This kind of bee keeping feels wrong somehow...

[user 6228]

..
Are you sure Prof. Seeley would back you up on your black and white ignorance ?

definite ad hominem there with a guilty personal pronoun

 

[user 6228]

"Therefore Oscar Perone practises cruelty to bees" - utterly farcical!

It appears to work very well, therefore if it is proved true, it is very far from "cruelty"...

The battery hen argument! I knew I heard it somewhere before.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

The battery hen argument! I knew I heard it somewhere before.

Not really a valid analogy - a hive of bees can abscond at will whereas a battery hen cannot.

 

[user 6228]

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.

a factor of 6 times larger (240+ litres all year from day 3 and forever) is not "slightly over sized" with a 5 sq cm entrance, solid floor close to the ground, no roof vent, thin walls, no insulation, no cleaning out, no inspections, honey is cut out from the top 3 of 8 200mm deep sections.
We are talking heat, ventilation and confinement stress in both perone's hive and trucking... in the trucking the journey ends, but a perone hive it is forever.

 

[alanf]

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.

As you say, accidents happen. It wasn't intentional, just like the truck accident. You can try to minimise the chances of accidents but a different category to the deliberate attacks that occur over the years, whether that's arson, throwing stones, kicking hives over or even carelessness with chemicals.

 

[Into the lions den]

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

No insurance. The premiums are so high to insure unattended bees that we could lose a vast number each year and it would be about equal to the premium.

The bee disease insurance that amateurs can get is excellent value really. Premiums are low due to the infrequency of serious disease. Go up to our numbers and loss adjusters and underwriters just do not get the risk calculations right, so they ask for a murderous premuim to hedge their bets.

Not a good buy.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

in the trucking the journey ends, but a perone hive it is forever.

In Perone's hive the bees can abscond if they don't like it, just like they would if they chose an unsuitable hive in the wild.
I wonder if the 'trucked' bees would abscond if they knew what was in store for them?
Again, I'm not particularly sticking up for this guys hives just making the point that there is a whole world of difference between the two things.
As the OP said - this type of commercial beekeeping feels wrong. It feels wrong to me too and probably to the majority of the public. I'll admit - I'm happy to go with my instinct on this one.

 

[Chris Luck]

Oh dear, no insurance, what a bummer.

Does that apply to your entire operation in all it's aspects? I don't think I would be very comfortable with operations like yours with no insurance.

Mind that's a stupid thing to say really because I obviously wouldn't want your operations.

As the OP said - this type of commercial beekeeping feels wrong. It feels wrong to me too and probably to the majority of the public. I'll admit - I'm happy to go with my instinct on this one.

I agree GBH.

Chris

 

[mbc]

definite ad hominem there with a guilty personal pronoun

"your black and white ignorance ?"

Refers to your absolute and judgemental post :

"Unless Perone can back up his ideas with measured reduced stress I think he should be imprisoned for cruelty. "
"Therefore Oscar Perone practises cruelty to bees."

I think I'm entitled to think these posts displayed a "black and white" ignorance and rather than "a guilty personal pronoun", "your" in this case refers to your words in these posts. Thats the ball and not the player, if you think differently, then thats your prerogative derekm but i'm not going to argue further about the semantics

 

[dpearce4]

Oh dear, no insurance, what a bummer.

Does that apply to your entire operation in all it's aspects? I don't think I would be very comfortable with operations like yours with no insurance.

Mind that's a stupid thing to say really because I obviously wouldn't want your operations.



I agree GBH.

Chris

Chris your getting personal!!! You know nothing about this member and his business practices.

Respect other peoples right to run a business, just because its not run the way you might doesnt mean you can be rude to them.

 

[MandF]

Surely the point being missed here is that the HIVE is the organism here - not the individual bees.

And even taken at this level you still have to look at the overall picture, a lot of eminent beekeepers are of the opinion we should allow varroa ravaged/weak colonies to die, because genetically it will result in more varroa resistant hives in the future. This sounds harsh if you view your bees as pets, or anthropormorphise them, but to me it isnt harsh, it is just being pragmatic.

I take it everyone who is appalled by the "sacrifice" of these bees also allow their swarms to flutter off into the distance if not keeping them to make a new hive?

The accident was unfortunate, and I wouldnt want to treat my bees like that, but similarly I wouldnt want to be a sheep farmer and shoot bolts through the head of little fluffy lambs. I dont morally judge farmers though.

 

[Into the lions den]

Does that apply to your entire operation in all it's aspects? I don't think I would be very comfortable with operations like yours with no insurance. Chris

Not at all. we have all the standard forms of insurance as would be expected. Premises, vehicles, product and public liability, business interruption, more if i took time to think about it. Its just the bees and their hives in the field that are not covered for loss or damage or pesticide kill. Not economic cover. Taking little losses is much cheaper.

I do appreciate that you would not want an operation like ours (even though you have never seen it or how we work) and that is fine. Everyone to their own.

Those who visit and come out with us tend to end up enthused and encouraged to go and make changes to things they do themselves. I too will steal good ideas anywhere I see them. The very idea of a commercial (dirty word) can have bees that are above the amateur average in terms of their care and welfare seems to be alien to some on here.

I always say that the very best and very worst of beekeepers are actually in the amateur sector. The commercial guys would tend to be bunched on the upside of the median line. Truly bad commercials (and without outside income) are not commercial for very long.

 

[Chris Luck]

Chris your getting personal!!! You know nothing about this member and his business practices.

Respect other peoples right to run a business, just because its not run the way you might doesnt mean you can be rude to them.

Now I know I've lived in France a long, long time BUT I reckon I speak and write English reasonably well SO please try reading my words in the order they are written and go figure my meaning and stop trying to see something that isn't there.

I wouldn't want his business operations and anyone with a gram of sense would know the reasons why.

Chris

 

[Chris Luck]

At risk of boring people perhaps it should be made clear that at the top of the list is the simple fact that I'm not interested in running a large scale operation nor am I interested in making more money than I need for my daily sustenance. If I was I wouldn't be living in the worst Country in Europe for running a business.

Chris

 

[Poly Hive]

What I find hard to understand is why post on something one is not interested in? The point being?

There are swathes of aspects of beekeeping that I have little or no interest in, so I ignore them.

That way I keep my massive areas of ignorance quiet.

PH

 

[Chris Luck]

What I find hard to understand is why post on something one is not interested in? The point being?

Who is posting on a subject they are not interested in?

Chris

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I think the problem PH is that this thread seems to have turned into a critique of commercial beekeeping (and ITLD in particular) rather than of the US practice of mass migration and monoculture as the OP stated.
I'm sure most of us are interested in that. Or maybe I'm wrong

 

[Hombre]

Perone - the parallel - how many Oscars?

It seems that Evita got it right. Listen to some of the words and make your own mind up as to how apt or not they might be . . . well a few of them.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Ns1U0OnE8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Ns1U0OnE8[/ame]

 

[Into the lions den]

I think the problem PH is that this thread seems to have turned into a critique of commercial beekeeping (and ITLD in particular)

LOL....do not worry about ILTD...he has a thick hide.

Feeding finished today btw.......eveything now had its full winter feed, bar the Hereford and Gloucester ones, which had a half feed prior to going back to their winter quarters, and will be finished tomorrow afternoon.

Extracting continues..........comb replacement in hand now too......drilling all the BS frames ready for cross wiring.............cross wiring and waxing same.........box repairs started........new frames assembled (if not bought made up) .....general preparations for spring already underway.....one Mog already into winter lay up.

Start early and you have a chance of getting it done.....wait till New Year and never get finished.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

with VM

I would also add that one does not need necessarily need 80,000 hives to have an understanding of what is good / bad for a colony of bees.
Yes, there may be a lack of understanding about exactly how US commercial beekeepers operate, but the principles of good animal husbandry have a certain amount of intrinsic truth whether you are talking about 1 hive or thousands.

I think it all boils down to America - New Zealanders move their bees great distances but don't appear to have the same problems.
The only animal americans seem to have respect for is the horse any other animal is just a commodity to utilise, look at the way pigs and cattle are treated in their factory super farms - and they are trying to sell the concept here. Over the decades American farming methods all end in disaster bees looks like being another one