuals. terested in all types of bees, I’m well by putting unreasonable restrictions
About halfway through the class- aware of this standard response. It’s on hive placement.
room training, a women in the back an “us” versus “them” world, and it’s In my opinion, beekeepers under-
of the room raised her hand. “I have high time we put a stop to it. estimate the value and contribution
a confession to make,” she said. “I am
a beekeeper.”
The temperature in the room
dropped ten degrees as a stony si-
lence fell over the attendees. In the si-
lence I became aware of a ventilation
fan humming softly in the ceiling and
muffled voices in the hallway. A child
whined somewhere in the distance. In
the frigid room, you could have heard
a bee hiccup.

Beekeepers Anonymous
The scene reminded me of televi-
sion depictions of AA meetings, the
kind where a courageous person
stands in front of the group and ad-
mits, “My name is Sue and I’m an
alcoholic.” But instead of applause or
recognition, this unfortunate woman
was met with ice.
I slid lower in my seat and let my
hair fall around my face. If I can’t Bee on Bee Attack: All bees compete with each other. Here a native bumble bee uses
see them, they can’t see me. Right? its right front leg to push a native leafcutter bee off a thistle flower. © Rusty Burlew

November 2018 1267


Halictus rubicundus: Although seldom recognized, the furrow bee Halictus rubicun-
dus is a tireless pollinator in many agricultural and natural settings. © Rusty Burlew
of native bees, and conservationists
overestimate the damage and com-
petition caused by honey bees. There
will always be beekeepers, and for
the sake of the planet, let’s hope there
will always be wild bees. In truth,
beekeepers and bee conservationists
have common problems and similar
interests. Instead of being conclusory
and antagonistic, both sides would
benefit by working together to make
life better for all bees.
whAt Bees Are we tAlking ABout?
I fault both groups for misrepre-
sentation. In North America, most
arguments I’ve heard assume there
are only two groups: honey bees and
Leafcutter domicile: Leafcutter domiciles like this one in a Touchet, Washington al-
falfa field can promote infections of chalkbrood disease. In many cases, the mortality
rate is so high that new cocoons must be purchased each year. © Rusty Burlew
1268
native bees. Conservationists seem
happy to defend all species of bees
except the European honey bee, Apis
mellifera. But wait! What about all the
other introduced bees?
At least 55 species of bees have
been introduced into North America
since the honey bee,1 and I know of
at least one more species that isn’t yet
listed.2 Some of these bees now have
massive distributions on the conti-
nent, including the alfalfa leafcut-
ting bee, Megachile rotundata, and the
horn-faced bee, Osmia cornifrons. Both
these bees were introduced to pol-
linate specific crops, and both easily
naturalized into the environment, just
like the honey bee.
Most introductions were acciden-
tal. Nevertheless, some of those, like
the European wool carder, Anthidium
manicatum, can now be found in back-
yards and wildlands from coast to
coast. In a few isolated cases, unsuc-
cessful attempts were made to eradi-
cate an introduced bee species, but
with little success.3
impActs of non-nAtiVe Bees
A comprehensive 2016 literature
review by Laura Russo of Penn State
University 1 examines the impacts of
non-native bee species throughout
the world. Russo analyzed no less
than 450 papers detailing both the
positive and negative effects of intro-
duced bees. She concluded that, for
the most part, we simply don’t know
or understand the impacts, especially
since any negative consequences are
often offset by positive ones.
Some of the possible negative ef-
fects from introduced bees are com-
petition with native bees for forage
and habitat, the spread of pathogens
and parasites, increased seed set in
invasive weeds, and decreased seed
set in native plants. On the plus side,
introduced species can increase the
pollination of agricultural crops, pol-
linate plants whose native pollinators
are in short supply, and can provide
pollination buffers against human-in-
duced habitat disturbance and chang-
es in climate.
Many of the consequences of in-
troduced bees, both negative and
positive, are hard to prove and even
more difficult to measure. The simple
presence of introduced bees—includ-
ing honey bees—doesn’t make them
guilty.
competition is normAl
Competition always exists when
two or more species are dependent
on the same resource. If you watch
a group of native bees on a patch of
flowers, you can see them tussle over
territory. They often butt into each
other, trying to force each other off
the flowers. Add introduced species
to the mix and they continue to be-
have in the same way. It’s what bees
do, large and small, native or not.
I’ve heard beekeepers fret over the
appearance of wool carder bees that
chase their honey bees away from
flowers. “It’s not fair!” they insist.
“How can we get rid of them?” But
their names alone tell you something.
The European wool carder bee and
the European honey bee are probably
just reawakening an old rivalry that
American Bee Journal
began in the homeland, one that ex-
isted long before beekeepers. It’s not
something to worry about.
competition chAnges with the
seAsons
Not every meal engenders a fight
between species. Food selection
among bees has a lot to do with
tongue length, floral structure, air
temperature, the number of available
resources, and the sugar content of
nectar. For example, honey bees will
compete with blue orchard bees, Os-
mia lignaria, on Siberian squill blos-
soms, but when the blue orchard bees
move over to the pear trees, the honey
bees demur. Honey bees are rarely in-
terested in low-sugar nectar that blue
orchard bees find attractive.
Similarly, bumble bees fly in colder
temperatures than honey bees, giving
them first dibs in the early part of the
season. And longer tongued bees find
plenty of nectar in deep tubular flow-
ers like red clover, which honey bees
find difficult to reach.4 When many
flowers are in bloom, each bee finds
her favorites. When few species are
available, competition increases for
what remains.
Of course, if you drop a truckload
of honey bees in a field, competition
among bees will increase. But the
magnitude of the increase and its im-
pact on native species is hard to de-
termine.
Although it is true that multiple
colonies can displace many indi-
vidual bees, the greatest competition
in that situation is likely among the
honey bee colonies themselves—all
of which are working the same crops
and liking the same flowers. The soli-
tary bees, with fewer mouths to feed,
can often make do with the scattered
weeds that honey bees ignore—a
good reason for not spraying road-
sides and field borders.
mAnAgement mAkes A difference
In her paper, Russo concluded that
the most detrimental aspect of non-
native species is the increased spread
of exotic diseases and pathogens.
Good examples include varroa mites
and tracheal mites, both parasites of
the honey bee. While these particular
parasites seem to be confined to honey
bees, other problems arise from their
presence. For example, because varroa
mites transmit bee viruses among col-
onies, the ambient level of bee viruses
in the environment seems to have in-
creased. These viruses, some of which
can be transferred to other bees via
November 2018
Monodontomerus: The Monodontomerus parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside the
cocoons of Osmia mason bees. Populations of the wasps build up when many mason
bees are raised in close proximity to each other. © Rusty Burlew
flowers, are beginning to show up in
species such as bumble bees.5
Regardless of a bee’s origin, man-
agement practices have an impact on
disease spread. A good example is
Nosema bombi.6 Although this patho-
gen can be found in isolated museum
specimens dating back to 1980, it
spread rapidly once we began raising
bumble bees for greenhouse pollina-
tion. When infected bees escaped into
the wild, they distributed the disease
to native populations. As a result,
the rusty-patched bumble bee is now
on the endangered species list, and
critical losses are occurring in several
closely-related species.
Alfalfa leafcutting bees are an in-
troduced species that suffers from
chalkbrood. But as far as we know,
chalkbrood occurs only incidentally
in wild populations, while it ravages
managed populations kept in dense-
ly-populated domiciles. Likewise,
when native Osmia ligaria are raised
in close quarters, they are frequently
decimated by the parasitic wasp,
Monodontomerous. However, in wild
populations where individuals are
spread apart, this wasp is only an oc-
casional problem. As many beekeep-
ers can attest, diseases and parasites
benefit from large and proximate
populations of their favorite host.
Because dense populations of bees
are oases for parasites, pathogens,
and predators, keepers of bees have
a responsibility to control the spread
of disease. Regardless of whether a
keeper has honey bees, mason bees,
leafcutters, or bumble bees, he should
understand how out-of-control dis-
ease can affect the larger ecosystem.
tAking AdVAntAge of whAt is missing
Although about 70 percent of all bee
species live in the ground, fully 77 per-
cent of all the accidentally introduced
species live in above-ground cavities.
Several reasons come to mind. Ob-
jects involved in international trade,
including wooden products, basketry,
bamboo, shipping crates, pallets, and
packing material may contain cavity-
nesting bees. These products are much
more likely to arrive on our shores
than shipments of soil, especially soil
containing viable cocoons. On top
of that, cavity-nesting adult bees are
more likely to find a home in the city
where cavities are plentiful, but plots
of undisturbed soil are scarce.
According to Russo, the majority of
introduced species in North America
first became established in the cities.
As the ground nesters were displaced
due to urbanization, the cavity nest-
ers filled the pollinator void. With so
many ground nesters gone, this band
of introduced urban pollinators—
which includes the honey bee—per-
forms a huge pollination service to
urban and residential landscapes. In
short, the assortment of urban pol-
linators has evolved to meet the de-
mands of the urban landscape.
the infAmous one-third
Just as conservationists short-
change the honey bee, beekeepers
routinely over-estimate the contribu-
tions made by their charges. Dozens
1269
of books, movies, blog posts, lectures,
articles, and news stories about hon-
ey bees in the last ten years began
with a variation of the same errone-
ous statement. “Honey bees pollinate
one-third of the human food supply.”
This tells you two things. First, bee-
keepers who write lack creativity.
Second, beekeepers who write are not
doing their homework.
About nine years ago, I corralled a
few people to help me find the source
of this rumor. As close as we could
come at that time was a quote by Ed-
ward O. Wilson in the foreword of
the 1996 book, The Forgotten Pollina-
tors. He explains that one-third of our
food supply is dependent on flying
beasts: “One of every three mouth-
fuls of food we eat, and of the bev-
erages we drink, are delivered to us
roundabout by a volant bestiary of
pollinators.”7 But a world of differ-
ence separates the class “volant bes-
tiary” from the class “honey bees.”
The difference includes birds, bats,
beetles, butterflies, and moths, not
to mention the other 20,000 species
of bees. Talk about overstating your
case. No wonder beekeepers are a
maligned group.
This bending of reality is similar to
a game of telephone where the influ-
ence of the honey bee inflates as the
message is passed along. “Flying
animals” becomes “insect pollina-
tors” which later becomes “bee pol-
linators” until, in the final message,
honey bees alone are doing all the
work. And don’t get me started on
units. When you say one-third of the
food supply, do you mean by weight?
Volume? Do you mean a third of crop
species? Or calories? Nutrients? Mon-
etary value? No one ever says what
they are measuring.
Keepers of honey bees need to real-
ize they’re not the only game in town,
and a lot of pollination is happening
behind their backs. In fact, my vote for
North America’s premier pollinator
would go to the orange-legged fur-
row bee, Halictus rubicundus. Found
naturally in every state from Alaska
to Florida, and across Canada from
the Northwest Territories to Quebec,
they work silently in the background
where no one notices them. I don’t
think I’ve ever seen a field or orchard
where they weren’t working their
stripes off, yet they are seldom seen
or credited.
the size of the Bee
The biggest roadblock to under-
standing pollinators is size. It’s hard
1270
to evaluate what you can’t see, and
many of the smaller bees are hard to
recognize as bees unless you work at
it. The smallest bee in North America,
Perdita minima, is a little less than 2
mm long, roughly the thickness of a
US five-cent coin. Once you picture
that length, try to imagine its com-
mensurate width. You get something
that looks like a tiny splinter, shorter
than the length of a lower case “t” in
this text.
Tiny bees do everything that “real”
bees do. They collect pollen, drink
nectar, mate, build homes, lay eggs,
and provision their young. They de-
fend their territory, fight off enemies,
and clean their antennae. And all
the while, they pollinate like crazy,
working big flowers and small. And
who gets credit for all this work? You
know who.
full circle
It seems that beekeepers and bee
conservationists should stop bick-
ering about who belongs here and
spend more energy finding ways to
help all bees. From a practical point
of view, bees compete not with each
other as much as they compete with
us. Habitat destruction and lack of
forage are problems larger than com-
petition between individual species.
We’ve taken the bees’ environment
and paved it, built it, urbanized and
polluted it. Then we mowed it, treat-
ed it, mulched it, and planted it with
grass and evergreens. Then we moni-
tor bee populations and say, “Gee,
bees are disappearing. There must be
too much competition!” This doesn’t
make any sense.
To the chagrin of some conserva-
tionists, honey bees are not going any-
where. Our system of agriculture de-
pends on them, and no bee exists that
can be used as effectively. Truthfully,
I’ve never met a bee conservationist
who didn’t eat foods the honey bees
make readily available. Conversely, I
rarely see a beekeeper who didn’t en-
joy a little chocolate or vanilla in their
diet, or maybe a tomato or a fig bar,
all available due to the hard work of
other pollinators.
tAking sides
So if you must take sides, side with
the bees. We don’t know all the an-
swers to bee health, but one thing
seems clear: healthy bees do better. We
can enhance the health of all bees by
providing a varied and plentiful diet
and by employing beekeeping prac-
tices that limit the spread of disease.
So just do it. Go plant some flowers.
And remember that although a small
garden or a few potted plants won’t
feed a colony of honey bees, it can
mean life or death for something the
size of a fruit fly. And since our bees
harvest from our neighbors’ lands,
both public and private, the least we
can do is pay back in flowers.
references
1 Russo, L. 2016. Positive and Negative Im-
pacts of Non-Native Bee Species Around
the World. Insects, 7(4), 69. http://doi.
org/10.3390/insects7040069.
2 Another wool carder bee, Anthidium flo-
rentinum, was recently found in Montreal.
See Normandin É, Vereecken NJ, Buddle
CM, Fournier V. 2017. Taxonomic and
functional trait diversity of wild bees in
different urban settings. PeerJ 5:e3051
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3051
3 Wenner A, Thorp R, Barthell J. 2008.
Biological control and eradication of feral
honey bee colonies on Santa Cruz Isand,
California: A summary. In Proceedings of
the 7th California Islands Symposium Insti-
tute For Wildlife Studies, Wildlife Studies,
Arcata, CA, USA (2) 5–8.
4 Red clover, Trifolium pratense, is frequently
confused with crimson clover, Trifolium in-
carnatum. Crimson clover is a great honey
bee plant but red clover, not so much.
5 Dolezal AG, Hendrix SD, Scavo NA,
Carrillo-Tripp J, Harris MA, Wheelock
MJ, Toth AL. 2016. Honey Bee Viruses in
Wild Bees: Viral Prevalence, Loads, and
Experimental Inoculation. PLoS ONE,
11(11), e0166190. http://doi.org/10.1371/
journal.pone.0166190
6 Cameron SA, Lim HC, Lozier JD, Du-
ennes MA, Thorp R. 2016. Test of the
invasive pathogen hypothesis of bumble
bee decline in North America. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences: 113 (16)
4386-4391; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1525266113.
7 Buchmann SL, Nabhan GP. 1996. The For-
gotten Pollinators. Washington, DC. Island
Press.
Rusty Burlew has
studied agriculture,
honey bees, and envi-
ronmental science for
over 30 years. She is a
passionate advocate of
native bee conserva-
tion and founded the
Native Bee Conser-
vancy in Washington State. You can visit her
website at https://honeybeesuite.com or
email her at rusty@honeybeesuite.com.
High Quality Beekeeping
Equipment & Bottling
Machines at swienty.com
... for better honey
American Bee Journal
B
ackyard beekeepers can take
the time to watch their bees
and learn a lot in the process.
You can take classes, read books, &
watch all the YouTube videos in the
world, but ultimately the bees are the
best teachers. When you document
your hive over time, you can see how
the colony develops and what behav-
iors the bees engage in at each time
of the year. Tracking the location and
size of the brood nest is of particular
interest, as you can see the colony
grow and shrink in response to food
supply and hours of daylight.
Building up this detailed type of in-
formation over a couple years helps a
beekeeper learn to work with the col-
ony’s natural instincts. The beekeeper
will more intuitively know when to
move frames or boxes around to help
the colony grow and thrive. Records
help me learn to anticipate what the
bees will do next, instead of being
surprised and frustrated.
When I started taking notes on my
hives, I immediately started drawing
pictures rather than writing a bunch
of words. It takes time to read over
notes. It takes a quick glance at one of
my drawings just before I inspect, to
know exactly what I need to do.
the BAsics
Let’s go through some basic draw-
ings to give you inspirations for your
own! Below is a basic drawing of
the nuc I started May 20th this year,
when I moved to Minneapolis. They
are Carniolan bees with the Minne-
sota Hygienic trait. The hive is named
Bled after a town located in Carniola,
now Slovenia, where part of my an-
cestors come from.
By June 10th, the colony had grown
substantially. As you can see, at the
November 2018
A Visual Approach to
Recordkeeping
Drawing
your
Hive Inspections
by Jennifer Radtke
top I put the date of the inspection a drone frame, and a honey frame.
(6/10/18) and the hive name (Bled). If I am planning on making a nuc
your hive can be defensive, you may from this colony, so I marked where
also want to the add the time of the in- the food supplies like pollen and hon-
spection and the approximate temper- ey were located. This will let me find
ature and weather to track if that has them quickly next time, so I can put
any bearing on their defensiveness. them in the nuc.
Next, I draw the brood nest. It is I don’t usually use a queen exclud-
so important to know exactly where er, so they do have one brood frame
the brood nest is located. There are up in the super, like a rebellious teen-
so many reasons: you know where to ager. I don’t mind as they usually
look for larvae and eggs to confirm stop putting brood up there when
you have a laying queen, you can they start shrinking their broodnest.
make sure there are enough empty Having a brood frame up high can be
frames for the queen to expand her
broodnest, so the hive doesn’t swarm,
it makes it easy to find a brood frame
to test for mites with the sugar or
alcohol roll, and if you need to do a
mite treatment, you know the cor-
rect place to apply Mite Away Quick
Strips to make it effective. If I notate
frames of brood, it assumes that I saw
eggs and larvae. If I only saw capped
brood, I would label the brood “only
capped brood.”
I make a couple notes under “Next
Steps.” A couple days before I in-
spect, I look at these next steps, so I
have time to get the equipment ready
to carry them out.
On the right is the same hive on
7/5/18 with honey boxes.
My quick notation is:
H = honey or nectar
P = pollen
B = brood
For example, if we look at the sec-
ond box from the bottom, we can
read it from the left: a brood frame
(surprise!), a honey frame, 6 frames of
brood where I also spotted the queen,
1271
advantageous as it allows me to do a
super quick inspection by just look-
ing at this frame. If it has larvae or
eggs on it, I know my queen’s likely
still alive. I can then sugar roll test
from this frame and close the hive
back up, without looking at anything
else. Since I’ve noted exactly where
the frame is in the hive, the inspection
is super fast and to the point.
When I inspect, I am focused on
4 things (listed below). These four
things are going to show up in my
drawings in the following ways.
1 Larvae/eggs - to verify there is a
laying queen.
Drawings: if brood listed, then this
assumes I saw eggs/larvae
2 Hive Size - Assessing whether the
size of the woodenware matches
the population of bees. This lets
me assess when I need to add
boxes, because the hive is growing
or take off boxes when the popu-
lation shrinks in late summer or
early fall.
Drawings: I will note if the hive
looks very full. Under next steps, I
will say to add or subtract a box.
3 Varroa mite level – I test regularly
using the sugar roll.
Drawings: I write the mite level up
on top. It is always per 300 bees (my
actual result of the sugar roll test).
4 Food supply – do they have enough
pollen and honey in the hive?
Drawings: I can see how much hon-
ey they have. I make a note if the
larvae look dry, indicating there is a
shortage of pollen.
Pictures are really great for when
you do splits. You can just draw ar-
rows of which boxes went where.
Below is an example with the nuc I
made, but just showing arrows with
1272
frames as it was a small split. The
original inspection on July 5th is in one
color (purple). I use a second color
(pink) to indicate what I used to make
the nuc on July 11th. With a glance
you can see the difference and exactly
what type of manipulation I did.
whAt QuAlifies As A Brood frAme?
I teach beekeepers and a few of
my bee apprentices got very detailed
about what was on a frame. I would
ask them what was on the frame and
they would answer, “10% pollen, 25%
honey, and the rest brood.” I didn’t
care about all that other stuff, just
that it’s a brood frame. If a frame has
over 50% brood on it, then to me it’s a
brood frame. If less than 50% brood, I
may notate ½ brood or ¼ brood.
Note: I rarely have frames with less
than 50% brood as I keep my brood
frames open for brood to prevent
swarming. If the frame becomes filled
with more than 50% honey, I move
it to the outside so the bees fill it all
with honey when that batch of brood
hatches out.
more detAils
for Beginning Beekeepers
I recommend to beginning bee-
keepers that during their first couple
years their main activity is to watch
and listen closely to the bees. This
means paying attention to when you
get a guard bee on your veil and what
you did a few seconds before to cause
it. It means listening when the sounds
goes up a notch in the hive, indicat-
ing that it’s time to close up the hive.
It means noticing when there are de-
formed wings on a bee (time to do the
sugar roll mite test).
Paying close attention during your
beginning years will allow you to
read the attitude and intentions of
your bees very quickly in later years.
Even after 14 years of beekeeping, if
I watch and listen closely when I in-
spect a hive I always learn something
new. Plus, it’s fun to go through the
hive slowly, watch your queen lay,
and really look at the frames and bees.
My first bee apprentices really en-
joyed going through frame by frame
and detailing exactly what was on the
frame, e.g. 10% pollen, 25% honey,
65% brood. They said it really helped
them understand the bees and where
they were putting things. They could
also see the changes as the year went
on. For the first few years of beekeep-
ing, it may be helpful for you to go
into more detail with your drawings
and notate every frame.
Here is an example of my Bled hive
from 6/10/18 but with greater detail:
In this case I was particularly inter-
ested in making sure there was room
for the queen to lay. They do have
one frame of nectar in the middle of
their broodnest, but there are some
empty cells. They also recently drew
out wax on two new frames and the
queen laid eggs in them. Going into
greater detail helps you see the cycles
of the hive. In this case I shaded in the
worker brood frames, so that you can
see the brood nest or proverbial “for-
est” more clearly and not get lost in
the trees (or all the detail).
One of my apprentices made each
item (honey, pollen, capped brood,
eggs, etc.) a color and color-coded her
drawings. This individual went into
great detail on each frame: 10% pollen,
25% honey, 65% brood each noted in a
different color. Go into as much detail
as you find useful. At the same time
make sure to see the big picture and
the shape and size of the brood nest.
how do you rememBer it All?
If you have an inspection partner,
one of you can notate while the other
inspects. One of my apprentices who
inspects solo records herself on her
phone and goes back and listens to it
and draws it out. I have great short-
term and spatial memory, so after in-
specting I can quickly make a draw-
ing of the hive. If I inspect multiple
hives, I need to stop between hives
and make the drawing or I will for-
get what I saw in the first hive when
I inspect the second. For the detailed
frame by frame inspection above, I
needed to video myself inspecting so
I could remember every single frame.
trAcking oVer the yeArs
You can look back over the last
couple years and consolidate your
American Bee Journal
information together. For example, I been as crucial for me to track. Now

Sanders Honey
counted brood frames from August that I am in Minnesota, I am keep-
– October in my 4 hives to see when ing track of the dates when specific

Queens
they would shrink down their brood plants start blooming. It’s also great
nest slightly. This was in Oakland, to record the weather each year with

California, so they have two boxes of
brood going through winter, but they
had more brood in spring and sum-
mer. After tracking a couple years,
it seemed like September marked
the time when most of my colonies
shrink their brood nest slightly. The
reason I was tracking broodnest size
was to differentiate if higher mite
levels were due to the bees naturally
shrinking their broodnest or if the
mites were coming from other hives
in the area.
I tracked mite levels every year
as well. In 2015, mite levels rose to
treatment thresholds in September.
In 2016, they rose in August. In 2017,
they rose mid-July. This year it seems
they are staying low so far.
I work with numerous apprentices,
who are learning beekeeping from me.
To help us better understand mite pres-
sure in our area, I made up a spread-
sheet. I shared it on Google drive with
my apprentices, so they could put in
their mite counts. This is a great way
to see mite counts in a local area. Here
is an example from last year:
Key for treatment:
For Sale
your hive notes, so you can see what
the bees do when there is a very rainy
spring versus a hot, sunny spring.
I like to track my brood nest, so I can
easily find a frame to do the sugar roll
Josh Sanders
test. However, as I’ve taken notes over 7288 Perdie Lee Rd
the years, I’ve found more and more
uses for them. Perhaps the next time Nicholls GA 31554
you inspect, you will consider mak-
ing a visual record. I’ve found them
912-399-8480
extremely useful, as I am much more
visually oriented. Let me know if you
conceive any improvements and inspi-
rations for drawings of your colonies!
Jennifer Radtke has
been keeping bees for
14 years. Five years
ago she created a
beekeeping educa-
tion program for urban
backyard beekeepers
at the BioFuel Oasis
Cooperative in Berke-
ley, California. Check
out her beekeeping videos and photos on
Instagram: instagram.com/jenniferradtke

BB=Break in Brood
OA=Oxalic Acid Glycerin
MA1= 1 strip Mite Away
MA2= 2 strips Mite Away

This kind of spreadsheet could be

a great tool for local bee clubs to use
to track mite counts in a specific area,
and even pinpoint a time to recom-
mend treatment.

Food Supply & Weather

Oakland has plenty of food (pollen
& nectar) year-round, so this hasn’t

November 2018 1273

 Durham, NH: New England’s
First Bee City USA
F
orty years ago, Durham, NH,
a seacoast town with a keen
interest in protecting the en-
vironment, became NH’s first Tree
City USA. The town’s most recent
achievement protects pollinators:
on February 6, 2017, Durham was
recognized as a Bee City USA, the
first in the Northeast. Durham never
rests on its many laurels. This com-
munity keeps evolving and adopting
new land stewardship practices. The
residents share a strong belief in pro-
tecting and preserving their natural
resources. Todd Selig, Durham Town
Administrator, reported, “Sustain-
ability and resiliency are important
to us.” They pursue these concepts in
many varied ways.
In 2016, Durham’s 640 kw solar ar-
ray went online and now provides all
the energy needed by Durham’s town
buildings, with the exception of the
Bee City USA sign in Durham
November 2018
By Melissa Moore
wastewater treatment plant which still town boards, a $200 application fee,
draws additional power. A substantial an annual report, and year-round
portion of land owned by the town educational and promotional initia-
of Durham, and/or the University of tives to promote pollinator conserva-
NH (UNH) is protected permanently tion. A key component in the process
through conservation easements. This is designating a local government or-
ensures that the beauty of the land- ganization as a sponsor. In Durham,
scape isn’t dramatically changed, as the Agricultural Commission is the
the town is home to the state’s largest designated sponsor. NH created the
university. Demand for student hous- opportunity for municipalities to cre-
ing looms large, creating pressure for ate non-regulatory Ag Commissions
future housing developments. in 2007. Durham’s Ag Commission
Durham enjoys a unique geograph- currently has seven members with
ic location. A significant amount of five alternates. Lee Alexander, an Ag
Durham’s waterfront acreage is on Commission member, reported, “It’s
Great Bay, home to the Great Bay Na- not like you earn the designation and
tional Estuarine Research Reserve. then say we’re done.” The Ag Com-
The Lamprey River, within the town mission works throughout the year to
limits, has been designated a “Wild promote pollinators.
and Scenic River” by the National Educational programs at the library
Park Service. encourage homeowners to rethink
Lee Alexander, a hobbyist bee- their lawn mowing practices. Patrons
keeper and Research Associate Pro- at the library receive free bookmarks
fessor Emeritus, spearheaded the
effort to win the Bee City USA des-
ignation. Durham joins 72 other
Bee City USA affiliates around the
country. The program launched in
2012 when Asheville, NC became
the inaugural Bee City USA. Now
these pollinator friendly communi-
ties have spread coast to coast, with
a majority located in North Carolina.
The Bee City USA program joined
forces with the Xerces Society in June
2018. It’s a perfect union, as the two
organizations have compatible mis-
sions to preserve and protect polli-
nators worldwide.
How does a town or city become
recognized as a Bee City? The appli-
cation process requires working with Lee Alexander inspecting hives
1275

Lee and Elaine Alexander in their pollina-
tor garden reviewing the bee balm
with practical tips for “Five things
You Can Do to Bee-Friendly to Pol-
linators.” The top five recommenda-
tions encourage homeowners to “Re-
think your lawn, plant flowers and
herbs that attract bees, plant fruiting
trees and shrubs, favor the growth
of native trees and shrubs, and ‘bee
aware,’ there are many types of bees.”
In addition to honey bees, many spe-
cies of bumble bees and other native
bees are part of NH’s ecosystem. The
threat of stings is clarified with the
following statement: “Most bees are
not aggressive, while wasps, hornets,
and yellow jackets can be.”
This spring, Alexander launched a
Dandelion Contest and awarded hon-
ey to the homeowner who resisted
mowing during the dandelion flow
and whose lawn had the most blooms.
The Ag Commission sponsors a float
in the Memorial Day Parade and this
year people were encouraged to dress
in costume for the event. Bee anten-
nas were popular as well as black and
yellow attire.
August 18, was Durham’s 6th An-
nual Farm Day presented by the Dur-
ham Agricultural Commission. The
public was invited to tour participat-
Durham's Ag Logo
1276
ing family farms, two UNH Research
Farms, and participate in a walk-
ing tour of Durham’s Food Friendly
Yards. These yards support food pro-
duction and pollinator habitats.
Ray LaRoche, a sixth-generation
farmer and the Ag Commission’s Vice
President, was enthusiastic about the
attendance he had during Durham’s
Farm Day. “The weather wasn’t ideal,
but we still had over 200 people turn
out.” At the LaRoche Farm, visitors en-
joyed a sheep shearing demonstration,
display of plowing and field tillage
equipment, plus a talk on beekeeping.
One of Lee Alexander’s hives is lo- Farm scene with tractor and the ag com-
cated on the LaRoche Farm. LaRoche mission logo
said, “Just as soon as Lee started talk-
ing about beekeeping, visitors gath- use. Since the Ag Commission’s role
ered around to hear what he had to is not regulatory, the members solely
say.” The visitors enjoyed honey advocate for the judicial use of chemi-
samples as Lee shared some basics cals, emphasizing an integrated pest
about the hardworking honey bees management approach. Whenever
that provided the delicacy. “We’re possible, they encourage homeown-
hoping a family would be interested ers to adopt practices that have the
in adopting this hive and working “least ill effect on pollinators.”
with Lee to manage it through the “We work with our Public Works
year,” LaRoche said. Department to develop a control plan
Alexander concurred, “Ray loves that is strategic and thoughtful. Our
having the bee hive on the farm. This goal is to have a holistic approach to
individual could get involved for these management concerns,” said
minimal investment. I’d be happy to Todd Selig, Durham Town Adminis-
help them.” Later he clarified, “I don’t trator. Two examples the town of Dur-
think there’s going to be a magical in- ham has adopted includes 1) a revised
crease in the number of beekeepers mowing schedule to protect monarch
in Durham. That’s really not the pur- habitats and 2) discontinuing the use
pose of the Bee City USA designation. of herbicides containing glyphosate.
It’s more building the awareness of “The biggest challenge we face right
the importance of pollinators.” now is controlling invasives in some
Ray LaRoche manages his diversi- spots in the town forests. These inva-
fied farm in a way that aligns nicely sives have proven hard to get ahead
with the Bee City USA mission. His of and proliferate when controlled by
chief products are hay, beef, and simply hand pulling.”
maple syrup. He does his farming “Durham,” Selig added, “has splen-
after hours and on weekends, when did natural resources and breathtak-
he is home from his full-time job at ing open space. We all work tirelessly
the Division of Public Works. La- to protect these.”
Roche described his 126-acre farm as
chemical free. The field land devoted
to hay is fertilized with green cover
crops like oats. Recently he reseeded
a hay field with 50% red clover and
50% timothy grass. Next spring, he
anticipates that other pollinators will
get a boost from foraging in the red
clover. White clover tends to appear
in grazed pastures.
All these activities help meet the Ag
Commission’s responsibility to edu-
cate the public and raise awareness
of pollinator needs. The resolution
adopted by the Town Council and
submitted to the Bee City USA orga-
nization addresses taking prelimi-
nary steps to make smart decisions
regarding insecticide and herbicide Tree City and Bee City USA
American Bee Journal
 Communication is key in their de- of resources on their website. Among yard is populated with zinnias, Mo-
cision making. The Durham Friday the resources are links to the Xerces narda (bee balm), and wildflowers
Updates, a digital newsletter with an Society, and the North American Pol- throughout the lawn. “I take pride
online archive, is shared electroni- linator Partnership (P2). The com- in my lawn,” Lee said. “It looks quite
cally with residents to keep every- prehensive P2 website is also where different from a chem lawn.” Their
one informed on news and happen- green thumb enthusiasts will discov- pollinator friendly yard on the banks
ings. Selig said, “I drive this effort. er a link to the Bee Smart Pollinator of the Oyster River is hospitable to
Outdated newsletters serve no one. Gardener app. This free download his bees. “This has been a strong year
When new initiatives come up, we helps gardeners create customizable for honey,” he reported. He manages
talk about it early and encourage ev- plants lists from the app’s library of hives populated by Carniolans and
eryone to get involved. We have bet- over 1,000 native plants. The plant Russian bees.
ter public policy, when we’ve heard recommendations are specific to the Alexander forecasted the Ag Com-
from people.” searcher’s area based on zip code. mission is likely to feature a honey
Selig credits this process to help- Lee Alexander and his wife Elaine extraction demonstration at a future
ing usher the Bee City USA designa- are avid gardeners themselves. Their Farm Day Event. “We had hoped to
tion through to completion. Just as
soon as Lee Alexander and the Ag
Commission brought it forward to
the Town Administrator and Town
Council, residents read about it in the
Friday Updates. They had a chance to
express their opinions, ask questions,
and learn about how they might get
involved. When the resolution was
put to a vote, people had confidence
that it made sense and was policy
they could support. “To keep resi-
dents informed of our activities, the
Ag Commission submits regular
posts to the Friday Updates website,”
Alexander said.
The Bee City USA resolution the
town adopted points out that the des-
ignation leads to many positive out-
comes for communities including in-
creased yields of fruit and vegetable
crops, building community among
like-minded partners, and increasing
demand at local garden centers for
plants that attract pollinators.
Beth Simpson, owner of Rolling
Green Nursery in nearby Greenland,
NH confirmed that demand for pol-
linator friendly plants is growing.
“School pollinator gardens are some
of our biggest and most frequent cus-
tomers,” she said. “We carry a wide
number of plants that are ideal in
these settings.” Joe Pye Weed, Cardi-
nal Flower, and Buttonbush are three
top favorites for pollinator gardens
her customers purchase.
At the nursery she runs with her
husband Rick Simpson, they main-
tain extensive display gardens, so
homeowners can see what the plant
will look like when it settles into a
garden bed. “People ask us for plants
that have not been exposed to neonic-
otinoids. We know our suppliers and
we know they are going with biologi-
cals to avoid the ill effects from neon-
ics,” Beth said.
To assist home gardeners with
pollinator plantings, Rolling Green
Nursery offers links to a wide range

November 2018 1277

Two hives with the bees on front porch
of both hives
include it in this year’s Farm Day
Event, but the weather didn’t cooper-
ate.” One issue the Ag Commission-
ers expect to take up soon is a rede-
sign of their logo. Currently the logo,
features an apple, a chicken, and a
barn. “But that apple was pollinated
by a honey bee,” Alexander said, “So
a honey bee needs to be added.”
Raising awareness of pollinator
protection is the main aim of the
Bee City program. If more beekeep-
ers convinced their towns and cities
to apply, it would help provide in-
creased forage for all pollinators. To
learn more about the program, visit:
www.beecityusa.org

Melissa Moore has

been a beekeeper for
four years. She is a
member of her local
bee club. As a free-
lance writer, she has
submitted articles to
agricultural and hor-
ticultural publications that circulate in the
Northeast. Her hands-on experience from
her involvement with her family’s diversified
210 acre farm. Through her writing, Melissa
likes to share great stories relating to the
environment and excellent land stewardship.

E. Suhre Bees
Package Bees available April and May

Queens available April through October

For information, pricing or ordering

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1278 American Bee Journal

 Notes from the Lab:
The Latest Bee Science Distilled
by Scott McArt

T
his is our twelfth “Notes from different insecticides, are likely to be For their study, Nicholls and col-
the Lab,” which means the col- used in place of neonicotinoids. But leagues sampled pollen and nectar
umn has been featured in ABJ what about risk to pollinators from from experimental bumble bee colo-
for one year. That’s a shorter period the neonicotinoids? Will that risk nies that they placed in several rural
of time than several neonicotinoid in- dissipate quickly? More specifically, or suburban areas in the U.K. They
secticides are known to be able to per- when and where is risk from neonicoti- sampled colonies multiple times dur-
sist in soils. For example, if I applied noid exposure likely to change? This ing each summer over a period of
a sufficient quantity of thiamethoxam is the topic for our twelfth “Notes three years: prior to the initial neonic-
to plants in my garden last year at this from the Lab,” where we highlight otinoid restrictions (2013), during im-
time, there’s a good chance I could “Monitoring neonicotinoid expo- plementation of the restrictions (2014),
dig up some soil from my garden to- sure for bees in rural and peri-urban and following restrictions (2015).
day and find traces of thiamethoxam areas of the U.K. during the transi- They also sampled pollen and nectar
that are still there. And because thia- tion from pre- to post-moratorium,” from honey bee colonies in 2014 to see
methoxam and other neonicotinoids written by Elizabeth Nicholls and col- if similar patterns were observed for
are systemic insecticides, that means leagues and published in the journal both honey bees and bumble bees.
they can be taken up from soils and Environmental Science and Technol- Once the samples were collected,
accumulated in plant tissues, includ- ogy [52:9391-9402 (2018)]. the authors took the pollen and nectar
ing pollen and nectar. Which means
the thiamethoxam I applied last year
could potentially be in the pollen and
nectar of plants that are blooming in
my garden right now.
This topic has been of recent inter-
est to scientists and policy makers
due to the restrictions that are being
placed on neonicotinoid usage in
many parts of the world. The Euro-
pean Union decided in spring 2018 to
impose broad restrictions on neonic-
otinoid usage, which follows up on
partial restrictions that were imposed
in 2014. Several Canadian provinces
have issued their own restrictions on
neonicotinoids recently, and many
U.S. states have either imposed or are
considering partial restrictions.
So, what do scientists and policy
makers expect to see as a result of
restrictions on neonicotinoid usage?
The ramifications will certainly be
complex, since different crop protec-
tion strategies, including usage of Sampling for pollen

November 2018 1279

 One of the bumble bee colonies sampled.
back to the lab and prepared them for
pesticide residue analyses. These anal-
yses were conducted via liquid chro-
matography and mass spectrometry,
which allowed the researchers to sepa-
rate the pesticides of interest (i.e., dif-
ferent neonicotinoids), then determine
the amount of each of them. In total,
Nicholls and colleagues analyzed 408
pollen and nectar samples from 222
bumble bee colonies and 15 honey
bee colonies across the three years of
the study. They screened for five dif-
ferent neonicotinoids in each sample
– thiamethoxam, clothianidin, imida-
cloprid, acetamiprid and thiacloprid.
So, what did they find? Did the
pollen and nectar contain neonic-
otinoids? Yes, a large portion of the
samples from bumble bee colonies
(40%) and honey bee colonies (68%)
did contain neonicotinoid residues.
For bumble bees, pollen was more of-
ten contaminated than nectar, and the
total concentration of neonicotinoids
was 10 times greater in pollen vs. nec-
tar. For honey bees, neonicotinoids
were found in about the same pro-
portion of pollen vs. nectar samples,
and the total concentration was about
Sampling nectar from a honey bee colony
1280
Honey bee hives loaded into a truck for transport.
3 times greater in nectar than pollen.
While most concentrations were low
(and therefore predicted to pose min-
imal risk to bees), some detections
were high. For example, thiamethox-
am was found at up to 38.8 ng/g, also
known as parts per billion (ppb), in
bumble bee pollen. If consumed, this
level of thiamethoxam is predicted to
kill ~40% of bumble bees within 48
hrs, as the LD50 for thiamethoxam is
0.005 ug/bee.
Did exposure to neonicotinoids
change over the course of the study?
This is where the study by Nicholls
and colleagues really breaks ground.
The authors found a substantial re-
duction in the concentrations of
neonicotinoids that bees were ex-
posed to in 2015 (post-restrictions)
compared to 2013 (pre-restrictions)
in rural agricultural areas. Thus, the
study provides evidence that expo-
sure to neonicotinoids was reduced
as a result of restrictions on usage.
Bees were still exposed to neonicoti-
noids in 2015, which could be due
to environmental persistence of the
pesticides or other reasons, but the
concentrations were generally lower,
Sampling wax from a bumble bee colony
especially for the specific neonicoti-
noids affected by restrictions.
At the same time, neonicotinoid
concentrations in suburban areas did
not change substantially between 2013
and 2015. This is perhaps not surpris-
ing, since the 2014 restrictions were
limited to bee-attractive flowering
crops. The take-home message: more
could be done to mitigate risk from
neonicotinoids in suburban areas.
What about the types of neonic-
otinoids found in pollen and nectar?
Did that change? Interestingly, the
types of neonicotinoids detected in
pollen and nectar also changed from
2013 to 2015. Thiamethoxam was
commonly detected and at relatively
high concentrations in pollen samples
in 2013, but was only occasionally
present and in trace amounts in 2015.
At the same time, acetamiprid and
thiacloprid – neonicotinoids that were
not impacted by the 2014 restrictions –
were found more often and at higher
concentrations in pollen in 2015. Thus,
the evidence supports the notion
that pesticide applicators may have
switched to alternative insecticides in
response to the 2014 restrictions.
American Bee Journal
 This last point is important because
a major unanswered question regard-
ing the implications of neonicotinoid
restrictions is which alternative crop
protection strategies will be used, in-
cluding the use of alternative insecti-
cides. While neonicotinoids represent
a clear risk to bees, there are myriad
other pesticides that also pose risks,
some of which are even more acutely
toxic than neonicotinoids. A next step
for longitudinal (i.e., multi-year) risk
assessment studies is to see how ex-
posure to both neonicotinoids and
other pesticides changes over time.
Once such assessments are conduct-
ed, we’ll be better able to understand
November 2018
whether pesticide risk to bees has im- Scott McArt, an As-
proved (or not) in response to neonic- sistant Professor of
otinoid restrictions. Pollinator Health,
helps run the Dyce
Until next time, bee well and do Lab for Honey Bee
good work, Studies at Cornell
Scott McArt University in Ithaca,
New York. He is par-
reference: ticularly interested in
Nicholls, E., C. Botias, E. L. Rotheray, P. scientific research that can inform manage-
Whitehorn, A. David, R. Fowler, T. Da- ment decisions by beekeepers, growers and
vid, H. Feltham, J. L. Swain, P. Wells, E. the public.
M. Hill, J. L. Osborne and D. Goulson.
2018. Monitoring neonicotinoid exposure Email: shm33@cornell.edu
for bees in rural and peri-urban areas of Lab website: blogs.cornell.edu/mcartlab
the U.K. during the transition from pre- to Pollinator Network: pollinator.cals.cornell.edu
post-moratorium. Environmental Science Facebook: facebook.com/dycelab
and Technology 52:9391-9402.
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(231) 735-1203.
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING-Net price $1.00 per word per insertion. Initials, letters as in street address, counted as individual words. No advertisement accepted for less than 10
words. Payable cash in advance. Blind Classified 10% additional. (A blind ad is one in which responses are addressed to the ABJ and then forwarded to the advertiser.) Extreme care
always is exercised in establishing the reliability of all advertisers, but the publishers do not guarantee advertisements. Orders close the 20th of the second month preceding cover
date. Send typed copy to : Advertising Dept., American Bee Journal, 51 S. 2nd St., Hamilton, IL 62341 or FAX to 217-847-3660 or e-mail to: abjads@dadant.com.
November 2018
American Bee Journal
PARSONS’ GOLD SOLUTION - The
Only Solution For Keeping Your Honey
Bees Healthy! Herbal Treatment Oil &
Jelly - Bee Grooming Stimulant - Train
The Bees To Do The Work - Healthy
Bees Year Round. No Negative Effects
On Bees, Queen, Wax or Honey. Busi-
ness (419) 273-3066; Cell (419) 235-
7037. www.parsonsgold-honeybees.
com #33 Treatment Loaded Syringe -
$20.00 plus $8.00 S/H. Checks, Money
Orders, Credit Cards. Parsons’ Gold
Apiaries, c/o Robert B. Parsons, 2092
Twp. Rd., 195, Forest, OH 45843.
For Sale – 3000 10-frame singles. 2015
queens, new equipment. Also, 5-frame
nucs available. Call Chris (941) 720-
6025.
For Sale: 200 5-frame nucs and 400 single hives
in Florida. (772) 633-1134.
Bobcat, Hummerbee and Superbee Trailers cus-
tom built. New S450 Bobcat’s, set up with masts
and fifth wheels complete. Fifth Wheels sold
separately. Used Bobcat’s bought, sold and trade-
ins welcome. Custom truck bodies and Custom
smoker boxes, all built by a beekeeper FOR bee-
keepers. www.tropictrailer.com - Eli Mendes
239-340-0484, eli@tropictrailer.com
5 frame Nucs, 10 frame single hives on four-way
pallets, doubles, and story and a half hives, avail-
able year round in large and small quantities. Lo-
cated in the Florida Panhandle. Call for pricing,
Ryan Faircloth 850-510-4627.
FOR SALE: Deep extracting supers, 9-frames per
super. (308) 470-0177.
5 Frame nucs in NorthEast Oklahoma. Available
Late April through Fall. No minimums. Taking
orders now for Spring 2018. www.RoarkAcres.
com Michael Roark (918)578-9201 nucs@
roarkacres.com
Hundreds of boxes with drawn comb. Deeps
+ shallows. Phoenix, Arizona (480) 206-8740.
FOR SALE: 200 Five frame NUCS. Tampa
FL. 813-451-6334.
ATTENTION BEEKEEPERS!!! OUT OF BUSI-
NESS SALE IN CALIFORNIA!!! REDUCED
PRICING!!! TRUCKS DO NOT MEET CALI-
FORNIA CARB REQUIREMENTS. 2 - 2007
Freightliner Flatbeds, 10-Wheelers 23’x8’
bed $30,000 each. 2006 International Flatbed
6-Wheeler 23’x8’ bed $15,000. USED IN BEE-
KEEPING OPERATION. ALL IN EXCEL-
LENT SHAPE. CALL FOR DETAILS - ANNE
661-805-0058.
New Beekeepers Forklift Trailers: 8000 lb. torflex
axle, 17.5/16 ply tires, electric brakes, tilt bed, ex-
panded metal treads. $6,500.00 For photos E-mail:
gcamfab@yahoo.com 269-685-1000 (cell/text).
PLASTIC FRAME SAVERS – excellent on
wood or plastic comb. (805) 234-0747.
New never used Toms sheeter and embossing
machine - $15,000. Call: 620-365-5956. New
set embossed roller and preroller - $2100.00.
New 38-extractor - $250. 4-frame - $300. New
honey pump - $450.00. ALSO: Wanted to buy
beeswax stored at Dadants.
MITE MEDICATION FOR SALE! ALL
TYPES, BEST PRICES, AND MORE! CALL
OR TEXT 909-800-2695 TODAY
FOR SALE: SEMI-LOADS OF DOUBLES - IN
OCTOBER - MIDWEST 308-470-0177.
500 colonies, 10 frame, two story on 4 way pallets
in Northeast Georgia. $225.00 each under 100.
$200.00 each over 100. Bob Binnie 706 782 6722.
120 Frame Air Ram Cowen Extracting System,
in excellent condition ready for you to install and
extract your honey crop. Includes deboxer. Has
been reconditioned, manufacture date 11/98.
$25,000.00 sold on first come basis. Reason: Up-
grading to newer system. Photos sent per your
request. Contact Steve 239-896-0777, or Ed
231-408-7485. Email: seisele007@gmail.com;
edeisele@gmail.com.
Hives for sale, double deep, before or after
almonds. Minimum lots of 96 hives. Call (559)
674-1842.
BUSINESS FOR SALE! 600 PLUS HIVES, COWEN
120 EXTRACTING SYSTEM, HONEY TANKS,
SUPERS, BOBCAT, TRUCKS AND MORE! EV-
ERYTHING YOU NEED TO SUCCEED! POSSI-
BLE OWNER FINANCING, PLEASE CONTACT
KEVIN@SARTINFARMS.COM 909-800-2695
HIVES FOR SALE! DOUBLE DEEPS, GOOD
EQUIPMENT, CALL WITH ANY QUESTIONS
909-800-2695
Turnkey operation in Southwest
Idaho – 40 years in business. 8-frame
equipment – 3000 colonies. 4 trucks,
2 Swingers, 50+ locations. 3,000
sq. ft. shop and extracting equip-
ment. 2,800 sq. ft. home and 17 acres
available. Serious inquiries only.
goldenbeeinc.com or call Golden
Millet (208) 250-8420.
Top quality cut comb honey. Comb in the jar,
and extracted star thistle, basswood, Florida or-
ange and melaleuca free pepper honey. 10 frame
singles and 5 frame nuc’s available for almonds.
Call Larry at 231-735-1203 or email debbie@
hilbertshoney.com
Dakota Gunness de-capper. Used one season
with approximately 1000 frames run through it.
In “mint” condition. Asking $6,000 OBO. Call
Jerry at 605-226-3390. Aberdeen, South Dakota.
HONEY FOR SALE
Excellent clover honey in drums and light beeswax
available. Mark Gilberts Apiaries, (608) 482-1988.
U.S. sweet clover, alfalfa, thistle mix, (9 drums of
black locust-limited supply), white honey, melter
honey, filtered, new drums, excellent honey- f.o.b.
several loads available. Produced by Baldwin
Apiaries, Darlington, WI (608) 776-3700.
Very nice looking & good tasting Nebraska
bottling honey. (402) 319-5125.
1283
CLOVER – Buckwheat, Orange, Tupelo, and
Wildflower – pails or drums. PURE SWEET
HONEY FARM, 514 Commerce Parkway,
Verona, Wisconsin 53593. (608) 845-9601.
Clover, Basswood, Wildflower honey available in
drums in WI. Great tasting! Light beeswax avail-
able. Call (262) 689-1000.
Honey and beeswax for sale. Clover, Orange
Blossom, Wildflower. Many varietals available.
Smitty Bee Honey (712) 748-4292.
QUALITY HONEY, barrels, your buckets.
Hollenbeck, Kirksville, Missouri. (660) 665-2542
evenings.
Viet Nam, Indian and Brazilian
honey for sale in bulk. Beeswax and
bee pollen in bulk. Please call 908-
967-1484. Email: info@Sarahimpex.
com
Premium Michigan Honey from blueberries,
wildflowers and thistle. Selling by truck load.
Call Cory at 269.217.4404.
Premium Florida honeys for all your pack-
ing needs: gallberry, mangrove, pepper,
orange blossom, call Ed 231-408-7485 or Steve
239-896-0777, email: edeisele@gmail.com or
seisele007@gmail.com.
HONEY AND
BEESWAX WANTED
HONEY WANTED—Extracted or comb.
LEIGHTON’S HONEY, INC., 1203 Commerce
Ave. Haines City, Florida 33844. (863) 422-1773.
FAX (863) 421-2299
HONEY WANTED– all grades. Also, honey
barrels for sale. Contact Pure Sweet Honey Farm
Inc., 514 Commerce Parkway, Verona, WI. (608)
845-9601.
Round comb, Fresh, good tasting
Pollen, Varietal Honeys. 800-678-1226.
tasty@zspecialtyfood.com
HONEY PRICE UPDATES. Call Honey
Hot Line. (763) 658-4193.
ROYAL JELLY
BEST 100% PURE FRESH ROYAL JELLY.
$65.00 per kilo + shipping. HIGHEST PO-
TENCY. LOWEST PRICES guaranteed on
large orders. TOP QUALITY. Stakich, Inc.
248-642-7023 X 301
POLLEN
QUALITY, CLEAN, LOW MOISTURE POL-
LEN $5.50/lb. Min. 10 lbs. + shipping. LOW-
EST PRICES guaranteed for large orders.
Stakich, Inc. Phone 248-642-7023 X 301
Fresh 2018 Northern California raw bulk pollen
available. Available raw uncleaned and semi-dried
and cleaned. Call for pricing at (916) 224-2211.
Fresh California pollen. Spring blend of wildflow-
ers. Selling in bulk and shipping available to 50
states. Cleaned, dried and frozen or raw. Call for
pricing (916) 956-8869.
Irradiated fresh pollen guaranteed from Cali-
fornia. We have irradiated fresh bee pollen for
sale. For inquiries or to place an order, please
email us at: backroadbeekeeping@gmail.com,
or call 916-716-0302. You can also visit us at our
website at backroadbeekeeping.com
POLLINATION
Bees wanted for the Almonds. Art Harris, 6301
Victor St. #63, Bakersfield, CA 93308 (661) 444-
1470.
1284
Almond Pollination 2019 - We are looking for
over 4,000 additional hives for the 2019 season.
Wintering yards with full service maintenance,
feeding and medication. We have trucks, fork-
lifts and crew to place hives in orchard. You are
paid 50% on February 25th and 50% April 20th.
Visit:www.almondbeepollination.com for more
details. California Almond Pollination Service,
Inc. (209) 202-8915. E Mail: steve@almondbee.
buzz
Outstanding Beekeepers wanted for long term
California almond pollination contracts. The Pol-
lination Connection. Contact us at 877-970-2337
(BEES) or info@pollinationconnection.com
WWW.POLLINATIONBOARD.COM
Search pollination jobs and submit price
offers directly to farmers. Find pollination
contracts.
BEES AND QUEENS
JERRY FOSTER QUEENS quality Carniolan and
hybrid Italian queens at competitive prices. Nucs
and packages also. Jerry Foster Apiaries, 937 9th
St., Colusa, CA 95932. Phone (530) 458-4234.
Pacific Northwest mated queens. Orders of 50 or
more. Treasure Valley Idaho. Call for Pricing, Jon
@ (208) 412-1092. www.goldenbeeinc.com
QUALITY QUEENS from HAWAII, available
year round. Call KARRUS QUEENS (808)
854-5308.
3 lb Packages Bees for sale, for pick up in
Wisconsin. Contact: Mark Gilberts Apiaries 608-
482-1988.
Let us put bees into your equipment with enough
time to feed them up for the almonds. May be
willing to do the feeding. Also, willing to fill your
equipment in the spring. Call Rick Riggs (661)
204-2631.
Doubles, singles, brood for sale
year round. FOB Jan-April, Oak-
dale, CA. April-Dec., Milton Freewa-
ter, OR. Queens less than 6 months,
great equipment. Ryan@sweetbee
honeyco.com (360) 907-0842. $5k min.
purchase.
Early-bird pricing for 2018. Italian & Russian
Hybrid package bees, queens and nucs. Pick
up in KY, ship to 5 zones. Web: www.school
housebees.com Pails of honey for sale year-
around. School House Bees (859) 356-1350.
NUCS & QUEENS – shipping available.
NorthFloridaBees@mail.com 850-661-8077
Northern California Queens – Good Quality
Bred Italians. Call Jake: (530) 517-0359.
Marked Queens - 25 minimum order, tested
on full size deep frames - Breeders selected
from our most productive hives-$28 per queen
+ UPS overnight. outwestapiary@gmail.com
(530) 908 1311.
WILD SURVIVOR BREEDER QUEENS
NW Feral Stock - Hardy - Hygienic
Mite Tolerant - Disease Resistant.
– OLYMPIC WILDERNESS APIARY
Isolated Yards – (360) 928-3125. www.
wildernessbees.com
Taking orders for spring 2019 Russians Nucs!
Call today for pricing. (601)-433-9108.
BEES FOR SALE - After Almond Pollination,
10 Frame Double Deep, (951) 906-4254.
NOW BOOKING FOR 2019 SEASON FOR
MN HYGIENIC QUEENS, BROOD, OR
FILL EQUIPMENT OUT OF OUR DEEP
EAST TEXAS LOCATION! FOR PRICING
AND SCHEDULING , CONTACT DARREL
@ (612) 325-1203.
WANTED
Honey and Beeswax wanted. All colors and
varietals. Send samples or call Smitty Bee Honey
(712) 748-4292.
Wanted: A Halls Hoist. Dead or Alive!
rguntren@yahoo.com. 712 299 0486, Iowa
HELP WANTED
Full time position available in Oregon. Bee-
keeping experience and CDL required. Contact
Ryan@sweetbeehoneyco.com PO Box 558,
Milton Freewater, OR 97862 (360)907-0842.
Seasonal and full-time help needed at our migratory
bee operation. We are located in FL and WI. We
do pollination, queen rearing and honey production.
Some experience preferred, team environment,
wages dependent on experience, good opportunity
or advancement. Prior work history and references
required. Contact Gary at (262) 689-1000.
Olivarez Honey Bees/Big Island Queens is seek-
ing motivated beekeepers to join our Hawaii
team! Experience preferred. Self-motivator and
ability to work in a team environment a plus. Po-
sitions are full time, salary based on experience.
Great Benefits Package. Prior work history and
references required. Advancement opportunities
available. Submit resume to info@ohbees.com
or Olivarez Honey Bees Inc/Big Island Queens,
P O Box 847 Orland Ca 95963, Fax: 530-865-
5570, Phone 530-865-0298
MISCELLANEOUS
The AMERICAN BEEKEEPING FEDERA-
TION has many benefits to offer its members.
Send for a membership packet of information
today! We also offer a free Beginning Beekeeping
Packet. Contact the AMERICAN BEEKEEPING
FEDERATION, 3525 Piedmont Rd. NE, Bld. 5.
Suite 300, Atlanta, GA 30305-1509, Phone (404)
760-2875, Fax 404-240-0998, or email info@
abfnet.org.
HONEY BEE INSEMINATION SERVICE
Susan Cobey - Instrumental Insemination Spe-
cialized Equipment, Consulting, Training,
Custom Service honeybeeinsemination.com
scobey@mac.com Tel. 360-969-9441.
LOCATIONS
California, overwinter coastal locations for rent.
Good areas. Call for availability. (805) 314-7750.
PERIODICALS
L’ABEILLE DE FRANCE—The most important
of the monthly publications in France - for all
beekeepers, from the amateurs to the professional.
Each month: an article for beginners, reports from
specialists, a review of the latest information all
over the world. Ask for a sample Annual subscrip-
tion: 40$ US. ABEILLE DE FRANCE- 5, rue du
Copenhague-F 75008 PARIS.
THE AUSTRALASIAN BEEKEEPER—
Senior Beekeeping Journal of the Southern
Hemisphere. Complete coverage of all bee-
keeping topics in one of the world’s largest
beekeeping countries. Published by Pender
Beekeeping Supplies Pty. Ltd., “Bilga” 79 Nay-
lor Road, Urila, N.S.W. 2620, Australia. Annual
subscription paid in advance $160 AUD.
THE AUSTRALIAN BEE JOURNAL—
Caters to both amateur and commercial
apiarists. Subscription $120.00 Australian
currently for all overseas subscribers per annum.
Published monthly. Victorian Apiarists’ Asso-
ciation, Inc., P.O. Box 40, California Gully,Vic.
Australia 3556 Ph: 03 5446 1543, Email:
vaa@vicbeekeepers.com.au.
American Bee Journal
BEECRAFT The UK’s leading monthly beekeep-
ing magazine. View a digital copy and subscribe on
line at www.bee-craft.com.
DIE BIENE – ALLGEMEINE DEUTSCHE IM-
Browning Cut Stock
KERZEITUNG (ADIZ) – IMKERFREUND The Boxes are Ponderosa Pine
Bee magazines with special publications in bee 9-5/8 Com. Boxes $10.50 / Budget Boxes $9.00
science and management for the hobbyist as well
as for the sideliner and professional beekeeper. 7-5/8 Com. Boxes $8.20 / Budget Boxes $7.95
Three regional titles but same content today for
Germany except partly Imkerfreund for Bavaria.
6-5/8 & 5-11/16 Com. Supers $7.50 / Budget $6.85
Monthly publications with 64 pages. Subscription All #1 frames $.70
Euro 44.50 per year – Deutscher Landwirtschafts-
verlag GmbH, Postfach 870324, 13162 Berlin, Tel. 1-3/4 Cleats $.22
+49(0)30/293974-87, Fax +49(0) 30/293974-59,
www.diebiene.de
1571 Hwy. 3 • Juliaetta, ID 83535
HIVELIGHTS, National magazine of the Cana- Phone 208.276.3494 FAX 3491
dian Honey Council. Published quarterly. Free
sample on request, write to Canadian Honey
Council, Suite 236, 234-5149 Country Hills
Blvd. NW, Calgary AB T3A 5K8, CANADA.
Subscription information available at www.
honeycouncil.ca.
HONEYBEE NEWS, The Journal of the New
South Wales Apiarists’ Association, Inc., Inter-
national Subscription AUS$50.00 (Airmail) Bank
Draft, Visa or MasterCard payable to NSW AA.
Published bi-monthly—For more information
contact: The Editor, PO Box 352, Leichhardt
NSW 2040 Australia. E-mail: honeybee@
accsoft.com.au
IBRA (the International Bee Research Associa-
tion) is a unique organization established in 1949
for the advancement of bee science and beekeep-
ing. It publishes two magazines: JAR – the Jour-
nal of Apiculture Research, for scientists, and BW
- Bee World, for beekeepers who want broaden
their horizons by learning about other beekeeping
traditions, other bees, other ideas. Members chose
which magazine(s) to include in their membership.
IBRA is a vital bridge between the local (hive)
and global concerns. IBRA is registered under UK
charity law (Office: 91 Brinsea Road, Congresbury,
Bristol, BS49 5JJ, UK) www.ibrabee.org.uk
IRISH BEEKEEPING—Read An Beachaire
(The Irish Beekeeper). Published monthly. Sub-
scription $50.00 per annum post free. Dermot
O’Flaherty, Journal Manager, Rosbeg, Westport,
Co. Mayo, Ireland
ATTENTION LIVESTOCK PRODUCERS—
Ranch Magazine is your monthly information
guide for Angora, Cashmere and meat goats, as
well as sheep and cattle. Comprehensive Breeder
Directory. 1-Yr $27, 2-Yrs $54. Foreign &
Canada add $36 per yr. postage. Subscribe today!
Box 2678-ABJ, San Angelo, TX 76902. Call for
free sample. (325) 655-4434
THE SCOTTISH BEEKEEPER—Monthly Maga-
zine of the Scottish Beekeeper’s Association. Inter-
national in appeal, Scottish in character. View back
numbers and Subscription rates at: http://scottish
beekeepers.org.uk
SOUTH AFRICAN BEE JOURNAL—The offi-
cial organ of the S.A. Federation of Bee Farmers’
Associations. Published Bimonthly in English and
Afrikaans, primarily devoted to the African and
Cape Bee races. Subscriptions incl. postage (six
copies). All subscribers outside of South Africa
R100-00 surface mail, payment to be made in
S.A. Rands. NB. Sample copies only available
on receipt of a donation. P.O. Box 41 Modder-
fontein, 1645, South Africa.
ULADAG BEE JOURNAL - Publication of
Uludag Beekeeping Association, published quar-
terly in Turkish (with English titles and summa-
ries of all articles) and English in all aspects of
beekeeping; beekeeping news, practical beekeep-
ing, and research articles, and considered a link
between Turkish beekeeping and the world. Gazci-
lar Cad. No. 9/2 16220 Bursa-TURKEY Fax:+90
224 224 3964 http://www.uludagaricilik.org.tr

November 2018 1285


A.N. Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1194
A & O Forklift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1180
Acorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1228
American Bee Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1248
American Honey Producers . . . . . . . . . 1252
Bastin Honey Bee Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261
BeeCulture.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206
Bee Excellent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1186
Bee Hive Thermal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1186
BeeInformed.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1194
Beekeepingins.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1287
Beeline Apiaries & Woodenware . . . . 1231
Beelite Wax Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1213
Bee Smart Designs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1198
Betterbee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1196
BL Plastic Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1261
Blue Ridge Honey Company . . . . . . . . 1251
Blue Sky Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1182
Brand New Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . 1251
Brown Honey Co. Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1230
Browning Cut Stock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1285
Brumley Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1222
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm. . . . . . . . . 1218
Bucko Gloves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1255
Buzz’s Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1217
CC Pollen Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1243
Complete Bee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1256
Contract Pros Mfg.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1262
Cook & Beals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251
Cowen Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1252
Dadant & Sons, Inc. . . . . .1181, 1195, 1222,
1230, 1266, 1273, & Back Cover
Dakota Gunness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1204
Draper’s Super Bee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251
EasyOnHiveCovers.com . . . . . . . . . . . 1244
Ernst Seeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1243
Faircloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1252
1286
Advertising Index
Globalpatties.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1207
Hardeman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1232
Harris Insurance Company . . . . . . . . . 1227
Hawaiian Queen Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1222
Heilyser Technology Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . 1281
Heitkams Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1262
Hilbert’s Honey Bees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1281
Hogg Halfcomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1281
Honey B Healthy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1281
Horace Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1248
Jester Bee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1256
JJ’s Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1273
Koehnen, C.F. & Sons, Inc . . . . . . . . . 1228
Kona Queen Hawaii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1282
LittleMuleBee.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1198
Lohman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1194
Mangum - book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1194
Mann Lake Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1208
Maxant Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1222
Meyers, A.H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1218
Miller Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1232
Mother Lode Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1234
Nod Apiary Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1214
Nucs.us. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220
Old Sol Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1273
Olivarez Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1197
OxaVap.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1252
Park-Burris Queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1198
Pierco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1184
Plastic Packaging Concept. . . . . . . . . . 1281
PollinationBoard.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1244
Powell Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251
Queen Right Colonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1213
QSI Honey and Food Lab . . . . . . . . . . 1256
R.M. Farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1198
RealTexasHoney.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1286
Roberts Bee Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1243
Ross Rounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1217
Rossman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1220
Sanders Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1273
Selby Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227
Shastina Millwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1274
Sherriff, B.J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1251
Simpson’s Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1186
South Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227
South Georgia Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227
Spell Bee Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1262
Stan’s Pure Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1244
Stayer’s Quality Queens . . . . . . . . . . . 1262
Strachan Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1256
Strong Microbials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1278
Suhre, Adam Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . 1233
Suhre, E. Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1278
Superior Bee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1248
Swienty Beekeeping Equipment . . . . . 1270
Taber’s Honey Bee Genetics . . . . . . . . 1251
Texas Insurance & Financial . . . . . . . . 1222
Tree’s for Bees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1285
Trimboli, Shannon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1242
T.R.S. Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1204
Vidalia Apicultural Services . . . . . . . . 1243
VM Vaporizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1233
VP Queen Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1227
Weaver, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1244
Western Bee Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Wicwas Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
Wilbanks Apiaries Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1234
Wintersun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1281
Wooten’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1285
Wraith Scarlett & Randolph Insurance . 1205
Z Specialty Food, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . 1278
American Bee Journal
March 2018 1287
1288 American Bee Journal