# Treatment free and foundationless in MS



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

welcome sp!

you would be in the same boat finding someone managing bees like that in my neck of the woods as well.

the bees you are buying, are they coming from a treatment free supplier? how many colonies are you going to start with?


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## hoppingsp (Feb 12, 2014)

No I am sure that they are being treated and might not make it I dunno. Am planning on starting 2 colonies and if they can build up well here might do a split if possible. The bees are local and are what this person calls survivors however probably not treatment free ones I had placed order with him before really read up on tf and I am not one to back out on someone so in my eyes order is done for better or worse. I hope with our fairly long season I can have a good buildup and start couple nucs for backup or spring next year however that might not be possible. I have a friend with a hive in a tree in his back yard and plan on setting up a nuc for a trap to catch the swarm if it does swarm.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood. making splits and increasing your hive count is a good strategy. catching swarms is a good idea as well. i'm a few hours away from you, but i'll have some tf nucs available later in the season. best of luck to you and keep us posted.


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## hoppingsp (Feb 12, 2014)

Might need one from u as well later peg, i might be looking for some anyway for a genetic boost if mine live a while. Just hoping bees are not like raising quail if there is a way for them to die they will find it.


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## stan.vick (Dec 19, 2010)

One advantage of survivor bees are, they have already regressed to natural cell, hopefully your supplier has them on foundationless now. You have not made a mistake by ordering local survivors, if they were treated once or twice I think they will still have most of their survivor qualities after another generation or two, certainly better than ordering from a large commercial supplier if treatment free foundationless is what you are trying to develop. You should do well if you grow your apiary slowly and keep the colonies strong.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

in our part of the country there is good natural forage and a strong population of feral bees that contribute drones for mating. i think you have a good shot at it, but it may take a few seasons of winnowing the nonresistant ones. catching swarms and/or trapping out from known feral colonies will move you along. i believe that avoiding artificial feeds and letting them get all of their nutrition from the field helps. i also do my best to avoid the spread of pests and pathogens by preventing a collapsing colony from getting robbed out by stronger ones.


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## hoppingsp (Feb 12, 2014)

Well I don't think they are foundation less so am hoping he is using small cell at least if not I might have to use couple of foundations to get them to regress which I counted on using anyway to get some straight comb started
So maybe that will work out. Starting small was definitely my plan I don't care much if I get any honey this year I just want to get a handle on the keeping of the hives and observing and learning this year. If bees make it this year might can split next spring, I am looking forward to trying to catch my buddies bees in his yard though that should be fun and interesting and known survivor stock they have been in his tree for past couple of years. And natural cell size to boot.


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## Teal (Jan 30, 2014)

I hope you have good luck in finding someone to help you locally. I am excited for you! I am looking for that this year too. In all my readings on beekeeping, foundationless/tf seems to be the right fit for me. I also plan on the 8 frame medium equip. I cannot wait to get started.


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