<p><strong>Being a septuagenarian and having been a beekeeper on and off for over 60 years I have seen the changes in the world both good and bad.&nbsp; I have seen the countryside change from flowering hay meadows to billiard table top over grazed fields.&nbsp; Corn fields with their attendant flowering weeds changed to chemically managed mono-crops.&nbsp; Hedgerows laid and managed with an abundance of flowering shrubs have become annually machine cropped bristle rows, where biennial flowering shrubs like hawthorn never have a second year growth to flower.</strong></p><p><strong>Worst of all I have seen beekeeping following some of those same trends.&nbsp; Beekeeping is now carried out in an almost religion based way.&nbsp; An established hierarchy setting down the true ways, not based on the bees&rsquo; need but the beekeepers&rsquo; return, with chemicals that pollute, recycled wax that contaminates.</strong></p><p><strong>Top bar hives along with other ways such as sun hives offer a gentler way.&nbsp; We have a duty to our bees, we must look at our bees as our salvation not another prize in our greed.</strong></p><p><strong>Beekeepers must be in the forefront of change for nature, not mere puppets in some commercial enterprise.</strong></p>