Model of Reality vs. Reality of the Model Part II

I was meandering through youtube.com this morning watching bee videos and saw this interesting video on the installation of bees. While the video is well done for an amateur video, this was really not what caught my interest about it, however. It was actually the reaction of some of the commenters who criticized the makers of this video for not "installing bees correctly". Yes, the video maker's method was a bit uncommon and I've never used their approach myself, but it is the method suggested by Furgala, Spivak, and Reuter in Beekeeping in Northern Climates, therefore, well within the realm of beekeeping "orthodoxy".

The comments toward this video illustrate a pet peeve of mine I've had throughout my lifetime: people who make knee-jerk criticisms of others without being fully up on the area of concern. If I've learned anything, for every successful experienced beekeeper, there is, quite likely, some unique successful technique I can learn from him/her. Once I, especially as a novice, close my mind to learning a new method, I am doomed.

Winter Lists

The semester ended yesterday, and now I have a short break in which I can consider my future bee projects. Here they are in tentative lists!


Things still to buy:

• 1 metal hive entrance
• 1 screen bottom board
• 2 queen excluders
• 2 bee escape boards
• 1 top entrance shim
• 30 shallow Pierco frames
• 2 shallow boxes
• 1 crush and drain bucket
• 1 migratory cover

Things to construct (without Monta's help this will be impossible.):

• 2 top bar hives
• 1 Warre hive
• 1 follower board to replace the one broke in Metpropolis.

Materials to read:

• G.M. Doolittle's book on queen rearing.
• Abbe Warre's Beekeeping for All.
• Any work on the Treadmill of Production theory.

Materials to review:

• Beekeeping in Northern Climates.

Supplies for Beelandia:

• white clover seed
• bird's foot trefoil seed
• sunflower seeds
• borage
• soy beans
• alfalfa seeds
• solar powered water pump for Lake No-Bee Gone.
  

Wrapping Up

Today, Monta and I wrapped up Bee Glad... and Metpropolis. We used some hive quilts we purchased at B&B Honey Farm in Houston Minnesota. The entrances had been narrowed and "mouse-proofed" a few weeks ago. We did two treatments of Apiguard for mites in August and September as our counts were extremely high.

This is one of those things I've really felt like I've done blindly, since packing up the hive for the onset of winter is such a local thing. We have a rather unique local climate in Winona being that on the Mississippi in a valley protected by bluffs on each side. We had a good deal of snow last year but in the previous three or four very little. I hope the Beekeeping in Northern Climates manual applies to Winona and is transferable to Top Bar Hives. I spent the day fretting. I've grown attached to the bees and feel a very deep responsibility toward them.

I also removed the fish from Lake No Bee Gone. Only one of the koi survived but the white clouds multiplied. They are now in winter quarters in my home office.