This kind of bee keeping feels wrong somehow...

[Brosville]

MBC - We are differing on very little if it's a frames/foundation thing -some "natural beekeepers" go for half frames with just a "strip" for them to start building on - they think it gives them the best of both worlds.
I personally prefer to work without foundation - it's almost impossible to get any that's free of chemical contamination, and it tends to suggest a particular cell size to the bees - as I want to "let them do their own thing" as far as possible, they're free to build whatever comb they want, of whatever cell size they choose (hopefully naturally regressing to smaller cell sizes over a few generations) - I'm a strictly amateur beekeeper who's not too worried about ultimate yields, far more interested in keeping healthy bees sustainably...

I do accept that there are beekeepers who are keen to get a good honey yield in a commercial setting, and there is lots of experimentation going on to find ways of achieving it in a way that's good for the environment and the bees - not least with the Perone hive - I don't yet know if his claims are substantiable, or whether it will work in Europe, but if his methods do work (even if only in part), then we may all learn something from it - I'm all in favour of the research now being undertaken - presumabubbly if Bayer were doing exactly the same experiment it would somehow gain "scientific street cred" amongst the thickerati...

 

[mbc]

Why the "them and us" attitude towards commercial beekeepers, and the idea that only some new system/equipment could be sustainable ?
Almost all beekeepers I've met are keen to be sustainable and as environmentally beneficial as possible.
I fear you must have met some rum souls to maintain this attitude of antagonism towards conventional beekeepers. Why re-invent the wheel ?

 

[victor meldrew]

Huge alternatives every time. Scout bees will fly miles in search of suitable cavities and still choose odd ( to humans ) places to take up residence. I like to believe the evidence of my own eyes when reasoning things out.
I stand by my assertion that your wild allegations of cruelty are hysterical nonsense not worth reading.
Are you sure Prof. Seeley would back you up on your black and white ignorance ?

September swarm took up residence under the floor of a bathroom in neighbouring village . Entry point ,quite a large hole through the wall not properly sealed where bath outlet pipe exited building .
Next day the swarm absconded AM and took up residence in a pile of supers in full sun at ground level. Their entrance was the damaged corner of one of the supers . this was a prime swarm ( I don't know how they all got in, in the short time between leaving the lady and coming to me ) .
I immediately lifted supers to one side placed stand floor and 14x12 bb on floor and shook the swarm off the super frames into the 14x12 added correct sized frames (5 off) and filled the gap with frames of foundation !
They stayed They have filled the box and weigh as heavy as the rest of the hives in the apiary (No feeding at all).
Thank you for the free council house seems to be the order of the day
I haven't had to feed any of my bees this year, Thank god for Balsam .
VM

 

[Skyhook]

Wow. I take it back then - crazy people indeed.
However, I still believe population control is the elephant in the room when it comes to these questions of sustainability etc. We all seem to say that we need to grow more food to feed an expanding world, but very few think to say 'maybe we should try to stop the population expanding'. It is a very un-PC taboo subject because it involves us 'dictating' to other nations what they should do.

A few years ago, anything involving consideration of the environment eg carbon reduction was regarded as hippy nonsense- now the discussions have become mainstream, and action is beginning.

Let us hope that population reduction is reaching the same point. And, given the lag of decades between action and results, let's hope it reaches it soon.

1/4 million years (to around 1800) for the first billion of population.

Approximately 12 years for the 7th billion.

It's unfortunate that you get a few extremists- but you can see why they're alarmed.

 

[Into the lions den]

I would certainly emphasise "A point of balance occurs at which the driving factor is profit above welfare".

Chris

Hmmm...recurring theme. Perhaps you could enlighten me what it is that makes you suggest that? Sorry but welfare equals profit with bees.

Neglected sick bees lose money. Well cared for bees that are healthy CAN, given the correct circumstances (which includes migration to crops in todays real world) make money. Welfare and profit are inextricably linked.

Where this argument may be meeting a problem is that of concept. The concept of what a 'unit' is. To the small beekeeper, and to a large extent myself too as I am really not all that big, the unit is the colony. Ok so we play percentages on the larger scale, the small beekeeper works in absolutes, but it is still operating a colony level management system.

The real big boys work on full yards (apiaries), and develop a system of running that maximises the general welfare of that unit, which inevitably means that there will be some individual colonies in the unit that slip through the net and fail to prosper. ( be honest though, if you have more than 10 or so hives can you honestly say you have zero low achievers? Dinks they call them over in North America)

They just run on a whole unit basis and it is the only way they can, as crops and prices are low so just to survive they have to keep costs low, and this system does it better than ours would. With UK systems you just could not even begin to cope with numbers like that, and they have developed ways of working that suit them.

It is said that a quick amateur beekeeper takes 15 to 20 minutes to do a hive examination and manipulation. Can you imagine using up 20,000 man hours every 10 days to look after the bees they way the UK guys would? Thats 350trained beekeepers working a 40 hour week btw........based on 40hrs over 5 days in 7.......

We work on 6 minutes average........3 to 4 for myself.......for the same thing, and yes we see most of the things you need....note the word 'need'....to see. Much of what we look for in bees on an interest basis is actually not essential to know, most common being the misconception you need to see the queen at every examination, which wastes a stack of time and is actually unimportant if all is well and you have no major operations to carry out.

Yes, 6 minutes for the staff, and in that time, averaged over a site of bees, they do disease checks, swarm control, splitting, all the things needed for correct control of the bees. We often take beekeepers out with us for a day, sometimes more, and there is nothing better for dealing with preconceptions than seeing it in action.

The old saying is that 'if you look after your bees, your bees will look after you'. so welfare IS profit, and to divorce the two is the route to failure. Some do of course....and run into serious problems.

 

[victor meldrew]

This is all very well .However the prompt for the thread starter was a pod cast of the demise of some North American commercial beekeepers ?
The film clips showed appalling colony handling ! Trucks covered in bees literally! Bees in thick seams on the tyres, wheels and in the wheel ruts really to be crushed into the dirt !
I'm sorry my friend but what was shown bears no resemblance to your description of operations .
These people were so ignorant of anything outside their business losses that they made no attempt to hide these activities, which can only be construed as being the norm !
VM

 

[Chris Luck]

Enlighten you to what ITLD?

That frequently a point of balance occurs at which the driving factor is profit above welfare?

Doesn't seem to complicated to me and I suspect that from a man with your undoubted brain power your taking the rise.

Sufficient to say that we see the profit factor take over all the time when the welfare of the environment or our fellow human beings are concerned.

Nothing personal, I've no idea what your ethos is or how that pans out in practice.

Chris

 

[user 6228]

Huge alternatives every time. Scout bees will fly miles in search of suitable cavities and still choose odd ( to humans ) places to take up residence. I like to believe the evidence of my own eyes when reasoning things out.
I stand by my assertion that your wild allegations of cruelty are hysterical nonsense not worth reading.
Are you sure Prof. Seeley would back you up on your black and white ignorance ?

Have you read his research?

he has shown that bees prefer what bees prefer given alternatives.
I challenge myth and hearsay with logic and science and get called hysterical and ignorant.
If putting an organism where it would not go if it had a choice, is cruelty
and if bees chose, given an alternative, entrances greater than 4cm3
then Perone is cruel.
You can can challenge the either

• its not a basis for determining cruelty
• the research of Seely or my interpretation of seeley

but calling me hysterical or ignorant is Ad hominen and abusive. Go for the ball not the man.

 

[Brosville]

"your wild allegations of cruelty are hysterical nonsense not worth reading" is NOT ad hominem, in this case he quite correctly pointed out you were talking hysterical twaddle, which is very different to saying that you are an hysteric - he was kicking the ball, not the man.......

 

[mbc]

Have you read his research?

but calling me hysterical or ignorant is Ad hominen and abusive. Go for the ball not the man.

No, I havent read his research.
The ball being your posts on this thread ( hysterical, ignorant nonsense IMO ) not you personally

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I don't believe any scientist can claim to know whether a certain practice is 'cruel'. Cruelty is a human construct and can only really be assessed by a discussion about ethics.
In my opinion (and I guess the majority of average honey comsumers) keeping bees in a slightly over-sized hive would not be deemed as cruel, whereas trucking bees over thousands of miles in poor conditions would be.

 

[jakethedog]

I don't believe any scientist can claim to know whether a certain practice is 'cruel'. Cruelty is a human construct and can only really be assessed by a discussion about ethics.
In my opinion (and I guess the majority of average honey comsumers) keeping bees in a slightly over-sized hive would not be deemed as cruel, whereas trucking bees over thousands of miles in poor conditions would be.

we may soon have chance to find out...

http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2011.10.26.11.37.archive.html

 

[Into the lions den]

Enlighten you to what ITLD?

Chris

Enlighten me as to how anyone can have the idea that the abuse of the bees leads to increased profit.........it just does not work that way with bees. It is is a negative assumption about commercial operations and how they differ from your own beliefs. Do not tell me that as a commercial operator profit comes before welfare. They are the same thing.


and to VM on his comments regarding the incident in the USA.

This was an accident. Accidents will always happen no matter how carefully we plan, and any suggestion that what you observe in a video of an accident has any reflection at all on their general standard of management is most likely totally innaccurate.

My friend Glen from California had a truck spill one time. Not his drivers fault, as another truck shot out of a minor road (maybe falling asleep or something) and hit his truck in the side. If you videoed that you would have been horrified at the handling, as it was much the same as you report from the video. What is less apparent in news reporting is the role of the police and other authorities in this type of incident. They want the thing cleared asap and the road open. If the operators are slow and focussed on taking time and saving the bees they will bring in the bulldozers and burn the lot on site. It has happened that way, and indeed Glen's bees were destroyed by first spraying the area, including the air, heavily, then burning the lot in the field beside the accident.

On a sadder note, my guys came back today to inform me that someone had set fir to some of our hives and 14 have been totally destroyed and about 6 others badly damaged. Upon investigation it seems to also have been an accident, the moor managers were burning off the old heather, the fire got a bit out of control, and it ran through our apiary. We had 70 hives on the site, so a good thing it did not clear out the lot! Big loss cash wise anyway, and the bees at that place are always good ones.

 

[Into the lions den]

That is a very odd wish.

Disease inspections?
When do they check them for that? Never? just hope no-one moves anything like that in anywere even remotely close to me.

Swarm control?
None? Even ferals with unlimited attic space swarm. No control at all? Very neighbourly, swarms in their gardens and eaves etc.

Legality?
Sounds as if it is in a grey area, and perhaps could be deemed illegal due to lack of inspectability, or at the very least a lack of intention to do/facilitate these inspections.

 

[mbc]

I suppose you'll take the loss on the chin to keep good relations with the moor owners.
Ouch !

 

[Into the lions den]

Yes, I have 10 sites with the one owner. That place alone averages about 7 drums of honey per season, so over a decade it is a LOT of money, close on 100K. Not a thing to decide to make a major issue over as the loss of income from losing that particular estate if we came into conflict with them far outweighs the loss of the 14 hives. ( about 3.5K we reckon )

Sick feeling, but is IS an accident.

 

[mbc]

On a sadder note, my guys came back today to inform me that someone had set fir to some of our hives and 14 have been totally destroyed and about 6 others badly damaged. Upon investigation it seems to also have been an accident, the moor managers were burning off the old heather, the fire got a bit out of control, and it ran through our apiary. We had 70 hives on the site, so a good thing it did not clear out the lot! Big loss cash wise anyway, and the bees at that place are always good ones.

Do you have experience of fires ? What chance do the colonies in the damaged hives have of pulling through ?

 

[Into the lions den]

Do you have experience of fires ? What chance do the colonies in the damaged hives have of pulling through ?

The damaged ones will pull through just fine, they will be rehoused in fresh sterile boxes tomorrow, then fed for winter. The destroyed ones are at the point where nothing is salveable.

Fire is a thing we have experienced only rarely in our years in this game.

 

[Chris Luck]

Enlighten me as to how anyone can have the idea that the abuse of the bees leads to increased profit.........it just does not work that way with bees. It is is a negative assumption about commercial operations and how they differ from your own beliefs. Do not tell me that as a commercial operator profit comes before welfare. They are the same thing.

Do me a favour, read my reply and quote it all.

Re hive loss, I assume you are fully insured for the losses?

Chris

 

[Swarm]

I suppose it's a little easier to take with it being an accident, rather than some clown's idea of fun. My guess is they were probably apologetic about it?