# What is your Philosophy and Tactics for reducing treatments?



## RiodeLobo (Oct 11, 2010)

Mine is pragmatism and self sufficiency. 
I will treat to survive, I will modify to improve. 

My goal is to to be solely self sufficient and treat with only things that I can produce, have a decent crop of honey and wax and good survival.

Dan Hayden

All views are welcome.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Philosophy - Know your enemy(disease,vector). Learn how they operate, what effects them, their life cycle. Read peer review journals.

Tactic - Apply acquired knowledge in a manner that defeats the diseases and vectoring parasites with only items I would injest myself, or are of a non-chemical nature..

Crazy Roland


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

My philosophy is that in the long run, bees don't need help fighting off disease if they are not overly burdened by our practices.

My tactic is to multiply them as much as possible and let natural selection handle the details. It's not for the easily dissuaded.


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## hipbee (Sep 11, 2009)

very refreshing to read about others who feel the same way! If more would adopt that kind of philosophy(not just with bees but with everything we do) I think we would all be amazed by how fast these amazing little creatures(and earth) would bounce back.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I think trying to reduce treatments is a trap. If you don't eliminate them you just keep perpetuating bees that can't survive without them, and you keep upsetting the natural balance that you need to reestablish in order for them to survive without them. In my experience, you can't get past that until you quit treating.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

My tactic was I never started treating. Did use HBH, & powdered sugar. 7 of 7 made it through winter this year.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

So some have shared their tactic, but how does that play out in real life? What are you doing to achieve this? How many years have you been doing this? For me, until I could be treatment free over several years and see normal hive activity/production, I didn't consider myself there yet.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I believe I would substitute the word strategy for tactic.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Is not treating at all, for anything, in any way, a tactic or philosophy for REDUCTION of use, if one never has used?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

sqkcrk said:


> Is not treating at all, for anything, in any way, a tactic or philosophy for REDUCTION of use, if one never has used?


If one's goal is not focused simply on oneself, one may argue that some in the community taking a harsher stance in eliminating weaker bloodlines is good for the whole community. If better quality drones are available from ones neighbors who have never treated, then globally, that harsher philosophy and tougher tactic by that neighbor brings about a reduction in the overall treatment use.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Barry, can you further explain your questions? I will try to answer.

How does it play out in real life?

Mites are not an issue, easy to deal with without chemicals. CCD was tough.
Found a non chemical way to help with CCD.
Bees are healthy, no signs of DWV, etc.
All we need is some good weather.

How many years have you been doing this?

Depends on the "this"
159 years.

I don't think we will ever get "there" . The "There" keeps moving, changing.


Crazy Roland


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Roland said:


> Barry, can you further explain your questions? I will try to answer.


Just want to know what people are doing management wise, if anything, to avoid treating. I got rid of all my old combs, milled my own wax foundation from clean wax, used SC, used local stock for bees and didn't bring in outside queens. This is what I did differently. I never did fall feeding before, don't do it now. Will feed if need be for splits.



> Mites are not an issue, easy to deal with without chemicals.


How so?


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Breeding,

testing,:thumbsup:

Breeding from the results. :scratch:


test again,inch:


Breeding from the results. :waiting:


..................... continue ad nauseam


Inbetween lick your wounds when new junk arrives and start over.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

So you've been treatment free all your years in beekeeping simply by breeding and replacing queens? Please be more transparent so we can understand and get the full picture.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Quote:
Mites are not an issue, easy to deal with without chemicals.

How so?


Strike the drone brood every 12-14 days.

And of course , do as Honey-4-all does, breed from the best in every yard. No need to let most of the bees die, just to see who has the right genes, Observe them, breed from those that have what you want, and relpace the bad genes BEFORE they are dead. 

Crazy Roland


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Roland said:


> Strike the drone brood every 12-14 days.


How do you do this in a commercial outfit? Do you use drone comb? Do you follow Lusby's advise and cull drone brood to just 10% on any given frame? How many hives are we talking about?


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Not treatment free. Not yet. Who wouldn't like to be.

Read my past posts. I am a dumb business man in that I have not chosen to dump illegal chems in my hives. Could have bought a truckload of swingers or a nice house here in California with all the deadout money.

Won't say my situation is particular but because of many issues besides bees I haven't been able to care for the number of hives as in the past or spend the face time with each hive I used to. 

For you numbers counting people we run over a thousand which is not a pittance nor as many as we used to have in the past. Enough to give a "wide sample" in test results when breeding. I am not talking about doing this on 10 hives. 

We have been buying breeders, picking through surviving stock and testing them. This past year we used fumigillan in the mating nucs and cell builders and fed some to hives in early fall. I have not used Tetra or Tylosin since the last big buyout in 96. All hives had a flash 24 hr formic acid treatment last two weeks of August into the first week of September in 2010. The guys finished the last couple 100 or so after I left to get the bees back out of Alaksa the end of the first week of September. Not a drop of anything else treatment wise since. Did feed a ton of syrup and pollen sub( mega-bee) from September on. 

Once I knew Katie Lee (Marla Spivak associate) was going to be doing testing with the northern California breeders I decided to take my licks like a dummy and just let them blow through the winter again and see what we came up with after a long period of no treatments. ( was almost 6 months and through the winter)

We have been grafting off the better testing ones. Wish I could have tested 800 but time and funds haven't allowed that at this point. 

Out of 55 hives tested (best looking out of a lot of 200) this year we included about 5 that were old queens from a load of bees that I bought last spring ( Hawaiian and other nor cal queens)

Ours tested 0-7% mites. The other ones tested over 10 and up to 21%.

We checked Hygienic behavior on freeze 24 freeze test, mite loads, and Nosema loads. 

All the breeders we are grafting from this year came from 0 baseline hives Nosema wise. 
Next thing on my list is low mite count %. 0-5% queens were chosen. 
Out of 16 QM's only 1 tested 4% and another tested at 5%. Remember these have had only one flash treatment in 18 months or since "birth last April."

To track our genetics the queen mother number is written down when we graft,put cells in, and catch queens. The best use of a sharpie finepoint pen is putting the queen number mother on the cage. It is helpful information to help track the genetics of queen mothers throughout the year and with later picks for grafting. Nothing as fancy or intense as John Keefus is doing for sure. 

A couple of the ones that tested great showed a couple of the curled cell virus or whatever its called. This ailment showed up about two-three years back. One was a perfect hive and tested near the top but upon close inspection I decided they were NOT going to be used.

So..... There you have it. Nothing perfect or secret. Not treatment free. Not yet. 

I did also institute a program of marking all new equipment with the year date mark of when its thrown in the hive. I am under the personal opinion we would be better off if we culled all our equipment within 7- 10 years of first use. Haven't had the chutzpah or the funds to put this rule into action as of yet.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

How do you do this in a commercial outfit? 
With a hive tool

Do you use drone comb?
No.

Do you follow Lusby's advise and cull drone brood to just 10% on any given frame? 

No, every drone cell we see , except in the favorite hive of the yard.

How many hives are we talking about?[/QUOTE]
400 last fall, shooting for 500 this summer.

Crazy Roland


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

There are three practices that lead to resistances in honey bee colonies. Any one of them will work, its up to the bee keeper to decide which one fits their abilities and preference. I have listed these methods on page 4, post 39 of the "treatment free queens" thread of this forum... here is a link...http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251422&page=4


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

In my opinion, from my pov, one can't reduce what one does not use. Granted, their nonuse will, overall, reduce the amount of pesticides that all beekeepers use. But thhat is another topic. imo.

"All views welcome." according to the original poster of the Thread.

I control the amount of pesticides used in my operation by not using them any more than is necessary to maintain viable colonies in my hives.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

WiredForStereo said:


> If better quality drones are available from ones neighbors who have never treated, then globally, that harsher philosophy and tougher tactic by that neighbor brings about a reduction in the overall treatment use.


Yeah, I can see how you could make that argument.


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## concrete-bees (Jun 20, 2009)

My Tactics for reducing treatments are simple 

TEST TEST TEST TEST

before and after any type of treatment 

people dont just start taking insulen because they might have Diabeties 
you got to test for it 
same with bees - if you are treating without testing then you are 
a - Wasting your time 
b - ignoring labeling on treatments 
c - adding stress to bees that might otherwise be fine

i see a lot and i mean a LOT of people buy strips, pads, tymol, apistan, OA, powderd sugar, HopGuard..... the list goes on and folks know who they are when i say that they bought these without testing and then after they put them on the bees they walk away and never Re test - and why have to ... you didnt test to start with so how can you compare the before and after?

I dont want to get to Ranting but reduce your treatments by knowing what you are treating


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## scdw43 (Aug 14, 2008)

The best way is to not treat with anything, the dead ones are not the ones you want to breed from. It works, try it on a few hives in a separate yard.


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

scdw43 said:


> The best way is to not treat with anything, _the dead ones are not the ones you want to breed from._


Good advice, both for bees and for blind dates.


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