Archives for 2020

Many beekeepers have a tough time recording all that goes on in an apiary and in their beehives.  A lack of Record keeping often is the cause of fuzzy thinking about management and works against the beekeeper. A number of beekeeping applications are now available for smartphones. specifically designed to help beekeepers keep track of this […]

The concept is simple. Most antibiotics  used in both human and animal medicine are broad spectrum, doing away with many good as well as bad actors.  Overuse of these materials results in resistance building up, making some antibiotics no longer usable.  At the same time, many good or beneficial organisms are killed off with often […]

February 24, 2018                     Dear Subscribers:  Our small apiary is history for this season.  Hard to know exactly what  happened.  Unseasonably cold weather early forced us to postpone  examining the colonies longer than I wanted to.  My partner also  recently had some health challenges making it impossible to visit the  bee yard at his […]

Contamination of honey by pesticides is making the news.  A recent report reveals that researchers who tested honey from nearly 200 sites worldwide found that 75% of their samples contained some level of the pesticides, according to a report published on 5 October in Nature “The study is the first attempt to quantify the presence […]

Dear Subscribers,  A belated Happy New Year from Gainesville, Florida, home of the Apis Information Resource Information Center. It’s been colder than normal the last couple of weeks. No way to check our forlorn nuc that we’ve been nursing through the winter.  I thought there was a warming trend in the offing, but that is […]

Robert Owen in a research essay published by the Journal of Economic Entomology  linked above suggests that human activity is a key driver in the spread of pathogens affecting the European honey bee (Apis mellifera). These include: Regular, large-scale and loosely-regulated movement of bee colonies for commercial pollination. (For instance, in February 2016 alone, of […]

The above is a revealing post.  The station claims to be rearing “Saskatraz” queens, something many, including this author, are not familiar with.  Other thoughts on the complexity and possible advantages of queen breeding can be found here.  This information lends credence to the maxim that all honey bees are not alike. A recent discussion […]

The latest information linked above reveals that the four P’s must now be considered the real villains responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD:  — poor nutrition, pesticides, pathogens and parasites.  The saga thus continues concerning Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).  The condition spawned many academic papers.   Historically speaking CCD certainly looks related to unexplained honey […]

The post above provides various clues to pesticide losses, including the honey bee diet (influence of sugar as an attractant).   One concept is that drug interactions might be a key and something called  Cytochrome P450 is limiting.  This occurs not only in honey bees, but other organisms including humans.  This is bad news all around. […]

Beekeeping has very many benefits according to the post above. Established beekeepers may not even be aware of all the benefits they, their family and community are getting from their beekeeping enterprise. This course gives a good overview of the history and current state of bees and beekeeping around the world, the honey trade, why you should get into beekeeping, how […]