CATCH THE BUZZ - North American Beekeeping Conference

CATCH THE BUZZ

 

Together for a Sweet Future

 

Beekeeping Industry to Gather in Galveston, Texas, January 4-8, 2011

 

2011 is quickly approaching and now is the time to make attending the 2011 North American Beekeeping Conference & Tradeshow at the Galveston Convention Center/San Luis Resort one of your New Year’s resolutions!

 

This joint conference of the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF), the American Honey Producers Association (AHPA) and the Canadian Honey Council (CHC) promises to be the largest beekeeping event in the United States.  And with anticipated attendance of more than 1,200, this is sure to be the must-attend conference of the year – beekeepers at all levels and from all over North America and beyond will gather to share idea s and develop new contacts.

 

The conference promises to offer something for everyone.  From the new hobbyist to the seasoned professional, conference organizers have planned a schedule to incorporate educational sessions at all levels.  The tradeshow has also been expanded to offer even more great deals and new product ideas.  And, other industry-related organizations have been invited to participate in this groundbreaking event, including the American Association of Professional Apiculturists (AAPA), the American Bee Research Conference (ABRC), the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the National Honey Packers and Dealers Association (NHPDA).

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The conference agenda is complete and posted to the conference Web site at www.nabeekeepingconference.com, and is filled with areas of interest to all beekeepers, including:

 

• Keynote speaker, Dr. Jim Tew, associate professor at Ohio State University

• Presentations from Canada, Mexico and the United States

• Updates from the Tucson, Beltsville, Weslaco and Baton Rouge Bee Labs

• The latest in legislative updates

• Shared Interest Group meetings

• Homeland Security investigations and U.S. trade law enforcement

• Certified True Source Honey Traceability Program

• Serious Sideliner Symposium facilitated by Dr. Larry Connor of Wicwas Press

• Interactive workshops

• 2011 American Honey Show

• Updates from the National Honey Board and the National Honey Bee Advisory Board

 

These are just a few of the educational and networking opportunities slated for the 2011 North American Beekeeping Conference & Tradeshow. Visit the conference Web site and select the meetings, workshops and optional activities that are right for you and register online today.

 

With 35+ presentations from industry leaders, 15+ interactive workshops and 65+ exhibitors, beekeepers won’t want to miss a second of this conference. Be sure to register today to ensure your place at the 2011 North American Beekeeping Conference & Tradeshow. Regular registration ends at midnight EST on December 16, 2010. After this date, you will only be able to register onsite at a higher rate.

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Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

 

 

 

CATCH THE BUZZ - Bees From Australia Banned, so far

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CATCH THE BUZZ

Austrailan Bees Banned By APHIS

Maybe A Virus, Maybe Not

By Alan Harman

 

   With little public fanfare, the United States has banned the importation of honey bee queens and package bees from Australia.

    Minister Counselor (Agriculture) Simon Smalley at the Australian Embassy in Washington and a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (ASPHIS) both confirm the move made towards the end of last month.

   Both say there is a “temporary suspension” of the imports, but the APHIS website has a one sentence reference that reads:

   “Importation of honey bee queens and package bees from Australia is prohibited.”

   But the halt is not because of the Asian bee incursion in northern Queensland as many expected but because of something called slow paralysis virus.

   In a letter sent to AHIS official Wayne. F. Wehling and seen by Bee Culture, Australian world bee authority Dennis Anderson of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization questions the decision, saying the virus has never been found in Australia.

   “I wish to inform you that Slow Paralysis Virus has not been detected in or reported from Australia,” Anderson says. “This is despite a number of surveys for it.”

   Anderson says this is borne out by the following:

   “In the latest publication on SPV by Miranda et al 2010 … it states on page 2525 that quote ‘SBPV appears to be extremely rare, having been identified positively only in Britain, Fiji and Western Samoa (Allen & Ball, 1996; Anderson, 1990; Carreck et al., 2010; Martin et al., 1998), despite being included in surveys of Australia (Hornitzky, 1987), New Zealand (Todd et al., 2007), Scandinavia (Nordstrom et al., 1999) and Poland (Topolska et al., 1995). Only in Britain has it ever been associated with colony mortality (Carreck et al., 2010)’.”

   Anderson, principal research scientist at the CSIRO, says he is confident Australia knows what viruses are present in its honeybees.

   “This is also borne out be the fact that since imports of Australian bees into the U.S. started in 2005 (?), no viruses have been detected in Australian bees in the U.S. that Australia didn't already know about and publish,” the letter says.

  He says the only exception is Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV). However, Anderson says, prior to this virus being named IAPV by a researcher in Israel, that virus had been regarded in Australia as a strain of Kashmir Bee Virus.

   “If SPV was the primary reason for APHIS suspending imports of Australian honeybees into the U.S. (and this is the reason given in the official response), then the process that led to the decision to suspend has been a travesty and it should be reconsidered,” Anderson’s letter states.

   In another letter, also seen by Bee Culture, Tim Ryan of Biosecurity Australia tells Daniel Weaver, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, hisorganization was in the process to writing to APHIS to start to detail the lack of evidence for SPV being in Australia.

   “Your request for a copy of the letter from APHIS has come back to Biosecurity Australia, but the decision is that we cannot release government to government correspondence without the permission of the originating party,” Ryan states.

   “However, I can tell you that the letter states that suspension is ‘primarily due to slow paralysis virus’ but then goes on to mention other viruses- TSBV and BVX.

   “It quotes the findings of the APHIS Pest Risk Assessment from earlier in the year as support for the suspension ‘until Australia can control or eradicate the Asian honey bee and provide data about the distribution of bee viruses and pests, particularly SPV.’

   “To me this leaves them a pretty wide operating scope outside SPV. In my interpretation the letter also precludes an increase in the export exclusion zone around the Asian bee area again quoting the ‘unknown’ distribution of SPV.”

   Australian bee exporter Warren Taylor, one of the pioneers of the U.S. trade through his Australian Queen Bee Exporters Pty. Ltd. company, says SRV does not exist in Australia.

  “Somehow, somewhere it was reported that we had Slow Paralysis Virus which was incorrect,” he says in an email to Bee Culture. “I guess the ban is all political so USDA is now trying to find something else to hang their hat on.

   “Our bees have been tested so frequently as they entered U.S. I am sure that they would have found something if it actually existed.

   “I guess U.S. beekeepers will be very short of queens January to March as I visited Hawaii in June and saw problems they are having with Varroa and SHB.”

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Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

 

 

CATCH THE BUZZ - BMPs, and Cities with New Rules

CATCH THE BUZZ

Two Questions: Urban Beekeeping Best Management Practices, and  Cities With New Rules

1.       Bee Culture magazine is looking for examples of Best Management Practices that are used by city or county beekeeping groups or government agencies that are used when establishing new guidelines for beekeepers, or are already in place.

Although not particularly zoning ordinances, BMPs may be and sometimes are  used for zoning ordinances, or to help define and regulate nuisance complaints.

Bee Culture will gather as many of these as we can find, plus what we already have and construct a more or less generic guideline that any municipality can use as a good starting place when they begin the process of first allowing bees in their borders, or want to make existing rules and regulations more bee, and beekeeper friendly.

If your group, city, municipality or legislative body has, or uses a Best Management Practices guideline for keeping bees in an urban area we would like to know of it, and be able to incorporate it into our program. Zoning regulations are acceptable, but are usually difficult to send along, so if you know of those, and they are digital, simply send a link and we’ll work out the transfer. If all you have is a hard copy, a fax, or a photocopy in the mail is more than acceptable.

If you have been prosecuted because of an alleged violation of a city rule or regulation regarding keeping bees we would like to know of it so we can use that, too, for our guideline.

Any help you can offer is appreciated. We would like to get this organized before next spring so it will useful, in time, for new beekeepers, and, let us hope, new cities next season.

2.       Bee Culture and thedailygreen.com are looking for cities that have seen the light during 2010 and have changed their laws and regulations so that where there were no bees, there are bees today. What cities have opened their doors to beekeepers this year? Has yours? Do you know one nearby? We want to acknowledge their clear headedness and share their common sense with those cities who have yet to see the light.

If your city or county or municipality has changed the rules this year, let us know so we can acknowledge them.

 

For both of these requests…send your information directly to me:

Kim@BeeCulture.com

And thanks for sharing….we’re all in this together.

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FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

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CATCH THE BUZZ - Illegal GM Sugar Beets Ordered Destroyed

CATCH THE BUZZ

Federal judge orders destruction of illegal GM sugar beets

By Caroline Scott-Thomas, Food Navigator

A federal court judge has ordered the destruction of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets planted in September, saying that they were planted in contravention of a previous court decision.

US District Court Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco found that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had illegally allowed the planting of sugar beets genetically modified to resist Roundup Ready herbicide, despite an earlier court decision requiring the government agency to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prior to planting. The order to destroy the beets will come into effect on December 6 to allow time for appeal.

Judge White said in the court order: “The legality of Defendants’ conduct does not even appear to be a close question. It appears clear that Defendants and Intervenor-Defendants were merely seeking to avoid the impact of the Court’s prior order.”

The lawsuit was filed in September by environmental groups alleging the USDA's action violated an earlier decision by Judge White.

In response to the court’s decision, lead counsel for the plaintiffs Paul Achitoff of Earthjustice said: “USDA has shown no regard for the environmental laws, and we’re pleased that Judge White ordered the appropriate response.”

Monsanto is currently the only supplier of GM sugar beets.

Plaintiff Center for Food Safety’s Senior Staff Attorney George Kimbrell said: “Today’s decision is a seminal victory for farmers and the environment and a vindication of the rule of law. The public interest has prevailed over USDA’s repeated efforts to implement the unlawful demands of the biotech industry.”

Sugar supply disruption?

According an earlier ruling by Judge White in August, this year’s beets will still be allowed to be harvested and processed as usual, but sugar farmers have warned that US sugar supply could be disrupted from 2011. GM sugar beets account for 95 percent of those being grown in the US, according to USDA figures, with beet sugar providing about half of the total US sugar supply.

Judge White also ruled in August that the planting of GM sugar beets should be halted until the USDA put together an EIS, expected to be completed by the end of May 2012. However, the USDA said that it would allow limited planting of the sugar beets while the EIS was prepared and issued permits to four companies, which had already planted seedlings to produce seed for the 2012 crop – a move that the court ruled in October was illegal.

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FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

 

 

CATCH THE BUZZ - British Beekeepers End Pesticide Support

CATCH THE BUZZ

 

 

The BBKA is to end its commercial relationship with a pesticide manufacturer whose products killed bees.

From The Guardian, by Allison Benjamin

The British Beekeepers' Association has today announced plans to end its controversial practice of endorsing pesticides in return for cash from leading chemical manufacturers.

The endorsement of four products as "bee-friendly" in return for £17,500 a year caused outrage among many beekeepers because one of the companies, Bayer Crop Science, makes pesticides that are widely implicated in the deaths of honeybees worldwide.

But the BBKA denies that it has bowed to pressure from members who have been increasingly critical of the its stance. Bayer's clothianidin was identified as causing the death of two-thirds of honeybees in southern Germany in 2008.

In a statement sent outtoday to the secretaries of local beekeeping associations across the UK, the BBKA's president, Martin Smith, said: "Following discussion with the companies involved, the BBKA trustees have decided that endorsement and related product-specific payments will cease as soon as practically possible."

He added: "The four products subject to BBKA endorsement are of declining commercial importance and the development of new classes of pesticides and application techniques means that the relationship with the plant-protection industry should be reviewed."

Beekeeper Graham White, who resigned from the BBKA more than two years ago in protest at what he called a "secret deal done with the pesticide manufacturers whose products are lethal to bees", welcomed today's decision.

"It's great news, but it's too little, too late," he said. "They should have been showing solidarity with beekeepers in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia when pesticides were banned there after being implicated in bee deaths, instead of selling their logo to the manufacturers."

Smith defended its position then as one of "constructive engagement" to ensure pesticides were properly applied as per the instructions on the label to minimise damage to honeybees.

The BBKA's position has polarised the 45,000-strong beekeeping community, but the majority of BBKA members upheld its policy at its annual delegate meeting earlier this year and in 2009.

At the next meeting in January, delegates will be asked to note today's decision "with respect to the cessation of BBKA endorsement of certain pesticides".

But the organisation has not ruled out accepting funds in the future from pesticide companies. "The trustees may wish to invite companies to exhibit at the BBKA's spring convention or make a contribution to the BBKA research fund," said Smith.

"It is time to broaden the range of engagement with the crop-protection industry beyond the narrow focus of endorsing certain products; rather to contribute more directly to the development of new regulatory criteria for pesticide approval and to further support the industry in the general move to improve countryside stewardship," he added.

White says all ties to the pesticide industry should be immediately severed. "All of those who created and directed this policy of pesticide endorsement must be thrown out of the BBKA and replaced by real beekeepers. The BBKA is not fit for purpose and will never recover its moral integrity until it is reconstituted as a pure beekeeping organisation that is willing to campaign against all use of systemic pesticides on British farms."

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Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

 

 

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CATCH THE BUZZ - Change In The Air

After 3 weeks travel and catching up, CATCH THE BUZZ is back. Watch for our emails, check out our supporters below, tell a friend abou the BUZZ, and keep your smoker lit, your hive tool handy and bee veil tight.

CATCH THE BUZZ

Things Are Always Changing…A collection of events…

Alan Harman

 

The Dak Lak Honey Bee Joint Stock Co. aims to double its honey exports to 10,000 tonnes this year valued at more than US$20 million.

   By late October, the company in the highland province of Dak Lak had collected 11,000 tonnes of honey and exported more than 8,000 tonnes of honey products to the U.S., Canada, Japan, and South Korea.

   The U.S. buys 80% of the honey products from Dak Lak province.

   To push honey exports, Dak Lak has expanded into other areas in Dak Lak province as well as to provinces in the Central Highland and Southwestern regions.

   Dak Lak province this year is home to 200,000 flocks of bees with expected production of 11,500 tonnes of honey, twice the amount last year.

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An organic honey producer in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey says his honey harvest fell 50% this year even after the number of hives was increased by 40%.

   Topuy Kaçkar Organic Honey Products general manager Remzi Özbay tells the Hürriyet Daily News it almost looked like the company’s bees were on strike.

   “They have so drastically slashed the production that we could only deliver half the amount we promised to customers a year ago,” Özbay says. “We had to suspend our export negations with five countries.”

   Özbay says there is a high international demand for his honey including from the United States, Japan, Germany and Australia.

   The firm usually harvests about six tons of honey from 1,000 hives each year and raised the number of hives to 1,400 this year to meet the rising demand.

   “However, despite the increase in the number of hives our production fell to three tons,” Özbay says.

   “We did a study and found out this was the case with all honey producers.”

   He says the natural balance has been ruined due to pesticides that have directly affected the bees’ ecosystem.

   “Bee deaths are increasing,” he says

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Partnership

   Canadian specialty honey manufacturer Island Abbey Foods Ltd. announces a agreement to distribute its Honibe products through Dutch Gold Honey Inc., of Lancaster, PA and its subsidiary McLure’s Honey and Maple Products, Littleton, NH.

   The Prince Edward Island company’s Honibe brand is built around a proprietary technology that allows the creation of 100% pure dried honey products in a variety of forms.

   Dutch Gold Honey will expand its product lines to include Honibe 100% pure dried honey products starting with Honibe Honey Drop sugar cubes and Honey Sprinkles granules for desserts, baking and ingredient use.

   Island Abbey Foods president John Rowe says he’s excited about the collaboration.

   “Dutch Gold Honey is a leader in the honey industry in the United States that has built a reputation on quality, integrity and trust over the past 64 years,” he says. “To now have our innovative Honibe product lines available through this household name in honey is a wonderful partnership for us.”

   Dutch Gold Honey sales vice president Jill Clark says it is pleased to be able to offer the award winning Honibe line of pure dried honey products to its customers.

  “Island Abbey Foods has generated a lot of international attention for its unique technology since the launch of the Honibe brand in 2008, and we are excited to add their products to our Dutch Gold Honey & McLure’s product lines,” she says

   The Honibe brand has garnered international attention in recent months for its Honey Drop product, a teaspoon-sized individual serving of 100% pure dried honey without any additives. It is ideal for sweetening tea or coffee by dropping it into the hot beverage and stirring.

   Most recently, the Honey Drop won two SIAL D’or 2010 Awards at the world’s largest food tradeshow in Paris, France and will is one of nine finalists competing for best new food product in the world this month.

   Island Abbey Foods is a 6th generation PEI agricultural family business.

 

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

 

 

CATCH THE BUZZ - Nature vs Nurture

CATCH THE BUZZ

 

Nature or Nurture, Queen and Worker

Alan Harman

   The nature-nurture debate is a giant step closer to being resolved after scientists studying bees documented how environmental inputs can modify genetic hardware.

   The research at the Australian National University (ANU) and the German Cancer Institute uncovered the extensive molecular differences that occur in the brains of two types of genetically identical, but behaviorally different, female honey bees – worker bees and queen bees.

   The workers and queens develop along very different paths when put on different diets.

   The research reveals for the first time the intricacies of the environmentally influenced chemical marking of DNA called DNA methylation, which has the capacity to alter gene expression without affecting the genetic code – a process referred to as ‘epigenetic’, or above the genome.

    “This marking determines which genes are to be fine-tuned in the brains of workers and queens to produce their extraordinarily different behaviors.” research team leader Ryszard Maleszka says at ANU.

    “This finding is not only crucial, but far reaching, because the enzymes that mark DNA in the bee are also the enzymes that mark DNA in human brains, he says.

   “In the bees, more than 550 genes are differentially marked between the brain of the queen and the brain of the worker, which contributes to their profound divergence in behavior.

   “This study provides the first documentation of extensive molecular differences that may allow honey bees to generate different reproductive and behavioral outcomes as a result of differential feeding with royal jelly.”

   Maleszka says the work goes a long way to answering one of life’s biggest questions.

   “This study represents a giant step towards answering one of the big questions in the nature-nurture debate, because it shows how the outside world is linked to DNA via diet, and how environmental inputs can transiently modify our genetic hardware,” he says.

   “Similar studies are impossible to do on human brains, so the humble honey bees are the pioneers in this fascinating area.”

 

Read an EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER from Tom Seeley’s new book Honey Bee Democracy, only on Bee Culture’s web page Here!

Build an entire bee hive with just a table saw. Go to Garreson Publishing. Books by Peter Sieling.

Find out What Is New At Mann Lake right Here

Protein feeding pays off with better health, better survival, better production, and better wintering. Learn More.  

FREE - Kelley Bees Modern Beekeeping Monthly Newsletter

Quality Top Bar Hives by Gold Star Honeybees - good for you, good for your bees, good for the planet. Check us out at www.goldstarhoneybees.com.

Subscribe to Malcolm Sanford’s Apis Newsletter right here for a comprehensive listing of beekeeping events around the country and around the globe, check out Bee Culture’s Global Beekeeping Calendar

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, published by the A.I. Root Company.

Check out the Biggest Honey Show there is this fall at www.honeyshow.co.uk