There has been some great feedback regarding the Wendell Berry quote- in
which he says (in part) that:

 

"We cannot know what we are doing until we know what nature would be doing
if we were doing nothing."

 

The quote is prefaced by the following from Mr. Barry to round-out the
thought:

 

"We have never known what we were doing because we have never known what we
were undoing."

 

Which I think gets to the crux of what Mr. Berry is trying to convey when
exploring this concept in his essay, 'Preserving Wildness'. To whit: If we
are students of nature and the biological processes that undergird it, we
can make better decisions in our husbandry (or in his case conservation)
efforts. 

 

So in the realm of practical beekeeping, I take this sentiment as
encouragement to take cues from unmanaged bees to see what I can incorporate
into my management practices - not necessarily as an edict to replicate the
unmanaged environment in my apiary. In other words, are there any
opportunities to improve my management as I consider (not exhaustive but
representative of some recent discussions):

 

1.	The nest sites and set-ups of unmanaged bees (i.e. thermal inertia,
entrance quantity and location, etc.).

 

2.	Varroa defense mechanisms (including lifestyle, tolerance and
resistance).

 

3.	Genetic differences and markers of local adaptation.

 

4.	Reproduction (timing, method, drone contribution, etc.).

 

5.	Others.

 

Many of the unmanaged dynamics are ill-suited to our managed goals, but some
of them (possibly including increased cavity resistance and no or limited
upper entrance) might be relatively easy updates which result in a net
benefit by better alignment with the bee's goals.

 

In general, I tend to personally approach it along the lines of Einstein who
famously observed, "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand
everything better."

 


             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html