Thank you for explaining yourself! I agree that to those few (?) who have lost a lot of their livelihoods to CCD the situation is disastrous – and my heart goes out to them – but on the flip side of that coin I can plainly see that to the overall beekeeping world, CCD might (and I emphasize that word) be a mere nuisance. In other words, I can see both sides here. My only issue with you before was the seeming inappropriateness of your comments in a blog space, the focus of which – format aside – is wine and mead making. I didn’t (and don’t) come here to observe pugnacity or to hear others’ arguments. My focus when I visit this site is to glean from the experiences of a winemaker I have come to admire.

Again, thank you for explaining yourself. I have a better understanding now of a problem I would otherwise be ignorant of had it not been for this debate.

Cheers!

– John

I have made a serious effort to gain an understanding of the nature of CCD and its impact on the nation’s beekeepers. Other than the fact that I dispute some of Errol’s propositions, I used the terms “misguided” and “glib” to describe Errol’s comments, and “extremely callous” to describe the way they might be perceived by someone deeply concerned about beekeepers and beekeeping. That was, unfortunately, how I interpreted Errol’s phrase, “this year’s 6% decline – see the USDA’s just released 2008 Honey Report – isn’t very alarming.” Please forgive me if the terms offended you. In retrospect, “extremely callous” does seem a bit hyperbolic. One would hope that Errol was game for comments on his posts, though, since the format of the blog allows them. When Errol described CCD as a nuisance, he (obviously) touched a nerve. Having studied and spoken with family businesses that have lost two thirds of their colonies in one winter, catastrophe feels to me like the only appropriate term for their experiences. That nerve was pretty well exposed. Errol did not know he was throwing gasoline on a fire, and that’s (again, obviously) not what he intended, but that’s how it came across. Errol’s phrase “it’s no more worrying than the other difficulties facing bees and their keepers,” came off to me as both inaccurate and (albeit inadvertently) dismissive, and that set me on edge.

Errol and I have, I think, reached a degree of truce on this in other fora. That is for the good.

I would urge you to look into the depth of information available on CCD. My hope is that those who genuinely seek to understand CCD will arm themselves with a set of information beyond just the USDA’s colony numbers. I’d be happy to lead you to numerous resources, if you would like references. A good start is at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=saving-the-honeybee

Take a moment to reflect on how this condition might affect mead making over the next 5 or 10 years, in terms of the cost and variety of honey available to us. Its impact is reflected today in the 31% rise in honey prices noted above. My interest is in promoting comprehensive information on the subject, and not in argumentative confrontation. Please understand that my passion is on behalf of mead making, and the bees and beekeepers who make it possible. They are our lifeblood. Many are struggling for their beekeeping lives, hundreds of others have already lost the battle, and my plea is for compassion on their behalf.

Ken Schramm
The Compleat Meadmaker
Troy, MI

So if you want to try it, and you’re sure you didn’t add too much vanilla, go ahead!

Erroll

- John

I did write about the free sampler, so maybe you did hear about it from me. I’d use oak in one batch and vanilla in another. That way, you can compare the two. Once you know how they taste on there own, you’ll have a better idea of a how a combination will taste – and if you’ll like it.

I wrote about oaking that mead here. It was before I knew about the free samples, so I just bought American oak chips at a local homebrew shop. I used a small amount, about 1.3 g/L, for a long time (over a year).

An oak barrel will do more than just impart flavor to wine or mead. The mead will pick up tannin from the oak, if you give it enough time, and a tiny amount of oxygen. We can’t duplicate the slow oxygen pickup with oak chips, but I wanted to try and extract tannin from the oak. I’m happy with the result, but it’s hard to know how successful I was because I didn’t split the batch and oak half of it in the standard way. Maybe I’ll do that next time, so I can compare the two approaches.

Erroll

Keep up the good work, Erroll

Thanks John,

Keep me posted on your mead. I haven’t used vanilla yet, but I’m curious about it. I just bottled a plain dry mead that I had oaked, I wrote about it in one of my earliest posts, and I really like it.

Erroll

Anyway, I am not put off by anything you have said thus far. My only complaint last post was against this Ken character shooting off at the lip for no apparent reason save venting his spleen unnecessarily in a forum where he will be met with little to no sympathy. Rather foolish, I think. Don’t get me wrong; if there is a problem with the bees and an industry is struggling as a result, I am sympathetic to THAT, but not to his hidden agenda or his bringing up a “score” he feels he needs to settle in your blog space. I hope I communicated THAT well enough last time to not have to repeat it now.

Keep up the good work, Erroll.

I sensed some anger in Ken too, and all of us get angry from time to time. For me the question is why? If he’s angry at my hypothesis, that CCD has been exaggerated and colony counts are evidence that bees are not “being wiped out,” then he and I probably don’t have much to talk about. I might be mistaken, but if I am it’s an honest mistake.

If he’s angry because he thinks I’ve belittled beekeepers or kicked them when they’re down, well it wouldn’t be the first time people have misunderstood each other.

CCD interests me because I make mead and buy honey. If you’ve never made mead, I encourage you to try it. It can be similar enough to wine, if you choose to make it that way (see here for some thoughts on different styles of mead), that you’ll probably like it. It will be different enough to be interesting and new. Even if you don’t give mead a try, I hope my posts on it and CCD don’t drive you away!

Erroll

Erroll, keep up the good work. Thank you for your continued efforts on your blog!