Do you keep bees the "Darwinian" way?

[Ian123]

You see ... I'm a bloke with 7 hives in my garden with bees that are managing and thriving without being treated fo varroa ... I dont buy in VSH bees ... my colonies are headed by either home reared queens or are ones I've bought from UK Queen rearers or their descendants. I've never claimed any VSH qualities in my bees as I am convinced that at least some of the success I've had remaining treatment free has been about environmental and vocational influence... and the way they are kept. I've not lost many colonies over the years and the few I have lost have been otherwise explained. I would agree that people who make claims about VSH bees really need evidence to corroborate.. I know that B+ has masses of evidence to support VSH ... but I doubt these qualities could be maintained long term with open mated progeny in other areas where the drone pool is more varied and frankly suspect. So ... we need to look for factors that inhibit varroa and assist the bees in their endeavours to live with the pest...

First off having seen you post on here for some time I’m more than happy to take what you say on face value and clearly your proactive. Also I’ve been in an environment that has bees tolerating and thriving with varroa without treatment so not a none believerBut I’ll stick with what I’ve said if tolerant bees are to be reared/found it will be the large breeding groups and associations that will likely be the source. Most of us that have been around awhile will also happily agree there’s a management route to controlling varroa as well, if your inclined and have time and resources. In regards to open mating I agree with the issues you mention but again it’ll be those larger groups breeders with access to II, truly isolated sites or proper drone flooded areas. But you answered that yourself flagging the open mating issues. So I’ll stick by the fact if vsh/tolerant bees are to become accessible it will be those larger guys not the 7 hive ownerthat provides them. I truly wish you the best of luck and many happy hours with your bees. Ian

 

[Ian123]

Richard Noel did a video checking his 'VSH' queen, alcohol wash with a cup of bees from each nuc, the results were terrible. IIRC the other two nucs had better results but still high numbers.
I've had less varroa drop from some of my full colonies during a round of OAV.

Who’s Richard Noel?

 

[user 20297]

Tom's a good friend, and a brilliant scientist. This Darwinian thing bothers me. The part I disagree with...Maintaining large distances between colonies.

I think we might all disagree with some or everything that Tom Seeley says and writes, but, with an open mind, all beekeepers should be able to find some of it either directly useful or a catalyst to help us improve or experiment with our own beekeeping style.

I don't think that Tom necessarily follows all of his own "rules" and I'm sure he is aware that to go "full Darwin" would turn us all into bee-watchers rather than beekeepers. But he's shared some very useful and thought-provoking observations, which I think, point us in the general direction of a future form of sustainable (amateur?) beekeeping.

 

[user 20297]

I spend about an hour per hive, per year managing varroa. I've never had a problem with it, it has never been a major concern for me.

It was you that brought up the "time" issue; It makes no difference to me if I spend many hours evicting V. destructor or alternatively, many, many hours with fingers crossed and with good wishes, willing the bees to cope with an infestation....I'm a hobby beekeeper who can't get enough of it.

 

[user 20297]

... we need to look for factors that inhibit varroa and assist the bees in their endeavours to live with the pest...

Your beekeeping obviously fits in with many of the guidelines which the concept of "Darwinian" beekeeping has grabbed and quantified. You seem to be following sensible principles rather than dogmatic guidelines.
You're showing that by reducing or removing whatever stresses from a colony your management style and targets will allow, the bees benefit by being more robust in their tolerance of whatever stresses remain. So even if you don't, or maybe never will have any bees with a quantifiable level of VSH, your bees appear to exist in equilibrium with the mighty mite.

As a side benefit, you won't have bred out all the other positive attributes of your bees, so I bet they are also very robust in the face of the many other biological threats they face.

 

[Repwoc]

Who’s Richard Noel?

@Plenty of honey on this forum. Has a prolific Youtube channel.

 

[Nige.Coll]

If this discussion was about any other livestock than bees, half of you would be in prison lol.

 

[pargyle]

First off having seen you post on here for some time I’m more than happy to take what you say on face value and clearly your proactive. Also I’ve been in an environment that has bees tolerating and thriving with varroa without treatment so not a none believerBut I’ll stick with what I’ve said if tolerant bees are to be reared/found it will be the large breeding groups and associations that will likely be the source. Most of us that have been around awhile will also happily agree there’s a management route to controlling varroa as well, if your inclined and have time and resources. In regards to open mating I agree with the issues you mention but again it’ll be those larger groups breeders with access to II, truly isolated sites or proper drone flooded areas. But you answered that yourself flagging the open mating issues. So I’ll stick by the fact if vsh/tolerant bees are to become accessible it will be those larger guys not the 7 hive ownerthat provides them. I truly wish you the best of luck and many happy hours with your bees. Ian

I agree ... as I said ... I'm not breeding or claiming VSH bees ...

 

[user 20297]

If this discussion was about any other livestock than bees, half of you would be in prison lol.

Fortunately, it's just a discussion about a six-legged creature of a type which is similar to the sorts that livestock farmers cheerfully and legally exterminate all the time.

 

[pargyle]

Your beekeeping obviously fits in....

.....As a side benefit, you won't have bred out all the other positive attributes of your bees, so I bet they are also very robust in the face of the many other biological threats they face.

I hope so but beekeeping has a habit if throwing you curved balls and nothing is ever guaranteed and to be perfectly honest - nothing is forever...

 

[pargyle]

If this discussion was about any other livestock than bees, half of you would be in prison lol.

I don't know about prison but a few of us should probably be locked up for our own safety !

 

[Nige.Coll]

I don't know about prison but a few of us should probably be locked up for our own safety !

Try living with a brain injury. It's a roller coaster lifestyle.

 

[pargyle]

Try living with a brain injury. It's a roller coaster lifestyle.

I'd sooner not... I have enough trouble with the undamaged one I have !

 

[Nige.Coll]

I'd sooner not... I have enough trouble with the undamaged one I have !

That's why I'm such a twat at times haha.

 

[IndiBee]

................... but I doubt these qualities could be maintained long term with open mated progeny in other areas where the drone pool is more varied and frankly suspect. So ... we need to look for factors that inhibit varroa and assist the bees in their endeavours to live with the pest...

This is what I worry about. The drone pool.
In France my apiaries are extremely remote. My nearest keepers are like me; locally caught bees and treatment free (after all, they all came to me to learn when they were young!!).
But In Wales I am less remote, imports, unnatural transportation of bees and treatment (if they need it or not!!!! grrrr). What is the options for the future? Only what the breeder say?
Unless we can stop some of the bad practices, options are going to be very limited (and probably already is for many people).
If we have a break from inports and sensible talks/action on protecting the natural resources we have, we can get back to sustainability. The big worrey is - money talks and there is no money in nature being left to take care of things.
Very depressing because we see all the time that if you exploit nature, you loose it.
The only saving grace is removing drones seems part of the greed mantra. I am also suspecting that native drones, like native bees, have a natural advantage in their native environment. My apiaries can be deafening with drones on the same day as certain beekeepers apiaries are silent of almost all bees due to 'slightly' adverse weather conditions. So I think wiping out native bees is going to be unlikely. I wonder how many drone rich collonies I need to keep my apiaries safe?!

 

[IndiBee]

Perhaps we should think differently. If we all encouraged our colonies to swarm, instead of preventing them, there would be lots more feral colonies who would be subject to natural selection. All we have to do is find the survivors in a few years.

Simpler still; ONLY get your bees from the wild. They are already survivors (and free!).

 

[Erichalfbee]

Simpler still; ONLY get your bees from the wild. They are already survivors (and free!).

Where do we in the UK get these wild bees from?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I don't think that Tom necessarily follows all of his own "rules" and I'm sure he is aware that to go "full Darwin" would turn us all into bee-watchers rather than beekeepers.

More or less what he said in his talk at the UBKA convention last year (and the WBKA summer school in 2018)

 

[madasafish]

Simpler still; ONLY get your bees from the wild. They are already survivors (and free!).

My local wild bees are of a type which follows, chases, stings and swarms.
Only a true masochist would use them.

As I have a finite lifespan and finite resources I am not going to embark on anything that will last 10 years to get me into the position I am in now. If I am very skilled and lucky - that is.

 

[domino]

More or less what he said in his talk at the UBKA convention last year (and the WBKA summer school in 2018)

I've watched him speak live about this and his thesis appears to be that the feral bees he studies have developed strategies to cope with varroa and to retain those capabilities beekeepers would need to replicate the conditions in which those strategies are effective. Hence the distancing, allowing them to swarm or (replicating swarming) smaller colony size etc.

The issue really is that beekeepers don't want to keep bees the way they live naturally, they want to put them in boxes, several to a yard, for them not to swarm and make honey.

I think the idea you can pick and choose which parts of the bee's environment you replicate and retain the wild strategies that enable them to tolerate varroa is somewhat of a fallacy. I think that's why I have more time for people who keep bees chemical-free in boxes and use other tactics to control the pest, rather than claiming capturing wild bees solves the problem with no effort.

Seeley isn't alone every bee researcher I've seen talked and was able to ask questions has agreed that left to their own devices bees will develop their own strategies in the wild but in the artificial environment of an apiary it's the humans who have to develop the strategies.