Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper
As a new beekeeper, finding mentors to help guide me through my first year has been invaluable. I began learning with Michael Thiele of Gaia Bees. Michael provided me with a firm philosophical foundation and has always been extremely generous with his time, offering me advice along the way. Sometimes my fears (I don’t know what I’m doing. / People are going to criticize my methods/philosophy. / Surely “x” is a sign that the colony is on the verge of collapse!!) can lead me off track and Michael never fails to help me find my way back.
I’ve been extremely fortunate, however, to find some other beekeepers closer by who have been able to help me on a more day – to – day basis. I can’t express my gratitude to them enough. Because my methods and philosophy are somewhat counter to a lot of the conventional wisdom, and because I am such a novice, it’s easy for me to feel intimidated by my critics. Having a few more seasoned beekeepers behind me has made it much easier for me to stand my ground.
One such person is Bryon Waibel, proprietor of Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper in the Mission.
Here’s a really lovely little video about Bryon and his shop:
I really want to take a moment to say, “THANK YOU, BRYON!!” from the bottom of my heart, for your friendship and support!
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Borderglider, Your arguments are exreemtly weak.1. If bees were capable of occupying the entire South and partially North America in only 15 years, do You really think that they didn’t find time in the past 150 million years to visit Europe and bring Varroa? My ancestors have been keeping bees for couple of thousands of years in Armenia and the Varroa problems started from the introduction of man made foundations. Varroa has been bees’ natural parasite for many millions of years and by definition parasite should not kill its host and it hasn’t for many millions of years. Hence, we have to find the solution to the problem not in Varroa, but in other major factors in the lives of bees, such as humans. 2. Your statement may be valid only if You wait for a few generations with free comb building system, so the bees adjust back to 4.9 mm. Your friend may have lost his Warre hives because of very many reasons. A neighbor farmer may have sprayed with a deadly insectide which effectively killed the bees because bees are insects. Now, is Mr. Emil Warre at fault because of what the farmer did?3. Bigger cells make slightly bigger bees, hence, more time to develop, which gives more time to Varroa to feast and develop, reproduce, etc. Besides, bigger cells allow more room for the unwanted neighbor .The queen inspects each and every cell before laying and she preferrs new and clean cells which were built yesterday and not 30 years ago. Your statement might have sense if You could say that we reuse the same comb for 30 years and we do not have problems in the UK.
Hi Nick nice blog keep on posting.In rspeonse to the interesting questions you pose . . .1. The main problem we have today is Varroa and that problem has been caused by the import of a deadly parasite whose original home was in India thousands of miles away.The mite has evolved to be a non-fatal’ parasite in the far East but European bees have never been exposed to this parasite in the last 10,000 years. There has been no time for natural selection to evolve a rspeonse to varroa which is why it kills our colonies.2. I cannot see how keeping bees in a Warre Hive will make the slightest difference to any variety of Apis Mellifera since the parasite will kill bees no matter what kind of comb or hive we use. Here in the UK almost all wild/ feral colonies have died in the last 5 years and presumably wild colonies were making natural comb’. One chap who has been promoting Warre hives in the UK lost all his colonies last season.3. Cell-size: once again I can’t see how cell-size will affect varroa mites. The great apiarist E.B. Wedmore reported that he had used the same brood comb for 21 years and there was no loss of cell diameter even after 21 years of brood rearing in those cells. The bees simply removed silk cocoons from inside the cells if diameter began to shrink. He claimed to know of one beekeeper whose brood combs were 30 years old and accurate measurement showed no loss of cell size. The point being that bees will construct natural cells to a natural size but nobody has yet explained why forcing bees to breed in smaller cells will stop parasitazation by varroa? Best wishes from the UK.