Sam,
Thanks for sharing this weekend at the bee bootcamp. It was a great experience and wild to see so many top bar colonies all doing great ... treatment free.
I would suggest anyone with bees to spend some time with you in the beeyard to see just how gentle honeybees can bee.

,,,,,,,,,mike b

Hey folks,
What a breath of fresh air....! Just when we thought we were the last ones.
We have a small deal going with inoculating the Pascagoula MS area with bees and poppies. All like minded are welcome to visit, pitch a tent, start trouble.
Taylor & Susan et al
http://ewi(dot)yolasite(dot)com

Keep up the good works

Hi Sam,
Keith and I are so happy that you came to our home to rescue our bees. We feel good that they are in a "good place" with the "King of Bees." We are very impressed with your knowledge, compassion for bees and your website is great.
I learned so much just from meeting with you last night. I am so proud of my husband for contacting you instead of a company that rids "bees" and doesn't preserve them like you. I hope everyone realizes how important the bee is to our food chain, survival and our planet. Thanks to Sam, Keith and I now have a "newfound respect" for bees.
Thank you for doing the right thing.
Keith and Cheryl Grubb

Sam, you gave the most mesmerizing talk tonight in Barnstable. Truly an inspiration to a newbee such as myself and so refreshing to meet someone who doesn't just billboard sustainability but who practices sustainable methods with passion and empathy. I plan to drive out to Vermont next spring to pick up Russian nucs as I want nothing more to do with packaged bees after the problems I had with my queens this year. By the way, why do bees love drones? (my second queen didn't get enough action on her mating flight apparently and is laying mostly all drone). I thought this was a bad thing. Very informative website, thanks!-Karen

Hello Sam

You are thinking away from the norm which is terrific...I have been keeping bees for 30 years also looking at bees diferently to the norm...items that I have invented on are the web somewhere....I stopped using legal chemicals 18 years ago as it was killing my queens hoping that I might find a chemical free answer....this I have now done....one has to go back to the beginning to find out when did honeybees start dying out and it wasn`t when the Varroa mite turned up all they did was esculate the problem bringing it to the attention of the media and mainstream public....panic.

Honeybees have been dying since mankind found honey and wanted to domesticate the bee to harvest honey....the one thing that mankind does not know, honeybees require a natural phenomenon to help them survive which I have found and it works....none or very little varroa, decease or anything else for that matter with 2 to 3 times a greater yield.....interested.

Now I have written a book that I cannot afford to publish (any help in that matter please contact me direct) I have just gone through a divorce where she took the lot hence no money....

Yes I could put it on the web however it is a world exclusive which I would like some return and recognition.

There does appear to be one problem any univercity, professor, scientist and government beekeeping association that I contact likes the hypothesis but cannot take it on due to funding from the chemical industry who seem to have a foot in every door so these people are biased towards a chemical or bacterial answer.

Honeybees have been very successful on this planet for the last 100 to 200 million years then mankind came along and took the bees from what helps them survive.

I hope this has been of interest to you and your readers

John Harding

harding@clavies.freeserve.co.uk

Sam, first off, this here website of yours is downright weird, but in a good way. And I like it. These pictures look familiar too, wonder where I've seen them before?

You like hockey?

All shenanigans aside bro, it was great hanging out, the company was good, the mead was a hit and I still have propolis stuck in my teeth from that cut-out honey (great stuff BTW).

You made a lasting impression on us all. Keep on keepin'on man, I know you will.

Next time, we go fishing!

Keep livin' on the comb!

...JP

Hey, here's some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/pyxicephalus/OrganicBeekeepingConference2010#

Love your site! So glad I came across it. I started bee keeping this may, Im in love, does that make me a lesbian? I do love the drones, but my girls oh my girls... I could watch them for hours..
Next year Im planning on starting a top bar hive, I was givin foundations and supers so thats what Im working with now. I really want to go top bar though. Really just wanted to say your site and words are inspiring, wish your apiary wasnt 5 hours away, Id love to check it out. Id love me one of your queens too :) Do tell if you start shipping, I will be on the look out next spring.

keep on keepin on you rock!
Denise
Denisedkris@yahoo.com

Hi Sam

Very interesting site - I have been keeping bees for 20 years but top bar beekeeping only 1 year. I doubt I will ever use foundation ever again - and am noting that you don't need to wear any protective gear around your bees. This year I was able to look through all the top bar hives without smoke or gloves and from my previous experience of beekeeping this is not usual. I think bees kept on foundation are cramped and have nothing to do, no wax to draw anyway, so they go out and sting. You wouldn't be handling some of the national boxes I used to have without gloves and veil.

Interested to hear you have met Dee. I visited two of her apiaries on uTube one night when I was unable to sleep. What is her opinion of natural cell as against small cell foundation. To my mind foundation is at the base of a lot of the problems and people just won't admit it.

This season I will gradually replace all my comb and let the bees build new colonies, as though they were prime swarms. Interested in your assertion that cell size will gradually diminish and will be looking carefully at the combs that are withdrawn this year and making measurements.

Good beekeeping
jcrosskey@skepticbee.com

Hi Sam - good to see we are singing the same song! I look forward to hearing more from you in the chatroom. I hope you can spend some time on our top bar forum, too.

Best wishes from the Barefoot Beekeeper - www.biobees.com