I’m a bee keeper and it’s clear you know nothing about bees and how they work. They don’t use all their honey, and you leave them enough plus some extra to use and survive on all year and through the winter. If you leave unused honey it attracts mice and other pests that destroy the hives, eat the honey, the larva, and cause much stress and eventually encourage disease in the bees. A well managed hive is actually better, safer for the bees than just leaving them to their own devices, which runs on reproducing in such high numbers that their species survives and replicates based on swarming, dividing the hive so often that they can continue on as a species despite disease, some colony collapse, some suffering.
A good bee keeper is safer and healthier than a natural selection process because nature can be a bitch, especially if your species isn’t about the individual but is instead a numbers game.
Having said that, my heart sinks when I read about these crashes, and the bees are described as “loose” or “escaped”. Very few of those colonies would survive. They’ve lost their home and their queen.
I have never ever known another bee keeper to clip wings of queens, especially because they only live a few years, swarming is healthy, and clipping is pointless when you manage the hives properly. A seasoned bee keeper will just manage the hives to do artificial splits and the queens will just stay in the new split because it mimics a swarmed hive in a new home. This complaint is like saying i don’t trust doctors because some use motor oil to perform ass and bicep and breast augmentations. Yeah, a few shady assholes do, but not the majority, so why are you judging and condemning an entire group based on a limited few who perform a very rare practice? Because you don’t know what you’re talking about and want to be angry about something on the internet, because it’s easier to do that than actually get out there and talk to people in the industry first hand. Stop getting your news and information from anger engagement sources.
Stop getting your news and information from anger engagement sources.
I literally got it from a blog called “The Apiarist”. It’s a common practice. From the University of Florida: “Queen management practices include monitoring the queen, queen replacement, marking a queen, and clipping the queen’s wings.”
Queen clipping isn’t nearly the only thing wrong with the honey industry, but quit pretending it doesn’t exist just because you don’t personally practice it.
Edit: And to clarify, this is from what amounts to a propaganda piece for the bee industry written by apiculturists, declaring that beekeeping of an invasive species is actually (so conveniently) a necessary practice. They still own up to queen clipping, because why wouldn’t they? It’s commonplace.
I care about bees, not how pure the product of their systematic exploitation is. It’s not “my” honey or yours; it’s theirs.
I’m a bee keeper and it’s clear you know nothing about bees and how they work. They don’t use all their honey, and you leave them enough plus some extra to use and survive on all year and through the winter. If you leave unused honey it attracts mice and other pests that destroy the hives, eat the honey, the larva, and cause much stress and eventually encourage disease in the bees. A well managed hive is actually better, safer for the bees than just leaving them to their own devices, which runs on reproducing in such high numbers that their species survives and replicates based on swarming, dividing the hive so often that they can continue on as a species despite disease, some colony collapse, some suffering.
A good bee keeper is safer and healthier than a natural selection process because nature can be a bitch, especially if your species isn’t about the individual but is instead a numbers game.
Fellow beekeeper here and I concur.
Having said that, my heart sinks when I read about these crashes, and the bees are described as “loose” or “escaped”. Very few of those colonies would survive. They’ve lost their home and their queen.
Hey, you forgot to mention the part where beekeepers clip queen bees’ wings so the hive physiologically has essentially no choice but to stay.
I have never ever known another bee keeper to clip wings of queens, especially because they only live a few years, swarming is healthy, and clipping is pointless when you manage the hives properly. A seasoned bee keeper will just manage the hives to do artificial splits and the queens will just stay in the new split because it mimics a swarmed hive in a new home. This complaint is like saying i don’t trust doctors because some use motor oil to perform ass and bicep and breast augmentations. Yeah, a few shady assholes do, but not the majority, so why are you judging and condemning an entire group based on a limited few who perform a very rare practice? Because you don’t know what you’re talking about and want to be angry about something on the internet, because it’s easier to do that than actually get out there and talk to people in the industry first hand. Stop getting your news and information from anger engagement sources.
I made it this far down and appreciate your patience with the other poster and I learned about bees!
Except you didn’t, because they’re lying. Queen clipping is a common practice.
I literally got it from a blog called “The Apiarist”. It’s a common practice. From the University of Florida: “Queen management practices include monitoring the queen, queen replacement, marking a queen, and clipping the queen’s wings.”
Queen clipping isn’t nearly the only thing wrong with the honey industry, but quit pretending it doesn’t exist just because you don’t personally practice it.
Edit: And to clarify, this is from what amounts to a propaganda piece for the bee industry written by apiculturists, declaring that beekeeping of an invasive species is actually (so conveniently) a necessary practice. They still own up to queen clipping, because why wouldn’t they? It’s commonplace.