What is organic beekeeping?

How can there be any organic beekeeping with this so many harmful chemicals that the bees come in contact with? We can’t.

1. Can we tell where the harmful chemicals are by our everyday observations? Probably not. However, we can use organic methods. That is about as close as we can get.

2. The queen bee of organic beekeeping is Dee Lusby in Arizona. Look up her website. Her honey is the purest in the country. Pesticides in Dee’s honey are measured in parts per billion, while everyone else's is in parts per million. That says it all. She has about for 5000 followers who follow her website.

A shorter version of organic beekeeping is as follows.

1. Medications, essential oils, acids (of any type), have unintended side effects.

2. These poisons in the hive mess up the natural process and cloud any truly legitimate testing as to what is going on.

3. Do not put your hive the agricultural areas unless you want problems with pesticides.

4. Use honey and real pollen to feed the honey bees. Do not use sugar, corn syrup, or pollen substitute.

5. When a hive dies it can be considered as good, if the weak genetics are eliminated from that area. The hive that is left is the one that you want to breed from. Yes, grow your own queens.

6. Swarming is natural and good for the bees. The stronger genetics survive.

7. Divide your hives into three groups. From the strong hives make your splits. From the medium strength hives make honey. Combine the weaker colonies with the hope that they will survive. Some purest would say let the weak die.

8. When looking down on top of an open Langstroth hive box, we see 10 frames or top bars. Each frame or top bar should be marked with arrows to remind you the direction the comb should be facing. It is less confusing to the bees and the beekeeper

9. Every year replace two frames or top bars in the middle of the hive box. Remove the old combs from service. This may be questionable because in nature brood comb cell size gets smaller and smaller because of the remnants of the cocoon from the brood. This gives rise to the strong argument for small cell operation. However, it can also be said that the bees will tear down old comb and rebuild what they want.

10. Some organic beekeepers have advised letting the bees draw out their own comb using at the most a strip of wax for the bees to build on. This process helps get rid of the American foul brood if any is present. The bees will draw out the comb they need at that time, worker or drone or food storage cells.

11. Other organic beekeepers are very much into small cell foundation to increase the bee population by providing more space for brood cells. This decrease in cell size also gives less cell space for the verroa mites.

True or not-I don't know, but I love every one of these thought provoking ideas.

12. In the early days of beekeeping, beekeepers would rotate the frame without tilting the frame so that the cells open and\or sealed are not facing the ground. If the cells were facing the ground the comb would break off as in top bar operations. Of course, back in those days the comb was probably not reinforced, which means that in some frames the comb may fall out anyway if not held properly.

13. Drones are good in old well-established healthy hives that I have observed. The high number of drones present shocked me. Mama nature knows what she is doing. We can only wonder at best because without knowing all of the past, present and future of what we are dealing with we cannot really know or understand it.

14. Dee Lusby reminds me of Eva Crane in her passion, determination and integrity. Be sure and check her website and chat room.