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
http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/
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