On “Feel Good” Beekeeping

When Colony Collapse Disorder hit the media, thousands of people went running to get beehives and become beekeepers.  They expressed a desire to “help” the bees and to do something “organic” and “natural” to save the world.

Hey, I’m not knocking them.   I get the whole good feeling that playing with bees gives you.  I am a bee conservationist after all.  Having said that, I feel a little awkward in that  I don’t get the warm fuzzies about some of these folks that they seem intent on expressing.

There are things about beekeeping that need to be openly and honestly seen and experienced.  There are considerations that every beekeepers must face.  Too often,  I talk to, read of and hear things from a portion of the new beekeepers that makes me shudder a bit when I hear them.

Some of these new folks are actually militant about bees as if they (the bees) are really nothing more than another weapon in the arsenal of the combative environmentalist.  There are others who are PETA like thinkers and openly embrace irresponsible practices like intentionally allowing bee colonies to swarm out, making no effort at all to try to minimize or capture the swarms inside city limits they are keeping.  Not only is this irresponsible beekeeping, this can be dangerous and structurally unsafe.

To these people though, they are simply allowing the bees to be “free” and not “slaves” or prisoners to mankind.  Seriously.  People have told me that

In the long run, how long will these new minted beekeepers continue to be beekeepers?  When will their interest wane?  Long enough to get tired of getting stung?  Long enough to  realize that they may not get jackpots of honey every year?  Sooner or later,  I expect a majority of these people to quietly move away from beekeeping and on to another environmentally popular cause.  Maybe one that doesn’t sting so much.

I believe that beekeeping should be fun.  It should be something that captures your soul.  I’ve met many a jaded commercial beekeeper before.  To a lot of them, the magic has gone because they are in bees up to their necks all the time.  It’s not just something they do, it’s how they make their living and like many a farmer, they are not always enthusiastic about what they do, it’s just what they do.  Sometimes, they aren’t sure what else they would do.  But if you ask most of these jaded commercial beekeepers, they will still exhibit a great amount of pride in what they do.  If you are lucky enough to catch them introducing their kids to bees for the first time, you see the sparkle of that original magic of beekeeping in their eyes as they experience it again through the eyes of their kids.  It’s still there, just buried deep under long, hard days of work.

As much as I am a proponent of having more people beekeeping, there are some people who really shouldn’t be beekeepers.  These are the people who are in it more for what they can get from the bees instead of what the bees give to them.  I don’t know if that makes sense to you.   I know it does to me, but sometimes words fail me.  (believe that or not).