Practical Beekeeping -

Healthy bees by natural beekeepingWhen beekeepers have to decide between life and death

Wolfgang Ritter

Dr. Wolfgang RitterHead of Reference Laboratoryfor Bee Health of OIE WorldOrganisation for Animal Health

CVUA (Chemischen undVeterinaruntersuchungsamter)Freiburg, Am Moosweiher 2,D 79108, Germany

All beekeepers, regardless ofwhether they consider themselvesto be working 'conventionally','naturally' or 'biologically', alwayshave to consider if they areprepared or are required to acceptthat animals are damaged or evenkilled. Some points of orientationconcerning ethically justifiablelimits in beekeeping are discussedhere by Dr Wolfgang Ritter.

Keywords: Natural, ethical, brood,transportation.

Nobody is entitled to causeunnecessary suffering, pain ordamage to animals. This basicrule of the EU's Animal WelfareAct is valid for not only 'higher'animals, but also for bees andother insects. As honey beescan survive only within theircommunity, the whole bee colonyis the animal itself, while singlebees are each one part of it. So, thedeath of an individual honey beecan be regarded as weakening ordamaging to the animal, whereaswith the death of a colony thewhole animal dies.

To judge how much suffering

is being caused to bees, it ishelpful to compare with thenatural living conditions of ahoney bee colony. Whenever ourinterventions contradict the naturalsituation, then we have a specialresponsibility to ensure that ouractions be as harmless as possible.This is illustrated by the followingexamples:

Squeezing beesWhen moving combs or insertingframes, bees may be squeezed.This cannot be totally avoided,although harm to bees can beminimised by working in a verycalm and thoughtful way, by usingsmoke and brushing the bees verycarefully. Great care must be takenwhen using a bee-blower. In thiscase, many bees are squeezed asyou blow out densely populatedhoney chambers. However ifthe boxes are first emptied withthe use of bee escapes, the fewremaining bees can be blown outeasily without causing much harm.

Killing bees during nightbeekeepingAfrican honey bee races are more

prepared to defend their nestthan other races of honey bees.Therefore, it can be difficult toopen bee hives and to harvesthoney near to human housingduring day time. Some Africanbeekeepers do all their activitieswith bees during night time.However then all the bees thatlose contact with the bee colonyand their nest are doomed,and the death of thousands ofbees is accepted. This mode ofoperation is more 'honey hunting'than animal husbandry. Africanmanagement methods must enablecolony handling during day lightto prevent losses of bees, andto enable other problems to berecognised.

Transportation of hives withopen entrance holesIt is fundamentally unnatural tomove honey bee colonies to newareas of nectar sources. Howeverthere is sometimes no otherchoice for beekeepers who aimto provide good forage for thecolonies and to obtain betterhoney yield. Disregarding theunfavourable CO. balance on one

It may be considered natural to remove all brood to reduce the number ofVarroa mites

hand, long transportation alwayspresents stress for bee colonies.In transporting bees with framehive entrance holes left open, beelosses are inevitable, no matterwhether they are transported inan open or closed vehicle, at dayor at night. This can be avoided ifthe hive entrance holes are closed.Nevertheless, you should alwayspay attention to good ventilationand air-conditioning, and sufficientprovision with water, and to avoidbees escaping while in transit.

RequeeningIn most cases the honey bee colonyrecovers easily from the loss ofworker bees; however, the loss ofthe queen is always critical. In ahoney bee colony living in the wild,a queen lives for around five years.Only after her laying capacityhas decreased, does the colonysilently replace its queen, and forsome time, there will be two layingqueens in the colony.

Many beekeepers kill the queenafter two years, because the oldershe becomes, the more her layingcapacity decreases, and the morethe colony's swarming increases.Even if the queen in a wild colonymay die early, requeening by thebeekeeper cannot be regarded asnatural.

Destruction of drone broodIn its unique role as spermsupplier, the drone is only ofsecondary importance for thebee colony. This is obvious duringcritical situations for a honey beecolony when drone brood is thefirst to be neglected. Therefore itwould seem to be acceptable thatfor Varroa control, drone brood iscut out and destroyed. In spite ofthis, some beekeepers reject thisfor ethical reasons.

Here again it is helpful to comparewith the natural situation: in theoriginal host species for Varroa,the Asian honey bee Apis cerana,

the capping on the drone broodcell is so thick that a developingdrone infested by Varroa mitescannot emerge. The worker beesseal the cell with a mixture ofwax and propolis. So the cellbecomes a trap for the parasite,thus facilitating the survival of thecolony. The same effect is intendedby the extraction and destructionof the drone brood by beekeepersworking with Apis melliferacolonies. Therefore, drone brooddestruction may be considerednatural.

Complete brood removalHowever, is brood removal validalso for worker brood, when it iscompletely removed in case ofbrood diseases (like foulbroodand Varroa} to reduce the infectionpressure? Colonies of the Asianhoney bee Apis cerana and Africanbee races of Apis mellifera show asimilar behaviour: they abscondfrom the nest and by this freshstart for the colony, secure its

Beekeeper's disaster beyond all expectations - because of lack of air and heat accumulation, the strongest colonydied during transport.

bees tor aeveloi ui l l l / <

survival. Even if most races of theWestern honey bee rarely showthis behaviour, it is completelynatural, without any doubt, to forman artificial swarm or a nucleuswithout brood for the purpose ofdisease control.

Killing coloniesVery weak colonies suffering fromdiseases or parasites represent adanger for neighbouring colonieswhen they are robbed. Therefore,they should be killed. Even if it isnot natural, it secures the healthysurvival of other colonies. In thecourse of pest control (Americanfoulbrood or, at present, thesmall hive beetle) it is at this timeobligatory in Germany.

Neglecting coloniesTo leave colonies alone and letthem die is not natural and hasto be strictly rejected from anethical point of view. The welfareof the bee colony has to be moreimportant than the desire for ahuge honey yield. The situation isthe same when too many coloniesare placed at one location,resulting in insufficient food andthe spread of diseases.

Replacing coloniesTo fully benefit from a good honeyharvest opportunity, or to balancedisease-caused losses, sufficientyoung colonies are created inspring. In general, there is nothingto say against this practice, underthe condition that the death of

During day time fewer bees are killed and better inspection of colonies ispossible

the managed colony cannotbe blamed on the beekeeper,and that it was not intentionallycaused. Also in the wild, somebee colonies die during winter. Informer beekeeping times, lossesof 10% were regarded as normal.With diseases and other problems,nowadays a loss rate of up to

Checklist: Is my bee colony management natural?

Condition

Entrancehole duringtransportation

Transportationdistance

Winter losses

Colonyreplacement

Beekeepingactivities

©Very good

closed atnight

Okm

©Good

closed byday

up to 30 km

©Bad

open atnight

up to 60 km

5 to 10% up to 15% up to 30%

100% youngcolonies

Always daytime

50% youngcolonies

50%additionalpurchase

25% youngcolonies

75%additionalpurchase

(^}

Very bad

open by day

more than60km

more than30%

100%additionalpurchase

Mostly day Mostly night Night timetime time only

15% is acceptable. Disregardingdisasters, the portion of colonies tobe replaced must stay below a lossrate of 20%.

If a considerable number ofcolonies have to be replacedregularly, it is an obligation fromthe ethical point of view as well asbecause of animal welfare reasonsto evaluate both the apiary siteand the management methodsbeing used - especially duringperiods of disease control.

These examples mentioned aboveare intended to give incentive toconsider and reflect about thereasons for one's own behaviour.If everybody reflects criticallyupon their own actions, thenunnecessary bee losses can infuture be avoided.

Author detailsOIE, Reference Laboratory atCVUA Freiburg, Am Moosweiher 2,D79108 Freiburg, Germanyritter@beehealth.info

Bfd acknowledgeswww.diebiene.de as the originalsource of this article