# TF concepts



## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

#2 Many TF beekeeping leads back to feral survivors, either as starting stock or open mating queens many generation gaining survivor stock genes. 

#4 I don't think it makes much of a difference, sugar is sugar. Read somewhere here you can't tell the difference even in a lab. Most will agree best to feed only for survival and leave honey for them. 

#5 I have 50 feral survivor hives some propolis more than others, no noticeable difference other than it's harder to inspect glued frames.

Forgot one; your local area; In an areas of high beek the spread of inferior "domesticated mite bombs" and their genes may make it impossible for some to go TF.


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## wissler (Jan 27, 2012)

Grow and maintain adult size hives, i.e. 3+ deeps


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

Here is a link to Dee Lusby's work "The Way Back to Biological Beekeeping"

https://static.secure.website/wscfus/9893467/2359916/the-way-back-to-biological-beekeeping.pdf


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

> Grow and maintain adult size hives, i.e. 3+ deeps


I'm in favor of 3 deep setup. However not everyone wants this configuration and I see no reason to impose it. Simple maintain strong hives would be my suggestion.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Learn to make increase. Create backup to replace losses. Make queens from long lived hives. When transitioning to tf or starting out, take measures to reduce transfer of mites from failing hives to thriving ones.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

#7 Learn to have back up. Use 2 nucs per production colony as back up. I recommend using Palmer/ Webster nucleolus colony methods. Look them up on you tube. Maybe someone could provide a link to save me some time.

#8 Mr. Parkers Expansion Model Beekeeping: http://parkerfarms.biz/expansionmodelbeekeeping.html


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## SwampCat (Jul 14, 2011)

Split your own strong hives to make new hives and refrain from buying queens. Don't fight a hive that is trying to die- help it along a little bit, and if they don't make it, they don't make it - survival of the fittest. You will not work my hives without a bee suit - I know folks that can work their hives like they are feeding guppies in an aquarium. My bees are not African killer bees, but they can have a little attitude - especially when not worked in a while or on really hot days. I think that helps them fight the mites - they are tougher compared to the bees that everyone coddles. I have more hive failure in the summer than the winter - so winter kill is not the only consideration.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Clayton Huestis said:


> I am writing this as basic concepts to TF beekeeping to avoid some pitfalls.


I leave enough honey so I don't have to feed. Feeding can disrupt brood breaks that stress _varroa_ and reduce their numbers. I regard each hive as a biosphere where parasites, diseases, and conditions that can reduce _varroa_ numbers may thrive. I use solid bottom boards to promote the varied life in the bottom of the hive. Miticides, fungicides, and antibiotics may be harmful to enemies, pests, and diseases of _varroa_. I don't use them. Likewise, soil treatments like diatomaceous earth may interfere with _varroa's_ potential natural enemies. I use eight frame medium brood boxes with tall brood nests. The hives are made of cedar which may not be as attractive to mites as other materials. I use large cell and small cell plastic foundation and foundationless frames. These are, for the most part, untested approaches that may help identify potential approaches to be studied.


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## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

Riverderwent said:


> I leave enough honey so I don't have to feed. Feeding can disrupt brood breaks that stress _varroa_ and reduce their numbers. I regard each hive as a biosphere where parasites, diseases, and conditions that can reduce _varroa_ numbers may thrive. I use solid bottom boards to promote the varied life in the bottom of the hive. Miticides, fungicides, and antibiotics may be harmful to enemies, pests, and diseases of _varroa_. I don't use them. Likewise, soil treatments like diatomaceous earth may interfere with _varroa's_ potential natural enemies. I use eight frame medium brood boxes with tall brood nests. The hives are made of cedar which may not be as attractive to mites as other materials. I use large cell and small cell plastic foundation and foundationless frames. These are, for the most part, untested approaches that may help identify potential approaches to be studied.



What are varroa's natural enemies?


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

FP writes:



> #5 I have 50 feral survivor hives some propolis more than others, no noticeable difference other than it's harder to inspect glued frames.


Randy Oliver wrote:



> 8. Dr. Spivak suggests that our breeding for bees that use less propolis may have backfired against us, since propolis may be the bees’ first line of defense against diseases, and possibly mites.


The scope of this thread is for being TF and is not limited to talking about varroa. If you have tested higher propolis use and its affects on brood diseases I would love to see the results? If you have tested the same vs. viruses I would like to see that too? Then again you weren't very clear what propolis didn't/ did do....


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Clayton, will you accept a #9? Promote broodbreaks as a positive intervention for hive health.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

> will you accept a #9? Promote broodbreaks as a positive intervention for hive health.


It is a useful manipulation. You can use it on colonies that have good traits but aren't quite ready to be TF cold turkey so to speak.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

Quoted from Randy Oliver: 



> Other potential varroa resistance/tolerance mechanisms
> 
> Here are some more observed or potential varroa-fighting tools likely to be found in the bees’ genetic toolbox (in rough order of likelihood):
> 
> ...


Keep all the above in mind when breeding queens. Our best breeders out there have mostly made efforts in maybe one or two traits from the above. I think we need to see more from 4. and d.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Nabber86 said:


> What are varroa's natural enemies?


Really. There are no known or even possible unknown bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, predator mites, insects, pseudo scorpions, or animal vectored diseases or toxin sources that may infect, prey upon, parasitize, or otherwise harm the health, growth or reproduction of _varroa_. They are a remarkable and amazing creature without any potential disease or natural enemy but mankind. Your question is actually one of the most important but least asked questions I know.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Josef Koller in Germany has outlined a concept for the transition period to TF beekeeping. He calls it "Zucht Project Roots", Roots Breeding Project. The main principles are: Start with one yard. Move there your best candidates to become varroa resistant bees. Every normal, good enough hive is divided every summer and the new nuc (or half) makes its own queen. All hives are allowed to make drones as much as they want. Better hives make more viable drones. When enough time has passed, and enough resistance is present, the first yard becomes crowded. Make second yard somewhere in flying distance of drones. Continue to split all hives. Make all the coming yards in a circle around the first yard.

Doing this way a zone for varroa resistant drones is created, pretty much the same way Fusion_Power has made it. I have started to follow this plan in Ruovesi. In the future these little dots become larger and fill up whole districts and states.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Leave as much burr comb as possible. It will help microfauna.

Keep an eye on drone rearing. If you have a small amount of drone brood on every comb throughout the year, most mites will enter drone brood, not worker brood. And you will have some drones for mating in stress situations.

If you make splits all the time to establish your apiary, leave the bees the decision to supersede an old queen.

Develop your own strategy because everybody works under different conditions. Keep an eye on your flow, your foragers must find enough food.

Try to avoid sprayed surroundings.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Transition from the treated bees to the tf operation:
1. Make splits every Spring time.
2. Oav the splits to established the young queen.
3. Obtain the resistant stocks if you don't have any locally.
4. Time your splits to the mated queen.
5. Feed when they are hungry.
6. Nuc the after the solstice queens to overwinter.
7. Graft from the most mite free colony.
8. Send the good stock drones to the local DCAs.
9. Give brood break to keep the mite population low.
10. Only keep the prolific and gentle queens to expand.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

There are times your treatment free bees, even the resistant ones, will be jeopardized by your neighbour`s bees, if you are not isolated (bees with mites drifting, drones), so what can you do?
If you don`t want to have a setback using treatments.

- You split and force a brood break ( like it`mentioned here) , but you have no honey harvest, except maybe from the queenless part
- high mite infestation: you take out all capped brood twice with 9 days in between, you can do it as long as they breed no winter bees
- leave them more honey. They will live longer and have more bees and time to fight mites
- combine weak colonies, hopefully the best queen will survive or use the better one..suddenly they may survive

Some treat with thymol those hives with the highest infestation so they spread no mites in their own apiary.

Nice thread to learn the different approaches.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> If you don`t want to have a setback using treatments...


it seems that the drifting of mites into the hives has been and will continue to be an issue that all colonies will have to contend with, along with the robbing out of colonies suffering collapse from varroasis. it is likely that these scenarios play out in natural settings as well as where managed colonies are kept.

i suppose if the overriding goal is to not put any chemicals into the hives then your suggestions above make sense. however if one is trying to advance the development of mite resistant stock while at the same time interested in keeping bees for the sake of producing a honey crop i believe those suggestions may be counterproductive.

as you mentioned the perpetual splitting of colonies to force brood breaks will slow mite reproduction down but will also compromise the honey crop. killing all of the capped brood 9 days apart would rid a colony of a lot of mites, but also tend to to set the colony back to the point of not being as productive. then, if we are going to leave honey for the bees so as not have to feed syrup, (which is what i do), with these manipulations it's hard to see how there would be any honey left for harvest.

i believe that helping the bees deal with mites by frequently splitting and/or killing mites trapped in capped brood isn't going to help advance your stock to becoming mite resistant and treatment free. i believe that these things are also 'setbacks', some would say 'treatments'. also i don't think that these methods are going to allow the beekeeper looking to get a return on investment of time and money to see a profit.

i'm not trying to be critical sibylle, and i've no problem with each and every beekeeper keeping bees in whatever fashion that promotes their desires and goals, so long as they don't put neighboring colonies at risk. i only raise these points because treatment free beekeeping is sometimes criticized for being nonproductive and nonprofitable, and my opinion is that the suggestions in your last post would tend to support those criticisms. 

that said i realize that there are no cut and dry paths to developing treatment free stock when nonresistant bees are predominant around you. i'm afraid i don't have any sage advice to give you in that regard, but i wish you luck and i wish you well.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Squarepeg,
it`s ok to be critical, I´m grateful for your kind explanations and your point of view.
You know, I believe you will make it possible to have tf bees AND honey production. That`s why I read your thread.

I have in mind that we could use the double amount of hives for the same harvest.
But, as always, it`s a question of investment and profit and, of course, of working time.

On my site I posted this, maybe it`s of interest for you:

http://www.vivabiene.de/t244f22-Mike-Allsopp-Apis-Capensis.html

Best regards, Sibylle


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> I have in mind that we could use the double amount of hives for the same harvest.


thank you for understanding sibylle. i commend you for attempting the difficult and i look forward to hearing about your experiences. thanks also for the interesting link.

yes, when colonies are split early enough here, and by that i mean about one month before our main spring nectar flow they oftentimes do make enough honey so that some can be harvested, but the split has to have brood and a laying queen and no brood break. and yes, the harvest from such a split is measurably less than the harvest from colonies not split.

new colonies that are started with queen cells, (and get the brood break), can usually make enough honey for themselves to overwinter on, but sometimes these starters require some honey donated from other hives in order to have enough for wintering. no harvest is expected from these until the next season.

this is how it works where i am keeping bees, but as always it very much depends on the weather and the nectar flows at your location.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Many thanks.
You are such a kind person.


Well.
In the year 2004 the Swedish Beekeeping Association published this ( i give you a part of it, it`s my path to build my apiary):


> Summary of basics
> 
> Thus some general things seem to be important to achieve success:
> 
> ...


After 3 years I´m supposed to establish production hives and start selection. I want to learn grafting, too. 
I´m in my second year now with sc tf bees.

In Germany honey in markets mostly comes from other countries or east europe. It´s very cheap. If you want to sell your own for a good price you have to be organic or have some extraordinary marketing strategy.

So maybe in a few years pollination is more important than honey production, because we have less and less beekeepers. Then tf resistant bees will have more support.
Sibylle


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> thank you for understanding sibylle. i commend you for attempting the difficult and i look forward to hearing about your experiences. thanks also for the interesting link.
> 
> yes, when colonies are split early enough here, and by that i mean about one month before our main spring nectar flow they oftentimes do make enough honey so that some can be harvested, but the split has to have brood and a laying queen and no brood break. and yes, the harvest from such a split is measurably less than the harvest from colonies not split.
> 
> ...


This has been exactly my experience. This year I tried essentially smaller splits, I.e. removing the queen and 3-4 combs and keeping the main hive body strong. I lost a lot of swarms this year, and set honey production back further than if I'd done true splits. Part of it was management, as I didn't recognize the flow patterns early enough and failed to inspect regularly enough due to circumstances non beek related. Perhaps the only bonus was if the bees make it out there, it helps my buffer zone. Still a lot to learn, and I thank everyone on here for their thoughtful contributions.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

I would also add keep populations high in density. Even if only 1/4 of sisters in a hive population show resistance to disease A, and the rest die off, there is a great chance of survival if the hive is dense with bees.Remove unnecessary comb at intervals of population decline to maintain density.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Last year my colonies had 7-8 brood combs before splitting, having been splitted heavily by the former owner. 
They struggled to be strong enough for winter, but since I supported them they all survived.

Now my strategy is to make splits which fill one dadant deep from the beginning, to prevent swarming and have a little honey harvest, but most of all I want them to be able to fight the mites.
I harvested 60 pounds of honey from 3 queenless splits, I left them 40 pounds each.
So let`s see how they fare in future.



> , there is a great chance of survival if the hive is dense with bees


I´m with you here, Nordak.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

SiWolKe said:


> Now my strategy is to make splits which fill one dadant deep from the beginning, to prevent swarming and have a little honey harvest, but most of all I want them to be able to fight the mites.
> I harvested 60 pounds of honey from 3 queenless splits, I left them 40 pounds each.
> So let`s see how they fare in future.


I think moving forward, this will be closer to the way I split as well. Those queenless splits on a honey flow can really amaze with the sheer amount of nectar stored.


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