To feed bees or not to feed bees? If you read Jeremy Barnes letter to the editor (in most recent ABJ, September 2020) you might wish to hit the pause button. Jeremy summarizes studies involving feeding sugar syrup to bees confined in cages in the lab. Worker bees fed sugar syrup do not live as […]
To Feed or not to feed (bees) Read More »
AFB is a bacterial disease of developing honey bee brood. AFB spores infect the larva in the earliest larval stage (newborn to 2 days old), generally through nurse bees supplying infected food. Infection spreads quickly among the larvae, as nurse bees, which carry the bacteria but are not affected by it, move from cell to
American Foulbrood – time to inspect Read More »
We should seek to enhance colony growth in Spring for surplus honey but seek to flatten the growth curve of mites.
I have received a very low response this year from WVBA members (<10) for the annual pnwhoneybeesurvey. It will only be up until end of day Friday May 1. Please if you have not yet had the opportunity won’t you take a few minutes and add your overwintering success and management information so I can
LAST FEW DAYS OF SURVEY Read More »
The PNW honey bee survey is now open extending to end of April. WVBA has had consistently great participation in past surveys (38 survey returns last year – loss level 46%) and I AKS PLEASE complete a survey again this year. Go to https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.om/survey To examine past survey results look for WVBA survey report on
Winter loss survey NOW OPEN and Dead colony Necropsy Read More »
Many of you are aware that I winter 3 months in Bolivia, South America where my wife Nieves hails from. While here I do some bee classes and apiary visits. We have class beginning this Saturday in fact (it is summer her). I just finished an intense week of coarse and field work. Kerry Clark
How do you overwinter? What do you consider the greatest challenge to successful overwintering? 38 WVBA survey respondents reported average overwintering losses of 46%, just two percentage points different from the 416 OR beekeeper average winter loss. As Figure 3 of the WVBA report illustrates (posted on http://pnwhoneybeesurvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/WVBA-2019.pdf}, the average losses were the highest for
Do you fly a drone? No I don’t mean the live drones you find in your bee colony or tethered drones you might fly at a bee display but instead I am asking if you fly a robotic drone to use for aerial services? Drones have been used in war, espionage, research, videography and farming.
DRONES Keeping up with Technology Read More »
Do you fly a drone? No I don’t mean the live drones you find in your bee colony or tethered drones you might fly at a bee display but instead I am asking if you fly a robotic drone to use for aerial services? Drones have been used in war, espionage, research, videography and farming.
DRONES Keeping up with Technology Read More »
The first posting on WVBA winter losses reported loss of 122 colonies = 46 % average loss, slightly lower than the statewide loss of 48%, which equals the highest for OR backyarders. The 46%loss was the highest WVBA level of the previous 4 years and 9.5% above the 4 year average. The trend is sloped
