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Back to nature !

The "modern" beekeeping:

keeps the bees partly in plastic hives (styrofoam), in which the humidity values are far too high, give them the honeycomb structure, and not only the direction of construction, but also the cell size. The honey is removed and exchanged for pure sugar water. The bees are partly transported into fields that consist of huge monocultures - although everyone knows that this causes malnutrition in the bees.

In addition, the bees are specifically exposed to the pesticides there. They are prevented from swarming and dividing on their own, in favor of the yield. It will decide about livable and non-livable "bee material". We determine which behavior our bees are allowed to have and in some so-called pure breeding associations, even natural reproduction is prevented, because one presumes to be able to do better than 45,000,000 years of evolution. At the end of the year, the bees are tortured with acids that burn our nasal mucous membranes even at the lowest concentration. In addition, neurotoxins are used, essential oils etc. and it is expected that our bees will not be harmed by them. In fact, however, it is hardly conceivable that the bees' highly sensitive antennae are not impaired. When a bee colony dies, from a beekeeping point of view it is an unnatural process and cannot be attributed to beekeeping or how it is kept.

Zucht und Selektion:

The targeted intervention in the genome, which pursues the goal of enhancing the properties desired by humans. It is not only behavior that counts here, but also external appearance.

The so-called “pure breeding” is realized through incest multiplication, among other things. The bees are either denied any right to natural reproduction or closely related "sibling peoples" are placed on a stand so that only these can mate with each other.

Bees that do not correspond to the aesthetic appearance or do not meet the behavioral criteria desired by humans are desecrated (the queen of these colonies is crushed to death). Then a new queen is used (instructing), whose offspring better meet the requirements of the breeders.

Here we speak of livable and unworthy of "bee material". The bees have to meet a complex catalog of criteria, and a kind of "certificate" is issued to them. When reading through the breeding criteria of the German Beekeeping Association, the extent of the manipulative interventions on the 45 million year old, systemically relevant species of honeybees becomes particularly clear.

The public has so far neither noticed nor reflected on these practices. The beekeeper (still) has the sparkling white image of nature lover, beekeeper and environmentalist.

However, this image usually has nothing to do with reality. In beekeeping schools, for example, newcomers are introduced to the supposedly necessary craft. An example of this is a current discussion in the Facebook group "New Beekeepers".

The superbien seems to be clearly defined:

He carries at least 50 kilos of honey. He is gentle and does not sting the beekeeper. He is honeycombed. He does not rave about. He keeps the hive clean. He produces large, healthy breeding fields. He stays healthy even if he only gets sugar water. Chemicals such as organic acids or neurotoxins have no health consequences. He is varroa resistant. He doesn't die, etc. etc.

Während auf diese Art und Weise Bienen gehalten werden, sinkt die weltweite Anzahl von Bienenvölkern von Jahr zu Jahr. Es konnten in den letzten Jahrzehnten zwar immer wirksamere Mittel gegen die Varroa entwickeln werden und dennoch sehen wir, dass die Probleme zeitgleich angestiegen sind. 

Nevertheless, some neutral-minded beekeepers are hesitant to rethink. The great masses in good faith follow some institutes that are tasked with uncovering and correcting the problems of bee mortality. But it is precisely these institutions that live from the omnipresent problem of bee mortality. No problem - no research funding and vice versa. A sustainable solution would therefore turn off the money to precisely these institutions. So let's just carry on as before, right?

When Bayer, Syngenta or BASF pays, “independent” institutes come to the conclusion that pesticides (such as neonicotinoids) have no effect on bee deaths.

These results were published when there was already a ban on its use in other European countries, because there “really” independent institutes came to completely different results.

It is therefore not surprising that the Gotland project disappeared into the drawer and that hardly any beekeeper knows it today. Varroa and bees - a case for long-term treatment? Nature has shown that it can get the problems under control in the shortest possible time, while researchers in our institutes have been more or less on the spot for decades.

If the varroa problem resolves itself within a few years (see Gotland), then the current problem is a beekeeping and man-made one. A student recently said: "Now I have realized that the bees do not need us to survive, but we do the bees". I think he hit the nail on the head with this realization.

Some common beekeeping practices

Cut off the wingtips of the queens so that they cannot swarm. Squeeze queens if they do not meet the "catalog of requirements" or their laying performance decreases. Pinch whisper cells (newly formed queen cells, with queen larvae) from the combs and crush them so that the colony does not swarm (prevention the natural reproductive process, during which most of the Varroa mites are naturally removed) .Cut out drone brood (male bees / larvae die by the thousands over several days in their capped combs that have been removed from the colony or are placed in the wax melter where they are after slowly rising temperature, eventually death from heat). The empty frames, often soiled with larvae innards, are given back to the beehive for cleaning and repopulation. Room expansion: Beehives are bred unnaturally large, in favor of the yield. At the same time, a lethal Varroa mite population is bred, which is then usually fought with chemicals - but at the same time the bees are also considerably damaged. Box keeping: Bees are kept in inappropriate boxes (hives), with significant effects on their health and biology

Modern beekeeping meets the essential criteria of (cruel) factory farming, with all negative effects on bee health and the survivability of the entire species. Basic biological knowledge about reproduction, natural selection and evolution seem to have been completely lost in large parts of the beekeeping industry, but also in some so-called "bee experts". This is difficult to understand because all scientific experiments have shown that bees can survive without any human intervention (e.g. Gotland project).

Aussagen wie: "Ohne den Imker würde es die Bienen in kürzester Zeit nicht mehr geben" entbehren jeglicher, sachlicher, wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse und sind genauso weit von der Realität entfernt, wie die moderne Imkerei von einer artgerechten Tierhaltung. Natürlich sterben bei der natürlichen Selektion Völker aber genau das ist das uralte Grundprinzip für Anpassung und Evolution, - ohne Selektion gibt es auch keine Evolution. Das sterben eines Volkes, welches im Sinne von Darwin (survival of the fittest) nicht die überlebenswichtigen Eingenschaften aufweist, ist ein Gewinn für die gesamte Art, da das nicht überlebensfähige Erbgut aus dem Genpool verschwindet. Das Sterben von Völkern ist also ein ganz normaler, natürlicher und überaus wichtiger Prozess. Dieses steht mit den Praktiken der modernen Imkerei im direkten Widerspruch, da hier alle Völker anhand von Chemikalien am Leben erhalten werden. Der Mensch entscheidet, welche Eigenschaften ein Bienenvolk haben darf und soll und er hilft jenen, die sich nicht selbst helfen können. Hier wird die natürliche Selektion letztendlich ausgehebelt. 

No species became "better" in terms of sustainability through targeted human breeding and selection, but the opposite is the case. Bred animals (so-called pure breeding) usually have one thing in common, they are no longer able to survive without human help. We have bred their ability to survive in favor of the properties we humans want. However, we don't seem to have understood that every behavior that we breed out of the bees also costs something. The catalog of requirements in beekeeping is remarkably oriented towards human needs. Every criterion desired and placed on bees in beekeeping harms the entire species and minimizes its ability to survive independently of humans.

The bees should:

• Sanftmütig sein: Sie sollen den Imker nicht stechen, auch wenn dieser buchstäblich den ganzen Stock auseinandernimmt, Waben herausschneidet, Vorrat klaut, Bienen zerquetscht, Königinnenzellen abquetscht etc..
• Schwarmträge sein: Sie sollen möglichst nicht schwärmen (die Grundlage der bienischen Fortpflanzung, sowie der wohl wichtigste Faktor für die natürliche Varroamilbenreduktion wird unterdrückt oder abgezüchtet).
• Honigleistung: Bienen sollen einen großen Überschuss an Honig produzieren, den sie selbst gar nicht brauchen. Dieses ist nur mit dem Einsatz von etlichen Millionen Arbeitsstunden pro Volk zu bewerkstelligen, - Stunden, die den Bienen letztendlich für natürliche und über lebensnotwendige Verhaltensweisen abhanden kommen (siehe Arbeitskapazitätsmodell - Schiffer).
• Volksstärke und Frühjahrsentwicklung: Bienen sollen im Frühjahr möglichst große Brutfelder anlegen, viele Nachkommen erzeugen, damit der gewünschte Überschuss an Honig für den Imker eingetragen werden kann. In diesen brutreichen Völkern, vermehren sich ebenfalls die Varroamilben in entsprechender Anzahl. Völker die dieses Kriterium nicht erfüllen, werden umgeweiselt (Töten und ersetzen der Königin).

Tragically, conventional beekeeping training includes this catalog of criteria and the associated manipulative interventions. Nevertheless, many beekeepers see themselves as nature and bee protectors.

Here we absolutely need more clarification and honesty! Above all, however, the public has a say, as the intervention and breeding of honey bees, which are a systemically relevant key species, will affect all of us in the future. The honeybees developed in coevolution with the more highly developed flowering plants and over a period of 45 million years. Because of their flower continuity, they play a key role in maintaining the ecosystem in which we live and on which we live. The bees carry a large part of the ecosystem on their wings.

How can it be that everyone is allowed to intervene in the genome of honeybees in order to shape them according to their individual ideas. Only the lower motives for the maximum and "relaxed" exploitation of this key species, which is at the forefront in its ecological importance, drive human breeding and selection forward. No bee research institute, no breeding association or organization can claim to know the entirety of all essential characteristics and to be able to create survivable genetic material through targeted breeding and selection. The composition of the natural behaviors that make up the survivability of a wild bee colony are complex and poorly understood. For 40 years now, some bee research institutes have been working on creating varroa-resistant bee colonies through targeted genetic changes. What research has not been able to achieve in the last four decades, nature has done on the side within a very short time. The best evidence are the perennial, surviving wild colonies in our forests, but also house walls, as well as all known "live and let die" procedures.

Als die überwiegende Anzahl der Honigbienenvölker noch unter natürlichen Bedingungen in unseren Wäldern lebte, stellte die menschliche Zucht und Selektion keine systemrelevante Gefahr dar. Heutzutage haben sich die Verhältnisse jedoch umgekehrt. Der überwiegende Anteil der Genetik liegt jetzt in den Händen einer Imkerschaft, welche maßgeblich ökonomische Ziele verfolgt und von den Naturerfordernissen des Biens schlichtweg keine Ahnung mehr zu haben scheint. Letzteres stellte Johann Thür, in seinem Artikel über die "Nestduftwärmebindung", bereits im Jahr 1946 fest.

The targeted breeding and selection of honey bees, according to properties desired by humans, not only threatens the species itself, but also represents and fulfills a long-term danger that should not be underestimated for the entire ecosystem in which we live and of which we are a part thus the offense of ecocide. Because only nature and natural selection itself can produce survivable genetic material that is adapted to the respective situation. It is therefore important to first give the bees a species-appropriate habitat and then leave them to natural selection.

Neue Ansätze

Woran also sollen sich Imker orientieren, wenn sie nicht das Beste für uns selbst, sondern das Beste für unsere Bienen wollen?   

At the current beekeeping? The institutes?

Nature itself provides us with the best orientation! Here is an example. We all know the phenomenon that we have small colonies that do not grow as quickly. Usually we deny this without even knowing the reasons - nobody seems to look closely. Investigations showed that precisely these colonies usually have a very small mite infestation. Then film recordings were made and extensive grooming behavior (the bees delousing each other) could be recorded.

The corresponding video recordings will soon be put online. A colony was infected with marked mites and 37 of the 50 mites used could be found in the garbage - all of them were bitten to pieces. These peoples live free of chemicals, but this is by no means a sensation, it occurs all over Europe. Again and again we hear of wild peoples who have been surviving for several years without the assistance of a beekeeper.

There are peoples who defend themselves, who can survive without chemicals, but unfortunately it is precisely these peoples that are mostly deliberately defected, because according to the common opinion of beekeeping it is material that is not worth living. After all, they don't generate any sales - this is where the beekeeper is put to the test, what does he really want? Honey or healthy little folks? What is more important for nature and who gives us the right to decide?

The pseudoscorpions are another example of beekeeping operational blindness

Everywhere in the world where bees still survive in nature, pseudoscorpions can be found as natural symbionts in wild peoples. In Africa and India there are predominantly Ellingsenius species. These species have largely specialized in beehive life and keep their host clean. In Europe, too, book scorpions have lived in symbiosis with bees for thousands of years. The first biologist who noticed this was Alois Alfons in 1891. He wrote the article: "The enemy of the bee louse". In 1951 another article by Dr. Max Beier, a leading pseudoscorpion expert. This article is called: "The book scorpion a welcome guest of the bee colonies".

In diesem Artikel beschreibt Beier, dass die Bücherskorpione die Bienen sogar zu entlausen scheinen. Torben Schiffer machte das Thema schließlich zum Gegenstand seiner Staatsexamensarbeit und forsche nunmehr seit vielen Jahren zu diesen Tieren.

But many questions still remain unanswered. In order to be able to finance further research activities, a non-profit association was founded in which interested beekeepers research this topic and pursue various approaches.

What does the association do / support?

1. The further investigation of the pseudoscorpions themselves, which live in symbiosis with bees (also the species in other countries) .2. The further development and optimization of the breeding of pseudoscorpions living in symbiosis with bees. 2. The research, development and evaluation of beehives that are designed in such a way that the bees and pseudoscorpions find an optimal habitat and which are possibly also suitable for the beekeeper's operation. 3. The development of new breeding and keeping criteria, in which the mite resistance and the appropriate keeping, are in the first place (and the breeding criteria of beekeeping that are actually in the foreground, such as "honey yield, gentleness, honeycomb fit, swarm behavior are initially of secondary importance) .4. Maintaining an international, bilingual club website in which beekeepers from all countries who are members of the club and who work on this project can present their results and learn from each other. 5. The research laboratory and its equipment required for this. 6. Particularly promising projects from this subject area of association members who need financial means for the realization.

Registration via the website: www.beenature-save-the-bees.com

For all interested beekeepers who would like to deal with this topic without joining the association, there is this website. Here you can acquire a guide to alternative, species-appropriate beekeeping, which answers all questions about the integration of the pseudoscorpions.

What happened if:

• I could keep bees without spending a lot of time and materials?

• I would not have to do any weekly "inspections" or other invasive interventions on the people?

• ich Bienen hätte, die für sich selbst sorgen würden?

• I could just put a few sticks in the garden and even get a little honey?

• we don't have to fight the Varroa with acids and other means?

• ich den Bienen ein artgerechtes Habitat zurückgeben könnte, das sie durch die Rodung der Wälder und der Höhlenbäume immer weiter verlieren und somit helfe, die Bienen zu schützen / zu erhalten?

• But I would have to do without "large" amounts of honey for this?

Would you do that?

If you answer yes to the last question, then you belong to the majority of around 75% of beekeepers who also answer this question with a clear "yes". However, almost all of them use the current, established system of acid beekeeping, because we have not learned otherwise. That has to be over! We therefore demand a variety of training courses in which people can freely decide which form of beekeeping they want to learn. There are good reasons to keep bees aright!

The people in the Schiffertree starved to death in October 2019. The initial feeding was not enough to get him through the period without forage. It's a shame, but the Schiffertree will be occupied again next year. I report!