Contradictory advice is not peculiar to bee-keepers and bee-keeping-it pervades the world ! The present writer has long since concluded that full advantage of expert advice can only be taken by those who know enough about the subject to know if the expert is right or not ! Regulation fees can be paid to members of almost every profession, only to find out later that the advice received could have been much better. So it seems beekeepers have little ground for complaint. 

In fact, bee-keepers can quite easily apply certain rules of examination to any advice given, and rely upon the deductions they make for themselves. A few pertinent questions should be honestly answered such as : Does the method recommended result in a honey harvest good for the season and place? Does it require the devotion of undue time to the hives and stocks? Does it disturb the bees unnecessarily? Does it involve working with the bees or attempts to dominate them? Does it require many and expensive gadgets ? Is swarming avoided or "prevented" ?

To the answers he will apply the rule, that is to select the method which results in getting honey as easily as possible with the simplest apparatus, with the least upset to the bees and which so accords with the instincts of the bees that they are kept happy, content, and steadily working all through the season. Where books are concerned the date of ·writing and publication should be noted · for many were' written too long ago to be of service in apiary management today. All books about bees are interesting but comparatively few are reliable guides.

Where lecturers are concerned personal vanity or "cleverness" should be regarded as danger signals, while experience alone cannot be relied upon, for many bee-keepers of long experience have experienced only that which should be avoided. Someone once said that "Experience is not what happens to a man but what a man does with what happens to him," and that is surely true in bee-keeping. Yet many "experienced" bee-keepers make the same mistake year after year and cannot believe it to be a mistake; to give but one example, he who seeks for queen cells will surely find them, not perhaps the first time the stock is overhauled, nor perhaps even the second time, but almost certainly at the third or fourth examination. He then proudly asserts that his bees "always prepare to swarm” and expects to confound those who voice the experience that many stocks of bees will work and give good harvests for years without swarming.

Oh, no, it is not so very difficult for the veriest novice to find his way through a maze of contradictory advice. And it should always be remembered that something useful can be gleaned from every lecture, and from every book, and keenness to find the gold among the dross will add zest to the pursuit of the craft. 

M.M.H., in "Bee Craft," December 1947



 

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