# Maybe this is another crazy idea.



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

With hive equipment all being one size box can you just add empty boxes to the bottom of the hive and as the bees fill up the top boxes remove and extract? Is one empty box on the bottom adequate for swarm prevention or should that vary at different times of the year?

It seems like this would be favored if it would work.


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

Sure it will work. Bees don't care. The big problem with it when running more then a few hives is the extra work and the extra stings of breaking down all those double deeps to under super. But yeah Ace if you just have a few hives it'll work fine!


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Yup, crazy.


----------



## zippelk (Sep 1, 2010)

Google Warre


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Thanks Mark, I knew I could count on you.

Dan, I have all mediums but I don't see that as an issue because if I was going to do this I would make a lift to lift the whole stack and place the empty underneath. Thirty second job from the rear so I wouldn't anticipate any stings.

If Mark was a nice guy he would let me use his bobcat.


----------



## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

If bees naturally work down as so many proclaim on this site, why do my bees always fill the boxes I stack on top and often walk thru the bottom brood chambers leaving it empty? I find this in both early spring and end of summer.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It's about foundation. Given a box on top with foundation, the bees will work up into it faster than they would into a box of foundation below.

But Warré hives are foundationless, so the bees are reluctant to move into an empty box put on top they would have to start comb building from the top bars quite far from the rest of the cluster. So Warré people add the box underneath so the top bars are right under and next to the cluster so the bees can more easily work into it.

However there is a drawback to supering under the hive. Bees prefer to store honey at the top. So in a Warré, with new boxes added underneath, the brood nest is initially at the top of the hive. When the nectar flow starts, as brood cells hatch, the bees fill the cells with honey, and the queen is forced to lay eggs lower in the hive, so over time, the brood nest moves down. So the bees only have room to store so much honey, as they are waiting for larvae to hatch and the brood nest to move down. If there is a heavy flow, and the brood area is blocking honey storage, the bees simply don't collect it.

In normal lang practise of adding boxes on top there are no such restrictions, the bees are free to store limitless amounts of honey, long as the beekeeper keeps adding boxes.

Abbé Ēmile Warré himself, developed his hive in an area that's been described as not having strong honey flows, and in that situation it worked OK. However the Warré hive is still 1/2 the size of a lang, which is another limiting factor. Abbé Ēmile Warré developed his hive for "the people", who he saw as largely not wanting to mess with building frames and using comb foundation, so developed this more simple, stackable top bar hive.


----------



## zippelk (Sep 1, 2010)

Acebird said:


> I would make a lift to lift the whole stack and place the empty underneath


like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOgCflLWPC4


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> So the bees only have room to store so much honey, as they are waiting for larvae to hatch and the brood nest to move down. If there is a heavy flow, and the brood area is blocking honey storage, the bees simply don't collect it.


They will stop storing honey even if there are empty frames below? So if there are empty frames above they will store but if they are below they won't store. You could be right but that doesn't make sense to me if bees naturally draw down in a feral hive.

Zeppelk, I have seen that video before. It accomplishes the task but it is a little 
Rube Goldberg for me.


----------



## Bush_84 (Jan 9, 2011)

Why not nadir and super? If you are interesting in nadiring (undersupering), but don't like the idea of waiting for brood to hatch, just do both. In the spring add a box or two underneath and then super before the flow.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Well I was kinda liking the natural rotation of the boxes where they flow upward, in at the bottom and off at the top. It makes the usage even and gives you all the time in the world to inspect the equipment on an annual basis. In the back of my mind I also thought it would make the bees happy moving like they would normally do.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Acebird said:


> They will stop storing honey even if there are empty frames below? So if there are empty frames above they will store but if they are below they won't store. You could be right but that doesn't make sense to me if bees naturally draw down in a feral hive.


The bees do not bother about what makes sense to you. 

They will store some honey below, but they'll always keep some room down there so the queen can move down. I've even seen it touted on this forum, by a Warré expert, as an advantage to Warré hives, that they won't collect too much low grade goldenrod because it comes so fast they can't move the brood down fast enough.

Not saying I agree, but that's what he said.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Acebird said:


> Thanks Mark, I knew I could count on you.
> 
> Dan, I have all mediums but I don't see that as an issue because if I was going to do this I would make a lift to lift the whole stack and place the empty underneath. Thirty second job from the rear so I wouldn't anticipate any stings.
> 
> If Mark was a nice guy he would let me use his bobcat.


If you would let me use my Bobcat on your hives you would have nothing to worry about. You wouldn't have any bees either. Heh, heh.

Actually you stole my thunder. I was thinking you could use Steve10's hive lifter. That would take the back work out of it. You could build it yourself too. If a Veterenarian can build one an extractor building engineer certainly could.

But, undersupering the whole hive probably wouldn't work and wouldn't keep them from swarming. But, I've never tried it, so what do I know?

What do I know? I know Diddley and I know Bo. Bo Diddley actually. A great Blues Beekeeper.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What you are writing about could easily be done by laying the whole hive down on its back and breaking the bottom board off. Then once placed on the stand again, the bottom board could have a super or two placed on it and the individual supers from the original hive could be broken apart from each other and stacked one by one on the hive. Then the full supers could be taken off for extracting.

Unless one were going to bring the extractor to the hive. heh,heh


----------



## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

SQKCRK was right:

Yup, crazy. 

You do not have to re-invent the wheel. There is a reason that most of the commercial people do things in a similar manner, it is what works best MOST of the time.

And by the way, "Crazy" is my moniker, and at least I understand I am.

Crazy Roland


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Well then it is about time you come up with some crazy ideas because most of them are run of the mill methods. You are letting me down. Let's start living up to that moniker because I am way a head of you.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> Actually you stole my thunder. I was thinking you could use Steve10's hive lifter. That would take the back work out of it. You could build it yourself too. If a Veterenarian can build one an extractor building engineer certainly could.


Mark, don't worry about how I am going to do it. Lifting up a hive and slipping an empty medium under would be a cake walk. Trust me, it won't be with back muscles.


----------



## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Well, Ace at least you are thinking. Thank god I live in Alabama:lookout: All of us commercial beekeepers, with the exception of Roland, have done some crazy (normal for Roland) things to bees during our learning curve years. I said "exception of Roland" because he claims to be crazy-(like a fox). Merry Christmas Roland, I hope next year all your basswood sections will be full and I will actually be able to buy a few comb sections from you for my personal use. TED


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I have some I could send you.


----------



## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Ted wrote:

Merry Christmas Roland, I hope next year all your basswood sections will be full and I will actually be able to buy a few comb sections from you for my personal use.

No basswood honey this year, the sections where out, Rats!!! Next year???

Acebird - my ideas are not crazy - my predictions are. I earned the "crazy" by predicting that in 10 years there will be no treatment free sideliner or hobbiest beekeeper, due to the large capitol investments needed. My next prediction is that when the honey definition laws get tight, Like Wisconsin's, many of the people that run more than a single deep will have difficulties meeting the standard, if they have a significant amount of feed in the hive when dandelions bloom.

I am glad I disappointed you.... Also glad you think you are ahead of me, he he he.

Crazy Roland


----------



## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Ted wrote:

Merry Christmas Roland, I hope next year all your basswood sections will be full and I will actually be able to buy a few comb sections from you for my personal use.

No basswood honey this year, the sections where out, Rats!!! Next year???

Acebird - my ideas are not crazy - my predictions are. I earned the "crazy" by predicting that in 10 years there will be no treatment free sideliner or hobbiest beekeeper, due to the large capitol investments needed. My next prediction is that when the honey definition laws get tight, Like Wisconsin's, many of the people that run more than a single deep will have difficulties meeting the standard, if they have a significant amount of feed in the hive when dandelions bloom.

I am glad I disappointed you.... Also glad you think you are ahead of me, he he he.

Crazy Roland


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

Seriously, (rare by me so I need to state it), it sounds like I should throw foundationless on the bottom of the deep and foundation on the top (both shallows). Any opions on at the same time or one at a time. How about when the fall nucs make 80% drawn on a deep? Shallow super (for comb for CB) or a second deep top or bottom.
The hive lift looks identical to the lift we use for our big circuit breakers.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Except for the "lifting boxes" part, it works great... but it also works fine to put them on top.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Roland said:


> I earned the "crazy" by predicting that in 10 years there will be no treatment free sideliner or hobbiest beekeeper, due to the large capitol investments needed.


I am not going to make a prediction but I would think it would be just the opposite. US commercial operations will be gone and more sideliners and hobbyist will get involved.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

And the per capita consumption of honey will not have changed much, or declined, and instead of 60% imported honey, imports will be more like 75%.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> Except for the "lifting boxes" part, it works great... but it also works fine to put them on top.


Do you agree with the other post that if will slow the hive down waiting for brood to emerge or do you feel they will fill any available cell below until the brood emerges?


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Here's a crazy idea - long about your first early inspection put a box on the bottom of a few hives at the same time that you super the rest. Treat them the same until you pull honey, then compare the pros and cons of each. Until one tries it, it's all idle speculation. 

I put boxes of empty foundation under some strong hives last july to address bearding and was surprised at how well it worked, and how much comb they produced during a dearth/drought.

Everything you try is another tool in the box.


----------



## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

I know I'm new and don't know much, but I can tell you my experience from one year. When my packages had about 7 or 8 frames drawn, I put a new box on top. All3 hives immediately jumped up into the top box and completely ignored the bottom box. It was like a ghost town down there. They didn't draw another spot of comb and all honey/pollen was consumed or moved out. Seems that they prefer to be in the top of the hive. Of course this was giving them plenty of room to choose. If they were crowded like a second year hive, they may respond differently.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Do you agree with the other post that if will slow the hive down waiting for brood to emerge or do you feel they will fill any available cell below until the brood emerges? 

I don't see that it will slow anything down, they will just build down because that is where there is room. They will move the brood down as they store honey overhead.


----------



## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

Acebird said:


> Do you agree with the other post that if will slow the hive down waiting for brood to emerge or do you feel they will fill any available cell below until the brood emerges?


I think that it will depend on where you have your hives and the type of honey flow that you have. If your flow is long and not too intense, it might work. If you live in an area where they can fill a super a week, they will want to swarm. I have had lots of hives over the years swarm with plenty of space in the bottom box.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

beedeetee said:


> If you live in an area where they can fill a super a week, they will want to swarm.


My total experience is three summer seasons. I have witnessed two nucs and one overwintered hive build up in the "warm" season. I have never witnessed a flow that will fill a super in a week, more like a month. That may be because I have never had a strong hive in the spring but I think it is because the flows we have here blend into each other so they are more long and steady. If I ever do get a strong overwintered hive and it results in a swarm because of a strong flow then I will definitely split strong hives in the late spring so that doesn't happen. That is my plan anyway.
Thank you Michael Bush you are giving me confidence to experiment with this.

OK, one important question: How full is too full? I will have to decide when an empty box is placed under the hive so how full do I allow the box above it get before I add another box?


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I tried to think how to answer that, but it depends if honey is coming in and how much, plus several other factors. One factor might be say, even though the hive is crowded, there is little honey coming in and the hive is preparing to swarm. In that case a box underneath will likely be a waste of time, much more suitable things should have been done.

Why the obsession with putting boxes underneath. The reason virtually everybody else puts them on top is cos that's what works best.


----------



## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Acebird wrote:

US commercial operations will be gone and more sideliners and hobbyist will get involved. 

Should we wager?

Roland Diehnelt, 5th Generation commercial beekeeper
Linden Apiary, est. 1852

P.S. Momma says don't bet with a crazy person.


----------



## RogerCrum (Jun 19, 2011)

My money is on Roland.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> The reason virtually everybody else puts them on top is cos that's what works best.


If everybody is putting the box on top how can you say it works best? Nobody has tried it both ways.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What makes you think no one has in all the years since we've been keeping bees in boxes like we do? Or do you mean recently?


----------



## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Acebird said:


> If everybody is putting the box on top how can you say it works best? Nobody has tried it both ways.


Don't bet on it, it's been 160+ years since the invention of the modern hive. You can be sure those old timers who were probably a lot more observant and clever than you and I, tried it every which way.


----------



## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Ace, Bee move and work upward, better than they do downward. That is the reason most everybody top supers. It is good that you are tinkering with your management, that is how you learn. TED


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Acebird said:


> Nobody has tried it both ways.


Not really sure why you would say that.

In any case, you are not correct. I've even been known to do it myself if the situation required it, although that would be a very rare and unusual circumstance.

I am constantly mystified why some beginners leap to the conclusion that beekeepers who have been at it a long time, do things a certain way simply because they've never tried anything else. Normally a pretty rash judgement to make.

In any case Ace, you can break new ground, for you, and try this experiment yourself. Get a hive that needs another box. Put a new box under it, and another box on top. See where the bees prefer to go. You will then have your answer and be able to start working the way the bees prefer.

Then if you are still in the hobby in twenty or thirty years time, you can have the joy of being told by some rank newby that you only put boxes on top, because you've never tried anything else.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Nobody has tried it both ways.

There are three ways. Undersupering, which is on top of the brood nest but under the other supers (a very common method but a lot of work); Nadiring, which is under the brood nest (a common Warre' manipulation); and top supering, which is on top of the hive. Most beekeepers I know of have at least tried top and undersupering. Quite a few have done some variation of Nadiring for various reasons. "Nobody" would be a very large exaggeration. "A few" would be a more accurate assessment in my experience.

Bees may naturally work down in a tree, but in reality they work to where there is space. I have tried all three and have seen little difference in the outcome and much prefer to not lift so many boxes... I do usually "Nadir" the first couple of boxes added to a foundationless hive as the weather is often chilly and working down seems to work better under early spring circumstances with empty foundationless frames.


----------



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

One significant negative for bottom supering is that bees instinctively expand the honey cap over the brood and move the broodnest downward during a heavy spring flow. This will put brood and tons of pollen in the honey you will want to extract giving you a nightmare to try to clean up.

Top supering has the opposite effect, the bees work above the broodnest and the honey at the top of the broodnest tends to push the brood nest downward away from the honey supers.

This is one more reason why it makes sense to top super.

As for your 'ideas', have fun, try them all, just remember, the bees will tell you how foolish you really are and won't be a bit shy about doing it.

DarJones


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> >Nadiring, which is under the brood nest (a common Warre' manipulation); .


Thanks Michael, I did hear of a Warre hive but I didn't realize that you add boxes underneath until someone posted on this thread to look at Warre hives. Then I checked it out.
You see Oldtimer I did know that it has been done before.

So, logic tells me that it is better to let the bees expand down the way they would normally do in a feral hive, in a skept and today in a Warre hive but it is the difficulty of lifting a Lang hive that makes it unpopular for the hobbyist to do as a norm. Being the crazy guy that I am I just might play around with this concept.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Fusion_power said:


> This will put brood and tons of pollen in the honey you will want to extract giving you a nightmare to try to clean up.


Hmm... Doing it the conventional way I ended up with the two top supers having brood and Pollen in them by the end of August. I waited until the end of October and it was all gone. It didn't affect extracting honey at all. So I already have the experience that you can get brood in the honey supers no matter which way you super. It wasn't a big deal. I don't see it as a negative.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Acebird said:


> You see Oldtimer I did know that it has been done before.


Then why did you say it hadn't?


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Basically one false statement deserves another. The reason most new people super from the top is because they have been convinced to do it that way. That doesn't make it best that makes it the norm. Most people write with their right hand. Does that make it best?


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Maybe you should drive on the left side of the road exclusively. It might be better. But how do you know since no one has done it.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

You have never heard of England and some of its previous colonies?


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

OK starting to figure you out Ace. The reason you make false statements, is because you previously made a different false statement, so then you have to make an opposing but also false statement, because "one false statement deserves another".

Then, you tie it all together and come out with a false conclusion. Which will be the opposite of what everybody told you.

But, oh well. If it works for you.....

I think you may be suitable to be nominated to Moderator in the Treatment Free forum.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> I think you may be suitable to be nominated to Moderator in the Treatment Free forum.


LMAO I fell off my chair.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Glad you took it in good humor Ace!  Sometimes you are a good.. well........ hmmm....


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Acebird said:


> You have never heard of England and some of its previous colonies?


You don't find my statement equal to yours?


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

odfrank said:


> If bees naturally work down as so many proclaim on this site, why do my bees always fill the boxes I stack on top and often walk thru the bottom brood chambers leaving it empty? I find this in both early spring and end of summer.


Frank, when bees first move into an EMPTY cavity, they don't cluster at the bottom and build comb up to the top...they cluster at the top and work down. This is what bees do "naturally".

Now, if you add an empty box (undrawn foundationless frames) on top of an expanding colony, most of the time they will start building "up" so as to not leave the established broodnest...this leads to a mess, as the comb wants to flop over, so the bees reinforce it with cross comb within the first few inches...a mess. How could the bees be so stupid? Because there is nothing natural about adding empty space above the established colony...the colony will always have started at the top of the cavity, and will already have filled it.

Bees "naturally" build down because "naturally" they have already filled the comb above them.

Now, instead of an empty box placed above the established colony, you add a box of foundation or comb....this is one of the "tricks" of beekeeping. Space above the colony is filled in earnest...it is an attempt to get back to the "natural state" where the comb above is filled and the bees are working down if they are expanding. This is well demonstrated by the observations in this thread that bees "work up" faster than they "work down"....but of course working up requires that some manipulation has been done by the beekeeper to provide empty space/comb/foundation above the colony....a perfectly natural response to an unnatural situation.

A rough analogy might be what would you do if someone "harvested" your retirement account? (your long term savings is in an IRA, for the bees it's at the top of the hive). You are probably going to want to rebuild this account in earnest...forgoing the vintage PacMan machine and the Ferrari that you have been saving for in order to do so.

In short, bees will "naturally" move up if they "naturally" find foundation above the natural colony.

deknow


----------



## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

I can't believe I am about to make this argument; I am almost always the one encouraging people to adopt more 'natural' approaches to things, but ...

Natural doesn't always mean better. Especially when we are trying to maintain animals to harness their behavior for our benefit. Naturally wolves eat every few days and gorge themselves with as much as they can eat. Generally we feed our dogs a couple times a day. Naturally Chickens lay a clutch of eggs, which they will raise and stop laying until those chicks are either grown or killed. Naturally, early humans died giving birth, because of infection, due to starvation. Nowadays, we give birth in hospitals, have antibiotics and agriculture. Many natural processes can be improved upon by manipulating the circumstances to our benefit.

Naturally animals make the best with what they have. We have the benefit of being able to provide them better environments than they could find in nature (if we understand what makes the environment better for them). In a natural bee log, the only way sensibly start is at the top and work your way down. There is no way to start comb in the middle of a log. This doesn't mean that building in this way might not hinder some aspects of honey storage under particular circumstances (short intense flow). But, luckily our bees have us to provide things they couldn't naturally have (feed, frames, queen excluders). I'm not saying that a 'new' idea should be discarded, but it is a simplistic fallacy to think that the natural way is always the better way. 

I will say that pushing to far from the natural way in an effort to maximize a single aspect of an animal's behavior is also a logistical and ethical problem. Many aspects of our agricultural system have removed themselves too far from the natural order and are causing harm to our planet because of it. But, even so, many of these unnatural techniques are effective in the very narrow focus of what they are intended to accomplish. Hopefully as beekeepers we can provide our bees enough of a helping hand to encourage them to do what they do naturally without causing harm to them or our ecosystems.

Sorry 'bout the rant


----------



## New Ky Beekeeper (Jun 27, 2011)

It looks like to me, that adding supers to the bottom would really add work to your back if you have any number of hives.... ?


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

But he doesn't. He has two. So, breaking them down and reassembling them would be of little trouble to him. No won is sggsting tht wi all due it.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Two? I thought Deknow had bought another 30 replacements?

As to the "mess" the bees would make putting an empty super on top, That's why you'd generally only put a super on top if it had foundation or drawn combs. Although even then, there are ways to put a foundationless box on top and have the bees draw it properly.

Toadman, a well thought out post. Simply taking honey from a hive on a regular basis is not "natural". So we work with the bees, and play to their strengths, so they can provide us a surplus that they would not, in "nature".


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

You know, you (everyone that is) probably should experiment a lot while you don't have too many hives, cause at some point it's either going to get to be Work (with a capital W) or it just won't be all that much fun anymore, or you will just get so set in your ways that it will be like "I have done it this way for X years therefore anything else must be useless." Or you start to make some of your living from what you do, and you are averse to changing anything for fear of breaking it.

Ultimately, any of us who continue to keep bees are probably going to settle into a routine system that keeps the bees going, makes a little bit of money and isn't more trouble than it's worth - and it's probably not going to be a radical reinvention of the wheel. Hopefully, on a good day it's still fun.

Anyway, don't be too hard on the guy that wants to ask for advice, then proceed to justify his decision to make his own way - even if it is going to be less than ideal. Chances are most of us have done the same thing.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

David LaFerney said:


> Chances are most of us have done the same thing.


Bravo! When the truth comes out. I like it.


----------



## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Chances are most of us have done the same thing. 

Sorry, I do not resemble that remark. With minor alterations to continue treatment free after mites, we use the same methods of hive manipulations that where developed by my Grandfather after WWII. Same equipment(literally), same uniform(not literally), same stool, same hive tool?, same schedule. The bees have not changed much in 70 years. Why should we? We are even looking at reproducing my Great Grandfather's foundation mill that is in a Museum in Cassvile. We keep looking at the peaked roofs that my Great Grandfather used, and wondering what he knew that we did not.

We are far from perfect, and are constantly making small tests for comparison, but can not see any dramatic changes in the future.

Crazy Roland


----------



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

If you want to see something dramatic, try putting a huge roof over a colony and watch the differences between them and nearby colonies with regular top covers.

I did this once with a large sheet of tin that was roughly 5 feet by 6 feet. It took 2 cinderblocks to hold it down in a stiff breeze, but the shade it gave made that colony spend less time fanning, more time foraging, and reduced weather related damage to the woodenware.

DarJones


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Roland said:


> We keep looking at the peaked roofs that my Great Grandfather used, and wondering what he knew that we did not.
> 
> Crazy Roland


Maybe he had a vission from an Egyption.

You'll change when Monsanto tells you to change or you will turn into a hobbyist like most commercials do when they get out of the business.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Acebird said:


> like most commercials do when they get out of the business.


How many commercial beekeepers do you know who have done that?


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

You going to give up bees when you call it quits?


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

When I call it quits I expect to be dead. Then it will be someone elses problem.

You didn't answer my question. Why?


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Where is the why? I don't see the post.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

How many Commercial Beekeepers do you know who have called it quits and become hobbyists? That was the question.


----------



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

sqkcrk said:


> How many Commercial Beekeepers do you know who have called it quits and become hobbyists? That was the question.


I know of none, though I am sure that they exist. Personally as someone who has spent 40 years doing this full time, when the day comes that I choose to walk away I can think of 1,000 things I would rather do than work bees.


----------



## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Most commercials I know when they retire, bees and beekeeping is the farthest thing on their minds and the farther they get away from it the better. I am like Jim, Forty years is a long time. I am used to working 150+ colonies a day with the help. Ace, can you see me working four hives of Bees?? I would work them in five minutes-how boring. I would have to wait ten days to work them again for five minutes more-yech....I think I will go trout fishing, something I always wanted to try my hand at..


----------



## libhart (Apr 22, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> I am constantly mystified why some beginners leap to the conclusion that beekeepers who have been at it a long time, do things a certain way simply because they've never tried anything else. Normally a pretty rash judgement to make.


As a beginner I have to agree with you there, but at the same time when begin taught by a beekeeper that's been at it a long time, I often times find myself frustrated by begin told how to do it with little to no explanation of why or any consideration of any other way, which leads to the assumption above...especially when I ask why and he responds, "Because that's what works."


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes well you are right Libhart. Only a few old beeks really have a great way of teaching, same as the rest of the population.

I can vouch from personal experience too, because what I do now involves a lot of teaching to beginners. There are some that read a particular book or saw something on the net, and even while I am installing their bees in their first hive for them, already know more than I do. They are full of questions but if my answer is not the one they wanted, they'll rephrase until they get what they want. And if they don't get it, they'll assume I'm just not aware of the latest developments. 
Then there's people who bomb me with constant questions but never listen to the answer, and then there's a few who think, this guy succeeded, I want to do it like him. The last group, will be successful.

But sometimes when I'm dealing with someone who doubts everything I say, it can be tempting just to tell them "that's what works".


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> How many Commercial Beekeepers do you know who have called it quits and become hobbyists? That was the question.


I have read at least two that admitted it on forums.

Jim, you are not retired? Ted, you are not retired? Mark, semi retired? Crazy? There is not a business man I know that would spend this much time on a forum like this that wasn't semi retired. I just don't know who could spend that much lost time if they weren't.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Retired? Symantics being played? Now I'm a hobby beekeeper? Thanks. I may not work at my business as much as I should, but I'm not retired. Wouldn't one have to be employed by someone before one can retire from a Job? What I do is not a Job, it's a vocation. A lifestyle.

But, you do have a point and I should go do some work. C ya.


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Retirement means different things to different people. Some people retire from one job and go do something else. Some people cut their hours and just slow down. Some people retire and then just wait till the end. Most people dream of doing what they want and never get there. I suggest you never let that happen.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Acebird said:


> There is not a business man I know that would spend this much time on a forum like this that wasn't semi retired. I just don't know who could spend that much lost time if they weren't.


So you'd obviously be retired? Or between jobs at the very least?


----------



## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Semi retired sure. Isn't that obvious? I do more of what I want to do than I have to do.


----------



## Ted Kretschmann (Feb 2, 2011)

Ace, this is winter time. Sure we are building and repairing equipment but I have plenty of time to post. TED


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Just like Acebird.


----------

