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Howard County Beekeepers Association Inc.
(A 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization)
Our purpose is to promote honey beekeeping in Howard County, Md by providing a forum in which current honey beekeepers may become more knowledgeable of best practices and the public can become more, and accurately, informed on the benefits of honey bees.
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by the Practical Beekeeper.
(With swarm season upon us, I decided to post a link to an article on swarm prevention from the Pratical Beekeeper. To read the complete article, please follow the link at the bottom of this article.) Swarming is when the old queen and part of the bees leave to start a new colony. Afterswarms are after the old queen has left and there are still too many bees so some of the swarm queens (which are unmated queens) leave with more swarms. Sometimes a hive has a several afterswarms. Generally swarming is considered a bad thing because you usually lose those bees. But if you catch them it's a bonus because swarms are notorious for building up quickly. The bees are focused on it already and it's in the natural order of things. Back in the days of skeps and box hives it was always considered a good thing. It was a chance to make increase........ UMD Experiments with Tower Hives and Chemical-Free Varroa Control
UMD is looking for beekeepers with four (or a multiple of four) hives, some curiousity, and some time to gauge whether this approach to varroa control might be valid and valuable for beekeepers in Maryland. UMD needs beekeepers to be able to provide 4 hives in a single apiary: two to be used in a Tower configuration, one to be managed as usual, and another to be managed with the standard hive configuration using drone brood removal. As much work as this is, creating an experiment with valid controls is one of the missing pieces as most of us share our lessons from beekeeping success and failure, and merely participating in such an exercise can actually help your ability to analyze and manage your results. Bee research details harm from insecticides From Washington Post, Marc Kaufman Date: 3/29/2012 New research has begun to unravel the mystery of why bees are disappearing in alarming numbers worldwide: Some of the pesticides most commonly used by farmers appear to be changing bee behavior in small but fatal ways. Two new studies found that honeybees and bumblebees had trouble foraging for food and returning with it to their hives after exposure to the class of insecticides, which is widely used to protect grains, cotton, beans, vegetables and many other crops. Honeybee Deaths Linked to Corn Insecticides By Alexandra Ludka Mar 15, 2012 6:15pm ABC News: Nature & Environment
 Image credit: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images What was killing all those honeybees in recent years? New research shows a link between an increase in the death of bees and insecticides, specifically the chemicals used to coat corn seeds. The study, titled “Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds,” was published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science & Technology journal, and provides insight into colony collapse disorder. Increased honey bee diversity means fewer pathogens, more helpful bacteria
Researchers assessed bacterial communities found within 10 genetically uniform and 12 genetically diverse honey bee colonies. Credit: Wellesley College A novel study of honey bee genetic diversity co-authored by an Indiana University biologist has for the first time found that greater diversity in worker bees leads to colonies with fewer pathogens and more abundant helpful bacteria like probiotic species.Honey bees study finds that insects have personality too From: Physorg.com
March 8, 2012 New research indicates that individual honey bees differ in personality traits such as novelty-seeking. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer A new study in Science suggests that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure. The brains of these novelty-seeking bees exhibit distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans, researchers report. |
Most beekeepers have never even seen a Tower Hive, and beauty is not its selling point. What it may be, however, is an interesting approach to varroa control via easy (or easier) drone brood removal. And you might end up with a bumping honey harvest, to boot.
