Italian beekeepers set out to find, protect and learn from those living free

Giacomo Ciriello, Project Manager, Bees for Development

It was unusual and inspiring to attend an event for beekeepers where so many of the conversations were about bees living free of them. In its second year, the Bee Natural Festival was an open yet close gathering. We spent the weekend around a beautifully diverse apiary in woodland, uphill from Montebello di Bertona, a small town on the edge of the Gran Sasso National Park, Abruzzo in Italy. Engaging talks by researchers, activists and seasoned beekeepers gave way to expert demonstrations with colonies homed in various hive types.

Eager for something a bit more adventurous, twelve of us had enrolled to ascend further up the mountain on the first morning, with the ambitious goal of catching foraging bees and following them back to their nest. With such a large and inexperienced crew and only about five hours to complete, I was not too hopeful. The art of bee hunting demands plenty of patience. Indeed, we did not make it all the way, but it was a thrill to see the techniques working.

We were 1,000m above sea level when we started looking for bees. Overcast and breezy, the weather was not ideal but fair. By early August, the main nectar flows are past in this region, but there was still some blackberry blossom and several varieties of clover and thistle. The lack of major food sources was to our advantage, as the bees may well have snubbed our offering otherwise.

Leading us was Luca Vitali, who has translated and published Tom Seeley’s books in Italian, and brought a bee catching box crafted to Tom’s specifications. Most of us tried using it, but only the swiftest caught any bees. We very soon gave up chasing them between the sparse flowers in the field. The best approach was leaning into bramble and waiting for a bee to visit a flower within reach. Arms were scratched, leggings were torn but all was worth it as within less than an hour we had eight bees in the box.

We walked to a nearby clearing and gathered around Luca, who proceeded to explain the next steps. Following Tom’s instructions, he poured sugar syrup, scented with aniseed, into a piece of old comb and offered it to the bees in the box. After 5-10 minutes, we set them free. They circled around a few times to memorise the spot before flying away – to the west, to the north, and in between. All we could do was wait, hoping they would come back for more.

The moment before a catch! (Using a bee catching box crafted to Tom Seeley’s specifications)

Marta di Pomponio and Giacomo Ciriello © Images

Five, ten then fifteen minutes and still no sign of the bees returning. This was upsetting. Tom Seeley writes that: “If the bees are gone more than 15 minutes, then things are pretty hopeless because the bee tree is probably more than 2.5km away. Bees are not likely to recruit nest mates over such a great distance, so probably you will never get a heavy traffic of bees at your comb.”

Resigned to the fact that we were not going to see a bee line established between our box and their nest, we unpacked our lunches. Attention was waning, when a bee flew straight towards us, landing on our feeding station. Ha - it worked! Twenty-three minutes had passed since we set her free from the box. Within a few minutes another four bees returned and we were able to put a spot of colour on each one with markers.

A steady hand is needed for marking bees coming back to the feeding station

Marta di Pomponio and Giacomo Ciriello © Images

We took note of what directions they were flying away and waited for them to complete another two trips. But they would fail to convince fellow foragers to join them. Nonetheless, satisfied that we had identified what direction they were moving in we were able to trap three in the box again, and move 1km north-west. Here we released our marked bees, but they were not able to find us again. After a 40-minute wait, we called the hunt over.

Even though we were nowhere near finding the nest, we all felt a great sense of achievement. We saw the method working and were elated to see the bees we had caught and marked return to our feeding station.

Back at the festival site we recounted our adventure and judging by the questions I expect there will be at least two hunting parties setting off at next year’s event. Adelaide Valentini had perfectly explained why it was so important to protect and learn from free living honey bees. Her family run a successful and multifaceted beekeeping business, which has genuinely strived to prioritise the welfare of their local honey bee population. Adelaide manages hundreds of colonies and runs a sophisticated breeding programme. At the same time, she believes that Apis mellifera is a wild species threatened by domestication, and that natural selection is the key to the development of resilient honey bees.

Oscar Wilde famously wrote that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. Italy, and the rest of the world, needs more beekeepers like Adelaide who are deeply committed to finding ways of working with nature rather than against it – while continuing to treat beekeeping as a viable livelihood rather than an elitist hobby.

She is launching the Resilient Bee Project which is setting out to create a network of guardian beekeepers who take care of wild colonies and monitor their health in non-invasive ways. She sees these colonies as crucial reservoirs of locally adapted genes and the only long-term solution for beekeeping with Varroa. She has categorically stopped selecting against swarming and is keen for her queens to mate with drones from unmanaged colonies.

With similar goals but a very different approach, a team from the Fondazione Edmund Mach presented their own initiative to monitor and safeguard unmanaged honey bee colonies. This comes in the form of a free app called BeeWild, available for both Android and iOs devices. While Adelaide’s project relies on a community of trusted beekeepers growing outwards from her locality, the BeeWild app is a tool aimed at everyone.T

he idea is simple – whoever finds a colony that does not belong to a beekeeper can register it online with observations, pictures and geographic coordinates. Once the entry is accepted as valid (it is a constant source of amazement how many people cannot tell bees and wasps apart) – anyone with the app can see the location of the wild colony and information about it. This last point caused some controversy. Several were concerned that the app could be used maliciously, and that the best form of protection for nests is obscurity. The developers will be monitoring the situation closely as more people start using the app and stand ready to change the model if it starts undermining itself.

Both the Resilient Bee Project and the BeeWild app want to raise awareness of the importance and beauty of honey bee nests that live free of human intervention.

Off you go! Please come back for more with your friends – the bees are released from the catching box

Marta di Pomponio and Giacomo Ciriello © Images

Off you go! Please come back for more with your friends – the bees are released from the catching box

These are steps towards protecting marvels of nature, expanding the habitats that support them, and ultimately learning from them how to keep bees sustainably again.

The Bee Natural Festival was hosted by the Beeodiversity Park www.beeodiversitypark.com/il-parco

To learn more about the Resilient Bee Project visit www.resilientbee.com

Search for the BeeWild app on the Google or Apple app stores

The Beeodiversity Park is home to colonies in frame, log, People’s and top-bar hives

Marta di Pomponio and Giacomo Ciriello © Images

Paolo Fontana looks at bees in a top-bar hive

Marta di Pomponio and Giacomo Ciriello © Images