Hi Bee Friends,
 
I am following the discussion about feeding and disease resistance with
interest.
Somehow I get a bit uneasy about the superficial nature-culture debate in
it. Is a natural approach always better? Why? Is everything which is natural
healthy?
 
Stefan wrote:
>* I do not believe that the losses through intensive "industrial"
beekeeping
>are as you say "RARE"; many official general statistics showed, as I said,
>dangerous losses (over 50% in some industrial beekeeping countries);
 
Are you sure this was caused by sugar feeding? I find this kind of
argumenting very provocative. As long as there are no scientific experiments
in which was established that 50% of the sugar fed colonies died and a
substantial higher proportion of the natural fed colonies didn't, I can't
take this argument serious.
 
>* I agree that the above losses are not connected ONLY to sugar feeding,
but
>to several factors; however, sugar feeding may be the last bad "drop",
among
>many others, don't you think so?
 
No, I understood that there is a diseasy risk (dysentery) when the food
contains a lot of impurities, especially in winter food.
 
>* I believe that having more bees after sugar feeding means NOT necessarily
>that these bees are more resistant to various diseases; on the contrary...
 
Don't you all think there are other differences between wild colonies and
our domestic bees that are more important in explaining differences in
resistance?
  David Green wrote:
       Well the winter losses of the bee trees (before varroa) ran over 60%,
and
  they didn't have any sugar feeding to blame. The trees are resupplied with
  swarms each spring from beekeepers. So the wild population was declining
  before varroa; now, for all practical purposes, wild bees just cannot
survive
  without human help.
 
  Murray McGregor wrote:
  There should be absolutely no difference in this genetically determined
  factor. However, those colonies with more young bees with better fat
  deposits should be less vulnerable to the effects of varroa vectored
  viruses. To me the argument thus slants in favour of the fed bees, but
  has no effect on true resistance.
 
>* I'm almost 100% sure that a correct study done on two types of colonies
>(sugar fed and non-sugar fed) will show that the sugar - fed ones have
lower
>resistance towards varroa and/or other diseases.
>  It's just an hypothesis which may be interesting to verify in practice
>by experts as you are.
 
It would be very usefull if some other variables were also controlled. In
that way you could examine the proportion of explained variance. If sugar
vs. honey feeding is an explaining factor, it is very well possible that it
explains only a little bit. Other variables could explain a lot more. You
have to start with clone-queens to assure that the natural resistance is the
same, you have to control the building up of the colonies and several other
variables. Very difficult in a field setting. Not easy for a commercial
beekeeper (apart from the fact that this is a very time-consuming
experiment).
 
 
Believe me, I am not a promotor of artificial methods. I just don't want
to spill the bee with the bath water , as bee keepers say in Holland. ;-)
But I don't want to go back tot nature, my tree climbing (to steal the
honey) isn't that good any more.  ;-)
 
A natural, clean why of beekeeping, yes. Start again and burry all
experience gathered with bees, no.
 
 
all the best to you all!
 
Tom Braams
The Netherlands
 
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