Article: Beekeeping Alternatives

Beekeeping Alternatives: Top-bar Hives, Warré Hives and Natural Approaches to Honey Bees

from Treehugger.com

Bees In An Iron Cage? Part-V- Movements Against Rationalization

Weber suggested that the rationalization of Western society would not necessarily go unanswered nor without criticism:

No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. (Weber 1930:182)

In the present day beekeeping world, there are also voices who have questioned the trends of rationalized apiculture and have either resusitated old ideas and ideals, or attempted to re-rationalize beekeeping with honey bee health (over economic profit) as the bottom line.

Barefoot Beekeeping

British beekeeper, Phil Chandler, has become a leading activist questioning the ongoing rationalization of apicultural. Through his Sustainable Beekeeping website, his own top bar hive beekeeping manual, and protest activities against agricultural pesticide use, Chandler has developed a holistic approach in honey bee management. As far as rationalized beekeeping, Chandler has suggested:

1. ...that honey bee survival depends on apicultural becoming a cottage industry again where each individual beekeeper maintains a few hives that simply provide for his/her own needs and those of the local community. Large factory beekeeping, and migratory outfits are unsustainable.
2. ... that beekeeping techniques become less invasive and disruptive to the honey bees. Chandler is a big supporter of top bar hives which allow honey bees to build comb according to their own needs, as well as providing less disruptive inspections and honey harvesting by the beekeeper.
3. ... that beekeepers put the survival of bees ahead of their own economic interests. For example, Chandler suggests that beekeepers make their primary honey harvest in the spring from the honey that is left over in the hive after winter. Honey is produced by bees as a winter food, and to harvest it in the fall may leave the bees without enough to survive. Chandler sees feeding bees sugar syrup, fondant or high fructose corn syrup in the fall, to make up for the beekeeper's harvest, as exploitative and not sustainable.

Warre Hives

Other beekeepers, like those who keep Warre hives, take an even less interventionist approach. To the non-beekeeping eye, Warre hives look just like the typical Langstroth hive popular in the U.S. However, they are constructed and managed very differently:

1. The boxes do not contain movable frames, just bars across the top. The bees are allowed to build comb as straight or as wobbly as they so choose. Comb construction is left to the bees. (Note: the lack of movable frames makes this hive technically illegal everywhere in the United States.)
2. The beekeeper never inspects inside the Warre hive. The only manipulation done is to add boxes to the bottom of the hive when necessary. The beekeeper monitors the health of the hive by watching bee behavior at the entrance. Warre advocates argue that in-hive inspections stress bees by disrupting their ability to maintain proper hive temperature.
   

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Chandler, Phil. 2007. The Barefoot Beekeeper, 1^st Edition.

Weber, Max (1930) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. London: Unwin.

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.
  

Future Plans

I am beginning to lay out my plans for next season. However, as I continue to consider these things, in light of my growing background in environmental sociology, I have started to recognize how inadequate my plans for the expansion of Beelandia are for the sustainability of bees. Unless sustainable apicultural plans are coupled with activism for structural change, the future of bees looks bleak. The bees are caught on a human-created political-economic "treadmill" that threatens their existence, no matter how many natural, and organic techniques I use. This gives me a great deal to consider this winter.

As far as Beelandia, here are a few definite plans:

1. If all goes well, I will add 4 more hives. Two will be added through walk-away splits of Metpropolis and Bee Glad.... The two others will come from starting colonies with new packages. Of course, all this depends on how Metropolis and Bee Glad... fair through the winter.

2. Monta plans on constructing two new Kenyan top bar hives and a Warre. The other new hive will simply be a Langstroth.

3. Two of the new hives will be located outside of Beelandia. I think that there is really only enough room for 4 hives in Beelandia proper, so the two others will be set in some other areas. My friend, Chris, who already keeps some bees on his farm himself, has given me permission to put a top bar hive on his property. I have some other leads for placing the Warre. (My State Senator said she'd like a hive in her yard but I don't know whether she was serious or just trying to get my vote.)

4. I will be ready with nucs, just in case some of the hives thrive enough in the summer so that I can make other splits.