# Randy Olivers call for breeders to go TF



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

BWeaver did. Prove to the big breeders that they can sell TF queens and prove to the users that TF queens are productive and it is a slam dunk. The "productive" part is still a sticking point. I'm working on it, but as a small time beekeeper am limited.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good question. the 'call' as i understood it was for the big breeders to establish isolated yards with colonies having the lowest mite counts, not treating those colonies, and then breeding from the ones that come out of winter the strongest.

in the mean time perhaps more of us already working with resistant stock can step up our game and crank out more and more queens for public consumption. i'm talking with a handful of folks down this way to see what we can make happen for next year.

do you have the time and the means to rear queens from your survivors up there clay?


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

FP The part that Bweavers has done this is a great example for others. What bothers me is that other breeders don't seem to care. I for one will probably spend my money on queens where the breeders are actively working on resistant/ TF stock.

Squarepeg, I raise my own queens every year. I bring in a little stock about every 3-5 years. Mostly Palmer stock and its been a bit even for that. Mostly time is my biggest issue. I've been pretty isolated for over 10 yrs where I mate my queens. Now I have quite a bunch of hobbyist come into my area with there package milled queens. These are good honey producers but are usually chewed up and spit out by September if not treated mid honey flow. Now sure how to work around this.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood clay. i have a similar problem with time and the same concern with the influx of entry level beekeepers not able to get their hands on anything but packages imported from large suppliers to our south.

i generally stay clear from organized anything but i'm making an exception in this regard and hoping to enlist like minded individuals to work together in an attempt keep the local gene pool from getting watered down with the imports.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> in the mean time perhaps more of us already working with resistant stock can step up our game and crank out more and more queens for public consumption.


This is a good idea and even better if the big queen and package producers get interested. This is what is happening here with my stock. A company from southern Italy selling 50000 queens every summer is using Lundén Resistant Queens.
10000 new queens with more resistant genes flying around Europe this summer.

And what is even more exciting they tested our queens for 2 years and other "resistant"materials too before going into such numbers.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

As if the answer to our problems is simply genetic?

Clayton, do you have a link to an article by Randy? Or something?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I’ve said it before….rather than writing a series of articles promoting his theories, Randy Oliver might have gotten much better results if he had personally put his ideas into practice and then, assuming favorable results, could have demonstrated proof. As a paid contributor to ABJ, I understand his choice.

BWeaver gets a lot of ‘press’ here on Beesource, yet I don’t recall any actual, objective studies to support their marketing. In anecdotal stories…I’ve heard it both ways…yay and nay. And toss in the stories of aggressive bees….I understand why they haven’t been widely accepted.

As continues to befuddle me, are the Russians. Following a century of ‘Bond’ method and a host of actual research to support them, they continue to be largely ignored by both the tf and conventional communities.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

beemandan said:


> I’ve said it before….rather than writing a series of articles promoting his theories, Randy Oliver might have gotten much better results if he had personally put his ideas into practice and then, assuming favorable results, could have demonstrated proof. As a paid contributor to ABJ, I understand his choice.
> 
> BWeaver gets a lot of ‘press’ here on Beesource, yet I don’t recall any actual, objective studies to support their marketing. In anecdotal stories…I’ve heard it both ways…yay and nay. And toss in the stories of aggressive bees….I understand why they haven’t been widely accepted.
> 
> As continues to befuddle me, are the Russians. Following a century of ‘Bond’ method and a host of actual research to support them, they continue to be largely ignored by both the tf and conventional communities.


One would be making a mistake to assume that all that needs to do be done in a commercial operation is just to replace your queens with BWeaver queens and your mite problems will go away. These are all open mated queens bred in east Texas alongside many other commercial operations. Good queens? Yes. Bulletproof? No. If you are running your bees in a static environment preferably in a situation where they have a sizable buffer between hives you may well have success. Put the same queens into the "blender" thats a commercial operation and your results will no doubt be considerably different.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

A century? Decades, maybe, but a century? I don't think so.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

sqkcrk said:


> A century? Decades, maybe, but a century? I don't think so.


The story I heard/read was that those bees were transported across Russia in the very early twentieth century to eastern Russia. During that transit they picked up varroa. When they began to collapse, beekeepers of that era had no idea what the cause might be. If not a century....then darn close....in my opinion.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I experimented with Russians and I know of some other commercials that did as well. I don't know of anyone who felt they did what most commercials wanted them to do which is to carry large hive populations through the winter and begin brooding early.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

My apologies to the op. Wasn't trying to hijack the thread with BWeaver and Russians.
My comments on Randy Oliver choosing to write rather than personally implement...still fit....in my opinion.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Then why haven't you taken steps to incorporate TF genetics into your beekeeping Beemandan. Your voice is one of constant naysaying and doubt. At least Randy is doing something to change the status quo. Which reminds me, with varroa, there is no status quo. So long as beekeepers treat for varroa, the varroa will continue to win the battle. We lost use of apistan when resistance became common. We are losing 2 other miticides which are now ineffective in at least a few locations around the world. Add in the damage miticides do to bees (Jim has a few stories to tell about one of them) and the recipe for long term failure is complete. I don't do scientific studies. I also dislike your standard quip that this is just an "anecdote". My bees do not need any treatment for varroa. Ever! My best colony made 120 pounds of surplus honey this year with a BWeaver queen's daughter mated to my line drones. She is too hot for my liking so I did not produce queens from her. I produced queens from a selected breeder queen that showed similar honey production and was not aggressive. It will take years to breed out the bad traits, but in the meantime, I'm getting honey production as good as or better than I had prior to varroa. I currently have 3 lines of queens, Carpenter, a few BWeaver, and my line. Of the three, Carpenter's have the weakest varroa resistance, yet they are resistant enough to survive without treatments. BWeaver's are still here because they have the best resistance to hive beetles. My line are the furthest along with selection pressure for non-swarming, high production, gentleness. What have you done?

I can understand Jim's point because he is in a position of having to meet certain logistic conditions for pollination and honey production. I agree that Russians do not fit the profile for his type beekeeping. I still think he could do more to incorporate TF genetics into his operation and select for the traits over time. Mark, your operation is arguably the most amenable to bringing TF genetics into the mix. Have you looked at the logistics of doing so? Here is a link to articles Randy has made public. There are a few that are not up on his site yet but have been published in ABJ.

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/articles-by-publication-date/


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Juhani Lunden said:


> A company from southern Italy selling 50000 queens every summer is using Lundén Resistant Queens.
> 10000 new queens with more resistant genes flying around Europe this summer.
> 
> And what is even more exciting they tested our queens for 2 years and other "resistant"materials too before going into such numbers.


Congratulations to you!!! And to the producer who has the foresight to test and market those genetics. You are already years ahead of Randy Oliver.

I might add that one of Randy's tenets is that beekeepers who buy queens should be willing to pay a premium for highly selected queens. I believe is already happening on a smaller scale. I was buying queens from Dann Purvis years ago….have gotten Russians and am currently buying vsh….and paying a significant premium in every case. I don’t believe that I am alone.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

beemandan said:


> The story I heard/read was that those bees were transported across Russia in the very early twentieth century to eastern Russia. During that transit they picked up varroa. When they began to collapse, beekeepers of that era had no idea what the cause might be. If not a century....then darn close....in my opinion.


My apology. That is a story I had not heard of. Would that also make Russian bees the source of the spread of varroa around the World?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> Mark, your operation is arguably the most amenable to bringing TF genetics into the mix. Have you looked at the logistics of doing so? Here is a link to articles Randy has made public. There are a few that are not up on his site yet but have been published in ABJ.
> 
> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/articles-by-publication-date/


No I have not.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

sqkcrk said:


> Would that also make Russian bees the source of the spread of varroa around the World?


I doubt it Mark. Those bees remained islolated, pretty much until the USDA began to import them.
There were many other opportunities for exposure to varroa in the ensuing decades.
Although, one would hate to miss an opportunity to blame the Russians for it.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good thread.

dan, can you give us a ball park figure on what you are paying for those 'premium highly selected queens'?

what do the rest of you think that treatment free queens coming from a reputable source with a proven track record could/should be worth on today's market.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Two or 3 dollars more than the highest priced queens available, if you want to see them sell.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> My apology. That is a story I had not heard of. Would that also make Russian bees the source of the spread of varroa around the World?


Varroa escaped from a German bee research institute and spread accross Europe. Correct me if I´m mistaken, but I remember it was cerana bees they were studying. Ironic, insn´t it.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I read a research article that used DNA to estimate the first jump of varroa to western honey bees was in the 1920's. When is not very important. It happened and we are living with the results.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> Mike Allsopp
> Conclusions
> South Africa has the varroa mite that has caused widespread collapse of honeybee colonies throughout the world, and nothing has emerged during the Varroa Research Programme to suggest that the South African situation will be any different. The mite has spread all over the country, including the wild honeybee population, and will eventually be found in all honeybee colonies in a matter of only a few years. Severe colony damage and loss is being witnessed due to the mite and associated secondary diseases.
> Left to their own devices African honeybees may be able to accommodate the mite as they appear to have done with other honeybee diseases. It is expected that large numbers of African honeybee colonies will die as a result of varroa, both in the wild and managed bee populations, but thereafter, resistance to the mite is expected to develop rapidly in these populations. As varroa-resistant bees would produce more swarms and drones, the resistance should spread through the population and simply allowing natural selection to take its course should result in African honeybees becoming tolerant to the varroa mite. The economic demand for commercial honeybee colonies will, however, dictate that beekeepers treat colonies with varroacides should honeybee losses become considerable. This will artificially sustain the susceptible honeybee population, and will retard the development and spread of a naturally-selected varroa-resistant population.
> ...


Well, after all this years we need a Randy Oliver.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

Jim Lyon is right about interbreeding from surrounding colonies making it near impossible to maintain the genetics of resistant bees. I have used an isolated breeder apiary that I don't treat for nine years. I only sell a few nucs each year, and my customers are pleased with them, but I tell them, that unless they re-queen them with resistant queens every couple of years, the genetics of the local bees will dilute the vigor of their bees. Randy's idea is good, but I can't see us changing the commercials way of doing business as long as they can sell the bees. The up-side of this problem is the ease of changing a colonies genetics, simply re-queen them with resistant queens, they can still buy the packages from the commercials.
As with many people that have bees I do it for a hobby, and we're not going to go into the TF queen rearing business on a large scale, maybe someone out there with the youth, the monetary means and the experience will.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

I've requeened scores of hives with VSH Italians and VSH Pol-Line F1 queens direct from VP Queens II breeders. They get mites and die just like any old bee. They are more aggressive and less productive than Koehnen Italians. 

Much of the Treatment Free marketing is pure guff.

The idea that some backyard beek will maintain a high-bred TF line in their little cluster of hobby hives is pure delusion. Breeding out of a small population surrounded by wild genetics results in wild genetic dominance virtually instantly. Genotypes submerge in the population average --- especially in bees, whose entire breeding system is engineered (and whose fitness is greatest) when reproducing the species average traits. Hobbyists letting bees die in a "Bond test" just results in dead bees....

A telling criticism of the Georgia Breeders concentration is they are "puppy mills" (in M. Palmer's acid phrase). TF partisans are promoting a puppy mill problem based on a much narrower genetic base. What could be more dangerously inbred than a TF stock mothered by one or two lineages. Conversely, in my experience, the California breeders are ravenously incorporating as many lineages as they can, breeding much diversity, and --objectively-- testing performance. Because hybrid lines and backcrossing are not really available to bee breeders -- some variation of a closed population model system is likely the only real path forward to actually generate distinct bee genetics (as opposed to marketing fluff with some saleable name). The Cobey effort is decades old, requires high level of management, a large base population and carefully added outside genetics. There is no short-cut to that level of effort, unless you want to make delusional abiotic claims. "Small-cell regressed bees" represents the pure-irrationality of Stalin-era Soviet Lysenko-ism.

The failure of the TF partisans to address the patent irrationality of the claims of "regressed bees" has set the entire effort to breed resistant bee a decade or more. Even today, the model "natural" hobbyist's initial question (repeated endlessly here and on the less moderated platforms of social media) is: "How do I make "small cell" bees with my foundationless frames?" This confusion about basic biology, and the pandering to crack-pot cranks who promote "magic", prevents any rational management of hobby apiaries for incorporation of resistant genetics painfully acquired by real breeding programs.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Our state apiarist more or less agrees. His version is wishing all the larger commercial operations would make 25% of their yards treatment free. He predicts we'd have mite resistant bees in a few years.

We're too small to attempt this. We are raising queens from a small breeder who has the goal of treatment free but will admit he is not there yet. His bees do seem to have some mite-fighting properties, and don't require a lot of treatment.

So we're raising bees that should be close to TF, monitoring their health and mite loads, and treating when needed. Which is not much -- zapped them with OAV in December and nothing since. This year, with all our bees being from that breeder's line, or a generation or two on, we are having a hard time finding a mite. We've got a couple of really strong hives and a couple of dinks. Work in progress.

Will big breeders answer the call? Who came up with VSH? Ankle biters? Mite crushers? Not somebody with four hives in the garden, I think.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> dan, can you give us a ball park figure on what you are paying for those 'premium highly selected queens'?


I could have gotten mid March commercial queens for $17 each. Instead I bought vsh queens…not available until April 1 and paid $23. Keep in mind…I only bought 50.
Not only did they cost more in dollars but they had two weeks less for their hives to grow.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Clayton Huestis said:


> FP The part that Bweavers has done this is a great example for others. What bothers me is that other breeders don't seem to care. I for one will probably spend my money on queens where the breeders are actively working on resistant/ TF stock.
> 
> Squarepeg, I raise my own queens every year. I bring in a little stock about every 3-5 years. Mostly Palmer stock and its been a bit even for that. Mostly time is my biggest issue. I've been pretty isolated for over 10 yrs where I mate my queens. Now I have quite a bunch of hobbyist come into my area with there package milled queens. These are good honey producers but are usually chewed up and spit out by September if not treated mid honey flow. Now sure how to work around this.


We're pretty isolated too, and we're not sure how that affects our open-mated queens. We saw exactly one honeybee at our place in the year prior to us getting bees, so there was not much feral population. The nearest outyard is close enough to be in range for mating flights, but is on the other side of a ridge, so queens can't see it to spot a likely DCA. We've lost a few swarms, so we should have feral colonies now, but they're our bees. So we assume our interbreeding is minimal. But only the bees know.

We have been trying to bring in a good queen every year or two, but never package bees. We prefer the idea of using local breeders with a good track record. We endorse the idea of starting out new hobby beekeepers with training, mentoring, and local nucs with local queens.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

The "resistant" queens are too expensive for the hobbyists in my cooperative. Locally we have no resistant queens sold, so we have to import them.
The only possibility for us is as a group for one or two to invest in better stock, breed from them and flood the area with drones. No profit. Give for free the descendants and introduce every 3-5 years pure bred queens imported.
This is our strategy. It started 3 years ago and some of the stock descendants are still alive. Those with money to spend purchase the stock. It´s wholly bee oriented, not profit oriented, though we use only gentle ( maybe a little less gentle than common) and productive ( maybe not as productive as honey selection) stock. But we shift queens if they have no surplus and are too defensive.

I´ve met some persons who kept bees ( small number of hives) for a long time and never treated them. Their hives throw swarms now and then but not every year. Most of them use Warré. 
Because of our law they are not able to make it public.
Some feed sugar, some take only surplus.

They are not interested in any science and never count mites. Their losses are not higher than average. In our bee magazine seasoned beekeepers posted who had 70% loss in spite of treating.

So it can be done. Even without special stock.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> I´ve met some persons who kept bees ( small number of hives) for a long time and never treated them. Their hives throw swarms now and then but not every year. Most of them use Warré. Because of our law they are not able to make it public. Some feed sugar, some take only surplus. They are not interested in any science and never count mites. Their losses are not higher than average.


Please give us some names, I´m interested to get into contact.


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

Never happen to be blunt about it. People are not gonna risk a livelihood for an ideal. Add on top of that that most who have the gumption to pursue don't have the time or means. The pursuit of a dollar, out of necessity mostly, affects everyone's decision making and usually not for the better


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

beemandan said:


> Congratulations to you!!! And to the producer who has the foresight to test and market those genetics. You are already years ahead of Randy Oliver.


Thanks, I´m really looking forward what we can do together in the future.

To a large scale producer even just couple more months without treatments means big savings.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Please give us some names, I´m interested to get into contact.


No. I give no names. They don´t want this. They believe in local mutts and in multiplying these themselves. If you want to support them and give queens for free, contact me. I will let one or two try them. You will get a record how the queens do. I will open a thread in my forum about them in the public area.
This will be good advertising for you if they survive two years under our conditions.
Beside me, I´m still new to this, they are experienced. I will tell them to build production hives. Let´s see if your stock survive without brood brakes and not being isolated.

I would try them myself but I trust more the elgons of Erik. He developed his own race and improves it for years now. My friend is convinced this elgon bees are most helpful with tf.
Still we see them as susceptible. Our experience is too short in time. Two more years will show it.

But I will tell them of your interest in them. They will probably be surprised if they get your "resistant" stock for free, because they don´t believe your queens to be "resistant".
You yourself posted this in your diary.
Sorry to be so blunt.

I wish you the best of luck with your commercial customers. Hopefully they are not importing the SHB.
I would really like to know if they cancelled all treatments, since acids are not looked upon as treatments here.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> I would really like to know if they cancelled all treatments, since acids are not looked upon as treatments here.


Commercial beekeepers in Southern Europes conditions, and in Central Europes conditions too, must treat their hives. But our beematerial has been the best that they have got and tested in their apiaries. Only tests are done without treatments.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Commercial beekeepers in Southern Europes conditions, and in Central Europes conditions too, must treat their hives. But our beematerial has been the best that they have got and tested in their apiaries. Only tests are done without treatments.


I will never understand this. Breeding resistant bees and then treat them. All this work in vain.
On BS there are some posts where even hobbyists say they treat their BWeaver queens. 

The usage of more resistant queens could be a win win situation.

When I first read Randy`s call I thought, well now it´s starting, the Kumbaya. He wants commercials to be tf. This would mean more resistant bee genetics around for all beekeepers. This could mean cheaper more resistant queens for hobbyists sold by the commercials. This could mean an end to the mite bomb theory. This could mean less problems with migrating for both parts and less money and time spend on treating.

I only hope that the commercials the more resistant queens are given to have a program to select for resistance when they breed queens themselves.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Sibylle, Breeding resistant bees gains the ability to treat less often or in some cases to totally stop treating. If a beekeeper is treating 4 times a year and can reduce to 1 time a year, that is a huge benefit for him and for his bees.

My experience is that there are a range of traits involved in mite resistance. VSH alone can't keep the mites at bay. Grooming alone can't do it. But when VSH and grooming traits are in a colony, that colony can go treatment free so long as mite pressure is not excessive. Juhani is on the correct path long term.

Commercial beekeepers are starting to look and listen. They would love to be able to discontinue treating for mites. It is an expense for materials and consumes a lot of time. Their time and money could be better used elsewhere.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> I will never understand this. Breeding resistant bees and then treat them. All this work in vain.
> On BS there are some posts where even hobbyists say they treat their BWeaver queens.


I remember John Kefuss saying that most of their customers treat their hives. The reason to buy "resistant" material is to help with mite problems. Mite problems are so huge, that all measures are needed.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Re the earlier questions about Russians, Russian beekeepers were first able to ship their kept hives once the trans siberian railway was completed, built under the Czar, prior to the advent of communism. Beekeepers were able to move bees into areas with a summer crop, but too harsh for winter survival, so they could move them out again.

They contracted varroa from the native bees, nobody knows just when but thought to be around a century ago. Escaped swarms found ways to survive, both the harsh winters and the varroa mites.

I suspect the reason they have not been a resounding success around the world, is that living wild, they can survive varroa as a species, but not nessecarily as individual hives. Individual hives have high, but not complete varroa resistance, but survive as a species by incessent swarming, which enables the survival of the species despite a high mortality of individual hives. This does not suit the agenda of most beekeepers. However by selectively breeding and combining with other bee types, breeders have been able to select some of their good points and mitigate some of the bad. But they have not proven the varroa mite silver bullet that had been hoped some years back.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> No. I give no names. They don´t want this. They believe in local mutts and in multiplying these themselves.


I am a little dissapointed with this.

Sure, there may be good reason not to give names.

But, no need for names. A queen can lay thousands of eggs. If these beekeepers really have bees as good as you say, should they not be willing to distribute eggs or progeny to other breeders as widely as possible? It would cost them virtually nothing. Keeping it all secret and to oneself is greedy and selfish, they do not have the interest of beekeeping in general to heart.

How is it possible to then complain about USA commercial breeders not doing enough, when claimed TF people who believe they already have the answer, actively want to stop anyone else?

OK, the excuse will be they say it has to be local. But where's the harm in sending some somewhere else, to try?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> This does not suit the agenda of most beekeepers


yep


> I am a little dissapointed with this


yep, but sadly a trend
I keep hearing about all these great bees, flowed by excuses as to why they are not being propagated or shared.
If I thought I had it, realy had it, or even just close and some one of Juhani Lunden caliber was interested in it I would be jumping at the chance


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oh I see I misunderstood something. I was not aware that Juhani wants to use our stock.

That could be possible but for sending one of our queens we need a health certificate, just as I would need one for Juhanis original queens ( which could be a problem, because we are not allowed to import queens from AFB bee yards, even if every beekeeper knows that this is stupid, because the bees are without AFB and AFB spores are everywhere).

But no one of this persons is grafting or breeding queens. They let swarm and catch those swarms . No surplus queens. But maybe I can make it possible. I will contact you then, Juhani. 

I´m not sure the "illegal" operating tf co-workers will want to invite the bee inspector. I have that courage. This inspectors are members of local bee clubs and in bee clubs my co-workers made the mistake of telling beekeepers about our doings.
I don´t think we will get health certificates. They can speak of luck they are not attacked or their beekeeping stopped or they forced to treat before the inspectors eyes.
You don´t know how much freedom you all have with beekeeping.

Dar,


> My experience is that there are a range of traits involved in mite resistance. VSH alone can't keep the mites at bay. Grooming alone can't do it. But when VSH and grooming traits are in a colony, that colony can go treatment free so long as mite pressure is not excessive. Juhani is on the correct path long term.


I´m not saying Juhani is incorrect, I respect the work, even if I do not understand why he is always introducing new lines. How can one evaluate the colonies? On BS it was posted that tf colonies must survive 5 years until there is evidence of resistance. I would rather select from my original stock then. 

Treatments have side effects and I don´t believe it´s VSH or grooming traits alone. It´s the microorganisms and feed too. The antibiotics in honey for example. And the managements.
I´m convinced IMHO, that a resistant hive can loose the resistance with the usage of treatments for a time at least.

If breeders would use treatments only with production hives and no treatments with queen breeding I would accept this. Some do this for years, like Alois Wallner with his mite biters.
I heard Bernhard Heuvel is doing it like that too, but I´m not sure.

But even Alois Wallner says the colonies with his pure bred queens act different in other locations. Why is that? Must be the hive fauna and flora. 
And Erik gives no garanty too. I like such honesty.

My aim is, and this will need years, to realize how resistance works and what are the components.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> My aim is, and this will need years, to realize how resistance works and what are the components.


 Suggest looking for several small but additive traits, not one single silver bullet.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Fusion_power said:


> Suggest looking for several small but additive traits, not one single silver bullet.


I will, thanks.
Dar, look here:

http://www.vivabiene.de/t349f49-Beh...gsfrei-am-gleichen-Bienenstand-1.html#msg3206

It´s the second time this person seems to have a surviving hive which was terribly mite infested but no virus.
He counts mites on boards.
This hive expelled ALL living drones from the colony in spring.

If this colony survives winter too, like his last one, I will have a queen from him. Local mutts.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Got a login for that site?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Clayton Huestis said:


> Can we actually expect any big breeders to answer the call?


It's a bigger ask than you probably imagine.

If it was as simple as getting a breeder from say, FP, and churning out a few thousand queens from it and selling them as treatment free to a believing customer base, no doubt breeders would do it.

But it would not be that simple.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Got a login for that site?


http://www.vivabiene.de/t318f27-Neuanmeldungen-new-members.html

push "jetzt anmelden" right top corner


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> It's a bigger ask than you probably imagine.
> 
> If it was as simple as getting a breeder from say, FP, and churning out a few thousand queens from it and selling them as treatment free to a believing customer base, no doubt breeders would do it.
> 
> But it would not be that simple.


How wonderful; ROliver is in vogue with this audacious 'call'.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks, but I'm not going to create a new login, will just have to pass on reading about the guys beehive.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Clayton Huestis said:


> Can we actually expect any big breeders to answer the call?


At the risk of repeating my Russian queen thoughts…they are a good example of a lack of large queen producer interest. 

Studied and tested and documented by the USDA. And yet the large scale producers never jumped on the bandwagon. Often cited as reasons are that the desirable traits quickly disappear when the bees mate with non Russian stock. Those same hybrids are reputed to be testy at best. Slow to build up in spring…making them unsuitable for Almond pollination. 

Why would anyone expect that bees selected using the Randy Oliver method fare any better? He recommends relatively isolated mating areas. Focusing on mite resistance. How many other commercial beekeeper desired traits will get lost in that relatively confined gene pool? And, once those queens are moved into the general population….how long or well will their mite resistant traits exist? 

I might add…just because I don’t immediately jump onto some popular bandwagon shouldn’t label me as a ‘naysayer’. Call it caution from experience. I’ve tried small cell, foundationless, feral yards, treatment free yards, Dann Purvis queens, Russian queens and now VSH. Simply because I don’t embrace your opinions….with wild abandon….doesn’t make me the enemy.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Thanks, but I'm not going to create a new login, will just have to pass on reading about the guys beehive.



Don´t fear, I´m posting his experience in my thread even if his hive fails. I´m waiting for more information. I don´t fear comments like: he got what he deserved. No tries, no learning.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

beemandan said:


> Call it caution from experience. I’ve tried small cell, foundationless, feral yards, treatment free yards, Dann Purvis queens, Russian queens and now VSH.


And others have the right to make such experience too and be respected for that, just as those who abandoned their efforts want to be respected.
Beekeeping is local. Beekeeping is what the beekeeper does with managements.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

SiWolKe said:


> And others have the right to make such experience too and be respected for that, just as those who abandoned their efforts want to be respected.


Absolutely! And...I don't think you will find me calling those that disagree with me unflattering names. And....in my case....I haven't abandoned the effort to find a better or more resistant bee.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> I was not aware that Juhani wants to use our stock


not sure what his intentions are, but I dought it was to turn you in to the bee police.
Any exchange of information or genetics would likely benefit the cause 



> But no one of this persons is grafting or breeding queens. *snip* No surplus queens.





> The "resistant" queens are too expensive for the hobbyists in my cooperative


Seems to be a strong trend in TF world 
Please take this as an observation not a value statement. If the true believers that have “the right stuff” aren’t willing to make a few extra queens and those that don’t have it aren’t willing to pay a premium for TF stock this isn’t going any were

If we aren’t willing to do it ourselves or pay someone to do it why should a large scale producer take interest?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

You are so right msl.

I will do it, my forum admin and friend just now breeds queens and one co-worker we will maybe convince.

But I will not pest others to go my way. Everyone is free to decide this himself. Not everyone wants to dedicate himself to a cause. It works with them, so they are content in their lives.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

SiWolKe said:


> So it can be done. Even without special stock.


The take I have after following the debate for years;
To be commercial the critical criteria is mobile and resilient. A trucker mom, not a stay at home mom.
Can one be the other, or raise the other?


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

So we shouldn't expect much help from commercial breeders. Unless they have already committed in that direction. Well that will make choosing queen breeders easy I guess. If there not making progress towards resistant stock just gonna cross them off the list. With so many people selling queens these days why spend money on anything that's not going in the right direction.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

If only there was some way to make those darned commercial guys see the light.....


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Clayton Huestis said:


> With so many people selling queens these days why spend money on anything that's not going in the right direction.


That being the case, is where I get confused in these discussions. Why is there a problem or why keep buying queens you don't like?


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

No they need to feed there families I get that. But I do feel more could be done by some of them.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

OT- I plan on buying queens I do like. I believe you said yourself its not enough to just re-queen. Its about drones and dominating areas with proper stock to maintain traits. Absorbing any hobbyist stock that comes along so that it has little impact on thing. That's a big challenge! My handful of hives isn't gonna do much. That's why we need commercials to be on board or it will be like trying to cross the ocean on a surf board.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

I am honestly not sure that a common bee is possible or desirable. Much of what makes a commercial bee is contrary to the bee's benefit. A local bee cannot out grow it's habitat. A commercial bee has to be on an almost self destructive rush to increase, in part successful because it will be transported to the next peak flow. A home bee is better off and required to diversify it's pollen source. Not so with a commercial bee, a farmer wants to see bees on his crop, not off pollinating weeds. A commercial needs to breed a bee that will do that and deal with the result.

How much genetics are co tied to other traits I do not pretend to have a clue. One wants a race horse and one a plow horse. Both want a bee that will take care of itself, beyond that common goal, judgement is not helpful toward common interests.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

jim lyon said:


> If only there was some way to make those darned commercial guys see the light.....


 good one jim.

with the going rate for a queen at $20 it's hard to see how those of us sideline beekeepers having success off treatments can justify the time and the resources it takes to crank out significant numbers of them.

i am self sustaining and generally have a few surplus colonies that i sell locally, but that's not much more than a drop in the bucket. some buddies and i are talking about ramping it up post retirement but that's a few years away.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Somewhere between $200+ in$trumentally in$eminated breeder queens and $20 bulk queens there ought to be a niche for queens with a really strong pedigree that can improve your stock, for people content to raise their own queens for the most part.

We paid $30 for our last one from our favorite small local breeder. Our best queen ever (with the possible exception of one of her grand daughters) was given to us. $60 would not bother me if I had a reasonable chance to be getting a queen as good as one of those.

We've had sorry luck with bulk-produced $20 queens. I don't think we've had one survive the summer. We started in 2014, so I'm not talking about the Good Old Days.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I could only take a guess at the percentage but I can tell you lots and lots of commercially raised queens originate from high dollar AI breeders.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

jim lyon said:


> I could only take a guess at the percentage but I can tell you lots and lots of commercially raised queens originate from high dollar AI breeders.


Yeah, but you never get their back story from a big commercial outfit that sends out boxes of them to your local bee supplier. Chatting with a small local breeder in his living room for half a hour gives you a much better tale. You do know that every used car dealer knows to give you a story to go with your used car, right?

So I know our last purchase started with VSH genetics (I believe from VP Queens), with other traits mixed in, and reared locally for some generations with selection for mite resistance and honey production. They're open mated, but he's attempted to saturate the breeding area with his bees. My own observation is that they appear to have a grooming trait as well as VSH, and tend to keep mite populations very low by themselves.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Phoebee said:


> Somewhere between $200+ in$trumentally in$eminated breeder queens and $20 bulk queens there ought to be a niche for queens with a really strong pedigree that can improve your stock,


There are a multitude of queen producers that do so. There are the vsh folks....NWC folks...the Russian queen breeders, Michael Palmer.....Old Sol...heck pick up a copy of the ABJ and you'll find plenty. They just aren't the BIG producers.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Here's the thing, many of our large or well known breeding operations claim they select for mite resistance and perhaps don't treat their breeders or are selling TF survivor stock as perhaps they don't treat in their operation at all. I have no issues with this approach except that all these stocks seem to mite out rather easily when I get them..... so there's the large elephant in the room so to speak when claims are made, their business names are highly regarded but yet, for me, there seems to be absolutely no resistance to varroa at all in many of these lines. 

On the flip side, the TF FB group single mindedly preaches locally adapted bees claiming some sort of evolutionary causality of change miraculously takes place when you stop treating for mites. Of course most cling to a simple notion that natural selection over a few generations or a couple years is somehow equal to evolution and perhaps I try to remind them time to time that selecting for allele combinations that may provide a local advantage is not really evolution as nothing novel is created in the process on the species level. I believe a truly evolved form of resistance should give much better results than what we see on a regional level of bees having success in some areas and not in others or once moved to a different location they become susceptible again.

Another thing I notice is no one is really willing to put their money where their mouth is so to speak, and this is more on small commercial or sideliner level. You hear of success or people have success, but never want to see how it holds up in areas with high pressure.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> all these stocks seem to mite out rather easily when I get them..... so there's the large elephant in the room so to speak when claims are made,


Exactly. Nobody wants to change his beekeeping methods.
That´s the arrogance of mankind: the bees ( or nature) must adapt to beekeepers not the other way around. 

So even with sideliners or small beekeepers having the resistant bee nobody in the commercial world be interested in their queens even if this colonies would have all the traits wanted.

And the big breeders..well they want to sell. A big problem to them , the hobbyists having resistant bees....probably.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

In fact the big breeders ARE on board. It's just not as easy as many think.

To illustrate, look what happened to ex moderator SP. Few years back he had bees he claimed where bullet proof, "you just can't kill them" he would say. Next, one of his apiaries lost most of it's hives and then he put the rest on a trailer and moved across country, and over the next couple years lost nearly all his bees, if not all of them. This was a line he'd been bond selecting for 10 years. SP was also the most vocal critic I have come across of commercial beekeepers, he had the idea they should just stop treating and the world would come right. 

So how does a commercial breeder send bees around the country and claim they are bullet proof? These are commercial guys not stupid enough to make such claims, but they do take mite resistance into consideration. They also have to produce a bee that will make their commercial purchasers money, or they would only be selling to the hobby market which is not very profitable, if at all.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I agree Oldtimer, and I'm not going to knock anyone specifically or name names, but even some of the highly regarded CA bees don't hold up at all and those are semi locally adapted. I also saw some article yesterday that was published talking about how our bee stocks are becoming too inbred as well and may not be able to develop any types of resistance. It seemed to highlight the WSU/Cobey initiative to bring in old world genetics and re-establishing some diversity, but I'm not really going to voice an opinion on that matter as of yet. I did like their bees when I tried them but there was nothing mite resistant about them but I think there was some tolerance potential in some of the daughters. I kind of forgot about them this year but definitely need to get some more bees from them and possibly a Caucasian breeder to further establish some diversity in my yards. 

I do recognize that local adaptation may play a role as well, but not so much in varroa tolerance/resistance, but more so in areas that deal with the various local stressors.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Much of the thread reflects woeful misunderstanding of what commercials are actually doing. There is an implicit "holier than thou" criticism of commercial beekeeping as if it is somehow backwards.

The truth is exactly opposite. For instance, Darrel Rufer, as hard-boiled a commercial as any, used the U of M/BeeInformed tech teams to select hygenics for graft out thousands of candidates. This is the scale --- the only scale --- at which genetics can be shifted. All the hobby stuff is irrelevant, and blows away like dust motes just like Solomon's "bombproof" hives did. 

I am attaching a FB image of the Darrel Rufer selection sheet and process === to demonstrate what mass selection actually looks like.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> This is the scale --- the only scale --- at which genetics can be shifted.


 No, it isn't. Mass selection is also an effective way to change fundamental genetics. It requires intense selection pressure. Varroa provides just such intense pressure. Read the results Kefuss published if you want to argue this point. I would also argue that a small beekeeper can change the genetics of his bees so long as he can dominate the genetics of the area.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

JWChesnut said:


> The truth is exactly opposite. For instance, Darrel Rufer, as hard-boiled a commercial as any, used the U of M/BeeInformed tech teams to select hygenics for graft out thousands of candidates. This is the scale --- the only scale --- at which genetics can be shifted.


Do you think they would consider making part of their beekeeping TF, say 10%?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Hmm just realised the SP I referred to in post #69 has the same initials as Squarepeg. So just want to point out it is NOT Squarepeg.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> So how does a commercial breeder send bees around the country and claim they are bullet proof?


But they do, OT, almost all do, just as almost all traits are seen as bullet proof!
Show me honey production strains which produce honey without flow area!

This thread is nice because it confirmed my thoughts that all beekeeping is local, purchased "resistant" bees are no advantage and migrating will destroy resistance.

We as hobbyist can use our funds to purchase equipment instead of queens.

I don´t now why you attack SP in such a way. Everybody knows the bees need some time to adapt to new surroundings.
http://forum.tfbees.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1241

He did just what all of us tf would do and what even treaters would do.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

The Danka paper, *Expression of Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) in Commercial VSH
Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)* ROBERT G. DANKA,1 JEFFREY W. HARRIS, AND JOSE´ D. VILLA
is essential reading. 
This paper evaluated queens from multiple sources (ARS "pure" VSH, the Glenn commercial stock, and multiple unnamed accessions from breeding outfits. The one accession that was F2--- the wild mated daughter of a wild mated daughter was no difference than the control queen data. In two generations, without controlling drone mating, any VSH evaporates from the population. This is the backyard hive situation in a nutshell.









Full paper at: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...mercial-VSH-Honey-Bees-Hymenoptera-Apidae.pdf


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> I don´t now why you attack SP in such a way. Everybody knows the bees need some time to adapt to new surroundings.


But you do understand what I meant, because you said it. If SP's bees could not be moved to a different area without dying, how does a commercial breeder sell TF bees to different areas without them doing badly or dying either?

I am illustrating that it is not as easy for a breeder to do, as some think it should be. SP, who was always telling commercial beekeepers where they were going wrong, couldn't do it. IE, it is not as simple as he thought, before he tried it.

To put it another way, commercial breeders selling bees to commercial beekeepers, have to sell them a bee that can be moved around the country without dying. Because that's what commercial beekeepers do, most of them are migratory and cannot lose most of their bees every time they are moved. The TF bees that up and die if they are moved will not meet the need.

These are the challenges for a commercial breeder. It is not just, stop treating, and in 5 years everything will be the same but you don't treat. 10 years of bond produced a bee that dies if it's moved.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> This thread is nice because it confirmed my thoughts that all beekeeping is local, purchased "resistant" bees are no advantage and migrating will destroy resistance.


So you think that when a beekeeper in in southernmost corner of Europe finds queens from a breeder in the northernmost part of Europe best and most suitable for his conditions, that that is a proof of beekeeping being local?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Juhani, I think this gets down to differences in regional areas with most having mite susceptible background populations while a limited number of areas have mite resistant background populations. Mite pressure in susceptible areas is so high that resistant genetics are overcome.

Put another way, the overwhelming number of commercial colonies of mite susceptible bees in California makes it nearly impossible for treatment free genetics to take hold. On a larger scale, this is playing out around the world. I am fortunate to live in an area where migratory beekeeping has little or no impact. This made it relatively easy for me to swing the background population to mite resistant genetics.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Juhani Lunden said:


> So you think that when a beekeeper in in southernmost corner of Europe finds queens from a breeder in the northernmost part of Europe best and most suitable for his conditions, that that is a proof of beekeeping being local?


In my humble situation I have yet to see that. So far we are happy with those queens but we have them because we could not have better queens from other sources, and because all seasoned beekeepers ( especially those on BS) tell us we must have "resistant" bred stock which maybe is just a good marketing strategy.

But most of our hives have F1 or F2 or even F3 or mutts they are now, so you might say with open matings they are adapted to locale.

We have our own theories about defense behavior but I´m not telling you anymore. Too much energy lost with discussion. I rather use the energy for trying to make my bee´s life better so they are not as susceptible.

OT, do you remember Bartek, or Bees Of Poland? He tried every "resistant" queen he could have access to but saw no resistance.
Now he bred from his one survivor and got some local colonies. He is up to 42 hives again.
I`m glad he is still my friend after the experience on BS. I like to follow his process.

I find it interesting OT you critizise people being dedicated to tf in a tf forum, you a treater and leaving this path. No offense meant


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> OT, do you remember Bartek, or Bees Of Poland? He tried every "resistant" queen he could have access to but saw no resistance.
> Now he bred from his one survivor and got some local colonies. He is up to 42 hives again.
> I`m glad he is still my friend after the experience on BS. I like to follow his process.


 I would also like to hear how he is doing! 

Only one survived?
What was the one survivor? 
Where did he get those local colonies, and how many?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

SiWolKe I have been a commercial breeder. This thread is about commercial breeders. I sent thousands of bees to both Canada and other countries. I am perfectly placed to comment in this thread. 

My illustrations from the experiences of a highly regarded TF beekeeper who has very much been telling commercial beekeepers what to do without trying it himself, are to illustrate the pitfalls. His own bees all died, but he thinks the ones he has been critisizing, commercial beekeepers, should step in and put it all to rights, just as easy as that.

Oh and the latest on Sol, he has once again claimed he has recovered from the crash and got up to around 30 hives. Same thing he has said every year for the last several years. He is now running a givealittle page to try to get money. Supposedly for research, but really to buy himself equipment and turn himself into a bigger beekeeper. To me, seems he doesn't need more equipment he needs to keep bees alive. Do that and they are productive, the bees themselves supply the money for increase.

Anyhow here's the givealittle page, going a bit slow for a person with so many internet friends
https://www.gofundme.com/smallcell


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Juhani Lunden said:


> I would also like to hear how he is doing!
> 
> Only one survived?
> What was the one survivor?
> Where did he get those local colonies, and how many?


You can follow him here and contact him. I use a translator if I don´t write mails.:
http://pantruten.blogspot.de

OT, thanks for the link! I did not know about this and will support this with a donation for sure! Love the idea!


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Oldtimer said:


> He is now running a givealittle page to try to get money.Supposedly for research,


Interesting, to say the least. From that page:



> 2. The researchers often had trouble achieving small cell comb at all, sometimes having to resort to plastic comb, which totally destroys any credible comparison with wax comb.


I thought he was making a case for small cell vs. large cell. Now it's also wax vs. plastic? I do notice he says "comb", not foundation. Who makes the SC comb and is it clear in the studies what brand of sc comb was used?

Farther down, he states:



> For the users of small cell methods, this study could possibly provide scientific justification for what we have known for years, that hives on small cell foundation seem to suffer less


Now he's using the term "foundation." The reason I question his use of "plastic comb" is I remember working with Ed and Dee 15 years ago trying to get someone to make sc plastic foundation. Dadant was the first to manufacture it. If plastic is taboo for sc, why did its founders endorse it?


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> Everybody knows the bees need some time to adapt to new surroundings.


"Everybody" doesn't know that. "Locally adapted" is a buzz word among the TF marketing juggernaut. Adaptation, in a genetic sense, doesn't occur in one, or even ten, generations. Populations have huge inertial pressure to retain their species genetics, genetic drift occurs only under very specialized circumstances.

It is a postulate of Fusion Power that the selective pressure of Varroa exceeds the conservatism of the population to change. However, population genetics are chaotic -- not every beneficial morph survives, and not every poorly adapted genotype perishes -- if the level of chaos in the system exceeds the selective advantage -- nothing happens.

I maintain that bee colonies chaotically suffer mortality at a rate that exceeds the selection heritability. This conservatism is at the core of the bee breeding system for fitness reasons (and thus is fundamental to the organism).

It appears that Solomon has abandoned the "Fusion Power" idea that an advantageous lineage needs to be "expanded" and has retreated to the simple and crude expedient of trapping the random swarm to refill his depleted apiary. Collecting random swarms generates random genotypes, and abandons any of the heritable benefits of careful selection.

Entropy in genetics is much faster than selection. This is the conceptual omission that bedevils much TF theory. If a resistant bee requires the co-ordinated interaction of 20 alleles, and the random loss of one or two disables the capacity, then the bee's resistance submerges into the background on the first or second outbreeding. This is exactly the pattern seen in the empirical research ---- by II or careful selection from thousands of candidates one can develop a "resistant" trait --- but one loses the trait as soon as the bees breed out into a pool of 4 hives in someones backyard.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

yet Kefuss had maternal line stable stock. Perhaps we are barking up the wrong tree with VHS

As for SP I am not sure it was the bees failure to adapt to Denver as much as it was his failure to adapt his beekeeping to Colorado and he chewed threw his resources. 


> I'm starting to feel like splits shouldn't go into full size hives, maybe I should keep them in nucs for the time being, but I'd have to be out there every week





> the last time I tried to split anything, I did 12 and only got 1 out of the deal





> My attempted splitting of my last remaining all-medium hive resulted in 7 queenless nucs





> pauper splits haven't been working either. Lesson learned. In Arkansas, you could do it, the temperature often stayed above 80 at night, so during late spring, there were never any problems with chilled brood. A tiny split could not only survive, but thrive immediately.


Put a frame or 2 in fullsized equipment during a denver spring and things arn't going to turn out well , chances of them not dieing is slim, much less razing their own queen . I lost 2 good sized swarms this spring do to a late may snow storm, even tho I put feed on them it wasn't enuf and the starved and froze.

Flip side
If a stock is so inbread and weak to the point that a change of location wipes it out, what good is it? How is it any better than treated stock at that point?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Barry said:


> I thought he was making a case for small cell vs. large cell. Now it's also wax vs. plastic? I do notice he says "comb", not foundation.


IMO
There is a difference and even a difference with plastic foundations versus wax small cell foundations.

My experience , or ours, since I follow my friend in this ( four years, only worker brood cells) is that the claim, bees need to "learn" how to build sc on plastic comb, hatching bees are smaller, is not correct. Bees are not even smaller, they are small or bigger depending on how much protein they have in their bodies and this depends on the season and the flow situation.

They do not "learn" this, it´s in the genes and depends on race and season and maybe climate zone.
The carniolans regressed on plastic combs built 4.9- 5.2 in the center of worker brood nests on wax sc foundation.

My AMM, the original south queen, build big cell, even given an empty frame in the center of worker brood nests. These queen`s ancestors are forced on sc foundations for 20 years, still they built big cell on natural comb.
If this makes a difference in health I will see. It´s just one part of the research I do.

The carniolan big cell swarm I have built the same cell size, 4.9-5.2, as the bees regressed with plastic comb and kept on sc foundation. I have natural comb and foundation sc in and they are the same.

The elgons are an exception. They built small cell as natural comb. They had been on small cell wax foundations, I´ve got F1 and now F2, they both built sc.

It´s very difficult to do such research because of the environmental circumstances and the seasonal changes. So I need more time.

I´m personally convinced if Sol wants to proof that sc improves the health and that bees build small cell natural comb if you let them, he will fail.
I believe small cell to be a part of it maybe but it´s not the golden nugget.

And that will be the problem with the commercial beekeepers. If small cell makes bees resistant, they would be convinced to use small cell and go tf. But sc is not enough and beekeeping methods will not change.

But I support such research because I find it very helpful to end the controversy.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> If a stock is so inbread and weak to the point that a change of location wipes it out, what good is it? How is it any better than treated stock at that point?


 All beekeeping is local. The reason we have geographically adapted races of bees today is because the bees adapt to the region they live in. I would still generally agree with you that any bee that is going to be hyped as mite resistant needs to be resistant in multiple climatic regions.

JWC is back with the standard fare of pseudo-genetic jingoism. It must be galling that SquarePeg, myself, and plenty of others stand as direct counter examples of his raison d'être. JWC, when I went treatment free in 2005, the bees in this area were clearly susceptible to mites. I caught swarms in 2004 that went down to mites in 2005. What changed? I got enough mite resistant genetics into my apiary to push swarms into the local area. I estimate 50 to 70 swarms deliberately let go feral in 2006 and 2008. Those feral swarms made a buffer between the susceptible bees and my mite resistant bees. Now I don't have to worry about mites. If I catch a feral swarm, they are always mite resistant. How do you explain Kefuss' results? His methods are counter to your postulate that micro sampling is required to make progress with breeding.

Solomon Parker's reference to plastic combs is aimed at Seeley's attempt to compare survival of bees on small cell vs large cell by establishing comparison apiaries. Seeley had difficulty getting the bees to accept small cell wax foundation and eventually resorted to Mann Lake PF120's to do his study (Edit: as noted below, it was Honey Super Cell fully drawn frames, not PF120's). There was a lot of discussion here about the relevance of doing a comparison study under controlled conditions when the material at the base of the study was not identical. While I generally agree that bees on wax foundation do not behave the same as bees on plastic, I do not see reason to throw out the study. I ran small cell for 10 years side by side with large cell and found no difference in survival of my bees. There was a significant problem with bees re-working the 4.9 cells to larger sizes, especially into drone size. This also occurs with 5.4 cells, but not to the same degree. The effect of small cell on mite resistance is indirect by permitting the bees to out-breed the mites in early spring. The numbers I have are that 5.1 cells speed up spring expansion by 8 percent, 4.9 cells by 17 percent, and 1 1/4 inch frame spacing gives another 10% which combined gives 29 percent faster spring buildup. Since I am using 5.1 cells with 1 1/4 frames, I get 19% faster buildup. Do some due diligence, this will stand up to rigorous tests. What Seeley was missing was bees with genetic resistance to mites. Had he performed his study with mite resistant bees in an area that was saturated with mite resistant feral colonies, the results would have been equally disruptive.



> I maintain that bee colonies chaotically suffer mortality at a rate that exceeds the selection heritability. This conservatism is at the core of the bee breeding system for fitness reasons (and thus is fundamental to the organism).


 This is one of those erudite sayings that does not stand up to scrutiny. Selection pressure over time overrides reversion to mean. If mites continually kill off susceptible bees so that they do not reproduce, then a time will come when the only bees left are mite resistant. Data from South Africa shows that it works. SA did not go on a massive treat the bees program for mites. After three years, the susceptible bees were gone. Now their bees are all genetically resistant to mites. I am not saying this would work the same way in the U.S. Our bees are not the same as the bees in SA where Scutellata and Capensis dominate the genetics.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> Seeley had difficulty getting the bees to accept small cell wax foundation and eventually resorted to Mann Lake PF120's to do his study.


It was honey super cell, I believe. Not only plastic but the cells are actually molded drawn.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> The effect of small cell on mite resistance is indirect by permitting the bees to out-breed the mites in early spring. The numbers I have are that 5.1 cells speed up spring expansion by 8 percent, 4.9 cells by 17 percent, and 1 1/4 inch frame spacing gives another 10% which combined gives 29 percent faster spring buildup. Since I am using 5.1 cells with 1 1/4 frames, I get 19% faster buildup. Do some due diligence, this will stand up to rigorous tests.


If I’m reading this right…you are stating that using smaller cell sizes to 4.9 or 5.1 and increases the number of brood reared? You’re saying that the lower cell sizes allow the queen to lay more eggs each day by as much as 17% and by reducing frame spacing she will be able to lay an additional 10%? For example a queen who is capable of laying 1500 eggs per day on conventional foundation would lay 1900 eggs on 4.9 with 1.25in frames? And you are saying that you’ve actually measured this?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Other problem with Sol's "study" is he has already stated what he believes the results will be. And we know what happens when studies are run by people who already have a bias, they tend to get the reults they are wanting.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

SiWolKe said:


> The carniolan big cell swarm I have built the same cell size, 4.9-5.2, as the bees regressed with plastic comb and kept on sc foundation. I have natural comb and foundation sc in and they are the same.


Hi Sybille -

This may sound picky, but there is a big difference between comb and foundation. You say "plastic comb." Do you mean wax comb built on plastic foundation or actual plastic comb?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> If I’m reading this right…you are stating that using smaller cell sizes to 4.9 or 5.1 and increases the number of brood reared?


 The spring cluster can only cover so much brood whether in 5.4 cells or in 4.9 cells. Buildup is faster because the cluster can cover more cells of 4.9 for a given size cluster. This permits the queen to lay more eggs up to her max capacity. The result is a colony that hits peak population in 7 or 8 weeks vs 10 to 12 weeks on regular combs.

Dadant understood this effect though I don't think he figured out why it exists. He set comb spacing at 1.5 inches because it reduces swarming. The reason it reduces swarming is because the cluster on 1.5 inch frames can't cover as much brood as the same cluster on frames with 1 3/8 or 1 1/4 spacing. Bees at 1.5 inch spacing build up slower and therefore are less likely to swarm because their peak population occurs after the main flow has started.

Since I am using 1 1/4 spacing and 5.1 foundation, I have the opposite problem to deal with. Buildup starts about the 1st of February. By the end of March, my bees have hit peak population.... 3 weeks before the main flow. Therefore I have to take extra steps to control swarming, usually by pulling a 3 frame nuc from the strongest hives.

Yes I have tested this and yes I have proven that it works. I did so by running colonies side by side on 1 1/4 frames and on 1 3/8 frames starting in 1977. I put a bunch of colonies on small cell in 2005 and compared small vs large cell in narrow frames and in regular Langstroth 1 3/8 frames for 10 years. The results are very clear and very obvious. With narrow frames and small cell, I have to pull nucs by the 25th of March to keep my bees out of the trees. With 1 3/8 frames and 5.4 cells, I can be lazy and wait until mid April to pull nucs.

So yes, narrow frames and small cell speed up spring buildup but it also speeds up swarming which totally wipes out the benefits if swarm control is not practiced.


I dug out this quote from Seeley's paper. You are correct that it was honey super cell.


> the other package in each pair was installed in a hive containing frames of small-cell comb built of plastic (Honey Super Cell, Westmorland, CA,USA). (Note: We used plastic combs to be certain that the colonies that received the small-cell treatment had only small cells in their combs.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> The results are very clear and very obvious. With narrow frames and small cell, I have to pull nucs by the 25th of March to keep my bees out of the trees. With 1 3/8 frames and 5.4 cells, I can be lazy and wait until mid April to pull nucs.


It’s one thing to make generalized observations and express opinions such as this.
It’s entirely another to assign it specific numbers in an attempt to lend credibility to your opinon.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It has been claimed that running brood frames wider (9 per box) slows swarming considerably.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Oldtimer said:


> It has been claimed that running brood frames wider (9 per box) slows swarming considerably.


And it may do so.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

In my experience, mite treatment free beekeeping is a very site specific condition. I tried it for 4 years. I lost over half my bees every winter. 

I started with the same genetic line that squarepeg has. I bought queens from Carpenter, I bought 2 queens last year from Fusion Powers line, and I bought 5 queens from Frost. All TF beekeepers. I've raised queens from at least one queen from every source I got them from. I can maintain TF status until I raise my own queens. When I raise them and open mate them here, maybe one out of 5 will survive without mite treatments. 

That's not anecdotal evidence, that's just the way it is. After dealing with AFB this spring which sucked, I have had a great bee year. My bees have been very productive as I'm sure most in the area have been. After getting down to 7 hives post AFB burn, I have built back to 24 hives now and I have been very deliberate in my splitting process. I have not pushed to split as I have in the past. My bees are doing well and I am minimally treating for mites. I have not treated for mites since this past winter, when I used OAV during a broodless period. I have hives that had counts in the 3-4 range 3 months ago that are still doing well. That's one plus of using the stock that others have been successfully treatment free with. My bees will handle a higher mite load than others or at least they handle more mites than I read about without crashing. They will still crash, but it takes a higher mite load to do it. I intend to do an OAV treatment this summer, if they take a brood break. I WILL treat before fall buildup and I am going to treat every hive before mid August. Unless something changes I will have to do a treatment with brood in the hives. Abundant brood. I am uncertain of what I will use. 

I think there is a better way to approach finding a commerically viable true TF bee than by letting bees die, or by bankrupting commercial beeks. I think finding bees that already survive with minimal treatments will be easier than finding bees that can survive in any locale with no treatments. Once bees are found that can survive in multiple locations with minimal treatments, then take those bees and find the ones that can survive in multiple locations with no treatments.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Brad, IIRC, you have another beekeeper less than 2 miles away with a large apiary of treated bees. That is bound to have an effect.

We are getting a brood break now. One of my colonies was hauling larvae out and dumping them this morning.

Your way of splitting is more pragmatic. It is close to the method I am using except that my focus is on producing strong nucs for winter. I suggest not splitting any more for now. Bees will rob out any weak nucs until the fall flow starts.



> It’s one thing to make generalized observations and express opinions such as this. It’s entirely another to assign it specific numbers in an attempt to lend credibility to your opinon.


 It will stand up to scrutiny. Put it under a microscope and test to your heart's content. Look back at my post history. You will find when I started having to control swarming. I don't have to "lend credibility". The results speak for themselves.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Yes, within a few miles. Treats prophylactically for mites and with antibiotics.

I checked 12 nucs today and added a 2nd 5 frame box on top of each. These were splits started around a month ago. Right around the first of June. 
If they had more stores in the nucs I think all of them would be in swarm mode. They are packed with bees. I had replaced a frame in 3 of them last weekend. I put in a frame of foundation. Those were all completely drawn out and contained larvae, nectar and pollen. So here they are still drawing comb, have capped drone brood and have worker brood in various stages from one wall to the other. At least all those nucs did. I have not checked a large hive lately. We still have hundreds of acres around with white clover in bloom. There's one pasture about 1/2 mile up the road that has so much clover blooming the whole pasture looks white. All this rain has really made for a weird year here. 

I was very surprised to see those frames of drawn comb. I know I haven't been doing this for 5 years, but this is by far the latest in the year, by a good 4 weeks, that I have had comb being drawn without feeding.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Brad Bee said:


> After dealing with AFB this spring which sucked, I have had a great bee year. My bees have been very productive as I'm sure most in the area have been. After getting down to 7 hives post AFB burn, I have built back to 24 hives now and I have been very deliberate in my splitting process.


Just that achievement is great evidence you are on the right track.



Brad Bee said:


> Yes, within a few miles. Treats prophylactically for mites and with antibiotics.


With antibiotics? My understanding is prophylatic treatment with antibiotics is most often used by outfits contaminated by AFB. Could maybe explain what happened to you.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> With antibiotics? My understanding is prophylatic treatment with antibiotics is most often used by outfits contaminated by AFB. Could maybe explain what happened to you.


Yes, he runs them often. I didn't hear that out of his mouth, but his wife told me he did. I would think that was evidence of having dealt with AFB on his part. The state inspector checked his hives and told me they all looked good. Of course, antibiotics are going to cover up AFB, so I don't know what he was expecting to find. When I had AFB, the state wanted to know any beekeeper that I knew within a 3 mile radius. I told them about this guy. After checking the hives, he texted me and told me the guy was 7 miles from my apiary. I didn't argue with him, but the guy is 2.2 miles from my farm "as the bee flies." He is 7 miles away when driving. I don't think bees drive....


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It's not just the 2.2 miles. It's that infected swarms can leave and cause issues. Is antibiotics legal where you are?

In my country, making antibiotic treatment of bees illegal, and shook swarming illegal, was a major step forwards in getting AFB under control.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Yes antibiotics are legal, only with prescription now, unless they were on hand prior to this year. You can't treat an infected hive, you can only treat other hives in the yard to keep them from getting it, by law any way. If a hive tests positive, by law they have to be burned. Catch 22 with that is unless the beekeeper reports it, nobody is going to know. The state doesn't do routine visits to apiaries as far as I know. At least I had never been checked until I called them and told them I had AFB.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well, sorry for your situation. Hope the guy moves, or sorts his crap. Meantime I'd be putting as much distance as I could, hard I know when you have an otherwise nice site.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The only time I had AFB was when I was given some old but serviceable equipment by a commercial beekeeper. it turned out to have AFB. He was treating yearly with antibiotics so he never saw it. I burned 2 colonies of very strong Italian bees to learn that lesson.

I have not used antibiotics in my bees in about 20 years. I still have a bag with about a pound of terramycin in a cabinet. It is so old I should throw it away. Come to think of it, I still have a pack of 10 Apistan strips that I bought in 2004. Time to get rid of them too.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Barry said:


> I thought he was making a case for small cell vs. large cell. Now it's also wax vs. plastic? I do notice he says "comb", not foundation. Who makes the SC comb and is it clear in the studies what brand of sc comb was used?


Pretty sure that what Sol would have been referring to was a small cell vs large cell study, where the researchers were not able to find enough small cell wax comb with no large cells or other faults in it. So instead they resorted to a completely built plastic comb with all cells of exactly the right size. The problem was that being plastic, the cell walls were thicker than a bee built wax comb would have been, meaning the larval density per square inch was less than would be in a natural comb. This was used to explain why the study did not get the results that small cell proponents would have liked. And who knows, maybe they are right. 

I actually agree with Sol on one thing, and that is that none of these studies have been done properly, they all have some flaw in the method, or at the least, something that can be used by people who do not like the results, to claim a problem with the study. If Sol gets around to do his study he may get different results, but they will most likely also be dismissed due to probable lack of independant oversight, and his own obvious prejudices.

The small cell thing itself is also getting a bit old, there are people who have success with it, there are people who have natural comb and put their success down to the small cells they thought they had until they measured and found they were larger, and there are people like FP who do fine with or without it. Then there are people like me who went small cell and failed totally. One thing I can guarantee is that small cells alone are not a fix for varroa mites.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> One thing I can guarantee is that small cells alone are not a fix for varroa mites.


 Several people here would argue about that, but I am in 100% agreement. There is a place for small cell. I like the results I get with it. That is why I put in a lot of time, effort, and money requesting Dadant make 200 pounds in 10 5/8 width for me.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Barry said:


> Hi Sybille -
> 
> This may sound picky, but there is a big difference between comb and foundation. You say "plastic comb." Do you mean wax comb built on plastic foundation or actual plastic comb?


Hi Barry, no not picky, thanks for correcting.

It was with plastic comb. Only cappings were wax. Later they were on 4.9 wax foundations.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Dar,
many thanks for posting again all this data. It supports what I see.



> So yes, narrow frames and small cell speed up spring buildup but it also speeds up swarming which totally wipes out the benefits if swarm control is not practiced.


This is most interesting to us because we will just use it in the opposite way, to support swarming. 
To us, the benefit is mite control via brood brake, but I understand your position.

So maybe such managements, using sc in restricted space could lead to the false evaluation of thinking a line swarmy.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

That all depends on what the "Benefits" are... 
honey, survival, enuff brood to be split , etc 
FP hails from an area where TF has less losses then treaters in other areas of the USA (BIP) and the feral hives live longer then they did in pre varroa , this may negate the the swarming effect on mite reduction benefits compared to the rest of us.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I'm still trying to learn what is mite resistant by doing lots of little bee experiment on my own shortly after the flow here. Requeening a few hives in a season is easy. Running a commercial operation is not that easy to requeen that many hives, 10,000 or more. The potential of a lost profit is a season while trying to feed more than one family is not that easy to do. It is easier said than done! I can see the fear of not being competitive enough when running a commercial operation. Once a customer is lost then profit is not there anymore. What is the tf level to achieve that still enable one to make a profit in a commercial setting anyway?
The Power of Binary: I have the opportunity to make the 2 hives go queen right without much broods to take care of on this summer dearth. I'm changing the genetics to Cordovan which the sellers claimed to be of mite resistant whatever that means. With it I can see the mites better than the grey looking local bees. So to give it a fair trial run, I've confined the Cordovan laying queen on a pollen frame prior. Let the 3 deeps all adult vsh bees without cap broods condensed into one box over a QE and super on top. Lots of bees and mites compacted together. This was done one and a half months ago. The 2 controlled, most recently capped frames are full of mites in the drone cells and brood cells as well. I once asked Lauri about putting the cap brood frames into the incubator to emerge. She asked what for? That was an inspiration to design my little mite experiment today. 
During these 2 weeks, I've been catching blondie Cordovan bees from the small fridge incubator which has the 2 frames of controlled cap broods to get rid of the mites and put the clean bees back into the hives. They are squishy to say the least. There are hundreds of bees emerged in a day and with it hundreds of mites on them. Imagine channeling an unknown number of free running mites all hunger for the frame of cap broods and all are capable of reproducing into 1 frame of cap broods is substantial. Sometimes one mite per bee but mostly 3 or 5 on a single bee. I no longer make the mite bee bomb nuc hive anymore. Scale up the fridge incubator will serve this purpose well. Oav inside the fridge to allow the small fans to exhaust the gas is another possibility too. 
What is most interesting is that many bees are still healthy. Some have DWVs but seldom. Why some infected bees with 5 mites young and old are surviving is still a mystery to me. One thing I did learn though our mites are the most hardy and deadly of them all. They are the same mites that crashed my hives 3 years ago. Yep, I've been keeping them alive just for this little experiment today. These mite resistant bees as claimed may be working for the seller's location but once put to the little bee experiment test, I can see why. How are they resistant, I still don't see it yet? The term minimal threshold (mite) level came to mind for the mites and bees. A level that enable the mites to coexist with the bees without crashing the hives completely. Will that be achieved one day? My vsh bees from last year's bought queens cannot pass this level. Another thing I learn is that even the most closely related bees (claimed to be isolated mating station) will have a foreign (grey bee) genetics mixed in from time to time. Imagine blondie ALL OVER except for the 2 pair of eyes which are dark uniform through out the worker bees, of course the queens too. As for the mites it is still an ongoing summer experiment to learn from. Oh, last week's released Cordovan bees are still healthy most of them. Bottom line is we have not completely understand how to control the mites to allow the hives to flourish if going tf. And making a drastic change will put the commercial operation on a shoe string if not managed carefully. Who can bare this risk?



Squishy Cordovan bees:


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

SiWolKe said:


> Hi Barry, no not picky, thanks for correcting.
> 
> It was with plastic comb. Only cappings were wax. Later they were on 4.9 wax foundations.


So who's making this SC plastic comb you and Oldtimer are talking about?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Barry said:


> So who's making this SC plastic comb you and Oldtimer are talking about?


Its called Honey Super Cell. Google it.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Thanks Dan. I've been out of the SC loop and didn't realize fully drawn comb was available.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

hsc was the basis for deknow's tf approach laid out in his and ramona's 'idiot's guide to beekeeping'. we don't seem to be hearing very much from folks having experience with it here on the forum. most of the foundation in my hives is rite cell plastic standard size foundation, with a few foundationless frames mixed in.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Bye Randy we're moving on;

Any feedback on Dadant's catalog/f46010sc-4-9mm-8-1-2-medium-brood-small-cell-foundation ?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Dadant SC is 4.9 wired brood foundation. You will have difficulty getting large cell bees to draw it. After it is drawn, the bees will begin working cells over to drone size. They usually do 1/3 of a frame in 2 or 3 years. Other than that, the bees adapt to it and use it. IMO, you will be better served to get 5.1 wired medium brood.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

IIRC, Acorn foundation is 5.2. Not small, but not standard either. It's been accepted well here by every hive. I have a few frames of 5.1 scattered around in some hives. That vast majority is 5.2 Acorn.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

You can´t overwinter here on plastic COMB maybe on plastic foundations. The bees will freeze.

I just wanted to post this in case someone wants to use them in cold climate.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

beepro said:


> Bottom line is we have not completely understand how to control the mites to allow the hives to flourish if going tf. And making a drastic change will put the commercial operation on a shoe string if not managed carefully. Who can bare this risk?


Some seem to have no problem to do this.

http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=984


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> Some seem to have no problem to do this.
> 
> http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=984


Thanks for the link SiWolKe!

When on a visit to Kirk I asked him to name other beekeepers he is aware of who run a commercial TF operation in colder areas (without africanized bees): "Chris Baldwin"


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks, excellent article and very encouraging. Nobody can say commercial beekeepers are not adaptable and will do what works. This guy has found a way to run bees in his areas and rebuild annually from 40% losses but as a trade off not have to treat for mites, although he does use antibiotics. All kudos to him. There was no info about if he feeds sugar which would have been interesting given his small brood nests and nuc making and splitting.
Anybody tried his queens?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

OT
See here what Chris does:


> During summer about 20% of the colonies are lost due to queen problems.* At least partly these queen problems may come from the rough circumstances in the pollination services environment.* Pathogens and chemicals picked up there. In January the die offs are taken care off, as well as the bees alive.* If necessary colonies are fed. *Winterlosses and losses experienced after the almonds in California can together be 10-20%.
> 
> 40% losses is a little too high, but up to 30% are okey for Chris in his management system. Actually *some amount of losses are more or less needed to weed out the worst colonies* and multiply the best to improve the stock continuously and keep the numbers stable. Also to minimize the swarming through making nucs. *He is not into selling colonies or queens.* He gets his income from pollination services and honey production.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Major players could probably gradually transition to some percentage of TF. The conception of the "market" is fairly monolithic. The bees hobbyists require are quite different than a commercial migratory operation. New beekeepers would be well served by tougher local TF bees that are well adapted to local flows. Impacts of neglect, mismanagement, disease movement between regions and potential mite bombs would be far less. Some fragmentation of the market is needed and new keepers should be educated against bringing bees from big operations from far away. This would serve resiliency and long term genetic diversity well. 

Since the M. Palmer talk here in Kamloops, there has been some enthusiasm for local nuc and queen rearing. So here is hoping this trend continues. I've sold my first nucs/queens this year so hopefully I can continue to be part of the solution.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Time to get some Tussilago farfara seeds for my area. Thanks for another early blooming bee plants.
Learning something new everyday.


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