{"id":3690,"date":"2018-02-21T13:36:46","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T13:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lulusbees.com\/?p=3690"},"modified":"2018-10-25T11:10:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T11:10:23","slug":"are-you-a-natural-beekeeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lulusbees.com\/are-you-a-natural-beekeeper\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you a natural beekeeper?"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>ow. I hate that question. When I hear it I want to snap, \u201cNo. I\u2019m not natural. I\u2019m a fake. It\u2019s all smoke and mirrors.\u201d But I\u2019m too polite (well, usually) to go there.<\/p>\n

You see, I don\u2019t know what you mean by \u201cnatural beekeeper.\u201d I don\u2019t know your definition. I don\u2019t even know what you call an unnatural one.<\/p>\n

The way I see it, all beekeepers fall on a bell curve. The x-axis measures \u201cnaturalness\u201d from zero to infinity. The y-axis measures the number of beekeepers. Like anything else that falls on a bell curve, you will have a very small number of beekeepers at each end of the curve (the very unnatural and the very natural) while most are going to fall somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n

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The real problem is in the definition. On this website, I\u2019ve deliberately avoided calling my style of beekeeping natural, although it is much closer to natural than unnatural. If I call what I do natural, it will just elicit argument from those whose definition is different from my own. Does that follow?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s similar to politics. On some issues you could call me left (liberal) and on other issues you could call me right (conservative). So I don\u2019t bother with a label because it just confuses people. Labels come with a host of expectations which are different depending on who\u2019s listening.<\/p>\n

So what is a natural beekeeper? As Phillip over at\u00a0Mudsongs<\/a>\u00a0recently pointed out, the phrase \u201cnatural beekeeper\u201d is an oxymoron. Bees don\u2019t naturally live under the care of humans; they would rather do it their own way. So if you are keeping bees in a manmade structure and you try to prevent them from leaving (swarming), you\u2019ve created an unnatural situation\u2014one that does not exist in nature.<\/p>\n

Some aspects of beekeeping engender more argument than others. For example, most beekeepers agree that using chemical pesticides precludes one from being natural. But what about organic acids or essential oils for mite control? Some say it is okay, some say it is not.<\/p>\n

Where else might you draw the line? Well, like I said, it depends on who you talk to, but here are a few ideas. The following things are definitely unnatural, at least from the bees\u2019 perspective:<\/p>\n