Hello! I salute you on your important quest. I am establishing a local population 450 km north of Stockholm. Still in early stage. I strongly believe local populations are of utmost importance. I plan to maintain a lot of semiwild bees to maintain a large amount of different genes exposed to natural selektion. If I am lucky to be abel to visit Poland this summer I hope we can get in touch. Warm regards and respect from LarsHBackström in Uppsala.
Hi Lars! Thank You for those words. I also think that local populations are crucial to have healthy populations of bees. Too bad our beekeepers mostly don't respect local bees... It's a constant quest for seeking out "perfect bees"... and as You know "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"... Of course You are welcome in Poland - but if my plans come true I will be out for couple of months this year... Anyway - if You are in Poland please write me (pantruten@gmail.com) - if I'm not there to meet You perhaps I can be helpful in some ways to You! Best wishes to Your project and to You, Bartek.
I have sympathy for your quest. To breed better mites with using pestizides is certainly not the intelligent way. Only the fastest breeding mites get selected and we here have to treat two or three times a year, some more. I myself thougt about this problem from another perspective. Our hives are not perfect for bees but for honey production. In northern areas most of the treehollows suitable for bees are made by large woodpeckers. We still habe here some feral bees in such cavities. A woodpeckers home has his entrance in the upper region of its hollow. So I made a slender treelike hive with a livng space of 25 cm in circumference. The entrance is about 20 cm down from the roof about 3 meters above the ground. I hollowed out some piece of branche an screwed it on. To make the hive more attractive I melted some wax and propolis from conventional hives and applied it inside. It is placed on a small private property in a little forrest above a creek. Scoutbees came and then a swarm and now it is its first winter. I hope they survive. Not very far away I know a feral colony in a oak tree wich is in its second winter. Its in an woodpecker hole at about the same hight. I make now new treehives which I will put in trees not so far away to maybe get a swarm from a feral colony to live in it. Maybe i find out how they climatize their homes in the wild. Older traditions in our climate like skeps and tree hives had their entrance holes in the upper region of the hollow. I think the bees use this way their honey store as a heat recovery tool in winter cold air streams in over the stores gets warmer /drier and rises through the winter-cluster and avoid thus the mold inside. probably through the cluster density and wax constructions they can controll the airflow. We beekeepers destroy their attempt to climatize their hives with wax and propolis construction every time we open their hives. apart from the problem that warm air stays up an only after loosing a lot of water while cooling down excapes through the lower entrance in the winter. My hive is build in a way that i can see what they construct without destroing it by checking out what they do. They hade this summer no problem to protect their entrance the way it connects to their comb. Good luck with your beekeeping evperiments.
Hello! I salute you on your important quest. I am establishing a local population 450 km north of Stockholm. Still in early stage. I strongly believe local populations are of utmost importance. I plan to maintain a lot of semiwild bees to maintain a large amount of different genes exposed to natural selektion. If I am lucky to be abel to visit Poland this summer I hope we can get in touch. Warm regards and respect from LarsHBackström in Uppsala.
Hi Lars! Thank You for those words. I also think that local populations are crucial to have healthy populations of bees. Too bad our beekeepers mostly don't respect local bees... It's a constant quest for seeking out "perfect bees"... and as You know "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"...
Of course You are welcome in Poland - but if my plans come true I will be out for couple of months this year... Anyway - if You are in Poland please write me (pantruten@gmail.com) - if I'm not there to meet You perhaps I can be helpful in some ways to You!
Best wishes to Your project and to You, Bartek.
I have sympathy for your quest.
To breed better mites with using pestizides is certainly not the intelligent way. Only the fastest breeding mites get selected and we here have to treat two or three times a year, some more.
I myself thougt about this problem from another perspective. Our hives are not perfect for bees but for honey production.
In northern areas most of the treehollows suitable for bees are made by large woodpeckers. We still habe here some feral bees in such cavities.
A woodpeckers home has his entrance in the upper region of its hollow. So I made a slender treelike hive with a livng space of 25 cm in circumference. The entrance is about 20 cm down from the roof about 3 meters above the ground.
I hollowed out some piece of branche an screwed it on.
To make the hive more attractive I melted some wax and propolis from conventional hives and applied it inside.
It is placed on a small private property in a little forrest above a creek. Scoutbees came and then a swarm and now it is its first winter.
I hope they survive.
Not very far away I know a feral colony in a oak tree wich is in its second winter. Its in an woodpecker hole at about the same hight. I make now new treehives which I will put in trees not so far away to maybe get a swarm from a feral colony to live in it.
Maybe i find out how they climatize their homes in the wild. Older traditions in our climate like skeps and tree hives had their entrance holes in the upper region of the hollow. I think the bees use this way their honey store as a heat recovery
tool in winter cold air streams in over the stores gets warmer /drier and rises through the winter-cluster and avoid thus the mold inside. probably through the cluster density and wax constructions they can controll the airflow.
We beekeepers destroy their attempt to climatize their hives with wax and propolis construction every time we open their hives. apart from the problem that warm air stays up an only after loosing a lot of water while cooling down excapes through the lower entrance in the winter.
My hive is build in a way that i can see what they construct without destroing it by checking out what they do.
They hade this summer no problem to protect their entrance the way it connects to their comb.
Good luck with your beekeeping evperiments.