Top all-time · #11565
Scientific Beekeeping
Personal blog · scientificbeekeeping.comscience
Scientific Beekeeping is a personal blog at scientificbeekeeping.com about science. Since 2014, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times. The last post was in 2011, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Randy Oliver's beekeeping blog, which commenters link for mite treatment methods such as oxalic acid, almond pollination updates, and beginner pages. Commenters describe the author as knowledgeable.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-22
What Hacker News says?
It rusts out the metal and isn’t great for the beekeeper either. It’s seeming like a good alternative in the face of mite resistance to the synthetic treatments though. The Randy Oliver Method is with OA doused strips is gaining traction. http://scientificbeekeeping.com/tag/maqs-strips/
Comment linking /tag/maqs-strips/
on “EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides”New Zealander here - a lot of people are using Oxalic acid and glycerine on paper strips and are getting great results here - me included. The paper is a plasterboard jointing paper and 3-5 layers are sewn together and soaked in a solution of about 40% Oxalic acid, 60% glycerine. Used like conventional mite strips they need replacing more often but seem to work really well. Randy Oliver has been trialing other deliv…
Comment linking /
on “Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest”Scientific Beekeeping ( http://scientificbeekeeping.com/ ) is a great blog run by Randy Oliver here in Silicon Valley. He is very knowledgeable. His blog has beginner's pages, and other useful info.
Comment linking /
on “Loyalty Nearly Killed My Beehive”There's a whole industry around renting beehives to farmers to pollinate crops: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/migratory-beekeepi... There's an interesting supply'n'demand thing going on as a result of the decline in the bee population, coupled with the growth of almonds as a cash crop: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/2012-almond-pollination-upda...
Comment linking /2012-almond-pollination-update/
on “Loyalty Nearly Killed My Beehive”Have a look at other OA application methods. There are safer and less labour intensive ones than vapourisation. The science behind it well covered by Randy Oliver. http://scientificbeekeeping.com
Comment linking /
on “How the Varroa Mite’s True Diet Was Discovered”You might already be onto it, but if not, have a look for Randy Oliver and Oxalic acid [1]. Or, more locally for me, this mega thread [2] on homemade treatment strips. They work, they are cheap and so far there is no resistance. [1] http://scientificbeekeeping.com [2] https://www.nzbees.net/forums/topic/10061-oxalic-and-glyceri...
Comment linking /
on “How the Varroa Mite’s True Diet Was Discovered”OK, but beekeeping specifically— I've taken a class and had a look at the literature. Because it's such a compelling and charismatic topic (bees are a symbol of eternal life, hard work, etc.) there are A LOT of books out there. One bibliography is included in this PDF by the ScientificBeekeeping.com guy: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/BEGINNERS-OUTLI... Some books, like the recent "The Bees" by Laline…
Comment linking /scibeeimages/BEGINNERS-OUTLINE-PDF.pdf
on “Swarm of bees follow car for over 24 hours (2016)”I’m an agronomist and ~ten years ago attended an yearly industry meeting where there are various presentations that we sit in on and gain “credits” to maintain various state licenses used to legally recommend and/or apply fertilizers and pesticides. The one presentation I recall from that far back was a bee researcher that basically said exactly what you posted, whenever his team investigated colony collapses from v…
Comment linking /neonicotinoids-trying-to-make-sense-of-the-science-part-2/
on “Scientists identify culprit behind biggest-ever U.S. honey bee die-off”That sounded dodgy to me but it does look like it's got some legitimacy: https://scientificbeekeeping.com/a-test-of-thermal-treatment... I mostly use oxalic acid, but if heat treating becomes viable I'd welcome it on the hobbyist scale.
Comment linking /a-test-of-thermal-treatment-for-varroa-part-1/
on “Solar-powered robotic beekeeping”>> My understanding is that feral honey bees have been extinct in North America for a long time (since the 1980s?), and that they're an introduced species. The logic then goes: if you see a honey bee flying around outside, it at some point belonged to a honey bee keeper. I don't believe this is the case, meaning not all feral bees are escaped swarms, although many may be. See this for more (a lot more) information:…
Comment linking /whats-happening-to-the-bees-part-5-is-there-a-difference-between-domesticated-and-feral-bees/
on “Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees”