In message <[log in to unmask]>, Sid Pullinger
<[log in to unmask]> writes

>Briefly, a member wrote querying the demise of
>the deep Dadant comb

and, if I remember correctly, intimating that if Buckfast Brother Adam
thought they were good, they must be! Mr Pullinger is right to point out
news of the deep Dadants demise is greatly exagerated, but, as another
of southern England's beekeepers, can I add another thought. Brother
Adam was acutely aware that the Modified Dadant (not quite the Dadant
actually) wouldn't suit everyone. It only suited him because it matched
the strain of bee he ran, and the crop he was after. He used a
paticularly prolific bee, needed good overwintering with low
'maintenance', and was going for a crop late in the season on a cold,
damp heather moor. He had the vision to see his beekeeping overall and
never got fixated by one hive type or another, or one bee strain vs
another. It was the result of the whole package he sought to improve,
the bee, it's opportunity, the beekeeper's labour, the extracting
process and so on. He knew more than anyone that one element could never
be divorced from another. For example he wrote <quote>a hive of the size
such as used by us, would merely result in endless dissappointments
unless it was stocked by queens of the highest quality and strain.<end
quote> It would be a grave mistake to pick and choose one element of his
management style and not the other.


Dave Black
http://www.woodbridge-rd.demon.co.uk/beehive
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