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My dad is a beekeeper and I've been with bees all my life. A bee colony is a wonderful, inspiring emergent organism. When you know the bees, you can optimize f
by worldvoyageur 7y ago
My dad is a beekeeper and I've been with bees all my life. A bee colony is a wonderful, inspiring emergent organism.
When you know the bees, you can optimize for any dimension among many.
Depending on the needs around our farm, we'd optimize for honey production, for pollen, for pollination services, for bee or queen production among others.
Now, my dad optimizes for joy. A bit of honey to give the grandkids, friends and neighbours. Pollination services for the berry farms (those farmers are his buddies) in that critical time when blossoms must be pollinated or there will be no berries, nukes (what we call fresh new bees with a queen, the nucleus 'nuke' of a colony) for other beekeepers that need more bees, teaching at the local community college.
Sometimes, we go into the bees with no protective gear. If you know the bees, you can do that. There is a sense of calm/zen/awe you get when among the bees that is hard to describe.
All this is to say, it is misleading to think of colony collapse as a problem. Rather, it is a choice some beekeepers increasingly make to optimize other things. Death rates under 10% are quite possible with a different set of choices. We get single digit death rates, even near zero, but getting there gives up a lot of other dimensions.
Bee production itself is so effective that it often makes economic sense to, in effect, stress a colony to death and replace it with a fresh one, rather than give the colony the space or attention needed to make it through.
The economics is clearer if you have dozens or hundreds of colonies. Then, you have to handle them en mass and accept higher losses as a result.
If you are going to hit peak pollination time in Florida, then truck your colonies across the continent to catch the sweet pollination money from California, you are going to stress your colonies far beyond what they can handle and lose a lot as a result. But, the oranges and the almonds will be pollinated and what you make will more than cover the cost of buying fresh new colonies.
Running the bees to burn through them is not a choice I'd make, but I understand the math even as I don't need the bees to support my family.
- newsreview1 7y agoAppreciate this point of view, but it isn't just about over-stress. Varroa mites are a real problem. As a hobby apiarist myself, the influx of varroa mites has wreaked havoc on my bee colonies. Having read much of what is being done at the University of Sasketchwan, I am excited about a varroa mite-resistant breed. http://www.saskatraz.com/articles/New/The%20Saskatraz%20hybrid%20project%202015%20ver0122F.pdf http://www.saskatraz.com/articles/New/The%20Saskatraz%20hybr...
- worldvoyageur 7y agoChemicals work great against varroa, of course. I'd go with chemicals, ideally as a preventative but also if you catch them fast enough. That said, the bees themselves, if not stressed, also do a pretty good job against varroa. You just have to avoid stacking the deck against what they'd do naturally. We've had good results replacing solid hive bottoms with mesh. It turns out that bees hate varroa even more than beekeepers and will spot varroa mites on their colleagues and pop them off. If you have mesh bottoms on your hives, the bees walk across the mesh no problem, but the mites fall through the mesh to the ground. With a solid bottom, the mites just climb up from the hive bottom onto the next bee that passes by. In a natural hive, there would have been no hive bottom for the mite to land on.
- LargeWu 7y agoI've always wondered why these bees get shipped all over the place, instead of just keeping local colonies. Is it just the pure economics of having "idle" bees in the offseason vs. keeping them employed all year?
- protomyth 7y agoTransportation is not that expensive, and I personally believe it grew out of the Combine culture of the plains farmers since so many bees come out of North Dakota. Bee keeping expertise is not a common skill.
- xyzzyz 7y agoThe sheer number of bees being shipped means that at best you would ship them shorter distances, as there is no way you could sustain enough bees around monoculture crops that flower once a year.
- ComputerGuru 7y agoTaking your comment at face value, it seems like the bee industry is no different than any other hyper-optimized corporate approach to optimizing for the bottom line at all (externalized) costs.
- asdkhadsj 7y agoA bit off topic; but is it possible to help home bees with basically no "beekeeping"? I'm planting native local pollinator friendly plants but I'd like to "do more".. within reason. I don't plan on buying bee keeping gear, but I'd happily stick a box in the corner of my property and let them go to town. Is that possible without maintenance? My concern would be that a "real" kept hive would have someone monitoring for colony health. I merely want to toss up some homes/food/etc for the bees, in the same way that I do for birds. Thoughts?
- xsmasher 7y agoFind out what you can do to create habitats for native bees. Keeping non-native bees (honeybees) would add competition for resources with local bees; that's not what you want. Colony collapse is mostly related to agricultural bees (honeybees,) a non-native species keeps for agricultural purposes. In my area, creating habitats for Mason bees is preferable.
- asdkhadsj 7y agoActually I had already planned habitats for Masons and Cutters :D Those non-colony bees seem super friendly to the "bird home" style donations, so I was mostly referring to if colonies could be helped in a similar manner. Specifically I am in the Pacific Northwest (US), if that helps at all. But yea, I planned on heavily supporting cutters and masons. They also pollinate extremely well.
- Pfhreak 7y agoMason bee homes are super easy to put up! I highly recommend it.
- newsreview1 7y agoJust wanted to add another kudos for making habitat for mason bees available. They're great little pollinators, and are native to north america. (Assuming you're in North America)
- neuronexmachina 7y agoNow I really want to play a beekeeping simulator.
- simonebrunozzi 7y ago> All this is to say, it is misleading to think of colony collapse as a problem It is not a problem from your point of view, or your dad's. However, it is a big problem for the ecosystem in general. Bees are an important mechanism and colony collapse is going to have long lasting effects on many other things.