Darwinian Beekeeping with Dr. Thomas Seeley | Houston Beekeepers Association January 2021 Meeting
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- čas přidán 18. 01. 2021
- The Houston Beekeepers Association is proud to present Dr. Thomas D. Seeley!
Darwinian beekeeping is an evolutionary approach to beekeeping, one that seeks to provide managed honey bee colonies with living conditions that are as close as possible to those of wild honey bee colonies. The goal is to harmonize our beekeeping methods with the natural history of Apis mellifera, and thus allow the bees to make full use of the toolkit of adaptations that they have evolved over the
last 30 million years. Dr. Seeley will review ways in which the living conditions of honey bees differ between wild and managed colonies. He will also show how we can pursue beekeeping in a way that is centered less on treating a bee colony as a honey factory and more on nurturing the lives of the bees.
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Thomas D. Seeley, biologist and writer, is a retired professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. Before retiring, he taught courses on animal behavior and did research on the behavior, social life, and ecology of honey bees. He continues his bee research on a small scale and he continues to be a beekeeper. He started keeping bees while a high school student, when he shook a swarm into a box and brought it home. He earned his AB in chemistry from Dartmouth College in 1974 and his PhD in biology from Harvard University in 1978. His scientific work is summarized in five books: Honeybee Ecology (1985), The Wisdom of the Hive (1995), Honeybee Democracy (2010), Following the Wild Bees (2016), and The Lives of Bees (2019). Dr. Seeley has received numerous awards for his work.
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The Houston Beekeepers Association has virtual meetings open to the public on the third Tuesday of every month (except for December). Find details for our next meeting on our
website: houstonbeekeepers.org/
or
facebook group: / houstonbeekeepers
Last year 2020 our bee club in central Illinois started breeding local queens that have never been treated for mites. We hope that this will help with the mite problem, but Dr. Seeley's research opened my eyes. We also started a drone yard from these queens.
Thanks a lot for postíng this very informative presentation 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🐝🐝🐝🐝👍👍👍 I’m from Chile and fan of Dr Seeley.
My bees propolis the entrances down pretty small in the fall no top entrance the regular entrance will be down to two inch by half inch
I agree they're Lowes are 75
Wow!
I started some time ago and my only mentor has been via CZcams. That said I have seen Bob Beenie, Burts Bees, Canadian Bee Keeper (name alludes me), Dave Burns who referenced Tom Sealey. I have seen 4 of his videos now and have a wonderful appreciation for his approach. I like the Darwinian approach as it has been my intention and most believe it to be a bit of a joke, I'm afraid.
I very much like the promotion of captured swarms as hive management and find interesting the smaller box approach.
Hope you get kirk webster to do a talk.
Pass this onto tom seeley.
Step 1.
Collect varroha infected bees and (preferably long lived winter bees) then pulverise them and add them to a pollen substitute.
Step 2.
Kill queen in colony.
Step 3.
Colony becomes hopelessly queenless, workers become drone laying.
Step 4.
Use drones to fertilize multiple queens.
Step 5.
Check colonies for high resistance because of direct line breeding with only genetics derived from survivor worker/drone layer to queen to egg.
Darwinian beekeeping you would not intervene but all random chance determine the result. Intervening is by its nature design. Evolution 101.
If I consider perspective... a light touch, if done well could be seen as something of a miracle.
Not a terrible thing to strive for considering the many sins we have cast on them over the years.
Darwinian is a fine approach if your not motivated by the cash flow.