Frankness in beekeeping and life in general. Plain straight forward language is absent and disdained by many today, why give simple answers to questions and comments when volumes of verbiage can be substituted?
Here is a quote from A.I. Root in ABC of Bee Culture 1877 (Bee Moth page 43), “When you hear a person complaining that the moth-worm killed his bees, you can set him down at once as knowing very little about bees: and if a hive is offered you that has an attachment or trap to catch or kill moths you can set the vendor down as a vagabond and swindler.”
Anyone not understanding that?
Yet every year I hear the same stories about how wax moths, yellow jackets, small hive beetles, winter, cold, etc., killed my bees, how is it possible that after all these years, 142 to be exact, we still “know very little about bees.” This is all basic rudimentary beekeeping. We know all about fat bodies. We know all about biology of the honey bee. We can Google what is in bloom, and yet the colony is still dead and we still do not understand.
As for the “vagabond” they are still here, and even thriving in this new beekeeping boom. I just wrote an article about turnips and turnip salesmen, they peddle a dozen different hives, all costing more than the last; two dozen different hive tools, all costing more than the last and performing the same function. This can pertain to every aspect of beekeeping as though buying a new gadget is the solution to and age old problem – management. I expect the next greatest, newest, save-all will be log hives.
It’s what you say after the yes or no that really confuses me!
