From: allen <[log in to unmask]>
>PMFJI.....

i had to look this up.  for others that would need to, "pardon me for jumping in"

>Without observing hives which are untreated, no one 
will know.

and

>As you say, if you don't plan to act and only are looking for survival, then knowing the levels is not useful.  I am not sure what the point is then, however, since most people keep bees for some useful purpose, yourself and myself, excepted.

well, what we are doing my not seem useful to you, but from here things look quite a bit different.  

we keep permenant locations on what is, for massachusetts, a large farm (300+ acres), where there is probably near 100 acres of raspberries, blueberries, apples, plums, pears, peaches, etc.  the tree fruit wasn't thinned enough, and there are several with broken branches from the weight of the fruit.  we started putting bees on this farm after an early spring where pollination did not happen properly (the beekeeper down the street went off to college), and there was a very poor tree fruit set, and no early squash.  this farm directly supports 20+ families, and does about 18 farmers markets a week.

in addition, as you say, one really does need to look at untreated hives to learn some basic things about bees...we are learning these things, and the offer is open to anyone that wants to see for themselves.

we also have an eye towards building a stable population of bees and management practices that work in our area without treatments, and without feeding sugar/hfcs.

last year we went to hear tom seeley speak n ct.  he wanted to talk a little about small cell, and when ramona told him that our colonies had mostly foundationless comb in langstroth equipment, his question was "what do the bees do with no foundation".  this is from one of the most astute observers of feral bees around.  very few who have seen our hives (between our county club, our conference attendees, and various other beekeepers (in excess of 150 beekeepers) have ever seen comb being built without foundation (the popularity of tbh's is changing this slowly, but our bee inspector and the state apiarist can't seem to grasp that a lang without foundation is not a tbh...remember, langstroth's first frames were foundationless frames).  fwiw, even at this time of year with most drones having been expelled, our bees are still building some comb.  they seem not to be drawing out any of the foundation that is left in the hives at this point.

we have our own certified food production facility (in the building where the pink plastic lawn flamingo was invented), and make our living at this point marketing honey from treatment free operations (some from our own hives, but at this point, most honey goes back into the operation to build a stable population...this is a long term project).  we also have some other honey based products that we make ourselves and sell both at farmers markets and in a few health food stores.  this is not a home kitchen operation, but certified by the state and city, and subject to federal inspection.

survival is the first step, production comes next.  we do our best to be as educated as posslibe...we read a lot of books, work with other beekeepers in our area, and visit as many apiaries as we can (from the canadian border to georgia to florida to arizona and nebraska this year alone).

to me, this is useful.  if we needed to make a living today from the bees we have today, we would starve (or drastically change our practices)....but we have done our best to structure our lives and activities to be diverse, and not depend on any one thing.

deknow

 



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