From: Barry Birkey <barry@birkey.com>
Date: Mon Dec 18, 2000 8:38am
Subject: Re: girls on small cells, regressing bees

> Robert, if you want good general colonies like good breeder colonies and
> want to be a good biological beekeeper, you will not use artificial foods
> and feeds what-so-ever. Also you do not want to give your bees habits of
> dependency. You want them to survive on their own and if they cannot then
> you have altered them into submission and this is not natural.

Hi all -

It appears we are going to jump right into the core of what biological
beekeeping is! I trust we can dissect this issue with all the input from
everyone and try to get some kind of understanding.

It seems to me that if one is to truly go down the road of beekeeping al
natural, then we either do it all the way or don't do it at all. I think Dee
has a point about not superficially bolstering our bees up on various low
level aids. Does not this still give our bees a crutch when nature may be
selecting a group of bees out but we keep fighting it? How can we really
know what we are working with if we continue to give support to the bees?

I made the decision when I started my two colonies on 4.9 to not intervene
with any substance and let nature take its course. I will still manipulate
the hive if need be but I don't want to _help_ the bees in any way that will
make them more dependant on me.

Am I being too idealistic? I don't know but I guess time will tell. Thoughts
from others?

-Barry