Hard times for Fort Knox, or an unpleasant beginning to a good thing
An article about the difficult wintering of 2016/2017, rebuilding the project pool, bee colony losses and the first practical conclusions from the Fort Knox Project.
This article was written at a time when the “Fort Knox” Project was still closely connected with the Natural Beekeeping Association “Wolne Pszczoły” — “Free Bees”. Today the project operates independently, allowing members of different organisations as well as non-affiliated people to participate.
Difficult wintering
The winter of 2016/2017 was harsh on the apiaries of the members of the Natural Beekeeping Association “Wolne Pszczoły” — “Free Bees” — and on the bees declared for the “Fort Knox” Project. In autumn 2016, the number of untreated colonies belonging to Association members was around 150, and together with the remaining colonies it probably exceeded 200 by a significant margin. Eighteen colonies had been declared for “our shared apiary”. The numbers therefore looked good, and although 2016 had been a difficult year in some apiaries, everything looked promising at the end of the season. Winter, however, brought severe selection and enormous mortality, and only a little over 30 bee colonies survived in the apiaries of Association members. In addition, most of them survived at the apiary sites of the Association representative, Łukasz. We were familiar with the rule that a large majority of bees die precisely two years after treatment is stopped. However, with apiaries highly scattered and spread over almost the entire country, we did not expect losses on such a scale.
In spring, therefore, sadness prevailed in many apiaries, and beekeepers looked into empty hives. Only a few could be happy about one or just a few living colonies. Smaller untreated apiaries, numbering from a few to a dozen or so colonies, largely ceased to exist. Bees survived in only two of the six apiaries declared for the Project. These were colonies at Łukasz’s apiary and at Jola’s apiary. However, Jola’s bees had been declared for the Project in 2016 and had in fact been untreated for only one season. Although they could — and should — be used, their usefulness from the point of view of our assumptions still remained at least doubtful, because up to that moment they had not passed any test. So spring presented us with the task of creating 12 new colonies from 6 in order to return to the initial state. At first glance, this task does not seem difficult, since it is enough to take two new nucs from each colony. This is not a problem if honey harvesting is not one of the priorities — and that is indeed the case in the Project — while the priority is to create new colonies on the basis of existing ones. The problem and the unknown, however, remained the health condition of the colonies that had survived. Our experience shows that bees struggling with health problems are often able to come through them successfully, but they do not always develop and allow themselves to be propagated in the way we would like and expect — that is, like colonies for which beekeepers solve these problems.
Problems in rebuilding the Fort Knox apiary
Knowing that Jola’s colonies came from purely commercial bees, we were afraid that their genetics might — although, as always with bees, not necessarily — be insufficient for survival and further self-sufficiency. We therefore decided to make nucs and transport them to Łukasz, and only from those nucs were new colonies for others to be propagated. We hoped that, first, the young queens would mate at least partly with drones from an apiary that had already gone through the first crises; second, that Łukasz’s experience would allow the potential of the bees to be used much more effectively in creating new colonies; and third, that in the event of failures in queen rearing and mating, queen cells from other Project colonies that had already spent several years without treatment could be introduced into the colonies. That is what we did, and it turned out to be the right solution. Although we cannot determine which drones the young queens mated with, Łukasz certainly rose to the occasion, solving all the problems that stood in his way and ultimately, despite adversity, producing exactly as many colonies as were needed to cover the previous losses. Twelve young colonies were created, and some of them are already buzzing in the designated apiaries of the Fort Knox Project members, while the rest will arrive there shortly.
It must be admitted that this did not happen without problems. First, in the meantime, one of Łukasz’s Fort Knox colonies died in spring, and the queenless colonies brought from Jola, after mite-infested brood had emerged, stopped looking like the healthy and vigorous colonies they had seemed to be in mid-May. Varroosis caused very serious damage in them. It reached the point where the bees were swarming simply to escape from hives in which the infestation was approaching a critical level. As a result, one of the colonies did not rear queens from the queen cells at all: either the cells died, or the emerged queens were so weak that they did not return from mating flights or did not start laying. In fact, both colonies brought from Jola lost a great deal of their bee population, and before the young queens began laying, they became much smaller. Fortunately, this happened at the peak of the season, and as the sick insects “disappeared” from the hives and new brood appeared, the bees began to look good. At the moment it is difficult to say how heavily infested with mites these colonies are, but they look healthy and stable — may this not prove to be an illusion. This example shows how beneficial a brood break and what may seem like a drastic loss of sick individuals can be for bees. We will see, however, what the approaching autumn and winter bring, because it is clear that a crisis may still be hiding in the colonies, only temporarily “suppressed”.
Another problem this year was hunger. Many apiaries reported exceptionally poor forage this season, causing weak colony development. At certain times, the situation was similar at Łukasz’s apiary. The colonies came out of winter with small stores, and instead of increasing, those stores were shrinking at an alarming rate, while the bees practically required ongoing feeding. As we know, this is not favourable for creating small colonies and supporting their development. The situation therefore required a great deal of work and care from Łukasz.
The Project also suffered another loss, because one of Jola’s mother colonies did not survive the crisis that also appeared in the nucs transported to Łukasz. For the following year, then, we already have two colonies to rebuild — one for Łukasz and one for Jola. We will certainly repay this year’s help. More importantly, Fort Knox came through a difficult period victoriously, proving its self-sufficiency. At least for now. We remain optimistic, but we are not resting on our laurels, because we know that next year may be just as hard — and let us hope it will not be harder.
Conclusions for the future
We have drawn several conclusions from this year’s losses.
First and most importantly, the basis for successfully getting through the selection period is our cooperation. At the scale on which we work with bees, it is impossible — or at least it may be very difficult — to stabilise apiaries without mutual guarantees, cooperation and help. This year’s experience has shown that even apiaries with several dozen colonies can prove defenceless in the face of varroosis and other bee diseases. Similar experience comes from the apiaries of people who have successfully passed through crises — such as Kirk Webster or Juhani Lunden. Even after several years, before mortality can be fully stabilised, each of us may face losses of as much as 70–80% — and hopefully not total losses.
The second conclusion is more specific: the “Fort Knox” Project should expand and grow, but it must be based on bees that have already passed through some earlier selection screen. Allowing completely “random” bees from commercial breeding into the Project may end as it did with the bees obtained from Jola. Yes, when balancing the pros and cons, those bees proved very helpful in such a difficult year, but they also showed that they can be defeated by crises and diseases. The Project, however, must move forward and develop, which is why it should be based on selected genetics rather than on a constant inflow of new material that has not passed the so-called “Bond test”. So if new people want to join our ranks and do not themselves have bees that have already passed the first selection screens — and we realise that the probability of that will be negligible — they will have to obtain bees from us. But whoever wants to join us will certainly receive all the necessary help we can provide. Without doubt, no one will refuse to share a queen from a selected line, and as far as our possibilities allow, we will also share a package, swarm or nuc — because these bees will “come back to us” within the Project.
Further conclusions concern logistical matters. The Donor — that is, the person who creates colonies for others — must receive from the Recipient, as the person receiving the colony is called in the Regulations, a carefully prepared hive: filled with frames of drawn comb, properly secured against shifting and crushing bees, tight but with adequate ventilation, suitable for transporting bees, equipped with a feeder, and supplied with an appropriate reserve of food. If it is not possible to provide drawn comb with food, the Recipient should certainly provide an appropriate amount of sugar candy. The Donor already has enough work in the apiary, so he cannot also worry about proper stores or preparing colonies for transport for others.
Summary
This year proved difficult for the members of “Wolne Pszczoły”, but we managed to rise after the winter collapse. We hope that the coming years and the successive selection screens will reduce the probability of possible total losses in our apiaries and bring us closer to relative stabilisation and balance. That is what experience from around the world suggests, and that is what we are counting on. This year the number of bee colonies belonging to Association members again significantly exceeded 200, of which we estimate that around 150 will again remain untreated. We are aware that not all of these colonies originate from those that survived the severe crisis and wintering, and therefore some of them are starting the process from zero. However, about 60 of those colonies come directly from bees that survived the crises. This is important because the selection pressures that killed the other colonies may still be present in them. If it happens that these pressures are low in those colonies, this is due only to the bees themselves or to simple beekeeping measures, such as creating a brood break or dividing the amount of varroa “into parts” when making nucs. In the light of practically all opinions in the beekeeping community, these latter measures are insufficient to keep bees alive. So if the bees survive another wintering, it will be thanks only to the bees themselves — thanks to some genetic or environmental mechanisms that, we hope, will begin to appear more and more often in our apiaries.
It should also be noted that in several dozen further colonies among the approximately 150 that will not be subjected to “treatment” in autumn, the queens originate from bees that survived the last wintering. These colonies, however, were created on the basis of “treated” bees that we had to buy in spring in order to rebuild the potential of our apiaries. They too carry genetics valuable to us, but we are also aware that creating colonies from worker bees that were cleared of parasites in autumn subjects them to significantly lower pressure and therefore increases their chances of surviving the coming winter. Of course, this may be a benefit for our apiaries, but at the same time it may slow down selection. Regardless of everything, as always, the next wintering and then the next season will be the test of the genetic lines we have. May it be richer in forage and begin better than the current one.
For this year’s help within Fort Knox, we once again sincerely thank Łukasz and Jola.