In message <[log in to unmask]>, Brian 
Fredericksen <[log in to unmask]> writes
>I see no reason why the commercial migratory beekeeping industry would 
>not be included in that
>broad definition of factory farming where profits come first and animal 
>husbandry second.

You really don't get the real picture here.

I cannot square any idea that commercial migratory beekeeping is 
exclusive of good animal husbandry. Yet several on here seem to have 
enormous antipathy to migratory beekeeping, throw in the word commercial 
and you can hear the silver crucifixes being pulled out of pockets.

Now, it is quite possible that UNsuccessful commercial migratory 
beekeepers do NOT use good animal husbandry, just as UNsuccessful 
amateurs, sideliners, and small scalers.

However, to be a successful commercial beekeeper you MUST have the bees 
welfare very highly placed in your mind. I for one resent any suggestion 
that somehow my management practices are inferior for the bees welfare 
in general.

However it IS true that compromises are made and  being a hard line 
purist in one way or another and never compromising does paint you into 
a corner that can give rise to serious problems.

Migratory is NOT a problem. Bees on an abundant crop to work are always 
more content and prosperous than ones kept in one place through all the 
flows and dearths that often means.

Commercial is NOT a problem. Truly commercial maximises the positive 
conditions for the bees as the living depends on it. Only thing I hear 
about some US practices that I feel is alien to my thinking is the 
massive drops of colonies (what some are calling feedlot beekeeping) 
which just has to have the local resources overstretched.

I get the impression some would like to eliminate commercial beekeeping. 
The denigrative term 'Big Honey' was used. Why so? Does the public not 
have a right to buy honey at an affordable price? Of course most of that 
comes from the bigger enterprises so are you proposing that honey should 
become a high priced rarity? Probably not, but it would be an unintended 
consequence and suck in even more imports.

The term factory farmed is just so wide of the mark. Bees like to work. 
Give them suitable work and they will do it all the time.

And btw..............those poor forced labourers that we coerce this 
honey out of in summer to the detriment of their welfare? Funnily enough 
there is a direct correlation between how much honey they bring in in 
summer with how well they survive the following winter. But then that 
will put my profits up so I suppose thats a bad thing..........
-- 
Murray McGregor

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