Sweet life of the alternative society

[gavin]

Scotland on Sunday (http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/peter-ross-sweet-life-of-the-alternative-society-1-2501458) have a nice piece on beekeeping in Scotland featuring some of the leading lights of the craft.

The video is a collection of stills of some of the beekeepers featured.

Not a peep about the bee holocaust the paper's competitor in the west burbles on about. It does - justifiably - mention the long-term decline in keeping honeybees but also the recent surge in taking up beekeeping.

Here is a quote from near the end:

There is something pleasingly modest about beekeepers, I think, in their devotion to and admiration for a society so different from our own. They are full of wonder at the vibrant miniature worlds they help to sustain, lost in the dizzying, dazzling industry of the hive.

That may well be true of beekeepers in general but it certainly applies to those Peter Ross spoke to.

[Jon]

Nicely written.
There is definitely a zen like aspect to beekeeping when you get a perfect sunny day and everything works out the way you imagined it would before you opened any of the hives.
I can't relate to a lot of the stuff I read on the bee forums, mainly beekeeping forum, as it does not square with my own experience of keeping bees. Importing queens, changing the race of bee every year, fights with neighbours over keeping bees in the garden, bees following 200 yards.
The bee armageddon stuff is one huge lie as honeybees seem to be doing well in the UK and Ireland. Bumbles may face more of a challenge.
A well organised beekeeper can get a honey crop and take a nuc out of almost every colony most years.
The beekeepers with big problems are those who ignore varroa or else use quack treatments to combat the mite.

[HJBee]

Bumble bees were noticeably more abundant in our parts this year (and commented on widely - not just because I'm noticing more now my spare time is more focused to their world), and I would frequently see 4-8 different types all at the same time with a sprinkling of honey bees. What is also noticeable are that Bumbles are no where near as fussy as the honey bee when it comes to weather or temperature.

[Adam]

There was a nice 'pace' to the article - as though Peter Ross had got his mind into the beekeeping zone. It's an article that many other journalists should learn from, rather than the "All bees will die" rubbish that we've seen elsewhere - or the articles that are actually promoting a book. (Observer I think?).
He gets a gold star from me.