BeeLines - November '25

Change is evident with bees and beekeeping. Over the last few years we have had an increasing number of visits of beekeepers, bee scientists, and bee educationalists from a number of European countries - Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and including Switzerland where members may remember the party that visited our area. There is evidence that honey bees in these countries have been changed over a relatively short number of decades - and not for the better. Not for the better if you know beekeeping, and think of beekeeping, as we do - i.e. locally adapted, native or near native indigenous, generally dark coloured, generally tolerant, varroa-resistant, allowing treatment-free beekeeping, generally disease-free (with fingers always crossed), and, in fact, identical to the wild bees that live close to all of us in Llŷn and Eifionydd and surrounding areas. The picture in the named European countries is different - varroa-resistant is minimal with chemical treatment being seen as essential to keep bees alive and often actively encouraged by social and administrative pressure, therefore very little treatment-free beekeeping - such beekeeping being seen as a source of varroa infection. There are few if any wild colonies, usually seen as feral swarms from hives, and another ‘source of potential infection’; indigenous honey bees are rare and have been replaced with, mainly, Buckfast hybrids with Ligustica and Carniolan and other mixed genetics. The natural viability of such bees was recently highlighted by a study of feral colonies that found most lasted less than one season in the wild, i.e. without chemical treatment. The pattern with many beekeepers, as described to us in Denmark, is to annually replace queens from the many commercial queen rearers; many such queens are selectively bred by artificial insemination. There may be over-generalisation with the above information - but that is the picture outlined to us. Admittedly, it is a picture from beekeepers who can see what has happened to their bees and the beekeeping they have been forced into. Many European beekeepers are desperate to have the local bees and beekeeping that we in LLEBKA enjoy. Honest! We are not overstating all this - there is a large European Project, already started, that aims to get to ‘this situation’ by 2033: https://varroaresistenzprojekt.eu/

Change has also, and rather quickly, taken place with commercial beekeeping in the UK. When we started beekeeping I recall going to listen to the fascinating tales and really useful tips on beekeeping from traditional honey farmers. There are still many traditional honey farmers producing honey, offering pollination services, and in quite a number of cases diversifying as visitor centres. One excellent example where we were made really welcome is Chain Bridge Honey Farm near Berwick upon Tweed (well worth a visit!). The somewhat newer bee trader is sometimes are rather different. The advent of online advertising has made the selling of bees, particularly queens that can be delivered by post, the ‘go to’ business for an increasing number of traders. The queens, mainly Buckfast hybrids, are sourced from ‘elite bee breeders’ on the Continent, particularly from Denmark. Making a living from bees in the UK is not easy, but it will be very unfortunate if the importing of hybrid bees leads to the demise of the UK’s native honey bee. This serious possibility has been recognised at an international level. As of 2025, the Western Honey Bee (wild population) Apis mellifera has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List: https://www.iucnredlist.org/.

If you wish to view the argument for the use of ‘elite bee breeders’ (whence I got this phrase) here is a blog to read

https://thewalrusandthehoneybee.com/evidence-vs-ideology-in-honey-bee-breeding/

LLEBKA member David Heaf was instrumental in increasing my knowledge of the situation in many European countries caused by the varroa mite and their counter productive solution to encourage or mandate chemical treatments. David continues to encourage varroa-resistant beekeeping by presenting to European audiences. And later this month will be giving a talk to a Conference in Germany, whose title is, “Resistance and tolerance - ways to achieve coexistence between bees and mites”. The preamble to this Conference is informative stating: “Because the varroa mite is classified as a disease in Germany, treatment is mandatory. This is a major reason why there has been little progress in varroa tolerance or resistance research”. https://www.mellifera.de/toleranz-online

What can we do as individual beekeepers and members of Llŷn & Eifionydd BKA to help our local native or near native Welsh indigenous bees? We think the answer is to continue to enjoy keeping our local bees exactly as we do. And to take every opportunity to explain to anyone, who may be interested, how important our local honey bees are - both nationally and internationally. And, of course, share our bees with all new beekeepers in our area.

Well, from the complexities of pan-European beekeeping to the flowers near our front door. Did we ever mention the story of ‘Poppy’? It was back in 2014 - doesn’t time absolutely fly! - we had been involved with filming a wild bee tree colony with Ray Mears. The photographer asked if he and his assistant could come back the following day to film some close-up photographs of bees. They arrived the following morning and asked if any bees would visit the flowers by the front of the house? I said, “yes they would. Set your camera up here and wait for Poppy!” For days we had noticed a single bee visiting the orange poppy flowers as we came and went through our front door. “Are you joking?” he asked. “Wait and see”, was our reply. And, after a suitable wait - over she came, to collect more pollen from the orange poppies.It was the first time I realised the amazing organisational ability of individual bees. I never marked her, but became increasingly certain it was the same bee. And the story has come to mind over the last few days. This time her name is ‘Fushia’; and she has been appearing every day for the last few days - rain allowing.

We weighed hives on 1st November and can report that the weights had changed little in the last month. Seven hives out of ten had slightly reduced weights, and three had slightly increased weights. Winter is, however, still to come. And on that thought may we wish all members an early Nadolig Llawen/ Happy Christmas from the BeeLines.

If you have comments, information, a bee story or tips you would like to share with members please let us know and we will include them in BeeLines.