Source: CORNELL UNIVERSITY submitted to
TESTING SMALL HIVES AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR SUSTAINABLE BEEKEEPING
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1000808
Grant No.
(N/A)
Project No.
NYC-191400
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2013
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2016
Grant Year
(N/A)
Project Director
Seeley, TH.
Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853
Performing Department
Neurobiology & Behavior
Non Technical Summary
The ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, and the viruses that it vectors, pose a great threat to the honey bee colonies owned by beekeepers in the United States. Beekeepers use many management tools to control the Varroa mites in their colonies, but at present they rely primarily on treating their colonies with miticides. This approach is not sustainable. It leads to the contamination of hive equipment and hive products, to the evolution of resistance by parasites and pathogens, and often to negative side effects on the bees. The proposed work will test a management tool that may mimic how feral honey bee colonies survive infestations of Varroa mites without miticide treatments. If this strategy proves effective, it will provide beekeepers with a new and sustainable practice for reducing disease in their colonies, and so will bolster the long-term health of the beekeeping industry and of the agricultural sectors that rely on pollination by honey bees.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
21130991070100%
Knowledge Area
211 - Insects, Mites, and Other Arthropods Affecting Plants;

Subject Of Investigation
3099 - Bees, honey, and other pollinators, general;

Field Of Science
1070 - Ecology;
Goals / Objectives
1) To establish an apiary of 30 genetically homogeneous colonies of honey bees living in hives that are either small (42 liters, with 10 frames of comb) or large (168 liters, with 40 frames of comb), and that are infested with Varroa mites. 2) To compare the population dynamics of the bees and the mites in the two treatment groups. This will test the hypothesis that giving colonies small hives (thereby forcing the colonies to rear less brood and to swarm more often) will give the mites fewer opportunities to reproduce and so will lower the per capita level of mite infestation of the bees. 3) To compare colony longevity for the two treatment groups, to see how altering the population dynamics of the bees and the mites affects colony survival. 4) Overall, to test the use of small hives as a management tool for producing colonies that are naturally resistant to Varroa mites.
Project Methods
In year 1, I will set up two groups of 15 colonies. In one group (Small Hive Group), the colonies will live in hives with just one hive body (volume = 42 liters). In the other group (the Large Hive Group) the colonies will live in hives with four hive bodies (volume = 168 liters). In both groups, each hive body will hold 9 frames of worker comb and 1 frame of drone comb, to ensure that hives of both sizes have the same % of comb built of drone cells (important, since mites reproduce esp. well on drone brood). The two groups will be located 100 m apart, to minimize drifting of bees between the treatment groups. In May 2014, the study colonies will be started using 15 pairs of 2-frame nucleus colonies ("nucs") prepared from 15 colonies infested with Varroa. Each nuc will be given a queen bee purchased from C.F. Koehnen and Sons. Because both nucs in a pair will come from the same colony, they will start with similar numbers of mites. After the colonies are established, I will measure monthly the following variables in each hive: number of adult worker bees, number of cells of worker or drone brood, mite infestation levels of adult bees and brood, and number of queen cells (means of detecting swarming). Using paired-comparisons statistics, I will test for differences between the two treatment groups in the variables measured. In years 2 and 3 (summers of 2015 and 2016), I will continue the monthly measurements in the two groups of colonies, and I will monitor the patterns of colony mortality. The colonies will receive no miticide treatments throughout the study.

Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Beekeepers. I reach them through the trade journals (Bee Culture and American Bee Journal) and by giving talks. I gave the following talks to beekeepers over the reporting period: October 2015, Arkansas Beekeepers Association October 2015, Ohio Beekeepers Association November 2015, New York City Beekeepers Association February 2016, Beespeak St. Louis March 2016, Ulster Beekeepers Association (NorthernIreland) March 2016, Geneva, NY Bee Conference July 2016, Danish Beekeepers Association (Denmark) July 2016, Mellifera e.V. (Germany) October 2016, Oregon State Beekeepers Association December 2016, Bee Audacious Conference (California) Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project supported the research experiences of two Cornell undergraduate students, Jon Carter Loftus and Madeleine Ostwald, both students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In 4 articles: 3 for scientific journals (2 papers in Apidologie and 1 in Journal of Experimental Biology) 1 article (so far) in a beekeeping magazine (American Bee Journal) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This project has produced two main accomplishments: 1. In an experiment that lasted two years, we obtained convincing evidence that one reason for the superior health of wild colonies of honey bees relative to managed colonies (those kept by beekeepers) is one of the most fundamental manipulations that beekeepers make of honey bee colonies to increase their production of honey: they house their colonies in hives that are 2-4 times larger than the nest cavities in which wild colonies reside. By installing colonies in unnaturally large nest cavities, beekeepers provide the bees with lots of space to rear brood and to store honey (good for the beekeeper, but not for the bees) and they inhibit the bees from swarming (also good for the beekeeper, but not for the bees). It used to be that honey bee colonies stayed healthy even when they were housed in large hives and inhibited from swarming, but ever since the introduction of the ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor, this is no longer the case. We found that colonies living in small hives experienced much less mortality from the viruses transmitted by the mites. Our evidence suggests strongly that colonies in small hives had markedly lower mortality because these colonies provided the mites with less bee brood (on which the mites reproduce) and because these colonies swarmed/fissioned more often (thereby removing many mites). These findings are valuable because they show away for beekeepers to keep bees without having to treat their colonies with miticides. 2. In a long-term, longitudinal study (2010 - 2016) of 33 nest sites in Tompkins County that have been occupied by wild honey bee colonies, we found that the annual probabilities of colony survival and colony reproduction/swarming of wild colonies are the same now as they were 40 years ago. This is remarkable, because about 20 years ago the deadly ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor (native to Asia) reached Tompkins County, killing most colonies. We know from our genetic studies that the wild honey bee colonies in Tompkins County have undergone intense natural selection for resistance to these mites, and this long-term study now shows that the wild colonies of honey bees living here have now evolved resistance to these mites.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Loftus, C.L., M.L. Smith, and T.D. Seeley. 2016. How honey bee colonies survive in the wild: testing the importance of small nests and frequent swarming. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0150362. Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150362.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Ostwald, M.M., M.L. Smith, and T.D. Seeley. 2016. The behavioral regulation of thirst, water collection and water storage in honey bee colonies Journal of Experimental Biology 219: 2156-2165 DOI:10.1242/jeb.139824
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2017 Citation: Seeley, T.D. Survival, reproduction, and persistence of wild honey bee colonies living around Ithaca, NY.
  • Type: Other Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: Seeley, T.D. 2017. Darwinian Beekeeping. American Bee Journal, March.


Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15

Outputs
Target Audience:I have two audiences. One consists of fellow biologists whose works focuses on the behavior, ecology, and health of honey bees. The other consists of beekeepers, both professional and hobby, who are keen to learn about the results of my scientific work. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project provided training in scientific research and in basic beekeeping for two undergraduates at Cornell, it provided two graduate students with experience in guiding undergraduate students doing research projects. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?So far, the results have been reported through presentations to beekeeper groups. For the period of October 2014 to September 15, these groups have been the following: Worcester County Beekeepers Assoc. (Massachusetts), Dartmouth Beekeepers Club (New Hampshire), California State Beekeepers Association (California), Marin County Beekeeper Association (California), Bee College/University of Florida (Florida), Champlain Valley Beekeepers Association (New York), Chester County Beekeepers Assoc (Pennsylvania), Ulster County Beekeepers Association (New York), Catskill Mountain Beekeepers Association (New York), West Virginia Beekeepers Association (West Virginia). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I will work on developing the technique of artificial swarming as a non-chemical means of controlling the Varroa mite populations in honey bee colonies.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor, and the viruses that it transmits, kill the colonies of European honey bees (Apis mellifera) kept by beekeepers unless the bees are treated with miticides. Nevertheless, wild colonies of honey bees survive without treatments despite being infested with Varroa mites. We hypothesized that the survival of wild colonies is aided by their habits of nesting in small cavities and swarming frequently. We tested this hypothesis by establishing two groups of colonies living either in small (42 L) hives or in large (168 L) hives. We followed the colonies for two years and compared the two groups with respect to swarming frequency, mite level, disease incidence, and colony mortality. Wefound that the colonies in small hives swarmed more often, had lower mite levels, had less disease, and had lower mortality compared to colonies in large hives. These results are an excellent first step toward devising amanagement protocol (artificial swarming)that gives honey bee colonies resistance to Varroa mites without chemical treatments.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Seeley, T.D. D.R. Tarpy, S.R. Griffin, A. Carcione, and D.A. Delaney. 2015. A survivor population of wild colonies of European honeybees in the northeastern United States: investigating its genetic structure. Apidologie 46:654-666
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Mikheyev, A.S., M.M. Y. Tin, J. Arora, and T.D. Seeley 2015. Museum samples reveal rapid evolution by wild honey bees exposed to a novel parasite. Nature Communications 6:7991 DOI 10.1038/ncomms8991
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2016 Citation: Loftus, J.C, M.L. Smith, and T.D. Seeley. Effects of hive size on swarming, mite density, disease, and mortality in honey bee colonies infested with Varroa mites. PLoSOne


Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14

Outputs
Target Audience: My target audience consists of two groups. One is other scientists developing techniques for managing honey bee colonies that will help improve their health in the face of the deadly, introduced ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor. The other group is beekeepers, for I want not only to devise improved management techniques, but also to share the knowledge of them among beekeepers, especially the small-scale beekeepers for whom the small-hive and artificial-swarming techniques I am developing will be most relevant. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project provided training for one Cornell undergraduate student, Carter Loftus. He gained skills in basic beekeeping and in measuring the levels of infectious diseases in honey bee colonies. He also learned much about the planning, execution, and reporting of a biological research project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Not yet, but Carter Loftus has written an undergraduate honors thesis based on this research, and it won the Sherman Prize for the best honors thesis in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell. In the next month or two, we will submit this thesis, which was written as a manuscript to a scientific journal, for publication in the journal Apidologie. We are currently revising the statistical analysis. This is not causing changes in the conclusion, but is applying stronger tools to the statistic analysis. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? As mentioned above, in the summer of 2015 we will be conducting a study to see if , by inducing a broodless period in a colony (like what happens when a colony swarms), we can get the beneficial effects of controlling Varroa mites but without the loss of honey production, which happens when a colony swarms.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor, and the viruses that it transmits, are killing the colonies of honey bees kept by beekeepers unless the bees are treated with miticides. Nevertheless, feral colonies of honey bees have persisted without treatments in several locations around the world despite being infested with Varroa mites. We hypothesized that because feral colonies occupy smaller nesting cavities and so probably swarm more often than managed colonies, they experience a natural method of mite control. To test this hypothesis, we established two groups of 12 colonies living either in small (42 L) hives or in large (168 L) hives. We then followed the colonies for two years to compare the two groups with respect to frequency of swarming, density of mites, incidence of disease, and mortality. We found that colonies in small hives were more likely to swarm, had lower mite densities, and had less disease compared to colonies in large hives. These results suggest that the smaller nesting cavities and the higher incidence of swarming of feral colonies are at least partially responsible for their better survival than managed colonies. The manuscript reporting these results is about to be submitted for publication. We will build on these results in the summers of 2015 and 2016 by conducting studies in which we see if we can control the mites in colonies by inducing a broodless period (by temporarily removing the queen), as occurs when a colony swarms, but without reducing the strength of the colonies and so without reducing their capacity for honey production.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Seeley, T.D. and M.L. Smith. 2015. Crowding honeybee colonies in apiaries can increase their vulnerability to the deadly ectoparasite, Varroa destructor. Apidologie. In press.