Hawkshaw Apiaries

02/08/2025

01/29/2025

I want to let everyone know that Honeybees loses in the US as of today are hitting an epidemic level. I am hearing from beekeepers across the country of losses in excess of 70% from many beekeepers. Almond growers are hearing from their beekeepers that they either will receive less hives then ordered or need to find others to fill their needs.
Why are bees dying so rapidly across the country is unknown at this time. However multiple stress factors are involved and the US agriculture research service is investigating to try to determine factors.
If you wish to help please contact the media and your congressperson and tell them to give more money for bee research. We also need the help of public opinion to get media coverage of the issue.
If your a beekeeper who has experienced or is experiencing losses contact your county FSA office a report your losses. Also Patty Sunberg and David HACKENBERG and Brett Adee are asking you give them your losses contact numbers so that they can try to compile more accurate numbers of losses to go to the USDA with to help get help more immediately for beekeepers effected.
Good luck and God Bless all of you.
James Doan

12/04/2024

Mites are produced by commercial operations. These places constantly produce queens and constantly treat with chemicals. No hive lasts more than a year. In fact when you buy packages the bees you get are after almond pollination. Theÿ are sold to hobbiest across the country. Most people start with bees because they have an idea they can do better. They buy a nuc or a package and that has mites. The bees die the next year they buy a nuc or a package with mites and the bees die. They usually give up. Mites can be eliminated if you can isolate your hives and keep them through the winter. Carbon dioxide knocks the mites off and a spring drizzle of O.A. kills the rest. There is no brood overwinter. Mites would not survive in the northern latitudes if it weren't for commercial beekeepers and the sale of nucs and packages that contain mites.

09/07/2024

I'm the dude

08/19/2024

So there was 30 acres of Goldenrod until the idiot mowed it. None to bother but Goldenrod is pollination habitat idiot.

07/30/2024

Bee careful NY state bee inspectors carry disease from commercial bees to your bees don't allow them in there is no law requiring inspection

07/29/2024

To all my NY beekeeper friends. I was removed from upstate NY beekeepers because the commercial bee keeper running the page doesn't want me to tell you all how the commercial industry is to blame and there is a better way.

02/08/2024

Well blocked from a friendly bee keeping group who called me names.

Truth is this is not about commercial beekeepers, but the ignorance of these people is unbelievable.

Here is my synopsis:

The bees you buy from commercial breeders have mites. They sell the mites to the Hobbyist along with the bees.

If the bees die, it's the Hobbyist fault.

From one comment Commercial beekeepers actually want to pass on the Regimes of treatment to keep the mites at bay.

So, when you buy bees, you are also required to treat them.

My advice sincerely is if you are buying a Nuc this year see if you can preorder one for next year at a lower price.

Keep your comb free of the chemical treatments. There are treatment free beekeepers.

Thats why you should not invest your time into how or why they died. you are wasting resources trying to prevent it.

You really need to learn reproduction. You need to create a local stock. Your first year If you can afford it buy five and five queens, make yourself 10 small NUCs by splitting them you will break the brood cycle and control the mites.

O.A. and Formic are topical treatments. Like antiseptic the acid effects the mites and doesn't hurt the bees because of the exoskeleton. There is no evidence that it penetrates into the brood.

Chemical mite treatments like Amitraz/ Apivar/ Taktik are neuro toxins to humans. It was thought the chemical broke down in the environment. However now it's being found dissolved in the wax and the honey. This chemical kills bees and mites in the brood and outside.

Once you get your colonies established and you can breed queens then I would start to treat in the fall with formic acid.

If you keep your bees isolated from commercials and you over winter a clean population the mites will disappear.

In the winter the cluster produces Carbon Dioxide which kills the mites.

When the bees are in a cluster any O.A. treatment will be surface only. that's why treatment is generally in the spring when the cluster breaks but there is little brood.

The O.A. is applied every seven days for three weeks. This covers the brood hatchings.

Formic is usually applied right after fall honey harvest and it requires two weeks of contact, again, to take care of the late hatching brood.

I am not bashing an industry that conforms to no standard. It's the wild west. Maybe it will maybe it won't I have no idea.

All I know is I hope my bees get through the winter. It's a new breeding line. I had 70%make it through the winter but only 20% gave me hives strong enough to work with. The rest were actually queen failure. So that means Drones are an issue.

It only takes a starter Hive and a queen right finisher hive to make 45 queen cells in 10 days. So, you see how commercial outfits flood the market with poor genetics. It's an assembly line. welcome all of you who want to learn about honeybees.