Small cell bees are hygienic A research team at the University of Lublin, Poland, has been studying bees on small cells. One of the experiments concerns the clearance of dead capped brood (needle-killed pupae), a trait that is important for
Varroa resistance conference
Hallsberg annual conference 2023 In November 2023, the fifth annual conference on treatment-free/varroa-resistant bees was held in Hallsberg. The number of beekeepers with treatment-free bees is increasing in the Hallsberg area and elsewhere in Sweden. This time Dr. Melissa Oddie
More treatment free Elgon bees
Selection and no chemicals but a too close to treatment bees In 2019, Sibylle and Wolfgang bought 3 Elgon colonies from me. They were all treated for varroa with half a dose of thymol that year. Since then, they have
Darwinian beekeeping, cell size and fitness
I respect and appreciate Tom Seeley and consider him a friend. He coined the expression Darwinian beekeeping. He has given us deeper understanding of the natural bee colony. But I don’t understand an expression of his in one of his
Updated Elgon website
I have had this blog for some years now. And I had originally a website in both English and Swedish for many years, which were also not updated for many years. 1.5 years ago or so I updated the English
Varroa project 2014 –>
Click on the pictures to get better quality and readability This test is accomplished and funded by LP:s biodling bee equipement supplier, Arne Andersson sideline beekeeper and Erik Österlund sideline beekeeper. GOAL FOR THE PROJECT The goal for this test
Reworked website with new info
Hello dear beekeepers! I’ve been reworking my old website. not my blogs. The English part became ready enough to be published and I launched it on http://elgon.es There are quite some new material there. In the article “Resistance breeding” some of
Lasting learning?
In one of the recent blogposts I wrote about non-resistant bee colonies against varoa mite, learning from resistant worker bees how to deal with the mites and being resistant. It seems now that these colonies that has learned resistance have
Small cell size important in breeding Varroa resistance
After reading the blogpost ”Breakthrough?” an European PhD-Scientist wrote me an email with the following comment: ”After reading your post I realized that you do have small cell size, but you’re not mentioning it in the actual post. To make
Struggles for the survival of honey bees
SB is a relatively new and dedicated beekeeper in southern Germany. She is interested in different kinds of bees and their place in the ecological system. I asked her to tell her story and her struggles helping her bees to