I'm keeping bees once again. This is my third time at it. My dad and I kept bees from when I was 10 to about 17. Then my wife and I kept bees, about 20 to 25 colonies until we moved into town and work didn't allow time. About a year before I retired, my interest was rekindled.
A lot haS changed since I got out of it in '82. Many problemS have arisen that we didn't have back then; imported pests such as the small hive beetle and varoa mites and nicotinoid pesticides, among others.
The studying I did got me thinking that a great part of the problems beekeepers are having is resulting from too much inbreeding of stock, reducing the bees genetic diversity, making them less able to adapt to new stressors.
Anyway, I decided to work with captured bees, rather than building from bred stock.
Understand, there is no such thing a a wild honeybee anymore. All of the bees in North America originally came from European stock with the colonists. There have be some other bees brought in, Russians most recently, to add to the gene pool. So what I am talking about is escapees from someone's bee yard.
My thinking is that if a feral hive has been living successfully on it's own, without human help or hinderance, it probably has been successfully dealing with varoa and hive beetles and such, and would be a good basis for a localized naturally bred stock.
Thus far I have 4 hives from 4 different locations. I have been contacted recently by 3 people who have hives in trees or walls that want me to come get them, so I will further add to my stock.
Though I have taken off some honey..m-m-m-m-m-m...I am letting the bees make themselves at home and building colony strength.
I have gone back to some of the old ways; top bar hives and pressing honey rather than extracting.
Instead of a 'beekeeper' I prefer to think of myself as a bee facilitator, providing the bees with the best conditions I can to ensure that they thrive. Given space to store it and good nectar flows, they will produce surplus that I can sell, but that will come later.
Am I having fun yet? YOU BECHA!!!!
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Clif
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