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Author Topic: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight  (Read 1977 times)

Offline ArcticApiary

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Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« on: December 07, 2016, 06:16:17 am »
G'day,

I'm an Australian 18 year old student. With the hopes of raising bees in sub freezing temps in temp and light controlled green houses. From anything I've managed to find in my research suggests that I am doomed before I begin. For those with plenty of experience willing to help, I would be forever grateful for any and all insight.

To provide a little more detail. The concept is to keep crops in these green houses in both their nectar and pollen states so the food is in abundance. With the ability to control the temps of these greenhouses, is ensuring the bees experience a winter to encourage them to store honey or should I keep them consistent 24/7?

I look forward to get to know you all better :)

Cheers

Offline Rurification

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2016, 09:16:54 am »
Welcome to the forum.  Sounds like you're in for a wild ride - best of luck to you!
Robin Edmundson
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Beekeeping since 2012

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2016, 10:51:12 am »
Bees navigate with polarized sunlight.  In greenhouses, they just bang against the glass until they die.  You are correct, you are doomed before you begin.  People trying to pollinate in greenhouses use bumble bees.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2016, 01:15:57 pm »
Welcome to Beemaster.
I have read cases where others have found the same as what Michael said.
The only thing that I have heard working in a closed nursery is netting. I wonder if you put up netting on or under the glass/plastic if that would work.
Good luck.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
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Offline little john

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2016, 03:00:38 pm »
Just want to endorse what has already been said about bees' eyesight with regard to glass and translucent plastic structures, but there are other issues which are relevant here.

The foraging range of a colony of bees extends to several miles in all directions, and if you run the numbers that's thousands of acres of land.  To support just one colony of bees - even a small one - would require a greenhouse of a truly massive size, at a guess maybe 3 or 4 hundred feet square, packed to the gunnels with nectar-bearing plants.  Apart from the enormous capital expenditure involved, the heating and lighting running costs of such an enterprise really don't bear thinking about.

And then there are the drones to consider.  These characters spend each day during the season flying around at altitudes of (typically) 100 to 200 feet at congregation areas in the hope of mating with a passing virgin queen.  All mature colonies produce drones during the season and so if housed in a greenhouse they would simply spend all of their time hammering away at the glass roof trying to get out.  As indeed would any virgin queen wishing to get herself mated.

You say that the object of the project would be to raise bees under sub-zero conditions within controlled-environment greenhouses ... all-in-all, I'd say that this idea presents as a non-starter.  Wish it were otherwise.  Sorry.

LJ
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Offline ArcticApiary

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #5 on: December 08, 2016, 05:09:13 am »
I truly thank you all for your honesty. It is refreshing. I work in a team of 6 young individuals from around the world and are given scenarios which would require far from what would be considered conventional remedies. We have no emotional investment and can come across strictly academic at times but it's required to get the results required.

The proposed concept and design we all agreed upon (with no prior beekeeping experience, mind you) was to have a triple hooped greenhouse with 2 hoops being plastic with an inner hoop which was green mesh as to perhaps imitate a dense forest. Heat would be controlled in the layer between the plastic. We were not aware of the great heights required for the mating of drones. I wonder if perhaps a room mimicking the pressure, temp, and wind factors would encourage them to mate? or is that naive and ignorant to even suggest? We had a means of producing sugars in mass through a different structure in sub temps which we planned to hopefully supplement their diet with, by making sugar screens mixed wit ha solution of concentrated terpenes from a variety of plants. The green houses themselves would be top to bottom with constant heavy flow nectar flowers that are also perpetually cropped indoors before being brought into the greenhouses.

With everything in front of me I am less than confident in our chances for success. Simply on the side of mating. Is there no one who has had success breeding virgin queens to drones in a confined space? I again thank all of you for your insight and patience for someone who may come across clueless. In this field I am not ashamed to take that label. Cheers!

Offline little john

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #6 on: December 08, 2016, 07:23:42 am »
Quote
I truly thank you all for your honesty. It is refreshing. I work in a team of 6 young individuals from around the world and are given scenarios which would require far from what would be considered conventional remedies. We have no emotional investment and can come across strictly academic at times but it's required to get the results required.

What a fascinating and stimulating modus operandi !

Your choice of the honeybee was, unfortunately, not a good one.  For two reasons:
Firstly, much of the life of the honeybee (how it communicates, navigates etc) - despite decades of intensive academic study - remains unknown.  For many beekeepers, the behaviour of the bee is thus almost 'magical', and is part of the attraction of keeping them.
Secondly, the honeybee is essentially a hunter-scavenger which has evolved to operate over an extensive area, and the forager-scouts in particular would not take kindly to living under restricted conditions - for they have been programmed by evolution to constantly seek out new sources of food across a wide area.

As you ask about mating issues, then I assume you are thinking in terms of replicating the life-cycle of the honeybee completely, under your environmentally-controlled and thus restricted conditions ?  If so, then the next problem to be addressed is that of swarming.

The honeybee invokes two mechanisms for species replication: the first being the production of large quantities of drones in the hope of spreading successful genetics far and wide and onto (or rather, into) other colonies. 
The second is the replication of the colony itself, which it does by dividing-up the colony at a time of year most suited for successful relocation, for it is a period of extreme vulnerability, when roughly one-half of the colony takes to the air, perhaps without any clear idea of where they will next be setting-up home.
From a survival point-of-view it would not do for such replication to result in yet another colony to set-up home 'immediately next door', so to speak, as there must always be a limit to how many colonies can be supported within a given foraging area - and so swarms invariably re-locate some considerable distance away, in order to spread the 'foraging burden' further afield.  In the situation you are proposing, of course, the swarm simply has nowhere to go.

There are also other considerations, such as the in-breeding which would invariably result (by preventing drones from elsewhere from bringing-in their genetics), and the strong possibility of a disease outbreak occurring from environmental confinement.  Sadly, this is not a pretty picture I'm painting.

Quote
We were not aware of the great heights required for the mating of drones. I wonder if perhaps a room mimicking the pressure, temp, and wind factors would encourage them to mate?
Simply on the side of mating. Is there no one who has had success breeding virgin queens to drones in a confined space?

Rather than type lots of words on this, I'll direct you to:
http://chestofbooks.com/animals/bees/History/Chapter-XII-Search-For-Controlled-Mating.html
where you will see that a local system of more-or-less natural Controlled Mating has been the Holy Grail of beekeepers since the advent of modern beekeeping (1850-ish onwards) - but always without success.

Quote
or is that naive and ignorant to even suggest?

Not at all.  It is only by proposing such ideas that dreams can be turned into reality.  I am myself engaged in pursuing this very goal by the use of a wind tunnel and a novel method of queen attachment which has never been tried before.  But I have no illusions about the likelihood of failure.

No worries about being 'clueless' - each one of us is ignorant and clueless at some point in our lives, especially when tackling a new subject area.  I'm only sorry that I have such a jaundiced picture to paint regarding this particular project.

Does your project have to involve honeybees - is there not another, more domesticated animal which could be employed ?

Good luck, and very best wishes,
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

Offline ArcticApiary

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2016, 12:39:10 am »
Little John, you have our never ending thanks and gratitude. The information provided certainly helps us come up with potential problem solving scenarios. Our destination happens to be Mars. With a limit to structural material at times and we are provided a consistent supply of these material on about 3 years apart. The goal is to find a way in which real bees (not mechanical ones) can be reared in confinement. Our design (without compromising my position too much) would not be your typical straight up and down greenhouses. Think more of a food fungal web of sorts. Inner connecting tunnels stretching for KM's but closely bound. With that said I wonder if that would make it harder for the foragers to find their way home. We are finding out more and more with our individual roles as to why we have been tasked what we have. All roles have been handed what seems to be impossible tasks. We thrive in that environment. Again thank you for your honest and informative opinion :)

Offline GSF

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Re: Greetings! Looking for some expert insight
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2016, 12:55:39 pm »
Welcome
When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you - then you know your nation is doomed.

 

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