Natural or Unmanaged?

[Hivemaker.]

Many of the commercial bee suppliers are quite fond of the so called "natural" beekeepers, many of them are good repeat customers for package bees, about 3lb of shook bees along with a caged queen, imported or locally reared.

 

[domino]

obviously in the wrong job - time to dust my sandals and wooly hat off methinks

I use to go out with a women whose parent where an astrologer (mum) and run male tribal workshops. It was very lucrative. People like to spend money on their hobbies, nothing wrong with that - I spent thousands one judo when I could compete.

 

[Dishmop]

obviously in the wrong job

If you have a trade or knowledge of something even tho you may not be very good or well informed on the subject, there is nothing to stop anybody from forming a college or school or trust and "instructing" people and giving them a certificate..

There are some things that you cant do like driving instruction for payment, but I think you can do advanced intruction, or how to drive on a motorway.

Because somebody is a professional doesnt mean they are doing it properly.

Anybody on here who has mastered the basics of beekeeping can run courses and issue certificates. Might not go down too well in some circles tho!!

 

[pargyle]

And I still do think this ... but you will also find that some of my early posts were also critical of the way that some of you behave ... I'm no fluffy kitten, if I wasn't prepared to mix it on here then you wouldn't find me posting. My practical experience may be limited but that doesn't mean that I have not read widely, discussed with other beekeepers and considered rationally the available evidence and taken on board ideas which will help me to become a better beekeeper - I'm a member of my local association, I'm doing the course and I listen to everyone who is prepared to talk about their beekeeping. I'm not a blind follower of any 'cult' of which you would have me believe HH is the leader. I take knowledge and ideas from everyone and make my own mind up. HH is not alone in believing that the future of beekeeping may not altogether be dictated by more and more chemical treatments. The fact that there are not more people on here advocating research and practical experiments into low intereference methods is probably because of the drubbing they get every time the subject is raised. There are other forums where they find a little more acceptance.

I'm not set in my ways as some of you clearly are ... I have an open mind and respect for people with experience and a measured, reasonable, approach to a discussion. There are faults in both sides of this thread but the personal bit has to stop ,... it's not pleasant and totally unecessary.

In terms of Emerson College ... they are only loosely associated with Steiner - but regardless of that Steiner had some very forward thinking ideas about biodiversity and organic farming ... he may have been completely off the wall about some other things but a lot of great 'thinkers' very often are. You have to take the rough with the smooth and if there are elements of what such people have to say that provoke thought or a different way, then that's OK in my book. I would think there are very few people who preach the whole gospel according to Steiner these days ... but to brand, in such a general manner, an organisation such as Emerson really is showing a lack of knowledge of what they offer.

A few years ago, my dog got sick ... we had him operated on for a spinal arthritic complaint ... the operation worked but some time later the condition returned and the orthopaedic surgeon vet said that a further operation was not possible, We were recommended, by him, to see a Homeopathic vet ... Now, I was the biggest sceptic on the planet about homeopathy ... but, I loved the dog, couln't bear to see him struggling to walk and felt it was a last shot before he was put down. It was with immense reservations I took him along to see a vet called Chris Day (Google him) ... he recommended acupuncture ... yes ACUPUNCTURE ... I thought I was being had ! Chris inserted a number of needles, told me that the dog would lay down and sleep for a while and when he woke up would feel better. Well, the dog went to sleep, woke up and fair leapt out of the surgery .. I had had to almost carry him in. We kept him pain free for a few years further with regular acupuncture and homeopathic treatments. He eventually died of an unrelated condition. My point is ... sometimes there can be no firm explanation for how things work ... you have to see it and accept it but even sceptics should give alternative (and sometimes alien) ideas a chance. We may all learn something from those who, sometimes, appear a bit wacky.

 

[For want of a better word]

Oh dear oh dear.

Have you no idea that I am a founder of the charity for
The Natural Cat Keeping Trust.

Do you put your cats outside at night or do you keep them naturally in a plastic basket?

Do you take their naturally caught mice away and give them Kitee Kat?

and what is the most serious situation is that you have taken away their natural instinct to mate thus causing bleak prospects for the future of the pussy.

I will admit to kicking on of our cats into the pond when it was attempting to catch one of my prize Koi.. I do feed them fish... now how does that stand with " natural catkeeperers"?

this thread as entertaining as it is on a cold snowy day should be renamed ... Natural unmanaged beeminding !

 

[madasafish]

The fact that there are not more people on here advocating research and practical experiments into low intereference methods is probably because of the drubbing they get every time the subject is raised. There are other forums where they find a little more acceptance.
.

I am a natural beekeeper. I rarely inspect, only treat with thymol and don't clip wings.

What you may be unaware of is what the "other forums " don't tell you and which are factual.

Are you aware one of the key supporters of natuiral beekeeping has had almost all his hives wiped out by varroa ? Not once but at least twice?

Are you aware that the basic design of the TBH as promoted on other forums is basically unsuited for use in harsher climates than Southern England.?
And those who use it as recommended round here get wiped out by winter.?
And not preventing swarming will basically totally upset your neighbours?

If you are aware of these issues, then fine.

Otherwise I suspect a surprise awaits you.

Whatever anyone says, natural beekeeping is very rewarding but to do it properly requires far more skill and luck than to do conventional beekeeping well. (in my view of course)

And you need to have a cynical and enquiring mind able to discern what is practical because based on my experience at least 50% of what you read about natural beekeeping is impractical at best and wrong at worst.

I learned my way by learning about conventional beekeeping and applying the practical experience of bees - not their hives or beekeeping methods - to TBHs.

You don't get many experienced mentors in natural beekeeping as many give up in my experience round here due to climate conditions - far removed from the south.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of experienced and successful natural beekeepers in the UK. From what I can see, very few of them run websites or write books on it.

 

[Dishmop]

advocating research and practical experiments into low intereference methods

Thing is.. it may well seem as if she is advocating research but has she actually done any? No, because if she had then all the info on the trust web site wouldnt be a load of unsubstantiated misleading rubbish.
and the only practical experients seem to be promoting the sun hive as such a wonderful idea, first time ever demonstrated outside of Europe I read somewhere. Its been in the USA for ages.

A nice idea would be for the NBT charity to make a donation towards research for finding way of irradicating varroa.

 

[Dishmop]

I will admit to kicking on of our cats into the pond when it was attempting to catch one of my prize Koi.. I do feed them fish...

now how does that stand with " natural catkeeperers"

?

Death by unnatural causes I think.

 

[Excession]

Chris Day? Homeopathic Vet? Let's see what WWW.Quackology.net says about his site:


'The Quackometer Results:
Examining Site: alternativevet

 
Web site titled 'WELCOME!'

  The black duck says...

This web site has more quackery than my village pond. It is full of scientific jargon that is out of place and probably doesn't know the meaning of any of the terms. It shows little or no critical thought and so should be treated with caution!


 
This site has a has a currently measurable quackery content of 10 Canards

(The Canard is the internationally recognised SI unit for Quackery.)

Follow intersting quackometer results on Twitter @quackometer. Send your suspect sites to @quackometer and get a Tweet back with the result. You can also, follow the quackometer blog and more at @lecanardnoir '

And we have a winner!!! Congratulations, I have to admit I have never seen a ten carnard result! Complete lunacy in a can.

 

[Dishmop]

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of experienced and successful natural beekeepers in the UK. From what I can see, very few of them run websites or write books on it.

thats raises the point of how does Heidi qualify her experiences of the sun house hive, and justify her statements that it is a better way than other hives when it would appear that she hasnt even had her /thier first hive go thro a full year yet?

I stand to be corrected but:-

Watch a video of the spectacular first swarm being housed in a Sun Hive on 30 April this year on our 'naturalbeekeeping' channel on You Tube. Another video revealing the inside of the occupied Sun Hive can be viewed here.

The Sun Hive was officially launched in Britain in August 2012 at the Natural Beekeeping Alliance Conference at Emerson College, Sussex.

 

[susbees]

Oh dear oh dear.

Have you no idea that I am a founder of the charity for
The Natural Cat Keeping Trust.

Do you put your cats outside at night or do you keep them naturally in a plastic basket?

Do you take their naturally caught mice away and give them Kitee Kat?

and what is the most serious situation is that you have taken away their natural instinct to mate thus causing bleak prospects for the future of the pussy.

Dear Dishmop,

I have little direct experience of the natural swarming behaviour of cats. But, for the record, ours enjoy a varied natural diet of naturally reared, free-range rabbit and young rat mostly, topped up with tinned goodness-knows-what (akin to bleached white sugar I expect) to avoid starvation/loss of condition. I would prefer it if they left the nicer mice-types alone however. Birds are a small part of their diet and I will admit to artificially keeping the birds alive in bitter winter weather by feeding them large amounts of seed and peanuts at cat-free altitude.

I prefer to avoid adding to the large numbers of road-kill feral kittens and bouts of cat-flu which used to be the case on nearby farms and admit to liaising with the local cat rescue to reduce their plight.

Yours aye....

 

[pargyle]

I am a natural beekeeper. I rarely inspect, only treat with thymol and don't clip wings.

What you may be unaware of is what the "other forums " don't tell you and which are factual.

Are you aware one of the key supporters of natuiral beekeeping has had almost all his hives wiped out by varroa ? Not once but at least twice?


Are you aware that the basic design of the TBH as promoted on other forums is basically unsuited for use in harsher climates than Southern England.?
And those who use it as recommended round here get wiped out by winter.?
And not preventing swarming will basically totally upset your neighbours?

If you are aware of these issues, then fine.

Otherwise I suspect a surprise awaits you.

Whatever anyone says, natural beekeeping is very rewarding but to do it properly requires far more skill and luck than to do conventional beekeeping well. (in my view of course)

And you need to have a cynical and enquiring mind able to discern what is practical because based on my experience at least 50% of what you read about natural beekeeping is impractical at best and wrong at worst.

I learned my way by learning about conventional beekeeping and applying the practical experience of bees - not their hives or beekeeping methods - to TBHs.

You don't get many experienced mentors in natural beekeeping as many give up in my experience round here due to climate conditions - far removed from the south.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of experienced and successful natural beekeepers in the UK. From what I can see, very few of them run websites or write books on it.

Yes... I am aware of the threat from Varroa and I fully understand the threat to colonies of 'let alone' beekeeping in this respect and I have a concern for other beekeepers who would suffer if I were to let my bees become excessively infected ... I don't think that a colony heavily infected with Varroa has a hope in hell of surviving without some interference and I accept that this may be the case, I may have to interfere. As you point out there are non-acaricide options available which may not be as effective but I am hoping to stick with my aspiration of 'no chemical treatments' ... thymol meets my criteria as non-chemical as does sugar dusting. I hope to be starting with a shook swarm so there's going to be no infested comb to commence with and no contaminated foundation. The Jury's still out on whether I just use top bars or foundationless frames at present ... my hive's are the width of 14x12 frames so I have options.

I agree with what you say about some top bar hives being unsuitable ... mine are thick walled (double skinned actually with a sealed 30mm polystyrene sandwich), they are Tanzanian style with follower boards to maintain the colony's space at an optimum size ... pointless having a 2000 bee nucleus in a 100 litre hive ... and not a prayer for them in winter until they reach a size that can be sustained. I have an open mesh floor with a removable lower solid floor that has a varroa board for inspection. The lower floor can be adjusted to provide extra ventilation or closed up if necessary. The lower floor is a tray and I'm considering Phil Chandler's 'Deep floor' idea with shavings/wood chips - not entirely sold on that yet. Its got a bottom entrance and via a periscope to the hive entrance which is at the top of the hive side wall. The roof is gabled and has space for further insulation above the top bars or for a feeder should/when it become necessary. I live on the south coast and my apiary is in a very sheltered, south facing, spot in my garden - high wall, high fence and bounded by a greenhouse and shed so it's protected from all points of the compass. With over 2" snow in the rest of the garden today there is only a light covering where the bees will be sited.

I understand swarm prevention ... I don't agree with wing clipping or drone culling but there are alternatives if you are vigilant and watch for the signs it is relatively straightforward to create an artificial swarm and I'm ready for that. I already have two hives of my own made and a third one flatpacked in readiness. To be honest, it's unlikely a colony would reach swarming size in it's first year but if it does then we will all have had a fantastic spring and early summer.

My neighbours are well away from the apiary and if I slip up and the bees swarm the odds are that the trees in my garden will be their initial stop ... or possibly one of the bait hives I have planned.

I'm doing the conventional course and I have an excellent and knowledgeable tutor ... and my association is a very supportive and friendly bunch so I expect to call on their assistance when needed.

I'm not looking for an easy ride but you are evidence that there is another way and it's that way I would like to tread ... but I'm a pragmatist .. if it gets to the stage that the way is impossible then there will be other ways.

My father kept bees when I was young and whilst it's a long time ago the memories linger and the more involved I have become the fresher they are.

I hope to be a good beekeeper and I'm doing everything I can to get to that point. I've been planning this for some time and I've spent the last two years reading, thinking, listening and discussing ... we all start somewhere.

 

[DanBee]

Danbee, you will understand, I am sure, that I must save my fire for a "natural beekeepers diary" I have been commissioned to write; the tremendous public interest in some of the "hot potatoes" of beekeeping ( and I say some) I raised in recent DT interview has been noted. Likewise the untiring efforts from certain quarters to detract from the reputation of the organisation which I represent with all manner of wild insinuations. Whilst it is not pleasant for us to witness, we trust it will all serve a good purpose in the end, and that is to draw more and more attention to the benefits of beekeeping for bees, also referred to, for want of a more useful distinction, as natural beekeeping. However, should you have a question, the discussion of which really promises to raise our (beekeepers') understanding of optimum bee husbandry, I suggest you open a new thread on precisely that topic, so we can all get a break from this discussion here, which has no doubt been entertaining in parts, has attracted a great number of viewers but has probably none little to directly benefit the honeybee. As the latter informs much of what I, my fellow trustees, our friends, supporters and donors engage in, I am keen to return to it.

Heidi - you run from thread to thread, leaving a trail of unanswered questions behind you, each time saying that a new thread should be opened to allow discussion of this point or that. What I will politely call your humour leaves others bemused and alienated from the points you are making. The less generous might say that you are trolling now. Can you not see that your negative portrayal of mainstream methods might possibly rub others up the wrong way? A lack of justification strongly suggests that your negativity is based upon an emotional response rather than a reasoned evaluation.

I see that your level of attempted provocation is ratcheting up in this thread, largely in line with the number and breadth of factual challenges. Neither factual responses nor philosophical reflections upon differing perspectives are forthcoming.

Your justification for your provocative behaviour is, in essence, that you have the moral high ground because nobody else cares as much as you do.

 

[DanBee]

I understand swarm prevention ... I don't agree with wing clipping or drone culling but there are alternatives if you are vigilant and watch for the signs it is relatively straightforward to create an artificial swarm and I'm ready for that.

Since some of this thread has been an attempt at a discussion of swarm control methods, could you please expand on how one might use drone culling to control swarming, and give examples of where this is practised?

 

[Dishmop]

The Jury's still out on whether I just use top bars or foundationless frames

Try a box of each.

 

[pargyle]

Chris Day? Homeopathic Vet? Let's see what WWW.Quackology.net says about his site:


'The Quackometer Results:
Examining Site: alternativevet

*
Web site titled 'WELCOME!'

* The black duck says...

This web site has more quackery than my village pond. It is full of scientific jargon that is out of place and probably doesn't know the meaning of any of the terms. It shows little or no critical thought and so should be treated with caution!


*
This site has a has a currently measurable quackery content of 10 Canards

(The Canard is the internationally recognised SI unit for Quackery.)

Follow intersting quackometer results on Twitter @quackometer. Send your suspect sites to @quackometer and get a Tweet back with the result. You can also, follow the quackometer blog and more at @lecanardnoir '

And we have a winner!!! Congratulations, I have to admit I have never seen a ten carnard result! Complete lunacy in a can.

Seeing is believing ... I can only tell you that our labrador got another three years of pain free life as a result of what you term 'Quackery'. Similarly our next labrador had a skin complaint that our local vet could not cure .. tried all the usual steroid concoctions.... nothing worked ... the dog was scratching his belly to the point of bleeding. Chris Day managed to sort this problem out with more of his 'quackery' .. and the condition only ever returned when we once ran out of the homeopathic tablets we used to give him daily. I was the biggest sceptic on the planet but if you are telling me that the dogs were influenced by the placebo effect I think you are probably giving them more anthropomorphic qualities than I would. Neither dog had any other treatments ... the spinal arthritis was clearly evident on the x rays and never reduced I don't need any more evidence that these treatments worked ... they worked.

 

[sunhivebee]

I use to go out with a women whose parent where an astrologer (mum) and run male tribal workshops. It was very lucrative. People like to spend money on their hobbies, nothing wrong with that - I spent thousands one judo when I could compete.

Domino: . People like to spend money on their hobbies, nothing wrong with that

Thanks, useful quote, and so true. Would add ........ but many, when taking up bees for a hobby, then expect the bees to pay for themselves. Much to the bees' detriment. Had a good conversation with a bee inspector, who has given me much good advice, about the very subject alluded to above and would like to share this: Having met a vast number of beekeepers over many years he came to the above conclusion. The same people who would not dream of expecting their pussy cat, dog or horse pay for themselves, and are happy to spend money on their other hobbies, frequently expect the bees to pay for themselves, as a result of which, in my bee inspector friend's words the bees are "over-farmed". How sad is this, in light of all the problems bee face.

I do not suggest that this is your attitude - please note - but suspect that there are some to whom the above description applies. They are the ones who tend to vent their anger most vociferously whenever the concept of natural beekeeping comes into play. I do understand, and even feel compassion, however much they choose to insult me. I am sure that any beekeepers who still consider that beekeeping is a hobby that can be made to pay for itself, will get nowhere fast.

I wish you all the best and hope you will all inspire many others by your own ways with bees to improve the honey bees' foraging conditions wherever they are, and open themselves to the bees' inspiration, beauty and exemplary nature.

Hopefully my withdrawal from this thread for now will enable all those whose time has been taken up with futile efforts to discredit natural beekeeping, to turn their minds to higher matters now. I recommend studying seed catalogues, reading some good books about beekeeping (my special recommendation at the end of the DT article) or digging up the lawn as soon as the snow clears to plant a meadow in spring.

Thank you, and a special thank you to some of the charming and bee-friendly beekeepers I have got to know as an unexpected and lovely "by-product" of recent discussions.

With best wishes
Heidi

PS Message to Daniel Basterfield : I have read your post and have nothing to add. Your insinuations have ceased to interest me for reasons I leave you to ponder.

 

[Excession]

Seeing is not believing. It's anecdotal evidence at best.

If it truly worked, it would be repeatable in laboratory conditions. And as there is not a single phase 2 trail published in any recognised medical journal - I am inclined to not to believe you, which I understand will not sit well with you.

Evidence based research, it is so simple, yet in century's of practiced homeopathy and acupuncture, not a single phase two trail has proven it. So all that is left is quackery.

If it worked, it would be repeatable and demonstrable in the laboratory.

However we digress somewhat from beekeeping and the root issue of this thread.

 

[Excession]

Drone brood culling for swarm prevention? New one on me, would love to hear the theory?

 

[domino]

Thanks, useful quote, and so true. Would add ........ but many, when taking up bees for a hobby, then expect the bees to pay for themselves.

From my experiences that would be the minority. I add up for a living, but it doesn't take a maths prodigy to realise that beekeeping at an amateur level isn't really a money making exercise. I like to get honey, but given the choice of a strong hive but no honey over a weak hive and a truck load of the stuff - I'd go strong hive all the way.

You've seemed to met a lot of mercenary beekeepers.

Cheers