What is sustainable beekeeping

[Finman]

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About that maize. Finland is quite far from maize production.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/MaizeYield.png/1200px-MaizeYield.png

 

[Stiffy]

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About that maize. Finland is quite far from maize production.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/MaizeYield.png/1200px-MaizeYield.png

According to that none is grown in UK. It fills fields around here, though think it’s mainly used for animal feed.
S

 

[Finman]

According to that none is grown in UK. It fills fields around here, though think it’s mainly used for animal feed.
S

According European statistic seed crop of maize is zero.
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[Poly Hive]

Grown by some for a high protein silage.

Sustainable is what you make it. Simple. Or maybe too simple for some.

PH

 

[Finman]

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I found Michael Bush's recipe to sustainable beekeeping..
Stop treating

The only way to have a sustainable system of beekeeping is to stop treating. Treating is a death spiral that is now collapsing. To leverage this, though you really need to raise your own queens from local surviving bees. Only then can you get bees who genetically can survive and parasites that are in tune with their host. As long as we treat we get weaker bees who can only survive if we treat, and stronger parasites who can only survive if they breed fast enough to keep up with our treatments. No stable relationship can develop until we stop treating.

The other problem, of course, is that if we just stop now with the system of beekeeping we have, the genetically and environmentally weakened bees will usually die. Even if they are genetically capable of surviving in a clean (uncontaminated) environment, we have to get to an environment they can survive in or they will still die. So what is that environment?


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Finman: so, every one starts their breeding from point zero and do it 20 years to get results.
Why not buy ready resistant queens?
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[coffindodger]

" you get bees who genetically can survive and parasites that are in tune with their host"

If we aim for parasites in tune with their host, then we need an idea of the parasite/host ratio which would be acceptable. However, as stated in another thread, if we are dealing with a high level parasite like varroa, then the diseases carried by the varroa are independent of our treatment/no treatment schemes and new or more virile diseases can be introduced. Who worried about Zika 10 years ago?
Completely agree about environment, but unhappy about the idea that bees which have been 'native' are better adapted (etc) because the environment is changing, e.g. all text books talk about the 'June gap' in UK, but as spring flowering gets earlier then the 'gap' gets earlier or longer.

 

[Poly Hive]

That gap largely exists or not depending on where you are. Or rather where the bees are.

PH

 

[user 6228]

I'd read that during the last ice age Amm wouldn't have had to retreat further than some sheltered valleys in the dordogne, not sure if there's diffinitive evidence to support this but it seemed plausible to me.

The mitochondrial analysis suggests Spain. The northern limit of apis mellifera is determined by mature forest and flowers e.g. decidous forest.

 

[Finman]

The mitochondrial analysis suggests Spain. The northern limit of apis mellifera is determined by mature forest and flowers e.g. decidous forest.

20 years ago we believed that honey bee has developed in Europe. Then after year 2003 genemapping it was revieled that honey bee had come to Europe from Africa.

Now we know honey bees have born in Tamar Valley. If you know something about tundra, there are no sheltered valleys inside tundras, where honey bees can live.
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[For want of a better word]

The mitochondrial analysis suggests Spain. The northern limit of apis mellifera is determined by mature forest and flowers e.g. decidous forest.

And then migrated North again......

Why did the Mediterranean sub species not migrate north?
Physical barriers such as mountain ranges and seas were the traditional reasons taught...... I suspect that the Mediterranean sub species were not able to sustain themselves in a cool temperate environment and any that did make it over the mountains and could not adapt ( until imports in the +/-1850s where beekeepers could keep them in moveable frame hives)

Yeghes da

 

[Hivemaker.]

I believe our native honey bees originated from Greenland, kept warm by the hot springs and geysers, leaving Greenland and migrating south as the climate warmed up.

 

[Finman]

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150 years ago Finland did not have natural honey bees. All are imported.

Tudra starts 1000 km from Helsinki to north.

 

[Beefriendly]

I believe our native honey bees originated from Greenland, kept warm by the hot springs and geysers, leaving Greenland and migrating south as the climate warmed up.

Mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA mapping has them as coming from the middles east with Spain being a melting pot with Africanised bees in the South and Western European (from Middle east) in the North.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1364272
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3433997/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28565209

 

[Beefriendly]

I suspect that the Mediterranean sub species were not able to sustain themselves in a cool temperate environment and any that did make it over the mountains and could not adapt /QUOTE]

Really!
Research article by Ann Chilcott and Thomas Seeley in ABJ has Italian/Carniolan and Amm's all out flying for winter water gathering at temperatures down to 4oC in Scotland.
It would suggest that temperature had little to do with it.

 

[Finman]

I suspect that the Mediterranean sub species were not able to sustain themselves in a cool temperate environment and any that did make it over the mountains and could not adapt /QUOTE]

Really!
Research article by Ann Chilcott and Thomas Seeley in ABJ has Italian/Carniolan and Amm's all out flying for winter water gathering at temperatures down to 4oC in Scotland.
It would suggest that temperature had little to do with it.

What! Water foraging in - 40C or + 40C.

Highest recorded temperature in UK is +33C.



Bees do not forage water below freezing point.

Coldest days in UK are -25C.
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Or was it 4C?

Such fairytales by Seeley.


Essential for brooding in spring is that bees can forage pollen.
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[For want of a better word]

I believe our native honey bees originated from Greenland, kept warm by the hot springs and geysers, leaving Greenland and migrating south as the climate warmed up.

Them Vikings must have exported them to Spain... thus confusing everyone!

Probably on a SAGA tour!

Yeghes da

 

[colinc]

I believe our native honey bees originated from Greenland, kept warm by the hot springs and geysers, leaving Greenland and migrating south as the climate warmed up.

Ha ha.

I believe they are descended from space monkeys forced to evolve due to the extreme pressures hunting them to the point of extinction for their much prized diamond encrusted canines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Finman]

Vikings had bicycles

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61aPqNy46jL._SL1000_.jpg

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[jenkinsbrynmair]

Vikings had bicycles

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61aPqNy46jL._SL1000_.jpg

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Which they then introduced to North America, centuries later, after Columbus took a wrong turning, Elizabethan adventurers saw native American potato growers cycling their wares to market to trade for tobacco leaves. One of them brought all three back as a gift for queen Elizabeth.
Good old Sir Walter Raleigh, thanks to him we have crisps, lung cancer and lycra clad road hogs!!!

 

[Poly Hive]

Hmm so cycling is another issue eh?

Must be that the cyclists up here have better manners.

PH