# Mite monitoring in TF hives



## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

I recommend you go through Randy Oliver (http://scientificbeekeeping.com/) articles, especially recent ones covering his mite monitoring methods in the quest to breed better bee that doesn't require (as much) treatments. 

Instead of focusing on specific types (vsh, mite biting etc), I bought couple of queen each year from a reputable TF breeder in NY. And I also made my own queens from swarm season harvesting. 

Disclaimer: I am not 100% TF.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

You can certainly count if that's what you want to do. But I haven't found it useful if you really want to be treatment free.

"And now I have another terrible confession to make. Not one as bad and un-American as passing up short-term gain and investing in the future—but still horrible: I have never yet counted even a single sample of mites from any of my bees. I consider counting mites as a way of evaluating Varroa resistance to be fraught with all sorts of shortcomings and difficulties. It's very time consuming and hence the size of the apiary, the number of colonies tested, the gene pool, and the income available all start to shrink. It's also very easy for the results to be skewed by mites migrating from other colonies or bee yards. And it doesn't show which colonies are more resistant to secondary infections--a trait I consider very important."--Kirk Webster, ABJ April 2005, pg 314

http://kirkwebster.com/index.php/wh...thats-preventing-us-from-making-good-progress

Sometimes things have to reach a level where the bees get motivated to do something.

"...when 150 queens were introduced into nucs with brood untreated for 18 months. This brood had a normal outward appearance when the nucs were made up, but four weeks later about half of them were starting to decline with PMS-type symptoms. But after another three weeks, almost all of these colonies appeared normal and healthy again."—Kirk Webster


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## BlueRidgeBee (Jun 12, 2013)

I’ve been pondering counting vs not also. One friend says it will make my selections for breeding stock data based... But since I have such a small yard I’m not sure that just choosing my three best overall hives and going from there doesn’t make as much sense — and putting the time I’d spend counting into additional nucs and hives... 

Have been reading about mite suppression vs tolerance and given what new viruses are likely to arrive in the future, suppression seems most important to me (though both are obviously needed as Webster discusses in that link — thanks for that MB.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Michael Bush said:


> ........—Kirk Webster


Thanks for the link!
For the life of me, I can never find anything on Kirk Webster's site (I really do love the site and re-read it, but the design of it needs improvements).
I DID try to find this exact article independently now - no luck.
Can not find this article by just looking through the site. 

On topic: never counted; don't count; will not be counting...

This whole idea of micro-management of something you don't understand is not productive.
Some bees kill off mites totally; other bees coexist with few mites; other bees coexist with lots and lots of mites. 
And they all survive just fine. 
Many ways to skin a cat, I figure.

The bees either live or they die - this criteria is simple and ultimate and it works. 
Just assume that mites are there and move on.


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## Marcin (Jun 15, 2011)

I feel that I've become a better beekeeper once I got serious about monitoring for mites. Now it's part of my routine, although I don't do it as often as I would like to. But I also learned that low mite counts is not everything. You have to look at the whole picture and make management decisions based on that.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

A couple of good reasons not to count.
It is easy.
If your hive(s) collapse you can post on Beesource asking for ideas why they failed. When asked about mites, you can honestly say that you never saw any.
Just be sure if you post about failures you don’t include any close up photos of brood comb. That way you can insist that it was anything other than mites.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Marcin said:


> I feel that I've become a better beekeeper once I got serious about monitoring for mites. Now it's part of my routine, although I don't do it as often as I would like to. But I also learned that low mite counts is not everything. You have to look at the whole picture and make management decisions based on that.


Finally an update on Kirk Webster, thanks, Michael!

But I`m with marcin. This dream Kirk has ( I respect him very much) did not work for me personally. Despite this my experience I see the change in attitude in germany he talks about, with respect to agriculture and beekeeping.
In years maybe I will be able to abandon monitoring if the environment has changed.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

beemandan


> A couple of good reasons not to count.
> It is easy.
> If your hive(s) collapse you can post on Beesource asking for ideas why they failed. When asked about mites, you can honestly say that you never saw any.
> Just be sure if you post about failures you don’t include any close up photos of brood comb. That way you can insist that it was anything other than mites.


You make your position pretty clear. However if you hive does not die it is also still easy. It is easy and can be done with out the forgone conclution that you have lost before you begun. If you treat and your hive dies, you can post all the pictures you want and still insist that it wasn't mites cause you treated. I wonder which post is least helpful, yours or mine.
Cheers
gww


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

gww said:


> beemandan
> You make your position pretty clear.


Yes. I am an advocate of knowledge. One can either operate blindly or gather information. Whether you treat or not.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

beemandan


> Yes. I am an advocate of knowledge. One can either operate blindly or gather information. Whether you treat or not.


I am just an advocate of having bees in the back yard and getting some honey.

I am not against useful knowlage. If you have some action you mean to take by knowing your counts, I say take counts then. If your bees are alive and you are going to breed from the ones that give you the most honey and even if you had a count it wouldn't change what you intend to do, it seems a waste of time. It doesn't make you dumb if you know what your loss rate is and can live with it and if you know how many buckets of honey you have in your basement. You may not know your counts but you may be keeping bees in a way where you don't need to know them. I don't say the guy that wants them so he can use the info is bad and don't feel bad that I know what I am getting with out them and so am not wasting time doing something that gives me no use.

I don't denigh that some have a use for counts if they treat or if they don't. I just denigh that it is not a waste of time if you are not going to use them for some action based on having them.

Differrent strokes for differrent folks. It depends on you objective.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

GregV said:


> This whole idea of micro-management of something you don't understand is not productive.
> Some bees kill off mites totally; other bees coexist with few mites; other bees coexist with lots and lots of mites.
> And they all survive just fine.


Maybe Kirks bees survive but not yours, as you posted. So I advise you to monitor why they die and try to find a better path. 

And:
how do you know the swarms you catch to keep up your numbers want to be kept by you? Perhaps other beekeepers let their bee colonies throw swarms to create ferals in their environment?
You keep an apiary sustained by other´s bees, let them die, enjoy the honey from your deadouts and start all over again.
Not my style.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I do like Kirk's points on Recurrent Mass Selection vs Vertical breeding..

_I have to oversimplify a little bit, but think of it this way: When the people who actually grow the crops select a relatively small number of plants to supply the seed from a large number of similar plants (the crop), based on the total performance and adaptability of the seed plants, and then use that seed to produce the next crop---and repeat the process year after year---a stable variety is eventually developed that is slowly but surely developing and improving the characteristics desired by the cultivators._

In past threads I have referred to it as stock selection vs breeding.
and its one reason I push for counts, most beekeepers aren't going to see the difrance between a 4.6% mite load in one hive and 10.7%(ish) mite load in the rest come the fall (brood off)... I know I couldn't this year when I ran them.. (A master Beekeeper such a Kirk Webster or Michael Bush may be able to see it at a glance, but I am not a master beekeeper)
but I know what hive I want to breed from/copy how it was manged.. some of the 10.7s would likly pull threw with out TX , and then some colaspic fall 2019. I don't want breed from them, letting there line send drones is also a mistake, just being alive come spring is no were near enuff, it needs to be the best of the best 

expanding on kirks example, you select a small number of "seeds", you not going to select stock from plants that were infested with pathogens, you going to inspect the seed stock for them.

To make progress I need a large field, I am not going to get any were with a window box, all nonslect hives are nothing more then dirt to grow the next crop of queens from, like planting a cover crop to protect/inprove the soil they get a shot of OA or other mangmnet and as such are ready to grow a fresh crop of queens come spring. I can't plant seeds if my feild is destroyed by erosion, my cats can't keep the mice under control in my seed stock storage if they are over run with immigration of mice from other fields that had no cats, and now with the harvest all those mice are starveing and coming on to my property. It would be a poor plan not to do something to stop the mice from taking out my seed stock

Allowing non select stock to be propagated is a mistake, in the wild 80% or so of the over wintered queens are culled to just maintain the average strong selection pressure in the form of breeder queens and requeening a large part of your stock is important
the grandfathers of bond, BWeaver and John Kefuss have taken to DNA to increase the selection pressure, I see no reason for the small time guy to use mite counts to select there's


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

SiWolKe said:


> ....Not my style.


Can we agree not to bother each other anymore?

I am trying, but you keep at it (personally seeking out and black-painting the others who you dislike; across the various forums, btw, not just here).

Several people, I can see, will confirm the same.
If this is not a persistent, targeted, and intentional trolling, I don't know what it is.

Sorry.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> But since I have such a small yard I’m not sure that just choosing my three best overall hives and going from there doesn’t make as much sense — and putting the time I’d spend counting into additional nucs and hives...


John Kefuss sometimes selected a single breeder queen for the year out of a few hundred. 
strong selection pressure matters

unless the back ground drone pop has strong TF traits you going to have to be very selective to make progress


greg if you don't like your views challenged the TF forum may not be the best place to post,
Like wise posting things that many would find outlandish with out a sited source... Such as you post yesterday that AMM are just as agressive as AHB, Is likely going to have people challenge you 

I am guessing I am missing some history here.... but leave it were ever it was.. going after a well liked and respected member of the TF froum is of no beneficent to any, if there is a real issue just go to your profile and set it to ingore posts, I find the best way to deal with precived trolls is not to feed them

The gole for me when I come to this forum is to be academically challenged and to return the favor
I don't agree with Iharder's bond program, but that doesn't mean I dislike or don't respect him, quite the opposite
the trick here is to have a academic debate not a personal argument


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

GregV said:


> Can we agree not to bother each other anymore?


OK. Sorry.

It's my opinion as you have yours too.
And I can post it as well as you post your opinions. 
Delete I leave SP.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

msl said:


> I do like Kirk's points.........


Great post, msl, thanks.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

I think everyone is convince that they know the things to look for and breed for but yet everyone is still having to try and have only had the success they have had. I think part of the point I get when reading kirk and one other practicing treatment free (I think from germany) is that they have not decided they know exactly what the bees might use. And so all they guys that say only breed from the bees holding a small mite count, might be right or they might be missing something. I see very little differance in the process of picking your healthyest hive regaurdless of mite count as opposed to picking the one with the lowest mite count that might also be heathy. It seems to add up to the same thing IE: "healthy".

I relize everyone is looking for the answer but also realize that even the guys looking at some bees that do better then others are still not sure of how they are doing it (except for biters and such). I am not sure that just looking at a heathy two year hive would not have a chance of being as successful as one you know the count on. It may have something to do with a count but I think what it seems webster and others are saying is that it might be other things that the bees come up with that counter pressure the bees are feeling. So it comes down to one thinking he can pick for the bee better then the bee can pick for its self. There is probly a little truth in both attitudes but no one has an answer yet and so there is no real wrong thing. In the end it really does come down to wether you are making enough of a profit (however you count) to satisfy to keep doing it as you are.

By letting the bees show you does not mean you are not looking for anything and just letting things go, it just means you are not looking for the same thing the guy who follows some other smart persons platform. Just means what you are putting value to, might not be the same but in the end, live bees making honey is going to be the score card.
Cheers
gww


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

msl


> in the wild 80% or so of the over wintered queens are culled to just maintain the average strong selection pressure in the form of breeder queens and requeening a large part of your stock is important
> the grandfathers of bond, BWeaver and John Kefuss have taken to DNA to increase the selection pressure, I see no reason for the small time guy to use mite counts to select there's


The one thing I see with this comment that gives me pause is the implication that after 80% die, only the best are left. If that were the case then only 20% would die the next year but 80% still die. Even if you have the best it does not mean they will always have the best babies. The good thing is that a queen breeding with 14 drones may still have enough good bees in a hive for it to put up the good fight. I am not sure it is set in granite what is exactly the right thing to look for in a bee beside health but more a reasonable path on something you know makes some differrence. It may add to the painting but may not compleetly make the masterpeice.
Cheers
gww


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## JLW (Feb 5, 2018)

Interesting and informative discussion. What I was hoping is for someone to say, 'yes I monitor my hives and they often have mite levels well above recommended thresholds with no problems'. I'm wondering if that even happens or are the treatment thresholds a concrete ceiling that you must stay below to avoid colony loss. I know colonies fail but I'm thinking 3+ years with no mite treatments.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

jlw
Squarepeg took counts one fall with above 10% and his hives made it though.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?306377-squarepeg-2015-2018-treatment-free-experience

However, I have also seen a couple of recent threads that have said they had below 1 percent but thier hive still died. I have read some treatment free practitioners that had treated when they hit 5 or so percent and thier bee threshold went down to 2 percent or hives would die. I am not sure there is a perfect answer. I kept trying to figure out if I had three years but saw a lot of people posting that thier bees didn't make one year.

All those non-answers aside, welcome to the forum.
Cheers
gww


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## BlueRidgeBee (Jun 12, 2013)

Ok, between some points made here and continued encouragement from my (statistician) friend....I’m back to thinking counts could help with selection of stock to propagate... 

So if there was going to be one count a year from which the following years breeding stock would be selected — what would be that timing?

Ps. I love knowledge too vs not knowing but real time constraints require that anything time consuming make a real difference in the yard. May try selecting my overall picks for best 3 breeder hives based on the prior season then comparing mite counts and see if there is correlation...


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## Marcin (Jun 15, 2011)

JLW said:


> Interesting and informative discussion. What I was hoping is for someone to say, 'yes I monitor my hives and they often have mite levels well above recommended thresholds with no problems'. I'm wondering if that even happens or are the treatment thresholds a concrete ceiling that you must stay below to avoid colony loss. I know colonies fail but I'm thinking 3+ years with no mite treatments.


Ah, if it was only that easy ...
Every now and then I'll see a colony that has mite counts below established thresholds but shows symptoms associated with varroasis. Every now and then I'll find a colony that has mite counts above the established threshold and seems to be doing fine and is productive. Majority of my colonies fall somewhere in between.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Even if you have the best it does not mean they will always have the best babies.


corect....and thats why as krik points out you need strong selection that is ongoing 

if I take the hive with the worst mite counts and the hive with the best mite counts and raize 20 queens each, and repeat slection and propagation a few times, requeening a large of amount of the hives with the selected breeder stock, at some point the best of the worst will have a higher mite count then the worst of the best. 
like wize if you propagate an average hive, thier average will be on par with about the worst of the best 
This is why you need to select the best of the best to propagate and re-queen the average and worst.
Splitting everything that's left alive come spring results in too many poor to average queens.



> So if there was going to be one count a year from which the following years breeding stock would be selected — what would be that timing?


Made up as summer nuc year 1 and given a shot of brood less OA in the fall to clean slate it, tracked mounthy may- till broodless as full sized hive year 2, propagated from spring year 3. 
to make a good call it has to be treated the same as the hives its being compared to and you need to know whats going on, you test in the late summer you don't know if they did poorly of if there was a mite bomb , or they did well but was becuses it was the one hive that swarmed


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

msl
I agree with the last part of your post. This part though,


> raize 20 queens each, and repeat slection a few times, requeening a large of amount of the hives with the selected breeder stock, at some point the best of the worst will have a higher mite count then the worst of the best.


Shows that you are making your decisions on mite load and that that is most important to you. I am taking the position that mite counts are just that, counts and nothing that I am going to base any decision on. My healthy hives might have low mite counts but if they don't, I don't care till it starts biting me. A big count if the hive lives might actually help get the bees to fight better. That is the differrence in what we think might make a differrence in making bees even stronger. The importance we put on that one thing.

I do not say that those that consintrate on that don't improve themselves but like I said earlier and it is also what kirk is saying if I read it right. It might not be the only important thing. Both of us are putting our money where our mouth is and I don't disparage the mite count approch or even try to get people to discount it. I am just not sure it is the only way or even the proven best way. Only time will tell that. 

Even with time, each will get to do his own math on what success is. I really get a lot out of your post cause every time I question you, I get more to think about. 

I will say this. I say counting and breeding from the hives with the lowest counts may improve your situation and I don't want to discount that possibility. I don't think it is the only possibility just like I don't think purly consintrating on mite biteing won't work or help. I just say it might be part of the answer but might not be the whole answer and is just one more thing to measure for those interested in measurements. I am glad those poeple are interested in measuring and glad you post lots of thier stuff cause I like to read it all. I am not interested in doing what they do though. I just want to keep bees in a successful manner and only need to know if that is happenning and not nessisarily the why. I do believe this can be done with out measuring everything.
Cheers
gww


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> I just want to keep bees in a successful manner and only need to know if that is happenning and not nessisarily the why. I do believe this can be done with out measuring everything


it can and it does, if average works for you then it works, there is no need for slection. There are people who do just fine that way.. they are the exception, not the rule and you should count your self lucky. 
I get what you say about not wanting to use metrics.... but to over come your bias people needs them.... you don't slect to improve you honey yields with out weighting them, counting frames , supers, something. 

if advrage is barely alive and not triveing its a difrent story.
the big issue is when advrage means not enough mites build up the 1st year to kill it, they surive to be propagated form and colaspe 2nd winter(as was commom before the viruse got worce). at that rate the poor genetics keep going on and on and on, and the beekeeper might think they are doing ok, they are growing there numbers slowly and getting some honey... and that may be enuf for some 50-60% losses to maintain the advrage


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

msl said:


> ..
> greg if you don't like your views challenged the TF forum may not be the best place to post,.....


Well, here:


> *You keep an apiary sustained by other´s bees*, let them die, enjoy the honey from your deadouts and start all over again.
> Not my style


This implies I *steal *bees of other people to prop my own operation. THIS I take as a personal offense.
Most everyone traps swarms (including Michael B. and Solomon P., who do not treat, for an example) and yet it is Greg V. who "steals bees". 
So this is a double-standard I find offensive.

Swarm trapping is not stealing. 
Not treating the caught swarms is my own business (if they die - too bad).
Let just get this out of the way.

Otherwise, I disagree with many people all the time - without accusing them of stealing bees and the like. 
Not a big deal. 
It is called pluralism of ideas.

PS: my saying AMMs can be hot as AHB, I mean exactly that - I lived first hand; 
yet I did not accuse of anyone in doing anything bad - take a notice.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

msl
yes, I am lucky so far but can't see the future and so am not claiming victory except up to this point. All those other things you mention can not be known with out just trying it. It is only known for those who have already done it. I do feel as comfortable as one can with not doing it yet just cause I can see enough others having pretty good success to make it worth the try. I am not sure those who are breeding for low mite are doing better then the kirk websters of the world cause you have to add it all up including the extra labor for the things they do compared to what others do. I do agree with the luck thing though but that is just like the luck of living in a place that can give up to 400 lbs of honey a hive. No matter how healty my hives are, that may not be possible where I live.

As far as selection goes, there is enough antidoltal evidence out there to show success in more then one way. I am relieing on background bees that I don't own to be a help and even the states with high loss even treating are affected in that way and so if there is help there, it is luck.

I did not say not to use metrics, I was saying low mite count being the metric may not help as much as just letting the mites be as high as they want to be with the ideal that the bees will respond to the pressure faster. That is the differrance. I said look at metrics other then mites. In the end, if it doesn't work and the bees are not productive enough to make it worth doing, an adjustment would have to be made. It might be a differrent adjustment then treating at 2 percent mite load and requeening. But what ever it is, it will work or I won't last long. I doubt I am the type to lose all my bees and buy more and do exactly the same thing I did before. I really think it comes down to the person doing it, learning what can be done, watching his own bees and making adjustments untill he gets they type of success that makes it worth it. It may not at this point in time be the same for everyone or work the same in every area. Everything is subject to change just like mites changed from asian bees to ours. Paying attention picking a route to try and seeing what happens is really all there is. For me, it might even be treating some day. 

I don't buy into the ideal that the small guy can have no success. Yes, it may depend on what is going on around him but it might also be the only game in town if he wants to try it and it seems to me it is the hobbyest with the least invested to lose that are having the most success. I think investment level is giving the guts which is then proving out that it can work in places. They try it, get lucky if that is how you want to put it and thier bees live. That is what I am seeing and I know just from reading, people like randy oliver see it too even if he has picked the route he thinks will work best to get him there.

I also believe the horror stories. Some think mite load is the answer and maby it is. Mite pressure is what makes the bees even need to respond and so for speeds sake, keeping mites low while trying to get the bees to fight might not be the answer (or it might be the answer). Pick your poisen.
If all my bees die, I will feel unlucky and adjust. As long as they live, I will feel lucky. I did find, in the earlier link posted, one comment that kirk made about slovania compared to germany very interesting. It defanatly pertains to the type of disscussion and where you land on what is important in making a stronger bee.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Our law says the swarm belongs to the beekeeper from whom it came, only when the beekeeper has no interest anyone can take it.
If you set up a bait, the swarm owner may demand that you give the bees back.

It's not like that for you, so swarm catching is not theft and I never said so.

That said, back to mite monitoring:
There is a social problem that says downsizing of success is not accepted. But before there is an upsizing, you have to go through this phase first.
That is, all have a crisis sometime with the bees, the beginner who makes too many mistakes, the tf beekeeper who has to find out his damage threshold, the treatment beekeeper who wants to build up his numbers and maybe migrate and thereby also loses hives and needs atrategy.

I am in the middle of the crisis now.

Those colonies which still live (I do not know if it stays that way, but they are the longest lived) are according to mite counts below the damage threshold, all who were above are dead.
Those who are still alive are a "breed of resistance", newly introduced 2016.
Those who are still alive have been splitted differently.

If I have 100% loss, I still know what has been improved, I only know through the monitoring where I lost control.

In other words, monitoring, sorting, and using good genetics give me a greater chance in future.
Added to that is the improvement of hive microcosmos and other measures.

Especially an IPM management in the summer before winter bee hatching.

For with the "better" dead hives, which sounds weird I know, so just be with me, the mite count remained low until this time, suddenly it rose rapidly, because the brood amount was greatly reduced.
Without mite counting I would not have noticed and now did not know what I have to pay attention to for to start the IPM measures.

For me, the future means: split as much as possible, annually, as the bees would do, regardless of honey production.
Even better, monitor the mites, especially from June. Even if the number does not increase for months, this can change abruptly. The ones that do not change that and survive one to best 2 winter, are the breeding queens.

In my forum, a video was set up with a lecture by Ralph Bücheler, who conducts scientific research at the Bee Institute Kirchhain.
He says that in Germany we have to rethink now because we have never selected for resistance, always treated prophylactically, and for many years released the drones of these non-viable colonies.

This is a very threatening situation, in which one must realize that treatment-free beekeeping, as it often can be done in the US, no longer works for us.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Siw...
Is my memory flawed in thinking that some in germany were only treating every other year?
I had thought that came up one time in a thread with you. If my memory is correct, you may have a little more resistance then you think but if my memory is wrong, you really are starting from the bottom.

I am hoping you don't have 100% losses. That is just too hard.

If you can't find anyone that is having some kind of success, what you say is probly true on not being able to do what we do. I know it is harder to find people that have not treated and had some kind of success cause it is against the law and so poeple would be less likily to forcast. I do think that people are people though and not everyone stays interested in bees that get them and I bet there are poeple that quit taking care of thier stuff and it lived anyway. I say this with no real ideal of how it really is and what structures are in place to track what people do though. 

One thing for sure is that you can't lose all and make any progress. You know what you have did and how it is working and so repeating the bad is not going to cut it. I do wonder about your splitting and how small you go with it. I don't say this as advice cause I am too new for that but as a talking point, My phylosophy was to get the hives as big as possible each year. I did want to make one split off of each hive as a safty net and make it starting out as mite free as I could think to make it. The only reason I even wanted to do that was to hedge my bet so I might have some bees for next year if it took two years for the mite to kill a new hive/split.

The reason I bring this up is something that was told to me in my very first year by the guy that I got my hive from. I ask him if he thought I should split and play the numbers and he said in his experiance that a strong big hive had a better chance then a small one. I know people like mel deislkoen go the other route but he also says you can expect to lose 75 percent trying to out run mites with splits. He still comes out ahead cause he sells nucs.

My view was to get the hives as big as was possible in one year before winter hit and you can not do that with a first year hive if you split. Now I got more splits then that fource on me in the second year because my bees hit swarm mode before I made the first split but the ideal was one split to knock down mites in at least one side and grow the mother as big as it would grow before winter. Now I know that for a hive to get big the mites are growing right along with the hive but the stress they feel may be less over all on the hive due to having a more efficient work fource for food and warmth and such.

I do know that if I had big losses with little hives, I would try one big hive and see what happened. I don't say this is better then counting and doing some kind of IPM as you are suggesting but more, if I had enough bees left to experment a little, this would be one of the experments I would be doing along with any others.

You know I am new even in bee keeping in america and I sure don't know how it is over there and so I just throw it out cause I am the only one awake still and thought you might want something to read.
Good luck
gww


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

gww,


I have made the experiment already and the strong hives ( one with "resistant", one with "normal" stock) did not make it. 
One, the "resistant" queen should have been my honey production hive, my mentor said. It lived one winter then died from paralyze virus in spring. Could have been the moving to my location though.
A very good argument to do monitoring because I did not know the mite numbers of this hive then.

The other one was the swarm ( local mutts) we created 2017. It lived one season even with IPM ( culling the first brood comb) was very strong, then went down and died december.

I´m not planning to weaken the colonies. I plan to make a very small split with mated queen in late spring so to renew most of the brood.
The queenless will stay strong and be splitted once in late summer, if they thrive. The more generation the more the genetics are watered down so if these with brood brakes do not thrive there will be IPM.
Before winter I will decide if I combine some and which I will use for queen cell breeding in next spring if they survive.

I have a lot of comb and honey store comb. So I can make my splits provided in the same way. This means the bees do not have to build and may become strong very fast.
Strong means to me 6-8 brood combs dadant size or bigger ( self-made frames) before winter bee breeding.

In germany we treat with organic treatments. Twice a year. Once in winter brood less time with oxalic acids, once in summer with formic acids. That´s the minimum, but many now treat more times because the mites are getting more and more virulent and even a small number of mites means death in winter.
In bee class the threshold was 10 mites a day 2014, now it´s half a mite a day.

So compared to what I read about the US treatment managements you might say there is still some resistance.

But the fact is that my experienced forum members tell me their tf tries were in vain, the bees will not survive without treatments as long as we don´t know the parameters to increase the health.

An exception is my bavaria co-worker who has elgon colonies surviving tf since 2012, but he is a very very good keeper. He knows exactly what to do when checking.
And he sometimes combines two hives. He breeds the queens from the strongest before he combines to go into winter.
He would be a great help as a mentor but he is too far away.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Michael Bush said:


> "And now I have another terrible confession to make. Not one as bad and un-American as passing up short-term gain and investing in the future—but still horrible: I have never yet counted even a single sample of mites from any of my bees. I consider counting mites as a way of evaluating Varroa resistance to be fraught with all sorts of shortcomings and difficulties. It's very time consuming and hence the size of the apiary, the number of colonies tested, the gene pool, and the income available all start to shrink. It's also very easy for the results to be skewed by mites migrating from other colonies or bee yards. And it doesn't show which colonies are more resistant to secondary infections--a trait I consider very important."--Kirk Webster, ABJ April 2005, pg 314
> 
> http://kirkwebster.com/index.php/wh...thats-preventing-us-from-making-good-progress
> 
> ...


Kirk always has choice words of wisdom for dealing with varroa. I would answer him...he posts dogma on his site but there's no method to reply. So after a number of weeks the magic queens took over and the colonies recovered from the PMS-type symptoms. Go forward in time a number of years. How's that magical stock doing now? I know Kirk believes that varroa mites have been good for our bees...once they get to the other side they are stronger bees. Are they really?

Kirk just lost his bees again. Two years in a row with no nuc or queen sales. Rebuilding the apiary...again. The bees are stronger than they've ever been? Not!

Dogma got run over by karma


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

It seems to me to be more about the virulence of the viruses transmitted by the mites and not about raw mite numbers or mite population thresholds. 

I'm for a good conversation re mites and strong bees and viruses but all the extrapolating has me weary. 

Webster has the gift of gab, like so many others.


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## Delta Bay (Dec 4, 2009)

> Kirk just lost his bees again. Two years in a row with no nuc or queen sales. Rebuilding the apiary...again. The bees are stronger than they've ever been? Not!


This is not completely true.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Michael Palmer said:


> Kirk just lost his bees again. Two years in a row with no nuc or queen sales. Rebuilding the apiary...again.


Which year(s) you are talking about?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

2016-2017, 2017-2018


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Perhaps Kirk Webster is a person obliged to nature and knows that our creator gives and takes like he sees fit?
A wise guy I would call him.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

SiWolKe said:


> A wise guy I would call him.


Not being critical in any way as I admire anyone who learns a second language. But I think you mean a wise man or wise person. A 'wise guy' is often not a flattering term. It can refer to someone who has an unpleasantly sharp wit or it can also refer to a member of the mafia.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oh my god, thanks, dan!
A wise man for sure!


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## flamenco108 (Mar 27, 2016)

Michael Palmer said:


> 2016-2017, 2017-2018


So what was he doing to sustain himself?

I try to understand as much as I can his articles and public interviews, and here it is:
1. His plan is to sell 200 boxes with bees
2. In good year he sells 50 drums of honey (what's the bulk price? 2USD?)
3. In bad year he sells 12-8 drums of honey
In fact, in his older articles he did write, that he always had bees to sell, even when honey crop was little.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Kirk has an open house every year and people see his bees. Every time I've heard he lost his bees, people come back from the open house saying his bees seem to be thriving... it's his only income and he seems to still be in business.


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## jcase (Jul 30, 2016)

Michael Palmer said:


> Kirk just lost his bees again. Two years in a row with no nuc or queen sales.


He is selling at least some breeder queens this year


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