# Organic/treatment free beeks



## levesque (Feb 5, 2015)

Who uses what for Verroa treatment and Nosema, Foulbrood etc


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

By definition, treatment-free means you don't treat.

There is a treatment-free forum and I do believe they still have a sticky posted there that outlines what is and is not considered a treatment. Perhaps that will give you the information you need.

HTH

Rusty


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

The definitions on the treatment-free forum can screw-up your brain, stay on the Bee Forum or Beekeeping 101 for better information.

Treating for pests will vary from area to area, temperature/weather can effect how the treatments impact the mites. The best advice I can give is stay away from the chemicals that build up in the combs. You need to study the life cycle of the mites and decide which will give you the best service for your part of the country. Find a person with a reputation as being a good, well informed beekeeper and follow his advice.

Bee diseases also vary in the damage to colonies, depending where you are, the stock of bee you are using, and your goals in keeping bees. Preventative treatments perhaps are necessary in some areas and not in others. In my location I have not pre-treated a colony since the 1970s, others may be required to pre-treat twice a year. The old answer of "It all depends..." but that is what makes keeping bees interesting.

One of the best "treatments" you can do it to follow the advice of the early beekeepers, "Keep your colonies strong at all times," follow good, proven, management techniques and inspect often enough to detect any problems before they cause severe damage to the colony.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Since I am treatment free, here is a complete list of my treatments broken down by season:

Spring: none
Summer: none
Fall: none
Winter:none

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


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

AR Beekeeper said:


> The definitions on the treatment-free forum can screw-up your brain, stay on the Bee Forum or Beekeeping 101 for better information.
> 
> Treating for pests will vary from area to area, temperature/weather can effect how the treatments impact the mites. The best advice I can give is stay away from the chemicals that build up in the combs. You need to study the life cycle of the mites and decide which will give you the best service for your part of the country. Find a person with a reputation as being a good, well informed beekeeper and follow his advice.
> 
> ...


Well said!


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

Although I would prefer to stay as "organic" as possible, it isn't always possible and I'm not so invested in it that I will let my bees die if they require a treatment that isn't considered "organic".

I mostly use formic acid (MAQS) for mites, unless it gets too late in the season and the temps are too cool for it to work, in which case they have been treated with fluvalinate...some say that mites are resistant to this, but it worked for me the one time I used it.

I don't know of any effective organic treatments for Nosema or Foulbrood, so it's Fumagilin-B and Tetracycline for those.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

Michael Bush said:


> Since I am treatment free, here is a complete list of my treatments broken down by season:
> 
> Spring: none
> Summer: none
> ...


Awesome :applause: Thanks for the laugh!.....I know you are serious though.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I believe your question is geared toward " organic "beekeepers as treatment free is exactly that no treatments


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## Stlnifr (Sep 12, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> Since I am treatment free, here is a complete list of my treatments broken down by season:
> 
> Spring: none
> Summer: none
> ...


Do you have SHB in your area? Ifso you let the bees handle them?


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Stlnifr said:


> Do you have SHB in your area? Ifso you let the bees handle them?




I'm not Michael, but yes and yes, I do smash anyone I can see with my hive tool, but that is more for my own satisfaction than the bees benifit.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

I know a lot of guys who talk the talk about treatment free. I only know a handful of beekeepers that make good money and are treatment free. None of them are on here. I dare say this treatment free section has killed a lot of bees around the country due to beekeepers selling a ideal rather than facts. That being said I am treatment free. Please don't hold that against me.


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## Faith Apiaries (Apr 28, 2015)

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> I know a lot of guys who talk the talk about treatment free. I only know a handful of beekeepers that make good money and are treatment free. None of them are on here. I dare say this treatment free section has killed a lot of bees around the country due to beekeepers selling a ideal rather than facts. That being said I am treatment free. Please don't hold that against me.


Those sound like wise words. I've been a beekeeper for 7 days now and sure, I want to be "treatment free" BUT, I also don't want my bees to suffer needlessly because of my ideals. That's why I'm here, that's why I read this forum, and other beekeeping information, for hours every day. I'm very thankful for those experienced beekeepers who share their knowledge and experience with people like me. Today I saw for the very first time, one of my bees carrying in a load of pollen. I was as giddy as a kid at Christmas!


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

I like to read the posts in the Treatment Free section if only to get ideas. As with all ideas that you get off of BeeSource you need to be critical, skeptical and think about regionality.

I have used only the soft or so called "organic" treatments for Varroa the last couple of years - formic acid (Mite Away Quick Strips) - and Hop Guard II.

In the past I have used both Apiguard and Apilife Var - both thymol based treatments (also considered organic) - I moved away for them for rotational purposes - I think this will be the year I go back to them.

I do not do anything for Nosema and AFB as I am leary of the antibiotics commonly used - and I have no faith in the various EO remedies that are out there.

I do have problems with Nosema.

I test for mites primarily using an alcohol wash.

Be aware that organic standards changed (not necessarily for the better) when the USDA took over control of the term "organic." Much is allowed today that would not have been considered "organic" 20 years ago.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

Stlnifr said:


> Do you have SHB in your area? Ifso you let the bees handle them?


Putting an oil pan under the screened bottom board is not considered a treatment--even here--and that's all it takes to keep them under good enough control that the bees can deal with them.

FWIW

Rusty


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

I try to be as organic as possible and still be a bee*keeper.* 

For SHB, I mostly let the bees do the work, with the help of a Freeman style bottom board. I do put DE (diatomaceous earth) in the mulch under the hives when the weather gets pretty warm.

A strong hive takes care of wax moths pretty well.

Varroa is the biggie. I do a single treatment of OAV in the spring as soon as I see signs of brooding up. I do a 3 treatment series in the fall ending just before our 1st normal freeze date.

I do not treat for Nosema, but I do put a little vinegar and Honey bee healthy in the sugar water if I am feeding. Not sure that does anything, but it makes me feel good.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>BUT, I also don't want my bees to suffer needlessly because of my ideals.

If we all keep propping up weak genetics with treatments and the bees keep languishing and dying how are bees suffering less?

>Do you have SHB in your area? Ifso you let the bees handle them?

We have small hive beetles, but we do not have small hive beetle issues. No one I know of in Nebraska is having SHB issues.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> If we all keep propping up weak genetics with treatments and the bees keep languishing and dying how are bees suffering less?


While I can certainly find it commendable that you have been able to manage bees without treatments, at the same time I do not believe that it is practical to think that one can, in decades, effect an evolutionary genetic change that would take nature thousands of years, if it were successful at all. Many species have become extinct because they were unable to adapt to the environmental/ecological changes that threatened their survival. "Survival of the fittest" does not mean that all *can* survive. Some species simply don't make it. While we may have at least one example of bees adapting to coexist with mites, how long did it take for that to occur? What makes anyone think that [any/all] other types of [honey] bees can effect such a genetic change, and on a time-scale that is acceptable to *us*? I think it is completely unreasonable, perhaps irresponsible, for anyone to insist that if no one treated bees, that all of the bees would evolve, adapt and survive. I think that death and extinction are far more common than adaptation and survival...as evidenced by the number of species today that are on the verge of extinction despite extreme efforts, desperate attempts to manage ecology and huge sums of taxpayer dollars being thrown at them.

Perhaps we should apply those same sentiments to the humans? Let's abandon vaccinations, medications and treatments for disease. Let the sick, the weak, the retarded, the the genetically crippled crippled all die, or kill them off as soon as it becomes evident that they cannot survive on their own. Much less suffering all around...right? The fittest will survive and be immune to disease...right? While we generally consider Sickle Cell Anemia to be a disease, it is actually an evolutionary adaptation to malaria, where having the condition conferred a greater survival rate than those without it. Proof that humans can adapt to disease, right? No, some did survive, but there is no guarantee that anyone else can or would effect the same genetic alteration, and certainly not on a time-scale that any of us would currently care about, nor is it applicable to any and all diseases. I don't think that is _argumentum ad absurdum_, but a real parallel. Both species suffer from predators, parasites, genetic weakness and disease. Genetic change and adaptation requires many, many, many generations to occur, if it is successful at all.


It's not "propping up weak genetics", it's a rational response to conditions where, if left untreated, the species is much more likely to simply fail than to effect a genetic change and adapt on a human-reasonable timescale.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it...at least until such time as someone can offer evidence/proof of an evolutionary change to the genome that confers survivability of their "treatment free" bees when they are removed from the closed-management system where they are currently surviving, and that they will continue to survive when introduced to the "natural" conditions that affect everyone else. Does anyone want to move their "treatment free" bees to my yard, and see if they have effected a genetic change that will allow them to continue to survive and thrive without treatments?


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

BadBeeKeeper said:


> While I can certainly find it commendable that you have been able to manage bees without treatments, at the same time I do not believe that it is practical to think that one can, in decades, effect an evolutionary genetic change that would take nature thousands of years, if it were successful at all. Many species have become extinct because they were unable to adapt to the environmental/ecological changes that threatened their survival. "Survival of the fittest" does not mean that all *can* survive. Some species simply don't make it. While we may have at least one example of bees adapting to coexist with mites, how long did it take for that to occur? What makes anyone think that [any/all] other types of [honey] bees can effect such a genetic change, and on a time-scale that is acceptable to *us*? I think it is completely unreasonable, perhaps irresponsible, for anyone to insist that if no one treated bees, that all of the bees would evolve, adapt and survive. I think that death and extinction are far more common than adaptation and survival...as evidenced by the number of species today that are on the verge of extinction despite extreme efforts, desperate attempts to manage ecology and huge sums of taxpayer dollars being thrown at them.


+1


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

I have been treatment free for almost 11 years. I breed and sell queens that have been selected for mite resistance. Still without intensive ipms and splits you cannot keep any bee treatment free without losses that are unnecessary if one were to treat with a soft treatment. I am switching everything but my breeding colonies to Oxalic acid. The bees do much better with a treatment. We are not giving the bees a crutch we are doing what is necessary to keep them healthy for the "profitable" system that we need from our bees. I like 90lb to 110lb honey crops from healthy hives. For Tennessee that is dang good. My breeder yard will still be treatment free delivering the best of both worlds but I don't expect much to change. No bees are immune to varroa yet.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

BadBeeKeeper said:


> That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it...at least until such time as someone can offer evidence/proof of an evolutionary change to the genome that confers survivability of their "treatment free" bees when they are removed from the closed-management system where they are currently surviving, and that they will continue to survive when introduced to the "natural" conditions that affect everyone else. Does anyone want to move their "treatment free" bees to my yard, and see if they have effected a genetic change that will allow them to continue to survive and thrive without treatments?


I DO, I do, I do, but only if I can get off this roundabout , and you keep those treated bees out of my hives:lpf: Love the seasonal breakdown of treatments Michael


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>While I can certainly find it commendable that you have been able to manage bees without treatments, at the same time I do not believe that it is practical to think that one can, in decades, effect an evolutionary genetic change that would take nature thousands of years, if it were successful at all. 

This is not about evolution. If you are waiting for evolution to solve a problem you may as well give up now because it won't happen in our lifetimes. This is about selection. Selection can happen in one generation. We are not looking for some new genetic trait to suddenly appear. We are looking to weed out the weak ones and keep the strong ones. That does not take millennia nor centuries nor decades. It only takes a year to make a significant difference and a few more to weed out the stragglers, if every stops propping up the weak ones.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> We are not looking for some new genetic trait to suddenly appear. We are looking to weed out the weak ones and keep the strong ones.


Michael - Are there other examples in animal husbandry where humans have achieved success in similar situations (i.e., an introduced foreign parasite which almost completely wiped out the target animal) with similar methods (i.e. no human help to the target animal until it overcame the parasite on its own)?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Do not confuse 'organic' with 'treatment free'. One is a beekeeping philosophy, and one is a record keeping philosophy.

I looked into doing organic honey production, and yes, it is possible, and it's possible to get 'certified organic' honey labelling thru the organic certification process.

Much to my surprise, to do certified organic, you cannot be treatment free. You MUST keep a 'hospital yard', where you move diseased colonies for treatment, and keep them out of the organic production for a fixed length of time after treatment. If you take the 'let them die' philosophy of the die-hard treatment free folks, you will disqualify yourself from the organic label on the grounds of poor animal husbandry.

Now I'm sure the rules change from jurasdiction to jurasdiction, but where we are, the hard nosed 'let em die' attitude of the die hard treatment free folks does not mean organic, and in reality, would prevent you from achieving the requirements for 'certified organic' labelling.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Went treatment free, they all died.

Treating again.

Natural selection I guess.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

I think anyone can keep bees treatment free but they just won't make much money at it. Profitable beekeeper sounds a whole lot better than treatment free beekeeper.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

There is a genetic difference;

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/wha...fference-between-domesticated-and-feral-bees/

http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeley.shtml

Propping up weak honey bees, it's temporary at best.

One solution;

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/queens-for-pennies/

What being done;

http://mysare.sare.org/mySARE/ProjectReport.aspx?do=viewRept&pn=FNE10-694&y=2010&t=1

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1965.11100101?journalCode=tjar20

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.1966.11100141

Sickly inferior packages are spreading disease and inferior genes a cross the country.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

If I had ten hives in my backyard....and that was it....I could keep them treatment free. But then, before the season was done I'd starve.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> Went treatment free, they all died.
> 
> Treating again.
> 
> Natural selection I guess.


Oldtimer you seem to have little problem keeping fact and opinon in their separate categories! 


I see a quite a few people who hold the opinion that natural selection will _always_ move a species toward a better position: Mother Nature is supposed to favor only whatever mans wishes deem valuable i guess. 

It is amazing how often this opinion is put forth as fact!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

FlowerPlanter said:


> Sickly inferior packages are spreading disease and inferior genes a cross the country.


Simple solution. The people who keep buying them and at the same time complaining, should instead breed from their own healthy and superior genetics, and spread those across the country.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael - Are there other examples in animal husbandry where humans have achieved success in similar situations (i.e., an introduced foreign parasite which almost completely wiped out the target animal) with similar methods (i.e. no human help to the target animal until it overcame the parasite on its own)?

The easy example to come up with is tracheal mites. As soon as everyone stopped treating the problem went away.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Time line not quite correct. The problem did not end once people stopped treating it was the other way around. 

What happened in England anyway is that the local versions of their AMM honeybees went extinct and were replaced by other imported bees such as AMMs from France that could tolerate tracheal mites. There was quite an industry at the time sending package bees from France to England, pretty much ended once the replacement process was complete.

They survived in New Zealand because tracheal mites never got here. Until varroa arrived then the British AMMs went extinct here also. Again, there are a couple guys here claim to have British AMMs. But their description of them does not match the British AMMs I used to know.

There is now debate in Britain as to whether true British AMMs still exist, some say they do. But if they do are they pure, well that's the question.


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

I plan on treating the bulk of my TF hives this year. I want a honey crop, I don't want the lag time of brood breaks and walk away splits. After this year's splits my apiary has grown significantly and I don't have the time to mechanically keep ahead of the mites. I will say most of my stock can go at least 2 years (queen-right sides of splits) without a treatment but its long past the time for me to just requeen with ripe cells and forgo the brood break. TF can be done, however if one doesn't have miracle bees it can be time consuming and also detrimental to a strong hive considering it knocks the hive back for the time it takes to make and breed a queen plus the time it takes to go from an egg to an emerging bee.

I'm not knocking TF, it taught me a lot and I made it work. It just isn't going to work for me on a larger scale if only from a 'time is money' perspective.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

rwurster said:


> I plan on treating the bulk of my TF hives this year. I want a honey crop, I don't want the lag time of brood breaks and walk away splits. After this year's splits my apiary has grown significantly and I don't have the time to mechanically keep ahead of the mites. I will say most of my stock can go at least 2 years (queen-right sides of splits) without a treatment but its long past the time for me to just requeen with ripe cells and forgo the brood break. TF can be done, however if one doesn't have miracle bees it can be time consuming and also detrimental to a strong hive considering it knocks the hive back for the time it takes to make and breed a queen plus the time it takes to go from an egg to an emerging bee.
> 
> I'm not knocking TF, it taught me a lot and I made it work. It just isn't going to work for me on a larger scale if only from a 'time is money' perspective.


Took the words right out of my mouth


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## Faith Apiaries (Apr 28, 2015)

I'll have to learn these brood breaks and walk away splits for the first few years. I want to make this my living so my plan is to ramp up my colonies fast then get production going in a big way. I don't know how many colonies that is but, I guess I'll find out.


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## beekeeper79 (Jun 24, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Went treatment free, they all died.
> 
> Treating again.
> 
> Natural selection I guess.


Or because you treated them for so long you ended up with a population that couldn't survive on it's own...Kind of like what we are seeing now in the US


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

beekeeper79 said:


> Or because you treated them for so long you ended up with a population that couldn't survive on it's own...Kind of like what we are seeing now in the US


LOL I was waiting for someone to say that.

What really happened, and this was documented on Beesource at the time as I went through this 2 year journey, was I embraced every teaching (at the time) given by treatment free gurus and gave it my very best shot.

To avoid chemical contamination I built brand new hives, and had small cell foundation made from treatment free wax. Bees were dumped into a few hives to get things started and have the first small cell combs built. Once this was achieved in a few hives I sourced queens from all over my country, of the different breeds and variations that exist here. I made splits and requeened with very diverse genetics.

So you can see your assumption is totally incorrect. No worries though I get this know all attitude from those who don't know all the time, I'm used to it.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Faith Apiaries said:


> I'll have to learn these brood breaks and walk away splits for the first few years. I want to make this my living so my plan is to ramp up my colonies fast then get production going in a big way. I don't know how many colonies that is but, I guess I'll find out.


If you want to do this for a living you need to take advise from people who do this for a living.

When my wife and I got some chickens to keep us in eggs, we took advise from other people who had a few chickens, I would not have gone to a commercial poultry farm for advice as it would not have been applicable to our situation. But if I had wanted to start a commercial poultry operation I would not have put my money on the advise of those people with a few chickens in their back yard.


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## Faith Apiaries (Apr 28, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> If you want to do this for a living you need to take advise from people who do this for a living.


That sounds like good advice.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I wish I could send you a dozen queens oldtimer. Then you could find out if it is possible to go completely treatment free.


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## beekeeper79 (Jun 24, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> If you want to do this for a living you need to take advise from people who do this for a living.
> 
> When my wife and I got some chickens to keep us in eggs, we took advise from other people who had a few chickens, I would not have gone to a commercial poultry farm for advice as it would not have been applicable to our situation. But if I had wanted to start a commercial poultry operation I would not have put my money on the advise of those people with a few chickens in their back yard.


If you are a commercial beekeeper trying to make money, I can understand using chemicals and treatments to keep the bees alive long enough to make money. I doubt that the poultry farm chickens at Tyson are as healthy as the ones in my neighbors flock of 25. Same goes for the bees. There is a reason that commercial beekeepers lost nearly half their hives last year in the US, their practices can't be sustained in the longrun. I would encourage any hobbyist or commercial beek to try TF if they want what's best for the bees.

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/us-beekeepers-lost-almost-half-their-honeybees-2014-15.html
-bk79


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## beekeeper79 (Jun 24, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> LOL I was waiting for someone to say that.
> 
> What really happened, and this was documented on Beesource at the time as I went through this 2 year journey, was I embraced every teaching (at the time) given by treatment free gurus and gave it my very best shot.
> 
> ...


So then what killed them all, weather? pests?


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Fusion_power said:


> I wish I could send you a dozen queens oldtimer. Then you could find out if it is possible to go completely treatment free.


didn't one of you guys down south (maybe you) sell or give some of these tf queens to other beekeepers to get them started with tf stock?
a question was posed, something to the effect of 'what would these queens be worth to you?'
it was a while ago now and I forget the particulars, but I wonder what ever became of them.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Fusion_power said:


> I wish I could send you a dozen queens oldtimer. Then you could find out if it is possible to go completely treatment free.


FP, I am not so ignorant as to think it cannot be done. You and others are doing it, so it can be done.

No argument from me about that.

There's a thing about communication. There is a guy who continuously repeats "I treated my bees and they all died". No doubt this was true for him in his experience. I simply did the same by saying what was true for me. Being "went treatment free, they all died". Equally as valid as the first guys statement. 

It was to draw attention to the obvious, that neither statement is a complete and entire treatise on the effectiveness or lack of, of treatment practises or treatment free practises.

Re getting some of your queens, it is an experiment I would love to do, but of course it would be irresponsible of me to import genetics illegally. However if we did do this I would not be at all surprised if they survived long term without treatment. I do not consider it a certainty either though, different environment here.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

beekeeper79 said:


> So then what killed them all, weather? pests?


The latter.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

How many beekeepers on beesource are treatment free and make a living solely from their bees? That my friends is a big question. And if not making a living, then why not? Keeping bees and averaging 60 lbs of honey per colony might be OK for some but I prefer 100.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

beekeeper79 said:


> If you are a commercial beekeeper trying to make money, I can understand using chemicals and treatments to keep the bees alive long enough to make money.


Based on your other comments I would doubt you really understand. Commercial bees are kept in large apiaries sometimes numbering hundreds of hives, the hives are palletised and the hives are touching each other. They are loaded onto trucks, have nets put over the whole thing and moved on journeys that sometimes take days, to pollinate monoculture crops in land that is otherwise desert. At these places they are exposed to chemicals sprayed onto the crops. They are dumped in close proximity to thousands of other hives and the bees mingle with each other. Then the journey is repeated. It may be repeated several more times as bees are moved for wintering etc. One hives problem can become all hives problem.

It is a wonder they even survive at all, yet despite all this these tough hard working bees perform admirably at pollination and recover enough to produce a harvestable honey crop.

Try your garden variety treatment free techniques on that and see how long you stay in business, it would be a joke.



beekeeper79 said:


> There is a reason that *commercial* beekeepers lost nearly half their hives last year in the US, their practices can't be sustained in the longrun. I would encourage any hobbyist or commercial beek to try TF if they want what's best for the bees.
> 
> http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/us-beekeepers-lost-almost-half-their-honeybees-2014-15.html
> -bk79


You have read the article you refer to with some bias. The article you linked does not state that *commercial beekeepers* lost nearly half their bees. It says *beekeepers* lost 42.1% of their bees. The survey was of commercial and *backyard beekeepers.*

Also from the article you referenced - "_The losses among small-scale beekeepers (those with fewer than 50 colonies) seems clearly related to the varroa mite, a pesky and deadly parasite that is contagious between colonies"_

And 

_"Backyard beekeepers were more prone to heavy mite infestations, but we believe that is because a majority of them are not taking appropriate steps to control mites, vanEngelsdorp said"._


Please don't take what I say as an attack. I am just presenting some perspective that has been missed, and I suspect not even considered.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Van engelsdorp hit it square on the head too. I have been teaching beekeepers around here and the folks who treat do 10 times better than those who don't. After 3 or 4 years of bees being a money sink, the treatment free beekeepers are done


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

New beekeepers should learn the basics before they shoot for the moon.


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## beekeeper79 (Jun 24, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Based on your other comments I would doubt you really understand. Commercial bees are kept in large apiaries sometimes numbering hundreds of hives, the hives are palletised and the hives are touching each other. They are loaded onto trucks, have nets put over the whole thing and moved on journeys that sometimes take days, to pollinate monoculture crops in land that is otherwise desert. At these places they are exposed to chemicals sprayed onto the crops. They are dumped in close proximity to thousands of other hives and the bees mingle with each other. Then the journey is repeated. It may be repeated several more times as bees are moved for wintering etc. One hives problem can become all hives problem.
> 
> It is a wonder they even survive at all, yet despite all this these tough hard working bees perform admirably at pollination and recover enough to produce a harvestable honey crop.
> 
> ...


Not at all, it's always great to see things from a different perspective. But the practices of a commercial beekeeper are selecting for different bee traits than that of a TF hobbyist. If I could magically (and legally) transport one of my hives to you I doubt they would do as well as yours, whereas they may be better equipped to deal with pests they may be less likely to deal with the stress of moving and pesticide exposure. 

What are your losses like each year (if you don't mind sharing)? Is 42% close to what you might see in NZ? Have you noticed resilience in hives that make it through the winter to go through all that again or is two years the max that a queen (hive) can last?

I don't want chemicals in my hive and so far it has worked in spite of SHB, Varroa, and wax moths. I still have the original queen from my first hive 3 years ago and she is still laying a great pattern. My goal is to keep bees that can survive each year without treatments, and the only way to do that is to let the bees survive on their own and use techniques like splitting hives to disrupt varroa as well as leaving enough honey for them to survive the winter and keep a strong population. I would hope that most hobbyists would want this as well. 

If we keep treating bees, what traits are we selecting for future colonies? Given your circumstances it makes sense that a complete and abrupt removal of treatments led to your die-outs. Yet, the more treatments we use on Varroa, for example, will kill the weak mites and leave the stronger ones to reproduce. How can these practices be sustainable long term? I don't see how we can strengthen our bees against these pests by adding more chemicals. Are any commercial beekeepers weaning bees off of these treatments to get that TF point? I worry less about my bees and more about you guys since your bees put the food on the table.

-bk79


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Good post beekeeper79, and your analysis of regional influences and the interplay with genetics and various advantages and disadvantages is quite correct.

Re my losses, except when I was treatment free, they are below 1%, although that does not make me particularly clever it's more we have a pretty forgiving climate. The only real reason I could be exposed to losing a hive is if a queen failed mid winter. But I keep nucs through winter and if I discover a queenless hive I unite a nuc with it. So losing a hive, as in visiting a site and finding one totally dead, does not really happen for me. Even though there are no drones in winter, the climate is mild enough to work bees all winter, which I do.

Mating nucs I will lose, if the virgin disappears and the bees are left queenless and broodless they may be robbed and destroyed by the time I get back.

I am no longer a commercial beekeeper and not as intensive as many commercial beekeepers.

Re how and why to breed treatment free bees, thanks for your insights.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Keeping bees and averaging 60 lbs of honey per colony might be OK for some but I prefer 100.


 This is quite relevant. There is great focus on survivability. Obviously that is an essential point. On the other hand, if you must generate income from your bees, productivity is essential. A local beekeeper approached me at the market recently. He has ten 'survivor' hives. He is seeing a very poor 'flow'. He said he'd be lucky to get one super...total....from those ten hives. He asked how my honey season was looking. Last year was my highest per hive honey production ever. This year is on track to exceed last....knocking on wood.
Sickly...but alive.....bees produce less honey than healthy bees.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2006/05/m6039.pdf


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

There could be a great synergy in beekeeping if the TF keepers and those that treat can not argue all the time. Finding and reproducing queens that are hygienic or have some other trait that can fight mites could be quite lucrative, (and absolutely should be pursued). I don't think it is a matter of evolution, the bee population is so enormous that there are no doubt different traits that can be perpetuated. 

And on the other hand, commercial beeks (or anyone that treats) adds to the genetics pool and provide a great service to our planet. Imagine what would happen if everyone stopped treating tomorrow.............I don't think the results would be very good.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

A knee jerk cessation of all mite treatment would cause such a crash that many useful traits besides this particular mite resistance would be lost. Resistance to one pest does not confer resistance to other unrelated or as yet unevolved future pests. Simplistic solutions may be appealing but when they can have irreversable side effects they would be better considered by more patient and big picture thinkers. Patience grasshopper; buy time while all the possible consequences may still be considered. Act in haste, repent at leisure!


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

FlowerPlanter said:


> http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2006/05/m6039.pdf


No mention of honey harvested. Hives surviving untreated is great and better than nothing, but, true success requires harvest of a reasonable honey crop.

They started with 150 hives. They had about a dozen at the end of 6 years. Only an academic would consider such losses acceptable. Not to mention how many of us have access to their own island to get that roughly 10% survival rate?

However, maybe their results are an indication that maybe it is possible to keep bees and get honey without treating, someday.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

If my memory is correct BWeaver started their treatment free program with 2000 colonies and lost all but 1 or 2 hundred the first year, not many could lose that number and come back.

It is possible to have treatment free beekeeping in a hobbyist situation, but I think we would all agree that commercial beekeeping is a different ball game.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Correcting an earlier post re the apidologie article, there were 13 living colonies in 2005 and clear indications the bees were reproducing and increasing in numbers. 

This line is very telling.



> Our results allow us to conclude that the problems facing the apicultural industry with mite infestations probably is linked to the apicultural system, where beekeepers remove the selective pressure induced from the parasitism by removing mites through control efforts


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I see that the swarming tendency greatly increased along with the survival rate as the project neared termination. It stated that the original bees were of some assorted populations. The infesting mites were also from a number of different hives but there is no before or after cataloging of the genetic makeup of both the surviving bees and surviving mites so we do not know what was the enabling mechanism for the conclusion.

It was stated there was some supplemental feeding done but no record in the report of whether that became more or less required. It would have been interesting to have taken both the endpoint bees and the mites and determine how they both would perform if removed from the contrived conditions. 

I think that perhaps too broad of conclusions are being drawn from this experiment. Certainly the suggestive implications paint with a very broad brush. No doubt that some changes would occcur if bees were to morph into some form that made them economically unfeasable. We have to be careful what we wish for because occasionally wishes are granted. The experimenter that posts here about his mite resistant bees in Sweden I think has made reference that it may take many years now to recover honey productivity. Mite resistance may be a two edged sword.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Requiring brood breaks doesn't really seem like the genetic answer people really want. Some of my new vsh queens went untreated last year. They survived ok, but build up and production are dismal. They look much better after a round of Apivar....


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Anyone know what happened to those bees after 2005 and if any of the Italians survived? I would like to think it could be done with Italians cos that's what I'm working with here.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>Imagine what would happen if everyone stopped treating tomorrow.............I don't think the results would be very good. 
It would be devastating for all domestic bees. Then a wave of SHB would over take the entire planet. 

>but I think we would all agree that commercial beekeeping is a different ball game. 
Yes and they do what they must to keep their bees alive. And because they have so many hives in such a small area they need to treat then like livestock. But then they sell (millions?) packages to new beeks that all want to go TF. They should sell their packages with a disclosure that states "these bees require antibiotics and mite treatments to survive" 

>They had about a dozen at the end of 6 years. Only an academic would consider such losses acceptable.
The thing is it's already been done; feral, TF apiaries, and VSH breeder have all done it. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to use. 

So "Imagine what would happen if everyone" used ferial, TF or VSH "tomorrow"


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

FlowerPlanter said:


> So "Imagine what would happen if everyone" used ferial, TF or VSH "tomorrow"


Where are these feral colonies you speak of?


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

All over.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

FlowerPlanter said:


> All over.


The reason I ask is I've been looking myself and talking to people all around my area and no one can seem to locate a "bee tree" in my neck of the woods.


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## libhart (Apr 22, 2010)

I think the ability to be treatment free is extremely localized. In certain areas we hear that it works well, in other areas of a country, even in the same state in the US, it probably doesn't work long term. In speaking to one of the BIP project managers (based in MD) a few years ago she stated that in the immediate area it seemed that hives could remain untreated for 3-4 years before crashing, but they saw very few that wouldn't crash. My bee club saw exactly that. Untreated club hives did extremely well for 3 summers. Then the third winter, we lost all but one hive and a second hive that was saved by babying the handful of bees and a queen in a nuc. Mite scat in the frames of the deadouts showed the culprit. So while I definitely believe it's possible in certain areas, I don't think it's possible everywhere (yet). And for those trying to keep bees, especially just in the backyard with 1-3 hives, they have to determine if it's possible in their neck of the woods, and being beeless is a real possibility with a small number of hives if it's not.

In remembering Belyaev's experiment to tame arctic foxes, he saw that selectively breeding for tameness also gave the tame foxes floppy ears and short/curly tails. This demonstrates how genes are connected. Breed a fox for tameness and the floppy ears come along for the ride and it looks like a dog. I've often wondered what if we find true mite resistance is genetically tied to undesirable traits like unacceptably low honey production, aggression, high swarming tendencies, etc. If those genetics are tied to each other, we may not get a commercially viable genetic profile for mite resistance. Get mite resistance, and you can't make a living, or get mite resistance, and your bees are so mean the growers won't contract you for pollination. Just thinking out loud...


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

libhart said:


> I think the ability to be treatment free is extremely localized. In certain areas we hear that it works well, in other areas of a country, even in the same state in the US, it probably doesn't work long term. In speaking to one of the BIP project managers (based in MD) a few years ago she stated that in the immediate area it seemed that hives could remain untreated for 3-4 years before crashing, but they saw very few that wouldn't crash. My bee club saw exactly that. Untreated club hives did extremely well for 3 summers. Then the third winter, we lost all but one hive and a second hive that was saved by babying the handful of bees and a queen in a nuc. Mite scat in the frames of the deadouts showed the culprit. So while I definitely believe it's possible in certain areas, I don't think it's possible everywhere (yet). And for those trying to keep bees, especially just in the backyard with 1-3 hives, they have to determine if it's possible in their neck of the woods, and being beeless is a real possibility with a small number of hives if it's not.
> 
> In remembering Belyaev's experiment to tame arctic foxes, he saw that selectively breeding for tameness also gave the tame foxes floppy ears and short/curly tails. This demonstrates how genes are connected. Breed a fox for tameness and the floppy ears come along for the ride and it looks like a dog. I've often wondered what if we find true mite resistance is genetically tied to undesirable traits like unacceptably low honey production, aggression, high swarming tendencies, etc. If those genetics are tied to each other, we may not get a commercially viable genetic profile for mite resistance. Get mite resistance, and you can't make a living, or get mite resistance, and your bees are so mean the growers won't contract you for pollination. Just thinking out loud...



All good points, I think we will settle somewhere in the middle. For example you say the resistant hives made it 3 summers and died out the last winter. I can make that work. The few people that I know personally that treat only get 3-4 yrs out of a good hive, so what is the difference? the difference is if they do nothing, theirs die out on yr one or two If one has staggered aged hives of resistant bees one could become self sustainable no?


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