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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Tue, 30 Sep 2003 00:19:28 -0400
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Thank you Bob Harrison for being willing to point out again and again that
people who use chemicals in hives do so only as a temporary measure and that
people who go with or without chemicals are really in the same camp. It
needs repeating often.

Yet I did frame the discussion as a chemical/non-chemical choice because
that is how I see it (and because I mediate-that is mediate without a "c").
The choice is really not a purely "use or not use" one, but a range of
careful options.

Keith Malone asks me to expound on what I see as the negatives.
Easy to say the entire, although substantial, negative in not using
chemicals is that the bees too often die.
The only negative in using chemicals from a practical point of view is the
build up in wax. I like using wax for soaps, lip balms and candles. How much
should I be concerned about chemical build up? Maybe not too much from a
personal point of view but as an industry-do we need to unintentionally
create a market of "organic" wax? There are neccessary costs to modern life.
I realise that my family burns up about 1,400 gallons of fuel each year, as
an example, and I grieve a bit that the exhaust may be harmful. My own
daughter has had lifelong problems with asthma. But burning fuel is just one
of many "neccessary evils" which I will continue. Maybe chemical buildup in
wax should be looked at in that way, too. Life is messy. And yet I resist
putting chemicals in hives not for practical reasons or because I am
unwilling to label something a neccessary evil but because I primarily want
the luxury to look to bee keeping as a window into seeing the natural world
apart from humanity. I am not looking for efficiency (efficiency is not by
itself a moral good-look at Germany 60 years ago). The luxury for me in
beekeeping is looking for a reminder that God has created this great big
world of life (and even death) of which we are only a small part. This is to
say I am obviously a hobbyist able to risk a little and lose a little from a
financial perspective. I do not begrudge the use of chemicals.  The felt
intent of putting in fungi feels gentler to me (the beekeeper) although
obviously if I was the mite I migtht disagree. The primary negative of the
use of chemicals is the loss of the romance of the hobby.

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