# Good news for TF in my local I think



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

:thumbsup:


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I wish you luck.

Club meetings around here seem to go pretty similarly. Sunshine and lollipops. Then it gets down to brass tacks and you learn some of these people have been losing 80-100% of their bees every winter for the past 3-5 years. No one likes to admit they're not doing a good job at first blush. I had a little get-together at one of my beeyards about a month ago. One of the guys got there a little earlier than others and we were shooting the breeze for a bit. This particular yard is mostly nucs, a cell builder, some mating nucs, and a couple production colonies. He asked me how winter went. I said good 100% survival again this year. And his jaw about hit the ground. "Again?!"
He's been loosing 50-100% by the sounds of it. 

Hopefully you've found bee Nirvana, though.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

jwcarlson said:


> Hopefully you've found bee Nirvana, though.


more likely that it's found him jw. it appears that dutchtown is just a stone's throw from the usda/ars facility in baton rouge. could it be that some of those highly selected for genetics have found their way into the local population?


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I've been getting TF stock and then treating anyway. I'm a wuss.

We just did a sugar roll on a nuc we made last summer, now in an 8-frame hive. The roll dropped 4 mites ... pretty good considering they've NEVER been treated. But they're about to be. Even at that low a mite load I'm seeing some possibly virus-related things I'd rather not see.

Our club also steers away from package bees, preferring local nucs. We run an active swarm capture system, too. We're convinced locally-adapted bees are superior, and have a paper out to back it up.


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

I might need it,,,,,,luck and I'll let you know how it works out for me. Well could be some BS flying in the room but a couple of the bigger operators didn't strike me that way. Anyway. I didn't buy bees, have no intention of buying bees and am far from taking this as a personal challenge to succeed. I will or wont, they'll make it or they wont. If they don't, I'll catch more and try again until they do or I've had enough. I will be doing mite counts tho if I have problems at least to see for myself whats going on.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> could it be that some of those highly selected for genetics have found their way into the local population?


Nah, no bees have ever escaped a research lab before, right? :banana:


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Phoebee said:


> Even at that low a mite load I'm seeing some possibly virus-related things I'd rather not see.


And the bees that are affected by these viruses will perish. The ones that show some immunity will survive. I see it differently, this is a perfect scenario to enhance genetic material. Breed from those that survive. Make splits and increase their numbers. Your bees will sort it out if you let them. I understand why some people treat, but have never understood a preemptive strike. Not criticizing, just trying to understand. If you have great bees, allow them to be great.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

jwcarlson said:


> :banana:


i should have known better. 

hang in there rooster, jw has had a different experience trying to keep bees off treatments, and i'm not surprised given the geography around his location:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8233978,-90.1846599,223949m/data=!3m1!1e3

it appears that he is located in the corn belt which is heavy in crop monoculture and light in large expanses of wooded lands, i.e. hardly the place one would expect to find a thriving population of feral survivors, and thereby limiting the pool of genes in the local population to commercially produced strains.

in my view you are already lucky in that others are demonstrating success keeping bees off treatments in your area. hook up with them and try to get some of their stock. pick their brains as to how they are managing their colonies and try to do the same with yours.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

You have the option to contact Thomas Rinderer and buy a few nucs of his pure Russians. He has never treated them.


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

> hang in there rooster


I'm good brother, just getting started and keeping my expectations in line some is all. That and deciphering what I think is more than likely BS and whats useful information


> contact Thomas Rinderer


 Never heard of the man but I see he just retired. Maybe so or at least look him up and bend his ear a bit if he's willing.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> it appears that he is located in the corn belt


It's more of a corn blanket then a belt. So dense that our humidity is effected by the sheer amount of maize. Although, I think you might be surprised be our chunk of the earth. Bees do well here. If you let them. 

Even spack dab in the middle of the woods that we don't have.  



Decent amount of dairy around still.


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