# Troy Hall of Hall Apiaries Coming Back from the Brink, Commercial TF Beekeeping



## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Great presentation, @James Lee. I really appreciate you sharing this. 

Finally caught a break to listen to this while banging out e-mails - if I didn't know better I would have thought I was listening to Kirk Webster considering the ethos, the management approach and the operational benchmarks. It is plain to see that he is definitely walking down the Webster / Palmer path. 

While there is quite a lot I took note of, two things stuck out to me (presented in reverse order relative to where they showed-up in the presentation):

1. He notes almost off-handedly that he came to the painful conclusion that the model of two-year survival is not a sufficient test of resistance, even as he acknowledges that overwintered nucs are the foundation of his operation. This is not intended to be critical, just an important reminder to me that mite dynamics (as we all know) are different in a nuc than they are in a production colony.

2. He observes that he generally followed the Randy Oliver model of early season mite washes followed by treatment above threshold to both identify breeding stock and minimize loss, while also conducting a Spring Harbo assay to assess for VSH - sounds like there are more and more folks considering this as a potential strategy moving forward.


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## James Lee (Apr 29, 2020)

Litsinger said:


> Great presentation, @James Lee. I really appreciate you sharing this.
> 
> Finally caught a break to listen to this while banging out e-mails - if I didn't know better I would have thought I was listening to Kirk Webster considering the ethos, the management approach and the operational benchmarks. It is plain to see that he is definitely walking down the Webster / Palmer path.
> 
> ...


I enjoyed hosting Troy immensely - he's a good dude. The epitome of transparency. He is living proof that you can keep bees differently and still get on with folks - we can all take notes here for sure


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

You have 90% loss, and you call it for what it is.
Respect.


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## Charles Prestridge (2 mo ago)

Very good presentation. I am sorry for the loss you had and appreciate you sharing. 

I wish you the best.


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## James Lee (Apr 29, 2020)

GregB said:


> You have 90% loss, and you call it for what it is.
> Respect.


Its intriguing, Troy's region in NH/New England in the preliminary BIP data is showing close to 80% losses. Their region got hit hard just like in Canada - there is some speculation about DWV-B having higher prevalence.


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