There are so many flaws in this chap's ruminating that its hard to know where to start. Its very much a case of theorising in pursuit of a desired outcome, rather than having knowledge of the facts - or even knowlege of the appropriate science. I'll try to demonstrate with an extract or two:
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Are these wild bees self-sustaining, unique and ancient?
If a colony or two of bees (or even a hundred) are found in the woods I’d suggest the following tests need to be applied to convincingly demonstrate they are a unique and self-sustaining population.
- how isolated are they really? Are there managed colonies within 5-10 km that could act as a source of swarms? Geographic isolation may be due to factors other than distance, for example an island population, or an isolated valley surrounded with mountains.
- is the population truly self-sustaining? Do colonies regularly survive for sufficient time to reproduce? To be self-sustaining, annual colony losses must be less than or equal to new colonies established from the same feral bees.
- are the bees genetically distinct from managed colonies within 10 km or so? If they are a well-established population you would expect this.
If the population is truly isolated, reproduces sufficiently to replace annual losses and is genetically distinct, then it may well be self-sustaining."
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Point 1 is theorising that the writer can know how isolated bees need to be in order to begin and sustain the process of gaining and attaining resistance. It presupposes a woodland area devoid of such bees as have begun the process. It doesn't appear to take into acount the number of such colonies, or the balance or power between them and any nearby hives.
Point 2 I'll accept
Point 3 ignores completely the scientific evidence that all strains of bees, and mixtures and mongrels, can become resistant. The genetics of any such bees in such woods will almost certainly have originated in the agricultural bees nearby, which will be both identifiable strains and mixes and mongrels. The hives around the wood are therefire genetically distinct from each other. Does he suggest we examine the DNA profile of all such surrounding hives in order to eliminate each and every one from the free-living colonies in the woods? Again, what would we need to find in the DNA of the woodland colonies in order to be sure that they didn't originate in swarms from outside (which they almosts certainly did, at some point in the past). Do the wild bees need to be of an evolved and uniform strain before we accept that they are not 1 or 2 year-old escapees? Despite the obvious fact of ongoing drone input from outside?
The writer seems to be all but unaware of the mechanics of population dynamics, of the complexity of his own scenario, and seems so attached to the notion that any bees inside must be recent escapees, that he cannot entertain the idea that escaped swarms _over the past 30 years_ might have slowly located resitant traits. He doesn't even seem to appreciate that a _population_ of colonies is a pre-requisite of such adaptation.
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A glimmer of hope (?) … the Arnot Forest bees
The Arnot Forest is not dissimilar in size to Blenheim estate (17 km2 vs. 24 km2).
However, it is surrounded by lots more old growth forest (100+ years) and so is effectively more isolated. There are some managed colonies in the surrounding forests, but – when tested – they were genetically distinct from the Arnot Forest bees (Seeley et al., 2015). Finally, the colony survival characteristics (~1.5 years) and annual swarming of the Arnot Forest bees indicates that the population is self-sustaining. These Arnot Forest bees have adapted to live with Varroa through behavioural changes – frequent swarming, small colonies etc.
Clearly, self-sustaining populations of feral colonies can exist 11, but this is not the same as claiming that all feral populations are self-sustaining, unique or ancient.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the mechanisms that self-sustaining populations of bees have evolved to become Varroa tolerant (they are unlikely to be resistance) – small, swarmy, colonies – may make them unsuited for either beekeeping or pollination."
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Back to the Arnot forest (despite many studies closer to home - but at least its not the initial study)
Just look at that closing assertion. Despite all that is known of the suite of in-colony mechanisms that bees can draw on, the writer makes the totally unsupported and scientifically multiply disproven assertion wild bees survive by being small or swarmy, and the similarly unsupported assertion that they 'may be' unsuited to pollination. (And tries to give greater credence to his understanding by cramming in the ill-defined distinction between tolerance and resistance)
Its all so ridiculous it makes me cross. This is a drive to dismiss the possiblity of wild bees, dressed up as scientific and authorititive, that flies in the face of the actual science. By somebody who has clearly never knowingly seen a bee from a flourishing untreated wild/feral colony, let alone kept one.
Don't be fooled. There are good questions about the relationships between treated and untreated wild/feral bees. This fellow doesn't know how to ask them.
A glimmer of hope my foot! This is casting a dark blanket over the already bright state of affairs, wild bees alive and flourishing all over the UK, including in beekeepers hives.
