The film "more than honey"

[Chris B]

But you should expect derisive comments when in the company of those that use bees for honey farming.

Being a Warre beekeeper I'm sure you're already aware that Abbe Warre himself was a honey farmer running many hundreds of colonies in his "People's Hive". If you haven't read the book then I would highly recommend it to you.

 

[Cie]

Absolutely Chris, and there are some using them very successfully for their business.

 

[psafloyd]

It was being shown by FoE in a local library but I couldn't make it. However, I did see it in Hackney last year.

There was some discussion HERE.

 

[sunhivebee]

Some bad news for you - there is no 'wilder side' these days - there's too many diseases and problems to let the bees live wild. And on a related point - I don't want disease-riddled drones infecting my healthy bees - the drones will pass everything they carry onto them. If you don't care, medicate, clean, then your bees will die, and quickly.

If you don't care, your bees will die, most probably.
If you don't clean. medicate, meddle but care, your bees will probably not die.
And yes, there is a wilder side these days, as some who observe wild colonies over many years will be able to testify. You will meet them, but maybe not on this forum. And you will meet beekeepers who never medicate their bees and have good long-lived colonies. They exist. They encourage each other. Few would seek encouragement on this forum, for a variety of reasons.

 

[sunhivebee]

opinionating

A rather sweeping statement.

If you're in "sweeping statement detection mode" please also consider this one: "If you don't care, medicate, clean, then your bees will die, and quickly."

I thought the point made by Cie quite reasonable, but find the statement above sweeping indeed, if not misleading. (Do THIS or all your bees will die is hardly educational

 

[domino]

If you don't care, your bees will die, most probably.
If you don't clean. medicate, meddle but care, your bees will probably not die.
And yes, there is a wilder side these days, as some who observe wild colonies over many years will be able to testify. You will meet them, but maybe not on this forum. And you will meet beekeepers who never medicate their bees and have good long-lived colonies. They exist. They encourage each other. Few would seek encouragement on this forum, for a variety of reasons.

I wonder if you acknowledge that before the 1990s very little treating of hives actually happened in the UK?

 

[victor meldrew]

I kept bees pre varroa . No treatments were in regular use at that time , fumalin b was available for the treatment of nosema , the foul broods were treated by culling . All other maladies were treated by changing the Queen. Some bee keepers approached the problem of nosema by re Queening.
However there were some weird and wonderful concoctions deployed as acracides
VM


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