tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20802930.post2769223994016664733..comments2023-08-28T03:59:52.444-07:00Comments on Happy Apiary: 2008- FIRST VISITUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20802930.post-80156598067367531802008-02-13T01:27:00.000-08:002008-02-13T01:27:00.000-08:00rectificareEmile Warrerectificare<BR/>Emile Warreakmm-Cernagor Nicolaehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885545560528230773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20802930.post-13973530646061518332008-02-06T04:39:00.000-08:002008-02-06T04:39:00.000-08:001Abbé WarréBeekeeping For All1BEEKEEPING FOR ALL__...1<BR/>Abbé Warré<BR/>Beekeeping For All<BR/>1<BR/>BEEKEEPING FOR ALL<BR/>__________________________________________________________________________________<BR/>The purpose of beekeeping<BR/>Apiculture or beekeeping is the art of managing bees with the intention of getting the maximum<BR/>return from this work with the minimum of expenditure.<BR/>Bees produce swarms, queens, wax and honey.<BR/>The production of swarms and queens should be left to specialists.<BR/>The production of wax has some value, but this value is diminished by the cost of rendering.<BR/>The production of honey is the main purpose of beekeeping, one that the beekeeper pursues<BR/>before everything else, because this product is valuable and because it can be weighed and priced.<BR/>Honey is an excellent food, a good remedy, the best of all sweeteners. We shall go into this in<BR/>more detail. And we can sell honey in many forms just as we can consume it in many forms: as it is, in<BR/>confectionery, in cakes and biscuits, in healthy and pleasant drinks – mead, apple-less cider, grape-less<BR/>wines.<BR/>It is also worth noting that beekeeping is a fascinating activity and consequently rests both mind<BR/>and body.<BR/>Furthermore, beekeeping is a moral activity, as far as it keeps one away from cafés and low places<BR/>and puts before the beekeeper an example of work, order and devotion to the common cause.<BR/>Moreover, beekeeping is a pre-eminently healthy and beneficial activity, because it is most often<BR/>done in the fresh air, in fine, sunny weather. For sunshine is the enemy of illness just as it is the master<BR/>of vitality and vigour. Dr Paul Carton wrote: 'What is needed is to educate a generation in disliking<BR/>alcohol, in despising meat, in distrusting sugar, in the joy and the great benefit of movement'.<BR/>For the human being is a composite being. The body needs exercise without which it atrophies.<BR/>The mind needs exercising too, otherwise it deteriorates. Intellectuals deteriorate physically. Manual<BR/>workers, behind their machines, suffer intellectual deterioration.<BR/>Working on the land is best suited to the needs of human beings. There, both mind and body play<BR/>their part.<BR/>But society needs its thinkers, its office workers and its machine operatives. Clearly these people<BR/>cannot run farms at the same time. But in their leisure time (they must have some of it) they can be<BR/>gardeners and beekeepers and at the same time satisfy their human needs.<BR/>This work is better than all modern sports with their excesses, their promiscuity, their nudity.<BR/>Thus if the French were to return to the land they would be more robust, more intelligent. And as<BR/>the wise Engerand said, France would again become the land of balance where there would be neither<BR/>the agitations, nor the collective follies that are so harmful to people; it would become again a land of<BR/>restraint and clarity, of reason and wisdom, a country where it is good to live.<BR/>And let us not forget the advice of Edmond About: 'The only eternal, everlasting and<BR/>inexhaustible capital is the earth'.<BR/>Finally, one more important thing: the bees fertilise the flowers of the fruit trees. Apiculture thus<BR/>contributes greatly to filling our fruit baskets. This reason alone should suffice to urge all those who<BR/>have the smallest corner of orchard to take up beekeeping.<BR/>According to Darwin, self-fertilisation of flowers is not the general rule. Cross-fertilisation, which<BR/>takes place most commonly, is necessitated either by the separation of sexes either in flowers or even<BR/>38<BR/>A good method<BR/>In support of skeps, here is how it could be done: at the beginning of the main nectar flow, make<BR/>the bees ascend into an empty skep as we describe later in the chapter 'Driving (transferring) bees'.<BR/>Harvest the honey and wax and destroy the brood.<BR/>Let us be sensible<BR/>Various things make people turn to beekeeping: some from want of sugar, others from necessity<BR/>of having some remunerative work. Some apiaries are set up. Some apiaries are extended. Small<BR/>apiaries will certainly disappear because sugar will return on to the free market. There will<BR/>nevertheless remain more hives than ever. There will thus be a greater production of honey.<BR/>But will actual consumption of honey be maintained? Yes, if honey is sold at the same price as<BR/>sugar, i.e. on the whole cheaper, for sugar is the main competitor for honey. People do not buy honey<BR/>instead of butter, but instead of sugar.<BR/>Honey is the only healthy sweetener, that is certain. But sugar has a stronger sweetening power<BR/>and it is easier to handle.<BR/>The optimists tell us that the public, obliged to use honey for several years, have been able to<BR/>appreciate its qualities and that they will remain faithful to it, and that clever publicity will continue to<BR/>push the public towards honey. I do not believe any of this.<BR/>I have done a lot of publicity in my life, for both honey and medicinal plants. I have had<BR/>correspondents not only in France but around the world, in Turkey, in India, in China, in America,<BR/>etc., etc. And I have noticed that everywhere there are reasonable people who know how to submit to<BR/>the laws of nature and health, to have a life without suffering and a late death without pain. Yes, but<BR/>how few! The majority of people, the larger number, prefer a pill or injection to a cup of herb tea, a<BR/>lump of sugar to a teaspoon full of honey, some for obvious reasons of economy, quite a lot because of<BR/>convenience, many simply to do the same as everyone else. And like everyone else, they contract all<BR/>possible kinds of illness; like everyone else, they provide a living for doctors and pharmacists; like<BR/>everyone else, they die sooner and more painfully. Did not a wise man write that people eat<BR/>themselves to death?<BR/>Have people learned from experience? I have not noticed it.<BR/>Thus beekeepers come to sell honey at the same price as sugar, and even cheaper if they wish to<BR/>attract the new customers that they need.<BR/>Under these conditions, will beekeeping still be profitable? Yes, but on the condition that<BR/>economical hives are used and an economical method is followed in order to obtain honey at a<BR/>minimal cost of production. Certainly this result cannot be obtained with the hives and methods<BR/>currently in vogue that we have already referred to. But it can with the method that we are going to<BR/>present to you.<BR/>Origin of the People's Hive (Warré Hive)<BR/>Having decided to take up beekeeping I was bewildered by the diversity of systems of modern<BR/>hives.<BR/>The Dadant hive was the most widespread. Firstly, it allowed use of the extractor, a very useful<BR/>invention. But already the Voirnot and Layens hives, which were criticisms of it from different points<BR/>39<BR/>of view, were significantly competing with it. Another hive started to appear. It was the Congrès hive,<BR/>with 300 x 400 mm frames, in two forms, one shallow, the other deep. Not being able to draw a<BR/>reasoned conclusion from the reverberating polemic in those days, I decided to adopt all these systems<BR/>in order to study them.<BR/>In other respects, the studies of Abbé Voirnot on the volume of the hive seemed interesting to me,<BR/>all the more so for Dr. Duvauchelle, my first mentor in beekeeping, modified his hive and gave it eight<BR/>frames 300 x 400 mm (shallow), i.e. 96 square decimetres of comb. But the Voirnot hive has 100<BR/>square decimetres of comb. Dr. Duvauchelle thus appears to adopt Abbé Voirnot's conclusions on this<BR/>point.<BR/>Previously, his hive had only 8 frames 280 x 360 mm, thus 81 square decimetres of comb.<BR/>Wishing to understand the basis of this issue of the volume of the hive during winter, I<BR/>constructed hives with 9 Layens frames and hives with 8 frames 300 x 400, some deep and others<BR/>shallow. These hives had a volume approximately the same as the Voirnot hive.<BR/>Not wishing to base my experiment on one or two hives, but on at least a dozen of each system, I<BR/>had to make 350 hives.<BR/>To my great surprise, I noticed straight away that the bees consumed less of their stores in the<BR/>hives with single walls where they would feel the cold still more in winter. This is however normal. In<BR/>single-walled hives, the bees are torpid; they are as if in a continuous sleep. Now, who dines in that<BR/>condition? With hives with warm walls, the bees are active for longer, and thus have need of<BR/>sustenance. The single-walled hive thus economises on wood and stores, by as much as 2 kg from<BR/>November to February. I also quickly noticed that in the brood chambers covered with boards or<BR/>oilcloth, the end frames were quickly turning black and even rotting through the effect of the humidity.<BR/>The same did not hold true in the brood chambers covered with canvas. We have given the reasons for<BR/>this earlier.<BR/>After fifteen years of observations, I believed I could draw the following conclusions.<BR/>M. de Layens, the beekeepers' advocate, had reason to say that the Dadant hive demands too great<BR/>an outlay of money and time; he created a good frame; he suggested a hive design that is easy and<BR/>economical. On the other hand he took the wrong track in replacing the super with frames positioned<BR/>horizontally against the brood.<BR/>Abbé Voirnot, the bees' advocate, was right when he said Dadant's hive harmed bees because of<BR/>its volume and that of its super. Voirnot's hive was a great step forward.<BR/>I thus resolved to repeat the studies of these master beekeepers with the hope of reaching a better<BR/>result, since, following on from their work, I would have the benefit of it.<BR/>Finally we can draw the following major conclusion: the volume of the Voirnot hive is sufficient,<BR/>albeit smaller, therefore better, for the smaller the brood chamber the smaller is winter consumption of<BR/>stores. However, wintering was better on deep frames like the Layens frame and the frame of 300 x<BR/>400 mm, deep.<BR/>We preferred the 300 x 400 mm frame because it simplified our calculations.<BR/>Moreover, the shape of a hive of eight 300 x 400 mm frames approaches the shape of a swarm<BR/>and allows the bees to put more honey above their cluster, which favours good wintering, even in<BR/>cases of prolonged cold.<BR/>Furthermore, this shape facilitates the development of brood in spring. When the bees want to<BR/>extend the brood downwards a centimetre, they have to heat this centimetre over all the surface of the<BR/>hive. Now this surface varies from 900 cm2 in our hive to 2,000 cm2 in the Dadant hive. It is clear that<BR/>the work of the bees will be easier in our hive.akmm-Cernagor Nicolaehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885545560528230773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20802930.post-27560759460943807962008-02-05T21:59:00.000-08:002008-02-05T21:59:00.000-08:00Salut,din BabadagAlpine hive ca dimensiuni este de...Salut,din Babadag<BR/>Alpine hive ca dimensiuni este de fapt stupul People's hive al abatelui Eugene Warre, decedat in 1951.Daca aveti amabilitatea sa-mi raspundeti va voi trimite prin E-mail cartea pe care a scris-o ca urmare a experientei de o viata in apicultura si dupa experimentarea a catorva sute de cutii timp de 20 de ani.Eu abia acum construiesc doi stupi ca experiment.In prisaca mea de acasa am stupi Dadant pe pe 12 rame (se intelege cu magazin 1/2) si sunt tare curios daca argumentele zdrobitoare despre hibele cutiilor moderne si apicultura intensiva chiar contravin stilului salbatic de viata al albinei.<BR/>Mi-ar face placere daca ati avea amabilitatea sa-mi raspundeti.<BR/>cernagornicolae@yahoo.comakmm-Cernagor Nicolaehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885545560528230773noreply@blogger.com