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Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:26:20 -0400 |
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At 12:00 AM 7/30/2007, mark berninghausen wrote:
>On the other hand I will quote the reaction of a long time
>successful commercial beekeeper who when asked about his opinion on
>CCD said, "Work your bees. Good old fashioned beekeeping is what
>will carry you through. Work your bees."
As a very small hobbyist beekeeper (who still feels like a rank
beginner after 4 years) I am wondering about what parts of "working
your bees" are for increasing honey production, and what parts are
specifically for maintaining hive health? Of course maintaining hive
health is crucial for honey production, but things like moving frames
around to prevent swarming, feeding early in the spring to get
numbers up, reversing brood boxes in the spring, and even requeening
strike me as being mostly for the purpose of maximizing honey
production, not keeping the hive healthy. By healthy I mean able to
put by enough stores for their own use, and survive and thrive from
year to year with enough build up to swarm occasionally and keep up
the local population.
So it seems to me that if one were "working your bees" for hive
health alone, with no thought to maximizing honey production, there
would not be much to do besides inspection, monitoring and --
depending on one's beekeeping philosophy -- treating for
diseases/pests. Maybe swapping out broodnest frames for fresh
foundation occasionally to keep pesticide residues down. Am I missing
something here? What other "work" has the result of keeping/making
the hive healthier -- which does not necessarily mean any more
productive than necessary for the bees themselves -- and more
resistant to CCD?
I'd appreciate others' thoughts on this. Of course I realize that
most of us wouldn't be going through the whole exercise of keeping
bees if we didn't get at least some honey for ourselves, but I'm just
curious about the reasons for what we do, and what "working your
bees" means in the context of CCD prevention.
Thanks,
Diotima
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"If there is a better solution...find it" Thomas Edison
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Diotima Booraem, CPVA
Virtual Executive Assistance
http://www.virtualhelp.biz
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