Contents Professional Beekeeping 2 The Beginning of a Boom 3 Indicators of Change 4 The Four Booms, Sprees, and Joyrides that We’ve Been Enjoying 5 I’ll Go Over Each of the Above in Turn, and Point out Early Indicators and Preparation. 6 The Demand for Bees for Almond Pollination 6 Early Indicators and Preparation 8 […] The post Is Our Party Winding Down appeared first on Scientific Beekeeping.| Scientific Beekeeping
Smokin’-Hot Mite Washin’ 2025 Update Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com For large scale varroa monitoring, notably for the selective breeding of mite-resistant bees, one needs to be able to assess the mite infestation rates of large numbers of colonies quickly and inexpensively. Variation in Mite Counts In any group of hives, even those from the same […] The post Smokin’ Hot Mite Washin’- 2025 Update appeared first on Scientific Beekeeping.| Scientific Beekeeping
Contents An Unsuccessful Attempt to Create Robbing Field Observations of the Guards Behind Robbing Screens How Colonies Guard Themselves against Foreign Bees The Behavior of Guard Bees My Conclusions Next Month Acknowledgements Citations and Notes Robbing Screens Part 8: Do They Work in Concert with the Guard Bees? Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ […] The post Robbing Screens: Part 8– Do They Work in Concert with Guard Bees appeared first on Sci...| Scientific Beekeeping
Robbing Screens Part 9: Designing a Robbing Screen that Works in Conjunction with the Colony’s Guard Bees Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First published in ABJ March 2025 The defenders of a colony against robbing are its resident guard force. Do the current designs of robbing screens help or hinder those guard bees? Robbing Starts […]| Scientific Beekeeping
Honey Cleanup without Robbing Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ September 2023 I’m often asked how to “clean up” the honey in cut-out burr or volunteer combs, spilled honey, sticky extracted combs, or other honey that we’d like to recycle back into hives — without initiating robbing and the potential transfer of […]| Scientific Beekeeping
Here’s a video of hiving a swarm by placing a nuc box next to it: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hwi8ts8r83dj5u0x1g6bs/swarm-pu-in-nuc-box.mp4?rlkey=009xao2f6nqg283zn17id39zb&dl=0| Scientific Beekeeping
Monitoring the varroa infestation rate by performing mite washes We don’t like to kill a bee any more than you do, but feel that any colony would gladly sacrifice a handful of workers in order to prevent facing an ugly death due to a varroa/virus overload. I’ve spent years testing and developing different methods of […]| Scientific Beekeeping
Contents Experiment #1. 2 Conclusion. 6 Rallying the Troops 7 The Dance Language. 7 Direction. 7 Distance. 8 “Profitability” and Desirability. 8 ODOR. 9 An Amusing Anecdote Regarding Training Bees to A Scent 9 The Purpose of a Robbing Screen. 9 Experiment #2. 10 Results. 12 The Question of Recruitment 13 The Question of Visual […] The post Robbing Screens: Part 7–Can They Alone Prevent Robbing? appeared first on Scientific Beekeeping.| Scientific Beekeeping
Contents Fact-checking some “common knowledge” about Robbing behavior 1 Anthropomorphizing bee behaviors. 4 There are different types of foragers. 4 Persistence of Memory. 5 How robbing happens –– Step by Step. 6 Importance of Scent 7 Our initial experiments to test the deterrance effect of screens 8 “Guilty” Flight Behavior 13 So is zig-Zag flight […] The post Can Robbing Screens Reduce Mite Immigration? Part 6– De-Anthropomorphizing Robbing appeared first on Scientific Beeke...| Scientific Beekeeping
Contents Introduction and Some Scientific Terms 2 Don’t Anthropormorphize Honey Bees 3 An Example of Robbing Without a Fight 4 There’s Little Difference Between Foraging and Robbing. 4 How Robbing screens or guards are Presumed to Work. 5 Test 1: Does Any Exhaust Air Exit Out the Upper Entrance?. 5 Our Findings 6 Test 2: […] The post Can Robbing Screens Reduce Mite Immigration? Part 5–They Don’t Just Affect Robbers appeared first on Scientific Beekeeping.| Scientific Beekeeping
A Field Trial of Probiotics Beekeeper-Funded Research First published in ABJ May 2021 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com In recent years, we’ve learned that the honey bee gut hosts a microbiome consisting of several core groups of bacteria (Figure 1), which if disrupted, may have detrimental effects upon bee health [[1]]. Many beekeepers, in the hope […]| Scientific Beekeeping
Contents Introduction. 1 My Two Field Trials 2 Trial #1. 3 Results of Field Trial #1. 4 Analysis of the Effect of Probiotics Upon the Gut Microbiomes. 5 Conclusion of Trial #1. 7 Trial #2. 7 Experimental Setup. 7 Results of Trial #2. 10 Discussion. 12 Final Thoughts 13 Acknowledgements. 13 Citations and Notes 13 […]| Scientific Beekeeping
Hi, I registered these three domain names in the hope that some regenerative farming nonprofits might wish to use them. I’d be happy to give them to an organization promoting regenerative farming that, unlike “certified organic,” accepts precision-bred (Crispr-edited) plant cultivars, and synthetic eco-friendly pest control methods. earthfriendlyfarming.org workwithnature.org backtonatural.org If you’re interested, you can […]| Scientific Beekeeping