Organic HONEY BEES
...from the beginning.
The world honey bee crisis took a bad turn with the unwitting transfer of eastern Asian honey bee parasites into western European and US honey bees. A mite named varroa destructor is by far the worst of the lot and has killed uncounted billions of western honey bees in the last half century. They are here and this is now.
Chemical Hammers
Many beekeepers use chemicals against varroa. But the varroa become resistant, so more potent sometimes illegal chemicals are applied, and then abused, half killing the honey bees and making their wax, pollen and honey toxic, causing even more problems.
Others look with care at their keep and see natural methods to try, most of which are unimaginable when the expectation is that one more quick fix will sustain business as usual.
Thinking It Through
Asian honey bees are half to two-thirds the size of European (US) and are a busier bee. They coexist with varroa because they groom thoroughly and the workers escape the mites entirely while only a limited number of drones suffer the infestation, immune to the bites. Asian bees are not as 'kept' as western.
Specifically, Asian honey bees live on combs of their making, which fit them exactly. In contrast, a hundred years ago it was supposed (from bogus research later debunked) that bigger bees would better benefit mankind, so western honey bees were given combs about 10% oversize. Natural worker cells are close to 4.9mm yet the commercial standard remains 5.4mm in Europe and the US.
Attending Biology
Big bees in big cells favor the propagation of varroa destructor.
A queen honey bee lays an egg in a cell and nurse bees commence feeding - 140 times they will visit the cell to fill it with baby food. Along comes a varroa, attracted by developing larval pheromones, and hides in the cell, just before the workers cap it with wax. Now it's a race. The varroa multiplies; one more every 30 hours. If the honey bee can mature and emerge before the mites mature and attach, then the mites lose and will be discarded during routine nursery cleaning. But if the honey bee is slow, the mites grab on with sharp teeth and emerge with the honey bee, to feed on it and to repeat the cycle.
Small cells are faster to fill and seal, and the Asian bees seem in a hurry, applying thinner caps over the brood. This haste is thought to close the door on fecund varroa seeking to run into open brood cells; tricks the western bees never had to learn.
Drones are larger than worker honey bees and therefore take longer to incubate, giving the varroa more time to mature. In fact varroa show a predilection for drone food, an evolved adaptation to their advantage within the drone cells.
Among the larger western honey bees, neither the workers nor the drones escape the varroa; the cells are large enough to accomodate several varroa at once and incubation times assure success of the mites. With every varroa bite, the chances are high that foreign viruses are being spread.
Runaway varroa infestation is terminal for honey bees. Varroa are of the tick family.
Unmaking History
If honey bees can be made bigger, they can also be made smaller - by raising them in small honeycomb cells. In doing so, western honey bees may be made small enough to thwart varroa takeovers, emulating the eastern species. The problem is how to move western honey bees from standard 5.4mm cells to 4.9mm cells. It's hard on the bees and beekeeper alike.
A slow and iffy way to resize is to insert 4.9mm foundation into existing beehives. A more certain way is to accept near total loss of production and do it decisively, as described here. Early summer with strong nectar flows is best. Basically, all the 5.4mm in a beehive is replaced at one time with 4.9mm foundation. Consider options for the 5.4mm frames, especially capped brood; maybe give them to other colonies not being regressed, or start splits. A ready pint or two of organic sugar syrup would not be amiss - they will need the energy.
Reset
At the apiary, smoke each beehive in turn and give them plenty of time to fill up on honey - as they do in emergencies.
Place boxes with frames of 4.9mm foundation next to the beehive. If possible, find the queen in the beehive and move her gently onto the foundation; if not, be careful. Then, frame by frame shake and brush the honey bees from the old combs into the new boxes. Have no thoughts about leaving 5.4mm frames of food, for they will become the brood chamber, defeating the purpose.
Everything they had is lost, and they must build anew on this unfamiliar foundation. This is regression, done right. Of course the confused bees do not stay in the assigned boxes, but fly everywhere and gather in disconsolate clumps. After that, all the beekeeper can do is assemble the new beehive and walk away, taking at the same time the old home. By nightfall the bees reunite with their queen and upon the sunrise life resumes.
Some colonies draw immaculate cells on 4.9mm foundation, others seem incapable, a few will not make it through the ordeal. Often they will build intermediate 5.2mm cells, which must be replaced with 4.9mm foundation so they can try again. As time and the seasons go by, with disciplined beekeeping, the honey bees and the honeycomb will converge on the smaller dimensions.
In Practice
The best 4.9mm combs are reserved for brood, since this is where the sizing takes place. Combs that are 5.0mm or larger are used in honey supers; the worse the comb, the farther from the queen until the wax is recycled or made into candles or wood finishes.
Study the Lusby papers to see how they determined that 5.2mm did not save honey bees from varroa, while 4.9mm allowed their honey bees to cope, and let them get on with their significant organic honey production, in the Arizona desert, amid a widespread general collapse. Learn also how small size reduces susceptibility to tracheal mites.
Four point nine millimeters is just a number that seems to work for the bottom half of the US; it is not magic or absolute. The size at higher latitudes or higher elevations is thought to be naturally smaller.
Organic HONEY BEES
The honey bees in this example started as Russian-Carniolan and are fully adapted to small-cell comb in the high desert of southeast Oregon. A fall in varroa tracked the adaptation to 4.9mm cells. First, worker brood was free of varroa, but the drones were still affected. Then varroa declined in drone brood, until rarely seen.
It's interesting that varroa ARE seen, because it demonstrates coexistence, as theory predicts, though some colonies seem able to purge the mites completely. Most bottom boards, in place from summer through winter, will exhibit during spring inspections, from zero to a few deceased varroa.
The Russians and Carniolan are small and black to begin with, while most US bees are lighter in color and much bigger. It is incredibly beautiful to see families of small golden honey bees in the beehives - genetic contributions from the locally feral Italians.
Small western honey bees are not well-studied, and making them small does not confer eastern immunities, and that may prove critical at any time. But these sweethearts in safe niches of good forage and water, and spared the usual beekeeping drugs and chemicals are healthy survivors producing clean honey. So far...
CLANG..!
(To be read slowly, with care; bad grammar and all.)
Everyone's pesticides. Or anyone's genetically-poisonous crops. Or the imported diseases and vermin running amok in the US pollination industry. Can render safe honey bee niches - and by extension native pollinator niches - suddenly deadly.
And small honey bees - indeed any local best intention or effort - moot and irrelevant.
It is remiss to discuss honey bee successes without resounding the wakeup alarm at least once. There you have it.