Wednesday, 11 February 2009

CATCH THE BUZZ AHB IN UTAH

CATCH THE BUZZ

AHB found in Utah.

According to the AP, African honey bees have been found in the south of Utah. Seven hives, three feral and four managed hives were found in Washington and Kane counties containingAHB. All confirmed hives have been destroyed.

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Central Beekeepers Alliance

Central Beekeepers Alliance

Central Beekeepers meet 10 March 2009

Posted: 10 Feb 2009 05:00 PM PST

Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Central Beekeepers Alliance Meeting
Agricultural Research Centre, Fredericton, NB
7:30 p.m.

Want to learn more about Beekeeping?

Central Beekeepers meet on the second Tuesday of the month. Visitors and new beekeepers are always welcome! Most meetings include an educational session, group discussion, or hands-on demonstration for the benefit of beginning beekeepers in central New Brunswick.

The Agricultural Research Centre ("Experimental Farm") is located at 850 Lincoln Road, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Entry is from the parking lot at the back of the building, at door "B". For a map to the Agricultural Research Centre, see our Next Meeting page.

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Monday, 9 February 2009

CATCH THE BUZZ VANDALIZED HIVES, AGAIN

CATCH THE BUZZ

Felony Damage to Florida Bee Hives…Good Grief, When will these people Never learn?

From the PalmBeachPost.com — As if beekeepers don't have enough worries with a mysterious bee hive disorder, a Loxahatchee beekeeper's hives have been destroyed - by human pests.

Mark McCoy of McCoy's Sunny South Apiaries is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of vandals who tore apart and trashed 140 wooden hives filled with bees west of Boynton Beach.

Thousands of healthy bees died in the rampage. Others were thrown into a nearby pond and drowned.

Find out what’s new at Mann Lake www.mannlakeltd.com/catchthebuzz/index.html
"It's kind of sickening," McCoy said Monday. If the bees had not been destroyed, he said, they would have sold for $170 a hive, or they could have been leased to growers who need to pollinate crops for $150 each, bringing in as much as $23,800.

It's all the more distressing because McCoy's hives were healthy. Beekeepers nationwide continue to struggle with colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady that causes bees to abruptly leave their hives and never return. McCoy's hives has been spared, something he credits to being "a family-run business. We stay on top of things pretty hard."

Because his healthy bees are in demand, both McCoy's honey and pollination businesses are booming.

"We've sold more bees than ever in the last four years, about 5,000 hives, due to the need," he said.

Just last week, the McCoys sent three semi-truck loads of bees to California. They will be used to pollinate the almond crop. That's despite the fact that demand for bees in California is expected to be down this year, because of a drought-related shutdown of 248,000 acres of almond groves.

In Florida, the bees are rented to growers to pollinate crops such as cucumbers and watermelons. Last year, McCoy sent bees to Maine to work the blueberries. Also last year, the McCoy bees produced 850 55-gallon barrels of honey, and sales are up. "We have sold more bottled honey in the last six weeks than ever," McCoy said.

Vandalism is more a function of teenagers on a Friday night than someone wading into active bee hives, said Jerry Hayes, chief apiary inspector for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

More often, bee colonies - especially healthy colonies - are stolen than vandalized. "Stealing bee hives has increased as honeybee health issues have caused loss of these units of revenue called bee hives," Hayes said. "Vandalism is usually just for meanness and to impact someone in their wallet in an ugly way."

Less than a dozen cases of either are reported to authorities each year, Hayes said.

In McCoy's case, "They vandalized it and took nothing. It was either a beekeeper or somebody know knows about bees," he said: Anyone else would have been stung immediately and unable to continue wreaking havoc.

"We are going to be looking at whether he had any problems with people who wanted to hurt his business," said Palm Beach County deputy Terry Senecal, a member of the sheriff's agricultural crimes unit.

Because the damage to McCoy's hives is in excess of $12,000, the crime is a felony.

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Central Beekeepers Alliance

Central Beekeepers Alliance

Kim Flottum Reports from US Beekeepers Conference

Posted: 09 Feb 2009 03:10 AM PST

Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine and regular columnist at The Daily Green, went to the American Beekeeping Federation’s annual meeting in Nevada last month and came back with an interesting report on the state of US beekeeping — both good news, and not so good.
thedailygreen

The good news is, and we’ve been collecting this for awhile now, is that with all of the fuss and attention, beekeepers are this fall and winter taking much better care of their bees than in the recent past.

Bee nutrition is improving, as are basic management practices such as rotating out old comb for new foundation; and Varroa treatments are settling out into solid protocols, as “those that don’t work are being phased out and those that are somewhat kinder and gentler on the bees are coming of age.”

On the other hand, it sounds like even non-lethal levels of Nosema may have debilitating effects on a colony by making them more vulnerable to pesticide damage and Varroa attacks.

Another item that caught Flottum’s attention — recent research shows there are many many viruses in the environment against which the honeybee must battle. Interestingly, although most of these viruses are spread from bee to bee in ways that make sense to the non-scientists among us, it seems that even the pollen that bees bring back to the hive is almost certain to be carrying one of three different honeybee viruses — transmitted from wild native bees, most likely, or from honey bees that visited the same bloom beforehand.

How all these factors play into the continuing concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder is still unknown, but CCD was still very much in the minds of beekeepers at the annual conference. You’ll want to read all of Flottum’s report (here), but I thought this closing anecdote of his was both interesting and slightly chilling:

On the last day of the conference I asked one of the commercial beekeepers who was there and who had colonies in a holding yard in southern California waiting for almond bloom how things were going. His answer was telling…"Well, he said, it’s been cold in California so far and the bees haven’t been moving…until the middle of the week. That’s when the temperature warmed up and bees could fly…and that’s when they started to disappear. Again.”

For more information, see Kim Flottum’s articles on the American beekeeping industry and Colony Collapse Disorder at TheDailyGreen.com:

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Friday, 6 February 2009

CATCH THE BUZZ California Budget Holds Up Bees, Maybe

CATCH THE BUZZ

Furlough Impacts to Migratory Apiary Industry

From Chris Heintz, Project ApisM

To All Beekeepers -

 The Governor has ordered furloughs that will result in the closing of general government operations on the first and third Friday of each month beginning February 6th, 2009, and projected to end on June 30, 2010.  CDFA headquarters and field offices, including our Plant Pest Diagnostics Laboratory, will shut down operations on the days specified.

 CDFA facilitates quick movement of bee colonies at border inspections by providing identification services Monday through Friday, and as deemed necessary on weekends and holidays. Due to the furloughs and inability to schedule overtime, CDFA is forced to reduce the hours of identification services to Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the weeks with a furlough day. Please note that border stations will remain open.

Find out what’s new at Mann Lake www.mannlakeltd.com/catchthebuzz/index.html

 This new schedule may cause delays beyond our control. The Governor and CDFA are committed to do everything possible to continue to facilitate timely movement of bee colony shipments. We will relay pertinent information as it becomes available. Please visit our site at http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/pe/InteriorExclusion/bees.html for updates.

The scheduled closures are as follows:

2009

February 6 and 20

March 6 and 20

April 3 and 17

May 1 and 15

June 5 and 19

July 3 and 17

August 7 and 21

September 4 and 18

October 2 and 16

November 6 and 20

December 4 and 18

This message brought to you by Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping

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Thursday, 5 February 2009

Central Beekeepers Alliance

Central Beekeepers Alliance

New Money for British Bee Research

Posted: 04 Feb 2009 11:03 PM PST

Farmers Guardian The British Beekeepers Association fears that another 2 billion honey bee will be lost in that country this year, at a cost to the national economy of about £54 million. But there’s also some good news for the beekeeping business in Britain.

The Farmers Guardian reports that the British government will be putting £2.3 million into the National Bee Unit, “to help its efforts to improve beekeeper husbandry and ability to deal with disease,” with a further £400,000 going to bee health research every year for the next five years.

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Wednesday, 4 February 2009

CATCH THE BUZZ Pesticides in Pollen

CATCH THE BUZZ

Ag pesticides not uncommon in trapped pollen

Researchers in Connecticut, during the 2007 growing season monitored pesticides  found in pollen collected in pollen traps. Colonies studied were under normal conditions and were not collapsing or in any other way ill. No colonies died during the experiment.

 The researchers collected the pollen twice a week from four locations in Connecticut during the season. Samples were analyzed using HPLC/MS.

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Results: 102 samples were collected and analyzed. 37 pesticides were detected. 15 insecticide/acaracides, 11 fungicides, 10 herbicides and 1 plant growth regulator. All samples had at least one pesticide detected. The most commonly detected pesticide was coumaphos. Carbaryl and phosmet, both highly toxic to bees were the most commonly detected field pesticides. Imidacloprid was detected 30 times, mostly at low levels. The pesticides found at the highest levels wer both fungicides: myclobutanil and boscalid.
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