# WHERE are the real treatment free beekeepers?



## FreeBee

Sorry if I missed one of the 1,650 different topics under this forum but I can’t help but see so many people confounded about treatment free beekeeping. I rarely see anyone using methods by those individuals who are easy to find and have excellent documented success not treating in anyway to include artificially feeding your bees.

If you aren’t regressing your bees to bring them back to a natural size found in the wild then there isn’t even a reason for you to go treatment free. 

• Regressing your bees to at least true 4.9mm foundation or smaller.

• Use Housel positioning of frames

• Give them an insulated hive just like your boy L. L. Langstroth told you to do. He also said, “Such is the passion of the American people for cheapness in the first cost of an article, even at the evident expense of dearness in the end, that many, I doubt not, will continue to lodge their bees in thin hives in spite of their conviction of the folly of doing..." 

• Or just go horizontal hives. It doesn’t get any cheaper than a tbh! If you aren’t a commercial beek and don’t plan on moving your hives then there really is no point. Most commercial beeks don’t over winter their hives anyways as they are always on the move when fall comes to some place warmer ready to pollinate something. Even dumping them to sell and never making it back home. Even if you do plan on moving hives you could still go horizontal. Wayatt Mangum (top bar hive master bar none and professor of biology and statistics at University of Mary Washington) owns over 200 tbh and moves them by himself with a small pickup truck easier then anyone could with a regular Lang. He offers pollination services and doesn’t use any tool or machinery outside of a small pickup with no trailer to move a thing.

The concept of success to a commercial beek is dollar signs. Requeeing ever year to every two years, varroa treatments, pollination services, contaminated honey & wax extractions, selling of contaminated honey and wax, selling artificially sized bees and queens living in a pesticide filled home ready for you to buy = weaker immune system and shorter life span. This has been proven.

There is a reason why the cosmetic industry only gets their wax from Africa. They are all about the money too and they obviously know something about contaminated wax and the chemicals used in treatments. Being about the money they will avoid any attempts of a lawsuit from someone applying lipstick then having an allergic reaction to some bug spray chemical used to kill mites.

When the varroa came to Africa they had a meeting on what to do. They looked at the rest of the world treating and said, “If we don’t do anything the issue will solve itself in a year or two.” They don’t use foundation and their bees aren’t artificially huge. They have no problems.

The scientific mentality that humans can consume small amounts of poisons (examples: fluoride, pesticides, aluminum, etc) and they will do no harm should not be the same mentality towards your bees. They obviously do harm no matter the amount. It’s all about the effects. If they show no effects then it does no harm but surely long term effects aren’t ever studied beyond a few years.

Spain, nearly the size of Texas has such an epidemic with varroa that they have become resistant to all treatments except checkmite. That’s a sad story.

So then why is it that with 30 years of resistant bee breeding we still haven’t got anywhere yet those who truely have success in treatment free beekeeing never went the route of mixing genetic stock to get some VSH behaviored stock bees?

It’s all in the small cell sizes. Smaller cells are more compact which naturally keeps the brood warmer. Which causes less work for the bees to fluctuate the temperature.

Is is proven that varroa naturally seek the larger drone brood due to the longer incubation period and their ability to mate prolifically with such a longer incubation time is what leads to a hive being over run. Therefore when you are using jumbo sized foundation or foundation less but your bees are making jumbo foundation because that’s all they've ever known, every single cell becomes a drone cell to the varroa.

Small cells shorten the incubation period for worker brood by a full day which ruins the varroas day.

Then you have VSH behavior. Why? It’s not because of genetic breeding for resistance because feral swarms aren’t artificially inseminated yet exist and are also smaller and build smaller cell sizes. Also, so many people are quick to requeen their hives when they see checkerboard brood. They assume, because they’ve been told, that the queen isn’t a prolific layer and needs to be replaced. If you have VSH behavior in your hive then you will have that checkerboard effect. Do not kill your queen. Just leave your queens be. Your hive will replace her and kill her themselves when it’s time.

VSH has to do with more bees for the same amount of work. Contrary to what anyone may think I’ve seen one hive clean out deformed wing virus brood which triggered every hive in the apiary to do the exact same thing. In a week it was over and it looked like a gravesite outside each hive and every hive is fine and thriving. It would appear as if the bees have the ability to learn the behavior from each other regardless of genetic makeup.

• Small cells warmer compact brood nest

• smaller bees proven to live longer by weeks

• 7000 large cells on regular Lang frame vs 8600 small cells.

• smaller bees are able to reach more flowers

• larger population

• more bees for the same amount of work = VSH

It’s strength in numbers not strength in bee size and the more numbers the better.

100 years ago a man decided bigger bees means more honey and farther flights. Then came the new standardization of large foundation. That was fine and dandy but now we have varroa and we’d have to look at why certain people and certain places in the world aren’t having trouble. It comes down to cell size. 




Dee Lusby, Michael Bush, more than enough European scientist and plenty of European beeks have done enough of their own research with their own experiences to make sure you don’t have to go through what they did to get where they are today. It’s much easier because you have all the answers on what they did. With the exception of the first paragraph and these last two, none of these words are mine. They are from those who have had the most success and came forth about it and to them I say thank you for all your hard work and to let you know there are beeks who truely take what you say and apply it.

You may never completely get rid of varroa, you may have losses in the beginning but overall the amount of stress to your bees will be greatly reduced and it would appear as if nothing can stop them. I digress and apologize if any of you take offense. The majority of beeks who learned everything from looking through the eyes of a commercial beek laugh at treatment free beekeeping. So prove them wrong, study and apply. These people aren’t just lucky. They all use the same methods. I leave you with the most, in my opinion, informative video jam packed with reused information from Michael Bush and Dee Lusby from an Austrian beek. We are lucky to have someone kind enough to voice it over in English. It may seem slow and its an old video which should be a testament to how long its been working for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTFs7wv4F2s&app=desktop&persist_app=1


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## enjambres

_Housel positioning_ is a thing, again? Oh, boy!

Do you do this successfully, year after year, or are you just repeating what you have read or seen on a video?

BTW, when I examined the combs from a 20-year plus feral location, I found no correlation to any particular cell size. It was all over the map. And I counted thousands and thousands of cells over many square yards of natural comb.

Nancy


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## GregB

enjambres said:


> BTW, when I examined the combs from a 20-year plus feral location, I found no correlation to any particular cell size. It was all over the map. And I counted thousands and thousands of cells over many square yards of natural comb.
> 
> Nancy


Keep in mind those so-called 20-year old cells have a variety of ages in them.
Some cells are 20 year old maybe (consider the cocoon build up in them too, while at it).
Others maybe only 1-2 year old (these cells could have been destroyed and rebuilt upon the location dead-out and the following re-occupation... and again.... and again).
The re-occurring swarms can be all over the place (escaped Italians; actual ferals; whatever odd mutts)..

Also, what bees were the founders of this place?
Large-cell escapees?
Small-cell ferals?
How many times dead-out occurred?
How many re-occupation occurred?

The very original founders had a chance to set the very original cell size - be it large or small (the cells that still could be present, depending how long the vacancy was in there during the warm season - see wax moth....).

So, I would not consider these cells in this "20-year plus feral location" as indicating anything.
In fact, the cells in this 20-year location totally should be -* "all over the map". *
Only makes sense.


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## GregB

FreeBee said:


> It’s all in the small cell sizes.


While I am in your camp, I am will NOT advocate for things like standardized "small cell".
Artificial standardization is bad. 
Short and simple.

Instead, I feel running *away *from standard cell size as quickly as you can is part of the formula.
It seems to me, variety of cells in a given colony has a reason. 
Important reason at that.
Depending on sizing, bee cohorts in a given colony may be performing somewhat different functions too (outside of ages, obviously).
Larger bees could be more efficient foragers, but smaller bees could be better in the colony hygiene.

Notice, for example, how is the late season brood placed on the combs - in the lower part of the comb which tends to be smaller cell (IF natural comb, of course).
This means that the winter bee tends to be smaller.

Summer bee, to compare, is raised across the entire comb up and down and across.
This means larger peripheral cells are used also.
This means, in turn, that summer bees will contain cohorts of larger bees (good for foraging).
None of these points even come to mind IF you run standard cells - totally unnatural.

See cohort specializations in other social insects - ants, wasps, termites.
Unsure why this same idea is absent in bee research.
At least I am not aware of anything significant in this area.


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## squarepeg

hmm.

i went back through your 8 posts and don't see much reporting on your personal beekeeping experience. that would be helpful with respect to knowing how much or how little credibility we should give to your comments.

fwiw, i'll be starting my 10th season keeping bees off treatments. my successes/failures for the past 4 years are chronicled here:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?306377-squarepeg-2015-2018-treatment-free-experience

you'll notice that i don't employ much of that 'proven' methodology you laid in in your opening post.

we are truly interested here in reports of actual hands on treatment free experiences. to date there are only a handful of us taking the time to do that. what can you report?


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## odfrank

This is all old news. I think I was already misguided by it all way back in 2003. If Housel Positioning, Small Cell, Treatment Free, and all the teachings of Dee Lusby and Michael Bush were valid gospel truth, they would have swept across the beekeeping world, all beekeepers would have adopted them and no problems would any longer exist. I applaud FreeBee and all others spending time on Housel Positioning and small cell because it will waste a lot of their time,money and effort thereby making them much less competitive to me.


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## Oldtimer

FreeBee said:


> With the exception of the first paragraph and these last two, none of these words are mine.


Figured that already, LOL

But good luck with your journey.


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## FreeBee

enjambres said:


> _Housel positioning_ is a thing, again? Oh, boy!
> 
> Do you do this successfully, year after year, or are you just repeating what you have read or seen on a video?
> 
> BTW, when I examined the combs from a 20-year plus feral location, I found no correlation to any particular cell size. It was all over the map. And I counted thousands and thousands of cells over many square yards of natural comb.
> 
> Nancy


Of course Housel is a thing. The literature of the Y in regards to comb has been there since the 1800’s and well documented. Michael Housel merely observed it, researched it, and implemented it. Once you mark your frames the way they are built success is based on putting them back the way they were. It’s as simple as it sounds. 

To disregard how a feral swarm would build its hive and just place them however you would like is like telling the bees they don’t know what they are doing and you know best. Feral bees don’t need us in case you forgot and if you don’t want to use them you don’t have to. It’s been proven, with hot hives prone to swarming to make them workable, calm, and less prone to swarm.

How and why does the largest organic beekeeper in the United States have the greatest success bar none and uses it?

We tend to disregard those who buck the norm and it’s unfortunate.

As Greg answered the other half just because I setup swarm traps and catch bees doesn’t mean I have a feral swarm. Just because I find a hive in the wild, doesn’t make it feral either.

Cell size in the Philippines are found to be 3.6-4mm. The warmer the climate the smaller the bee tends to be. The colder the bigger, not exceeding 5.2mm. Dee Lusby put her bees on 4.9mm foundation. Her foundations are so old and they are black as tar. Overtime from use, her bees keep getting smaller and smaller from the buildup inside the cell. Good thing to think about in regards to “feral” comb in the wild. 

Also, larger artificially sized bees that swarm and do survive start to regress in size on their own. It’s natural. Might also be a reason for the different cell sizes to go along with what Greg stated.


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## FreeBee

GregV said:


> FreeBee said:
> 
> 
> 
> It’s all in the small cell sizes.
> 
> 
> 
> While I am in your camp, I am will NOT advocate for things like standardized "small cell".
> Artificial standardization is bad.
> Short and simple.
> 
> Instead, I feel running *away *from standard cell size as quickly as you can is part of the formula.
> It seems to me, variety of cells in a given colony has a reason.
> Important reason at that.
> Depending on sizing, bee cohorts in a given colony may be performing somewhat different functions too (outside of ages, obviously).
> Larger bees could be more efficient foragers, but smaller bees could be better in the colony hygiene.
> 
> Notice, for example, how is the late season brood placed on the combs - in the lower part of the comb which tends to be smaller cell (IF natural comb, of course).
> This means that the winter bee tends to be smaller.
> 
> Summer bee, to compare, is raised across the entire comb up and down and across.
> This means larger peripheral cells are used also.
> This means, in turn, that summer bees will contain cohorts of larger bees (good for foraging).
> None of these points even come to mind IF you run standard cells - totally unnatural.
> 
> See cohort specializations in other social insects - ants, wasps, termites.
> Unsure why this same idea is absent in bee research.
> At least I am not aware of anything significant in this area.
Click to expand...

I understand your stance and I do advocate for going foundationless but shaking them down first to 4.9 cell size to give them a jump start is what I believe is best to correct what has been done. They may even need to be there for a season to ensure that they build correct comb size.

If you don’t shake them down eventually they will regress themselves to the size they see fit, if they survive that long, although in some cases it could take years.

Cohort specializations - Could it bee that with bees it’s not the same?


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## JWPalmer

Are you kidding me? You are trying to school Nancy on raising feral bees? That is like you trying to teach MP how to overwinter nucs in Vermont. Instead of telling us what others have done, how about telling us about the outstanding success you have had adhering to these ideas. Do you even have bees?


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## Clayton Huestis

I could write a small book on this. First of all artificial feeding has nothing to do with being TF. Organics, sure but TF nope. I’d rather feed then have dead bees. It’s just good husbandry to take care of your livestock. Housel theory was never anything more than that. In all my observations I have yet to see such a thing. 4.9 is no magic number. I will concede that today’s 5.4 foundation is enlarged. Having regressed bees to 4.7-5.0mm cells size for over 16 years. The majority of all my colonies when allowed foundationless reverted to 5.0 to 5.2 cell size core brood nest. I could go on a rant at this point but won’t. Genetics play a bigger roll on varroa survival than cell size does. Believe as you wish. Good stock with the right traits will go farther than using 4.9 foundation. I think you will find there are a number of us here who have been down the small cell road.


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## GregB

FreeBee said:


> Cohort specializations - Could it bee that with bees it’s not the same?


Correct answer at this time - we do not know.
While it is clear bees do not have such distinct specialization as termites do (talking of totally different morphology), it is also possible that bees could be similar to ants (less of clear morphological differences, but the ant sizing often determines what they do - smaller workers vs. larger soldiers). 

Why not the bees be similar to the ants in some way?
I do not see anyone paying attention to this.
Clearly, bees are harder to observe in action than ants.
I am only theorizing and googling at the moment, but I feel this is a worthy idea.

Still, a clear, indisputable fact is - natural combs will produce bees of different sizing (bigger variation in summer bees; smaller variation in winter bees).

Shaking onto 4.9mm - I will not spend the time and effort on it (and $$ for 4.9mm foundation - nope).
So far, after 3-4 comb rotations I keep seeing 5.1-5.2mm in my own bees (still mean to measure this winter when I can).
Next spring will show, but I am bullish that some of my 5.2mm bees will be with me still.


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## beemandan

A hundred years ago someone decided to make bees larger. Before that nobody had ever had a problem with varroa. 
Thirty years ago 100 percent of Michael Bush’s conventional bees succumbed to varroa. Once converted to small cell he’s never lost another hive to varroa. 
These are the indisputable facts! Why is this all so difficult to comprehend?


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## JWPalmer

Greg, I with you on comb sizing. My answer to oversized foundation cells is to go natural foundationless comb in the brood nest. I think trying to force the bees to a smaller size is just as ridiculous as trying to force them to be bigger.


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## Michael Palmer

FreeBee said:


> Of course Housel is a thing. The literature of the Y in regards to comb has been there since the 1800’s and well documented. Michael Housel merely observed it, researched it, and implemented it. Once you mark your frames the way they are built success is based on putting them back the way they were. It’s as simple as it sounds.


Poppycock!


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## Clayton Huestis

Greg, I can assure you I have measured 100’s if not in the 1000’s of combs over 16 yrs of small cell. 5.0-5.2 is what carniolan type bees produce on average. They are of the larger body type with Italian bees on the smaller side. I have also done full shake downs onto both 4.9 starter strips and full foundations. It is quite demoralizing to bees, can cause abscondings. I don’t recommend it at all. Progressive regression of combs is a much safe route. If anyone was inclined to do so. For foundation use I strongly recommend dadants 5.1 wired foundation or pierco 5.2 plastic foundation. Nothing wrong with foundationless either but that can have its own issues.


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## Oldtimer

Re Housel and getting the Y in the right place relative to the opposing comb.

Below is a pic of a brood comb maybe 4 months old and had a few cycles of brood through it. The cocoon build up is making the cell bottoms go round, some of them are already perfectly round. Another few months and all the cell bottoms will be completely perfectly round, as beekeepers with older comb will have observed.

The question - When the cell bottoms are perfectly round, how do the bees tell if the Y is the correct way up that Michael Housel said it should be?




This next image (not my own picture) shows cocoon build up.


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## Clayton Huestis

MP need me to come over this spring and start marking all those combs of yours. 😉 now we can talk about comb spacing next.....


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## FreeBee

beemandan said:


> A hundred years ago someone decided to make bees larger. Before that nobody had ever had a problem with varroa.
> Thirty years ago 100 percent of Michael Bush’s conventional bees succumbed to varroa. Once converted to small cell he’s never lost another hive to varroa.
> These are the indisputable facts! Why is this all so difficult to comprehend?


My point exactly. That is a George Forman TKO fact right there.


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## FreeBee

Clayton Huestis said:


> MP need me to come over this spring and start marking all those combs of yours. 😉 now we can talk about comb spacing next.....


32mm? Or shall I say 1 1/4”


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## FreeBee

Michael Palmer said:


> FreeBee said:
> 
> 
> 
> Of course Housel is a thing.  The literature of the Y in regards to comb has been there since the 1800’s and well documented. Michael Housel merely observed it, researched it, and implemented it. Once you mark your frames the way they are built success is based on putting them back the way they were. It’s as simple as it sounds.
> 
> 
> 
> Poppycock!
Click to expand...

Not sure why it’s such a sensitive subject. Maybe you should talk to Dee. She didn’t implement it in over 1000 hives for nothing. She has nothing to gain by standing by it. Or shake down 1000 hives on over 50,000 5.0mm frames that she made to stop the infestation of trachael mites destroying her hives. Which by the way ended as soon as they were shaken down to 5.0mm. Then turn around with another 50,000 4.9mm frames she made that stopped the varroa problem in its tracks. No one has implemented Housel into more hives then her and her husband. So why ignore so many of these facts.


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## squarepeg

:digging:

it's hard to tell who's trolling who here.

freebee, you may want to read through some of dan's posts. he was being sarcastic.

still waiting to hear about your personal experience with treatment free.

echoing what others are saying doesn't do much for this crowd.

thanks everyone for keeping it civil so far.


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## Oldtimer

Still wanting to know how the bees can tell if the Y is the right way up in round bottomed cells. It's obviously of critical importance, and even worse, a beekeeper could turn a frame around the wrong way then varroa mites would have a feild day


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## FreeBee

squarepeg said:


> it's hard to tell who's trolling who here.
> 
> freebee, you may want to read through some of dan's posts. he was being sarcastic.
> 
> still waiting to hear about your personal experience with treatment free.
> 
> echoing what others are saying doesn't do much for this crowd.
> 
> thanks everyone for keeping it civil so far.


That’s the thing SquarePeg. If echoing what others have spent a large portion of their lives doing isn’t going to work from some of the most successful then what is my personal experience going to do for you. Set up the firing squad. It’s clear where people stand.

I want to know why some of the most successful people in regards to treatment free beekeeping are pushed aside as if they are quacks yet their methods are so close to being the same you could pass it off as plagerism. Why the resistance? How can they say it works and you say it doesn’t? As my post states it’s not about me. The words aren’t mine. I am on a treatment free topic where I don’t see or hear much about the most successful organic treatment free beekeepers methods. Based on what Dee said, the reaction I’ve received is exactly as she said it would be. 

I’m not here to upset anyone or troll. I just wish people would give their reasoning in regards to their methods as being folly. Because when it comes down to it, whether I own bees or not, it’s working for someone out there. The exact way they stated and the exact way they said to do it. The problem isn’t with me, it’s with those methods and maybe the fact that they have been successful and maybe others tried and haven’t been so successful they’ve chaulked it up as a loss and quackery. 

I thank you for your link and I will do my best to check out your documented experience, all 175 pages.


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## JWPalmer

Ah, a Dee Lusby disciple, with no experience in the subject matter and no bees.


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## squarepeg

there will be no firing squads as long as i am moderator freebee.

as a squarepeg i refuse to identify with this or that group.

consider odfrank's point in post #6:



odfrank said:


> If Housel Positioning, Small Cell, Treatment Free, and all the teachings of Dee Lusby and Michael Bush were valid gospel truth, they would have swept across the beekeeping world, all beekeepers would have adopted them and no problems would any longer exist.


in my short tenure hear at beesource i have been witness to many reports of tried and failed, and not so many tried and succeeded.

oldtimer gave it an honest go following the prescription to the letter i believe.

you post:



FreeBee said:


> I rarely see anyone using methods by those individuals who are easy to find and have excellent documented success not treating in anyway to include artificially feeding your bees.


unless your definitions of 'excellent', 'documented', and 'success' are very different than mine, those individuals are anything but 'easy to find'.

there are treatment free success stories out there including the ones you cite. that it's all about cell size and housel postioning doesn't appear to be borne out by the experiences reported here and elsewhere.


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## FreeBee

JWPalmer said:


> Ah, a Dee Lusby disciple, with no experience in the subject matter and no bees.


JWPalmer my friend! That hurt.


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## Michael Palmer

FreeBee said:


> Not sure why it’s such a sensitive subject. Maybe you should talk to Dee. She didn’t implement it in over 1000 hives for nothing. She has nothing to gain by standing by it. Or shake down 1000 hives on over 50,000 5.0mm frames that she made to stop the infestation of trachael mites destroying her hives. Which by the way ended as soon as they were shaken down to 5.0mm. Then turn around with another 50,000 4.9mm frames she made that stopped the varroa problem in its tracks. No one has implemented Housel into more hives then her and her husband. So why ignore so many of these facts.


Does having dinner with Dee count? 

You really don't get it, do you. We're all a bunch if ignorant, dummy, beekeepers. Aren't we. 

Well, I overcame Acarapis thirty years, with a simple breeding program. Two years and done. No Housel. No 4.9

And what has Dee told me about housel...

When the Ys are down and facing center, a shelf is formed by the Y, and the queen lays an egg on that shelf, and the egg points up, and everything is as it should be. But if those Ys are up and facing center, then that shelf is facing down, and the queen will lay an egg on that shelf, and the egg will point down...causing supercedure. 

AS I said...Poppycock


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## beemandan

The real answer is to try it yourself.

Many of us have already read all of the stuff you’ve posted. It’s been hashed, rehashed and the dead horse kicked countless times. It’s been tried numerous times with differing results. Some of the concepts have been tested in controlled studies, conducted by reputable researchers. 
And here we are, long after that dust settled, and a newcomer is pitching it again.
Try it. Then, in a few seasons come back and report your experience.


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## msl

The question you ask..... "why are there so few beekepers using X method "
answer-because it doesn't work (od didn't work for many who tryed)

be it housel, small cell or putting OA in foggers.. the answer is the same... beekepers aren't a bunch of dummys, the ones that came before you wern't stupid.... if in not a "standard" there is likely a very good reason why it isn't

look to what successful large scale TF beekeepers do, its very little of the methods you suggest.
all of those "good ideas" didn't save the ferals form being wiped out.

your 1st post feels off to me, it has what I perceive as a lot of false hoods and 1/2 truths and some out right lies
as an example


> Spain, nearly the size of Texas has such an epidemic with varroa that they have become resistant to all treatments except checkmite. That’s a sad story.


they have not developed resistance to OA or FA


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## AHudd

Michael Palmer said:


> And what has Dee told me about housel...
> 
> When the Ys are down and facing center, a shelf is formed by the Y, and the queen lays an egg on that shelf, and the egg points up, and everything is as it should be. But if those Ys are up and facing center, then that shelf is facing down, and the queen will lay an egg on that shelf, and the egg will point down...causing supercedure.
> 
> AS I said...Poppycock


So, if a person were to accidentally install the foundation "upside down" in all ten frames, this colony would be in a constant state of supercedure. Each time a Queen came back mated and started laying she would be supereded. :scratch:

Certain colony death from laying on an "upside down" Y.

I'm going to try this come Spring.

Alex


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## Oldtimer

FreeBee i've actually got a lot of respect for you in terms of the amount of research you have done.

The reason for the reaction here is you have bought into one side of the story, but not yet had time to discover the other side, such as the Squarepeg success story, who does not apply all the ideas you have been led to believe are essential. Squarepeg is the most successful treatment free beekeeper that I am aware of, his results surpass the others you have mentioned.

Couple that with the fact that many people here have spent years being lectured on where they are going wrong, by people who don't have any bees yet, or are just one year in. It gets kinda old.

But hey, get some bees, get some hands on, and you will find the group here pretty welcoming and ready to discuss your ideas, once they feel you actually know what you are talking about, which is not yet. Just not getting the answer you want does not mean they are your enemies it means their experience has been different. Be glad they are happy to share.

Enjoy


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## Clayton Huestis

So how does housel work on foundationless when the Y’s are sideways?


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## Clayton Huestis

I suggest you research Tim Ives. He is TF and not small cell.


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## GregB

Clayton Huestis said:


> Greg, ... 5.0-5.2 is what carniolan type bees produce on average. ..


Sure.
I recently scored a PDF version of Altapov V. V. "Honey Bee Varieties", 1948. (in Russian).
The author documents cell size of wild Bashkirian bees sampled from bee trees (native AMM subpopulation in Bashkir region, Russia).

*5.56mm*



> Алпатов В. В. (Башкирские борти)
> рабочие ячейки
> 5,56 -
> трутневые ячейки
> 6,98 -


These are some huge wild bees out there. 
This is normal for some native northern populations.
All in all, standardization is not it.

Now, most all US bees have some Italian and even some AHB in them (like it or not, this is what is happening).
With that, some random US mutts are probably on a smaller size normally.
But again, let them build what they want and call it done.
We are observing active hybridization and random selection processes going all around us right now.
No need to pretend there are any controls over the bee breeds here - there are none.
We have a melting pot going and this is totally fine.


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## Juhani Lunden

FreeBee said:


> I’m not here to upset anyone or troll. I just wish people would give their reasoning in regards to their methods as being folly. Because when it comes down to it, whether I own bees or not, it’s working for someone out there.


My first reaction after reading the OP was that it has been so quiet here lately on this TF forum that someone was told /payed to write something really provocative. 

Seems it worked...


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## Oldtimer

Part of Dee Lusbys ability to keep bees treatment free probably has to do with the type of bee that live in her area.

For those who have not seen it here is a video of them. Longish video starts a bit slow, recommend skipping forward to around minute 4.00. At around minute 5.00 with a little imagination I can almost hear a voice yelling "HOUSEL HOUSEL". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEp9YqUE7kA


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

Ah, the million dollar question. Unfortunately for me I could not wish my mite problems away no matter which TF guru I bought queens from.......or how much research and raising from the survivors I did.......or only using local swarms. I don't understand why beekeepers still think bees will become immune when every other critter has pest and disease too. To think bee pests will stop with varroa is also wishful thinking it is just a matter of time till something else hits.


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## Saltybee

I would like to say I could not have said it any better than OT.
In truth I could not have said it as well.


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## little_john

AHudd said:


> So, if a person were to accidentally *install the foundation "upside down" in all ten frames*, this colony would be in a constant state of supercedure. Each time a Queen came back mated and started laying she would be supereded. :scratch:
> 
> Certain colony death from laying on an "upside down" Y.


I don't think it works quite like that ...  (assuming you were being serious, of course)

The right way up 'Y' on one side of a comb is mirrored by an upside-down 'Y' on the other side, with an offset of half a cell. Which is why I can't personally see how that supersedure argument pans out - as brood is reared on both sides.

And, whenever I've caused a viable hive to be queenless, they've drawn emergency queen cells on both sides of a brood comb - as far as I can tell (having never looked for the Y orientation) they don't appear to be showing any preference.
LJ


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## gww

Kamon Reynolds


> Ah, the million dollar question. Unfortunately for me I could not wish my mite problems away no matter which TF guru I bought queens from.......or how much research and raising from the survivors I did.......or only using local swarms. I don't understand why beekeepers still think bees will become immune when every other critter has pest and disease too. To think bee pests will stop with varroa is also wishful thinking it is just a matter of time till something else hits.


I agree with this pretty much. I have not treated. I keep chickens also. I mostly just provide shelter and clean water and food. I try and make sure the door is shut at dark and open it in the morning. Some chickens get sick and die but over all, enough live at all times to make it worth it. My wife will make me intercede more then would be my instinct but she was not too interested for the first few years that we had chickens and the disease results were pretty close to now when we do work on sick chickens more then we used to.

I don't inoculate the babies or keep them separated from wild birds like some of the big operations do. Yes, some birds still get sick sometimes and I bet some bees will also. It is what I expect. 

The question with bees or chickens, to me, comes down to, are you happy with the results of your management style and what it is getting for you compared to what you are having to put into it. 

Treatment free success is a subjective term that might be based on what the goals are and many things effect outcome with the keepers mileage being veritable based on lots of local factors with many not being understood.

No doubt that bees get sick no matter how you keep them. The question is what is success compared to input of the person doing it. Adjustments have to be made till the keeper hits what he wants to get out of what he puts in.

This discussion will be on going and success will always be hard to define. 
Cheers
gww


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## AHudd

I was kidding about what MP said that Dee Lusby said to him. I agree with you in that only one side can be "right". There is no way to install one piece of foundation in one frame with the shelf on the bottom of the cells on both sides.

The entire concept of how it could possibly make a difference how the Y is oriented has left me befuddled and bewildered. Someone, earlier, pointed out how the bottom of the cells become rounded after a few rounds of brood. 

Maybe I missed something or one needs to be elevated to Guru status to be able to really "see". 

Let's put some downriggers on this troll; Someone (not me) call Lauri and tell her she has been doing it wrong all these years. She puts foundation in *sideways.*

Alex


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## JWPalmer

FreeBee said:


> JWPalmer my friend! That hurt.


You are not too far from me. PM me your address and I would be happy to visit your apiary this spring. Show me a successful apiary using these methods and I will tell the world. I am all for innovation and bringing new perspectives to beekeeping, but you are not. You are rehashing old ideas that did not pan out as well as the original proponents of them had hoped. When these "sure fire fixes" are brought up again and again, I can't help but be reminded of the definintion of insanity. All the best to you.

If you truly are interested in TF beekeeping and don't mind the drive, the Ashland Beekeepers Assoc. Dec 6th meeting will be presented by one of our members who is a long time successful TF beekeeper. He will be sharing his methods and answering questions. You are welcome to attend.


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## odfrank

The impossibility of maintaining Housel positioning in an functioning bee business was the first clue to me that Dee Lusby was a farce. Then I followed her ramblings on her yahoo group and finally saw the first videos of her apiaries by Deknow. These definitely proved that it must have been her late husband who was the beekeeper. Later came the video posted today filmed by Solomon, more proof that all of them know nothing. As I already had 35 years experience when these people misguided me, luckily I quickly recognized that they were just fakes selling conferences to innocent beginner beginners and had little truth to offer to the beekeeping community. My biggest disappointment with Michael Bush was his years long support of Dee Lusby. You only have to watch those videos to know it is not a viable bee business.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

opcorn: :applause:


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## msl

Odfrank while I agree with most of what your saying..
The hives in the video are ALIVE, despite being almost unmanged
So some thing is going on.. the yards certainly are not keeping there numbers up with constant splitting and swarm catching like some other gurus...

I cant find it, but some were Michael Bush had posted his history.... (paraphrasing from memory) losses on top of losses till he switched to local ferals and small cell, then success.

Superstitious Behavior is common in both humans and animals. It happens when we confuse cause and effect. It seems to have a large effect in beekeeping, its likely many of these gurus honestly and truly believe. I should add it's not the mark of a weak mind, its just how our minds work. I feel they are wrong on small cell and what not, based on well organized research that has been done, but I don't believe they are fakes, they are just misguided as to the cause and effect.

_ Skinner’s paper “Superstition in the Pigeon” (Skinner, 1948) demonstrated how non-contingent reinforcement caused ‘superstitious’ behavior in pigeons. Food pellets were given to the pigeon on a fixed interval schedule regardless of the bird’s behaviors, but they became conditioned to engage in ‘superstitious’ rituals that they just happened to do when the food first appeared. The response was varied in all the birds, ranging from pendulum motions, head thrusts, and turning around counter-clockwise, but the frequency of these behaviors, which were previously not present in strong numbers during adaptation to the cage, increased to 5 to 6 instances in a 15 second interval. This study was replicated by Wagner and Morris with children using tangible reinforcement (Wagner & Morris, 1987). 
_
https://bsci21.org/a-behavioral-look-at-superstition/


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## crofter

Yes, Skinner did some interesting work. 

I think I may have been pre-innoculated against superstition at quite a young age: Koolaid did not interest me so I was not much inconvenienced by the would be _gurus_.

A lot of their drivel is akin to the observation that It is the waving of the tree limbs that causes the wind to blow!


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## little_john

I've just been reading an article by Kirk Webster ( http://kirkwebster.com/index.php/a-...moving-all-treatment-from-commercial-apiaries )
who I instinctively consider to be an all-round good guy - meaning that I believe 100% in his honesty and integrity - and so I had great difficulty in squaring the persuasive content of the above TF article with my own negative opinion regarding the underlying rationale of a treatment-free approach to beekeeping.

Indeed, his article is so convincing that it took me a full half-hour to spot the fundamental flaw in his approach - which is - that he actually 'treats', but doesn't recognise that what he's doing constitutes 'treatment'.

Perhaps my claim is easier to comprehend if one considers what would happen if Kirk was to 'put his feet up' for a few years, and stop intervening in all aspects of the life of the honeybees within his colonies. I would bet my pension that his colonies would revert to how they were before he adopted his TF approach. Hence - his management techniques have actually constituted a form of ongoing 'treatment'.

This then becomes yet another example of the old chestnut I keep banging on about: "what is the precise definition of 'treatment-free' ?" (which is simply a rhetorical question here, as I fully accept that asking this question 'for real' is against the rules for this sub-forum)

Until we begin to accept that all forms of beekeeper intervention (including management practices) constitute 'treatment' and should therefore be included within the word's definition, we will continue to argue over this false dichotomy between the treatment and treatment-free approaches.
LJ


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## JWChesnut

The attached screen shot is part of a long thread discussing MB's losses in 2018. I haven't seen MB discuss this subject on BeeSource. The details appear ambiguous (ie. were the losses in the winter ? How are "pesticide" losses assigned in the winter, when PMS declines are more typical, etc).


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## Riverderwent

squarepeg said:


> it's hard to tell who's trolling who here.


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## Riverderwent

msl said:


> all of those "good ideas" didn't save the ferals form being wiped out.


I disagree that feral bees were wiped out, at least in the area where I live, based on my observation of feral hives and based on the research and conclusions of others. scientificbeekeeping.com/whats-happening-to-the-bees-part-5-is-there-a-difference-between-domesticated-and-feral-bees; www.researchgate.net/publication/23..._Middle_Eastern_Lineage_in_the_United_States; www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361586/. I don't doubt that there are many areas where feral bees were wiped out.


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## squarepeg

at one time i took exception to jwc's use of the term 'acolyte'.

i am moderating on that to some degree insofar as it relates to someone with little or no actual hands on experience emphatically espousing management practices based solely on something they have heard or read.


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## Adam Foster Collins

Oldtimer said:


> Part of Dee Lusby's ...At around minute 5.00 with a little imagination I can almost hear a voice yelling "HOUSEL HOUSEL".
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEp9YqUE7kA


I love this. Solomon Parker standing there, gloves full of stingers, talking to the camera, but you can't hear him over the angry bees and Dee's desperate cries in the background. Looks like footage from a war zone. 

After several years treatment free, culminating in turning 75 hives into 14 in one winter, I decided that if one wants to make meaningful progress with treatment free bees, you first have to have enough bees (and the skill) to really do some breeding. The idea that one can 'breed' mite tolerance using open-mated queens in a non-isolated area with a few hives - is just not feasible. 

I feel it's up to the people who have enough bees to dominate a given area's gene pool, and have the drive to monitor mites and make mite tolerance a part of their selection process for breeders. If a colony shows that they're not able to handle varroa, you can treat them and requeen. I tried the bond method for a while, but I no longer see the point in sacrificing all of those bees, when the only thing that really matters is the queen you choose breed from.

I like the approach Randy Oliver is currently advocating, and will do something along those lines myself once I have the numbers I want. 

Adam


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## msl

River I may have chosen my wording porly.. I did not mean extinction, but a massive die off on a huge scale, and in some case followed by rebuilding of numbers.


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## Oldtimer

JWChesnut said:


> How are "pesticide" losses assigned in the winter, when PMS declines are more typical, etc).


That's easy. A person could not lose 90% of their hives to pms that winter, because the person was small cell. Just on that basis the losses were clearly not pms, and therefore must have been caused by pesticide.


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## msl

Yep..
been there myself
_"mites? why would I have mite problems? I have mystical ferals in magic top bar hives on natural comb!"_.... ahh the early years, and one of the reasons for my sig 

This spring at a local meeting, I ran in to a TF keeper who lost 100 hives in early march to "a pesticide kill" 
Not too sure what was being sprayed, or what crop was blooming for the bees to bring back while there was snow on the ground and we were still a month before dandelion bloom:scratch:
Mites? they don't have mites, the USDA inspected their hives and were unable to find a single one.... something about mint plants in the area inch:

flip side is they seem to run a lot of hives, more then me, so "something" is working for them.....


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## GregB

Let me offer this quote from one of the better known "pro-treatment" bloggers.
https://honeybeesuite.com/let-mites-be-mites-is-not-an-option/

Rusty states:


> I have resistant stock in my top-bar hive that hasn’t been treated at all and is still incredibly strong *after seven years.*


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## GregB

little_john said:


> I've just been reading an article by Kirk Webster.... Indeed, his article is so convincing that it took me a full half-hour to spot the fundamental flaw in his approach - which is - that he actually 'treats', but doesn't recognise that what he's doing constitutes 'treatment'.......LJ


It is time to just call it "pesticide-free" management practices.
People should just start using this honest, simple definition and move alone.


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## JWPalmer

Even pesticide free is a sticky wicket. Are OA and FA pesticides since they both occur naturally? What about vegetable oil used in hive beetle traps?


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## GregB

JWPalmer said:


> Even pesticide free is a sticky wicket. Are OA and FA pesticides since they both occur naturally? What about vegetable oil used in hive beetle traps?


Well, arsenic is also occurring naturally. Quiet a potent pesticide.

Excessive OA presence is, clearly, toxic (hence some parts of rhubarb are not recommended for eating, as one example).
As for me, I do not want excessive presence of OA in my perga - I harvest perga. 
Perga is human food in my house.

And so on...


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## squarepeg

it's really all about varroa mites, and whether or not one is employing any measures to assist the colony in dealing with varroa mites.

definitions are all over the map and the position of the forum is that there isn't any future in debating the definition.

the founders of beesource came up with the working definition found in the 'unique forum rules' which are stickied on the sub-forum main page.

that definition is not satisfying to all by any means, but represents the best attempt by those contributing at the time.

i personally do not employ any method be it chemical, mechanical, artificial brood breaking, removal of drone brood, ect. most of my frames contain 5.4 rite cell foundation, although i have a few foundationless frames scattered in the mix.

about the only manipulation i employ at all is the promoting of broodnest expansion during the spring build up to prevent swarming; and this if anything would be counter to limiting varroa mite population growth.

as has been stated so much of this has to do with location and goals. i can appreciate how for many it's just easier to treat on a schedule and not worry about it.

my hope however is that just as many or more will heed the call made by randy oliver to do what we can to move the ball forward in terms our management and selection for more resistant bees that are less dependent on the beekeeper to survive varroa mites.


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## JWPalmer

I just learned something. Never heard of perga before. Bee bread. I can see why you would not want anything used on the bees. Cool.


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## roddo27846

little_john said:


> I've just been reading an article by Kirk Webster ( http://kirkwebster.com/index.php/a-...moving-all-treatment-from-commercial-apiaries )
> who I instinctively consider to be an all-round good guy - meaning that I believe 100% in his honesty and integrity - and so I had great difficulty in squaring the persuasive content of the above TF article with my own negative opinion regarding the underlying rationale of a treatment-free approach to beekeeping.
> 
> Indeed, his article is so convincing that it took me a full half-hour to spot the fundamental flaw in his approach - which is - that he actually 'treats', but doesn't recognise that what he's doing constitutes 'treatment'.
> 
> Perhaps my claim is easier to comprehend if one considers what would happen if Kirk was to 'put his feet up' for a few years, and stop intervening in all aspects of the life of the honeybees within his colonies. I would bet my pension that his colonies would revert to how they were before he adopted his TF approach. Hence - his management techniques have actually constituted a form of ongoing 'treatment'.
> 
> This then becomes yet another example of the old chestnut I keep banging on about: "what is the precise definition of 'treatment-free' ?" (which is simply a rhetorical question here, as I fully accept that asking this question 'for real' is against the rules for this sub-forum)
> 
> Until we begin to accept that all forms of beekeeper intervention (including management practices) constitute 'treatment' and should therefore be included within the word's definition, we will continue to argue over this false dichotomy between the treatment and treatment-free approaches.
> LJ


Are we talking semantics or beekeeping? Check out some quantum mechanics and you can even get more confused. Walking by the hives and taking a look at them without even opening the hives changes things in some way. So the only treatment free beekeepers are people that never see bees. Or maybe we should just say that treatment free means you can't buy your treatments over the internet, that should cover it for you.


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## Saltybee

roddo27846 said:


> Or maybe we should just say that treatment free means you can't buy your treatments over the internet, that should cover it for you.


Bought my OA at Ace Hardware! I'm treatment free!


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## enjambres

And I'm not killing mites, I'm bleaching the tops of my frames! Apparently varroa do less-well in hives with sparkling-clean tops-of-frames. Who knew?

Nancy


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## msl

> Excessive OA presence is, clearly, toxic (hence some parts of rhubarb are not recommended for eating, as one example).
> As for me, I do not want excessive presence of OA in my perga - I harvest perga.


gram per gram a spinach leave has more OA then a rhubarb leaf, so lets leave the myths at the garden.
a large serving of spinach (150-200 g) = about an OA treatment... even if it all went in to one spot, and you ate it in one serving its very unlikly to be any sort of issue
However I get the wan't of "chemical free"..



> It is time to just call it "pesticide-free" management practices.
> People should just start using this honest, simple definition and move alone.


more or less
I don't get the need for people to identify them selfs with a name... treatment free, chemical free, natural beekeeping, organically managed... etc...
I have run in to "chemical free" beekeepers who use OA/FA as they are "Organic compounds, not synthetic chemicals" 

As LJ points out you can chase TF to management free, and we are only left with honey hunting. While that's not the intent, that's the flaw with the natural selection arugemnts. 



> my hope however is that just as many or more will heed the call made by randy oliver to do what we can to move the ball forward in terms our management and selection for more resistant bees that are less dependent on the beekeeper to survive varroa mites.


+1:thumbsup:

One way or anther beekeepers have to manage mites or their hives will die.
Be it resistant genetics, culture practices, manipulations or chems- they are all managements
I feel the sooner the TF world squares with management of thier hives, and the realty of section and propagation of local resistant stocks the faster things will progress. 

_*If it’s a matter of treating your hive vs having to buy commercial package bees the following year, its better off to treat them*_-Sam Comfort
The point he makes in his talks is local sustainability is step 1, You need to get to were your not buying any bees (especially commercial ones) before you can progress.


----------



## little_john

roddo27846 said:


> Are we talking semantics or beekeeping? Check out some quantum mechanics and you can even get more confused. Walking by the hives and taking a look at them without even opening the hives changes things in some way. So the only treatment free beekeepers are people that never see bees. Or maybe we should just say that treatment free means you can't buy your treatments over the internet, that should cover it for you.


How about the semantics OF beekeeping ?

"Precise definitions make it easier to focus on a problem. At the present time, semantic confusion exists among bee scientists whenever the terms resistance and tolerance are utilized." So writes John Kefuss - and I'd extend that confusion to include the terms treatment and treatment-free as well.

I'd offer the following as a starting point:
*Treatment:* the attempt to achieve a desired outcome; *the manner in which some thing or disease is cared for or dealt with.* Notice - there's no specific mention of chemicals there, and yet TF appears to have become synonymous with medication. 

If we draw a loose analogy with Human treatments, then we have:
Medicine - where chemicals are principally employed
Surgery - minimal use of chemicals
Physio - physical exercises etc - no chemicals
Lifestyle Management: changes to diet - avoiding certain foods - low fat, low salt intake etc., giving up smoking, moderating drinking - more exercise etc.

Now whether or not you consider changes to one's lifestyle as being a treatment of an existing condition depends on how you define 'treatment' in the first place. That's why I consider this issue to be of such importance - because - otherwise you have a situation where someone with a high public profile (and thus significant influence over beginners) makes claims about being "Treatment-Free" for X number of years which the tyro interprets as meaning chemical-free, and so they then omit the use of medication (as recommended) but - believing that this step alone is sufficient - then fail to take any other steps towards combating the varroa mite ... and as so often happens they end-up losing their colonies. We've heard this story so very many times - and all because (I suspect) of this confusion of what constitutes 'Treatment-Free'.
LJ

PS. I found Quantum Mechanics to be a doddle compared with Molecular Orbital Bonding Theory. An electron in two places at exactly the same time ... as if.


----------



## Fivej

LJ. Well said. I never concerned myself with the debate over the TF definition before, but you just made the case for me that it has to be revised. J


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## GregB

JWPalmer said:


> I just learned something. Never heard of perga before. Bee bread. I can see why you would not want anything used on the bees. Cool.


Here.
Read on:
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?344525-Eating-pollen&highlight=perga


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## GregB

msl said:


> ....
> _*If it’s a matter of treating your hive vs having to buy commercial package bees the following year, its better off to treat them*_-Sam Comfort
> The point he makes in his talks is local sustainability is step 1, You need to get to were your not buying any bees (especially commercial ones) before you can progress.


I never bought a single package or a nuc.
Have no such plans either. 
Have no budget for bees at all.
Have more than enough bees just as we speak (I *want *some of them die, like I said).
So now what?


PS: Sam is an entertaining guy, to be sure; but that's where it stands with me.
His statement applies, mostly to a commercial honey producer.


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## GregB

msl said:


> gram per gram a spinach leave has more OA then a rhubarb leaf, so lets leave the myths at the garden....


Look, someone else can test effects of OA/FA concentrations in bee bread on themselves.
I will pass this science experiment to someone else.
I don't care to find out, even if this costs me few dead bees.

It maybe nothing to worry. Maybe it is.
Well, I already drink too much coffee (lost count of for/against daily votes for coffee by those "who know"; today coffee is good; yesterday it was bad; and so on).


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## gww

LJ
you are like a dog with a bone and just keep chewing at what the definition for treatment free should be. I am satisfied with the forum definition for this section of the forum and that it means not chemical treatment. I also don't see normal managements that would have been done prior to mites as a spoiler even if some of those actions help with mites, like cut down splits and such.

It is always welcome for the person looking at someone claiming to be treatment free to ask for more info if he wants to know more and put stuff in his own personal perspective regardless of what fits the forums definition. 

I don't see the need for those definitions being as plain as you always insist they need to be. I could say that i am successfull and you could ask me what that means and when I explain it, you might come to the conclusion that I don't know what success is. On subjective terms, there can be question. On treatment free meaning not using bought products to kill mites is not subjective and a good starting place where if more is needed to be known, it can be ask by the person wanting to know.

It is not a bad starting standard of a definition where more can be discussed from.

I do all kinds of things to my hives, just not many things because bees now have mites. I consider myself treatment free under the forum heading. I consider the mad splitter who makes bees by continuing breaking up the hives into splits as treatment free if he does not make those splits due to mites even if he recognizes those splits probably keep his hives safe from mites. He does nothing to kill the mites though.

Me, I make some splits, some of my hives swarm and I am able to stop some of my hives from swarming. After I steal some honey from them and it gets to october and I think the hives are light, I add a little sugar water to them. I consider all these things as bee keeping. I consider myself treatment free cause I do no actions that my purpose is to use something to kill mites. I don't make the kind of honey per hive that squarepeg does and so what is success and the causes could be a subjective discussion and discussion is what it would take to put a definition to it.

Where there would be no sujectiveness in my opinion is, I am a bee keeper, I am treatment free, and I still for now have live bees.

I also do not destroy drone comb or brood or split solely for mite control or cage the queen. I figure under the forum rules that if I did and came on here and said I was treatment free and not using chemicals to kill mites, you could ask more and find out the things that are allowing me to do that. Myself, I just manage the bees for honey or increase and don't worry that they have mites except to watch and see what happens because they have them. I know that mites can kill hives and I watch for it but have not seen it yet (though I am sure I will eventually). I have not put anything into the hive to kill a mite and so I am treatment free. To go the other route and say you have to give a definition for everything you do and consider it a treatment is maybe a bridge to far. I would have to say I treat because I got lucky enough to live where I do and you could do it to if you would treat and move to where I am with the moving being the treatment.

This forum and its definition seems to be a place to discuss how to keep bees alive with out chemicals with the chemicals being the treatment and the no chemicals being treatment free. It is a perfect definition of treatment free and perfect place to discuss the actions needed to be taken to meet that definition.

Those other actions that you seem to want to label as treatment seems to be the only reason for this forum as a place to discuss what actions it takes to get to the chemical free definition.

So, the forum guidelines are clear that this is the place to discuss how to become treatment free (no chemicals) and what actions (your view "treatments") it takes to reach that plateau.

I see nothing wrong with the definition. Right or wrong, this is my honest view (given with a smile) of the rightness of the forums current definition of treatment free bee discussion.
Cheers
gww


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## jim lyon

I don’t have a problem with the forum’s definition of treatment free. What I do have a problem with is references made by some to “treatment free honey” as if somehow their honey is more pure. One can taint honey by irresponsible treatment but it’s really quite simple to treat at times and with products in which honey purity is never compromised. As a commercial producer I sell to packers who thoroughly test the honey I deliver and they have yet to detect any traces of miticides.


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## gww

Jim
I live about a mile from a gas station and have seen bees many times in the trash cans out by the pumps. I don't do it often but have sprayed my garden for bugs rather then lose plants that I had a lot of work in. I have not yet put anything in my hives to kill mites (though I may someday). That would be the only claim I could make.

I am too small scale to pay to have my honey tested though it would be interesting. When they have a honey tasting at the bee club, even I don't always think my honey is best. 

I agree with you that if you do it right, then you do it right. The only real claims that can be made are the parts that you do. With testing, the claims become stronger. In my case, I have no ideal of all the things the bees do with out me. I only know what I do and that is really the only claim anyone can make.

Cheers
gww


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## Eduardo Gomes

FreeBee said:


> Spain, nearly the size of Texas has such an epidemic with varroa that they have become resistant to all treatments except checkmite. That’s a sad story.


That’s a fake story.


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## msl

Jim while you may be a stand up guy, some are not... the rash of hive thefts lately shows this 
Using cattle insecticide ear tags, black market/off lable amrtraize, prophylactic antibiotics, and off lable overdosing "to be sure", etc happens. 
The massive amount of theads here on BS about using OA supers on is a clear illustration, as is Ian puting 3 grams of OA in to nucs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3JColwP5Eo&feature=youtu.be&t=261

While is may or may not be the minority of beekeepers, this kind of pesticide abuse makes it very easy to market TF honey as better
and honestly I don't know any one who markets there honey as "the same or worse" then there competition. 

Marketing is marketing and there are plenty of people like Greg that will pay the extra costs to not have to worry about extra chemicals in the hive products they consume.


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## gww

Msl
I do understand your pesticide abuse comment. I thought I would make an informational off topic comment here. I ask randy oliver a question about his findings in his testing of oa residues in honey that he is conducting during his shop towel experimenting. I ask him this on BeeL. He said that his testing is showing that honey content of oa is at normal rates that occur naturally in honey.
I think the shop towels have between 12 to 18 grams of oa left in the hives long term.
I do understand your point and just put this here for information that is based with actual testing of honey for residue.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Adam Foster Collins

jim lyon said:


> ...I sell to packers who thoroughly test the honey I deliver and they have yet to detect any traces of miticides.


Well Jim, If there's no trace of treatment, I guess that makes your honey 'treatment free' too!


----------



## jim lyon

Eduardo Gomes said:


> That’s a fake story.


I agree. Check mite (coumaphous) was a flash in the pan in the mite treatment world. It had a life span of about 2years before varroa quickly built a resistance.


----------



## Riverderwent

msl said:


> River I may have chosen my wording porly.. I did not mean extinction, but a massive die off on a huge scale, and in some case followed by rebuilding of numbers.


That makes sense. I'm glad that you're on the forum. I did one cutout in a cedar tree by the parking lot of an agricultural research station that had a provenance of at least twenty years. If it had died out and been replaced periodically, it had done so consistently and so quickly as to render the distinction to be without difference. I've done over a hundred cutouts. Some appeared new; some appeared old; some appeared to be new infestations of old hives. I don't see how someone in the area where I live could say definitively that there was a massive die off of feral hives any more than one could say that there wasn't. Other areas are different. I do seem to recall that there was some research related to some Africanized Honey Bee survey traps south of here that showed that feral populations declined and quickly recovered shortly after varroa slipped under the wire. There is also some genetic information that indicates that there has been a surviving line of genetics including A.m.m. and Egyptian bees in feral bees here distinct from the commercial bees. What I do know is that there are a lot of feral honey bees here now.


----------



## msl

https://www.researchgate.net/public...estructor_Mesostigmata_Varroidae_in_Louisiana

suggests it did happen in Louisiana as well, maby not on such a huge scale as elce ware , then starting in 98 it was followed by a much quicker full rebound then most would have expected.

There is certainly something happinging in your neck of the woods... A TF keeper in you state losses less bees then a TX keeper in mine (and many other)....
the study makes an interesting suggestion 
_"However, we cannot rule out that some varroaresistant bees from the USDA laboratory in Baton Rougemay have been represented. The “late-varroa”reboundof swarming and longevity of feral bees coincided withthe period of initial selection and breeding for varroaresistance in two types of bees at the laboratory (Harboand Hoopingarner 1997, Rinderer et al. 1997). _ 

yes there are some AMM still around, but they have been "wiped out" so to speak 
1994 they made up 37% of the feral pop, 2009 7%
so they certainty have been threw some natural selecting as even after "rebounding" they are only holding 19% of there previous market share

I am unsure as to how to place the age of feral hive... the study above puts its life span fairly short...
Previous one would have expected wax moth to clean out the cavity between occupation, Seeley 2017 suggests other wise


----------



## Riverderwent

MSL, fascinating study. It would be interesting to know whether the average length of swarm survival has continued to increase since 2006. Some or all of a large, untreated base population of feral bees with a diverse gene pool from which to draw surviving phenotypes, together with genetic material from open breeding by bees from the ARS research efforts in Baton Rouge and migrating up and across inland wetlands, particularly in the vacuum presumably left by reduced populations of non-resistant and non-tolerant bees, together with Africanized Honey Bees that hybridize and have milder temperaments as they reach more temperate climate zones and interbreed with other native surviving feral bees, together with our high relative humidity, together with brood breaks during our severe summer dearth, could play a roll. But, most likely it’s my fifteen little untreated colonies of mutts that tip the scale and make the difference.


----------



## Michael Bush

>The attached screen shot is part of a long thread discussing MB's losses in 2018. 

Interesting how other people always seem to know more about my bees than I do... I was not part of that discussion and was unaware of it. My losses last winter were the same as the average for Nebraska, which was a rough winter (-30 F for a while). They were doing very well in July when I got hit by pesticides. I did not lose all my bees, but in the one yard (my main yard) that got hit I lost 80%. I was doing queen rearing so we were in all those hives on Sunday July 15th and they were thriving. The following Friday (the 20th) when we were going through them again, there were half as many bees in all the living colonies and some had completely died. The aerial spraying was still taking place that Friday. At the time that yard had 50 full size Langstroth hives, 3 top bar hives, 2 AZ hives, 1 Huber hive, 1 box hive and 145 mating nucs. The weak remaining hives continued to die until losses reached 80%. Very depressing. My other two yards were not affected. If only we could breed insecticide resistant bees... well, probably we are, whether we like it or not.


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## Oldtimer

Sorry to hear it Michael, and thanks for the explanation. What are you doing with the still alive ones?

Some of my own bees got poisoned maybe 6 months ago, and were reduced to maybe a couple frames of bees or so. They have struggled on since then with very spotty brood and no increase in bee numbers, and I think it's because there was still poison in the hives, reaching young larvae, and killing them. However at last these hives have worked their way through it and are are coming right, brood patterns good and increasing bee population. They will not give me a harvest this time, but will make good wintering condition.

As an aside, I didn't know you had 145 mating nucs, so clearly you are selling more than a handful of queens. How are your bees performing longer term against mites in different areas and climate types to your own? And how are they doing in LC hives?


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## FreeBee

Oldtimer said:


> Part of Dee Lusbys ability to keep bees treatment free probably has to do with the type of bee that live in her area.
> 
> For those who have not seen it here is a video of them. Longish video starts a bit slow, recommend skipping forward to around minute 4.00. At around minute 5.00 with a little imagination I can almost hear a voice yelling "HOUSEL HOUSEL".
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEp9YqUE7kA



That is true. It very well may be that she does indeed have AHB stock. Actually surprised that it took so long for someone to bring it up. They have been shown to handle the varroa better than the European bee.


----------



## Oldtimer

Her bees show thelytoky, so there is definately an african influence there, but seperate from "normal" africanised bees which are from scutelata, as scutelata do not show thelytoky. However there may also be a scutelata influence as well, who knows.


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## odfrank

> It very well may be that she does indeed have AHB stock. Actually surprised that it took so long for someone to bring it up.

It was brought up probably at least ten years ago. From your first post #1 you have demonstrated you are ten years behind on Dee Lusby etc. treatment free discussions.


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## Oldtimer

LOL some truth to that. Reading FreeBee is like reading some of the earnest TF'ers that were posting ten years ago, but they and their bees are now gone.

No offense FreeBee, but you do sound like that. 

But it's obvious you are an avid researcher, plus you are still here and participating, all good. When do you plan to get the first bees?


----------



## mischief

GregV said:


> It is time to just call it "pesticide-free" management practices.
> People should just start using this honest, simple definition and move alone.


Liking this, maybe we could add....In Transition for those of us who are in the middle of moving towards complete TF but obviously not there yet.


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## Michael Bush

>What are you doing with the still alive ones?

I'm hoping they will make it through the winter. I wonder how much the stores have insecticide in them and how much that will shorten their lives. We have a long winter here...

>How are your bees performing longer term against mites in different areas and climate types to your own? 

I get good reports from people. I haven't had any negative reports.

>And how are they doing in LC hives?

I'm not sure how often they are in LC hives, but I'm sure they are doing better than the California or Georgia commercial queens. I haven't had any complaints.


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## squarepeg

lc hive? not sure what that is.

sad to hear about the poisoning michael. fingers crossed for good wintering.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Michael Bush said:


> The aerial spraying was still taking place that Friday.


What crop were they spraying?


----------



## clong

"lc hive? not sure what that is."

Large Cell?


----------



## GregB

mischief said:


> Liking this, maybe we could add....In Transition for those of us who are in the middle of* moving towards complete TF* but obviously not there yet.


The "complete TF" is likely just one of those unachievable goals and good sounding stories (while not even being fully defined still).

The true and complete TF is when you go to the forest, climb a bee tree, cut some combs while still leaving the bees with enough food, and get your annual harvest that way.
Some people are actually doing it, but not many.

With that, "pesticide-free" management is really the only practically achievable goal there is (which is plenty good to produce clean foods and have healthy bees).

I would focus on "pesticide-free" as already hard enough, but still achievable, instead of "complete TF".


----------



## Michael Bush

>What crop were they spraying?

Soybeans.


----------



## jim lyon

Michael Bush said:


> >What crop were they spraying?
> 
> Soybeans.


Was it spray drift or were they actively working the soybeans? I’ve only seen this one time in one yard here in South Dakota in recent years though the loss wasn’t as extensive as you describe, brought back memories of foliage spray losses back in “the day”. This yard spent the rest of the summer recovering and most were back to full strength by late fall. Of course these were headed by “commercial queens”.


----------



## Oldtimer

clong said:


> "lc hive? not sure what that is."
> 
> Large Cell?


Yes. As opposed to SC (small cell). Used to be a commonly used abbreviation back when people spent more time discussing that stuff.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Was it spray drift or were they actively working the soybeans? 

The soybeans were blooming at the time. I wasn't out looking in the field to see if they were working the soybeans, but the outcome would seem to support that.


----------



## squarepeg

Oldtimer said:


> Yes. As opposed to SC (small cell). Used to be a commonly used abbreviation back when people spent more time discussing that stuff.


understood, thanks!


----------



## Michael Bush

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesglossary.htm


----------



## grozzie2

Oldtimer said:


> LOL some truth to that. Reading FreeBee is like reading some of the earnest TF'ers that were posting ten years ago, but they and their bees are now gone.
> 
> No offense FreeBee, but you do sound like that.


I think FreeBee is somebody that's been reading here for a decade or so, recently signed up with a new username just to stir the pot very deeply, and it's worked very well.


----------



## Oldtimer

Hmm, could be true. What he says is so scripted and "textbook", that I doubt he has had bees long if at all, or there would be more real world knowledge expressed.

I would like to see FreeBee, whoever he is, do well, and grow as a beekeeper. Would be great FreeBee, if instead of coming here to teach everyone, you could also say a little about yourself, if you are planning to get bees, or already have some, etc.

If you do that you will find a lot of help here, if you don't do that you are just a kind of unknown "voice from above" telling people what to do, that will not be taken seriously.


----------



## squarepeg

it's been a good thread so far.

again, many thanks everyone for making my job easy. 

when it comes that the half dozen or so of us in my area keeping bees off treatments with nominal losses and decent productivity,

we still really don't know by what mechanism(s) this is taking place.

i've had a visit from a university entomology professor and shared my journaled experiences with him. unfortunately at this point in time there aren't any resources available for taking a scientific look at what is happening here.


----------



## JWPalmer

Michael, have you registered your hives with Fieldwatch? The Beecheck site maps hives so that sprayers are aware that beehives are present in the area. NE participates and hundreds of locations are already mapped.


----------



## susanrudnicki

Blah, blah, blah!!! what a lot of verbage. I keep 45 feral sourced TF hives in the wilds of Los Angeles for the past 10 years. They thrive, are a pleasure to work, need no coddling, no foundation, no treatments, no feeds. End of story


----------



## squarepeg

FreeBee said:


> That is true. It very well may be that she does indeed have AHB stock. Actually surprised that it took so long for someone to bring it up. They have been shown to handle the varroa better than the European bee.


perhaps, but their ferocity is not an acceptable trait for whatever advantage they may have with respect to dealing with varroa.

the videos make it clear that her stock is not anything that most of us would be comfortable with having in our bee yards.

keeping bees is awesome but endangerment of humans and other life forms is just too much of a price to pay.

i believe you will agree freebee once you have the opportunity yourself to work with bees.


----------



## Oldtimer

susanrudnicki said:


> Blah, blah, blah!!! what a lot of verbage. I keep 45 feral sourced TF hives in the wilds of Los Angeles for the past 10 years. They thrive, are a pleasure to work, need no coddling, no foundation, no treatments, no feeds. End of story


This post demonstrates the predelection of some less experienced beekeepers to fail to understand that their experience, in their area, may not apply exactly the same to all other beekeepers in the world.

To put it simply, i totally belive your experience Susan, but get that beekeeping is local. Even the famous Solomon Parker learned that one the hard way when he ignored advice, and did not adapt his methods to new locations.


----------



## msl

susanrudnicki said:


> This is my 4th year with foundationless, unlimited brood nest, treatment free, feral, partially Africanized bees


:kn:


----------



## Oldtimer

That's the problem with the net. The truth will find you out.


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## msl

it does
I had been looking for a post Sol made talking about the video at the lusby yard (a year + before posting the video). just bumped in to it looking in to susans posts 








BTW, Susan I am not trolling you, just trying to see why what your doing is working, love to here more


----------



## Saltybee

susanrudnicki said:


> Blah, blah, blah!!! what a lot of verbage. I keep 45 feral sourced TF hives in the wilds of Los Angeles for the past 10 years. They thrive, are a pleasure to work, need no coddling, no foundation, no treatments, no feeds. End of story


I believe you mean; nah nah

Still not moving to LA ,even for no effort success.


----------



## susanrudnicki

Sir Oldtimer--you have no idea what I "understand" ---I am remarking on the convoluted, overly massaged theorizing of "FreeBee" insisting that certain heavy management is "the" answer to "real" beekeeping. As you are stating your opinions, I am stating mine, based on the "less experienced" category you place me into---a rather superficial rating on your part.


----------



## Oldtimer

Oh I get you now Susan, you are correct, I totally misunderstood your meaning.

I will say though, the meaning you just explained, was not clear in your first post, it did look more like the old < i got TF bees so everybody else is talking hogwash > type comment.

Inexperienced is I guess, relative. You claim 10 years beekeeping so consider yourself experienced. I took your post to imply you are inexperienced, in one aspect. Which is, you appeared to be indicating that because something works for you, anyone else who can't replicate it is doing something wrong, and your blah blah type wording and abruptness appeared to reinforce what looked like a dismissive attitude.

I now know that is not what you were meaning.

To me, understanding locational effects on bees properly comes with the experience of working bees in different locations, and people without that experience so often don't get that, and can make that kind of post.

But anyhow, now I get what you meant and so hopefully do others.

And, you are better than me, cos you got TF bees, and I don't.


----------



## Oldtimer

Solomon said - "and Dee took us to the worst bees the first day, she said she couldn't get into the deep stuff with so many people so had to get rid of some"

LOL there was deep stuff?  Not sure how deep I would have wanted to go down that road ha ha!


----------



## msl

delete
2 OT posts while I was typing


----------



## Oldtimer

LOL ya gotta be fast


----------



## mischief

GregV said:


> The "complete TF" is likely just one of those unachievable goals and good sounding stories (while not even being fully defined still).
> 
> The true and complete TF is when you go to the forest, climb a bee tree, cut some combs while still leaving the bees with enough food, and get your annual harvest that way.
> Some people are actually doing it, but not many.
> 
> With that, "pesticide-free" management is really the only practically achievable goal there is (which is plenty good to produce clean foods and have healthy bees).
> 
> I would focus on "pesticide-free" as already hard enough, but still achievable, instead of "complete TF".


Unfortunately, 100% pesticide free is not an achievable goal when you live around farmland. The best that I can hope for is to aim for keeping bees without having to put chems/meds in the hive, but I do understand what you are saying too.

I just keep reminding myself that others have done it so it is possible to keep bees rather than fight pests.
That is the end goal I am aiming for.

I would love to have a wild self installed colony move into an appropriate wild non created home, but there isnt one handy for them.

I guess we have different ideas as to what TF is. 
I dont consider it to be treating bees to put them in a box that is convenient to me, use follower boards and frames, have inner covers with insulation over them, robber screens to keep out the wasps, mesh screens with sliding bottom boards to watch from below or an obs, window to see what is going on without having to open the hive or putting in plastic SC frames, but thats just me.

One day, those SC frames wont be there any more and yes, sometimes that does feel like it is a treatment.

Bee keeping, as oppose to just harvesting from the wild. The only thing I get to do along this line is fishing.


----------



## AHudd

susanrudnicki said:


> Blah, blah, blah!!! what a lot of verbage. I keep 45 feral sourced TF hives in the wilds of Los Angeles for the past 10 years. They thrive, are a pleasure to work, need no coddling, no foundation, no treatments, no feeds. End of story


https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...-Are-they-really-that-bad&p=967654#post967654

Post 199 at this link.

More like 7 years, according to this account.

To be fair, I put my restart date in my signature so I wouldn't forget.

Alex


----------



## GregB

mischief said:


> Unfortunately, 100% pesticide free is not an achievable goal when you live around farmland....


Well, of course chem-free is meant to the extent that you can control the situation.
I hope I can do this in my own locale pretty well.

Did you see what they have done to MB's bees chem-free?
That's right - they sprayed them to death.
Clearly, MB can not control everything and anything.
But MB is 100% pesticide-free beekeeper per his methodology, just as I am 100% pesticide-free gardener per my methodology.



mischief said:


> One day, those SC frames wont be there any more and yes, sometimes that does feel like it is a treatment.


Standardized, industrial SC is a non-chemical treatment.
Absolutely it is (just as pulling the weeds by hand is a non-chemical weed control method).
SC is trying to alter the bees in a certain way and with a certain effect.
This is why I don't do SC (well, saving $$$ too).



mischief said:


> Bee keeping, as oppose to just harvesting from the wild. The only thing I get to do along this line is fishing.


No, no.
You do not understand.
Primitive beekeepers own those bee trees, they protect and maintain them, and even create them artificially.
*It IS beekeeping*, just done in the most primitive way.
Keeping the bees in the bee logs on the ground in concentrated bee yards is the first step up from the honest bee tree beekeeping.
This is how the artificial bee treatments started - the bee yards (meaning any treatments - bad or good or whatever, but unnatural bee treatments).

OK, here is a google search for you - "пчелы борть" - paste into Google and look at the pictures.
Primitive beekeeping is on a rebound, so you know.


----------



## Cloverdale

odfrank said:


> The impossibility of maintaining Housel positioning in an functioning bee business was the first clue to me that Dee Lusby was a farce. Then I followed her ramblings on her yahoo group and finally saw the first videos of her apiaries by Deknow. These definitely proved that it must have been her late husband who was the beekeeper. Later came the video posted today filmed by Solomon, more proof that all of them know nothing. As I already had 35 years experience when these people misguided me, luckily I quickly recognized that they were just fakes selling conferences to innocent beginner beginners and had little truth to offer to the beekeeping community. My biggest disappointment with Michael Bush was his years long support of Dee Lusby. You only have to watch those videos to know it is not a viable bee business.


I agree with most of what you have said, but I think Lusbys bees are africanized. No more on that please. And I truly cannot believe the arguments on TF vs treatment. Location location location! And how will we manage our bees when the trop. mite gets here? Has anyone viewed the latest video from Dr Sam Ramsey? Kim Flottum did one interview but I just saw another one on utube. If I can post the link I will.


----------



## Cloverdale

Even though most have heard this talk this is still a good one slightly different. https://youtu.be/DK2Xi0ST4rA

Then there is the article published in Bee World, Vol. 95 June 2018, written by Irish beekeeper John McMullan titled “Adaption in Honey Bees (apis mellifera) Colonies Exhibiting Tolerance to Varroa Destructor in Ireland”.


----------



## msl

Well put Greg!

guys there is no reason to run "what is a treatment" in to the ground
The forum has a deffention to guide the conversation, agree with it or not it helps simpulfie things for the sake of dissustion.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Michael, have you registered your hives with Fieldwatch? The Beecheck site maps hives so that sprayers are aware that beehives are present in the area. NE participates and hundreds of locations are already mapped.

On the advice of a lawyer I have now registered with Beecheck. I have not in the past. I had not had issues with pesticides for many years and I've always been concerned that someone might use my address to load my hives up in the middle of the night and haul them to California... I'm going to post the Beecheck signs and flags. I don't know that it will help, but I'm thinking I have to do something.


----------



## Fusion_power

> PS. I found Quantum Mechanics to be a doddle compared with Molecular Orbital Bonding Theory. An electron in two places at exactly the same time ... as if.


 Well, it was a tad difficult for Einstein too, but spooky action at a distance (quantum entanglement) seems to have been worse.


I tried small cell. There are advantages and disadvantages. Varroa population does not seem to be affected by cell size. Currently using 5.1mm foundation from Dadant and consider it very beneficial for the bees I keep. The primary advantage is associated with the number of cells a cluster of a given size can cover in the spring buildup. It is a small but very easily measured advantage. I give credit to Dee for making it such a flaming issue that eventually the manufacturers started making foundation in smaller sizes.

I have 41 years experience with narrow frames since I subscribed to Gleanings in 1977 and the first issue I received had an article by Charles Koover about using 31 mm frames. I can tell you all the ins and outs and good and bad about narrow frame beekeeping. It is indeed a very useful modification of the hive but it brings management issues when drone cells are built into the edges of frames. I use narrow frames today and am thoroughly pleased with them. If I had 1000 hives, I would want all of them on narrow frames.

I tried Housel positioning and found no effect on the bees. After a year of use in the hive, you can't tell where the Y is in the cell. Bees build comb using advanced trigonometry to make hexadecatetrahedrons. I don't tell them how to use the frames, they don't tell me how their black magic juju for making honey works.

Genetics is another story. I can clearly show that my bees have better sense of smell than bees I had 49 years ago. I can speculate that they smell varroa attacking pupae and respond by dragging the pupae with attached varroa out of the cells. This seems to disrupt the varroa a tad so they do not reproduce very well in my hives. I don't have to fully understand what is going on other than to know that my bees are alive and thriving and making honey.

Since this is a good time to read some old threads, here are a few worth the time.
https://books.google.com/books?id=4-8sAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?201321
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?201713
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?249192
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?293488
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?316006
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320011
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320759
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?321069
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?321209
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?325985
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?327308
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?327565
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?306234
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?330089


----------



## Oldtimer

Michael Bush said:


> and I've always been concerned that someone might use my address to load my hives up in the middle of the night and haul them to California...


 Michael if that is a concern, some of these ( trail cameras ) can give a degree of peace of mind. This is one set at one of my vulnerable sites, I use them since bee rustling has sadly become a business in my country. 

Have not caught me a thief yet, but there have been some other interesting sights. Including one time an amorous couple going hard at it.


----------



## jim lyon

Hexadecatetrahedrons? Dar done learned me somethin thar.


----------



## Oldtimer




----------



## Gino45

susanrudnicki said:


> Blah, blah, blah!!! what a lot of verbage. I keep 45 feral sourced TF hives in the wilds of Los Angeles for the past 10 years. They thrive, are a pleasure to work, need no coddling, no foundation, no treatments, no feeds. End of story


Pleasure to work with? Meaning, what do you wear while attending them?

How much honey do they typically make........just wondering, as when I had ferals they didn't make much inspite of my favorable location.

A lot depends on density of bee population...............like in a school or workplace where there are many people close together, when one gets ill, the illness often gets passed on to others.

Over here we have great bees in every way except....................we really have to worry about late summer mite bombs. Seemingly healthy hives can get overwhelmed quickly when the horde of mites gets transferred to them.

And I don't even want to talk about the @#!$#$%[email protected] hive beetles!

OH yeah, our once common ferals all soon died out upon the mites arrival, and now, 10 years later, in my area anyway, there are still no healthy swarms to be had.


----------



## Clayton Huestis

Bringing this conversation back around to the original idea, Lusby’s TF methods. Thinking what is wrong with their method? 1. Use local/ feral stock from ones area. 2. Feed natural feeds. Personally I don’t see topping off with syrup to ensure survival of ones bees. 3. Cell size- for them that was 4.9/ but one should match ones area and the bees you have. What is really wrong with there original method? Yes I know things like housel positioning make me shake my head. But is the original methods really advocating bad beekeeping that won’t start one down the trail to TF?


----------



## squarepeg

1 & 2 are fairly consistent denominators for the handful of folks reporting success here on the forum.


----------



## beemandan

Seems like there was an old song about this.
You millennials won’t get it….so don’t worry.

I saved my pennies and I saved my dimes
Giddyup giddyup 4.9
Before I knew there would be a time.
Giddyup giddyup 4.9
When I would buy some brand new 4.9

Any of you other true old geezers remember this?


----------



## JWPalmer

Crap. At 58 I'm an old geezer? And here I thought they were talking about a certain cleaning product.


----------



## beemandan

JWPalmer said:


> Crap. At 58 I'm an old geezer? And here I thought they were talking about a certain cleaning product.


And here I am at 68 and I figured they were talking about a Chevy engine. Goes to show what a difference 10 years makes.


----------



## JWPalmer

You know I was kidding, right? I cut my teeth on the little big blocks, both Chevy and Ford. Never was a Mopar guy.


----------



## Hobo

I thought it was a 409, as in 409 CID (cubic inch displacement). Maybe it really was a 4.9 L engine.


----------



## msl

> What is really wrong with there original method


less an issue the the method and more with the appulaction
The problem is people blindly following it like gospel, while clear edvince of it not working (small cell) is in fount of them as they fail year after year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPn-uUmbZwY
He s *teaching* beekeeping classes, and has an online classes, uggginch:


----------



## GregB

Clayton Huestis said:


> Bringing this conversation back around to the original idea, Lusby’s TF methods. Thinking what is wrong with their method? 1. Use local/ feral stock from ones area. 2. Feed natural feeds. Personally I don’t see topping off with syrup to ensure survival of ones bees. 3. Cell size- for them that was 4.9/ but one should match ones area and the bees you have. What is really wrong with there original method? Yes I know things like housel positioning make me shake my head. But is the original methods really advocating bad beekeeping that won’t start one down the trail to TF?


Well, I have no sugar problem feeding a late swarm or a little nuc IF I hope they have a promising future.
The next season they will have to do for themselves OR die if I was wrong.
That is regarding #2.

#3 is just a standardization methodology which is .... donno what it is. 
Marketing of foundation size for a small African bee?
Russian bees never knew of 4.9 foundation and it did not matter for their resistance development.

#1 is the real key.
That is about it. 

Heck, #2 and #3 do not matter if you just manage AHB stock (the #1 that is) and call it done.
Here you go - my favorite demo project and a proof:
http://musingsonbeekeeping.blogspot.com/2015/07/musings-about-beekeeping-with.html


----------



## GregB

Where is Les Crowder now days?
I tried googling and nothing new came up.

If anything, I'd be interested to find what is he up to.
That is where I see a real potential - simple, natural comb in TB and AHB zone mutts. No fuss.


----------



## msl

new much younger wife from Jamaica, followed by green card issues, move to CA, move to TX


----------



## beemandan

JWPalmer said:


> You know I was kidding, right? I cut my teeth on the little big blocks, both Chevy and Ford. Never was a Mopar guy.


Yeah. I figured as much. 
I was small and big block....with no brand loyalty.


----------



## Lauri

I have not read this thread completely yet, but wanted to respond to this: 



AHudd said:


> Let's put some downriggers on this troll; Someone (not me) call Lauri and tell her she has been doing it wrong all these years. She puts foundation in *sideways.*
> 
> Alex


Actually, that is not correct. Not sure why you think I do that? 

I do cut foundation in half and insert half a sheet in the center of frames, but it is the correct direction.

























Below is an example of a newly mated spring queen, not interested in rearing drones so the rite cell foundation in the center is laid up with brood, large cell foundationless areas on each side filled with nectar.









When started making mini frames years ago for mating nucs, I did accidentally install some foundation in sideways. I found they avoid using it for rearing brood if they possibly can. It took me a bit to finally realize what I had done and why they were avoiding the frames. You'll find in wild comb building, there is a fair amount of oddly angles cells. They are usually very large cells and I rarely see brood in any of them. I there is, it is usually drone brood.


And while appreciating the theories-experiments which do sometimes shed light on better or unique management, (I certainly have been known for reinventing the wheel at times) I try to stick with the realities of the nature of bees, climate/ weather extremes and other occasional challenges one faces from year to year. 
I had the unique opportunity to do a LOT of experimenting over the years, as I had few losses, too many hives and had the freedom to 'fail'. I rarely did however and learned a tremendous amount about bees behavior and management is a very short period of time.

But when it comes to cell direction, I'll say, the more uniform frames you give them to work with, the more uniform the end result. Lots of young healthy bees trumps a lot of the small issues that humans tend to fuss over.


----------



## AHudd

We were talking about Housel positioning. I was trying to be humorous. It just never seems to come across. I seem to never learn. I apologize if I offended you.

Alex


----------



## Litsinger

Fusion_power: I would love to glean from your experience with narrow-frame. I tried to PM you but it said your inbox is full- any chance you would be willing to share your insights and lessons learned?

"I have 41 years experience with narrow frames since I subscribed to Gleanings in 1977 and the first issue I received had an article by Charles Koover about using 31 mm frames. I can tell you all the ins and outs and good and bad about narrow frame beekeeping. It is indeed a very useful modification of the hive but it brings management issues when drone cells are built into the edges of frames. I use narrow frames today and am thoroughly pleased with them. If I had 1000 hives, I would want all of them on narrow frames."


----------



## GregB

Litsinger said:


> Fusion_power: I would love to glean from your experience with narrow-frame.....


Me too, actually.
But all you need to do - search BS.

FP already published lots of ideas and observations, and put lots of time and effort into it.
I would not want to have him repeat himself over and over until I myself give it an honest read first.
The is a good assortment of links he just posted above (including the PDF of the original Dadant book) to be processed as-is.


----------



## Oldtimer

AHudd said:


> We were talking about Housel positioning. I was trying to be humorous. It just never seems to come across. I seem to never learn. I apologize if I offended you.
> 
> Alex


Maybe Laurie didn't, but I used to put it in sideways, slightly humerous story here.


Years ago when I was a commercial beekeeper and the people I worked for also sold queens and packages, I was the guy who looked after the breeder colonies, the grafting, and cell raising. The method was cut up foundation and hang a smallish piece in the centre of the queen compartment. The next day this would be drawn and loaded with eggs so was switched out to a queenless section of the hive to hold until ready to graft from, and replaced with a new one, this was done every day, 7 days a week, ensuring that downstream there was a constant daily stream of newly emerged eggs of exactly the right age for grafting, or in some cases, cut cell.


So one day a group of earnest faced hobbyists came out for a tour, and I demonstrated how we got the eggs. One of them noticed the way the foundation was cut and that it went into the breeder colony sideways, he asked "Hey, what about the Housel position?" At that time, I had never heard of the Housel position or even considered it and had to admit i had no idea what he was talking about, yikes, I could see his opinion of me deflate! :s

Anyhow, the queens raised from these combs were fine, and if by chance a comb was left and the brood developed, it seemed normal also.


----------



## msl

ROFL:lpf:
I always wondered why there were 2 strips, never caught on they were shallows sideways


----------



## Oldtimer

LOL, you have amazing search powers MSL :applause:


----------



## msl

read it years ago, and the 2 strips allways struck me funny, enuff that when you mentioned it the light went on lol
I used to raize queens with cut strips wrapped to top bars with fishing line


----------



## jadebees

There are lots of beekeepers that Were treatment free. But after applying may of the things in your novella that you posted, they do not wish to speak of the wholesale failure of much of that. 

What works in one area is useless in another. I catch feral bees in an area with no commercial farming, or beekeeping. They have varroa, often. They live on due to making many smaller swarms. An africanised/ apis ceareana bee trait. It isnt due to people interfering. 

To make a larger managed hive, I must kill the mites.


----------



## Slow Drone

I have a friend who is a commercial beekeeper in Southern Africa. He states the reason African honey bees can exist with varroa mites is when the mite population gets to high they swarm and his swarm 6 to 8 times a year.


----------



## GregB

Slow Drone said:


> I have a friend who is a commercial beekeeper in Southern Africa. He states the reason African honey bees can exist with varroa mites is when the mite population gets to high they swarm and his swarm 6 to 8 times a year.


Commercial beek and his bees swarm 6-8 times a year.... Hmm.

Does not add up.


----------



## Fusion_power

Litsinger, this is already in the list. https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?249192


----------



## Slow Drone

GregV said:


> Commercial beek and his bees swarm 6-8 times a year.... Hmm.
> 
> Does not add up.


Read up on African honey bees it's the nature of the beast. Some commercial operators keep Capes some keep African and some keep both the latter struggle.


----------



## GregB

Slow Drone said:


> Read up on African honey bees it's the nature of the beast. Some commercial operators keep Capes some keep African and some keep both the latter struggle.


The swarming nature of the African bee is no news.
I am sure they keep both Scuts and Capes in South Africa (not much other choices anyway).

I just don's see how one can be a commercial AND have 6-8 swarms annually too (per a hive, as it appears per the context).


----------



## Slow Drone

I can only imagine myself GregV. Use of excluders helps is my understanding to be one of several methods. He says hive manipulations are tricky and can cause them to vacate. He would give anything to import European honey bee queens but the imports are banned. He had someone that smuggled some Italian queens into his area and said introduction was impossible not one queen survived. The gentlemen is a swarm capture expert to say the least and have learned a lot from him in regards to swarm capture.


----------



## GregB

Slow Drone said:


> I can only imagine myself GregV. ...


OK, I suppose I can see a way forward with multi-swarms, actually.
It is pretty common in Russia to create so-called "dumped swarms" for pure honey production.

If have too many swarms on hand at once and unsure what to do, you can create a "dumped swarm".
This is especially handy case when you have several small swarms (say the Africans) and you have a main flow coming up or ongoing.

* you prepare a large hive configuration to hold lots of bee and lots of incoming honey
* dump into it 2-3-4 (however many) swarms - use whatever the combining method works
* provide enough storage for them to bring maximum amounts of honey quickly 
* you disregard the brood/queen issues - just letting them handle that

Basically, such "dumped swarms" are pure honey enterprise until the swarm laborers die off (in about a month) with disregard for their long-term management.


----------



## Tim Ives

Clayton Huestis said:


> I suggest you research Tim Ives. He is TF and not small cell.


Definitely not Small Cell. 5.4 RiteCell. 
And still Treatment free and still haven't fed a colony since 2006. Just more hives and severely bottlenecked for bigger buildings.


----------



## squarepeg

howdy tim. how was your 2018?


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> howdy tim. how was your 2018?


Good, except growing pain. Which is the problem with growing too Quickly. Need a building with hot room big enough for 2000 supers.


----------



## squarepeg

good to hear tim, way to go. could be worse.

can you give us a ballpark figure on how many other beekeepers in your area, (regardless of hive count), are using your methods and having similar results?


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> good to hear tim, way to go. could be worse.
> 
> can you give us a ballpark figure on how many other beekeepers in your area, (regardless of hive count), are using your methods and having similar results?


Last known couple dozen. I've pretty much recluse and just mind my own Bees wax for various reasons. 
Speaking of beeswax, definitely need a more efficient way to process capping too. Setting on 8 drums worth to render yet.


----------



## squarepeg

understood tim, thanks for the reply.

when your triple deeps close out this time of year, is the bottom deep more or less empty?


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> understood tim, thanks for the reply.
> 
> when your triple deeps close out this time of year, is the bottom deep more or less empty?


Other then more pollen frames vs a double deep system, Yes. Watching bees with IR Thermal Cam, late February bees work down to 'brood up'.

A double deep system, you've competed the bottom box for either brood or pollen, thus less of each going into winter. And the need for the common practice of reversing brood boxes and pollen patties. Frames of honey not too much difference. Perhaps whatever is in the second deep outside couple frames.

Thermal Cam is a great tool come late Winter. Easy to assay a colony without opening.


----------



## squarepeg

thanks again tim.

that's pretty much what i am seeing running a single deep with 3 - 4 medium supers, so about the same hive volume as your 3 deeps.

do you think swarm pressure is lessened when there is room to 'brood back down' into the empty deep at the bottom?

that's what it's looking like to me.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> A double deep system, you've competed the bottom box for either brood or pollen, thus less of each going into winter. And the need for the common practice of reversing brood boxes and pollen patties. Frames of honey not too much difference. Perhaps whatever is in the second deep outside couple frames.


Very good assessment. Food for thought .


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> thanks again tim.
> 
> do you think swarm pressure is lessened when there is room to 'brood back down' into the empty deep at the bottom?


Yes and No. Couple variables here. 1) the triple will brood up at least one brood cycle earlier vs a double. 2) Queen has more available cells as resources get consumed. 

Pre 07' when using mostly doubles, average swarm start date was May 25. Once I switched to mostly all Triples, average swarm start date April 27th. So, with 4/27 start date I've started supering before April 11th. Despite weather and this is where the Thermal Cam helps the most . Doing so dramatically reduced swarming and Honey Production went up keeping bees out of the tree's. Haven't changed this approach since obseversing the averages. 

I have started using more Nuc boxes and mini mating nucs to raise more bees vs splitting half the colonies as done pre 2015.


----------



## Oldtimer

Thought that now Tim Ives, a TF beekeeper who is walking the talk, has shown up, that FreeBee, who has been wanting to know where TF guys like this are, would have shown up to congratulate him.


----------



## squarepeg

to my knowledge, tim is the only commercial tf operator reporting here on the forum.

interesting about the thermal cam tim. what does it show you that clues you in about a colony entering swarm preps?


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> to my knowledge, tim is the only commercial tf operator reporting here on the forum.
> 
> interesting about the thermal cam tim. what does it show you that clues you in about a colony entering swarm preps?


Commenting, only because Clayton tagged me into thread. Otherwise irrelevant to me, not sure how this post obtained 9 pages from a poster with no name and very few post previous.

Anyways, using the Thermal cam late Winter, shows which colonies dropped down to brood up. Again just working with average colony activity. Hives setup the same have a fairly close average. Anything below or above average, why?
And investigate further. Below average, usually older Queen.


----------



## squarepeg

Tim Ives said:


> Anything below or above average, why? And investigate further.


very cool. i can see how a thermal cam would quickly pay for itself by dealing with laggards before it's too late.

when noticeably above average, does these tend to swarm and do you preemptively split them?

one advantage of being down south is i usually get to inspect around late february and see how the first round or two of brood is looking.


----------



## gww

Square
I just watched this today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6C1tuBetY
Tim goes over quite a bit of what is being discussed. I had to move it to roku to watch on tv cause sound of it on my lap top was so bad and the video could have better sound.
I still enjoyed it.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Tim Ives

Average will swarm if not preemptively dealt with. Timing and the way I super up, dramatically reduced swarming probability. Only reason I split half before was lack of drawn supers to contain.

Above average, I try to figure out why. To raise the bar across the board. If no obvious reason, then I'll use Colony as Mother Drone. Because they'll have the earliest and most Drones. Genetically raise the bar.


----------



## squarepeg

thanks for the link gww, i'll give it a watch later.

tim, appreciate you taking the time to discuss your methods here.

ot, we'll have to give tim credit for being the most successful tf beekeeper we know.


----------



## Oldtimer

Hmm let's say harvest reports have varied somewhat.

Claimed average crop can be pretty good if it's based on the top 10% of hives.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> If no obvious reason, then I'll use Colony as Mother Drone. Because they'll have the earliest and most Drones. Genetically raise the bar.


Does this mean you reckon the hotter the better?


Do you sell queens? Have you any reports from a commercial beekeeper of your stock?

In this thread I have been asking such feedback:
https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?350279-Feedback-from-a-commercial-producer


----------



## Tim Ives

Juhani, I dont have many hot hives. Since 99% of my money is made from Honey, best to just keep increasing not feasible to sell Queens.

OT. All depends on drawn supers. Couple years ago I bought out a operation that ran 500 colonies. Mostly for extractions equipment, Bobcat/ Truck and enough good supers to bring ct up to around 2000.


----------



## Saltybee

I think language is getting in the way.

"Hot " here is the thermal scan to judge size , not temperament.


----------



## Tim Ives

Saltybee said:


> I think language is getting in the way.
> 
> "Hot " here is the thermal scan to judge size , not temperament.


Ah... Yes 

The larger the heat signature, equal more brood.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> Ah... Yes
> 
> The larger the heat signature, equal more brood.


I have actually been selecting hives which do not melt down snow and ice on top of roofs. That is a sign of good overwintering ability.

Hives having large brood areas in February are doomed in our climate.


----------



## Cloverdale

beemandan said:


> And here I am at 68 and I figured they were talking about a Chevy engine. Goes to show what a difference 10 years makes.


Beach Boys


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> OT. All depends on drawn supers. Couple years ago I bought out a operation that ran 500 colonies. Mostly for extractions equipment, Bobcat/ Truck and enough good supers to bring ct up to around 2000.


Oh that is of interest Tim. Was it a treated operation, and if so, how did you transform it to a TF operation? Were the hives moved? Were they requeened?


----------



## Tim Ives

Juhani Lunden said:


> I have actually been selecting hives which do not melt down snow and ice on top of roofs. That is a sign of good overwintering ability.
> 
> Hives having large brood areas in February are doomed in our climate.


They be doomed here too, if tops wasn't insulated.


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> Oh that is of interest Tim. Was it a treated operation, and if so, how did you transform it to a TF operation? Were the hives moved? Were they requeened?


Yes, I Re-Queened everything and put onto new foundation.


----------



## squarepeg

2000 supers of honey translates to some serious tonnage tim. do the packers offer you any extra for being chemical and feed free? 

can you give us a ballpark estimate on what percentage of your colonies don't make it through to spring after you have wrapped them all up?


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> 2000 supers of honey translates to some serious tonnage tim. do the packers offer you any extra for being chemical and feed free?
> 
> can you give us a ballpark estimate on what percentage of your colonies don't make it through to spring after you have wrapped them all up?


The Amish do.... But the packer 4 miles away not much more and I also manage his colonies as of this year. 

I dont concentrate on losses. Since 2007 Spring to spring count have always been up from previous year. I concentrate on how to keep increasing and expanding not losses.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> Since 99% of my money is made from Honey, best to just keep increasing not feasible to sell Queens.


So there is nobody who can confirm that your bees really are resisting varroa better than average?


----------



## jim lyon

squarepeg said:


> do the packers offer you any extra for being chemical and feed free?


I’ve approached all the major packers from this angle as any treatments we use are off season with no extracting boxes on the bees and as a result all our honey has tested free of miticides. What I’ve discovered is you become a more valued supplier and you get approached more by these customers because of your history of supplying a quality product to them but you will get very little if any price premium from them. There is much more testing by packers in recent years as their customers become increasingly aware of the potential liabilities of selling honey tainted even with very low levels of residue. If a test reveals an off label substance it may well be rejected by the more reputable packers but unfortunately will eventually find a home somewhere.


----------



## odfrank

Juhani Lunden said:


> Tim Ives said:
> 
> 
> 
> Since 99% of my money is made from Honey, best to just keep increasing not feasible to sell Queens.
> 
> 
> 
> So there is nobody who can confirm that your bees really are resisting varroa better than average?
Click to expand...

Juhani.... 

*edit*


----------



## squarepeg

odfrank said:


> Juhani....
> 
> *edit*


try again if you wish, but leave the politics out of it please.


----------



## squarepeg

great discussion here, and somehow remaining civil for the most part. many thanks to all contributing.

tim, i apologize if some of my questions are getting into your 'beeswax' too much. 

i liked your opening comment on the video linked above about how you weren't there to tell everyone how to keep their bees but rather to share with them how you keep your bees.

we don't get it as much these days, but when i first started posting here it wasn't uncommon to see comments eschewing treatment free as being impossible because the all the bees will die, or if they don't all die they will be weakened so bad that you can't get a honey crop, or maybe you'll get a little honey crop but you can't make a profit.... ect.

these negative comments did not line up with what i and others in my area where experiencing, but at the same i didn't see anyone espousing a treatment free approach rebutting those comments with actual results.

that's mostly why i decided to chronicle my experience in this thread:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?306377-squarepeg-2015-2018-treatment-free-experience

which contains a results summary of my last 4 years in this post:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...eatment-free-experience&p=1681721#post1681721

i am just a weekend warrior, a much smaller timer than you tim, and probably the only one on the forum foolish enough to be this transparent,

but obviously your bees aren't dying, you are reporting a crop that is well above your state average, and you appear to be maintaining a profitable beekeeping operation off treatments.

the figure most often thrown around for average winter losses in the u.s. is about 30%. i was just curious as to whether your losses average above, below, or somewhere in that neighborhood.


----------



## Oldtimer

squarepeg said:


> i am just a weekend warrior, a much smaller timer than you tim, and probably the only one on the forum foolish enough to be this transparent.


LOL, some words of wisdom there 

However it is because of this transparency, that you are about the only one I listen to. 

Oh, there's a few others, like Juhani.


Also, back in the days you refer to, the reason much of what TF people said was taken with a grain of salt by everyone else, was the lack of transparency. It really did feel like one could never get a straight up, honest answer, to anything. Just lectures about theory. Really gave the impression there was no substance.

Plus that every so often news would seep out that some guru or other had lost most of his hives, but this would be covered up, and fudged. Proper transparency would have been much more conducive to people recieving the message.


----------



## Tim Ives

Juhani Lunden said:


> So there is nobody who can confirm that your bees really are resisting varroa better than average?


5 years of USDA Honey Bee pest surveys shows 80% of tested Apiaries had high counts.


----------



## Saltybee

The tone has changed on both sides. Lot less treaters are evil too.
Is it simply a change in tone, or is there a change in results.

Yes MB, same results for you.


----------



## Tim Ives

Last 4 years, I wasn't able to freely comment without going thru approval to comment. You wouldn't of obtained this much response if that was still the case. Perhaps many others are the same?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> 5 years of USDA Honey Bee pest surveys shows 80% of tested Apiaries had high counts.


Meaning...? 

Maybe it is language thing but did not open yo me.




Oldtimer said:


> It really did feel like one could never get a straight up, honest answer, to anything.


----------



## Tim Ives

Juhani Lunden said:


> Meaning...?
> 
> Maybe it is language thing but did not open yo me.


Does this increase my Honey sales? If not irrelevant to me.


----------



## squarepeg

Juhani Lunden said:


> Meaning...?


i believe this means that some of tim's apiaries have been selected for monitoring over the past 5 years by our government's agricultural department, and that they find high infestation in 80% of his yards.

does that sound right tim?


----------



## Riverderwent

I try to keep twelve, but end up with around fifteen hives. I overwinter and keep relatively small hive configurations except during flow season. I produce around two/thirds of the honey per hive that others produce. I sell a large number of bees from swarms, cutouts, and a few splits. My losses run around twenty percent overall, but I don’t track them particularly well. I do _very_ little inspection; I don’t requeen or check for queen loss. I harvest honey and add and remove “honey excluders” once a year. Sometimes I sit and watch the bees in one of our bee yards. I don’t feed, treat, or check for mites.


----------



## Saltybee

If it ain't broke...


----------



## GregB

This idea came to mind..

I observe on BS many sustaining TF beeks are hailing from Alabama/Louisiana region.
In fact, it feels as if the majority of identifiable TF folks are located in that vicinity.

Now, does this have any connection to the Russian bee project based just about in that area (originally off Louisiana)?
I wonder if some of those Russian genetics escaped and contributed positively into the local population (well, surely they have escaped as if there is another way; them bees do escape no matter what).
Anyone has comments/sources about this?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> Does this increase my Honey sales? If not irrelevant to me.


I have always had the idea that this forum is for learning and teaching from our experiences. A common thing.


----------



## fieldsofnaturalhoney

Juhani Lunden said:


> So there is nobody who can confirm that your bees really are resisting varroa better than average?


Why is it that TF beeks always have to prove something to someone:scratch:


----------



## Saltybee

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> Why is it that TF beeks always have to prove something to someone:scratch:


Sometimes it is proving, sometimes it is just trying to find the "Why is it different for you".

either way just take it as you are special, less stress that way. (even if that was not how it was meant)


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> i believe this means that some of tim's apiaries have been selected for monitoring over the past 5 years by our government's agricultural department, and that they find high infestation in 80% of his yards.
> 
> does that sound right tim?


No........... 80% of all Apiaries tested in USA tested higher!!! And according to chemical analysis assay, looks like mostly treated operations.


----------



## Tim Ives

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> Why is it that TF beeks always have to prove something to someone:scratch:


Randy Oliver has copy of my reports. Consistently Lucky is best response.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> Why is it that TF beeks always have to prove something to someone:scratch:



I find it almost unbelievable that there actually is nobody confirming any better resistance in an operation that large. Must be someone.

I find it our responsibility. If we are posting good results of TF beekeeping to the whole world (20000 BeeSource members + readers), we have to have something to back up our words. Especially if the message has been "I have 500 hives, soon 2000, all TF, piece of cake, i don´t answer to your questions if it does not improve my honey sales" -type off.


----------



## gww

Juhane


> I find it our responsibility. If we are posting good results of TF beekeeping to the whole world (20000 BeeSource members + readers), we have to have something to back up our words. Especially if the message has been "I have 500 hives, soon 2000, all TF, piece of cake, i don´t answer to your questions if it does not improve my honey sales" -type off.​


I don't totally agree with your position of responsibility and what you say the forum is for. If you were trying to solve a puzzle that the guy you are talking to is not trying to solve, He has no responsibility to think or work on that puzzle. If he does not, you can come to the conclusion that you come to with what is given.

We can not control what peoples participation is, we can only come to the conclusions we come to based on what they do give.

I remember talking on a thread about business of bee keeping and how you count and everyone was talking about per hive counting and how much honey each made. I can't remember if it was michael palmer or jim lyon or both who commented that they did not count like that. They counted by how much honey they made and sold compared to what they spent doing it. The point being that the guy doing the answering decides what he is looking at.

Nothing wrong with asking for more but I could not answer your type of questions on mite counts cause they are not important enough for me to take counts to be able to give that answer. It is not on my radar. 

So if I told you I was treatment free. I would know it is true and know if I was happy with some of the success I was having. If I answered every question or only answered a few, this would not change. I feel a responsibility when participating here to get what people are willing to give and to give what I feel like giving and then letting the chips fall where they may. I still find others participation helpful to me getting what they do give, even if I can't make them respond to every thing I could want to know. I then judge to the best of my ability with what I have to work with on how much merit to give comments.

I have watched comments from people that I know are doing well that many times just give overviews of the parts they think are important but not do the work it would take to give every detail in infinite detail to the point they would be keeping the other guys bees for him. I am thankful for the helpful parts that are given which is based on what the guy giving feels like giving.

If micheal palmer says I treat one time a year with talkic and I ask how, what is your farmula and how do you mix it and apply it and when. If he sticks with his origional answer and does not feel like typing the answer as deep as I want, it is still a good answer that gives something.

This forum is a two way street with all giving what they are willing and all hopefully getting something out of our discussions of bee keeping.
I see your point and always want more but figure that may come with the building of internet relationships more long term then right now.
Cheers
gww

Ps I really like tims answer "consistently lucky is the best answer"


----------



## Juhani Lunden

gww said:


> I then judge to the best of my ability with what I have to work with on how much merit to give comments.


I agree.

consistently lucky= against odds= not likely


----------



## Saltybee

gww,
Great explanation.

Beesource is more chat room than scientific forum. At a scientific forum nothing would be true until challenged, peer reviewed, supported and replicated. 
Wish I could replicate TF, the rest of it wouldn't if I could.


----------



## gww

Juhani


> consistently lucky= against odds= not likely


Speaking for just my self and not for other participates. The liking of a saying like "consistently lucky is best answer" if it came from me would be saying, I don't know why it is working and will not run experiments to find out what is different. In my case, I have no other experience except the one I have and it is different then many who post on this site and I do not know why it is different. So, I don't know what is causing my luck but feel lucky when reading others experiences.

I always loved Mel Deiselkoens (the mad splitters) thing he always used to say. You don't know what you don't know.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

Juhani. My view is that people who won't give a straight answer are either lazy, don't care, or have something to hide. Most often the latter. That is why I'll pay 100% attention to Squarepeg, you ask him something, he will tell you. And happy to go into considerable detail.


----------



## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> That is why I'll pay 100% attention to Squarepeg, you ask him something, he will tell you. And happy to go into considerable detail.


Add to that squarepeg has gone to lengths to involve the scientific community to help explain his success. By every measure I have, he is a rare, credible tf beekeeper.


----------



## gww

I love squarepeg and how he handles himself. Just based on internet searches and no direct knowledge, Tim Ives has not hid what he is doing and randy oliver looked and written about tim and he has did grant studies with (my opinion) not real clear results coming from it but with some oversite. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses that they bring to the table. If you watch his video, his communication style is pretty direct with very few extra words threw in. I think being too quick to look for fault rather then gentle back and forth communication sometimes shuts down actually getting to the most that might be learned from something. Nothing wrong with using our brains to search past face value. Sometimes giving a little extra time lets things fold out in a more true picture.

No snap judgement either way here for me. I am interested in finding out more.
Cheers 
gww


----------



## Saltybee

Many years ago we were working on a bid for a class of Destroyer. We were at the stage of proving the cost numbers to the Navy. I spent a couple of days breaking down the shafting components and reassembling them into the proper quantities and fluffing out the explanation. Showed it to an oldtimer for his feedback; He looked at if briefly, peered over his glasses and simply said "I don't know what you did but if you came between 3500 and 4 k hours you did alright.

Point is I and others with experience could look at a stack of drawings, even incomplete drawings, and tell you the manhours within 5 % within an hour. 10, 30 or 70K hours did not matter. Justify it, prove it, demonstrate it, no way. Experience is not a transferable, provable thing. No, doing TF, but not being able to prove it or explain it is not just luck.

Not to say claiming it cannot be just BS.

There was a Loftsman who could lay out a tenth scale of a flat plate and know how it would fit after it was bent and shaped the first time. He could not tell you how he did it nor pass it on. Computers and others had to tweek the fit based on how it turned out.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Saltybee said:


> Beesource is more chat room than scientific forum.


I admit, I´m not good at chatting, I have to learn to do it better. 



Lets try:
I have 1100 hives and get 100 kg /hive each year, and my winter losses are 0%. 

You don´t believe? That is your problem.


----------



## Oldtimer




----------



## Tim Ives

Juhani Lunden said:


> I admit, I´m not good at chatting, I have to learn to do it better.
> 
> 
> 
> Lets try:
> I have 1100 hives and get 100 kg /hive each year, and my winter losses are 0%.
> 
> You don´t believe? That is your problem.


Sounds like you need to find a better area or extract quicker. But, not my problem.


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> Juhani. My view is that people who won't give a straight answer are either lazy, don't care, or have something to hide. Most often the latter. That is why I'll pay 100% attention to Squarepeg, you ask him something, he will tell you. And happy to go into considerable detail.


Don't Care!!!


----------



## johno

I am also consistently lucky and the harder I work the luckier I get and oh yeah the last time govt tested my apiaries I told them if they are looking for mites they had better bring their own.
Johno


----------



## msl

I am just glad Tim took the time to engage this thread 


> either lazy, don't care, or have something to hide


while I am always the skeptic as well 
My money is on "don't care"... he is not making his money on TF book sales, queens, speaking tours, trying to be guru... 
He is selling honey, so has no reason to permote his stock or methods.I see a lot of parrels with Chris Baldwin 

Edit lol he posted while I was typeing

JL looking into the "why" his video gives some numbers that might point to a reason.
he talks about the massive amount of brood per cycle and how he feels it keeps him ahead of the mites
taking his numbers at face value
18 frames of brood advrage
7,000 cells per frame
divide by a 21 day cycle
You get an egg laying rate of 6,000 a day, that suggests more then one queen per hive.. I have often wondered if that's what is happing with some of the big hive types.. It would be the same efect as a split. 
3 deeps + a stack of supers in an unlimited brood nest is a heck of a lot of space... and in stock like lusbys that has shown parthenogenesis I rely do wonder if that a component of the sucess


----------



## Saltybee

Juhani Lunden said:


> I have to learn to do it better.


You do what you do well, keep it up.


----------



## gww

Juhani


> Lets try:
> I have 1100 hives and get 100 kg /hive each year, and my winter losses are 0%.
> 
> You don´t believe? That is your problem.​


This is one good thing about being a pure hobby guy and not commercial. If I like what some one is saying and it seems like it may make sense. I just try it and see if it works for me. Then I know that it worked for me or it was bull as far as I was concerned and concerning me regardless of the claim of how it worked else where. 

With bee keeping, my loss has been one so far and I hope it is not all of them this year. I know the past but not the future.

I have noticed that numbers that everyone want are hard to quantify. Two years ago Michael palmer said he made 30,000 lbs of honey and year before last 20,000 lbs. based on his operation. 

A different commercial guy said he had 600 hives and he sent them to almonds and lost two hundred hives brought them back and split the four hundred and sold two hundred nucs and then sent them to blue berries (or something) and lost a couple of hundred and then split again back to get to 600 to winter for next year. How does he quantify his loss when explaining this except to say, I have 600 hives that I made a profit on.

Yes, some of the answers can be easier then that but I don't find issue with someone saying they are treatment free and have had more hives the next year then they had the year before. I only have ten hives and if you ask me I can probably break down what happened to each hive. If I had ten yards, I would probably look at it as a whole operation and say I had a hundred hives last year and a hundred and twenty this year. So if I am saying I am treatment free and I end up with more hives each year, then my business model is working with treatment free.

Not to pick on michael palmer but when he did apples, he had losses and so came up with the nucs as a bushiness plan to make his operation sustainable. I have no doubt that micheal knows the little details of his operation but also when communicating about it does so on an operation wide bases many times.

In my mind it comes down to the mechanisms used to cover what is happening with the whole operation more then an arbitrary number that becomes harder to define depending on who you are trying to explain it to. You explain it from your position and they hear it from their position.

I do know what you are saying also know that bee keeping success comes down to the guy with the bees being happy. By the way, I have read your links and thank you for them.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

msl said:


> I am just glad Tim took the time to engage this thread...


same here. 

i'm thinking science will eventually show the honey only diet to be an important factor in disease resistance.

to get the kind of yields tim does means there must be pretty much a good flow going on all season long up there.


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> same here.
> 
> i'm thinking science will eventually show the honey only diet to be an important factor in disease resistance.
> 
> to get the kind of yields tim does means there must be pretty much a good flow going on all season long up there.


No..... all per July flows are from Trees which only last 7-10 days. Pure Population and adequate number of Supers to capitalize.

As far as the pure Honey diet. Yes, and patiently waiting for 'Science' to catch up. I haven't fed a colony since 2006, which also includes Nucs and mini mating nucs.


----------



## gww

Honey diet? I am screwed then cause I have gave a couple of gal per hive of sugar water each oct out of pure fear even though my goal is to eventually not. maybe next year I will have the guts to just let her roll.

In my defense, I was given several hundred pounds of sugar for free. When that ends, feeding ends.
My fingers are crossed anyway.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

interesting tim.

the best i see here with a strong hive during our 'main' (mostly tulip poplar with a lot of wildflowers) flow is about one medium super filled and capped in about one week.

do yours put up faster than that?


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> interesting tim.
> 
> the best i see here with a strong hive during our 'main' (mostly tulip poplar with a lot of wildflowers) flow is about one medium super filled and capped in about one week.
> 
> do yours put up faster than that?


https://youtu.be/3LbarIMqrVQ

Not sure what your definition of a strong colony is. 

Gotta love the power of the Social Media...


----------



## squarepeg

pretty cool video. not sure what's blooming down in dothan in early june. our flow is starting to wind down by then up here in the northern part of the state.

the hive reminds me of some photos walt wright shared with me and here on the forum.

call me a wimp, but i don't have it in me these days to work heavy supers that high up.

a strong colony for me is about half that size, i.e. a single deep with 5 - 6 medium supers.

if i did my math right that hive is putting up about 2 supers per week.

how many hives like that can you generally place in a given location?  hard to tell, but in the video that hive appeared to be the only one there.


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> pretty cool video. not sure what's blooming down in dothan in early june. our flow is starting to wind down by then up here in the northern part of the state.
> 
> the hive reminds me of some photos walt wright shared with me and here on the forum.
> 
> call me a wimp, but i don't have it in me these days to work heavy supers that high up.
> 
> a strong colony for me is about half that size, i.e. a single deep with 5 - 6 medium supers.
> 
> if i did my math right that hive is putting up about 2 supers per week.
> 
> how many hives like that can you generally place in a given location? hard to tell, but in the video that hive appeared to be the only one there.


Oh, its definitely pure adrenaline when popping the top and seeing the top box full. I'll happily pull those all day long. 

Bruce was a fairly new beekeeper, I think he only had a few hives. But, to walk him thru to that point and obtain 5-6X State Average and drew out at least 4 brand new 10 frame supers. Hmm..... Yep consistently lucky.

20 per yard works best for me.


----------



## Tim Ives

gww said:


> Juhani
> 
> 
> Speaking for just my self and not for other participates. The liking of a saying like "consistently lucky is best answer" if it came from me would be saying, I don't know why it is working and will not run experiments to find out what is different. In my case, I have no other experience except the one I have and it is different then many who post on this site and I do not know why it is different. So, I don't know what is causing my luck but feel lucky when reading others experiences.
> 
> I always loved Mel Deiselkoens (the mad splitters) thing he always used to say. You don't know what you don't know.
> Cheers
> gww


That's hilarious, two paragraphs that go with footnote [8].


http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-18f7-colony-collapse-revisited-pesticide-exposure/


----------



## msl

> But, to walk him thru to that point .


as others have noted, were listening


----------



## gww

Tim Ives


> That's hilarious, two paragraphs that go with footnote [8]


That's cause I am a funny guy.
Cheers
gww


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## Tim Ives

msl said:


> as others have noted, were listening


Meh!


----------



## msl

not suprized... but a guy has to try:banana:
Those who can do, those who can't teach (or become internet gurus), the problem is then people end up following failures, those who who can are too busy doing. Its is the rare few like randy O an Mike P who choose to advance the art 

What I don't get is the teasing... paraphrasing "Hey look I helped this guy, look at his video, but MEK for the rest of ya"
any way, keep doing , not you job to teach your competition


----------



## Tim Ives

msl said:


> not suprized... but a guy has to try:banana:
> Those who can do, those who can't teach (or become internet gurus), the problem is then people end up following failures, those who who can are too busy doing


Valid try at least.

To humor myself. I'm perfectly content to know I can take a random person to teach. But, I like making bees more then making beekeepers.


----------



## msl

wiping mead off the screen , total spit take, when you get board we will bee here


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> I see a lot of parrels with Chris Baldwin



Has anyone close contacts with Chris Baldwin? How is he doing?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

johno said:


> the last time govt tested my apiaries I told them if they are looking for mites they had better bring their own.


Can you share the mite numers they came up?


----------



## Oldtimer

Juhani, Johno has a secret weapon, he treats with OAV. https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?349751-Johno-s-Easy-Vap-Vaporizer


----------



## jim lyon

Z


msl said:


> taking his numbers at face value
> 18 frames of brood advrage
> 7,000 cells per frame
> divide by a 21 day cycle
> You get an egg laying rate of 6,000 a day, that suggests more then one queen per hive.. I have often wondered if that's what is happing with some of the big hive types.. It would be the same efect as a split.


If your definition of a frame of brood is “stick to stick” on a standard deep, my experience (over about 50 years) says anything over about 12 frames just isn’t possible with a single queen hive. Certainly I have seen brood on more frames than this but if you measure it out it will usually figure out to around 12 frames. I would agree, however, that to reach that threshold the queen needs lots of empty space in front of her and occasionally a double hive on a good flow dosent always afford this space. 
BTW, I have long ago stopped talking about losses and have quit the endless surveys requesting numbers. Just too many variables and different definitions out there to make much sense of any survey results in my mind. I always have plenty of bees to work with, it’s just a question of how much do I want to split and will the resulting hive be large enough to give me a honey crop this year.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

jim lyon said:


> If your definition of a frame of brood is “stick to stick” on a standard deep, my experience (over about 50 years) says anything over about 12 frames just isn’t possible with a single queen hive. Certainly I have seen brood on more frames than this but if you measure it out it will usually figure out to around 12 frames.


I agree. 

I have had Italian, Carniolan, Caucasica, Buckfast, Black, Primorski, Sahariensis ...etc 
and numerous free mated offspring of them all.
(42 year beekeeping experience)


----------



## Tim Ives

Jim, Agreed. And I probably clarified 60-70% layed out on the 18 frames but people like to cherry pick words.


----------



## Tim Ives

Furthermore, when you start using the I have X amount years experience BS. YOU ARE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM TO BEEKEEPING.....


----------



## GregB

Tim Ives said:


> ..... *when you start using the I have X amount years experience BS*........


+1000

After about 5 years of experience in my actual line of business, the experience does not matter anymore.
Pretty much in any line, after X years the actual experience does not matter.
What really matters - ability and desire to actually learn anything and keep growing.
Ability and desire to learn, obviously, vary a lot.

PS: to be consistent, I removed the "experience BS" out of my signature.


----------



## gww

If you kept bees and survived and especially if you made a living off bees for 40 years, I would respect almost all of what you have to say as having merit. Must be doing something right. Something that works, works. This does not mean other things would not work also but no denying the parts that do work either.
I always listen, though me being the one that does my work, I still decide the parts I do. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## Tim Ives

42 years of experience and not intelligent enough to know that if bees are melting snow on top you are creating a moisture problem inside. 

Also says Treatment free since 2008, but the dialogue is worse then any hard core treated. Pffff....


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> 42 years of experience and not intelligent enough to know that if bees are melting snow on top you are creating a moisture problem inside. Real Mensa candidate there.
> 
> Also says Treatment free since 2008, but the dialogue is worse then any hard core treated. Pffff....


*edit*


----------



## beemandan

Why do I think that civility in this thread has begun to unravel?


----------



## squarepeg

yes, let's be careful about personal attacks please.


----------



## dudelt

beemandan said:


> A hundred years ago someone decided to make bees larger. Before that nobody had ever had a problem with varroa.
> Thirty years ago 100 percent of Michael Bush’s conventional bees succumbed to varroa. Once converted to small cell he’s never lost another hive to varroa.
> These are the indisputable facts! Why is this all so difficult to comprehend?


I am sorry I am coming to this conversation so late. But, the garbage posted above is total BS and I keep seeing this crap repeated over and over. Saying cell size is the cause of the varroa issue is just about as ludicrous as saying the native populations is America only died from smallpox because we changed the size of their houses. Both issues happened because the populations were exposed to something they have never been exposed to before and have no defenses against. Cell size was not the cause. Wild bees did not use foundation or have enlarged cell sizes but they were mostly wiped out too. Varroa was originally limited to Asia where its spread was confined by mountains, deserts and oceans. Once humans started moving bees around the world, they brought varroa with them. Genetics may slow down the losses of bees to varrroa but maybe not. When tracheal mites were brought to Great Britain the black bees Brother Adam loved so much that were native to the islands didn't stand a chance. Perhaps smaller cell size would have saved them too? Since Michael Bush was mentioned above, I will bring him into my comments as well. Yes, Michael Bush has had great success in being treatment free. Is the reason for his success his bees or is there something unique about his location that makes it possible for him? When his bees are sold to other beekeepers around the country, do they have the same success in other locations as Michaels has? Apparently not. If he had truly varroa resistant bees that were resistant everywhere, they would easily sell for $1,000 per nuc and he would include a guarantee that they would never die from varroa. Everyone on this forum, including me, would gladly pay that price and be lining up to buy them. To all the treatment free beekeepers on this forum, I applaud your efforts in finding a natural way to combat the varroa issue. I pray that one of you comes up with truly varroa resistant honeybee that will thrive everywhere in our world.


----------



## beemandan

dudelt said:


> I am sorry I am coming to this conversation so late. But, the garbage posted above is total BS and I keep seeing this crap repeated over and over.


Hahahahaha!!!!


----------



## msl

Tim I am not cherry picking, just using your statement to startling ball rolling. One bee keeper many look at a 45% frame and call it a frame, another may call it a 1/2 frame..
Even at 60/70% X 18f thats a massive amount of brood, far in excess of what a normal queen will do. Witch seems to be the whole point of your system.
I was thinking about running few 2 queen set ups this year, but your large hive method has caught my eye


----------



## Tim Ives

squarepeg said:


> yes, let's be careful about personal attacks please.


It's all good with me, nothing I haven't heard over and over and over again. Lol


----------



## Tim Ives

msl said:


> Tim I am not cherry picking, just using your statement to startling ball rolling. One bee keeper many look at a 45% frame and call it a frame, another may call it a 1/2 frame..
> Even at 60/70% X 18f thats a massive amount of brood, far in excess of what a normal queen will do. Witch seems to be the whole point of your system.
> I was thinking about running few 2 queen set ups this year, but your large hive method has caught my eye


I've pulled just the Queen out of enough colonies and went back in 4 days later to find plethora of emergency cells. Would that be the case if colony had 2 Queens? I've yet to find two Queens laying in the same brood area. 

At some point I'll setup some 2 Queen systems for further humor.


----------



## squarepeg

dudelt said:


> I pray that one of you comes up with truly varroa resistant honeybee that will thrive everywhere in our world.


this is what motivates me to solicit as much information as possible from as many as possible who are having success off treatments. resistant genetics are probably an important piece of the puzzle, but i believe we'll discover that other factors may be at play as well.

we have a fair number of folks from various locations who have listed themselves in the 'tf member listing' thread. to those of you who are so inclined please consider starting threads and sharing your experiences with us. 

i'm hoping to devote more time collaborating with the scientists at my state's leading agricultural university insofar as trying to identify what mechanism(s) are at play in my area, but that's not likely to happen until at least 2020.


----------



## msl

> I've pulled just the Queen


right... Witch leaves the system, or the stock
As your showing people have replicated your results thousands of miles away, it lends one to to think it may be the system, hence the interest.



> Would that be the case if colony had 2 Queens


In a hive that big, maby, maby not. 

1988 Michael Palmer found 7% of his hives had 2 queens, by 2004 it was 30%, he feels it was a trait he was selecting for 


Michael Palmer said:


> I've actually kept track twice over the years, wondering how often this happens. In 1988 (aproximately...all the years are running together) I requeened 100 colonies. Direct introduction. Kill old queen, introduce new queen in introduction type cage. Leave new queen corked in cage for 3 days. Return to hive, and pull cage. From actions of bees on outside of introduction cage, you can tell if queen has or has not been accepted. Where queen has been accepted, the bees will be feeding her, walking lightly on the cage, and not show agression toward her. If the queen has not been accepted, the bees on the outside of the introduction cage will be gripping on tightly to the screen, and humped over as it to sting the queen. These colonies will almost always have multiple queens. Of the 100 colonies I requeened that year, on that round, 7 had multiple queens. Now that's when I used to requeen everything, regularly.
> 
> Fast forward to 2004. I requeened 50 colonies with some stock I bought in Quebec...as possible breeding stock. These were queens bred for low mite fall, and I wanted to see how they would do. Between 1988 and 2004, my beekeeping management changed considerably. I gave up requeening by the calendar, and learned to look upon successful supercedure as a good thing, and not as a failure of some kind. Of those 50 colonies, I found 17 with multiple queens. That's 30%. Not sure, but my gut tells me that I have been selecting for colonies that supercede successfully.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Juhani Lunden said:


> *edit*


I just want to remind readers that the one starting personal attacks was not me, I was named * because my hives, in his opinion, were having melting snow pouring on top of bees. 

My hives have green house plastic on top and 5 cm polyurethan sheet on top of that, and 18 mm plywood walls. No water dropping on bees. This person calling me * just did not know this.


----------



## squarepeg

Juhani Lunden said:


> Has anyone close contacts with Chris Baldwin? How is he doing?


good question. not much comes up on google search.

tim mcfarline is another with a fairly decent sized tf operation. he posts here from time to time:

https://www.mcfarlineapiaries.com

if anyone knows tim personally see if you can encourage him to share his experiences here.


----------



## Oldtimer

The TF forum just stepped back into 5 years ago.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> if anyone knows tim personally see if you can encourage him to share his experiences here.


There might be some Mensa candidates who know him.


----------



## squarepeg

erik osterlund posted this about baldwin on his blog a couple of years back:

http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=984


----------



## msl

OT I disagree.... this time its experienced, large scale, long time successful TF operators dukeing it out :lpf:
past was mostly a bunch of parrots, dissbelivers, and wannabees

Makes an interesting statement on the type of personalty attracted to TF, or is it beekeepers in general?.

either way, it feels like the skill/experience/ bee knowledge level of posters is much higher then the past days when I used to snoop here


----------



## Oldtimer

Could be true. 

As to duking it out, not so sure, more just abuse coming from one side, not dignified with a response as yet.

For some years I have been asking questions of Tim Ives, seeking to learn and try his methods. Sure I began beekeeping 47 years ago, but a big thing is to stay open minded and be prepared to learn from anyone. And try new things. It was real hard, because he would flip me off and never give a useful answer. I did try his method best I could though, and that was documented here on Beesource. 

In this thread I was a bit shocked he answered some of my questions, sensibly. If so briefly the answer still wasn't the help I had hoped.

I always thought it must be cos I must have offended him in some way, and he holds on to that. Now I discover it is because he doesn't care. All makes sense now, shame. 

I'll probably give up on wasting my time attempting to learn anything from the guy. He is here to pump his ego, if or when he feels like it, otherwise doesn't care, and is not here to make new beekeepers, so, must be to blow his trumpet. To hard to seperate reality from exaggeration. And, I just don't have the attention span to sit through a near 2 hour youtube lecture.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> erik osterlund posted this about baldwin on his blog a couple of years back:
> 
> http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=984


Back in 2011, Kirk Webster named Chris Baldwin when I asked if there are any other bigger commercial TF beekeepers he knows.


----------



## msl

> I did try his method best I could though, and that was documented here on Beesource.


love a link to that OT.


----------



## Tim Ives

Juhani Lunden said:


> I just want to remind readers that the one starting personal attacks was not me, I was named * because my hives, in his opinion, were having melting snow pouring on top of bees.
> 
> My hives have green house plastic on top and 5 cm polyurethan sheet on top of that, and 18 mm plywood walls. No water dropping on bees. This person calling me * just did not know this.


Wow... you really dont get it do you.... and yes I have seen a video few years back (green double 12 frame boxes) of your so called colonies of bees (Dinks) which I wouldn't of wasted the time on. Pffff...


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> The TF forum just stepped back into 5 years ago.


Is this where you posted the results of trying to follow how I setup a hive and stated omg there's too many bees and you dont want to work that hard? Ya....good luck dude


----------



## Saltybee

OT
Don't say it often (well never have) but I think you may be a bit harsh here.

Personally I do not think backflips are possible. I would not feel frustrated if a detailed or a brief explanation fell far short of explaining how it was done. Were I capable of a backflip, I would not feel like I could transfer that skill over the internet. Would that make me just an ass?

I doubt his finer details are transportable at anyrate, simply find the gross concepts interesting.

Ok, more information arrived while posting.


----------



## GregB

I begin to wonder if this thread is to be locked by the moderator.

Clearly, commercial honey producer needs BIG hives.
Meanwhile bee producer needs MORE hives.
Meanwhile a hobbyist needs FUN hives.
Some people even need DEAD hives.
These are all valid needs.
So why argue?

I say "lock her up" and done with.


----------



## Tim Ives

GregV said:


> I begin to wonder if this thread is to be locked by the moderator.
> 
> Clearly, commercial honey producer needs BIG hives.
> Meanwhile bee producer needs MORE hives.
> Meanwhile a hobbyist needs FUN hives.
> Some people even need DEAD hives.
> These are all valid needs.
> So why argue?
> 
> I say "lock her up" and done with.


Agreed...


----------



## Michael Palmer

Tim Ives said:


> . I've yet to find two Queens laying in the same brood area.


Then you’re not looking


----------



## clong

Michael Palmer said:


> Then you’re not looking


How do you go about finding two laying queens in a hive? Any tips? If you put in a frame of eggs from another hive, will they both come to investigate?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Tim Ives said:


> 42 years of experience and not intelligent enough to know that if bees are melting snow on top you are creating a moisture problem inside. Real Mensa candidate there.
> 
> Also says Treatment free since 2008, but the dialogue is worse then any hard core treated. Pffff....





Tim Ives said:


> Wow... you really dont get it do you.... and yes I have seen a video few years back (green double 12 frame boxes) of your so called colonies of bees (Dinks) which I wouldn't of wasted the time on. Pffff...



My hives have full length entrance both ways, front and back, 44,8 cm x 2= 89,6 cm (35,8 inches for RMc) , no moisture build up


----------



## Michael Palmer

squarepeg said:


> good question. not much comes up on google search.
> 
> tim mcfarline is another with a fairly decent sized tf operation. he posts here from time to time:
> 
> https://www.mcfarlineapiaries.com
> 
> if anyone knows tim personally see if you can encourage him to share his experiences here.


I try not to post on the TF forum. I don’t really agree with an awful lot of what’s said here. Rather than disagree, I fon’t bother.


I know Tim. Good beekeeper. I respect him in his attempt to follow the Webster Gospel. But, I just can’t agree. I just can’t justify his, or their allowing 50-75% of their stock to die every year in the belief that it will all get better some day. After all these years...what?? The same high losses. Year after year. Pie in the sky, by and by.

When any of you can send me an handpicked example of your TF survivor stock queens, and my work with her and her offspring show any promise...then we’ll talk.

Sorry. In a mood. Tired of the arguing on this thread and others. Tired of the divisiveness between TF and T.


----------



## mybodyisatemple76

msl said:


> I did try his method best I could though, and that was documented here on Beesource.
> 
> 
> 
> love a link to that OT.
Click to expand...

 https://www.beesource.com/forums/#/topics/281640?page=35 here is the thread msl been looking thru tims post to learn more about his style of beekeeping


----------



## msl

clong said:


> How do you go about finding two laying queens in a hive? Any tips? If you put in a frame of eggs from another hive, will they both come to investigate?


https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...-to-find-elusive-queen(s)&p=103860#post103860

thanks for the link mybodyisatemple76' but it dosent seem to work for me 

one instering find.... the Sare grant Tim references in the video 
https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc14-957/
talk about a train wreck in terms of experimental dezine and follow threw. Sounds like the guy managing the project(not tim) messed it up good.. talk about takeing the tax players for a ride, its a wonder it was approved


why would some one want to shut this down? you don't like it, don't post/read it....
we have some giants in the beekeeping world giveing there contribution 
ya theres snow on most of our hives and we are penned up and feisty, but little bit of curisty would go a long way


----------



## jim lyon

clong said:


> How do you go about finding two laying queens in a hive? Any tips? If you put in a frame of eggs from another hive, will they both come to investigate?


A see it at least once or twice a year but it’s never because I’m looking for another it’s just that who keeps looking after you’ve found the first one. Usually it’s an older one (no doubt with a weaker pheromone) and a younger one. It’s kind of a myth that queens always fight till one is killed or driven away.


----------



## clyderoad

msl said:


> one instering find.... the Sare grant Tim references in the video
> https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc14-957/
> talk about a train wreck in terms of experimental dezine and follow threw. Sounds like the guy managing the project(not tim) messed it up good.. talk about takeing the tax players for a ride, its a wonder it was approved


Interesting is one way to put it. Revealing is another.


----------



## Saltybee

msl said:


> https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...-to-find-elusive-queen(s)&p=103860#post103860
> 
> thanks for the link mybodyisatemple76' but it dosent seem to work for me


3rd try worked; relink https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...-to-find-elusive-queen(s)&p=103860#post103860


----------



## squarepeg

Michael Palmer said:


> I just can’t justify his, or their allowing 50-75% of their stock to die every year in the belief that it will all get better some day.


that's the first time i've seen those numbers put out here or anywhere michael. thanks for taking the time to reply.


----------



## beemandan

jim lyon said:


> Usually it’s an older one (no doubt with a weaker pheromone) and a younger one.


Those I've found were one was a laying fool...surely the daughter......and the other being neglected and not laying....likely the mother. I have never seen a hive with two actively laying queens but I don't doubt that such a thing exists.


----------



## Riskybizz

"Where is Les Crowder now days?
I tried googling and nothing new came up.

If anything, I'd be interested to find what is he up to"..

As I recall Les left Santa Fe a few years back shortly after he lost all of his TF TB hives that winter. Then a year or so after that there was a "Go Fund Me" thread for Les posted on this site asking for donations to the tune of $5,000 to help Les keep his teenage bride from Jamaica in the U.S. because Customs was going to send her back. I think it raised a few hundred dollars. Haven't heard his name mentioned around here in the beekeeping circles for awhile.


----------



## GregB

Riskybizz said:


> "Where is Les Crowder now days?
> I tried googling and nothing new came up.
> 
> If anything, I'd be interested to find what is he up to"..
> 
> As I recall Les left Santa Fe a few years back shortly after he lost all of his TF TB hives that winter. Then a year or so after that there was a "Go Fund Me" thread for Les posted on this site asking for donations to the tune of $5,000 to help Les keep his teenage bride from Jamaica in the U.S. because Customs was going to send her back. I think it raised a few hundred dollars. Haven't heard his name mentioned around here in the beekeeping circles for awhile.


According to this podcast, Les should have had bees at least in the fall of 2017 (just about one year ago).
I could not imagine him discussing the TF topics whilst not even having the bees anymore. 



> The Topbar Hive Guru, Les Crowder - Episode 59 - Treatment-Free Beekeeping Podcast
> *December 20th, 2017*


https://tfb.podbean.com/


----------



## squarepeg

so back to the op's premise:



FreeBee said:


> I rarely see anyone using methods by those individuals who are easy to find and have excellent documented success not treating in anyway to include artificially feeding your bees.


from time to time i have made the point that those having success keeping bees off treatments appear to be more the exception than the rule.

easy to find? show me.
excellent documented success? show me.

definition of success? for the sake of this discussion let's just say success means that average losses and average honey production are on par with what other folks in one's area are getting.

so assuming we can take the information being presented here from (often times nameless) contributors like myself at face value we basically have a handful or two on the forum managing bees off treatments and reporting 'success' by that definition.

one might argue that the environment here is too hostile and many would be 'successful' tf folks avoid sharing their experiences on this forum. to that end solomon parker started a whole new forum exclusively to provide a 'safe' place for tf beekeepers to share their experiences.

i didn't participate there, but i followed in the background. again the number of folks sharing information was quite small. it turned out the attempt failed and the site is now closed.

i am told there are 20,000 signed into the tf facebook page but i can't confirm that because i don't use facebook. perhaps that's where successful tf beekeepers can easily be found? if anyone is following there, do you see lots of 'success' stories?

michael bush reports being in communication with thousands of successful treatment free beekeepers. i've questioned him on that. if true why not set up a way for others to network with all these successful folks?

freebee, i see that you are still logging in from time to time. i think you raise a legitimate question asking where the tf beekeepers are and started what i see as a good 'meat and potatoes' thread, with a little 'garnish' popping up here and there of course. 

i've had to do some minimal moderating with respect to political statements and personal attacks, but for the most part the discussion had been focused more on approach and not too much on individuals. good to see the wide range of contributors putting their 2 cents in. many thanks.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

beemandan said:


> Those I've found were one was a laying fool...surely the daughter......and the other being neglected and not laying....likely the mother. I have never seen a hive with two actively laying queens but I don't doubt that such a thing exists.


I have used mainly buckfast stock for the last 30 years. From time to time I try something else. The last time I tried Finnish Italian bees (6 queens) ended in 2 laying queens in all of them (or 5/6, cant remember exactly). There definitely is genetic factor involved.


----------



## msl

In breeding super bees Tabor suggests its a trait the industry could and maby should consider selecting for. 
tims point rings in... the more brood per cycle, the less the mite to bee ratio is ... kinda like splits


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Juhani Lunden said:


> I find it almost unbelievable that there actually is nobody confirming any better resistance in an operation that large. Must be someone.



https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fnc14-957/

Here it is! Other beekeeper giving feedback from Tims hives/queens: 
"Lower Mite Counts: Inconclusive. *Tim’s mite counts were consistently low, under 4 mites per 100 bees average*, with the exception of one colony. *Steve’s counts were low but skyrocketed by October 2014 to nearly 20 mites per 100 bees average*. Unfortunately 2015 mite counts for Steve’s colonies were sparse due to losses and splitting. The inability to count and the forced brood breaks made it difficult to count. Without an ability to compare across the full twenty-two months it is inconclusive. "

Other beekeeper writing a clear difference in their bees mite counts.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> Is this where you posted the results of trying to follow how I setup a hive and stated omg there's too many bees and you dont want to work that hard? Ya....good luck dude


No. You have an overly active imagination Tim.


----------



## msl

yep, but my take home was that project was so messed up its inpossabul to draw any usable data out of it...
I was going to avoid delving in to it... but why not

there winter losses were so much that Steve had nothing to contribute, and Tim could only contribute 5 splits to this almost $15,000 project 


> The severe winter of 2013-2014 (multiple Polar Vortices) decimated Steve’s colonies and he was unable to make splits for the study. The partners discussed several options but there was insufficient time to carry out the original project. Tim also experienced a notable loss for 2013-2014 but he still had sufficient colonies to conduct the study. The idea of Steve purchasing splits from Tim was not an option and therefore Steve was forced to scramble for bees to continue the study. As noted in the annual report, the supplier Steve found for splits that would commit to meeting the required delivery date was not reputable. Tim continued with five splits and one package growing to two deep systems. Steve purchased five California packages and five nucleus colonies from his supplier intending to grow them to three deeps





> Steve Lesniak manages a young, but growing family beekeeping business with approximately fifty honey bee colonies





> Tim Ives manages a slightly older sole proprietor beekeeping business with approximately three hundred





> Steve has been treatment and sugar-feed free since 2004 and 2009 respectively. Tim has been treatment and sugar-feed free since 2008.





> *We* wrote the grant with intent of using 15 splits building half up to three deeps and half up to two deeps. We also planned to start five packages to see how growing to three deeps would work with packages.


what? between them they couldn't come up with 15 TF local splits come spring?



> Tim did not report honey harvest


 funny that, government documents and all. ....:lookout:
so for almost $15,000 to (what was sposed to be ) run 15 local splits and 5 packages with no control group, in what was the beekeepers normal management. WTF They didn't even get there. 
I need to write me a grant... lol 
like for real... 

hey JL, with Luca Consigli kicking in, how many queens based on your TF stock went out for sale in the last 2 years? what was it 20,000 or so ? 
I want some of your "dinks"


----------



## Oldtimer

Saltybee said:


> OT
> Don't say it often (well never have) but I think you may be a bit harsh here.


Agreed, you are right.

Guess I wrote it in the heat of the moment, having discovered and being rather miffed to say the least, that all the effort I have put in down the years to understand what Tim might be able to teach me, was blown off by him with cryptic answers that could not be understood, cos he doesn't care.

Now I have cooled down, and will get over it. He does seem to be making a much better effort in this thread, but the massive ego still shines through, along with the fudging of any thorny questions that could bruise that ego, such as losses, genuine crop data, etc.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> like for real...


:lpf:


----------



## Oldtimer

msl said:


> love a link to that OT.


 Me too! Sorry couldn't find it.

However here is a pic of one of the hives, taken earlyish spring. This is as big as it got cos I was unable to stop it swarming out. Credit where it is due, Tim did give me some good advice about swarming, which I already knew of course, but started to take him more seriously when I realised he had a good understanding.

And there's a bunch of smaller hives in the background, which also rings true with pics of Tims big hives, if the angle is ever wide enough.

Now Tim can jump in and say the hive is 1/2 the size of his, blah blah. I know that. What I can counter before he even does, is that when I discovered Tims *average* honey production all hives included not just the top 10%, let's just say my own average production compared very favorably.


----------



## Michael Palmer

clong said:


> How do you go about finding two laying queens in a hive? Any tips? If you put in a frame of eggs from another hive, will they both come to investigate?


Queen excluder shaker box


----------



## Michael Palmer

squarepeg said:


> that's the first time i've seen those numbers put out here or anywhere michael.


Of course. Webster et. al. don't publicize their losses. Only their dogma. Faith Based Beekeeping doesn't work.


----------



## Michael Palmer

beemandan said:


> Those I've found were one was a laying fool...surely the daughter......and the other being neglected and not laying....likely the mother. I have never seen a hive with two actively laying queens but I don't doubt that such a thing exists.


Once you start looking....I've seen three queens laying on the same comb. Old queen on one side, two daughters on the other.


----------



## clong

Michael Palmer said:


> Queen excluder shaker box


Thanks. msl linked a post of yours that explained it perfectly.


----------



## Tim Ives

msl said:


> yep, but my take home was that project was so messed up its inpossabul to draw any usable data out of it...
> I was going to avoid delving in to it... but why not
> 
> there winter losses were so much that Steve had nothing to contribute, and Tim could only contribute 5 splits to this almost $15,000 project
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> what? between them they couldn't come up with 15 TF local splits come spring?
> 
> funny that, government documents and all. ....:lookout:
> so for almost $15,000 to (what was sposed to be ) run 15 local splits and 5 packages with no control group, in what was the beekeepers normal management. WTF They didn't even get there.
> I need to write me a grant... lol
> like for real...
> 
> hey JL, with Luca Consigli kicking in, how many queens based on your TF stock went out for sale in the last 2 years? what was it 20,000 or so ?
> I want some of your "dinks"


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/peace-bees-second-chances#/

Dont forget to add this in there.


----------



## Tim Ives

msl said:


> love a link to that OT.


There's is none. Just A post of him crying too many bees to deal with....


----------



## clyderoad

Many 'great spirits' make their own troubles, partly due to their inability to backup any of their transparent claims .
Beekeeping is ripe with them, maybe always has been. 
Most of the great self proclaimed beekeeping spirits of today
do not pass the test of time, a horizon of merely a couple of decades.
The mediocre minds have no trouble identifying them.


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> No. You have an overly active imagination Tim.


*Re: 3 deep hives pros and cons

As you can see from the pic, I was running 2 brood boxes then honey supers. But after reading*Tim*Ives*I set some up his way in fall to see how it would compare. This is what happened in spring regardless of the 5 deeps and no excluder. There was brood from the bottom to the top.

In the end the*Tim*Ives*hives were just too big and unweildy for my climate and flow pattern, I cut my losses and broke them down into nucs.

"Thinking Inside The Box"

*


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

It's that time of the year!


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> There's is none. Just A post of him crying too many bees to deal with....


Crying? 

There's that overly active imagination again Tim.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> *Re: 3 deep hives pros and cons
> 
> As you can see from the pic, I was running 2 brood boxes then honey supers. But after reading*Tim*Ives*I set some up his way in fall to see how it would compare. This is what happened in spring regardless of the 5 deeps and no excluder. There was brood from the bottom to the top.
> 
> In the end the*Tim*Ives*hives were just too big and unweildy for my climate and flow pattern, I cut my losses and broke them down into nuc


 LOL, the truth comes out. A bit different to your fabricated "how I setup a hive and stated omg there's too many bees and you dont want to work that hard?" 

Didn't want to work that hard? didn't see that in the real quote at all, and i never use the omg expression either. It's another product of your over active imagination Tim. May as well call it what it is, a lie, same old. As to what i really said, it's just a fact. In my climate and flow pattern a hive I allowed to grow this big, this time of year, gives more problems than advantages. There is no flow for them that time of year, unlike where you are. They are just a whole lot of mouths to feed, a cost, to no advantage.

Being an open minded fellow, I set some hives up to be how you set them up to try it out, nothing hard about it. Just, unsuitable in my locale.That's all.

You have found a method that works in your area, and best I can tell between all the hubris, you do it well. But if you try beekeeping in a different area with totally different flow patterns, or lack of them, you would learn that beekeeeping is local. In my area, my method works better than yours. 

Another piece of wisdom for you, the meaning of *average* crops. The best financial outcome for a beekeeper is achieved not by having a few hives that are star performers. And then imagining that the crop taken from the biggest star performer, is the average. It isn't. The bank balance is healthier with a higher average crop per hive. All the hives.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> Last 4 years, I wasn't able to freely comment without going thru approval to comment.


Ya, there was a reason for that. You got kicked off cos of your over active imagination, lies, and constant misrepresentation of the facts. Example? Your claim that your bees hold the world record for honey production. Your claim that your incredibly productive queens also live for 5 years, average. That sort of thing.

Barry did not take those decisions lightly, but when people blew off just too much crap, he would eventually act.

Now you back and wanting to attack everyone all over again, don't look like you learned a thing.


----------



## Tim Ives

Oldtimer said:


> Ya, there was a reason for that. You got kicked off cos of your over active imagination, lies, and constant misrepresentation of the facts. Example? Your claim that your bees hold the world record for honey production. Your claim that your incredibly productive queens also live for 5 years, average. That sort of thing.
> 
> Barry did not take those decisions lightly, but when people blew off just too much crap, he would eventually act.
> 
> Now you back and wanting to attack everyone all over again, don't look like you learned a thing.



Difference between kick off and commenting freely. 

Get your facts straight.


----------



## Fusion_power

> Even at 60/70% X 18f thats a massive amount of brood, far in excess of what a normal queen will do. Witch seems to be the whole point of your system.


 I've posted several times about having a strong colony with 18 frames of brood and estimated total about 85,000 cells. I don't question the ability of a queen to lay this many eggs. I do question having more than @30% of colonies that strong. IME, 1/3 of colonies are very strong, 1/3 are strong enough to make some honey, and 1/3 in one way or another are not productive. This is with excellent beekeeping meaning someone who knows what they are doing.



> I've yet to find two Queens laying in the same brood area.


 As MP said, all you have to do is look. I've found 2 queens several times. They rarely overwinter with 2 queens, but during the spring flow and into summer can often be found.

With regards to the challenges and huffiness in this thread, I'd appreciate more civility. We are all beekeepers. We get to make our own decisions about how and where and what we do with our bees.

My personal experience is that larger hives are highly desirable. That is why I converted to square Dadant hives.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tim Ives said:


> Difference between kick off and commenting freely.
> 
> Get your facts straight.


They are quite straight. After Barry (who was a TF beekeeper himself), fact checked some of your claims, you were kicked off commenting freely and had to run everything past a moderator first, due to your content.

Doesn't seem like much of your content made the cut, through that period.


----------



## mischief

Big fat sigh......
and here i was trying to learn what TF beeks are doing so in the hopes that i may be able to replicate their actions


----------



## jim lyon

mischief said:


> Big fat sigh......
> and here i was trying to learn what TF beeks are doing so in the hopes that i may be able to replicate their actions


Keeping in mind that (as Oldtimer states), all beekeeping is local, if you want specificity about tf beekeeping and not murky generalities there is plenty of good info in this forum from Squarepeg, Fusion power and a number of others on here. If you are looking for info about commercial tf beekeeping, again you’ll find very little specificity, just second hand reports.


----------



## GregB

mischief said:


> Big fat sigh......
> and here i was trying to learn what TF beeks are doing so in the hopes that i may be able to replicate their actions


No need for any wild opinion swings.
First - one need to decide their own place and end goals and the methods in the beekeeping ecosystem.
Then - you go and work towards that end.
What is your place and the end goal?

My end goal - having ecologically clean bee products for the family (at a very low cost and sustainably so).


----------



## mischief

GregV said:


> No need for any wild opinion swings.
> First - one need to decide their own place and end goals and the methods in the beekeeping ecosystem.
> Then - you go and work towards that end.
> What is your place and the end goal?
> 
> My end goal - having ecologically clean bee products for the family (at a very low cost and sustainably so).


Actually, thats a very good point. 
Not too sure what you mean by my place though.

My end goal is to have a hive or three that are in sync with their environment, that do not need to be treated in order to Just stay alive and give me enough honey to meet my own needs- included in this is some to make mead.

I keep getting told that beekeeping is local, however, I also keep getting told that going the treatment free route is not possible in this country. If there are any out there who are doing this here, they are keeping a low profile and I understand why.
So, it is not possible for me to learn from anyone here as to what they do and why.

Yes, every location is different in different countries, but they are also different within my own country, even an hours drive in any direction has a slightly different micro climate to mine.
Not too much I can do about the genetics side of things at the moment other than allow them to produce drones and replace the Queen as they see fit.

All good things take time, meanwhile, I learn as much as I can from what others are doing, you never know, even one more thing may make the difference.

And its not just for me, somebody else may realise that perhaps it is possible in their area, based on what they read here.


----------



## squarepeg

mischief, one way you might surmise it may be possible in your location is if you can find feral or wild-type colonies (i.e. unmanaged) surviving the winter. these are typically found in tree hollows or in the walls of abandoned buildings.


----------



## mischief

Unfortunately, it appears that we do not have any feral population here, escapees- yes, ferals- no.
I have noticed that trees that could become homes for escapees wind up being cut down for firewood. Years ago, our dept of conservation did an eradication program to remove bees from national parks so that resource is also gone and there are no abandoned buildings for them to make use of.

I did have a wild idea of creating a space for a colony to move into with the thought of leaving it to its own devices, but to do so is illegal and may well have serious repercussions if I had gone ahead with it, both for me and my bees.


----------



## squarepeg

understood. but are there any escapees found to be living after making it through a winter with no management?

are you saying there is a concerted effort there to dispatch any bees found living on their own like that?


----------



## mischief

I have not heard of any escapees that survive, but then, I'm a bit hermitty.
Oops, yes there was one up in Auckland. It was living in a conifer tree....in amoungst the branches in the middle of the tree.

When the family realised that it was there they had it removed. this was on the evening news.
The Queen was called an Italian Queen, but in the pic, she looked black. The official who removed them said that they were just the latest to move into the tree and that they were going to a good home, ie lang hive.

To my untrained eye, it looked like they had been there for some time, but I dont know for sure.

The understanding here is that any colony not in a proper box is a danger to other hives and needs to either be removed to a proper box or destroyed.


----------



## GregB

mischief said:


> Actually, thats a very good point.
> Not too sure what you mean by my place though.
> 
> ... *do not need to be treated in order to Just stay alive* and *give me enough honey to meet my own needs*- included in this is some to make mead.....


OK, you have some good goals.
Not all of these are achievable easily though if at all.
*" have a hive or three"* will not work being chemical-free AND not having resistant bees.

I believe your place should be in the "expansion beekeeping model" if you want to be sustainable at all.
That is your possible place in the ecosystem that should set you up to get to your goals.
You should be consistently running for *10-15 units* as your annual goal. 

That is your actual place as I could see it - not 1-3 hives (which is btw possible for a classic backyard T beekeeper who actually is good at treating).
You are not a commercial honey producer (so mostly ignore what they are doing).
You are not a commercial bee producer (can mostly ignore what they are doing).
You are not a commercial bee-related content producer and preacher (be mindful of their own goals).
See what I mean?

You could try what I am trying - try the *extensive approach* where you keep lots of smaller units and get your crop in small chunks (and the sum of that crop is sufficient for you). This is vs. *intensive approach* where you get lots of crop from few big units. 

One benefit of the extensive approach - you place your eggs in lots of smaller baskets vs. in few large baskets.
It is much harder to sink entire fleet of small ships vs. sinking few larger boats.
Not just that - with many distinct units, you get many distinct queens with, hopefully, enough variation on hand to always make it into the next year with own bees.

I will not get into the techniques (search the BS about MDA splitting/OTS splitting; late nucs/splits; I have my own thread too).
Get ready to loose few colonies as part of your plan and not cry of it, but rather work with it.


----------



## GregB

mischief said:


> I did have a wild idea of creating a space for a colony to move into with the thought of leaving it to its own devices, .


All you have to do - put them into a smallish, managed hive (40-60 liters) and "leave them to their own devices". There is nothing illegal at that. They are managed, officially.


----------



## msl

> My end goal is to have a hive or three that are in sync with their environment,


keep in mind your dealing with a nonnative invasive spices that displaces natives, kept in a box 


> but are there any escapees found to be living after making it through a winter with no management


winter? lol 


> ferals- no.


myth spread far and wide, they are out there, almost every were... even in NZ
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/83...try-from-varroa-mite--but-they-need-your-help

But, its a long road back from wild survival to productive domestic live stock... took centurys the 1st time :lookout:
ie this side of the pond, despite being very successful, feral pigs don't make bacon,or much else, they are a pest, often left to rot after being shot
wild survival is all about reproduction, not packing on excess pounds for humans to harvest, be it pigs or bees


----------



## squarepeg

mischief said:


> I have not heard of any escapees that survive, but then, I'm a bit hermitty...
> 
> The understanding here is that any colony not in a proper box is a danger to other hives and needs to either be removed to a proper box or destroyed.


i would say the prospects are bleak.

oldtimer has tried most if not all of the methods known to date, and even with him having many more hive years experience than most of us will ever have, he has not been able to make it work.

it just may not be possible there at this time.

most importantly, and in particular if there are other beekeepers within flying distance of your location, please act responsibly to ensure that your colonies don't become the source for the spreading of diseases and pests to other nearby colonies.


----------



## mischief

Right now, I am working 6 1/2 days a week and struggling to get everything done that I need to as it is, so. ......so many hives right now unfortunately, is an overwhelm!
At the moment, I have one hive. I had intended to expand to three this year, but have taken my name of a swarm list for this reason.

um, exactly how many narrow frames worth of hive would a 40-60 litre hive be?


----------



## mischief

squarepeg said:


> i would say the prospects are bleak.
> 
> oldtimer has tried most if not all of the methods known to date, and even with him having many more hive years experience than most of us will ever have, he has not been able to make it work.
> 
> it just may not be possible there at this time.
> 
> most importantly, and in particular if there are other beekeepers within flying distance of your location, please act responsibly to ensure that your colonies don't become the source for the spreading of diseases and pests to other nearby colonies.


OT is going to try again after we had a wee chat and I pointed out that he maybe should have shaved the shoulders of his frames down.
I am really looking forward to hearing how he goes with that.

I may be new but I am not stoopid  and have studied extensively before I even got my hive. 
Its registered and I get a more qualified person to do my AFB check as required by law.
If it does get AFB, it gets burnt, no question.
Having said that, from what I have learnt, AFB is more a beek caused (and stress related) disease and have my IMS ( Integrated Management Strategy), in place that will hopefully prevent this from happening.


----------



## squarepeg

sorry, didn't mean to imply stoopid.

i wasn't thinking about afb as much as collapse from varroasis.

if you are collaborating with ot then you are in good shape.


----------



## Oldtimer

LOL I am not really collaborating with Mischief, we are a thousand or so miles apart. (You are in Dunedin Mischief or am I wrong?)

Have had quite a few chats with Mischief, she learns by experience, not by what she reads on the net. And most definately not by anything I have ever said to her. Independant woman LOL. However her experience is growing.



squarepeg said:


> mischief, one way you might surmise it may be possible in your location is if you can find feral or wild-type colonies (i.e. unmanaged) surviving the winter. these are typically found in tree hollows or in the walls of abandoned buildings.


Wild colonies surviving winter here is reasonably common, winters here are mild and not hard on bees like can be the case in the USA. The typical pattern is varroa mites are treated in spring, then swarms happen usually about the time mites have been reduced to near zero, so the swarm leave in good shape. If they get established somewhere, they typically will do well, but survival time till death by mite is around 12 months. So they will still be going spring and I have even seen wild overwintered colonies send out a swarm. But it is rapid downhill from there. 
If a wild hive could be found that survived 2 winters, *that* would be of major interest.


----------



## mischief

I'm in the South Waikato, so around 250km or so south of you.

'Fess time, I almost lost my hive to varroa, lucky for me, a local understood that I was about to make the same mistake he did coming out of his second winter and offered to help me check them out.....now they are doing well.
He is also the person who has been doing my AFB checks and funnily enough, is where my bees originally came from,via the person I bought them off. 
So they started from here, moved south for a few years and came back. I like that. 

I also liked that he was completely non judgemental after I had messed up and gave me options to choose from as to how I was going to deal with this situation. I chose his recommendation even though it went against everything I personally believed in simply because that was the best choice for that time, apistan? (cant remember now, having a brain fog).

I learn best from doing, after watching somebody else. 
When that is not possible, next best is from reading everything I can lay my hands on and going over it a number of times. This is why I want to see/read what others are doing right or wrong. My feeling is that even though there are differences in location, some of those differences in action will be important, if not for me, then for somebody else and we lose nothing by sharing what we do and have everything to gain.


----------



## Oldtimer

Oh, don't know why I had it in my head you were SI.

I am heading to Waikato for Christmas.


----------



## mischief

haha, and I am heading your way


----------



## Oldtimer

Sick of the Waikato river, Christmas at the beach?


----------



## mischief

If I had my way, I'd run away to Kaituna- river mouth and go fishing. Xmas is not my thing but you gotta do what you need to do sometimes especially when kids love everything Xmas.


----------



## Oldtimer

Yup, a week or two fishing the Kaituna river mouth would be my idea of a great holiday!

Anyhow, whatever you doing Mischief, hope you enjoy.


----------



## GregB

mischief said:


> um, exactly how many narrow frames worth of hive would a 40-60 litre hive be?


Anywhere from 11 to 14, depending.


----------



## Fusion_power

Internal dimensions of the hive I use are 465 X 465 X 295 all in millimeters. Volume is @63.5 liters. I am running 14 narrow frames.


----------



## Michael Bush

>michael bush reports being in communication with thousands of successful treatment free beekeepers. i've questioned him on that. if true why not set up a way for others to network with all these successful folks?

Many of those I meet at conferences. Some email me. I don't have time to maintain a forum or other social media for them. Between working fulltime, beekeeping, and maintaining my website, I really don't have time.

There is Dee's organic list:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Organicbeekeepers/info

And the treatment free people on facebook (I don't have that link, but I think it's been posted before)

I think there is also another forum of "natural" beekeepers that I've seen, but don't have time to keep up with.


----------



## Lburou

Oldtimer said:


> That's easy. A person could not lose 90% of their hives to pms *that winter*, because the person was small cell. Just on that basis the losses were clearly not pms, and therefore must have been caused by pesticide.


Keywords here seem to be, in "Winter". Pesticide use should be at the low point in "Winter", suggesting the diagnosis is suspect in the very least. We would need much more info to be sure one way or the other. JMO


----------



## Gino45

When any of mine look like the one in the picture, that's has come to be a sign that the small hive beetle are inside doing their dirty work and the bees have given up and are about to abandon ship. One reason why I harvest multiple times rather than let the honey sit on this hive.

I've also noticed that the hive that's on the end of the row or otherwise sticking out always has the most bees and makes the most honey.


----------



## msl

Fusion_power said:


> My personal experience is that larger hives are highly desirable. That is why I converted to square Dadant hives.


looks like jumbo frames for the win
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60500500/PDFFiles/201-300/208-Harbo--Effect of Comb Size.pdf

also may point to why some of the ALT hive systems are popular with TF.... IE all mediums, KTBH, Warre etc. Reduced brood rearing and slower build up.


----------



## Saltybee

It's the ratio of brood to stores to my mind.

Do bees "read" stores on a deep the same as adding up multiple smaller frames? In general, no, to my view. (though only one factor in frame size choice)


----------



## Litsinger

MSL:

Thank you for sharing this article- I had not seen this one before and I appreciate you sharing- interesting stuff in there.


----------



## Fusion_power

MSL, what Harbo documented is the effect where bees are reluctant to expand around another comb but more readily expand the brood area when a comb already has brood. This corresponds nicely with my observation that narrow frames (31 or 32 mm) induce earlier brood rearing because fewer bees can cover relatively larger comb surface area. The same statement holds true when considering smaller cells since a given number of bees can cover more total numbers of brood cells when the cells are smaller. In other words, narrow frames, small cells, and large combs equals the maximum speed up of spring buildup. This also increases the tendency to swarm since the colony hits peak population earlier.


----------



## Saltybee

Not disagreeing with your conclusions, but not comfortable with your route.

Smaller comb equals smaller bee, not clear how that works out to fewer bees to cover. Do believe SC should be a tighter cluster, and maybe that is enough.


----------



## mischief

Fusion_power said:


> MSL, what Harbo documented is the effect where bees are reluctant to expand around another comb but more readily expand the brood area when a comb already has brood. This corresponds nicely with my observation that narrow frames (31 or 32 mm) induce earlier brood rearing because fewer bees can cover relatively larger comb surface area. The same statement holds true when considering smaller cells since a given number of bees can cover more total numbers of brood cells when the cells are smaller. In other words, narrow frames, small cells, and large combs equals the maximum speed up of spring buildup. This also increases the tendency to swarm since the colony hits peak population earlier.


This makes sense to me. 
My hive has only two of the original LC 34mm frames. These seemed to always have heaps of pollen in them each time I wanted to remove them. They are now being filled with honey and I think that instead of pulling them, I will widen the gap so they fatten too much to be of interest to the Queen. This means two less combs they need to make from scratch.

I am in my second stage of regression, which is to put in frames that have been shaved down-six so far.
Today, I pulled two of the capped honey frames from behind the follower board over to the colony side.These are only 2/3 built out.
There had been a gap under the follower board so the bees were collecting before I wanted them to. So, I gave them two that are away from the other frames so that they will move the honey to where they are currently filling combs.
The idea behind this is so I then have frames of drawn out comb, all I need to do is shave the shoulders and they are ready to be put back in.

During the summer dearth, I'm going to do the same with the other capped frames, one at a time. I found last year, that if the follower board is well away from the last frame, they move the honey from that to where they want it, leaving an empty frame.

On them swarming, is this really such a big deal, if honey production is not a priority right now?


----------



## odfrank

msl said:


> looks like jumbo frames for the win
> https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60500500/PDFFiles/201-300/208-Harbo--Effect%20of%20Comb%20Size.pdf
> also may point to why some of the ALT hive systems are popular with TF.... IE all mediums, KTBH, Warre etc. Reduced brood rearing and slower build up.


Just what I have been preaching since I visited Brother Adam in 1978 and started using jumbo frames in 1979. One of the worst mistakes I ever made was getting caught up in the all 8 frame medium disaster which I blame on Charlie Blevins and Michael Bush. It was so obviously a wrong track that I have been getting deep brood chambers on all of the previously all medium hives. I think next is a few Jumbo depth 8 frame brood chambers for comparison. The jumbo depth brood comb in a narrow box to push all the honey up into the supers. I will have to challenge Know It All Charlie to a brood chamber size competition.

Brother Adam hives with 12 frame jumbo brood chambers supered highest up with 10 frame supers:
That is about a 280 lb crop on the closest hive that drew jumbo foundation on top.


----------



## GregB

msl said:


> looks like jumbo frames for the win....


Geee... 
Since I am a newbee on this forum, whoever cares what I have been saying. 
Here are some of my standard puppies.
Hahaha!


----------



## clyderoad

Not for nothing but
Regular old deep L.L. Langstroth frames in a 10 frame box work just fine too for producing bees and honey.


----------



## msl

clyderoad I thing the old standard dubble deep is fine, long proven.
but it is very likely a compermize. ie it will do fine almost every were, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way for a given local 

Harbo notes that work in the USSR (Battalov 1963 were one might guess its a little colder then the US south) found smaller combs to be better.... maby the cold has something to do with it... more seams of bees off the wall lends to better heating, and or the larger combs pushing the queen to lay more then the bees can keep warm 

to ODfranks point, yes there been fokes here toughing large combs... but without disrespect, there are people here singing the praises and virtues anything and everything... and too often its just people wanting to be different form the main stream so when I bump in to some data that supports one view or another, I share it


----------



## gww

My problem with the big boxes has nothing to do with bees doing good or bad but more if they do good enough and I do good. Its hell to be a weakling.
Cheers
gww

ps I do like seeing studies msl


----------



## GregB

msl said:


> Harbo notes that work in the USSR (Battalov 1963 were one might guess its a little colder then the US south)


I was going to comment on this too - some findings coming from subtropical Baton Ruger, LA surely are not a global recommendation.

As far as Battalov, 1963 - I did give it an honest effort to find the actual source.
No luck just yet.

On thing is sure - in icy cold Russia they successfully use both Dadant/Ukrainian frame as well as really, really tiny Alpine-style frames.
I am actually wanting to integrate both.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

odfrank said:


> Just what I have been preaching since I visited Brother Adam in 1978 and started using jumbo frames in 1979.


I only read a book, but my journey with square 12 -frame Dadant boxes came to end when I could not find a system for the circulation of bad or dark frames out of the brood nest. This lead to problems with brood diseases. I did not like using 2 full size 12 frame boxes, so I ended up fighting with the queen: she loved those frames I would have liked to remove.


----------



## msl

Greg I keep chewing on the idea of a short H 108/comfort type hive 11" ID, with 1x4 sides.... there always seems to be a bunch of 1x4 culls sitting in the 70% off pile at home depto.. 
at that point you could manage by the box as the whole box is = to about 2 deep frames 
however I didn't like warre the 1st time I used them, jurry is still out as mating nucs


----------



## Gino45

Fusion_power said:


> MSL, what Harbo documented is the effect where bees are reluctant to expand around another comb but more readily expand the brood area when a comb already has brood. This corresponds nicely with my observation that narrow frames (31 or 32 mm) induce earlier brood rearing because fewer bees can cover relatively larger comb surface area. The same statement holds true when considering smaller cells since a given number of bees can cover more total numbers of brood cells when the cells are smaller. In other words, narrow frames, small cells, and large combs equals the maximum speed up of spring buildup. This also increases the tendency to swarm since the colony hits peak population earlier.


This seems to me to be a complicated way of explaining that, to increase the brood production, raise a frame or 2 of brood to the box above the brood nest.
The caveat being that you don't want to do this before the brood nest is up maybe 8 frames of brood and well covered with bees.
I know that the bees like to have a brood nest more than 1 box deep; however, I imagine in a very cold climate one has to be careful so as not to chill the brood.


----------



## clyderoad

msl said:


> clyderoad I thing the old standard dubble deep is fine, long proven.
> but it is very likely a compermize. ie it will do fine almost every were, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way for a given local



It is likely that everything we choose to do or choose to use or choose to make is a compromise in some way.
It's a worthy compromise when the benefits of our decision to achieve our purposes outweigh the concessions we make.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> looks like jumbo frames for the win
> https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60500500/PDFFiles/201-300/208-Harbo--Effect of Comb Size.pdf
> 
> also may point to why some of the ALT hive systems are popular with TF.... IE all mediums, KTBH, Warre etc. Reduced brood rearing and slower build up.


Harbo study lasted only 59 days, which is very short indeed.

I know at least one study, which had a slightly different outcome, and it lasted from autumn 1995 to autumn 1996 :
Liebig, G.; Gerlich, R.; Sanzenbacher, R. (1997) Die Entwicklung von Bienenvölkern auf verschieden grossen Waben, D. Bienen J. 5 (1): 18-19.

Despite my efforts I could not find it in Internet, but it is partly referred in this study of Kaspar Ruoff (who did his agricultural practicing parly in our bees)
http://www.bienenzukunft.ch/sites/default/files/volksentwicklung_2008_d.pdf

Result: no real difference, but the shallow frame hives ended up to be the strongest ones in peak of summer 1996.


----------



## GregB

Juhani Lunden said:


> ... I could not find a system for the circulation of bad or dark frames out of the brood nest...


This is easily solved by an 1)asymmetric or warm-way entrance and 2)gradual rotation of the frames *away *from the entrance.
You continuously create new comb by the entrance; you continuously remove old comb at the back of the hive.
The queen does like to stay close to the entrance. 
A classic, long hive comb management demonstrates this really well (the same for TBH).
All it is to it. 

The real issue is - the dogma of running central, cold-way entrance for anything and everything.


----------



## GregB

msl said:


> Greg I keep chewing on the idea of a short H 108/comfort type hive 11" ID, with 1x4 sides.... there always seems to be a bunch of 1x4 culls sitting in the 70% off pile at home depto..
> at that point you could manage by the box as the whole box is = to about 2 deep frames
> however I didn't like warre the 1st time I used them, jurry is still out as mating nucs


What is "short H 108/comfort type hive 11" ID"?
Can you elaborate?

Regarding managing the bees by a small box and using the *free-comb* model, here is a whole book about it: https://naturalbeekeeping.ru/lib/bezkontaktnoe_pchelovodstvo.pdf
Unfortunately, this PDF may not auto-translate as it looks like a scanned paper book (the pictures do not auto-translate).
Basically, the guy has been doing for a while and even bothered to write a whole book published in 2005 yet. 
Technically, a modified Japanese style adopted for a cold climate.

As for my own way forward, I am liking the idea of 
1)deep, large brood box on 14 frames of my own standard 15 inch top bar frames and 
2)flexible super N-stack over the brood that will take both standard 19 inch Lang mediums and short 15 inch modified Lang mediums (either way will work)

I like the ergonomics for both me AND the bees (AND the commercial Lang equipment reuse with very little reconfiguration).
So the combination of large/small frame should work as I see it.


----------



## GregB

Gino45 said:


> I know that the bees like to have a brood nest more than 1 box deep....


This just means your brood nest is running an under-sized frame
When the brood frame is properly sized (Dadant/Ukrainian), they will normally just stay in that single box without needing any artificial queen barriers.

So, I grew around 12-frame square Dadants.
Hardly ever we had brood issues in the honey supers (occasional drone maybe).
My Dad did not own a single queen excluder.
He used to tell me the queen excluders existed somewhere but I never saw one and had no idea how it even looked like.


----------



## msl

> What is "short H 108/comfort type hive 11" ID"?


Taking a Alpine H 108 dezine, (basicaly a 1/4 high warre box 108X300X300mm) and trying it as 3.5"X11"X11" (89X279X279) ,basically a shallower Sam Comfort hive to avid cuting rabbits and such... would work out to 0.90-$1.15 a box in lumber depending if you used cull or furring strip


----------



## GregB

msl said:


> Taking a Alpine H 108 dezine, (basicaly a 1/4 high warre box 108X300X300mm) and trying it as 3.5"X11"X11" (89X279X279) ,basically a shallower Sam Comfort hive to avid cuting rabbits and such... would work out to 0.90-$1.15 a box in lumber depending if you used cull or furring strip


Got it.
Pretty much this: https://www.google.com/search?q=уле...xp3fAhVD4IMKHZUDDsYQ_AUIDigB&biw=1920&bih=938

Here, found a nice PDF for ya.
Send through the auto-translate and read:

https://stasovapasika.com/books/pchelovozhdenie-v-ule-udav.pdf


----------



## Charlie B

odfrank said:


> Just what I have been preaching since I visited Brother Adam in 1978 and started using jumbo frames in 1979. One of the worst mistakes I ever made was getting caught up in the all 8 frame medium disaster which I blame on Charlie Blevins and Michael Bush.


I will stipulate that my hives do much better with deep brood boxes. I’ve seen it first hand for 4 years now and there is no doubt. I trap on average 15 to 20 swarms a year and I’ve never trapped a swarm in a medium, only deeps. I don’t think bees like mediums and I will not make them tolerate mediums anymore.


----------



## Fusion_power

> On them swarming, is this really such a big deal, if honey production is not a priority right now?


 Just pull a 3 frame split in early spring when the bees are strong enough to handle it. The parent colony should go on to produce honey and the split will often build up fast enough to make a small crop too. Other than that, if you don't care about honey production, then swarming can be ignored.


----------



## Gino45

GregV said:


> This just means your brood nest is running an under-sized frame
> When the brood frame is properly sized (Dadant/Ukrainian), they will normally just stay in that single box without needing any artificial queen barriers.
> 
> So, I grew around 12-frame square Dadants.
> Hardly ever we had brood issues in the honey supers (occasional drone maybe).
> My Dad did not own a single queen excluder.
> He used to tell me the queen excluders existed somewhere but I never saw one and had no idea how it even looked like.


Getting judgmental, aren't we? Your way is better than my way?
I have stated before that I use queen excluders in my natural cell frames which I only insert when they start building drone combs. I don't care to see the 5 or 6 frames of drone brood in my hives that I would see without pulling the drone combs above an excluder. I assume you don't want to see that either.

I don't really disagree about the one box comment.
I'm always wanting to see more brood so I can have more bees to sell or utilize raising queens. My problem is they keep putting honey in the combs rather than the brood I want. It's a tough problem I know. In addition, pulling some brood up in order to give the queen more room is a swarm prevention method that has been extremely successful for me. As long as I stay up with the bees, I don't see swarms. Can you say that?

I never used excluders other than for queen rearing for at least 30 years. In fact, I've been surprised by the fact that the excluders don't seem to inhibit honey production.

Y'all really shouldn't be making generalizations and applying them to everyone. Do you think everything is the same for far north beekeepers who have a short season with maybe 16 or more hours of light in the summer?

You can tell Frank that I acquired my first bees around 1970 from a double wall porch in Redwood City. I've been around the block.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

It has been my experience that a great queen with low mite levels does well in any reasonablely sized cavity. I am an all deep guy FYI. However, I have seen massive colonies in eight inch wall spaces with thinner combs and massive 20" by 3' combs and both colonies we're rocking next to either pressure treated wood and asbestos.


----------



## GregB

Gino45 said:


> Getting judgmental, aren't we? Your way is better than my way?.


Just stated a fact that on a small frame the nest will spill over onto the next box. 
With this said - what is "judgemental" in that?
It is what it is and you know it.

In fact, in subtropical/tropical setting none on this even matter.
In tropics, I'd keep bees in TBH made off scraps and cared less of any frame as irrelevant.

What excluder?


> ...I would see without pulling the drone combs above an excluder. I assume you don't want to see that either.


You see I don't even use the Langs or the excluders.
I need those drones too. Got use for them.


----------



## Oldtimer

Wonder what happened to the OP?


----------



## herbhome

Oldtimer said:


> Wonder what happened to the OP?



Been wondering that myself, for awhile.


----------



## Fivej

I think the OP is the owner of the site and decided that it was a dead out in here so tried to liven things up. Revenue depends on visits. This thread could be considered click-bait.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Fivej said:


> I think the OP is the owner of the site and decided that it was a dead out in here so tried to liven things up. Revenue depends on visits. This thread could be considered click-bait.


Hahaha that would be something!


----------



## fieldsofnaturalhoney

Oldtimer said:


> Wonder what happened to the OP?


Who knows (or cares for that matter), her/his question/s is/are being answered, & WE are here


----------



## Charlie B

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> Who knows (or cares for that matter), his question is being answered, & WE are here


:lpf:


----------



## GregB

Well, this is how the Russians operate the FB and Twitter crowds from the troll-offices (well-paid jobs too).
You get your daily assignment, then go and do your daily quota of the posts - wind up the crowds about ... (whatever the assignment says). You google the subjects a little before-hand so you kinda know the buzz words.

Everyone knows how that turned out. Hahaha!

It would be an honor to have a dedicated person assigned to the BS.
Unsure why, but the FSB knows best. 
Maybe they are after me... 

...........ok, just kidding, kidding! 
This was a non-political joke!


----------



## Michael Palmer

Michael Palmer said:


> I try not to post on the TF forum. I don’t really agree with an awful lot of what’s said here. Rather than disagree, I fon’t bother.
> 
> When any of you can send me an handpicked example of your TF survivor stock queens, and my work with her and her offspring show any promise...then we’ll talk.


I'm serious, ya know. Convince me.


----------



## squarepeg

Michael Palmer said:


> I'm serious, ya know. Convince me.


i hope the day will come when i can send you some queens to try up there michael, i really do. i've had the same request from several others here on the forum but i'm just not in a position to deliver at this time.

i wouldn't be surprised however if they failed for you. i'm guessing there's a chance our local strain of survivor bee might not be equipped with the traits necessary to survive your long cold winters.

still, i am as curious as all of you to know how they might perform outside this area. at least it would help us narrow down how much/little of their success is purely genetic.

if all goes as planned i'll be in a position by the 2020 season to get serious about cranking out large numbers of queens. i'm hoping i can make it to vermont in the interim and that perhaps you'd be willing to let me see first hand how that's done.


----------



## Oldtimer

Highly recommended SP, I have met Michael in person he is a great guy, you will enjoy a visit.

I did notice when he was with me that Michael has an eye for detail, could instantly diagnose the situation with any given hive, and asked some penetrating questions when he was with me, I did feel a tad intimidated when he was looking over my bees LOL. I also asked for his ideas about various bee matters including matters pertaining to my own bees that he was looking at, and he came out with detailed and useful answers, he is one of those guys who just gets bees, and has an intimate understanding. One of the beekeeping greats.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> i hope the day will come when i can send you some queens to try up there michael, i really do. i've had the same request from several others here on the forum but i'm just not in a position to deliver at this time.


What is holding you?

I was scared year 2009 when I sended 50 queens to 8 different beekeepers in Finland and Europe for a test, for free.


----------



## squarepeg

Juhani Lunden said:


> What is holding you?


it's because beekeeping for me is mostly a serious pastime that i have already allowed to grow larger than i can properly attend to. that, and i've not yet achieved the distinct honor of being nominated for real mensa. 

if all goes well i will transition into retirement in another year. at that point i will be able to focus more attention on the bees.

in addition to ramping up the queen rearing, one of my main goals is to collaborate with the scientific community and try to pin down the mechanism(s) by which our local strain is having success coexisting with varroa.


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## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> it's because beekeeping for me is mostly a serious pastime that i have already allowed to grow larger than i can properly attend to. that, and i've not yet achieved the distinct honor of being nominated for real mensa.
> 
> if all goes well i will transition into retirement in another year. at that point i will be able to focus more attention on the bees.
> 
> in addition to ramping up the queen rearing, one of my main goals is to collaborate with the scientific community and try to pin down the mechanism(s) by which our local strain is having success coexisting with varroa.


:thumbsup:

Explanation accepted. If I were Michael Palmer, I would be driving/flying south next spring to get some larvae.


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## squarepeg

at this point i'm not sure what i am observing is true resistance or mostly tolerance to mites and their vectored viruses.

i say this because when i take late season mite counts they tend to be high, and because the virology studies on my samples submitted to dr. stephen martin's lab indicated high levels of dwv-a.

randy oliver has another excellent article in the january 2019 american bee journal. in the article he reiterates his call on the beekeeping industry to get serious about moving the ball forward with respect to breeding mite resistant bees.

with respect to resistance vs. tolerance he says this:

"Practical application: it’s hard for me to get excited about breeding for mite tolerance—simply because colonies with a heavy mite load will always be more stressed. So I feel that we should focus upon selecting for resistance to mite buildup. We don’t initially need completely mite-proof bees; partially-resistant colonies that required only a single treatment a year would be a big step in the right direction."

quoted from abj, january 2019, vol.159, no. 1, p. 48

but even if it is mostly tolerance with my bees, learning how that is working could lead to some breakthrough that might be helpful to beekeeping at large beyond the genetics, i.e. something special in the diet? something special in the microbiota? fat body size and composition? ect.


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## Cloverdale

gww said:


> My problem with the big boxes has nothing to do with bees doing good or bad but more if they do good enough and I do good. Its hell to be a weakling.
> Cheers
> gww
> 
> Couldn’t agree more!


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## mybodyisatemple76

squarepeg said:


> at this point i'm not sure what i am observing is true resistance or mostly tolerance to mites and their vectored viruses.
> 
> i say this because when i take late season mite counts they tend to be high, and because the virology studies on my samples submitted to dr. stephen martin's lab indicated high levels of dwv-a.


Sqaurepeg what are your mite counts normally in September and October. Sorry if you have answered this already but have not had time to read thru your thread on here. I'm interested to see what your percentages are and is there a percentage that you see in the fall that would make you say that colony has a good chance of surving winter or not surviving winter. I guess what I'm asking is do you see a threshold in the fall that goes hand and hand with your colonys surving or collapsing over the winter. If I didn't treat I think I would be seeing mite counts in the 5% to 10% or they would be collapsing in October and November. What's I really like to know is if there is a correlation between a certain % and winter mortality for my area. To me form the little experienceI have it seems like anything more than a 5% in September and October that the colony will have a hard time over winter but I'm really not sure I'm curious to see with my colonys this year how many survive with with lower mite counts because last year only ones that survived were under 5% in fall last year. I tried to make sure this year non were above 3% by October. See if that leads to better survival.


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## squarepeg

mybodyisatemple76 said:


> Sqaurepeg what are your mite counts normally in September and October...


i've only taken a handful of samples over the years, but the infestation rates at early fall ranged from 8% to 14%.

all those i sampled survived winter, and there did not seem to be a correlation as the ones with the higher counts ended up as good or better honey producers the next season as the ones with relatively lower counts.

i've not done enough sampling to know if there are much higher counts in the hives that don't survive winter.

here are my winter survival numbers since starting in 2010:

2010/11: 4 hives, 0 losses
2011/12: 10 hives, 0 losses
2012/13 18 hives, 6 losses
2013/14: 19 hives, 4 losses
2014/15: 18 hives, 3 losses 
2015/16: 21 hives, 2 losses
2016/2017: 22 hives, 3 losses
2017/18: 24 hives, 8 losses
2018/19: 28 hives, 1 loss so far

cumulative through 2017/18: 136 hives, 26 losses (19.1%)


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

Michael's bees survive fantastically here in the south FYI. For multiple years and they lay tight, tight patterns. Better than any "local survivor stock", VSH, Russians, or treatment free guru bees I have tried.


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## squarepeg

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Michael's bees survive fantastically here in the south FYI.


not surprised. if i am remembering michael's reporting correctly he gets by with one single mite treatment per year.

randy oliver points out in his recent article that he would be happy if all commercial stock could get back to being this good.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

True for him maybe. I am sure I raise nearly twice the varroa he does.


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## squarepeg

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> True for him maybe. I am sure I raise nearly twice the varroa he does.


are you braggin' or complainin' kamon?


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

Haha, I wasn't doing either. I was just doing math. Just means I need to treat twice on average to have good looking bees.


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## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> i've only taken a handful of samples over the years, but the infestation rates at early fall ranged from 8% to 14%.
> 
> all those i sampled survived winter, and there did not seem to be a correlation as the ones with the higher counts ended up as good or better honey producers the next season as the ones with relatively lower counts.
> 
> i've not done enough sampling to know if there are much higher counts in the hives that don't survive winter.
> 
> here are my winter survival numbers since starting in 2010:
> 
> 2010/11: 4 hives, 0 losses
> 2011/12: 10 hives, 0 losses
> 2012/13 18 hives, 6 losses
> 2013/14: 19 hives, 4 losses
> 2014/15: 18 hives, 3 losses
> 2015/16: 21 hives, 2 losses
> 2016/2017: 22 hives, 3 losses
> 2017/18: 24 hives, 8 losses
> 2018/19: 28 hives, 1 loss so far
> 
> cumulative through 2017/18: 136 hives, 26 losses (19.1%)


Although there seems to be somewhat similar pattern to higher losses what I have experienced, I´m pretty convinced there must be something else than tolerance. 

Take Finland as an example. We have 6 months winter and about 3 months brood free period (that is an assumption, hard to tell when they are all under heavy snow and iced up). Despite this average bees in Finland are starting to have serious troubles in two years if left without treatments. Without some resistance mechanism the mites don´t go anywhere. In fact it is an assumption here that mites mortality during winter is roughly the same as what the bees experience in a normal average well overwintering hive during an average wintering, about 40%. 

If your bees have 8-14% infestation in autumn, I would assume, after reading about your pretty mild winters, that that 8-14% is the infestation they have in spring unless some resistance mechanism kicks in. So high infestation in spring would lead to death soon. 

No way you could have had bees so long without some major resistance mechanism. 

Only helpful thing I now can think of are the nucs, and mites with them, you are selling out of your system. But if the nucs are made so that lots of brood is left in the mother hive, I would consider nuc making helpful, but not as a clue to your success.


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## gww

Juhani
I am not speaking for squarepeg but do not think he has made that many nucs. He listed what he has sold in his thread and with twenty hives, has only sold a few the last few years and has made up for some of the losses though even there he has got some bees from others around him. 

I have one hive that I did not notice a supercedure and have never split that this will be its third winter and I have about 6 that did not swarm this year and so if two years is the threshold, this should be a bad year for me. They were all still alive as of today but winter is long and I am a bit colder then squarepeg.

I have taken zero mite counts but am sure that I am not mite free. I have my fingers crossed. I am at the place squarepeg was when he experianced his very first losses and have about the same record. He did not lose any first two years and I have lost one swarm that I caught that never built up all summer and should not have been taken into winter. I don't really count it as a loss cause it was a small swarm that I started robbing on when I hived it and I do not think the robbing let up all year and it was in a warre and so I did not ad any frames of bees or anything to help it. Just a leaky feeder twice with good robbing twice.

The one difference from Squarepeg and me is that I have dropped a little sugar in the hives in fall and I did not make near the honey that he makes.

Could be the bees or it could be the forage around me. I will know more if i ever place a few hives in a different location.

I do seem to have different levels of dead bees in front of some hives compared to others (best I can tell due to some having board and some being grass in front of the hives). This is an all year thing with it being the same hives that have the most dead bees in front more then not.
They keep living so far knock on wood. Spring will tell the story on the no split no swarm hives.


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## Juhani Lunden

gww said:


> Juhani
> I am not speaking for squarepeg but do not think he has made that many nucs. He listed what he has sold in his thread and with twenty hives, has only sold a few the last few years


I was in that assumption too.


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## Gino45

When the mites first arrived here, a visitor with considerable experience told me it takes 3 years for the mites to get your bees.
He was 100% correct in that observation, fwiw.


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## Oldtimer

Juhani Lunden said:


> In fact it is an assumption here that mites mortality during winter is roughly the same as what the bees experience in a normal average well overwintering hive during an average wintering, about 40%.
> 
> If your bees have 8-14% infestation in autumn, I would assume, after reading about your pretty mild winters, that that 8-14% is the infestation they have in spring unless some resistance mechanism kicks in.


That would be the case with bees in NZ. Around 10 years ago I did an experiment where I removed brood from hives and caged the queens (left in the hives), and did mite counts. 6 to 7 weeks later I did another mite count, plus released the queens and turned them back to normal hives. The mite counts were exactly the same as they were before the brood break.

My conclusion is that these bees have no mite resistance whatsoever and took no action against the phoretic mites. People elsewhere who get a good reduction in mite population during broodless periods, must have bees that do have some method of action against phoretic mites.

That's my theory, anyway.




Gino45 said:


> When the mites first arrived here, a visitor with considerable experience told me it takes 3 years for the mites to get your bees.
> He was 100% correct in that observation, fwiw.


Gino, that observation will be 100% correct in SOME locations, with SOME bee types, but others not. Here in NZ for example, the lifespan of an untreated hive is around 1 year only.


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## msl

OT that seems to be the case in many places now, but didn't used to be, virus getting more vurlient etc..
did the bees live longer when the mites were 1st introduced to NZ?


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## Oldtimer

The hives back then could tolerate higher mite counts without showing such severe virus damage, and investigations by our own scientists have found that virus types changed over time, some of the early DWV types can no longer even be found and have been replaced by more deadly ones.

Interestingly, seeing actual deformed wings has become a lot rarer now, the DWV types have changed to ones that don't actually deform the wings. One of our top scientists has proposed we drop the term DWV (deformed wing virus), and instead call them HKV (hive killer virus). In his own work he refers to the different DWV types as HKV1, HKV2, etc.

As to the hives living longer, it's alway been a year or so, despite that virus types were less deadly in the early days. That's because in our non resistant bees, mite population increases parabolically, meaning it's around a year till there is a massive mite population that kills out the hive even with the older milder viruses. Mostly happens late fall or early winter, when expanding mite population coincides with naturally falling bee population. Phoretic mite count at that time can go from 3% to 15% in a month.


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## JRG13

The High presence of DWV-a most likely explains it. I believe DWV-a is the less virulent type and it prevents infection of DWV-b.


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## Michael Palmer

Oldtimer said:


> Interestingly, seeing actual deformed wings has become a lot rarer now, the DWV types have changed to ones that don't actually deform the wings. One of our top scientists has proposed we drop the term DWV (deformed wing virus), and instead call them HKV (hive killer virus). In his own work he refers to the different DWV types as HKV1, HKV2, etc.


Really. Huh. No shortage of DWV crawlers over here. You're right about one thing...takes a lot lower mite population nowadays, than it did 20 years ago, to initiate a virus crash.


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## Cloverdale

Oldtimer: “Interestingly, seeing actual deformed wings has become a lot rarer now”.

I don’t see any DWV in my hives; I do know they have viruses, Sacbrood, Chronic Paralysis and n. cerana, at least in the one hive that was tested, so assume others may have it. Going into my 3rd year of having a sustainable apiary (except for some queens). As Michael says, why import bees when you have your own to work with? Deb


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