# Treatment free beekeeping is NOT leave them alone beekeeping!



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I'm starting this thread for discussion of the difference between treatment free beekeeping and leave them alone beekeeping. It is from a response in another thread about leave them alone vs Treatment free. 

There are basic things that "must" be done when keeping bees, a few things that are beneficial but not totally necessary, and a lot of unnecessary things you can do when keeping bees. Here are a few of the things I do to manage my bees.

Keep them in a location conducive to bee survival. This means for me a location with shade during the heat of the day, access to fresh water, not in a frost pocket or exposed to strong winds. I like a south facing tree line with a pond or stream nearby for water up on a rise so cold air does not settle around the hives in winter.

Keep them in reasonably solid boxes with frames that can be removed for manipulation. I've tried to open hives that had not been opened in 10 years. Even if they started with decent frames, after 10 years, the best way to open the hive is with a crow bar and a sledge hammer. I've had equipment that decayed over time or was damaged in a storm or from whatever other cause, it is up to the beekeeper to replace with solid equipment.

Inspect at least once in winter to ensure enough stores are present to make it to spring. Most of this is based on fall preparation, if it is done right, there won't be a problem, but just in case, a warm winter day above 60 degrees with a bit of sun should be put to good use in finding out the status of colonies before spring.

Give proper management for your area in the spring. Adding brood frames, replacing old brood frames, putting on supers when needed are all part of spring management. Splitting for either increase or queen production are also part of the job.

Harvest the crop when it is ready and market it effectively. You can't sell it if it is not in a container ready to go out the door.

Manage pests and diseases in a way that is appropriate for your situation. For me this means watching for signs a colony is in trouble and taking remedial action. This year has been tough because a beekeeper in the area let his colonies collapse unleashing a barrage of wax moths and hive beetles. I've had to combine several queen mating nucleus colonies and 2 large production hives that went queenless in order to keep hive beetles at bay. If I had not been watching, I would have turned thousands of beetle larvae loose to do it again next year. What about ants? Some areas lose bees and/or queens because ants get in the hives. Don't be that guy who does not watch your bees for problems!

Requeen your colonies on a regular basis. This is basic common sense for beekeepers. Young queens solve many of beekeeping's problems. If you can't raise them, purchase them.

Prepare them for winter. This means checking stores, verifying proper arrangement of the colony, installing entrance reducers, and feeding if necessary. I do my best to avoid feeding, but there are times it has to be done.

Do the housekeeping. I've never seen a colony that didn't need the bottom board cleaned out in spring. There are also times when removing burr comb or cleaning up a bit of propolis keeps the hive openable and the frames removable.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I see that a fairly high percentage of people voicing interest in "gettting into bees", don't realize the amount of personal input / decision making, that will be required to give any reasonable degree of survival. I think in many cases they are "sold" a bunch of BS of how simple it will be. Examples do exist about some marvelous successes but the painful failures......! well lets not talk about negative stuff.

In many cases there is a lot of _unlearning_ to do that takes more of a mentors time than would starting from a clean slate.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

This was a good and helpful summary.

Was just at the Georgia Beekeepers fall meeting, and Shane Gebauer (President, Brushy Mtn) gave an interesting and topical presentation where he talked about "chemical free" versus "treatment free" and that more people are beginning to see active management (brood breaks, drone trapping and other similar activities) as "treatments" which are helpful for hive health. He also was of the view that "leave them alone" was not an option for a healthy hive. I appreciated that he had at least a couple of slides devoted to chemical free hive health before he moved on to Apivar and Oxalic. Many of the bee club meetings I have attended have been "all chemical, all the time" so his talk was refreshing.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I agree with Frank. My main beef with the a lot of the woolier TF propaganda is the implication, often the flat assertion, that bees can somehow take care of themselves. And that interventions by beekeepers somehow harm them. You've no doubt read here on Beesource fatuous statements such as not wanting to disturb the bees' brood box, even though the question at issue is whether there's even a laying queen in it. Sometimes I think it's just a rationalization for lazy beekeeping.

I think that successful TF beekeeping would be more work, compared to non-TF beekeeping, in the same way that hoeing weeds is more work than zapping them with Round-Up.

Too many new beekeepers want to have what I am increasingly seeing as "accessories" to their self-presentation. And they don't want to do the actual beekeeping involved so they get the idea that they can have all the rewards without the trouble of any actual animal husbandry.

Pfui!

(Disclaimer: I am not claiming that all TF beeks are lazy, just that some lazy beeks latch on to the concept of TF as a justification for not intervening in the lives of the bees they chose to take on. Those beekeepers are most certainly missing the whole point, IMO.)

Enj.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

enjambres said:


> the implication, often the flat assertion, that bees can somehow take care of themselves.


I think the assertion that the number of feral bee colonies have recovered supports this as well. Although it doesn't jibe with what I see here, it is widely stated and accepted.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Fusion_power said:


> I'm starting this thread for discussion of the difference between treatment free beekeeping and leave them alone beekeeping. It is from a response in another thread about leave them alone vs Treatment free.


Problems are often caused by manipulation of resources within the hive and unnecessary, intense, and overly frequent inspections deep within the brood chamber. It's easy to not inspect, not feed, not treat. Learning how to not need to feed and how not to lose queens, how to keep productive, sustaining colonies without treating, that's the challenging, and to me most interesting, part.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Fusion_power said:


> I've never seen a colony that didn't need the bottom board cleaned out in spring.


Wow. 90 % of my hives do not need bottom clean-up. They do it themselves. 10% has a habbit that they clean most of the bottom board but leave the biggest piles of rubbish untouched, and then flies lay eggs in them. That is a bit nasty looking for a while, thats why clean those 10%.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

In a world where the spigot-based flow hive can raise 15 million dollars in a weekend and get world-wide press coverage (abetted by the TF'er favorite Circus Barker); I will say the ship has already sailed....

The mind share among the Marie-Antoinette style hobby farmers is for "let bees be", and no amount of fulminating will change that until the circus barkers are honest about their losses from their "method".


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I have some sympathy for bee havers, as long as its done in order to enhance feral bee habitat and didn't bring in bees from somewhere else. If done with removeable frames one could learn much about unmanipulated bee behaviour. One could do some maintenance to get it ready for the next swarm should one have a die out. We set out bird boxes and bat houses. Often to compensate for habitat loss. Why not for bees? There is not one set of objectives when it comes to them.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

crofter said:


> I see that a fairly high percentage of people voicing interest in "gettting into bees", don't realize the amount of personal input / decision making, that will be required to give any reasonable degree of survival.


I agree, and chalk it up to new beeks. I think there is a lot of assumption that their intention was to be TF, when most likely they were just clueless to begin with. To treat or not to treat was probably never the issue. Ronco beekeeping was.


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

This whole thing has become like school cafeteria. There is a table with a label for every type of beekeeping. Everybody got their definition and feel the others guys are doing it wrong. 

As a hobbyist new beek, I respect those who provide advise, share their experience in non-judgemental way and let me experience my own way. If I am not welcome at a table because I dont fit a specific definition, so be it.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

DaisyNJ said:


> This whole thing has become like school cafeteria. There is a table with a label for every type of beekeeping. Everybody got their definition and feel the others guys are doing it wrong.
> 
> As a hobbyist new beek, I respect those who provide advise, share their experience in non-judgemental way and let me experience my own way. If I am not welcome at a table because I dont fit a specific definition, so be it.


I´m with you.
But I think it`s the season.

In spring everyone is happy he has some survivors ( if so) and looks forward to harvest and enjoy his bees.
In summer most of the hives are still in good condition, left alone or not, and still beekeepers are one community. Not much bashing.
Trouble starts with late autumn. Suddenly there are the first mite or management problems.

That`s the moment everybody is searching for his own scapegoat if the beekeeping fails, just like Kirk Webster said.
And if it did not fail it´s the fear of future problems.

A boring time, without bee work. Leads to dissatisfaction.

I admit I did it myself but learned my lesson. Had some good teachers.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

I didn't mean to sound derogatory in my remarks. I'm just getting tired of the assumptions that are going on and perpetuated by those who seemingly bear a grudge against people who are practicing treatment free beekeeping. Solomon Parker's losses and new beek failures (treatment free or not) seem to be common references when pointing to reasons why it can't work, never mind the countless others who are having success. I don't lump sum the whole of experience based on individual results, and for others to do so is preposterous. Ok, diatribe over. I apologize in advance for using FPs thread as a platform for it.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

so you can't do it like a few guys here do, and just add supers in the spring, take them away in the fall, and split if you happen to catch swarm cells being made?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

This is America. You are free to manage your bees any way you want including minimal management. Of course, if you lose a few colonies to hive beetles or get a foulbrood outbreak, you might consider doing something about it.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

DaisyNJ said:


> This whole thing has become like school cafeteria. There is a table with a label for every type of beekeeping. Everybody got their definition and feel the others guys are doing it wrong.
> 
> As a hobbyist new beek, I respect those who provide advise, share their experience in non-judgemental way and let me experience my own way. If I am not welcome at a table because I dont fit a specific definition, so be it.


Simplify your analogy and make it two tables in your mind for the group of beekeepers in your circle. 
People who have to buy new bees every year and those who don't.
Listen to what is said by the ones who are at the table that doesn't buy new bees every year and the "noise" you have to listen to (from that other table) goes away.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

aunt betty said:


> Listen to what is said by the ones who are at the table that doesn't buy new bees every year and the "noise" you have to listen to (from that other table) goes away.


I doubt that there is anyone in this thread that buys bees, but maybe that's your point.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Makes me wonder how many new queens aunt betty buys. Maybe he is at the wrong table.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Riverderwent said:


> I doubt that there is anyone in this thread that buys bees, but maybe that's your point.





SnickeringBear said:


> Makes me wonder how many new queens aunt betty buys. Maybe he is at the wrong table.


I buy queens every year. I could make my own....but what would I have to give up to do so? From mid March until the end of October I work, pretty much 7 days a week. To add queen selection, breeding and production to the mix would put everything else into chaos.....which it approaches many times anyway.
My point is....buying bees....or at least queens, in my case......isn't necessarily a negative reflection on beekeeping skills....in my opinion.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

beemandan said:


> I buy queens every year. I could make my own....but what would I have to give up to do so?


considering how inexpensive mated queens are when purchased in bulk you almost can't afford not to buy them when compared to the investment of time and resources necessary to rear your own.

the other thing you would likely give up is having those fresh queens so early in the season. i'm guessing you can get them ready to use a full month earlier in the season when they are produced well south of your northern georgia location.

my memory is not what it used to be dan, but i believe you personally run about 200 hives and sell somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 nucs each season. i get the impression that you have likely been doing so for a number of years now.

assuming most of those colonies are headed by the commercially produced queens from a southern supplier, i wonder how large of a genetic footprint they are making on the local population in your area.

is it possible that the footprint is significant enough for those bees to become the predominant 'strain' around there? if so, might that in part be why you are unable to locate long-lived unmangaged or feral colonies?

no dan, not raising your own queens is not a negative reflection on your beekeeping skills. it actually makes good business sense. i'm guessing the customers of those early nucs are likely to get some honey harvest in the first year. this is in contrast to my customers who are getting their nucs toward the end of our main flow by which time there's not much hope for a harvest until the next season.

unfortunately it doesn't appear that the industry is offering you any better at this time, and to be honest i'm pretty short on suggestions with respect to what might be done differently. i'm just offering my thoughts on why your experiences and observations might be different than what we are seeing over this way.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Actually, I worked for a couple of years as a grunt with a group doing professional queen selection. I was an observant and trusted grunt....and saw what serious queen breeding entails. It isn't a part time gig with a dozen or so hives. If I were to decide to be a queen breeder....that would be a full time beekeeping job. And that isn't the choice I made.

I keep anywhere from 150 to 250 hives and generally make about a hundred nucs in the spring. I get queens from a mix of people and choose to buy from folks that I consider to be breeders rather than volume producers. Also, there is a well known queen breeder in the area and the range of our yards surely overlap in many places. Having said that, I'm sure the genetics I've brought into the area are an influence.

For whatever it might be worth, I have been sampling later season queens for the past couple of years and may shift my nuc production a bit to allow me to refine the selection process. 2017 will be my first foray into this. I will probably not sell any nucs but, instead, will adjust the logistics and see if I can't make a later season new queen influx fit into my business. It is a bit of a risk....ya never know til ya try.

Having said all of that, I was mainly replying to the apparent insinuation that buying bees was necessarily a cause for shame.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

aunt_betty treats to keep his bees alive and is of the opinion that people who don't treat have dead bees and therefore have to replace them regularly. His insinuation now and in the past has been to the tune that untreated bees are a danger to all "normal" beekeepers i.e. those who treat. I'm not sure how he deals with it when I state that my bees have lower mite counts at any given time of year than his treated bees even right after treatment.

Back to the premise of this thread which is that treatment free beekeeping is not leave them alone beekeeping.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Fusion_power said:


> Keep them in a location conducive to bee survival. This means for me a location with shade during the heat of the day, access to fresh water, not in a frost pocket or exposed to strong winds. I like a south facing tree line with a pond or stream nearby for water up on a rise so cold air does not settle around the hives in winter.


Fusion, I keep my hives in full morning, midday, and early afternoon sun with shade and protection from the west or both the west and the north. With too much shade here beetles become a problem. I don't use beetle traps. I try to keep beekeeping as low impact as I can. If I want to spend more time, I'll add hives rather than chores.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

beemandan said:


> Having said all of that, I was mainly replying to the apparent insinuation that buying bees was necessarily a cause for shame.


Dan, you're more than welcome to sit at my table. Turns out there is plenty of room.


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## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

aunt betty said:


> Simplify your analogy and make it two tables in your mind for the group of beekeepers in your circle.
> People who have to buy new bees every year and those who don't.
> Listen to what is said by the ones who are at the table that doesn't buy new bees every year and the "noise" you have to listen to (from that other table) goes away.


Hmmmm can't remember how many years it's been since I've bought package bees but then again I'm TF maybe that explains it. I welcome anyone to my table who likes beekeeping.


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## McBain (Aug 23, 2016)

Fusion Power man, you nailed it again. I agree entirely with what you said. I think all too often the TF beekeepers get themselves smoke screened by the 'naturalists' who 'leave the bees to do their own thing'. I don't let my bees do their own thing, I am constantly in my hives getting to know the bees and closely watching differences between the different varieties of bees I keep. 

I have one colony of Russian black bees and the standard beekeeping guides tell me the queen is bad because she doesn't build a massive spring population. I've come to learn, however, that is one of the characteristics of the Russian black bee variety, they build to max population in late summer to catch the autumn bloom. 

Enjambres said earlier that TF beekeeping should be more work and quite frankly it is. Sometimes you need to dig into the hive and figure out what is wrong?!?!? While other times you get to sit back and enjoy the great work of the bees.

If you are a first year beekeeper you totally need to listen to the advice presented here by these wise beekeepers.

I know a first year beekeeper who has a flow hive and loves it. The only problem with it is you just don't get into the hive as you should and understand how your bees are doing, all you know is that the honey flows out when you put your jar under the spigot. 

Beekeeping should be a mutualistic interaction between the beekeeper and the bees. The bees produce a bounty of honey to share with the keeper and the keeper is responsible to take care of anything that is out of the bees control.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Riverderwent said:


> Dan, you're more than welcome to sit at my table. Turns out there is plenty of room.


Thanks. I didn't mean to come across so sharp. I also wasn't trying to derail fusion's thread. My apologies.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I don't think that the goal of TF is to work harder. The management goal is to find efficiencies. You could call it being a team player. Let the bees do their job and keeper does her/his. Lots of beekeeping is trying to overcome the deficiencies in the bees, instead of letting those bees go. If bees are given good habitat, and space/stores are managed properly, then they should survive. I'm not in favour of doing it all at once, but once survival is achieved, then bit by bit management should be reduced to essentials as Harley said. 

As for the hard work of raising local survivor queens, almost every successful long term business has a research budget and are looking to improve. I think almost any successful person who works with stock, works hard at improving methods of selection. Input here hopefully reduces input later on, eventually. I look at raising local queens in the same way. Its the research that brings success. I hope to actually sell a few overwintered nucs this spring. But I hope to split them before being sold and let the split raise a queen from a cell to sell again. That may be a solution compared to bringing in queens that disrupt local genetics. Bringing in queens should be about desirable genetics to add to existing local bees.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

my apologies as well for getting off topic and i wanted to say that i didn't mean to sound judgmental about folks bringing in whatever stock they find works for what they are trying/wanting/needing to do.

as far as taking a very 'hands off' or 'nonintervention' type approach, i'm not sure how i would rate myself in that regard.

i haven't been deep into most of my hives since early spring. most of my management since then up until recently has been working primarily with the honey supers.

the ones i have thoroughly worked generally have given me cause to do so. i.e. not bringing in pollen when all of the others are, not putting up honey or drawing wax like the others, attempted robbing, ect.

with most of these i find the observations coincide with queen issues and most of the time they are remedied by requeening.

usually by now i have completed thorough fall inspections of all of the colonies and have taken a couple of mite counts out of curiosity for myself and as a courtesy to some of the contributors here who are interested.

this fall i've only been deep into a few hives so far and that was mostly to swap out old hive bodies that were in need of painting for freshly painted ones. 

the problem has been that having a hive open long enough to do that has been setting off the whole yard into an attempted robbing frenzy that lasts pretty much the whole day. i've never had that happen before. i presume it's because of the 'extreme' drought here which is on the verge of being upgraded to the 'exceptional' stage and is having a profound effect on forage availablility.

there's not too much i would be doing anyway at this point other than possibly combining a queenless colony that hasn't yet gone laying worker to another colony that was maybe a little short on bees. all colonies are in their winter configuration and have adequate wintering stores.

i'm predicting higher losses this winter for two reasons. the first is that i haven't had any drones flying since july and it won't be until the end of next march before we have drones again. any queens that have failed or are failing are not likely to get successfully superceded.

the second reason is this extended dearth has caused a less robust fall brood up than normal. i'm putting out yard feeders for a week or two to compensate, but my guess is that wintering populations will be smaller than is typical and i might have some extra losses for that reason.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

For the newbie: describe "yard feeders" for me, please. 

My climate must be much like yours and I am watching fields of goldenrod turn brown right now....

Thanks!
Mike


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

lharder said:


> But I hope to split them before being sold and let the split raise a queen


That's my plan as well, then sell the split. Going to try to have nucs as early as April for sale, then May/June. All of this is very dependent on how the hives overwinter, but looking good so far. I have one hive I saw the queen in, very little capped brood, eggs larvae. They are nearly honey bound, so added some empty brood comb. She looks like she might be failing, but luckily I have a couple of nucs and can combine if need be. She's got until this weekend before I make the final call.

P.S.-TF Beekeeping does not mean "set it and forget it." Keeping on topic from now on, I promise!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

AvatarDad said:


> describe "yard feeders"


i'm using 5 gallon buckets from home depot. toward the top of the buckets there is some reinforcing ribbing that when the bucket is turned upside down becomes little troughs. small holes are drilled to allow the syrup to pour into those troughs. it's basically a large scale quail waterer.

what i did was:

added some rocks so that there would be less syrup wasted below the troughs when the bucket is turned upside down.

mixed 16 lbs. of sugar with 2 gallons of water, and added 2000 mg of crushed vitamin c tablets.

closed the bucket tightly, and placed it inverted on an unused telescoping top cover that i perfectly leveled using shims.

i have 2 yards, one with 11 hives and one with 9 hives. it take 2 - 3 days for the bees to empty a bucket. i give them a couple of days break and then put out another batch.

hope that helps.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

what ever they do, they gotta follow the basics,


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Fusion_power said:


> I'm starting this thread for discussion of the difference between treatment free beekeeping and leave them alone beekeeping.


Being a "low impact" beekeeper has some advantages. And there is synergy between being treatment free and being low impact. For example, I don't feed. That causes a brood break during the summer dearth which helps reduce varroa. But it also helps prevent robbing. That also means that I don't have to mix syrup or buy syrup or fill feeders or install and remove feeders. 

I also use a relatively small entrance all the time, ⅜" x 12¼". That also helps prevent robbing from getting started. I don't need a ¾" tall entrance because I don't use OAV or other techniques that require a taller entrance. More synergy. That also means that I don't have to install and remove mouse guards in my location. I also use feral mutts because I'm treatment free, but as a side benefit these bees are again far less prone to robbing than some Italian bees. More synergy. I have thirty hives, and I don't own a robbing screen. If I had needed it I would have made one, but I haven't so I haven't.

I don't replace queens. If a hive is queenless with no cells, I add a frame of eggs and young brood from a good colony. That may occasionally also result in a brood break which can reduce mite pressure a little more. 

Since I don't requeen, I no longer use commercial queens. That again results in synergy between being low impact and being treatment free. As Randy Oliver said, "By introducing commercial bees year after year into an area, and then allowing those package colonies to first produce drones and then to later die from varroa, these well-meaning but misguided beekeepers screw up any evolutionary progress that the local feral populations might be making towards developing natural resistance to varroa." Also, by not using commercial queens, I have less concern about poorly mated queens resulting from low drone to queen ratios in areas with intensive queen rearing. Well mated queens last longer which reduces the need for requeening. This creates a spiral reducing the need to requeen and positively affecting the ability to remain low impact.

Since I don't treat, I don't have the short term or long term impact of MAQS or possibly other treatments on queens which reduces the need to requeen which helps me be low impact directly by not having to purchase and replace queens and having less need for frequent and intensive inspections for queen problems.

I try to avoid deep hive inspections as much as practical. When I read about so many people with queenless hives this time of year I wonder how much of that was caused by earlier beekeeper activity in the hive. I do harvest honey three times a year and, during flows add boxes one at a time (because of hive beetles). In the prime swarm season, I add these boxes of drawn comb just above the brood chamber to help prevent swarming, and generally keep up with how the hives are doing.

There is certainly a cost to this approach, particularly in terms of production per hive. A lot of that is simply the result of not taking honey and replacing it with syrup. That's my choice. But there are significant advantages, particularly in terms of production per man hour. More importantly, this approach is consistent with my specific goals and works well for me in this area.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Riverderwent said:


> I don't feed. That causes a brood break during the summer dearth which helps reduce varroa.


I think that's a huge part of the success I've had thus far. I've never had the problems I've read about come Fall from mites.



Riverderwent said:


> I don't replace queens. That may occasionally also result in a brood break which can reduce mite pressure a little more.


I don't either, and never thought of the potential benefit. Makes sense.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

My aim is to have one square deep dadant broodnest and 2 supers on top, leave one super of honey throughout the year. 
I´m not going for big production hives, but the queenless splits I want to do stronger to have some honey surplus and a long brood brake.

Check will be once in march if they are not able to fly ( food check) once again in spring to split and once later to check if the queens are mated.
When problems with matings occur like this year, I will donate egg combs out of my best hives, which means much disturbance. I hope it´s not necessary.

Other managements I will do after interpretations of entrance activity. I will not disturb the broodnests if possible.

Cull queen cells or supersedure cells I will never do. I´m not even looking except if a cell is needed in a queenless hive.
To catch a swarm, if they want to go, I will install bait boxes. 

But I want to start a small queen breeding program with my best 1 and 2 hives material at each bee yard if possible ( depends on winter losses). This would require more work.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Never have I bought a queen bee but have sold a few. 

So far so good but have had to combine a few hives this fall. This is my second winter since taking bees back up again so am planning on a big crash. Hope not. If it don't crash I'll have to start selling some nucs this spring.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> i'm using 5 gallon buckets from home depot. toward the top of the buckets there is some reinforcing ribbing that when the bucket is turned upside down becomes little troughs. small holes are drilled to allow the syrup to pour into those troughs. it's basically a large scale quail waterer.


Oddly, my mental image was similar (I imagined a huge hummingbird feeder with a white pickle bucket in the center). These details help; I can build one of these. 

So, open feeding during a dearth doesn't scare people? I'm imagining a feeding frenzy.

Also, there was less pollen from the Goldenrod than I wanted and I was wondering if open feeding a pollen substitute like "Megabee" works. I saw a video on line where it did, but I put out a small pan and it is being ignored. Maybe if I put it next to some sugar syrup.

Thanks!


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

Open feeding is best done some distance away from the hives, I put the feeders on the opposite side of a fence and about 50 yards from the closest hives. Bees ignore my pollen substitute when there is natural pollen in the field, but they take it very well in February and March when there is little natural pollen coming in.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

AR Beekeeper said:


> Open feeding is best done some distance away from the hives...


really good point and i meant to post that i've got mine about 250 ft. from the hives, thanks arb.



AvatarDad said:


> I imagined a huge hummingbird feeder...


yes, that's basically the idea.




AvatarDad said:


> ...open feeding during a dearth doesn't scare people? I'm imagining a feeding frenzy.
> 
> I was wondering if open feeding a pollen substitute...


there is quite a frenzy at the feeders at that distance, but none at the hives. i didn't add anything scented to the syrup, so i don't think the hives ended up giving off any odors that might attract attention.

there has been regular pollen coming in here but i tried putting a little dry sub next to the yard feeders, only to find that it got ignored by the bees.

if we are talking only a hive or two it's probably best to just put the syrup in the hives. the quail waterers work good for that.


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