# Mite bombs



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

beekirk
The bee imformed partnership survey has side liner numbers for people who use no mite reduction product at just 3 percent more loss then those that use a product over a five year period for all states combined.

I am going into my third winter with ten treatment free hives and have only lost one so far in previous years but will know more next spring. I have ten hives which I am sure would not have much effect on a couple of hundred hives unless they were really poor stock.

I bet even in your hundreds of hives that they all do not have the same mite count in them all year long. I wonder if a study was done of all our hives combined, who would have the biggest number of hives that might be considered mite bombs?

With that many hives, it would not surprise me if you lost enough swarms that might end up adding up to more possible mite bombs before the year is out then I have hives at this point.

At least if my hives all do die, I will know who to blame with out having to look at my neighbor too hard. I could blame it on all the weak bees that rely on treatments messing up my drone pool but figure why waste my time on stuff that will never be controlled and so will just blame my own beekeeping skills and adjust what I need to do to fix it or get out of keeping bees.

I do not know if you would consider the bee informed numbers as treatment free numbers but they are at least chemical free compared to chemical reliant.

Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

hi randy. i moved your thread to the 'diseases and pests' subforum as i believe you'll get more feedback here. 

congrats, it looks like you've come a long way since this post:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...ter-trying-to-make-a-go&p=1347125#post1347125


here's a older thread on 'mite bombs' from last year:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?336846-Mite-Bombs


has your treatment free friend been keeping bees as long as you? are the winter losses much different between the two of you?

treating doesn't necessarily guarantee against becoming a mite bomb. the reason usually given when that happens is the treatment was too little too late.


if you have time and are interested in a pragmatic primer on the subject i recommend reading through randy oliver's entire series entitled "the varroa problem":

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/articles-by-publication-date/

(scroll down to november 2016 for part 1)


here's a quote from randy out of his latest installment that is in this month's issue of the american bee journal but not yet posted on his website:

"The British Columbia Honey Producers Association publishes an excellent quarterly called Bee Scene. In last fall’s issue, an article by beekeeper Kerry Clark caught my eye—“Mutual Respect in the Treatment-Free Debate.” I’m in full agreement, since either side has grounds for making a case. I find closed-minded finger pointing, blaming, and demonization of others to be counterproductive. Although proponents of either side can convincingly rationalize and justify their positions, the truth is that both sides are often right, and both sides are often ill-informed about the biology involved."

abj, july 2018, vol. 158 No. 7, p. 771


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

In the last decade or so a new wave of idealistic beekeepers has emerged, many of whom march under the banner of an approach described as 'Natural' Beekeeping. Central to what has essentially become a new religion is the core belief that unmanaged bees are capable of 'naturally' resolving problems of any disease or infestation which befalls them.

However, what is being overlooked in this current climate of giddy optimism is that in all countries in which beekeeping is conducted (and do we know of any in which it isn't ?) the density of beehives is now such that it broadly equates to a state of intensive farming. And as we know only too well from past experience, intensive farming - unless managed appropriately - is a sure-fire recipe for the outbreak of both disease and infestation.
LJ


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## Beekkirk (Mar 7, 2014)

I meet Oliver and have followed just a smidge of his literature. He was the one who got me interested in the mite bomb idea and also alcohol washing every single one of my hives. I did last year. Between today and next saturday i will be doing an alcohol wash on every single one of my hives. Ive done a handful the past week and found 0 mites on about 10ish hives. I can wash a yard of 25 hives in probably an hour and a half by my self. It pays for me to know which hives i dont need to treat, Ill know the 0% hives that dont need treatment and the ones to re wash after treatment that had 5%. So right now I can firmly say that by next weekend i will know my "mite bombs" and i doubt ill even find over 5% due to all my splitting. Im sure what little swarms I have had are mite bombs, just like im sure theres foulbrood in the woods from past poor beekeepers.


I just find it hard to believe that a 100% treatment free person can make such a claim that they do not create mite bombs. And then claim that i have no facts to back that they do have mite bombs. Obviously im not doing alcohol washes on their hives........I asked what his hive losses were for the year and he claims he doesnt count losses......? Too high to want to know? Probably no way sustainable..... and is probably rebuying or trading bees every year. obviously mites are why said individual doesnt want to "count losses". 

No blaming anyone here on having mites of my own, and have absolutely no problem with treatment free beeks, untill they do not intervene with a treatment. Thats just craziness.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

IMO, mite bombs are real. It really has to do with the population of mites in the untreated, under treated, or improperly treated colonies. I've seen it too many times...especially evident in two of my apiaries. 

Until a few years ago, NY sampled all my NY apiaries. Mid-July samples were always 0-2 mites in 300 bees. Except two apiaries, 2 miles apart, where a TF beekeeper has an apiary of 10-20 colonies. My two apiaries there are always showing high mite loads...13-15 mites per 300 bees...when the rest of my operation has 0-2. This year we sampled all the apiaries in mid-July when going through them for requeening. Most apiaries had 0 mites. A few hives had 1 -3. What do you think my two apiaries near this guy samples? 13. I talked to him last summer, asking about his varroa management plan. He told me he was using MAQS. I asked him if he samples his bees. "Well, I was gonna, but...

Yep, under of improperly treated and never sampled to see if he got any control at all.


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## Beekkirk (Mar 7, 2014)

Michael Palmer said:


> IMO, mite bombs are real. It really has to do with the population of mites in the untreated, under treated, or improperly treated colonies. I've seen it too many times...especially evident in two of my apiaries.
> 
> Until a few years ago, NY sampled all my NY apiaries. Mid-July samples were always 0-2 mites in 300 bees. Except two apiaries, 2 miles apart, where a TF beekeeper has an apiary of 10-20 colonies. My two apiaries there are always showing high mite loads...13-15 mites per 300 bees...when the rest of my operation has 0-2. This year we sampled all the apiaries in mid-July when going through them for requeening. Most apiaries had 0 mites. A few hives had 1 -3. What do you think my two apiaries near this guy samples? 13. I talked to him last summer, asking about his varroa management plan. He told me he was using MAQS. I asked him if he samples his bees. "Well, I was gonna, but...
> 
> Yep, under of improperly treated and never sampled to see if he got any control at all.


Well as a treatment free beekeeper michael, sounds like you agree with all my beliefs. Out of curiosity, what do you do with these high mite loaded hives, do you requeen or something before they get ridiculously high?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I'm not a TF beekeeper. Don't know why folks think I am. I treat all my colonies after harvest. Just don't like losing them, or severely compromised before I can get the honey off.


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## Beekkirk (Mar 7, 2014)

Michael Palmer said:


> I'm not a TF beekeeper. Don't know why folks think I am. I treat all my colonies after harvest. Just don't like losing them, or severely compromised before I can get the honey off.


whoops, mistaken your name for micheal bush


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I used to have a greater problem with mites (despite treating, and monitoring my hives like nobody's business.) 

Then I started reaching out to the neighboring beekeepers within my flight range and a little beyond. Mostly they were backyard beekeepers without a good handle on mites as a critical issue, as opposed to being TF on principle. 

So I taught them to monitor, and began treating their colonies along with mine.

Result: I don't have much of a mite problem any more, and they have less of a one. If we move on to monitoring and treating the ones farther beyond them (and way out of my flight range) then I think we'll do even better.

Sadly, what was once a pretty rich area for feral colonies has now dwindled down considerably (nobody was treating those poor bees). 

I also teach my neighbors how to prevent swarming, so for awhile the number of feral colonies should stay low. That's OK for now.  That will allow some troubles to burn themselves out. Honeybees, after all, are not native to North America, so less pressure from feralized colonies won't hurt native pollinators. (I would never kill a feral colony, however.)

And I also teach them how not to lose colonies in winter, and how to make splits from their strong overwintered ones, so fewer packages and nucs are coming in bringing fresh rounds of problems with them.

Since no beekeepers really want to have unhealthy, short-lived bees my neighbors are happy with the results I've showed them are possible and picking up the plan on their own.

All it took was some of my time, patience - as opposed to fingerpointing - and probably less than $5 of wood bleach. A good investment in opinion.

Nancy


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

beekkirk


> I just find it hard to believe that a 100% treatment free person can make such a claim that they do not create mite bombs. And then claim that i have no facts to back that they do have mite bombs.


I look at it a little differently. My position relies more on the finger pointing of who leaves the biggest foot print on an area in a bad way. The fact that mite bombs may or may not be a bad thing when put into perspective of a shared area is not as important as the fact that all people could do better with the bees they keep (and I mean all people). 

So if we started picking things that may be hurting each other on what the individuals are trying to accomplish, there would always be legitimate blame to go around and if it were studied with all factors involved, no one would be innocent.

Maybe a ten hive treatment free might have some impact that some one else may need to recognize in their bees and they may need to find ways to live with that situation just like if you lived by a guy that took bees to pollination or followed flows and then brought everything those bees came in contact with back to your area compared to and aria that had only local beeks using local stock, who may have to react to different pressures. One may manage bees by making a split of every hive prior to swarm season where another may keep his bees and let them move to swarm season in the hopes that the ones that don't swarm may make more honey knowing some will swarm. Both positions are fair options for bee keepers and given as advice in many books but have different impact on those around them.

So it is not that all could not do something different then what they do that may make them have a better foot print on a shared environment but more who gets to decide.

So in the end, people are going to do the thing that they justify as most important in their mind and have some excuse for doing it. This being what I believe is real rather then what I wish, my belief is I am better off just figuring out what it takes for me in my area to get bees to give me what I want from them regardless of what others want from theirs that live around me.

I can spend all my time trying to add up things I don't like that they are doing and they could spend the same amount of time on me and we could all have some merit to our arguments of things that have an impact on the whole area and put math to it and try to see who is hurting it the worst or I could just recognize what is going on and what I need to do for my bees under those circumstances and adjust to where I am successful regardless of the things I can not control.

Nobody is totally guilt free or that much more guilty then the next guy cause they want what they want from their bees just like the other guy who may want other things from his. Picking which persons wants is more important then somebody else's want is a slippery slope. Might be better to do so well that the other guy wants what you want and wants to copy you. Of course if what you want is not better then what he thinks he is getting, he will not change. Then it just comes back to adding up with numbers whose foot print is worse. There, everyone could do better somewhere which means also that every one is doing something bad also depending on who gets to do the counting.
Cheers
gww


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## fatshark (Jun 17, 2009)

"Treatment free" (at least actively choosing not to treat, rather than simply forgetting!) is either less common in the UK or they're a lot less vociferous. There are exceptions, but most beekeepers I know tend to treat.

Over the last decade I've kept bees in two locations, one with a very high density of beekeepers (and bees), the other with a very low density. Absolute numbers are hard to get, but in terms of registered apiaries there's at least a 10-fold difference.

Two things are very noticeable in the 'low density' location. Firstly, mite levels in my own colonies (using broadly the same treatment regimen) are much, much lower. No DWV-related symptoms during the season, much lower mite drops at end of season treatment and exceptionally low (or no) mites when uncapping brood. Even complete frames of drone brood. Secondly, swarms arriving at bait hives usually also have only low mite levels (though they're often higher than my own colonies and they're always treated shortly after arrival).

Mite bombs and in particular the impact of drifting and robbing are well documented (nice studies by Mangum in ABJ 2011) but often ignored by beekeepers.

I've argued that there's a compelling case for coordinated i.e. simultaneous, mite control over wide geographic areas. The same strategy is used in control of a number of other parasites, ranging from sea lice on salmon to ticks on cattle.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

fatshark


> Mite bombs and in particular the impact of drifting and robbing are well documented(nice studies by Mangum in ABJ 2011) but often ignored by beekeepers.


We discussed that study earlier that your article was about. I also found it interesting, as your article mentions, that the hives being effected by an influx of mites from drifting were those hives that already had the higher mite counts and also that the mites were coming from out side the study apiary to those already mite infested hives. It is a shame that they did not, as they mentioned, went ahead and seen what the final out come was with those newly newly infected hives and documented if they eventually became robbed and the effect of that.

I could easily see where more bees in a concentrated area could show more shared bee problems then less dense bee area might as you mention your experience to be.

Cheers
gww


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

beekkirk
This is meant to be a good natured poke. No ill will, just a neat video. You move your bees to apples to pollinate. If we were to take possible impact on bee environment of say my ten untreated hives or something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpXTK0E7Gco&t=84s
Which might cause the biggest impact? 

It could be considered bad due to the drifting bees or as opportunity like dirt rooster made out of it. But is was a large impact on bees of the area.

When I was young, we had some cows and a couple of sows that would give us thirty or forty feeder pigs a year. Now there were some big operations of 35,000 sow operations around that had collage graduated workers and feed ratios and genetics that gave recognized weight gain per pig. 

Those operations could look at what we were doing and make a good point that we were doing it wrong but every time we took the weaned piglets to the auction house and sold them and came home with the money, we thought we were doing it pretty good for us. We had other jobs and this was just one little job added to the others that helped in the big picture.

Both were using those sows in some fashion to help themselves but in different ways. We may have had more sows step on their babies due to different equipment but we also probably raised more runts with bottles rather then just throwing then in the waste pile and so maybe it was a wash.

This did not make us more right or wrong but was more, it was right what we did for us and right what they did for them.

Chickens may even be a better correlation in this then pigs would be due to the transfer of disease that is possible through wild birds but I am glad that I am still allowed to keep free range chickens on a small scale. I am not convinced that more like me is not better then only having corporate chicken raisers and feel over all that it might be better for the chickens and/or people even with the extra risk of disease transfer that might be involved. I am sure the chicken raising skills of small scale chicken raisers is all over the board. I still think it is better and that problems that arise from it have to be handled on an individual bases, cause handling them all in one fashion may make for very few chicken raisers and that is a whole other risk of its own.
Cheers
gww


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

I know this would probably be controversial, but what if it were required that every hive have a robber screen? J


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

What about the mites they pick up on flowers in the neighborhood while foraging?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I think its far less then they will pickup robing 

fivej we cant get bee keepers to follow pesticide labels buceause they "know better" then the gov....
but yes, if new beekeepers were taught to hit packages with oa at install, cull drone brood, put on robbing screens, pull a nuc the 1st year, etc the mite landscape and gentinc landscape would change..



> The bee imformed partnership survey has side liner numbers for people who use no mite reduction product at just 3 percent more loss then those that use a product over a five year period for all states combined.


not quite what is says.... 
but it comes down to this,as Mike Palmer said


> It really has to do with the population of mites in the untreated, under treated, or improperly treated colonies


if you run the numbers for those who do alcohol washes or use Amitraz you see a significant survival difference, why? these are the fokes who take there mites seriously. 
arguing mite bombs with most TF types is like arguing evolutionist theory with some of the creationism folowers...
It goes against there core beliefs so not amount of data or study's will bring them to an informed or educated position.

The "let them die" message has been very damaging to the TF cause, and to beekeeprs around them... I used to be TF with feral based stock and was doing ok... 300 yards or so away some one went 007 on 20 packages. and kept replacing the losses with more packages.. I took 100% losses 3 years in a row and coudn't figger out why... I had mythical ferals in magic topbars and and I don't treat....its not the mite killing my hives its(Insert long list of excuses)... 2016 I did a fall treatment and took zero losses they lost all 20 ...
nuff said I can't go TF in that yard, the mite invasion rates are just too high

all beekepers create a mite bomb at some point... its just going to happen... the difference is the ones that sit there and watch a hive die with out intervention are choosing to hurt outer beekeepers, not doing it by acedent


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

msl


> quote from me
> The bee imformed partnership survey has side liner numbers for people who use no mite reduction product at just 3 percent more loss then those that use a product over a five year period for all states combined.
> Your answer
> not quite what is says....


Really?
https://bip2.beeinformed.org/survey/

Used any product100433.5%31.9% to 35.1%139101138.5105.1Did not use a product25236.6%33.0% to 40.1%26034103.371.6
Cause that is what it seems to say to me except I said over five years when it is actually over about 10 or 11 years average.

Perhaps you were looking at this one which puts the loss difference at about 6 percent. Still not an insurmountable number.
https://bip2.beeinformed.org/survey/

Used Varroa Treatment88532.4%30.7% to 34.0%122565138.5104.7Did Not Use Varroa Treatment37438.0%35.1% to 40.9%43165115.486.9
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

little_john said:


> ...the density of beehives is now such that it broadly equates to a state of intensive farming.


randy has made the point a few times now in his series of articles that our practice of keeping multiple colonies in close proximity has created a niche which encourages the mite/virus complex to become especially virulent if not deadly.

normally a parasite will reach an equilibrium with its host in such a way as to not completely obliterate the host. but with multiple colonies in close proximity and due the the dynamic of spreading via robbing there is a never ending supply of host, and this means the mite/virus complex is actually rewarded in the evolutionary sense for being deadly.

the widespread use of robber screens is actually not a bad idea. if anything it might call to attention a problem that could be remedied by the beekeeper before the mite bomb 'explodes'.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Beekkirk said:


> I just find it hard to believe that a 100% treatment free person can make such a claim that they do not create mite bombs.


late season alcohol washes on my colonies have revealed 8% - 14% mite infestation rates, yet i am averaging below 20% overwintering losses.

fortunately for me the colonies that die almost always do so in the cold of winter when robbing is not possible and the mites and the viruses die out as well.

so high mite loads alone do not a mite bomb make. it's the collapse of the colony and the subsequent rob out that causes a big problem to other nearby colonies engaged in the rob out.

i wonder if your tf friend would be willing to let you help him/her monitor the mite loads in their hive(s)? perhaps they would be willing to install a robber screen?

just curious randy, did you have any collapses/rob outs prior to winter last fall and how were your winter losses?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

TF side liner from 2017 to 2013 lost 18.89% more hives then TX.. not 3%
as I said the numbers matter little do to poor beekeeping skewing the numbers

ie TF lost 39.59% more then Amitraz users in the same time frame...

and still thats not the whole story as SP points out when the hive dies matter very much to the mite bomb equation


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Msl
I could not make out the picture you took clear enough to read it even when I used zoom. I see that my links did not work to take people to the view I was seeing when I pasted my link and so I have edited my previous post with copy and paste of the numbers for side liners that I come up with. I did not break it down to just amitraz treatment vers no product and though it may be a good commercial for amitraz, I was just looking at product used or not for side liners.

I did not see where your number came from cause I can not see your image clear enough but did go back and check and am sure that I did see what I have now pasted in my previous post.
Cheers
gww


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> ... 'Natural' Beekeeping...
> LJ


Just to be sure - natural beekeeping does include natural swarming or artificial swarming and splitting.
As well, natural beekeeping does not promote monster honey hives.

The predominant idea of beekeeping is to maximize pounds of honey per hive.
Why?

Next then comes all bunch of gymnastics to ultimately serve this predominant idea of maximum honey production per hive.
All bunch of self-imposed limitations than come along.
I say screw that.

A bunch of little hives with modest honey crops is pretty close to that (Tom Seeley also mentioned that).
In my example, this means I need to target for a fleet of 10-20 smallish colonies going into the winter (not 4-5 so called "strong" hives).
Choosing several small boats vs. a single "titanic" (which ultimately sank) is a good approach, IMO.
A fellow keeper told me to build up for the winter (all that talk of 3 deeps and 80 pounds of honey and all).
Instead, I chose to winter several large nucs on 20-30 pounds of honey each.
The redundant approach worked so far for me and I feel this is one possible formula to pursue.

With that, unsure what these "natural" beekeepers really mean - unsure they even know what they mean.
But what I am trying to do is plenty natural.

Natural colonies are small and fluid and don't produce lots of honey *per hive*.
And that's OK with me.
As long as I get enough from *the entire apiary*, this is all I need. 
Clearly, this is bad commerce (in pounds of honey per hive - to be clear) but that's OK too - honey sales is not my goal. 
Having access to unlimited amounts of ecologically clean foods is (for now).
This is the same goal many backyard keepers have, and yet they manage to maximize honey production per hive. 
Because they are told so.


So, the mite bomb thing - those mite bombs tend to be colonies on the large side that have been queen-right for the most of the summer (because this is one is supposed to maximize the honey crop per hive). But if you manage your summer apiary in such a way where colonies do not run queen-right longer than about 2 months, that just might help with the mite bombs.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

GregV said:


> The predominant idea of beekeeping is to maximize pounds of honey per hive.
> Why?
> [...]
> Natural colonies are small and fluid and don't produce lots of honey *per hive*.
> ...


Although I personally agree with your minimalistic sentiment - I'm also aware that it's a very selfish point of view. Each country has it's own individual honey demands, and thus - although each country's market is very different - the figures will invariably run into the thousands of tonnes.

Between 2004 and 2008 (the latest figures I could easily obtain) UK honey consumption was 36 thousand tonnes, despite our per capita consumption being somewhat below the EU average. So from where does this 36 thousand tonnes of honey originate ? Certainly not from hobbyist/sideliner beekeepers such as myself - but from professional 'honey-farming' beekeepers operating elsewhere in the world. Without such beekeepers, millions of people would be unable to purchase their little jars of natural sweetness.

But again I agree with you, that the minimalistic hobby beekeeper really does not need to emulate professional honey-farmers by adopting either their equipment or their methods. But whether or not this relates in any way to mite-bombs, I remain unconvinced. The current ethos within Natural Beekeeping groups is to allow, even to encourage colonies to swarm - as this represents their natural means of reproduction - and so I would suggest that individual beekeeper ignorance is probably a far more significant factor.
LJ


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Back to the question, mortality rates. 

If you follow the threads you will find them for each individual. 

But the factors most important seems to be

1. Years practicing TF. An unselected or weakly selected group of colonies will have to go through a population crash to eliminate unfit colonies. Early in the process, mortality rates will be high. Looks like about 10 years for stability of some sort to set in. 

2. Proximity to large scale main stream beekeeping. I would say poor bee health is associated with main stream practices not those that are TF where selection (an important population regulatory process) can not be avoided. Without selection there can not be good bee health. The other leg of poor bee health is bee movement. These combined leave us with very poor outcomes for TF in certain areas. But it is easy to see who has to alter what practices if more than lip service is to given to bee health.

I am relatively new (5th summer), and from what I see, my bees are getting better every year. There is real vigour in the new starts and have strong production from hives that have survived 2 winters. I have some hives that have been continuously occupied for 4 years, one for 5. 

I have had some mite bombs, but surrounding hives haven't been affected. Meaning well adapted bees can deal with a few extra mites as long as not too many hives are failing. I would also say that probably the hives that take the brunt of the effect is the nearby TF hives, not the bees down the road. 

So if one is really interested in protecting your bees, then you have to select for mite resistance one way or another and not expose your bees to new challenges by not taking them to pollination. At this point, many say this is seems unrealistic to those who do, but here in BC there is a shortage of bees for blueberries because large scale keepers in Alberta are beginning to think it is not worth the risk. Also the promotion of regional self sufficiency to limit the influx of unadapted bees is also important. If your bees are properly selected, then the minor problem associated with mite bombs will not have a large impact on your apiary. Nor will your cast swarms be an issue. We have had a good bee year here with lots of swarms. Most of these from treated unselected bees, maybe some with new variants of virus from places like Chile. These are the mite bombs you should be concerned about.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good post lharder.

randy, if you happen to check out randy oliver's series you'll find that he is strongly encouraging as many as can to engage in selection and breeding for mite resistance.

with 100 hives and performing regular mite counts you are in an excellent position to do that.

by grafting queens from your colonies with the lowest mite counts combined with other favorable traits chances are you'll improve the quality of your stock over time as well as help be part of the solution toward moving the ball forward in terms of mite resistance.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

GregV said:


> The predominant idea of beekeeping is to maximize pounds of honey per hive.
> Why?


Because honey at the extractor pays the bills.



GregV said:


> A bunch of little hives with modest honey crops is pretty close to that (Tom Seeley also mentioned that).
> In my example, this means I need to target for a fleet of 10-20 smallish colonies going into the winter (not 4-5 so called "strong" hives).


Sounds great in theory, but, 20 colonies is a LOT more work than 5 without counting the extra cost for equipment etc, for the same net result. If I was going to run small colonies along this line, I'd need over a hundred by your metrics, that means 75 more bottom boards, 75 sets of inner and outer covers, 150 deeps and 1500 frames to populate them. Then tally up the extra work, I would need _at least_ 3 more outyards, so 3 more bear fences to set up and maintain, 3 or 4 extra trips to move bees out, and another 3 or 4 more to move them back. At 40 miles one way between the home winter yard and our summer yards, that's a LOT of extra driving, which works out to time as well as increased maintenance on the truck, list goes on and on. All of this to achieve the same honey crop I get now by managing my colonies to maximize honey production.

That may work in your books, but, my accountant would tell me to get rid of the bees if they are that unproductive that we need that many to produce the crop we currently harvest, expenses would probably outrun revenues.



lharder said:


> 2. Proximity to large scale main stream beekeeping. I would say poor bee health is associated with main stream practices not those that are TF


Once again, folks feel the need to point a finger at 'the other guys' as the root cause of the problems. I choose to focus on my own bee yards, keep them as healthy and productive as we can, we choose not to start pointing fingers at the 8 or 10 TF colonies in our neighborhood as a cause of any problems we have with our own bees.

The mantra that 'southern packages are bad' is fairly predominant here on Beesource, lots of commentary about how the bees are unhealthy yadda yadda. But when you step back and look at numbers, they tend to disagree. From what I have read, the southern package folks shake packages 4 or 5 times off of their colonies, early shakes give more than a package per colony, later shakes give about a package. So that's 15 to 20 lb of bulk young bees they shake off over the package season, from every colony. I think it is actually quite obvious, if a colony can give up 15+ pounds of bees thru the early part of the season, then go on to produce a modest honey crop and survive to do it again next year, that's a fairly strong healthy colony. I cant imagine how they are getting unhealthy bees in the packages this way, they must be healthy. If the colonies were not healthy, they would certainly perish after shaking off 15 or more pounds of bees. Then all those bees in packages get sold to folks who put them in boxes to watch them die off. I ask, is it the producer, or the consumer that's making the bees unhealthy ?

We practise industrial style beekeeping on a relatively small scale, most years in the spring we have surplus bees which we use to grow our colony numbers. This year was an exception, due to an error on my part a bear got free access to our winter yard for a couple of days last fall while we were out of town, so we had a winter of fairly heavy losses and I bought half a dozen New Zealand packages this spring to repopulate some of the boxes that didn't make it after the bear attack. Those NZ packages have a terrible reputation amongst the hobby beekeeping crowd here in BC. We put 6 of them into boxes with a few drawn frames, a couple empty new frames and a feeder on March 3 of this year. 5 of them thrived, one proceeded to superceed way to early and we didn't catch it in time, so there were no drones about when they had a virgin queen. For the 5 that did well, they finished drawing out the first box, all of them drew out a second deep with 10 frames, then gave us one super of honey over the spring flow. They also donated enough brood frames for 3 new starts. When we took them out to the summer yard, current configuration, all got 2 more empty undrawn supers, the strongest got 2 more drawn, the rest got 1 drawn. They will be coming home from the summer yard next week and we start preparing them for the winter. So from the 6 packages purchased we end up with 8 colonies in double deeps for the winter, 50 freshly drawn deep brood frames, a hundred freshly drawn frames in honey supers and a tad over 500 pounds of honey at the extractor. So, did I luck out and get 5 of the mythical good ones, or, did they thrive because we gave them feed when they needed it, managed mite populations when needed, then placed them in locations with abundant flows when the flows were available ?

Before we moved up island we kept a few colonies in a holly orchard just down the hill from our home. The older gent who owned it (now passed on) was fond of telling us one thing. If you find yourself in a hole that's getting deeper, first thing you must do is, stop digging. This same thing applies to keeping bees. If what you are doing is working, then continue on doing that. But, if it's not working, you need to evaluate why, then change something to make it start working for you. Sitting back pointing fingers at 'the other guys' as the root cause of your problems is akin to standing in that hole and digging. If you are going to start pointing fingers, the fist place you need to stand and point is in front of a mirror.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

grozzie2 said:


> That may work in your books, but, my accountant would tell me to get rid of the bees if they are that unproductive that we need that many to produce the crop we currently harvest, expenses would probably outrun revenues.


i would have to agree with your accountant grozzie.  

not all but most beekeepers except a decent return on investment for their time and treasure; i include myself among them.

i'm also not a big fan of excessive splitting (i.e. mda style) to keep the bees ahead of the mites.

i respect your attitude toward the tf folks in the neighborhood. how are their bees faring compared to yours?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

grozzie2 said:


> If the colonies were not healthy, they would certainly perish after shaking off 15 or more pounds of bees. Then all those bees in packages get sold to folks who put them in boxes to watch them die off. I ask, is it the producer, or the consumer that's making the bees unhealthy ?.


I would argue that that kind of brood rearing is mite candy genetics and that the traits for kind of extreme output come at a fitness cost. 
The industrial growing of bees on that scale, takes all the aucrtuments of industrial AG, stock that is taylored to the most effcent production of a product, these traits come at a cost, often fitness to survive out side of human husbandry.. you see this across the board with domesticated stocks of all types. 
if you were to stop shakeing bees,and removeing the mites with them, and not treat those hives, those hives might not be so healthy.



> Sitting back pointing fingers at 'the other guys' as the root cause of your problems is akin to standing in that hole and digging


I think there is a difference between pointing fingers, and acknowledging there is a problem then suggesting education is the best way to fix it, ala Nancy.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Grozzie


> If what you are doing is working, then continue on doing that. But, if it's not working, you need to evaluate why, then change something to make it start working for you. Sitting back pointing fingers at 'the other guys' as the root cause of your problems is akin to standing in that hole and digging. If you are going to start pointing fingers, the fist place you need to stand and point is in front of a mirror.


I agree with this whole heartedly, though I admit to looking at what others are doing for ideals to steal and try if a fix is found to be needed for my bee keeper mistakes. Sometimes I pick right and sometimes I have to keep trying but I am the one doing the picking and reap the reward or pay the price for those picks.

I am the one that has to watch what might be changing with the bees and area and respond accordingly. If I see a change that I don't understand that needs a response, I may ask what it is I am seeing but I still pick the response and do either well or bad. 

I love advice given with good intentions but recognize the bees under my care are my responsibility and others bees are their responsibility. I wish those others well with theirs and I get what I get with mine.

One thing with bee keeping is that things do not happen instantly, even trying managements or adjustments takes a little time to see cause and effect and so it is probably a good ideal to emulate success of others for yourself unless you think the experiment has enough value to try it and wait and see how it goes.
With that said, the value and measure of success is going to be made by the guy doing the work.

I like seeing what others are doing and trying to gauge any value of their efforts encase I want to emulate something or see how they may help me with my bees but I would only suggest and not demand them to make a change cause I don't want to take on their responsibility.

My view on neighbors, I will only offer suggestions that I think will help "them" but leave it up to them to decide. I only receive suggestions from them if I think they are made in my best interest but even then, I decide even if it hurts me but I like the neighbor cause they cared about me rather then wanting to control me.

If someone wanted to control me, I probably shut down even if the suggestion is good.

I have had both kinds of neighbor and probably been both kind, though I hope I did not draw first blood when I was the bad kind of neighbor.
Cheers
gww


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

As to packages, if you treat relentlessly and select for brood production, then you can get lots of bees that are ill suited for anything but brood production and honey production if you treat. We have some around here that bring in kona queens who fit quite well in this category. They will produce well if you treat. Of course I'm am not at all interested in this kind of bee keeping. My first queen was a kona queen that didn't survive the first winter. The saskatraz queens on the other hand... I have some bees that can survive and produce without treating. This is the type of dynamic I am interested in.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

grozzie2 said:


> Because honey at the extractor pays the bills.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Moving bees brings hitch hikers from other parts. If you are comfortable bringing in new virus variants into your apiary... This isn't pointing fingers so much as pointing out there are consequences of certain actions. Like having unprotected sex with lots of people. The consequences aren't causal, but are driven by stochastic processes. But eventually you will introduce something new that will cause bee mortality and start the adaptation process all over again for all the beekeepers in your area. But ideally if everyone created some extra bees each year, then you would be able to source them locally and manage the disease risk. Reducing the influx of new challenges to bees will reduce the overall incidence of mortality events and probably raise mite thresholds. This is far more important to overall bee health than mite bombs.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

stochastic ............dang, had to look that one up!:scratch:


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Yes, wouldn't it be nice if we could return to the good old days! These people who insist on raising bees for commerce sure screws up the mechanism of disease limitation by isolation. We just have to wean them off their lust for that old "filthy lucre"!

It has been discussed before but to get the idea to take traction is not an easy proposition. If you remove the immediate profit motivation and expect delayed gratification to move people to action you severely limit general acceptance of a proposition.

Seems one other problem possibly that rather than acquiring wide spread survival tactics that might break loose and change the bee world, the islands of local adaptation leave them vulnerable and perhaps add nothing to long term survival at the species level.

Perhaps mixing everything up at the species level gives a better chance of developing fitness in the big picture.

Varroa is only a nuisance if managed; certainly not threatening species survival.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

crofter said:


> Varroa is only a nuisance if managed; certainly not threatening species survival.


Only true as long as our methods of treatment don’t cause the mites to adapt to them prior to the bee developing an adequate defense.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

snl said:


> Only true as long as our methods of treatment don’t cause the mites to adapt to them prior to the bee developing an adequate defense.


Yes, that is an important caution. Historically many of the mite treatments tried have failed the test of resistance development and long term contamination of comb and products.

So far, (must be over 20 years in Europe) the organic acids Formic and Oxalic have shown no tendencies toward these problems.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Formic and Oxalic have shown no tendencies toward these problems


the same group that gave us the "look how safe and effective OAV is" offen given as " Ratnieks" but he is the top billing on it, did a follow up on OAV
al Toufailia et al 2018 Towards integrated control of varroa: 4) varroa mortality from treating broodless winter colonies twice with oxalic acid via sublimation
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2018.1454035
by the 4th treatment OAV was only killing 64% of the mites.

From a boots on the ground perspective, you need not look further then right here on BS, Beekeepers used to be able to get away with 3 OAV treatments a week a part when you had brood, now what is it, 5+? Screams a resistance 
warning to me 

OA didn't show resistance when used as a dribble once or twice a year, but with people going off label and doing 12+ OAV treatments a year, and the popular internet message being 5 rounds while brood on is good beekeeping (instead of off label pesticide abuse) that may shift.

I would argue we haven't seen more resistance do to it not being overused in commercial beekeeping... the new line of speed applicators may change that, but now for the most part those that use OA tend to rotate treatments and not relay on OAV as there sole treatments


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## John Davis (Apr 29, 2014)

Reading the paper you linked to does not lead in the direction of varroa building resistance as suggested by the comment that the 4th treatment only killed 64% of the mites.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

you are free to to interpret the the results how you wish, that is why a link to full content was provided, to encourage academic debate.. so site from that paper to suport your view
I counter to say the study didn't find resistance is not in line with the results, or language used.
as an example 
_We do not know why the second application was less effective than the first. There are several possibilities. One, which would merit further research, is that some varroa are genetically resistant to OA. However, it is also possible that some varroa are phenotypically more resistant due to non-genetic factors such as age (Kirrane et al., 2012 Kirrane, M.J., Guzman, D.E., Rinderer, L.I., Frake, T.E., Wagitz, A.M., & Whelan, P.M. (2012). Age and reproductive status of adult Varroa mites affect grooming success of honey bees. _
). Resistance could conceivably also be due to behavioral differences. It is possible that some mites consistently choose more protected phoretic locations on host bees, or remain on a single host bee that is less contacted by the oxalic acid fumes perhaps because it consistently remains in a location that receives a lower dose of *oxalic acid fumes[*/I]

this qoate is important for 2 reasons....
number one, despite being hailed and sited as the research group they brought in the golden age of OVA... there is a gap.
any one here who thinks OA "fumes" contact mites, as suggested by the study needs to spend a bit more time on goggle
point 2 is what I thing we are seeing 
shooting spitball numbers, if OAV kills for 2 days and we treat every 7, we select for mites that go back under cappings in 5 or less days.. well with in there natural range.. shocking no that treatment interval and duration have changed do to adaption... 
it wasn't too long ago 33% phoretic and 66% in brood were the standard numbers
now its 80/20 
we can argue its treatments, inversely we can argue mite biting/ mauling adaptation 
long and short, being phoretic is not a safe space for a mite, a change in behaviors can create a change in resistance to what ever effects them during that time .


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

msl said:


> From a boots on the ground perspective, you need not look further then right here on BS, Beekeepers used to be able to get away with 3 OAV treatments a week a part when you had brood, now what is it, 5+? *Screams a resistance warning to me *


Only if you see it as such. Until this season my protocol has always been to apply VOA just once a year during winter - with the singular exception of on one occasion multi-dosing mid-season following an outbreak of DWV. During 2018 I'm trialling mid-season multi-dosing on all hives - not that this is absolutely essential here - but I'm rather keen to see what improvement this might make. The number of treatments and the interval between them is discussed on Randy Oliver's site:
Jan 2018: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-varroa-problem-part-14/
Feb 2018: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-varroa-problem-part-15/

Others may be doing exactly the same, and so this increase in frequency isn't in response to any 'resistance' being developed - it's just that people are still trying to figure out exactly which protocol works best for them.

So why have people recently begun multi-dosing VOA mid-season ? Well - one reason may be that they are being encouraged to do so. If you check the above links, you'll see a lot of enthusiasm there for adopting such an increase in treatments - despite Randy simultaneously advocating the acquisition and breeding of Varroa-Tolerant bees - for as he says : "Treatment Free beekeeping and just hoping for the best while doing nothing are NOT the same thing."
LJ


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Its a basic premise in biology that if something is supported, it grows weak. It applies at an individual level and at a population level. Its because systems need to respond to the factors around them to regulate what needs to be done. When I was an arborist, cabling a tree for support meant that it would always be cabled. The chances of properly maintaining the system for the average homeowner was slim, so I declined to do it. Removal of weak trees and replacement a better long term solution. Lie down on a couch for a week and watch muscles atrophy. Systems respond to the forces around them. 

Bees are getting weaker because of the lack of selection, an important system regulator. What Oliver has wrong is that doing nothing works in nature, one way or another. And there are lots of examples where intervention has terrible consequences. Understand the system and its regulatory mechanisms, and one can begin to work with it. Don't understand and shoot yourself in the foot as beekeeping and agriculture has done over and over again. The understanding of the risk of moving bees long distance is still lost on the beekeeping community. 

Expect bees to get weaker and weaker as treatment gets more sophisticated. Randy Oliver's focus on new treatment regimes is a waste of time.


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## NorthMaine (Oct 27, 2016)

"*Screams a resistance warning to me*" only when you don't look at WHY they are going from 3 to 5 treatments during the same time period. Since you can't get to mites that are inside capped cells, you are trying to catch them when they are OUTSIDE that capped cell. 

If you go fewer treatments with more days in between, you give more opportunity for a mite to hop out of their space suit (a capped cell) and into another space suit (a cell about to be capped) and be protected from the next treatment. More treatments with fewer days between them catches even more of these mites as they have less time to jump from cell to cell. If the treatment penetrated the capped cells (Oxalic Acid doesn't) then this extra treatments wouldn't need to happen. If you wanted to go back and go for 15 treatments in a row, every day, you would catch even more of the mites and have a higher effectiveness. Would you catch every one? Probably not as the bees will cap something during the night while you are asleep and I am sure some lucky mite will jump out of a freshly hatched cell and be capped over in another in less than a day.

So, going from 3 to 5 treatments basically is just increasing your percentage that you are catching outside a capped cell. Or, if you want to catch them all, go through and open up all the capped cells before treatment. I doubt you will have very happy bees though.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

lharder said:


> The understanding of the risk of moving bees long distance is still lost on the beekeeping community.


i tend to agree with most of what you post lharder but not this.

those beekeepers whose livelihoods depend moving thousands of hives understand this risk quite well and they either learn how to mitigate that risk or starve.

it's really not fair to compare what we are doing with our selection for colonies that survive multiple winters off treatments with beekeepers who nuc and requeen all of their colonies a couple of times a year.

i don't begrudge those who pursue that particular business model and i understand how and why the approach drives the commercial breeders to select for traits that support it.

likewise we haven't gotten much criticism from the few large operators here on the forum with respect to our efforts to allow natural selection play out in order to move the ball forward on the development of resistant traits.

instead most of the criticism for what you and i are doing seems to come from folks who could easily 'be part of the solution' as randy oliver puts it and engage in selecting more resistant bees from their own stock.

jmho, but the problem isn't so much with the large migratory operators but rather the complacency among us 95% managing the paultry 5% of colonies. it's just a whole lot less trouble to treat for mites; and the low cost for replacement queens makes it not worthwhile doing one's own queenrearing and selection.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> only when you don't look at WHY they are going from 3 to 5 treatments during the same time period. Since you can't get to mites that are inside capped cells, you are trying to catch them when they are OUTSIDE that capped cell.


The point was 3 used to work for decades, now it takes 5 to do the same. We would be wise to question the reason for that... 
Aside form resistance, one reason might be the 3 for a week was for dribble, and its looking like dribbe is more effective then OAV with brood on, another could be lowering of treatment thresholds could have driven the need for more treatments, yet another was corces of OAV selected for mites with shorter phoric periods. 



> instead most of the criticism for what you and i are doing seems to come from folks who could easily 'be part of the solution'


quite true



> Expect bees to get weaker and weaker as treatment gets more sophisticated


Thats one way to look at it, do you have any study to support that view?
given the large annual losses, by bond theory shouldn't the bees be stronger do the survivors being propagated?
We know the mites/virus have goten worse, I would counter that the bees to day are likely stronger then they were 10 years ago., they are just not advancing at the same speed as there opponent. 


> the problem isn't so much with the large migratory operators but rather the complacency among us 95% managing the paultry 5% of colonies. it's just a whole lot less trouble to treat for mites; and the low cost for replacement queens makes it not worthwhile doing one's own queenrearing and selection.


yep.. who is buying all those Purdue mite biters, VSH, Russians etc queens?
not the 5%ers


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I'm not against making a living, but at some point the fundamental flaws of a system need to be pointed out. With time business models can shift with knowledge respecting the needs of those involved. Agriculture in general has huge sustainability issues but they cannot be solved overnight. It will take incremental change over a long time. 

Some of the large operations in Alberta are starting to question the utility of coming and pollinating blueberries in BC because of health concerns. If they stop coming, then pressure is put on blueberry growers who are expanding, are somewhat indifferent to chemical use concerns of beekeepers, because of the lack of pollinators. Maybe they will shift to other crops like raspberries, that could use local bees. Landscape diversification is important to overall system health and reduces risks associated with moving biological material around.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Thats one way to look at it, do you have any study to support that view?
given the large annual losses, by bond theory shouldn't the bees be stronger do the survivors being propagated?

We know the mites/virus have goten worse, I would counter that the bees to day are likely stronger then they were 10 years ago., they are just not advancing at the same speed as there opponent. 

Have they gotten worse or are they just being moved from one adaptive environment to another, changing it. Yes I agree that lots of bees have gotten stronger since varroa mites have been introduced. Its the failures of treatment that may have led to this development allowing some bond to occur. But if treatment gets very efficient and reliable without prospects of mite resistance (ie like the acids used), then its possible to reduce mite loads to a very low level but at the same time almost eliminate selective pressure. No stress on the system, no response. 

The beekeeping community hasn't seriously looked at either the effects of bee movement or treatment on long term bee health. I simply take what I know about biological systems in general and apply them to bees. I see no reason that general principles can't apply. Over time perhaps some ecological work could be done and we could sharpen the focus of the commentary. Perhaps I can do my small part. 

Large migratory keepers are using mite resistant bees and trying to improve their lines. These a perfectly good bees, but they will probably fail in the same way that other TF bees fail when moved into an new environment. They will have to continue to treat because of the limitations of the system.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

"But if treatment gets very efficient and reliable without prospects of mite resistance (ie like the acids used), then its possible to reduce mite loads to a very low level but at the same time almost eliminate selective pressure."

What is the problem with reducing mite levels to near zero and controlling them there? Selective pressure to defend against mites can then be redirected to other beneficial options. Every defense costs an organism something to maintain. I have to think that genetic engineering of an organism to defend against a temporary (perhaps) challenge should raise flags. 

What do you do for an encore when some other controllable pest comes along? Really, why not play games with the mites and trick them into self defeating behaviour. Go to the source of the problem! 

That would not appear to be so noble though.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

> its possible to reduce mite loads to a very low level but at the same time almost eliminate selective pressure. No stress on the system, no response.


Selective pressure from mites may be reduced but pressure from other sources is always present. There is always stress on the system, no need to 'fear' a lack of stress.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

We are talking about domestic live stock.. The beekeeper is the primary selective pressure

_"the hand of man" _*snip* _"you have to be ruthless_" Brother Adam on selection, The monk and the honey bee 

As long as we keep bees in high density feedlot conditions we will be bound by similar answers to similar problems.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

msl said:


> We are talking about domestic live stock.. The beekeeper is the primary selective pressure
> 
> _"the hand of man" _*snip* _"you have to be ruthless_" Brother Adam on selection, The monk and the honey bee
> 
> As long as we keep bees in high density feedlot conditions we will be bound by similar answers to similar problems.


Yes, honey bees. In 70 years much has changed.
If the beekeeper is not ruthless, the many present modern stresses will be.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Because I am doing 5 treatments instead of 3 and that means either mites are becoming resistant or that dribble is now more efficient is quite a stretch. Folks used to bathe once in a blue moon some time ago, now most folks bathe at least 7 times a week so dirt must be becoming more resistant. Maybe folks are becoming less tolerant of dirt. Similarly some keepers are becoming less tolerant of mites hence searching for better ways to dispose of the pests. For me 1 mite is 1 too many and I make use of the tools at my disposal to reach as close to this target as possible and my bees reward me with vigor and honey, So I will bottle my honey and count my money and I will leave to all these experts the task of breeding that elusive bee that can live with mites and any one who is also waiting for that massive breakthrough, dont hold your breath.
Johno


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

When the mite weakened hives are cleaned out by your bees, you will have mites. Sometimes a significant infestation turns up, rapidly.

The phoretic mites are mobile. They can be transfered from 1 forager to another, on flowers outside hives. Polinator's hives go to a crop clean, and return in a month with mites.


Feral bees often come to a swarmlure with a full mite infestation. If caught bees are not treated before brood is reared you have a colony that is immediately compromised. 


Blaming treatment free beekeepers on something that is existing in the environment constantly is quite misplaced. It is their problem to manage as they will. 

Bottom line: treat your bees, promptly if you want. If somebody has mite issues they will not make any difference to you. You do not have a valid complaint unless you can kill off all feral colonies in your region.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

WRONG.. Small colonies produce higher mite/bee ratios then my Monster 8-10 box colonies. ANYONE who wants to try to disagree, show me the mathematics.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

welcome back tim, don't be such a stranger.


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## BkprMike (Mar 16, 2015)

Beekkirk said:


> Can a completely treatment free keeper claim they do not create mite bombs? My personal opinion is there is absolutely no way they can so certainly make these claims.
> 
> And
> 
> What are some actual #'s of hive survival rates that treatment free beekeepers have now a days?


I have been a treatment free beekeeper for about ten years. Last year I lost a yard (small) to the mite bomb and again this year. I am no longer a treatment free beekeeper. However I plan to use oxalic acid as my control agent.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

BkprMike more or less my story in a nut shell... but a question, did you have a one of your own bomb out and take the yard (something that you could deal with and return to TF for the bulk of you hives) or was it a change in the mite load of the area (witch is what crushed me being TF)

Jade-at feral colony dencinstys the mite bomb is more or less a non issue, and bombing ferals don't tend to have huge honey stores to sustain robbing and the distance between hives limits the hi
in wide spread rural small scale beekeeping if you bomb out, there only the ferals and your hives to catch it, so who cares you only hurting your self?
Urban/suburban and other high density beekeeping its a different story 
plenty of study's to back that up, plenty of 1st hand beekeeper accounts to back that up


put up robbing screens if thats your fall plan, and do something when they falter... Letting sick animals die for lack of treatment is poor practice with ANY livestock. 
Either treat and requeen, or put the hive down. the gentnice effect is the same, better even as you don't spread possibly vuraint mires and virus 

the dissbeief in mite bombs is were we cross in to faith based beekeeping, It is truly amazing how much in common some of the TF facebookb pages have with the flat earth ones
the "let them die" message is unsustainable, unpalatable, and damaging to the TF movement and to beekeepers around them.

TF is a worthy gole, And selecting for resistance should be done by ALL beekeepers.... but the talking heads who are at the for front seem to keep just enuff bees to say they have TF bees and collect there speaking fee, sell books and beekeeping classes. 
We get little input form TF keepers on the scale of Tim

to lharder's message about the movement of stocks, letting hives die leads to replacement bees being trucked in. 
I would much rather see a new hive treated with the queen pinched and a 50% outcross with local stock, then a mite bomb being replaced with a foren package… even better, split come spring and use the money they save not replacing bees on some local restiacant queens. People panic over getting bees for the season when they have taken losses they cant recover from... 

But its not the bees to mites that matter when we are talking bombs, it’s the overall number of mites per hive when it crashes.. and or the amount of stores to brin gin robbers that maters(to the health of other hives) Ie a mating nuc that light on stores isn’t much of a bomb 

The classic stance on it ie-big hives make more brood, more brood makes more mites mites, big hives shrink by a larger % come fall(with out treatment) raizing there mire to bee ratio, crashing the hive. It is very common to see the big, strong, productive hives drop 1st 

Tim I would love to hear how you came to that conclusion as its an interning one… there are certainly some TF keepers who buck the trend and run large hives successfully, lusby comes to mind 
Moster hives make large crops as brood rearing has a size limitation (the queen) so there is a limit on the number of nurses, in bigger hives that means a higher % of the work force is free to forage... that could mean a higher percentage involved in grooming/leg biting/ mauling if a big hive was made with such stocks.. I guess another one would be queens with a higher then normal laying rate 

but with "normal" bees, I don't see it... the queen has a limit to eggs layed per day, the mites don't the only way the bees come out on top is to shift that balance...
In OTS its shifted by adding more queens to the mite load after it has been redused by 40% or so by the brood break and then divided 4 ways... 

that does beg the question, at what age group does the mite biting type behavior express, and would that stock beneficent from a 2 queen hive

edit
_The results suggest that although hygienic behavior is genetically determined, its expression depends on colony strength and composition of workers within the colony_ SPIVAK and GILLIAM,1993 Facultative expression of hygienic behaviour of honey bees in relation to disease resistance


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## b2bnz (Apr 5, 2009)

For those beekeepers that wish to be 'treatment free' but not compromise their neighbours with thoughts of a 'varroa bomb' they can always use a number of mechanical methods now avaliable to the beekeepers withour using chemicals. The drone brood capture frame is certainly the most common, but there are a number of electric drone killing frames like the 'Mite Zapper' and a system that heats up the whole hive killing mites but not bees. There is also the UK 'Hive Gym' and devise that lets the bees dislodge the bees from their bodies, and in conjuction with a screened bottom board, remove the mites from the hive. You could also do a sugar dusting so that the bees can groom the mites off their bodies. There are alternatives, just use them!


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

All my neighbors finally bought bees from me. 

All you treaters crack me up.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

tim, can you give us a ball park averages on what your per hive honey yield is and your percentage overwinter colony loss? thanks.

(i'm also treatment free and don't feed. i'm close to 100 lbs. average honey yield and average overwinter loss is under 20%).


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

My standard colony set up is 3 deeps and 7 mediums. A bad year, they'll only fill up once. I'm up to around 2000 supers.


12 Year Average Winter loss since I've stopped feeding in 2006. 11.89%. Course can't really say lose when each Spring you have more then the previous spring. But whatever since everyone loves to Focus on loss.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

crofter said:


> What is the problem with reducing mite levels to near zero and controlling them there? Selective pressure to defend against mites can then be redirected to other beneficial options. Every defense costs an organism something to maintain. I have to think that genetic engineering of an organism to defend against a temporary (perhaps) challenge should raise flags.
> 
> What do you do for an encore when some other controllable pest comes along? Really, why not play games with the mites and trick them into self defeating behaviour. Go to the source of the problem!
> 
> That would not appear to be so noble though.


Those costs are something to consider when moving biological material around. So far we haven't. Management effort is spent when no management was needed before. How rational is that?

How much cost is involved though? That is the question. In terms of feral bees, Seeley hasn't been able to document "costs". Tim Ives and sp have very productive hives. 

I don't know if its true, but it seems Germany is very good at treating. They still have lots of problems with mortality events. We also can take note of wide range of mite thresholds leading to death, even within an apiary. In statistics the rational thing to do is look for other causes of mortality. Reducing mite count alone is at best part of the solution. Then we forget that the treatment alone is stressful on the bees and probably on their symbionts as well. If mites aren't able to adapt to acids, do you think bees are able to? Just imagine how healthy you would be if on a continual course of antibiotics. 

I think your question is a good one though. It would be interesting to see how stable things became if there was limited movement of bees. Seems a few larger operators have improved apiary health when they stopped going to pollination and/or started to produce their own queens.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

You would reduce the guaranteed spread of disease and pests in the short term but the result would be larger islands of isolation. Even if they developed individual defences they would be subject to outside forces. Varroa jumped continents and then the africaninized bee example. "The best laid plans of mice and men, gang oft agley". Really, the limitation on moving bees would be unenforceable since human life is not in immediate threat. Just not enough financial incentive when the system is still working. If bees were in imminent danger of extinction there could be a case made for the kind of high level pressure this would take. Too many other social and systemic disfunctions are making desperate demands on resources.

No question that we are choking on the costs of complexity but every attempt to reduce it seems to add another layer. Aside from a deep system reset, which would be extremely mean medicine for everyone, I dont know how it could be brought about.

Throw out some suggestions about how this vision could be brought to reality. A feasability study so to speak, like a business plan attempting to raise funds. No, "wouldn't it be nice if" thinking but implicit strategy on how to get the funds, motivate the would be movers, satisfy those who will be inconvenienced, enforce and police it, etc. What other things have I missed?

I certainly would call myself a pragmatist rather than a visionary but I am not trying to shoot down the possible benefits of such action. I would like to see what the plans would look like to see if it looks like possibly do able or merely fantasizing!

Show us your stuff!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thank you for the reply tim, and congrats on your success.

looks like your per hive yield is about 3 times the ohio state average, and that your winter losses are much less than the state average as well.

are you doing any queen rearing?


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

3-4 time's Indiana averages, not counting the extra deep I'm leaving running the 3 Deeps. 

As far as Queen rearing, past couple years as I've started making and using more nuc boxes. Been raising more, but interferes with honey production. Which 99% of my money is made exclusively on honey.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

oops, indiana, sorry tim!

understood about finding time to do it all.

are you still setting up beginners with colonies for the price of getting a split back the next season?


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

Yes, a few Newbees and the older ones. I've concentrated more on honey vs splits. Rather have the honey vs more colonies.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

lharder said:


> Just imagine how healthy you would be if on a continual course of antibiotics.


A better analogy than antibiotics I suggest would be our continued suppression of fleas and body lice by our adoption of 'clean living': washing our clothing and bedding, frequent showers or baths, and so on ...
Because soaps and detergents have become such everyday items, we tend not to view them as being anything exceptional - but life before soap was pretty dire. Indeed, the bubonic plague which wiped out between 75 and 200 million people throughout Europe is is now thought to have been spread by humans and their fleas and body lice, rather than those of rats. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science...-spread-dirty-humans-not-rats-study-suggests/ It's not at all 'natural' to wash with soap, but thank heavens people do.

You mention bees being 'stressed' by treatments - what evidence is there of stress when Vapourised Oxalic Acid is used ? I've yet to see even a hint of stress. 
LJ


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood tim. 

many thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, i really appreciate it.

again, congrats on the high yields and low losses with no treatments and no feeding.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

To see how hard bond really works in nature, one need look no futher than at the american elm tree and dutch elm disease. Hard bond did work, there is one lone survivor in the US from which several hybrids have been developed by crossing with various other resistant elm species. And, some of those resistant hybids weren't so much so in Europe due to a different beetle as a vector. The parallels seem eerily similar to what is being attempted with bees.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

crofter said:


> You would reduce the guaranteed spread of disease and pests in the short term but the result would be larger islands of isolation. Even if they developed individual defences they would be subject to outside forces. Varroa jumped continents and then the africaninized bee example. "The best laid plans of mice and men, gang oft agley". Really, the limitation on moving bees would be unenforceable since human life is not in immediate threat. Just not enough financial incentive when the system is still working. If bees were in imminent danger of extinction there could be a case made for the kind of high level pressure this would take. Too many other social and systemic disfunctions are making desperate demands on resources.
> 
> No question that we are choking on the costs of complexity but every attempt to reduce it seems to add another layer. Aside from a deep system reset, which would be extremely mean medicine for everyone, I dont know how it could be brought about.
> 
> ...


Varroa didn't jump continents, they were moved by beekeepers. Australia has managed to keep them out. They have experienced lots of human stupidity related to moving biological material so they took it seriously. 

Its not rocket science. Its just limiting bee movement, and selection. Mind you I believe the arnot forest bees had a royal commission before they embarked on the quest for survival. Ok I made that last bit up. I think if you had some Saskatraz bees in your location you would have productive bees after a couple of generations TF.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

lharder said:


> Varroa didn't jump continents, they were moved by beekeepers. Australia has managed to keep them out. They have experienced lots of human stupidity related to moving biological material so they took it seriously.
> 
> Its not rocket science. Its just limiting bee movement, and selection. Mind you I believe the arnot forest bees had a royal commission before they embarked on the quest for survival. Ok I made that last bit up. I think if you had some Saskatraz bees in your location you would have productive bees after a couple of generations TF.


Now you are quibbling about the actual details of how the mites moved or were moved; bottom line is that isolation is not guaranteed. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

"It is just limiting bee movement"; yes, but the devil is in the details of actually doing it! 

I think your feasibility plan still needs a bit of work

Edit; The Saskatraz project is quite interesting. I was struck by the detail that goes into keeping track of the lineage of the parent bees and the strength of documenting results and conditions of testing. Tibor Szabo did quite a bit of similar development of resistant bees at Beaverlodge years ago and I believe at University of Guelph.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

For what it is worth I will be re queening one of my four Saskatraz colonies, this particular one has very runny bees they propolize heavily and are becoming more aggressive. These queens originate from California and do not know if they differ from Canadian Saskatraz queens. Of the 4 only one produced a surplus of honey and they built up rapidly whereas the other 3 were quite slow to build, unfortunately we will be in a dearth for most of the year but these bees are like Italians and just continue growing so are not what I expected from Northern type of bees. Color is not supposed to mean anything yet I have always found my dark bees to be more frugal and the Saskatraz are very yellow. I guess I will have to get hold of a VP spartan breeder and bring my stock back towards Carni's again.
Johno


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I certainly am pleased with Szabo's bees for my area. I donk know what his original breeding recipe was but from what I can gather they seem to have Carni type habits. Being quite isolated from other bees and with no ferals, mites are virtually a non issue and I have not tried to see how mite tolerant they might be. 

I do know they are not EFB proof. How that will turn out is an unknown for another year.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

crofter said:


> Now you are quibbling about the actual details of how the mites moved or were moved; bottom line is that isolation is not guaranteed. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
> 
> "It is just limiting bee movement"; yes, but the devil is in the details of actually doing it!
> 
> ...


First education about the harm we are doing, then individuals/bee clubs can start taking action in local bee self sufficiency. Destroy the market. Then start putting pressure on regulatory bodies re importation/movement of bees. I don't mean protests, just mention it to them in conversation that we shouldn't be bringing bees from off continent. Especially mention it during the latest disease crisis that we will continue to have with current practice. But mostly we need bottom up approaches where bee keepers take responsibility for their own actions.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Lharder and here I thought that the USA was the land of the free! and here you are talking about bringing out the jackboots and forcing something that is not in any way a proven fact down the throats of your fellow citizens. What next ban all aircraft flights between continents or maybe even between states because you know mites have been found on imported cut flowers. So far I do not have a problem with the status quo and so as you are not happy others must be forced along your preferred path.
Johno


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

johno said:


> For what it is worth I will be re queening one of my four Saskatraz colonies, this particular one has very runny bees they propolize heavily and are becoming more aggressive. These queens originate from California and do not know if they differ from Canadian Saskatraz queens. Of the 4 only one produced a surplus of honey and they built up rapidly whereas the other 3 were quite slow to build, unfortunately we will be in a dearth for most of the year but these bees are like Italians and just continue growing so are not what I expected from Northern type of bees. Color is not supposed to mean anything yet I have always found my dark bees to be more frugal and the Saskatraz are very yellow. I guess I will have to get hold of a VP spartan breeder and bring my stock back towards Carni's again.
> Johno


More plug and play wishful thinking. The only lines that perform out of the box are brood and honey focused bees that don't do anything else so need treating. My original (california based) Saskatraz lines were kinda mediocre. One of them was really yellow a color that has gone away. The local strain I had that originated with a Kona queen outperformed them. But they survived their first winter, while my original Kona queen and one of her daughters died. Tests on their daughters showed them to be quite hygienic and two generations later, with selection, I'm getting those big productive colonies that survive and they are now surpassing the Kona line and are nicer. I now have a good range of 2 winter survivors that are strong that I made queens from this year and I have better control over my mating area this year. Those starts are very robust and energetic and I am looking forward to see how they perform over winter and going forward. 

I think the purpose of the California based queens is to get Saskatraz drones for when you make your own queens. It will enable you to get resistant traits into your population and probably gets them more widely available in the US. Then you have to select one way or another and get those traits entrenched.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it's all about the multi-billion dollar almond industry here in the u.s.

stationary hives just don't work for that.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

There are many ways in which man is discounting future well being for short term convenience, many, many, of them with far greater potential consequences than the state of bees. The people who do not "get it" are adept at tuning out the reality. Certainly the "slactivists" will make self satisfying noises but little real progress.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

crofter said:


> There are many ways in which man is discounting future well being for short term convenience, many, many, of them with far greater potential consequences than the state of bees. The people who do not "get it" are adept at tuning out the reality. Certainly the "slactivists" will make self satisfying noises but little real progress.


:applause: Well said crofter!

Is there a way to deselect for the 'tuning out the reality' trait that has become so prevalent? :lpf::lpf:


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Lharder as for the Saskatraz drones helping with mite resistant traits that goes against the advice from the University of Guelph who maintain that you get gentleness or defensive traits from drones and traits related to mite suppression from your queens.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> it's all about the multi-billion dollar almond industry here in the u.s.
> 
> stationary hives just don't work for that.


very true 
but....


> First education about the harm we are doing, then individuals/bee clubs can start taking action in local bee self sufficiency. Destroy the market


could still work
I have no migratory keepers near me, but there genetics are do to all the imported packages. A IMP middle ground were the areas mite load is reduced and resistance and performance is being selected for can lead to local adaption and restiance...

I feel treatments have strong place in local areas becoming self sufficient. and Unitll that happens, or gets a lot closer,most of the selection work is moot and will make no real progress.. There will be a few success stories of coarse, but no real change at the landscape level 

In my area packages sellout in Jan some times, people panic about getting bees for the season.
there is no reason that with a little education, a little manipulation, and a little OA that Craig's list should not be flooded with local nucs, stemming the tide of imports.
both the better livening thew chemistry crowd and the natural selection types both activity fight the IMP middle ground that has a sold chance of sustainability, espicaly when compared to both extremes..

Once you get an areas mite load down, TF beekeeping (and yes that DOES mean intervening in mite bombs one way or another) becomes much easier and those who chose to use some chemicals, use much less.

3 Realtys needs to be faced... 
Migratory beekeeping has been here for 3,000+ years, it's not going any were
Almost across the board the profitably keeping of domestic livestock in high denistys means treatment.
The abuse of chemicals leads to consumer reproach and unintended consequences 

Neither of the above are likly to change in our lifetime.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I think that the people with the inclination, ability and energy to raise their own queens are already doing it. There are so many that cannot keep the breeding hives through the years cycles and I dont know how they could produce replacements.

Michael Palmer for instance has a good system and is spreading the word but likely is for the most part preaching to the already converted. It is not for the lack of information but probably for the main part swallowing a lot of bad information and not willing to walk the walk that makes it difficult at the entry level.

Education is not simple to accomplish especially when it is being resisted. There is an eastern attributed piece of wisdom to the effect of " when the student is ready (to learn), the master will appear".

Problems only get solved by identifying and addressing the root cause. Sometimes that is deeply entrenched. Some of the sticking points in the bee business seem to fit that description.

"Almost across the board the profitably keeping of domestic livestock in high denistys means treatment". That reality is hard to deny or change.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Can a completely treatment free keeper claim they do not create mite bombs? My personal opinion is there is absolutely no way they can so certainly make these claims.

My hives have been inspected by the state of Nebraska most years since 2004. My hives have been inspected by UNL/USDA/APHIS every year for the past four years. The mite counts have never been high. I am completely treatment free.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Whoopie Doo I do not make any mite bombs and I am nearly treatment free, in fact my treatments are so cheap that they are nearly free. I also make lots of bees and honey too how about you.
Johno


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Johno
Just how many bees and how much honey do you make?
gww


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Last time I drove out that way there was a honey slick on the Potomac River. I'm sure it was coming from JohnO's apiary. He has so many bees that the FAA has declared it a Special Flight Restricted Area for small aircraft.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Breeding is a very different subject then stock selection/propagation as breeding infers your controlling the drone stock.
Yes the amount of "bad" info out there.
The root cause is the lack of education of new beekeepers often followed by indoctrination in to ridged ways of thinking that borderlines on reglin ... ie try arguing that gassing your hives 12 times a year might not be the best path with jono or disputing the value of "natural section" vs beekeeper slection with Mike B., both gentlemen are well spoken and intelligent 
both camps seem to be actively suppressing training beekeepers to be skilled in there craft, not just relining on dogma. 
As an examole- often the extreme end of both camps don't teach mite rolls/counts and actively speak out against them... 
To the TF it might scare beekeepers in to treating and nature will doo all the selection they need, to the vape heads its just to fast /easy/cheap to treat and not worry about the counts.. This is a case were both camps are harming the active selection for resistance. Nature doesn't select for a bee humans want, and providing no section leads to weakness and further reliance on human intervention. 

Pulling a Nuc is a year one skill/task, sadly it is taught as "advanced" beekeeping so people see it that way. Right now queens are on sale and/or its a great time for a brood break and a shot of OA while broodless so the hive goes in to winter with a fresh queen and winter bees that were raized by clean nurses. Follow up with a broodless shot of OA and a spring fly back split and quiclky you can be (at least for me) runing on one chemical treatment a year, maby none after some slection 
again both camps actively fight it. If most of the back yard types in a local spot did the above, the area would be awash in local stock, that would become more local by the year
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...th-to-TF-for-new-back-y&p=1659255#post1659255

Instead the new beekeeper falls in to the build up trap... 
they don't do anything the 1st year case the new have has to build up to over winter 
they don't do anything the 2nd year cause the hive has to build up to make a crop...
hive often swarms the 2nd year leaving them with only a little crop, and they often lose it in the 2nd winter (if not the 1st)
hello package bee treadmill and sky-rocking prices. 

Drone culling is another one... to one side its too much work and or not enuff efect, to the other its treatment... But it has a very important 3rd use, castration of the colony till its headed by a local or semi local queen (f-2) and or it has proved it self worthy. can you imagin what would happen on a ranch if all the males were given a chance to breed? good by selection. 
It dosn't matter your program, just cause its alive, doesn't mean its breeding stock and that's a mistake made on both ends. 



Michael Bush said:


> >I'll have two hives coming. I simply won't have more this year. I understand nothing is guaranteed but my question is the same. If I want to go TF, realistically, what should I do if they are both in danger of failing from varroa come fall? Let them fail and start over next year or treat and attempt to save them?
> 
> Everyone has to make their own choice. I would let them fail and start over the next year.


goes to intent your honor......mite bomb!


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

johno said:


> Lharder as for the Saskatraz drones helping with mite resistant traits that goes against the advice from the University of Guelph who maintain that you get gentleness or defensive traits from drones and traits related to mite suppression from your queens.
> Johno


Then start with an AHB queen and let her breed with good natured EHB drones thereby producing an F2 that was gentle and mite resistant aka silver bullet bee. Simple 

And do it in Nebraska so there's no doubt as to the outcome :lpf:


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

crofter said:


> I think that the people with the inclination, ability and energy to raise their own queens are already doing it. There are so many that cannot keep the breeding hives through the years cycles and I dont know how they could produce replacements.
> 
> Michael Palmer for instance has a good system and is spreading the word but likely is for the most part preaching to the already converted. It is not for the lack of information but probably for the main part swallowing a lot of bad information and not willing to walk the walk that makes it difficult at the entry level.
> 
> ...


But here I think crude comparisons break down. I'm not sure whether the high density thing applies at least at my scale (it may apply at a commercial wintering yard where competitive pressures are intense). Bees are at high density and are always in each other business. Horizontal transmission in inevitable even in low density natural settings. I think this analysis is maybe simplistic and other things are at play.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

crofter said:


> Now you are quibbling about the actual details of how the mites moved or were moved; bottom line is that isolation is not guaranteed. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
> 
> "It is just limiting bee movement"; yes, but the devil is in the details of actually doing it!
> 
> ...


I am not worried about mortality events, just their frequency. Perfection is not realistic, but halving the number of mortality events is money (less stress) in my pocket. Elimination isn't the goal.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

msl said:


> very true
> but....
> 
> could still work
> ...


Well rail roads were only around for at most 200 years. So easy long distance transport of bees wasn't until recent. I would love to have been around to see the first transport of bees to America on sailing ships. I have no problem with local movement of bees (until persuaded otherwise). I plan on going up in elevation to get fireweed honey in the mountains during our dearth period in the valley. This is sensible migratory. Maybe if we get things sorted and there is local pollinators on local crops I would get in on that game. But long distance stuff, no thank you.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

the excavation of Tel Rehov shows us beekeepers were importing and using foreign races of bees instead of native ones 3,000 years ago, we have been moveing bees an mucking with their gentincs for a very long time



> traits related to mite suppression from your queens.


At least with the gotland stock it dosen't matter.. and crossing the TF stock with stock that needed treatments actually performed slightly better then the TF stock :scratch: 
_"A notable reduced mite reproductive success was expressed by all colonies in the three genotypic groups containing genetic origin from the mite-surviving Gotland population, regardless if the queen was from a pure cross (GG), had only a maternal Gotland origin (GU) or only a paternal Gotland origin (UG). This result strongly suggests that a genetic component is responsible for the trait’s inheritance. "_ Locke 2017 Inheritance of reduced Varroa mite reproductive success in reciprocal crosses of mite-resistant and mite-susceptible honey bees (Apis mellifera)


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

msl said:


> the excavation of Tel Rehov shows us beekeepers were importing and using foreign races of bees instead of native ones 3,000 years ago, we have been moveing bees an mucking with their gentincs for a very long time
> 
> 
> At least with the gotland stock it dosen't matter.. and crossing the TF stock with stock that needed treatments actually performed slightly better then the TF stock :scratch:
> _"A notable reduced mite reproductive success was expressed by all colonies in the three genotypic groups containing genetic origin from the mite-surviving Gotland population, regardless if the queen was from a pure cross (GG), had only a maternal Gotland origin (GU) or only a paternal Gotland origin (UG). This result strongly suggests that a genetic component is responsible for the trait’s inheritance. "_ Locke 2017 Inheritance of reduced Varroa mite reproductive success in reciprocal crosses of mite-resistant and mite-susceptible honey bees (Apis mellifera)


But again perspective is needed. Scale is important.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

lharder said:


> Moving bees brings hitch hikers from other parts. If you are comfortable bringing in new virus variants into your apiary...


First this, suggesting it is bad because I move bees out of the winter/spring yard for a fireweed placement. I'm wondering what 'bad hitch hikers' will be coming home from the fireweed patch that our bees dont already have. According to the logging company we deal with, no other beekeepers within 30km of our spot, and since they control the roads, they would know.



lharder said:


> I have no problem with local movement of bees (until persuaded otherwise). I plan on going up in elevation to get fireweed honey in the mountains during our dearth period in the valley.


Then 4 pages later, you are moving your own bees out of the valley and into a fireweed patch exactly the same as we are doing.

Hello Pot, Kettle is calling....

Our bees are part of a large scale agriculture setting, but, most dont realize that managed forests are just another form of agriculture. The real issue, most folks consider agriculture to be various forms of annual crop harvest, but forestry is different, crops are grown on decadal scales. In the interior of the province the turnover is on 30 to 40 year cycles, here on the coast turnover on a patch is on the order of 20 to 25 year cycles. The patch our bees go into right now was cut 2 years ago, third cut for that section. It was replanted last year and is currently overrun with weeds, which happen to be a huge nectar producer. In times gone past the logging companies considered beekeepers trying to access fireweed patches as a nuisance they had to deal with. Today, the company we deal with considers us to be a partner in land management, and we are effectively double cropping the patch where trees were harvested recently. If we can take a honey crop from the fireweed until such time as the trees grow large enough to block sunlight and kill off the weed, then we are taking a food harvest from that land between timber harvests. It's a win - win situation. Times and attitudes have changed. The only real issue is, we do work with them to make sure our bee placements will not present a hazard for the active logging and planting crews. We also work with the restriction that smokers will not be used out there due to the extreme forest fire hazards typically present at this time of the year

We have a strong flow here from about mid April till beginning of June. After that's done, we move the bees out to fireweed because from beginning of june thru till the fall there is nothing here for the bees, nuc starts we keep at home need fed. Out in our fireweed patch the bees thrive, there is an abundance of natural forage out there. I was out yesterday removing capped supers, took an average of 2 off each colony, left one that's not full yet. We use bee escapes because I dont want to be dealing with supers full of bees and no smoker available when removing them. 3 boxes under the escapes absolutely plugged with bees, they have really done well this year. We are in a new spot this year, and I'm really happy with it, bees look far better at this time than they typically have in years gone past in our old location.

I must admit, I find it rather interesting to realize, folks going on about how bad our methods are because they involve moving bees out to a fireweed patch for the summer flows intend to do the exact same thing. That puts a whole new perspective onto how we interpret what is posted here on Beesource.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Hello Pot, Kettle is calling...


agreed
I see this pattern a lot, the larger you get, the more you act like the big boys. What they do works and once money talks....
Move your bees out to the fire weed flow, whats the chance they end up in flight range of some one else who has done the same? 


> Scale is important.


not realy.... only takes one sick hive to create an outbreak, your justifying. Little difference between 10 or 1000 miles
at Tel Rehov there were over 100 hives. Think of want it takes to maintain a foreign stock sounded by a native one.. some darn good beekeeping and a constant source of fresh genetics... the change from the black bee to the itailian in the states shows just how hard that is... 
that kind of work and and needed supply chain suggests it was common place.

but if we must got to scale
_“as being the owner of 1100 hives in three apiaries “_
*snip*
_“ as soon as the honey flow in place was over he used to take the hives the entrances load every sixteen hives on a camel and take them by night to the Nile some 3X hours walk where they were put on a boat and taken or down the river to a place where plenty of honey producing flowers were still In bloom The boat anchored at its destination and marked As as the honey flow begins it is indicated by the sinking of the boat As soon as the mark has gone meter below the surface ho knows the hives to full and after cuttlnir out the honey he the bout anew If this ingenious balance a continuation he remains in the place but if the contrary such a place Is looked for as flowers or if none are to be found the product sold in Cairo on the return trip”_
From the land of the Pharaohs  Gleanings in Bee Culture, Volume 18 MAY 15 1890 
while written in 1890, this was clay tube hives and camel back, documenting a level of technology, a way of live, and at a scale vastly unchanged for thousands of years. 
migratory beekeeping is not new, it is likely almost as old as beekeeping its self. 

2273 years ago 








transition
_"To Zenon, greetings from Senchons. I petitioned you about my female donkey, which Nikias took. If you had written to me about her, I would have sent her to you. If it pleases you, order him to return her, so that we can transport the hives to the pastures, so that they won’t be ruined and of no profit to yourself or the king. And if you examine the matter, you will be persuaded that we are useful to you._” 
Zenon was a gov sectary in Fayum, know for beekeeping during this era, with some operations in the area said to be in excess of 5,000 hives. 
there are outher writen please for donkeys as well
[_I]To Zeno greeting from the beekeepers of the Arsinoite nome.
You wrote about the donkeys, that they were to come to Philadelphia and work ten days. But it is now eighteen days that they have been working and the hives have been kept in the fields, and it is time to bring them home and we have no donkeys to carry them back. Now it is no small impost that we pay the king. Unless the donkeys are sent at once, the result will be that the hives will be ruined and the impost lost. Already the peasants are warning us, saying: "We are going to release the water and burn the brushwood, so unless you remove them you will lose them." We beg you then, if it please you, to send us our donkeys, in order that we may remove them. And after removing them we will come back with the donkeys when you need them.
May you prosper!_[/I]

For some reason people want to think that in the pre (lang, train, truck, what even) era beekeeping was just a few skeps out behind the farm house... We have been keeping bees on an industrial scale, and moveing bees to increase profict for a very long time. One must rember the much higher value of wax and honey in past eras


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Utopian notions get dodgy when they are called upon to describe handling the detail of all issues involved in making them work in the face of reality.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

grozzie2 said:


> First this, suggesting it is bad because I move bees out of the winter/spring yard for a fireweed placement. I'm wondering what 'bad hitch hikers' will be coming home from the fireweed patch that our bees dont already have. According to the logging company we deal with, no other beekeepers within 30km of our spot, and since they control the roads, they would know.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have no problem with you or anyone going for fireweed. You are going where your bees probably won't mix with those outside the region. You and your bees belong there. That's the first principle, avoid mixing of bees from different regions. A big difference between moving bees within a region compared to between. So I'm not going to take my bees to your region for fireweed. I may try to take advantage of the isolation to do some more controlled matings for late queens at some point.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

msl said:


> ..... We have been keeping bees on an industrial scale, and moveing bees to increase profict for a very long time....


Not so.
Try moving your log hives on a horse drawn cart from Wisconsin to California in timely fashion.
Then back. 
Then repeat the next year and we watch.
:0)

Moving 10 hives by horse the next field over overnight - this is not even close to industrial. 
It is medieval-style, natural beekeeping.
In addition, you had to cross over so many administrative borders (in, say, Europe with about 100 independent countries which were in constant war for the last 1000-2000 years) - any modern US-style industrial beekeeping would be quickly shut down by that fact alone.

Just 100-200 years ago moving any significant distance across terrain was *really, really, really* expensive in terms of time and resources and risks taken. 
Like prohibitively expensive to the point of not worth doing (especially moving live bees among other things).

PS: granted, the Russians did move the bees into the Far Eastern Russian just about 200 years ago (that several thousand miles over the course several months during Siberian winter by horse).
to be totally clear - this was not a routine, repeat business by any means, but rather was a mostly military undertaking with terrible success rate and several attempts before they got it done.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

grozzie2 said:


> Because honey at the extractor pays the bills.
> 
> Sounds great in theory, but, 20 colonies is a LOT more work than 5 without counting the extra cost for equipment etc, for the same net result........


Beekeeping as-is does not pay anyway (unless you are a mega).
Making money beekeeping?
Why even joke about it when most consumers prefer cheap, fake honey from Walmart?

I do IT work to pay my bills and most people (yourself included) are about the same.
Bees are a hobby for the most and just may pays for itself some, and provides real food as for me.
In fact, most all small farm projects today do not pay (be it pigs or potatoes or carrots) - it is all myths.
So the expectations should be set as such; as well as investments into money-loosing projects.

Speaking of "lot more work" - again - keep doing it the industrial way and the industrial equipment and you will have LOT more work.
With this equipment and approaches, not LOT more work - http://horizontalhive.com/index.shtml.
I don't have a single bottom board since I don't need them, just for one example.

So, again, industrial thinking for a small-scale keepers creates many problems (mite bombs are included and only one example).
Industrial-sized, huge colony with huge expected honey yield per hive is the root of many problems.


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

Halleluyah. Another preacher. There's no fanatiic worse than a convert. 
I'm not even looking.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Between a large scale migratory keeper and a small hive keeper like Gregv, there is lots of scales of operation to investigate in terms of bee health and productivity. There are some operations like M. Palmer and Ian's in Manitoba that are intermediate in scale. I believe M. Palmer had better outcomes when he stopped pollinating. We have examples of productive mite resistant colonies with squarepeg and Tim Ives. M. Bush has had lots of colonies TF. 

We don't have lots of migratory keepers staying and settling in this area. Maybe there are some that are going into the mountains for fireweed that I don't know about. There are also some passing through between the Vancouver, Okanagan fruit growing areas, and Alberta. I would say the biggest local risk is the importation of packages from New Zealand and Chili. This could be easily mitigated by local keepers producing more nucs for local demand.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Try moving your log hives on a horse drawn cart from Wisconsin to California in timely fashion.


witch is why skeps were made of straw and they used out stands left in place, saved moveing a lot of weight


> granted, the Russians did move the bees into the Far Eastern Russian just about 200 years ago


and that move, using only tech that had been around thousands of years, is how we got varroa?

once you move across a geographical barrier it doesn't matter if its 10 miles or 1000, your changing pathagins, genetics, forage, etc Tel Rehov shows us we were doing just that . yes they wern't going 2k miles back and forth yearly... but out side of north america most modern keepers arn't either...the distance it took to get the bees to Tel Rehov form were they are native speaks to people being well versed in moveing bees by that time. 



> Moving 10 hives by horse the next field over overnight - this is not even close to industrial.
> It is medieval-style, natural beekeeping.


150 years later then Tel Rehov we have written accounts of importing stocks 250+ miles... not the next feild over 

_I am Shamash-resh-ușur, the governor of Suhu and the land of Mari. Bees that collect honey, which none of my ancestors had ever seen or brought into the land of Suhu, I brought down from the mountain of the men of Habha, and made them settle in the orchards of the town 'Gabbari-built-it'. They collect honey and wax, and I know how to melt the honey and wax – and the gardeners know too. Whoever comes in the future, may he ask the old men of the town, (who will say) thus: "They are the buildings of Shamash-resh-ușur, the governor of Suhu, who introduced honey bees into the land of Suhu."
_— translated text from stele, (Dalley, 2002)

was it a an expensive undertaking.. sure... but so were the pyramids
Modern keepers often discount the extraordinary value of wax and honey in agent times vs it price at walmart.. It caused people to undertake extraordinary feats. One only needs to look at Sidr honey ($200 a KG) and the culture around it to get a feel for what the past was like.. yes the camel has been repaced by a pick up, but very little elce has changed http://www.aiys.org/yemen-update-no-43-2001/64-traditional-beekeeping-in-eastern-yemen.html

going back to post 95, we arn't taking 10 hives here


> as being the owner of 1100 hives in three apiaries





> As as the honey flow begins it is indicated by the sinking of the boat As soon as the mark has gone meter below the surface ho knows the hives to full


thats about a honey gain of around 185 pounds per SF of deck space on the barge even with a small 10'x20' barge you looking at tons of honey... industrial scale 

ramizes the 3rd dumped 14,000KG of honey in to the nile as an offering.... the only way you get that volume is industrial scale

any way for fun here is a tale of a 50 mile or so move, a caravan of langs on camle back gone wrong.. its a fun read https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...page&q=Gleanings in Bee Culture egypt&f=false


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

GregV said:


> Beekeeping as-is does not pay anyway (unless you are a mega).
> Making money beekeeping?
> Why even joke about it when most consumers prefer cheap, fake honey from Walmart?


Maybe you aren't making any money from bees, we certainly are. I had a long post describing how we built up our bee business, but, decided not to post it as most here would prefer to stick with the concept of 'there is no money in bees'. And I would agree, if you mis-manage either the bees, or the money, there wont be any leftover of that I'm certain. But we will have about 1500 kilos of honey this season, which we sell in 500 gram bottles for 10 bucks a bottle. You can do the math, 3000 bottles at 10 bucks apiece, that works out to a fair chunk of change even after we discount the cost of bottles and all of our other anciliary expenses. Our expenses are high this year because I spent an extra few grand purchasing a 'new to me' old truck for hauling bees around. When we bought this property, we wrote up a 5 year plan to grow the operation over time, rolling all of the revenue back into improvements and equipment for the first few years, we are currently in year 4 of that plan. By the end of next season we will have reached the end of that plan, and will be in a comfortable spot for our little bee sideline endeavor. We estimate right now that our production moving forward will be in the range of 2000 kilos per season of honey, 500 off the spring flows then another 1500 from the summer set out in the fireweed patch. Until now we've been keeping all of our nuc starts to grow numbers, but after next season we'll be at the point we want for colony numbers, only shy on drawn supers which will take another year to finish fleshing out those numbers.

2000 kilos of honey will give us gross revenues on the order of 40K, add to that some from spring nuc sales and maybe some queens thru the season if we have surplus. Once we are finished buying equipment for colony growth, annual expenses will run in around 10K, maybe a little less.

I dunno your financial position, so maybe to you 25 to 30K net in a season is not worth bothering about, but I suspect for most regular posters here, that's a reasonable chunk of change left over at the end of the season and certainly does qualify as 'making money' from bees.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I have hives that come out of winter with a couple of medium frames to completely packing a medium box and a half. Some of my hives (in dadant square boxes) must be close to 300 pounds. It was a good honey year. My criteria for queens is survival over 2 winters without treatments, and a good honey producer with a decent winter cluster. Based on my experience and a few others, it seems like it is possible to have good honey producers treatment free.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

grozzie, i'm with you in that i'm looking for some return on investment of expenditure and sweat equity. my production is about half of what you are getting and that's with running about 20 production hives. how many hives are you running?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

lharder, i don't think you can go wrong with those selection criteria. thanks for providing another example of a productive apiary managed off treatments.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Hey you guys just read a thread on Bee-l about how to avoid lifting heavy supers from a couple in their 80's running 40 hives and harvesting 8000lbs of honey, I do not know if they are treatment free but I want to be like them when I grow up.
Johno


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Their "contraption" is known as a monorail. We used to use them in the oilfields and I see them on the trucks that deliver burial vaults. Very good idea to use them for lifting hives. 80 is looming ever nearer. (But not too near quite yet).


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

JW it is not the contraption that I was thinking about but the 8000lbs of honey and still working 40 colonies at their age is outstanding in my opinion.
Johno


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

To be honest, my vision fogged over at the 200# per hive. I need to move to whever they are! Still, a lifting mechanism for us beeks as we advance in years is a good idea. 200#s, wow. 

My wife's grandfather cut cord wood and rendered down around 100 gallons of maple syrup every year until he died at age 94. I want to be like him.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

squarepeg said:


> grozzie, i'm with you in that i'm looking for some return on investment of expenditure and sweat equity. my production is about half of what you are getting and that's with running about 20 production hives. how many hives are you running?


This year we ran a couple dozen for the spring flow. We decided against putting all our eggs in one basket when we got the new spot for fireweed, and the 'new to me' truck holds 16 on the deck, so we took one load out there. The new yard has met and exceeded our expectations for the spot so we will do things a bit differently next year, plan is two loads out to the fireweed patch. When we originally made our plans, we were looking at growing to 25 full size colonies and a row of nucs half that size. Since the truck holds 16, we've adjusted our plans and now will shoot for 32 full size colonies moving to summer yards, that's two loads on the truck, then probably set up a separate yard on the far end of the patch where we put the nucs, we have equipment for 15 of those. The new spot gives us now the option of growing out nucs on a flow rather than feeding them here at home, so we are making significant changes based on these options.

One thing we are doing significantly different than most is how we are managing growth. In our experience, a smaller number of colonies efficiently managed with a surplus of drawn comb produces more than a larger number of colonies that are starved for drawn comb. We dont plan our growth on setting specific numbers for where we want the colony count to be, but rather evaluate our inventory of drawn supers, then target as many colonies as those supers will support over the spring flows. If we have a full size colony with _at least_ two drawn supers on the spring flow, we dont end up chasing swarms constantly, whereas if we give that same colony empty new frames, they are as likely to swarm out as they are to start drawing comb in the spring. On the summer flows after swarming season is past the bees will draw comb in supers like crazy, this year they all drew out one, some two boxes. Our goal is to have two drawn supers for each full size colony over the spring flow, any bees surplus to that will be broken down into smaller nuc size units in spring and let them grow into a productive colony over the spring part of the season. The goal for the summer placement, 2 drawn supers on every colony, with one box of new frames to be drawn out. If a colony fills two boxes on the spring flow, refills them and draws and fills a third box on the summer flow, we consider that a good season, and leaves us in a position to increase the colony count for the upcoming spring. 

What this boils down to, is we are not using colony counts as our metric for measuring progress on the growth plans, we are using the number of boxes of drawn comb as our growth metric. It's easy to turn a box of drawn comb into a box of bees, but, the reverse is more challenging. Our end goal then is, 64 deeps drawn out as brood comb, and about a hundred mediums drawn out for honey supers. We might make the goal on deeps next summer, but it'll probably take two more years to reach the goals for honey supers.

Dunno how plans will change once we reach that milestone, time will tell.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood grozzie, many thanks for your detailed reply.

all of that makes darned good sense too.

what i tend to get in my area is more like an average of 3 supers of harvestable honey per hive and 1 new drawn super.

the most i've ever gotten from one hive is 5 supers and 2 new drawn supers.

this year is going to be somewhat less because the main flow was off a bit plus i made a lot of splits.

unproductive hives generally result from sputtering supercedures leading up to and during the main flow. i'm carrying a handful of nucs through winter this year to help boost those kind of colonies next year.

do you find that there is normally enough honey left in the upper deep so that you don't have to supplement with syrup at the end?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

squarepeg said:


> do you find that there is normally enough honey left in the upper deep so that you don't have to supplement with syrup at the end?


Here at the house we have only had one year out of 5 where fall feeding wasn't required, that was last year. Due to family issues beyond our control with a parent in end phase paliative care we ended up off schedule this year. When we took the bees out to the new fireweed patch, plan was to bring them home around Aug 15 as that was about when we expected the fireweed bloom to taper off. Went out one afternoon a few days before that and set the escapes, then a couple days later we brought the supers home. Aside from that, we've been forced to basically ignore the bees, and they sat out there an extra couple of weeks without supers. We went out last nite to fetch the bees and bring them home, turns out there is still some fireweed in the end stages of the bloom, probably around 5% or so of the plants still have a few flowers at the top. Lifting the hives onto the truck, they are heavy, and for some reason seemed even heavier when we got home and were moving them from the truck to the stands. I guess the couple extra weeks out there fattened them up some, remains to be seen if they will need more, but the hives kept here will definitely need a good jag of feed to get thru.


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## Cariboospeed (Sep 12, 2018)

Imploding bomb....Kinda new to beekeeping, story short, hive came out of winter with guns blazing. Early June, both deep brood supers, full of brood. Put on 2nd and 3rd honey supers.
Left them alone for July. 

14 of August, took a honey super, noticed lack of brood, some visible mites on bees. OA dribble. Netted 45lbs of honey. Yellow jackets were everywhere this year, and some hanging around hive. Could see bees hauling drones and dead bees out, wasps having a field day with that.

1st week of September, took another 55lb net super off, and way less bees. Like maybe a couple thousand. Few scattered brood, what should be brood, now filling with honey. Gave a OA dribble. Bottom board covered with red next day. Down to a few thousand bees. Wasps sneaking in and out.

Today Sept 12, took the last super 45lb net, off. Less than 100 bees left. Could still see a couple mites on them. The last of the brood that was hatching seemed to die with their heads out of the cell, and their tongues sticking out. Yellow jackets freely coming and going.

Woulda noticed stuffs up with queen in a July inspection if I had dug down to brood box, but with the amount of honey they were making, figured all was good. Queen must have packed it in late July. No queen cells. They didn't even try, and as soon as she failed, the mites musta went rampage. Hive went from 2 deep brood boxes, three medium honey supers full of bees to nothing in about 6-7 weeks.

The two hives beside it, doing fine. Mite checked by sugar shake, found one. Gave them a OA dribble anyway.
Getting ready to wrap them up. 
Winter is coming.


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