From: ddhess@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 21:13:08 -0000
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Just what is Biological Beekeeping?

I'm also tempted to wait and hear what others say but I know it won't
work if we all do that, so I'll go ahead and think out loud.

In general it's probably easier to say how something is not a part of
these sets rather than defining all of what is included.

Organic beekeeping: avoiding synthetic chemicals and pesticides. As
I understand it, organic practices allow non-synthetic controls so,
for example, you and use sulfur to control apple fungus even though
it may be worse on the environment than synthetic fungicides. What
about the use of synthetic materials in the hive - paints, glues,
plastics including plastic foundation? Isolated chemicals are easy
to test for, but I don't know if it would occur to people to look for
individual components of paints or plastics. Maybe someone with more
connection to the organic food industry can shed more light about how
such things are treated.

Biological Beekeeping: favoring natural approaches in beekeeping
methods over synthetic or human-determined tools --hmm, let me revise
that later. I get the sense you're trying to take the best of and
lessons from nature and apply it to modern beekeeping. "Poisons harm
more than their intended target." "Antibiotics select for
resistance." In this sense, you aren't practicing "natural"
beekeeping or trying to keep bees as close to a natural state as
possible. You still provide foundation, houses, maybe feeding - you
just try to have these tools capture features of natural beekeeping
most helpful to the bees - keeping cell-size in the range that
encourages the healthiest bees, optimizing broodspace and
ventillation in the hives, timing feeds of a composition that won't
throw the bees out of synch with seasonal patterns. There of course
will be some overlap with general good beekeeping - the difference is
the approach: practices inspired by biology rather than "because it
makes more honey if I do this". In this sense, Biological Beekeeping
is a philosophy, not a practice or set of practices.

Since there aren't any sweeping generalizations that would
characterize biological beekeeping as easily as organic agriculture,
the biological beekeeping community would have to set down what its ?
beliefs? are... what it considers to be the standards of biological
beekeeping. Hence this thread, I imagine. :) One thing I'd say we
pretty much agree on is avoidance of pesticides and antibiotics; in
that sense organic beekeeping might be a component of biological
beekeeping. Acceptable approaches to addressing the mite issues
include breeding, foundation with cell-size smaller than the non-
biological-beekeeping industry uses, open mesh floors or varroa
boards (ie "closed mesh" floors ;), drone trapping/culling. I'm
guessing mineral oil would be too foreign to be considered biological
beekeeping; grease patties / vegetable oil would probably be in the
same boat. Pheremones are probably kosher. I haven't heard from the
group any opinions as to whether fume-boards fit the bill or not.
Comb-storeage methods/chemicals could be another issue. Rendering of
wax? (don't know enough about that to say whether that would likely
be an issue or not.) Heat/filtration treatment of honey might be an
example of an issue relevant to organic honey but not biological
beekeeping.

Ok, so here's the catchy slogan / position for biological beekeeping:
"Humans working with nature for the betterment of the honeybee and
beekeeping." :)

So, what are some other issues Biological Beekeeping is or may be
concerned with: mite control methods, honey robbing, wax processing, hive
enhancements/features... ?

Sorry if this is a bit rambling and/or disorganized, but hey, so's my
brain. :)

-Don