Spanglebee
New Bee
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2016
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Uffington
- Hive Type
- Other
- Number of Hives
- 9 OSB colonies.
Where are beekeepers to be in 100 years time? With or without varroa issues?
Upon recent complete loss of all of my 7 untreated colonies this winter, I’m hoping this year to return to beekeeping with some captured swarms and treat for varroa ( lesson learnt). Thanks for all the encouragement on my previous post btw.
But with the beekeeping soul searching time i have, I currently sit here bee-less and contemplating the Western Honey bee’s future existence.
First of all I immediately think of three simplified future scenarios for future honey production (say in 100 or 200 years time).
1: beekeepers are keeping AM in existence with man-made treatments with a continued arms race against varroa D & viruses. (Bees propped up by man).
2: all beekeepers remove all treatments and risk total species extinction with the hope that Mother Nature finds a way. (E.g. the peppered moth would not have evolved to a black colouration during the industrial revolution if humans had cleaned the pollution from the bark of trees to help the peppered moth from being seen by birds.)
3: improve/selective breed varroa resistant honey bees (e.g Apis cerana), to survive varied climates and increase honey yield. For example if the red jungle fowl never existed, I’d imagine humans would have chosen a different species for egg production through selective breeding and called it a chicken, perhaps the green jungle fowl?!
All three scenarios involve immense human effort for beekeepers to still exist in 100’s of years time.
Upon recent complete loss of all of my 7 untreated colonies this winter, I’m hoping this year to return to beekeeping with some captured swarms and treat for varroa ( lesson learnt). Thanks for all the encouragement on my previous post btw.
But with the beekeeping soul searching time i have, I currently sit here bee-less and contemplating the Western Honey bee’s future existence.
First of all I immediately think of three simplified future scenarios for future honey production (say in 100 or 200 years time).
1: beekeepers are keeping AM in existence with man-made treatments with a continued arms race against varroa D & viruses. (Bees propped up by man).
2: all beekeepers remove all treatments and risk total species extinction with the hope that Mother Nature finds a way. (E.g. the peppered moth would not have evolved to a black colouration during the industrial revolution if humans had cleaned the pollution from the bark of trees to help the peppered moth from being seen by birds.)
3: improve/selective breed varroa resistant honey bees (e.g Apis cerana), to survive varied climates and increase honey yield. For example if the red jungle fowl never existed, I’d imagine humans would have chosen a different species for egg production through selective breeding and called it a chicken, perhaps the green jungle fowl?!
All three scenarios involve immense human effort for beekeepers to still exist in 100’s of years time.
