Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[zaunreiter]

Hi,

please take some time and dig into the world of microbes.

I translated some of my presentations for you - you can download them at:


http://www.selbstversorgerforum.de/perma/HumusLife.pdf


http://www.immenfreunde.de/docs/Mikrobenmutter_engl.pdf


I think in CCD the microbes play a major part. You find the very same situation in bee colonies as is with human beings. The young bee emerging from it cell is virtually germ-free. It receives the "milk" of the nursing bees - with it all the microbes needed for their health.

I think this transmission is the key to honeybee health and maybe a dysfunction of this transmission the cause of CCD.

Bernhard

[DavesBees]

Thanks Bernhard,
Great job on the presentation and the translation. As usual I read your post all the way through and feel a lot more informed. Actually I learned more about soil science in your post than I have the rest of my life.
You are a true asset to this forum and your posts are most appreciated.
Thanks again

[FollowMeChaps]

Spot on Dave, I fully agree. And many thanks Bernhard. Great to see your face at last,

[zaunreiter]

Some more articles and aspects concerning the microbes, bees and health:

http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=592

http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2009/12/probiotic-bacteria-in-honey-bee-stomach.html

http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/pdf/2010/01/m09040.pdf

http://ddr.nal.usda.gov/bitstream/10113/9361/1/IND43634205.pdf

http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/probiotic1.php

[zaunreiter]

http://beeuntoothers.com/index.php/resources/microbe-refs

[DavesBees]

That is a pretty hefty homework assignment!

[zaunreiter]

Sorry for that.

But nontheless pretty important I suppose, when it comes to understand health - both in nature and bees. (And us.)

Bernhard

[zaunreiter]

The books with her scientific notes of Martha Gilliam is now downloadable:

http://beeuntoothers.com/index.php/beekeeping/gilliam-archives

Also see:
Gut microbiome dysbiosis and honeybee health
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0418.2010.01609.x/full

[Viggen]

Thank you the links and articles.
_________________
Enjoy the day.

[zaunreiter]

Must read (and understand!)

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0032962

[zaunreiter]

http://www.sgm.ac.uk/pubs/micro_today/pdf/111103.pdf

[biobee]

[Che Guebuddha]

Does this mean that most Varroa treatments kill many microbes too and create more trouble?

Michael Bush was talking about it on you tube.

So what is needed is a sustainable aproach based on non-treatment, low interferance, no ventilation, biodiverse environment without pesticides.

This means that human race must RADICALLY change the life style!

[zaunreiter]

Being radical doesn't help. (As violence/extremes seldom does.)

The first thing to change is the cultivation of the ground. There humus is produced which all other animals and plants health depend on. You can't stay healthy eating food without sufficient nutritions. For example you have to drink 20 litres of milk produced from silage to replace all the nutritions from 1 litre of hay milk. (Milk from the Alps. Lots of herbs.) You can't drink so much milk of course and of course you can't eat so much to replace the lacking nutritions usually found in food produced on high humus fields.

Same with the bees. All the stuff is missing in the bees' food. Nutritions. What happens is, that microbes inside you, or inside the bees turn against their hosts, if lacking nutritions. That's what makes you chronically ill.

So we should care for the humus in the ground. But it needs more than 8 years to get the humus production going. The ground is like a huge gut, if it is ill and full of the wrong microbes it needs time to get rid of them or keep them in check.

[Che Guebuddha]

You say radical doesnt help yet you say exactly what i said

My gardening is not based on feeding plants but instead feeding the Soil Food Web through applying compost tea, cover material like wood chips and dry grass ... feeding the fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, worms, algae etc...
and all them in return feed and protect the plants.

[AnthonyD]

[zaunreiter]

Yes, mother nature des a good job most of the times. Trees are crucial, since they bring in a lot of sugars into the ground.

This is the best book I know of on topic of practical application of the above knowledge. See: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1900322625/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=1278548962&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0930031849&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1ZB7574CF8R93D6CQ93F


Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops
by Martin Crawford
ISBN-10: 1900322625
ISBN-13: 978-1900322621

Highly recommend it.

[AnthonyD]

Thanks B

[Che Guebuddha]

Just ordered this book since we are buying a farm soon and Im on this track to plant lots of edible trees, shrubs, perennials, etc ... Need more inspiration hope this book can deliver it.

[zaunreiter]

SymBeeotic.

http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?news_item=6093&id=24890

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adAucmKvXBA

[Che Guebuddha]

It is shame that T. Olofsson gave up on his reasearch with Top Entrances-solid bottom just so he could develop this money making one.
His early research showed that organic acid from honey production are heavier than air and stay in the lower part of the hive (brood nest). Bottom entrance allows these acids to escape the hive.

I have heard from another scientist that Tobias gave up on this top entrance research after going into this Symbeeotic one.
I guess he cant make any money on top entrances

Best bee healer is biodiversity, continuity in various pollen and nectar source.
It is time we stop fiddling with toys for boys and cut to the chase! We as well as our governments must heal the environment and replace mono crop fields into biodiverse ones!
We all agree that there is no silver bullet! So why supporting this one?

The bottom line is; We can not support 97% of population with 3% which are farmers. We (super market consumers) are the reason for all this mess. When will we (our governments includes) understand that we must hit the balance between the System and Self-reliance to fix all the worlds issues?!
The ONLY WAY to heal the planet (and thus healing the bees) is by getting back at least 30% of people back to land, running organic biodiverse small scale homesteads, and feeding the local population.

Im not into going back to stone age! Only to strike balance between the system and self-reliance. We can not only continue and sit in our offices and blame the world.

Open fire

[zaunreiter]

[Che Guebuddha]

Mein freund,
are you implying that biodiverse environment does nothing to do with honey bee health (thread title) ?
Are you saying that biodiverse environment cant provide bees with enough probiotics? Wonder how they survived all these millions of years without human intervention.

The thing about Tobias I've heard of a bee scientist who knows him. It matters little if its true or not. The fact remains that approaching bee issues without biodiversity is useless. Why? The main contributor Mr. Mono crop Agriculture remains. Look around you Berhard. What do you see? Im guessing mono crop fields all the way to the horizont.
I dont respect 10 years of experimenting. Monsanto and Bayer experimented longer yet we dont respect them.
I totally agree that probiotics are of great importance but dont you agree that by bringing the biodiversity to life all issues of bees will vanish?
How is biodiversity not part of this thread?

Ah, i see. We are maybe overwhelmed by the vastness of damaged ecosystem and rather tackle one puzzle at a time. Im afraid we have no much time left for nowadays science. We need holistic science approach on a grand scale.

Its very easy to fix the environment. Its only to plant biodiverse plant life over the monocrop fields. I will volunteer for this, im sure many others will too.

The main problem to bee health (and health of planet) is 97% of our population is expecting food from the 3% that are farming it. Full stop. Symbeeotic cant fix the issue. Also full stop.

We always focus on what is missing in the hive and we battle to place that in or take some away. Instead, let the bees seal (close/lock) the hives and we turn our focus to fixing that we are destrying; the environment we all depend on.

I dont mind your "one puzzle at a time" scientific approach but please dont shush me for taking a more holistic approach to the issue at hand.

Bee well mein freund.

[Che Guebuddha]

Just for the record;
By the way I did email Tobias and he gave me a vague answer that he didnt conclude the top entrance project.

[zaunreiter]

[Che Guebuddha]

[imkeer]

I just wrote a small email to Tobias and Alejandra to ask them if they know how come the bees don't have enough of these lactic acid bacteria any more. I may have some ideas about it, but they have studied this for 10 years so...

I wrote:
How come the bees don't have enough of these lactic acid bacteria any more? Which factors influence or could be influencing this? I'm thinking that selection traits such as less defensive behaviour, less swarming, higher productivity and so on, undermine the bees' vitality. But also varroa treatments such as with thymol products or formic acid could possibly kill these beneficial bacteria? But I'm also thinking that you as scientists may really know why the level of lactic acid bacteria drops in so many bee colonies...

If and when I receive an answer, I'll post it here...

Luc P. (BE)

(edit)

[Barbara]

I think the thing to remember with any feed supplement is that a good healthy diet is the best choice and a supplement is a poor second. I can see something like this becoming a bit like any other treatment with commercial beekeepers, in that they routinely use it because they don't have time to assess each colony.
It certainly does sound like this is far better treatment than continuing to throw antibiotics and miticides at them, but as Dusko appears to be saying, it is going to be used by commercial beeks in particular, to support the current status quo of mass monocrop pollination and transportation etc, with no view to changing to a better system. Therefore this supplement, which sounds like it is, in itself, a good thing, will be used to shore up a bad system.

My other concern would be that a large increase in one particular bacteria used on a regular basis, might upset another important balance of nature within the gut of the bee to the disadvantage of other (perhaps less important but nevertheless valuable) bacteria. I'm not a biologist so this is just a hunch.

[Lacewing]

Leaving aside for the moment the big picture... (!)

Have been thinking about this in relation to human nutrition. (Well, I know: you can't really extrapolate from rats to humans, and therefore, probably not reliably from humans to bees! ... but.... ) As has already been pointed out: after eg. courses of antibiotics or poor diet it can take humans a long time to re-grow their own personal colony of internal bacteria, with real consequences to their health. Hence: courses of probiotics. (I've read though that the internal colony is very individual; bought probiotics would never really replace the original. Good nutrition and overall attention to health are needed for re-growing that, and of course no supplement ever makes up for these.)

With this in mind though it sounds quite reasonable doesn't it? that making available the appropriate probiotics to bees who've been treated with antibiotics, or who've had to spend some time on sugar feeding - whether by supplementation or in their environment, might well help them back into balance. (Yes, I also was thinking: Many essential oils have bacteria-inhibiting properties too. I do then wonder a bit about thymol etc. in this context?)

[Che Guebuddha]

Im the first one to admit that looking at the wider picture and trying to fix it is EXTREMELY overwhelming and makes my mind want to block it away, to igore it, sweep it under the carpet and adapt some "silver bullet" scientific "one puzzle at a time" solutions.

I think this is because our minds are conditioned by our cultural evolution which is very much fueled by our disconected ego-self. Or not.

When I look at the satelite google maps over Germany, Denmark, South of Sweden I get dishearted, discouraged by the wastness of mono-crop monster fields. I feel so tiny and weak infront of them. How can I, a tiny wreched human possibly make a difference against such profit orientated mega-system?

But then I see what people like Vandana Shiva and others similar to her are doing and I feel my tiny heart dares to beat stronger, it gets inspired and those mono crop monsters seem less scary. All seems possible. And even if I fall in this battle I will die in peace knowing that I fought for the betterment of this magical mother earth.

Im sorry for this non-scientific post. Felt like sharing.