Thinking About Selection: The successful pre-hive methods
This short article, which has grown out of an internet discussion,
addresses the general theme of natural selection/breeding
practice. It seeks to take over the role of nature as a
selector of genes to go forward into the next generation. It
discussed what bee husbandry is - or should be - about, and how best to
go about it, by raising the notion that the best teacher is the simplest
way of beekeeping, as practiced by monasteries during the middle
ages in Europe. This context is useful to think clearly
about fine-tuning methods of husbandry.
I'm guessing there was probably variation and experiment, but for
the sake of discussion let's assume skep keeping involves mostly
letting bees do their own thing. You collect swarms from both your own
colonies and the wild if you have a dry space to keep them, but you
can't fiddle much. As I understand it, and again I expect there was
variation, the modus operandi involved killing selected colonies at the
end of the year to collect both wax and honey. Let's assume anyway that
is the only option, and that while the bulk of the workers find a new
home, the queens from the chosen skeps perish. Without hives you
can't find and kill queens, mess with drone comb, or any of the many
other you can do with hives. All you can do is kill colonies that
are not doing what you want them to do, and allow some with the
traits you want to go forward to survive at the end of the year.
These traits would be things like being among the best producers in the
apiary, raising numbers fast in response to nectar flows, reproducing on
a regular basis, surviving challenging winters and getting off to a fast
start in the spring, not being too stroppy.
You might be have to aim to keep some fast-reproducing colonies to
replace those you kill, and put up with the lower yield. You
might have a strategy of encouraging early swarmers - that might be the
origin of 'A swarm of bees in May is worth a field of hay' - and
discouraging late ones. (You might not even think about it too much, but
just make a decision on how many to cull in the Autumn.)
The point is; in terms of management, at best all you can do is
think lots about the effects of allowing some strains to live, in order
to be able to allow their characteristics to go forward, or not -
in very much the same way you think about which seeds to keep and which
to keep for next year's sowing. Its just the same as keeping
the healthiest seeds, from the vegetables that grow best in your garden. In
the process you improve the match between your locality and your stock. In
this context, the art of beekeeping consists in carefully doing very
little. Instead of spending all day opening hives and
messing, you spend your days investing in your bees by finding,
multiplying and planting the flora that will feed them well - this year
and in the future.
The monks clearly made the right kinds of choices, and were
immensely successful producers of wax and honey - and importantly, of
healthy bee-strains. I don't think they fiddled much, but just
gave the bees someplace dry and insulated, protected them from
intruders, and farmed in a way that filled out the nectar
gaps. I would expect them to cull any really duff lines. I'd also expect
them to leave dead trees standing to give ferals someplace to live,
on the basis that ferals represent a valuable resource.
That sounds like a fine way to do beekeeping, something worth
aiming for. And it gives us something to compare modern practice with.
Of course there is no money in promoting this line of thought, so we
won't expect the magazines or retailer websites to be advocating it
anytime soon. Which is why we have to organize, because just by existing
and doing what they do those people are spreading the lies that are
killing bees. Without a counterweight they'll carry on.
