This article was published in "Seed and Harvest" in August 1992. Marty has given his permission for the article to be posted to this website.
The economy is sick and everyone knows it. This year a lot of people would like to take credit for fixing it but so far things aren't getting any better. It's my bet that the problem won't even begin to be solved until we can put a finger on the cause. The beekeeping industry is sick too. Fortunately the causes are easier to isolate with beekeeping than with the economy. Unfortunately, even though the writing is on the wall, beekeepers have opted to look the other way. In the past two decades the negative factors affecting beekeepers have amplified geometrically. When the cost of oil went through the ceiling in 1973 the downward spiral began. Since then, beekeeping horizons have been clouded by two varieties of parasitic mites, an ever decreasing amount of bee forage, the threat of Africanized bees, and the uncontrolled import of honey produced in other nations at a fraction of the cost of honey produced in the U.S. It's no wonder so many beekeeping companies are for sale. It's a crooked game! On the whole American beekeepers have opted to stay and play in defiance of the odds. If one could take a step back and see American beekeeping as part of the whole world wide industrial society, then one could see both why beekeeping isn't changing and why the whole system is headed for trouble.
One person who has spoken to the industrial dilemma is E.F. Schumacher. In his book, "Good Work", he lists five terminal defectsof modern industrial society.
"1. It has disrupted, and continues to disrupt certain organic relationships in such a manner that world population is growing, apparently irresistibly, beyond the means of subsistence.
2. It is disrupting certain other organic relationships in such a manner as to threaten those means of subsistence themselves, spreading poison, adulterating food, etc.
3. It is rapidly depleting the earth's nonrenewable stocks of scarce mineral resources--mainly fuels and metals.
4. It is degrading the moral and intellectual qualities of man while further developing a highly complicated way of life the smooth continuance of which requires ever-increasing moral and intellectual qualities.
5. It breeds violence--a violence against nature which at any moment can turn into violence against one's fellow men, when there are weapons around which make nonviolence a condition of survival." (page 35)
I'm not saying that beekeepers are accountable for all of society's ills, but to the extent that the system for keeping bees conforms to the industrial model it is likely to fail for the same reasons.
On the first count, world overpopulation, one can hardly blame the beekeepers unless this comes under the overall heading of "the birds and the bees." But on the second count, disrupting organic relationships, beekeepers must bear their share of blame. By employing a system of migratory beekeeping, which requires transporting large quantities of hives over great distances to make optimal use of seasonal changes, we have enabled the problems of isolated regions to be the problems of all. If this were not the case, American beekeepers wouldn't be dealing with parasitic mites from the Philippines, aggressive bees from Africa, or a brood disease from Europe. Neither would there be concern for the contamination of honey from the very chemicals developed to combat these problems.
To the third charge, depleting non-renewable resources, beekeepers in the U.S. would have to plead guilty. I have a friend who is a large honey producer. He drives his diesel truck 75,000 miles a year so that he can make the maximum amount of honey from his 10,000 hives.
To the fourth charge, degrading moral and intellectual qualities while further complicating life, beekeepers need only plead guilty to the latter part. Managing a colony of bees could be a fairly simple enterprise. But the business of beekeeping has turned it into an extremely complicated vocation. The tools and techniques as we have developed them are economically and informationally inaccessible to a majority of the world's population.
Finally, the charge of violence is one beekeepers must own. My friend's migratory beekeeping operation is a good example. Each fall this beekeeper uses canisters of cyanide gas to exterminate 6,000 colonies of bees at the conclusion of the production season. It is the most economical way to run his operation. But it gives me a cold feeling just thinking about it.
I bring all this up not to discourage beekeeping. Quite to the contrary, I teach it. But the methods I advocate are not those of business as usual. It's my belief that an appropriate technology approach can turn beekeeping around. But it takes a whole new way of looking at the enterprise. Toward that end we held the first annual Topbar Beekeeping Workshop at Ghost Ranch last June.
It was a small beginning, but the 10 participants learned how to construct and manage their own hives. [ed. note: There was a photograph in the original article which showed the 1991 Beekeeping Workshop Participants (l. to r.) Fred Vigil, Ms Ear, Lynette Morgan, Lynda Prim, Georgene Somers, Lorraine Roberts, Dale Roberts, Molly Manzanares, and Marty Hardison (Frances Carlisle not pictured)] Some have more years of beekeeping experience than their instructor and some had none at all. But each one came away ready to attempt a new style of apiculture. It is my hope that topbar beekeeping will prove to be the "human-scale technology" that Schumacher encourages us toward. I won't try to describe in detail the topbar beekeeping system. After all, I'd like to see you in our next seminar. I would like to give anyone who is thinking of keeping bees reason enough to consider this kind of hive instead of the Langstroth hive most beekeepers use.
The first factor is cost. American beekeepers currently spend 62% of their beekeeping dollar on equipment. (American Bee Journal, November 1991, p. 709) The Journal article goes on to say that in today's market the only way one could hope to make a reasonable profit is to buy used equipment. This sounds like the death knell of an industry to me. But this proportional imbalance between capital investments and potential profit doesn't apply to the topbar hive. It can be built with simple wood working equipment for a fraction of the cost of a Langstroth hive. The economy of the top bar system applies to more than the construction of the hives. Each colony is a unit. There are no extra boxes to be warehoused during the off season and protected from rodents and moths. This means that less building space is needed for a topbar operation.
Less petroleum is needed too. The topbar hive can be moved but it is not as easily moved during the production season while new fragile combs are being built . This may well prove to be a blessed limitation, since many of the problems we now suffer as an industry resulted directly from the spreading of problems through migratory beekeeping. Less petroleum is needed to harvest honey too. Only the honey is taken from the hives. This is in sharp contrast to the system that requires boxes to be removed from each hive, taken to an extracting site, and later returned to the hives. I have been able to do a lot of my beekeeping using a smaller vehicle than the truck that was a necessity for managing my Langstroth hives.
The final factor I'll talk about is bee health. The simplicity of the topbar system helps bees stay healthier. Diseases don't get passed around because the colonies live in hives that are self-contained. If a brood disease is contracted the simplest method of dealing with it is to eliminate the whole colony. This avoids the use of a lot of chemicals that in many cases masks the problem and in some cases risks contamination of honey. The bees can be kept healthier too by the constant renewal of the brood combs. With the topbar hive this is a simple yearly procedure. In the Langstroth, supplying new brood combs is costly and, therefore, commonly neglected.
It is my vision that topbar beekeeping will grow. In fact, in the small
valley where I live there are about two dozen beekeepers utilizing this
method. We are aiming at organizing into a honey producing co-op this spring.
I would love to see this model springing up all over the country. So come
and join us. Learn to keep bees and to do it in a manner that treats the
bees, the earth , and the people with the care that will help us survive
in this fragile home. Home