Bees for Development Journal 115: June 2015
Practical Beekeeping
Healthy bees by natural keeping APIARY LOCATION Wolfgang Ritter
Keywords: bee density, beekeeping practice, forage, nesting site, Varroa
Honey bees’ desires cannot always be met. Everyone is talking about bee distress. Important causes such as new pathogens, pesticides, and monocultural landscapes have already been identified. But we have not examined our own beekeeping practices. In this new series, we will examine what bees want and how far we can meet their needs by appropriate management techniques.
Beekeepers choose apiary sites and their decision is based on the variety of forage available. This can be in a garden, on a balcony, or even high on a roof. For bees it is different: in the course of their development and evolution over thousands of years, bees have developed specific selection criteria for their nesting sites. They are not always successful, as demonstrated by the mortality rate of wild swarms – although the loss is below 10%. A quorum consisting of a group of bees within a swarm decides where the colony will settle. But what are their criteria? For many years, the American researcher and BfD Trust Patron, Professor Thomas Seeley, has observed honey bees under
PHOTO © W RITTER
In Africa bee hives are often placed in trees
3
natural conditions in large forested areas. He undertook a series of scientific examinations to answer specific questions. Because of his research we know much more about what is natural for bees.
At a dizzy height If a bee swarm has a choice of different potential nesting places, (the bees in Seeley’s examinations had opportunity to do so), they always prefer a place several metres high. For beekeepers this is rather frustrating - because who likes to climb up a tree to look after their bees? From the bees’ point of view, however, it makes sense: high up they are safe from attacks and robbing. Bears and other mammals
