I have kept honeybees for a few decades, following all the published and "scientificaly" proven methods and pest treatments as prescribed. And now, rethinking our commercial based paradigm of beekeeping; I have concluded, if we want to save the honeybees, we need to make some serious changes. It does say something about ways of our human thinking. Honeybees have changed very little for over 50,000,000 years. And our "clever" aprroach to abuse them as High tech honey factory machines for the last century, is how we got into our current collapsing crisis.

 My approach is smilar to what Brother Adam did with his Buckfast Honeybees. If the bees can't make it on their own, I don't want them in my operation. However, being in a marginal honey producing area and with climate changes, some emergency feeding is sometimes necessary. But never rob all the bees honey and feed syrup to replace. Honey is more important for the bees health than for human consumption.

"It's about the bees, not about the honey"!

I encourage anyone to learn to raise your own queens, especially from surving local stock in your own operation.
Say, "NO", to package bees from large bee commercial operations. Some operations have to treat for varroa as many as four times a year to keep the bees alive. That does not make any contribution to sustaining healthy honeybees, only replacement packages every year.
 
 to bee continued ......