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Attendances at this year's apiary meetings have been disappointing. However we have welcomed several prospective beekeepers, including young and very young people. Wisely, they have been getting a feel for beekeeping and handling bees before committing themselves to acquiring bees and investing in possibly expensive equipment.

One of the better attended and more interesting meetings was held in June. The queen in of my colonies had managed to find her way above the queen excluder. Not only that but the colony had made swarming preparations, despite having been split about six weeks earlier. As we started working with the colony, out came what appeared to be a small swarm or possibly a cast. It took an almost instant liking to John Cain's head and there it started to gather. Gordon rushed home for a camera and hopefully the incident was captured for posterity. John's head was shaken violently (I don't think he suffered any ill effects) in front of the entrance to dislodge the bees. When we began to work the brood chamber, we found a laying queen there, too. Unwittingly, I had been running a two-queen system!

We reassembled the hive, ensuring that there was no queen above the excluder and left the two queens to work out their own salvation. When I next inspected the colony, three weeks later, everything was back to normal with lots of healthy brood in the brood box and just a few residual capped drone cells in the super. Since then, the colony has gone on to produce a reasonable honey crop.

The one Association colony at St. John's Copse has produced a modest honey crop. That is because it took the bees the whole of the first half of the season to draw out a brood box of new foundation to replace the old comb. We were replacing the old comb as part of a hygiene regime, aimed at reducing the possibility of of re-infection by European Foul Brood for which the colony had been treated in 1996. This is a colony worth nurturing because it is fairly quiet and not prone to swarming.

At the August meeting, we transferred the colony from its rather battered old Modified Dadant hive, into a brand new Langstroth Jumbo hive bought by the Association. We shall use a second new hive to rehouse one of the two Association colonies at Breach Farm, for eventual transfer to St. John's Copse.

On 8th August we had treated both the Association and my own colonies at St. John's with Apistan. Eight days later at the apiary meeting, we inspected the the floor samples from four colonies. The lowest mite drop was just a few dozen and the highest a few hundred, though we had neither the time, nor inclination to count them!

Yes, apiary meeting are fun as well as instructional. Remember that the Association's bees are your bees. Please come and see them in their pristine new accommodation.

The current foulbrood statistics for our area identify cases within ten kilometre squares. That is of limited value. Unfortunately I am unable to name specific apiaries, although we encourage beekeepers whose bees have foulbrood to tell their fellow beekeepers as a service to beekeeping in the locality. However, I am able to narrow down the location of infected apiaries without giving the game away as it were.

In 1997, European Foulbrood was found in the following areas:

• One colony in a rural area to the East of Chineham.
• Five colonies in one apiary to the West of Bramshill.
• One colony approximately five miles to the South-West of Basingstoke.
• Three colonies in two apiaries in the Oakley area.
• One colony in the Kingsclere area.

American Foulbrood was found in one colony in a rural area to the East of Sherfield-on-Loddon.

Finally as a matter of pride, apropos my report in the last Basingstoke Beekeeper, I do know how to spell cancelled! Unfortunately, our Editor's (American?) spell-check doesn't.

Best wishes for the remainder of the season. I hope you are enjoying a bountiful disease-free year.

Every year, The Twickenham Beekeepers' Association has a `Field Day' to which they invite a number of guests to meet some of their members and share in their activities. This year Basingstoke were invited and were most pleased to attend. On the appointed day in late June around a dozen of us travelled eastwards towards The Smoke, fetching up in a modest sized venue (say 1/3 acre 0.1 hectare?) just a couple of hundred yards/metres south of the even more famous rugby stadium.

The site comprises a rather eclectic mixture of buildings, reflecting the progressive growth of the Association over the past 50 years. One or two of the earliest sheds are still there and in use, new sheds expand on storage, glazed cedarwood buildings form modest sized classroom and a small laboratory.

The main clubhouse is probably some 30ft by 20ft, iron framed and timbered, with a verandah overlooking the apiary to the rear. To the centre of the group of buildings is the comparatively new brick-built toilet block, plumbed into a convenient council building next door. Their shop comprised a garage and two further sheds, necessitating those manning it to swap buildings for some less-common items.

We were made welcome in the clubhouse where students of their beekeeping courses had assembled a number of displays relating to beekeeping. John Powell, whom we hope to have as a speaker in the near future, gave us a potted history of the Association and described their aims and achievements. He explained that their Field Day was a bigger open-to-visitors version of a typical Friday night meeting. At these, the students spend some time in the classroom and some in the apiary, putting into practice what they've learned.

We ate our packed lunches, washed down by Twickenham Tea and cakes.

The weather on the day though warm, was really rather damp and we were sceptical that we were actually going to do any beekeeping. Regular fairly heavy showers punctuated the day, however despite their best efforts, they were unable to actually stop us beekeeping. Fortunately with the warmth of the day, the bees were really very well behaved indeed, despite beekeepers having to repair to the shelter of the clubhouse between sunny spells.

As with the displays, the three `grades' of students each went through a typical practical, though they did point out that they don't usually do them all at the same time. The `beginners' did a normal inspection of the colony, using their `reminder' phrase health, wealth and management, No significant disease; adequate stores; management decision -- no need to do anything this time.

Rain stopped play, but gave an opportunity for further tea and cakes.

After the break, the `intermediates' made an artificial swarm using the Taranov Method although for the convenience of the demonstration they had found and caged the queen earlier -- just as well in view of the weather.

The `seniors' had been raising queens by the Vince Cook method with the old queen in the bottom box and new grafted queen cells in the top box of a multiple-box setup with dual queen excluders. For their demonstration they produced multiple nuclei by splitting the colony in the centre of a circle of nucleus boxes, each with one of the ripe queen cells, removing the old hive completely. With reasonable care in the selection of frames of brood and stores, this method results in a surprisingly even balance of bees amongst the nuclei. The neighbours in the small block of flats overlooking the apiary seemed disinterested in these goings-on. I guess they'd seen it all before.

We finished our day at Twickenham with a summing-up from John Powell and a discussion about the direction of British Beekeeping. A brief speech from the floor by Alan Johnson, about Meridian's raison d'etre completed the meeting.

After a last look around, we gathered up our possessions and headed homewards, all of us inspired to a greater-or-lesser extent by our day of big-city beekeeping.

When I first heard of the Taranov Method, it was introduced to me as a curiosity, not as a real method of swarm management -- or was that just my perception? As a tyro, I believed that view as it was presented to me by a commercially oriented beekeeper. It seemed so pointless; why make it so complicated? Why not just do a plain old artificial swarm and be done with it? To a commercial beekeeper, that's the overriding consideration -- but is it so with the hobbyist? I for one no longer think so.

Whilst watching the Twickenham beekeepers making their Taranov `swarm', I was thinking why anyone should want to do this. And as I thought, I began to see benefits to which I was previously blind.

To produce a Taranov swarm, you need a Taranov board rather like one you might use to run a captured swarm into an empty hive. However, for the Taranov Method, the hive end of this board is set up on legs a few inches high, standing before the entrance of the hive you wish to `swarm' and separated from the entrance by a horizontal gap of about three inches.

Next find your queen. When you've found her, cage her and hang the cage below the top of the board. An unbent paperclip, for example, would make a suitable hook. Now remove each frame in turn from the colony and gently shake off some bees onto the board. Don't shake hard, we only want to dislodge the older bees, which don't hang on so firmly. Once this is done, you can close the colony and let the bees cluster under the board like a natural swarm. Once they've clustered, you can treat them like any other swarm -- except they won't fly away!

Why should that fuss have benefits over a conventional artificial swarm? It certainly is more work and time.

What it does is make an extremely good approximation to a natural swarm, but right when and where you wanted it.

Once your swarm is clustered under the board, most of the flyers and stingers will be there, not in the brood box. You can go through the box thoroughly, looking for queen cells, and select a nice one in your own time. No urgency now -- you can take hours if you wish. You can let the colony settle down afterwards. You could even visit your local queen-breeder and get a new queen for them.

Once swarmed like this and allowed to settle for a hour or two, I'm told that the bees seem to really believe that they've done what they wanted and you can simply remove the old queen and reunite the bees with their original colony and its queen cell. They've swarmed and are now superseding, so they're unlikely to try it again this year.

If you want increase, put the swarm in a new hive, if you don't want increase, the chance to reunite almost immediately is rather handy. I wish Sue and I had considered Taranov last year when every colony we had was determined to swarm no matter what we did. We even lost a four-week old queen, which laid up most of the box with many eggs, many young larvae and just a few capped worker cells! I have a fair bit of spare equipment (vital), but I don't keep over 100% spare brood boxes.

How about having to handle a bad-tempered colony that's trying to swarm. Warning -- I haven't actually tried this! It occured to me that if one moves the hive away, most of the flyers and stingers stay where the hive was. Once the colony is reduced to walkers, you can find the queen with relative comfort, cage her and put her under the Taranov board as before -- that bit might be exciting. The flyers will probably now settle with her and you can shake a few more bees on if you wish. Knock down the old cells and introduce your new queen by whatever method you prefer. You could leave that swarm where it is for a full day before removing the old queen and running them back into the original hive with its new queen.

A reminder here of bee behaviour. If the colony is right on the point of swarming when you move the brood box away, the sudden reduction in the number of older bees might just trigger an immediate `natural' swarm. Still, at least you're nearby to catch it when it settles.

I still think it's a rather quirky technique, but it's certainly going to be in my toolkit for the future.

Even before I started beekeeping, I'd heard of the Twickenham Beekeepers' Association, because they are famous for their organisation, enthusiasm and facilities.

When I started beekeeping, dropping myself in the Local Association deep-end, the idea that one could build another group like that was in the far back of my mind. Part of my background is from another organisation that made it with their own premises and facilities, gained largely through the determination to get them.

What makes both organisations so successful is that combination of a home from which to operate and where there is a focus for the members. At Twickenham, they have a meeting room, a lab, a classroom, the apiary, a shop and some storage areas. Maybe also some places I never noticed.

The other organisation is an amateur theatre company, which has it's own premises (an Victorian ex-fire-station rented for a 'peppercorn' amount) comprising two theatres (`main' and a `studio'), a bar that I ran for several years, rehearsal rooms, costumier, `property' store and caretaker's flat where I lived for several years. Both Sue and I did many other theatre-oriented things there, too.

Twickenham Beekeepers have a membership of around 150 and meet very regularly with a typical turnout that equals our entire membership. During the summer at least, they hold beekeeping classes every week, many hands-on with the bees.

The South London Theatre puts on 22 plays a year, almost always to a standard that makes professional companies take note. They also have live-music nights, guest theatre companies and regular parties in the bar (purely for fundraising, of course).

Both organisations have several things in common.

• Both had the nerve to think that the impossible might be possible, and to try and prove it.
• Both collected together a number of enthusiastic, like-minded people who were prepared to make things work.
• Neither had `pots of money' with which to do it.
• Neither had their success overnight.
• Both managed to do it in London, where real-estate prices are high.
• Both manage to do it without charging punitive membership subscriptions, indeed both are priced `for the people'.

Those organisations are extraordinary, but far from unique.

When I started with Basingstoke Beekeepers, we had a very modest amount of capital. Other members of the Committee and I have been working in our various ways to gradually build up to a quite solvent and impressive little group. The Association has now fully paid back the money with which I helped buy our first few bulk-buy orders, so the stock we have is now wholly the Association's.

We have several apiaries around the area and some premises, all of which are loaned to us, usually free. This is wonderful, except that these all have the feeling of being temporary. We cannot in truth, be sure that any will be available next year or the year after.

I would like to see us start to take another step towards permanence. A relatively modest effort could bring us our own apiary, particularly if this is on poor-grade land, which is fine for wildflowers and bees. In the right place and with the right approach, modest premisses should be possible on the site, particularly if combined with the ecological benefits of bees and wildlife.

An acre of agricultural land should cost around a couple of thousand pounds and there's a very good chance we can get a significant part of that in grants. Even splitting the whole sum between our membership, it comes to around UKP 50 each. Does raising an average of UKP 50 each sound impossible? It certainly doesn't, to me!

So how do we raise that money? We already sell Association honey at fetes and the like, but we often don't have as much Association honey as we could sell. Could you give us some?

Would you do a sponsored walk or swim? Would you or your employer directly sponsor the Association? Would you be prepared to sell raffle tickets? Have you an idea for fundraising at f'etes or elsewhere? Would you be prepared to run a tombola or car-boot sale? Do you know of land that might be well-suited to our needs and low-cost? Perhaps an awkward corner of a field that a farmer finds hard to use or a field with an awkward copse or pond.

Would you help with land-maintenance, planting or building? Would you consider renting a corner of the site for your own apiary?

The `impossible' is actually far from that. Would you help us to prove it yet again? Please think about this and have a chat with us at forthcoming meetings.

Being old and somewhat decrepit my memory is not what it was. I think I mentioned some time ago certain experiments carried out in the sixties.

Briefly, stocks which were aggressive had their queens removed and replaced with docile ones. Within two days the stocks were docile. Queens were removed from docile colonies and replaced with queens from aggressive ones.

Within two days the docile bees became aggressive. In a third experiment queens from aggressive stocks were placed in cages in docile stocks which immediately showed bad temper. The conclusion was that the aggression was not simply genetic but due to some physical fault in the queens' pheromones.

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to try this for myself. A friend had a stock so aggressive life became unbearable for his family who could not enter the garden without being dive bombed and stung although the hives were quite distant. I invited him to bring the bees to me and I would requeen them with a quiet queen of my own. Because of the weight he split the stock into two hives and brought them over one evening. I placed them right next to two of my strong stocks.

The result next day was dramatic. Whereas normally I could walk among my hives with no protection this time the bees came to meet me and their attitude was not friendly. I wanted to inspect one of my stocks but within minutes I was surrounded by angry bees and before I could close down I had received some twenty stings on my hands.

I left the bees alone for two days then during the afternoon with bees flying well I moved the two hives to other places in the apiary (a large one with some eighteen hives). This meant all the fliers came back and entered my hives. As they carried nectar or pollen they were well received.

Two days later I moved the hives again, thus losing another batch of fliers, leaving me with two very weak stocks of young bees. These were much less aggressive and it was easy to find the queen and kill her and destroy the emergency cells in the other half.

The bees and combs were then placed over newspaper on one of my stocks.

According to those experiments all would be peaceful after two days and it was so. No aggression anywhere in the apiary and I was able to requeen the stock with no reaction at all.

Finding the queen in a strong aggressive stock is very difficult and it is necessary to reduce the number of bees in order to do so. Splitting up the stock and moving the parts around soon reduces them to the size of nuclei, making the task easy.

One cannot draw conclusions from a single example but what I did was quite easy and all aggression had gone within a few days. Perhaps others faced with this situation might try it out and report back.

Born in Puerto Rico on 15 January 1929, Dr. Rodriguez received his PHD in Veterinary Medicine in 1962 from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rodriguez is a 4th generation beekeeper and has been an active beekeeper since childhood. He has spent the past 11 years studying Varroa mites.

I wish to apologize for the delay in publication of details of my work on this subject.

The reasons are unintentional and compelling. There were many questions that I felt needed to be answered (some of which I am still pursuing) and because I suffer from double vision (from a bout with hyperthyroidism) that induces severe headaches after periods of field work, reading, use of word processor and other tasks that require eye strain. Although the project is incomplete, I feel that my findings are significant and valuable to beekeepers who may wish to implement them. Also, my findings may be valuable to other investigators who may wish to perform related work on this subject. Hence release of present findings is considered appropriate at this stage. (Technical language and statistical data has been carefully limited).

Born and raised on a farm, I was initiated with animal husbandry chores as a very young child. I started caring for sick animals by smuggling them into pens heavily crowded by my ``patients.'' I still recall my parents' admonitions for wasting time and money on worthless causes, especially my mother's for using her castor oil to treat leg mites on chickens and ear mites on rabbits. My experience with mineral oil continued when as a young veterinarian I used mineral oil for treating ear mites on cats. Later in my career, mineral oil became part of my professional tool bag when as a government supervisor of food plants, I approved the use of food grade mineral oil for maintenance of food preparation equipment.

I observed the first Varroa mites in 1983 while working with honey bees in Spain. From that date, I became fascinated with the ability of the little creatures for attacking honey bee colonies and eventually destroying them. At the time, Fulvex was the chemical of choice in Europe for treatment and cure of bee mites. I suspected mites would eventually develop resistance to Fulvex as most often happens with chemicals used for disease control, fact that was later corroborated by other investigators (Faucon et al, 1955; Lodesani et al, 1955; Smodgen et al, 1955). The potential need for a different agent to treat bee mites in case the mites develop resistance, led me to wonder if my ``oil treatment of old'' would be as effective for the treatment of bee mites. While pondering about this possibility, many other questions arose in my mind.

1. Would mineral oil affect honey bees?
2. Mode, quantity and frequency of application of the oil.
3. Would the oil affect bee larvae or the egg laying ability of the queen?
4. Could the oil be applied all year long or be limited to seasons?
5. What would be the mechanism of action of the oil?

From my previous experience, I knew that oil kills mites. I became intrigued with the idea of finding the answer to this puzzling question and started researching literature on mite biology, anatomy, physiology and other factors that could lead to the answer, deriving the following data.

1. The body of the bee mites is flat, thus having a high ratio of surface volume (factor also used by Italian researchers of bee mites as expressed on a recent post to Bee-L), characteristic that make bee mites vulnerable to treatment with oils.
2. Mites, like honey bees, breathe through spiracles. The bee/mite body size differential ratio may be utilized to attack the mites with oil without harming the bees.
3. Mites utilize body pores for diffusion of gases and for moisture intake (Gary et al, 1989; Gary et al 1991b; Pugh et al 1992). A study with female mites has demonstrated that mites control gaseous exchange through adjustment of components of their respiratory system (Pugh, PJA; King, PE; Fordy MR Na: Experimental and Applied Acarology, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp 123-139, 1992).
4. Mites have a short life cycle (12 days for tracheal mites and 18 days for Varroa mites) and are most vulnerable to treatment during their ectoparasitic phase.

After eleven years of consecutive loses of bee colonies to mites and the economic impact that these parasites were having on apiculture worldwide, it was obvious that it was imperative to find an effective treatment for the parasites. Realizing that after continued treatment of my colonies with Apistan strips, mites continued to proliferate and that colony health and size were diminishing, I determined that a vigorous form of treatment had to be implemented.

On 1 April 1996, I applied Apistan strips (three strips per colony) between frames in the brood chambers. After six weeks of treatment with Apistan, four colonies had perished and mites continued to proliferate in all remaining colonies. Based on my knowledge of successful treatment of mites on domestic animals, treatment was switched from Apistan to mineral oil. All the Apistan strips were removed (after waiting two weeks to allow Apistan to wear off) before starting use of mineral oil in an effort to eliminate the possibility of cross effect between the two agents. Treatment with food grade mineral oil was initiated on 1 June 1996 on twenty colonies while five colonies (randomly selected) were used as controls.

Mineral oil is effective in the treatment of mites on domestic animals. Food grade mineral oil is approved for use in food processing plants in the United States because it is not toxic and because it does not contaminate food products. Hence, mineral oil, if effective against bee mites, could be utilized for the treatment of bee mites during the entire year contrary to other acaricides that have seasonal limitations. The two species of bee mites existing in the United States (Acarapis woodi and Varroa jacobsoni) spend some of their life span on the surface of their host bee. Because of the known house keeping and grooming habits of the honey bee, it was reasoned that bees would transfer oil from their legs to the rest of their body and to other parts of the colony if they came in contact with oil. Food grade mineral oil does not contaminate honey or honey bee products and is not toxic to honey bees, provided that the oil is not applied in excessive quantities (see description of different methods of application employed). Twelve consecutive months of work with oil have revealed amazing (positive) results in the treatment and control of bee mites.

A. Laboratory work:

1. Mineral oil was applied with the tip of a probe directly to mites seen on bees. Close observation revealed that mites would drop off the bees (time was not measured).
2. Live mites were carefully collected from various colonies, placed in open glass jars and brought home. Some mites were treated with oil directly in the jars, others were carefully removed (to prevent physical harm) and placed on a glass surface coated with a film of mineral oil, or, on waxed paper or seran wrap coated with a film of mineral oil. Some mites were allowed to remain untreated in the glass jars, surviving for several days. Mites exposed to oil were observed to become motionless almost immediately, however, some remained active (lethal doses or lethal times were not evaluated) for some time.

B. Field work:

Several methods of application of the mineral oil have been tested in a period of time spanning 51 weeks, (1 June 1996 - 24 May 1996).

1. Sheets of waxed paper or freezer paper were coated with a film of mineral oil and placed on the bottom boards of the colonies. Dead mites were collected and counted. Yields varied between ten in a small colony to 112 in a large colony.
2. Strips of waxed paper (10 inches long x 1 1/2 inches wide) were coated with a film of mineral oil and placed between frames in the brood chambers. The number of strips varied between six and ten depending upon the size of the colonies. Coated strips of paper were replaced every two weeks while this form of application lasted. .
3. A continuous bead of mineral oil (up to 2.5 cc) spread on top bars of the frames.

Effect of the mineral oil treatment was measured by counting mites by uncapping brood cells. Yields varied according to degree of infestation, size of the colonies and length of treatment. Initial count yielded as high as 54 infected cells per one hundred cells opened. Mite count varied between one to three per cell. Mite count per hundred brood cells uncapped dropped drastically (54% in some colonies to 4% percent in others) as oil treatment continued. It was acknowledged that the procedure was labor intensive early in the process.

Other avenues of treatment were sought in order to make the procedure cost effective to commercial operations dedicating special attention to varying quantities of oil applied. The most successful method was determined to be when oil was applied in a continuous bead along the surface of the top bars.

At first, the amount of oil was measured and applied with a graduated eye dropper (available to any beekeeper), arriving at 2.5 cc of oil as a safe quantity (before the bees became soaked in oil). At present, oil is applied from a bottle (similar to a honey bear) with a spout with an opening of 1/16" or 1mm diameter. Oil is applied steadily, along the top bars leaving a continuous line of oil measuring approximately the size of a thin noodle. In the beginning of the operation, it was thought that the oil should be sprayed on the bars or spread by hand. In the course of the applications it was determined that it is not necessary to spread the oil, the bees spread the oil as soon as they walk on it.

I have now designed a board (from Bakelite) that blocks the bees inside the brood chamber while the oil is applied. The board is fitted with slits that coincide with the top bars allowing application of the oil while perfectly barring the bees inside to prevent stinging and applying the oil directly to the bees.

After 51 weeks utilizing food grade mineral oil in various ways the following observations have been made:

1. Food grade mineral oil can be utilized effectively to control bee mites (acaricide) with quantities ranging from a mere film applied on waxed paper and up to 2.5 cc applied on the top bars of the frames.
2. Mite count per hundred capped cells examined diminished drastically, (54% to 4%).
3. Application of mineral oil in the form described above has not affected the queen's laying ability.
4. All five colonies utilized as controls perished. (Test colonies were distributed in three sites at least ten miles apart and each site had control colonies).
5. Of the twenty colonies utilized for treatment with mineral oil: One absconded; two were small and died due to pilferage. Seventeen remaining colonies are thriving and building very large populations. Two colonies have two brood chambers and eight honey suppers each. Two colonies have two brood chambers and six honey suppers each.
6. Control colonies perished quickly due to a combination of factors: Parasitized bees became weak and abandoned their house keeping habits. Stores were quickly robbed. Queens stopped laying and the bees died fighting the robbers, from disease and lack of food. Nosema was observed in two of the heavily parasitized colonies.
7. The use of sheets of waxed paper smeared with oil and placed on the bottom boards was abandoned promptly because these were observed to become covered with debris thus reducing the effectiveness of the oil. Waxed paper or other impervious type paper placed on the bottom boards while treatment is taking place may be valuable if used for the purpose of collecting and counting dead mites.
8. Capped cell examinations revealed mites within drone cells as well as in worker bee cells.
9. Worker bee samples were collected, dissected and examined for tracheal mites. No tracheal mites were found during the test period.
10. Mineral oil was applied continuously every two weeks during the test period including the winter months. The use of mineral oil did not affect egg laying of the queens nor the health of the developing larvae. While it may seem that oil applications should be made more frequently (judging by the presence of mites after 51 weeks of treatment) economics tend to indicate that more frequent applications might be prohibitive. This remains as one of my questions still under study.

Contrasted to the characteristics of other oils, lard, Apistan or menthol (used as acaricides), mineral oil seems to offer a preferable medium based on per unit cost, physical characteristics (odorless, flavorless, does not deteriorate, does not contaminate honey or bee products, can be utilized all year long) for utilization as an acaricide.

The following are answers to questions posted as a consequence of Dr. Rodriguez report.

I have been very careful to stress the reasons for the use of food grade mineral oil in contrast to:

1. Vegetable oils which degrade leaving unpleasant odors inside the chambers of the colony and perhaps becoming a medium for germ growth. Also, once the oil breaks down it probably will lose its ability to act against the mites.
2. Baby oil: Baby oil (although mineral oil) is unacceptable because it is perfumed! Reports from the field indicate that some beekeepers have observed unusual behavior in their bees when using mineral oil (?). I have yet to see any type of reaction to mineral oil after 12 months of continuous use of it which leads me to believe that perhaps the oil in question may have had flavor or odor.

As any beekeeper knows, bees do react to odors quite readily....

My report above represents a very much abbreviated sample of the data collected during eleven years of study. It is meant for beekeepers world-wide, including tropical countries that practice year long beekeeping. It is logical that bees should not be subjected to the stress of opening their hives during the cold months of the winter. Here in in Virginia, I started using oil as soon as the queens started laying in late February.

I find that the wax on the top bars does not have any influence on the application of the mineral oil. At the beginning I did scrape the wax off but gave up because it was too labor intensive (time consuming). As it turned out, it did not make any difference.

If using paper strips, it is not at all difficult to get them between the frames. I folded them on my uncapping knife and slid them in between frames with relative ease. However I gave up that practice because I found that it was taking up too much time. I wanted to find ways that would be convenient to all beekeepers, including commercial operations.

I now have eight double brood-chamber colonies with around six honey supers each and it is hard to take those apart. However, I don't want any factor to interfere with my treatment! I apply oil to all the top bars in all supers and brood chambers. I have made adaptations which make my work relatively faster and easier than one would think.

I have prepared a board (out of Bakelite) with slots that coincide with the top bars, keeping the bees below and allowing faster application of the oil. No stinging, and little use of smoke, but it is not easy work. I hope that in time someone will develop a mechanical method for applying the oil in order that it won't be such a back breaking operation and that it could be feasible for commercial operations.

I have received several inquiries regarding the amount of oil to be applied per colony. When I started using a measured amount, I used 2 -- 2.5 cc of oil per top bar every two weeks without toxic effects. Presently I am using the same amount of oil every ten days applied to each top bar in the colony. The reasons for the changes are:

1. Some of the oil is absorbed by the wood of the frame.
2. Much larger bee populations (less oil available per bee).
3. Summer's heat thins out the oil.
4. With a larger bee population and a decreased mite population, more oil is required to ascertain that mites are exposed to a lethal quantity.

I would like to emphasize the fact that my findings continue to indicate that food grade mineral oil is toxic to bee mites after more than one year of use. My findings also indicate that bee mites are very difficult to control, requiring perseverance, exactness and trust in the procedure.

Please continue to send me input about your own findings. It is appreciated!

I tried using mineral oil on my bees and was surprised by the uproar it caused -- it appeared to disrupt the hives for the rest of the day. I was also surprised by the several dozen dead bees on the bottom boards 1/2 hour later! I was really concerned that I might have killed the queen, but it appears that the ones that died were the ones hit directly by the oil as I applied it. Still, for that reason I have some concerns about using oil. I used a honey bear squeeze-jar to apply but perhaps the hole was too big.

I've been trying the same thing. In the morning everything seemed OK. I had one more out yard to do in the afternoon, it was hot and the hive was large. I went down to the brood and put in my bead of oil. The bees started an uproar as you said. I tried to get the other supers back on and the bees wouldn't quit. The oil spread out when it was too hot. On the other hives the bead sort of stayed together.

Now I've done some more hives, I have a couple of tips. Yes you can use a honey bear --- just use a needle to make the hole in the top. If that doesn't make the flow fast enough, use a larger needle. If the hole is a little too big, the flow will be too fast until the vacuum takes over. Do not invert the bear again or you will get a big squirt at the start again.

Theoretically mites could develop resistance to oil if they could evolve spiracles which do not clog with oil, but it would be like humans trying to acquire the capability to breathe underwater by drowning people.

The susceptibility to oil is not comparable to the susceptibility to physiologically active substances. In the case of the oil, the principle involved depends on two factors: small spiracle size and the high surface tension of oil which permits it to spread and form uninterrupted airtight film.

Also, insect spiracles are generally bordered with hydrophobe (water hating) hair that protects against foreign particles and water but that are oleophilic (oil loving).

In the case of physiologically active substances the principle of resistance is based on the capacity to neutralize nocives or deadly molecules by degradation or elimination. This capacity varies from one individual to another and involves substances such as Mixed Function Oxidase (MFO), cytochrome P-450 and others which exist in most of all living animals. As the individuals who are the most performant have the most chance to breed and produce offspring carrying their genes, an environmental pressure such as intensive use of pesticide will cause the evolution of the specie into more resistance to the stressful agent. Especially in the case of insects which reproduce at a tremendous rate.

Varroa has not disappeared from any area of the world they have been reported in, as far as I have read or heard.

Some areas such as Brazil have varroa but they are not reported as a problem to hive bees or their feral offspring. They appear to reach a certain level in the honeybee populations, maybe 10%, and co-exist with their honeybee hosts. Some say this is because they are different, but the damage and vector they provide for other pathogens is the same.

I have long suspected that the right kind of sales promotion of chemical treatments could fast change the perceived threat from `Vampire mites' even in Brazil and all beekeepers there would be treating today to prevent loss. Maybe an aggressive government give-away program such as reported in other areas, and as done in the past with queen bees, would change the bee tolerance to mites. Or is it beekeeper tolerance? Brazil has been blessed with some real bee scientists that have resisted the pesticide merry-go-around. Or it could be that producing pesticide advertisements in Brazilian Portuguese is not as cost effective as it is in English or Spanish.

Many explanations have and will be given why one area suffers from horrendous loss of honeybees and the other none or less, the best answer is better pasture and less stress in one area over another.

(c) Permission is granted to freely copy this document in any form, or to print for any personal use.

(w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk.

I have followed with interest the work of Dr. Rodriguez using mineral oil to prevent varroa infestations.

I am fortunate in not having to contend with varroa in my hive management, but there is one aspect that has not been raised to date which I believe is important.

Does the mineral oil become a residue in the honey? Judging by the application method there must be a possibility that it will enter the honey at some time.

I realise that it is food grade mineral oil that is used but, as mineral oil is not a natural occuring part of honey, then any that finds it way into honey must be classed as a residue. We now have greater standards for honey being required throughout the world.

If something is not natural to a product then it can be present legally if a Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) is set for a particular item. This means that the particular item can be present up to the MRL. I think a lot of people would be surprised at what MRL's have been set for a range of food products. There could be an MRL for mineral oil determined for honey.

I raise this issue now because I would not like to see a suitable method of control of varroa eventually denied official sanctioning because of a possible residue problem.

I hear you. Excellent thought. I do not know what is the minimum residue standard for mineral oil in food (if there is one). The reason why I insist that food grade mineral oil must be used is precisely because it is authorized for used on food handling machinery in the United States. I have not included quantitative analysis for the presence of mineral oil in my procedure because I consider that if residues of mineral oil get into the honey, the amount will be negligible and since it is food grade, considered acceptable. It took me 13 years studying the Varroa situation to arrive at the decision to use FGMO.

The use of FGMO was not accidental. It came from knowledge gained during past employment with the United States Department of Agriculture. When I decided to use FGMO I did it with the thought that if the issue of ``residues in the honey'' came up (and I agree with you, it is bound to come up), that FGMO will be accepted because it is accepted for other foods. I think that time will prove that the use of FGMO as an acaricide will not interfere with the quality and wholesomeness of honey.

I've been wondering about this too. A film of mineral oil floating on a cup of tea with my honey in it would be unacceptable! I know someone who was using Crisco patties year-round for a while. She had no sign of mites but there was an oil slick on her tea.

I'm not that desperate yet. Hopefully this isn't a problem with the current system, but I'd like to hear more on the subject before I oil up my equipment.  

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the Basingstoke and District Beekeepers' Association will be held on 15th January 1998 in The Bothy.

Despite a 50p increase in capitation for BBKA for the forthcoming year, the committee feels able to propose that there need be no increase in membership subscriptions for 1998. This is due in no small part to the various other fundraising activities over recent years, including income from swarm collection, various grants, bulk-buy, produce sales at fetes and shows.

Subscriptions for 1998 are therefore proposed as:

• Ordinary Membership UKP 17.60
• Senior Citizens UKP 13.10
• Associate Membership UKP 7.00
• Family supplement UKP 1.50

The following change to the definition of Associate Membership (Constitution 4 para 4) is proposed for 1998. This was announced as a proposal in last year's newsletter, but was omitted from the agenda and proceedings.

Associate Membership is available to full or ordinary members of another Beekeeping Association or to the family of ordinary members of the BDBKA or to non-beekeepers on the understanding that if and when they acquire any stock of honeybees they immediately apply for ordinary membership.

John Cain is unable to continue as Secretary next year, so we shall require a new Secretary. We are actively encouraging applications or nominations for the post and, of course, prefer volunteers to pressed men or women.

Since Mike Butler has taken a new Job in Northamptonshire, he too has had to stand down from his post as Assistant Apiary Manager. As we've said in the past when this post has been available, this is an excellent opportunity for a relative newcomer to beekeeping to gain some very valuable practical experience working with Dave Purchase. Something we would also like all members to consider is that Dave expects that he too will have to stand down at the end of 1998 and we shall then require a replacement for him, too.  

Your Committee organise a number of talks and other meetings, throughout the year on various subjects, usually but not always related to beekeeping. We like to offer a mix of subjects that we think will be of interest to our members.

However, we are often using our ``skill and judgement'' (guessing) to do this and it is always best if we have some feedback and suggestions from you.

We'd like to know what you like about the meetings, what you don't like and what you would like --- particularly if you have strong views or useful ideas (or a subject on which you will talk).

Almost all Associations (i.e. not just beekeeping ones) report that only a modest percentage of their members attend meetings. We are nothing unusual in that. But we can try to find that magic ingredient that raises out attendance percentage above the ordinary.

We'd like to know what you'd like to hear about and who you'd like to hear. For that matter, we'd like to know what you've already heard enough about!

Your Committee regularly put on thinking caps about speakers and subjects. Your help, too, will always be appreciated.

For comment before the AGM, please 'phone John Cain. After the AGM, either the new Secretary, one of the old-faithfuls, or 'watch this space'.  

• 50g/2oz of Oatmeal
• 300ml or 10fl oz of Whipping or Double Cream.
• 20ml/1tbs Runny Honey for the mixture, plus some for a topping.
• a Treble Whisky (60-80ml/4-5tbs)
• 100g/4oz Raspberries
• A Few Scottish Shortcake Biscuits.

Of course, this recipe is probably at it's most correct when made with Scottish Heather Honey and a good Highland Malt. I guess the local honey will have to suffice.

Lightly toast the oatmeal, on a baking sheet under a hot grill until golden brown, then allow to cool.

Whisk together until thick the cream and honey, then fold in the toasted oatmeal and whisky.

Spoon alternate layers of the mixture and the raspberries into desert glasses, finishing with a layer of the raspberries.

Top with a little honey and serve at room temperature with the shortcakes.

Footnotes

Unable..For the benefit of our newer members and non-UK beekeepers, Bee Disease Inspectors are forbidden, under the official secrets act, from disclosing the precise locations.

Fulvex..I think that's probably Folbex VA

Food grade mineral oil is known by various names. In the UK, it's liquid paraffin. It's also variously known as white mineral oil or paraffinum liquidum.