Poly roofs

[Beefriendly]

Eric, it's great when associations do that for their members. My ex-association used to keep stocks of most things at reasonable prices, but a 75 mile round trip sort of took the icing off their deals.
Although my point was meant more along the lines of the "pros" have different requirements to the hobbyist. Yet some seem to think the hobbyist should be thinking and acting as they do.
What would I do with a pallet of frames? .....

 

[ericbeaumont]

the "pros" have different requirements to the hobbyist. Yet some seem to think the hobbyist should be thinking and acting as they do.
What would I do with a pallet of frames? .....

Well, the amateur, the pro and the bees have the same aim, whether they know it or not: to put to efficient use as little as possible for the best return. Uphill struggle to persuade the first of those, but as an amateur my penny dropped eventually; rising numbers only ratified that understanding. Nothing new or original in it: Manley wrote as much 54 years ago, and it was as difficult then as now to promote the naughty and novel idea that amateur and pro ought to dance closer.

An advert in your BKA newsletter will shift a pallet of anything, when the season gets going and your local beekeepers run short.

 

[Beefriendly]

Well, the amateur, the pro and the bees have the same aim, whether they know it or not: to put to efficient use as little as possible for the best return. .

Practical experience of many beekeepers suggests this is far from correct. Most amateur beekeepers have no intention of being efficient or otherwise. They are contented with their ignorance...and their bees suffer because of it. The number of times I've heard..."well I don't keep bees for honey"...which roughly translates to "I'm crap at beekeeping and my bees haven't died yet".
Because, as you allude to, if you keep bees correctly then excess honey is a problem that you will have every year...given a rub of the weather and reasonable forage.

I also know a couple of "pros" using local bees whose average yield per hive is astonishingly low and compounded further by their simplistic philosophy of more hives = more honey.
Rather than consider that the quality of the queen has a major bearing on honey yields.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Practical experience of many beekeepers suggests this is far from correct. Most amateur beekeepers have no intention of being efficient or otherwise. They are contented with their ignorance...and their bees suffer because of it. The number of times I've heard..."well I don't keep bees for honey"...which roughly translates to "I'm crap at beekeeping and my bees haven't died yet".

 

[Into the lions den]

the "pros" have different requirements to the hobbyist. Yet some seem to think the hobbyist should be thinking and acting as they do.
What would I do with a pallet of frames? .....

Perhaps contrary to an impression I may have given, I actually do not see where the difference lies.

If we did not give our bees all the TLC that THEY need (the post including think like a BEE hits it on the head ) then we would not last long. You have to look after them properly. We are, or at least should be, thinking all the time...from the largest pro to the one hive beginner....about how best to do it. The bee community is a single continuum and the distinction between the amateur and the professional is often false and certainly very blurred. There is no 'them and us' about it.

I cannot state this about everyone because I do not know...but I do what I do primarily because I love it and have the fabulous good fortune to have had the chance. The idea that we are just greedy hard nosed business men squeezing the bees for every cent we can wring out of them is just way off the scale of 'wrongness'......but I DO have a pride in the heather crops we get....and would not get them if I was being habitually bad to the bees.

You have to look after your bees if you have any hope that they are going to look after you.

As for what to do with a pallet of frames? Or any other product? You can get decent prices buying that way as an association. I sometimes sell goods on to local groups at or close to cost, then we can all benefit from purchasing power.

 

[Beefriendly]

Perhaps contrary to an impression I may have given, I actually do not see where the difference lies..

You need to be able to see and understand what many amateurs are up to. It in no way resembles the way you or any other professional goes about their business. I blame a lot of it on their ignorance or unwillingness to learn. If they were a business they would soon go bust.

You also misunderstand....what I would do with a pallet of frames is not the same as what you would do with a pallet of frames (or any other equipment) etc. If you, or an association, have the time to organise buying pallet loads and selling at reduced rates to other local beekeepers that is excellent.
Alas, I (and many others) do not have the time to do this. So I am quite happy to buy stuff at higher prices to cover my small needs....not that I would turn a bargain down.....
I'm quite surprised that you cannot see where the difference lies. And more concerned that you are worried about seen as greedy and heartless...maybe by some, but certainly not by someone like myself who has an appreciation of how hard it is to make a living from beekeeping. I take my hat off to anyone whose sole income is derived from beekeeping.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Practical experience of many beekeepers suggests this is far from correct. Most amateur beekeepers have no intention of being efficient or otherwise.

The recipe is correct, but of the three cooks it's the amateur who hasn't read or understood it. Likely as not, they haven't been taught it, but the job of a BKA is not to pass on ancient habits but to distribute contemporary information to enable an efficient choice. The recent BBKA News is an example: once again, Count Matchstick rose out of his grave to waylay the innocent.

The lack of intent to be efficient is the disappointing aspect of this because it contradicts the MO of nature, which is to be efficient. After all, one of the underlying reasons someone decides to keep bees is to reconnect with nature, to undo temporarily whatever Gulliverian ropes tie them down during the week. If this is so, why not teach them to engage fully? Why not discuss the thermal efficiency of hives and trees? Why not suggest that heating water and sugar for autumn feed is often inefficient for both beekeeper and bees?

I fail regularly to be efficient but my intent is to be so, with the result that more often than I used to, I save something and make something else work better. Not nearly often enough, of course.

 

[Into the lions den]

You need to be able to see and understand what many amateurs are up to. It in no way resembles the way you or any other professional goes about their business. I blame a lot of it on their ignorance or unwillingness to learn. If they were a business they would soon go bust.

Actually you might be surprised. Almost all bee farms in the UK are actually amateur derived. Their ways of working and their systems are broadly unchanged, just doing a lot more of it. My own father who started this outfit began as an amateur in 1950 with gear he made himself in a garden shed in the winter of 1949 with wood salvaged from wartime tractor packing cases that came in from the US to help the war effort. These boxes are all still in service today and I would never scrap them. A small detail of many, but shows I have a soft side that actually dictates the majority of what I do and how I work. An emotional attachment to the bees? In part, for sure, and to our history, also have a great love of the places I have the privilege to go, especially at heather time.

We all have our 'beekeeper because we love it' at the core.............and its no different for me from anyone else. The differences lie in refinements and efficiencies, mostly through simplifications and economies of sale...but the basis are just the same.

The biggest change is when you realise just how much of conventional beekeeping at a small scale is quite unnecessary, causes a lot of hive disturbance and risk to the queen with far too much intervention. However...the core facts remain and are hard wired into running bees in the UK...whatever your scale. We cannot get away with the practices in the big honey countries due to our poor and unpredictable weather patterns, short season, spotty flows, and difficult bees. Therefore we are all working from the same quite narrow set of necessary ways.

Lots of amateur beekeepers come to us for queens, nucs etc, and we host quite a lot of visits from associations and I go to associations to give talks. From all those contacts the biggest thing I notice is our similarities, not our differences. I am just the luckiest one.

 

[Beefriendly]

From all those contacts the biggest thing I notice is our similarities, not our differences. I am just the luckiest one.

If your bees produced a similar amount of honey as most hobbyists average, you would be out of business PDQ...

 

[user 6228]

The biggest change is when you realise just how much of conventional beekeeping at a small scale is quite unnecessary, causes a lot of hive disturbance and risk to the queen with far too much intervention. .... We cannot get away with the practices in the big honey countries due to our poor and unpredictable weather patterns, short season, spotty flows, and difficult bees.

very interesting.
"natural beekeeping" and UK bee farming are based on similar observations yet driving different beekeeping practice.

 

[Into the lions den]

very interesting.
"natural beekeeping" and UK bee farming are based on similar observations yet driving different beekeeping practice.

LOL...I am busy getting ready for spring...please lets not open that particular can of worms!

 

[user 6228]

LOL...I am busy getting ready for spring...please lets not open that particular can of worms!

Jumping hastily to a wrong conclusion, is endemic at every level associated with honey bees. The only ones that seem to get it right in the long term are the honey bees themselves.

 

[ericbeaumont]

The differences lie in refinements and efficiencies, mostly through simplifications and economies of sale...but the basis are just the same.

The biggest change is when you realise just how much of conventional beekeeping at a small scale is quite unnecessary, causes a lot of hive disturbance and risk to the queen with far too much intervention.

Good words.

Part of the problem is that inefficient beekeeping is taught by rote and has been forever; look at a beekeeping magazine say, from the 1950s, and you will see that not much ever, ever changes. From that perspective, any intervention by a beefarmer or a thermodynamist to shake up ideas is easily worth its weight. Must remember, though, that a beefarmer has a thousand more opportunities (and the intent) to learn than the amateur, and the thermodynamist has the intent (and the opportunity) to think clearly and analyse in depth.

Honey yields, Nigel? I wouldn't set much store by the BBKA figures; I reckon the surveys are filled in by well-intentioned novices. I recall a dismal year when Londoners only averaged 8lb/colony. Fair to say that even an average amateur would have to work hard to get that low; thing is, that year I wasn't much more than a novice and still managed to get to about 50lb/colony, and got that with the usual mix of chasing mistakes and hoping for success.

Derek's point that "natural beekeeping" and UK bee farming are based on similar observations yet driving different beekeeping practice is intriguing: I work for a bee farmer who operates colonies in much the way a Warré is run: a floor, a set of boxes of equal size, a roof. The lack of niceties such as dummy boards, QXs and crownboards gives a simple system (driven partly, it must be admitted, for reasons of economy). On top of that, we operate a very lean system if we can get away without losing too much by spending too little. Some only had four inspections all season; not quite Warré economy of interference, but not bad, and the yield was good.

Cross-fertilization of ideas ought to be the norm: after giving a Warré demo. to our BKA National amateurs, the local natural man now wants to come out this year and see how we work our commercial system. Similarities, rather than differences, indeed.

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Someone spell out efficenct beekeeping please

 

[Beefriendly]

Honey yields, Nigel? I wouldn't set much store by the BBKA figures; I reckon the surveys are filled in by well-intentioned novices.

I don't Eric. I just talk to the beekeepers who come to my stall, who never seem to have any honey. My stock reply (for my area at least) is "I'll bet you are keeping local mongrel bees"....not got that wrong yet.
Despite ITTLD protestations to the contrary, I still think there is a world of difference between how your average hobbyist keeps and manages his/her bees and how the more efficient beekeepers keep theirs.
Chief culprit is ignorance.

 

[Beefriendly]

Someone spell out efficenct beekeeping please

Maximum honey, minimum effort.
Assuming Honey is the desired end product...interchange the word "honey" with whatever you think is the most important aspect

 

[user 6228]

Someone spell out efficenct beekeeping please

efficient




Probably by trying not to get in the way of the workers trying to do their job. But what is it they are trying to do ? Perhaps some closer observation in their natural habitat would be in order.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Maximum honey, minimum effort.
Assuming Honey is the desired end product

If you asked a bee, it would confirm that to be one aim. Beekeepers generally don't ask, and so blithely impose human aims: Honey? Not interested is heard regularly.

We ought to promote efficient strategies to achieve what we want in tandem with what bees want. I would argue that beefarmers, natural beekeepers and scientists have a better understanding of this balance than many of the 25,000 BBKA amateurs, taught the same old by a mentor who repeats the mantra It works for me while demonstrating how to leave open crownboard holes. You? What about me! said the bee, but the beekeeper wasn't listening.

Opportunities for practical efficiency are all around us: why insist on seven-day inspections? I'm sure many BKAs have heard of beekeepers inspecting every seven days for thirty weeks of the year (without knowing why) but in all likelihood the benefits and losses had not been explained and alternative strategies not been offered. Manley put it well when he compared unnecessary amateur colony interference to the growing of a plant: would you dig it up every week to check its growth?

 

[mbc]

I try to take a peak at the production hives every three weeks during swarming season whether they need it or not.

 

[madasafish]

Someone spell out efficenct beekeeping please

Minimising losses.
Maximising yields.
Minimising inputs..

Now in some cases , the above are contradictory as some inputs (egg varroa treatment) give big returns but can require quite a lot of input - multiple vapes..

But like everything in life, it's a compromise based on your assets (bees, equipment), your seasonal weather and where you are located.
No Bee Framer is going to locate their hives in an area with poor conditions- lack of forage, frost pocket etc.. But amateurs in gardens can have no choice and few choose houses based on suitability for keeping bees..


Once you become elderly like me , you don't want to do frequent inspections.. - your body does object - so you cutback in summer when chances of problems diminish. And you replace Qs regularly. And choose non swarmy bees. And raise your own queens.. And design things to minimise lifting - moveable stands to place supers on for example.. (although "design" is overstating it a tad in my case)


Given that queen rearing appears to be far removed from the capability of many beekeepers , BIBBA are to be commended for their courses. ( I checked it was I who wrote that!)