# General beekeeping > Bee blether >  Why don't bees propolise the Open Mesh Floor?

## Neils

Well?  :Big Grin:  Seriously, I have absolutely no idea and it's been bugging me for a while.

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## Jimbo

Hi Nellie,

Good question. I also have no idea. I did get a little propolis on an OMP when I left the varroa slide in but that particular strain loved to propolis everything. They even propolised the entrance hole in the nuc I made up! maybe they were feeling the cold!

Jimbo

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## Trog

Isn't it strange how some bees propolise everything in sight and others don't bother?

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## Jimbo

Hi Trog,

One of the old boys in our association once told me he purchased one of these Carniolan jobs years ago and it propolised everthing. He said it took a number of years before this trait was bred out. So to try and answer your question it may be the strain of bee you have.

Jimbo

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## Trog

This lot have been hybrid west coast bees ever since we had them.  No Carniolans anywhere nearby as far as I know.  Strangely, it's always the hive in one particular spot in the apiary - the one we habitually call the 'wood bees' because they're nearest the wood by a few feet.  The current ones are not the descendents of the original wood bees, just occupying their site - and propolising merrily!  They even have a different hive, so it's not anything to do with faulty spacing or anything like that!

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## GRIZZLY

The strain of bees that propolise the most are the Russian Caucasians NOT Carnolian.Your bees must be a throwback somewhere to the days when Caucasians were popular.I remember having some about 35 years ago when they would propolise their entrances to a series of small holes,everything else in the hive was firmly propolised together into a sticky mess especially on a hot day .Not pleasant to work with and not "pretty" bees being grey and hairy , worked well tho'.

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## Jimbo

Hi Grizzly,

I am interested in your comment that Caucasians were popular years ago. Was there a number imported into Scotland years ago? Where did you purchase them from? was it a popular strain of bee in certain areas. Do you know if Italians and Carnolian's were imported in large numbers at that time. Any information about other strains of bees coming into the country years ago would be useful. One of our older beekeepers, in his eighties,  has mentioned they used to purchase Italians into our area years ago but not heard of anybody talking about Caucasians before

Jimbo

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## GRIZZLY

> Hi Grizzly,
> 
> I am interested in your comment that Caucasians were popular years ago. Was there a number imported into Scotland years ago? Where did you purchase them from? was it a popular strain of bee in certain areas. Do you know if Italians and Carnolian's were imported in large numbers at that time. Any information about other strains of bees coming into the country years ago would be useful. One of our older beekeepers, in his eighties,  has mentioned they used to purchase Italians into our area years ago but not heard of anybody talking about Caucasians before


Hi Jimbo,When I had Caucasians I lived and worked in the Midlands down south.I'm afraid I dont know anything about imports of "foreign" bees into Scotland.I got the colonies from someone in Warwickshire together with some beautiful Italian queens.In those days we would try out exotic strains to compare with the usual local "mongrels" and used to breed for the superceedure impulse if we found such a colony.We also got Buckfast queens direct from Brother Adam to play about with.I don't remember seeing AMM bees anywhere tho' I think they had been pretty well decimated by the IOW (acarine) outbreak before the war.Nosema was the big enemy with quite a lot of Acarin - I dont think that AFB and EFB was much of a problem.Overwintering was also much easier - I dont remember loosing colonies

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## Jimbo

Thanks for the info Grizzly. I will have a chat with some of our older beekeepers in our association. With some of the morphometry software we can still see the influence of the imported bees i.e Lingustica and Carnolian. I was unaware of Caucasians being imported and never heard of anybody talking about them in relation Morphometric measurements. It may be another factor we need to consider when making measurements. Amm was not decimated in some of the remoter parts of Scotland and we are starting to find pockets of pure Amm that have survived.

Jimbo

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## Trikin Dave

Bees need to keep the ceiling of their hive (hollow tree) in good condition, for this they use propolis as a preservative. They hang their comb down as far as they require but, in the hollow tree they rarely get near to the bottom so, effectively, there is no bottom to propolise. As far as they are concerned the open mesh floor does not exist.
Cheers,
Dave.

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