I was told that Beekeeping is for idiots today by a bloke who cleaned everything up after his second SHB slime out. It happens just after he robs the honey.
Some people have no sense, Jeff.
This whole attitude of take take take and give nothing back. Discord with nature.
I hope you offered to take his kit off him as a favour 
Thanks Dee, no, he dropped his box & frames off for me to supply him with a new queen & colony. This will be his second one from me. He hasn’t lost the first one yet. It’s the only one he has left now. I hope he takes my advice this time. I’ve tried to help him with advice but he reckons I’m too fussy & he’ll be right.
It appears that both times he killed a lot of bees while returning the stickies & that must have been where the beetle started laying, in all the dead bees.
He borrows my extractor (for a small fee of course), he asked me “how often should I rob my bees, once a year”. I replied 4 times a year:)
You never know, he might be in the market for a flow hive. bye;)
I think you need to increase the extractor loan fee - you need to decontaminate it after it has been handled by an “idiot”.
At least he is buying bees from you, although I feel a bit sorry for the bees with such a careless “keeper”. Perhaps you could find some feral bees with attitude to sell him?? 
That’s all true Dawn, when he dropped his box off, we were in the car about to go out. The first thing he said was “beekeeping is for idiots”. He spent the previous afternoon cleaning up the “slime out”.
All he wants to do is harvest honey, he paid me to give him a hand & advice last time he robbed (about a week ago). He didn’t want to listen to my advice, so I just let him go. To make matters worse, he had the hive sitting on ground with about a 30 degree slope (the hive was level). I wanted to help him sort his brood out but all he wanted to do was rob the honey & put frames back in the hive that I told him I wouldn’t dream of putting back in. Plus all the bees he killed by returning the frames must be the reason he got slimed out.
He phoned up & told Wilma that I helped him rob his bees & now his bees have absconded:) I quickly set the record straight there.
The lesson for any new beekeepers to learn is: If your prepared to pay someone for advice, at least listen & take note of what he/she is saying. The consequences of not listening can be quite messy, as was the case in this story.
1 Like