"Thinking" bees.

[jackbee]

Sorry no such thing as evolution, only creation

ummm, oh-K, would that be in the classic 6000 yr time span??

 

[scuttlefish]

Oh good, we're on evolution versus creationism - fancy taking that one to Off Topic Chat? Much as I love that particular debate it's guaranteed to offend someone eventually and nothing to do with beekeeping...

...unless of course there really is no evolution, in which case we can keep on using Bayvarol as an effective varroa treatment from now until the heat death of the universe.

ummm, oh-K, would that be in the classic 6000 yr time span??

There's Old Earth creationism as well as Young Earth creationism Jack.

 

[meidel]

...I tend to try and see if there is any basic programming which could explain behaviours...

I hope I'm not quoting out of context, I happen to agree with you that whether you call it basic programming or "thinking" bees, you can almost guarantee (although I always have at the back of my mind that quote - bees do nothing invariably) that some bee behaviour is triggered by a set of circumstances. To take that one step further, if we are able to understand bee behaviour then we could and certainly we do to an extent so far, manipulate the bees for our own ends - why people build up bee numbers just before a flow, why we combine colonies during the flow just to name a couple.

For me, as a new beekeeper, if I'm able to understand bee behaviour, I would most certainly have a smoother beekeeping experience. It's a matter of interpreting what we see the bees doing. Only just recently I was able to appreciate the reason behind the very clean queen excluder on one of my colonies - there was no brace comb or propolis build up on it even though there must be at least 60000 bees in the brood box and several supers ... Until I discovered a small patch of drone brood on one of the super frames, I'd put it down to very hygienic bees

Thank you for starting this fascinating thread - how can we learn if we don't ask questions?

 

[MandF]

Thanks Miedel. And to take your point a stage further - if we can understand why bees are doing something, just a little, not only does it make it smoother for us, we can also decide for ourselves whether to help them, to hinder them (which we do with swarm management), or simply ignore them.

This was the main jist of my thread, we as beekeepers already choose to hinder/help/ignore bee behaviours, and yet at other times bee behaviour is used as the REASON we should do something, because they know best. I do not think that line of reasoning, or that type of instruction is particularly helpful, even when I know it is well meaning. Explaining why, or more pertinently why we humans think the bees behave that way, is much more helpful - it helps our understanding, and it arms us with the information whereby we can make our own beekeeping choices.

 

[jackbee]

Oh good, we're on evolution versus creationism - fancy taking that one to Off Topic Chat? Much as I love that particular debate it's guaranteed to offend someone eventually and nothing to do with beekeeping...

...unless of course there really is no evolution, in which case we can keep on using Bayvarol as an effective varroa treatment from now until the heat death of the universe.

There's Old Earth creationism as well as Young Earth creationism Jack.

I know but only difffernce is numbers.

I'm don't particularly want to get into that argument, sorry discussion, here, done enough of it on other forums - never gets anywhere.

 

[REDWOOD]

beekeeping not religion