Nice write-up Lazy. Obviously, I'm in agreement and I do treat my bees for maladies but I try to use soft methods where possible. I do think that many people new to beekeeping get the wrong idea about treatment-free bees so an article like this is useful in my view. I also think that NPR was a good outlet because many of the treatment-free folks tend to follow their articles. I think another concept that is overstated is organic honey. Although beekeepers introduce chemicals in the hive, the flight radius of 2.5 miles means the bees are exposed to a great variety of chemicals, especially agricultural pesticides. There are good peer-reviewed papers out there that document the contamination. That said, I think the list of organic producers should be very small.
If it makes you feel any better, the same mindset is in many of our professional wildlife agencies and organizations. Years ago, we planted certain plant species to benefit wildlife and many were not native. Now, the trend has reversed and most agencies exclusively promote "native" plants and even cultivars of native species that do (or did) best in specific areas. Sounds great and I mostly used native species when I restored the grassland on the land I own--but I have nonnatives too. Problem is that many of the nonnative plants are invasive, or are considered so, and intensive herbicide and other controls are used to get rid of the "bad" plants and replace them with "good" natives. Sounds good but the truth is that the lands we try to restore aren't the way they were when natives dominated the landscape prior to European settlement. Soils have eroded, we have tons of nutrients where they weren't once upon a time and natives aren't always the plants best adapted to a particular piece of land as a consequence. We spend LOTS of money, kill some good plants with our herbicides even with good intentions (including those that benefit pollinators), and generally have poor or marginal success. I think the focus should be on what we want a specific piece of land to deliver and then use the plants best suited to achieve our objectives. We should give natives priority but using a native that won't work or is a poor fit on a specific piece of land is a waste of money and it is poor management. We need to do the best we can with what we have left and seek ways to improve it over time, rather than trying to go back to original plant communities simply because they are native--we need to ask what are we trying to do and how do we best achieve it. When I was working, I'd often hear a biologists say they wanted to get rid of a particular species of plant when riding around looking at the land they were managing--I always asked why and the reason (99% of the time) was that it wasn't native! Neither are we was always my response! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for controlling certain plants but just because they aren't native isn't a good reason in my view. I prefer a balanced approach and that's what you're suggesting for treating bees--I couldn't agree more!
