Nature, Legislation and Angels

As I just explained in a post, I would like to continue in this new one the deviation that was caused in the main post.
The title refers to nature, law and angels. The reason is to answer about.
Wild swarms and their status within beekeeping legislation.
and the angels?

 

[fian]

Looking for information I came across this.
https://swarmcatcher.co.uk/unusual-...e-in-a-south-wales-valley-at-end-of-november/A perception is a legitimate but incomplete appreciation.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think what attracts many to ‘wild bees’ is that they survive TF

or, to be more accurate, the think they survive TF - we know that what usually happens is they last a few years, die out and a new swarm moves in, most probably from another swarmed kept colony

 

[Erichalfbee]

or, to be more accurate, the think they survive TF - we know that what usually happens is they last a few years, die out and a new swarm moves in, most probably from another swarmed kept colony

Yes which seems to be what the colony in my garden does.

 

[Beesnaturally]

I didn't realise that sponges swarmed

Let me help.

Evolution (via natural selection for the fittest strains) occurs in **every single lifeform**.

It can be studied in viruses, bacteria, fruit flies, and all other living things. (Asexual lifeforms are trickier, but it still happen - in fact the development of sexual reproduction occurred precisely because it allow faster adaptation to changes in the environment.)
Faster-reproducing organisms are easier to study, because you don't have to wait for results.

This universality of application means that every free-living species obeys the rules of evolution. Weakness in individuals = low level of reproduction; strength = high levels.. This is true of sponges, elephants, slugs and honeybees. And sponges.

Higher levels of reproduction mean that your children occupy a greater proportion of the next generation than those of weaker individuals.

Again, true of ALL living things.

So populations are constantly rebuilt from parents who did best (at reproduction) in the previous generation. If having black skin suddenly becomes an advantage (an adaptive trait) then the numbers of black-skinned individuals increases in the population. Here is a classic example: Peppered moth evolution - Wikipedia

Because evolution occurs in every single lifeform, and because the ways it works are well understood, you can make predictions about what will likely happen under particular circumstances. This is as true of honeybees as anything else. Honeybee populations will change in response to changes in their environment.

Those changes will be driven by the fact that those individuals who make the best changes win the race to make the next generation.

If however you throw various spanners in the works, the constant adaptation *toward health and strength* (that's what wins) fails. the result is sickness at best, collapse at worst.

Three guesses what the present spanners are....

 

[Beesnaturally]

or, to be more accurate, the think they survive TF - we know that what usually happens is they last a few years, die out and a new swarm moves in, most probably from another swarmed kept colony

That 'usually', is in the region of 9 times out of 10 (for beekeepers strains)

What we know is that of the one that does survive, their offspring are much more likely to survive. And that as time goes by this process rebuilds resistant wild populations - if allowed.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

thanks for the mansplaining

 

[Beesnaturally]

Yes which seems to be what the colony in my garden does.

It is often the case that swarms are headed by old queens who cack out in their first or second winter (Failure to supercede being another part of this story)

But in a healthy natural setting most later swarms don't survive. They get robbed out by the established bees, or fail to pick a good site, or don't build enough comb and gather enough stores. All are subject to the perils of old queens or the mating process.

This is something that keeps populations healthy. All else being equal, the best fitted to the environment will be the ones that survive. Nature's way is over-reproduction followed by ruthless selection...

 

[Beesnaturally]

thanks for the mansplaining

Well add that to the growing list of things you got badly wrong.

But you're welcome.

PS I don't just respond to your posts for your sake alone... Its a forum: its there for anyone to read and take what they will from.

 

[pargyle]

Well add that to the growing list of things you got badly wrong.

But you're welcome.

PS I don't just respond to your posts for your sake alone... Its a forum: its there for anyone to read and take what they will from.

It may be a public forum but in some vain attempt to stop me wearinng out my blue pencil wou;d you two please put each other on ignore. You are at opposite ends of the beekeeping spectrum and will never agree so ... this is not debate ... it's just tiresome disagreement. Enough is enough ....

 

[ericbeaumont]

many of those colonies are from bees swarmed from maintained colonies, not 'wild' in the true sense of the word

I have greater faith in that supposition than in the proposal that anywhere within 50 miles of my bees are wild nests.

Last summer I delivered 10 colonies to Hertfordshire to a rich man with a dream to live off the land, orchard and kitchen garden and all. He had plenty of enthusiasm but no idea nor training and already had 10 colonies in action (several had swarmed) and as I unloaded the new lot I saw a big prime hanging. Not for long: it took off and we followed through two fields and up to the ancient woodland, where we bade it goodbye. Let's hope any progeny is not 'discovered' and labelled 'wild'.

The supply of swarms in a few of my areas is regular and sometimes impressive: this summer at the farm in Dagenham five turned up in stacks of boxes waiting for processing. All went into winter looking good and strong, and I'd lay money they came from mis-managed colonies, or if feral, from that source originally.

 

[Newbeeneil]

I have greater faith in that supposition than in the proposal that anywhere within 50 miles of my bees are wild nests.

Last summer I delivered 10 colonies to Hertfordshire to a rich man with a dream to live off the land, orchard and kitchen garden and all. He had plenty of enthusiasm but no idea nor training and already had 10 colonies in action (several had swarmed) and as I unloaded the new lot I saw a big prime hanging. Not for long: it took off and we followed through two fields and up to the ancient woodland, where we bade it goodbye. Let's hope any progeny is not 'discovered' and labelled 'wild'.

The supply of swarms in a few of my areas is regular and sometimes impressive: this summer at the farm in Dagenham five turned up in stacks of boxes waiting for processing. All went into winter looking good and strong, and I'd lay money they came from mis-managed colonies, or if feral, from that source originally.

Managed (or mismanaged) colonies are a good source of swarms. This year I took 6 swarms in bait boxes across a railway line from a group of 40 hives. I know they came from them as I watched scouts coming back and forth across the railway.
The first 4 were all prime with marked queens.

 

[Beesnaturally]

It may be a public forum but in some vain attempt to stop me wearinng out my blue pencil wou;d you two please put each other on ignore. You are at opposite ends of the beekeeping spectrum and will never agree so ... this is not debate ... it's just tiresome disagreement. Enough is enough ....

Is there an actual physical way of putting someone on ignore, so you can't see their posts?

 

[Beesnaturally]

I have greater faith in that supposition than in the proposal that anywhere within 50 miles of my bees are wild nests.

Let's take a different tack. Lots of beekeepers, here and elsewhere, speak of keeping bees without treatments or aid. They say their bees thrive, multiyear. Not all are beginners.

We have as I see it just three choices:

A) they are mistaken in thinking that is what they are doing.

B) they are lying

C) they have bees that can thrive multiyear without treatments or aid.

Which do you think is the most likely?

 

[Beesnaturally]

Managed (or mismanaged) colonies are a good source of swarms. This year I took 6 swarms in bait boxes across a railway line from a group of 40 hives. I know they came from them as I watched scouts coming back and forth across the railway.
The first 4 were all prime with marked queens.

I must have collected close to 150 swarms, cut-outs and bait box/fly-ins between 2010 and 2018. They generally got looked at. My impression is of seeing 2-3 marked queens in that time.

 

[rolande]

I must have collected close to 150 swarms, cut-outs and bait box/fly-ins between 2010 and 2018. They generally got looked at. My impression is of seeing 2-3 marked queens in that time.

I think that there's probably a lot of beekeepers that don't mark their queens. I can state in all truthfulness that we've only had one swarm with a marked queen in the last decade (memorable by her rarity) but I can't take that to mean all (or any) of the others must have come from feral nests.

 

[madasafish]

I collected three swarms last year in my garden - not from my hives.
No queens were marked but at least one came from a nearby kept hive.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Is there an actual physical way of putting someone on ignore, so you can't see their posts?

Yes. Tap/click their avatar and there’s an option there
You can’t ignore mods though

 

[Erichalfbee]

I must have collected close to 150 swarms, cut-outs and bait box/fly-ins between 2010 and 2018. They generally got looked at. My impression is of seeing 2-3 marked queens in that time.

A lot of swarms are casts as well.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Which do you think is the most likely?

I believe in C (with an A now and again).

Brood breaks through splits or swarming may reduce varroa, albeit unintentionally.

Whenever I've gone TF in an apiary (out of curiosity) I reach year 4 before it ends in tears.

 

[pargyle]

I believe in C (with an A now and again).

Brood breaks through splits or swarming may reduce varroa, albeit unintentionally.

Whenever I've gone TF in an apiary (out of curiosity) I reach year 4 before it ends in tears.

Well, I'm 12 years in to TF .... My bees survive and thrive and don't die out after a number of years. I took on two colonies from a member who had enormous varroa problems with them (Thousands of mites and despite multiple treatments) brought them to my apiary and put them into my hives and plugged them into my beekeeping ... they are now very similar in low mite loads to my other colonies.

So .. as I've said on many occasions ... it's not just the bees, it has to be a combination of factors and a degree of luck and location.

We know that some colonies in some locations can be overwhelmed and die out within 12 months when left untreated for varroa. It makes little sense that they should survive for three or four years ... and the succumb. I suspect, in these circumstamces, it has to be a change in local circumstances ... colonies robbing other highly infested colonies or infected by locally evident disease (possibly vectored by Varroa). In some cases these may just be colonies that swarm to extinction ... it's not an unknown phenomenon. Or just one of those queen failures that have been seen in recent years where the colony fails to thive and simply dwindles away.

We are very quick to blame varroa and certainly a colony CAN be overwhelmed by the mite load but .... even parasites must be reluctant to take their host to the point where there is no chance ofe survival ?