From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
>Such an ideological approach proposes that somehow, decades of beekeeping 
>experience is moot, that by avoiding "treatments" -- whatever that means -- 
>we can succeed where others have failed.

I don't think any experience is "moot".  When we first started keeping bees, we were both really turned off by the idea of using fluvalinate, coumaphos, 
menthol, TM, fumidil as well as the approach of feeding sugar routinely.  We 
gradually stopped using all of this stuff (never touched TM or fumidil), and we lost bees.  That was an ideological decision on our part, and our bees died. 

We did nothing to tell other people how to keep bees, and started doing 
research.

When we found Dee (and later Kirk Webster), we went to see these operations 
with our own eyes, and work the bees with our own hands.  We saw what was 
working for them, and we talked and talked, trying to get to the bottom of what was working and why.

As I stated before, what we write about (in our book and online) is based upon 
what works for us.  We recommended nothing that we weren't doing ourselves, and when we post online or give talks in person, we give updated information based on our experience.

I'm not sure how much more "practical" we should be?

>Now I get every vaccine I can; I had one today against "shingles".

Speaking of idealogical approaches....but if we can't differentiate between how we keep bees and how we treat people, we are in real trouble.

>As a NY State bee inspector I saw the results of treatment free beekeeping: 
>dead empty hives. That was the best case scenario.

...and as a NY state bee inspector, you reported here on Bee-L a 90% loss in 
your area a couple of years ago.  I dare assume that most of these were 
"treatment" beekeepers.

>The worst case was apiaries with dozens of hives sick and rotting hives with 
>American foulbrood. The treatment for that was a roaring bonfire.

i'm curious what you think we tell people about AFB and how to deal with it.

>But to suggest that ANYONE can do it, is to advocate a one size fits all 
methodology which fails to take into account local factors,

who suggested any such thing?  i believe our book is as far from "one size fits all" as one can get.  you can read the first bunch of pages online, but the introduction concludes:

"We don't pretend to present a recipe.  What we hope to convey is an understanding of how bees live, some overall management techniques and goals, and an overview of how bees function in the natural world so you can develop a mutually beneficial relationship with them.

A beekeeping recipe is the fish that one gives a man instead of teaching him to catch his own.  We endeavor to impart to you the knowledge you need to create your own management approaches based on what the bees need at any given time."

>...fails to take into account local factors, such as rampant foul brood, 
>migratory holding yards, marginal beekeeping conditions, bad stock, etc. etc.

Peter, should we be writing a book for beekeepers that want to keep bees in areas with rampant foulbrood, migratory holding yards, marginal beekeeping 
conditions (this one always makes me think of "The Life of Brian"....you may 
not have adequate conditions/forage to keep bees, but you have the "right" to 
keep bees just as a man without a womb has the "right" to have babies), or how to keep bees with poor stock?

>But what I object to the most is an anti-science, anti-business, anti-foreign rabid xenophobia.

i'm not even sure how to respond to that.  none of those apply to me, or anything written in our book or online.

>My chief point of course was that while you condemn this guy because he works for Bayer, as being wholly incapable of presenting reality unskewed by his bias;

i condemned no one...i pointed out that his job is to cast bayer in a good light.  ...and i should ask, what reality was he presenting?  the reality of a study he has not read and does not know the details of?  even without bias he has no "reality" to share in the matter of Jeff Pettis's study.


deknow

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