New World Carniolans are a very gentle breed not prone to robbing. However if you are creating the right conditions for robbing, then it does not matter what bees you use. Are you putting feeders outside hives? That is what I get from you original question. Do you like sugar water better than honey? Bees don't either, and, outside the hive feeding is just the perfect way to create robbing impulse. Hive top feeders will be better, 1 per hive and everyone is happy, with plenty of feed. This is how I do it: (contraversial) Do not feed bees......feeding bees promotes poor genetic stock to survive the winter and swarm in the spring. (giving you poor drones for your virgins to mate with) Letting bees which rob hives survive does the same thing. It promotes poor gentic stock. Each time a hive swarms there is a virgin queen who needs to be mated with stock which has the traits you are looking for. Each time breeds with undesirable traits get out there, they are providing drones with poor traits for your virgins to mate with.....causing the cycle to go on and on. Why do you think mite resistant bees came from an area of russia where there are no beekeepers???? Because no one treated them with miticides, and natural selection took over. Now we (Americans) are importing Russian Queens to try and fix what we broke in the first place. Natural selection has been my best friend. I choose overwinterin bees. (I have never fed 1 colony) If they make it without feed they are good bees, and are allowed to continue in my hives.....providing queens and drones.. Over time I have saturated the area with good mating stock. I currently maintain 60 hives in N.E. Ohio and have averaged less than 20 percent loss. However my counterparts loose 30 to 50 percent of their hives each season. (even with feeding) Just keep allowing those feeble bees to survive....I will still be here in 10 years. They will be fed up with the cost of replacing bees each year. I do not treat bees for any disease other than for Varroa Mites. I use formic Acid. I want to get closer to not treating for even mites. I have an "experimental yard which gets treated 1 time a year (fall) rather than 2 times spring and fall. I treat this yard the same as all of the others and I have experienced slightly higher loss due to higher mite concentrations. It is my belief that over time these bees will develop resistance to mites and miticides will someday be a thing of the past for me.

Who was it around here who would take cuttings and get them to root and then actually flower by putting them under lights inside his house? I'd love to hear some more about what happened to the plants after that. For instance, did they survive into the next year well enough to be planted out? My experience in this is that I took some cuttings a couple summers ago about this time of year and put them into a bucket which I then put into one of my overwintering mounds. They survived and put out leaves and flowers the next season. But they didn't put on any roots over the winter. I neglected the plants except to throw some water and fertilizer in their general direction for last summer and this. About one fourth of them survived all this and just a couple of weeks ago I potted them up. Many years ago I cut some Viburnum cuttings in the Fall and did nothing more than jam them into some moist soil. Today, they're 12 feet tall. Hay

I am new to this forum, but hang out elswhere in the forum network. If medical doctors do not give you the answers you want, I suggest you find a competant naturapathic dr. Call chyropractors to find one if not listed in phone book or check w/ "ask a nurse" Do an alternative medical search on line. I found a dr. who supports alternative/complimentary medicine, that was near me, but have never needed to contact him. I have found one associated w/ an alternative health care product I recently started using w/ a great amount of medical research behind it. Having been used in southeast Asian countries for 100's of years w/ great success in treating the whole body. Vangy likes to play in the dirt, ................ & more

I think it would be just fine. I'd spray primer it first. You might also ask at the link below. I'm guessing it is probably anodized aluminum? I'd mention that if you ask at The Paint Forum. Sue I primer and paint everything. Here is a link that might be useful: Paint Forum