In a message dated 07/01/2010 22:35:33 GMT Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:
 
"But a lot of people around here expect to replace a certain  percentage of 
their bees every year, due to "winter kill"."


 
Hi All,
 
Apologies if this seems 'preachy' - but I just write as I see things.   I 
don't want to argue, to let people know what I believe to be the simple  
underlying picture.  I'm using standard textbook biology, and we are  working 
with the rather simple basic principle that selection of the strongest  takes 
place naturally through the failure of the weaker to reproduce, and that  
this natural mechanism is essential to the maintenance of health in bees, just 
 as it is in all other living organisms.  Everything I write is predicated  
on that.  If you accept standard biology, then what follows is simply  a 
logical progression. 
 
The basis of health in populations is founded on the way all species  
produce more offspring than is needed to maintain a steady population.   Sexual 
reproduction ensures that all are different; and some will be stronger  than 
others.  The weaker genetic combinations die and the  stronger form the next 
generation.  This is repeated in each  generation.  
 
The normal average figure for winter deaths in bees in a healthy  ecosystem 
might be of the order of 5, 10 or 15% or higher.  It will  probably depend 
a lot on local conditions, and local races will vary.  As  long as the 
population can recover during the summer the population is stable,  and the 
turnover keeps it healthy.  This is  normal - things working the way they should. 
 The excess production of  offspring, and the death before reproduction of 
the weaker, keeps the population  healthy.  
 
Anything you do to upset this system will very soon result in sick  stock.
 
My teacher (who was born at the beginning of the last century, and learned  
beekeeping from his father) simply replaced winter losses with splits made  
from his best hives to replace winter losses, in the knowledge that he was 
doing  things right by nature. 
 
Expecting things to be different, and manipulating bees with treatments to  
try to overwinter them all, puts a crimp in the natural order of things.   
The system of natural selection is frustrated.  Over the generations,  
apiaries bees become dependent on whatever regime they are subjected to.   Their 
drones then downgrade local wild bees, reducing their populations.   What 
you end with is bees that are reliant on continuous manipulations and  
medication, and little or no wild population to feed in stronger genes.  
 
Our problem is nothing more than that the method of husbandry does not take 
 account of the bees own primary health mechanism - natural selection for 
the  fittest strains.  Have you ever heard the idea that a shark must  
constantly swim to avoid sinking?  I don't know if its true, but the idea  
supplies a good metaphor.  A population must select the stronger just to  stay 
healthy.  Mess with selection, and it starts to sink; and the longer,  and the 
more you mess, the faster and deeper it goes.
 
Its worth saying once more: this is standard animal husbandry.   Nothing 
more.  In all other fields of husbandry this happens  systematically, as a 
matter of course.  Beekeepers never built a strong  tradition of selection, 
because the they didn't need to - the wild population  did that for them.  Now 
we are too many, and too many of us are doing  exactly the wrong kinds of 
things.
 
Mike




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