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 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.

In Africa bee hives are often placed in trees

PHOTO © W RITTER

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 are natural enemies, and are not averse to climbing, but the scent of honey and wax does not reach predators if they are walking on the ground.

Only healthy bees can reach the entrance hole of a nest at a height. The loss of ill bees strengthens the colony’s self-healing capacity. Climbing aids, or hives placed on the ground are not natural and are therefore a disadvantage for bee health. Bee hives hanging in trees are chosen by a swarm because they are the best nesting place for the bees. Roofs or balconies provide the height, but have nothing to do with natural surroundings. The best way would be for beekeepers to place hives on a high stand to facilitate easy handling.

Not too close together

According to Seeley’s examinations, colonies occurred in the forest every 0.85 km. Within this area, gathering nectar and pollen is most economical for them and there is little risk of transferring disease due to drifting and robbing. In closer vicinity, this risk becomes more extreme. Once alarmed they fly everywhere and rob anything smelling like bees.

Bee density has been regarded as one of the most essential criteria for the occurrence and transfer of diseases. However, beekeepers cannot maintain a distance of several hundred metres between colonies. The standard apiary with several colonies will therefore remain the rule. The ordinary placement of hives in a row offers the best conditions for transfer of disease. The situation is even more extreme in a bee house or a trailer used for migratory beekeeping. Today everything has become even more difficult, because bees tend to drift more often than before due to Varroa, viruses and insidious contamination with certain pesticides. Therefore, old traditions and approved methods have to be re-evaluated. It is better to place colonies separately, or in pairs, or, if in block form, with entrance holes facing different directions.

When entrance holes are placed above, below and next to each other, it makes orientation difficult for bees. Painting in different colours is a little help only

No mass animal husbandry

Depending on the scale of beekeeping, it is important to balance bee health against economy: if you consider only access routes and working time, and place between 60 and 200 colonies in one location, your beekeeping will have reached mass animal husbandry. As for example with cattle and pigs, this has to be firmly rejected, even if the suffering of the bees is not obviously visible. The context, however, is similar, because diseases are transferred: quickly, weak colonies are easily robbed and losses are certain.

A maximum of 20 to 30 colonies in one apiary during summer is a reasonable compromise. In times of mass foraging, for example, during honeydew flow, the number may increase. Most critical are the times without forage when the bees have to be fed. At such times even 20 colonies can be too many.

If colonies are placed in a row, there is a higher risk of drifting than if they are kept in blocks with the entrance holes facing in four different directions

(Graphic: Helmut Flubacher according to a model by Ritter (2014) in Bienen naturgemäß halten (Natural Beekeeping). Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany. In German

Enough food

How many colonies can be kept at one location depends, of course, on available food resources. When there is not enough food, in cold or dry periods, not all the colonies can survive. To place bee colonies somewhere assuming that they will care for themselves is reckless. Statistically, in Germany, there are around two colonies per km 2 . According to Seeley, with good food supply conditions existing at his location, there were five colonies per km 2 . But these average numbers say nothing about agglomerations in some areas.

Solar heat

A careful selection of location can also strengthen the self-healing capacity of colonies. Every day in healthy colonies, 100 to 1,000 bees die away from the nest, particularly in regions with long winter periods. Colonies must have the opportunity to fly out to defecate and get rid of ill bees as often as possible. For this purpose, bees must be able to recognise the weather in winter and spring, and when it is good enough for them to fly. If the entrance hole of the hive faces south it is easier for them. Therefore, it is not surprising that wild swarms prefer entrance holes facing that direction.

From their choice of location we can learn a lot from the bees. Those beekeepers who want to practise natural beekeeping should try to meet the bees’ requirements as perfectly as possible.

*The original article has a checklist on 'Is my apiary location compatible with natural standards' which is not available on this mobile friendly version.

Author details:

OIE, Reference Laboratory at CVUA Freiburg, Am Moosweiher 2, D79108 Freiburg, Germany ritter@beehealth.info

BfD acknowledges www.diebiene.de as the original source of this article