A Social Media Survey
Elizabeth Irving
Beekeepers and scientists agree on the importance of maintaining healthy and disease-free equipment, and everyone has opinions on how best to do it. As a third year beekeeper in rural Massachusetts, I have attended meetings, read actual books, watched hours of zoom webinars, listened to reputable podcasts, subscribed to America’s Beekeeping Magazine and read most of the internet. The same bits of advice on equipment maintenance kept appearing. For the benefit of other new beekeepers, I have gathered this advice given by experienced sources into the 10 basic steps most frequently mentioned.
- Make sure you are too busy during the warm months of the beekeeping season to clean anything properly. Tell everyone how busy you are.
- Offer relationship advice, and complain happily about how your beloved family won’t let you store or clean your sticky, stinky, bulky equipment in the same rooms where they live, cook and sleep.
- Fuss about how many different types of equipment you’ve collected over the years and the impossibility of it being mutually compatible.
- Make extensive suggestions about the best beverages to accompany the critical cleaning of apiary equipment. Offer recipes if necessary.
- Exchange book reviews and back issues of Bee Culture with other beekeepers and brag about all the reading you are going to do during the cold months when you are not cleaning your equipment. Actual reading is optional.
- Remind people that you are old and the boxes of kit get heavier each year.
- Have an intern, a mentee or a younger relative helping? Tell stories about them to other beekeepers while they are in earshot. Tell the stories about the young person in a way that sounds as though you are complaining about them, but actually brag about how wonderful they are. Young people these days are really on their game.
- Test everything for varroa. Test the bees, the grandkids, test your gloves for varroa. Sugar shake your holiday cookies.
- Tell people that you clean your equipment “in the usual way.” Do NOT under any circumstances reveal what this is, or how you do it. Nod solemnly, and swear that it is the secret to having healthy bees.
- Write to your trusted editor of The Magazine of American Beekeeping
Readers: How can a new beekeeper get accurate information?
Send your suggestions / direction to accurate, vetted info to jerry@beeculture.com and we’ll share it with Bee Culture readers in the next issue.
