This last weekend I went to an excellent event about two hours east of Charlotte, NC in Vass, NC. This was the gathering of the lucky few beekeeping groups and businesses in North Carolina that were granted the funds from the state to start their own queen bee rearing project. Mecklenburg Beekeepers Association, of which I am the secretary and one of the main people behind this project, was selected for this grant.
It was here that I learned a ton of valuable information about raising and selling queens. It was also the place where I heard something that has stuck with me since then and is the topic of this blogpost. When discussing the decision to kill queen bees who are not performing well, there seemed to be an issue with killing any bees amongst a few of the attendees. What was then said really summed up so much of beekeeping and farming as well.
The quote went to the tune of “Most people who didn’t grow up farming don’t realize how constant and important death is to your practice.” This likely wouldn’t have made much sense to me in my earlier days of beekeeping when I was still too afraid to kill bees if needed, but after years of working dozens of bee hives each year, I totally understand.
One of the most common questions I get from new beekeepers comes when they see a few dead bees in front of their hives on a cold winters day as they are concerned something is gravely wrong with their honeybees. Most often however the opposite is true. In fact, this means the hive is healthy and is functioning as it should.
The healthy bees living warm inside the hive are taking the dead outside of the hive where it’s too cold for them to fly them away. On a warmer day the pallbearer bees can be seen flying the corpse of their sibling high in the area until they reach a location for enough away so that biocontamination is no longer a factor. When it’s too cold to fly the bees simply toss the dead out into the cold ground below the hive…and yes we do get cold winters here in Charlotte, NC.
This is a GOOD thing. A hive containing thousands of bees can lose hundreds of bees per day to NATURAL causes. And like the example given above, just because we don’t see death in and around our hives doesn’t mean it’s not happening!
I first heard of the idea to cull queens or even whole hives from a commercial beekeeper a few years ago. The main idea behind it was that bees that can’t deal with the stresses of the apiary or environment they live in are maladjusted to their stressors and thus need to die so their genes don’t transfer to the hives that have adapted and thus contaminate their gene pool.
Just see what they’re doing with Killer Bee populations in the American Southwest. While still honeybees, they are a breed that is super aggressive. Most often they are dealt with force which is done so swiftly. Any beekeeper I know is strongly encouraging these efforts in hopes that they never make it to their neck of the woods. Fortunately for us in Charlotte, NC this is not an issue…yet.
This of course is not the go ahead to kill honeybees or really any kind of bees at will nor is it a condemnation of practices used by commercial beekeepers as being inhumane. I can assure you that any beekeeper is doing the best they can to allow for their bees to live the best lives they can. I can most certainly attest to the fact the happy bees make a lot more honey than stressed bees.
Instead, this is a reminder that death is a part of life. It’s a huge part of the world of beekeeping and rather than pushing it away, I ask that we as beekeepers embrace this reality. For me it definitely opens my mind up to all that honeybees do and how their goal in life seems to die fighting for their cause. Yes I mean the fact that they literally die after they sting! So even if you get stung or just have an article of clothing stung, more than likely you’ve killed a bee.
That is okay! Let’s try and enjoy the moments we have with these fascinating insects. And if that’s still too morbid you can totally give your bees a tiny burial. Hopefully there is a honeybee Valhalla.
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