Hi Dee and Everyone,

>Say alternative to langstroth hives gained acceptance in USA...

I've kept track of the hits on my website since it's inception. The
beekeeping part of the site is basically divided into three sections:
General Beekeeping,  Small Cell, and Top Bar Hives. Until this last year,
the majority of hits were connected with pages concerning oxalic and
powdered sugar treatments. But over this last year, the emphasis has shifted
to the top bar section. It now gets about 60% of the hits, with the
treatments and then small cell getting the remainder.

If I remember correctly, there are about 1600 commercial beekeepers in the
US.  But there are estimates that there are 100 times that many hobby or
amatuer beekeepers. It seems that, there might be a chance, that the
priorities of the majority of beekeepers could be a little different than
those of the commercial guys. Not too many of them are concerned about
saving agriculture by migrating to California and pollinating almonds. And
after this year, there might not be as many commercial guys interesting in
doing the Almond thing either ;>)

The modern Lang hive is a good hive. It's functional, somewhat standardized,
and beekeepers have lots of experience with it. But it's not the only option
available for beekeepers. And its certainly not the best option in some
circumstances. Some commercial beekeepers might be suprised to hear this.

I remember seeing a old photo of a crowded street in China. The people all
had the same kind of pants on. They were the same style, the same color, the
same material, and from the looks of things the same size. Now those pants
were pretty functional, somewhat standardized, could be easily swapped and
were apparently economic to produce. They were probably good pants.

But for some reason they just didn't catch on in America. And I bet almost
no one in China wears them anymore either. When given a choice people will
choose what fits their needs. Until recently in the US beekeeping scene,
most beekeepers simply didn't know that they had any kind of choice.

I didn't. So when I stopped wrangling bees for money and went amatuer, I
just sort of miniaturized what I had known as a commercial beekeeper, tiny
extract, manual uncapping knife, little bottling tanks,etc. But after that,
I found that running tbhs presented a whole different dimension/focus to
beekeeping. I hadn't experienced this with the standard equipment/commercial
experience, even in there miniaturized form. And from my perspective it's a
much more suitable focus for amatuer beekeeping. In fact it could open the
beekeeping door to some people who would not otherwise be interested or able
to keep bees.

Regards
Dennis

 

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