# Organic bees?



## StatHaldol (Sep 1, 2006)

I don't know much about bees; but I ran across this link about organic bees and the vanishing bee problem. Any comments?
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=974


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## Dahc (Feb 14, 2006)

StatHaldol said:


> I don't know much about bees; but I ran across this link about organic bees and the vanishing bee problem. Any comments?
> http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=974


I'm assuming by the quote that they consider organic bees to be bees that are not "overly" medicated. We don't have many hives (3), but we have not had any losses. We have maintained the same three hives for 7 years.

Two years ago, well, three now, we quit medicating the bees for mites. The hives are fine. One even swarmed in march as usual. I attribute the health of our hives to only two factors, 1) Lots of prayer, and 2) a lack of genetically modified crops in this area.

I'm no scientist but the GM crop theory sounds much better than the cellphone signal theory to me. lol. Who knows, it could be the drugs as this woman is claiming. Still trying to figure out which is the main problem being blamed here though, Large cell bases or meds that commercial beekeepers give their bees.



> I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies.
> 
> Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site, Michael Bush felt compelled to put a message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:
> 
> ...


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## StatHaldol (Sep 1, 2006)

I was wondering if genetically modified crops had any impact. We live in northeast Louisiana and we haven't seen any bees all spring. Usually we have a lot of them around our plum trees but this year we haven't seen any. :shrug:


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## Dahc (Feb 14, 2006)

StatHaldol said:


> I was wondering if genetically modified crops had any impact.


I haven't seen any science on that. For me, it's just speculation on my part at the moment fueled by a severe hatred for scientists who meddle in God's business.

I have been halfway keeping an eye out for something substantial to explain the bee losses though. The only way to do it would be to find out all the places that the losses occur and then cross reference with GM crop growers. I would think the only source for that information would be Monsanto, the world's largest producer of GM seed. I doubt they would release it to the public. They are evil.


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## the kid (Jul 9, 2006)

dahc
Im a second year newbee and have looked for info on organic beekeeping 
but its hard to find and every one has there own way of doing it.how do you get on this list ??????/ does it also have organice info??? if you want you can pm 
as for the ccd,, it doesnt consern anyone right now to find out what it is the joe or mary on the street isnt hurt by this ,,only beekeepers ..only when the right joe and mary get hurt . willthey try to put money behind finding out
the kid


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## thequeensblessing (Mar 30, 2003)

Ok, I really don't want to sound stupid here, but is there such a thing as a truly organic apiary? DH ran 500 hives in Utah, and he has 8 hives here currently. What is an "organic" apiary by definition? Is there a federal description of what constitutes "organic" for apiaries as there is for other forms of agriculture?


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## Dahc (Feb 14, 2006)

the kid said:


> dahc
> Im a second year newbee and have looked for info on organic beekeeping
> but its hard to find and every one has there own way of doing it.how do you get on this list ??????/ does it also have organice info??? if you want you can pm
> as for the ccd,, it doesnt consern anyone right now to find out what it is the joe or mary on the street isnt hurt by this ,,only beekeepers ..only when the right joe and mary get hurt . willthey try to put money behind finding out
> the kid


The quote I put in my post was a cut-n-paste from the OP's link. I know nothing of this list. lol. Sorry.



thequeensblessing said:


> Ok, I really don't want to sound stupid here, but is there such a thing as a truly organic apiary? DH ran 500 hives in Utah, and he has 8 hives here currently. What is an "organic" apiary by definition? Is there a federal description of what constitutes "organic" for apiaries as there is for other forms of agriculture?


I know nothing of this either. lol. All I can say is that most major honey producers feed their bees corn syrup instead of letting them go forage for nectar on their own and give them all kinds of anti-biotics. I don't think they use menthol for mites anymore like we used to. I can only assume that an organic apiary would be more like a homesteaders beehives. The bees get their own nectar and don't get treated with drugs.

This is all just speculation on my part right along with my hunches on GMO's being the culprit for the bee losses.


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## beaglady (Oct 7, 2002)

The organic list is [email protected] There is a lot of valuable information, but the focus is small cell foundation, and no treatments. If you ask about essential oils for mites, supplemental feeding, or other practices that are considered organic by some, you will be told not to bring that subject to the discussion group. There is a lot of good info, but along a very narrow path. 

www.beesource.com has a forum where there is a much more open discussion of beekeeping without chemical inputs. Over there, the consensus seems to be that the CCD will turn out to have multiple contributing factors, but no single cause will be found.


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## sleeps723 (Sep 10, 2006)

i honestly dont think its possible to be completely organic. unless you live in the middle of a couple thousand acres. u have to remember that even the comb on your frames has to be chemical free.


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## beaglady (Oct 7, 2002)

sleeps723 said:


> i honestly dont think its possible to be completely organic. unless you live in the middle of a couple thousand acres. u have to remember that even the comb on your frames has to be chemical free.


Using natural comb/foundationless solves that problem. I think the biggest sticking point in developing any organic standard is that the bees will forage when and where they want to and its not possible to control that.


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## Dahc (Feb 14, 2006)

I'm about half and half I suppose. All my honey frames are top bar frames with no foundation. All the brood comb has factory made foundations.

However, I may be further along than I think. Earlier this year, I went to check the hives and saw small flying insects going in an out. They had the exact same patterns as the bees but I didn't know what was going on. Later, I collected some frames and noticed the combs were very compact. 

Our first couple years, we use to cut the comb off of the foundation with a hot metal spatula and hand squeeze the honey through nylon netting. We weren't able to afford extractors and capping knives so that's how we did it. It seems that in that process we filled the factory bases with melted wax getting the comb out. The bees then went back in once we returned the frames to the hives and built the comb how THEY wanted too. Now we have small bees. lol.


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## Ol'Reb (Apr 21, 2006)

StatHaldol said:


> I was wondering if genetically modified crops had any impact. We live in northeast Louisiana and we haven't seen any bees all spring. Usually we have a lot of them around our plum trees but this year we haven't seen any. :shrug:


I'm in North Louisiana too (Lincoln Parish) our bees are doing fine over here, in fact better than last year.... :dance: :dance: :dance:


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## foxtrapper (Dec 23, 2003)

thequeensblessing said:


> Ok, I really don't want to sound stupid here, but is there such a thing as a truly organic apiary? DH ran 500 hives in Utah, and he has 8 hives here currently. What is an "organic" apiary by definition? Is there a federal description of what constitutes "organic" for apiaries as there is for other forms of agriculture?


Yes, the FDA organic web site goes into it. Essentially, the bees have to be in the middle of no where, with no access to non-organic fields or crops. All but impossible to comply with.


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