Just Try It!

I have numerous drafts here that I keep telling myself aren't ready yet but I saw this Twitter post from Lawrence: https://x.com/BlackMountHoney/status/1763185687568773300?s=20

That I thought I'd just bang out a quick post about in terms of beekeeping.

I will caveat it right from the off that, as a beekeeper, you're in a symbiotic relationship with your bees. As the "boss" (hah!) the onus is on you to provide an environment within which your bees can thrive.

That out the way, if you want to try something: You Should.

Beekeeping is definitely a "small c" Conservative hobby. It's still Imperial measurements for the most part, the vast majority of what we do and how we do it is based on wisdom that's 100+ years old and it has been, until relatively recently, definitely an old duffers club. It's also quite expensive and takes up a fair amount of time.

You will hear no end of advice about how you can't do this, that wont work and so on. My advice is that if you want to give it a go and see what happens (and it wont harm your bees) you should do.

Things I've learned include:

• 14x12 frames work quite well without foundation (but you get drone brood everywhere and you have to be careful)

• Super frames without foundation work perfectly well even in an extractor

• Top Bar Hives are fine and have some advantages over framed hives but don't expect the bees to work horizontally

• Warre hives are a pain

• Double brood vs 14x12 etc is a trade off

• Brood and a half is a faff but some people like it.

• A Land Rover 90/110 is a terrible vehicle for moving bees about

As I enter my white beard (and beer belly) stage of life I'm determined not to follow my predecessors and soothe my aching back telling the young 'uns how it was in my day, which is the only way. If a Flow-Hive or an Omlet type development comes out, give it a try if it sounds appealing. You never know, it might work for you.

As a hobbyist beekeeper I definitely looked at whether I could give up the day job, most of us do at some point. I could never make it work for me, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Circumstance and environment will play a bigger part than capability I'd suggest. If you can't work out the maths going commercial, go for being a seasonable bee inspector if you can. You'll lean more in that job than anywhere else about beekeeping! Keep exploring, keep trying something out. We're not, and shouldn't be, constrained by 100+ year old wisdom. Bees themselves are reasonably well understood (still lots to learn here as well frankly) but within that confine there is still much to discover around how they can work with us and that should be something to enjoy exploring!