Understanding Bee Colony Biology (Part 4 of 4) Ralph Büchler

A lecture given by Ralph Büchler at the 2019 National Honey Show entitled "Understanding the Complex Biology of Honey Bee Colonies and its Links to Colony Health (Part 4 of 4)" The lecture is sponsored by BDI Bee Diseases Insurance Ltd. The National Honey Show gratefully acknowledge the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers for their support.
Ralph Büchler
Working with honey bees since his youth, Büchler studied agriculture and biology at Bonn University and finished his PhD in bee science. In 1990 he moved to the bee institute in Kirchhain which is one of the larger German training and research centres for beekeeping. Since 1997, he is leading the institute with its about 20 coworkers. Honey bee selection, disease resistance and alternative varroa treatment concepts are in the focus of Büchler´s research activities. He has participated in many national and international research projects like Smartbees, Coloss, Fitbee and is recently coordinating an EU study on varroa resistant stock and a national selection project on SMR. Büchler acts as the scientific adviser for the breeder association “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Toleranzzucht”. He is author of hundreds of papers, book contributions and scientific films.
Understanding the Complex Biology of Honey Bee Colonies and its Links to Colony Health
Before we start to fight certain bee diseases and parasites we should ask how bee colonies cope with them under natural conditions and what may be the critical differences under modern beekeeping conditions. Why do swarms prefer to settle apart from the mothers nest, what can we learn from the inner nest structure, how does the complex mating biology of honey bees affect colony vitality? The idea will be followed that certain disease problems correspond with certain deficiencies in the natural self protection of colonies. Special attention will be paid to the natural brood and bee population dynamic of honey bees and its consequences for health protection. If we improve our understanding of these natural mechanisms we can improve our management concepts and develop strategies to control diseases and parasites by biological and biotechnical means. This will be explained with some practical examples from AFB, chalk brood and, most relevant, Varroa control.

[@KevinsNorthernExposure]

my jaw is on the floor with as much as I learned....incredible research. I think I learned more in this 4 part series than any videos I have ever watched....of course it's 4 hours of lecture....but an overload of information...and every bit of it makes sense... I don't think I would have gotten as much out of it my first couple years of beekeeping as I do now.....simply because I have a better understanding of what has gone right and what has gone wrong in my own Apiary as well as the commercial one I worked for. This has changed the way I want to approach my beekeeping this season.

[@frankspataro9714]

Info overload but it's awesome that this knowledge and research is out there for all to see and practice a few new things cant wait to experiment some of these idears lol

[@oldbat3340]

Yes, and I want to buy the book version!

[@mikealdridgeret.4427]

I haven't started bee keeping yet but am watching loads on you tube and reading up as much as I can to prepare myself for what looks like an amazing thing to occupy my time when I retire next year. I have to say that I could listen to the Walter White of the bee keeping world, all day, every day. What an amazing series of lectures and what a truly knowledgeable man Ralph Brügger is. Many thanks for sharing your remarkable research with us.

[@richardwatchingfromhalifax2122]

I am going to get my first bees this spring 2021. Your talk has opened my eyes to beekeeping and their ability to take care of their problems if left to it. All I hear is treatment and more treatment for the bees. Thank you.

[@researcherAmateur]

Thank you for sharing this..it was about time...beekeepers, time to do things different..

[@gregmonaghan]

Excellent series of talks!

[@royaljdaniel]

These talks are amazing! Thank you so much for sharing them with us.

[@MrCloscutz]

Congratulations! Mihai beekeeper from Roumania.

[@OrlandoG]

Interesting talk again that makes me think again. It was bugging me for some time, that in my beekeeping, I am exerting extreme selective pressure on mites to become more virulent, but not on bees to become more resistant. i was already planning on using vitality and mite levels in fall for selecting stock for queen rearing, but after this talk series I think am furthermore gonna prefer fall splits over spring splits so mite levels are higher and drones are selected more for mite resistance and gonna give queen caging a try.

[@davecavana1031]

Treatment free is the way. Don't take the piss and all will be well.

[@stevemosloff323]

I would like to know more about how you were wintering Queens. Were you putting 3-4 Queens in each nuc? is there a paper that i could read about this? Thank you very much I learnt a lot. /

[@laziacoff503]

Credit to Phil chandler for pointing out these talks. Many thanks .

[@leighgilbert1420]

Fantastic.

[@jamesfrederick.]

Yo thanks mr white for teaching me about bee keeping

[@lloydfreeman1203]

I had to strain to hear the orator but at the end the music was so loud it was very annoying just to let you know bring the mic up to the person talking and at the end have a softer music if you want to finish it with music thank you for your information I enjoyed the information thanks again

[@lifeonsibuyanphilippines7212]

Experts: Can anyone tell me (or to provide a link ) so i can understand the procedure of re-homing or relocating a caught wild swarm to a location near the catch location WITHOUT relocating it 5 miles away for a week? I can not do that do to only paths on steep mountains here and no roads or vehicles. PLEASE, if anyone can help i would love to know. Also, National Honey Show: can you please also include 'How to" videos? Thanks in advance to any help i can get!!

[@ximono]

What we do in Norway is to place branches with dense leaves in front of the hive, functioning as a labyrinth. That triggers reorientation, as the bees struggle to find their way out. It has to be pretty dense/thick, but not so tight that they can't exit of course :) Works really well here, even for moving a colony just a few meters.

[@aBeekeepersLife]

Depends if the swarm has build combs or not. If not if you catch the swarm with queen you can put them right beside where you captured them. If they build comb they are established(and not a swarm anymore) and than the branch method described here works

[@denmorgan259]

Backfast or carnica?

[@brunobarz5898]

heisenburg back when he still taught

[@fabz2347]

When he mentions "technik", I believe he is referring to technology not technique, could be misinterpreted.

[@thijsvanleeuwen]

In humans we also have more sperm than eggs so why would bees have more drones than queens? My hypothesis is that likely the overhead is needed to ensure there is an abundance of top fit fertilisation opportunity, the queen needs all sperm cels to be perfect as she does not have space to store the overhead in her body where for other species the overhead of sperm is "added from an external source" for the single egg to be fertilised.