This kind of bee keeping feels wrong somehow...

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I wonder if the 'trucked' bees would abscond if they knew what was in store for them?

COLONY COLLAPSE! ?
They haven't found another cause yet - and no bees to examine for 'disease'

 

[Teemore]

First off I am not condoning industrial scale farming: it goes against what I think is right and in some instances (Not all though!) I fail to see how adequate husbandry can be afforded to animals in industrial scale operations but I accept that what I consider to be adequate husbandry is not anothers. Remember, what is 'right' is in the eye of the beholder!!

I think that rather than just blaming America per se for industrial farming practices it is more accurate to focus this debate upon farming mechanisms widely reported upon and practiced in America. In this instance I am thinking of the lack of adequate natural populations of pollinating insects in monocultures and the routine and repeated interstate trucking of bees and the selected footage we have all seen of some people handling some hives in a way that we consider to be rough: no doubt the editing and production teams were aware that such scenes would attract more attention than clips of 'good' handling.....

It is not just Americans who practice industrial farming. I have lost count of the number of local farmers who have emigrated to America and Canada. One of the more widely known exports (thanks to TV coverage of his move to the States) now runs a very large zero graze dairy unit - large even by the standards of other American dairy units. IIRC he is a Fermanagh man operating a zero graze system. My own cousins now manage about 40% of their dairy herd as zero graze here in NI - it doesn't mean that I agree with the practice but it is a reality that to make dairy farming a commercial viability they have felt compelled to follow this route. The TESCOs of this world like to buy their products as cheaply as possible after all....

Commercial farming takes place on an industrial scale across the globe but for some reason it is primarily America that gets the bad press: perhaps that is because America is easily accessible - both physically (good transport links etc.) and in terms of the language.

As has been mentioned in other threads and for different reasons, play the ball, not the man.

 

[Brosville]

"perhaps that is because America is easily accessible" - it's FAR deeper than that - it is in the US that they have "perfected" the completely unsustainable "feed lots", and have intensified the production of all farm animals (in my mind to the complete detriment of their health and welfare) - they also are the home to many of the totally amoral multinationals engaged in "food" production, not least the likes of Monsanto who wield draconian powers in forcing their GM frankencrap onto the market (at present Europe is under an onslaught from the US government to cave in to them as well) - the US "farming" practices are probably about the worst in the world (closely being followed by China and India) - they quite rightly "get it in the ear" from anyone who believes that sustainable farming is ultimately the only sane path.

(As the meaning of the word "sustainable" has been queried before, it means in a way that can be carried on indefinitely without causing damage to the environment)

US trucking beekeepers are part of the "machine", no more or less responsible than anyone else in any part of the whole sick system of "factory farming" for the problems that are beginning to surface as a result

Yes, there are lots of good farmers and growers in the US too, but sadly their government acts as a wholly-owned subsidiary of "Big Ag" allowing the multinationals to have their way....

 

[Teemore]

Brosville, I agree that £ and $ leads to big corporations F^(£!~* around with crops far too much. I really do not believe that they are humanitarian or benevolent rather they are motivated by a desire that the world HAS to use their crops and their agrichemicals. A farmig friend commented this year that he had his highest yields of the year from old grain varieties. That fact speaks volumes.

As an aside, I'll argue that the Americans did not develop or perfect the concept of the feed lot. It was in fact the ancient Irish who developed this concept as a means of wintering their animals in a manageable area with the by product of having that area manured and churned up/ploughed, all ready for crop production the following Spring.

 

[Brosville]

The Irish weren't using GM products, often grown in third-world countries, and shipped in, to the extreme detriment of the environment all round! (As I said, they've "perfected" the system in the US from an accountant's viewpoint to include such environmental horrors)

Keeping animals in during winter has been common for probably thousands of years, but bears little resemblance to the modern US animal hellholes

 

[Vergilius]

Now that is a horrible picture...

 

[mbc]

"
US trucking beekeepers are part of the "machine", no more or less responsible than anyone else in any part of the whole sick system of "factory farming" for the problems that are beginning to surface as a result

QUOTE]

Them and us again Brosville.

Surely if we start from the premise that flowering plants and pollinating insects have a symbiotic relationship then facilitating more of these insects reaching these flowering plants is essentially being part of this symbiosis.

Think about the Australian beekeepers who sometimes have to move colonies away from certain eucalyptus flows to give the bees a chance to gather pollen before moving them back to the eucalypt forest to gather more nectar. If the beekeeper didnt make the move, many of the colonies would literally work themselves to death leaving huge boxes of honey but no bees as certain eucaliptus trees dont provide pollen. By moving the bees the beekeeper has produced tonnes of nutritious honey which would otherwise have not have entered the human food chain at little cost to the environment, diesel, a bit of wear and tear on the bees and some competition for the native pollinators but otherwise a win win situation. Not a good example of symbiosis admittedly as the eucalyptus trees dont really need the bees but for whatever reason when the bees take the nectar the trees produce more. Are these Aussie bee trucker in the same evil boat as the American ones ?
Similarly, I'm sure that the American feed lot bee truckers would much rather move their bees to rich bee pasture rather than feeding pollen subs and keeping bees in holding yards before the move to pollination and I'm sure they do when possible to save on costs and to have healthier bees but sometimes circumstances dictate that a compromise has to be reached so they can get their bees, conveniently into a condition( in terms of strength and positioning ) where they can subsequently move their bees to pollinate a crop.
You could argue Apis Mellifera should never have been introduced to the New World but its a bit pointless as we'll never turn back the clock.
As stated time and again on this thread the problem is essentially one of overpopulation and the need to produce food on an industrial scale. Its lovely to imagine living in a green paradise where we all grow our own food and poo in compost toilets but the majority of us live in cities and demand enormous amounts of food to be trucked, flown and shipped to our cities to feed the large populations.
Rather than harbouring a "them and us" attitude towards commercial beekeepers, I like to think of them as countrymen making their living from the earth, playing their part in feeding the masses. Blame the politicians and rulers who for millennia have taken away our pastoral lifestyles to be replaced by easily controlled city living, not honest countrymen trying to make a living with their hands in the soil.

 

[Brosville]

"and the need to produce food on an industrial scale" is in my belief intrinsically wrong - I'll try to explain - we have become used to accepting the "economies of scale" in all sorts of areas - this is absolutely fine if you only view things from a narrow accountant's view of what's "profitable" in purely financial terms, based as it is on enormous inputs of fossil fuels and their derivatives (which are now running short...)
If you then look beyond the "cheap food" at the damage that type of growing does to the environment, then you rapidly realise we are on a hiding to nothing.
Feed lots and monocultures are totally non-sustainable (they rely on inputs that are running out, killing the land's innate fertility, polluting the hell out of the environment, and cannot go on for much longer)
We need to grasp the need to return to some good basic husbandry methods - "rotation" being one of them - if it's done intelligently we can get higher yields with lower inputs as the pest build-up is less, and the requirement for "artificial" fertilisers considerably less. Even recent UN reports have said the same thing.
As for "them and us" - using industrial methods in the countryside is an "industry" like any other - having seen first-hand the horrors of pig and chicken production in "factory" units, they certainly aren't "countrymen making their living from the earth" - I see no reason why commercial beekeepers shouldn't thrive in a better, more mixed, no monoculture countryside - lots of smaller local units, rather than chasing monocultures (everybody and everything gains in "localising" production)
We have to realise that proper food costs money to produce, food prices will rise anyway, far better that it is the result of "deindustrialisation" of food production as far as possible, and the introduction of methods which will allow the land to stay productive way into the future.
"Small is beautiful".... yes it will take real changes, but I believe strongly that it is the only way to proceed - the inputs of the old "beat nature into submission" methods are running out, so we have to find a better way....