Hi all
I don't agree with most of Sechrist's methods, but this description of "The Let Alone Method" seems most informative:
The Let Alone Method
This is a system of management in which the operator does not intentionally confine the queen to a certain part of the hive, but allows her to have free range as far as colony conditions permit, through the brood chambers and supers. She may be unintentionally confined and restricted in egg laying space by poor combs, by storage of nectar or honey in the brood combs, or by too few supers.
Although honey may be produced with the queen moving freely through the hive and establishing a brood nest anywhere, this method has little place in commercial honey getting. It is the one followed by the man who does little more than place bees in a good location, put on plenty of supers, take off honey, and market it. He hopes, by little attention, and by keeping many colonies, to get a large amount of honey with low per colony production.
While sometimes successful, this method is also the one in which "bad luck" is most often experienced. Seemingly simple, it becomes complicated through crowded brood nests, poor combs, much swarming, poor crops, poor wintering and all the ills that beekeeping is heir to, as well as by cross bees which become a nuisance and a danger except in isolated locations.
Operators using this method usually brush or shake bees from combs in great haste, injuring many, and surrounding themselves with a cloud of angry, stinging insects, ready to pounce on any exposed honey as soon as a hive is opened.
Robbing is prevalent and any disease is spread rapidly. It is becoming difficult to obtain locations where bees can be handled in this rough way; whereas the beekeeper who keeps his bees as gentle as he would if he lived in a city, experiences little difficulty in securing his choice of location.
The let alone method may be successful by chance, or when an expert operator uses it in locations where its use will not interfere with friendly associations with his neighbors.
HONEY GETTING
BY EDWARD LLOYD SECHRIST
1947
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