Welcome to Skeptic Bee
This is my mate the Skeptic Bee who can't read and cares less
what the books say. This site wants to know what most concerns the
Skeptic Bee. 
We frequently tell our bees what to do and how to fit in with modern
hives and management practices but we often forget to ask them how they
are and listen to what they have to say. Bees are clearly in trouble
and the advent of CCD has placed one of the world's canary species
firmly in the spotlight. We would do well to take notice
This is a blog in the nature of my journey in trying to make sense of
what is going on and if it is of interest to anybody else that's fine.
The site is called Skeptic Bee because the internet is at once a huge
information resource and also a gigantic heap of uncontrollable
garbage. Amongst the dross and noise of idle chatter and worse there is
a great deal of useful information. All we have to do is use our skill
judgement and experience to isolate the worthwhile and
find time to read some of it.
So this morning I went to America to attend a lecture by Maryann Frazier, one of a scientific team from Pennsylvania who recently completed the first stages of a marathon study on the chemical contaminants to be found in honey, wax, comb, pollen and beebread. Over the last few months I have also been to Arizona, to visit the apiary of Dee Lusby, who champions the cause of small cell foundation to which she and her husband Ed devoted their lives. I have read beekeeping newsletters from across the United States and been to Cornel University where some of the most historic and classic beekeeping books in the history of beekeeping are available online. I have visited apiaries around the world and come across hives and techniques, some of which may be of interest to the Skeptic Apiarist. So many new ideas, so much information and so little time but all this and much much more is available from the comfort of your own home via the Internet.
For 150 years or so beekeeping has proceeded with much the same technology as that which was adopted when Langstroth developed his moveable frame hive (1850) and Johannes Mehring created foundation for him to put in it (1857). When you first start keeping bees somebody usually takes you aside and warns you about the folly of designing a new kind of hive. There are apparently far too many different varieties already and equipment manufacturers don't wish to stock any more.
Skeptic Bee agrees that there is surplus variety of design in the moveable frame hive but questions whether this actually amounts to a real shift in basic beekeeping paradigmn. Most of us keep bees in a brood box plus some supers for the honey which are placed on the hive in the summer. Top bee space, bottom bee space, Hoffman frames, deep brood frames, brood and a half, plastic frames, plastic foundation, plastic hives, wide top bars, short lugs, long lugs and frame spacers are all elements of the endless list of modifications made to the moveable frame hive over the last 150 years. According to Dave Cushman there are 97 different variants on the Langstroth hive but from the bees point of view they all work in the same way. Skeptic Bee intends to examine the way bee hives have been developed over the years and review the methods which are commonly in use today.
If you are still interested this blog will continue in the months to come with specific areas of research from the Internet's and news of the progress or otherwise of the Skeptic Bees in their Skeptic Apiary. There will not be much to see to begin with but I hope to expand the site in time.
03 September 2008 - Skeptic Bee