Bees have existed on Earth for about 100 million years. David Cameron’s British coalition government has been in office just over five months. Keep that in mind when you read this announcement from Number 10:
The Government has recognised the importance of bees to the national economy by lending support to backgarden beekeepers.
The Course in a Case project, announced by Defra [Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs] today, seeks to improve beekeepers’ skills in caring for their bees through free training and advice.
Winter is a particularly perilous time for bee colonies, with heightened risk from pests, disease and starvation. But amateur beekeepers can alleviate the risk with a few autumn-time precautions, including treating the hive for mites or leaving enough honey for food during the cold months.
Under the initiative, 400 volunteer teachers across England and Wales will train alongside government bee inspectors, who already offer advice to beekeepers on pests and diseases. Training materials will also be delivered through local beekeeping associations.
The project comes under the Government’s Healthy Bees Plan. It will be run in partnership by the British Beekeeping Association (BBKA) and National Diploma of Beekeeping Board (NDBB), and jointly funded by Defra.
The takeaway from this is that there really is no aspect of the manmade or natural world that governments don’t think they have an “essential” role in managing, either through some acronymed cabinet department or a “partnership” of various quasi-governmental entities.
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I wonder if government bees will get a pension?
Honey production is a great black market operation during depressions. This state action is a policing/spying intrusion as well as a nanny-state make-work patronage scheme. If they come near my bees I will meet them with a shotgun. That’s the deal I made with the bees. I give them protection. They give me a share of the honey. Yes, it is a master slave relationship. But bees are not humans. Yes, politicians are humans, but the deal is a little bit different. I meet them with a shotgun and they stay away.
btw, side note. Just discovered that wild turkeys will go right up to a busy hive and eat bees. Put a fence around the hives. I know bears don’t mind getting stung and/or the thick hair on their snouts/paws protect them a little, but turkeys?
Turkeys have some tough feathers and a lot of them. It takes a pretty big shot gun shell 3+ in., large shot, and a head shot to effectively take them down. I can see how bee stings are small change to them.
Honey is highly concentrated energy. Animals that eat it are willing to put up with the pain to get the necessary energy that can keep them going for a long time. We tend to forget this because we don’t live like animals – under the constant threat of starving to death. It’s also why the honey badger is so suicidal about digging into African beehives.
Is Bernanke The Queen Bee?
If the queen bee dies the hive is doomed. If the queen B (as in Bernanke) which can bee regarded as, essentially, the Federal Reserve perishes (END THE FED) then the hive (Keynesian snake oil salesmen) is doomed.
This is basically makeshift work.
Premise 1: Bee populations can barely survive without human intervention
Premise 2: Bees are valuable, and money should be spent ensuring that they can help produce.
Conslusion: The gov’t should give money and training for bee keeping.
Where did the gov’t come into play? I don’t see how the conclusion follows from the premises.
Of course, if there was a productive benefit from keeping bees any entrepreneur would step in and start “bee school” and sign up bee keepers to generate revenue. That the British gov’t had to do this is prima facie evidence that the money spent is wasted on a project that has less return than some set of market activities. Unless, of course, the MPs have recruited master entrepreneurs and speculators to guide their spending to the most productive ends, to make more money for the crown. But even then, what is their risk of loss? Zero – the taxpayers will pay, no matter the returns.
(Implied) Premise 3: Absent the state, “not enough” money will be spent on keeping bees.
drones caring for drones.
Ha!
When the weather gets cold, the workers kick the drones out and let them starve.
The insect drones, that is. Bees are smart.
We can agree this is hardly a necessary function of government – but how do you get from a small training program to “managing” all aspects of the “manmade or natural world”? This whole post seems to be dependent on blowing things out of proportion.
Because the effect is additive. The state rarely encroaches in one fell swoop on an area that was hitherto “unregulated” but in small, incremental doses.
Exactly – given enough time…..
Similar to the junior high prerogative of being “into ‘it’ long before ‘it’ was cool”.
This reminds me of something:
AJN, nice.
As usual, a major function of government is creating externalities. The bee keepers get an information/training network at little effort or expense to themselves. All the rest of us get to pay for it through taxes. This is in addition, of course, to Bee Man’s observation about policing/spying. What a racket.
Domestic European honey bees have not been around for millions of years. They were bred by man just like modern cattle. They are susceptible to many diseases and have to be carefully managed. The British government is trying to preserve the bee population in the wake of colony collapse disorder by encouraging lots of isolated colonies in people’s back yards. I don’t think sweeping government programs are ever ideal solutions, but what they are doing does make sense. It isn’t silly.
@Bee Man
Skunks are worse than turkeys. They’ll stand in front of a hive all night eating the guard bees one at a time. Raccoons are little monsters too. See Raccoon problems.
Raccoons are little geniuses. Thanks. In add, our interaction demonstrates why government imposition is surplus order.
If bees are man-made concoctions, it’s hard to say how they’re vital to an ecosystem or economy then. Plants managed to survive just fine before the man-bred honey bee.
The European Union determines for instance the length of cucumbers as a measure of European identity. In some sense this is like the bee example.
Ah, “micro-managing”! Sounds familiar.
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