This beekeeping technique applies Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, along with adaptations that help bees better survive and reproduce in their environment.
The frequent deaths of honeybee colonies in recent years can largely be attributed to a Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
Parasites and stress from commercial beekeeping practices have contributed to this issue, according to Thomas D. Seeley, a retired professor from Cornell University who studies the behavior and social life of honeybees.
He states that a beekeeper can lose 10 to 20% of their colonies in a year, primarily during the winter. Currently, the mortality rate of honeybee colonies can reach as high as 80%.
However, bees have existed for approximately 120 million years, according to Brenda Kiessling, a retired physician and a master beekeeper recognized by the Northeast Organic Farming Association.
Kiessling, who has been keeping honeybees since the early 1970s, says: “Bees survive on their own and must adapt to living conditions. They have survived ice ages and storms. Somehow, they have managed to endure.”
This knowledge has led Seeley, Kiessling, other researchers, and amateur beekeepers to adopt the “Darwinian beekeeping” approach over the past decade.
This term applies Darwin’s principle that natural selection over time grants survival and reproductive capabilities to species.
This style of beekeeping is becoming increasingly popular among hobbyists. They focus on creating optimal conditions for bees to produce honey while mimicking how the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) lives in the wild.
This means keeping colonies in small hives that replicate the size of a natural hive, spacing hives apart to prevent the spread of parasites from one colony to another, and placing them away from areas treated with pesticides.
Seeley has studied honeybees in their natural habitat and is the author of the book “The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honeybee in the Wild.”
He states: “If you let an animal live naturally, it can fully utilize its survival skills to thrive and reproduce. But when you force them to live in a way that you want, those ‘skills’ do not work as well.”
Honeybees in North America – (Photo: E&E News).
Worker Bees Tasked with Severing Varroa Mite Legs
The principle of natural selection addresses many issues causing CCD symptoms. Seeley mentions a parasite known as the Varroa mite (not native to honeybees in America) that attacks honeybees during their development by injecting a virus that causes the bees’ wings to deform and die.
He explains that combating the virus-infected honeybees starts with identifying bees with good genetics.
In the commercial queen bee production industry, queen bees are mass-produced, bred for large colony sizes and high honey yields, but they often lack resistance to mites.
In contrast, in the wild, adult worker bees (the offspring of the queen) have evolved to kill Varroa mites by severing their legs. This adaptation is more effective than using parasiticidal chemicals.
“Let the bees show you which ones can survive,” Seeley advises.
He states that to obtain mite-resistant honeybees, beekeepers can capture a wild swarm by placing bait hives in remote areas, far from managed colonies. In the spring, when the hive becomes overcrowded, the queen and half the colony will cluster or leave to find a new home.
Kiessling has been practicing “Darwinian beekeeping” for the past three years. However, she spent nearly a decade researching, including attending Seeley’s lectures.
She recommends: “You should capture a swarm when they are hovering on a branch or bush. This can take a few days or just a few minutes because they are waiting, looking for a new home, so you need to work quickly.
You are lucky if the swarm lands on a low branch. You may just need to place a box below and shake them into it. Other times, retrieving a swarm can be more challenging, possibly involving climbing trees and cutting branches.
Ultimately, you want to keep a colony with a good queen that can survive the winter. Without a queen laying eggs to produce new bees, a hive cannot survive long-term.”
In her first winter of practicing “Darwinian beekeeping,” only one of Kiessling’s colonies died, so she removed the queen from that colony and placed her into a new hive to establish another colony. Each subsequent winter, the queen’s hive survived, and the process of establishing a new colony continued.
Honeybee Deaths Due to Being “Sent to Slums”
The mortality rate of honeybee colonies also stems from the stresses associated with migratory beekeeping.
Commercial honeybee colonies are transported across the country, including to California’s Central Valley for almond pollination, where bees become overcrowded and are exposed to pesticides.
Seeley notes: “They are moved to a place similar to a slum, and that is a great place for Varroa mites to migrate from heavily infected hives to other hives and infect the bees.
Hobby Beekeepers Should Be Satisfied with Smaller Honey Yields
Hobbyist beekeepers have long adopted commercial beekeeping practices, such as keeping bees in large hives close to other colonies to maximize honey production.
However, Seeley is observing a shift in mindset among these individuals. He states: “They deserve admiration for being able to keep many colonies, but more and more hobbyists are concerned about keeping bees kindly and respecting how bees adapt, allowing them to live naturally and utilize their survival tools.”
To achieve this, beekeepers must mimic the natural environment of the colonies. For example, creating space for hives to prevent bees from drifting from one colony to another and reducing the spread of disease.
In nature, wild hives are often spaced about 5.5 kilometers apart, but for hobbyist beekeepers, maintaining such distances poses a challenge.
Seeley states that placing hives far apart is impractical for most beekeepers unless they live in rural areas. In urban settings, it is recommended to keep only 1 or 2 hives, with at least 30 meters between two colonies.
Other steps include roughening the inner walls of the hives using wooden scrapers or building hives from rough-cut wood to encourage the production of propolis, a mixture of resin, beeswax, and other materials that bees create to enhance their resistance to bacterial and fungal infections.
It is also advisable to use hives constructed from thick, insulated wood and placed high off the ground. Keep hives away from trees treated with pesticides and fungicides.
Additionally, placing hives near wetlands, forests, and fields allows bees to gather diverse pollen sources and access clean water.
Colonies can also be kept in smaller hives that resemble the size of a natural hive. This way, the colony becomes overcrowded in the spring, prompting bees to cluster, which creates a chain of beneficial effects: within a few weeks, the colony has no young bees that Varroa mites can infect, and the colony can rejuvenate itself by producing a new queen.
Seeley concludes: “Rejoice when the bees cluster together, and be satisfied with a small honey harvest.”
