Immediately on hearing Brian’s explanation, my
mind jumped ahead-how much money is that
going to cost someone? To lose 90% of bees,
how much more is the start-up cost going to be?
Asking this question of Brian began an amazing
journey through a multi-layer macrocosm of
perspectives and viewpoints. Even 1% survival
rate, how does that help bees?!? I was soon sold
on the idea as Brian continued to explain.
“Once that initial loss is achieved, you are left
with ‘survivor bees’ and the remaining losses decline to acceptable levels. The remaining strain
of superior bees, naturally-selected, rather than
artificially-selected, are perfectly acclimated to
the region where they live and work, and able to
repopulate and expand at a high rate—especially when coupled with queen rearing.”
He broke the characteristics into 3 categories
into which each hive fell: Dead, Survive, Thrive.
The dead were the unfortunate removals from
the race by nature. Those that merely survived
were allowed to continue on to see if they would
get their act together (a minority rebounded), or
if they were going to fall victim to naturally selected termination. Those bees that thrived with zero
artificial methods (including the harsh Montana
winters) were selected to become queen suppliers for the remainder of the hives. In the end, it
turns out that nature (rather than man) selecting
the best bees allowed for the development of the
“Montana Mutts” Brian enjoys in his apiary.
He stressed that nature’s selection can also be
very counter-intuitive. Some of the strongest
hives going into the winter, end up on the Dead
List, while some of