# Something needs to change - looking for suggestions



## sqkcrk

NO!! Don't do that. Who's gonna buy nucs or packages.


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## sqkcrk

What would you charge to apply it for me?


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## whalers

I tried to delete my post and it wont allow me. I know your being constructive but I thought I would find a little more help from serious beekeepers. My mistake.


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## JWChesnut

Treatment Free suffers from the "survivor testament" effect.

In human cancer there have been a succession of miraculous quackery promoted through the breathless "testaments" of [temporarily] surviving patients. Unfortunately, those patients that succumb cannot promote their experience, leaving only those experiencing spontaneous remission (for whatever reason) to report success. 

TF Beekeeping is parallel -- hundreds of wishful beekeepers attempt this cure, and most experience the very same symptom you report - dead-out in the second year. Discouraged, they under-report their failure. Novices move on to another hobby and are never heard from again. This constant winnowing means only the "successes" are reported, and completely skews the perception of efficacy.

To my knowledge, there are no "treatment free" advocates that have set up side-by-side controlled experiments of whatever design to test their various (contradictory) theories. I am no TF advocate, but I have endeavored to develop as controlled a side-by-side test apiary as possible. My results, over a decade, show that TF in coastal California is not viable. I use the wild swarm>isolated small apiary model.

The various academic studies which have attempted to include a TF protocol have the same result -- virtual complete extinction of the TF cohort. The advocates complain of design flaws in these studies, but have attempted none of their own.

_Anecdote is *not* Evidence._ Serious researchers of cancer have had to cope with this source of false information for decades, and beekeepers should exercise the same skepticism.

It appears from their self-testments that successful TF keepers exist using various methods in various regions of the country. I read their various accounts with an eye to detecting commonalities (which are often at odds with their own self-description).


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## snl

whalers said:


> I tried to delete my post and it wont allow me. I know your being constructive but I thought I would find a little more help from serious beekeepers. My mistake.


I'm sorry you feel that way, if you re-read my post on OA treatment, it was a constructive post..........


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## whalers

snl, my comment was not directed at you. The part that states "I know your being constructive" was directed specifically at you. I would enjoy knowing more about Oxalic acid as I'm weighing my options about how to treat my bees.


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## sqkcrk

snl said:


> Don't need your money now........... collecting SS!  Besides, are you not using OA in a dribble as CK?


No. Am not up to speed.


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## squarepeg

whalers,

sorry to hear about your bees. i haven't been at this very long but i'm starting to see that being able to keep bees successfully off treatments varies by location. i believe that quality of forage and presence of mite tolerant feral colonies may be the most important factors.

it could be that if you keep at it you might end up with mite tolerant bees. you'll have to make the call whether or not your commitment to not using chemicals is more important that suffering losses along the way.

i have been lucky so far in that my colonies are surviving and producing well off treatments. this is not by design as i didn't know anything about mites when i first started, and i did not deliberately set out to be treatment free. that i ended up not using treatments is from a combination of ignorance and/or laziness.

during my first winter with bees, i read everything i could get my hands on about beekeeping. in my opinion the best information out there on the subject is put out by randy oliver. what he has to say about using an integrated pest management approach makes a lot of sense, and may be a way for you to get to where you are trying to go without spending too much time and resources.

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/

good luck.


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## sqkcrk

whalers said:


> I tried to delete my post and it wont allow me. I know your being constructive but I thought I would find a little more help from serious beekeepers. My mistake.


Okay, since you probably don't want to treat, you can raise queens from the ones that survive and split the strong colony(ies) using those queens. When they all die, which they might, do what you did to get the ones you have and start over again.

Maybe someone who doesn't treat will have a better idea for you. Best wishes.


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## David LaFerney

Are you making yearly increase to try to compensate for losses and to improve your genetics? Six hives may (probably) not be enough to be easily sustainable. Are you trying to bring in new improved or complementary genetics?

Furthermore what do you hope to achieve?


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## Saltybee

You sound like you are at the crossroad that Oldtimer and many others (including me) find themselve at. No loss in the desire to be TF but realising the direct aproach is not going to get it done. The purist may believe that 1 or 2 treatments a year makes no progress towards a bee that can survive TF in a specific location. Maybe true, but a dead bee makes no progress either.


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## snl

whalers said:


> I would enjoy knowing more about Oxalic acid as I'm weighing my options about how to treat my bees.


As reported in this thread, look at Randy Oliver's site scientificbeeking.com. You'll find lots of good information on OA there.


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## Saltybee

NUc, Nuc, nuc. As suggested, a split single gives you twice as many chances to find that queen you are looking for as a single. Michael Palmer style supers over nucs should give you some honey as well as better odds. Splitting early in that 2nd year gives you a new clock.


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## JWChesnut

Saltybee said:


> NUc, Nuc, nuc.


I would agree constant requeening or splitting gives you a mite holiday. Those small nucs or singles are much less affected than the "boomer" hives with a stack of supers dripping with honey.

Most hobbyists are anticipating a honey crop and not a pollination check. 

In my west-coast Mediterranean climate our last significant rain occurred before Christmas in 2012. You read that right -- no rain all spring, summer, and fall. 

In this climate, except for exceptional years, virtually all flow occurs before June. Hives are running on vapors at steady state or in serious dearth all summer and fall. 

A nuc strategy (with some honey off the top) is a difficult hobby model -- you overwinter young hives, let them make honey March-April-May, and them break them down completely in a 1>>4 nuc split. There is no honey harvest for the rest of the year. I do use a very similar calendar to make and sell young hives for the January gold rush as the pollination contracts ramp up, so I have healthy, youthful and vigourous started singles that are worth a premium.

The original poster is from Redmond Oregon. This is on the interior (east) side of the Cascades. It should have a mint and alfalfa seed crop with high fall nectar, and high-desert rabbit brush to make some winter stores. Don't know about spring-summer sources (Orchards ?). It will have a large migratory component (commercials working the mint-alfalfa). Commercials imply that the local genotype is going to be Italian commercial strains from escaped swarms. I very much doubt "survivor" stock really means much as a unique genotype in that landscape due to constant introgression from migratory commercials. 

If you look at an satellite image of (say) central Nebraska, the only potential wild bee habitat is some very narrow woodlots along streams surrounded by uninterrupted landscape of hundreds (thousands) of acres of corn. This is a classic land-island which provides isolation that might permit a mega-scale genotypic culling and fixing of a new trait. 



My region does not have this favorable isolation from background genotype at all, and I doubt that Redmond, Oregon does either.

We don't know from the original post what the forage is for his collapsing hives. One process that *does* occur is Italians breed themselves into collapse. They build and build, and when the dearth hits the bees are hunger stressed very quickly. Even with stored honey, the pollen dearth seems to affect colony health. The hive over-corrects and drops below a sustainable size. Mites that were bred up on a 60,000 bee "booming" colony, are suddenly in a 10,000 bee colony. This implies a 6x mite load per new larvae-- and the loading is way beyond what can be sustained. A 60,000 bee colony can lose 10,000 bees to DWV virus and still grow. A 10,000 bee colony losing 10,000 bees to DWV (because the source mite number is the same) goes dead-out. This fall collapse syndrome is classic. It is really important to make a mite assessment in late August, when planning for the last fall forage, and decide a strategy.


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## Delta Bay

> Most of my hives get through the first year, but in the second year they die out.


It seems you could have the answer already. Why not rejuvenate your colonies after the 1st of July so that you're not fighting the second year syndrome.


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## AR Beekeeper

Whalers; Saltybee is correct, you must split and re-queen each year. You must buy queens that have VSH characteristics and flood your area with their drones. Don't expect to develop resistant bees yourself, you must start with resistance and then select for it in the queens you raise each year. You must do mite counts and be ready to act to help colonies that are ready to crash. IPM is not something I read about very much on Beesource, but my opinion is that it is more practical than going treatment-free.


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## WLC

whalers:

You're better off starting out with actual resistant stock. Otherwise, you're odds of success are greatly decreased.

There are a number of commercial stocks that are mite resistant. VSH is one. Tried them, but they starved. 

I switched to BeeWeavers.

Others are using caught local ferals with success.

I'll agree with those suggesting that you make splits/nucs as a backup.

MDA splitter is one method that uses splits in a treatment free setting.

Good luck, and feel free to blow kisses anytime you want. xxx


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## JWChesnut

Delta Bay said:


> Why not rejuvenate your colonies after the 1st of July


Whaler will have to evaluate if a mid-summer nuc is viable in his (relatively sparse) forage and his (severe) climate. He will get a spring crop (if the small hives overwinter on the high-desert side of the Cascades). Otherwise, he is running in place -- young hives with none of the surplus he desires. He may be trading fall dead-out for winter nuc losses.


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## whalers

David LaFerney said:


> Are you making yearly increase to try to compensate for losses and to improve your genetics? Six hives may (probably) not be enough to be easily sustainable. Are you trying to bring in new improved or complementary genetics?
> 
> Furthermore what do you hope to achieve?


Yes I have been bringing in improved/complementary genetics. Its what led to my frustration this year. One hive that made it through last year was from "survivor" bee stock. After making it through a heavy mite year last year I thought I had something. Now they are gone. Also a split from a local beeks hive that has been around for years did not make it. Just some examples. Bottom line, I'm NOT making yearly increases. I do not know how to raise queens and am just getting to the point of being comfortable (kind of) of trying to take a split. Whats the best way to take a split? What ever hives make it through the winter I am going to want to split this spring. Just not sure of how to do it. Thanks for your help.


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## WLC

You'll get quite a few answers for the best way to make splits/nucs.

First thing, protect your drawn frames from your deadouts. Freeze the drawn frames, then store them safely. You'll need them.

The cheapest way to make a split is the walkaway split.

Probably the fastest way is to buy mated queens, and then make up your splits/nucs accordingly.

Then, there's the fun way. Cutting out queen cells, and then using them to make splits/nucs.


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## Rader Sidetrack

A useful _Michael Bush_ page about splitting hives:

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


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## JWChesnut

For the inexperienced hobbyist, the economical and easy way to make increase is buying queens. This allows first-generation improved genetics to be brought to the apiary at minimal cost.

Walk-away splits have a xx% failure rate which is no issue when the experienced keeper can recombine or otherwise manage. They are also free-mated so the background genotype (which I posit is commercial Italian, due to the alfalfa economy).

Prerequisites: 1. nuc or other extra hives, 
2. an out-yard for establishment (this really helps).
3. Inexperienced keeps will want to isolate the queen by using a excluder to break up a 2 story broodnest.

The sunk cost in queens is the exorbitant shipping -- 20 queens are as cheap to ship as 1. Co-ordinate with others to maximize the shipping count. 

By any realistic measure, buying queens on a time-value basis is better than trying to raise your own until the scale is truely commercial. The specialized breeder-cell builder - finisher - mating nuc system requires a complex series of unstable colonies likely only available in large apiaries. Pushing production colonies to build swarm cells results in cast swarms -- and the colony core is lost to the outside world.

My nuc split follows this pattern:

I split into 5 frame nucs: 2 frames of open (larvae stage) brood, one dry open drawn frame (for the queen to lay into), and two frames of light nectar. In May (or the height of your season) you can split 1 mother hive into at least 2 nucs *and* retain the mother hive. == 3 colonies from a single mother.

Working in the morning, move the mother hive about 30 feet away, 
At its old location put two nucs. (foragers return to the nucs, and build a balanced nurse/forager population).
If you have isolated the queen with an excluder, pull off the queen zone, and reestablish it on a bottom board (and cover).

Add the open drawn dry frames to the center of the nucs.
Pull 4 frames of brood with nurse bees intact -- move these quickly into the nucs, 2 per nuc.
Pull 4 frames of honey and put these into the nucs on the outsides. 
Close the nucs.
Shake the honey super to dislodge bees -- most will fly back to the nucs and populate them.
Restack the mother hive.

In the evening, move the nucs to the outyard location at least a mile away. Add syrup feeders if the flow has tapered. Return the mother hive to its old location.
In the evening of the following day (>30 hours post split) introduce the queen cages (ends cork plugged), douse the hive liberally with essential oil (mint-lemon).
On the 3rd day, inspect the nuc for balling or other queen issues. Remove the plug to expose the candy or marshmellow seal. On the 6th day inspect (and remove) the cage. Releasing the queen if still caged.

Inspect the mother hive to ascertain that the original queen is still extant and hive functioning on the third day. If depopulation has been severe, exchange position with a strong hive to balance.

I schedule several of these splits on a rolling calendar about 1 week apart. This allows any disasters to be requeened with only a one week lag, if you are shy a queen simply do a 1 to 2 split instead of the 1 to 3. Boomer hives will support a 1 to 5 split, but usually this depopulates the mother hive severely (I've done this to get a mean hive back to manageable size). A risk on the 2 nuc procedure is all the bees will try and crowd into one hive (leaving the open larvae unattended). You can move them around at the outyard, or in recalcitrant cases simply combine into a single 10 frame box.

Splitting hard like this general convinces a swarm ready colony to settle down.


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## ccar2000

JWChesnut said:


> For the inexperienced hobbyist, the economical and easy way to make increase is buying queens. This allows first-generation improved genetics to be brought to the apiary at minimal cost.
> 
> Walk-away splits have a xx% failure rate which is no issue when the experienced keeper can recombine or otherwise manage. They are also free-mated so the background genotype (which I posit is commercial Italian, due to the alfalfa economy).


Great post JW, thanks for sharing your technique. Walk-away splits are also not an option for those of us below the AHB line and concerned with their traits.


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## whalers

My thanks for all the feedback here. I need to review it all so I can summarize things into a plan for next season. I'll post my summary here for additional comments. One thing to keep in mind (as one person made note of) I'm at an elevation of 3100 feet and our season is short here. Long enough to make solid stores and even provide and good amount of honey, but a splits need to be made early in the season to have a chance. I wish I could find local stock, but there is just very little to be had. Thanks again.


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## sqkcrk

any possibility that they starved?


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## JBJ

A few more considerations...
Start taking mite counts early and often. This is the only way to tell if a particular hive will a mite problem for sure. Some hives will be more resistant than others and if the mite load becomes high consider finding a way to reduce mite load and requeen with hopefully a better queen. An IPM approach is very sustainable and will help you identify your most resistant bees. 

Also the young queen rules... A break in the brood cycle and a vigorous young queen from selected stock can make a huge difference. We have a lot of clients that like to requeen in August and September so a prime young queen heads up the winter cluster. A new queen in August will just be hitting her prime the following spring so production should be good providing nutrition is adequate and pest/pathogen levels are low. Some of the most important bees you grow all year will be your August/September bees as these bees rear the population that will become your winter cluster. This is a critical period so nutrition, pest management, and a vigorous top performing queen are essentials.


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## whalers

This fall collapse syndrome is classic. It is really important to make a mite assessment in late August, when planning for the last fall forage, and decide a strategy.[/QUOTE]

JWChesnut - you have a pretty good picture of what its like here with a couple exceptions. There are no commercial fields of any kind nearby. Some pasture ground for hobby farms with associated clover. We do have a lot of rabbitbrush in the open rangeland around us and I have made a point of planting a number of things on our acre that provide some additional fall forage. I have been suspicious about the fall dearth of pollen and this year fed pollen patties, and I believe you have really nailed exactly what is happening. So the obvious question, after making a mite assessment in August and finding a high mite count what is an appropriate "strategy".


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## whalers

sqkcrk said:


> any possibility that they starved?


No, tons of pollen and honey stores. Because there is a fall dearth of pollen I even fed pollen patties this year.


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## whalers

JBJ said:


> A few more considerations...
> if the mite load becomes high consider finding a way to reduce mite load and requeen with hopefully a better queen. An IPM approach is very sustainable and will help you identify your most resistant bees.
> 
> This is a critical period so nutrition, pest management, and a vigorous top performing queen are essentials.


Thanks JBJ, excuse my ignorance please but what is "IPM approach"? Also, what would you suggest as a way to reduce mite loads in Aug/Sept. I open to most anything and its becoming obvious that this is a part of my management that needs to improve.


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## HarryVanderpool

JBJ said:


> Also the young queen rules... A break in the brood cycle and a vigorous young queen from selected stock can make a huge difference.


I agree with John wholeheartedly.
I queened-up some hives that had been queenless for a while and had dwindled down, introducing Old Sol queens late in the fall when you just wonder if you are throwing good money after bad.
Those queens layed out sheet after sheet of the tightest brood I have seen in a long time.
There are not enough varroa mites on the planet that could have kept up with those queens.
I saw a few of those hives today as we dribbled and they are amazing!
Our California almond grower will be VERY HAPPY with those.


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## NeilV

Have you considered trying drone trapping? Ed Levi over in Arkansas does that with great success. What I don't understand is why drone trapping is considered, for purposes of this forum, to be a "treatment" but splitting, which has a more profound effect on a hive, is not. (I personally get the nerve up to talk myself into treatment-free but end of chickening out and using thymol and/or hopguard.)


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## Saltybee

There was a thread a month or so ago, mostly about AHB but also about a high dry country black bee population if I have the details correctly. If someone has a better memory than I that might be an ideal line to try.


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## rhaldridge

What bothers me about the assertions of the chemical-control contingent here is that they seem to be unaware of certain financial realities that govern research.

They complain about the lack of closely controlled trials of various treatment-free strategies, apparently not understanding that there is no money to be made in not treating bees. Why should a beekeeper who has experienced success while not treating risk any of his colonies in any controlled trials? There is no incentive.

On the other hand, there seem to be very few long-term studies that attempt to quantify the damage that chemical treatments undoubtedly do to the colony. With some of the treatments touted here-- thyme oil, oxalic, hopguard, there do not seem to be the sort of trials that would justify the amount of faith invested in them. Yes, these treatments kill mites. Do they really contribute to long-lived colonies? Who knows?

When you look a the actual numbers, the idea that chemical treatments are justified becomes even less supportable. The original poster lost a third of his hives. According to the BeeInformed survey, so did commercial beekeepers in the season just past, who lost over a third of their hives, despite the fact that almost all of them treat. If this level of loss is unsupportable without treatment, why is it any better with treatment?

From an outsider's point of view, the amount of faith that advocates of chemical treatment have in their various potions does not seem to be reflected in the actual state of the industry, which lately has had losses called by some insiders "catastrophic." Complain all you like about the lack of treatment-free trials, but do not ignore the inconvenient epidemiology, which does not support the longtime efficacy of most chemical treatments.

That is both dishonest and intellectually lazy.


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## Rader Sidetrack

> also about a high dry country black bee population 

I believe that _Saltybee _is referring to posts by _Paul McCarty _in this thread:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ing-from-Survivor-stock/page2&highlight=feral


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## Fusion_power

In the end, getting one or two mite tolerant colonies is not enough to tilt the balance. I used three strategies to go treatment free.

1. I found and re-queened with mite tolerant stock. This is the single most important step.
2. I converted to small cell. This has only a minor effect, but it works well with running 11 frames in a brood chamber.
3. I forced swarming from my colonies to saturate the area with mite tolerant ferals.

Several posts were made in a different thread that this can't be done in an area with large numbers of commercial treated migratory colonies. I can't directly argue to that except to say that there are 12 beekeepers within 5 miles of me. How do I know there are 12? A few years ago, Kelley shipped catalogs to all the beekeepers in this town in a tied bundle and mine happened to be on top. I got to see the names and addresses of the others. I know 5 or 6 of them to speak to. There is one beekeeper 5 miles north of me who has 4 colonies all from my mite tolerant stock. There is another beekeeper 35 miles east of me with 2 colonies from my mite tolerant bees. Both got started in the last 2 years.

I've been treatment free since 2005. I don't worry about mites at all... ever. I don't do mite counts. I don't use monitoring boards. I don't spend money and time on anything associated with mites. I leave my bees to handle them. So far, they have done so with ease. My winter losses are 10% or less. I am only running 10 colonies at present. The woods nearby are full of mite tolerant bees. I can tell because I catch a few swarms every year and I know for sure that they are not from my colonies. Next year, I plan to split my 10 colonies into at least 20 and spread a few more around. Two more people have requested colonies. I will find some more who are interested and I will make sure they get a start with mite tolerant bees.

Please don't think that everyone can do what I am doing. If you are getting saturated with commercial colonies every year, your bees will outcross and lose the tolerance within a couple of years. If you start with "local bees" or unselected bees, you may or may not be dealing with significant tolerance. Under those conditions, mite monitoring and selection would be required. I wish Dann Purvis were still producing queens. He had relatively good stock with very high levels of tolerance.


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## David LaFerney

RHAldridge - what are you referring to? There ARE a couple of mentions of OA early in the thread, but the majority of it has been rather constructive non-treatment advice and discussion. Yes JWChestnut is clearly a skeptic, but I don't see how you can call his mention of "survivor testament" effect intellectually lazy, and then he posted some good information on making splits. Not really a lot of pro treatment hard sell that I can see.


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## rhaldridge

David LaFerney said:


> RHAldridge - what are you referring to? There ARE a couple of mentions of OA early in the thread, but the majority of it has been rather constructive non-treatment advice and discussion. Yes JWChestnut is clearly a skeptic, but I don't see how you can call his mention of "survivor testament" effect intellectually lazy, and then he posted some good information on making splits. Not really a lot of pro treatment hard sell that I can see.


It is intellectually lazy to make note of the lack of scientific trials of treatment-free techniques, while at the same time ignoring the elephant in the room: the difficulties that the industry is having despite all-out treatment. It is dishonest to assume that this lack of trials is due to the unwillingness of the non-treating beekeepers to put their techniques to a fair test-- in the first place, they *have* decided to keep their own bees in this manner, and have succeeded, despite conventional wisdom, which informs them that they have doomed their bees to inevitable death. And in the second place, what possible incentive do successful non-treating beekeepers have to put their operation at risk by putting half of their colonies into a treated control group? Many times in this forum, I have heard conventional beekeepers, when dealing with the possibility that non-treaters might have a valid approach, ask a very similar question: What's in it for me to experiment with non-treatment? What do I get out of it except bragging rights? Why should I risk my operation on these unproven management techniques? These are all good questions, and treatment-free beekeepers have as much right to ask them as anyone else. 

If a conventional beekeeper refuses to make a scientific trial of his methods against a treatment-free regimen, would it be appropriate for me or anyone else to call him self-deluded? JWC has referred to treatment-free beekeepers in such terms on many occasions on the forum. The "survivor testament" effect he refers to is just as easily observable among conventional beekeepers, even (bizarrely) after they suffer what to most folks would be unacceptable losses. 

When the industry-wide high losses come up, there are always those who will chime in and say that they have not seen these losses personally. They are assuming that their lack of catastrophe is due to their use of chemicals, but that belief is no better supported in scientific terms than treatment-free beekeepers who have low losses and attribute that fortunate situation to their particular management style.

JWC is a very smart guy, and I've learned a lot by reading his posts. However, I believe that he has a blind spot when it comes to this issue, perhaps because he has been unable to make non-treatment work in his own trials. However, his anecdotal evidence is no more persuasive to me than the existence of successful treatment-free beekeepers is, it would appear, to JWC. With him, it's always something along the line of... these guys who succeed without treatment are a statistical anomaly, deluded, or singularly fortunate. It could be that JWC has just been singularly unfortunate, perhaps in his location, perhaps in some other aspect of his approach. I have no idea. Neither does he, obviously.

If you're going to make your argument along these lines then rationally, you can't complain when someone else points out a larger body of evidence that contradicts that position. The current state of the industry raises a very large warning flag, for anyone who is paying attention. Some very good and highly experienced beekeepers *who treat* have had losses much higher than those mentioned by the original poster.

Why, if chemical treatments are so good, is the industry experiencing such high losses? 

Where are the current studies that prove the longterm advantage of treatment over non-treatment? Obviously, these treatment kill mites. Just as obviously, they are not a panacea. If they were, we would not be having this discussion.

Where are the current studies designed to show up any longterm negative effects of acaricides? Does anyone seriously believe that there are no such effects? Clearly, trying to poison bugs that live on bugs is fraught with potential problems, yet it's very difficult to get people to look at the situation in this way. There is no incentive for those who manufacture treatments to evaluate their potentially harmful effects, and increasingly, research at the big universities is driven by the available funding, which appears to be nonexistent for treatment-free beekeeping. The sad fact is that the chemical approach is so ingrained in our current agricultural model, particularly in the case of bees, that it has not even occurred to the manufacturers or regulators of these products to test them fairly against the treatment-free approach. Why should they? Why rock the boat? It is already an article of faith among the vast majority of beekeepers that these products are the best approach. Unfortunately, there seems to have been surprisingly little research directed at the longterm consequences, which may now be coming home to roost, judging by the level of industry-wide losses in the last several years.

All I'm arguing for is a little fairness. Every statistical criticism leveled at treatment-free beekeepers can just as factually be leveled at conventional beekeepers. There are vastly more of the latter. The problems these conventional beekeepers are having are a hugely more significant data set than any difficulties faced by the hobbyists and smalltimers who mostly make up the already tiny minority of treatment-free beekeepers.

Of course, as a beginner, I can make no useful observations from my own experience, but the whole point of JWC's usual tirade is that such anecdotal evidence is useless. 

That applies to all anecdotal evidence, including JWC's.

Fairness.

Ray


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## David LaFerney

OK, fair enough. We are lacking scientific evidence or even reliable data on both sides of the issue - so to a certain extent we are all groping around on our own - and we all suffer from confirmation bias. We don't know all of the long term implications of all of the various treatments because the information just isn't available. In a lot of cases even the "scientific" work isn't all that scientific because it isn't peer reviewed and shown to have repeatable results. The only entities who have a sufficient monetary interest in funding the studies are chemical companies. 

There are two anecdotally evident issues with treatment free as far as I am concerned.

*Productivity* - Survival isn't the only goal. FusionPower is a glimmer of hope as far as productive treatment free beekeeping goes, but there does not appear to be more than a handful of people who can report economically viable levels of success while doing treatment free. There are apparently thousands of people with 8-10 hives that produce a profitable honey crop year after year while using treatments. Every local association that I have rubbed elbows with has a few. They don't make a lot of noise, but they have a sign up that says "Local Honey For Sale."

*Beginners* who don't use treatments usually lose all of their bees and give up beekeeping - or after a couple of years they get tired of doing the work and spending the money while getting nothing back except stings and a little $100 a quart honey to give Mom for Christmas - and they either fall off the wagon or quit entirely.

Maybe I'm wrong. Do a poll comparing first year TFBK to 3rd year - maybe beginners quit in droves no matter what. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

It's all anecdotal, but I'm not making this up. I have real people who I know in mind. Personally I don't want to discourage anyone from being treatment free - I think it's a great idea. But I don't want beginners to quit before they even really get started when a couple of well timed soft treatments a year will help keep them going until they can learn to keep bees.

Totally unscientific and intellectually lazy.


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## Barry

> JWC wrote:
> 
> My results, over a decade, show that TF in coastal California is not viable.
> 
> In my west-coast Mediterranean climate our last significant rain occurred before Christmas in 2012. You read that right -- no rain all spring, summer, and fall.
> 
> In this climate, except for exceptional years, virtually all flow occurs before June. Hives are running on vapors at steady state or in serious dearth all summer and fall.
> 
> Anecdote is not Evidence.


This should help you understand where he's coming from. Take it with a grain of whatever.


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## Saltybee

Thanks Rader, you got it.

Treatment is a tourniquet. Barbaric and only worst than the alternative. But then I still eat supermarket chicken. What is an acceptable loss? Anything less than 100%. TF is still overly sensitive to the 100% problem. It really does exist.

Comparing losses between a stationary TF keeper and a mobile commercial treater should not be the focus. That is like comparing free range chicken and a broiler operation. So different in so many ways. It is really illogical to be running a stationary small operation like a mobile commercial one. Here I expect that the TF and treated losses are similar; all over the board and unrecorded. 

Package pickup day; 50 to 75 new keepers in full armour to watch a package being installed. TF will not kill most of those bees, lack of follow through will.

I really do not see much TF bashing anymore except for witnesses to the losses of the dreamkeepers. That is more overbuying by newbies than overselling by TF in my view.

whalers asked a fair question. How do I get where I want to be, hitting the brick wall again hurts. Nobody is saying turn around you are on the wrong road. Saying go around the road block instead of straight through it is not slamming TF.


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## David LaFerney

Well said.


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## beemandan

There have been various professionally conducted ‘treatment free’ studies.
Without spending the day seeking the specifics….if you are interested you should be able to find the documents yourself.
The USDA conducted a number of studies on Primorsky bees…bees that underwent nearly a century of Bond selection and relaxed the decades old restriction on bee imports to allow them into the US.
Small cell….been done…repeatedly. All sorts of breeding concepts….been done. We’ve got Russians, VSH, Minnesota hygienics, New World Carniolans….and the list goes on. Each line is chosen from extensive, professional trials and evaluations.
Heaven knows the CAPS Stationary Hive Project, unintentionally but professionally, demonstrated the effects of the Bond selection in a variety of locations.
I know a couple of professional research entomologists who will tell you that at every bee meeting they attend, beekeepers will come up and insist that they conduct a trial of that particular beekeeper’s varroa solution. Most are hare brained cogitations that haven’t a single toehold in reality.
What other trials do you propose they consume their budgets to conduct?


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## David LaFerney

Beemandan - You are probably correct - I have not read all of the studies that you refer to, but I have read some of them - the CAPS study for example. For anyone who has not the CAPS study spanned several apiaries and several states and 3 years - a pretty big study. I forget what the goal was, but it resulted in almost total losses starting in the second year and nearly complete loss of all colonies in the study by the third year. Which seems to support a pro-treatment position. But, if I remember correctly all colonies were started with commercial packages and Italian queens - so the results totally support what most treatment free advocates predict. 

Those *really were* the wrong kind of bees. So it really doesn't prove much one way or the other about treatment free.

You can make some kind of similar argument with almost every study that I have read about - but I certainly am not familiar with all of them - maybe I have only been exposed to the flawed ones. Anything is possible.


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## Paul McCarty

I heard my name mentioned concerning the dark bees I chase down here in the Southern NM Mountains. I have some bees like this, but don't really sell them on a large scale. I am not a big enough operation to guarantee consistency, and they are mostly just wildish bees from my region from above the 7000-8000 foot level. They work for me, but I cannot say they would be right for anyone else. And no, I don't really treat them at all. My oldest is on it's fourth season and still going strong - not sure why. You just can't kill them. And they are not like the lower elevation bees, that have obvious Brazilian influence. I haven't figured out whether I am seeing a remnant of an older existing population, or an adapatation of the lower elevation bees to cold weather. They seem totally different.

And to be honest, I could not imagine keeping bees here without them. I lose the ones I buy much more often.


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## beemandan

David LaFerney said:


> Those *really were* the wrong kind of bees. So it really doesn't prove much one way or the other about treatment free.


In another study, Seeley found feral colonies in remote areas of the Arnot (sp?) forest. Clearly survivors. So...he collected them, put them in an apiary and they collapsed. Would those qualify as the *right kind* of bees? For whatever it's worth, Seeley concluded that it wasn't the bee but the mite that was different. A less virulent mite. 
I can guarantee you that a number of entomological labs are testing this theory as we speak....
You see...the research community isn't anti tf...but they do require some level of reality before investing resources. 'Works for me' doesn't cut it.


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## JWChesnut

Paul
I suggest you offer a preserved sample of your black bees to one of the university labs doing the mitochodria typing. (Delaware, Georgia, Washington). I think your supposition that these are evolved remnant of the Spanish colonial colonies is worth pursuing. The Sacramento Range is famous as a "sky island" -- for example, It has the only orchids in southern New Mexico. Island geography is the classic indicator for fixing genotype evolution. 

If you are correct, the bee breeders, who are starved for diversity and hybrid vigor and shut off from importation, will be beat a path to your door. They won't care so much about consistency, but more about getting their hands on those chromosomes. I see queen breeding in your future for a specialized market.


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## beemandan

By the way David LaFerney, the colonies in the Stationary Hive Project were started from packages but requeened shortly thereafter with queens from Koehnen. I believe that Joseph Clemens has spoken highly of them in his treatment free operation.


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## Saltybee

beemandan said:


> You see...the research community isn't anti tf...but they do require some level of reality before investing resources. 'Works for me' doesn't cut it.


Ok, I take it back. Now someone has said you are on the wrong road.

I really am not sure of your point. Is it that researchers cannot raise TF bees? Observation is the first step in research. Observing over an extended period of time multiple TF systems and finding the differences in methods is research. A failed test may show that the knowledge being tested is incomplete and nothing more. Unless you are advocating that TF methods not be used at all, I do not understand. If your point is simply that there is more work undone than completed I do not think anyone would argue.

Let the tinkers tinker and God bless them. Plenty of work being done on the treatment side already.


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## beemandan

Saltybee said:


> Ok, I take it back. Now someone has said you are on the wrong road.


Not at all what I was saying. I'm not commenting on tf or what road the op or anyone else chooses to take.



Saltybee said:


> I really am not sure of your point.


My point was that the various posters who’ve suggested that there hasn’t been any professional research conducted on treatment free beekeeping simply isn’t true. The statement of mine that you quoted was my way of saying that everyone who has a pet method should not expect researchers to invest in trials without some reasonable explanation for why the theory might work.
As I stated….they will not embrace ‘works for me’ as a substitute.


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## David LaFerney

beemandan said:


> In another study, Seeley found feral colonies in remote areas of the Arnot (sp?) forest. Clearly survivors. So...he collected them, put them in an apiary and they collapsed. Would those qualify as the *right kind* of bees? For whatever it's worth, Seeley concluded that it wasn't the bee but the mite that was different. A less virulent mite.
> I can guarantee you that a number of entomological labs are testing this theory as we speak....
> You see...the research community isn't anti tf...but they do require some level of reality before investing resources. 'Works for me' doesn't cut it.


Maybe they should try establishing colonies of "the wrong kinds of bees" in the right kinds of places. It seems that the opposite has been done many times and resulted in disappointment for would be treatment free practitioners more often than not.

So to the OP - it's possible that you are in the wrong kind of location to be TF.


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## Saltybee

Beemandan, fair enough.


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## David LaFerney

beemandan said:


> By the way David LaFerney, the colonies in the Stationary Hive Project were started from packages but requeened shortly thereafter with queens from Koehnen. I believe that Joseph Clemens has spoken highly of them in his treatment free operation.


I'm really not arguing for universal adoption of treatment free as being likely or even possible. But as much as I respect Joseph Clemens his success with Koehnen Italian queens does not validate the conclusion that the CAPS study is a strong indictment against TF in general. Perhaps another one is?


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## beemandan

David LaFerney said:


> his success with Koehnen Italian queens does not validate the conclusion that the CAPS study is a strong indictment against TF in general. Perhaps another one is?


Nor am I arguing either side. Originally I only pointed out that there has been research conducted in tf beekeeping, albeit in the case of the Stationary Hive Project the connection was unintentional (I think). And then when you commented on the wrong kind of bees I couldn't resist the Joseph Clemens connection.
Nothing more intended on my part.


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## Paul McCarty

JWChestnut - that is the path I am headed down. Hopefully I can get these critters bred to be useful to more people than just me. And yes - this area is a "sky island". I cringe at the thought of new beekeepers bringing in bees from elsewhere.

This next season, I am going to set out more swarm traps in more remote mountain locations, and I have become very picky about the removals I do. So far most of the breeding I have done has been from using northern NM survivor stock to cross with the locals. I have several places where I place mating nucs at high elevations. 

My biggest obstacle is that I do not have enough time to do it all by myself, and work my full time job too. It makes queen breeding pretty hard. Not only that, but we only have about a two month window where you can really breed queens well due to the weather and the monsoons. I have never gotten consistent results raising queens after July for a variety of reasons, and before May it tends to be too cold. It would be easier to raise queens at a lower level, but that is not what I want. 

My goal is to eventually get these bees into a locally adapted Sacramento Mountain strain and maybe do some local sales when I get them going good. I have done a few sales, and seem to always have people wanting them. As far as queen breeding - I have not had the time to devote to it, and tend to sell nucs instead. Hopefully when my sons come of age, they can take over. My oldest is getting close, but he cannot graft or raise queens yet.


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## JRG13

In my opinion, you need to work to be treatment free, it's not a matter of finding someone else's bees they don't treat then raising stock from them. You need to bring in genetics, locally adapt them and constantly select and make queens til you find something that works. Even then it can be difficult as open mating may dilute the survivors down, but you get enough of them you can start flooding with drones and maybe shift the balance in your favor. 

Secondly, I think treatment free requires some locational parameters to be successful, one of it being good forage year round. Any additive/additional stressors on your bees other than mites in general will make becoming treatment free that much more difficult.


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## David LaFerney

Beemandan - it's all good.


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## Oldtimer

It is untrue to say that fair trials of treatment free hives against treated hives have not been done. I have read a number of Beesource members who have done it, and I have done it.

Comparing the losses of a commercial migratory operation to a small hobby treatment free operation is not intellectually honest. A true comparison is done by running all hives similarly.

Other thing to bear in mind is commercial beekeepers do not achieve anything by getting mere survival, their paycheck comes from productivity.

It is also naïve to think that commercial beekeepers just pour chemicals into their hives blindly and for no good reason. Any commercial beekeeper will have learned from personal experience what happens when he fails to control mites and most of them work hard at keeping expensive treatments to a minimum, always pushing the boundaries towards minimal treatment as far as they can get away with.

Last point, commercial beekeepers often use different bees to hobby treatment free folks. they need bees that will turn a profit, ie, be ready for pollination, and easily manipulated to have populations of the right size at the right times for whatever tasks the particular beekeeper will put them to. These bees also tend to be the ones that will not survive without treatment. But a commercial; beekeeper is there to make money. By definition, if he does not do what it takes to make money he will soon find himself a hobby beekeeper working a different job.

Would commercial beekeepers like to be treatment free? Yes, I have yet to met one who would not love to dispense with the need for those expensive and time consuming treatments.

Bottom line, all beekeepers are really on the same team. As an ex commercial beekeeper it does get a bit tiresome being told by people who have never tried it, how the business should be run.


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## Paul McCarty

Oldtimer is right - it is like comparing apples and oranges. If I were running 5000 hives in a migratory manner, my results would be totally different. Two different critters. There is a point you reach in size where it seems to reach critical mass. Most commercial guys would not want to devote a significant portion of their hives to growing next years stock, and losing production, as the TF people normally do.


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## rhaldridge

beemandan said:


> Heaven knows the CAPS Stationary Hive Project, unintentionally but professionally, demonstrated the effects of the Bond selection in a variety of locations.


This is exactly what I mean by intellectual dishonesty. The study referenced was an attrition study, which involved setting hives up and leaving them strictly alone, and then determining how long the colonies took to die out. There was no effort made to do any actual beekeeping-- no making of increase, no manipulation of hives to correct queenless conditions, no attempt to control swarming, etc-- it was just a set up and leave to die situation, and there was no attempt to see if treatment improved the longevity of a control group of hives, compared to the untreated hives. Doers anyone here believe that a yard would survive indefinitely if all you did was treat it? It astonishes me that anyone would point to this as a fair example of Bond style breeding, *since there was no breeding involved.*


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## Oldtimer

rhaldridge said:


> Doers anyone here believe that a yard would survive indefinitely if all you did was treat it?


Pretty much, yes.

Before mites, there were abandoned apiaries that lasted till the equipment rotted away. Now, long as I control mites, my hives have virtually 100% survival regardless of the many other mistakes I make. Around these parts anyway, if a yard was treated but received no other management it would last.


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## Paul McCarty

That's just leaving bees alone to die. Where is the science in that?


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## beemandan

rhaldridge said:


> This is exactly what I mean by intellectual dishonesty.


The Bond method of selection….live and let die. Countless new beekeepers try this with package bees…and in this ‘project’ they actually went so far as to go to a reputable queen supplier. As I clearly pointed out, for anyone who bothers to read, testing the Bond method was not the purpose of the trial but an unintended consequence. 
Sorry if this is challenging for you.


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## beemandan

Paul McCarty said:


> That's just leaving bees alone to die. Where is the science in that?


If you read the study it would make more sense. They weren't testing for tf. They were trying to limit the variables, as is done in good science, and treatments and hive manipulations would have added variables. So they did neither.
Which is all beyond the point. 
The point is that various forms of tf beekeeping have been tested...


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## WLC

You're referring to the 'Stationary Hive Project'.

No, it wasn't a 'Bond' or TF type experiment.

They never published the pathogen part of the experiment though.


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## Oldtimer

WLC said:


> They never published the pathogen part of the experiment though.


Which implies you have some special knowledge the rest of us don't?

Going to share it, or just hint at it?


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## rhaldridge

beemandan said:


> The Bond method of selection….live and let die. Countless new beekeepers try this with package bees…and in this ‘project’ they actually went so far as to go to a reputable queen supplier. As I clearly pointed out, for anyone who bothers to read, testing the Bond method was not the purpose of the trial but an unintended consequence.
> Sorry if this is challenging for you.


So your understanding of the Bond method is that Bond beekeepers make no increase? Really?

The purpose f the the study was to measure the effects of locality on colony mortality. It did nothing to trial treatment-free beekeeping against conventional beekeeping, because there was no actual "beekeeping" involved. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?


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## Oldtimer

Ray I don't really think you've fully understood all that's been said, or at least taken a very narrow view of it.

Why so much aggression?

Also, the results of a study or field trial are the results. Intellectual honesty is accepting that, and if it conflicts with ones own beliefs, examine ones beliefs.


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## rhaldridge

Paul McCarty said:


> That's just leaving bees alone to die. Where is the science in that?


Paul, the study was trying to determine mortality due to location. They set up yards around the country and tried to determine what factors contributed to different rates of colony demise. They measured various things, like pollen and comb contamination, and kept records of supercedure, etc.. Very interesting study, because it does give credence to the idea that local adaptation is important, but it had nothing to do with comparing tf with conventional beekeeping. And nothing to do with Bond beekeeping.


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## WLC

Oldtimer said:


> Which implies you have some special knowledge the rest of us don't?
> 
> Going to share it, or just hint at it?


OT:

Here's the first part of their report.

http://www.beeccdcap.uga.edu/documents/DrummondCAPcolumnDec2012.pdf

I have mentioned this before in TF related threads as a good reason for starting out with known resistant stock or using a methodology that avoids complete losses.


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## Oldtimer

So what is it that they did not put in that report, that you know about?


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## WLC

OT:

I was interested to see their analysis of viruses in untreated colonies.


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## beemandan

rhaldridge said:


> So your understanding of the Bond method is that Bond beekeepers make no increase? Really?


Stay with me on this one. Bond....James Bond....Live and let die.....does any of that ring a bell with you?
This is the whole point of the 'Bond' method. 
I know this is causing you difficulty. I know you want to ague this...in a never ending, tail chasing, useless monologue. You've stated your opinion and I have mine. What else is to be said?
Let's see if you can let go....I know I can.


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## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> Why so much aggression?
> Intellectual honesty


OT...I've chosen to let it go.
Dishonesty is a term most of us use with great caution. We’ve come to appreciate the substance of such an accusation.
Those who throw the term around cavalierly, most likely, have had the term used against them regularly and have lost recognition of its implication.


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## Fusion_power

I read that report on the CAP study. What is in it is nowhere near as significant as what was not in it. The conclusions were obvious. Site affects survival. They did not figure out why site affects survival. Total pesticide exposure affects supersedure rate at a minor level.

I submit that they will find that total varroa load correlates very strongly with both supersedure rate and total survival rate.

What was missing? There was no effort to control varroa whether by using varroa tolerant genetics or by chemical means. Without some effort at varroa control, varroa effects overwhelm all other events in the colony by the second year. Varroa load increases as brood rearing interval increases therefore warmer climate areas see increased losses. Varroa load affects wintering ability, therefore cold climate regions see increased losses "in the winter".


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## rhaldridge

beemandan said:


> Stay with me on this one. Bond....James Bond....Live and let die.....does any of that ring a bell with you?
> This is the whole point of the 'Bond' method.
> I know this is causing you difficulty. I know you want to ague this...in a never ending, tail chasing, useless monologue. You've stated your opinion and I have mine. What else is to be said?
> Let's see if you can let go....I know I can.


I'm just trying to understand why you believe that Bond beekeepers make no increase. Is it your belief that Bond beekeepers buy in a bunch of colonies, let them die, then buy in more, until, by sheer good fortune, one of them survives without treatment? Really?

The best example of Bond beekeeping that I'm aware of is the BeeWeaver breeding program. They did not manage their colonies in the manner you suggest. Can you give any examples of Bond beekeepers who did as you claim? All the accounts I've read indicate that they breed from their best hives each year. This did not happen *at all* in the study you claim is a good trial of Bond beekeeping. They didn't breed from any of their colonies. They bought standard packages and queened them with queens as much alike as they could manage. This is not at all what a treatment free beekeeper would do. Even a beginner like me has acquired locally adapted nucs, caught swarms, bought in BeeWeaver stock, etc. 

I honestly cannot figure out how you are convincing yourself that the study you've cited has anything to do with beekeeping, let alone treatment-free beekeeping.


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## beemandan

rhaldridge said:


> I honestly cannot figure out how you are convincing yourself that the study you've cited has anything to do with beekeeping, let alone treatment-free beekeeping.


I've expressed my opinion and you have yours. 
If you are simply looking for an endless argument...then it makes sense.
Otherwise....there isn't anything else to say.


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## WLC

The best example of 'Bond' bees are the actual Bond hives in Gotland, Sweden.

It's an experiment that's still running today.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney

whalers said:


> Thanks JBJ, excuse my ignorance please but what is "IPM approach"? Also, what would you suggest as a way to reduce mite loads in Aug/Sept. I open to most anything and its becoming obvious that this is a part of my management that needs to improve.


You can read up on IPM approach/techniques, but my favorite is running screened bottom boards with an oil tray underneath, which mine also have a wooden bottom under the tray. The tray makes an outing at the lake for the mites and SHB. Don't give up on treatment free if that is what you want to pursue, there is not guarantee your bees would be alive if you had treated them. As you stated, focus more on your management techniques, take notes if needed, "looked healthy" is a guess unless you are in the hives semi-regularly, or watching the entrance often, and definetly run nucs and make splits. Out of curiousity, how large were the hives before they perished?


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## Paul McCarty

Making increase is IMPERATIVE with TF styles. That is how it works. You must always have some in reserve for the next season. Any test that does not incorporate this is not a truly scientific test of this method.

Now, ultimately, this method is not very well suited to large operations, since it takes more manipulations and hive time - so comparisons really are not fair for either..


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## JWChesnut

Paul McCarty said:


> Making increase is IMPERATIVE with TF styles. That is how it works. You must always have some in reserve for the next season.


This is core advice, thank you. For my climate this means: your apiary is divided in (rough) thirds -- one-third making honey, one-third are the source colonies for increase (and make no honey after April), and one-third are young-of-the-year nucs that make no honey either. (I am jealous of those with a climate that permits a fall crop off young hives).

I insist any new beekeeper start with 3 hives (to correspond the division in thirds). You need an outyard as well (core to isolating nucs from drift and robbing). Queening packages is not a trivial task for new keeps (viz. the nearly constant round of questions on this practice on these forums in May-July), and splitting hives is an order of magnitude more difficult than installing packages. 

The "backyard, natural beekeeping" texts ignore the minimum size, rotating purpose constraint on colonies, minimum skill set for requeening, and pre-requisite out-yard. The implication is always that a "garden ornament" is as viable as a working apiary; it is *not.* The need to dedicate colonies to sustaining the yard, the nursery period of young hives, and purchased queens mean the minimum investment in viable hobby apiary is much greater >$500 and there is a continuing need for new cash input. The unit production is less than 50% of the ideal "established" colony. (one full crop and one half crop among a set of three hives).

The cost of purchased nucs (or packages) is quickly prohibitive except for most spend-thrift hobbyist, so the default assumption is the group of hives will run on the requeened split model.


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## Paul McCarty

I agree with everything JWChestnut has stated. I am not strictly TF, since I use some traditional treatments such as Creosote Bush smoke, but I tend to fit this category. I have my hives divided in thirds as he speks. Out of my 25 hives, only about 1/3rd are actually making honey. The rest are raising next year's bees, queens, etc. It really can't be done with just a hive or two. 

I would be out of business, were I to purchase packages and queens, so I am constantly chasing bees that have the traits I want, through removals, swarms, etc. It is a lot of work. More than most commercial operations would be willing to tolerate, but on a medium, "organic" scale, it can be done easily. I am not sure what the break-over point would be, as to how many hives you can run like this without working yourself to death.

Also, I would like to add, it appears to me that you need at least 12 hives as a minimum to get a system like this running smoothly, and that would be pushing it. It would work best with 30-50 in my opinion.


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## rhaldridge

Paul McCarty said:


> Making increase is IMPERATIVE with TF styles. That is how it works. You must always have some in reserve for the next season. Any test that does not incorporate this is not a truly scientific test of this method.
> 
> Now, ultimately, this method is not very well suited to large operations, since it takes more manipulations and hive time - so comparisons really are not fair for either..


It would appear that making increase is imperative with *any * operation. If the reports from the industry can be trusted, many large-scale operations have experienced high losses.


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## JWChesnut

Rhaldridge,
No one is disputing that migratory beekeeping to the Almonds from South Dakota via Florida is lethal on bees. In some ways, it would be cheaper to sulfur the bugs and start over each year--much like the medieval skep to heathland model, except for the fact that Almonds bloom at an entirely awkward month.

The rationalization "We, TF naturalists, do no worse than the dregs of industrial agriculture." isn't really convincing. And the statistics are suspect: I observe loss at >>75%. Stationary hives with attention to conditions, and appropriate intervention, survive far better than truckloads of boxes thrown hither and yon. The unspoken assessment of some (and apologies in advance to the others) participating in the Almond circus: "These bugs are expendable and we'll treat them as such, we can't afford to be sentimental about the insects." One extreme example would be the gypsy's that bring in wild-trapped Arizona AHB, and actually want them to disappear ('cause who wants to work an AHB colony --after it has filled its second deep and is feeling their oats).

The bespoke, sideline, or backyard keeper should be able to keep his charges healthier. I maintain if you set up side-by-side experiments, you will discover on any metric; caring for your bees through appropriate medication, they will be more productive, economical and sustaining than those in adherence to some half-baked Darwinian myth. The myth that bees can be selected like wild mustangs and some heroic cowboy will ride a champion to the rail ignores the core facts of bee biology.

I have no idea how in a world of >6 billion people (and internet, and instant shipment) how you decentralize industrial agriculture and its discontents. The Jeffersonian agrarian ideal is long past, the Maoist self-sufficiency campaign was a tragedy of starvation, the beekeeper of the famous "New Alchemists" community is now one of the most caustic skeptics of the "dreamkeepers". The best we may do is ethically husband our own wildlife and livestock for survival and increase.


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## Saltybee

"The best we may do is ethically husband our own wildlife and livestock for survival and increase."

And on that I think I hear agreement. How that is accomplished is the catch.


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## David LaFerney

Maybe not the most diplomatic way to put it, but it meshes perfectly with my more limited experience and observation. Use of even the softest of soft treatments at just the right times reduces hive loss dramatically. And gives beginners a chance to gain some experience.


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## Michael Bush

>Beginners who don't use treatments usually lose all of their bees and give up beekeeping

According to the BeeInformed survey, the ones treating are losing just as many bees as the ones not treating. Reality is beginners lose hives. So do experienced beekeepers although probably at a lower rate. The ones treating lose hives. The ones not treating lose hives. Some of those people get frustrated and quit.

There are plenty of beekeepers not treating and succeeding.


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## AstroBee

Michael Bush said:


> According to the BeeInformed survey, the ones treating are losing just as many bees as the ones not treating.


I haven't looked closely at the data, but that statement is contridictory to what Dennis vanEngelsdorp told beekeepers at the VA State meeting in the spring of 2013. Actually he made an impassioned plea to treat your bees. His whole presentation was about the BeeInformed survey and what were the current trends.


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## DPBsbees

AstroBee said:


> I haven't looked closely at the data, but that statement is contridictory to what Dennis vanEngelsdorp told beekeepers at the VA State meeting in the spring of 2013. Actually he made an impassioned plea to treat your bees. His whole presentation was about the BeeInformed survey and what were the current trends.


I heard him say the same thing at this year's EAS convention.


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## WLC

I recall that in the MDA splitter method, you need two operations. One set of hives is for production, and the other set (nucs/splits) is for next year's production. I think that some of the numbers being used are a bit too high. A 1/2 dozen hives should do it.

http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf

However, if you have actual resistant Honeybees, it's a moot point.

I do remember a study by DvE where they found that 75% VSH was enough to keep mites below the 5% level so that treatments weren't necessary.

So, if that's the case with whatever resistant stock you have, treatments aren't really needed.


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## Paul McCarty

Mr. Disselkonen (MDA Splitter) was a big influence on me. Hope I spelled his name right. My numbers may be a bit high, but that is because those are the numbers I would really like to be at.


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## WLC

Perhaps that's more of a sustainability number in terms of capacity or income?

30-50 you say?

That would seem reasonable.


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## rhaldridge

AstroBee said:


> I haven't looked closely at the data, but that statement is contridictory to what Dennis vanEngelsdorp told beekeepers at the VA State meeting in the spring of 2013. Actually he made an impassioned plea to treat your bees. His whole presentation was about the BeeInformed survey and what were the current trends.


Difficult to understand. If you look at the survey, an impassioned plea to treat makes little sense. In 2012-2013, total loss of colonies was 31% among respondents. Average loss per beekeeper was 45%. The difference is because most of the colonies belong to commercial operations, but most of the beekeepers are amateur, backyard beekeepers. The total loss more clearly reflects the losses of commercial beekeepers, the average loss the losses of amateurs. If treatment is the great panacea some would have us believe, why are these losses so high?

It is a little difficult to tease information out from the BeeInformed survey. But the data is fascinating to anyone who does not come to the question with his mind already made up.

For example, the direct comparison between varroa treatment and non-treatment is not as stark a difference as the prophets of doom would have us believe. In the Varroa Control: National Management Survey 2011-2012, the difference overall was between a 20 % winter loss for those who treat, against a 26% loss for those who do not treat. 

One of the more interesting factoids in that analysis was this:



> There was no significant difference among southern beekeepers who used or did not use a known varroa mite control product.


To me, this is a perfect illustration of the way we have been talked into acting against our own best interests. Some of those who are marching most dogmatically behind the treatment bandwagon are southern beekeepers, who, according to the survey, derive no benefit from varroa treatment.

Other things jump out of the data. For example, the best improvement in winter survival was from formic acid use. But there have been well-documented negative consequences to the use of formic as well as other miticides. Queen and drone infertility is a real concern. There is research available, if anyone really believes these substances to be harmless:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://...wQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNG-inW-bBzc2Bnzg_LdhxCTfoYB5g

I guess we all would prefer to think that these situations can be resolved in a simple manner, but unfortunately, beekeeping, like many other pursuits involving the randomness of Nature, is complicated, and all the wishful thinking in the world can't change that.


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## ryan

Studies are a messy bunch of data. Sometimes(always) comparing apples to oranges. You can not tease out head-to-head comparison data from a survey that didn't do a head-to-head trial. It's just not there. 

Here is your proof

Divide a yard in 1/2. Work the hives the same except....treat one side when the mites get high. Don't ever treat the other half for mites. 

It's simple, easy, and cheap. No skill involved. Definite results. Local relevance.


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## Oldtimer

Yes like all statistics, it's all about how they are massaged. People who have an opinion and don't want it messed up by reality, massage statistics by choosing a particular study from a particular year that best fits their views, or focussing on a particular group that best fits their views rather than the whole group. Southern beekeepers for example.

The truth, is that even going by the survey, treatment free beekeepers are losing 30% more hives than beekeepers who treat. Factor in that most of the treatment free beekeepers run just a few hives in a permanent location, which is far more ideal for the bees than the stresses they are put under in a commercial migratory operation, it is amazing that these hives still outperform the treatment free hives by a large margin, despite the abuses they suffer as commercial hives. Put some hobby treatment free hives in this situation and see what would happen!!

I have been seeing this process going on in some threads over the last months or maybe a year, people trying to present the statistics in a way that is deceptive, and eventually convincing a lot of people that everybody is losing around 30% of their hives treatment free or not. The truth is far from that, and we have been subjected to dishonesty. I have not drawn attention to this as I saw it happening because I always seem to be taking a stand treatment free beekeepers don't want to hear, so just watched and let it go. But since the subject has been raised, based on the survey, a bees survival odds are way worse if it is not treated, that's the facts.

Not what a lot of folks want to hear, but hey, if it wasn't the case, why would anyone treat if there was no advantage? Treatment free folks need not be discouraged about this, you are trying to achieve something against the odds, and do not have to make a living out of it. You should be encouraged to persevere.


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## ryan

Yes. TF is totally fine. Do as you see fit. Absolutely. I hope I didn't imply otherwise. I'm just saying a survey is not a scientific test of treatment vs TF.


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## JRG13

Did no one not tell you that this happens being treatment free? It always seems that people trying treatment free are surprised to have hives succumb to mites and it's not so simple to just re-stock high losses every year starting out. That being said, you're going to lose hives every year no matter what, it is a part of nature whether or not you're treatment free or treating. I'm all for doing what you want to do in this regard, I don't have any notions of finding the miracle bee as a hobbyist, especially in my area. There are things you can do if you don't want put chemicals in the hive, mainly brood breaks and sugar dusting with proper monitoring to ensure good mite drop. I used to be on the fence about sugar dusting, it doesn't work for everyone but I think if you can dust and get good mite drops, it's effective, you just need to do it constantly during heavy brooding and make sure you're getting good mite drops from it.


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## rhaldridge

ryan said:


> Studies are a messy bunch of data. Sometimes(always) comparing apples to oranges. You can not tease out head-to-head comparison data from a survey that didn't do a head-to-head trial. It's just not there.
> 
> Here is your proof
> 
> Divide a yard in 1/2. Work the hives the same except....treat one side when the mites get high. Don't ever treat the other half for mites.
> 
> It's simple, easy, and cheap. No skill involved. Definite results. Local relevance.


I think this might be a good trial for those who believe in the efficacy of mite treatment, as well as those who don't, but I don't see many of those who have faith in treatments risking half their bees just to prove they're right. Same would probably be true for most who have succeeded without treatment.

Actually, I don't think it would be as simple and clear as that. In my yard, there are 6 different lines of bees. How would I pick which ones to treat, and which to leave untreated? Talk about apples and oranges. Plus, in a small yard, so many other factors come into play-- supercedure, swarming, nectar management-- apart from the variation in genetics that you'd get from even two hives, unless each queen was artificially inseminated and genetically identical.

The survey collected data from southern beekeepers who treated, and from those who did not, and found no significant difference in winter survival rates between the two management practices. I'm just not seeing the apples and oranges here. 

I'm trying to put this in context. I've been warned hundreds of times in the last year here on BeeSource, that if I don't treat, all my bees will die. If I don't treat, I'm a naive fool, a self-deluded hipster, a fuzzy-minded follower of moronic mythology. I've read articles in respected bee journals that told me that if I did not treat, I was a bee abuser, and did not deserve to keep bees.

And then I read a survey of hundreds of beekeepers that informs me that it didn't make any difference, at least for southern beekeepers.

Imagine my annoyance.


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## Fusion_power

> Here is your proof
> 
> Divide a yard in 1/2. Work the hives the same except....treat one side when the mites get high. Don't ever treat the other half for mites.
> 
> It's simple, easy, and cheap. No skill involved. Definite results. Local relevance.


This would not work. When one group of colonies becomes overwhelmed with mites, they will dwindle, then the healthy bees will rob out the dying colonies and in the process bring huge loads of mites home. The end result is a whole yard dead. If you want to do this, you will have to separate the bees far enough to avoid robbing.


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## Oldtimer

rhaldridge said:


> I'm trying to put this in context. I've been warned* hundreds* of times in the last year here on BeeSource, that if I don't treat, *all* my bees will die. If I don't treat, I'm a naive fool, a self-deluded hipster, a fuzzy-minded follower of moronic mythology.


Is what you say true? 

Perhaps I read a different part of Beesource.



rhaldridge said:


> Actually, I don't think it would be as simple and clear as that. In my yard, there are 6 different lines of bees. How would I pick which ones to treat, and which to leave untreated? Talk about apples and oranges. Plus, in a small yard, so many other factors come into play-- supercedure, swarming, nectar management-- apart from the variation in genetics that you'd get from even two hives, unless each queen was artificially inseminated and genetically identical.
> 
> Imagine my annoyance.


Scientific method would require more than 6 hives for a statistically relevant test, you are correct that your proposed experiment would be unreliable.

It is not true nobody would risk their bees to do a TF vs non TF experiment, it's been done. But also, larger beekeepers do not have to set up & do an actual experiment, they work with enough bees to see the effect of treatment, and the effect on non treatment, on a day to day basis as they go about their work.


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## David LaFerney

Fusion_power said:


> This would not work. When one group of colonies becomes overwhelmed with mites, they will dwindle, then the healthy bees will rob out the dying colonies and in the process bring huge loads of mites home. The end result is a whole yard dead. If you want to do this, you will have to separate the bees far enough to avoid robbing.


It could work if you monitored fastidiously and treated any hive that became excessively infested before it was too weakened - and of course moving them into the treatment group at least until they were requeened with TF genetics. Using robber screens on all hives would also help. And you would want to use TF genetics in all hives as well I think.


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## Saltybee

Losses higher or lower , experiments fair or unfair, really does not matter. That is not why people choose to try or be TF. If every person who tried TF was required to sign a statement saying they understood their losses would triple and their production would be nil that probably would not change the course of events. Branding aside, it really is freedom of choice, independence, and not much more.

Oldtimer hit it right on the head, encouraged to persevere. The whistle has not blown, game not over. Science is all about experientation. We are arguing about who is ahead right now. I'm rooting for the underdog, not all in with my money, but if they win we all win.


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## ccar2000

Saltybee said:


> Losses higher or lower , experiments fair or unfair, really does not matter. That is not why people choose to try or be TF. If every person who tried TF was required to sign a statement saying they understood their losses would triple and their production would be nil that probably would not change the course of events. Branding aside, it really is freedom of choice, independence, and not much more.
> 
> Oldtimer hit it right on the head, encouraged to persevere. The whistle has not blown, game not over. Science is all about experientation. We are arguing about who is ahead right now. I'm rooting for the underdog, not all in with my money, but if they win we all win.


+1


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## AstroBee

rhaldridge said:


> Difficult to understand. If you look at the survey, an impassioned plea to treat makes little sense.


Not trying to convince either way, just reporting what I heard. This was supported in post #89 by another member at a different conference. His message was clear. I seem to recall that a chart he used to backup his statements was one like this: http://beeinformed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/30_VarroaMiteControlProductUseSoutheast.pdf 

I was simply pointing out that the statement MB made regarding the survey was counter to the message being publicly delivered by the BeeInformed Project Director.


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## Saltybee

Not sure if that shows more about product used or experienced /not experienced based on # of colonies. You can't have that many colonies without being good at it.


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## rhaldridge

AstroBee said:


> Not trying to convince either way, just reporting what I heard. This was supported in post #89 by another member at a different conference. His message was clear. I seem to recall that a chart he used to backup his statements was one like this: http://beeinformed.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/30_VarroaMiteControlProductUseSoutheast.pdf
> 
> I was simply pointing out that the statement MB made regarding the survey was counter to the message being publicly delivered by the BeeInformed Project Director.


Interesting! Evidently results changed between the survey I quoted and the one you posted. Still, I'm not sure I'm all that reassured that treatment is the best longterm approach. Even those who treated suffered a 31% loss of their colonies. Doesn't that seem a little high?


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## SS1

AR Beekeeper said:


> Whalers; Saltybee is correct, you must split and re-queen each year. You must buy queens that have VSH characteristics and flood your area with their drones. Don't expect to develop resistant bees yourself, you must start with resistance and then select for it in the queens you raise each year. You must do mite counts and be ready to act to help colonies that are ready to crash. IPM is not something I read about very much on Beesource, but my opinion is that it is more practical than going treatment-free.


 WELL SAID!
I didnt read the rest, so forgive me if I am spouting things already stated.

I am FAR from an expert, but this is the approach I am taking. I have hives composed of feral bees captured from swarms out of KNOWN feral survivors that i DO NOT treat in ANY way.. In fact I try to stay away from them. the problem is that they are not fun to deal with. Manageable in the spring, and BEASTS during honey harvest.. I have vsh cross queens ordered for spring that I will hive in my home yard. I will winter them, check for mites etc.. I will pick the best and split them with no concern for production, working to prepare them for winter. I believe it will take me a few years of doing this to get the best of them singled out and split.. I will then make queens and put them in nuc's in my feral yard in hopes that they mate with the feral drones in an effort to maintain the mite resistance, but end up with bees that are calm...
Will it work?? I have no idea, but I AM CERTAINLY having a ball working toward that goal.. If it does work, I will have GOOD bees to sell. if it doesnt? I had a lot of fun trying...
I know you do not want to treat. I don't either.. However.. if you do a mite check and you know your going to lose that hive... TREAT!!! Save them, and re queen them with the genetics mentioned by others in the attempt to find something better. It is FAR easier to treat an infested hive, and requeen it later than it is to start from scratch. A 20 dollar queen is cheaper than an 80 dollar package that you will likely have to requeen anyhow.
Just my .2


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## Paul McCarty

SS1, my feral crosses definitely have more spunk than regular bees, but they also produce more. Can't speak for bees from other areas. I can see how mine would not be ideal for large scale industrialized beekeepng where time is money, and the bees get tossed around a lot. They don't take it very well. However, out of all my hives it seems mostly the domestic ones have issues. I do not recall any of my wildish bees hives I have ever lost to mites or mite related issues (IBDS). I have lost purely domestic hives, such as my Italians. I have only ever bought three packages, and those were eaten by bears. Bears are a bigger concern to me than mites currently. Don't plan on buying any more. Like I said, I really like my current bees, with the exception of a few domestic colonies I picked from other beeks that seem to be a bit on the slow side. 

I do have one totally wild swarm that moved into an empty hive that is pretty defensive. They will definitely get a new queen next year, but the others are totally managable, my Italians being far more misbehaved. This is after several years of selection though. Hopefully I can keep them that way.


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## Oldtimer

Ha Ha good comment Paul.

I've worked with some mean bees in my day. But commercially, you have your head on a beehive all day, every day (in season). Working with nasty bees is just too unpleasant, wears you out. One of my main selection criterion for breeding stock is gentleness. Thing is, if the work is pleasant, you actually do a better job of the hive. When you are getting the crap stung out of you the temptation is to rush through & get that hive slammed back together so you can get out of there.


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## ryan

It's a survey of beekeepers perception of what happened, not an independent measurement. Voluntary instead of being done at random. It's apples to oranges. It has value. But it is a very blunt tool. You want a very specific answer to, your bees, your location, your skills, your goals. 

31% loss??? It all depends on how, where, and WHY you keep bees.


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## Paul McCarty

Fighting bees is definitely wearing on you. I have spent 8 hr days fighting those little wild girls when I was doing it full time (when I thought I was going to retire), before I scaled my operation back a bit and limited myself to strictly sideline type stuff on a very small local scale. The most tiring part is having to pace yourself not to make them angry and fly at you, while still trying to get things done. Very hard when you are by your self. I have help now, and nicer bees, and can get more done. But still not enough time to really get my queen raising going as I should.

Time management is the bane of beekeeping.


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## Oldtimer

ryan said:


> It's a survey of beekeepers perception of what happened, not an independent measurement. Voluntary instead of being done at random. It's apples to oranges. It has value. But it is a very blunt tool.


Good comment, there are so many things skew these types of survey. One such I read today and it's a common theme on Beesource. New beekeeper, doesn't want to treat. But eventually his hive gets sick enough and he accepts it's about to die of mites so he bites the bullet and treats it. But, too late, the hive is beyond saving. Next time he looks the hive is dead.

But if he does the survey, he would say the hive was treated, but died. So the results are inaccurate because they do not account for operator skill, and no doubt many other factors. I've seen this scenario play out on Beesource so often I'm certain it happens enough to skew the results, the hive was actually killed by lack of timely treatment, but is recorded as a treated hive that died.


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## WLC

I find it interesting enough to note that it's not enough to simply get hold of resistant stock. You'll have to do the work of artificial selection to end up with the type of resistant bees that you want to work with.

So, it will take quite a few seasons to accomplish your goals.


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## jim lyon

Oldtimer said:


> Good comment, there are so many things skew these types of survey. One such I read today and it's a common theme on Beesource. New beekeeper, doesn't want to treat. But eventually his hive gets sick enough and he accepts it's about to die of mites so he bites the bullet and treats it. But, too late, the hive is beyond saving. Next time he looks the hive is dead.
> 
> But if he does the survey, he would say the hive was treated, but died. So the results are inaccurate because they do not account for operator skill, and no doubt many other factors. I've seen this scenario play out on Beesource so often I'm certain it happens enough to skew the results, the hive was actually killed by lack of timely treatment, but is recorded as a treated hive that died.


Amen to that. The fact remains that many of the miticides that continue to be sold have had resistance problems for quite some time and probably should have been pulled from the market long ago. To say that you treated and your bees still died (a claim which I have heard made repeatedly) and to say that your treatment was well timed and effective are two entirely different statements. An effective treatment plan begins before it is apparent that there is a problem and is followed up with testing to confirm its effectiveness.


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## squarepeg

very good points made. the bee informed survey wasn't set up to answer the question of whether treated colonies fair better than untreated ones. the survey serves only to guide the way to more specific studies in which scientific rigor can be applied. with all due respect to those who have made the claim, to suggest that there are no differences in losses between treated and untreated based on the survey is a stretch.


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## SS1

WLC said:


> I find it interesting enough to note that it's not enough to simply get hold of resistant stock. You'll have to do the work of artificial selection to end up with the type of resistant bees that you want to work with.
> 
> So, it will take quite a few seasons to accomplish your goals.


 Agreed.. Difficulty is added because of TIME as you keep track of every hive with notes so you know HOW resistant it is each time you test it.. As much of a pain as that can be, the greater difficulty is giving TIME for the bees to react to the mites, and knowing when the line has been crossed so you CAN treat/re queen, or leave them alone longer. Knowing if they are going to crash, or rebound.. treat/re queen too soon you may be wasting a queen that would have been better than anything you have. DONT treat and you may very well lose the hive when they fail to rebound.


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## Michael Bush

Certainly any statement that is black or white (as most surveys are and most "scientific" studies are) especially when they are broad general statements (such as "treat" or "don't treat") are prone to erroneous conclusions, yet they are constantly thrown around and used to describe things in black and white terms.

"unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise it isn't really a distinction."--Jacques Derrida (1991) Afterword: Toward An Ethic of Discussion, published in the English translation of Limited Inc., pp.123-4, 126

In order to discuss something precisely, one must define it precisely and in order to experiment accurately one must have cases that are precisely differentiated and only draw conclusions that are warranted and conclusions that are narrowly defined to match the limitations of those cases tested.

Unfortunately things are seldom discussed or tested in precise terms...

This imprecision leads to other fallacies such as "we tried that once and it didn't work". I've even had people tell me that when I was quite precise and further questioning reveals that what they "tried once" in no way resembled what I had just described...


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## rhaldridge

SS1 said:


> I know you do not want to treat. I don't either.. However.. if you do a mite check and you know your going to lose that hive... TREAT!!! Save them, and re queen them with the genetics mentioned by others in the attempt to find something better. It is FAR easier to treat an infested hive, and requeen it later than it is to start from scratch. A 20 dollar queen is cheaper than an 80 dollar package that you will likely have to requeen anyhow.
> Just my .2


My problem with that approach is that you don't know what the treatment has done to the bees, the comb, and the hive's ecology, including all the microbes and other organisms that live with, and inside, the bees.. 

Rather than a 20 dollar queen, why not make a couple splits from your best hives, and then you'll have free bees to replace deadouts? Your queens will be stronger, and the various commensal and symbiotic organisms in the colony will not be injured.

Of course, I'm a beginner, so all this is completely theoretical. So far so good, but I fully expect my hives to start collapsing left and right, and I may end up wishing I'd done things differently.


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## Paul McCarty

Just make splits and either let the old pass on, or shake it out. Your on the right track. Normally, if you make splits in time, and have resistant stock, the dead-out is a non-issue at least for me. That is how the MDASplitter method works. You can always re-combine them after a brood break.


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## squarepeg

Michael Bush said:


> In order to discuss something precisely, one must define it precisely and in order to experiment accurately one must have cases that are precisely differentiated and only draw conclusions that are warranted and conclusions that are narrowly defined to match the limitations of those cases tested.
> 
> Unfortunately things are seldom discussed or tested in precise terms...


exactly michael. i believe this makes it challenging for beginners like whaler when it comes to deciding on a management strategy.



rhaldridge said:


> So far so good, but I fully expect my hives to start collapsing left and right, and I may end up wishing I'd done things differently.


on the other hand ray you might end up with mite resistant bees, which is a worthy goal and an accomplishment to be proud of.

in my opinion this last round of comments have been the most pragmatic on the subject that i have seen thus far.

in my first post to whaler i pointed out that it is up to him or her to weigh cost/benefit as best one can and proceed according to whichever goals or priorities are most important.

there is room in the universe of beekeepers for all kinds of approaches, and i submit that it wouldn't anywhere near as interesting if all of us did it exactly the same way.

so whaler, have you decided on how to proceed?


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## whalers

Wow, was not my intent to initiate such a discussion but its been great to read and look at all the input. Sooooooooooo

It appears that I can sum up the steps I need to take by splitting my hives and requeening with improved genetic stock. This I can do and it makes perfect sense. There were comments about requeening in the fall but I can think of a lot of complications with that. At least short term, I might consider a fall soft treatment of some kind, but this I would need to think about. Someday I will learn to raise my own queens. If I could get my own stock going, raise queens from it and then split and requeen it seems I might have better success than I am right now.

If someone want to add anything to this please sound off as come spring this is going to be my approach.

Thank you again for all the feedback.


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## Paul McCarty

Read up on how this guy operates. He uses splits for the same results. It's all in the timing for your area. I follow the basic principles of his methods, but modified for my own area. You are basically raising next years bees, during the current season. The production hives are recycled after a couple of seasons.

http://www.mdasplitter.com/


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## whalers

I just printed it off. (The diagram) Definitely going to give it a shot.


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## Paul McCarty

This is why I take issue with studies that just let bees die. It misses the whole process - but let's not digress.


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## whalers

I've always wondered how I can winter a nuc. Not sure how they would have enough stores or stay warm.


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## Paul McCarty

I do it here. Not too hard. I have several double nucs (5 deeps stacked) going into this Winter. Sort of like a tall single 10 frame deep. I will be splitting them 2 ways in the Spring hopefully. They are extras, sort of a reserve to help counter winter losses.


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## JBJ

Whalers

We winter two four frame units side by side on top of large fully developed hives. This provides heat for the little units and insulation for the big unit. It is important that all units are lead heavy with stores. I will try and get some pictures soon.

If you are already sampling for mites in the beginning of August and the numbers are high it is very easy to requeen at this time as long as the hive has not declined too far. I have clients much further north of you and they seem to be having success doing this. Often there is a dearth during this period so the astute beekeeper will provide plenty of nutrition to keep the colonies immune system and vitellogenin levels up. It is all about keeping abundant young bees that produce ample royal jelly. Even soft treatments can provide some stress on queens so a fresh queen post-treatment can really help turn things around. With enough numbers and time one will eventually begin to find colonies that are maintaining acceptable mite loads on their own. These will be the ones to make queens from in the spring. When you get good at making and maintaining nucs you should be able to supply most of your own queens.


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## rhaldridge

Paul McCarty said:


> I do it here. Not too hard. I have several double nucs (5 deeps stacked) going into this Winter. Sort of like a tall single 10 frame deep. I will be splitting them 2 ways in the Spring hopefully. They are extras, sort of a reserve to help counter winter losses.


Two of my nucs are 5 over 5 stacks, and I have to say that they seem to be doing unexpectedly well, with brood in both boxes and plenty of stores. One of them was a hive that I brought down from NY because it was way too light to survive the North Country winter, and it has exploded with bees since I put it into the stacked nucs. It was in a single 8 frame deep with only a little honey in a medium super. They seem much happier in the 5 over 5 setup.

I checked all 6 of my FL hives today, and they all have at least a couple frames of brood and several frames of honey. Bees are still bringing in pollen, and judging by the wet nectar in some frames, they're finding nectar somewhere. I'm beginning to hope I'll have bees in the spring to split and take north.


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## whalers

"Two of my nucs are 5 over 5 stacks"

Sorry for the question but please describe what 5 over 5 is. I can guess at it, but would like you to paint the picture. Thanks


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## WLC

whalers:

I did look over the timing of MDA Splitter. You would have to do the first step, putting on a body with drawn frames, 80 days before your main flow. That's assuming that the powerhouse hive is good for about 30 days. I'd also note that the nucs are really deep bodies because of the number of frames of brood that are being pulled out of them.


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## Oldtimer

It's simply a 5 frame box, stacked on another 5 frame box, ie, just the same as a normal 2 box hive but the boxes only have 5 frames.

I wouldn't mess with this configuration myself, but the theory of it is so the bee cluster can move upwards into honey stores through winter, rather than sideways which they do not prefer to do.

However an equivalent hive of one 10 frame box, is not going to require extensive sideways movement for the cluster so there is really not much in it, but the idea is there.


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## whalers

So basically your just over wintering a nuc in a regular ten frame deep box. Correct?


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## WLC

whaler, it's unlikely to get 8 frames of brood from 2 stacked five frame nucs.

Some folks do use deep bodies and call them 'nucs'.

Hopefully, you have enough drawn deep frames safely stored away to pull it off.

I'm counting 8 deeps worth of drawn deep frames at the end of 80 days. The process starts with 10!

PS- By my count, starting with one overwintered nuc, you'll need 5 in-hive feeders, and enough pollen sub, to make it work. It does take some resources to end up with a powerhouse hive and four nucs, starting with only a single nuc.


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## whalers

Well, I've lost two hives this fall and it was 6 degrees last night. Any mites in them are certainly dead. The hives are closed up so no mice or anything else can get in, so I will have plenty of drawn comb. I've been reading the material and still trying to get it all straight in my head, but its impressive how so many hives could be created from one.


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## WLC

"I've been reading the material and still trying to get it all straight in my head, but its impressive how so many hives could be created from one."

It's a very useful method to know if you're interested in remaining organic/chemical free.

However, there's always a catch.

When you start calculating all of the resources you'll need. along with the timing, you start to see that while you're saving on some items, you're definitely going to require more resources (including feed) to make it work compared to other non-tf methods.

It may be OK for a small operation. But, those extra resources that are required to make it work wouldn't look too good on a balance sheet.

It's 80 days of extra resources before you take in a single dollar.

Let's say that you want to grow your operation and those 4 nucs have overwintered successfully.

Your powerhouse honey hive would have to have produced enough funds to pay for the new 'nucs', feeders, feed. You'd also have to come up with a whole bunch of drawn deep frames.

In short, it resembles a pyramid scheme more than a business plan.


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## JWChesnut

Whalers
My suggestion is use purchased queens. The MDA splits (which combine bulk queen cell formation, and multiple breakdown splitting, maintenance of queenless hives) are best left to someone with several solid years of experience, and the hive count to support the queens created.

Queens are an incredible deal. At $20, they cost far less than the gas used to chase an uncertain swarm. They are highly reliable, scheduled, delivered to your doorstep, far better genetics and much easier for an inexperienced keeper to successfully employ. 

An MDA split will have uncertain, irregular, unpredictable genetics -- because they are wild-mated. Any improved genetics will revert to the background "mutt" normative variation. Any one hive will be different than its neighbors, meaning the opportunity to learn from observing hives behaving in consort is lost. 

The supposition that "survivor drones" will have improved genetics is an untested, and fundamentally implausible, hypothesis. The genetics of a wild out-crossing, promiscuous unbounded population with no barriers to gene-flow will be: normative. 

Insects (and plants and animals) speciate (ie fix adaptations) when they become isolated into founder populations. Unbounded populations may drift with glacial speed, to form genetic races requires a founder event and a period of isolation.

Go with purchased queens (Drive to Old Sol and pick them up, get a quick tutorial). After you have paid your dues, move onto the next step of queen rearing.


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## whalers

JWChesnut I appreciate that and tend to agree. The queens make a great first step and are a good starting place. I still want to try the splits MDA splits though at some point. Very interesting.


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## Paul McCarty

Old Sol is good. I would love to have some of those myself.


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## whalers

Paul McCarty said:


> Old Sol is good. I would love to have some of those myself.


Yes, I'm kicking myself for not doing any splits this year. I bot two nucs from Old Sol last year. Lost one, but the other hive survived and it was an excellent hive. Was good to work with this summer and though slow to take off in the spring (a good thing around here) once they decided to go they really went to town and I got a good amount of honey from them. If I was a little smarter I would have split them. I just pushed my luck to far in assuming that since they tolerated a high mite load last fall, they would do it again this fall. I like the bees and will definitely be getting some queens this next season.


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## rhaldridge

whalers said:


> So basically your just over wintering a nuc in a regular ten frame deep box. Correct?


No, there are two boxes, each a 5 frame deep nuc, stacked on top of each other.


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## rhaldridge

JWChesnut said:


> Whalers
> 
> Queens are an incredible deal. At $20, they cost far less than the gas used to chase an uncertain swarm. They are highly reliable, scheduled, delivered to your doorstep, far better genetics and much easier for an inexperienced keeper to successfully employ.


One queen will cost considerably more than 20 dollars, unless you can pick it up from the breeder next door (shipping.) And "far better genetics" is an assumption not always borne out in reality. 

I put up 3 swarm traps, caught one swarm, got a queen and lots of bees, and the three swarm traps cost me less than the queen I bought from BeeWeaver. No gas money involved. Swarms have certain desirable features. For one, you know it probably came from a colony healthy enough to reproduce. For another, you get an ideal mix of bees (caste-wise) for starting a new colony. You don't have to take any resources from your other hives to start a nuc with your new queen.

Nothing wrong with bringing in good genetics, but a common theme among those who have succeeded in treatment-free beekeeping is that they have used swarms extensively in making increase. There's probably a good reason for this.


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## Delta Bay

whalers said:


> I still want to try the splits MDA splits though at some point.


You may find Mel's video helpful. Also keep an open mind to the many options the system offers. Don't get stuck on the maximum number of splits. If you need larger units going into winter it can be done. If you want to use outside mated queens this can be done as well by replacing the young queen after the start has gone through its brood break. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIYz65Vquxg


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## rwlaw

Thank you Delta, I was just going to say pretty much the same thing. 
One thing is, Mel has no fear of overwintering in singles, so he will split his hives after he dequeens in July ( for the brood break), so he does get the numbers that he speaks of. But he'll also w/o hesitation, combine the dinks in the fall. 
Because of the brood break you generally don't have to worry if the dink is infested w/ mites and (I) just assume the queen's not worth saving.


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## whalers

So as I try to wrap my head around all this, besides increasing numbers, removing the queen and creating a brood break, should help me control mite numbers correct? So this leads to a question, if I remove a queen from the hive and want to replace it with a queen I purchase, how long should I wait between the time I remove the old queen and install the new queen?


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## David LaFerney

Don't wait at all. Find the queen, and hang the queen cage containing the new one all at the same time. Do a standard candy release - don't poke holes in the candy or do anything else to hurry it along. If you wait very long the hive is likely to start queen cells. Just my opinion, but it has worked so reliably for me that a return visit is just not justified. Your mileage may vary.


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## David LaFerney

Michael Bush said:


> >Beginners who don't use treatments usually lose all of their bees and give up beekeeping
> 
> According to the BeeInformed survey, the ones treating are losing just as many bees as the ones not treating. Reality is beginners lose hives. So do experienced beekeepers although probably at a lower rate. The ones treating lose hives. The ones not treating lose hives. Some of those people get frustrated and quit.
> 
> There are plenty of beekeepers not treating and succeeding.


With all due respect - I'm sure that every bit of that is true. But is it your opinion that a typical beginning bee keeper (who might start out unable to tell capped brood from capped honey and with 1 or 2 hives and usually doesn't make increase in the first year) has the same likelihood of still having live bees in two years if they don't treat as they will if they do treat (while correctly following label directions of an effective treatment) prophylactically in late summer before fall build up and again in late fall during the broodless period? Has that been what you have observed? I have far less experience than you, but that has not been my observation.


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## jim lyon

David LaFerney said:


> With all due respect - I'm sure that every bit of that is true. But is it your opinion that a typical beginning bee keeper (who might start out unable to tell capped brood from capped honey and with 1 or 2 hives and usually doesn't make increase in the first year) has the same likelihood of still having live bees in two years if they don't treat as they will if they do treat (while correctly following label directions of an effective treatment) prophylactically in late summer before fall build up and again in late fall during the broodless period? Has that been what you have observed? I have far less experience than you, but that has not been my observation.


Here are my recent experiences David. We did our usual late summer/early fall thymol treatments. Due to a late season heat wave we decided to delay when we began making the rounds to treat by a couple of weeks (it takes most of a month to get through them all). The results were quite clear. Our fall losses were higher and overall bee quality poorer in the later treated yards than in the earlier treated yards. It wasnt the only factor as it was also apparent that bees that had later flows were much stronger than those which made little or no surplus honey in the month of August. When filling out my BeeInformed survey I will note my losses and I will note that they were all treated yet that hardly tells the whole story. Were I just running a few hives and didnt get around to treating them until late or opted for a miticide that varroa has developed considerable resistance to then that person may well honestly conclude (and report) that "I treated but my bees still died". If you choose to go treatment free for your own reasons that is entirely your choice, far be it for me to tell those folks that they are wrong. Just accept this fact. A well timed effective varroa treatment will always result in stronger hives than an ineffective treatment or no treatment at all. That may not be the case 10 or 20 years from now as tf breeding programs gradually make headway in varroa tolerant stock but for this year and the foreseeable future thats the reality regardless of what the survey may say.


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## Delta Bay

whalers said:


> how long should I wait between the time I remove the old queen and install the new queen?


 As David says: >Don't wait at all. Find the queen, and hang the queen cage containing the new one all at the same time<


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## David LaFerney

Jim,

I know that all things are relevant, but as you are indicating the ideal window of opportunity is not very long.

This year in my area accelerating brood production was beginning to be noticeable by August 25 although Sept 1 is the rule of thumb date - when do you think would be the ideal time to start/finish those apiguard treatments. 

Your experienced input is extremely valuable in this as I am working on recommendations for beginners in our club who choose to treat as well another list for those who make the choice not to.

Either way they go they need the information to do it right the first time.

Thanks to everyone on both sides of the debate.


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## whalers

Thank you. Now another question. Where does the use of flour to kill larvae (while covering a few others to protect them) fit into the picture with regards to notching? Or maybe the two don't have anything at all to do with one another. I'm just not making a connection here.


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## jim lyon

David LaFerney said:


> Jim,
> 
> I know that all things are relevant, but as you are indicating the ideal window of opportunity is not very long.
> 
> This year in my area accelerating brood production was beginning to be noticeable by August 25 although Sept 1 is the rule of thumb date - when do you think would be the ideal time to start/finish those apiguard treatments.
> 
> Your experienced input is extremely valuable in this as I am working on recommendations for beginners in our club who choose to treat as well another list for those who make the choice not to.
> 
> Either way they go they need the information to do it right the first time.
> 
> Thanks to everyone on both sides of the debate.


Perhaps I have said too much already and another forum rather than the tf site would be a better place to discuss treatment specifics. I am just trying to point out some of the problems in intrepreting what the BeeInformed survey might be telling us and how the line of thought that "I treat but my bees still died" can be a bit of a misnomer.


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## David LaFerney

Your call, but at the time of the management change in TF a few months ago - it was stated that discussions of treatments in the interest of getting to be treatment free would be considered as constructive and allowable. 

So TF is now (as I understand it) a goal to strive for rather than a rigid do or die commandment on this forum. 

As you said_ "(effective/timely) treatment will always result in stronger hives than an ineffective treatment or no treatment at all. That may not be the case 10 or 20 years from now as tf breeding programs gradually make headway in varroa tolerant stock but for this year and the foreseeable future thats the reality"_

I'm just asking for your expert opinion on how to make the most of as little treatment as possible - when it is necessary - until we get there. If you choose to decline I understand.


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## Delta Bay

whalers said:


> Where does the use of flour to kill larvae (while covering a few others to protect them) fit into the picture with regards to notching? Or maybe the two don't have anything at all to do with one another.


 You're looking at the old I. M. N. SYSTEM OF QUEEN REARING. Disregard this as it doesn't apply anymore. It's what he use to do. The video is going to be of more help as it has all the info that is important.

The presentation that goes with the video is on his web page listed as:

Queen Rearing Without Grafting and Miticide-Free
Indiana Beekeepers Association Turkey Run Convention
Autumnal Equinox 2011


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## beedeetee

I'm another that makes the BeeInformed survey look skewed. Last year I over wintered 22 hives. I treated 10 which had queens in them full time for the year. I didn't treat 12 that were first year hives. These include any hive that swarmed, had a brood break and thus had a first year queen. I never treat first year hives or hives with brood breaks since I almost never lose one. 

I didn't lose any hives last winter. My BeeInformed results make it look like the mortality of treated vs untreated hives is the same. Reality couldn't more different.


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## jim lyon

David LaFerney said:


> Your call, but at the time of the management change in TF a few months ago - it was stated that discussions of treatments in the interest of getting to be treatment free would be considered as constructive and allowable.
> 
> So TF is now (as I understand it) a goal to strive for rather than a rigid do or die commandment on this forum.
> 
> As you said_ "(effective/timely) treatment will always result in stronger hives than an ineffective treatment or no treatment at all. That may not be the case 10 or 20 years from now as tf breeding programs gradually make headway in varroa tolerant stock but for this year and the foreseeable future thats the reality"_
> 
> I'm just asking for your expert opinion on how to make the most of as little treatment as possible - when it is necessary - until we get there. If you choose to decline I understand.


Well first of all I dont consider myself any sort of expert. Im just reporting my experiences. I dont think, though, that you would get much argument from many beekeepers that the "golden hour" for treatments is late summer immediately after the harvest and at the point where queens are beginning to ramp down their egg laying a bit. We requeen our entire outfit each spring with our own home cells from our best stock and a few tf breeders brought in as well. The resulting brood break has made spring treatments unnecessary though I reserve the option to change my mind on that if need be. So in that scenario if you are choosing to treat, its pick your flavor for a late summer/early fall treatment window. Scratch Apistan and Check Mite off the list right off the top because they are nasty chemical with resistance issues, eliminate oxalic trickling or powdered sugar dusting as being ineffective until they are broodless and what are you left with? Repeated OA sublimation? Some good reports here, though it can be nasty to inhale. MAQS? thats a good one, single application, no residues but pretty temp dependent. Hopguard? Safe, natural product that can be used throughout the summer, mixed reports on its effectiveness and perhaps risky to queens in high temps. Thymol products? Another pretty good natural product but a jolt to a hive and high temps may lead to some queen problems. Apiguard? Hmmmm. Lots of good reports, effective in pretty much any temperature and surprisingly not much reported in the way of varroa resistances but are you comfortable using an Amitraz product in your hives? All these products are going to disrupt the hive to varying degrees (and disrupt varroa even more). So there ya go, thats the way I see it, I endorse nothing, folks need to make their own call.


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## squarepeg

nice summary jim. i am wondering the same thing as whalers regarding the existing brood at the time of splitting. do you let your splits sit for awhile before introducing queen cells, or is the 'break' between splitting and when the new queen starts laying sufficient?


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## rwlaw

Here's the therory of the brood break as it was explained to me. 
With the period of the raising & the maturing of the new queen, all the brood, be it worker or drone will be emerged and there is no place for the mites to go. When the queen begins laying it will a small patch, the mites will crowd into the available larvae, which leads to the larvae dying which leads to the mites larvae dying also. So with the fact that the breeding cycle of the mites has been disrupted and you have a fresh queen laying up a storm, the hive easily outbreeds the mite into the winter
slowdown.
Hope this helps.


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## Oldtimer

One interesting thing I'm getting from this thread, is a move away from the concept of resistant bees. While chemicals are not being used the beekeeper calls himself treatment free, but there is a heavy reliance on management methods to control varroa, rather than trusting the bees are able to deal with them.

The study where 300 hives were not treated or managed and they all died was criticized on the basis that there had been no management, it had just been left to the bees to deal with mites.

Am I picking up on a grudging acceptance that truly mite resistant bees do not exist yet?


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## squarepeg

rwlaw said:


> Here's the therory of the brood break as it was explained to me.
> With the period of the raising & the maturing of the new queen, all the brood, be it worker or drone will be emerged and there is no place for the mites to go. When the queen begins laying it will a small patch, the mites will crowd into the available larvae, which leads to the larvae dying which leads to the mites larvae dying also. So with the fact that the breeding cycle of the mites has been disrupted and you have a fresh queen laying up a storm, the hive easily outbreeds the mite into the winter
> slowdown.
> Hope this helps.


thanks rw, and that makes good sense. my question has to do with the difference between the month or so it would take for a colony to replace their queen starting with just an egg (walk away split), at which point there would be virtually no brood left by the time the new queen starts laying, verses giving a colony a ripe cell just after splitting which decreases the 'break' by about two weeks since there would still be brood in the hive at the time the new queen starts laying.

seems like i remember jim mentioning that he leaves any emergency cells that are made by the splits as insurance against his grafted cells not making it, so i'm guessing he finds there is enough of a break without letting the splits sit for a week or two.


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## KevinR

I'm still struggling with this... Same scenario.. The hives/queens do great for their 2-3 years... Then the crash.... I'm not sure if it's only the mites or it's a combination of other environmental factors.

I'm going to try re-queening every 2 years and moving the mothers to nucs for closer inspection. 

I've had one Russian hive that's been going strong for the last 4 years.... It's sister hive that started at the same time from the same stock starved out this year... ((Highly annoying))...


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## squarepeg

Oldtimer said:


> One interesting thing I'm getting from this thread, is a move away from the concept of resistant bees. While chemicals are not being used the beekeeper calls himself treatment free, but there is a heavy reliance on management methods to control varroa, rather than trusting the bees are able to deal with them.
> 
> The study where 300 hives were not treated or managed and they all died was criticized on the basis that there had been no management, it had just been left to the bees to deal with mites.
> 
> Am I picking up on a grudging acceptance that truly mite resistant bees do not exist yet?


how's your spring season going so far ot? 

i split fairly aggressively in my first two seasons, but mostly to get my numbers up. now that i have my yard to the size i need i'm not splitting. none of my colonies except one were split last year, and none were split this year, although i have had a lot of swarming. i managed to prevent four strong colonies from swarming this year, so time will tell on those.

fusion power has a much longer track record keeping healthy and productive off treatments, and i don't believe he is using aggressive splitting to accomplish this.

i don't have proof, but i am of the opinion that there are resistant ferals all around me.

do they exist? probably maybe yeah i think.


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## David LaFerney

Oldtimer said:


> Am I picking up on a grudging acceptance that truly mite resistant bees do not exist yet?


I don't think so OT - or not exactly. I believe that some people actually have achieved success by luck skill or grace - where the combination of some undefined environmental factors along with local bees and management practices result in at least survival from year to year. Fewer have some reasonable degree of productivity as well. 

But for many people even that remains elusive. It's not an uncommon story that bees which have been making it treatment free for an extended time fail when moved. There seems to be a piece of the puzzle that may not be available everywhere and isn't fully understood. 

Notice that Jim Lyon is using treatment free queens even though he treats pragmatically. He must see a benefit to using those genetics in his business. I would guess bees that require less treatment and do better between treatments. So, not completely resistant bees, but More resistant.

100% nothing but my opinion.


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## Oldtimer

squarepeg said:


> do they exist? probably maybe yeah i think.


Love the humor! 

Thanks for the thoughtful answers David and Squarepeg, makes sense. Where I am, we are not even as far along the road as you guys, it's treat or die here. But our mites are not as far along either, for the most part they are not resistant to any of the treatments. 

Not sure if that's good or bad though, cos it makes treating a very easy option and has probably acted to discourage the search for mite resistant bees.

And oh, my season? well, PUMPING!! Sold a lot more bees than expected, my own bees doing awesome, kind of everything is pic perfect at the moment. I do lay in bed sometimes wondering if the bubble will burst and people will stop buying bees though. But for now, sweet!


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## whalers

Oldtimer - tell me about how you winter nucs please. You say you have 200 of them. I'm curious how you manage them.


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## Oldtimer

I winter them in 2 configurations, the 3 framers are wintered 3 to a 10 frame box with dividers. In this configuration they all share the heat and get through the winter fine. The other configuration is 4 frame stand alone nucs. Losses for both are virtually zero.

The reason for doing this is I have new spring queens available when no one else is selling them, and there is no early drain on hives to set up nucs, they are already set up.

It should be said our winters are very mild here.


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## whalers

So back to the idea of queening a split. If I put in a new queen after making a split (as has been suggested for my small bee yard) does that create enough of a brood break? Seems like it wouldn't. Any thoughts or options come to mind?


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## Fusion_power

OT, I for one am certain that genetic mite tolerance is real, but very rare in unselected bees. You could stand to import some genetics that have the trait in a selected form. It would make a dramatic difference in the way you manage mites. Said another way, as long as you treat for mites, you will continue to have problems with mites.


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## David LaFerney

whalers said:


> So back to the idea of queening a split. If I put in a new queen after making a split (as has been suggested for my small bee yard) does that create enough of a brood break? Seems like it wouldn't. Any thoughts or options come to mind?


The brood break will only be however long it takes for the new queen to be released and start laying.


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## squarepeg

so no real break if you immediately hang a new queen in a fresh split that contains some brood?

and about a 2 week set back in brooding if you place a ripe queen cell in a split that contains some brood?

vs. a substantial break (at the risk of getting laying workers) if you make or allow a split to be broodless?

whalers, it might be helpful if you decide on how many production hives you would like to keep. if that number is 10 or less, i would consider doing what you can to get your existing colonies to survive the winter, and then perhaps perform 'cut down' splits on your strongest ones next spring. overwinter the splits in a ten frame or double five frame and use them to replace any losses. you can also sell them in the spring if you are lucky enough to not have any losses.

the cut down split method will also help with swarm prevention. you can read about it here:

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


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## squarepeg

i've been giving some thought to this brood break thing, and i'm wondering if the benefit observed regarding mite control has more to do with the introduction of a fresh queen rather than the brief pause in brooding.


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## Metropropolis

whalers said:


> OK, so I've been treatment free for a while and its becoming apparent that something needs to change. Most of my hives get through the first year, but in the second year they die out.


Two years is the line that divides true miticide-free beekeeping, and neglectful beekeeping. 

To get a colony to survive longer than 2 years without miticides requires an "A" game, some luck, and a good location. 

Without at least two of these things, you will have a very frustrating and expensive hobby.




whalers said:


> Open to suggestions as I'm very near going back to treating my bees with a miticide.


I have kept my bees without miticides for several years now, and have been able to increase both my hive count, and my survival rate. But what I'm realizing now is that my bees are struggling more than they are surviving.

That is not enough for me, and I wouldn't consider it appropriate for any of my other pets. 

Come spring, I will start treating my hives - Although probably only half.


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## WLC

If you want to use a caged queen, instead of raising your own queen to get a brood break and some mite control, perhaps you could shake bees into a nuc with drawn frames (no brood). That should reduce mite levels somewhat.


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## Paul McCarty

Next year will be my 5th season with no real miticides, unless you want to count "folk" remedies like creosote smoke, Natural cell size, planned breaks, and the occasional spearmint oil in the syrup. I also realize my luck might have been a lot different in another location with a different set of bees, using different methods. We are so dry here (it is one of the driest places on Earth) that many of the varmints that affect other places do not thrive here. SHB is a prime example.


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## Fusion_power

Paul, what efforts have you made to bring in mite tolerant bees?


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## Paul McCarty

I have made no effort - other than a couple of packages of Koehnen's bees back when I first started - and a few Beewever queens someone gave me - all of my bees are from my region. I do not import from out of state.

The Koehnen's queens are no longer around.


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## Fusion_power

Do you monitor your colonies for mites and breed from those with low counts? This was how I identified a highly mite tolerant queen back in 2004. It directly led to me going treatment free in 2005 because I had a known source of mite tolerant genetics.


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## Paul McCarty

I am not very diligent in it. I used to use screened bottoms and sticky paper, but now mostly just check the capped drone brood every so often. I normally breed from my colonies that have survived over 3 years with no assistance. I have observed several of these hives grooming mites from each other (yes, I have sat and watched them - like a fool). It seems to be a common trait amongst the local survivors. Some of them seem to have it, some of them don't. You would be hard pressed to find a mite in some of these hives. On the other hand, I had a hive of domestic cordovans that was LOADED with mites. So I know the mites are out there. 

There was a hive study conducted in New Mexico last year which analyzed the pests and diseases in the hives of yards containing 11 colonies or more. They concluded that the incidence of varroa mites in this state is much lower than the national average. Not sure why. Don't know if it is because they don't survive here as well, or if maybe there is something in the genetic make-up of the background survivors that tips the scale. I do know that African genetics has an element of mite suppression in it (it seems to affect the mites reproduction by making them sterile) - and it isn't just through swarming. Maybe we are seeing this leak over to the survivors here in the colder regions where those Brazilian bees do not predominate, along the edge of the migration line. There also appears to be an element of African in our NM survivors that pre-dates the Brazilians, maybe this is the difference? I am not a scientist so I can only speculate. All I really have is the results I get, and I am rather unscientific about it I hate to say. 

I do know that there are not very many beekeepers in this area historically, and the bees have been on their own for a long time. Les Crowder once told me that any feral bees you see around in NM can be assumed to have a resistance or they would simply not be there. There was a period when there were no bees or swarms here, so they have made a comeback of sorts. I am a bit concerned about new beekeepers importing bees from other regions and watering down what we currently have in some of these bees (the "sky island" bees).

I try to maintain a limited number of hives (25 hives), so I have to be real careful who I breed from and what I keep from my removals. A lot of the removal bees don't make the cut - mostly the ones from the lower desert due to a variety of reasons. If they act-up, I see a lot of mites, or I don't like them for some reason, they either get combined with another hive or requeened. If they behave properly, they aren't "runny" or "swarmy" and survive, I will breed from them. I say that, but at this time I currently have only 2 truly feral hives out of the 25 total. The rest are either bees descended from the ones I breed in the mountains (feral origin), or from beeweavers I acquired in trade (4), or feral derived hives I got from other regional beeks. I am very curious to see how the Beeweavers do compared to my other bees. So far my opinion on them is a bit mixed. I try not to mix the different bees, and the Beeweavers are currently on their own yard near a large Alfalfa field.


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## rhaldridge

Paul McCarty said:


> I I am very curious to see how the Beeweavers do compared to my other bees. So far my opinion on them is a bit mixed. I try not to mix the different bees, and the Beeweavers are currently on their own yard near a large Alfalfa field.


Paul, could you elaborate on your mixed reaction to the BeeWeavers?


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## Fusion_power

I'm re-posting this. Anyone who is treatment free MUST be aware of the mechanisms bees use to remove varroa mites.

The known mechanisms for varroa tolerance include:

Varroa Selective Hygiene - disrupts the reproductive cycle of the varroa mite
a. Detect infested larvae
b. Uncap infested larvae
c. Remove infested larvae
d. selection involves testing for hygienic behavior and removal of infested larvae

Allogrooming - bees grooming each other to remove mites
a. Varroa mauling - chewing and biting the mites which kills them
b. Selection involves monitoring for chewed mites on the bottom board

Breaks in brood rearing - during brood breaks, varroa cannot reproduce.
a. Heavy pollen collection - bees that collect pollen heavily are more sensitive to lack of pollen and shut down brood rearing earlier.
b. Sensitive to nectar dearth - bees that react to nectar shortage by breaking the brood cycle.
c. Selection involves monitoring for bees that reduce brood rearing when pollen is unavailable.

Reduced days to worker maturity - fewer days gives mites less time to reproduce
a. some worker bees mature in 19 days vs standard 21
b. using small cell foundation and timing brood emergence
c. Selection involves identifying the small percentage of colonies that mature workers in fewer days.

The bees that survive best and produce decent honey crops seem to combine various levels of VSH plus Allogrooming. Reduced days to maturity also plays into the mix just a bit, especially for small cell users.


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## squarepeg

good post dar, thanks.

what's your opinion/experience with feeding syrup and pollen sub vs. honey natural pollen only?


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## Delta Bay

squarepeg said:


> i've been giving some thought to this brood break thing, and i'm wondering if the benefit observed regarding mite control has more to do with the introduction of a fresh queen rather than the brief pause in brooding.


My best guess is that there are a few things going on. Reduction of mites through the brood interruption (Older mites missing their last reproduction opportunity before they die). Poor breeding conditions for the remaining mites due to over crowding in the new queens first batch of brood, and a young vigorous queen that out breeds the mites. This becomes important at the July brood break as it changes the dynamics of the colony from an established colony that will wind down brood production and population to a building population. We shouldn't underestimate the power of a new queen.


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## squarepeg

makes sense db. i think a vigorous new queen and the ability of an establishing colony to out breed the (split) mite population is what is responsible for the successes. for splitting not to interfere with honey production in my location the splitting would have to done after the main flow, and the colonies would require supplemental feeding to allow them to become established.


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## Paul McCarty

Thanks Fusion-Power. I seem to be covering most of those bases in my general operation. I have not really tested for VSH, but have observed Allogrooming in my general population. I would imagine they are related. The Cordovans i mentioned earlier WERE NOT VSH and it was quite obvious. They could not keep up.

I do practice timed brood breaks, and use mostly foundationless natural cells for my brood-nests. For the aforementioned Cordovans, I removed the queen for a month and fed them syrup laced with Spearmint oil, so i guess that is a soft treatment by definition. I also smoked them heavily with creosote bush smoke and gave them new drawn comb. It seems to have helped and they have re-established themselves. We will see if they pull through the Winter. If they do not, I will not grieve the loss of their genetics.

Rhaldridge, My observations with the Beeweavers is that the particular ones I got are a rather hit or miss affair. They seem to hold their own as far as treatment free goes, but several of mine were very slow to get established compared to their feral derived cousins. One queen was particularly slow and was evenually re-queened with one of my own. As a whole, I just don't feel they build up as fast or are as acclimated as the ones I can raise from my own stock. They seem better than the regular domestic variety, but not quite up to the same level as the bees I have been raising for the last few years. Somewhere in the middle I guess. Oh, and every so often you get some really mean ones. Luckily I did not. 

I worked a hive of Beeweavers for a local beginner, to diagnose a possible disease problem, and those bees were far meaner than any I possess or would want to possess. She was just starting out and didn't know the difference. I offered her one of my queens, but she did not take me up on it. At the time, we were in the middle of the main honey flow, and I was not even using smoke on my hives. Her bees tore us up. 

That is part of the reason I moved my Beeweavers to an isolated alfalfa field, because I don't want them near humans in case they get overly defensive. I keep 12 of my feral derived mountain bee colonies in my back yard on my 1 acre lot with very little issues. I will not do that with the Beeweavers - just in case. I am sure they are good bees, so far mine seem to be somewhere in the middle. One good thing is that they are colored different and easy to spot. They have whitish striping on their abdomens that my feral derived bees, which are normally dark with brown or grey banding if any, do not possess.

FYI about the splits I do - We have two flows around this region of NM. The Spring flow (Mostly Mesquite) is the one I harvest from, then I split around Mid-Summer, and let the bees have the next flow (Chamisa/Wildflowers/Etc.). Sometimes I break up the oldest hives in the Spring and restart them as Nucs. On a good year with lot's of rain (if we ever see it again) mesquite will bloom twice. The limit of my migratory operations is to cart my production bees up and down the mountain to catch the mesquite or wildflowers. I only have a few on alfalfa as a test right now. I am not sure I want to expose them to agricultural products, and I get a ton of honey off the mesquite if I do it right.


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## jmgi

I've been treatment free for years, but something has to change for me too, just too many losses from mites. What I have been thinking about doing this season is a brood break followed immediately by a mite trapping. Here's the details: In my area the main flow ends around mid-July or so. At that time I will go into every hive and remove the queen and two frames of brood to a four frame nuc that I will set up right next to the main hive. The nuc will also have a frame of food and an empty drawn comb to go along with the two frames of brood w/queen that I removed. The original hive will raise a new queen. A few days after the queen emerges I will take a frame of unsealed young brood from the nuc and exchange it with a frame from the hive with the new queen. That frame of brood that I put into the original hive will be removed as soon as it is capped and put into a freezer to kill the mites. That frame of brood most likely will be thick with mites seeing as how that is the first brood that those mites have had the opportunity to infest in a couple weeks. I believe that giving them a brood break and trapping mites in that donated frame of brood will deal the mite population a severe blow going into fall. Not only that, but the main hive will have a new queen which will lay at a high rate once she gets mated, and will outbreed what's left of the mite population going into fall. Hoping that this will improve my winter survival rates greatly.


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## delber

JMGI . . .
I have been thinking of this same strategy myself. Making nucs from production hives and doing this.


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## Oldtimer

Interesting Jmgi, I have used virtually the identical method, just, requeened with a cell rather than let them raise their own.

I had high expectations but although the mite count was greatly reduced, they seem to have a way to keep numbers up, I think numbers were reduced around 40% or so. However for you, since some of your bees are already surviving, maybe a 40% reduction would be enough.

I have wondered if it would work better if drone brood was used but did not actually try that.


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## jmgi

Oldtimer, are you introducing the cell after a week or so, or immediately after dequeening the hive? As I was thinking through the process I would use, I initially thought of using a frame of predominately drone brood, but then I thought that might be hard to come up with that many frames of drone brood if you are doing this to many colonies at once as I would be doing. I am thinking that even a frame of worker brood will work very well because the phoretic mites "should" be desperate to get into any cell of brood after being deprived of it for a couple weeks. I am really anxious to try this whole thing out this season. The only downside is having to remove the frame of mite infested brood and freezing it, and having to do it to lots of colonies at once. But, if it works as well as I hope it does, I promise not to complain about having to do it in the future.


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## Oldtimer

As the purpose was to give a brood break and hopefully force the mites into the "sacrificial" brood comb, I left them queenless for a time, then went through and destroyed queen cells at the same time as putting the new queen cell in. However it was several years ago & cannot now remember the exact time frames, it could have varied between different hives also.

However the bees I used could probably be described as having no mite resistance whatsoever, if you are using bees with better resistance you may well get better results. I just remember the pain of it because when I thought of the idea I felt somewhat elated and thought I may have cracked it. But the poor results where a bit of a let down emotionally.

However you have different bees, different location and are a different beekeeper. You may get great results. I'll be watching with interest when you update.


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## Paul McCarty

Jmgi that is close to the time I make my winter splits so they will raise new queens. I think it is a key manipulation to disrupt mites, and the same that Mr. Disselkonen advises to do. Not sure I spelled his name right.


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## jmgi

I would consider my bees to have very little mite resistance, I'm not using any particular kind of resistant stock, just basic Italian's. I have read of many, many beekeepers having good success with brood breaks alone without using a "sacrificial comb", so I have to believe that going a step further has to be a benefit, maybe even a huge benefit, at least I'm hoping. The way I see it is the mites are breeding machines, interrupting that cycle has been proven to hurt their reproduction to some extent, and the longer you can keep them from having that reproductive medium (the brood) before introducing that single "sacrificial comb" the better, at least from my prospective. Maybe someone else has done just exactly what I have suggested doing, and can share their outcome with us.


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## jmgi

Paul McCarty, are you treatment free? How has your success been with your splits done that way? How have they wintered? Thanks.


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## delber

Ok now I have a bit more time to reply. It's amazing to find out when you think you have a new idea poof someone else has thought of it "several years ago". Thanks for sharing OT!!! One difference here to consider. If you introduce that frame too soon then there may still be capped brood with mites in the hive that will emerge once your "sacrificial" frame is capped. So you will get some, but not all or perhaps not "most". So if you let them rear a queen on their own and put that frame in at the time the new queen should be going on mating flights that I think would work the best. What I don't know is will the disruption of the hive cause damage to the new queen? I have read that you want to leave her alone for a good solid 3 weeks from emmergence. OT and others what do you think about that? Would it be better to put a frame of eggs / young larva in the day before the queen is set to emerge? Doing this you'll have about 9 days which should be enough time for the other capped brood in the hive to emerge right? The other question / thought is if you take that single frame from your newly created nuc (The one right next door with the original queen) you'll have brood in all stages on that single frame. The queen will be looking to lay in every cell possible so as soon as one is available she'll lay in it. Will this be a problem? You will have some brood that hatches out the the same time that the open brood is capped. So it doesn't seem like a perfect system, but it does definitely seem good. I want to try this this year. At least with my production hives. Perhaps I'll leave the nucs alone, but it does make great sense to do this with those hives.


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## rhaldridge

Paul McCarty said:


> Jmgi that is close to the time I make my winter splits so they will raise new queens. I think it is a key manipulation to disrupt mites, and the same that Mr. Disselkonen advises to do. Not sure I spelled his name right.


I've wondered about that theory. I watched a video with Mel, and he seems to feel that the great effect of a brood break is that when brooding resumes, too many mites will infest each larva and they will starve before emerging. At least that was what I understood him to be saying.

Why would you make your brood break right after the main flow? Wouldn't you get more honey if you did it during the main flow, so that you would have more foragers (not having to mind brood) until the hive requeens itself?


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## jmgi

delber, you are correct, I got my timetable wrong. It would be better if I waited until all the brood in the original hive hatched out (which would be about the time a new queen would start mating or about 8 days after the queen emerges) before I introduced the "sacrificial frame" of young brood. I have also heard that it is better not to disturb a hive for at least a week or so after a new queen emerges, so quite possibly I may have to go back to the drawing board on this. You're right, this isn't a perfect system, and I know that this idea is not completely new, variations of using brood breaks and drone combs are in use by many today, I'm just trying to refine it a bit if possible, not trying to reinvent anything. I appreciate all the responses so far, it is helping me find the errors in my thinking if nothing else.


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## jmgi

rhalridge, yes I could certainly do it a bit earlier in the main flow and not hurt my honey production at all. It would be like doing a cut down split, which I have done before with much success. I just figured doing it later would put me closer to fall and winter, therefore reducing mite load at a time when mites normally explode in relation to queen laying.


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## Honey Hive Farms

Treat for mites sounds like this would solve your problem. 
Api Guard and fogging with mineral oils would be a great start.
Try to get a more mite tolerant bee stock.
Sounds like your doing ok on everything else.
Wish you a great year with your bees.


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## jmgi

Honey Hive Farms said:


> Treat for mites sounds like this would solve your problem.
> Api Guard and fogging with mineral oils would be a great start.
> Try to get a more mite tolerant bee stock.
> Sounds like your doing ok on everything else.
> Wish you a great year with your bees.


Solving who's problem? Since when does treating solve anything with mites? I don't want mite "tolerant" bee stock, how would that help?


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## squarepeg

pure speculation on my part jmgi, but an all natural diet (assuming you are in an area with adequate forage) may increase the bees' natural resistance against viral infections.

in the absence of adequate forage, a quality pollen sub in spring and fall would be a next best 'treatment'. 

my basis for this is that in the small universe of successful treatment free beekeepers, leaving enough honey so as to not require syrup seems to be a common denominator. i would guess that not many are using pollen sub either, but it's the protein in the pollen that forms the basis of the bees' natural immunity against pathogens.

randy oliver is looking hard at this in his new experiments.


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## snl

jmgi said:


> Since when does treating solve anything with mites? I don't want mite "tolerant" bee stock, how would that help?


"Treating" sure alleviates my mite problem


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## jmgi

Maybe I was too nit-picky, I don't deny that some treatments help with mites, but they sure don't solve it in the true sense of the word.


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## gmcharlie

rhaldridge said:


> I've wondered about that theory. I watched a video with Mel, and he seems to feel that the great effect of a brood break is that when brooding resumes, too many mites will infest each larva and they will starve before emerging. At least that was what I understood him to be saying.
> 
> Why would you make your brood break right after the main flow? Wouldn't you get more honey if you did it during the main flow, so that you would have more foragers (not having to mind brood) until the hive requeens itself?



That is Mels principle, and during or just after the main flow is good, as long as your main flow is not early. Mel really suggest the split be made after the summer solstice (June 21) his theory is that the queen lays better , I agree it does work better, but I believe it has more to do with the number of mite cycles rather than the virility of the queen. The principle does work to reduce mites, but thats all. then your stuck with either trying to winter nucs, or recombining hives into winter. Not all of us want to or can do either.

I have had fair success with brood breaks. but they will not get you to a 2nd year hive surviving.


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## delber

Ok I've got another thought. . . What if you make them hopelessly queenless by removing the queen and few frames as you menitoned, then once they've started queen cells go through and destroy them all and wait another week. Then put in a frame of eggs and a week later when they have queen cells and capped brood on that frame take it out and freeze it at the same time as giving them a ripe cell? This may take care of that queen issue as well as capped brood that's needing to emmerge. What do you all think? It may not be good because those weeks may cause the hive to be too weak after that.


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## jmgi

At this point, I would be happy to just get into the second year without losing them. Mine are collapsing just as they start their first winter.


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## jmgi

delber, there are definitely methods out there as you suggested to reduce mite load, the problem is it becomes more and more labor intensive, and the timing of all these manipulations is ever critical. I realize that no method, even treating, eliminates all mites. I want to stay treatment free as long as possible and still keep the greater percentage of my hives alive and productive from season to season. I know I'm going to continue to lose hives to mites, but I can make increases with nucs to help offset those losses, like Mel Disselkoen suggests. I'm looking forward to carrying this discussion forward and hearing from more people on their ideas, and in the meantime I'm going to keep my thinking cap on.


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## Paul McCarty

jmgi - the only treatments I do are timed splits/breaks, a little spearmint and vinegar in the syrup, and occasionally some creosote bush smoke (a little known Mexican soft treatment). That's really all I do. My bees are basically all "survivor" bees or outright ferals. I run foundationless broodnests too, and leave at least one box of honey for them to winter on. They need about 13-14 frames of bees/brood here to make it. I have 20 hives going into winter this year, and at last check (today) they are all doing just fine. I winter my langs with a single 8 frame deep and a medium full of honey (or syrup). If they are light I give them some dry sugar too. 

My oldest hives are on their 4th season at this point. I no longer have any hives from the packages I used to buy. None of them survived the bears or anything else that came their way. My goal is self sufficiency, and I seem to have reached it. Not sure why it works, but it does for me so far. I am pretty sure my methods are not conducive to large scale operations. I have placed a 25 hive limit on myself, because I can't keep up and work my day job too (which makes me more money). I still collect bees, but am very picky about the removals I do. I run swarm traps in the surrounding national forests to catch bees with the mountain survival traits that I seek.

As far as the splits go - I usually split in Spring and again after the main flow ends (around Summer Solstice). Sometimes I have to split again in late Summer if the bees are doing really well and get overcrowded. I tend to break up my oldest hives into splits when their production drops. I have a couple I have left running because they just haven't quit yet. I want to see how far they will go.


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## jmgi

Paul M., I used to have 80% of my hives survive for 3-4 years not that long ago, totally treatment free. Now, I can't get 20% of them to survive 1 year treatment free, so its time for another strategy.


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## Paul McCarty

Not sure my methods would work anywhere else with different bees. I think the environment, the beekeeper, and the bees all play a part, more so than any one single influence.

What bees are you using jmgi? Is there anything in you environment that might be a factor? There is a whole host where I live, from African DNA to natural selection to adapt to the desert environment, etc. Anything that lives around here has to be naturally hardy or they just don't make it.

I really like the split method as Disselkoen describes, and have modeled a lot of what I do in a similar manner, with a few variations of my own. Most beekeepers in NM don't split after Midsummer, but I typically do. Those end up being my starts for next season.


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## jmgi

Paul M., I have to admit I have not done anything special as I have gone along treatment free. I use just basic Italian stock either from packages or purchased nucs, with the one exception of last year when I bought nucs that supposedly were VSH, however, 90% of them collapsed and died 6 months later in November or December after producing exceptionally good honey crops. Most of my severe losses have come from yards located in heavy agricultural areas of corn and soybeans, so yea, that could have played a part, but how do you really know for sure if it is the chemicals.


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## Paul McCarty

I only have one small yard located near agriculture, mostly for fear of chemicals. They are near a large alfalfa farm raising hay for racehorses. All of the others I previously placed near ag sites all had problems. I hope this one will be different, but just in case I put my riff-raff bees there. 

Every package I ever bought succumbed to various fates. I get the impression a lot of packages are what I would term "used" bees and have been through quite a bit before you get them. I never plan to purchase another. I will go out and catch African hybrids and requeen them before I buy another package. That's how strong I don't care for them at this point. I do realize that for many, they are just about the only option.

Now a good nucleus colony of good bees, that is a different story. I don't mind getting them on occasion if they are from a local provider.


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## Delta Bay

> one exception of last year when I bought nucs that supposedly were VSH, however, 90% of them collapsed and died 6 months later in November or December after producing exceptionally good honey crops


jmgi, did you not give these colonies any brood breaks? In my location our main flow ends about the same time as yours. To get around the mites with any consistence I need to put my colonies through 2 brood interruptions, one in spring and then another in summer. Some colonies I only remove the queens, rather than break them down into nucs, in May and then again in July. A few times I have waited until just after harvest in Aug and have shaken a few maybe 3 pounds of bees with the queen from hives mention above into new hives. They have wintered well but I do need to feed them up in preparation for winter as there is very little out there to forage on at this time. The first mentioned usually most of the time don't need feeding. 

The times that I have not stuck with a double brood interruption usually makes it difficult for the colony. Although the later brood interruption seems to be of more benefit compared to a spring interruption when used on their own. I don't see why your thought on removing the frame of brood as a mite trap wouldn't be beneficial.

There are many variations available with Mel's OTS system that can be adjusted to ones goals and expectations. These two things become important when working with Mel's strategy.


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## Dave Burrup

When brood raising resumes in the hives why does the first brood get heavily infected thus killing the mites like in Mels theory. If he is right our hives should be mostly mite free every spring.
Dave


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## gmcharlie

Excellent point Dave, and in fact I think there is a lot of merrit to that answer. Yes, the number of mites is much smaller in spring on an hive, than it was in the fall. But the number is still high. and it grows that much faster. The mites grow expotentialy. so starting 3 months early gives the mites about 5 more brood cycles. (think compound interest)


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## mike bispham

whalers said:


> I do not know how to raise queens and am just getting to the point of being comfortable (kind of) of trying to take a split. Whats the best way to take a split? What ever hives make it through the winter I am going to want to split this spring. Just not sure of how to do it. Thanks for your help.


I think your post here indiactes one of your main problems - you are inexperienced. As several posters have indicated, making increase as rapidly as possible from your best genetics is essential. That allows some losses without catastrophic failure, and with a little luck you can build year on year, learning as you go. You must learn to think and act as a breeder - raisning resistance traits is about having enough bees to be able to select the strongest and making increase/requeening weaker hives. Making sure you have sound selection procedures, and that you're not accidentally treating or manipulating in ways that throw your assays off.

Unless you are very lucky with location you'll probably struggle with just a few hives. You're clearly not getting the genetics you need, so keep looking. 

If you're near treating beekeepers you'll have to work hard at this - and at keeping their genetics out. Aim to build up an apiary capable of dominating the drone space. 

Its not just a case of making a switch - you have to learn and work and plan - unless you are one of the lucky ones with thriving local survivors. Despite what you read here they do exist. But their methods are not universally applicable. 

Good luck,

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

I'm playing catch-up on this thread, and trying not to return to passed discussions, but I couldn't let this one go:



JWChesnut said:


> I maintain if you set up side-by-side experiments, you will discover on any metric; caring for your bees through appropriate medication, they will be more productive, economical and sustaining than those in adherence to some half-baked Darwinian myth.


1) 'Appropriate'. 
Who is the judge of 'appropriate' here? Is a medicating regime that tends to strongly suppress emerging resistance in nearby populations - domestic and feral - appropriate? Not in my view it isn't. 

2) 'Sustaining'
They won't be _self_-sustaining. The business itself will obviously be more sustainable - that's precisely the attraction. But the local bees will be unable to sustain themselves, and nearby tf beekeepers will find it harder to sustain their genetics. I wish people would identify, when they use this term, just what it is that is more or less sustainable. 

3) 'productive, economic' 
Yes of course - that's why it happens. But at what cost? The cost of allowing the return of self sustaining bee populations. For everybody. 

4) half-baked Darwinian myth
Straightforward logical breeding/adaptive arguments are no myth. They as scientifically based as it gets. Organisms adapt. Remove the pressure to adapt in a particular way and they don't adapt/adapt to the new situation. To fix the varroa problem bees need to adapt to varroa. They can't in the face of constant removal of adaptive pressure by treating. Period. Simple. Scientific. 



JWChesnut said:


> The myth that bees can be selected like wild mustangs and some heroic cowboy will ride a champion to the rail ignores the core facts of bee biology.


Wild mustangs are recognised as a source of vigourous and robust stock, and used for breeding for that reason. The same goes for New Forest, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh mountain ponies, heft sheep. Natural selection locates, on a competitive basis, the most robust genetic combinations. Fact. There are equivalent 'survivor' bee populations (scientific fact) and they do represent one of the best hopes for tf beekeepers (scientific fact, widely acknowledged by a great many bee breeders). No myth here.




JWChesnut said:


> I have no idea how in a world of >6 billion people (and internet, and instant shipment) how you decentralize industrial agriculture and its discontents.


By using fields to grow food crops only is probably the best start - between a quarter and a half the tilled acreage is presently used for energy crops.

By reducing the amount that is wastefully fed to animals to make animal products - at about 20% efficiency in the case of larger mammals

By reducing the amount of overeating that happens

By reducing the amount of food waste that occurs between field and mouth - probably near half.

By reducing the amount of wasteful transport that occurs. A true horror story

By encouraging home and community production - very healthy on many levels

By using well tested low carbon impact/low energy combined growing systems

I'm not advocating a return to some bucolic ideal here - just a systematic attack on the wastefulness that has been bred into the system by failure to prevent the present monopolisitic and oligistic giants who own the means of production, set the regulatory environment, and establish the myths (we have to feed the world - and this is the only way to do it) that appear to entrance even apparently intelligent people.



JWChesnut said:


> The best we may do is ethically husband our own wildlife and livestock for survival and increase.


Ethically huh? Who establishes the 'ethical' guides and imperatives? How is genetically poisoning wild bee populations ethically husbanding wildlife? Why must we increase our livestock? 

Just who is basing their thinking on myths here?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Delta Bay said:


> To get around the mites with any consistence I need to put my colonies through 2 brood interruptions, one in spring and then another in summer.


These interventions have exactly the same effect on the suppression of developing resistance as chemical treatments. Why people think they should be part of tf beats me. They are treatments.

Unless, of course, they are part of a managment system that simultaniously, urgently and systematically seeks to raise resistance through selective propagation.

Mike (UK)


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## jmgi

mike bispham said:


> These intervention have exactly the same effect on the suppression of developing resistance as chemical treatments. Why people think they should be part of tf beats me. They are treatments.


Ok, then the AHB's are unknowingly suppressing the development of resistance by their continuous swarming and having brood breaks during the raising of new queens? They are treating themselves without human interference?


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## mike bispham

jmgi said:


> Ok, then the AHB's are unknowingly suppressing the development of resistance by their continuous swarming and having brood breaks during the raising of new queens? They are treating themselves without human interference?


Again: somebody is trying to describe using a singular term something that is vague, and with it complex.

There are all sorts of feral hybrids in the Southern US, many of them containing elements of AHB. Some will rely on swarming and shut down (brood breaks) to manage mites, others won't. 

What that means is: you can't just talk about 'AHB's' - not at any rate outside Africa. The hybrids are all different, and things said about some won't be true of others.

The ferals that emerge from the many complex hybrids, in the many different environments, will, in each place, be unique, and well suited to their locality. They will be those strains and lines that are best able to grab energy when it is available, store it, defend it, and use it to overwinter and build and reproduce successfully, in their unique environments. They will have emerged from a competitive process that has attuned them to do exactly that. 

Swarminess/brood breaks amount to a natural resistance mechanisms - but only one of many, and a primitive, early-response variety. By adopting brood breaks as a systematic mite control method you are, as with chemical treatment, removing the adaptive pressure that would otherwise cause the range of more sophisticated and effective mite-managment behaviours to emerge. As will be happening/have happened in the many unique naturally selecting AHB hybrid populations.

Mike (UK)


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## delber

question for you all. . . If say in the instance of a fungal disease, we would naturally treat to get rid of the fungus coming out of there the bees will be stronger. Would they build up natural immunity if instead of (to use a human intervention) using antibiotics that aren't natural we could use herbs, teas, oils and other types of things would they come out stronger? I know that antibiotics ruin our guts and gut floura so it makes sense to me that certain treatments would do the same to bees. What do you all think?


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## gmcharlie

mike bispham said:


> These interventions have exactly the same effect on the suppression of developing resistance as chemical treatments. Why people think they should be part of tf beats me. They are treatments.
> 
> Unless, of course, they are part of a managment system that simultaniously, urgently and systematically seeks to raise resistance through selective propagation.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Your wrong on that Mike. 2 brood breaks is not as effective as treatment at all. not even close. and its more costly in manpower and queens as well as colony strength.


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## jmgi

Mike, after reading your response I realize I should have just thought a little more about what you previously said, now I understand more what you're talking about.


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## gmcharlie

delber said:


> I know that antibiotics ruin our guts and gut floura so it makes sense to me that certain treatments would do the same to bees. What do you all think?


I think your wrong. Yes some antibiotics can wipe out good bacteria FOR A FEW DAYS.. not forever. Herbal stuff for the most part has proven to be nothing more than time to allow things to run their course. (not all by any means)

What your doing is making a reason to follow your idea, not looking at the reality. Lets take cancer (a lot like Varro cause it will kill you) do you ignore it? do you try to breed out of it? do you drink herbal teas?? for most the answers are easy. use the science that will extend your useful life.


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## Fusion_power

> use the science that will extend your useful life.


My science is pretty simple. I let my bees handle mites on their own since 2005. They are alive, thriving, and making honey. But just so newbies won't think this can be done by anyone, please remember that I took steps to get highly resistant stock before jumping off the treatment bandwagon.


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## mike bispham

delber said:


> question for you all. . . If say in the instance of a fungal disease, we would naturally treat to get rid of the fungus coming out of there the bees will be stronger. Would they build up natural immunity if instead of (to use a human intervention) using antibiotics that aren't natural we could use herbs, teas, oils and other types of things would they come out stronger? I know that antibiotics ruin our guts and gut floura so it makes sense to me that certain treatments would do the same to bees. What do you all think?


Stop thinking about individuals and short term effects, and think instead about living populations, where, generation after generation offspring inherit the qualities passed down by their parents. That is what husbandry is about. Bees are livestock, not pets, and are to be bred for the future just as much as for the present. 

Now ask yourself what the effect of propping up a sick individual has on the next generation - and on generations to follow.

Once you can see the sense in looking at things that way, questions about what sort of medicine or other treatment are best become irrelevant. The thing you are doing by using _any of them_ is cutting your own throat in the longer term.

You are in the Treatment Free forum. These things are basic to thinking about bee health here. No treatments - breeding toward health in the time-tested fashion only. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> What your doing is making a reason to follow your idea, not looking at the reality. Lets take cancer (a lot like Varro cause it will kill you) do you ignore it? do you try to breed out of it? do you drink herbal teas?? for most the answers are easy. use the science that will extend your useful life.


There's a danger you're talking about people, and pets, and the veterinary model of 'husbandry' that is possible in closed mating populations.

None of those things apply to openly mating bees. Helping the individual is, unless measure are taken to prevent it, undermining future health in offspring. Period.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Your wrong on that Mike. 2 brood breaks is not as effective as treatment at all. not even close. and its more costly in manpower and queens as well as colony strength.


To the extent that anything is effective as a treatment, it will undermine the health of future generations, unless effective steps are taken to exclude from the breeding pool.

Simple, inarguable.

My bees seem to go in for long summer shutdowns. How much that helps I don't know. They're still alive anyway.

Mike (UK)


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## delber

gmcharlie said:


> I think your wrong. Yes some antibiotics can wipe out good bacteria FOR A FEW DAYS.. not forever. Herbal stuff for the most part has proven to be nothing more than time to allow things to run their course. (not all by any means)


I'm not trying to get into an argument here, but in the past 2 years my family and I have gone through some very serious changes in the medical arena. Why is it that doctors so often say "well that could be this, or that, but here take this and that should take care of it". We have been looking into and going down some alternative medical lines and have gotten some great results. My daughter would be on the autistic spectrum I think now if we hadn't changed where we were going. I also just talked with one of my doctors this past week and were talking about the body's PH and he mentioned that our PH is varried throughout the body. One thing he did say that I want to mention was that the problem with antibiotics is that it kills the good floura in the gut and it's very hard to get it back in there. It gets in there first off from your infancy (mothers' milk) and if it's killed after that you need to get some serious acidophilus (spelling?) or you will have digestion and gut issues for a long time. I know that it took me over 2 months after I was on an antibiotic to "get regular". 
Now bees aren't my daughter or any other in my family that is clear, but in thinking of the principles. . . We have been sick, but handling it more "naturally" and allowing the body to build up immunity properly then our bodies can fight properly. So in thinking of bees. . . If we can figure out how to help them build up properly (IE nutrition, vitamins, minerals, etc) I think there's something to consider there. I want to know how / what / when to implement this, but that is one of my projects for this year. Would this be considered treatment? Considering diet suppliment? Would a pollen patty be considered a treatment or an assistant?


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## squarepeg

whether we are talking about bees or humans, there are always the potential costs, risks, and benefits to treatments. weighing them is sometimes straightforward and sometimes more conflicted. the relative merits and drawbacks are made by the decision maker(s), and this is generally guided by the importance of the goal or outcome that is being sought. it's not surprising that we have many different choices represented on this forum as we have differences of opinion in how to weigh those merits and drawbacks, as well as differences in our goals and desired outcomes.

after joining beesource i became a classic keyboard beekeeper who was very outspoken against the 'hard' bond method. my primary criticism of was that it set the stage for the robbing and spreading of mites and pathogens and that amounted to irresponsible beekeeping.

i also maintained that it was easy enough to stop poor genetics in their tracks by simply pinching the queen of a nonresistant colony and replacing her with a queen from proven genetics, (rather than let a colony die out).

after a few seasons under my belt, my position has evolved on these matters. i still maintain that it is irresponsible to let a colony collapse and allow it to get robbed out, but i have found that i am able to monitor my bees well enough so that robbing after collapse has been prevented in all but one instance, and that one could have been prevented if i had been keeping a better watch on my small outyard.

regarding requeening, i found that most of my colonies that collapse do so at the time in the season when i don't have any spare queens, nor are any that i would want available. so while good on paper, the approach isn't practical. it could be practical, if a tf beekeeper was diligent in taking mite counts and was able to determine what level infestation was a sure predictor that the colony wouldn't survive winter. i had planned to do just that, but due to time constraints have not got it done.

so here i am pretty much what could be labeled a hard bond beekeeper. losses are low enough and well below what is possible to make up with increase. my apiary is more than sustaining itself, honey production has doubled each year, and i am to the point where there will surplus bees this year.

i still consider myself a novice, especially compared to many of you veterans out there. i realize that past performance is no guarantee of future results. i am not stuck on treatment free for treatment free's sake, and i would implement an ipm approach before i would allow losses to threaten sustainability. but for now it seems to be working.


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## jmgi

squarepeg said:


> i still consider myself a novice, especially compared to many of you veterans out there. i realize that past performance is no guarantee of future results. i am not stuck on treatment free for treatment free's sake, and i would implement an ipm approach before i would allow losses to threaten sustainability. but for now it seems to be working.


Sometimes being a novice isn't so bad, there are novices out there who are having success keeping the majority of their bees alive and healthy year after year, regardless of whether they are TF or treating. With all my years of experience I'm still having trouble keeping the majority of my bees alive for more than 1-2 years, I am TF as of now, but I am opening up to other ways out of necessity to stop the losses.


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> ... i became a classic keyboard beekeeper who was very outspoken against the 'hard' bond method. my primary criticism of was that it set the stage for the robbing and spreading of mites and pathogens and that amounted to irresponsible beekeeping.


I don't think it does. Protecting bees from exposure to pathogens only results in their bloodlines developing dependency on such protection. Bees always have and always will rob out weaker colonies. The spread of potential infections that causes will take out the weaker, thus strengthening the next generation. Mollycoddling the population and mollycoddling the individual are, with bees, the same thing - and both fatal to health in the longer run.



squarepeg said:


> regarding requeening, i found that most of my colonies that collapse do so at the time in the season when i don't have any spare queens, nor are any that i would want available. so while good on paper, the approach isn't practical.


As you note, having a few spare nucs solves the problem. 



squarepeg said:


> it could be practical, if a tf beekeeper was diligent in taking mite counts and was able to determine what level infestation was a sure predictor that the colony wouldn't survive winter. i had planned to do just that, but due to time constraints have not get it done.


Your way is better - don't get involved, just have spares. Trying to keep each individual alive and thriving by health micromanagement is madness. Remove the weak and replace them with strong by routine, permanant selective propagation with a good margin of excess. This fixes everything (except an overwhelming presence of treaters, and/or genetically inadequate starting stock.) As long as you can make some progress year on year things are on track to proper adaptive health.

Mike (UK)


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## rhaldridge

squarepeg said:


> i still consider myself a novice, especially compared to many of you veterans out there. i realize that past performance is no guarantee of future results. i am not stuck on treatment free for treatment free's sake, and i would implement an ipm approach before i would allow losses to threaten sustainability. but for now it seems to be working.


As usual, you've made one of the most rational and sensible posts on this thread.

I always get annoyed when anyone advocating TF is immediately assumed to be some sort of wild-eyed hippy-dippy True Believer. It's no more fair or accurate than labeling those who treat as evil bee-murdering corporate stooges.


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> The spread of potential infections that [robbing _sic_] causes will take out the weaker, thus strengthening the next generation.


there was excellent discussion about this in an older thread. the consensus among this forum's community was that preventing robbing was the responsible thing to do.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ent-free-beekeeping-the-risks&highlight=risks

the idea being that regardless of what your belief about spreading disease is, the majority of beekeepers within robbing distance of your colonies would prefer that you take measures against it, and the majority of those contributing to that thread believed that all beekeepers should be respectful of that.

in terms of mite evolution, and if there are genetic differences between 'colony collapsing' mites and less virulent mites, allowing more virulent mites to die with the bees and not get transferred via robbing would seem like good husbandry toward helping the host/parasite equilibrium along. i'm not sure that's even possible, but i did place a dwindled colony full of mites in the freezer before all of the bees were dead this year in order to kill off those mites and keep them from ending up in another colony. 

i do understand your point mike, but it's similar to your disdain for the nearby treaters and their drones affecting your mating goals. for most of us beekeeping is not done in a bubble. my guess is that you won't likely find very many beekeepers who would feel like you are doing them a big favor by allowing one of your collapsing colonies to get robbed out by their bees.

herein lies the basis for some of the tension among competing methodologies at their extremes, but there does appear to be a degree of trending toward a happy medium.


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## squarepeg

many thanks ray.


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## gmcharlie

Mike, make no mistake I don't equate my bees to humans. and to a point I agree were propping up bad genetics. A small point. I don't think our problem is a genetic one. (Ignoring FP cause if hes half as good as he says he is he would be rich selling queens.) no one else so far has been able to genetically fix the issue. I think were trying to breed gazelles that outrun leopards. 
There are some pockets and claims of successes, but so far anecdotal at best. Don't get me wrong I wish it were so. but the brood breaks and sugar rolls are NOT resistant bees. there a bit more tolerant. nothing more. We like to fool ourselves into thinking we solved it. and we haven't

As for mite counts,,, been there done it... 2 brood breaks a year keeps them manageable.. nothing more. Good treatments knocks them so far back it it takes a full year to get back to pre treatment levels. I am really getting tired of moving queens around, and buying this and that "perfect queens" Its easy with a small yard and 30-40 hives. Brood breaks to manage 300 is a whole other story.


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> i do understand your point mike, but it's similar to your disdain for the nearby treaters and their drones affecting your mating goals. for most of us beekeeping is not done in a bubble. my guess is that you won't likely find very many beekeepers who would feel like you are doing them a big favor by allowing one of your collapsing colonies to get robbed out by their bees.
> 
> herein lies the basis for some of the tension among competing methodologies at their extremes, but there does appear to be a degree of trending toward a happy medium.


Since I haven't had a collapsing colony yet, its a bit moot; but in terms of fairness I'll be happy to do what I can to prevent robbing as and when my neighbours are happy to do something to prevent their hopelessly unadapted drones mating with my queens. Is that what you meant?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Mike, make no mistake I don't equate my bees to humans. and to a point I agree were propping up bad genetics. A small point. I don't think our problem is a genetic one. (Ignoring FP cause if hes half as good as he says he is he would be rich selling queens.) no one else so far has been able to genetically fix the issue. I think were trying to breed gazelles that outrun leopards. There are some pockets and claims of successes, but so far anecdotal at best.


Why do you say that? Many many beekeepers have fixed the problem. You hear from some of them here, and about others. 

Is it because you think a permanant genetic 'fix' is possible - one in which all descendents would be varroa proof? Surely you know better than that? 

The 'fix' is the adoption of proper population husbandry (having first secured bees with a healthy measure of resistance). 

Is it because you think of the 'fix' as something that's either there or isn't? Surely you know that resistance is something that is present to a degree - it might be no degree, an insufficient degree, a useful degree, a healthy and sufficient degree.... 

The aim is to continue to raise and maintain a sufficient level of resistance. Not to somehow magically switch it from 'off' to 'on'.

Some people may think its possible to raise resistance to the point where current intensive practices can function. I doubt it somehow - though dialling back the intensiveness might allow it. It would be an improvement on creating millions and millions of utterly unresistant bees for sure. But I wouldn't call that the arbitor of the 'fix'. The will always be pressure to improve margins that will always drive such operations to act in ways that harm the rest of us - until there are laws to prevent it. 

Is that it? There's no magic fix for people like you? No-one can sell you queens that can hold their own in your apiary, and you can't get it together to raise your own (someplace else)?



gmcharlie said:


> Don't get me wrong I wish it were so. but the brood breaks and sugar rolls are NOT resistant bees. there a bit more tolerant. nothing more. We like to fool ourselves into thinking we solved it. and we haven't


That's _my_ point! I doubt there's any resistance building at all going on under that sort of managment, any more than there is under chemical treatments. That's why it shouldn't be regarded as tf beekeeping. 



gmcharlie said:


> As for mite counts,,, been there done it... 2 brood breaks a year keeps them manageable.. nothing more. Good treatments knocks them so far back it it takes a full year to get back to pre treatment levels. I am really getting tired of moving queens around, and buying this and that "perfect queens" Its easy with a small yard and 30-40 hives. Brood breaks to manage 300 is a whole other story.


So what else to you do to try to raise resistance/speed co-evolution in your bees Charlie?

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Since I haven't had a collapsing colony yet, its a bit moot; but in terms of fairness I'll be happy to do what I can to prevent robbing as and when my neighbours are happy to do something to prevent their hopelessly unadapted drones mating with my queens. Is that what you meant?
> 
> Mike (UK)


yes mike, and while i am happy to hear that you have not experienced the collapse of a colony, it appears that your offer to prevent robbing is moot as well, although it would be more in line with accepted beekeeping practices to prevent robbing than it would be to discourage drones from mating. indeed, in the u.s. we are generally required by law to take action to prevent our managed colonies from becoming a source for the spread of disease.

i have thought of a way that you might appease your neighbors and comply with any laws that may apply in your district while yet accomplishing your objective of good husbandry. in the event that you do find one of your colonies dwindling in population, with heavy varroa infestation, dwv, sick brood, clearly on it's way to dying out...

consider taking this sick colony and combining it with your strongest and healthiest colony. if i understand your rationale correctly, challenging the healthy colony may help advance the development of resistance and if so, you will be practicing good husbandry. if the healthy colony fails the challenge and collapses as well then combine it with the next healthiest one, and so on.

on the other hand, if you are not willing to expose your healthy bees to these hypothetically sick and dying ones, then i would say that you and your neighbors may have some common ground. i have been cynical here to make a point, i truly hope your bees stay healthy mike, but give this robbing thing a second thought if you will.


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## Rader Sidetrack

:thumbsup:  :lpf:


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## beekuk

Think BA new this all along.

Genetic 'remix' Key to

Evolution of Bee Behavior.

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-genetic-remix-key-evolution-bee.html


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## gmcharlie

Mike from what I see your just flat wrong on resistant bees. Your entitled to your thoughts, But here success are so rare and spotty to be almost impossible to believe. 
I strongly think whats happening is a lot of TF people think brood breaks and requeening and splitting is success. IT IS NOT its hiding the problem. I can split like crazy and mask and then tout my success and sell TF queens. Thats what I am seeing. then they make all kinds of excuses when they fail......

TF would be 2-3 years, no breaks no extreme manipulations and hives still alive. Not seeing it. I hear and read a lot of claims, but even when it sounds great, it seems nothing is transferable. 

When its found, if its found.. your looking at 200 a pop queens... and darn few would balk..... I have bought several 200 queens... and so far no joy.

As for what I am doing to raise Resistance, not much so far.. why?? because I have not found that Resistance yet. I had a cpl good hives in the last few years that showed promise. and they have all either perished, or don't produce honey. no point in working hard on what doesn't work.....


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> ... it would be more in line with accepted beekeeping practices to prevent robbing than it would be to discourage drones from mating.


I think is is a fundamental point of departure. I don't care what is 'accepted'. In fact I positively disapprove of it. I'm willing to defend my positions. 'Accepted' beekeeping produces sick bees, because it places short term individual benefit above long term community benefit. 




squarepeg said:


> i have thought of a way that you might appease your neighbors and comply with any laws that may apply in your district while yet accomplishing your objective of good husbandry. in the event that you do find one of your colonies dwindling in population, with heavy varroa infestation, dwv, sick brood, clearly on it's way to dying out...
> 
> consider taking this sick colony and combining it with your strongest and healthiest colony. if i understand your rationale correctly, challenging the healthy colony may help advance the development of resistance and if so, you will be practicing good husbandry. if the healthy colony fails the challenge and collapses as well then combine it with the next healthiest one, and so on.


That would be interfering, and shows you're missing the point. Working with Nature entails allowing natural events to play out, in the belief that Nature is the best judge. 

My best bees are exposed, every time they go a-robbin', to pathogens in weaker hives, be they mine, feral, or beekeepers. Those individuals that take that chance subject themselves to the potential costs - and also reap the benefits. 

Beekeepers are ill-adept at maintaining the health of bees. Nature isn't. My working approach is to move back as far as I can toward Nature. In that way I'll tend to get bees that can deal with diseases, with robber bees and wasps, with variable climatic/forage conditions. 

Everything I do that interferes with Nature obstructs that process. Its my task to achieve my ends whilst interfering with natural processes as little as possible.



squarepeg said:


> on the other hand, if you are not willing to expose your healthy bees to these hypothetically sick and dying ones, then i would say that you and your neighbors may have some common ground. i have been cynical here to make a point, i truly hope your bees stay healthy mike, but give this robbing thing a second thought if you will.


Robbing is a different topic. Its my view that robbing goes on an awful lot more than is commonly recognised. Bees are wild animals, and wild animals pinch each-other's energy, any way they can, without any qualms. Bigger animals bully smaller ones to get their energy, as the norm. I think that protecting youngsters is legitimate - if I make them at the wrong time of year, and I want to build my numbers, I have to do that. But any form of protection after that just builds in weakness. 

Bear in mind too: all my bees are kept in small yards of 6 or more hives, as far from other beekeepers as I can get them. If any are going to up sticks to another hive, the chance is overwhelmingly that it will be one of mine. However, as far as I know CCD isn't something we suffer from in the UK. It doesn't come up. If it did maybe I'd think again. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> As for what I am doing to raise Resistance, not much so far.. why?? because I have not found that Resistance yet. I had a cpl good hives in the last few years that showed promise. and they have all either perished, or don't produce honey. no point in working hard on what doesn't work.....


Charlie,

If you don't take steps to raise resistance, you won't find any. Buying in new queens won't help. 

So are you just here to tell us that, despite the growing evidence to the contrary, there is no such thing as tf beekeeping?

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Everything I do that interferes with Nature obstructs that process. Its my task to achieve my ends whilst interfering with natural processes _as little as possible_.


(italics mine)

understood mike and i appreciate your response. this rationale has been posited before here on the forum. 

the counter to it is that by virtue of you placing these wild creatures in an artificial home and manipulating them to your 'ends' you are already interfering with nature in a serious way.

where one draws the line is rather arbitrary isn't it?

if you value allowing nature to work itself out above and beyond all else then the logical approach would be to not keep bees at all.

however, since you are choosing to exploit the bees you have already compromised that principle. you and i are more in agreement than not. the difference is i have chosen to accept that we are already departing from nature, and my management choices are an attempt to achieve a balanced and thoughtful compromise.

my choices to euthanize colonies destined to die and to prevent the spread of pests and pathogens to my other colonies, my neighbor's colonies, and nearby feral colonies my may indeed hinder the natural progression of resistance to some degree, probably small. i'm really not so sure that what you and i are doing has a great impact on the species in the end.


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## gmcharlie

Mike,, "Show me the Money" show me evidence of TF guys who are not manipulating brood and make honey, and can sell that genetic stock. You may have some there.... I hear lots of stories.... I am on board......

I do breed my best hives. trying for something. Just so far without brood breaks, nothing is moving past 18 months. second year the hives are struggling so hard with mites, honey cannot be had. Last year was tough, total honey number were way down, but all the 2nd year hives that WERE boomers, made 0.......


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## jmgi

I'm not even getting 8 months right now TF, and that's on hives started from nuc's just this past spring. Many already dead and still collapsing as I speak. We did have a terrible spring and summer with temps way too cold and excessive rains which translated into the worse honey production in this area in 25+ years. I'm fairly certain colony nutrition suffered as well causing stress and no doubt put the bees in a less than optimal state to deal with the mites.


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## JWChesnut

beekuk said:


> Think BA new this all along.
> http://phys.org/news/2012-10-genetic-remix-key-evolution-bee.html


Brendan Hunt has interpreted the noted recombination rate as an artifact of the creation of the worker caste in honey bees. Queens and workers are genetically identical (viz grafting), the evolution of true sociality with a non-reproductive sister caste required "reprogramming" the development of worker larvae by selectively turning on and off genes during development. This required enormous gene plasticity -- and the current honey bee genome simply reflects the inertia associated with that enormous shift in organism development. Consider Apis capensis which is undergoing a backwards transition to fully reproductive workers as evidence of the fundamental role of caste determination in genotype recombination.

The Kent and Zayed paper found drone-associated gene regions did not have high recombination rates. This can be explained by drones as "flying gametes" -- they are haploid and have single alleles. Poor recombinations are negatively selected since they can't fly -- and indeed the whole impulse to recombine is negatively selected. This points out the fundamental role of haploid drones in pushing adaptation in bee breeding systems. 

"Relaxed Selection" is the general term for allele effects that were responsive to a previous evolutionary condition (the development of social colonies) that has now become irrelevant or deleterious.

Remember the fundamental characteristic of honeybee is genotype conservatism. Honeybees are not evolving so much as accumulating an enormous portmanteau of variation. The higher the colony variation, the higher the fitness. Rather than diverse worker castes, they have phenotypically identical workers with internal genotype differences within a colony -- leading to complex behaviors. The higher the population variation, the lower likelihood of a single dominant genotype founding a new race/species/lineage. Bee's resist evolutionary drift at every turn.

Clement Kent and Amro Zayed (the authors of the cited paper on recombination rate) have done very interesting work on the role lethal diploid drones (due to honey bee's complementary sex determination) on extinction of local populations. I find this relevant to the amateur armchair experts pronouncements/discussion on this thread -- Zayed has found that small local inbreeding populations are at extreme risk of going extinct due to sex incompatibility. Backyard breeding advocates should take note of Zayed's other work-- little colonies of inbred lines are likely doomed.









Zayed has a great paper on evidence for positive selection in honeybees, including finding that South American AHB have differentiated from their putative A. mellifera scutellata. 

Contact me if you don't have University library access.

A Genome-Wide Signature of Positive Selection in Ancient and Recent Invasive Expansions of
the Honey Bee Apis mellifera Author(s): Amro Zayed and Charles W. WhitfieldSource: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,Vol. 105, No. 9 (Mar. 4, 2008), pp. 3421-3426Published by: National Academy of SciencesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25461250 .


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## gmcharlie

correct my if I am mis-interpeting, but we have two schools of thought, one is line breeding for a certain trait, the other says large scale diversity is the key and that line breeding will fail? Trying to simplify the conversation a bit.


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## JWChesnut

gm,
Evolution is always a process of dynamic compromise. Line breeding can emphasize traits (but in doing it throws away the steamer trunk of other adaptations). Large-scale diversity incorporates the kitchen sink (but reduces the number of specialists -- as seen in VSH behavior in subsequent generations).

The Dadant Starline came up in this thread -- its my understanding that the enormous effort to maintain this 4 line double crossed-hybrid was dropped when tracheal mites invaded the US in the 90's -- the inbred lines were (unsurprisingly) tracheal-susceptible.


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> (italics mine)
> 
> understood mike and i appreciate your response. this rationale has been posited before here on the forum.
> 
> the counter to it is that by virtue of you placing these wild creatures in an artificial home and manipulating them to your 'ends' you are already interfering with nature in a serious way.
> 
> where one draws the line is rather arbitrary isn't it?


Not in the least. There are clear-cut guidelines, do's and don'ts, all built on the principles of mirroring natural selection in order to produce inbuilt self-sustaining health and vigour. The line is where acts inhibit, or work against the grain of what would play out naturally. 

Putting bees in a box is no different to putting out a box and inviting them in - its a perfectly good home, mirroring in all of the important ways natural cavities. The 'manipulations' are guided by what would happen naturally. If, in order to achieve that, you have to offer a little artificial help, then you do so no more than necessary, and in ways that aim to disturb the natural processes as little as possible. If you want self-sustaining bees.

There is nothing difficult going on here.



squarepeg said:


> if you value allowing nature to work itself out above and beyond all else then the logical approach would be to not keep bees at all.


Not at all: it would be to do what you can to counter the enormous damage done by beekeepers and land managers, with the aim of restoring the natural order.

Try to grasp: following nature's rules is not something that must be carried to extremes. Rather its recognition that Nature has automatic health and repair mechanisms, and interfering with those carries a cost. Treating bees is a first-class example. As Ruttner says, it is Nature that shows us how to do husbandry: she is the original, and we copy her. 



squarepeg said:


> however, since you are choosing to exploit the bees you have already compromised that principle. you and i are more in agreement than not. the difference is i have chosen to accept that we are already departing from nature, and my management choices are an attempt to achieve a balanced and thoughtful compromise.


Be careful that your notion of balance isn't harmful to the long-term outcome you desire.



squarepeg said:


> my choices to euthanize colonies destined to die and to prevent the spread of pests and pathogens to my other colonies, my neighbor's colonies, and nearby feral colonies my may indeed hinder the natural progression of resistance to some degree, probably small.


I don't think it will much. But its important to talk about the pros and cons of such things in order that we better understand the possible effects of our acts.



squarepeg said:


> i'm really not so sure that what you and i are doing has a great impact on the species in the end.


I think if tf beekeeping becomes a success, and if the public start to exert pressure on people who unneccessarily abuse bees, there's every chance it will have an effect. Its something worth working for.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Mike,, "Show me the Money" show me evidence of TF guys who are not manipulating brood and make honey, and can sell that genetic stock. You may have some there.... I hear lots of stories.... I am on board......


We just went through that on another thread. 10 or 15 names came up. Its not many, but as Deknow said, most don't bother hanging around here to tell us about it.



gmcharlie said:


> I do breed my best hives. trying for something. Just so far without brood breaks, nothing is moving past 18 months. second year the hives are struggling so hard with mites, honey cannot be had.


How do you evaluate 'best' - especially in regard to varroa while treating?

What do you do drone side?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jmgi said:


> I'm not even getting 8 months right now TF, and that's on hives started from nuc's just this past spring. Many already dead and still collapsing as I speak. We did have a terrible spring and summer with temps way too cold and excessive rains which translated into the worse honey production in this area in 25+ years. I'm fairly certain colony nutrition suffered as well causing stress and no doubt put the bees in a less than optimal state to deal with the mites.


Where did these nucs come from - what made you think they might have any resistance?

Mike?


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## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> Queens and workers are genetically identical


That doesn't sound right. Could you elaborate?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> This points out the fundamental role of haploid drones in pushing adaptation in bee breeding systems.


Who was saying recently that drones were relatively unimportant?



JWChesnut said:


> Zayed has found that small local inbreeding populations are at extreme risk of going extinct due to sex incompatibility. Backyard breeding advocates should take note of Zayed's other work-- little colonies of inbred lines are likely doomed.


I don't know of any amateurs attempting line breeding. Most of us are simply using selective propagation to bring up and maintain preferable traits using varied initial stock - like varroa resistance and productivity. That's just what half-interested beekeepers have always done.


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> correct my if I am mis-interpeting, but we have two schools of thought, one is line breeding for a certain trait, the other says large scale diversity is the key and that line breeding will fail? Trying to simplify the conversation a bit.


These are extremes at the ends of a spectrum of approaches. It seems to suit some people to suggest there is no middle ground, but simple selective propagation using open mating as recommended by i.e. Manley, till recently the norm, is just such a middle-ground approach. 

As recently observed, removal of the weakest (as well as not-too-concentrated selection of the best) maintains genetic diversity while achieving the promotion of desirable traits.

We're not talking high-end breeders breeding; we're talking traditional low-tech husbandry breeding. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## JWChesnut

mike bispham said:


> "Queens and workers are genetically identical" That doesn't sound right. Could you elaborate?
> Mike (UK)


I am sloppy in my use of "identical" when I mean undifferentiated.

Any fertilized egg can become a queen. The whole basis of queen grafting. The exception being the famous diploid lethal drones based which are homozyogous at a single gene locus. Workers and queens are genetically undifferentiated -- nutrition (including contributed hormones) are responsible for the caste difference.

*Every single bee is non-identical to any other nest-mate*. This is because "crossing-over" occurs early in the process meiosis (ie gamete-egg-sperm production). Recombination during meiosis is important to recognize -- workers and drones both are each and everyone a distinct individual genotype.


----------



## JWChesnut

jmgi said:


> I'm not even getting 8 months right now TF, and that's on hives started from nuc's just this past spring. Many already dead and still collapsing as I speak.


Feel your pain. I spent yesterday going through, and stacking up dead-out boxes from my TF experimental yard. These are 7-8 month captures and "Russian" splits. (and to be fair, doing the same to 2nd year boxes in my Oxalic yards). Last year, Oxalic worked on new hives, but at 20 months, I am having rapid collapse. The proprietary thymol (Apivar) seems to be more effective on the 2nd years.

In fact, I'm indoors engaging with the "armchair experts" cause just can't face the depressing work of cutting all that comb into the melter.


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## jmgi

I am going to try brood breaks this year for the first time. Been doing lots of research on this, many claim to have good results, many say otherwise. Honestly, if I could keep the mites at bay for 18 months before hive collapse I would be thrilled at this point. If timed properly, brood breaks do seem that they would hand the mites a setback, but is total mite numbers the only factor, what about the disease they spread? Are those diseases spread from bee to bee or does the bee only get them from the phoretic mite?


----------



## JWChesnut

jmgi said:


> I am going to try brood breaks this year for the first time.


Just went through an interesting exchange on my local bee club regarding the scene in the documentary More than Honey about the commercial California uncapping scene. In case you haven't seen the doc, it is filmed as agit-prop emphasizing the disruption and chaos as millions of bees are blown out of hives on a mechanical conveyor belt. The scene is made deliberately provocative -- "bee's torn from their home, oh the inhumanity of it all".

I counter that "blown" bees are likely an extremely effective way of creating a full brood break onto new and sterilized comb. The practice resets the disease clock completely -- not just varroa, but all the other comb based diseases. It is a really effective "chemical-free" process.


----------



## gmcharlie

mike bispham said:


> These are extremes at the ends of a spectrum of approaches. It seems to suit some people to suggest there is no middle ground, but simple selective propagation using open mating as recommended by i.e. Manley, till recently the norm, is just such a middle-ground approach.
> 
> As recently observed, removal of the weakest (as well as not-too-concentrated selection of the best) maintains genetic diversity while achieving the promotion of desirable traits.
> 
> We're not talking high-end breeders breeding; we're talking traditional low-tech husbandry breeding.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Mike, I wasn't intending to point one over the other at all, just making sure I understood the 2 sides. I am no where involved enough to make a decison as to right or wrong, or pick a middle.

If you (or Radar) could find that thread, I would be interested to see if there are any I haven't looked at. Again. all I have tested or investigated, are useing something besides genetics or traits to keep hives alive past that 18 month mark.

As for my own. I am looking at hives that have Low mite counts in the fall, good clusters, and good honey builds. So far I have had several hives with nice low counts in fall, but next season is still a bust. I think that some hives do seem to outbreed the mites for a good while. but when winter comes the scales tip. so far no 2nd year hive has maintained that low count/ good production.

As for drones, not much to say, With queens not showing me anything (FYI that also includes a lot of Ferals) I havent spent a lot of effort on drones. add that to a large number of feral hives and there is not much point in drone control. I do only use the strongest hives near the queen yard.


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## squarepeg

squarepeg said:


> where one draws the line is rather arbitrary isn't it?





mike bispham said:


> Not in the least.


aw come on mike, if there's one thing that's consistent it's how inconsistent drawing the line is amongst beekeepers. 

we beekeepers are actually given a lot of latitude when it comes to where we drawn the line in terms of husbandry and this highly arbitrary and variable expression of the privilege to do so _defines_ beekeeping.

it appears that you and i have a different point of view, and both of them are 'arbitrary', are they not?


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## Saltybee

The idea that man is only providing a box for the all natural bee is like believing man can raise the all natural maize by throwing corn into a field.


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## Delta Bay

Saltybee said:


> The idea that man is only providing a box for the all natural bee is like believing man can raise the all natural maize by throwing corn into a field.


Or that man is the master of natural selection.


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## mike bispham

"Queens and workers are genetically identical" That doesn't sound right. Could you elaborate?
Mike (UK)



JWChesnut said:


> I am sloppy in my use of "identical" when I mean undifferentiated.


Now you need to explain what you mean by 'undifferentiated'. '"Queens and workers are genetically undifferentiated" doesn't really sound any better. 



JWChesnut said:


> Any fertilized egg can become a queen. The whole basis of queen grafting. The exception being the famous diploid lethal drones based which are homozyogous at a single gene locus.


I've never heard of a 'famous diploid lethal drone'. What is that? What does your sentence mean? (what is that 'based' doing in there?) What relevance does this have to - well, the conversation?



JWChesnut said:


> Workers and queens are genetically undifferentiated -- nutrition (including contributed hormones) are responsible for the caste difference.


Why not just say 'workers and bees come from the same sort of cell'? We knew that. You're dressing up the language to make simple things sound technical. Its as if you're trying to blind us with science?



JWChesnut said:


> *Every single bee is non-identical to any other nest-mate*. This is because "crossing-over" occurs early in the process meiosis (ie gamete-egg-sperm production). Recombination during meiosis is important to recognize -- workers and drones both are each and everyone a distinct individual genotype.


'Individual' is the usual description. Adding 'unique' is technically superfluous - 'individual' already means 'unique'. 

Yes, again we know that. what relevance does it have to your argument that selective propagation and drone (partial) control will never succeed in raising resistance?

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> Just went through an interesting exchange on my local bee club regarding the scene in the documentary More than Honey about the commercial California uncapping scene. In case you haven't seen the doc, it is filmed as agit-prop emphasizing the disruption and chaos as millions of bees are blown out of hives on a mechanical conveyor belt. The scene is made deliberately provocative -- "bee's torn from their home, oh the inhumanity of it all".
> 
> I counter that "blown" bees are likely an extremely effective way of creating a full brood break onto new and sterilized comb. The practice resets the disease clock completely -- not just varroa, but all the other comb based diseases. It is a really effective "chemical-free" process.


Its done here (more gently - at least as I've seen it) as 'artificial swarming'.

Like all treatments is preserves all those that would in nature perish, thus ridding the population of its least adapted individuals and their dysfunctional genes. Just as effective in setting back the resistance clock to zero.

Chemical free it might be. A solution to the problem lack of natural resistance it ain't. 'Treatment free'? Not in my book.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> I think that some hives do seem to outbreed the mites for a good while. but when winter comes the scales tip.


Have you tried looking for VSH? Recapped cells? perhaps you can get a tighter focus somehow.

From here, my first assumption would be that the ferals you have been getting haven't made much, if any, progress toward resistance - likely they are simply first or second year escapees. Can you try harder to locate some thriving resistant ferals?



gmcharlie said:


> As for drones, not much to say, With queens not showing me anything (FYI that also includes a lot of Ferals) I havent spent a lot of effort on drones. add that to a large number of feral hives and there is not much point in drone control. I do only use the strongest hives near the queen yard.


Tell us more about these ferals. How is it do you think that bees can survive in the wild near you but not in your yard? What is making the difference? 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> aw come on mike, if there's one thing that's consistent it's how inconsistent drawing the line is amongst beekeepers.


Among beekeepers, sure! I meant among scientists, evolutionary biologists, competent breeders, competent husbandrymen. The line is: put best to best. Don't allow second or third best to contribute to the breeding pool, and _*never ever keep a sick animal alive and allow its genes into the breeding pool*_.

Sure, I know not all beekeepers follow this! I wouldn't need to be here making these arguments again and again if they did!



squarepeg said:


> we beekeepers are actually given a lot of latitude when it comes to where we drawn the line in terms of husbandry and this highly arbitrary and variable expression of the privilege to do so _defines_ beekeeping.


For you maybe - and many others. Personally I make a kind of distinction along the lines of 'beekeepers' and bee-users'. The 'privilege' allowing the latter to screw up bees to the detriment of the future of the species, natural ecology, unborn human generations and other beekeepers is one I'd withdraw if I had the power to do so.

You have the sort of 'variable expression of the privilege to do so' given to fishermen without regulation. Pretty soon there are no fish and no fishermen, and humanity and unborn generations have lost something precious that wasn't fishermen's to take.



squarepeg said:


> it appears that you and i have a different point of view, and both of them are 'arbitrary', are they not?


Mine isn't. Its founded on a science-based deeply considered understanding of the mechanisms by which modern beekeeping perpetuates its primary problem. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Originally Posted by Saltybee 
The idea that man is only providing a box for the all natural bee is like believing man can raise the all natural maize by throwing corn into a field.



Delta Bay said:


> Or that man is the master of natural selection.


I don't think arguing the semantics of nature is going help much. The point is this:

*In an open mating organism, the more you keep sickly individuals alive to mate, the more sickness there will be in the next generation.*

That is just simply inarguable. Like day follows night.

Husbandrymen should be mindful of this, particularly when suffering from a seemingly intractable sickness.

They can be aided in their understanding by consideration of Nature's ways. For your contemplation, some words from one of the most famous bee breeders of all time (My emphasies):

""Breeding is, in the first place, simply the increase in the number of queens."

"Yet breeding is not merely a question of reproduction. Above all, breeding implies improvement in the bee's performance capability "

"Queen breeding ranks as _*the most important activity*_ in the efficient management of an apiary: by it, the apiarist [...] advances from being a Beekeeper to a being a Beebreeder."

"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

These principles are extremes of the methods undertaken by ordinary, competent, beekeepers - those Ruttner speaks of in the third extract above, which I've highlighted.

If you are genuinely interested in tf beekeeping, you'll need to become very familiar with these things. And if and when you are, you'll understand that protecting your bees from passing diseases simply - and dramatically - increases the liklihood that future generations will suffer from them. You've interfered with the population's primary health mechanism; and you - and others - pay the price.

Life is tough. But the way to get through isn't to wrap your hives in cotton wool. Its to equip your stock to meet the challenges.

Mike (UK)


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## beekuk

This is another approach towards natural selection.

Quote.
We explored practical steps to implement a sustainable treatment against Varroa destructor which is adapted to common beekeeping situations, and applies conventional control but nevertheless exerts selection pressure towards increased mite tolerance in honey bees. This approach approximates conditions of natural selection in host-parasite systems, and is supported by evidence that the impact of V. destructor decreases when bee populations are overexploited by the parasites.

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/Exploring-good-strategy-varroa-treatment


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Have you tried looking for VSH? Recapped cells? perhaps you can get a tighter focus somehow.
> 
> Mike (UK)


How does one recognise recapped cells?


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> How does one recognise recapped cells?


Its something on my list of things to look up - I'm currently hoping someone (on another list) has it in hand.

As I recall, you look for different-coloured wax cappings, and perhaps a slightly raised cap. It might be that the bees re-use the same lid, so what you are looking for is a ring of newer wax.

Best I can offer right now - if anyone else has info I'd be very grateful.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Mike my question was rhetorical. In fact you cannot recognise recapped cells just by looking at the cap.


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## Michael Bush

>I think your wrong. Yes some antibiotics can wipe out good bacteria FOR A FEW DAYS.. not forever.

http://mbio.asm.org/content/3/6/e00377-12.full

This is one sentence from from deknow's summary on the study on his web site:
http://www.beeuntoothers.com/index....tibiotic-resistant-gut-microbes-in-honey-bees

"In summary, this work shows rather definitively that gut microbiotia is heritable (and very old), and that a line damaged by antibiotics does not return (at least in 25+ years) to its original population."


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Mike my question was rhetorical. In fact you cannot recognise recapped cells just by looking at the cap.


I'll let you know if I find good info that says otherwise.

Mike (UK)


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## Barry

Oldtimer said:


> you cannot recognise recapped cells just by looking at the cap.


Not so sure about this. When I first went to SC and was "regressing" all my bees, I would notice cells that had been opened with partially chewed larva as well as untouched larva still alive. The same area had capped cells scattered around that were higher than the others. Worker brood, not drone. Discussing this with Ed and Dee, they felt these were recapped cells. I took photos. Will see if I can find them.


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## Daniel Y

mike bispham said:


> *In an open mating organism, the more you keep sickly individuals alive to mate, the more sickness there will be in the next generation.*
> 
> That is just simply inarguable.
> 
> Mike (UK)


If this is so then how do you explain that an entire population of untreated bees became sickly? 

What if nature sees the bees as the pestilence and is in the process of eliminating it?


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## mike bispham

Daniel Y said:


> If this is so then how do you explain that an entire population of untreated bees became sickly?


It was a new, introduced, parasite. The inbuilt defenses against it (and its kind) were very low in the population, as they hadn't been needed (and entail costs).



Daniel Y said:


> What if nature sees the bees as the pestilence and is in the process of eliminating it?


Nature doesn't 'see' anything. 'Nature' is what is, and what happens, without human interference. What you suggest isn't happening: bees are naturally raising their defences where they are able to - that is where people aren't treating and preventing that happening. Its happened to bees a million times before. It happens to all natural populations on a fairly regular basis. New predator, population crash t the few resistant, rebuild from the resistant (only). There's ample evidence to demonstrate that happening all over the world. Except in apiaries.

Mike (UK)


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## gmcharlie

Michael Bush said:


> "In summary, this work shows rather definitively that gut microbiotia is heritable (and very old), and that a line damaged by antibiotics does not return (at least in 25+ years) to its original population."


If this is remotely accurate then we are all doomed to bees with terrible IBS ... It also appears that the solution is simple NZ bees would be more resistant to pathogens carried by Varroa. 


Mike, most of the feral hives here are young hives. swarming seems to keep them going. This year is probably going to be the lowest in a long time for ferals. a really bad year for honey last year, and a sever winter will make wild losses very high.
Still looking for that link for the "restiant" producers....


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## Barry

One can clearly see that the bees are opening cells and recapping.










From the same hive.

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/AN11188*

Changes in Infestation, Cell Cap Condition, and Reproductive Status of Varroa destructor (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) in Brood Exposed to Honey Bees with Varroa Sensitive Hygiene*









Jeffrey W. Harris,[SUP]1[/SUP] Robert G. Danka and José D. Villa
USDA-ARS, Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory, 1157 Ben Hur Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70820


[SUP]1[/SUP] Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected].
*ABSTRACT*

Honey bees (_Apis mellifera_ L.) bred for _Varroa_ sensitive hygiene (VSH) selectively remove pupae infested with _Varroa destructor_ Anderson & Trueman (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) from capped brood that is inserted into the nest. After 1 wk, remaining brood cells tend to have been uncapped and recapped, and remaining mites are mostly infertile. A primary goal of this experiment was to compare the reproductive status of mites that remained in recapped and normally capped cells after a 1-wk exposure to VSH and control colonies. Differences in distribution of fertile mites in normally capped brood cells between VSH bees and control bees may suggest that the stimulus for hygiene is related to reproduction by mites. Identification of stimuli triggering VSH behavior could be used to develop new bioassays for selective breeding of this important resistance mechanism. Combs of capped brood that were exposed to control bees had 10 times more pupae with fertile mites in normally capped brood as did VSH bees (6.7 and 0.7%, respectively). They also had 3 times more pupae with infertile mites in normally capped brood than did VSH bees (1.4 and 0.5%, respectively). Thus, VSH bees targeted fertile mites by a 3:1 ratio by either removing or uncapping and recapping their host pupae. Biased removal of mite-infested pupae with fertile mites suggested that stimuli triggering VSH behavior were enhanced by the presence of mite offspring within the brood cell. This bias for fertile mites is not seen during experiments of short 3-h duration. The differing results are discussed relative to a behavioral threshold model for hygienic behavior in honey bees in which different experimental protocols may reflect activities of honey bees having different sensitivities to pupae infested by fertile mites. In addition, mortality of mite offspring was significantly higher in recapped cells than in normally capped cells and contributed to decreased reproduction by the mites.


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## beekuk

.....http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFile...00/441-Villegas--Uncapping of Pupal Cells.pdf

On Bee.L.
With regard to the question as to whether VSH bees will recap bald brood, I
asked one of the researchers who are investigating the phenomenon
intimately--Dr. Jeffrey Harris at the Baton Rouge Lab. His reply:

Hello Randy,



Yes. We have seen all pupal stages into lightly tanned body get recapped by
VSH bees. Purple-eyed pupae with white bodies are commonly recapped.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
ScientificBeekeeping.com

Posting same time as Barry.


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## Michael Bush

>then we are all doomed to bees with terrible IBS

That was not on my list of concerns. But since we know that gut bacteria protects bees from AFB, EFB, Nosema and chalkbrood, the bacteria is a concern...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0033188


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## gmcharlie

You may have a point that beneficial flora in the bee gut is a good thing. But what does it mean? with bees being so social, and drifters common, I would expect that any hive even if treated would soon have replenished the beneficial bacteria's.
Secondly were it such a huge issue, we could and would see dramatic results. As pointed out NZ bees (and other places) would be extremely healthy, and bees treated with things to eliminate EFB would be dieing off in record numbers.
This is not what we are seeing. not even close. In fact no trends seem to be popping out, specifically ones that show old hives outliving all others. or swarms from older hives solving all the problems. were that the case a few drifters with nectar could and would quickly replace the missing flora in our domestic hives.
If gut fauna were the answers then I would suspect feral hives to long outlive packages brought in. Not what I am seeing. Data shows its a time factor. how many mite cycles.... a hot potato if you will. constant splitting and brood breaks seem to relieve the symptoms...

I do understand in your area you seem to have something else working well for you. How may of your hives are going 2-3 years without brood breaks or requeening??


----------



## JWChesnut

mike bispham said:


> I've never heard of a 'famous diploid lethal drone'. What is that? What does your sentence mean?.... What relevance does this have to - well, the conversation?
> 
> You're dressing up the language to make simple things sound technical. Its as if you're trying to blind us with science?
> 
> Yes, again we know that.... what relevance does it have to your argument that selective propagation and drone (partial) control will never succeed in raising resistance?


Mike,

You are characterizing my argument unfairly. I have always argued that directed selection is prudent and profitable. Directed selection requires quantification of traits, saturation and isolation. Directed selection is a long-term, large-scale and professional endeavor.

What I have argued against is the almost magical belief that starting a microscopic apiary in an unbounded, out-crossing population and simply adopting a live-and-let die management style will result a new lineage of perfected bees. Modern breeding doesn't work effectively in that milieu, especially for bees that have evolved multiple behaviors to ensure genotype conservation across millions of years.

To respond to your specific complaint: 

Eggs that are homozygous at the "csd" gene develop into diploid drones, these are detected and killed by nurse bees (in most cases). (That's blind science-speak -- eggs that have identical "sex-determiner" alleles on the egg-gamete and the sperm will when fertilized express lethally). Sex determination in bees has nothing to do with the mammalian XY chromosome system.

This means a high proportion of brood developing from a queen that has mated with a nest-mate drone will be lethal (and is the source of the observed condition called "shot-brood". Bee colonies cannot be inbred -- these will die out. Inbreeding includes daughter colonies (which will converge to lower variance) as well as the foundress colony. The csd gene has 16-20 polymorphisms that are cross-compatible. The queen lineage contributes two possible alleles of these 20, and the drone mated with the queen contributes one. If the drone csd allele exactly matches one of the two queen alleles -- 50% of the produced eggs will die. In the virgin queen mates with her brother scenario --- alleles will match (in some proportion) and eggs will die. Locally in-bred populations are at risk for a toxic spiral of less-and-less fecund matings. 

What this means, of course, is that out-crossed colonies have much higher fitness. Bees, in nature, will constantly reconverge on the normative genotype. This is why they form a single interbreeding species, and not a thousand local, incompatible taxa. I've explained before the plant-insect co-evolutionary logic for this conservatism. Its a bit of a trap for the bees, but once engaged difficult to shift the overarching direction.

The US Russian Queen breeder program was designed with bee genetics in mind. Colonies were assigned to one of three groups. The groups were physically rotated. A queen grafting source (measured for improved expression) was physically moved to a deliberately isolated out-yard surrounded by drone hives moved from a distant location. Remember my preconditions: Quantification, Saturation and Isolation. 

The Russian queen program appears to have fallen apart as the scientists withdrew funding/support. I have no idea if commercial interest, personality conflict, or genotype unsuitability was the driving factor in the programs change of character.


----------



## gmcharlie

I gota say, this has been one of the best threads I have seen... very good information and discussions!


----------



## Michael Bush

>I do understand in your area you seem to have something else working well for you. How may of your hives are going 2-3 years without brood breaks or requeening?? 

I have not requeened any hives at all for at least five years. Typically I only requeen the ones I see failing. I do some splits occasionally, but not for brood breaks and only because they would swarm otherwise and I'd like to build my numbers back up from when I was out of the country. I did buy a few packages a couple of years ago intending to requeen, but was busy traveling and speaking and did not get any requeened. The hives were marked so I could requeen them, so I know which hives they were. None of them survived the winter. The local ferals stock did fine.

>If gut fauna were the answers then I would suspect feral hives to long outlive packages brought in. Not what I am seeing.

But that is exactly what I am seeing.


----------



## gmcharlie

Those Packages should have quickly had the same Flora in their guts as your local bees. a slight amount of drifting, coupled with nectar processing/food distibution of honeybees should have quickly spread those microbes around??


If I am not mistaken you sell some queens, are your customers getting the same results?


----------



## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Mike, most of the feral hives here are young hives. swarming seems to keep them going. This year is probably going to be the lowest in a long time for ferals. a really bad year for honey last year, and a sever winter will make wild losses very high. Still looking for that link for the "restiant" producers....


Is that report on the state of ferals supposition or evidence based Charlie? There may be a flip side to those high winter losses - the survivors will tend to be the better ones...

I'd start with 'resistant' then move them toward production while maintaining resistance. That'll need new bees, a remote apiary and a strong well planned effort. 

I'd also be making a parallel effort to raise resistance incrementally in the existing apiary. But I don't know much about going about that route.

Mike (UK)


----------



## gmcharlie

I work with the major electrical companies here. this fall I did 7 cutouts for them as they were trimming. (the call when they hit one) none had enough stores. and my average here was so low I couldn't have wintered anything without additional feeds. The largest one I did was around the size of 3 deeps and less than 50 lbs honey collected. that was around sept 15. they were they only ones that "may have made it" they others were effectively zero stores.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Those Packages should have quickly had the same Flora in their guts as your local bees. a slight amount of drifting, coupled with nectar processing/food distibution of honeybees should have quickly spread those microbes around??

I'm just reporting what I observed. I do not know what the mechanisms involved are for sure. Yes, you would think they would spread, but sometimes other microbes have filled the niche and they don't take back over so easily.


----------



## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> Mike,
> 
> You are characterizing my argument unfairly. I have always argued that directed selection is prudent and profitable. Directed selection requires quantification of traits, saturation and isolation. Directed selection is a long-term, large-scale and professional endeavor.
> 
> What I have argued against is the almost magical belief that starting a microscopic apiary in an unbounded, out-crossing population and simply adopting a live-and-let die management style will result a new lineage of perfected bees.


Now you are characterizing my position unfairly. I'm not advocating 'live and let die' whatever that is: I'm advocating identification of the most resistant and productive and making systematic increase from those. At the same time making greater increase than needed for replacement purposes to cover losses, requeening weakest fraction from strongest, and promoting best drones on a wide scale. All using stock that is likely well locally adapted and having a good measure of resistance; as isolated as possible from treated apairies, and as near as as possible to thriving ferals.

That amounts to a package designed to promote resistance and productivity that is actually rather strong. It should be easily enough to press resistance and productivity upwards. It mirrors the routine low tech low-level breeding undertaken by all commercial beekeepers until recently.

Failure to take such steps will, except where resistant ferals are well established, always result in treatment or failure. And that's what we're trying to get away from.

That's not a 'magical belief'; its a well founded rationale, and is being successfully employed by an increasing number of beekeepers.



JWChesnut said:


> Modern breeding doesn't work effectively in that milieu, especially for bees that have evolved multiple behaviors to ensure genotype conservation across millions of years.


You are arguing from a belief based on your own interpretaion of specialised aspects of cutting-edge understanding of bee biology. I see no reason at all to think you have things right.



JWChesnut said:


> [...] Bee colonies cannot be inbred -- these will die out. Inbreeding includes daughter colonies (which will converge to lower variance) as well as the foundress colony. The csd gene has 16-20 polymorphisms that are cross-compatible. The queen lineage contributes two possible alleles of these 20, and the drone mated with the queen contributes one. If the drone csd allele exactly matches one of the two queen alleles -- 50% of the produced eggs will die. In the virgin queen mates with her brother scenario --- alleles will match (in some proportion) and eggs will die. Locally in-bred populations are at risk for a toxic spiral of less-and-less fecund matings.
> 
> What this means, of course, is that out-crossed colonies have much higher fitness. Bees, in nature, will constantly reconverge on the normative genotype.


Well, that is starting to make some sort of sense, but the 'normative genotype' under pressure from i.e. a parasite will be that which deals with the parasite effectively. 

Outcrossing will be with more bees possessing the local (parasite-managing) alleles. And the opportunity for non-parasite-managing alleles to reproduce will be increasingly reduced toward zero.

So where's the beef?

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> I work with the major electrical companies here. this fall I did 7 cutouts for them as they were trimming. (the call when they hit one) none had enough stores. and my average here was so low I couldn't have wintered anything without additional feeds. The largest one I did was around the size of 3 deeps and less than 50 lbs honey collected. that was around sept 15. they were they only ones that "may have made it" they others were effectively zero stores.


It might be worth bearing Seeley's figures in mind. From memory, his studies, pre-varroa, showed that only something like 20% of swarms make it through their first winter. That is, to see lots of failing ferals in the late months is the norm. Its just a part of Nature's great winnowing process, ensuring only the best get to make the new generations, cycle after cycle after cycle. 

Its the early swarms that have the best chance. (Seeley again). Its likely (in my view) that these larger colonies drain most of the weaker through 'robbing'.

And, as you say, it was a poor year there. The upshot is, only the best will make it. I see that as a potential opportunity...

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

squarepeg said:


> it appears that you and i have a different point of view, and both of them are 'arbitrary', are they not?





mike bispham said:


> Mine isn't. Its founded on a science-based deeply considered understanding of the mechanisms by which modern beekeeping perpetuates its primary problem.


perhaps it could be more correctly stated that we are arbitrary in what science and information we choose to accept upon which our points of view are founded.

the myriad of understandings of these mechanisms seen all the way from entry level beekeepers to seasoned career scientists is undeniable. your posts seem to bream with confidence that your understanding is the correct one, but that may by a misinterpretation on my part.

i always lend a keen ear when i hear an expert start with, 'there's a lot we don't know, but here's what we are thinking at this point in our understanding.....'.


----------



## Fusion_power

> Bees, in nature, will constantly reconverge on the normative genotype.


This statement is moderately incorrect as shown by the existence of numerous mutually incompatible wild species such as Apis Cerana, Apis Dorsata, and Apis Florea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apis_(genus)

Where it falls apart is when bees are subject to external selection pressure. When honeybees are carried into a northern climate, they rapidly adapt to overwintering in a cold environment. Any that don't adapt die. The same is happening with honeybees exposed to mites. The only glitch is that beekeepers who treat for mites are slowing down the process.

It helps to also keep this in perspective. We had American Chestnut trees here in the Eastern U.S. until about 100 years ago. They were wiped out by chestnut blight. If there had been any significant tolerance to chestnut blight in the species, you would have expected the population to rebound. Unfortunately, minimal tolerance of any kind has been found. Crossbreeding with chestnut trees from Asia that carry blight resistance genes will eventually get the species into recovery. This illustrates two important requirements in bee breeding. The first is that resistance mechanisms must be present in the population in order for selection to occur. The second is that resistance mechanisms can sometimes be brought in from a related species or even from a related population of the same species. We have access to resistance mechanisms in honeybees. Lets put them to use.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> perhaps it could be more correctly stated that we are arbitrary in what science and information we choose to accept upon which our points of view are founded.


No. There's nothing arbitrary about accepting the fundamentals of scientific understanding! They're not optional! They are fundamental! Reject them and you reject science and the scientific process itself. Is that where you stand?



squarepeg said:


> the myriad of understandings of these mechanisms seen all the way from entry level beekeepers to seasoned career scientists is undeniable. your posts seem to bream with confidence that your understanding is the correct one, but that may by a misinterpretation on my part.


Charles Darwin is celebrated as having made one of the most breathtaking advances in our understanding of life in history. 200 years on no-one had taken even a jot of his central theory away (though a great deal has been added). It has been tested in literally millions of experiments.

You can't opt in or out of the understanding provided by natural selection for the fittest strains without opting out of any faith in science itself. 



squarepeg said:


> i always lend a keen ear when i hear an expert start with, 'there's a lot we don't know, but here's what we are thinking at this point in our understanding.....'.


I can only do this by analogy. You car breaks down. Its towed to a garage. You ask the mechanic what is wrong. He says 'I don't know what is wrong with your car.'

But that doesn't mean there he knows nothing about your car. He can say, unequivically: 'if there is no fuel, then it won't start' (and that might account for the problem) You won't be able to argue with that. It isn't optional. Its a fact. There are thousands of other things he can say, on the same basis, with certainty about your car. About every car. Still, he won't know what is wrong with yours until makes some tests.

Try to get clear: some things are certain, and others not. That Natural selection for the fittest strains constantly attunes all living populations to their environments is in the former catagory. 

You can use that fact, and it the many well-understood matters that surround it, to build an understanding of the factual arrangements that play out in all living things. That's one of the things Ruttner - a trained scientist - is explaining when he speaks of Nature being our teacher. 

These things are not matters of preference. They are simple fundamental scientific facts. Perhaps the fact is: you haven't understood the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific fact?

Mike (UK)


----------



## delber

gmcharlie said:


> Those Packages should have quickly had the same Flora in their guts as your local bees. a slight amount of drifting, coupled with nectar processing/food distibution of honeybees should have quickly spread those microbes around??
> 
> 
> If I am not mistaken you sell some queens, are your customers getting the same results?


I can't argue for the bees, but in our own bodies we need to detox the bad before the good has significant benefit. If our gut is coated with GMO, highly processed flour, hydroginated oils, sugars including HFCS and white, then we can eat great food and we won't get the nutrition from it. This is what I have found in my family.


----------



## JWChesnut

Mike Bispham,
My local Bee Club recently sent round a link to the beekeeping part of your house-remodeling website. The club officers included a gushing note about your expert recommendations for reorganizing bee keeping along scientific lines.

Hope you are beaming with pride that you are having a world-wide impact. You have a very receptive audience in California where (by survey) some 90% of the recent-cohort of "natural" beekeepers believe that everything is being done exactly wrong.

I'm a little skeptical that some early-phase hobbyist should be directing world-wide beekeeping strategy, but the internet is a wonderous thing.


----------



## Michael Bush

>If I am not mistaken you sell some queens, are your customers getting the same results? 

I haven't sold any lately, I've been out of the country for several years and then traveling and speaking and now I'm back home working full time and speaking on weekends. Hopefully I'll get back to queen rearing this spring. Even one speaking engagement throws a wrench into the queen rearing rhythm. But when I was selling queens people were reporting good survival. But I think a lot of them were doing what I'm doing (small cell etc.) which may contribute just as much to their survival.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> No. There's nothing arbitrary about accepting the fundamentals of scientific understanding! They're not optional! They are fundamental! Reject them and you reject science and the scientific process itself. Is that where you stand?
> 
> ....
> 
> I can only do this by analogy. You car breaks down .....


Since you are now back to talking about cars and science, lets discuss your understanding of some basic principles. Remember the car on a hill  analogy that you used earlier ? :scratch:


mike bispham said:


> It comes down to a universal law: the law of conservation of Energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so unless you have an energy source, you can't move an object. [HIGHLIGHT]A hill is a source of energy.[/HIGHLIGHT]


This demonstrates a _fundamental _misunderstanding of Conservation of Energy. It is NOT the _hill _that has the energy, it is the _car_. The car on the hill has _potential energy_, and once the car is down lower on the hill, that reduced potential energy has been converted to heat via friction. Note that no changes have been made to "potential energy" of the hill, so the energy change did not come from the _hill_, it came from the _car_.

In summation ..... :lpf:


mike bispham said:


> These things are not matters of preference. They are simple fundamental scientific facts.


 :lpf: :lpf:



:gh:


----------



## Saltybee

mike bispham said:


> No. There's nothing arbitrary about accepting the fundamentals of scientific understanding! They're not optional! They are fundamental! Reject them and you reject science and the scientific process itself. Is that where you stand?
> Mike (UK)


A bit arrogant. Believing that current science has ever reached a point of finality is not supported by the record. Believing that an individuals efforts to control nature and predict the results by either treating or not treating is also not supported by the record. Nature has a way of moving the finish line.

When methods are freely and consistantly replicated by others I will begin to believe all the factors are understood. Until then, have a little piece of doubt in oneself, the other guy might not be 100% wrong. I've never met anyone who was.


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Perhaps the fact is: you haven't understood the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific fact?


well, having authorship on a few papers in peer reviewed journals and successfully defending a thesis may or may not have instilled in me an adequate understanding of that difference mike however,

my view is that the facts are in flux. strictly applying principles of nature to an less than natural situation is tenuous. you present your point of view regarding bee husbandry as proven and settled when it is everything but that, as more than one contributor on this thread with the background to do so has illustrated with regard to your ideas on breeding. jmho.

at any rate, i'll wager that the average reader is tiring of you and i demonstrating the disconnect we have on this, so with that i'll give you the last word while wishing you all the best with your program.


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## gmcharlie

I have very much enjoyed the discussion of the various thought process.... For themost part its been very civil and educational... up until a this thread I had only one view of the breeding perspectives.


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## Oldtimer

Barry (and Mike) i'll give you that comb in the pic does appear like the recapped cells are more pronounced, and of course, we have all seen similar to that in our own hives.

But if you are going to be looking for recapped cells by looking for that, you are going to miss the great majority of them which appear no different to all the other cells. You have to open the cells and check for evidence a mite was there to really know, this is done under a low power microscope.


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## Barry

mike bispham said:


> Perhaps the fact is: you haven't understood the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific fact?
> 
> Mike (UK)


You can cease hypothesizing about other members' knowledge, thank you.


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## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> Mike Bispham,
> My local Bee Club recently sent round a link to the beekeeping part of your house-remodeling website. The club officers included a gushing note about your expert recommendations for reorganizing bee keeping along scientific lines.
> 
> Hope you are beaming with pride that you are having a world-wide impact. You have a very receptive audience in California where (by survey) some 90% of the recent-cohort of "natural" beekeepers believe that everything is being done exactly wrong.
> 
> I'm a little skeptical that some early-phase hobbyist should be directing world-wide beekeeping strategy, but the internet is a wonderous thing.


Good to hear it! That's a fine Bee Club obviously, and you can be very proud of them. Mind I don't think there's much beekeeping advice on the site - its largely an exposition of the addictive nature of treating. In my signature box if you've missed it World. Signed hard copies a tenner (Sterling) + P&P.

Some people (not me) might suspect this post might be at least in part a crafty sidestep of the critical points I just made in response to your own amateur genetics JW? You will be telling us what you think of those points won't you?

Mike (UK & The World)


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I do hope this post isn't a crafty sidestep of the critical points I just made in response to your own amateur genetics JW? You will be telling us how I've got it wrong again, won't you?
> 
> Mike (UK & The World)





Barry said:


> You can cease hypothesizing about other members' knowledge, thank you.


..


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> This demonstrates a _fundamental _misunderstanding of Conservation of Energy. It is NOT the _hill _that has the energy, it is the _car_. The car on the hill has _potential energy_, and once the car is down lower on the hill, that reduced potential energy has been converted to heat via friction. Note that no changes have been made to "potential energy" of the hill, so the energy change did not come from the _hill_, it came from the _car_.


Rader, you've been swotting up! I'm proud of you Man!

I'd have thought it came from the change in relative position between the car and the centre of Earth's gravity. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Earth moved fractionally upward at the same time the car moved down, in order to maintain the same centre of gravity. I could be wrong.

BTW, the loss of potential energy hasn't necessarily been lost as heat. You could brake with a generator and play loud music if you wanted to, converting it to sound, or charging a battery. You could rig up a machine hammer and do a bit of forging on the way down. 

And it isn't the hill that has the energy. Gravitational potential energy exists in the combination of mass (car) and (vertical) drop. It comes from the change in height (distance from the Earth's centre of gravity)

All of which gets us a bit closer to the realities but misses the point Rader, just like the original distraction. There are facts, and there are hypotheses built (preferably) on facts. Its good to be able to tell the difference. 

Try this one: Rader can't levitate (please don't make me hedge it about with 'no magnets' or suchlike - just take it at face value). 

Question: Fact or mere hypothesis?

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

The point you make is just the way of the internet JWChestnut.

Locally, I have been treated with a fair bit of suspicion by some just starting out, they'll buy their bees from me but I can see are ignoring any advice I may give them because they know better from the internet.

It all changes though if they get away from the computer screen and come out with me and work some actual bees.


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## Fusion_power

> Some people (not me) might suspect this post might be at least in part a crafty sidestep of the critical points I just made in response to your own amateur genetics JW?


The last guy in England who could legitimately lay claim to being a bee geneticist died in 1996 after keeping bees nearly 100 years. To the best of my knowledge, there are only 3 people in the world today who could legitimately make such a claim. One of them is Russian, one is German, and one (maybe) is American. Don't pat yourself on the back so hard, you will knock yourself off the stool and everyone in the pub will stare.



> It all changes though if they get away from the computer screen and come out with me and work some actual bees.


Best point made in this thread so far. Less talk and more pics of bees please.


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## mike bispham

Barry said:


> Not so sure about this. When I first went to SC and was "regressing" all my bees, I would notice cells that had been opened with partially chewed larva as well as untouched larva still alive. The same area had capped cells scattered around that were higher than the others. Worker brood, not drone. Discussing this with Ed and Dee, they felt these were recapped cells. I took photos. Will see if I can find them.


Have you seen a lot of this (uncapped and recapped cells visible in your photos) in your bees Barry? Are you able to say whether, in your experience, there is any sort of correspondence between uncapping/recapping behaviour and general colony fitness in a non-treating context? Would you, in other words, recommend from your own experience selective propagation from bees exhibiting this trait to somebody like Charlie, who is struggling to locate any sort of resistance in his existing bees?

Is looking for uncapping/recapping the best way to evaluate for the vsh trait? 

I haven't studied this, but in my bees, thus far, propensity to perform well seems to correspond to clean 
capped brood. I don't know if this means varroa hasn't built yet (allowing strong performance without the need to uncap/recap), or if the bees are controlling it another way, or if I'm just not looking hard and often enough to spot recapped brood. Where I'm seeing untidy brood I've generally assumed its due to poorly mated queens. I'd like to know more about this so that I can read my brood frames better. 

Having said that I'll be cautious of breeding in too much on this basis alone - I think a more rounded assay based on performance might be better. But I'm trying to put myself in the position of someone like Charlie. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Barry

mike bispham said:


> Have you seen a lot of this (uncapped and recapped cells visible in your photos) in your bees Barry? Are you able to say whether, in your experience, there is any sort of correspondence between uncapping/recapping behaviour and general colony fitness in a non-treating context? Would you, in other words, recommend from your own experience selective propagation from bees exhibiting this trait to somebody like Charlie, who is struggling to locate any sort of resistance in his existing bees?


The only time I've seen this dramatic sign of VSH was when I put all my bees on SC using wax foundation and the shakedown method. Both Dennis Murrell and myself did this about the same time and we both saw this behavior triggered. I never saw this again once I had my bees established. I'd still see the uncapping along with the chewing on larva, but not the recapping. Not saying my bees don't recap at all, but if they do, I'd have to look pretty hard to find it as I've never seen comb again like what I posted before. In my experience, I'd say this activity is a sign of colony weakness and strength. Weakness as a sign of a high mite population, strength that they are actively attacking the mites.


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## Oldtimer

You'll find nearly all interrupted mite families in cells with totally normal looking caps. It cannot be picked by eye.

Mike how about post a pic of your untidy brood, some here can probably figure out what's happening.


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## Fusion_power

> Arguments are one of our best tools - don't denigrate them.


"The man who taught me the most in life was the one who argued with me the hardest and the longest. You don't learn anything from folks who agree with you."

Source, H.D. Jones Sr. My Grandpa. He was the man who argued longest and hardest with me. We once argued for 10 years over a single issue. It gave us both something to look forward to and plenty of time to think of good answers why the other was wrong.

Which is why I enjoy a good argument now and then. It would help if you would do more to provide one. The purpose of this thread is all about presenting different viewpoints effectively so readers can pop some popcorn, pull up a chair, and enjoy the show. After all, that is how Barry keeps the lights on.


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## gmcharlie

Respectful argument, is called discussion. It can be done without snide comments or personal attacks. Some of the comments made to Radar, would fall under my perception of over the line. But thats between them, not me. 
Its clear that sometimes egos are bigger than the points trying to be made.


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## Fusion_power

> Respectful argument, is called discussion.


You mean we don't get to yell, wave our hands, and shake our fists? The quality of a good argument is definitely going downhill.



Mike has his butt hanging in the wind on going treatment free. Lots of posters here who are razzing him haven't got that much gumption. What he is missing at this point is a proven track record of several years with no treatments and thriving colonies of bees. If he is difficult now, just think what he will be like 5 years from now when he is successfully keeping bees that resist mites.


Mike, I seriously think you need a copy of this book. http://www.ebay.com/itm/130908740277


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## gmcharlie

no reason to yell.. if your right.. being louder or snarky does not make you more right.

Well if the 5 year TF department. I am going to call a 8 letter word that starts with bull.
been trying for 3 years to buy some good TF queens... I get either mediocre queens with no Resistance, or "not available" a lot...... If some of the Tf braggers could reproduce there results or sell TF queens that remained TF with no excuses, they would be rich.... 
I personaly bought over a dozen of glens queens without a complaint in the hopes...... Mike, I hope your right, and applaud your efforts. good luck... keep us posted.


----------



## Fusion_power

Why don't you tell your story of trying to get treatment free queens? I'd really be interested in the steps you have taken so far.

Did you try Purvis when they were still selling? Have you checked with Carpenter Apiaries?


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## gmcharlie

because it would piss off several on this site.


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## Barry

Now, now, now, that excuse won't work!


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Actually guys the source of the energy was the method of getting it on the hill to begin with. Once place on the hill, it was stored, or potential energy.
> 
> And i thought you were the professor Mike??


That's a good reply. I was spending too much time trying to figure out what the energy was, rather than where it came from. Stored, or potential gravitational energy might be a better description.

I don't know where you got the proff idea Charlie. I did 'O' Level Physics 40 odd years ago.

Mike (UK)


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## Fusion_power

> I am going to call a 8 letter word that starts with bull.


I call you on it. Plain and simple. My bees are alive. The last time I treated for mites was in the winter of 2004/2005. Ask all the questions you want and I will do my best to show you how I did it. I have 4 colonies sitting on my front porch (they make excellent theft deterrents) that I use for honey production and to raise a few queens each year. One of those colonies has a queen from Carpenter Apiaries. The other three are from my stock that has survived untreated for 8 years. I have 2 more colonies located about 1/2 mile from here to produce drones for queen mating. The woods around here have numerous feral colonies derived from my bees over the last 8 years. I want plenty of bees in the woods because they buffer the effects of beekeepers with treated bees in the area.

I have one colony already selected to raise queens from next spring. That colony is out on my land east of town about 7 miles from here. I want to use them for queens because they produced a decent crop in 2013 and they show no sign of mites in the brood. The only negative at this point is that the queen is 2 1/2 years old. I will have to get some use out of her this spring because queens don't usually last more than 3 seasons here.

Now, give it a go. Tell your story. What steps have you taken and how much time do you have invested in going treatment free? What is working? What is not working? What queens have you tried? How do your mite checks look?


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## gmcharlie

All in fun Mike, all in fun! Seriously, I don't know if your right or wrong, and would not argue against you. I hope your right. Just as much as i hoep the other side works..... I admire your commitment to searching and sincerly hope you find something.


 your tact on the other had might need a little polishing.


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## gmcharlie

Fusion_power said:


> I call you on it. Plain and simple. My bees are alive. The last time I treated for mites was in the winter of 2004/2005. Ask all the questions you want and I will do my best to show you how I did it. I have 4 colonies sitting on my front porch (they make excellent theft deterrents) that I use for honey production and to raise a few queens each year. One of those colonies has a queen from Carpenter Apiaries. The other three are from my stock that has survived untreated for 8 years. I have 2 more colonies located about 1/2 mile from here to produce drones for queen mating. The woods around here have numerous feral colonies derived from my bees over the last 8 years. I want plenty of bees in the woods because they buffer the effects of beekeepers with treated bees in the area.
> 
> I have one colony already selected to raise queens from next spring. That colony is out on my land east of town about 7 miles from here. I want to use them for queens because they produced a decent crop in 2013 and they show no sign of mites in the brood. The only negative at this point is that the queen is 2 1/2 years old. I will have to get some use out of her this spring because queens don't usually last more than 3 seasons here.
> 
> Now, give it a go. Tell your story. What steps have you taken and how much time do you have invested in going treatment free? What is working? What is not working? What queens have you tried? How do your mite checks look?



So then your ready to sell your queens to the general public. I will take 20 as long as the price isn't stupid.


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## TalonRedding

Has anyone ever sat down at the entrance to a hive, and catch the bees that come in with mites attached, and remove the mites by hand?


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## Michael Bush

>they would be rich.... 

Computer programming pays very well. The price would have to be VERY high for me to make more raising queens... I haven't seen any astronomical offers for queens...


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## gmcharlie

1000 queens at 50.00 a pop would be an easy sell... most good queen producers can sell 20k a year without a sweat. Granted NE might not be the best location for that endevor. I know a guy an AR who could do it......OLe Solomon should be right on top of it!

1000 queens would be easier than the 20,000 lbs of honey it would take to generate the same revenues.


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## Michael Bush

>1000 queens would be easier than the 20,000 lbs of honey it would take to generate the same revenues. 

That has been my theory. Bees are easier and cheaper to ship. The problem with queens is it is a tight schedule. I have something that needs to be done every day. Work, I can schedule around (once the days are long enough) although that limits the number somewhat (just the daylight left at the end of the day), but speaking engagements AND work really put a crimp in things. It doesn't help that I'm still trying to get moved into the new place and get the new house all fixed, and get the old house all fixed so I can sell it and work and speak on weekends...


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## Barry

gmcharlie said:


> So then your ready to sell your queens to the general public.


What has this got to do with one being TF?


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## gmcharlie

Point being treatment free does not seem ready for prime time.,, He says i am wrong. Lets put the money down and see how the dice roll.


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## Barry

Certainly prime for a bunch of beekeepers. Maybe not you.


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## gmcharlie

thats my point.... There may very well be some TF guys doing just fine on a small scale, mostly from what I see, thru Manipulations, or possible extreme isolation, and some climate issues. But when it comes time to put the rubber to the road, it certainly seems to be a crap shoot.
Every day someone wins the lottery, by chance not skill....... Hardly right for these winners to rub it in the noses of they guys who got the wrong numbers.
Keep in mind, I am not trying to upset the apple cart. I don't want to tick of someone who may actually have the answer. I wish and HOPE half the stuff claimed was/is transferable. Nothing would please me more, and no way faster to get my dollars of appreciation than show me.

So lets roll. I tested 40 new queens last year, 10 each from 4 places... and all ready to do it again. 
Just don't give mA a song and dance after all the lecturing like the guy from AR


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## Barry

Rub it in? This _IS_ the TF forum. Rubbing it in would be going to the commercial forum and telling them all they got it wrong. If you're here, you're interested in TF beekeeping, looking to learn from those who are, and adding to the forward motion. What's the purpose of trying to derail things? I don't get it. If none of it is applicable to you, so be it. Has there been a standard set as to what size setup TF has to be? It didn't work for you. Why not answer questions that have been asked of you about what you did, where it failed, etc., so there can be some learning?


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## Rader Sidetrack

_Gmcharlie_, you have stated in various threads elsewhere that you have little success in wintering nucs. Yet others in northern climates, for instance _Michael Palmer_, do quite well wintering nucs. Michael Palmer is not a hobbyist beekeeper by any means.

Simply because a particular technique does not work well for you is _not _evidence that similar techniques do not work for other beekeepers.

Treatment free beekeeping may not work well for you, but that does not mean that treatment free beekeeping is unworkable for other beekeepers, even those larger than a backyard scale.


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## Paul McCarty

My point exactly in regards to my (very early) comment about arguments taking place between TF and Non-TF people on the TF forum.


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## gmcharlie

this post is about Options for TF...... I have no problem explaining the test, just a bit leery of posting whos queens were/ are tested. but the point of the original question was seeking support for not being as gung ho for TF.... and what I see is the typical.. "your wrong, I can do it" things. This thread was never supposed to be about "bragging I am TF"

Never tried to "derail" anything.... Just agreeing a bit with the OP, that its not working as promised for 99% ( my guestimate)
One of the reasons I avoid posting in the Tf sections, is it does seem to contain the most contentious post.

As for the test,

10 each of 4 different queens. started at the same time on a single , checked monthly for mite count, and cluster size, and stores.
Simple test really. nothing hard. Randomized locations 1 of each on a pallet, so they got the same locations. 

Of the 4 guys setup origanly to provide queens. 3 never produced. Period, all kinds of reasons. maybe good, maybe not. so Only 1 of last years canidates produced. Quick subsitition. Used that persons, and local mutts, a batch of southern produced queens, and a group of west coast carniolas.

Short story, so far absolutely no differences in mite counts, or honey production, although the carniolas have a slight edge on production (less than 10%) survivbilty so far for this season is a wash.
I dropped out of measuring seems of bees (cluster size) as it didn't provide any info this year. 



As for the 3 last year, one just quit take calls, one claimed he never got any extras, and then bragged about how he filled every ones orders. The 3rd one just flat declined at the last moment,...

I am hopeing that the guys i am going to try this year can and will produce. I started contacting some this week. hopefully that will pan out. Fusion has repeatedly in this thread explianed to us hes got a line thats doing good, Fantastic.. I am in...


----------



## mike bispham

Barry said:


> What has this got to do with one being TF?


Charlie needs resistant stock in order to go tf Barry. Can't we ask each other to help out?

Mike


----------



## TalonRedding

opcorn:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Oik6dXm-0l0

One of my all time favorite scenes...appropriate for both sides of the discussion here perhaps?


----------



## lakebilly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIYz65Vquxg

This is how I recovered from 46 deadouts(60% loss). I do not treat for anything. so far hives appear to be doing ok. I hope to be moving all my yards away from farm crops this year. I think my losses were from mites & crop treatments. Every hive that I split from the M.D. methods are doing well.


----------



## Barry

mike bispham said:


> Charlie needs resistant stock in order to go tf Barry.


Why is that? Most who are TF now didn't start with resistant stock. I sure didn't. I'll put my neck on the block. I'm helping to get my neighbor started in beekeeping. We started in the spring with a package of California bees. The last place anyone would desire their bees to come from! (you west coasters stay out of this!) They are currently alive and over wintering in 3 mediums. We'll be increasing to about four hives total. We're using PF120 foundation in wooden frames. I'll keep you posted.


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## Barry

gmcharlie said:


> Every day someone wins the lottery, by chance not skill....... Hardly right for these winners to rub it in the noses of they guys who got the wrong numbers.


The rain falls on the just and the unjust. If it's chance, it's chance for everyone. For most however, I see people working hard and using skill to be successful with bees.


----------



## Barry

gmcharlie said:


> As for the test,
> 
> 10 each of 4 different queens. started at the same time on a single , checked monthly for mite count, and cluster size, and stores.
> Simple test really. nothing hard. Randomized locations 1 of each on a pallet, so they got the same locations.
> 
> Of the 4 guys setup origanly to provide queens. 3 never produced. Period, all kinds of reasons. maybe good, maybe not. so Only 1 of last years canidates produced. Quick subsitition. Used that persons, and local mutts, a batch of southern produced queens, and a group of west coast carniolas.
> 
> Short story, so far absolutely no differences in mite counts, or honey production, although the carniolas have a slight edge on production (less than 10%) survivbilty so far for this season is a wash.
> I dropped out of measuring seems of bees (cluster size) as it didn't provide any info this year.


Is this the new normal for TF? Is treatment free success all on the back of the right queen? It's at odds with my own experience. I've used a range of queens, never felt this was the stock to bank success on. There was so much more to it than that for me.


----------



## gmcharlie

Barry said:


> The rain falls on the just and the unjust. If it's chance, it's chance for everyone. For most however, I see people working hard and using skill to be successful with bees.


Interesting, this went from a great discussion to a "bash a poster " You assume I haven't worked hard??? really? well not going to get into that match. All I did was ask for some queens from someone here that claims to have it solved. (and apparently he then vanished)

Queen genetics have been touted as the answer by everyone. A cpl claim Small cell, but other than that the only other soulution has been constant splitting......
the local web experts have claimed thats not true. all I asked for was a sip of that same koolaid....


----------



## Barry

You're the one who equated the lottery with those who have had success with TF inferring it was chance. As I said, we all work under the same chance. You work hard, and so do "those" TF beekeepers that are having success.

Ask for queens, but realize you're asking for something that took someone else years to acquire through hard work as well. I didn't see anything in your test that would be any different than a guy who treats, except you didn't treat. I didn't realize that's what TF has come to. It sure wasn't that simple and easy for me.


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## Fusion_power

> all I asked for was a sip of that same koolaid


I understand your position, but in this case, you haven't pumped the water, or stirred in the sugar and flavoring. In other words, you want someone else's koolaid to drink. This is not necessarily a bad thing, you just need to find someone who has koolaid to share. I'm not a queen breeder by choice. I run a business growing and selling tomato plants which means I am super busy at the time most beekeepers are raising queens. This does not mean I can't raise queens, but it does mean I can't do them on someone else's schedule.

I will see if I can work in a few extra queens this spring, but no promises and no argument if I can't work them in.


----------



## gmcharlie

Fusion_power said:


> I understand your position, but in this case, you haven't pumped the water, or stirred in the sugar and flavoring. In other words, you want someone else's koolaid to drink. This is not necessarily a bad thing, you just need to find someone who has koolaid to share. I'm not a queen breeder by choice. I run a business growing and selling tomato plants which means I am super busy at the time most beekeepers are raising queens. This does not mean I can't raise queens, but it does mean I can't do them on someone else's schedule.
> 
> I will see if I can work in a few extra queens this spring, but no promises and no argument if I can't work them in.


Didn't pump the water?? or stir?? really.. you make this assumption how?? based on 5 years of actual studies that don't agree with the claims?? based on thousands of dollars spent on "perfect queens" or maybe its the hours spent hunting down local feral queens that are not up to snuff???

Wow some people her really do think they walk on water....

I wouldn't argue a bit, been very careful to not name the others who made claims and then changed there minds... except for the one who lied about it...... Never my point to "call out" or rub noses. Just trying to see if the same results can be duplicated.


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## rhaldridge

Barry said:


> You're the one who equated the lottery with those who have had success with TF inferring it was chance. As I said, we all work under the same chance. You work hard, and so do "those" TF beekeepers that are having success.
> 
> Ask for queens, but realize you're asking for something that took someone else years to acquire through hard work as well. I didn't see anything in your test that would be any different than a guy who treats, except you didn't treat. I didn't realize that's what TF has come to. It sure wasn't that simple and easy for me.


Some of the participants in these discussions are driving motorized goal posts. For example, gmcharlie seems to feel that if you use brood breaks to knock back mite populations, you aren't really a TF beekeeper. Apparently that's an "extreme manipulation." 

It's almost as though you have to keep bees exactly like grampa did, or it doesn't count.

My beginner opinion is that genetics are only a part of the solution, at least at this point.


----------



## mike bispham

Barry said:


> Why is that? Most who are TF now didn't start with resistant stock. I sure didn't. I'll put my neck on the block. I'm helping to get my neighbor started in beekeeping. We started in the spring with a package of California bees. The last place anyone would desire their bees to come from! (you west coasters stay out of this!) They are currently alive and over wintering in 3 mediums. We'll be increasing to about four hives total. We're using PF120 foundation in wooden frames. I'll keep you posted.


Is that a house rule? You must start with duff stock? A lot of people believe that unless you are lucky enough to have a functional feral population nearby, importing resistant genes will make things a lot faster. Is that against some tf rule? If not why not encourage and facilitate it? 

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Some of the participants in these discussions are driving motorized goal posts. For example, gmcharlie seems to feel that if you use brood breaks to knock back mite populations, you aren't really a TF beekeeper. Apparently that's an "extreme manipulation."


I believe that too Ray. At least, if that's all you do, or the main method. If you're also breeding hard its more or less John Kefus' Soft Bond method. 

Artificial brood breaks remove the evolutionary/breeding pressure. You need that pressure to get to self sufficient bees. That's the only proper yardstick - in my view. 

Mike (UK)


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## Barry

mike bispham said:


> Is that a house rule? You must start with duff stock?


No, it's a very real house option. There are very few "rules" in beekeeping. I'm speaking from experience. I believe you're speaking theory, primarily. How long have you been TF?


----------



## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> really.. you make this assumption how??
> 
> based on 5 years of actual studies that don't agree with the claims??


Stay cool Charlie. A really good run down of exactly what you did do - your own experience - would help others evaluate your effort, and perhaps help see why it didn't work.

5 years of studying those that failed doesn't really amount to much here. We tend to be interested in studying those that are succeeding.



gmcharlie said:


> based on thousands of dollars spent on "perfect queens" or maybe its the hours spent hunting down local feral queens that are not up to snuff???


It could be that you're taking queens that might have made it treated more carefully, and ferals that aren't up to scratch because they're little more than escapees. If you're putting these queens among other hives containing fiercely fecund mites, a little drift, a little robbing - its easy to see where things might have gone wrong.

But I'm just speculating. Without a clear idea of what you did its impossible to evaluate that sort of scenario.



gmcharlie said:


> Just trying to see if the same results can be duplicated.


As others have pointed out, duplication means working your own way up. You've already learned that you can't duplicate their (claimed) results by just dumping them among yours. Its likely they got to their results by keeping well away from - no offense - bees like yours. That's the bit you might have to duplicate. You might have to do other things too.

Tell us what you did.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Barry said:


> No, it's a very real house option. There are very few "rules" in beekeeping. I'm speaking from experience. I believe you're speaking theory, primarily. How long have you been TF?


There are a few good rules in husbandry. Call them 'theory' all you like. The 'theory' has been around a long time, and seems to be universally accepted by all successful tf beekeepers I've ever talked with. 

Four years. And no recourse to artificial comb. 

Do you stay with artificial comb btw, or do you let them build their own once 'regressed'?

Mike (UK)


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## Barry

I have stayed with the comb I started with, which was SC wax foundation. Some true to size, a lot a mixture of size. Never have gone to foundationless comb. Working with plastic SC now and like what I see.


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## mike bispham

Barry said:


> I have stayed with the comb I started with, which was SC wax foundation. Some true to size, a lot a mixture of size. Never have gone to foundationless comb. Working with plastic SC now and like what I see.


Any idea what happens when your bees have to go without? Swarms outward - do they un-'regress' and fall prey to mites because they're back in big cells? 

Is this a known in the sc community - what happens when you take away the prop? What's the evidence?

Mike (UK)


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## gmcharlie

Agreed Mike... As for moving goal post, hardly... I fully agree you can keep bees Via constant manapulation instead of treating, But thats not what SOME are claiming. several of the guys claim they never manipulate, I could list them, but its a moot point. of you follow this TF thread you know who they are....
I am NOT saying they are wrong... I will say that if there correct, they are foolish. the value in sales of what they seem to have is huge! billions are spent every year on bees. You have the answer and you don't have time to share?? really?? 

But back to the point Mike, I didn't "dump them in with losers" and even if I did, that should be a moot point?? everybody keeping there hives isolated out in the woods and just using them that way to pick queens?? not ready for prime time.

My hives are spread over a 2 county area. no more than 8 to a spot, queen test are just the 4 being tested in that location. Mite counts were dropped as much as possible by brood breaks before the start. and the hives used were "clean" no treated combs whatsoever. (thats changing this year) OA seems to be a requirement.

I did 2 years on natural, and small cell, and found no differences in Mite levels. Not saying they are bad, but the results were surprisingly the same as before. 
Keep in mind I started a lot of this testing, because as an engineer, I know its better to do the test, than debate it. I drank the Kool-aid I think Tf is the right way to go... so been testing it. I even bought a lot of the Hype that its "southern queens" so tested that a bit also. 
I have tested VSH and hygenic queens also... Got to admit, never checked mites to see if there chewed on...... 
I have had a cpl of hives that showed early promise. Low mites... unfortunatly that has not stuck. I think a lot of those good results were based on supercedures, as they were unmarked queens.

If "duplication" means you have to follow up the mountain in my tracks and if you miss a step it doesn't work, then its hocus pocus...not an answer.
If the perfect solution, only works, say in the desert of NM, or wherever, then its not any progress...

Again, my goal is not to point out hypocrisy or anything else.. its to try what others are claiming works. Unfortunately it seems to me that certain areas when you call , your suddenly the bad guy....... 
Heck, I would love to try some of yours, but given the regulations, that won't work out.

Maybe we just have super mites....here in the midwest.


----------



## Saltybee

Barry, as one who is guilty of using the lottery analogy I apologize in part. It does imply it is all luck and not skill. 
When I read someone say the equivalent of " I caught my first swarm, never treated and never had a problem, what is wrong with you." Well the lottery does come to mind. Not denying I may hear it when it is not being said either.
No insult intended.


----------



## Barry

gmcharlie said:


> I will say that if there correct, they are foolish. the value in sales of what they seem to have is huge! billions are spent every year on bees. You have the answer and you don't have time to share?? really??


Again, you seem to be the one saying _this_ is the answer. What other longterm TF beekeeper is saying this? I think of Lusby and Bush as two examples. I've never heard either one say this is the silver bullet.


----------



## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> But back to the point Mike, I didn't "dump them in with losers" and even if I did, that should be a moot point??


Yes and no... 



gmcharlie said:


> My hives are spread over a 2 county area. no more than 8 to a spot, queen test are just the 4 being tested in that location.


Is that adjacent to, mixed with... this might be a critical point 

The mites in treated apiaries may well be stupidly fecund - the system effectively breeds them that way. The bees and mites that can co-exist quite likely rely - at times - on mites 'bred' by the (VSH) bees to have few offspring - that can't therefore blow up their population quickly, and are thus controllable.

This co-evolved state may well be able to handle the odd influx of apiary mites (which will breed with the less fecund, breeding out high fecundity) but unable to cope with strong influxes. Some distance is therefore a game-maker.

Does that sound useful?



gmcharlie said:


> Got to admit, never checked mites to see if there chewed on......


Have you tried the frozen-brood test? (Has anyone here used the frozen brood test?)



gmcharlie said:


> If "duplication" means you have to follow up the mountain in my tracks and if you miss a step it doesn't work, then its hocus pocus...not an answer.


It might just be a snag Charlie, something like too close to too many of the wrong sort of mites, that and one or two other things. 

Have you given a proper Soft Bond method a go? 



gmcharlie said:


> Again, my goal is not to point out hypocrisy or anything else.. its to try what others are claiming works. Unfortunately it seems to me that certain areas when you call , your suddenly the bad guy.......


Tell me about it



gmcharlie said:


> Maybe we just have super mites....here in the midwest.


Maybe not confined to the midwest, but to all systematically treating apiaries. Maybe anyplace where there are too many of them nearby.

What about that Soft Bond, lowering treatment levels to a minimum and using frozen brood tests on your 20% most productive; doing what you cen to get the stronger drone numbers up...? (As I recall)

Mike (UK)


----------



## Barry

Saltybee said:


> Barry, as one who is guilty of using the lottery analogy I apologize in part. It does imply it is all luck and not skill.
> When I read someone say the equivalent of " I caught my first swarm, never treated and never had a problem, what is wrong with you." Well the lottery does come to mind. Not denying I may hear it when it is not being said either.
> No insult intended.


OK, I didn't go back far enough to see where this phrase started. But in your context, I have no problem with the lottery comparison. It's addressing a specific mindset/group within TF. Until I see someone keeping bees TF for over say 5 years, I don't put much weight in their "success." I also don't require success to mean they've grown to 100 plus hives. As long as they can maintain their numbers without treatments, great, that works for me.


----------



## mike bispham

Barry said:


> As long as they can maintain their numbers without treatments, great, that works for me.


Two serious questions Barry:

Do brood breaks count as 'treatment' for you? 

How about small cell foundation and plastic comb?

Also; do you agree with my gold standard: tf is reached only when bees are able to thrive completely unaided?

Mike (UK)


----------



## Barry

gmcharlie said:


> If the perfect solution, only works, say in the desert of NM, or wherever, then its not any progress...


I agree. And the perfect solution is not perfect. It's tailored to fit each beekeeper in their local environment. The stresses your bees encounter are not necessarily the ones my bees experience. The point of TF is to work through all the issues and test to see what works. Even most commercial beekeepers do this. Some find they can manage with very little treatment and have even narrowed it down to which treatment is the softest and still be effective. You won't hear me saying it works for me so you have to do it my way.


----------



## gmcharlie

interesting thoughts Mike, most of the hives are more than a Mile apart (forage issues here in crop ground) interesting thought about mites. I would add that 3 years ago, I lost ALL hives in a late march snowstorm, so theoretically i started over with mite also...

I fully agree that Mite control may be a Compound solution. IPM, SBB, small cell, local desert and some genetic line. But so far Few to None have been able to move that combo out of certian areas.
Its extremely rude and arrogant to come on a site like this and say " I can do it so you havent paid your dues" when the answer is so much more complex. Barrys and other comments that I haven't worked that hard are just that. 

What's even worse in my mind, is if you have the complete answer, one that "can be duplicated" and your sitting on it. Okay so your not greedy and don't want to "sell queens" but your going to keep your secrets and genetics to yourself?? wow thats the worst thing I can think of..

Thats like owning the cure for cancer and keeping it to your self.

MB and Lusbys methods are being copied and tested everywhere... and like the OP in this thread. not all is Joy in beeland.

As for my breeding, I am not a bee genetics wizards. what little breeding I do is the best to the best... usualy the top 5 %.... and i make absolutely no claims about my breeding, other than they lay great and make honey.


----------



## Barry

mike bispham said:


> Two serious questions Barry:
> 
> Do brood breaks count as 'treatment' for you?


Never have done brood breaks as a treatment. Have done some splits, but not a normal practice.



> How about small cell foundation and plastic comb?


Call it a treatment, that's fine by me. I think that's a purest pov. I don't see it as a treatment in the sense we refer to treatments everywhere else on the forum.



> Also; do you agree with my gold standard: tf is reached only when bees are able to thrive completely unaided?
> 
> Mike (UK)


No. The way we are defining and discussing TF is in the sticky thread at the top. You're free to have your own definition however.


----------



## Barry

gmcharlie said:


> Its extremely rude and arrogant to come on a site like this and say " I can do it so you havent paid your dues" when the answer is so much more complex. Barrys and other comments that I haven't worked that hard are just that.


I think you're being overly critical and sensitive to my remarks. You're reading into them and coming to conclusions that are not intended by me. I've never said you haven't worked hard.



> What's even worse in my mind, is if you have the complete answer, one that "can be duplicated" and your sitting on it.


It's not the complete answer, but if you want to believe it is, go ahead.


----------



## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Its extremely rude and arrogant to come on a site like this and say " I can do it so you havent paid your dues" when the answer is so much more complex.


Forgive me Charlie: its also extremely rude and arrogant to come on the tf forum, set up to allow people who want to talk about tf beekeeping to do so in peace, and constantly interrupt the discussions with the 'I've tried it and it doesn't work' routine. You're not the only one - its pretty much a constant.

Just because you've had a go and failed doesn't mean it isn't going to work anytime, anyplace. Holding that line is illogical as well as insulting to all those who have shared their experiences of success. Some, you're right, will be kidding themselves - at least as you and I see 'proper tf' - as genetically based and measured by health self-sufficiency.

The fact is it its easier for some, and harder for others, due to setting and availabilty of good genetics, and for people in your situation I'm beginning to think it does take a bit more application than you've put in.



gmcharlie said:


> As for my breeding, I am not a bee genetics wizards. what little breeding I do is the best to the best... usualy the top 5 %.... and i make absolutely no claims about my breeding, other than they lay great and make honey.


If that's 'best' under conditions of systematic treatment, nothing at all is being done to raise resistance/lower mite fecundity. You have to add that to your breeding aim, then figure out how to assay it effectively. 

Again, have you looked at Soft Bond? That's designed for your setting. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Barry said:


> Never have done brood breaks as a treatment. Have done some splits, but not a normal practice.


Thanks. Important to know.



Barry said:


> Call it a treatment, that's fine by me. I think that's a purest pov.


I don't know what that means, and I would like to know.



Barry said:


> I don't see it as a treatment in the sense we refer to treatments everywhere else on the forum.


Perhaps its worth having another look at this. Brood breaks aren't officially regarded as treatments here either, but they certainly are artificial props that remove selective pressure for co-evolution. Do you think that doesn't matter? 



Barry said:


> No. The way we are defining and discussing TF is in the sticky thread at the top. You're free to have your own definition however.


That a recipe for getting nowhere. Am I free to put forward an argument for changing that Barry? 

Can we note from the sticky: 

"It is a forum with the stated purpose of discussing how to keep bees by letting them cope with disease *on their own*."

Mike (UK)


----------



## Barry

When I accessed this page, the ad to the right said this:

"Grocery stores fear him! Man creates brain-dead simple system that cuts your grocery bill by 90%! Watch free video now!"

Have to chuckle with the linking to this thread!



mike bispham said:


> How about small cell foundation and plastic comb?
> 
> Posted by *Barry*  "Call it a treatment, that's fine by me. I think that's a purest pov."
> 
> 
> I don't know what that means, and I would like to know.


I don't consider the use of foundation a treatment, that's all. Perhaps you do?



> Brood breaks aren't officially regarded as treatments here either, but they certainly are artificial props that remove selective pressure for co-evolution. Do you think that doesn't matter?


Brood breaks are manipulations, not treatments. If some want to do it, fine. It's not been a part of my management. Does it matter, perhaps, but I'll leave that discussion for those who want to dive into it.



> That a recipe for getting nowhere. Am I free to put forward an argument for changing that Barry?


Of course, everyone is free to dialog, debate, argue, all ideas here. I don't claim to have all the answers or know it all. I can share what my experience has been.

Have to go to the gym and work on my bum ankle. Be back later.


----------



## Fusion_power

> Barry:Call it a treatment, that's fine by me. I think that's a purest pov.
> Mike:I don't know what that means, and I would like to know.


Use the word "purist" and POV=Point of View meaning that a purist insists on absolute purity.

In this context, the natural size of honeybee cells is about 4.9. Starting just over 100 years ago, foundation mills were made larger up to 5.7 though most are in the 5.3 range. The result was larger bees and over time, the larger bees became a genetic variant. Going back to 4.9 which is natural for bees, in my opinion, is not a treatment. It is removing an artificial prop introduced by beekeepers in an effort to breed a larger honeybee. For similar reasons, I use 11 frames in the broodnest because this is the natural spacing that bees make combs on their own. So I am on both 4.9 foundation in the broodnest and using 11 frames at 31mm (1.25 inches). I do not see this as an artificial prop, it is just going back to what bees were before man started monkeying around. Add in the factor that I have several colonies on 5.3 foundation with 10 frames and they are thriving just as much as the small cell bees. You will conclude like I did that the source of mite tolerance is primarily genetic.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Add in the factor that I have several colonies on 5.3 foundation with 10 frames and they are thriving just as much as the small cell bees. You will conclude like I did that the source of mite tolerance is primarily genetic. 

Or that mites even out because of drifting in a yard and your small cell are the cause of them all succeeding...


----------



## mike bispham

Barry said:


> Of course, everyone is free to dialog, debate, argue, all ideas here. I don't claim to have all the answers or know it all. I can share what my experience has been.


Thanks Barry.

Its my view that there is a standing conflict between the stated objective of this forum...

"*It is a forum with the stated purpose of discussing how to keep bees by letting them cope with disease on their own*."

...and the inclusion of brood breaks in the category not-a-treatment. 

The same might be said for the further items:

Systematic splitting
Small cell foundation
Drone comb removal
Sticky Boards

My reasoning is this: any act, or artifact, that helps bees to survive/thrive will, all else being equal, tend to remove pressure to adapt.

I don't think anyone well familar with animal husbandry and tf beekeeping fails to understand that control of genetics is non-optional. Bees will never "cope with disease on their own" unless they are coming from parents who coped on their own. Raising resistance/encouraging co-evolution isn't an option - its mission-critical. 

Anything that tends to undermine that needs to be clearly labelled as such.

This is obviously a problem (I think) with brood breaks, and where systematic splitting is causing the same effect, there too. (I'm not sure what sticky boards are to be honest, but if they are what I think they are the same applies)

Having these items treated in this way therefore steers beekeepers interested in tf in the wrong direction, and means that discussions involving these items are either carried on in an ill-informed way, or discussion are at cross-purposes - or constantly redirected into explanations and repeated arguments about the status and effects of i.e. brood breaks.

None of that is to say these things mustn't ever be used - only that to be consistent with the aim "*cope with disease on their own*" they _must_ be used in conjuction with other acts designed to eventually free them from the need. They cannot be viewed as permanant solutions. 

If the reasoning above is sound, then these items belong in the catagory with the other co-evolution-undermining actions - the 'treatments' proper. 

Or perhaps a third catagory: 'Transitive tools'.

It hadn't occurred to me before today that the same sort of thing may be in play with small cell foundation. Are beekeepers raising bees that only cope with varroa while on artificial foundation/comb? 

Does any of this matter? Well, if there is an inconsistency between the stated aim of the forum and the terms by which discussion takes place, I'd say that's a problem in itself. If it leads to a false view of the mechanics at work, I'd say again its a problem.

Equally, for me is this: any form of 'tf' beekeeping that undermines wild/feral bees is bad news. This is largely because: we need that breeding pool, where natural selection can churn away, giving us, free of charge, strong, self-sufficient bees. We benefit enormously - I would say critically - from that. And the bee species needs that too. 

'Tf' is new, and our conception of what it means, and which items are critical, which helpful, is evolving as we learn more about bee husbandry. You (Barry) have conveyed the official position: "Brood breaks are manipulations, not treatments." It's my contention that that arrangement is problematic. If both 'manipulations' and 'treatments' have exactly the same consequence in term of the critical issue of genetic improvement, then we'd be better served by regarding them as belonging to the same catagory. 

It is then my belief that we could usefully reconsider the tf/non-tf catagories in the sticky. My suggestion would be to start with a proper rexamination of the effects of brood breaks, for which I think there is the strongest case for a review, and then see if the upshot of that discussion has implications for the other items I've raised.

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

Anyone want to place any bets on how quickly the Treatment Free forum _definitions _will be re-written?

opcorn:


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> Use the word "purist" and POV=Point of View meaning that a purist insists on absolute purity.


Thanks FP



Fusion_power said:


> In this context, the natural size of honeybee cells is about 4.9.


It's my understanding that that is assumption not bourne out be measurements of natural population. These vary a good deal - if I remember rightly bees/cells tend to get bigger in the cooler regions.



Fusion_power said:


> Starting just over 100 years ago, foundation mills were made larger up to 5.7 though most are in the 5.3 range. The result was larger bees...


That would be so in some places only...



Fusion_power said:


> and over time, the larger bees became a genetic variant.


If they can be 'regressed' (and stay small when building natural comb) I might agree. Otherwise I'm not sure that thinking of them as genetic variants is accurate.



Fusion_power said:


> Going back to 4.9 which is natural for bees, in my opinion, is not a treatment.


See above. I know the small cell arguments (I think). What I want to know is whether they have a scientific basis. And, again, what happens when bees 'regreesed bees escape.



Fusion_power said:


> For similar reasons, I use 11 frames in the broodnest because this is the natural spacing that bees make combs on their own.


Are you sure about this? Everywhere? Are you sure it isn't an average - masking considerable variation? Most of the wild nests I've cut out have comb all over the place, fat comb, thin comb, wobbly spacing.... (They seem more orderly in geometrically regular spaces - but natural spaces aren't very geometrically regular.



Fusion_power said:


> So I am on both 4.9 foundation in the broodnest and using 11 frames at 31mm (1.25 inches). I do not see this as an artificial prop, it is just going back to what bees were before man started monkeying around.


Let's say the jury is out on that one, and ask this: what happens if you let them build naturally, as the ferals around you will? Will they revert to being larger, and lose some critical feature that has been helping them mamage varroa?

I use standard spacing (for convenience and because I don't think it matters but let them make their own comb. That way they not only make what they think best (and its very variable in cell size - and I think that might be important to them) - they also get to make as many drone cells as they want. And I think that is definately important.



Fusion_power said:


> Add in the factor that I have several colonies on 5.3 foundation with 10 frames and they are thriving just as much as the small cell bees. You will conclude like I did that the source of mite tolerance is primarily genetic.


I wish I'd read all the way to the bottom before I started! Yes. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Anyone want to place any bets on how quickly the Treatment Free forum _definitions _will be re-written?


Which side are you on, how do you handle 'quickly' and what odds are you offering?

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

I'm not on any "side".

Consider that _Barry _is the currently moderator of this TF forum. Clearly the current TF definitions are suitable in Barry's opinion, otherwise IMHO he would change them.

So IMHO, unless a _new _moderator (someone with a Kevlar suit  and a suitable _moderator _disposition) comes along to moderate this TF forum, the TF definitions are not changing anytime soon.


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## gmcharlie

Time for me to Once again drop out of the TF discussion..... As a follower of the religion whos having doubts, and wants some evidence.. its becoming apparent that doubters are not welcome....... Starting to feel cultish again.


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## Saltybee

Mike (UK), to carry it to the illogical conclusion; How can you be anti-husbandry and do cut outs? Or provide frames, bodies?

You could bore a hole in a tree and wait ten years for rot to set in. I would give you that as all natural. I might insist that you go to the native locality of each bee to do it though.

Purity of "all natural" runs into reality eventually, it is just a matter of where. Any contact between man and bee in excess of your personal view is excessive and is holding back evolution? Enjoy reading you, even when you venture a little over the top. Well maybe that is why I read. Just have to not follow down the rabbit hole too far.


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## Paul McCarty

Honeybees are about as natural as house cats - even the feral ones. Unless they are Apis Florea or Dorsata or something like that, none of them are natural any more. Man has been messing with them too much.


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## Fusion_power

To address MBush's concern, the small cell bees are here at my home and on my land 7 miles east of town. The bees on large cell are at my mother's home about 155 miles from here. Once I got got my bees all with a high level of mite tolerance and saturated the area with mite tolerant swarms, my bees started surviving on their own whether on small cell or large cell. I have seen a few losses due to mites, but the last one that I could conclusively say was mite related was 4 years ago and just happened to be on small cell. Since then, I've had a few colonies that went queenless and a few others that failed for other reasons. I just make splits and replace any losses. Also, I've been getting other beekeepers in this area set up with colonies of my bees, otherwise, I would have closer to 20 colonies at present. I would rather see more beekeepers with bees that can handle the mites than to own what would be for me an unmanageable number of colonies.

Mike, I actually have some natural built comb from one of my colonies this past year. They were a swarm that I deliberately hived into an empty box. I took several measures when I cut out the comb a few weeks ago and just so you can have more to think about, I grabbed an accurate ruler and measured the comb just now. Worker cells are built at 4.95 and drones at 6.6. Also, I took measurements at several locations and there was very little variation. Worker cells are pretty much uniform at 4.95 throughout the comb. From previous experience, a large cell colony will build comb slightly smaller than 5.3, usually about 5.1 on their own. Now you know what size cells my bees build when on their own.

I have also measured center to center distance on combs in a ton of colonies over the years. Brood combs in the center of the brood nest always average out at 31 to 32 mm though AMM colonies are 32 mm to 33 mm. Honey storage combs are always much thicker and drone combs are always thickest of all at roughly 1.5 inches thick though I have seen a few natural drone combs full of honey that were a full 2 inches thick. Keep in mind that I have used 11 frames in the brood nest since 1977, this is not something new.


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## Barry

mike bispham said:


> I use standard spacing (for convenience and because I don't think it matters but let them make their own comb. That way they not only make what they think best (and its very variable in cell size - and I think that might be important to them)


This is a bit funny, isn't it? You're a purist "all natural" in your argument of others, but you say right here that "you" chose a certain spacing because "you" don't think it matters and it's convenient for you. They [bees] can't change your frame spacing if they thought it better to be closer or farther apart. How do you figure they can change that? I think Saltybee is right on.


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## Fusion_power

> Enjoy reading you, even when you venture a little over the top. Well maybe that is why I read. Just have to not follow down the rabbit hole too far.


When you stop having fun in life, not much matters any more. Fortunately, we have things to do, places to go, and lots to think about re honeybees. My problem is with that rabbit hole. I think Saltybee might have gone too far and now he is stuck. Reminds me of the time pooh bear got caught in rabbits door and rabbit turned pooh's rear end into a wall decoration.


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## jmgi

>Let's say the jury is out on that one, and ask this: what happens if you let them build naturally, as the ferals around you will? Will they revert to being larger, and lose some critical feature that has been helping them mamage varroa?

Mike Bush could probably comment, quite possibly he has done this already.


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## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> I believe that too Ray. At least, if that's all you do, or the main method. If you're also breeding hard its more or less John Kefus' Soft Bond method.
> 
> Artificial brood breaks remove the evolutionary/breeding pressure. You need that pressure to get to self sufficient bees. That's the only proper yardstick - in my view.
> 
> Mike (UK)


I don't understand this point of view. Brood breaks are entirely natural-- every successful feral colony uses that method when they swarm. How does something that bees have evolved to do eliminate evolutionary pressure?

Beekeepers have long bred for non-swarming bees. That may have been a bad idea, in some respects. But animal husbandry is all about directing the natural behavior of animals to the benefit of the animal keeper. There are ways of engineering brood breaks that do not negatively impact colony strength or production-- for example, the cut-down split just prior to a major flow.
The guy I got my first bees from-- a really helpful guy who sold me some great bees--- was kind enough to take my wife and me around his yard when we picked up the nuc. He had some massive hives that he was feeding day and night to get ready for the tupelo bloom. When we looked into these hives, he had swarm cells everywhere. he told me that he'd had the same thing happen the year before-- his bees had left for the trees just prior to being moved to the river bottom. Looked like it was happening again. Later he told me they'd swarmed, despite his efforts to cut the swarm cells.

He'd been keeping bees for 30 years, and I didn't even have a single bee to my name, so I was too shy to ask him why he hadn't done a cut down split.


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## jmgi

rhaldridge, I think I'm with you on your logic about brood breaks, I mean its not like someone is going to give a hive a half dozen brood breaks in a season, that would be counterproductive to say the least, but one or two, that could easily happen naturally anyway.


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## Paul McCarty

The trick is to do the break the way they swarm. It's all in the timing. Most hives if they haven't swarmed in Spring, will definitely try before Fall. I too do not see how this could affect natural selection.


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## beekuk

jmgi said:


> I mean its not like someone is going to give a hive a half dozen brood breaks in a season, that would be counterproductive to say the least, but one or two, that could easily happen naturally anyway.


I does happen naturally with around 85% of my bees, usually from third week in August to around third week in September.


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## TalonRedding

> My reasoning is this: any act, or artifact, that helps bees to survive/thrive will, all else being equal, tend to remove pressure to adapt.
> 
> I don't think anyone well familar with animal husbandry and tf beekeeping fails to understand that control of genetics is non-optional. Bees will never "cope with disease on their own" unless they are coming from parents who coped on their own. Raising resistance/encouraging co-evolution isn't an option - its mission-critical.


First off, these two statements contradict one another, at least they do to me. I am struggling as to how "controlling" genetics is non -optional, yet any act or artifact that is used to help bees survive will reduce the pressure to adapt. I'm assuming by what you have previously said that removing adaptive pressure is a bad thing? Which is it then? Do we control genetics or do we do nothing? Isn't "controlling genetics" an"act"? On top of that you use the term "animal husbandry". If you are striving for purist, I suggest you consider the life of John, who lived in the desert and ate wild honey. He didn't keep bees, but he GATHERED wild honey. Therefore, he abided by what you say better than anyone here is doing, including yourself. If one's duty is animal husbandry, than they should probably husband animals. But with your logic, animal husbandry is not taking care of animals, it is leaving them to whatever end and saying that you've done something.
I'm not trying to rile anyone's feathers, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. You can't be a purist at letting the bees do their thing while you keep them in a square container that's probably painted and has frames for them to build on. You just can't.


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## Barry

mike bispham said:


> Its my view that there is a standing conflict between the stated objective of this forum...


I'm sure every member has some conflict with some part of this forum.



> They cannot be viewed as permanant solutions.


Maybe not, but permanent solutions are not the stated objective. I don't know of anyone, except perhaps you, who would think a permanent solution is doable, outside of letting nature take its course where we have a 70, 80, 90%? dieoff and then work up with survivors. That won't happen in our lifetime.


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## mike bispham

Barry said:


> This is a bit funny, isn't it? You're a purist "all natural" in your argument of others,


No I'm not. I want to interfere as little as partly possible because the more I interfere the more likely it is when things go wrong I won't know which of my interferences has caused the problem.

But there isn't much natural about the sort of selective propagation I do, and advocate. I'm not 'all natural' as you say at all. I do emphasise the importance of natural selection, because I think you need to understand how things work in the real natural world in order to be a good husbandryman. Breeding is the all-important thing. Not removing selective pressure to adapt is the important thing.

As to comb, look: 

Priority: Make lots of colonies from just a few.

Reason: So that any losses don't matter too much, and so that I can breed effectively

Therefore: Use a system that allows rapid checking of brood and extraction for reproductive purposes

Solution: The frame approach.

Can you see any other way to achieve the same ends without taking the frame approach? 

If you have good evidence, or other reason that suggests altering the standard spacing is a good idea, I'll listen - but adopting it would mean lots of work. I'd need to know that was good use of my time. I've asked FP for more detail about his reasons.

When it comes to brood foundation I have two choices: Large cell or none. And I think its a good idea to choose 'none'. If I could get small cell I'd still choose none. I don't want to be in the business of forcing a cell size on my bees. It just seems wrong.



Barry said:


> but you say right here that "you" chose a certain spacing because "you" don't think it matters and it's convenient for you.


If I could thing of a way of doing what I need to do and let the bees choose the spacing maybe I would. To be honest I've never given it much thought.



> I think Saltybee is right on.


I'll go back and look at his post again. I don't really understand what this is all about. Because I think brood breaks interfere with the development of resistance, you want to attack my style of beekeeping? Is that it?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gmcharlie said:


> Time for me to Once again drop out of the TF discussion..... As a follower of the religion whos having doubts, and wants some evidence.. its becoming apparent that doubters are not welcome....... Starting to feel cultish again.


I hope it wasn't something I said. Good luck Charlie.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Saltybee said:


> Mike (UK), to carry it to the illogical conclusion; How can you be anti-husbandry and do cut outs?


Eh???? What on earth makes you think I'm 'anti-husbandry'? 

I argue, constantly, for _effective husbandry_ I make the case again and again that because bees mate openly we have to husband _*the populations, not the individuals*_. I argue that is what traditional beekeeping has always done. 

I argue that to medicate and (allow to) breed amounts to anti-husbandry. That's what it says in my signature box!

Again, someone seems to want a black and white picture, all or nothing, natural or anything-goes 'husbandry'?

How on earth can you adopt this view here in the tf forum! This place is all about an 'alternative' method of husbandry!



Saltybee said:


> Or provide frames, bodies?
> 
> You could bore a hole in a tree and wait ten years for rot to set in. I would give you that as all natural. I might insist that you go to the native locality of each bee to do it though.


None of this belongs with me. I advocate traditional husbandry - as practiced for tens of thousands of years, the foundation of agriculture. As used, amost alone, to keep stock fit and productive right up to the post-war era.

Its modern 'husbandry' that is causing the problems, the 'veterinary approach' to beekeeping that doesn't systematically select for strongest, relying instead on medications to overcome them. That's exactly what tf wants to avoid!



Saltybee said:


> Purity of "all natural" runs into reality eventually, it is just a matter of where. Any contact between man and bee in excess of your personal view is excessive and is holding back evolution? Enjoy reading you, even when you venture a little over the top. Well maybe that is why I read. Just have to not follow down the rabbit hole too far.


This is a straw man - as well as nonsense. It doesn't belong with me.

Barry, you still think Saltybee is right on? 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> I don't understand this point of view. Brood breaks are entirely natural-- every successful feral colony uses that method when they swarm. How does something that bees have evolved to do eliminate evolutionary pressure?


If you have bees that do that, fine. If you have bees that don't do it, and you do it for them, they'll never learn to do it for themselves.



rhaldridge said:


> Beekeepers have long bred for non-swarming bees. That may have been a bad idea, in some respects. But animal husbandry is all about directing the natural behavior of animals to the benefit of the animal keeper.


Is what you want an animal that does all the things you want but is unable to live without you? You want bees that are fully domesticated, unable to live in the wild? Bees that you have to keep watching for signs of sickness, diagnosing and treating effectively?

Because that's what you get when you take that apporach. That's what most beekeepers have. That's why we have a tf forum - to argue that things don't have to be like that.



rhaldridge said:


> There are ways of engineering brood breaks that do not negatively impact colony strength or production-- for example, the cut-down split just prior to a major flow.


What they do is keep your bees reliant on you to manage varroa for them. And that tends to make your local feral population reliant on you too. And then you don't have one....

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Paul McCarty said:


> Honeybees are about as natural as house cats - even the feral ones. Unless they are Apis Florea or Dorsata or something like that, none of them are natural any more. Man has been messing with them too much.


Honeybees, unlike cats, have always resisted domestication. Yes, apiary bees are often shaped a little. But they soon revert to something close to the original -albeit of mixed origins - when allowed to. 

Mike


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## mike bispham

jmgi said:


> .. brood breaks, I mean its not like someone is going to give a hive a half dozen brood breaks in a season, that would be counterproductive to say the least, but one or two, that could easily happen naturally anyway.


If the bees do it (it happens naturally) its because those bees possess the genes that direct them to do it. You want those bees. 

If you have to do it for them (unnaturally) its because they don't possess those genes. You don't want them because they're reliant on you to manage their relationship with the mites for them, and will spread that reliance. Nature would kill them, end of duff line.

Do you see the difference?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Paul McCarty said:


> The trick is to do the break the way they swarm. It's all in the timing. Most hives if they haven't swarmed in Spring, will definitely try before Fall. I too do not see how this could affect natural selection.


The trick is to make bees that don't need tricks played on them.

Playing tricks with your bees prevents feral bees from flourishing around you, just like chemical treatments do.

Then no-one ever gets bees that can manage their own mites.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

TalonRedding said:


> First off, these two statements contradict one another, at least they do to me. I am struggling as to how "controlling" genetics is non -optional, yet any act or artifact that is used to help bees survive will reduce the pressure to adapt. I'm assuming by what you have previously said that removing adaptive pressure is a bad thing? Which is it then? Do we control genetics or do we do nothing?


***
We (partially) control genetics, learning how and why by studying the way Nature 'controls' genetics.

Our breeding aim is to restore to bees the ability to manage mites themselves.

That is, to raise resistance in our populations.

To that end, we understand that anything we do that keeps alive (and breeding) bees that would otherwise (naturally) die is counterproductive. 

You raise resistance by systematically making increase only from the most resistant, and by excluding from the breeding pool the least resistant.

This is bog-standard animal husbandry. If you _don't_ do it, you will fail as a husbandryman. With any animal.

***



TalonRedding said:


> If you are striving for purist.


I'm not. That was a characterisation made of something I said by Barry. 



TalonRedding said:


> If one's duty is animal husbandry, than they should probably husband animals. But with your logic, animal husbandry is not taking care of animals, it is leaving them to whatever end and saying that you've done something.


Clearly you've never understood a word I've written.



TalonRedding said:


> I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. You can't be a purist...


Start by getting rid of that idea. Then read the section above between the three stars over and over till you can see exactly what it is I am saying. If you still have questions, ask them in the context of those statements, or other statements that _I_ have made. 

Make (UK)


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## mike bispham

Barry said:


> I'm sure every member has some conflict with some part of this forum.


So if the sticky says 2+2=5 you'll be quite happy with that, on the basis that 'every member has some conflict with some part of this forum'?



Barry said:


> permanent solutions are not the stated objective. I don't know of anyone, except perhaps you, who would think a permanent solution is doable


From what I understand you and many others have a permanant solution (reservations about small cell, but maybe that's a step too far right now)

You systematically propagate from your most resistant, and thus own bees that manage their mites themselves. You can (hopefully) do that till the cows come home.

That's traditional husbandry. That is a permanant solution to the problem of varroa. If everyone did that there wouldn't be a varroa problem at all.

The remaining problems of: 

a) how to make that happen in larger established apiaries and 

b) how to persuade all coomercial businesses that's a good thing to do 

...remain. 

But there is a solution to the problem of keeping bees that are self-sufficient in health, and you are part of it.

Systematically using brood breaks would be a backward step for you. You'd tend, all else being equal, to lose resistance and health self-sufficiency in your apiaries.

Lets be clear, for everybody: there is no beekeeping system in the world, or ever has been, in which no selective propagation choices are made - except the one that requires constant medication. 

There is no 'solution' to a problem of having to make selection choices. There never will be. There cannot ever be. The very nature of living things make that the foundation of animal husbandry. 

Therefore, needing to make selection choices cannot be thought of as a 'problem'. Its simply what-husbandry-is.

There is no 'solution' to it - because it isn't a problem - its the job.



Barry said:


> , outside of letting nature take its course where we have a 70, 80, 90%? dieoff and then work up with survivors. That won't happen in our lifetime.


Now you've shifted to the national problem encompassing commercial beekeeping. That is a separate issue - as made clear in the sticky. That problem can be addressed only by persuading commercials to adopt other forms of husbandry than the models they use now. That is a real problem. But it isn't the one we should be primarily concerned about. That is, the art of raising and maintaining natural resistance in our own stocks. And being able to tell others what works, and why.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Whalers, if you are still around. I cannot offer any help this is out of my league. But I have a question just something I am interested in personally.

What I picked up, I think, is your bees used to be doing OK but now they are not? Do you feel there has been a change in surrounding bees that will be supplying different drones to the breed you used to have? Or if not, what environmental changes do you think has happened that could be contributing to this?


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## jmgi

mike bispham said:


> If the bees do it (it happens naturally) its because those bees possess the genes that direct them to do it. You want those bees.
> 
> If you have to do it for them (unnaturally) its because they don't possess those genes. You don't want them because they're reliant on you to manage their relationship with the mites for them, and will spread that reliance. Nature would kill them, end of duff line.
> 
> Do you see the difference?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Mike, you really need to get past this stumbling block, as I perceive it, of thinking that there is somehow a biological difference between naturally occuring brood breaks such as swarming, supercedure, or the queen naturally dies and they must rear a queen in an emergency situation.....and a beekeeper interfering with the natural process and creating an "artificial" brood break that is timed properly. Removing the queen manually is just putting the whole process in gear where they have to rear a new queen and as a result they get the brood break. Doing it for them is not saying that those bees don't have the right genes to do it themselves, it's just not so, all honey bees do it and have been doing it for millions of years. Bees don't respond to an artificial brood break (in regards to the mites) any differently than a natural brood break, they still function as a colony and do what they would always do in a queenless situation. The effect on the mite population of a brood break is the same either way, the bees don't regard naturally occuring brood breaks as a better opportunity (except you) for developing resistance than an artificial brood break.


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## Saltybee

Mike (UK), maybe I am not hearing you correctly. TF sounds like Touch Free beekeeping when you say it, maybe you do only mean treatment free.

Paul, Feral house cats, wish I'd thought of that.


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## delber

mike bispham said:


> So if the sticky says 2+2=5 you'll be quite happy with that, on the basis that 'every member has some conflict with some part of this forum'?


I appreciate this discussion, however Barry has defined TF how he / they have. That's fine. There's no reason why you can't define it another way. You have clarified your version of what you believe TF is. That's fine and I'm glad you did here to add to the discussion and thoughts. The forum doesn't need to change based on a different view. your' 2+2=5 is just a wrong answer. Nothing that's being defined in here is wrong. It's just different. I'm a parent of 4 and I've watched other parents deal with their children and I talk with my wife after and say "well I wouldn't have done that" but the point is they have their choices and decisions to be responsible and good parents just as I do. I draw a line here and they do there. It's not a right and wrong issue but a different issue. Now if their children were beating up mine and they wouldn't deal with it then that's a problem. But this is just different practices. This is why I appreciate this forum. Because there are many different view points shared here.


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## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Is what you want an animal that does all the things you want but is unable to live without you?


I forget what this logical fallacy is called, but the gist is that you are presenting two conditions as if they were the only possible outcomes. This is not the case.

Do you do anything to prevent swarming?

The way I look at it, swarming (and the resulting brood break) is a natural behavior that is inconvenient for the beekeeper, if uncontrolled. I see nothing unnatural about redirecting this behavior into a situation that accomplishes exactly what the bees want (a new colony and a brood break) at a time when that new colony can be secured conveniently by the beekeeper, and at a time when the effect of the brood break will be most advantageous to the colony.

Furthermore, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which bees will evolve to swarm whenever it's necessary for a brood break. I think that is asking way too much of the evolutionary process. And it would make beekeeping even more difficult than it is now, if the response of the bees to varroa pressure was to immediately swarm or kill the queen. There might be plenty of wild bees, but not much honey.


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## TalonRedding

> We (partially) control genetics, learning how and why by studying the way Nature 'controls' genetics.
> 
> Our breeding aim is to restore to bees the ability to manage mites themselves.
> 
> That is, to raise resistance in our populations.
> 
> To that end, we understand that anything we do that keeps alive (and breeding) bees that would otherwise (naturally) die is counterproductive.
> 
> You raise resistance by systematically making increase only from the most resistant, and by excluding from the breeding pool the least resistant.
> 
> This is bog-standard animal husbandry. If you _don't_ do it, you will fail as a husbandryman. With any animal.


Is that not an act?



> Clearly you've never understood a word I've written.


You are certainly correct in this instance. How can one practice animal husbandry while not intervening by acting. Again, is artificially selecting particular traits not an act?

See post #366

I hope I am asking these questions in the context of the statements you have made, considering the citations I have provided here. 


Another point that has not been touched on here is that the pest of discussion was brought here by humans (unnatural emigration)out of an area where bees are already resistant......naturally resistant at that. One could argue that in order to fight the unnatural emigration of a pest, one would then have to take unnatural measures to do so. Wait a minute......this is what you have been doing all along by ARTIFICIALLY selecting for traits! It's not complicated, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.


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## mike bispham

jmgi said:


> Mike, you really need to get past this stumbling block, as I perceive it, of thinking that there is somehow a biological difference between naturally occuring brood breaks such as swarming, supercedure, or the queen naturally dies and they must rear a queen in an emergency situation.....and a beekeeper interfering with the natural process and creating an "artificial" brood break that is timed properly.


If you think in terms of the short term interests of a particular colony, the difference isn't clear.

If you think in terms of the medium and long term interests of the local breeding population, things change enormously. I think that's the difference between us. The biological process in the hive is, as you say, the same. The effect on the bio-evolutionary process within the local breeding pool is a different thing entirely.



jmgi said:


> Removing the queen manually is just putting the whole process in gear where they have to rear a new queen and as a result they get the brood break.
> 
> Doing it for them is not saying that those bees don't have the right genes to do it themselves, it's just not so, all honey bees do it and have been doing it for millions of years.


Not all bees shut down on their own, separately from supercedure, in a way that helps manage mites. It appears to be a very useful mechanism, which is being found in feral bees which have had to find ways to manage mites. Those that do it survive - those that don't, don't (unless they have alternative mite-managing mechanisms).

Any colony may have them, as you say (though as I understand it the great majority don't). 

More to the point, they may not - in fact they may have no resistance genes whatsoever. *Yet you're propagating them. How is that helpful to the future of the local breeding pool?*

To be even thinking of artificial brood breaks, unless in the context of a resistance-raising propagation (breeding) system is to be taking entirely the wrong approach to becoming treatment free. Its to be thinking in terms of individual colonies, rather than the local breeding pool. Short term rather than long term. You cannot take that approach while aiming to have self-sufficient bees at some point in the future. You can't take that approach and expect to have a functioning local natural population, with all the benefits that brings.



jmgi said:


> Bees don't respond to an artificial brood break (in regards to the mites) any differently than a natural brood break, they still function as a colony and do what they would always do in a queenless situation.


Sure. More or less. That's not at issue. What is at issue is: do these bees have their own internal mite-management mechanisms or not? Can they thrive without beekeepers, or not.

If not, then keeping them will tend to reverse any progress local bees may have made toward developing their own natural resistance, thus killing off ferals. And by protecting against mites it will also prevent any emergence of resistance - of any sort whatsover - in your own apiary population (I'm assuming you raise your own queens).



jmgi said:


> The effect on the mite population of a brood break is the same either way, the bees don't regard naturally occuring brood breaks as a better opportunity (except you) for developing resistance than an artificial brood break.


This colony doesn't. Every superceding colony within 10 miles does. They want drones that carry genes that code for mite-management.

Raising the bees own resistance is the whole ball game for me. I want bees that can look after themselves, and bees that contribute to, rather than degrade and destroy, the local wild feral bees - that hold the genetic diversity I benefit from, and which supply me with fighting fit genes.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Saltybee said:


> Mike (UK), maybe I am not hearing you correctly. TF sounds like Touch Free beekeeping when you say it, maybe you do only mean treatment free.


You read my posts? I talk about careful selective propagation, about lifting frames in and out, about making new colonies, evaluating, requeening - you read this?

And then you write 'touch free'?

In what universe does that make sense?

I think you've been brainwashed by the modern approach to beekeeping that wants all hives opened every 10 minutes in order to bung some chemical or other in, to cut something out. Beekeeping doesn't have to be like that. With healthy bees you can lay back in your reclining armchair and rest your back while the bees do the work. You collect honey at the end of the year. Its an art. I don't know what else to say.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

delber said:


> The forum doesn't need to change based on a different view. Nothing that's being defined in here is wrong. It's just different.


If anyone thinks that brood breaks (alone) are a sustainable system contributing to the aim of allowing resistance to develop, they're wrong. It isn't a question of belief, but of fact.

That's what I want clear. 

I have to say, I thought that was a common aim here. Its useful to find I was wrong.

Mike


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> I forget what this logical fallacy is called, but the gist is that you are presenting two conditions as if they were the only possible outcomes. This is not the case.


Ray,

The fallacy of the excluded middle.



rhaldridge said:


> Do you do anything to prevent swarming?


I work hard to ensure there is always storage space, and leave spare hives and bait boxes around. That seems to overcome most swarming drawbacks.



rhaldridge said:


> The way I look at it, swarming (and the resulting brood break) is a natural behavior that is inconvenient for the beekeeper, if uncontrolled.


I can understand that.



rhaldridge said:


> I see nothing unnatural about redirecting this behavior...


Just to be clear: anything you do is unnatural. By definition. Nature is what happens when you do nothing. 



rhaldridge said:


> ... into a situation that accomplishes exactly what the bees want (a new colony and a brood break) at a time when that new colony can be secured conveniently by the beekeeper, and at a time when the effect of the brood break will be most advantageous to the colony.


See my last post but two. There is a huge difference between the effect on this colony and the effect on the local breeding pool - into the future. (That you can make such a huge difference shows just how unnatural that act is.)

This really does come down to the question: am I in the business of raising resistance in my local population (including my apiary) or not? (If there's a middle way there its about the time taken, I can't see any other)

If the answer is yes; then you must always act to encourage that, and never act to destroy it. And that, I'm afraid, is what treating, and effective manipulations do.

If the answer is no then you have to live with the knowledge that you are killing off the feral bees nearby. And you will have to continue with brood breaks forever.



rhaldridge said:


> Furthermore, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario in which bees will evolve to swarm whenever it's necessary for a brood break.


You are misunderstanding. Some feral bees have adapted to varroa by shutting down for a month or so in the summer. They have engineered a brood break without swarming. This is an effective aid to mite management, which will be being used in conjunction with other behaviours. That's all to the good - these bees can return to the good life in the wild, as seen pre-varroa. 

So you see Ray, what you write next is born of a misconception of the picture. Natural breaks are enabling bees to thrive (alone) without having to swarm too often. 

We want to, if not encourage, at least not undermine this - and all other mite-management behaviours. 

The problem is, some of our acts completely undermine the process of adaptation. We should be doing our best to support it, doing our best not to undermine it. 

So its important to know which category our acts are in.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

TalonRedding said:


> Is that not an act?


As recently (immediately above) outlined, I'm trying to make plain which acts encourage adaptation to varroa, and which acts undermine the process. 

I want our categories of useful and non-useful acts to coincide with that aim.

Adaptation is a natural process. We need to know which acts aid that process, which hinder it, and how much.



TalonRedding said:


> How can one practice animal husbandry while not intervening by acting. Again, is artificially selecting particular traits not an act?
> See post #366


Yes. As I said, forget the 'purist' nonsense. I act, again and again. Yes, that is entirely unnatural. 

But my acts are (pace Ruttner) based on a good understanding of how nature works viz. Natural Selection for the Fittest Strains.

I work hard to ensure that the effect of my acts is to aid, and not hinder, the natural development that is happening around me, the adaptation to varroa. I don't want to act in ways that hinder it, and especially don't want to act in ways that are destructive of it.

That is the foundation for me. I'm sorry, I'd wrongly assumed that everyone knew this - and everyone shared that aim. I thought that we were trying to fix the same problem.



TalonRedding said:


> I hope I am asking these questions in the context of the statements you have made, considering the citations I have provided here.


Apart from thinking I advocate no acting, you're doing fine.



TalonRedding said:


> Another point that has not been touched on here is that the pest of discussion was brought here by humans (unnatural emigration)out of an area where bees are already resistant......naturally resistant at that. One could argue that in order to fight the unnatural emigration of a pest, one would then have to take unnatural measures to do so. Wait a minute......this is what you have been doing all along by ARTIFICIALLY selecting for traits! It's not complicated, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.


Exactly! Its simple as abc. Whatever made you think I was ashamed of it?

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Beekeeping doesn't have to be like that. With healthy bees you can lay back in your reclining armchair and rest your back while the bees do the work. You collect honey at the end of the year. Its an art.
> 
> Mike (UK)


LOL that's funny. Words that could only be spoken by someone who never has earned his living from his bees.


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> LOL that's funny. Words that could only be spoken by someone who never has earned his living from his bees.


I asked for that! 

I spent all day yesterday making more ekes, cutting up fondant and putting it, and the same this morning. 

You can see what I was getting at though. 

Mike


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> I asked for that!
> 
> I spent all day yesterday making more ekes, cutting up fondant and putting it, and the same this morning.
> 
> You can see what I was getting at though.
> 
> Mike


Fondant? By feeding bees, how are you not encouraging the selection of bees that need feeding?


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Fondant? By feeding bees, how are you not encouraging the selection of bees that need feeding?


I'm expanding a small apiary as fast as I can Ray - most of those I have are last year's, many are small nucs, a few tiny clusters - mostly due to being made late, and likely being robbed through the autumn. Most had to make their own comb from starter strip. 

I didn't get enough syrup in them to see them through what has been a stores-sappingly mild/record wet (damp) winter. They're light. I want them next year to make more colonies - not necessarily as parents, though in some cases they may make fine parents - but the more bees I have the more I can make - from the best of course. 

In most cases its likely there's nothing wrong with them, they were just made too late to build to an overwintering state. 

They'll be judged when data is available later, and some will be requeened.

What would you do in my position?

What drawbacks to my aims do you think are incurred by what I'm doing?

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

I guess that means practical reality trumps philosophy! :lookout:


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> I guess that means practical reality trumps philosophy! :lookout:


Not in the least. Not in the slightest bit. 

Maybe you haven't read my response to Ray yet.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

You mean the one (post #407) that you edited 13 minutes after it was posted? :scratch: Edited after my comment in #408 posted? :lpf:


Of course I read it!


:gh:

UPDATE:
The timestamps on the posts (and edits) above tell the true story.

For those wondering what the fuss is all about, post #407 originally included a comment to the _effect _that Mike fed fondant because of time constraints. Nothing wrong with that from my perspective, but apparently he later decided he didn't like the way that sounded.

The ability to edit posts is a valuable tool, and I use it myself, as you can see in this [edited] post. But those who read the original version still saw what was originally posted, and are entitled to respond to the original post. Thats just the way it is.


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> You mean the one (post #407) that you edited 13 minutes after it was posted? :scratch: Edited after my comment in #408 posted?


During, actually. I haven't edited it since opening yours.



Rader Sidetrack said:


> Of course I read it!


Yet you still fail to comprehend that keeping all (likely perfectly good) colonies alive in order to have lots of bees from which to raise (selected) new colonies doesn't in the least compromise the aim of developing resistance?

Why doesn't that surprise me?

Mike (UK)

PS: wait a minute, I do know why it is! Its because you have a half-baked idea of what my 'philosophy' is. 

You're not alone Graham. All I can suggest is you read through my recent replies on this thread carefully. Try to find those parts that really set down the foundations - they're clearly flagged. I've made some of the more important points several times lately, during this discussion about artificial brood break. Build up the picture. 

If you're not absolutely certain you have a good understanding of natural selection for the fittest strains, now would be a good time to do some homework. I don't mean 'yeah yeah, I've heard of it' - I mean: 'Yes, I get it, its wonderful, beautiful!'

Be straight on what 'natural' means. Its all those things that happen without human touch. Anything else comes under 'artifice' - 'artificial', 'art'!

You need to be straight on these things to follow the reasoning though my 'philosophy' as you call it. If you're not, it will seem bonkers I'm sure.


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> In most cases its likely there's nothing wrong with them, they were just made too late to build to an overwintering state.
> 
> What would you do in my position?
> 
> What drawbacks to my aims do you think are incurred by what I'm doing?
> 
> Mike (UK)



interesting, and in way demonstrating a point that i was making to you earlier in the thread mike.

i also had a few of my late splits end up short on stores and with small clusters. what spare combs of honey i had on hand i donated to them, (part of my tf approach includes an all natural diet), but some went on to fail.

my rationale for winnowing them was that they were given every opportunity to establish as their cohorts, (most of which are in great shape), but failed to do so for whatever reason. perhaps they weren't productive enough (less hording of stores), or perhaps they weren't defensive enough (robbing), or perhaps they weren't dealing with the mites as effectively, or perhaps they had less natural resistance to pathogens, or perhaps it was a combination of the above.

my approach to husbandry is to cull all colonies that don't stand up to their cohorts. i want bees that get the job done, no excuses. 

i tend to agree with ray that if one is going to tout all natural and minimal intervention, then one shouldn't prop up any colony that is failing to get the job done when the others around it are. why not select for any and all survival traits in addition to varroa resistance?

now if all or most of your splits were weak secondary to beekeeper error, (split too late), or bad weather, (lack of a fall flow), then it might make sense to salvage your work, and no one could fault you for that.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

> If you're not, it will _seem bonkers_ I'm sure.

No argument from me.


----------



## EastSideBuzz

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Y
> The ability to edit posts is a valuable tool, and I use it myself, as you can see in this [edited] post. But those who read the original version still saw what was originally posted, and are entitled to respond to the original post. Thats just the way it is.


I do it as a save feature in long winded posts. Or I use outlook first then cut and paste. But, I edit after reading becasue of spelling or syntax or cold feet about the position I took when I was enthusiastically posting.


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Yet you still fail to comprehend that keeping all (likely perfectly good) colonies alive in order to have lots of bees from which to raise (selected) new colonies doesn't in the least compromise the aim of developing resistance?
> 
> Why doesn't that surprise me?
> 
> Mike (UK)
> 
> PS: wait a minute, I do know why it is! Its because you have a half-baked idea of what my 'philosophy' is.


This is where, as an ex commercial beekeeper I sometimes feel misunderstood. It is also where certain practical beekeeping issues diverge, or, maybe they converge.

A philosophy has been presented of do not feed, the bees must adapt to local flow patterns. Do not interfere. Never help a wild animal. Etc Etc.. All fine in theory.

But the practical reality Mike has found, is that he can further his aims faster, by feeding. Ie, keeping alive hives that would not otherwise have made it due to beekeeper practises. However, exactly the same logic could be applied to using a brood break. Or if this philosophy was taken to extreme, even chemical treating a hive that wound up in trouble due to beekeeper practises, could be justified.

So Radar's statement was correct, even in a small operation like Mikes, he has already made a decision that in this instance at least, practical reality trumps philosophy, he'll feed. Nothing wrong with that, it is after all, practical reality. But upscale the operation, and need for financial sustainability, and see where this goes.

A commercial beekeeper is staring in the face stark practical reality day to day. His bees are no different to other farm animals, they are manipulated by the beekeeper to perform certain tasks and meet certain goals and if they don't he is out of business. These goals, tasks, and location where the bees are, could be different every season.


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> I
> What would you do in my position?
> 
> What drawbacks to my aims do you think are incurred by what I'm doing?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Probably the same thing, though I think syrup is not good for bee health, so I have not fed, other than a few days when installing a nuc. It should be obvious that sugar syrup is not the diet on which bees evolved.

What is wrong is that you say brood breaks to get bees over the hump are wrong, but feeding to get them over the hump is okay. This is an inconsistent position, it seems to me. You've said that bees that do not live without beekeeper intervention are better dead, I believe. You seem to be making an exception for yourself here.

If you do not feed and the bees die, then perhaps you should have split the hives during a time when it was more favorable for the new colonies to build up. For the most past, that's what wild bees would do-- they swarm when the parent hive has enough surplus. Furthermore, you have criticized the brood breaks attendant upon making increase as some sort of artificial manipulation that does not put selective pressure on the bees to survive on their own. 

You are using exactly the same rationale for feeding bees as the rationale used by those who do other things to ensure their bees' survival-- necessity.

You say, "Most likely there is nothing wrong with them..." but you cannot know that. You don't really know if, by feeding, you are propping up inferior stock. If you are true to the ideals you have proclaimed here, you should not be making increase when survival is iffy. By doing so, you risk contaminating your gene pool with stock that does not measure up, because you are not in a position to evaluate the stock under fair conditions.

An inability to make adequate stores for your climate is just as fatal a weakness as a lack of resistance to pests and disease.


----------



## chickenia

I too tried to post and it wouldn't print, so again I will just offer this tid bit....have you tried HopGuard treatment? It is made from the hops plant, and so far so good the times I have used it. There are several threads to read up on it the pro and cons. It is chemical free from what I have read. Good luck!


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## Adrian Quiney WI

The European Honey Bee has been adopted by other nations, but it is not natural to those diverse environments. It stands to reason that some form of husbandry is necessary in order to manage a sustainable apiary. The beekeeper can choose the chemical route, manipulations (eg brood breaks), or invest time in trying to develop a resistant stock. 
It seems to me that the first method best suits the commercial beekeeper because of the economies of scale; The second method suits the hobbyist/sideliner for whom time is less of a concern; The last method hmmm :scratch: Well I don't know. I can't deny the appeal of it, but the costs seem prohibitive and the outcome uncertain. 
The first two methods can be replicated, because they don't rely on everyone else doing the same. By that I mean if I rely on chemicals I won't affect the guy who relies on brood breaks and vice-versa. However, if i rely on selection and breeding a unique strain of bees that can withstand varroa my efforts will be affected by the pool of bees who are not mine.


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## KevinR

Wonder how many colonies and years it would take to breed really resistant bees. I talked to Kent Williams in KY... I believe he took a 50%+ lose on his commercial operation for 4-6 years before he started to get some resistance/survivors...

I'm not sure what he does these days, it's been 3-4 years since I talked to him about it.. It would definitely hurt my feelings to be losing hundreds of hives every year with no discernible reason.

I get pissed at my 10 or so losses from operator error... LOL!


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## JWChesnut

~ Snark deleted on second thought ~


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> What is wrong is that you say brood breaks to get bees over the hump are wrong, but feeding to get them over the hump is okay. This is an inconsistent position, it seems to me. You've said that bees that do not live without beekeeper intervention are better dead, I believe. You seem to be making an exception for yourself here.


We have to distinguish between the *effects* of one act (intervention) and another. 

Remember, my primary aim (A1)is to build a varroa resistant apiary. This is all about understanding how to allow bees and mites to co-evolve such that the former are not bothered by the latter - and helping the process along. 

To that end I need to understand how that happens - by studying how nature works - and act in ways that allow and encourage that to happen. 

To do that I need bees, and lots of them. I need colonies. So a second high aim (A2) is keep alive any colony that can supply me with bees.

*Whatever I do to meet the second need must not conflict with the primary need*. That's all.



rhaldridge said:


> If you do not feed and the bees die, then perhaps you should have split the hives during a time when it was more favorable for the new colonies to build up. For the most past, that's what wild bees would do-- they swarm when the parent hive has enough surplus.


I did, and many of my early splits haven't run short of food. Some have run short because I subsequently re-split them, or took stores and brood to make new splits. Some may have run short because they are inadequate in some way. That will show in due course.

I kept on splitting well into August, partly to see if/how well they'd mate (learning is important too) and partly in an effort to raise numbers more to meet A2. I did this in the knowledge that they'd need feeding up hard. But I'd underestimated the degree to which they got robbed. Some simply couldn't build at all - and I think this may be because they we unable to defend themselves - they may be very good queens, but I didn't give them a good chance to make it alone.

Don't forgot I have notes about all this. If they build into good colonies this year, I can look at each one, when it was made, from whom, how well it built etc. in making judgements about whether I want to use it to supply genes. 



rhaldridge said:


> Furthermore, you have criticized the brood breaks attendant upon making increase as some sort of artificial manipulation that does not put selective pressure on the bees to survive on their own.


That's right. Brood breaks as a routine way of controlling varroa *preserve lines with no inbuilt resistance*. That conflicts with my primary aim. 

Don't forget mine get no treatment at all. Their degree of abilty to handle mites will be plain in due course.



rhaldridge said:


> You are using exactly the same rationale for feeding bees as the rationale used by those who do other things to ensure their bees' survival-- necessity.


Both rationales may appear similar but they aren't *when you look at the effect in the real world*. Then the two are revealed as completely different. 

I'm not preserving unresistant genetics, and allowing them to spread, thus undercutting the all-important co-evolution both in my apiary and around it. That would be to undercut my own primary aim. *Brood breaking does just that.*

Take note too that while my primary breeding aim is resistant bees (and to that end I need lots of bees), other high aims are productivity and self-sufficiency. I am taking care to breed from the best, and so won't tolerate an inability to build well, at an appropriate time of year, and to make and keep stores. 

But this year increase is a high second priority, while minimising any drawbacks that might present toward skewing other aims. To resistance there's no compromise at all. 

I think that's a workable plan. As I said, this is an art as well as a science, and that my is best attempt at something that might work for me, given my aims and priorities. 



rhaldridge said:


> You say, "Most likely there is nothing wrong with them..." but you cannot know that. You don't really know if, by feeding, you are propping up inferior stock.


I'll find out next year, or the year after, if there is something wrong with them. Till then I want them to make bees to expand with - and possibly for their genetics too. Don't forget they were made from some of my best, and mated in places I thought worthwhile... They might be equally be precious little packages...

Last year I found that the biggest drag on expansion was a shortage of bees with which to make more bees. I'm doing what I can within my main aims to overcome that problem this year.

Bear in mind I don't know if there's something wrong with most of my colonies, since I don't mark queens, or monitor inside all the hive closely. I don't know if the ones that are still going well after 3 years on no treatment haven't superceded, mated badly, and are about to collapse. (I do have 4 selected queens sequestered in nucs and watched closely).



rhaldridge said:


> If you are true to the ideals you have proclaimed here, you should not be making increase when survival is iffy.


I think you might have an incomplete picture of what my ideals are. Visit my website - unchanged since loaded 3 1/2 years ago - to get a better picture of what my (unchanged) idea of bee problems is. 



rhaldridge said:


> By doing so, you risk contaminating your gene pool with stock that does not measure up, because you are not in a position to evaluate the stock under fair conditions.


You never are. You never are. This is a game of chance, and the method is to shift the probabilities in your favour as much as possible. 



rhaldridge said:


> An inability to make adequate stores for your climate is just as fatal a weakness as a lack of resistance to pests and disease.


I hope I've dealt with the basis of that complaint to your satisfaction now Ray.

Mike (UK)

PS I haven't opened the usual suspects' contribitions today, but I gather there's a complaint about my altering posts. I often edit posts later in order to improve clarity. But I don't, and wouldn't, shift a position in order to try to sucker someone. I pride myself on being an honest interlocutor. I think the event that caused trouble was one in which a response was made very soon after I'd posted. That's the worst time. Give it an hour or so and you'll probably see the final version.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Very interesting that in Mike's response to Ray, he did *not *address how propping up weak colonies with feeding fondant was philosophically _different _than propping up weak colonies with brood breaks.



 Perhaps Ray could be _enticed _to follow up on this topic of interest. 


:gh:

It seems practical reality _still _trumps philosophy! :lpf:


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mike, how many colonies you ultimately want to expand to? I note from Michael Palmer's video that beekeeping is much more expensive in the UK than over here. By having a tag line that points to "joinery" I assume you make your own boxes, etc?


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## Saltybee

What's the old line about prostitution; Then we are not talking about morals, we are talking about price.

When talking about purity of theory, we all have a cost threshold. Praise to those who have met theirs and reduced it.


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## mike bispham

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Mike, how many colonies you ultimately want to expand to?


Adrian,

Ultimately... who knows. My current 2014 year target is to try to get to 100. 



Adrian Quiney WI said:


> I note from Michael Palmer's video that beekeeping is much more expensive in the UK than over here. By having a tag line that points to "joinery" I assume you make your own boxes, etc?


Largely yes. To be honest it would be cheaper buying them in the winter sales, but that would take wherewithal that isn't available. I still have to buy frames. I don't buy much wax.

Mike (UK)


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## rhaldridge

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Very interesting that in Mike's response to Ray, he did *not *address how propping up weak colonies with feeding fondant was philosophically _different _than propping up weak colonies with brood breaks.
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps Ray could be _enticed _to follow up on this topic of interest.


No... I give up. I'm trying to take a more Zen-like attitude these days.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Frames! 



Maybe there is a particular breed of woodpeckers that creates those "_natural_" frames for their bee friends. :lpf:




:gh:


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Very interesting that in Mike's response to Ray, he did *not *address how propping up weak colonies with feeding fondant was philosophically _different _than propping up weak colonies with brood breaks.


So you're saying that while I explained in detail that the *effect* was very different, and therefore the *rationales that appeared similar actually weren't*, I didn't say how it was *philosophically* different. Is that right?

Hmmm. Philosophically different. Hmmm. 

Well, 'philosophically' has several different meanings, but we'll go with the one you probably mean, along lines of 'school of thought.'

My 'philosophy of beekeeping'. Hmmm. Well, I suppose that's subsumed under my philosophy of life - whatever that is. 

Nope. Not going to make progress with this. Tell me what you mean by 'philosophically different'. 

Unless... loosely speaking my approach to beekeeping generally could be described as a 'philosophy of beekeeping'... in which case, as outlined, its all about raising resistance as would happen should things be left to nature. I'd like things to return to how they were when I wa a kid and there were wild bees all over the place. So there's an eco/conservation 'philosophy' in play.

Feeding artificially, at least for the time being doesn't go against the grain of that poisition. Artificial brood breaks do.

But I've already said that. Oh well. I tried.

Wait a minute! (editing now)

You're doing exactly what Ray accused me of. The fallacy of excluded middle. You're trying to say that there are two ways to approach beekeeping - the 'natural' and the 'unnatural' (I presume), and I'm being 
inconsistent because I'm seeming to appeal to one while acting in the other.

I'm saying that natural selection for the fittest strains is the way life works, and what we need to study and mirror (and don't forget that's Ruttner's position, and that of every breeder in the world).

And that makes me a 'natural' beekeeper (whatever that is, and despite my clearly saying that isn't so)

But that because I also act in ways to preserve (at least temporarily) failing stock, I'm doing unnatural things, and therefore my position is inconsistent.

That is based on the assumption that there is all-natural beekeeping and unnatural beekeeping and nothing in between.

Not only are the catagories rubbish, there are an almost infinite amount of approaches in between. 

My approach makes sense to me Graham, as it made sense to Ruttner, and to Manley, and as it makes sense to John Kefuss, and thousands of other keeper/breeders working at raising resistance. I'm sorry you can't make sense of it - perhaps you will be able to one day. Now I'm tired of trying to explain it for you.

I do hope you grow out of the emoticons business. It really does come across as very childish. 

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

The problem, Mike, is that your philosophy as explained in this thread, is _full _of logical holes. It is not just me that sees those holes, but includes _Oldtimer_, _Rhaldrige_, _Gmcharlie_, _Barry_, _Squarepeg _and virtually everyone else that you have responded to in this thread. Just go back and look at the responses you have got ...



By special request - no emoticons in this post. But I really doubt that you are going to like this post any better than the rest.


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## Oldtimer

rhaldridge said:


> No... I give up.  I'm trying to take a more Zen-like attitude these days.


As we learn, we mellow. Well, most of us.


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## squarepeg

Oldtimer said:


> As we learn, we mellow. Well, most of us.


i'm giving it my best shot.


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## Fusion_power

Jack Daniels has mellowing down to an art. 7 years in an oak barrel is just about right. Not sure I could take 7 years in a barrel though, I might "kick the bucket".


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## delber

I was just out to one of my yards, had 9 hives alive and well 3 weeks ago, now I have 4. 3 look good, while one has a cluster about the size of my fist. I'm definitely up for "something to change". One hive I knew was small and with the extreme cold we had I wasn't surprised to see them gone. Two were great 3 weeks ago. 1' diameter cluster at least. The bees were gone in both hives. Only a very few on the bottom board. Maby 30 bees or so. No queens, no nothing. Any ideas? They both had plenty of stores. Both still had 1 deep 7 frame box full of capped stores.


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> The problem, Mike, is that your philosophy as explained in this thread, is _full _of logical holes. It is not just me that sees those holes, but includes _Oldtimer_, _Rhaldrige_, _Gmcharlie_, _Barry_, _Squarepeg _and virtually everyone else that you have responded to in this thread. Just go back and look at the responses you have got ...
> 
> By special request - no emoticons in this post. But I really doubt that you are going to like this post any better than the rest.


I love it! really I do! Partly because of the lack of emoticons, but more because you have engaged with the conversation and expressed yourself well. That gives me traction!

Frst, lets try again with that slippery business of a 'philosophy.' I'm not sure that its a helpful way of looking at things, but I'll give it a try. If I can be said to have a 'philosophy' of beekeeping, its 'scientific'. That means, its evidence-based, consistent with scientific literature, and internally logical. It means my models - we all have models - are held as tightly as possible to what is real. And what is regarded as 'real' is what the scientific consensus accepts as real. 

Science (as I'm sure you know) is defined as 'the systematic study of Nature'. Of course that means Nature in all its incredible variety; but for us, concerned with living things, it means Biology and Evolution. Knowledge - fairly basic, but not that basic - of these two subject areas supplies the foundations of my understanding of the problems in the bee world.

To that end I've tried to ensure my understanding is particularly consistent with the scientific beekeepers - people like Ruttner, Kefuss, Marla Spivak - Phd's all. And I've worked hard to to ensure my understanding is consistent with those tf beekeepers that seem to be succeeding - including some here. You'll note that none of them have taken issue with my basic position - though we've haggled over minor details at times.

Of course that understanding also has to be consistent with the evidence of my own eyes. 

Science, and philosophy, are both founded in logic. I have a BA in philosophy, so I'm familiar with that principle, and as part of that BA I took a special interest in philosophy of science, so I have a little idea of how these things link up. 

So that's the basis of my 'philosophy'. I try to stick close to what is real - as revealed by up to date scientific understanding. I might not like what is real - I often don't - but I've learned to live with the fact that I can't change it. 

Now then: the fact that some here have disagreed with aspect of my posts doesn't mean that either they have been right (though they may have been, and they may have been partly right). Nor does it mean they've been wrong. Nor does it mean they've been illogical, nor that I've been illogical (though all and any of us may have been).

What it means in my view is that they haven't seen the logic that underlies my posts. The recent stuff is a good example.

I've argued that there is a difference between brood breaks and feeding, based on the effects. I've laid out my thinking, and in my view it makes logical sense. 

If the effect of two acts is different, then the acts have to be regarded as belonginging in different classes. That's a sound and logical position. Wouldn't you agree? 

Now, you cite a number of posters above, who have disagreed with me at various times, in various ways. Some more than others. In constructive conversation people do disagree with each other! It doesn't follow that one or the other is being illogical! Not all those conversations have been constructive. Some have been plain bad tempered. In some cases people don't like the logical consequences of what I've said, and have chosen to attack either the facts, or the evidence, or the logic of my positions. Or me personally. And we've set too - and may have ended up agreeing, and may not. None of that entails that any of us is being illogical either (although in my view at times a few have been)!

Sometimes the set-toos have been very emotionally charged. People often don't like to be told of facts that make them think they've been doing things wrong. They often don't like someone with less experience than them trying to put them straight. And so the conversations have got a bit intense. That's normal too. Again, it doesn't make anybody wrong, or illogical - it just means they're coming at things from different perspectives. 

Try this Rader. Try first to forget you've ever met me. Then work through my website - the thesis - understanding that it was written after 20 years of thought and study, and with the oversight of an appropriate scientist - a phd. You can trust: it isn't wrong in its science. See if you can spot any specific inconsistencies in all that, and between that and anything I've said here. If you think you can, ask me for an explanation. If you find any I'll be very grateful. And make your own mind up about my abilities, or lack of them. Don't rely on the -apparent - judgement of others.

Many people don't like what I have to say, and for all sorts of reasons. And they have a pop. But that doesn't make it wrong. That doesn't mean they've 'spotted holes'. It means, in some cases, they don't welcome the consequenses that flow from from my positions. If you're doing brood breaks and thinking you're doing a great non-treatment thing, and helping bees, and helping beekeeper, and then someone comes along and says: hmmm is this actually really helping... its gonna be upsetting.

It might also mean they don't understand the underlying reasoning. It often means 'please supply some clarification - I'm curious'. 

Don't make the mistake of thinking that because lots of people are engaging with my positions it follows as a matter of course that what I say is illogical. Its mostly just people trying to work out where the truth lies by testing each other's arguments.

You say my 'philosophy' is full of holes. Never mind the 'philosophy' - if you think something I've said is flawed, tell me why - exactly. And we'll have a conversation about it. 

I hope this helps. Thanks again for respecting my wishes re emoticons.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

So, how are your bees coming along?


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> So, how are your bees coming along?


Fine. 2 down from Autumn shutdown to be specific. About 29 left. Or maybe its 31. Must count them properly sometime.


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## Oldtimer

Well that's pretty good for TF maybe it's working, I do recall a few months ago you had 40.


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## WLC

Good luck on developing resistant stock.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to the naysayers. They're YOUR bees.

In the final analysis, you're on your own anyway.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Well, Mike, it appears that you chose _not _to go back and review the earlier responses that I mentioned above.



Good luck to you on your quest. In this case I agree with WLC - you're on your _own_.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Well that's pretty good for TF maybe it's working, I do recall a few months ago you had 40.


Lost a couple of nucs to robbing/poor mating, rest condensed for overwintering to 33 I think. I've lost two and thought that would mean 31 left, but I can only (mentally) find 29. 

The two lost were adjacent. One was a drone layer. I'd popped a nuc on top in late autumn, more in hope than expectation, and as an experiment - against all advice. The other was doing fine and a good weight.

When I visited a few days ago the Q- had abandoned their stores and moved in next door. There the increased number had chewed through stores and starved.


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## mike bispham

WLC said:


> Good luck on developing resistant stock.
> 
> I wouldn't pay too much attention to the naysayers. They're YOUR bees.
> 
> In the final analysis, you're on your own anyway.


Thanks. Don't worry, they don't make the tiniest dent on my plans!

Mike


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Good luck to you on your quest.


Thanks



Rader Sidetrack said:


> In this case I agree with WLC - you're on your _own_.


Not at all! I have the whole of science and thousands of years of animal husbandry to draw on. Not to mention advice and support from many current tf keepers. 

Good luck with yours too.

Mike


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## WLC

Mike:

Mine are 'store bought' resistant bees. I'm a credit card TF beekeeper.

I probably missed it, but what kind of stock did you start out with?

Also, I wonder if those Black Bees from the Scottish islands are available to U.K. beekeepers?


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## Oldtimer

They don't have varroa on those "Scottish Islands" 

Mike knows who to talk to to get those bees but I doubt he will.


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## Rader Sidetrack

At last word, Scotland was _still _part of the UK!


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## WLC

It was Scotland that recently established a Black Bee reserve on one of its islands.

The bees wear 'kilts' instead of bands.


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## beekuk

WLC said:


> It was Scotland that recently established a Black Bee reserve on* one* of its islands.


 Two.


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## WLC

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...k-haven-for-honeybees-facing-wipeout.22338330

Britain's first honeybee reserve is to be set up on the Hebridean islands of Colonsay and Oronsay.


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## Oldtimer

Just so you know WLC, Beekuk runs it.


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## mike bispham

WLC said:


> Mike:
> 
> I probably missed it, but what kind of stock did you start out with?


Swarms and cut outs, perhaps 1/3 reasonably well attested 'survivors', less than 1/3 definately apiary bees. 



WLC said:


> Also, I wonder if those Black Bees from the Scottish islands are available to U.K. beekeepers?


If they're resistant I'd be interested in a queen or two - though the climate is quite a bit different.

I'm quite keen to see what I can achieve with my locals alone though. I think they might have the makings. 

Mike (UK)


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## Michael Palmer

mike bispham said:


> I'm quite keen to see what I can achieve with my locals alone though. I think they might have the makings. Mike (UK)


Oh, I must have misunderstood. I thought you already had it all accomplished. You mean all your postings are nothing but theory?


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## mike bispham

Michael Palmer said:


> Oh, I must have misunderstood. I thought you already had it all accomplished. You mean all your postings are nothing but theory?


Yep, you misunderstood Michael. Mostly theory. Good theory though. And 4 years of good progress.

Have you finished accomplishing all you want to accomplish with your bees yet?

Not like you to be so snippy to someone trying to achieve the same goals?

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

What I had thought you got your first bees 3 years ago which was a swarm that arrived in a tree and you "watched it",

Following year started collecting swarms & cutouts, lost most through winter and started next season with 6. By collecting more swarms and cut outs built this to 40 hives, currnet number 29 to 31, winter not over.

Beekuk could help you get some of those Scottish black ones, you would have to be nice to him.


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## jonathan

Trouble with the Colonsay bees is they have never been exposed to varroa so developing varroa tolerant stock from that source is likely to be starting from a low base.
I know Andrew the sole beekeeper on Colonsay, and I know his bees are great bees, but I doubt they are likely to be the best starting point for varroa tolerant stock when introduced to an area which has mites.
Some work has already started in Ireland looking for varroa tolerance in AMM stock. This is based on accurately sampling mite levels and will involve looking for genetic markers associated with the more varroa tolerant stock at some point. Collecting swarms and cut outs, leaving them untreated, and watching them collapse over time is unlikely to bear fruit with regard to finding resistant stock. If you start with about 1000 and are prepared for 95% losses you might make some progress over time. If you read forums such as biobees, it is in the main just a long list of well meaning beekeepers with 2 or 3 colonies who don't treat yet somehow expect their bees to survive. They are not starting with any special resistant stock. The majority lose their bees to mites by the end of year 2 yet seem to be in denial about this and often blame the loss on pesticides or some other non mite related cause.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Collecting swarms and cut outs, leaving them untreated, and watching them collapse over time is unlikely to bear fruit with regard to finding resistant stock.


Jonathan,

Your opening sentence here make the assumption that they will collapse. That isn't the experience of many beekeepers, or scientific studies. There are, in Europe and the US, feral 'survivors' who are now not just 'survivors' but 'thrivers'. This is not merely anecdotal, but scientifically evidenced. 



jonathan said:


> If you start with about 1000 and are prepared for 95% losses you might make some progress over time.


Guesswork of a highly exaggerated nature. Most bees have by now gained limited resistance, even in systematically treated apiaries. (I agree with you, the isolated and unexposed Black Bees will fall over like pins.)



jonathan said:


> If you read forums such as biobees, it is in the main just a long list of well meaning beekeepers with 2 or 3 colonies who don't treat yet somehow expect their bees to survive. They are not starting with any special resistant stock. The majority lose their bees to mites by the end of year 2 yet seem to be in denial about this and often blame the loss on pesticides or some other non mite related cause.


Sure. That's because there isn't nearly enough discussion of genetics on biobees. The assumption has been made that pesticides are the sole problem. The view is that all bees have to be kept alive by all possible means, thus preserving 'diversity', until the problem has been fixed. A lovely aim, but a recipe for disaster.

Over at the Warre beeeeping group its a similar story, though they have their own pet theories, concerning magic hive dimensions or the special waft that escapes when you open hives or somesuch. 

The general level of awareness of the facts of population husbandry in beekeeping is utterly abysmal. That is a real part of the problem. Its not just on the wacky sites - the orthodox sites are as bad. There are now hundreds of books aimed at new beekeepers, and (I'm guessing) probably a handful talk firmly about the absolute need to breed toward health. Here on Beesource, and elsewhere, the denial of even the possibility of small scale breeding toward resistance has been raised to an artform.

Bees that aren't adapted to varroa will perish without treatment/manipulation. Adaptation is an intergenerational process requiring the elimination of the worst adapted. Period Period Period. 

Follow the rules of husbandry (properly) and there is a very good chance of success in most places. Likely local 'survivor' starting stock is a far better bet than any other bee available in the UK. But that's just the start. Then you have to get to work - and for that you want a reasonable number of hives, and the further you are from large scale treaters the better. Those are sole the relevant factors governing success or failure (assuming a reasonable level of competence).

Whether we succeed at true tf or not only time will tell - though some already have that time under their belts. 

But for sure: if you don't adopt proper selective husbandry methods you won't - unless you are blessed with adapted ferals. It isn't possible. The Laws of the Universe prohibit it.

Mike (UK)


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## Michael Palmer

mike bispham said:


> Yep, you misunderstood Michael. Mostly theory.
> Not like you to be so snippy to someone trying to achieve the same goals? Mike (UK)


No Mike, not being snippy. Just surprised, that's all.


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## Saltybee

Michael Palmer, after you understand the laws of husbandry you will not be surprised. So go back over these posts and you will finally understand.


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## jonathan

> Guesswork of a highly exaggerated nature.


Not guesswork at all. Losses of that magnitude were reported initially by people like Kefuss and Weaver.
The problem is that a lot of small scale beekeepers who start out with the intention going treatment free imagine that from 20 colonies, 10 will survive and these will be used as the basis for propagating more colonies.
In actual fact you are likely to be left with a lot less than 10, maybe none at all in a worst case scenario.

Kefuss now advocates 'soft bond' method as opposed to cold turkey and he has also started to use DNA analysis to further identify the genetic basis of resistance traits. That information can be used in the selection of breeding material.
Mites are counted and monitored and this information is also used in the selection process.

I would back a science based approach like this as the way forward.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Not guesswork at all. Losses of that magnitude were reported initially by people like Kefuss and Weaver.


Jonathan,

Exactly 'initially'. When varroa first hit there was almost no resistance at all. That isn't always the case anymore, and in the case of many feral populations very sound levels of resistance are present. Documented. 



jonathan said:


> The problem is that a lot of small scale beekeepers who start out with the intention going treatment free imagine that from 20 colonies, 10 will survive and these will be used as the basis for propagating more colonies. In actual fact you are likely to be left with a lot less than 10, maybe none at all in a worst case scenario.


If you find sound initial genetics, and work hard from the get-go to make increase from the best, you need never fall under the 20 mark. Without any treating or jiggery-pokery. 

The problem is those beekeepers don't understand the need to do this - nor how to carefully assay for resistance. The best way to do that is: don't treat. They don't understand the _need_ to breed.



jonathan said:


> Kefuss now advocates 'soft bond' method as opposed to cold turkey


I'm not sure he ever 'advocated' anyone do anything else. That was _his_ method - along with seeking out resistant genes, making rapid increase etc. He offered it as a possibility for those who wanted to try it. 



jonathan said:


> ... and he has also started to use DNA analysis to further identify the genetic basis of resistance traits. That information can be used in the selection of breeding material.


That's going on at Sussex too. 



jonathan said:


> Mites are counted and monitored and this information is also used in the selection process.


I think a lot of the more sorted folks are also using frozen brood tests. Prof Ratneiks at Sussex lays out the basis on a slide/pdf:

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=hygieneworkshop2011-handout.pdf&site=60
( I have a larger, 116 page version of this)

I think a large part of the dna analyis is geared to identifying the distinct patrilines that carry the genes, allowing a far more precise selection process



jonathan said:


> I would back a science based approach like this as the way forward.


Fine by me. But I think my way is just as much 'science-based'. Just because a new technology (like DNA analysis) comes along, it doesn't mean you need that to do science. Working according to established bio-evolutionary theory, documenting to gather your own data, monitoring and analysing, systematically arranging real-time experiments... all these things are part of a scientific approach. Breeding has been 'scientific' for 2 or 3 hundred years. 

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Working according to established bio-evolutionary theory, documenting to gather your own data, monitoring and analysing, systematically arranging real-time experiments... all these things are part of a scientific approach. Breeding has been 'scientific'[HIGHLIGHT] for 2 or 3 hundred years. [/HIGHLIGHT]


Huh.

A few days ago you said it was 'tens of thousands of years'.



mike bispham said:


> I advocate traditional husbandry - as practiced for [HIGHLIGHT] tens of thousands of years, [/HIGHLIGHT]the foundation of agriculture. As used, amost alone, to keep stock fit and productive right up to the post-war era.


I wonder what prompted the revision .... :scratch:


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## jonathan

> I think a lot of the more sorted folks are also using frozen brood tests. Prof Ratneiks at Sussex lays out the basis on a slide


It was demonstrated a while back that general hygienic behaviour as demonstrated by the frozen brood test is unrelated to VSH.

This quote is from Jerry Bromenshenk:



> I invented the liquid nitrogen freeze method while working on a project for
> EPA. I found that neither the pin prick nor Steve Tabor's - cut and
> freeze in freezer- produced consistent results. The problem is that physical
> damage (pricking, cutting out bits of comb) can induce a repair behavior.
> Hygenic behavior is supposedly controlled by two genes, each with a bit
> different behavior. Also, removal of paper is probably not a good test -
> its just part of a two step process.
> 
> As per area of brood - the larger the area you kill, the more certain you
> will be to see bees take action - that's again not simply hygienic
> behavior, but a response to a damage 'crisis'.
> 
> What most have forgotten - our data showed that several small patches over
> more than on brood frame provided the most reliable test.


Jeff Harris noted that VSH bees do not uncap freeze killed brood any better than run of the mill bees.


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## Michael Bush

>>Breeding has been 'scientific' for 2 or 3 hundred years. 
>A few days ago you said it was 'tens of thousands of years'.
>I advocate traditional husbandry - as practiced for tens of thousands of years, the foundation of agriculture. As used, amost alone, to keep stock fit and productive right up to the post-war era.

These are two different statments. "traditional husbandry" is breeding from the best. "Scientific breeding" is breeding for very specific traits that can be tested for and taking specific measurements of traits. "traditional husbandry" has existed as long as people have been breeding anything. 

Somewhere along that line that degenerated into carefully measuring specific traits and maintaining specific lines, which almost alwasy turns out to be a very bad idea that results in cows that can't calf, horses that can't process potassium, dogs that are deaf etc.


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## Fusion_power

> Somewhere along that line that degenerated into carefully measuring specific traits and maintaining specific lines, which almost always turns out to be a very bad idea that results in cows that can't calf, horses that can't process potassium, dogs that are deaf etc.


Most of the problem gets down to breeding for visual appeal. http://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/100-years-of-breed-improvement/

Breeding for extreme yellow bees is an example of breeding for visual appeal regardless of other traits.

The key to all breeding work is to remember that any time you enhance one trait, you are by necessity removing genes from the population. In time, you may find that genes that were bred out were more desirable than the genes that were retained.

VSH is a clear example where Harbo found that highly VSH bees removed too much brood which led them to being useless for producing honey.


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## jonathan

Fusion_power said:


> VSH is a clear example where Harbo found that highly VSH bees removed too much brood which led them to being useless for producing honey.


yep. Strange as it seems bees can be too hygienic.


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## Dominic

jonathan said:


> yep. Strange as it seems bees can be too hygienic.


Which is something, from what I hear, he managed to eventually breed out, and was why 100% VSH queens were only recomended as breeders, while 50% VSH was for regular usage.


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## Saltybee

But oh what a poison pill, brood break/ varroa killer, treatment, a frame of 100% VSH brood would be to keep around. You would have to keep adding emerging brood to keep the donor hive going.


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Huh.
> 
> A few days ago you said it was 'tens of thousands of years'.
> 
> I wonder what prompted the revision ....



Husbandry (founded on selective propagation) has been around for thousands of years. Its the foundation of agriculture.

Science (in the modern sense, critically including 'scientific method') was only developed in the 16th and 17th Centures. 

Selective husbandry and science (in the modern sense) are two entirely different things. 

Science (and the scientific method) was quickly bought to bear on husbandry. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Michael Bush said:


> These are two different statments. "traditional husbandry" is breeding from the best. "Scientific breeding" is breeding for very specific traits that can be tested for and taking specific measurements of traits.


It can be. The phrase isn't actually very precise at all. There is nothing 'unscientific' about careful results-led low-tech selective breeding. As I say, things don't have to cutting-edge to be scientific. You can do scientific experiments in your bathroom, and scientific cooking on a campfire. Science is an approach to discovery, not a set of high tech gear.

To be 'scientific' is to apply the scientific method. That's all. That can be drawn very tightly, or fairly loosely - with commensurate probabilisitic results (very tightly drawn = more likely to be correct results). 



Michael Bush said:


> "traditional husbandry" has existed as long as people have been breeding anything. [MB]
> 
> Somewhere along that line that degenerated into carefully measuring specific traits and maintaining specific lines, which almost alwasy turns out to be a very bad idea that results in cows that can't calf, horses that can't process potassium, dogs that are deaf etc.


Sometimes. Broadly I agree with you, but just because lots of people use a good method to do silly things doesn't make the method bad. You can use a scientific approach to do good stuff too. 

What you can't do is keep organic lifeforms healthy without having them constanly adapting to their constantly-evolving/new predators. Unless you medicate and call that 'health' But... you can *only* do that in closed populations...

So you *have* to do selective breeding (or suffer natural losses). Then you have a choice. Do that unscientifically (by intuition, guesswork, tossing a coin, reading goats' entrails...?) ... or scientifically - find 'best' through sound evaluation procedures and propagate from them mostly/cull the other end.

I suppose 'low-tech scientific approach' is a reasonable way to describe this, to distinguish it from the sort of 'high-tech precision scientific breeding' that you think of.

That's how I see it anyway.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> VSH is a clear example where Harbo found that highly VSH bees removed too much brood which led them to being useless for producing honey.


Is that 'highly' a reference to the genetic make up of a patriline, or the proportion of workers (of all patrilines) in a hive?

That's unlikely to be a problem for us, given multiple open matings. If we get massive control of our breeding pools maybe something to watch out for.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Michael Palmer said:


> No Mike, not being snippy. Just surprised, that's all.


In that case I was being oversensitive Michael, apologies. 

BTW, how did your UK jaunt go last year? Were the brits receptive on the whole?

Mike (UK)


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