Contrary Opinions

Michael Bush · April 11, 2019, 02:24:46 PM

There is an old saying in beekeeping that has a few variations but it goes something like this: ?Ask ten beekeepers, get twelve opinions.? Obviously beekeepers don?t always agree. But on some topics they get downright stubborn. You will find one group who adamantly insists that something can?t work and another group who say the exact opposite--that if you don?t do it the bees will all die.

Whenever you see contrary opinions about any issue in beekeeping, the odds are both sides are wrong. Especially if both are telling you there is no other way that works except theirs and they are doing opposite things. And especially if the beekeeping world is very divided on the issue. In other words there are a lot of people on both sides of the issue. People often get their deeply held opinions from their own experience and the results of their own experience is often very strongly influenced by the current conditions. For instance, if it was a flow or a dearth results would be very different. Most things seem to work in a flow. Most things seem to fail in a dearth. There is also just the luck of the draw. Many beekeepers when they start make the mistake of trying one thing with one hive and a different thing with the other hive and then coming to a conclusion that is based on something unrelated. Any beekeeper who has ever treated two hives identically knows that the results are not identical.

Logic says that there can?t be that many beekeepers with opposite views of something that both insist the other view cannot work at all. So if you?re trying to decide on one of these kinds of issues, think through the differences of the people with those opinions. What do the people on each side have in common? If the only thing they have in common is they are beekeepers, maybe it just doesn?t matter, but if most of one side are from a cold climate and most of the other side are not, you might want to consider that in your decision. The same for other differences. Maybe one side tend to be commercial and the other hobbyists. If you can?t find any difference, take your pick or experiment. But don?t lose too much sleep over it. If either of the two failed much of the time there wouldn?t be so many people advocating for that side.

http://bushfarms.com/beescontrary.htm

iddee · April 11, 2019, 03:29:19 PM

My version of that saying is, "Ask 10 beekeepers and get 12 "correct" answers". There is a dozen ways to do anything in beekeeping.

van from Arkansas · April 11, 2019, 04:57:53 PM

No ID you are completely wrong, there are 13ways, not 12. Did I make your and M Bush point??

saltybluegrass · April 11, 2019, 07:58:10 PM

Ask a mathematician the answer to 2+2. They will say 4. Ask a real estate appraiser. What do you want it to be?
Social media has a term called ?Trending? . Yes that can bring about myopathy and echo chambers but it can supply you with a navigational-enough road map to get close enough to find a Mall or landmark or even answers to hive problems.
My brother and I discussed intelligent design and evolution and agree the answers may live somewhere in the middle.
I tend to read my board members advice and stir in a google search or 2 and then top with a YouTube video. And then totally demolish natural comb and ask- Why me Lord?

van from Arkansas · April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM

Intelligent design, created evolution. I don?t understand why folks see one or the other.

There are folks who believe the honey bee evolved to what it is today. I ask evolved from what, there is not other creature on this planet that makes honey or wax. With evolution there has to be a starting point, there is no starting point for the honeybee,,, totally unique, created it was.

This topic may likely develop as Bush stated.

Skeggley · April 12, 2019, 02:31:00 AM

Quote from: van from Arkansas on April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM
... there is not other creature on this planet that makes honey or wax.

There are however different species of honeybee, and there are also native bees that make honey and wax.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.aussiebee.com.au/australian-stingless-bees.html&ved=2ahUKEwjgmaHa58nhAhUaVH0KHYVeBmMQFjAbegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw0p-z7fOQ_Jt5aiujK9pcqD
;)

yes2matt · April 12, 2019, 06:27:23 AM

Is there a center, though, to the spread of opinions on a subject? In any (beekeeping) situation, there are myriad paths forward, at least half of which will work, but is there a subset of those paths that are "tried and true" or "well-trodden" or "outcome predictable"?

I guess I wonder is there a set of "best practices", or is that just authoritarianism?

BeeMaster2 · April 12, 2019, 07:32:43 AM

Quote from: van from Arkansas on April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM
Intelligent design, created evolution. I don?t understand why folks see one or the other.

There are folks who believe the honey bee evolved to what it is today. I ask evolved from what, there is not other creature on this planet that makes honey or wax. With evolution there has to be a starting point, there is no starting point for the honeybee,,, totally unique, created it was.

This topic may likely develop as Bush stated.

In The Hive and The Honey Bee, Langstroth repeatedly says that the honey bee was put on earth by god for man and he sites all of the things that bees do for man that no other animal provides.
I think he is right.
Jim Altmiller

saltybluegrass · April 12, 2019, 11:54:23 AM

I long for a ?like? button - good call sawdust

The15thMember · April 12, 2019, 01:04:26 PM

Quote from: saltybluegrass on April 12, 2019, 11:54:23 AM
I long for a ?like? button - good call sawdust

I second that entire statement. I think a lack of a like button is this forum?s only major shortcoming.

van from Arkansas · April 12, 2019, 04:56:32 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 12, 2019, 07:32:43 AM
Quote from: van from Arkansas on April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM
Intelligent design, created evolution. I don?t understand why folks see one or the other.

There are folks who believe the honey bee evolved to what it is today. I ask evolved from what, there is not other creature on this planet that makes honey or wax. With evolution there has to be a starting point, there is no starting point for the honeybee,,, totally unique, created it was.

This topic may likely develop as Bush stated.

In The Hive and The Honey Bee, Langstroth repeatedly says that the honey bee was put on earth by god for man and he sites all of the things that bees do for man that no other animal provides.
I think he is right.
Jim Altmiller

SawDust, Jim, as usual,,,,,, AGREED, well stated, my Man.

eltalia · April 12, 2019, 08:48:33 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 12, 2019, 07:32:43 AM
Quote from: van from Arkansas on April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM

This topic may likely develop as Bush stated.

In The Hive and The Honey Bee, Langstroth repeatedly says that the honey bee was put on earth
by god for man and he sites all of the things that bees do for man that no other animal provides.
I think he is right.
Jim Altmiller

Well Well, *that* grand declaration cuts a whole group of b'keeps out of the
loop - the Agnostics???
Langstroth had many a theorism bent to his particular circumstance - those
of a beekeeper do note - and proven biased(askew) in Time, particularly by
those reverting back to the log in the longhive config.
Yet Michael (often) uses quotes from the ancients in parachuting into a topic.
Quotes minus the caveat these blokes were beekeepers just as is any other
student of Apis/Tetragonula husbandry. Entamology in profession not then
established as quantifiable specific science until well past their day.

There is no defence for the meme put as topic here, for as Van notes such just
fosters more of the same. What is relative is to recognise such utterences in
excuse for what they are - "I don't know really but this is what I do and it works
for me". The crux being that without being able to be repeated ad nausem as a
workable solution it is simply the case that 12 of the 13 respondants are either FOS
or not at all disposed to considering any efficiency factor for the bees.

As in any scientific exploration of organisms it is Scale (used) in reaching outcomes
that determines a safe conclusion. So it is where the largest block proves the
consistency of outcome across that number you will find answers.
Yet both across social media and in backyard apiarys across the Planet you will find
people who have bees bashing a square peg into that round hole, and calling it good.

Compliments.

Bill

--
(edit) schpelin of "specific".
Touchpads are not perfection, expect random errors.
/lulz/

BeeMaster2 · April 12, 2019, 10:42:56 PM

Eltalia,
What exactly are you trying to say?
I really do not know.
Jim Altmiller

blackforest beekeeper · April 13, 2019, 02:47:28 AM

yes. circumstances, environment play the crucial role for bee-keeping. what works in one climate won`t in another, or might make no sense, be useless.

e.g. in my beginning I read "put the super on when cherry blooms". I did. nothing happened. lots of empty space on the hive. well - the guy wrote about the valley-climates, not the mountain-climate...

e.g. just last year: ANY beekeeper in southern Germany will tell you this. and even people that have kept bees for generations wrote in the beekeepers paper: in a pine flow, bees will reduce broodnest to next to nothing. whereas in a cement-honey flow, they breed like in spring.
well: my appr. 50 hives went practically out of brood during cement-honey. I was really concerned. I could do nothing (well I did, but was hopeless). then cement-honey-flow stopped and pine-honey flow started.
all of a sudden the brood-nests looked like in spring.
now what, what happened.
first of all, I decided, there are a lot o fthings in beekeeping being told that won`t hold up to reality. even if told for a hundred years.
now, was pine-honey better than cement-honey, was it a matter of the flow?
my conclusion at the moment is: during cement-honey-flow (which usually it the time for pine-honey flow more or less) there was a dearth of pollen (local thing about the black-forest). pine-flow was late last year and it is a time when lots of pollen was to be had again.
so it wasn`t - to my eyes - not a matter of the flow really, but to the circumstances. there might not be pollen-dearth in summer always, but there prob. was one last year, it was hot and dry.

on the other hand, there are certain things about beekeeping that are the same everywhere. like bees usually having six legs, one queen per hive mostly asf.

eltalia · April 13, 2019, 05:20:56 AM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 12, 2019, 10:42:56 PM
Eltalia,
What exactly are you trying to say?
I really do not know.
Jim Altmiller

Merely fullfilling Michael's prophecy Jim - and doing so from an Agnostic perspective, a
position of review Langstroth would have is isolated in not pandering to reinforcing a
message (of) some superior being has installed difference.
Michael's presumptions setout the framework for doubt in the analysis of behavourial
outcomes, a method of fostering perpetuity in leaning on built reputation for guidance
- none of it at all divine intervention.

Feel free to remove the message - bees won't care.

Cheers...

Bill

iddee · April 13, 2019, 07:13:34 AM

Sorry, Bill, but in my opinion, an agnostic's view is right up there with a liar's integrity. Two steps less than nothing.

TO EACH HIS OWN

Ben Framed · April 13, 2019, 07:53:43 AM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 12, 2019, 07:32:43 AM
Quote from: van from Arkansas on April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM
Intelligent design, created evolution. I don?t understand why folks see one or the other.

There are folks who believe the honey bee evolved to what it is today. I ask evolved from what, there is not other creature on this planet that makes honey or wax. With evolution there has to be a starting point, there is no starting point for the honeybee,,, totally unique, created it was.

This topic may likely develop as Bush stated.

In The Hive and The Honey Bee, Langstroth repeatedly says that the honey bee was put on earth by god for man and he sites all of the things that bees do for man that no other animal provides.
I think he is right.
Jim Altmiller

I would have believed this even if Langston had not said it, in fact I already believed it before I knew Langston said it. I only just now came to know that Langston had in fact stated this. Every person of faith in The Holy Bible knows that God promised Isreal to be a land of milk and Honey.

Numbers 13:27
And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.

BeeMaster2 · April 13, 2019, 08:03:26 AM

Bill,
Thanks for the explanation.
As to, ?Feel free to remove the message - bees won't care.?
Why would I? We share our thoughts and ideas here. If that is what you really think, then say it.
Jim Altmiller

Ben Framed · April 13, 2019, 08:16:11 AM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 12, 2019, 07:32:43 AM
Quote from: van from Arkansas on April 11, 2019, 09:31:56 PM

This topic may likely develop as Bush stated.

In The Hive and The Honey Bee, Langstroth repeatedly says that the honey bee was put on earth
by god for man and he sites all of the things that bees do for man that no other animal provides.
I think he is right.
Jim Altmiller

Well Well, *that* grand declaration cuts a whole group of b'keeps out of the loop - the Agnostics??

Jim didn't cause harm to anyone by quoting Langston. Nor do I believe that was his intent. Yet, it "seems" Bill took offense by it. Why would this offend you Bill?

Bushpilot · April 13, 2019, 10:30:16 AM

Quote from: Michael Bush on April 11, 2019, 02:24:46 PM
Most things seem to work in a flow. Most things seem to fail in a dearth.

I am not a long-time beekeeper, but this seems to right to be.

In investing, there is a saying that "A rising tide lifts all boats." Another is "Everyone is brilliant in a bull market." And yet another is "It is when the tide goes out that you see who has been swimming naked."

Greg