Those new to beekeeping frequently ask why we don’t just breed better bees. This is a logical question because breeding has long been the answer to many agricultural problems. When I say “breeding,” I don’t mean modern gene-insertion techniques that allow us to raise glow-in-the-dark cats, but the old-fashioned kind of breeding where you cross […] Read more
Thomas Seeley’s article on Darwinian beekeeping has unleashed a fury of discussion among beekeepers. Of particular interest are the ways in which feral colonies handle parasites and pathogens. Feral bees do not have beekeeper assistance, yet many of them do fine without it. The article, “Darwinian Beekeeping: An Evolutionary Approach to Apiculture” in the March […] Read more
For a long time, genetics has been the answer to our agricultural problems. I don’t mean modern gene-splicing where you combine genes from different species, but the old-fashioned kind of breeding where you cross hand-selected individuals in order to amplify their best traits. This traditional method has yielded bigger, fatter, disease-resistant, and high-yielding plants and […] Read more
“I’m worried about my bees. They are very busy and the brood frames are full but the bees are so different; some are yellow, some brown or gray, and some are almost solid black. Is my hive being invaded by robbers? What should I do?” Good question. What you are most likely seeing is a […] Read more
Why is this year so different? Every day I get messages that say basically the same thing: “I just checked my hive and all the bees are dead. They have plenty of honey and lots of pollen. What did I do wrong?” Some say their bees died in a small cluster; some say their bees […] Read more
In bee school you learned that the sex of a bee is determined by the fertilization status of the egg. A fertilized egg becomes a female; an unfertilized one becomes a male (or drone). You may have also learned that this phenomenon is called haplodiploidy, and that all the hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants) are […] Read more
I received many well-reasoned responses to yesterday’s post. Rather than attempting to answer them separately, I decided to write a follow-up. You are absolutely right that honey bees are not native to North America. But from the time they were brought over by the colonists in the early 1600s, until the introduction of the Varroa […] Read more