Letter to the Editor of Bee Culture Magazine

Bee Culture magazine is a great resource for beginners.  I've had my subscription since early this year and always look forward to reading each issue cover-to-cover.  Once and a while, I feel compelled to comment on an article(s) I read.  Tonight was just such a time.  So, I sent the following e-mail to the editor;

In Defense of Chemicals

I’ll preface this by saying that I am a first-year beekeeper, and quite possibly, very naive when it comes to the long-term issues regarding the use of chemical treatments. I’m also a hobby beekeeper which means that my two hives aren’t going to break me financially if things go bad. That being said, I’m simply astonished by the overwhelming ‘hysteria’ and negative stigma that chemical treatments get. Those who decry treating with anything less that a full ‘organic’ or mechanical means must surely must know that hiving bees in wooden boxes is just as ‘unnatural’. Has the global warming fervor of ‘natural at all costs’ despite proof spilled over into beekeeping as well? Or perhaps a better analogy would be those who don’t believe in inoculating humans against diseases such as smallpox, measles, etc. because it too is unnatural. As a beginning beekeeper with numerous questions about how to keep healthy bees, I implore those who truly know the science to step forward and raise up the knowledge base of the next generation of beekeepers.

Darcy Pach
Burlington, KY
www.nkybeekeeper.com