Bees are having a hard time. Pesticides, viruses, varroa mites and climate change pose major threats. Scientists have found that some bees can cope better with others.
Image: Irene Quaile
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At home with bees
In his garden near Bonn, Friedel Mirbach keeps hives with around 300,000 honey bees. He has been fascinated by the stripy insects since he was a boy. The garden is full of plants that provide them with food.
Image: Irene Quaile
The bee-keeper's garden
In Germany there are around 750,000 colonies of honey bees. Friedel Mirbach has 7 hives in his garden, around 300,000 insects. They provide him with honey and pollinate the plants.
Image: Irene Quaile
Getting close to bees - behind glass
Some of Mirbach's bees live a very public life in these show-cases. This gives children and other interested visitors the chance to find out all about them without worrying about getting stung.
Image: Irene Quaile
A sneaky trick?
Friedel Mirbach uses a 'smoker' to make the bees think there is a fire. They suck up as much honey as they can for later, which slows them down. Then the beekeeper can open up the hive without being attacked.
Image: Irene Quaile
Nectar, wax and honey
The bee-keeper pulls out a honeycomb. The bees have become lethargic and do not object. We can take a close look at the comb and its little residents.
Image: Irene Quaile
A hive of gold
"This is part of the brood nest. You can see where the honey is stored. Have a taste! Warm, runny, delicious", says Mirbach. When some of the honey drops out, these female worker bees are there straight away. They suck up the honey and take it back in to store it in the cell.
Image: Irene Quaile
The swarm
During the summer the bee colonies split up. The queen bee flies off with some of the others. This swarm of bees has landed in an apple tree while they search for a new home. The garden-owner is flabbergasted and calls beekeeper Mirbach for help.
Image: Irene Quaile
A shower for the bees?
The bee expert sprays the insects with water to discourage them from flying at him. Mirbach does not believe in wearing protective clothing. One or two stings are no problem for him. He says the beekeepers have bred agressive traits out of the bees over the last few decades.
Image: Irene Quaile
Bed and breakfast in the apple tree
With hundreds of bees buzzing around him, Friedel Mirbach hangs a "hotel box" in the tree. Once the queen flies in to the temporary nest, the others will follow. The box will stay in the tree all night, until the last stragglers have found their way in. Then they will be taken to a local beekeepeer, who will offer them a new home.
Image: Irene Quaile
Bees help the fruit harvest
On this grassland orchard, the farmer asked a local bee-keeper to set up some hives. The bees make sure the cherry trees are pollinated. Once they have started on a particular type of fruit, the busy insects keep going until their work is done.
Image: Irene Quaile
Not just for honey bees
Wild bees, bumblebees and other insects also play a role in pollinating fruit and vegetable plants. As well as the honey-bee hives, Mirbach has provide nesting sites for all sort of other insects. His recommendation: every garden should provide space for wild insects. The reward is a lasting supply of pollinated flowers and other plants.
Image: Irene Quaile
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Bees play a fundamental role in food production: they pollinate a wide range of crops and the honey variety delivers valuable food products to humans. According to the Germany University of Hohenheim, bees provide services to the figure of 70 billion dollars per year.
The global decline of bee populations is a huge concern. In recent years the use of pesticides in agriculture, and attacks by parasites and diseases, have had a detrimental impact on bees. Per Kryger, a senior scientist at Denmark’s Aarhus University, says "a world without bees would be a whole lot poorer."
Genetically adapted to their environment
Kryger and other scientists from an association called Prevention of Honey Bee Colony Losses (COLOSS) have carried out research to find out how bees can have the best chances of survival. Usually, beekeepers purchase queen bees from other regions to maintain their bee colonies. But Kryger's team has found that bees which are adapted to their local environment fare much better in their chances of survival than bees that which have been imported from a different region.
Honey bees: tiny insects, big businessImage: Irene Quaile
According to COLOSS, local queens live an average of 83 days longer than colonies with imported queens. Kryger says the most effective way to maintain the bee population's natural diversity is to strengthen the breeding programs with local honey bees." It would also help to prevent the collapse of bee colonies, optimize sustainable productivity and make it possible to maintain continual adaptation to environmental changes," he says.
Fellow beekeeper president of the German Association of Beekeepers, Peter Maske, agrees. Maske, who tends to about 50 bee colonies, says many bee keepers have found the same results: regionally adapted bees can cope better with the challenges of modern life.
"The main threat comes from the varroa mite and the viruses it carries. Then there is a lack of food, if the right plants are not available once the spring has passed. Another major problem is the illness nosema and the effects of pesticides, especially the controversial nicotinoids," he says.
Beekeeper Friedel Mirbach looks after bees in his garden and in orchardsImage: Irene Quaile
Bees depend on humans
Currently, there are about 750,000 bee colonies in Germany. 50 years ago, there were almost three-times as many colonies. Added to threat of varroa mites, another problem is that beekeepers don’t keep enough hives to be able to select and compensate for losses, says Maske.
"There were times when people kept a lot more hives so that they could earn a bit extra from selling the honey. These days, it’s getting fashionable to keep bees but people don't take on enough separate hives."
Many people believe that they're helping conserve bees by setting up their own beehive. But Maske says it's just not enough. Healthy colonies need an environment that offers them enough nectar and pollen to keep them going all year round. They also need humans to help them cope with the varroa mite and make sure it doesn't spread.
At home with bees
In his garden near Bonn, Friedel Mirbach keeps hives with around 300,000 honey bees. He has been fascinated by the stripy insects since he was a boy. The garden is full of plants that provide them with food.
Image: Irene Quaile
The bee-keeper's garden
In Germany there are around 750,000 colonies of honey bees. Friedel Mirbach has 7 hives in his garden, around 300,000 insects. They provide him with honey and pollinate the plants.
Image: Irene Quaile
Getting close to bees - behind glass
Some of Mirbach's bees live a very public life in these show-cases. This gives children and other interested visitors the chance to find out all about them without worrying about getting stung.
Image: Irene Quaile
A sneaky trick?
Friedel Mirbach uses a 'smoker' to make the bees think there is a fire. They suck up as much honey as they can for later, which slows them down. Then the beekeeper can open up the hive without being attacked.
Image: Irene Quaile
Nectar, wax and honey
The bee-keeper pulls out a honeycomb. The bees have become lethargic and do not object. We can take a close look at the comb and its little residents.
Image: Irene Quaile
A hive of gold
"This is part of the brood nest. You can see where the honey is stored. Have a taste! Warm, runny, delicious", says Mirbach. When some of the honey drops out, these female worker bees are there straight away. They suck up the honey and take it back in to store it in the cell.
Image: Irene Quaile
The swarm
During the summer the bee colonies split up. The queen bee flies off with some of the others. This swarm of bees has landed in an apple tree while they search for a new home. The garden-owner is flabbergasted and calls beekeeper Mirbach for help.
Image: Irene Quaile
A shower for the bees?
The bee expert sprays the insects with water to discourage them from flying at him. Mirbach does not believe in wearing protective clothing. One or two stings are no problem for him. He says the beekeepers have bred agressive traits out of the bees over the last few decades.
Image: Irene Quaile
Bed and breakfast in the apple tree
With hundreds of bees buzzing around him, Friedel Mirbach hangs a "hotel box" in the tree. Once the queen flies in to the temporary nest, the others will follow. The box will stay in the tree all night, until the last stragglers have found their way in. Then they will be taken to a local beekeepeer, who will offer them a new home.
Image: Irene Quaile
Bees help the fruit harvest
On this grassland orchard, the farmer asked a local bee-keeper to set up some hives. The bees make sure the cherry trees are pollinated. Once they have started on a particular type of fruit, the busy insects keep going until their work is done.
Image: Irene Quaile
Not just for honey bees
Wild bees, bumblebees and other insects also play a role in pollinating fruit and vegetable plants. As well as the honey-bee hives, Mirbach has provide nesting sites for all sort of other insects. His recommendation: every garden should provide space for wild insects. The reward is a lasting supply of pollinated flowers and other plants.
Image: Irene Quaile
10 images1 | 10
Friedel Mirbach, chairman of the Bonn association of local beekeepers, agrees. He has seven colonies in his garden housing about 300,000 honeybees and several more in neighboring fruit orchards to optimize the pollination of his cherry trees. His queen bees mate with drones from the same neighborhood.
Mirbach, too, believes in keeping local bees: "buying bees from some other region rarely leads to an improvement of any kind," he says. "Bees who are from the area seem to adapt particularly well to changes in the climate."
