# All the costs of Treatment Free --- (dozens of dead hives)



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

What are the statistics from the paired treated yard?


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

What treatments have been used on the control yard and what are the loss statistics there?


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

The control is across a low-water ford, and the winter needs to dry out before I can get there again. Of course, I am not going to complain about the rain. In November, all colonies were alive.

I use OAV, Formic (home diluted on a fume pad), and occasional Amitraz strips (on nucs or hard cases). 
The control yard was entirely Formic in August this year. My more easily accessible colonies were OAV at 3x/week in August-September. I am not impressed with OAV in the early fall-- ineffective, leading to losses.


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## wvbeeguy (Feb 20, 2011)

interesting thread, hope to see final comparison. Thank you for the details


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

What spacing are you maintaining between the hives and has any robbing occurred on the dying hives?


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Scattered along a 150' mountain bench. None on pallets. Not the Seeley-style 300m spacing.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

if I am reading this correctly, just a casual look at your chart the 2D hive configuration seems to be most successful.


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## trishbookworm (Jun 25, 2016)

This is incredibly valuable information. There may be places, or circumstances (or mites) where treatment free management consistently fails no matter the skill of the operator. I appreciate that you are sharing. I'm starting my second Ohio winter, with 4 colonies from 1 overwintered last year and 3 swarms, and I am not susceptible to wishful thinking. People do lose their colonies when they do not treat, and strength of conviction does not change that. Of course, people do lose their colonies when they do treat - just not nearly as often. I don't like saying that because I don't want to have fatally miscalculated! So I read your trials with some worry....

Is there any predictor of who's going to make it in this treatment free apiary? mite count or drop in June, or July? Or are there not enough hours in the day to get the data you really want?  

How can you keep banging your head against the wall like this!?!?! But I know that every beekeeper who is treating for success would very much rather not treat. It is worth working towards. And that is some amazing work!

We still do not understand well enough why some beekeepers with untreated stock do not see abysmal losses. Here's a crazy one - there is a population of bees on an island in Brazil. Something like 150 colonies total, half managed for honey, can be 15% varroa infestation, AND when the queens were brought to Germany and installed in hives, they died of mites. What is it that is working on that darn island? It may not be genetic! link for fascinating reading on the carefully documented "survivors": http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0412-8 pdf is free download

If you have time, please share more details. Does "seam" mean when the bees are peeking up between the frames? Do you have screened bottom boards? Anything else you measure/note/log that is or could be useful? Thanks for sharing...so others can learn... best gift you can get.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Number 7 seems to be somekind of survivor, controlling colony size, but good winter size. Ukraine Black, from who are these bees? Not Primorski?


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Number 7 seems to be somekind of survivor, controlling colony size, but good winter size. Ukraine Black, from who are these bees? Not Primorski?


Very mean black bees that are the special project of one of Ukrainian beekeepers establishing California operations.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

That is a very informative way of presenting your data JW. Have you tried keeping them with robbing screens to reduce hive to hive transfer? Hive death seems to gather momentum once you hit September/October. Are you doing any mite counts?

So you would have over 60 hives in that area? A surface observation, but that seems like a lot for that habitat.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

What's the background of the VP bees? Pol line?


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## Redhawk (Jun 7, 2016)

Thanks for sharing, JW. And great info to have. It looks like the vsh colonies are doing ok in the smaller hive configuration. Did you start with sh queens into an existing colony? If so, I'm wondering if bumping them up to 3-4boxes rapidly has an effect on their ability to adjust to a new gene pool. Could it possibly be even though they have the numbers they all haven't picked up the traits yet.


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## Qvox (May 21, 2015)

I really applaud you guys for doing this. Long-term the bees have to evolve to live with varroa, the way varroa is evolving to live with our treatment interventions. But holy hell, the loses are incredible. 

I think every local beek organization or club should maintain a TF experimental yard. So no one beek has to take it on the chin, and large commercial operators should help, since any advancement will benefit us all. 

Going TF with financial aspirations is a little like being a vegan hoping to get full at an argentinian steakhouse. It might happen, but you're going to have to pass on a lot of opportunity.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

JRG13 said:


> What's the background of the VP bees? Pol line?


VP "pure" VSH F1 from a VP II Breeder open mated in a VSH + Pol-Line yard.

The VSH look like they are over-wintering in tiny, tiny clusters (1-2 frames). 

The Pol-Line (all in my treated yards are wintering in bigger clusters).

I think the pure VSH might be "over selected".


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## razoo (Jul 7, 2015)

This is very disheartening. Did you monitor any of these hives for mites? Do you know if they succumbed to mites, or perhaps another reason, such as over selected for vsh but underperforing in say brood buildup or honey production.


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## grantsbees (May 9, 2016)

JW - Can you explain what seams are?

Also, as others have asked, have you been monitoring for mites?


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Nice contribution! Thanks for sharing. I almost never visit the TF forum, so I almost missed this.
Are you tracking other data, e.g., honey yields, mite levels, supercedures? Seems like only the Big Sur genetics are able to survive long-term. Can you tell us more about this queen? Do you still have the original Big Sur queen mother?


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

Much respect to OP for investing, tracking, documenting and sharing information. I am interested in learning about that "Big Sur" too.


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## RudyT (Jan 25, 2012)

I keep wondering why we don't expect dogs and cats to learn to survive with rabies? or heartworm?
Or rats to learn to survive with bubonic plague?

Yes I believe in a genetic solution for the bees but don't seem to apply that to these other animals.


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