My method is based on how honey bees live in the wild. Unfortunately, man made the life of the honey bee difficult: varroa, pesticides, monoculture, greed, etc. For all these

reasons it is now impossible to leave the bees to fend for

themselves. Sometimes we are forced to intervene.

Geert prefers to label his method as ‘bee-friendly beekeeping’ rather than ‘natural beekeeping’, though they have a lot in common.

What you can help the bees with is to ensure that there is sufficient supply of food sources in the vicinity of the bees, in terms of nectar, pollen and propolis. If there is not enough food, the bees hardly survive the winter. Keeping bees is easy in itself. It is we, the human being, who have made beekeeping so technical and in my view only for profit.

Swarming bees is natural and should be normal. It is important to inform the neighborhood in which you live about your beekeeping activities and to explain the swarm of bees. Bees today suffer a lot from the Varroa mite. A natural enemy of the Varroa mite is the predatory mite (Stratiolaelaps scimitus). This predatory mite has also been found on honey bees in the wild.

Every disturbance of the bee population is, for the bees, a waste of energy and as a result the bees consume more honey to calm the people again. The cutting out of drone brood is out of the question, because it weakens the bees of the next generation. I don't even want to think about the artificial insemination (AI) of queens with all its consequences for the future.

As a beekeeper it is best to start with a swarm. If you cannot get a swarm, start with one of the available bee breeds. The following year you have what people like to call street bees, because you cannot determine by which drones the newly born queen has been fertilized. In this way you strengthen the genetic profile of the bees by preventing too much narrowing of the gene supply.

Be open to ideas from other beekeepers, because we need each other. If you have found the ideal solution for a particular bee problem yourself, share it with your colleagues.

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