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Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

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Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#101

Post by voisin »

cryptonector wrote: post #53
ggm wrote: post #30

A different article I read this week says urban bees exceed the feeding capacity in the city in some places and we need to be more circumspect about who, and how many bees. More diverse pollination insects would probably be net beneficial in bee pollinated foods.

> and we need to be more circumspect about who, and how many bees. Urban beekeepers in low-capacity areas will give up when their hobby colonies fail. Let them.

That’s one approach. Or we could advocate for more pollinator friendly plantings on boulevards and the edges of parks, and advocate for the outright banning of pesticides/herbicides in parks and on lawns. I find it unconscionable that we have elevated green, non-native monoculture lawns to the highest order, allowing people to spray what they want and waste up to 75% of household water on irrigating their lawns for… the ego stroke of green lawns in August?

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#102

Post by pvaldes »

will5421 wrote: post #31
meerita wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And bees steal the polen and the nectar from flowers.

Bees steal nectar, not pollen, but in exchange the flower reproduces

People take honey, but in exchange bees receive a few things

1) Pillbox Housing. Expensive beehive, made from metal and wood, and with only a few narrow entries easy to defend.

2) Comfort. In a quiet sunny place without loud music or sounds. A lid protecting from rain and storms and walls able to stand winds guarantee a dry and warm inner area. A lot of clean wax combs ready to be occupied with minimum effort and a structure to put each comb apart exactly how bees like it.

3) Free medical care. Provided by the species with the most advanced medicine known in the universe.

4) Free emergency help. Including extra food rations in winter and beehive rescue in case of wildfire or flood

5) Bodyguard services. Anti bear stone walls, Anti-wasp electric fences and Bee-eater deterrents if needed. Banners against human trespassers and regulation discouraging thieves.

8) Holidays. Free vehicle transport to visit fields in bloom exactly in the be-est touristic season.

9) Dating services at intercontinental level

10) All you can eat buffet. Gardens designed specifically and seeded with the best international selection of premium nectar.

11) Water sources and ponds to drink

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#103

Post by civilitty »

abeppu wrote: post #82
depressedpanda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not predators hunting prey is part of any natural ecosystem. A necessary part. I don't know what it's like where you are from, but in general I'd say hunters care a lot more about, and do more for, nature in their local ecosystem than your average city dwelling vegan hipster.

I've heard people casually make the argument that human hunters function similarly to natural predators in terms of increasing population fitness -- but does that actually make sense? A natural predator is incentivized to identify and go after a weak prey animal, b/c it's easier. Maybe this shifts the prey population to be a bit faster, or have sharper reflexes or something. But a modern human hunter may feel drawn t…

What have those vegans done for animals? Just because they can’t stomach eating them doesn’t mean they actually “care” about animals enough to do something productive.

In the US, hunters have long spearheaded conservation efforts. Theodore Roosevelt said, over a hundred years ago:

> “In a civilized and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. The excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wildlife, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination.”

He a prolific hunter himself was responsible for significant expanding the national park system and founded the wildlife refuge system.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#104

Post by tptacek »

BbzzbB wrote: post #46
pell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or that dairy farms don't care about their cows If you go by the conditions the majority of milk cows in industrialized nations live under that is a very obvious conclusion.

That's particularly a US problem, ours are not crammed like sardine cans.

There are battery-farming operations all over Europe (particularly in the UK), and there are pasture farming operations all over the US.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#105

Post by tptacek »

cryptonector wrote: post #53
ggm wrote: post #30

A different article I read this week says urban bees exceed the feeding capacity in the city in some places and we need to be more circumspect about who, and how many bees. More diverse pollination insects would probably be net beneficial in bee pollinated foods.

> and we need to be more circumspect about who, and how many bees. Urban beekeepers in low-capacity areas will give up when their hobby colonies fail. Let them.

In the US, urban beekeepers are harming native pollinators by keeping livestock bees --- all honeybees are livestock in the US, where they're invasive.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#106

Post by cryptonector »

voisin wrote: post #100
cryptonector wrote: post #42

I highly recommend Top-Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health, by Les Crowder. My bees are treatment-free and going strong, and we'll be converting all of our Langstroth hives to top-bar hives this coming Spring. Basically, honeybee hives with mite treatment have high failure rates, and honeybee hives with no chemical treatments do better when the bees have been bred for mite resistance, so do the latt…

I am new to beekeeping this year and just trying to build my colonies up from the nucs I received. I have not done mite checks as I don’t want to kill a cup of bees every few weeks just to do the check, and a shocking number of beekeepers I’ve met have mentioned that they lost entire colonies as soon as they treated for mites. I desperately want to be treatment-free - if I pick up that book would the lessons be appli…

Starting from nucs is hard work. I also wouldn't bother testing for mites because killing a few hundred bees from a very weak colony is not really a good idea. Also, be very careful not to expose bees -especially young nurse bees, which don't fly yet- to the hot summer Sun -- I once killed hundreds more bees that way than I'd needed to for a mite test.

> I desperately want to be treatment-free - if I pick up that book would the lessons be applicable if I stuck with Langstroth hive bodies?

Yes!, yes quite!

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#107

Post by Retric »

pell wrote: post #39
mrweasel wrote: post #21

There's a lot of weird assumptions in the article. "Normal" beekeepers try to breed varroa resistant bees as well, but still trying to keep the non-resistant ones alive too. It might be faster to just let nature deal with the issue, but that means losing an insane amount of hives. It's basically the same as claiming that hunters don't care about animals or the forrest, or that dairy farms don't care about their cows.…

>or that dairy farms don't care about their cows If you go by the conditions the majority of milk cows in industrialized nations live under that is a very obvious conclusion.

Farmers want less stressed cows because they produce more milk. The underlying economics means they have other concerns, but even “factory” dairy farms will tend to optimize more for cow comfort than you might think.

People also overly focus on density without understanding cows are herd animals. They form dense herds even in empty fields.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#108

Post by kibwen »

tptacek wrote: post #105
cryptonector wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we need to be more circumspect about who, and how many bees. Urban beekeepers in low-capacity areas will give up when their hobby colonies fail. Let them.

In the US, urban beekeepers are harming native pollinators by keeping livestock bees --- all honeybees are livestock in the US, where they're invasive.

Honeybees aren't native to the US, but there are lots of native bee species. I see no reason to assume that every beekeeper is only in it for the honey.

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#109

Post by selimthegrim »

scruple wrote: post #77
mrweasel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://aabentlandbrug.dk/faq Inside a cow must have at least 6.6 - 8m2, depending on the size of the cow. Note that the rules are worse for cows breed for meat.

Interesting. Where I grew up, rural Ohio, was a massive dairy farm where the milk was put into container ships and sent overseas to... Denmark.

Danish dairy products have a huge market in Asia and the Middle East

Re: Natural beekeepers are the radical dissenters of apiculture

#110

Post by lukas099 »

pvaldes wrote: post #102
will5421 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bees steal nectar, not pollen, but in exchange the flower reproduces

People take honey, but in exchange bees receive a few things 1) Pillbox Housing. Expensive beehive, made from metal and wood, and with only a few narrow entries easy to defend. 2) Comfort. In a quiet sunny place without loud music or sounds. A lid protecting from rain and storms and walls able to stand winds guarantee a dry and warm inner area. A lot of clean wax combs ready to be occupied with minimum effort and a s…

I think the idea was that the native bees lose share of the resources to honeybees that are artificially supported. Which is not something I had thought about before.
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