Peter Donovan was the longterm, faithful and skilled coworker with Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey in southwest of England. He came to the abbey 1939 at the age of 12 when the war started and helped Brother Adam in his
Peter Donovan has moved on
Efforts for resistant bees give results
I really work for getting bees that can handel the varroa mite themselves. You get results when you do, but it’s extra work and sometimes it’s difficult to interpret what you see. And you loose some bad bees. And some
Foxfighter got honey instead of antibiotics
Our cat had a piece of the neighbour cat’s claw in the groin after a fight about territory dominion. He was young than. Later he had a clash also with the fox about hunting grounds for European watervoles (Arvicola amphibius).
Feral bees enlarged to 4.9
After varroa mites arrived 5+ years ago feral bees disappeared. Actually around here we heard about a few before that, in the church tower and the old water tower at the railway. And when we heard about them it was
The art of beekeeping
Hive of eccentricbeekeeper.com Foundationless Of course it’s more natural for bees to build their own combs. But is it the best for bees and beekeepers? There’s been a lot of discussion about natural beekeeping. First let us be clear. Natural
Searching for resistant bees
Kenya I started long before the mite arrived to focus on increasing the varroa resistance in my stock. 1989 I went to the mountains of Kenya to get genetic material that were more related to the resistant bees in South
Towards treatmentfree beekeeping
Why treatmentfree bees when you are not treatmentfree yourself? Every stressfactor put burdon upon the bees and lower the immune system. You can’t hinder the farmer from using pesticides, but you can stop yourself. If you manage to do that,
My VSH-test number 2
VSH – Varroa Sensitive Hygiene – is a very valuable trait and VSH-test is a very valuable way of finding out if a colony is an eventual breeder colony. You can read about that and my first VSH-test here: http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=154
We all know we need resistant bees
I love Inner Cover in Bee Culture. Almost like with poems Kim Flottum is firing up our minds with right on the spot insights and humor. Why is it so much money in funding for finding in detail why our
Feral bees on corn and GMO
A lot of discussion is going on which role neonicotinoides and gmo play for die offs and ccd of bee colonies. A poison is never beneficial, neither for bees nor for man (well, many are used as plant protection). And