The White House beehive - lovely, interesting, important - but, Charlie, a leaf blower?

I have been an excited follower of stories about the first known White House beehive.   As a complement to the organic garden, and to fresh, local eating that the Obama's make a priority, the White House has installed a lovely beehive on its grounds.  

The Obama's gift precious jars of this honey to VIPs across the world, most recently as part of a wedding gift to British Royals William and Kate.   

I do have a concern, though, that Charlie the White House beekeeper uses a leaf blower to violently remove the bees from the frames of honey he plans to harvest.   

I personally want Charlie to be the beekeeping equivalent of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer.   The whole nation is potentially watching Charlie as the 'First Beekeeper.'   He's in a position to be a great teacher about honeybees, their plight, and how humans benefit from and enjoy these amazing insects.  

What he does instead, is the equivalent of watching Cesar beat the dogs he's working with.   At worst, he is injuring and killing these beings that produced this amazing honey he wants to harvest.   At best, he is working with them in a way that shows poor husbandry and little respect for the honeybee.  

The great thing that I have learned as a beekeeper is that there is usually always a better way of doing something.  Fortunately, there IS a great way to remove the bees from the frames of honey that I want to harvest.   I use a simple invention called a bee escape, which costs about $10 from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm.   The bee escape is placed between the surplus honey and the rest of the hive a 2 - 3 days before the honey harvest.   This gives the bees that were on the frames of honey time to move down into the main hive area, and they cannot get back up into the surplus honey.  

I've used it with great success - no harm to the bees and chemical free (yes, there are chemicals that beekeepers can use to 'fume' the bees off of the honey).  

There are great, bee friendly options to beekeeping, if you just look for them!

Click here to watch the video about the First Hive and the honey harvest.  

Click here  for an interesting article about a lab analysis of the White House honey - and a picture of the First Hive.