For starters, we’ll try to get a lot more wild flowers growing.

Thanks so much for all the info!

Christine

Incidentally, all Apis mellifera bees are from Africa originally. Everyone keeping honeybees are essentially keeping African bees. The European theater has been refreshed with fresh African genetics at least three times according to researchers.

Beyond that, there have been fresh-from-Africa bees kept here in the states since before 1918. In the early 1960′s the USDA imported yet more fresh African genetics and bred them into our bees. So decades before the 1990 arrival of the Brazilian bee we have had Africanized bees.

Their aggressiveness seems to be blown out of proportion. Freshly mongrelized bees are more stressed and because of that more defensive. The first generation of Brazilian bees would no doubt qualify. However, Puerto Rico is pretty much nearly 100% Africanized bees and they’re not significantly more defensive than European bees. I have a friend that keeps collected feral bees there and he hasn’t had any issues at all. Sure, some are a little sparky – but there’s a big difference between that and what the media paints them to be – painted to be B-Movie style killers.

Interestingly, the most common bee in the USA before Italian bees were imported were notorious for being very defensive – even killing livestock and people. IIRC, that would be the German Brown Bee, tho I’ve heard them called Black Bees. I’ve read accounts of people far north having their veils blanketed with angry bees trying so hard to sting thru the veil they were getting their faces sprayed with drops of venom. And yet, contrast that to me ripping large colonies out of walls and having lotsa buzzing and lotsa bumping but very little stinging, and the same true for the Puerto Rican beekeeper.

Virtually every serious attack I have read about is an attack that any sheep-bee hive can perform under the same circumstances. One was on a fella who was cutting a branch off a tree that was occupied by bees. He received an estimated 500 stings. But take a chain-saw to any commercial hive and tell me that won’t happen to them – especially if you can’t run away seeing as you’re up in a tree. I read another story of a dog that was attacked by bees and killed. As tragic as that was, it too is something that European bees will do. They will continue stinging until you are out of their attack range and the dog stayed where it was most comfortable – with it’s owners that were also getting stung. In an attack, it is best to run very quickly and get inside. Another fella got stung badly because he allowed bees to make a comb in an abandoned birdcage on his porch. He was lulled into a false sense of security because the bees left him alone but when he reached in to grab a comb, he was attacked. Well… duh!!! Another story of horses that were killed – again, if they can’t run away because they are penned, the bees will continue the attack. These were newly introduced horses too – the others were largely ignored – so I suspect that they had lotion on them that set the bees off as well. I read another account of a house that had several colonies in the walls. They weren’t bothering anyone, but were still labeled as Africanized by the media.

In the end, the media is responsible for most of this irrational fear and likely responsible for many of the idiotic ordinances regarding Africanized bees. Commercial beekeepers/breeders benefited because they don’t want people keeping free bees – they want people to buy bees. Pesticide producers also benefited from this because they spread the false rumor that feral bees spread diseases. In reality, it’s the commercial hives that are loaded down with diseases and pests. Every feral hive I’ve cut out has been squeaky clean and they’re still squeaky clean and on zero treatments whatsoever.

In the end. respect the bee. Any colony can have a bad night and demonstrate their frustrations on their keeper the next morning. Always wear a veil at the very least. That way if that perfect storm hits, you’ll be able to see to escape. You can keep bees for decades without issues and think it’s unmanly to wear a veil – but there’s always that first time and it only takes one time to change your mind. I prefer to think ahead. My bees are easy to manage but I take precautions nonetheless. Once you keep that in mind and also develop habits of manipulating your hives that are gentle and don’t jostle the bees too much, things will be much safer and much easier for you.

It’s surprising that there are any bees at all in the desert, we’re in NW AZ at about 4000 ft. We have at least some of the wildflowers you mentioned around here and hope to have a LOT more flowers on our property in the future.

During our very dry summer we realized that bees were attracted to a bucket with cattails by the house (a swarm came out when I added water), we took the bucket to the garden, made a little cattail pond and the bees moved to the garden. One of the few plans that worked as expected.

We’ve been thinking about keeping bees, but we hear/read that almost all are Africanized and the prospect of getting stung by a bunch of killer bees an hour from the nearest hospital is a bit scary.

What are your thoughts on that?

Christine

Beekeeping on an extremely low budget leaves me with limited choices. I have only one nuke box–colonies fill’em up too fast, so I buy brood boxes instead. And the nuke box never ready or free when I need it. The bucket solution is great. Can’t wait to share this with my bee buddies.

Beebe Freed

It’s good to put empty foundationless between two straight combs – the comb will be straighter with straight neighbors. However, keep brood-combs in pairs – don’t isolate a single brood-comb between two empties. It’s harder for the bees to manage the environment of just one brood-comb but two next to each other makes it much easier. When I pyramid my hives – drawing bees into empties by four broodcombs from a deep and putting them in the next empty (usually nadired) I’ll put an empty between the two pairs, and then you’ll have two empties on one side and three on the other. The box with six will have an empty, two full combs, an empty, two full combs, and empty, two full combs and an empty.

However, you want to open the brood-nest during the buildups. Between the buildup your bees may very well draw down honey combs rather than brood combs, even if they’re in the middle of the broodnest. However, during buildup, they’ll reliably draw down brood-combs.

Or would they?

To go foundationless with my foundationed-nucs, I thought I’d simply place the nuc frames in a standard deep super with foundationless-but-wired frames next to them — maybe with one empty frame in the middle. And that’s it.

What are you thoughts on this? Would the bees know how to go about drawing comb without a foundation to guide them?

I want to go foundationless, but I’m thinking it might be safer to wait until the colony has established itself. I’m just starting off now, so I want to be careful.

Here are pictures:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/yabb/forum.pl?board=fau-livestock;action=display;num=1223329682

Regards,
Pat