Talk:Beekeeping/Archive 1

Archive 1

Housel positioning

I've merged in the text from Housel Positioning. It's in its own section right now, which I'm not *entirely* happy with. It would probably be (no pun intended) better if there was a section on "beekeeping practises" or the like, to include such things as Housel positioning.—chris.lawson (talk) 15:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there is a separate article on beekeeping practices which would probably be better for this content. I would move it straight to the Talk page for discussion first, though. I wrote a paper about 2 years ago on Housel positioning. The existence of the theorized center comb has never been independently confirmed. Housel reports finding it in feral colonies but other beekeepers looking at other feral colonies find no such pattern. Furthermore, a 3-D model of such a comb shows that it would either take an inordinately greater amount of wax than the center structure of any other comb or it result in a flat-bottomed cell - which would be a sub-optimal use of volume and different than all other comb. While Housel's theory has been published, it has not been confirmed and is generally considered to be a fringe theory by most bee researchers. Rossami (talk) 04:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to move it when you get a chance. I was just doing some RC patrol and general cleanup when this ended up on my to-do list. Not that beekeeping isn't interesting -- my mom is kinda into it, actually -- but you're probably better-qualified to make the merge and move.--chris.lawson 04:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Geographic scope

I've added the above notice because only the introduction of the article briefly states that bee-keeping is a very old occupation and that it has been practiced for centuries by many cultures all over the world. The article gives the impression that bee-keeping is only relevant in Western contexts. One rough and ready example I can remember is that many East-African hunter-gatherer groups have traditionally used bee-keeping as an additional subsistence method (see e.g. Yaaku or Akie). — mark ✎ 22:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• The distinction needs to be made between bee-keeping and bee-robbing, which some folks fuzz up. That said, it is definitely a need to have some editors help us from more areas of the world. Pollinator 23:10, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

From my knowledge, the Japanese and the Chinese both practice beekeeping, as well as several other cultures. Though, what do you mean by: "The distinction needs to be made between bee-keeping and bee-robbing, which some folks fuzz up." Is that in this topic?--Shark Fin 101 20:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit on Smoker

I've tried to re-word for clarity the section on smokers. It's bordering on too much material for this section, I think. --XC0000005 06:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Merge from beehive

• I suggest that content from Beehive (beekeeping) be merged into this article's section on equipment, because there is a lot of useful information in it which I believe has a place in this article.Martinp23 15:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I doubt anyone disagrees in theory but that page was originally broken out from this page because the page was getting too big. How do you propose to carry out the merger? Rossami (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    • It makes more sense to act on the suggestions already made to merge Langstroth hive, Top-bar hive, and Honey super into Beehive. That would result in a reasonably long article on the subject of beehives that could be reasonably linkied from the Beekeeping article. MnSteve 01:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I wasn't aware of the previous length of the article (Rossami), and looking at it again, I agree. I also agree with MnSteve but perhaps there should be at least something on this page about each of the hive types - ie a condensed version of info in Beehive (beekeeping) (I have bullet points in mind). What do you think? Martinp23 19:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree in merging --Mrtobacco 15:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Personally, I don't think it would make a good merge. The other merges, suggested above make more sense overall to begin with if those were to occur. Radagast83 22:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Translation

Hi - I'm going to work on a more complete translation of this article from the French (fr:Apiculture) in my user-area. I'm then thinking of presenting it there for your ideas, before (hopefully) incorporting it into this article. Any suggestions/thoughts :)? Martinp23 22:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Beekeeping

I've put this article in WikiProject Beekeeping to help organisation and improvement of articles. I'm just trying to rustle up interest - if anyone is interested in being a member, please just sign up on the main project page - you can do as much or little as you like! Martinp23 17:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Single Queen

As the article stands it now states that hives can "have only one queen," which is important information that hasn't been relayed to the bees. I'm reluctant to go in and just change it because the result will be something like "The first queen to emerge may kill her rivals. Or she may not, depending on whether or not the workers allow her to. This is because the hive usually contains more than one queen, but occasionally has two (or three!). Given that there is a view of multi queen hives as "unnatural" I'm curious what others think before I reword this to recognize that it's not always a battle royale between queens. XC0000005 16:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You are correct that there are some rare instances where a colony will tolerate two queens simultaneously. However, it is a very rare situation for European Honeybees. Furthermore, all the research I've read on the topic determined that the multi-queen situation only occurs as a mother-daughter pairing. I know of no confirmed cases of sisters co-existing for more than a few hours. There is no confirmed research showing why or how the multi-queen scenario arises but one hypothesis is that the old queen prepares to swarm but at the last minute the weather changes for long enough that whatever triggered the swarming instinct is no longer in play.
To be honest, it's such a rare occurence that I'm not sure how you could integrate it into the article without giving the impression that it's more common than it is. It's also so very rare that it has no appreciable effect on beekeeping itself. It might be an aside best discussed in one of the articles about the insects (rather than the profession). Rossami (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: It is possible for a beekeeper to deliberately manipulate a "colony" to maintain two queens. The queens are kept separate artificially - such as through the use of a queen excluder. But in that case what you're really doing is maintaining two separate colonies with separate brood spaces but combined honeysupering space. There was an article about this practice in the BeeCulture magazine last year. (Don't remember exactly when, though.) Rossami (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware of the manual manipulation - That would definitely fall under the outside article section in my opinion because there's a lot of things you can get bees (or anything else) to do with enough intervention. You are probably correct though that this would result in making it appear much more common than it is. Thanks. XC0000005 15:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Colony Collapse Disorder

Just a thought: I have been working on the CCD article, and wanted to read up a bit about beekeeping. I noticed that this article did have a section about Bee rentals for pollination, a major source of income for beekeepers, (although there is a nice picture of the truck moving the bees top right) Kgrr 15:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Africianized Bees & Bumblebees

This article also need some type of reference to the spread northwards of Africanized bees, who're making hives deadly to people (I forget the specific term for the attacks), and the fact that honeybees have displaced bumblebees and other native N.American pollinators out of many areas. Non-native species invasion type stuff.
~ender 2007-05-12 20:26:PM MST —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.167.217.162 (talk) 03:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

The "Non-native" thing gets wearisome, because it's so overblown. If you are worried about non-native species, in order to be logically consistent, you need to leave the Americas, because humans are not native, despite some being referred to as such. Secondly, there is such a multitude of parasites and predators that prey upon native bees, that the threat of competition of honey bees is only a small part of the totality of the threats that native bees must face and overcome. Thirdly, wherever conditions are good for bees (plenty of forage, and little insecticide use), both honey bees and native bees can generally be found in abundance, happily working on different plant species. In other areas that are barren of forage, or have a constant barrage of insecticides, neither type of bee is apt to be found. Areas of good biodiversity have more nectar sources than can be utilised by the bees; it's mostly assumption that they have outcompeted native species. And Wikipedia is not built on assumptions. Pollinator 03:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

new contributor

Hi there - I am a newbie editor ( a beekeeper) and have just made a sizeable contribution to the Beekeeping article. I hope that in doing so I have not transgressed the etiquette of editing but I amj on a steep learning curve so I apoligise in advance if I have miffed anyone. I am trying to get up to speed and will gratefully accept any advice or comments you have to make. Borderglider 23:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, your work (and others) has improved this article greatly. What it really need before going any further is citation of verifiable references. It's really painful to write a great article and then do the citations at the end. ike9898 00:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Structure of the article

Through a series of recent edits, the structure of this article has become very confused. The article is jumping from one topic to another, back to the first, on to a third and so on. We've got content glued in from other pages and inconsistent levels of detail.

I'd like to propose that we step back from the article for a bit and work on a coherent table of contents. Some initial thoughts are below. I'd appreciate input. Rossami (talk) 23:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The current TOC dablinks Introductory paragraph 1 History of beekeeping 1.1 Origins 1.2 Wild Honey Harvesting 1.3 Domestication of Wild Bees 1.4 The Scientific Study of Honey Bees 1.5 Invention of the Moveable Comb Hive 1.6 The Evolution of Hive Designs 1.7 Pioneers of practical and commercial beekeeping 2 Traditional beekeeping 2.1 Fixed frame hives 3 Modern beekeeping 3.1 Movable frame hives 3.2 Top Bar Hives 3.3 Protective clothing 3.4 Smoker 4 Beekeeping in the United States 4.1 Development of Beekeeping in the United States 4.2 Types of beekeepers 4.3 Bee rentals and migratory beekeeping 5 The Colony of Bees 5.1 Structure of a Bee Colony 5.2 Annual Cycle of A Bee Colony 5.3 Art of beekeeping 6 Formation of new colonies 6.1 Colony Reproduction; Swarming and Supersedure 6.2 Factors Which Trigger Swarming 6.3 Artificial swarming 7 World apiculture 7.1 Europe and Russian Federation 7.2 North America 7.3 Latin America 7.4 Oceania 7.5 Asia 7.6 Africa 8 Images of harvesting honey 9 Criticism 10 Notes 11 See also BeeColonyMemberTypes Template 12 External links

The revised TOC dablinks Introductory paragraph Overview - focus on modern practices, scale, etc. Merge Types of beekeepers and Bee rentals and migratory beekeeping Equipment - with links to drill-down articles Products - with links to drill-down articles World apiculture - restructure from list format to table or (better) chart Understanding the bees Structure of a colony - trim & link to the drill-down on Western honeybees Annual cycle Swarming and Supersedure Artificial swarming History of beekeeping Wild Honey Harvesting Domestication of Wild Bees Migration/export of honeybees Scientific study of honeybees Invention of the Moveable Comb Hive - link to drill-down beehive Current research Criticism Image gallery See also Notes and references Additional references and external links BeeColonyMemberTypes Template

Any objections to the proposed restructuring? Any better ideas or improvements? Rossami (talk) 02:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

19th century or 9th Century BC

What am I missing here. The article says "the destruction of the bee colony meant the loss of a valuable resource; this drawback persisted until the 19th Century". Associated press tells me "Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found." Maybe this is actually something really new, but I thought beekeeping as described in the AP article was at least 2000 years old. —  Randall Bart   Talk  19:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Beekeeping has existed since prehistory but harvesting the honey meant breaking open the hive and pulling out the combs. Doing so disrupted the colony, scattered the bees and took away their honey, stored pollen and whatever brood was in the colony at the time. Harvesting like that almost always resulted in the destruction of the colony being harvested. (Worse, most beekeepers of the time deliberately killed the colony before starting their harvest. It was the only way to avoid getting stung by all the bees who were being displaced.) The beekeeper had to collect new bees - usually from swarms - for the next year. These "traditional" practices persisted for millenia. Only in the 19th century or so did people learn how to manage honey bees to separate the brood chamber from the honey supers so they could take a harvest without killing the colony.

Then when movable frames were invented, you could open the hive and make splits - artifical swarms - so you could make two (or more) colonies and grow them all. Beekeepers no longer had to trust to luck in finding feral swarms.

The Beehive (beekeeping) article has a more detailed description of the history. Rossami (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

This is an article about beekeeping. It is not an article about Vegan philosophy or PETA's view of animal husbandry. I don't think the criticism belongs here. Should we add a section for people who are afraid or bees or allergic to them who would rather we weren't allowed to even keep bees? Of course not. Those are all different subjects entirely. This belongs in an article on PETA or maybe in an article on Vegans.

If we are going this direction, I could add pages and pages of controversial beekeeping ideas, and they would actually be more relevant to an article on beekeeping, but I don't think they would elucidate the subject of beekeeping in a way that an encyclopedia should, but rather would muddle things up in an unnecessary way. Michael Bush 15:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I aggree. That pagespace could be put to better use on a subject with relevance to beekeeping. Not going to rip it out sans input from others but it's a good idea.XC0000005 14:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

other species

the following is a direct quote from another Wikipedia article...

Organisms that are currently being used as pollinators in managed pollination are honey bees, bumblebees, alfalfa leafcutter bees, orchard mason bees, and fuzzyfooted bees.

Shouldn't this article at least mention beekeeping for pollination, and the other (non-honey) bee species used? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.129.213.235 (talk) 16:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The article already mentions pollination several times. I don't see a logical reason to discuss the other species, though, since that would not be part of what is normally considered "beekeeping". Rossami (talk) 21:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Western beekeeping environmentally damaging

As western bees are an invasive species and destroy local bees (eg these kinds that do not make a hive), the environmental impact of this type of beekeeping should also be discussed. Especially in Australia, this is leading to huge devestation and decrease of biodiversity (as certain flowers are no longer being able to reproduce trough the eradication of certain indiginous bee-types); an effect of the western bees.

Also, please include a section about indiginous beekeeping. Examples of species used are Melipona beecheeii, ... Indiginous beekeeping (melipona beecheeii). Also, perhaps an extra section on diy-beehive (langstroth hive and indiginous bee-hive) construction may be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KVDP (talk • contribs) 10:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You make a strong accusation that there is a causal relationship between the introduction of the western honeybee and the loss of native pollinators. I would like to see actual evidence of that claim. All the available hard research on the topic that I've ever read concludes that western honeybees do not displace native bees, rather that they tend to complement each other. The decline in native pollinating species has instead been traced back to loss of habitat and of the native flowers to agriculture. The non-native flowers are often structurally different from the introduced flowers and the bees are either too large, too small, tongues too short, etc to work the flowers. Western honeybees, on the other hand, coevolved with the introduced food crops. To the extent that western honeybees are able to pollinate the native species, the research shows that it increases the growth and productivity of the native species. The analogy is not that they are taking away part of the pie but that by co-pollinating, they make the pie substantially bigger. Rossami (talk) 14:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Information on indiginous/stingless beekeeping (for honey, ...) can be found on this website (include species in Wikipedia-article). This website also has information about the eleven stingless/indiginous honeybees and also provides a reference that Western honeybees are in part responsible (indeed along with agriculture) for the decline of other bee-species (especially in Australia). Finally, this website again gives information (very useful FAQ and on indiginous beespecies (with picture) and finally this website gives information on hives and practical indiginous beekeeping.
I hope this convinces you that my claim that Western honeybees are partly responsible for the decline of native bees is grounded. I also hope that you might include it in the article, along with practical information on indiginous beekeeping (diy indiginous beehive construction, ...) See the beehive article talk page for information on plans (I already upped links there). Just transfer the info to the wiki-articles.
KVDP (talk) 08:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Your second link is the only one to discuss species displacement at all. It is a copy of a version of Wikipedia's article on the Honey bee from early 2005. It would be circular reasoning to claim that it is a reliable source for an assertion that the Wikipedia article is now wrong. So, no, the links you provided did not show any new evidence to convince me that there is a substantial link between the introduction of apis mellifera and the decline of other pollinators. But if there were, this still would not be the right article for that discussion. There is already a section at Western honey bee#Environmental hazards that is far more nuanced about hypothesized impacts and better referenced in the limited impacts that have been confirmed. Expansion of that section would appropriate if you have additional hard evidence.
Your other links had some interesting factoids on other bee species that could be integrated into some of those other articles (though some of them also seemed to derive from Wikipedia content). If you see something that's missing, please fix it yourself. However, other than the last link (which covered only the Orchard mason bee), I couldn't find anything that had to do with beekeeping. They were interesting facts about bees that belong on the pages about the respective species.
As to the "practical information" you suggest adding, it is welcome and you should integrate it into the appropriate pages as you have time. Bear in mind, however, that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a how-to guide. Specific plans for beehive construction would probably exceed the preferred level of detail and miss the proper tone for an ideal encyclopedia article. Rossami (talk) 00:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

DIY-beeking (diy beehives aswell as wax melters, smokers, ...) is discussed in more detail and practice in the Villageearth SourceBook. See here. Also mentions why its important for poverty alleviation. Take a quick look and include in article. For your other points, perhaps i'll look up more references later-on.

87.64.163.89 (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

DIY Beekeeping

With a growing intrest in the developing world for beekeeping, DIY-construction of hives and other materials has risen sharply and more and more information about their construction is now available trough the internet. This, as one of the essential elements in the developing world is the price of the materials needed, and in these parts there is an essential lack of this. Especially appropriate technology organisations as VillageEarth are making a great contribution to diy beekeeping. Besides regular hives for Western bees (langstroth hives, top-bar hives, ...) .

Please sign your posts on the talk page. The information you added needs a cleanup. Poor spelling and problems with the links (did you see how they looked in the reference section?). Better to use citeweb templates as they are meant to be used. Some of what you added seems to be pretty much just personal opinion? For example, "With growing intrest in green agriculture and farming, there is a growing intrest in using indiginous bees (as Melipona beecheeii) for honey production." Apart from spelling interest incorrectly where is the growing interest in that species of bee so apparent? A few rural villagers collecting honey doesn't constitute a growing interest now does it? I'm going to revert your edits on the article as I find they detract from the quality of the article as a whole. Sting au Buzz Me... 22:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Added extra references, perhaps its already well enough to upload ?

87.64.205.33 (talk) 10:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

fabric beehives

I've thought beehives could be made of modern fabrics then hoisted up on trees as a kind of portable beekeeping that gives hikers n travelling persons honey n pollen http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/fabric_20beehives —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.86.14.114 (talk) 21:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Industry Terminology

Just an observation from an outsider... I read this article because I was interested in learning a bit about beekeeping. At one point, 'Invention of the Movable Comb Hive', there is mention of 'supers' and other structures used by bees/beekeepers and I could only think what the heck is a super? I do not think this is a word whose meaning would be common knowledge or self explanitory outside of beekeeping culture, and more of an industry term. What a super is, gets somewhat explained later in the article ('Evolution of Hive Designs'), but I think it would improve the article to explain this term either before it is used in context, or parenthetically when it was used, or even make an article on what a super is, and link to it. Just my two cents. [This comment was added 20:13, 26 June 2009 by 68.17.115.253, so I'm moving it to the foot which is where new comments are usually looked for. Terry0051]

The definition you were looking for is in the section titled "Structure of a bee colony". Once upon a time, that section was near the top of the page so readers saw the definition the first time the term came up. Over time, this page has been so rearranged that it no longer reads cleanly. I think the answers are all there but this page badly needs a rewrite. Be bold and take a stab at it.
By the way, you could also add links to beehive, Honey super, Frame (beehive) and other beekeeping terms when you see them in the article. Links are a good way to help readers understand jargon. Rossami (talk) 23:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Becoming a beekeeper

Can we add a section on becoming a beekeeper (Materials, starter kits, common laws and regulations regarding beekeeping and cities)? I looked this page up for that very reason, and there is not even a single link for that. (outside of the associations, which are not very helpful themselves) User:Grinick 17:15, Sep 18, 2005

• We might be able to say a few things here but an in-depth discussion might be better over in Wikibooks since we would be writing a "how-to" for beekeeping. We could, of course, freely link between the two articles. Let's make a start. Rossami (talk) 14:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
  • And now I discover that an in-depth Wikibook already has been started. See b:Beekeeping. Rossami (talk)
    • It doesn't look like the Wikibook is going anywhere. I get the impression that there was only one person working on it and they lost interest. Unless I see some response here from people who have time to devote to a bigger effort, I'd be more inclined to spend time on the Wikipedia material than on the book. A short section on becoming a beekeeper would be appropriate here. MnSteve 21:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
      • As of late 2009, that wikibook, b:Beekeeping, is looking very good. Arlen22 (talk) 18:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Country list

Turkey is both historically and politically a European country by having land and capitals in Europe for more than 600 years. In all the international organizations like UN or Council of Europe, Turkey is well regarded as a European country without any question. But in this article this fact is disregarded and any changes to reflect this has been reverted. Please don't let your personal feelings run on this established fact since this is against Wikipedia values. Baloglu (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC).

This discussion will be more appropriately held at Talk:Turkey. If statements such as "In all the international organizations like UN or Council of Europe, Turkey is well regarded as a European country without any question." are to be used in support of matters in the article, Wikipedia policy requires a citation for them. The Bosphorus has a European side and an Asian side; Anatolia is part of Asia, and contains the present-day capital. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 04:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

With this point of view, Russian Federation should not be listed as European country too, since it has much more land in Asia than Europe. Also any further reference to countries having no land in Europe (Cyprus and Armenia) and other transcontinental countries (Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) as European becomes disputed. I have now included the references showing Turkey as a member of Council of Europe and a member of UN security council (not listed as an Asian member but European).

Again, this is not the best place for this discussion. It's the beekeeping article, you see, not a platform for political statements. File:Map-TurkicLanguages.png shows another relevant point, I believe. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 13:16, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

This a place for this discussion since you don't list this country where it has to be listed, which hides the fact that Turkey is the biggest honey producer of Europe. I am not editing the page but writing it in the discussion section. What I am saying the country list in this page is biased as due to UN (Western European and Others Group) and other international organizations this country is a European country but not an Asian country, mostly on historical (more than 600 years) and political (member of European institutions such as Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights and official candidate and associate member of EU, and again an associate member of Western European Union) grounds (Further references Europe and List of European countries). Besides a language map has no relevant point in this discussion as you would aggree by comparing portugese speakers map File:Map-Lusophone_World-en.png. Historians has no dispute that Turks came from Asia and the majority of the Turkic speakers live in Asia. Historians say that Turks settled in Europe in 14th century much before the Battle of Kosovo and was a part of this continent since then Baloglu (talk). —Preceding undated comment added 14:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC).

No dispute that Anatolia is in Asia. Are you saying that Turkish honey is harvested entirely on the European side? I doubt it.

That Spain and Portugal historically claimed most of South America does not mean that South America is part of Europe, nor, in a closer analogy to Turkish history, that the Iberian peninsula is part of South America. Honeybees do not acknowledge political boundaries.

We seem to be coming at this from different viewpoints- one political, and one geographical. I will suggest that geography is more relevant to beekeeping. Political divisions play a part in the marketing of honey, but I'm not sure how much emphasis that needs in this article. Anybody else have a comment? __ Just plain Bill (talk) 20:37, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I will have to remind again that, if geography is the main reason of this table, then russian federation should be listed in Asia as 77% of this country lies in Asia (Are you saying that russian honey is entirely harvested in European side?). Otherwise it's just a biased table. Baloglu (talk)

Tradittional beekeeeping

The section titled "fixed frame hives" under "traditional beekeeping"has a discrption of a Langstroth hive, instead of a fixed comb hive. Also, the term is fixed comb, not fixed frame. The frame is only part part of movable comb hives. I would rewrite it myself, but I really don't know that much about fixed comb hives. Michael1115 (talk) 03:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Carl Sheritt

I was speaking to a friend who is a member of the Vermont Beekeepers Association and he said a man named Carl Sheritt played a prominent role in the development of beekeeping equipment in the United States. He didn't know the details though. I couldn't find any sources online (I may have spelled the name wrong). Has anyone more familiar with the subject matter ever heard of him or his contributions to the field? Doctorfluffy (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It's been a year. Nobody knows anything about this guy? Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 20:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

L.L. Langstroth? C.P. Dadant? Both contributed to the development of be equipment. Arlen22 (talk) 18:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but I am positive the name was Carl Sheritt. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 01:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Top Bar Beekeeping

I have recently updated information as to the type of top bar hives that exist and more specific information as to the usability/practicality of those hives. I am posting from personal, practical experience in using these hives in my own bee conservation work and business. Bigbearomaha (talk) 22:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Criticism section discussion

Pasted below is the section removed from main article for discussion here.

==Criticism==

The animal rights group PETA has considered beekeeping an unethical activity, claiming that "honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation."

This section I regard as a form of vandalism. Do I go put my point of view on the PETA article? The above comments would not be out of place in the PETA article but in my opinion they do not belong here. Could we have some discussion on this please and try to reach consensus on wether the section belongs in the Beekeeping article or not? Sting_au Talk 04:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that calling it "vandalism" may be an overstatement. They are a notable group with an official position in opposition to the general concept of beekeeping. The comment itself is verified and seems appropriate to the topic of this article. The fact that I think the PETA people are clueless doesn't change the fact that they sincerely hold this particular belief. I won't be sorry if the consensus here is to delete the section but I think that our policy on neutral presentation may obligate us to retain at least some mention of the opposition to beekeeping.
By the way, I think the stronger argument for removal of the section is in the comment that you left on my Talk page earlier when you asked "Does every primary producer article or breed article need commentary from PETA on it?" If not, why is Beekeeping being singled out? I don't have a good answer for that question. Rossami (talk) 05:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutral presentation, hmmm? Did you know that the PETA article is semi-protected? So is the Jesus article? No criticism section on either. Ok, Jesus does have "other views" section, but that pertains to different versions of Christianity. My point in mentioning those two articles is that they both cop attack on a regular basis so semi-protecting them was necessary. If someone decided to create a "Criticism of PETA" section on the PETA page it would be reverted in an instant. Anyhow, being a bird breeder I see the occasional article attacked with this is cruelty etc etc remarks. These comments are own point of view (OPV) and have no place in the respective breed articles. The PETA comments would be in no way out of place on the PETA website. Say under "criticism of beekeeping" heading? But this article doesn't need to be weighed down with those comments. If we accept that section we are then obliged to add a reference to every other organization that throws their hat in the ring and announces a criticism of beekeeping. Should we make a list of all the new age vegetarian groups opposed to the cruelty of beekeeping? I mean there must be heaps more than just PETA? Far better to just remove it from the article altogether. Sting_au Talk 06:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

This is an article discussing beekeeping as a definition and description. There is no pro or con discussing it as a good or bad thing. The PETA comment doesn't belong as there are no 'pro' beekeeping comments included. Bigbearomaha (talk) 21:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The article about violence against women makes clear that it is an unacceptable act. While beekeeping is an acceptable act by some people, it is an considered an unethical activity by others. As it is a significant objection to the mere activity of beekeeping, it should be mentioned in the article. -- Gabi S. (talk) 15:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it can be considered a significant objection. "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views."

Anyone with "ethical objections" to beekeeping demonstrates a flawed understanding of both beekeeping and the human condition. Beekeepers must work with the free will of free-flying livestock. If bees cannot fly away from the hive, that colony dies of dysentery. Old beekeepers say, "a man who hates his bees will not be keeping them for long." __ Just plain Bill (talk) 18:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The whole issue of animal rights is notable; vegans and animal rights activists are not a tiny minority. A section about criticism could make the article more balanced and neutral. It can include both a short mention of controversial beekeeping ideas (with a reference to sites with further details) and another short mention of the animal rights perspective regarding beekeeping (with a reference to sites with further details).

Note that the article about factory farming includes a section on ethics, which is undisputed. The make the beekeeping article complete, it should include a section on ethics as well. -- Gabi S. (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I would be interested to see what common features you think beekeeping shares with factory farming. I don't see it as relevant. Do you have any particular "controversial beekeeping ideas" in mind? __ Just plain Bill (talk) 13:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

There are many shared characteristics: Beekepers take the honey, an animal product, from its natural environment for their own use, and grow bees that are adapted for large production of the product. During the "harvesting" bees try to protect their colony, and many of them are being killed by the beekeepers, using smoke or chemicals. If the volumes of "production" are not high enough, beekeepers kill the whole colony. When a bee queen is transferred to a new colony, the beekeepers cut her wings. Selective breeding makes the bees more vulnerable to sickness and mutations. There are environmental damages done by beekeepers, such as killing bears and skunks that are seen as harmful for their business. All of these are ethical considerations, and I think that they must be mentioned in the article, or at least a reference to this criticism should be included.

The "controversial beekeeping ideas" were mentioned by User:Michael Bush above. I don't know of any, but if there are any, maybe they also belong to the criticism section. In my opinion, there should be a section about ethical considerations, and another section that describes internal debates within the beekeeping community. -- Gabi S. (talk) 19:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Beekeeping is more akin to sheepherding, squab-raising or fishkeeping than factory farming. PETA opposes all of those yet those articles have no "controversy" section. PETA's extremist position on beekeeping if very much a fringe position and no longer even as notable as it was back in 2007 when they first took that position. I agree with Just plain Bill that including PETA's rant would violate WP:UNDUE. Rossami (talk) 20:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Flawed understanding of beekeeping fisked:

• "Beekeepers take the honey... for their own use" — Milk and honey are the two foods which are produced in surplus, and may be taken without cutting off a life. (Milling wheat into flour "kills" the seeds...)
• "grow bees that are adapted for large production of the product" — Yes. Large production is an adaptive advantage for a natural bee colony as well.
• "During the "harvesting" bees try to protect their colony, and many of them are being killed by the beekeepers, using smoke or chemicals." — Nonsense. Smoke causes bees to fill up on stored honey in preparation for flight from a possibly burning hive, and bees with full stomachs are less defensive than hungry ones. Smoke is also used to move bees away from potential crushing sites when reassembling the hive. Beekeepers avoid killing bees when manipulating hives, since dying bees release an alarm pheromone which makes the other bees more defensive.
• "If the volumes of "production" are not high enough, beekeepers kill the whole colony."{{citation needed}} — This is far from being a common practice. I never saw such a thing in my days as a bee inspector.
• "When a bee queen is transferred to a new colony, the beekeepers cut her wings." — This is far from being a common practice. The queen does not generally fly once she is established in a colony. Trimming the tip of one of her wings (she has four) may serve to identify the queen on a crowded comb. Without any help from a human, worker bees will sometimes dispose of an old queen by surrounding her and suffocating her.
• "Selective breeding makes the bees more vulnerable to sickness and mutations" — Nonsense. Responsible queen breeders select for disease resistance, as well as hard-working bees for high production.
• "killing bears and skunks"{{citation needed}} — Where? When? Again, far from being a common practice, being labor-intensive for low payoff.

Regarding "controversial beekeeping ideas", to quote Michael Bush above, "I don't think they would elucidate the subject of beekeeping in a way that an encyclopedia should, but rather would muddle things up in an unnecessary way." I agree. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 21:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

First of all, we agree on leaving "controversial beekeeping ideas" out of the article.

Now I turn to Rossami's comments, and your first point about foods which may be taken without cutting off a life. The article about milk contains a short section about ethical concerns, that starts with: "Vegans and some other vegetarians do not consume milk for a variety of reasons..." Lo and behold, the milk industry seems to be fine with that section, and doesn't fight to take it off. It wouldn't be undue weight to mention in the article about honey that vegans and some other vegetarians do not consume honey for a variety of reasons. Actually, it belongs more to the article on honey than the article on beekeeping. I'll try to put it there. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.

Also, thanks for the "fisking". I can only say that unacceptable practices that are not common still deserve mentioning, as examples of harmful actions done by some beekeepers.

I also re-checked the smoke issue. I've been told that the smoke that calms the bees is lethal to old bees, and that many old bees die from the smoke. Is it wrong?

Thanks, -- Gabi S. (talk) 08:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I would be interested to see a source for "smoke is lethal to old bees." Bear in mind that in summer, an individual worker bee's lifetime is counted in weeks, about six of them. Insects do not heal; survivable injuries are managed by something like blood clotting, and the insect carries on. Field workers' wings eventually get so tattered that they cannot return to the hive with a load of nectar, and they die in the great outdoors, in a typical scenario.

I believe that subscribers to the PETA mindset are mistaken in their understanding of how the life of an invertebrate arthropod goes, and may be applying a bit of unjustified anthropomorphism in their reasoning. Further, an individual bee, even a queen, is a disposable unit in the life of a honeybee colony. Drones die after a single mating, and surplus drones are ejected from the hive in autumn, to starve outdoors. I shed numerous epithelial cells daily, from inside and out, and I do not weep for them; my body carries on. This is why I believe that gasping statements that "beekeeping is unethical, and tantamount to factory farming!" come from a misguided fringe group, and are not suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia article on beekeeping.

I have no connection to the honey industry other than as a consumer. Decades ago, I was a hobby beekeeper, and had a summer job as a bee inspector, working for the state's agriculture department. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 15:19, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It would be incorrect to say that "vegans and some other vegetarians do not consume honey" since that is a disputed position even within the Vegan community. From our own article on Veganism, "Different groups disagree about some of the items to be excluded. Neither the Vegan Society nor the American Vegan Society consider the use of honey or other insect products to be suitable for vegans. On the other hand, both Vegan Action and Vegan Outreach question the ethical basis of such a position and regard the consumption of honey as a matter of 'personal choice.'" (citations omitted) But even if you accept the stronger position, it's a long way from "we think it's bad to eat honey" to "all beekeeping is unethical". Rossami (talk) 20:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Honey in Egyptian Tombs

The sentence, "Sealed pots of honey were found in the grave goods of Pharaohs such as Tutankhamun. " does not make clear that only residues and honey comb form remnants have been identified. I propose changing the sentence to mention that remnants of honey were identified by pollen grains, and liquids that were identified as honey turned out to be oil or natron. . Another report that liquid honey was found in the tomb of Yuya and Tuya which turned out to be natron is on .

Didertava (talk) 15:51, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Propolis

Hi, I'm new here and being a beekeeper I started on Beekeeping. The first paragraph does not mention propolis which is a valuable product from the hives as well (at least it is in Bulgaria). However, possibly due to my new-ness I could not find a way to edit that paragraph. If it can be edited I'd like to know how and if not perhaps someone with more power could add propolis to the products (including a link to the entry on propolis).Ppeetteerr (talk) 14:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I added propolis to the lead paragraph, as well as some other products of the hive. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 17:13, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Comments and questions

This is truly a great article. I enjoyed reading it. I also made changes and modified some things. I add some comments and questions.

1. The article mentions "F1 hybrids" but doesn't say what that means.

2. It would be nice to introduce an image that shows the location of the honey supers, queen excluders and brood box. I don't think this would be immediately clear and apparent to a regular person.

3. "In India, N. K. Garg is known as the pioneer of starting apiculture. He is the one who helped people in taking apiculture commercially. He started it in early 1990's." This statement sounds ridiculous.

4. "#2 or #3 pine". What is this?

5. "In addition, when a bee consumes honey the bee's abdomen distends, supposedly making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting, though this has not been tested scientifically."

This sentence is incomplete and apparently out of context. It should be modified. "When smoke comes, bees feed on honey and escape" (this is the idea behind).

6. "Mating takes place at some distance from the hive and often several hundred feet up in the air; it is thought that this separates the strongest drones from the weaker ones - ensuring that only the fastest and strongest drones get to pass on their genes."

What is the source for this claim?

7. "In general the more northerly black races are said to swarm less and supersede more, whereas the more southerly yellow and grey varieties are said to swarm more frequently."

A source for this must be provided.

8. I don't see how the asterisks in the "World apiculture" section work. They seem to link to some information below the table and that information links to sources. The whole thing should be just linked directly to the sources with square brackets from inside the table.

ICE77 (talk) 21:28, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Orskov Foundation

Perhaps the Orskov Foundation can be mentioned? KVDP (talk) 10:26, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

External link to Natural Beekeeping Forum

I will just leave this diff here in case anyone cares to pursue it further. The link is working this morning, but seems to bring on a lot of javascript activity, hogging CPU cycles. I have no way of telling whether this activity is malicious; my uneducated guess is that it is not so much malicious as insistent, perhaps in aid of something like advertising. (See WP:ELNO item #3.) Disabling javascript did not seem to get in the way of viewing the www.naturalbeekeeping.org site. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

New practice of killing queens?

"High number of pesticides within colonies linked to honey bee deaths" says, "Not long ago, a queen would typically last up to two years. But now many commercial beekeepers replace the queens in at least half of their colonies every spring".

The American Bee Journal would be a source which publishes best practices for beekeepers. I do not have the article in this which advises killing queens, if they even published such an article, but by this academic article it seems that there is an industry practice of this.

I thought there might be something here for updating the article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:28, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

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Commonly in hives

Every colony of bees lives in a hive, whether managed by us or not. It does not make sense to say that beekeepers commonly keep their bees in hives. I attempted to change "hives" to "movable comb hives" but it was reverted with the objection that not everyone uses these. I agree, however I do think that it is common enough to be stated as common. I understand that in many parts of the world, colonies are still maintained in skeps and pottery. How shall this be changed so that it is not ridiculously self-evident? Cliff (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I was the reverter there. It is more accurate to say that all honeybee colonies (or the vast majority of them not in the tropics) live in nest cavities. That may be the inside of a box hive furnished by a human keeper, a hollow tree, house framing, or anywhere else that fits the needs of the swarm, as selected by a cadre of scout bees. A hollow tree is not a hive. (Top-bar hives are another form, without movable combs, that work economically in areas where regulations allow. In my inspecting days, I saw a Greek traditional log hive, with crossed sticks at the top to support the comb.) Just plain Bill (talk) 01:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I encountered similar discussion of the word hive on the beehive talk page, Talk:Beehive/Archive 1#What_means_hive.3F. I see that I was using a layperson or common understanding of the word. I made some edits at beehive to try to explain this to other readers. I don't think I'm alone in using hive to mean nest. I'll make some changes here to make it more clear (perhaps redundant to those in the know). Let me know what you think.Cliff (talk) 02:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Carry on; "man-made hives" works nicely. By the way, when I find a block of time I am considering reverting the "beehome" bologna in the beehive article, which showed up around January or so. I will try to do that without stepping on the changes you have made since then, but I may miss something, working from this tablet. Thanks for your kind attention, Just plain Bill (talk) 03:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I suspect there's a cross-the-pond issue here. We Brits (and I suspect Aussies, people from India and Pakistan, New Zealanders, etc) use "hive" to mean a manmade box or basket which can contain a colony of bees. We use "nest" when the bees put themselves somewhere else. If you'd use "nest" then we'd all understand what you meant; by choosing to use "hive", you automatically confuse half your audience. If the article is in "American English" then that's your right, it's your language version, you do with it just as you please, but that doesn't make it a wise choice. My tuppence worth. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:04, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I suspect it is only certain registers of American English whose speakers would call a "nest" a "hive" of bees. Cognizant workers in the industry still use "swarm", "colony", "nest", and "hive" in their proper unambiguous senses. The general population, maybe not so much. Many folks call wasps and yellowjackets "bees," so there you have it. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Excellent! I know people (I won't say of which gender) who call hoverflies bees, too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:57, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah, yes, good old Batesian mimicry. My dad used to call syrphid flies "sweat bees," but he was a hobby beekeeper, and knew the difference. OK, enough chat from yours truly; I will now go quiet for a bit. Be well! Just plain Bill (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

glad to hear you don't like the beehome stuff either. I'll help change that over. Cliff (talk) 05:20, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Good idea, we don't need to dumb down. Beekeepers' language is appropriate, with glosses where terms are genuinely difficult, but we can and should steer clear of the baby bees snuggling in their beehomes stuff. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:38, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Domestication

This is likely to be a longish conversation. The question needs to be asked, "are bees domesticated?" My first thought is no. But perhaps that's a mammalian bias. If bees, as I suspect, are not domesticated, then we need to remove such statements. I think first we need a working definition of domestication.Cliff (talk) 02:51, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

"... A. mellifera, living in hives in apiaries are just as wild and undomesticated as their sister colonies living in hollow trees in jungles, fields, and forests." From Dadant's The Hive and the Honey Bee, p.41 of the 1975 edition. Just plain Bill (talk) 05:13, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

p.s. That chapter in the Dadant book was written by Colin G. Butler, a fellow with a whole raft of letters after his name. Just plain Bill (talk) 13:37, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Not so: Humans "have altered the natural evolution of honey bees by manipulating location, hive building, and tendency to swarm." Apis mellifera: The Domestication and Spread of European Honey Bees for Agriculture in North America. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:40, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

As that article says, human interference with bee evolution has met with only limited success. Conventional wisdom has it that centuries of gum or skep beekeeping selected for mediocre yield, since the heaviest and lightest hives were killed at honey harvest time. Escaped swarms outpaced the spread of European settlement in North America, and catching wild swarms is still one way for a beekeeper to increase their holdings. Where is the bright line between feral and "domesticated" colonies, other than where they have been induced to nest? Humans build boxes for wild animals such as wood ducks, purple martins, or bats to live in, but that hasn't amounted to domestication, not yet.

The difficulty here may have to do with differing points of view. A biologist may note subtle genetic shifts in different strains of bee (I missed the part where that U. of Michigan archaeologist supports the assertion that bees were a "once uniform species" before interacting with humanity) while a beekeeper may benefit from an approach to bee behavior that treats them essentially as wild insects. Just plain Bill (talk) 12:10, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm tempted to side with bill here. Domestication requires selective breeding over quite a long period of time. We didn't even know how bees bred until the time of huber, and even then weren't really able to control which drones our virgins mated with. Not like with cattle where you can select the best bull and cows. I think I'm leaning toward calling them semi domesticated, but we should make sure our claim matches that of list of domesticated animals. Should we invite some entomologist to join the conversation? Cliff (talk) 15:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

No, we should not be taking sides: the point is that the claim that bees have been domesticated is reliably documented, so it should be described as such in the article. Where there are arguments both for and against, our job as editors is not to choose a side, but to describe the history of the ideas from the best sources, noting the arguments used and citing these in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:29, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

The claim that bees kept in a hive are "just as wild and undomesticated" as feral colonies is also reliably documented. Does this issue need some explanation in the article? Just plain Bill (talk) 15:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

sounds like there is enough contention in the literature itself to warrant it's own section. Not sure that section belongs on beekeeping, more likely honey bee. Since there is such a disagreement, should we avoid using the word except with supporting explanations?Cliff (talk)

It's surprising that domestication isn't described in its own section in Western honey bee, which is plainly the right place for a history; there might be good cause for a summary section with a "{{main article|Western honey bee#Domestication}}" link from Beekeeping and perhaps a few other places. I'll get started on it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:00, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I like what you've done there so far. Keep up the good work. Cliff (talk)

As a professional entomologist specializing in bees, many, many scientists are of the opinion that honey bees are domesticated in the sense that they are different genetically from their wild ancestors. Outside of the scientific realm, bees have been considered domestic insects for some time--as far back as 1603, John Guillim said in his treatise A Display of Heraldry "The Bee I may well reckon a domestik Insect, being so pliable to the Benefit of the Keeper". Much of the modern pollination literature is written with verbage assuming that bees are domesticated (examples: Winfree et al 2009, Aizen and Harder 2009, Potts et al 2010, Dennis and Kemp 2015, Tehel et al 2016). Contrary opinions exist, of course, such as Bailey and Ball 2013, [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.12333/full Rúa et al 2013]. The issue, like many, comes down to terminology. What does it mean for an animal to be domesticated? Should it be unable to survive/reproduce on its own? In this case, horses are not domesticated, and neither are dogs or cats, all of which can sustain feral populations, even in areas far from humans. To address Bill's earlier comment about the "bright line" between domestic and feral bees, the same issue exists for cats and dogs, which also have extensive feral populations (and, in the case of dogs, revert away from selected-for breed characteristics). Because bees, altered genetically by human interference (especially now, when nearly all the world's queens are bred in a handful of places), leave cultivation and swarm in wild places, they interbreed with the other feral bees and spread the genes common in domestic populations. There is also some question about whether feral honey bee populations are actually self-sustaining, or if they are simply the result of escaped swarms from beekeepers. This is a particularly prudent question as Nosema, Varroa destructor, and many other pest organisms have decimated feral populations of honey bees. I think that the prudent road is to call them domesticated, but bring up the controversy about what "domestication" really means for an insect. I think that Chiswick Chap has made a good start in this direction. M. A. Broussard (talk) 04:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks, that's kind of you and very helpful. I'll use your sources in the new section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:35, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

To address the point of managed bees spreading genetics to the feral population, Magnus, R and AL Szalanski from 2008- 1014 have shown that feral bee populations have far greater genetic diversity (23 mitotypes) than managed bees "(only 7 mitotypes total, with 82% of the diversity represented by only 3 mitotypes). Of interest is that the stocks of both western and southern queen producers tend to be predominated by only three C mitotypes [39], which likely flow into the feral populations (thus bolstering their proportions)." So, despite genetic influence from managed bees, the feral populations in the region studied continue to maintain some level of independent breeding. That said, I'm just reading, and I have no idea what a mitotype is compared to phenotype, nor to what degree that indicates strong genetic diversity. here is the link from which I pulled this information. I have not read any of the original sources. Cliff (talk) 15:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

All interesting stuff, but not for the history section. Mitotype must refer to mitochondrial DNA; phenotype means appearance or other physical results, as opposed to genotype, what is in the DNA. 23 mitotypes is plainly more diverse than 7. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:52, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In the Americas, honeybees are an invasive species, having crossed an ocean with human help to get here. Humans are a vector for all kinds of things, including the varroa and tracheal mites now challenging the bees. Crowded southern bee yards in the winter, packaged bees, and two-super "pollinating units" trucked around in the spring, have all contributed to spreading the parasites. I don't know that "wild" bees are any more or less robust than escaped domesticated strains in the face of those challenges, without human intervention. In other words, surviving a varroa infestation may not be an indicator of domestication or otherwise. I heard one anecdote from a South American beekeeper about inadvertent A. m. scutellata hybrids finding a survivable balance with the mites, but that is only one story.

A working definition of "domestication" will be useful, or at least a sense of the core prototype, and how the edge cases cluster around it. So far, so good, with recent changes to the relevant articles... Just plain Bill (talk) 15:59, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

The new section on the history of domestication at Western honey bee#Domestication includes a list of the features (attributes) of domesticated bees that distinguish them from wild bees - they sting less, make more honey, and so on. If you read Domestication you will see that placidity and productivity are certainly core features. Domestic breeds generally aren't good at surviving in the wild (viz, the sad story of attempts to "improve" the stock of wild turkeys by releasing some domestic ones, which all died); but dogs and cats easily become feral, as do bees. It would be fair to say that bees have many domestic attributes, but not all of them: and nor do dogs and cats, but we're pretty happy to say they're domesticated, if only through familiarity. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:46, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I still don't see a bright line in any of that. I've had colonies (from swarms caught in the US, so no question of them being native stock) that were stroppy and productive, looking for all the world like blond Italians (ligustica) who have a name for being gentle. The distinguishing features seem like broad tendencies, rather than firm diagnostic criteria usable in the field. That said, I am content with the way both articles are going; thanks for your work on them! Just plain Bill (talk) 18:43, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Turns out that we cannot use list of domesticated animals as evidence in either direction because as shown in this archived talk page they used the article western honey bee and the word domesticated there to inform creation of the list. The source they used does not talk about domestication, but simply the absence of "wild" bees. I suppose that might be evidence of domestication in itself, that unchanged genetics no longer exist. Cliff (talk) 20:14, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

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Breeding

This section has been newly added, a very good idea ... with hindsight of course. Breeding is now probably the most major field within beekeeping, especially in the context of trying to find resistant bees to the varroa mite and the related Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), these are todays equivalents to the early 1900's Isle of Wight Disease, which wiped out all pure AMM's in the British Isles. If anyone wants to discuss the editing of this new section, here would be a good place to start.Is123Biblio (talk) 12:51, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

As part of the move, I removed some pieces of content. Some were essay-like in tone, but the couple of sentences at the end of the paragraph were both unneeded and not really using good quality sources. If there's something not clear about one of those pieces specifically, best to follow WP:BRD here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I'll try and deal with the issues you have raised in point form as I think it will help us in agreeing on them easier.

1st, the first part you removed was "The importance of inter-breeding and hybridization to beekeeping is exemplified in the Buckfast bee...", up until 1916 there had been no concerted efforts to create a new Breed of bee, the appearance of the Isle of Wight Disease (IoWD) made this an absolute must - there are other breeds of bees but none have been as successful nor as universally accepted as the Buckfast. Remember the context, it appeared that ALL the bees in the British Isles were dying! ALL the wild colonies died during this time (remember this for the 3rd point) therefore I inlcuded that sentence as I feel it is important due to the extreme importance of what was being done at the time, namely breeding a breed of bee which was resistant to a new deadly mite (remember this for the 3rd and 4th points as well).

2nd, you said that "Some were essay-like in tone.." not sure how I can respond to that, I didn't want to create bullet points, I wanted it to be an enjoyable read, if you want to suggest a different re-wording, that might help, but it still seems ok to me.

3rd, "...the couple of sentences at the end.. were.. unneeded..." the first of these two sentences explains that other qualities, other than resistance, can be fixed into the genetics of a bee breed, up until the buckfast bee breeding program that had not been done (successfully for the long term), and is the primary goal / concern of most beekeepers today. The second of these two sentences brings the Buckfast bee breeding program to the present time, in which the main threat is now a new mite called varroa, if a colony is untreated against them, it will die in less than two years, previous treatments are now not as effective, losses are averaging 25% each year! Again the buckfast breeding program is extremely close to breeding a varroa mite resistant bee, in other words they are repeating what was done 100 years ago! These two sentences tie the most major efforts of bee breeding over the past 100 years together.

4th, you said "...the couple of sentences at the end of the paragraph.. not really using good quality sources." if you can tell me what it is that you feel is not good about them I can probably get better ones? Would this one be better instead of the orginal . The next two links I thought were the best available, the first is of an international breeding community, over the space of 100 years a monk's dedication has spread throughout the world, and then a link to cutting edge research which every single beekeeper in the world salivates over just thinking about it - a varroa mite resistant bee, drooowl.... :-) In some months from now when beekeepers open their hives after winter, the discussion will be "how did your bees do?" meaning how many did you lose because of varroa during the winter! Everyone understands the only way to defeat varroa is to defeat it the way the IoWD was defeated, by breeding a resistant bee, the Buckfast breeding program is on the edge of achieving that! Bibby (talk) 13:08, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

References

The essay-like issue persisted across all points, but was the main issue for 1 and 2. We don't link things together with that kind of language, but remain encyclopedic in WP:TONE instead. WP:NOTESSAY gives some guidance on this. In short, we want to stick to what WP:SECONDARY sources have to say and assign what we call WP:DUE weight. At first, I thought this journal article was a review, one of the best sources we can pull from, but after double checking, that's not the case. If there's going to be a breeding section, it looks like we'll need better sources the focus on the subject. Basically, we don't pull together sources like the ones you are listing (that gets into what we call WP:SYNTH), but rely on secondary sources that summarize important information on honeybee breeding for us.

For 3 and 4, that gets into needing things like journal articles, university material, books, etc. that give an overview of bee breeding, traits, etc. Specific important strains, such as the Buckfast bee, would be mentioned that can indicate they should be mentioned as part of the subject. In short, right now you're saying the Buckfast bee was really important, etc., but we really need secondary sources doing that in their overviews instead of editors doing it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:02, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok, one thing at a time.

Lets deal with your sentence "At first, I thought this journal article was a review, one of the best sources we can pull from, but after double checking, that's not the case." I don't understand what your objection is, can you please explain... bearing in mind that the author was the leading expert on bee breeding in the world until his retirement in 1992. Remember we're dealing with breeding a new bee breed, something which wasn't attempted successfully until 1916, by this author (bee breeding is now a very major part of bee beekeeping). Or are you asking me to essentially copy and paste quotes from the experts (which would be this author) instead of condensing and paraphrasing them, and giving the link / ref. Or is condensing / paraphrasing Ok if I give a more specific link / ref. also citing page and / or paragraph (do you want the line number as well as it may be unfair for me to expect you to read through the entire text) will that be Ok? It's not at all clear what you're asking for?

One last thing, you said "right now you're saying the Buckfast bee was really important, etc." no that's not right, that's why I gave ref. with links ... which is why I'm asking do you want line ref's to the articles, I can get that for you if you want, but do you then want them cited in the ref's for the Article as well? Bibby (talk) 22:21, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

See WP:SCIRS on your first question. The source in question an old documentation of a primary source, so not really the kind of source we'd reach for an overview. We paraphrase and condense sources, but we don't add in our own editorializing. That goes back to what I've been mentioning before that we need secondary sources that give us a good summary for us. We don't go off of the authority of authors as you mention though.

For the second paragraph, your talk page comments just before my comment were your own summary without a secondary reference on that. What we really need is a book or university publication (like this, though ideally newer) that gives an overview of the history. Those sources basically will give a who's who in terms of researchers and bee breeds so we can assign due weight to the topic of bee breeding. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I think we're moving along slowly. But I think we are coming up against a wall. In 1916 there were only first hand accounts, there was no scientific evaluation that I think you want (the research, by non-beekeeprs, at the time was later shown to be in error). For example, (my summary of a letter in a bee journal) a local beekeeper visits an annual Fair and writes in his local Associations' newletter that there was only one beekeeper that year, when previously there had been several, and that she had 180 hives but now only had 1, and that this collapse in beekeeping in her area was attributable to IoWD, bearing in mind that all the bees were dead (so couldn't be examined), what better source can you get than that, being recounted in a newsletter, with a further comment that "we're restocking our entire county's population(with government help)"? That goes to show just how important that this breeding program was (which is why I cited Brother Adams journal article, as he mentions the last surving local dark bees... dying, in 1945, which he saw with his own eyes). Beekeepers today are starting to see similar things with new diseases, but with the aid of science this time, we're holding them at bay, for now. But I think you're saying you want me to provide a scientific evaluation of these incidences before I can reference them here in wiki? Assuming I could, we start creating a section about the history, developement and effects of the IoWD, which is another wiki page.

So, you're going to have to help me out a bit more if you don't like the source I have provided, of an eyewitness to the events being discussed, what other type of source(s) do you want, I'm not aware of any other types of sources except eyewitness ones going back that far, remember the IoWD was originally dismissed when it started to be reported, and took many years for any scientific evaluations to begin, WW1 got in the way.Bibby (talk) 13:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

As I've been mentioning before (and please WP:THREAD your posts), we rely on secondary sources, not WP:PRIMARY eyewitness sources. People regularly write about the history of topics in the current day, so that's all that's needed. All the things you are saying on this talk page about the subject should be sourced to an overview on the topic, so there's really nowhere to go without sourcing.

With that being said, I've gone ahead and removed the breeding section for now. I'm all for developing one, but we're going to need good summary sources for that. I brought up one potential book as an overview to pull from, but it'll take some good additional sources for whoever wants to / has time to develop the section. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:36, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok, how is this draft, can we get an agreement between us for this, and IF not, it would be helpful if we take each sentence (and it's reference) one at a time, that way we can make some progress on this?Bibby (talk) 13:02, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

All of the Apis mellifera sub-species are capable of inter-breeding and hybridizing. Many bee keepers strive to selectively breed and hybridize varieties to produce desirable qualities such as parasite & disease resistance, good honey production, reduced swarming behaviour, prolific breeding, and non-aggression. The importance of bee breeding is exemplified in the Buckfast bee breeding program, which was originally started in 1916 by Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey to be a resistant bee breed to the Isle of Wight Disease (later identified in 1921 as being caused by Acarapis woodi mites), which would later go on to erradicate the indiginous Apis mellifera mellifera bees of Britain and Ireland. Starting in 1918, at the request of the UK government, hundreds of Buckfast bees were sent out to all parts of the British Isles to restock the bee population. It was only after resistance to the Acarapis woodi mites had been established that other desirable qualities such as greater honey yield and non-aggression were able to be focused on . There is now an international network of Buckfast bee breeders (centered in Germany) dedicated to maintaining and improving this breed such as imparting varroa mite resistance, the primary biological cause of colony mortality worldwide.

References

Didn't see this pop up on the watchlist for some reason when the edit was made, but this is just introducing more of the same problems with tone and sourcing. It looks like you just took the content you wrote and added references rather than the other way around. That's also in part because you are citing entire books without showing what you are specifically citing. We need to summarize the sources instead. The first two sources look useful for that, and the following two can be for more minor things at [[[Karl Kehrle]]. The latter sources are mostly getting into shaky source territory again as mentioned previously for what we need here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:16, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

My orignal intention was to add more detailed sources afterwards, I now understand that is not how it is supposed to work on wiki, BUT the first couple of sentences had been up for a long time (not by me) without sources, so I thought I'd get sources for them over the following few days. I wrote what I did from memory of what I had read, therefore I knew I had the sources either at hand or in the Assocations' library, considering that entire Sections in this Article give no sources whatsoever I didn't see the problem (I notice you haven't deleted them??? Why????)

Anyway that's the background - moving along.

I requested for us to go though "each sentence (and it's reference) one at a time", so the ball's still in your court, first sentence is "All of the Apis mellifera sub-species are capable of inter-breeding and hybridizing."

We're talking about really basic stuff, to describe this as Beekeeping 101 would be an exaggeration, all beekeepers know this as they have done it by the end of their first year, but as non-beekeepers will be visiting this wiki page I understand why it needs to be stated and I think it is a good start for the Breeding section. We don't want to get too detailed like II.Bibby (talk) 12:06, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so no objections so far, bearing in mind I didn't actually write this first sentence, it was written a long time ago - I only added a Source for it, this second sentence is similar in that I didn't write it either, I and another wiki member just edited it, however I have also added a Source for it as well, again this is pretty basic stuff, I've re-created the Breeding section (I can't claim credit for it, again another person put it up) and added the first senetnce to it, hopefully this second sentence can also shortly be added "Many bee keepers strive to selectively breed and hybridize varieties to produce desirable qualities such as parasite & disease resistance, good honey production, reduced swarming behaviour, prolific breeding, and non-aggression. Bibby (talk) 13:40, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

The problem with the particular first sentence is that sub-species are by definition able to breed. That isn't particularly WP:DUE aside from being minor information as part of larger section, and is why I had removed the text. What is really needed is an overview (one example) from a good secondary source of honeybee breeding and particular strains of note. That's the WP:BURDEN of anyone wanting to flesh out this type of information.

As for the second sentence, that's again repeating the tone issue I've told you about many times. At this point, it's better scrap the old sentences and go by what the sources actually say. As a second reminder, please don't cite whole books without giving any indication what you are citing within. The citation templates should be able to help you out with that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:24, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, at last this thing is moving along. So, I too agree that subspecies interbreeding is nothing new and everyone knows this... BUT they don't, most new beekeepers that I've met are unaware of these basics, therefore it does need saying (and no I don't have a source for that one) and it is ONLY the first sentence - so we can flesh it out from here on: Which brings us nicely onto the second sentence, you've offered a Source so I've added it, as it is more relevant - the context of the sentence is amatuers doing this themselves, and your Source is in the same vein, therefore even though it's clearly not as good a Source from a scientific viewpoint it is better suited. Thanks for the input.

Moving onto the third sentence, "The importance of bee breeding is exemplified in the Buckfast bee breeding program, which was originally started in 1916 by Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey to be a resistant bee breed to the Isle of Wight Disease"

You forgot to answer my other question about entire Sections in this Article having no sources whatsoever why haven't you deleted them?Bibby (talk) 18:31, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I've been thinking that we should include a sentence about II, I know that I previously said we didn't need it, but pedegree breeding (from which the breeding queens are decended from) is now mainly performed with this, maybe a comment should be made about how 'domestic' bees in apriaries affect the characteristics / genetics of the feral population, but I don't have any Sources for that, and because of genetic preferences for DCA's this could be difficult to condense into one sentence... I'll start digging around.Bibby (talk) 19:48, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) At this point, I think we're just going to have to say there's no consensus for the section at this time. You're delving into WP:OR territory again rather than using the sources to create content. We need good overview sources with specific material to cite as I've said before.

I can write a summary given some time, but that WP:ONUS is not on me. The sources I have found that do give an overview of breeding really don't give that much attention to Buckfast bees compared to other types. That is quite a bit different than a book specifically focusing on Karl Kehrle (please read WP:HONORIFIC) that doesn't really give us an idea of WP:DUE for this article as opposed to Kehrle's article. In short, the route you are going with content right now violates WP:UNDUE. If this section is going to be created, it's going to be an overview of the subject and not just a one-liner or a focus on Buckfast bee's.

For your last sentence, I didn't forget. It's not my responsibility to fix the entire article immediately. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:16, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I can see I'm going to have difficulty with keeping you focused. I previously said lets work through this one sentence at a time, IF you have a problem with the first two sentences, then you are getting way ahead of yourself by talking about Buckfast bees. AGAIN as I've said before you're going to need to help me out, and tell me exactly what it is you want, the Breeding section is important for this Article. So lets start from the beginning AGAIN. Apart from the first sentence only being one sentence, you think it shouldn't be included because it states ... something you already know, but what others visiting the page may not? We need to get an opening sentence to start this of with, we can't even agree on that? Seriously?? It would've helped a lot if you had used this Talk page before you started wading into this, a few would have given us the heads up and it could be further discussed.

So, trying to get you to move along from deleting, which I see you seem to like a lot, towards creating, how about something like this for an opening sentence "Many beekeepers throughout the world are fascinated with selective honey bee breeding with the goal of producing or enhancing desirable qualities such as improving honey yield, gentleness, decreasing the swarming tendancy and increasing varroa resistance." We can use your Source to cite if that keeps you happy. I can't see too much wrong with this opening sentence, especially as it's paraphrased from your own Source. So the next sentence I think, actually no I'm getting ahead of myself, I want us to stay focused. Do you want the citation to list the Page, Paragraph and Line Numbers from which I am paraphrasing (I have asked you this before, you didn't answer then)? I think that's really the only extra thing I think I can add.Bibby (talk) 00:22, 2 November 2018 (UTC) PS: "Formation of new colonies" (three sections) has NO sources, so if you deleted Breeding which did have sources, which you felt should have been improved upon, then why have you not deleted these three sections??

Please remember to WP:FOC. You're the one who brought up the Buckfast bee stuff, and I pointed out secondary sources tend to give minor mention at best. As I've said before, the sources guide us on content to create, not the other way around. I was already pretty clear that blanket citing a book isn't useful, and page numbers are expected in such cases when you follow the template. You need to actually cite something specific to base content on, which is what multiple editors have tried to help you with.

For interbreeding, we don't go to every page for a species and say they can breed within a species, etc. That's just something dealt with at species instead. It's only if sources point out something really unique that we'd mention it here (due weight as linked before). For your second sentence, it's the same tone issue again. We don't use words like fascinated, strive, etc. like that or engaging in such close copying of the source material. To have a separate breeding section, we need more than just a single sentence on traits bred for (again, a WP:DUE overview). That's where you need to be starting from by summarizing what the sources say first before worrying about what the old unsourced content was. I have that on my to-do list at least, but as I linked to earlier with WP:VOLUNTEER, it takes time to survey a topic and sources. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:37, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Great, you seem to be getting a bit more focused, thanks I appreciate that, keep revisiting WP:FOC to remind yourself that we're trying to create not delete! However it would be more helpful if you would stop talking about the Buckfast breed (I only mentioned it as the best example of a successful breeding program, that was the oldest, longest running and still at the cutting edge of beekeeping, I don't keep Buckfasts in case you're wondering); we're still on the first (opeing) sentence, please try and remember that WP:FOC.

You seem to be in a helpful (informative) mood at the moment, so if you don't mind I'm going to take full advantage of that as I think we can work together to move this forward. You said "That's just something dealt with at species instead" - Question: Can we use other wiki pages as a source, ie. instead of citing a book (including the page) can I cite a wiki page (section within it) as a Source; the reason I ask this, is it's reasonable that many new beekeepers will visit this wiki page as one of their early internet searches, many of them do not realise that Carnicas, Buckfasts, Melliferas can be interbreed successfully, you're saying we shouldn't be stating this in the opening sentence(s) but can we Link it somehow, instead of omitting it and expecting readers to know it already or to go and do additional research, which increases the likelihood of them obtaining false information? To give you an example last week I was at a lecture in which the qualified Lecturer effectively stated interbreeding cannot successfully occur (like in the context of a horse and donkey = sterile offspring), so you see why I feel this needs to be added. What do you think? Can we meet in the middle with this one?Bibby (talk) 10:14, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

In my excitement at the thought of being able to move forward with this, I forgot to ask for your feedback on the opening sentence, I don't like some of the words used, but I didn't want to change the wording as you can see I'm quoting from your prefered Source, ie: I would like to change to this "Many beekeepers throughout the world are involved with selective honey bee breeding with the goal of producing or enhancing desirable qualities such as honey yield, non-aggression, decreased swarming tendancy and increased varroa resistance." So, can we agree on this one then? Bibby (talk) 19:42, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Flow hive

Perhaps mention the flow hive on this page too ? Genetics4good (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

I can bet that would arouse some controversy...it certainly arouses the passions of the beekeepers I know, and not for the better. Do you have any good sources that talk about it in a neutral manner? It could be added as a section under "modern beekeeping", or perhaps as an addendum to "urban beekeeping". Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} 22:07, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

A section about the Flow Hive might be better suited to the wiki page for beehives (from memory there is a much larger section in German on different types of beehives), or one could create a New sub-Section for High Tech. hives, or beekeeping which would also include the circular rotating hive and maybe a mention of the increased use of plastic foundation instead of traditional wax; this way it shouldn't create too much controversy? What do you think, of this as a good compromise? Bibby (talk) 22:56, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

I see that there was a conversation on the Beehive page some years back, when the flow hive first came out. At the time it was decided, for technical reasons, not to include it. But since its been a few years, there might be better sources. I think it should get a brief mention at best on this page. At any rate the Flow Hive page itself is pretty lackluster. Perhaps improvement should start at the Flow Hive page before it is incorporated into other articles? Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} 23:11, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Origins

Deleted contents of this section as the Origins section in the Article, that I started this new section in Talk about, has been mainly moved the the new Breeding section in the Article, which is much more appropiate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Is123Biblio (talk • contribs) 12:54, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 4 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rebeccah Riegel.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Bee keeping 5 lines information by eshu

Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bees colonies commonly in heights by human beings we are accommodated in artificial hives where they live most such bees are honey bees in the genus apis but other honey producing bees such as Malli phone which are stingless bees are also kept beekeeping is a great way to help to boost the bee population and scan pollinate an entire mid-sized garden for driving plants two types of highways are used in indigenous method of beekeeping that is wall or fixed and movable hives beekeeping is done to collect honey from bee and also increase the member of bees to distribute to the other h who are interested to do beekeeping and also to produce wax and also to pollinate the flowers to grow fruits and plants 2402:3A80:CEA:7E76:AAF:AE5:3E52:7951 (talk) 15:41, 27 February 2022 (UTC)