Watching weather forecasts for equinoctial gales at this time of year can keep Mick Verspuij very busy. The trained forester likes to look out for windfalls as in uprooted or broken trees which can be cut up and refashioned into homes for swarming bees.
To date there are almost 500 of his log hives across the island, with University of Galway inviting him earlier this year to install one on the campus by the river Corrib.
Made of Scots pine and fitted with a water reed hat or “hackle” to protect it, the university’s hive on stilts attracted much interest as Verspuij took out his toolbox and ladder to assemble it some weeks ago.
It is the first log hive on a third-level campus in Ireland, and was commissioned by Prof Grace McCormack of the university’s zoology department as part of the college’s biodiversity trail. There are plans for more of the installations on the campus to provide a habitat for the native black bee or wild Irish honeybee, which she and her colleagues have been conducting much research on in tandem with the Native Irish Honey Bee Society and the Federation of Irish Beekeepers’ Association.
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Hybridisation of non-native bees with Irish wild honeybees is such an issue that there are calls for a total ban on imports. McCormack was recently awarded a tender to provide scientific evidence which may help determine if a total ban on imported bees is a proportionate response. “Ireland is probably the last stronghold for this type of bee in Europe, and we cannot afford to lose it,” she says.
“Our black bees have adapted naturally to the presence of diseases and mites – which came in with imported species – and so allowing them to live in the wild like this, where we can also monitor them, is so important.
“We have documented about 500 colonies of wild Irish honeybee around the country and that is only scratching the surface. We also have public involvement, with over 30 custodians inputting data, and we would love to have more,” McCormack adds.
The log hives made by Verspuij of Boomtree Bees are well insulated. When inhabited a bee colony will coat the hive with propolis, a resinous material made by bees from tree sap or buds, which has antiviral, anti-fungal and antibacterial properties for protection.
This year has not been a good swarming year. Last year I had 130 swarms in Inishowen, and this year I have counted only 12 swarms in that part of Donegal
— Verspuij
As Verspuij showed me the inspection lid underneath the structure, which provides access for monitoring any new tenants, he explained how bees attach themselves to the top of the hive and start building honeycombs over time.
The log hives are mainly colonised by wild Irish species, but he has had situations where imported bees have also moved in.
“If I know in time I can remove the imported bees and I simply requeen the colony,” he says. This involves giving the colony a new queen from the native species. There is no knowing how long it may take a swarm to move in. A lot depends on the location, how close it is to other colonies which may then swarm, and weather. I had one case where it took two years for a log hive to be occupied, and then there was another case where a swarm landed just as I was coming down the ladder,” says Verspuij.
“This year has not been a good swarming year. Last year I had 130 swarms in Inishowen, and this year I have counted only 12 swarms in that part of Donegal. Bees like a good day to start looking for a new home,” he says.
McCormack concurs. Her team including Keith Browne, Eoin MacLoughlin and PhD student Alexandra Valentine are still waiting for the log hive to be occupied, and believe weather is a factor.
“Mick Verspuij has suggested that bees can anticipate bad weathers,” he says. “This summer has not been great. We have campus hives up at Terryland, and I noticed they were lorrying in food in early June.”
“Other beekeepers noticed the same and took off all the honey, and then had to feed them over the summer when July and August were so bad. The ivy is out now, so most beekeepers will be relying on that for winter stores. It shows how sensitive bees are to a changing climate.”
Verspuij was always fascinated by the environment when growing up on the river Maas in the Netherlands. He studied forestry and landscape management, and came to Ireland in 2001, setting up a forestry contracting business in Galway. He began to take a greater interest in bees and their pollinating role when he moved into organic vegetable and fruit farming, and enrolled on a beekeeping course.
When a beekeeper friend passed away he found himself with two colonies, and realised the hives they occupied were not ideal. That led him to exploring how bees live in the wild, and researching how he could replicate their natural nesting sites. “I started building these log hives in 2017, drawing on my forestry and tree surgery background,” he says.
He has five different designs of log hives which mimic the natural habitat, such as a hive with a cavity of eight to ten inches wide, which has heavy-duty straps to secure it to a tree. Where there are no suitable trees the elevated log hive – similar to that at University of Galway – is built on three legs, with the “hackle” or hat made from reeds sourced from the river Shannon.
“These log hives are only a temporary measure, a focal point to get people talking about lack of woodland and landscape management, if we had a lot more woodland we wouldn’t need them
— Verspuij
He also constructs hives which stand closer to the ground, mainly for beekeepers seeking an alternative type of hive structure which colonies might transfer into.
Many of his installations are in private gardens or fields, but he has also received requests from schools and commercial businesses. The cost ranges from about €450 for the hive strapped to a tree to €700 excluding installation.
“Recently I have been getting more interest from local authorities and from landowners and farmers who have felled trees, and so I’d hope in the next couple of years we could produce something at a lower cost for farmers who might want to get involved.
“But these log hives are only a temporary measure, a focal point to get people talking about lack of woodland and landscape management,” says Verspuij. “If we had a lot more woodland we wouldn’t need them. We are down to about 1 per cent of proper woodland here and the rest is short-term rotation crops which don’t form cavities – as in the cavities which certain bee species, along with bats and birds, can make their home.
“It can take between 50 and 100 years for a cavity to form that is big enough for bees. We need far better landscape management, where older trees can be looked after and conserved, rather than being removed for health and safety reasons.”
Verspuij’s attraction to trees, and then bees, has given him much scope for thought and many ideas for research. “At the moment I am delving into how trees attract colonies of bees in the first place. Trees emit methane and it may be that an injured tree which then forms a cavity may emit something more”
Pollinator update
Co-founder of the All Island Pollinator Plan Prof Jane Stout of Trinity College Dublin says initiatives like the log hives and bee hotels are “worthwhile” but their impact is hard to measure.
“The design of this hive is specifically for honeybees but we have 100 species of bee in Ireland and many of them nest on the ground. And providing habitats for bees is not just about nesting sites, but about providing food. So we need a continual supply of flowers in Irish landscapes for that.”
Artificial sites can also become reservoirs for parasites associated with disease, she warns.
Stout is one of the authors of research published this month which, as she says, “paints a worrying picture for the different species of bees that provide multimillion euro pollination services in Ireland each year”.
Stout with colleagues worked with Dublin City University scientists to evaluate pesticide residues in crop pollen at 12 sites in Ireland, and in pollen collected from honey bees and bumble bees from the same sites. In the study published in Science of the Total Environment, lead author Elena Zioga, PhD candidate in Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences, noted different species seem to be exposed to pesticides differently. This is based on variation in the types and number of different pesticides found in pollen of honey and bumble bees respectively.
“Essentially this means that using honey bees as a reference for understanding the exposure to different pesticides cannot give a complete picture,” Zioga says. “What’s true for honey bees doesn’t seem to be true for bumble bees, and we know that both are important for the overall pollination service and for supporting healthy ecosystems.”
They found crop pollen was only contaminated with fungicides; honey bee pollen was mostly contaminated with fungicides; and bumble bee pollen was mostly contaminated by neonicotinoid insecticides
The researchers also found some of these pesticides, known to be particularly toxic, had not been applied in the fields sampled for at least three years. This suggests pesticides persist for a long time in the field edges, where wildflowers grow, or that bees collected neonicotinoid-contaminated pollen from beyond the sampled fields.
