Finding chemical-free honey, or selling your own

LA locals Meggie and Shane are starting a new site called Indie Honey that aims to pair chemical-free honey producers with customers.

If you're a Backwards Beekeeper with honey to spare, or you're looking for local honey, you can sign up now. They plan to have the whole site running in 2013.

The bees know what to do

On his Facebook page, Kirk writes:

Me and Val did a cut out, oh, about a month ago. It was big and ran down below the foundation wall. We could only get 40% of the hive out. So we took 4 big frames of open Brood and nurse bees. Put them in a cardboard box and took them to Jordan's house.

I checked them Saturday. They made their own queen and are up and running. I love letting the bees do their thing.

Empty hives on the farm, full ones in the city

LA Backwards Beekeeper James Lui has this blog post on the interesting disparity between collapsing bee populations in chemically-treated rural agricultural areas and thriving wild bees in urban environments:

Let’s say you’re a bee. You notice that the local City seems to take very good care of their flower beds. In fact, people seem to be planting beautiful flowers year-round, including removing other annuals, and re-planting new ones in their place just to keep the bed looking full of flowers. Home gardeners seem to be using fewer chemicals than before – because people are trying to grow “better quality” food at home than they find in their markets. Whole areas are void of the usual predatory yellowjackets and wasps because they happen to be areas where people don’t like such annoying insects and they’ve put out thousands of traps. Where would you go?

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (and why it probably isn’t a disorder) (Thoughts from James H. Lui)

Michael Bush on unsustainable beekeeping systems

Natural beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush has agreed to be a guest blogger with us this late summer/fall. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, take a look at his website Bush Farms.


I suppose we all know that the honey bees and beekeepers are in trouble. It seems like there is some controversy in the beekeeping world and the scientific world over whether it is even possible to keep bees without treatments. But there are many of us who are doing this and succeeding.

Let's do a short overview of the problems in beekeeping and the solutions. I will flesh out the details of each point in subsequent posts. But here is an outline of what I see as the primary issues:

• Beekeeping Pests
• Contamination
• Wrong Gene Pool
• Upset ecology of the bee colony
• Beekeeping House of Cards

I will elaborate on each in the days to come.

Learn from the bees

Natural beekeeping pioneer Michael Bush has agreed to be a guest blogger with us this late summer/fall. For those of you unfamiliar with Michael, take a look at his website Bush Farms.

[Editor's note: This post is now expanded to its full length.]

"Let the bees tell you"
-Brother Adam

I am going to give you the short-cut to success in beekeeping right here and now. The rest is merely elaboration and details. With apologies to C.S. Lewis (who said in A Horse and His Boy, “no one teaches riding quite as well as a horse”) I think you need to realize that “no one teaches beekeeping quite as well as bees.” Listen to them and they will teach you.

Trust the Bees
“There are a few rules of thumb that are useful guides. One is that when you are confronted with some problem in the apiary and you do not know what to do, then do nothing. Matters are seldom made worse by doing nothing and are often made much worse by inept intervention.”
—The How-To-Do-It book of Bee-keeping, Richard Taylor

If the question in your mind starts “how do I make the bees …” then you are already thinking wrongly. If your question is “how can I help them with what they are trying to do…” you are on your way to becoming a beekeeper.

Resources
Here, then, is the short answer to every beekeeping issue. Give them the resources to resolve the problem and let them. If you can’t give them the resources, then limit the need for the resources.

For instance if they are being robbed, what they need is more bees to defend the hive, but if you can’t give them that, then reduce the entrance to one bee wide and you will create the “pass at Thermopylae where numbers count for nothing”. If they are having wax moth issues in the hive, what they need are more bees to guard the comb. If you can’t give them that then reduce the area they need to guard by removing empty combs and empty space.

In other words, give them resources or reduce the need for the resources they don’t have.

Panacea
Most bee problems come back to queen issues.

Sometimes forwards is just the new sideways

Kirk did some mentoring with Barnaby the other day.

Here's his audio report. Follow along with the pictures.

Barnaby looking in the hive. These bees are from Coma Apiaries in Northern California. I purchased bees from them in 1999.

We pulled a frame. Good pattern of brood, very yellow bees—haven't seen yellow bees for a while.

Supercedure cell..."but there are eggs and larvae!" he says...bees don't care what Humans say. The queen is being replaced.

Second hive: Barnaby getting ready to open it up.

I don't know if you can see it, but there was a supercedure cell in this hive—also not much brood. "Why the supercedure cell?" the human asks. Well, we saw the queen—she was going in circles like she was frustrated. "How would you like to be ready to lay 5000 eggs a day and have nowhere to lay them?" I said.

The bees think something is wrong—the queen is not laying, so they start to replace her.

Barnaby.

More plastic comb, another supercedure cell.

Closing up the third hive.

The second hive when we opened it sounded funny. I pointed this out to him. When bees are happy they sound in tune. I also had him put frames with wax foundation in the hive so the queen can lay. The bees here been here for a month—their numbers are going down.

A queen excluder is a device that removes the queen's determinism. She should be able to decide whether to swarm or leave or lay wherever she decides is best. When a human or humans decide what is best for the bees the bees fail...humans don't know as much about the hive as the queen and the bees do.

But it has been fun Mentoring Barnaby anyway.

—kirkobeeo

Report from the organic beekeeping conference

left to right: Danny, Maurice, Roberta, Dee, Kirk, Diane, Meredith, Ceebs

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:

A bunch of us Backwards Beekeepers migrated to Oracle, Arizona for the 4th annual Organic Beekeeping Conference, organized by the incredible and one-of-a-kind Dee Lusby. She is a force of nature with a passion for treatment-free beekeeping. The event started out with a swarm arriving on the grounds of the conference, an auspicious sign. Of course, someone had a top bar hive in the back of their car ready for the bee rescue.

At the conference we had the opportunity to meet up with beekeepers at all stages. Some were just starting to be beekeepers and didn't have a hive yet; others were commercial people with 100's of hives. There were representatives from the East Coast, West Coast and everywhere in between including Utah, Colorado, Vermont, Arizona, etc. There was even a commercial beekeeper from France!

Kirk had the most laughs from the audience and inspired many to inquire about how to start a group like ours in their city. We saw talks about changes in the government regulation of the "organic" label, apitherapy (the use of bee stings as medical treatment), the Denver Community of Backyard Bee Guardians model, hive building techniques and much more.

There will be another treatment free beekeeping conference coming up in July organized by the authors of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping. Check out the details at their website.

—roberta

Viewer mail

Angie from Utah writes:

Hi Kirkobeeo!

Love your YouTube videos! I am wondering if I could go with your style of beekeeping in the Cottonwood Canyons of Utah. I use foundations and do extracting rather than crush and straining. Although I originally had planned to do the crush and strain method. The beekeepers in my area said that because of our short growing season, it takes too much time for the bees to rebuild the wax and have enough honey ready for winter.

Most beekeepers lose their hives that are in my area because we are high in the mountains and it gets super cold in the winter. I move my bees against the house to get radiant heat and so far I have been able to keep my hives over the winter. I have snow from mid-October through late May.

Also, do you use a queen excluder? I have been because I am afraid I will lose my queen when I am in the hive to do extraction, but I am pretty sure it is crowding the queen because I had a swarm last year.

Thanks for your guidance!

Angie, NOVICE beekeeper

Kirk replies:

Hay great to hear from you. I have spent many days up Cottonwood Canyons—both Big and Little.

I don't use a queeen excluder. I call it a honey excluder. Most people or other bekeepers who say foundationless frames take too long for the bees to draw in a short season have not observed that personally. The old books' statement that it takes "so much honey to make a pound of comb" is not true in my opinion.

The prime reason not to use foundation is cell size and the pollution in the foundation.

Now that idea you have to move the hives so as to get radiant heat from the house is a real good Idea for sure. Enjoy the blog, join the backwards beekeeping club and most of all keep succeeding with your beekeeping. I'm comming up to Utah to visit my Daughter in August love to drop by. Also would love a story from you and some pictures of your Beekeeping.

your pal kirkobeeo

Wondering what Angie means by "crush and straining"? Check out this video.

Backwards Beekeepers TV: Principles and Strategies

Earlier this week Kirkobeeo did a video chat on Skype with Danielle, who is president of a beekeepers association in Birmingham, Alabama. She and Kirk talked about the ideas behind Backwards Beekeeping and strategies for getting people informed about them.



We're always looking to make contact with other beekeepers around the world. If you'd like to do a conversation like this one, drop us an e-mail.

Organic Beekeepers Conference, March 4-6, 2011

Organic & treatment-free beekeeper extraordinaire Dee Lusby has announced the 4th annual Organic Beekeepers Conference, which will happen in Oracle, Arizona at the beginning of March. If you're ready to step up your beekeeping game and want to learn from some real experts, you should check it out!

Here's the information from Dee:

As the Organic Beekeepers yahoo.com discussion group has now grown in numbers to over 3700+ members, we have put together our 4th meeting for an American Beekeepers Association, for beekeepers into Organic Beekeeping, to come together to associate for clean sustainable beekeeping with ZERO treatments and getting off the artificial feeds and artificial inbreeding parameters.

Meeting to be held in Oracle, Arizona at the YMCA Triangle Y Ranch Camp and Retreat Center 4 - 6 March 2011. Meeting will start Friday afternoon with Friday Night Hello's/Dinner, run all day Saturday, and thru Sunday afternoon with keynote presentations, general sessions, breakout sessions, hands on workshops, with 6 catered meals. Dinner for Friday night Hello's will also have speakers. Vendors welcomed. Speakers so far confirmed: Don Downs (Apitherapy), Sam Comfort, Dean Stiglitz, Ramona Herboldsheimer, James Fearnley (UK), Bruce Brown (CC Pollen), and Dee Lusby.

The fee for meeting includes: accommodations in Lodges (with up to 4 per room dorm style each with own bath....with bring your own sheets/bedding/blankets) for $175 per person, plus six catered meals, access to all meetings/talks/workshops, snacks/break refreshments, and also a camp liability coverage (form required to be filled out). Also no fee for vendors other then normal lodging costs for meeting/catered meals.

For more information contact Dee Lusby for information/registration at: 520-398-2474 eve. For payment of registration per person of $175, due in advance of attending, send to Organic Beekeepers % Dee Lusby, HC 65, Box 7450, Amado, Arizona 85645, with stamped self address envelop for returning receipt and more information on YMCA to sender, plus liability/medical form to be filled out. Note: $175 fee is a straight fee whether sleeping/eating at camp or not.

For general information concerning the meeting other contacts are Keith Malone (Alaska) 907-688-0588, and Ramona/Dean at 978-407-3934.

—Dee Lusby

Rescued swarm helps a queenless hive

Javier called the Bee Rescue Hotline after he found a very small swarm in his back yard.

Kirk realized that he could use these bees to help out a queenless hive:

Viewer mail

Dario writes:

Dear Mr. Kirkobeeo,

First of all. Thank you for offering to take and answer questions regarding our lovely bee friends. I would really appreciate if you could help me with my concerns below:

I am a beginning bee keeper here in Los Angeles...we installed a hive in the Hollywood hills on May 14, 2010 and checked the hive on 6/29/10 and the bees were buzzing fine and there seemed to be no problems. The bottom frames were beginning to be filled with brood.

We checked the hive on 9/30/10 expecting to harvest honey but were surprised to see that none of the top frames had been worked on at all. The bottom frames were almost completely covered in brood and honey. While this seemed great for the future of the colony we were not sure if there was a problem because of the lack of honey production.

I wanted to know if moving a few frames from the bottom box to the top would stimulate more honey production?

—Dario P.

Kirk replies:

OK—everything seems fine to me. The common mistake new beekeepers make (and old beekeepers too) is managing the hive with the purpose to get Honey.....yes that's right to get honey. Your bees are on their first year. The first year do the following:

1- Get the bees in the box

2- See the queen is laying

3- The queen is laying in a good pattern.....not a Drone Layer

4- The bees get established and get through the August September Dearth.

5- See that they have Pollen and Honey to get to spring.


a- No reason to move a frame or two up because the bees are contracting not expanding this time of year

b- Look around do you see flowers like you do in the spring...No

c- Go to the blog click on Charles Martin Simon read his stuff

d -Join the backwardsbeekeepers club on yahoo

c- do whats best for the bees not what is best for the Human

kirkobeeo

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.

Backwards Beekeepers TV: Swarm Capture For Beginners

As the Backwards Beekeepers club grows ever larger, more and more people at our meetings tell us that they're ready for feral bees of their own, but they're intimidated by the thought of capturing a swarm themselves.

Well, here is a step-by-step guide on how it's done.

A few things to remember:

• Always wear protective gear! Swarms are typically quite docile, but it's important to always be prepared.

• Take your time and don't rush.

• Re-read your copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping, search this blog (using the box on the right), or post a question to our Yahoo group if there's anything you're unsure of.

• Take photos (with people in them as well, if possible) and send them in to the blog!

You can subscribe to our Yahoo group to get notifications of bees that are available for rescue.



You can watch the video in full-size HD here.

Looking under the hood of a much-reported study

A recently released study from the University of Montana, Missoula and Army scientists at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center finds that the widely reported "colony collapse disorder" among commercial honeybees is due to the tag-team effect of a previously unknown virus and a well-known fungus called Nosema ceranae.

The New York Times picked up the story (and ran it under the breathless headline "Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery"). It has lots of juicy elements, including a high-tech new tool that can analyze samples of dead bees for the presence of viruses. At last—technology and improved chemical treatments are riding in to save the day for bees, right?

Not so fast, writes Katherine Eban at Fortune:

What the Times article did not explore -- nor did the study disclose -- was the relationship between the study's lead author, Montana bee researcher Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk, and Bayer Crop Science. In recent years Bromenshenk has received a significant research grant from Bayer to study bee pollination. Indeed, before receiving the Bayer funding, Bromenshenk was lined up on the opposite side: He had signed on to serve as an expert witness for beekeepers who brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer in 2003. He then dropped out and received the grant.

Bromenshenk's company, Bee Alert Technology, which is developing hand-held acoustic scanners that use sound to detect various bee ailments, will profit more from a finding that disease, and not pesticides, is harming bees...

As for the Bayer-Bromenshenk connection, in 2003 a group of 13 North Dakota beekeepers brought a class-action lawsuit against Bayer, alleging that the company's neonicotinoid, Imidacloprid, which had been used in nearby fields, was responsible for the loss of more than 60% of their hives. "My bees were getting drunk," Chris Charles, a beekeeper in Carrington, N.D., and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, told me in 2008. "They couldn't walk a white line anymore -- they just hung around outside the hive. They couldn't work."

...The beekeepers tried to enlist more expert witnesses, but others declined, according to two of the beekeeper plaintiffs, in large part because they had taken research money from Bayer and did not want to testify against the company. One who agreed -- Bromenshenk -- subsequently backed out and got a research grant from Bayer. Bromenshenk insists the two actions were unrelated. "It was a personal decision," he says. "I, in good conscience, couldn't charge beekeepers for services when I couldn't help them." He adds, "Eventually, the lawyers stopped calling. I didn't quit. They just stopped calling."

Homegrown Evolution analyzes:

I think what's missing in bee research, in general, is a whole systems approach to the problem. Not only are commercial beekeepers trucking their bees thousands of miles, but they are using miticides, not allowing the bees to form their own comb, limiting the numbers of drones, breeding weak stock and exposing the bees to pesticides such as imidacloprid (manufactured by Bayer!) to name just a few questionable practices. All of this bad beekeeping promulgates bees with weakened immune systems. The researchers may find a "solution," but with weak bees some other problem will come along in a few years and we'll be right back where we started. Meanwhile the big commercial beekeepers cling to pesticides as the cause of CCD since this thesis allows them to carry on without addressing all of the aforementioned practices.

CCD is nothing new--it's happened before and will happen again until we start keeping bees in a more natural manner. To "solve" CCD with some kind of treatment regimen or a hand held detection gadget is a bit like the government propping up those "too big to fail" banks. Everything works fine until the next bubble comes along.

Meanwhile, as before, feral bees are thriving. Backwards is the new forwards.

Petal gets some honey

Kirk writes:

Here are two pics of Petal. She took over the hive at Crenshaw Garden from Anna; now she's harvested some honey.

That hive has been going for about four years now. Take the honey once or twice a year, that's all, nothing else. Leave the bees alone.

—kirkobeeo

Viewer mail

Andre writes:

Hi,

Been keeping bees for 3 years now, 9 hives and counting in the UK.

I'm running all Lang mediums at the moment and I'm thinking of going backwards and foundation less.

I've looked on the blog and can't seem to find anything on swarm control?

Do you approve of artificial swarming or do you just let them spray swarms and casts every where? I cant really afford to let them swarm every where as I have hives in urban areas (the odd one or two is unavoidable though :) )

I have only been using oxalic acid when brood less in the winter. (I'm gonna find it hard not to do that)

I like what you are doing.

Thanks

Andre

Kirk responds:



Wondering what Kirk means by "starter strips"? Find out here.

The Yahoo Organic Beekeepers group is here.

OMB Podcast

Craig in southern Maryland runs the podcast and blog somdbeekeeper.com, and episodes 9 and 10 are extended interviews with Kirk.

That's right: Kirk is so entertaining that he won't fit into just one podcast.

Kirk on the OMB Podcast: Part 1, followed by Part 2.

Can Backwards Beekeeping work in a cold climate?

Phillip writes:

Hi,

I've been reading your website and watching your videos for the past few months and I love what you guys do and the way you do it.

I've been interested in starting up a honeybee hive in my backyard for some time now, and I would love to follow the backwards beekeeping methods with starter strips instead of plastic foundation. I also like the destruction method of harvesting honey because it's so simple.

I have my doubts, though, that the backwards beekeeping methods would work well in a colder climate of say, St. John's, Newfoundland, which is where I live -- it's a big and generally cold island in the middle of the North Atlantic. There are only two beekeeping operations in the province. The bees survive the winters, though, and seem to do well here (and they're mite-free). But the summer season is short and the honey flow doesn't last too long when it does kick in.

Do you know if backwards beekeeping is even possible in such a cold climate with a short summer season? I can see it working well in a warm place like LA, but Newfoundland is nowhere close to LA.

All the best,

Phillip

P.S. I thought I should include a photo of the spot where I'm thinking about putting my hive.

I took this photo 5 minutes ago. This is what May 1st looks like in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Kirk's reply:

Viewer mail

Derek in Utah writes:

Hi,

I am a first-year backyard beekeeper. I ordered my beginning beekeeping material about a month ago. Since that time, I was introduced to the backwards beekeeping method; I like it. I have already prepared my starter strips (got some beeswax from a friend who is practicing the backwards beekeeping method).

My question is this, when installing my package bees, do I need to worry about the bees taking to the starter strips? Should I have a couple frames with foundation placed in the hive just in case? I'm a little nervous about installing my bees without any drawn out comb. My friend gave me one fully drawn out frame of honey comb, I plan on putting that in the bottom box when I install my bees.

What do you think? In your experience, do package bees generally take to the starter strips without any drawn out frames? My bees arrive on the 24th, so please help me!

Thanks,

Derek M.

Here's Kirk's reply:



If you're wondering what starter strips are, find out here.