The Great Debate: Are Bees Dying?

I came across a recent article covering a well versed topic: Massive Loss of Thousands of Hives Afflicts Orchard Growers and Beekeepers. The article can be viewed here: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/02/18/694301239/massive-loss-of-thousands-of-hives-afflicts-orchard-growers-and-beekeepers?fbclid=IwAR3IWqgm9Km51b3kcapBEuQiWqjYD1WIssKZKoo0cCJ2FbLcO-U9kdc1gqU&t=1550654434061

Similar articles have been doing the rounds for the last decade or more and several documentaries have been made on the subject. While there is some credence to the claims being made, i.e. that beekeeper are suffering large colony losses, there are a couple of aspects to the stories that really get on my nerves.

Firstly, people must understand that colony loss is a natural occurrence,both in the wild and in managed stocks. Prior to the Varroa mite being discovered in Ireland, I and many other beekeepers lost stocks of bees. Anyone that says otherwise is being untruthful. I knew of many wild colonies, some of which survived a number of years and others which died out after their first winter. So, in the wild, every year there are bound to be some colonies that succumb to illness, starvation or simply by reason of a poor decision that the colony itself made, such as late season swarming. It's much the same for any wild species. Weather conditions can also have an affect. Then, in managed stocks, colonies might suffer from a poor decision made by the beekeeper or his clumsiness. For as long as I have been keeping bees ( I first became involved with bees when I was 8 years old and by the time I was 10 I had seven or eight hives which I managed myself), it has been recommended to 'newbees' (new beekeepers) that two hives are better than one, because if you make a critical mistake with one or one gets weak or dies, for whatever reason, you have another hive that you can pool resources off and so on. Basically, your odds are better with two hives.

Doing simple maths, that would suggest that if you want 25 hives producing honey, you keep 50 and so on. Of course, in practice, where one is keeping 50 hives, 500 hives or 3000, they do not expect to lose 50% of them, but it has always been a possibility and, for some, it has been a reality on occasion.

The second gripe I have with these articles is they always feature large commercial beekeeping operations, usually those from the US. These guys keep bees on an industrial level; we're talking about anything from 2,000 colonies and upwards. Anything less in the US is considered part-timing or small scale it would seem. These operations truck bees all over the US, usually for pollination contracts from which considerable money can be made. The idea of beekeeping being a gentle craft is completely lost in these outfits. Because of the stress the bees are placed under (among many other reasons, for one thing it's obviously not normal for bees to have their hives transported thousands of miles on trucks) they pick up diseases in much the same way that a stressed human being would. In typical American fashion, the bees are heavily medicated to suppress the affects of these diseases, but over time, certain viruses and bacteria behind the diseases have grown immune to the treatments. With all these stresses that the bees are dealing with, more and more commercially kept colonies are dying. Of course, rather than blame the practices of the beekeeping operation, it is easier to blame the varroa mite or pesticides or farming practices and so on.

I am not saying that these issues are not having an affect on bees; of course they are. But, when I think back to when I was 10, I seem to recall that there was less knowledge about the affects of certain factors on the environment and in particular the affects on bees; herbicides and pesticides seemed to have been used without discretion, and not just by farmers but by anybody keeping a garden as a hobby. Furthermore, farming practices had changed to the extent that white clover was pretty much non-existent in my locality. Notwithstanding, my bees flourished. So, while I do think that pesticide use and ill-advised farming practices has a negative impact, it's only one small piece to the puzzle. Thankfully though, and while there are still plenty of questionable practices, there is a lot more awareness and a lot of positive steps being taken and this is likely to improve even more in the coming years, so I am not really fearful about this aspect.

Of course, things have changed for the bees over the years too and it was devastating here in Ireland when the Varroa mite eventually made it's way to our shores, because it was a problem our bees could have done without. This is a dirty little parasitic pest and the adult mite is like a tick attaching itself to the bee and sucking its fill. The female lays her eggs in a cell containing a young larva and when they hatch they feed off the growing larva/pupae. It's this feeding off the growing bee that has the greatest effect. Bee's hatch stunted and riddled with viruses transferred by the mites. Over a prolonged period of time, the effects can be detrimental to some colonies. In fact, the common perception is that colonies simply die out if there is a mite infestation. Now, this is perhaps where I become completely controversial, because while colonies can die out, my experience is generally the opposite! I will explain......

The common approach, since the arrival of Varroa in Ireland (in keeping with practices in other countries where the mite is present) has been to follow treatment patterns with various licensed medications. When I returned to keeping bees after a lengthy hiatus I was advised to treat, treat, treat and treat some more. So, I looked into the various medications licensed here in Ireland and, after much deliberation, I picked one form which I thought was the most natural and would have the least impact on the bees. Well, to say that I saw stressed bees during treatment is an understatement! Out of the six hives I had at the time, two killed their Queens and all hives got very agitated. Then in the early course of that winter two other colonies died out. To say the least, I was disappointed and disheartened. But, during that winter, I carried out considerable research and found that there was a growing movement of 'treatment free' beekeeping. Some methods advocated using essential oils and other such methods, while others used certain manipulations with the colony to break the laying cycle of the mite. I decided that I would experiment. Over the last couple of years I have tried several different methods, but each year I moved closer to being completely treatment free. Now, other than normal apiary manipulations such as splitting colonies to make nucs, I do not take any steps to combat the mites, in the hope that my bees will develop their own strategies for dealing with it, and I have to say that my colonies have never been stronger or more vigorous. And, I have actually witnessed my bees literally attacking and killing mites that were attached to a comrade. Yes, I do see some effects of the mites on occasion, such as deformed wing virus, and I do lose the odd colony (but no more than I'd have lost per annum pre-varroa years). I'd be lying if I said otherwise. But over time I hope to see less and less of these issues as I selectively breed from my best performing stocks.

Consequently, I believe that the rising colony losses that we hear about are owing not just to varroa or pesticides or indeed both of these together, but for a combination of reasons, and I particularly believe that many beekeepers are playing a substantial role in the combination. We need to be more mindful of how we manage our bees. I am not trying to persuade anyone to move away from treating their bees. Nor am I suggesting that one simply throw a hive at the bottom of the garden and do nothing with it. No, one should not simply be a 'bee haver' because by the very act of placing bees in a hive of our choosing, no matter how 'natural' we think we have designed it, we are manipulating the bees into an unnatural environment. Therefore, we have a duty to care for them. But such care doesn't always have to follow the common practice.