By: John Miller
According to National Honey Board information, there are between 125,000 to 150,000 American beekeepers. If you are the publisher or the editor of either of the two trade publications, Bee Culture or American Bee Journal – your mission is to attract new readers.
A lifetime ago, I served on the honey board. I found a remembrance of a legendary advertiser, David Ogilvy who said: “We sell, or else.” I hung that full-page Wall Street Journal ad inside my office door for several years.
At the time, there was an abundance of beehives to pollinate the almond crop; so we had to sell on our colonies strength, our commitment to service and availability to growers. It’s true whether selling nucs, magazines or clicks. We sell, or else. A recent internet search of ‘beekeeping’ produced 33,800,000 hits. That’s a lot of information and disinformation being ‘sold’.
Mixed messaging is confusing to new beekeepers. There is a super-abundance of beekeeping disinformation, and the disinformation is hundreds of years old, having achieved a life of its own. We find it in beekeeping clubs, a well-meaning, but incompetent beekeeper will share sage advice which is just completely wrong, along with other situations. Here are a couple of examples:
David Libchaber wrote saying: “For a new beekeeper… reading diametrically opposing views in the same issue [ABJ] and have no guidance as to what is true or false.” That’s a fair observation.
How many of us have been told to introduce a queen: cage between center frames, candy side down, facing the brood, 5d nail punched through the candy so the bees can get to the new queen, but not too fast – or they will kill her. No mention of the lethal nature of a 5d nail punched a little too far, a little too fast, because the candy got a little too soft. Many others of us have been told to introduce a queen: at dusk, at the entrance of the hive, tear the wire screen from the queen cage, allow the queen to walk in the entrance – boom – new queen.
Or how about this gem? Queen cells must be in the nuc before the virgin hatches.
I cannot tell you how many hundreds of virgins I’ve herded from a basket of cells into a nuc; in direct defiance of what I was taught – and watched that virgin march right onto the top bar and down into the nuc – in charge and large.
Rod Earnhardt writes, a few pages further in: “I have read everything from do not feed at all – to feed the entire first year and everything in between. Which is right?” Try this with dogs. Do not feed the dog for the first year. Then get another dog, and feed it the entire first year. Leave a bowl of dog food out – the entire first year. A hive will pick up feed when the available nectar is insufficient. Bees can be fed on a honey flow – but they won’t pick up the feed.
More? 106 years ago, a patent was issued for “Aluminum Honeycombs to Double Bees Output!” Patent #1,224,479 issued May 5, 1917. The hustle forgot to also mention “Now! Gluten-Free Aluminum!” – but 1917 was before gluten free was a thing.
So, readers: where do we get our information? How do we verify the accuracy of the information? While I actively kept bees, I was familiar with ABC & XYZ, a hundred-plus years-old publication from Bee Culture, now in its 42nd edition. The internet? Oh, boy! From time to time I view a few sites, and the chats can get pretty out there – and if you’re one of the 150,000 beekeepers trying to find your way in beekeeping I’d say the internet is as potentially lethal to your beehive as that club member who thinks he has the answers – and does not.
Question everything. Malcom Gladwell has a book called What the Dog Saw. In my previous example about feed, consider what the dog sees. In the first example, the dog sees no food, and goes elsewhere for food. In the second scenario, the dog sees ample feed – and does not go elsewhere for food. In beekeeping it isn’t quite as simple as when the human observes the empty bowl, and refills the bowl – the human having been trained by the dog to feed it.
In beekeeping, more than a few times a year we need to gear up and go look in our colonies. If there are no capped stores of honey or feed – feed your hive. If the hive is busting with bees, brood and honey – do not feed your hive. It’s pretty simple.
To mangle a phrase: what do the bees see? Bees are pretty smart, aware even. Their reactions are pretty simple. “I’m hungry. I’m cold. I’m hot. I’m sick. I’m threatened. I’m stuffed. I’m leaving.”
Humans are aware that we are aware. That awareness makes us different. By observing what the bee sees, we can actually do pretty good beekeeping. Observe conditions. Mites, disease, stores of honey, general conditions, meaning are hives prospering? Big flight? Ample pollen inbound? How is that flight pattern? If there is no news, scouts return from the field in no particular hurry, hovering and weaving a bit before entering the hive. If the scout found food, and it’s news, those scouts beeline straight into the hive to share the news.
Beekeeping should be a great joy to the 135,000 beekeepers who do not subscribe to Bee Culture. I don’t know how to reach those beekeepers, and I lead a state organization. We have a membership of about 70 beekeepers in a state with almost 450 registered beekeepers. When we send an email newsletter – with vetted, accurate information – our open rate is about 2%. How to reach those 440 other beekeepers?
