Failure to Select: The Cause of Weakness in Bees

Michael Bispham; mikebispham@aol.com

Last edited 18/4/09

The Honeybee, nobody needs reminding, is in poor health. Current thinking regarding the causes of the problem focuses on two factors, both external to the organism. These are a) general environmental degradation and the presence of specific toxins, and b) specific parasites and other organic pathogens. Both these are undoubtedly contributory factors. This article will argue however that they are not the fundamental cause of CCD. I suggest that a different, third factor is responsible for the serious difficulties faced by the Honeybee. The Honeybee, as a species, has been dramatically weakened in terms of adaptivity to environment by poor husbandry practice.

CONTENTS

Introduction to The Diagnosis: Denial of Natural Selection *

Thesis and hypothesis *

Approach and Method *

THE PROBLEMS *

1.00 Primary problem 1: Natural selection; disease adaptivity; rapid evolution *

1.01 Multi-level mechanisms *

1.02 Speed of change *

2.00 Denial of Natural Selection in Honeybees; an alternative history *

2.01 Denial of Natural Selection for the fittest strains [1] medication *

2.02 Denial of Natural Selection for the fittest strains [2] mollycoddling *

2.03 Denial of Natural Selection for fittest strains [3] breeding traits *

2.04 Low swarming rates & docility *

2.05 Primary problem 1: summary *

3.00 Primary Problem 2: environmental degradation *

3.01 Loss of nesting habitat *

3.02 Consequence: no natural selection mechanism in the wild. *

3.03 Theft of wild bees; floral decline; multiple pathogen attack *

3.04 Summary of problems 1 & 2 failure to adapt; strengthening of parasitic strains *

4.00 Further stressors, general poor husbandry *

4.01 Importation of 'resistant' species *

4.02 Long-distance transportation of hives, over-extraction/artificial feeding *

4.03 Agricultural poisoning *

5.00 Conclusions: The necessary and sufficient conditions for thriving *

5.01 Watchword: good husbandry: next season's seeds *

My thesis can be stated simply:

The denial of an environment in which appropriate defensive responses can develop, thus allowing the adaptation of the species to the present challenges, is the direct cause of CCD.

On an overwhelming scale, apiary practices systematically prevent local sub-species the single thing they need to regain – or even maintain - their health. That single thing is an environment in which the survival of the fittest genes through the mechanism of natural selection can be played out.

The concomitant hypothesis is: should systematic medication cease, natural selection would play out, allowing the species to recover rude health.

The new pressures threatening the very existence of the Honeybee lie in specific practices within modern bee husbandry. Specifically, it is the widespread maintenance of sick stocks through systematic medication, and the subsequent passage of inadequate genes into the new generations, that lies at the heart of the problem. The resultant ill-adapted organisms are entirely dependent upon ongoing medical interventions. Any feral offshoot rapidly perish. The fatal pairing of inadequate genes and fatal diseases constantly infects any feral communities.

An animal that has survived for an estimated 100,000,000 years is clearly capable of adapting to environmental challenges. The Honeybee has met countless combinations of predator, parasite, disease, and ever shifting climatic conditions. It has survived the several mass extinctions. Yet the new environmental pressure that now threatens denies it the immune response that has always seen it through.

This article will introduce and contextualize this new insight. It aligns the fundamentals of modern evolutionary theory with the time-tested wisdom of traditional husbandry. Several key problem areas are identified that allow the separation of primary cause from the 'noise' of secondary and apparent causes – factors that are currently thought to be causes, but which are actually merely symptoms. The problems can be reduced to two main issues, both of which are critical:

Denial of natural selection for fitness to the environment as outlined above

A set of critical environmental degradations that contribute to 1), and thus also critically affect the species. An example is the loss of dry spaces in which feral colonies could nest.

It is this writer's understanding that the combination of these two main factors that have bought us to the situation where our friends can no longer repair themselves. Fixing one of these problems without fixing the other will not be sufficient to restore bee to good health.

In general terms, I will discuss what I consider to be the most urgent problems with an approach that is focused on the needs of the species. What I mean by that is that I will work from the perspective of the problems faced by the organism, placing its interests above those of the agricultural and beekeeping industries. To do otherwise, it seems to me, is to put the cart before the horse, and, simultaneously, the immediate survival of the industry before the long-term sustainability of both it and its host species. It is the focus on the needs of the industry that has dominated thinking and policy until now that is, I feel, exactly what has led to the current situation.

All living species and the pathogens that prey upon them are in a constant state of adaptation. All life-forms take advantages of changes wherever they can; and all continually raise defences against new threats. There is a continual mutual pressure for selection against any improvement in the fitness of both prey and predator. In the case of the Honeybee, we might focus upon the predator, the varroa mite, but all of the several pathogens currently affecting bees tend to increase their populations and entrench their positions in relation to their prey; and the appropriate response is the same in every case. The bee population must adapt or die.

The mechanism of natural selection for the survival of the fittest works at a number of levels. In ordinary conditions, small variations in their genetic code, their DNA, mean that some individuals in the population are better suited to the pressures of a particular environment, and so tend to thrive at the expense of other less well-suited individuals in the population. The better the range of genetic variation, the more equipped the species is to adapt to a range of environmental changes.

When such changes are small, the composition of any population will constantly shift, as those individuals better fitted to the current environment increase their numbers in the population. The competitive dance of host and pathogen is slow. In more extreme conditions the same mechanism may operate much more rapidly. The higher the pressure, the faster is the adaptation. The mechanism for most rapid change is the fast elimination of ill-equipped strains, those individuals least suited to the new severe environment. This is most apparent where a fatal disease destroys a large percentage of a population. Only those individuals that are resistant to the disease will survive, and the new immune population will rebuild from the small surviving population base. This is not a dance, it is an all-out war with high casualty rates on both sides, as in most circumstances the most virulent strains of the disease also perish with their hosts.

Once the exchange is over, and given good conditions, recovery of the host can be surprisingly fast. For example, starting from 1000 resistant colonies, a species able to double its population every year will recover at the rate shown in the right-hand column in the Table 1 below. It will repopulate to the limits of its environment.

2.00 Denial of Natural Selection in Honeybees; an alternative history

We can apply this general picture to the current situation faced by the Honeybee. As a consequence of a combination of factors, bee diseases have now reached a level of potency that is fatal to a high proportion of bee-strains. In ordinary circumstances this would not have occurred. Those individuals unable to cope with the new disease would have died, but some resistant individuals would have survived. These resistant members of the population would have gradually become more numerous until they became a clear majority of the population. At the same time all predators vulnerable to death as their hosts died would have perished. At the same time cross-breeding amongst the bees would have spread the best-adapted the genes, those conferring resistance to the disease. Finally, a new unstable equilibrium would be achieved between the predator or disease and the bees.

The cause of CCD is to be understood in terms of beekeeping practices that defeat the mechanisms of natural selection, while putting no alternative health-enabling systems in place. By preventing natural die-back, beekeepers have frustrated nature's mechanism for self-repair of immunity in domestic stocks. This has largely resulted from systematic medication. By artificially maintaining and breeding from ill-adapted bees, the beekeeper has not merely encouraged the dissemination of ill-suited alleles (forms of the relevant genes) into new generations, but has ensured that only such alleles do so. Clearly, this is precisely what we should avoid; and a recipe for disaster.

This is poor husbandry, breaching the time-learned and tested habit of breeding from stocks bearing the most-desirable qualities – above all, strong health. The worst culprit has been the treatments for varroa. By blocking the usual process of natural selection beekeepers have facilitated the evolution of a nasty mite; that weakens colonies both directly and indirectly (by acting as a vector for other diseases to survive and spread).

Breeding for traits that suit the immediate needs of the beekeeper, without keeping in mind the need to maintain healthy stocks of bees for the future, has weakened stocks and compounded the problem.

The traits of docility and low swarming rates are not helpful for the continued independent biological maintenance of wild bee populations. Aggression and rapid reproduction has important advantages for the species, facilitating defence against theft, allowing for fast evolution of healthy strains, and disrupting the reproduction cycles of some parasites. Fewer wild or 'feral' stocks, as we shall see, contribute to the main problem.

In summary, the widespread frustration of the processes of natural selection amongst domestic stocks is probably quite sufficient in itself to account for the observed degradation in Honeybee health, and indicates the need to refocus our efforts. Actions must now be designed and implemented tat will enhance the environment in which selection for fitter strains can take place.

This brings us to the second part of the problem. The difficulties described above are compounded by widespread degradation of the environments in which bees might thrive. The main elements are: loss of variety in food sources; toxic agricultural practices; and the reduction of nesting habitats. The first two are well known, and need no elaboration. The third affects only feral colonies, and may be thought to be less relevant. I shall argue that is far from true; feral colonies have a critical role to play in the wellbeing of the species.

To elaborate briefly: few natural nesting habitats are suitable for the needs of wild bees. Historically the most common sites are hollow trees and logs. These are now very few and far between. The second is dry caves and dry overhanging inland cliff sites, both a rarity in this country. An alternative is man-made structures. Normally only unheated buildings and capped chimneys provide suitable conditions for feral colonies. In recent times these too have become less available, as bees have come to be regarded as a nuisance. Without suitable nesting habitats there can be no feral colonies. This is vitally important.

In domestic stocks there is then no opportunity for the operation of natural selection for fitter strains, nor the insistent practice of selective breeding that might partially replace it. Beekeepers tend to do all they can to keep all colonies alive. That leaves the opportunity for recovery of the species due to selection of the fittest with the feral colonies. When habitat for feral stocks so limited however, all routes to recovery are denied. In the present setting in the UK the ill-adapted domestic stocks greatly outnumber feral colonies. Their genes fatally dilute any resistant strains that might arise in the wild, and import their well-developed pathogens. The opportunity for either set to adapt is removed; any natural recovery is stillborn.

Finally, the ongoing removal of feral colonies and swarms by beekeepers wishing to strengthen their own holdings has added to the problem. Whenever pest colonies or swarms are reported, the movement is inevitably into the controlled arena. Beekeepers simply do not make provision for maintaining a viable feral population.

Floral degradation and loss of nesting sites has impacted greatly upon what can now be seen to be an important resource - the feral bee population. To these factors, wild colonies have faced the horrible combination of pathogens and sick genes raised in apiaries. In the UK feral bees have been all but eliminated.

The result of these two main problems: of beekeeper medication and loss of feral habitat, has then removed all opportunity for natural selection to restore the health of the species through adaptation. The mechanism of evolution for fittest strains has been systematically frustrated. The species has simply become ever-less adapted to their environment; while their parasites have enjoyed the feast beekeepers have arranged for them.

The remaining factors inimical to health are well known and I will only briefly mention them.

The unhygienic habit of unlimited importation of foreign strains is, in all probability, the initial cause of the problem. While the most damaging practices are now inhibited by legislation, the practice is poorly enforced, and continued by authorized researchers. Attempts to introduce new and partially resistant strains are of course futile; any genetic benefits brought by imports are swiftly diluted by the present stocks, and the danger of introducing yet further new pathogens to the brew remains. There is further need for action over the new importations of bumble bee nests to serve as pollinators.

The weakening of stocks through over-extraction, junk-feeding, and over-proximity of hives are live, but distinctly secondary issues.

Last on my list of factors deleterious to bee-keeping is poisoning. I have kept this till now, because I feel that while the main problems interrelate, poisoning is entirely separate. It is all too easily over-emphasized by a beekeeping community that has not yet recognized the responsibility of its own practices. It has acted as a focus for anger and blame and generally become a distraction. There can be no argument that pesticide is a deplorable practice and many hives and feral colonies have perished as a result. Yet these incidents are generally isolated cases rather than systematic.

To summarize and re-frame the main problem concisely: the Honeybee, in any particular place, needs four identifiable critical conditions in order to thrive. These are: shelter, nourishment, absence of toxins, and the freedom to adapt to environmental changes.

We can call these necessary and sufficient conditions. That is: a) each condition is a critical requirement for thriving; and b) if all conditions are satisfied, then the bees will thrive.

This characterization of the problem-set allows us to focus on the distinct problem areas defined by the separate conditions. By examining each condition in turn we can locate and prioritize the critical causes of non-thriving, and thus pick away at several otherwise confusing interwoven causes.

Our task now is to find ways of satisfying the necessary conditions for thriving. This will supply the foundations for a program of responses designed to repair the damage beekeepers have caused, and restore to the species the rude heath that is its right.

To return to the main purpose of the paper; the main cause of CCD is the denial of the bee's own mechanism of self-repair, the necessary condition of freedom to adapt to environmental changes. The beginnings of a solution to are now visible:

Any action tending to weaken the species must be avoided; and all actions that will contribute to the recovery of health through the mechanism of natural selection for the fittest strains should be adopted.

The watchword here is traditional good husbandry, with special reference to sound breeding practice. The most reliable method of maintaining health in any setting of domestic husbandry is to take for the next year's seed those lines that are anticipated, on the basis of past performance, to be able to flourish and be productive. It was the methodical selection of seeds from best plants, an invention perhaps 10,000 years old, which enabled farmers to develop large and healthy plant varieties from promising wild plants, and to create and maintain in good health a wide range of varieties of plant and animal. No such farmers, nor any other kind of breeder, has ever purposefully bred from sick strains, unless as a last resort and a temporary measure.

This strategy cannot be short-circuited by modern medicine. Selection for the fittest strains is the path that will repair the bees. We have to realize that medication must be a last resort, and at best a temporary measure. In our case, with both domestic and wild stocks interbreeding uncontrollably, the longer it continues, the more damage is done in terms of reduction of genetic variation, making it ever harder for the species as a whole to recover. End

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Last updated: July 02, 2009.    ( 27th May 09)