I suppose you'd have to be living under a rock these days to have not heard that the honey bees and beekeepers are in trouble. The problems are complex, far reaching and mostly recent. They are certainly a threat to the survival of the beekeeping industry but, even more so, to the survival of many plants which we need or want for food and many other plants that are a necessary part of the environment.

"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."-George Bernard Shaw

It seems like there is some controversy over whether it is even possible to keep bees without treatments. But there are many of us who are doing this and succeeding. While most of us beekeepers spend a lot of effort fighting with the Varroa mites, I'm happy to say my biggest problems in beekeeping now are things like trying to get small nucleus hives through the winter here in Southeastern Nebraska and coming up with hives that won't hurt my back from lifting or better ways to feed the bees.

So my purpose is first of all to demonstrate how to deal with the current problems of beekeeping, and second of all how to work less and accomplish more at beekeeping.
I've been doing natural beekeeping since 1974 and I've been speaking on these topics publicly at conferences in the US and around the world since about 2004. I think it's important to let people know that it's possible to keep bees without treatments and to help those people succeed.

If you want to understand my message better, you can see videos of my presentations on YouTube on this channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTRlVy8HS9Tn2Z2ev... you can read what I have to say on my website: www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm

I've been answering questions posted on many beekeeping forums for many years (over 60,000 posts) and built the website to cover the more complex topics that I end up answering over and over.

Eventually I converted the website to a book: "The Practical Beekeeper".  http://xstarpublishing.com/#The%20Practical%20Beek... Which is also available in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

I would like to have the time and money to make more videos and write more articles for the website, and write several more books on specific beekeeping topics like how to keep an observation hive in your living room, or how to remove bees from a house. Right now I work full time at a regular job and don't have nearly enough time for all these projects.

My plan is to make more videos and write more articles and offer them to patrons first here and then later make them available for free on YouTube or my website.

If you think my message is important (based on watching my presentations or reading my website or book) and you want to help get that message out to the world, please support my work.