No maintenance if I don't want any honey?

[Chris Luck]

From a biology point of view it could be argued that the more honey collected then the more pollination achieved.

Well it could be except that very few plants require honey bees for pollination and I think that ITLD's bees main forage is Heather, no pollination required there.

We also have evidence that empty comb encourages bees to collect more honey so all in all, if you are interested in benefiting the wider environment then its difficult to argue against "honey in the tank" as possibly the most factual indicator of achieving that

Not sure I follow that, but given that empty comb has to be drawn in the first place I can't see any problem other than the size of the box / cavity which can be the same either way. Frankly "good for the environment" doesn't wash with this one.

Of course ITLD's quote you used doesn't take account of local conditions from one year to another or are we to take it that a crap honey crop = a crap keeper with crap bees regardless?

Chris

 

[Brosville]

-or the US beekeepers using the full panoply of "high production" beekeeping methods suffering CCD - does that make them really cr*p beekeepers?

 

[mbc]

If you kept bees in skeps then the only way I can think of to have a simple measure of how beneficial they have been to the wider environment is their weight gain, possibly over a five/ten year average to take into account any harvesting and increase/decrease.
You just cant cope with the concept that a commercial beekeeper is benefiting his environment more than you are

 

[Brosville]

If you do the FULL "profit and loss" account for the environment, then the bloke with a couple of home built hives made from recycled wood, using no inputs whatsoever, who only ever takes what the bees can spare wins hands down............ he has indeed trodden lightly

 

[mbc]

Well it could be except that very few plants require honey bees for pollination and I think that ITLD's bees main forage is Heather, no pollination required there.
Irrelevant really, those strong stocks on the heather will have been strong stocks elsewhere earlier in the season doing their invaluable pollination.


Not sure I follow that, but given that empty comb has to be drawn in the first place I can't see any problem other than the size of the box / cavity which can be the same either way. Frankly "good for the environment" doesn't wash with this one.
Comb is comb and foundation doesnt qualify as comb, the research I recall was that pheromones in empty comb encourage bees to collect more honey in order to fill it, hence hrvesting honey and reusing the comb encourages more foraging/pollination. Most people would agree that the major benefit bees give is their pollination services and if thats not good for the environment then I dont know what is !

Of course ITLD's quote you used doesn't take account of local conditions from one year to another or are we to take it that a crap honey crop = a crap keeper with crap bees regardless?

Chris

Local conditions are everything (or very nearly) in beekeeping, in any argument about bee types or hive types or management practices it has to be realised we are only quibbling about the top 2 % (ish) and the rest is all down to what the heavens throw at us and what other people do with the surrounding land.

 

[mbc]

If you do the FULL "profit and loss" account for the environment, then the bloke with a couple of home built hives made from recycled wood, using no inputs whatsoever, who only ever takes what the bees can spare wins hands down............ he has indeed trodden lightly

Indeed, but if we measure tread or footprint by carbon emmission or lock in then its quite possible that commercial beekeepers are the only group who lock in far more than they emit. Each one of billions of clover flowers pollinated-seed set-disperal-germinate-grow also fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere which helps other plants grow and take up CO2, how do you calculate that ? Or how much of the countless tonnes of timber (sycamore, limes,willows, chestnuts etc.)which back down the line was bee pollinated can be attributed to the beekeeper ?

 

[Ely]

This is going to be an exciting winter!

 

[alanf]

This is going to be an exciting winter!

Could be.

 

[Chris Luck]

This is going to be an exciting winter!

Well amusing, maybe even interesting providing everyone, (or nearly everyone), remains polite.

Chris

 

[Into the lions den]

It's a point of view from a honey / bee farmer, perfectly valid from that perspective but that's all.

Chris

It is of course a simple and rather glib measure, but nonetheless, whether you take the honey or not, the hives accumulation of honey is a sure sign of whether it is doing well. In a later post you mention I do not allow for the bad year. Well actually its all relative, and what constututes 'doing well' compared to other hives varies from season to season.

If it was a simple numerical absolute, that a crap crop was down to crap beekeeping and crap bees I would be giving up on the basis of 2012.

 

[Into the lions den]

from what I know feral colonies don't often throw casts either.

Pre the devastation varroa wreaked on them, the feral colonies threw loads and loads of swarms, and I was happy to take them. Not many ferals now.

 

[Chris Luck]

If it was a simple numerical absolute, that a crap crop was down to crap beekeeping and crap bees I would be giving up on the basis of 2012.

I think many of us would be, I'm on about "two thirds of average" if that makes sense, it's been dire here this year.

The feral thing is interesting because they are pretty much everywhere here even with varroa, although initially they dropped in number after the arrival of the mite, (in the 80's), they have since recovered and all the ones I know about that are "watched" don't appear to throw castes or if they occasionally do it's only the odd one - not streams of them. I suspect there may be different climate factors at play.

Chris