# Two years without an overwintering success



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well first off, you seem concerned about Nosema but that is certainly not the only thing that will cause the demise of a hive in winter.

Personally, I haven't fed any drugs to a hive in my life, and don't think I've ever lost a hive to Nosema. Where you are in California, mites are probably a much more likely cause of deaths over winter than Nosema.

So to the second part of your question, starting out with a bee that has some mite resistance is a good thing. They don't HAVE to be Russians or Carniolans though. Wether or not they are acclimated to your area is less important than how you manage them. And understanding the traits of your particular bees. So for example, if you had a Carniolan strain that won't build up till a flow starts, and you know you have a quick short flow, you'd stimulate them before the flow to ensure plenty feild bees when the flow starts.

Going into winter, make sure the bees are healthy, well housed, and have sufficient food. It's that simple. Use a reliable method to test mite numbers they may not survive winter if they are overloaded with mites, this cannot always be done just by opening the hive and looking at it.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Oldtimer said:


> Wether or not they are acclimated to your area is less important than how you manage them. And understanding the traits of your particular bees. So for example, if you had a Carniolan strain that won't build up till a flow starts, and you know you have a quick short flow, you'd stimulate them before the flow to ensure plenty feild bees when the flow starts.


Have to disagree with my friend here. If you had bees that were acclimated to your area, they would build up before the flow and be ready. This is part of treatment free beekeeping, working with the local bee. Oldtimer's approach requires you to 'prop up' the bee and do for it what it should do for itself. I don't want a bee that requires me to stimulate it with feed in order to be ready for my local flow.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Have to disagree with our northrn friend. Bee management includes determining what the bee needs and providing it. That includes properly diagnosing diseases, pests and parasites;proper nutrition;a safe and healthy hive with adequate ventilation and easily defensable;and since honey bees are not indigenous to North America - a strain from a similar climate and topography. Is there a commercial beekeeper that does not stimulate the hives, or a queen rearer that does not feed them syrup and protein patties? Italians are selected for their early build-up, but they carry large numbers through the Winter too consuming resources.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

AmericasBeekeeper said:


> Is there a commercial beekeeper that does not stimulate the hives, or a queen rearer that does not feed them syrup and protein patties?


The commercial forum is down south a few. The OP starts right off saying "As a hobbyist"
We don't want to discuss here what commercial beekeepers do. Thank you.


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## mthammer11 (Jun 3, 2010)

Seriously? Scolded for saying the word "commercial"?? He makes a good point.:scratch:


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

and what point would that be? The key words were "feed them syrup and protein patties"


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## ccar2000 (Aug 9, 2009)

My question is regarding purchasing packages from a reputable supplier and getting them off the treatment regiment. I have only once seen a swarm in my area. There are bees here but I do not know where they are hived or if they are local bees.

How do I get them off the antibiotic?
Is it by weaning them by dilution of the fall treatment?
by not treating them the second year, after they survive the winter?
or quit cold turkey after they supersede?

What is the expected lifespan of a queen?

I am looking for good direction/instruction.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

My advice, having done some of this before, is to start with local nucs (or nucs from somewhere north of your location) and forget packages. Packages are under massive amounts of stress and in a treatment free environment are almost destined to fail.

Don't go cheap. Treatment free or resistant bees will cost more. These are the facts. It's can be hard work to get a good sustainable population of bees, and anyone who sells such bees deserves to be paid for their work.

After you get a nuc or two, split them every chance you get and make up as many hives as you can for winter so you have a greater chance of having some of them survive. Splitting them will also give them a leg up on the mites by breaking the brood cycle.

Use small cell foundation. Mann Lake PF-100's or something in that family are a good option to regress quickly if you're starting with large cell bees.

You won't find a post here that advocates treatments according to the forum definition. They get deleted pretty quickly.

The best way to get bees off treatments is to never put them on. Those chemicals get in the wax and become more or less permanent. The hive is a superorganism and bees operate on a number of levels of communication including smells and pheromones and hormones. Chemicals mess up those systems.

A good treatment free queen should be expected to perform satisfactorily at least three years or until the workers supercede her naturally. In treated hives, this may be several times per year.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

You do not need to wean them off drugs, go cold turkey. There are plenty of biological controls for every disease, pest and parasite. Healthy bees is a good start. Sound crazy? If they are healthy and not stressed fighting for existence, they can handle adversities. That is the best reason to keep them off drugs. Everything has side effects. Just listen to one commercial, sorry I used the dirty word again, every chemical we put in our bodies does some harm to some. Antibiotics stress the digestive system and kill beneficial organisms we need. Acaricides kill insects, closely related to bees. Unnatural levels of anything is stressful. A lady died from drinking too much water, hello! Vitamin B12 in excess will do great harm as will all the oil based vitamins. The closer you can stay to natural the better.


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

ccar2000 said:


> How do I get them off the antibiotic?
> Is it by weaning them by dilution of the fall treatment?


Just a reminder that giving antibiotics in diluted form is _worse_ than useless. Worse because _it encourages antibiotic-resistant strains_ of whatever you are treating for. It's a bad thing to do.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Omie said:


> Just a reminder that giving antibiotics in diluted form is _worse_ than useless.


Also illegal to apply medications in any dosage other than the prescribed one.


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## ccar2000 (Aug 9, 2009)

Omie said:


> Just a reminder that giving antibiotics in diluted form is _worse_ than useless. Worse because _it encourages antibiotic-resistant strains_ of whatever you are treating for. It's a bad thing to do.


Good to know Omie. Thanks!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How do I get them off the antibiotic?

Stop.

>Is it by weaning them by dilution of the fall treatment?

No.

>by not treating them the second year, after they survive the winter?

I have not used any antibiotics for 35 years... I just didn't.

>or quit cold turkey after they supersede?

Cold turkey. What does supersedure have to do with it?

>What is the expected lifespan of a queen?

A treatment free queen? Three to four years. A treated queen? Last expert estimate I heard was 3 months.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

">What is the expected lifespan of a queen?

A treatment free queen? Three to four years. A treated queen? Last expert estimate I heard was 3 months."

That seems like some serious anti treatment propaganda. Im sure something will reduce a queens life to three months but not treatment in general, huh!!

ccar2000

Why do you stress nosema? I have been under the impression that nosema was not a big problem for bees that are able to fly and take a poo, get fresh nectar and such. I think its more of a cold winter problem when bees cant exit the hive for long lengths of time but maybe not.

I think you may be just having some good ol bad luck. Mites seem to be the worst thing my bees have to deal with, they really take the life out of the colony!

Ill leave it there since this is treatment free other than if you first fail, try, try, try again.

Good luck this time around!!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> A treatment free queen? Three to four years. A treated queen? Last expert estimate I heard was 3 months.


Let's keep it real folks. It's this type of thing that makes people coming here despair of getting any proper information.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>That seems like some serious anti treatment propaganda. Im sure something will reduce a queens life to three months but not treatment in general, huh!!

About four or five years ago at the KHPA meeting, Nancy Ostiguy said she believes the average queen is superseded three times a year and that the cause is Varroa treatments. Serious anti treatment information, yes... pretty serious.

Most of my queens are three years old. Some are between 1 and 5 years old.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

All I can say is that sometimes "expert", can be described by the combination of "egg", and "spurt".

To say that the average lifespan of a queen is 3 months is not real world, at least on this planet.

The other question is did she really say it, or has something she said been taken out of context. Or, does she not really specialize in bees, but get her information from others, choosing her sources badly.

I know without question if my queens have been superseded because they are marked. They are good for two years minimum, treated, or not treated.

Michael Palmer recently discussed age of queens. He knows how old his queens are because he marks them with a date code. He described having many queens 3 years and older. He also treats. He also operates in the real world not a university laboratory.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>The other question is did she really say it, or has something she said been taken out of context.

There were many other people there. Ask around.

> Or, does she not really specialize in bees

She specialized in several things, but one of those is bees. She is at the University of Pennsylvania and last I heard was representing beekeepers on the committee trying to work out the USAD organic standards.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Oh well, in that case, she's just plain wrong.

She may possibly have discovered isolated cases, or maybe a beekeeper or two who has this experience in their own outfit. But what she describes is not mainstream, among commercial beeks anyway.

The other thing to the person who posted this information. Why post it? You surely know it's erroneous? 

I actually recall when I got back into beekeeping, as a hobbyist, after varroa arrived in my country, hearing something similar to that, and being rather surprised when my queens performed as good as ever. PROVIDED they were properly mated, mating has taken a hit from several directions since varroa.


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## ccar2000 (Aug 9, 2009)

Both of my two attempts I did not treat. It seems that I need to change what I am doing or not doing.
If I had been keeping bees for 35 years I do not believe I would be having this problem either. I wish I had been. Hence the posting.
I was thinking that after the original queen was replaced that the introduced genetics, possibly from local/climatized hives would be more likely to survive.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Treating may not be discussed in the Treatment Free section, although you can discuss it in the other sections.

Another thought is can you find a successful beekeeper near enough to see what ever he is doing, that works?


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## ccar2000 (Aug 9, 2009)

thanks oldtimer, I will start another post regarding becoming treatment free. 
I figured someone here moved from a treatment regime to being treatment free and would be of assistance.


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## MDS (Jan 9, 2011)

I feel for ya ccar2000. Keep trying. There is more than just treat/not treat that can cause a hive to fail. 

For example: I was always advised to cut out queen cells of all types. One year they started capping supersedure cells late in the session. I finally found a queen supplier late in the year with queens. I removed the queen cells and put in the new queen. They killed her. I tried again and no luck. Put in some eggs but they never raised their own. I went into winter with older bees so they died because I think they were not able to move the cluster to honey because the hive had too few bees. 

Learned suggetions of what to do has to be specific to the individual conditions that exist in my area and hive. I also learned to take my losses in the fall and should have combined them. Bad me.

Agree with old timer. Check with someone local at the bee meetings. To big of an issue to get it wrong and we want ya to be a happy beekeeper.


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

ccar2000 said:


> thanks oldtimer, I will start another post regarding becoming treatment free.
> I figured someone here moved from a treatment regime to being treatment free and would be of assistance.


I think if your goal is to stay treatment free then this is the right place to discuss it.
If your goal is to switch to treating, then this isn't the right place to ask for advice on that.
I'm not sure what the confusion is about.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

ccar2000

From what I understand VSH bees can survive mites completely on their own. I suggest you give them a try. They are supposed to be very, very hygienic so I think they will do a good job riding the colony of varroa and brood diseases. I am giving a colony of VSH a try myself. I do treat but I will be very interested to see how mite levels compare from my VSH colony to others come the end of the season.

If you have the capability of keeping two yards maybe you could try both ways.

just wanted to add that even if you cant get a VSH package or nuc you can always requeen it or start a nuc from it etc. Im sure you know all that already.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

ccar200, when I restarted with bees I bought two packages from a Texas Treatment Free breeder... with additional nucs and packages and queens, those two in April 2006 now number 40. Never a treatment. You can do it. But you need to start with treatment free bees/queens. Package or nuc, doesn't matter. Treatment free does. Then apply all the good management techniques to get them built up for your winter. 
Regards,
Steven


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## MDS (Jan 9, 2011)

*StevenG;645173]ccar200, when I restarted with bees I bought two packages from a Texas Treatment Free breeder... with additional nucs and packages and queens, those two in April 2006 now number 40. *

Safe to assume you have not bought 40 packages getting there. LOL, no offense. What breeder did ya get them from. I'm in Missouri as well and am considering Long Lane honey Bee Farms out of Illinios for bees cause think they may be better in our climit. Not to get off topic which I don't think this is because original poster is trying to figure out where he is going wrong wintering bees.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Info in his profile page.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

No offense taken, MDS. My point was that it can successfully be done, and you can grow from your original two colonies while being treatment free. To answer your question, my original two packages, and the rest of my more successful bees (queens mainly, with two more packages) came from B. Weaver, in Navasota, Texas. The jury is still out on my Russians here in southeast Missouri. Were I ccar200, I'd try Glenn Apiaries (after asking if they were treatment free), or buy some from RRussell here on the forum. His bees look real good! i'm going to try some of his myself next year. 
Regards,
Steven


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## MDS (Jan 9, 2011)

Got it and thanks.


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