Scientific Beekeeping

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Beekeeping Through the Eyes of a Biologist

The scientific beekeeper doesn’t want to just be told how to do it, but to understand the reasons why. Scientific beekeeping is not about test tubes and lab coats, but rather about helping you, as a beekeeper, to make management decisions based upon knowledge and understanding of the biology and behavior of the fascinating superorganism we call the honey bee colony.

Screenshots of hive weights

April 24, 2023


Supplementary material for A Study on Bee and Mite Drift, Part 5

Due to unfamiliarity with data preservation for the scale hives, we lost all our raw data when we removed the batteries from the scales at the end of the trial. Luckily, I had been following the weight data during the course of the trial, and had taken a few screenshots. I fully expected to see evidence of robbing correlating with mite immigration, but did not.

A screenshot of scale data for the Donors.The only sudden weight losses that we observed were for Donors D6 and D8 (not shown in this chart) ― the rest of the Donors showed no indication of getting robbed during their collapse. But the bulk of those weight reductions may well have simply represented the body mass of the workers that abandoned the hive (the bees covering 8 combs weigh roughly 4 pounds).

 

A screenshot of typical scale data for the Receivers, with weight gains by R4 and R7.

 


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