The commercial guys I spend the most time with get their pollen patties (protein supplement used especially when pollen supplies are low) from Bennet Honey Farms - a local processor who is focused on holistic beekeeping. His pollen patties aren't just soy substitute like many but contain real pollen, and he includes vitamin supplements in his patties as well so that as they're in the fields working, they're doing their best to provide as well rounded a diet as possible. Many of them are also looking into organic methods of mite control, like coconut oil (works better than most of the other organic options, and for cheaper than chemical methods) and essential oils (like Honey B Healthy) so they're exposing their colonies to fewer foreign chemicals. The feeding during "dry" periods is still often corn syrup or sugar water, but they often add vitamin supplements to that as well, and they warn constantly that folk should use fresh syrup - aged corn syrup apparently goes bad.
The article didn't address the complications of keeping a diverse breeding program here in the southwest where the Africanized genes are in wide distribution in the wild. One of our local breeders down in San Diego helped a recent research study by inseminating his queens with a variety of numbers of males - as reported here, the queens inseminated by one male had colonies that performed much more poorly than those inseminated with sperm from a mix of up to 150 males. It is commonly accepted that queens with diverse insemination make better queens. He tracks his geneologies as hard as racehorses if not more closely, and his "breeding queen"s cost several hundred dollars as compared to the working queen price of about $25. Breeding queens are pedigreed and raised with the intent of generating a robust progeny of working queens. The breeding community is working hard to keep the population as diverse as possible, as well as disease resistant as they can make it.
You'll note the guy mentioned at very beginning and end rescuing local feral hives was in Montana - a region not really impacted by the Africanized genes. We've got folk down here in SoCal doing similar things, but the unfortunate reality is that their efforts often inadvertently encourage the spread of the Africanized genes - high aggression, high mobility (they don't stay put long or in large numbers), and low honey production,comparatively speaking.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 03:14 pm (UTC)The commercial guys I spend the most time with get their pollen patties (protein supplement used especially when pollen supplies are low) from Bennet Honey Farms - a local processor who is focused on holistic beekeeping. His pollen patties aren't just soy substitute like many but contain real pollen, and he includes vitamin supplements in his patties as well so that as they're in the fields working, they're doing their best to provide as well rounded a diet as possible. Many of them are also looking into organic methods of mite control, like coconut oil (works better than most of the other organic options, and for cheaper than chemical methods) and essential oils (like Honey B Healthy) so they're exposing their colonies to fewer foreign chemicals. The feeding during "dry" periods is still often corn syrup or sugar water, but they often add vitamin supplements to that as well, and they warn constantly that folk should use fresh syrup - aged corn syrup apparently goes bad.
The article didn't address the complications of keeping a diverse breeding program here in the southwest where the Africanized genes are in wide distribution in the wild. One of our local breeders down in San Diego helped a recent research study by inseminating his queens with a variety of numbers of males - as reported here, the queens inseminated by one male had colonies that performed much more poorly than those inseminated with sperm from a mix of up to 150 males. It is commonly accepted that queens with diverse insemination make better queens. He tracks his geneologies as hard as racehorses if not more closely, and his "breeding queen"s cost several hundred dollars as compared to the working queen price of about $25. Breeding queens are pedigreed and raised with the intent of generating a robust progeny of working queens. The breeding community is working hard to keep the population as diverse as possible, as well as disease resistant as they can make it.
You'll note the guy mentioned at very beginning and end rescuing local feral hives was in Montana - a region not really impacted by the Africanized genes. We've got folk down here in SoCal doing similar things, but the unfortunate reality is that their efforts often inadvertently encourage the spread of the Africanized genes - high aggression, high mobility (they don't stay put long or in large numbers), and low honey production,comparatively speaking.