Bee Having as opposed to Bee Keeping is a concept that beekeepers have long been talking about although it is most recently credited to EAS Master Beekeeper George Imirie.
I got into trouble on a Facebook Warre Hive forum a few weeks ago when I suggested that there was an obligation to treat bees as stock, and that should your bees die, you were further obligated to keep your hive from being robbed out, potentially spreading pests and diseases. The feeling on the Warre group was that no such obligation existed – both to keep an eye on your own hives, knowing what was happening inside them and to prevent dead colonies from being robbed out.
The attitudes are (in my book anyway) an extreme application of the so called Bond Method (“Live and Let Die”) meaning that if the bees are not genetically strong enough to survive whatever maladies present themselves, it is best that they be removed from the gene pool.
The Warre beekeepers follow the teachings of Emile Warre (1867-1951) in his book Beekeeping for All.
There are some things about Warre’s hive that intrigue me, like the Quilt Box and the practice of harvesting honey after winter. But some of what is advocated on the Forum crosses the line as far as I am concerned – the not fixing of cross comb to keep frames removable for inspections, as one example. This practice is a violation of US law, one admittedly without enforcement, which requires bees to be kept in removable frame hives for disease inspection. One can get into great philosophical arguments about how one should respond to laws you disagree with most of which are not productive and change no-one’s mind.
I will try a Warre hive next bee season, but I will do so as a keeper of bees.