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.

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2023 Field Trial of Matrices and Formulations for Extended-Release Oxalic Acid

Contents A Large Field Research Project 1 Materials and Methods 2 Experimental design. 2 Surface Area of the Treatments 4 Justification for the Ratios Tested. 4 The Test Colonies 4 The Matrices 7 Dose applied to the bees 13 Results. 14 Summary of my interpretation of the chart 16 Discussion. 16 Musing on other studies...

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Randy’s Varroa Model

I feel that our industry and research community has long needed a useful, accurate, and user-friendly varroa population model–so I spent a year of early mornings and weekends creating this one.  You can use this model to predict what sort of mite management strategy will work in your area. For those who don’t have Excel...

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Creating a Model for Oxalic Acid Vaporization: Part 1

Contents THE EFFECT OF OAV UPON MITES. 2 EXPECTED MITE DROP AFTER AN OA TREATMENT. 4 ADVERSE EFFECTS UPON THE BEES AND BROOD.. 6 DOSE AND EFFICACY FOR BROODLESS COLONIES. 7 OAV FOR COLONIES ENGAGED IN BROOD REARING.. 8 SO HOW MANY OAV APPLICATIONS ARE NECESSARY?. 9 SO WHAT’S THE OPTIMAL OXALIC DOSAGE FOR AN...

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Video of yellow-legged hornets at John Kefuss’ hive in France

My friend , Dr. John Kefuss, from France (the guy who coined the term “the Bond method” for breeding mite-resistant bees) heard about our lack of progress on eradicating this invasive, so sent me video of what it’s like for a hive of bees in France, now that the hornet is established there, and suggested...

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