My friend has put a bee hive on our project. They’re re-wilded black-ish ones crossed with buckfast. He used to be a bee keeper but the Varoa killed too many hives and since he was getting older it was too heavy anyway.
Apparently not only Varoa is a problem, but also a hive bug coming North from Italy and there is the problem of the Asian Hornets which decimate many hives and there is the problem of an even bigger African wasp who landed in Spain which can even kill people.
I am proposing a landrace style solution to him, but he thinks nature will sought it out itself. I’d love to put together the Varoa resistant Dutch bees with the native black ones and Japanese bees that are resistant to the Asian Hornets and other bees.
So many problems on the horizon for the aging bee keeper populations.
I would like to take the opportunity to readers to comment on the matter.
Am i just a dreaming fool or is it a feasible project… or are honeybees overrated as they are and should we just rejoice their decimation and embrace the rise of mason bees?
Good luck, I have never treated my bees for anything, don’t feed them sugar water and they are doing fine in their horizontal hives. Some populations die off, but that is part of the deal. One downside is that the busy seasons for a beekeeper overlap with the busy seasons of a gardener.
Maarten
I tend to think that nature will sort itself out in time. However, you certainly are free to try things. Perhaps it works, perhaps not. It’s your time and effort, right?
I am very interested in this topic as I’m currently making my first hive. I have absolutely no personal experience. I designed my hive based on several years of watching YouTube videos. It’s a modified version of a horizontal hive.
Should we let honey bees fade away? Well they are alive and well in the south eastern US. Some say there’s an over abundance due to the fact that they love taking up residence in people’s houses. I don’t know if they have a problem with hornets attacking the bees there but they definitely have the mites and beetles and yet the feral bees are thriving.
I find it endlessly fascinating to watch videos of feral colonies being removed from homes. It’s amazing how much honey they find and how the comb is fitted into the spaces in walls, ceilings and under floors.
There’s a video of Dirt Rooster giving a presentation about what he has learned from the feral bees he has relocated over the years. Unfortunately the sound quality is poor as it was originally a live stream with poor Internet connection. I will try to summarize what I think he saying but in my own words. Start with local bees, provide them with a stress free environment and don’t use chemical treatments. He clearly has an abundance of bee colonies to choose from so he keeps the ones with characteristics he likes. Mostly they are feral in his case so they are unknown breeds. I think he would say if feral queens were not available, to at least get local queens if possible. In his experience feral bees will seek out cool parts of buildings that are sheltered from the sun and near open space like a lake. They like to close off their hive space with propolis and have very small entrances that they can defend. He has seen hives where the bees had corraled beetles with propolis until he broke into the hive and accidentally set the beetles free. Part of a stress free environment would be to avoid opening the hive. He has seen many large healthy feral colonies that were living with mites and beetles and knows many commercial beekeepers who are having major losses. He doesn’t use chemicals because he feels it weakens the bees, the pests develop resistance and the bees don’t learn to use adaptation strategies.
Here is the interview.
Here’s his YouTube channel. Lots of feral bee colony cut outs from homes and photos in the gulf Coast region.
That’s what my friend says. But i’ve got the idea of the American chestnut in mind. It got decimated by a decease a few billion giant trees dies, because of a disease, and now for the bees it’s coming from all sites.
I’m wondering if the landrace mindset of people here could help nature adapt quicker, so we don’t lose too many for a long time.
@MaartenFoubert interesting, i have heard of those hives quite a bit. Do you have comparing material, like a classic hive next to it, to see it does better? Or do you have one beehive like that because it makes life more natural for the bees?
@grannio i have a big forest behind the house feral bees must live there and send out drones, i believe the beehives genetics will change because of their feral genetics, and they’re more suited for life in the wild, so stronger, which could come in handy. But they’re adapted to what’s currently here, not to what’s coming.
I think the most important factor for a hive to thrive is for there to be as continuous a supply of diverse forage as possible. Probably also, diversity of native species forage. For example there are flowers that produce no nectar but provide copious pollen. Commercial bee keepers tend to place their hives in locations where there’s only one main forage crop. Is that perhaps like giving humans only one kind of food to eat? Not a well balanced diet. Perhaps not enough to produce a bee that is robust enough to survive multiple stresses.
Paul Stamets has done quite a bit of research on the role of beneficial fungi in the health of bees. He claims this is an important but generally overlooked aspect of bee health. It seems plausible to me. There are fungi that are good food for humans. There are fungi that are medicinal for humans. Perhaps also for bees. For that matter, I wonder about the possibility that certain plants may be medicinal for bees.
I think that historically humans have greatly erred in assuming that bees and insects are simple creatures. They are not simple at all. They are very complex and are collectively very intelligent. They likely have a sort of culture when left undisturbed. Then humans go moving them around and disrupting their environment. Why would that be any less harmful to bees and their culture than to humans and their culture?
Hugo, actually what your neighbor and you are proposing is pretty much the same. He calls it “letting nature take its course”, you “landracing”.
As there are anyway beekeepers keeping many different strains of bees (buckfast, the local black mellifera are the two you name), and the males are flying a few km in the mating season, they will cross anyway.
What you propose, introducing new strains/breedstock from somewhere else has the benefit of adding biodiversity to your spot, therefore potentially speeding up adaptation to varroa. However, it also has drawbacks: it leads to even more homogenization of the worldwide bees, and carries the risk of introducing other pathogens.
Shipping bees back and forth is what actually lead to many issues like varroa and foul brood.
There should be enough diverse to forage over time, i’m in a nature reserve with lots of trees and many hedges and meadows full of rare plan6ts and medicinals.
I love mycelia and leave piles of brush to rot down and throw chips on the pathways as well as chop and dropping trees and shrubs. I believe bees are clever, they collect medicinal herbs themselves to put in their propolis and dump it at holes and the entry.
We’re not planning on doing much to the bees, no disturbance at all for now. They’ve glued together the whole hive anyway. They can build however they see fit to their benefit. We fed them some extra to get them through winter though, it’s a young hive…
Hugo,
I started off with the Langstroth hives, but I realized that I wouldn’t be able to lift and move all those boxes in 30 years, so I had to come up with a system I could do in my 70s/80s. Some of the Pros and Cons:
Horizontal Pros:
- More insulation
- Easier on the bees
- Easier inspections
- No more heavy lifting of boxes
- Easier to close/open/protect against vermin
Horizontal Cons:
- Not as efficient in harvesting the honey (langstroth honey supers are more efficient)
- More tendency for cross comb, tying multiple frames together (but I am planning to add on some plastic foundation to the frames to guide the bees better)
- Not as widely used, so less information and supplies (for instance, I’ll probably have to cut my own plastic foundation for the frames as they are not available in the dimensions I need)
- Harder to find the queen as you can’t use queen excluders to isolate the queen.
I still have my langstroth hives, I put swarms in those, those are more my reserve teams.
Maarten
I see what you’re saying John. The risk is there to introduce new pathogens, but somebody might already have done the import and a cross not far from me.
As well i see your other risk, bees are getting too homogenous if they’re all crossed everywhere with every other resistant variety. But… if i don’t someone else will, maybe with a keener eye on making trades. I at least will be letting nature have it’s cause after the crosses.
I’m only in the orienting phase of this, i like to float the idea out there and people can tell me their ideas and i can take things into consideration. Weigh the pro’s and contra’s.
Another idea we floated with Gerrit was to gather all the bees ex bee keepers have left standing. I know another man who has three hives he just lets be. They’re propbably half wild as well by now. One of them was put into the forest because of being too hefty. These bee populations have good resistance of sorts as well. Maybe we could do a cry out through beekeeper land for bees like this. People quit because costs have gone up or they’ve grown too old to be bothered.
Wow!!! I’ve been doing a little searching to understand the situation better. I can see now why the hornets are such a big concern.
I found this article, it’s probably outdated now but it has a video showing how Asian bees defend against the hornet. It’s a question of the bees being able to survive a few degrees warmer temperature than the hornet. How long until some hornet adapts to the higher temp!?
https://bees4life.org/bee-extinction/6-reasons-for-bee-extinction/new-predators
The first thing that comes to mind for me is if a person was able to cross bees that have the hornet killing skill with bees able to produce more honey, would they lose that skill over time if the hornets haven’t arrived yet to keep them practicing the skill?
Yes the loss of our huge trees and old growth forests is a terrible thing. Like with the bees many factors are piling up against them. I’m not as hopeful for the forests as I am for the bees. Especially here in Montana. The native trees where I am grow on a time scale not perceptible to the human eye.
I’m more hopeful that bees will be able to adapt. They are capable of learning, communicating, moving to better locations and I think they have a group consciousness. Also because they have a short life cycle. I’m not a scientist or anything but it looks to me like commercial beekeeping techniques are hindering rather than helping. That’s why I’m so interested in learning what feral bees do differently. I want to try to set them up to be as healthy as possible so they are in a good position to adapt. Maybe with bees it would need to be a whole region full of vigorous colonies as one colony won’t be able to adapt quick enough.
Also I saw where they made cages around honey bee hives in the Pacific Northwest that excluded the giant hornets but let the honey bees through. Not sure if that would work for your hornets though. They set it up as a trap to lure in scout hornets, then put tracking devices on them to find where the hornet nests were located.
The European honey bees already cook European hornets, but they do not recognize the Asian black hornet as such. When the bees work to cook a hornet, they live an average of 10 days shorter. I don’t think they will adapt to the cooking soon.
As well Asian hornets hang in front of the entrance of the bee hive and catch tired bees returning from foraging, they feed them to their larvae.
These two factors are a burden in itself.
The Asian hornets came and won, the French have given up eradicating the nests, they’re here. But birds have come to the rescue and are downing nests they make high up trees to feast on the grubs.
Commercial beekeeping methods are not very helpful. I don’t think so either. But we just dominate nature anywhere we go as humans, monoculturizing every soil we see fit given the chance. Shortseihted ignorance, but that’s another topic completely. I think moving away from that would be a good step, having semi wild bee populations in horizontal hive systems is a good step. Growing orchards with trees that flower over a long period of time and not only first thing in spring is another i plan on doing. I mean, i don’t want to live to save the bees or something, it’s a win-win and i’ll get some honey,propolis and lots of fruits yearround for me and my community. Also helping the mason bees keep habitat is a good thing. They need messy stuff i read, like dead flower stalks standing, not neatly kept gardens. Because thes hotels are great, but also for the predetary wasps who don’t have to look far and wide to lay their eggs.
That is how evolution works. Everything is adapted to the past. There’s no getting around it.
I imagine it would be a lot easier to capture some wild hives than to landrace bees from domestic lines. Doing so would provide the same benefits (well adapted populations with reasonable genetic diversity).
I see what you say, but i can see problems coming and would like to prevent. The wild bees might be perfectly adapted in ways not handy for beekeepers. Hyperagressive bees for instance. I heard of colonies attacking if anything mammal like approaches within 100 meters. Great for protecting the hive from getting robbed, but not so much for a bee keeper.
But you’re right it is easier to get adapted wild colonies. But as the queens mate in these places with wild bees males in those mysterious places, I do not even need to get them. I need time…
I suppose it is done by folks with the set up and knowledge, but I think it would be really hard to breed bees.
I’ve never had bees, but I want to, and our local wild ones are the ones I want. I built a nice Warre hive two years ago hoping a swarm would just move in and two years in a row scout bees have checked it out but they did not take up residence.
Aggressive bees do exist of course but I’m I have pretty good ability judge the disposition of critters of all types including bees. Last year I had a swarm land in a tree in my yard and send scouts to my hive. I tried melting some wax to increase the aroma, but I screwed up. I melted it on the porch and took it to the hive, but I didn’t take into account the wind direction. The bees went to the spilled wax on the porch instead of the hive and I missed out, won’t make that mistake again. Also last year a friend called that there was a swarm in her yard. I ran down there to see and sure enough, a clump of bees was on the ground. Careful not to squish any I sat down and stuck my hand in them. They didn’t care at all. It was very odd and very cool feeling. I ran back home to get a box and when I got back, they were gone. I won’t make either of those mistakes again.
This year I have two swarm traps ready and will place one here and one at my friend’s house. At my friend’s house I know where the hive that swarmed is and can place my trap appropriately.
Along with not being afraid of bees I get inspiration from this young lady in Texas.
Texas bee lady
And another fellow on YouTube called Yappy Bee Man.
Those folks aren’t dumb, they have protective gear in case it’s needed and I do too. 
The Texas bee lady is really cool! I’ve been watching more of her videos, after seeing the one you linked me to. 
I love how gentle her voice is. It matches the work she’s doing.
Yea, her videos are very soothing and informative too. The Yappy Bee Man is fun too, just look him up on the YouTube. I really like those type of videos, where they just show you what they do instead of a bunch of happy horse manure about their world saving ideas.
Yes, how-tos are very instructive, and demonstrations that come with narrations explaining each step are the best kind. I learn a lot from things like that.
I located the hive that spawned that swarm last year. It was living in the eve of an old building a hundred or so yards away from where that swarm landed. It is also in the close neighborhood of our courthouse which thirty years ago was full of hives. A renovation of the courthouse back then got rid of them but I’m pretty positive this hive is descended from the same bees.
Anyway, I’ve watched it since discovering it last year and last year it was extremely active all season with so many bees you could hear them even tough is probably sixty feet off the ground.
I have my traps ready, and spots picked out to catch any swarm this year, but the old established hive is gone! I know no one bothered them because I am familiar with that building, and it is completely inaccessible without major work that would have left obvious evidence, the bees are just gone.
Here at home my peach trees had good bee activity a week or so ago so I’m hopeful that wherever the hive that produced the swarm that landed in my yard will do so again. I guess I’ll just put all of my traps here close to home and hope for the best.
The hive I built is a somewhat modified Warre design. It isn’t really built to harvest honey. It’s built as best as I can determine from research and my own observation of both wild and domestic bees to be as close as possible to what they may prefer in the wild. If I can get a swarm, I don’t intend to ever open it. Instead, I hope they will thrive and produce more swarms that I can capture and move into Langstroth or top-bar type hives.