BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • 'Natural' beekeeping

  • share the funny, scary & the completely stupid things you've seen & heard
share the funny, scary & the completely stupid things you've seen & heard
 #9053  by Beeblebrox
 01 Oct 2020, 16:14
Disease / pest flow is from intensive beekeepers to wild colonies and 'natural' beekeepers' hives. How do you think varroa came to the UK in the first place?

Once you stop obsessing about honey and investigate further you notice all sorts of things. Like the long lived wild colonies around you.

BBKA training stresses swarm prevention. Swarms cause a brood break, which acts as a circuit breaker on varroa breeding. Most swarms from natural hives get caught once the beekeeper has a year or so's experience.
 #9056  by Patrick
 01 Oct 2020, 23:05
Hi Beeblebrox

Do most of the natural beekeepers you know inspect their bees weekly and keep their bees in their gardens? I am intrigued how they manage to catch their swarms so consistently. We could all benefit from that.

Certainly a lot of beekeepers I know who inspect their bees less frequently are often unaware their bees have swarmed at all, let alone catch them. As I don’t normally work from home or keep bees in my garden, consistently catching swarms I would find pretty challenging. How would you manage it?
 #9057  by Chrisbarlow
 02 Oct 2020, 08:41
Varroa jumped species from Apis Cerana to Apis millifera

Apis Cerana is a totally wild and unmanaged species. Nature caused varroa in apis millifera

Pre varroa in the UK, there will have been hundreds of thousands of wild colonies in the UK. When varroa arrived in the UK it killed all those wild colonies which have no human intervention in their management and could swarm at will.
 #9058  by AdamD
 02 Oct 2020, 14:48
Beeblebrox wrote:
01 Oct 2020, 16:14
Swarms cause a brood break, which acts as a circuit breaker on varroa breeding.
I don't disagree with that - from my experience (and this could be anecdotal as I have not measured varroa numbers or had enough colonies to be stastically certain) colonies that have produced brood continually all year are more likely to have a dangerous varroa level in August than those that have swarmed or had a brood break of some sort.

As well as the varroa stop breeding when the bees do, some fall off or are groomed off and fall through the mesh floor so when the bees do start again, there are less varroa to cause a real nuisance.
 #9062  by AndrewLD
 02 Oct 2020, 17:54
Beeblebrox wrote:
01 Oct 2020, 16:14
Disease / pest flow is from intensive beekeepers to wild colonies and 'natural' beekeepers' hives. How do you think varroa came to the UK in the first place?

Once you stop obsessing about honey and investigate further you notice all sorts of things. Like the long lived wild colonies around you.

BBKA training stresses swarm prevention. Swarms cause a brood break, which acts as a circuit breaker on varroa breeding. Most swarms from natural hives get caught once the beekeeper has a year or so's experience.
I know that there is a concern about the transmission of honeybee colony diseases being transmitted to wild bees and I share a current concern about too many colonies being kept in cities (to the detriment of wild bees) and sometimes by beekeepers that do not do enough to prevent swarming.
Bit I think the bit about obsessing about honey needs clarification because many members of the BBKA are far from being obsessed about honey and their primary aim to help pollinators - me included. Some friends of mine enjoyed taking me to see a wild colony that had been in the same tree for over 20 years. Given that colonies die, the nest is cleaned out by wax moth and re-occupied by swarms - it seemed too churlish to ask how they knew it was the same colony.....
 #9063  by Patrick
 02 Oct 2020, 20:54
AndrewLD wrote:Some friends of mine enjoyed taking me to see a wild colony that had been in the same tree for over 20 years. Given that colonies die, the nest is cleaned out by wax moth and re-occupied by swarms - it seemed too churlish to ask how they knew it was the same colony.....
I too have wondered about that. I have a nucleus as a bait hive on the corner of the roof of my bee shed every year. Every year I pick up a passing swarm. Every year it is removed and passed on. If it was a hole in a tree, I am sure many passing would swear blind it was in continuous occupation. That is not to say there are not continuous occupation wild colonies, but I know just how attractive to swarms a previously occupied cavity is.
 #9070  by Bobbysbees
 03 Oct 2020, 19:48
Iv just finished building a long hive in an attempt to try some 0 intervention bee keeping. My aim is to drop my first spilt into it early next year. Just let it get on with it. I figure if they survive with out me messing about and feeding them the swarms that they cast off will then be more hardy and less prone to disease. If you consider it from an evolutionary point of view ,the domestic honey bee is as naturally unlikely as a thorough bred race horse. I acknowledge the skill and work of such people as Brother Adam but Mother nature may point in a rather different direction for bees. Survival of the fittest and tiny natural adaptations are maybe over looked by some people. Herd immunity never looks good from the individuals point of view. But bees dont think like that ,nor does evolution.
 #9074  by AndrewLD
 05 Oct 2020, 08:17
It would be nice to think that this approach could work and I certainly believe the BBKA should more than just about conventional beekeeping. If you live miles from other people, why not try it out and see what happens.
But if you near other people and/or apiaries and they get your swarms arriving to live in their eaves, chimneys or hives you could be creating a problem or worse, a nuisance. Furthermore, bees tend to get mixed up with other bees and some diseases and pests like varroa get spread around. If you just leave them alone how will you know if they are suffering or spreading really nasty stuff like AFB/EFB?
 #9077  by Patrick
 05 Oct 2020, 12:21
Hi Bobbysbees

0 intervention beekeeping is actually more common than you might think. Alongside those practicing it by deliberate design are many more who haven’t inspected hives for years due to personal illness, suspected allergy to beestings, fear of bees, hives in remote apiaries “lost” due to secretive beekeepers never passing on their whereabouts, feral colonies in problematic locations, hive types sold that actively preclude inspections (some types of log hives for example) and etc. Unfortunately it hasn’t in my experience led to any observable positive break throughs. For reasons I could conjecture, I seem to mainly recall the colonies I have been involved with that were left for some years being memorably defensive. Maybe that is coincidental.

Trying it in a long hive could be an interesting angle.

Sure you don’t need my thoughts and apologies if you know all this already but here are a few things to look out for. The zero inspections sounds okay but apart from watching the entrance activity you may still need to heft to ensure they have enough food. If 4 out of 5 feral / wild swarms do not survive their first winter, it can’t logically just be because beekeepers took an unsustainable harvest.

I am sure if you populate it in the first year with a split with a new mated queen, uninspected they will do great in the first year. It may be the next year the problems will start to arise.

I think the uncontrolled swarming could be the first main issue. Notwithstanding Andrew’s point about responsibility to neighbours, some strains of bees will swarm and swarm again - don’t trust the old myth they only swarm due to enforced congestion. Bees would have died out Millenia ago if the only reason they reproduced was choosing too small cavities. The issue this creates for your experiment is that the remaining bees after repeated swarming and casting may have lost nearly all their surplus honey stored to date (taken with the swarms), most of their population and be left with a virgin queen yet to start laying. Not only do they face a challenge to rebuild population to survive winter but also sufficient foragers to bring in yet another surplus to tide them over to spring. Any other bees in the area will late summer be only too aware of their frailty and alongside wasps make endless attempts to rob them out. Giving them a really small entrance in your long hive is only useful if they are still strong enough to defend it in the first place.

I suspect not treating them for varroa will have little externally observable impact of itself in the first or second year, other things such as swarming may be more significant. Uncontrolled swarming of itself will indeed help reduce the varroa burden.

Be interested to hear how you get on, keep us posted. I would rather like to be proved wrong on this one as it might free up my weekends rather usefully ;) .
 #9099  by Bobbysbees
 06 Oct 2020, 17:42
Thanks for your input guys. I have considered the issue of swarming and the surroundings. As soon as i got my first hive i informed my direct neighbours and asked them to let me know if they spot any swarms in the area. Im more than prepared to collect any i hear about or see.
The point on AFB/EFB is well made and may require a little more intervention/inspection than i may first have thought i needed. Though feral/wild bees must also carry these diseases along with veroa ect. Its fascinating to me that beekeepers seem to forget that bees exists in nature pretty well without all our scientific intervention and have done for years. I completely understand if you are running a commercial operation, not wanting some well meaning amateur messing round near by causing you issues. But that said, are you then going to go round all the wild colonies with a can of Raid just to prevent cross contamination?
Im pleased you mentioned stores and swarming as again, i may have over looked this.
Im glad that i can get some input from others here to help me find ways of working with nature rather than trying to get nature to conform to some predetermined course.
Like most people getting in to a new hobby Im always keen to learn. So my apologies for being a well meaning amateur. :)