EPA Registers New Biochemical Miticide to Combat Varroa Mites in Beehives

Posted September 30, 2015

EPA Registers New Biochemical Miticide to Combat Varroa Mites in Beehives

EPA has registered a new biochemical miticide, Potassium Salts of Hops Beta Acids (K-HBAs), which is intended to provide another option for beekeepers to combat the devastating effects of the Varroa mite on honey bee colonies and to avoid the development of resistance toward other products. Rotating products to combat Varroa mites is an important …

Posted September 1, 2015

Family Berberidaceae – the Barberry Family

Depending on the reference, the Berberidaceae consists of 9 to12 genera and 590 to 600 species of shrubs and perennial herbs that are scattered throughout the Northern Hemisphere and South America.[2, 10] It is a very diverse family. I find it at least a little difficult to think of the herbaceous may-apple (Podophyllum peltatum), which …

Posted September 1, 2015

Evolution and Double-Queen Management

After a break in August to talk about CCD politics, I’m happy to pick up the thread again on our evolutionary history of the honey bee with a view toward clues to good management. In July’s installment we stumbled upon one of those clues. Readers will recall that we talked about the evolutionary unit of …

Posted September 1, 2015

Beekeeping History from the Pages of the W.T. Falconer Bee Supply Company

In the history of apiculture in the United States, numerous bee supply factories appeared, beginning in the 1860’s to supply a growing honey industry. Most of these companies are out of business today, gone extinct, leaving as their fossil records mostly their bee supply catalogs and rarely special equipment they produced. One supplier, high on …

Posted September 1, 2015

The Internal Anatomy of the Honey Bee

Last month, I discussed the external anatomy of the honey bee. This month, I will turn my attention to the internal anatomy of the honey bee. I wanted to include high quality photographs of each organ discussed in this article so that the internal anatomy could be illustrated appropriately. However, such photographs are hard to …

Posted September 1, 2015

The Classroom September 2015

Florida Apiary Inspection Program My name is David Westervelt and I am the Chief of the Apiary Inspection Section of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ (FDACS) Division of Plant Industries (DPI). Florida’s apiary industry is flourishing, with a rapidly growing number of “backyard” beekeepers. Many commercial beekeepers are expanding their operations to …

Posted September 1, 2015

Comb Honey Corner – September 2015

All beekeepers who produce surplus honey have one thing in common; marketing. The first job in marketing is preparation. Honey is a pure and nearly sterile product. Keeping it in that condition is the first consideration. It is possible to harvest comb honey without ever touching the comb. This is even possible with cut comb. …

Posted September 1, 2015

Varroa Control Past and Future

History of Varroa in North America The first discovery of Varroa jacobsoni (later renamed Varroa destructor) in the United States was made on Sept. 25, 1987 in Florida on colonies owned by a Wisconsin beekeeper. This beekeeper, Gary Oreskovic, was a supplier of package bees that were combined with packages from other beekeepers and sold …

Posted September 1, 2015

Forty Years

Yesterday I hosted a ‘master’ class for seven relatively new beekeepers. We were reviewing some familiar territory—lighting the smoker, finding the queen, picking up and marking the queen, using the hive tool efficiently, equalizing colonies and a lot more. It reminded me of something a colleague said to me the first week of August, 1972. …

Posted September 1, 2015

Sounds of the Hive – Part 1

Deaf: That’s how text books long summed up the hearing of honey bees. As it turns out, humans were using their own hearing to make the definition. Now it is being revealed that bees live in a world of sound that goes beyond our range – just as bees see ultraviolet light invisible to humans. Bees, …

EPA Registers New Biochemical Miticide to Combat Varroa Mites in Beehives

Posted September 30, 2015