10/27/10

Video: What works, and what doesn't

Here's another video that Kirk found on YouTube. It features Jacqueline Freeman, who has an upcoming book about beekeeping. The video is a bit long because it also includes interviews with two commercial beekeepers who use chemicals and who (not surprisingly) are having lots of problems.

Jacqueline hits all the points that are the basis of Backwards Beekeeping:

—Chemical-free beekeepers aren't seeing any collapse in their hives.

—Using foundationless frames to let the bees draw their own comb makes the bees healthier and lets them regulate themselves.

—Putting chemicals on bees (as virtually all commercial beekeepers do) gives you nothing but weak bees and strong pathogens.

—Using local bees whose queens mate in the wild gives you healthy bees with broad genetic diversity.

—Trucking bees around the country to pollinate monocultured crops stresses the bees and makes them weaker.

—Let your bees keep enough of their own honey over winter so you don't have to feed them sugar water.