Summary of 2020 in the Fort Knox Project
A summary of a difficult season: high losses, an attempt to rebuild the project pool, new participants, a deficit of bee colonies and a reminder of the basic rules of management without treating varroosis.
High losses in 2020
Difficulties and problems have never been lacking in the Fort Knox Project. This tradition, not necessarily one we expected, also continued in 2020. Spring greeted us with exceptionally high losses. These are always considerable when bees are left to natural selection. But this year was comparable to 2017, when we lost a significant majority of the bees. As then, this time the losses reached nearly three quarters of all colonies in the pool. Losses of this scale are exceptionally difficult to rebuild, especially because the remaining quarter of bee colonies is not always in good enough health to make three new nucs from each colony.
At the beginning of 2020, the project pool consisted of 26 colonies kept by 7 participants. By true spring, however, only seven colonies at three participants’ apiaries had survived. Of these seven colonies, according to the data provided by project participants, only 3 were in very good health, another 3 were weaker but had some potential, and the last turned out to be two seams of bees with a living but non-laying queen. These were not resources that allowed us to remain optimistic.
Rebuilding the project pool
So far, however, the project had managed to come through such problems successfully. At the height of the season, we therefore began trying to rebuild the state of the pool. This time, however, it was impossible to avoid including several colonies from outside the proper pool in the project. Several losses were therefore replaced with colonies made from our “private” resources. Several colonies were also strengthened from these “private” resources with an additional frame of capped brood about to emerge. Despite attempts to create as many colonies as possible, we did not manage to replace all the losses: in summer, the deficit still amounted to 3 bee colonies, and this remained to be rebuilt in the new year, 2021.
We do not intend to defend the thesis that creating weaker nucs or strengthening them with “foreign” worker bees is the best solution for bees. These are practices that clearly belong to so-called “modern beekeeping”, which is in fact largely responsible for the poor health of honey bee populations. Thanks to such tools, however, we can build a larger number of colonies that, in our scattered apiary, will be subjected to natural selection. We therefore have to keep moving within a certain compromise. I should add here that all colonies created as part of replacing the project pool are managed fully in accordance with the standards adopted within Fort Knox.
A difficult forage season
The 2020 season was not among the easiest for all beekeepers, although it seems this was especially true in southern Poland. This was not only the case for those who leave their bees to natural selection. The weather turned out to be capricious, and this probably influenced the occurrence of poor forage. After a dry April came a rather cold and rainy May and June. Summer was not hot either. In many respects, however, it was undoubtedly a favourable year for nature. In many regions that had been dried out by heat for years, soil moisture deficits were at least partly replenished. Despite this, forage did not deliver. Perhaps this was precisely because of the cooler weather, or perhaps some other factor also played a role. For example, in 2020 linden trees flowered beautifully, and some of them even buzzed with bees. But what of it, if during the flow there was rather less food in the hives than more. Many beekeepers not only harvested little honey this year, but some literally had to feed bees throughout the summer. Others obtained from entire apiaries harvests similar to what they would normally get from a single colony. So there is probably no need to convince anyone that the bees also did not develop as well as they could have with rich and diverse forage available.
New people and new problems
In 2020, new people joined the project and new bee colonies were declared. At present, the project consists of ten participants, and its pool amounts to 33 bee colonies. This is still not many, but we are pleased that the number of participants has increased. This time, because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we had to abandon the rule of getting to know new members in person. Brief online contact had to be enough.
Already now, at the end of January 2021, we know that the next year will not be easy either. It seems that this is exactly what beekeeping without treatment is like. We know that at least 7 colonies have already died, which gives the current mortality rate of about 23%. Together with the deficit of 3 colonies that we did not create in the previous year, this represents about 30% of the state that will need to be rebuilt in the coming season. And true spring is still far away. As always, however, we remain hopeful.
Basic management rules
To conclude, we remind you of the basic rules of management in the Fort Knox Project:
- we DO NOT TREAT bees with any chemical agents: we do not use not only synthetic pesticides, but also acids, essential oils or herbs, and we do not carry out any technical procedures aimed at controlling mites;
- we limit management to the minimum, as far as our assessment of the condition of bee colonies allows;
- we do not take from Project colonies any honey that is not surplus to the bees’ needs — we therefore try to leave them their natural food;
- we use clean wax — foundation — with so-called small cells, 4.9 or 5.1 mm, or we keep bees without foundation.
Other Project rules can be found here: Fort Knox Project FAQ.