# Is the mda splitter method considered treatment free



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Do you still have survivor queens that have survived through 2 winters? If so, they would be the ones to breed from to sell queens. If not, then, in my opinion, you may have treatment free hives but they still are not survivors with that non treatment. I say 2 winters because with late splits like you are doing, just a single winter is not saying so much as for survivor stock.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

MDA Splitter is treatment-free well enough, but you have to ask yourself what's the ultimate goal? If you're splitting to keep bees alive and must continue to do so to keep them alive then it falls under help. You're doing something to keep the bees alive when under their own power they would die. In my view, that's a treatment, a view which I fully admit does not agree with the standard definition of this forum so we don't need to argue about it.

But if the purpose of splitting is to develop a group of bees which are ultimately resistant on their own and don't need to be split to survive, then you're doing what I did in 2003-4 and 2009-11. Once the process was complete and I no longer suffered major losses, then I don't have to split to keep bees alive, and in fact I never did it for that purpose anyway. I split for increase. The hives that survived were split again. Today, no hives are split. I make queens, use mating nucs, grow the mating nucs into larger nucs which are sold, and the best are used to requeen my poor hives or replace deadouts. Hives that I see are wanting to make honey are not split, and indeed hardly manipulated at all. If their characteristics are good all around, they become the mothers of the new hives through queen rearing.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Seems to me 2 catagories are in order then, treatment free, and survivor.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

So are survivors considered bees that need no intervention of any kind? If not what forms of, I will say IMP, are used?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

My customers buy my bees with a full explanation of what they are. If you want to buy "treatment-free bees" that still need constant help, that's your business. But if I were buying a bee, I'd expect more.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Survivor stock usually means they can survives without intervention from humans. The term is often used when talking about feral colonies that have been there for years.
We've use powdered sugar for over 5 years, so I can't call my bees treatment free or survivor.


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## Ben Franklin (May 3, 2011)

What is MDA split?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Sell your queens. Just say they have had no chemical treatment for X years, but you use a splitter method which may contribute to your success.

Many queens and nucs sold that are claimed to be survivor, eventually die after they are sold and moved. The purchaser will be refreshed by your honesty and I am sure your queens will be as good as most of the survivor queens being sold.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Ben Franklin said:


> What is MDA split?


Google Mel Disselkoen


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