Crisis News
Same planet, different world. This website, a page apart.
This is about organic beekeeping and follows three precepts:
- Raise small honey bees.
- Let them forage - do not feed them.
- NEVER use drugs or chemicals on them.
Welcome to a work in progress - revision of Summer 2012.
Tapestry
The natural world is disappearing, regions of it made hostile, disease no longer geographically contained, extinction is occurring all around us. Beekeepers may struggle to stay ahead of bad news following bad news. The worst afflicted are commercial honey bees; the pollination tools of US agribusiness. The plain statistic is, the farther removed from that industry, the better for EVERY honey bee. In places far enough, beekeeping may even be the pastoral pastime it once was. For many local beekeepers, thinking of apiaries as sanctuaries, and what that implies, is a rational assessment of the manifold crises.
Requiem Non
Honey bees require foremost that beekeepers locate them away from harm, in diverse forage with clean water. They like settled apiaries where they attune season by season to their surroundings. A few will fly off to go live in the woods, establishing a resilient, scattered community of feral and kept colonies. A beekeeper's box of honey bees is naught but a portal into their society, offering a peaceable trade - a nice box to stay in for a share of the honey.
It's not a passive deal. Beekeeping is highly interactive.
Anachronisms at Work
A discussion of small-cell beekeeping is found at Keeping Bees, for small honey bees are raised, not bought. The discipline serves one purpose: It gives honey bees a decisive edge against parasitic mites. The concept has been questioned, but the failure of many studies is the failure to give the honey bees sufficient time to adapt to the program. After all, the mistake being undone has a long, confounding history. Click the button and read about colonies of small honey bees purging the dreaded varroa mite.
Nontoxic equipment presents two problems: First, organic or even reasonably clean wax foundation for the small-cell honeycomb is strictly do it yourself. Second, avoiding toxic manmade building materials is as tedious for honey bee domiciles as for our own. Much is resolved by going back to old-time. Woodenware gives a start on making organic beekeeping equipment.
Edible Apiaries
WE KNOW that WE can't live on junk food and supplements. Nothing informs honey bees of this. They will feed opportunistically. Feeding them disrupts their natural foraging, severs communication with natural cycles, the seasons of pollen and blossoms. In this regard, honey bees need to be treated more like wild animals than pets or livestock.
Honey bees and humans have similar nutrition requirements. While we know what to cultivate for OUR balanced diets, what do we plant for honey bees when forage is sparse? No rancher would grow random vegetation for cows, hoping for a good result. But that is the status of beekeeping, and we have about 100 years of research to catch up on. Honey bee nutrition has a beginning at Forage.
Of Queens and Genes
The term queenright says it all. It describes a strong productive colony and there is no mistaking the sight and sound of one. Problems with queens are also very common. The answer is to produce a few good queens from colonies that are strong, for those that are weak. It's called Queen Rearing and an introduction has been sketched. Primal Genes looks at two honey bee invasions - one here now that has some good in it if you know where to look, and one on the way that does not look good at all.
Thanks for being here. From the honey bees too.