Dear friends

Let’s stop talking about traditional beekeeping!

Our cover picture of bee hives in Russian woodland was painted in 1894 by Andrei Nikolaevich Schilder (1861-1919). In those days Russian beekeepers kept bee colonies in simple hollowed logs, practising what would nowadays be described as Natural beekeeping. In 1853 Reverend Langstroth wrote about them in his famous book The hive and the honey bee: “The Russian and Polish beekeepers …. are among the largest and most successful cultivators of bees, many of them numbering their colonies by hundreds, and some even by thousands! They have, with great practical sagacity, imitated as closely as possible the conditions under which bees are found to flourish so admirably in a state of nature”. Reverend Langstroth patented the movable frame beehive in 1852, and nowadays frame hives in many countries tend to be named ‘Langstroth’ or ‘modern’ hives.

In this edition we are delighted to bring you consideration of current concepts of sustainable and natural beekeeping by leading bee scientist Professor Tom Seeley and thoughtful, treatment-free beekeeper Dr Leo Sharashkin (who brought Schilder’s beautiful painting to our attention). What exactly is natural beekeeping? In many beekeeping circles lively debate is underway concerning conventional and natural beekeeping, with renewed interest in keeping bees in hives without frames, and/or without medication, and even in trees – see Look Ahead page 19. Are you a natural beekeeper, or a conventional beekeeper, or maybe a bit of both?

Many readers of this Journal are practising near to natural beekeeping, allowing bees to live in simple, low cost hives. At Bees for Development we have always appreciated and sought to explain the advantages of lowcost, sustainable beekeeping, and indeed our logo shows a simple hive hanging in a tree. This style

of beekeeping is being used today by thousands of beekeepers world-wide. We never describe the use of simple hives as ‘traditional beekeeping’ as this term is used in contrast to ‘modern’, and tends to imply something that is outof-date, unchanging, no longer sufficiently effective, or even ‘backward’. In fact the reverse is true - simple hives allow bees to live most naturally or as Langstroth put it ‘in a state of nature’, and modern science is helping us to understand the reasons why this helps them to survive well.

So fellow beekeepers, let us talk about simple, natural, economic, ecological, healthy, sustainable and economic beekeeping – whatever you like – just please don’t use the ‘t’ word!

Dr Nicola Bradbear Director, Bees for Development