# "No Treatment" project -- Do-ers Only Thread



## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

This is intended as a new thread for those who are actually running a group of their bees "untreated" -- whatever that means to them -- to report and discuss how they themselves are proceeding and will proceed, and NOT to tell others how to proceed. 

There are hopes, too to have a site or portion of a site dedicated to the narratives of each participant, along, hopefully with metrics (again decided only by each participant according to his/her own lights). We may also discuss this here as well.

--- here is the branching point from the previous thread at http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=508798#post508798 --

> I think this is getting way too complicated again and deviating from the original idea suggested by StevenG

I agree and it is filling up with posts by some who are not participating as well as some who on my ignore list for serially hijacking topics one after another.

The topic of this thread, one that Steven started to discuss his and similar projects, has now changed to discuss the survey.

To be perfectly straight about this, I do not think that the survey is a bad idea -- in fact I think it is excellent -- it is just a different topic of interest to a different set of people.

I'm going to start a new thread once again strictly for those who plan to run their bees as close to no treatment as they can and document their experience independantly, or separately on a common site. Barry is working on this I think, but if he is too busy, I can do it.


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## Yuleluder (Mar 2, 2005)

I have never treated my hives with anything. When I originally purchased bees (again) I decided I would not treat for anything ever. I bought bees from people who were not treating and have only bred from my best 2 or 3 colonies each Spring (I only have about 50 hives). There are varroa in my hives but the bees do not seem to have a problem dealing with them or any other pest for that matter. I have been doing this for over five years now. I do have some SBB's in place but they are there more for ventilation than anything else. The biggest problem for me in SE PA is starvation. The last few years there hasn't been any fall flow and without feeding the bees will surely die. I guess I'm saying my biggest concern right now isn't pests but the apparent change in the forage enviroment in SE PA. The bees have to live on the May and June flow through winter.


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## BuzzyBee (May 28, 2008)

Hi Allen,
Thanks for starting the thread. Are there any ground rules about treating such as sugar dusting and feeding pollen sub or syrup, HBH etc.? Just wondering if not treating is limited to medications. Hope I don't open a new can of worms with this question.
BB


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

As I said, there are no rules and neither should there be on this thread, about what you can and cannot do.

"No treatment" means different things to different people, and not everyone can go completely "cold turkey".


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## Marc (May 20, 2005)

May I suggest something? Since the definition of "no treatment" is such a subjective term, maybe we can ask each poster to touch on at least these three points:
- no treatment as in no medications (ApiGuard, Terramycin, Fumagilin (sp?) and whatever else may be out there to treat)
-no treatment as in no powder sugar, formic acid, or whatever else is considered a soft treatment
-no treatment as in no splitting, drone frame removal, or other managements that disrupt the brood cycle of varroa mites through mechanical means

It might be helpful if posters could say something to these points to make it clear what they consider no treatment. I don't want to hijack or burden this thread, but I know it would help me put narratives and statements into context.
Thank you.


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## ACBEES (Mar 13, 2009)

Yuleluder, you are exactly the kind of beek we are looking to gather info from. I started in beekeeping 3 years ago and have not treated. I have lost some hives this past year, but they were all Russians I bought as nucs and the ones that didn't make it didn't seem to thrive from the get go.

For the purposes of this project, accurately reporting your no treatment management practices is very important. We are looking for trends/patterns in survivor bees.


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

I was hoping this thread would be strictly about what each person is doing or planning, and how best for each one to report, with no suggestions about what other people should do and no discussion about the discussion.


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## ACBEES (Mar 13, 2009)

Marc, here is my basic plan of action for "no treatment" for this project

Here is what I'm going to do:

1.Commit five hives to this program. I don't need to buy resistant bees because the ones I am commiting are all ferals. One hive is 6 years old with no treatment, another is three. The rest are newer.
2.feed sugar syrup, pollen sub as a stimulant and to prevent starvation.
3. I will use lemon grass oil/spearmint oil only in my pollen sub formula as an enticement for the bees to use the sub. which I don't view as a treatment since my intention is not to control or poison a parasite or pathogen.
4. I will keep track of the weather
5. I will keep track of what's blooming, nectar flows and pollen output as best I can.
6. I will let these bees raise their own queens. I will requeen only if necessary and in that event will use my own queens or VSH/SMR/MNH queens or if possible survivor queen(s) from one of the other participant's colonies.
7. I will use no treatments(chemicals, antibiotics, fogging, acid, sugar dusting etc)
8. My hive configurations will be two deep brood boxes on a SBB with an upper entrance between the hive bodies and the honey supers. I will start with pierco one piece frames(that's all I have right now) in the brood boxes and will switch bees to foundationless in the brood box only. I will use medium honey supers with pierco foundation in wood frames. There will be no inner cover and tops will be migratory covers.
9. For feeding syrup, I will use a community feeder which will be a 35 gal. drum feeder of my own design. Pollen sub will be fed on the hives.
10. I will report honey production, all hive observations good and bad and all hive manipulations on a monthly basis on the website Barry is setting up.
11. These hives will all be in the same yard, but will be dispersed amongst my other "non project" hives in that yard.
12. I am looking at May 1 as my start date and will post my first report June 1, 2010.

That's what I have right now, I may add additional guidelines as I think about this.


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## Yuleluder (Mar 2, 2005)

My operation uses NO chemicals whatsoever. I do make a lot of splits in May and June for nucleus hives and queen rearing. I frequently look at drone larvae found between the two boxes and rarely find any varroa. I find that many of my hives display the VSH characteristics when observing brood patterns. As they should since I have sought out queens from breeders promoting this gene or genes. The hives that I do not split from seem to thrive and end up robbing from weaker hives come July in these parts. As I stated earlier my colony losses are related to winter or fall starvation and have not found any evidence of pests or disease being the primary cause of death. When a hive begins to starve other issues begin to rear there ugly heads, but that is a whole nother issue and not the root cause.


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

I have about 30 hives right now. They are the result of splitting 9 hives from last spring, which in turn came from 3 the year before. 

I introduced several queens in 2008 but let the bees raise their own in 2009. I had an AFB breakdown and removed that hive (Three actually, from the one hive) and am planning to add some more HYG stock this year. 

I did use oxalic drizzle in the fall the past two years, but nothing else and intend to monitor and avoid treatment this coming year. As for any further AFB, I will have to decide at that time, as I will decide about mite loads as I go.

I run a diary, but it covers lots of things. Maybe I should have a sidebar strictly for the hives in this project. We'll see what Barry comes up with.

I have been splitting fairly heavily and intend to split harder this year. Splitting is a varroa control in its own right.


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Can the research that Kirk Webster has been doing be posted?
Ernie


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

Absolutely


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Thanks for this thread, Allen.
As I just posted on the other thread, Barry and I talked via telephone last night, and hopefully my report/site will be open for all in the next few days. Then several things will become clear.

It is great to see some new posters on this thread, who are not treating. I suspected that would occur. 

When we talk about splits, perhaps we ought to make a distinction between "introduced queen" splits, and "raise their own" splits. When I've introduced a new queen into a split, there is a very short lapse in brood rearing, probably not enough to effect the mites. We all realize when we make a split and leave the split to raise their own queen, that long gap has a pronounced influence on varroa population. Just something to think about.

The other observation I'd make is that I assume my bees have mites. But they deal with it. Somehow. The analogy I use refers to a computer. I have one, I use it. I know it works. I don't know _how_ it works. I don't care how it works, just that it work, and is dependable. That's what I want us to see in our Treatment Free discussions... to find dependable bees and ways to work them, so they don't need treatment. I'll leave it to the scientists to discover _how_ it works genetically, and breed the bees. Hope that makes sense. 

I suspect as we see more and more beeks revealing themselves to be Treatment Free, that will encourage others who've been fearful because of the large number of losses.
Regards,
Steven


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## Yuleluder (Mar 2, 2005)

Good thoughts on splits and the effects different types of splits have on the varroa population. Most of my splits involve the introduction of ripe queen cells, however I have done and will continue to do whichever type of split the situation calls for. If I find a hive with a ton of swarm cells than that hive will be split. If I have no queens or cells and a hive is booming then I may do a walkaway split. There are also other variables to consider. Do you nucs or splits contain all stages of the honeybee. Do you use all capped brood, or do you use a frame of eggs, a frame of open brood, and a frame of capped brood. One could also make a split by shaking bees, ie packages. Different methods will have a direct effect on the varroa population.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

I had 3 hives last year – first year of beekeeping in about 40. I did not treat or monitor for mites at all last year. One hive – my best [Carnolian] – succumbed to mites/virus – both? My 2 Russian hives are limping along, but look like they will survive. 
I am introducing 3 new packages this year. One Carnolian with Northern Raised Queen from untreated stock, 2 VSH/SMR packages from California. I am also introducing a small cell “Russian” nuc from FatBeeman [Georgia raised] also from untreated stock. I’m not sure if the VSH queens are from treated stock or not.
I will monitor for mites this year – particularly Varroa. If I start to get a buildup that looks like it will impact the hives, I’ll probably treat with powdered sugar.
I will feed my packages with HBH syrup and MegaBee Patties. Probably most of the summer.
I plan to split my Russians and introduce F1 VSH Virgin Queens [Glenn Queen] from a local hive. If that hive does not survive the winter, I will introduce northern raised Carnolian Queens, also from non-treated hives. If my VSH packages do well, I will try and make some nucs and allow them to raise their own queens. I will expand these hives as much as possible.
My goal this year is strictly expansion, not honey production. I am not making nucs to avoid varroa.
However, if mites become too big a problem, I will escalate treatment from sugar to ? – I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, if I do.
I am using mostly natural cell. However, I do use some PF100’s to start on my hives and keep the natural frames straight.
I have one Kenyan TBH hive, one Tanzanian TBH hive and one long hive. I am going to move all my new hives to Langstroth hives because I have hopes to do some pollination and those hives are much better for that application.
Guess that’s enough for now.


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## beginnerhives (Feb 22, 2009)

I am just getting started. I have two hives and plan to get 4 more. 

I am not planning on doing any drugs. I plan on no reversing of hive bodies and let them do their thing pretty much undisturbed in three hive deeps. I use SBB but do not count the mites. I only will take honey they will not need for winter. 

What data do you want us to collect?


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## DRUR (May 24, 2009)

Sorry I missed most of the other thread as I have been on a skiing trip with the family and just got back on Sunday, only to find our phone lines down which did not get fixed until today.

I don't treat with anything I can't/won't put on a piece of bread [or spoon] and eat.I have screened bottom boards and drone frames; although I intend to allow those colonies whose genetics I favor to raise drones for breeding any raised queens. I will be making splits but for the purposes of expansion. I have copied a portion of my experiment from a thread I started, which I hope gives enough details that may be helpful here. See Bee Experiments here: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237603&highlight=experiments

"EXPERIMENT DETAILS:
I currently have 8 colonies all on small cells plastic frames. I currently have 1 BeeWeaver queen, 1 queen from Purvis stock, 1 Zia queen, 1 feral (supercedure) queen, 2 of Michael Bush’s queens, and 2 MH queens (one of which has cordovan coloration). I have made arrangements for the purchase of 20 deep frames of brood [from Darrell Rufer] and 15 Italian queens [Taylor made, Australian Italian queens, from BeeWeaver] the first week in March. Note: beginning the first of December I tried to find available queens from U.S.A. (including Hawaii) for my experiment, but none were available that I found.

By the first week in March my current colonies should have reached maximum brood production, but these colonies will not be at maximum bee populations for another 2-4 weeks or so [based upon my prior experience for my area]. I will use these purchased frames of brood and queens [along with brood from my original colonies] to make splits to about 23 nucs, 8 original queens and 15 Italian queens. For those new queens which might not be accepted, I will try to find replacements from whatever available sources, otherwise I will combine any queenless nucs with queen right nucs.

I currently have eight deep boxes and intend to move all my colonies to mediums this year [except my sample 5 which I will eventually sell] by using double mediums for the purchased deep frames until they can be transferred to medium frames. If everything works as planned, by the middle of April all nucs should reach maximum brood and bee populations. I will make my test samples the middle of April as follows:
a). I will leave the best 4 of my original 8 queens intact (Sample 2) for comparison with sample 1.
b). The other 4 original queens I will reduce to 5 frames of brood with bees (Sample 3).
c). I will make (with the best purchased Australian Italian queens) 8/2-3 frame nucs in my deep boxes (Sample 5), which I will use to test for survivability on small cells, and the other Italian queens will be destroyed.
d.) The rest of the bees and brood I will combine into my massive bee populations (ideally about 24 medium frames of brood) in 5-7 colonies (Sample 1).

The third week of April, I will destroy all queen cells in sample 1, and add frames of eggs/larva from what I consider to be my best original queens. I will allow all of my original colonies to raise a frame of drones [each of my original colonies has a drone frame] in order to maintain genetic diversity. When I make my increase splits mid June [after the major nectar flow] I will order the best available survivor queens to further increase genetic diversity within my apiary."


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

We started 2 packages, last year. Only treatment used was powdered sugar. The strongest hive of last summer had high mite loads in October.
It came through winter with the original queen, & a very small cluster of bee's. The queen never re-started laying, & they dwindled away.
The hive had over a deep full of honey, no robbers, or wax moths after a month of good weather.
CCD like symptoms.

I intend to stay on the no treatment system.

The other hive re-queened itself mid summer, & is starting out well this year.


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## Elwood (Apr 8, 2009)

We had 23 colonies going into fall.We used powdered sugar routinely until we had significant drops in mite counts. we fed all colonies sugar syrup most of the summer. We did treat one colony one time with fumigillan. We used screened bottom boards. We only harvested about 40 lbs of honey and left the rest to the bees. One colony did starve. They had honey but apparently just couldn't reach it. Of the remaining hives, about half just disappeared with honey and pollen left behind and the rest dwindled into oblivion. Of the original 23 we now have 11. 3 more are failing miserably. The last 8 look very good. One started producing drones a couple of weeks ago and we split it to raise their own queen. We picked up 2 gentle feral colonies that have been on their own for years. They are in old decrepit equipment and lots of burr comb. We are working to transition them into top notch equipment and hope to raise queen cells from them.
These colonies have been and remain in various locations, some at 4,400' elevation and some at 750' elevation. And a couple of locations in between. All in all, it was about a 60% loss. The ones at 750' were able to be split. Hope this helps.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

StevenG said:


> That's what I want us to see in our Treatment Free discussions... to find dependable bees and ways to work them, so they don't need treatment. I'll leave it to the scientists to discover _how_ it works genetically, and breed the bees. Hope that makes sense.


If this thread is to be limited to reports rather than discussions, can I suggest the newly prepared thread: 'Selecting for parasite and disease resistant bees' might be used by those wanting to explore the mechanics of the art and science of in-apiary breeding.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238098

I have replied to this post there.

Mike


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

*Reminder: As mentioned in the first post in this thread, "This is intended as a new thread for those who are actually running a group of their bees "untreated" -- whatever that means to them -- to report and discuss how they themselves are proceeding and will proceed, and NOT to tell others how to proceed". *

Let's keep this thread pure and readable, with _only_ posts from do-ers -- people who are actually, in the recent past or near future, running a no treatment apiary or something close to it -- reporting their experiences and intent.

Please be sure to report any hijacking attempts or dilution of the intent by clicking the little







icon above each post (upper right, near the post number)and asking the moderators to remove such unwelcome posts and reprimand hijackers. Thank you.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

It seems to me one of the key reasons for success or failure in Non-Treatment is the bee - what are they?

Would it thus be helpful to identify our bees? For example "I have 5 colonies of Italians, 2 colonies of MnHygenic, 3 colonies of Weaver Allstars, 2 ferals, and 2 Russians. 3 of the italians didn't make it, 1 Russian has already swarmed, the ferals are going great guns..." 

That way we can see what effect the strain may have upon the success or failure of the colony. And eventually I'll wager if a survey is devised, and we plug in the strain of bee, we'll see a pattern emerge. (Actually some folks already know the answer to that question! :lookout: )
Regards,
Steven


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## ACBEES (Mar 13, 2009)

StevenG-

My ferals are going great guns too. Even the smallest feral colony has thus far made it even after a branch fell off a nearby tree and knocked the hive up against the one next to it separating the boxes with 20 deg nights. I had put approx. 1 lb of my pollen sub on all my hives Jan. 15. Feb. 18 I checked hives. The ferals ate the heck out of the sub, the Russians wouldn't touch it. I added another 1.5 lbs. to each feral hive. The smallest of my feral colonies is doing better than all my russians.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

ACBEES, that's what I'm talking about, knowing our strains, and comparing them. My example was simply an example...I don't have ferals or Italians... just using that as an example to make my point. It doesn't do much good to say "I have 10 colonies and they....." WHAT are the bees? That makes all the difference I think.
Regards,
Steven


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## DRUR (May 24, 2009)

Just went through my 8 colonies in anticipation of queens for splits arriving Thursday. The following is where the queens came from listed in order of strength from the strongest to the weakest.

1. BeeWeaver Queen

2. Michael Bush's Queen

3. Queen raised from Purvis Stock

4. Zia Queen

5. Superceeded feral queen

6. Michael Bush's Queen

7. Superceeded Queen from Minn. Hyg. stock

8. Queen from Tecumseh from MHQ/Cordovan stock. She is colored like a Cordovan but producing mixed offspring. However, this was my last queen and I didn't get it until mid October, they are building up fast now and currently have about 3 solid deep frames of mostly sealed brood on small cells. A deep small cell frame would have about 8,000 bees.

I started mid March with 2 purchased colonies and split until I had 8 by the end of the year. Actually, I am well pleased at this point with all my bees, all on small cells and with no treatments other than screened bottom boards and drone frames.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

DRUR:

Since I am doing research (yes two 'no-treatment' TBHs are almost ready), I just wanted to comment.

You seem to have the mite mitigation/management well covered.

Since you are requeening, and you are using drone frame, do you intend to 'entrap' mites in the drone frame?

What I mean to ask is, do you restrict these new queens to first laying eggs in the drone frame, or isn't that a consideration?

Also, what next?


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Allen,

Am running 5 hives in a highly urban area. I have not treated any hive for any reason in the last 6 years. No treatment = NOTHING.... no powdered sugar, no HBH, no menthol. These are solid bottom, 2 deep configurations. I average 120 lbs of honey per hive. 
Some years I lose 1 or 2 hives. This last year I didn't lose any. The most common cause of loss is swarming and failing to re-queen. Around here they may swarm in Nov and Dec because of overcrowding and the results are usually hive death. 

Yes, i've had a loss or two to varroa but NONE to CCD. I am in the mode of replacing about 25% of the brood comb per year. 

Regards -- Fuzzy


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

Impressive! Do you know what bee stock you are using? I assume these are standard beehives? Nothing special in the way of foundation or other things?


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Allen,

The bee stock is all from swarms that I capture. The most likely is italians mixed with carniolians. I would estimate that within a half mile radius there are probably 15 hives that are either managed or feral. 

Yes, these are standard hives from Dadant. Started with plasticell for simplicity. Am about 1/3 of the way through converting to foundationless for the brood box using just a waxed starter strip. The honey supers will continue with plasticell for ease of extraction. I do not embrace the philosophy of "drone comb removal" because it requires perfectly timed maintenance. 

Fuzzy


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

That's what I love to hear!


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Fuzzy,

Sounds like your bees are doing real well, hope they continue to hang in there for you. Do you ever notice any mites when inspecting your hives? Very interesting, keep us posted. JOHN


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## hillhousehoney (Oct 7, 2008)

Hello:
My hives so far have made it through this harsh Iowa winter, so I hope that they will make it the rest of the way. With the packages that I have ordered this year, I will have 13 hives. I plan to split 4 to 6 to get somewhere near the 20 count by summertime. My splits will be by the box, as per Michael Bush. The bees will raise their own queens. The bees are Italian with Carniolan queens. All new packages will be introduced to Honey Super Cell, held captive by queen excluders until they accept (7 to 10 days). Sugar syrup will be fed until the flow is on. I run all 8 frame mediums. Additional boxes have only Mann Lake PF-120's. I do not treat for anything (no chems at all), and no powdered sugar use. I have considered pollen patties to start brood rearing, but still not sure. I checked several times this year and did not see any mites. I assume they are there, but apparently small amounts. I use screened bottom boards and top and bottom entrances to provide good ventilation. It rained so much last season, it was hard to tell how much they really produced. I will watch very closely this year. Thanks for allowing me to share.


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## DRUR (May 24, 2009)

WLC said:


> Since you are requeening, and you are using drone frame, do you intend to 'entrap' mites in the drone frame?


Yes to a limited degree. The queens that will arrive on Thursday will not be mite resistant; therefore I don't want their drones breeding my resistant stock. They will have drone cells, all other burr comb drone cells will be scraped out and the sealed drone frame will be frozen. So yes to that extent I am trapping mites in a drone frame.

These ordered queens without mite resistance will be used for two puroses. First to produce workers to combine into super colonies to fully utilized our limited honeyflow which begins the middle of April. And then secondly to test survivability on small cell foundation of bees which genetically have no mite resistance.



WLC said:


> What I mean to ask is, do you restrict these new queens to first laying eggs in the drone frame, or isn't that a consideration?


Yes the new ordered queens will [as much as controllably possible] be restricted to laying drones in the drone frames. However, my resistance stock will be allowed to raise [and are currently being allowed] a bunch of drones to maturity for breeding queens from my selected queen mothers.



WLC said:


> Also, what next?


Depends to what extent these non mite resistant bees are able to survive on small cell.


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

In retrospect, I realize that some of the comb has been treated with "BT" for wax moth prevention. This is done on comb that is not in use but does eventually wind up back in a hive. 

JMGI,
"Do you ever notice any mites when inspecting your hives?"

No offense intended... But IF I do NOT treat then what would be the purpose of inspecting a hive ??

I expect that I will catch some flack about this but that is not my problem. I only "inspect" the hive at the end of January. I clean out the honey, push the brood to the bottom and put empty comb above the bees. After that, the only inspection that is done is an attempt at a quasi "checkerboard" approach. I try to keep the supers directly above the brood boxes mostly empty or uncapped. 

My "inspections" are really observations of behaviour. 
Are they bringing in pollen
are there bees taking orientation flights at about 72F
Are the number of flights increasing or decreasing
is there unusual activity at the entrance
is there a dramatic drop in the flight activity

And having read Allen's diary I would have to agree with him that there is nothing good that will happen by invading your hives in October and later.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

>No offense intended... But IF I do NOT treat then what would be the purpose of inspecting a hive ??

No offense intended...But not treating is not an excuse to not pay attention to what's is going on inside the hive, including even a casual investigation for mite population. Just thought most conciencious BEEKEEPERS would take an interest either way you manage your bees, I guess I'm assuming too much here.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Speaking only for myself, I do not treat, and do not do the tests for mites - powdered sugar, ether roll, whatever. 

However, when I do the periodic inspection of the hive, I do look for mites. And yes, I do have some mites in the hives. It is particularly easy to see them on drone brood in burr comb that separates when I pull hive bodies apart. Checking for dwv is also important, and is easy to do, just observe the bees. 

The danger in advocating extensive checking and testing for mites is the beek might panic, and go from Treatment-free to treating to "save the bees", but which course of action, in the long run, will cause the beek more problems than it solves. At least that's my take on it, and others feel the same way. :lookout: Right or wrong? We'll probably know in another 10 years. 
Regards,
Steven


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## thomas894 (Feb 12, 2010)

Thanks for continuing this thread. We have been committed to a low impact ONE STRAW (no artificial chemicals) philosophy on our farm since 1984. That includes our bees, w/ our most recent admittedly, goal being to achieve 20 chemical free hives for as long as they/we will survive. We only feed (sugar) when we suspect starvation and add nothing else, ever, that contains known toxins, when cured or not. We look forward to sharing our experiences on this thread and learning from all of yours.

thomas

"None of us is free if one of us is chained."


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## ACBEES (Mar 13, 2009)

I don't think this is off topic, just read sugar projected to go to $30/50 lbs. This could affect how many splits folks in this project can do.


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## 11x (May 14, 2009)

i am going to cut the every ounce of comb out of the hive each spring till i get to natural cell size . do you call that a treatment?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Allen, in respect of no treatment breeding for resistant bees, can you elaborate on the Saskatraz project in Saskatchewan? I have been told that the bees arnt making leaps of progress in finding the "resistant" line of genetics in terms of grooming and biting and search and destroy methods of mite control. Rather the bees are forming sWarmy habits to break up their brooding and increased tendency to supersede their queen.

Any of these thoughts along the line in what you have heard of this breeding project?


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

Let's take this to another thread. Perhaps others know more than I do. My friends are using the stock and I am considering it.


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## pilothawk (Apr 16, 2009)

I started beekeeping last year and I started with a May swarm of carniolans last year that never got themselves queenright, and they just withered away. I also got 2 nucs with I believe commercially raised italian queens from a local beek who was using mite treatments in his main hives (none used in the nucs other than what came with the splits). I attempted two July splits with queens from Michael Bush and lost one before winter set in (I think they starved or were robbed out). I did not treat in any way last year other than trying to get the bees regressed to small cell (letting the bees draw their own comb). I also did not take any honey and fed 50 pounds of sugar water last fall between the 3 hives.

Thus far all three hives that I went into winter with have survived. The weather has been horribly cold here (for Tennessee) so I haven't had a chance to get into the hives to look around and see how well they fared over the winter. I will not treat with any chemicals, fungicides, or powdered sugar this year. The only thing some might consider treatment would be making splits. I've got 3 hives now and would like to have at least 6 or 8, depending on how much equipment is gonna cost me, by the end of the summer. I will try and use frames from the Michael Bush queen for queen rearing.

I look forward to following this post to see the results, and I'm glad to see others aren't afraid of not treating either.


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## heartbeat (Nov 18, 2004)

i have been keeping bees since the spring of 1990, and have never treated with anything. my first hive was a swarm, and the next several were from a commercial beek that had been selective breeding for over 50 yrs. (he did use chems in his opperation). i started splitting using q cells i found in the hives, and later started grafting my own from select hives (somewhere around 1995). in about 2000 i bought 25 hawiian queens to add to the gene pool, but lost all of them, as well as their daughter queens within 1.5 yrs. i was running around 200-250 hives and would split about 30-50 each spring to replace losses (consistantly 50ish%). however, the last 4 years, due to working out of town for 2 years and then building a house after i got back, i have barely even opened the lid on them. i picked up deadouts 2 weeks ago and have 33 hives left. i am going to split again this year and try to get my numbers back up to around 100 by fall. (i also havent fed these last 4 years either). 2 weeks ago i had 3 hives that had 2 deeps and 3 meds and were FULL of bees, so i'll graft from them... time will tell.


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## Cordovan Italian Bee (Oct 27, 2009)

Breed of bees. Had THE WEAVER ALL-AMERICAN BEE (ITALIAN BREED),Have now Cordovan Italian ,Allstar buckfast beesmart line.

Packages.purchased (1) 3 Lbs.THE WEAVER ALL-AMERICAN BEE (ITALIAN BREED),

Queens purchased. (2) Cordovan Italian ,Allstar buckfast beesmart line.(9) in all.

Purchased from. R. Weaver,C F Koehnen & Son INC., B.Weaver

Date Purchased. April 15,2009,May 28,2009,Aug.2009

Treatment free when purchase. The all star buckfast beesmart line is. Don't know about the Cordovan or if the Italian was.

Treatment free. Yes Now.

Type of hives. Stands 2 feet off ground,Screened chicken wire on bottom of stands, screened bottom boards,2 Lg.brood boxes,plastic frames going to wood foundationless,inter cover screened hole,outer cover.

Any treatments.once for SHB. Didn't like results so we took inside feeders out and closed the entrance to about inch and half to two inch. No more problems whith SHB,the bee guards keep them out.

Any loses. First Italian THE WEAVER ALL-AMERICAN BEE queen to all small cell foundations 4.9. Replaced her with All star buckfast.

When loses. May 26,2009

Why lost. Supersedure ,was not laying good in 4.9 cells.

Splits. (1) May 28,2009, (8) Aug.2009

When splits. May and Aug.

Splits for what reason. Increase hives.

How many splits. (9)

Problems when split. None

Other problems during the year of 2009.Drought 2 months, then rain 2 months.

Bees sold. (8) complete hives. All 8 are doing great this year.

Feedings. Sugar water when splits and package and all summer because of drought and rain.

Any treatments.One time for SHB,never again.

Reason for treatment. SHB

Honey production. Very little. Feed the two not sold all winter. Bad year all year.

Hive strength.Low because of drought 2 months then rain 2 months,then early cold winter,bad year.

Bee swarms.None

Supersedure. (1)

Any pests or diseases. varroa mite,not bad.

Comments, Going to split the two into 5 and 5 in April. Spliting to,Italian ,Minnesota Hygienic,Old World Carniolan,Buckfast,New World Carniolan,Cordovan,Texas Italian.


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## thomas894 (Feb 12, 2010)

We had our "First" bee meeting (in over 20 years) last nite, w/ Gary Rueter from UMN doing a presentation. We expected 25 and over 50 showed up, packing our little town hall, from wanna-bees to experienced and former beeks. WOW! There was great interest expressed concerning this thread and "no-treatment" beekeeping in general, so I'm assuming it may get buzy here soon. Many were first timers, but several got out years ago and were just waiting for an excuse (a new club?) to get back in. :thumbsup:

Thanks again for this important and timely discussion.

thomas

"None of us is free if one of us is chained."


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## Cordovan Italian Bee (Oct 27, 2009)

After the last hard freeze about 3 weeks ago,our 2 hives started collecting pollen and nectar.We started feeding them sugar water then because they were low on store and to get them to brood up. They have been doing great now for 3 weeks,5-10 bees a second most of the days going in and out when degree is in the 50s-70. We are going to do our spring check in a week or two and start splits April 15 th.


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## Cordovan Italian Bee (Oct 27, 2009)

Allen Dick said:


> Let's take this to another thread. Perhaps others know more than I do. My friends are using the stock and I am considering it.


Take what to an other thread where ?


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## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

> Take what to an other thread where ?

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238435


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## ACBEES (Mar 13, 2009)

We usually get one more hard freeze around Easter weekend. We got a ways to go yet.


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## Brooklyn (Nov 14, 2009)

*Re: "No Treatment of Honey Bees Report" by StevenG*

Hey,
I came across This free beekeeping software.

It looks like something we all could use to save the data in the same format, so we can compare apples to apples.

Check it out. http://apimo.dk/
It is old from 2006 or so. But I think a nice program.

Bad choice of words I am going treatment free.............
Brooklyn


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## Cordovan Italian Bee (Oct 27, 2009)

Now about 3 weeks later our Cordovan Italian had two brood boxes full of bees and brood. They had swarm cells so we did two walk away splits. Low mite count. Will check Buckfast tomarrow.


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## Cordovan Italian Bee (Oct 27, 2009)

We got real lucky today. We went into our buckfast hive and they were superseding and had about 60-80 thousand bees, our queen was gone but three new queens just hatched and still 15 or more unborn queens. We did two splits with the new queens and one with queen cell and let one new queen with the old hive. Low mite count.


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## ACBEES (Mar 13, 2009)

Checked my remaining russian colonies yesterday. All but two have tiny clusters. Not one of them would touch the pollen sub I put on four weeks ago. All the hives still have honey stores but no activity as far as egg laying, brood etc. Night time temps still dropping down to mid thirties, daytime temps range from 50-75 degrees. My next move is to see if they'll take some 1:1. Maybe that will jump start them. Right now it looks like they would rather die out than build up.

My feral hives are booming. My conclusion....russians don't work in the texas panhandle.


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## Budvar (Feb 5, 2008)

3rd year Beekeeper. Never treated with chemicals (well, once with Fumigilin, first year). 

I use SBB's exclusively. Essential oil patties occasionally but not religiously. I don't monitor for mites. 

4/6 hives survived the winter. Still figuring out what happened, lots of honey. The dieoffs were swarms, all requeened with survivor/vsh russian queens. 

I have 4 nice colonies left, 3 from packages last year. One is survivor russian. It is very, very testy. I may have to requeen if it continues it's antisocial behavior. It may be a survivor, will give it a chance. But can't have bees around that don't like people (visitors).


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## Monie (Feb 13, 2008)

This is my 3rd year. I have not had a dead out.

Because I live in the city, I only have one hive in my backyard. 

I have never treated my bees in any way, shape or form. I firmly believe that if a body is constantly bombarded with "treatments", then it will never build the immunity needed and will, eventually, require additional treatment, because the diseases have become resistant to the original treatment.

I have requeened because of swarming, not as a "treament" method. 

That said, I plan to expand this year. jjgbee was kind enough to let me use his 12 acres. I will continue my no treatment method in this apiary as well.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Budvar, before you requeen your Russians for their antisocial behavior, consider if there are any mitigating factors for that behavior. For instance, I worked my bees last Saturday. It was actually too cool, overcast, windy to do so, but I had to. Even my most gentle bees were ... well, not just antisocial, but downright belligerent, like they joined the Taliban, or something. I swear some of them were carrying little AK's as they hit my veil! :lpf: So it might be circumstances, and circumstances change. Just some thoughts.
Regards,
Steven


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Allen,

Checked today and one of my 5 untreated hives is virtually dead. It is a hive in partial shade and has always been a bit slow to take up in the spring. However, it has now gone queenless and has a drone layer in place. RIP. 

The good news is that after 8 years I have now seen what a drone layer hive looks like inside. 
The other good news is that the other 4 hives are doing quite well.

Fuzzy


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## RZRBCK BEE (May 14, 2009)

Count me in. This will be my second year and I am not experienced. Everything I have learned so far has been off this forum and reading all the books I can. Started last year with 4 hives of Minn Hygenics and I lost 1 that appears to be from starvation. The other 3 are thriving. All I ever did was feed sugar syrup. I decided after reading everything I could from Michael Bush that that was the path I was going to take. He just makes sense to me. I do plan on splitting some for expansion this year and am going to try at least 2 nucs of Russians just to see how they do. I am thinking about using the small cell foundation. Thanks for this thread.

Randy


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## jjgbee (Oct 12, 2006)

1 hive African cross. 5 frames of brood . Some Varroa in drone cells. 50,000 bees. Another hive that I gave to a newbee of same stock same condition. No treat of any kind for 4 years. 3-27-2010 Little hot, but can be worked in shorts and hood on a nice day.


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## Cordovan Italian Bee (Oct 27, 2009)

After splitting our hives, one buck fast and one cordovan into 7 hives they still swarmed. We didn’t catch the buckfast but did catch the Cordovan. Out of out 7 splits we had one weak one and they didn’t make it with the queen cell. We didn’t have a hive made up when the Cordovan swarmed, so we shook the weak hive out on the ground and put the swarm in their hive,the swarmed hive excepted the ones we shock out in with them. So, we still had 7 until yesterday when our 4 new queens got here. Out of our 7 splits from two we raised 4 queens from swarm cells, who knows what they mated with, who knows what we got now? We have Italian feral and Maltese around here and then our own Cordovan and Buckfast.
Then yesterday April 15 Th. our 2 Cordovan and Carniolan that were matted with cordovan got here. From our other 6 splits we had two hives one of each breed of bee that didn’t make it with the cells. So we queen them and split two others. Now from the two hives we started with in the spring, we got 9 with laying queens. We now have our first yr. old Cordovan queen ,4 new raised - 2 Carniolan breed with Cordovan, 2 new Cordovan.
No treatment, going to all foundationless, a few SHB, Low mite count. Will sell some packages and nucs and complete hives soon to local people.


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

This is my first year attempting no treatment. I used mite away 2(formic acid) last fall and all 16 hives came through winter very strong. I have one vp queen which is excellent. I never find more than a couple mites on the bottom drawer of the sbb. One of my purvis queens has showed mite numbers almost as low, but my other purvis hive loaded up on mites so I killed that queen and requeened with a graft from my vp. Because about half my hives were loading up with mites, I requeened them and killed thier drone comb. I plan to graft from my most mite free hives and continue requeening any hives that have problems. One way to prevent breeding swarmy bees, instead of hygeinic bees, would be to actively prevent swarming in all your hives, and dont graft from hives that swarmed in spite of your efforts. Also, allways requeen hives that swarmed.


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## PiccolaZingara (May 4, 2010)

I am a first year beekeeper and have just hived my first package of Italians this past week. It is my intention to go chemical-free, but I am still looking into other lower impact methods such as the powdered sugar drops and manipulating drone comb. So far I have been feeding sugar syrup to get the hive going.

I'm very glad to have found this thread as I am interested in hearing of the successes/failures of other beekeepers in going treatment free. Being primarily self-taught through the internet and books, and having virtually no experience myself, it will be very interesting to hear some first hand experiences from other more seasoned keepers!


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## Boris (Jul 12, 2006)

Definitions of word TREATMENT: “…care provided to improve a situation, or the management of someone or something”

So, the statement from honeybeeworld.com: “… Feeding sugar syrup honey to honey bees helps ensure that they survive periods when honey may run short, such as winter.” 
is a type of treatment also. 

Therefore, "No Treatment" project -- Do-ers Only Thread 
is a nonsense.

Especially after this: 
“…A pump equipped tanker delivers over 40,000 pounds of syrup to our farm. Three 1250 imperial gallon tanks hold the syrup until needed. Syrup keeps well for a month or more…” 
From: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/syrup/feed.htm

Poor bees and "honey" buyers…

Boris Romanov


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

Boris, if you actually _read_ post #1 of this thread you will see that your post is unnecessary here.
It's not really a thread for debating what is 'treatment free', or for saying anything is 'a nonsense'.

From what I understand, this thread is for people who are trying to raise their bees with as few treatments as possible, acknowledging that the term 'treatment free' can have variations in definition for different people. It's for the sharing of the thoughts and experiences of those people participating. I for one look forward to reading more from these participating beekeepers, and in fact participating myself at whatever level I can manage.


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

I've been running all of my bees quasi-treatment free. I do use SBB though just for better venthilation if nothing else, and I use AJ's beetle eaters just to give the bees a place to run the beetles into that will kill them without using harsh pesticides. So far I haven't lost any.


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## Brooklyn (Nov 14, 2009)

Come on people it is not hard to understand. Just read the title

*"No Treatment" project -- Do-ers Only Thread *
It is not about some treatments, or what you think about treatments it is about being treatment free and how are your bees doing.

Very easy thread stop making it something it is not.:no:

Brooklyn


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## clarkfarm (Apr 13, 2009)

I am a third year beekeeper. I use powdered sugar and SBB but do not monitor for mites as I do not intend to treat. I used the homemade version of HBH in sugar syrup some last year for feeding.

I live on 40 acres in a farming area. I started in 2008 with 1 nuc of Italians and still have that colony going strong. It swarmed last year and I caught the swarm for hive 2. I bought another nuc in 2009 and it is very strong this year also. The swarm colony however did not make it through this past winter. They appeared queenless and starved/froze.

I did not harvest from my first hive the first year. Last year I harvested from the first hive and its swarm hive but did not harvest from the 2009 nuc. I did not have to feed the two surviving hives this spring as they came through with left over capped honey. I have now a 2010 nuc (to replace the dead hive) which I am feeding. I will not harvest from it this year.

Hope this helps.


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## Monie (Feb 13, 2008)

Allen Dick said:


> This is intended as a new thread for those who are actually running a group of their bees "untreated" -- whatever that means to them -- to report and discuss how they themselves are proceeding and will proceed, and NOT to tell others how to proceed.


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## Robee (Dec 9, 2007)

My first hive was a package of Italians from Georgia May 12, 2008. I placed them in a top bar hive and fed sugar syrup. 2 weeks later, a swarm moved into a top bar bait hive and they may or may not have come from the package. I transfered them into a top bar hive after about 2 weeks and they wouldn't touch the sugar syrup. This colony was smaller all summer. They were also pretty much non-aggressive all year too. I fed some syrup with some tea tree oil and then pepermint oil in the fall and just before winter I put in some dry sugar for fear they might starve.
Spring 2009: 
I was glad I put in the dry sugar, the small colony had just about no stores left when I checked in March. The package hive seemed strong and had a couple of bars of honey so I took one and also two frames of capped and uncapped brood and tried a split. I actually put them into a Lang hive along with 7 frames with waxed starter strips. The split built up well but stayed in the one deep and never moved up last year.
The packaged top bar hive swarmed in May and I caught them and put them in another Langstroth Deep, again foundationless. They built up just as my split had.
I did no fall feeding and took 16 pounds of honey from the top bar hives.
Spring 2010:
All 4 hives were alive and heavy with stores and the small colony in the top bar hive had so much that I took another 8+ pounds. Tried feeding a little syrup with the essential oils, and gave each hive 1 global pattie for spring buildup but only the 2 Langs wanted any and soon wouldnt take any.
The little prolific top bar colony has swarmed and I believe I caught them in the bait hive last Sunday. Then again, Monday, I found a swarm has moved into a dead tree that the top broke off long ago. I could see the 6 inch high, 3 inch wide hole is filled with bees and could see comb.
Looks like I now have a feral hive that will stay that way and if it survives, I may get swarms from them.
I honestly believe that leaving them plenty of their own stores is the way to go. If I get a little honey and leave them plenty of their own stores, then next spring I will just let them alone.
Robee


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## kbenz (Feb 17, 2010)

just started my second hive with a swarm both hives are in tbh's and I will not be using any treatments or using supplemental feeding.


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## Throttlebender (Mar 30, 2010)

I'll play also.

I just started my first two hives of Italians from packages on the 22nd of April. I have SBB for both but am not checking for mites yet and am feeding 1:1 syrup with homemade HBH. That's it. So far they are doing well. I'll keep updating.


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## honeydreams (Aug 10, 2009)

I have five hives that recive no chemical treatments. No fumigialn b or check mite etc.... 
What I use is SBB, powder sugar, HBH when feeding. And I use B401 for Wax moths. all natural very health Bees very strong hives. I will be doing this to all my hives.


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## DigitalBishop (Nov 11, 2009)

I just started beekeeping not too long ago. At first I was in the research stage, reading everything I could get my hands on. Now that I have two hives up I can say that I'm in the doers phase of things. Both hives that I have are of feral stock. I don't know what breed they are. One came from a cut-out I did with a fellow beekeeper. The other was a swarm that my fiancee called me about and I rushed to get them. The cut-out bees are a bit twitchy and are a little on the hot side but not overly so. The swarm bees are very gentle. They let you know when they're uncomfortable but generally they just mill about or go about their business. They're very fast builders and have filled the cardboard nuc I put them in half full in two weeks. I'm not sure how far regressed either of them are. I've decided to go chemical free for two reasons.


Financial. Treatments cost money. It's an added expense I could do without and it would bite in on any profit.
Clean Honey and Wax. I don't want chemicals in my honey or wax. It's as simple as that.

So far so good. Both hives are thriving and doing very well. No sign of varoa. A hive before them was driven to collapse by wax moth. They were weak to begin with. There are four other hives in the area and the owner uses large cell and treats with Apistan. To my knowledge he hasn't rotated his treatment. Most of his hives seem to be doing well and have been there for more than four years. His hives are one concern. The other is wax moth as I have been warned that the area has a lot of them. One more is that there are a lot of Agentine ants in the area and they're notorious for invading the hives and driving the bees out. I have an entrance restrictor in summer mode on the cut-out. As soon as I get the medium nuc from Brushy I'll be transferring the bees in the cardboard nuc to that. I just don't like the entrances on the cardboard nucs. I think they're too big for the new colony to defend. So far they've done a good job though.

So that's what I have so far. Both look clean and healthy. At last inspection no problems were seen. Both are foundationless and need to be evaluated as to how regressed they are. I'll post that as soon as I evaluate.

Bishop


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## Ronnie Elliott (Mar 24, 2004)

I started into bees in the early 80's, but I decided to just quit after herniating a couple of disk in lower back a few of years ago. I sold a lot of stuff, and the bee yard dwindled down to one robust hive. I never have used any chemicals in the last 5-years, and only before then I used FMGO/thymol. I am now wanting to start keeping a few hives again, so I do plan on splitting this coming spring, and put out a couple flower pot traps. I will re queen trapped swarms with bees from my splits, but if they make it great, if they don't, I'll sell some more equipment. I keep the bees in my 160-feet by 60 feet garden at our farm, and use a electric fence mostly to keep the wild hogs, and deer out.


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

Allen,

Here we are a year later..... Same question. During the year I lost 1 hive due to severe ant problems. Went into fall with 4 hives, and now (in our virtual spring) still have 4 good hives. No treatments. ( actually all stored comb has been sprayed with BT for wax moth control ). So, very similar results to last year.

Double deeps, solid bottoms, bottom entrance. No chemicals, no essential oils, no powdered sugar or oxalic acid. Just a beehive. 

Don't know why but they just keep going. Have embraced Walt Wright methodology to minimize swarming and enhance production with very good luck.

Regards -- Fuzzy


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## Ronnie Elliott (Mar 24, 2004)

I was reading my last post and need to make a correction. Instead of not using chemicals in the last 5-years, I should have said, I have never used anything except the FGMO period. I decided to stop using the FGMO only because it gets so hot here in Texas. I use the Golden Bee beesuit, but when it's 108 degrees in the shade, it gotta be hotter in that beesuit.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Since this thread has been resurrected, it is going to be very interesting to see how many of us "Do-ers" come out of winter successfully. And more importantly, to see what our losses have been, why, and what our hive strengths are. I've not checked my hives since Nov. 1, other than to know most have been flying on warmer days. Will get serious about them in another 2 weeks. Been too busy in the rest of my life, and trying to get equipment ready for spring.
Regards,
Steven


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## Risky Beesness (Dec 29, 2010)

Read through this whole thread with great interest. I have zero experience and have only been educated through books and everything I can read on the internet and this forum. 

I have acquired my 1st two hives and am in the process of acquiring 3 more before my bees arrive. I am planning to start with 1 deep and 1 med, a SBB, and SBH trap on each hive. I will feed syrup and pollen patties as necessary and I will not use chemicals other than BT if wax moths become a problem. Around here, BT is considered acceptable in organic gardening and I have used it successfully on my tomatoes for years. I may try powdered sugar if mites seem to be a problem.

I have reserved two nucs of Bee Weavers, and two nucs of Ital / Carn from Busy Bees in LA, to be delivered in Apr/May. I may order a package of MN Hyg through a group buy at the club I just joined. I also intend to place 2 or 3swarm traps around my 18 ac. I will continue to follow this and report my results.


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

I will be going into my second season since coming back to beekeeping.

I currently raise Carnie/Russian hybrids and Italian/mutts stock.

I decided to not use any treatments other than powdered sugar and EO. The powdered sugar was not directly applied to the bees and frames but to the top bars of the upper super. The EO were applied to feedings in very small amounts, estimating 1 to 5 percent of the total volume of the feed applied. 

I also decided to plant a lot of items that provided EO.

I run 1 deep and 1 medium for over wintering. I did take frames of honey and pollen throughout the year and store them in a freezer for later use. I also made sure the bees had plenty of naturally produced stores for winter. Just for security I did put sugar on the top of the frames (Mountain Camp Method). So far the bees have not moved up to the sugar and are using the natural stores they produced. I have but have not used HBH in feedings. I did however add a small amount of EO mixtures to the fall feedings. The bees for the most cases were taking in 3 gallons of feed per week.

SHB and Varroa were noticed in all hives at extremely small numbers. 1 to 3 mites were found while testing, pull out tray, powder sugar shake and alcohol shake. I only noticed 1 to 3 shb total in all hives, most of which I squished at the time of inspection.

I do not plan to treat any hives with any commercial product for mites, fungi or bacti.

I credit the low mite and shb counts to the bees. My carnie/russians have some extremely great hygienic habits and my italian/mutts large numbers.

I plan on grafting from my carnie/russian hybrids and letting them openly mate with local feral bee populations this spring. I will test them for multiple qualities and plan to release some for testing and sale. I do believe that the feral population of my carnie/russian will be mainly from the black bee. I expect the bees to possibly be hot, we will see.

The italian queens will be replaced with buckfast, and the current queens added to nucleus hives for breeding since they produce such a large stock of bees. I hope to breed to remove the aggressive behavior and hope to keep the queens ability to lay well.

Breeding will be accomplished by grafting and openly mated.

This coming year I will be adding, buckfast, sunkist, carnie and amm/black bee to my stock in 5 locations.


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## jb63 (Jun 15, 2010)

I went into the winter with 3 hives. 2swarm trapped, and 1 Italian may nuc.
My weakest feral hive got knocked over and died.The other two look ok. The swarm bees are builders,they are in two deep 10 frames with sbb. The nuc. is in one deep, one shallow with sbb. I didn't powder sugar, but I would have if there was an emergency. I had one swarm live in a box for 2or 3 years before I screwed with them, they didn't make it.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

I'm 18 of 18 living so far with two of them very weak. But I know that most losses happen in February.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

My natural cell, no-treatment experiment has not been going very well for me so far. I went into winter with about 38 hives, 18 of them 5 frame nucs, the rest are 10 frame medium hives (3 high), all Italian except for one swarm I caught which is a darker bee, not really sure what genetics it is. As of the other day I have lost about 15 of the full size hives, some from starvation with capped honey still in the hive but only a couple inches away from the cluster. I think with the prolonged cold weather the clusters were unable to move to new stores, at least that's what it looks like to me. As for the nucs, I didn't really disturb them to check their condition because they are grouped together and insulated top, bottom and sides. I got a bad feeling about how they are going to turn out too once I'm finally able to check on them. Maybe we'll get a nice day in the 40's or so in February and they'll get to come out and take a cleansing flight, then I can see which ones made it and which ones didn't. 

I did have a small mite problem in most of the full size hives going into winter, not so much in the nucs. I have to say though, even though all the bees drew their own comb in the foundationless frames, I didn't regress them down a second time this season like some small-cellers say to do to get them close to the 4.9 size. So, maybe the mite problems contributed to smaller clusters going into winter, thus they were unable to keep warm enough to move to new stores, I don't know, just a guess at this point. John


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

jmgi said:


> As of the other day I have lost about 15 of the full size hives, some from starvation with capped honey still in the hive but only a couple inches away from the cluster. I think with the prolonged cold weather the clusters were unable to move to new stores, at least that's what it looks like to me.


I suspect that generations of beekeepers helping colonies to avoid isolation starvation has resulted in bees that lack the ability to manage stores well. 

Mike


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

You know Mike, you may very well be correct in some respect about that, it is really hard to say how much we have changed the bees natural (pre-managed) way of surviving, or adapting to changes naturally over the centuries. This is exactly what I tried to do in my own small way with natural cell and no-treatment, seeing if the bees can manage themselves again, for the most part! John


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

Just wondering if your Italian queens were northern acclimated or from the south. Could make a difference. I got some southern Italians last year and the few I allowed to go into the winter appear to be dead or dying. My northern bred hives with Carni queens are thriving, even with the terrible weather we've had.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

Cam, the queens and packages were from California this last spring, so I hear what you are saying about northern hardiness. My plan was to get them through their first winter here in Michigan and then breed from the survivors, I just hope I have something left to keep going with this spring! John


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

I got 2 packages from Shad Sullivan [CA] they were VSH queens with Russian drones. They are thriving, much to my amazement and had 0 mite count this fall when I tested them. All the "experts" up here have been unable to keep VSH queens alive. Guess I'll need to raise some queens from them. All my "Italians" came out of Georgia and they're the ones failing right now.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

You know, its so hard to say whether one type of bee is better than the other when it comes to mite's, has there really been any conclusive studies done on all the bee genetic types available in regards to one of them handling mites better than another, if there has been, I must have missed it somehow. Some beeks swear by one bee over another, others have completely different opionions or experiences with the same bee, see what I mean? Is small cell or non-treatment or both in tandem the ultimate natural answer to the mite problem alone, I think not at this point. I do think breeding a better bee has to be incorporated into the mix too, whether we depend on breeding laboratories to do it or can we accomplish a satisfactory result by breeding from survivors in our own apiaries. John


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

Forgot to mention that all my hives are foundationless but I have not regressed them. I do have a few PF-100's that I use to help get straight foundation.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

jmgi,

It's not unusual to have a lot of losses at first when converting to treatment free. Just keep breeding from the survivors and you'll get there. Don't get discouraged.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Breeding from your survivors is definitely a way to go. Another way is when you buy packages to replace lost colonies, buy from treatment free package producers. That process gets you a great head-start on the treatment free process. Let someone else pay those dues, you reap the benefits. fwiw
Regards,
Steven


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

heaflaw, 

Yeah, its tough losing such a large percentage of your bees in one winter, hopefully I'll have a few hives left in spring to breed from, also will try to get them all regressed down in cell size next season. Discouraged? No way. John


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

StevenG,

What do you think (either from experience or what you've heard) is a good genetics for winter hardiness AND mite resistance. I probably will experiment a bit this coming year with something other than straight Italians. John


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

John, I'm still in an expansion mode, entered winter 2009 with 14 hives, lost one due to starvation. So started 2010 with 13 hives. Went into winter last fall with 26 hives. Haven't checked them yet. 

I use Russians, B. Weaver, and Purvis bees. Got queens from Purvis and B. Weaver, package Russians and B. Weaver bees, and made splits over the past few years. Purvis no longer sells queens, so I've ordered more B. Weaver queens. I will also be making some walk-away splits. Raising basically mutts.

That's my story so far. No treatments, only one loss, due to starvation. Had some queen issues last summer, which reduced my hive count from 31 to 26.
When I have purchased bees, I ask about treatments the breeder uses. There are a couple of breeders who are on the forum, might even advertise their bees. There's one I'll be buying queens from next year, to expand my genetic mix. 

I'm in SE Missouri, and our winters are not brutal. Exactly how these bees (except the Russians, they're supposed to do real well up north) would function in the Dakotas, New England, or other northern locales, I don't know. It would be worth a try though.
Hope this helps,
Steven


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