# Articles on treatment options and going treatment free



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

http://www.meamcneil.com/Bond vs Bond MsPtI.pdf

http://www.meamcneil.com/Bond vs Bomb PtII MsABJ.pdf


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

Excellent articles. Many thanks!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

nice find dar, thanks for sharing. 

the companion articles present a fair and balanced overview of the state of affairs with regard to varroa mites along with practical considerations that i believe most of us can appreciate. 

i noticed that several of the points that were made echo sentiments that have been expressed along the way here on beesource. 

(in addition to being available on her website, mcneil's articles were published in the august and september issues of last year's american bee journal)


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Very helpful, dar!
Thanks and please post again if you have some interesting links on this topic.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

I've been wondering the meaning of "Hard Bond" versus "Soft Bond" so now I know.

Great articles. Thanks.

I've been appreciating the bridge builders on both sides of the T/TF divide who have been emphasizing "we are not trying to kill your bees" and showing explicitly how that's so.


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## R_V (Aug 20, 2016)

interesting...

from the last page
_Not helpful:_ *Small cell size:* Several investigations have concluded that small cell size does not
diminish mite reproduction, among them studies by Jennifer Berry of the University of Georgia,5
The Florida Department of Agriculture,6 the New Zealand Ruakura Research Centre. Tom
Seeley of Cornell concluded that “Small-cell comb does not control Varroa mites in colonies of
honeybees of European origin” both in managed colonies and in feral bees in the Arnot Forest.
Jeff Pettis said, “Small colonies but not small cell.”


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

The " not helpful" comment of using small cell is very interesting to me, too.

There are some who claim that small cells are beneficial. But they are very good beekeepers too, so what is the advantage with mites?
The one day shorter time until hatching of the bee pupae is mentioned but this depends on bee density more in my eyes.

A garanty it is not, like some say. They change to sc but still do the same kind of husbandry. Those who change their methods seem to have more success.

On natural comb the bees build around 5.0mm worker brood cells. How many beekeepers in the study did measure natural comb? Foundations are always forcing bees to do unnatural building and needs at least two seasons until the bees are regressed( IMO) enough to build small cells on their own.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I went small cell for 2 years. Did notice differences it made to bee behaviour and the general "vibe" of the colonies, but in the end it did not save them from varroa mites.

In the past I've been attacked by people saying I should not say SC didn't work, on the treatment free forum. Please bear in mind that saying small cells did not work for my bees, is not an attack on treatment free beekeeping. It's a discussion of wether or not small cells contribute to treatment free beekeeping. Some people such as Michael Bush swear it does. So if that's their experience I accept that. Just saying it's not a cure all, if it was I'd still be doing it.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> I went small cell for 2 years. Did notice differences it made to bee behaviour and the general "vibe" of the colonies, but in the end it did not save them from varroa mites.
> 
> In the past I've been attacked by people saying I should not say SC didn't work, on the treatment free forum. Please bear in mind that saying small cells did not work for my bees, is not an attack on treatment free beekeeping. It's a discussion of wether or not small cells contribute to treatment free beekeeping. Some people such as Michael Bush swear it does. So if that's their experience I accept that. Just saying it's not a cure all, if it was I'd still be doing it.


2 years testing this is, in my eyes, much to short. So I think nobody can say it works not. 
It works not if people believe it to be the only beekeeping method they should change. Use small cell...zack...resistant bees.
No chance.

To develop resistance is a job which takes many years learning from experience and breeding the survivors.
And it may be not possible in some locations.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I had sent this to Sibylle in a PM earlier but since the conversation is going in this direction, I'll post it publicly here. It may help someone decide that either small cell or natural cell has a place in their beekeeping.

IMO, small cell has an advantage, but not for varroa resistance.

Are the bees happy on 4.9? On average, no, they aren't. I found that about 10% of my colonies had smaller queens with smaller bees. These bees are perfectly content on 4.9 foundation. If you work at it 4 or 5 years, most of your bees will be smaller and will be content on small cell combs. Look for the colonies that like it and breed from them.

Is there a beneficial effect from small cell combs? There is, but in my experience, it does not directly affect varroa. I found that small cell has a marked influence on spring buildup. First, some background. I've built my own bee equipment since 1977. My first frames were built with 1.25 inch (31.5 mm) end bars. This allows me to put 11 frames into a standard Langstroth deep brood box. I ran about 10 to 20 hives with this size frame for 40 years and can describe most of the advantages and disadvantages. The benefit of narrow frames is that bees build up about 2 weeks earlier in spring. My bees peak in about 9 to 10 weeks as compared to bees on 1 3/8 inch (35 mm) frames that peak in 10 to 12 weeks. This can be a significant benefit if you want to split your bees prior to the spring flow. It is a problem because colonies reach swarm strength just after fruit bloom which means they will swarm heavily if action is not taken to prevent it. Small cell foundation just happens to enhance this effect. The number of cells in a brood nest (meaning the area the cluster covers) is significantly higher when narrow frames are combined with small cells. How much difference? Adding 1 extra frame to the brood nest (from 10 frames to 11) gives about 10% more cells the cluster can cover. Changing from 5.3 foundation to 4.9 increases from about 7100 cells per frame to 8300 cells. This is a 16% increase. Combine the 10% increase from narrow frames with the 16% increase with small cells and the net effect is that a given size cluster can cover 28% more cells of brood. The bottom line is that bees on small cell and narrow frames can reach swarm strength in 7 to 8 weeks from the start of spring.

Is earlier spring buildup a benefit? It can be but depends on the nectar flows in the area. I have first pollen about Feb 1st to 10th in a normal year. My main flow usually starts April 20th to 25th and lasts about 6 weeks. This gives about 12 weeks for my bees to build up. If I use narrow frames and small cell, they peak about the 1st of April, roughly 3 or 4 weeks before the main flow starts. My solution is simple. I pull a nuc from all the strong colonies in early April. The result is a weak spring nuc that builds up on the flow and a relatively strong parent colony that makes a crop of honey. The benefit from small cell may be that it helps the colony breed faster than varroa in the spring buildup!

I spent the last year building equipment and converting to square Dadant depth hives based on Brother Adam's recommendations. I built my own frames with 31.5 mm end bars but was unable to source small cell wired foundation for the first round of frames. I bought 256 sheets of 5.4 mm foundation from Dadant last year and used most of it getting combs drawn. I was able to get Dadant to make 200 pounds of 5.1 foundation which they will ship to me as soon as the weather moderates. Why 5.1? Because the bees seem to like 5.1 a lot better than 4.9 and all of my bees will readily draw 5.1 cells very well.

The above is just an anecdote and not scientifically proven. It would take a serious study to fully demonstrate the effects on the bees. I don't care to do such a study. I am building my equipment the way I want it to work. Everyone else is welcome to do the same.

There is one other possible effect from small cell. After several years of selecting bees that are happy on small cell it is possible that the days to maturity might be reduced from 21 to 20 or perhaps even 19. I have not in any way attempted to verify this. What I can state from my observations is that bees on small cell combs behave significantly different than bees on large cell with wider spacing.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> 2 years testing this is, in my eyes, much to short. So I think nobody can say it works not.......To develop resistance is a job which takes many years learning from experience and breeding the survivors.


At the end of two years there were no survivors to breed from so there was no way for me to spin out the time frame. I can say it did not work.



Fusion_power said:


> I found that small cell has a marked influence on spring buildup.... It is a problem because colonies reach swarm strength just after fruit bloom which means they will swarm heavily if action is not taken to prevent it. Small cell foundation just happens to enhance this effect.


Interesting observation. I have been reading someone who is doing the exact opposite, he runs LC frames at 9 per brood box evenly spaced, and finds that reduces swarming. He did not say why. Perhaps they build up slower, confirming your own findings in a converse kind of way FP.



Fusion_power said:


> After several years of selecting bees that are happy on small cell it is possible that the days to maturity might be reduced from 21 to 20 or perhaps even 19. I have not in any way attempted to verify this.


I bought into that theory also as it sounded reasonable, that's until I actually measured. I found that bees do not always hatch at 21 days it can vary regardless of cell size, and I could not find that sc bees had a quicker average. I have not heard of anyone else actually doing the experiment with a meaningful number of cells.



SiWolKe said:


> To develop resistance is a job which takes many years learning from experience and breeding the survivors.


Would not breeding resistant bees be a seperate issue than wether or not small cell works to reduce varroa?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> he runs LC frames at 9 per brood box evenly spaced, and finds that reduces swarming. He did not say why. Perhaps they build up slower, confirming your own findings in a converse kind of way FP.


 This is precisely the effect that Dadant described when he selected 1.5 inch spacing for his frames. Read through his writings and he is adamant that 1.5 inch spacing is the best spacing because it reduces swarming.

Almond pollination is a major problem because strong colonies are needed in February. If small cell and narrow frames could enhance buildup enough to add a few extra frames of brood to colonies being prepared for almonds, it would add about $40 per colony extra income to the beekeeper. Colonies are graded and paid by frames of brood. Turn a colony with 6 frames of brood into an 8 frame and it is worth quite a bit more. I think small cell and narrow frames may have a place in beekeeping in the future. It will take a large number of beekeepers trialing the setup and finding whether it is useful.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Commercial beekeepers wouldn't need it. If they want x number of bees in a hive by y date, they manage the hives to make that happen, small cell would not be needed.

Biggest problem I had this season because I did not sell any bees or want to make increase, was holding the bees back till the time was right.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

It only takes a couple of bee cycles to regress the bees to the small cells.
Once you have given them the SC comb then the bees are small enough. As for the
mite resistant ability, all of my mite bee bomb nuc hive and the other nuc hives in this experiment are
using the SC frames. So the mites still infect the cap broods all winter long even into our early Spring time now.
Because of the mite removal all hives have a chance to build up during the early Spring time. Whether or not they are
the SC, LC it does not matter to the mites. The bees size are really noticeable for sure!


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> Would not breeding resistant bees be a seperate issue than wether or not small cell works to reduce varroa?


Small cells are not reducing varroa but help to keep the varroa at a certain level.
Hygienic behavior, grooming and entrance defense are the traits which reduce varroa and this must be done by breeding.
A shorter time until hatching is supported by bee density and helps to keep the mite at bay.
IMHO



> I found that about 10% of my colonies had smaller queens with smaller bees.


My bees were and are on small cells for 5 years now and I saw this with my original stock AMM.
The original pure AMM queen is not to be excluded by the queen excluder.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The problem with any "we tried that and it didn't work" is that unless you define that "that" is very precisely the statement is of no real value. I can try almost anything that anyone claims has worked and someone else has claimed doesn't work, under just the right circumstances and get either result.

"unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise it isn't really a distinction."--Jacques Derrida (1991) Afterword: Toward An Ethic of Discussion, published in the English translation of Limited Inc., pp.123-4, 126


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

OK well to define it best I can the model I followed most closely would be that of Solomon Parker. I also read you Mike and have a lot of respect for Dee but what Solomon does (or did) is what I did.

You can see my statement to be "of no real value" if you wish no skin off my nose. I'm just stating a fact, people disbelieve facts that don't suit their view, over to them.



SiWolKe said:


> Small cells are not reducing varroa but help to keep the varroa at a certain level.


OK well that's just one view, others have been propagated on Beesource and other literature also. Michael Bush for example, has stated that since going small cell he has never lost a hive to mites. His clear implication in the many times and debates he has made this statement, is that go small cell, the bees will not die of mites. That has been implied. I'm not arguing any of the many views or beliefs around small cell. Just mentioning my own experience, which is did it, all bees died of mites. I am not questioning the experience of others.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Would not breeding resistant bees be a seperate issue than wether or not small cell works to reduce varroa?


Yes.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>You can see my statement to be "of no real value" if you wish 

That was not directed at you. Your statement is certainly of value to you (you know exactly what you tried) and possibly to other people, though it would be more valuable with more detail. I did not mean to imply that your view is not valid. I merely want to point out that any research that comes to some broad conclusion is only really valuable as a "fact" if what was attempted is defined very specifically so that what failed can be defined very specifically. I have seen many a thing, beekeeping or otherwise, that had been "tried but it failed" and it was promptly tried again with a bit of tweaking and succeeded.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well how tweaked does it have to be?

You have, on numerous occasions made statements like "after I changed to small cell I have not lost a hive to mites". Is that any less of a broad conclusion than my own statement?

How about "when I treated my bees they all died". I have been unable to get any details at all about how you treated or wether you tested afterwards to see if it worked, despite asking. So I assume that having to define things very specifically, only applies when expressing the con view on small cells, but does not apply when expressing the pro? Cos that appears to be your thinking.

On the other hand, we have SiWolke saying that small cells only work if accompanied by years of breeding for resistance and vast experience in that. Which would indicate her belief that small cells are not a standalone solution. Which is at variance with your own view that small cells solved all your problems regardless of what bees you were using.

You see the problem is that any time I say small cell did not work for me, a bunch of people come along and say oh that's because you did not do X. X being allowing swarming, splitting ad infinitum, breeding resistant bees, believing, not being a commercial beekeeper, or whatever the persons particular hobbyhorse is. 

I'm bypassing all that and simply saying I did convert my bees to small cell, and as documented here on Beesource with photographs they were definately fully regressed, and it didn't save them from mites.

I am not attacking the concept of being treatment free. A lot, but not all, TF beekeepers use small cell so maybe it's a factor. If someone could tell me how to do TF I would be falling over myself to embrace it using their method. I would still like to achieve it in my life but am less optimistic about that than I was a few years ago.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> I'm bypassing all that and simply saying I did convert my bees to small cell, and as documented here on Beesource with photographs they were definately fully regressed, and it didn't save them from mites.
> 
> I am not attacking the concept of being treatment free. If someone could tell me how to do it I would be falling over myself to embrace it using their method. I would still like to achieve it in my life but am less optimistic about that than I was a few years ago.


Oldtimer, I'm a small cell agnostic. You appear to me to have experience, open mindedness, a good intellect, and a sincere desire to be treatment free if it can reasonably be done at this time in your location. I wonder if the bee population in New Zealand lacks the feral population and genetic diversity to come up with the specific beehaviors (such as mite biting and VSH) and disease resistance needed for treatment free success within the time that has passed since the mite invasion. Where I am, we have at least some mix of old A.M.M., AHB, VSH/Russian, Minnesotan, Carniolan, and what not for nature to drag out of the gene pool and use for mite resistance. I'm just thinking.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

You have hit the nail exactly on the head. 

The USA is big enough that feral populations have been able to develop pretty much completely isolated from kept and treated bees. My country is much smaller and also has one of the densest kept bee populations in the world. There is just nowhere for an isolated feral population to develop and do it's own thing, kept and treated bees are everywhere.

In addition, in the USA you have a massive genetic base with bees having been imported from almost everywhere. So in wild populations the mite susceptable bees have been able to fall over but still leave bees alive from backgrounds with a degree of survivability. Here in NZ the government years ago banned importation of bees when Isle of Wight disease happened. This, along with that we are a more recently colonised country than the USA means not a great deal of genetic diversity was ever imported. 

Not quite sure how we will ever get to TF beekeeping here, but I'm still supporting some local efforts financially.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> On the other hand, we have SiWolke saying that small cells only work if accompanied by years of breeding for resistance and vast experience in that. Which would indicate her belief that small cells are not a standalone solution. Which is at variance with your own view that small cells solved all your problems regardless of what bees you were using.


Exactly.

What I observe is that the small cells trigger VSH in my friend`s hives.
One friend marked worker cells and the bees hatched one day earlier.

And the bee density is higher. Means, more workers to attack the infestation. But this too depends on managements of the beekeeper.

This means, less dead tf hives the first season. More time to develop a system which combines several methods.
This is our aim.
This is only my observation, no evidence. Give me some years, I can tell you what happens.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> Give me some years,


Indeed.

One of your countrymen (a German) moved to New Zealand a few years ago. Exact follower of Dee Lusby and saying he will teach all the NZ'ers how to do it and that everybody here who tried it before failed cos they did it wrong. He had quite a few doubters but said no you are all wrong because I have been doing this successfully in Germany for quite a few years.

Unfortunately he is one of those guys who never tells the whole story, but he started here 4 years ago and seems like he is a fairly good beekeeper and did get up to 50 hives and posted photos of the bees and the small cell combs which looked good. He never said anything about getting wiped out but 2 years ago went quiet then I found out he got wiped out. Then a few months ago he was back on the forum once again talking about his success, seems he had got some new bees and built up numbers again. A beekeeper I know arranged to buy a small cell nuc off him. A few weeks ago the vendor contacted him to cancel the order saying he could not sell him the nuc cos his bees had died. 

So this is a guy who claims he had success in Germany, here getting wiped out each 2 years.

So over the years on Beesource I have had to endure being told by people often beginners who know everything, that I failed at sc beekeeping because of this or that fault or deficiency that they think I have. But end of day I have yet to see anyone succeed here, even people who pronounce themselves as overseas experts.

The years will tell.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

I know OT. I´m sorry you had such a bad experience. 

My german mentor was like this and my first mentoring in forum RB was like that. You felt like an elite and then the crash came. Silence.
Then I was convinced it was no problem to be tf. But it is. I´m not silent, I tell you failures and success, I go on trying.
Sometimes enthusiasm is confused with arrogance, sometimes it´s the other way around.


If all beekeepers would suddenly decide to be tf it would work to go cold turkey, some high losses at the beginning, less afterwards. But that´s not reality.

MO is, MB is adapted to his bees and the bees are adapted to his location, so it´s many steps further than my beginnings.
If you read the book and website you see how many parts of the puzzle he already found.
Small cell natural comb was just one part which made the picture complete.

The tf beekeeping in some parts of europe really is an art. 
We have to study this first, it´s not just pushing a button.
Most people give up after 2-3 years. Sad, but I understand.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>You have, on numerous occasions made statements like "after I changed to small cell I have not lost a hive to mites". Is that any less of a broad conclusion than my own statement?

No less, no. The details are pretty well laid out on my web site, but certainly "after I changed to small cell I have not lost a hive to mites" is a broad statement.

>How about "when I treated my bees they all died". I have been unable to get any details at all about how you treated or wether you tested afterwards to see if it worked, despite asking.

I treated with the recommended chemical at the time, Apistan (Fluvalinate) and followed the directions on the package. It did not work. By that time the Varroa had developed resistance to Fluvalinate. I was not informed of this and the bee supply places are still selling it...

>So I assume that having to define things very specifically, only applies when expressing the con view on small cells, but does not apply when expressing the pro? Cos that appears to be your thinking.

I wrote a web site (which is free) which when converted to a book is 674 pages. I think i have been quite explicit about what I am doing. Yes, a post is often not that detailed because I have said most of these details multiple times in the past.

>On the other hand, we have SiWolke saying that small cells only work if accompanied by years of breeding for resistance and vast experience in that. Which would indicate her belief that small cells are not a standalone solution. Which is at variance with your own view that small cells solved all your problems regardless of what bees you were using.

That is her experience in her country in her locale.

>You see the problem is that any time I say small cell did not work for me, a bunch of people come along and say oh that's because you did not do X. X being allowing swarming, splitting ad infinitum, breeding resistant bees, believing, not being a commercial beekeeper, or whatever the persons particular hobbyhorse is. 

They are offering to you what they did differently.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> They are offering to you what they did differently.


Respect!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks for the information guys.

Somewhere along the way the tone of these last few posts has turned into a debate over TF beekeeping and reasons for success or failure. Not my intention the post I wrote that started it was a comment about small cell beekeeping and my experience with it, not TF beekeeping in general.

And the whole thing has been not exactly right off topic, but certainly just one narrow part of it, there's more.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

> That is her experience in her country in her locale.


This pretty much sums up my thinking on what works and why. I use 1.5" spacing and natural comb. My bees are allowed to raise as many drones as they like, and I have a theory on why that might help given my location in relation to brood cycles and dearth. 

Point being, there is no one way to go TF. It's something you kind of have to fine tune to your location. One thing is certain: you have to have the right bees to do it with.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes. My own belief is that if or when TF beekeeping can be done in my country, it will be about genetics, not about small cells or whatever else people tack on.

Thing is, it can be a bit like the old lady celebrating her 100 th birthday who attributes her long life to smoking a pack of cigerettes every day. People have success at keeping an apiary TF for some years and attribute that to practise X that they have been doing. And upon reading about someone else who failed at Tf beekeeping, attribute that to the person not having done practise X.

Right now I have some possible varroa resistant bees. They are queens I bought as varroa resistant queens, and I did alcohol washes at the site last week. All hives had varroa mites, except for the 3 hives that had been given these queens, those 3 had no mites. No other hives had no mites. I consider that significant. They are all on large cell by the way, and none of the other [stuff you are supposed to do to make bees treatment free] had been done on the hives.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Sounds promising OT. Best of luck and keep us updated. That's a tough road to travel given your conditions.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

I would like to quote Erik ( Österlund) out of the last e-mail he send me after we shared thoughts about our strategies, he using different approaches now and I overthinking mine.



> Well, it’s good we use different strategies. We learn more that way.


That´s how it should be. Stay on the path to tf with open minds.
Not judge others. Get all the help and ideas you can. Decide for yourself what to use.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> Right now I have some possible varroa resistant bees. They are queens I bought as varroa resistant queens, and I did alcohol washes at the site last week. All hives had varroa mites, except for the 3 hives that had been given these queens, those 3 had no mites. No other hives had no mites. I consider that significant. They are all on large cell by the way, and none of the other [stuff you are supposed to do to make bees treatment free] had been done on the hives.


 I have repeatedly stated on the UK forum that my bees do not have varroa and they don't believe me. Isn't it somewhat mind bending to think that maybe you can raise some queens and do away with the mite treatments?

I'll add a caution that highly mite resistant bees tend to have several detrimental traits such as swarming, shutting down brood in mid summer, and maintaining small winter population. Also possibly interesting, if just 3% of the worker bees are homozygous for mite resistance, the entire colony is mite resistant. This means you need to raise queens from mite resistant queens and each daughter queen has to mate with at least 1 drone carrying mite resistance.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Fusion_power said:


> I'll add a caution that highly mite resistant bees tend to have several detrimental traits such as swarming, shutting down brood in mid summer, and maintaining small winter population.


Dar, do the bees shut down the brood in midsummer in the UK too? If they are more resistant? One member in my forum speaks of this , he is in ireland. His AMM do this but now he changes from AMM to Buckfast because he wants more honey harvest and he believes the AMM have a problem with overwintering. Could this problem be the small cluster which he estimates in a wrong way?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I don't know enough about the climate in the UK to answer. If he has problems with AMM wintering, he does not have a good strain of AMM. The AMM I've had in years past were superb wintering bees. Small clusters are typical of AMM. If he thinks bees should have a large cluster over winter, then Buckfast will disappoint him. They have a relatively small winter cluster but build up to enormous colonies for summer.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I think he has totally misread AMM.

There is this thing where a lot of people who have dark bees want to believe they are AMM. A lot of the time they are something else.

Bottom line, if he really has AMM he would find them excellent wintering bees, and they are also pretty hard to beat at getting a good honey harvest in a harsh environment where others won't, long as you can stop them swarming which may not be easy.

British AMM's are virtually extinct here now, but were very common when I first started beekeeping.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Fusion_power said:


> I'll add a caution that highly mite resistant bees tend to have several detrimental traits such as swarming, shutting down brood in mid summer, and maintaining small winter population.


Isn't that their mode of resistance?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> 1.vor 20 jahren war das klima noch besser.fruehe fruelinge ,wo die bienen schon ab februar pollen eintrugen und I'm maerz auch schon ein wenig nectar.in den letzten jahren hatten wir keinen fruehling und die schwarzen entwickelten sich erst spät.
> 
> _20 years ago the climate was better. Early spring, the bees used pollen in february and march the first nectar. The last years we had no spring and the dark ones started very late._
> 
> ...


What do you think? 
He is treating now. 
The possibilities in this area....I envy him. I believe the dark bees, and in his area there are native AMM, will come back if the beekeepers would not drive them out with other stock.
He still has some of them, hopefully he will keep them.

To me this story shows how you go from resistance to bees which are not able to live without treatments.
The bees want to adapt but the beekeepers don´t support this. He is not a commercial.
Instead of using the resistance which develops with the local AMM he now wants to regress his buckfast to small cell and treatment free!


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> Isn't that their mode of resistance?


 No, it is not. These are "reversion to mean" traits which show up after a few generations with little or no selection for production and management traits. The resistance mechanisms are almost entirely VSH and Grooming in my bees and I have very little doubt that one or both will be present in Oldtimer's mite resistant bees. I've written several times that brood breaks alone will help but won't keep a colony alive. Brood breaks in mid summer are a significant survival trait in this area because we have a total nectar dearth from early July until sometime in August. I looked at well over 100 colonies of mite resistant bees in the last year. They all have flaws from a management perspective. SquarePeg is closest to finding a management strategy that works well enough to consistently produce a crop of honey. I'm getting there. If you want to find out how they work in your area, I can offer a couple of options. Swap a few queens with me and I'll try yours and you can try mine, or send me a queen to raise from and I'll produce daughters mated to mite resistant drones and ship them back to you. Either way you can find out if there is anything worth the time and effort to breed into your bees.


Sibylle, he is complaining about normal traits of AMM. They don't build up until pollen is available, swarm as soon as possible, and they sting too much. My opinion is that he has excellent reason to replace them if he can do so with bees that have mite resistance. Run of the mill Buckfast will disappoint him if he is expecting them to be mite resistant. Small cell combs will disappoint him if he thinks they stop mites.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Michael Palmer said:


> Isn't that their mode of resistance?


Replace "highly mite resistant" with "feral" in fusion powers sentence and a totally different interpretation is possible. Bees adapted to live in small tree cavities have different strategies to thrive and reproduce compared to bees that live in large cavities, the langstrof hive. Yes it is probably part of the resistance continuum. But on the other hand, sp seems to have thriving good sized hives well adapted to his area. My best hive, now into its 3rd winter (alive with a decent cluster 2 weeks ago), came out of last winter with 14 medium frames of bees at the end of February. It is my longest lasting hive to date and the best honey producer. She had very mediocre hygienic behavior and don't have an idea about her mite counts as she wasn't part of the study group. So who knows how she is doing it. Its not as if she is isolated. She has been in a yard with mite related deadouts both winters. Hope to eventually piece it together.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Fusion_power said:


> I have very little doubt that one or both will be present in Oldtimer's mite resistant bees.


The particular ones I have are a bit different to how people generally describe their "survivor" bees here on Beesource. Possibly because they were bred in NZ and did not have to deal with such things as a summer dearth.
They are actually the most miserable bees I have ever seen in my life, literally. The queens were introduced last spring (it's fall here now). At that time the hives had a modest mite infestation at maybe 1% or so. 1/2 a year later testing could not find any mites in those 3 hives as against every other hive in the yard not quite 40 hives all having mites at some level. But other than no mites they are terrible bees. I got 10 queens in all, some are at other sites and have not been mite tested yet. When the queens were introduced, the hives were in one or two brood boxes. The other hives have gone on to build 4, 5, or 6 box hives, but the mite resistant bees have stayed exactly where they are, one or two boxes, they have not moved. Open the hive they are reasonably gentle italian looking bees, brood pattern reasonable no evidence of much or any brood hygiene, and the hives appear healthy. No obvious reason why they are not performing. 
I also got a phone call from someone else who bought one of these queens complaining that her hive had stayed weak all season.

They have made no attempt to swarm which is likely because they have never been strong enough to do so. 

I got back to the guy who supplied me the queens telling him the whole thing, he wrote back very pleased to hear they have held mites at bay in my location, which is some 700 miles north from where he is. He also expressed some worry because he had carved out a little area for mating with no other bees there, but now someone has dumped 500 hives right in it. 

He still owes me 36 queens and asked when I want them. Not sure quite where to go with that. On the one hand varroa resistance is something that has not ever been achieved here before, on the other hand do I want that many do nothing hives?


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> The other hives have gone on to build 4, 5, or 6 box hives, but the mite resistant bees have stayed exactly where they are, one or two boxes, they have not moved.


Have all ten of the mite resistant hives stayed where they were? Have one or two done a little better than the others?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes they have all been the same, population neither up or down from when the queen was introduced. Getting a call from someone else telling me the same thing kind of confirmed it.

Only worrying thing is if they maybe have some weird virus or something, which I do not want in my other hives. That's why I'm waiting before taking the leap into the rest of the queens.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Just had a lightbulb moment it's hit me what to do. I'll relocate some of the queens to nucs and requeen the hives with normal bees. If the hives go back to normal performance next season I'll know it's not a pathogen. In which case I'll be happy to get more of these queens and attempt to propagate them, selecting from the best performers.


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## rkereid (Dec 20, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> Just had a lightbulb moment it's hit me what to do. I'll relocate some of the queens to nucs and requeen the hives with normal bees. If the hives go back to normal performance next season I'll know it's not a pathogen. In which case I'll be happy to get more of these queens and attempt to propagate them, selecting from the best performers.


I've always heard honey production (and defensiveness) are easy characteristics to breed for.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Just had a lightbulb moment it's hit me what to do. I'll relocate some of the queens to nucs and requeen the hives with normal bees. If the hives go back to normal performance next season I'll know it's not a pathogen. In which case I'll be happy to get more of these queens and attempt to propagate them, selecting from the best performers.


:thumbsup:

I don´t understand why people do not use more two lane approach.

I had a hive 2015, a carni split, which was on 3 brood combs the whole year. Had nice honey domes and good looking brood cells. A balance and they were very gentle.
Could have been a production hive in future.
What I observed was they were the only ones without entrance defense.

Spring 2016 they came out of winter on 8 brood combs (dadant), all my hives were very strong because of the warm winter temperatures.
Still no entrance defense. Developed into a very strong hive. No shotgun brood like the others had. I used capped brood combs and honey combs to donate to my new splits with the mated queens I introduced.
I did not breed from them, that was good.

They crashed this winter. One of the 3 varroa crashes. I believe too many bees with mites on them drifted into this hive. These never did VSH or defended themselves.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Yes they have all been the same, population neither up or down from when the queen was introduced.


Did the hive boxes, frames, or foundation come from the same source as your other hives? I'm trying to think what may be killing the varroa or preventing them from breeding. It could be a disease or pathogen of the varroa, or a chemical, or behavior of the bees toward phoretic mites, or unsuitable breeding conditions for the mites such as a shorter pupating period of the bees.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Nothing different, equipment wise they are just hives same as the other hives. They were selected for requeening on the basis they had superseded and become aggressive, which is why the ten queens are spread around several apiaries, I always get rid of aggressive bees. Even the breeder has no idea why they resist mites and has discussed all the normal supposed mechanisms with me saying he doesn't see any of them in his bees.

I did discuss the background of these bees on Beesource a while back when I got these queens but just incase anyone didn't see it, some years ago a commercial beekeeper had a health problem, couldn't work, and pretty much abandoned his bees for 18 months. Bees in NZ will normally die inside of 12 months if not mite treated, so when he got back into it he found almost all hives dead except for a handful. He looked in those and there were some hives looking good, and he knew it was his origional marked queens. He realised these bees had to have resisted varroa for 18 months, unheard of in NZ, and decided to restock his entire operation from those bees. Trouble was, he now had no money and it would take a while to get his business back up and running just from those few hives. So he appealed for money, and some people like me put some in. He has spent some years breeding back up to a functional number of hives and along the way has selected out any bees showing mites. Now he has enough bees and is selling queens plus outright gave some to people like me who put in the start up money.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Is he having the same problem with low buildup that you are having?

I'm thinking that the difference between yours and his is that you have resistant colonies mixed with susceptible. There may be enough horizontal mite transfer to disrupt the resistant colonies. It might be worth the effort to move the resistant colonies to an isolated apiary and see if they behave different.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Since I could not find any mites in those colonies I doubt enough horizontal transfer is happening to be an issue. All the same, I have considered putting them all in one site, may or may not do this.


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