Archive for August 17, 2009
Spotlight: Beekeeping
On Saturday morning, Diva Princess and I had some bonding time watching the bees outside the window. They were very busily collecting nectar from the little yellow flowers in the tree along the side of the house, which has just bloomed. The tree was covered with bees!
I’ve been thinking about bees lately. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about honey, and whether I should be eating it or not. I read a book on honey production last month, and I’ve done a bit of research on the net. Beekeeping is pretty environmentally friendly (aside from the debate over native vs imported bees… but I think the imported bees are here to stay, so I wonder if that’s a non-issue). Mostly comes down to whether I think it’s ethically right. Vegans are divided on the issue. Some eat it, some don’t. The vegans that don’t eat it say the vegans that do eat it aren’t really vegans. Yes, it’s very convoluted.
I don’t have a problem with mutually beneficial relationships with animals. I have pets. I take care of them, they hang out with me. If I had pet chickens, who laid unfertilised eggs (and they definitely would be unfertilised because you can’t have roosters in suburban Brisbane), would I eat them? No, I wouldn’t, cos I don’t like eggs. But Yankee Elv and Mr Teeny-bop would, and I would be cool with that. If I had a pet sheep that I had to shear in the summer so it didn’t get too hot, which is very likely in this climate – I already have to shave the dog for that reason (he hasn’t adapted from North American temperatures to Australian temperatures), would I spin and use the wool? Sure would, if I knew how to spin.
Just FYI, no, I don’t spin and use the dog’s fur. It smells too much like dog. But some people do.
My point is, I think if animals are treated like part of the family, living happy lives, then I’m ok with making use of any by-products, provided their use doesn’t upset the animal. In fact, I hope one day to live on a property with animals rescued from factory farms, and if they lay eggs or provide me with wool, then that works for me. So there’s that argument out of the way.
Diva Princess watching bees with me.
What’s the deal with bees, then?
For the most part, the bees just do their thing. It’s in a beekeeper’s best interests to keep the bees happy anyway, so they produce more. Plus, Queensland has some pretty strict regulations on beekeeping. The apiarist isn’t really stealing their honey either. Often they’re providing additional food for them to use to make the honey, so it’s kind of symbiotic, and the bees just keep making honey anyway. Unlike some areas of the northern hemisphere, the honey doesn’t need to be saved as food for a cold, barren winter. Queensland has flowers all year round.
The big problem would be the treatment of the queens. They are sometimes killed, or have wings removed so they can’t lead a swarm. Sometimes new queens are specially bred and brought in to replace old ones to reduce the likelihood of swarming, which has dire consequences for the original queen. Some bees are sent from one apiarist to another in the mail. The other bees aren’t always treated nicely either, but they tend to do these horrible things to each other, so it’s not like humans can help that.
So I guess what I need to do now is find out if there’s an apiarist who works with bees humanely, without doing anything to the queen or shipping bees in the post. If said apiarist works with native bees, so much the better… although it’s unlikely due to low rates of production. I only eat a little bit of honey, though…
Anyone know an apiarist like that, local to Brisbane?
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