BBE-Tech: Honey Bee Conservation

It has come up in several discussions that when talking about beekeeping that doesn’t call for “treatments” such as trapping and eliminating small hive beetle, or some active method of removing or cutting  down mite populations by dusting or medicating, etc…, that some “treatment free” enthusiasts can go a bit “overboard”.

I would have to agree with that.

There are some posts and websites that like to jump from the beginning to the end and tell you that not treating bees will give you healthier, survivor bees that have adapted and developed traits allowing them to co-exist or eliminate these pests, etc without interference from beekeepers.  It’s just that easy.

Except, it’s not that easy.

The hard, costly part of this scenario is the middle part of the story.  What is happening to the bees while all this adapting is going on.

Bee will die, make no mistakes about it.  Be prepared to see some colonies, many colonies, struggle and die out.

If you are buying bees, this can get very expensive and that is why you will find that most beekeepers who pay for bees will also treat bees to protect that investment.  Buying bees is not cheap.  You don’t fork over $65 to $150.00 per package or nuc to watch them die.  Although, that will happen too sometimes, no matter how much you treat.

For those of us who don’t pay for bees, we get them by catching swarms and removing colonies that live inside house or garage walls, etc….  The financial argument is much decreased, if not existent at all.  For us, our investment is in time.  Both those who buy bees and those who catch them have an equal emotional investment (for the most part).

Folks who catch bees spend a lot of time and effort in safely catching and hiving bees, we have to look at it as a “tough love” situation, much as we do our family and community members.

If the bees are going to “make it” they have to do it themselves. Some things we just can’t do for others.

Like make the adaptations required to overcome obstacles and survive. We can’t do it for them.  all we end up doing is propping them up.  Keeping bees from adapting because they are relying on our treatments and not experiencing the necessary roughness that prompts adaptation.

It is taking a risk.  You risk the bees dying instead of adapting.  But, they would have likely died anyway had they been left where we found them.  The mites and shb and other pests would still have faced them and they still would have been forced to adapt or die.

If they didn’t die, they would have exhibited those behaviors and traits to survive and those are exactly the traits we are seeking to add to the genetics of local bees.

So now we can help the bees in general by allowing the survivors to adapt and breeding from those, allowing them to propagate the species by sending their drones out to the drone congregation areas and letting the queens from who knows how many colonies have access to survivor traits.

Everyone benefits from bees adapting. We just have to have the patience, the willingness to risk and the toughness of character to let those bees live or die on their own.  Much as we have to let our children live their own lives and fail or succeed on their own.  We can’t do it for them.

Once they do succeed, we can help them to repeat that success though.  We can be there to do splits and queen raising and other things to help those successful, survival traits continue on beyond the one colony.

No treatment beekeeping can work and leave you with survivor bees that need no or few artificial chemicals and interventions that cost money and possibly work to the long term detriment of the bees.

It takes time though and patience and heartache, letting them do what they have to do.

I am one of those people who believe that “big” business is not good for people.  Oh sure, there are those who say it is un-sustainable and the huge corporations will eventually collapse around us after they have sucked dry everything they can.  That’s not my point though.

I just don’t think that bigger is always better.

Keeping smaller, manageable objectives is healthier for people and society overall, in my opinion.

By keeping my bee yards smaller and building up more of them,  I can pay more attention to the hives in each yard.   I am able to pay more attention to what is going on around me.

If  I get so many bee yards that it becomes difficult to keep track with one or two people,  I can help the community by hiring someone to help, thus contributing jobs to the area.

I don’t run big stores to sell my products,  I prefer to run small shops and open air market places.  I do this for a reason.  I have been involved in corporate store management many times in my life and I find that customers and people in general, act better, they treat each other more decently, in a small, personal setting.

They get to know me, the seller, better.   I get more opportunities to really talk to people and listen to them.  To learn what they want and what they are looking for.

To be perfectly honest, I am not looking to get rich.   I just want to be comfortable, be happy and take care of my family and my bees.  That gives me freedom from focusing on increasing profits and pay more attention to making things the best they can be and increasing customers instead.

If I can do that, the profits will come.

The devil is in the details and big things come in small packages.

My personal favorite saying though is, a good life is not in the getting, but in the doing.

By keeping things smaller and manageable,  I can do a lot.

We all can.

People take a lot of flak from human apologists.

I think humans or (two-leggeds) are great when we leave our egos in the sock drawer.

We have so much capacity to facilitate, support and be a part of the world around us.  We are avid learners and studiers. We are able to have compassion toward the other inhabitants of earth who are more subject to natures laws of “survival of the fittest” than we are.

At the same time, we can be dumb as bricks when we allow our pride and egos to become inflated.  We have a tendency to over-value our place in the world, as though we are immortal “little gods” or something.

There are those of us who begin to think that what knowledge and information they have gained about the world around us somehow makes us experts and thus somehow qualified to micro-manage the world around us.

As I said,  I am not anti-human.  We are great.  Terrific. Capable of so much good works and abilities.  There are those among us who feel guilty about having opposable thumbs though,  and that we as a species are unworthy of sharing the planet because of a propensity to curb our enthusiasm, as it were.

I use the word “facilitate” a lot.  mostly because that is where our greatest strength lay, I think.  To facilitate means we see the world around it as it is and respect that.  We can turn around and find ways to take trouble situations for other creatures and help them make it on their own.  If we choose to see them, that is.

I do not apologize for our existence and the place we currently hold in the world of living creatures.  In many ways, we are still ultimately guided by Natures law of “Survival of the fittest”  in that we hold keenly to the idea that “Those who can, do.  Those who can’t, do not”.

In general, this means that among us two-leggeds, those of us who are continually working and adapting ourselves, flexible and open minded, will continue to succeed and thrive.

As with all other creatures in nature, there are those who are ‘do-ers’  and there are parasites among us as well.

In the insect world, there are do-ers like honey bees and there are parasites like varroa mites.

Among humans, our do-ers are those who build and grow and create things.  Then we have our parasites like politicians, lawyers and corporate investors.

Despite having our parasites.  those who take from others instead of doing for themselves, us humans are largely do-ers.

As we do those things lie building, growing food, making tools and resources, we have slowly but surely learned to be more mindful f of how we use the natural resources of the world around us and to not be as wasteful as when we began the process.

We continue to learn to reduce, re-use and recycle.  We replenish the forest planting new trees for those we cut down.

We are overall more mindful of the ‘wild’ places that the other living creatures on this world need, just as we need our spaces.

I am proud to consider myself one of the more mindful “do-ers” of our species.   I encourage you to be a mindful do-er as well.

By being mindful do-ers of our species, we continue to earn our place among the survivors of this world.

Ok folks, I am speaking just from my own point of view here, not “officially” for BBE-Tech: Honey Bee Conservation.

I am going to put my neck out here and disagree with some of the more common advice regarding using a top bar hive.

There are those who would tell you that a top bar hive is best used by ‘experienced’ beekeepers and that a new beekeeper should stick to ‘traditional’ hives like the Langstroth hive.

I obviously am going to disagree here.

As a matter of fact, properly started,  I think a top bar hive is better for new beekeepers and especially those who intend to keep it small, a hobby.

First of all, A top bar hive is just physically easier to maintain.  No one can argue this.  When you inspect or pull honey, you are only working with one bar at a time, weighing about 5 to 7 pounds.  No picking up 60 to 90 pound boxes.

Next, the very nature of having to handle only top bars, one at a time also means that you do not face the situation created by having to stack down boxes from the top of a hive and set each box somewhere, either on a side or on another board, consequently having to re-seat each box back in it’s original place, creating many opportunities to crush bees in the process, further agitating the bees.

By working with only one bar at a time, you can move more relaxed and slowly, not having the whole hive cracked open and worrying about chilled brood, etc..The very act of moving slowly and calmly agitates the bees hardly, if at all.  This gives you a much more pleasant and happy experience when working with the bees instead of feeling rushed and afraid of handling the bees roughly, maybe agitating them to sting as can happen .

The comb is in a top bar hive is also consequently easier to look at up close and inspect.  This allows the new beekeeper to really get a good look at the comb and the activities of the bees on the comb.  You can watch and learn more because of the ease of the bees and yourself.

Now, can these things be done with a traditional Langstroth hive?  Some of them can, you bet, but, my point is, that one can become better prepared to use a Langstroth style hive by starting with a top bar hive.

It’s “easier” to build confidence and become comfortable with the bees with a top bar hive.  The calm easy manner you learn to handle the top bars will help you to be better at handling frames in a Lang, which are easily banged against the sides of the hive if one is not careful.

By taking your time and building your confidence around bees in the relaxed setting of a top bar hive, spending your time looking at comb and really getting to know what you are seeing without the feeling of a clock ticking, you will be better able to know what you are looking at in a frame, thus taking less time to inspect with the lid off and boxes split apart.

Yes, it’s true pretty much all bee classes will use and focus on Lang hives and there are far more people experienced in Lang hives to give you advice than with top bar hives and yes, there are more retail vendors selling equipment and supplies for Lang hives as well.

But remember, you only need to focus on learning bee biology and behavior to know what you are seeing in a top bar hive.  You do not need all that hardware and equipment to run a top bar hive.  You might need a hat and veil, a smoker and a big serrated bread knife.  That’s it at the basics.

In terms of finding assistance and mentors for top bar beekeeping, there are more and more people everyday getting into top bar hives. There are resources out there now dedicated to top bar hives, ours being one of them.

Don’t let yourself be bullied or BS’d by the “that’s how it’s been done for 100 years” crowd.  Some people get stuck in their thinking and are uncomfortable in accepting other methods than those they have become accustomed to.

You don’t have to argue with them or be belligerent.  Simply thank them for their opinion and advice and carry on doing things the way you have chosen.

Top bar hives have been around in one form or another for at least 220 years and some can trace them back to ancient Egyptian and Greek times. So this is nothing new or ‘fancy’ we’re talking about here.

It’s also not going back to the stone ages as some suggest either. It’s simply using time tested and proven methods that were being used before the “new” tradition started.

Nothing wrong with using tried and true.

All in all,  I do highly recommend using top bar hives for new beekeepers and hobbyists.  It can make being a beekeeper even more fun and interesting than you ever thought it might.

I prefer top bar hives, that’s no secret.  However,  I do keep a couple of Lang hives to have frames available for the observation hive I have.

One of the things that  I love about top bar hives is that  I can handle comb without unnecessarily shaking, hitting or banging the comb.   I have big hands you see, (I wear a size 16 ring, you can pass a quarter through it).

Handling top bars from the ends makes it much easier to pick up a comb and handle it smoothly and without fumbling it around.

In a Lang hive,  I confess, it is hard to pick up the frames, especially the first couple, without mis-handling the comb and upsetting bees.  My fingers are just too big to fit in between the frames to pick them up.

Then, I discovered the frame grip.  Thank God for the inventor of that handy tool.

With the frame grip,  I can pick up Lang hive frames, regardless of position in the hive and handle them so easily and gently.

I had resigned myself to having to wear my bee jacket and hat/veil just to work the lang hives because of the issue.

Now, I can work the Langs just as easily as I do the top bar hives, without all the protection.

It’s incredible the difference it makes in working a hive and how docile the bees can bee if you aren’t knocking the frames around.

If you have little hands and can work frames in a Lang hive without problems, I encourage you to do so.  Working hands on as much as possible with a hive is good for both the bees and the beekeeper.

But if you’re like me and are bigger than the average person and it is troublesome to work it without disrupting the bees, then by all means, use a tool that can help you work with them more easily.  That is the more important goal in beekeeping.  working calmly, patiently and with little to no knocking them around.

They will respond in kind to how kind you handle them.

I would like to say that there are really two kinds of beekeepers, “hands off” and “hands on”.

Yes, there are some who experiment to see if and where a middle ground is, but they start in one camp or another and build from there.

The ‘hands on” group is the person who believes they have a need or responsibility to ‘treat’ honey bees much as they would any person.  If they spot disease, they put synthetic medicines and compounds into the hive.  If there is perceived to be not enough food, they will put a food alternative or supplement into the hive.

Alternatively, the ‘hands off’ people think of beekeeping in simplistic terms.  Put the bees into a hive, check on them once in awhile to spot progress, health and stores, then, harvest.

If the bees are lacking food or are suffering some illness, they will take general, external or what they consider to be ‘natural’ remedies. Those mostly being non-synthetic (not made artificially by people).  If they add food, it will often be remote feeding from a distance, not actually placing food into the hive itself if at all possible.

Members of the two groups argue almost constantly as to which group is doing “better” for the bees.

I stand firmly in the minimal treatment camp.  Honey bees have relied upon instinctive behaviors and traits to help them survive and adapt over millions of years.  Despite the moving around of colonies from continent to continent, introducing lines of bees to pests from other regions, the increased use of pesticides and chemicals on the plant life in our living and agricultural areas, bees continue to survive, despite heavy losses .

Honey bees are incredibly adaptive and tenacious survivors.  If given the opportunity and the right location, they can overcome just about anything..  sometimes, it’s not about what we people do, it’s often more about what we don’t do that can help the most.

Why did you begin beekeeping?

I know why I did.   I like honey and  I wanted to help honey bees continue to be healthy and present in my area.

I was here, working on building another Warre hive in the shop, trying to update the dimensions to modern day dimensional lumber sizes.  ( I can’t help it, it’s the experimentalist in me.)

I got to thinking about what is it about beekeeping that compels us to over-complicate things and make something that should be easy and relaxing and turn it into a stressful chore.

Bees face enough challenges from pesticides, pests, diseases, weather and dearth.  The last they they need is us adding onto the list.

I hear people talk about how much work it is to “make” honey.  Hmmm, let me see, last time  I checked, we don’t “make” honey, the bees do.  We harvest honey.  There is still work to harvesting honey, no doubt, but it need not be a stressful event.

As a matter of fact, I find that most tasks and chores relating to beekeeping are the kind of things  I like to do.  They are pleasant distractions from the real problems in my life.   “Busy” work if you will that gets me out of my day to day thoughts and lets me put my mind on something less dire.

If working with honey bees is more of a task or a chore that isn’t enjoyable for you, then I would venture you are making it too hard.

I work with bees and bee related products for a living.  It’s not just a hobby for me, it’s what I am turning into my life’s work.  Yet and still, I enjoy working with honey bees.

I enjoy observing the hives and building hives and I enjoy harvesting honey.   I don’t believe  I work too hard at doing it either.   I find challenges in it and I find fun with sharing it with others.   I really could even say I’m not so much a bee “keeper” as much as I am a bee “watcher”.

No,  I don’t believe beekeeping needs to be made easier.  it already is easy.  We just need to learn when we are trying to make it more than it is.

Humans do the darndest things, don’t we?

We are great inventors.  What we don’t have, we invent.

Some folks make the mistake of confusing invention and science as the same thing.  It really isn’t.

Science is study.  It’s a precise, practical method that allows us to understand what is happening around us. How do things work, under what conditions, etc…

Invention is creativity.  It’s making something that wasn’t necessarily there before.  Science can be used in invention to be sure.  Many of the things studied and researched have led to incredible technologies being invented and implemented.

In developing a medicine, one will use medical research and study to see how the medicine reacts in a variety of patients.  to see if there are conditions under which it doesn’t work or creates adverse issues.  Lots of study and research in creating medicines.  It’s easy to think that that the invention of the medicine and the science of it are one and the same.

One thing leads to another, that’s for sure.  By using the scientific method and studying or researching something, it can inspire us to invent something else to manipulate or modify or transport, etc… that which we study.

How does this relate to honey bees?  There has been both much scientific study of honey bees done and there have been many inventions relating to beekeeping introduced.

In some cases, the scientific study of some honey bee diseases have inspired the invention of medicines to treat those illnesses.

That’s all well and good.  However, we humans, in our ferver to invent quite often forget that just because we can do something, we neglect to ask if we should do it.

We often stop at the short term and don’t look further down the  road to what can or will happen later as a result.  It’s part of our all to often short sighted-ness.  We want the quick fix.  We are impatient to make things happen now.

It is also a tendency of ours to not leave well enough alone.  Science and invention must be guided by principle and ethics.    If we invent a medicine that will ‘cure’ deformed wing disease in bees, perhaps someone might look and say that with a ‘tweak’ one could not only cure the malformed wing disease, but control or change how the bees fly entirely.

These things happen all the time.  Once the technology exists, someone, somewhere else will adapt it and not always to a moral or ethical use.

As supposedly responsible people, we need to always ask ourselves, just becasue we can invent a medicine that will in the short term treat a disease, does that automatically mean that we should use it, especially if we are not sure that in the future, with over exposure to pro-longed usage (o r perhaps inappropriate usage) it will have detrimental effects that might cause a bigger problem than we intended to solve.

Both science and invention are great things.  They are not the same things and they both need to be guided by ethical and responsible thinking.  Without those, science and invention are as much of a threat to us as they are a benefit.

What does it mean to support honey bee conservation if you are not or do not plan to work with honey bees personally?

It means making choices when indirectly confronted with the bees.

For example, a swarm of bees lands on your property, you have a choice.  Try to kill them because you are afraid of them OR find someone who can remove them live and relocate them somewhere they will not ‘bother’ you.

It means when buying honey, you have a choice.  You can buy honey from a ‘super’ packer, who buys honey from all over the world, often tainted or having non honey ingredients dded as ‘fillers’ to make it cheaper at WalMart.  OR, you can buy local honey, from a local producer where the honey is 100% honey bee made and derived from your geographic area where it was made from the plants and nectar you are surrounded by every day.

You can buy the super cheap paraffin candles which burn quickly and rely on added, often artificial scents.  OR you can buy candles made from beeswax, which burn longer, have a natural, terrific ‘honey’ scent and are produced by those honey bees often right in your area.

You can ask to find fruits, nuts and vegetables which are grown ‘bee friendly’ not using chemicals or pesticides known to harm bees.

There are a number of things you can do to help conserve honey bees and the wonderful contributions they make to our lives without ever directly working with them.

Help your local honey bees, you will be glad you did.

Partly for fun and partly becasue it’s true,  I answer my own questions about what to do and handle situations related to beekeeping by asking “What Would Feral Do?”

I ask that question becasue I approach beekeeping as a facilitator.  As honey bees have successfully survived and indeed thrived on this planet with little to no human involvement for the vast majority of that time, I believe that honey bees are pretty crafty critters.

Most of the problems honey bees face now are as direct or indirect results of humans interjecting themselves into the situation.

After trying to ‘improve’ something, we end up having caused a new problem thus ‘requiring’ us to solve that problem with another of our our own ideas and pretty much piling man made problems onto bees that made it just fine on their own for so long without us at all.

There are those who will argue and say that most feral bees have died out now so if ‘feral’ is so great, how are they dying out.

This is true.  Many of the biggest problems come form us though.  Humans have decided to impregnate the very seeds of crops with poison to kill insects.  Beekeepers use some of those crops regularly in working with bees.  corn, notorious for such insecticide use is used for feeding to bees.

People have introduced pests that did not natively belong in one environment from another, such as hive beetle and varroa mites.  Both of which have had devastating effects on bees that were not used to these pests and did not have the benefit of ‘natural’ introduction to these pests.  This usually occurs over a period of years  as the natural progression and growth of said pests allows for natural adaptation by the bees.

So yes,  I have no doubt that on their own, bees make much better decisions on bee survival than humans do.  If one studies and observes natural honey bee behavior, they will have a better understanding of what bees do on their own and what we can do to facilitate and strengthen those natural behaviors and adaptations.

I am not trying to convince anyone to change the way they think or do things.   I do not ask that anyone agree with me.  I simply offer this information to answer the questions why  I do what  I do