Tom Seeley - Darwinian Beekeeping

[domino]

Could be your business if you bees rob out your 'treatment free' neighbour just after you finished your autumn mite treatment !

Why?

 

[Chris B]

Reinfestation.
Robbers will bring back mites as well as honey.

 

[Eyeman]

Reinfestation.
Robbers will bring back mites as well as honey.

Some folks on here don't believe in the concept of a:
Mite Bomb.
I'm sure I experienced one last year at one of my out apiaries.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Some folks on here don't believe in the concept of a:
Mite Bomb.
I'm sure I experienced one last year at one of my out apiaries.

I reckon I lost two colonies that way last winter

 

[domino]

Reinfestation.
Robbers will bring back mites as well as honey.

That's on my list of stuff I can't control. So I'm not going to worry about it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's on my list of stuff I can't control. So I'm not going to worry about it.

I would worry.... and treat again

 

[Michael Palmer]

Some folks on here don't believe in the concept of a:
Mite Bomb.

The State of New York surveys many of my apiaries in that state. I have something like 25 apiaries there and most are 2 miles apart. In 2011, the composite mite count in my apiaries, via alcohol wash, was 0-2.

Two of my apiaries, 2 miles apart, had a treatment free beekeeper who located an apiary between the two. Those two apiaries rolled 13 and 15 mites per sample.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

The things Tom Seeley was audacious enough to suggest were

1. not purchasing queens from a different climatic region
2. not crowding colonies in apiaries
3. do not eliminate aggressive colonies
4. stop housing bees in large thin-walled enclosures
5. we stop using chemicals to treat varroa

I'm not sure that too many people would disagree with the first item provided suitable local queens were available. Suitable queens is subjective but if all beekeepers bred their own queens with traits they want, there would be no need for imports. As we know the progeny of imported queens can change after a couple of generations and the hybrid vigour we wanted can become aggression that makes inspections a misery.

Very few beekeepers can comply with his second suggestion - placing colonies 50m apart would require enormous apiaries and would make inspections very time-consuming. Separating apiaries such that they were 5 miles apart to prevent the spread of disease and pests is also impossible for many beekeepers in most of the UK.

Aggressive bees - resulting from the crossing of different species of bees or other reasons - can be tolerated for an inspection or two but persistence in this makes beehive manipulations unpleasant. I am sure if we followed his first piece of advice, we would have fewer problems with aggression.

His fourth piece of advice is what Derek Mitchell has been banging on about from a while now and those of us who have heard Derek speak or have read his paper will understand that there is something in what he and Tom Seeley are saying. Heavily insulated hives that simulate the thermal performance of a tree should be more akin to what bees evolved in than thin-walled squat beehives.

As for not treating with chemicals, we'd all like to do that but until somebody comes up with consistently Varroa-tolerant bees or figures out a way of distributing benign DWV as found by Prof. Declan Schroeder in the Swindon bees of Ron Hoskins, I fear we have to continue with chemicals using the least intrusive and damaging available.

So, Tom, nice attempt at being Audacious but you should have mixed some practicality into the talk too.

CVB

 

[Fusion_power]

There is documentary evidence that bees were cultivated by Egyptians in permanent hives.

You have a different definition of breeding. Pick any other animal or plant that is cultivated by man and it has likely been bred by the hand of man for centuries. Queen bees mate in the air with drones that are for the most part unselected. Man had no way to control bee breeding until isolated mating stations and instrumental insemination became available. We could have a discussion about "selection", but I stand by the statement that bee "breeding" has only been feasible over the last @150 years.

 

[Finman]

.
The Word is full if Seeley like beekeepers. Let them be.

Breeding is possible only with movable frames, when you can catch the queen and select the queen.

And if you open the hive. It is easier to ask from forum, what hammer I need now, than try, what hammer is good.

 

[Fusion_power]

The hammer you need now is the hammer you lost 3 years ago. Go buy another hammer so you can find the one you lost because we all know you will find it the next day after purchasing new. Then add the new hammer to the other 9 hammers you already own.

 

[Finman]

The hammer you need now is the hammer you lost 3 years ago.

Go buy another hammer so you can find the one you lost because we all know you will find it the next day after purchasing new. Then add the new hammer to the other 9 hammers you already own.

A new hammer costs nowadays 4 €. ..

Hammer and Darwin: Strongest does not win.

 

[Erichalfbee]

.


And if you open the hive. It is easier to ask from forum, what hammer I need now, than try, what hammer is good.

I think you've got it.....we can almost make you an honorary Brit!

 

[Finman]

.
But actually, when I was on Beemaster forum 7 years, those Darwinism thoughts were very usual there. I had a fight with natural beekeepers all the time. Do nothing, mites do not need treating, no insulation, what ever. .... Despite of 44% annual hive losses.

The proportion of "natural beekeeping" is big.

The most odd combination is "flowhive and natural combs". Michael Bush taught that in flow forum.

Do not paint hive boxes. Let them rotten in peace....


That Darwinism is not very far from us.

 

[Beefriendly]

The things Tom Seeley was audacious enough to suggest were

1. not purchasing queens from a different climatic region

1. 
   
   Crazy comment coming from a man living on a continent that had no honey bees (Apis mellifera) until they imported them from different climatic regions.
   Perhaps he means they should be sent free of charge to any beekeeper who wants them rather than us having to pay for them.

 

[For want of a better word]

Crazy comment coming from a man living on a continent that had no honey bees (Apis mellifera) until they imported them from different climatic regions.
Perhaps he means they should be sent free of charge to any beekeeper who wants them rather than us having to pay for them.

Crass observation... we are now in the homocene where every continent and every ocean is open to every species aided by mankind.. if they can adapt to the changing environmental conditions... not that that should be an excuse to import weeds like manuka or other invasive species like giant land snails!

Yeghes da

 

[Finman]

Crazy comment coming from a man living on a continent that had no honey bees (Apis mellifera) until they imported them from different climatic regions.
.

American beekeepers do not have queen strains for different climatic regions.
That is why they need 50 kg winter stores in Alaska. At same latitude we need 20 kg.

Even Texas is 3 times as large as Finland, and the hight is 1000 km.

.

 

[Finman]

... not that that should be an excuse to import weeds like manuka or other invasive species like giant land snails!

Yeghes da

Destroy Kew Garden. Destroy Thomson & Morgan seed selling.

I have heard that Britain is the silicon valley of gardening industry. Destroy!!!!

 

[Little John]

Crass observation... we are now in the homocene where every continent and every ocean is open to every species aided by mankind.. if they can adapt to the changing environmental conditions... not that that should be an excuse to import weeds like manuka or other invasive species like giant land snails!

Yeghes da

You can't have it both ways ... that it's ok to import stuff you approve of, but not ok for the rest ...

Once you've opened the lid off Pandora's Box ... it's then wide open.
LJ

 

[user 6228]

Crazy comment coming from a man living on a continent that had no honey bees (Apis mellifera) until they imported them from different climatic regions.
Perhaps he means they should be sent free of charge to any beekeeper who wants them rather than us having to pay for them.

Climatic region do not equal continent. Apis mellifera mellifera had few hundred years of roaming free in North America and flourished