# Treating to Become Treatment Free



## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

I have not overwintered yet. Swarms and packages have died in previous years. Typically the population goes from high to 0 in < 1 week in the fall.

I am using strong treatments (oxalic acid vaporization) for the first time this year. I have 3 packages. I treated them in spring 

Treatments so far (done on all hives):

1 in spring
a round on days 0, 2, 7, 12, 17 and ending on 7/19 (Without counting, each hive appeared to drop thousands of mites.)
My bees:

went from 0 hives to 3 packages this spring
I'm not doing mite counts right now, and assuming they are not hygienic. 
After 1 month, they replaced all their queens.
look Italian: I plan to steal honey boxes and give them back at the right times to control winter eating.
all foundationless mediums
small top and smaller bottom entrance
insulated top cover
screened bottom boards
no excluders
plans:

Be TF in 3 years.
If hives do well, order TF queens for the spring.
Breed those queens and use excluders to include my bad drones.
Treat next year's hives if they fail tests, and use the untreated hives for breeding and requeening treated hives. 
not treating swarms unless they fail a test


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

David, start your next treatment round of OAV this weekend. You should be able to count the drops this time around.


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## Sickdog5 (Jun 8, 2016)

Small time bee keeper only 10 hives. I run all screened bottom boards. This time of year after i pull my last honey for the season i go into brood chamber and cover bee's with powdered sugar. They clean each other and mites fall off. So i guess i am chemical not treatment free lol. All my hives made it through winter last year knock on wood.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

I plan to steal honey boxes and give them back at the right times to control winter eating.

So this sounds hokey. how do you know when they are Hungary? if they want food and do not have it , it will end bad. opening them several times in winter is not advised. I have never heard of this kind of winter food management. My best suggestion is to find some one wintering bees in your area and talk to them about what they do to be successful. maybe start at a local Bee Club. the temperature is what controls winter eating, bees use the carbs to shiver with the wing muscles to produce heat. the word "Control" in this statement has me "concerned for your bees"
GG


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I suspect that in MA you will need two 10 frame mediums of capped stores per hive going into winter. If your bees store more than that, maybe save it for spring but do not try to "manage" their carb intake. I missed a feeding on an overwintered nuc that had run out of stores and and they starved to death in four days.


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## Sickdog5 (Jun 8, 2016)

JWPalmer said:


> I suspect that in MA you will need two 10 frame mediums of capped stores per hive going into winter. If your bees store more than that, maybe save it for spring but do not try to "manage" their carb intake. I missed a feeding on an overwintered nuc that had run out of stores and and they starved to death in four days.


 I have similar climate. Mine survived last year on 1 deep and 1 med super full


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

Thanks for advice. I won't steel the honey. I thought Italians ate more. The colonies are about equal strength. They filled 27 frames 2 weeks ago, so I added boxes, and moved 1 brood frame up in each 4th box. After 1.5 weeks I checked the strong colony. It made 2 frames of new comb in the top box. I think they are in a dearth. We had record rain this whole season, and it rained heavy during the typical drought. I should probably feed now.

the spring supersedures:
They were foraging heavy in the spring, I open fed some honey and they ignored it for >3 days. The queens died in May or June. I swapped brood and queen cells 2 or 3 times at weekly intervals. I cut the walls of a small number of eggs/larvae cells on the bottom of comb, so they could make queens there. The queen cells were huge. The new queens made lots of brood.

Treatments:
The last round ended 7/19. I am definitely treating at the winter broodless time. Until then, I might do one more round.

Some desirable features of the possible fall treatment round:

low brood production (after the period of max deceleration)
low rate of immigrant mites coming in
low mites when winter bees are made
Advice on when to treat and feed helps.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

I finished my second 5 treatment OAV round <1 week ago. I don't have a scale on me. I evened out hives in late summer. They all have about 33 drawn medium frames. For honey, they have 1 frame on top, 6 frames in the next box down (with brood in other frames). I lifted the lightest hive, and estimate its 80 lbs without the outer cover. They now have top entrances only that are about 2-4 inches. I'm going to reduce some with wet toilet paper to make them even. I plan to open feed 33 lbs sugar per hive now. Once they take it, I will move the drawn frames in the top to one side and remove empties. This will give me a space to put in dry sugar in November and spring. I think I will feed some test sugar. This Friday to next Tues. will be 73-84 F. I hope they take this. In late spring, they ignored open fed honey for 3 days. I will probably treat after feeding. The brood production might accelerate during feeding, and I should treat when it decelerates.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

When i went TF, it was cold turkey, no treatment at all, no matter what. Followed the advice being given at the time, that supposedly 10% of hives will survive, and they are the basis of your breeding stock.

Turned out to be bad advice in my case anyway, cos I lost 100% of the hives. Total waste.

So yes SeaCucumber, your approach of treating to achieve TF can be the more sensible path, sometimes. You have package bees, and report drops of thousands of mites, so without treatment, you would likely lose them all over winter. Replacing with TF queens in spring is also the correct next step.

Just, people report that there are TF queens, and TF queens. Just be sure to get them from a reliable source.

Re your current treatment regime, You have laid out a plan and an end date. But be ready to extend the end date, the end date should be when you are getting no more or at least minimal mite drop when the treatment is done. And other than that, pack plenty of food into those hives.


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## Alex Madsen (Aug 26, 2018)

Model for becoming treatment-free:

Darwinian Beekeeping by Tom Seeley
https://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/darwinian-beekeeping


Darwinian black box selection for resistance to settled invasive Varroa destructor parasites in honey bees by Tjeerd Blacquie`re . Willem Boot . Johan Calis . Arrigo Moro . Peter Neumann . Delphine Panziera
https://www.apiservices.biz/documents/articles-en/darwinian_black_box_resistance_varroa.pdf

Selective Breeding For Mite-Resistance: Walking The Walk by Randy Olive
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/selective-breeding-for-mite-resistance-walking-the-walk/


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

SeaCucumber said:


> Share your experiences and advice on using treatments to become treatment free (TF).


Find a location to keep bees that has a robust and sustained population of feral bees nearby. Cutout some old established colonies, trap some feral swarms, or purchase some untreated and long established bees. Don’t treat them. Keep fairly small, natural sized colonies. Make nucs or trap swarms to replace colonies that are lost. Keep a few more colonies than you want to use for producing honey. Relax, take deep breaths, and let the bees sweat the hard stuff.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Riverderwent said:


> Find a location to keep bees that has a robust and sustained population of feral bees nearby. Cutout some old established colonies, trap some feral swarms, or purchase some untreated and long established bees. .


I'm not moving!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Everytime I see the suject of this thread I think of a saying of a friend of mine, which I can't repeat here, at least not the way he said it... but it went something like this "its like copulating for virginity"


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Or use non chemical methods.

Crazy Roland


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

Can't go treatment free with dead bees. Do whatever to keep them alive and, as you said, introduce more resistant bees if such are available. Rinse and repeat. I'm a little guy and it's blind luck if my current few hives are resistant at all. I got OA and I'll use it if they look mitey. 

Speaking of which, it's time for another deep dive into the hives. Won't be too much longer until numbers start to fall and that's when the mites get concentrated on fewer bees.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

I am going to say some heresy now...

IMO no chem treatment is necessary at all for bees with near-zero resistance.
In place of it - a forced late swarming will do (a late shook swarm done on the existing bees, for example - sometimes in mid/late August for my location).
It is a mechanical manipulation and will be considered a "treatment" by some.
Fine by me - this is not a chem intrusion and works in my book.
Late bees swarms do occur naturally and every year I always caught late swarms (until this year).

Since I have wintered successfully very late captured swarms (late August swarms, to be exact), I am pretty sure - that is a satisfactory way.
If any of these died in my hands - it was due to poor equipment issues (e.g. I had a moisture case), not due to mite-related issues.

Basically, you shake all bees into a resource-less hive (including the queen somewhere there) and have them start anew from near nothing (thus receiving a brood brake).
You must support this hive - feed and provide empty combs if available.

The remaining bees will keep all the resources and will support themselves (and even do some extra) and will have to raise a new queen (and thus receive a late brood brake).

This move is contingent upon availability of the drones for mating. 
Pretty obvious.

I am becoming of an opinion that a good doze of shocking the bees also shocks the mites.
Mites LOVE it when the bees are successful and growing (which in turn allows the mites to be successful and keep growing as well).

PS: as it turned out, this season I am running the late shook swarm case myself using a pretty worthless line of bees I happen to have (as reported in my "blog" thread);
until this year I simply always had late swarms captured of any unknown origin and mites were the least of my concern with them - the later swarm, the less of a mite concern.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Another heretic;

What's the difference in "stress" on the bees (or soft Bond) between hard treating and soft treating? Either way you are making them survive in the hope you can spot the cure. If it were not for the 100 % problem, no treatment and breed from the survivors is the obvious long term path.

Lecture all you want for "stressing" the bees, just don't be a 100% denier.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Saltybee said:


> Another heretic;
> 
> What's the difference in "stress" on the bees (or soft Bond) between hard treating and soft treating? Either way you are making them survive in the hope you can spot the cure. If it were not for the 100 % problem, no treatment and breed from the survivors is the obvious long term path.
> 
> Lecture all you want for "stressing" the bees, just don't be a 100% denier.


Who is 100% denier?

Some of my bees died due to mites - beyond a reasonable doubt.
But from that I learned few things to NOT repeat again AND I don't AND it helps.

One such thing to avoid at all cost - transfer of brood frames between unrelated colonies.
Killed few good bees by that.

I'd rather reduce the survival chance but don't transfer brood again (with mites in it).
That rule alone is a big consideration as for me.
One routine advice I see a lot - "give 'em some brood".
I say - ONLY from a related colony (mother or sister) if absolutely must.

But more importantly, I don't care if few units tank. 
Good riddance. 
All I need to do - to have enough units on hand, so I can afford loosing few.
Good units will usually stick around and it works out well.

Stressing bees is good for them (at a reasonable level).
Just as stressing myself is good for me (at a reasonable level).
No stress is bad and is unhealthy.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Manipulation is a form of treatment. A good logical treatment on the way to TF. A true feral is the only untreated bee, still waiting for one to land near me.

There is still a tone of; " I'm purer than you, I only use natural, etc., you use chemicals." 
I will give most of those posters they are paying a lot more attention to improving the stock than I am. Whether they are looking at the right details I am not sure. 

I would not say you are a denier, more of a minimizer of the obstacles for others, but that is just my take. 

As for your path; keep up the good work and send those drones out into the field.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Saltybee said:


> ...... *send those drones out into the field ..................... A true feral is the only untreated bee, still waiting for one to land near me*.


Have been.
No matter how much honey and drone comb it may cost me. 
Does not matter.
This season I have two large resource units doing nothing but working on propagation projects for me (including drone generation).
I am, in fact, working on benefiting myself by doing the drones.

But also I have to say this... 
Did any of the mite complainers every try to bring in any resistant stock?
If you are in the US and the pending year is 2020 - the choices are many and keep buying the 0% resistant bee is not really reasonable anymore.
I don't know why not at least try it and see for yourself what happens.

What are you waiting for?
Just get your feral/TF bee in the mail and be on your way forward.
I have done the same 3 years ago now.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Saltybee said:


> Manipulation is a form of treatment.....


If you are a FT purist - sure.
Being CF is good enough for me.

Done my 2 years of working with the aggressive chems (cleaning food plant) - enough is enough.
The damage is probably irreversible and the long-term results - who knows.
Making your valuable long-term queen be sniffing the OA - not beneficial to her either.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Saltybee said:


> Another heretic;
> 
> What's the difference in "stress" on the bees (or soft Bond) between hard treating and soft treating? ....


Btw, back to this:

- bees swarm naturally (even if late in season);
- bees also abscond naturally (when under stress) - that is their normal way to deal with the stress;
- bees do NOT treat themselves with Oxalic acid.

That's your difference.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If you want to make sure you have at least SOME bees survive every winter think about the odds and adjust your number of hives as you can. To make the math simple, let's assume your area has an average 50% survival rate. If you have one hive that gives you a 50% chance of having a surviving hive in the spring. If you have two hives you have a 50% chance of having two hive survive and an 75% chance of one hive surviving or just a 1 in 4 chance of none surviving. if you have four hives you have a 50% chance of having four hive survive but you have a 1 in 16 chance of having no survivors in the spring. If you have eight hives you now have a 1 in 256 chance of having none in the spring (mathematically speaking assuming the 50/50 chance hasn't changed). Of course in reality a bad fall or a really harsh winter has an effect as well, but you can see the change in the odds. So seven is a nice number of hives if you want to have REALLY good odds of having a hive survive to spring.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Michael Bush said:


> .... So *seven is a nice number *of hives if you want to have REALLY good odds of having a hive survive to spring.


With this in mind, I just end up sending into winter about 14-15 units (large and small) and so far always have more than enough bees. 
I can not keep up and lost swarms this summer (too busy to keep up).
It's OK though and just works towards the same goal - better local population.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I don't understand the let them die philosophy... treat them, requeen.... Empty boxes aren't worth much in Spring. Also, most don't cycle enough generations per year to make much progress.... If you really are trying to integrate/shift to feral genetics etc... you need to get daughters from all the generations constantly and evaluate what you're getting and how each subsequent generation may or may not be progressing. Once you start finding decent queens with fair survivability, then you can focus on a few good breeders etc... Also, the length of your season probably plays a significant role as well... longer seasons will see more mite pressure than shorter ones.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I don't understand the let them die philosophy...

Because you have several misunderstandings. First you assume if you treat they won't die and if you don't treat they will die. My experience won't bear that out. Second you are not taking into account that if you let the ones that SHOULD die, die (the ones that die without treatments) then you get the genetics you need (the ones that survive without treatments). Treating is not a long term solution. Not treating IS the long term solution.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

A pile of dead workers is just a pile of dead workers. There is no genetic impact one way or the other, live or die. A pile of unborn poor drones may have a genetic benefit, but a weak hive is not going to spit out a pile of strong, fast flying drones.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Saltybee said:


> .......but a weak hive is not going to spit out a pile of strong, fast flying drones.


My CF drone output was great.
Them drones are still flying too - I hope the area was well served.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Here's the chart the percent likelyhood of having a surviving colony in the spring based on the number of hives and a 50% survival rate:
Hives %
7 = 99%
6 = 98 %
5 = 95%
4 = 93%
3= 87%
2=75%
1= 50%


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>A pile of dead workers is just a pile of dead workers.

You seem to be making two assumptions:
1) that you can predict the demise of a colony
and
2) that treating will prevent that demise

I have not found either to be true.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I'd take a slight issue with that. Predicting the demise of a colony can be done, and for commercial beekeepers it's a major part of what we do.

Colonies likely to perish are identified, and then something is done to prevent that. Which could be treating if the problem is mites, feeding if the problem is lack of feed, requeening if the problem is queen related, etc...

IMO saying that predicting the demise of a colony cannot be done, and doing anything about it also cannot be done, is a fatalistic approach that will lead new beekeepers to lazy, non productive beekeeping.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Michael Bush said:


> Here's the chart the percent likelyhood of having a surviving colony in the spring based on the number of hives and a 50% survival rate:
> Hives %
> 7 = 99%
> 6 = 98 %
> ...


Michael:

I am assuming those percentages are based off of average package/nuc purchases that come from treated (non-survivor) stock. But let's say I was willing to suffer the losses and work this plan for 10 years, keeping only "survivors." What can I expect my percentages to be in ten years? In 10 years, how many hives would I need to go into winter with to have a 99% chance of coming out with a single colony? 

You have been treatment free for 40 years. What are your loss percentages each year?

I believe you when you say that "treating is not a long term solution." But losing 1/2 or more of my hives every Fall/Winter is not a long term solution for me. When should I start seeing the "survivor effect" in my apiaries and my tf losses start moving down? 

I know there is no formula for this, but I am just trying to get an idea of what I could reasonably expect.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

psm1212 said:


> .......I know there is no formula for this, but I am just trying to get an idea of what I could reasonably expect.


I see you are from Alabama.
This means folks like SP and/or FP should be within a driving distance.
I would personally introduce myself to these folks long ago and the rest is kind of obvious.
Have you done that yet?
If not, why not?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> ....... lazy, non productive beekeeping.


What is "lazy, unproductive beekeeping" exactly?

No, I don't produce lots of honey - putting that away, right away.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> >I don't understand the let them die philosophy...
> 
> Because you have several misunderstandings. First you assume if you treat they won't die and if you don't treat they will die. My experience won't bear that out. Second you are not taking into account that if you let the ones that SHOULD die, die (the ones that die without treatments) then you get the genetics you need (the ones that survive without treatments). Treating is not a long term solution. Not treating IS the long term solution.


Yes, but i'm not treating them to let them live... I'm treating them to increase their chances of surviving so I can use their resources with new genetics... boxes with bees in them come spring are worth a lot more to me than empty boxes. Say i'm starting out, i get 5 hives.... what's the point of watching them all dwindle and die and have 0 hives come spring when you can treat them and possibly save most of them and have 3-4 hives come spring that you requeen etc... It's hard to get queens in and stuff w/o bees....


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Having a hard time picturing a better "stress test" of genetics than bringing a hive back from failure by re queening.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

GregV said:


> Have you done that yet?
> If not, why not?


I follow SP's long-running thread. His apiary is not doing so well right now, but I am a big fan and enjoy his posts. As to why I don't drive to these people's houses for introductions, I generally don't do that to those that post anonymously on internet message boards.

Care to take a stab at any of my questions above?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

psm1212 said:


> I follow SP's long-running thread. His apiary is not doing so well right now, but I am a big fan and enjoy his posts. As to why I don't drive to these people's houses for introductions, I generally don't do that to those that post anonymously on internet message boards.
> 
> Care to take a stab at any of my questions above?


Well, if living in AL, I would at least send a PM and ask about material availability.
But it is me, and the time is too short not to give it an honest try.
For sure, I know the TF folk around me and don't shy away from collaboration.
Anyway....

As for the Qs - I dunno your answers and I would not put out any #s anyway because I did not spend the time studying what they are.
Fortunately for me, bees do not underwrite my paycheck and I don't spend much money on them either.

You are welcome to follow my thread, I put up my honest unit survival #s are out there as things develop.
So far the compounded losses have been greater than 50% (compounded #s means - ALL losses where the true mite losses where only the fraction).


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

I will do that Greg. I have a "remote" yard picked out for this Spring. The plan is to graft queens from some of my better colonies and start some nucs there. I have not set out a lot of swarm traps in a few years, but I plan to this Spring with the idea of setting these up in my "remote" yard. I will probably sprinkle in one or two mail-order queens in the mix as well. 

My plan is to do spring splits and do fall brood breaks via caging queens w/ drone removal. Our season is so long, I can almost count on a natural swarm every summer, even from spring splits, especially when I do nothing to discourage it. So three brood breaks and no chemical treatments. 

I am just trying to get my mind right about what I can reasonably expect. It is going to be difficult for me to deal with 50% losses in perpetuity. I will need to see loss percentages trending downward at some point. I just don't know what point. 

Not sure I will have the patience or the stomach for this, but I want to do it.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I am assuming those percentages are based off of average package/nuc purchases that come from treated (non-survivor) stock. But let's say I was willing to suffer the losses and work this plan for 10 years, keeping only "survivors." What can I expect my percentages to be in ten years? In 10 years, how many hives would I need to go into winter with to have a 99% chance of coming out with a single colony?

A lot of places have losses in the range of 50% but mostly I picked it because it's easy to do the math. 

>You have been treatment free for 40 years. What are your loss percentages each year?

It depends on the winter. In a "normal" winter about 80% survive (20% losses). In a very nice winter (cold enough to keep them from being too active but not a lot of sub zero weather) it probably runs 90% survival. But then I also try to overwinter smaller colonies than I used to since some of them do survive. I could cut that number by doing fall combines of the smaller colonies.

>I believe you when you say that "treating is not a long term solution." But losing 1/2 or more of my hives every Fall/Winter is not a long term solution for me. 

If you split enough to make up the loses then you are staying even.

>When should I start seeing the "survivor effect" in my apiaries and my tf losses start moving down?

A lot of winter survival is good beekeeping and that takes both practice and study. For instance, you need to always insure you get that last batch of young bees going into winter. Some years there is not enough of a fall flow for this to happen. Some years it happens quite naturally. I'm not saying you are a bad beekeeper, but experience is a great asset to keeping bees alive.

>I know there is no formula for this, but I am just trying to get an idea of what I could reasonably expect.

Every year is different. Your other beekeeping practices have a lot to do with survival. A lot of people are treating and losing half or more of their bees. Sometimes all of them. Between viruses, mites, poor genetics, small gene pool, poor queens, getting bees through the winter has gotten hard. Check out the Bee Informed Partnership to compare treating with not treating and get average losses for your location under both circumstances. Then take into account that as you get more experience and as you make good decisions, like local treatment free stock, natural cell size, etc. you can improve on those numbers.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

StevenG, a poster from years ago, is ..to the best of my knowledge....still treatment free. The source of his genetics was one of the Weavers. It always helps to stand on someone else's shoulders.

Listen to Oldtimer also., it is obvious her has been around awhile (no offense intended).. Others are showing their inexperience (offense intended).

Crazy Roland


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

psm1212 said:


> I will do that Greg. ....... It is going to be difficult for me to deal with 50% losses in perpetuity. I will need to see loss percentages trending downward at some point. I just don't know what point.
> 
> Not sure I will have the patience or the stomach for this, but I want to do it.


Well, like I have been ranting in my "blog" - one must work with the population (either existing or freshly created).
Otherwise it is a looser. 
You can not sit on 2-3 hives and proclaim to be a TF - it is a looser.

So - until you have such population, you are fighting a loosing battle.
IF you have a big enough population already - you are in luck.
ELSE - you must create the population and maintain it to your advantage (collaboration with others helps; bringing proven outside stock helps OR is mandatory, depending on the case).
I have ranted enough already.
This is exactly what I have been doing for the last couple of years, once I understood the subject well enough.
Takes some patience and a cool head (some bees will die, then so be it).


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Roland said:


> StevenG, a poster from years ago, is ..to the best of my knowledge....still treatment free. The source of his genetics was one of the Weavers. It always helps to stand on someone else's shoulders.
> 
> Listen to Oldtimer also., it is obvious her has been around awhile (no offense intended).. Others are showing their inexperience (offense intended).
> 
> Crazy Roland


I guess some of us, the inexperienced people here, are already running genetics from the Weavers..
Meanwhile, OT's experience is not much applicable here anyway - we are in N. America of all places; NZ nuances are not much applicable.
As OT himself stated - beekeeping is local.
Moving along....


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

I have to admit that I really hate the topic of treatment free vs. treating. It seems to bring out the worst in people and I have seen numerous poster leave, never to return because of the heated discussions that turned nasty. The reality in life is that under natural conditions, about 50% of all hive will perish in a given year. Here is why. If the land can support X number of hives, and every healthy hive swarms in the spring, you will now have 2X hives on land that can only support half that many. In a really good year, a bit more than 50% may survive, in a bad year less will survive. In the long run, it averages out to 50%. Even if you take the dreaded varroa mite out of the equation, on average, 50% of all hives would still die in a given year. The cause of the deaths may be mites, bears, lightning strikes, starvation, not returning from mating flights or other diseases. But you will still lose, on average, 50% of the hives. What treatment free beekeepers are doing is simply letting nature take its natural course under what are actually unnatural conditions. Yes, they may have losses you feel are cruel or not necessary but it is no worse than what nature hands out without human interference. FYI, I do realize the math above is flawed because in a given year, you will never get every hive to swarm. In some years most will swarm and there will be a bunch of after swarms too. In other years, few hives will swarm. But in order to keep the balance, for every hive that swarms, some hive will die because the land cannot support the additional load. If 10% of the hives swarm, you will have (again on average) 10% losses. 

I am not a treatment free beekeeper. I am a small time beekeeper (20 +/- hives) doing what I can to make a little extra money and mostly to have fun. 20% – 50% losses are not acceptable to me. In spring, under the best of conditions (actually totally unrealistic conditions), my twenty 20 frame hives could be split into 80 five frame nucs. I could sell 60 of them and keep 20 which will grow into full sized hives so I can do it all again next year. If I lose 50% every winter, I could split the 10 remaining hives into 40 nucs, sell 20 and still have my 20 to get ready for the next year. The problem is that losing 50% of the hives would give me a 66% loss in sales. That is not very economical. 

Please note that what is above is not what I actually do with beekeeping. I do sell a few hives and nucs every year, raise a few queens and sell a bit of honey too. The biggest struggle I now have is keeping the number of hives down, not keeping them alive. I have not had over 10% losses in several years now. 

I started out trying treatment free and lost every hive 3 years in a row. My personal experience shows me that treating properly will reduce your losses significantly. But it must be done correctly. There is a huge difference between treating at the right time and in the right manner when compared with treating at the wrong time in an incorrect manner. I have seen the statistics on losses posted by BIP and others. But I always have to ask how well versed were these beekeepers in how to properly use the products they treated with? I also ask how did they monitor their hives before treatment and after? How many times have we seen posters make comments like “I treated my bees in July with a one time OAD and now in December they are all dead. What happened?” Clearly the wrong product applied at the wrong time of year. New and fairly new beekeepers are practically famous for not using the available products in the correct manner. 

Enough of my rant for the day. SeaCucumber (David), If you want to treat to become treatment free, here is my advice. There is no time like the present to begin your journey. Treat the bees to reduce the number of mites to a manageable number and go treatment free from that point on. You will have given them the best start possible. Or, stop treatments today and become a treatment free beekeeper now. You will either succeed, or you won’t. But either way, you will have done your best. There is a lot of information on treatment free beekeeping in the treatment free forum. Use it. Get queens from reputable treatment free apiaries and use any and all ideas you can find. Finally, think positively. Believing it can be done is the first and most important step.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

> I have seen the statistics on losses posted by BIP and others. But I always have to ask how well versed were these beekeepers in how to properly use the products they treated with?

Yes. I'm afraid the statistics on both sides, treatment and treatment free, are prone to that. What I would like to see is a comparison of experienced beekeepers who know what they are doing and if treating, following the recommendations, and if not, that are managing bees in a treatment free manner consistent with good beekeeping (other than the issue of treating or not). I suspect the numbers are skewed in both categories by people who don't know what they are doing or are not following directions...


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

The applicability of Oldtimer's knowledge was questioned above due to it not being local. I disagree. It is the understanding of fundamental principles of chemistry, biology, physics, genetics, statistics, and of course, the inherent behaviors of our honeybees that is knowledge. This principles do not change with geographical differences. I bet, with a 5 minute briefing, I could jump into bee work in NZ. My father was sent by the State department over seas to a half a dozen countries to assist them, and found that all of his knowledge was applicable.

Crazy Roland


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Roland said:


> The applicability of Oldtimer's knowledge was questioned above due to it not being local.......Crazy Roland


Per this logic, that "TF" person from North America who relocated to NZ was completely correct and should have succeeded at transferring his beekeeping methods from NA to NZ.
A story told by OT.



> understanding of fundamental principles of chemistry, biology, physics, genetics, statistics, and of course, the inherent behaviors of our honeybees that is knowledge.


Show me the person who excels in ALL of the above and at once.
Be honest too.

High school level maybe - that much I can buy.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Roland said:


> This principles do not change with geographical differences. I bet, with a 5 minute briefing, I could jump into bee work in NZ.


I believe so too. 

Just, the briefing may be a bit longer than 5 minutes. But all that would basically have to be shared would be flow dates and patterns, wether or not bees should be treated and for what, and how. Bit of other stuff and I'm sure any decent USA beekeeper would be good to go.

A number of Beesource forum members have holidayed in NZ, called in to see me, and been out and worked bees with me. They were right at home, and so was I with their obvious skills, and the knowledge and tips they could share with me.

In my view, beekeeping IS local. But once the local peculiarities are understood, beekeeping of EHB is pretty much universal.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

The process of obtaining good bees to breed from can be difficult. I have to see if I can winter strong hives with treatments first. Having hives early helps. Not many people sell TF bees, and they don't sell all year. I want to get at least 1 proven queen (or nuc) from someone with a reputation. Ideally, the queens I breed from will look Russian and Carni. I will have time to fail. If my hives are strong in early winter, I will order queens. I will have good hives to put them in. I will have time to make another order if the first one fails, make my queens, and requeen them in time. Mite problems are worst during the large fall drop in brood production when winter bees get made. Before quitting treatments, I want all the bees to be from good queens before late summer. I will try to get any swarms through a winter TF before breeding from them. If a swarm has a queen that looks mostly Russian, I might try to breed a bit from it. Swarms are rare and difficult to get. Most swarm calls are for yellow jackets. I have caught 3 or 4 in traps over the years, and 1 from a call. Cutouts are difficult, unless people are reasonable and local.

My first hive starved. Other years, the same thing happened. They would grow to 3-5 mediums with lots of food and bees. In the fall, over a period of less than 1 week, all the bees disappear. This year, I started out with all the queens failing (a first). I had to swap brood because at times I only had 1 queen. The 3 hives made large queen cells. They had lots of food at the time. At that time, when I open fed honey, they ignored it for 3 days. This honey came from last year from comb that I couldn't insert. I think 1/4 of the comb had pollen. The queen cells were larger than any I've seen on the internet (relative to worker cells). This year, there has been extreme rain. The hives are at 4 mediums. I evened them in July. The top mediums are mostly undrawn. They have a lot more bees this year than other years. Currently they each have 1 small top entrance, and maintain a beard of at least 2 inches. Over the past 3 days, I fed each 33 lbs sugar, with a little honey and tiny amounts of vitamin c (250 mg), vinegar, and lemon. They mostly ate this over 2 days. I mixed a 50 lb sack. They ate it in a day. I mixed another 50 lbs. There are definitely very few hives nearby.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> I believe so too.
> ........
> In my view, beekeeping IS local. But once the local peculiarities are understood, beekeeping of EHB is pretty much universal.


I am sure I can fly in right now and be your hand right away.
I can even bring my own hive tool, smoker, and the jacket.
The basic, utilitarian skills are mostly universal globally - for the most common setups.

Even that is not entirely true - none of us on the BS are even closely qualified to be a bee tree runner (takes tree climbing for a start - a basic skill in that line of business).

Not the point though.

Understanding the local season dynamics, local geography and micro-climate affected by it, flow dynamics, swarming dynamics, pests (skunks, anyone?), regulations, etc, etc
These ARE very much local and are much more important than running a smoker or looking for a queen.
I ran smoker just fine when I was just 7.
That did not make me an *apiary manager*; not even close.
I am just now learning how to be a bee program manager so to try to accomplish my goals.
Now - this is local and only local.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Back when I rode, I could ride a different horse.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

GregV said:


> I am sure I can fly in right now and be your hand right away.


Yes I'm sure we would both enjoy.



GregV said:


> I can even bring my own hive tool, smoker, and the jacket.


Only if you want to get arrested at the airport. 

I have even met some TF beekeepers and talked bees and had some great discussions about TF. The most famous would be Juhani from this forum, great privilege to meet with him. Unfortunately his schedule and family could not allow him time to spend with my bees, but we had a great discussion for an hour or so over lunch at Orewa Beach.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> I have even met some TF beekeepers and talked bees and had some great discussions about TF. The most famous would be Juhani from this forum, great privilege to meet with him.


The pleasure was all mine, thank you!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In case I didn't get it straightened out above, here are the stats on survival of one hive come spring based on different numbers of hives and assuming 50% survival rate:

If you have a 50/50 chance and you have one hive than you have a 50% chance one will be alive in the spring. If you have two hives you have a 75% chance one will be alive in the spring. This is because there are four possible outcomes. Hive 1 is alive and Hive 2 is alive. Hive 1 is alive and Hive 2 is dead, Hive 1 is dead and hive 2 is alive. or both of them are dead. Since only one of those is both of them dead, that's a 1 in 4 chance of no survivors or a 3 in 4 chance (75%) of at least one surviving. At three hives there are 8 possible combinations of who survived of which only one is that all of them are dead or an 87% chance one will surivive. If you have four hives there are 16 possible combinations of which only one is all of them dead, so that's a 94.5% chance that one of them will survive. if you have five hives there are 32 possible combinations of which only one is all of them dead so that is a 99.9% chance that one will still be alive. So at five hives the odds, rounded to the nearest percent are 100%  But of course it's still not really 100%...


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

GregV wrote:

Show me the person who excels in ALL of the above and at once.
Be honest too.

be carefull - what is right next to insanity????

Crazy Roland


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## mischief (Jan 21, 2017)

My goal is to have Treatment Free hives.
I started with the softest treatments I could find, first with FGMO without and then with wintergreen oil. Spring arrived and they had a serious case of DWV.

That year I moved up to Apilife. the Spring treatment dealt with this beautifully. The Fall one didnt and come Spring, I almost lost my hive.
Apivar went in with a mite fall of 189 in a week then nothing for a month. After that had been in for the recommended time, it came out.
Meanwhile, I had slowly been cycling out foundationless frames for Mann Lake 120's that I had to wax myself because I couldnt import wax products. That was slow going because I wasnt used to waxing frames.
I managed to get the brood nest completely onto SC but not with the shoulder shaved down.

Also over summer, fall and winter, I used OAV with minimal mite drops.
I put this down to a number of factors.
1. Very little brood at the start of last Spring.
2. Only one hive with no near neighbours. While I can see bees fly off the property after foraging here in 6 different directions, they may not be all that close or not close enough or have treating beekeepers.
3.Small cell may being playing a part.
4. OAV knocking out what small amounts are there.

This Spring I am continuing with the OAV again with minimal mite drops. 
The hive is in much better condition and I may be able to split it this year.
If so, keeping them going will be the main goal. Hopefully, I will be able to cycle out the SC that are in the hive with ones that have the shoulders shaved down. We'll just see how it goes and let the bees lead the dance on this one.(Eikels quote)


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

Here's what I have right now. I use 10 frame foundationless mediums. I mate with 4 way queen castles, but I wish I made them "3 or 4 way".
- hive 1: 3 mediums: I did makeshift queens. I pulled a divider to combine good + bad nucs. The next day, I installed the 4 frame nuc.
- hive 2: 4 mediums: It has >5x the the traffic of the next biggest hive. There was a sudden population shift. This hive used to be 6 mediums with normal activity and entrances. It had lots of empty frames (2 or 3/box). It got strong in <1 week. I gave it lots of entrance and vent area to shrink the beard (got to ~2 lbs). It superseded and has little brood (but at least 1 egg frame).
- hive 3: 5 or 6 mediums: Its superseding. I harvested queen cells on 6/20 and left 4.
- 6 nucs (2 frame): 1 has eggs and an unfindable queen. 5 have queen cells (inserted 6/20).
- >2 boxes of pollen and >4 boxes of nectar (low estimates)

Stores are very spread out. They used to make pollen frames (95% pollen, 5% drone, the volume of capped honey) and put them at the entrance. I remember when spring highs got to 40-45 F and they foraged. Most had pollen, and they were more active than in the summer last year.

Last year, I started with 3 packages, Queens failed ~6/1 and I swapped larvae and QCs. I fed 100 lbs in fall, and 37 lbs in winter (bricks). I did 3 long fall OAV rounds. The last OAV I did was 12/23 and 12/24. Hives were 4 mediums in winter (~30 frames of comb). I had 1 winter loss. The comb looked good (empty) and there were bees, so I used the resources This year, I will probably check for mites. I'm assuming my bees are bred for >95% TF winter loss.

I ordered 2 Troy Hall queens (ETA: 7/24). They are TF. Years ago, I think he said he got 50% winter loss. I should probably treat before those queens, then make the new hives TF. Do I have enough time to breed from the new queens this year? Will queen excluders before my inner covers be enough to keep the bad drones from mating? I would like drone stopping advice.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Not sure I would worry about drone stopping.
To prevent inbreeding the queen flys out a ways (2 miles) to avoid drones from her locale.

As far as time as long as drones are present you can raise queens. Give it a try with eggs from the first week you have the new queens, 7/24 to 8/5

GG


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

Glad this thread is active again. Keep us informed David.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

Where I'm at: 
I have 5 hives. I did a 20 day OAV in July to prepare for TF queens. >15 mites fell per hive. Last year at the same time, too many mites fell to count (estimate: 200-10k/hive). I installed TF queens in nucs on 7/24. One flew. The 1 I have has a dent in its abdomen. It's laying a lot in a 3 med. hive. If it fails, I loose a year because I won't have a pure bred to graft in the spring.

I'm mating 2 queens from the TF one. I was using excluders to keep my drones from mating, but gave up after 4 days. For this year, my TF hive will stay TF. The rest will get a fall and winter round.

I will make/buy a good cell starter, and feed it syrup regardless of flow. I haven't decided on details, but I want it to have 5-7 frames, 1 grafting fr., and 2 hive top feeders (for water and 1:1 sugar water).

Early next spring, I'm making queens for all hives. I need a way to stop drones from bad hives. I will buy queens next year. I think Mcfarline will ship them earlier. Next time, I will install queens indoors. I should be able to make a batch of queens from Mcfarline eggs before next fall.


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## William Bagwell (Sep 4, 2019)

GregV said:


> One routine advice I see a lot - "give 'em some brood".
> I say - ONLY from a related colony (mother or sister) if absolutely must.


Realize you posted this a few years ago, but have not seen this advice before. Seems logical, however I have violated this 'rule' and was successful. Did I just get lucky?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

William Bagwell said:


> Realize you posted this a few years ago, but have not seen this advice before. Seems logical, however I have violated this 'rule' and was successful. Did I just get lucky?


What I said was in TF context (and only TF context).
I mean by donating brood from the mother or sister, you should get compatible level of mites (not identical, but compatible, i. e. pretty close). This way you kinda/sorta hope you don't add catastrophic # of mites.

If you transfer brood from some dark-horse random colony - you pretty much transferred unknown number of mites. Could be little or could be very high (or anything in between).
So if you are trying to be TF, by random brood transfers, you maybe undercutting your own TF attempts.
Does not matter what your little VSH queen is trying to do IF you randomly dump some heavily infested brood on top of her. She'll not be able to overcome such dumps.

So when you said - you "violated this 'rule' and was successful" - what do you mean exactly?
2-3 attempts don't mean anything outside of bad or good luck.
Do it 50 times, document, then report back and we talk. 

Now, if this does not matter at your location - then great.
In my location, every little thing helps to even have 50/50 shot at survival and I can not even get that much (as I reported in my 5-year TF effort documentation).


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## William Bagwell (Sep 4, 2019)

GregV said:


> What I said was in TF context (and only TF context).
> I mean by donating brood from the mother or sister, you should get compatible level of mites (not identical, but compatible, i. e. pretty close). This way you kinda/sorta hope you don't add catastrophic # of mites.


Thank you. Think I understand what you meant now. Not like I went next door and borrowed a cup of brood  Experiment was further flawed in that the recipient received brood (a week apart) from both a mother / sister and an unrelated hive.

(spelling)


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

William Bagwell said:


> Not like I went next door and borrowed a cup of brood


This would be rather unusual.
But was is rather usual - borrowing brood from some random swarms of unknown origin and status - bad idea. I killed too many worthwhile queens by casual brood transfers before this simple realization.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

plan

Treat and not get TF queens until I get my questions answered. There are very few answers to what I thought were basic essential questions.
After I get answers, and have a few healthy hives, I will start getting TF queens. I have to reduce risk before trying it again.
Get TF queens
Do 5x 20 day OAV. Wait a week. Install queens.
Don't treat those hives until spring unless they're very bad.
Test the queens in spring. The untreated ones with promise are purebloods.

Make half blood queens from the purebloods. Requeen all mudbloods.
Purebloods are TF and purchased (or possibly from a swarm). I will keep purchasing so I have them every year. If they need treatment, they're demoted to half blood and not grafting candidates.
Swarms
marked queens = ASAP treatment
Unmarked ones are pureblood candidates, and get evaluated.

Break my rules after a few years.
Break rules 5 and 6 first. I'll make my own purebloods and not treat swarms.

Gradually reduce treatments. Before being TF, half bloods will only get 1 treatment/year (winter OAV).
Restore hive ecology. This will come from the purebloods.
Possibly switch to Palmer double nucs, so I can winter more hives.
Have the bottom boxes not be shared.
horned hives
double mating nucs that go on these hives.
permanent divider
mini frames perpendicular to the normal ones


Should I use Apivar in my plan? How? Purebloods should start on uncontaminated comb.

Last year I failed with the Hall queens.

some possibilities for the cause

not enough answers about minimum stores
only 1 reply to my thread
I didn't know the minimum summer stores.

I failed 1 queen install because of bad push in cage tutorials. I know the right way now.
open feeding fail: It worked the previous year. I'll avoid it until I know how to eliminate the risk. Robbing during feeding was never a problem.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

David:

While I don't have any answers for you in your TF quest, I do respect that you continue to plug-away at it and are making adjustments based on what you are learning at your specific locale.

I get the sense that that is where most TF (or aspiring TF) operators are at, and I know in my specific experience I observe something new almost every week that goes into the informal mental calculus about possible adjustments to make going forward. 

Best of success to you the remainder of the year.

Russ


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

I'd like to find a better treatment for summer or fall. 
goals

There's no residue by the end of next spring.
different enough from oxalic acid


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

Here's my plan for non-resistant hives.

Use 1 treatment a year that is chemically very different from oxalic acid. This will be in summer. Apivar is probably best. Use oxalic immediately before and after this. This year its Apiguard. Use an alternative to Apivar some years to kill mites resistant to Apivar.
Try to get away with 2 treatment times (1 in summer, 1 at winter solstice).
Making a hive TF (treatment free)

The hives for splits won't have much treatment residue. It will have been 1 year since they had a treatment with a long lasting residue (like Apiguard).
Make a brood break split and give it oxalic.
Get a frame of emerging brood. Put a TF queen on this with a push in cage.
Add the queen frame to the split.
The TF queen will be on a fairly TF frame until it gets out of the push in cage. By then, the rest of the hive won't have much treatment because oxalic wears off fast. Before winter, an alcohol wash will decide if it stays TF.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

How are the hives looking?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

AR1 said:


> How are the hives looking?


A lot of hoopla is designed into that TF plan.
Meanwhile, if you can not run TF for at least 3-5 years straight with tolerable losses - you are still *NOT TF.*
And even then - IF your bees died off at the very end of that 3-5 year TF trial - are you TF?
Not really. 

SC says:


> The TF queen will be on a fairly TF frame until it gets out of the push in cage. By then, the rest of the hive won't have much treatment because oxalic wears off fast. Before winter, an alcohol wash will decide if it stays TF.


So - if the alcohol wash says the bees are "clean" and no more treatments for the season are necessary - are the bees somehow TF now? 

Anyways...
For a specific location is should be pretty darn clear - get some local bees from a guy around the corner (IF these are local bees!!!!).
Give it a 3-5 year TF trial and this is all you need to know - should you bother OR not with the TF in the said location.

"Treating to be become Treatment-Free" makes some sense at complete isolation AND/OR at already promising place.
Before too much jumping about - the potential of the place is to be found out.
If the place is NOT promising up front (most of the places are not), you are doomed to be treating rest of your life "to become Treatment-Free".

How is it Hamilton, MA a promising TF place?
Is it? 
And if YES, then why is it?


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregB said:


> If the place is NOT promising up front (most of the places are not), you are doomed to be treating rest of your life "to become Treatment-Free".


There's always Soft Bond... 









The Varroa Problem: Part 6a - Bee Breeding for Dummies - Scientific Beekeeping


Contents It’s been thirty painful years. 2 Breeding is merely Human-directed evolution. 3 Bees are still pretty wild. 4 Natural and artificial selection. 4 Assessment methods. 5 The Bond method (you get what you wind up with) 5 the bond method, but without the Needless carnage. 8 Getting down to...




scientificbeekeeping.com


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thinking about this, going hard bond (no treatment at all) is based on the assumption you have at least some treatment free bees already. Cos if you did not, none would survive. 

So if a person suspects they would lose 100% of their bees going hard bond, then treating a little might eventually get there if it is achievable at all. By keeping the bees alive long enough to identify the most mite resistant, breed from those, and hope the magic fully TF is eventually arrived at.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> There's always Soft Bond...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The issue is:

this is Hamilton, MA (not Ohio Valley; look at my own story)
SC keeps ~10-20 hives at most (not a local driving force by any means; look at my own story again)
You either create a local TF club by brute force (i.e. major investment) OR join the existing TF club.
Else the local non-TF club will run you over.
*club ~ stable population.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregB said:


> Else the local non-TF club will run you over.
> *club ~ stable population.


No argument from me, Greg. My point was simply one could treat once a threshold is reached to see if they can tease-out any resistance. That said, I expect having a stable population would make the work much easier and more predictable.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> No argument from me, Greg. My point was simply *one could treat once a threshold is reached to see if they can tease-out any resistance.* That said, I expect having a stable population would make the work much easier and more predictable.


That is true.
But without deliberate building-up a TF club of *considerable size* - this resistance will need to be, well, propped up by treatments (or it will be run over by the surrounding pop).
Yes - you can tease it out.
But what are you going to do with it after?

Without proper and continuous support that resistance will go "poof" - just as soon as it is no longer supported (including possibly treatments).

In fact, the Lloyd Street Bees does this.
70% survival @ not treating in middle of Milwaukee - nothing to sniff at.
But the guy, indeed, rules his immediate vicinity by 1) running large enough concentrated TF colony head-count and 2)continuously forcing and tuning the TF lineages and eliminating the others (*including the AI from the breeder grade queens* that he does too!!!!). Some serious full-time job is going on there.

About 20-30% of the colonies at the Lloyd's get treated (those that don't make the cut) - to be used as resources.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregB said:


> But the guy, indeed, rules his immediate vicinity by 1) running large enough concentrated TF colony head-count and 2)continuously forcing and tuning the TF lineages and eliminating the others (*including the AI from the breeder grade queens* that he does too!!!!). Some serious full-time job is going on there.


This makes sense to me- if you can rule the sky and keep your mite loads reasonable you might be able to see some patterns emerge. And with a possible import of bonafide resistant mated queens, one could have a closed aspect to the program that is able to supply resistant drones to the landscape.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

GregB said:


> In fact, the Lloyd Street Bees does this.
> 70% survival @ not treating in middle of Milwaukee - nothing to sniff at.





GregB said:


> About 20-30% of the colonies at the Lloyd's get treated (those that don't make the cut) - to be used as resources.


is that then a 49% TF survival? ie 70% survival of the 70% left after culling from the program ones that would have died if left untreated


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

msl said:


> is that then a 49% TF survival? ie 70% survival of the 70% left after culling from the program ones that would have died if left untreated





msl said:


> is that then a 49% TF survival? ie 70% survival of the 70% left after culling from the program ones that would have died if left untreated


Without exact quotations in front of me - I did a little stretch BUT not enough to say I was lying... 
Actual survival *without treatments* at the Lloyd's amounted to *81%.*
So I actually *downplayed *the real numbers. LOL

Here - quoting directly from our local forum
It took some digging - but I was not that far off throwing the #s from memory.
Interpret as wish - as reported by Lloyd Street Bees (LSB) themselves:


> Out of the total population of colonies that went into winter, *70% went into the winter without receiving any treatments during the season. *Of the total population of colonies going into winter, 85% survived. To break it down further, 91% of the treated colonies survived winter *and 81% of the untreated colonies survived winter.*


BTW, the LSB changed the lineage over from what I originally had.
He stated some feistiness being the main reason - which was totally fine by me already.
But yes - some local folk are spoiled by the commercial Italian bees to be able to handle even minimal defensiveness.
Too bad.

Anyway, the current lineage is more gentle - while showing just as good the resistance factor.
So I got me another VSH queen from Trevor this year as well as I mated two of my own at his yard.
Fun!


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregB said:


> About 20-30% of the colonies at the Lloyd's get treated (those that don't make the cut) - to be used as resources.


this helps a lot.
more resources can mean more queen starts and faster to tease out the traits.

GG


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

AR1 said:


> How are the hives looking?


Start: 2 packages, 6 frames empty comb, internet swarm
now: 5 hives (4 at 2 boxes, 1 at 1), 5 gal. honey

I had queen problems. In June, I lost 1. The other 2 almost stopped laying. I think this loss is from no pollen patties. I fed patties most of the year.

treatments:
a.) oxalic 2 days when the packages and swarm had a brood break
b.) For packages, I did oxalic, 4x thymol (starting next day, ending ~20 days later), then oxalic 2 days later (~6/28). In the future, I might skip the first oxalic.
Theory: Mites are slightly resistant to thymol. They hang out. They have to recover from thymol before reproducing. Before recovering, they're killed with oxalic.

alcohol tests ~9/2:

2 hives: swarm, package
1/4 cup bees each
87% isopropanol
Bees were in alcohol for 1 day, mostly refrigerated.
shook >5 times through the day
checked bees after test
no mites
Should I treat before winter broodless?

In the future, I might do brood break splits with 1 dose of oxalic, then 1 tiny (<$0.5) dose of Thymovar the next day. Instead of waiting a day, I might wait a brief time (the time it takes to treat other hives and feed).

I must decide when to:

combine
stop pollen patties



SeaCucumber said:


> new


patties fed 9/8
It's early in a pollen flow.

My strategy (I haven't proven it all.)

Install a TF queen. Get more hives to TF.
Ideally do all treatments during brood breaks.
Otherwise, treat for the whole brood cycle.
Try to kill all mites in a treatment.
Don't treat when below threshold.
Assume mites get resistant. Occasionally try to kill them off with a very different treatment.
Keep the treatment strong enough (especially at the beginning and end of the brood cycle).
Reduce time of weak "sub lethal" treatment.
variety: Rotate treatments. I'll probably use thymol and oxalic. I'll replace thymol with amitraz once every few years. Hops is an alternative to amitraz. I'd prefer amitraz. Hops and oxalic are both acids. They have something in common. That lowers variety. Oxalic and formic are very similar.
variety in the same treatment


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

Should I treat before winter broodless? I stopped patties and combined.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

SeaCucumber said:


> Should I treat before winter broodless? I stopped patties and combined.


Since you found no mites in the alcohol wash, I would say you can probably get away with it. My concern now is incoming mites from nearby failing colonies that your hives may be robbing. Perhaps a slow-acting treatment like the OA shop towels would be appropriate. They have worked for me this year.


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