Spraying Apple cider vinegar over honey bees

[Ely]

(Ely, also: strychnine is a natural substance. So is cholera. Appealing to 'natural substances' doesn't hold up for a second.)

Oxalic is a natural substance that works though, and doesn't harm the bees when used correctly. That was my only point, and I think it holds up just fine.

I don't think anyone is arguing what happens to bees in the natural world and the evolutionary processes involved. Just a tad different to beekeeping though isn't it?

 

[blackcloud]

I agree
If a colony is in a hollow tree their fate is their problem
If we choose to keep them in man-made containers then it's very much ours.
We have to a greater or lesser degree excluded nature from the decision making process
We owe it to them to use the most effective methods.
The wider beekeeping community continuously thrashes them out for the benefit of everyone.
My hobby horse again -ineffective beekeeping practices also impact the feral population which does no one any favours-see line 2.....

 

[Mint Bee]

How will the live and let die principle for selection work with AH?
Assuming those that practice this method will look to let the bees decide whether they survive without any interference as this is part of environmental pressure on natural selection.......?

 

[Beesnaturally]

I agree
If a colony is in a hollow tree their fate is their problem
If we choose to keep them in man-made containers then it's very much ours.

Why. We can simply give them a nice nesting site and then leave them to their own devices.

We have to a greater or lesser degree excluded nature from the decision making process

You have, beekeeping at large has, commercial beekeeping has. Me, I do what I can to let nature work the bees problems out. Its much much better at that than I am.

We owe it to them to use the most effective methods.

The most effective at what? At killing the local wild bee population?

The wider beekeeping community continuously thrashes them out for the benefit of everyone.

Except those trying to raise resistance by not reproducing individuals and strains that undermine the natural process.
Except the wild bee population
Except all the many species that benefit from a wild bee population
Except all the people who benefit from having a vital ecology.

You are very much looking at this through the eyes of somebody what wants something from the bees, and is blind to what damage you do in getting it your way.

My hobby horse again -ineffective beekeeping practices also impact the feral population which does no one any favours-see line 2.....

I don't think you will ever understand this, but its a fact. Left alone bee populations develop resistance to varroa. This happens in non-treating apiaries, or in whole countries that decide to, or cannot afford to, treat, or in localities where non-treating beekeepers and free-living honeybees outnumber treated hives.

Natural selection for the fittest strain is a pretty simple concept. You really should try to get a grip on it.

 

[Beesnaturally]

I don't think anyone is arguing what happens to bees in the natural world and the evolutionary processes involved. Just a tad different to beekeeping though isn't it?

It doesn't have to be. Many people are choosing to work with nature instead of frustrating her.

 

[Ely]

It doesn't have to be. Many people are choosing to work with nature instead of frustrating her.

Beekeepers already work with nature. They just go a few necessary steps further to ensure their survival.

Sticking a colony in a hive and then leaving them to their own devices isn't beekeeping in my opinion. It's a feral colony in a man made object. Certainly isn't husbandry anymore. May as well be in a tree.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Beekeepers already work with nature. They just go a few necessary steps further to ensure their survival.

Sticking a colony in a hive and then leaving them to their own devices isn't beekeeping in my opinion. It's a feral colony in a man made object. Certainly isn't husbandry anymore. May as well be in a tree.

Ok, so why are you here in the treatment free section? Just to give us your definition of beekeeping?

'Husbandry' has two meanings. The first is the 'husbandry' of the genes down through the generations. It refers to the age-old and essential practice of choosing only the best individuals to mate, and carry the bloodline forward. This, selective mating, is what makes livestock farming possible. It is the care of the genes, the strain, down through the generations, that produce the livestock- for present benefit, and for the future of the son who will inherit the operation.

This is taking care of livestock in its deepest and most essential sense.

Selective mating is a direct imitation of natural selection. It weeds out the weak, the unproductive, and the disease-prone, and thus maximises the chances of having healthy and productive animals.

The second meaning is the simple care of individuals and farm populations.

Try to take this idea in:

If you keep weak and sickly individuals alive, and allow them to send their genes into the next and future generations, you will weaken those future generations.

I can see this is all unfamiliar to you. Can I ask you to take time to think about what is the standard, and science-based, understanding of the facts of inherited traits, and the direct parallel between natural selection for the fittest strains and the standard husbandry practice of closed selective mating?

Once you have a grip on those things we will be able to speak about the special case of honeybees. Until then it would be pointless.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Beekeepers already work with nature. They just go a few necessary steps further to ensure their survival.

Sticking a colony in a hive and then leaving them to their own devices isn't beekeeping in my opinion. It's a feral colony in a man made object. Certainly isn't husbandry anymore. May as well be in a tree.

No. It's treatment free beekeeping
To quote Solomon Parker
This is really about returning the bees to a more natural state, one in which they are solely responsible for surviving… I affect them in a way that gives them a home in which to live, I direct certain traits by removing certain members of the population… I harvest some of the honey that they produce. But surviving is wholly their job.”
And that would include feeding
The debate over the definition never ends

 

[Beesnaturally]

The debate over the definition never ends

It's not a debate.

It's not about debating definitions.

It's about the informing of people who are unaware, or only vaguely aware, of the facts of nature, of the essentials of husbandry. About the consequences of beekeepers actions, and the possibilities that a return to genetic husbandry present. It's about where beekeeping took a major wrong turn, and the state of sad addiction it finds itself in.

It's about escaping from that.

It's about understanding biology and evolution. It's about respecting the primacy in those fields of Darwinism.

We can clarify terms and concepts. We can show where to get more information.

But we can't debate facts. And we can't debate the meanings of established key terms.

We could debate the wisdom of the no-treament approach. But the Treatment Free section would be a wholly inappropriate place to do so. It would fatally disrupt it's purpose and potential.

I like that you quote Soloman Parker.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I like that you quote Soloman Parker

That's good

Maybe not a debate in your mind but it's debated ad nauseam in lots of other places. I was simply trying to clarify a point for Ely

 

[rolande]

Selective mating is a direct imitation of natural selection. It weeds out the weak, the unproductive, and the disease-prone, and thus maximises the chances of having healthy and productive animals.

@Beesnaturally you know that I'm far from unsympathetic but...

Any selection in mating would actually appear to be (almost*) totally opposite to the honeybee's natural drive towards polyandry. In fact, some of the research that Delaplane did while he was in the UK pointed to large numbers of randomly selected drones (through AI) per mating having a positive effect on colony varroa control

*Almost, only to account for possible time/height differences between the mating flights of some of the subspecies as has been referenced by some researchers.

Edit: I should have said naturally occurring polyandry, in the sense of randomness.

 

[rolande]

Re the Solomon Parker quote. Obviously something he wrote before totally bailing out of beekeeping.

For those unaware of his pleasant easy going style on the forums there's lots on beesource

 

[Erichalfbee]

For those unaware of his pleasant easy going style on the forums there's lots on beesource

There’s a familiarity in style

 

[rolande]

There’s a familiarity in style

Really?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Really?

I maybe should have said similarity

 

[Garry R]

My mother who would poo poo the wacky ideas and various homespun treatments for many ailments used to say about them "You might as well rub your ar*e with a rotten apple". She was such an elegant lady this phrase came as a shock but it came to be one of those sayings that get into family lore. She did live to 94!!

 

[Beesnaturally]

Re the Solomon Parker quote. Obviously something he wrote before totally bailing out of beekeeping.

For those unaware of his pleasant easy going style on the forums there's lots on beesource

He appears to be around still https://parkerbees.square.site/

 

[Beesnaturally]

@Beesnaturally you know that I'm far from unsympathetic but...

Any selection in mating would actually appear to be (almost*) totally opposite to the honeybee's natural drive towards polyandry. In fact, some of the research that Delaplane did while he was in the UK pointed to large numbers of randomly selected drones (through AI) per mating having a positive effect on colony varroa control

*Almost, only to account for possible time/height differences between the mating flights of some of the subspecies as has been referenced by some researchers.

Edit: I should have said naturally occurring polyandry, in the sense of randomness.

There are several things to consider: first queenside and droneside, second competitive mating, third good old fashioned weeding out.

Before those: evolution. Evolution made the bee, just as it made you and I and every other living thing on the planet. And the basic fundamental is: if and when it works, it succeeds. The bee must have a successful selective process or it wouldn't be here.

Queenside. Queens that produce hives that thrive pass on their genes to their children. Queens that produce hives that die don't. Natural selection.

Droneside: the drones are carbon copies - somehow - of their mothers. Those daughters who succeeded in raising big hives with big drone populations have a numbers advantage over those that didn't. Again, more successful queen genes are passed forward in greater numbers than less successful ones.

Competitive mating. All animal mating is competitive, meaning the stronger/more nimble/quicker are selected over the less so. In bees (it is understood, I believe) the queen will try to throw off drones until only the strongest remain.

All this ensures the strongest (= healthiest = best fitted to the present environment) tend to go through in greater number, according the difference. The weakest zero, next very few, and so on to the best-the most.

Nothing about the rest of the bees sex life impacts any of this. It does have other effects - a queen that mates with lots of drones/has lots of half-sister families tends to do better than those with fewer matings (strikingly so apparently). Again: the stronger queens are more likely to achieve this being able to fly further and stay out longer.

That's roughing things out: but I think it makes the right points.

 

[Beesnaturally]

That's good

Maybe not a debate in your mind but it's debated ad nauseam in lots of other places. I was simply trying to clarify a point for Ely

Perhaps your idea of 'debate' is different to mine!

 

[rolande]

That's roughing things out

More a case of glossing over the need of a very wide selection of genes, not 'just' those that have been coopted to combat varroa.