Dee Lusby said; “See nothing organic about artificial feeds,
syrup,essential oils and supplements that actually aredetrimental to the
bees longterm needs.”
It seems to me that a distinction could be made between “natural”
beekeeping and “organic” beekeeping, and that in either case, where one
draws the defining line is somewhat arbitrary. Natural beekeeping would
be more along the lines of what the Lusbys do, and it is easy to see how
that would also qualify as organic beekeeping; no treatments, no
supplements, nothing. But then is it even more natural, and therefore
more “in the long term interest of the bees” to use Kenyan top bar hives
and let the bees decide for themselves what size cell they will make? When
it comes to natural, the minute humans get involved the question gets
raised as to where you draw the line. If you use a substance which is
naturally occurring in honey, such as formic acid, that might reasonably be
thought to go beyond what is natural, but then again it might not. After
all putting bees in boxes with rectangular frames and stamped out sheets of
foundation might not be considered a natural thing to do. But what the
heck.
I get even more confused when we talk about what is organic and what is
not. Some would say that what is organic is determined by the degree to
which you keep things natural, letting the bees find the strength to deal
with parasites and pathogens more or less on their own. Others would allow
organic to include the use of substances which occur in nature, like
essential oils and formic and oxalic acids, in ways which do not raise the
levels of those substances in the honey. Also, if you feed syrup at
critical points, in such a way as to prevent it from being moved into the
supers, is the honey you extract from those supers therefore not organic?
When we talk about what is organic are we talking about the process or the
product or both?
I like the idea of things being natural and organic, and I think it’s a
good strategy to not allow the bees to get too dependent, if at all, on
substances and treatments in order to stay alive. But surely there is
enough ambiguity in those terms to allow for some degree of flexibility in
methods. I need for there to be some flexibility because at my level of
beekeeping (4-8 hives) I can’t afford to keep risking all my colonies in
order to get to a place where they "might" survive without me doing
anything to keep them going. On the other hand I do want to be able to say
to people I give or sell my honey to that it is a natural and healthy thing
to eat.
Steve Noble
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