# Conventional Beekeepers Bashing on Treatment Free Beekeepers



## dadaas

I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?

Not sure what are laws at your place. But in my country we need to treat by a law. And most of the beekeepers use Amitraz.

I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.

Can someone with more experience answer my concerns?


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## Fusion_power

Just going treatment free is not the answer. Start with getting some queens that are from a treatment free program. There are a couple of sources available in Europe.

There is no good answer for dealing with beekeepers who are stuck on the treatment treadmill. They compromise the genetics of treatment free beekeepers and then complain because their bees get mites.

The mite load in my colonies is so low that it is nearly undetectable. I have not treated since the fall of 2004. If someone accused me of spreading mites, I would laugh at them. That wouldn't work given the law you have which says you must treat.


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## rwurster

dadaas said:


> I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?


I would reach in my pocket and pull out my phone and ask them if they would like to use it to call the bee inspector

>>I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.

If they are treating, your hives shouldn't significantly add to their varroa problem. They will eliminate their mites in late summer/early fall with treatments. Only your bees should suffer a quick collapse, if indeed they have no hygenic traits. It should take between 1-3 years for you to see the collapse. However, since there are laws in place in your country I would suggest following any rules in place regarding bees. Unfortunately varroa mites are almost everywhere  

I enjoy Carniolan bees, I believe they come from the mountains of Slovenia. They are my favorite kind of bees and do well in our mountains also


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## deknow

I would ask what the average rate of swarming in commercial beekeeping.....let's assume it is .5%?

That is 12, 500 swarms escaping and not being treated (much of this is stock without much resistance to varroa....creating the so called 'varroa bomb'...year after year).

I would also suggest that all bee trees should be extracted (if practical) or killed in order to keep these untreated 'varroa bombs' from going off.

If untreated bees are really such a big problem, seems to me that the low hanging fruit is the 1000 or so migratory beekeepers whos low swarming frequency results in 12,000+ untreated colonies. 
.and chop down those troublesome bee trees!


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## Tenbears

Did everyone miss the fact the OP is from Croatia, And the law there requires bee keepers to treat their bees for Varoa. I don't think giving a complainant your Phone and telling them to call an inspector would be a wise idea. 

The law is the law and regardless of how archaic.


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## tsmullins

dadaas said:


> Can someone with more experience answer my concerns?


I probably don't have more experience. But I would like to respond. There have been beekeepers who, after finding I am TF and foundationless no longer speak with me. No joke.

My colony losses are no worse than some beeks who treat, in my area. 

Shane


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## deknow

....how about having your publisher (Penguin) threatened with litigation if your book is not pulled off the shelves and rewritten by his pannel of experts? ...no joke.

So, if I were in those conditions, I wanted to try TF beekeeping, and I was willing to ignore the illegality of it, _and_ I didn't want to get in trouble with other beekeepers or the law.....

I would get a couple of langstroth hives and manage them openly and by the book. Attend all the club meetings, and do it well.

I would also build some top bar hives. You could build them into the floor of a shed, a fake airconditioning unit, a picnic table, a hose storage box....hidden under a lightweight hollow lawn decoration...a fake rock.

A top bar hive disguised as a pallet of building materials, or a BBQ would be brilliant.

Hide it in plain sight and pipe the entracne behind a bush...inspect it smoking a cigar rather than lighting a smoker.


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## dadaas

Huh, maybe law in my country was described wrongly. We have a law that we need to treat ILL bees. So if bees are fine and not ill we don't need to heal them. But 90% beekeepers in my country put medicament in each beehive. They get it from free from Government. So i think they probably think, if it is for free why not use it.

And yea i agree with you, if they treat they beehives they should nto be concerned with my treatment free beehives since they will kill varoa anyway.


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## Oldtimer

I am not treatment free, but I did do it once but in the end it didn't work out.

But when I was running TF hives, I did get a bit of flack from some other beekeepers worrying about me infecting their hives, which I thought was pretty stupid because since they treat which kills the mites, it's not going to matter even if they did get some mites from me cos they treat anyway. Some of them weren't very good beekeepers either so I didn't really feel like being told how to run my business by them.

But people think whatever they think. So if your bees do manage OK with no treatment then just show them that. Not much else you can do.


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## Riverderwent

They can take your bees, but they'll never take your freedom.


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## Ian

I had a neighbouring beekeeper buy an operation (1200 hives) and shift it towards a no treatment strategy. It took him a few years but he finally went bankrupt...
All the while I had trouble keeping those yards around his under treatment threshold. That was no Joke! It took me a couple years to realize what was happening and when I did try to create a larger buffer he'd move into the void...Since he has been gone, my mite loads have been CONSISTENT, and I have been able to keep my mite populations under control. 

I have no problem with Beekeepers trying to manage hives without treatments but simply setting hives out and gathering up dead equipment later in the year seems .... I will not get into that debate here. I'm a farmer and I control disease in my stock. 

Farmers need to be mindful of their neighbours


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## AR Beekeeper

Does no one here know that mite invasion has been proven with controlled studies, and that it can cause mite population number to sky rocket, especially during early Autumn? What happens to the colonies surrounding dedaas if his weaken and then are robbed? They pick up the mites from his colonies and that can cause the varroa population in theirs to go through the roof. If this happens just before they treat it is not that serious, but what happens if it occurs early enough that their colony is damaged to the point it will not survive the winter, or if it occurs late and they have already done their last treatment? 

We don't know how close the colonies are to each other, we don't know how many are involved. If the colonies are 3 miles from each other it would be very different than if they are at the house next door. We don't know if the surrounding beekeepers are making their living with their bees or if they are like most people on this forum, just hobbyist or sideliners, but it is well documented that varroa populations will hurt honey production. 

If the other beekeepers are just hobbyist, and there is some distance between colonies and dadaas has all of his colonies in one location only, there may not be a high probability of his mites infesting other peoples hives. But there is also small chance of his treatment free bees surviving and having any positive impact on honey bee genetics in the area. It costs dadaas nothing to treat so the only thing he loses is the non-treatment experience. If he has multiple colonies in his yard he could treat all but one and still have that experience, and if that colony dies the mite will probable enter his other treated colonies, and that won't be a problem for anyone but him.

Tenbear has it right, we should not encourage others to break the law in their country.


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## deknow

Hmmmm....ive been encouraged to break the law in my country by beesource members who pay in order to advertise products (products that, if used as directed, violate the law) on beesource.


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## AR Beekeeper

Yes, We have always been a nation of rebels, especially if there is a dollar to be made.


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## D Semple

I'm a TF beekeeper but think that the commercial or sideliner beekeepers that treat have a very legitimate concern for damages and we should respect that IF we are impacting their operations. 


Don


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## Eric Crosby

Hi Dadass, back to your question on how to deal with people who feel that you must treat and you are feeling ostricized maybe? It takes real guts to stand up for what you believe in. You may be right or you may be wrong, or that may all be in the eye of the beholder. people have been treating for a lot of things for a long time now including mites. Mites have been in N America for a quarter of a century now, and they don't seem to be having any trouble adapting to the latest chemical concoction we toss in the hive. 
I was fortunate enough to join a bee keeping club where there were a few people who believed treatment free is possible. Slowly our numbers have grown to around 20 treatment free beekeepers. Winter losses this year average is around %30-40 loss. Together we have about 100 colonies living going into this season. Some were first year Beekeepers last year and started TF others have been TF 5,6,7 or 8 years. 
it seems tough going it alone, but you are not alone. there are many people here on Bee source from all over the world who are keeping bees successfully treatment free. Educating ones self on how to do so seems to be the key, and there seem to be a number of ways to go about it. In my area Natural comb is a commonality between most TF Beekeepers.

Cheers


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## Michael Bush

>I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?

Way before Varroa I got the same flack when not treating for anything else. Yet the people who accuse me of being a "pocket of disease" are the ones who had AFB and EFB while I did not have it and did not treat for it. I don't think it's any different with Varroa. My hives are inspected every year. The numbers are always low. It's just someone to blame for their problems. I think people not treating is the only hope for the future and that hope is constantly delayed and watered down by people who treat.

>Not sure what are laws at your place. But in my country we need to treat by a law. And most of the beekeepers use Amitraz.

See if you can get the to acknowledge that doing small cell is treating. If not, perhaps you can do something at least less invasive than amitraz or fluvalinate or cumaphos...

>I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.

Varroa is already there. How are you going to spread it?


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## Ian

Michael Bush said:


> Varroa is already there. How are you going to spread it?


really? eyes wide shut...


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## deknow

Ian...the situation you posted about is extreme....and a totally different scenario than someone with 2 or 2 dozen TF hives. I don't think it is helpful to pretend or imply that it is equivalent to what the OP is asking about. A 1200 hive treated outfit in the same location has lots of potential to cause problems for you as well.


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## beeware10

for deknow to say 24 tf hives are not the same as 1200 hives does not show much background in beekeeping. Ian was talking about yards and you start talking about 1200 hives at a location. most commercials run 24-36 as you should know.


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## deknow

Ian can clarify if he likes......he was talking about (at least in part of his post) hives placed and collected when dead.

In Massachusetts, we have almost no problems with SHB. A beekeeping friend (a very good beekeeper) lives a few miles from a migratory holding yard. A few years ago, when bees were moved into the holding yard, his 10 or so hives were wiped out by thousands of SHB.

In 15 or so years of keeping bees in Mass, I had one frame slimed.....in a package that came with SHB.

Antibiotic supressed AFB would create a similar problem for beekeepers that don't put antibiotics in the hive.

Who is responsible to whom?...and for what?


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## Ian

I understand what your saying Dean but my experience is relevant to this conversation. The problem came from the periphery of about 5 yards creeping towards mine and occasionally right dab in the middle of my apiary. Never the less, he was a 1200 hive treatment free beekeeper for few years. If he kept his mite levels under control, and thus kept his hive health up I would see as much of an issue as all the rest of the 1200 beekeepers around me. 

If the OP is referring to one or two hives, the amount of mites is negligible.


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## Ian

deknow said:


> Ian can clarify if he likes......
> 
> Antibiotic supressed AFB would create a similar problem for beekeepers that don't put antibiotics in the hive.


I would expect beekeepers to handle the situation of AFB, treatment or treatment free, in a manner that would reduce any exposure to infected equipment. Or I would hope so...


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## deknow

One could put everyone who is (or talks about being) TF in the same category. ....but if we talk about beekepeers who treat or feed (which I assume you do both), I expect you would want to be differentiated from those that do either with honey supers on.

Hives that are stolen are clearly stolen by beekeepers" ....yet those of us who don't steal hives are not the same beekeepers who do.

I don't think your experience is irrelevent to this conversation by any means....but I think some specificity would male it a more useful conversation.


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## AR Beekeeper

dadaas; How many hives do you have and how many years experience do you have keeping bees?


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## deknow

Ian said:


> I would expect beekeepers to handle the situation of AFB, treatment or treatment free, in a manner that would reduce any exposure to infected equipment. Or I would hope so...


....I would hope so to. Unfortunately,at least in the US, where some of the large migratory operations use antibiotics routinely. ...and move to a new antibiotic whem resistance is achieved. In such a situation, what you would hope for isn't what we get.


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## deknow

....I'm expecting Jim to chime in that not all migratory beekeepers do this, and that even though he is not a treatment free beekeeper, that he does not use antibiotics and therefore (rightly) should not be put in the same catagory as those that do...even though both can be put under the umbrella of 'beekeepers who treat'


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## Ian

deknow said:


> ....I would hope so to. Unfortunately,at least in the US, where some of the large migratory operations use antibiotics routinely. ...and move to a new antibiotic whem resistance is achieved. In such a situation, what you would hope for isn't what we get.


That is the operation husbandry that I am generally getting at Dean. From my perspective, and the perspective the OP is originally receiving backlash from, sick and dying hives is poor husbandry. This is the point I am conveying as the other perspective of this conversation. 
I know I am in the treatment free forum, and I am not discrediting anyone here, just providing the feedback from the other perspective that was asked for.


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## deknow

Ian, I have no disagreement with what you say.....but I also feel that beekeepers that propagate (and produce drones and swarms) from bees that are one missed treatment away from mite collapse are not helping anyone except the queen breeders who are happy to sell such bees.

Best I can tell from the internet, you are a fine beekeeper and farmer, and I hope my comments and disagreements with you here don't imply otherwise.


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## Ian

deknow said:


> Best I can tell from the internet, you are a fine beekeeper and farmer, and I hope my comments and disagreements with you here don't imply otherwise.


Nope  I follow a few beekeepers here on beesource for a reason


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## jim lyon

deknow said:


> ....I'm expecting Jim to chime in that not all migratory beekeepers do this


Naaaaa. I'm finally learning to lay off the high fast ball.


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## Ian

Well, I was about to throw a curve ball up at your chin,,, but deleted it and decided to take the walk...  This room is not my place.

cheers!


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## Sunday Farmer

Hey,
To directly answer your original question..
Anytime I get push back, in any industry- I feel the best course of action is to repeat the concern they mentioned, aknowledge it is your own concern, state why/how you operate, and then provide data to back you up. If I already have a connection with an authority figure, I mention it now.
For example- You're afraid my bees will infect yours. Mites are a concern of mine too. If I have a high mite count, I won't have a business. We don't believe chemicals should be in hives, but we still treat our bees with these types of methods. (insert method) By the way, we regularly check our mite counts, here are our recent counts. What are yours? I got inspected twice last year, and got good reviews with the inspector. Call him if you have any concerns.
By the time the conversation gets here either the person decides they aren't going to listen at all or we actually have a conversation. 
Sunday


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## rwurster

I actually have been pondering an experiment where those of us with 10 or more hives pick 10 hives (or 12 if youre on 4 way pallets) and we do mite rolls on those 10 hives in the spring and report our results. Then in the fall we do another mite roll on those same 10 hives and report our results. It doesnt matter if you've requeened, been superceded, had a dead out and re-inserted bees into one of the hives, just report mite counts on those same 10 hives at both times. I am interested in mite counts from those who treat and don't treat not as a way to gloat, just the counts. For those that do treat please give fall counts prior to treatment  And this would be be with the assumption that those 10 hives weren't treated for varroa between spring and fall.

We could hammer out a simple plan and engage the whole of beesource in a fairly straight forward mite count on a few hives that is relevant to both the TF and T crowds in a forum that needs new life and a more welcoming culture to all. At the end of the day we're all beekeepers.

I forgot about our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere, your fall counts would come first :thumbsup:


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## Sunday Farmer

That would be cool. 
Without proper controls and confounding variables, the data would possibly not mean much, but!
We are in the era of big data. Beekeeping...not so much. 
Plus, if a few people agreed to it, it means probably more hives would get mite counts than normaly would occur.


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## rwurster

Right, the data might not mean much on some hives. And it doesn't matter if you're commercial or a hobbyist with 10 or more hives. If we can get people from both groups to make the commitment I think it will prove to be of interest to most of us. It definitely might get some interest in mite counts where none existed before, which is always a good thing to know regardless of if you treat or not.


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## Sunday Farmer

rwurster said:


> It definitely might get some interest in mite counts where none existed before, which is always a good thing to know regardless of if you treat or not.


I agree.


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## Ian

what about viral loads... because that is where the real damage lays in this issue.


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## Dominic

My main concern with some treatment-free advocates is the mentality of "since I won't be treating diseases and pests, I don't need to know to identify them". In that case, the spread of foulbrood is my main concern, as a sick colony that dies from varroa will get robbed out and spread its diseases to other colonies. Foulbrood is a pain to manage and quarantine, and sick virgins tend to make for poor queens. Even if we do breed for hygienic behavior, the bees will still rob out an un-hygienic colony and spread its disease load their home.

If they know their diseases, and make sure to manage foulbrood if it ever shows up, I don't really care.


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## deknow

Can you name one such 'TF advocate'?


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## Riverderwent

"If they know their diseases, and make sure to manage foulbrood if it ever shows up, I don't really care."
Sheer profundity.


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## beeware10

then a new guy gets a deal at a barn find. puts bees in some and left over old stuff gets hung up in trees near my yards trying to get my swarms. my bees clean the box out and I get afb in my yard. probably I would not be thrilled with the new guy.


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## WBVC

I do not know much about the specifics of varroa...whether it be applied to treatment free or not but do have a few questions...or wonderings if you may.

I keep hereing that there are very few, or no, feral bees. Yet this is off set by folks setting out bait traps to catch the non existant bees.

I must say that a swarm I lost from a hive last year set up in a hollow tree. It thrived over the summer but failed come winter. The " mother hive" in the apiary has lived.

If the mite treatments and management plans are actually working surely the population mite load should be diminishing. It doesn't seem that it is. Are we simply propagating bees that can't deal with mites on their own? Is all money and effort spent on battling mites on behalf of bees a wasted effort?
If no one treated would bees die out or would the survivors carry on in balance with the mites.
Are himans to blame for this parasite:host imbalance with their artificial husbandry manipulations and efforts to artificially push production?
As much as I enjoy working with and observing bees I can't help but think in the long run we may not be doing them any favours.


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## deknow

At WAS this past fall, in a comment session (not a formal talk) Zach Huang stated specifically that if we had not been using miticides all these years, that we would have gotten over the varroa issues by now.

Jerry Bromenshenk was visibly unhappy and cut him off.


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## rwurster

I really think we should squash a few things. 

Up front I have to say that I am attempting to have a TF apiary. Now this doesn't mean I let mites or disease run rampant. If I ever suspected I had AFB I would do something about it, whether that be burning or treating, it would be dealt with. I don't let hives die from mite loads either. Any hive with a heavy mite load goes to my other yard and gets an OA regiment. The hives in the treated yard are still good hives that I can requeen or use as cell builders, production, or whatever. This is more a matter of people who actually inspect their hives and that falls under 'general beekeeping' practices that should be exercised by both TF and T people.

My opinion is that if one doesn't care about one's livestock, why keep livestock. It's a dis-service to the livestock and other concerned parties. The only real difference between myself and someone who treats is the practices I employ (splits, queen pinching, brood breaks, etc) to control mites rather than treating for them, even though I will treat so I won't lose viable colony that can be utilized next season.

Both my yards have gone 2 years TF. I will treat for EFB, AFB, or pretty much anything that would cause major losses to my own stock, another beekeeper's stock, or the feral population of bees if such a disease were to present itself in my apiary. This will be my 5th year as a beekeeper so I'm not an expert but I do have a good grip on the basics and have been successful so far


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## JRG13

I can see how that statement might play out Deknow, but it would be a tough pill to handle for the commercial industry. What would the estimates on loss be if you were to let varroa play out like that?


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## Fusion_power

With a good 5 year plan and using stock that is already available, it would be possible to convert entirely to mite tolerant lines of bees with no actual loss of production. It would require the commercial queen breeders to switch to mite tolerant stock. I would qualify this by adding that there are some changes in management required when running treatment free. Commercial beekeepers would have to modify a few things about the way they do business.


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## deknow

I'm not proposing it....but no matter what the problems are, identifying what extreme measures might achieve is a good exercise to help understand the problems....and if we can realize that treating for mites is keeping the bees from adapting, then maybe we can come up with a more sane middle ground plan than 'treating a little' or 'treating with natural things'. 

If we can't acknowledge that treating is the problem, then it is hard to even have a conversation.

When I heard about Obama's 1 billion dollar initiatave to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria, that voice in my head screamed at me...
"Now those bacteria are going to be funding resistant on top of being antibiotic resistant." ...if no one else has made this prediction....you heard it here first.

I keep thinking about Teela Brown.


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## JRG13

I'm all for mite tolerance, but I've tried a few 'mite tolerant' stocks, haven't found one that actually tolerates mites here yet.


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## Jim 134

dadaas said:


> I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?
> 
> Not sure what are laws at your place. But in my country we need to treat by a law. And most of the beekeepers use Amitraz.
> 
> I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.
> 
> Can someone with more experience answer my concerns?


 

*dadaas* 

What are the terms if you get caught not treating beehives or following bee keeping laws where you live ? 
I do realize you can do anything you want long as you're willing to pay the price. You sure would like to know what the prices before you decide not to treat your bee hives.





BEE HAPPPY Jim 134


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## Michael Bush

>>My main concern with some treatment-free advocates is the mentality of "since I won't be treating diseases and pests, I don't need to know to identify them".
>Can you name one such 'TF advocate'?

Yes. Can you? I can't, and I know a lot of them.


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## georgiabees

Fusion_power said:


> With a good 5 year plan and using stock that is already available, it would be possible to convert entirely to mite tolerant lines of bees with no actual loss of production. It would require the commercial queen breeders to switch to mite tolerant stock. I would qualify this by adding that there are some changes in management required when running treatment free. Commercial beekeepers would have to modify a few things about the way they do business.


I know quite a few queen Breeders and mite resistance has been a top priority. The resulting genetic MUTTS produced are nearly brood less wimpy dinks.
Less brood = Less mites not good for pollination or honey production.

Commercial scale pollination beekeeping could not cope with TF management required


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## Dominic

deknow said:


> Can you name one such 'TF advocate'?


I would not. I'm not saying that everyone who is treatment-free is this way. I do hold treatment-free to be a goal to reach for.



Riverderwent said:


> "If they know their diseases, and make sure to manage foulbrood if it ever shows up, I don't really care."
> Sheer profundity.


I think we have enough people telling others how to live their lives, thank you. Varroa in endemic, now. Everyone has it. And it's treatable, there are multiple different products with high efficiency against it, both synthetic and "organic". If it was a pest we were trying to contain and against which there was no pesticide, then I'd care more. But a small back-yard apiary, with 1-4 hives, even overrun with varroa will not be significantly affecting nearby 20+ hive commercial apiaries. That's just absurd. _Unless_ it has foulbrood.



WBVC said:


> I do not know much about the specifics of varroa...whether it be applied to treatment free or not but do have a few questions...or wonderings if you may.
> 
> I keep hearing that there are very few, or no, feral bees. Yet this is off set by folks setting out bait traps to catch the non existant bees.
> 
> I must say that a swarm I lost from a hive last year set up in a hollow tree. It thrived over the summer but failed come winter. The " mother hive" in the apiary has lived.


Are there a lot of feral bees, or not? There's not much reliable data to answer that question.

I think the answer partly lies in what one defines as being a "feral colony". Is a colony living in a hollow tree "feral", if two weeks ago, before it swarmed, it was living in a commercial apiary? Technically, it's feral, but it doesn't deserve any of the praise from those who advocate "feral stock". A couple of weeks back it might have been on antibiotics and synthetic miticides, for all one knows.

There are certainly a lot of escaped swarms to be found in the wild. But how many survive past a year? Who knows. The claim that varroa killed them all off seems dubious to me, as feral bees tend to be swarmy, and swarming is a powerful tool to survive varroa.


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## Riverderwent

deknow said:


> At WAS this past fall, in a comment session (not a formal talk) Zach Huang stated specifically that if we had not been using miticides all these years, that we would have gotten over the varroa issues by now.
> 
> Jerry Bromenshenk was visibly unhappy and cut him off.


We all have our own unique peptides. Open breeding and open feeding make beelosophy interesting.


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## Fusion_power

> I keep thinking about Teela Brown.


 Not many readers here also have read Ringworld and the selection of the luckiest of the lucky.

The Achilles heel of bee breeding is that the queens mate in the air with whatever drones are available. This leads to a conundrum that putting mite tolerant queens into your colonies will not be effective so long as the apiary is surrounded by treated bees. Any time the queen is replaced, the virgin queen is likely to mate with a large percentage of drones carrying susceptible traits. The result is a colony of susceptible bees.

The only way treatment free stock will become the standard is if beekeepers insist on treatment free stock. The only way beekeepers will insist on treatment free stock is if traits for honey production and pollination are at least equal to existing susceptible bees. Which gets back to the complaints listed above that treatment free bees tend to be less productive. This suggests a breeding program for both production and mite tolerance should be implemented. There are a few breeders doing this already.


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## WBVC

I am not treatment free. I do not have enough hives to risk losing a lot of them nor do I have the skills to manage my hives well enough...yet.

I aiming towards choosing my reproduction hives and Queens from hives that have lower mite loads, are not nasty and produce adequate honey. I think the hives that are least able to cope are self limiting and die off over winter despite my efforts.

This is not ideal but I don't think one can get to successful treatment over night. I also think it is difficult to do with many small back yard hives in the vicinity.


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## Colino

I have a lot of respect for Randy Oliver, he starts his article off with a rant, this is part of what he says in the March 2014 issue of ABJ.:
*Do not disillusion yourself. Allowing domesticated package colonies to die year after year is not in any way, shape, or form a contribution to the breeding of mite-resistant stocks. There is a vast difference between breeding for survivor stock and simply allowing commercial bees to die from neglect! By introducing commercial bees year after year into an area, and then allowing those package colonies to first produce drones and then to later die from varroa, these well-meaning but misguided beekeepers screw up any evolutionary progress that the local feral populations might be making towards developing natural resistance to varroa. Not only that, but those collapsing "mite bombs"' create problems for your neighbors. Referring to yourself as a bee-keeper confers upon you a responsibility to the local beekeeping community. Allowing hives to collapse from AFB or varroa makes you a disease-spreading nuisance!*


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## deknow

Dominic said:


> I would not. I'm not saying that everyone who is treatment-free is this way.


I'm asking that you please do. You have said quite plainly that such "TF advocates" exist and that you have a problem with them.

I don't know of any, and I don't believe you do either. Obviously there are kooks out there, but I'm asking for even a single name of a single beekeeper that meets the criteria you say is a problem.


----------



## deknow

Colino said:


> I have a lot of respect for Randy Oliver, he starts his article off with a rant, this is part of what he says in the March 2014 issue of ABJ.:
> *Do not disillusion yourself. Allowing domesticated package colonies to die year after year is not in any way, shape, or form a contribution to the breeding of mite-resistant stocks. There is a vast difference between breeding for survivor stock and simply allowing commercial bees to die from neglect! By introducing commercial bees year after year into an area, and then allowing those package colonies to first produce drones and then to later die from varroa, these well-meaning but misguided beekeepers screw up any evolutionary progress that the local feral populations might be making towards developing natural resistance to varroa. Not only that, but those collapsing "mite bombs"' create problems for your neighbors. Referring to yourself as a bee-keeper confers upon you a responsibility to the local beekeeping community. Allowing hives to collapse from AFB or varroa makes you a disease-spreading nuisance!*


...but those same drones are spread by commercial beekeepers.....and if 1 out of every 200 commercial hives swarms in a year (.5%)...then that is well over 12,000 swarms of these same package bee genetics polluting the feral population.

If the problem is drones and escaped swarms, then let's look at the major contributors to these problems....after all, it is only about 1000 operations that are responsible for 99% of the bees in the US. if we want to keep suceptable drones and swarms under control, then it is the commercial beekeepers that should be targeted....it is much lower hanging fruit and would be more effective than trying to shame 10,000 hobbiest beekeepers.


----------



## deknow

Colino said:


> I have a lot of respect for Randy Oliver, he starts his article off with a rant, this is part of what he says in the March 2014 issue of ABJ.:
> *Do not disillusion yourself. Allowing domesticated package colonies to die year after year is not in any way, shape, or form a contribution to the breeding of mite-resistant stocks. There is a vast difference between breeding for survivor stock and simply allowing commercial bees to die from neglect! By introducing commercial bees year after year into an area, and then allowing those package colonies to first produce drones and then to later die from varroa, these well-meaning but misguided beekeepers screw up any evolutionary progress that the local feral populations might be making towards developing natural resistance to varroa. Not only that, but those collapsing "mite bombs"' create problems for your neighbors. Referring to yourself as a bee-keeper confers upon you a responsibility to the local beekeeping community. Allowing hives to collapse from AFB or varroa makes you a disease-spreading nuisance!*


...but those same drones are spread by commercial beekeepers.....and if 1 out of every 200 commercial hives swarms in a year (.5%)...then that is well over 12,000 swarms of these same package bee genetics polluting the feral population.

If the problem is drones and escaped swarms, then let's look at the major contributors to these problems....after all, it is only about 1000 operations that are responsible for 99% of the bees in the US. if we want to keep suceptable drones and swarms under control, then it is the commercial beekeepers that should be targeted....it is much lower hanging fruit and would be more effective than trying to shame 10,000 hobbiest beekeepers.


----------



## Oldtimer

Easily solved.

Treatment free beekeepers who know everything and claim their hives are thriving, become the commercial beekeepers and start selling bees.


----------



## deknow

.....or one could put pressure on the SUPPLIERS to stop spreading suceptable genetics/drones...you know, the commercial beekeeping industry.....instead of telling hobbyist beeks they are bad for buying what the commercial beeKS sell.

If the drones from packages are damaging, treating and feeding those hives (so they survive and make more drones year after year) is more damaging then letting them die.


----------



## Colino

deknow said:


> ...but those same drones are spread by commercial beekeepers.....and if 1 out of every 200 commercial hives swarms in a year (.5%)...then that is well over 12,000 swarms of these same package bee genetics polluting the feral population.
> 
> If the problem is drones and escaped swarms, then let's look at the major contributors to these problems....after all, it is only about 1000 operations that are responsible for 99% of the bees in the US. if we want to keep suceptable drones and swarms under control, then it is the commercial beekeepers that should be targeted....it is much lower hanging fruit and would be more effective than trying to shame 10,000 hobbiest beekeepers.


I see nothing in the quote about escaped swarms?


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## deknow

Colino said:


> I see nothing in the quote about escaped swarms?


If drones from packages are a problem, then drones from swarms from packages certainly cause the same problems.


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## deknow

I certainly don't know everyrthing, but I'm smart enough to read that quote from randy and understand that the problems he is referring to are coming from commercial beekeepers and are made worse by treating and propogating that stock. 

This is Randys narrative that the package drones are damaging local/feral populations. If he is correct then reducing those drones seems to be what he wants to achieve. I'm not sure how feeding, treating, and propogating that stock advances randys stated goals.


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## Oldtimer

deknow said:


> I certainly don't know everyrthing, but I'm smart enough to read that quote from randy and understand that the problems he is referring to are coming from commercial beekeepers and are made worse by treating and propogating that stock.


The commercial beekeepers can only sell them if people keep buying them.


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## deknow

Do you think randy has a point about the harm these drones do?

For the record, in the last 5 years or so, almost every package that I have used has been requeened with stock that has survived for us.....the few times I thought the bees looked too good to requeen (a great brood pattern) they have crashed over the winter. I've occasionally given (not sold) the queens that came from the package to someone local that needed a queen ASAP....the vast majority I've pinched. I'm not sure how this contributes to any problem beyond the drones that come in the package.


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## Oldtimer

Well yes Deknow I'm actually in general agreement with your post.

The point of my last post being there is a market, which nobody treatment free will meet, the treatment free community is not keeping itself in bees. Yet people come here and complain when beekeepers have to buy from those who do meet it.


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## Jim 134

dadaas said:


> I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?
> 
> *Not sure what are laws at your place. But in my country we need to treat by a law. And most of the beekeepers use Amitraz.*
> 
> I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.
> 
> Can someone with more experience answer my concerns?


*dadaas*
I personally see very little information you can use here to address the problem you have right now.You need a much better definition of what treatment are acceptable to pass the law. Now you have to figure out how to educate people and change the law much more difficult.


BEE HAPPY Jim 134


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## Michael Bush

>Treatment free beekeepers who know everything and claim their hives are thriving, become the commercial beekeepers and start selling bees.

If I could make as much selling bees as I do programming computers, I'd put in my notice today. I might even settle for half as much...


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## Colino

deknow said:


> Do you think randy has a point about the harm these drones do?
> 
> For the record, in the last 5 years or so, almost every package that I have used has been requeened with stock that has survived for us.....the few times I thought the bees looked too good to requeen (a great brood pattern) they have crashed over the winter. I've occasionally given (not sold) the queens that came from the package to someone local that needed a queen ASAP....the vast majority I've pinched. I'm not sure how this contributes to any problem beyond the drones that come in the package.


Using some of your numbers, if 99% of the bees come from commercial operators then it is their drones that are probably doing the breeding. So if the majority of drones are from treated hives how can you have bees develop resistance? The small feral population can't supply enough drones to influence the genetics. Unless you get every beekeeper in North America to go TF you're fighting a losing battle and like Randy says all you're doing is replacing bees and letting them die. As case in point, I flooded the local DCA with Italian drones. The feral hive near me has gone from black bees to mostly orange in one season. It will be interesting to see if they survive this winter after having been there for 10 years. Over the years I've learned that no matter how hard or long you shovel water into a corner it doesn't stay there.
Colino


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## Joel

If you have the knowledge to identify AFB at one cell and the commitment to destroy that hive and bees if found, if you are responsible enough to educate yourself about natural varroa treatment and disciplined about monitoring mite levels no issue. The problem isn't treatment free bees, it is treatment free bees by beekeepers who go forward blindly, missing necessary and timely inspections creating disease and pest pools tha affect every beekeeper around, commercial or otherwise. One hive with AFB that dies out or gets robbed can initially infect a few hundred others and so on. Your hive full of Varroa and tracheal mites will infect hives in that 2-7 mile flight range. Beeing treatment free ishould be no crime, being negligent and treatment free (or negligent and treating) should be. We are all responsible to protect our own hives by being responsible and thus protecting all hive, wild, commercial or hobby, near us. I think it is misguided to legislate treatment but having said that the knowledgeable treatment free beekeepers are few and far between. Here is a comparison, I come to where you work and carelessly drop a cigarette in the wastebasket and burn down your office. Tomorrow you have no paycheck. If you have infected hives next to me and my hives die, tomorrow I have no paycheck. The goal should not be treatment free, the goal has to be treatment free and responsible.


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## Joel

De know.If you have hives that are surviving the winter why not make nucs and use your own queens Instead of buying packages every year? What strain of bees are you having success with and what hive configuration are you using? Your bred queens or purchased? we have found over the years that packages are a losing proposition because the ages and progeny are not correct in relation to caste and this weakens them as much as the fact a package is dying for 45 or more days before it can reboot so to speak Due to brood cycles getting ion sync.


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## beemandan

Very entertaining. You have one group who're taking care of business. You have another group who seem unable to and therefore feel the need to blame the first for their failure. And one guy from the second group who claims success but is unwilling to go for a commercial scale because he thinks he can't make enough money doing it. So while you're blaming the commercial guys...just remember greed isn't unique to them.


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## StevenG

To address a couple of questions/issues raised in previous posts... After a few years testing several different types/races of "treatment free" bees, I settled on the one breeder I started with. I buy queens and packages from them regularly, and make walk-away splits also. Now, 10 years later, I still have never treated. And the major heresy I am guilty of is that I do not bother to do mite counts. My annual losses run 6-20%, absconding, queen issues, starvation, and probably varroa, with one hive slimed by shb. Last year when most folks in my area lost 45-60%, treated, I lost 30%. We had two warm weeks, followed by two deep freezes. The bees starved at one end of the hive with a great deal of honey at the sides and front, but could not get to it for the cold.
Regards,
Steven


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## squarepeg

StevenG said:


> the major heresy I am guilty of is that I do not bother to do mite counts.


welcome back steven, hope all has been well with you. i tried taking mite counts on a few of mine last fall out of curiousity and they were pretty high. the three colonies i happened to sample are among my stronger ones this spring, so i'm not sure the infestation rate tells the whole story. i'm leaning toward making sure that i have healthy brood during the fall rearing of overwintering bees.


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## StevenG

Thanks Squarepeg...
I _think_ but have no empirical data on which to base this assumption, that you are correct. Infestation rate does not tell the whole story - the ability of the bees to deal with the mites is the crucial issue. I've learned not to take any honey off the hives after Labor Day. This past fall I also fed heavily, so my two story deep hives were very heavy going into winter. All but 3 were light mid-February, and I started putting candy on then. So far so good. I have queens and packages ordered, hope to get my colony count built back up after my move. And I am loving retirement! Yahoo!!! :banana:
Kindest regards,
Steven


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## AR Beekeeper

I was surprised to find that the queens I brought home from my bond yard last siring headed colonies that carried as many varroa mites as my colonies did that were headed by standard commercial queens. I had expected to see reduced varroa numbers in my natural mite fall counts, but that was not the case.

I have noticed when I bring in new queens that show many bees with deformed wings crawling it will be 2 or 3 years before the crawlers will almost all disappear. I think resistance to the viruses carried by the varroa is the key, but when I select queen mothers and drone mothers I usually choose those in the group that also drop the fewest mites.


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## mike bispham

Joel said:


> I[...] if you are responsible enough to educate yourself about natural varroa treatment and disciplined about monitoring mite levels no issue. [...] Beeing treatment free ishould be no crime, being negligent and treatment free (or negligent and treating) should be. We are all responsible to protect our own hives by being responsible and thus protecting all hive, wild, commercial or hobby, near us. I think it is misguided to legislate treatment but having said that the knowledgeable treatment free beekeepers are few and far between. The goal should not be treatment free, the goal has to be treatment free and responsible.


You are missing the central point Joel. It is those who treat, thus prolonging the agony for everyone, who are misguided. They are the problem.

Every time you act in a way that results in unadapted drones flying you are part of the problem. 

Those who talk about being farmers, and speak of the need to maintain health in their livestock, need to realise this: bees mate openly, and that fact makes their husbandry an entirely different operation than that of every other form of livestock, where breeding is closed.

Understand this and you'll understand the hard reasoning that underpins the solid rationale beneath tf beekeeping.

Being a commercial operation doesn't (or shouldn't) be regarded as a licence to spoil everybody's livestock's genes. In plenty of fields those who act with more disregard for the common good are able to cut their costs, and become more profitable, and grow against their more responsible competitors. That's a reality. But we don't have to like it, and we don't have to ignore it.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Too simplistic Mike.

There is no evidence that large scale US commercial bee outfits could *ever* achieve treatment free status and stay in business. 

Of course one hopes they could. But at this stage we just don't know. Putting 2 years on it, 10 years, or 100 years, is all conjecture. 

However this is kind of another treatment vs non treatment type argument and so is not appropriate for the treatment free area. If you wish to continue the discussion I suggest you start a thread on it elsewhere. I just said what I did to point out the flaw in your reasoning.


----------



## Ian

mike bispham said:


> Those who talk about being farmers, and speak of the need to maintain health in their livestock, need to realise this: bees mate openly, and that fact makes their husbandry an entirely different operation than that of every other form of livestock, where breeding is closed
> 
> Being a commercial operation doesn't (or shouldn't) be regarded as a licence to spoil everybody's livestock's genes.
> Mike (UK)


No it doesn't. Simply setting out hives and later collecting empty boxes to breed from the survivors should be left to issolated areas. for survivor stock to actually be selected and mated accordingly you need to remove all the other variables from the equation. 
That's what you call a closed breeding program. 
THEN you can go about and propagate your selected traits and save the beekeeping world. 
Guys that simply just stop treating and blame everyone else around them have no idea what a breeding program actually entails.
I have survivor stock incorperatedmy operation from a closed breeding operation. those traits are being propagated from my beeyards.


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## mike bispham

Ian said:


> No it doesn't. Simply setting out hives and later collecting empty boxes to breed from the survivors should be left to issolated areas. for survivor stock to actually be selected and mated accordingly you need to remove all the other variables from the equation.
> That's what you call a closed breeding program.
> THEN you can go about and propagate your selected traits and save the beekeeping world.
> Guys that simply just stop treating and blame everyone else around them have no idea what a breeding program actually entails.
> I have survivor stock incorperatedmy operation from a closed breeding operation. those traits are being propagated from my beeyards.


I think I agree with all that Ian, roughly. Were you agreeing or disagreeing about something I'd said?

My quibble is the idea that it is possibe to have a closed breeding program with bees (outside of II). In an isolated area populated only by resistant ferals (assuming such a place exists) it would still be 'open mating'.

Its neither likely nor desirable that (in such an area) all offspring would be resistant. What would be ideal is a balance of resistant/tolerant features mixed in with their lack, in proportions that are well suited to the present mite/viral environment. 

With that comes the recognition that not all resultant matings will be fabulous performers - there'll be a performance spread - and that's how things should be.

Mike (UK)


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## Ian

mike bispham said:


> I think I agree with all that Ian, roughly. Were you agreeing or disagreeing about something I'd said?


Who knows, I thought you were saying something different in that post.

I agree with your last post.


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## beemandan

mike bispham said:


> My quibble is the idea that it is possibe to have a closed breeding program with bees (outside of II). In an isolated area populated only by resistant ferals (assuming such a place exists) it would still be 'open mating'.


I do believe that having an area for open mating with a substantial beekeeper influence is practical in many parts of North America. Not absolute control but significant. Ask squarepeg. 
Dann Purvis was one of the earliest, serious treatment free breeders that I knew. Most of his queens were open mated. He actually would have made a commercial success of his business (not necessarily truly tf queens) but had some personal life changes, as I understand it. There's always the Weavers in Texas. And last but not least (I know I'm sounding like a broken record here) there are the Russian Queen Breeders Assn members.
So, to my thinking it can be done with what ought to result in a nearly controlled population, open mated queen breeding enterprise. Somebody, other than Danny Weaver, has just got to do it.


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## mike bispham

beemandan said:


> I do believe that having an area for open mating with a substantial beekeeper influence is practical in many parts of North America. Not absolute control but significant.
> 
> So, to my thinking it can be done with what ought to result in a nearly controlled population, open mated queen breeding enterprise. Somebody, other than Danny Weaver, has just got to do it.


I agree. We just need terms that are cognisant of the spectrum of influence, rather than the binary choice 'open mating/closed mating'.

Just like the description 'tf beekeeper' needs more granularity in order that we can have the discussion we want to have here. Any suggestions?

Mike (UK)


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## beemandan

mike bispham said:


> Just like the description 'tf beekeeper' needs more granularity in order that we can have the discussion we want to have here. Any suggestions? (UK)


I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
This dead horse has already been beaten until nothing remains.


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## Barry

mike bispham said:


> the description 'tf beekeeper' needs more granularity in order that we can have the discussion we want to have here.


Not if you value your life!


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Just like the description 'tf beekeeper' needs more granularity in order that we can have the discussion we want to have here. Any suggestions?


How can I resist offering a link to this thread: 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-division-Treatment-Free-adequate-to-the-task :lpf:



:gh:


----------



## JRG13

I believe in a semi-open approach on the subject at hand. You need to have open mating success to provide continuity and proof of concept in a real world setting. To establish proper queen and drone mother's though, it makes sense to use II to fix certain traits and sustain them in the apiary at proper levels.


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## StevenG

FWIW after I tried several different strains of tf bees, all failed here in Missouri except B. Weaver's bees. Every year I buy 5-10 queens, make splits, requeen weak hives, and I also do some "walk-away" splits. In my record-keeping I note whether the hive has a B.Weaver queen, or a Weaver "mutt" as I call her. The mutt is a queen raised from a B. Weaver queen's egg, but is openly mated in my area. So far the mutts have survived as well as the original queens. I remember back in the '70's and '80's requeening regularly. I suspect if we'd do that, as well as let some of our colonies swarm to propagate the genetics in the wild, all of our stocks would be better off.

Not being scientifically oriented, my guess is the advantage of letting my home raised queens open mate is to bring in outside genetics. So far it hasn't hurt. From what I've read, genetic variations enhances vigor. But I have not done any long term study regarding this. Early on I was running Purvis as well as B. Weaver bees, the best of both worlds! If I could find another source of great bees like those, I'd add those to my requeening and split program, to vary the genetics.

Regards,
Steven


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## BadBeeKeeper

Rader Sidetrack said:


> How can I resist offering a link to this thread:
> 
> http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-division-Treatment-Free-adequate-to-the-task :lpf:
> 
> :gh:


Wow. That was some funny stuff.


----------



## adaplant

As someone doing a lot of reading and no beekeeping I've enjoyed reading this thread thus far. I am making plans to start beekeeping in 2016. After evaluating many people's personal experiances with TF and T setups I am opting for the stance of do not treat unless a hive failure seems imminent, ie high mite counts, presence of SHB, or disease. It *seems* that an effective way to work up to treatment free hives is to produce TF queens *and* TF drones, split hives regularly (through any approriate method), and manage diseases and pests responsibly. As someone who will be trying the Warre method I do not think that this will be hard to work up to. However, it will take a long time. Even great bees such as the Buckfast line were no small feat, having been cultivated for over 70 years by Brother Adam as of 1990. TF will only prevail if we have beeks who will stop at nothing to raise strong resistant/immune bees.

If you have any advice please PM. Otherwise comments welcome!


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## dsegrest

dadaas said:


> I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?
> 
> Not sure what are laws at your place. But in my country we need to treat by a law. And most of the beekeepers use Amitraz.
> 
> I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.
> 
> Can someone with more experience answer my concerns?


Monitor your hives very closely with and alcohol wash or sugar shake. Keep a good record of the results. If your mite count gets high treat with something gentle like OAV. Keep a good record of what you do, so that if someone complains you have something concrete to show the inspector.


----------



## mike bispham

dadaas said:


> I would like to know how do you handle conventional beekeepers when they come to you and say that your beehives are spreading varoa and that they will report you for not treating the bees?
> 
> Not sure what are laws at your place. But in my country we need to treat by a law. And most of the beekeepers use Amitraz.
> 
> I give idea to few beekeepers that i m thinking to go with top bar beehive and treatment free beekeeping, but they said i will lose all beehives and that i will spread varoa in the area.
> 
> Can someone with more experience answer my concerns?



Unless you have very good reasons to think your present stock has a good measure of resistance, I'd consider starting by renewing all or most of your queens from demonstrated resistant stock - if you are able to find/import them. Talk with Eduardo about this. 

Then you'll have the sound basis not just for an attempt at staying t/f, but also for good arguments to reassure your neighbours. You could also agree to monitor and treat above a certain threshold (strongly considering requeening from better stock as soon as possible.) 

Mike (UK)


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## beemandan

adaplant said:


> After evaluating many people's personal experiances with TF and T setups I am opting for the stance of do not treat unless a hive failure seems imminent


Welcome to Beesource.
I hope you will reconsider this strategy. In particular with varroa by the time 'hive failure seems imminent' it is likely too late for a treatment to be effective. In fact, most, if not all treatments create some stress on the bees. A colony in serious decline may actually be pushed over the edge by the treatment. 
The only way for varroa treatments to be dependably effective they must be applied early enough to reduce the parasite load at the same time leaving the bees in good order.
My advice to you is to seek treatment free, local bees to begin with and remain committed to that philosophy....regardless of the outcome. If at some point in the future you decide that approach doesn't work, then consider a different strategy. Whichever path you're on....stay the course to avoid the confusion of mixing the variables and then you can objectively determine if it works or not.
Good luck.


----------



## Barry

Yeah, listen to what Dan says here. You'll end up with the worst of both camps if you take the strategy of "do not treat unless a hive failure seems imminent". By that time, it most likely will be imminent regardless of what you do. I think sticking to one road or the other is a better approach, especially for someone just starting out an not familiar with all the sings that spell "imminent."


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## SRatcliff

Isn't the 6% mite infestation the mainstream imminent threat clue?


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## beemandan

SRatcliff said:


> Isn't the 6% mite infestation the mainstream imminent threat clue?


I think treatment thresholds vary from place to place and beekeeper to beekeeper. But...an effective treatment threshold should be reached and treatment applied long before there's an imminent threat.


----------



## Ian

beemandan said:


> I think treatment thresholds vary from place to place and beekeeper to beekeeper.


and viral load


----------



## mike bispham

beemandan said:


> I think treatment thresholds vary from place to place and beekeeper to beekeeper. But...an effective treatment threshold should be reached and treatment applied long before there's an imminent threat.


Find some bees that might have a measure of resistance, monitor them and if the mites loads become normal, treat them. That's treatment free beekeeping?

Mike (UK)


----------



## SRatcliff

mike bispham said:


> Find some bees that might have a measure of resistance, monitor them and if the mites loads become normal, treat them. That's treatment free beekeeping?
> 
> Mike (UK)


If you requeen them, I think that would be considered breeding _for_ treatment free beekeeping.

Edit: I think you meant abnormal or high mite loads?


----------



## beemandan

mike bispham said:


> That's treatment free beekeeping?


I was just replying to a question, not making a suggestion. Keep looking....I'm sure you'll find someone to argue with.


----------



## mike bispham

SRatcliff said:


> If you requeen them, I think that would be considered breeding _for_ treatment free beekeeping.


Yes, with the (preferably well founded) hope that the new queen would be more resistant than the last 



SRatcliff said:


> Edit: I think you meant abnormal or high mite loards?


The normal/abnormal mite loads business was intended to draw attention to the fact that all but the most super-efficient mite managing bees have mites, oftentimes at levels above the thresholds considered by many to require treatment. Tolerating mites (even just not monitoring them) can be a legitimate part of an assay method designed to locate the best mite managers for reproductive purposes. Many of us would consider Dan's/Barry's method of treating to a lowish limit a distinct obstacle to the aim of discovering the most resistant for reproductive (breeding) purposes.

In this op's case this aspect might be where the effort to develop and maintain tf bees comes most sharply into conflict with the concerns of neighbours.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

beemandan said:


> I was just replying to a question, not making a suggestion. Keep looking....I'm sure you'll find someone to argue with.


Sorry Dan. It looked to me for a moment like you were suggesting treating as a method for keeping bees treatment free.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Many of us would consider Dan's/Barry's method of treating to a lowish limit a distinct obstacle to the aim of discovering the most resistant for reproductive (breeding) purposes.


Didn't they both just say the opposite?


----------



## mike bispham

beemandan said:


> Keep looking....I'm sure you'll find someone to argue with.


Wiki:

"Dialectic (also dialectics and the dialectical method), from Ancient Greek διαλεκτική, is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to European and Indian philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues. The dialectical method is discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments.[1]"

Mike (UK)


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## beemandan

mike bispham said:


> The dialectical method is discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments.[1]"


As opposed to a monolog wherein one party in the 'discourse' views the topic in absolute terms and is so ego-tied to their opinion that no amount of rational evidence can dissuade them.


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## mike bispham

beemandan said:


> As opposed to a monolog wherein one party in the 'discourse' views the topic in absolute terms and is so ego-tied to their opinion that no amount of rational evidence can dissuade them.


If you don't engage you'll never know when that's happening. I hold a ba in philosphy - which is more or less dialectic by another name - I do know how to argue. I often have good exchanges here in which 'two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, [...] establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments.' Or at least establish their points of departure, and the reasons for their respective positions. 

'rational evidence' - do you mean reasoning, or evidence, or evidence-rooted reasoning? Or something else?

Constructive argument: don't knock it till you've tried it.

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> I often have good exchanges here in which 'two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, [...] [HIGHLIGHT]establish the truth of the matter [/HIGHLIGHT] guided by reasoned arguments.'



... "establish the truth"???:scratch:


Mike, _truth establisher_, where is the "truth" in this statement from your website (as you have previously repeatedly pointed out) incorporated into each of your posts here ....




> It can be seen that [HIGHLIGHT]modern beekeeping practice is the sole cause of the crisis affecting both wild and domestic bees.[/HIGHLIGHT] The solution lies in the hands of beekeepers and their regulators. Not only should stocks that need to be medicated in order to stay alive not be used for breeding, they should not either be allowed to send their sickly genes into the wild, where they undermine the process of natural selection that would otherwise allow feral bees recover their health.
> 
> http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/



_Sole cause_??? Isn't the _truth _that there are a number of _OTHER SIGNIFICANT FACTORS_ affecting this issue. Such as _landowner applied pesticides_, and bees' _forage _opportunities, neither of which are under the control of beekeepers?


:kn:


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> ... "establish the truth"? [...]
> 
> _Sole cause_??? Isn't the _truth _that there are a number of _OTHER SIGNIFICANT FACTORS_ affecting this issue. Such as _landowner applied pesticides_, and bees' _forage _opportunities, neither of which are under the control of beekeepers?


Of course. I could have phrased the sentence better Graham, as I think I've admitted to you before before. Read in context however its clear that what is intended is that without attending to this aspect, domestic bees _can never be healthy even if all the other problems are attended to_. 

That's a reasoned position, based on the premise that either natural selection or proper husbandry - breeding in some sense - is necessary to maintain health; where 'necessary' has a forceful meaning.

Accepting that premise, it follows that if breeding (of that sort) is withdrawn, ill health _is bound_ to result.

If you go read the thesis you will see the first paragraph says:

"Introduction to The Diagnosis: Denial of Natural Selection

The Honeybee, nobody needs reminding, is in poor health. Current thinking regarding the causes of the problem focuses on two factors, both external to the organism. These are a) general environmental degradation and the presence of specific toxins, and b) specific parasites and other organic pathogens. Both these are undoubtedly contributory factors. This article will argue however that they are not the fundamental cause of CCD. I suggest that a different, third factor is responsible for the serious difficulties faced by the Honeybee. The Honeybee, as a species, has been dramatically weakened in terms of adaptivity to environment by poor husbandry practice.

There follows a list of contents, then:


"Thesis and hypothesis

My thesis can be stated simply:

The denial of an environment in which appropriate defensive responses can develop, thus allowing the adaptation of the species to the present challenges, is the direct cause of CCD.

On an overwhelming scale, apiary practices systematically prevent local sub-species the single thing they need to regain – or even maintain - their health. That single thing is an environment in which the survival of the fittest genes through the mechanism of natural selection can be played out.

The concomitant hypothesis is: should systematic medication cease, natural selection would play out, allowing the species to recover rude health."
http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/thesis.htm

BTW I'm pretty sure that was written before I came to Beesource or any other forum, making your 'establishing the truth' point moot. However, if I were to edit it, and or write about it in a similar way again, I would use your criticism to improve the way I lay it out. 

Mike (UK)


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## Beregondo

It'd be easy for one to get the impression that there are a few here who don't give a rip if the OP (who apparently gave up hope of an answer sometime around two weeks ago after his last comment) *ever* gets an answer to his question so long as they get to argue over whose fault it is that we have pests and no bees able to deal with them on their own.

This is not fun.
I'm going to go enjoy my bees now.


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## dadaas

Well i m around, reading what people are saying. Did not respond ont ime since i miss some posts because didnt get email notification. But now i got it.

Someone asked me about my expirience and how much beehives i have:
I started beekeeping last year and i had 4 LR beehives. I double that and bought 1 beehive pretty late in the season. So my total was 10 befoe the winter. But beehive i bought died of varroa (IMO). Right now i have 9 LR beehives, they are not the strongest hives in the country but are looking very healthy and in very good shape in this time of year, not too strong and not too weak. Looks like queens know what to do.

I was asking questions in opening topic, because i m going to make Top Bar Hives and i will not threat. BUT i will monitor varroa and will jump in with sugar dusting if things will go in bad direction.

About other disease AFB or EFB, in my country and i think in all others we need to burn beehives and we do get money for new ones from country.

Laws about varroa are not clear and if you beehive dies of varroa you dont get any money. By law you need to monitor varroa and treat only those that need treatment. But this law is only a ink on paper, nobody follows it. Nobody follows the rules, nobody monitors varroa, when conventional beekeepers stop harvesting honey they throw in random synthetic treatment and AFTER THAT they check if that synthetic treatment is working by treating with amitraz smoking which is BTW illegal in my country, but everyone do it.

Do you do the same?


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## AHudd

dadaas said:


> I was asking questions in opening topic, because i m going to make Top Bar Hives and i will not threat. BUT i will monitor varroa and will jump in with sugar dusting if things will go in bad direction.


I thought sugar dusting was a method to monitor mite levels, not a treatment.


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## Andrew Dewey

Keeping in mind that this is the treatment free forum, and so it should go without saying that you're not to try this at home - some people dust their bees with powdered sugar - this is thought to stimulate grooming - and some of the mites are groomed off along with the powdered sugar; the mites and the sugar remnants fall through the screened bottom board. The mites are not killed by this method - that is up to the beekeeper, but having fallen through the screened bottom board they are off of the bee and out of the hive. It is not an effective way of treating a hive for mites - but perhaps used in combination with other so called non-chemical controls (not treatments) (brood break, etc) - it may slow the mites enough to limit economic damage.

I asked a week or so ago if anyone had studied/researched multiple non-chemical controls and no studies were presented. Powdered Sugar Dusting does nothing to mites inside of brood cells.


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## AHudd

Andrew Dewey said:


> I asked a week or so ago if anyone had studied/researched multiple non-chemical controls and no studies were presented. Powdered Sugar Dusting does nothing to mites inside of brood cells.


 To my way of thinking that is the biggest obstacle in the fight against mites. I read a study where it was stated a male mite can not survive outside of brood cells, but the first egg laid by a female is male. Is this your understanding?


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## Terry C

deknow said:


> When I heard about Obama's 1 billion dollar initiatave to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria, that voice in my head screamed at me...
> "Now those bacteria are going to be funding resistant on top of being antibiotic resistant." ...if no one else has made this prediction....you heard it here first.
> 
> I keep thinking about Teela Brown.


 She was a lucky girl ...


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## Andrew Dewey

AHudd said:


> To my way of thinking that is the biggest obstacle in the fight against mites. I read a study where it was stated a male mite can not survive outside of brood cells, but the first egg laid by a female is male. Is this your understanding?


Correct. A male mite is the first laid, followed by a succession of females. Once both the male and each female matures, they mate. Usually at least three cycles in worker brood, four in drones. 

I am not certain if the male dies in the cell when it is uncapped, or if he emerges and then soon dies.


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## mike bispham

Andrew Dewey said:


> A male mite is the first laid, followed by a succession of females. Once both the male and each female matures, they mate. Usually at least three cycles in worker brood, four in drones.


Only if the workers don't sniff them out first, uncap the cell and dispose of them. Or groom their parents off their hosts before they get a chance to reproduce, or somehow inhibit reproduction in the cell, or use brood breaks to reduce them.

The trick is to have the right sort of bees, not to be worrying about the details of mite habits. Dealing with mites is bee work, not beekeeper work. 

Mike (UK)


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## Andrew Dewey

mike bispham said:


> or use brood breaks to reduce them.


Are you ok today? I don't think I've ever read you write positively about anything other than bees that deal with mites on their own. That's your drum, so keep beating it. Maybe it is an effective way to get people to think like you; I doubt it.


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## mike bispham

Andrew Dewey said:


> I don't think I've ever read you write positively about anything other than bees that deal with mites on their own. That's your drum, so keep beating it. Maybe it is an effective way to get people to think like you; I doubt it.


Andrew,

The tf forum has always needed defending against people who, for one reason or another, undermine it's central purpose. Discussion of treatments here does just that - it turns it into a place where people who treat, and who feel the need to encourage others to treat, can have conversation that promote their way of thinking. 

I want people to remember that this is the treatment-free forum, and its here for a purpose - to talk about ways of keeping bees without treatments. Part of that discussion is what exactly we mean by 'treatments'. The different ways we can cast matters (and the terms we use) can clarify, or obscure, the important things we need to remember when attempting to move toward healthier bees. 

And yes, you're right - I'm a one trick pony. I don't think there is any way out of treatment-dependent beekeeping except mite-managing bees. I think most people here already think like me on that one. 

What are your strategies for keeping bees treatment free? 

BTW I'm curious; what is your objection to liming your garden? 

Mike (UK)


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## Andrew Dewey

mike bispham said:


> What are your strategies for keeping bees treatment free?
> 
> BTW what is your objection to liming your garden?
> 
> Mike (UK)


My main strategy has been to use bees that have been shown to live elsewhere without chemical intervention. So far that strategy has not worked. Which is why I continue to ask questions.

As for my garden, soils gravitate towards a certain acidity. Those in high acid environs, such as mine, must either amend the soil to reduce acidity, find plants that grow well in acid soil, or not have a garden. Applying lime is hardly a one time fix - it has to be done over and over and if you have significant acreage it can get expensive very quickly.

I _*want*_ to plant some yellow sweet clover for bee forage this year - but "my" soil needs to be much more alkaline in order for that to thrive. I couldn't get to the area I want to grow the clover over the winter when I had wood stove ash (I had to do something with it - I like being warm in the winter!) I may have no choice but to lime the clover spot. I've tried planting yellow sweet clover without adjusting the soil and it hasn't grown at all.

I am a fan of compost, especially compost that I make instead of buy.

It strikes me that liming garden soil is the equivalent of using an organic treatment on bees. Just because something is organic, does not mean it is good.

I agree with you that long term the solution to mites and bees is a bee that can keep mites at a level where the bees and mites can co-exist. I don't live in an area suited for selective breeding. I like live bees better than dead bees and if I have to take measures to keep mites from taking out a colony, I do so.

I encourage you to look at Randy Oliver's self described rant in Queens for Pennies - it is on his web site - scientificbeekeeping.com

There need to be people like you who are pedal to the metal in terms of creating the long term solution. But there are others who, like me, have to rely on folks like you to do the hard work, and want to keep bees alive in the meantime.


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## Rader Sidetrack

For a very useful page on the details of the varroa mite reproduction cycle, including disposition of those male mites, see this page:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=2744&page=14


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## Andrew Dewey

Rader Sidetrack said:


> For a very useful page on the details of the varroa mite reproduction cycle, including disposition of those male mites, see this page:
> 
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=2744&page=14


Thanks Graham!

It seems that male mites "usually" do not leave the cell and are killed by the cleanup crew.


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## AHudd

Andrew Dewey said:


> Correct. A male mite is the first laid, followed by a succession of females. Once both the male and each female matures, they mate. Usually at least three cycles in worker brood, four in drones.
> 
> I am not certain if the male dies in the cell when it is uncapped, or if he emerges and then soon dies.


OK, even though the sex of the mite eggs are predetermined, they still have to be fertilized, correct? How does the first male mite get in the hive? Is he the one attached to the emerging bee and he just hangs on until the bee becomes a forager, but then he would be destined to die with the bee without ever getting into another hive. Maybe the male can survive for a short period of time outside a cell. I'm missing something about the reproductive cycle that's driving me crazy.


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## Andrew Dewey

He is the first offspring of the mother mite. He mates with his newly matured sisters. You have to imagine that the first mite to access the hive was a mated female.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Andrew is correct. Additionally, the mite sister/brother mating occurs in the same brood cell that those mites were raised in. The females that emerge from the cell are already mated. All those _mite sex_ details are covered in that ARS page link.

.


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## AHudd

Rader Sidetrack said:


> For a very useful page on the details of the varroa mite reproduction cycle, including disposition of those male mites, see this page:
> 
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=2744&page=14


Thanks, I believe I have read that. I guess I had better read it again. I have read so much lately I can't separate the wheat from the chaff as efficiently as I once could. I need a smiley with a walking cane.


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## mike bispham

Andrew Dewey said:


> Applying lime is hardly a one time fix - it has to be done over and over and if you have significant acreage it can get expensive very quickly.
> 
> It strikes me that liming garden soil is the equivalent of using an organic treatment on bees. Just because something is organic, does not mean it is good.


Surely its no dearer than any other option Andrew? (Your own wood ash won't make much of a dent on a significant acreage...?) I can't see what is bad about it?

What is it about your area that makes it bad for selective breeding? Were your sources of resistant bees actually reliable? 

If you are serious about wanting to be treatment free then treating (however you do it) will be your greatest obstacle - you're constantly obscuring the levels of resistance. 

You'll always lose a good proportion - why not make rapid increase to cover losses and get stuck in?

Mike (UK)


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## AHudd

Andrew Dewey said:


> He is the first offspring of the mother mite. He mates with his newly matured sisters. You have to imagine that the first mite to access the hive was a mated female.


That's where I'm trying to go with this, where and how does that happen?



Rader Sidetrack said:


> Andrew is correct. Additionally, the mite sister/brother mating occurs in the same brood cell that those mites were raised in. The females that emerge from the cell are already mated. All those _mite sex_ details are covered in that ARS page link.
> 
> .


I read that again. I'm wondering if there is something to do with the population of mites within a hive that triggers a mated female mite to hitch a ride out of the hive on a bee only to drop off of the bee onto a flower and wait for another bee to hitch a ride back to a different hive. Or do the mites abandon a hive as it dies in a mass exodus. What triggers the movement of these mated females?
I am hoping to find how a hive gets infected in the first place. In other words if a person had all new equipment and a new package of bees installed and treated those bees with OA as the comb is being built, to kill all mites, how would that hive become infested with mites?
If anyone knows of any studies that address this issue I would appreciate being pointed to it.

Thanks, 
Alex


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## beemandan

AHudd said:


> I am hoping to find how a hive gets infected in the first place. In other words if a person had all new equipment and a new package of bees installed and treated those bees with OA as the comb is being built, to kill all mites, how would that hive become infested with mites?
> Thanks,
> Alex


No matter what you do....you'll never get rid of 100% of them...without killing all the bees as well. OAV might kill 97% in a package of bees....but there's still that 3%. In nature, when a colony is heavily parasitized and failing all the neighborhood bees move in and begin robbing the nest. In the midst of that many mated female mites find transport to new colonies...riding on the robbing bees. Just one way they move from colony to colony.


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## AHudd

beemandan said:


> No matter what you do....you'll never get rid of 100% of them...without killing all the bees as well. OAV might kill 97% in a package of bees....but there's still that 3%. In nature, when a colony is heavily parasitized and failing all the neighborhood bees move in and begin robbing the nest. In the midst of that many mated female mites find transport to new colonies...riding on the robbing bees. Just one way they move from colony to colony.


The robbers, of course.
Thanks, Alex


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## squarepeg

AHudd said:


> The robbers, of course.


...and drones which drift from hive to hive. working foragers can also drift, but robbers entering a highly infested and collapsing hive likely transfer the most mites in the shortest period of time.


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## crofter

AHudd said:


> OK, even though the sex of the mite eggs are predetermined, they still have to be fertilized, correct? How does the first male mite get in the hive? Is he the one attached to the emerging bee and he just hangs on until the bee becomes a forager, but then he would be destined to die with the bee without ever getting into another hive. Maybe the male can survive for a short period of time outside a cell. I'm missing something about the reproductive cycle that's driving me crazy.


The fertile female enters a cell and the firts egg she lays is unfertilized. The male mite egg is unfertilized the same as a drone egg is unfertilized. The resulting male mates with his sisters (or other virgin females) and they will not lay till after they emerge and re-enter another cell to complete the process.


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## AHudd

squarepeg said:


> ...and drones which drift from hive to hive. working foragers can also drift, but robbers entering a highly infested and collapsing hive likely transfer the most mites in the shortest period of time.


Well, there's two more ways.

Thank,
Alex


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## AHudd

crofter said:


> The fertile female enters a cell and the firts egg she lays is unfertilized. The male mite egg is unfertilized the same as a drone egg is unfertilized. The resulting male mates with his sisters (or other virgin females) and they will not lay till after they emerge and re-enter another cell to complete the process.


So, in this scenario, the female doesn't even have to be mated to start the process. No wonder they are so hard to deal with.

Thanks,
Alex


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## Rader Sidetrack

>> So, in this scenario, the female doesn't even have to be mated to start the process. 

I don't think that is quite the way it works. 

Keep in mind that there are two generations of female mites in the cell. The 'mother' mite is already mated when she enters the cell. Its her offspring that normally mate with each other. HOWEVER, there could be a second mated 'mother' mite in that same cell. If that occurs, then _Crofter_'s comment about "other virgin females" applies and the brother/sister have the opportunity to mate with offspring from that second 'mother' mite; i.e. different mites other than their own siblings.


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## crofter

I do not remember seeing anything about an unmated female entering a cell. Perhaps they do not mature to egg laying ability if they are not mated in the cell they were born in. If they entered a cell unmated they would have no male mites to mate with. Perhaps _if they could produce a male_ there would not be time enough to then produce any females. In any case it appears the sons bail off if they do inadvertently mount the parent. Mites barely have time to get 2 mated females to maturity in a worker cell or three in a drone cell when a mated mite enters the cell.

That is the usual process.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Here is a study that supports Frank's comment above regarding emerged unmated female varroa remaining unmated:

https://books.google.com/books?id=7...wAw#v=onepage&q=varroa unmated female&f=false


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## AHudd

This is interesting. I think this shows what can be accomplished if we could get the government interested, and by interest, I mean appropriate money. 
southeastern-united-states-collection-screwworm-eradication-program-records

Alex


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## Oldtimer

The government is interested but what do you think more money can do that has not been done?


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## Andrew Dewey

mike bispham said:


> Surely its no dearer than any other option Andrew? (Your own wood ash won't make much of a dent on a significant acreage...?) I can't see what is bad about it?
> 
> What is it about your area that makes it bad for selective breeding? Were your sources of resistant bees actually reliable?


I see lime as a treatment for soil. An organic one to be sure, but still a treatment. As in, something to be avoided.

I've talked a great deal in this forum about the significant migratory pollination presence in my area during the prime part of the bee rearing season and the inability to predict or control the drone population resulting from the migratory operations. Low bush wild blueberries.

Yes, the sources were reliable. Two I imagine you've heard of were/are Purvis and Bee Weaver.

Economics - I've only so much money to spend on this hobby and there are some people who depend on me to deliver product (honey).


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## AHudd

I think the more money involved, the greater potential for a solution there is. The more potential profit there is, the higher on the list of priorities the subject becomes. People like Jonas Salk are far and few between.
Our government does a lot of research and then allows the private sector access to all of the information. They also sometimes, subsidize research, I believe. I think something as difficult as eradication of Varroa would have to be controlled by the gov. Nothing attracts the best and the brightest like money.
I don't know how such a thing could be accomplished, but the eradication of screwworms from this country was thought to be impossible, but the line of defense is all the way down in Central America now.
I can't debate this on an intellectual level because I am short on education, but I am long on optimism. I see a lot of things today, I would not have believed if someone had told when I was a lad.:lookout:


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## Michael Bush

Too bad they never offer "prizes" anymore as rewards for research... we got food preservation by canning from a 12,000 franc prize offered by the French military for a way to preserver food for the army. Architecture was forever changed by a contest for a design to build the largest dome in history when a by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi won the prize. Now if we would offer "prizes" for "cures" instead of treatments, maybe we could cure some diseases instead of coming up with expensive treatments...

The problem with funding research is that there is no real financial gain in discovering a cure. It just causes the funding to dry up. If it was a prize, the incentives would be reversed. There would be no gain in NOT discovering a cure.


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## mike bispham

Andrew Dewey said:


> I see lime as a treatment for soil. An organic one to be sure, but still a treatment. As in, something to be avoided.


Well, yes, but I'm trying to get at your reasons. If you want to grow a wider range of crops you have to sweeten the soil. Liming is the time tested, cheapest way to do that. Its been done (it has to be done under manure fertilising) since agriculture moved out of flood plains. 



Andrew Dewey said:


> I've talked a great deal in this forum about the significant migratory pollination presence in my area during the prime part of the bee rearing season and the inability to predict or control the drone population resulting from the migratory operations. Low bush wild blueberries.


I don't read all the posts here!



Andrew Dewey said:


> Yes, the sources were reliable. Two I imagine you've heard of were/are Purvis and Bee Weaver.


So did they not thrive, or was the problem that offspring were insufficiently resistant?



Andrew Dewey said:


> Economics - I've only so much money to spend on this hobby and there are some people who depend on me to deliver product (honey).


Won't the 'need' to fund a hobby, the fact of migratory presence and the commitment to supply a few local traders always supply grounds to be a treatment beekeeper, and to use your own treatment-dependent queens rather than bought-in resistant ones? You must think there's another way forward or you wouldn't be persuing tf thinking? 

(BTW I don't mean to be rude with that 'need' - I'm interested just now in the way 'need' is often used as grounds for action when 'want' or 'benefit' is more accurate)

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Michael Bush said:


> The problem with funding research is that there is no real financial gain in discovering a cure. It just causes the funding to dry up. If it was a prize, the incentives would be reversed. There would be no gain in NOT discovering a cure.


That's a really good point. 

Mike (UK)


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## AHudd

Michael Bush said:


> The problem with funding research is that there is no real financial gain in discovering a cure. It just causes the funding to dry up. If it was a prize, the incentives would be reversed. There would be no gain in NOT discovering a cure.


That sounds like a good push in the right direction.

Alex


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## dsegrest

Michael Bush said:


> Too bad they never offer "prizes" anymore as rewards for research... we got food preservation by canning from a 12,000 franc prize offered by the French military for a way to preserver food for the army. Architecture was forever changed by a contest for a design to build the largest dome in history when a by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi won the prize. Now if we would offer "prizes" for "cures" instead of treatments, maybe we could cure some diseases instead of coming up with expensive treatments...
> 
> The problem with funding research is that there is no real financial gain in discovering a cure. It just causes the funding to dry up. If it was a prize, the incentives would be reversed. There would be no gain in NOT discovering a cure.


Sounds like the "X-prize"


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