The Long, Downhill Road in Beekeeping
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John Phipps
“Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will therefore increase its power over nature.” V. I. Lenin
Sadly, this comment by Lenin has been fulfilled in many ways. Just like the worst aspects of communism and its strict control over people, it has extended to the way in which animals have been treated, removing them from their natural environments and imposing on them lifestyles which are not conducive to their health and well-being. This is most obvious with farm livestock. Regimes where cows are subjected to zero grazing, poultry are kept intensively in cages in sheds for egg production, and pigs, sometimes with over 2000 sows kept in cages on concrete for breeding and producing up to five litters in two years. The move against intensive farming and the cruelty involved has a long history, yet these units exist in most parts of the world and are considered to be a normal pattern of agricultural production. The call for animals used in the service of man to be treated humanely has as one of its main aims the right of an animal to carry out the normal aspects of its behaviour. Thus, cows to graze, poultry to scratch around and pigs to root about. Unfortunately, allowing such regimes to become more popular is not economic in terms of labour; animals allowed to wander free in the open, especially pigs, take longer to reach market weight; economics is more important than animal welfare. There has been more and more interest recently on how sentient animals are, 8
what they feel, both feel both physically and mentally, and how this should be addressed to reduce their suffering. One aspect of this I mentioned some time ago in these pages, the fact that farm livestock have in their genetic makeup behavioural mechanics so that when taken from places of confinement they can easily adjust to their natural way of life. And as an example of sentience, to see that an animal is suffering stress, one only has to watch a sow in a cage on concrete, at the time of her farrowing. She is up and down all the time, looking through the bars, knowing that she has to do something, but is unable to do so. It is not due to the physical feelings of discomfort before giving birth, she instinctively knows that she is unable to make the important preparations for her litter. My agriculture students saw the uneasiness of the sows on visits to huge farrowing units. Back at our school farm, when a gilt - a pig that had never before given birth - was ready to farrow, we threw a bale of barley straw into her paddock. Excitedly, she tore away at the bale carrying mouthfuls of straw into the corner of her sty to make a huge, comfortable nursery bed for her piglets. It is horrendous today, when we should all know better, that farm animals on a huge scale are suffering simply because they are being deprived of their natural way of life.
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4 1–3. Farm livestock must be allowed to behave in the way in which nature intended - cows to graze (a herd of cattle living in a wildflower-enhanced pasture, Dr. Parry Kietzman); poultry to scratch around; and pigs to root about and lie in the wallows they love so much. 4. A sow ready to farrow in the straw nest she has prepared for her litter.
Natural Bee Husbandry Magazine | No. 25, Autumn 2022 | Incorporating Bees for Development Journal No. 144