Darwinian beekeeping

By Professor Tom Seeley, Professor of Biology at Cornell University, New York, USA

Darwinian beekeeping means applying Darwin’s understanding of how evolution works, to arrive at organisms that are well adapted to the problems that they face.

The heart of this idea is for we beekeepers to allow honey bee colonies to live as they have evolved to live in nature, rather than manipulating them to live in ways that benefit us.

Tom Seeley (right) is a proponent of Darwinian beekeeping

Photo © Sierra Salin

In Darwinian beekeeping, we let the bees live in our hives as they do in the wild, as for example, when they are nesting in a hollow tree. When we do this, we do two things:

1. We respect the natural features of honey bee behaviour and physiology: these are aspects of their biology that have been exquisitely shaped by natural selection to help them to survive and to reproduce.

An African yegilo hive placed high in a Polyscias fulva tree in Sheka forest in Ethiopia. This type of African beekeeping is Darwinian beekeeping, and the bees are abundant and healthy – see pages 9-13

Photo © University of Huddersfield

2. In the longer term, we allow natural selection to continue operating on these bees, which is particularly important for enabling them to maintain their natural resistance to diseases.

This contrasts with normal practice in countries like North America, where current beekeeping may be described as ‘non-Darwinian’. Just some examples of this:

• We purchase queen bees that originate from regions with different climates, so that we end up with bees that are not well-adapted for the local climate.

• We crowd colonies within apiaries, in a way that is very different from how they live in the wild. Crowded apiaries foster the spread of disease, and favour the evolution of more virulent strains of diseases.

• We eliminate highly defensive, or ‘aggressive’ colonies: we are just learning that these are also the most vigorous colonies!

• We house colonies in large, thin walled hives: these make it harder for the bees to keep their nest warm, and the larger available space also reduces their propensity for swarming which is their means of reproduction.

• We use treatments against Varroa mites: by ‘protecting’ the bees this way we eliminate the possibility of selection for resistance to Varroa.

Of course, in North America, Darwinian beekeeping is most easily practised by the small-scale beekeeper.

However, this is an idea that every beekeeper needs to consider, if we are to understand fully our relationship with bees.

Tom Seeley discusses Darwinian beekeeping further in the next BfD Journal 122.

Bees for Development is proud to have Professor Tom Seeley as Patron of our organisation. See Tom being interviewed by fellow Patron, Bill Turnbull on our website: www.beesfordevelopment.org/about-us/staff-patronstrustees-and-volunteers/professor-tom-seeley/