English Section

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For practice for the ones that desire or for being able to invite international beeks on any subject I am opening this topic.
Please write only in English even if it is not perfect so we can bring in the dialog or as visitors beeks that do not speak Romanian.

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Big Daddy

Way beyond hygienic bees! (A story)

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Recently, I had a state inspector come out and take samples of my bees for the USDA study on CCD and foreign mites. The study requires the inspector to take samples of 1 frame of bees and brood, from 8 colonies in the yard. First he bangs the bees off into a bucket, and places a 1/2 cup of bees into a live box, and then another 1/2 cup of bees into an alcohol bottle, both sent to Beltsville for analysis.

After the bee samples are taken, and the remaining bees returned to the hive, the vacated frame is taken over to a pan where it is rapped (banged against the bottom) a total of 8 times, dislodging any mites within the comb, along with any other debris that may be in there. The frame is then returned to the hive, and everything's buttoned up.

Now, I don't use any medications in my hives. I don't even use essential oils. The only thing I do use is a periodic, random powdered sugar IPM treatment, just so I can get a mite drop count and know what my baseline is with Varroa. I don't use it to treat for mites. I just use the data to know what's going on with the mites and if the bees are keeping up with them. This year, with no medications, my 24 hour mite drop count reached an average high of 10. This was back in early August. Since then, my mite drop count has been tapering off.

Anyhow, back to the story! The bee inspector is beating the frames into the pan, trying to find A single mite. So far, no luck. On the fifth colony, he finally exclaims, "Aha! I finally found ONE!" A moment later he yells out, "Hey!" as I see a bee land in the pan and fly off.

As he was looking at the pan with the single Varroa mite in it, one of my bees in the air saw it, landed, bit the mite aggressively a couple of times, and then took off with it! All while the inspector is observing it! He admitted that he's seen hygienic bees before, but never bees that SEEK OUT and ATTACK Varroa like this one had.

I made no apologies for her behavior. That's MY kind of hygienics!

(Thanks for reading! I had to tell someone...)
DS

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Some quick answers for some quick questions:
1) Yes, I do breed my own queens. This year, I suffered a major setback on my queen rearing when a tree fell in my bee yard, literally smashing flat 5 hives that I was using for queen rearing. In addition, my trailer that I use to move bees with was bent beyond use, and a lot of my stored equipment (starter nucs, feeders, mating nucs, etc.) were wrecked also. (What a mess!) So, no, I don't have any queens for sale currently.

2) I do produce nucs, which are typically for sale starting in January. Nucs aren't able to be shipped, so local pickup here in SE Michigan (about 30 miles NE of Detroit) is necessary if purchased.

3) My over winter survival rate this past year was 100%. (Your mileage may vary.) I attribute this to good ventilation (top and bottom entrances), the Mountaincamp Method (placing sugar on top of the top bars), along with good genetics. It wasn't always this way. When I started, I experienced 66-75% winter losses.

4) The past 5 years being med free, I've been breeding for a) survival, b) gentleness, c) good brood production, and d) honey production. This year, I've decided to start putting a great importance on honey production, since overall survival seems to be pretty good.

5) I've been inspected for bee diseases by both the Michigan Department of Agriculture, as well as Florida's Dept. of Ag. Neither have found any evidence of disease, including DWV. I have seen some chalkbrood in the spring, which clears up on its own or by moving the hive into full sun, but the inspectors haven't noted it on inspection forms.



I started being med free about 5 years ago. I realized that the bees were on an endless treadmill of medications and that true resistance could be bred. Once I set my course, my success was slow and my losses were high. That is until I happened across my Michigan Mutt bees.
In the summer, I make a little extra money by pulling bees out of walls. I was called out to an old barn where the bees, according to the homeowner, had been living for over 12 years. Due to renovations, it was time for them to go. I extracted them, put the in their own hive, and moved them to my quarantine yard to watch them. That following spring, they emerged strong and healthy, like no other bees I've seen before. I decided then that I had to breed them. (By the way, that very queen lived for 4 years in my hive until she started producing spotty brood and was superseded.)

Since then, I've been making nucs with the offspring of that queen. I open mate the queens in yards that are flooded with my own drones. I also incorporate other drones from good stock that I've also collected, just to keep my genetic pool diverse. If the resultant bees don't display, say, gentleness, that queen is pinched and a new queen is installed. My litmus test for gentleness is that I have to be able to work them without smoke (at most times the year), and I have to be able to take a frame and place my hand ON the bees themselves with no defensive action displayed.

So, do I have the ideal bee? I'm not sure, but I DO believe that I'm on the right road to a truly resilient bee.

Thanks again for reading,
DS

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Centrifuga de $28.

http://www.plantertomato.com/2010/09/beekeeping-how-to-make-a-honey-extractor-for-28.html#tp

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Water

http://www.howtodrillawell.com/

[flavius]

Centrifuga de $28.

http://www.plantertomato.com/2010/09/beekeeping-how-to-make-a-honey-extractor-for-28.html#tp

well, maybe in CA to cost 28$...in Romania, I would say arround 10$, barrel included...thanx, that will be my first extractor...

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Eric Mussen

Fall Management
I received a request for some fall colony management information in this issue. The topic generally would be more
Fall management actually begins in late summer. The goal is to raise as many healthy bees as possible to be your wintering population. Three crucial considerations for
population buildup are: 1. adequate pollen supplies, 2. large numbers of week old to two week old nurse bees, and 3. lots of empty space in the brood combs to accommodate egg laying.
If the bees are short on food, consider feeding BOTH sugar syrup and supplemental protein.
If the brood nest area is pretty much filled up with honey, remove combs and replace them with combs that are practically empty. Brood rearing naturally wraps up, or tapers way off, by the end of October, so the colony needs space dearly during the next month.
As for bee health, honey bees infected with diseases, fungal and/or
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bacterial, or that have been fed upon by Varroa mites while pupating, will not be able to survive the four to six months expected of healthy winter bees. You should have an idea of your colonies‟ mite populations through periodic monitoring with sticky traps. Nosema spore counts are not technically difficult to determine (see the instructions at Randy Oliver‟s website: www.scientificbeekeeping.com). Inter-preting the counts and deciding how to treat, if deemed necessary, can be a bit dicey.
Finally, the bees should have produced enough honey for winter survival and for you to take some. Try to leave 30-60 pounds for the bees. Fully filled deep combs contain about 5 pounds of honey and medium-depth combs between three and four pounds each. If the bees read the text-books, they will have put the honey above and to the sides of the brood nest, leaving many empty cells in the bottom box for late summer (then early spring) brood rearing. You may have to help the bees redistribute their stores to acquire that arrangement.
Having accomplished the things previously mentioned, you and your bees should be able to take a break for awhile. With almond pollination prices remaining substantial and demand for very populous wintering (yes, February is winter to Euro-pean honey bees) colonies remaining high, many US colonies will not really have a winter.
Preventing Robbing
We are rapidly approaching a time of the year when robbing becomes problematic for beekeepers. When the weather allows for forager flight, but plants are not provid-ing nectar and pollens, honey bees are apt to drop by next door and see what they can steal from the neighbors. The length of time that bees rob depends on the climate. Here, in the Davis area, we have nectar and pollen dearths in late spring and a big one in late summer and fall. We can have flight conditions throughout the winter, but the worse problem spans the time from mid-September to November.
Robbing is a problem for honey bee researchers, small scale beekeepers and beekeepers with thousands of colonies. At UC Davis, we still have the portable, four-sided, eight foot tall, folding screen cage that Dr. Harry Laidlaw would wrap around him and a hive so that he could work in the hive, unmolested, during the fall. Other-wise, he no sooner would have the cover off the hive than hordes of robbers would descend on the combs.
Some beekeepers are convinced that if you remove all the covers (lids) from the hives at once in an apiary, robbing isn‟t a problem. I‟m going to try that in Davis, sometime, to see if it works as well as the Canadian proponents claim that it does. I‟ll never hear the end of it from Susan Cobey and Elizabeth Frost if it doesn‟t work!
I believe that the better choice, feasible at least for those with fewer hives, is the use of robber screens. These screens interfere with robbing bees yet provide wide expanses of the entrance to be used for hive ventilation. Serious ventilation is critical on our hot fall days.
The original robber screen that I saw being used at UC Davis was a wooden-framed section of screen that covered about half of the entrance. A slot cut in one end held a piece of lath that could be slid down the entrance to reduce the entrance to zero, if necessary. Normally, it was left with about a 1.5 to 2 inch hole for the bees to

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defend. Still, if the colony behind the screen was weak for some reason, it really got targeted. A pile of freshly killed bees would be lying on the ground every day for weeks.
Then, we learned a bit more about robbing behavior and a new screen design became possible. Robbing honey bees tend to hover in front of a neighboring hive, swinging to the left and the right, as if trying to find an unguarded opening through which to enter quickly and undetected. Robbing foragers fly with their hind legs dangling down, similar to the way paper wasps dangle their legs. It does not appear that robbing honey bees enter the hive by landing on it and walking in.
Therefore, if you place a full-length screen across the front of the hive, you can block out the robbers. But, what about the hive inhabitants? Would they be screened in? Yes, if you fit the screen tightly, every-where, top and bottom, to the hive body. Instead place a four-inch-high robber screen across the body of the hive, leaving an opening at the top two inches wide between the screen and the hive, so the resident bees can crawl or fly over the screen. If you install the screen in the morning, the resident bees learn within hours to crawl up over the screen to get out and get back in. Event-ually, a number of them learn to fly diagon-ally across the hive entrance and not touch the screen. And, the bees have no difficulty carrying bodies of dead bees and other debris over the screen.
Intuitive behaviors are interesting. Potential robber bees leave their original colony by going over the robber screen, but don‟t do the same when they try to enter a neighboring hive. They hover around the fronts of screened hives and never get in; then, they go back home over the top of their own screen. We aren‟t sure, but it appears that these robber screens also deter maraud-ing yellowjackets, that can kill and eat a surprising number of honey bees around the hive entrance. Yellowjackets appear not to access this type of robber screen, either. I am still waiting for reports on the value of this screen from some beekeepers exper-iencing severe problems with yellowjacket predation.
It may be a bit difficult to visualize the screen I have described, so I am includ-ing a few photos (below) that should clear things up. The screens can be nailed to the fronts of the hives or held on with hook and eye latches. If nailed on, use nails with two heads on them (8d 2¼ inch bright duplex), so that the screen can be nailed solidly into the hive front but the nails can easily be grabbed when you wish to take them out.
You can tell from the photos that this screen was made by hand with simple tools (hacksaw, wood glue, beehive frame nails, drill, hammer, Arrow stapler and ¼ inch staples, white spray enamel paint). The bees do not have problems negotiating my crooked apparatus, as long as it is bee-tight in the right places and lets them get out behind it.
Robber Screen Open Top
Missing WAS Members
Hook and Eye Latch
Most of this edition will be devoted to happenings surrounding the just completed Western Apicultural Society annual conference held in Salem, Oregon.
During the transition between WAS Treasurers, it appears as though names and contact information for some new members may have been misplaced. If you became a WAS member but did not hear from the organization for a year (hard or electronic Journal deliveries), please contact the current WAS Treasurer, Jim Bach, at: jcbach@fairpoint.net and tell him what has transpired. If you are aware of anyone com-plaining about being dropped by the organ-ization, please have him or her contact Jim. Unlike the membership year, that matches the calendar year, Journal subscription years run for 12 months from receipt of the first subscription payment.
WAS Talk on Seed Pollination

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Mike Weber, manager of Central Oregon Seeds Inc., has to devote his winter, spring, and summer to planning and manag-ing pollination on nearly 50 carrot and onion seed fields. The certified fields require one or two mile isolations between them. Car-rots bloom for six weeks and onions for four, so timing of bee delivery and removal is critical.
Mike has an experienced bunch of beekeepers who bring populous colonies to the fields and remove them from the fields on 24 hour notice. The seeds planted under Mike‟s scrutiny often arrive from foreign breeders. They are hybridized in Oregon because the growing conditions are nearly perfect. Then the hybrid seeds are distri-buted mostly overseas for crop production.
Over a 2-3 week period Mike orchestrates the delivery and removal of 12,000 colonies. He does not like to stress his beekeepers, so he usually asks them to bring ½ fields worth of bees on one day and take the next day off. During that day off, someone else delivers that other half of the required colonies to that field. The next day, the original beekeeper delivers another load of bees – either a first half or second half, depending upon the field. The beekeepers
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are provided maps and directions ahead of time. Mike tries to keep compatible bee-keepers together. Mike also has to pay attention to the crop varieties. Pollen via-bility varies immensely from one variety to another. For example, white carrot umbels normally attract many more foragers than green colored umbels.
Drip irrigation maintains continuous bee visitation. But, always trying to get better performance from the bees, Mike‟s cooperators will be studying the effects of applications of synthesized brood phero-mone to the colonies. They already know that attractants sprayed on the bloom in-crease visitation some, but only for two to three days.
Nuclei Utilization
Many commercial beekeepers will have a few "nucs" going most of the year to replace sputtering or dead colonies they find, occasionally. However, Harry Vanderpool uses his 325 colonies mainly for crop seed pollination and he actually sched-ules the times that he will be making nucs. Harry uses his five-frame nucs to keep as many colonies as possible at the optimal strength for seed pollination throughout the season.
Beginning July 1, and over the next two weeks, nucs are made up with one frame of brood and bees, one frame of honey and bees, one frame of drawn comb, and two frames of foundation. Those nucs likely will be pressed into action in the fields. They have to be used in about 14 days or they become too strong for the nucs.
A bit later in the season, around August 1, Harry starts nucs as two frames of brood and bees, two frames of honey and bees, and one frame of drawn comb. Many of these nucs are planned to be wintered. Harry feeds the wintering nucs until they are pretty plugged with syrup, then he shakes the nuc boxes full of bees. The older fora-gers return to their hives and the nucs head into winter with fairly young bees.
If there is an immediate need for later season nucs, Harry puts three frames of brood and bees, one frame of honey, one frame of drawn comb, and one shake of bees from the brood nest of a strong colony into each nuc. These nucs also have to be used quickly to prevent the bees from out growing the nucs.
A fourth strength nuc is sometimes readied for delayed use in the fall. Those are started as two frames of brood and bees, one frame of honey and bees, and two frames of drawn comb. When nucs require chemical treatments, the doses are reduced to one-quarter (25%) strength.

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Harry purchases a large number of queens for these nucs. In the summer, when it is warm, the bees can chew through the softened queen candy very quickly. Instead of poking a hole in the candy to get things started, Harry wraps the queen cages with inexpensive masking tape to keep the queen in a bit longer. He checks for release ten days following installation.
If the queens cannot be used immediately, they are placed in a queen bank consisting of a substantial number of nurse bees. This time, the queens are supposed to remain confined, so Harry wraps the cages lengthwise with two layers of cellophane tape. The cages are arranged so that the screen sides are open to the nurse bees. If the cages have accompanying attendant bees, they are placed in the holding comb candy end up. If there are no attendants, they are placed candy end down.
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The many overwintered nucs come to California with the colonies rented for almonds. When he encounters a "deadout or a dud," in goes a nuc. Harry estimates that he loses around 7% of his queens when he ships bees to almonds.
Gordy Wardell‟s Almond Work
Paramount Farms, one of the state‟s huge almond producers, hired Dr. Gordon Wardell to help ensure that honey bees and other pollinators would be available to pol-linate the crop well into the future. Thus, another research hub joined the bunch.
Paramount Farms currently will be harvesting almonds from 45,000 acres running from Fresno to Bakersfield with a 100 mile breadth. Next year there will be about 50,000 acres requiring pollination.
The company uses its own staff for colony strength inspections. The acceptable base colony size is eight frames of bees for which the beekeeper was paid $130 this year, with a bonus of $2.50 for each frame greater than eight. Next year, the company intends to pay $135 for the base unit and a bonus of $5 a frame for larger colonies. Gordy is trying to entice his beekeepers to hit twelve frames of bees next year and be paid $155 per colony.
Three teams of inspectors were assigned to sample 15percent of the colonies (between 30,000 and 40,000), but finished about 17,000. The colonies average 9.5 frames of bees and two-thirds of them were above the eight frame minimum. During the inspections, correction factors were used based on temperature. If the temperature was below 50oF, a frame of bees was added to the visual count. If the temperature was 60oF or above, a frame was added to the
visual count. Inspectors changed gloves and cooked their hive tools in their smokers between beekeeping operations.
The inspectors are converting over to recoding all the data on the inspected hives on data recorders. The device selects which colonies to inspect through a random num-ber generator. Along with the rest of the collected data, the recorder enters a GPS location, so that everyone can go right back to that hive. The inspection results also are written on the cover of the hive.
It became very obvious from inspecting bees in their holding yards that despite the origin of the bees, when they hit the holding yards, they required feeding. The bees coming from cooler climates acted like they were just coming out of winter and looking for spring flowers. The bees com-ing from warmer climates came in with quite a bit of brood, but the holding yards basically had no food plants available to keep brood rearing going.

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The colonies seemed to respond pretty well to carbohydrate feeding. The effects of adding additional lipids were debatable, but additional canola, corn, and other vegetable oils increased patty con-sumption. Many of the colonies were fed Megabee® to keep brood rearing going. For about three weeks the fed and unfed colon-ies looked pretty similar. By six weeks, bees analyzed from the unfed group had much less protein in their bodies than did the fed bees. It appears that adult bees live longer in the fed colonies. Besides shor-tened life spans, the unfed colonies just seemed to "lose their vigor."
Paramount Farms is cognizant of the potential problems that fungicides can cause with bees, but this was a damp spring and chemicals were used to protect the crop.
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Gordy is working with Osmia lignaria (the blue orchard bee) to see if it can become a supplemental almond pollinator, perhaps decreasing the number of honey bee colon-ies required per acre. But, Gordy is the first to admit that the fungicides have to be kept away from blue orchard bees if the bees are to be successful at nesting in the orchards.
Colony Health
Dr. Diana Sammataro began her presentation listing some of the manners in which honey bees and honey bee colonies are protected against disease-causing mic-robes. These include living in a hive lined with the antibiotic propolis, having an impervious exoskeleton, moderating temper-ature (such as running a fever to reduce growth of Nosema), stimulating production of antibiotics in infected cells, stimulating blood cells to engulf and eliminate invading microbes, while serving as a host to a number of microbes essential to the health of the bees.
We still believe that honey bees have a sterile intestinal tract before they emerge from the cells as adults. By exchanging food and eating stores that have been manip-ulated by previous bees, they become inocu-lated with bacteria (and fungi?) essential for their existence. Diana referred to this con-cept as the bees having a "social stomach."
Researchers at the USDA Tucson honey bee lab have devoted significant time and energy trying to isolate and determine what microbes are necessary for honey bee health. It turns out that the Lactobacillus species are some of the most important, as they are to mammals. In honey bees they are important in digesting pollen and releasing essential nutrients. One of the species of Lactobacillus apparently has been found in every species of honey bee analyzed. It appears to be the same species that kills fungi in wine production. Twelve other Lactobacillus species have been identified in the honey stomach contents (nectar). Combined, these bacteria are going to be marketed as a honey bee probiotic. These bacteria release protective antibiotics, enzymes and fatty acids, and break down starches, proteins and carbohydrates, etc.
Feeding studies, somewhat similar to those of Gordy Wardell and conducted over extended periods of time, determined that without inoculated pollens to consume, only the queen would continue to function somewhat normally. Eggs were being laid but no bees were feeding the larvae. Adding a bit of previously stored bee bread led to restoration of brood rearing. Preliminary studies determined that antibiotics, high fructose corn syrup and old honey appeared to vastly reduce the number of microbes in laboratory cultures. Different sugars had varying effects on microbial make up. The next step is to try to determine how much impact oxytetracycline, tylosin, and fuma-gillin have on honey bee intestinal microbes. A follow up study will determine if the intestinal flora can be re-established using the probiotic.

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In case you were thinking of trying this, yogurt made from cows‟ milk or cream has a high level of the sugar lactose, which is toxic to honey bees. As I have often counseled before, if you are going to try anything new on your bees, be sure to keep the number of experimental units limited, in case you lose them. According to Wikipe-dia, there is a soy-based yogurt.
Ant Problems?
I am sorry that I am not going to remember who provided this gem at the WAS conference, but apparently there is a
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cleansing product on the market called, Orange Power™, ,,The Greener Cleaner.‟ Spray it on the ants and their trails. Said to eliminate ants for weeks.
Pollination Taxes
Beekeepers renting bees to pollinate crops in California are expected by the state to pay a 7percent tax on that income.
Apparently, you can pay the tax yourself, but in order to prevent the grower
or broker from having to withhold that 7 percent from your check, you must fill out CA Franchise Tax Board form 588 (waiver
Eric Mussen
Entomology
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
request) and send it to: Withholding Services and Compliance, Franchise Tax
Board, P.O. Box 942867, Sacramento, CA 94267-0651.
Sincerely,
Eric Mussen
Entomology Extension
University of California
Davis, CA 95616

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Fall Feed Recipes

have been getting a lot of requests for this info so I thought I would post it.

Patties – 5 gallon bucket mixture
2 Cups of Yeast
7 lbs of Sugar
8 drops of thyme
15 drops lemongrass
15 drops spearmint
Measure out the brewer's yeast into a large container. Add your essential oils as measured above. I recommend using an eye dropper for precise measurements. Pour liquid brewer's yeast into 5 gallon bucket. Add sugar slowly with mixing with an electric drill equipped with a "mud" paddle. Mix until the consistency is that of a thick mushy mashed potatoes. Add sugar or small amount of yeast to get consistency right. In feeding lots of hives I find you can then pour/spoon this mixture out of the 5 gallon mixing bucket into one used for feeding and then continue to mix a new batch in your mixing bucket. If you try and mix too much, you will burn out your drill which is why I recommend mixing in the above measurements.

Patties – Cement Mixer
4 Quarts of yeast
48-50 lbs of sugar
1 dropper of thyme
3 droppers of lemongrass
3 droppers of spearmint
In a large mixing bowl measure out 4 quarts of liquid brewer's yeast and then add your essential oils. In a clean cement mixer pour the yeast/EO mixture. Turn on the mixture and begin to add the sugar. Continue to mix until well mixed and with a consistency of thick mushy mashed potatoes.

Liquid Feed – Sprayer (or feed)
3 Gallons of Water
20 lbs of Sugar
(1.5 droppers of thyme oil) – Optional for use with mite control misting or as treatment/feed
3 droppers of lemongrass oil
3 droppers of spearmint oil
5 teaspoons of Soy Lecithin Granules

In a 5 gallon bucket pour in one gallon of very hot water (not boiling). Mix in 5 teaspoons of Lecithin granules. With a mud mixer or similar mixer, mix in the granules for a couple of seconds. Add your lemongrass and spearmint oil to the mix and run the mixer again. Next, add two gallons of tap water. Mix again. Next, start adding your bags of sugar. Add a couple of bags and mix then add more. If you try and add too much at once it can burn out your mixer. Keep mixing until all the sugar is mixed well into the solution. You should have about 4- 4.5 gallons of feed ready to go.
(For mite control misting) Get a garden sprayer. Use one that has not been used before as you do not want chemicals in your feed. I label the one I use "Bee Feed" so it doesn't get confused with anything. Pour in your mix and pressure up your sprayer. I use the fine mist setting. This allows you to mist a frame in one or at most two sweeps and doesn't soak the frame or bees but gives it a nice even complete coating. Place into your hive and move to the next frame.
Lastly, I run two of these feeds with thyme and then just run them with lemongrass and spearmint. Towards the end of Nov. I will feed one more time with thyme. No special reason that I do this but experimenting around I found this works best for the bees. My mite counts since starting this method have been very low to zero.

Alternate Liquid Feed (makes up a smaller batch)
2qts. of water
2qts. of sugar
12 drops of thyme oil
28 drops of lemongrass oil
28 drops of spearmint oil
3 teaspoons of lecithin granules

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2010 Honey production

1. Finished 2010 honey production season. the #'s are in at 161,424 lbs from 820 hives. That a 197 APH. I was hopeing for that 72 ton year, but love when I'm wrong this time. Finish the shaking next week and then it's just getting the fishing poles ready.

2. Anyway, wound up with 61,625 lbs. from 550 producing hives, for an avg. of about 112 lbs. per hive.

3. Bees are giving me a run for my honey this year. Started production two weeks ahead of normal. Bees are avg. a super a week. Been pulling 600-700 supers a week. At that rate I'm only falling behind by 100-200 super a week. Hopeing to have my first pull done next week. Right now the first pull is avg at 95 lbs a hive. Looks like the second will be better. If the flow stay strong for 3-4 more weeks, should do over 70 ton this year.

4. Bypass the 70 ton mark today. It's been a long season but well worth it. This year we have hit almost every flow and now that season is coming to the end.
820 hives for the 2010 count.
This is the year for the books. 170+ lb. APH

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States expand efforts to combat 'funny honey'

RALEIGH, N.C. – You might call them the Honey Police — beekeepers and honey producers ready to comb through North Carolina to nab unscrupulous sellers of sweet-but-bogus "funny honey."
North Carolina is the latest state to create a standard that defines "pure honey" in a bid to curb the sale of products that have that label but are mostly corn syrup or other additives. Officials hope to enforce that standard with help from the 12,000 or so Tar Heel beekeepers.
"The beekeepers tend to watch what's being sold, they watch the roadside stands and the farmer's markets," said John Ambrose, an entomologist and bee expert at North Carolina State University who sits on the newly created Honey Standards Board.
Florida was the first state to adopt such standards in 2009. It's since been followed by California, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Similar efforts have been proposed in at least 12 other states, including North and South Dakota, the nation's largest producers of honey, together accounting for roughly one-third of U.S. output.
Beekeepers and honey packers around the country are fuming about products masquerading as real honey, and they hope the state-by-state strategy will secure their ultimate goal: a national rule banning the sale of any product as pure honey if it contains additives.
Americans consume about 350 million pounds of honey per year, but just 150 million pounds are made domestically, creating a booming market for importers and ample temptation to cut pure honey with additives such as corn syrup that are far less expensive to produce.
This month, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago announced the indictments of 11 German and Chinese executives and six companies on charges that they avoided nearly $80 million in honey tariffs and sold honey tainted with banned antibiotics.
The scale of the problem nationwide is hard to gauge. It's largely a concern for the big producers who make most of America's honey, said Bob Bauer, vice president of the National Honey Packers and Dealers Association.
"The honey industry is looking to be proactive and take whatever steps are necessary not only to keep it from becoming a widespread problem, but to get rid of it entirely," he said.
The most passionate supporters of the laws tend to be beekeepers and other small producers outraged at what they see as the corruption of their craft.
"They're trading on the good name of honey to sell their product," Kenosha, Wis., beekeeper Tim Fulton said of phony honey peddlers.
Ambrose said the North Carolina board — formed by the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the state Beekeepers Association — won't be a "honey patrol."
The board will instead respond to complaints about improperly marketed honey, which under state law is now defined as what honeybees produce: no more, no less. Once a complaint has been received, a state-approved lab will test the product. If it's not pure honey, the state can order it to be removed from sale and impose fines for subsequent violations.
"You can go to roadside stands throughout the western part of the state and they'll try to sell you Karo syrup and swear it's sourwood honey," said Charles Heatherly, a North Carolina beekeeper.
Sourwood — Heatherly calls it "the Cadillac of North Carolina honey" — is mostly found in the state's mountainous west. It can cost up to $10 a pound, making it an attractive target for adulteration.
It was a similar impersonation of local honey that provoked Nancy Gentry, a beekeeper who owns Cross Creek Honey in Interlachen, Fla., to launch a bid to get a honey standard not just in her home state, but around the country.
"People were taking raw honey, adding high fructose corn syrup and marketing it as grade A USDA No. 1 honey, but there is no such thing," said Dick Gentry, Nancy's husband and a retired trial lawyer who helped steer the campaign in Florida.
But the real sting in the Florida provision, and in standards adopted in California, Wisconsin and North Carolina, is that it makes it easier to file lawsuits against purveyors of bogus honey.
Agencies have been reluctant to create standards for honey ever since a Michigan jury in 1995 found in favor of a honey processing firm that had been accused of cutting the product with an additive. The jurors said there weren't enough regulations governing honey to make the charge stick and that the government failed to identify the additive.
Under the new laws, it isn't necessary to know out what's being added to honey. Any additive, from cane sugar to corn syrup, deprives it of the label "pure honey."
That could prompt retailers or beekeepers to file more lawsuits.
"For us, it is through the civil courts, then, that we take back the product," Nancy Gentry told an industry group in Fresno, Calif., according to a transcript of her speech. "We crush unscrupulous packers and throw out honey pretenders."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has worked to block the sale of honey contaminated with potentially harmful chemicals, and it's reviewing a petition seeking a national honey standard, spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said.
In the meantime, North Carolina beekeepers promise to keep on the lookout to ensure every jar of honey holds what the label says.
"Some of the people who think they've been buying sourwood all these years have actually been buying corn syrup, and they have no idea what they're missing," Ambrose said.