# Can splits control mites?



## honeydrunkapiaries

Randy Oliver delved into this on scientificbeekeeping.com under Varroa Population dynamics. Well timed splits can be effective of reducing mite populations, however its more of technique of IPM rather then an answer to varroa.


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## beemandan

Lots of variables, not the least of which everything is local and will be different from one place to another.
My advice would be to do what you plan and take mite counts before and periodically after....and decide for yourself.


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## jmgi

I don't see much benefit of doing splits/introducing queens, and that alone helping with varroa. If you divide up a hive's brood and bees equally, each part theoretically is going to have the same mite to bee ratio as it had before, or am I missing something? If you do a brood break and let the splits raise their own queen, then I can see a benefit to that. The only possible plus if there is one, would be that introducing new young queens immediately upon splitting would allow the queens to outbreed the mite somewhat from the start, but by fall/early winter the mites are going to be an issue again, just as they are every year at that time. What about honey production with all that splitting?


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## MikeTheBeekeeper

jmgi said:


> I don't see much benefit of doing splits/introducing queens, and that alone helping with varroa. If you divide up a hive's brood and bees equally, each part theoretically is going to have the same mite to bee ratio as it had before, or am I missing something? If you do a brood break and let the splits raise their own queen, then I can see a benefit to that. The only possible plus if there is one, would be that introducing new young queens immediately upon splitting would allow the queens to outbreed the mite somewhat from the start, but by fall/early winter the mites are going to be an issue again, just as they are every year at that time. What about honey production with all that splitting?


Okay. I ask because last year my hives were doing excellent and I split them (2 new colonies per hive I had) and even those new colonies grew and I had enough to split all of them in the same manner. Maybe the new young queens outbred the mites? I don't know for sure because I didn't treat them at all and they all did fine until fall and winter when many collapsed.

I'm not really looking for a honey crop this year (if I could get something that'd be nice though, as I plan on moving them around a bit so they have a constant food supply). I'm mainly trying to grow my numbers for next years pollination and honey flows.


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## jmgi

I am TF myself, and its up to you to do what you want as far as treating or not. I don't want to make this into a treatment free/treating discussion even though some consider splitting as a treatment of sorts. But obviously, making lots of successful splits throughout the year is useless if they all end up dead in late fall/winter from varroa. I want to grow my hive numbers too, and have done lots of splits over the last couple years, but I'm spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere because I'm losing too many hives to the mites. I wish I had the answer for you and me, but I don't as of now.


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## MikeTheBeekeeper

jmgi said:


> I am TF myself, and its up to you to do what you want as far as treating or not. I don't want to make this into a treatment free/treating discussion even though some consider splitting as a treatment of sorts. But obviously, making lots of successful splits throughout the year is useless if they all end up dead in late fall/winter from varroa. I want to grow my hive numbers too, and have done lots of splits over the last couple years, but I'm spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere because I'm losing too many hives to the mites. I wish I had the answer for you and me, but I don't as of now.


I'm in the same situation. I've actually managed to overwinter about twice more than what I did last year but what I see happening is if they don't die the first winter they surely die the second one (I have only 1 hive that has made it more than 2 winters). 

Maybe with this splitting model that I tried to some extent last year (although I made my last splits too late in August which proved to be deadly) I'll be able to make up for my losses and actually grow some, maybe not. I don't think of it as a treatment at all but rather as a little help.


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## jmgi

I don't view it as a treatment either. But with the losses I am having the last couple winters, I would need to do 4:1 splits just to come out even the next spring, and do even more splits than that to come out ahead. I guess in theory its probably a do-able thing, just need much more equipment, and of course forget about getting a honey crop.


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## Duncan Thacker

Simple put the answer to your question is, NO.


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## Vance G

Go to mdasplitter.com and study Mel's methods. I think you will find some answers.


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## WBVC

MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> I'm in the same situation. I've actually managed to overwinter about twice more than what I did last year but what I see happening is if they don't die the first winter they surely die the second one (I have only 1 hive that has made it more than 2 winters).
> 
> Maybe with this splitting model that I tried to some extent last year (although I made my last splits too late in August which proved to be deadly) I'll be able to make up for my losses and actually grow some, maybe not. I don't think of it as a treatment at all but rather as a little help.


I am a rank beginner but rather than splitting dubious hive genetics couldn't you graft from the 2 year survivor and hope that the virgin queens find a decent drone?


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## Duncan Thacker

WBVC said:


> I am a rank beginner but rather than splitting dubious hive genetics couldn't you graft from the 2 year survivor and hope that the virgin queens find a decent drone?


YES, that is the thinking of a sustainable beekeeper!!!!!!!! Bravo. You are right on the ball.

You don't even have to graft just split and let the new Queens just do their thing!!! You will get genes from your local feral survivors and that's what you want


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## MikeTheBeekeeper

Duncan Thacker said:


> Simple put the answer to your question is, NO.


Yes I see that now. Maybe a brood break would help somewhat but I won't be giving them brood breaks.



WBVC said:


> I am a rank beginner but rather than splitting dubious hive genetics couldn't you graft from the 2 year survivor and hope that the virgin queens find a decent drone?


Yes that's what I plan on doing. I also plan on setting up a mating yard with several hives with qualities I like (build up speed, honey production, high bee population).

I hope to create more-resistant bees. We'll see.


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## mike bispham

Duncan Thacker said:


> YES, that is the thinking of a sustainable beekeeper!!!!!!!! Bravo. You are right on the ball.
> 
> You don't even have to graft just split and let the new Queens just do their thing!!! You will get genes from your local feral survivors and that's what you want


IFF... there are ferals about... If you're not sure buy some bred resistant bees to contribute - or do that anyway.

Continuing along the same lines: you don't want big treatment dependent hives producing drones... so preserving them by splitting is likely going backward - unless you are requeening.

Try to keep sets of hives in the same condition - same place, same regime - so that when you compare for best genetics you are comparing like for like. 

In my view you're doing the right thing in making increase, but the way you are doing it is giving you false readings about resistance - which you are aware of. I'd try to raise bees without creating false readings in the parent hives by having dedicated long bee-raising hives and a good cell building set up, then on to mini mating nucs. In other words, improve your bee raising skills until you can make as many colonies as you want without creating false readings due to brood extraction. Never mind the honey for a year or two, build bees and comb.

Mike (UK)


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## jamneff

There are some great articles on this site www.mdasplitter.com I am going to try this with my hives here in PA, thats if it ever stops snowing or freezing rain.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Splits with brood breaks work.  I follow Mel's principles from mdasplitter, and then Mike Palmers 2 high nuc prep for overwintering - except that I use 2 high of 5 frames instead of Mike's 2 high of 4.


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## mike bispham

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Splits with brood breaks work.


'Work' toward what end? Does Mel have anything to say about the undesirability of (artificially) controlling mite populations via brood breaks taking adaptive pressure off the population, resulting in lowering of natural resistance?

Mike (UK)


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## jmgi

Mike B., tell me in a nutshell what we are to do then? What is the solution to the bees building natural resistance to varroa?


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## mike bispham

jmgi said:


> Mike B., tell me in a nutshell what we are to do then? What is the solution to the bees building natural resistance to varroa?


Do you mean how can we help them?

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

mike bispham said:


> IFF... there are ferals about... If you're not sure buy some bred resistant bees to contribute - or do that anyway.


I can't comment here I do not understand this comment. I understand the "IF" I'll put my money on Nature and take a chance but I am not wasting money on something Mother Nature will give me anyway (Darwin)



mike bispham said:


> Continuing along the same lines: you don't want big treatment dependent hives producing drones... so preserving them by splitting is likely going backward - unless you are requeening.


In the sustainable circles I would say requeening is going backwards. How do you know his splits will be "big treatment dependent hives producing drones" You don"t. There is no magic crystal ball that will predict the out come. Discovery is one of the FUN things here!



mike bispham said:


> Try to keep sets of hives in the same condition - same place, same regime - so that when you compare for best genetics you are comparing like for like.


If you buy queens to requeen you are not creating your own genetically strong stock you are propagating someone else's from somewhere else anyway. 

Spread your hives out go for diversity let the weak perish and keep the strong. Spend all that time wasted comparing this and that on more important things. 



mike bispham said:


> In my view you're doing the right thing in making increase, but the way you are doing it is giving you false readings about resistance - which you are aware of. I'd try to raise bees without creating false readings in the parent hives by having dedicated long bee-raising hives and a good cell building set up, then on to mini mating nucs. In other words, improve your bee raising skills until you can make as many colonies as you want without creating false readings due to brood extraction. Never mind the honey for a year or two, build bees and comb.


I agree with a good strong home apiary, but that pretty much happens on its own with hobby beeks anyway.


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## Michael Bush

Let's try another way of looking at splits. Typical beekeeping tries to avoid the natural inclination to swarm. Splits take the place of this so the bees end up in your hives instead of the trees. So if you were not keeping them from swarming they would have done it themselves. You're not really propping them up so much as redirecting things so they end up in your hives...


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## Vance G

Mr. Disselkoehns methods are not removing selective pressure on the mites. No miticide is used. The mites are just prevented from having a long running buildup that often overwhelms a colony. Mites that are still virulent under this discipline would kill the host colony and end this brand of mites story too. His method also maximizes the genetic diversity of your apiary as you remove only bloodlines that lack resistance to disease, defensive colonies and unproductive colonies. All your eggs are not in what you see as your best colonies genetic basket. New queens are produced from all successful colonies and that diversity is what may be needed. Until a better plan comes along, I will run with this one. I wish Mr. Disselkoehn would complete the book he is working on!! Nudge Nudge.


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## mike bispham

Duncan Thacker said:


> I can't comment here I do not understand this comment. I understand the "IF" I'll put my money on Nature and take a chance but I am not wasting money on something Mother Nature will give me anyway (Darwin)


If you have a lot of treating apiaries near you the local bees will be treatment-dependent. If you don't treat (or brood-break) them - it amounts to the same thing - the great majority will perish. 

So lots depends on that 'IFF' (the 2 'F's signals 'If and only if'). If you want to know how to 'lay your money' knowing the state of the local bees vis-a-vis self sufficieny/resistance is essential.




Duncan Thacker said:


> In the sustainable circles I would say requeening is going backwards. How do you know his splits will be "big treatment dependent hives producing drones" You don"t. There is no magic crystal ball that will predict the out come.


I don't know what 'sustainable' means to you, but to me it means reliably keeping bees without undermining the resistance of any local ferals. You want a feral population, so you must do what you can to maintain one. Chiefly that means don't keep bees that are treatment-dependent - because your treatment-dependent drones will mate with the ferals thus rendering them treatment-dependent.

You don't know the splits will be treatment-dependent - but you don't know that they won't be either. Given that they probably come from largely treatment-dependent parentage, they almost certainly are. Its worth making an effort to find out.




Duncan Thacker said:


> Discovery is one of the FUN things here!


Discovering the 10 colonies you had a few months ago have gone to the great hive in the sky isn't my idea of fun.



Duncan Thacker said:


> If you buy queens to requeen you are not creating your own genetically strong stock you are propagating someone else's from somewhere else anyway.


If you have no self-sustaining ferals/have a high number of treating hives around you, you have little choice.

The strategy is: 

A)	get some sound (resistant) genetics in: 

B)	take very good care of those genes (not the bees, the genes.

You do that by propagating selectively - from your best 



Duncan Thacker said:


> I agree with a good strong home apiary, but that pretty much happens on its own with hobby beeks anyway.


Haha! Stick around and listen to the tales of woe! Root out the 'treatment frees' who actually use brood breaks, or get new nucs every year.

'Sustainable beekeeping' is about getting bees that manage mites on their own. 

Mike (UK)


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Vance, very well put. I believe this, in combination with MP's nuc method is the most pragmatic approach if a person wants to be a hobbyist/sideliner and not buy bees every year. 
I turned 50 last year - I do not have the resources, time, or ability to develop a completely mite resistant bee. Accepting that mites are here to stay, and living in the north where a winter brood break is an annual event, this seems to be the method which suits my style of beekeeping best. 
I also agree with MB's point bees in the boxes are easier to deal with than bees in the trees.


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## mike bispham

Vance G said:


> Mr. Disselkoehns methods are not removing selective pressure on the mites. No miticide is used. The mites are just prevented from having a long running buildup that often overwhelms a colony.


Vance,

That is precisely removing the selective pressure on the population. (You have to be looking always at the _breeding population_, not the individual colonies. 'Live and let die' allows that to play out - but it isn't necessary. There are other ways - and locating the best and propagating from them (alone) is the time-honoured method. 



Vance G said:


> Mites that are still virulent under this discipline would kill the host colony and end this brand of mites story too.


The mites are clearly virulent enough to be uncontrollable by the bees - that's why you're using brood breaks. That isn't what you want. You want a bee-mite combination in which the bees manage the mites.



Vance G said:


> His method also maximizes the genetic diversity of your apiary as you remove only bloodlines that lack resistance to disease, defensive colonies and unproductive colonies.


That sounds useful, but unless you are selecting for resistance, you won't get any. Without resistance you can't have treatment free bees. Period.



Vance G said:


> All your eggs are not in what you see as your best colonies genetic basket. New queens are produced from all successful colonies and that diversity is what may be needed.


You're not going to disturb diversity much unless you use AI intensively. You can take diversity for granted - particularly if you are bringing in feral genes. 

What you must have is a systematic selective propagation approach that brings resistance to the fore. That's what Nature has in Natural Selection for the Fittest Strains - and you must copy and mirror her. There is no alternative except hospital bees.

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

Looks like we agree on the end result just not how to get there. 



jmgi said:


> Mike B., tell me in a nutshell what we are to do then? What is the solution to the bees building natural resistance to varroa?


There is only one way to help bees build resistance to mites. First realize mites are here to stay period. Second realize there is nothing you or anybody else is going to do to "make" bees more resistant to mites. Weather or not you like it Natural Selection will march forward regardless what you do. By "You" I mean beekeepers in general. You will probably develop some pesticide which will only make resistant mites!!!!! and slow the natural selection process or result in another species disappearing from the face of the earth. 

Now if you really want to help.....realize you will have to roll with Mother Nature. Make your hives install your bees get them started and observe. Some will experience high losses, expect this its part of the journey. Your hives that survive on their own will be the basis for your apiary. How you go about making increases is up to you. So weather its mites or robbing or a weak queen let natural selection run its course. You will be surprised at what you learn. The key to a good foundation for any problem solving is a strong colony.

Let me clarify "getting them started" Because I know I'm going to draw fire on that one.

What if: you spend 500.00 dollars on packages, get installed and low and behold ALL your colonies are infested with mites above the threshold a newly established colony can handle. YES you have to take action and save the colonies. BUT once they are established and have strong numbers its time to see how they do on their own. 

Remember its all about the load the mites put on the colony. 

I to turned 50 and agree completely Adrain.


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## mike bispham

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> I do not have the resources, time, or ability to develop a completely mite resistant bee. Accepting that mites are here to stay, and living in the north where a winter brood break is an annual event, this seems to be the method which suits my style of beekeeping best.


With the greatest respect, imo artificial brood breaks do not amount to tf beekeeping, and shouldn't be advocated here in the tf section. Since they reserse the development of natural resistance they're just treatments by another name.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Duncan Thacker said:


> There is only one way to help bees build resistance to mites. First realize mites are here to stay period. Second realize there is nothing you or anybody else is going to do to "make" bees more resistant to mites.


Absolutely wrong. Every time you treat you reverse progress toward resistance. Every time you propagate from more resistant hives, and encourge more resistant hives to build large drone populations, you promote resistance. 



Duncan Thacker said:


> Weather or not you like it Natural Selection will march forward regardless what you do. By "You" I mean beekeepers in general.


Natural selection (for resistance) cannot 'march forward' wherever treatments are occurring. That's simple fact. 



Duncan Thacker said:


> Now if you really want to help.....realize you will have to roll with Mother Nature. Make your hives install your bees get them started and observe. Some will experience high losses, expect this its part of the journey. Your hives that survive on their own will be the basis for your apiary. How you go about making increases is up to you. So weather its mites or robbing or a weak queen let natural selection run its course. You will be surprised at what you learn. The key to a good foundation for any problem solving is a strong colony.


I agree. But you can adopt further strategies that impove your chances without incurring any costs. Making lots of colonies to protect against future losses, and to build a large apiary that can defend its (genetic) airspace is one of those - an important one. 



Duncan Thacker said:


> What if: you spend 500.00 dollars on packages, get installed and low and behold ALL your colonies are infested with mites above the threshold a newly established colony can handle. YES you have to take action and save the colonies. BUT once they are established and have strong numbers its time to see how they do on their own.


Probably they'll all die. But if you make lots on new colonies before they do, and mate them in places likely to have 'survivor' ferals, and bring in cut-out established colonies, and requeen the obvious poor mite mangers with bred resistant stock... you're loading the dice in your favour with each move. 

Unless you are lucky enough to have a strong feral population (in which case there's no need to buy any bees) just stopping treating is a mugs game. You need a strategy. 

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

We have treatment free beeks right here in KY keeping bees with GM corn all over the place non the less, you might as well call this state Monsantoville! Our beeks are foundationless and reporting 100% survival rate through the last couple of winters. They are also reporting birds and bees are staying away from the corn. So I am praying for the same scenario between bees and mites I am banking on Mother Nature. But I am watching. I said the bees would work it out over ten years ago I am finally uncrossing my fingers, the big picture seems to be pointing in that direction. Purely observation. If you want to confirm (which boards are notorious for asking for) I can put you in touch with some of them I see them at the weekly farmers market. This is where I get my bees because they are local mutts! 

I will never live the tale of woe barring natural disaster, I been at this too long.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mike, with equal respect, within this specific section of the forum brood breaks are a manipulation, and manipulations are not classified as a treatment; Solomon put some thought into this and has treatments defined as substances brought into the hive.


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## Michael Bush

>Since they reserse the development of natural resistance they're just treatments by another name.

Or they are just swarms by another name...


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## mike bispham

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Mike, with equal respect, within this specific section of the forum brood breaks are a manipulation, and manipulations are not classified as a treatment; Solomon put some thought into this and has treatments defined as substances brought into the hive.


Yes I know. My argument is that that arrangement doesn't bring in the fact that brood breaks reverse the development of natural resistance. Since the development of natural resitance is the only long term sustainable solution, that arrangement would benefit from re-arrangement.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Michael Bush said:


> >Since they reserse the development of natural resistance they're just treatments by another name.
> 
> Or they are just swarms by another name...


No. Swarms are natural events. 

Keeping [...]-dependent bees by means of brood breaks undermines any development toward internal mite-management and kills ferals. Swarming doesn't do that.

Can't be good Michael, can it?

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> With the greatest respect, imo artificial brood breaks do not amount to tf beekeeping, and shouldn't be advocated here in the tf section.


Huh. :scratch:

The rules of this _Treatment Free_ forum seem clear enough to me.


> Treatments [highlight]do not include items considered to be manipulations [/highlight]or equipment including but not limited to the following:
> Frequent queen replacement
> [highlight]Systematic splitting[/highlight]
> Frequent replacement of comb/foundation
> Small cell foundation
> Drone comb removal
> Screened Bottom Boards
> Small Hive Beetle Traps
> Honey Harvest
> Pollen Harvest
> Frame Manipulation
> Hive Body Reversal
> The Use of a Smoker
> Sticky Boards
> [highlight]Any Method of Breeding[/highlight]
> 
> http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?253066-Unique-Forum-Rules



Brood breaks are indeed a suitable topic for this TF forum.


:gh:

.


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## Fusion_power

If it is what bees do naturally or closely emulates what bees do naturally, then I would not call it a treatment. On the other hand, I don't treat my bees in any way, no chemicals, no special manipulation, no drone brood removal and they are thriving. The problem is that me posting this info will reach many newbees and even some experienced beekeepers who won't understand the work I had to put in to get to this stage. It did NOT happen overnight and it was not a pleasant experience losing as many colonies as I lost over the years.

It may be thrilling to think of beekeepers abandoning chemical mite treatments, but the reality is that very very few colonies are naturally mite resistant.


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## Michael Bush

>No. Swarms are natural events. 

Which would occur if you don't do splits. The ideal time for the split is the same time they would most likely swarm...

>Keeping [...]-dependent bees by means of brood breaks undermines any development toward internal mite-management and kills ferals.

How does it do either. They are not dependent on me, they would swarm otherwise. How does it kill ferals? Prevents them, perhaps, but if I was there to catch the swarm it would be the same outcome.

> Swarming doesn't do that.

Doesn't do what? It makes a break in the brood cycle at the same time I would have done a split (or a week after if I'm lucky and beat them) and I'm only splitting the ones I expect to swarm so it's the same colonies in the same state. 

If I had all my time to devote to beekeeping, I probably would set up some good baited staging areas and more baited hives and every day I'd check for swarms at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm... but since I can't, I'll do splits. A colony in a box is worth far more than two in the bush.


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## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Natural selection (for resistance) cannot 'march forward' wherever treatments are occurring. That's simple fact.


The above would only be true were treatments 100% successful in preserving colonies. Obviously they are not. If you have a thousand colonies and half die despite treatment, then the survivors, it would seem, are more resistant. If you breed from those survivors, whatever genetics helped them to survive when the other colonies died will be preserved.

And so on.

It would probably be fair to say that resistance would develop more rapidly without treatment.

In any case, the more I learn about the subject, the less certain I feel that bee genetics are the only important aspects of successful treatment free beekeeping.


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> The above would only be true were treatments 100% successful in preserving colonies. Obviously they are not. If you have a thousand colonies and half die despite treatment, then the survivors, it would seem, are more resistant. If you breed from those survivors, whatever genetics helped them to survive when the other colonies died will be preserved.
> 
> And so on.


Ray,

This would be so were it not the case that mite-managemnt behaviours represent an expense to the colony, and so natural selection has arranged things such when not needed they disappear quickly. This makes them very sensitive to actions that present an environemt in which they are, apparently, not needed. 



rhaldridge said:


> It would probably be fair to say that resistance would develop more rapidly without treatment.


Organisms evolve to suit their environments. If the environment is one in which mite-managment behaviours are not needed (because beekeepers are doing the managing), they won't come forward in the first place. If they are there they will retreat. 



rhaldridge said:


> In any case, the more I learn about the subject, the less certain I feel that bee genetics are the only important aspects of successful treatment free beekeeping.


Genetics are the foundation of all forms of husbandry - plant, animal, you name it. You get the individual the parents supply. Period. Qualities (like behaviours) are inherited. Or not. Nature's primary health seeking mechanism uses that principle. 

Its true that other things are required. But selective propogation is necessary to health - where 'necessary' means strictly - you can't do without it. If you try then whatevery else you are doing, husbandry it ain't. Nor is it possible that'll you'll succeed in having tf bees.. 

You can outsource the job to breeders, or to feral populations. But unless you breed the predators will gain the upper hand - because they're selecting in favour of any advantage.

You don't have to take my word for any of this. For example:

"3.4 Control of Varroa
A major obstacle to the development of mite tolerance in the European honey bee is intensive beekeeping practices including mite control. Since the mite has been introduced to the western world, beekeepers use methods to remove the mite from colonies, therefore eliminating the selective pressure of mite infestation that would be required for adaptations towards parasite tolerance or resistance in the bees, or towards lower virulence in the mites (Fries & Camazine, 2001). "

Host-Parasite Adaptations and Interactions Between Honey Bees, Varroa Mites and Viruses, Barbara Locke

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Michael Bush said:


> >No. Swarms are natural events.
> 
> Which would occur if you don't do splits. The ideal time for the split is the same time they would most likely swarm...


Michael,

What I'm talking about is using splits as a method of mite control (through inducing brood breaks)



Michael Bush said:


> >Keeping [...]-dependent bees by means of brood breaks undermines any development toward internal mite-management and kills ferals.
> 
> How does it do either. They are not dependent on me, they would swarm otherwise. How does it kill ferals?


If... they would swarm otherwise, then perhaps it makes no difference. But I'm talking about maintaining bees that would perish (sometimes in part because they hadn't swarmed) if they weren't split.

If bees are using brood breaks naturally, as part of their own mite-management strategy, that's fine. But the minute you do it for them, you start keeping alive bees that would otherwise die. They would die because they are not equipped for the environment they are in.

They will then tend to carry that lack of approriate behaviour into any surrounding bees. 



Michael Bush said:


> > Swarming doesn't do that.
> 
> Doesn't do what? It makes a break in the brood cycle at the same time I would have done a split (or a week after if I'm lucky and beat them) and I'm only splitting the ones I expect to swarm so it's the same colonies in the same state.


Following that regime sounds much less harmful than simply systematically maintaining bees by routinely splitting, thus forcing a brood break. 

It wasn't long ago you said 'if all beekeepers stopped treating the problem would end'. That's because artifially preserving unadapted strains simply perpetuates the problem.

How can you not see that substituting systematic brood breaks simple preserves exactly the same bees?

Mike (UK)


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## Delta Bay

> How can you not see that substituting systematic brood breaks simple preserves exactly the same bees?


Your assumption is that the bees a not adapting and for what ever reason you are not willing to hear what so many have tried to get across. Why wouldn't the bees adapt generationally. Remember it is not the strongest that survives but rather the one most able to adapt. You need to let this one go.


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## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Ray,
> 
> This would be so were it not the case that mite-managemnt behaviours represent an expense to the colony, and so natural selection has arranged things such when not needed they disappear quickly. This makes them very sensitive to actions that present an environemt in which they are, apparently, not needed.


You're not noticing (or deliberately ignoring) the elephant in the room. If, say, a third of your bees are being killed by mites in spite of treatment, that represents a very large environmental pressure, any way you want to slice it. Mites are present in almost every hive, whether or not their numbers are reduced with treatment. The bees must cope with this pressure, with or without help. Those that do not evolve resistance or tolerance will not be as well represented in the next generation, whether treated or not, because they will be more likely to die, even with treatment.

To me, the great drawback of treatment has less to do with genetics, and more to do with the use of blunt force with the accompanying unforeseen consequences to hive biota and bee health.

There is, it seems to me, plenty of empirical evidence that bees have adapted to pests in the presence of treatment. For example, consider tracheal mites, which were seen as the next bee apocalypse when they first arrived here. In spite of treatment attempts, they no longer seem to be a major pest here.

Also, I believe it is somewhat easier to be a successful treatment free beekeeper than it was when varroa first appeared. Most feral colonies disappeared then, but they have in recent years made a comeback. Because of the reproductive strategy of bees, it's hard for me to believe that those feral genetics have not affected the commercial stock.

Treatment is not a perfect panacea. According to the BeeInformed survey, the difference in mortality between untreated hives and treated hives is not so large that one can reasonably say that treatment absolutely precludes selection for mite resistance or tolerance.

If I may say so, absolutism is just as off-putting among the advocates of treatment free beekeeping as it is among those who believe that treatment can solve every problem.


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper

mike bispham said:


> artifially preserving unadapted strains simply perpetuates the problem.
> 
> How can you not see that substituting systematic brood breaks simple preserves exactly the same bees?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Mike, I see what you mean and I agree. If they did it naturally that's out of their own adaptation to mites, but doing it for them isn't.


----------



## Vance G

The more bees left standing, the more genetic diversity and one cannot keep bees unless one has bees left to keep. My bees are not going to be sacrificed on the altar of moral perfection. I understand what you are saying, but the bees are changing and adapting. No other reason for acarine virtually disappearing. No one treats for it anymore. Many don't need to treat for mites which reflects the bees in their area. My area gets flooded with literally thousands of bees run by commercial operators. Now please explain to me why I need to adhere to your idea of proper protocol?


----------



## Duncan Thacker

First No one is absolutely wrong what we are discussing is a manipulation that's been around for centuries. A manipulation that works with nature and not against her. Keep screaming "treatments" if we were in fact talking about a treatment I would agree whole heartedly but we are not. Not even the UK guru of sustainable would agree with that( Phil Chandler) and I have many an occasion to but heads with him.

Now proper forum etiquette requires I agree to disagree, however with that said I sincerely value your opinion and look forward to hearing how it all works out for you.

Best of luck


----------



## mike bispham

Delta Bay said:


> Your assumption is that the bees a not adapting...


That depend which bees we are talking about. Take the treatments away from any commercial outfit and most will agree that 90% or so will likely die. the figue is unchanged. that is because in that realm there has been no pressure to adapt due to treatments.



Delta Bay said:


> ... and for what ever reason you are not willing to hear what so many have tried to get across.


For reasons of understanding just what it is that makes adaptation occur. that is: adaptive pressure on a population. 



Delta Bay said:


> Why wouldn't the bees adapt generationally.


See above



Delta Bay said:


> Remember it is not the strongest that survives but rather the one most able to adapt.


If by 'the one' you mean a colony: well, colonies (individuals) don't adapt. Populations adapt.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> You're not noticing (or deliberately ignoring) the elephant in the room. If, say, a third of your bees are being killed by mites in spite of treatment, that represents a very large environmental pressure, any way you want to slice it. Mites are present in almost every hive, whether or not their numbers are reduced with treatment. The bees must cope with this pressure, with or without help.


Again you are looking at this from the point of view of a colony. You can't understand adaption, or adaptive pressure that way. You have to look at a population, over time. A 'pressure' on the population, in the form of, say, mites, causes the population to adapt to those mites as a result of natural selection for the fittest strains.

That is the context, and the mechanism. 

It is that mechanism that you have to copy. 

That, and nothing else, is 'working with the grain of nature'.



rhaldridge said:


> Those that do not evolve resistance or tolerance...


They don't 'evolve' resistance and tolerance is a single colony. To speak of evolution within an indivuidual is nonsense. Evolution occurs in populations of individuals.

So your sentence ("... will not be as well represented in the next generation, whether treated or not, because they will be more likely to die, even with treatment.) is a nonsense. (I don't mean that in an insulting way Ray, I just mean 'non-sense'.) 



rhaldridge said:


> To me, the great drawback of treatment has less to do with genetics, and more to do with the use of blunt force with the accompanying unforeseen consequences to hive biota and bee health.


You really do need to get to grips with the language and meaning of basic evolutionary concepts before you try to evaluate the role of genetics.



rhaldridge said:


> There is, it seems to me, plenty of empirical evidence that bees have adapted to pests in the presence of treatment. For example, consider tracheal mites, which were seen as the next bee apocalypse when they first arrived here. In spite of treatment attempts, they no longer seem to be a major pest here.


That's probably largely because there was a sufficiently large feral population to work through the problem by natural selection. That has also happened with varroa - except in those places where systematic treatment has prevented it, and continues to prevent it. Don't forget you can take a perfectly good resistant bee population and turn it into a helpless varroa-vulnerable population in just a few generations. All you have to do is create an environment where mite-management behaviours present no advantage.

In those place in Africa and South America where people are too poor to afford treatment, adaptation to varroa has occured quickly and naturally.

Treatments are the problem. And deliberate brood breaking has exactly the same effect.



rhaldridge said:


> Also, I believe it is somewhat easier to be a successful treatment free beekeeper than it was when varroa first appeared. Most feral colonies disappeared then, but they have in recent years made a comeback.


Yes. If you are clear of treatment-dependent stock.



rhaldridge said:


> Because of the reproductive strategy of bees, it's hard for me to believe that those feral genetics have not affected the commercial stock.


As most commercial queens are raised intensively with no effort whatsoever to raise varroa resistance, no. Systematic treatment at the breeding yards (as well as exclusion of feral blood) ensures treatment-dependent queens go out in their millions. 



rhaldridge said:


> Treatment is not a perfect panacea. According to the BeeInformed survey, the difference in mortality between untreated hives and treated hives is not so large that one can reasonably say that treatment absolutely precludes selection for mite resistance or tolerance.


That sounds like something written by someone who didn't understand the basics of evolution. Got a link?



rhaldridge said:


> If I may say so, absolutism is just as off-putting among the advocates of treatment free beekeeping as it is among those who believe that treatment can solve every problem.


Ah, 'absolutism'. "If I hold Ray underwater for 20 minutes he will definately, undoubtedly, drown. I'm absolutely sure about that.

Got a problem this time?

Nature has rules Ray. They can't be broken. That's why you can call them the 'Laws of Nature'

'Populations of organisms adapt to their environments' is one of them.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Vance G said:


> The more bees left standing, the more genetic diversity and one cannot keep bees unless one has bees left to keep.


Vance,

In nature most swarms perish in, or before, their first winter. That's how they stay healthy. Lack of genetic diversity is said to be a problem in US commercial stocks. Unsurprisingly, given their methods. Nowhere else as far as I know.



Vance G said:


> My bees are not going to be sacrificed on the altar of moral perfection.


Its got nothing to do with morals. Its about understanding how things work, so that you understand how particular actions affect things further down the line.



Vance G said:


> I understand what you are saying, but the bees are changing and adapting. No other reason for acarine virtually disappearing. No one treats for it anymore. Many don't need to treat for mites which reflects the bees in their area. My area gets flooded with literally thousands of bees run by commercial operators. Now please explain to me why I need to adhere to your idea of proper protocol?


You don't. You can do what you please. All I'm trying to do is point out that artificial brood breaks systematically used to keep unadapted bees alive are exactly the same as chemical treatments in their effect on future bees. That is, entirely negative. Part of the problem, not part of the solution.

For that reason they shouldn't be included in the 'treatment free' section - which, in its ethos, is about trying to repair the bee population, not about simply finding other ways to perpetuate the problem.

That's a fact, whether you or anyone else likes it or not. I'm not asking you to like it. I'm not saying don't do it. But I am saying, unless you can explain otherwise, please accept it as a fact. 

I agree with you, US ferals are developing/have developed resistance. So have other bee populations all over the world. Everywhere, in fact, except where beekeepers have prevented it by presenting a non mite-pressured environment (that is, by treating - one way or another). 

The ferals succeed because they don't allow the mite-vulnerable to reproduce. They allow the most resistant to reproduce in the greatest number. Period. Copy their method.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Duncan Thacker said:


> A manipulation that works with nature and not against her.


Duncan,

Nature is natural selection for the fittest strains. 

Anything that obstructs that process cannot possibly be regarded as 'working with nature'.



Duncan Thacker said:


> if we were in fact talking about a treatment I would agree whole heartedly but we are not.


What we are talking about is an action that has precisely the same effect as a treatment.

Consider this. You cut your hand. You wash it, put antibiotic cream on, and then cover it with a plaster.

Which of those three actions was a treament and which wasn't? Is it the case that all three were independent 'treatments', yet at the same time the whole operation was also a 'treatment'?

The fact is we make up these categories, and classify things in the most convenient, or useful, way. What I'm saying is that washing and putting a plaster on - no chemicals - can be considered as 'treatments'. And likewise can brood breaks.

If we don't say that we're in a position where all non-treatment approaches are working with the grain of nature to allow natural resisance to repair the lack of adaptation to varroa, except one. Deliberate brood breaks. 



Duncan Thacker said:


> Now proper forum etiquette requires I agree to disagree, however with that said I sincerely value your opinion and look forward to hearing how it all works out for you.
> 
> Best of luck


I'm grateful for the opportunity Duncan, and I hope this makes my position a little clearer.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Ah, 'absolutism'. "If I hold Ray underwater for 20 minutes he will definately, undoubtedly, drown. I'm absolutely sure about that.


Apparently Mike has never heard of breathing through a _hollow reed_ while underwater. People have been doing that for centuries. 

The problem with 'absolutes' is that many of them _can _be broken. Under the right circumstances, of course. 


So your sentence ("... hold Ray underwater for 20 minutes he will definately, undoubtedly, drown. I'm absolutely sure about that.") is a nonsense. (I don't mean that in an insulting way Mike, I just mean 'non-sense'.) *





> The fact is we make up these categories, and classify things in the most convenient, or useful, way. What I'm saying is that washing and putting a plaster on - no chemicals - can be [HIGHLIGHT] considered as 'treatments'. And likewise can brood breaks. [/HIGHLIGHT]


However, as defined in this forum, brood breaks are *not *treatments.



:gh:

*see post #46 for context of this use of 'non-sense'
.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mike, good morning. I appreciate the effort you spend explaining your position it is very clear what you believe. I think it is important to point out that we in the US are in a different position to beekeepers in the UK and the rest of the EU. The EU has the benefit of the whole genome of the honeybee available and individual country borders are not a barrier to the transmission of varroa resistant bees.
I just reread part of Brother Adam's "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey", have you read it? In the preface he points out that adaptation to Acarine occurred because at Buckfast Abbey they had Italian cross-bred bees which were resistant to it. The British bees died out and Buckfast sent their bees around and replenished the country's stocks. 
As I see it there is nothing natural about beekeeping in the US, the insect is not native to these shores, the plants we have over here are a mix of aliens and natives perpetuated by how well they are suited to the conditions they survive in. Brood breaks are a natural phenomena. The use of brood breaks is no more unnatural than any other part of beekeeping. If we are to reject the use of brood breaks and splitting then we perhaps also should reject the use of supers and honey collection. 
In the purest use of "natural" would not Mike Bispham, Adrian Quiney, and all other beekeepers have to sit out, stop keeping bees, allow them to find their own cavities and adapt or die without human interference? That is not an option that anyone is considering as viable, particularly here in the US. 
It is possible to develop varroa resistance, Russian bees and Africanised Honey bees are the most resistant i have heard of. If large scale resistance is to develop it seems to me that it is more likely to take place in the EU than anywhere else because that is where the bee has the biggest gene pool to pull from.


----------



## Delta Bay

> That depend which bees we are talking about. Take the treatments away from any commercial outfit and most will agree that 90% or so will likely die. the figue is unchanged. that is because in that realm there has been no pressure to adapt due to treatments.


So you assume that I am talking about commercial outfits that treat? I'm not, but I am talking about making increase from resistant stock. From this the best is selected. You seem to be bunching everyone together. If you cannot see the usefulness of this management tool and the ways it can be applied, I doubt you ever will.

So we can leave it at that and agree to disagree.


----------



## mike bispham

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> In the purest use of "natural" would not Mike Bispham, Adrian Quiney, and all other beekeepers have to sit out, stop keeping bees, allow them to find their own cavities and adapt or die without human interference? That is not an option that anyone is considering as viable, particularly here in the US.


Adrian, That's a big fat red herring. 

Nature works as nature works. If you want to roll a big boulder, its always easier to roll it downhill than uphill. 

If you want healthy bees follow nature's primary health mechanism.

If you want throw spanners in the works of nature's primary health mechanism, then carry on using treatments or brood breaks.



Adrian Quiney WI said:


> It is possible to develop varroa resistance, Russian bees and Africanised Honey bees are the most resistant i have heard of. If large scale resistance is to develop it seems to me that it is more likely to take place in the EU than anywhere else because that is where the bee has the biggest gene pool to pull from.


It will develop whever beekeepers stop throwing spanners in the works. Diversity isn't an issue. It'll happen faster, and with less loss, whever it has a head start (feral populations, bred resistant bees)

If you want to be involved in the solution, start with promising (resistant) genetics and take care of them. For that you'll need a selective breeding strategy. And you'll neeed a reasonable understanding of the mechanisms of evolution, and/or the traditional methods of husbandry.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Delta Bay said:


> So you assume that I am talking about commercial outfits that treat? I'm not, but I am talking about making increase from resistant stock. From this the best is selected. You seem to be bunching everyone together. If you cannot see the usefulness of this management tool and the ways it can be applied, I doubt you ever will.


I'm not making that assumption at all. I agree brood breaks can be a useful tool - in, and only in, the context of a breeding strategy designed to support the raising of resistance to varroa.

It can, and is, used outside that context, as an alternative to chemical treatments. There it is just as efficient as chemical treatments at reducing resistance.



Delta Bay said:


> So we can leave it at that and agree to disagree.


All I'm trying to do here is bring the mechanisms into the open so we can see what the effects of this action - unmodified by a breeding strategy - is. Only then can we ask ourselves if this is what we want to be doing.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Apparently Mike has never heard of breathing through a _hollow reed_ while underwater.


Do you really think I've never heard of that Graham? Do you really think I've never heard of scuba diving, or diving bells or submarines? (For your interest, I first read about breathing through hollow reeds in around 1963. At a guess you weren't even a sparkle in your father's eye.)

The point of a thought experiment is to illustrate something, and that relies on the readers *accepting the conditions at face value*. 

You miss the point. 



Delta Bay said:


> However, as defined in this forum, brood breaks are *not *treatments.


Read carefully:

*I am making arguments in favour changing that situation*.

Is that so hard to grasp? 

It may not help, but let me explain further:

It is commonplace in all areas of study - including science - that as new facts come to light, and new ways of looking at things are seen to be useful, the meanings of key terms shifts. So there is a continual process of inventing new terms, and adjusting the ways in which existing terms are used, in order that they can continue to be used meaningfully in light of the new circumstances. There is even a description for the process: 'precising the terms'

Do you see what I'm driving at? Nothing is fixed in stone. We can offer to reconceptualise in new ways, and every time we do so we have to accept that meanings shift into alignment with the new context.

I am arguing for that sort of shift. I don't want the meaning of a word or phrase to change, but I do want *the category in which it is currently seen to belong to change*.

I want brood breaks, outside the context of a breeding strategy, to be seen for what they: a substitution for chemical treatments *because they have* *exactly the same undesirable long term effect*. 

Please don't bother telling us yet again that brood breaks are, here, in a particular category. _*We know that already! *_ _

The object of the discussion is to question whether that is wise choice, in light of the facts that are being aired_.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Delta Bay

First off, many beekeepers need a why to get off the chemical treatments then maybe there's a way to move forward.



> I'm not making that assumption at all. I agree brood breaks can be a useful tool - in, and only in, the context of a breeding strategy designed to support the raising of resistance to varroa.


Then talk about the useful ways that it can be used.


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## mike bispham

Delta Bay said:


> Then talk about the useful ways that it can be used.


...with great care, as part of a well thought out breeding strategy aiming to raise resistance...

See my earlier post:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?293121-Can-splits-control-mites&p=1055145#post1055145

Mike (UK)


----------



## Juhani Lunden

MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> I plan on making 2 splits per hive in late March - early April (original colony should have about 6 frames of brood and 20 frames of bees, divide that by 3).
> 
> Would this be at all effective to control varroa mites for a while? looking.


Making splits gives time to the bees, it definitely helps them a lot. But in the end it is not enough for a permanent solution. That is in short my experience. 
Three reasons why come to my mind:
- theoretical mathematical example: hive with 10 mites in spring, 50 mites in mid summer, 200 mites in the autumn (20x increase in one season)
If we split one hive into two in mid summer, each part get 25 mites. There will be 100/hive in autumn. So it is half what there would be without spitting.

- the second reason is the possible, even short, brood breaks, which will be caused by making nucs/splits

- the third is somewhat speculative, but very many beekeepers find that there is some "good happening" in the hive just because they get a new queen. It gives them new energy, boost.


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## Duncan Thacker

mike bispham said:


> I want brood breaks, outside the context of a breeding strategy, to be seen for what they: a substitution for chemical treatments *because they have* *exactly the same undesirable long term effect*. Mike (UK)


To satisfy that request one could wait for the swarm and hive it. The hive divides anyway and the need for increases and the colony's urge to swarm are all satisfied. The rest of your request can be satisfied by not interfering with natural selection.

does that sum it up?


----------



## JRG13

In my experience, brood breaks were pretty worthless around here for me, even multiple ones.


----------



## rhaldridge

I'm sure Mike believes whatever he believes quite sincerely, but I can make no sense of it. Selection occurs whether or not bees are treated-- there is no way to avoid it. There's no magic suspension of the process just because some condition or other in the hive has changed. If the major pressure is varroa, and a large percentage of colonies in an area succumb to varroasis then selection occurs no matter what the beekeeper does. Treatment does not eliminate mites. Those colonies which possess genetics that favor successful coexistence with the mites have a reproductive advantage over colonies with more vulnerable genetics *whether or not they are treated*. 

I think it's reasonable to surmise that bees can develop resistance faster if left untreated. That's what Beeweaver did to get their mite-resistant bees. It took a few years, but obviously it was a much faster process than any progress made toward resistance in ordinary commercial stock.

It might also be a reasonable surmise that treated bees are being selected for more than mite resistance. Beekeepers who treat might be selecting for bees that can both resist mites, and survive treatment with acaricides. This is probably an outcome that is much less than optimal, because resistance to acaricides probably has a significant cost, in metabolic terms. 

I have no idea why Mike thinks brood breaks are a treatment, when it is a natural strategy used by the bees themselves for millions of years before there were any beekeepers. That beekeepers have channeled this natural reproductive behavior into a procedure for making increase without the possible loss of swarms does not make it a treatment. Despite Mike's insistence that this is a treatment that precludes selection for mite resistance, I don't believe he has outlined any plausible mechanism for this. Why would a brood break in the course of making increase have any effect at all on selection for mite resistance? All bees do this. If the beekeeper helps them to do it in a way that least inconveniences the beekeeper, what, precisely, is lost?

And in any case, how can beekeepers make increase in a more or less natural manner without a brood break? I suppose one could raise queens and put them in new splits, but then the argument could be made that you are doing the colony's work for it, to the bees' detriment, and selecting for bees that can't make their own queens. In fact, that fairly silly notion is quite a bit more plausible than the idea that brood breaks somehow, by some mysterious process, subvert evolution.


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> I'm sure Mike believes whatever he believes quite sincerely, but I can make no sense of it. Selection occurs whether or not bees are treated-- there is no way to avoid it.


There are many ways of damping it and some are so effective that they amount to complete removal of adaptive pressure.

I can back that statement up with multiple citations from primary sources and specific studies. 

Can you supply evidence for your belief?



rhaldridge said:


> There's no magic suspension of the process just because some condition or other in the hive has changed. If the major pressure is varroa, and a large percentage of colonies in an area succumb to varroasis...


If. If. In an apiary setting every effort is made to keep all alive. Selective pressure is all but eliminated.

In the breeding stations where a great many queens that populate these apiaries the same thing is happening. Systematic treatments are eliminating adaptive pressure.

Around any such apiaries any feral bees are destroyed by the constant ingress of varroa vulnerable genes. There is, is such settings, no natural selection.

Well away from these settings, yes, feral bees are, have, and continue to adapt. 



rhaldridge said:


> Treatment does not eliminate mites. Those colonies which possess genetics that favor successful coexistence with the mites have a reproductive advantage over colonies with more vulnerable genetics *whether or not they are treated*.


But they are unable to press that advantage into their population because those artificially maintained colonies continue to push their unadaped genes forward. As I've outline recently, bee (populations) have evolved to drop hygienic and mite-specific behaviours rapidly when not needed. The presence of too many treated bees acts on that mechanism, effectively signalling: 'problem over'.



rhaldridge said:


> I think it's reasonable to surmise that bees can develop resistance faster if left untreated. That's what Beeweaver did to get their mite-resistant bees. It took a few years, but obviously it was a much faster process than any progress made toward resistance in ordinary commercial stock.


Outside the feral/natural selection setting a careful breeding procees is the only way to get any progress. If you have evidence to support your suppositions to the contrary, please let us have it.



rhaldridge said:


> It might also be a reasonable surmise that treated bees are being selected for more than mite resistance. Beekeepers who treat might be selecting for bees that can both resist mites, and survive treatment with acaricides. This is probably an outcome that is much less than optimal, because resistance to acaricides probably has a significant cost, in metabolic terms.


Yes - where resistance is being actively selected for the severe negative effects of treatments/broodbreaks can be overcome. That's the basis of 'soft bond'. But under no other circumstances.



rhaldridge said:


> I have no idea why Mike thinks brood breaks are a treatment, when it is a natural strategy used by the bees themselves for millions of years before there were any beekeepers.


Any help from a beekeeper is a 'treatment'. Its interference in the natural process. Husbandry is about understanding that and taking care that the long term effect of the 'help' actually aids the population - rather than simply treating the individual at the expense of future generations. 

Artificial health aid in any sphere of husbandry requires, of necessity, the exclusion of the individual from the mating pool. 

That's very basic stuff Ray. You really need to catch up on the fundamentals of organic husbandry.



rhaldridge said:


> That beekeepers have channeled this natural reproductive behavior into a procedure for making increase without the possible loss of swarms does not make it a treatment.


Now you are talking about something completely different (making increase - more about this below). I suggest we argue about one issue at a time.

Artificial brood breaks against varroa are a very modern response to a very modern problem. They have consequenses - in exactly the same way chemical treatments have.



rhaldridge said:


> Despite Mike's insistence that this is a treatment that precludes selection for mite resistance, I don't believe he has outlined any plausible mechanism for this.


I have repeatedly, and have just done so again. If you can't understand it still, why not start asking close questions about what you don't understand.



rhaldridge said:


> Why would a brood break in the course of making increase have any effect at all on selection for mite resistance?


Different topic - but you are right. Those of us working at raising resistance *must take care to make increase in a way that doesn't supply false data about levels of resistance*. Otherwise we will fail in our efforts to raise resistance.



rhaldridge said:


> All bees do this.


Some populations seem to be equipped to make *special brood breaks* in ways that appear to help them manage varroa. That can be seen as a desirable behaviour in pursuit of self sufficiency - and so those bees that do so should be allowed to raise their genetic profile in the population.

Keeping bees alive that don't possess thoseg enes/that behaviour *undermines that natural and desirable process*.



rhaldridge said:


> If the beekeeper helps them to do it in a way that least inconveniences the beekeeper, what, precisely, is lost?


The genes that supply that advantageous behaviour/the behaviour.



rhaldridge said:


> And in any case, how can beekeepers make increase in a more or less natural manner without a brood break?


By doing so in ways that guard against that danger. 



rhaldridge said:


> I suppose one could raise queens and put them in new splits, but then the argument could be made that you are doing the colony's work for it, to the bees' detriment, and selecting for bees that can't make their own queens.


If you make queens from your (carefully evaluated) best colonies that's unlikely to be a problem. In fact I've never heard of that being a problem, but you never know. You asking the right sorts of questions now Ray. 

Husbandry (of genes down through generations) is an art as well as a science. You have to make careful evaluations, and make choices between competing desirables. My bottom line guide is: do nothing that will disadvantage the local ferals. That is, breed toward vigour and self-sufficiency.



rhaldridge said:


> In fact, that fairly silly notion is quite a bit more plausible than the idea that brood breaks somehow, by some mysterious process, subvert evolution.


All interference subverts evolution. To think otherwise is, excuse me, silly.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Originally Posted by mike bispham 
"I want brood breaks, outside the context of a breeding strategy, to be seen for what they: a substitution for chemical treatments because they have exactly the same undesirable long term effect."



Duncan Thacker said:


> To satisfy that request one could wait for the swarm and hive it. The hive divides anyway and the need for increases and the colony's urge to swarm are all satisfied. The rest of your request can be satisfied by not interfering with natural selection.
> 
> does that sum it up?


Well, maybe. One can always force swarms by cramping - but a lot of swarms from a mite-vulnerable colony that survives because it keeps running out of room (and thus gaining natural breaks breaks) isn't really helping.

I'd look at it from the other end. We want naturally resistant bees. The very best thing to do is nothing. However that doesn't cut the mustard - so we want to try to help the development of resistance along. To that end we want a well thought out strategy.

What will that strategy look like? What sorts of things will make the difference between likely success and failure? And why? 

Those are the questions to ask. Once you start getting the hang of that approach, the effect of artificial brood breaks (or artificial confinement) become obvious. The ways around the difficulties likewise.

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

Thanks Mike,

It took a bit of reading but I get your point of view, no doubt very valid points. Our passion shows how committed we all are. We all need to keep open minds, our methods vary but the end results we are all working toward are the same. I am always looking and evaluating methods and ideas to see if there is anything I can add to my beehandling tool box.


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> If. If. In an apiary setting every effort is made to keep all alive. Selective pressure is all but eliminated.


In the real world, those efforts do not succeed. In treated apiaries in the United States, an average of 30% of colonies are being lost. How can that not result in selective pressure?




mike bispham said:


> All interference subverts evolution. To think otherwise is, excuse me, silly.
> 
> Mike (UK)


I give up. But I would be interested in some citations regarding those bees that naturally incorporate non-reproductive brood breaks into colony life. I've heard something about them, but I've never seen anything verifiable.


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## Vance G

Picture this. The rancher goes to his ag lender and the USDA man and says, I let 30% of my herd die to promote selective pressure, so an immunity to blackleg can develop! We are dealing with children. Scientists are subsidized to play these games and many still fail to produce valuable results. Do not look down your nose at those who need to make a living.


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> In the real world, those efforts do not succeed. In treated apiaries in the United States, an average of 30% of colonies are being lost. How can that not result in selective pressure?


In all those that should be lost, but aren't. They perpetuate the vulnerability.

If it were otherwise there wouldn't be a problem by now. 



rhaldridge said:


> I give up. But I would be interested in some citations regarding those bees that naturally incorporate non-reproductive brood breaks into colony life. I've heard something about them, but I've never seen anything verifiable.


I can't help. Some of mine seem to shut down hard in July, and I think Pete here in the uk has said the same thing. Does Dr Delaney talk about it here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDQNoQfW-9w

Mike (UK)


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## Fusion_power

While I see the point of the above conversation, I do not worry with any of the above when handling my bees. If I want to split them in the spring, I do so. If I catch a swarm, lucky me, that one did not get to the woods. I simply ignore varroa. If my bees die of varroa, so be it. I have other bees that are alive and thriving. This allows me to say that this entire thread and this entire argument from my perspective is specious. Give it a few more years and it will be the same for others too.


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## rhaldridge

Fusion_power said:


> While I see the point of the above conversation, I do not worry with any of the above when handling my bees. If I want to split them in the spring, I do so. If I catch a swarm, lucky me, that one did not get to the woods. I simply ignore varroa. If my bees die of varroa, so be it. I have other bees that are alive and thriving. This allows me to say that this entire thread and this entire argument from my perspective is specious. Give it a few more years and it will be the same for others too.


Are you sure? According to Mike, bees can never evolve any resistance as long as they are treated, and the vast majority of bees here are treated.

If he's right, it doesn't look good.


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## Fusion_power

I am at 8 years and counting with no treatments. I ignore varroa and hive beetles and tracheal mites. I have ignored them for 8 years. Some years my bees swarmed. Some years there was zero swarming. Some years I split them. I manage them just the way I would have 30 years ago before the bad guys showed up. I lost several colonies in the last 8 years, one yard got down to a single colony. I don't care what they are doing. I don't care how it works. They make a crop of honey and they survive on their own.

From my perspective, Mike is wrong to worry about a brood break from a spring split. He is correct to worry about splits made in summer or fall which have the specific intent of reducing mite pressure. Ray is wrong to keep suggesting that some form of artificial reduction of mite load will still help. It did not help me from 1993 until 2005. What finally helped was requeening every single colony I had with mite tolerant queens. It still took 4 years for all the problems to shake out. The last 4 years have been the most enjoyable for me as a beekeeper since 1987.

Quit arguing and either treat your bees and continue to yammer about mites or do what Mike is trying to do and quit treating and let the bees do what they are supposed to do!

In the end, this is all that counts.


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## MikeTheBeekeeper

Fusion_power said:


> Quit arguing and either treat your bees and continue to yammer about mites or do what Mike is trying to do and quit treating and let the bees do what they are supposed to do!


Makes sense.


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## rhaldridge

Fusion_power said:


> I
> From my perspective, Mike is wrong to worry about a brood break from a spring split. He is correct to worry about splits made in summer or fall which have the specific intent of reducing mite pressure. Ray is wrong to keep suggesting that some form of artificial reduction of mite load will still help. It did not help me from 1993 until 2005. What finally helped was requeening every single colony I had with mite tolerant queens. It still took 4 years for all the problems to shake out. The last 4 years have been the most enjoyable for me as a beekeeper since 1987.
> 
> Quit arguing and either treat your bees and continue to yammer about mites or do what Mike is trying to do and quit treating and let the bees do what they are supposed to do!
> 
> In the end, this is all that counts.


Good grief. * I'm not treating my bees*, and I'm not saying that treating is a good thing. All I'm trying to get across is that treatment does not magically stop evolution in its tracks, and that it's possible bees have already evolved some degree of varroa resistance despite the fact that most bees are treated.

That's all.


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Good grief. * I'm not treating my bees*, and I'm not saying that treating is a good thing. All I'm trying to get across is that treatment does not magically stop evolution in its tracks, ...


Ray,

There's nothing magic about it. The equation is: the more treatments, the more treatment-dependent bees. There are plenty of circumstances today where not only is there no adaptation to varroa occurring, but the presence of treated bees is eliminating resistant strains on an ongoing basis. That's a science-based view.



rhaldridge said:


> ... and that it's possible bees have already evolved some degree of varroa resistance despite the fact that most bees are treated.


We've always agreed that. Feral survivors have adapted, in places very successfully. That's been understood for years. It seems to me that you've been defending the view that they've also been adapting within treatment-intensive regimes. I've been trying to show you that can't happen.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria don't get less resistant when you throw more antibiotics at them. They get more antibiotic-resistant.

Varroa vulnerable bees don't get less varroa vulnerable when you throw miticides at them. They get more treatment dependent.



rhaldridge said:


> That's all.


You've also been defending the view that deliberate brood breaking doesn't interfere with the development of resistance. I've been putting forward the view that it does, and for that reason ought to be regarded as a form of 'treatment'

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> That's a science-based view.


Any bee-specific proof for this statement?


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> While I see the point of the above conversation [...] This allows me to say that this entire thread and this entire argument from my perspective is specious. Give it a few more years and it will be the same for others too.


Are you sure you mean 'specious'?

"superficially plausible, but actually wrong"

Who is wrong, and why?

From my point of view...the main point of all this discussion is to learn more about what the mechanisms of resistance are, and to defend and promote scientific understanding, on the basis that that's much better for bees than wishful thinking or myth based approaches. There is a distinct science underlying organic husbandry, and it can supply us with truthful, and thus useful, insight and guidance. 

That understanding tells us that your optimism about the future will only come through if and where beekeepers can be persuaded to stop treating. And brood breaking.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Any bee-specific proof for this statement?


What would constitute 'proof' for you Berhard? The 'laws' of natural selection are universal. What more do you want? What I mean is, what specifically would satisfy you?

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> The 'laws' of natural selection are universal.


I don't think that is in any way scientific to say so. I would like to see some scientific work on the "universal laws" in action in beehives that show that treatments interfere with evolution/natural selection. If there aren't any studies, your statement is not a scientific fact but your own interpretation/derivation. From universal laws to a specific situation. Unless there is no data backing this statement, this is not more than a hypothesis and it should be marked as one.


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## AR Beekeeper

Does anyone know at what level of varroa infestation the resistance gene is triggered? Does it take 500 varroa in the colony or 5000? If it is a number below the economic threshold, reducing the varroa to that number by treatments would allow the colony to survive and still develop resistance.


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## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Antibiotic-resistant bacteria don't get less resistant when you throw more antibiotics at them. They get more antibiotic-resistant.
> 
> Varroa vulnerable bees don't get less varroa vulnerable when you throw miticides at them. They get more treatment dependent.


Are you telling us that you don't understand any of the profound differences between these two situations?


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## Fusion_power

> that it's possible bees have already evolved some degree of varroa resistance despite the fact that most bees are treated.


My front line experience with varroa is that there is a "threshold of survival" where enough bees have enough resistance traits so that the colony can survive and thrive. Until the "degree of varroa resistance" exceeds the "threshold of survival" the bees will DIE if untreated. So instead of thinking that resistance slowly accumulates, instead think that treated bees and their genetics water down the resistance genes preventing bees from reaching that threshold over any reasonable time frame. I also saw an effect where having just 2 or 3 colonies of mite susceptible bees in an apiary was enough to overwhelm mite tolerant bees. Said another way, until I got 100% mite tolerant bees in all of my colonies, I was seeing losses from mites overwhelming a susceptible colony, then moving into a resistant colony in such numbers that they overwhelmed it too.

specious - apparently good or right though lacking real merit; superficially pleasing or plausible: specious arguments. I would add the concept of irrelevant, not applicable, unimportant, etc.



> Does anyone know at what level of varroa infestation the resistance gene is triggered?


Varroa tolerance is not based on a single gene. It appears to be linked to at least 3 genes for VSH and at least 2 genes for allogrooming and probably still other genes not defined or understood. When bees have the tolerance genes, they react to the presence of any mites at all. I have not attempted to perform a detailed analysis of the genetics involved because it is nice to know but not needed. Where any trait can be 100% reliably selected based on a simple criterion, explaining how it works is irrelevant, simply apply the selection pressure and the results will follow.

I do not advise anyone to stop treating typical commercial honeybees. They are uniformly susceptible. If your bees have known mite tolerant traits, selection can enhance those traits to the point of economic viability. Mite mauling is one example where this has been effective. By monitoring large numbers of colonies for mauled mites, a few will be found that show enhanced mauling behavior. Concentrate these colonies into an area and raise queens from them and let them mate with drones from colonies that also express the trait.

So Mike Bispham, if you want to do this scientifically, I would suggest checking your bees to see which colonies exhibit high levels of mite mauling behavior. Then you can determine how to breed from the best.


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## BernhardHeuvel

In fact treating produces even stronger and fitter bees: bees have to survive varroa and treatments.


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## rhaldridge

BernhardHeuvel said:


> In fact treating produces even stronger and fitter bees: bees have to survive varroa and treatments.


You laugh, but this is one of my major problems with the treatment treadmill. The mites develop resistance to poison faster than the bees do. It's always going to be a losing battle. If no one comes up with the next new acaricide when it's needed, a lot of folks will be in trouble.


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## Oldtimer

Mike I think part of the problem is you cannot see past your theory.

What you keep repeating is in a nutshell, that if bees are treated for mites then that removes selective pressure so resistance cannot evolve. Sounds fine, in theory.

But you are ignoring what is really happening. Hives that get treated still die for many reasons including mites, in the US at around 30% per annum. This is for a number of reasons, including.- Timing of mite treatment is wrong, mites are immune to treatment used, treatment applied wrongly, etc. When these situations occur and they do constantly, the mite susceptible hives are more likely to expire than the hives that by chance have some mite tolerance. So there, you have selective pressure.

A commonly held hypothesis is selective pressure can be applied to a population by removing the least desirable 20%. In the US we have treated bees being weeded out based on survivability at a rate of 30%.

Check the reality. The mite resistance of commercial US bees is higher than it was 20 years ago, and that can be verified in several ways.

Your theories make "sense". However if what they predict is not what is happening on the ground, examine the theory, rather than try to argue against the reality. In fact I can even tell you where the loophole in your theory as presented thus far actually is. The theory is based on the idea that there is no selective pressure in commercial stocks whatsoever because mites are treated 100% successfully, each time, every time. But reality in the field, is different.

There is actually some good to this. Evolution or selection towards resistance, will take much longer in a commercial treated scenario, than a bond scenario. However as the general resistance level rises in a population, commercial beekeepers can treat less and some of them, right here on this forum, are finding this now. With the hard bond method a lot of genetics are lost a lot of it good in some way. With a much slower process such as a commercial treated apiary, there is more time and many more generations for genetics to recombine and be retained in a population, with only a smaller portion of the population being weeded out annually than in a bond scenario, to me, this is a good thing.


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## Fusion_power

Oldtimer, what you posit in my experience does not work.

Your position is that treated bees are gradually accumulating mite tolerant traits. You posit that it is because selection pressure enhances survival of treated bees IF they have mite tolerant genetics.

I posit that treated bees are gradually accumulating mite tolerant traits, but it is because of bleed in from non-treated colonies, mostly feral, but also from beekeepers who are working with tolerant genetics. Further, I posit that treating bees in any way does not just slow down the process, it stops it in its tracks.

There is a feedback mechanism in place where bees that die of Parasitic Mite Complex (PMC) accumulate a huge load of mites which causes the colony to collapse. Nearby colonies then rob out the collapsing colonies and in the process bring a huge load of mites back home. The robbing colonies then go through a very rapid mite buildup and subsequent collapse from disease pressure. The end result is that all colonies in this scenario die from PMC, even the colonies that have some mite tolerance. Zero selection pressure was applied on the population genetics. The only time this dynamic is broken is when bees are totally untreated and collapsing colonies are removed from the equation before they can impact the resistant colonies, if any are present in the population. I know this sounds unreasonable. I too wanted to think of mite tolerance like a sink faucet, you could turn it on a little, and then a little more, and then a lot. But it does not work that way. Either the faucet is all the way on or it is all the way off. The key to getting my bees tolerant to mites was to totally eliminate all susceptible bees from the population! It was an all or nothing proposition.

First, develop mite tolerant bees. Then introgress those traits into a more desirable genetic background. We could have a huge conversation around this topic. I am at the point of having a core of mite tolerant bees, but there are some problems such as excessive swarming and overwintering with very small clusters. I will be working over the next few years on bringing some bees with good production and survival genetics in and crossing them with my mite tolerant bees.


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## Oldtimer

Ha! I was expecting you to disagree FP, & I do value your opinion.

There are reasons why I believe what I do though, primarily based on what's actually happening.

To work through some of what you have said, you posted previously that you treated for a number of years and got nowhere in terms of resistance. But, of course you didn't. Probably down to good beekeeping. While you were treating you would have ensured that none of your hives died of mites, hence, no selection pressure. In addition, the numbers of hives you had were insufficient and the time frame of just a few years is not enough for the kind of gradual shift I am talking about.

Next point, genetic "bleed in" from non treated colonies will certainly be occurring. But also consider that treated colonies outnumber non treated by many multiples, perhaps a thousand to one, or similar. So bleed in will happen, but influence will be small.

As to the mites transferring from dying colonies to healthy ones via robbing, yes. However this does not negate the possibility of gradual improvement of bees, if it did, the bond method as practised by many would not work. As for some, it has, that renders that argument not fully valid, although I am sure it is partly valid.


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## Fusion_power

> that treated colonies outnumber non treated by many multiples, perhaps a thousand to one


There are a bit less than 4 million managed colonies in the U.S. today. The number of feral colonies numbers between 3 and 5 per square mile on average. U.S. wide, with 4 million square miles, feral colonies outnumber managed bees at least 3 to 1. I suspect the feral colony estimate is low for most areas on the east coast, but have to account for the desert and mountain areas where bees cannot live.

Commercial queen breeders saturate their breeding areas with treated bees therefore the selection advantage in commercial queens is biased severely in favor of treatment dependent genetics.


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## mike bispham

MB"The 'laws' of natural selection are universal."



BernhardHeuvel said:


> I don't think that is in any way scientific to say so.


For crying out loud; this was outlined 200 years ago by Darwin, and its been examined and re-examined literally - yes literally - millions of times since then. 

I'm not going to try to argue against evolution deniers. Its absurd.

Mike (MB)



I would like to see some scientific work on the "universal laws" in action in beehives that show that treatments interfere with evolution/natural selection. If there aren't any studies, your statement is not a scientific fact but your own interpretation/derivation. From universal laws to a specific situation. Unless there is no data backing this statement, this is not more than a hypothesis and it should be marked as one.[/QUOTE]


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> You laugh, but this is one of my major problems with the treatment treadmill. The mites develop resistance to poison faster than the bees do. It's always going to be a losing battle. If no one comes up with the next new acaricide when it's needed, a lot of folks will be in trouble.


So... mites evolve in response to the pressure supplied by miticides, but... bees don't evolve in response to the pressure supplied by mites. Wait a minute! Yes they do - they evolve despite that pressure being negated by mite treatments!

Come on people, untangle it.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> You laugh, but this is one of my major problems with the treatment treadmill. The mites develop resistance to poison faster than the bees do. It's always going to be a losing battle. If no one comes up with the next new acaricide when it's needed, a lot of folks will be in trouble.


So... mites evolve in response to the pressure supplied by miticides, but... bees don't evolve in response to the pressure supplied by mites. Wait a minute! Yes they do - they evolve despite that pressure being negated by mite treatments!

Come on people, untangle it.

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> I'm not going to try to argue against evolution deniers. Its absurd.


I neither. The only thing that is absurd, is to make conclusions without data to back it up and call it scientific. No data, no results. 




mike bispham said:


> Yes they do - they evolve despite that pressure being negated by mite treatments!


Come on, Mike, untangle it. Do you really think the pressure is gone with those imperfect treatments? The pressure still exists, because the miticides do not erase all varroas. So you can do find hives that cope better. Those you put into the real test. This needs much less ressources of bees than does your method of letting them all die regularily. Not just treated hives interfere with survivors but collapsing hive do, too. So if one survivor lives in the midst of say 50 collapsing hives...don't you reckon that can be too much at a certain point?

So you have to seperate the survivor anyway into an out apiary. Why wasting all the other bees? And: do you really want to bin all those genetics? Don't you think some of those genetics (and behaviour) just jump one or two generations? Those expressed genes would be lost with your method.

There is a famous varroa resistance breeder in Europe, named Paul Jungels. He runs about 250 hives. His treatment free survivors he pools into a single apiary, only the best 8 hives, which he breeds from. We can all learn from those people, who do the real thing. Like John Kefuss and others. 

The live and let die method (Bond test) has been proven unsuccessful in most landscapes and most local conditions. So many beekeepers tried it over the past 30 years (in Germany). Almost all failed to keep colonies counts sustainable. It is not too difficult to produce survivors for a row of years, but regularily, every third or fourth year, there comes a harsh hit and all colonies are done. This is not a way to go.

I also think, it has a lot to do with pesticides and the level of contamination of that particular landscape you keep bees in. Whatever works for you in your situation, could be completely wrong in another landscape. So be patient with us uneducated folks, that do not know much about Darwin...

We may not have met Darwin personally, but we know something about bees and varroas.


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## beekuk

mike bispham said:


> For crying out loud; this was outlined 200 years ago by Darwin, and its been examined and re-examined literally - yes literally - millions of times since then.


[/QUOTE]




BernhardHeuvel said:


> So be patient with us uneducated folks, that do not know much about Darwin...
> 
> We may not have met Darwin personally, but we know something about bees and varroas.


Darwin must of been only around four or five years old when he outlined this.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Charles Darwin's book, _On the Origin of Species, _was published in November 1859.


:gh:


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## TalonRedding

Everyone, put on your hip boots! The waters of opinion, philosophy, misunderstood science, and even Rader's practicality are beginning to rise!! Run for the hills! /s


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## Daniel Y

Oldtimer said:


> A commonly held hypothesis is selective pressure can be applied to a population by removing the least desirable 20%. In the US we have treated bees being weeded out based on survivability at a rate of 30%.


I woudl like to see the sources for this claim. For it being a widely held hypothesis I have never heard of it. Technically selection out 1% is a selection pressure. it does not mean you are goign to gt anywhere with it. I am seeing some reason to question the interpretation of the source though. Selection pressure is typically expressed in a number of individuals selected. hence it being called "Selection" pressure and not "Rejection" pressure. My suspicion is that you may have read a 20% pressure as being only 20% are removed. when in fact a 20% pressure means 80% where removed 20% where chosen.

Effective selection pressures have been demonstrated at a fraction of a percent. So you in effect are arguing a hypothetical with a hypothetical. I would be very interested in any breeding program that is producing results with a selection pressure of the 80% you suggest. I would even be interested in a program that produces results with 20% pressure.


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## Fusion_power

As a generalization, accept that 30% of all managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. die each year. Now stipulate that 15% of those colonies died of other natural causes such as winter failure, etc. This leaves 15% of the managed colonies killed by various mite related effects. Now try to determine the following ratio. How many of the killed colonies were mite susceptible? How many of the surviving colonies are mite tolerant? How many survive because they are treated?

My position is that mite tolerance is a weak effect that only increases when selection pressure is maximum. This level of selection pressure is only present when all treatments cease. Please keep in mind that killing off most of the bees in the U.S. would not benefit anyone short term, but long term, we would all be better off to have bees that don't have to be treated for mites.


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## rhaldridge

I think we may have gotten down to the essence of the problem. *How much selection pressure is necessary to move a population toward mite tolerance?*

Time for some research. Rader should put his Google-fu to work.


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## Rader Sidetrack

When one believes "its my way or the highway", I don't think any links I might offer are going to change anything! :lpf:



:gh:


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## Oldtimer

That Rader, would be the truth.

As to the removal of the bottom 20%, I'm not sticking to exactly 20% as a rigid doctrine. Of course I'll agree that a higher or lower number can also work. A look at the animals on the plains of Africa, since they are easy to observe, can confirm that. They have over time got faster, and also developed other skills.

But a look at just about any living creature can also demonstrate the same if it is possible to go back in time far enough.

However end of day that's just my personal belief, could be wrong, not a major if there's other opinions.


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## cg3

rhaldridge said:


> *How much selection pressure is necessary to move a population toward mite tolerance?*


*If* feral bees are developing mite tolerance, I've heard it estimated that 70% don't survive the year.


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## rhaldridge

Rader Sidetrack said:


> When one believes "its my way or the highway", I don't think any links I might offer are going to change anything! :lpf:
> :gh:


True, but not everyone is that inflexible.

I'd kind of like to know if it's reasonable to be optimistic about the future of beekeeping. But my own Google-fu is not entirely weak, so I'll look.


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## TalonRedding

rhaldridge said:


> True, but not everyone is that inflexible.
> 
> I'd kind of like to know if it's reasonable to be optimistic about the future of beekeeping. But my own Google-fu is not entirely weak, so I'll look.


Of course it's reasonable to be optimistic, and not just beekeeping, but in everything. Mites are just a hurdle, and we will get through it. Just as mites have eliminated many bees, they have also eliminated many Beekeepers. In my opinion, a more savvy beekeeper has resulted. Between the savviness of today's beekeeper and the bees' will to survive, beekeeping will see another "hay day". Research research research...read read read....and don't be afraid to try your own ideas. That is how problems are solved. In the end, the strong shall live.


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## tommysnare

best defense against any pest is a strong healthy hive. i did some aggressive splits last year and only saw mites in the weaker splits. but, the brood break handled it fine. it is definitely a local based issue as well. just my 2 cents


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## MikeTheBeekeeper

tommysnare said:


> best defense against any pest is a strong healthy hive. i did some aggressive splits last year and only saw mites in the weaker splits. but, the brood break handled it fine. it is definitely a local based issue as well. just my 2 cents


I've been making aggressive splits for years and have had some incredibly strong hives. Two years later I have a dead-out/wax moth nest, etc.

Building resistance is hard. Treating is the only short term solution to have bee hives survive more than 2 years.


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> You laugh, but this is one of my major problems with the treatment treadmill. The mites develop resistance to poison faster than the bees do. It's always going to be a losing battle. If no one comes up with the next new acaricide when it's needed, a lot of folks will be in trouble.


Still, your bees are developing resistance all the while, so that'll sort itself out ok won't it Ray?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> A commonly held hypothesis is selective pressure can be applied to a population by removing the least desirable 20%. In the US we have treated bees being weeded out based on survivability at a rate of 30%.
> 
> Check the reality. The mite resistance of commercial US bees is higher than it was 20 years ago, and that can be verified in several ways.


That may be the case in some commercial operations - but they'll be the ones that are paying attention to the rules - locate and make splits from the strongest (and thus remove the weakest) It certainly won't be the ones that are requeening each year with mass raised queens bred under systematic treatment regimes.

That is all perfectly predictable.

I'd like to see your scientific data - your 'verification' of this position.



Oldtimer said:


> Your theories make "sense".


They're not 'my' theories. They are statements of biological reality. The greater the pressure, the stronger the evolutionary response, *and vice-versa*.



Oldtimer said:


> However if what they predict is not what is happening on the ground, examine the theory, rather than try to argue against the reality. In fact ...


'theory' 'fact' 'reality' are all in the wrong place here. You can't reverse matters just to suit your own wishful thinking.



Oldtimer said:


> ...I can even tell you where the loophole in your theory as presented thus far actually is. The theory is based on the idea that there is no selective pressure in commercial stocks whatsoever because mites are treated 100% successfully, each time, every time. But reality in the field, is different.


I agree there is some selective pressure. the question is: is it enough, and what does it take to undo progress 'back to zero'?

Until your (and Berhard) have evidence to support your (blanket) claim that things are improving even in treating operations (*all* treating operations? If not, which ones, and why?) we cannot simply assume that to be the case. 



Oldtimer said:


> There is actually some good to this. Evolution or selection towards resistance, will take much longer in a commercial treated scenario, than a bond scenario.


As and where it happens at all: and those places will be those that breed very carefully as well as treat - the soft bond scenario. Just treating and losing 20% each year isn't going to cut it. 



Oldtimer said:


> However as the general resistance level rises in a population, commercial beekeepers can treat less and some of them, right here on this forum, are finding this now.


You'll agree this is anecdotal and theye is little evaluation of the role being played by selective breeding (including requeening) as well as natural culling, nor of the possible role of feral genes?



Oldtimer said:


> With the hard bond method a lot of genetics are lost a lot of it good in some way. With a much slower process such as a commercial treated apiary, there is more time and many more generations for genetics to recombine and be retained in a population, with only a smaller portion of the population being weeded out annually than in a bond scenario, to me, this is a good thing.


This is the old argument for business as usual. 'We have to keep treating while the bees evolve their own defences.' The old reply is still relevant: treating (without careful genetic husbandry) prevents any such evolution. 

You're trying to reduce a complex situation to black-and-white. It can't be done. The best you can say is that there are factors that press toward resistance, and factors that remove them. Lets understand (through established bioevolutionary science) what they are, and they we'll know how to press in the right direction. 

Meanwhile, lets try to avoid making claims that can't be verified.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> ... I posit that treating bees in any way does not just slow down the process, it stops it in its tracks.
> 
> There is a feedback mechanism in place where bees that die of Parasitic Mite Complex (PMC) accumulate a huge load of mites which causes the colony to collapse. Nearby colonies then rob out the collapsing colonies and in the process bring a huge load of mites back home. The robbing colonies then go through a very rapid mite buildup and subsequent collapse from disease pressure. The end result is that all colonies in this scenario die from PMC, even the colonies that have some mite tolerance. Zero selection pressure was applied on the population genetics. The only time this dynamic is broken is when bees are totally untreated and collapsing colonies are removed from the equation before they can impact the resistant colonies, if any are present in the population. I know this sounds unreasonable. I too wanted to think of mite tolerance like a sink faucet, you could turn it on a little, and then a little more, and then a lot. But it does not work that way. Either the faucet is all the way on or it is all the way off. The key to getting my bees tolerant to mites was to totally eliminate all susceptible bees from the population! It was an all or nothing proposition.


I think there are probably several such feedback mechanisms. I've spoken before about the desirability of removing (energy expensive) hygienic traits from a population once they are no longer needed. Its my understanding that mechanisms exist that ensure this happens rapidly - once mites are not longer a problem in a popultion those strains that aren't wasting time looking for them will have a distinct advantage. That is how evolution has set up bees.

One of the main mechanisms, as I understand it, is through recessive genes. Some of the resistance traits are coded by recessive genes, meaning that unless they are present in both parents, the non-hygienic one comes through. It means that the presence of any non-hygienic genes causes wildly disproportionate damage. 

This is something that was present in Marla Spivak's early work on the genetics of resistance. I don't know the up to date picture. 

Nature is sometimes sensitive in ways that we simply don't appreciate. I think this is one such way.

(Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> Building resistance is hard. Treating is the only short term solution to have bee hives survive more than 2 years.


Mike,

That depends... on initial genetics...

Get the right bees straight out (and keep them someplace where the wrong bees can't get to them) and there's no problem - as long as you continually make increase from the best.

Get the wrong bees however, or get the right bees but fail take proper care of their genes: either way you fail as a husbandryman.

The old saw is true: 'All beekeeping is different'. 

But its equally true to say: This is standard husbandry folks. Applicable universally. Not 'theory' and not arguable. 

That's the way to navigate the complexity presented by lots of different bees at different stages of resistance, in differing contexts in terms of the bees present that will be contributing genetics. Acknowledge the differences and complexities, and seek out those things that are universal.

Bees don't live underwater. Anywhere. 

Bees are no different from any other organism: they'll respond to pressure (and equally the removal of pressures) by adapting. Anywhere.

Mike (UK)


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Mike, do you walk alone or do you join a group to work on the subject? There are quite some groups working on varroa resistance: http://aristabeeresearch.org


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Get the right bees straight out (*and keep them someplace where the wrong bees can't get to them*) and there's no problem - as long as you continually make increase from the best.


Here's a problem-- not many beekeepers own small offshore islands.


----------



## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Mike, do you walk alone or do you join a group to work on the subject? There are quite some groups working on varroa resistance: http://aristabeeresearch.org


There's just me at the moment, but I have quite a few contacts when I'm ready to swap queens.... 

Your site: good intentions maybe, but nothing much more than an appeal for funds at present. No actual work happening as far as I can see. The 'scientists' who are supposed to be in charge are not named. 

The literature page is useful.

Got any more?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Here's a problem-- not many beekeepers own small offshore islands.


Do your best to order things to suit your aims. If you can, locate your operation away from a big commercial apiary, and within an active feral population. And keep work at influencing the drone population. 

Or do nothing. Your choice. Don't tell the rest of us we can't do anything though.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Get the right bees straight out (and [HIGHLIGHT] keep them someplace where the wrong bees can't get to them [/HIGHLIGHT]) and there's no problem - as long as you continually make increase from the best.


If you program of breeding resistance depends on keeping your bees isolated from "the wrong bees", then it would seem that your resistance program will likely fail.  After all varroa were spread across multiple continents by _bee-to-bee _contact. If you can't stop varroa hitching rides on 'the wrong bees', then how are you going to control mating in an open apiary? :scratch:


:gh:


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Do your best to order things to suit your aims. If you can, locate your operation away from a big commercial apiary, and within an active feral population. And keep work at influencing the drone population.
> 
> Or do nothing. Your choice. Don't tell the rest of us we can't do anything though.
> 
> Mike (UK)


You know, _do the best you can_ is really not a very useful response to the problem of providing breeding isolation, which you claim is an *essential* part of your program.

The reason I have difficulty with your animal husbandry model is that bees are not like other livestock. You can't really control the mating of your stock, unless you do have that isolated offshore island, or some other such situation. Most beekeepers, me included, have to put our bees where we live, and if that place has other bees, then we can't control the genetics of our colonies in the same way that a cattle breeder or hog breeder can. 

I don't believe I've told anyone what to do, so that seems a pointlessly uncivil remark.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> That may be the case in some commercial operations - but they'll be the ones that are paying attention to the rules - locate and make splits from the strongest (and thus remove the weakest) It certainly won't be the ones that are requeening each year with mass raised queens bred under systematic treatment regimes.
> 
> That is all perfectly predictable. (UK)


Perfectly predictable, as you say.



mike bispham said:


> I agree there is some selective pressure. Mike (UK)


Correct again. Mike I do believe you are making progress!!


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> You know, _do the best you can_ is really not a very useful response to the problem of providing breeding isolation, which you claim is an *essential* part of your program.


Ray,

I haven't made any such claim. Bee breeders take commonsense steps to maximise the drone influence from their own best stocks and minimise the influence of undesirable strains. It is very helpful for small beekeepers wanting to raise and maintain resistance to be thinking about the same things. As you say, you can't acheive 100% control; but you don't need to.



rhaldridge said:


> The reason I have difficulty with your animal husbandry model is that bees are not like other livestock. You can't really control the mating of your stock, unless you do have that isolated offshore island, or some other such situation. Most beekeepers, me included, have to put our bees where we live, and if that place has other bees, then we can't control the genetics of our colonies in the same way that a cattle breeder or hog breeder can.


No we can't, but we can go a long way, and that can be sufficient. We can raise queens only from clearly demonstrated resistant hives in strong numbers. (Very soon we'll probably be able to have queens tested for some desirable genetics). We can requeen existing colonies (cattle and hog farmers can't do that). We can establish large drone hive hives, again from desirable stock. We can choose to have apiaries distant from undesirable bees and adjacent to desirable ones. We can seek likely resistant 'survivor' swarms and cut-outs. In the US you can buy in bred resistant queens. We can join forces with other nearby and nt so nearby like minded types and swap queens and colonies. 

And those steps can amount to a powerful influence on local genetics, perhaps tipping the balance that will allow a thriving feral population in which natural selection will preserve local biodiversity and return yet more strong genetics. 

None of that is too complicated, or demanding - even if you just want to keep one or two hives. You'll be part of the only real solution, rather than contributing to the problem by keeping alive individuals that are doing real tangible genetic damage.



rhaldridge said:


> I don't believe I've told anyone what to do, so that seems a pointlessly uncivil remark.


Sorry. I read your island remark as sarcasm and replied in kind.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Correct again. Mike I do believe you are making progress!!


Let's just have the quote in full:

"I agree there is some selective pressure. *The question is: is it enough, and what does it take to undo progress 'back to zero'?"*

Another question is: (If at all), how fast? Your own bees for example. I believe you did an experiment a while ago to see how many would survive if you simply stopped treating. Have you repeated it since? Has that shown any progress resistance wise in your own operation? 

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> If you program of breeding resistance depends on keeping your bees isolated from "the wrong bees", then it would seem that your resistance program will likely fail.


Quite apart from the fact that all this is built on false claims about what I've said, I might have to start recording the occasions on which complex matters are reduced to black-and white in order to construct a (fallacious) argument. 

'Isolated' implies an absolute that is for most people unachievable, and is strictly unnecessary. 'Relatively isolated' works better. 'The more isolated the better' is a further improvement.

The degree of isolation lies on a spectrum from none to complete. There isn't just a binary choice 'isolated/not isolated'. It isn't like a light switch, on or off. Its like a dimmer switch - off/on a bit/on a bit more... full on.

Read that again Radar. Find a way to visualise it graphically. 

Take note: arguments premised upon binary choices, when in reality the choice lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum, are fallacious. 

(If you want to know more about why, you could look up the Paradox of the Heap; but I strongly suggest you don't bother.)

Just remember: the further toward one end the better. And vice versa. And remember too: there is more than one way to skin our cat. We're not purely at the mercy of our relative isolation; we can do things that effectively increase our 'isolation'.

Now read the post I've just made in response to Ray about isolation.

Can you see - it does make make sense - once you stop thinking about isolation in black and white terms?

Try to apply that understanding every time you think about bees. Bees in their mutiply-factored environments present a highly complex modelling problem. This problem (and its sub-sets) can only be approached by acknowledging the complexity, and working with it. Reducing the complex reality to inappropriate binary models won't get us anywhere. Approaching the complexity through universals will. 

Thanks for the opportunity to think about this.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> how fast?


How would you seriously expect me to answer that?



mike bispham said:


> I believe you did an experiment a while ago to see how many would survive if you simply stopped treating. Have you repeated it since?


You are incorrect, I did not "simply stop treating". As you have been told previously so must be aware, I started a completely separate operation using treatment free small cell comb foundation and regressed the bees, also used new woodware etc so there was no contamination. Many lines of bees were used sourced from around the country in the hope that somewhere there would be a bee that could handle mites without treatment. In the end, the bond method for me, resulted in 100% losses, so no progress was made. It was a lot of work & expense, zero gain, why would I repeat it? Simply, a slower and more careful method is needed and that is what I am doing now.



mike bispham said:


> Has that shown any progress resistance wise in your own operation?


Bond? Obviously not.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Make sure you report your 100 % losses, Mike. Since the third year of going treatment free is a bit critical. And do not forget my thoughts about multiple collapsing hives being a too huge pressure on your survivors. I suggest constantly monitoring the hives and sort them into small apiaries of different mite resistance.


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> Take note: arguments premised upon binary choices, when in reality the choice lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum, are fallacious.


Binary choices... as in "to treat" or "not to treat?"

It appears that you have mired yourself in a bog of your own trampling.

As I've mentioned, I'm completely treatment free, because the innate logic of it strikes me favorably, and treatment has well-demonstrated drawbacks. However, I don't find you to be a compelling promoter of the treatment free philosophy, despite the fact that I agree with many of your positions. I say this with absolutely no malice at all, but I am very doubtful of folks who seem completely unable to entertain the possibility that they might be wrong in some respects. This is a particularly dubious stance when considering a subject as vast and complex as bee husbandry.

In addition, the absolute certainty that one is correct in every detail makes it very difficult for others to attempt meaningful conversations. What is there to say?

Finally, one of the pitfalls in attempting a grand unified field theory of beekeeping is that your detractors will immediately seize upon and point out any inconsistencies in that theory. This has happened to you, and you have had little success in patching up your conceptual edifice. Your admonition that one should "Get the right bees straight out (and keep them someplace where the wrong bees can't get to them) and there's no problem - as long as you continually make increase from the best." Is completely impractical for most of us. We can't keep the wrong bees from mating with our queens. It is simply impossible. I have most of my bees in a suburb in a small town, and I know of at least a couple other hobbyists in the area. I have no control over the genetics of their bees, but their bees have certainly affected the genetics of mine. There is no way for me to prevent it. I've done the best I can, by buying a local nuc, by buying a small cell treatment free package, by catching a swarm, and by queening a split with a BeeWeaver queen. But I have to be realistic. The small cell package superceded several times and eventually went laying worker. I kept feeding in frames of eggs and brood until they eventually requeened themselves. They are now a very vigorous hive, against all expectations. I have no idea what sort of genetics that new hive has, even though I gave it eggs from my strongest hive.

My point in all this is that your theories do not illuminate any pragmatic way for me to proceed in my real world circumstances.

This is a serious problem.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Take note: arguments premised upon binary choices, when in reality the choice lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum, are fallacious.


How about this statement from earlier in this thread ....? :scratch:


mike bispham said:


> [HIGHLIGHT]Any help from a beekeeper is a 'treatment'. [/HIGHLIGHT] Its interference in the natural process. Husbandry is about understanding that and taking care that the long term effect of the 'help' actually aids the population - rather than simply treating the individual at the expense of future generations.



"_*Any *_help"? You mean like giving bees boxes to live in? :s


Arguments premised upon binary choices, when in reality the choice lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum, are fallacious. 



:gh:


----------



## Fusion_power

> Arguments premised upon binary choices, when in reality the choice lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum, are fallacious.


Arguments premised upon a continuous spectrum of choices, when in reality the choice is binary, are fallacious.


----------



## mike bispham

(MB: "how fast?" [might resistance emerge under a treating regime?



Oldtimer said:


> How would you seriously expect me to answer that?


You're quite right, you can't. thare are far too many variables embedded n the question, and there's no science to supply data.

That being the case makes the belief that resistance will emerge under treatment conditions (and little else)... wishful thinking.



Oldtimer said:


> You are incorrect, I did not "simply stop treating". As you have been told previously so must be aware, I started a completely separate operation using treatment free small cell comb foundation and regressed the bees, also used new woodware etc so there was no contamination.


 I wans't told. I asked and you referred me to lots of posts you'd made in the past. As I made clear Iw asns't going to go tawling around trying to find out what you did.



Oldtimer said:


> [...]Simply, a slower and more careful method is needed and that is what I am doing now.


How does that go?

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Binary choices... as in "to treat" or "not to treat?"


No. As in 'to understand the nature of reality, and a prerequisite to analysing it.'

Asiopposed to 'thinking you've understood reality but have actually failed due to modelling a crucial feature simplistically.'



rhaldridge said:


> As I've mentioned, I'm completely treatment free, because the innate logic of it strikes me favorably, and treatment has well-demonstrated drawbacks.


I thought you used brood breaks?



rhaldridge said:


> However, I don't find you to be a compelling promoter of the treatment free philosophy, despite the fact that I agree with many of your positions. I say this with absolutely no malice at all, but I am very doubtful of folks who seem completely unable to entertain the possibility that they might be wrong in some respects.


I'm perfectly happy - grateful even - to be shown to be wrong. But there are some things I'm pretty sure I'm right about, and until someone convinces me otherwise that's how things will stay.

Is there nothing about which you are 100% certain, and happy to come out and say so? 



rhaldridge said:


> Finally, one of the pitfalls in attempting a grand unified field theory of beekeeping is that your detractors will immediately seize upon and point out any inconsistencies in that theory.


Again, for heaven's sake, what I talk about is bog standard husbandry. If you want a second view as to how it applies to bees, read Ruttner or Manley.

You're obviously very attached to your own methodolgy, and eager to avoid acknowledging the glaring hole in 
the centre of it.



rhaldridge said:


> This has happened to you, and you have had little success in patching up your conceptual edifice. Your admonition that one should "Get the right bees straight out (and keep them someplace where the wrong bees can't get to them) and there's no problem - as long as you continually make increase from the best." Is completely impractical for most of us.


Ray, that fine, and I understsand completely. *But that doesn't make the understanding wrong*. It just means *you* can't apply it. Which must be very frustrating.

But denying the validity of the proper analysis won't change things for you. I'm sorry about that.



rhaldridge said:


> We can't keep the wrong bees from mating with our queens. It is simply impossible.


Then, if you want to keep bees, you're stuck with controlling the mites for them. I'm sorry you've been led to believe that using brood breaks somehow isn't doing that.




rhaldridge said:


> My point in all this is that your theories do not illuminate any pragmatic way for me to proceed in my real world circumstances.
> 
> This is a serious problem.


No it isn't. Don't read my posts. Better still, read the posts of other treaters. You'll be more at home there.

I don't mean to be rude Ray, but I'm about learning how to keep bees sustainably. I read that as 'in ways that don't degrade feral/wild bees', and, well you know my positions.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> Arguments premised upon a continuous spectrum of choices, when in reality the choice is binary, are fallacious.


Of course. What's your point?

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> "_*Any *_help"? You mean like giving bees boxes to live in?


I think the context was the problem of bee health, and likely in particular mites. 

Help in managing those things.

You know that really didn't you Radar! You're being mischievious again!

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

What this thread again proves Mike is you will argue anything, with anyone.



mike bispham said:


> I wans't told. I asked and you referred me to lots of posts you'd made in the past. As I made clear Iw asns't going to go tawling around trying to find out what you did.
> 
> How does that go? (UK)


How does it go?

Well first off, you WERE told. I also directed you to posts I'd written on it, if you won't read them, not much I can do.

You also asked me to re write everything I'd done, in a special format, just for you. Which would have been quite a time consuming project for me, and I saw no value in doing it whatsoever for someone who's mind was already made up and would not even read what I'd written already, why would I make the effort?



Gotta love this though, one of the things that draws me back to Beesource is the humor, wit, or intrigue of some of what's written. Take this exchange, which could only be between a philosopher, and a writer -


mike bispham said:


> Take note: arguments premised upon binary choices, when in reality the choice lies somewhere on a continuous spectrum, are fallacious.





rhaldridge said:


> Binary choices... as in "to treat" or "not to treat?"
> 
> It appears that you have mired yourself in a bog of your own trampling.


Love it!


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> You're quite right, you can't. thare are far too many variables embedded n the question, and there's no science to supply data.
> 
> That being the case makes the belief that resistance will emerge under treatment conditions (and little else)... wishful thinking.


By "the case" you refer to your previous "how fast" question. There being too many variables, is not negated or confirmed by the "how fast" question, so your point is moot, your reasoning in this case flawed.


----------



## Fusion_power

This thread is devolving into a "he said, she said" situation.

1. I have been treatment free for 8 years with a very hard approach, no treatments at all. I started with tolerant stock.
2. Mike Bispham wants to do treatment free with a similar hard approach, but starting with unknown feral stock.
3. Oldtimer wants to do treatment free with a soft approach of treating and identifying tolerance along the way.
4. Rader doesn't know quite which way he wants to go, but he chimes in to aggravate Mike.
5. Ray says he is treatment free, but he does not have enough years yet to know if it is working.

I think beekeeping needs the input of all of us, there is no room for "my way or the highway" attitudes.

I see a few questions worth asking and answering. Oldtimer, what stock do you have that has putative tolerance? and how are you identifying that tolerance? Do you see progress? I would ask each of the rest of you to put up or shut up by answering the same questions. No sniping allowed. Here are my answers.

My stock is based on a single queen found in 2004 that showed moderate mite tolerance. I purchased queens from Purvis to produce drones to mate with daughters from the single queen. They have been allowed to freely mate since 2005 with zero mite treatments. The base stock has a mix of Carniolan, Italian, Russian, and Apis Mellifera genetics. I have identified a breeder queen for this year that is least related to my other colonies, produced 2 shallow supers of honey last year, is relatively gentle, and has little to no detectable mite count.

I do not do anything to identify tolerance. My approach is based on survival. If a colony is alive, it must be mite tolerant after 8 years.

I am seeing progress because the bees I have now are more able to handle mites than when I started 8 years ago. Survival of the fittest distinctly works in this case.


----------



## Oldtimer

Fusion_power said:


> Oldtimer, what stock do you have that has putative tolerance? and how are you identifying that tolerance? Do you see progress?


Not sure if you mean what we have here in the country, or what I have personally. To answer personally, not much. I have begged, borrowed, and purchased queens from all over the country including some bred for VSH and showing up to 80% varroa specific brood cap removal. Despite all that I have not made a lot of progress. From time to time I will identify a hive that tolerates or, seemingly, eliminates varroa mites. From those I have bred large numbers of queens and distributed throughout my hives plus concentrated non related lines of them for drone production next to mating yards. Despite all this, getting it through to the next generation is very hit & miss. I have made some progress in that I treat less than the norm, but overall am disappointed with results. Some hives show no more varroa tolerance than any random hive, still. They get found out by my light treatment regime and one way or another get removed from the gene pool but are not allowed to die, following my bond experiment I have realised I cannot afford that, it's also rather wasteful and pointless.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

> 4. Rader doesn't know quite which way he wants to go

Not the case.

As defined by this forum, my bees are _treatment free_.  
My goal is to to keep them that way, but my _futurevision _device sometimes picks up just static. :lookout:


----------



## rhaldridge

Fusion_power said:


> I see a few questions worth asking and answering. Oldtimer, what stock do you have that has putative tolerance? and how are you identifying that tolerance? Do you see progress? I would ask each of the rest of you to put up or shut up by answering the same questions..


I've done the best I could in my suburban situation. I bought a local nuc, and a package from Wolf Creek that is small cell and semi treatment free (essential oils). I queened a split with Beeweaver stock, and caught a feral swarm. The only hive I've lost so far is a split that went queenless in midwinter. I have done no brood breaks, other than the breaks caused by making increase, 

Dar, I think you have an advantage over many of us, in that you were able to push your resistant stock into the surrounding woods and buffer yourself from the ill effects of poor stock. I hope to be able to do some of that this year, at our place up in northern NY; as far as I know there are no large commercial operation within flying distance of our property. I have a nuc on order from a treatment free beekeeper up there, and I'm bringing splits from my other resistant stock, just to see how it does up there. I'll put up more swarm traps, too-- there's a lot of pleasure in capturing free bees. 

To Mike I have to say that while you are welcome to define the term "treatment free" for yourself, you are not entitled to define it for everyone else. I really don't get your point of view regarding brood breaks. You have done it to make increase, and so have I. What's the difference? Surely any intelligent approach to making increase entails making it at the time most propitious for the bees, since presumably that is what they would do themselves.


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> To Mike [...] I really don't get your point of view regarding brood breaks.


If you haven't got it by now Ray you're probably not going to get it.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> ... what stock do you have that has putative tolerance? and how are you identifying that tolerance? Do you see progress?


How do you define 'putative tolerance'?

(Assuming they are still alive - no inspection since mid january) I have a two 3-year old stocks, and last year both did well. But I did take brood on sevaral occations, which might have helped them. I have three further stocks that are 3 years old, but last year (the queens) were placed in nucs. They were doing well last time I looked.

So 6 that I've had for 3 years. Of these, 2 were offspring from a swarm I'd hived the year previously. 

The other 24 (I hope) are last years splits or swarms.

While its probably too early to say I see progress, my bees are definitely lasting longer than they did last time I kept them, about 10 years ago. I haven't as yet directed much energy at postmortems or general behaviour identification. I've just left them too it. The main objective has been to grow the numbers while winnowing out those that can't stand 0n their own feet.

This year will (I hope) be an opportunity to make lots more and I'll let them grow to full size without any interference. And I'll probably to start making evaluations based on observed hygienic behaviours as well as simple thriving. I'll be upping my game viz making increase, with dedicated bee and brood-making hives and queen raising gear.

The main idea is a) to make (lots) more, and b) to establish them, mostly at 8-12 hive out-stands, left to get on with it. After a couple of years I'll be able to pick out the good 'uns more clearly.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> As defined by this forum, my bees are _treatment free_.


Would I be right Graham in thinking that's 'no substances put in hive; brood breaks used to control mites'?

So your 'treatment free' bees will, if given (or sold) to someone as t/f bees, keel over if not treated to the same - or a chemical - regime?

I wonder how many 'treatment free' bees are sold like this, and how many of the failures we come across are due to this misunderstanding?

Solomon (are you here?) - you were instrumental in drafting this terminology and conceptual structure - was this problem foreseen and discussed?

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> By "the case" you refer to your previous "how fast" question. There being too many variables, is not negated or confirmed by the "how fast" question, so your point is moot, your reasoning in this case flawed.


You could be right. I can't be bothered to check. First I'd have to try unpick the options presented by the first part of your incoherent second sentence, then I'd have to trawl back through the argument to see what was said. As Darren (?) says its become a bit 'he said she said'. Hopefully most of us will have grasped the point.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Hopefully most of us will have grasped the point.
> 
> Mike (UK)


There was no point, as previously stated your point was moot and your reasoning flawed. It was a bunch of "he said she said" while at the same time trying to connect things that were not connected, and yes, pretty much incoherent argument just for the sake of it. Of course you do not want to go back and try to untangle what you said, can't be done.


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Of course you do not want to go back and try to untangle what you said, can't be done.


Whatever. I'm going to rest you awhile OT. You're getting out of hand again.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

Sorry for another of those inconvenient truths Mike, but here we go. You cannot rest me. 

You can rest yourself. Which sounds like in your incoherent way, might be what you were trying to say. 

A break from trying to figure out what ever you said, all too hard, you need a nap. That's OK.


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> A break from trying to figure out what ever you said, all too hard, you need a nap. That's OK.


I know what I said. A break from what you think I said is what I need. 

What I was trying to say is something I'm not allowed to say directly here, but it relates to whether or not I choose to open your posts.

I understand: its complicated stuff for some, you can't teach old dogs new tricks and so on. If you really want to know, go over it carefully and you might figure it out. 

But from here, I'm writing to those who can grasp my meaning. I'm not going to fight with you to explain myself. Its like banging my head against a wall, and I've learned its easier for everybody if I ignore you. So that's what I'm going to go back to doing. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> If you haven't got it by now Ray you're probably not going to get it.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Oh I think I get it. I just don't understand why you think "Brood breaks are okay when I do it, but not when you do it." is a defensible argument.


----------



## squarepeg

beginners are usually humble enough to admit they don't much. seasoned veterans for the most part have been around long enough to know that conventional wisdom sometimes turns out to be wrong and they make adjustments. somewhere in between beginners and seasoned vets are those who know just enough to be dangerous. it's called 'intermediate syndrome'.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> beginners are usually humble enough to admit they don't much. seasoned veterans for the most part have been around long enough to know that conventional wisdom sometimes turns out to be wrong and they make adjustments. somewhere in between beginners and seasoned vets are those who know just enough to be dangerous. it's called 'intermediate syndrome'.


I googled it. No sign (at least, not for the meaning you assign to it) 

Did you just make it up, or are you blindly following someone else's nonsense?

Dangerous! Someone adhering to the long established principles of organic husbandry, quoting from such luminaries as Manley and Ruttner, insisting on science based reasoning rather than wishful thinking... is dangerous! What a strange universe you live in!

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Oh I think I get it. I just don't understand why you think "Brood breaks are okay when I do it, but not when you do it." is a defensible argument.


So you do get it, or you don't get it? Or are you happy to stay with 'you think you get it'?

Why don't you supply an outline of what you think my objection to brood breaks is Ray, and we'll see if you do get it? If you don't we'll see what the problem is. 

If you think I do brood breaks you're mistaken - and so your account of my 'argument' is bs. What else is premised on that false assumption?

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Did you just make it up, or are you blindly following someone else's nonsense? Mike (UK)


i borrowed it from hangliding vernacular mike. it describes the follies of those half way up the learning curve. most mishaps happen with this group. 

the point is that you are still in the proving stage of your program, and yet don't shy away from rendering absolute positions.

adopting some metrics as fusion power has proposed might give you something more concrete to report. this and a few years of forward progress on those metrics would make your offerings here more palatable.

truly, i wish you well with your efforts and hope that you are rewarded with the desired outcome.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I know what I said.....
> I understand: its complicated stuff for some, you can't teach old dogs new tricks and so on. If you really want to know, go over it carefully and you might figure it out.
> 
> But from here, I'm writing to those who can grasp my meaning.


Y'er a peach.


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> If you think I do brood breaks you're mistaken - and so your account of my 'argument' is bs. What else is premised on that false assumption?
> 
> Mike (UK)


How do you make increase without brood breaks? If you raise queens and mate them before making splits with them, then I suppose you can avoid any sort of brood break. However, that's substantially more "unnatural" than making walkaway splits, as I do.

A swarm employs a natural brood break in both swarm and parent colony.

There might be a good reason why the bees do it that way.


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## MikeTheBeekeeper

rhaldridge said:


> Oh I think I get it. I just don't understand why you think "Brood breaks are okay when I do it, but not when you do it." is a defensible argument.


Brood breaks naturally occur when bees swarm, if they develop (naturally) mite control techniques including brood breaks, that's fine, but if you do it for them (for mite control) that isn't completely treatment-free and doesn't help improve your stock much as they will be dependent on the "artificial" brood breaks, is what I understand.


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## philip.devos

I have read many of the posts on this thread, and observe that what some are calling "treatment" is NOT treatment; however it IS intervention.

I occasionally see one or 2 SHB's in my hives.  I manipulated frames to make sure that where SHB's are prevalent there are also a lot of honeybees. On one occasion I removed a frame which had few honeybees, but a dozen or so SHB's. 

Some may call this "Treatment". I do not. I consider this "Intervention". In like manner I view creation of a brood break as intervention, not treatment.

Phil

My appologies! I should have read Solomon Parker's rules regarding the treatment-free forum. He clearly defines it such that it does not consider brood break intervention as treatment.


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## Rader Sidetrack

>  I should have read Solomon Parker's rules regarding the treatment-free forum. 

And now that _Barry _is the moderator of this forum, they are similarly Barry's rules.  Those insisting brood breaks are _treatment _are swimming upstream. :lookout:


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## Fusion_power

Whether you consider brood breaks to be a "treatment" or not is irrelevant. The only question that matters is "do you as a beekeeper have to do something to keep your bees alive?" If so, then your bees are dependent on the beekeeper. I want bees that could care less whether there is a beekeeper around.


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## beekuk

Fusion_power said:


> Whether you consider brood breaks to be a "treatment" or not is irrelevant. The only question that matters is "do you as a beekeeper have to do something to keep your bees alive?" If so, then your bees are dependent on the beekeeper. I want bees that could care less whether there is a beekeeper around.


I agree with that, the only bees that can be classed as treatment free, or dependant on a beekeeper, are ones that live in trees and such places, and are never interfered with by man in any way at all.


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## Duncan Thacker

fusion_power said:


> whether you consider brood breaks to be a "treatment" or not is irrelevant. The only question that matters is "do you as a beekeeper have to do something to keep your bees alive?" if so, then your bees are dependent on the beekeeper. I want bees that could care less whether there is a beekeeper around.


amen brother!!!!!!!!!!


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> Whether you consider brood breaks to be a "treatment" or not is irrelevant. The only question that matters is "do you as a beekeeper have to do something to keep your bees alive?" If so, then your bees are dependent on the beekeeper. I want bees that could care less whether there is a beekeeper around.


That puts it in a nutshell. * It would be best if 'treatment free' meant 'able to thrive without a beekeeper'*. 

This is important. If you are keeping bees that cannot live without your help, then you're sending beekeeper-dependent genes into the local population. Where beekeeper-dependence is the norm, ferals cannot thrive. And without ferals we lose a great deal of health from our local bees. We lose the first-rate vitality of naturally selected animals, and the biodiversity that is contained in ferals, and multiplied through them.

Beekeeper-dependence is a very modern feature of beekeeping, and in my view, and I think, the view of most people in the tf forum, wholly undesirable. We're here, talking about tf in an effort to try to get away from the modern approach that treats bees like cogs in a machine. We recognise that it is a profit-first, socially selfish, short-term approach that is damaging to biodiversity and unsustainable.

To get to proper tf we have to help/allow the bees to come to their own accommodation with the mites. That can only happen by raising natural tolerance. *And so we need to be clear about what sorts of actions - or interventions - contribute to that end, and which delay it*. 

And to do that we need language, and a conceptual framework *that maps smoothly onto the realities*. 

Whether we consider brood interventions as 'treatments ' is our choice. We can use language that makes our joint objective harder, or we can modify it to make it map better to the real world. 

I think that matters. If no-one ever bothered sorting out language we'd live in a world of ignorance. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> How do you make increase without brood breaks?


This year I'll be using a traditional method (following Ruttner). This is based on having dedicated brood hives that supply brood to made-up nucs. 

Queens mated in small mating hives with just a cupful of bees are introduced to newly made nucs comprising a couple of brood frames from such hives, together with as many flying bees as you want to add (which again would probably be best sourced from dedicated hives).

With a couple of brood-raising hives (shaped and manipulated to supply masses of brood) and an effective Q-cell raising operation plenty of new nucs can be made without touching the working hives.

The working hives can then be left to operate as self-run colonies, and any differences in performance can be seen clearly. New queens will be made by taking eggs *only from these interference-free hives*.



rhaldridge said:


> If you raise queens and mate them before making splits with them, then I suppose you can avoid any sort of brood break. However, that's substantially more "unnatural" than making walkaway splits, as I do.


I think you need to be very careful indeed when evaluating more and less natural in this sort of way. 

The guide used by husbandrymen is to acknowledge to effectiveness of natural selection, and to mirror the process. Critical to that is not allowing weak genetic material into the mating pool. In the ages-old expression 'put only best to best'. 



rhaldridge said:


> A swarm employs a natural brood break in both swarm and parent colony.
> 
> There might be a good reason why the bees do it that way.


Whatever the bees are doing naturally is fine - though if its an undesirable trait then you as a husbandryman can breed away from it. (In the knowledge that doing so might prove to be a wrong step some time in the future)

*Whatever you do ('treat', 'intervene') is by definition unnatural*. By interfering clumsily you can wreak havoc - do serious damage. Taking 'more or less natural' as a guide is no guarentee that this won't happen. 

For example: those people calling themselves 'natural beekeepers' who use 'natural substances' as miticides are doing just as much damage to progress toward inbuilt tolerance as those who use synthetic compounds supplied by the chemical corporations.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

Treatment, to most people, means putting some kind of chemical in the hive. A brood break is a manipulation which is probably why it's allowed in the forum definition of treatment free.

Having said that I do agree that having bees that need no intervention to win against mites is the goal we should all be striving for.

But manipulations of themselves, do not phase me. I do many manipulations to increase the productivity of my hives, I'm a beekeeper that's what I do.

However much of the argument of the last few pages is based on the hypothesis that bees exist that do well if they get a beekeeper caused brood break, but will die if they don't get one.

Do such bees actually exist? Ever been demonstrated? Anybody actually got any of these bees?

Despite all the talk about the value of brood breaks, my own experiment done a few years back showed that a 6 week brood break did not reduce the varroa population by any worthwhile amount. Non reproductive mites can live up to a year. During a brood break they just go into non reproductive mode. In my opinion brood breaks to get rid of mites are a great sounding theory, that's about it.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> the point is that you are still in the proving stage of your program, and yet don't shy away from rendering absolute positions.
> 
> adopting some metrics as fusion power has proposed might give you something more concrete to report. this and a few years of forward progress on those metrics would make your offerings here more palatable.
> 
> truly, i wish you well with your efforts and hope that you are rewarded with the desired outcome.


You, among others, object to what you call my 'absolute positions'. I've tried before to explain why I think this is, properly done, a perfectly good move. Lets have one more go. You're a reasonable chap SP, and perhaps I'll be able to get you to say: 'ah yes, I see what you mean. You're right to take an absolute stand on this one.'

I think the problem is rooted in my understanding that the facts of inherited traits, natural selection for the fittest strains, are not optional beliefs, *they're facts*. And as facts - that is, *descriptions of unchanging realities*, they can be used in logical modelling to supply real knowledge of the world. (If the facts are true, and the the logic is valid, then the conclusions must be sound)

The natural world is a strictly logical place. Firm descriptions of realities plus valid logic therefore lead with certainty to further real knowledge

Lets take gravity as an example. We'll agree that gravity is a universal force, and that an effect of gravity here on earth is that any unsupported object falls. (Radar will supply a silly counterexample, but lets agree to ignore him in advance)

Having this real knowledge of the world, we can now form logical arguments that should, if valid, also be true of the world: 

A direct corrollary: since *all* unsupported objects fall, *any* unsupported object *will* fall.

Another: any sufficiently supported object won't fall. (And the mechanics: sufficiency is defined by force meeting counterforce)

Lets go back to that first corrollary: did you see what we did? We made an argument:

Premise: Gravity is universal

Entailment: *All* unsupported objects subject to Earth's gravity *will* fall

*The entailment is every bit as truthful and forceful as the premise from which it springs.*

Equipped with this understanding we can make statements of things that we cannot see or touch, and yet know them to be true. 

"_*If*_ your wingsail tears free of your frame, then (given no further support) you and your handglider *will* plunge to the ground."

"In all your cupboards, none of your possessions are floating unsupported in the air"

I know that if universal gravity is true, these statement *must* be true.

I don't need to know you personally, or visit your house, or look in your cupboards.

Agreed?

Now lets do a similar things with the univeral laws of evolution.

***
Premise: Evolution is universal

Entailment: *All* populations *are subject to * evolutionary pressures, causing adaptation (or termination) [1]

Yours, mine, Radar's, Fred's. All of them. 

A further entailment (the negation of the first): Relieving pressure *will* prevent adaptation.

Always. Everywhere.

(We should hedge that around a bit - write 'tend to' prevent... for example, to take account of the fact that we're dealing with features on a spectrum rather than binary options. But that takes nothing away from the position. "Relieving pressure *will* tend to prevent adaptation." is every bit as forceful)

***

Now: take that argument between the stars, and focus on that alone. Can you punch a hole in it? If not, can you accept it? 

If neither, then you have a problem. Its not my problem, its yours. 

Agreed?

------------

To this forceful case we can now add the empirical evidence and the expert testimony.

The basic understanding of evolution was supplied 150 years ago by Darwin [Thank you for the correction Graham]. Since then it has been explored to the nth degree: no-one has shot even the smallest hole in it. You won't find anyone educated in the bio-evolutionary facts taking issue with any of this. 

All breeders and generational husbandrymen acknowledge the mechanics of inherired traits. That's what 'breeding' - in its larger sense *is*. 

All competent bee breeders will acknowledge the absolute reality of the same principles. 

On such overwhelming grounds I take the absolute view that *anyone* treating/intevening *in any way* to allieviate varroa *will*, unless steps are taken to ameliorate, _contribute to the suppression or reversal of any progress toward inbuilt resistance in their local population_. 

That is simply a fact.

I don't expect everyone to like the fact! Many people are both financially and emotionally attached to veiwpoints that conflict with them. Some people lack the basic educational requirement that would allow them to grasp the fact. But facts are facts. I'm not going to waver from them simply because they are inconvenient or difficult to some people. That isn't how knowledge is gained, and maintained.

If I took time could make a better job of that; but does that outline of my reasoning help you understand this business of an absolute position viz a viz interventions in beehives?

Mike (UK)

[1] I've changed the wording there to take account of OTs complaint


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Premise: Evolution is universal
> 
> Entailment: *All* populations *will* adapt to evolutionary pressures
> 
> Yours, mine, Radar's, Fred's. All of them.
> 
> A further entailment (the negation of the first): Relieving pressure *will* prevent adaptation.
> 
> Always. Everywhere.


Your premise is too absolutist. Historically and factually, some populations have adapted. Some have not. Some have gone extinct.

Adaption is not as certain as gravity, and no guarantee of it is set in stone.

Implying that the laws of gravity are certain, so that somehow means that anything else you say is also certain, is something of a leap, and in fact a non argument.



mike bispham said:


> All competent bee breeders will acknowledge the absolute reality same principles.


No. Too absolutist again, you may be surprised how many breeders would disagree with some of your assertions.

The basic understanding of evolution was not supplied 200 years ago by Darwin.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Historically and factually, some populations have adapted. Some have not. Some have gone extinct.


I have changed the wording and added a note.


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI

Oldtimer, to post #155. In the north of the US it is possible to keep bees by using a brood break to control mites. That is probably because of the additional extended broodless period caused by our extended periods of very cold weather. There is often no brood from late October until mid-February. This combnation of 2 broodless periods is enough to keep the mites below an economic threshold. This winter period both bees and beekeepers in this area have endured a total of more than 40 days of weather that had 0 degrees F or lower.
The reason I am a proponent of brood breaks for TF beekeepers in the north is that when I entered my 3rd year of beekeeping I had 4 out of 11 survive the winter. As I went through my records and deadouts I observed that the surviving hives had all endured a brood break. This paralleled the experience of Mel Disselkoen and convinced me that keeping bees by following his theory was a practical way to be self sufficient.
Using Mel's brood break principles and Mike Palmers nuc methods is working for me. Here is a link to a youtube video I shot which shows the harshness of our environment. This was over a month ago, and we still have 0 degree days in the extended forecast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxjDa6mB_co


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Adaption is not as certain as gravity... .


(As amended) response to pressure is.



Oldtimer said:


> The basic understanding of evolution was not supplied 200 years ago by Darwin.


Quite right (thank you Graham); 150 years ago



Oldtimer said:


> Implying that the laws of gravity are certain, so that somehow means that anything else you say is also certain, is something of a leap, and in fact a non argument.


You are confused. The example of entailments and corollories within the law of universal gravitation was used to as a way of supplying an explanation of the same features in respect of population adaptation/response to pressures.

Just as... gravity is applicable everywhere, allowing us to make absolutely reliable predictions about unsupported objects, 

So:

Population response to pressures is applicable everywhere, allowing us to make absolutely reliable predictions about the effects of interventions that allieviate any pressures.

That's because both are 'universal laws', or 'principles' according to science:

"Biologists agree that descent with modification is one of the most reliably established facts in science.[8] 

[8] National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine (2008). Science, Evolution, and Creationism. National Academy Press. ISBN 0-309-10586-2.

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> The basic understanding of evolution was supplied 200 years ago by Darwin.



200 years ago Charles Darwin was a _5 year old child_.  


He was born 12 February 1809. His book, _On the Origin of Species_, was published in November 1859.


:gh:


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> 200 years ago Charles Darwin was a _5 year old child_.
> 
> He was born 12 February 1809. His book, _On the Origin of Species_, was published in November 1859.


Thank you for the correction Graham. I've amended my posts above and credited you on each occasion.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Oldtimer, to post #155. In the north of the US it is possible to keep bees by using a brood break to control mites.....


Well I'm not in the US so if you say so I will have to take your word for it.

My own theory on it is if you have bees that actually attack, or as the vernacular goes, chew, the mites, then a brood break may help cos the mites would all be exposed to the bees. The bees I did the experiment on did not appear to have the ability to attack the mites so after the 6 week brood break, ie, the queens were caged in the hives for 6 weeks, mite numbers were virtually unchanged. 

So it could be one of those things dependent on local bees & local climate, I'd still be interested in a larger scale trial though in an area such as your own, to see if the bees really would have survived anyway, even though from your statistics it appears the brood break made the difference but it was still a small sample.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Thank you for the correction Graham. I've amended my posts above and credited you on each occasion.
> 
> Mike (UK)


So. Now who was confused?


----------



## beekuk

mike bispham said:


> Thank you for the correction Graham. I've amended my posts above and credited you on each occasion.
> 
> Mike (UK)


 Perhaps you should of read posts 90 and 91, in response to your post 86, in this thread, you would of known about Darwins age earlier, Mike.


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## squarepeg

mike,

in an earlier thread you stated that breeding for natural resistance to varroa was your prime objective above and beyond all others. to that end yes i see what you mean and why you are absolute.

most folks keeping bees however have objectives that extend beyond that and to them those objectives are just as or even more important.

most of us here concede that we are interfering with the natural processes by virtue keeping bees in an artificial setting, disrupting them over and again, removing their hard won resources, deciding which genes get propagated, ect.

who's to say that our husbandry is helping or hurting the species vs. making them more suitable for our means?

and how far do we take 'able to thrive without a beekeeper'? my guess is that many colonies would better thrive if the beekeeper were removed from the equation, but that's not beekeeping. perhaps it is better said 'able to thrive despite the beekeeper'.

should we assume that your approach would even preclude introducing small cell foundation into the hive? after all, the bees would never draw their comb in such a way were it not forced upon them by the beekeeper.

i would never begrudge you or anyone else the privilege to do with your bees as you will. i have tried my best to present my views and the reasons why i think most of the others aren't ready to embrace what you are proposing. perhaps i'll get an 'ah yes' from you.


----------



## Oldtimer

I also don't really think it's ethical to go back in time to previous posts that have been answered / argued by others, change the posts, then change the answers to the questions, once a post has been replied to it should not retrospectively be changed, other than maybe grammar or similar.

However it is good to see you bend slightly from a few absolutes, but your explanation in post 160 shows you still think there is a relationship between the law of gravity and your personal beliefs about adaptation, but there isn't.

Oh. I see you have now changed that post also.


----------



## Fusion_power

Darwin's theory of evolution was based entirely on a false premise. http://sharebookspublishing.com/system/files/Return-to-Resistance.pdf And before you start that, let me say that the entire premise of vertical vs horizontal resistance is a false dichotomy. He raises many relevant points even then.

As for statements that our universe is logical, may I remind you that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that it is NOT. Then again, maybe by convoluted logic, constants aren't, variables don't, logic isn't.


----------



## Oldtimer

Mike I think I can explain where you are confused. See the part of your quote I have highlighted. 



mike bispham said:


> Just as... gravity is applicable everywhere, allowing us to make absolutely reliable predictions about unsupported objects,
> 
> So:
> 
> Population response to pressures is applicable everywhere, allowing us to make absolutely reliable predictions about the effects of interventions that allieviate any pressures.
> 
> That's because both are 'universal laws', or 'principles' according to science:
> 
> *"Biologists agree that descent with modification is one of the most reliably established facts in science.[8] *
> 
> [8] National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine (2008). Science, Evolution, and Creationism. National Academy Press. ISBN 0-309-10586-2.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Biologists may well agree on that, and in fact nearly everybody would agree on it. But did it say every time? No. That's the part you are missing. The quote in essence says adaptation CAN happen. It is quite plain however it does not always happen, as evidenced for example, by the many extinctions that have happened when a species FAILED TO ADAPT. The part of your theory that I believe to be incorrect, is the belief that adaptation invariably happens, every time. That is too absolutist because there is no law that says it has to, and reality is it often does not.

When I did my bond experiment, did the bees adapt to the mites? No. They died. Your statements are too absolutist and your theories / beliefs not as invariable as gravity.


----------



## Oldtimer

FP how are you saying that the entire premise of vertical vs horizontal resistance is a false dichotomy? Presumably as defined in the article you linked, which I thought was pretty good.


----------



## squarepeg

for what it's worth,

if there is any consensus among beekeepers it is that there is not consensus among beekeepers.

my view regarding treatment free is that the primary concern is with introducing chemicals into the hives. the thinking is that these can have a toxic effect on the bees themselves, can contaminate the wax and the honey, can disrupt the normal microflora, as well as interfere with the natural adaptation of mite resistance.

since powdered sugar dusting was included as a treatment in the special forum rules, the practice of doing things that go beyond adding chemcals being a treatment was contemplated. the idea being that anything that interferes with the natural process of selection goes against the spirit of being treatment free. 

i can see how some could argue the same for artificial brood breaks and introducing small cell foundation. my own view is that it makes more sense to be a pragmatist than a purist when it comes to these considerations.

the special forum rules were put in place to serve as a guideline for the discussions here rather than to be the definitive description of what is 'treatment free'.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> mike,
> 
> in an earlier thread you stated that breeding for natural resistance to varroa was your prime objective above and beyond all others. to that end yes i see what you mean and why you are absolute.


SP,

I don't think that's the nature of the absolutism under discussion. It isn't about what we might choose to do, its about what we know, and how we know it. It is epistemic absolutism.

I've tried to sure that enough is known about the 'laws' underlying oganic populations to be certain that pressures result in responses (adaptations) through natural selection, and the corollary: that removal of those pressures prevent such adaptation.

Whether, or how, we want to use that knowledge is another matter entirely. The point is that is justified knowledge, and therefore we are justified in holding it to be always true - we can be absolute about it.



squarepeg said:


> most folks keeping bees however have objectives that extend beyond that and to them those objectives are just as or even more important.


I don't think anything is more important than true knowledge under any crcumstanaces. False beliefs get you nowhere fast.



squarepeg said:


> most of us here concede that we are interfering with the natural processes by virtue keeping bees in an artificial setting, disrupting them over and again, removing their hard won resources, deciding which genes get propagated, ect.
> 
> who's to say that our husbandry is helping or hurting the species vs. making them more suitable for our means?


Quite aside from any wider ethical questions, are you not interested in knowing which interefernces will result in long term benefits, and which will result in long term problems? To make those prediction you have to know how things work. Then you can know which interences are helpful to your long term aims and which are harmful to those same aims. Without a basic understanding of evolutionary biology (and the certainties that inhere it it) that's impossible. 



squarepeg said:


> ...and how far do we take 'able to thrive without a beekeeper'? my guess is that many colonies would better thrive if the beekeeper were removed from the equation, but that's not beekeeping. perhaps it is better said 'able to thrive despite the beekeeper'.


I'll take FP's recent formulation. 



squarepeg said:


> should we assume that your approach would even preclude introducing small cell foundation into the hive? after all, the bees would never draw their comb in such a way were it not forced upon them by the beekeeper.


I don't use it and don't want to. Making bees that can survive only on artificial small cell won't do my ferals any favours, and as you know I'm very keen on my ferals.



squarepeg said:


> i would never begrudge you or anyone else the privilege to do with your bees as you will. i have tried my best to present my views and the reasons why i think most of the others aren't ready to embrace what you are proposing. perhaps i'll get an 'ah yes' from you.


I greatly appreciate your approach SP. I won't agree that I'll never begrudge anyone making their own choices. That's a recipe for social as well as biological disaster. We have to be regulated - one way or another - in all sorts of areas, to stop the powerful grinding the weak into the dust, to stop selfish agents taking for themselves things that belong to all of us. Beekeeping is no different. But all that is another topic entirely. This is about what we can know, and how we can bring that to bear on our understanding of the long term effects of artificial brood breaks.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> I also don't really think it's ethical to go back in time to previous posts that have been answered / argued by others, change the posts, then change the answers to the questions, once a post has been replied to it should not retrospectively be changed, other than maybe grammar or similar.
> 
> However it is good to see you bend slightly from a few absolutes, but your explanation in post 160 shows you still think there is a relationship between the law of gravity and your personal beliefs about adaptation, but there isn't.
> 
> Oh. I see you have now changed that post also.


Not on that score. I only changed to to reflect the corrections due to yourself and Graham.

I haven't bent on any of my absolutes. When I see you levitate into view I'll think hard about it.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> We have to be regulated - one way or another - in all sorts of areas, [HIGHLIGHT] to stop the powerful grinding the weak into the dust, [/HIGHLIGHT] to stop selfish agents taking for themselves things that belong to all of us. Beekeeping is no different.


But Mike, here you are arguing *against *the laws of nature! :lpf:

_Survival of the fittest_ is a exactly that, 'grinding the weak into the dust'. Its what Mother Nature does best.


:gh:


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> Darwin's theory of evolution was based entirely on a false premise. http://sharebookspublishing.com/system/files/Return-to-Resistance.pdf


Perhaps you could direct us to where in that 500 odd page document that position is asserted; then explain why we should take the author's word for it?

I can find you thousands of documents online that claim Darwin was wrong. What I need is a good reason to believe them.

(I haven't read it but it looks like an interesting document. I'll be surprised to find the author fundamnetally at odds with Darwin - so please do show)



Fusion_power said:


> And before you start that, let me say that the entire premise of vertical vs horizontal resistance is a false dichotomy.


What has that to do with the fundamentals? Right or wrong, its a detail.



Fusion_power said:


> He raises many relevant points even then.


Who? Darwin? He's credited across the scientific board with unlocking the problem of the origins of species, and much more beside. 

But you know better?



Fusion_power said:


> As for statements that our universe is logical, may I remind you that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that it is NOT.


The Uncertainty Principle is primarily epistemic. It say we cannot* know* (if the cat is dead). For that reason we must act (in our reasoning) as if it were simultaniously dead and alive. Or something of that kind. 

Even if other wierder interpretation are right, there is no question that all reality *above the level* of fundamental particles/energy operates in a perfectly logical manner. All of science is premised upon that understanding (science wouldn't be possible at all if it didn't).

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> _Survival of the fittest_ is a exactly that, 'grinding the weak into the dust'. Its what Mother Nature does best.


Sure. Do we want to live in a world in which people are allowed to do that to other people?

The laws of men are distinct from the 'laws of the jungle' - because we choose not to live that way.

While mankind is the product of nature, he is not nature. Nature is what happens without human (or divine) interference - by definition.

I know this seems complicated Graham, but stick with that distinction and you'll be able to follow the conversation.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Mike I think I can explain where you are confused. See the part of your quote I have highlighted.
> 
> ("Biologists agree that descent with modification is one of the most reliably established facts in science.[8]"
> 
> Biologists may well agree on that, and in fact nearly everybody would agree on it. But did it say every time? No.


Yes. It wouldn't be a 'principle' if it didn't happen every time. That's one of the fundamental qualities of 'principles'.

'Fact' it says. Not 'part time-'fact''. 'Not some-place-but-not-others 'fact'' 



Oldtimer said:


> That's the part you are missing. The quote in essence says adaptation CAN happen. It is quite plain however it does not always happen, as evidenced for example, by the many extinctions that have happened when a species FAILED TO ADAPT.


As you know I amended that formulation to 'respond to'? Please address the revised formulation or we'll be arguing at cross purposes.

Sometimes the response is inadequate, certainly. That's not at issue.

The claim is: treatments/intervention relieve the pressure that would otherwise lead, unerringly, toward adaption. There is no claim that in every population, no matter how small, that adaption will succeed.

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

Beekeepers are like politicians....There's the middle, left, right, far left, far right and none of them ever agree. Everyone has their methods. Consider this There is a small trend or maybe not a trend just an observation in this thread. Did anyone else notice that the Alabama beekeepers seem to be having success. I know its off topic, but then again so is the whole thread. Is there anything here worth exploring or just a coincidence. 

So Ladies and Gentlemen can we agree to respect the others methods and ideas and move on to something more productive. This horse has been beat to ground meat.


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## squarepeg

duncan, there are beekeepers in other parts of the country having success as well. we do have some advantages here; namely very diverse and abundant plant life, not much monocrop, a relatively clean environment, and ferals that may trace their origins to a.m.m. and survived the infux of varroa.


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## squarepeg

"The claim is: treatments/intervention relieve the pressure that would otherwise lead, unerringly, toward adaption. There is no claim that in every population, no matter how small, that adaption will succeed."

seems pretty straighforward to me.

as you say mike, going beyond that claim to assessing the risks/benefits of applying treatments/intervention is a separate consideration, as is the question of whether or not we as beekeepers can have a big enough impact to make a difference in the long haul.


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## Fusion_power

> there is no question that all reality above the level of fundamental particles/energy operates in a perfectly logical manner


This is precisely what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says is wrong. Not slightly wrong, not partially wrong, just plain wrong. It is not a matter of proving you are wrong, you were proven wrong 100 years ago. I am not challenging you to prove this one way or another, just please take another look at the paradigm involved and consider what would happen if everything really were logical and recognize that our lives are not necessarily logical.

Re Darwin, He did not at the time know anything about Mendel or the mechanisms of genetic inheritance. His view was that all inheritance was miscible, somewhat like mixing two different colored liquids to achieve any desired color in between the originals. What Mendel proved is that genes are inherited in discrete segments, and that evolution goes in stops and starts, and sometimes sudden leaps. This was counter to the premise of Darwin's theory. Please note that I am not saying that Darwin's concept was wrong, only that the premise on which he based his theory was faulty. Mendel's paper was published in 1865 or thereabouts and not widely recognized for significance until 1900. Darwin pre-dated Mendel.

Oldtimer, he makes a very convincing case, but it is a false dichotomy because he tries to separate genetic resistance mechanisms into one or the other of two positions. There are multiple positions, therefore it is not a dichotomy. Here are examples to prove it.

Potatoes have a leaf surface protein that prevents infection by many forms of late blight. But some variants of late blight have devised a chemical key that attaches to these proteins and opens a path to infect the cells. Robinson equates this to a key/lock based resistance mechanism and calls it "vertical" resistance.

Tomatoes produce a chemical called tomatene which you can think of as a general purpose anti-infection alkaloid. Production of tomatene is regulated by genes that can be up-regulated, in other words, the amount of tomatene produced can be increased or decreased by the plant. The plant breeder can selectively breed from plants that over-express tomatene production with the resulting plant exhibiting much higher general resistance to fungal infections. This system can be equated to horizontal resistance from his book.

But then there are other genetic systems such as turning on or off a gene in a plant which is required for an infection to occur. Southern Blight in tomato exhibits this pattern where a tomato gene is deactivated resulting in the plant being highly resistant to infection. This mechanism is not truly vertical resistance, nor is it horizontal resistance as he defines the terms.

So my statement that it is a false dichotomy is because plants are not limited to just two categories of resistance genes. Or put another way, a geneticist is not limited to black and white, he also can see red, blue, orange, green, yellow, etc.


----------



## rhaldridge

mike bispham said:


> This year I'll be using a traditional method (following Ruttner). This is based on having dedicated brood hives that supply brood to made-up nucs.
> 
> Queens mated in small mating hives with just a cupful of bees are introduced to newly made nucs comprising a couple of brood frames from such hives, together with as many flying bees as you want to add (which again would probably be best sourced from dedicated hives).


Well, it will be interesting to learn if this circumvention of the bees' natural process of reproduction will have no unforeseen negative consequences. Good luck.


----------



## beemandan

Oldtimer said:


> I also don't really think it's ethical to go back in time to previous posts that have been answered / argued by others, change the posts, then change the answers to the questions, once a post has been replied to it should not retrospectively be changed, other than maybe grammar or similar.


OT....rewriting history is a time honored tradition in some circles.


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## Oldtimer

Ha Ha! 

I've made some bloopers that are an embarrassment, didn't go back and change them though would have been an insult to those clever enough to persuade me to change my position. They are still there showing logical progression of the discussion & I've fessed up I was wrong a few times. 

Maybe for some folks, retrospectively changing what they said would be the nearest they would ever get to an admission to being wrong. There is still more needs to be changed that has not been done yet though.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Yes. It wouldn't be a 'principle' if it didn't happen every time. That's one of the fundamental qualities of 'principles'.


OK well it does not happen every time as you have now been shown, so by your argument it is fundamentally no longer a principle.


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> This is precisely what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says is wrong. Not slightly wrong, not partially wrong, just plain wrong. It is not a matter of proving you are wrong, you were proven wrong 100 years ago. I am not challenging you to prove this one way or another, just please take another look at the paradigm involved and consider what would happen if everything really were logical and recognize that our lives are not necessarily logical.


This is from Wiki. Note the critical terms I have emboldened:

In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle known as complementary variables, such as position x and momentum p, *can be known* simultaneously. 

The original heuristic argument that such a limit should exist was given by Heisenberg, after whom it is sometimes named the Heisenberg principle. This ascribes the *uncertainty* in the measurable quantities to the jolt-like disturbance triggered by the act of observation.

*The principle refers to what can be known*. _Not what is_. It is statement of _epstemic _significance (about knowledge and its limits), not a statement of *metaphysical* significance (about the world we want have knowledge of). 

Whether we escape the determinism implied by a logical world is an open question. It hinges on whether consciousness is a) immaterial, and b) a determinant of agency (rather than an after-effect). Interestingly, if conciousness is immaterial and capable of agency, then humans (and presumably animals) escape the (universal) 1st law of thermodynamics. We are super-physical. 

Other than (apparently) conscious agents, the remainder of the world (that is, the Natural world) is accepted as entirely deterministic. Logical. As I said before, without that assumption there could be no knowledge, no science. 

None of which is relevant to the topic (and we are on-topic to the extent that we are talking about the effects of artificial brood breaks.)



Fusion_power said:


> What Mendel proved is that genes are inherited in discrete segments, and that evolution goes in stops and starts, and sometimes sudden leaps. This was counter to the premise of Darwin's theory.


In what way does this counter Darwin's major insight - that all species are related, and that the mechanism of differentiation is natural selection of the fittest strains by adaptation following pressure from different environments and environmental changes?



Fusion_power said:


> Please note that I am not saying that Darwin's concept was wrong, only that the premise on which he based his theory was faulty.


What premise? 

It wasn't, of course, a complete explanation of everything related to evolutionary biology. Mendel built on Darwins work, beginning the process of *uncovering the causes of inheritance*. Thousands of others have added understanding since. Its still going on today. 

None of which has shown his primary insight to be wrong.



Fusion_power said:


> So my statement that it is a false dichotomy is because plants are not limited to just two categories of resistance genes. Or put another way, a geneticist is not limited to black and white, he also can see red, blue, orange, green, yellow, etc.


None of that (and btw I don't recognise your account of horizontal and vertical transmission) makes the slightest difference to what I'm saying. I'm talking about the primary mechanism of adaptation, which is selection of the fittest strains. Period. 

Left to themselves populations adapt to changes in their environment (including new diseases and predators) through the mechanism of natural selection for the fittest strains. (And if they don't they become extinct.) One corollary is that if you remove the pressure for change it won't happen.

That's the bottom-level bio-evolutionary account of population changes, and nothing that goes on at a higher level contradicts it in any way. Its the way things work.

If you want sick bees try finding sick bees and making new ones from those. If you want to challenge Darwin, try to make a commercial apiary using a systematic program of selective breeding from your weakest bees.

You all know it would be absurd to do those things because the results are predictable. They're predictable because Darwin remains right. Always, everywhere. The fittest offspring come from the fittest parents. Its simple. Stop trying to wriggle out of it.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

rhaldridge said:


> Well, it will be interesting to learn if this circumvention of the bees' natural process of reproduction will have no unforeseen negative consequences. Good luck.


You're welcome Ray. 

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> The fittest offspring come from the fittest parents. Its simple. Stop trying to wriggle out of it.


So after millions of years of "survival of the fittest" the World today is full of healthy, strong and intelligent people and living organisms?!


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> "The claim is: treatments/intervention relieve the pressure that would otherwise lead, unerringly, toward adaption. There is no claim that in every population, no matter how small, that adaption will succeed."
> 
> seems pretty straighforward to me.
> 
> as you say mike, going beyond that claim to assessing the risks/benefits of applying treatments/intervention is a separate consideration, as is the question of whether or not we as beekeepers can have a big enough impact to make a difference in the long haul.


Another angle. Lets see where the brood-breaker's advocacy leads.

Lets imagine that in the next few years 'treatment free' beekeeping discovers that it can keep bees perfectly well through the use of systematic brood breaks. On the other side of the fence 'normal' beekeepers find they can keep bees perfectly well by cycling a range of substance-treatments. Everyone is happy.

The same varroa-vulnerable bees fly happily over the fence, exchanging dna without any sort of drawback.

There are no viable ferals near any artifically-maintained bees - they can only survive in pockets of marginal forage far from beekeepers. 

Is that it? Is that the satisfactory end-game of 'Treatment free'? Is that what we wanted all along? 

Will we get (otherwise) healthy bees that way? 'Healthy enough'?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> So after millions of years of "survival of the fittest" the World today is full of healthy, strong and intelligent people and living organisms?!


That remark reveals to me the depth of your ignorance of Nature's ways Bernhard. 

You'll be aware no doubt that people have medicines, and go to great lengths to look after each other. 

The natural world (where we haven't screwed things up) is, yes, largely full of very healthy individuals. But they're the ones that remain after the weaker have been killed by disease or predation, winter starvation, same species competition. Those that become unhealthy generally get taken out pretty quickly. 

Furthermore, often only a small percentage of the males mate - the strongest. That means the less strong don't contribute to the next generation.

Nature winnows the weaker hard in every generation. As a result the next generation gets the best genes in the greatest number, and the best chance of surviving, thriving, reproducing.

*Each generation is thus made (by and large) from the best of the last.*

Anytime you inhibit that *process* you weaken the next generation. 

(That's a logical corollary that you may or may not appreciate. But its real enough. Think about it.)

The reason for this, the reason it can never stop, is because: *all the disease organisms and predators are constantly evolving new ways of taking your energy for their own purposes*. Its often described as an 'arms race'. There's no 'end result' - no super-strain that can thrive under any circumstances - because the circumstances constantly change. 

*That understanding forms the foundation of husbandry*. You undercut the micro-predators by making each new generation only from those that successfully combatted them - there and then. Copying Nature's method. The genes that worked best in the last generation supply the best change of flourishing in the next.

[remove personal attack]

As for people, yep, probably we're storing up a whole lot of trouble. But we're good at inventing new medical approaches. 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> If you want sick bees try finding sick bees and making new ones from those. If you want to challenge Darwin, try to make a commercial apiary using a systematic program of selective breeding from your weakest bees.
> You all know it would be absurd to do those things because the results are predictable. They're predictable because Darwin remains right. Always, everywhere.


Actually Mike you may get a surprise if you tried that the results may not be as picture perfect predictable as you believe.

I have now observed more than 40 years of selective breeding of bees, from the best. Are the bees any better than 40 years ago? Not in my opinion, I think they are pretty much the same. My own observation is our selective breeding of bees does not actually achieve much in the overall scheme of things.


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> That remark reveals to me the depth of your ignorance of Nature's ways Bernhard.


Oh Mike, I lived quite wild in my life and spent more time out in the woods than at the computer. I actually can live from the land if I have to. Learned a lot of the bush skills needed out there. What about you? I reckon if you can live (not survive, live) in the woods you pretty much understand nature's ways.

A bee sting is real to me.

I don't think the fittest, hardest and strongest survive in the long run. But those who understand to make their way through the Golden Mean. Who are not ideal but average. Right between ideals and reality. Which is the optimum. The optimum is the mean of an ideal and reality. 

Form follows function. 

And on top of that, those living creatures survive, that understand and learned to join with other living creatures. Forming groups to battle against the hardnesses of life. Your own body is the best example. Your body consists of hundred and millions of tiny creatures, bacterias and mites (Yeah, mites...) and all of them are absolutely necessary for your body to live. 

The bottom line is, that those who understand to form a community, will survive. Even if the single creature is tiny, weak and soft and not strong, it'll survive through the community. It evens wins over the strong and hard individual. The best example of life working is a bee hive. You should spend more time with the Bien instead of reading old overaged books. 

To me hard, strong individuals and creatures lead to specialization. One can't be good in all abilities/skills. To become strong in one of the skills, one has to specialize. To specialize means to shrink the ability to adapt. Not being able to adapt means to become extinct in the long run.

Yeah, that's what the woods told me about life. This is why I see so many average people all over the World living in communities. It the way to survive and live. It is what I see in bee hives. 

So the best way to get surviving and thriving bee hives is to breed for the ability to adapt under a wide range of circumstances.

Bernhard


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Oh Mike, I lived quite wild in my life and spent more time out in the woods than at the computer. I actually can live from the land if I have to. Learned a lot of the bush skills needed out there. What about you? I reckon if you can live (not survive, live) in the woods you pretty much understand nature's ways.


Oh Bernhard, whatever makes you think bush skills equip you to be a competent husbandryman? Husbandry (farming) comes after the hunter-gatherer stage, didn't you know? 



BernhardHeuvel said:


> The bottom line is, that those who understand to form a community, will survive.


Sometimes. Some organisms have evolved as social animals, some as solitary ones. I'm not advocating breeding honeybees away from being 'social' insects toward being solitary insects!

Thinking of bee colonies as 'communities' in the usual sense is misleading. True 'social' animals comprise a range of individuals, each competing (and joining with ours to out-compete with other sub-groups and outside groups) - and the results show up in the future generations.

A bee colony is a single 'individual'. Only the queen counts. For bees to form communities in the normal sense each hive would have to come to the defence of other nearby hives. This doesn't happen Bernhard.



BernhardHeuvel said:


> Even if the single creature is tiny, weak and soft and not strong, it'll survive through the community. It evens wins over the strong and hard individual. The best example of life working is a bee hive. You should spend more time with the Bien instead of reading old overaged books.


Bernhard you're wrong if you think running around in the woods has taught you anything about animal husbandry. Since you're obviously a 'warreior' ('Bien') why don't you read your own master on the topic of husbandry and selective propagation?

I was taught beekeeping (and much else) in large part by a countryman with generations of husbandry behind him. What he know fitted perfectly with what I learned in Biology at school, and what learned in conversations, and eavesdropping on conversations, with the farming community in the pub and village life, and what I read of Darwin's explanation.




BernhardHeuvel said:


> So the best way to get surviving and thriving bee hives is to breed for the ability to adapt under a wide range of circumstances.


Breed for an ability to adapt eh? Is that 'adapt' in the nomal sense or 'adapt' in the evolutionary sense? Do you actually understand the difference?

Still at least we're breeding now. Do you breed systematically away from vulnerability to varroa Benhard? 

Mike (UK)


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## D Semple

Oldtimer said:


> My own observation is our selective breeding of bees does not actually achieve much in the overall scheme of things.


Bingo!


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> A bee colony is a single 'individual'. [HIGHLIGHT] Only the queen counts. [/HIGHLIGHT]


A very ... _curious _... statement. 

Once mated, how many times does the queen leave the hive? :scratch: How does nectar and pollen foraging occur? :s




:gh:


----------



## JWChesnut

Oldtimer said:


> My own observation is our selective breeding of bees does not actually achieve much in the overall scheme of things.


Bee's have evolved a breeding mechanism to ensure stability across millions of years - Polyandry and obligate outcrossing. Bispham's assumption that a season or two of his strict tutelage will change the organism is naive.

A backyard scheme to breed out bees using coarse survival will produce a crippled inbred -- if implemented with its caveats. Effective population size trumps other considerations of "survival purity" in the genome.


----------



## Fusion_power

Honeybee breeding is a good example of a breeding principle known as "trending toward the mean" or similar terms to describe what happens when a large population freely interbreeds. The only way to make improvements (they are not improvements from the bee's perspective) is to isolate selected colonies so that the "mean" can be changed. This is why Oldtimer can talk about bees relatively unchanged in 40 years. The only time major changes occur in bee genetics is when major selection pressure is exerted. This is why there are regional species of honeybee. Climate exerts major selection pressure over a long period of time. Varroa represent a similar but more widespread event. The selection pressure is extreme, only resistant colonies survive in a natural setting. Because selection pressure has been so extreme, I can see clear changes in the genetics of the feral population here in this area. Apis Mellifera Mellifera genetics were on the losing end of this battle in most areas. However, the best mite tolerance I found from a feral colony likely had a strong dose of A.M.M. genes.

I took the hard approach to breeding varroa resistant bees in 2005 by going totally treatment free and letting the bees die if they were not tolerant. I tipped the scales in my favor by starting with measurable levels of tolerance. This would be a very expensive proposition for anyone given that they start with unselected bees. I would love to see mite tolerant genetics spread throughout the world, but this won't happen until beekeepers demand changes by queen breeders.

Mike Bispham, you have descended from somewhat coherent and rational posts to the point of absurdity and personal attacks. Please go back and read the book I linked that discusses resistance mechanisms. It has information you could have used to strengthen your position considerably. More important, it would have given you some very useful tips for working with resistance genetics. Though the book is written about plants, the principles it describes can be adapted and applied to any breeding program.

Unless something changes significantly, I will not participate further in this thread. Nothing new is being presented and what is being presented is past the point of educational benefit.


----------



## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> Bee's have evolved a breeding mechanism to ensure stability across millions of years - Polyandry and obligate outcrossing. Bispham's assumption that a season or two of his strict tutelage will change the organism is naive.


As you well know Chestnut I'm not making any such assumption.

I'm following the path of collecting individuals that already have a degree of resistance, then undertaking a structured long term program designed to protect and further that resistance.

As outlined by E.H. Erickson et al, Marla Spivak in the US, Kefuss in France, Ratnieks, and Carreck in the UK. All pretty straightforward.

All entirely consistent with the principles of breeding, mirroring Darwin's account of Natural Selection for the Fittest Strains, as outlined by Ruttner, one of the most respected and influential bee breeders of all time; echoed by Manley who's accounts of his own successful bee farming supply exactly the same understanding.

Simple stuff people. Not all that easy to put into practice, but not all that hard either.



JWChesnut said:


> A backyard scheme to breed out bees using coarse survival will produce a crippled inbred -- if implemented with its caveats. Effective population size trumps other considerations of "survival purity" in the genome.


You've just told us about the bees polyandry and obligate outcrossing that makes life hard for the bee breeder. That protective mechanism is exactly what will prevent inbreeding. 

Being rude and making unwarrented, contradictory and unsubstantiated claims isn't going to convince many people JC.

I really don't know what your game is. How you can keep spouting this rubbish is completely beyond me. 

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

bernhardheuvel said:


> the bottom line is, that those who understand to form a community, will survive. Even if the single creature is tiny, weak and soft and not strong, it'll survive through the community. It evens wins over the strong and hard individual. The best example of life working is a bee hive. You should spend more time with the bien instead of reading old overaged books. Bernhard


amen brother!!!


----------



## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> Honeybee breeding is a good example of a breeding principle known as "trending toward the mean" or similar terms to describe what happens when a large population freely interbreeds. The only way to make improvements (they are not improvements from the bee's perspective) is to isolate selected colonies so that the "mean" can be changed.


We recently went through the problems with the term 'isolation.' And I outlined the 2 key mechanisms that allow bee breeders to fully compensate for lack of male-side control (Raising multiple queens and requeening; deliberately raising large numbers of drones from selected stocks). 

This is not a case of trending toward a mean - which is what happens in natural populations. Its a case of firm, if slightly haphazard, pressure. And that has the desired effect - as is attested by the list of expert witnesses supplied in the last post (with the exception of the UK personel, who also use more high tech methods) 



Fusion_power said:


> This is why Oldtimer can talk about bees relatively unchanged in 40 years.


A perfectly good alternative account is that he's not very good at it. Alternative, he is quite good at it, and if he hadn't been breeding his yields would have deteriorated dramatically. We'll never know.



Fusion_power said:


> The only time major changes occur in bee genetics is when major selection pressure is exerted.


Well, 'major' is a bit vague. Quite what counts as 'change' needs qualifying. But we can say, without fear of contradiction, the stronger the pressure the faster the adaptation (given that adaptation is possible within the population). 

In feral populations where varroa has rapidly run through, populations have adapted and returned to prior levels in just a few generations. That is because the effect of varroa was so strong - it wiped out all but the 10% ish that had some resistance. The populations then rebuilt from those few resistant individuals. That has undoubtedly happened tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of times during the 20 million or so years the Honeybee has existed. It happens to all species from time to time. It's part of Nature. 

Does that count as a 'major change'? 



Fusion_power said:


> Varroa represent a similar but more widespread event. The selection pressure is extreme, only resistant colonies survive in a natural setting. Because selection pressure has been so extreme, I can see clear changes in the genetics of the feral population here in this area. Apis Mellifera Mellifera genetics were on the losing end of this battle in most areas. However, the best mite tolerance I found from a feral colony likely had a strong dose of A.M.M. genes.


Those observations are perfectly consistent with the account I have given above. However, one swallow does not a summer make... Keep applying the pressure. Whatever you do, avoid allieviating the pressure...



Fusion_power said:


> Mike Bispham, you have descended from somewhat coherent and rational posts to the point of absurdity and personal attacks.


I have, I agree, been irritated by the ill mannered and obtuse nature of some posters, and have responded in kind. (Your unnecessary use of my surname is an example) But I offer olive branches on a regular basis, and I don't accept them from others only to turn round and bite their hands 5 minutes later. 

I haven't fallen from rational argument in any way. If you want to show where and how I've done so do go ahead. Alternatively, respond to some of the direct questions I've put to you about your own position. 



Fusion_power said:


> Please go back and read the book I linked that discusses resistance mechanisms. It has information you could have used to strengthen your position considerably. More important, it would have given you some very useful tips for working with resistance genetics. Though the book is written about plants, the principles it describes can be adapted and applied to any breeding program.


I've asked you to direct me to the places in that large document which contain the information you say it contains. You haven't. You can't just say: Here's a great big book that tells you this, and not supply detail on where. That isn't how it works. If you want to make reference to a text, for the purpose of substantiating your position, you have to guide people to that text.



Fusion_power said:


> Unless something changes significantly, I will not participate further in this thread. Nothing new is being presented and what is being presented is past the point of educational benefit.


You haven't been participating in the conversation anyway FP. All you've been doing is throwing in unsubstantiated opinions, and silently declining requests to substantiate them. I think I'd be retreating if I were in your position too.

Still: I recognise we're on the same side. And, it hasn't been that bad! I hope next time we meet we'll be able work more constructively. 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I have, I agree, been irritated by the ill mannered and obtuse nature of some posters, and have responded in kind. (Your *unnecessary use of my surname* is an example)





mike bispham said:


> As you well know *Chestnut* I'm not making any such assumption.
> I'm following tha path of collecting individuals that already have a degree of resistance, then undertaking a structured long term program designed to protect and further that resistance.


Mike you speak with the arrogance, or certainty, of somebody who has already achieved his goals. At this time, best I can tell, your rather simplistic attempt has not achieved anything.



mike bispham said:


> [ This is why Oldtimer can talk about bees relatively unchanged in 40 years.] A perfectly good alternative account is that he's not very good at it. Alternative, he is quite good at it, and if he hadn't been breeding his yields would have deteriorated dramatically.


Another alternative is that you do not have the experience to know. You missed my meaning. I was talking about bee breeding by humans. Not just bee breeding by myself.

Fusion Power, to whom you have been so obnoxious, in fact has what I consider a correct take on this. My comment was in relation to the effect of breeding by humans over the last 40 years. As Fusion Power correctly pointed out, pressure from varroa is a lot more all encompassing than what humans can achieve.
Personally though I would take this one further. I still do not think the huiman attempts at breeding mite resistance have achieved much. The best run breeding programs include such as the US VSH program. It is possible that feral (not influenced by man) bees, have achieved more than human run programs. Much of this “breeding” has not been true breeding. It is that of the wide array of lineages that exist in the US, the presence of mites has reduced some and brought others to the fore. That’s all.

The member you refer to as “Chestnut” said that bees have established a breeding mechanisim to ensure stability across millions of years. He speaks the truth, bees, more than nearly any other animal, have. Take mites away and see what happens within a few years. It’s because they have been around a long time. We do not know if Mellifera have already dealt with mite plagues in the past. But mites have not been nor will be the only threat they face and they have within themselves the technology as a species to deal with them. Which is why for me anyway, I take a more holistic view than an obsession with mites and mites alone.


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## jbraun

At this point it appears there is NO natural resistance to varroa. Unless you consider Minnesota Hygenics or VSH. 

As far as thinking of a 2 year old hive a survivor hive I think you are fooling yourself. That hive is still strong from it's recent split. I've always heard that if you do nothing to a hive they will be dead in 3 years. A 4 year old hive WOULD be a survivor.

Mels methods rely on making new, strong hives every season. That's treatment free but high maintenance. That may work for us hobbyists, but not for commercial guys.

It appears we are years or decades away from any relief.


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## mike bispham

jbraun said:


> At this point it appears there is NO natural resistance to varroa.


That opinion could only be held by somebody who hasn't followed the literature, spoken with other beekeepers, or observed the recovery of local wild populations at first hand away from treating apiaries. 

Natural resistance is well understood and well documented. 

The disruption of natural adaptation to varroa due to systematic treatments is also well understood.

Mike (UK)


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## Duncan Thacker

mike bispham said:


> That opinion could only be held by somebody who hasn't followed the literature, spoken with other beekeepers, or observed the recovery of local wild populations at first hand away from treating apiaries.
> 
> Natural resistance is well understood and well documented.
> 
> The disruption of natural adaptation to varroa due to systematic treatments is also well understood.
> 
> Mike (UK)


That pretty much sums it up!!!!!!


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## rhaldridge

jbraun said:


> At this point it appears there is NO natural resistance to varroa. Unless you consider Minnesota Hygenics or VSH.


What about Beeweaver?


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## mike bispham

jbraun said:


> At this point it appears there is NO natural resistance to varroa. Unless you consider Minnesota Hygenics or VSH.


This doesn't actually make sense either. Its wrong in more ways than one.

Mike (UK)


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## Michael Bush

>At this point it appears there is NO natural resistance to varroa.

There are not only millions of feral colonies surviving, there are many beekeepers with hives surviving with no Varroa treatments for a decade or more. It's a mystery to me that people can keep saying this. I was at the Ohio state meeting and the panel on the stage was answering questions and one person on the panel said something in response to the idea of not treating and stated that bees might just go extinct and that they could not survive without treatments. Dan O'Hanlon was on my left and he said something to the effect of "my bees haven't been treated in a decade and they are still alive. Michael here hasn't treated his in that long and they are still alive..." I honestly don't understand how anyone can claim there are not bees surviving without treatments. Everyone I know who does cutouts and swarms on a large scale have no shortage of bees to collect from houses and trees where they often have been living for decades. Yes, I know the old "how do you know they aren't recent swarms from a beekeeper" argument. Recent swarms from a beekeeper have bees 150% bigger in volume than feral bees. They are obvious. If you need someone with more "credibility", Dr. Thomas Seeley has been studying the feral bees in Arnot forest since the 70s and they are still alive and still not being treated.


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## JSL

Michael mentioned Tom Seeley and the Arnot forest. I was at a conference one time and Tom spoke about the bee population in Arnot forest and how it has been at a stable level since he began studying it. After the talk, I asked him if the colonies were "stable". He response was interesting to me. He said no, colonies come and go. Nest sites change somewhat as a colony dies or a new one is made available. I think once you get a population to a critical mass it becomes less about the individual colony, but more about the population as a whole.


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## Michael Bush

> He said no, colonies come and go.

In nature the population has to hit an equilibrium of what the forage and habitat will sustain. For this to happen, they swarm, some die, but all in all the population stays the same. That is true in nature for all creatures in the long run.


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