Wild/Feral Survivor-Thrivers: Naturally Selected Resistant Bees.

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This is for discussion of bees that have acquired the ability to cope with varroa without any help. The core assumption is that in the UK and Ireland this has occurred through natural selection for the fittest strain, and any subsequent selection has built on that. The idea is to learn from each-other, what works, and why, in the realm of no-treatment beekeeping. Testimonies, questions, explanations and links to relevant scientific studies are all welcome.

I'd like the thread to be a place where the mechanisms that wild populations employ to locate and maintain resistance can be explored, in the belief that that topic holds the key to understanding why no-treatment beekeeping works in some circumstances and not in others.

 

[Wilco]

I sent my daughter a clip from Frozen Planet 2 of two polar bears playing. She said it was just gorgeous then added, "I stopped watching Attenborough because of the moments he points to the collapse of so many of Earth's ecosystems. I don't need a reminder of the eco-grief I feel so much"
I feel a bit like that too. I can only do my bit. I'm not concerned with what the Americans do with their bees. Hopefully our surveillance systems are sufficient and we will never have to worry about it.

I feel the same about Attenborough programs now. Your daughter put it well as I found it difficult explaining to my wife why I didn’t want to watch.

Possibly. I just worry about the attitude: 'We care about stakeholders; wild bees and the ecologies that they support can go hang.'

I have always had plenty of support for 'eco-grief' from my family. I'm not sure who it was who said something to the effect 'If you are not infuriated, enraged, by the ongoing environmental destruction, the waste, the injustice, the tragedy of such loss, there is something less than human about you.'

Most people I guess don't want to be enraged and choose to wear blinkers to protect themselves. I guess that's human too. Trying to shut down the messengers is part of that, and while human is not one of the finer human qualities.

These views are interesting. I whileheartedly agree we should care about damage to the environment and the (ultimately) selfishness and greed which are responsible for it. Part of action against this should be targeting selfishness and greed in ourselves and those around us to make it less socially acceptable.

However whilst I may be sad about the destruction of the environment and dream of stories of what things looked like even a hundred or two hundred years ago, I refuse to get into the 'climate doomism' mentality. This is for two reasons:
1. My faith as a Christian that there is something greater going on and one day things will be made Right.
2. Even without my faith, logic. Our current understanding of the world suggests that the earth has been warmer and colder, by significant amounts, in the past and that there have been multiple mass extinction events before. Yet here we are. There may be a lot of destruction but that is not the end of the story. Life will persist. It will bounce back, maybe over millenia, but it will persist. It may look very different to how it does now but it is anthropocentric arrogance to think we're the ultimate power that can overcome it. Even without a God, the claim is life arose from nothing so by all means be sad at the loss of the current beauty but do not succumb to the lie that this would be the end of all life. Hold on to hope. One day man's selfishness will be defeated and things will be made Right. One way or another.

 

[user 20297]

These views are interesting. I whileheartedly agree we should care about damage to the environment and the (ultimately) selfishness and greed which are responsible for it. Part of action against this should be targeting selfishness and greed in ourselves and those around us to make it less socially acceptable.

However whilst I may be sad about the destruction of the environment and dream of stories of what things looked like even a hundred or two hundred years ago, I refuse to get into the 'climate doomism' mentality. This is for two reasons:
1. My faith as a Christian that there is something greater going on and one day things will be made Right.
2. Even without my faith, logic. Our current understanding of the world suggests that the earth has been warmer and colder, by significant amounts, in the past and that there have been multiple mass extinction events before. Yet here we are. There may be a lot of destruction but that is not the end of the story. Life will persist. It will bounce back, maybe over millenia, but it will persist. It may look very different to how it does now but it is anthropocentric arrogance to think we're the ultimate power that can overcome it. Even without a God, the claim is life arose from nothing so by all means be sad at the loss of the current beauty but do not succumb to the lie that this would be the end of all life. Hold on to hope. One day man's selfishness will be defeated and things will be made Right. One way or another.

If humanity really did cause the deterioration of the natural world then we have a responsibility to attempt to repair it and stop it getting worse. I would rather not get into a debate about the existence or otherwise of a greater being or entity that controls existence, but looking back to the situation massively in the past or the future for comfort that great changes are normal and recoverable is no use to those of us who currently exist or who we anticipate existing in the near future.

 

[Wilco]

If humanity really did cause the deterioration of the natural world then we have a responsibility to attempt to repair it and stop it getting worse. I would rather not get into a debate about the existence or otherwise of a greater being or entity that controls existence, but looking back to the situation massively in the past or the future for comfort that great changes are normal and recoverable is no use to those of us who currently exist or who we anticipate existing in the near future.

I agree we have a duty to look after the world, as per previously. It's more a question of trying to add some perspective and humility about our species. A lot of climate doomism sounds like people feeling sorry for themselves. If you can't change it, quit worrying. If you can change it, do.

Fair enough WRT deities so I'll drop it after this post. However, the very idea that we should do something about our impact on the natural world and that it has been a bad thing is to ascribe to some sort of external standard. If life is no more than the product of natural process and there is really no deeper purpose, then we are no more duty bound to reverse our impact than the meteor which destroyed the dinosaurs. If there is no deeper purpose, then suffering and joy of people now, in the past or the future are ultimately equally meaningless and good and bad are merely imaginary- life being wiped out does not matter. Yet we care. Something deep in us knows there is purpose, even if it does not always make sense. The ideas of good and bad and agency come from somewhere.

As above, I think we do have a duty to look after our world and each other- however our premises are as important as our logic and conclusions.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Survival of the fittest? - looking at certain sections of humanity, it is getting more and more obvious that we are not fit to survive.
Maybe that's the grand plan

 

[Erichalfbee]

If humanity really did cause the deterioration of the natural world then we have a responsibility to attempt to repair it and stop it getting worse.

Maybe our purpose on the planet is to mess it up and become extinct. Part of the cycle of planetary renewal?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Survival of the fittest? - looking at certain sections of humanity, it is getting more and more obvious that we are not fit to survive.
Maybe that's the grand plan

You beat me to it.

 

[user 20297]

Maybe our purpose on the planet is to mess it up and become extinct. Part of the cycle of planetary renewal?

I'll ask a God if that's the case, next time I see them.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ask it how long we’ve got?

 

[user 20297]

Ask it how long we’ve got?

By then the results will be in for me, but be good and I'll put in a word for the rest of you.

 

[Beesnaturally]

So (and setting aside an questions of deities that have plans...):

A1) Some people don't want to be concerned with the impact of non-resistant bees on free living bees, and
A2) Some do.

B1) Some people think non-resistant bees don't have any impact on free living bees, and
B2) Some do.

C1) Some people think there are no free-living bees, and
C2) Some think there are.

May I suggest that this blog is for the benefit of those in all groups A2, B2, and C2? Conversation here is predicated, as indicated in the OP, on acceptance of those beliefs?

We may note that we have now collected perhaps 10 scientific papers that are in full accordance with beliefs B2 and C2 and zero scientific papers that question them. (Belief A being a purely personal moral stance, though it may be supported by possession of beliefs B1 and C1)

I'm sure that's more complicated than it needs to be, but I thought it worth at least trying to set out our various options as I see them...

 

[Erichalfbee]

C1) Some people think there are no free-living bees, and
C3 Some think there are.

May I suggest that this blog is for the benefit of those in all groups A2, B2, and C2? Conversation here is predicated, as indicated in the OP, on acceptance of those beliefs?

No C2

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

and zero scientific papers that question them.

because it's obvious that you want to ignore any that don't comply with your 'beliefs' within your little echo chamber

 

[Erichalfbee]

I guess blogs are echo chambers. I still have my cancer blog running for information.
Maybe the answer is for anybody who doesn’t espouse BNs opinions to simply step back and ignore the whole publication

 

[Wilco]

So (and setting aside an questions of deities that have plans...):

A1) Some people don't want to be concerned with the impact of non-resistant bees on free living bees, and
A2) Some do.

B1) Some people think non-resistant bees don't have any impact on free living bees, and
B2) Some do.

C1) Some people think there are no free-living bees, and
C3 Some think there are.

May I suggest that this blog is for the benefit of those in all groups A2, B2, and C2? Conversation here is predicated, as indicated in the OP, on acceptance of those beliefs?

We may note that we have now collected perhaps 10 scientific papers that are in full accordance with beliefs B2 and C2 and zero scientific papers that question them. (Belief A being a purely personal moral stance, though it may be supported by possession of beliefs B1 and C1)

I'm sure that's more complicated than it needs to be, but I thought it worth at least trying to set out our various options as I see them...

You missed one:

D1. Some people think free living bees are resistant and kept ones aren't.
D2. Some don't.

 

[Wilco]

I guess blogs are echo chambers. I still have my cancer blog running for information.
Maybe the answer is for anybody who doesn’t espouse BNs opinions to simply step back and ignore the whole publication

What attracted me to this website was discussion and challenge. That's what makes it thrive.

 

[Erichalfbee]

What attracted me to this website was discussion and challenge. That's what makes it thrive.

I agree but there are places where that seems impossible such is the temperature of peoples’ opinions.
What is the solution?

 

[fian]

Beenaturally, I just read your post header and unless my translator is malfunctioning. It is evident that there is a contradiction between the second paragraph "in Ireland and the United Kingdom this has happened..." and the last sentence of the same "...to understand why beekeeping without treatment works in some circumstances and not in others" .
This, together with its three postulates, means that I cannot understand what it is that it intends.
Finally, science and religion don't get along and talking about beliefs supported by scientific studies does not help their cause. I recommend, as advice, that you use the meanings of "lemmas" or "postulates" to describe your ideas.

So (and setting aside an questions of deities that have plans...):

A1) Some people don't want to be concerned with the impact of non-resistant bees on free living bees, and
A2) Some do.

B1) Some people think non-resistant bees don't have any impact on free living bees, and
B2) Some do.

C1) Some people think there are no free-living bees, and
C3 Some think there are.

May I suggest that this blog is for the benefit of those in all groups A2, B2, and C2? Conversation here is predicated, as indicated in the OP, on acceptance of those beliefs?

We may note that we have now collected perhaps 10 scientific papers that are in full accordance with beliefs B2 and C2 and zero scientific papers that question them. (Belief A being a purely personal moral stance, though it may be supported by possession of beliefs B1 and C1)

I'm sure that's more complicated than it needs to be, but I thought it worth at least trying to set out our various options as I see them...

 

[Beesnaturally]

You missed one:

D1. Some people think free living bees are resistant and kept ones aren't.
D2. Some don't.

I would say that (both parts) was implicit. Perhaps I should say 'free-living thriving' bees. They couldn't be described that way unless they were resistant.

Does that work for you?

 

[Beesnaturally]

Beenaturally, I just read your post header and unless my translator is malfunctioning. It is evident that there is a contradiction between the second paragraph "in Ireland and the United Kingdom this has happened..." and the last sentence of the same "...to understand why beekeeping without treatment works in some circumstances and not in others" .
This, together with its three postulates, means that I cannot understand what it is that it intends.
Finally, science and religion don't get along and talking about beliefs supported by scientific studies does not help their cause. I recommend, as advice, that you use the meanings of "lemmas" or "postulates" to describe your ideas.
Finally, science and religion don't get along and talking about beliefs supported by scientific studies does not help their cause. I recommend, as advice, that you use the meanings of "lemmas" or "postulates" to describe your ideas.

First, its not me bringing deities into the conversation - and my reference there should be read as politely suggesting we don't go down that alley any further.

My list items are not postulates, just attempts to lay out some options. If you think they overlap, or and inadequate, you are welcome to suggest changes.

If you are referring to notions of resistance and free-living bees, I've deliberately couched the choices in terms of beliefs. Personally of course I believe the scientific studies bear witness to which beliefs are accurate.

As to your UK/Ireland quibble: whether or not resistant free living bees are possible is entirely a matter of local environment. So my meaning is that it is possible, and not, in different places in the UK and in Ireland. In mentioning those two areas I was trying to unsure we understood that we include our home ground in the idea that they are possible here - in the UK and Ireland.

 

[Beesnaturally]

sent the edit, again