Hi Peter,
I think there are few places in the world that can beat Boulder, CO for
the "I'm-getting-a-hive-so-I-can-help-save-the-bees (mostly from the evil
commercial beekeepers and Roundup)" movement. The success rate, getting a
hive through to the following spring, is 10-20%. We do have mites and
that's the #1 cause of colony death here.
People really do want to "help the bees," though, so we're taking two
tacks (and they are tacks in that we're sailing into the wind.) They're
both redirects of good intentions. First we (CSBA) point out that we are
home to over 500 species of native bees that are also important pollinators
and that also need help. There's some info about those on our website.
Second, we encourage people to help all bees by providing safe forage and
habitat in backyards, roadsides, fallow areas, and preserving what native
habitat there is left. We have pointers to Xerces, Audubon Habitat Heroes,
local planting guides, and the like. Resources are limited and not all
places are good for bees, like an apiary of 20 hives on a rooftop in
downtown Denver.
As for those who have made up their minds to get bees, we recommend
finding an experienced mentor, subscribing to a bee journal, and taking a
good, all day or more, class. The local nuc supplier I work for strongly
urges customers to take classes before selling them bees. The repeat rate
for bee purchases is extremely high. I'm trying to get my hands customer
lists to do some basic analysis, but I'm pretty sure they represent
failure/retries not expansion. We have links to reliable sources of
information and discourage blogs, newspapers, and other uninformed or
misinformed sources.
So, we point out that beekeeping isn't easy, but there are even better
ways that everyone can help.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Kristina Williams
Beehave LLC mentoring and support for bees and their keepers
Boulder, CO
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