Johannes Wirz

In all parts of the world, people are trying with all available means to improve the situation for honey bees. But in doing so, beekeepers have their hands tied: bees fulfil their central role and mission of pollination, but have to do so in environments that threaten their very existence. Campaigning against pesticides, electrosmog or loss of flower-rich landscapes is work for politics in society. But this calls for resources far beyond those accessible to beekeepers.

So the remaining option is to deal with the bee colonies themselves. Some beekeepers put their hopes on new strategies for getting rid of Varroa mites, others on approaches to making bees stronger through genetics, and yet a third group believes they will help the bees by providing new types of bee-appropriate hives. In our Institute we have begun a project in collaboration with the Hiscia Institute for Cancer Research in Arlesheim and Weleda AG, in which we would like to improve the health of bees by feeding them with plant extracts from mistletoe and echinacea. In several respects, bee colonies, not the individual bees (!), are similar to mammals, or even to human beings. They keep the hive temperature constant at 36°C while raising brood, and have at their disposal a well-developed immune system, as well as a wide range of communication capabilities. This illustrates the amazing wisdom of their organisation. Mistletoe and echinacea are plants which, in human beings, have been shown to improve body defences, organismic integrity or coherence, as well as the quality of life. We hypothesise that these plants will also promote these aspects in bee colonies.

In 2011, with the help of beekeeper colleagues, 150 colonies were included in the experiment. At two important times in the life of the colonies the extracts were administered singly or together. The first administration, comprising a plant extract tea with sugar and honey, was to young colonies in the spring when natural comb construction demands a rich supply of food. The second was to all colonies at the end of the bee season when they all need to be fed to ensure that they have between 16 and 20 kilos of winter stores.

Thanks to generous support, it was possible to continue this bee project in 2012, even though no clear results were produced after the wintering of the colonies through to spring 2012. In the 2011/2012 winter, colony losses in Switzerland were 50%, in Germany 30%. Overall, the losses in the colonies in the experiment were below the latter average. But because some project participants lost very many colonies and others hardly lost any, the big differences in losses resulted in the data being insufficiently robust for analysis. In 2012 the colonies from the first year of the experiment were again fed according to the same plan. Hopefully, in 2013 it will be clear whether the plant extracts improve the constitution of the bees in the medium term.