Starting Queen Cells

This looked a little more complicated then The Fat Bee Man method. The Miller Method suggested cutting a  zig zag edge at bottom of comb and the bees would make queen cells in the gaps. Another method was the Alley Plan where cells with one day old larvae is take and placed with the cells pointng down (didnt explain HOW to do this really) with every couple of larva destoryed to leave enough space.

Clipping and Marking Queens

I have to admit I was slightly concerned when I saw the picture of the Baldock cage. However, I found this article fascinating. It explained how to mark queens. This is essentially painting them or sticking a number to them to organize and know how old a queen is. There was a pretty confusing way of colour coding with corresponding years that I did not really find very useful or easy to remember. The Baldcok cage is to keep the queen still while you do this but there were various over methods such as special pliers. The article also told about how to clip queen’s wings. This process seemed pretty tricky and the article didn’t really explain why you should do this. With some additional research I learned that clipping can also be used for marking age (left wing clipped for a year ending in an even number, right for an odd) and to prevent swarming or keep track of the queen as she cannot fly. However there are a few cons to clipping. Some beekeepers argue that the hive can sense the queen is injured and will reject and replace her.

Splitting Hives (Not Hairs)

In this video we learm how to spilt a hives. First you need a  5 frame "nook(?)" box. This is where you will put the split hive. Next select a few frames from the orginal hive. Look for frames with things that will be necessary for the new hive, such as honey, pollen and babies. You will also need to locate the queen and put her in the nook box with the selected frames. The man advised waiting 3 days before putting a new queen in the original (and now queen less) hive so that the bees can realise they have no queen and change their pheromones. I was wondering if the bees would create a new queen on their own? Next, move the nook box at least 2 miles awas so the bees do not go straight back to their orgininal hive. After a few days the two new hives may be right beside each other again, if desired. 

How To Make A Queen

Fat Bee Man says it is not as hard as you may think and stated several times that ANYONE can do it. First you must build your frame ahead of time and have a bar that will hang about half way down the frame. Nextcut a slit of comb containing larva and put wax on your bar, this will act as glue.  Next squash the strip of combs on the bar at intervals.TADA! Horizontal cells. I though this method seemed pretty easy, however i liked our pencil method better.

Early Spring Drives Butterfly Population Declines

Early snow melt was cited as the reason for two linked effects on the environment: decreased number of flowers and decreased butterflies. Butterflies depend on the nectar of flowers to live and produce eggs resulting in fewer butterflies. This in turn affects the pollination process for flowers and a vicious cycle begins. Lower snow packs and frosts also damaged caterpillars lowering numbers again. I found this quiet depressing.

Natural farming offers less hassle to producers than organic

This article dealt with the issue of falling numbers in the organic food trade in the Prairies. The cost, hassle and rules of being an organic farmer we sighted as the main issues for this decline. However, Quebec has increased its organic farming practices and on the whole numbers are slowly rising. The article mentioned “natural” products and I was not exactly sure what that meant.  “Farmers have learned it’s possible to sell “natural” meat and vegetables for a premium price without the hassle and cost of organic certification.” To my limited knowledge this seems like it means that farmers are trying to con people into buying products that are no better for the environment at a higher cost simply to increase profit. This reminds me of the “heath check symbol” that is sometimes bought my companies to make their food more attractive to buyers, when no actual health benefits are present. However the article did end on a positive note stating that Canada was the fifth largest market in the world for organic food and ninth highest in the world for per capita consumption of organic products, showing that there is a pretty solid market for organic food, should Canadian famers take more of an interest.

Push For New Genetically Engineered Corn Divides Agribusiness

From about the 1980's a less harmful (compared to some of the other strait up poisons, so still pretty harmful) herbicide called "Roundup" was used. However, some weeds have become resistant to round up (nicknamed Pigweed) and are becoming a big problem for some farmers. The idea to create plants (such as corn and soy) that are resistant to a more toxic herbicide called 2,4-D which was one of the ingredients used in Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. However, several cancers such as Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and many others are linked to this chemical. There are the used debates about how less herbicide could be used and it would actually be less harmful but at the end of the day poison is poison. I believe that if Roundup stopped working so will 2,4-D and then we will need to use something stronger. If the resistant genes are being modified in to corn and soy then I don’t think it is rocket science to assume that they will transfer to weeds as well.