Hi Dave,

>if, by their diligence, they achieve 4X amount of honey, then they can 
> still survive if 3X is taken away.

But why 4X?  Why not 10X or 100X?  It seems to me that enough and a little 
extra just in case is all that bees have an incentive to naturally 
produce.  After that, why not produce more offspring (swarms) instead of 
producing extravagant surpluses?  Is it natural for any wild animal to 
produce four times as much milk as its babies need?  I suppose squirels 
might store away far more nuts than they need, but they have issues of 
waste and competition that are different.

>This is the premise that beekeeping is founded upon and if it were wrong
>then we would have seen bee stocks dwindling over the thousand or so
>years that we have any sort of record of.

I'm not sure I followed your point here.  Are you saying that beekeepers 
have over most of the last thousand or so years simply robbed surpluses, 
and that populations managed that way haven't suffered?  I'm inclined to 
think that a lot of my manipulations as a beekeeper should be aimed at 
redirecting the bees from swarming to extravagant honey production.  And by 
providing hives, by putting queens in otherwise doomed colonies, by making 
divides in ways that are more efficient than natural colony reproduction 
(i.e. swarming), etc., I can compensate for hindering their reproduction.

>Regardless of whether you require the drones for breeding purposes, you
>will gain more of a honey crop from bees whose needs for drones are
>satisfied, than from colonies that are under artificial stresses, due to
>shortage of drones.

You say this pretty definitively.  I've heard things like this a number of 
times, but I've never really understood why people say this?  Assuming this 
is true, is the mechanism (an explanation) known?  Even if it's true, if we 
don't know what the mechanism is, it seems we might find a way around the 
issue.  We do lots of other things to 'fool' the bees: we switch positions 
of hives to strengthen weak colonies, we use various 'tricks' to get 
colonies to accept foreign queens, etc., etc.  Why, when it comes to 
drones, do we have to just submit?

>it is still worthwhile
>to work on the basis that if you work 'with' the bees, you will achieve
>more than by trying to work 'against' them.

Certainly, but I think part of this is 'convincing' the bees to work 'with' 
you.  I don't want to be working 'against' them, but I'd rather they 
work 'with' me than for me to work 'with' them.  Is that a valid 
distinction?

Thanks for playing these thoughts out with me.

Eric

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