Just wondering

[lovellkim]

I have been thinking about this for a while and hope I put it in the right words. Do the commercial bee keepers worry about all the people that are getting involved in bee keeping and see a problem with it? Also have people that started to do bees and started to grow there hive population and then had more people in the community get involved and have it hurt their business or there bees and how have you overcome that. The reason why I ask these questions I heard that my ifa stores around the area that I live is going to start to sell beekeeping supplies and bees. I hope you can understand my questions thanks so much. I have loved this form.

[Mr.Beeman]

The only one I met had a serious problem with it. But then again, he's the type to have problems with everybody no matter what the scenario is.

[Dave Burrup]

The only concerns I have heard voiced is the lack of care that seem to go so often with hobby keepers. A seemingly large portion of hobbyist buy into the non-treatment school of thought. This leads to dying, diseased hives that are robbed out by other hives, and thus the mites and disease are spread from hive to hive. I have two neighbors that want to get a hive, but I strongly discourage them because I know neither will take proper care of the hives. Other than this I like the interest that has developed for bees.
Dave

[squarepeg]

it seems to me that beekeeping is one of those pursuits that a lot of people find attractive at first, but then find it requires much more effort that they thought. in the end, i find that it is going to be a select few who follow through and keep going with it.

as far as the market goes there is a strong demand for local raw honey as the public is becoming increasingly interested in it thanks to all of the media attention in recent years. i think that most here will agree that there is more demand than there is supply for their honey.

[psfred]

The major problem that commercial beeks seem to have with hobbyists around here is that a guy starting out with one hive may not recognize a disease problem and then infect the commercial apiary with something like AFB. Not a major problem right here, since we now live in a "bee desert" -- very little forage since everyone sprays their lawns for clover and dandelions and what isn't lawn is farm field plowed up to (and occasionally into) the pavement, no weeds, cover corps, or grown up drainages allowed. No one keeps a huge apiary here, they have hive scattered all over instead, and have to move them around to get large crops of honey.

I've also heard complaints that the introduction of "foreign" queens results in aggressive bees when a fairly isolated commercial guy has developed a local strain of bees he prefers. Don't know the validity of that argument, but I can see the point if someone introduced Russians.

Peter