Subject: 40 AND COUNTING

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 04:08:00 GMT

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40 BEE SEASONS AGO AND COUNTING

        40 years ago I started with bees by buying a 3# package of
Bee's from Sears & Roebuck for $5.75 which included the postage which
was 67 cents. I almost purchased a gallon of lady bugs, but instead
I went for the bee's, I was intrigued by the mechanization of it all.
Those early years were great, I soon found my first job, $35.00 a
week seasonable employment with a local family of good migratory
beekeepers that developed into a life style and a continuing lifetime
of learning experiences. There is much good, much love for what is good,
more good then bad to being a beekeeper, but enough bad to make a few
into cynics. Some say cynics are similar as people who are depressed, a
real disease, but I don't agree as I am afflicted with both. Depression
can be controlled, but the cynicism is learned, no person is born a
cynic, you learn it from the realities of your life's experiences. A few
cynic's are a value to society because they may be true realists. More
on that another time, as what I want to report is the latest and newest
trend in public relations as reported by the news media about beekeeping
and beekeepers.

   For years we as a group of people with similar interest have
gone through cycles of so called "news" reporting about our industry
and ourselves. Some of these stories have been very informative, most
have been poorly done, in my opinion, as to their factual content.
They never the less have reflected beekeepers answers to inquiry,
beekeepers attempts at PR, and for sure have influenced public opinion
and are reflective as history as they are part of the written record of
our industry, accurate or not.

   A condensed list of some of the topics the last 40 years.

1. Pesticides and their effects on Bees.
2. Environmental concerns of pesticides and Bees
3. Bee's and the public welfare. (killer bees)
4. Bee Pests and their effect on bees.

   In the future as time permits I will have much to say about all
these cycles of beekeeping information and its effects and costs to
beekeepers, and to me, but the point of todays note is to add a new
topic and one that is not unexpected but still to even a cynical old
beekeeper a topic that may express in real terms a observation I made
and expressed years ago about beekeepers in general.

 "The Bee Industry Suffers from the Silver Bullet Complex" and has
"A Death Wish". Now thats real cynical things for anyone to say in
polite company, but its stark reality when compared with todays
events, loss of government supports, potential for the biggest crop
of honey in US History, depredation of bees by disease and pests and
the new topic of news reports:

5. Exodus of Beekeepers from keeping bees.

   This week I read, heard, and saw reports of and from beekeepers
who are going out of business. Nothing new you say, right, but
something that has never been been used by the media as the subject
of the nightly news, warning by beekeepers yes, but never really taken
serious as beekeepers come and go all the time. Only time will tell if
these kind of stories will replace the "killer bee", mite attacks, and
so on.

   Well, I lied a little because if I had started in beekeeping twenty
years earlier I would know that there was at least one other time in
which beekeepers left beekeeping in the early part of this century prior
to WW II. At least one was due to a collapse of the Honey Market, again
mostly due to the way beekeepers in the West sold honey. Shipping it on
consignment to eastern markets. The market could not pay the fright and
beekeepers here in California walked away from their bees until WW II
when the market came back because of the lack of sugar. Then came the
supplemental income from pollination rentals, more beekeeper
interest, government programs, and them movement of supplemental
pollination income to the place it is today.

   Is it all coming to a end? Well I don't think so, I don't want to
think so, I hope not, death should be the only thing between beekeeping
here on earth and vacationing with the Lord in heaven. But having no
silver bullet, no death wish, and no fortune teller's glass ball, I can
only guess we as an industry are in for some changes and maybe some rude
awakening and rearrangements. Maybe I want you to bee aware of what
could happen. But you say "I am only a hobbyist beekeeper", true most
beekeepers are hobby beekeepers or start out as hobbyists, I did. The
future of the industry may depend much on the hobbyist as it always has
in the past, and how he solves the number one problem of all beekeepers
today, keeping your bee's alive. You say your bees died and you
purchased more. Thats fine as long as the guy you purchased them from is
still in business.

    Or maybe its all because here in California the opportunity for a
bumper crop only comes two or three times in a lifetime. We are getting
the rains of a lifetime. A few people are suffering, some have died, for
that I am sorry, but the grass has never been greener, flowers the likes
that few in beekeeping today have ever seen may soon be blooming.
Honey crops measured in the hundreds of pounds per hive are possible.
Swarms on every fence post, wax cappings up to one's rear end,
extractors going night and day, and sticky, so sticky you could press
your clothes each days end to recover the honey. Spring crops, summer
crops, fall crops with no dearth's in between and a better start on
next year. Fence post honey, rock pile honey, honey from sources no
beekeepers has any idea about the name, condition, or where the flowers
are, or the time and energy to look for them . These things I have seen,
these thing I want to see again, I need to see one more time...but my
bees are dead.

[more later]                           ttul Andy-

(c) Permission to reproduce, granted.
Written opinions are not necessarily fact.
Check your facts before expressing opinions.

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