# Critical Mass?



## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

So, not 6 months ago, I was posting here in this forum with the "new TF Beekeeper blues". (Available soon on Atlantic records). I had been to a bee club where a UGA researcher spat (literally, as in "spraying mouth liquid") and raved about how all TF beekeepers were killing not only their bees but all the bees around, and who bragged that he would sneak into his neighbor's yard and treat his bees whenever the neighbor was away at work, and was tacitly cheered by the crowd (to be fair, I think a few more were horrified like I was, but the crowd was mostly with spitting dawg). This was the dude with the A-bomb slide in his powerpoint deck. (Subtlety not being a subject the grad students at UGA are taught, apparently).

So, comes a new Spring and a new American Bee Journal, and Randy Oliver and Tom Seeley are talking about a revolution? Well.. you know. We all want to change the world....

And I've been hearing a lot about Marla Spivak recently. And it seems like the last ABJ was about genetics and breeding for tolerance. And suddenly, the flavor of the month is "small time bee owners developing the genetics to save us all". Or maybe I'm selectively picking the media I read and that isn't true.... epistemic closure....

So, is this the inflection point where we become like South Africa (bee-wise, and not in any other way)? Is this the start of the 2 years of Hell to get to a point where most bees are tolerant?

Or maybe not... I probably just imagined all that. Maybe spitting dude is coming back to my bee club this Summer? I'll be sure to sit in row 4. Or 7.

I'm not trying to start a fight. I'm just wondering if we are at that inflection point? Where Randy Oliver and Tom Seeley and Marla Spivak all join the lonely prophets like Mike Bush and Sam Comfort, and suddenly TF is cool? 

Well... not that, clearly. TF will not be cool until at least another year or two.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

TF has been cool for 10 years or more. Very few queen breeders have made the effort to go completely treatment free. Commercial beekeepers don't have the financial resources to lose a large part of their operation on the way to treatment free. This sets up a vicious circle where the queen breeders continue to raise susceptible queens because the commercial beekeepers can't afford to get off the treadmill.

This is very similar to the situation with trachea mites in the early 1990's. The difference is that tracheamite resistance was available in the U.S. via Buckfast bees and other strains and races rapidly developed resistance. Nobody today worries about Acarine. Varroa mites are a tougher nut to crack, but they have been cracked and now the momentum is building for breeding mite resistant bees with all the traits commercial beekeepers need.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

FP is the Barbara Mandrell of treatment free beekeeping. He was treatment free, when treatment free wasn't cool.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Up in the north we have a differant problem. We can bring in all the treatment free bees we want from down south but can they survive the long winter and mites. I've come to the conclusion that queens from breeders down south won't survive. We will have to breed our own queens and for the hobby beekeeper that's just about impossible. So a few of us small beekeeper have started our own little club all of us together have around 50 hives total. My plan is to start with beeweaver queens I'm going to have to treat to get them through the winter then bring in VSH breeder queens to start our little plan. Now I see some here say they have bees that survive maybe being small and local is the future.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

I was a little overly cute last night, and buried my point I think.

By "cool" I meant "broadly accepted wisdom". I've only been subscribing to the bee journals for a year, but notice a dramatic change over that year (especially at ABJ). A year ago it was "how to treat" "when to treat" "what chemicals to use" "how to schedule them". There was a big "dribble versus vapor" debate, and anger that antibiotics might require a prescription. The last two issues have been "how to ween yourself off" and "it is ok for some bees to die". After me wondering for 6 months what "bond method" meant, this month there is a poster of Roger Moore holding a gun right there in my bee magazine. So, now everyone knows.

I'm seeing more and more YouTube videos of speakers at bee meetings saying the same things. I don't know if this is pure marketing (we abhor chemicals because it sells more magazines) or if represents the beginning of an awakening... Seems like an awakening to me.

All that being said, FP is indeed cooler than Barbara Mandrell, by a long shot! He's up in Buddy Holly territory at least.


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

TF has been around for as long as bees and their problems have been around. I dont have any proverbial dog in this fight, but I am not sure calling them "lone prophet" is fair. I met Sam Comfort and he is really down to earth and puts his money where his mouth is. In addition, most of these guys / gals sell their Queens / Bees in the same price range compare to other commercial Queens. 

I look at these things as "Fashion", old is new and new is old. Reason is, learning and evolution is circular. We may use chemicals while the investigation of genetics, food etc is better understood, and use TF to some extent while better treatments are being worked on. 

Folks like Randy Oliver, Tom Seeley publish / report what they see, without much partiality to one side or the other. And thats what I LOVE about those guys.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Dan the bee guy said:


> I've come to the conclusion that queens from breeders down south won't survive. .


I have commercial queens raised in Georgia and Louisiana that survive NE Ohio winters with no problem at all. They would make it TF with the usual losses expected in a TF operation. I have never lost a hive simply due to cold in the winter. I have lost them due to mites, probable viruses, and eating themselves into a corner when it was below zero and too cold to move two or three frames sideways to get on honey. None of those things have anything to do with where the queen was reared. For the record I do treat with apivar which goes on about March 15. That is the only treatment my bees get. Winter hive deaths are about 10% over the last three winters from a total of about 60 hives. I also feed nucs when needed but not production hives. Not bad for southern bees in my opinion. Do your local mutts do that well?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Dan the bee guy said:


> Up in the north we have a differant problem. We can bring in all the treatment free bees we want from down south but can they survive the long winter and mites. I've come to the conclusion that queens from breeders down south won't survive. We will have to breed our own queens and for the hobby beekeeper that's just about impossible. So a few of us small beekeeper have started our own little club all of us together have around 50 hives total. My plan is to start with beeweaver queens I'm going to have to treat to get them through the winter then bring in VSH breeder queens to start our little plan. Now I see some here say they have bees that survive maybe being small and local is the future.


I love this post.Thanks.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Dan the bee guy said:


> Up in the north we have a differant problem. We can bring in all the treatment free bees we want from down south but can they survive the long winter and mites. I've come to the conclusion that queens from breeders down south won't survive. We will have to breed our own queens and for the hobby beekeeper that's just about impossible. So a few of us small beekeeper have started our own little club all of us together have around 50 hives total. My plan is to start with beeweaver queens I'm going to have to treat to get them through the winter then bring in VSH breeder queens to start our little plan. Now I see some here say they have bees that survive maybe being small and local is the future.


Saskatraz queens are Saskatchewan based. They may have some useful bees for you.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

AvatarDad said:


> who bragged that he would sneak into his neighbor's yard and treat his bees whenever the neighbor was away at work.


Wow that guy sounds like a piece of work I would NOT want him for my neighbor. With him going around telling crowds what he does i wonder if word will ever get back to his neighbor.



Dan the bee guy said:


> My plan is to start with beeweaver queens I'm going to have to treat to get them through the winter then bring in VSH breeder queens to start our little plan.


Just wondering if this is the right approach. You are planning to treat the beeweaver bees but word is they do not need treatment, but on the other hand, due to the african component they can winter very poorly in a cold climate, but you are planning to winter them. Also Beeweavers themselves do not use small cells, and have actually scoffed at the idea.


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## R_V (Aug 20, 2016)

Dan the bee guy said:


> Up in the north we have a differant problem. We can bring in all the treatment free bees we want from down south but can they survive the long winter and mites. I've come to the conclusion that queens from breeders down south won't survive. We will have to breed our own queens and for the hobby beekeeper that's just about impossible. So a few of us small beekeeper have started our own little club all of us together have around 50 hives total. My plan is to start with beeweaver queens I'm going to have to treat to get them through the winter then bring in VSH breeder queens to start our little plan. Now I see some here say they have bees that survive maybe being small and local is the future.


 for wintering.. from the thread this morning http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?334092-Purdue-Ankle-Biters-Available

these guys http://www.mountainstatequeens.com think they're onto something


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Richard Cryberg said:


> I have commercial queens raised in Georgia and Louisiana that survive NE Ohio winters with no problem at all. They would make it TF with the usual losses expected in a TF operation. I have never lost a hive simply due to cold in the winter. I have lost them due to mites, probable viruses, and eating themselves into a corner when it was below zero and too cold to move two or three frames sideways to get on honey. None of those things have anything to do with where the queen was reared. For the record I do treat with apivar which goes on about March 15. That is the only treatment my bees get. Winter hive deaths are about 10% over the last three winters from a total of about 60 hives. I also feed nucs when needed but not production hives. Not bad for southern bees in my opinion. Do your local mutts do that well?


I should of said treatment free bees from down south won't make it. Ohio is a bit milder than where I am there are a lot of people here saying their bees are bringing I pollen I won't see that for two months.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Just wondering if this is the right approach. You are planning to treat the beeweaver bees but word is they do not need treatment, but on the other hand, due to the african component they can winter very poorly in a cold climate, but you are planning to winter them. Also Beeweavers themselves do not use small cells, and have actually scoffed at the idea.


Got to start somewhere and beeweaver bees make excellent small cell I don't use it for mite controls I use it for a more compact brood nest in my 8 frame box. I will always be looking for and testing bees for survivability and mite resistance.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

R_V said:


> for wintering.. from the thread this morning http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?334092-Purdue-Ankle-Biters-Available
> 
> these guys http://www.mountainstatequeens.com think they're onto something


Just what I'm looking for Thanks


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## WetWilly (Oct 4, 2014)

AvatarDad said:


> I was a little overly cute last night, and buried my point I think.


I dont think so. What I do think is that if there is an awakening, its already occurred. As far as converting the medicators, it is only going highlight a deeper more ingrained behavioral problem. (With the keepers, not the bees) Even if as practitioners of treatment intensive management we were magically provided with 10,000 mite resistant queens, we would only medicate them too.

It's probably easier just to spit back and start a fight. 

ys WW


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

"Definition of pejorative:

a word or phrase that has negative connotations or that is intended to disparage or belittle."

from: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pejorative

here in the treatment free subforum members are specifically admonished in the 'unique forum rules' from making perjorative comments with respect to treatment free beekeeping.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?253066-Unique-Forum-Rules

these rules were set up before my time here, but my understanding is they became necessary because thread after thread devolved into a spitting contest between folks strongly aligning themselves on one side of the approach or the other.

none of the other subforums have such an expressed etiquette requirement, although civility is expected and required at all times everywhere on this site.

in my opinion, if those discussing the treatment free approach in this subforum are 'protected' from disparaging comments from those who may not agree with our methods, the least we can do is reciprocate by not casting dispersion in the other direction.

yours is an interesting story wetwilly and i'm glad you are here to share it with us. it's not the first time we've heard about keepers buying commercially produced package bees that come with a history of treatments only to find they don't survive when those treatments are withheld, so no surprises there.

i'm looking forward to hearing how you do with your new strategy, and i am sure there are others out there in the same boat who can benefit from your sharing of that experience as well.

i believe you will find there are a number of contributors here who don't necessarily fit neatly into this group or that one, square pegs if you will, which in my opinion is why we should all avoid painting with too broad a brush.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

squarepeg said:


> i believe you will find there are a number of contributors here who don't necessarily fit neatly into this group or that one, square pegs if you will, which in my opinion is why we should all avoid painting with too broad a brush.


squarepeg,

Thank you for posting to this thread. It was in desperate need of the comments you shared.


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## Hunajavelho (Oct 11, 2015)

Richard Cryberg said:


> I have commercial queens raised in Georgia and Louisiana that survive NE Ohio winters with no problem at all. They would make it TF with the usual losses expected in a TF operation. I have never lost a hive simply due to cold in the winter. I have lost them due to mites, probable viruses, and eating themselves into a corner when it was below zero and too cold to move two or three frames sideways to get on honey. None of those things have anything to do with where the queen was reared. For the record I do treat with apivar which goes on about March 15. That is the only treatment my bees get. Winter hive deaths are about 10% over the last three winters from a total of about 60 hives. I also feed nucs when needed but not production hives. Not bad for southern bees in my opinion. Do your local mutts do that well?


In europe, the situation is when you buy queens from let say Italy, greece or even germany) to Finland where we have winter from october-april 40F to -5F on average.
The problem with southern queens (if there is a problem, as there is not with all) that they don't stop brood rearing in time in autumn or don't form a compact cluster.


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## dennis crutchfield (Aug 5, 2016)

my bee weavers have gone 16 years without treatment of any kind, of course if have mixed them with various resistant bees. this year I will be starting some tf bees from the south and incorporating them into my stock to calm them down. and even running two different lines of them. it can be done if you are willing to pay the price. with that said this year, I will start some natural treatments for the beetles. but will not treat for mites because I no longer have a mite problem. they died with all my bees years ago but what I have left is the foundation I will be increasing with to sale at a later date.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Hunajavelho said:


> In europe, the situation is when you buy queens from let say Italy, greece or even germany) to Finland where we have winter from october-april 40F to -5F on average.
> The problem with southern queens (if there is a problem, as there is not with all) that they don't stop brood rearing in time in autumn or don't form a compact cluster.


Not stopping brood rearing has nothing to do with where the queen was raised and all to do with her genetics. The next poster talks about excellent luck with BeeWeavers that are all raised in Texas. Many others have commented favorably about these queens doing well against mites without chemical help. These bees were developed in Texas, not transplanted there. The last I knew Texas was still in the US south. If you are going to be treatment free your task is all about genetics and your observation skills to see and solve problems in individual hives. Solving those problems may involve pinching the queen and replacing her. That task can be strongly influenced by where you happen to live. The queen that works for Squarepeg, who lives in the south, may well be pure junk in the north due to things like how his bees respond to natural brood break differences required in the two places and winterability in the north. Do, not take this as my knocking Squarepeg. I happen to think very highly of him and am proud to know him. He is a smart fellow. He does very well TF and more power to him for doing very well. In my opinion one of the important reasons he does very well is he is an excellent observer and either has the worlds best memory of what each hive does and how it behaves or he keeps some kind of very good records so he can make sensible choices in what queens to breed from so he maintains good genetics. Because of his good observation skills I bet he solves issues routinely before they become major problems for that hive which all too often does not happen regardless if you treat or do not treat. If you ask him getting such good queens did not happen over nite either. He has been working on the genetics for years. But, even thou I live in the north I would not mind trying a couple of his queens sometime. I would bet I could keep them alive over winters far colder than his strain has ever seen.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Hunajavelho said:


> The problem with southern queens (if there is a problem, as there is not with all) that they don't stop brood rearing in time in autumn or don't form a compact cluster.


Brood rearing during winter affects mite population. Not just chilling problems or food use. More brood, more mites. And mite populations affect virus issues. Reduced populations affect the ratio of mites to bees. And mite ratios, not just population levels, also affect virus levels. My feral southern bees are frugal and winter with small clusters. It's more like calculus than subtraction. Hunajavelho, to me, your statement is insightful.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Hate to shock and awe y'all with some real-world factual data but here goes.
This will only sting a little. 

The yard that was religiously treated with OAV survival rate appears to be 17/18 survivors. 
The TF yard had only 12/33. 

Now which would you all prefer to have right now today. The yard with one dead-out or the one with 21?


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

Yard with 12 still alive


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

aunt betty said:


> Hate to shock and awe y'all with some real-world factual data but here goes.
> This will only sting a little.
> 
> The yard that was religiously treated with OAV survival rate appears to be 17/18 survivors.
> ...



Shock and awe? Hardly. The only data I see on the TF losses, is, well, losses. You'd need to provide a little more background than what you're offering to make any fair comparisons if that's your intent.


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## wadehump (Sep 30, 2007)

18 tf going into winter 1 dead coming out and it was dead in dec. swarm from spring of 16. 6 of these hives have had nothing done to them at all sense 2012 just swarm and rob honey for 3 years they were 2012 swarms. I have had a lot of deadouts over the years but it is getting better and yes I use the BOND method live and let die only the best will survive.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

aunt betty said:


> The yard that was religiously treated with OAV survival rate appears to be 17/18 survivors.
> The TF yard had only 12/33.


I'm blessed to have bees that allow me to harvest honey and do little else. If I had to choose between your bees and knowing nothing about their backgrounds, I would want to start with the twelve that are still alive at this point without treatment rather than the seventeen that had treatment.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

I would take the 12 left from the TF experiment if my objective was to be TF. Then I would look at honey production from each of them and pick out the two best of the bunch assuming other things like temper, pollen hoarding, how fast they hit the road this spring are ok. I would automatically eliminate any hive as a breeder that swarmed last summer. I would throw one strip of apivar on every one of them in the brood nest when soft maples have been in bloom a week and we have at least three days above 55 deg forecast. I would raise queens from the two best and rob the rest of brood frames unmercifully to make new nucs and feed sugar water as needed and be up to 30 or more colonies by fall. Along the way some of those ten I used to steal brood are going to be so weak I would just let them die or requeen with a raised queen. The whole purpose up to this point is to build up a bunch of the best from the best. Next spring I would go TF and see what survived, then repeat the above sequence the following year. Next summer I would do alcohol wash mite counts on every hive in June, August and late Sept and keep written records so I had another hunk of data for selection the following year.

The objection of many in this group to this sequence of events is that one apivar treatment every other year. Objecting to that simply ignores the price of not treating with the result of slowing down the whole process of getting to TF because you have zero concept of how to efficiently breed for desired genetic traits from bees showing a high death rate due to mites When your winter survival hits 70% in the years you do not treat it is time to forget that every other year one strip of apivar treatment.. It will likely take you ten years to get there. Or you may never get there because you are picking breeders from such small numbers of colonies. Much better odds of getting there if you were picking from 500 colonies and only raising queens from two or three. Raising all those queens from only two hives also means you need to learn to graft. Grafting is dirt easy and if you intend to make any progress towards TF in your lifetime you need to learn how to do it anyhow. Doing splits wastes way too much resources.

The above all assumes I have no choice other than pick one or the other of Aunt's groups. If I really wanted to be TF and had a wider choice I would not pick from either group. There are better ways to get TF faster than picking bad genetics to start with. Why start at the bottom of the curve with respect to mite tolerance?


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I was wondering how old these hives were. My losses look like about 50 % for 2nd year hives and about 66% for nucs. The nucs have a better feel about them overall. 

I don't have to treat so far as I have more bees coming out of winter each year. But I have too much influence from other treated bees probably, so I am looking for an opportunity to place my best hives in a semi closed/open mating situation where they are mostly mating with each other but still have some outside influence.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Richard Cryberg said:


> I would take the 12 left from the TF experiment if my objective was to be TF. Then I would look at honey production from each of them and pick out the two best of the bunch assuming other things like temper, pollen hoarding, how fast they hit the road this spring are ok. I would automatically eliminate any hive as a breeder that swarmed last summer. I would throw one strip of apivar on every one of them in the brood nest when soft maples have been in bloom a week and we have at least three days above 55 deg forecast. I would raise queens from the two best and rob the rest of brood frames unmercifully to make new nucs and feed sugar water as needed and be up to 30 or more colonies by fall. Along the way some of those ten I used to steal brood are going to be so weak I would just let them die or requeen with a raised queen. The whole purpose up to this point is to build up a bunch of the best from the best. Next spring I would go TF and see what survived, then repeat the above sequence the following year. Next summer I would do alcohol wash mite counts on every hive in June, August and late Sept and keep written records so I had another hunk of data for selection the following year.
> 
> The objection of many in this group to this sequence of events is that one apivar treatment every other year. Objecting to that simply ignores the price of not treating with the result of slowing down the whole process of getting to TF because you have zero concept of how to efficiently breed for desired genetic traits from bees showing a high death rate due to mites When your winter survival hits 70% in the years you do not treat it is time to forget that every other year one strip of apivar treatment.. It will likely take you ten years to get there. Or you may never get there because you are picking breeders from such small numbers of colonies. Much better odds of getting there if you were picking from 500 colonies and only raising queens from two or three. Raising all those queens from only two hives also means you need to learn to graft. Grafting is dirt easy and if you intend to make any progress towards TF in your lifetime you need to learn how to do it anyhow. Doing splits wastes way too much resources.
> 
> The above all assumes I have no choice other than pick one or the other of Aunt's groups. If I really wanted to be TF and had a wider choice I would not pick from either group. There are better ways to get TF faster than picking bad genetics to start with. Why start at the bottom of the curve with respect to mite tolerance?



Excellent post Richard as it touches on several aspects of moving forward. I think all who hope to become TF should at least read this post and consider the information. 

Which group of Aunt Betty's bees would I pick? Probably neither. My definition of TF success is 3 years without treatment AND average or above average honey yields. I'm not in beekeeping to just simply make bees that survive. I put my time and effort into this endeavor for a multitude of reasons, with one being to make some money. To make money at my scale, you absolutely need bees that thrive.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

0


> 3-20-2016, 01:34 AM #781 SiWolKe
> Join Date
> Jul 2015
> Location
> ...


Now:
50% losses

You could blame it on my lack of knowledge if you want but I do not. I followed my mentor still. Same method. 
The survivors are 5 year tf.

No certainty. 
But now and in future I have to develop my skills to expand again.
I would take the 12.

Thanks Richard. Very good to read about the strategies.


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