Is Honey All There Is To Beekeeping?

For some people, many people actually, Honey is the end all, bee all of beekeeping.  Is there anything wrong with that?  Of course not.  Honey production is one of, if not "the", most popular reason for becoming and staying a beekeeper.

The thrill of seeing all of your time, effort and learning resulting in hundreds of pounds of honey to sell and give to others.  The excitement of learning to present and maybe win awards for honey in honey showings.  For many people, honey = beekeeping and beekeeping = honey and that's that.

I'm cool with that.

I would like to remind our honey harvesters though that there are other reasons, other "purposes" which people go into beekeeping for and honey is not always the primary motivator if it is, in fact, a motivator at all.

It is because there are other primary motivations to become a beekeeper that so many disagreements crop up.   I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of all beekeepers are honey beekeepers.  For literally hundreds of years in the U.S. honey has been the primary motivation to be a beekeeper.  Even longer in the rest of the world.

Yet, even hundreds of years ago, there were beekeepers who were more interested in pollination over honey production.  There have been beekeepers who are mostly motivated by the activity and action and the experience of caring for a bee colony all on it's own.  Honey is a nice by-product, but not expected or anticipated by them.

It is by the non honey motivated beekeepers that other methods and approaches to keeping bees have come about.  The end goals and desired results don't necessarily require the same practices be used in those beekeepers hives.  in some situations, the practices for attaining high honey yields is counter-productive for them and cause more problems than they purport to solve in that particular situation.

Yet, to many an "experienced" or highly motivated" honey producing beekeeper, the idea of keeping bees and using methods and practices for anything other than honey production is an alien concept and is essentially meaningless to them.

You can see it in the writings of books and journals of historical beekeepers.  Even those we know in "modern" history.

The advice I offer to you "alternatively motivated" beekeepers is to not argue or try to convince the honey beekeepers of anything.  Try to learn what you can from them, and there are plenty of things to learn from them.   Keep that information which is useful and relevant to your beekeeping and let the rest go silently and without effort out of your mind.

I know of quite a few alternative beekeepers who become extremely frustrated with honey producers that eventually, they allow it to disrupt them in their own beekeeping experience.

I have known some honey beekeepers to look at me as if I had lost my mind when I talk to them of my own goals, objectives and practices.  Some are less pleasant about it than others.   I just smile and try to remain positive.  I try to keep to fact based discussion, things that try as they might to disagree with, they are hard pressed to counter the fact based evidence then I move on.

I have mentors even now who are honey beekeepers.  I have learned and continue to learn from them every time I spend time with them.   I like to think that they might even pick up something useful from me once in awhile.  If nothing else,  I just remind them that the beekeeping world is broader and more diverse now than it historically has been.

With the advance of communications technology like internet forums, email, "smart phones" and countless other innovations, the ability of people to become beekeepers and learn about beekeeping is happening at much faster rates than ever before in history.

As agriculture and society itself changes to view bees and beekeeping in different ways, so too will people change how and why they are beekeepers.

I talked about George Imrie in an earlier post.  George is great.  Gotta love George.  George was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a honey beekeeper par excellence.

George was also really, really "confirmed" in the way he saw beekeeping and the reasons why and how to do it.  If you weren't doing it for the same reasons, he had little in common with you and you might as well have been a butterfly or racing pigeon hobbyist for all he cared.

Because George had the title of E.A.S. certified Master Beekeeper, he had some considerable influence on other beekeepers.    Honey was THE reason for beekeeping as far as he was concerned.  I didn't know him, but I have read a lot of his writing and he was not shy about being very clear and straight forward in his points.

But, George could be any one of a hundred other beekeepers I know right here in my own area.  Honey is the Alpha and the Omega to beekeeping for these folks.  I can't disagree that honey is important in beekeeping.  It has been the most influential force in advancing beekeeping technology.

For people like me, beekeeping is about more than honey.  It's about the wax and the pollination as well.  Whereas for honey beekeepers, it's more akin to being a commercial cattle rancher.  They raise cattle for one reason, to sell to packing houses.  For me, it's more like being a homesteader.  Having the cows is as much for the milk and yes, sometimes the meat and even the manure for the garden.

I look at having bees and beekeeping as a way to be more self sufficient.  I can make candles and medicinal items from the wax, eat honey and use it to heal wounds.   You can even use propolis to make toothpaste on your own.  Not to mention helping that garden with their pollination.

Because I "use" bees and their products a bit differently in my situation, I require some different practices and methods to best suit that purpose.  High honey yield production practices are not necessarily the best fit into my approach.

Is there a difference between "Natural" and "Organic"?

There are a lot of different uses of the words "natural" and "organic".

In general, the word "organic" means to come from a living organism.

Some people use "organic" to refer to products that are from living organisms.  For example, natural essential oils have been referred to as being "organic" since they come from living plants.

There are some though who make an even further distinction between organic and natural products.  They would say that organic products, such as oils, etc.. are those secreted or emanated, by living organisms.  For example, according to this definition, honeydew is organic because it is excreted by aphids.  Royal or queen jelly is secreted by bees to feed to other larvae and bees.

The finer breakdown of "natural" then would refer to products that are made of living organisms (and other things, like stones, which are considered "Natural" as opposed to concrete).  For example, most essential oils are made by boiling or otherwise heating plant parts to get the natural oils out of the parts of the plants.

So, "organic" products basically are things made by organisms and "natural" products are those things made of or from organisms by this definition.

When it comes to using treatments in pest management, say in bee hives to treat for mites.  Some people would say that using mineral oil mixed with wintergreen oil as a fog in a hive is an "organic" treatment.  However, by the definitions I explained above, they really would be "natural" treatments as the oils are made of organisms, not by organisms.

Feeding bees pollen patties made with real pollen would be organic because pollen is produced "by" flowers.

In regards to practices like I mentioned at the beginning, an organic practice would be to emulate or mimic what living organisms "do".  "Natural"  would be the motivation or source for the action.

An example here of organic practice would be bees making and using propolis to seal up cracks, crevices, etc... inside the hive. 

A "natural" practice would be doing the waggle dance to show fellow bees where to find a nectar source.  This as opposed to a bee somehow being trained to make some sound then pull out a map.  That would definitely not be natural.

Is it a life or death situation if people mix up the uses of the terms?  Not really.  However, when it comes to scientific discussion and trying to communicate exactly what is going on, it helps to be as specific as possible.  Words have meaning for a reason, thus we have different words that mean different things for a reason.  Kind of an oversimplification, I know.

Anyway, just thought I'd put this out here.