Her lack of experience in taking on the running of a largish bee operation was highlighted right at the start of the thread and that has proved to be the case.
Anyone wanting to make a living off bees in the UK would need to factor in a couple of really bad summers into the business plan and the effect that has on cash flow.
I wonder what happened to the plan for nuc sales.
In the video she quoted Michael Bush quite a bit But MB has a day job in IT and his bees are a sideline hobby.
He claims to be running something in the region of 200 colonies (which appears to be an average 'sideline' bee business in the US).Originally Posted by Jon
Maybe being the figurhead of a new movement is simply more appealing to Luisa? Watch out biobee, there's a new kid on the blockIn the past few years I've changed most of how I keep bees. Most of it was to make it less work. I'm now keeping about two hundred hives with about the same work I used to put into four. Here are some of the things I've changed.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm.
Last edited by prakel; 13-09-2015 at 06:25 AM.
And MB is a textboox example of a guy who makes beekeeping claims which no-one else can replicate.
Small cell as a varroa cure would be the most obvious case.
There's a lot of good common sense on his site, somewhat marred in my oppinion by those claims which Jon mentions and his my way or the highway approach on the forums. But, and I'm serious here, I'd love to be in the financial position and to have the time to attend his 'bee camp' just to see what he is doing:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beescamp.htm
Don't get me wrong. I have a lot of time for Michael Bush and his website is a great resource.
I doubt any amount of evidence could change his mind re. his current beliefs though.
The quickest way to get anywhere with bees is to keep an open mind and be prepared to change if a genuinly better/easier method proves it's worth after fair trial. This of course is totally different to jacking something in because you've not done as well as forcast, and then promoting your new scheme (or 'movement') by denigrating those who are getting somewhere.
Would the Damascene conversion have happened if the business had been nicely profitable from the start? Hmmm.
And anyway in my opinion the jury is still out about whether 'natural' beekeeping is actually a more ethical way to keep bees given the typical rate of colony loss, questionable practices such as 'chop and crop' and the fact that the colony often has to struggle by with a massive mite load due to the baggage many practitioners have about any chemical treatment.
And there's the elephant in the room about being a so called natural beekeeper when you work with non native subspecies of bee.
I think some of the more radical natural Beekeepers forget that honey bees have been farmed/domesticated for thousands of years. This I believe leads to some of the more bizaire comments on beekeeping.
Nb: I'm not against natural beekeeping, I just think it's not for me...
I disagree with even the term "natural" beekeeping. It's like it's somehow better than standard, "un-natural" bekeeping. Whereas in reality it's simply a different form and in my opinion, less responsible form of bee husbandry.
Totally agree, mostly urban types who think they're more ecologically in tune than "conventional" beekeepers. Irritates me almost as much as the ones who don't want to harvest honey, so much more eco to leave it on the bees (=wasps once the bees have died from lack of varroa control) when 80% of honey consumed in the UK is imported, not!
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