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Date: | Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:59:53 -0500 |
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In Allen's defense. I am not entirely sure that skep beekeeping is an
anachronism... it is wierd but it certainly captures my respect. From
what I have seen skep beekeepers use very few inputs to make their honey,
which is in itself an great accomplishment. They achieve this
sustainability by elegently fitting their system to bee biology. Although
Peter's exhaustive list of the history of state bee act's is impressive
and useful (and one which I will file away for later use as it is so
comprehensive... who knew there was a bee breeding program in NJ) and
there is no doubt that movable hive technology revolutionised beekeeping,
this should not undermine the accomplishments of skep beekeepers. I have
never come across any evidence to suggest that a well-trained skep
beekeeper is a AFB-spreading menace... if you watch the video you will see
that skep beekeepers check their combs routinely and replace all their
brood combs annually... a big improvement over the current state of
affairs. It is my understanding that to keep bees in skeps in Germany (at
least this is what the video led me to believe) you need to be
acredited... there is no threat here.
Overmanaged agricultural systems are not always the best ones. Ingemar
Fries and his collegues just published a study of varroa levels in largely-
unmanaged bee colonies in Gotland. The bees swarmed and many died, but a
few years into the study colonies are persisting and the rate of colony
death has declined. Kirk Webster in Vermont has long advocated having the
bees define the form in which we keep bees and not the other way around.
He claims to have outpaced his losses to varroa using the high
reproductive capacity of bees in his area (he makes a lot of nucs to make
up his losses and then noticed his nucs last a lot longer without
treatments than full-sized colonies). One book Kirk referenced in his
summer ABJ series, the One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukoka, lays a
compelling case for the resiliance of natural systems to deal with
problems that we have become accustomed to managing ourselves. I think
skep beekeeping, with its long tradition and ties to the master beekeeping
programs in Germany, has a lot of knowledge to offer.
Adony
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---
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