BY WILLIAM R. KELSE7. C-‘ 1847 TREATISE ON THE CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF BEES.
” No branch, perhaps, of agricultural or rather rural occupation, has been
so neglected in this country as bee culture. Wherever it has been at
tempted with care it has always proved profitable ; but many who engage in
this business, abandon it, — for the reason that the bee is left to be its own pro-
tector against its many enemies, but more particularly against its common
enemy the bee moth.*” — Report of H. L- Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents— p. 313.
That the above remarks are true no person who of late
years has had any experience in (he management of bees can
deny: and while many and constant experiments have been
made by apiarians to overcome the natural obstacles to their
success, it is somewhat surprising that an efficient and certain
remedy for their difficulties was not sooner discovered and
brought into general use.
Although the number of bee culturists in the United States
at the present time far exceeds that of any former period, and
notwithstanding the number of persons ordinarily considered
as keen observers in all common business affairs whereby
“a penny may be earned or gained,” one cannot be less sur-
prised, nor but regret that more attention has net been paid to
tho economy of bees — the dangers to which they are subject-
ed, and the causes of the apparent anomalies which are so
frequently exhibited in their ordinary management,
Even at the present day when some fifty or sixty volumes
have been written upon the subject of bees, and frequent com-
munications from practical apiarians have been widely dif-
fused bv means of the highly interesting and valuable agri-
cultural journals published in the different parts of the Union,
and a mass of light and instruction has been shed abroad
upon the subject, there are almost as many opinions among
the mass of bee culturists in regard to the best modes of
rearing and managing them, and also as to the sex, offices and
functions of the different members of the respective bee com-
munities as there has bgen authors upon the subject. But in
the main, one writer has generally followed the assertions of a
preceding one, and the mass of true and useful information
that has been published is so mixed up with error, and the
results of pretended observation, as to be of little or no benefit
to the mass of readers, who take assertions for facts without
reflection, — even were it easy to distinguish and sift out that
which is reliable from that which is theory.
As I have neither the time nor the desire to ”play the
Author,” I shall briefly state some few facts in regard to the
subject, trusting that they will be received by apiarians, rather
as memoranda, than as a distinct and orderly Treatise.
though I shall not attempt to confine myself to the theo-
ries or vagaries of any particular author, it, would be ungene-
rous in me to refrain from acknowledging my indebtedness
to the work published in England by Edward Bovan, Esq.,
from which I shall make a few quotation where I deern it
adyjeaioje; not because of the originality or novelty of hi«
ideas, but of the conciseness and perspicuity of the language.
The work referred to, like most others on the subject, although
containing much important matter, is so iumbered up with
the idea?, writings and qimlations of others, and contains so
:xj,?ny opinions of distinguished ‘•’ scientific” men, as to be of
comparatively little use {or practical purposes.
I will simply rem’ark that very little that can be relied
upon in regard to the subject is known from recent reliable ob-
servations. These explanations as published, have principally
been handed down from one writer to another for several ge-
nerations or centuries, with no change except a greater minuteness
in description perhaps, than the preceding one hail
ventured to give, although every writer quotes his previous au-
thor, very little is claimed as the result of his own observation
or even on “good authority.” WILLIAM R. KELSEY.
when I read this it was a light bulb moment…
This has been every thing I have been thinking about lately. I recently was attending school for nursing. It ended abruptly due to the bureaucratic gate keepers utilizing a sudden death method of ridding their programs of “undesirables” as I was not an desirable and I’ll leave you to fill in the playing field leveling group utilizing the alphabet, I suffered the sudden death of my education due to the cancer of APA. For those of you not familiar with APA it is a method of writing which annotates and gives credit to previous authors. When we utilize ideas, theory’s and supposed facts you have to thank the latest person to play the telephone game. We were required to find essays and papers that were no older than 5 years old. What we students were seeing was that some medical fact had been discovered in the early 1970’s then authors had been going back and re quoting and retelling and identifying the last person who played telephone game as well as the original researchers. How many thousands of dollars were being used to retell some fact, by paper writers, so it could be useful today.
We were told that students do not have original ideas, we were only building on original ideas of our betters. So we had to engage in the cancer which is APA and telephone game of medical the ideas and facts.
Yes I’m going to pull this back to bee keeping, my “its not fair” rant has an educational purpose…
We in bee keeping tend to do similar problematic re quoting and re teaching of Bee facts and bee science “But in the main, one writer has generally followed the assertions of a preceding one, and the mass of true and useful information that has been published is so mixed up with error, and the results of pretended observation, as to be of little or no benefit to the mass of readers,who take assertions for facts without reflection, — even were it easy to distinguish and sift out that which is reliable from that which is theory. “WILLIAM R. KELSEY.
All Bee keeping is rural. centralized planning for beekeeping will never work. I believe it is the switched on local beekeepers as a group who will end up solving our latest bee BOOGIEMAN. mites suck… but if you look at the text you will find that the wax moth was their biggest boogyman… and they solved it… but it took entirely too much time to change it. he quotes… “very little that can be reliedupon in regard to the subject is known from recent reliable ob-servations. These explanations as published, have principallybeen handed down from one writer to another for several ge-nerations or centuries, with no change except a greater minutenessin description perhaps, than the preceding one hail ventured to give, although every writer quotes his previous au-thor, very little is claimed as the result of his own observationor even on “good authority.” WILLIAM R. KELSEY.
I would challenge you the local bee keeper to start recording the “days and times” of your apiary. I too am guilty of not permanently recording info from each hive. I write on the lids of my colonies and it rarely gets transcribed in to the spreadsheets of the business… sigh.. get your bee journal going record this stuff… its the only way we’re going to empiricly prove what manipulations and created beekeeping equipment works for you locally. And then for heavens sakes publish it … vanity publishing a book, ebook, on a podcast, or facebook or on a rock like the 10 commandments… just record it..
For the full rant… listen to my podcast here…
