Appropriate beekeeping

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Appropriate beekeeping is a form of beekeeping which was invented in 1986 by the Association for Appropriate Beekeeping . It is based on the anthroposophical teachings of Rudolf Steiner and some of Ferdinand Gerstung's ideas . It assumes that the colony including its honeycomb is an organism, and sees the Bien as a whole.

The concept of natural beekeeping was then significantly further developed by the Mellifera Association and is also the basis of the anthroposophical Demeter guidelines for beekeeping. A movement has also been founded in the north, De Immen , and today both clubs work closely together.

origin

Rudolf Steiner , "the founder of anthroposophy and the intellectual pioneer of the essential point of view", held a series of lectures in 1923 in which he also talked about the nature of bees . He said that one must study the life of bees in a psychological way and that bees have the "greatest influence from the world of stars". He claimed that older, wiser people who "knew the matter in a completely different way than we know it today" had taken the hive of the beehive as a love life and associated it with the planet Venus. He said that beekeeping promotes culture immensely and the right connection between the "airy and the fluid" in humans. He compared processes in the beehive with processes in the human head, interpreted the swarm events as the death of a person and the move of the swarm into a new dwelling with the birth of the bees. He called the honeycomb structure a skeleton, comparable to human bones. The queen described Steiner as the organ of the inner unity of the bee colony. "On the detour through the beehive" draws the whole universe into man and so the secret scientific "human study becomes a world study". From this he concluded that mechanical beekeeping, in which new queens are artificially bred and used in colonies at will, must lead to an existential weakening of bee health and even the disappearance of bees over the course of 60 to 100 years. Rudolf Steiner claimed that his “spiritual or occult science”, “higher knowledge” and “clairvoyant research” were based on an innate ability to be clairvoyant . He even claimed that he could perceive past events supernaturally, through a “backward-looking clairvoyant look”. Around 60 years after these lectures by Steiner, the association for beekeeping was founded .

At the end of the 19th century, beekeeping techniques such as mobile construction, partition walls and artificial queen rearing had already been developed. They were in competition with traditional operating methods in stable construction, in which the natural honeycomb was permanently attached to the beehive. During this time the natural scientist Ferdinand Gerstung worked as a beekeeper. He introduced the concept of the bee to bee science in 1890. The term Bien comes from Johannes Mehring . Gerstung described how queen bees , drones and workers should be understood as organs of the bees. Today we are talking about a superorganism .

Emergence

At the end of the 1970s, the Varroa mite spread in Germany and led to the first major bee colony losses. In southern Germany, some beekeepers began to work out the basics of beekeeping in accordance with the nature of the beekeeping against the background of Rudolf Steiner's lectures. In 1986 they founded the association for appropriate beekeeping, which later became Mellifera e. V. was renamed. For the founders of the association it was clear that the traditional forms of beekeeping had to be reconsidered. They were not only interested in the development of an ecological treatment method against the Varroa mite, but also sustainable beekeeping methods should be designed in order to strengthen the health of the bees in the long term.

Aspects of a proper beekeeping

The nature of beekeeping expresses itself in the maintenance of the integrity of the brood nest, natural honeycomb construction and reproduction via the swarm instinct.

Swarm instinct

A swarm of bees

Reproduction via the swarm instinct is one of the central aspects of beekeeping. The swarm instinct is the only species through which colonies of bees reproduce naturally. It is an expression of vitality, there are many bees, a lot of brood and many stocks in the colony. While swarming, the old queen leaves the beehive with some of the workers. Both in the old and in the newly emerging bee colony there is an interruption of brood as a result of swarming. The swarm act also serves to cleanse and is a natural preventive measure for diseases. The brood interruption associated with the swarming act reduces bacterial diseases such as foul brood and sour brood and the burden of the varroa mite is also reduced.

Queen breeding

In the nature of beekeeping, the usual practice of queen breeding is dispensed with. The queen bees mate with any drones (stand mating) during the wedding flight. In this way, the bee colonies and their queens adapt to the location over the generations. This increases the genetic diversity and the greater the vitality of the bee colonies. Current studies show that the effects of mating in the hive have a positive effect on colony strength during wintering, the breeding nests are larger, the bees fly to distant nectar sources and the resistance to infectious diseases in the beehive is higher.

Natural honeycomb construction

Bees building honeycombs

In the nature of beekeeping, the integrity of the bee is respected as much as possible and the bee colony can build its own honeycombs. The honeycombs have many important functions in the bee colony. The brood is raised in the cells of the comb, thus guaranteeing the continued existence of the colony. They serve as storage for honey and pollen and dance floors are marked on them, on which the bees communicate through waggle, sickle and round dances. The honeycomb structure was perfected over many millions of years in the course of evolution. Wax sweating and honeycomb construction are also important hygienic measures for public health. This has proven positive effects on rotten and sour brood.

relationship

Appropriate beekeeping is not only a question of the mode of operation, but also of the beekeeper's relationship with his honey bees. It concerns the perception of the bee as an organism with which the beekeeper enters into a "respectful, open-hearted relationship".

literature

  • David Gerstmeier and Tobias Miltenberger: Ecological beekeeping: The orientation on the bee. Franckh Kosmos Verlag; Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-440-15605-6 .
  • Günter Friedmann: Beekeeping in accordance with bees: The practical manual. BLV Buchverlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-8354-1544-7 .
  • Ferdinand Gerstung: The bees and their breeding. Fachbuchverlag-Dresden, Dresden 2015, ISBN 978-3-95692-025-7 .
  • David Heaf: The Bee-friendly Beekeeper. Northern Bee Books, Hebden Bridge 2011, ISBN 978-1-904846-60-4 .
  • Erhard Maria Klein: Appropriate beekeeping in the beehive. Pala-Verlag, Darmstadt 2016, ISBN 978-3-89566-341-3 .
  • Martin Ott, Martin Dettli, Philip Rohner: Understanding bees: The way through the eye of a needle. FonaVerlag, Lenzburg (CH) 2015. ISBN 978-3-03781-056-9 .
  • Wolfgang Ritter: Keeping bees naturally: the path to organic beekeeping. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-8001-3995-8 .
  • Thomas D. Seeley: Bee democracy: How bees decide collectively and what we can learn from it. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2015, ISBN 978-3-596-19407-0 .
  • Michael Weiler: The human being and the bees "Considerations on the expressions of life of the Bien. Verlag Lebendige Erde, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 978-3-921536-60-5 .
  • Johannes Wirz: Understanding bees, beekeeping according to their nature. In: Elements of Natural Science No. 101, 2014, ISSN  0422-9630 . Pp. 92-113.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Appropriate beekeeping . Foundation for people and the environment. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b Johannes Wirz, Norbert Poeplau: Beekeeping in keeping with the essence: that's behind it . Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag GmbH. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  3. ↑ a b c Sarah Bude: Understanding bees, the nature of beekeeping . Mellifera e. V. Association for appropriate beekeeping. Retrieved January 22, 2020.
  4. ↑ "Demeter guidelines for beekeeping and beekeeping products, website of Demeter eV. Accessed on July 31, 2017
  5. ↑ a b “I recently described the life of wasps to you. There is much like that in the life of bees. But again the beehive lives a very strange, peculiar life. What is that based on? You see, you cannot explain that at all if you do not have the opportunity to look into the spiritual. [...] That is why those older, wiser people who just knew the matter in a completely different way than we know it today have already said that these wiser people have rejected the whole wonderful goings-on of the beehive on the love life, on the life that they associated with the planet Venus. [...] The bee sucks its food, which it then turns into honey, in fact entirely from those components of the plants that are part of the love life, so to a certain extent brings the love life from the flowers into the beehive. So one must say that one must study the life of bees in a spiritual way. […] And you can continue studying if you now eat the honey yourself. What is the honey doing? [...] At the moment when honey is eaten, it promotes the right connection between the airy and the liquid in people. [...] Therefore, beekeeping is something that actually promotes culture tremendously [...] if you think that the bees have the greatest influence from the starry world [...] The whole universe draws into people on the detour through the beehive and makes good people. [...] And this is how one comes to make the study of the human being a world study. ” Rudolf Steiner: On health and illness. Fundamentals of a spiritual science of the senses. ' Eighteen lectures, October 19, 1922 to February 10, 1923 (Bibl. No. 348). . Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1983, pp. 316-319.
  6. ↑ Martin Dettli (ed.), Rudolf Steiner (author): The world of bees. Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 2014, ISBN 978-3-7274-5384-7
  7. ↑ Cees Leijenhorst: Anthoposophy. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Volume 1, Brill, Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 88 (English).
  8. ↑ Hartmut Zinser: Rudolf Steiner's "Secret and Spiritual Science" as modern esotericism. Lecture manuscript ( Memento from July 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 180 kB), 2006, p. 7 after Theo p. 94.
  9. ↑ Rudolf Steiner: From Akashic Research. The Fifth Gospel Lecture in Kristiana (Oslo), October 2, 1913 ; GA 148, p. 23; on Steiner's claim to be able to perceive the supernatural, see Miriam Gebhardt : Rudolf Steiner. A modern prophet. DVA, Munich 2011, p. 9 ff. And ö.
  10. ↑ Ferdinand Gerstung: The basic law of brood and colony development of the bees. 1890.
  11. ↑ Thomas Radetzki: "On the great importance of bees." In: "Lebendige Erde" No. 3, 1986, ISSN  0023-9917 . Pp. 118-122.
  12. ↑ Johannes Wirz: Understanding bees, beekeeping according to their nature. In: Elements of Natural Science No. 101, 2014, ISSN  0422-9630 . Pp. 92-113.
  13. ↑ Thomas Amsler, Jean-Daniel Charrière, Martin Dettli: Young people education as a means to prevent sour brood ? In: Schweizerische Bienen-Zeitung No. 4, 2013, ISSN  0036-7540 . Pp. 23-25.
  14. ↑ Ingemar Fries, Scott Camazine: Implications of horizontal and vertical pathogen transmission for honey bee epidemiology In: Apidologie. No. 32, 2001, ISSN  0044-8435 . Pp. 199-214.
  15. ^ Ingemar Fries, Henrik Hansen, Anton Imdorf, Peter Rosenkranz: Swarming in honey bees (Apis mellifera) and Varroa destructor population development in Sweden. In: Apidology. No. 34, 2003. ISSN  0044-8435 . Pp. 389-397.
  16. ↑ Jerzy Wilde, Stefan Fuchs, Janusz Bratkowski: "Distribution of Varroa destructor between swarms and colonies." In: "Journal of Apicultural Research" No. 44 (4), 2005. pp. 190-194.
  17. ↑ Heather R. Mattila, Thomas D. Seeley: Extreme polyandry improves a honey bee colony's ability to track dynamic foraging opportunities via greater activity of inspecting bees. In: Apidologie No. 45, 2014, ISSN  0044-8435 . Pp. 347-363 (English).
  18. ↑ David R. Tarpy, Dennis van Engelsdorf, Jeffery Pettis: Genetic diversity affects colony survivorship in commercial honey bee colonies. In: Naturwissenschaften No. 100, 2013. pp. 723–726 (English).
  19. ↑ Ralph Büchler et al: The influence of genetic origin and its interaction with environmental effects on the survival of Apis mellifera L. colonies in Europe. In: Journal of Apicultural Research No. 53, 2014. pp. 205-214 (English).
  20. ↑ Muhamad Munawar, Shazia Raja, Elizabeth S. Waghchoure, Muhammad Barkat: Controlling American Foulbrood in honeybees by shook swarm method. In: Pakistan Journal of Agricultural Research. No. 1-2, 2010. pp. 53-58 (English).