Beekeeping is Very Simple

Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000
From: Allen Dick <allend@INTERNODE.NET>
Subject: Beekeeping is Very Simple

I’ve been thinking.

Over the years we see a lot of posts on BEE-L, sci.ag.bee, and elsewhere in which people are — basically — worrying about their bees. There is a blizzard of replies in which other people try to guess what is the problem. All of us worry. I know I do, and it’s usually when I know I’ve ignored one of the basics, or tried to get fancy.

The thing is that bees — we are told by good authority — have managed to survive in widely varying conditions without — or in spite of — mankind’s assistance since time immemorial. So why do we worry? If we put enough good bees into the right number of good boxes in a good place and watch for disease and predators, and feed them if they get too light, why should we worry?

I think we worry mostly because we want to exceed the natural level of success of bees in terms of multiplication, survival, and production of hive products, and we often do it in locations that may not favour bees. As a consequence, we place heavy demands on the bees.

From time to time, I think we need to sit back and realise that the bees usually do fine by themselves if we have followed the mainstream practices outlined in all the books and avoided oddball ideas or tricky manoeuvres. Some of the books get into strange manipulations like Demareeing and shook swarming, but if one sticks to the simple basics, there is little likelihood of serious problems. If we keep it simple we have a lot less worries.

Basically, bees need to have good nutrition, good quarters, and a good location. Beyond that, nature will ensure that there is reasonable success. In today’s environment, some awareness of detection and prevention disease and predators is necessary in addition, but here again, simplicity and conservative approaches pay off in high success rates.

That’s why we suggest that beginners get more than one hive and also that they identify someone local who has had good success over the years — in the opinion of his/her peers, not, necessarily him/herself — and do as (s)he does. With several hives, the natural failure rate will not normally leave one without bees, although a loss here or there is perfectly normal. Beginners need to know that commercial operators run thousands of hives profitably, and some seldom do more than glance under the lid once in a while to ensure there are still bees there and that they look OK. Sure they take some losses, but they always have a (simple) plan to make up for them.

Bees are tuned to work, ‘straight from the factory’. The more one plays with the bees, the more risk of failure or trouble there is. It’s much like a modern car: if you do the regular preventative maintenance and do checkups periodically, reliability is pretty well assured. If you try to soup up your machine or alter the factory configuration, you are asking for reduced reliability, and moreover no one will stand behind you to make things right. You MAY get improved performance, but you may also have bad economy — or even a wreck.

The best advice is to keep it simple and let the bees do what they have been doing for millennia.

allen