A Few Words about the Inhumanity of Allowing Weak Colonies to Die

I would like to take a moment to address the idea that letting weak hives die is "inhumane."

Firstly, everything dies. We can all agree on that. But it's an important point that gets lost here. So all bees are going to die, the question is when and how.

Secondly, bees are insects. Insects don't have a long lifespan. Honeybees live about six weeks. Their life is short and full of hard work. Unlike humans which are adapted to live many years and with high intelligence, bees live short lives with a limited number of learned behaviors.

Third, they don't feel the same way we do, they have different nervous systems, different lifecycles, and they're cold blooded to boot.

Fourth, letting a hive die is not at all like letting child or a pet die. A hive is a collective organism. And as I said above, it is cold blooded. A hive that dies in winter simply slowly ceases to function. A hive that dies in summer, the workers will find new hives to join. But eventually they're going to die anyway.

Fifth, in fact, I'd say it's probably more inhumane to requeen a hive, to physically go in and kill a long living insect with your own hand.

Sixth, bees short reproductive cycle allows them to adapt much more rapidly than people. And they have to because they don't have the brain power to learn things and they don't have a long life in which to learn them. They are entirely unlike mammals, most especially humans.

It is not inhumane for a creature to die in a natural way. It is not inhumane for a gazelle to be brutally killed and eaten by a cheetah. It is the way things are. It is how our planet works. Inhumanity comes from how we treat people and other animals, causing them unnecessary pain in the process of controlling or killing them. It is not inhumane to allow a colony of insects to cease to exist under their own power because they don't have the genetic tools to deal with their diseases. It is nature. It is not only the way things are, but the way things ought to be. Treatment-free Beekeeping seeks to return that natural balance to the bees and not interfere in dealing with things that they should deal with on their own. And the feral bees from which we glean our wonderful survivor bees are already doing that.

Paring Down for Winter, September Snapshot

Last Saturday, I undertook to combine some hives I had left over from summer nuc production.  Several five frame nucs survived the summer, however, only one was packed out with honey and a little brood like I’d expect a good nuc to be, so I saved that one and mooshed the rest.  That leaves me working with a total of 27 colonies.  I’d be comfortable losing around seven this winter, however, if the trend keeps up, the chances are pretty slim.

What this did was allow me to get rid of less desirable stock (probably lowering my winter loss rate) and enlarge hives that I want to keep but that are unable to build up sufficiently during our long summer dearth.  In doing this, I’m accelerating natural attrition and accelerating my selective process to produce better bees for human uses.

This is also one of the benefits of having a larger number of hives.  You can operate more like a population rather than an individual.  There are many more possibilities to achieve success and many more things you can do to affect that success.

Furthermore, it goes counter to the idea that every hive must survive.  That’s not how it works in nature, why should we try to pull it off in agriculture?

I am also finally coming into full utilization.  Right now, I only have two empty deeps that are not being used.  I think with the exception of a couple new medium hives that all hives are of the size of three deeps or bigger.  The only hives that will be fed granulated sugar only in an emergency would be the medium ones, they are new and I want the medium hives to make it because I’m making a partial switch to mediums.  Nobody else will be fed under any circumstances.

There’s my September snapshot.  During a time when many beekeepers are treating or thinking of treating, this is the sort of thing a treatment-free beekeeper is thinking of.