> It is better to have 5000 beekeepers with
> 3 hives each than one beekeeper with
> 15,000 hives. The hobbyist beekeepers
> really can take close, personal care for
> their bees."
> Quote from Marcus Imhoff, director of "More than Honey".
I had some extended discussions with him when he was in NYC premiering his
film, and his statement was part of a larger worldview common among many who
have never farmed. The return to small-scale, less mechanized farming seems
"right" to those who never saw the typical small farm of the 1920s to 1950s,
and never had to provide the backbreaking endless labor required to turn the
crank on the operation. Marie Antoinette was a pioneer in the field of
romanticizing hard labor, long hours, and poor workplace safety at Hameau de
la Reine, where she played at milkmaid and shepherdess, but even she did not
stoop to the level of beekeeping.
The basic error made is not realizing that small-scale operations cannot
amortize costs over larger numbers of hives. Diseases and pests require both
screening tests and mitigation. Neither are inexpensive, but they are
painfully more expensive in small quantities than large. Consolidation
continues in beekeeping, so one could argue that failure tends to be a
function of undercapitalization, rather than some inherent
"unsustainability" in large-scale beekeeping. I've gone from hobby to
business to hobby again, and I think that I would be a fool to attempt to
make a profit running 600 colonies these days on apples and back-woods
Sourwood honey sites.
His claim also overlooks the central point that no amount of additional care
and attention will assure the survival of any specific hive over the next 6
months. For example, we still lack reliable varroa control, despite over two
decades of attempts.
While he did a very good job of illustrating the hubris of both the large
and small beekeeper that were the central characters in his film, he ignores
the inherent advantage of larger numbers of hives under our current siege of
plagues. While dramatic close-ups of poignantly-filmed wholesale unboxing
and sorting of frames were offered with music suitable for a Sally Struthers
"Save The Children" commercial, there was no attempt made to explain that
splitting a truckload of double deeps 3 ways and giving each spilt a new
queen goes a long way towards keeping ahead of potential losses in one step.
So, if one wants to make survival rates the metric for success, Imhoff was
engaging in romanticized wishful thinking that will only become true when
more reliable controls for bee parasites and pathogens emerge, and when
hobbyists consistently approach their bees with the same level of concern
and eye for detail they'd have for their dog or cat, an exceedingly rare
level of dedication.
Hobby beekeepers can vote, and this is the one area where "more beekeepers"
can make a difference, as beekeepers tend to take stances as environmental
stewards without dragging around all the negative connotations of hunters or
fishermen, who have been the only consistently rational environmental
stewards to date. We'll never outnumber the gardeners, the bicyclists, or
even the skateboarders, but films like Imhoff's tend to put both large and
small beekeepers in a positive light in the eyes of non-beekeepers, as they
both like to eat, and want to protect the environment.
I could teach anyone to sail a Hobie Cat in a few days, but this would be an
entirely different skill set from those required to be a crew member on an
America's Cup catamaran. Hobie Cats are always fun. A crew member on an
AC72 must be very well-paid, as the experience of sailing will not seem like
much fun until long after the races are over. An AC72 sailor would also
likely flip a Hobie Cat in the first hour of a run, making him look
incompetent to the impartial observer with no knowledge of sailing.
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