From: "Helmut E. Garz" <hommes@olympus.net>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 13:02:51 -0700
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Organic / biological beekeeping

Hi to all.
Presenting ( In case you have not yet read it) A Mister Charles Martin Simon
of hard lesson beekeeping featuring an article in July's 01 Beeculture ,
page 37 . His approach I like because it opened my eyes to something I was
ask to do about 4 weeks ago . Now I ask myself why I went through 8 hours of
painstaking labor to mess with natural combworks in two 9 inchers without
frames.
Never done to learn, EVER

This article is rather lengthy and I am not able to reprint this because of
ignorance in these matters and time.
But to sum it up : This fellow having gone through years of pain in bee
management is somewhat , if not totally off the beaten beekeeping track .
It appears to me even more "Natural' than Dee's approach. He developed 10
principles : No 1: Work with nature , not against her. 2: Profit doesn't
mean a whole heck of a lot if you are dead. 3 : Dead bees make no honey.4:
Don't fight it. 5: Beekeeping is not about honey. 6: It's not about money.7:
It's about survival. 8: Forget everything you ever learned and start
observing what is really going on . 9: Leave your bees alone . 10: Leave me
alone . Sure, I'm crazy, and proud of it.

My observation : It relates to comb creation. Whenever I forget to replace
drawn full frames out of a super when harvesting with empty one's and came
back a week later , the empty space was solidly loaded with full capped
combs every which way. This never happens when I replace even with drawn
frames . It takes them forever to fill'em. Not to talk about foundations.
Here is just the last quote from the author of the article : ----
"Furthermore , I have observed that the harder you fight to keep the bees
alive , the faster they die.Cut them loose, give them freedom , the freedom
to die as well as the freedom to live, and they live better."
Oh, by the way : lactic acid is a preservative bees produce for their "Bee
Bread". ( So much for natural additives such as formic acid).
Depending how many drones of different genetic backgrounds it took for the
queen to mate one must consider variations of different families within the
colony and therefore all colonies have different traits . It's best to leave
the "Management " to themselves because THEY are under orders of natural law
and follow it . We should keep to our selves and not dictate to other
creatures which are trying hard to survive under the auspices of human
interference. I do not and will not sit on the high human horse to be the
"Dominion " manipulator. At least I try , but old habits die hard.
Happy beeing
Helmut