It occurs to me that in what capacity the bee hive itself is seen is determined largely by the POV of the bee keeper/handler ‘type’ of approach.
I am thinking it mostly comes down to a commercial view, that being the ‘toolbox’ view and a conservation view, that being a ‘home’ view..
The commercial view looks at bees as a commodity. a living commodity, such as livestock, etc.. are traditionally seen by those who use living creatures to accomplish certain tasks in the course of their work.
The place to keep said ‘tool’ bees would be in a toolbox. The entire hive is designed to produce a set of known results. typically honey production and transportability.
The hive must conform to certain pre-sets or pre-established criteria in order to provide the beekeeper with measurable and ‘prognostic-able’ results. Due to the fact that the features of the the hive are primarily, if not entirely manmade, any naturally occurring effects that might come from bee originated design, such as cell size and structure impacting mite tolerances, etc… are not entirely within the bees scope any longer. Thus, the beekeeper, has to do that for the bees as well (medicating, treating, etc..) This is usually the case in ‘commodity’ animals, such as cattle, pigs, chickens, etc.. that are ‘kept’ for production or comestible sales.
The conservation view looks at a bee hive primary as a ‘home’ for bees and anything else is secondary, such as honey production. The approach many, if not most people in the conservation thinking, take is that the hive, should be as ‘natural’ or ‘natural-like’ s possible. Essentially taking a none to little intervention stance.
The hives themselves range from trees, tree cuttings and logs to man-made hives.
Bees typically are encouraged to build their own comb/cells to build up natural immunities/tolerances beehive management for survival and breeding sake. Treatment and intervention is seen largely to be minimized if not at all.
Ultimately, Both approaches have a place in the world. Humans depend on bees for pollination of crops and for bee made products, like honey, wax, even bee venom is used in medical research.
Commercial beekeepers are necessary to continuing managed operations that provide these services instead of counting on luck, coincidence and happenstance to accomplish them.
Conservation bee handlers are also necessary to help build strong colonies that are able to survive and thrive despite issues such as mites and disease that threaten them.
Whatever role you see yourself being involved in when you work with bees, As a beekeeper/handler there are responsibilities thrust upon you to work toward the bees best interests.
We wouldn’t let others starve our cattle, poison the drinking water or destroy the barns would we? Of course not. These animals and insects represent an investment to us. not just a financial investment, but a personal investment as well. We wouldn’t be working with bees ( or cattle or pigs, etc..) if we were not personally involved somehow.
