# something to think about



## Hawkster

I only treat when counts indicate it is needed and then use "soft" treatments. However, I cant get my arms around people not treating at all and somehow expecting the bees to toughen up and figure out how to handle the mites, you have 1 queen per hive so i am not sure how anybody with less than a few thousand hives could expect a drastic change in the bees ability to handle the mites ? our best hope to my way of thinking is for the big queen breeders to breed a strain of bees that can handle them and in the meantime do what we can to keep our bees alive. I know there are mite resistant bees out there supposedly but I haven't seen one that people are beating down the doors to get which i really think would happen with a truly resistant bee.


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## Daniel Y

The idea as I understand it is that treatment free is intended to keep the bees pest free. How well that works is the question. No disease to spread is the thinking though. I have also seen conversation that where the exact opposite. treatment free people being infected by treatment beekeepers. The argument being that the treatment beekeeper is dong nothing more than managing a colony of pests.

In all I don't see the issue as treatment free or not but infested or not. In many cases if you keep infested bees regardless of how yo mange that infestation. you are at risk of spreading that infestation to other colonies and other beekeepers colonies.

Say in the case a neighbor feels they should have some say in your pest management because it puts his bees at risk. You can say the exact same to him.


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## Hawkster

So I could expect a non-treatment keeper with a badly infested hive to euthanize it rather than spread those mites to mine? Seems a stretch but would seem fair if he thinks he has a say in my management?


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## Daniel Y

You might have to define what "badly infested" means and remember while you are euthanizing his bees he will be doing the same to yours. My point is, establish that only treatment free bees spread disease. Otherwise all issues are equal.


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## squarepeg

Hawkster said:


> So I could expect a non-treatment keeper with a badly infested hive to euthanize it rather than spread those mites to mine? Seems a stretch but would seem fair if he thinks he has a say in my management?



i wonder if all the collapses due to mites and viruses (from non-treated as well as treated hives), were from afb instead....

wouldn't the state apiary units be doing something about it?

but consider how many more hives are lost each year from mites and viruses compared to afb.

what's the point of having removable frame laws and the registering of hives if not to prevent the propagation of 'sinks of disease and mites', that could ultimately have a domino effect on nearby colonies.

if i knew of a beekeeper, (treatments or not), who was not taking responsibility for his/her hives, to the point of letting them collapse, and there after getting robbed out by my bees or any other bees,

and if a 'friendly' discussion with such a beekeeper didn't work,

i would be calling my state inspector.

most beekeepers who treat, and some who don't treat, take care of business one way or the other to prevent this.

however, some treatment free beekeepers purposely allow their colonies to die completely out, the so called 'bond' method. to me this is irresponsible. i wonder if this is why some treatment free beekeepers do alright for some seasons, and lose their whole yard in another season, i.e. from a domino effect. it makes me wonder how many neighboring hives are lost in this manner as well.


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## d.frizzell

squarepeg said:


> i wonder if all the collapses due to mites and viruses (from non-treated as well as treated hives), were from afb instead....
> 
> wouldn't the state apiary units be doing something about it?
> 
> but consider how many more hives are lost each year from mites and viruses compared to afb.
> 
> what's the point of having removable frame laws and the registering of hives if not to prevent the propagation of 'sinks of disease and mites', that could ultimately have a domino effect on nearby colonies.
> 
> if i knew of a beekeeper, (treatments or not), who was not taking responsibility for his/her hives, to the point of letting them collapse, and there after getting robbed out by my bees or any other bees,
> 
> and if a 'friendly' discussion with such a beekeeper didn't work,
> 
> i would be calling my state inspector.
> 
> most beekeepers who treat, and some who don't treat, take care of business one way or the other to prevent this.
> 
> however, some treatment free beekeepers purposely allow their colonies to die completely out, the so called 'bond' method. to me this is irresponsible. i wonder if this is why some treatment free beekeepers do alright for some seasons, and lose their whole yard in another season, i.e. from a domino effect. it makes me wonder how many neighboring hives are lost in this manner as well.


What about all the beekeepers who ARE treating and their hives ARE dying out? Are they good neighbours? Will you call the state inspector in on them?
Donna 46N


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## jim lyon

Donna: Let's not fire up that debate, it's not an "us vs. them" thing. It's about managing and protecting your hives from being left exposed to robbing by nearby hives. Prudent beekeepers, regardless of whether they treat or not need to protect weak and diseased hives from being robbed. If you want to be a "bond" beekeeper that's fine just be considerate of others and take proper precautions.


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## mierebucovina

I think more important is that each beekeeper to know how to distinguish diseases from hive. Just so we can protect each other. Treat hives nothing if the disease is not known. I think that over time, if we treat less hives, the bees will develop natural resistance to some diseases. But for this they need time and a friendly environment without pesticides.


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## Delta Bay

What's the expected outcome if taking say untreated Russian stock and placing them into a highly treated location at the same time treating them? Would they lose some of those great traits that they spent so long developing?


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## d.frizzell

jim lyon said:


> Donna: Let's not fire up that debate, it's not an "us vs. them" thing. It's about managing and protecting your hives from being left exposed to robbing by nearby hives. Prudent beekeepers, regardless of whether they treat or not need to protect weak and diseased hives from being robbed. If you want to be a "bond" beekeeper that's fine just be considerate of others and take proper precautions.


Point taken Jim, to be fair squarepeg did say (treatment or not), however he did seem to single out the treatment free (bond) beekeeper in his last statement. My point is that whether T or TF there may be dying hives but for different reasons. The treatment guy/gal will probably try more treatment while the TF guy/gal is giving their bees an opportunity to have survival skills kick in, both are doing what they think is best, and I agree both should do what is best to protect their own and neighbouring bees.
Enough said, I'm moving on.


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## squarepeg

jim lyon said:


> If you want to be a "bond" beekeeper that's fine just be considerate of others and take proper precautions.





d.frizzell said:


> ...to be fair squarepeg did say (treatment or not)


perfect jim, i wish i would have said it that way.

donna, only singling out those willfully not taking proper precautions. (mostly because i haven't read or heard of what those precautions are, or how they would be implemented).


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## Maddox65804

Seems to me that we are talking about two different issues at the same time - and that makes this conversation confusing.

Diseases and mites are two different things. One is a disease, while mites are a pest. Management practices (whether Treatment or Treatment free) are going to be different when dealing with these two different problems.

No beekeeper should let disease run unchecked in their hives. And no beekeeper should have to pay for his neighbor's negligence.

Mites on the other hand are ubiquitous - so no beekeeper can claim that the neighbor's hives are overtly impacting his hives.

On another note; treatment free is not about trying to keep bees "pest free". Is is somewhat the opposite....It is about breeding or perpetuating bees that can deal with or tolerate pests through natural resistance or genetics. An assisted natural selection if you will.

Treated hives tend to do the opposite - they allow weak genetics/bees that would otherwise died off to continue to dilute the gene pool. The treatments are a crutch - take away the crutch and the hive falls apart. Most treatments are a very short term solutions that fail in the long run. 

This is why treated hives are the primary spreader of disease. The chemicals mask the disease (especially AFB which can only be hidden but not cured), but allow the bees from these hives to continue living and thus spreading the disease. Breeding better bees is the only long term solution I am aware of at this point. 


Treatment free hives on the otherhand, die off and don't spread the disease. If the beekeeper allows these diseased hives to decline to the point that they are robbed out, well that beekeeper is not doing a very good job. A diseased hive should be addressed well before it declines that far.


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## Michael Bush

Most of the diseases should not be treated. AFB should be burned, not treated. Treating for prevention just hides it and according to the latest research makes them suceptible to that very disease by killing off the microbes in the bee that would have prevented it. My view is the people who treat for disaeases and mites are the problem. They are perpetuating genetics that water down the good genetics that can survive without treatments. I think the view that treatment free people are the problem is exactly backwards, but is an idea that has been perpetuated for decades. Mine are inspected every year and they are not the cause of other peoples problems.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm


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## squarepeg

Michael Bush said:


> Mine are inspected every year and they are not the cause of other peoples problems.


and that is the point that my comments are directed toward.

michael, i have noticed your replies to questions about robbing are usually something like,

'robbing should be stopped immediately'.

can you describe what actions you took, if any, when you first went off treatments, to prevent the spread of disease in your apiary?


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## Oldtimer

The premise in the first post is correct. Any beekeeper who allows a hive to die of disease such as AFB, mites, or whatever, or get close enough to death that it gets robbed, will spread the infection to the hives that do the robbing.

Having said that, a hive that died of mites, will be mite free just a few days after the bees die. In a lab experiment, mites in a petri dish with no food lived a maximum of 4 days.


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## iwombat

I started thinking about my treatment-free practices as breeding a more sustainable parasite. i.e. one that can actually co-exist with the bees instead of wiping them out. Given the life-cycles of all the pests vs. the honeybee this is a far more practical approach to breeding. Then again, I'm in a fairly isolated area. Treatments ensure that only the most agressive forms of pests and parasites survive - much like we've seen with the overuse of antibiotics.

Most of my hives have no mite counts at all. The ones that do have extremely low counts. My only mite treatment is August brood-breaks. 

Just my $.02.


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## squarepeg

http://www.bushfarms.com/beescerts.htm 

michael, 

i thought i had already everything on your website twice, (and some things thrice), but i don't remember seeing these certificates before. 

we don't get annual inpections and certificates in my state. how does this work for those of you in other states?

looks like buzz (the inspector) makes it to bushfarms in april or may of most years. i'm guessing that he knows by now that you are an expert in the field, and probably wishes everyone practiced as responsibly as you. (but then he might not have a job )

i was most interested in the varroa mite inspections, because i am very curious to know what kind of infestation rates are being tolerated by colonies in treatment free apiaries.

i guess we would expect mite counts to be lower in april and may anyway, but it is interesting that the method used for 5 of the 9 inpections for mites was 'visual'. would you agree that this is not a reliable way to assess for mites?

looking at open drone brood was done on two inspections, and powdered sugar was done on two inspections as well. these seem like more reliable methods, but might be subject to hit or miss.

my view of this part of the inspection process is that it doesn't appear to have much use. locating a few mites by crude sampling in the springtime shouldn't come as a surprise, and so what if you do find some?

the more useful information would come from doing a proper mite count mid-summer, and correlating that to colony vitality and survival going into fall and winter.

i'll be looking carefully at this in my apiary this year. it will be the fourth year for these bees without mite treatments, and only one loss due to mites. (4 hives in 2010, 10 hives in 2011, and 21 hives in 2012).

i haven't found a treatment free beekeeper who takes mite counts. seems like it would be helpful to be able to identify those colonies who are 'getting it right' and vice versa.

if i understand your approach michael, you like to give each colony every fighting chance to pull through, that sometimes this 'proves' something about those bees. 

i'll concede that perhaps it does prove something about those bees, but i would prefer to select and propagate for bees that don't let themselves get into trouble in the first place.

so far, my bees have thrived in equilibruim with mites off treatments, and i would like to propagate them and preserve that trait if i can. 

i like the idea of trying to identify colonies in the process of or at risk for collapse, preventing the collapse, and salvaging what's left of the colony, as well as not having to worry about a problem that could spread to other colonies.


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## squarepeg

iwombat said:


> I started thinking about my treatment-free practices as breeding a more sustainable parasite. i.e. one that can actually co-exist with the bees instead of wiping them out. Given the life-cycles of all the pests vs. the honeybee this is a far more practical approach to breeding. Then again, I'm in a fairly isolated area. Treatments ensure that only the most agressive forms of pests and parasites survive - much like we've seen with the overuse of antibiotics.
> 
> Most of my hives have no mite counts at all. The ones that do have extremely low counts. My only mite treatment is August brood-breaks.
> 
> Just my $.02.


if you are treatment free beekeeper taking mite counts, i'll take a nickels worth! 

how were you sampling, and what were your counts?

many thanks iwombat.


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## iwombat

Well, most of the time I don't, unless I start seeing mites on the drop boards (and by that I mean _A_ mite on the drop board). Then, I do a powder-sugar roll. I can afford to do a more time-consuming process like a sugar roll (vs. an alcohol wash) because only do it when necessary and only on that colony. Only once in the last 4 years have I had a hive with any significant mite problems (more than 3 per 100). That hive got isolated and I let that strain of mites run their course. Weak bee genetics, or strong mite genetics I don't know. Both got knocked out.


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## squarepeg

very interesting. 

isolated 'em after you measured more than 3 per 100 eh? 

and only one if four years, sounds like you have some pretty good bees there.

in that one hive with the bigger load, did you notice any other problems? was it weaker in numbers than your others, not drawing as much comb, not storing as much honey? any sick brood? 

i have a lot of 'feral' unmanaged colonies all around my area, (my county is 68% wooded), so i don't have any place i would feel comfortable removing an infested colony to. 

that is why i'm leaning toward killing the queen, letting most of the brood emerge, dusting them off, and starting them over.


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## iwombat

Just a new split that never took off, started investigating and there it was. Isolated consisted of moving it to the other side of the property. Just wanted to minimize drift. Again, I wanted to remove the genetics of those mites more than I did the bees.

Honestly, mites have never been a problem for me. I had a bad year a couple back with nosema, that's the one I really worry about.

I'm putting some hives in the city this year. We'll see how they manage among all the vectors.


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## squarepeg

again, very interesting iwombat.

the one hive i lost was to mites was also a weak split that never took off.

i shook it out when it was obviously too far gone, (wish i would have gotten to it sooner).

it never had enough stores to get robbed, and i froze the comb for later use.


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## Michael Palmer

jim lyon said:


> Donna: Let's not fire up that debate, it's not an "us vs. them" thing. It's about managing and protecting your hives from being left exposed to robbing by nearby hives. Prudent beekeepers, regardless of whether they treat or not need to protect weak and diseased hives from being robbed. If you want to be a "bond" beekeeper that's fine just be considerate of others and take proper precautions.


Boy, isn't that the truth of the matter. The "we" and the "not we" camps aren't helping to move this discussion forward. I apologize to all if you're offended by what I say, but...most of the folks here with strong opinions haven't kept bees long enough, haven't got enough bees, or enough apiaries spread out across the countryside to have a valid opinion. "One man's opinion of moonlight". You can talk about pet theories, or dogma gleaned from the internet, but if you haven't experienced a crash from sloppy neighboring beekeepers, you just don't have a right to be critical. 

I can show you two beautiful apiaries that crashed from varroa because a new beekeeper in between doesn't know how to manage his varroa population...let alone his bees. My other apiaries roll ones and twos, but these two 13s and 15s. And how about a yard of 75 nucleus colonies that went down because a neighboring beekeeper's sick packages were allowed to crash from nosema. And he blamed ME for HIS losses. GMAB.

So you folks that need to point fingers, etc, remember this. I love my bees as much as you love yours. Beekeepers with 10,000 colonies care as much about their bees as beekeepers with 10. We're a community folks, if we don't drive it apart. Let's be respectful of each other, and aware that what we do in our own bees, whatever dogma it is we believe, is effecting the whole neighborhood. We're all in this together.


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## JRG13

I stick with my guns on my opinion that minimizing pest loads is important, but I do see that treatment free doesn't necessarily mean uncontrolled pest/disease populations. I think good beeks manage their pests, bad ones don't know what to look for or how to manage properly.


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## squarepeg

JRG13 said:


> I stick with my guns on my opinion that minimizing pest loads is important, but I do see that treatment free doesn't necessarily mean uncontrolled pest/disease populations. I think good beeks manage their pests, bad ones don't know what to look for or how to manage properly.


100% agree.

and i would add a third category, those who know how to manage, but willfully allow them to collapse with hopes of ending up with better bees. some in this category seem to think they are doing the bees a favor by allowing them to get sick.

i understand the logic, but disagree that the risk/benefit is worthwhile.

i don't really take issue with the approach so long as responsible measures are taken not to threaten other bees.

this is just my opinion, but making it known here seems to have been taken by some as me being adversarial to treatment free beekeepers.

but the opposite is true. i believe it's possible to manage bees in a sustainable way off treatments, and this is what i am striving to do.

i also believe that accomplishing this a lot to ask for anyone brand new to beekeeping. it's a lot more involved that just 'don't treat your bees'.


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## d.frizzell

I don't think anyone should be offended by Jim's comments because I think most of us (big or small) do love our bees and also have no desire to harm other beekeepers bees. I moved my hives 20 miles to avoid infecting my neighbour when I found out I had mites. I will do everything I think is best for my bees and will make sure that it does not affect others. I know there are beekeepers out there who are not responsible, but I think they are not the majority, at least around here. I only have 8 hives and have had bees for 8 years, but do I have an opinion, you bet I do. 
Squarepeg, your statement on - it's a lot more involved than 'don't treat your bees' - I think you sure are correct about that! I wish I had known a lot more about TF and SC when I was beginning with bees, but I am learning fast...I think... 
Respectfully,
Donna


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## Michael Bush

>can you describe what actions you took, if any, when you first went off treatments, to prevent the spread of disease in your apiary? 

The only "disease" I've seen in my apiaries in the last 38 years is a small amount of chalk brood. I have no diseases to prevent. The only "treatments" I ever went off were Terramycin (1974) Apistan (1999 to 2001), Oxalic acid (2001 to 2002) and FGMO fogging (2001 to 2002). What is there to spread if you don't have any?


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## squarepeg

thanks michael, that's remarkable.

sounds like there's a lot to be said for sound beekeeping practices, natural comb, honey only diet, good genetics, ect.

do you utilize any intervention when it comes to a colony that is not thriving for any reason?


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## squarepeg

and thank you donna.

it's obvious by your posts that you are responsible and committed to very sound beekeeping practices.

i wish you well!


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## squarepeg

Michael Palmer said:


> Let's be respectful of each other, and aware that what we do in our own bees, whatever dogma it is we believe, is effecting the whole neighborhood. We're all in this together.


i missed your previous and most excellent post michael, thanks for relating a real life case of how irresponsible practices can have a big impact. 

your closing comment is spot on.


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## Oldtimer

Michael Palmer said:


> folks here with strong opinions haven't kept bees long enough, haven't got enough bees, or enough apiaries spread out across the countryside to have a valid opinion.


Ha Ha glad to see someone actually come out and say that. 

A consequence of the net, is that many with no knowledge, have a platform to exercise their right to express their opinion. And if challenged, the standard response is "but I have a right to express my opinion". However the word *valid* is the critical thing, any opinion can be expressed, but bottom line, it is the reader who will decide if it is *valid*.


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## Oldtimer

d.frizzell said:


> I moved my hives 20 miles to avoid infecting my neighbour when I found out I had mites.
> Donna


 Donna I'm thinking, sounds like you are in a pretty isolated place. Do you know how you got mites? (bought queens perhaps?) If it is something you could avoid in the future, I'm wondering. You only have 8 hives. Could it be worth killing them all, then re-stocking from your neighbors mite free hives?

If I were in your position I would certainly consider it. But only if I knew where the origional infestation came from and could avoid that happening again.


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## minz

Guy moved into an old abandoned house a half mile from me, had about a dozen hives along the highway. Next week he built a fence around about ¾ acre of it using parts of old garage doors and moved in enough rotten, rusted rolling stock to make his own junk yard. I have been thinking about my yards since he moved in for the very reason Palmer discussed.


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## iwombat

Yeah, treatment-free is soooo not about "just don't treat". You actually have to really deeply understand the lifecycle of all the pests and ways to interrupt that w/o chemical treatments.


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## Oldtimer

Wouldn't interrupting the pest lifecycle be a method of treatment? So somebody using it would not be treatment free?


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## BeeCurious

Oldtimer said:


> Wouldn't interrupting the pest lifecycle be a method of treatment? So somebody using it would not be treatment free?


Not according to the unique forum rules. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?253066-Unique-Forum-Rules


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## iwombat

management != treatment


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## Oldtimer

Fair enough.

However I'm not a slave to the unique forum rules. Reason being, if the bees require the pest lifecycle to be interupted by the beekeeper to ensure their survival, then they are not, to my mind, truely treatment free bees. 

For example, I have been able to virtually eradicate mites from an infested hive, by removing two complete consecutive brood cycles. The bees in question were in no way varroa tolerant. But by the rules of this forum, the hive was run treatment free. Would I then sell these bees as treatment free bees? Of course not.


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## Barry

Oldtimer said:


> Would I then sell these bees as treatment free bees? Of course not.


Hey, the house rules don't extend into your personal business!  They're there so we can discuss a style of beekeeping and everyone know what it means when the term is used.


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## squarepeg

i believe the 'unique forum rules' are part of the cause for some of the 'us and them' dynamics that have plagued the discussions here.

the problem is that there is no uniformly agreed upon definition of 'treatment free'.

steveng, who has the honor and distinction have having the sticky thread 'no treatment of honey bees' on the main bee forum, is not considered treatment free by the 'unique forum rules' because he has used 'honey bee healthy'.

since barry has taken over as moderator of the tf forum, there has been open and spirited discussion about the issues that are important to all beekeepers. i think it's wrong to arbitrarily divide this community and restrict this flow of discussion.

we can all learn from each other, there's no us or them, it's *we* beekeepers!

i make a motion to abolish the 'unique forum rules' on the tf forum.

do i hear a second?


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## iwombat

I remember the discussions before the definition, and it was wanton chaos. I think anyone that's in the 90% wheelhouse of the "unique rules" can claim treatment-free w/ caveats. I'm fine with that. We need someplace to start from though.


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## Rader Sidetrack

squarepeg said:


> i make a motion to abolish the 'unique forum rules' on the tf forum.
> 
> do i hear a second?


Not from me! 

If you want to discuss *treating *bees, why can't that be done in the [regular] *Bee Forum*?


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## Oldtimer

Yes I wasn't intending to re-start negotiations over the forum rules LOL! Just threw some of my own thoughts out there. 

Not everybody including me, will fully agree with the forum rules. But not everybody agrees with the road rules either. But once they are in place it provides a framework to make things go smoothly. Some fun poking may occur from time to time though.


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## squarepeg

well, for one thing, i guess it's hard to discuss not treating, without discussing what it is about treating that is the reason you are not treating.

the rules strictly forbid any mention of treatments.

barry has relaxed this restriction through moderation. 

hasn't it been much better since?


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## Oldtimer

Yes it's been better but it's a fine line to walk.


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## Barry

squarepeg said:


> i make a motion to abolish the 'unique forum rules' on the tf forum.


Let's put this one to rest. The unique forum rules are not perfect, but they are way better than the constant fighting and arguing that came before them. We have the definition and I will allow, to a point, discussion around it. I think it's been going well lately. Let's keep it that way. Level heads prevail!!


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## Andrew Dewey

As much as I do not consider myself a TF Beekeeper, at heart I hope that people who work TF will one day come up with either a bee or methodology that can thrive and either produce surplus honey or do well in a commercial migratory setting. And that these bees and/or methodologies become generally available. It is the same reason that I belong to an organic group even though i don't buy into the organic movement whole hog. So I am not in favor of any changes to the unique forum rules, especially if people who want to keep bees without adding anything to a hive that isn't already there have to read posts advocating treatments. The forum ought to be a refuge from that.

I am delighted to read posts describing beekeeper obligations to keep healthy hives irregardless of the methodologies they choose to use. I think this is an important topic, although I recognize that it may very well force the lone wolf type beekeeper to be more social. Or to at least have cognizance over how their bees might affect other nearby bees.


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## squarepeg

i wasn't here before the rules, but i'll take your word for it barry.

if it was worse before, than the rules were needed.

it is going well now with your oversight, and i'm happy.

put it to rest it is, i withdraw the motion.


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## deknow

Best I can tell, most kept colonies in my area are fed in the mid summer, and treated for mites in the fall.

Assuming that feeding attracts robbing, and that if the colony is going to require treatments in the fall, that it has a growing (significant) mite population in the mid summer (I think these are reasonable assumptions)...then it is hard not to think of these colonies as significant sources of mite infestations.

It's hard for me to believe that feeding isn't the biggest way that robbing is encouraged and disease spread.

deknow


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## squarepeg

that makes sense dean. i think that some of the folks around here feed during the summer dearth, not sure about mite treatments. 

interestingly, my bees consumed only a small portion of the stores i left them after the spring harvest, and put on enough weight with the fall flow for me to harvest some more in september. 

the two concerns i have with summer feeding are:

1. the compromised nutrtion, i'm banking on fewer problems with diseases and pests with the healthier honey only diet.

2. not wanting to simulate a 'flow' when there isn't one. i want bees that are good at brooding up and down in relationship with the natural availibilty of forage.

you've given me a 3 to consider, thanks.


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## Michael Palmer

deknow said:


> It's hard for me to believe that feeding isn't the biggest way that robbing is encouraged and disease spread. deknow


I would say more likely, weak colonies in a dearth of nectar is what causes robbing. You can leave honey exposed in the apiary or spill syrup all over the ground, when there's a flow on. Not when there's a dearth.

You can also feed syrup intelligently and not cause any robbing at all.


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## jim lyon

Dean: Cerainly feeding is a method by which disease can be spread. It's also highly preventable by any vigilant beekeeper. Small hives incapable of taking feed should not be fed. Neatness must always be stressed when there is a dearth and no feeding job is complete in a good operation without a walk through when you are done checking entrances for syrup and looking for any initial signs of robbing.


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## Oldtimer

deknow said:


> It's hard for me to believe that feeding isn't the biggest way that robbing is encouraged and disease spread.
> 
> deknow


Surely, a hive that has died of disease will be more likely to both, get robbed, and secondly, spread disease, than a healthy hive that's been fed? Why is that hard to believe?


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## Michael Bush

>Surely, a hive that has died of disease will be more likely to both, get robbed, and secondly, spread disease, than a healthy hive that's been fed?

Most of my robbing problems happen when I feed... I have no experience that would indicate that feeding in any way PREVENTS robbing...


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## squarepeg

>Most of my robbing problems happen when I feed... 

since you don't usually feed, could it be that the robbing problem happened mostly because the colony was weak enough to require feeding in the first place, and not so much because it was being fed?

a common theme for minimizing losses seems to be keeping colonies strong, and not letting them dwindle too far.


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## deknow

....so, all fed hives are healthy? They don't harbor diseases and/or parasites that the beekeeper is applying miticides, antibiotics, etc to control (treatments for diseases/parasites that the beekeeper assumes will kill the colony if they aren't applied)?

I'm also sure all post feeding robbing happens immediately post feeding, and that a beekeeper with many yards can prevent feed related robbing by cleaning up....and that robbing never happens the next day when the beekeeper isn't present....right?.....because beekeepers are never feeding in a dearth....right?

Using fumidil increases modems spore production. Using antibiotics for afb prevention hides afb symptoms so it can be unknowingly spread.

Beekeepers always pull their honey Supers and treat for mites immediately when they have an issue, rather than waiting for the flow to be over and harvested so that they dont infest their neighbors....right?

Let's talk about what beekeepers actually do rather than what they should do. If drifting and disease spread is an issue, then let's discuss how to prevent them.

Deknow


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## Michael Palmer

deknow;881828
Let's talk about what beekeepers actually do rather than what they should do. If drifting and disease spread is an issue said:


> Okay, let's.
> 
> You know I feed thick syrup to my bees if and when they need feed. I feed with gallon cans, directly on the bees. Any drip is sucked up immediately, and doesn't run across the inner cover and out the front side of the hive. I make sure the cans don't leak and the syrup run out of the bottom entrance. Extra precautions must be taken when feeding weak colonies in a strong apiary. You know I do that, too, with all the nucs I have in production yards.
> 
> Think about my cell building yard. 30 of the strongest colonies you ever did see..actually Dean, stronger than any colonies you've ever seen. On the other side of the yard, 60 nucleus colonies.
> 
> During the active cell building season, I have 8 cell builders being fed thin syrup. I may have some of the nucleus colonies being fed at the same time. Allowing robbing to get started would spell disaster. How do I know? I've carelessley allowed it to happen. My fault...operator error. Once started, the bees don't forget. They're always waiting for me when I return to the yard.
> 
> But, it's not the act of feeding that gets them robbing, it's operator error, allowing syrup feeders to leak, using hive top feeders that aren't bee tight, not reducing entrances when appropriate, spilling syrup on the ground, and/or leaving combs with nectar exposed for even a few moments. But does feeding in one apiary cause robbing in a neighboring apiary? I guess that would depend on the neighboring apiary...how close it is.
> 
> >>If drifting and disease spread is an issue, then let's discuss how to prevent them.<<
> 
> Okay, again, let's. I manage my apiary as best as I know how. I keep my bees strong, my entrances sized correctly. I manage my varroa load. I breed stocks to hopefully tolerate nosema...at least I don't let my bees crash and leave them open to robbing. I unite colonies that are too weak to defend themselves. I give brood from nucleus colonies to boost populations. I haven't treated with antibiotics in years, but do treat for varroa, period, as you know.
> 
> Am I perfect? Do I have issues ocassionally? Certainly, same as anyone does. Would I let an apiary crash to the point of being robbed by the neighborhood bees of other keepers. Not if I can help it.
> 
> So, let's do discuss how to prevent drifting and disease spread in the neighborhood. What exactly should I be doing to prevent the OTHER beekeepers' bees from crashing and being robbed by mine? 30-40 Krag? Commando Raid? Help from the State inspection service...yeah right.
> 
> I'm on my own Dean. All I can do is keep my bees as strong and healthy as I am able. All I can do is give presentations at local clubs, and offer advice to all the new beekeepers out there. You know I do. But you tell me. How do I protect my operation from sloppy beekeepers, or those wishing to be treatment free beekeepers...when they do nothing but not treat.
> 
> They do nothing for stock improvement. They don't know what IPM is. The continue to buy sick package bees from the same dealers...those too often on the club's boards and promoting the exclusive use of package bees...picked up at their facility.
> 
> Now, you buy package bees from Georgia, and allow them to die for whatever reason. I know you're attempting a breeding program and a small cell and natural cell foundationless system. I'm not criticizing that. But, don't they get robbed by the neighborhood bees when they die? Isn't there a good chance that whatever parasites and pathogens that killed them would now be in your neighbor's bees?
> 
> So, considering that I have 36 commercial apiaries to protect, counting all the production colonies and nucleus colonies the numbers are well over a thousand, what would you do.
> 
> That's my take, what's yours?


----------



## jim lyon

deknow said:


> Let's talk about what beekeepers actually do rather than what they should do. If drifting and disease spread is an issue, then let's discuss how to prevent them.
> Deknow


If your point is that sloppy beekeeping practices spread disease then I dont think you are exactly breaking any new ground with that position. Like most things in beekeeping and in life you can do it well or you can do it poorly. I would hope the inexperienced beekeeper looking for guidance on this subject dosent conclude that feeding in general is a bad thing because they read that it spreads disease. The next thread I'm likely to see is someone posting a video of weak quivering bees and wondering if they contracted some kind of disease.


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## d.frizzell

Oldtimer said:


> Donna I'm thinking, sounds like you are in a pretty isolated place. Do you know how you got mites? (bought queens perhaps?) If it is something you could avoid in the future, I'm wondering. You only have 8 hives. Could it be worth killing them all, then re-stocking from your neighbors mite free hives?
> 
> If I were in your position I would certainly consider it. But only if I knew where the origional infestation came from and could avoid that happening again.


yes, I do know how my hives got mites and it was due to some carelessness on my part. I was helping a friend with a small swarm he had from the previous fall. We transferred some brood from a strong hive of his to the nuc which was at my apairy at that time. We did not know at the time that another apiary in his area had mites and so he was no longer in a mite-free area. Long and short is that his hive from which we took the brood had mites and so they spread to my apairy. Mites are spreading across the island since the last few years.
So, yes I do plan to restock here with some mite-free bees possibly from my neighbour. I will then begin to regress them to sc. Meanwhile my hives will stay at my friends place until spring and we will see if there are some survivors, you just never know.


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## Oldtimer

deknow said:


> Let's talk about what beekeepers actually do rather than what they should do.
> Deknow


But back to basics, what ever you are "sure" large beekeepers do, my origional statement stands. A hive dying / dead of disease, is an open invitation to robbers. It is far more likely to spread disease to the robbing hives, than a healthy one that's been fed.

I think your agument that all commercial hives are sick, and all commercial hives get robbed if they get fed, draws attention to your complete lack of experience of what "actually happens", with all due respect, you have bought into some of the dogma that is propagated on the subject, which is based on the worst ever cases that have happened, and then embellished considerably in the imaginations of some before the retelling. The reality is not that commercial beekeepers are bumbling fools who cannot even make a living from their bees.


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## Oldtimer

d.frizzell said:


> Meanwhile my hives will stay at my friends place until spring and we will see if there are some survivors, you just never know.


If your mite infestation is relatively recent, most likely you will have survivors. But if they have mites, and you could have eliminated the issue and started afresh with mite free bees, not worth it in my opinion.

But anyway, all the best with your plans, welcome to the mite treadmill. The info on the TF forum is a lot more accurate, and less extreme, than it was a few years back. But sometimes what's NOT said is the kicker. When taking advice, check the persons experience is not with one hive, for one year. Proceed with wisdom, and caution.


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## FlowerPlanter

d.frizzell said:


> I moved my hives 20 miles to avoid infecting my neighbour when I found out I had mites.


I though NS was mite free? Is this the first out break of mites there?


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## d.frizzell

FlowerPlanter said:


> I though NS was mite free? Is this the first out break of mites there?


Nova Scotia is not mite free. Cape Breton Island (part of Nova Scotia where I live) was mite free until about 8-10 years ago. There are still a few areas on the island that do not have mites. Newfoundland does not have mites.


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## d.frizzell

Oldtimer said:


> If your mite infestation is relatively recent, most likely you will have survivors. But if they have mites, and you could have eliminated the issue and started afresh with mite free bees, not worth it in my opinion.
> 
> But anyway, all the best with your plans, welcome to the mite treadmill. The info on the TF forum is a lot more accurate, and less extreme, than it was a few years back. But sometimes what's NOT said is the kicker. When taking advice, check the persons experience is not with one hive, for one year. Proceed with wisdom, and caution.


I will start fresh with mite free bees at my home apiary, if I have survivors they will stay at my friends apiary which is no longer a mite free area.

This forum is not my only reference for treatment free. I have learned some interesting things here, but not a great deal about how to get and stay truly treatment free. Maybe I haven't been here long enough or I need to go back and read some history. I think there are things to learn from the oldtimers and the newtimers, but with each one I need to use wisdom and caution.


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## Michael Palmer

d.frizzell said:


> Cape Breton Island (part of Nova Scotia where I live) was mite free until about 8-10 years ago.


We took the kids to Cape Breton in the 90s. What a nice place. You know the tourist store at the bridge...over the deep gorge? Sayer played her violin for him and he gave her an ice cream cone. In another place they gave both kids Cape Breton pins. Nice folks there. Did you ever to go on the "Bird Island Tour" I think he was on the north corner of Nova Scotia. Took me and the kids on his boat to see seals, Puffins, Kittywakes and Bald Eagles. Old Dutchman who wore wooden shoes.

I'll always remember the drive up the west shore of Cape Breton. Far off in the distance was a two spired church. The road followed the coast, and every so often you could see the church again...a little closer...a little bit bigger. What town is that?


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## d.frizzell

Michael Palmer said:


> We took the kids to Cape Breton in the 90s. What a nice place. You know the tourist store at the bridge...over the deep gorge? Sayer played her violin for him and he gave her an ice cream cone. In another place they gave both kids Cape Breton pins. Nice folks there. Did you ever to go on the "Bird Island Tour" I think he was on the north corner of Nova Scotia. Took me and the kids on his boat to see seals, Puffins, Kittywakes and Bald Eagles. Old Dutchman who wore wooden shoes.
> 
> I'll always remember the drive up the west shore of Cape Breton. Far off in the distance was a two spired church. The road followed the coast, and every so often you could see the church again...a little closer...a little bit bigger. What town is that?


Well pleased to hear you enjoyed our island Michael. Cape Breton Island was ranked #3 in the world, and #1 on the list of Top Island Destinations in the Continental U.S. and Canada – in Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards 2011 readers’ survey. Sounds like you did the Cabot Trail, not sure about the store - have to think about that. The Bird Island boat tour that you went on is not far from here and the village with the church was most likely Cheticamp. There are a number of beekeepers here on the island, nothing big. Hives are trucked in from the mainland to pollinate blueberry crops which is how we got mites. The one commercial beekeeper on the island is now retired. I got my bees from him and he was a great help to me when I started out. Whenever he gave advice he told me what worked for him but that I must follow my own path with the bees. Hope you can visit us again sometime.


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## Michael Bush

>since you don't usually feed, could it be that the robbing problem happened mostly because the colony was weak enough to require feeding in the first place, and not so much because it was being fed?

I don't feed because they are weak. I never feed a weak hive. I steal capped stores from the strong for a weak hive. I only feed because they are going to starve if I don't.

>a common theme for minimizing losses seems to be keeping colonies strong, and not letting them dwindle too far. 

The longer I keep bees the more I see "strong" as a matter of bee density, not size. A colony that has too much room for too few bees is what dwindles... An awful lot of beekeeping is managing space.


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## squarepeg

Michael Bush said:


> >since you don't usually feed, could it be that the robbing problem happened mostly because the colony was weak enough to require feeding in the first place, and not so much because it was being fed?
> 
> I don't feed because they are weak. I never feed a weak hive. I steal capped stores from the strong for a weak hive. I only feed because they are going to starve if I don't.
> 
> >a common theme for minimizing losses seems to be keeping colonies strong, and not letting them dwindle too far.
> 
> The longer I keep bees the more I see "strong" as a matter of bee density, not size. A colony that has too much room for too few bees is what dwindles... An awful lot of beekeeping is managing space.



fully understood michael, i am following you and the others who prescribe to a honey only if possible diet for my bees.

i'll rephrase, do you feel the robbing that you see associated with giving a weak hive honey is more because the hive is weak, or more because you gave it honey, or a combination of both?

would a strong hive given honey be as likely to succumb to robbing?

is it better to avoid letting colonies dwindle in the first place? (per your definition of providing them with the appropriate cavity size).


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## squarepeg

Michael Bush said:


> Most of my robbing problems happen when I feed...


the one case of robbing that i had in 2012 was of a colony that wasn't being fed, but rather declined due to queenlessness, and had too much space to defend.

it was an overwintered four frame nuc that built up nicely in the spring, swarmed, and failed to get a mated queen after the swarm. 

my novice mistake was to give it a frame of eggs from one of my best hives to make an emergency queen from, which they did successfully, and i had a beautiful laying queen one month later.

the problem was that the population had dwindled, and i didn't remove any boxes. when that first round of brood came on what few bees were left in the hive got too busy nursing the brood, and there were not enough bees to guard the stores.

the other hives in the yard had really grown by then, and we were also nearing the end of our spring flow. needless to say, the dwindled hive was an easy target.

luckily, i was home that day and saw the robbing just as it was getting started. i immediately closed them up, and moved them to my out yard that only had a few smaller hives in it.(

that didn't work, because when i got to the outyard the next day, the smaller hives there had already taken to robbing the dwindled one.

i move them to a third yard where there were no other hives. virtually all of the honey was gone. i removed and kept the two drawn mediums of comb for use with other hives, and i put a feeder on them.

luckily, the queen was not killed in the dwindled hive, and i sold it to a newbee with the understanding that it would have to be fed until the fall flow, which it was, and there was no further robbing.

this colony is in great shape now, and will likely be an outstanding honey producer this year.

as far as feeding goes, the only other colony that i had to give syrup to last year was a late swarm that needed a little help getting started. i made sure i didn't use anything scented in the syrup, added vitamin c, and it did fine in my main yard along with the other strong hives, and there was no robbing.

i am wondering michael, if it might be better to use plain unscented syrup for emergency feeding, as opposed to honey. the smell of open honey (assuming it's in a feeder and not capped in comb) might be enough to encourage robbing whereas plain unscented syrup might not.

any thoughts?


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## deknow

Oldtimer said:


> A hive dying / dead of disease, is an open invitation to robbers. It is far more likely to spread disease to the robbing hives, than a healthy one that's been fed.


ok..so we have established that a dying/dead hive has plenty of stores to invite robbing, and that fed hives are always healthy? 


> I think your agument that all commercial hives are sick, and all commercial hives get robbed if they get fed,....


That argument comes from the voices inside your head....I never said any such thing, never "meant" any such thing.


> ... you have bought into some of the dogma that is propagated on the subject, which is based on the worst ever cases that have happened, and then embellished considerably in the imaginations of some before the retelling.


Care to be specific? I didn't think so.



> The reality is not that commercial beekeepers are bumbling fools who cannot even make a living from their bees.


Errr, is that supposed to point out that I make my living in ways other than managing bees? Is that supposed to make me feel embarrassed? Ashamed? Inferior?

I'm looking forward to getting back to Jim and Michael with an actual discussion when I have the chance. I don't have time to waste pointing out where my words are misrepresented....it's a time waster that accomplishes nothing. 

deknow


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## squarepeg

zzzzzzzz 

let's spend all of that quality time and knowledge and willing to share it, and with that energy share actual experiences.

beekeeping is local, and unique to each beekeeper, each of whom is free to pursue their goals, reap their harvests, and doing so with husbundry and as to not be a threat to other nearby populations of bees and other pollinators.


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## deknow

Well, I'm glad that we can all agree that moving 2/3 or 3/4 of the bees in this country to the almonds at the same time every year, then moving those colonies around the country to interface with kept and wild honeybees as well as other pollinators poses no "threat" to beekeepers or the environment, RIGHT?

...and don't misread this. Every action we take has risks and benefits. As I said before, if we want to talk about what causes robbing, the spread of disease, etc, lets have at it. ...but if the pretense is that what some people do is ok and shouldn't be examined in this context (feeding, moving bees, breeding from susceptible stock, open feeding, medication) and what some other people do isn't ok and should be examined in this context, then you are welcome to have the conversation without my input.
There are some interesting and complex issues to discuss here, but such discussion can't be had in the environment we have here.

deknow


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## Michael Bush

>i'll rephrase, do you feel the robbing that you see associated with giving a weak hive honey is more because the hive is weak, or more because you gave it honey, or a combination of both?

A combination of both, of course. A strong hive is always better at defending itself. Honey has a very attractive odor to bees as has been documented for hundreds of years. Far more so than sugar syrup.

>would a strong hive given honey be as likely to succumb to robbing?

Of course not.

>is it better to avoid letting colonies dwindle in the first place? (per your definition of providing them with the appropriate cavity size). 

Of course.

>i am wondering michael, if it might be better to use plain unscented syrup for emergency feeding, as opposed to honey. the smell of open honey (assuming it's in a feeder and not capped in comb) might be enough to encourage robbing whereas plain unscented syrup might not.

I never feed honey to a weak hive. I do feed unscented syrup sometimes when I don't have capped honey to give them. Open honey in a weak hive is an invitation to robbing. But so is the syrup, just less so. So capped honey is what I would prefer all the way around. That means a lot of managing bees so they don't need to be fed is a matter of always having capped stores on hives as a resource you can use rather than harvesting as much as possible.


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## squarepeg

that's kind of what i thought michael. many thanks.


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## Michael Palmer

Okay, clear the air. Only constructive informed discussion from here on. Fair enough??


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## Michael Palmer

deknow;881828
Let's talk about what beekeepers actually do rather than what they should do. If drifting and disease spread is an issue said:


> Michael Palmer said:
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, let's.
> 
> You know I feed thick syrup to my bees if and when they need feed. I feed with gallon cans, directly on the bees. Any drip is sucked up immediately, and doesn't run across the inner cover and out the front side of the hive. I make sure the cans don't leak and the syrup run out of the bottom entrance. Extra precautions must be taken when feeding weak colonies in a strong apiary. You know I do that, too, with all the nucs I have in production yards.
> 
> Think about my cell building yard. 30 of the strongest colonies you ever did see..actually Dean, stronger than any colonies you've ever seen. On the other side of the yard, 60 nucleus colonies.
> 
> During the active cell building season, I have 8 cell builders being fed thin syrup. I may have some of the nucleus colonies being fed at the same time. Allowing robbing to get started would spell disaster. How do I know? I've carelessley allowed it to happen. My fault...operator error. Once started, the bees don't forget. They're always waiting for me when I return to the yard.
> 
> But, it's not the act of feeding that gets them robbing, it's operator error, allowing syrup feeders to leak, using hive top feeders that aren't bee tight, not reducing entrances when appropriate, spilling syrup on the ground, and/or leaving combs with nectar exposed for even a few moments. But does feeding in one apiary cause robbing in a neighboring apiary? I guess that would depend on the neighboring apiary...how close it is.
> 
> >>If drifting and disease spread is an issue, then let's discuss how to prevent them.<<
> 
> Okay, again, let's. I manage my apiary as best as I know how. I keep my bees strong, my entrances sized correctly. I manage my varroa load. I breed stocks to hopefully tolerate nosema...at least I don't let my bees crash and leave them open to robbing. I unite colonies that are too weak to defend themselves. I give brood from nucleus colonies to boost populations. I haven't treated with antibiotics in years, but do treat for varroa, period, as you know.
> 
> Am I perfect? Do I have issues ocassionally? Certainly, same as anyone does. Would I let an apiary crash to the point of being robbed by the neighborhood bees of other keepers. Not if I can help it.
> 
> So, let's do discuss how to prevent drifting and disease spread in the neighborhood. What exactly should I be doing to prevent the OTHER beekeepers' bees from crashing and being robbed by mine? 30-40 Krag? Commando Raid? Help from the State inspection service...yeah right.
> 
> I'm on my own Dean. All I can do is keep my bees as strong and healthy as I am able. All I can do is give presentations at local clubs, and offer advice to all the new beekeepers out there. You know I do. But you tell me. How do I protect my operation from sloppy beekeepers, or those wishing to be treatment free beekeepers...when they do nothing but not treat.
> 
> They do nothing for stock improvement. They don't know what IPM is. The continue to buy sick package bees from the same dealers...those too often on the club's boards and promoting the exclusive use of package bees...picked up at their facility.
> 
> Now, you buy package bees from Georgia, and allow them to die for whatever reason. I know you're attempting a breeding program and a small cell and natural cell foundationless system. I'm not criticizing that. But, don't they get robbed by the neighborhood bees when they die? Isn't there a good chance that whatever parasites and pathogens that killed them would now be in your neighbor's bees?
> 
> So, considering that I have 36 commercial apiaries to protect, counting all the production colonies and nucleus colonies the numbers are well over a thousand, what would you do.
> 
> That's my take, what's yours?
> 
> 
> 
> So that's my take on the matter. Someone care to comment? The ball is in Ya'lls court.
Click to expand...


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## jim lyon

I think we all can agree that robbing spreads disease, that sloppy beekeeping practices which run the gamut from leaving an unattended frame out to switching diseased frames between hives to failing to reduce cavity or entrance size in a small hive all the way to sloppy feeding practices can all lead to robbing. All these things are easily avoidable with prudent beekeeping practices. I consider it among the least of my problems. I am not sure there is much more I can add.


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## Adam Foster Collins

Michael Palmer said:


> So that's my take on the matter. Someone care to comment?


Yeah, thanks for that post, Mike.

After a while on these discussion boards, you find that some people spend a lot of time sharing that they know a lot, while others spend a lot of time sharing a lot of what they know.

Thanks for being the latter.

I've been copying and pasting some of your posts into a document that I can look back on without having to search. Maybe I won't need them once your book is out.

Adam


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## squarepeg

yep.


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## d.frizzell

As someone who comes here for info on "treatment-free" I say Thank You to Michael B. for his straight forward, honest answers. I have your book Michael and it is well used, even over the winter months.


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## Barry

Oldtimer said:


> The reality is not that commercial beekeepers are bumbling fools who cannot even make a living from their bees.


I can't find where Dean made this statement.


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## deknow

Barry, I think he was implying that I am a bumbling fool because I don't make a living with my bees...and that commercial beekeepers do. The other statements of mine that he "paraphrased" are "factually challenged".

Deknow


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## Mr. C

Anyway, it was the original post that interested me ignoring most of the last several pages I'll respond to that.

<to me this sounds like a kind of unfair disadvantage to rebel beekeepers should someone successfully raise treatment free colonies. it means that even if your bees are treatment free and thriving, people would still want you to spray to prevent spreading bee diseases, meaning your own stock will be weakened and eventually no more resistant than anyone else's. does that sound right? >

If you have thriving bees that would indicate to me that they don't have any major pests or diseases to spread. On a small scale it is doubtful that you will actually generate stock that is any different than anything around you. Since barring instrumental insemination your stock will be breeding with everything around you unless you have sufficient isolation or colonies to flood the area. If you are purchasing stock to bring in resistance you will have to continue to do so because of the aforementioned reasons.

I'm trying russians this year and setting up a separate yard for them, I am aware however that I will have to continually buy queens each year in order to keep pure russian stock because I simply don't have enough hives to breed them myself. Stock selection is an admirable goal, but don't expect to make any lasting gains unless your hive total numbers in the hundreds. I've run into lots of very small bee keepers hoping to do breed a better bee, though it's true they will add to the gene pool it's not likely they will have any significant impact. It's a hard fact to swallow for some /shrug.


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## nada

well i was under the impression treatment free bees are still vectors for disease.


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## Michael Palmer

Only if they're diseased, yes? For instance, I haven't used antibiotics in years. Are my colonies vectors of American Foulbrood disease?


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## Oldtimer

Regarding posts 82 & 83, firstly Barry, my statement taken in context wasn't a quote, read in context, that's obvious. It was made because a picture had been painted of the old commercial beekeeper steriotype we used to see talked about on Beesource several years ago, you remember, the ones who pour chemicals into their hives, of commercial, sick, weak bees. 

Dean you keep making assumptions about what I say that take even me by surprise. After your comments pointed at large beekeepers, including implying that they pour feed syrup into their sick hives in such a way that the hives then get robbed out, and of course the beekeepers are so stupid they don't even know that, if this type of stuff was actually believed, then how come these beekeepers got enough brains to even make a living. Because if they were as stupid as that, they wouldn't.
So my reference to them being capable of making a living, was to draw attention to the fact they are not the type of bumbling fools they are made out to be in these types of posts where gross over assumptions have been made by people who quite clearly don't know what's going on.

I've gone back and re-read my post, and yes, I can see how it could be taken the way you have so my apologies on that. But in fact I just meant what it plainly said and it was not a comment on your beekeeping. Not everything I say is about you.

And just so you know Dean, although we often dissagree, I actually think you are pretty intelligent, you are not a bumbling fool.

Sorry if there's anyone else I've offended, my intention was simply to correct what I believe to be a misrepresentation of commercial beekeepers, a misrepresentation that should not keep getting dredged up and infecting the new and unknowing.


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## squarepeg

mr. c makes a good point.

although we can certainly select and cull for the best genetics in our individual apiaries, we are very unlikely to make a significant dent in the honey bee gene pool, treatments or not.

on the other hand, there is evidence of the mite gene pool being altered by prolonged exposure to the synthetic miticides, which has already resulted in the mites becoming resistant to some of the miticides.

this is actully a much greater concern for the large scale commericial beekeeper than for us sideliners and hobbyists, and is why these big boys (and girls) are very interested in feasible and sustainable alternatives.


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## Mr. C

There's a twofold problem with mite selection that often gets ignored. Yes we are worried about mite resistance to miticides, but of equal concern should be mite virulence. You see this with human diseases as well. The pathogen will tend to favor the method of quickest dispersal. In places that are unsanitary virulence is favored (cholera is a good example). The pathogen breeds as fast as possible killing the host and spreading that way. In places with better sanitation cholera tends to be less virulent. Merely making people sick so that there is more opportunity for transfer from person to person over a longer period of time.

Mites spreading from crashing hives are likely to be more virulent, spread crash, spread crash. These are not the mites we want around (well greater of two evils I guess since I don't think anyone wants mites.) Other than avoiding crash and rob scenarios (whether treatment or treatment free) I won't claim to know how to breed a better mite, but it's something to be aware of.


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## Michael Bush

>but of equal concern should be mite virulence.

Yes. We are breeding stronger and stronger mites, which, in my opinion, is not what we should be doing.


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## jim lyon

Yes, no doubt, mite virulence should be a concern. Let's not forget, though, that at the same time there is also natural selection for more mite resistant bees. We don't select breeder queens from the most mite infested hives neither do the drones that dominate the mating process come from such weak hives. If mite virulence were outpacing bee tolerance I would expect a steadily increasing mite population in our bees in the 25 years since we first saw varroa. Such has not been the case.


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## Mr. C

Michael Bush said:


> >
> Yes. We are breeding stronger and stronger mites, which, in my opinion, is not what we should be doing.


I'm not sure what you mean by stronger so I'm not going to assume anything. The mites are going to evolve to whatever makes them more fit, or they will perish (which really doesn't seem likely at this point). A strong mite is not necessarily a bad thing, it just depends on what you mean by strong. If by stong you mean virulent then yes that is bad. If by strong you mean difficult to kill, well that's only as bad as the damage it does to a colony. If a mite is hard to kill but is not very virulent it's not much of an issue.

Treating or not treating will not necessarily result in more virulent mites. Virulence is likely going to be most strongly correlated with how the mites are spread (at least this is the case with diseases). Mites that kill a colony and spread by robbing (horizontal transmission) are likely to be the most harmful as they primarily spread by killing the colony. Ones that spread by leaving with a reproductive swarm (vertical transmission) are going to be more successful with live colonies.

Crashing hives still end up being the most dangerous, whether that is from allowing them to crash w/o treatments near other bees or because a treatment didn't work because the mites were resistant or whatever. If crashing hives are controlled it should help with mite virulence as well as disease prevention etc.

Incedently I have no clue what role bee/mite drift would play on virulence as that would also be horizontal transmission.


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## jim lyon

Well thought out post Mr. C. The idea of stronger and stronger mite virulence makes sense on some level. To me, though, I have seen no first hand evidence that it is actually occurring.


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## Oldtimer

Yes the word "stronger" has been getting used in an overly simplistic way.

Bit like years ago when rats got immune to some of the poisons used against them. Newspaper headlines of the day called them "super rats". But in fact they were no meaner, bigger, or nastier, than any other rat.

In fact an argument could be made, that if a mite has to devote some of it's resources to maintaining resistance to an assortment of chemicals, it might even be less efficient in other areas, than a mite that does not have to bother.


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## squarepeg

as one who has taken the use of synthetic miticides out of the equation, mites with resistance to them pose no unique problems to me.


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## squarepeg

another excellent point mr. c.

i agree that we should be the most concerned with mites who crash colonies and are spread by robbing, and less concerned with mites that are able to achieve equilibrium without crashing their host.

do you have any thoughts regarding mite management practices that would support selecting for the less virulent over the more virulent?


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## Mr. C

I can only claim theory as I haven't done or know of any studies that look at varoa virulence (not to say they aren't out there). But most best practices are things that would benefit that type of selection. A treatment beekeeper should keep levels low to prevent crashing, the same can be done by different methods for "treatment free" brood breaks etc. The main thing would be catching dwindling hives before robbing begins. That could mean isolating them, euthanizing them, combining them or any number of things I haven't thought of. A good beekeeper from either camp should probably be doing those things anyway.

The only practices that I can see that would favor virulence are PPBing and possibly the "Bond Method" if measures aren't taken, as the method implies, and you just let them crash out. It should be pointed out that strong selection can be done without letting bees die, after all you only have to swap out the queen to change the genetics of a hive. To me it seems a huge waste to just let bees die intentionally, there's enough killing them out there I don't need to add to it. If they aren't up to snuff replace the queen and see what happens. If you don't want to treat them and they are too infested you can always shook swarm them and dust them with powdered sugar and start over with a new queen if you don't let them go too far downhill.


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## squarepeg

now that's definitely 'something to think about'. many thanks mr. c.


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## deknow

Oldtimer said:


> In fact an argument could be made, that if a mite has to devote some of it's resources to maintaining resistance to an assortment of chemicals, it might even be less efficient in other areas, than a mite that does not have to bother.


I'm assuming that here, you are referring to the same concepts I was bringing up wrt antibiotic resistance gut bacteria?

There is a piece missing. In the case of the gut bacteria, we were talking about non-target, non-pathogenic organisms...organisms that help the bees be bees. In the case of those bacteria, if they are in an environment free of antibiotcs, the burden of maintaining antibiotic resistance hinders their ability to accomplish their other tasks/functions efficiently (supporting the bees). Of course, if antibiotics are present, the cost of resistance pays off big time.

Now, a mite that is adapting to a miticide is different (even though it doesn't seem so at first). Sure, a mite can come up with resistance mechanisms given time and selection pressure (apistan resistant mites are a reality). ...but, we can't choose what "method" the mites will use to overcome the miticide...especially those miticides that we are told the mites cannot develop a resistance to.

So, yes, there very well can be (and probably is) some metabolically expensive resistance mechanisms that have developed in the mite as a result of treatment. Yes, these adaptations may put the mite at a metabolic/reproductive disadvantage when the specific treatment isn't used.

But protein production protecting from a specific miticide is only one way that mites can "fight back" against miticides. Other options include:

faster reproduction
more offspring/mating
behaviors that increase the amount the mites move from hive to hive
hosting of more viruses to keep the colony weak enough for mite infestation

...these kinds of adaptations might well be a disadvantage in a "natural system" where the mites and bees are simply working things out....but mites with these kinds of traits are going to be harder for all beekeepers to deal with...treatment or no treatment.

deknow


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## Oldtimer

deknow said:


> I'm assuming that here, you are referring to the same concepts I was bringing up wrt antibiotic resistance gut bacteria?
> 
> deknow


No it never crossed my mind Deknow. For goodness sake, everything i say is not about you, or to do with you. 

As to the rest of your post, some valid points.


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## squarepeg

>faster reproduction
more offspring/mating
behaviors that increase the amount the mites move from hive to hive
hosting of more viruses to keep the colony weak enough for mite infestation

wouldn't natural selection in mites favor these strategies in response to any pressure, including hygienic behavior by the bees?


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## zhiv9

I believe that Tom Seeley hypothesized that a greater distance between hives reduces mite virulence. This was based on feral colony observations in the Arnot Forest. If the mites kill off the colony and they are a great distance from the next colony, their lineage dies with the colony. If the mites are less virulent than the prime method of expansion would be through swarms from the originally parasitized colony.


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## Michael Palmer

Yes, horizontal transmission and vertical transmission. Horizontal transmission would mean the parasite always has access to a new host. The parasite's genes are transmitted to the new host, and the first host is expendable and so are the parasites in it. An apiary being re-stocked is an example. There are always more hosts added by the beekeeper.

Vertical transmission is when the parasite passes genes to offspring that have no other host but the one they are on. Their host is not expendable. Colonies separated by distance would lead to vertical transmission of the parasites genes from one generation to the next. Like the various bee trees in the Arnot forest.


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## Mr. C

I figured someone out there had to be studying it. I'm mostly just familiar with the idea with regards to diseases from teaching Biology. I have to agree with squarepeg though on other mechanisms to develop resistance. I would argue in addition that those methods are ways of mites becoming resistant to miticides, but rather ways to cope with them, that would be similar to ways they would cope with any selective pressure against them.


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## zhiv9

I think the best that we can hope for is a balance in the hive between the mites and bees. Nothing we do is going eliminate the mites completely. How many colony deaths are blamed on mites, when it was really other factors that weakened the colony and upset the balance? Disease, starvation, poor genetics, pesticide exposure, and miticides could all be the real causes of death.

A person suffering from AIDS could succomb to the common cold due to their weekend immune system. So what was the cause of death? AIDS or the cold?


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## Solomon Parker

zhiv9 said:


> I think the best that we can hope for is a balance in the hive between the mites and bees.


This is what actual treatment-free beekeepers are looking for. It is not only the best that can be hoped for, it is what is possible.


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## Michael Bush

I mean strong as in "they don't die easily" and "they can reproduce fast enough to overcome our treatments". It could also be that they can run, hide or hang on better so they don't get groomed off. Or that they prefer worker cells because the beekeepers keep removing drone cells and selecting for bees that don't prefer drones. None of this is good for the bees. It seems to me that any aspect of "strong" for the mites is bad for the bees.


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## Mr. C

I would say this is what all beekeepers are looking for, there are just different ways of reaching a realtively stable equilibrium and other factors to consider.


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## squarepeg

randy oliver has an interesting discussion on scientificbeekeeping.com about the host/parasite relationship between bees and mites.

he makes the point that it is rare in nature to find a parasite that completely crashes, collapses, and kills it's host. (not a very smart strategy for a parasite to kill off it's host)

with the asian honeybee (apis ceranae) and its mites (varroa jacobsoni) the bees and the mites have reached an equilibrium whereby the mites don't crash the hives. this equilibrium supposedly took over 100 years to come about.

the european honeybee (what most of us have) and its mites (varroa destructor) have not reached this equilibrium yet. the mites crash the hives, and then depend on other bees to come in and rob it out so that they can hitchhike a ride to the next colony. it's counter-intuitive, but one could argue that crashing a hive is varroa destructor's main strategy for survival.

the assumption is that selective pressures will eventually result in the european bees developing better strategies to deal with the mites, and destructor mites will eventually develop better strategies to not kill off the bees. the problem is that today's beekeeper can't afford to wait 100 or more years (if it were to take that long).

if this line of thinking is correct, and if we assume that our beekeeping practrices have an effect, it suggests that we should be selecting for mites that don't crash colonies by allowing these less virulent mites to coexist with the bees. 

it also suggests we should kill the mites that do crash colonies, and prevent them from being transmitted to new colonies (via hitchhiking on robbing bees).

avoiding across the board treatments, combined with taking action when necessary seems like a good approach to me, and what i plan to try with my bees.


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## Solomon Parker

squarepeg said:


> it also suggests we should kill the mites that do crash colonies, and prevent them from being transmitted to new colonies (via hitchhiking on robbing bees).


This is the impossible and unrealistic aspect of this post. You can't choose which mites to kill. The only logical way to do it (the same way nature does) is to let over-virulent parasites kill themselves. It is also necessary to allow the pressure to remain on the bees to develop their own methods as well. These things can't be done effectively whilst treating.


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## Mr. C

Um, yes it is possible to kill mites that crash a colony. I can think of a couple ways to do so without treating the hives. You can isolate the hive that is crashing...which will kill the mites if they can't spread to another colony. You can uthenize the hive and remove it. You can pull the hive, shook swarm them and drop the mites off with powdered sugar and restart them on fresh comb. I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of as well.

And it is most certainly possible to treat and still selectively breed for mite resistance. The characteristics that allow bees to be mite resistant are distinct behaviors. You can test for those things by various methods, freezing, pin pricking, observations of nurse bees, finding chewed mites etc. You can also measure mite counts because even treating does not kill all of the mites, so bees with lower counts are likely the ones that exhibit those behaviors. Breeding from those bees selects STRONGLY for those behaviors without killing all of the other bees.

Telling people that letting their bees die (if that is what you are advocating by "keeping the pressure on") is the only way to select for better stock is downright misleading. There are ways to select for stock that don't involve allowing hives to crash in a treatment free or treatment setup. In fact it should be noted that unless you have a whole lot of hives or are isolated, you are not likely to make any lasting progress on stock breeding (I believe brother Adam said anything under 100 hives is not going to make much progress).

I would say it's illogical to do it the same way nature does it because the whole point of any agricultural enterprise is to alter nature to better suit our needs. You can exploit natural trends in nature to assist your goals, but why wait a few hundred years (give or take a few centuries) for nature to take its course when you may also lose lots of valuable traits that have been breed into the population from generations of breeding selection?


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## nada

also assuming apiaries like bweaver and russels arent lying, a balanced relationship between mite and bee already exists


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## Solomon Parker

Mr. C said:


> You can pull the hive, shook swarm them and drop the mites off with powdered sugar and restart them on fresh comb.


Interesting, I had not yet heard that powdered sugar was a 100% effective treatment, or that it was effective at all. Survey says no.




Mr. C said:


> And it is most certainly possible to treat and still selectively breed for mite resistance.


No, it is not. You may be able to breed for certain traits, for which there are test methods. But I find no usefulness in breeding for bees able to chew out frozen brood because mites don't often freeze brood in my neighborhood. Wild hives have broadly varying mixtures of traits (some of which are certainly still undiscovered) which can only be utilized by pressures applied by actual mites.




Mr. C said:


> Telling people that letting their bees die (if that is what you are advocating by "keeping the pressure on") is the only way to select for better stock is downright misleading.


Who is misleading? I did not say that.




Mr. C said:


> I would say it's illogical to do it the same way nature does it because the whole point of any agricultural enterprise is to alter nature to better suit our needs. You can exploit natural trends in nature to assist your goals, but why wait a few hundred years (give or take a few centuries) for nature to take its course when you may also lose lots of valuable traits that have been breed into the population from generations of breeding selection?


It doesn't take that long, but for some reason, no one wants to listen to the people who have actually done it.




nada said:


> also assuming apiaries like bweaver and russels arent lying, a balanced relationship between mite and bee already exists


There are a number of us who are already there. I cannot speak for BWeaver, but I know of one guy who keeps BWeaver stock treatment-free.


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## jim lyon

All hives (at least in areas where mites exist) have mite pressures. The upside of not treating is you are speeding up the selective pressure a bit, the downside of course is the corresponding loss of genetic diversity. There is really no argument among bee researchers (and I would heartily agree) that today's bees tolerate varroa much better than when we were first impacted 20+ years ago. Clearly the North American honeybee is on a treatment free "glide path" in respect to varroa. It is however, difficult to predict just how steep (or shallow) the slope is, certainly it's a far different path than the trachael mite which was a relative "flash in the pan". The point is, though, that progress is being made and it's essentially because all breeding is selective breeding whether you choose to treat or not.


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## Michael Bush

>Um, yes it is possible to kill mites that crash a colony. I can think of a couple ways to do so without treating the hives...You can pull the hive, shook swarm them and drop the mites off with powdered sugar and restart them on fresh comb. 

How is that "not treating" the colony?

>And it is most certainly possible to treat and still selectively breed for mite resistance.

I would say the opposite. It is IMpossible to treat and still selectively breed for mite resistance. No one knows the complex set of characteristics that provide mite resistance. Breeding for any one trait in my observation of human breeding programs, has almost always failed in the long run.

> The characteristics that allow bees to be mite resistant are distinct behaviors.

I don't belive that. There may be a few that we THINK contribute, but all in all, the number of possible things that may contribute only in certain combinations may be impossible to tell.

> You can test for those things by various methods, freezing, pin pricking, observations of nurse bees, finding chewed mites etc. You can also measure mite counts because even treating does not kill all of the mites, so bees with lower counts are likely the ones that exhibit those behaviors. Breeding from those bees selects STRONGLY for those behaviors without killing all of the other bees.

Assuming that those are the only behaviors involved and assuming you don't accidently breed out other behaviors that are equally important in the process of selection.

>(I believe brother Adam said anything under 100 hives is not going to make much progress).

But he was trying to breed out what the local wild stock was. I'm trying to breed IN what the local wild stock has. There are many colonies around that contribute. But then I do have 200 hives. But I think you can make progress with any number.

>I would say it's illogical to do it the same way nature does it because the whole point of any agricultural enterprise is to alter nature to better suit our needs.

Yes, and that is a philosophy that often backfires.

>You can exploit natural trends in nature to assist your goals, but why wait a few hundred years (give or take a few centuries) for nature to take its course when you may also lose lots of valuable traits that have been breed into the population from generations of breeding selection? 

The South African beekeepers decided not to treat and things were getting better in three years... not a few hundred years...

>the assumption is that selective pressures will eventually result in the european bees developing better strategies to deal with the mites, and destructor mites will eventually develop better strategies to not kill off the bees. the problem is that today's beekeeper can't afford to wait 100 or more years (if it were to take that long).

But it doesn't take that long. With Tracheal mites it took a few years, not a few hundred. With Varroa even with people treating and propping up their stock the pressure has improved survival with Varroa from what I'm seeing and hearing from people. In South Africa with NO treatments it only took a few years.


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## Mr. C

<Interesting, I had not yet heard that powdered sugar was a 100% effective treatment, or that it was effective at all. Survey says no.>

It's not 100% effective, especially not as an in hive treatment. It is fairly effective at dislodging phoretic mites (think powdered sugar roll) though. Which if you have done a shook swarm and all of your bees are in a wired cage can be used to kill the majority of the mites by mechanically dislodging them. There are other ways that can be used that either kill or dislodge phoretic mites, that can be used this way as well. I was simply pointing out that you can indeed kill select mites.

<No, it is not. You may be able to breed for certain traits, for which there are test methods. But I find no usefulness in breeding for bees able to chew out frozen brood because mites don't often freeze brood in my neighborhood. Wild hives have broadly varying mixtures of traits (some of which are certainly still undiscovered) which can only be utilized by pressures applied by actual mites.>

Frozen brood is one way to test for hygenic behavior, which has been demonstrated to correlate to removing infected/diseased/parasitized brood etc. I think Jim has already made my point for me on mite pressure. No treatment is 100% effective there are always mites around, thus always mite pressure.


<Originally Posted by Mr. C

Telling people that letting their bees die (if that is what you are advocating by "keeping the pressure on") is the only way to select for better stock is downright misleading.

Who is misleading? I did not say that.>

Reread, I never said you did. I said IF that is what you were advocating since you just got done saying there was no way to selectively kill mites and the only way to kill them is let them kill themselves. If you imply something other than letting the bees die as a method for letting the virulent mites die I would be happy to hear it. I couldn't figure out any way, which is why I assumed that is what you meant. I tried to point out the fact that I was assuming by the clarifying statement "if that is what you mean" hoping that if I got it wrong you could explain or clarify.

<It doesn't take that long, but for some reason, no one wants to listen to the people who have actually done it.>

It's going to take a different amount of time in different areas depending on a gazillion factors. It's the unknown time period for a given area that is the problem. Not everyone can afford to wait. It's not that people don't pay attention to those that have done it, some people also look at those that have tried and either have failed or not yet succeeded as well. I tried buying treatment free raised bees a couple of times. They did not work in my area and some were downright viscous to boot. I'm trying out new stock this year, haven't given up just being pragmatic.


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## squarepeg

>You can't choose which mites to kill.

sure you can sol. by identifying a colony collapsing under mites, dislodging those mites, and requeening, you stop those mites virulent enough to collapse a colony from passing on their genetics, as well as culling the bees that lack the traits to be resistant on their own.

>The only logical way to do it (the same way nature does) is to let over-virulent parasites kill themselves.

this only happens when the parasite is so virulent that it kills its host. the problem is that our kept bee colonies are located much closer together than they would be in nature. this provides an almost limitless suppy of host. so our practices get in the way of the over-virulent parasite killing themselves, and we instead promote over-virulence.

>also assuming apiaries like bweaver and russels arent lying, a balanced relationship between mite and bee already exists 

a lot of progress is being made nada, but the experts that i pay attention to would say that we are not there yet.


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## Solomon Parker

Mr. C said:


> It's not 100% effective


Exactly. Not even a dead hive is 100% effective.




Mr. C said:


> Frozen brood is one way to test for hygenic behavior, which has been demonstrated to correlate to removing infected/diseased/parasitized brood etc. I think Jim has already made my point for me on mite pressure. No treatment is 100% effective there are always mites around, thus always mite pressure.


Thus the solution has to be something other than treating because it is not effective.



Mr. C said:


> Reread, I never said you did.


I AM advocating people let their bees die. It's not the parenthetical part or the part preceding it I'm taking issue with. It's the last part, the "only" part. Insert "best" or "most effective" or "quickest" or all three and you'd have a good solid statement.


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## Mr. C

So we get back to the definition of what you mean by treatment free. If you're hard line requeening could be a treatment, or any manipulation done. If your treatment free because you don't want any chemicals in the hive (which I believe a large portion of the treatment free community is and the reason I try to avoid treatments, but maybe I'm wrong here). Then dusting bees not in a hive with powdered sugar should not in any way affect any residue left in the hive or in the honey, wax, or propolis they produce. If you draw the line elsewhere that's a difference of opinion on a sliding scale, the bottom being somewhere around wild honey gathering without any smoke I guess.


<I would say the opposite. It is IMpossible to treat and still selectively breed for mite resistance. No one knows the complex set of characteristics that provide mite resistance. Breeding for any one trait in my observation of human breeding programs, has almost always failed in the long run.>

I never said breed for one trait, I'm sorry if that was implied. But if your breeding chickens there's nothing wrong with breeding from the hens that produce the most eggs, it doesn't mean ignore all other factors. If you did it the "natural way" that would mean breeding all the chickens and the population changing by the ones that raised the most chicks. That might improve your hens some, but not as fast as if you select the healthiest chickens that have the best of a set of characteristics.

>I would say it's illogical to do it the same way nature does it because the whole point of any agricultural enterprise is to alter nature to better suit our needs.

Yes, and that is a philosophy that often backfires.

Everything backfires sometimes, but I'd say overall we're doing pretty well and are certainly (ok in my opinion) better off than when we were hunting and gathering only and in constant danger of starvation and predation.

As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already? Unless South Africa never had varroa and all the bees were descended from European stock, I don't know the region.


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## Solomon Parker

Mr. C said:


> So we get back to the definition of what you mean by treatment free.


Sounds like you haven't read the Unique Forum Rules.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?253066-Unique-Forum-Rules


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## Michael Bush

>As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already?

South African, when Varroa arrived, had a mixture of breeds of bees including European and African stock of various kinds (Scutella, Adonsii etc.). The beekeepers decided do approach the problem as a group, and as a group, decided to not treat. They have heavy losses for a couple of years and they dropped off every since.

"As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already?" -- http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08082007-153050/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf


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## Mr. C

My bad I read them, but don't have them memorized. I guess I disagree with them, but I can abide by them and not mention mecahnically removing mites with powedered sugar again.

You may be off the opinion that letting your bees die is the best method, but I'll be honest I can't afford that method, and yes I get free bees from swarms and cutouts, and minimize costs by building all of my own equipment. After three years of no honey and dead bees I've changed my tune. If you can afford it great for you, but it's good for people to know there are alternatives out there even if it takes longer to breed better bees.


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## squarepeg

>So we get back to the definition of what you mean by treatment free. 

it is true that there is no generally accepted definition.

>My bad I read them, but don't have them memorized. I guess I disagree with them.

as do many level headed and noteworthy contributors on beesource.

my understanding is that the rules were put in place at an earlier time because the 'debates' on this subforum became frought with personal attacks and incivility.

that is clearly not the case anymore, and the new moderator has been gracious to allow meaningful discussions here that sometimes involve the 'mention' of methods previously banned by the old rules.


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## Mr. C

Michael Bush said:


> >
> South African, when Varroa arrived, had a mixture of breeds of bees including European and African stock of various kinds (Scutella, Adonsii etc.). The beekeepers decided do approach the problem as a group, and as a group, decided to not treat. They have heavy losses for a couple of years and they dropped off every since.
> 
> "As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already?" -- http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08082007-153050/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf


I can say this is great news, but hardly the same situation. I didn't even make it past the first paragraph before I read this.
<Some colony losses did occur at the front of the varroa spread, and all colonies were found to be deleteriously affected by the mite which developed populations of 50,000 and more in some colonies. Colonies exhibited all the same varroa effects witnessed in other parts of the world, *with the exception that the majority of colonies did not die as a result of infestation*> (emphasis added by me)

So they got varroa, but the majority of colonies weren't dying from it. No treatments should be the goal, but a choice between mostly or all dead bees (my result so far) and a few dead bees without treatment is definately not the same thing. Do you think all of the beekeepers would have agreed not to treat if their colonies had actually been dying? 
It looks like some great reading though it will take me a while to make it through all 90 pages. In particular the analysis of how the cape bee managed complete tolerance in just three years looks fascinating, but there again if it was a 3year process with our bees it would be over and done with.


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## Oldtimer

If a person has lost every bee, each year, for 3 years, that's long enough to know he should change something.

I think you've come to the right conclusions Mr C, and will achieve your goals.

In my country we have a varroa resistance breeding program running that is now, after some years, producing some pretty varroa tolerant bees. Treatments have been used, but have not affected their methods of evaluation. Pin pricks and freezing have not been used, too simplistic and don't even relate to varroa.


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## Daniel Y

In regard to mite pressure. What pressure do you consider would be necessary to see colonies actually improve in regard to mite resistance? With pressure being defined as the percentage of bees that show adequate improvement? I suppose in regard to treatment free this would be the percentage of hive that survive regardless if mite infestation without treatments.

Quoted from Michael above.
"Breeding for any one trait in my observation of human breeding programs, has almost always failed in the long run."

Are you saying this in regard to bees or breeding of animals as a whole? I agree that breeding of bees has not produced the same results as other animals.


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## zhiv9

Quite often trying to selectively breed for one positive trait also unintentionally selects for an undesirable trait. You can see this in purebred dogs. Hip dysplasia in some breeds, breathing, skin issues, etc in others. The same is true in birds; blue budgies are prone to tumours that the native green type are not. Genetic modification is the only real way to isolate and emphasize a single trait without emphasizing or suppressing others.


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## RichardsonTX

Hawkster said:


> I only treat when counts indicate it is needed and then use "soft" treatments. However, I cant get my arms around people not treating at all and somehow expecting the bees to toughen up and figure out how to handle the mites, you have 1 queen per hive so i am not sure how anybody with less than a few thousand hives could expect a drastic change in the bees ability to handle the mites ? our best hope to my way of thinking is for the big queen breeders to breed a strain of bees that can handle them and in the meantime do what we can to keep our bees alive. I know there are mite resistant bees out there supposedly but I haven't seen one that people are beating down the doors to get which i really think would happen with a truly resistant bee.


I think you are right on target.


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## nada

zhiv9 said:


> Quite often trying to selectively breed for one positive trait also unintentionally selects for an undesirable trait. You can see this in purebred dogs. Hip dysplasia in some breeds, breathing, skin issues, etc in others. The same is true in birds; blue budgies are prone to tumours that the native green type are not. Genetic modification is the only real way to isolate and emphasize a single trait without emphasizing or suppressing others.


are you making a plug for Monsanto? :s


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## throrope

I agree with your beekeeping as long as your doing it my way.

Don't even think about telling me what to do.

I suggest you leave well enough alone or I'll lobby the dept. of agriculture so they make you do it my way.

We're a hard headed stubborn lot.


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## zhiv9

nada said:


> are you making a plug for Monsanto? :s


No just trying to point out the fallacy in emphasing a single trait.


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## nada

...nvm...


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## Mr. C

hmm obviously selected for one trait only to the exclusion of others is a bad idea, but most of the examples you see of this are most pronounced in show animals, where the primary concern is looks. I believe breeders do this fairly often to good effect over a short period in order to cement a valuable trait into the population that might otherwise get lost in random breeding. I got caught oversimplifying a few posts back when talking about distinct traits. Yes there is an overall interaction of many different traits that leads to varroa resistance/tolerance or any other characteristics. But if you recognize that there are some measureable traits that contribute to this overall fitness, then these individual traits can be selected for and added to a population to improve that stocks resistance. If you are still measuring ovrall fitness of the bees and outcrossing for diversity when needed you should be able to do so without losing the other traits that also are important. That's not any different from selecting for low swarming tendancy or honey production etc. If I wanted bees that were straight up ferals with no modification I would not likely ever get much in the way of honey since the ferals goal should be to store up enough to last the winter then swarm (which doesn't leave extra for the hungy beeker). That does not mean that there are not good genetics out there in the feral population, but I'm selfish and want productive bees and am willing to sacrifice some other traits to get that.


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## mac

So if all your bees are being treated for mites and nosema and anything else, and the person next door doesn’t treat and their bees crash, if your treating why should it matter. And then if your bees crash why is it their fault? You’re treating???


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## squarepeg

mac, i don't want to treat, but i will do what it takes to keep my colonies healthy, and i will take responsible measures to keep my colonies from collapsing, getting robbed, and spreading disease.

very few contributors on this forum think it's a good idea to expose their bees to as much pressure as possible with hopes of ending up with superbees.

i also have a concern for feral colonies, and wouldn't want them unnecessarly exposed.

the reason hive registration and removable frames are required in most if not all localities is because beekeepers are held responsible for keeping their bees healthy, and are supposed to eliminate problems that can threaten other bees.


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## Mr. C

mac said:


> So if all your bees are being treated for mites and nosema and anything else, and the person next door doesn’t treat and their bees crash, if your treating why should it matter. And then if your bees crash why is it their fault? You’re treating???



Treating doesn't wipe out every mite, disease, or whatever. If you have bees that are properly treated next to crashing hives that are dying of mites, they will get robbed out and transfer those mites to the treated colonies after the treatment is over reinfesting them to a level that can kill the colony. Even if it is caught in time additional treatment would then be necessary which can have deliterious effects on the bees and lead to quicker resistance etc.

Essentially that argument analogous to yard work in the suburbs. If you clean up all the leaves in your yard and I live next door and don't it shouldn't matter that my leaves blow into my yard because you already cleaned all of your leaves. In reality you have the choice of putting up a fence or cleaning up leaves every week till the snow flies if you want a clean yard (only in this case cleaning the leaves costs you not only time, but money also and may kill your grass if you don't spend it).


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## Joel

Beekeeping is animal husbandry just like dairy farming is. If we are keeping more than one or two hives in a yard we are overpopulating nature and the natural result is control through disease, starvation or parasite. In 1992 beekeeping was as easy as checking your hives in march and feeding (treatment for starvation), putting supers on in May and pulling honey in September. Since then we saw varroa( (1996 in our area, a new issue,) devestate hives all over the world to the tune of millions upon millions of hives lost, then it was a foul brood outbreak in the early part of the millenium in upstate new york with thousand of hives burned, Hive beetles, trachael mites, deformed wing virus, Israeli Virus and the list goes on. These are not sypmtoms of beekeepers who treat, they are symptoms of overpoulation and travel by bees in areas which would not be normal in nature that allow disease and pests to spread quickly. We have worked for 20 years on breeding, better bees, refreshing our stocks with the best queens through testing queens from from 15 or more suppliers and then only buying from 3 or 4, using ever developing integrated pest management and testing more natural treatments. Nothing I do or see in our operation makes me believe I will overcome millions of years of natural population controls if I'm keeping any stock in a population larger than would normally be seen in nature.

I hope, especially newbees, consider treatment free as a goal to be achieved at levels that should start with reaching chemical free and with the knowledge it requires a great deal of self education, a dedication to time with your bees and the acceptance that that road will mean more losses.

As to non-treating neighbors - the unfortunate truth is when we start out and too often as hobbyist in a busy life or with little education we don't recognize a problem like American Foulbrood until a hive is collapsing and studies show extensively (new zealand study AFB) that within as little as 3 weeks of being exposed to one hive with a minimal outbreak we have infected every hive in our yard and likely in an area. How many cells of AFB are present before you recognize it, do you look for scale when you inspect, do you know what K-wing means, do you inspect for Trachael mites, what type of varroa inspection do you use and how often to you do indepth inpsection? When are you as my neighbor qualifed to keep treatment free bees that won't infect my hives. We all have a responsibility to be a good stewards as beekeepers as bees are facing ever increasing pressures and their place in agriculture is unreplaceable at this time.


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## Solomon Parker

Joel said:


> When are you as my neighbor qualifed to keep treatment free bees that won't infect my hives.


Your hives by the very nature of beekeeping in this country are already infected. There is no 'yours' and 'mine' in that sense. Bees travel where they will. Maybe they come back to their own hive, maybe they don't. You can either treat your bees to temporarily get rid of whatever it is you don't like in there, or you can keep bees who do it themselves. This forum is about bees who do it themselves.


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## jmgi

mac said:


> So if all your bees are being treated for mites and nosema and anything else, and the person next door doesn’t treat and their bees crash, if your treating why should it matter. And then if your bees crash why is it their fault? You’re treating???


Exactly, there are many here who have this paranoia about the treatment free person's bees being contagious to the bees that are treated, I don't think it can be proven that it was the treatment free bees next door that caused your treated bees to crash, you just become an easy target for blame that's all. Lets be realistic in all honesty. John


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## squarepeg

>there are many here who have this paranoia about the treatment free person's bees being contagious to the bees that are treated....

not paranoid here.

but there can be no disputing the fact that a dying hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals.

i'm not sure why this always gets turned around to treatment vs. treatment free. it's more about preventing the unecessary spreading of a problem.

i'm lucky to have bees that have a fourteen year history of surviving mites without any treatments. i really don't want to have to do anything to save a colony from mite collapse. but before i let a hive crash and become a threat to my other hives, my neighbor's hives, or nearby ferals i will do what it takes.

my bees have proven natural mite resistance, but that is no guarentee that they might rob out another hive and bring in a boat load of mites all at once. even the most mite resistant bees must have some upper limit on what they can handle.

there's not much i can do if a feral hive near me crashes and my bees rob it. but i can do my best to make sure my bees don't become a source for someone else's problems. fortunately, the other beekeepers near me feel the same way. 

i'll say it again, i don't care if you treat or don't treat, but i do care if you let your hives crash and get robbed out. unless of course you keep bees that can do 'that' for themselves.


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## Rader Sidetrack

squarepeg said:


> but there can be no disputing the fact that a dying hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals.


That is very profound, so let us repeat that, with a slight _twist_:

"but there can be no disputing the fact that a _treated _hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals."

Anyone have any objections to that statement? :lpf:


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## squarepeg

you just crack yourself up, don't you radar. 

dying is dying, treated or not, i thought i made that clear enough.


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## Rader Sidetrack

squarepeg said:


> dying is dying, treated or not, i thought i made that clear enough.


I'm glad to see that we share common ground.  Apparently I'm kinda slow, so allow me to summarize; 

It doesn't matter whether hives are treated or treatment-free, the _real _problem is *robbing *happening to a weak hive.


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## lazy shooter

We have a saying in West Texas, it is "we are beating a dead horse." I think most of us are considerate of others, and whether you are a treatment free or a chemical guy, we work toward bettering bees and beekeeping, period. This thread has turned into a conundrum without a clear answer. I'm not reading any more posts on this "dead horse" issue.


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## Mr. C

<Your hives by the very nature of beekeeping in this country are already infected. There is no 'yours' and 'mine' in that sense. Bees travel where they will. Maybe they come back to their own hive, maybe they don't. You can either treat your bees to temporarily get rid of whatever it is you don't like in there, or you can keep bees who do it themselves. This forum is about bees who do it themselves. >

Really? So if I run into a case of AFB I can dump my crashing hives next door then and you won't mind... don't worry thus far they are completely treatment free. FWIW a crashing hive is a crashing hive, whether it's treatment free or not, there is a good chance it is dying from something that can be spread. It's about being a good neighbor. It's fine if you want to let your hives die, I could care less. I only care when it impacts me, If your hives are in a location that are not likely to impact someone else (because despite us all being infected with everything aparently, bees only fly so far), do whatever you want. No one here (that I have seen) is advocating that you should be treating your hives. What some people are asking is that if there is a risk that you could spread problems to someone else you should do something about it (again that doesn't mean treating unless isolating, combining, or euthanizing a hive is also considered a treatment, but after rereading the forum rules it doesn't appear to.)


<That is very profound, so let us repeat that, with a slight twist:

"but there can be no disputing the fact that a treated hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals."

Anyone have any objections to that statement?>

I have to agree with squarepeg here, exchange treatment with "any" and I'm fine with it. Not every crashing hive is necessarily dangerous, it could be starvation, queenlessness, mouse problems etc, etc. But then again it could be mites, AFB, virus load, etc etc, which are dangerous.


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## squarepeg

yep, most are agreed it's better not to let a hive get weak, and then robbed.


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## squarepeg

nada said:


> a concern from pro-treatment beekeepers i have seen a few times on this board was that if you try to be treatment free anywhere near other beekeepers or close to the city limits, you will be spreading disease to other people's beehives and this could end with forcing them to use more treatments than before and worst case scenario their bee colonies will die.
> 
> to me this sounds like a kind of unfair disadvantage to rebel beekeepers should someone successfully raise treatment free colonies. it means that even if your bees are treatment free and thriving, people would still want you to spray to prevent spreading bee diseases, meaning your own stock will be weakened and eventually no more resistant than anyone else's. does that sound right?





lazy shooter said:


> We have a saying in West Texas, it is "we are beating a dead horse." I think most of us are considerate of others, and whether you are a treatment free or a chemical guy, we work toward bettering bees and beekeeping, period. This thread has turned into a conundrum without a clear answer. I'm not reading any more posts on this "dead horse" issue.


lazy, i tend to agree with you that most of us are considerate of others. 

nada's original post set the stage once again for this hashing out of the different approaches to 'bettering bees and beekeeping'.

we'll get there. randy oliver credits the pursuit of alternative methods as the way toward 'sustainable' beekeeping.


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## mac

Yah I think sustainable is the goal. How to get there is the question.


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## Michael Bush

>If a person has lost every bee, each year, for 3 years

Dont that.

> that's long enough to know he should change something.

And I did...

>Are you saying this in regard to bees or breeding of animals as a whole?

Both.

> I agree that breeding of bees has not produced the same results as other animals. 

In some ways it has when people look at the "whole bee". If you breed for just color, as some have, it's another matter. But it's the same when you just bree for hygiene or any other trait you think will help. You're "straining at the gnat". In my opinion, you need to be looking at the whole picture of healthy instead of counting cells that have been uncapped and mite counts.

>Quite often trying to selectively breed for one positive trait also unintentionally selects for an undesirable trait. You can see this in purebred dogs. Hip dysplasia in some breeds, breathing, skin issues, etc in others. The same is true in birds; blue budgies are prone to tumours that the native green type are not.

Exactly.

>hmm obviously selected for one trait only to the exclusion of others is a bad idea, but most of the examples you see of this are most pronounced in show animals, where the primary concern is looks.

Not really. Maybe that is the root, but some breeds of cattle have suffered because of some of the same narrow thinking. Herefords were a very hardy breed of cattle capable of surviving pretty well on their own until they decided to breed them to be more compact. The thinking was that the cattle were spending energy growing things they didn't need that much, like longer legs, which did not translate into salable beef. So they bred them to have short legs and compact bodies and the result was calving issues. Finally someone looked closer at the relationship between leg length and calving issues and discovered that long legged cattle had less calving issues. But by then they had bred out all the long legged herefords.

It's true a lot of problems are because of shows (probalby compactness was also a show trait, but one they picked because they thought it would translate into effecient conversion of feed to meat). They certainly ruined a lot of good work horse breeds by breeding them for show. They should have been breeding them to be healthy.

We need to breed bees that are gentle, healthy and productive. Anything else that we select for could easily backfire and by breeding for those things you're breeding for the combination of things that cause that. As soon as you get caught up in the microcosm, you lose sight of the big picture and in breeding, I don't think you can afford to do that.


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## Mr. C

Michael I can agree with you in that we always need to breed for healthy bees. Above your example of cattle, it seems to me they weren't monitoring other aspects of health very well. You say we need to breed for healthy, gentle, productive bees. How is breeding for gentle or productive bees any different than breeding for any other trait? It is entirely possible that breeding gentle bees leaves them more susceptable to pathogens or parasites. Of my hives a couple years ago the only bees that survived treatment free were viscous. I think the fact of the matter is it's fine to breed for anything, as long as you are taking into account the overall health of the bees. How is breeding for hygenic behavior (again assuming that you are taking overall health into account) any different than breeding for honey production or gentleness? If there's something I'm missing here please let me know. We want bees that are best suited for our purposes. We will always be selecting for things that could potentially be detrimental to the survival/propagation of bees themselves to suit our purposes.


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## JRG13

I would assume breeding for gentleness lies within being able to effectively work a hive and for liability. Everyone would equate them to AHB if they're not gentle and we know how that tune goes.


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## Mr. C

I know why we do it, that's not the point. I was pointing out that selecting for gentleness is no different than selecting for any other trait. We select for traits that benefit us, gentleness being one of them, not because it helps the bees, but because it helps us. Saying that there is something inherently wrong with selecting for specific traits in and of itself is in my opinion misguided. It is quite likely that selecting for more and more gentle bees could be detrimental to the bees. I start to question when I hear we shouldn't be selecting for specific traits, especially when it's followed up by a list of traits to select for.


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## JRG13

I see what you're saying C, and I agree. The way I'm approaching it, is start with something you like and bring in traits you want. As far as evaluating, unless you're a true breeder with the resources to keep pure lines etc... it comes down to evaluating your hives, and selecting ones you like for production and breeders etc... In the end I think we're all selecting for healthy, productive and gentle bees. Open mating brings interesting problems though for most of us as far as maintaining lines but it's not impossible.


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## Beelosopher

I agree that it seems odd to say that you shouldn't select, then list what you should select for. But having heard Mr. Bush speak on this in November, I took away that we should select as few traits as possible so we allow as many traits as possible back into the system. This allows us, rather the bees, the opportunity to survive the next big obstacle. 

In reality I think we would be hard pressed to get away without selecting anything.


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## JRG13

I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.


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## Joel

JRG13 said:


> I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.


Exceptionally well said! Perhaps you and Michael should collaborate on the book he needs to write....I get frustrated at years of working on this while reamaining viable at the making a living stage. This kind of brief moment of clarity reminds me not to overcomplicate the many many facets - keep it simple. You have the gift of a writer and he the gift of knowledge and soft spoken guidance ... would be a good read on these long winter nights! Thanks


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## virginiawolf

Hi, I learned a bunch of what I know from the bee source members and I have followed the treatment free threads and discussed treating with my local mentors and such. I treated once only as a novelty and on a few hives with oxalic vapor just to try it. Other than that I haven’t treated but I made splits and reared queens and I have looked at dead outs under a microscope for indications of nosema and such to make sure there wasn’t a problem which there wasn’t.
I just wanted to say that with my little bit of experience and within the circles of the local beekeepers here that I think that a vast majority of us are doing a good responsible job of keeping bees from what I can tell. 


The state inspector spoke at the last meeting of our bee club and I asked her if she had seen much AFB and I think she said only two cases last season which was down from like 70 10 years earlier or something. Some people treat for mites but I think after our former inspector/club president explained that he personally didn’t have much success with treating we all felt less inclined to do it. Unless the counts were very high.


I think this forum is great and I actually get teary eyed when the subject of loving the bees comes up because I really do love my bees. They are part of my internal makeup at this point. I can only imagine that after more time of doing it like many of you that my feeling and love for the bees will only magnify.


This communication on the forum has already bought me to greater understanding of bees but also has given me a better understanding of how to communicate with people through writing on the forum and such. Some of you have mentored me more than others but I consider you all to be very valuable and so that makes me as a newer beekeeper want to be as responsible a beekeeper as possible and surely try to manage my colonies well so that they are not spreading disease. 


I can’t say that the awareness of the importance of managing colonies well will make all of the beekeepers that are exposed to it not slip up or have issues that can spread or anything but it has put me on my best behavior and I try to spread the word locally. I really think that the wisdom here has a great impact and it gives me optimism. Thank You all for sharing. It is greatly appreciated.








Here's a video of my bees on saturday. It was so good to be close to them and see how they were doing. They were psyched to be out It gave me bee fever

http://youtu.be/vdaOh8LpKbE


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## squarepeg

now that's something to think about, great post virginia.

i really enjoyed your video, especially the shot toward the end from the 'bee's eye view'.


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## Michael Bush

>You say we need to breed for healthy, gentle, productive bees. How is breeding for gentle or productive bees any different than breeding for any other trait?

>I agree that it seems odd to say that you shouldn't select, then list what you should select for.

I'm not saying you shouldn't select. I'm saying be careful. First, selection always (by definition) limits the gene pool. Let's not limit it more than necessary. Second, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking some very specific trait is the only one that matters. It is not.

The difference is the same difference between looking at something in a microscope; and standing back and seeing the whole organism. In the case of bees, that is the whole colony. Rather than measuring things in minuet you don't "measure" you look at the overall picture. A booming, healthy, productive, gentle colony is not hard to recognize without measuring anything. I'm saying select for the big picture, not the details. Also, select for what is important. Is it important to you what the mite counts are, or is it important whether they thrive and produce? Is it important to you what color they are, or that they are gentle and healthy? Is it that important that they do or don't open a pin pricked cell or that they are healthy without any treatments? I think we often think something is important when it's not. The combination of things that makes a colony healthy may be beyond our ability to grasp. Combinations of traits work together, and combinational analysis shows that even as few as 16 traits that have two possibilities have 65,536 possible combinations. There are more traits involved than that, it it grows exponentially. But it's not hard for us to measure when they come together well, and breed from those. That's what successful breeding has been doing for thousand of years. Breeding failures always seem to result from bottlenecking the gene pool too much and particularly from breeding for very few very specific traits instead of general health and usefulness. So the other issue is don't needlessly limit the gene pool. Breed from ALL of the good lines in your beeyard, not just the one best. Select OUT the ones that are not up to par but be careful you don't breed out more than you need to.

>I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.

Exactly.


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## Mr. C

I guess I can say I agree for the most part. You should always be keeping overall fitness in mind which I believe I've mentioned, but I still feel that quantitative analysis of traits is useful information for breeding. Sure you can breed without doing it and make progress, but that does not mean it can't be a useful tool that can potentially speed up the selection process. You can use a handsaw to build bee boxes and do a good job at it. It's still faster to use a table saw, but there's more risk involved, and you need to be safety conscious. There have been plenty of breeders who have used these types of measurements to good effect.

Side Note: Honey Bees are also one of the easiest organisms to add diversity to simply because of their genetics and reproduction.


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## Michael Bush

In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, he has a study on how to determine if a patient is having a heart attack. It turns out there are really only a few things that matter and that the more information doctors gathered in making their decision, the more likely they would make a bad one. He gives many examples of the same concept, that too much information causes us to make worse decisions. What we need to make good decisions is big picture, not all the details. I think the more you measure all those small things the more tempted you will be to limit the gene pool much more than you should, and you will put too much emphasis on things that simply don't matter at all.


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## Beelosopher

Sorry Michael, looks like I lack JRG13's eloquence in speak - that is what I was getting at as well. The idea that you should try to manipulate as little as possible, resist the temptation to "overengineer" your bees. I enjoyed your thought provoking presentation immensely.


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## Mr. C

Again I can agree with the principal, but still have to disagree on completely dismissing a useful tool. There's also such a thing as too little knowledge I'm afraid. How do those doctors know which signs to look for now... because they measured everything to find the ones that make the most difference.

It's a bit of an acedemic debate for me, I do not yet have enough hives that I can really do much in the way of any selection. But the reason we have some lines of bees around is precisely because someone did this type of selection. If you think your bees need a boost in mite resistance you can go buy some VSH bees to mix in with the lot precisely because someone measured a trait to breed for it. Now you can argue that some of these bees are less productive etc, but a lot of people have had great luck then crossing them into their current stock. I could keep trying to breed from the population I have and I can keep watching them die or I can pull in some genetics that will help out.


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## squarepeg

my selection process up to this point has been to do a cut down split on my most robust hives prior to swarm season.

this year, i will look to the most robust hives to graft eggs from, but i will also factor mite counts into the decision, and i'll avoid having all of my stock originating from one or two colonies.

the weaker colonies will be deselected by busting them up into mating nucs.

great discussion here, many thanks to all for posting.


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