Things that we change from nature by the way we raise bees:

[Michael Bush]

Food:
Pollen substitute.
Sugar syrup instead of honey.
Poisons and chemicals in the hive:
Essential oils.
Miticides.
Pesticides (from crop spraying and mosquito spraying)
Antibiotics.
Because of foundation:
Organization of the hive:
Cell size.
Amount of drone.
Orientation of cells.
Distribution of cell sizes.
Population of the hive.
Much less drones.
No subcastes of different sizes.
Because of frames or bars:
Spacing between combs.
Thickness of combs.
Distribution of thickness of combs.
Natural hives vary in many ways anyway, but because of hives:
Ventilation?
Size
Communication inside the hive?
Condensation and absorption and distribution of condensation.
Beespaces above and on the ends where in a natural hive it is usually solid at the top with no communication there and only passages here and there at the whim of the bees elsewhere based on either convienience of movement or ventilation.
Entrance location.


Does anyone have anything else to add to the list?

[Michael Bush]

Oh and:

Distrubances:
Smoking.
Opening the hive.
Rearranging the frames.
Confining the queen with an excluder.
Forcing the bees through an ecluder.
Forcing the bees through a pollen trap.
Robbing honey.

[Michael Bush]

That's true. We've bred out a lot of defensive behavior and swarming behavior and tried to breed a lot of hoarding behavior. We've also ignored a lot of other traits.

I'm thinking the bees that will fight off the Small Hive Beetle are probably the hot bees we keep trying to breed out.

[dragonfly]

That's the primary reason I have not requeened my Rambo hive. If the others fail due to disease or pests, that one hive will most likely be going strong, unless some unexplained occurance happens (ie disaster, fire etc). I started keeping bees to pollinate my garden, so that's my number 1 consideration.

[beegee]

I have two bee trees that I would like to remove the bees from. One is in a small hollow gum, about 5' off the ground. The other is in a hollow pecan tree, again about 5' off the ground. Thes trees are about 3 mile apart. On eis in a barnyard and the other is in a small break of woods near a bamboo forest with a small drainage ditch or branch running through it. Both colonies are very active and vigorous. I'm going to build a bee-vac in the next couple of weeks and have at them. (Or maybe I should wait until next spring? The lady wants the bees out of her barnyard) Anyway, one of the first thing I'm going to do is examine them for mites. I'm really curious to see how they compare to our local domestic hives. I'm also wondering if it's coincidence or dumb luck that they selected hollow trees with holes at 5' off the ground, or if they prefer that height and seek it out?

[Russ]

BeeGee, There was an article either in Bee Culture or American Bee Journal about removing bees from Trees and Bldg's. This fellow said that he had used this method for 30 yrs. Had to do with using a cone into a box with a good hive body and bees sitting on top of the lower box. The idea was to make the Bees come out through the hive with the bees in it and eventually they would accept the outside hive. The cone kept them from going back into the tree or Bldg. After you get them in the hive you can use a stick and break up the comb and let them rob the honey. Sounds like it would work. Hope this helps. He also said that you need a good support for the hive as it will continue to grow. Maybe by Spring they would be in the outer hive. Hope this helps.

[Russ]

I found the article. It is in the May 2003 Issue page 345 for anyone that is interested. I will try to E mail it to BeeGee

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>(Or maybe I should wait until next spring? The lady wants the bees out of her barnyard)

What I have done reciently is to cut the tree and make a beegum and move it home. I will await until next spring to rehive them.

Beegone

[beegee]

Bullseye, the gum tree is really tall and slim and would be difficult to fell sitting on the edge of the ditch. The pecan is probably 150 years old and about 5' in diameter, in the middle of a barnyard. The owner doesn't want it cut. I'll try the platform and hive body with bait.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>The owner doesn't want it cut. I'll try the platform and hive body with bait.

I have one going right now like that with a screen cone on the tree. I plan on leaving it on until the end of September, a total of about eight weeks.

It is going well, I had a weak hive with about five frames covered that I moved to it and now it has about 14 frames covered, all Permacomb.

I also put the feed bag to it, hoping that they will fill out at least three mediums before winter.

Bill

[This message has been edited by BULLSEYE BILL (edited August 28, 2003).]

[Michael Bush]

If the owner wants them out right away, I would do it now. If not, I would wait until spring. It will give them a much better chance. If you do it now you'll have to feed like crazy and hope you don't get an early winter.

I've used the cone method if I can't or don't want to cut down the tree. You probably don't need the vacuum, but it's nice to have it around. It is very tramatic and sometimes leathal to the bees to use the vacuum.

[loggermike]

Probably the most un-natural thing we do(which is also the basis for success or failure ) is swarm control.In the natural hive, as soon as conditions are ripe, swarming occurs and both hives will continue to gather just enough honey to survive ,on average.Swarming is sex(reproduction) to bees,the strongest motivation there is.I dont believe much of this has been bred out of bees,in spite of what some breeders claim.
So while swarm control is very un- natural,it is also essential if one wants to get an un-natural amount of honey.Natural is best for Natures purposes,but not mine.
----Mike(naturally)

[Michael Bush]

It's true, we modify the volume of the hive over the season to prevent swarming and maximize honey.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do any of these things, but they are suspects when things aren't working right.

[loggermike]

When you think about it,hardly any thing we do with bees is 'natural'(natural being bees in the wild ).Someone once said our bees survive in spite of our manipulations ,not because of them.The guiding principle should be to work with the bees not against them whenever possible. Understanding what the bees are trying to do,and not frustrating their efforts should help in reducing stress on them.

[Michael Bush]

Here's my latest updated list

Things that we change from nature by the way we raise bees:
Genetics:
We breed less:
Defensive.
Swarming.
Propolis.
Burr comb.
Nervousness on the comb.
We breed more:
Hoarding.
Spring build up and fall let down.
We are now breeding:
AFB resistance.
More “hygienic” (meaning they tear out cells that are infested with mites or other problems)
Suppressed Mite Reproduction (I don’t think we really know what this is except there are less mites)
Regular Disturbances to the hive:
Smoking.
Opening the hive.
Rearranging the frames.
Confining the queen with an excluder.
Forcing the bees through an excluder.
Forcing the bees through a pollen trap.
Robbing honey.
Food:
Pollen substitute instead of pollen.
Sugar syrup instead of honey.
Poisons and chemicals in the hive (some of which builds up in the wax which is then used for foundation):
Essential oils.
Organic acids (formic oxalic etc.)
Miticides. (Apistan and CheckMite)
Pesticides (from crop spraying and mosquito spraying)
Antibiotics (TM and fumidil).
Because of embossed wax foundation:
Organization of the hive:
Cell size.
Amount of drone.
Orientation of cells.
Distribution of cell sizes.
Population of the hive.
We try to get less drones.
We do get less subcastes of different sizes.
Accumulated contaminates that are wax soluble.
Because of frames or bars:
Spacing between combs.
Thickness of combs.
Distribution of thickness of combs.
Accumulation of chemicals and possibly spores in the wax of the foundation.
Ventilation around the combs. Bars have spaces on the top. Combs are attached solid at the top.
Because of supers, expanding and contracting volume of the hive to prevent swarming and to overwinter.
Natural hives vary in many ways anyway, but because of hives:
Ventilation?
Size
Communication inside the hive?
Condensation and absorption and distribution of condensation.
Beespaces above and on the ends where in a natural hive it is usually solid at the top with no communication there and only passages here and there at the whim of the bees elsewhere based on either convenience of movement or ventilation.
Entrance location.
Detrius at the bottom (wax scales, dead bees, wax moths etc.

Does anyone have anything else to add to the list?


It seems to me that beekeeping isn't all that "natural" for the bees.

[kookaburra]

And yet in spite of all that, there would only be a fraction of the bees there are today without us.
Beekeeping is definately not a natural process, it is merely humans managing a natural process to maximize the benefit to us.
But it just as natural as gardening or medicine or orchards, etc (ever try raising broccoli or apples without spraying SOMETHING natural or not on it!) .

But that being said, yes, it definately does bear looking at when there is a problem to match the symptoms with the processes. That and a lot of experimentation. Whereas there are good processes that an experienced beekeeper might try, novices like myself don't have the ncessary knowledge or experience to try some of them. Knowledge will lead to experience which can lead to experimentation!

So thanks to all the experimenters, question answerers, and those brave enough to ask the seemingly stupid questions that those of us wonder about but feel silly asking!

[Ian]

Un natural, yes, but it is un-natural to have them prospering in every region of the country also. Up here in Canada, you never see a wild hive, besides the ones in barns which swarmed the season before from a nearby beeyard. And yet we can keep bees year round and produce huge honey crops from them. And we are on the line of being selfsustaining. Why can we keep bees up here where they dont naturally prosper? Well, the answer is mostly on your list.
Not raising them un-naturaly, just helping them out a bit....
Ian

[hoosierhiver]

well,there's the fact that honeybees aren't even native to the western hemisphere.

[Michael Bush]

>well,there's the fact that honeybees aren't even native to the western hemisphere.

That is a commonly held belief. There is some evidence, but certainly no proof, that is not the case.

I wasn't saying that what we change is good or bad, but lately (the last 2 years or so) I began to realize how LITTLE I know about how bees live naturally.

As to survival. There are not a lot of feral bees left, but the ones there are, that I hear of, were there for the last 20 years or so. So those bees must be doing something right, and that something is likely to be on a list of things we have changed.

[BILLY BOB]

Intresting that some people think all the feral hives have died out altogether. I agree with you Michael. They are still there. I have found more than one that are doing much better than the hives that I keep. I have also watched some for several years to see how well they are doing.

I feel, as has been listed or stated in above post that the reason for the feral bees to still be here is; location, from where it is located in the country to where it may be in a tree, wall. What type of protection does it have from the weather, how high it is off the ground. I could keep going on that one. Another is natural mite resistance. Just as mites have found resistance to treatments so the bees..FERAL BEES have found resistance to the mites. The major queen and bee suppliers haven't been breeding for the mites from the begining. Feral bees had no choice, the mites did it for them. Also you can look at the natural cell size. I have found 4.9 cells in a feral hive. I don't find as many larger cells out there. It is one of the things I check every time I remove a hive. Who read the artical in the ABJ several months or a year or so ago when they did a study on how many feral hives were still in a area? The original study was done in the 70's. After it was done again they found just as many in the same area. The feral bees ARE making a come back. It has just taken some time for the breeders and suppliers to figure it out.

BB

[raybo1331]

hoosierhiver i would like to know if you know anything about pollination in indiana or where to find out, raybo 1331

[jfischer]

The biggest single "unnatural" thing Mike
missed is that he has honey bees in
North America!

Wrong side of the planet.

Another point is the common plants bees
forage upon. Also on the "wrong" side
of the planet in many cases.

Moot point anyway. There is almost no
"natural" ecosystem left anywhere on
the planet. Man has shaped it all to
his own ends over time. Worrying about
keeping bees in a "natural" manner is
silly since keeping them at all is
clearly "unnatural".

jim

[Michael Bush]

>The biggest single "unnatural" thing Mike
missed is that he has honey bees in
North America!

Maybe. Maybe not.
http://www.beesource.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000039.html

Look at Dee's post of November 03, 2000 12:43 AM

I have found some odd references to "Native" bees in America also. Usually calling them inferior to the European bees.

[Ian]

>>Wrong side of the planet.
>>Another point is the common plants >>bees forage upon. Also on the "wrong" >>side of the planet in many cases.
>>Man has shaped it all tohis own ends >>over time. Worrying about keeping >>bees in a "natural" manner is silly >>since keeping them at all is clearly >>"unnatural".

Thank god for the honey bees in North America. The landscape has changed dramatically over the last 100 years or less, from grassland pastures and heavey forested areas to intensivly farmed land. Don't get me wrong, I feel that it has to be this way, or we would all starve. If it was not for the keeping of honeybees here we would have very poor crop production and a world even more hungry that it already is. Our native pollinators definatly would not be able to handle this job alone. So wheather or not we are raising the honeybee unaturally really doesn't matter. They have adapted verywell to evry area of North America, and we have manipulated them very well to reap their full potential.

Ian

[Michael Bush]

The Lakota generally figure if an animal has it's OWN name and not some made up name then it was native. For instance a Badger is a Hokala. It just means Badger. It's not some put together name like Shunka wicasa which is the word for Monkey, but is made up of the word for dog and man. It's a made up name that means "dog man". When they got horses they made up the name "Shunka wakan" which means "mysterious dog".

The Lakota have a name for bees in general. Tuhmunga. They use variations of this to distinguish bubmle bees (Tuhmunga Tanka which means big bee) Tuhmunga tunkce or Tuhmunga canhanpi mean honey. Literally "Bee poop" or "Bee tree sap". Remember the Indians INVENTED maple sugar which is boiled tree sap and canhanpi is used as the name for maple sugar too.

In spite of all of this they have a name for a grey bee which is tuhmaga. Similar to, but not the same as bees in general.

My point is that a name for a grey/black honey bee exists in the Lakota language as it's own name like any animal that was already here.

Just one more interesting thing that makes me think that MAYBE there were bees here already. The previous link to references that Dee Lusby makes to early writings by the Spaniards also leads that direction. Several references I've seen are to Native American black bees. If there were honey bees here, it appears they were black and similar to the Apis mellifera mellifera.

[Ian]

>>Just one more interesting thing that makes me think that MAYBE there were bees here already.

Regardless of wheather or not they were already here, the feral bee population, even before they were devastated by the mite, would not even come close to pollinate the crops that need pollinating. By raiseing the bees and working the hives, we can manage pollination of our crops alot more efficiently and we can garrentee proper pollination of our crops

Ian

[MIKI]

I'm not preaching to anyone, reading all this just brought back something my father in law used to say all the time. He would sometimes look around and say "Man plans and God laughs". He seemed to be dissappointed somehow in what man was doing to this planet. I think Mother nature is an awsome power and she will recover from or adapt to anything we do short of global thermonuclear war. In my belief this is why there are so mant mysteries in evolution.

[Hillbillynursery]

I agree with that MIKI. Please do not start a war on this( those that believe god made all and darwinist). I believe God made everything. There are still to many gaps of fossil records for evolution to be proven. God's word says a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day with God. Many say this does not make since. But if you are immortal time has no meaning. And the millions of years lasted but a day with God.

[Michael Bush]

I am not questioning that beekeepers provide an important service to the environment and the bees, but I am saying it's possible, but not provable, that there were honey bees here already. There is more evidence that they were than there is evidence that they weren't.

[jfischer]

> but I am saying it's possible, but not
> provable, that there were honey bees here > already. There is more evidence that they > were than there is evidence that they
> weren't.

This is interesting. I have yet to hear
of any credible evidence for honey bees
being here before Europeans. Stingless
bees from South America/Mexico, sure.
Obscure types of "alternative" bees, sure.
But not honeybess of the type we know and
love.

Maybe you can explain in detail.

[BWrangler]

Greetings

The concept of keeping bees naturally has a wide range of interpretation. Just what is natural anyway? For me it means looking at the bees behavior, environment and needs without our bee management. Then I realign my bee managment practices with that information.

Keeping bees is somewhat like running a small zoo. If zoo keepers disregard the very biology of an animal and place that animal in an inappropriate environment, the animal will not prosper.

Sometimes keeping bees naturally is an exercise in nostalga. It's interesting to look at beekeeping in the past. Not all beekeeping practices were enlightened back in the golden age.:> ) I've seen hives that had drawers for feeding bees cooked chicken--no kidding. And hives that had exercise rooms with springs, seesaws, etc. so the bees could exercise during the winter and stay fit!

Natural for others means keeping bees without artificial stuff like plastic, paint, chemicals,etc. inside the hive.

Watching my bees, I've discovered that some of the 'facts' universally published as truth don't apply to my beekeeping. When I eliminated or changed those parts of my beekeeping associated with those 'facts', my bees did better.

My bees have often give me a dose of humilty as I have discovered that less management is often better than more management. Bees are very complicated creatures. Maybe that's what makes them so interesting.

Honeybees are very adaptable. They can live in a variety of conditions that are not always optimal. As stewards of our bees, it's our duty to do the best job possible.

Regards
Dennis
Not cooking up chicken, but wondering what else is in the pot :> )

[MIKI]

I think Michael is right, we don't know but a drop in the bucket about evolution. We thought the celocanth was extinct and it showed up in a fishermans net. We also found pre-historic man on a continent previously thought to be uninhabited by him for centuries. I'm sure there are dozens more examples so it's definatley possible. Check this out hope it works.

members.aol.com/DarqDean/leftfield/ofevolve.html

[MIKI]

O.K link does not work I'm no computer guru so if your interested I did a search for Celocanth very interesting stuff.

[Ian]

>>God's word says a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day with God. Many say this does not make since. But if you are immortal time has no meaning. And the millions of years lasted but a day with God.

"The Gods word" has what to do with this topic?

[This message has been edited by Ian (edited December 07, 2003).]

[Michael Bush]

>Maybe you can explain in detail.

Did you read the link to the forum above? Dee quotes some early Spanish references to native bees. Dee's bees have some characteristics that are not common to European bees and she thinks are from the native bees. Genetic tests on dark feral bees shows no genetic correlation to our European bees. A lot of the survivor bees are small dark bees and not the Italian looking ones.

[jfischer]

> Dee quotes some early Spanish references
> to native bees.

Mrs. Lusby has a number of interesting
views on a wide variety of subjects,
but I was asking for "credible evidence".

> Dee's bees have some characteristics that > are not common to European bees and she
> thinks are from the native bees.

I am aware of this, but I've yet to hear
anyone ID them as anything other than Apis mellifera with a pinch of Apis mellifera scutella.

> Genetic tests on dark feral bees shows no > genetic correlation to our European bees.

This is yet another statement I have never
heard before. Whose tests? When? Got a
citation?

> A lot of the survivor bees are small dark > bees and not the Italian looking ones.

Apis mellifera mellifera was imported by
lots of early immigants. Small, dark,
meaner than many other bees.

I'm really interested, but I have raised
this specific issue with lots of different
folks in the know, and found that much more
than physical examination is done to differ
between bees. The honeybee genome project
will surely settle the issue once and for all.

[Michael Bush]

The only evidence that I see that there WEREN'T honeybees here is that everyone keeps saying it. That, of course, does not make it true.

I see SOME evidence that this assumption that honey bees were not here, may not be true. I certainly don't claim there is any PROOF that there were native honey bees, only a few things that would point in that direction.

>> Dee quotes some early Spanish references
>> to native bees.
>Mrs. Lusby has a number of interesting
views on a wide variety of subjects,
but I was asking for "credible evidence".

I have already stated that there is no proof. I would consider any early reference credible evidence but not proof. They in the previously provided link and are quoted later in response to another of your questions.

>> Dee's bees have some characteristics that
>> are not common to European bees and she
>> thinks are from the native bees.

>I am aware of this, but I've yet to hear
anyone ID them as anything other than Apis mellifera with a pinch of Apis mellifera scutella.

The last genetic testing of her bees that I've heard of did not show any Apis scutella. But I cannot say that I know this for a fact. The FABIS test is another matter, but my guess is that most small cell bees would fail that. On biometrics this is the last test I saw : http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/beeanalysis.htm It is only what I have read on the subject.

Here is one of the characteristics of her bees: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/bsmay1991.htm

>> Genetic tests on dark feral bees shows no
>> genetic correlation to our European bees.

>This is yet another statement I have never
heard before. Whose tests? When? Got a
citation?

I cited the reference to the forum, which gives the citation. Here is the quote and a reference to it again.
------------------
In an article published in October 1995 in the Journal of Economic Entomology by N.M. Schiff and W.S. Sheppard titled "Genetic Analysis of commercial Honey Bees from the Southeastern United States, we have learned "The lack of A.m. mellifera haplotypes in the commercial population is indicative of restricted gene flow between feral and commercial populations."
Also stated in the paper is "Significant genetic differences between commercial and feral populations suggest that the feral populations may represent a novel source of genetic variation for breeding programs."
----------------- http://www.beesource.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000039.html

I have never said I have any kind of proof, only that I don't think there is any proof that there were not native bees and that there is SOME EVIDENCE that there may have been.

> A lot of the survivor bees are small dark > bees and not the Italian looking ones.

>Apis mellifera mellifera was imported by
lots of early immigants. Small, dark,
meaner than many other bees.

I'm sure there were.

Again the only evidence that bees of this description were here is in the reference I already put to the forum discussion of this. Here is the partial quote on the bee that resembles the black European bee:
-----------
EXCERPT FROM THE HISTORY OF MEXICO by Abbe D. Francesco Saverio Clavigero (1731-1787)

Translated from original Italian in 1806 by Chas Cullen, Esq.

Excerpt from Book 1, of Volume 1.

There are at least six different kinds of bees. The first is the same as the common bee of Europe, with which it agrees, not only in size, shape and color, but also in its disposition and manners, and in the qualities of its honey and wax.
------------

It would save me a lot of work if you would read the links I posted instead of making me find the citations within them for you.

I have nothing to prove, I'm only saying I believe that the question of whether there are Native American Honey Bees is still open.

[nursebee]

I've read through some of the posts. Are there any scientist/philosphers out there. I think about entropy-that any system tends towards disorder without an input of energy. Yes, while things change because of keeping bees, many of this is for the good. Would some of the non-native diseases have stayed away if bees were not managed? Would Africanized have spread? I think eventually they would have because of our collective societies.

On the entropy front, I think we should all be proud of our connection to nature and the food cycle. We help to make fruits and vegetables look better and help farmers get better yields, even backyard farmers. We provide a delicious sweetener in amazing quantities. We do this all by "changing nature" and managing our bees to best keep them alive.

We also keep bees out of houses and away from people that do not want them.


------------------
Joe Miller
nursebee@juno.com