Can bees manage themselves

[Andymon]

As a new bee keeper, looking at the equipment required, chemicals, feed, requeening, winter insulation, managing honey, hives etc
I was wondering can a colony quite happily look after itself in, say a national hive without any human interaction and survive for a number of years?

 

[pargyle]

No ... there are too many factors affecting the long term continuance of a colony ... the biggest problem would be swarming - in a national hive they would certainly swarm in the second year if not the first. Not just one swarm but likely subsequent swarms until there was nothing left in the colony.

Put on top of that an unmanaged and unidentified varroa load and you have a further potential colony weakener.

Yes, wild colonies do survive without human intervention and certainly I've seen hives that have been abandoned for some years that still have colonies in residence but - is that beekeeping ?

I'm a low intervention beekeeper but if you are going to keep bees then you should be prepared to look after them and that includes some level of interaction with the colony.

 

[Boston Bees]

As a new bee keeper, looking at the equipment required, chemicals, feed, requeening, winter insulation, managing honey, hives etc
I was wondering can a colony quite happily look after itself in, say a national hive without any human interaction and survive for a number of years?

Sadly, due to varroa their health will gradually deteriorate over the first two or three years, then sharply deteriorate as the virus load becomes intolerable. This timetable may be much shorter in some cases. Some colonies struggle on to 4 or 5 years but they aren't in good health.

There's an exception to every rule of course, but this is the normal way it pans out.

 

[user 20297]

Laurence Edwards of Black Mountain Honey did a video a short time ago, where he was asked to look at an abandoned apiary of four or five hives. He anticipated seeing some bees but all he found were wasps.

 

[pargyle]

Sadly, due to varroa their health will gradually deteriorate over the first two or three years, then sharply deteriorate as the virus load becomes intolerable. This timetable may be much shorter in some cases. Some colonies struggle on to 4 or 5 years but they aren't in good health.

Not necessarily - Varroa is a threat, of course, but colonies can survive and thrive without treatment for varroa but there are so many threats for unmanaged colonies that the odds are not in their favour.

 

[IndiBee]

As a new bee keeper, looking at the equipment required, chemicals, feed, requeening, winter insulation, managing honey, hives etc
I was wondering can a colony quite happily look after itself in, say a national hive without any human interaction and survive for a number of years?

Bees live in the wild, so technically, of course they can.
But visit an abandoned hive (with honey bees still in) and you will go through hell trying to get honey off it.
If you don't want the honey, just want to provide a home for bees, encourage people to stop over managing woodland. Let trees rot in place and bees will find their own place.
A human made hive puts extra pressure on bees and the beekeeper mitigates those extra pressures.

 

[Andymon]

Forgive my ignorance/innocence would the bees lack of survival be due to the design of the hive, the methods we have used to keep them, such as treatment of diseases

 

[Boston Bees]

Forgive my ignorance/innocence would the bees lack of survival be due to the design of the hive, the methods we have used to keep them, such as treatment of diseases

Mainly due to varroa.

In terms of hive design, if you use a thin-walled wooden hive, that is arguably worse than the natural home a honeybee might choose, in terms of keeping warm and healthy, so yes, that might be a contributory factor if you did nothing to help the bees. But if you use a poly hive that wouldn't apply.

But also, bees, naturally, will often just swarm so often as to leave insufficient bees in the original location to make it through winter. That's a good survival strategy from a genetic point of view, but no good for a beekeeper who wants bees in their specific hive.

And it is of course perfectly true that lots of colony deaths are caused by beekeepers messing up.

 

[ericbeaumont]

bees lack of survival be due to the design of the hive, the methods we have used to keep them

Yes, by and large. Hives were designed for the benefit of man, not bee.

For example, the BS Standard spec for the National hive was laid down after the Second World War at a time of timber shortage; Langstroth hive size was determined when the Reverend re-used boxes in which stained glass was delivered.

Poly is the closest match to optimum thermal efficiency which a nest would obtain when housed in a thick tree trunk. Derek Mitchell, a thermal dynamist, made his hives from 150mm building insulation boards.

Have a read of this paper in which Derek links the survival of bees, clustering, humidity regulation and its effect on Varroa destructor.

 

[Ian123]

The average half well managed hive survives far better/longer than anything in the wild. Even preventing swarming increases the chance of colony survival, every time a queen leaves the hive there’s a chance she’s lost or poorly mated. IMO any sound hive probably far surpasses natural cavities. If you’ve done any number of colony removals you’ll realise nature is not perfect or uniform. Many natural! Cavities have multiple entrances or exposed areas. Bees have developed to live in a cavity and provided that cavity meets basic requirements there not that fussy. Even in this country you’ll find them nesting in the ground rock faces wall cavities and many man made objects or buildings. This utopia tree cavity is poppycock, they’ll simply use what’s available. To prove a point even the bbka winter loss survey reveals better survival than natural colonies/cavities

 

[madasafish]

I know a lady beekeeper who practises hands off beekeeping . She lives in the countryside with no neighbours within 0.5miles.

Lots of swarms, about 20lbs of honey in a good year.

Bees survive .. but that is all one can say. Every so often a hive dies out and she buys another.

 

[bingevader]

There are small pockets of the country where a more hands off approach is working, but they are isolated.
You can find your own happy medium though.
I'm not sure why you would want bees and not want anything to do with them though, especially if you are hoping for some honey!?
We monitor and watch our bees on a weekly basis (more in school, because I get to go down every lunchtime! ), but I try to leave them to it as much as possible, whilst still treating for varroa and managing for swarms.
But then, I am very much a bee haver, than a beekeeper and not reliant on the honey for an income.

 

[Andymon]

Thanks, some interesting points. You lot are a wealth of information.

 

[Ian123]

There are small pockets of the country where a more hands off approach is working, but they are isolated.
You can find your own happy medium though.

Can you share these areas with us and explain why the beekeeping industry and indeed the RBI’s or the bee researchers we do have haven’t published anything regarding these multiple areas.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Not necessarily - Varroa is a threat, of course, but colonies can survive and thrive without treatment for varroa

Maybe in a managed hive, but left totally to their own devices, I think no.
You @pargyle may have a non treatment regime, but it doesn't mean you just dump your bees in a hive and let them get on with it

 

[bingevader]

Can you share these areas with us and explain why the beekeeping industry and indeed the RBI’s or the bee researchers we do have haven’t published anything regarding these multiple areas.

I think I said 'small pockets' and 'isolated', nothing about multiple areas!
Definitely areas in mid and north Wales though.
I'm afraid you'd have to speak to the Industry, RBI or the researchers to find out why they aren't interested, sorry, can't help you there.

 

[Boston Bees]

You @pargyle may have a non treatment regime

@pargyle, what is your method for keeping bees without treatment? Clearly you assess the mite load. But what do you actually then do when you find mites? Genuine question - I think it would be very useful for anyone else considering non-treatment out there to hear this if possible. Thanks in advance.

 

[user 20297]

@pargyle, what is your method for keeping bees without treatment? Clearly you assess the mite load. But what do you actually then do when you find mites? Genuine question - I think it would be very useful for anyone else considering non-treatment out there to hear this if possible. Thanks in advance.

I've always wondered how regularly checking varroa levels and threatenening them with treatment if they don't play ball is any different from letting them manage themselves.

 

[enrico]

The only real way to do it is to let them swarm and catch and rehome very swarm. I know a guy who does that. He ends up at the end of each year with about 18. Some hives and some swarms he loses but he gets plenty of honey from them all. The hives are continually renewing themselves by swarming.

 

[Ian123]

I think I said 'small pockets' and 'isolated', nothing about multiple areas!
Definitely areas in mid and north Wales though.
I'm afraid you'd have to speak to the Industry, RBI or the researchers to find out why they aren't interested, sorry, can't help you there.

You said pockets so we can assume there’s more than 1. Isolated or not do they exist more to the point? I’m also sure there’s no areas in the UK so isolated there not covered by an RBI. Even in Wales! Or probably a Welsh BFA member. Can you provide any evidence to the situation or these pockets.