Hi all; Bob Harrison raised some interesting questions in his latest
posting. Maybe the best way I can deal with them is to recast some
analysis of the process by which AM capensis destroys AM scutellata
colonies, and also quote from the literature. But I would like to kick off
with a description of the activities of wild scuts. This may give some
benchmarks for measuring the activities of the AHB in the Americas.

THE INDUSTRIAL “WILD” SCUT

At the moment I am trapping wild bees near Piet Retief. It is located
just west of Swaziland in a province called Mpumalanga. Mozambique
is not so far off.

If you go to this web site:

http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/

and then enter “Piet Retief” in the search box, and later click on the
same name in the pop-up box, the map should pinpoint the little city.
In a roughly south and north direction of Piet Retief lies the
escarpment where the highveld slopes quite steeply to the lowveld
and then to the sea.

The method is to place plastic nucs in trees; these hold  five full-length
full depth Langstroth wooden frames. The body is identical to
corrugated cardboard, but made in a new plastic material. They work
brilliantly and are a little innovative in the domestic context; the box,
which almost self assembles, arrives flat and costs about US$2 per
item. Each frame is supplied with a strip of wax foundation about two
inches deep. The nights are icy and the bees need - initially at least -
to be able to cluster unhindered.

Indeed, it is mid-winter (tomorrow, to be precise). The trap boxes are
at elevations above sea level of some 1400-1600 meters.
Temperatures range between an average of 3 and 18 celsius, with
occasional heavy frosts. There will be a heavy frost tonight. The days
are almost always full sun, but the bee working day is quite short;
some nine or so hours.

Outside the Western Cape, the rest of South Africa has dry winters.
The current flow at Piet Retief is provided by commercial Eucalyptus
Grandis forests. At this altitude the trees flower from end-March to
end-August. Grandis probably provides, in economic terms, the best
overall flow in the country, with very high quality nectar and pollen.

When one of these trap boxes catches a medium sized swarm, the
bees draw comb on all five frames in about 10 days. By then the nest
contains a full complement of brood, pollen and honey. Trees with
occupied boxes are marked during the day and the boxes removed at
night. They are transported a short distance (around 7 km) to a central
apiary, and placed on the ground in full sun. On occasion very big
swarms do not occupy the box in the tree, building comb in the open,
attached to the underside of the box. These swarms must be specially
dealt with.

Depending on the size of the colonies, the bees are either left in the
trap box or immediately transferred into standard wooden 10-frame
Langstroth brood chambers. Honey production is not my main
interest, but you have to start supering brood chambers on the
slightest suspicion the bees may start swarm preparation.

The largest swarm in the apiary was caught about five weeks ago.
Since then, it has fully drawn 10 frames of strip wax foundation in the
brood chamber and filled five supers with honey. The supers were
supplied with full sheets of wax foundation. Two supers were added
under the existing five last Friday night. All our honey supers are the
shallow type, yielding about 11 kg of extracted honey per super. In,
say, a fortnight’s time, including honey in the brood chamber, this big
colony would have produced close to 90 kg of honey in just short of
two months.

This big colony has not been re-queened yet. The wild scut queen,
who appeared very young when I saw her, is not excluded to the brood
chamber, but has not once laid eggs in any of the supers. On a
grandis flow, you always place new supers under the filled ones
because the honey granulates quickly once it leaves the warmth of the
bees.

Going that far down, you always check the brood nest for queen cells.
In the apiaries generally, I have not seen any signs of brood diseases;
no doubt the cold dry weather helps. You see the odd small hive
beetle in, say, one of every five colonies. There are braula around, as
ever, especially on the queens. You know varroa is there, all right, all
over the place. I have not seen one single clue that capensis is
causing any trouble.

I should mention that the flow in the general area is said to be the best
in five years. I must re-iterate that you have to manage these wild
colonies very, very carefully to try and retard swarming instincts. I still
get cases where I miss a queen cell and most of the colony swarms
off. And that is despite careful supering to decongest the hive.

The basic methodology described for trapping bees is practised by
practically all beekeepers in this country. By the end of August, I
anticipate 600 trapped swarms (excluding any splits) over four
months. I think you will all agree that this is an absolutely fantastic
natural resource. Without it, given the capensis problem, it seems
doubtful that any beekeepers would have survived the past 10 years in
this country.

Here I would like to quote from Anderson, Buys and Johannsmeier’s
“Beekeeping in South Africa” (1983 -  in the “good old days,” when
scuts were truly scuts):

“The [scutellata] queens are exceptionally prolific and capable of
developing large colonies. In a breeding yard fourteen of these
colonies produced in a year an average of 140 kg of honey (range: 22
to 320 kg), while the six best colonies produced an average of 240 kg
with a range of 180 - 320 kg. Their hives consisted of a double brood
chamber and 4-5 deep supers each throughout the year. These was
no swarming problem in these colonies.”  These hives appear to have
been on a permanent site. The authors to not say what kind of flows
were available.

Dare I mention a few other reasons the scut may contain the materials
to be the world’s best bee? It ability of rapid build up is enhanced by a
smaller cell size (vs. the European races), closer combs and shorter
development cycle. And it’s true that returning field bees do not touch
the landing board. Nor, for that matter, do the exiting bees.

THE CAPENSIS PROCESS - STEP BY STEP

I think it may be worth examining “why” capensis workers destroy scut
colonies, as opposed to “how.” Lets accept that today all “wild”
(untrapped) bees in South Africa are hybrids, say with about 15%
capensis “blood,” and thus predominantly scutellata in nature and
colour. This excludes pure capensis in and around Cape Town.

By the way, if you look at Cape Town by using the web site mentioned
above, you may get some idea of the topography. The natural range for
capensis are those coastal plains roughly north and east of Cape
Town. As soon as you get up into those high mountains, rainfall
figures drop sharply and beyond the mountains you have that very
large semi-desert, the Karroo.

Anderson, Buys and Johannsmeier state that capensis is a “mild” bee
vs. scutellata. Their colonies are not as large as those of scutellata,
and the queens are not as prolific. “Perhaps the most striking
similarity” between the two races is “the ease with which both develop
laying workers. In the case of the Cape honey bee the progeny of
these workers is largely female i.e. workers.”

We know from scientific research that capensis workers can lay
unfertilised eggs that develop into females - known fantastically as
thelytoky. This ability appears unique among all bee races; but has
been recorded in other races’ virgin queens.

Let’s assume the capensis worker has this power as an extreme
survival tactic. In its natural range, with its lousy winters, a colony could
survive even if some disaster killed the queen and all brood.

Now recast to a decade ago when some beekeepers allegedly
migrated several hundred capensis colonies from their natural range
to the ultra heavy aloe davyana winter flow, just north of Pretoria. Some
1000 miles from home, these capensis colonies allegedly turned in a
pathetic performance, and the colonies were supposedly deserted.

This, so the legend goes, was the source of the modern problem.
Perhaps at this juncture one can pose the question: “back home,”
when does a capensis worker start laying eggs? Let’s assume the
answer is simply the normal: when the capensis queen has perished
for whatever reason.

Back on the aloes a decade ago, there were tens of thousands of
disgruntled homesick capensis workers flying around. Any number of
them ended up in scutellata colonies (let’s say, in a humorous vein,
that the scut hives had hoarded far more honey). These aloes provide
an incredible dual flow of nectar and pollen, and scut brood nests are
inevitably extended beyond normal size. This leaves the scuts
vulnerable to a capensis attack.

Let’s try and take this step by step. Let’s say one capensis worker
illegally gained successful entrance to a scut hive. This single
capensis worker immediately senses - IN ITS TERMS - a failing
queen.

It starts laying eggs in a quiet area of the brood nest, and the scuts
start raising “pure” capensis worker brood. Meanwhile, the capensis
worker, believing itself a (temporary?) queen, secretes increasing
levels of phenorome (or something similar; see later). Eventually, the
scuts perceive their queen to be failing, and ball and kill her.

The emerging capensis workers recognise a queenless colony, and
soon go into laying mode. Meanwhile, the scuts, the only bees
working at any stage in this process, do not draw queen cells; they
recognise the capensis worker as queen, and later, the multiple
capensis workers as multiple queens. (Anyhow, as you will see later,
the capensis workers are programmed to tear down any queen cells).

Somewhere around this step, the social order in the hive collapses
completely. This is when you start finding a dozen or more eggs in a
single worker cell. The bottom line is that these two races of bees are
incompatible. This scut colony is, to all intents and purposes, dead.

What happens in similar circumstances in a pure capensis colony
living in its historical environment?

Anderson, Buys and Johannsmeier state:

“These [capensis] workers, with very well developed ovaries and
frequently with mature eggs in the ovaries are present even in
queenright colonies. The presence of these laying workers makes it
very difficult to raise queens by the normally accepted methods.”

Noting that queen rearing normally requires a queenless starter
colony, the authors state that in capensis: “this promotes the
development of functional laying workers and these individuals
produce and deposit eggs in the cells within 4-8 days of queen
removal. This will occur even in the presence of eggs and young
brood, while in all other sub-species the presence of eggs and young
brood has a retarding effect on the development of laying workers.

“One final peculiarity of the capensis honey bee is its reaction to the
loss of its queen. Accompanying the above mentioned development of
functional laying workers, there is always a loss of adult workers.
These losses which vaguely resemble fighting or poisoning, are due
to a type of rejection process by members of the affected colony.
These losses peak at about 12 days after queen removal and then
slowly stabilise to a pre-queen-loss level. This pseudo-queenright
condition is attained because functional laying workers produce
queen substance or something similar. Under these conditions the
colony is reluctant to raise queens and frequently tear down those
queen cells already built.

“According to the queen substance theory of Butler the presence of the
queen suppresses (a) the stimulus to build queen cells and (b) the
development of ovaries in the workers. Because even in queen-right
colonies of the Cape honey bee the workers often develop functional
ovaries, it  must be assumed that there is insufficient queen
substance to suppress this in normal sized colonies.

“To develop a method of controlled queen rearing in this race of honey
bee a method had to be devised to balance the supply of this queen
substance phenorome. It had to be present in quantities sufficient to
suppress further ovary development and yet not enough to discourage
queen cell building.”

Hell of a thing, this capensis thing. Hell of a thing.

My best regards to you all,

Barry