Just Shaking My head

[Oldtimer]

I admire people that can write for magazines or journals like this. If they are on a deadline you should try your hand,..or pen at it and see what you can do,...good luck .

I will be awaiting your insightful and "profound" article in ABJ or BC about beekeeping,..M. Palmer.

Well looks like someone just found a new person to admire!!

And more insights to look forward to.

[PCM]

Must say;
Mike Palmer is not only a writer, he is also a great public speaker.

He was a speaker for the Missouri State Beekeepers Association this Fall in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

PCM

[StevenG]

Ooops! I'll have to go back and,..check them out.

Be prepared for some adverse, maybe some harsh criticism.

Whaa happened M. Palmer,.did the article you submitted for the Dec. issue get rejected?

Cute sniping... so when can we read your submissions to BC?
I imagine more than one of us writes as part of our work, and have deadlines to meet. We have to be creative and informative. We also know editors make value judgments as to what is worthy of publication, and what is not. Some people like fluff and inanity, others do not. It's a free country, read it or skip it.
My point is that in this age of diminishing financial resources for many folks, choices are made of which publications are worth the subscription price. For me, a journal that takes an obvious political slant, or regularly prints stuff like the article in question, moves further down my list of "must" haves.
Regards,
Steven

[deknow]

...I don't have the intellect of some well known authors.

heh, i wouldn't wish "the intellect of some well known authors" on my worst enemy!

Ramona's father tells the story of the politician out kissing babies....when he comes across the ugliest baby he has ever seen. This activity usually requires praising the parents for such a beautiful baby...but he must also make sure not to get caught lying...so what comes out is:

"Now _that's_ a baby!"

deknow (who almost hit post with the word "intellect" misspelled)

[winevines]

Native Americans practiced things like thanking an animal they killed for meat, or symbolically honoring a tree they felled to make a canoe. They felt it was part of being in harmony with the natural world they were a part of. Is there something so wrong with these concepts that they should be ridiculed?

Not that I am of "of the cloth" so to speak, but having spent a lot of time with Native American Indian people, what they did historically was to offer up things in response to taking. So for example they would leave tobacco or pollen or something like that when killing an animal or felling a tree- that was there acknowledgment that they took something and that they gave back something in return. Seems to me we would be in a better place if more people viewed the world that way. They also believe that we are all related, and everything is connected... plants, animals, humans, birds, fish... but they have a much more poetic way of saying that which I would not waste repeating here since so many of you seem to think this is all hogwash hippie tree hugger talk.

While the article that started this whole thread may have been real high on the "fuh fuh" end of the ricter scale....I gotta say that I totally support the concept of communication with the natural world. Especially having just spent an evening with Cleve Backster, the father of "Plants Have Feelings" and author of some of the seminal work on Primary Perception (my husband helped out with some of those original experiments in the 1960's and I even met that famous phylodendron). Look the dude up and see for yourself. He aint your stereotypical "tree hugger" - some of his background includes founding the CIA polygraph unit in the 1940's

[wildflowerlanehoney]

i cant believe i just read all of this......

[HVH]

I did not discount anyone's thoughts of the article except, perhaps, for the highly insulting "nut-case" remark by HVH. As I said before, I find much of value and use in Ross Conrad's book and in videos that I have seen. Also my discussion with him in Maine impressed me as to his knowledge and his dedication to beekeeping. HVH's derogatory remark, in my opinion, is ill-informed and wrong.

Wayne

Your right - "nut case" was a bit harsh. I went back and read that post and thought it was a bit insulting. My apologies to anyone that happens to enjoy that style of writing.

[HVH]

MP... ... Priceless.

The editor is full of it... sure we all can be amazed by the social order of a colony... but he just needs a date WITH A HUMAN!!! Bees are a huge part of my life... But my wife and children are more important... the time that he spends blowing kisses at nurse bees, he could be spending with his family...

I spend hours upon hours at a time observing... but because I have to in order to be precise in my research... not because the bees and I are forming some sort of bond... What a dope... BC should really consider drug screening...

BEFORE YOU SEND YOUR HATE MAIL!!!

I have not read the article... wouldn't care to... just a simple opinion based on what I have read here, and in no way am I truely knocking the editor... just some of the things that he has said... I hear this sort of "mumbo jumbo" all the time... I will say that bees that are worked daily, will become more acclimated to your presence... But come on... Gifts to win their hearts?? Does anyone actually think that they are looking up at you from the frames saying "yay! the martian god has returned!"... think again...

I suspect your visceral response is similar to mine for the same reason - a background in science. You can't do research for many years without being a facts junky. My mistake is to think that others reason similarly and they just don't.

[valleyman]

I suspect your visceral response is similar to mine for the same reason - a background in science. You can't do research for many years without being a facts junky. My mistake is to think that others reason similarly and they just don't.

I disagree with you. It doesn't take a background in science to think similarly. But it does take a lifetime of developing common sense. But then again maybe I do agree with you as common sense is supported by science in almost all cases, and vice-versa.

[HVH]

Sorry if the implication was an if-and-only-if statement. Many disciplines deal in logic while many of the liberal arts are more emotive. Some of us just aren't wired for the emotive approach to life. I used to watch Bob Ross on PBS on occasion because I was truly amazed with what this guy could paint in short order. I just had to tune out all the touchy feely remarks and enjoy the paint job.

[Deeptime]

yep, my reaction was the same, "this guy has some serious New-Age issues".

I'm not for industry-farming our bee relationship into being just another input to our food factory, but jeezo-pete, leaving a few hairs as a sacrifice???

[mmiller]

i cant believe i just read all of this......

I feel the same way...

[honeydreams]

One thing not pointed out here about Ross's Artical, Is one thing that he points out very well, and it applies to all beekeepers. Some beeks will do anything to boost production even to the point of lossing the hive over the winter for a few extra pounds of Honey. Or compleatly egnore their bees and let them suffer from diesease and parasites. And if people treated their dogs and cats like some beekeepers treat their bees. they would go to jail for animal crulity. Now I am para praraphrasing his words do to the fact i don't have my copy of BC infront of me. But if my memory serves me that was the first two paragrafts. So maybe his writings struck a nerve as well with those that want to tear him down?

[kwest]

hairs is all that he leaves. Id fill jipped. I alway prick my finger and give em a few drops of blood on the landing board. what do you guys give em? sounds like someone has a real problem with worshiping his bees. that is not who he should be giving the credit to.

[StevenG]

For me, there is a difference between "touchy-feely" and "dating" my insect friends (or my dogs, for that matter) and the Judeo-Christian concept of the stewardship of creation. It really chaps my butt that a few beeks have as their economic model installing packages at the beginning of the season, then taking all the honey, then either selling off or killing off the bees. It's one thing to sell them off, but ....

As several have pointed out, we are responsible for the bees in our care. Of course we harvest honey, wax, propolis, and whatever we can get from them. But most of us realize that if we take care of the bees, they'll take care of us. Same thing is true of all our endeavors, whether we farm, ranch, or work in corporate America and have to deal with people instead of insects or animals. The successful farmer or rancher knows this truth also... take care of the land, or the livestock, and they'll take care of you. Exploit it, your profits may be higher in the short term, but eventually it will catch up with you. Or with your successors.

And while I'm on my soap box, what really frosts me are those "religious" people who think the verses in the book of Genesis in the Jewish-Christian scriptures speaking of "dominion" means exploitation, instead of stewardship of creation. All great religions have a concept of stewardship of creation, reflected also in, as has been pointed out, Native American and other "nativistic" religions. For most however, that concept is honored more in the breach than in the observance, and more's the pity.

I for one didn't knock Conrad for his concepts of the care of creation, but for other reasons. I still think that was a waste of ink and space that could have been put to better use.
Now, I apologize for the soap box....
Regards,
Steven

[honeydreams]

Steven Well said.

[BeeMan_2010]

A-man Steven Well said!! I'll give you a double

[MastoDon]

Maybe the author of that article belongs in the same classification as Timothy Treadwell, the apparently spacey Californian who lived with "his" brown bears in Alaska with his girlfriend, until one of the critters attacked and feasted on him in his tent a few years ago.

[Michael Palmer]

I just had to tune out all the touchy feely remarks and enjoy the paint job.

You want another nice little tree. Then put one right over here. It's really ok. It's your painting. See, isn't that a nice little tree.

Brush, brush, brush, brush...

[Mike Snodgrass]

Maybe the author of that article belongs in the same classification as Timothy Treadwell, the apparently spacey Californian who lived with "his" brown bears in Alaska with his girlfriend, until one of the critters attacked and feasted on him in his tent a few years ago.

Feasted on him and his girlfreind! That i would call the extreme of "Unrealistic expectations of the Human/Earthly creature interface"! Bees, i think you'll get a fair better treatment from them than you would a Grizzly! But, i digress since this has now reached biblical overtones!!!