Hello Readers,
Today will be a snippet of what is going on in my beekeeping life as of late.
Helping out the government
First off, I'd like to inform you that I was contacted by the local government through the FAVV (The Federal Agency for Food Safety). The explanation I received was this: One of the ministers of the Belgian government has asked to do a study with beekeepers to find out what is going on with honey bee health in general. Why is the bee health drastically dropping, is it the varroa, or is there something else going on?
The idea is to follow some hives through a longer period of time. What the inspections will cover or what they’ll be looking for, I have no idea. But as I firmly believe we have to help eachother out I see this as the government reaching out to do it’s part, even if they’re a bit late in doing so… I know with that comes the danger of laws that take away certain freedoms, but let’s not jump the gun and trust our government to do the right thing…
I am going to welcome the federal inspector when he chooses to visit my home and give him access to 3 of my hives.
The MC2018 F1 Buckfast bees, the colony I started out with.
The LL2019 that was left behind by the black bee I got from Luc Lamon who swarmed.
The ZP2019 a swarm I collected this year in Waregem.
I hope to be able to talk about how I think helping nature in general would be a major step in the right direction for more than just the bees. In time, if there are larger and older forests, the bees will take up residence there and resume their life in the wild. Since in Belgium it is, amongst other things, the shortage of habitat for them to live and the shortage of forage that is keeping them from doing so now.
Taking a class to see a provincial apiary for educational purposes
Did I mention on here already I’m starting a beekeeper class for 3rd and 4th grade students in one school in my region Waregem? It’s a Freinet school and I was asked to place a beehive there. I responded: ‘sure, but why not make it a project so the kids get to know what’s going on?’
One thing led to another and now I’m scheduled for 2x 10 classes of beekeeping. I’ll have to adjust myself since I’m talking to youngsters with a short attention span, and some of them might not even be into beekeeping.
So now I have to lay out a lesson-plan for those 10 lessons, the first of them is tomorrow already…
We took the classes to see an active educational apiary, operated by the province of East-Flanders, thanks to one volunteer. (also a member of the local beekeeping club in Deinze)
The visit there showed me a couple of things, but these are the most important that I can remember:
The kids are easily distracted. I was hoping to support the volunteer by anticipating and grabbing some stuff he could use, like drone comb and a drone. But as soon as I moved there was always a group more interested in what I was up to, instead of listening to what was said.
The attention span of kids is indeed very short. They are full of questions, and it’s best to answer them with short answers, even though the truth is a bit more complicated. They tend to jump from one topic to another and are easily triggered by what they see. I’ll have to find an individual approach for each kid and give them something to do that they actually want to do.
Even though some of the kids were afraid at first, the curiosity gained it in almost all cases. Nobody getting stung helped a lot!
Overall I think the kids enjoyed the visit, and I hope they are keen on helping me out in building an apiary and a beehive for their school.
Apis Centric Beekeeping
The Lecture
Jef Wynants
This Sunday I attended a lecture by Jef Wynants. About 20 people attended.
He talked about what beekeeping actually means and that greatly depends on the beekeeper. He focused on a natural way of keeping bees, putting the bees and their health first and stressed that he believes that any form of treatment is a step in the wrong direction. The bees have to be able to deal with whatever is thrown at them by themselves. It is our task as humans to support them, not treat them.
He started off with a song:
Based on the texts of Kahlil Gibran where both flower and bee profit from eachother.
He concluded that beekeeping doesn’t have a set of rules to follow and that it is the beekeeper that makes his own rules.
He then continued by drawing a parallel between beekeeping and agriculture and the different ways of committing to those tasks.
Classical way (monoculture/honeycrop)
Biological way (respect for nature, no pesticides)
Biological Dynamic way (greater respect for nature and support for the natural way of life)
Biodynamic beekeeping does have a set of rules, those can be found in a charter by demeter.
Jef also touched upon the difficulties the bees, and the world in general, are facing.
We have reached the limits of what we can throw at nature. His idea is that we have to go with a hands off approach and let the bees tackle their own problems as much as possible. Rather than stretching the rubber band further by introducing forren produce (chemicals, or organic acids) into the hive.
Jef states that bees, like nature, strive for a balance within the hive, as such we have to treat the colony as one (super)organisme. In this respect he advises the work of Jurgen Tautz (the buzz about bees).
Respecting the bees is following their pace in life. To create bees, we need to wait for them to swarm, as it is only at that time that they are ready for it. Time is working against us humans, as we have to go to work and can’t sit around to wait for them to swarm.
Respecting the natural residence the bees choose is another pillar we need to look at. Here the work of Thomas D. Seeley is put forward (Honeybee Democracy) He points out that all work written about bees, apart from this book, does not look at the bee living in its natural habitat.
Looking at the moisture and temperatures within a natural beehive has been studied by Torben Schiffer, who states that no man made hive trumps the hollow tree. A tree keeps the inner temperature at an almost constant number, where outside the cycle of day and night shifts quite a bit. Keeping the temperatures inside the hive warm enough for the bees is done by themselves. To do so they burn sugars, honey, and by doing so, they create moisture. A reserve of 15kg honey creates 10l of water. So isolating with styrofoam is not good, for it traps the water, solving this with a screened bottom deteriorates the insulation value, causing more honey te be needed to bridge the gap towards better weather conditions during winter.
Moisture is a breeding ground for fungi, and it is said that not the varroa, but fungus is killing bees. In a good hive bees are able to create a micro-climate that allow them to keep their home more pure and clean than an OR! ( Study Revolution of beekeeping )
And whilst this environment is used by thousands of other organisms they live with the bees in harmony. A normal hive does not allow for those other organisms to find a home. A skep however did provide a home for a lot of these organisms. One of those organisms is a pseudo scorpion, that can be found in every colony living in the wild.
Another concern is what kind of bee to work with. Normally Jef would choose for the local bee, but, as there are very little black bees to be found and he’s not keen on introducing a black bee queen into another colony, he prefers working with swarms from bees that survive in this local climate, no matter the origin.
Practical issues when choosing for biodynamic beekeeping
Flowers and local food supply for bees
method of keeping bees:
Honeyhunter instead of keeping bees, zeidlerei, hollow trees
as little interference as possible
Allowing swarms
no feeding sugars
only take away the excess of honey (after the winter is over, and you didn’t feed sugar… all that is left is yours. So as soon as the cherry blossoms bloom, it’s harvest time)
when feeding is needed, do so with honey
natural selection (opposed to insemination or artificial queen rearing)
No wax-sheets to allow for natural building of comb
distance between hives
No cutting away drone comb.
No travelling with bees.
Materials used within the hive
Natural materials
better insulation
attention for moisture within the hive
Different hives
To finish his lecture Jef showed us some of his hives. Some designs are based on the sunhive. Others are experiments he came up with by himself. One of those is a double simplex body, with comb from top to bottom, so no frames. The body is encased with peat and then finished with a wooden outer layer. The bottom has a board with straw to allow other organisms to live in the hive. And the roof is insulated with natural materials and allows for a honey super to harvest from.
Another hive was a hollow tree trunk with windows, the bottom was filled up with mulch from leaves and other natural materials. A project he finished out of interest in a course he followed.
A home made design is what he calls the Langstroth TopBar Hive was also showed.
His designs show that Jef is as much an artist as he is a beekeeper.
That’s it for today guys and girls
Bob Out
