What do bees like? If your bees could tell you what they would prefer from you—their gentle steward—what do you imagine they might say? This is a question my teachers and I ask ourselves, and we do our best to keep bees in a way that honors their true biology, which is the best indicator we have of how bees like to…well…bee. In short, we put bees first.
Interestingly, most of the studies and research we have on honeybees—and there is a lot of it—has been performed on bees in Langstroth hives or observation hives. Neither is a natural home for bees, and so what we are seeing in these hives are often not natural behaviors, necessarily, but rather adaptations to an artificial environment. It is akin to putting people in a large tank of water, and noting the behavior: “They ‘naturally’ hold their breath and flap their arms and feet when in their home, and sleep afloat on their backs. They have very wrinkled skin…”
For example, Biodynamic Apiculturist Michael Joshin Thiele (Gaiabees.com) reminded me that feral bees living in tree hives do not form a winter cluster, as the thermal mass of the thick surrounding wood keeps the interior of the hive comfortable. You might think, “Yeah, so what?” But if you are wanting to see your bees survive a long winter, and hoping to maybe collect a little honey sometime, you would be surprised to learn that bees consume four times less honey in a cozy log hive than in a Langstroth. All that shivering to keep the winter cluster alive takes a huge amount of energy for a bee—far more than just hanging out on the comb and sharing winter dreams. And in a honeybee’s world, energy equals honey.
This information on clustering we know from researchers who are following honeybees to their wild homes, and studying them there. Thanks to intrepid scientists like Dr. Thomas Seeley, and to backyard bee masters like Michael Thiele, Jacqueline Freeman (spiritbee.com) and Corwin Bell (backyardhive.com), we are beginning to understand what bees like and need from us.
My students and I use the phrase, “What do bees like?” to guide us in our keeping habits. In this series of articles, I’m going to share seven crucial tenets of our particular kind of bees-first beekeeping, and explain why we believe each of them is so important to 21st Century beekeeping. Here is the first:
1—We are Treatment-free: We encourage bees to develop their own resistance to diseases and pests.
I’ve started with one of our more controversial practices first. We don’t treat our bees. Not with miticides or sugar dusting, or anything else. Our reasons for this are really pretty simple. First, bees don’t like foreign things dumped, poured, or drizzled into their hives. It upsets the important balance of hive scent (which is nothing short of the bees’ immune system), destabilizes the hive temperatures, and is unhealthy for bees. When did we decide it was a good idea to use something that kills insects in a hive populated with tens of thousands of insects?
Bees are acutely sensitive to smells and foreign substances. I once inadvertently killed off an indoor observation hive by affixing a small plastic component with what was supposed to be an inert glue. The bees dropped from every comb in 30 seconds and were all dead within two hours. I’m shaken and horrified by the gawdawful results of my ignorance.
Second, if mite treatments worked, we would not still be having massive die-offs from varroa mites. Plus, used incorrectly or at the wrong time of the year, these products—including the organic ones—can kill our bees.
Most important of all, by propping up weak bees with medications, we are thwarting the ability of the bees to evolve so that they can manage varroa and other ailments by themselves. Dr. Thomas Seeley claims that feral hives seem to be inundated with varroa, but the bees have co-evolved to live with them. It took years. First, wild honeybee populations collapsed. Those that survived eventually blanketed their home areas with their varroa-resistant genetics, and a new kind of heartier bee has evolved.
Our own bees in their heavily managed and treated hives have not had that chance to develop inner-hive mechanisms to deal with varroa, and all the viruses these mites bring along with them. While it is harrowing to let a hive expire from mites, in the long run, it is the right thing to do. Mite treatments, in the end, create stronger and stronger mites, and weaker and weaker bees.
“So, you just let the bees die?” you ask, or yell, or curse. Yes. We let the weak colonies die. And yes, it hurts. Every time. But we don’t treat. We trust the ultimate wisdom of the hive and Natural Selection. On the plus side, beekeepers save time, money, and mess by simply bypassing the entire discussion on when and how to treat.
So what else do bees like? Bees like to build their own comb, and build it any which way they want, which leads us to our next tenet:
2—Natural comb: We let our bees create their own wax comb on bars or frames, without the use of foundation.
Wax is many things to a honeybee. It is the lungs, the womb, the skeleton, the ears, the pantry, the thermostat, the dance floor, the bassinet, and the foraging history of the hive. Not so many years ago, beekeepers decided that we would help the bees get up and going quicker in their hives, and so we started offering them plastic and wax stamped foundation on wooden, uniform, square frames. We did this because it takes a lot of honey energy to produce and craft wax comb, and we thought we could save that honey for ourselves.
This certainly made life easier on beekeepers, because these Langstroth frames can be easily removed and switched about. We also decided to make the hexagons on the foundation a bit larger, believing that bigger bees would be born from bigger cells (which was true), and bigger bees would gather more honey. What we didn’t consider is that varroa mites prefer these bigger cells. We also did not consider that in making honeybees larger, we might be cutting them off from certain forage flowers—flowers that a more rotund bee cannot access. This was also true.
Not knowing how bees lived in wild hives, we assumed bees would do well with these rectangular, fake frames, because they seemed to take to them just fine. A falling airplane is not flying, even though it is still in the air. Bees on foundation frames are not thriving. They are slowly falling, falling.
This is why: Bees adjust the size of their cells, the slant of the combs, the number of drone cells, and the air movement around the wax comb. While combs that are not built in a straight line are a real nuisance for beekeepers (ask me how I know this), Nature has never been a fan of straight lines. Bees are not casual about their comb placement and shape. They adjust the comb building to what is right and best for that hive in that particular place. Sun exposure, wind, seasonal shifts, the magnetic pull of the four directions, and the voice of Great Bee Mystery all influence how bees hang their comb.
We beekeepers talk a lot about proper hive ventilation, adding extra holes on hot days, or cracking lids, or screening bottoms or entrances, or shutting down entrances in the winter, or a hundred other variations on this theme. All of this is necessary because bees on foundation cannot control their hive temperature with the precision they need. The air space left on the sides of the frames allows drafts and dispersion of hive air. Bees living on these combs are dealing with, essentially, a punctured lung. They cannot control the hive breath. They also suffer from the drafty air all winter. Left to their own designs, bees adjust for their ventilation needs just fine. They’ve been doing so for millions of years. If you let them do it, then you won’t have to! We use just a top bar, a strip of wood, for the bees to build on.
I’m a bit odd in that I really don’t mind if my bees build their comb slantwise on the bars, or in circles. Yes, it is a mess if you need to poke around in the combs, but when I see what organic shapes, curves, and spirals my bees create, I honor that exquisite artwork, knowing they deserve to be the masters of their domain. I wouldn’t want anyone coming into my house, turning up the heat, flinging open windows, shutting off the air conditioner, or refolding my towels. My bees deserve their right to organize their home space.
I am well aware that in certain states or towns, removable comb is required. On many alternative hives, like Warre hives and Top Bars, it just takes a bit more doing to remove the combs. Mostly, in bees-first beekeeping, we have no need to sort through the combs. And in many communities, like mine, backyard beekeepers with small numbers of hives are not required to maintain removable combs.
Another thing bees like is sex and reproduction. Don’t we all? Our next tenet is this:
3—We allow Queens mate naturally and with many drones so they have an expansive gene-pool. Swarming is a desirable and proven means of colony reproduction.
Okay, okay, I know what you are thinking: “Yikes! Swarms?! What will my neighbors say?” Stay tuned for Part II of Bee’s-First Beekeeping: Swarms and Bee Tending…
27 Comments
Funny to come across this today. Finally, someone with my thoughts..let nature do her thing!
Aldo Leopold would say the same; he was so ahead of his time.
Today, because ants came in, after my raw, local honey, still in a comb, I froze it, to kill the ants.
Not knowing if it was OK to use, I decided to put it out to TRY once more time to attract some bees. I have only seen about a handful this entire gardening season. I have planted more and more pollinstors, but rarely any takers.
I have listened to Natalie Bjorkland, of the University of Nebraska, at Lincoln, who is doing some work with honeybees, to try to get more info, so while I am largely uninformed, I too, think nature has it under control…but today…the bees came after that honey comb (I had put a little water so they wouldn’t get “stuck”, as has happened when I put a little capful out. Only one seemed to care about that, and fell in while I was away..so a bit of water.
They must be coming from 50 miles away, because there are noe8, at least 100 bees! They let me move the comb to another local, without incident (was by my back door), but my neighbors may not be as happy as I. Often, people will poison for them. Just happened at the park, apparently, they were coming out of the sand, where kids were playing? I had never heard of that…
So, these bees can’t get enough of that honey, and they act like they aRE starving…feeding voraciously.
What do you recommend?
Becky, it can take pollinators awhile to find you. I am—just this past two years—finally getting lots of different kinds of pollinating bees, flies, and wasps in my yard. The ones coming up out of the sand may be mining bees. Actually, most native pollinating bees live in the ground in tiny nests of just a few eggs. In your pollinator plantings, try to group plants together, and also allow weeds like dandelions to blossom. If you just put one or two plants here or there, sometimes honeybees won’t bother to forage there because there is just not enough to attract them. I have large “blobs” of comfrey, herbs, coneflowers, asters and such. At first, when I only had a few small plants, not many pollinators showed up. Now, with the plants maturing more and there being more of them, my yard is abuzz all season.
Loved your article. So glad there are others putting the bees first. Have been keeping bees about 25 years and doing similar practices for about 10 years. Still trying to figure out the ventilation thing to work well. Tried doing nothing like you said. Maybe there were other factors involved when I tried that but sometimes there would be so much moisture under the top cover at times. Thanks again for sharing
Yes, Chris, moisture can be a problem in certain hive types. When you figure that honeybees prefer nice cozy logs, you can see that moisture dripping down on them would not be a problem they have had to deal with before us. Bees like condensation and very moist, warm environments—just not water on the head! Most of my hives have Warre’ style quilt covers on top. On my Top Bar hives, I heavily insulate the lids. It ain’t easy to mimic Mother Nature, is it?!
Susan, just left you a message on your article. This led me to your website and I read another one of your articles on wasp. Yikes !! I know you have good intentions but you really need to rethink you attitude toward wasp. If you put a full length guard on the entrance of you hive that has holes (like when you make teeth on a jack o lantern) all the way across that are big enough for the bees to come and go this should solve your problem. I have done this with great success. The hornets and wasp are too big to get through. Yes, I loose a few of my bees that they pick off at the entrance but life does go on as all things do in nature. Us bee lovers must not forget there are all kinds of nature lovers and this crusade to save the bees should open all of our eyes to all of nature. There are natural work arounds to solve these problems that dont result in killing another species off. Thanks again for all your energy and articles. PS Living in the Pacific NW, there is one species I have not found a harmonious way to handle and that is the hundreds of slugs that ravage my garden. Still working on that one.
Chris, you are correct: reduced entrances to wonders, and my hive have screened entrances with only a very small opening during yellow-jacket season. As far as slugs are concerned, I have two free-ranging muscovy ducks, girls. They wander the yard all day, and are death on slugs. They are a terrestrial duck, mostly buggers. I keep a kiddy wading pool for them, which I then pour on all my plants: voila! slug patrol and fertilizer all in one pretty, feathered package!
As much as I agree with the treatment free approach, these types of articles are very misleading to beginners. You must consider the source of the bees and most newbies buy commercial packages or nucs. By far the majority of those bees are treated with a myriad of things. When the treatments stop, whatever was being suppressed comes back to express itself. Often that happens in the form of mites and the new bee keeper ends up with a mite farm instead of a bee hive. Ok, so the bees die. If your going treatment free you can live with that, but what is never spoken about is the negative impact to other colonies in the area of the “mite farm”. The beginner rarely, if ever, cleans up the dead out before other bees rob and take whatever disease and mite load is there, back to other hives. We should not be so sold on pushing one approach to keeping bees that we avoid discussion of the negative aspects of keeping bees that way. Full disclosure. And honestly, new beekeepers should simply be learning about bees instead of focusing and then spending their first years defending what box to keep them in and how to manage them. Learn bee biology first and then you will have the tools to develop your own style that is right for you.
Ron, you bring up a lot of good points. I’m trying to work my way through all this with upcoming articles, but I do want to comment here on robbing as being a source of mite transfer. This is indeed a problem. If your hive is weak and expiring, newbeeks, you must protect it from being robbed out by stronger bees. The varroa in a weak hive are happy to hitch rides on visiting robbers, who then bring the mites to their hives. So, smaller entrances are a must on a weak hive.
Your point about beginners purchasing bees is also spot-on—if you purchase packaged bees, these will be bees from treated and heavily managed hives, so the bees have developed no resistance to mites whatsoever. The entire package, in fact, is a compromised mess of bees and I’ll be writing about why that is very soon. But…for now I am recommending that those who cannot learn some swarm catching/baiting tips purchase their bees locally at the very least, and if possible, look around for treatment-free keepers who are selling local stock, if you can find them. Also, you will be much better off if your queens come from naturally mated stock.
Yes, we must talk about all aspects of our beekeeping, as it effects other keepers near us.
This information is great news! I am wanting to start hives on our little 1 acre hobby farm but was so worried with all of the how-to videos of hive making….I almost did not want to put out the effort. I will stay tuned as I want to learn more about the natural way to give great homes to some bees. I garden organically and there is not one chemical on my property. I surround my garden with flowers and blooming shrubs. Butterflies love my garden and now I want the bees to come!
Miriam, you are off to a great start. While there is MUCH you can learn about bees, there are only a few things you really have to know to get started in a good way. Planting forage is a wonderful start.
We are keeping Bee’s in the Slovenian Bee hives 3 stories, first year. We are in Mississippi. Looking forward to part 2 please continue to get the word out about Natural bee keeping!
Thanks, Leilani, I’m going to do my best. There are, right now, two very different tracks in Beekeeping. There is a place, now, for a less managed way of keeping bees that is sound and helpful to bees.
Your views are a breath of fresh air, and it is a relief to hear someone express this enlightened approach. I look forward to reading more!
While I respect your right to an opinion, alas most of the information in this column is either twisted or simply wrong. Bees do not need wishful thinking, they need fact based support. Bees do very well in Langstroth hives, and did for a hundred years….after all the Lang was modeled after a natural tree cavity. But their big problem is not their genome, it is Varroa destructor mites. And we will only get rid of them through fact based investigations and remedies.
Janet, first, let me say, there are lots of ways to keep bees. Langstroths were NOT crafted after log hives: Log hives do not have removable combs that prevent bees from managing their hive temperatures with bee precision. I also respect your right to your beliefs, but I feel that calling me names is not helpful to our cause, which is to have our bees survive. I am not spouting wishful thinking where beekeeping is concerned. One of the most well-known beekeepers, Michael Bush (www.bushbees.com) also uses some alternative hives these days, and preaches free queen mating and treatment free beekeeping all the way. He says, “The only way to have a sustainable system of beekeeping is to stop treating…As long as we treat we get weaker bees who can only survive if we treat, and stronger parasites who can only survive if they breed fast enough to keep up with our treatments. No stable relationship can develop until we stop treating” He also says that we must raise our own queens from locally surviving bees. Bush is a no-nonsense beekeeper who has been beekeeping, writing, and teaching for decades. If you go to his site and do some reading (He’s a great and fun writer!), you may see some things differently, or not, but in the very least, I would hope that you expand your thinking, allowing for alternatives that work.
It is a new world in beekeeping. And if Langstroths and conventional practices had been ideal for bees, we would not be in crisis with bees right now. The most current research points to wild bees being able to manage varroa in small hives. There is much new information about what bees like and what helps them survive long-term. I love being a natural beekeeper and exploring new possibilities and am happy to encourage this good way to Bee!
Very interesting philosophy. The beekeepers in my local association urge us to treat for varroa. I have treated in the past, but when I invest in new queens, I try to buy varroa-resistant queens. As a hobbyist, I hate the idea of handling the chemicals needed to treat for varroa, and I hate exposing the bees and comb to them as well. I would be interested to see how you harvest honey.
Pasofan, I take honey and process it by the comb. I crush and strain, and I don’t fine strain or heat. My honey has an occasional bee leg it it, and is not utterly clear, because I crush most of the pollen/beebread into it, as well.
I don’t want to eat miticides and fumigants in my honey. I bet my bees don’t either!
Had to comment on “Janet Wilson’s” remarks. If she considers from 1852 to today as being “hundreds” of years as to how long the Langstroth hive has been in existence, that is quite a stretch. It was the commercialization of beekeeping that brought many more problems. I wonder if Janet knows that the honey coated foundation that has the hexagon shapes already in-printed is a different size than what the bees prefer to have. This larger size was created by the greedy humans, to force the bees to create bigger bees which means more nectar and….that’s right, more honey (“Show Me The Money”). It created a home for the Varroa. This “twisted” mentality of all branches of farming has created some pretty ugly results. Dairy cows injected to force more milk. Chickens, pigs, etc…crowded to live in a gross inhumane ways. All our old timers are a product of commercialized practices that started in the early 1900’s. A big thank you go out to Susan Chernak McElroy and all you others that say “Our bees, animals, plants and land come first” lets treat them with respect.
Chris, when money becomes key, livestock always suffers for it. If I had to make my money off of bees, I simply could not do it. Too stressful (especially these days) for the keepers and the bees. So much stress is not sustainable. I think that commercial beekeeping will have to sort itself out and make a lot of changes. But we backyard keepers are so blessed that we have the opportunity NOW to innovate, explore, and find new ways of beeing—and still be able to pay our bills. Our situation is a bit luxurious as our livilihoods do not rest on the shoulders of our bees. But I believe that backyard keepers can and will be the keepers of the chalice of honeybee genetic diversity, and, ultimately, the saviors of these amazing creatures.
a hundred, singular, not hundreds
It make just so much sense!
Truly it make me breathe. I can let them free! I’m a new student and want the best for them .Something I could not feel yet in my journey in beekeeping. Thanks!
You are so welcome! I LOVE showing folks there are different ways to bee!
I’ve only been keeping bees for three years, but had already moved to your philosophy about bees needing to evolve so that they can co-exist with Varroa. Unfortunately, I, like most new beekeepers, sought advice in the beginning from my local beekeepers’ club. I now have five Langstroth hives, frames with foundation, etc. I’ve lost several hives over winters and finally found a Mennonite beekeeper from whom I have bought splits and queens this year. He has never treated with anything and has an almost 100% survival rate overwintering his nuks. How can I move away from foundation? This year I actually ripped out the foundation/wiring on two brood frames to see what the bees would do. Well the did a wonderful job. What would happen if I slowly moved all my frames to foundation-less? I’ve made an investment in my equipment and am not in a financial situation to be able to ditch it all and go top bar or whatever. Any advice?
And thank you so much for writing this. It’s had to find people who have moved to this philosophy. My mentor (from the beekeepers club) does not agree with me. But he’s lost more bee hives over winter than I, despite his mite treatments.
Cally, yes, you can use your equipment and modify it. Easiest thing to do would be to remove frames and pull out the old foundation. Then, the bees could make their own wax. If you wanted to go a few steps further, you could actually remove the sides and bottoms of the frames, and let the bees build out from a top bar. This would sort of look like a large Warre’ hive, and you would work it by the box rather than by the comb, as the side attachments would be pretty extreme (also before you do this, perhaps check with your local ordinances to see if it is legal to keep hobby bees in fixed-frame hives). But if you can do this, the bees will have a MUCH easier time controlling hive temperature and scent.
Bees are less stressed building down than up. Having empty space above them is very unsettling to them, hence, they usually build out upper boxes fast to fill it. If you have a good back, treat your Langs like Warre’s, removing a box from the top in the spring just as the first flow comes on, and then adding a fresh empty beneath them. In this way, you rotate the comb out every three years (If you were running it as a three-stack), and so the wax gets regularly replaced. Also, consider modifying the roof also like a Warre’ hive, making a “quilt box” to fill with shavings, which means the bees never have to deal with cold drops of water condensing down on their heads in the winter.
Keep to three boxes only. Bees survive best in smaller spaces. Remember, swarming is a good thing!
Thanks so much for the advice. Interesting – common beekeeper club wisdom is that in early spring, when the bees have moved into the top brood box, rotate the boxes so they are on the bottom and have to build up. You’re saying the opposite which, frankly makes more sense. My hubby has the strong back, so I’ll bring him into this new schema. And will read more about Warre hives. I’ve had two swarms – the first being the most magnificent thing I’d ever seen and especially HEARD in my life!!! It always seemed counter-intuitive to try to stop swarms by ripping out queen cells, etc.
I was lucky enough to hear a talk by Prof. Seeley, who talked about the wild bees in Cornell’s Arnot forest. This is not far from where I live – hope my swarms end up there 🙂
Thanks again for this beautiful approach to beekeeping that so resonates with me.
I watch, in a casual way, the bee’s in my area ( High Desert Area, southern CA) seasonally and have noticed fewer and fewer each year. So far, I’ve seen three distinct types, all around about the same time of year, the only noticeable difference being their size.
I would say they’re all wild bee’s since water in the High Desert communities is seasonally governmental ‘rationed’ as such discourages agricultural ventures and as a result there are minimal flowering plants along the perimeters of watered properties available other than ‘traditional’ front yard landscaping types. Those sources of blossoms are not bad but particularly seasonal and ‘pest control’ services are used by many folks out here due to the occasional spider and scorpion sightings. That can’t bode well for much of anything in the insect world let alone bee’s. So I suspect the majority of feeding is concentrated on native low growing flowering ‘weeds’, again which can be scarce depending on the seasonal rain or not.
I know how valuable bees are to the natural world which most folks take for granted, so I encourage bee’s whenever I can by not trimming my limited landscape plants until their perennial blossoms drop off and certainly not even considering a pest control service.
I had considered the probable tedious activity and responsibility of keeping a natural hive functional in my back yard but haven’t done so because of the ‘slim pickins’ in my neck of the woods. But I appreciate these ‘ how to ‘ articles at least for the knowledge they impart in the event I choose to try my luck at bee-ing.
Mike, I encourage you do dive in. It will be the backyard natural keeper who maintains the wild genetics in bees. I leave all the weeds in my yard, and I have a stunning amount of native pollinators for that gift of weeds. If you are a more hands-off beekeeper, the keeping is minimal and not at all tedious. You only go into the hive a few times a year, if even that. I’d encourage you to find some local bees or seek out a swarm!