Welcome to my hive

I actually already have a couple of other Wordpress blog sites of my own but I have really been liking the ease of use and built in reach of Google Blogger.  So  I am going to move a few of my posts from the other sites to here and post some new stuff here and see how it goes.  Eventually, all of it may come here.

To explain a couple things about the title of the site.  First off, I very much love science.  Science so totally rocks.  I consider myself to be an "amateur" scientist (as in, I don't get paid to do research) but I believe that science is most effective in the hands of those who have the most to gain from it.  The "common" person.  In my case, the common beekeeper.

Contrary to popular belief, science does not belong solely to white coated, highly paid college nerds who have the university and/or corporate funding to buy the most expensive tools.

As a matter of fact, most of science's greatest achievements were made by everyday, amateur scientists who really had the curiosity, open-mindedness and objectivity to apply the Scientific Method. (not to be confused with "scientific methodology" that the roundheads will try to obfuscate the meaning with).

In beekeeping, there is a term for beekeepers who want to keep their bees as simply and as close to "natural" as is possible for people who keep bees in man made boxes.  They are referred to as "natural" beekeepers, of course.

Now obviously, there is very little "natural" about putting bees into special hives made for selectively opening, inspecting and harvesting.  I don't know of anyone who claims as much.  However, bees are bees and over the course of millions of years of evolutionary adaptation (about 150 million of them) There are things the bees do regardless of the hive they build their nest in or how often it is opened by beekeepers.

The "Natural" beekeeper seeks to facilitate as much of this "natural" behavior as is possible within their hives.  This includes trying not to open hives unless it's necessary and not inserting/injecting/or otherwise foreign substances into the bees nest.

The "Naturally Scientific" beekeeper (here it comes) wants to use scientifically founded research and facts in order to best learn to let bees do what they do best while working to keep their little charges as healthy and alive as possible.

This usually means being a facilitator instead of a dictator (there's a joke there but this is a family friendly blog) and learning as much about "natural" bee biology and behavior to insert our goals into what the bees do..."naturally" (you guessed it).

So come on along and we'll talk about having fun playing with bees, post some cool bee pictures and discuss being Naturally Scientific beekeepers.