I try to keep up with new information regarding bees and beekeeping as much as I can. The media is agog with news of pesticides and CCD. The social media activists are focused pretty heavily on pesticides as well.
Two articles recently caught my attention, One of them in Bee Culture magazine and the other in the American Bee Journal. Randy Oliver wrote the piece in ABJ and I'll start with that one. I'll cover the other one in another post.
First off, I want to say that I have a lot of respect for Randy and what he does. More often than not, I agree with him.In the May issue of ABJ, he wrote about something I can't say I found anything to disagree with at all, The article is about how beekeepers go about managing bees as "No Treatment" or "Low Treatment".
Now, admitting I am part of the "No/Low Treatment" crowd, I find it interesting how it has become such a buzz word in beekeeping (Get it? "Buzz word", "Beekeeping". That's funny stuff right there) so as to often polarize discussion among many groups of beekeepers. I notice that modern beekeeping is full of "buzz" words anymore.
Randy made a great point about how beekeepers make a mistake of expecting bees that have been bred to one group of behaviors to another group of behaviors instantly (seemingly).
For the most part, bees that are commercially sold as nucs and packages by commercial operators are bred for two primary behaviors. Those being high populations and high honey production. They are a result of their genetics and breeding. To expect those bees to adopt new priorities in terms of behaviors in one season is not realistic. He is also right though, that many beekeepers try it anyway.
I apply a different label to myself. I call myself a "conservation" beekeeper. To me, this means that I don't purchase bees. I catch swarms, set out bait hives in the Spring, I do trap-outs and cut-outs to keep bees alive that otherwise might be killed by homeowners and exterminators for having chosen the wrong place to call home.
These are almost always bees that have successfully over-Wintered in an un-managed environment. These are bees whose breeding has adapted or is adapting to their local environment via Natural Selection. Weak colonies die removing unsuccessful genetics and behaviors out of the local gene pool. I want these genetics.
Over literally millions upon millions of years, bees have made honey, I am not worried about buying bees bred to maximize honey production. They are going to make honey whether I want them to or not.
Bees raise brood. They always have. Colonies that don't raise enough brood are often, in feral conditions, Naturally Selected to be removed from the gene pool in their local environment. I, as beekeeper, can also make an impact on how successful a given colony is in terms of population by the type of hive I place them in and how I manage that hive.
I agree with Randy in that the so called Natural" beekeeper is setting up commercially bred and sold bees for failure because they are bred to succeed in a highly managed environment. If you don't want to insert yourself into the goings on in the hive then you need to start with bees who are bred to succeed without such heavy management.
Personally, I think that commercially packaged and nuc'ed bees should really only be used by commercial operators. The folks that do commercial pollinating, large scale honey production, etc...
Local hobbyists really should stick to locally raised bees and be more well versed in catching swarms and doing trap-outs and splits. The self described "Natural" beekeeper has no business purchasing commercially packed and sold bees at all.
That's just my two cent on the issue anyway.
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