imkercongres Mortsel 29 02 2020
The reception
Arriving early I helped out Hugo who was unloading some baskets full of goodies
- a present for the speakers? After this short greeting I moved on to the reception room.
I was fitted out with a yellow paper bracelet, permitting me to help myself to some coffee,
water or tea with a biscuit. The ribbon also allows entry into the theater, where the
guest speakers will do their thing.
As I can't remember whether lunch was included, I’m hoping for a snack over noon as well.
Slowly the room filled up with beekeepers, I have to presume with local beekeepers since,
apart from Hugo I didn’t know any names. There were some faces I had previously seen
in other beekeeping events, but mostly the crowd was made up of unknown people.
Small groups gathered and everybody found people to talk beekeeping with. I picked up
parts of a conversation and was witness to yet another story of losing bees over winter.
The same image that I had already found in my own hives after inspection was relayed to
the mentor by his apprentice.
After a while some people came in that I knew so I put away my notebook and started
my own social mingling.
On the schedule are 5 names, first up we have dr. Thijs Lambrecht, who will discuss the
history of beekeeping in Flanders, Brabant.
Next up professor dr Dirk de Graaf, from the university of Gent, Honey Bee Valley,
speaks about innovation in the beekeeping world; the digital era and how science has
helped in the selection process towards varroa tolerant bees.
The third speaker is dr. Hans Bruyninckx, who'll address beekeeping and climate change.
Then after lunch (yes, I found the schedule and there is lunch provided) we have prof.
dr. Jan Tytgat, talking about pesticides and what they do to bees.
After all that to conclude the congress dr. Hans Van Dyck will talk about ‘bee smart’.
The communication within a hive, how they navigate and the learning capabilities of
honeybees.
A diverse and interesting assortment of topics.
Words of welcome
The first person to pick up the microphone after we moved to the theatre room was a
member of the Saint Ambrosius Beekeepers Guild Mortsel-Edegem. And he’s also the
person to tie the speakers together, thank them and give them the basket with goodies
as a ‘thank you for speaking’ gift.
He announced the first speaker, not as Dr. Thijs Lambrecht but as the mayor of the local
commune: Eric Broeckx. Eric, as a politician, gave his felicitations to the guild and gave
a speech worthy for a man in his position, before returning the microphone.
Dr.Thijs Lambrecht
Dr Thijs Lambrecht took us on a trip down memory lane.
As a historian he (had his students) plow(ed) through tons of documents.
The result was a timeline that didn’t really give away any secrets on how to become
a beekeeper, but rather focused on the economic value of honey and how many people
were keeping bees right up until the 1900’s. I’ll give a short overview of what I can
remember on the subject:
1866: the year where all beehives were counted in Belgium as part of a larger
agricultural project. The amount of hives in Belgium were 140632 hives. This
information was gathered from a book: “History of agriculture in Belgium” from 1952,
in it 6 pages are all about beekeeping. (The book might not be available in english,
the dutch version is titled: ‘Geschiedenis van de landbouw in België’ by Paul Lindemans)
1300-1400:
Research proves wax and honey are imported from South Europe (mainly Spain)
- the research itself was analysing remains from inside a cesspool, finding pollen
from plants that did not flourish in Belgium.
documents are found that proves beekeepers move the hives to follow the blooming
of plants
a household that has bees averages from 2 to 6 hives
1400-1600:
An increase in the amount of beekeepers
rivalry between neighbouring villages about who can put up hives and where
1568 painting by Pieter Breughel portraying a band of thieves in beekeeping-suits
stealing honey
about 30% of all villagers have at least one beehive on their property, mainly
for own consumption. Most villagers that have bee hives are also small scale
or medium sized farmers.
1600-1700:
Heather is one of the most important resources for honey, as are wild flowers
A law is prohibiting people from picking flowers from the fields in Kalmthout
(a region with a lot of heather)
1700 - 1900:
guilds of beekeepers are founded. To join one, a donation of a certain
number of hives is needed. Hives that are then rented out to the highest bidder.
in 1750 a crisis in beekeeping arises the rent for hives is dropping
The amount of beekeepers is also dropping in numbers, but the amount of hives
with beekeepers that keep it up increase.
in 1800’s only 7 to 8% of the villagers still have bees. This is the result of
There is a slight increase in beekeepers during the continental blockade from
1806 to 1814, but as soon as the other resources become available again, the
number of beekeepers drops again.
In total there are some 130 guilds in existence in Belgium, but their activities
perish and the number of new members drops or is even halted in some years.
One of the remarks dr Thijs Lambrecht made is pretty curious, pollination is
something unknown to people from this time as a church tried to fine beekeepers
for the damage their bees caused in the orchard!
Prof. Dr. Dirk de Graaf
I didn’t take much home from dr Dirk de Graaf his presentation.
He introduced some digitale alternatives to replace a notebook
to take notes during hive inspections. He mentioned the BEEP
and Arnia systems, talked about how many they have or ordered
and what they are used for. He touched upon the wishes of
europe to use these systems to create a ‘digital beehive’ that
could be used to approve plant protection products. (see the EFSA
project for that)
He also spoke about their selection work and how he hopes the
bees they are creating towards varroa tolerance are going to
stay locally adapted and spread amongst the beekeepers.
To be honest, I don’t recall any results from all the work he has pointed out to be doing.
Sure they found 8 markers on 6 genes that indicate, for our region, that the bees that have
those markers show a good promise towards resistance or tolerance. But no results were
tied to those conclusions, in fact he asked for more funds to further investigate these findings
in queen breeding.
He also showed that beekeepers working together with Honey Bee Valley in the queen selection
program have had favourable results towards selecting queens that have a 0 virus load.
But he did not mention why this is a factor that is interesting for beekeepers. One could assume
that having a minor virus load already present inside a beehive would help with fighting off that
disease as the bees are familiar with it rather than have ‘clean’ bees that all of the sudden have
to deal with said disease.
After his talk during lunch Dirk came over to our table for the briefest of moments and we had a
little discussion on this selection topic. I can say he has admitted that to come to a workable
result we have to let nature help select the bees in a more natural selection process.
Dr. Hans Bruyninckx
Climate change was the topic here, a topic that can be split into
3 major items:
Global Warming
Decrease of Biodiversity
Exhaustion of our fossil fuels in correlation with the former 2 items
Dr Hans Bruyninckx pointed out that the European Green Deal is already too late,
even if all targets are met in time (or even earlier). As we already have irreversible effects
on the planet and specifically for Belgium:
Increase in heat waves
less precipitation during summer periods, but more rainfall overall during one year.
extreme weather conditions (storms, high wind velocities, heavy rains)
All this will result in a changing environment. Nature will survive, but a lot of species will not
coop at the speed needed to adapt themselves to the changes around them.
Bees have a good chance of making it, since beekeepers will try to keep their hives alive,
and bees have a good adaptability, provided they have a longer period of blooming flowers.
Lunch time
During lunch time we debated amongst ourselves mostly about Dr. Hans Bruyninckx
presentation and what that meant for us. In fact the thought was posed that we have to stop
teaching others to become beekeepers. First we should bring awareness that there is a
shortage of food sources (biodiversity) and stimulate beekeepers first and others second
to provide forage for the bees.
In the light of climate change we should not blindly follow associations like ‘natuurpunt’ -
an association that is looking to preserve landscapes - but rather than preserve landscapes
we should prepare them for the upcoming changes. Maybe we need to look at what type
of conditions we are expecting to have and introduce plants that thrive in those conditions.
With the risk of being judged for bringing in (invasive) exotic species. But it is only logical
that the planet will adjust itself if we let it, and that would mean that plants would have to
adapt, or would have to travel at the same speed the climate change does. So why not
prepare for that and already introduce the plants here?
We worked our sandwiches down during all this social talking and the topic changed into
varroa. One of the present beekeepers wound himself up over the fact that there are
‘natural beekeepers that just don’t treat’. Said beekeeper does not use any products in his
hive, but treats by taking out all infested brood out of his hives, to let them recover from
varroa infestation, so that they make it to the next year. He firmly believes that simply stopping
treatments is detrimental. The load of varroa that is everywhere, so he believes, brings too
high a pressure for the bees to adapt. It is his belief that the amount of varroa keeps growing,
even inside hives that make it through their first winter, resulting in loss of the colony during
the second winter.
I did not contradict him as I did not feel the need to. He did ask me about how long I’ve been
beekeeping after I admitted having lost 10 out of 13 hives. He did not press the matter, I did
not say anything.
Another beekeeper there agreed with him, but did say he did not treat, except when the mite-
load called for it. I have no idea what treatment said beekeeper uses if the mite-count is too high.
On counting mites, I asked the first beekeeper what method he used and what the threshold
is he utilises. The answers were: sugarshakes and 2 in wintertime.
This made me revisit my own beliefs on the way home later that day, but I firmly believe that
the bees are capable of adapting on their own. The only practical problem is that there are
no wild colonies left to start with in my region (or at least none that I’m aware of). So after
capturing a swarm, they might indeed die after the 2nd year, for reasons explained above.
This would mean I have to keep doing what I do, until the bees that are ‘created’ to be varroa
tolerant are widespread, start to swarm and fall into my lap. Making my entire operation
(trying to get to vital bees by myself) obsolete.
I’ve decided to keep going for it in my own way, if it works, great, if it doesn’t… then I’ll end
up with bees that were bred to be resistant in the lab and undergo a natural selection from
that point on - resulting in even better bees (I hope).
Prof. Dr. Jan Tytgat
Professor Dr. Jan Tytgat was up next. He addressed the plant protection
products rather thoroughly divided into several topics:
the kinds of products and how they work + how long it takes for nature to get rid of them
The application of said products - use as intended + side effects like seeping into the soil and
water, only to resurface inside plants and waterways.
Sub-lethal effects in honey bees caused by these products (that we know of)
Symptoms in bees after coming into contact with these products
Use of products within the beekeeping circles themselves and the impact on the bees.
Synergy between products - in general most fungicides and aragnacides have the
ability to enhance (more than double even) the effects of other pesticides.
The use of PPP’s in Belgium, amounts shown in numbers. And those numbers were
metric tons! Hallucinating.
Integrated pest management systems for auto-control and the importance of biodiversity
to limit the effects.
I’m not going to get into details here on the entire presentation. Most of it is theoretical and as
I don’t use any products, nor can I mitigate the use of them in my environment further than my
own garden, I have to make do with the reality around me. This presentation was however
very suitable to bring awareness that our way of producing food is not a sustainable way.
Dr. Hans Van Dyck
The final speaker was dr. Hans Van Dyck. He talked about how
every individual sees the world in his own way and how within a
species this way is somewhat the same, but still different. He also
told us that other species see the world very different than us but
in the end, if we go far back enough into evolution, we find a
common ground. All life has the same origin, still not all species
have the same needs. As an example he told us about how plantlife
and pollinators need each other, use the needs of the other to
satisfy their own needs. It’s very plausible to assume the bee
doesn’t care about plant-sex-life, yet she is a part of it. It’s very
plausible to say that all the bee cares about is the nectar, the pollen,
the propolis or water. So in fact it is the plant that uses that need of the bee to spread its pollen
around! Sometimes this fails as bumble bees or some wasps have been known to chew through
the flower petals to get directly to the nectar without passing the pollen at all. This shows that
bees can learn. Some bees find things out all by themselves, sometimes they copy the
behaviour of others.
As an example dr hand Van Dyck showed us some experiments. On bumble bees, and how
they were made to pull up a disk from underneath a barrier to be rewarded with nectar from
the center of the disk. Once they had one bumble bee that knew what to do they gave him an
audience. After simply watching that bumble bee perform the pull out the disk trick 40% of the
audience (all bumble bees) also knew what to do! Some other experiments showed you can
train bumble bees, they used a model (a dead example of the species on a stick) to show bumble
bees how to put a small ball in the center of a disk resulting in a reward. Such smart creatures,
with so tiny brains!
Honeybees are also capable of learning. They were exposed to colours, shapes and number
of items.
They could learn that they had to choose the same (colour); After flying inside a hole
that was painted yellow they had a choice to go through one of two holes, the same yellow
or a different blue coloured hole. Choosing the same colour was rewarded.
They could learn that they had to choose a different colour, or choose something else.
This time the reward came if they picked the other option and not the same colour twice.
They could learn simple math! They were made to enter through a yellow portal with a
number of dots on it, then pick the portal with one fewer dots inside. Or through a blue portal
after which they had to choose the portal with one more dot in it.
Dr. Hans Van Dyck also pointed out that there were personalities to be found within insects of
the same species, or even within the same group of social animals, like honeybees. They are
not pre-programmed machines! If they are conscious is another matter, but they sure are not the
same.
Aftermath
It was a long day, and I left the aula on my own, as the people I was sitting with were talking
amongst each other and addressed others as well. I figured I’d drive home, skipping the drinks
and snacks to enjoy the company of my family.
Arriving at my car I was disappointed in the economic system. I used an app to start a timer,
allowing me to pay for parking space during my stay, only to find I received a ticket anyway!
My timer charged me 6,13 EURO for parking there, the ticket asked for 25 euro.
I fully intend to file a dispute about this, and I hope I’ll be acquitted for paying the 25 euro extra.
I had a good day, but not that good a day…
(as a side note I can now tell you they dropped the fine!)
Bob Out.
