Having trouble sorting through all the conflicting beekeeping information? Can’t tell fact from fiction? If so, you are not alone. Here is a list of criteria I use myself:

Backyard beekeepers are offering a glimmer of hope for bee populations because every swarm that outgrows the hive and leaves to start a [...]]]> I found the following quote in a newspaper article this morning. It was attributed to the president of a large beekeeping club in the southern U.S.—someone who ought to know better.

Backyard beekeepers are offering a glimmer of hope for bee populations because every swarm that outgrows the hive and leaves to start a feral colony in the wild increases the health and survival of all bees.

I find not a glimmer of truth in this statement. Not only do swarms from managed hives hardly ever survive for more than a year or two, they are the very thing that contributed to the downfall of feral populations in the first place.

Bees escaping from managed stock took their parasites and diseases with them and ended up decimating feral colonies all across the continent. In addition, there is evidence that diseased bees are spreading their ailments to certain species of wild bees as well. In truth, escaping stock does just the opposite of increasing the “health and survival of all bees.”

I often skim the headlines for bee news and not a day goes by when I don’t find false or misleading statements about honey bees and beekeeping. With all the interest, with all the investigation, with all the money being poured into bee research, you would think there would be more “common knowledge” than there is.

Sadly, these erroneous statements often come from trusted sources. The beekeeping president quoted above is probably a really nice guy who knows how to run a meeting and get the dues collected. He’s probably an experienced beekeeper too. But honestly, his statement (assuming it was accurately reported) makes me wonder how much he knows about any aspect of beekeeping.

The statement reminded me of a beekeeper who taught a class of newbees to keep their syrup feeders full at all times, even with honey supers in place. Her heart was in the right place I’m sure, but she truly believed her bees stored nectar, ate sugar syrup, and never confused the two. She fed syrup all summer long and harvested it in the fall . . . while mentoring others to do the same. So sad.

But what’s a beginner to do? When all the really good information is hopelessly entangled with myths, half-truths, and unfounded rumors, how is a newbee supposed to figure it out? Truth is, I don’t have an answer; I’m just obsessing at the keyboard. Perhaps if I didn’t read the papers, I wouldn’t get so upset.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

You see, I don’t know what you mean by “natural beekeeper.” I don’t know your definition. I don’t even know [...]]]> Wow. I hate that question. When I hear it I want to snap, “No. I’m not natural. I’m a fake. It’s all smoke and mirrors.” But I’m too polite (well, usually) to go there.

You see, I don’t know what you mean by “natural beekeeper.” I don’t know your definition. I don’t even know what you call an unnatural one.

The way I see it, all beekeepers fall on a bell curve. The x-axis measures “naturalness” from zero to infinity. The y-axis measures the number of beekeepers. Like anything else that falls on a bell curve, you will have a very small number of beekeepers at each end of the curve (the very unnatural and the very natural) while most are going to fall somewhere in the middle.

Bell curve

The real problem is in the definition. On this website, I’ve deliberately avoided calling my style of beekeeping natural, although it is much closer to natural than unnatural. If I call what I do natural, it will just elicit argument from those whose definition is different from my own. Does that follow?

It’s similar to politics. On some issues you could call me left (liberal) and on other issues you could call me right (conservative). So I don’t bother with a label because it just confuses people. Labels come with a host of expectations which are different depending on who’s listening.

So what is a natural beekeeper? As Phillip over at Mudsongs recently pointed out, the phrase “natural beekeeper” is an oxymoron. Bees don’t naturally live under the care of humans; they would rather do it their own way. So if you are keeping bees in a manmade structure and you try to prevent them from leaving (swarming), you’ve created an unnatural situation—one that does not exist in nature.

Some aspects of beekeeping engender more argument than others. For example, most beekeepers agree that using chemical pesticides precludes one from being natural. But what about organic acids or essential oils for mite control? Some say it is okay, some say it is not.

Where else might you draw the line? Well, like I said, it depends on who you talk to, but here are a few ideas. The following things are definitely unnatural, at least from the bees’ perspective:

• Hive inspections

• Re-queening

• Any type of swarm prevention

• Artificial feed, including sugar and pollen substitutes

• Making the bees build up when the want to build down or vice versa (brood nest management)

• Artificial insemination

• Preformed foundation

• Drone management

• Plastic parts in the hive

• Queen marking or clipping

• Harvesting honey, pollen, propolis, or wax

My point is that naturalness is a relative thing. And if you are keeping bees—managing bees—you have already crossed the line into unnaturalness. If you are a beginner, I think it is important to find your own place on the continuum. Don’t let people intimidate you into a definition of naturalness that doesn’t fit with your own goals, beliefs, experience, or financial means.

I would argue that even those beekeepers on the extreme natural end of the curve—those that consider themselves super natural beekeepers—aren’t really. Natural beekeeping is something you can aspire to, strive for, but you’ll never actually achieve. If you asked the bees their opinion of human interlopers, I’m sure it wouldn’t be good—no matter what techniques they ascribe to.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

I won’t hold you in suspense, but tell you right up [...]]]> Last summer my husband and I were invited to a neighbor’s house-warming party. That by itself is unremarkable, except that we came home with a puppy. Not an ordinary puppy, mind you, but an Australian cattle dog, the brother of my neighbor’s pup.

I won’t hold you in suspense, but tell you right up front that cattle dogs are bred to herd. They have two speeds, fast and stop, and nothing—absolutely nothing—in between. They run for the pure pleasure of it. This dog circles the house so fast, his feet are out to the side and his rib cage grazes the grass. There is so much lateral force on the lawn it has bunched up in places like a loose carpet.

Now having a dog was my husband’s idea, but having this particular dog was my idea. I like high-spirited creatures, and this dog leaves no doubt. He’s over-the-top excited about all aspects of life . . . all day . . . every day . . . except for one, which I’ll get to in a moment.

I’m a cat person, but the idea of having a companion while I was out beekeeping was appealing to me. I do all my beekeeping alone, so it seemed like a good idea—I would have something to talk to other than bees that never pay attention. And cats? They’re useless.

A few days later, Q2 and I went up to inspect the hives. He kept poking his nose in the hive entrances. I warned him several times that it wasn’t a good idea, especially not on a hot July afternoon, especially not with dog breath. But I didn’t worry. I figured he would get stung a time or two, after which he would know everything he needed to know about bees.

Sure enough, after about six minutes in the apiary, the howling and thrashing began. I didn’t see him flee, but I could see the undergrowth parting in a wave, then the leaves shuttering back into place. In a few more minutes, I trailed after him.

Down at the house I found him chasing his rear in a tight little circle like a cyclone. Round and round he went until he toppled over from dizziness, then he reached around to lick, lick, lick. This went on and on. When I finally wrestled him into choke hold I saw the problem. Right on the side of his penis was a nasty red welt.

With apologies to half the world, I have to say this cracked me up. I tried to remove the stinger, but he wouldn’t let me near. He circled and licked for the better part of two hours. I had to admire the little lady that got him: if you’ve got only one life to give for your colony, you may as well make it count.

Q2 recovered from his misfortune, but a beekeeper’s dog he is not. All I have to do is touch my bee suit on the peg where it hangs, and he slinks away, tail between his legs. So I’m still beekeeping alone while down at the house my dog is snapping at bees in mid-air. He is a gentle creature, but when the bees are about I can hear his jaws clamping down on nothing, trying again and again to teach those fiends a lesson. Still, though, he won’t go near a hive.

He continues to chase individual bees, sometimes launching himself completely off the ground in pursuit or biting aggressively at the clover. Someday he’ll catch one. Then what? Will we finally be done with this nonsense, or will Q2 hatch a new plan for revenge?

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Q2 on bee alert.

She sniffed the fake daisy sewn on it.

Then before I knew why,

She flew up to the sky

And unloaded her feces upon it.

Rusty HoneyBeeSuite

As a kid, I believed this with all my heart. I had a small wooden sailboat that I tinkered with every [...]]]> In “The Wind in the Willows” author Kenneth Grahame writes, “Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing—about in boats.”

As a kid, I believed this with all my heart. I had a small wooden sailboat that I tinkered with every waking hour. After school, I dumped my textbooks in the kitchen, grabbed a peanut butter sandwich, and spent the rest of the afternoon simply messing. Boats, especially wooden ones, require constant attention. I would refinish the boom, adjust the blocks, scrape barnacles, or re-splice some part of the rigging. I didn’t have to sail the boat to be happy, I just had to be near it, touching it.

I loved the gentle cry of herring gulls, the dead-fish scent of low tide, and the tang of spray on my lips. I was always by myself but never alone. Squirrelly things make good company—horseshoe crabs, jellyfish, minnows, herring gulls—things that listen without belittling, things that share without dividing.

Although I haven’t had a boat in many years, it often occurs to me that beehives answer my desire to mess, to tinker, to adjust. Even more, they provide the solitude that is so precious to me. Alone in my shed, I refinish a box, cut a new entrance, or sketch plans for the next project. I wire frames, scrape propolis, or melt old comb. The sounds, the odors, the very woodenness of the hive draw me into a four-dimensional universe unfettered by schedules, cell phones, and e-mails. It’s place where no one cares about dust or asks if we’re out of ketchup.

Yes, I love the bees and I miss them during the dreary northwest winters. But the stolen moment when I can pound nails or drill holes is a golden one. Messing makes beekeeping worth it. Even when the mites conquer, the bees die, and the moths feast, the thought of tinkering with hives pulls me into the next year . . . the beekeeping year that will be the very best ever.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

By myself but not alone. Flickr photo by Dave Hosford.

In an unprecedented turn of events, the resident groundhog, Phil, was unable to file a report about the coming weather. Traditionally, Phil rouses himself on February 2 for a brief walkabout. If he sees his shadow we are destined for six more weeks of foul weather. If he doesn’t [...]]]> EXTRA

Dateline: Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

In an unprecedented turn of events, the resident groundhog, Phil, was unable to file a report about the coming weather. Traditionally, Phil rouses himself on February 2 for a brief walkabout. If he sees his shadow we are destined for six more weeks of foul weather. If he doesn’t see his shadow, spring is just around the corner.

This morning at daybreak, however, as soon as Phil set foot outside, a swarm of defensive honey bees swooped down upon him, stinging him multiple times on the nose and lips. The groundhog spun a 180 and dove back into his borrow.

Honey bees, intent on fending off the interloper, continued to hover in the area. According to an eyewitness, the groundhog soon reappeared covered head to toe in a full beesuit, including gloves, spats, and veil.

As soon as the groundhog was spotted the bees dropped masses of yellow bomb-lets over the pristine white suit. The sticky substance stuck in the mesh veil, effectively blocking the groundhog’s view of the yard. Defeated, he returned to his home having no idea if he had a shadow or not.

An API (Apis Press International) spokesman said that unseasonably warm temperatures across much of North America have caused the bees to stir early and food shortages to become acute. “The bees have nothing personal against the groundhog,” he said. “They are simply protecting their homes against further loss.”

Although the groundhog had no comment regarding the incident, local EGTs (Emergency Groundhog Technicians) said his injuries were minor. “He was treated for stings, anxiety, and depression before being released to family members,” said one technician who wished to remain anonymous. “But he is expected to make a full recovery.”

Story filed by Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Phil vacationing in Waterloo, Ontario. API file photo by Ben Babcock.

I love snow and this was particularly nice. Fluffy and light, it mounded in graceful undulations over [...]]]> The weather service predicted an inch of snow. When we got something over 22 inches, I wasn’t surprised. After all, I’ve listened to those folks guess at the weather for years. I know how well they do.

I love snow and this was particularly nice. Fluffy and light, it mounded in graceful undulations over the trees, hedges, and buildings. The power was out, then back, then out—nothing unusual around here. We played in the snow, threw snowballs for the dog, piled up dry wood by the front door. Then things turned nasty.

It started to rain and the fluffy snow soaked up the water like a sponge. Then the temperature dropped, and the now heavy snow crusted with ice. Melted snow encased branches and hardened into stalactites that hung like rows of daggers from even the smallest branches. The trees tipped and sagged under the weight. It wasn’t long before I began hearing the cracks, loud as gunshots and just as sudden, that signaled the destruction of my little forest. Not just my forest, of course, all of them for miles and miles around.

This was the second ice storm I have seen here. We still talk about the ’96 storm as if it were yesterday but now, 15 years later, it was happening again. In ’96 I slept with my head under a pile of pillows so I wouldn’t have to hear the trees break, although I could still feel the ground shake when a particularly big one bit the dust. This time was no different. And both times, when the sun rose the next morning and I peered out the window, I was heartbroken at the scene.

This time was actually worse. Hedges we spent years tending were flattened. Trees we had watered and trimmed and cared for broke like matchsticks. A particularly elegant Leyland cypress that I see out my kitchen window snapped in two about twenty feet up—the rest of it landed in the driveway.

Behind the house and up the hill the forest floor is a crisscross of wood—huge trunks and tiny twigs piled in impenetrable snags. My five-minute walk to the upper hives took just under an hour and a half as I tried to find a way through the masses of limbs lying on the steep slope over two feet of snow. We estimate we lost 200-300 trees, most of them broken fairly high up, so the trunks still have to be taken down—months of work ahead.

The sad thing for the bees is that the hardwoods fared the worst. We lost mostly alder, maple, bitter cherry, cascara, Indian plum, and saskatoon—all the trees the bees visit for pollen and nectar. The softwoods did better. Douglas-fir, Frasier fir, western red cedar, deodar cedar, incense cedar, hemlock, black pine, ponderosa pine, Colorado spruce, and most of the Leyland cypresses did fine, but they have little to offer the bees. So very sad.

Oddly enough, none of our buildings or beehives was hit. The irony, of course, is that the building are insured, the trees are not. And I can fix a building, whereas I can’t fix a tree that is broken in two.

So there you have it—the story of my week. I’m trying to look at the positive side. We have sunlight where we never had it before. We have room to plant more trees. We have firewood for years and years to come. As for the bees, they will just have to fly further and work harder. Such is life.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

My path to the hives.

My favorite Leyland cypress