Natural beekeeping is a new way to keep bees. It has a new focus based on two precepts:
The beekeeper takes the bee, a wild creature, and installs him in a box on the ground. That box can be opened, the bees inspected, and the honey harvested without physical destruction of the bees or their comb. How convenient, for the beekeeper.
But that convenience can be a curse to the bees. They can be located in environments that don't meet their needs and in areas that they would not normally be found. However convenient it is for a beekeeper to get into a hive, it always negatively impacts the bees to a greater or lesser extent.
It's actually much harder to do no harm, than most beekeepers realize. And it can take decades of beekeeping experience before a beekeeper realizes that the beekeeper, rather than the bees and bee disease, is the major source of many beekeeping troubles experienced today.
A bee colony's function and organization are intimately intertwined with their nest. It is the very foundation of the honeybee colony superorganism. A nest is more than a place to hang out and store food. Colony functions resulting from the complex interaction of bee biology, seasonal change and the environment are enhanced by the nest structure.
Modern beekeeping promotes intrusive beekeeping practices. Most of these beekeeping practices are more harmful than generally recognized. The pathetic condition of domestic bees, kept the modern way, is the result.
Today, a beekeeper who let's his bee manage themselves, with minimal interference, is considered negligent at best, by the beekeeping community. But more often than not, that negligent beekeeper's bees are healthier than those of the beekeeping community at large.
It's essential for a natural beekeeper to KNOW both the benefits and the consequences of any intrusion into the broodnest. It's not enough to think, or wish or hope any intrusion, at any time, is ok. It is not!
It's not good enough to do what everyone is doing, unless you want your bees to look like everyone else's. And if you don't know what the majority of the bees are like in this country, just read the popular press. It's doom and gloom all the way. And not without good reason. The popular press gets its information from the best and brightest in the commercial bee industry.
A beekeeper's first priority is to learn enough about the bees, so no harm is done. Then it's possible, as one's education and experience increase, to work with the bee's nature rather than against it.
A beekeeper's main focus should be environmental and external to the hive. Does the environment meet the bee's needs? Does it provide enough food, water, and protection from climatic extremes? Is it as free from environmental pollution/contaminates as possible?
If not, then it's the beekeeper's responsibility to makeup for any environmental lack. He can move the hives to better pasture. Provide water or supplemental feed. Shelter from the wind. Shade from the heat. Protection from pests and pesticides. Then a beekeeper does what he does best, and what the bees can't do for themselves. That is, handle the externals. And let the bees do what they do best, handle almost everything inside the box with minimal interference.
And it's not good enough to treat bees to industry standards unless you want your honey and beeswax to be as contaminated with pesticides as everyone else's. Did you know that the federal government is now monitoring beehive products for contamination, just as they do other processed agricultural products?
And for good reason. Researcher have found significant levels of pesticides while looking for the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder. Some of the contamination found was beyond allowable limits. And much of it originated with improper or illegal pesticide use by the beekeeper.
So much for honey's inherent healthy qualities. So much for pure! If you want that kind of honey and wax, just run your hives like everyone else does. You'll get it! But if you want that pure, natural honey you'll have to run them another way.
A beekeeper's second priority is to know enough about the bees and hive products, so there's no harm done to the honey, pollen, propolis or the beeswax. Today, it's not enough to say honey is pure if you don't know it's pure. Because if you don't know for sure, it probably isn't, unless you are running your bees in a natural way. Then you will have the best products possible.
Bees are very adaptable, resilient creatures who can tolerate a wide variety of seasonal and environmental changes. But they are less tolerant of changes to their nest, which is built for the lifespan of the colony. Interference there, often results in subtle, long term consequences.
When bees construct a natural nest in a suitable cavity, located near adequate food and water, they will reproduce and thrive without any intervention from man. Feral colonies demonstrate few problems with disease or pests. And they have done so for millenia without man's help.
This is not a personal theory of mine. I've experienced both ways of keeping bees for myself. I've kept commercial bees since 1968. Then, I was sold on the intensive, invasive, chemical treadmill most beekeepers find themselves on today. I followed the latest research and ran my bees in the most modern way possible. I simply didn't know any better. I knew all about bee literature. But not much about the bees!
And I've run them the natural way since 1996. I got off hard pesticides in 1996. Tried small cell in 2000. Moved to natural comb in 2002. And never looked back. There's simply no comparison between how I keep healthy, productive, prolific, untreated bees today and how I kept them before.
My small cell experience indicated that something was very wrong with modern beekeeping. A clean broodnest, combined with a change in cell size, produced healthy, productive colonies that thrived without treatment. And they required minimal management. That's the upside of small cell beekeeping.
But that same experience and my natural comb observations indicated there was something wrong with small cell beekeeping as well. The importance of cell size was a big step in the right direction. But it was just one step and it didn't go far enough. Small cell beekeeping promotes many of the same intrusive beekeeping practices which so negatively impact colony health. It is just conventional, commercial beekeeping with the same focus and priorities, but with a different cell size.
And beekeepers have become very polarized over small cell issues. As a result, small cell beekeeping concepts are inflexibly stuck. Many concepts neither follow the bees or are natural regardless of what's claimed.
Organic has many of the same problems found in the small cell camp. Organic bees can be run with the same conventional, commercial focus.
Natural Beekeeping was selecting as it reflects an entirely new focus. Using 'Natural' denotes a flexible way to modify concepts when needed as beekeepers learn more about their bees and how to cooperate with them. That provides for a great degree of management freedom. It emphasizes our environmental responsibility. And provides a level of credibility and accountability to the honey consumer.
Natural is what all consumers expect their honey to be. And it's what most beekeepers want as well. Yet, there's a big disconnect between the methods most beekeepers use to get honey, and how they think about and market it. It's as if honey has some intrinsic, magic ability to transform itself from today's agricultural commodity to the natural sweetener of the past.
It's very simple. A natural beekeeper lets the bees do what they do best.
So, what's a beekeeper to do?
So, what shouldn't a beekeeper do?
Now's the time. Natural beekeeping isn't about equipment. It's about keeping bees in a new way. And it requires a different mental focus. With this focus you can be a natural comb beekeeper today. Management and equipment may eventually change. But the big change will be bee health. And the consequential simple management that occurs when a beekeeper works with the bees rather than against them. That's a different beekeeping experience.
This focus isn't arbitrary. Most beekeepers end up with this focus when they see how much better the bees do with minimal interference.
Natural beekeeping resembles that done by Langstroth before he invented the modern hive. He lived in a time swept up with concepts of industrialization. At that time beekeepers applied these concepts to reap the benefits of industrialized beekeeping. It was a time when nature was seen as something to be conquered or mastered. Some advantages were gained, but much was lost when the natural broodnest structure was replaced by a man made approximation.
Natural beekeeping restores much that has been lost through the industrialization of beekeeping.
Natural beekeeping can be a humbling experience. I know, because I was a commercial beekeeper. All that intensive management made me feel real important. I thought, all those practices had to be done or the bees couldn't survive, let alone thrive. I was a bee god! Natural beekeepers have found that less management equals better bees.
Now, I work my bees, mostly because I need the experience and not because the bees need my management. I'm liberated from a sense of time pressure and worry. It is said in my wife's culture, "Bees, no problem man."
The ability for a man to provide the best possible husbandry and produce the best products possible using his head, hands, heart and a few simple tools is very satisfying. It's a rare experience in our post industrial, digital world.
Designing, building, stocking, and harvesting honey, from a top bar hive managed from a natural comb perspective, is one of my most satisfying beekeeping experiences. And I've received email from other beekeepers, that attest to the same.
If I were starting over in beekeeping, I would standardized on a top bar hive design with a natural beekeeping focus.
Copyright © 2001-2009 BWrangler Free for Private Use. All Other Rights Are Reserved.
Wrangler Sites: BWrangler - Cycle Busting - Rock Fire Wrangling - Paleo Wrangling
