This kind of bee keeping feels wrong somehow...

[mbc]

Ever looked at a frame of pollen? If they're not in the middle of a monoculture it will look like a rainbow.

Indigo pollen ? Havent seen it myself.

 

[The Riviera Kid]

even if that means selling into the "pool" that I wouldn't even consider, nor using treatments, nor moving my hives from crop to crop, nor using sprays on my land or crops, nor poking the bees about all the time.....but that's just my way and others have theirs.....
Chris

I think that we're both singing from the same hymn sheet here!!

I didn't mean to infer that there is anything wrong with a hobby or small-scale keeper moving bees per se; it's more how they are treated during the process. One of my beek friends moves a few hives to the moors for the heather, but the bees are well treated and handled with care.

 

[Brosville]

Trucking bees thousands of miles has only made economic sense, being part of a frankly chillingly enormous monoculture system of growing food, based an artificially cheap fossil-fuel derived inputs and the "economies of scale" that have come about because of them.
Monocultures are of themselves pretty stupid, and depend on large "inputs" to deal with the pest build-ups, whereas what we need to do is to have smaller areas of crops, where possible regularly "rotated" so as to naturally avoid the pests getting the upper hand without resorting to "icides" - and before someone says that high tech farming is the only way to feed the world, it's utter bulldroppings put about by the industries doing very nicely thankyou out of the status quo....
We have altered nature greatly, all the time man has been on earth, but rather than carrying on the frankly arrogant and ignorant ways of "bludgeon it into submission" agriculture, we need to realise that we have to learn to work hand-in-hand with nature, rather than seeking to subjugate it!

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Trucking bees thousands of miles has only made economic sense, being part of a frankly chillingly enormous monoculture system of growing food, based an artificially cheap fossil-fuel derived inputs and the "economies of scale" that have come about because of them.
Monocultures are of themselves pretty stupid, and depend on large "inputs" to deal with the pest build-ups, whereas what we need to do is to have smaller areas of crops, where possible regularly "rotated" so as to naturally avoid the pests getting the upper hand without resorting to "icides" - and before someone says that high tech farming is the only way to feed the world, it's utter bulldroppings put about by the industries doing very nicely thankyou out of the status quo....
We have altered nature greatly, all the time man has been on earth, but rather than carrying on the frankly arrogant and ignorant ways of "bludgeon it into submission" agriculture, we need to realise that we have to learn to work hand-in-hand with nature, rather than seeking to subjugate it!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I have great concern about how some commerical bee keepers handle their colonies.

They transport all their bees to one place. Disease gets spread amongst the bees and then they ship the diseases back through the whole of the US. Its a bit like sending the kids to a measles party as was the fashion a few years back I believe.

There's the stress of transportation too.
.
Then they don't understand why the bees are keeling over.

 

[user 6228]

Trucking bees thousands of miles has only made economic sense, ...!

After you have killed all the other pollinators for miles and miles around...

wasps, hover flies, bumblebees ...

The need to have so many honey bees means there is an ecological disaster already in progress and now the bee band aid is failing as well

 

[Chris Luck]

The issue is that very little can survive when there is nothing but Almond trees as far as the eye can see, honey bees couldn't survive there all the year.

Source. http://www.profimedia.si/picture/aerial-vast-almond-orchards-in-full-bloom/0089708818/

Chris

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's awful. I've just looked at my little bottle of almond oil with not a little shame

 

[newportbuzz]

Ever looked at a frame of pollen? If they're not in the middle of a monoculture it will look like a rainbow.

Today i had a look at one hive which i NEEDED to see if the queen was accepted. And while i was in i saw a frame of pollen and i have to say it did not resemble a rainbow. It was yellow. and before you say i am in a monoculture area im not we have pasture and bad pasture at that. lots of old hedges which is of course supplying yellow pollen i imagine there might be traces of other stuff in there at the moment but i can tell you the frame was wall to wall yellow pollen.

 

[Poly Hive]

This has been going on for donkeys.

There was a guy who used to advertise in the American Bee Press that he could have any number you wanted on your property in 48 hours provided you were on the main USA.

There is also a town, canna remember where now but it has a tip over near every year and the fire crews just spray the hives with 3% foam to kill the bees.

Big business eh?

PH

 

[Somerford]

As a small-scale hobby beekeeper, the mechanics of mass beekeeping just seems wrong. 20 million bees dead/lost....

Bee welfare seems far down the list of priorities...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15439754

I read this on the BBC site earlier and knew someone would link it to here !

Whatever one thinks, it happens - I think they need to get some decent HGV drivers personally....

I'm afraid until someone at the top of agriculture does something about it, this mass migration of bees will continue...

all about $$$$ and ££££



regards

S

 

[Hombre]

Alas, if you want almonds . . .
If you want to feed lots of people, then you need big fields.
Almonds, pumpkins, melons and other vegetables are dependent on pollinators, such as the honeybee.

So is the answer to not grow these plants or to grow them in raised beds out the back perhaps? Obviously, WE are the problem.

 

[Into the lions den]

OK....bait taken..........read enough commercial bating.

Stress. The best way to stress your bees is to give them nothing to do. Migrating the hives from a dearth to a flow does them GOOD. Period. Not going to argue about that with anyone as we see it again and again abd there really is no dispute.

However, this is not all that has come out in this thread that reflects a blissful ignorance of how the bees over there are both run and behave. To sit in our tiny beekeeping backward (sorry but its true) little islands, using bees we think gentle, but most serious countries would requeen immediately, making anthropomorphic judgements on what suits or does not suit the bees, all from the luxury of owning a handful of hives that tells us everyone else is wrong ( even I fit into that category because internationally I am a mere puddleduck) is all a bit rich.

I read about the bees being shut in for so long...................sorry but they are moved open.......no closed entrances. Instead it is normal for the load to be netted.

Criticism of no bee suit. Some beekeepers over there do not own one. The average UK beekeeper has no idea what TRUE gentle bees are like. Most US bees can be worked, even honey stripped in a dearth, in a t-shirt and shorts.

This very night we have an artic on the road in the UK with a load of hives, the transport driver is a non beekeeper and has no beesuit with him, but he IS being shadowed down the road by one of our trucks with fully kitted team on board.

Beekeers going out of business in the USA have the same reasons for going out of business as everywhere else. Losing too much money. This is primarily due to the price of honey being merely passable ( and sometimes low) over there, and like here, all the inputs such as fuel have gone through the roof.

Yes.sometimes they are a bit rough in how they handle stuff............but the bees are very gentle and barely respond, and settle almost immediately.

CCD exists, but no-one is yet sure what it is, and maybe never will. Has happened in the past, will happen again. All the scare stories about the demise of the bees focus solely on the losses, not on how many splits can be made in summer to recover the numbers. Overall numbers there are down, but it is due to multiple factors, not just CCD, and beekeeper demographics is a big one, similar to the UK until the current boom in newbees.

The main thing about US beekeeping I do NOT like is holding yards, with hundreds, even thousands, of hives in one place so that pollination demands can be met at the drop of a hat by local growers. I understand WHY they do it though, but it is a worrysome thing.

Condemning so called 'industrial/commercial' beekeeping is rather missing the point. I have worked bees over in California. I have done almond migration. Theseguys love bees every bit as much as any of us do. If they did not they would find something a damn site more lucrative to do. Anyone condemning commercial beekeeping as greed for £'s or $'s has clearly never tried their hand at it seriously. It is NO route to getting rich. It is a lifestyle choice as much as anything alse and most ofthem have an income that would be considered laughable in mainstream business set against the hours they work and the burdens they carry.

This debate took place on another bee list when a well meaning bunch came on and started criticising modern bee management and wanting us all back to the old days, and it seems similar here, where many are ready to tear into a system they actually do not fully comprehend, and judging from the standpoint (mainly) of an amateur or enlarged amateur (most UK small commercials are in this category) system. The point came when they were challenged about food production. Yes, they knew there would be much less produced, and the ringleader blythely said that indeed, there would need to be a 70% population reduction in humans, but that it would be worth it to get back to a simple sustainable system. That just about encapsulates it. Anyone here joining the queue for 'termination'?

There is a Chinese saying the you should not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Do not criticise from a position of ignorance of what others do and assume it to be the same as here, when it is not. I have never met Mr. Adee. I know some who have, and worked with him too, and he is apparently a very fine beekeeper who knows what he is doing.

Whilst on a Chinese theme..........if you want us all put out of business (we, the greedy ones) then you deny the public for the most part their supply of UK honey (the amateur sector could not scratch the surface of the market) and all that does is open the door for even more imports, sadly much of it 'honey' from China. The public want honey, and have a right to be able to choose to buy it, and if ou do not want the gap all filled by imports then the market needs us, the commercial guys.

I have said it before and will again despite maybe being boring. We ALL love our bees and the distinction between us is a false one largely founded on prejudice and assumption. We love our bees just as much as you do, and are just the recipients of the incredible blessing of getting a chance to do it for living. I used to be a ships officer and have a Masters certificate. If it was just about the money I would be on the high seas somewhere earning four times as much..........but the quality of life I have now far outweighs money.

 

[Chris Luck]

Could you tell me your name and current status please Lions Den?

Chris

 

[Brosville]

If people want to make a living from keeping bees, then I have no problem at all with that - bees can also be moved successfully, BUT there is no doubt that monocultures are sending us to hell in a handcart as they are totally unsustainable - the inputs required are running out, pollute the bejaysus out of the environment, and kill the land's innate fertility.
As for China, there are parts of the country where crops are now hand-pollinated as the chemical inputs have wiped out the insect population.

"so that pollination demands can be met at the drop of a hat" - in a sane mixed, rotated, smaller scale system the pollinators would not need to be trucked vast distances about the place - they'd already be in the area!

As for the phrase "not on how many splits can be made in summer to recover the numbers" worries me greatly, this says to me that the attitude is that the losses don't really matter, rather like a dairy farmer shrugging his shoulders and accepting vast losses of animals every year, just because he can "breed more", ignoring getting to the bottom of "why?" and sorting the problem out!

I'll certainly "have a tilt" at many commercial methods in all forms of agri/horticulture, purely because they are unsustainable - as a "natural beekeeper" there are many things that I wouldn't dream of emulating for the same reason - I've seen credible figures showing that keeping bees using Warre hives can be more profitable than using conventional hives and methods, so taking account of the environment need not preclude profit!

As I've already said, Big Ag tries to perpetuate the myth that "theirs is the only way", which is patently untrue, just an industry desperate to hang onto it's profits and outdated "bludgeon nature into submission" methods

 

[greatbritishhoney]

This debate took place on another bee list when a well meaning bunch came on and started criticising modern bee management and wanting us all back to the old days, and it seems similar here, where many are ready to tear into a system they actually do not fully comprehend, and judging from the standpoint (mainly) of an amateur or enlarged amateur (most UK small commercials are in this category) system. The point came when they were challenged about food production. Yes, they knew there would be much less produced, and the ringleader blythely said that indeed, there would need to be a 70% population reduction in humans, but that it would be worth it to get back to a simple sustainable system. That just about encapsulates it. Anyone here joining the queue for 'termination'?

ITLD, you are quite keen to criticise those who are sensationalistic about bee transportation yet you are perhaps happy to deliberately characterise someone in favour of population reduction as a genocidal maniac.
Let's get real - those who advocate population reduction are talking about contraception and education NOT murder. It's a perfectly sensible, valid argument.

 

[The Riviera Kid]

OK....bait taken..........read enough commercial bating.

I don't believe that at any point in my posts have deliberately laid bait, simply to strike up an argument for it's own sake. That would be a fruitless waste of time and energy.

I abhor all mistreatment of bees - whether by professionals or amateurs.

Criticism of no bee suit. Some beekeepers over there do not own one. The average UK beekeeper has no idea what TRUE gentle bees are like.

This strikes me as a startling generalisation. My bees are of variable temperament. One lot are particularly feisty, yet others, from a different mother queen, barely stir with the hive is opened and inspected.


With regards to the notion that we all enjoy the "benefits" of the supermarket and the consumer society, I would remark that I for one try to have as little to do with consumerism as possible. I grow my own food on our allotment, the house is heated by scrap wood etc. etc. I recently did a survey about food sources and only about 20% of teh stuff on our shelves is from a supermarket and those items tended to be the things that, for one reason or another, we simply can't produce ourselves e.g soya milk, cheese etc.

I tries my best

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

ITLD - very interesting and informative post, thanks.

 

[user 6228]

{Tin hat on}

IF we want to look at bee welfare, from almost an outsiders point of view, the common amateurs approach to be welfare has very little improvement compared to the commercial. Both here and in the U.S., research on the honey bee related to the stress, is often ignored or substituted with Custom and practice, and "new age" myth.
IMHO there should be minimum standards for the housing and transportation of bees, that take account of scientific fact, not current "custom and practice", and definitely not dubious analogy.

Now wheres that kevlar jacket

Derek

 

[Brosville]

I am somewhat at a loss to understand precisely what you are trying to impart - perhaps clarification of the "myth" statement would be a start.........