Thou Shalt Not Screw With Mother Nature

[listerLD19]

not to worry

the EU has already passed the first bill to allow us all the privilage of eating cloned beef as food

[listeroidsusa1]

I once applied for a job with the Army Corp. of engineers. The job was in a town called "Tightwad" The local bank did a good business. Seems a lot of people wanted "Tightwad National Bank" on their checks!

[Dail R H]

   I lost 10 hives last year. One day they were fine,three weeks later all the adults were gone. Left honey young ,just gone

[Doug]

Dail R H

Your a bee keeper in the USA I assume so your the right guy to ask......

Does what ever is happening to the Eroupean honey bee also effect the Africanized honey bees?

[Dail R H]

   Doug,
   I don't know for sure,but the africanized bees are the same species as european bees. Those out of africa were better honey producers,but more aggresive. If I had to guess,I'de say they were a little less suceptable,just because of their long history of coming from a harsher enviroment. I don't hear of them having the trouble with mites and stuff that commercial bees do. But remember,most hives in the US are destroyed as soon as found. In most of south america,and all of central america,including all of Mexico,africanized bees are the commercial bees.

[Doug]

Nature finds a way with a viscious killer bee I bet lol.

We don't have them up here ( yet ). If it turned out they don't suffer from problems like the Eroupean bees would you consider as a last resort using them, or are they simply so tempermental that you would give up your hives?

[Stan]

I asked my bee keeper buddy that questions.  He said it's not just that africanized bees are much more agressive and as such very hard to work with, they are much more prone to up and leaving lock stock and barrel to start a new colony out in the wild (swarming, that's the word).  Some weird stuff about the queens being much more touchy about sharing or something.
Stan

[Dail R H]

   The industry as a whole, may not have a choice. Mine were mostly a hobbie. For what I did,I would not use africanized bees, Just too dangerous to be around people and pets. Some "attack" from more than a hundred yarda from the hive. Some of my bees,I could take honey from with no protective clothing on,although not too smart.
   Absconding ,I think is the term that Stan's friend was talking about. That's one of the african traits that bred over into these bees. When I was in africa,hives of bees that located on the farm there selbom staye more than three or four says in one place. Then the whole hive would just move off. Not a good thing when you have maybe a thousand hives,or some farmer is paying by the acer to have his crop pollinated.

[Doug]

I wonder if the practice of replacing the Queen so often to prevent collonies from becoming Africanized has lead to some sort of in breading problem that weakened the bees?

[Quinnf]

Since the European Honeybee was introduced to N.A. in the late 15th Century, maybe what we're seeing is the logical outworking of meddling by early colonists, given a boost by one or more factors which haven't yet been identified.  Apparently there was a native honeybee but

http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/DocHTMLContainer_e.cfm?DocumentID=2665&SrchPg=CS&SubPage=d

indicates it probably was overwhelmed within 50 years after introduction of A. mellifera.

Quinn

[buickanddeere]

  I'd love to catch and beat the s.o.b's that introduced the sparrow and the starling to North America. Gobbies, zebra mussels, purple loosestrife and rats too.

[rbodell]

The earth has gone through even more serious heating and cooling cycles in the past and we survived.

I think it would still be cool to see New York city under water though.

[biobill]

I'd love to catch and beat the s.o.b's that introduced the sparrow and the starling to North America. Gobbies, zebra mussels, purple loosestrife and rats too.

What's are gobbies?

[Doug]

Ugly spiny little fish that came to the great lakes in ballast water from  Russian freighter.

Its from the Caspian or Black sea I believe.

[dkwflight]

Hi
I work outdoors in fla. in several counties.
In the last two years I have not seen one honey bee before I bought a hive this year.
Mine are doing OK. I figure if they swarm its OK with me.
In April I will be adding two more hives.
When they swarm they leave some bees behind and produce a new queen.
I am not medicating at all. I believe that the medications in use are weakening the bees.
Surviveal of the fittest.
So this is an experiment.
Dennis