Greetngs, again:

(Revised Version)

“Would some of our ‘purist’ colleagues refuse antibiotics or other
lifesaving drugs to their own children when they are ill?  -Or let
them die, rather than be weakened by ‘dopes’"?

First, I believe children and honey bees are two separate animals.
Second, for the above analogy to work, I should deliberately expose my
children to disease, a la Spartan, to see which one survives, for I
believe it was a beekeeper’s deliberate attempt to import, to *maximize
his profit*, an infected foreign stock, thus opening the Pandora’s Box,
unawares.  Third, though not a “purist,” I feel uncomfortable with the
notion that one species should play God, determining which other species
should live or die.

I too abhor any other species standing in the way of my beekeeping: AFB,
EFB, mites, ants, spiders, beetles, other bees, dragonflies, martins,
woodpeckers, possums, skunks, snakes, neighbors, alfalfa growers that bale
too early, and other beekeepers in the area who must compete against me,
or worse, breed mites inadvertently, like I do.  Isn’t this speciel
[species] prejudice, though?  Aren’t they all “God’s creation” as well?
Why are the mites here in the first place?  (They are everywhere in
similar forms.  In fact, one of the best strategies in life is being
parasitic: mites, honeybees, beekeepers, politicians, government
employees, HGMO, and lawyers, to name a few) To press on, who gave us the
right to kill one species over the other?  The extinct Dodo bird comes to
my mind.

To be fair to others in the chemical camp, though, if we are really living
in a world where bees can no longer exist on their own, what kind of
legacy are we passing onto our children and their children?  We all abhor
aerial spray, yet insist on using strips.  Why the double standard?  Why
is one instance of using chemicals okay while another instance is not?
The cotton grower, too, is trying to make his cottn’ pick’n living.

My not treating bees will not affect any other beekeepers in the vicinity:
1) There are already more feral bees in the south and even more further in
Deep South than a northern beekeeper can possibly imagine and their swarms
are increasing each year, 2)  Feral bees are doing fine without anyone
bothering to check mites drops on them.  Why?  By our industry standard
they all should have perished a long time ago, 3) Moving bees around the
continent has spread more disease than, say, a possible local infection:
consider the hive beetles now, 4) We all agree that a complete mite
removal is impossible, after all, and finally 5) A beekeeper weakens his
bees by constantly insulating bees with medications, making sickly  bees,
thriving within a bubble, thus impacting his neighbor when it pops.

As Bob points out, he has yet to find any commercial operator using a SBB,
among others, for example.  That drug regiment has not changed at all for
a century, hence killing my bees in the long run.  Nobody has done any
sustained study on non-treatment.  If anyone is listening, I would like to
suggest the following: capture feral swarms, give them empty frames with
no foundation [small cell, finally], leave’em alone.  If they die, do it
again.


Yoon

Wish Jim were here.

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