[PDF]Beekeeping: Beekeeping-Natural Simple and Ecological

Beekeeping: natural, simple and ecological



by Johann Thiir, Beekeeper

Translated by David Heaf from Bienenzucht. Naturgerecht einfach und erfolgsicher by Johann Thiir, Imker
(Wien, Gerasdorf, Kapellerfeld, 2 nd ed., 1946)

Part I Thriving

The law of retention of nest scent and heat: the basis of health, thriving and yield

In order to thrive and produce, bees depend completely on heat. It is as important for as nourishment
for them.

Science has established that bees require various temperatures. During overwintering with no brood,
the average temperature of the middle of the cluster is 22-25°C. In contrast, the normal brood temperature is
34- 35°C. To ripen honey, even 40°C is necessary.

But the average air temperature is well below these limits. Brood and bees are essentially without
their own bodily warmth. The difference between the temperature of the air and that required by the bees has
to be produced by the bees themselves throughout the entire year, summer and winter. Their fuel is honey
which they have to consume greatly in excess of their bodily needs in order to produce heat. For example, in
accommodation with enclosed natural comb, the winter consumption in the six months from 1 October to 1
April comprises about 2 kilograms, whereas in the conventional, heat-dissipating framed hives, 6 to 8 kg or
more are needed. This excess consumption within six months of, on average, 5 kg per colony is purely
excess consumption in maintaining the very essential minimum temperature. In order efficiently to utilise
this costly, life- supporting and life-giving heat, nature has enabled the bee, a super-organism comprising
colony and comb, to keep the heat in, to retain it. This retained heat is a mass of warm air, impregnated with
scent, and thus germ-free. It suppresses harmful bacterial activity and hinders the occurrence of diseases.

The whole issue of this multi-facetted heating effect culminates in the law of germ-free retention of
nest scent and heat

Since a deficiency of retention of nest scent and heat calls for significantly increased food
consumption and inopportune effort by the bees, and causes the hitherto seemingly inexplicable emergence
of particularly infectious diseases, especially Nosema, which appreciably damages beekeeping, it is of great
importance that we give paramount attention to the retention of nest scent and heat. This has become even
more important as the development of bee culture since the invention of the frame has acquired
characteristics determined by the frame that are in direct contradiction of the retention of nest scent and heat
required by nature. This leads to serious harm for the bees, to wasting sugar and to a generally far-reaching
deterioration of beekeeping. Frames, and the hives based on them, suppress natural comb construction and,
with this, the retention of the nest scent and heat. Modern artificial bee breeding has barely any inkling of
this.

As early as 1936 Weippl wrote in Bienen-Vater (Beekeeper): 'The combs in hollow trunks of trees,
the homes of bees since Creation, as well as in skeps, are fixed to the walls. Each corridor between the
combs forms a closed space, like a room. Thus, in winter, the heat of the cluster cannot flow away through
the many gaps between the frames and the hive walls. This avoids not only loss of heat, but also draughts,
condensation in the hive and excessive consumption of stores.' To this, I would add the following: If the
bees cannot build the combs to the walls on all sides they close such gaps with brace comb. The warm air is
not lost downwards, because it is lighter. And it is kept in at the sides and above through the cul-de-sacs in
the naturally constructed comb. Only the used air of respiration drops downwards, laden with carbon
dioxide, and at the open bottom margins of the comb it is exchanged with fresh circulating air. These open
comb lower margins can be regarded as the mouth of a central breathing process that, with the help of the



bees sealing the margins, breathes just the right amount of fresh air and organically prevents an excess
penetration of cold air.

The law of retention of nest scent and heat in the spaces between the combs is so perfectly adapted to
nature that it even enables bees to live in comb constructed out in the open air, provided they can
protectively model their comb structure without being hindered by beekeepers and can stay protected from
predators and damage.

But it is equally clear that even in the most ingenious of framed hives, however thick their walls are,
bees cannot properly flourish if in the spaces between the combs the law of retention of nest scent and heat
is not fulfilled. And artificial beekeeping, with its framed hives, is very far from fulfilling this law.

Since frames were introduced, at the time of writing about a hundred years ago, progressive
beekeepers have all turned to framed hives. This is the most significant milestone in the development of bee
culture. The natural beekeeping that has been carried on successfully since the dim and distant past in a very
simple, albeit laborious way, with only natural equipment and unarmed with specialist knowledge has been
eclipsed by the rise of artificial beekeeping using frames.

The knowledge possessed by a few in the past, and natural beekeeping itself, have been forgotten and
have given way to the most glaring errors and misinformation based on frames. Frames facilitated insight
into the secrets of the bees and thus constantly created new concepts, viewpoints, hives and methods of
management. Natural simplicity was replaced with multiplicity and contradiction shrouded in artifice, and
beekeepers, not to mention beginners, could no longer find their way. The search for new types of hives and
methods of management continued unabated and is the best evidence that none of them were satisfactory.
(Indeed, something was lacking and that is retention of nest scent and heat.) Each beekeeper held that his
particular hive was the best, provided he still remained faithful to it. However, that all existing framed hives
give rise to significant shortcomings and harm the bees, and appreciably reduce yields, is almost completely
unknown because modern beekeepers, almost without exception, no longer have any idea of the natural
requirements of bees.

The element of life, the retention of nest scent and heat, is fundamentally destroyed by the heat
dissipating and draughty framed comb that is open on all sides. The disastrous consequences are a feature of
this artificial beekeeping and must lead to the realisation that all existing framed hives go against nature and
are dispensable. The realisation that our little songbird, the bee, needs warmth, must sink in such that we are
clear that the nest scent and heat promoted by honey has to be retained and that management and equipment
such as hives must be strictly suited to and subject to it. And ongoing developments, the phase of artificial
beekeeping, have taken us on dangerous detours from this requirement.

It is incontrovertibly established that with framed hives, and their lack of consideration of the law of
germ-free retention of nest scent and heat, bee epidemics have developed and spread. Since then, they have
become a constant and ineradicable phenomenon - above all, Nosema, which in Germany alone has
destroyed 800,000 colonies according to statistical estimates. The USA has conducted an unsuccessful
campaign with the expenditure of significant resources against foul brood. In 1932 in Russia, of 18,000
colonies investigated, Nosema was found in all stages. At the 1936 Karlsbad beekeepers' conference special
praise was given for the Gerstung method and hive which brought the end of old types of hive with natural
comb, yet in the same breath it was reported that, for a number of years, diseases gaining the upper hand are
causing beekeepers a lot of concern and that numerous diseases are reducing the harvests year on year. All
other countries with framed hives constantly report significant losses. In contrast, areas with their natural
beekeeping still intact report healthy colonies with satisfactory yields.

Do not such facts eloquently tell us something? In search of help, isolated calls that pop up saying
'back to nature' fade away without effect because they are interpreted to mean a return to the primitive
conditions of our grandfathers' time. That at that time honey was harvested in excess so that it met not only
the entire demand for sweetening but also so much remained over that various drinks, especially mead,
could be made, is overlooked or dismissed with the assertion that bee forage has declined since then.
Certainly alterations have taken place in agriculture, but 'flowering' as an eternal force of nature remains,
and incredible quantities of nectar have to dry up each year because not all the available nectar is collected.



Twenty years ago, at the 1925 conference of beekeepers in Vienna, Weippl, an economic adviser and
at that time the head of the Austrian School of Beekeeping, gave a lecture in which he said, inter alia:

Over and over again in lectures and in the specialist press there is reference to the wild bees of the woods, that
are wholly self-supporting, without any assistance, be it through feeding, foundation, comb or other care, yet
they flourish magnificently, for, if the aforementioned assertion is justified, then they would have died out
long ago.

And ultimately the home of wild bees in the woods that was assigned to them since Creation is far more
appropriate and better than the most ingenious and best constructed hive. It is the hollow tree trunk, rotten
inside, therefore incredibly warmth retaining, not getting wet, impenetrable in summer to excessive heat, with
combs built to the walls on all sides, not hanging free like backdrops as in frames, admittedly not the most
convenient for the beekeeper, but for the bees unbeatably the best home. The living conditions for the wild
bees in the woods are far better than those of our domesticated bees and the disadvantages for the latter can
only at least partly, but never fully and completely, be removed by the most careful management, greatest
possible protection and appropriate feeding.

These apposite comments were not to bear fruit because neither Weippl nor the whole body of the
other beekeepers were able to find a way out - and yet it lay so close at hand!

To summarise, I argue that the unnaturalness of the framed hive rests in the following: as a result of
the spaces between the combs being open on all sides, the nest scent and heat escapes, and with it the germ-
free, disease-inhibiting scent-substances. The honey supers situated above multiply the wastage of the nest
scent and heat. Each time they are extended more is wasted. And when on top of that the hive is opened, the
nest scent and heat floods out. Certainly in naturally constructed nests - for example in hollow tree trunks -
there is comb a metre long on occasion, but never empty honeycomb above the brood.

The repeated loss of heat from framed hives means that it has to be constantly replaced by increased
food consumption by the bees. This costs a lot in honey and does not always succeed when there are
unexpected setbacks due to weather. It results in abandoned brood, infection foci and diseases. Crippled
bees, weakened replacement generations, delayed development, increased numbers of heating bees tied up,
shortage of foraging bees are all, however, unavoidable even with the best management and favourable
weather, and they reduce the harvest.

The loss of heat causes granulation of the winter stores and the significantly increased consumption
of heat makes necessary an unnatural introduction of sugar that is consumed as a supplement, and represents
an irresponsible burden on a beekeeping economy. Furthermore, prematurely exhausted colonies hold back
the spring development and are a link in the chain of harvest diminution.

The unprotected spaces between the combs allow bad weather and the cold and wetness of winter
from the entrance to pass into the combs that hang free like theatre backdrops. The heat of the nest as it
flows away from these open inter-comb spaces cools down and there forms winter condensation, causes
mould formation etc, and the valuable nest scent and heat escape from the nest. What use here is the best
winter cladding of the hive and the most careful closing up when the living bees and their stores remain
surrounded by such gaps that introduce cold and wetness to disturb their warmth? In such framed hives the
bees cannot be protected by any precautions taken by beekeepers. The most insightful beekeeper can hardly
conceive what the bees have to suffer under these conditions. Yet this harm is alien to the natural comb
method. These two indications alone should suffice to rule out these artificial hives. But the beekeeping
fraternity lets itself be deceived by the apparent successes it has achieved.

The crowning achievement of this work of destruction comes with the beekeeper's dearest hive
component, the honey super! It can never be big enough if it is not also full and frequently opened too soon,
without heeding the fact that every empty cell draws the heat out of the brood nest.

The so-called honey supers also contradict the natural arrangements, the bee's method of
construction, their instincts as well as the extension of the colony, which under natural conditions takes
place from above downwards or from the front to the back, but not the other way around. The bees only
hesitatingly let themselves be driven in such a way, which is usually forced on them by the most unnatural
means, such as brood rearrangement. The bees instinctively sense this unhealthy arrangement and try to
diminish it. Their initial efforts go into connecting the honeycomb in the supers with the brood comb by



means of bridge comb, in order to get rid of the thermally disrupting comb interruption. It is taken for
granted that a beekeeper who likes tidiness must not tolerate such misplaced constructions. They are
removed because otherwise they would impede the mobility of the frames and even in beekeeping schools it
is taught that such messy comb should be eliminated in beekeeping.

Such beekeeper interventions ignore even the most primitive natural requirements of the bee. It is a
call for help that demands an answer. The bees even try to fill the gaps between top-bars and quilt or crown-
board, in order to counter to some extent the loss of heat, i.e. in order to get closer to the law of retention of
the nest scent and heat. But the beekeeper, with his lack of understanding reinforced by bad teaching,
removes it.

Good, it hinders mobility, then that shows that the construction of the hive is incorrect. The bee
cannot become something different, so it is a matter for the beekeeper to adapt himself to the unchangeable
demands of nature - above all the law of retention of the nest scent and heat - by constructing the hive in the
right way.

These briefly presented harms are incontrovertible facts.

Failure to recognise their origin justifies the assertion that the frames with their inter-comb gaps that
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