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Index
Volume I Beginning. 1
BLUF. 3
Learn from the bees. 3
Trust the Bees. 3
Resources. 4
Panacea. 4
Why this book?. 6
Unsustainable beekeeping system.. 7
Beekeeping Pests. 7
Shallow Gene Pool 7
Contamination. 8
Wrong Gene Pool 8
Upset ecology of the bee colony. 8
Beekeeping House of Cards. 9
How do we get a sustainable beekeeping system?. 9
Stop treating. 9
Clean Wax. 10
Natural Cell Size. 10
Natural Food. 11
Learning. 13
Bee Basics. 17
Lifecycle of a bee. 17
Queen. 17
Queenlessness. 18
Supersedure. 19
Swarming. 19
Worker 20
Drone. 22
Yearly cycle of the colony. 23
Winter 23
Spring. 24
Summer 24
Fall 25
Products of the hive. 25
Bees. 25
Larvae. 25
Propolis. 26
Wax. 27
Pollen. 27
Pollination. 28
Honey. 29
Royal Jelly. 29
Four Simple Steps to Healthy Bees. 30
Comb. 30
Choices. 31
Natural Cell Size. 31
Why not let them build what they want?. 32
Combs in frames?. 33
Draw comb without foundation?. 33
Wire?. 33
How do you do foundationless?. 33
Less work. 34
Downside?. 35
Timeline. 35
Worst case scenario. 36
Best case scenario. 36
No Treatments. 36
Ecology of the hive. 37
Downside of not treating. 38
Upside of not treating. 39
Breeding locally adapted queens. 39
What about AHB?. 41
Natural Food. 42
Looking more into pH. 43
Chalkbrood as example. 43
Pollen. 44
Pollen trapping. 44
Different Profit Formula. 45
Choices. 46
Too Many Choices?. 46
Beekeeping Philosophy. 46
Time and Energy. 47
Feeding Bees. 47
Take your time. 47
Important Decisions. 48
Easy Things to Change in Beekeeping: 48
Difficult Things to Change in Beekeeping: 49
Choices I recommend. 50
Frame depth. 50
Number of Frames. 51
Style of Frames and Cell Size of Foundation. 52
Eight Frame Mediums. 53
Plastic Small Cell Frames. 54
If you don't like the idea of plastic 54
Bottom Board Feeders. 55
Essential Equipment 55
Here are some essentials for the beekeeper: 55
Nice to Have Beekeeping Equipment: 57
Avoid Gadgets. 58
Useful Gadgets. 58
Getting Started. 60
Recommended Beginning Beekeeping Sequence. 60
How Many Hives?. 61
Package or Nuc?. 61
Race of Bees. 62
More Sequence. 62
Observation Hive. 63
Nucleus Hive. 64
Putting Bees in the Observation Hive. 65
Making a Split into the Nucleus Box. 67
Managing Growth. 68
Starting With More Hives. 68
Foundation and Frames. 69
Brood foundation. 69
Foundation for supers. 70
Kinds of frames. 71
Locating hives?. 73
Safety. 73
Convenient access. 73
Good forage. 74
Not in your way. 74
Full sun. 74
Not in a low-lying area. 75
Out of the wind. 75
Water 75
Conclusion. 76
Installing Packages. 77
Not to do: 77
Don't spray them with syrup. 77
Don't leave them in the shipping box. 78
Don't hang the queen between the frames. 79
Don't use an excluder as an includer too long. 80
Don't spray the queen with syrup. 80
Don't install bees without protective equipment 80
Don't smoke a package. 80
Don't postpone. 80
Don't feed in a way that makes excessive space. 81
Don't leave frames out 81
Don't dump bees on top of a baggie feeder 81
Don't close up a newly hived package. 82
Don't leave empty queen cages around. 82
Don't let messed up comb lead to more messed up comb 82
Don't destroy supersedure cells. 83
Don't panic if the queen in the cage is dead. 83
Don't freak out if the queen doesn't lay right away. 83
Don't freak out if one hive is doing better than the other 84
Don't get just one hive. 84
Don't feed constantly. 84
Don't mess with them everyday. 84
Don't leave them on their own for too long. 84
Don't smoke them too much. 85
Things to do: 85
Always install them in the minimum amount of space 85
Have your equipment ready. 86
Wear your protective equipment 86
How to install: 86
Frames tightly together 87
Do feed them.. 87
Enemies of the Bees. 88
Traditional Enemies of Bees. 88
Bears. 88
Bees Robbing. 89
Skunks. 92
Opossums. 92
Mice. 92
Wax moths. 93
Nosema. 98
Stonebrood. 102
Chalkbrood. 102
European Foulbrood (EFB) 104
American Foulbrood (AFB) 104
Parafoulbrood. 106
Sacbrood. 107
Neighbors. 108
Recent enemies. 108
Varroa Mites. 108
Physical methods. 113
Tracheal Mites. 116
Small Hive Beetles. 118
Are treatments necessary?. 119
Queen Spotting. 121
Do You Really Need to Find Her?. 121
Use Minimal Smoke. 121
Look for the Most Bees. 121
Calm Bees. 121
Larger and Longer 121
Don't count on her being marked. 122
Bees around the queen act differently. 122
The Queen Moves Differently. 122
Different Coloring. 123
Believe there is a Queen. 123
Practice. 123
Fallacies. 127
Myth: Drones are bad. 127
Myth: Drone comb is bad. 127
Myth: Queen Cells are bad. 128
Myth: Home grown queens are bad. 129
Myth: Feral Bees are bad. 129
Myth: Feral swarms are disease ridden. 130
Myth: Feeding can't hurt anything. 130
Myth: Adding supers will prevent swarming. 131
Myth: Destroying queen cells will prevent swarming. 131
Myth: Swarm cells are always on the bottom. 131
Myth: Clipping the queen will prevent swarming. 132
Myth: 2 Feet or 2 miles. 132
Myth: You have to extract. 132
Myth: 16 pounds of honey = 1 pound of wax. 133
Myth: You can't raise honey and bees. 133
Myth: Two queens can't coexist in the same hive. 133
Myth: Queens will never lay double eggs. 133
Myth: If there is no brood there is no queen. 134
Myth: Bees only like to work up. 135
Myth: A laying worker hive has one pseudo queen. 135
Myth: Shaking out a laying worker hive works. 136
Myth: Bees need a landing board. 136
Myth: Bees need a lot of ventilation. 136
Myth: Bees need beekeepers. 137
Myth: You have to requeen yearly. 137
Myth: A marginal colony should always be requeened. 137
Myth: You need to feed pollen substitute. 138
Myth: You should feed syrup in the winter. 138
Myth: You can’t mix plastic and wax. 138
Myth: Dead bees headfirst in cells have starved. 139
Realistic Expectations. 140
Honey Crop. 140
Plastic Foundation. 140
Wax Foundation. 141
Foundationless. 141
Losses. 142
Splits. 143
Harvest 145
Comb Honey. 145
Expense of making wax. 146
Crush and Strain. 148
Extracting. 150
Removing bees for harvesting. 153
Abandonment 153
Brushing and/or shaking. 153
Bee Escapes. 153
Blowing. 154
Butyric 154
Fischer Bee Quick. 155
Frequently Asked Questions. 156
Can queens sting?. 156
What if my queen flies off?. 156
Dead bees in front of the hive?. 157
Frame spacing in supers and brood nests?. 157
Why do the bees mess up the combs?. 158
How do I clean up used equipment?. 160
How do I prepare the hive for winter?. 161
How far do foragers fly?. 162
How far do drones fly to mate?. 163
How far do queens fly to mate?. 163
How many hives can I have on one acre?. 164
How many hives can I have in one place?. 164
How many hives to start with?. 164
Planting for bees. 165
Queen excluders?. 166
The reasoning for using them: 166
If you want to use them.. 167
Queenless bees?. 167
Requeening. 170
Push In Cage. 171
Making a Push-In-Cage. 171
Using a Push-in-Cage. 172
How do I keep queens for a few days?. 173
What's an inner cover for?. 174
Can I not use an inner cover?. 174
What's that smell?. 175
What's the best beekeeping book?. 175
What's the best breed of bees?. 176
Why are there all these bees in the air?. 176
Why are there bees on the outside of my hive?. 177
Why are they dancing at the entrance in unison?. 177
Why not use an electric fan for ventilation?. 178
Why did my bees die?. 178
Why do bees make different colors of wax?. 179
How often should I inspect?. 179
Should I drill a hole?. 180
How do you brush bees?. 181
How many cells on a frame?. 181
Burr comb?. 182
Appendix to Volume I: Glossary. 184
A. 184
B. 189
C. 197
D. 204
E. 209
F. 211
G. 215
H. 216
I 221
J 223
K. 223
L. 224
M.. 225
N. 229
O. 231
P. 232
Q. 235
R. 238
S. 241
T. 248
U. 251
V. 252
W.. 252
Y. 255
Appendix to Volume I: Acronyms. 256
Volume II Intermediate. 259
A System of Beekeeping. 261
Context 261
Examples. 262
Locale. 262
Why a system?. 263
Integration and related issues. 263
Why this system?. 263
Sustainable. 263
Workable. 264
Efficient 264
Decisions, Decisions….. 265
Kinds of beekeeping. 265
Commercial 265
Migratory. 265
Fixed. 265
Sideliner 266
Hobbyist 266
Personal Beekeeping Philosophy. 266
Organic 267
Chemical 267
Science vs. Art 267
Scale. 268
Reasons for beekeeping. 268
Locality. 269
All Beekeeping is Local 269
Lazy Beekeeping. 271
Top Entrances. 272
Uniform frame size. 274
Lighter boxes. 276
Horizontal hives. 280
Top Bar Hive. 281
Foundationless frames. 282
Making foundationless frames. 282
No chemicals/no artificial feed. 284
Leave honey for winter food. 285
Natural cell size. 286
Carts. 287
Leave the burr comb between boxes. 287
Stop cutting out swarm cells. 289
Stop fighting your bees. 290
Stop wrapping your hive. 290
Stop scraping all the propolis off of everything. 291
Stop painting your equipment. 292
Stop switching hive bodies. 293
Don't look for the queen. 294
Don't wait. 295
Feed dry sugar. 296
Split by the box. 296
Stop Requeening. 297
Feeding Bees. 298
First, when do you feed?. 298
Stimulative feeding. 300
My experiences with stimulative feeding. 302
Down sides to success: 303
Variable outcomes: 304
Dry Sugar: 304
Type of feeder: 305
Second, what do you feed?. 305
Pollen. 306
Third, how much do you feed?. 306
Fourth, how do you feed?. 306
Issues when considering the type of feeder: 307
Basic types of feeders. 308
Frame feeders. 308
Boardman feeder 309
Jar feeder 309
Miller feeder 311
Bottom board feeder 313
Jay Smith Bottom Board Feeder 313
My version. 315
Baggie Feeder. 320
Open feeder 321
Candy board. 321
Fondant 321
Dry Sugar 321
What kind of sugar?. 325
Pollen. 326
Measuring ratios for syrup. 326
Weight or Volume?. 326
How to measure. 327
How to make syrup. 327
Moldy syrup. 328
Top Entrances. 329
Reasons for top entrances. 329
How to make top entrances. 332
Top Entrance Frequently Asked Questions: 334
Carts. 337
Swarm Control 342
Causes of swarming. 344
Overcrowding swarm.. 344
Reproductive swarm.. 345
Preventing swarming. 347
Opening the broodnest 347
Checkerboarding aka Nectar Management 348
Splits. 349
What is the desired outcome?. 349
Timing for doing a split: 349
The concepts of splits are: 350
Kinds of splits. 351
An even split 351
A walk away split 351
Swarm control split 351
A cut down split 352
Concepts of a cut down: 352
Confining the queen. 353
Cut down Split/Combine. 353
Frequently Asked Questions about splits. 354
How early can I do a split?. 354
How many times can I split?. 354
How late can I do a split?. 355
How far?. 356
Natural Cell Size. 357
And it's implications to beekeeping and Varroa mites. 357
Does Small Cell = Natural Cell?. 357
Baudoux 1893. 357
Severide's Law. 357
Foundation Today. 358
Chart of Cell Sizes. 362
Volume of cells. 363
Things that affect cell size. 364
What is Regression?. 364
How do I regress them?. 364
Observations on Natural Cell Size. 366
Observations on Natural Frame Spacing. 367
1-1/4” spacing agrees with Huber's observations. 367
Comb Width (thickness) by Cell Size. 367
Pre and Post Capping Times and Varroa. 369
Huber’s Observations. 370
My Observations. 370
Why would I want natural sized cells?. 371
How to get natural sized cells. 371
How to get small cells. 371
So what Are Natural Sized Cells?. 372
Conclusions: 372
Frequently asked questions: 372
So let's do the math: 376
Ways to get smaller cells. 380
How to get natural sized cells. 380
Top Bar Hives. 380
Foundationless frames. 380
Make blank starter strips. 380
How to get small cells. 380
Rationalizations on Small Cell Success. 381
AHB. 381
Survivor stock. 382
Blind faith. 383
Resistance. 384
Small Cell Studies. 385
Foundationless. 387
Why would one want to go foundationless?. 387
How do you go foundationless?. 388
Foundationless frames. 392
Historic References. 392
FAQs. 396
Box of empty frames?. 396
What is a guide?. 396
Best guide?. 396
Extract?. 397
Wire?. 397
Wax them?. 398
Whole box?. 398
Will they mess up?. 398
Slower?. 399
Beginners. 400
If they mess up?. 400
Dimensions. 401
Narrow Frames. 402
Observations on Natural Frame Spacing. 402
1-1/4” spacing agrees with Huber's observations. 402
Comb Width by Cell Size. 403
Historic references to narrower frame spacing. 403
Spacing frames 1-1/4” has advantages. 408
Frequent misconceptions: 409
Ways to get narrow frames. 409
FAQs. 410
Yearly Cycles. 412
Winter 412
Bees. 412
Stores. 413
Setup for winter 413
Spring. 413
Summer 414
Fall 414
Wintering Bees. 416
Mouse Guards. 416
Queen Excluders. 417
Screened bottom boards (SBB) 417
Wrapping. 418
Clustering hives together 418
Feeding Bees. 418
Insulation. 420
Top Entrances. 421
Where the cluster is. 421
How strong?. 421
Entrance reducers. 422
Pollen. 422
Windbreak. 423
Eight frame boxes. 423
Medium boxes. 423
Narrow frames. 424
Wintering Nucs. 424
Banking queens. 425
Indoor wintering. 426
Wintering observation hives. 426
Spring Management 427
Tied to climate. 427
Feeding Bees. 427
Swarm Control 428
Splits. 429
Supering. 430
Laying Workers. 431
Cause. 431
Symptoms. 431
Solutions. 432
Simplest, least trips to the beeyard. 432
Shakeout and forget 432
Most successful but more trips to the beeyard. 432
Give them open brood. 432
Other less successful or more tedious methods. 433
More info on laying workers. 434
Brood pheromones. 434
More than Bees. 436
Macro and Microfauna. 436
Microflora. 436
Pathogens?. 437
Upsetting the Balance. 437
For More Reading. 437
Bee Math. 439
Races of Bees. 441
Italian. 441
Starline. 441
Cordovan. 441
Caucasian. 442
Carniolan. 442
Midnite. 442
Russian. 443
Buckfast 443
German or English native bees. 444
LUS. 444
Africanized Honey Bees (AHB) 444
Moving Bees. 446
Moving hives two feet 446
Moving hives two miles. 446
More than 2 feet and less than 2 miles. 448
Moving hives 100 yards or less by yourself. 448
Concepts. 448
Materials: 450
Method. 451
Treatments for Varroa not working. 454
A Few Good Queens. 456
Simple Queen Rearing for a Hobbyist 456
Labor and Resources. 456
Quality of Emergency Queens. 456
The experts on emergency queens: 457
Jay Smith, from Better Queens. 457
C.C. Miller's view of emergency queens. 458
Equipment 459
Method: 459
Make sure they are well fed. 459
Make them Queenless. 459
Make up Mating Nucs. 459
Transfer Queen Cells. 460
Check for Eggs. 460
Volume III Advanced. 459
Genetics. 461
The Need for Genetic Diversity. 461
Feral Bees Have Maintained This. 462
What can we do?. 462
Feral Bees. 464
Swarms. 467
Capturing a swarm.. 468
Removal 470
Cone Method. 471
Bee Vacuum.. 473
Transplanting Bees. 474
Bait hives. 476
Queen Rearing. 478
Why rear your own queens?. 478
Cost 478
Time. 478
Availability. 479
AHB. 479
Acclimatized bees. 479
Mite and disease resistance. 479
Quality. 480
Concepts of Queen Rearing. 480
Reasons to rear queens. 480
Emergency. 480
Supersedure. 481
Reproductive swarming. 481
Overcrowding swarm.. 481
Most Queens with Least Resources. 481
Where queens come from.. 482
Methods of getting larvae into “queen cups” 482
The Doolittle Method. 483
The Jenter method. 483
Advantages to Jenter 486
Advantages to grafting. 486
The Hopkins Method. 487
Cell Starter 490
Beekeeping Math. 492
Queen Rearing Calendar: 492
Mating Nucs. 494
A note on mating nucs. 495
Queen marking colors: 497
Queen Catching and marking. 498
Jay Smith. 499
Queen longevity: 500
Emergency queens: 500
C.C. Miller 501
Queen Banks. 502
FWOF. 503
Nucs. 505
Optimal Space. 505
Various Sized Nucs. 505
Overwintering Nucs. 507
Feeding dry sugar 513
What Nucs are Good For: 514
Splits. 514
Artificial swarm.. 514
Making queens from swarm cells. 514
Keeping a backup queen. 514
Foolproof requeening. 515
Queen bank. 515
Comb building. 515
Swarm catching. 516
Bait Hives. 516
Shaken swarms. 516
Transporting honey. 516
Lighter Equipment 517
Mediums instead of deeps. 517
Eight frame instead of ten frame. 518
Wax Dipping Equipment 528
Colony Decisions. 533
Two Queen Hives. 535
Top Bar Hives. 538
Kenya Top Bar Hive. 538
Comb Measurements. 547
FAQs. 548
Wintering. 548
Tropical?. 549
Excluder?. 549
Harvest 550
Top Entrance?. 550
Sloped Sides?. 551
Varroa?. 551
Feeding?. 551
Management?. 552
Production?. 553
SBB?. 554
Cross Ventilation. 554
Landing board?. 555
Length?. 555
Bar Width. 556
Comb Guide. 556
Waxing Guides. 557
Slatted Rack. 557
Horizontal Hives. 558
Management 560
Observation Hives. 561
Why an observation hive?. 561
Pictures of Different Kinds of Observation Hives. 561
Getting an Observation Hive. 568
You Can Build One or Buy One. 568
Glass or Plexiglas. 568
Other Nice Features. 569
Exit 569
Privacy. 569
Observation Hive Issues. 570
Frame Size. 570
Overall Size. 570
Space Between the Glass. 571
Feeder 571
Ventilation. 572
Robbing. 572
Disconnecting. 572
Working the Hive. 573
Box Jig. 575
Miscellaneous Equipment 580
Top Clip. 580
Hive Stand. 581
Plantain. 582
Bucket Float 583
Smoker Insert 584
Wiring Tools. 585
Things I did not invent 587
Beespace. 587
Using All Mediums. 588
Using 8 frame boxes. 589
Top Bar Hives. 589
Foundationless Frames. 590
Narrow Frames. 591
Long Hives. 592
Smoker Insert 593
Not Painting Hives. 594
Small Cell Beekeeping. 595
Top Entrances. 595
Opening the Brood Nest 596
Beekeeping Math. 598
Unnatural Things in Beekeeping. 600
Scientific Studies. 603
Quotes. 603
Not Proven Scientifically. 610
Differences in observations in general and as an example, differences in cell size observations. 611
Discounting scientific studies. 615
Worldview. 617
Empirical Vs Statistical 617
Natural Things. 620
Paradigms. 623
Scientific numerics in complex systems. 625
It's not that simple. 625
Weight as an example. 626
Overwintering as another example. 627
Requeening a Hot Hive. 632
Divide and conquer. 632
CCD. 635
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