The Commercial Conundrum

If you're familiar with my work, you know that I am strictly against "magic bullet genetics." One of the things that bugs me about all the so-called research is that they never seem to actually consult those of us that are already doing it. No stock available? Hardly, just not widely accepted by the scientists. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-science or anti-medicine as is admittedly common in this group. But when for instance, I read studies on small cell foundation, I can see almost instantly that these people not only have no idea what they're doing, they obviously hasn't asked for help from anyone who does!

This is a huge point of frustration for many of us in this movement. Bee scientists and commercial beekeepers absolutely refuse to do anything differently. They just apply our methods half heartedly and point and laugh when they fail. Of course they fail! You didn't actually do what we suggest!

I actually have made the point that commercial migratory beekeeping may be impossible due to the fact that bees are fundamentally not meant to move and be exposed to that much disease that often. But commercial stationary honey production absolutely is and there are already a handful, if not dozens doing it.

Breeding bees with specific traits like ankle biters and VSH is ultimately a futile effort. I have been saying for years that the only ultimate solution is to stop treating and let it work itself out. And it does. However, few if any commercial beekeepers can actually let that happen or they go bankrupt. I get that.

We have a major problem with newbees making a mess of things on the forums. But there are a lot of us doing this. And there are parts of this country where almost everybody is TF. The commercial conundrum is something that is going to have to be worked through for many years to come.

Treatment-Free Beekeeping Podcast - Episode 11 - Michael in Nebraska Part 2

The second part of my conversation with Michael Bush, talking beekeeping and answering some more questions.

http://parkerfarms.biz/Podcast/TFBP-Ep11.mp3

Survey of Mites in Capped Brood Cells

So I was out working the bees today and I was removing some deep frames from a medium hive.  The bees had built comb hanging from the bottom of the frames.  It was the only way I had to get a deep nuc into a medium hive last year.

I took the best of the brood comb and tied it into a foundationless frame:

However, a lot of the comb was drone and so out of curiousity I started pulling out the drone brood and counting and separating them by which ones had mites and which didn't.  Then out of more curiosity, I did the same with the last little bit of worker brood there was on a similar piece of comb. 

Here are the results:  Of the drone brood, I uncapped 56 drones, finding 15/56 (27%) infested with at least one varroa, and two with two mites for a total of 17 mites.  Of the worker brood, I uncapped 73 and found 5 infested with a mite (7%) and one having successfully reproduced, showing multiple mites in the cell, in the typical ages of a mite lifecycle in a honeybee cell (1.4%).  I did not find any reproducing mites in the drone cells, but as you can see in the picture above, the drones were all recently capped whereas many of the workers were near emergence.

What does this demonstrate?

First, I have mites.  No surprise there, I have been saying that for years.

Second, I have plenty of mites.  No tiny insignificant population here.  This is not a hive that has demonstrated hygienic traits, yet survives nonetheless.

Third, the mites obviously prefer the drone brood, infesting at a rate of one in four while worker brood was only infested at a rate of one in fourteen.

Fourth, some hives are capable of handling a substantial mite load without crashing or even showing detrimental effects.  This hive is about the fourth strongest in this yard of nine.  I used it as my cell builder this year.

Five, if these numbers hold out, mites are not terribly successful at reproducing in worker brood in this hive, only about 1 in 71 worker cells result in mite reproduction.

And for some background data, I measured the cell size of this piece of nearly perfect free form comb and found the cell size to be a consistent 5.2mm.  The rest of the comb in the hive is 4.9mm wax or 4.95mm plastic.

Natural Cell Size

If you've read the blog for a while, you'll know that I was trying foundationless frames this year.  If you want to get caught up, go ahead and go back and read.  I'll wait.

...

Okay, you're back.

Well, I only have one comb to show you, because it just so happens that the hive it was in happened to die a few weeks ago.  No worries, this hive was a split from the hive the frame was previously in (still alive and well) and the frame certainly had nothing to do with it.

Here, you can see the frame and you can compare it to what it looked like soon after it was begun.

It's not too bad, though not perfect.  It had several queens made on it over the course of the year so that also makes it a little holey.

So, how did it turn out?  I measured the cell size on the frame in a number of places and different directions.  Here are the results:

Here's a 4.9mm section.

Here's a 5.1mm section.

Here's a 5.2mm section.

As you can see, there is natural variability.  However, the natural cell size is certainly on average below the smallest standard sized foundation available at 5.2mm.

In the future, I'm switching wholesale to plastic frames and foundationless frames, but until then I still have quite a bit of foundation to run through.

Old Queen

Click on picture to enlarge.

Just caught this swarm a few days ago.  The queen's wings are quite tattered.  How old do you think she could be?  With wings like that, surely she has swarmed before.  The record is said to be nine years, but that was a queen with clipped wings.

Most of the swarms I catch around here seem to be very very small, likely less than a pound in most cases.  It leads me to hypothesize that there is a couple of small feral hives in small tree hollows in the area.  They are so small that an overflowing hive still produces a swarm that is this small.  It also leads me to hypothesize that the swarms I am catching are not being produced by my hives as my smallest hive being composed of a single deep would produce a swarm still much larger than this.  These last two swarms only covered approximately a single deep frame.

As you can see, this hive is composed of workers of a light complexion with well defined dark bands on their abdomens.  The other swarm is composed of workers with about 30% being dark complected like carniolans.  This is interesting to me because I'm still on the hunt for black queens.  None of my nine queens are black as of the current time.

Not all swarms draw small cell foundation well, this one is doing better than most which leads me to believe at least second generation away from a kept hive. 

Unfortunately for this queen, her days are surely numbered.  A supercedure cell already prepares her replacement.

A Very Windy Day, And Small Cell Comb

Today was very windy.  I was taking stuff out to the yard so I could make some space in the shop, and perhaps add the benefit of possible swarm traps.  So, add five hives to the empty stands, and you'll start to see an idea of how I want the yard to look toward the end of the summer. 

You'll notice the double wide hive to the far right.  I'm trying a new configuration on that one with less ventilation and the bottom permanently attached.  I'm also trying to do upper entrances almost exclusively due to skunk problems.


Now the small cell.

Dee Lusby and her husband Ed were the primary apologists for small cell foundation in the modern age.  Bees left to their own devices tend to make comb of widely varying cell sizes and about the average for brood comb is 4.9mm in diameter.  However, most commercially available foundation is available in the 5.2mm to 5.5mm range or so.  So the Lusby's made their own foundation mill.  Similar mills as well as a variety of small cell foundation are now available from many beekeeping supply companies.

The argument is that in combination with a few other factors, housing the bees on 'small cell' comb gives them the upper hand in disease control.  I apologize in advance for the sideways pictures.  They were taken with the same iPhone as the one at the top, but just won't align right.

 

 The above photo shows 4.9mm comb drawn from small cell foundation.  This is the brood comb I use.

And here is comb drawn from larger crimp wired foundation.  I don't know its actual origin, this comb came from a hive that was given to me six or seven years ago.  It is old and dark and is good and strong for extracting honey.

There have been some actual scientific studies showing that small cell alone will not save bees from varroa mites.  However, Dee said that small cell was only about a third of the puzzle, another third being genetics, and the last third was the beekeeping method.  I have been successfully [depending on your point of view] keeping bees with her methods for eight years.  I have never lost all my bees at any one time.  Most especially, I have never used chemicals to treat the bees.  I can't really use the term 'organic' anymore because now that it's codified into law, the term is pretty much worthless.  But, the facts are, my bees are completely treatment free, and my honey is raw and unfiltered.

What is "Natural" as far as Beekeeping is Concerned?

I recently posted at Beesource (where I go by the handle "WiredForStereo") about what is natural.  The discussion was about using foundation-less frames instead of foundation, small or large cell.  You'll find that post weaved into this post.

 

For the uninitiated, many years ago, beekeepers decided to start having bees grow on larger cells with the expectation that larger bees would equal more honey.  Many years later, this led to problems with mites, both varroa and tracheal, or so is the view by some.  While the cell size itself has been proven in university studies to have no direct affect on mites, some including myself view small cell (4.9mm cell diameter) to be part of a holistic approach to beekeeping.  While some of the small cell fervor has waned, it still has its proponents.

Now, more and more, there seem to be beekeepers raising bees without foundation like in the olden days.  Essentially, they put in an empty frame into the hive and let (hope) the bees draw out something useful.  Often it works wonderfully, with the bees drawing out beautiful worker brood comb at a high rate of speed.  Likewise, often it goes horribly wrong with bees drawing out terribly messy, crossed, or crooked comb, or full frames of drone comb.

I'm starting to see foundation-less as a fad-ish kickback to the small cell crowd. There's been large cell popularity, then there was small cell, and people thought this one thing was the panacea, but it isn't, and university studies prove that. Then people get all philosophical and decide "what do I know, I'm only human, certainly the bees know better than I do." Then we get this crosshatched mishmash of natural and unnatural methods where you get a couple great combs of worker, and then a bunch full of drone.

Trying to do something "natural" inside a sawed and planed nailed together painted fully dismantle-able and often mobile "hive" with movable frames is like pretending jumping out of a plane and flapping your wings is "flying." You're lying to yourself. Whether there is foundation in there or not, you're lying to yourself. It's unnatural. It's unnatural. It's unnatural. Deal with it. Keeping bees is unnatural. Hacking down a tree and stealing the honey out of it is natural. So if you want to do it "natural" go, be my guest. But if you think owning a hive is natural, you're simply lying to yourself.

Bees are animals. When we use them for our ends, they are livestock. Should we next decide that cows should not be fenced in because it's "unnatural"? Surely the cow knows better than I do about in which field she belongs. Right?

That's the whole point. I want that cow in my field. I want those bees to build comb in my hive on my frames so I can get in there and make sure these wild "tamed" (get it, because they're gentle) are doing what I want so I can get honey and wax out of the deal.

On top of all that, I want them to do it without me having to dope them up to keep them alive. And I don't want that dope in my honey either.  How do I pull this off? Then I hear about people using "natural" treatments. What is that supposed to mean? Are you telling me that FGMO naturally occurs in hives as a miticide so we should use it too? Nonsense. Hogwash. Hose-water. Load of hooey.

My great uncle did foundation-less, and all his bees are dead, he's dead too. What does that have to do with anything? Nothing, but I've seen more better believed in correlations around here.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna keep using small cell because it's like being foundation-less, ONLY WITH FOUNDATION!!!! Those of us on small cell know for a fact that bees on small cell build whatever they want because we spend a good portion of our time making sure we give them foundation at the right time of year so they will draw it out well. Then we take the poorly drawn and excess drone stuff and use it for honey.


Another aspect of my beekeeping is survivorship.  I do my best to let bees die that can't hack it in the real world.  Bees have been the property of beekeepers for so long, that they have been weakened genetically, or so is my thesis.  I know it hurts to watch a hive die.  I have seen so so so many do it.  But that's how it works in the wild.  Bees that can't live within their means in the winter die.  Bees that can't move around in the cold die.  Bees that can't fend off disease die.  Bees that don't raise good queens die.  This is how the world works.

[It's a discipline, it's hard to do.  Now that's not to say I won't help them at all.  This last year for instance, we had a bad year.  There was no rain for 7 weeks and the bees were not able to bring in much honey.  That wasn't their fault, they would have had enough had I not robbed them in June.  I can't force them to die for something I did.  And I wouldn't have robbed them had I known they were going to be short.  So I fed them some.  As it turns out, they were able to survive without my help thus far, but they may need a bit of a jump start to raise spring brood.  I'm not heartless.]

The survivors go on to the next year to swarm and reproduce.  Their genetics go on.  This is the process of natural selection.  While I freely admit and promulgate the idea that beekeeping is not natural per se, the best solution for keeping them as livestock lies in keeping their genetics as close to natural as possible.

Doing all that allows me to market "organic" or "natural" honey.  That honey fetches a premium price because it is free of chemicals, local, and unprocessed.  It also allows me to keep bees for much less money and headache, though as I mentioned before, watching hives die can be quite stressful.

Next time, my plans for increase this year.  I'm attempting to go from 5 to 16.

Some History

As I mentioned before, I started Parker Farms in 2003 when I bought and hived twenty packages of bees. It was an interesting day. I got up bright and early and drove from my home in Ruch Oregon to Glenn California. The packages were stapled to thin boards in sets of five, about four feet long. I tried unpacking them and putting them all in the trunk, but the lady strongly suggested against it because of ventilation. They stapled them back together and I drove home with five in the trunk and 15 in the back seat of my Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (gas was cheap in those days.)

I had gravitated toward the organic crew during my research, I didn't like the idea of having to put stuff in my hives to keep them alive all that time. I read the majority of Dee Lusby's work and tried to follow her methods. I have used only small cell foundation in every hive from the beginning. I use either unlimited brood nest management or in cases of special kinds of hives, a modified version of it. I decided my standard form hive would be five or six deeps tall, the bottom three boxes being for brood and the top two or three for honey for me. The boxes and wax are kept on the hive year round. It saves storage space, and the bees keep the comb free of wax moths, free of charge, and free of chemicals.

When I learned about Housel positioning, I integrated it into my operation. I haven't really seen many fruits of it, but I don't think it can hurt anything, and it doesn't take that much effort. Interestingly enough, I think it helps me keep stuff in order when I am inspecting a hive, so, so much the better.

Being the inexperienced beekeeper that I was, I made quite a few mistakes early on. I had never seen much beekeeping of any kind, much less in person. So, when I put foundation on all the early frames, I tried to use foundation pins and also used a spur embedder with wire. I discovered the unfortunate side effect of that and a warm summer the first time I opened the hives. I nearly had a heart attack and a panic attack and an asthma attack all at the same time when I realized that in ALL my hives, the foundation had fallen out of the frames and made a huge mess. The bees didn't care much, they don't mind if the comb is all over the place, so they just went with it, but as for me, I nearly freaked out. You might even say I did freak out. It was a bad day.

Thinking back, it may have been the small cell foundation being a little weaker than the regular stuff, I don't know. I did learn a new skill. I learned how to frame loose comb using empty frames and rubber bands. I learned it well fixing the nearly 200 frames that were all unquestionably combed together.

Then I started wiring all the frames, and I started dribbling hot wax in the top bars to glue the wax in and I used a car battery to melt the wire into the wax. I did do some experimenting, I wired in strange configurations, different directions, and I tried small cell plastic foundation, but none of that stuff worked. Following some advice from other organic beekeepers, I found that the best way to do it was to use eyelets or staples, to wire the frames the regular four wire way, and to cut about 7 mm off the bottom of the foundation so that it doesn't quite touch the bottom bar. If the bees decide to connect it, so be it, but until they do that, it keeps the foundation from buckling and being wavy between the wires which was a significant problem I've had throughout the years, especially now as I attempt to remove some bad comb and replace it with foundation.

I innovated the Imrie Shim design to add a larger entrance and a landing board. I decided that bees needed upper entrances more than bottom ones, but though this is a good design to bungle the skunks, the bees seem to have problems with it. Their brood nests are rarely anywhere near the bottom of the hives. It was just this last fall that I decided to scrap that idea. The shim idea did yield some fruit when I discovered that if you turn a migratory lid upside down and put my "Parker Shim" on it, it becomes a hive bottom board which saves time because tops and bottoms are now the same thing and interchangeable. Further, BWrangler's experimentation seems to point to the bees not wanting upper ventilation. I can also see his point about the air rising through the middle of the hive and falling down the sides rather than simply going up the hive like a chimney. That idea makes sense and I'll pay attention to it in the future.

I continued building up my bees for the next few years, eventually coming to acquire nearly 70 deep boxes and up to 21 hives. But the bees never seemed to produce any honey. Looking back, I have come to believe that there was just not that much available where I was. Thus the bees never really thrived. It may also have been part of the genetic winnowing process. I was never able to make any money selling honey, I did sell a few Ross Rounds to my aunt and made a few bucks, but it was nothing compared to the massive outlay of cash I had spent on equipment and bees.

It was sometime in 2004 I think when I was given a small hive in green boxes from some hippies who lived up on Little Applegate. Of all the loses I have taken, I still have those bees, and they still have a significant amount of the large cell foundation they came on. The boxes weren't screwed together to my standards, but I'll fix them this year. They are coming apart at the joints.

I had one large hive from the start. They seemed to grow at a fairly rapid pace, faster than the rest. Before long, they were up to five boxes. When I brought them to Arkansas, they died. Oh well, they were violent little cusses anyway.

In 2005 I moved to Bentonville Arkansas to be with my then future wife who worked at the Wal-Mart home office at the time. From New Year's Day 2005 until April 30 2007 I had no contact with bees at all. I did come back to Oregon Christmas 2005 and loaded up three deeps in the trunk to use in the future. It wasn't til we moved to Springdale in 2006 that I finalized plans to start beekeeping again. April 2007 they showed up, a five frame medium nuc from FatBeeman. They came on small cell foundation which I think was a big benefit. They quickly outgrew their single deep box and may have swarmed. I tried my best to get them into more equipment but it was hard with the limited amount of stuff I had with me. They now are my most successful hive, though I think they are severely limited by their inability or unwillingness to move their brood nest out of those original frames. They do produce honey, in fact I got all of last year's honey from them, but I don't think they are reaching their potential. I plan to split them this year, and force them off those medium frames by simply taking them from the hive all together and starting a new hive with them.

In August of 2008, I went to Oregon with plans of renting a Uhaul and bringing back as much equipment as I could. While I was there, Dr. Watson, the guy who was essentially taking care of my bees suggested I build a trailer and simply haul all the bees back. Unfortunately by this time, there were only five hives left, and now after the big one died, there only four, leaving me with only 20% of my original hives, the standard loss rate when switching to organic beekeeping. Dr. Watson is a great guy and very accommodating, but he just had no dedication to organic methods, or any of the other methods I use. I can't fault him for that, he just doesn't do it my way and I refused to let him treat the bees no matter how "natural" the treatments were. As an aside, my view is that if it is a treatment, it is not in any way natural, no matter what it is. So with the help of my father, I built a little 4x8 foot trailer, screened tops and bottoms for the hives, and loaded them and a rototiller, some plants, my table saw, an extractor, and as much equipment as I could. The trailer was piled well higher than the car, and I estimate it was at or beyond capacity, at least for the tires. That trailer took our gas mileage from 35 mpg to well under 20.

We loaded at sundown so as to be the best time for the bees. We left Oregon that evening and began our journey back. The trailer performed superbly, but I had screwed up, I had missed the bottom board of the big hive when I screwed all the hives together for shipping. The hive slid off the bottom board and left the bees to escape, spreading bees across seven states. It may have contributed to that hive's collapse, I don't know. They seemed fine during inspections shortly after. I did manage to get the hive slid back on to the bottom and blocked it in with some wood, but it was never perfect. I also ended up spending almost twenty bucks on some Gorilla glue tape to tape up some of the cracks between the boxes. We traveled all the first night, all the next day, and spent the night in Rock Springs Wyoming in a bridal suite because every other room in town was filled with construction workers who were ironically building new hotels. That particular stretch was very hard, I was feeling down because of the things I hadn't done on the trip, and I was extremely frustrated because I couldn't stop the bees getting away. We traveled all the next day, and the next night arriving back home in Fayetteville Arkansas around 4 or 5 AM. I called up Brian Bailey as soon as I dared the next morning to help me unload them and place them on the bases I had hastily built for them.

So there they have been sitting since then. I did lose that one hive, and a couple of the hives have shown a marked lack of stores this winter so I have been doing my best to feed them honey and sugar syrup to keep them alive until they can build up this spring. I have big plans this 2009. Yes I can right?

There is one important thing I have to explain. I am a Christian, and a long time ago, I dedicated my bees to God. Our deal is that if he wants them to be successful they will be, and if not, they won't. So this business is not so much me trying to run a business, as him being my patron if you will. It's his way of reminding me that he's in charge.

I think I'm better at writing history than philosophy.
Sol Parker