# Systematic breeding in non-treatment management systems



## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

I would be very interested in this. I wonder if you could start by outlining your personal approach to treatment free beekeeping. I would very much like to get a sense of the different approaches.

Thanks,

Adam


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Adam Foster Collins said:


> I would be very interested in this. I wonder if you could start by outlining your personal approach to treatment free beekeeping. I would very much like to get a sense of the different approaches.


Hello Adam,

I began collecting swarms and taking cut outs 3 years ago, and hiving on a mixture of recovered comb, foundation, and starter strips. The next year I made splits from the 2 survivors, (another had died through isolation starvation), added more swarms and cut-outs, and repaired queenless hives with a frame or two of eggs and brood from the strongest. With 12 colonies, mostly nucs, I didn't feed a lot going into winter, and made a silly design error with feeding candy which allowed mice into several hives in early spring. 

I came through to this year with 4 hives, one of which subsequently failed, but 2 of the remaining built nicely. I've added more swarms and cutouts, made some splits, and tried to encouarge some serious comb building this year, after realising that comb shortage was slowing everything down. I got up to about 38 colonies, but have now tracked back down to about 28. I haven't fed this year yet, but I might help them on when it looks like ivy is over. 

I haven't treated or manipulated at all against varroa, nor any other problem. So its rather a live and let die operation at this stage, offset I hope by the policy of making splits and requeening from the strongest. 

The main objective is to get to a stage where I have plenty of bees (and comb) to work with, and enough variability to be able to locate strengths. I'll be tempted to assay for VHS using frozen brood tests next year, and setting up queen rearing on a scale sufficent to re-queen at will. I'm also mindful that if I have all similar colonies (in terms of queen age, year starting position and so on), I'll be able to make comparisons better. (This will mean tough decisions on things like stimulative feeding and nest spreading.)

I'm hoping my stock building strategy will have included at least some mite-managing skills. I have succeeded in bringing in 6 or 7 cut-out colonies with good histories, and I suspect about half my swarms are ferals. I know of ferals nearby, and don't have too many treated hives around to mess things up - though one of the reasons for going for good numbers is to be able to swamp the drone population. 

Bought-in VSH and similar are not an option in the UK. But even if they were I'd like to try this way first. I want to raise bees that suit the locality - local ferals are first choice.

I'm lucky in being able to make my own hives (Nationals, using 6-frame nucs quite a bit) and in having some fairly good spots to park them - I can have 15 or so medium size hives at my own holding, and can place another 20 or more at spots within a 2 or 3 mile radius. I want to get up to 60 hives next year, with, hopefull, at least a majority equipped with a full brood box of combe and a couple of supers. I want more comb!)

So, that aside, its all been about finding suitable stock, sorting the goers from the duffers, and then bringing the apiary up to scratch. Next year will be about selecting for self-sufficient productivity, using queen raising, splits of various kinds, and seeking to maximise the route through the male side. I think I'll probably be fairly ruthless about this - perhps choose 3 or 4 lines that seem best, test for VSH, then use them to requeen half the weakest. 

I'm not sure but I think that outlines the basic approach.

How about you Adam?

Mike


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

My story:

A lot of this is to be found elsewhere on this site, but things need to be repeated from time to time.

I started with 20 3 pound packages, an ambitious lad I was at the age of 19. I intended to be the second commercial treatment-free beekeeper. Things changed, and instead I now call myself an avid hobbyist. I have never treated with substance, don't do systematic splitting, don't do brood breaks on purpose, and only used screened bottom boards on a few hives (all of which died if I remember correctly) for the first couple years. I now have something like 26 hives and I think I've figured out how to do this thing.

We've oft heard the idea in treatment free beekeeping of 'breeding from the survivors. But how to get there?

We've oft heard the idea in treatment free beekeeping of 'breeding from the survivors. But how to get there? I actually really started splitting only a couple years ago. I started off so ambitiously that I quickly ran out of equipment and so never split, instead letting hives die off so I would have enough equipment for the remainders. I think I did one split the first year to make up a lost package, but that was about it until 2009. That winter, I lost all but two hives, and then commenced to buying more nucs and doing walk away splits. In 2011, I did a bunch of them, but I quickly realized that it was very inefficient, finding a handful of dead virgin queens collectively in front of the new hives. Also, several failed due to various reasons.

This year, I made a plan, researched some methods, and carried it through. I found what I consider the most efficient method of increase and which fits right straight into the Bond method. I kept track of which hives were performing well, had no obvious signs of mite issues, came through winter and built up quickly, and were sufficiently gentle. In one, I did a regular queenless cell builder/finisher. In the other, I did a queenright cell builder/finisher. The ones from the queenright hive were of better quality, finished more, and performed better.

So here's what happened. I robbed all but one frame of brood from seven hives to make queen castles in which were placed ripe queen cells. Those that came out well graduated into five frame or ten frame nucs. Some were sold, some were used to requeen, and some headed their own hives. I went from ten hives to 28 after selling seven. Naturally, I expect to be down to 20 after this first winter of testing for many of them.

The important philosophy and method behind the idea is to create a whole bunch of hives with the minimum amount of resources necessary from the best stock you have and evaluate the results. I think I have found the combination to that lock: grafting, queenright cell builder/finisher, queen castles, rob your middling hives for brood and stores, combine the dinks, requeen with the result.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

solid plans for sure.

since the workers carry only half of the queen's genes, have ya'll thought about pushing for drones in your 
strong hives?

i'm in an area with a good feral population, i'm hoping that some of the survivor traits from the feral drones are being passed into my yard via mating.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

I started two top bar hives three seasons ago. I treated with oxalic acid the first Fall, and my bees made it through with a tiny cluster.

Second season, I tried drone culling and oxalic acid and my bees made it through winter with bigger clusters.

This spring, I pulled an early drone comb to find it teeming with mites, and I just felt like giving up - on treating for mites. The bees seemed healthy, but there were tons of mites. After reading what seems like a million conflicting ideas and opinions from people more experienced than I, I have decided that there is no single human authority on how to effectively deal with mites, and no one really knows all the ways the bees deal with them on their own. 

So I made a resolution to quit treating, Because I don't know the total effect of my actions, and that worries me. I feel like my effort to 'help' might be doing more harm than good. I've decided it's better to take that variable out of play in my operation - minimize my manipulations and let the bees do what they do as much as I can.

So I'm not treating. I caught a swarm, bought two local nucs and created spilts. Added 8 frame langstroth hives to my top bars, and now have 13 colonies going into winter.

I'm looking at threads like this to help me to map out my management plan going forward.

Adam


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

sorry adam, looks like you and i hit reply at the same time. good plan there too.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Hi Solomon. 



Solomon Parker said:


> I robbed all but one frame of brood from seven hives to make queen castles in which were placed ripe queen cells.


All but one frame seems a lot to take. What was the thinking behind that - just the objective of multiplying hard? Part of what I mean is: the ones left behind must have had a pretty hard time of rebuilding. Do you seed syrup in this situation to help with comb building? 

Also, do you know where we can find drawings for queen castles? 



Solomon Parker said:


> The important philosophy and method behind the idea is to create a whole bunch of hives with the minimum amount of resources necessary from the best stock you have and evaluate the results.


I agree - for people in our position anyway. Some people won't have the space, or will want to learn more slowly, but start out right, and make the right learning moves and investment in gear ready for a deeper go the following year. But before long, yes, dead right. Ruttner makes the link to nature:

"Breeding is by no means a human invention. Nature, which in millions of years
has bought forth this immense diversity of wonderfully adapted creatures, is the
greatest breeder. It is from her that the present day breeder learnt how it must
be done, excessive production and then ruthless selection, permitting only the
most suitable to survive and eliminating the inferior." Friedrich Ruttner,
Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee, pg 45

There's a term for excessive production in nature - 'overfecundity'. Its a precondition for natural selection - there must be more than just replacement needs in order that the weak can be removed.

I'll be doing the same next spring. I tried to do it this year, but didn't have the resources in terms of worker numbers or comb. I tried queen raising and half a dozen small mating nucs, but they were not successful. If I'd known more about queen raising I'd have come to now with another 20 or 30 6-frame nucs. With that said just building hives and collecting swarms rushed me off my feet, as I have other stuff that must be done. Collecting swarms and cut outs achieved this first stage anyway.



Solomon Parker said:


> I think I have found the combination to that lock: grafting, queenright cell builder/finisher, queen castles, rob your middling hives for brood and stores, combine the dinks, requeen with the result.


That sounds like gold to me.

Mike


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

squarepeg said:


> since the workers carry only half of the queen's genes, have ya'll thought about pushing for drones in your strong hives?


I'm planning to keep large hives (unlimited nests, spread for population and maybe drone foundation) scattered around my apiary. Headed by evaluated queens.



squarepeg said:


> i'm in an area with a good feral population, i'm hoping that some of the survivor traits from the feral drones are being passed into my yard via mating.


No reason why not. To my mind its one of the best strategies. 

Mike


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

squarepeg said:


> have ya'll thought about pushing for drones in your strong hives?


I have plenty of drone comb in most of my hives, so I don't worry about it. I had one hive in particular this year who produced a lot of drones. I didn't breed from that one because it was mean, but I imagine they affected the area heavily. If there were drone comb available in medium plastic, I would get it and try some, but for now, I have medium foundationless frames which will do the job.




mike bispham said:


> What was the thinking behind that - just the objective of multiplying hard? Part of what I mean is: the ones left behind must have had a pretty hard time of rebuilding. Do you seed syrup in this situation to help with comb building?


Normally, the plan would be to leave them as nucs. Nucs have an incredible propensity for building comb, and many hives, even weak ones can be useful in that capacity. This year, I was short on nucs, so I left them in full size hives to see how they could rebound. It was good that I did. Some rebounded fantastically, even producing honey. Some rebounded poorly or not at all and they were requeened with nucs with the best new queens.





mike bispham said:


> Also, do you know where we can find drawings for queen castles?


I have posted my design on my website, I drew it up in SketchUp so it would be handy for everybody. They can be built with no more than a simple table saw and some planning, but it's much easier with a sliding miter saw and a table saw with a dado blade. I built 10x3, and constructed with the intention to cut them down to mediums at some future date (strategically placed screws and no glue on parts that will need to be separated). They use one by boards for inner covers and regular telescoping outer covers. I raised around 25 solid nucs with them this year.

http://parkerfarms.biz/queens.html





mike bispham said:


> I agree - for people in our position anyway. Some people won't have the space, or will want to learn more slowly, but start out right, and make the right learning moves and investment in gear ready


 That's one reason why I went with queenright cell builders. You don't have to sacrifice a hive to make queens, and you can get honey from them too. Same with the queen castles, no special frames or mini-nucs.





mike bispham said:


> There's a term for excessive production in nature - 'overfecundity'. Its a precondition for natural selection - there must be more than just replacement needs in order that the weak can be removed.


Hopefully it will be a temporary condition. Michael Palmer's ratio seems to work out well for me, a third great, a third average, and a third dinks. Leave the great ones to make honey, break up the average for nucs and supplies, requeen the dinks.


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

mike bispham said:


> Hello Adam,
> 
> With 12 colonies, mostly nucs, *I didn't feed a lot going into winter, and made a silly design error with** feeding candy *which allowed mice into several hives in early spring.
> 
> ...



Breed the best to the best???

How are you going to know who your best feral survivors colonies are if you are feeding and splitting?


You are not following your own advice regards

Don


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

D Semple said:


> Breed the best to the best???
> 
> How are you going to know who your best feral survivors colonies are if you are feeding...?
> 
> ...


Well, up to this point I haven't fed - for that sort of reason. But I'm thinking its silly to lose colonies that have not been able to build and store, because: 

a) it might just be that they're late swarms (and I'm not yet convinced that's a good reason to die in breeding terms)

b) it might be that they've been robbed badly (same)

c) if I keep them going through the winter I can re-evaluate in spring and, if I decide it's best, re-queen from the best.



D Semple said:


> ... and splitting?


I've split only from strong colonies, and these, despite being heavily robbed of brood, have done well. They remain earmarked at this time as candidates for multiplying in the spring.

(I've taken multiple combs for trap-outs as well as splits. I like to raise several new queens on site - hopefully getting some patrilines from the nest's drones. I've taken up to three strong nucs from feral colonies this way) 

So you see I am tracking strength and thinking about these things, but also trying to arrange the best strategy for getting off to a flying start in the spring. 

But I see too the importance of the point you make. I think its easy to spot the best when you have many hives that are similar in size and well established. It can be harder when they're a big mix of 2 year olds, this year's earlies middles and lates, and cut-outs. I have a small cut-out from a tree made only about 3 weeks ago, still parked on the stump. It didn't have much honey, and I haven't fed it - till now the forage has been good, but it will dwindle as soon as the weather gets colder. What to do? I think preserve it and see how it does in the spring. Even then, I shouldn't compare too soon it with established hives with drawn comb. 

This is the sort of complication I think people in my position face. There aren't any across-the-board strategies - its a case of what's best for this hive in my apiary? Actually telling which is 'weaker' and which' stronger' is not as straightforward as it is when you can assume the same starting position for all and simply take stored weight as the top guide. 

I draw the line at treating. To me mite-managers is what I want above all at this stage and if they fail from varroa problems I don't want them. However - technically, that's just as silly. I should treat then and mark for early re-queening - and be able to count another hive.

For me just now building numbers (and comb) is important, and everything is geared to that end. Next year, hopefully, I'll be in a position to raise pretty much as many as I want (60+) and do so fairly early in the season. Then the strategy will change toward equalising circumstances so that strength shows through more clearly. And then management will be simple and methodical. I hope!

Does all that make sense Don?

Mike


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

mike bispham said:


> *I think its easy to spot the best when you have many hives that are similar in size and well established*. It can be harder when they're a big mix of 2 year olds, this year's earlies middles and lates, and cut-outs.
> 
> 
> This is the sort of complication I think people in my position face. There aren't any across-the-board strategies - its a case of what's best for this hive in my apiary? *Actually telling which is 'weaker' and which' stronger' is not as straightforward as it is when you can assume the same starting position for all and simply take stored weight as the top guide. *
> ...



Counting mites in treatment free hives has showed me brood breaks here are the most important eliment as to why our local feral population is handling varroa and thriving, not VSH.

Couple of points of how management undermines being able to keep bees treatments free in a commercial enviroment

- Spring time swarming period provides a brood break and natural split, swarm prevention measures undermine this. Better to let them swarm or make splits, but this hurts honey prodution.

- Late summer dearth period with brood breaks are important to keeping varroa population in check. Feeding during dearths, keeps the bees producing young and the varroa population keeps exploding.

- Type of bee is also very important, bees that produce young continuously succumb to varroa quickly untreated.

- Local survivors are the way to go for treatment free, BUT you have to manage them, like they manage themselve in the wild and not interfere with their ability to deal with the mites. Once you start managing them for prodution, their ability to cope goes right out the window.

- One other point - swapping drawn comb amongst hives spreads desease and should be avoided in a treatment free enviroment.

Just my 2 cents.

Don


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

This all sounds great. However none of you guys are truly breeding treatment free bees. I don't say that to be defeatist or mean spirited. Follow if you will and answer these questions. 

1. Are you really breeding or just letting your surviving hive reproduce? There is a difference. 

2. If you are breeding, how are you deciding what to breed from? Are you are basing your decisions on hive strength, populations, apparent ability to survive? If so since the queen has mated wit say 15 or so drones, the drone mix has as much to do with overall hive performance as the queen does. 

3. How are you managing drones? Drone flooding is not a dependable method of attaining the desired genetics. If you really intend to breed, you almost have to use ai on the queen with selected drone semen. 

4. How do you limit outside genetics? Once again the only way is to select larva from a desired queen and AI. Otherwise you have very little chance to avoid cross breeding with less than favorable drones. 

5. How do you access your new queens for selection? This take time(years) ro verify resistance and the propagate. 

If you are not using AI or are not completely isolated then you are not in control of your breeding program. If you are not checking for mites and other pathogens/diseases then you really don't know what you are selecting for. 
I believe you are making the best choices you can bases on limited information and time. But if you really want to breed to treatment free you have to do more than put hives out there and let them live or die. Open mating in a non isolated area is not a viable method of breeding. Introduction of outside genetics must be controlled and evaluated. But once again the only real way to do this dependably is through II.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

D Semple said:


> - Local survivors are the way to go for treatment free, BUT you have to manage them, like they manage themselve in the wild and not interfere with their ability to deal with the mites. Once you start managing them for prodution, their ability to cope goes right out the window.


A couple of thoughts Don, 
I would think that some management for production should be possible, as long as these natural breaks remain, but more importantly,

It is the case that VSH and other mechanisms for controlling varroa do arise naturally in some feral populations. These have the potential to cope with continuous brood raising - should the local bees be inclined able to do that. 

I'm in favour of trying to breed as closely with the local population as possible - I understand the ferals are delicately balanced, and I don't want to suppress them. But I'm not (at present) convinced that a little stimulative feeding and nest spreading will result in bees that do that.

Also, I'm not looking to maximise productivity to the hilt. If I can breed quietly and systematically, and otherwise work in a fairly hands off manner, a moderate crop will be acceptable. I'm only hoping to earn around 1/3rd of my very modest living from bees, and I'm hoping too that much of that will come from other products beside honey.



D Semple said:


> - One other point - swapping drawn comb amongst hives spreads desease and should be avoided in a treatment free enviroment.


I want to spread pathogens and parasites evenly round my hives at this point - and probably in the future. Its the only way of evaluating them against each other for resistance. I want multiply-resistant bees, hardy as the ferals.

Mike


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

jbeshearse said:


> However none of you guys are truly breeding treatment free bees.


I disagree.




jbeshearse said:


> 1. Are you really breeding or just letting your surviving hive reproduce?


Breeding. Little to no swarming goes on here.




jbeshearse said:


> 2. If you are breeding, how are you deciding what to breed from? Are you are basing your decisions on hive strength, populations, apparent ability to survive? If so since the queen has mated wit say 15 or so drones, the drone mix has as much to do with overall hive performance as the queen does.


I breed based on a bunch of aspects, first, did the hive survive the winter? If not, I don't breed from it.
Second, can I work the hive without gloves while it's raining? Did the hive make a goodly amount of honey last year? Did the hive build up well this spring? Most other aspects weed themselves out. There are a lot more things you can breed for, but I find that the hives that do the above things well just about never have problems with other aspects. For instance, I had one hive that produced a lot of sticky propolis. It didn't make honey and didn't build up well, requeened, problem solved.




jbeshearse said:


> 3. How are you managing drones? Drone flooding is not a dependable method of attaining the desired genetics. If you really intend to breed, you almost have to use ai on the queen with selected drone semen.


 I have a location to the north and south of my location to add drones to the mix. I feel AI is unecessary and somewhat antithetical to the ideal of treatment free beekeeping.





jbeshearse said:


> 4. How do you limit outside genetics? Once again the only way is to select larva from a desired queen and AI. Otherwise you have very little chance to avoid cross breeding with less than favorable drones.


By letting them die over winter or by not breeding from undesirable hives.





jbeshearse said:


> 5. How do you access your new queens for selection? This take time(years) ro verify resistance and the propagate.


I think you mean assess, so I'll reply on that assumption. One or two winters pretty well does it for me. After increase made from the same queen for two years, I move to different ones to avoid too much inbreeding.





jbeshearse said:


> If you are not using AI or are not completely isolated then you are not in control of your breeding program. If you are not checking for mites and other pathogens/diseases then you really don't know what you are selecting for.


I do know what I am selecting for, I am selecting for survival, gentleness, and production. I don't care about the specifics, and many small beekeepers don't have time or resources to care either. I don't care what trait the bees use to survive, only that they do, same with gentleness and production. The results are well within acceptable to me.




jbeshearse said:


> I believe you are making the best choices you can bases on limited information and time. But if you really want to breed to treatment free you have to do more than put hives out there and let them live or die. Open mating in a non isolated area is not a viable method of breeding. Introduction of outside genetics must be controlled and evaluated. But once again the only real way to do this dependably is through II.


No. What you're describing is a totally different mindset to the way I think and carryout my beekeeping practice. Control is for treatments and inbreeding to express a certain trait. I'm not going there. My method fits just fine with the idea of keeping bees in the context of a hobbyist. I don't need every hive to produce a bumper crop every year. I don't need every hive to survive every winter. I don't need to breed for a certain specific trait for the bees to survive. And I don't need to control much because it's not necessary. Nature controls what I need to control for me. Outside of that, I have all the control I need by getting rid of mean or unproductive queens. Winter does the rest. This simple method of breeding from what I want and discarding the rest is the same thing that all manner of farmers have done for thousands of years. There is only so far you can go with it. II is only going to produce a hive, same as mine. Maybe it produces more honey or is nicer or whatever, maybe not. There's no guarantee either way. I've never even seen anyone guarantee that the drone they got is from the hive they got it from.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

D Semple said:


> Counting mites in treatment free hives has showed me brood breaks here are the most important eliment as to why our local feral population is handling varroa and thriving, not VSH.


Good point, but it's not the only mechanism. I freely admit, I don't test for mites, but I do look for them. Even without brood breaks, most hives maintain a very low mite load year 'round. But that's here, 200 miles southeast.




D Semple said:


> Couple of points of how management undermines being able to keep bees treatments free in a commercial enviroment


We're not commercial, nor are most beekeepers. I was going to answer all your points, but I shall be skipping some of them as the Forum Rules state that this isn't the place to talk about commercial beekeeping. This certainly isn't the thread.




D Semple said:


> - Type of bee is also very important, bees that produce young continuously succumb to varroa quickly untreated.


But do they have to? I am confident that a bee could be created that doesn't suffer from that affliction and yet maintains the necessary brood pattern for the respective area. It may have to rely upon a different trait than the ones for which they are typically bred.




D Semple said:


> - Local survivors are the way to go for treatment free, BUT you have to manage them, like they manage themselve in the wild and not interfere with their ability to deal with the mites. Once you start managing them for prodution, their ability to cope goes right out the window.


I completely disagree. Manage bees as if it isn't a problem and eventually the problem will go away. That is what I have found. I do not manage to deal with mites or any other disease. I manage to keep bees. It's their responsibility to deal with mites.




D Semple said:


> - One other point - swapping drawn comb amongst hives spreads desease and should be avoided in a treatment free enviroment.


If it's their responsibility to deal with disease, then it's not a problem. A resistant hive will not see an infection. A weak hive will die of it. Anything in the narrow middle should be requeened for not producing enough honey.




D Semple said:


> Just my 2 cents.


Thank you.


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

Solomon Parker said:


> We're not commercial, nor are most beekeepers. I was going to answer all your points, but I shall be skipping some of them as the Forum Rules state that this isn't the place to talk about commercial beekeeping. This certainly isn't the thread.


Poor choice of words on my part, I should have said "Couple of points of how management undermines being able to keep bees treatments free in a production environment".



Solomon Parker said:


> I completely disagree. Manage bees as if it isn't a problem and eventually the problem will go away. That is what I have found. I do not manage to deal with mites or any other disease. I manage to keep bees. It's their responsibility to deal with mites.


I agree for us, but is it repeatable. Are the bees that you and I are producing going to work for others managed differently? I don't think mine will, managed in a production environment. 



Solomon Parker said:


> If it's their responsibility to deal with disease, then it's not a problem. A resistant hive will not see an infection. A weak hive will die of it. Anything in the narrow middle should be requeened for not producing enough honey.


I hope your right, you have more years of experiance than I.

I see some deseased comb doing cutouts and the quicker I get rid of it, the better the bees do.

Don


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

mike bispham said:


> A couple of thoughts Don,
> I would think that some management for production should be possible, as long as these natural breaks remain, but more importantly,
> 
> It is the case that VSH and other mechanisms for controlling varroa do arise naturally in some feral populations. These have the potential to cope with continuous brood raising - should the local bees be inclined able to do that.
> ...


I think the work VSH breeders are doing is remarkable and I'm pulling for them to come up with a bullet proof bee. Lot of really smart folks are working on it, the Germans have pretty much made it their National goal amongst their licensed commercial breeders. 




mike bispham said:


> I'm in favour of trying to breed as closely with the local population as possible - I understand the ferals are delicately balanced, and I don't want to suppress them. But I'm not (at present) convinced that a little stimulative feeding and nest spreading will result in bees that do that.
> 
> Mike


All depends on your local bee, I have nothing but feral stock and for me I want a bee that responds to the local flows and pollen production, not one who's brood production cycles by artificially stimulation. Where's the balance in that?



mike bispham said:


> I want to spread pathogens and parasites evenly round my hives at this point - and probably in the future. Its the only way of evaluating them against each other for resistance. I want multiply-resistant bees, hardy as the ferals.
> 
> Mike


Ferals die a lot and native populations swing dramatically year to year, can you stand > 50% losses? 

Your hearts in the right place Mike, wish you success.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

jbeshearse said:


> This all sounds great. However none of you guys are truly breeding treatment free bees. I don't say that to be defeatist or mean spirited. Follow if you will and answer these questions.


Hi JB,

In my description of what it is we do, I used the phrase 'systematic breeding' and then qualified it straightaway with: "systematic low-level, low tech, selective propagation measures "

The fact is the term 'breeding' covers a lot of ground. 

Lets note first, there is no 'precise' breeding. You can bring two of the finest individuals together and get rubbish. The only real way to know if an individual is a good breeder is to propagate and look at the results, in the knowledge that some will be great and some not so great. Many husbandrymen take care to look as well at second generation results - does to the individual that makes strong offspring also make good breeding stock - not all do.

So matters are hit and miss in all kinds of breeding. Its an art not a science - and AI doesn't alter that - though it does tighten parental control. In other words, what is happening even in close breeding is 'playing the odds', nothing more than loading the dice in whatever way you can to influence the result in the ways you wish to go. As things go on it is possible to raise the broad standard by narrowing diversity through limited inbreeding. 

Its just the same with 'systematic low-level, low tech, selective propagation measures'. The way the dice are loaded in our favour is by choosing strong mothers and improving the odds of getting (sort of) fathers with the desireable qualities. 

Its not high-tech or 'tightly controlled' breeding - but it is a kind of breeding, in that its deliberative, and it works. Treatments are not used, yields can be good. That doesn't happen at random - it happens because productive mite resistant bloodlines have been sought and raised.

Ask yourself: If you were given the choice between selecting the very best from among your bees and the very worst to make splits for a year, which would you choose? 

No brainer isn't it?

The fact that ours are mongrels rather than pure race bees might make some differences, but it doesn't stop the process being a form of 'breeding.' 



jbeshearse said:


> 1. Are you really breeding or just letting your surviving hive reproduce? There is a difference.


Positively selecting the strongest. 



jbeshearse said:


> 2. If you are breeding, how are you deciding what to breed from? Are you are basing your decisions on hive strength, populations, apparent ability to survive?


Yes



jbeshearse said:


> If so since the queen has mated with say 15 or so drones, the drone mix has as much to do with overall hive performance as the queen does.


Sure. So we take whatever steps we can to bring in the sorts of semen we want, and keep out the sort of semen we don't. Open mating also has the advantage of being competitive - the stronger drones tend to win. 

Don't forget not all patrilines need to be 'hygienic' - just a few will do. Different mixes of approach to mite-management can only be helpful. All that matters is that not too many patrilines are 'blind' to mites.



jbeshearse said:


> 3. How are you managing drones? Drone flooding is not a dependable method of attaining the desired genetics. If you really intend to breed, you almost have to use ai on the queen with selected drone semen.


As above that sort of control isn't necessary. Don't forget the drones from our hives will be carrying the qualities we want, and the drones from feral hives will bring in stongly multiply-resistant blood. As long as there are no large treating operations within range we should get the sort of mix that will work well.



jbeshearse said:


> 4. How do you limit outside genetics? Once again the only way is to select larva from a desired queen and AI. Otherwise you have very little chance to avoid cross breeding with less than favorable drones.


You are just repeating the same question. The answer is the same. The process is perhaps slower, but no less effective for that.



jbeshearse said:


> 5. How do you access your new queens for selection? This take time(years) ro verify resistance and the propagate.


I think Solomon's answer is good. Two years is a fair testing period, and productivity is a good general assay criteria. Personally I may also follow Marla Spivak's methods through frozen brood tests. Some people look closely at floor debris for broken mites and purple-eyed pupae - both indicating different mite-management skills. Good clean floors and especially good undertaking are further indicators - and there are more. I think my answer might be 'as many ways as possible, and I won't stop trying to find out about more.' 



jbeshearse said:


> If you are not using AI or are not completely isolated then you are not in control of your breeding program.


Again, same assertion, same denial.



jbeshearse said:


> If you are not checking for mites and other pathogens/diseases then you really don't know what you are selecting for.


When you are not treating or manipulating in any way, simple selection for productivity is fine - because it tells you: this queen imparts resistance to all the present pathogens and predators, and is well attuned to the location. And that's all you really need to know. Multiply from her and with luck you'll get some more just as good. And so on.

Propagating from her will likely pass on those traits and qualities to some of her offspring, but.... you'll evaluate them in turn to see if they're keepers, breeders, or duffers - and act accordingly. Once you know that a good proportion of her offspring are indeed good 'uns, and, even better, they make good breeders, you can go to town in requeening - all average and below average - and making splits. You can set her up in a small nuc to preserve her eggs.

There are lots of ways of shifting the odds in favour of productive treatment free bees - and we're still learning about them, and trying different combinations. Its an art as much as a science. And I don't know any reason why describing it is 'breeding' is inappropriate. 



jbeshearse said:


> I believe you are making the best choices you can bases on limited information and time. But if you really want to breed to treatment free you have to do more than put hives out there and let them live or die.


No you don't. The evidence is out there. People do it, successfully. 

A possible misunderstanding: 'breed to treatment free' isn't a place where you can stop propagating selectively. You can never stop propagating selectively. Its a management process, not a one-time fix. Its something that happens as a matter of course, in every generation, in all other fields of husbandry. 



jbeshearse said:


> Open mating in a non isolated area is not a viable method of breeding. Introduction of outside genetics must be controlled and evaluated. But once again the only real way to do this dependably is through II.


Demonstrably not so.

Best wishes,

Mike


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

D Semple said:


> All depends on your local bee, I have nothing but feral stock and for me I want a bee that responds to the local flows and pollen production, not one who's brood production cycles by artificially stimulation. Where's the balance in that?


Me too. But I also want to tweak my bees to improve productivity. I agree, working on that without stimulation is the safest way to go - but while I work on it I don't think I'll be doing the ferals much harm by raising the proportion of self-sufficient drones around - tending to negate the harm done by nearby treaters. Perhaps that will compensate as bit. Or perhaps I'll come around to your way of thinking. 

Just breeding toward productivity will raise productivity in ferals. So I'm already having an effect, that I can't see as being negative. 



D Semple said:


> Ferals die a lot and native populations swing dramatically year to year, can you stand > 50% losses?


Ferals round here are getting stronger, and I've always maintained that their biggest problem after (varroa) was treaters - and for those reasons yes, they've been dying lots. As I understand it lots of swarms -especially late swarms - fail to establish, but after that survival rates are (in the wild) pretty good.

But in a selectively bred apaiary a lot of bees die too - its just we limit it to queens, taking the nasty out of nature. That's part of the point of selective propagation - to work with the grain of nature, but to exclude the jungle and its painful ways. I can't - yet - see that doing that harms the local feral population.




D Semple said:


> Your hearts in the right place Mike, wish you success.



That means a lot Don, thanks, and the same to you.

Sincerely,

Mike


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Mike,

Pretty much the answer I expected. Looking for affirmation from likeminded keepers. You are not actually doing systematic breeding. You are managing in a treatment free manner. There is a large difference. You have no control over what your queens breed with. Every time you bring cut outs or swarms into the apiary, you are bringing in possibly treated bees, or poor survivors, which will also saturate the area with poor or at best, unknown drones. By the time you can access the survivability of your queen, you have already released thousands of unproven drones into the area. This is not a breeding program. It is a management style. There is nothing wrong with managing that way, but that is what it is management, not a breeding program. 

It does not matter whether you agree or not, it is what it is. You allude to rolling the dice. I agree all breeding is a dice roll. But when you control what breeds and when, you are rolling with say two six sided die instead of two 20 sided die. You may get what you want but probably not. You can increase your chances a lot by controlling the breeding, with how and when. Furthermore, by controlling both sides, you are not inadvertently promulgating inferior genetics by allowing unselected drones and queens survive. 

Yes, your management style is better than none and more likely to result in treatment free bees than a similar management style with treatments, but don't delude yourself into thinking you are systematically breeding treatment free bees. 

If you want to do that, you will either have to control the drones input via instrumental insemination.

But at the end of the day we each have to keep our minds open and do the best we can within our abilities, time, talents and resources. Doing something almost always beats doing nothing.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Soloman;



Solomon Parker said:


> I disagree.


One day I will learn how to multi-quote, or maybe not.

Lets look at your "program" and selection criteria:

Sol: I breed based on a bunch of aspects, first, did the hive survive the winter? If not, I don't breed from it.

JB: Makes sense, hard to breed from dead bees (aside from Instrumental Insemination). Of course your hives that survive may have nothing to do with varroa resistance and could simply be a result of life cycles between the varroa and bees. (hard to say when you don't know)

Sol: Second, can I work the hive without gloves while it's raining? 
JB: Okay, I can see doing that, but it can eliminate a lot of good treatment free genetics.

Sol: Did the hive make a goodly amount of honey last year? 
JB: Sounds good, BUT: Why did it make a good amount of honey last year? Was it strong in the spring, quick build up, or was it a new colony from last year with low mite loads due to brood cycle breaks, etc. in the fall? There are a lot of contributors to a good honey producing hive. It usually relates directly to how many foragers there are. And that usually is a result of the shape a hive is in going into winter.

Sol: Did the hive build up well this spring? 
JB: See previous as to why a hive may build up well in the spring.

Sol: Most other aspects weed themselves out. 
JB: Agree, most everything will weed itself out, unless the weeds take over. And weeds are just so prolific.

Sol: There are a lot more things you can breed for, but I find that the hives that do the above things well just about never have problems with other aspects. For instance, I had one hive that produced a lot of sticky propolis. It didn't make honey and didn't build up well, requeened, problem solved.

JB: That is good management Sol. You have made a determination of what you feel constitutes the highest propability for survival and selct for those. But it is more management that breeding. You don't selectively breed, you selectively manage. When you don't control the breeding pairs, you don't control the breeding and end up with what nature supplies, and there is nothing wrong with that, for certain. As for lots of propolis, I like it in my hives. I feel it helps lock away pathogens and also helps the bees a lot against SHB, which is more of a problem for me than varroa is.

SOL: I have a location to the north and south of my location to add drones to the mix. I feel AI is unecessary and somewhat antithetical to the ideal of treatment free beekeeping.

JB: You still have no control over what your virgins mate with and thusly have no control over whether they are able to survive treatment free or not. Antiethical to treatment free? I don't see how. Yes you are managing the queen and drones, but that does not translate to adding treatments to your hives. 


SOL: I think you mean assess, so I'll reply on that assumption. One or two winters pretty well does it for me. After increase made from the same queen for two years, I move to different ones to avoid too much inbreeding.

JB: Yes, assess! One winter does not a treatment free survivor make. 2 years maybe, three a definite. But we all know that most hive will re-queen themselves after one year. If your hives are not swarming, are they superseding? If they are superseding, is there a natural brood cycle break? Could this be the contributor to survival? How do you know?

SOL: No. What you're describing is a totally different mindset to the way I think and carryout my beekeeping practice. Control is for treatments and inbreeding to express a certain trait. I'm not going there. My method fits just fine with the idea of keeping bees in the context of a hobbyist. I don't need every hive to produce a bumper crop every year. I don't need every hive to survive every winter. I don't need to breed for a certain specific trait for the bees to survive. And I don't need to control much because it's not necessary. Nature controls what I need to control for me. Outside of that, I have all the control I need by getting rid of mean or unproductive queens. Winter does the rest. This simple method of breeding from what I want and discarding the rest is the same thing that all manner of farmers have done for thousands of years. There is only so far you can go with it. II is only going to produce a hive, same as mine. Maybe it produces more honey or is nicer or whatever, maybe not. There's no guarantee either way. I've never even seen anyone guarantee that the drone they got is from the hive they got it from.


JB: No, control is what a breeding program is built on. If you are not controlling anything, then you are managing a treatment free operation, not running a treatment free breeding operation. That is the gist of my first post. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that approach, it is an admirable goal and method. But you are keeping treatment free bees, not breeding them. You are doing nothing different that the guy or gal that buys some survivor bees and sticks them out in the yard and lets them sink or swim. You are a treatment free beekeeper.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

jbeshearse said:


> Mike,
> 
> Pretty much the answer I expected. Looking for affirmation from likeminded keepers. You are not actually doing systematic breeding. You are managing in a treatment free manner. There is a large difference.


JB,

I don't know about 'affirmation'; I'm looking to share thoughts about what works and why. 

I think we've stated our positions now. You have made a fair point, but the issue has become one of semantics and unsupported denial of efficacy. To reiterate my position on the semantic side: 'breeding' is a term wide enough to be legitimately used to describe what we do. Here is the (UK) English Oxford Dictionary definition (The US English is slightly different and you may think supports your position more strongly):

Breed
verb (past and past participle bred /bred/) [with object] cause (an animal) to produce offspring, typically in a controlled and organized way:

Examples of use: 
'he wants to see the animals his new stock has been bred from[no object] (of animals) mate and then produce offspring:'

'toads are said to return to the pond of their birth to breed'

(as adjective breeding)

'the breeding season develop (a kind of animal or plant) for a particular purpose or quality:

'these horses are bred for this sportrear and train'

'(someone) to behave in a particular way or have certain qualities:

Theresa had been beautifully bred cause'

'(something) to happen or occur, typically over a period of time:

success breeds confidence' 

Physics creates (fissile material) by nuclear reaction. 

noun 
a stock of animals or plants within a species having a distinctive appearance and typically having been developed by deliberate selection. 

a sort or kind of person or thing:

a new breed of entrepreneurs was brought into being



jbeshearse said:


> You have no control over what your queens breed with.


It would be accurate to say we have limited control. That's not 'no control'. 



jbeshearse said:


> Every time you bring cut outs or swarms into the apiary, you are bringing in possibly treated bees, or poor survivors, which will also saturate the area with poor or at best, unknown drones. By the time you can access the survivability of your queen, you have already released thousands of unproven drones into the area.


This is only occuring at the outset (when initial stock is being collected). After that any new entrants can be kept at a remote apairy while they are tested. This is a good point, and a useful reminder to manage the way new genetics are bought in. Thank you.

Again, having large colonies with large drone populations both within and at a distance from the apairy loads the dice toward your proven genetics.



jbeshearse said:


> This is not a breeding program. It is a management style. There is nothing wrong with managing that way, but that is what it is management, not a breeding program.


Whatever: its accurate to say that this is a tradional method by which bees are kept healthy and vigorous. If you read, for example, Wedmore91932) or Manley (1945) you'll see that this is their prescription for propagation in a commecial apiary - although they preferred pure-race bees. And they describe this as 'breeding'. 

They managed, its worth noting, to maintain their strains in the face of mongrels and other imported races (and the indiginous bee) by these methods alone. That demonstrates that it works - and that, in the final analysis, brings it quite firmly into the description 'breeding'. 



jbeshearse said:


> It does not matter whether you agree or not, it is what it is.


'It' here is you claiming narrow interpretation of the term 'breeding' - reserving it for mid-tech AI. That's all. 



jbeshearse said:


> You allude to rolling the dice. I agree all breeding is a dice roll. But when you control what breeds and when, you are rolling with say two six sided die instead of two 20 sided die.


I'll accept, for the sake of argument, the odds you supply. But the combination of propagating only from winning queens gives us control over 50% of the parentage material. Repeating that process by requeening the weaker rapidly brings the required genes forward. They can then be made to supply perhaps half of the male side - and we have 75% breeding pair control (and the advantages of open competitive mating). 

That's not all that far from the odds you get with 100% parental. And each time its repeated things are moving the right way. 



jbeshearse said:


> You may get what you want but probably not.


There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates that it works. If you are choosing not to look at it, that's up to you. 



jbeshearse said:


> Yes, your management style is better than none and more likely to result in treatment free bees than a similar management style with treatments...


For reasons that I've outlined to you previously on another thread (which you haven't responded to), treating, unless accompanied by a strict selective propagation program, absolutely inhibits the rise of resistance. 

I don't want to have that argument here. We know what sorts of things work, and we want to talk about and share them. The premise of this thread it that low-level low-tech selective propagation is at the heart of successful non-treatment beekeeping, and that its fair to describe that as 'breeding. I've no desire to contest either the premise of the thead or the semantics of that key term anymore. 

Best wishes,

Mike


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

jbeshearse said:


> You are not actually doing systematic breeding. You are managing in a treatment free manner. There is a large difference.


You seem to be confusing "systematic breeding" with a controlled experiment. It is not necessary to have control of all the variables. We have been systematically breeding a variety of animals for millennia, by simply selecting for desirable traits. In this case mite and general disease resistance. Some of us don't care what the mechanism is that causes the resistance, just that they are resistant. We can look to breeding lovebirds of parakeets for colour variations as a parallel. Some colour variations are caused by variations in melanin levels (yellow vs green), where others are actually variations in feather structure that change how light is reflected (blue vs green). We care more about the colour itself than how they got that colour.

Systematic breeding is just that breeding with some sort system.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

How about breeding by FedEx?

I've read that a number of treatment-free beekeepers add new genetics to their apiary w/ new queens.

It sounds like a faster route to more stable 'resistance'.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

mike bispham said:


> JB,
> 
> 
> For reasons that I've outlined to you previously on another thread (which you haven't responded to), treating, unless accompanied by a strict selective propagation program, absolutely inhibits the rise of resistance.
> ...


Mike,

You made my points farily well. I quit answering to your posts on the previous thread you allude to, as we were at an impasse. No reason to continue. I did have a lengthy post composed but saw no reason to continue as you were looking for agreement and affirmation, not information. But you are absolutely right, it really is a matter of semantics and so here I am also done on this thread, as I am off topic. 

Best wishes with your beekeeping.

jeb


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

WLC said:


> How about breeding by FedEx?


I used to bring in new stock, 1, 2, 3, or 4 queens per year, depending on the year. The funny thing was, when I got to the point of buying 4 queens, I started having lots of bees surviving the winter, which means I still have two of those queens (marked) and a number of offspring from a third.

It is an option to buy already resistant stock and StevenG has posted numerous times on how he's done that and been quite successful, keeping over 30 hives, having very low winter mortality, and making great honey. But that's off topic.

Mike wants to talk about low-tech breeding so let's keep it on topic. No 'Fed->Ex', no 'you're not actually breeding.' If you want to talk about something else, start your own thread. This thread is Mikes and we're talking about what he wants to talk about.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I have a couple of reoccurring thoughts regarding "Natural Selection" type of focus on a breeding program. Or treatment free methods.

First and simplest I will just put out there. How does the Keeping of bees at all make it impossible to be treatment free. I understand that treatment is meant to attempt to cure from disease. but my idea of treatment is broader than that. As in how where you treated the last time you visited the in laws?

Associated with my first thought and to me far more important is this one.
Basically treatment free to me is a recognition that nature has a better method of selecting than we do. we make mistakes that weaken the species. So treatment free is also a returning toward (not to, but toward) natural selection.

I will assume that the majority will agree that natural selection can and most likely will solve these problems. It is a fair bet that if you are an advocate of treatment free beekeeping you have a faith in natural selection.

A stable population is one in which the number of any given species remains the same. For bees I will consider a colony as an individual of the species. So regardless of how many offspring are produced when the parent has passed only one offspring has survived. In bees I consider there is only one colony producing parent, the queen. so in a stable system for every hive that dies out it has manged to only produce one surviving colony.

So just what sort of numbers are we looking at, when do they happen and what might be the importance of those losses on improving the qualities of the bees?

I will just take some numbers that it seems to me are fairly common. A healthy hive that is left to manage itself will produce something in the neighborhood of 20 queens. cast a primary swarm and multiple after swarms.

I don't know the nature of an after swarm as well as the primary swarm but my understanding is it is multiple tiny clusters of bees that will actually group together each containing several queens.

It also seems to me that the overall opinion is that a primary swarm has a better chance of survival then an after swarm. a larger swarm has a better chance than a smaller one etc. But is this true. Are our observations in beekeeping being altered due to the fact we "Keep" bees.

Regardless of the rats next of questions this alone can bring up. At this point just where the issue of only one queen, one colony can now survive nature is accepting 95% losses.

Are you willing to accept that only one out of every 20 queens will survive? That according to the above evidence is the direction yo may be choosing to go.

Is it critical that you accept that part of natural selection? I personally believe it is. It is just such heavy losses that improve the species. Eventually after successive generations of such loses the species in improved to some degree and the population begins to increase.

Also keep in mind that one of the ways nature stops a plague is that the victim species is driven to very near extinction. when the disease no longer has nay hosts. it then dies out. the population of the host is then able to recover. Sometimes not. extinction does happen naturally.

It has been observed that feral colonies are development resistance.

I suspect a fairly heavy loss in queens is made right at the outset. I suspect at best only 25% of the queens that swarm from the hive ever live long enough to find a location to colonies. They die or are killed in the cluster or shortly after the bees find a place to build the hive.

What is the survival rate of primary swarms> what is the survival rate of secondary swarms. What is the survival rate of queens in a secondary swarm?

Just one idea that has come to mind that might improve queen production. No proof just an idea that at least falls partial in line with the thoughts above.

Produce 20 times the number of queens desired from carefully chosen queen stocks. Keep these queen cells in groups of 20. and only the one queen able to survive gets to live and produce a colony. I seriously doubt there is much accuracy in that or that it woudl even be on the right track. but at least it give some idea of what matching natural selection might look like.

Keep in mind that in feral colonies even these sort of losses are resulting in barely noticeable resistance. Natural selection is not so much about the strong surviving as it is about the weak dying.

Mice. one in 365 offspring in just a single year can be allowed to live in a stable population. In many birds only one in 35 to 40 survive after one year.

Even bears only one in about a dozen or so can survive and remain stable. and that is during the parents entire life.

In deer a species low on the food chain only 1 in 4 or so over the parents lifetime. funny how the prey species has lower production numbers. That is because any species that has to hunt and kill to eat is more likely to die than thrive. Nothing has to happen to keep a bear population in check other than it doesn't find enough food. Mountain lions is about 1 in 24 survive over the lifetime of the parent.

Nature produces some fairly grand numbers just to remain stable. death is the rule. death is the control. Avoiding gross odds of dying is what produces blood lines that are very suitable to survival.

Okay I am not saying anything with all that except. What if that is what it takes?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Daniel Y said:


> What if that is what it takes?


In my experience, it doesn't, or it shouldn't. It may at first, but we're beyond that stage now. Coincidentally, I have one of my original twenty if you don't count the dozen or more descendents I have of it. What I mean is, one of the original hives survives, in the same hive, with natural line of succession from the original queen that I bought in 2003.

What I have found is that once the population and resistance levels out you get what Michael Palmer describes as thirds. A third of new hives are great, a third average, and a third dinks. Way better odds that one in twenty.

It has also been my experience that afterswarms are not nearly as common in the US, being more common to strains of bees (i. e. 'swarmy' like the German Black Bee) which we do not keep nearly as much. I believe it is due to our selective breeding over the last 150 years for bees that swarm less. 

Natural swarming, or walkaway splits, or natural supersedure is very wasteful, yielding fewer than one in ten viable queens from one episode. That's why we use grafting and cell builders and mating nucs, to speed up the process, to make more queens, and to increase faster. But there is a price to be paid. It deselects for emergence time in queens. Fortunately, some of it is made up through natural swarming and supersedures, but it is something to keep in mind.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Solomon Parker said:


> What I have found is that once the population and resistance levels out you get what Michael Palmer describes as thirds. A third of new hives are great, a third average, and a third dinks. Way better odds that one in twenty.


And thats a good part of what breeding is all about. It improves on nature. But you have to be very selective, and active, in order to get that result. Instead of letting the dinks die slowly, you pull them out quickly, and save the body of workers to boot. Same, to a degree, with the middlers. Now the lower 2/3rds get a new hand, a new deal, and 1/3rd of them will be top level. Deal again, a 3rd of the remainder climb up. And so on.



Solomon Parker said:


> Natural swarming, or walkaway splits, or natural supersedure is very wasteful, yielding fewer than one in ten viable queens from one episode. That's why we use grafting and cell builders and mating nucs, to speed up the process, to make more queens, and to increase faster. But there is a price to be paid. It deselects for emergence time in queens. Fortunately, some of it is made up through natural swarming and supersedures, but it is something to keep in mind.


I was thinking about this earlier today, and it something I'm not sure about (if I've understood your point properly). There's a widely held believe that the first one out is superior, by virtue of faster growing rate, and has thus won the right to terminate the rest. But I'm not so sure. The workers may not start all queen cells at the same time, and they may not start using larvae of the same age. And they may even keep some warmer than others, thus speeding growth. This makes good evolutionary sense - the weather may be wrong for mating the first up, and she may pass her mating window. To have another in reserve is a line-saver.

Again, its not always the case (as I understand it) that the workers will allow the first queen out to kill the rest. They may wait till she's mated, or even proven, keeping others walled in. 

Both these things seem to me to point to no particular superiority in the first queen - meaning that making nucs from all carries no health and vitality cost at all. 

Mike


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

WLC said:


> How about breeding by FedEx?
> 
> I've read that a number of treatment-free beekeepers add new genetics to their apiary w/ new queens.
> 
> It sounds like a faster route to more stable 'resistance'.


I agree, it may provide a good lift to many starting out, and sound new blood for established apiaries. But it has a cost in terms of biodiversity. If I had access to hygienic queens I'd buy a few to add to my starting-out mix. But no more than I'd feel was the minimum I'd need - based on the presence of survivors more than anything.

A larger point is: its not really 'breeding'. The clue is in that 'ing': breeding is a _process_. It never ends. Continually buying is is not breeding - or rather, its having someone else doing your breeding for you. 'Stability' can only be raised by an ongoing effective working procedure. The only endpoint is a good selective propagation system working well.

If you only have a few hives and can't increase them (and therefore have insufficient numbers to bred with) continuous import is an option. Similarly you have a large treating apiary on your doorstep (or lots of smaller ones) it may be a necessity. But (for those reasons of biodiversity) it shouldn't be thought a universal solution.

It may, as you say, be a faster route to more stable resistance. There might be other disadvantages that weigh against it as a preferred route. Again, I'd be very cautious if I thought there was a good selection of survivors around - though you'd bring in their blood over time anyway. There is suitability to your particular climate patterns to consider - from where do these bred bees originate. And so on. The Art is simple and complex at the same time.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I tend to agree, but I cannot discount the effect completely. Remember that a freshly hatched queen due to her early emergence is 'not done' in a sense. Her exoskeleton is till very soft, much less developed than a worker.

If the first queen out were somehow superior, we'd see one hive do much better than all the rest, but I still see thirds. What the effect results in is the genes that might retard development will be eliminated. But there are a lot of queens eliminated for one reason or another anyway. I don't think it's something we need to worry about, especially since its been done for over a hundred years. Like other things, I think this one is self-righting.


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

jbeshearse said:


> Soloman;
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good point JB 

To me, like my mentor Michael Bush, Treatment free beekeeping is a management philosophy, the bee itself is less important than how it's managed.

Following Michael's advice, I have over 40 strong treatment free, SC, foundationless, hives going into winter starting at 0 just a year and a half ago. 

And, my honey production average this year was 1/3 higher than our local average reported at our club meetings.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2013)

My sister is working on beekeeping, she want to involve me in, but I am totally a fresher in this region, I appreciate your ideas that combine avaliable techniques and natrual ways together, I will follow your post, hope you will post more experience on it.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Solomon, are you keeping track of honey production also, or just breeding what survived??


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Solomon Parker said:


> This year, I made a plan, researched some methods, and carried it through....
> So here's what happened. I robbed all but one frame of brood from seven hives to make queen castles in which were placed ripe queen cells. Those that came out well graduated into five frame or ten frame nucs. Some were sold, some were used to requeen, and some headed their own hives. I went from ten hives to 28 after selling seven....
> I think I have found the combination to that lock: grafting, queenright cell builder/finisher, queen castles, rob your middling hives for brood and stores, combine the dinks, requeen with the result.


I have been very pleased Sol to see you getting some success now you are using more traditional methods. Not just for you, but for other treatment free beekeepers who follow you. As a queen breeder, what really irked me when I first started reading the treatment free stuff on Beesource, was that, back then, there was a strong rejection of "traditional methods", and even quite a bit of derision of "old beekeepers, stuck in their ways". 
As a result of this mindset, I saw many struggling and not making any headway with their bees, sometimes for years. Problem being, just being treatment free, became such an all consuming mindset, that all else was thrown out the window by many, to their cost.

To me, queen breeding (and doing it well), is one of the foundations of good beekeeping, and success. It is one of the pinnacles of the art of beekeeping. I'm glad to see that you have opened up to using grafting, cell builders and all else that goes with solid, traditional, beekeeping skills. And the success that this is finally bringing to your operation.

I guess my main point is that when I first joined Beesource, there was disagreement between treaters, and non treaters. There still is of course. But one of the negative effects was that anything a treater had to say, was rejected. I feel it's very necessary, if beekeeping without chemicals is to advance, for those doing it to be open minded to the wisdom of the past, and reap the benefits, as you obviously have this last year.

Remember too, you have not found anything new. All you have done can be found in books written more than 50 years ago.


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