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NEWS AROUND ESPECIALISATION EN APICULTURA TROPICAL (SPECIALISATION IN TROPICAL APICULTURE)
BERMUDA A bee hive turned out to be one of the most popular exhibits in the New Invertebrate House at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo. Maybe “popular” is not the right word. The hive is located near the entrance, but behind a corner so that visitors come upon it rather abruptly, finding themselves face-to-face with thousands of stinged insects. have watched many a fearless fellow recoil - caught between the double horror of being stung to death and looking like a coward - until he realises that the insects are behind thick glass, and he then proceeds with defiant valour. We, the caretakers of these formidable creatures (the bees, not the visitors) have prided ourselves on the ease with which this exhibit runs itself. From the day we put the swarm in its new home, the bees were flying in and out through a hole in the wall, carrying back nectar and pollen. They gradually spread over the five frames we gave them, the queen was busily laying eggs and the growing number of her subjects even drove out the bees’ arch-enemies - wax moths and cockroaches - which tried to gain a cosy foothold in the midst of plenty. So much was there of bees and honey that - as is customary for beekeepers - proceeded to harvest what considered surplus, taking two of the three honey-laden combs, in an effort to prevent the bee population from overflowing its narrow confines. But then disaster struck - catching me totally by surprise. One morning was alerted to the fact that dead bees had started to accumulate at an increasing rate and could only confirm bee inspector Kevin Monkman’s diagnosis the colony had run out of food reserves and was starving to death. We quickly started feeding sugar syrup, then opened the hive to clear away most of the dead bees, closed it again, and hoped for a recovery, which did not take long - thank God. Within hours the bees, which before had been cowering lethargically on the empty comb, awoke to buzzing life, ecstatically dancing to spread the good news. Undertaker bees started to lug corpses out of the hive, collectors brought in and stored syrup, bystanders fanned with their wings to thicken it, and cells were readied to receive new brood. almost cheered when saw the queen finally deign to lay an egg again.
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At Merida in Mexico, the University of Yucatan is planning a new 10-month postgraduate course in tropical apiculture. The course will start in September 1992. The course is primarily to train teachers of beekeeping and will be conducted in
spanish. For further details contact: Carlos Echazarreta, Departamento de Apicultura, Facultad de Medicina y Veterinaria Zootecnica (FMVZ), Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan, Ap Postal 4-116D, 97100, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.
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BE! ATE During 1992 we plan to update the previously published World distribution honey bee diseases
of major and pests. Please let us
know of any new data positively identifying the presence, or indicating the absence of t
following honey diseases and pe
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Amoeba, Ameri: foulbrood, bee chalk brood, Eu foulbrood, sacb
But the most revealing step the bees took, to me, was that at the height of famine they began to rip open cells in which their pupae were developing. do not know whether they were actually feeding on their own brood, but whatever they did killed the offspring, and the net effect was that the starving hive was prevented from growing even larger. For the first time grasped the meaning of the time lag in growth - those predictions that say that even if the world’s population stopped growing right now, resource use would still continue to increase for many decades. This is because a child, no matter how demanding he may seem at times, requires only a fraction of the food, fuel and space of an adult. A fast-growing population, therefore, which is made up of more children than adults, is a time bomb that explodes when the combined needs of adolescents have grown to the point where they run into resource limitations such as food or fuel shortage. |
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Wolfgang Sterrer, Natural History Museum Source: Monthly Bulletin, Department of Agriculture August 199]
EGYPT An Arabic language review of scientific papers concerned with the parasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni has been prepared. The life cycle, diagnosis and control of the mite are discussed, and a list of 154 references provided. Prepared by Professor Mustafa Hussein, Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
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Tropilaelaps clarea
AHOY THERE!
youre not Dang THAT ,
Varroa
jacobsoni.
Send to Nicola Bradbear, IBRA, 18 North oad, Cardiff CF] 3DY Source: Bee Craft, Dece
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