Golden Rule Apiary

Our Bees

With the spread of both tracheal and varroa mites into the northeast United States over the last 20 or so years, beekeeping practices have had to change.  These two pests can kill a domestic or feral colony on their  own, but more commonly, they slowly weaken the hive, shortening the lifespan of each individual bee until some opportunistic infection finishes the job.  Many longtime beekeepers have gotten out completely after devastating winter losses several years in a row, and feral colonies are just beginning to come back in many places.   For the most part, solutions coming from the research labs and universities have revolved around chemical treatments.  Almost universally, several pesticides and antibiotics are used inside commercial and hobbyist hives regularly.  Just as one would expect, resistance has become commonplace, and evidence that these chemicals can accumulate in the comb and cause problems with queen performance is clear.  It is naive to assume that all large and small producers (here and abroad) use only safe and approved treatments, and use them only according to label instructions...doubtless some of these substances occasionally make their way into honey.  This is all somewhat beside the point, as these substances are toxic to the bees, and most certainly, the reasons that the bees are succumbing to the mites or other disease is not fundamentally, "a lack of chemical treatments." We keep in close touch with our hives, and mostly can avert larger problems by taking simple and natural measures that stimulate the bees to help themselves.  Sometimes this means that we must let a weak colony die...as treating will only propagate genetic traits that are not suitable to our environment, and sometimes what appears to be weakness is acually an advantage.  This does not mean that we check for disease and only treat when necessary...we do not treat. Generally, beekeepers provide sheets of foundation (a sheet of beeswax with hexagons embossed on both sides).  The foundation is wedged and wired in the center of the frame, and the bees "draw out" the embossed hexagons on both sides into comb in which they raise brood, and store both honey and pollen.  It seems that based largely on an untested theory, the size of the embossed hexagons has been enlarged a couple of times industry wide...the idea is that a larger cell will raise a larger bee (true), and that a larger bee will bring in more honey (not true...the larger bee is bigger and heavier, but has the same size flight muscles).  There is  evidence to suggest that this larger cell size contributes to susceptibility to varroa.  Another issue with foundation, is that it is usually purchased from supply houses, and is made from wax that potentially has all kinds of chemical residue.   We don't use foundation at all.  Most beekeepers don't know that bees can be kept without foundation in a moveable comb hive, but obviously this is how bees evolved (and were kept before 1842, when foundation was invented).  There are some things to keep in mind when using a foundationless system, and some details can be found here. There are credible (and profitable) cases of regressing large cell (LC) bees in stages down to their natural cell size using foundation with progressively smaller hexagons as a way to combat varroa mites and other disease.  We believe that the bees should make whatever cell size (and sizes) they feel they need, as natural comb has a variety of cell sizes and using foundation dictates a fixed cell size.  Our bees make comb as they would in nature, without foundation, and sized according to their own needs.  Very few beekeepers even know that this is possible, and it does require more labor, attention and time than using foundation.  "Foundationless franes" also allow us to keep bees more closely according to their own nature, and it also seems to be affording us the same kind of varroa and disease resistance that the small cell beekeepers are seeing.  This year, we used a product called Honey Super Cell (HSC), which is a fully drawn, food grade polypropolene, small cell comb.  The purpose of this is not to keep bees on artifical comb, but to regress the bees in size quickly.  After the first generation is born in the plastic comb, they draw small cell comb on their own.  HSC is used by us only as a tool for regression of LC bees to SC.  We are commited to let the bees draw comb as they see fit, in a foundationless system.

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