2018 and spring 2019, or the “first swallow” of Fort Knox stabilisation
An article about rebuilding the project after a difficult wintering, the first signs of stabilisation, the concept of the “core” and “buffer layer”, and the promotion of Fort Knox abroad.
After a difficult wintering
The winter of 2016–2017 hit the apiaries of Fort Knox members hard and caused enormous losses — we wrote about this in the previous article (Hard times for Fort Knox, or an unpleasant beginning to a good thing). These losses were considerable not only within the project pool itself, but also in entire apiaries. After such a poor wintering, many people decided that they would no longer leave their whole apiary without treatment. Some began to fear further losses of this scale and the need for constant, annual rebuilding from the ashes. The year 2017, however, brought hope that thanks to close cooperation we can rise even from the greatest crises. It should also be remembered that every successive evolutionary bottleneck from which living colonies emerge, as we believe and hope, brings all of us closer to lasting success in our selection. For this, however, we must be persistent and face the future with our heads held high. We therefore persevered in the Fort Knox cooperation and believe that we have managed to get through the most difficult period. Are we right? The future will tell.
The 2018 season
Twenty-one colonies out of the 23 that had been declared for the project pool by that time were prepared for the winter of 2017–2018. Two colonies that died during 2017 could not yet be replaced in the pool during that same season. Nevertheless, we were satisfied with this result and optimistic. The project not only grew by several additionally declared colonies, but the colonies in our apiaries also came from “genetics” that had already shown they could go through the hardships of selection and cope with existing pressures. Spring 2018, like every spring, brought some losses in the Project. Unlike most beekeepers, we do not expect our bees to be immortal and we do not expect one hundred percent survival. We know that building balance in nature is based on rises and falls. Organisms that are not adapted die and free biological niches for those that can cope with the current environment and existing pressures. This has been the case ever since life appeared on Earth.
The losses of the winter of 2017–2018 were not small, but with the experience of the previous, exceptionally bad season behind us, we looked at our project reality with considerable optimism. The 2018 season began with the return of severe winter in February. That in itself is nothing unusual. What was rather unusual was the warmth at the turn of January and February, which allowed the bees to make cleansing flights and, in some colonies, even “release the brakes” and imprudently begin spring development — at least that was the case in my apiary. From mid-March the sun arrived and the weather became unusually warm for that time of year. A beautiful, sunny and stable spring began. Thanks to this, the bees that survived the return of frost could develop without any obstacles.
By the peak of the 2018 season, 10 project colonies had survived. Although we had to rebuild as many as 13 colonies from them, the potential of the Project began to strengthen. In addition, 2018 showed something we had long been waiting and hoping for. Colonies descended directly from bees untreated since 2015 began to look distinctly better than in previous years. It turned out that bees deprived of treatments against varroosis can regain vigour, develop rapidly and also provide food for themselves independently for most of the season. This confirmed the words of Kirk Webster, one of the pioneers of beekeeping in which treatments against bee diseases are not used. This beekeeper observed that a few seasons after the last treatment, bees begin to develop in a completely different way than when they are only just learning to cope with their own problems. Vigour and health return, and this also has a positive effect on the pace of development and the results of apiary management. This is exactly what some of us noticed in our apiaries in 2018, and once again it filled us with optimism. This does not mean at all that from now on the bees will be “immortal”. Unfortunately, like every living organism, they are subject to the laws of nature and therefore to the laws of natural selection. They will always die — as they also do when we treat them, as numerous examples show. If, however, we accept this process and include it in our beekeeping practice, we may hope that as a result we will obtain colonies able to cope with their own problems independently. We are also aware that many beekeepers, even after six or seven years of selection, when it might seem that they had already passed through the worst, still suffered very heavy losses. Our apiaries, regardless of the bees’ ability to cope with the Varroa destructor mite, will never be immune to poisoning or to exceptionally unfavourable local environmental factors that lead to local collapses. That is why Fort Knox should continue to develop, and untreated bees should be passed between the widest possible group of participants. In this way all our apiaries become more resistant to local or regional factors. The scattering of Project members over a large area of the country, although a negative factor in selection for the localisation of our bees, is also a kind of safeguard for our entire shared effort.
To sum up, the very good development of bees in spring and early summer 2018 not only meant that we were able to replace losses without major problems, but also allowed us to create several additional colonies, which were passed on to new members.
The core and the buffer layer
Our experience so far again pushed us towards rethinking some rules of cooperation. In earlier practice, we still had not managed to solve unambiguously the problem of admitting new members to the Project in a way that would serve progress in selection, the cooperation itself and each participant individually. On the one hand, we were fully aware that the Project had to develop and accept new people in order to become increasingly stable. On the other hand, we still felt that admitting bee colonies to Fort Knox that had not yet passed through a selection screen posed a constant threat of lack of progress in selection. Previously, therefore, we believed that a better solution would be to obtain bees from us and include them in the shared pool. We had the impression, however, that this discouraged some people from joining the Project. They already had their own bees in their own apiaries and did not like the idea of asking for ours in such a situation. In these circumstances, the concept arose of dividing the Project into a “core” and a “buffer layer”. The “core” of the project consists of bees that have already successfully passed through an evolutionary bottleneck. We decided that these are bees that have survived at least two years without treatment. According to various models, this is how long it takes in a standard bee colony for the mite population to develop to a level that will almost certainly lead to the death of the bees. The “buffer layer” of the Project consists of all colonies newly introduced into Fort Knox. Both of these groups together make up the whole project pool, but they are certainly two groups that seem to have very different potential. The role of the coordinator is to make decisions in the Project in such a way that the “core” expands and grows as much as possible. This means, on the one hand, that in the initial period people who have colonies from the “core” will have to take on a greater burden of replacing losses from the entire pool. On the other hand, when we look at the Project in the long term, thanks to this the “core” will grow very quickly and, within a short time, others will be able to take over a significant part of the duties connected with replacing losses. Thus the number of “donors” in the project should grow faster and faster. We believe that thanks to this solution new members will be more willing to join the cooperation.
Fort Knox outside Poland
The year 2018 also brought very significant opportunities to promote our Project outside Poland. In spring, as a representative of Fort Knox, I took part in the treatment-free beekeeping conference in Neusiedl am See, Austria, held on 7–8 April 2018 (“We need to be more like bees” — a report from a conference entirely devoted to beekeeping without fighting varroosis, article in Polish). Then, from 31 August to 2 September 2018, I took part in the “Learning from the Bees” conference in Doorn, the Netherlands (“Learning from the Bees” — reports from the conference in the Netherlands: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, articles in Polish). Speaking as a presenter at both events, I introduced our local cooperation to the audience. The Project was very well received and aroused great interest among participants at both the Austrian and Dutch conferences. The idea of this kind of cooperation among amateur and beginner beekeepers in bee selection and in giving one another mutual guarantees was received very positively. The conferences also showed the enormous potential lying within Fort Knox and the possibility of extending the Project to new circles not only in Poland, but also beyond our country.
A new stage of the project
In 2018, new members joined the Project and brought new Fort Knox colonies into the pool. Ultimately, eleven Project members prepared as many as 42 colonies for the winter of 2018/2019, of which 28 formed the “core” and 14 belonged to the “buffer layer”. According to our current knowledge — at the turn of March and April 2019 — 16 colonies from the “core” and 5 colonies from the “buffer layer” survived the winter. In total, therefore, 21 colonies from our “shared” Project apiary have survived so far, and the same number did not survive the last winter, including 9 from the “buffer layer” and 12 from the “core”. The statistics once again do not look too bad, especially since at least some of the colonies we managed to inspect in March 2019 look very good, and everything indicates that we will be able to rebuild the previous year’s state without major problems.
The last summer, autumn and winter also brought various reflections and thoughts among Project members. The Project showed its potential to expand into new circles. Some members therefore decided that it was time to separate it from the previous formula and give Fort Knox the status of an independent project. At the meeting of the Natural Beekeeping Association “Wolne Pszczoły” — “Free Bees” — we therefore adopted a resolution to separate the Project and transfer the entire brand and accumulated experience to all members of Fort Knox. It was a controversial decision and not everyone liked it. As a result, two members left the Project, reducing the pool by 6 colonies. We received this information with sadness, but we all hope that this is only a temporary and small step back.
The time has come for a new stage in the life of Fort Knox. I hope it will bring the development of the idea of cooperation, which we will manage to implant not only in Poland but also abroad. There is no doubt that the experience so far shows that the Project is exceptional — and not only on the scale of our country.