At the University of Minnesota Short Course for Beekeeping in Northern Climate, I learned two general concepts that seemed to be at-odds.
The first was that a healthy hive is one that has a young queen. This is so important that we are to re-queen each hive every other year. To do this, we buy a new queen from CA or elsewhere for each hive every other year and install it. The old queen is either already dead by this time or becomes obsolete.
The second is the general idea that our repeated interference in evolution and normal life cycle of the bee has yielded problems with which we are now dealing. Examples include mobile pollination, monocrop fields, medications, mites, other bee pathogens, and hive construction.
These two ideas present--to me--the following problem. If I am always re-queening my hives, I am not allowing the hives (with their queens) to grow, shrink, thrive, suffer, and otherwise go through the vagaries of life. How will evolutionary pressures ever develop bee strains that can best manage the stresses of my specific area of MN? If a new queen comes from CA ever two years and is plopped into my hive, there is no hope of any selection pressure having any effect, no matter how small the scale, in my apiary. More simply, I won't be able to have any local "survivor stock."
As I try to learn more about this topic, I have decided that I will allow the bees in the meantime to develop as naturally as they can given the constraints of the hive. Specifically, I will allow the hives to keep their queen as long as they see fit. I plan that natural selection, supercedure, queen mating, swarming, and the like will happen without my interference.
One problem I see now is that I only have two hives. Might there be too little genetic variation for the newly created queens and the drones with which they will mate? As I consider this, though, I realize that I have neighbors with hives, and there are likely to be feral colonies within 2 - 5 miles. So, I think that genetic variability will be sufficient. In fact, with the feral colonies surviving completely withough human "help," they might be a very good source of genetic material.
The blog www.samswildbees.com is a very good one with lots of great information. He primarily uses feral bees that he either was called in to remove (swarms or cutouts) or trapped in a bait hive. He chooses to use feral bees for the exact reasons you just mentioned. I purchased a package of bees this year, but also built three bait hives that I'm hoping will expand my apiary this year or next with some local MN genetics.
ReplyDeleteMatt N
topbarbeesmn.blogspot.com
My eventual goal* is to have 6 - 8 hives. I'd like to start with a mix of Carniolans, Italians, Russians, and others. That way, I think I'd have a good variety of genetics. Then, once all 6 - 8 are set up, I'd just keep the hives going with my own queens, trapped swarms, or maybe other local beekeepers.
ReplyDeleteOnce I take out the foundation, and they can build comb in the size they want, that also might help their ability to become "survivor stock."
* = I need to introduce this idea slowly with my family (especially my wife) so as not to shock their systems too much! I figure they can get used to an additional 1 - 2 hives per year or so until I get to my goal of 6 - 8.