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  • From: Marty Hanks <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • To: "friedjf AT verizon.net" <friedjf AT verizon.net>
  • Cc: "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "calebhaynes AT gmail.com" <calebhaynes AT gmail.com>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Hmmm -Hmmmm
  • Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 22:29:28 -0400

John you hit the nail square on the head! 
Perfect and timely perspective. Great question and post. 

We as beekeepers are so overdue for an overhaul in thinking!!  The old school mentality and big Ag thinking lead us down to this dark road we are currently on. Doing the same thing moving forward is not only counterproductive to having healthy bees its idiotic! Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result. Einstein is given credit for calling it insanity! There is a huge difference in bees who survive each year and bees who thrive! 

Sadly here in the U.S. and especially in NC we see the old mindset to do with bees as we like. Treat them as near servants to us. ALL of our pollinators are now, by default from big ag thinking, very important to us. ONE insect on this continent provides us with 30% of our food! That one species still disappears at unsustainable rates yearly. This past year @ 43%. 

It is past time we redirect our "beekeeping" practices and methods to help lower that number. ALL of your proposals are in par with a wider - global - audience of how to fix and mend this problem! 

At Just Bee we do just that. It CAN be done. We only lost 30% last year. Nothing to brag about, but better than 43%. As a chemical free keeper it speaks volumes more to what can be done while on a trajectory toward genetic survivor stock.

I do not move my bees around for pollination contracts. - reduces stress, greatly reduces chemical exposure. Never place near corn fields. *(learned that the hard way in 2012).

I only go in 6 times a year. - reduces stress and I kill less bees! Less dead bees means less chance of spreading nosema. If I see brood I have a queen. End of inspection.  

I understand that treating weak hives ONLY breeds super mites and prolongs poor bee genetics. Two things our bees can do without. I mainly build on survivor stock. Do mid summer splits and use powder sugar. Varroa can't grow extra legs in one month so no natural selection there. Yes varroa mites are bad, but the Asian bee lives with them, over time our will too, but we have to speed up the genetic selection process. 

By focusing on "local bee genetics" I'm doing as you suggested. Indirectly providing local pollination, building truly genetic linage adapted to NC, teaching the community about a bees "food shed" and if it's clean or poisonous. Our educational "Hometown Honey" collection hits on that point. Our 5 different - hyper local - city flavors shows we actually have micro climates. Big picture it teaches our neighbors to think twice about how they tend to their land. 

Yes we do take honey, but only small amounts to help tell the bee story. Folks remember it so much more and spread the word when sharing honey. We only feed in emergencies...so yes your right. Let's reduce feeding fake food. Honeybees evolved for millions of years only on a yearly supply of nectar and pollen. Never on cane sugar or corn! 

What we need is beekeepers in towns all around the country doing this. It would help alleviate some of the need for more trucked bees. Commercial BK loose 6-9% more bees just through transit. Not included is the chemical train wreck they just put them on. 

Queen producers and bee farms are making it worse, but it's not all their fault. By necessity, to meet the growing demand to replenish lost hives, they are feeding HFCS and Brewers yeast. Those things are NOT bee food. At a NCSBA queen bee class this guy went on about all the corn syrup and patties they made and how he was always behind and working bees rain or shine. Then pondered WHY his queens didn't live as long as they use to and how customers complained about supercedure! 

Moving forward there will be two camps. The ones who deny there is an issue and want to keep the status quo while attacking those who seek to try and fix the problem and heal the earth we are poisoning. And those of us who see what we are doing to them and ourselves as both highly immoral and self interest defeating. As a naturalist, farmer, problem solver and father of four I seek to bee on the side of the bees. They give us life through food and pollination to air producing plants and trees!!  It's the least we can do to change the way we poison the world that we need to survive and help heal a dying species we over work and poison with chemicals. 

Did you know that here in the U.S. We have a 40% food waste issue? 40%!! 

We do not need more gmo seeds and the chemicals that go along with it. We do not need to "plant our way out of it". We need to look at our food chain like home energy efficiency. Increasing the efficiency of the supply & distribution chain and greatly reducing our waste! Those 2 simple things can reduce the amount of food we need to grow and by default will lower the number of hives to truck around the country. People only buying from organic or chemical free farmers will, by default, create health pollinator habitats! 

Sometimes it's just that simple. 

Well that's my 13 1/2 cents worth....
Marty Hanks
head bee nerd
Just Bee Apiary

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 10, 2015, at 8:31 PM, friedjf AT verizon.net wrote:

Caleb Haynes asked if I was proposing something with my bee-centric post. I wasn't then, but now I am. Here are several proposals that seem closer to what is natural than present practices:
 
1. Instead of feeding bees sucrose (which some beekeepers describe as nutrition-less candy), use honey instead.
2. Instead of opening hives often, learn about the goings-on of bee hives mainly through videos, simulations, demonstrations, etc. Develop or use less intrusive, fiber-optic options for viewing hives unless it is necessary to enter a hive.
3. Reject serving clients whose pollination needs are mono-cultural. Encourage them to grow companion crops and to set aside diverse pollinator-friendly spaces that are proportional to their main crop.
 4. If helping bees to survive is important, start with your own hive. Don't heavily harvest honey and then hope that the bees will replenish their stores before winter. Make sure the hive is fully stocked several months before winter and then only remove the excess.
5. That Italian method of getting honey (taking one frame and breaking off pieces at a dinner) seemed less stressful than removing many frames, extracting those frames and returning empty frames. Reminds me of when my teenaged sons would vacuum the contents of my refrigerator between dinner and breakfast and then complain that there was nothing to eat.
 
I don't have a good suggestion for long-distance moves by trailer loads of hives, but it seems harmful and highly unnatural. Maybe since people are becoming loca-vores, they also could endorse and consume products that are "loca-hive".
 
John Friedrick 
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