Gavin wrote:  Perhaps it is the intensive management rather than the breeding that causes the problems in this case?

I think we're on to something here.  It's not really the breeding, it's the "domestication" and demands.  We've basically taken a wild creature, we take care of it, breed it and feed it, manage and manipulate it's schedule, inject artificial substances to ward off infection and disease.  Then we place the bees in environments where we ask the colony to perform miraculous wonders. We're now finding some of the side effects, the consequences and the raminification, both positive and negative.
 
My 81-year old father bemoans the "death" of the soil on the farm where he was born.  The tenant dumps all kinds of chemicals (fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides) and the soil becomes nothing but a carrier to hold the seed.  We've killed off all the beneficial microbes.  And yet we're on this treadmill to squeeze every last kernel from every last acre to feed a growing demand.  We're capable of raising huge quantities of meat where the animal never touches the ground and often never sees real sunshine.
 
But don't get me wrong.  I am a firm believer in the stewardship of creation.  I believe nature can be used to benefit humanity.  I work my bees and have high expectation for them.  I excercise a great deal of management (and manipulation) for yields to meet a growing demand. I operate to give them every advantage to be healthy and prosperous, which in turns, helps me.
 
I guess my real question is where do we draw the line?  Where does our management become abusive and our intensive schedules become insane?
 
Grant
Jackson, MO


      

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