Thoughts on Beekeeping from Phil Craft

My first webpage column
This is, what I plan to be, the first of many columns I will write for this webpage. As I said in the About PCHC link, the column will be mostly about beekeeping but, like many beekeepers, as I learn more about honey bees, my interest in other insects grows, especially insects in Hymenoptera, the order in which taxonomy places honey bees. I also have an interest in other science related subjects – especially natural history. Expect some diversions into other realms. Also, those who persevere will most likely have to tolerate my occasional musings about other interests of mine, like books (on non-beekeeping as well as beekeeping topics), fly fishing, or my travels to our national parks. I do promise you that I won’t discuss politics or sports, though I enjoy the latter. Well, maybe, a little baseball – after all there are so many great baseball quotes, such as Yoga Berra’s “”Baseball is 90% mental — the other half is physical.” So be forewarned; sometimes I just can‘t help myself.

Also in About PCHC, I promised written beekeeping information sheets on various subjects, which I will write or solicit from others, to be downloadable by anyone at no charge. The site is somewhat sparse of those now, but they will appear as I write, re-write, or collect them. I will probably produce the sheets to provide additional or more in depth information about specific topics which I address initially in this column. I have already placed some beginning beekeeping information on the site, and plan to very shortly add more for potential and new beekeepers. I consider the subject of beginning beekeeping a timely seasonal topic in winter, as new beekeepers make plans or consider getting started as beekeepers. So, those of you new to beekeeping can visit again soon and find more postings specifically for you.

My wife has told me that one of my strengths is my ability to connect people to other people or information. I think that is true, so one role of this column and webpage will be to connect those who visit with information from various sources, from books and movies to articles and other web sites. Since, in the immediate future, I am not tied down to a “nine to five” job, I hope to write these columns fairly often.

I expect that this column and other parts of this webpage will, like honeybee pupae, metamorphosize. I have always looked for new things I want to do, new avenues to explore or new ways to do things I’m already doing, so this column and webpage will likely be like that. They will change over time.

I wish to thank Barry Richards, my friend and webmaster of PCHC, for making this site and column possible. For those of you who don’t know Barry, I’ll make sure you learn more about him in the future. And I  especially wish to thank my wife Lee, who is my proofreader and editor for most things I write and who puts up with my continuous and often repetitive discussions of future plans and ideas. I know it gets tedious for her, but she is a good and critical sounding board for me, and rarely complains. Without her my writings would end up pretty incoherent at times.

So we’re off! Watch for future posts. I hope that, as Elizabeth Taylor reportedly told each of her eight husbands “I won’t keep you long”.

Phil

3 responses to “Thoughts on Beekeeping from Phil Craft

  1. Looks like you’re up and running. I enjoyed sitting in one of your classes last Saturday at Hazard KY on the varroa mite. There is so much misleading infomation out there it was good to hear from somone who knows the facts and can teach them. Keep up the good work and we’ll keep checking back on your web site…..
    Matt…