Treatment Free

Beekeeping in France

With Dr. John Kefuss

Spring 2017

Kefuss interview with Solomon Parker from April 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB7aqB4E7JM

Peter Brezny

Contact:�peter@psychochickenecofarm.com

• Asheville Native
• Bachelors degrees in Environmental Science and Chemistry
• Masters in Biochemistry/biophysics
• Working with bees since Spring 2014
• 2016 NCSBA Journeyman Certified Bee Stuard
• Beginner farmer at the Psycho Chicken Eco Farm
• Started beekeeping with no experience using downloaded internet plans for DIY top bar hives
• Fund farming/Bee Stewardship as a UNIX administrator with Purplecat Networks/aerial photographer with Flying Frog Films.

​

Peter Brezny

Contact:�peter@psychochickenecofarm.com

​

Presentation online at: www.psychochickenecofarm.com/bees

How I got to France As an Apiculteur Stagiaire

• My better half was out of town...What to do with myself…
• I love bees
• I love France
• Step one, Buy Ticket
• Step Two, find beekeeper to work with
• Jean-Jaques and friends helped me search
• Carl Chesick said, ‘Send Kefuss an e-mail’
• Kefuss said, “Come on”:
• I’ll buy the food...
• But You do the cooking
• It’s primitive at the apiary.
• PS, I won’t be around the first week you are here, but I’ll find someone for you to work with...

Images from France

• Week one:

Victor Kohut

​

​

• Week Two-Three:

Dr. John Kefuss

​

Where, The South of France

He must be a dull man who can examine the Exquisite structure of a comb so beautifully adapted to its end without enthusiastic admiration.

This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations I call natural selection.

​

-Charles Darwin

Big and sometimes surprising things I learned:

• Two ways to attempt Varroa control
• Treatments -- more and more evident this is not working
• Breeding (Selection)
• Genetics → complex.
• Breeding ( AKA enhanced natural selection) is not complex
• US breeds for honey and gentle behavior
• French breed for honey and health -- drone comb added to strongest colonies
• You don’t need a large or isolated operation to raise bees with strong genetics
• There is an enormous amount of bad information even in bee journals
• Example, Fiery debate between ‘you must treat’ and ‘no treatment’ practice (http://americanbeejournal.com/letters-editor-march-2017/)
• Trust instinct, seek scientific research (scholar.google.com)
• Chemical free management has a long history (tracheal mite example)
• France has banned Neonic’s and glyphosate

​

Attempting chemical control of Varroa Destructor is a lost cause and is actually creating stronger mites, and weaker bees.

​

​

References:

Selection for resistance to Varroa destructor under commercial beekeeping conditions, Kefuss Et. Al. 2016 (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2016.1160709)

Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, Sanford and Bonney, Top-bar Beekeeping, Crowder and Harrell

http://www.beeculture.com/splits-varroa-more-colonies-fewer-mites-new-queens-what-could-be-better/

http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/documents/spivak466.pdf

​

Not only have feral Honey Bees survived varroa,

they have developed such high levels of resistance that their wild population dynamics are identical to their pre-varroa condition.

​

Life-history traits of wild honey bee colonies living in forests around Ithaca, NY, USA, �Tom Seeley�https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-017-0519-1

​

Natural Varroa mite-surviving Apis mellifera honeybee populations

Barbara Locke

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13592-015-0412-8.pdf

​

Bond Vs. BAT Vs. Soft Bond Methods

Bond Method

• Allow natural selection to work, re-queen from survivor hives
• Expect two cycles of significant losses. Can take a long time

Bond Accelerated Test

• Create selection pressure
• Add Varroa mites

Soft Bond Method

• Monitor Hives
• Re-queen hives not exhibiting tolerance to mites

​

http://beespoke.info/2015/09/24/breeding-varroa-resistant-bees/

Bond Vs. Bomb Vs. Black Hole

Be a good neighbor:

• If you don’t treat, your mites might spread to other apiaries...?

Be a good neighbor:

• If you don’t treat, varroa tolerant colonies will actually reduce mite population in your region, you won’t be breeding highly virulent ‘supermites’.

We forget to consider what’s happening to mite genetics under chemical treatment selection pressure.

https://www.911honey.com/v/vspfiles/pdfs/BondvsBondMsPtI.pdf

Take Home Message for healthier, Pollinator Friendly Planet

​

• Plant More Flowers
• Actively talk about the dangers pesticides pose to health (human and pollinator)
• Move away from chemical management practices
• Re-queen from your own, strongest hives

Primitive...

Questions?

​

Images:

https://goo.gl/photos/QRhpZ8Btvsk7QQom8

​

Peter Brezny

Contact:�peter@psychochickenecofarm.com

​

Presentation online at: www.psychochickenecofarm.com/bees