Greetings

Now that we have pretty well milked the SCI FI beekeeping scenario, I
suggest looking at the other side of the coin, how to keep bees without any
of that. I would like to think that the bees themselves could outwit the
various invasive pests visited upon us, but invasive pests have a very good
track record of prevailing.

But if significantly better bees cannot be gotten by conventional breeding,
perhaps it's time to look seriously at management issues. One lesson that I
got out of Tom Seeley's Arnot Forest study (as well as many other similar
stories) is that unmanaged colonies may have a certain edge. What gives them
that edge?

Is it the fact that we are not in the hives, mucking about, as Scott
Camazine suggested? Or is it the annual swarming which normally occurs? My
question is what would be the effect of keeping hives in two or three
stories, encouraging swarming, and harvesting only small amounts of honey if
it is really "in the way".

I am not talking about a way of managing bees for profit but to see if they
can be maintained in a healthier state by abstaining from most of the
conventional management practices. If this would work, it might be possible
to maintain unhybridized bees, which are certainly in danger of being lost,
the more we cross breed and tinker with them. 

pb

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