# Treatment free in Pinellas, Florida



## jimsteelejr (Sep 21, 2012)

I have been reading a lot on the forums about treatment free. Is there any one in Pinellas county Florida that has gone treatment free for several years and can actually show solid success. I would love to talk to you and get your ideas.


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## Bees In Miami (Nov 30, 2012)

I am not in Pinellas, though I miss it there very much!! Lived in Bahama Shores (South Side near the pink streets) for a few years. Treatment free for what? Where did you get your bees, how many do you have, and what problems are you seeing? I have never 'treated' per se, though I do preventative maintenance for pests like hive beetles. All my bees are Mutts, and I have never (knock on wood) had a mite issue. Hive beetles, though, another story. More info as to what you are seeing, and to what you think you have to treat for....


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## jimsteelejr (Sep 21, 2012)

We do bee removal so there are hives coming and going as we find homes for them. We have 6 hives that are permanent. Two are hives from Honey land with what are advertised as VSH queens, One is a swarm off our fence (so probably from one of our hives ) and three are Ferals that we removed from buildings that we kept. Last year we lost several hives in January that we may have taken too much honey from and one that had severe Deformed Wing Virus with a very high mite count. Hive beetles are not usually a problem for us We normally only see one or two. Our hives are in full sun on a concrete slab (old carport) We have always kept the bees on perico foundation. I like the concept of not using chemicals on the bees and only keeping survivor stock to build up with. I have read a lot of the pro and con arguments on Beesource . I would like to start converting all of our hives to foundationless and one of the hives we collected early this summer has been a great producer, and the bees seem to be very strong. I had hoped the VSH queens would show really strong antimite activity but a check Saturday shows both the VSH hives dwindling and one hive that we had requeen early in the year with a Honeyland queen because they were very aggressive is a dead out.My main problem is I just don't quite know where to start to convert.
My thinking at the moment is to do splits off the Feral hive that seems to be doing so well and do splits off the Swarm hive off our fence. Also If I can nurse the other thru the winter I would requeen them with a frame of eggs from one of the strong hives. 
We are right in the center of st. Pete and I know from talking to the bee inspector there are at least a dozen managed hives with in a few miles of us. There are also a number of Ferals in the neighbor hood. Many in trees that are out of reach or the neigbors don't mind being there. So the Gene pool would be mixed between Feral stock and managed. 
Right now I have ample honey in all the hives so I do not have to feed sugar water. Also I have not seen any drones in the last two weeks so trying to produce queens at the this time of year would probably be futile. 
So-should I replace as many frames that have foundation as I can? /What do/can I do at thus time to begin the transition?


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