Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] More Thoughts on Beekeeping

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Kevin Topek" <ktopek@houston.rr.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] More Thoughts on Beekeeping
  • Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 20:31:29 -0600

Gene, Kathy & Lawrence,

I have really enjoyed reading all of your posts on honeybees and CCD. I
especially like teasing Gene. You need to visit next time you are in town
old friend. The posts have got me to thinking and I am definitely sure that
I am now really confused. After a long lunch discussion with a beekeeping
friend yesterday we decided the following. We are going to order new
Buckfast, English, bees this spring and stick with them for 2007, no new
Italian colonies for this year. I am throwing away my diseased hive in it's
entirety, quite a financial loss, especially since I was using plastic
(Pierco) foundations. We are going back to galvanized metal tops over wood,
no more Styrofoam, it breaks due to the stickiness of the high propolis
content of hot weather hives. We intend to rob more honey, not less this
year, probably 3 times. We both want French bees, but are not able to locate
any. Any info on that out there? We are not going to be intimidated by all
the bad news and intend to continue having fun at this. That is why this is
our hobby, not our business. I gotta tell you, when we spin honey together,
we attract friends, imbibe in libations and have a blast! It is a real party
and we plan to keep it rolling. I have never enjoyed beekeeping more! Thanks
for all of your interest and information.

Kevin Topek
Bellaire, Texas

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Monaco" <efmonaco@comcast.net>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 10:34 AM
Subject: [permaculture] More Thoughts on Beekeeping


> Kevin, sorry about the UT crack. Must have gotten my meds off a little.
> Folks, I have been following the trail of bees for a while and this is my
> 4th season keeping them, so I know very little to nothing about them in
the
> grand scheme of things, but as one looks closely at them one discovers the
> whole universe (same thing John Muir said about studying a flower).
> I joined our local beekeepers association 5 years ago; which I highly
> recommend for anyone wanting to learn about people (and a little about
> bees). A lot of these folks are salt-of-the earth mountain people, women
in
> work boots (yumm), old timers and newbies alike. There's also a few
> commercial beekeepers who do things at an industrial scale, but in my burg
> there aren't many; mostly what they call hobbyists (I hate the word
because
> I take this stuff seriously, damnit!). Sometimes the guy from the
> university shows up. It's quite a mix.
> This year they did what they call a short course, 2-hrs for 2 nights.
It's
> geared for newbies. I've been to 3 of them now, including one from a
> neighboring county which was even more of a hoot. (The speaker held a can
in
> his hand as he presented and spit tobacco juice in it every so often.)
> I've watched over the years as people struggle between 2 worlds (me
> included). The one world is the world of dogma, where you follow the
rules
> and the traditions, and you don't ask too many questions, and you do
things
> because that's the way they were done, or that's the way they are done.
> This world flows into religion as well, doing what the authorities say and
> thinking what they say to think. We've all been there.
> The other world is the world of intuition, where you follow your heart and
> listen to the subtle communications from other worlds: the plant people,
the
> fairies in Ireland, the keepers of the trees, etc. I actually heard
> somebody once say that "all my senses were telling me <blank> but I did
the
> opposite. It makes you wonder, why, if all your senses are telling you to
> do something, wouldn't you do it? Yet we don't, time and again, because
the
> language is foreign.
> At the most recent meeting, there was a speaker, who, for the first time
in
> my experience, talked about keeping bees with no chemicals at all. Some
of
> the old timers snickered at this because they had been told by the ag
agents
> after living through their populations get decimated by varoa and tracheal
> mites that this was the only way (chemicals). This was what I heard when
I
> first started and I blindly followed their advice in a state of fear, even
> though "all my senses" were telling me otherwise. It was going against my
> intuition, but bees seem so complicated, and once you fork out $500 to get
> set up with your first hive and gear (bee suit, gloves, smoker, honey
> supers, hive tools, etc.), you don't want to have the bees die.
> As you might imagine, the topic of CCD came up. This speaker's attitude
was
> that this has been around before and a lot of it is from what he calls PPM
> (piss-poor management). The only real antidote to it, he says, is to
build
> strong hives. I came to this same conclusion because it is exactly the
same
> school of thought or principle as natural farming; I also came upon this
in
> my herbology practice in learning to use herbs to build health and
immunity,
> rather than to treat symptoms. These things seem so basic, and yet we
miss
> them again and again. Queens these days are often artificially
inseminated.
> Ohio State U. claims success with this in breeding mite-resistant bees,
and
> they might be right. But what about the next pest that comes along?
> The journey to enlightenment reveals itself in the realization of oneness
> with all things and practice of sacred communication. With the release of
> ego and ambition we can feel comfortable with our place in the cosmos,
> knowing that we have not tread upon others, and yet like the flower, can
> unfold into universal grandeur.
>
> Gene Monaco
> Knoxville, TN
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page