Research Brainstorming
Table 11.1 from chapter 11 of The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild by Thomas D. Seeley.
In this chapter, Seeley summarizes the fundamental differences he found between the lives of wild and managed honey bees in 40 years of studies. He continues by listing core aspects of Darwinian Beekeeping to consider in any practice or apiary to support the self-adaptation of honey bees.
Seeley, T. D. (2019). DARWINIAN BEEKEEPING. In The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild (pp. 277–292). Princeton University Press.
This Venn diagram organizes Seeley’s twenty-one concerns for managed colonies into the three integral aspects of honey bee survival, health, reproduction, and nest efficiency.
| Wild | Managed |
| 2. Widely Spaced Nests | Crowded Apiaries |
| 3. Small Nest Cavities | Large Hives w/ Supers |
| 4. Propolis Envalope | Propolis Discouraged |
| 5. Insulated Nests | Thin Nest Walls |
| 6. Small, High Entrances | Large, Low Entrance |
| 9. Rare Nest Relocation | 10. Frequent Nest Relocation |
Six distinctions in the lives of wild and managed honey bees I would like to discuss in my analysis of housing of bees for industry and leisure.