# Sticky  A shift in message? The case for IPM instead of bond as the path to TF for new back y



## lemmje

Wow, great summary. I have read those same articles, and i also think a middle-of-the-road effort is the way to go. What Randy Oliver in the ABJ article calls "The Bond method, without the needless carnage."

I have two strong hives that have not been treated in the two years they have been alive, and those are the ones i plan to grow into more colonies (gave away splits last year). But i also have a few hives that struggle with mites and cannot shake them. Those i treat, and do not plan to propagate. All of my hives are swarm catches, but that does not mean they were from a surviving stock, they are likely from someone else's backyard stock.

After reading Oliver in this month's ABJ i decided i am going to use my strongest, untreated hive for queen rearing, and use those daughter queens to requeen my other hives. Eventually we are gonna beat this, but it is going to take an effort. Too many of my cohorts default treat by the calendar, as you say.


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## 1102009

There had been discussions about that and it is propagated in this community that a new tf beekeeper must monitor and use IPM and in future must breed from best hives or purchase good queens.

There are many stories told which confirm this.

Bond may be possible in some locations but most of us need to do something to hold at bay the mites in an unfriendly environment.

Treated hives can be mite bombs too if they are not treated thoroughly or treated with bad timing.
Bees drift into neighbors hives to escape the smell of thymol.

Some new beekeepers need the experience of a hive, treated or not treated dying on them to realize what´s going on.
No matter how this hive is managed.
It´s needed to open their eyes to try to be a better beekeeper or just get some feeling for the bees and what´s happening in a beehive.

I speak of my own experience.


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## crofter

MSL;

Well thought and presented. I have had a lot of similar feelings but you do an excellent job of condensing and connecting them. :thumbsup:


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## DaisyNJ

I started with one "commercial" Nuc and one "local, carniolan" Nuc. I split the commercial Nuc and requeened with TF queens from a reputable NE breeder. I also raised a queen from a swarm capture. Two of the 3 TF lead hives crashed by September. Cause was debated but I saw crawling mites on bees. 

I immediately decided I am not going to go into winter empty handed only to try same again in 2017. So I treated DWV littered carniolans with Apivar and rest (local and TF queen) with OAV. 

I am NOT a TF beek. Having said that, I have never seen a sane TF proponent advice on BS to get commercial bees and "let them die". IF anyone did, I am glad I skipped reading it. 

Almost EVERYONE says beekeeping is local. Randy Oliver (awesome dude) himself says local TF is possible through collaboration between BYBK, unless you live next to a huge TF commercial entity. 

Having attended beekeeping meetings for a year now, there is a problem on the Treatment side too. Beekeeping Taliban exists that side too. Hit-them-hard-hit-them-often is no better than bond-method. If anything, that practice promotes regions littered with drones that do nothing but spread genetics that perpetuate the need for the practice. I got buried for saying this, but in one of the meetings some beeks were proud to announce that they got garage full of terramycin to work around the recent Fed regulation. I have no respect for such attitude. 

Local beek meeting after meeting is littered with reports of people losing bees. All treated according to rigorous regimen prescribed. That does not mean TF will do any better. For me, it just means People aren't "thinking" through what they are doing, why they are doing, ask questions, tweak methods, experiment etc. 

Another problem is, some people seem to think they are here to save others. Regardless of Treatment or TF, one cannot fix the silly & stupid. Some people ought not have bees. Some people need to learn through their own experience. 

In summary, I quickly realized bond method is not for me, I will continue to explore multiple options to minimize treatments and in NO hurry to be labeled as one way or the other. Its a journey and not a destination.


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## Learning2Bee

I didn't have time to read the full post but I wanted to say this-

The idea of a out of state hive with bad mite tolerance setting back progress is that of its drones mating with feral hives, and your neighbors hives etc.
That's why I'd advocate for a immediate requeening of that hive with some good genetics.


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## Riverderwent

> Now someone running a true breeding program is a different story, Bond can and does work to a degree, but its not suitable for someone new, with a low hive count, or in an area with other keepers.


Bond has worked well for me. Neither packages nor feeding are suitable for me. For me, the question is not one of whether to be treatment free, but how to be treatment free. And that is a different thread.


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## Richard Cryberg

By doing some type of IPM, which by definition requires that you do meaningful mite counts, you gain valuable information on how each hive is performing with respect to mite issues. All you need to do is write that information down so you have a record. With that information you can make valid choices on what hives to propagate and which queens need fast replacement and without it your breeding program is mainly a total waste of time. Even if you have bees good enough you never need to treat any more you should be doing mite counts on every hive several times a year if you want to make sensible breeding decisions. This is exactly what Oliver says anyone must do if they intend to carry on a meaningful breeding program. A bunch of workers that can not deal with mites are still fine workers and can contribute a lot more to anyone's program alive than they can contribute dead. It is not the workers fault their mom had crappy genetics. Bond was a stupid idea from the start and has not improved with age. It never made genetic sense.


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## aumfc

Thanks for the post. As a new BYBK I agree. Your words were my thoughts some days ago, and I had a post saying as much, but being new around here I thought it best not to actually post what I wrote. Obviously you wrote it better anyway. 

I appreciate everyone's experiences and opinions. There is a lot to learn and I try to take in as much as I can before making my own decisions. I am afraid there are many more new BYBKs that don't do as thorough a job. They run with whatever the first person they talk to tells them. My guess is more than half the people in my beek class are in this category, based on conversations with them over the past couple of months.

Since the class I've talked to other, more experienced keepers in the area and they tell me that over the years, the majority of the people in these classes stop keeping bees after a couple of years. I wonder how much of that has to do with this topic?


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## lharder

No, IPM uses proxies which are our arrogant ideas about what is important. 

Its an error prone, so you throw out good genetics and retain bad. 

Bond is the ultimate truth teller. That is not to say that monitoring shouldn't be done, re mite counts and behaviour. However, this is like examining the universe using only light telescopes. It won't tell you the entire picture. Its likely the underlying virus dynamics are more important, and who is equipped to have a close look at that?

The idea of mite bombs is OVERBLOWN. I have had hives overcome by mites and viruses and these bees aren't flying to your neighbors. The reports of sudden increase in mites in a hive is far more likely to be internal hive dynamics as the hive transitions to winter configuration. Ie, most hives will have a spike in mite count in fall as brooding stops. 

Bees from a mite bomb are crawling on the ground. The hives most affected are nearest neighbors, hives in the same apiary. Notice my careful choice of the word overblown. I believe some prevention of hive to hive transference is helpful using things like robber screens, and is most helpful for hives in the same apiary. Also notice my use of "believe". We may have some reason to believe so, but there is NO work done documenting how important it is and there is lots of finger pointing based on casual observations reinforcing internal biases. 

There may be place for IPM, in areas where bees cannot survive to the extent where losses can't be replaced. But I wouldn't do this at the beginning, rather start doing if genetics in the area are shown not to be able to survive. But bond should be part of the process regardless to obtain proper information about what is actually working (re selection proxies).


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## squarepeg

good thread. in my opinion and what i believe most people experience when it comes to beekeeping is that it becomes a life long learning process, or at least i believe it should.

those folks who are willing to search for knowledge and glean from the collective experience of others generally move up the learning curve a little more gracefully.

opportunities for new knowledge and helpful tips come in many forms from picking the brains of your locals, books, websites, ect., and in my opinion there is no one stand alone resource that has it all.

having said that, and after spending enough homework time on beekeeping to at least have a four year degree in it, i have to say that beesource ranks at the top in terms of what has influenced my learning.

and what beesource is to me is not so much a website, but an impressive collection of knowledgable and experienced bee people who tend to be generous with their time. many thanks barry and to all who participate.

good cases can be made for both the use and the nonuse of treatments. each individual beekeeper is responsible for making those decisions. due the the nature of bees and the influence that colonies in a given area have over each other our management decisions have the potential to affect bees other than our own.

michael bush makes a good point about how anything miticidal introduced into a hive has the the potential to alter the microbial balance in the hive in a way that favors virulent pests and pathogens. there is more we need to learn about that, but i believe it will prove to be an important part of why i am having success off treatments.

i put it this way some time back and barry incorporated it into the 'unique forum rules':

*"Any post advocating the use of treatments, according to the forum definition of treatment will be considered off topic and shall be moved to another forum or deleted by a moderator, unless it is employed as part of a plan in becoming treatment free."

this allows for the contingency that there may be those who might consider treatments as a stop gap measure to save a colony which has not been able to 'do it on it's own', and prevent the loss of time, money, and a live colony of bees.

what often appears to be the case is that beginning beekeepers have made the decision to go tf without understanding that this may involve losing colonies in what can potentially become a disappointing and expensive process. 

it makes perfect sense to me for someone to do whatever is necessary to save a colony in the short term and while attempting to come up with measures that will lead to their bees being able to be kept off treatments.

bottom line: don't be constrained by this or that definition and make your choices based on what it is you feel is appropriate for you, your circumstances, and your goals.
*


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## aumfc

squarepeg said:


> bottom line: don't be constrained by this or that definition and make your choices based on what it is you feel is appropriate for you, your circumstances, and your goals.
> [/B]


I agree, and I think a lot of people would, but I think the problem is that experienced keepers aren't always reminding new keepers of this. If folks are coming to beesource to learn, they will get a wide-range of opinions. So I don't think it would be anyone here that would be the problem. But, I do think the people here can take this message to the local clubs and beginners classes. That's where I'm seeing it. And, reiterate this message constantly for new people.

I also think everyone needs to start any new conversation with someone seeking advice this way. Instead of launching into what I do or I think, I should tell that person first that "my exact situation won't be the same as yours, and what I do may not work for you".

I think some experienced folks see that as common knowledge but for the new keeper nothing is common knowledge. I think it's the responsibility of anyone giving advice to provide this disclaimer. Actually, this is probably the best advice one can give a new keeper!


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## Riverderwent

> those folks who are willing to search for knowledge and glean from the collective experience of others generally move up the learning curve a little more gracefully.


You're talking about me, right.


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## msl

DaisyNJ said:


> I have never seen a sane TF proponent advice on BS to get commercial bees and "let them die". IF anyone did, I am glad I skipped reading it.





Michael Bush said:


> Everyone has to make their own choice. I would let them fail and start over the next year.


next we have scope creep


DaisyNJ said:


> Almost EVERYONE says beekeeping is local. Randy Oliver (awesome dude) himself says local TF is possible through collaboration between BYBK, unless you live next to a huge TF commercial entity.





Richard Cryberg said:


> This is exactly what Oliver says anyone must do if they intend to carry on a meaningful breeding program. .





lharder said:


> . But bond should be part of the process regardless to obtain proper information about what is actually working (re selection proxies).


This post is in regards to new BYBKs. Yes they could help by accepting QCs and trying them in their hives, but they are not going to be breeding or developing stock. 
BYBK, as I use the term, is a suburban/urban beekeeper with 2 or so hives, in my area most are limited by zoning laws to 1-3 hives, as such even adding a cell builder, much less a few mating nucs is an imposailty for many not just from a leagle stand point, but from a resources one as well . Furthermore given the reinstrest in the hobby and change in zoning laws there are a LOT of BYBK were they are allowed(at least in my locacation), I am aware of 6 of them within 2.25K of my hives( totaling about 25 colonies), 
I see scope creep as an issue that keeps poping up when addressing this subject, its meaning less to talk about “selection” to a BYBK, too often advice given is not geared to the OP’s situation, people seem to forget what its like to be new with 1-2 hives, to many of us the loss of a few hives is no big thing, to them its their whole world..
Now a RBK (rural beekeeper) with a few years’ experience and 10 or so hives, Or a group with a club apiary, that is a completely different situation when you are talking about selection and propagation 
.


lharder said:


> .but there is NO work done documenting how important it is and there is lots of finger pointing based on casual observations reinforcing internal biases. ).





> “Our study indicates that the horizontal transmission of Varroa mites could additionally jeopardize the IPM performed by the beekeepers. We used two neighboring study sites to quantify the invasion rates of Varroa mites in relation to the density of honey bee colonies” . Autumn Invasion Rates of Varroa destructor (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) Into Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colonies and the Resulting Increase in Mite Populations EVA FREY AND PETER ROSENKRANZ 2014





> Our results surprisingly indicate that detectable hierarchical genetic variation exists between apiaries, between colonies within an apiary, and even within colonies. This finding of within-colony parasite diversity provides empirical evidence that the spread of V. destructor is not accomplished solely by vertical transmission but that horizontal transmission (natural or human-mediated) must occur regularly. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089174/#R5


I should clairfie that I am not saying you need to treat on your way to becoming TF, I am saying montor your mites and don't let mite bombs happen, there rest is between you and your bees and you leave mine out of it


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## Riverderwent

MSL, you quote Randy Oliver, "Requeen with resistant stock, best obtained locally." If I were starting now in my location, I would want to start with resistant stock obtained locally.


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## msl

Absolutely!
The rub is, for most BYBKs, truly resistant locally adapted stock is practically unobtainium, even more so when they are new
I beleave randy's point was to do that when or if what you have starts to fail as most new BYBK will not have the right stock for their location the 1st time around 
Plenty of cases of people being sold local TF bees that weren't resistant, or at least wasn't resistant in the new location, and there are plenty of people who still try to make a go with commercial stock.


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## ruthiesbees

Is the point of the OP to say that BYBKs need to use chemical treatments or understand IPM methods or non-chemical means to begin beekeeping. IPM runs the whole spectrum of chemical to non-chemical intervention. For the monthly classes I teach with new beeks, most of it is just so over their head as far as what to do and when, that they stick their head in the sand when it comes to mite treatments. They say they don't see any during inspections, and I tell them they are still there. I will hear later on that they lost their bees over the winter or they absconded in Oct. 

In this part of VA, very few long time beekeepers in the local clubs have to use chemical means to control the mites so there is a lot of support for those that attend the club meetings to be using brood breaks, powdered sugar treatments and drone brood culling to reduce the mites to a manageable level. There also needs to be a better definition at the local club level of what it means to be "treatment free". My apiary certainly wouldn't qualify based on the manipulations I do, but I'm certainly chemical-free, which is what most backyard beekeepers would like to be.


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## squarepeg

yep.


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## Oldtimer

msl said:


> This post is triggered by a highly respected TF advocate recently posting advice to a new BYBK (backyard Beekeeper) Planing on getting 2 hives and had a question of what to do if his hive started having mite problems “ let them fail and start over the next year”


I saw that very same post and reply. Shrugged shoulders and moved on, nothing I can do anyway.

But glad you brought it up, your opening post is excellent.

When I went TF, hard bond was the only respected option, it eventually cost me every bee that was in the program (from memory i think 27 hives). So got me nowhere, other than thinking that some kind of IPM approach may have been a better option, as with 100% losses it could not have been worse.

The people who used to smoke and now don't, are often the people who will give a smoker the hardest time. Likewise, people who went TF and lost everything, maybe several times, can become the harshest critics of TF.

My own opinion is an IPM approach will give more satisfying results for many people, but with often low experience levels they need good support to do it right, correctly done IPM is more complex than simply get bees, don't treat. I believe the new moderator here is doing a great job of allowing some of these discussions to happen, plus allow advice tailored to peoples particular circumstances.

A parting thing, it seems to be the hardest thing, for a person who got bees, went TF, and it just worked without much effort or even knowledge, to accept that it is not always like that for everyone.


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## squarepeg

for the sake of balance and fairness, and with regard to the criticism being waged against michael bush for the comment he made in the post quoted below,

i believe it's unfair to not recognize the part of the comment that precede's the part under criticism:



Michael Bush said:


> *Everyone has to make their own choice.* I would let them fail and start over the next year.


bold/italics mine

my read of that is that michael prefaces what his approach with "it's up to you", and then finishes sharing what *he* would do.

taking the second part of the comment as stand alone puts it out of context. it is etiquette on this forum that each of us is entitled to our approach and...

"there are no know it alls"

i don't see michael bush deserving the label of 'taliban' for being passionate about his take on bees. jmho.


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## msl

The main point was the need to teach mite monitoring and intervention to stop mite bombing as good beekeeping.
How to stop the mite bomb is left up to the beekeeper-sugar shakes every 4 days, OA, or a block of dry ice and some sheet plastic are some options. In a perfect world the mite monterning and stacking on manipulations will alow to BYBK to escalate the use of force to head off the mite bomb before the use of chemicals becomes needed

secondary was to point out that going full IPM to the point of pestisides to save and re queen in no way sets back a BYBK's path to TF any worse then letting the hive die. The effect is the same, the non resistant queen dies and her genetic line ends. The added advantage is it is also the end of those verilant mites, and the BYBK needs only buy a $30 queen instead of a $130 package or a $180 nuc. 
As you point out sticking there head in the sand is a problem, I was totally that new beekeeper.. that why I went TF, that way I didn't have to worry about mites and all that work and expensive treatment and my losses were going to be about the same either way, just ask the inter net......yep there is one born every min Hook, Line, Sinker.



> i don't see michael bush deserving the label of 'taliban' for being passionate about his take on bees. jmho


.
nor do I, witch is why in the 1st post I referred to him as what he is, a


> highly respected TF advocate


 and only unmasked his identity to counter point the "I have never seen a sane TF proponent advice on BS to get commercial bees and "let them die"  
It was meant to drive the point home that some very sucessfull, and very sane TF advocates do indeed despence said advice. 
It was not to my intent to call MB any sort of overbearing TF overlord, I have edited the post for full context.. I was focused on making one point, with out catching the insinuation of anther
SP thanks for pointing that out so this thread doesn't take an unintended turn



Oldtimer said:


> it seems to be the hardest thing, for a person who got bees, went TF, and it just worked without much effort or even knowledge, to accept that it is not always like that for everyone.


there is so much truth here, all beekeeping is local
A lesson that Solomon Parker reinforced for us all when he moved his bees to CO and was crushed by the climate change http://forum.tfbees.net/viewtopic.php?t=165


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## squarepeg

msl said:


> The main point was the need to teach mite monitoring and intervention to stop mite bombing as good beekeeping.


i agree 100%



msl said:


> going full IPM...


i agree 100%

everyone brings something unique to the discussion. i respect your point of view and i'm proud to have the opportunity to converse with you here msl.


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## squarepeg

ipm is an important conversation that needs to be had.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?333501-ipm-as-a-path-to-treatment-free



squarepeg said:


> as we have seen from several recent posts, one of the bigger challenges for those desiring to be treatment free is that tf stock is not always available for purchase.
> 
> we also see the many reports of limited success when beekeepers, beginners in particular, attempt to withdraw treatments cold turkey from colonies that come with a history of being treated...


ruthie, do mind giving us another cliff note synopsis on how you and your group are achieving varroa control using nonchemical ipm techniques?

any input from other contributors experienced with nonchemical ipm approaches would be welcome as well.


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## ruthiesbees

squarepeg said:


> ipm is an important conversation that needs to be had.
> 
> ruthie, do mind giving us another cliff note synopsis on how you and your group are achieving varroa control using nonchemical ipm techniques?


Took me a bit to find the topic, I'm #53 if this link isn't working right. I'll also copy and paste my response here. http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?333480-Treatment-free-Bees&p=1507956#post1507956

I had been asked to share my track toward "treatment free". I will tell you all up front that I don't ever expect to fall into the Solomon Parker's category for truly Treatment Free, but I have no intention of ever putting a miticide or organic acid on my bees.

I had wanted to keep bees for over 20 years, but had a young family and someone else in the house that was against it. Circumstances changed by 2013 and the kids grew up so I went looking for what's new in beekeeping. In the mean time, I had spent those years planting up my yard with lots of trees and shrubs for all the pollinators and didn't use chemicals in the garden or on the bushes (mainly because I was too thrifty to spend the money). 

In my bee research, I found a topbar hive kit from Beeline Apiary for $150 and I thought I'd give it a try because I wasn't all that sure I really wanted to be into beekeeping and I wasn't quite as spry as I had been all those years ago so the No-lifting, no-bending sounding like a very good benefit. I never bought into the concept that topbar hives were somehow "more natural" or "more healthy" for bees, but I do think the "single story" beehive might behave a little bit differently than the multi-storied Langstroth hives.

So in 2013, I convinced a longtime Lang beekeeper to get my topbar hive started with his bees. He makes nucs for many people in the Hampton area, but I have no idea if he was using chemicals on his bees. From what I understand, most of the veteran beekeepers in this area do not use them. 

First year was 1 colony. Second year (2014), I bought a package from Oliverez in California. Couldn't believe how huge that queen was compared to the local mutt in my other colony. Funny thing was, the California bees just sat in their hive on 45 degree days in the winter while the local mutts were out collecting from the mahonia and camellias that were blooming. In 2014, I did splits and bought a second local mutt queen from the guy who got me started, so I had 5 colonies going into winter. I also started holding a monthly meeting for beekeepers that wanted to keep bees in topbar hives so we could all talk about our successes and failures, and gain from each other's experiences.

That's when I started honing in on what my management practices were so that I could communicate them with other people. These were mostly gardeners like me who liked the idea of having a backyard beehive or two. They wanted a little bit of honey to harvest for themselves and friends, but they were not raising bees for "Honey". I also realized that if the topbar beehive group was to grow, I was going to have to raise the nucs to get these people started so I began making 10 nucs a year and raising the queens for them.

All my colonies are on screened bottom boards with a solid IPM board underneath, that I keep installed as long as the heat of the summer will allow. Each IPM board is covered with diatomaceous earth, and refreshed as often as weekly if necessary. The bees run the small hives beetles down there and stuff the larvae of SHB and wax moths down there. any mites that fall off are also trapped in the dust and don't return to reinfest the bee colony. Very important that the bees don't roll around in the dust.

Each colony is also treated monthly with powdered sugar on each comb. (Not the brush-it-between-the-frames stuff that Randy Oliver talks about and then so easily dismisses as something that doesn’t work.) Each comb is turned on its head and liberally coated taking care not to get it in the cells with developing larvae. Special care is also taken with the comb the queen is on so she does not lose her footing and fall outside the hive. But she gets dusted right along with the rest of them. After an hour, I remove the solid IPM board that had DE dust on it, and is now covered in powdered sugar and any mites, and discard the dust in the trash can so I don’t draw ants. The DE is reapplied and the board slid back into place.

I will also cull capped drone comb at certain times of the year after I am done with the majority of my queen rearing, or if the colony gets too ambitious with raising a ton of drones. And the fact that I raise my own queens, means I am using locally adapted survivor bees from my own hives. No special breeder queens, although I do bring in a treatment-free queen here and there from Sam Comfort and Wildflower Meadows to introduce those genes into the local pool of bees.

I also like most of my large hives to undergo a mid summer brood break by pulling the queen over to a nuc and letting the main hive requeen with "planned" emergency queen cells. Meaning, they have soft new comb with fresh eggs to easily rework into queen cells. During the requeening, I do weekly powder sugar shakes to really knock back the mite population before fall.

And I do not use a smoker, but rather a spray bottle with water and anise oil. There is an Egyptian study that says Anise Oil is one of the essential oils that helps control mite reproduction. There are only a few drops per bottle, so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with controlling the mites, but it could be small piece of it. In any case, the anise oil is primarily used to cover up the bee pheromones as I work the hives, which is usually work them weekly.

I’m sure some of you will wonder if I do sugar shakes or ether rolls to measure the mite count, and I don't do them. Maybe someday if I get to switch jobs, but far too busy for that. I will say I had a Control Hive this past 2016 season. Someone gave me a miter biter queen and I installed her in a hive, still with the screened bottom and IPM board with DE dust, but I did not give her the brood break or do the frequent powder sugar shake on that hive. The hive was fantastic, even ran a pollen trap on it, and I did uncap drone brood at various points in the year to check for mites, which showed a very low level. 

Thought maybe these special queens were the “silver bullet” in varroa control, but during the January blizzard, that was my only hive to perish. The queen survived with about 50 workers, but the rest were dead on the bottom. I did do a sugar roll on them at that time, because I could see mites on the bees (including the queen) and deformed wings on one worker. After the sugar shake and getting 4 mites, I followed up with an ether roll on the same group of bees and got 2 more. Then I counted the bees since I was guestimating that I had a half a cup of bees. Turns out I only had 175 bees, and they had 6 mites in the group, so really high mite numbes. I moved the queen and remaining workers over to a nuc and did a powder sugar shake on them. Checked on her 2 weeks later and they had groomed the mite off of her thorax and they seem to be plodding on, even while getting robbed out by the other bees in my apiary.

My overwinter hive losses to mites are usually zero. This year, it will be the one hive, but I almost don’t count that one since I wasn’t using my usual methods on it. I lost 2 hives last year that were very tiny splits that froze, and were not varroa related losses. (my small splits all have heaters this year). I currently have one queen from spring 2014 and one from fall 2015. Had another 2014 queen, but she flew the coop this fall when I moved her out of the main hive and into a nuc to requeen the main hive. I will be making my spring nucs from queen cells of the 2014 queen that I still have. She was a great honey producer as well, although the levels of honey in a topbar hive don’t equate to what a Langstroth hive might make.

So all those different steps are things I teach the newbee backyard beekeepers. It may not be truly treatment free, but I don’t want these people to stick their head in the sand and ignore the problem of mites and run-of-the-mill packages from down south. I hope the Beesource Treatment Free forum will find ways to engage the basic beekeeper in helping them understand the problem and even the small steps they can take toward being part of the solution. 

It’s next to impossible to take a beginner beekeeper who would love the idea of “treatment free” beekeeping (because they think that means “hands off” beekeeping) and tell them “expect to lose over half your hives each year and just breed from the survivors” and think that they are going to want to get into that type of beekeeping or even do that for more than a year or two. We need to be realistic in our expectations and provide a reasonable path for them to follow. More treatment free nuc producers would be great, but if they can’t be found, then requeen early in the season with a treatment free or hygienic queen. But that alone is probably not enough.


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## squarepeg

awesome post ruthie, many thanks!

let's see if we can move this discussion forward using ruthie's approach as a starting point to hash out the nonchemical ipm options.



ruthiesbees said:


> All my colonies are on screened bottom boards with a solid IPM board underneath, that I keep installed as long as the heat of the summer will allow. Each IPM board is covered with diatomaceous earth, and refreshed as often as weekly if necessary.
> 
> Each colony is also treated monthly with powdered sugar on each comb,
> after an hour, I remove the solid IPM board that had DE dust on it.
> 
> I will also cull capped drone comb at certain times of the year after I am done with the majority of my queen rearing, or if the colony gets too ambitious with raising a ton of drones.
> 
> I also like most of my large hives to undergo a mid summer brood break by pulling the queen over to a nuc and letting the main hive requeen with "planned" emergency queen cells.
> 
> My overwinter hive losses to mites are usually zero. This year, it will be the one hive, but I almost don’t count that one since I wasn’t using my usual methods on it.


----------



## lharder

msl said:


> next we have scope creep
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This post is in regards to new BYBKs. Yes they could help by accepting QCs and trying them in their hives, but they are not going to be breeding or developing stock.
> BYBK, as I use the term, is a suburban/urban beekeeper with 2 or so hives, in my area most are limited by zoning laws to 1-3 hives, as such even adding a cell builder, much less a few mating nucs is an imposailty for many not just from a leagle stand point, but from a resources one as well . Furthermore given the reinstrest in the hobby and change in zoning laws there are a LOT of BYBK were they are allowed(at least in my locacation), I am aware of 6 of them within 2.25K of my hives( totaling about 25 colonies),
> I see scope creep as an issue that keeps poping up when addressing this subject, its meaning less to talk about “selection” to a BYBK, too often advice given is not geared to the OP’s situation, people seem to forget what its like to be new with 1-2 hives, to many of us the loss of a few hives is no big thing, to them its their whole world..
> Now a RBK (rural beekeeper) with a few years’ experience and 10 or so hives, Or a group with a club apiary, that is a completely different situation when you are talking about selection and propagation
> .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I should clairfie that I am not saying you need to treat on your way to becoming TF, I am saying montor your mites and don't let mite bombs happen, there rest is between you and your bees and you leave mine out of it


I read the paper and i don't think that was an argument about mite bombs. The definitive conclusion was that horizontal transmission occurs, something self evident, (but anecdotal) based on rapid spread of mites in North America. In the big picture, the authors were perhaps (my interpretation) more concerned about apiary and industry practices that created the means for mite diversity to spread. That is movement of bees between regions and between hives by beekeeping practices and hive density. This would have implications for instance in spreading chemical resistant mites from one region to another. I didn't see feral or TF beekeeping on the list of explanations. Its probably there but insignificant on a bigger scale. It also stated that hive to hive drift and robbing is of yet poorly understood. 

Also the exact layout of the experiment wasn't laid out (ie distance between groups of hives, and the history of the bees that were used, beyond they came from one source (but where did the source get its bees?). They also stated that they didn't not have enough time to get a handle on the influence of drifting and robbing. 

Now wouldn't it be even more interesting if this was done in a TF apiary and nature was allowed to take its course?
So on the list of explanations of mite diversity the authors proposed, beekeeping practices by CONVENTIONAL beekeeping were high on the list, not beekeeping that is more sensitive to ecological dynamics and more self sufficient in terms of raising their own stock. So once again it becomes more important to look at ones own practices in how it affects horizontal transmission, not just of mites but all hangers on including viruses, hive to hive, between apiaries, and between regions. 

But I can think of a number of improvements to my own practices. I bring in very few queens/packages from the outside, so I think that is OK, but there is room for improvement for hive to hive transmission within my apiary. So I'm going to implement robbing screens more intensively this year that will be put on at the beginning of our August dearth. 

I also want to dispel the notion of backyard keepers not making contributions. A net work of TF keepers selecting for survival and production, raising their own queens and supporting each other a bit, would be ideal. It should be actively encouraged and supported by bee clubs. It would broaden the base of selection, reduce the import of new challenges and would stabilize disease dynamics, enhance genetic diversity and over many years, create more genetic diversity. More like how nature does it. She has tricks up her sleeve we are only faintly aware.


----------



## gww

Jim lyon give the best sumation of my view on the mighty mite bomb thread.


> There is no way of knowing what level of mite invasion comes from where. I don't obsess about things I can't control. I would hope neighboring beekeepers would make an effort to be responsible in their beekeeping practices, including placement of hives, regardless of their philosophy. One is best served worrying more about their own hives and less about others.


Mls
You can hope all you want, blame if you want but not control but your own bees and those willing to work with you and so adding mite bomb to the equation for you to be successful makes you unsuccessful before you start. My opinion of course.
Cheers
gww


----------



## clyderoad

Mite bombs from beekeepers who are not responsible is one of my biggest problems. 
Hope all you want, a significant number out there make little effort and either don't care or don't understand or both.
Beekeeping is not a 'game' to everyone and more people should understand that.
MTCW


----------



## squarepeg

clyderoad said:


> Mite bombs from beekeepers who are not responsible is one of my biggest problems.
> Hope all you want, a significant number out there make little effort and either don't care or don't understand or both.
> Beekeeping is not a 'game' to everyone and more people should understand that.
> MTCW


when you put it like that clyde it's totally understandable where the disdain comes from. i would feel the same way if i were in your shoes. there's no excuse for not caring or not understanding.


----------



## squarepeg

ruithie, again i very much appreciate the effort you put into this morning's post. best i can tell, you are our resident expert on the successful implementation of nonchemical ipm, or at least you are one of the few willing to share your experiences with it here.

this thread has taken some twists and turns, so i am going to repost yours in the other 'ipm' thread.


----------



## Oldtimer

Recently did the fall mite treatment round on all my hives. Most bees in pretty good shape, maybe 1/2 the hives showing some evidence of mites such as the odd chewed larva.

Except for one site, every hive in the yard near death, no live brood left, crawling in mites, few bees. There is no way this site could have got so bad so quick by itself. Virtually certain I know the suspect, a site around 1/2 mile away where a large commercial beekeeper dumped a load of dinks not suitable to go to the manuka. Did a drive by and could see some hives no activity. IE, most likely dead and probably by mites.

So commercials can be a problem to others around also, although this guy sadly is got old and is not the beekeeper he used to be, and has hired flunkies.

Did manage to save the hives by the way, treating alone would have been too late for them, but raided another site and got a good comb of near hatching brood to put in each of the sick hives plus put in mite treatment, the bees from the good brood comb were just enough to keep the hive alive for the 3 weeks needed to get some brood of their own coming through, hives now small but will make it, didn't lose a single one.

But that was definately a case of bees being overwhelmed by mite invasion. Hate to think what the other guys hives are like.


----------



## gww

Squarepeg


> when you put it like that clyde it's totally understandable where the disdain comes from. i would feel the same way if i were in your shoes. there's no excuse for not caring or not understanding.


Not as a counter point but more of a reconization of fact. Wether there is excuse for it or not or if you just live in an area of unmanaged excape bees, it still is a fact that can not be controlled with just good will and wishing. Plus the fact that differrent bees live with differrent levels of mite infestation (Maby because the diseise level of the mite is differrent in some areas). 

Since these things can not be controlled, all that is left is to find what works under the conditions that you find yourself in and maby even to reconize that things out of your control can come along and change even those conditions.

So if it relies on other peoples bees to make you be sucessful with your bees, then you have failed before you start.

In the end, finding out what you can make work or what does not work for you ends up really being the only real thing that can be effectively adressed. You may promote better to others and have small impact. You may give queens to everyone who will take one in a 20 mile area. You may hand out seeds to your neibors. Enough may respond to make a differrance or may not if you even have the effort to do all of that. If they do and you are watching your bees and can see it, then you can adjust accordingly. In the end it will still be about the what you see in your bees.

I like what oldtimer said about differrent experiances being what makes a persons mind up (my word) forever. As long as those differrent experiances happen, no one can ever say they are right or the one with the differrent experiance is wrong. Tell kirt webster that he is wrong and is making mite bombs when he is running 600 hundred hives or tell michael palmer he is wrong when he is running 2000 hives. Why would your imput change them into thinking you know more then them and so they should change.

Better time is spent on working on what you need to do with out them except maby to steal the things that they are doing that will help you with what you want to do.

I understand the sentiment but wouldn't want to be the one to sit in judgement of who is right. If I did, I would probly pick the one who is closest to how I do it.

I know the feelings are strong and am glad that I am too dumb at this time to have a firm belief of who is going to end up in beekeeping hell.

It is very interesting to me, the arguements all around though perk my anti athourity streak and gets me leaning harder evertime somebody says I have to not make bee bombs or I have to quit putting weak bees in the breeder pool. Luckily, that is two things that I am confident will never happen no matter who wants it bad enough. 

Now I can get to watching and stealing Ideals and tactics from successful people and quit worrying about who I want to control and who wants to control me.

Cheers
gww

Ps Posted before seeing oldtimers post, Oldtimer, good thing you were watching your bees so you could adjust to what your bees needed.


----------



## AR1

Oldtimer said:


> Except for one site, every hive in the yard near death, no live brood left, crawling in mites, few bees. There is no way this site could have got so bad so quick by itself. Virtually certain I know the suspect, a site around 1/2 mile away where a large commercial beekeeper dumped a load of dinks not suitable to go to the manuka. Did a drive by and could see some hives no activity. IE, most likely dead and probably by mites.
> 
> So commercials can be a problem to others around also, although this guy sadly is got old and is not the beekeeper he used to be, and has hired flunkies.


Be interesting to see if ANY of those dink hives survived. Hard bond at its hardest.


----------



## squarepeg

understood fellers and i appreciate the replies.

msl, jump back in here and please forgive me if reacted too harshly.

being in a relatively isolated location i'm somewhat immune to those scenarios, and believe me i'm thankful for that.

but it kind of gets back to the chicken and eggs dilemma for us all, i.e. on the one hand mite bombs can happen most anywhere to most anyone and if that should happen at an inopportune time one may or may not be able to recover from it.

one strategy would be to get everyone everywhere to kill every mite they can, and call the orkin man to deal with colonies that have ended up dwellings and trees to eliminate that threat.

this approach sounds a lot like what sibylle describes as the state of affairs with beekeeping in germany.

on the other hand, and considering that we are finding more metapopulations of resistant honeybees and hearing more reports from folks like some of the tf contributors here clearly demonstrating that are bees which are not fazed by varroa,

with bees like this the whole discussion becomes mute.

it seems like there would be more interest and support for those willing to work toward developing that kind of stock. i'm not sure why the disconnect, but i was informed early on by someone seasoned and wise that beekeepers tend to be a peculiar lot.


----------



## dlbrightjr

msl I appreciate your common sense approach.


----------



## CWHeadley

TF?


----------



## msl

TF=Treatment Free


squarepeg said:


> msl, jump back in here and please forgive me if reacted too harshly.


Still here and no you weren’t, you corrected a quote that could have been misinterpreted and have a demtmantral effect on this thread. I have just been spending some time choosing my words carefully



gww said:


> Tell kirt webster that he is wrong and is making mite bombs when he is running 600 hundred hives or tell michael palmer he is wrong when he is running 2000 hives.


Once again, scope creep, this isn’t about a beekeeper with 2k hives, 600 hives, or even 10-20 hives, this is about the BYBK with1-3 hives
2nd, if you refer to the video link in the OP, MP treats once a year, and is a outspoken critic on mite bombers




lharder said:


> I read the paper and I don't think that was an argument about mite bombs.


I think it was very much about mite bombs


> In terms of relevance for beekeeping practice, we could demonstrate that effective Varroa treatment at the end of July, when undertaken alone, is not sufficient for successful overwintering if the mite invasion pressure is high. It is likely that a high density of Varroa infested honey bee colonies within Fight range will increase the invasion pressure
> Even colonies that are largely mite-free at the beginning of August can build up threatening Varroa populations by the beginning of winter. Our data on overwintering also emphasize the risk of high Varroa infestations late in the year.
> our study points out some general aspects that should be considered for the implementation of Varroa treatment concepts. First, IPM programs should be coordinated region-wide to reduce the Varroa reinvasion pressure. Second, additional Varroa diagnostic measures are recommended during the period after summer Varroa treatment. This is the only way for the beekeeper to detect and then react to unexpectedly high mite infestations


Hey were all have our own opinions based on our experiences and our inherent bias to data, I know I am bias to mite bombs are an issue, If you have a study showing the mite bomb is nonissue I would love to read it so I can adjust my stance, for me it’s not about being right, it’s learning. 
Also keep in mind if its not an issue for you, doesn't mean its not an issue in a different location, and I am focusing on a very particular location were it is an issue. 

So to head back to the direction SP is requesting as the mite bomb subject is getting in the way of information that is likely useful to both sides of that debate. 

Great post Ruthie!

As we move in this direction I think it would be good to read Randys work on sugar dusting, He just updated it last month with the improved mite modeling and there are some good take homes on the treatment schedule to achieve meaningful impact on mite 
One study he sighted is showing 3.5% adult bee mortality rate at 4 days after treatment and a 50% mite kill per sugar treatment, couple that with Randy’s suggested treatment schedule and you’re not killing an insignificant amount of bees. 7% a month to just hold the mite pop stable with 2X treatments, and up 17-18% to hit the mites hard and really knock them back with 5 treatments 4-5 days apart. That a bit of a staggering number, better then losing the hive for sure, and it looks like it may be possibly to save it with sugar, but……I sure wasn’t expecting that kind of mortality rate. .
One of the studies discussion points reminds us there is (almost) always a cost and some of this “feel good” stuff isn’t always effective and or negtivitaly impacts the bees much more so then we think.


> Our data further suggest that those products which people feel are “natural” varroa controls (for example, the dust controls) may affect bees negatively in other ways. We do not feel that all natural varroa control methods are inherently harmless to bees


 Does anyone have a link to a good study on OA treatments bee mortality rate? It would be interesting to run the numbers on % of bees killed to achieve mite reduction below threshold 

SP, for the sake of discussion how do we define chemical free? 
I don’t see a difference whether it’s SiO2*nH2O, C12H22O11, or H2C2O4 being put in the hive (DE, sugar, OA), they are all chemicals and all three can be acquired as food grade. OA and sugar are both plant based products (or synthesized and chemical the same) and part of our normal diet.
DE is a registered pesticide, so I see little difference between using it vs OA. 

Perhaps it may be better to draw the line as nontoxic or bio mechanical ? it doesn't have the marketing buzz of chemical free, natural, or organic, but it is probably more descriptive of the intended use.


----------



## squarepeg

msl said:


> SP, for the sake of discussion how do we define chemical free?


definitions are a pain in the toe msl. 

i've been using 'nonchemical' to describe ruthie's methods even though sugar and diatomaceous earth are certainly chemicals.

i guess for me a chemical would be something that would directly kill organisms in the hive thereby changing the biological landscape in there. 

there is some thinking that the hive has good bugs as well as bad bugs just like our g.i. tract does, and those good bugs are necessary to keep the bad bugs at bay.

i asked ruthie about that on the other thread, because i wasn't sure if the powdered sugar dusting had been shown to change the hive flora, and she didn't think that it does.


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## gww

mls
I have three hives, surly this thread is about people in my situation.

1. You did bring the topic of mite bomb.
2. Most bee keepers are told if they want to be successful they should immulate successful bee keepers. Most would consider michael palmer and kert webster as successful.

3. You pointed out a study to back you position.

When I pointed out my position that trying to control mite bombs is impossible and all you can do is worry about your bees and the rest can not be controlled by you and so is a waste of energy, I used reasons why just as you used a paper to back your reasons.

Because I used 600 hive and 2000 hive aperies to make a point it is no more scope creep then using a paper that says reigional controls would help.

Then to use a quote that is a portion of the context of my post and say that those names don't matter because one is a treater that speaks the same language as you that mite bombs are bad but to discount that the other bee keeper says he doesn't do counts and would not now think of killing a mite because he is a good beekeeper and does not have a mite problim then seems to hide the point that I was making if I don't clarify.

Clarification. Kirt webster does not take mite counts and would not think of killing a mite now.

That way the point I was making about calling who is wrong has more to do with belief system of the caller.

Then you make your point to Iharder that the paper is about mite bombs to reinforce your origional position and which again would make kert wrong.

The papers over all point that I get from you highlighted portion basicaly makes my point also in the last sentance. It tells you that mites are going to be transfered and the last sentance says


> Varroa diagnostic measures are recommended during the period after summer Varroa treatment. This is the only way for the beekeeper to detect and then react to unexpectedly high mite infestations


In a nut shell, you need to watch your bees.

I got my bees from a non treater and he may have sole me a mite bomb, but they are still alive and I don't hold it against him cause he didn't lie about it and I didn't have to buy them.

My whole post was basically that learning what it takes to keep your bees alive in the circumstances you find your self in and not worrying about controlling the world around you was all you could do. If you live in a area with a lot of excaped bees that set up shop near you and it infects your hive with mite, better time is spent reacting to that affect on you bees, if lucky in a differrent area then react to that, but relying or blaming others actions doesn't make you bees healthy, only you can do that.

Mls, I love your post even if I have a differrent position and say so on some things, I figure you are helping me learn and I may someday change my mind and I know you have a lot to offer on things I agree with. I hope you see that I am just making a point that there are a lot of people out there with some success who feel differrently then others and I am unwilling to call them wrong or try to make them act like me. I want to know what they are doing so I can learn more of what I can try and do. 

Cheers
gww

PS mls I see you edited out your kirt webster remark where you indicated he didn't have a mite problim because he was a good bee keeper.


----------



## Riverderwent

> It is very interesting to me, the arguements all around though perk my anti athourity streak and gets me leaning harder evertime somebody says I have to not make bee bombs or I have to quit putting weak bees in the breeder pool.


They can take our hives, but they'll never take our freedom.


----------



## CWHeadley

Ah, of course. Thank you.


----------



## msl

gww said:


> , I love your post even if I have a different position and say so on some things, I figure you are helping me learn and I may someday change my mind and I know you have a lot to offer on things I agree with.


Bingo. I am here to learn, weather I find my self on the wrong end and get corrected, or dig deep to find research to back up my point, or end up finding info that deputes it, I am learning.
Please do me a favor and watch the Michael Palmer video in the link I posted 
If fokes want to still talk mite bombs, some one start a thread in the pest area and I will hop over and play with ya.. but for here I am done.. I don't see it getting resolved and its muddying the waters.


----------



## gww

River...


> They can take our hives, but they'll never take our freedom.


They can't even really take our hives cause it is too easy to get more. They probly could fine me enough that I give them up volintarily though:lpf:.


----------



## gww

mls
I have watched the michael palmer vidios, lots of them, I intend to steal lots of his methods. I also have read randy olivers ariticals with hard core views and read tom seeley and so much it is unbelievable.

I may treat some day also. 

I want to know all my options but refuse to feel guilty if I do a little seeing for myself even if it causes me pain. There are just too many directions to look and so many ways to do things and I may not have the secret for myself yet, but I refuse to look down on those who do for themselves. If others are happy with the success they are getting by whatever route they take, I will help if they want it and I can, but won't think they are wrong if what they are doing is satifying them. I don't think the skep keepers that killed a third of their bees every year were wrong cause thier actions at the time reflected what bees were worth at the time. I would for myself, like to do a little better then that though.

A million ways to skin a cat. I always watch you post here and elswhere and value them.
Thanks
gww


----------



## msl

So, getting back to (insert deffention here) IPM
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...it-Last-light-or-Midday&p=1168911#post1168911
This looks like a good way to do a split and leave most of the mites in the hive that gets the brood break and give a queen a fresh start with a low mite count and motivated work force


----------



## 1102009

What emotions, wonderful how they are expressed in such a civilized way!

Ok.

MB said: let them fail. He did not say: let them die. We all, who want to be tf, using IPM or not, let our hives fail by shifting the queens, combining the weak or doing any other IPM. These are all IPM in my eyes. Every manipulation in benefit of some survivors.

Hard bond comes as the last result after IPM. The moment will come when we, trying in earnest to leave it to the bees to survive AND be productive, will stop all IPM to see if the bees are in a state to survive on their own.
But, after a time of IPM methods, we propably will have some hives left to go on with. Who wants to start new every few years?

Squarepeg, who is in a lucky situation, does this already and now he pushes his bees to the limit. 
This is wonderful! Why ?
Because I believe that he will be in a position to show the commercials that productive tf beekeeping is possible. He is a pioneer! He and others!

And the moment the commercials decide it could be possible it will be possible for all beekeepers.


----------



## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> Squarepeg, who is in a lucky situation, does this already and now he pushes his bees to the limit.
> This is wonderful! Why ?
> Because I believe that he will be in a position to show the commercials that productive tf beekeeping is possible.


Will be? 

Seems he already has shown it is possible.


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Will be?
> 
> Seems he already has shown it is possible.


Yes, for sure. But it must continue for some time on a high level. It will. He is sensitive to his bees and will know where to stop.


----------



## lharder

msl said:


> TF=Treatment Free
> 
> Still here and no you weren’t, you corrected a quote that could have been misinterpreted and have a demtmantral effect on this thread. I have just been spending some time choosing my words carefully
> 
> 
> Once again, scope creep, this isn’t about a beekeeper with 2k hives, 600 hives, or even 10-20 hives, this is about the BYBK with1-3 hives
> 2nd, if you refer to the video link in the OP, MP treats once a year, and is a outspoken critic on mite bombers
> 
> 
> 
> I think it was very much about mite bombs
> 
> 
> Hey were all have our own opinions based on our experiences and our inherent bias to data, I know I am bias to mite bombs are an issue, If you have a study showing the mite bomb is nonissue I would love to read it so I can adjust my stance, for me it’s not about being right, it’s learning.
> Also keep in mind if its not an issue for you, doesn't mean its not an issue in a different location, and I am focusing on a very particular location were it is an issue.
> 
> So to head back to the direction SP is requesting as the mite bomb subject is getting in the way of information that is likely useful to both sides of that debate.
> 
> Great post Ruthie!
> 
> As we move in this direction I think it would be good to read Randys work on sugar dusting, He just updated it last month with the improved mite modeling and there are some good take homes on the treatment schedule to achieve meaningful impact on mite
> One study he sighted is showing 3.5% adult bee mortality rate at 4 days after treatment and a 50% mite kill per sugar treatment, couple that with Randy’s suggested treatment schedule and you’re not killing an insignificant amount of bees. 7% a month to just hold the mite pop stable with 2X treatments, and up 17-18% to hit the mites hard and really knock them back with 5 treatments 4-5 days apart. That a bit of a staggering number, better then losing the hive for sure, and it looks like it may be possibly to save it with sugar, but……I sure wasn’t expecting that kind of mortality rate. .
> One of the studies discussion points reminds us there is (almost) always a cost and some of this “feel good” stuff isn’t always effective and or negtivitaly impacts the bees much more so then we think.
> 
> Does anyone have a link to a good study on OA treatments bee mortality rate? It would be interesting to run the numbers on % of bees killed to achieve mite reduction below threshold
> 
> SP, for the sake of discussion how do we define chemical free?
> I don’t see a difference whether it’s SiO2*nH2O, C12H22O11, or H2C2O4 being put in the hive (DE, sugar, OA), they are all chemicals and all three can be acquired as food grade. OA and sugar are both plant based products (or synthesized and chemical the same) and part of our normal diet.
> DE is a registered pesticide, so I see little difference between using it vs OA.
> 
> Perhaps it may be better to draw the line as nontoxic or bio mechanical ? it doesn't have the marketing buzz of chemical free, natural, or organic, but it is probably more descriptive of the intended use.


I was going by the discussion of the authors. Not my conclusion. These are issues that all beekeepers must face up, yet I see only fingers pointed at the least significant cause and no willingness of many to question other more important practices. TF may produce mite bombs as an front loaded hazard. But by definition, we are concerned with production of tough stock that doesn't produce many of these, and less and less going forward. For instance, I have my first customer that will get a hive queened by a daughter of a vigorous 3 yr survivor, whose daughters also survive well. He is a new beekeeper, so he can do EVERYTHING wrong (except bring in foreign bees), but chances are he will not produce a mite bomb. This is the type of system stability we are looking for. Not something propped up by competence that may be there or not for various reasons as OT alluded to. We are also, though not as well understood, open to modifying habits that reduce long term disease risk. The mite bombs produced from a back yard beekeeper is a far cry from a truckload of diseased susceptible stock dumped near somebody else's apiary, a true violation of ecological principles.


----------



## 1102009

It´s not the mite bombs in themselves, most susceptible hives die in winter,
it´s the opinions of people realizing a change of managements which to them is a threat and a change of habits.

Being kind of a criminal because of our laws my surviving as a tf beekeeper depends on IPM until I have resistant bees.
No problem, this will only take more time.
Ruth posts how one could proceed.


----------



## msl

Lharder, PM sent, if you wish I will engage you on the mid bomb topic more in the pest area, SP has bumped a Mite bomb thread back to life there, I am working my way thew its 16 pages


----------



## Riverderwent

When I was a backyard beekeeper, I used the Bond method and it worked well for me. I would not use package bees (unless doing so were unavoidable, in which case, I would be as selective as practical about the package's provenance). Where I am, you do not have to have more than three hives to be treatment free. You need to use the right bees and good methods. 

If I were in another area, I would contact folks who do bee friendly cutouts in order to try to find local bees that are surviving treatment free, and I would try to locate successful local treatment free beekeepers to learn their methods. Different areas will have different flows and bees with different survival traits.


----------



## 1102009

Riverderwent said:


> If I were in another area, I would contact folks who do bee friendly cutouts in order to try to find local bees that are surviving treatment free, and I would try to locate successful local treatment free beekeepers to learn their methods. Different areas will have different flows and bees with different survival traits.


I would do that too if I were US.

With me:
No successful LOCAL tf beekeepers, no tf cutouts, no ferals, other beekeepers sceptic or hostile to tf, beeclub members ignorant of tf....bred queens from foreign countries which are more resistant are not adapted to the locale....

Reading Beesource I feel a standstill in Germany which is very disturbing. Only some scientists are interested in VSH, which to me is a one way path.

With my contacts I have some co workers to exchange stock, though. Somehow we will make it. Sorry to raise too much attention to myself.


----------



## Michael Bush

>The idea of mite bombs is OVERBLOWN. 

In my experience the mite reproduction centers are the treated bees. Mite bombs are from the treated bees or the escaped treated bees. The concept is just an excuse to explain why treating is failing.


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## Andrew Dewey

I must respectfully disagree with Michael. My experience is that mite bombs come largely from new beekeepers who are too scared to routinely monitor/inspect their bees. Mistakenly, many of them think that by doing nothing they (and their bees) are TF - yet they started out with commercially available packages and nucs. Then the bees die, and another beekeeper is lost.

For me IPM is about detecting issues. I have tried using various commercial stocks to be TF in my area without success. I am all in favor of anything that reduces issues, and in techniques that in my estimation result in fewer treatments. I do not have patience for the so-called "TF" nuc makers who deliver bees loaded with mites to newbees, and whose own bees survived only because of the brood break, and that some (many?) of the mites went into the nuc in the capped brood.

There is *still* too much hype around TF. Some can be attributed to sales pitches needed to keep the salesperson on the path; some to location, and some unfortunately, to predatory sales tactics.


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## gww

Andrew
I am probly stiring trouble here but here goes any way. From my side, I am not doing this with fighting intent but more just to keep thinking.


> I must respectfully disagree with Michael. My experience is that mite bombs come largely from new beekeepers who are too scared to routinely monitor/inspect their bees. Mistakenly, many of them think that by doing nothing they (and their bees) are TF - yet they started out with commercially available packages and nucs. Then the bees die, and another beekeeper is lost.


My question would be, who would you think would lose the most bees to the trees or being left behind to find a home when the mother hive is moved? Would it be the one with only one or two hives or the one that has 1500 hives sitting in one space till they are needed for polination? Does the guy with 600 hives lose less swarms then the back yard guy with only 2 hives?

I am pretty sure that once the bees hit the trees, they will be as loaded or more so in a pretty short time as the treatment free guys bees are. The ones that are left behind are going to find a home in hives that are still around.

Or the big guy like the one in oldtimes post, just gets too old to stay on top of things or the help quits or the owner breaks his leg. These type of things don't add up to more then the impact of a back yard keeper with 2 hives?

I am not buying that. I understand your point (I think) that you feel that keeping bees alive with brood breaks is not keeping them alive like treating is and is not as good. If that was not your point, I am sorry if I am missrepresenting it. I am not sure that I agree with your math but only have antidotal things to base that on. To me it is common sence to think that all these things are going to be happening and so in the end, praticing your beliefs on you bees will be what is left because the rest is going to happen from lots of differrent directions. It doesn't matter who wants to point at who as the responcible party for what some believe is a problim of mite bomb because there are so many ways for mites to be around. So if someone keeps bees with out treatment, that is what he faces and so if successful, he is still successful. If a treater faces the same thing and he is successful, then he is successful.
Just a differrent view of the possibilities.
Cheers
gww


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## Andrew Dewey

@gww - no fighting intended from me either. I _*think*_ alot of bees are sold as TF when they could better be described as bees kept alive with a great deal of intervention by the beekeeper. Maybe I am hoping for too much. TF bees, to me, ought to thrive on their own, with no special interventions _*and*_ make a surplus honey crop.

Yes, I understand stuff happens; As an example, I just found yesterday (this is Maine) that I'd lost my Wolfe Creek bees to a mouse or family of mice. This in a TBH. The bee's fault? Hardly. I don't expect them to be able to deal with mice/voles. I'll restock them with another WC package at $175 for the last time this year, chanting the mantra "third time pays for all." And install hardware cloth on the TBH late this coming summer.

But, I also intend to count mites on this hive just ahead of winter bee raising time. (mid-August here abouts) Hopefully the bees will have the mites under control - I want to know.

And to answer the points raised in your post, I'd rather have as a neighbor (for swarms) the dedicated commercial beekeeper than a bee haver.

I tell students in my classes (Beginner and Intermediate), these are issues you or the bees are going to have to deal with. I don't much care what you do, as long as you do something.


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## Oldtimer

msl said:


> if you wish I will engage you on the mid bomb topic more in the pest area, SP has bumped a Mite bomb thread back to life there, I am working my way thew its 16 pages


Poor MSL must be in despair trying to keep his thread on topic , which is IPM not mite bombs.

Realised I contributed to this myself with one of my posts on mite bombs. It's tempting to divide into teams and throw stones in this case TF vs non TF, who makes the most mite bombs. But in the end we live in our own back yard and do what we can, and sorry MSL for my part in taking the thread off topic. 

And the topic is the case for IPM.


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## gww

Andrew
I think I have gotten lucky on the mice thing once. I use 3/8 opening on my bottom board and did not do mouse guards. I did find a mouse making a nest between my insulation and top cover and so maby I just got lucky once. The traps I left out all year had a 50% infestation rate when I rebaited them this year.

I think the problim with doing a good job or bad job has a lot to do with what you are expecting out of your bees. I bought my bees from someone who does not treat. I am doing no mite counts and taking it on faith that it is going to work. Oldtimer made a comment that rings true to me. He said that if you keep bees like the guy that sold them to you, you should have the same success that he is having if you can live with whatever that level of success is.

What I think this guy does is keeps about 8 hives, he will pick a couple of them for honey production. He gets dead outs but has enough that still live to get his few prodution hives and make splits to replace his dead outs and then depending on the year has a few extra of the splits to sell. On real good years he probly can sell 5 or 6 and on bad years maby 1 or 2. He has did it for 20 years this way. He is satisfied with what he is doing. A more agressive guy would say he is wating resources and in three years he could have 100 hive out of those 8 hives. I think it misses the point that he is quite happy with his system and always has enough to make what he wants to make. He knows he could make more too but is not interested in working that hard. Who am I to say he is wrong in the way he keeps bees. I bought one from him. I am happy that he did not lie and I knew what was going on when I put down my money.

I am not going to count mites. I will look for perferated brood caps and mite frass and will watch for crawlers and if a hive or five die, will do autopsys and make a new descision then. I might get scared or want to experment and do something before then. I figure it is up to me to find a way that I am successful in my eyes. It may not end up like what he is doing.

I think all this discussion is good because during this journy, I am leaning of all the differrent ways that I can adjust this way or that till I hit what my success level might be.

Some guys would not paint thier barn because they like the rustic look and some have every piece of trim possible and color cowardinated skeems that make thier stuff look show room clean.

Both are deciding what is art in thier eyes and where to put thier efforts and money. Bee keeping is going to be the same with indidviduals getting to decide and that with the wild swarms is why the only right thing ever is how you handle your own stuff and how it fits with others and nature that is out of our control.

I can not tell you where this is going to take me and how I will be managing my hives yet. I really don't care what anyone else does as long as they share what they are doing so I have more options on how to handle my stuff.

Wishing you the best on your third time going to be money maker hive.
Cheers
gww

Ps Hey oldtimer, you out typed me again. I know I have been part of the distraction however, spliting is part of the ipm and it did come up that it might not really count because it ends up being a mite bomb if not kept going and robs you of honey. In the end, my view, it sorta is about ipm working or not and maby a proper thing to be here? Not dictating (that is squarepegs job) just asking?


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## ethanhogan

Does any know mike Palmer's treatment program?? I have searched the entire internet, even asked on here many times. I'm assuming it goes unanswered or ignored for some reason, but no one can give me the answer. Obviously it's working, but no one can tell me how he is treating. From the video posted he has tried mite away strips, and also OA vapor with no success. I would like to know what is successful and what is a successful mite treatment plan for a commercial apiary is??


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## Oldtimer

As I understood what he told me he treats one time per year if that, but he actively selects for mite tolerance and runs with very low mite levels it has taken him years to get where he is. That's best memory serves, we talked about a lot of stuff.

In fact he is probably an example of what this thread is about. If he had another 50 years to continue what he is doing, in theory he may well reach a point of no or very little treatment.


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## tpope

ethanhogan said:


> Does any know mike Palmer's treatment program?? I have searched the entire internet, even asked on here many times. I'm assuming it goes unanswered or ignored for some reason, but no one can give me the answer. Obviously it's working, but no one can tell me how he is treating. From the video posted he has tried mite away strips, and also OA vapor with no success. I would like to know what is successful and what is a successful mite treatment plan for a commercial apiary is??


Watch this video. It is a candid Q&A with Michael Palmer done very recently. I feel that it answers your question...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GF3TOKf97U


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## ethanhogan

We are all selecting for mite resistance imho, or should be if raising our own queens. Question is, what does he use to treat, how does he apply it in a time effiecent manner for 100+ hives. None I have got an answer for


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## gww

Quote from michael palmer in the thread (complete loss in SE michigan).


> Over the last 25 years, I have used a number of products for varroa control. I used OAV for three years and just about lost the farm. To be blunt, it just doesn't work here in the north. By the time the colony is broodless, the cluster is tight and the vapor doesn't penetrate that tight cluster. I've mentioned this before but don't harp on it. Don't want to get in an argument. So, vaped in November for two seasons. Huge varroa loads by the middle of the second summer. Vaped three times in September as per manufacturer recommendation. Alcohol wash count was 20-25 before gaping. After three vapes a week apart, and waiting another week at the end, alcohol wash counts were 20-25. Never vaped again. Waste of time and money. Sorry to those who experience such great results. I didn't find that.
> 
> So now I use amitraz. Treatment applied in August when the honey is removed. Supers off...no compromise. My brood nests are two deeps and a medium. The medium stays on as part of the broodnest.
> 
> All that said about treatments, breeding is an important part of the system. I've been adding VSH stock since 2004. I believe it is helping keep the varroa population down, getting the bees through harvest without crashing colonies. don't see DWV bees crawling on the ground in mid-summer, as I used to see.


gww


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## Oldtimer

Good find GWW, yes that's the same he told me.

Have noticed MP doesn't talk much online about treatment, mostly avoids that debate, focusses on general beekeeping techniques that are of benefit to all.


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## gww

Oldtimer
Yea, he gets a little rough in his vidios but mostly every thing but that that he does is usable by all and probly help all. I got lucky on that find but the other day I was searching like crazy to find the post he made on cut comb with all the pictures that was formatted sorta like your queen rearing thread was. I know it is there but I had no luck finding it. Like they say, even a blind squirl will find a nut once in a while.
Cheers
gww
Ps He has also posted about handing out free queens to all his neibors to fix the deck a bit in his breeding program.


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## squarepeg

i'm operating from memory here which is probably a dangerous thing, but i think michael takes his nucs into winter without being treated. if so, there may be a little winnowing going on with that practice, i.e. weeding out the most susceptible right off the bat.


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## ethanhogan

I asked the question from the thread you quoted gww. It in no way goes into detail about his treatment plan, it only tells me what has not worked. I don't want to know what doesn't work. I want to know what does work and how to use it, such as amitraz that he mentions. How he applies, how long does he leave it in, how is admisnistered, how does he do this cost effectively etc... I do not treat for anything at this time but would like to know how to use, acquire, and techniques with amitraz if I had to one day. No one can provide these answers, except apivar strips which don't appear time or cost effective. He doesn't have answer I know these are HOT subjects. I do not use any treatments at the time, and raise all of my own stock, and they winter well, but it would be nice to have some ammo in the shelter if it arises


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## gww

eithanhogan
Michael probly feels he did answer your question. He treats once a year, supers off, no compermize in august and probly figures you can read the lable on the how to use the product. It seems like a strait forward answer to me.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

The more I read about the IPM the more I think my lifetime will not be enough to have tf bees which survive on their own without my IPM managements if i don´t stop them sometimes in near future.

Treating one time is what the toleranzzucht ag, a scientific association here, does ( they use oxalic acid in winter time) to select their mite tolerant hives ( not virus tolerant) and this I read yesterday in local our bee journal:


> Ich zitiere mal aus dem Bienenmagazin:
> Ralph Bücheler, Selektion varroaresistenter Völker:
> 
> 
> Zitat
> Die vom Institut seit 2014 in Mini-Plus-Beuten selektierten SMR (Nichtreproduzierende Milben) Population mit instrumentell besamten Königinnen durchlief 2016 die dritte Generation........trotz der gezielten Verpaarung ausgelesener Zuchtvölker ist es uns allerdings bisher nicht gelungen, das mittlere SMR- Niveau deutlich anzuheben und Völker auszulesen, deren Nachkommen zuverlässig hohe Resultate in der Größenordnung von 50% oder höher aufweisen.
> Toleranzzucht AG
> 
> _The selected SMR ( mite suppressing) populations, are now in the third generation 2016 started 2014 and are artificial inseminated. We still have no success to breed a higher level 50% or more of resistance in colonies in spite of having control about the matings._


So I ask myself: what´s the use in this? Shall we wait unit MONSANTO sells us the new medicamentation they develop to kill the mites through a changed protein gene they want to feed the bees?


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## ethanhogan

Gww, 
If it's so straight forward, you must understand exactly how to use amitraz for 100+ colonies and treat them all in a time effiecent cost effective manner. So please, fill us in if the answer is so straight forward??? Where do you get amitraz in bulk? What is your treatment program, and a years worth of mite counts on 100+ individual production colonies? Yes, seems like a simple answer. How long do you leave amitraz in? What do you use to administer it, if not using apivar? Shop towels, pieces for r cardboard, rags, spray bottle, all are ways commercial operations use it. So please enlighten us all on this simple answer. Thanks


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## squarepeg

ethanhogan said:


> Gww,
> If it's so straight forward, you must understand exactly how to use amitraz for 100+ colonies and treat them all in a time effiecent cost effective manner. So please, fill us in if the answer is so straight forward??? Where do you get amitraz in bulk? What is your treatment program, and a years worth of mite counts on 100+ individual production colonies? Yes, seems like a simple answer. How long do you leave amitraz in? What do you use to administer it, if not using apivar? Shop towels, pieces for r cardboard, rags, spray bottle, all are ways commercial operations use it. So please enlighten us all on this simple answer. Thanks


ethan and gww, you may not realize that this thread is in the treatment free section. i've been ok so far with the posts as they have been civil and the thread topic is about the 'path to treatment free', but we are straying of topic here. please repost this in the 'diseases and pests' section and continue the discussion there.

many thanks.


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## ethanhogan

Sorry square. As stated I do not use treatments myself, but I do model my apiary after Kirk and Palmer. Their systems have not failed me. I have yet to use treatments due to that fact people are loosing the same amount if not more colonies then I am not using treatments. The reason I ask about amitraz was because of the video posted and the talk about treatments and breeding. As I grow to 50 plus this summer, and my endeavors comntinue, my outlook towards treating weighs on my mind. I am experiencing 25% losses in my production colonies with no treatments, and less then 5% in my double story nucs no treatments. As Palmer states he only experienced a 2% loss and 17% loss in the past 2 years. 2% would be nice, but as stated above other mite treatments in my local do not work, so using chemicals has not been a factor for me. I was just curious on how to use amitraz, if it does such a good job on mites for mike. Once again, sorry for talking about treatments, but it does relate to the video that was posted. Hopefully we can all work together treatments or not and develop a bee that can function under the pressure of mites. Something I too am passionate about.


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## squarepeg

:thumbsup:


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## msl

Andrew Dewey said:


> I do not have patience for the so-called "TF" nuc makers who deliver bees loaded with mites to newbees, and whose own bees survived only because of the brood break, and that some (many?) of the mites went into the nuc in the capped brood.


The flip side is if their bees are thriving enough with a just brood break that they can sell nucs I would like to get some of their stock.. IMHO the issue does not lie with the seller (Under the “rules” constant splitting is considered TF ), but with the end user who isn’t monitoring for mites or dealing with them. The problem once again is what I feel is the erroneous message new keepers get that TF = hands off, easy, low maintenance, just see if they make it beekeeping.
The other take home is how you make your spits matters , mites are in capped brood and mostly on nurse bees, more on this in a bit 



Oldtimer said:


> Poor MSL must be in despair trying to keep his thread on topic , which is IPM not mite bombs.


No dispair at all 
One of my main arguments in the OP was for the necessity (as opposed to it just being good and eftive TF beekeeping) of IMP in TF was mite bombs are bad for beekeepers around you. 
So if you don’t want to be bothered putting in the work to stop Mite bombs, your natural point of view will be mite bombs are hype, otherwise it’s hard to justify your behavior. If you’re not hurting anyone else, who has the right to tell you how to keep your bees!! 
So attacking the validity of mite bombs will be the normal and expected strategy of such people. 
As such I posted the OP fully prepared to defend my position with in the context of BYBK, even tho I have Palmer, Oliver, and Seeley on the record saying they are bad, in beekeeping you don’t get much more definitive then that, but beekeepers are beekeepers .

however this happed


squarepeg said:


> let's see if we can move this discussion forward using ruthie's approach as a starting point to hash out the nonchemical ipm options.


*out of respect I took the not so subtle hint most seemed to miss* and tried to back SP to move the discussion…. Biting my tongue is not my strong suit, I am prepared and itching for that fight, which is why I kindly and repeatability ask them to “cash me outside” 

That being said, I do want to touch on one of GWW's questions as I feel it has a good lead in to direct take home points for the development of a Physical IMP program, 


gww said:


> I am pretty sure that once the bees hit the trees, they will be as loaded or more so in a pretty short time as the treatment free guys bees are


One would hope the TF guys mites would be less, kind the point of the thread is to teach them how to KNOW what the mite load and hopefully take action be for cems become the only option to prevent a bomb. I think we should clarify at this point mite bombs are not a TF issue, they are a bad beekeeping issue 

but let’s talk about about the "trees" as the escapee issue often comes up 
The carrying capacity of an area limited to its suitable nesting sites and we have seen that population’s densities remains stable. So in a nut shell for one swam to make it an established colony needs to fail. This is one reason swarm trapping has proven so effective.

Next we have nest size; the “trees” are much smaller than a production hive. So in theory, if all things are equal the hive with the much smaller volume will swarm 1st, taking up any nesting spots opened up by dead outs before the larger production hives that are being manged to stop swarm prep, get around to swarming. I suggest this is one of the main reasons DNA study’s do not show in ingress of commercial genetics in to the feral population. So the escaped swarm dies, and with no honey to attract robbers the mites die with them.

Smaller nest means more swarms, less brood, so less mites, but also less honey so the impact and chances of a feral crashing is less then big production hive as not only the amount of mites is lower, but so is the amount of bees that rob it 

why, well looks at what happens. 
A 10f deep + a super is about the top end of a feral nest… when you stack a double deep + a bunch of suppers in to a sky scraper hive you have gotten massively oversize… filling that volume takes bees, lots of bees. That means brood, lots of brood, that means lots of mites, lots of mites. Then bee population drops off sharply heading to winter cluster level at the moment mite production is maxing out. So really the number of mites doesn’t change much, but with less bees the ratio of mites to bees goes through the roof. 
So the bigger the pop is over the wintering cluster size the more likelihood of the hive crashing. I think this is one reason summer increase nucs do well, on top of the brood break, do to being started small, they are building up to winter cluster size instead of shrinking to it, so even if both hives started with the same mite load, they end with very different ones when its time to make winter bees .

one maybe able (I have not proven this) do a summer flyaway spilt on a colony showing mite issues(even commercial stock), then break the e-cells in the original into nucs, hit them with sugar at the point there is not capped brood and have some relatively clean stock to work with come spring and requeen. 

Now this kind of hive count is outside of the definition of BYBK as used in this thread unless they are banding together or can place some nucs at a neighbors or friend or hide the numbers in palmers. But it is with in the relm of possibility, so I will run with it a bit further 

No the topic getting glassed over is lets talk open mating in a urban area


sqkcrk said:


> Looks like .5 feral colonies per km squared in rural forested area and 2.3 feral colonies in urban area buildings, across NY State, Vischer and Seeley 1982, Morse et al 1990.


ok so I last year I was aware of about 12 colony’s kept by 5 beekeepers with in 1.5k of my hives, this is not counting my 6 or the mite bombers 12 as we and our site are not the norm, we fit more in the rural definition, ok so figger the real number is likely at least 2x that hiding behind back yard fences and such so call it 24 So that’s 3.4 managed hives per KM2. So by strait numbers it’s a 40% chance a given swarm or drone is feral.. Probly better than 50/50 once you figure in that most bee keepers work to suppress swarm and drone production. 

I can’t find the SP quote I was looking for so I will parphaces. JWChesnut is fond of telling us small operations can’t do much except drift toward the background pop, but if the back ground pop is something we want, that’s a good thing

So yes a BYBK may be able to open mate commercial stock and get some local adapted genetics in the f1 cross and that may be an improvement over the mother queen, you realy won’t know the value of her as a breeder for 2 years. But to get to f2, take 10 cells in matting nucs, 5 will have 100% commercial stock genes, 5 will have 50% local genes, of those 5 maybe 2 will show promise depending on how they are mated.
Now that’s just assuming the local adapted stock is something you want, and not just only surviving 16 months or so in a small cavity, long enough to toss a few swarms come spring/summer and then crash.

So that’s a few years and quite a bit of wood wear and resources (10 full sized hives) to select for those 2 queens. This is what I am referring to when saying the normal BYBK is not realistically going to be developing or propagating any sort of stock, so we should not be telling them should be trying or expecting to. Now as I have said before a RBK with a bit more control over the areas gentinicks and the space for a higher hive count is a very different story 

_Practical application/cliff notes for those just skimming this post
_
Commercial stock swarms have little effect on the feral pop and mite bombs

Someone who wishes to manage with Physical IMP may be able to head off a mite bomb by doing a fly away spit leaving the capped brood , nurse bees , and most of the mites in the hive that gets the brood break and giving the old queen a fresh start in a new hive 
Adding a sugar dusting timed right so there is no capped brood would add a second knockout punch to the mites if your not apposed to it. The new hive would be dusted ASAP as soon as the bulk of the foragers have returned for the night or early in the next morning. 
The old hive draws cells and can be split in to nucs and dusted when there is no more capped brood but before the new queens start laying (about 21 days from fly away split) this gives you a shot at some local adaption in the new queens and a nuc to requeen come spring. 

Because summer nucs are growing towards winter cluster size, not shrinking down like a production hive, their mite loads in late fall will be less than a full sized hive if they started at the same mite load. Now start that nuc with a cell and hit them with sugar while they are brood less and you are sending them into winter in good shape.....if they don't get bombed

The BYBK is unlikely to develop a feasible breeding/selection program, but raising their own queens may be of some help depending on the background pop if they have no other options. 

The amount of feral bees is urban areas is surprising high and can be good hunting, swarm trapping with traps 500m apart (4 per KM2) or less is not necessarily over kill based on feral denistys, and especially if you count swarms from other BYBKs.

Palmers and hive bodys used as nucs separated by plywood and stacked on each other look like a single hive to zoning officials.


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## Hillbillybees

Love this thread. We commercial guys get the rap a lot. But more than anything and probably more than anyone on here we would love to be treatment free. That money would go a long ways. But when weighed in the balance of high losses or treatments as a business we are forced to treat. And I do realize we are part of the problem. We should just quit selling bees to everyone that wants some bees. But that too goes against good business practices. 
We have VSH mixed with Minn Hyg queens. We buy new queens and bring their genetics in every year when we hear about successful breeders. We select our breeders by the usual qualities but we added mite loads in August before treatment as one of the qualifiers. We are starting to see slight changes. It will take years.

BUT I believe someone is going to break the code. I think it will be the commercial queen producers, one of the labs or universities that will get it done. More than likely a combination. 

I have heard it said a commercial guy moved in and the mite load went up. I dont doubt it. The mites are begging to find an easier target. We simply cannot afford to let them die for a few bucks in treatments. But we would love to save the time and money. You can believe that. 

Please, please find a way to make us a customer of your genetics. I will make the investment and pop every one of our queens in a heartbeat. I am happy many are able to be TF. I long for the day I can say the same. Then of course a new problem will arise and we can all start over once again.


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## gww

Mls
Good post. I think it might not be reconizing a couple of small things. When talking about swarms and wild hive. 
1. All the hives treated or otherwise have mites. 
2. Splits and swarming only reduce the mites even if no brood is moved.
3. Even all treatment knock down rates only hit the 90 percent mark leaving some live mites.
4. Drones are welcome in every hive.
The second part is that some treatment free people and some of seeleys work shows that some hives go into winter with what many would consider high mite load and do ok and have some not understood mechinizem that keeps the mite load even though high leveled out.

The reason to mention these things is because these are the things that make setting a standard of what bee resistance and strength of what a truly strong make up of a bee that needs the fewest ipm performed on it and it will still survive.

One case for hard bond is that some bees are going into winter with high mite loads and still booming in spring. Some ipm is going to be done either by the bees or by the bee keeper for increase.

If there were no things to point at where bees were surviving in lots of differrent situations, it would be easyer to say this is a bad practice. If there were no failers in one way of handling bees, a guy could say this is the only right way.

Ipm is just one path to try to get closer to bees that resist mites with out help.

Ipm should not be the goal but more the tool to get to the goal.

So the part of your discussion on swarms making no impact (my take maby not what you ment) Does not ring true as the whole story to me. If swarms from non stressed bees leave and then being on their own have to put up with the extra stress, if they due to being what they are handle such stress badly and become more easily overloaded and also breed, it is likely they have just as bad of an impact as the poor beekeeper with two hives and it is just as likely being something that will be out of our control. I have read all those studies too.

In the same studies that are pointing out small hive, swarm often and at a distance from each other, the other part is they are hard bond stressed.

So if a backyard beekeeper has some success in hard bond and maby some ipm, one still can not say they are hurting everyone more then anyone else is.

I believe there are poeple out there that don't manage there hives and still have bees for multiple years.

If a person is wanting to help the new bee keeper just starting out, his best bet is to point out that in a way bees are kinda individual too and this is what I have did and have been successful with mine and I think it might help you with yours.

Somebody else doing the same, Hey this is what I do.

The new bee keeper dicides from those things to look at and goes a certain way.

The key for the new bee keeper will be to watch his bees and if things go hey wire, try and figure what is causing it to go hey wire and make adjustments with his bees. After getting real good with his bees, he can take what he has learned and go out and try to save the world.

Ipm is one tool in the chest but it is not the goal. Due to the wide differrences in bees, I do find ipm a little hard to wrap my head around of the actual targets you set to act opon. If you say when my hive gets to 2 percent, I am either going to kill it, treat it or requeen it, or split it so it doesn't affect other hives, that leaves out the fact that some hives are going into winter higher then that and rebounding even stronger then they were in spring. If you set your targets too low, then you really don't find out what was possible and might miss something good. Of course you could miss a step forward by doing that if they died. I am not convince anyone has a sure answer cause if they did there would no longer be the question.

I am willing to let the guy who put his skin in the game try it his way.
Cheers
gww
Ps too your point that if a swam leaves one in the area has to die to make room. It is the same with deer, they get to populated and along comes black toung to bring the population back in line. Maby lots of swarms in a small area have the same effect on bees and does it with mites the bee communicable diseise.


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## msl

gww said:


> Ipm should not be the goal but more the tool to get to the goal.


Agree 100%, at least for the BYBK. Some one doing real work on a breading program is a different story( Ie I don't know how some one small would reasonably select for virus resistance with out bond), and beyond the scope of this thread.

edit...some how this posted before I was done writing???? i will post below GWW so the edit dosn't make his post screwey


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## gww

mls


> One of my main arguments in the OP was for the necessity (as opposed to it just being good and eftive TF beekeeping) of IMP in TF was mite bombs are bad for beekeepers around you.
> So if you don’t want to be bothered putting in the work to stop Mite bombs, your natural point of view will be mite bombs are hype, otherwise it’s hard to justify your behavior. If you’re not hurting anyone else, who has the right to tell you how to keep your bees!!
> So attacking the validity of mite bombs will be the normal and expected strategy of such people.


This thread is a case or path rather then bond for ipm for the new bee keeper.

That means discussing is there a better case for ipm. Since we are talking about what new bee keepers should do. The case that I make is that the new beekeeper with 2 or three hives would have to worry about outside influinces that he had no control over and so how he kept his bees is what he needed to worry about. Part of the is deciding what the end goal is and what tools to get there.

The result is advice that one avenue is cut off to him because he might be harming others more then a good bee keeper might harm others. 

So that brings up the discussion of right and wrong on effect of him on others and the fact that due to all the avenues of keeping bees being differrent, the math to deciding who is hurting others the most by the way they are keeping bees becomes more important then him keeping his bees alive. I think there is enough blame everywhere depending on who gets to decide that the new bee keeper might do better just learning what is out there and then using the parts he thinks will help with his bees based on his goals and what he is willing to suffer to reach those goals.

The decision he makes will affect him much more then his three hives will effect the environment compared to everything else that also effects the environment. So if he choses to go hard bond and it worked in a good enough fassion that he could live with, it would still be working and lazy or not lazy would have nothing to do with it and may have nothing to do with the reasons for doing it. If he loses his hives then he will have to adjust no matter how lazy he is if he wants to keep the same bees he tried to keep before. He is defanatly not lazyer than someone who treats once a year by a calender and that is all he does because he has found that that works.

If he makes the decision that while trying to get to the TF spot it would better to shake powder sugar on once a month and make a split every year on april 15, or just destroy all brood every spring for a reset, or pull the queen for two weeks or whatever, if he does this cause he believes it give him a better chance to be treatment free in the end with less loss. If he is successful, then he is still sucessful. If the discussion to the new guy is that a case can be made that this is a route you could go and he decides it has merit, He will be a good bee keeper in somes eyes and still a bad one in those eyes that like thier method better because it is not as hard. They are not lazy on the goal of keeping good bees, just on that they feel thier way is better. Lazy, Hillbilly in this thread sounded lazy when thinking if he could have treatment free bees it would save him money and work but reconizes that he also needs to make a living and has to work for it. So he would like to get where he could be lazy.

I am lazy and so I hope my bees live and let me stay that way. If they die, Those bees wont bee hurting anyone for long and I will still be lazy when I get more but will still do more to be successful.

I would say the person making a case for ipm is the one doing it and sharing thier experiance and those discussing the tools, This means you post and ideals also mls. I do think you wrote a pretty good post. 

I don't even mind if your belief is that it is a bad bee keeper that doesn't count mites 4 times a year.

I like the guy that experments and post his successes and failure of what he actually does. Now that is something to analyze.

For all you hard bonders out there that are successful, I love your stuff and you unsuccessful ones that try, I like your spunk. For the ipm people, I like knowing every tool in the box. For the new guy just starting, It is fun and hard learning all the tools you might use.

So in the end, even though it is true that


> So if you don’t want to be bothered putting in the work to stop Mite bombs


That it could be being done for other reasons then not wanting to be bothered with putting in the work. Who would lose 5 hives cause they didn't want to be bothered. Why get bees at all if you don't want to be bothered.

There are other reasons then just not wanting to be bothered though if we ever get the bees to that point, not being bothered would be nice.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

gww said:


> The case that I make is that the new beekeeper with 2 or three hives would have to worry about outside influences that he had no control over and so how he kept his bees is what he needed to worry about.


Weather you worry or stick your head in the sand the outcome is only changed by action 
Teaching IMP Is actually a 1-2 punch....If people learn to track mites and take action when/if needed, that stops the outgoing bomb from forming. but what your missing is it also allows the beekeeper on the receiving end of one to know there is a issue and take corrective action. 
As Michael Bush said


> It seems like there are at least two components to success. The first is to create a stable system so that the mite population is not increasing within the hive. The second is to find a way to monitor and recover from that occasional sudden influx of mites. Conditions that cause the mites to skyrocket seem to be in the fall when the hives rob out other hives crashing from mites and bring home a lot of hitchhikers.





> I monitor the mites with a white board under the SBB. As long as the mites stay under control, and so far, since 2002 they have, that's all I do. If the mites were to start going up while the supers are on I would probably fog with FGMO or dust with powdered sugar. If they were still high after fall harvest, I would use Oxalic Acid vapor. So far I haven't needed them since the bees were regressed


 IPM at its finest, attaining the systems ultimate goal of being chemical free while helping protect the beekeeper from economic harm
I don't want to copy paste the whole page so head over there to get the full context!http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm 

so back to what I was typing in the last post


gww said:


> I do find ipm a little hard to wrap my head around of the actual targets you set to act opon. If you say when my hive gets to 2 percent, I am either going to kill it, treat it or requeen it, or split it so it doesn't affect other hives, that leaves out the fact that some hives are going into winter higher then that and rebounding even stronger then they were in spring. If you set your targets too low, then you really don't find out what was possible and might miss something good.


You are refering to action threshold. There are 3 main ones to be looked at depending on your goles. 
The level your harvest is impacted and the level that left unchecked will lead to probable loss of the colony and the level where you have let thing go to far an the hive is likely the walking dead 
randy says


> I’ve found that if I keep the mite infestation rate below the 2% level (2 mites per 100 bees) that my colonies thrive. But should that rate reach 5%, then I start seeing the brood fall apart. By the time the rate reaches 15%, the colony is generally seriously on the way downhill, and even with treatment may not recover.


 another source says


> As of spring 2016, many experts are using a threshold of 3% infestation (3 mites / 100 bees, or 9 mites in your ½ cup sample). This number may change over time, or by region. Make sure that you check with other beekeepers, extension, and tech transfer teams to learn current thresholds.


Micheal Bush says


> Put the board under it and wait 24 hours and count the mites. It's better to do this over several days and average the numbers, but if you have a few mites (0 to 20) you aren't in too bad of shape if you have a lot (50 or more) in 24 hours you need to do something.


 If I crunched MB's numbers right a 4.5% infestation is the end of not to bad and 11% you better be doing something to save the hive, dovetails fairly well with Randy's numbers.... now if you look at MB's state inspection records his mites run 2% or less, so if your hitting 5% things aren't workin and you need to up your measures (say start drone culling) and if you hit 10% maby its time to take stronger action to save the hive. All these numbers are spitball and you need input from your locals


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## gww

mls
I know with that post you were doing you best to help me figure it out and I thank you for that.

I will tell you about me. I am not a purist on anything yet. I actually have read most of that stuff and also any thing else somebody turns me on to. I just love when people post good links. I am not a follower of micheal bush but I do praise him for putting his stuff out there for free cause I don't buy much and have found that I can understand his writing style better them most. His site has probly helped me more on just understanding general handling issues. I don't buy into the philosiphy part cause I am not smart enough yet. I don't discount it either.

I watch all micheal palmer vidios and then bug him on things I don't understand every time I get a chance. I don't buy into his full phylosophy but also don't discount it and am very thankful he is there.

My problim as you are finding out is that I read everything with the intent of finding flaws. I don't do this out of hate but more because that is how my brain works in placing value to things. My learned way of learning.

I have solid bottom boards because that was what the free plan on bee souce had and I thought I could build it. I get into my hive pretty regular but I hardly ever dig to deep but do my best looking for as deep as I do go and watch the entrance almost daily.

I will not take mite counts by killing a couple hundred bees every so often even though I know in the big picture that is not much of a loss to a hive. But I might someday just like I have butchered chickens.

I will look enough to hopefully see changes as they happen but this year am new enough to not know what I am seeing.

Why would I try this, cause I have seen some one local and so figure even knowing the risk, have a little faith and see what happens.

Why else do I do this? Last year I caught 3 swarms. I give them nothing. I did know the risk while doing this and was willing to take it. I wanted to see what normal no help looks like and also to maby learn my areas flows a little. This year if I catch a swarm, I will feed untill they have thier broodnest comb built and see what the differrences are.

What is the point to saying the above. The point is that everyone has thier own prossess for learning and mine is pretty slow but I am a very lucky person and some how seem to do just enough to get er done. I do know the risk though.

On the ipm, I have seen randys view but also pick it apart for inconsistancys. Do I do this because I think I know more about bees than randy, NOT ON YOU LIFE do I think that. But I do think that even though his arguements are based on study, they are based on his study. Randy always has a base line hive to show the differrences of what he is expermenting on that has nothing done to it. A bunch of them died due to mites because he built the mites up so he could experment on them.

So I love the advice but sometime the risk has to be taken to prove out the advice.

Other people take these risk to experment also. A back yard bee keeper like me that is not relieing on bees for income can afford to try and reinvent the wheel if that is how his learing works.

I don't buy that it is ok when randy does it but not others though randy's skills do justify what he does.

I did not put that last part about randy up to go against your view on mite bombs but more to show my type of thought prossess while learning things.

I sound tough and like I don't care if my bees die and I am going to try it no matter what. The truth is that I might get scared and start treating tomorrow. I won't feel to bad either way I go cause I consider it the cost of learning if you are as dumb as me.

I see the levels of infection that they say treat and then requeen and then try again. That way you don't lose your work fource and it doesn't cost so much to work toward treatment free.

However, I also saw a post not to long ago of two differrent bee keepers saying thier hives where at 15% going into winter and came out strong in spring.

15% is higher then randys threshold and if it is 15% who is to say 17% wont work some of the time?

I am not saying I will be the one that onpurpose decides to find out with my bees but somebody who has had success with lower counts wil and may keep doing it untill they are successful. A few failure may not stop them.

I wan't to know all about all of this but do have on my mind what I have seen locally and so have to make the parts of all of it untill it fits my stuff. 

You might find that come fall, I have posted all my bees died or I didn't get any honey for my first overwintered hives. If That happens, I don't even mind if you say I told you so. I really don't (gonna hurt if I lose all my bees though).

I also don't discount that a back yard bee keeper can help the situation of a possible mite bomb but also believe that if he doesn't it would be no differrent then if he had not caught the swarm and it had did what it did with out him.

So he may have an opertunity to help with his bees but he will have no opertunity of outside influinces against his bees and if he experments or goes hard bond based on the possible reconized bennifits, he will be of very little impact.

I want to know all the things you have to tell me and hopefully as my brain prossesses it, some portion of what you have given me will make me a better bee keeper in a couple of years. One thing about it. If you know it and I don't, then there is no hope of it helping me.
Thank you for the post.
gww


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## 1102009

> So the bigger the pop is over the wintering cluster size the more likelihood of the hive crashing. I think this is one reason summer increase nucs do well, on top of the brood break, do to being started small, they are building up to winter cluster size instead of shrinking to it, so even if both hives started with the same mite load, they end with very different ones when its time to make winter bees .


It´s not so easy. Some nucs develop so fast, they are like a production hive and shrink also. That was the case with mine.
And there are some which have a high mite rate but are resistant to virus disease.

I had one which did not shrink. It died first. Why? It was the only one in the bee yard without VSH behavior. It had no entrance defense.

Even if you have better stock, the mites outbreed the bees sometimes in a nuc. Infestation levels could be high. Use robber traps, but this is IPM.

If you do hard bond, or IPM or treatments, realize, there will always be a selection. Nature does this in spite of all our work. Nobody has total control. Go on with the best and develop some better stock, I believe it´s possible in a small bee yard, but it needs time and some co-workers to give queens to or receive local adapted queens. If you have losses, they can provide you with survivor stock which is tf.


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## gww

SiW.....


> I believe it´s possible in a small bee yard, but it needs time and some co-workers to give queens to or receive local adapted queens.


Plus, if you are small but live in a state like MO where there are a couple on this site that figure they are already having TF successes, it may not take much in the way of improving stock for a back yard guy. The stock may already be improved enough to get by. Only one way to find out. In ohio where the frost guy has kept threatment free since the thirties. It might be worth trying if you do not have an advertsion to taking some risk.

It is true that those bee keepers might be that much better that what works for them may not work for you but only one way to see.

One other point. I mentioned split last year to they guy that I bought my bees from. I mentioned it for the benifit of a mite break. His veiw that he told me was that in his experiance, the best way to survive winter is with a big, stong hive. See, he will not tell me "No don't do that or yes do that" He will just hint at what he thinks is best. 

He told me this year that he was surprised my hives where still alive and that last year he didn't think that was going to happen. The hive were lacking enough drawn comb. He said he doesn't like sugar blocks cause they draw pest. I used 16 lbs sugar blocks. I am guessing the point is that he is the greatest resource but that I do use outside imput and pick and choose what I actually do. There are lots of avenues that can help a little and also hurt a little but in the end, either you have to keep bees or you have to get a volinteer or worker to keep them for you.

I wrote that cause, though you can not throw all bee keeping priciples out the window, you can see that success can be had in several ways. Big cluster smaller cluster and the machanics of making it work might be a little differrent.

I do relize that people in other states or even in mine may have a differrent make up, the beekeeper may have differrent things that he sees to go by and that you only know or see what you know or see even if stuff you haven't seen is out there. You still only know what you know, or think you know.
Cheers
gww


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## lharder

I think you are doing great gww. An argument that the newcomers and small time beekeepers can make an excellent contribution.


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## gww

Iharder


> An argument that the newcomers and small time beekeepers can make an excellent contribution.


And if that new comer is ambitious (I am not that abitious) and does have some success, he may in a couple of years become one of the big timers that everyone says is going to be the ones who save the world. I would say almost all bee keepers started some where and even the big ones were small once.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

lharder said:


> I think you are doing great gww. An argument that the newcomers and small time beekeepers can make an excellent contribution.


absolutely, just think were we would be if we only listened to TF people who had 50+ hives:lookout:


SiWolKe said:


> It´s not so easy. Some nucs develop so fast, they are like a production hive and shrink also


there will always be exceptions to the base line.
I don't know your time line or set up of your nucs. In this example I am referring to summer increase nucs for over wintering, started small in mid July(otherwise they get too big, want to swarm, etc)) with a bar of brood, a bar of stores, a shake or 2 of bees and a cell. The concept is to take the min amount of bee resources and grow it so gets just big eunf to rase a good batch of winter bees and pack a way some stores


SiWolKe said:


> Even if you have better stock, the mites outbreed the bees sometimes in a nuc.


yes, how you make your spits matters as do some things we don’t know….its not like you get the same results every time with bees 



gww said:


> I will not take mite counts by killing a couple hundred bees every so often


While not the best method, sugar rolls or stickily boards work to a degree, No need for a SBB, quoting MB again


> If you don't have a SBB then you need a sticky board. You can buy these or make one with a piece of #8 hardware cloth on a piece of sticky paper. The kind you use to line drawers will work. Put the board under it and wait 24 hours and count the mites.





gww said:


> I also saw a post not to long ago of two differrent bee keepers saying thier hives where at 15% going into winter and came out strong in spring


Timing matters, 15% going in to winter is very different then 15% going in to summer or fall, and what that count means is very different if there is no brood
IE Currie & Gatien suggest for Manitoba an action threshold of 1.5% in the spring (with 3% being an impact on the crop) 4.5% early sept, and 15% October.

Randy states


> the fact that mite-tolerant races of bees rarely allow varroa to exceed a 2% infestation


but doesn’t give any data or study to back that up.. It goes well with MB’s health certs, but..... 

I would love it if SP and a few of the other people who are being successful at TF to post what there counts look like on hives that are thriving, VS poor shape or crashed. That might give us a better target to find the point where you can say this queen doesn’t have what it takes in TF perspective vs a honey crop perspective. 
I can't give you magic mite number if you wishing to push the bees to there almost breaking point just in case they can handle it such a fine line is going to be defined at a local level, maby people could ask there TF suppler (if they have one) what their counts look like

There is no such thing as cooke cutter beekeeping to garentee results, I have a garage full of langs to prove that. 
Even tho I am I topbar guy(for$$ reasons, can't beat $25 a hive) I thought I would try the "dark side" this year, and starting messing around on CL to try to pick up a lang or 2 cheap to play with
long story short I can't turn down a deal and it snowballed a bit as I picked up a bits and pices here and there
I spent a grand total of $302 and I now have seven sets of 10f gear(2 deeps 3 meadum supers), Six 8f singles, and 6 f5 nucs, and bunch of other random items. 
It was a little hard seeing all these people who had their dreams crushed, looking at the floor as they talked about their bees, after 2-3 years of losses they just wanted the hive and the bitter memory's it holds out of their yard. That was a good chunk of the reason for starting this thread, to help people be successful


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## 1102009

msl 
maybe Erik Österlunds blog is of interest to you, he does mite counts on almost all his hives and has some experience. He is also doing IPM. Very interesting what he has to say even if he is swedish.

http://www.elgon.es/diary/


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## gww

msl
I am a pretty cheap guy too.
Cheers
gww
Ps, I am on the otherside. I have two long langs and a warre hive but am running langs. The non langs are my prettiest swarm traps.


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## Nordak

> In ohio where the frost guy has kept threatment free since the thirties.


Hey gww, I think you are referring to Frost Apiaries in Arkansas? I just got a couple of their queens to try out. They are located about 15 miles from where I live. Great people and from everything I'm hearing excellent bees.


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## gww

SiW.....
The most interesting thing I saw on your link was down in the comment section.
The position was taken that requeening is not enough for nonresistant hives and would not work. The position was that the workers teach each other.

I don't know what creedence to put to something like that but it does add one more IPM tactic to try in my mind.

If you had two hives and one was doing pretty good and one was losing, rather then just replacing the queen alone, it might be better to make a nuc from the good hive that also has some older bees and them paper combine that with the failing hive.

If this post shows just how stupid I am on bee things, that is ok. This is the way my brain prossesses info and if there was some kind of merit to the claim of trained mite responce as much as birth mite responce (not saying there is) then this is a proceedure to try.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Nordac
Yes, I deal in generalities and many times get the facts wrong. I usually am not that far off the way it is used for a point but I would always question my fact. You are correct and that was who I was trying to refer to. I always liked reading history but always hated the test cause they didn't want to know what happend but an exact date of when.
Thanks
gww


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## Nordak

gww said:


> I always liked reading history but always hated the test cause they didn't want to know what happend


I always found I learned more from instructors who not only expected you to know what happened, but more importantly, the given event's significance in the scheme of things and lessons gleaned from studied event. Those same instructors would probably make great beekeepers.


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## gww

msl
Your post #86 fits right along the lines of what mel Dieslkoan (I know spelled wrong) the mad splitter uses in an ipm sorta way.
Thanks
gww

He has charts though, ha ha, just joking, good post.


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## Oldtimer

msl said:


> Even tho I am I topbar guy(for$$ reasons, can't beat $25 a hive) I thought I would try the "dark side" this year, and starting messing around on CL to try to pick up a lang or 2 cheap to play with
> long story short I can't turn down a deal and it snowballed a bit as I picked up a bits and pices here and there
> I spent a grand total of $302 and I now have seven sets of 10f gear(2 deeps 3 meadum supers), Six 8f singles, and 6 f5 nucs, and bunch of other random items.


Interesting story I didn't know that about you. What's the plan to stock those langs?

And oh, since that is all stuff from failed beekeepers be VERY careful. Preferrably don't interchange anything (run each hive in quarantine) for at least the first year and keep an eye for AFB. But I guess you know that...


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## msl

GWW
When I wrote it I had Palmer in mind, but most summer increase nucs are about the same 
Mel's OTS is one tool of many that can be used to manage mites but is not IMP on its own till its integrated in to a system with other tools

OT, My thought is if some one set off a AFB bomb in the middle of the big city surrounded by BYBKs every few blocks word would be out. There are a few of the 8f boxes I don't have a "bought it new 3 years ago and never left the backyard" provenance on, and some deep frames I got from a stationary sideliner who cut the comb out to convert to mediums, he is somebody somebody on the state bee board and don't see him risking his good name for $50. 
that being said I have never seen or hurd of AFB out here and I think the whole AFB thing is over blown and see no reason to monitor for it :lpf:

jokes aside 
I am thinking about moving hives around and sticking all the langs in my out yard that I set up to see how the rabbit bush flow was 
I am coming out of the winter with 3 KTBH nucs with the comb = of about 7 deep frames each to use a brood factorys. The nucs are busting at the seams and I had to add space, the are drawing and laying up comb big time So those resources will go in to the starter finisher and matting nucs. a I have done cut comb strips in the past likely will do that again but if they get ahead of me or work picks up I might just OTS the lot 
From there I will cut the TB combs and rubber band in to lang frames to get the lang nucs running, they are built odd thinner wall and tight internal so they fit 5 frames but fit a 10f hive body like a Palmer, to the gole is to grow them out and convert a few of the 10fs, and over winter in that configuration, or in the 8f singles if I am over successful 
The 6 colonys I have now are the result of 3 swarm calls last year, but I got in the game late. This year I hope to do as well or better and am hanging traps as well, but swarms for me has been fest of famine so we shall see what the year holds


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## gww

msl
I did read one other interesting study that I am sure that I can not find that muddies the water even more. It was talking about bees living with mite infections but the area of those infections were not or did not carry as many dmv viruses. So even if a guy is doing well with high or low mite counts it would still be hard to guage what is really going on because the virus might get worse and what worked before won't work now. Also, a study that the virus its self mutated based on survival with the virous being in a place that had lots of chance to move side ways to more host became more deadly because killing the bees did not kill its food but spread out viruses acted as more of a pest because it could not survive if it killed its host. This was talking about differrent strains of dmv. Since most of this is over my head, I just keep it in the back of my mind as I go along.
If there is merit to the above, it shows nature is kinda full of its own little smartnesses.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

msl
Are you going to run the langs foundationless? If I was taking bees out of a long hive to put in a lang and my intention was to keep running the long hives, I think I would just use a teranov type split and let the new lang get the frames drawn out by all those young bees.

It would be easier then having to do a cut out type move. What are your thoughts on something like that?

Starting the lang that way with no capped brood would guarantee that you don't have a mite bomb to use against your neibor, at least in the beginning.

Be calm, I used a smily face.
Cheers
gww


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## Oldtimer

Better be careful MSL that last post sounds like you'll soon have so many hives you will have to quite the other job and go commercial.


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW.....
> The most interesting thing I saw on your link was down in the comment section.
> The position was taken that requeening is not enough for nonresistant hives and would not work. The position was that the workers teach each other.


Yes, but only for a time, one generation of worker bees, as Ohlsson later noticed. It´s an action you can take in an emergency, exchanging the hives so the better one triggers the hygienic behavior.
To shift the queen must follow.
This is not scientifically confirmed, so be careful.

With requeening it is possible the queen has not the traits to resistance or the location prevents this. A. Wallner, who breeds mite biting bees, talks about that. He gives no guaranty when he sells queens.
So I would rather shift with my own better queens after starting with better stock at the beginning.

There were some stories with my tf acquaintances to combine failing hives after a high infestation so bee density allows better defense against mites. 
You need many hives for that.
Could work, but with such stories it is the same as with stories about fishing...the fish caught are always bigger than they really are, in the angler`s view( no offense meant  )


----------



## gww

SiW.......
Yes, I figured to take it with a grain of salt. It was just something I had not heard claimed before and so I found it interesting.
If you have the time it is kinda fun seeing what is out there.
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

gww said:


> So even if a guy is doing well with high or low mite counts it would still be hard to guage what is really going on because the virus might get worse


That's not theory, that's what has been happening. The virius problem has been getting worse and as such over time the recommended mite action threshold keeps getting lower. In Eric's web site (thanks for that link SiWolKe) he talks about a 90's breeding program that had a 15% threshold to cull stock from the program and then lowered it to 10%. That kind of mite load is often not sustainable now. Eric's currant threshold is 3%.
The big danger here is what ever next mean bug goes to the almonds and gets spread. Some one sets up near you with a few packages that were shook from the almonds and kindly shares a few mites with you. Your stock that was doing ok on a high mite load collapses "out of nowhere" do to the the mite vectoring the viurs and your left scratching your head wondering WTF happened. 
It would seem selection of stock that suppresses mite production and keeps it at a low level, rather then stock that tolerates high mite loads, looks to be the key to the future. Other wise your just a virus away from wipe out.

I think what we realy need now is some mite counts from the guys doing well as a target number for selection. How about some help guys?

But I feal we can safely say if you hit 10-15% infestation mid summer, what your doing isn't working and you need to knock the mites back...maby that means you re-queen, maby it means you stack a few outer tools on the hive next year and try her again. depend on your goals


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## gww

msl
Or select bees that are resistant to the virus regaurdless of mite load. In the end it may be that you can not have safety and find the answer.

As far as theory goes, it is theory that no treatment will work forever and so we have to come up with something else.

What I was thinking when I typed the virus thing is that what it means is nobody should get to big for thier britches because things can change. They can change good or bad. I did see a take on the natural selection thread that makes a good case for hard bond right now.

Quote from michael bush


> I think the mistake is thinking of Varroa mite resistance as "evolving". Here is my counter: When the Black Plague hit Europe in one generation humans were selected for resistance to Black Plague. It did not take millions of years and it was not evolution. It was simple selection and it happened very quickly, much less time than one generation. Subsequent outbreaks were never anywhere near the original outbreak in percent of people who died. The first outbreak was probably about 50% who died. The next was only about 10%. Now it's not even an issue. Humans did not "evolve" resistance to the plague. Half of them already had it. The other half died.


.

I suppose that "if" we take that might bombs hurt but also put creadence to the above statement, you would have somebody doing hard bond that would hurt every body but then with his bees that lived would save every body. I guess he would be good and bad. I guess depending on which spot you caught him at would depend on how good or bad you thought him.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

mls


> Mel's OTS is one tool of many that can be used to manage mites but is not IMP on its own till its integrated in to a system with other tools


I was thinking that when you wrote about late splits and what it did for mite population and mentioned that you were thinking of michael palmer while writing it but that most late splits are close to the same.

I had mentioned the mad splitter and you said that what he was doing was a tool but not really ipm. I am assuming that is because ipm has to do with monitoring and then having thresholds that you take action on.

I was thinking that if his system is working with out treating that he was basically counting in a fassion. He was doing it by knowing the life cycle of the mite. Then his ideal was that when the queen started laying again, the mites overloaded the first to be layed and both were killed. Randy says that when the asian pulpa is infected, it commits harie karie and is something to try and breed for. The second part of mels view is that the queen out breeds the mite at the right time.

So "if" you have faith in the mite life cycle, the mite to cell overload and queen laying being constant, you basicaly are doing mite load counts with out doing the machnics of them and so if you believe in the system you have an self contained ipm. Stretching this even further, if you found that in your third year you had to take production hives out of production and put them back under the splitting portion of what mel preaches, you may have a self containing ipm system.

I know you mentioned base lines before on the fact that a hive with high mite counts might be the exception and make it though but it would not be a normal situation, Just like not taking mite counts because you use mite life cycle math might lead to an exception once in a while.

I am not saying one way or the other of what I believe yet cause I am not sure myself but also think that Systems out there that might be working may not all have to have the same elements and may still have enough elements of intervention to be considered as fitting Ipm.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

The virus issue is nothing to do with mite bombs, purely the normal horizontal transition of mites from colony to colony. A high mite load can vector what a few mites bring in.

to stay with in his analgy..
your a king, the plague has arrived you have 2 options

#1 bond- Loose a large chunk of your work force , deal with a massif pile of rotting corpses causing other health problems, and face economic hardships
#2 IPM- Save those effected and sterilize them, quarantine the sick, get the trash out of the street, tear down the slums and bring in some foreigners with rat catching experience to suppress the vectors..
more or less(skiping the sterilization inch what Sydney to suppress the 12 outbreaks of plague they had 1900-1925

The net genetic effect is the same, only restaint stock is propagated.

The problem is "immunity" is not what stopped the plague... Pre plague the resistance level was .02% now its about 15%, yes its a change but nowhere near enuf to head off a pandemic. DNA samples show the pague was nomore verilent then then it is now, and we are not all falling over dead despite 85% being susceptible to it
The problem was over crowed city sulms full of rats and people in poor health on a poor diet. 

The Third plague pandemic ran till the 1950s and killed millions....
suppressing vectors, holding pest in check, less dense populations, a healthier population, quarantines, and finally antibiotics is what stopped the plague.
If we returned to the conditions and practices of 1300s europ we would certainly see a 4th pandemic.

to follow up on the post you made when I was typeing
yes if you have mite counts, you can project the groth of the mites. Thats the whole point of the thresholds, predecting when the population is going to grow to a threat



> I am assuming that is because ipm has to do with monitoring and then having thresholds that you take action on.


it has to do with an INTEGRATED approach, not just relying on one tool or function. 
OTS+SBB+putting your hives in the sun, then doing counts to see when/if you have to add sugar dusting or drone culling would be IPM.


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## gww

mls


> The problem was over crowed city sulms full of rats and people in poor health on a poor diet.


But that is not the whole story. Just like small pox affected europeans but not in the way it affected natives who lost tribes to the 90% mark. 10% did survive though. There was a terrible differance for those who had no exposure.



> it has to do with an INTEGRATED approach, not just relying on one tool or function.
> OTS+SBB+putting your hives in the sun, then doing counts to see when/if you have to add sugar dusting or drone culling would be IPM


I agree, sorta like jamming a lot of mites in one cell killing all, queen laying max at the right time. Knowing in advance what happens to the mite probibility of how many you start with and what said munipulations you end up with. It working doing this. So is there a number of things you have to do to consider it ipm or is gauging wether the number you are doing is working is the ideal?
Cheers

Also the study I mentioned if I am remembering correctly said that mite do not kill the bees but that the virouses they carry do and that there were certain bees already that had a higher virus threshold and that work was being done to find a way for bees to be even more virus resistant. I under stand vectoring but if what the vector does not infect then mite are no big deal.

To you point of being the king and losing your workers. If you was the king chicken farmer and your buisness was to raise baby chickens for the corner tractor store to sell to the public and you had half of your chickens that you could keep alive and give you eggs as long as you gave them expencive medicine and as long as the people that bought them could give them expensive medicine they would stay alive but the other half of your chickens could be raised with out medicine and would do just fine when they were bought by someone. Is it commen sence that you would keep those chickens that need expencive medicine when you have a choice not to. Since they are chickens, are you really losing half of your work force. Do you think the king chicken farmer has had to make this chioce yet? Does the chicken farmer get rid of chickens that might still lay eggs for ones that lay better?
Cheers
gww


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## gww

mls
Maby we are closer alike then shows. I did a search on pandimics a couple of months ago. I don't even know what promted me to do it. I would say that you probly retain a bit more spicifics in all you studies while I am lucky to barily grasp the generalities in an over view sorta way.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

duplicate


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## 1102009

I remember fusion_power saying he shifted the queen of every hive he saw a mite sitting on a bee.

So I believe we have to go for the mite biting genetics. Virus changes, but if the bees fight the mites and not the symptoms, VSH is a symptom fighting behavior in my eyes, we should be safer.

The mites must be eliminated before they could spread the virus.

Next, the bees must be very healthy and long lived, especially in winter. They must be kept cold, so they do not use much food and live longer. In this case they are able to sacrifice the first brood to the mites, the surviving mites which go into the first brood patches. This must be pulled out with the first cleaning of hive in spring and then the breeding must start in earnest.

So I want to check the boards this season for bitten mites, not for the number of mites. High numbers of bitten mites would be wonderful!
And I have to see in future if the bees clean out the mites in early spring.
I believe two of my survivors did that. This hives I will breed my queens from and propagate the drones.


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## gww

SiW....
I am not sure what the guy I bought my bees from does from a prodution and picking of hive traits. My opinion is he crouds them in spring and the ones that make swarm cells he considers as the ones that are healthy enough to propagate.

Perhaps a very simple method of deciding. I have only known him for two years and have to guess a bit on his proceedure by just looking over too short of a period and guessing by the few comments that I pick up.

For him in what is probly a hard bond system with some simple interventions like controlling space and spitting when the bees tell him they want split. 

I don't know if he has had big die offs or what other trials he has gone through cause I have only known him a short time and more just observe for my self rather then deep discussion. I do know he has hive that die but also has been at it for a long time.

I do think that it is not such a bad plan in knowing you are not treating but more watching and it is easy to see which hives are thriving with out even having to know the mechinizims it is using to do so well. In this case it is more a matter of having done it so long that you reconize the signs of hives that do well and so the rest really does not matter.

So starting out as you have in a place where there is not 20 years of something that you can just carry on into the future but instead have to be the first, the things you have to look for are probly more important.

In my case, if I can just carry on and watch for bees that expand well and go from there, I may be in a position to not have to learn enough. Only time is going to bear that out and I can not forcast the outcome but feel comfortable at this time to carry on in this fassion untill something shows me I need to learn more and look harder.

Does this make any sence?
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

In my case I want to know more what happens in the hive and the next 2 years I want to monitor. I need to learn more.

I hope to see if I will be able to do without IPM some time in future. Maybe starting now, who knows how strong my survivors are.

In may I will get an artificial swarm, treated big cell bees, from my friend. These are my experiment, I want to see what happens if I do not treat them and regress them, not harvest any honey.
I will place them at my home, the only hive have there, but not isolated. Then I will watch every move ( mostly from the outside).


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## msl

SiWolKe said:


> Virus changes, but if the bees fight the mites and not the symptoms, VSH is a symptom fighting behavior in my eyes, we should be safer.
> The mites must be eliminated before they could spread the virus.


Yes, I just got done reading Randy's latest up date and this is what he is suggesting as well. 1st breed for mite suppression, then for tolerance to mite effects. Helps to keep a virus change form sending you back to square one.



SiWolKe said:


> So I believe we have to go for the mite biting genetics. *snip* So I want to check the boards this season for bitten mites, not for the number of mites. High numbers of bitten mites would be wonderful!


I think its a poor plan to positively select for what we consider a good trait and its also a poor plan to select a singular behavior trait. If you’re focused on a single trait, hoping/wishing your bees somehow have it, you can miss other traits. It doesn't matter how the bees are suppressing the mites (that’s for the scientists) just that they are.



SiWolKe said:


> I hope to see if I will be able to do without IPM some time in future


I think this is a bit of a misnomer. The TF crowd often sees IMP as some sort of "treatment", the treatment crowd sees it as sugar shakes and screened bottom boards and other "ineffective" actions

As an example- Selecting for mite resistant stock, getting your bees off large foundation, and running a sticky board or some jar rolls to tell you if it working or not IS IPM, if its working no further action is needed, to most of us that would be the ultimate expression of TF beekeeping


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## gww

msl


> I think this is a bit of a misnomer. The TF crowd often sees IMP as some sort of "treatment", the treatment crowd sees it as sugar shakes and screened bottom boards and other "ineffective" actions


I personally want to know every tactic and manuver out there and experiances the people have using it. It is nice to have a tool chest with lots of options.

I can turn my nose up later when I am no longer desperate and am more comfortable in managing bees.

I liked your post. I like hearing SiW.....'s plans also. It is nice to follow somebody trying things and see what happens as they get further into what they are doing.

Cheers
gww


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## Michael Bush

>The TF crowd often sees IMP as some sort of "treatment"

I'm confused. IPM *IS* all about treatment. It's just treatment after considering what, how much and when. IPM *IS* treatment. It's not just something some people view as treatment. It's not just the TF crowd that "sees" it as treatment. It's "Integrated Pest Management".


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## msl

My IMP example of


> Selecting for mite resistant stock, getting your bees off large foundation, and running a sticky board or some jar rolls to tell you if it working or not IS IPM, if its working no further action is needed, to most of us that would be the ultimate expression of TF beekeeping


Is no different then what you have on your web site, in fact it was written with it in mind


> I use the small cell/natural cell and Screened Bottom Boards (SBB) and I monitor the mites with a white board under the SBB. As long as the mites stay under control, and so far, since 2002 they have, that's all I do. If the mites were to start going up while the supers are on I would probably fog with FGMO or dust with powdered sugar.


 http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm



Michael Bush said:


> IPM *IS* all about treatment.It's just treatment after considering what, how much and when.


No, Its about setting things up that in a perfect would you don't have to treat 
So, lets look at http://americanbeejournal.com/integrated-pest-management-of-varroa-in-north-america/


> IPM programs are often represented by a triangular image showing four or more components of pest control. These were Cultural (the base), with Physical-Mechanical second, Biological Control third and Chemical Control fourth.





> When we look at these parts of a pyramid, we start with Cultural Control in the bee colony. Two of the biggest cultural control methods for mite management include apiary location and genetic stock


Starting with the most resistant stock you can get is the foundation of IMP



> The second slice of the Pyramid of Control is the Physical and Mechanical methodology many beekeepers employ.


small cell and SBB 



> The third slice of the IPM triangle is the use of biological control agents to control pests.


Psusdoscorpins ? mostly NA for Varroa



> The fourth slice is for Chemical control of mites. We will divide these into two groups, the miticides and a general group of lower-risk materials that includes the essential oils, powdered sugar, repellents and desiccants.


I am unsure how you can call IMP a treatment while calling your self a treatment free beekeeper. As described your program is the deffention of IPM.


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## 1102009

My own IPM are small cell, narrow space between frames, donating of brood comb or honey comb....still, I call myself a treatment free beekeeper, because treatments are chemicals and oils in my eyes.

Treatments are IPM but IPM must not necessarily be treatments. IMO.


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## 1102009

I compare this with staying healthy because of your nutrition and exercise.

This is IPM. Taking medicine is treatment.


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## msl

Spot on !
I wish I had thought of shaving the end bars for the example


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## 1102009

> Soon after the varroa mites were detected we noticed that the mites are breeding mostly in the drone cells. So we acted with culling drone brood after this was capped.
> 
> But, after melting the culled drone combs we realized that we had almost no varroa mites in those combs. But we had them in the drone cells on the worker brood frames.
> 
> 
> First we thought that it was the colder area at the rim of the combs.
> 
> 
> The drone frames, used as varroa traps, showed no mite infestation to eliminate. We tried to find another solution.
> 
> 
> One amazing observation was that many mites were found in old drone cells which were used many times for drone brood.
> 
> 
> We are sorry we have no numbers to compare but is was observed that the dark drone cells had higher numbers of mites than the new light combs of the drone frames.
> 
> Oft war die Brut im Baurahmen völlig
> ohne Varroen, während in den dunklen Drohnenwaben im gleichen Volk und zu gleicher Zeit
> viele Varroen gefunden wurden.
> 
> Often we had no mites in the drone frames but a lot of mites in the dark drone cells found in the same colony at the same time.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.apis-kultur.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/bremer-beute-buch.pdf


So we use the elimination of drones which was done before varroa hit ( beekeepers wanted more honey, not as drone food) as an excuse for IPM?

Who ever counted mites opening drone frame brood?

Are the mites lured into dark drone comb because of the smell ( of success)?


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## lharder

msl said:


> That's not theory, that's what has been happening. The virius problem has been getting worse and as such over time the recommended mite action threshold keeps getting lower. In Eric's web site (thanks for that link SiWolKe) he talks about a 90's breeding program that had a 15% threshold to cull stock from the program and then lowered it to 10%. That kind of mite load is often not sustainable now. Eric's currant threshold is 3%.
> The big danger here is what ever next mean bug goes to the almonds and gets spread. Some one sets up near you with a few packages that were shook from the almonds and kindly shares a few mites with you. Your stock that was doing ok on a high mite load collapses "out of nowhere" do to the the mite vectoring the viurs and your left scratching your head wondering WTF happened.
> It would seem selection of stock that suppresses mite production and keeps it at a low level, rather then stock that tolerates high mite loads, looks to be the key to the future. Other wise your just a virus away from wipe out.
> 
> I think what we realy need now is some mite counts from the guys doing well as a target number for selection. How about some help guys?
> 
> But I feal we can safely say if you hit 10-15% infestation mid summer, what your doing isn't working and you need to knock the mites back...maby that means you re-queen, maby it means you stack a few outer tools on the hive next year and try her again. depend on your goals


Nope, one of my strongest hives this spring had 10% last fall. There is more to it than mites. I'll have a early spring mite count for that one eventually.


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## msl

10% in the Fall has a much different meaning then 10-15% mid summer.. 
just like 10% with out brood is about = to 3.3% with brood
Saying you have one hive doing great at 10% is an very small sample size to make a general recommendation to a new beekeeper as to when to make the call that most likly the bees they have are not TF stock
what were your summer counts, I would love you to post them 
I agree there is more to it then mite levels, but selecting for stock that can survive high loads vs stock that suppresses the mites is risky, say when DWV D rolls in (We have ABC, D is just a matter of time) or SS1 rolls out of the Minnesota and western Wisconsin... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167752 and yes mites are the vector.. scary thing is that most of that research is 2 or so trips to the almonds old, it may be out in force allready 


> The big danger here is what ever next mean virus goes to the almonds and gets spread. Some one sets up near you with a few packages that were shook from the almonds and kindly shares a just a few mites with you. Your stock that was doing ok on a high mite load collapses "out of nowhere" do to the the mite vectoring the virus


SiWolKe drone suppression for better honey yelds using foundation is one thing. Allowing/creating drone comb to use drone brood to trap and remove mites (in theory at the cost of honey production) is another

Randy O has thread over on Bee L http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1704&L=BEE-L&D=0&P=43815 about the lack of mites showing up in drone brood that mirrors the link you posted.... compared to a few years back there seems to be a lot of people reporting a lot less mites in drone comb and we may be loseing that IPM tool
my plan this year was to cull drone comb and inspect it for mites, when I start seeing them then worry about doing rolls....I haven't seen any, but given the new info coming to light, it might be time to go break out the jar...


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## 1102009

msl said:


> SiWolKe drone suppression for better honey yelds using foundation is one thing. Allowing/creating drone comb to use drone brood to trap and remove mites (in theory at the cost of honey production) is another
> 
> Randy O has thread over on Bee L http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1704&L=BEE-L&D=0&P=43815 about the lack of mites showing up in drone brood that mirrors the link you posted.... compared to a few years back there seems to be a lot of people reporting a lot less mites in drone comb and we may be loseing that IPM tool
> my plan this year was to cull drone comb and inspect it for mites, when I start seeing them then worry about doing rolls....I haven't seen any, but given the new info coming to light, it might be time to go break out the jar...


Use dark comb. My fresh comb has almost no mites. The dark comb is infested. You need not do rolls. If you see ONE mite on a bee you know they are infested.

If fresh drone comb without mites is culled the mites will go into worker brood, matters not if it is sc or bc. So let them go into dark drone comb.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> That's not theory, that's what has been happening. The virius problem has been getting worse and as such over time the recommended mite action threshold keeps getting lower.


Counterexample:

In my (currently low-point) 90-ish colony hard-bond apiary I have seen no DWV thus far this year, and saw very little last year. None. Six years ago I saw lots. Things might change. That's how it is at the moment.

Here as far as DWV is concerned the 'virus problem' is non-existent. And in my view its almost irrelevant. The invading viruses are nothing more than the straw that breaks the camels back, the coup-de-grace. 

I think your account of worsening virus problems sounds like the outcome of attempts to micro-manage the health of bees. Simply: don't do that. New parasite/viral/bacterial/fungal combinations come along all the time. Natural selection, or a human equivalent, must be allowed to locate those bees strains equipped to thrive in the new and ever-changing environment.

I think the danger with your arguments is that it starts newbies off with the orthodox understanding - just treat your bees and everything will be fine. I think newbies should be equipped to at least have a chance at feeling guilty about the part they are about to play in holding back the development of resistance. 

I know I'm not a BYBK according to your definition. btw I think 'newbie' is a better description. A lot of experienced beekeepers with quite a few hives might regard themselves as 'BYBKs'. 

Mike UK


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## msl

I here you on definitions, thats why i spelled it out.... right I mean BeeInformed calls any under 50 hives "backyard".. I didn't go with newbie as some one off in the country has a different set of rules and situation the in the urban areas... maby I should have added a U to BYBK to be more precise....


> I think the danger with your arguments is that it starts newbies off with the orthodox understanding - just treat your bees and everything will be fine.


not at all the intent, the argument was in the UBYBK Setting, going bond and mite bombing your neighbors is poor beekeeping/having and counter productive do the the concentration of hives that aren't yours 
It was not treat your bees, It was monitor your mites and take action when or before they become the walking dead, be that Tom Seeleys Darwinian beekeeping ....bond, but actively killing off failing stock, or other more palatable methods of stoping the hive from crashing.

The problem is those who have had great success can't under stand whats wrong with those that don't... And those who fail can't see a path forward. Further more many of those who have success, aren't collecting/shareing data to help those of us who are failing.. I asked the successful people for mite counts to see about a rule of thumb to compare to Randys's numbers.... all I got was the chirping of crickets



> I think newbies should be equipped to at least have a chance at feeling guilty about the part they are about to play in holding back the development of resistance.


lol.. the guy with 2 hives in there backyard isn't holding ANYTHING back.. except when they go bond with package bees and mite bomb my TF stock out of exestance....THAT is what they should feel guilty about! 
that being said.. the UBYBK who is new isn't going to know how well or poor their bees are doing... you hear it all the time... my bees were doing great, then they died out cause they were getting robed.....
They may however catch a swarm of the "real deal", if mite counts were drilled in to there head they would know it, and beable to share it 


> The invading viruses are nothing more than the straw that breaks the camels back, the coup-de-grace.


hence why I was suggesting that attacking the vector is the better plan. 



> Use dark comb. My fresh comb has almost no mites. The dark comb is infested. You need not do rolls. If you see ONE mite on a bee you know they are infested.


sadly I have no dark drone, mostly a bunch of overwinter nucs in expansion mode... might have to revisit my comb mangment, as a KTBH keeper I add bars to the nest and the old ones get pushed toward honey storage.
Issue is I am not going to pinch a queen or resort to other methods over one mite on a bee, I need a bit more data to make a call..


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## 1102009

> Use dark comb. My fresh comb has almost no mites. The dark comb is infested. You need not do rolls. If you see ONE mite on a bee you know they are infested.


I was wrong.
I got them in my fresh comb samples, too. Next time it will be dark comb to compare but I fear these are mite kindergardens.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> I here you on definitions, thats why i spelled it out.... right I mean BeeInformed calls any under 50 hives "backyard".. I didn't go with newbie as some one off in the country has a different set of rules and situation the in the urban areas... maby I should have added a U to BYBK to be more precise....


Your concern group is clearly newbies. Someone with 50 hives (or more than half a dozen) is going to be aware of the perils inherent in going treatment free. 



msl said:


> not at all the intent, the argument was in the UBYBK Setting, going bond and mite bombing your neighbors is poor beekeeping/having and counter productive do the the concentration of hives that aren't yours


You chief concern appears to be that they will 'mite bomb' their neighbours. (I don't know what your 'U' stands for???) Newbies don't really have enough hives to do that sort of damage. BYBK's going treatment free ought to have enough sense to be well away from other beekeepers.

I'm not saying your argument to preserve bee then change the genetics has no merit - its clearly a good idea. But I fear newbees often won't follow through. 



msl said:


> It was not treat your bees, It was monitor your mites and take action when or before they become the walking dead, be that Tom Seeleys Darwinian beekeeping ....bond, but actively killing off failing stock, or other more palatable methods of stoping the hive from crashing.


I suspect this 'mite bomb', given a bit of distance, is a bit of a fantasy. If you are a treating beekeeper you will doubtless argue for every colony within a mile or more of your bees to be treated, preferably all at once, and for ferals to be eradicated. And you'll probably emphasise the dangers to press home your agenda. In some sensitive settings you may have a point. But then the tf beekeeper moaning about commercial treatment-dependent genetics undermining his efforts also has a point. 



msl said:


> The problem is those who have had great success can't under stand whats wrong with those that don't...


I don't think you should paint everybody with a single brush. If anyone asks me I'll happily lay out my understanding of the issues, and I certainly won't advise any newbies to buy commercial packages without a good plan to change the genetics sharpish. 



msl said:


> And those who fail can't see a path forward.


Some of those who fail seem to put an awful lot of energy into telling everyone else that they will fail too. The general parameters are well enough known. 



msl said:


> Further more many of those who have success, aren't collecting/shareing data to help those of us who are failing.


I suspect what we are saying is: don't worry too much about the detail: get the big picture elements in place. Get away from treaters and near ferals; capture the ferals or buy bees and requeen with well recommended resistant stock; aim to grow numbers so you can afford to lose some and better influence the local breeding population.



msl said:


> I asked the successful people for mite counts to see about a rule of thumb to compare to RO's numbers.... all I got was the chirping of crickets


That might be because all the successful people have found better ways to spend their time. No need to insult them for that.



msl said:


> Issue is I am not going to pinch a queen or resort to other methods over one mite on a bee, I need a bit more data to make a call..


The foundation of my operation is managing the bees in ways that allow me to get the data that I need. And that is: which ones do best when all are kept as naturally as possible, and none are given any help at all. That's the data you need. 

Mike UK


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## lharder

msl said:


> 10% in the Fall has a much different meaning then 10-15% mid summer..
> just like 10% with out brood is about = to 3.3% with brood
> Saying you have one hive doing great at 10% is an very small sample size to make a general recommendation to a new beekeeper as to when to make the call that most likly the bees they have are not TF stock
> what were your summer counts, I would love you to post them
> I agree there is more to it then mite levels, but selecting for stock that can survive high loads vs stock that suppresses the mites is risky, say when DWV D rolls in (We have ABC, D is just a matter of time) or SS1 rolls out of the Minnesota and western Wisconsin... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167752 and yes mites are the vector.. scary thing is that most of that research is 2 or so trips to the almonds old, it may be out in force allready
> 
> 
> SiWolKe drone suppression for better honey yelds using foundation is one thing. Allowing/creating drone comb to use drone brood to trap and remove mites (in theory at the cost of honey production) is another
> 
> Randy O has thread over on Bee L http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1704&L=BEE-L&D=0&P=43815 about the lack of mites showing up in drone brood that mirrors the link you posted.... compared to a few years back there seems to be a lot of people reporting a lot less mites in drone comb and we may be loseing that IPM tool
> my plan this year was to cull drone comb and inspect it for mites, when I start seeing them then worry about doing rolls....I haven't seen any, but given the new info coming to light, it might be time to go break out the jar...


No recommendations based on mite counts. We don't know enough. Survival and production is the base of selection. Not proxies.


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## msl

> BYBK's going treatment free ought to have enough sense to be well away from other beekeepers.


they don't because they arn't being taught to, kinda the whole point of this thread was to shift that message. BYBK by the definition I gave are close to other keepers... its measured in blocks not KM 


> I suspect this 'mite bomb', given a bit of distance, is a bit of a fantasy


see above, no distance


> In some sensitive settings you may have a point.


yes, the BYBK setting is sensitive do the the colony being so close 


> But then the tf beekeeper moaning about commercial treatment-dependent genetics undermining his efforts also has a point


yes, and this is why the BYBK isn't going to have much luck "breeding" TF stock.


> No recommendations based on mite counts. We don't know enough. Survival and production is the base of selection. Not proxies


.


> The foundation of my operation is managing the bees in ways that allow me to get the data that I need. And that is: which ones do best when all are kept as naturally as possible, and none are given any help at all. That's the data you need.


To an experienced beekeeper with a large number of hives, running an accusal breeding program, sure
but once again scope creep, were not talking breeding here or people with even 5-10 hives
the 2nd year BYBK has 2 over wintered hives...they both look "ok" to them, witch hive should they OTS for increase? I say take the one with the 5% mite load vs the one with 12%


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> the 2nd year BYBK has 2 over wintered hives...


That's a 'newbie'. Sorry to go on, but it is. 



msl said:


> ...they both look "ok" to them, witch hive should they OTS for increase? I say take the one with the 5% mite load vs the one with 12%


Then you've answered your own question. Sort of. Given that they are surrounded by treating beekeepers, it isn't going to make any practical difference. The next generation will be still more treatment dependent in all cases. 

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be difficult here msl. I'd like to help. But is seems to me that once you clarify your setting to say 'fewer than 20 hives in a treatment-dependent environment', unless you are going to go in for AI you're on a hiding to nothing. Or, find a source of (much preferably mated) queens to use on an ongoing basis.

Messing about with mite counts is fiddling while Rome burns.

Outside the treatment-dependent environment the story would be very different.

Mike UK


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## gww

msl


> they don't because they arn't being taught to, kinda the whole point of this thread was to shift that message. BYBK by the definition I gave are close to other keepers... its measured in blocks not KM


The swarms that get lose from treated hives are also measured in blocks not miles and would have the same effect as a non treated hive untill they died of course. I believe the mite bomb issue is over blown on who effects who worse and in the end is still something that can't be controlled by any bee keeper that doesn't own an island or a ten mile stretch of land that he controls. Since most poeple are not rich enough to be in those situations (and if they were they would have yachts insted of bees) for them to have the kind of control you believe is correct.

If you have to relie on how others are keeping bees to be successful you have already lost. Better to find what works with yours no matter what is going on around you cause that is all most can really control.

I still say for a very small bee keeper that poeple keep saying, 


> yes, and this is why the BYBK isn't going to have much luck "breeding" TF stock.


But yet hold the position that new bee keepers with a couple of hive are going to kill all the treated hives around if they don't treat.

If they have an impact in one they may in the other.

In the end, I do understand you position of why a guy that has luck can't see anything else and why a guy that doesn't also can't see anything else.

What I see is both being done around me and also that some kill more hives then others wether they treat or not. I don't know yet which type I will be, the killer or the successful one but it won't be because of what I am seeing others around me do because they are doing both.
Cheers
gww

Ps Also, no matter why it happens, if your bees are living and also giving, then success is success no matter who is counting.


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## msl

mike bispham said:


> I'm sorry, I don't mean to be difficult here msl. I'd like to help. But is seems to me that once you clarify your setting to say 'fewer than 20 hives in a treatment-dependent environment', unless you are going to go in for AI you're on a hiding to nothing. Or, find a source of (much preferably mated) queens to use on an ongoing basis.


You not being difficult at all, you have illustrated the pointlessness of a BYBK going bond. The whole point of this thread revolves around that simple notion.


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## mike bispham

gww said:


> In the end, I do understand you position of why a guy that has luck can't see anything else and why a guy that doesn't also can't see anything else.


I suspect that luck has more to do with the feral vs commercial genetic input than anything else. The luck is in being in the right place. 

Yes, some people have been in the right place and said 'just catch swarms and don't treat them, and make increase from your best' thinking that's a transferrable method. Or they've said 'go over to small cell' or 'feed only honey'. Yes they are mistaken. I haven't heard anyone say that sort of thing for some time. We've all learned more about the importance of genetics and the role of ferals.

Mike UK


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> You not being difficult at all, you have illustrated the pointlessness of a BYBK going bond. The whole point of this thread revolves around that simple notion.


A newbie _in the wrong place_, yes: but we knew that... Most of us have been saying that for years. 

What you've been saying is 'do mite counts so you know which of two is better, and make increase from those'. What I'm saying is: if you are in that setting don't even bother. Just accept that until you find a better location, or get a resistance-raising club going on with enough of your neighbours, you will have to treat. You could try fetching in resistant queens, but likely the strains of varroa around you will overwhelm them. So again, don't bother. Newbie. 

Mike UK


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## 1102009

> Messing about with mite counts is fiddling while Rome burns.
> 
> Outside the treatment-dependent environment the story would be very different.


No. Messing about without mite counts and without knowing about the levels your local bees can survive with and just letting them die is fiddling while rome burns. You need to start somewhere and be serious.

Many are in a treatment dependent environment and still have some survivors. We, as newbies, must know why that is and evaluation of the situation will teach us how to proceed.

That you are privileged in your location and with your hive numbers does not mean you can estimate other`s situations.

The real challenge is to spread tf in areas where you never dream of having success, you being isolated and working with feral swarms. This through groups working together exchanging queens and developing a strategy.

I believe everyone, even with one hive only, should have that possibility sometime in future and I sincerely hope that in europe there will be some prominent people enforcing this instead of discouraging enthusiasts who only realize they could not do the hard bond because they are not as privileged as you are.


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## gww

Mike


> I suspect that luck has more to do with the feral vs commercial genetic input than anything else. The luck is in being in the right place.


I don't dissagree with this statement. So, my whole point is that unless your goal is to be a breeder to save the world rather then being what this thread is about, a newbee, you if the newbee can not worry about all the things going on around you and should consintrate on keeping your bees alive under what ever condition you find yourself in. I will add the cavet that if you try and not treat to see if your bees can live in that area (knowing they may not) You need not worry that you have a giant impact on all those other bees around you because you are a mite bomb. If your bees die on you they will not be a mite bomb for long and if you had not caught the swarm the impact to the surounding aria would be the same in a tree as it is in your one or two hives. The only real loser if you are not in the right area is you when your bees die. I do not feel guilty that I am harming everyone around me cause I see if it will work but know I might not be successful.



> Yes, some people have been in the right place and said 'just catch swarms and don't treat them, and make increase from your best' thinking that's a transferrable method. Or they've said 'go over to small cell' or 'feed only honey'. Yes they are mistaken. I haven't heard anyone say that sort of thing for some time. We've all learned more about the importance of genetics and the role of ferals.


Personally, I would not be the one to say that if I was in a lucky area that not treating was working under the way you mention of catching a swarm and just getting lucky that it worked because with it working, it would have to be tested on the tranferability, You could be correct or it could be another lucky find genetic wise.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> No. Messing about without mite counts and without knowing about the levels your local bees can survive with and just letting them die is fiddling while rome burns. You need to start somewhere and be serious.
> 
> Many are in a treatment dependent environment and still have some survivors. We, as newbies, must know why that is and evaluation of the situation will teach us how to proceed.


Yes, I 'll accept that. I was rather thinking of things in a black and white way. 

I'm less comfortable with the idea of being privileged - I've worked hard to build an apiary that can hope to compete on the male side. Although I am lucky to be living near enough to thriving ferals, I had to do the work of locating them 



SiWolKe said:


> The real challenge is to spread tf in areas where you never dream of having success, you being isolated and working with feral swarms. This through groups working together exchanging queens and developing a strategy.


Yes - and I've suggested that here. I think that would be a first move in such circumstances.

I think one thing not appreciated by newbies wanting to go tf is the complexity and consequent difficulty of the task. Where its simple its simple, where its impossible its impossible: in the land between you have to do a lot of learning out find out how to proceed, and what your chances might be. And that is for many aspiring beekeepers a big ask. 



SiWolKe said:


> I believe everyone, even with one hive only, should have that possibility sometime in future and I sincerely hope that in europe there will be some prominent people enforcing this instead of discouraging enthusiasts who only realize they could not do the hard bond because they are not as privileged as you are.


Again with the privileged! They cannot do it unless... then map out the conditions.. area, group cohesion, willingness to invest not insignificant amounts of time energy and money in the effort.... 

Mike UK


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## msl

mike bispham said:


> What you've been saying is 'do mite counts so you know which of two is better, and make increase from those'. What I'm saying is: if you are in that setting don't even bother. Just accept that until you find a better location


I don't dissagee... but thats a hard sell to a newbie with 2 packages on the way and the "dream" of going TF in the aforementioned setting. They are not going to lisstion to any one telling them no, and telling people TF won't work were they are at in a TF fourm is a good way to get the mods to drop the ban hammer on ya
So instead I offer a way to keep their dreams of TF and their bees alive at the same time. I don't lessen there chances of becoming TF and increase the chances they become a sussfull beekeeper


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## mike bispham

gww said:


> Personally, I would not be the one to say that if I was in a lucky area that not treating was working under the way you mention of catching a swarm and just getting lucky that it worked because with it working, it would have to be tested on the tranferability, You could be correct or it could be another lucky find genetic wise.


See my last post gww - luck didn't have a whole lot to do with it... I sought out feral genetics, put them through the burner and lost plenty, and made and built up enough hives, and chose a place where I might stand a chance... I've lived with the thought that they might all die. I'm by no means wealthy.

I play guitar well. People might say: 'you are so lucky to have a musical talent'. What they don't realise is I started out with no musical ability then put in 20 odd thousand hours... 

Mike


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## bucksbees

All lottery winners bought tickets.
Not all tickets are winners.

1 ticket could equal 1 win.
322 million tickets could equal 1 win.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

Translated to beekeeping,

All 100% treatment free bees have genes.
Not all bees have the genes to be treatment free.

1 hive could be 100% treatment free.
322 million hives could have 1 treatment free hive.

Past hive performance being treatment free is not a guarantee that future hives will be. 

I am running TF hives right beside treated hives, for a real world comparison. My TF came from cutouts and known swarms that have lived in the same cavity for at least 5 years. I don't know if my tickets will win or they will lose, but the knowledge gained will be valuable.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> I don't dissagee... but thats a hard sell to a newbie with 2 packages on the way and the "dream" of going TF in the aforementioned setting.


Reality can be tough! We don't have to insulate people with dreams from the realities. We can give them sound advice.



msl said:


> They are not going to lisstion to any one telling them no,


Then perhaps they need the lesson... 



msl said:


> ... and telling people TF won't work were they are at in a TF fourm is a good way to get the mods to drop the ban hammer on ya


Not my experience. 



msl said:


> So instead I offer a way to keep their dreams of TF and their bees alive at the same time.


Keeping misconceived dreams alive is not a noble aim. 



msl said:


> I don't lessen there chances of becoming TF and increase the chances they become a sussfull beekeeper


You create dialogue and that is good.

Mike UK


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## mike bispham

In signature box)


bucksbees said:


> Bee management is like a flowing river, persistent and ever changing.


I've been trying to find a way to use that analogy for bee genetics lately... building maybe on...

Heraclitus: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Bucksbees, in response to your lottery thoughts, can I offer my own signature line?


Mike UK


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## bucksbees

mike bispham said:


> Bucksbees, in response to your lottery thoughts, can I offer my own signature line? Mike UK



lol, aye, I have looked at that a lot over the years, and it keeps coming to mind the nature of the race. To me the to the winner is the one most adaptable to the race, wither it be speed, strength, or the genes that allow it too.


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## msl

Mike B posted this study in another tread, and it has some take home for IPM as it gives mite counts for a large scale,Long term, TF program 
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2016.1160709










We have talked about IMP action thresholds, You can take a look at there numbers see for your self and see at what mite load the hives removed them selfs from the study.


> 1999 where 75% of the colonies had more than 5 mites per 100 bees. In 2001, 66.2%, 2002 65.5%, 2008 87%, 2009 92%, and 2010 80.8% of the colonies had less than 5 mites/100 bees


They were able to maintain the stock by selection while open mating in proximity to commercial treated stock 


> Usually 20–25 colonies were maintained in 20 + apiaries of the two test populations depending upon the year. Both groups were in contact with non-selected hives of other commercial beekeepers with apiaries of similar or larger sizes sometimes located less than 1 km away from the test groups


they were able to take mite infested colonys and turn them around by re queening 


> requeening non-selected mite infested bees from other beekeepers with open-mated daughters from selected survivor queens


their starting point was commercial stock 


> These colonies were headed by naturally mated queens derived from commercial A. m. ligustica, A. m. carnica, A. m.caucasica, and A. m. mellifera breeder queens obtained in 1999 or earlier.


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## 1102009

> Again with the privileged! They cannot do it unless... then map out the conditions.. area, group cohesion, willingness to invest not insignificant amounts of time energy and money in the effort....
> 
> Mike UK


No offense meant, Mike. We all do our best to be tf. My experience is that the tf interested are willing to invest more than those who treat ( time concerned).
They are much more interested in the bees behaviors, for example, than in profit. 

I installed my bees in the best possible isolated location (2.5km) but now it seems that some other beekeepers think of this location as being the best, too.
So my situation changes and the impact of treated colonies is increasing.

Still, I´m on my way to loose fear. I´m tired of people telling me it won´t work. People told me this about my marriage too but now I´m married for 27 years and it´s still fine. 

To me it means I must adapt to this ( bees) with my managements. The situation will not change in my lifetime, but why not trying to see if the bees are able to put up with this? Who ever tested this longterm?
Who knows if the environmental circumstances and adaptions to them are more important than all scientific imaginations and results? Give it 5 years at least!

Well, I could be wrong and every hope could be in vain. But the consequences are mine alone if I prevent the hives crashing while the bees are able to drift into foreign hives. 

Randy Oliver and Erik Österlund are a big help in this. They show a path for tf and treating beekeepers to work peacefully together if they want to do this.

I sincerely hope this working together is our future and leads to being free of treatments or lesser treatments in the end.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> They were able to maintain the stock by selection while open mating in proximity to commercial treated stock


I've been thinking about your newbie problem, and I think what I'd say to a newbie wanting to start out treatment free is: understand the problems, make a survey of your area, and make a plan. That will probably start with catching swarms and building numbers, or enlisting a group that will supply sufficient numbers. So make making increase a high priority - get the hang of turning each hive into one plus two or three new ones each year. Recognise that since you'll be building lots of comb you'll want to feed lots, and your bees will thank you if you leave on any honey for them to overwinter.

That sort of thing will attract beekeepers willing to make the sort of investment needed. Of course those blessed with a nearby feral population will find everything easier - but they should focus of how best to take advantage it.

I'd press that way rather than advocate treatment-while-you-learn IPM

Mike UK


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> We all do our best to be tf. My experience is that the tf interested are willing to invest more than those who treat ( time concerned). They are much more interested in the bees behaviors, for example, than in profit.


I agree. 



SiWolKe said:


> I installed my bees in the best possible isolated location (2.5km) but now it seems that some other beekeepers think of this location as being the best, too. So my situation changes and the impact of treated colonies is increasing.


I'd try to find a thriving feral population for bait traps and mating purposes, and make those things part of your genetic husbandry. 
Also: are you in Germany? You should be able to buy queens from John Kefuss...

Mike UK


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> I'd try to find a thriving feral population for bait traps and mating purposes, and make those things part of your genetic husbandry.
> Also: are you in Germany? You should be able to buy queens from John Kefuss...
> 
> Mike UK


http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...e-chronicle-of-a-beekeeper-from-South-Germany

If you are really interested, read this, especially #12 and #15.
I did my best to have better stock to start with, but I can´t afford Kefuss queens.
I don´t believe much longer in people telling me they have to sell "resistant" bees. Resistance develops at your location and is eliminated with shifting queens into other environments, IMHO.
I´ve yet to see if my elgon F1 and F2 and my AMM hybrids are better stock. For now I believe I could have started with local mutts and that´s just what I will test this year starting in another location with one hive.

In my area there are no ferals and no swarms from local treated stock available, because the beekeepers prevent swarming by clipping wings.


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## Oldtimer

Gotta do more than that to stop swarming. If the queen can't fly when the bees want to swarm, they will badger her to death then swarm with the first virgin to hatch a few days later.

Or, they will sometimes form a cluster under the bottom board with the queen that can't fly, or on the ground nearby.


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## gww

msl
I went to the link and skim read it. On my computer, it cut me down to reading a couple of sentences at a time because half the screen was blocked by something I couldn't close. I never was good with charts. Could you give a short overview of what you thought the study was saying in language that a real dummy might understand?

Thanks
gww


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## msl

mike bispham said:


> start with catching swarms and building numbers, or enlisting a group that will supply sufficient numbers. So make making increase a high priority - get the hang of turning each hive into one plus two or three new ones each year


I think that is a fine plan for a rural setting, however we are talking about urban/suburban beekeeping here were zoning doesn’t allow more the 2-4 per back yard and there is 1+ keepers per square mile. A foucse in increase dosn't help as there is no were to put the bees
GWW
the high lights were 
They open mated were they did not dominate the DCAs , 20 or so hives per apiary in proximity to treated apiary’s and were successful by only selecting the queen stock. 
Cells from one area were moved to a new area and open mated there and the population moving forward matained low mite counts even with different drone stock. 
They started with comerisal treated stock, but they had a large and varied pool and only bred for the top 1% or so. That says the bees have the toolkit to do this, we just need to allow it to come forward. 
mite infested hives that were requened with TF cells recovered 
in this test you can see bees with a 15+% infestation died out quickly and the surviving hives and new queens had much lower numbers. And 5% or lower mite counts is well within the bees abilities. So I still feel comfortable in a IMP to TF setting that at 15% its time to requeen and reset, yes there is a chance may live if you do nothing, but keeping poor genetics around doesn’t help any one. 

We offen see that TF stock fails when moved, it did not in this case.
There are 2 different parts of TF, Resistance, and tolerance.
Resistance means mite suppression, they hold back the mite population from becoming damaging. 
Tolerance means they can live with higher might load.
the study suggests to select based on resistance
I am going to suppose that stock that fails when moved has to do with locally adapted tolerance and climate induced resistance (dearth brood breaks) were as stock that succeeds is genetic resistance, and that’s what we should select for , so to me… 
Within the scope of this thread that means mite counts and if you find something good set up with some friends to share cells, I don’t think your going to breed and select for it, but that doesn’t mean you or a friend won’t find/buy it, and when you do, it should be propagated and spread around.

this study gives me hope for SiWolKe , as they did it without ferals 

Mike, please counter point if you will, to counter any section bias I may have had


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## Oldtimer

That was interesting, and challenges some of what has become accepted.



msl said:


> I am going to suppose that stock that fails when moved has to do with locally adapted tolerance and climate induced resistance (dearth brood breaks) were as stock that succeeds is genetic resistance, and that’s what we should select for


I've been wondering the exact same thing.


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## gww

Msl
Thanks for taking the time. I couldn't quite understand the charting and its meaning and probibly interchange the meaning of resistance and tolarance in my own mind. I did get the breeding working around hive that were treated but couldn't get the mite count/death rate part down though it did seem to be a case for hard bond in the beginning with queen replacement when furthure in the test.

I wish I could get the studie full page where I didn't have to read around stuff and could blow it up where I could see it clearly. I really do thank you for taking the time and typing so much to help me understand a bit.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

msl, many thanks for your great posts.
:applause:

OT.


> Gotta do more than that to stop swarming. If the queen can't fly when the bees want to swarm, they will badger her to death then swarm with the first virgin to hatch a few days later.


no virgins. queen cells are culled. if the hives are hopelessly queenless, they purchase cheap queens. There are some good production queens around but most german people are known for their miserliness.


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## Oldtimer

Very funny.

So they must check their hives every week or so through swarm season?


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## Fusion_power

The Kefuss article was a topic of discussion on the British forum about a year ago. The breeding method used to establish the population is Mass Selection. This is crucial to understand why they were successful. The key elements of mass selection are:

1. A large starting population
2. Intense selection pressure
3. Breeding from the survivors

Unfortunately, mass selection is somewhat of a red headed step-child among beekeepers and bee breeders. (Sibylle, "red headed step child" is a colloquial expression meaning something you are stuck with and can't get rid of, but don't really want and conveys the meaning of unwanted, neglected or mistreated) The problem with using mass selection revolves around a mind set that each individual queen must be evaluated and breeding choices made based on those evaluations. Mass selection does not work based on individual evaluation, instead relying on intense selection pressure to achieve the desired breeding result.

Why is it important to understand this? Because this article is being used in a thread about IPM instead of a hard bond selection approach, yet the article is clearly a hard bond mass selection breeding program.



> In this field test, we used only the survival test to select for mite resistance. Exposures to mite-vectored viruses are reduced as non-productive and diseased hives are quickly eliminated from the breeding population. However, most beekeepers and queen breeders will not use this survival test due to the risk of losing large numbers of hives.


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## dtrooster

> In this field test, we used only the survival test to select for mite resistance. Exposures to mite-vectored viruses are reduced as non-productive and diseased hives are quickly eliminated from the breeding population. However, most beekeepers and queen breeders will not use this survival test due to the risk of losing large numbers of hives.





> is clearly a hard bond mass selection breeding program.


 add in large scale honey producers and pollinators and this in a nutshell is the underlying problem.

Nobody I've met down here treats or cares about mites. I've asked the question of hive losses, and the answer I get from the people running large numbers of hives is 'some, but not enough to worry about'. Guys who's hives are impressive and make lots of honey. The only people that seem to have problems are newbs with only a couple hives that rely on others to get their bees. Keeping hives spatially strong to combat beetles and robbing is of bigger concern.

I feel fortunate to live in an area where feral bees are rampant, took their varroa asskicking like a man and people let them do it.


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## Fusion_power

One of those not so surprising truths is that Louisiana and Alabama are keeping and breeding mite resistant bees. There are pockets in other places but for broad regions the southern tier of states is in the lead. Carpenter is in Florida and BWeaver in Texas.


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## 1102009

Thanks for explaining, dar.


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## lharder

Fusion_power said:


> The Kefuss article was a topic of discussion on the British forum about a year ago. The breeding method used to establish the population is Mass Selection. This is crucial to understand why they were successful. The key elements of mass selection are:
> 
> 1. A large starting population
> 2. Intense selection pressure
> 3. Breeding from the survivors
> 
> Unfortunately, mass selection is somewhat of a red headed step-child among beekeepers and bee breeders. (Sibylle, "red headed step child" is a colloquial expression meaning something you are stuck with and can't get rid of, but don't really want and conveys the meaning of unwanted, neglected or mistreated) The problem with using mass selection revolves around a mind set that each individual queen must be evaluated and breeding choices made based on those evaluations. Mass selection does not work based on individual evaluation, instead relying on intense selection pressure to achieve the desired breeding result.
> 
> Why is it important to understand this? Because this article is being used in a thread about IPM instead of a hard bond selection approach, yet the article is clearly a hard bond mass selection breeding program.


Its why if one wants to do TF, do it from the beginning before the stakes get too high. If one can grow into a larger apiary from a TF base, then one grows with the experience and is comfortable with the process. But with the other way around, nature treats our wrong assumptions about what is valuable cruelly.


----------



## lharder

msl said:


> I think that is a fine plan for a rural setting, however we are talking about urban/suburban beekeeping here were zoning doesn’t allow more the 2-4 per back yard and there is 1+ keepers per square mile.
> 
> I think an urban setting is perfect for a network of TF keepers. Its a good mimic of feral situations. Have two hives, raise 2 nucs to overwinter. Sell the excess in spring to your neighbors. Bee clubs should be promoting this.


----------



## 1102009

lharder said:


> Its why if one wants to do TF, do it from the beginning before the stakes get too high. If one can grow into a larger apiary from a TF base, then one grows with the experience and is comfortable with the process. But with the other way around, nature treats our wrong assumptions about what is valuable cruelly.


Interesting statement! You may be right!

Today, having a beer with a friend who has a friend who is our bee inspector, he told me about a friend of the bee inspector who has the same amount of losses like me but is an experienced beekeeper who treats.
I wonder how he feels about treating now. Bee-losses among keepers are high in spite of treating, he said. Nobody talks about this.

Maybe the time will come when I join the bee club. One or two years if I still have survivors.


----------



## Riverderwent

dtrooster said:


> Nobody I've met down here treats or cares about mites. I've asked the question of hive losses, and the answer I get from the people running large numbers of hives is 'some, but not enough to worry about'. Guys who's hives are impressive and make lots of honey. The only people that seem to have problems are newbs with only a couple hives that rely on others to get their bees. Keeping hives spatially strong to combat beetles and robbing is of bigger concern.





Fusion_power said:


> One of those not so surprising truths is that Louisiana and Alabama are keeping and breeding mite resistant bees. There are pockets in other places but for broad regions the southern tier of states is in the lead. Carpenter is in Florida and BWeaver in Texas.


Why those areas? Is it genetics, flow and dearth cycles, business models, beekeeping techniques, some combination of factors, or something else altogether?


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## msl

Fusion_power said:


> Why is it important to understand this? Because this article is being used in a thread about IPM instead of a hard bond selection approach, yet the article is clearly a hard bond mass selection breeding program.


Yes, but once again scope creep
in this thread we are not refering to a breeding program, and for the most part we aren't talking section either, we are talking about using mite counts to make the call if the BYBKs 2 hives (of often puppy mill package bees) are danger of being overrun by mites or if they are showing enuf resistance that they have a reasonable chance to make it if left alone. 
as has been stated MANY times the BYBK does not have the resources or the genetic deveristy to run any sort breeding program, so people need to STOP suggesting they can/will. 
We are simply using studies data on mite counts to draw a reasinbul action threshold for an IPM based TF beekeeper sitting in there backyard with 2 hives. The action threshold and for a treatment based and TF program are going to be diffrent. While the action threshold for a treatment program is well documented, for TF its not as the goles are a bit different... ie Randy O's threshold is going to be far lower then a BYBK trying TF
What we are seeing here and from outer programs going back to the 90s is if they keep mite levels less then 10% mid summer (AGT breeding program uses <10% 1st week in july as a base line) they are resistant stock, with 5% or less being reached. at up to 15% they are not doing so great and are on the fence or past it, beyond 15% there is a high probity they are not resistant stock and need to be handled as such. 
This gives the BYBK some reasonably guidelines as to how there bees are doing in a TF sense, they are often new, and if the bees die year after year they more or less stay new. All winter while picking up hives I herd "My bees were doing great, then come fall they got robed by some mean bees and died" 

further more it gives an objective measurement they they have * found it*, and should share some cells. Ie knowing the swarm they caught last year is something special. Such action helps us ALL . 

The feral density in urban areas are much higher


sqkcrk said:


> .5 feral colonies per km squared in rural forested area and 2.3 feral colonies in urban area buildings, across NY State, Vischer and Seeley 1982, Morse et al 1990.


 so the hunting so to speak should be good



lharder said:


> I think an urban setting is perfect for a network of TF keepers. Its a good mimic of feral situations. Have two hives, raise 2 nucs to overwinter. Sell the excess in spring to your neighbors. Bee clubs should be promoting this.


yes it’s a good idea to work together, But i don't see How high-density beekeeping is mimicking anything nature, see the London example below


The advice needs to be tailored to the audience… 
what I am talking about has no use to mike B, …. but the 2000 BYBK in London, that’s a different story. Yes 2k…. 5k+ hives and they are increasing at a rate of 44% a year !! 

That’s 40+ beekeepers with 100 or so hives in flight range of your location. Let that sink in, 40 mostly under experienced beekeepers near you, any guess what happens when a bunch of them make mite bombs out of package bees when the try to go bond? 
this is what happens 
http://www.beeculture.com/downtown-3/ 

This is a very different type of beekeeping and I don’t see why people can’t see that it might take a different management solution. Everyone keeps talking based on their personal situation, not looking at the big picture and point of view of the problem. All beekeeping is local 

I feel its t is pointless and reckless to tell a BYBK with 2 hives to go bond, the end effect over 2 years is there becomes 4 less hives and one less TF beekeeper, and I pick up there langs for $30 a set :lpf:


----------



## gww

msl



> That’s 40+ beekeepers with 100 or so hives in flight range of your location. Let that sink in, 40 mostly under experienced beekeepers near you, any guess what happens when a bunch of them make mite bombs out of package bees when the try to go bond?
> this is what happens
> http://www.beeculture.com/downtown-3/


I really am a skeptic. I read the artical in your link and the first thing in my mind was that the writer was not really giving me what I put as more of an opinion of what in her mind she was sure of but nothing she wrote made it proof to me. I did not think her facts were credable.

I think the point you made to lharder also made his point on having plenty to work with if some of those bee keepers did get together. 

Also the thread is titled making a case for IPM for new back yard bee keepers but to make a case for that there has to be a reconized option against it also discussed if for no other reason but to show that there are many avenues being tried by others for the new beekeeper to also weed though in his decision making.

I think you also make the point in the hundred hives in a urban area with a hundred hives and lots being new bee keepers to me makes the point that mite bombs are going to be there regardless if you are one also. If five bee keepers can look at a yellow line and all dissagree on what they are seeing think of the diversity that would be in 100 bee keepers. To me that shows that mite bombs are already everywhere untill the hive die and so no matter what you do that will be something to contend with and if you let your hives die, you won't be the only one in such an area and your impact would probly not be much.

To a differrent point on bee keeping things like drooster points out of knowing lots of bee keepers even big ones not worrying about treating. I think some might be where poeple live but some might just be attitude and management. A guy that took a hive in july and made 4 splits and then 2 died is still made a 100 percent increase and might think that is just fine and others might think losing one hive is near the end of the world.

Live bees is really what counts to most that have them and getting something back for keeping them. Some may do more to get more and some might be happy with what they are getting and see no problim.

In the end people are going to pick their poisen and then make adjustments as they learn untill they are successful or quit. 

I spent half the day watching bee vidios due to rain and I liked mels disselkoen's saying that you don't know what you don't know. It sure seems to me that some bee keepers are being very successful in keeping bees in almost every way immaginable but some are having lots of deaths no matter what they do.

I had read a comment that there was a dead area in austraila where no body can keep bees alive. I didn't hear a reason atributed but found the comment interesting and didn't see anybody countering it. 

I like it when things are countered giving me something to use when making my own mind up about something that I don't know for sure for myself.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Fusion_power

Tell them to get queens from a known treatment free breeding business. The odds improve considerably. Then you won't be able to buy those cheap boxes.


----------



## 1102009

msl


> That’s 40+ beekeepers with 100 or so hives in flight range of your location. Let that sink in, 40 mostly under experienced beekeepers near you, any guess what happens when a bunch of them make mite bombs out of package bees when the try to go bond?


If this would be the situation the bees would be resistant in 2 years. :lookout: The number of beekeepers "neglecting" their hives bigger than the "beekeepers who treat in vain ( it´s like that here, tf or treating, same losses or survivors) ", wonderful!

Most hives which are susceptible die in winter without throwing a "mite bomb". So, what´s the problem?

You mostly work with catched swarms, do you work with mite infested swarms? Yes, you do, but because they are yours now you accept this. 
I remember what happened to Barry when he caught an infested swarm. 

OT
yes, my mentor wanted me to check once a week and cull cells. I was kind of overtaxed last year, having 14 hives then.


----------



## Oldtimer

Yup, after mite resistance, the next thing will be to breed a bee that don't swarm. That would make life so easy .


----------



## dtrooster

You right. Some swarmy boogers down here, splits and recombined to control hive numbers. Checking once a week gets to be a pain


----------



## lharder

msl said:


> Yes, but once again scope creep
> in this thread we are not refering to a breeding program, and for the most part we aren't talking section either, we are talking about using mite counts to make the call if the BYBKs 2 hives (of often puppy mill package bees) are danger of being overrun by mites or if they are showing enuf resistance that they have a reasonable chance to make it if left alone.
> as has been stated MANY times the BYBK does not have the resources or the genetic deveristy to run any sort breeding program, so people need to STOP suggesting they can/will.
> We are simply using studies data on mite counts to draw a reasinbul action threshold for an IPM based TF beekeeper sitting in there backyard with 2 hives. The action threshold and for a treatment based and TF program are going to be diffrent. While the action threshold for a treatment program is well documented, for TF its not as the goles are a bit different... ie Randy O's threshold is going to be far lower then a BYBK trying TF
> What we are seeing here and from outer programs going back to the 90s is if they keep mite levels less then 10% mid summer (AGT breeding program uses <10% 1st week in july as a base line) they are resistant stock, with 5% or less being reached. at up to 15% they are not doing so great and are on the fence or past it, beyond 15% there is a high probity they are not resistant stock and need to be handled as such.
> This gives the BYBK some reasonably guidelines as to how there bees are doing in a TF sense, they are often new, and if the bees die year after year they more or less stay new. All winter while picking up hives I herd "My bees were doing great, then come fall they got robed by some mean bees and died"
> 
> further more it gives an objective measurement they they have * found it*, and should share some cells. Ie knowing the swarm they caught last year is something special. Such action helps us ALL .
> 
> The feral density in urban areas are much higher so the hunting so to speak should be good
> 
> 
> 
> yes it’s a good idea to work together, But i don't see How high-density beekeeping is mimicking anything nature, see the London example below
> 
> 
> The advice needs to be tailored to the audience…
> what I am talking about has no use to mike B, …. but the 2000 BYBK in London, that’s a different story. Yes 2k…. 5k+ hives and they are increasing at a rate of 44% a year !!
> 
> That’s 40+ beekeepers with 100 or so hives in flight range of your location. Let that sink in, 40 mostly under experienced beekeepers near you, any guess what happens when a bunch of them make mite bombs out of package bees when the try to go bond?
> this is what happens
> http://www.beeculture.com/downtown-3/
> 
> This is a very different type of beekeeping and I don’t see why people can’t see that it might take a different management solution. Everyone keeps talking based on their personal situation, not looking at the big picture and point of view of the problem. All beekeeping is local
> 
> I feel its t is pointless and reckless to tell a BYBK with 2 hives to go bond, the end effect over 2 years is there becomes 4 less hives and one less TF beekeeper, and I pick up there langs for $30 a set :lpf:


The people that don't do their research and start off with decent stock are the same ones who don't do treatment properly. Same result, same mite problems. A little bit of natural selection of bee keepers is not a bad thing.


----------



## msl

Home sick today so I thougt I would do a fast (didn't turn out to be fast) mock up of mites using OTS and what happens when you leave to to raise there own cells.. this is a RUFF model on excel 
I started a thread for it in the pest section figgering there were some treaters who OTS and big picture and audience 
but as a TF IMP mesure I wanted to add it here as well, as an example of what can be done in the sprit of this thread 
assumptions
22 day stop in mite production- OTS day 1, all cells capped day 9, queen starts laying day 24, mites start entering cells again on day 31 
2.5% per day mite increase (Randy Oliver number)
The starting mite load is 1k 
the longer times of drone brood are not figgred in
Notes
This is a RUFF model on excel 
The sharp jumps are the mites being divided and combined as the colonys are split and combined. Its total mites not %s
vertical is mites
horizontal is days 
Following http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf day 1 is may 5th, the 2nd rounds of OTS or combining for honey is July 5th, last day is Sept 1 
This does not track the split with the old queen 
the pinched queen could have just as well been pulled for a nuc for swarm control 
mite invasion rates can bugger the whole thing(more on that later)
It would seem that just the division of mites and reduction in breeding days can play a large impact out side of the "too many mites entering a cell at once theroy". Further more, In the model when the 1st OTS split is made each nuc only ends up with 512 mites by the time they start entering the cells again, by the 2nd split its only 327 mites that start to renter the cells. Not a crushing number compared to a queens laying rate.... maby a few wil jump the gun and over load, but the long and short is there are just not that many mites in the hive


----------



## mike bispham

msl said:


> The feral density in urban areas are much higher so the hunting so to speak should be good
> 
> But i don't see How high-density beekeeping is mimicking anything nature, see the London example below
> 
> 
> The advice needs to be tailored to the audience…
> what I am talking about has no use to mike B, …. but the 2000 BYBK in London, that’s a different story. Yes 2k…. 5k+ hives and they are increasing at a rate of 44% a year !!


It would be my expectation, based on my experience 40 miles away, that there will be a growing feral population there. I have first hand accounts of the London trade - sell any rubbish, restock them when it goes wrong; a nice little earner. 

The proper thing to do is educate them. Tell them they can be a part of the push toward proper beekeeping and a healthy population, but that commercial bees are not the way to go. That keeping treated bees carelessly (I'm talking about genetic carelessness) is the source of the problem. 



msl said:


> This is a very different type of beekeeping and I don’t see why people can’t see that it might take a different management solution. Everyone keeps talking based on their personal situation, not looking at the big picture and point of view of the problem. All beekeeping is local
> 
> I feel its t is pointless and reckless to tell a BYBK with 2 hives to go bond, the end effect over 2 years is there becomes 4 less hives and one less TF beekeeper, and I pick up there langs for $30 a set :lpf:


What you call a 'management solution' is maintaining individuals tha harm the feral (and tf beekeeper) push toward overcoming varroa. Its selfish management of a pet hive or two that presses down down on what is agreed by all (except those making fortunes from the status quo) to be the better option - bees that manage their own mites and thrive.

You know the score msl: bees mate openly; and for that reason cannot be medicated like a closed breeding population without spreading vulnerability to whatever is causing the problem. 

Mite bombs are a fantasy. You article is predicated on this notion:

_"Why would you think, with a century-old genetic bottleneck (Status of Breeding Practices and Genetic Diversity in Domestic U.S. Honey Bees, Cobey, Tarpy, & Sheppard, 2011), perhaps 50 lines of commercial breeder queens in the whole country, that you could toss in an inbred unknown from a package or a non-local nuc and strike gold? That’s like going to your backyard hose nozzle with a bucket every day, thinking that one of these times it is going to dispense champagne. You can click your heels and pretend to act like you’re bringing us back to the days before varroa, but if you are here in DC I hope you really find yourself in Kansas, instead. "_

First, the 'genetic bottleneck' is ludicrous. Bees in the states have ample genetic breadth, and where they don't its because large scale breeders and their customers have narrowed them locally.

Sure, using package bees is not the way to go. Fix it. Contact people who can help you find resistant lines, put up traps - you might be surprised at what local genes can do.

Looking deeper at your article:

_"I grabbed a box from my disassembled hive out of the back of my bee-scented Kia, and used an uncapping fork to sample any of the pupae I could pull (ones that hadn’t started becoming mush). Every single cell in the center of the brood nest had a mother mite. The ones on the outside, in the purple eye phase, showed more variety: some with varroa, some without. I’d been varroa bombed. Probably two to three weeks ago. Like November 2nd.

Yeah, I know there is skepticism about this phenomenon, but I held the proof in my hands."_

Varroa is about. Its in feral and treated and poorly treated and untreated hives. Its part of the environment. It will find its way into your hives. If the strain of varroa is voracious (and around treaters it will be), and if your bees are vulnerable and brood strongly after treatments, you'll want to check.

Its no use crying 'varroa bombs'. Bad beekeeping, on several levels, is the problem.
The rest of this article builds on the 'varroa bomb' bogeyman.

Lets look at the author's description of her own qualifications:

_Profile

"I'm not very good at being a secret city beekeeper, though that's how I meant this to be(e). 5 years in, I'm still an amateur muddling through with a couple of colonies of honeybees on an urban roof deck, and a bunch of others sprinkled around our city. I am unafraid of my bees, but am a bit worried about the neighbors._ http://www.blogger.com/profile/1176367"

Doesn't that say it all?

I'll take your case more seriously if you can reference scientific sources in support. 

Mike


----------



## 1102009

Let´s talk about the social immune system of honey bees.

With our managements we expose the hive constantly to changing conditions. Not the bee yard which is exposed all the time by neighbors but the colony in itself.

And how can we evaluate their resistance and tolerance if we feed food combs and donate brood?


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Let´s talk about the social immune system of honey bees.
> 
> With our managements we expose the hive constantly to changing conditions. Not the bee yard which is exposed all the time by neighbors but the colony in itself.
> 
> And how can we evaluate their resistance and tolerance if we feed food combs and donate brood?


We can't evaluate for productivity doing those things - and that matters - its a primary indicator of health. We could assay for hygienic behaviour.

My line is: I don't do those things. My hives stand on their own feet. The ones that get big, and last, put out many more drones and get chosen for queen material.

That's following nature. Do anything else and you are creating trouble.  Its that simple.

(I do feed, and that troubles me a bit; but I feed all according to need/the extent to which they can use it. In my mind that's just like having fantastic forage)

Mike


----------



## msl

mike bispham said:


> Mite bombs are a fantasy. *snip* I'll take your case more seriously if you can reference scientific sources in support.


how many many soruces do i need?, still waiting for some one to post a *single *study that backs your theory that mite bombs are fantasy in a HD area
I have sited research and options of researchers from the get go to make the case for IMP (mite bomb or not)... I opened with Oliver and Seeley
post 14 Frey and Rosenkranz 2014 
post 37 Fakhimzadeh, Frey(again)
post 80 Michigan Pollinator Initiative
post 86 Randy Olver, Currie & Gatien
post 101 Eric oslerlund 
post 114 American Bee journal
post 120 Sepsis and Hemocyte Loss in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) Infected with Serratia marcescens Strain Sicaria
Post 147 John Kefuss
for good measure...lets add some mite bomb specific ones 
https://academic.oup.com/jee/articl...ion-in-the-Spread-of-Honey-Bee?searchresult=1



> Urban colonies, most of which are owned by hobby beekeepers, are three times more likely to die than colonies located in rural areas (Youngsteadt et al. 2015).
> In varroa-infected colonies, the death of a colony results in the spread of mites by the remaining workers moving to other hives; this activity is often called a “varroa bomb” (Connor 2015). Although this finding applies to both feral and managed colonies, it shows that urban hobby beekeepers, who comprise the majority of beekeepers, albeit with a small number of hives, are faced with a far wider range of problems than their rural counterparts.


Kralj J, Fuchs S. Parasitic Varroa destructor mites influence flight duration and homing ability of infested Apis mellifera foragers. Apidologie. 2006;37:577–587

Goodwin RM, Taylor MA, Mcbrydie HM, Cox HM. Drift of Varroa destructor-infested worker honey bees to neighbouring colonies. J Apic Res. 2006;45:155–156.

Kraus B, Page RE. Effect of Varroa jacobsoni (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) on feral Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in California.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-016-0431-0


> National winter loss surveys indicate that 60 % of hobby beekeepers do not treat for Varroa (Steinhauer et al. 2014). Without beekeeper Varroa management interventions, these colonies almost inevitably crash (Francis et al. 2013), releasing abundant mites that invade healthy colonies by switching from nurse bees to foragers (Cervo et al. 2014) and swapping hosts via communal foraging or robbing (Frey et al. 2011). Mite levels peak during the critical time of year, when in temperate climates, colonies must rear their winter bees to survive the coming nectar dearth and long period of confinement. From September through November, only 30–45 % of samples tested were below the three-mite threshold. Thus, more than half of all beekeepers surveyed entered the winter with elevated mite infestations, which have been shown to contribute significantly to winter colony mortality (Becher et al. 2013; Carreck et al. 2010; Francis et al. 2013; Le Conte et al. 2010; vanEng


http://www.beeculture.com/catch-buz...il&utm_term=0_0272f190ab-ecd445c180-331937553


> marked bees in an apiary either yellow or blue. Yellow indicated that the colony was collapsing, blue that the colony was healthy. The collapsing colonies duly died out, but their surviving yellow-marked bees exploded like a bomb in the landscape. Those yellow bees were found in almost every apiary in a two-to-three-kilometer radius





mike bispham said:


> I have first hand accounts of the London trade - sell any rubbish, restock them when it goes wrong; a nice little earner.


In those conditions how could some one reasonably expect results going bond with 2 hives? 
the landscape is different, the problems are different, so the management needs to be different 
you blame the stock, I blame the environmen the 3X failure rate (Youngsteadt et al. 2015) shows that as do other studys http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142031 

ok, you win, mite bombs don't exist, we can put it to bed 
doesn't change the case for IMP much at all 

I was trying to get the discussion going on to brood breaks and how they impact end of the season mite levels and how that could be used for a non chemical intervention to make increase for TF requening


----------



## Oldtimer

msl said:


> I was trying to get the discussion going on to brood breaks and how they impact end of the season mite levels and how that could be used for a non chemical intervention to make increase for TF requening


With regard to that, due to experimenting with oxalic shop towels this season I did a bunch of alcohol washes. Not TF of course, but been a while since the previous mite treatment. What stood out was the hives that for one reason or another had a brood break during the season had noticeably lower mite counts, especially very late season when mite counts in other hives were exploding rapidly. 
Just the delay caused by a brood break made considerable difference. I don't think my bees are "mite biters" or any of those type things, but the effect of a brood break was marked. What it had me thinking was that places with bees that will bite phoretic mites, have a mid summer broodless dearth, and a broodless winter, probably pretty easy to keep mite levels low.


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## crofter

Oldtimer, did the brood break occur during the time you had the oxalic/glycerin material applied?


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## Oldtimer

No earlier. Due to some botched beekeeping on my part I had a number of hives that went through a queenless period mid season before I caught up and got them up and running again. Down the track come fall, those particular hives were in considerably better shape mite wise than the other hives.

EDIT - If you were wondering if the OA / GL towels had caused brood breaks or queenlessness, no, there was no effect on queens or laying.


----------



## dtrooster

So maybe swarm split towards the end of the early flow then a recombine after the new queen has proven herself (or not) may be a reasonably effective alternative to having to treat everything. Honey production shouldn't suffer much and hive counts can stay where you'd like


----------



## Riverderwent

Oldtimer said:


> What it had me thinking was that places with bees that will bite phoretic mites, have a mid summer broodless dearth, and a broodless winter, probably pretty easy to keep mite levels low.


That reminds me of a verse that Voltaire wrote about some folks that had traveled around the world taking measurements only to prove that they were wrong and Isaac Newton was right about gravity and the shape of the earth. "In dull, distant places, you suffered to prove what Newton knew without having to move."


----------



## msl

here is a re worked one with a July 5th brood break and july 5th OTS as emergy measure
the OTS looks ok till you realize its nuc size with that many mites, then not so good 
starting with .83% aka 2.5 mites per jar of 300"if" all colonlys had 40k bees the sept 1 rolls would look like this

starting with .83% aka 2.5 mites per jar of 300 
but there is still brood on, when it stops that 15.74 of the control becomes 47.22, jar counts in the 140 range!

It would seem by this ruff model you could very well keep non TF bees alive with such manipulation, Add in some drone culling, etc...
*that however is not inherently a good thing *
Keeping Bees dependent on manipulations maybe no different the keeping bees dependent on chemicals, the effect is the same, your propping up poor stock.
To that end you should follow the IMP model to re-queen, and cull drones on all the OTS splits, just like you would if you saved the hive by treating it. The mother queen is certainly NOT breeding stock and her line should not be propagated from. Done as layed out the OTS program is likely as bad as treating on the calendar in terms of propping up poor stock

It would seem setting up a nuc starter finisher to propagate from your best stock and breaking hives in to nucs is going to get you much father then constant spliting of subpar stock


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## dtrooster

But at least you aren't breeding as many chemically resistant mites. That's gonna happen unless every varroa is wiped out. MSRA comes to mind. As far as the bees, unless most people make a conscious effort to push the limits and accept some losses in mite stricken areas are stuck and will stay stuck in the cycle. We don't have that problem, so have it. Who am I to preach?


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## Oldtimer

MSL where did you get that graph?

At first glance it seems to make sense, but thinking about it, one would expect mite counts in the pinched queen one to at first spike as all mites were forced to become phoretic and show themselves in a count, then dip once brood raising starts again, and finally resume the curve once brood starts hatching and a normal brood age range resumes?


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## msl

Its total mites not just phoirtic ones, that’s why I tossed in the bar chart to show phoritic ones only…ie what a roll would show if the day one and day 120 bee populations were the same 
the charts are made in excel off a spread sheet with the praminaters I gave in post 169
pinching the queen at day 1 (may 5th) yealds no mites hatching out day 30-52 at day 30 there were 2046 mites in the hive and they were increaseing at a rate of 50 a day, by day 52 they would have been increasing out at a rate of 88
so with the break there are 1565 less mites on day 53 compared to the control and they are increasing at a rate of 51 a day vs 90
it does not how ever show a decline in the mite pop from day 30-52 as I didn;t know how to model that


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## Oldtimer

OK I understand now


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## Riverderwent

msl said:


> it does not how ever show a decline in the mite pop from day 30-52 as I didn;t know how to model that


This may help the modeling:


Riverderwent said:


> This study may be of some help: https://eurekamag.com/pdf.php?pdf=002705986. If I understand the study, it shows that, if a cohort of phoretic mites is removed from brood and placed with adult bees, the average _additional_ life expectancy of the mites is thirty-one days and the maximum additional life span of individual mites in the cohort is "around ninety" days. (By the way, this maximum "additional" lifespan is likely close to the actual "total" maximum life expectancy of an adult female varroa mite because of the likelihood that some of the mites in the cohorts studied had only recently emerged from the cell in which they were born.) The study apparently shows that between 20% and 60% of the mites die within the first twenty days after the brood is removed. If this study accurately reflects the longevity of varroa mites in the absence of bee brood, it helps explain why those varroa infestation charts show low rates of infestation on January 1. And, likewise, those charts corroborate the study's findings.


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## msl

Thanks River,

Ok if we stay on the low end, plug in 0.20 over 22 that gives about a 0.00909 per day death rate,one would think it wouldn't make a huge impact, but with all things exponential it sure does,


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## Riverderwent

MSL, your effort at modeling is significant. I would encourage you to continue refining the model with more fine scale modeling based on the mites' life cycle. Mites die every day regardless of whether there is a brood break. Just as the number of mites being born increases exponentially, likewise the number of mites dying increases exponentially. During a brood break, the number of mites being born drops off, but the number of mites dying should be expected to continue to increase exponentially. It's kind of a tricky little model.

Added to that, if there is a flourish of mites that enters the cells as the queen begins to lay eggs, and if that affects what is then, basically, a new starting point of the mite population, the numbers can be seriously impacted. You most likely need to do mite surveys while tracking these events to actually develop a reasonably accurate model. That then lets you model the potential large effects of relatively small changes in factors affecting the mite and bee populations.


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## msl

I used Randys 2.5% a day growth rate (not birth) but I am sure it was a ball park.

Far from significant, really it was a lazy Sunday after noon thought experiment about what was realy the effect of OTS... 
Divide the load and limit reproduction days mite, or the mites cramming in to the 1st cells available. 
Seems like it is mostly a numbers game , and anything else is an added bonus. 
but like any game of odds, knowing how to count the cards gives you an advantage in planing the next move


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## 1102009

msl said:


> It would seem by this ruff model you could very well keep non TF bees alive with such manipulation, Add in some drone culling, etc...
> *that however is not inherently a good thing *
> Keeping Bees dependent on manipulations maybe no different the keeping bees dependent on chemicals, the effect is the same, your propping up poor stock.
> To that end you should follow the IMP model to re-queen, and cull drones on all the OTS splits, just like you would if you saved the hive by treating it. The mother queen is certainly NOT breeding stock and her line should not be propagated from. Done as layed out the OTS program is likely as bad as treating on the calendar in terms of propping up poor stock
> 
> It would seem setting up a nuc starter finisher to propagate from your best stock and breaking hives in to nucs is going to get you much father then constant spliting of subpar stock


Very helpful work and contributions msl.

I´m with you, but I think if you don´t start with local adapted stock you might give the introduced queen or colony ( if you use tf stock or maybe ferals if you have them) at least one season to adapt to the location. 
The drone culling ( or some worker brood culling) in the first season could possibly prevent a bad mating situation for the others until you found out how tolerant the queen`s colony really is.

IMO many decisions queen or colony concerned are done much to early before giving the hive time to be an established unit. Splitting all the time is preventing this too, but must be used to have a number of hives to evaluate from.
Ok, with some breeding from an established colony which survived winter and use those queens would likely hurry this. If there is not the problem of inbreeding.
The use of two lines of race would be better.....


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> I was trying to get the discussion going on to brood breaks and how they impact end of the season mite levels and how that could be used for a non chemical intervention to make increase for TF requening


I think you need to establish your premise first with an authoritative paper that you think you can build on. You can tell us why it provides you with a solid premise, and we can critique that.

Of the links you supplies here today, the first two don't work, the third is to a journalist's report (of a lecture?)

The 4th leads to a sound looking paper of which this is the abstract:

Abstract

Given the role of infectious disease in global pollinator decline, there is a need to understand factors that shape pathogen susceptibility and transmission in bees. Here we ask how urbanization affects the immune response and pathogen load of feral and managed colonies of honey bees (Apis mellifera Linnaeus), the predominant economically important pollinator worldwide. Using quantitative real-time PCR, we measured expression of 4 immune genes and relative abundance of 10 honey bee pathogens. We also measured worker survival in a laboratory bioassay. We found that pathogen pressure on honey bees increased with urbanization and management, and the probability of worker survival declined 3-fold along our urbanization gradient. The effect of management on pathogens appears to be mediated by immunity, with feral bees expressing immune genes at nearly twice the levels of managed bees following an immune challenge. The effect of urbanization, however, was not linked with immunity; instead, urbanization may favor viability and transmission of some disease agents. Feral colonies, with lower disease burdens and stronger immune responses, may illuminate ways to improve honey bee management. The previously unexamined effects of urbanization on honey-bee disease are concerning, suggesting that urban areas may favor problematic diseases of pollinators."

There's plenty to start us off there.

Mike UK


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## msl

(links fixed) Its fine mike, you won, Mite bombs are fantasy, moving on

If we look at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0150362#pone.0150362.ref018
Seeley says a swarm exports 35% of the colonys mites, the numbers used are not the common 2/3s in brood 1/3 on the bees you see tossed around on the internet rather 50/50 and he is drawing that from 1990 study.... but lets figger seeley knows more then the random internet
ball park 2 days to find a home and start laying, assuming there is some comb available, and 8 days before the mites move and 21 days after that before they start emerging. the break in the mother hive are models like it was a ots/pinch, so they are likely too long
either way it shows swarming is a powerful tool so I added in a walk away split to see how that looks 







the 10 k or so line is were randys numbers would put the beginning of the walking dead phase so we see the splitting trend continue. 

Giveing the powerfull action of the broodbreaks and spliting of mite loads, am starting to wonder if there are just going to be places where you can't do well going TF with langs and there huge populations and swarm spersstion , that swarmy warre/KTBHs will have an advantage and we will see some results out of Seeleys small hive project. It may be as much about HOW we keep bees as what type of bees. 



> The drone culling ( or some worker brood culling) in the first season could possibly prevent a bad mating situation


yes, standard selective breeding measures for open range, castrate you non breading stock. For us its nice as its reversible should the queen prove out down the road.



> IMO many decisions queen or colony concerned are done much to early before giving the hive time to be an established unit. Splitting all the time is preventing this too, but must be used to have a number of hives to evaluate from.


yes you need to let it grow to full sized to evaluate it.
the problem with splitting is your interfering with the cycle to the point many won't be able to tell what is what.

looking at the chart you could see the real possibility of some one with 10 hives desiding to go TF, doing walk away splits and most of the QR sides crashing and most of the QL sides making it but with 20 hives, most arn't keeping good records and this is missed... how wonderful they come threw the winter with 12 "survivor" hives so they repeat the next year. Its the same with OTS
they can't tell what stock is good and what stock is just being propped up by splitting and they are missing the one queen they need to be propagating from mean while they are flooding their yard with crap queens that are not resistance, a small management/weather/neighborhood mite shift and bam, crash

yes you need lots of bees, but propagating from a poor queen usually leads to poor daughters, fine for building up numbers to re-queen later, but the chance you going to be selecting them later is slim... better propagate from you best. in the John Kefuss study they had hunderds of hives, some years they only selected a single breeder queen!



> if you don´t start with local adapted stock you might give the introduced queen or colony ( if you use tf stock or maybe ferals if you have them) at least one season to adapt to the location.


The queen is not going to adapt, she is what she is. You see the same issue with the new TF keepers under the imprestion that there hives will some how gain mite restiance if treatments are with held... either the queen has it, or she doesn't. 

Under BOND the whole colony dies, under IPM she is replaced... to be effective you have to be just as ruthless as bond, outher wize you proping up bad stock 

now(in you situation)if she is the best you have, but not good enuf to make it, with out help, and you can't buy better, it may be worth saving her for a year to see what you get in out crossing

I didn't see this coming in, but is certainly feels like the constant splitting/OTS methods of keeping bees is just keeping them chemical free and can have just as large negtivie impact as relying on chemical treatments


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> (links fixed) Its fine mike, you won, Mite bombs are fantasy, moving on


I'm not sure if this is ironic? 



msl said:


> I didn't see this coming in, but is certainly feels like the constant splitting/OTS methods of keeping bees is just keeping them chemical free and can have just as large negtivie impact as relying on chemical treatments


Yes (if I understand you properly). _Any_ activity that reduces varroa pressure on a population tends to perpetuate vulnerability to varroa in that population. I've been saying that here for at least 3 years.

Mike (UK)

PS I couldn't really see what you were trying to say with all that chart stuff... watch out for studies about swarming frequency that are built on observations made in the early days of the development of resistance, which we know has multiple mechanisms.


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## msl

mike bispham said:


> _Any_ activity that reduces varroa pressure on a population tends to perpetuate vulnerability to varroa in that population. I've been saying that here for at least 3 years.


This leads to the realization of the pot calling the kettle black on the subject of who is propping up poor gentinicks..
Yes, but it quickly goes down hill... is using foundation, witch suppresses drone brood holding back the bees? well yes, it is, it is fairly easy to imaging a stock line failing when drone brood changes form a few % to 20% when moved to foundation less based on the increase in mite production over welming the restinace, you can chase this all the way back to bees living in trees and being left alone. but at some point the needs and wants of man come in

it had been in my head for quite some time that bunch of these "TF" methods of keeping bees were more "feel good" then anything elce and are at odds with the development of truly TF stock. 
How ever in the sence of the BYBK, they are not developing much at all, and just need a way to keep bees in a "feel good" manor, success at that level drives the demand for TF stock, failure suppresses it, was the foucse here

The flip size is artificially suppresing a natural cycle that reduces mite pressure in a powerful way is problematic and gentinickes may not be the 100% answer


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> This leads to the realization of the pot calling the kettle black on the subject of who is propping up poor gentinicks..


Eh? Why don't you hop over to my 'natural selection management' thread and read about how I keep bees? 

I do everything I can to let natural selection play out. I' have 3 and 4 year old hives that are booming and making the most of a strong spring flow. 



msl said:


> Yes, but it quickly goes down hill...


What does?



msl said:


> ..is using foundation, witch suppresses drone brood holding back the bees? well yes, it is, it is fairly easy to imaging a stock line failing when drone brood changes form a few % to 20% when moved to foundation less based on the increase in mite production over welming the restinace,...


My bees came in as ferals making as many drones as they thougt best, and have stayed that way. My biggest and best produce terrific numbers of drones. 



msl said:


> .. you can chase this all the way back to bees living in trees and being left alone.



That's what i did, and its how bees have been kept for thousands of years. Wild bees are often hugely productive. they are as fit as a fiddle. They make plenty of honey - especially when you help them along a bit.



msl said:


> ...but at some point the needs and wants of man come in


Like the need to maximise productivity to the _nth_ degree, regardless of the consequences? Like the need to keep hives like pets? Like the need to sell all sorts of panaceas and gizmos to gullible members of the public?



msl said:


> it had been in my head for quite some time that bunch of these "TF" methods of keeping bees were more "feel good" then anything elce and are at odds with the development of truly TF stock.


You are entitled to what goes on in your head. But I have my experience to hand, and I'm one of a growing number.



msl said:


> How ever in the sence of the BYBK, they are not developing much at all, and just need a way to keep bees in a "feel good" manor, success at that level drives the demand for TF stock, failure suppresses it, was the foucse here


So give them honest informed advice. Failure leads to learning in the intelligent. As someone said, a little natural selection among putative beekeepers is no bad thing.



msl said:


> The flip size is artificially suppresing a natural cycle that reduces mite pressure in a powerful way is problematic and gentinickes may not be the 100% answer


That doesn't really make sense. Resistance is a collection of (natural) behaviours and capabilities, not a 'cycle'. Suppressing the development of that leads to... treatment-dependent bees. That's entirely a genetic mechanism.

Stick with facts msl. Don't believe everything written by amateurs. Don't believe alarmists. 'Follow the money'.

Above all learn about the beautiful and elegant mechanisms that have given rise to all the life-forms on the planet, and which keep them healthy. When the realisation of that beauty takes your breath away - then you'll know you understand it. Work outward from there, keeping that as your touchstone. 

Mike (UK)


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## msl

sorry that post was more dissjointed then normal...lol


mike bispham said:


> Eh?





> But I have my experience to hand.


 not aimed at you

your not keeping you stock alive with constant spitting and manipulation while complaining the treaters are propping up poor gentinicks. ie the pot calling the kettle black.



mike bispham said:


> So give them honest informed advice


I am.... 
My advice is 
If they go bond with 2 hives in the back yard of an urban/suburb area the odds are they will kill both of them, even if one lives they will make no approachable gains toward genetic resistance when they walk away split and open mate in an area flooded by poor stock.
As such I recommend they consider an IPM approach to being TF/chemical free so that they can have the pleasure of being a beekeeper and see some sort of return on there investment while they research were to obtain better queens from after the mite counts show the stock they have is failing


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## dtrooster

So why did you even bring that up ? Looking for a fight I suspect. Common sense says that if brood breaks allow hives to survive that option is inherently better than chemicals over the long term. The bees stay exposed to the mites and the diseases they carry to a higher degree which will continue to push behavioral changes and immunity buildup.


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## msl

dtrooster said:


> Common sense says that if brood breaks allow hives to survive that option is inherently better than chemicals over the long term.


Not in the least, 
If it is naturally occurring then its local adaption, move the stock, it often collapses. But as a local stock your great!
If the brood break is not naturally occurring, then its damaging in the long run, Perhaps as bad as cems as we have seen it can have a powerfull knock down efect on the mites.
Propping up bad stock is propping up bad stock, no mater how you do it, it negatively impacts the development of true TF stock if that is your goal an unpopular truth is still a truth 



dtrooster said:


> The bees stay exposed to the mites and the diseases they carry to a higher degree which will continue to push behavioral changes .


thats not how things work 
Bees either have Resistance or they don't, siting there with mites on them doesn't trigger a change. 
Most beekeepers are not developing/breeding resistance.. ie using II or dominating DCAs to cross different lines, they are finding it naturally occurring and are propagating it.


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## dtrooster

Disagree on all points.


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## gww

msl
[QUOTEBees either have Resistance or they don't, siting there with mites on them doesn't trigger a change. ][/QUOTE]

I don't know if I agree with this or not. If a bumble be can be taught to fly to a ball, then bees might learn biting mites works just by accident. If mites are more deadly when they are in areas that it is easier to switch host then bees may obtain tactics that are more pronounced when they propogate from one hive even if most in that hive are suseptable. Maby the hive as a unit is suceptable but the drones in that hive that are healthy enough to breed take the good parts in that weak hive and spread it. I read where bees do not have an immune system that works like a human but then seen the vidio somewhere in this post were the bees had a virus and due to that were immune to differrent viruses. I am not sure that presure does not move the genetics as much as the genetics have to be there already. They had to get there in the first place to be there all ready.

I am pretty sure the sientist don't know either or they would minipulate the genes. They are studying and coming up with observations and looking for an answer and even understand some things better then they did before but they have not found the answer and so there are things they don't know.

To me it is sorta like the world population getting taller. It was not all a factor in the origional genes that caused this but also enviromental items.
Cheers
gww


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> your not keeping you stock alive with constant spitting and manipulation while complaining the treaters are propping up poor gentinicks. ie the pot calling the kettle black.


That's not really how that phrase works



msl said:


> I am....
> 
> My advice is
> If they go bond with 2 hives in the back yard of an urban/suburb area the odds are they will kill both of them, even if one lives they will make no approachable gains toward genetic resistance when they walk away split and open mate in an area flooded by poor stock.


The odds are... very dependent on the stock they have, and,

things _may_ be made harder (to acknowledge your point) - or more challenging - if there are nearby hives failing from varroa overload. 

Is that not a more honest statement?



msl said:


> As such I recommend they consider an IPM approach to being TF/chemical free so that they can have the pleasure of being a beekeeper and see some sort of return on there investment while they research were to obtain better queens from after the mite counts show the stock they have is failing


I think that recommendation will mostly lead to orthodox modern beekeeping. Its just the sort of patter I'd expect to hear from my local beekeeping supplies firm - 'tell 'em what they want hear, just sell 'em the gear' 

Mike UK


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> If it is naturally occurring then its local adaption, move the stock, it often collapses. But as a local stock your great!


For understandable reasons... but not always, and when the reasons are understood, there may well be a fighting chance. 




msl said:


> If the brood break is not naturally occurring, then its damaging in the long run, Perhaps as bad as cems as we have seen it can have a powerfull knock down efect on the mites.
> Propping up bad stock is propping up bad stock, no mater how you do it, it negatively impacts the development of true TF stock if that is your goal an unpopular truth is still a truth


Yes, yes and yes.



msl said:


> thats not how things work
> Bees either have Resistance or they don't, siting there with mites on them doesn't trigger a change.


It is possible that can occur, but probably best to assume it doesn't 



msl said:


> Most beekeepers are not developing/breeding resistance.. ie using II or dominating DCAs to cross different lines, they are finding it naturally occurring and are propagating it.


Yes, though in my view that is 'breeding'

Mike UK


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## Riverderwent

msl said:


> Most beekeepers are not developing/breeding resistance.. ie using II or dominating DCAs to cross different lines, they are finding it naturally occurring and are propagating it.


If you found resistance naturally occurring, how would you personally go about enhancing it?


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## 1102009

> I am pretty sure the sientist don't know either or they would minipulate the genes. They are studying and coming up with observations and looking for an answer and even understand some things better then they did before but they have not found the answer and so there are things they don't know.
> 
> To me it is sorta like the world population getting taller. It was not all a factor in the origional genes that caused this but also enviromental items.
> Cheers
> gww


Yes, that´s always the result of scientific research. Explain everything but no solutions to practical work given. It`s a big industry celebrating itself and using tax money. No offense meant but nothing changes except developing new medications.

What help is a scientific research in an isolated area with different conditions?
The first step a researcher must do is to speak about the environmental circumstances our bees have to live in and try to correspond with the agricultural industry.
Even mite resistant and virus tolerant bees can be sprayed.

msl 
I see the queen and colony as an unit. So I believe the performance of a queen could change drastically in another location and she or the unit must adapt. That´s why serious breeders tell you they give no guaranty about the queen`s performance. 
What do we know about the correlations inside of a hive? 

Formerly beekeepers thought the queen is a regent and commands everything but today we know that she is manipulated by the workers and just used.

Even a 2 hive beekeeper, if he is interested, sees which hive is the better one. There are tools to propagate the better ones. In a group there are even more tools.


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## dtrooster

Quote Originally Posted by msl View Post
If the brood break is not naturally occurring, then its damaging in the long run, Perhaps as bad as cems as we have seen it can have a powerfull knock down efect on the mites.
Propping up bad stock is propping up bad stock, no mater how you do it, it negatively impacts the development of true TF stock if that is your goal an unpopular truth is still a truth


> yes,yes and yes


Why is that? That's the logical explanation for how wild stock developed resistance. The hives that swarming, all do it, was enough survived. The others died. Now they don't have to swarm to make it. Riddle me how your bees are different?


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> Why is that? That's the logical explanation for how wild stock developed resistance. The hives that swarming, all do it, was enough survived. The others died. Now they don't have to swarm to make it. Riddle me how your bees are different?


By propping up unadapted hives with chemicals or an (artificial) brood break, you remove the selective pressure that would otherwise tend to promote more resistant at the expense of less resistant strains. You are defeating natural selection for the fittest strains.

Mike (UK)


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## dtrooster

Apparently you didn't read


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> Apparently you didn't read


Perhaps you didn't write???


What is it I didn't read dtrooster?

Mike


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## dtrooster

I'll start with a question then. Wild bees started with swarming as an only defense, under constant mite pressure managed to survive with no human intervention even tho they were mite bombing each other. The ones that it was enough to survive thru the winter put out drones and emitted swarms the following year. The dead ones that it wasn't enough, history, no further propagation. Over time the numbers and years survival of hives increased. Do you agree this is the most logical explanation of feral stock that can handle mite pressure? If no, give me a better one. If yes then how might not this be a viable way for someone who wants to get off the juice, have questionable stock, to make a go at it. With the splitting the risk of getting wiped out is lessened even tho the limits, not splitting some hives that make it with high mite counts the next year, can be pushed harder. Buying a queen or 2 from people who are treatment free as a means to speed up the process


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> I'll start with a question then. Wild bees started with swarming as an only defense, under constant mite pressure managed to survive with no human intervention even tho they were mite bombing each other.


That's a theory with enough scientific support to say: the ones under stuady at this time and place did this. You can't universalise from there, and other studies have shown that feral populations have adopted a range of strategies and behaviours to the same end. In some place some have become dominant, in other different ones dominate. So the premise that 'swarminess' is a necessary first step is wrong. 



dtrooster said:


> The ones that it was enough to survive thru the winter put out drones and emitted swarms the following year. The dead ones that it wasn't enough, history, no further propagation. Over time the numbers and years survival of hives increased. Do you agree this is the most logical explanation of feral stock that can handle mite pressure? If no, give me a better one.


Answer as above; not necessarily so.



dtrooster said:


> If yes then how might not this be a viable way for someone who wants to get off the juice, have questionable stock, to make a go at it. With the splitting the risk of getting wiped out is lessened even tho the limits, not splitting some hives that make it with high mite counts the next year, can be pushed harder.


Getting to a position where you have many hives is a good plan; but _not having commercial stock at all_ is a far better one. Being away from commercial stock same. Being around feral bees, infinitely better. Knowing where there are feral bees and mating there, good. (notice I'm not working from the assuption that feral bees are surviving by swarming.)



dtrooster said:


> Buying a queen or 2 from people who are treatment free as a means to speed up the process


Start there if you can't find your own feral stock. Buy a commercial package, sure, but then make your next move requeening with better stock. then try constantly to improve on that with more tf queens , feral swarms and matings.

Mike (UK)


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## dtrooster

> other studies have shown that feral populations have adopted a range of strategies and behaviours to the same end. In some place some have become dominant, in other different ones dominate. So the premise that 'swarminess' is a necessary first step is wrong.


 what you think was the primary mechanism that allowed survival long enough to begin adapting and get more successful. Brood breaks from swarming would be my guess


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## dtrooster

I don't have this problem so it would be easy to preach. Just trying to be realistic. How long buying packages and queens and getting wiped out do you think somebodies gonna last before they cave to the juice or cave altogether. Splitting is easy enough to use as survival technique while working towards a goal


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> what you think was the primary mechanism that allowed survival long enough to begin adapting and get more successful. Brood breaks from swarming would be my guess


I have no guess dtrooster. I don't think there's any reason to suppose there was a 'primary mechanism'. Different things in different places, but you can say: those that were expressing sufficient resistance or tolerance genes to survive to reproduction and beyond, rebuilt the population, which improved due to natural selection all the time.

Mike UK


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> I don't have this problem so it would be easy to preach. Just trying to be realistic. How long buying packages and queens and getting wiped out do you think somebodies gonna last before they cave to the juice or cave altogether. Splitting is easy enough to use as survival technique while working towards a goal


Its pointless trying to reinvent the wheel with package bees. Get good genetics, have a good plan and go for it. All the time you are preserving treatment-dependent genes you are killing off any developing resistance in nearby hives and ferals. 

Mike (UK)


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## Delta Bay

dtrooster said:


> I don't have this problem so it would be easy to preach. Just trying to be realistic. How long buying packages and queens and getting wiped out do you think somebodies gonna last before they cave to the juice or cave altogether. Splitting is easy enough to use as survival technique while working towards a goal


My thoughts are the same as yours. I've also wondered why it is thought that you can't select for better bees along the way while using brood breaks. Should be able to still look for lower mite counts and VSH traits.


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## dtrooster

Still don't read I see huh Mike. Have a nice life


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## dtrooster

I wonder what the breeding selection order is for the people that have been treatment free for years. I'll hazard a guess based on what Ive heard locally. 1) gentleness 2) production 3) smarminess. Maybe I'm wrong but VSH traits doesn't even bust the top 3 because weak stock goes away on its own


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## msl

dtrooster said:


> Just trying to be realistic. How long buying packages and queens and getting wiped out do you think somebodies gonna last before they cave to the juice or cave altogether. Splitting is easy enough to use as survival technique while working towards a goal


I agree, kinda the whole point of this thread, doing what it takes to have bees that are alive while working on a goal. Witch is why i was crunching the numbers and charts to see what kinda mite reduction one could get with an emergy split, and witch type would be the most eftive.



> I've also wondered why it is thought that you can't select for better bees along the way while using brood breaks. Should be able to still look for lower mite counts and VSH traits


because you skewing the numbers, same as if you treat the hive. ie if you do walk away splits the QL side will have less mites then the QR and the OTS splits will have much less ans the one that swarmed will be some were in the middle 
come spring you have one queen doing great, unless your comparing her side by side with stock that was treated exactly the same you cant make a good call...
looking at the chart of sept 1 mite rolls(rolls, not accounting for mites in brood).. what queen do you pick?







but thats same queen, manged differently. 
splits/OTS are just fine if you want to keep bees TF and limit your losses, thats the point of this thread, the concept being you run your counts, and if they get to high you then intervene and make lemonade out of the situation. If you take action before, or blindly on a schedule you will never know if you have/had the golden goose. 

what happens is every time we walk down the road of dissustion ways of keeping bees TF here, some one interjects on how to breed/ select TF stock witch is complealy beyond the scope of a new beekeeper, trying to go TF, with a few hives in the backyard



Riverderwent said:


> If you found resistance naturally occurring, how would you personally go about enhancing it?


Its beyond me and my resources to do that level of work 
I would make increases from the best queens and hope for good enuf to float to the top


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## Fusion_power

> 1) gentleness 2) production 3) smarminess


 I didn't realize my bees have a problem with "smarminess". lol 



> what happens is every time we walk down the road of dissustion ways of keeping bees TF here, some one interjects on how to breed/ select TF stock witch is complealy beyond the scope of a new beekeeper, trying to go TF, with a few hives in the backyard


 Stop treating. Varroa mites do all of the selection work from that point forward. Please note that I am NOT advocating doing this with the average commercial bees available today! I am also not advocating doing this if you are surrounded by thousands of colonies of treated bees. We have enough regions dominated by mite resistance genetics and enough queen breeders selling mite resistant stock to enable most beekeepers to go over to the treatment free side.


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## Delta Bay

> because you skewing the numbers, same as if you treat the hive. ie if you do walk away splits the QL side will have less mites then the QR and the OTS splits will have much less ans the one that swarmed will be some were in the middle
> come spring you have one queen doing great, unless your comparing her side by side with stock that was treated exactly the same you cant make a good call...


If you have 25 colonies come through winter and you test and select the queens that have the lowest mite counts, show the highest VSH levels and anything else you want to select for at the time of breeding season and before brood breaks. What queens would you use to requeen all the nucs/colonies that then go through their brood breaks. This while being requeened with the selected queens, queen cells? I still don't see how anything is skewd. You're bumping the mite counts down after selection.


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## dtrooster

> because you skewing the numbers, same as if you treat the hive. ie if you do walk away splits the QL side will have less mites then the QR and the OTS splits will have much less ans the one that swarmed will be some were in the middle


 so you would view a brood break from a split, to firebombing mites in mass during an entire brood cycle as being the same? Come on man, lol. 
But maybe I'm misunderstanding you just to leave that door open.


> I didn't realize my bees have a problem with "smarminess".


 oops, ha


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## Riverderwent

dtrooster said:


> I wonder what the breeding selection order is for the people that have been treatment free for years. I'll hazard a guess based on what Ive heard locally. 1) gentleness 2) production 3) smarminess. Maybe I'm wrong but VSH traits doesn't even bust the top 3 because weak stock goes away on its own


1) Not overly aggressive, 2) not dead. The rest is easy to selectively bring in from good, local, commercial beekeepers with productive, locally adapted bees.


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## 1102009

Normally bee colonies swarm once a year.
In nature this seems to be a way to keep the health and multiply.

So what is it we expect? Big production hives without a seasonal renewal to be treatment free and stay healthy? 
Even more than one season?

Seems to me high expectations.


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## msl

> I still don't see how anything is skewd.


because the 2016 fall mite counts were impacted by the 2016 spring managements, and the 2016 fall mite levels have an effect on how well the colony over wintered, and that effects spring 2017 performance In the spring leavels may be low, and mite rolls being so imprecise you may not see clearly over the margin of error. Now if all the hives are split the same, and had similar mite counts when split you may draw some counlistions, however that is offen not the case
as an example... I had a swarm I caught in may, swarm in July I pulled a few nucs out of it to over winter, come this spring I put the bigest nuc in a full-sized hive and it took off, then swarmed with a lot of space, the others became brood fatorys. can I draw any counstions to witch queen is better? No they have all been managed different 

if I was doing any sort of selection( I am not at the moment,I am strictly filling woodwear this year, not dead is ALL I am looking at) I would be taking monthly mite counts on queens that had at least overwintered and headed up a full sized hive. If they hit 10-15% rolls with brood on I would take action to protect my investment. Propagate in the spring from the one with the lowest 2017 counts



> so you would view a brood break from a split, to firebombing mites in mass during an entire brood cycle as being the same?


In turms of progress toward your development of true TF stock threw BOND? Yes.. If you cant toss them in a hive and walk a way for a few years, what good are they?
In a IMP model, NO

In TF stock development
keeping you hives alive by constant splitting is the same as keeping them alive by gassing them with OA
In both cases it should only be a stopgap to save an investment and give you time to source stock better suited to your conditions 
In both cases it is often abused. Doesn't matter if its an induced brood break, weekly sugar shakes, or a shot of OAD. 
If splits are what the bees need, resistant stock will have swamy behavior positivist selected for by survival with out the hand of man involved 

In IMP management
Splitting would be a far superior method of mite contoral as it doesn't rely on chemicals, and if it alows you to make your goles then great. This is what IPM farmers do, they buy the best stock they can, do what it takes to keep the crops alive with the min amount of cems, and leave the stock development to the pros 

It all depends on what side of the prism you looking threw
If your goal is to keep bees with out the use of chemicals, constant splitting will help you attain that and is a reasonable solution. 
If your goal is to breed bees that can naturally survive with out the interventions of man not so much.



> So what is it we expect? Big production hives without a seasonal renewal to be treatment free and stay healthy?
> Even more than one season?
> Seems to me high expectations


but in the past they did ok! well for 150 years or so, and we are still clinging to, irregardless of the 3300 or so years before it 

It seems the way of the skep is not so back wards as some would try to make it, yes?
useing a smaller hives of a more natural size and adding a swarm keeper or doing a fly away split when they pull cells could be a way forward in the modern world.


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> I wonder what the breeding selection order is for the people that have been treatment free for years. I'll hazard a guess based on what Ive heard locally. 1) gentleness 2) production 3) smarminess. Maybe I'm wrong but VSH traits doesn't even bust the top 3 because weak stock goes away on its own


For me: 1) longevity, 2) productivity

I've just selected 8 hives for mother material. All are in their 3rd to 7th year with me are currently the tallest. Several have an 'M' on their record where I selected them for the same purpose last year.

Productivity is an excellent marker for mite-management. Bees that can't manage their mites can't be productive. They might get away for a season - that's where longevity comes in. 

Also, who wants bees that aren't productive?

I don't think any these have swarmed this year or last, or even the year before, but I can't be sure of that. I'm not paranoid about bees that swarm - in my experience its usually because they are tight. I try to keep them wax building to discourage swarming.

Gentleness? My bees seem to have good days and bad days. Bigger hives are tougher to work. Sometimes I'm surprised both ways. I try not to meddle inside more than I have to. Usually when they get stroppy its because I've been clumsy.

Those are my selection priorities.

Mike UK


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> if I was doing any sort of selection [...] I would be taking monthly mite counts on queens that had at least overwintered and headed up a full sized hive. If they hit 10-15% rolls with brood on I would take action to protect my investment. Propagate in the spring from the one with the lowest 2017 counts


I think there are better ways to spend your time than counting mites. Making boxes and frames comes to mind. Searching out good genes, feral populations, putting out bait hives... 



msl said:


> In TF stock development keeping you hives alive by constant splitting is the same as keeping them alive by gassing them with OA
> 
> In both cases it should only be a stopgap to save an investment and give you time to source stock better suited to your conditions
> 
> In both cases it is often abused. Doesn't matter if its an induced brood break, weekly sugar shakes, or a shot of OAD.


Agreed



msl said:


> If splits are what the bees need, resistant stock will have swamy behavior positivist selected for by survival with out the hand of man involved


Not my experience, nor supported by the literature, as outlined a few post ago. 




msl said:


> In IMP management splitting would be a far superior method of mite contoral as it doesn't rely on chemicals


Why does that make any difference if the effect is the same?



msl said:


> and if it alows you to make your goles then great. This is what IPM farmers do, they buy the best stock they can, do what it takes to keep the crops alive with the min amount of cems, and leave the stock development to the pros


And the effect is... those they keep alive artificially constantly degrade resistance in the feral and other bees all around.



msl said:


> It all depends on what side of the prism you looking threw
> If your goal is to keep bees with out the use of chemicals, constant splitting will help you attain that and is a reasonable solution.
> If your goal is to breed bees that can naturally survive with out the interventions of man not so much.


The goal: "to keep bees with out the use of chemicals" through constant splitting should not, in my view, be regarded as 'treatment free'. Its merely 'chemical free'. The splitting is the treatment. And, as we are agreed, it has exactly the same corrosive effect on local resistance as chemical treatments.

For that reason, advocating it here is, in my view, against the rules.



msl said:


> It seems the way of the skep is not so back wards as some would try to make it, yes?
> useing a smaller hives of a more natural size and adding a swarm keeper or doing a fly away split when they pull cells could be a way forward in the modern world.


I'm thinking that way myself. A hive I've left cramped through inaction has, I think, thrown at least 3 swarms this year, which are in traps nearby. That's not a bad way to get new colonies!

BTW I don't think there is any such thing as a 'natural size' cavity. Bees will even hang comb under branches and in caves. But if you are going to standardise something like a skep or nuc swarm-throwing system, the size you adopt will make some sort of difference, though I'm not sure what. There's a great pair of documentary films on you-tube about an East German (I think) outfit in maybe the 1950's who honey farmed this way. 

Mike UK


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## dtrooster

there is such a thing as continued conversation without rehashing every detail to maintain context. You guys,,,,,,,,,wow.


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## dtrooster

> So what is it we expect? Big production hives without a seasonal renewal to be treatment free and stay healthy?
> Even more than one season?


 yes, that is what we expect and fortunately where I live bees have accomplished that all by themselves.


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## 1102009

dtrooster said:


> yes, that is what we expect and fortunately where I live bees have accomplished that all by themselves.


Lucky guys! There are some who claim this, I hope for you it stays this way and there is no crash the more "productive" the colonies are. Because it´s a personal estimation, productivity and depends much on flow.

Without having ferals around ( which was the result of treating, making ferals extinct here and still doing this) you see this in a different light.



> If your goal is to keep bees with out the use of chemicals, constant splitting will help you attain that and is a reasonable solution.
> If your goal is to breed bees that can naturally survive with out the interventions of man not so much.





> So what is it we expect? Big production hives without a seasonal renewal to be treatment free and stay healthy?
> Even more than one season?
> Seems to me high expectations
> 
> 
> 
> but in the past they did ok! well for 150 years or so, and we are still clinging to, irregardless of the 3300 or so years before it
Click to expand...

No, the expectations to productivity rises. Formerly the beekeepers were content with less and knew more about the correlations between bees and nature.
And, at least here in europe, they forced swarming by feeding syrup EVERY Year, caught the swarms and went on. It was common beekeeping practise without the possibility to move frames.
Forcing swarms is splitting and the bees split themselves too almost every year if you let them.


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## Oldtimer

Would that have come from when bees were kept in skeps and swarming was part of management and managed very well?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK9_4ojYaok


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## dtrooster

so those are the guys that perpetuated weak stock, lol.

Tough old codger, cool video. Thanks


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## 1102009

Hey OT, many thanks! Nice video!


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## bucksbees

Fusion_power said:


> beekeepers to go over to the treatment free side.


Darth Vader gives them milk and cookies, more might come over if you offered milk and cookies.


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## Delta Bay

> because the 2016 fall mite counts were impacted by the 2016 spring managements, and the 2016 fall mite levels have an effect on how well the colony over wintered, and that effects spring 2017 performance In the spring leavels may be low, and mite rolls being so imprecise you may not see clearly over the margin of error


Makes no difference as long as you are selecting the top lowest mite counts, best VSH etc. every year. As well as propagating from your best you are using the culled queens bees for increase. Just because you start with lower infestations doesn't change the buildup dynamics unless they have some ability to deal with that growth rate. Are you going to get it right every time, likely not but you certainly can try to do your best.

Add a point: It's not mandatory to do spring managed brood breaks they can be done late spring though summer.


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## bucksbees

The chance of moving the ball forward is a variable % chance of different factors. Starting stock, management, environment, density of feral stock in area, density of managed TF stock in area, number of hives to dedicate to program, amount of resources needed, record keeping, and protocol for what you are doing.

The three names that jump off the top of my head, that have done it for at least 5 years, and not saying the names not listed are not moving forward, but the three I think of are Mike Bispham, Squarepeg, and Fusion. River, and Siwolke are moving that way, but they are still building up the information they are putting out, and as such is a great learning experience. 

Each one has a different approach to the same issue. 

Treatment free is not management free, sorry for rambling, getting hungry.


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## dtrooster

Good post


> Treatment free is not management free


hammer meets nail


> Add a point: It's not mandatory to do spring managed brood breaks they can be done late spring though summer.


 amazing that people can view what bees do year after year naturally as a crime. Inconvenient yes, criminal no.


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## mike bispham

Delta Bay said:


> Add a point: It's not mandatory to do spring managed brood breaks they can be done late spring though summer.


My bees take their own breaks through summer. At least the ones I want eggs from do.

Mike (UK)


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## msl

bucksbees said:


> Treatment free is not management free


agreed, once you become a beekeeper, you take on management, letting your bees die is not management
this is why an IMP management approach is being discussed,

Do not confuse treatment free (what ever that means) beekeeping with treatment free stock they are different

You can take treated stock, manage it TF (as pre the form rules) with OTS, some drone culling, maby a fly away split, and have a reasonable chance of keeping bees TF while you pull in better genetics suited for your area. This is my argument for IPM

That doesn't mean the same stock can be sent to a bond yard and have a good probability of still being alive 2 years after the management is removed. This is Mikes argument. 

Like any other Ag setting there are producers and consumers of genetic stock. The small time rancher goes out and buys a bull with a pedigree to improve their stock rather then set up a breeding program as their sample size is too small, same with a small market garden, they by there seeds from a producer. 

Beekeeping is no different, I would guess 90%+ of the small time beekeepers trying to go TF (12,000 or so in the us by BIP #s), are not suited or set up to produce there own line of stock and should be buying from a producer. Constantly telling these people to be a producer and to keep bees and or select in the same manor of a producer is just silly. 

Mike is arguing from the point of view of a producer, that there is only one "right" way to keep bees and its a one size fits all deal

I am auguring form the point of view of a consumer, that all beekeeping is local and a host of tools and techniques scaled to meet local needs is a better path. 

I am not saying Mike is wrong with in the scope of his operation, I agree with most of it in that context. 
I am just saying what works for a large producer often doesn't scale well to the small time consumer. The


> WTF


 reaction to the suggestion that constant splitting can be viewed as a treatment and harmful to stock development is proof of that


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## 1102009

fusion_power and squarepeg, if you use this link:

http://www.vivabiene.de/f23-Stockkarten-von-Fanterer.html ( push the link my friend uses on top," link Stockkarte one note" )

you will see that he now has one hive, his first from 2012, with an elgon F1 queen from Josef Koller, which still survives and is strong after 5 years.

He is the one who kept treated big cell and tf small cell bees at the same yard for 5 years until now, when he sold all treated colonies.

He splitted the colony every year once in early spring, he leaves drone comb and he never counts mites. All his 9 colonies are descendants of this stock mated openly locally with carni local treated drones and his own.

So, if you follow us on www.VivaBiene.de you can see how he fares in future.

If this kind of beekeeping is a way to be free of chemicals, it´s our possibility.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> You can take treated stock, manage it TF (as pre the form rules) with OTS, some drone culling, maby a fly away split, and have a reasonable chance of keeping bees TF...


That isn't 'treatment free'. You are dealing with the varroa for them. It is no different in its effects from chemical treatments. 



msl said:


> ... I would guess 90%+ of the small time beekeepers trying to go TF (12,000 or so in the us by BIP #s), are not suited or set up to produce there own line of stock and should be buying from a producer.


You might be surprised by how many people seem to find thriving feral stock that works for them. That's what that percentage of yours will relate to. 



msl said:


> Constantly telling these people to be a producer and to keep bees and or select in the same manor of a producer is just silly.


The well-worn advice of people here is: do not try to keep or breed resistant bees from commercial stock. Try to find feral and/or bred queens or nucs, 



msl said:


> Mike is arguing from the point of view of a producer, that there is only one "right" way to keep bees and its a one size fits all deal


I'm not at all. I'm giving you an informed view of the constraints in play. You are misrepresenting me. 



msl said:


> I am auguring form the point of view of a consumer, that all beekeeping is local and a host of tools and techniques scaled to meet local needs is a better path.


What is universal (and there for independent of locality) is this: commercial stock is not resistant and its pointless trying to make it so. Thriving feral bees on the other hand are. bred resistant bees may well be too - but most sellers of resistant bees will also advise trying to find local ferals to mix in. 



msl said:


> I am not saying Mike is wrong with in the scope of his operation, I agree with most of it in that context. I am just saying what works for a large producer often doesn't scale well to the small time consumer. The reaction to the suggestion that constant splitting can be viewed as a treatment and harmful to stock development is proof of that


I'm just trying to maintain the established language, and the facts of my position against your misrepresentation. Both matter.

Mike


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## msl

Does any one have good numbers for the % of mites on foragers vs nurse/house bees. Also phoric vs non? I have seen them range for 33 to 50%..
I am thinking about modeling a fly away split to see how it is compared to outher methods

The other one I have in my head is adding a frame of open drone brood on day 21, _WJ Boot - ‎1995_, seems to suggest it could have a strong effect


> When no other brood is present, 462 drone cells are estimated to be sufficient to trap 95% of the mites in a colony of 1 kg of bees


 https://www.apidologie.org/articles...4/Apidologie_0044-8435_1995_26_2_ART0004.html
this would alow to split with a cell and have a laying queen in the hive much faster, hopefully leading to better production


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> ...you will see that he now has one hive, his first from 2012, with an elgon F1 queen from Josef Koller, which still survives and is strong after 5 years.


thanks for the link sibylle. it's encouraging to hear about fanterer's success, and i look forward to following along on viva.


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## 1102009

msl said:


> Does any one have good numbers for the % of mites on foragers vs nurse/house bees. Also phoric vs non? I have seen them range for 33 to 50%..
> I am thinking about modeling a fly away split to see how it is compared to outher methods
> 
> The other one I have in my head is adding a frame of open drone brood on day 21, _WJ Boot - ‎1995_, seems to suggest it could have a strong effect
> https://www.apidologie.org/articles...4/Apidologie_0044-8435_1995_26_2_ART0004.html
> this would alow to split with a cell and have a laying queen in the hive much faster, hopefully leading to better production


We as a group start to do this now, fly away splits ( I hope I got the term right, is this an artificial swarm?)

The queenless produce the honey. Last year three of my queenless on 5-6 frames dadant produced 80 pounds surplus after leaving them each 40 pounds, which is sufficient for a hobbyist. I used half for feeding back.
After harvesting when they had a new queen I stopped harvesting and did not feed in fall ( I did feed some, but they were content with their own stores.)

I want to breed some extra queens in case the matings fail. But I want to have a brood brake like in nature. So breeding comes later with one or two hives in future ( the best hives and the strongest, I hope they do not want to swarm beforehand). The queens will be used for small nucs or introduced in hopelessly queenless colonies after some time. 

As I told you before, our mite situation is serious.
Tf or not, you always see some mites on bees and later in summer some defect wings. The level is higher.
I´m monitoring mites on bees with taking picts of combs with bees sitting on them. With my pc I scan them and see the mites, which are almost always on nurse bees. Count 5 in your hive and you have a high infestation, because most mites you do not see, because they suck at the undersides.

When starting a hive with local treated mutts we make an artificial swarm with one comb of open brood to lure the phoretic mites into the brood.
After capping the comb is taken out and melted.
So we give them a good start to be tf.


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## msl

More on splits for mite control 
http://www.beeculture.com/splits-varroa-more-colonies-fewer-mites-new-queens-what-could-be-better/


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## 1102009

Very good, thanks, msl.
I copied the link into my german forum to translate it.


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## msl

Here is were I am at with my little split experment I will up date with Aug/sept numbers, but a trend is emerging 
These are 3 sister queens mated in July of last year and overwintered as nucs, one shot of OAD in November. Numbers given are mites recovered with alcohol wash per 300 bees 
1 had the queen pulled and left to raize there own on 5/25 rolled 1, 6/26 no count(1st brood cycle was mostly capped at the time), 7/22 rolled 9
2 swarmed, 5/25 rolled 0, 6/26 rolled 2, 7/22 rolled 6 
3 was the queen right side of a fly away split in april , 5/25 it rolled 1, 6/26 rolled 1, 7/22 it rolled 3
as the math predicted the flyaway had the most knock down and pulling the queen was the worst. In terms of honey at the moment pulling the queen before the main flow was best, and swarming was the worst.


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## gww

msl
The more I think on it the more I am thinking that moving a hive back a bit and sideways and then makeing a split with the old queen and old bees that fly back and give them no comb or maby a little honey might work best. I did it but lost a lot of time cause I think the hive had already swarmed and so I had to use a queen cell rather then the old queen. I am sure that the extra brood break that making and mating a queen did not hurt but I am thinking even using the old queen and making them draw the comb to lay in might work good enough. (If they don't superceed the queen cause she can't lay untill they draw comb.


I did this type of split and was very impressed by thier build up. The reason that I think it might be a good one for knocking down mites even if the queen starts laying as comb is built is for two reason. 

1. I have read the mites like nurse bees so they have access to the brood about to be capped. So the old bees that are making up the split should have fewer mites to begin with.

2. Taking a chance on the mad splitters ideal that when there are lot of mites but no place to breed, that the mites pile up in few cells and die (I read one other place that made this claim also). So I am thinking that if the bees have to draw comb for the queen to lay in, it may make the mites pile up and self destruct for a short period.

I don't know which post it was in but know this type of split was promoted by member laurie. 

Is what I wrote, about what you are talking about when mentioning your flyaway split? 

When I did the above I called it the fly back split.

I am sure you explained earlier in this long thread what you were doing in a flyaway split and I do try and remember but am just lazy enough to ask rather then search this tread for the details.
Thanks
gww


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## msl

yes I flew away 2 over wintered nucs that had grown back to 8 bars, Thats the equivalent of about 6.5 deep frames ,my KTBN hold 10 bars, 8 with the feeder instaled) and were out of space an in danger of swarming. 
on 4/7 I took one comb of eggs/young larva added 1 empty drawn comb and left it in the old position with the old queen in a new box and put the rest in a new position next to each outher the yard to draw cells . I did one KTBN and one lang nuc 

4/18 I broke the 2 cell builders in to 5 KTB nucs. I cut out 2 combs from another KTB nuc and rubberbanded them in to fames with a cell and placed a lang nuc in between were the cell builders had been to colect those feild bees. 
By this time the lang nuc I did the flyaway in to had filled the drawn comb and drawn and filled 2 foundationless frames and was in need of a 2nd story, 5/30 they moved to a single deep,6/13 2nd deep 7/1 they needed a super but haven't used it much as we went in to our summer dirth. 
KTBN I did a fly away to had grown to 10 bars (about 8 deeps) and was moved to full sized on 5/25.

So far I am seeing the fly away spilt as a powerful way to give a hive a clean start, to draw a lot of comb, and to build cells. The foragers seem to revert and the hive acts like a swarm in a new home. The lazy beekeper in me likes not having to move splits to other yards, instead putting the feild bees to work and using them to my advantage instead of trying to fight them returning to the old location


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## gww

msl
I put one brood frame (running mediums) with a capped queen cell on it and one frame of capped honey and put it in the old hives place.

Before the queen was mated the bees had pretty much built out the medium 10 frame box and filled it with honey. Then the queen got bred and the bees filled the second medium. It seems that they have stopped on the third (probly due to the dirth). They did all this with out feed. My hives in this heat are bearding now and this hive has more bees hanging on it then if you put the other seven hives beards together. 

My teronov with the young bees but same queen situation (I somehow lost the queen or they had already swarmed and I missed it) got a gal and a half of 2 to one and have only got about 3 frames built in the second medium.

What is even better is the young bee side of the fly back split (the first one here) ended up capping for extraction, more honey then my one hive that did not swarm. In fairness it did start out one medium bigger then the one that did not swarm but I still found it impressive. I would love to try it next year like you did before I lose the queen to a swarm. Oh, yea, both the young side and the old flyback side had to make a queen because this hive put out a massive swarm that I caught before I made the split. So three hives of bees that will be at least bigger then what I wintered last year and more honey then a hive that did not swarm. And a hive that has enough bees bearding that it could swarm again if nothing blooms enough to give them the resources to build more comb.

I was very impressed with how the old bees built comb with out feed compared to the young bees (that did ok but needed lots more resources to do it. Lastly, if it knocked the mites down and lives through winter and the rest die, I still have something to play with.

I am happy you reported and also thank you for the clarification that helped me understand what you did.
Cheers
gww
Ps When I say I got more honey from the split hive it needs to be put into perspective that I did only get about 4 gal over all, though I had stolen a little over a half gal earlier because it was in a comb that was in two frames and one other frame cause I just wanted to give some to my daughter and they were capping slowly. So making more of not much might not be impressive but I was still impressed with its performance.


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## gww

msl
I sure would like to try this flyback/flyaway thing next year before my bees get it in their mind to swarm. My hives swarmed on april the 13th this year. I think doing this earlier then april the 13th would be risky due to wether and wonder if this wasn't just a wierd early year. I hate the thought of taking ten year to learn when I can get by with preemptive splits that still might give some honey but doesn't kill bees. Some of this stuff is hard to really see what is going on flow wise, wether wise and bee density. It is not hard stuff to do but sure is hard to do perfectly
Cheers
gww


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## msl

my best guess is to read the bees, not the weather and trust in them. When they ramp up drone production its time
I did the flyaway 4/7, made up nucs 4/18 on 4/29 a storm rolled in with a low of 26f and a 18" of snow, I had 2 of the 6 mating nucs fail to make a queen, but they were still alive
I made a 2nd round of nucs with cells on 5/1 and a 3rd on 5/11 on 5/19 we had another storm 28f, killed 2 swarms in my traps, but the nucs were just fine

I found capped cells (including one open, beat the virgin to the rest of them them, talk about timing) on 5/1 in a full sized hive and had a nuc swarm 5/5... little buggers left right in front of me, while I was walking up to install the 1st swarm of the year I had caught..lol they shouldn't have swarmed... I had pulled brood, I had stolen there feild force, they had space.. guess the 4/29 storm had them penned up and board with nothing better to do


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## gww

msl


> little buggers left right in front of me, while I was walking up to install the 1st swarm of the year I had caught..lol they shouldn't have swarmed...


Yea, I had that two days in a row from the same hive that I had already made a split from. My fault cause I did not reduce the queen cells in the hive. I think I get lucky (Though maby one fooled me and I didn't know about it). I take my breaks on a bucket about ten feet from the hives in front of a cedar tree. So far the three swarms I caught from my hives landed in that cedar tree and also low enough to reach easily (the tree is big).
I always said it was better to be lucky then good.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

Oldtimer said:


> Better be careful MSL that last post sounds like you'll soon have so many hives you will have to quite the other job and go commercial.


 Well OT you weren't kidding, placed the last round of cells 7/24, those 3 overwintered nucs have become 33, but that is counting my queens before they hatch  
Things arn't so rosy in the other yard, the genital productive swarm from last year is rolling 19 mites. Time to harvest all the honey (they get a strong fall rabbit brush flow to rebuild) add a few shots of OAD to get them threw winter, pinch the queen and use the resources for nucs come spring with cells from the better stock.


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## Oldtimer

Three nucs to thirty three! Very impressive!


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## msl

A lot of the late nus failed to mate out and I burned 2 nucs with EFB. 24 nucs and 4 full sized hives in the yard right now.. 

on the splits/swarms matter to your mite load subject here are the results of this seasons mite counts, hive 1-3 were sisters overwintered as nucs treaed with OAD once nov 2016 and split diffrently







Hive 1 will likely not make it they are weak and low on supplys. 2 is "ok" 3 is strong and packed with bees and honey, I could get a small 2nd harvest off it but I am going to leave it in place for insurance, 4 is the only lang in the bunch 
I bumped in to the guy who runs 18 or so hives next to me, he was packing up some robed out hives and puting on formic pro on. I got to show him how to do a mite roll on one of his hives, kept losing track in the mid 40s. 
I wish I had been around in sept to do rolls, but I am going to guess at least one of his deadouts mite bombed. A bunch of his hives were weak and Its sposed to snow tomorrow so I guessing formic pro may not have been a great choice? Maby more bombs to come 

Taken as a whole, and with my hives being broodless I gave all the hives a shot of OAD. I could have likely let #3 ride it out, But a little treatment isn't going to change her genetics or the fact that she will likely be the focus of 2018 breeding...I want to hedge my bets that she makes it to spring. 

Given the results I plan on making fly away splits a standard for overwintered hives in 2018, and not just for mites. In the 2 queen right sides I let grow up(not used as resource hives) took a overwintered top bar nuc, broke it 3+ ways. The queen right side started with 3 drawn combs,drew comb and made more honey then packages installed in my neighbors langs with 100% drawn comb. He pulled 120# off 18 hives, Crap year, dry, but the only metric I have to go toe to toe with locally


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> 24 nucs and 4 full sized hives in the yard right now..
> 
> 4 is the only lang in the bunch


only lang =only Langstroth? The rest are top bar hives?



If I understood it right you have split 3 nucs to 28 hives. 24 nucs and 4 bigger ones, are these 4 the original ones?

How big are the nucs now?

There must be some mite pressure outside if you despite such heavy splitting yet have huge mite loads in the original hives.


(In our climate the nucs are usually about the same size as original hives. Winter is so hard there is no point wintering smaller ones.)


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## msl

at this yard I came threw winter with 5 topbar nucs 
1 and 2 were alowed to grow for honey production, 3,4 were flyaway split, the queen right side of 3 was allowed to grow to full sized, QR4 was used resorce hives for nuc building, the QL 3 and 4 drew cells and were broken in to 6 nucs and grown as resorce hives
nuc 5 was used as a resorce hive till it swarmed and was broken up 3 ways
2 swarmed and had a nuc with a qc pulled out of it
3 filled up with brood and on the verge of swarming, as a top bar I coun't add space so queen right nuc was pulled out at the start of the main flow 
2 swarms were added, at peak the yard hit 38, with the efb, a few dead outs/robbing, and recombining the queen failure of the late nucs its down to 28. 
on the counts #4 was a swarm, and the only fullsized lang, 2/3 or so of the nucs are langs.

I asume the mite pressure to be high given the neighbor's mite load and colasping hives. He likes to go TF with package bees(easy beekeeping not idlocatioal reasons) , this was his 1st time in 5 years treating, took 100% losses last year (20 hives) and has taken large losses most other years. 
Before he came on site I could be TF with my fearl swarms, after, I took 100% loses back to back to back. This is the reason I adopted the IMP as path to TF model, It dosn't matter how good my stock is, I will likely still get mite bombed to oblivion so I have to make my choices based on counts and records not bond.

I was in grothe mode and as I didn't have any thing to judge my queens with it didn't much matter what was propagated so I did a lot of pull the queen cut out the cells, about now I am wishing I had records as to were #3s f-1 and f-2s are in the yard.


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## gww

msl


> Given the results I plan on making fly away splits a standard for overwintered hives in 2018, and not just for mites


I have surly been turning this over in my mind also. I had such a bad handle on swarm control and some how this seems like a fair altunative even if it does impact honey prodution pretty hard. I at least got a little honey from the one I did this year. I am only sitting on nine this year and two are very small and at least one is light weight wise and none are treated. It should be a very interesting spring. Good luck and just so you know, If I end up with a hundred percent loss, I will be treating and probly not messing around with ipm. I do expect to lose a few though cause they did not build up well to begin with.
Cheers
gww


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## trishbookworm

Michael Bush's website has some great summaries of swarm control/split options - http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm

What I really took home from that page was that I could direct a hive to make bees or make honey. And you don't have to graft to get queen cells drawn out. 

Here is his bit on swarm control: 
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

I have 6 hives now. I want 8 next year, not 12.  So I plan to take a few full bars from the living hives and consolidate them into 1 hive. Or 2 if I have enough survivors that overwinter! 

Of course, timing is everything... round these (wintry) parts, they say 3 weeks from main dandelion bloom, expect swarms. That's often the second week of May. So I'm into "prevention" mode by May 1st, depending on the weather.


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## msl

So I just bumped in to seeleys latest paper 
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-017-0519-1#Fig4
it has some good stuff on mite loads vs survival


> Colonies with mite-drop counts below 30 mites/48 h had nearly zero mortality, but colonies with mite-drop counts above 30 mites/48 h suffered higher mortality, reaching 100% when count was 90+ mites/48 h.


hit the 10 per hundred or so mark and the hive is DOA without intervention 



> the 1970s and 2010s results yield almost identical estimates of mean colony lifespan: 2.1 and 2.2 years for all colonies and 5.6 and 6.2 years for established colonies


So yes the immortal bee tree is a myth, as is the “fact” that the ferals are gone or not doing well, they seem to be doing just fine 



> Evidently, the persistence of this wild colony population in the past, and still today, reflects strong reproduction by established colonies, which nearly doubles the population over summer, followed by high mortality of newly-founded colonies and low mortality of established colonies, which approximately halves the population over winter


50% losses are normal/natural. And a whole bunch of swarms it would seem never find a home to become a new founded colony. It would seem skep style beekeeping was less backwards/barbaric , and more in tune with nature then is often thought . Ie make 2-3x increase come spring/summer harvest excess/those that won’t make the winter. Rinse and repeat 

The flip side here is this is natural selection at work, and another issue I have with bond…. Yes bond can select the stock, but what happens then? You have to keep the selection pressure on the stock to keep it from backsliding, the natural model suggests 50% losses are needed to keep the stock at average. 
My thought is this is manifested in the collapse and recovery often talked about by bonders…. IE too many splits from advage hives, not enough selection pressure, the yard colaspices to a few top queens and they rebuild form there, till the resistance trait get watered down in the yard again…… 
My take is it would be far better to ID those same top queens with mite counts and make increase from them, breeding from just not dead is a poor way to go, you need to have a way to ID the best you have. Select the queen stock for your splits, don’t just bust up an entire yard and hope for the best. 
Every established colony that did not change its queen (by swarming?) over summer developed a fatally high mite population by September

No matter what other traits they may have had to fight the mites, if you were to keep them under “standard” management conditions (swarm prevention) they would fail. 

Of note is the “ Simulated wild colony” (single deeps stocked with feral swarms) had a survival rate about the same as commercial Italian stock from California when kept under similar conditions in his small hive trials http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0150362

The magic ferals showed no more restiance to mites then California commercial stock…..let that sink in. 

Once again, it is seeming while gentinics play a part, where and how you keep bees matters …..
food for thought as changing hive size and management is very IPM, and within the relm what could be done by BYBK wishing to be TF


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## gww

msl
A small counter point to you assesment of seeleys study.

You mention a 50 percent loss to keep things stable and constant pressure.

To me just thinking about it, that 50 percent loss has nothing to do with mites. My reasoning for saying this is that it has not changed after mites from what it was before mites. What did change after mites was that when they first got here, that 50 percent loss changed to 90 percent loss for the first few years. What is incouraging is that from that 90 percent loss, the bees built thier numbers back up at a rate that had to be better then a fifty percent loss untill they were populated like before and then thier loss increased to 50 percent equalibrium.

So the part that gets me to thinking is that hives were managed back before mites just as wild hives lived back before mites. So the managed hive survival before mites was what it was and the wild hives lost 50 percent before mites which is the same now. The only differrance was on the managed hives we did not ever have the 90 percent loss that the wild hives went through. So the managed hives did not have the same pressure while they were being managed that the wild hive did have to go through. How can we be so sure that they would not have responded under the way they are being managed like the wild ones did under the way they were being managed? It seems that some are having luck with managed hives and not treating and managing them differrent then wild hives.

Even way back in doolittles day, he noticed that hives with queens made after the summer soltice lived better through winter. Mel dieslkoen has built his whole program on that fact. There may be more then is showing just by looking at how bees are living. Managed hives have some distinct advantages to survival what we look at bee keeping practices. Things like feeding and requeening when there are issues and insulation and such. I don't see how the case can be made that bees that lived 5 years before mites and had a 50 percent loss while doing it and after mites do exactly the same thing, that it is mites that are causeing it. Mites did cause a 90 percent death rate for a while. That was differrent.

I don't discount that where you keep bees could have a big impact. It does on honey production and so I am sure it does on bee health. Tired bees probly get sick easier then rested ones in the land of plenty.

Randy oliver also has evidence that small aperies spred diseise slower then larger ones. It doesn't mean they never get any sickness but more it happens slower and is not as devastating to as many hives.

I am just being a bit of a devils advocate here cause I always learn a bit more from your post. It doesn't hurt to think about alturnitive views cause one thing I am sure of, I really don't know. I don't buy that he is hitting the reasoning perfectly (though probly better then me) but do know that his mesuremants are correct and that he is doing lots of good obsevation. I think his cause and effect are pretty well thought out. Things like less drift and such making it easier to keep disiese moving slower. I just can't get over the fact that nothing has changed in survival rate prior to mite and after mite making me come to the conclusion that mite is not much of an impact in the big picture to how it always was. The numbers match before and after.

I do try and do broodless splits when I make them though. 
Cheers
gww

Ps I did find one interesting comment in seeley compared to a simular comment in a usda study. Seeley mentions less drone being a factor and usda said the hives with the most drone were suriving best.


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## Adam Foster Collins

msl said:


> As a side note Seeley and Conrad have a good study running right now, and have been seeing good results with only physical management techniques VS MAQS I am very interested to see the spring numbers, the fall mite counts were looking good https://mysare.sare.org/sare_project/fne16-840/?page=annual&y=2016


A couple of questions:

• Where's Tom Seeley in this? I don't see any mention of him in the Project Overview, and all the tasks listed are said to be performed by Ross, with hours totaling 100.

• *"The control group will be located a several hundred feet from the other colonies and separated by a fairly thick tree line in order to reduce the potential for mite drift from collapsing colonies."*

Does that sound like enough distance to protect the other hives from getting re-infested from crashing hives? It doesn't to me. That point alone seems like enough to skew the results.

• *"Mite monitoring will be accomplished by obtaining ½ cup of bees ( ~ 300) from the brood nest and putting them into the mason jar. About 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar will be placed into the jar and a lid will be placed on the jar. The bees and sugar powder will be vigorously shaken to dislodge the mites. The jar of bees will be allowed to sit for a minute, and the shaking repeated. The lid will be replaced with a wire mesh cap and the sugar and mites will then be shaken out through the screened top onto a white plate. The powdered bees will be returned to the hive and then the powder on the plate will be sprayed with water using a spray bottle to dissolve the sugar in order to make any brown mites removed during the process clearly visible on the white plate. The number of mites visible will be divided by three in order to determine the percent infestation of the sample."*

I believe it's been pretty solidly decided that an alcohol wash is a much more accurate mite measurement than a sugar roll. Why use the less-accurate? I understand not wanting to kill bees, but if this is supposed to prove something, it seems like you'd want the most accurate measurement.

More importantly, I feel that the last thing the Treatment/TF debate needs is another study with obvious weaknesses that can easily call its results into question.

Adam


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## Buzz-kill

Adam Foster Collins said:


> A couple of questions:
> 
> • Where's Tom Seeley in this? I don't see any mention of him in the Project Overview, and all the tasks listed are said to be performed by Ross, with hours totaling 100.


 Collaborators:
Dr. Thomas Seeley

[email protected]
*Technical Advisor*
Cornell University
Department of Neurobiology and Behavior
Cornell University
Ithica, New York 14853



> • *"The control group will be located a several hundred feet from the other colonies and separated by a fairly thick tree line in order to reduce the potential for mite drift from collapsing colonies."*
> 
> Does that sound like enough distance to protect the other hives from getting re-infested from crashing hives? It doesn't to me. That point alone seems like enough to skew the results.


Yes it does. Seeley's work has shown that as little as 50 meters between hives reduces drift substantially and above 100 it is nearly eliminated. The idea that collapsing colonies from neighbor hives a mile or two away is impacting someones apiary is rubbish.


> • *"Mite monitoring will be accomplished by obtaining ½ cup of bees ( ~ 300) from the brood nest and putting them into the mason jar. About 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar will be placed into the jar and a lid will be placed on the jar. The bees and sugar powder will be vigorously shaken to dislodge the mites. The jar of bees will be allowed to sit for a minute, and the shaking repeated. The lid will be replaced with a wire mesh cap and the sugar and mites will then be shaken out through the screened top onto a white plate. The powdered bees will be returned to the hive and then the powder on the plate will be sprayed with water using a spray bottle to dissolve the sugar in order to make any brown mites removed during the process clearly visible on the white plate. The number of mites visible will be divided by three in order to determine the percent infestation of the sample."*
> 
> I believe it's been pretty solidly decided that an alcohol wash is a much more accurate mite measurement than a sugar roll. Why use the less-accurate? I understand not wanting to kill bees, but if this is supposed to prove something, it seems like you'd want the most accurate measurement.


Perhaps in this study accuracy is not as important as reliability and repeatably. In other words if the measurements are reliable across treatment groups over time it accomplishes the goal of the study. That's assuming you are correct that alcohol wash is substantially more accurate.


> More importantly, I feel that the last thing the Treatment/TF debate needs is another study with obvious weaknesses that can easily call its results into question.
> 
> Adam


Since Tom Seeley is technical advisor I will give the benefit of the doubt to the project over your objections. The fact that the project has been funded also gives it credence over your weak critique.


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## Adam Foster Collins

Buzz-kill said:


> Collaborators:
> Dr. Thomas Seeley


Ah, there it is in the Annual report. When Ross was over for dinner and talking about his experiment last winter, he never mentioned Tom, but I'm very glad to hear that he's involved. When I spoke with Ross about the plan, he said that he was keeping all the hives in the same apiary, and I questioned that.



Buzz-kill said:


> Yes it does. Seeley's work has shown that as little as 50 meters between hives reduces drift substantially and above 100 it is nearly eliminated. The idea that collapsing colonies from neighbor hives a mile or two away is impacting someones apiary is rubbish.


Is it? I think you're talking about two different things here. One is about drift, and the other is about mites being picked up from crashing hives through robbing. Tom's work is talking about drift, and I think that was part of his study on the spacing of hives. But I don't believe that study did anything to prove or disprove the idea that mites are picked up from crashing hives from neighboring apiaries did it? If so, I'm happy to have it cleared up, if you want to point me to another quote or study or something.

Also, Tom's measurements talk about 100 meters nearly eliminating the drift. That's 328 feet. Ross's write up says 'several hundred'. I wonder what the distances actually measures.



Buzz-kill said:


> Since Tom Seeley is technical advisor I will give the benefit of the doubt to the project over your objections.


Absolutely. 



Buzz-kill said:


> The fact that the project has been funded also gives it credence over your weak critique.


If funding were an indicator of the quality and reliability of a study, we wouldn't spend so much time debating their results. SARE grants have funded some pretty weak bee studies in the past.


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## squarepeg

excellent comments here ya'll, thanks for contributing.

with respect to alcohol washing randy oliver points out in the latest installment of his series 'the varroa problem' that the result needs to be taken in context of the time of year:

"Practical application: there is no single "treatment threshold" - a mite count of 1 may be cause for concern in May, whereas a count of 10 may be acceptable (to some) as the bees are wrapping up brood rearing in autumn."

abj, december 2017 vol. 157 No. 12, p. 1303


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## msl

Adam
as for sugar…. Well my guess its ross, Seeley doesn’t seem worried about breaking a few eggs
I understand the appeal, but when 1k+ bees are dying a day in a hive, that 300 don’t matter much. flip side is in not like they need it very fine to get data... its one thing when a difrance between one or 2 mites matters(such as queen slection) but in this case the only need to see a trend
thanks for diging this up, I have reread the thread 4-5 times looking for that link and for the life of me couldn’t find it .. I wanted to see the 2017 numbers… none yet, and its no longer listed as a project on Seeley’s collage page…. I was wondering if the hives crashed, as you know NE took hard losses

GWW
I would say well more then a 90% loss.
The point is, both before and after mites it takes high selective pressure to maintain a trait, in this case the only trait being measured is survival.
As you note we often remove the selective pressure by "keeping" bees (feeding, treating, etc) As the bonders would note, this props up stock with poor survival traits, but thats kind a hallmark of desmtisic stock... Wild stock dosen't give people what they want/need out of it and dosmtisic stock doesn't survive well on its own .
I am not sure were your confusion comes from... if a pop is stable the amount of new hives that make it = the number of old hives that die
there was a study that, like seeleys showed that feral hives were liveing LONGER post varroa


> Colony longevitywas monitored in 104 swarms established from 1990 to 2000 and followed until 2004. In the Þrst years,before V.destructor, average swarm capture rates ranged from 0.85 to 0.95 swarms per bait hive-year,and survival of colonies established from swarms averaged 14 mo. In years immediately after the arrivalof V.destructor (1993Ð1996), swarming rates and colony longevity decreased to 0.36Ð0.60 swarms perbait hive-year and 10 mo, respectively. After ⬇5 yr in the presence of V.destructor, both ratesrecovered to levels at least as high as those seen before varroa arrived; swarm capture rates were0.75Ð1.04 swarms per bait hive-year and average longevity was 26 mo.


https://www.researchgate.net/public...estructor_Mesostigmata_Varroidae_in_Louisiana

Bees work by constantly remixing the traits, poor combos die off quickly, and are quickly replaced with something different this in threoy alows them to find something that works and rebound quickly, as a survival straggly it works great in large scale (such as a forest) as small scall beekeeper its madding as traits you want can quickly be lost. and as a little guy is a down right pita....mother nature dosn't care if you do or don't have bees in your box year to year, just that that there are X number of hives per 100 square miles. 

The point here is unless you provide strong selective pressure you will keep getting what you’re getting or back slide….be it color, temperament, or of course mite restiance… 

If you want black queens and have 95%yellow and 5% black queens in your yard and do walk away splits what happens? 
Drone stock aside witch is out of most of our control, you have a lot of yellow queens you don’t want. 
it’s the same for any trait 
You want black queens, breed from black stock and re queen yellow hives with black queens, don’t burn (or let die) 95% of hives for being yellow
the concept here is taking mite counts lets you see the “color” if what you have isn’t working 



> Seeley's work has shown that as little as 50 meters between hives reduces drift substantially and above 100 it is nearly eliminated. The idea that collapsing colonies from neighbor hives a mile or two away is impacting someones apiary is rubbish.


that not at all what the his studys showed, or what Tom says 
the "mite bomb" phenomenon of mites spreading en masse to your other colonies. If you don't perform these preemptive killings, then even your most resistant colonies could become overrun with mites and die, which means that there will be no natural selection for mite resistance in your apiary. Failure to perform preemptive killings can also spread virulent mites to your neighbors' colonies and even to the wild colonies in your area that are slowly evolving resistance on their own. If you are not willing to kill your mite-susceptible colonies, then you will need to treat them and requeen them with a queen of mite-resistant stock-Tom Seeley

The issue isn’t drift it’s the post flow robbing frenzy of a failing hive. Plenty of studys to back that up, none to say its rubbish, if you have one that says its rubbish please post it so we may all learn for it.



> the result needs to be taken in context of the time of year


yes... and no...at lest in this case
in this study it didn't matter if it was may, July, or Sept if a hive droped more then 90 mites in 48 hours, it was dead come next inspection
the other numbers time of year does matter... ie If it droped 60-90 mites in 48 it was 50/50 sence some lived we need to know when the counts happened to judge as we are asumeing a hive droping 60-90 in july will be 90+ come Sept.
stickeys are wildly inaacuact and hard to translate to a wash number.... I wish he had done washes..... that being said, his numbers jive with with outhers and it alows someone to judge there stocks restiance to mite build up


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## squarepeg

Buzz-kill said:


> The idea that collapsing colonies from neighbor hives a mile or two away is impacting someones apiary is rubbish.





msl said:


> The issue isn’t drift it’s the post flow robbing frenzy of a failing hive.


i believe msl has it right here.

back in late july 2016 and during dearth conditions one of my 12 colonies at the homeyard went on a robbing spree that lasted a couple of days. i know for a fact that their target was over a mile away.

what i couldn't know is if the collapsed colony they were robbing failed due to mites, queenlessness, or some other reason.

that colony survived winter but got down to less than 2 deep frames of bees. i shook in a couple of deep frames of nurse bees on two occasions at about 2 weeks apart to make it more productive.

they went on to produce 115 lbs. of harvestable honey, drew out a super and a half of new foundation, and are going into this winter pretty strong.

about the middle of september this year that particular colony had a few days with dozens of crawlers and dwv dropping out of the hive. it was the only one out of 22 hives to do that. 

the illness cleared up on its own, that hive didn't get robbed, and as mentioned the population and hive weight is about right for this time of year.


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## gww

msl


> Bees work by constantly remixing the traits, poor combos die off quickly, and are quickly replaced with something different this in threoy alows them to find something that works and rebound quickly, as a survival straggly it works great in large scale (such as a forest) as small scall beekeeper its madding as traits you want can quickly be lost. and as a little guy is a down right pita....mother nature dosn't care if you do or don't have bees in your box year to year, just that that there are X number of hives per 100 square miles.


This sorta leads me to believe that maby the places where poeple are having success keeping hives with out treating long term are in those places where beekeeping attitudes create a more close picture of issolation like a forest would be. There seem to be places Where local attitude just does not bother with treating. It would be interesting to see the map make up of the 60 percent of beekeepers that don't treat and if it shows pockets of non treaters or more they were spread out all over the place. 

Either way, the same arguement you use saying that breading can be wattered down could be the same pressure that the resistant bees are putting on the package queens that are brought in. The arguement could be made both ways.

Even randy says the the guy with one hive could be the one with the golden goose. It could be the area that produced that goose.

One other point that keeps being made and that is resistant bees don't have productive traits. Square pegs bees are sorta putting that to rest as his production is right up there with the big guys.

My computer program is old and so the link you posted is garbled and it made it hard to read it well but it seemed that some of the positions in it kind of justified what I typed. 

I guess I agree with you that you get what you get or back slide but would add or improve if you have a lot of pressure on your hives. I do not see feeding and such as having anything to do with mite pressure except there are cases where it might help the bee be healthier to not bee in a weakend state which would fight those low points that the pressure might get the upper hand. Even health poeple have times of low resistance that they get sick at. Mostly they have a better chance of keeping sickness at bay the healtier they are. The point of this is that managed bees were fed and such before varoa and if they are fed and such after varroa then the arguement that those bees can not live with varroa like the wild bees can goes away. Then as long as the pressure is kept on even on a smaller scale, the adjustment to mites has a chance of impacting the larger breeding pool albeit slower then if it was already a flooded pool of resistance. Your postition is it is an all or nothing proposition and if you have a majority of one it will always affect the whole with that majority. My posistion is that the minority can have a slow impact on the majority. I think the study where they took the production hives out of production and set them aside but in the same breeding pool with the still commercial hives but yet after the first die off the set aside hives did very well. I am sure your remember that study.

It is all playing the odds a bit with little things for and against it. In my view 60 percent of beekeepers not treating is part of the odds for success and this would be expecially true if it comes down to local attitudes making pockets stronger in some places. It is worth trying even if the conventional wisdom says something could work better. People are trying it and we have a mixed bag of success. Some have had zero success but some are doing just fine. It would be silly for those doing just fine to quit what they are doing cause it is not supposed to work that way.

I do not contest that what you say is correct lots of times but that the pressures have to be tested to see where you are starting from. Also, it could change as enviroments changes. We know varroa changed cause they used to not have our honey bees as a host. The possibility for change is an on going war of nature.
Cheers
gww

Ps I also say that even if it is just one bee with the traits and everyone else has bees that don't have that trait, as long as that one bee has it, there is the possibility for transfer. Even the hives that are being treated and with no pressure may end up with that one trait through open breeding even if the trait seems unimportant to them due to being treated. I would not say that as long as the trait is there that other bees would not pick up that trait eventually. Nature may have its own plan of what to pass to the next generation.


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## Buzz-kill

Adam Foster Collins said:


> Is it? I think you're talking about two different things here. One is about drift, and the other is about mites being picked up from crashing hives through robbing. Tom's work is talking about drift, and I think that was part of his study on the spacing of hives. But I don't believe that study did anything to prove or disprove the idea that mites are picked up from crashing hives from neighboring apiaries did it? If so, I'm happy to have it cleared up, if you want to point me to another quote or study or something.
> 
> Also, Tom's measurements talk about 100 meters nearly eliminating the drift. That's 328 feet. Ross's write up says 'several hundred'. I wonder what the distances actually measures.


Actually I was going on memory which is really risky for me with my dementia setting in but he actually found drone drift eliminated at 50 meter spacing. You are correct that his the spacing study did not look at collapse but he has done experiments with empty bait hives in the Arnot forest and only about 10% of them are robbed out. What we are really talking about is horizontal disease transmission whether it be drift, robbing, or beekeepers moving frames. Horizontal transmission is the killer because it selects for more virulent diseases.




> If funding were an indicator of the quality and reliability of a study, we wouldn't spend so much time debating their results. SARE grants have funded some pretty weak bee studies in the past.


Funding does not guarantee quality research. My only point was that at least an experimental design has been presented and reviewed and of sufficient quality that someone has agreed to give the researcher money. That is a pretty big deal. However, the quality of research is not why we debate the results of scientific research. There are numerous reasons, not least of them being it is part of the scientific process. Many papers that have lead to nobel prizes in medicine and physiology have been debated and discounted and sometimes it takes a decade or more to reach a consensus on their merit. All research should be debated rigorously.


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## 1102009

Funny.
Studying this thread I realized that my threshold is exactly what Tom Seeley found out but I thought it was mine only since beekeeping is local ...I already had fixed it for me before reading the research.
So far.
Could be I will change my opinion having 100% loss with less drop. My fails correlate with the results of the research so far.
It would be real easy to evaluate a hive with the 48hours mite drop method (which is not exact, but helpful) and the do IPM. Confirm this with an alcohol wash maybe.
Introduce new queens...
Thanks for the links.


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## msl

> One other point that keeps being made and that is resistant bees don't have productive traits. Square pegs bees are sorta putting that to rest as his production is right up there with the big guys.


No, feral bees often don’t have productive traits. Excess honey is a waist to wild bees, better to turn it in to more swarms. 
From seeley


> We also know that the leave-alone-and-let-die experiment on Gotland in Sweden (Fries et al. 2003) produced survivor colonies that were much smaller (and more inclined to swarm?) than the original colonies (Locke and Fries 2011; Locke 2016).


This is a trend(but not a hard rule) across the board, regardless of stock and location, when we let nature select for us we tend to quickly get wild type bees.. Realy that shouldn't come as any suprize. 



> My posistion is that the minority can have a slow impact on the majority. I think the study where they took the production hives out of production and set them aside but in the same breeding pool with the still commercial hives but yet after the first die off the set aside hives did very well.


I do not agree in the least. That was John Kufas, in that study they were breading from the top using mite washes, sampling mites in the brood and higentinic tests with frozen brood to ID breeder queens. 
Some years they only bread from just 1 queen out the 268 or so, on top of that they often requeened “survivor” hives with cells from the top stock. 
Very HEAVY selection was taking place! 
The minority only affected the majority do to being positivity being selected for and propagated, then the majority was negativity selected against, both by death of the hive and requeening. It is very in line with my black/yellow example. 

The long and short of it is bees can lose (any) traits fast without strong selective pressure and a big enuf sample size , re queening with “bought” queens every few years has been the standard for a long time for a reason. 


> Studying this thread I realized that my threshold is exactly what Tom Seeley found out but I thought it was mine only since beekeeping is local ...I already had fixed it for me before reading the research.


that’s great to here some real world feed back on the bean counters numbers !


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## squarepeg

msl said:


> No, feral bees often don’t have productive traits. Excess honey is a waist to wild bees, better to turn it in to more swarms.


most of the bees i started with were derived from ferals. the beekeeper i purchased them from them didn't manage for honey production but rather for nuc and queen production.

as far as the genetics go, i believe the ferals around here are nothing more than highly hybridized survivors of commercially produced bees that have been brought in over the decades. i suspect there may be some centuries old a.m.m blood in the mix as well.

i did find these bees to be very good at swarming. in the first years every one of my colonies swarmed and some swarmed more than once. it probably didn't help matters that i caught most of those swarms and used them to increase my hive count.

after a few seasons i started acquiring enough supers of drawn comb to properly checkerboard with and received some much appreciated on site instruction from walt wright. doing this cut the swarm rate to about 50%.

with a little tweaking to walt's technique i was able to get swarming down to only 15% these past two seasons. preventing swarming is primarily what has allowed for the decent harvests i am reporting. 

i doubt seriously that i have done much to alter the traits of the bees i am working with given the small scale and short amount of time. in the end i really think that this is a case in which effective management trumps genetics.

even so, my selection criteria for choosing breeder queens awards a lot of points for favorable response to swarm prevention (which not surprisingly happens to coincide strongly with best honey production). 

i also try not to place caught swarms in the production line if i can help it but rather use them for drawing comb and making splits. production colonies that are bent on swarming get split up and requeened as well.

i say all that to say that we shouldn't necessarily associate surviving ferals with low productivity, and likewise being resistant/tolerant to mites doesn't necessarily have to come with a cost in honey production.


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## msl

> i believe the ferals around here are nothing more than highly hybridized survivors of commercially produced bees that have been brought in over the decades. i suspect there may be some centuries old a.m.m blood in the mix as well.


Darwin would agree with that being a likelyhood
_The parents of all our domesticated animals were of course aboriginally wild in disposition; and when a domesticated species is crossed with a distinct species, whether this is a domesticated or only tamed animal, the hybrids are often wild_.-Charles Darwin 

I see were your coming from, to me it would seem your looking at your bees as ferals, were at this point I would call them domestic stock.


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## squarepeg

msl said:


> I see were your coming from, to me it would seem your looking at your bees as ferals, were at this point I would call them domestic stock.


sure, we would call them that due to their circumstance, but...

other than residing in the boxes i have provided what makes the bees in my yards different than their feral cousins living in the nearby woods, i.e. how could they be genetically/behaviorally different?

since neither their prior keeper nor myself have introduced commercially produced domesticated genetics into their line, and since we have allowed natural selection to determine how the lines carry on, i feel as though they are the same basic bee as the ferals from which they were propagated from.

i have no way of knowing but my guess is that when it comes to mating there are as many or more drones involved from feral colonies as there are from the ones in my yards. i am pretty isolated when it comes to other beekeepers.


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## msl

squarepeg said:


> since we have allowed natural selection to determine how the lines carry on,.


I don’t believe that to be true 


squarepeg said:


> my selection criteria for choosing breeder queens awards a lot of points for favorable response to swarm prevention **snip** production colonies that are bent on swarming get split up and requeened as well.


You have a selection process for breeder queens, you, not nature have decided what queens were propagated and which ones were removed from the yard. You put your finger on the scales, if you hadn’t your stock would likely still be swarmy


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## Grins

This from Seeley was an epiphany for me,

"If you pursue treatment-free beekeeping without close attention to your colonies, then you will create a situation in your apiary in which natural selection is favoring virulent Varroa mites, not Varroa-resistant bees. To help natural selection favor Varroa-resistant bees, you will need to monitor closely the mite levels in all your colonies and kill those whose mite populations are skyrocketing long before these colonies can collapse. By preemptively killing your Varroa-susceptible colonies, you will accomplish two important things: 1) you will eliminate your colonies that lack Varroa resistance and 2) you will prevent the "mite bomb" phenomenon of mites spreading en masse to your other colonies. If you don't perform these preemptive killings, then even your most resistant colonies could become overrun with mites and die, which means that there will be no natural selection for mite resistance in your apiary. Failure to perform preemptive killings can also spread virulent mites to your neighbors' colonies and even to the wild colonies in your area that are slowly evolving resistance on their own. If you are not willing to kill your mite-susceptible colonies, then you will need to treat them and requeen them with a queen of mite-resistant stock-Tom Seeley"

Thanks for this thread!


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## squarepeg

msl said:


> You have a selection process for breeder queens, you, not nature have decided what queens were propagated and which ones were removed from the yard. You put your finger on the scales, if you hadn’t your stock would likely still be swarmy


i'm reasonably sure they still are swarmy, or at least would be if left to their own devices.



squarepeg said:


> i doubt seriously that i have done much to alter the traits of the bees i am working with given the small scale and short amount of time. in the end i really think that this is a case in which effective management trumps genetics.


jmho, but the few more queens existing today that would not be here were it not for my grafting aren't likely changing the metapopulation enough to make a difference.

this is one of the points jwchestnut makes here on a fairly regular basis that i happen to agree with. it's hard to make much of a dent in the gene pool when there's open mating and polyandry.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Grins said:


> This from Seeley was an epiphany for me,
> 
> "If you pursue treatment-free beekeeping without close attention to your colonies, then you will create a situation in your apiary in which natural selection is favoring virulent Varroa mites ... ...[snipped for length; see post #274 for the full quote]


The Thomas Seeley passage _Grins_ quoted above (see post #274) was originally published a Seeley article in the ABJ March 2017 issue. A full reprint of just that article is readable here: http://www.jocobee.org/wp-content/u...ng-An-Evolutionary-Approach-to-Apiculture.pdf


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## JWPalmer

Weighing in on the feral swarm issue with regards to honey and varroa d. resistance. In May of this year I caught and hived a feral swarm. This hive seems to have hygenic behavior although I have not done any specific testing just finding dead mites with no legs on the IPM board. Most importantly is that this is the only hive that managed to store up 9 deep frames of capped honey for the winter and was the first to go broodless mid October. Traits much different than my other purchased bees. The queen has been a good layer too. I pulled 6 full frames of brood and honey out of this hive learning how to make splits. Too bad it was the learning phase as none of those splits made it. Hopefully next year...


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## msl

jwchestnut is spot on
With out very heavy section (and a big enuf sample) the stock will drift towards the back ground advrage, this is what is wrong with "natural section" it permotes the advrage. 
I am not talking about making a dent in the gene pool, I am taking about what trait's some one alows to persist in there hives

Ok sooo, back to black/yellow! 
Say the back ground is 50/50 and I want all yellow queens in my 10 hives 
I have 5 hives of each, just like the back ground... I raise 10 queens from the yellow stock for the sake of argument color is tied to drone stock so I l get 50/50, so I now have 10 black and 10 yellow... I pinch all the black queens and install the yellow, I now have 10 hives headed by yellow queens, when a hive replaces a yellow queen with a black one I pinch it and replace the queen with a yellow one I have razed....

I end up with all yellow queens despite the back ground, and have not changed the gene pool of the back ground. 
As such, remove this section pressure and in a few generations my hives would likely be back to 50/50 just as jwchestnut would predict.
now, yes that's fine when 50% selection pressure will do the job, but if it hits the upper levels its beyond the little guy... and often nature at that point...well at least at the stable level


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## gww

msl


> As such, remove this section pressure and in a few generations my hives would likely be back to 50/50 just as jwchestnut would predict.
> now, yes that's fine when 50% selection pressure will do the job, but if it hits the upper levels its beyond the little guy... and often nature at that point...well at least at the stable level


And so in the arnet forest and in squarepegs case, the average is good enough and to slide to that average is just fine. Management then make gold out of it.

The search for better then 50% average is something that some may want to consintrate on but others may consintrate on using those averages and getting the most out of them with management. 

That very same average is what has the arnet forest bees (by your words on seeleys study) living longer 20 years after varroa then they did 20 years before.

You position is that the average always drags stuff down but the studies sorta show they drag it up.

Cheers
gww


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## msl

> You position is that the average always drags stuff down but the studies sorta show they drag it up.


negative ghost rider the pattern is full 
Does the average student/athlete get a scholarship ? 
No!
So why should the average bee?
the average swarm rate was not fine for SP so he selected above average stock to propagate from and removed below average stock and changed mangemt to so he didn't have the natural average swarm rate 

As noted "average" in the forest is 50% losses. Beekeepers, across the board, do not what the natural average anything , and have fought against it for thousands of years Lets be clear here, the whole point of any domestic stock is to be above the natural average right?


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## gww

Msl
Yes he made splits with the bees that accepted best his swarm management when grafting more. But he also just managed average and made gold and made increase from swarms from the hives that went ahead and swarmed on him. 

To me it sounds just like I said earlier that was left from your responce. He took average which was on its own mite resistant and managed that average for gold in all things but reducing mites by any means. His goal was to keep swarming down which is the big arguement of why ferals can live with mites and the bees still lived and with management for honey production also produced lots of honey. The one thing that should be counter productive to the supposed feral mite supression tactic.

It seems that manaement made gold out of average. Yes, you can look at unmanaged 50 percent loss to keep equalibriam in ferals and say that the average player does not get the contract. It was an average team that beat the russians in the movie "miracle", must have been the coach.

Just because feral bees hit an equalibriam of 50 percent attrition does not mean that same be giving good management can't produce better then being unmanaged even being average mass bred bee. The management was done with out mites being the thing managed for and also the same type of management that any small bee keeper would do that you say except in this case won't work. Now, it might be worked harder and even do better but average is doing pretty good right off the bat and the changes to the improvements by the guy doing its words were his using more advance swarm prevention technics and not mite tollerance selection cause average already had that covered. That does not mean that like any small beekeeper with 4 hives to 50 hives that if one is doing really well he will breed from that one. Since they are all living and he does not have to pick only the live ones, that is what all bee keepers do.

I see your point that with enough work and even more hives, he could work harder at it but he gets to decide the need of that. In the end, the average that you talk of must have improved the bees enough for him to do so well. 

I am pretty sure his bees have made thier adjustment to this average with the pressure that hard bond put on them.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

IMO we are trying to be scientific with our bees and exclude environmental influence just as bee behaviors.

Bee colonies fighting disease will not be as productive as healthy or treated ones, that´s a fact. Not that I want to promote treating, but sick bees will not live as long as healthy ones, so forage less.

Weather can be as bad a whole seasonal flow may be lost. If it´s a main flow, forget the years harvest.

Northern bees might double their honey production because of a longer winter and still be swarmy.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?341428-Bees-living-in-Greenland

I have 3 locations where bee hives are placed. Flow differs. I thought the AMM were not adapted to a cold winter but now it seems that a wild bee species which migrated to my area, built thousands of colonies in the ground near them. They resemble honeybees and need much nectar and pollen. Counting neighbor honeybee hives too I realized for the first time that the flow might be not be enough for all.
I did not have to feed them, but they produced no surplus.
The flow with my other location is agricultural mostly. Even the small splits produced a lot of honey so no feeding for me but harvesting. The big queenless splits produced a high surplus. I have no production hives, I splitted and have only nucs which hopefully develop into established colonies.
The hive in my garden produced the most honey. It was an artificial swarm made in spring 4.5kg. Flow is extraordinary strong and varies much. They are the most healthy right now, maybe because of the lack of direct neighbors and the robber screens.

Normally if I compare my beekeeping ( no production hives, no swarm prevention, no checker boarding this year) with others and take in account the many mites in my hives, the colonies should not produce any surplus. Very interesting.


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## lharder

A change in selection pressure will alter means. Stability happens when things more or less stay the same. Ie the weather may drift this way or that way and critters respond to it, but things long term stay the same. This argument is nonsense given the strength of selection that mites impose. 

THIS IS SHOWN TIME AND TIME AGAIN IN GENETIC STUDIES LOOKING AT DYNAMIC CHANGE AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW SELECTION PRESSURES. 

Genetic work of Arnot forest bees is a beekeeping example. 

Once something new is thrown into the system, all bets are off. Population genetics move from stasis to dynamic change. 

As for Seeley's 50% mortality rate, of course most are going to die if they can't find a decent home. The pressures on new hives are intense. All of nature has high mortality rates for new recruits. 

The reason Bond is effective is that it maintains selection pressure on hives, and at the same time can shift with shifts in selection pressure that are imperceptible to us mere keepers. 

1. Select with bond.

2. Select for other things

should be the selection hierarchy. It is the gold standard as it accounts for factors we are ignorant of.


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## msl

swarms that failed to find a home aren't inculed in the number as they do to not becoming part of the population. 

The point I was making is the level of selection needed to maintain things after dynamic change is still very high, and if you want to improve a stock you need to keep that pressure on the level of dynamic change 

reading it again, it strikes me the pressure is not 50%.. its 50% on the colony level, but the queen level is what matters! 

starting with a spring taking a sample of 100 to make it easy
87 of those swarm and change there queen 13 won't
of those 87 swarms only 20 make it till spring
of the starting 100, 16 die over winter 
hives that don't swarm dided 
come next spring we have 104 colonys (more or less spot on when you add in in seeleys 3% summer loses witch I ignored) but only 20 of the hives have the same genetics they had at this time last year.... So thats 19% that make drones a 2nd season and 16.7% queens who were good enuf to swarm a 2nd time,
of corce that assuming all prime swarms, so the real number is less. 
ok those numbers seem better when you look at the bell curve. 

GWW its not so much that the hives survive by swarming....of note here the 2010 bees swarm less then the 1970 bees! Its that swarming is a natural part of a healthy hive and knocks down the mites. There for in nature (in this one locally adapted breed of bee) there has been no reason to select for mite fighting traits that alow the colony to survive with out swarming. The Ithaca area ferals have shown selection of dopemean controlling genes that are involved in aversion learning, these are tied to higenic and mite biting behaviors.

Now if we were to take said bees in a large population and subject them to very high presures... say by suppressing swarming and takeing mite counts we could slecte for an increase in the mite fighting traits... Weather we bond or not is illrelverent, bond just cuts down the number of hives that need to be tested if we have a vast sample size, but at the backyard scale its farily easy to test the whole population and requeen hives that we know will fail based on there counts.
Its the


> Select for other things


 we need to foucs on, as that's the level of pressure we need to get to to make a change... The "natural selection" attitude of bonders is the methods undoing. 
Bond is just a costly, but easy way to bring the pool down to a smaller number to evaluate further, its a filter, from there the beekeeper must take over to bring out the traites to a point they will survive a few out crossings. This is were the small scale bond fails, the sample size is too small to matian the needed level of selective pressure, even if the BYBK (rember thats who we are talking about) starts with epicly good TF stock, the traits (like many bee traits) are quickly lost to the background. They are lost even more quiclky if bond was the only slection used... ie the more distilled the traits are the more times it can be cut... bond/nature selects for just enuf to do the job, the Ilthical bees are a great example of this.

strait bond, with enuf hives, WILL give you mite resistance stock, no doughts or questions about that. The issue is keeping the traits exportabul to some one elce... and given the pressure it takes to maintain traits with bees extreme polyandry it seems very far fetched that the BYBK will be able to maintain the pressure, given their sample size( aka just having few hives) 

So that leaves them buying new bees and TF queen stock every few years as the traits get waterd down and they lose thier hive(s) to mites. 
They have failed, again and again and again... They have failed despite doing everything they were told was the "right" way. They bought sold TF stock, they went bond and didn't test or treat. 
The BYBK is a consumer of TF stock, not a producer. We should not tell them other wise. We shouldn't alow the few success stories of people in a completely different situation and location to obscure the vast amount of failures. 
If you look at the BIP, the number of TF keepers is down by 1/2 of what it was, Giving new TF beekeepers advise that is doomed to fail them is likely a large part of the reason.
Its time for a shift of message


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## gww

Msl
Finally there is a chart made that a dummy like me can actually understand what it is saying, now if there was only a map I could read. 

My hives this spring surprized me with how early they swarmed. I know one of them had at least a previous queen made the spring before winter. I believe lots of the fault was because of my management but tried to look at the good side in that they were at least heathy enough to swarm.

I couldn't tell if seeley was putting more imputus on the fact that the bees took mites with them when they left or it was the new queen making all the differrance. I think the most exciting developments beside hyginic behavoir is the populations that are affecting the mite breeding rate. 



> There for in nature (in this one locally adapted breed of bee) there has been no reason to select for mite fighting traits that alow the colony to survive with out swarming.


I agree when when trying to put my rationale to what is happenning but then see differrent tactics and things like square peg does and the fact that when micheal bushes bees are inspected and have below a 1 percent threshold. So me thinking of why the arnet forrest bees are doing so well and looking at everything I can see, my rationale says these are the reasons. But then I look at the other people having success and figure that something else is going on or the bee adapt differrently in differrent places with differrent pressures or thier is more then what meets the eye even with the arnet forrest bees.

The above pretty well sticks with your theory on pressure but the differrences in other populations does not hurt my theory that if a hive is managed in a production apary setting that those pressure will be what it adapts to. I also say taking a bee that has some mite tollerance and managing it differrently may still take advantage of those traits and may even improve on them due to maby being healthier in other ways due to the management. Even little things like if a hive goes queenless and is noticed and a new queen is given.

As far as learning behavior, this was presented as being noticed in one of the blogs that SiWolke had posted a link to where the guy was saying queen replacement was not enough but that the old bees were needed to teach the new bees.

I look but don't really understand but run more on faith that there is proof that the bees have adjusted and people are doing lots of differrent things that seem to be working. I also don't get stuck on what working means and figure working is what the guy doing it thinks it is and so he keeps doing it.

I am a much better copy cat then I am an inovator.

Right now I just try things and see if they work and if they don't, we will see what I do next. I believe in the posibilities but don't know if it will work for me. I may have one flaw in yours or randy olivers view and that is, I lean towards hard bond working best. Even understanding the logic behind counting and changing bad queens, I think hard bond is more sure. I also don't think hard bond is bad and would not look down on someone if they could stand the loss while doing it. I am not saying I could. But if they can, I am not buying the argument that it won't work just as good or better as what randy is promoting.
As I become a more experiance bee keeper, some of my views may evolve.

I like your posting of links and go though spells of really working hard to find my own stuff. I don't know how much I retain but except for my low energy allowing for information over load, I an interested in it all even if I don't understand half of what I read. I do go by gut untill proven wrong quite a bit.

I don't know if you have enjoyed this or not but I hope so. I have learned through these interactions. 
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

In my case, I would actually have to give up the treatment-free beekeeping when I look at my environmental circumstances and when I see how the loss rates are even with treatments.

But I do not think so pessimistic, because in my eyes, hard bond continues to exist, despite IPM.

Hard bond also exists with treated bees. Hard bond done by nature or migrating beekeepers or bees which rob.

Hard bond without treatments is the goal that comes at the end of a development.

The one can handle it from the beginning if he is not afraid of high losses and already possesses the knowledge of beekeeping not to make so many other mistakes.
As it was mentioned Michael Bush was a seasoned beekeeper before changing his attitude, as an example. 
I don´t think these people have to go from a new start, despite some of my mentors claimed this.
They already had knowledge of what happens in a colony.

But I think it's good that there is another way, the transitional period.
And even if you have to stay with the IPM to save some hives time and again, it's still the better way than continuing with the prophylactic chemical treatments or chemical treatments per se.
For you, to learn about the situation and teach you to monitor, for the genetics spread in your area, for the less susceptible bees.

In some areas, treatment and non-treatment can exist in parallel, until there is a strategy or rethink for the beekeepers, until the VSH breeding process produces truly resistant queens or the like.


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## lharder

"The point I was making is the level of selection needed to maintain things after dynamic change is still very high, and if you want to improve a stock you need to keep that pressure on the level of dynamic change "

This is an argument for Bond, selection pressure is maintained and continuous. There is no second guessing about what should be selected because it takes into account all factors, without some erroneous so called scientific guesswork. When there is a failure is not in Bond, but the continual influx of new genetics that hasn't been tested and in some areas complete disregard to the disease implications of mass migration of bees. This is why beekeeping should be local and self sufficient. It is also a reason for Bond practices to be as widespread as possible. In a natural setting, all critters are tested all the time. This should be the goal of beekeeping. The sooner it is done the faster adaptation happens. 

But even so, even with treating, some selection pressure exists. From nature's point of view, beekeeper incompetence/chemical resistance is a good thing because it allows naturally occurring processes to go forward a bit as they should. So the background genetics is not as completely hopeless as it once was. A beekeeper can have some limited success and maintain resistance being tf in the right situation. Increase the numbers by growing the apiary, creating some spatial connection (genetic flow) between tf sites, and finding cooperators, then chances are, the overall percentage of resistance improves. Simple math.


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## msl

> Increase the numbers by growing the apiary, creating some spatial connection (genetic flow) between tf sites,


 I don't see your simle math the advrage BYBK can't grow past a few hives, and there not running mutpul sites 


> In a natural setting, all critters are tested all the time. This should be the goal of beekeeping


To mimic nature you lose 50% and replace 80% of your queens, a year... By "tested" you mean a continual stream of dead hives as poor genetics are weeded out . On a small scale thats not beekeeping, not even bee having, that's empty hives and spending $$$ on bees each year. Now that's fine if your working with nature and doing swarm beekeeping like the skep keepers of old. Or your large enuf, and good enuff beekeeper to make up those losses. But its unsuited to the new backyard beekeeper. 
Seeleys charts show happens when you bond bonded bees on the small scale 
lets take 2013, call it a group of back yard beekeepers going TF with a single hive of sold TF stock and start counting. 








2014,4 of the seven loose there hives over winter and buy new bees
2015 4 of the 7 loose bees over winter and quit and only 2 of the 7 haven't lost there bees at least once 
so, out of 11 colonly bought... 2 years later only 3 are left, back to back 57% losses, people quitting the hobby or worce becoming blind treaters 
_You can't tell me those beekeepers that have hives left have done anything to help "the bees"_ this pattern keeps repeating its self, town to town across the entire county/world 
bond failed them, bond will keep failing them 

so stepping out side of the BYBK, as thats were you keep wanting to go, lets talk about the down fall of bond 
if bond worked we would be done, if nature worked we would be done. 
The LA study I posted early show full bounce back of the ferals to historic pop leves in 5 years, why cant we toss thoese bees in a box and keep TF and be done with the mite problem... in some slect cases we can, but in most other we cant.

Here's why (aside from the extreme polyandry watering down traites and needing very high pressure to maintain them)
Nature/bond selects for extreme local adaption. Any thing that's helps them survive is a crutch to prop them up they take advantage of.. The Ithaca bees are a great example, and I need to thank GWW for making me look in to it.... His arguments in generalitys make me sharpen my view 

all traits have a cost, there is no free lunch so the mite fighting trates they have are only developed to the point that then need a swarm to aid them, any more development would have a cost, it would seem that cost would impact survival negativity or there is no advantage to it... Pull out the crutch form them and they colaspic.. 

Same is going to hold true with any "crutch" move bonded bees from an area that has a dearth and brood break to one that doesn't, or form an area that has a short brood rearing season to a long one, and bam the stock often will collapse.
same with a change in management...If I have TF bees that I bonded while drone culling and splitting hard for a few years there a good chance of it failing when given to some one who doesn't cull and grows them up to a dubble deep and stack of supers with out spliting 

The crutch effect is of course true with treatments... If your(as some people are now saying there doing) treating your stock with OAV 12X a year you will have stock that needs 12x a year or it collapses, If you only treat 2x a year you will take some losses but the restiance will develop to a point it with live on the 2 treatments.. But the average resistance will only develop enuf to keep the hive alive, if you pull the treatments you will take large losses 

Now bond does have the advantage of all the colasping colonys increase the mite pressure on the survivors, if you have a reasonable large selection pool you can find some strong traites that can survive and reduce the mite pop back down to a low number! 
but were do you go from there? 
as you rebuild from that stock you don't have that heavy mite presure to keep the selection pressure, the trait's weaken back to the point hives die and the slective presure of bond takes hold... either a few here or there, or the great colaspice to recover that puts the high pressure back on and you start to rebuild again...
and this is all good, till the stock is moved to a change in pressures or crutches.
Its interesting to think that a "better year" with more rain and very little dearth could lead high losses for TF stock that was use to a brood break caused by dearth

Anyway, not saying bond is "bad" or "wrong". 
Its a tool, there are many ways to select for traits. There are many ways to keep bees. 
but the tool needs to be scaled to the user and there situation, and different goles need different tools, and it often takes more then one combination of tools to get the job done


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## gww

msl


> The crutch effect is of course true with treatments... If your(as some people are now saying there doing) treating your stock with OAV 12X a year you will have stock that needs 12x a year or it collapses, If you only treat 2x a year you will take some losses but the restiance will develop to a point it with live on the 2 treatments.. But the average resistance will only develop enuf to keep the hive alive, if you pull the treatments you will take large losses


But you make the point that treating two times keeps you at the average of needing to treat two times. Even if it still ends up as hitting an average, it would be better to hit the average of zero treatments.

I also have looked at the studies and in every one it is mentioned with amazement that it has apparrently not taken much of an effort for the bees to fight mites in the way they currently are cause it is not taking energy from other traits. If you look, this seems to be a common thread of most of the studies, enough so that it is pointed out by the people doing the studies. Seeley points it out, the usda study pointed it out and the studie dealing with depressing mite ofspring study pointed it out.

As far as feeding making an impact on mite pressure, not so much if mite production is based on brood rearing unless you are feeding to stimulate brood. However, where it come to chalk brood and efb, it has been shown that feeding can take enough stress of the bees that the symtems of the disieses go away. It does not matter if there were no mites, Bees for one reason or another have had up and down years where they starved and such due to things that happen differrent or just misjudgements from them based on a warm spell or something. I do not think responding to those types or situations have much effect on making bees stronger cause those are not constant things that the bees face all the time, mites are. Those are the things that allow domesticated stock to do better then wild stock. The wild stock do better then the managed on the constant things that happen like mites cause us managers help them there and by the very fact that it is constant is the reason we need the bees to help themselves a bit. I don't think feeding a split to help establish it adds up in the same way just like the size of the split we make may be all over the board compared to what a bee thinks it needs in a swarm to propogate.

Like all things, if feeding was taken to the extreme, it might remove some constant pressure. I don't even thing the guys that steal the honey and replace the same amount back in sugar water adds up to a constant relieving of pressure cause they are just replacing what the bees already did make.

At least this makes sense to me.

These little management things are why I think a guy beats the averages in some managed untreated hives compared to the wild hives that die if they don't replace thier queen although I don't think squarepeg feeds but he probly does pick the times to make increase and the size and many other small management tactics including having hives big enough that the economy of the hive leaves excess bees for a good gethering fource compard to small wild hive that may run on less excess.

I look at the chart and see that like any average, some bees did really well and some never got going. Managing can allow those doing very well to not be wasted by sending them out in the world where it might rain three days and use the honey they carried before they even find a home. Put in this perspective, a guy with those 14 hives might do pretty good managing those bees. I think as the standard advice to new bee keepers is to start with two hives, I doubt many have just one. (not that you can not lose two hives at once). I do thinks that natural derths and such may have a large impact on how the bees handle mites but also think that when management is involved, you manage with differrent things untill you get close to the silver bullet and there will be mistakes but with adjustment you go from not knowing on any of it till you learn enough of what is hurting and what is helping. Nobody gets out of that process wether they treat or don't.

Mites are a constant thing. Other things out there can be managed in a way that make them a constant thing also but there are also many cases where responces are made to spicific and sparotic things.

I read in one place that before mites keeping six hundred hives could be a one man job and after mites and due to dealing with mite that one guy would be lucky to handle 400 hundred hives as easy. Having to keep up with that is taking a pretty hard toll on bee keepers time wise. That is of course if you give any creadence to those numbers. It might be just as easy to make up some extra nucs and just let more of the bees die and replace them. I am not sure where the cost would be worse. Mites cost for now and so what is the best price to pay. At the point that the non treaters get to the same losses as the treaters, that arguement is going to clear up a bit. 

There is a lot of math that can be threw around trying to figure out what is really happenning and so many verables that is is really hard to guage. Jim loyn and micheal palmer have a good way of counting and that is profit after expences. So if a guy keeps bees for what the bees give him and can count that profit and expences well, it doesn't really matter how he gets there if he does get there.

If the bees can adjust also, that is a real bonus.
Cheers
gww
Ps I could go through this post and fix all my typing and spelling and make myself maby look a little smarter but it was easier to type this, there are just so many times above that my fingers just did not work with my brain.


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## 1102009

The best thing for the bees is a newbie who treats and in spite of this the bees die. And if he has only one hive. This may be hard on him and on this bee colony, but this selects for the future beekeeper.
You might say the bees select whom they want to have for husbandry.
Someone who really cares, treatments or not.

And you loose all your illusions that it´s treatments alone which will make honeybees survive and stop blaming it entirely on the mite.

In my neighborhood a woman keeps one hive, which she never checks. Every year this hive throws a swarm or two swarms. She only cares about this when her neighbor wants her to take it out of his apple tree.
She never had a diseased hive and she always had bees. She has never treated and she is not very interested in harvesting. Flow is very good.
Guess what?
The beekeepers who treat and know about that spread the word that those swarms are mite disease swarms. But they are not! They are so strong and throwed in late spring, they are multiplying swarms.
This story might be contra dictional to what i posted above but is not.
She had her first hive surviving and decided on non-interventional beekeeping.


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## lharder

And of course SP and others are in direct contradiction of 50 percent losses yearly. He attributes it to feral influence and he is probably right. But to maintain healthy ferals in an area, its important to be tf so stocks can make positive genetic contributions to each other. Note also as a backyard keeper, he has made significant improvements in productivity and swarming. This may be due to experience, but also has some genetic component. Its not unrealistic to expect his strong colonies to strongly influence the genetics of ferals in his immediate vicinity. 

GWW, I think you have something in your last post. With feral bees, they must make due with a distribution of nesting sites, some far less suitable than others. Less suitable would have high turnover as they make bees vulnerable. As keepers, we can provide a higher proportion of suitable sites. In the case of extraordinary years where food is scarce and most colonies would die regardless of good genetics, a bee keeper can intervene.


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## msl

> And of course SP and others are in direct contradiction of 50 percent losses yearly.


How so? 
He is not propagating from 87% that made it threw the winter, he is maintaining his selective pressure by selecting his queen stock and killing queens that don't measure up ... He also moves resources between hives 
IIRR If Fustion Power sees a mite on a bee he kills the queen, not waiting to see if the hive will make it or not on its own, not waiting to see if her F1-F2s will not have strong enuf traits to live
As such they are taking negative selection (losses) at the queen level and genetic level, before they happen at the colony level , and exerting more pressure then natural selection places on the bees... 


> As keepers, we can provide a higher proportion of suitable sites. In the case of extraordinary years where food is scarce and most colonies would die regardless of good genetics, a bee keeper can intervene


That is SO anti bond it make my head spin, you are actively going against natural selection and propping up poor genetics. Blocking the development of trait 
What you suggest is no different then takeing counts and treating bees for mites do to an extraordinarily high mite invasion pressure that year. That's beekeeper, not bond talking, do what you need to save your stock.
GWW hits the nail on the head 


> These little management things are why I think a guy beats the averages in some managed untreated hives compared to the wild hives that die if they don't replace thier queen although I don't think squarepeg feeds but he probly does pick the times to make increase and the size and many other small management tactics


bingo.... From the BIP survey of 14,282 TF "back yard" beekeepers (50 and under hives a very different definition then the 1-4 used in this thread) took 42.5% losses a year in the same years as Seeley's study (2010-2016) most of them undoubtedly with package bees. 
The shear fact they were being managed, despite the "poor genetics" we constantly talk about, caused them to have less losses then the bonded ferals. So it becomes fairly obvious the beekeeper’s actions that matters. 

What we keep coming back to is to beat the 50% it takes the thumb of the beekeeper on the scales. And that's not a varroa thing, its a natural fact of bees. The polyandry of them protects genetic derivisty to such an extreme a 80% or so culling of queens is need to protect simple traits like survival. 
If with our thumb we stop the pressures so more hives live, we need to increase the pressure on what genetics are +- selected 

As FP has said


Fusion_power said:


> IMO, actively selecting colonies that have the most mites and requeening them from the colonies that have least will result in significantly faster genetic gain


That is the thumb of beekeeping, not nature 
To do that you need counts, if you have counts there is limited reasons to bond, especially as in the context of this thread your new and only have a few hives 

That should be the topic of discussions, what active management and selection systems will advance the TF cause, the math, science, and research that we have shows natural section is not the path forward, and it never has been for dostmic stock.


Ok so reading your tread on the 2016 study (great read, thank you for that!)

The study group was made up as 26 nucs in 2015 and took 54% overwinter losses and went in the study as 12
4 superscided/swarmed and the Org queens are a loss and a gain 
4 were added for a total of 16
So from a selection pressure stand point in the corse of a year you started with 26 queens, lost 18 queens and added 8 queens so that’s a 69% culling, not too far off form the 80% I got form seeleys numbers… then out of the 16 only 5 made it to march 

the rest of your yards 


> 7 of 16 living at Heffley (2 small clusters), 19 of 30 at the nuc site, 8 of 11 nucs at home, and 2 of 4 big hives at home


36 alive out of 62, 42% losses, the us average for TF the last 7 years is 43% so your doing better then average!! 
I want to thank you for putting in the counts and the hive status in post 157
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...nvolvement-with-TF-bees&p=1524980#post1524980 

I think it illustrates the point of each approach
I would say mark the 2 lowest mite counts as potential breeders, treat the lot of them in the fall and plan to bust them up and place cells from the breeders.. 
Your counter would be I might miss something in hive 1149 . 
My response would be I need the resources come spring to exploit the few hives that had low counts. 
As FP points out and Juhani Lunden agrees you’re going to get a lot of queens that are crap 


Fusion_power said:


> There is a development stage in mite resistant bees where you raise queens and 2/3 of them are susceptible.


 and nature seems to agree given the preivius numbers, so to raise them and prune threw them it takes resources. 
best of luck and keep your thread up dated!!!


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## gww

msl


> bingo.... From the BIP survey of 14,282 TF "back yard" beekeepers (50 and under hives a very different definition then the 1-4 used in this thread) took 42.5% losses a year in the same years as Seeley's study (2010-2016) most of them undoubtedly with package bees.
> The shear fact they were being managed, despite the "poor genetics" we constantly talk about, caused them to have less losses then the bonded ferals. So it becomes fairly obvious the beekeeper’s actions that matters.


On the 14000 survey of tf beekeepers with fourty something losses. A couple of other things might be factors that may not be in the numbers. One being that many of those bee keepers may be first year. It seems that first year treaters and non treaters lose some hives and are more likily to be working with packages which might have a higher number of queen issues compared to established hives. Not that statement might be insinuating that first year beekeepers might be more likily to be treatment free and that might not be the case. It does make you wonder if mites account for those losses. 

Juhani Lunden from his blog over the last ten years seems to average about 30 percent if I am reading correctly.

I do not see the differrent managements being anything that as far as pressure for evolution really effecting the mite pressure on the bees except to maby create a situation where the bees are healther and there for more able to resiste the viruses asociated with mites. Heathy bees with mites still have mites. We perhaps approch this from differrent wants. The wanting to manage bees and lose the need to treat and the extra labor and money that entails is my hope and the bees would still be kept to get as much for myself from them as possible with out haveing to expend that labor and money on mites. The whole point of this thread you started seemed to be the same and how new bee keepers might be able to do that and was ipm the answer. My view is that just because you feed splits you make that it would still be hard bond if you don't treat. I think seeley considers that but is more a looking at what happens with out intervention and mirroring what happens. Your answer is to treat and keep your resources and his is to kill the hive that gets sick before it hurts others. 

Mine for now is see how many die and if that level is lower and leaves me enough to work with and still be profitable and I decide it is more profitable then haveing to do a bunch of counts and buy a bunch of chemicals and spend time using those chemicals, then that is closer to hard bond and would be considered a success. I think this is what square peg seems to be doing and the rest are just the same management practices that have always been used even before mites. I think the thing that gets lost is that mites is really the only thing this thread is about and what to do about them. So I go to my fall back position that when the mites showed up, there was a giant die off and then a rebound that happend to bees that were not being treated. The managed bees started to be treated to stop that big die off. Now it is put out that the only bees that can adjust are the ones that are kept like those wild ones that have adjusted. I say that that is not known but more something that was observed that did happen. If the bees adjusted that where not managed then bees that are managed might adjust in the way they are living while being managed. So the process for that to happen would be the same. You leave the mites and the bees that can adjust survive them and then you keep makeing more of those. It baffles me that the process would not be the same for the bees. The only thing missing was that nobody was going to take the losses to let it happen. Now that it did happen and is seen, more take the chance and it seems to be working quite well for some of those. Over a couple of years, it is proved out that the breeding pool is helping or it would not have lasted a couple of years, expecially if you consider others are haveing to treat twice a year or lose thier bees immediatly.

I do understand the numbers that are threw around on how traits are passed from generation to generation of bees but the proof is in the pudding that it is working for some people as far as mites are concerned and that can't be made to go away but is just one more study to be done to try and guess why it is working when it shouldn't. We are missing some part of the equation some where. I still believe that if it is working and so you take advantage of that in how you keep bees and just don't treat, you are not making it worse and may be helping. I do know that you have to do it on your own and with you management cause the guy down the street is going to do what he wants no matter what you decide to do. I do not discount those who have tried it and it does not work for them. It is worth trying to see though and as long as it does work it seems like an easier way to keep bees. 

I do think squarepeg had beat the 50 percent and not treated and there is many ways to count but he is running prodution hives and makeing lots of honey and not treating and it is working and he is beating the 50 percent die off mentioned.

The rest of the numbers don't change that. Will it work forever, time will tell. Will I have any bees come spring? Time will tell. Will I kill them all due to starvation and not even from mites come march april, I did not fill the hives quite as full this year and time will tell. Will I learn and maby make some adjustments depending on what happens, I hope.

I am convinced that hard bond on only mites leaving out the other normal managements is what is going to make the bees adjust or die. I think running bees like they have always been run with out taking mites even into the picture is what is going to get us there. Of course if I can't make a profit, I am going to try shop towels next.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

> he is beating the 50 percent die off mentioned.


don't confuse die off with section pressure
In the wild they are close to one and the same. 
But in the beeyard the beekeeper has there thumb on the scales, as such selection pressure can come in the form of using selected breeder queens for increase, shifting around resources, and re queening hives that are deemed sub par. 

The classic example would be a hive that fails to re-queen itself properly. 
In nature its dead and a new swarm will come around and take its place.
The beekeeper simply adds a queen or cell or frame of eggs and larvae. 
The pressure is the same, the difference is the beekeeper's box in't empty. To the beekeeper the hive is "saved" and not counted as a loss, but bolth cases have the same net outcome, its genetics are lost as they have been negatively selected and removed from the pool and new genetics have occupied the nest site.


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## 1102009

> That should be the topic of discussions, what active management and selection systems will advance the TF cause, the math, science, and research that we have shows natural section is not the path forward, and it never has been for dostmic stock.


:thumbsup:

I never had the courage to claim that all tf beekeepers I know are not doing bond. Now msl hit the point and I do.
If it comes to feeding, harvesting or queen issues or multiplying, there is no bond.

Bond is to put colonies in trees and leave them alone. Even this is not bond because you use boxes for that.


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## gww

msl


> The classic example would be a hive that fails to re-queen itself properly.
> In nature its dead and a new swarm will come around and take its place.
> The beekeeper simply adds a queen or cell or frame of eggs and larvae.
> The pressure is the same, the difference is the beekeeper's box in't empty. To the beekeeper the hive is "saved" and not counted as a loss, but bolth cases have the same net outcome, its genetics are lost as they have been negatively selected and removed from the pool and new genetics have occupied the nest site.


I understand what you are saying but in practical application it is no differrent then in the wild. The only two differrances is that in a box the bad queen might have muddled along for a little longer and in the tree the queen is also replaced but it just takes a little longer for the swarm to find the place to replace it but it is still replaced and taken out of the gene pool. So the mechanics are differrent but the out come is the same.

However in the end what counts is having bees that are profitable with out having to treat for mites. It is just a technical definition on wether all management is called IPM or bond. We have had the discussion before on how to define what people are doing and what term to use that is right for it. 

SiW....
Definitions are seeming to be a personal thing. My definition of what would be bond would be that if you keep bees like they were kept before mites and don't do any treatments or pull brood combs or split every hive to stay ahead of mites and don't even let mites be part of the decision making, I would consider this as bond. If you made a lot of moves that you would not have made to counter mites and that are not normal manipulations done for other reasons, I would consider this IPM. If you have a treatment regimate that you do to your hives with chemicals based on counts or based on calander, I would consider this as treating. It does not make my definitions the correct definations but it seems to make as much sense as any other way it could be broke down and is the perspective that I use to type what I think.

It has always been that when managing hives you pick the queen that does the best for you. I don't know if this sets you back or puts you ahead as far as natural selection goes. My inclinations is it puts you ahead as long as the bees keep living and that doing good is a good indication that the bees are living well with the pressures that are on them. I would say it speeds up the process when you are not treating. I do understand the bottle neck in the gene pool that has been touted about the american queen breeders and package makers and put this into perspective that it is a case of scale. So few control so much of the bees that are sent out. The cause of this is probly just like any buisness wether a chicken farmer, wheat grower of pig farmer. You can compete on smaller margines the bigger or more you have of something. The trade off is genetic diversity. This is why the small guys out there that raise specialty cattle of the old breeds that have almost dissapeared have to create a market for thier stuff where the can get paid a premium for keeping those breeds around rather then letting them go extinct.

So in the end, my view is that what square peg and michael bush and them do is hard bond even though they do the same minipulations to thier bees that have always been done before mites arrived. 

I say what beepro does getting out tweezers and a razor blade and picking the mites off is not hard bond because his actions are done purly due to mites.
Doesn't make my definition right just clarifys for you what I am saying from me.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I´m kind of strict about that, to me hard bond is not what any beekeeper does, only what some researcher do, perhaps we need a distinction between hard bond, bond, IM, IPM 

I think it very good msl started this thread because it´s necessary to have different approaches, the common goal being chemical treatment free.

IM integrated managements to help the bees to survive natural circumstances and to be a profit to the beekeeper. Like feeding, like resistance breeding, like selection of traits like gentleness, honey production.
IPM managements to fight pests and disease.

gww,
before mites arrived there was no bond beekeeping in my eyes. It was more natural but it was not natural. The beekeepers fed and harvested and made nucs, combined hives before winter, sold packages.


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## gww

SiW


> gww,
> before mites arrived there was no bond beekeeping in my eyes. It was more natural but it was not natural. The beekeepers fed and harvested and made nucs, combined hives before winter, sold packages.


Before mite arrived wild bees lived in cavaties unmanaged and propogated by swarming. The studies of the bees after mites was on those wild unmanaged coloneys that made the rebound and guesses were made to why they were successful. Mite was the only differance from how they lived before. Conclutions were made that they were successful due to how they were living rather then just the fact that they have gotton tolerant to mite. Positions were put that bee keepers could have success not treating if they managed bees like they were wild.

I only point out that bees were managed before mites and had they been allowed to have thier crash ( which did not happen) They to might be living with mites and still managed like they always were. That is the unknown because the treating stopped the crash. To say that they can evolve in only one situation but not another is not proven. Now some are keeping bees like they always did and the bees seem to be responding and living with out controls being made to control the mite by the bee keeper.

All of the arguements that say a bee can only be bred by one system of big selection pool and controlling that pool and only picking the best from hundreds making it where small beekeepers need not even try cause they won't make a differrance is not ringing true because the small guy is having success. I only even got drawn into this thread because I posted that people need to quit worrying about the mighty mite bomb from very small bee keepers killing thier bees. I contested that it made much of a differrance in the big picture if a small guy did not treat and some of his hive died of mites. I also pointed out that it could not be controlled and would be no worse then other things that bee keepers did to bees and that it might even help by the mite pressure that was being allowed.

The whole point is that bond as it is concerned with mites, not management might happen if mites are not killed with chemicals. I do not point a finger at anyone not willing to lose 90 percent of thier stock and so treat rather then only want a bee that can live with out treatment. I just say that the process is probly the same for all bees that will end up living with out treatment wether they are wild or managed. That process is a bond process as far as mites are concerned. Take every other thing out and in the end bees die from mites and some live with mites and the only way to know the ones that live with mites is to take the risk and see if they die. It is simple really.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW
> 
> 
> Before mite arrived wild bees lived in cavaties unmanaged and propogated by swarming.
> 
> 
> All of the arguements that say a bee can only be bred by one system of big selection pool and controlling that pool and only picking the best from hundreds making it where small beekeepers need not even try cause they won't make a differrance is not ringing true because the small guy is having success. I only even got drawn into this thread because I posted that people need to quit worrying about the mighty mite bomb from very small bee keepers killing thier bees. I contested that it made much of a differrance in the big picture if a small guy did not treat and some of his hive died of mites. I also pointed out that it could not be controlled and would be no worse then other things that bee keepers did to bees and that it might even help by the mite pressure that was being allowed.


Before the mite came the bees were already managed for a long time, they were not natural survivors only and already spread their weaker genetics to the wild living bees. Maybe the crashes meant more losses because of that, maybe not.

I´m with you with the second lines quoted.. I came to believe that even a single hive can be more resistant, with a different management, not totally resistant but tolerant. We will see.
And I now believe this tolerance can be achieved even if you are not isolated.
The mite bombs exist in my eyes but in all directions, treated hives throw them too and in your own bee yard they jeopardize your own hives.
But they can be triggers to more tolerance evolving too.


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## msl

I don't get the pre/post mites talk, in terms of selection and breeding nothing has changed the basics are the basics 

so we likly have talked Seeley's results to it end
next up Randy's mite model was released this month and avaibul on his web site for free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6qhYA0J6Wc&feature=youtu.be
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/randys-varroa-model/
There is a LOT of information here
One that catches my eye is he has the mite grothe rates for average commercial stock and proven TF stock so you can see how your counts add up and know were your stock falls in the TF performance scale

more importantly you can see the effect of "soft" IPM options and mangments tuned to your stocks performace.... Ie if my mite rolls are X how many drone culling and sugar dusting it would take if the hive has swarmed? or what if I split/don't split it next spring?
Good stuff,
this should give us all something to play with while we have our winter grump on waiting for spring when we can play with our bees


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...nvolvement-with-TF-bees&p=1524980#post1524980
> 
> I think it illustrates the point of each approach
> I would say mark the 2 lowest mite counts as potential breeders, treat the lot of them in the fall and plan to bust them up and place cells from the breeders..
> Your counter would be I might miss something in hive 1149 .
> My response would be I need the resources come spring to exploit the few hives that had low counts.
> As FP points out and Juhani Lunden agrees you’re going to get a lot of queens that are crap
> and nature seems to agree given the preivius numbers, so to raise them and prune threw them it takes resources.
> best of luck and keep your thread up dated!!!


In that thread you linked FP says that the first 10 years are the worst. This is very interesting because in the Norwegian case (a thread of that too), which is by the way the first ever case when claimed TF bees are found resistant by a scientific study, there was more than average troubles in the first 10 years, after that less than average losses. 

I´m getting closer the 10 year mark. This summer (although very cold and rainy, so cold that about 30% of all field crops were not harvested, they never got ripe) managed to double my hives... and get a decent crop.


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## 1102009

Thanks for the link which was originally posted....


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## msl

woops ment to add the video not remove the direct link to the program...fixed it
diving in to the videos, man the colony type is great, he even has setting for a feral/ Seeley small hive!


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## gww

msl
Thanks for the you tube link. I did not know it was there. I tried to watch but the sound is bad on my lap top. I ordered a roku so that I can get you tube on my tv and have luck even with the vidios that sound is too low. I will revisit this vidio when I recieve the roku.
Thanks for posting
gww


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## Oldtimer

Juhani Lunden said:


> This summer (although very cold and rainy, so cold that about 30% of all field crops were not harvested, they never got ripe) managed to double my hives... and get a decent crop.


Nice


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## msl

More winter "reading: 
Randy covering IMP biotech methods
https://youtu.be/IX3Tz5_uaMc?t=41m1s
flyaway split! and of course drone brood removal
but the one that caught my eye was the QX division boards(43:30) used to keep the queen on a single frame for 12 days , when that frame was removed it took 66% of the mites with it !!
Given his numbers for 3 weekly brood on OA treatments or a single MAQS strip is 50% and a spring swarm is 60% would seem its powerful “manipulation” even of use to treaters. 
It would seem that doing such at the start of a main flow would give the added benefit of open brood reduction free up foragers… kinda of like people pinch a queen at the start of a flow.. 

Between the 3 workshop and 3 keynote videos there is something like 6+hrs of RO lectures from this event, one heck of a resource! But be warned, I got little done today binging


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## msl

dup


----------



## gww

msl


> but the one that caught my eye was the QX division boards(43:30) used to keep the queen on a single frame for 12 days , when that frame was removed it took 66% of the mites with it !!


Good eye. With 6 hours, I am afraid to start, might not make it to bed. 
Thanks for posting the link.
gww
Ps I went to the link and it showed I had already watched half of it and quit. I can't hear the sound. I am getting a roku tommorow to be able to watch you tube on my regular old tube tv where I can do better on the volumes. I find both randy and michael palmer vidios are always low sound. Some you tube vids are loud but not a lot of the ones I want to watch. I am tired of holding my lap top up to my ear.


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## msl

The link is taking you to the point in time I told it to at the start of flyaway (ish) split 
While the whole set of videos has a lot on bee and varoa bio that is useful to any bee keeper, I direct linked to the biotech section as its the most revelent to this thread.
have you made sure the lap tops sound is turned up (not the youtube sound) mine seems to turn its self down over time
I have a crome cast and love it for puting vids on the TV


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## gww

Msl
Yes it is turned up it just seems like the equipment or how they download the vidios is just not good sound. Other vidios make me turn them down. I already bought the roku and so Guess I will see how it goes. The thing I am going to hate worst is having to manually find the vidios rather then just click on a link that some one posted. I am to cheap and it doesn't mean enough to me to go whole hog and keep working at it till I get something that works real good. It was danged hard to spend $30 for the roku cause not watching tv and doing some kind of productive work is the goal though I fall short of that goal more times then not.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

I´m not sure of having to use chemicals still with this managements even if it´s only OAV. There must be a chemical free IPM.

Creating an artificial made swarm with laying queen in late spring, shake this on empty comb and food comb ( or feed), take away the first sealed brood comb and freeze it like we did spring 2017 may work better, but I will see how the colony overwinters. So far it was the strongest hive, brought the most honey and almost no mites. Robber screens prevented neighbor hives robbing them. But no resistant bred stock, so I don´t know if there is any mite fighting.

James Lee, a BS member I mail to, told me of a friend who uses drone cell culling in spring only and has success for years. No chemicals.
To monitor drone cell infestation and cut a part of it or cull it once in year like it is done here may be a good IPM and can be combined with propagating the drone raising of more resistant stock to mate the queens and spread resistant genetics.

Of course there is a diffence between a hobbyists smaller splits and a production hive. With small colonies this would probably work better.


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## msl

It very close to what your talking about
But you control the timing and the comb, allowing it to be used when needed, no cems, 66% of the mites removed in one comb!! 
Removing almost all the mites in the brood means what? The ones left are phoric, hit them with a sugar dusting and your up to 83% removal...
even with out the sugar, that's one powerful tool for the TF crowd. 
But with great power, comes great responsibility, anything with that kind of knock back can be abused to prop up poor geneticists


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## 1102009

msl said:


> But with great power, comes great responsibility, anything with that kind of knock back can be abused to prop up poor geneticists


Yes you are obliged to castrate these and shift the queens. But first be aware of the location if it´s possible to promote better genetics or not.

If it´s not possible and you still want to be chemical free why not use such a tool every spring? For small hobbyists who do not need a big harvest?
It will weaken the colony but too many mites left after treatments will do this too.


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## lharder

Drones from strong hives flying about are what we want. Another example of treatment getting in the way of natural processes.


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## Buzz-kill

lharder said:


> Drones from strong hives flying about are what we want. Another example of treatment getting in the way of natural processes.


:thumbsup:


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## 1102009

lharder said:


> Drones from strong hives flying about are what we want. Another example of treatment getting in the way of natural processes.


There are some areas where there can´t be natural processes, because the impacts of treated colonies in a not-isolated location are too much and natural processes are prevented by laws.
Not to speak about natural processes prevented by agricultural methods or other civilization circumstances.

In my eyes, if you ban chemical treatments the first step will be to watch how the colonies thrive in such environments and take action to change to better genetics so you might help them on a path to see those circumstances as a natural adapting process.
You might see this as an action bees do not need to adapt but that´s not my opinion because bees were bred for livestock for a very long time and need some regression first.

Weak colonies, which dwindle by mite infestations in spring or early summer will not produce many drones and weak drones without much success they will be. These should not be artificially kept alive by feeding or treating them.

The drones from treated hives may be stronger in spring than the drones of strong tf hives, which still have more virus levels because of a higher mite level. The drone culling takes place before mating season or mating season is not swarming season because swarming is prevented. The later drones did not take part in the treatings here in germany. Treatings come later. When the drones from those hives fly they are almost without virus disease ( after winter treatments) or without chemical residues. This does not mean they are immune. It´s just the seasonal time. The genetics of those, resistance concerned, this is another problem nobody cares about so far.

So whats the strategy?
The easiest is to go bond but use the bee numbers of susceptible, not thriving colonies for breeding better genetics. That´s good for morales too because you kill the queen but not the bees.


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## tpope

From my point of view, if I am going to replace a queen, I don't want her drones in my gene pool. I need to ensure that they all are removed from the comb...


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## 1102009

Randy Oliver:


> Practical application: note that they go “treatment free” only to the point that the mites start winning—THEN TREAT. Remember that breeding takes place only at the queen level—there is absolutely no reason to allow colonies to die from varroa. If a colony doesn’t make the grade, next season, cut out drone brood and replace the queen. It’s easy for any hobbyist to produce at least a dozen queen cells from any exceptional hive (Fig. 3)—please do so, and share them with your neighbors.


and:


> A common misunderstanding: if you start a hive with package bees from a queen producer who treats for varroa three or more times a year (as most do), there’s no biological reason to expect that those bees will magically transform into a resistant colony simply because you wear a “treatment free beekeeper” hat. Those bees simply lack the genes to do so, and the colony doesn’t have a fighting chance. And when it then does collapse from Parasitic Mite Syndrome, it will flood your neighbor’s hives, as well as any feral colonies for miles around, with virus-laden mites, thus setting back the natural process of evolution.


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## msl

lharder said:


> Drones from strong hives flying about are what we want. Another example of treatment getting in the way of natural processes.


please explain you comet more, I don't understand how suppression of drones from non-slect stock is a bad idea. 
As for "natural"... you made breeding stock discistions based on lab results of a scientific study of your bees, I am not sure were "natural" fits in here.:lpf:
I will use your experiment group as an example of my point of view
34 queens , 3 ended up being good enough to live…. That’s 31 queens putting out drones with mite susceptible genetics, Is that any better than a treater letting 31 queens out send out drones with mite susceptible genetics? 
The answer is no, 
I think its better if everyone did drone culling except for select breeder hives
If you play with randys calculator a bit you will quickly see the concept of sustainability .. starting the next year at the same and or less mite load then you went in to the 1st .. other wise you head for a crash at some point… and playing with the numbers you can see it farily easy to set up a colony that will crash in the 2 or 3rd year. Those hives have poor gentinics and should not be bred from, and should not be allowed to make drones, doing so will have a negative impact on what you’re trying to do.. If your poor drones mate this year there off spring will be paying you back next year 

This is why I say for the new BYBK , drone culling is a good idea for the big picture TF world, as you found traits often fade, fast. For the BYBK in many places that’s a swarm or 2 from putting out poor drones, even if they started with good stock… 

BTW I am debating you so I better understand your position, not because I think you will change your mind or that I would “win” :gh:


> If it´s not possible and you still want to be chemical free why not use such a tool every spring?


Because its likely not needed at that point and you won't know if you have a resistant queen if you do... The effect would be close to the same as a few blind spring OA treatments. 
My feeling is blind treatments (by the calendar not thresholds) got us to were we are today, any powerful manipulation will have the same effect. 

If your a BYBK wanting to do non cem ipm and your a consumer of TF stock not a producer then great... But what non cem IPM tools do you have mid summer? In the spring drone culling and splits are an option, but won't work well mid-summer on a production hive. 
This sets you back 12 days of egg max egg laying during build up, probly more like 2 weeks of growth once you figger in time for the queen to ramp back up after being restricted. 
That’s a LARGE cost to the work force and honey production if you end up 2 weeks behind the flow
so some spit ball numbers here…. 
1100 eggs a day 12 days….. 13,200 bees. 3500 bees to the pound…. That’s almost 2 packages of bees lost form your work force.. ….yikes…
another way to look at it is a bee is said to make 1/12 a teaspoon of honey in its life, 7 grams per teaspoon, that’s 7.7kg of lost production again yikes… in some places it could be the difference between a small harvest and having to feed
Take the cost (and rewards ) up fount and make a split… splitting a hive 2 ways cuts the mites per hive by 50%, not quite the 66% but your making bees not loosening them as queen keeps laying
If you want to prophylactically QXT them (as in the case of production hives not being evaluated for breeder stock ) My guess is its better to hit them just a bit after the flow start when they will be naturally curtailing their brood production so the work force can force on honey. This limits the “costs” by working with the bees behavor instead of against it


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## 1102009

SiWolKe said:


> If it´s not possible and you still want to be chemical free why not use such a tool every spring?


msl
I meant those who do not select in any way but can keep their hives surviving using this as only tool in their location, not using chemicals.
I was not talking about big tf production hives, I have no experience with those yet.

Some managements will change very much if you use better stock, the thresholds of mite drop will be much higher, for example, IMO.

I hope Iharder answers, I´m very interested in his opinions.


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## msl

under stood, and that person is the point of this thread!
That's why I went in to how spring is likly not the best time to use QET.

edit... so I just found this http://www.wimbledonbeekeepers.co.uk/FAQ_17_Queen_Trapping_FV.pdf
Seems its German in origin started by Dr Volprecht Maul, 30+ years ago... who I cant seem to find much info about...
With a longer time frame then randys example you can hit 95% mite removal!...
this could be a good way to non chemically knock back mites so a failing hive can be requened.. and as I suggested as a posaibiulty, they seem to feel it can be worked in with management to improve honey yields
A quick look around shows there are many commercial units made for this (but $$$)

Aside from the labor issues witch arn't an problem for the BYBK, why has this hidden in the background rather then coming to the front.


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## 1102009

msl,
I really appreciate these discussions, they make my brain work :applause:

I believe there are many managements to hold the mites at bay in a susceptible hive, with or without chemicals.

What´s much more important is how to evaluate the breeders. New purchased queens are available in summer mostly. But every new tf beekeeper wants to evolve his own stock. 

So, find out what your threshold is at your bee yard. This is so much harder to do because of the actions you take as husbandry which might have too much influence and will keep you from evaluation.
All these actions are done in spring before mite peak.

This is what I want to learn next year, hopefully from Erik Österlund. This is where I´m lacking experience.


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## lharder

msl said:


> please explain you comet more, I don't understand how suppression of drones from non-slect stock is a bad idea.
> As for "natural"... you made breeding stock discistions based on lab results of a scientific study of your bees, I am not sure were "natural" fits in here.:lpf:
> I will use your experiment group as an example of my point of view
> 34 queens , 3 ended up being good enough to live…. That’s 31 queens putting out drones with mite susceptible genetics, Is that any better than a treater letting 31 queens out send out drones with mite susceptible genetics?
> The answer is no,


The thing is, I have no unselected stock. I have bees strong enough to survive their 1st winter, and those strong enough to survive 2 + winters. I raise most of my queens from the 2 + group. So to dominate my local drone aggregation areas, all my drones are important and improves my odds. The weakest 1 year old hives (which tend to have chalk brood) don't produce many drones. These I requeen as the season progresses. In hives that are more susceptible than others, it may be that selection takes place within a hives drone population as well. Only the ones that survive that environment and strong enough to compete with drones from healthier hives, will mate. I have never experienced a on 3 out of 35 queens able to survive without treatment. But I started with stock with some history of mite resistance. So that may be the key. 

I'm not saying that IPM is never useful. But only at the very beginning with very susceptible stocks. But once the stock has some measure of success, then the training wheels must come off. But for those who advocate it, they never seem to. 

It also doesn't mean some selection by the keeper can't happen. Dr Kefuss who hasn't been treating for a long time (I believe the late 80's), selects for productivity and low mite populations. He doesn't care about mite bombs as introduced mites from weak hives get devastated by mite resistant bees. But the base of his selection is non treatment. He says he should have kept a few mite bombs lines in his set up to maintain mite pressure. I hope to improve the selection of my own stock using his methods. However, the base of selection pressure is already there and I don't need sophisticated methods to move forward.

.


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## 1102009

lharder said:


> I'm not saying that IPM is never useful. But only at the very beginning with very susceptible stocks. But once the stock has some measure of success, then the training wheels must come off. But for those who advocate it, they never seem to.


What? I was not aware of this. I always saw IPM as a step on the path to bond, myself, as not to loose too many bees and start new every other year!

But this depends entirely on the location and might need many, many generations of bees. Not all tf beekeepers are are the lucky ones with their locations! And those with no money for selected stock may have a chance to propagate good genetics also using IPM for some time!

If the selected genetics are watered down by environmental impact it might be that IPM would have to be started again or to be started sometime!

Still, this is better than prophylactic treating.


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## msl

> I have never experienced a on 3 out of 35 queens able to survive without treatment. But I started with stock with some history of mite resistance. So that may be the key.


I miss typed!!!! it was 3 that were any good, 5 that lived
The numbers are coming from your posts here http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?325024-a-little-scientific-involvement-with-TF-bees
The study group was made up as 26 late summer nucs in 2015, 2016 4 superscided and the Org queens are a loss, the new ones are a gain and 4 were added So from a selection pressure stand point in the corse of a year you started with 26 queens, lost 18 queens and added 8 queens 
come spring 2017 there were 3 good one and 2 dinks
You went threw 34 queens to select 3 "good" ones, even starting with resistance stock 
I don’t mean to be putting words in your mouth or twisting numbers! here is where I am pulling those numbers from, please correct me if something is wrong or out of context 
post 43


> These were survivors from 26 overwintered nucs that I went into winter in (death largely my fault as far as I can tell, but I was trying to get my numbers up till the end of August as well. So they weren't as strong as they could have been and had moisture issues).


post 78


> There have been at least 4 supercedures between the first and second mite counts


post 88


> Out of the 12 original hives, 11 had viable clusters. 3 dropped out of the sample population because of supercedure. 4 more splits were put out there in fall. So 15/16 started the winter with survival potential


 Post 129


> So 3 of 16 are strong going into spring. 11 are dead, and 2 are questionable.
> Yes, essentially so JW. A disaster, except for the 3 strong ones.


Any way…
By this comet


> I'm not saying that IPM is never useful. But only at the very beginning with very susceptible stocks


 I am guessing were are fairly close to agreeing that new beekeepers with a package of puppy mill bees wanting to go TF, and souranded with like genetics would find IMP useful as they start out.

more for the winter reading list 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j062Yf6LJLc
Dr Meghan Milbrath, she talks a bit about her 5 year old TF hives getting mite bombed and having to be treated to save them. The Bees had been just fine till new hives moved in and were left to colasps... in such a case is bond realy the best idea? 
Speaking as a epidemiologist she goes in to reasons natural selection/bond isn’t going to work for beekeepers. One point I hand never considered was that going bond will cost us stocks and lines that will be fine (and have useful traits) once the landscape isn’t full of mite bombs. 
Much to my suprize I realized I get to hear her speak this weekend at the State beekeepers meeting on weeding out inferior queens, should be interesting as thats what I am bumping in to there....The fact a hive is alive and TF dosn't make it breeder stock, we have to go far beyond nature to get ahead...

As that is were this thread keeps heading, selection/breeding t:, and the new BYBK isn't doing any of that. Maby its time to open a thread on methods for the mid sized hobiest to small sideliner ? 
Something like "The case for IPM instead of bond as the path to TF part 2, the experienced mid sized hobbyist (20+ hives)" as that seems to be what most people wish to talk about. Or realy, Is one IMP thread enough and just let this one keep shifting..


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## Buzz-kill

msl said:


> Speaking as a epidemiologist she goes in to reasons natural selection/bond isn’t going to work for beekeepers. ..


Speaking as an epidemiologist? You might as well say speaking as an auto mechanic. Why would you go to a public health epidemiologist with two years experience breeding for mite resistance to understand natural selection or selective breeding?


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## msl

Why?
Lets see... 
she was able to keep bees off treatments for 5+ years, grew up in a beekeeping family, has keep bees for 20+ years, sold queens for 6 and currently runs 200 production hives.
She works at the entomology dept at at Michigan state university, has several published studys on nosema, and writes for the American Bee Journal. 
She is the head of the Michigan Pollinator Initiative at MSU... you know the people who crunch the numbers for the BIP, run a sentinel program a a local stock clearing house 
Clearly she knows nothing about bees, clearly we are not in the middle of a varroa epidemic... :shhhh:
When she talks about only getting serious about geneticis for 2-3 years, she means on a scope/scale beyond most of us.. 
In 2015 she took virgins to Purdue for II with Ankle Biters to provide breeder queens to locals for the measly sum of $150, the catch? They had to make 100 daughters to sell. 
So ya, when she talks about being serious about genetics, she is talking about working to shift an entire regions genetics to resistant stock


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## JWPalmer

:thumbsup:


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## lharder

msl said:


> I miss typed!!!! it was 3 that were any good, 5 that lived
> The numbers are coming from your posts here http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?325024-a-little-scientific-involvement-with-TF-bees
> The study group was made up as 26 late summer nucs in 2015, 2016 4 superscided and the Org queens are a loss, the new ones are a gain and 4 were added So from a selection pressure stand point in the corse of a year you started with 26 queens, lost 18 queens and added 8 queens
> come spring 2017 there were 3 good one and 2 dinks
> You went threw 34 queens to select 3 "good" ones, even starting with resistance stock
> I don’t mean to be putting words in your mouth or twisting numbers! here is where I am pulling those numbers from, please correct me if something is wrong or out of context


The main thing out of context is my level of experience. So that set of nucs were weaker than the set this year. For other reasons this years set of nucs is weaker than last years. All normal beekeeping learning curve issues. I suspect any other new keeper would have similar problems. Also that one site may have some problems with overwintering because they sit in a hollow by the river and it was a harsh winter and many lost lots of bees. I'm trying to give them more protection this winter. But also that these bees did useful work before they succumbed. They contributed bees and brood, made honey, made comb. The numbers of colonies in big boxes went from 6 the second summer, to 16, to about 35 this year. Next year because I sold a few (best) early nucs, then went into a difficult summer, I may have a few less production hives than last year, but I'm predicting more 2nd year productive queens to make queens from than last year. This year I was allowed to requeen my dinks as they weren't part of the study. Also, those queens were marked, clipped. The study itself was hard on the bees. 

So you are not really twisting my words but are missing the big picture as far as the state of my little apiary. As stated before, a dynamic process. I initially bought mite resistant queens (I should note not even the pure ones but the hybrids from California). The second summer, I didn't have 2nd year queens to choose from. So I raised queens from the Saskatraz stock, ignoring my local queen as I had no faith in her until she survived her second winter better than anyone else. 

But the point is, how quickly the cream rises to the top when one engages in bond selection. 

The major issue with that entomologist as it is with most breeders, is that she is looking at the system in isolation. When we look at resilient systems, its not just my bees my bees are interacting with. That is initially my problem, but it will eventually be my strength. I'm finding that I'm throwing a few swarms out there. Either they will be found, or they will become part of the feral population. Eventually the genetic context will shift as a result of my efforts. People want my queens. Again this changes the context of my local environment. 

Why does honey crystallize? Its in a lower energy state than liquid honey. Once the process starts, it happens fairly quickly. How do we prevent it? We add some energy to the system to keep it happening or to "melt" the honey already crystallized. Think of resistant genetics as being in a lower energy stable state of systems. If you understand the process and let it happen, then it happens quickly. The people who understand this like Bush, Weaver and Keufus do not treat and have good bees in a sustainable systems. IPM is just adding heat to the system. People using it will wonder why they aren't getting the results they want, its because they are doing opposite of what the system wants to do. Their bees will never be tested properly because they essentially lack faith in adaptive and evolutionary processes.

.


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## lharder

duplicate


----------



## 1102009

> IPM is just adding heat to the system. People using it will wonder why they aren't getting the results they want, its because they are doing opposite of what the system wants to do. Their bees will never be tested properly because they essentially lack faith in adaptive and evolutionary processes.


I can´t understand this.

To me IPM saves only bee colonies to introduce better queens into.

How can you do bond if your losses will be near to 100% and never change to better because of the environment?

How can you do bond with beekeepers around not taking part and you being kind of illegal? Shall we give up tf beekeeping? Shall we not try our best to be without chemicals, using IPM?

How can beekeepers who are not as lucky with their environment as you and all you quoted are, do bond? I´ve never met one or heard about one who does this in Germany.

And what do you call bond? I call feeding in case of emergency not a bond management. I call splitting as Mel disselkoen does not a bond management.
I can´t understand a beekeeper doing beekeeper`s managements which are not correlating with natural behaviors and letting bees die because of his managements calling himself a bond beekeeper. 

To me bond is wild living honeybees, left alone and not infested by livestock bees, those bees surviving or not. And later, use that stock to try husbandry which means the surviving rate with not be the same as with ferals.
All husbandry will weaken the stock once again.

Anybody here who can explain to me?


----------



## Oldtimer

msl said:


> Much to my suprize I realized I get to hear her speak this weekend at the State beekeepers meeting on weeding out inferior queens, should be interesting as thats what I am bumping in to there...


That is actually a huge subject. I'd be interested if you could report back on it afterwards.


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## gww

SiW
Probly not right but when I talk about bond. To me it means just doing what you would do if there are no mites. Now I even include that if you would normally make splits for increase or to stop swarming and you have two choices and so you pick the one that works best against mites would still be bond if it is something you would do if there were no mites and you end up with the same results. That would be bond. 

At the point you start doing things just for mites and it starts effecting your results that you could have got with out mites. That becomes ipm unless you use chemicals which is treating. 

Bond is managing the bees like you always would have if there were no mites with what lives and does well under such management are what you deal with and the ones that die could not live under such management. That is bond. Feeding and all those other management tactics have nothing to do with anything. They were done before mites. 

Maby the clarification should be bond as it pertains to mites. The picture can not really be changed on how people have always kept bees and how they managaged them for production. The only change is the mite and so if tactics are taken differrent now that mites are here, those tactics made due to only the mite would not be bond. Keeping bees and not worrying about mites or the hives mites kill is bond. If the mites don't kill the hives, then bond is working.

Just my view and one that makes sense to me. Dealing with mites is the subject and keeping bees or bees being wild is just a atmostphere the bees have always lived in and the wild ones just had nothing added to help control thier mites. They had to do it on thier own. Letting managed bees do mites on thier own is bond.
Cheers
gww
Ps
Making splits you would not have made for the mites sake, keeping bees in smaller hives due to mites, spreading hives that used to sit on half an acre to 100 acres due to mites. Caging the queen for brood break for mites. These would be ipm. Making splits for increase would just be management. feeding during derth would be management. Spliting to stop swarming would be management and not done to fight mites.


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## msl

GWW
bond is bond... you just go TF and let the chips fall.... the confusion isn't over whats bond,its over the deffention of TF 

Not much to say OT, that wasn’t the title on the transcript when I got there, or on the official page for the event when I checked later...looks like someone got a little creative with the club FB account lol
it was more or less the video link I posted earlier and her study on nuc equipment type I posted about in the general forum. 
the one point that she made that stuck with me is stock selection vs breeding. Most keepers can do stock selection (Ie my black/yellow queen example in post 278 ) few can do real breeding..


> The major issue with that entomologist as it is with most breeders, is that she is looking at the system in isolation. When we look at resilient systems, its not just my bees my bees are interacting with.


Its the reverse, her argument is section by bond will only succeed with isolation (ie we stop moveing bees and bringing stock form other areas) , as you note you bees are interaction with others. When you out crossed the Saskatraz, poof………..traits lost. 



> If the mites don't kill the hives, then bond is working.


Nope Weaver talks about one of the bigest issues was sorting the "lucky" hives from the resistant ones...and there were many more lucky ones, see below
If you understand the process and let it happen, then it happens quickly. The people who understand this like Bush, Weaver and Keufus

Weaver-The 1st round they bonded 1000 hives, come spring (9 months later) 100 lived. 
Out of the 100, 50 were in bad shape and made 0 surplus honey
out of the other 50 that made any surplus at all, 5 turned out to be resistant their F-1s were only marginally better than the founder generation (read still massive losses…..poof traits lost) this wasn’t enough numbers to establish a breeding program, so bond another 1k hives…yikes got to respect their chutzpah

Crunch the numbers 
only 5% of the stock selected by bond was resistant, 180 dead hives per resistant one found. 

Tell me again how bond is suitable for the new backyard beekeeper with 2 hives? 

ok so Kefuss…
He had been breeding resistant stock for years before withholding treatments and took lower losses as such(2/3), but then applied strong selective pressure as well only breeding from less then 2% of the survivors, some years form a single queen! 

The downfall of small scale bond tends to be people propagate from everything that is left What the numbers are telling us is they should be propagating from the best one they have left and re queening many of the others. Bond is a screening tool, not a breading program. Other tools and the beekeepers choices are a large portion of the equation.


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## 1102009

Thanks, I understand now.

So I´m bond for 3 years now. Maybe will stay bond, only difference is the use of better stock if they are performing better which is still to be seen or the use of a more natural management to help the bees.

A sreening tool, very good. I can imagine this to use for a 2 hive constellation. Breeding is probably not for me, since I´m not inseminating or since I´m not isolated. 

Learning to be a better beekeeper will keep me from some mistakes and bond will be the selection parameters given by the mites until I`m able to forget about the mites like MB can.

I must say, I feel better now. Some perspective...


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## msl

> So I´m bond for 3 years now


I am not so sure
if you would intervine as a beekeeper to save a hive from mites your not bond
if you would put a electric mite zapper/chaser in your hive your not bond 
if you would make a split and put a mite trap in to reduce mites your not bond

in bond you do not seek loopholes/tricks to win vs the mite, you let the mite show you what works


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## 1102009

msl said:


> I am not so sure
> if you would intervine as a beekeeper to save a hive from mites your not bond
> if you would put a electric mite zapper/chaser in your hive your not bond
> if you would make a split and put a mite trap in to reduce mites your not bond
> 
> in bond you do not seek loopholes/tricks to win vs the mite, you let the mite show you what works


Well, yes,but the unit did not work. And yes I will not be bond next year, at least not at all locations.
So far the mites ( and bees) showed me what bond is.

I do not want to seek tricks. I just want to keep some bees from the susceptible to introduce better queens into because I can´t have ferals. 
So future is IPM or, rather bond with moving away susceptible colonies to another bee yard to treat them there and probably move them back with a better queen.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> the unit did not work.


The sound wave thingy?


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> So future is IPM or, rather bond with moving away susceptible colonies to another bee yard to treat them there and probably move them back with a better queen.


Sybille
It seems to me that you are designing a process similar to soft-bond test described here https://www.apimondia.com/congresse...ce selection for beekeepers - KEFUSS John.pdf


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> The sound wave thingy?


Yeah, the colony is dead. Do I send it to you to fight your vole problem?

Eduardo,
many thanks, I did not know that Kefuss had written such advise.
There is just a little difference to my management, I will monitor all hives, having not many, and treat without chemicals when mite drop is over 30 a day, that´s my threshold. Then a wash or shake will follow to confirm the infestation and decide the action.
The timing will be a problem because I´m still a little inexperienced, but I hope I will get the right moments to do what I have to do.

<emotionally comforting< that´s nice.


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## msl

like TF or "natural" people keep getting hung up on an word to define them.
soft bond is fine, its more or less IMP, the bees hit threshold they are out of the program 
he highlights the point I keep making. selection pressure !
He is advocating selecting from the best mite counts, the top 4% performers and re queening most of the hives with their daughters before even bond testing the 4%. 
That's not natural selection, that's human selection! Right now Kufuss and Weaver are working on being able to make selection choices based on DNA! 
it seems to me there are 3 common things in programs that are working (Weaver,Kufuss,Comfort,Conrad,Webster,etc) 1 large sample size, 2 grafting, 3 expert level beekeeping.
yes there is always the exception....just like we all know or have hurd someone who says not wearing a seatbelt saved there life in a crash.....its happens, but the odds are not in your favor


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## 1102009

msl said:


> That's not natural selection, that's human selection!


I live in a world without wild honeybees, everything honeybee around is bred livestock, so what? This world will not change ( in my lifetime).
I´m happy if my human selection will start chemical free survivors.

You can´t send a high performance cow into the wild just because there were wild cows once. She will die of udder infection in 24 hours. 

Bees perhaps are more able to survive than the cows but still need some regression time. Resistance is watered down with high performance DNA around.
Resistance is a topic now even in profit beekeeping, so that´s fine to me.

To propagate wild living honeybees and start an evolution progress you need an isolated area, like a protected natural habitat.

.


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## lharder

Kefuss is still bond, he doesn't introduce treatments. He is just doing additional selection as I mentioned before. He is accelerating the process by requeening lines with higher mite counts. This is preferable to chemicals as it selects for other aspects of survival not revealed by a mite count. 

Someone brought up isolation and bee movement. There are 2 aspects to long term bee sustainability. 

One is not getting in the way of local adaptation. This means not treating, raising queens from successful colonies. It is also important that all keepers learn to do this instead of depending on a few keepers, maximizing selection pressure over the whole of the population rather than a few bees. The added benefit is that the slow process of genetic mutation and evolution is aided by this process. 

The other is having practices that creates an adaptive environment that moves slow enough so the bees can adapt to it. Viral environments will be different parts of the country, and will be constantly shifting. If the spread of new viral variants is slowed, then we create more stable environments for our bees and we reduce the incidence of epidemics. If we took this principle to heart we wouldn't have had varroa or tracheal mites, small hive beetle and some viruses. This point is lost on Randy Oliver who takes his bees to pollinate in California. But it is the big picture scientific principle we need to shift to. It is also the biggest risk factor for everyone's bees. You never know what is hitchhiking in on that truckload of bees. This is why the recent focus on mite bombs is so misplaced. Understand the risk factors and a way forward is possible.


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## msl

> The other is having practices that creates an adaptive environment that moves slow enough so the bees can adapt to it. Viral environments will be different parts of the country, and will be constantly shifting. If the spread of new viral variants is slowed, then we create more stable environments for our bees and we reduce the incidence of epidemics. If we took this principle to heart we wouldn't have had varroa or tracheal mites, small hive beetle and some viruses.


I agree 100% 
The problem is we wouldn't have a beekeeping industry either. We would have to ban the transport of bees across state lines, possibly even county/town ones, not a reasonable soulstion for domestic live stock that is kept only to serve human needs. 



> He is accelerating the process by requeening lines with higher mite counts. This is preferable to chemicals as it selects for other aspects of survival not revealed by a mite count.


I think you are missing the point,
say I have 2 yards a mile apart I bond one and IPM the other (treating only the hives above threshold). I then come spring I requeen them all using the one queen that had the best counts (say 2 years old low counts, hasn't needed treatments, doesn't matter witch yard it came from). Please explane to me the genetic difference between the 2 yards after re queening? 

Sence I am pinching the old queens anyway the only reason they exizested was to provide resources for the new line, the more resources I have the more f-1 variations I can test while still runing some production bees. 
Why would you let resources be lost if you plan on re-queening them any way?


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## lharder

msl said:


> GWW
> bond is bond... you just go TF and let the chips fall.... the confusion isn't over whats bond,its over the deffention of TF
> 
> Not much to say OT, that wasn’t the title on the transcript when I got there, or on the official page for the event when I checked later...looks like someone got a little creative with the club FB account lol
> it was more or less the video link I posted earlier and her study on nuc equipment type I posted about in the general forum.
> the one point that she made that stuck with me is stock selection vs breeding. Most keepers can do stock selection (Ie my black/yellow queen example in post 278 ) few can do real breeding..
> 
> Its the reverse, her argument is section by bond will only succeed with isolation (ie we stop moveing bees and bringing stock form other areas) , as you note you bees are interaction with others. When you out crossed the Saskatraz, poof………..traits lost.
> 
> 
> Nope Weaver talks about one of the bigest issues was sorting the "lucky" hives from the resistant ones...and there were many more lucky ones, see below
> If you understand the process and let it happen, then it happens quickly. The people who understand this like Bush, Weaver and Keufus
> 
> Weaver-The 1st round they bonded 1000 hives, come spring (9 months later) 100 lived.
> Out of the 100, 50 were in bad shape and made 0 surplus honey
> out of the other 50 that made any surplus at all, 5 turned out to be resistant their F-1s were only marginally better than the founder generation (read still massive losses…..poof traits lost) this wasn’t enough numbers to establish a breeding program, so bond another 1k hives…yikes got to respect their chutzpah
> 
> Crunch the numbers
> only 5% of the stock selected by bond was resistant, 180 dead hives per resistant one found.
> 
> Tell me again how bond is suitable for the new backyard beekeeper with 2 hives?
> 
> ok so Kefuss…
> He had been breeding resistant stock for years before withholding treatments and took lower losses as such(2/3), but then applied strong selective pressure as well only breeding from less then 2% of the survivors, some years form a single queen!


Weaver, but statistically is works out. There will be some lucky ones, but additional selection does sort it. Its still bond then additional selection. Not IPM. He also did his program before much adaptation was possible. My results are different not because I'm a better keeper, (far far worse actually), but because my starting point is different. 

I don't want to put words into Kefuss's mouth. But he was at the very beginning of varroa in Europe. He helped develop some of the chemical treatments. The big question was, could bees adapt at all. I think once he answered that question, then his understanding of adaptation let him take the next step.

.


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## msl

What your missing is both Weaver and Kefuss brought in and requeend non bonded hives to recover. 
No reason not to do the same...
If a hive has a high mite count to the point it is unliky it will overwinter what is the harm in treating it and using it to rebuild come spring? Just like Weaver and Kefuss did. Weaver from his own stock, Kefuss bought them from other beekeepers.


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## Rader Sidetrack

OK folks, its good that you are editing out the part of the long quote that is not relevant to your response. :thumbsup:

But when composing or editing your message, if you used the "Quote" function, please leave the [QUOTE="MemberID, post: 1592183, member: 110209"] ... ipso facto ... [/QUOTE] BBcodes syntax *intact*. Otherwise the quote gets jumbled up with your reply and the whole thing is very difficult to understand. :scratch:


All quotes need to start with the QUOTE in brackets and end with the /QUOTE in brackets as shown above. Remove the ... _ipso facto_ ... text _between_ the quote codes that you don't want, but the quote codes should remain as is.

.


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> If a hive has a high mite count to the point it is unliky it will overwinter what is the harm in treating it and using it to rebuild come spring? Just like Weaver and Kefuss did. Weaver from his own stock, Kefuss bought them from other beekeepers.


Did they actually treat?
or just requeen?


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## msl

The Weavers did, they kept the commercial operation going while they bonded some hives 
Kefuss didn't treat him self, but he brought in treated hives from other sources as replacements 

I see no reason not to use mite counts to weed out hives that have no chance of survival, treat them, and use those treated hives as resources for cellbuilders/mating nucs/re queening come spring. Its not the 90s any more, you can be sure if your hive has 10 mites per 100 (or even 5+ in many cases) in early July its not the stock your looking to breed from, no reason to bond it.


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## 1102009

msl said:


> I see no reason not to use mite counts to weed out hives that have no chance of survival, treat them, and use those treated hives as resources for cellbuilders/mating nucs/re queening come spring. Its not the 90s any more, you and be sure if you hive has 10 mites per 100 in early july its not the stock your looking to breed from, no reason to bond it.


+1


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## lharder

Here is a an interview with Dr. Kefuss. 

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-xqae7-69e1d1

He stopped treating in the late 90's. The main reason for bond is that they didn't really know what to select for. Again, bond for the baseline of selection. 

The modified bond was for those not willing to lose bees. You still lose information as you are focusing on one thing. It is not superior rather a compromise. The problem is that it is a one dimensional solution to a multi dimensional problem. Even if you can focus on the right thing, there is the problem of measuring it correctly. Hence his methods of counting mites. Kefuss is not afraid of mite bombs in his operation as they provide useful selection pressure for the rest of his hives. He has treating neighbors and his take is that mite bombs are more likely in the treating community, but again his bees can deal with it. His take is not that the surrounding bees have terrible genetics, but rather provide some useful genetic diversity and may have some useful traits that are useful.


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## gww

lharder


> The main reason for bond is that they didn't really know what to select for. Again, bond for the baseline of selection.





> You still lose information as you are focusing on one thing. It is not superior rather a compromise. The problem is that it is a one dimensional solution to a multi dimensional problem. Even if you can focus on the right thing, there is the problem of measuring it correctly. Hence his methods of counting mites. Kefuss is not afraid of mite bombs in his operation as they provide useful selection pressure for the rest of his hives. He has treating neighbors and his take is that mite bombs are more likely in the treating community, but again his bees can deal with it. His take is not that the surrounding bees have terrible genetics, but rather provide some useful genetic diversity and may have some useful traits that are useful.


This is exactly how my thinking adds up. It is also why I think a bunch of small guys might have some success even if they are not supposed to. It is also why I have questions on the effect of open breeding making a good queens genetics weaken. My thoughts even if wrong are, One good queen with mite tollerant traits being open bread with lots of non mite tollerant bees might still have that good trait come forward first due to it being a good trait to have due to the conditions of the hive it is froms living inviroment. Rather then spending all your time doing what many say is the weakness of selective breeding narrowing the gene pool (which randy and other studies have shown has lessened the genetic make up of puppy mill bees) Maby, letting what happens with pressure on is better. 

I do not say I know what I am talking about but more that this makes sence to me.

If I took counts, I would not act upon them for now and even if they were high, I would still want to run the hive to failure a few times just to see. Cause thinking something is going to fail with a 10% mite load in july is not the same as it actually failing. Now if they did fail every time for a few times, I would have to do something differrent. I think I went into winter with some sick bees but the question is going to be, is it going to be like efb or chalk brood that when the flow starts, the symtoms go away? I only know one way to get those types of answers and that is to just do it untill it cost too much to keep doing it.

There are examples that it can work.

To another point brought up in this thread earlier, I do think it makes a differance raising bees now then compared to 20 years ago when mites first showed up. I agree with the ideal that in most places it would not be starting at zero like it was when mites first appeared. I believe that stuff has happenned where ever bees are over those 20 years and is probly more noticable in some places compared to others but probly some change in all places. 

I don't know what is going to happen with my bees but also do not think I am starting at the bottom like I would have been if I tried to not treat 20 years ago.
Cheers
gww


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## Juhani Lunden

lharder said:


> He stopped treating in the late 90's. The main reason for bond is that they didn't really know what to select for. Again, bond for the baseline of selection.


What comes to my mind is comparison between Terje Reinertsen in Norway and myself. 

He started couple years earlier, climate nearly the same.

I did , or tried to do, IPM soft bond, by looking at mite numbers and requeening from the lowest counts, and treating every year less and less.
Terje stopped treatments alltogether in the beginning.

Result: Terje got situation normalized in after about 10 years TF beekeeping.
I have maybe come to that point now after 7 years soft bond and 9 years TF.


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## Buzz-kill

Juhani Lunden said:


> Result: Terje got situation normalized in after about 10 years TF beekeeping.
> I have maybe come to that point now after 7 years soft bond and 9 years TF.


Just for clarification. So you are saying that it has taken you 16 years to get to where he got in 10? I am not claiming that this comparison illustrates hard bond is superior based on this one uncontrolled comparison but just want to make sure I understand you are saying 16 years total. 

If I am reading it right then it is interesting that 10 years tf and 9 tf are pretty similar and suggest perhaps that the 7 years of soft bond did not speed the time to stability. 

Soft bond could probably be effective if mite counts had any predictive capacity for survivor ship and or genetic mite resistance. The problem is that mite counts are next to useless. Just some of the problems are counting only phoretic mites, time of year influence, and most importantly the mite is only a vector. So the type virulence of the viruses being vectored and how well the bees handle those is far more significant. Until we know more colony survival is still the gold standard test. Even as we learn more it isn't really practical for small time beekeepers to test for strains of viruses and genetic markers in the bee genome. Weaver is apparently working on these but for most of us the best selection tool is colony lives or colony dies.


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## Buzz-kill

gww said:


> lharder
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is exactly how my thinking adds up. It is also why I think a bunch of small guys might have some success even if they are not supposed to. It is also why I have questions on the effect of open breeding making a good queens genetics weaken. My thoughts even if wrong are, One good queen with mite tollerant traits being open bread with lots of non mite tollerant bees might still have that good trait come forward first due to it being a good trait to have due to the conditions of the hive it is froms living inviroment. Rather then spending all your time doing what many say is the weakness of selective breeding narrowing the gene pool (which randy and other studies have shown has lessened the genetic make up of puppy mill bees) Maby, letting what happens with pressure on is better.
> 
> 
> gww


There is wisdom in what you say here. Too many focus exclusively on the queen genetics and ignore the drone. A resistant queen is well mated when she mates with a large number of drones not when she is necessarily mated with a small number of resistant drones. The honey bee genetic strategy is to bring in genetic diversity through a large number of drone matings. That gives the colony more sub-families and spreads the genetic risk. Maybe not all those drones will carry superior mite resistant genes but the more she mates with the greater the odds are that some of them will and that may be enough to increase colony survival chances. This is the general principle of honey bee genetics and is important for all honey bee activities. Some drones may provide better propolis gatherers and some provide better nectar or pollen gatherers. Some may provide stronger immune system defenses and so on. The more diversity the better the colony chances. Stability against the mites can be achieved when enough of the drones in the area carry those genes that the proportion of matings results in survivable colonies. Selecting for single traits like hygenic behavior or mite counts can help but should not be the only program because selecting for a few traits cannot be done without decreasing genetic diversity. It is not possible to do otherwise.


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## Juhani Lunden

Buzz-kill said:


> Just for clarification. So you are saying that it has taken you 16 years to get to where he got in 10? I am not claiming that this comparison illustrates hard bond is superior based on this one uncontrolled comparison but just want to make sure I understand you are saying 16 years total.
> 
> If I am reading it right then it is interesting that 10 years tf and 9 tf are pretty similar and suggest perhaps that the 7 years of soft bond did not speed the time to stability.


You got me right.

Looking back my IPM(soft bond) period seems to have helped me surprisingly little, compared to Terje Reinertsen. 



Buzz-kill said:


> Soft bond could probably be effective if mite counts had any predictive capacity for survivor ship and or genetic mite resistance. The problem is that mite counts are next to useless. Just some of the problems are counting only phoretic mites, time of year influence, and most importantly the mite is only a vector. So the type virulence of the viruses being vectored and how well the bees handle those is far more significant. Until we know more colony survival is still the gold standard test. Even as we learn more it isn't really practical for small time beekeepers to test for strains of viruses and genetic markers in the bee genome. Weaver is apparently working on these but for most of us the best selection tool is colony lives or colony dies.


I would say mite counting is not useless, but, as you say, the problem is the results need to be "read" or interpret correctly. There are SO many factors affecting mite numbers.

In my soft bond period I tried to do this by making sister group comparisons. One good result was not enough, but when the whole sister group had lower than average numbers, the best of them was accepted as breeder. I reasoned this would lower the probability to make false decisions. 

In the beginning I probably had not enough mite pressure on drones on my isolation mating yard. Queens, which make the mating drones, carried so many poor genes still. With heavier mite pressure on drones the inferior variants would have been eliminated sooner in process. 


Another problem is that in short season circumstances it is very challenging to do mite counts for a larger beekeeper( if this beekeeper has some other work to do as well during the high season). Sometimes mite numbers seem to get rocket high in no time.


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## msl

lharder said:


> Kefuss is not afraid of mite bombs in his operation as they provide useful selection pressure for the rest of his hives.


So Kefuss agrees mite bombs happen, and that mite bombs kill other hives!!!:gh:
There for in the context of this thread (a urban/suburban BYBK set up with lots of hives belonging to others around,) purposely letting a hive colaspice from mites is bad beekeeping and irresponsible.


> In this episode, I talk to Dr. John Kefuss, the original Bond Method Beekeeper


Ughh
As usual Solomon is picking and choosing and hypeing… the bond test was started in Germany in 1992 and the name was coined there, Weaver went bond in 92 as well, kefuss was 99, far from the “orginal”… 
I tried to listen, but between this and him starting off asking for asking for money I turned it off…I realy liked SP when I 1st started and was totaly anti treatment, anti foundation, anti feed, anti lang, etc but as I became more educated and experienced I liked him less, and the last few years I have been totally turned off (like when he was asking for $$ to start his for profit apiary) and feel he has done more damage to the TF movement then has helped. 
TF via bond is failing
If you look at the BIP 
2008-2013 average was 67% of beekeepers in the US were TF totaling about 18% of the hives in the us
2016-2017 average is 35% totaling about 2% of the hives kept… let that sink in, 88% less TF hives!!!
bond is failing them, bond will keep failing them. I feel telling them to go bond is failing the TF movement. We now at a low(by a drastic number) of TF keepers and hives, This year TF is takeing all time high losses in a year that the overall losses are are the 2nd best in 11 years ! It seems the national average losses are less do to the loss in TF keepers !!

We have had 25 years of bond , and BYBKs still haven’t magically developed TF stock… (shocking!!!!! ) and we know they won’t . 
We need to be offering the next generation of TF(want to be) Keepers a way forward that has a good chance of success. 

I suggest The 1st step is sustainable beekeeping by any means necessary(IPM with a scaled response). People keeping their hives alive and making their own replacements for them selfs (and others) this stops the inflow of packages and outside genetics and pathogens. 

Drone culling should be taught as the rule not the exception to new beekeepers to stop the spread of out side(Poor) gentnicks. 
Once those alive hives out cross with the local back ground that had the impact of the imported gentinics limited we will have the start of localy adapted stock. 

Keeping people off the package bee treadmill with an eye towards allowing local adapted stock to come forward should be goal#1… (They are all ready taking down payments on packages in my area, dang) Too many keepers (T and TF alike)get stuck in year 1 or year 2 beekeeping… 1st year they don’t split because they “need to build up to over winter” 2nd year (if they still have bees) they “need to build up so they can get a harvest.” 

To get there we need to teach nus and a year 1 skill! It not that hard to pull a queen and 2-3 frames mid flow (our whatever regionally appropriate time) and put in a nuc… now that new beekeeper is ready to take up to 50% winter losses, if they don’t, and don’t want more hives they can sell the nuc(s) think of the change if a large % of BYBKs had a overwintered local nuc or 2 for sale!!! Once they have the confidence to make a nuc, we can talk spring splits and queen cell exchanges and requeening poor stock.

The package bee treadmill is very harmfull to local stock and small scale TF selection efforts as we can’t/don’t control the drone stock in most cases. 

There are many people who are pushing on new BYBKs that the “worst” thing you can do is treat a hive, I suggest that is more damaging to TF people in your area to let the hive mite bomb and bring in a new package come spring. Treat and requeen with local restiant stock, or even treat and pinch the old queen letting the hive draw cells and open mate a queen seems to be better for the local stock! People can mumble about buying better stock that doesn’t exist till we do step 1# and local stock is regularly avaibul

Next we need to do away with the idea that a BYBK is going to produce/develop TF in any way shape or form. The nature of Beekeeping is that the small guys are consumers of genetic stock, not producers always has been, always will be. IE many small scale honey producers requeen a hive every few years with purchased queens to keep production traits up that are lost in outcrossing. This is basic beekeeping, this has been the way of traits long before the mite, and will be long after. 

As such they need to be taught how to see when the stock is failing (be it from a few outcrossing or just not working in there area ) in time to take action to save the hive and re queen it. 

Next we will likly need noncem IMP/muliplaions/management. Seeley and many others feel genetics are only going to get us so far. we should be looking in to splits/drone culling/brood breaks, etc as tools that likly will be needed 
All this can be accomplished by a simple shift in message. 

Juhani Lunden what were your and Terjs starting hive counts? I would love to here more about bolth programs 



> In the beginning I probably had not enough mite pressure on drones on my isolation mating yard. Queens, which make the mating drones, carried so many poor genes still.


Mite pressure, beekeeper pressure… seems the failing of many small scale bond programs is lack of pressure (and sample size) once the mites have done their job, we are seeing the success full programs then select breeder stock form the top 5% or less that lived. The smaller guys seem to be propagating form all they have left, putting them on a tread mill of poor gentinics, aside from needed isolation, the biggest issues with bond is people not doing it, they leave the bees out to die, and don’t take the next, and most important step, added and firm pressure form breeder queen selection and re queening of the 2/3s or so lowest performing stock. 



> Too many focus exclusively on the queen genetics and ignore the drone.


scope and scale…I don’t see were the BYBK (as defined in this thread), or infact many of the great fokes contributing here have a snowballs chance on drone control. Figger its only a few hundred beekeepers in the US that are in a situation were they can or are controling the drone stock For most of us we are not breeding, we are selecting stock, a very different situation. Now if you want to look in to drone production Larry connor has a good write up for small scale producers (40 hives) http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2006-06.pdf



> The honey bee genetic strategy is to bring in genetic diversity through a large number of drone matings. That gives the colony more sub-families and spreads the genetic risk.


Yes, but it also spreads out the gains!
In nature there is a 80% (or so, math is a few pages back) yearly culling of sub par queens to regain the traits. We see Kufess, weaver, etc slecticing queens in the 2% in the Above Larry Connor piece he is suesting 3 out of 40…ie 7.5% for the little guy… 

As such the more queens you make from the best one(s), the more good queens you will get. If you don’t have the resources to mate out and evaluate the new queens you don’t get far. It’s a number game to go from one breeder queen to the next.


----------



## Slow Drone

Too much emphasis is put on queens and not enough on drones.


----------



## Buzz-kill

msl said:


> So Kefuss agrees mite bombs happen, and that mite bombs kill other hives!!!:gh:
> 
> 
> 
> scope and scale…I don’t see were the BYBK (as defined in this thread), or infact many of the great fokes contributing here have a snowballs chance on drone control. Figger its only a few hundred beekeepers in the US that are in a situation were they can or are controling the drone stock For most of us we are not breeding, we are selecting stock, a very different situation. Now if you want to look in to drone production Larry connor has a good write up for small scale producers (40 hives) http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2006-06.pdf
> 
> 
> Yes, but it also spreads out the gains!
> In nature there is a 80% (or so, math is a few pages back) yearly culling of sub par queens to regain the traits. We see Kufess, weaver, etc slecticing queens in the 2% in the Above Larry Connor piece he is suesting 3 out of 40…ie 7.5% for the little guy…
> 
> As such the more queens you make from the best one(s), the more good queens you will get. If you don’t have the resources to mate out and evaluate the new queens you don’t get far. It’s a number game to go from one breeder queen to the next.


Some may be able to control drones or at least influence. You make a allot of blanket statements as though they were established fact when they are your opinion (which in some cases is the common belief of the beekeeping community but not necessarily true). The point is that even small timers do not have to control drone populations in order to make progress. It might be slower progress than if they had better control of drones but progress nevertheless.

Selecting stock is breeding. Breeding is allowing certain individuals to reproduce and not others. That is selective breeding. By selection queens with proven survivabiity you increase the homozygousity of the alleles for those traits in the population. When those queens mate with random drones it is a crap shoot as to the genetic make up of those drones but by mating with more drones it increases the chances that some of them carry desirable alleles and the colony can maintain survivability. 

Numbers regarding culling are simply a description of selection pressure. The greater the selection pressure the more rapid the progress toward whatever trait one is selecting for. It may be difficult for a small timer to maintain as high a selection pressure as a bigger operator but that does not mean that progress is impossible. And actually it doesn't take that many hives to allow similar selection pressures. With as few as 20 hives a section of 2 is 10%. But there is also nothing wrong with small timers supplementing their stock with known resistant queens from the Weavers or others. They don't have to do all the work from scratch. But by following Bond they keep the selection pressure on.


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## Oldtimer

Buzz-kill said:


> You make a allot of blanket statements as though they were established fact when they are your opinion (which in some cases is the common belief of the beekeeping community but not necessarily true).


I think he put some thoughts on paper that are the result of years of experience, a lot of thought, and trying to figure how best to attack a problem that is not going away.

Not everybody will agree with him because he is thinking outside the box. But after 25 years of for many people who have towed the line, failure, some new ideas can't hurt?

I too am one of those who towed the line and failed, I did what Solomon said exactly.


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> As usual Solomon is picking and choosing and hypeing… the bond test was started in Germany in 1992 and the name was coined there, Weaver went bond in 92 as well, kefuss was 99, far from the “orginal”…


Do you remember what was the (German) original bond test?

I did not know they did something as early as 1992, but I do remember back in 2000 (wrote it down) that by then there had been discussions among researchers saying "as we have achieved nothing (in varroa resistance breeding) so far in 20 years maybe we should try something else, just let them die."



msl said:


> Juhani Lunden what were your and Terjs starting hive counts? I would love to here more about bolth programs


I had about 150 hives plus 70 nucs. Program is explained in my diary(has been there since 2006), link below, new web pages are coming soon in a new address www.buckfast.fi

I have been told (source from Norway) that Terje has about 200 hives. One very interesting thing is that he made experiments putting ants on bees and did some selection according to how bees reacted.


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## msl

Buzz kill I am fact based and listing my sources, please correct me were I am wrong and provide a source so I can learn


> And actually it doesn't take that many hives to allow similar selection pressures. With as few as 20 hives a section of 2 is 10%


picking 2 out of 20 is not the weavers picking 5 out of a 1000 or Kufess picking 1 out of 250(ish) the whole mailing queens thing was developed, and persists for a reason. 
either way that's not what most of the small scale bonds are doing, or maby that's just my feeling, so lets ask
IIRR lharder came threw the spring at like 38 and went in to fall around 80, you made great strides geting you number up this year If you would, how many different queens did you propagate from?



> Too much emphasis is put on queens and not enough on drones.


you have said that, whats the solution? 



> Do you remember what was the (German) original bond test?I did not know they did something as early as 1992


I miss wrote, it seems it was, 93 


> The term “Bond Test” was first coined at a meeting of the German Bee Research Institutes at Bremen to describe the principle of ‘Live and let Die’ for the testing they had been doing since 1993.


 Randy Oliver "The Varroa Problem – Part 6a" American Bee Journal, March 2017



> Selecting stock is breeding. Breeding is allowing certain individuals to reproduce and not others. That is selective breeding


No, 
_selective breeding
noun [ U ] /səˈlek·tɪv ˈbri·dɪŋ/
​biology the process of choosing only plants and animals with desirable characteristics to reproduce_
If I am allowing random drones to mate my queens I am not doing selective breeding just like if I let my dog out to wander while she is in heat I am not doing selective breeding 
If I am a rancher and I want to improve my stock, I go buy an expensive bull and mate out all my cows and then cull the offspring I don't like, that is stock selection.
if I am picking certain cows to mate with certain bulls thats selective breeding


However this this thread and debate is targeted at


msl said:


> a (new) suburban/urban beekeeper with 2 or so hives


lets review
They don't have enuf stock to put any sort of selective pressure on
They don't have a big enuf sample size 
They have very high might invasion pressure that can wipe out even good TF stock
They can't control the mating of their queens, so even if they get rock sold TF stock, its often gone in a out crosssing or 2
Last and not least lets not forget you are asking a newbeek to perform like a seasoned master beekeeper

Please give me ONE good, scientific founded reason why going bond will benefit them, or the TF cause.

And please, please, please... if you have stock that is better then package bees, get it out there and make it available, if don't your part of the problem not part of the solution. every less out of state package is a win, better queens make better drones!
Its great for people to hop on line and talk....time to put your stock were your mouth is


----------



## lharder

Juhani Lunden said:


> What comes to my mind is comparison between Terje Reinertsen in Norway and myself.
> 
> He started couple years earlier, climate nearly the same.
> 
> I did , or tried to do, IPM soft bond, by looking at mite numbers and requeening from the lowest counts, and treating every year less and less.
> Terje stopped treatments alltogether in the beginning.
> 
> Result: Terje got situation normalized in after about 10 years TF beekeeping.
> I have maybe come to that point now after 7 years soft bond and 9 years TF.


That is an interesting observation. Maybe we will have more numbers to look at as we go forward. If the project goes ahead with my bees, we should get a sense of the genetic trajectory with a population of bees like mine, compared to a more traditional soft bond kind of set up. I think you are one of the few that has managed the transition from soft to hard bond. When you made the transition, did you achieve certain mile stones, or did you switch for other reasons?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

lharder said:


> I think you are one of the few that has managed the transition from soft to hard bond.
> 
> When you made the transition, did you achieve certain mile stones, or did you switch for other reasons?



The whole program was planned 2001. I just followed that plan. The fact that they did not die, came as a surprise.


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## 1102009

Juhani,
do you know if Terje had such big crashes like you had? What stock did he use? Sorry if you already posted that I have not the time to read all.



> One very interesting thing is that he made experiments putting ants on bees and did some selection according to how bees reacted.


So he used not only the survivors but selected from hive defense?


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Juhani,
> do you know if Terje had such big crashes like you had?
> 
> So he used not only the survivors but selected from hive defense?


Quote from study:
"Surviving colonies were of a mixed origin (Buckfast) that had been kept without any V. destructor treatments for 19 years prior to the study. After the last treatment against V. destructor in 1997, mite levels seemed to increase and substantial losses of colonies occurred. However, surviving and healthy colonies were split and used to replace lost ones. Over the last 10 years, colony losses have been lower than the national average of about 10%. "



Yes, the defense against ants is something I would never have thought about.


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## msl

Mite biters at work 
https://vimeo.com/142550656


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## 1102009

And here.

http://www.elgon.es/diary/?cat=8


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## msl

Juhani Lunden said:


> Quote from study:


 Its a good read thanks for pointing me there Full study here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5659219/

Gotland Sweden, Avignon France, Norway, African bees, Kefuss, Arnot forest, etc
The studys all say its not VHS, its not mite biters.. they don't know what it is and it may be different in each pop
What they do know and the only metric they can test for at the moment is survivors have a lower mite count, they all have a 30% reduction in successful mite reproduction. 
Nothing new here, those numbers are in Randys calculator, but now you have the study's if you want to read the fine print.
We know that what works is low mite numbers, we don't see pops with high mite counts in these long term studys.



Buzz-kill said:


> if mite counts had any predictive capacity for survivor ship and or genetic mite resistance. The problem is that mite counts are next to useless. Just some of the problems are counting only phoretic mites, time of year influence, and most importantly the mite is only a vector. So the type virulence of the viruses being vectored and how well the bees handle those is far more significant. Until we know more colony survival is still the gold standard test.


A wanted to circle back to this and ask if you have a study to back that?
The studys and data I can find(the above listed locations) say that is emphatically untrue stament
Maby it would help to look at it in reverce, we are not looking for counts to tell us what hives will live (hives die for all sorts of reasons) but they will very clearly tell us what hives will die and or should not be propagated from even if they were to live bonded. There for those hives can be removed from selection and re queened with out loss. 

The Virus argument is a hollow one often used by bonders. We are not treating for viruses (mainly cause we can't), there for by bond theory they will be bonded out Hives with extra mites didn't make it in the study pops, regardless if they were more virus tolerant or not. It would seem the genetic cost of mite resistance is less then that of virus tolerance.. IE less vectors and they don't need the higher tolerance. Mite resistance *is* virus resistance and if you are resistant, tolerance takes a back seat and may be an unnecessary expense. Nature does not reward those who spend unnecessary resources.


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## Oldtimer

Fact is, bees have little to no resistance to many of their viruses, other than their hard shell to keep them out. Which is where mites come in, bypassing the hard shell and injecting the viruses straight in.

Virus resistance by bees is done at a colony level rather than an individual bee level. Individual bees with bad virus levels cannot cure themselves. Instead, they crawl as far as they can from the hive before they die, and in that way the hive as a whole is purged of viruses. 

The system mostly worked, before varroa mites were introduced.


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Fact is, bees have little to no resistance to many of their viruses, other than their hard shell to keep them out. Which is where mites come in, bypassing the hard shell and injecting the viruses straight in.
> 
> Virus resistance by bees is done at a colony level rather than an individual bee level. Individual bees with bad virus levels cannot cure themselves. Instead, they crawl as far as they can from the hive before they die, and in that way the hive as a whole is purged of viruses.
> 
> The system mostly worked, before varroa mites were introduced.


If a hive dwindles and mite count is high the bees are over the threshold. If a hive thrives and mite count is high the virus is probably not a virulent one. 
Correlations between mite numbers, thriving of the colony and productivity will give you the chance of evaluation.

After colony development it´s harder to do that evaluation, when brood is reduced. So perhaps this is the time to look for mite biting and defect bees, when there are defect bees the colony is over the threshold and must have help to start breeding healthy winter bees. 
To see defect bees crawling on comb is a sign that the hive cannot cure itself anymore. Normally those are expelled by the colony. IMO.

There can be defect bees and a hive dwindling but not many mites. Then a virulent virus is active. Time to act and shift the queen.
There can be no defect bees seen , many mites counted and the colony thriving, perhaps a time to go bond if you can prevent robbing and drifting. In this case i would check the brood combs for VSH and the mites for being bitten.

My personal belief is that if you don´t watch the hive dynamics and how they correlate with environmental influences you can forget about IPM and just go bond or do mite counts which do not always tell you what happens in the colony. depends how you count and how often and which time in year.
To know about this is to learn from the bees which needs some years. For myself I can say that 2017 was the first season I was getting an overview about this but still it´s theory and I have to use my knowledge to better beekeeping practise.


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## msl

> There can be no defect bees seen, many mites counted and the colony thriving, perhaps a time to go bond if you can prevent robbing and drifting. In this case i would check the brood combs for VSH and the mites for being bitten.


yet to see a study that backs that wishful view 
VSH and mite biters are traits people can test for so they II to maximize it, and market.. but don't appear in high numbers in feral/bonded pops and fade quickly in out cross with II stock. 
What works works! let the bees tell you what works (mite counts/survival), not your idea of what you want to work you need to judge the end result not how they get there


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## 1102009

I´m not very much a friend of studies but rather make my own observations. 
If I would use the study threshold I would never have tf colonies now after 3 years, because I would have treated all.
But one never knows what will happen.


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## msl

I dissagree ! I think you are refering to the wrong studys and wrong thresholds
as you said in reference to survival 


SiWolKe said:


> Studying this thread I realized that my threshold is exactly what Tom Seeley found


 Seeleys threshold was similar to the others studys we have seen for colony loss
Don't confuse the threshold for economic loss(ie treatment thresholds for profit) with the threshold to stop colony loss. 2 very different numbers. 
I would say we (or at least me) are not looking for colony's that make the same amount of honey or ones that hold mites below treatment thresholds, we are looking for colonys that have a similar loss rate to treated ones and expect that will come at a cost, likely productively. As we see in Avignon it was a 50% reduction in productivity to gain resistance.


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## 1102009

Studies can keep you from finding out what's going on in your apiary with your local bees in your local situation.
Studies are always funded and therefore not objective.

Honey production is only partly dependent on the state of a colony, if the colony is not doomed, otherwise the hives of Greenland would not bring more honey than the hives of my area, but they bring twice as much honey, although the colonies are smaller (comparison treated hives). I lead this back to the flow situation and the wintering period.


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> Studies are always funded and therefore not objective.


"A pair of scientific studies in Science last month linked neonicotinoids to poor reproduction and shorter lifespans in European and Canadian bees. The research was funded in part by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta AG, the makers of imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam." 

source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...as-numbers-recover-while-mystery-malady-wanes


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## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> "A pair of scientific studies in Science last month linked neonicotinoids to poor reproduction and shorter lifespans in European and Canadian bees. The research was funded in part by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta AG, the makers of imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam."
> 
> source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...as-numbers-recover-while-mystery-malady-wanes


“There are numerous things impacting bee health,” Syngenta Chief Executive Officer Erik Fyrwald said in an interview in Brussels last month. “One of the very minor elements there is pesticides. So it’s amazing to us that the discussion is, as a whole, about pesticides. Not only pesticides, just specifically neonics.”


And why this opinion then, Eduardo?
To find that the beekeeper is to blame?



Could be a part of it if you read this:


> Barbara Locke:
> 2.3.1 Apicultureandhoneybeeepidemiology
> Today, apiculture is a threatened industry largely due to the spread of honey bee diseases. Paradoxically, apicultural management practices actually encourage the spread of disease and increase pathogen virulence by facilitating pathogen transmission routes (Fries & Camazine, 2001). For example, beekeeping methods often involve preventing natural swarms, which reduces colony level vertical transmission opportunities for pathogens that would encourage low virulence. When colonies are kept in large numbers in close proximity and colony equipment and contaminated hive material is exchanged between colonies, horizontal transmission opportunities for pathogens increase dramatically encouraging increased virulence. To make matters worse, the pesticides and antibiotics that are administered to colonies by beekeepers to treat infections have been shown to actually cause additional damage to bee health (Haarmann et al., 2002; Johnson et al., 2009; Paper IV).
> https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/9036/1/locke_b_120912.pdf


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## msl

I would say its important to link to the study, not what a reporter wrote yet fails to provide a source 
the study UK study they are talking about found bees in Germany did better on neionics


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## Eduardo Gomes

Sybille my point is simply this: in this case the scientists concluded in a way not coincident with the interests of their financiers. I am sure that other cases will exist that make your general statement that I quote from you incorrect and unfair.


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## Eduardo Gomes

msl said:


> the study UK study they are talking about found bees in Germany did better on neionics


If I remember well the hypothesis that the colonies of german beeks were not negatively impacted by the neonics was related to the fact that they are better treated than the hungarian hives by comparison. Paradoxically hives better treated by beekeepers are more resistant to insecticides (and diseases from my own experience).


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## Eduardo Gomes

msl said:


> The Virus argument is a hollow one often used by bonders. We are not treating for viruses (mainly cause we can't), there for by bond theory they will be bonded out Hives with extra mites didn't make it in the study pops, regardless if they were more virus tolerant or not. It would seem the genetic cost of mite resistance is less then that of virus tolerance.. IE less vectors and they don't need the higher tolerance. Mite resistance *is* virus resistance and if you are resistant, tolerance takes a back seat and may be an unnecessary expense. Nature does not reward those who spend unnecessary resources.


+1
If I remember well the conversation I had with John Kefuss when I bought him queens about two and a half years ago he never seemed to be focused on viruses. The mites seemed to me to be their focus.


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## Juhani Lunden

Eduardo Gomes said:


> +1
> If I remember well the conversation I had with John Kefuss when I bought him queens about two and a half years ago he never seemed to be focused on viruses. The mites seemed to me to be their focus.


How are Kefuss bees doing ?


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## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Sybille my point is simply this: in this case the scientists concluded in a way not coincident with the interests of their financiers. I am sure that other cases will exist that make your general statement that I quote from you incorrect and unfair.


I don´t think I´m unfair, I´m just a sceptic. I´m using science too, I use the studies as a tool. And why not? They can´t be religion. Every other year there is more to the results, something new or different added.

I would like to hear about Kefuss queens too. How do they perform in your environment? Did you treat those colonies?

I will meet Kefuss and Juhani in April in Austria, it seems. I look forward to the speakings!


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## Eduardo Gomes

Hi Sybille and Juhani!

I purchased the virgin queens in May 2015 that were introduced into pre-orphaned nucs. The colonies with hybrid bees daughters of these queens in February 2016 had varroas visible and in some of them I saw DW syndrome. I treated these colonies. 

With regard to production in 2016 in general they produced less than the local ecotype of bees (a.m. iberiensis).


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## Juhani Lunden

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Hi Sybille and Juhani!
> 
> I purchased the virgin queens in May 2015 that were introduced into pre-orphaned nucs. The colonies with hybrid bees daughters of these queens in February 2016 had varroas visible and in some of them I saw DW syndrome. I treated these colonies.
> 
> With regard to production in 2016 in general they produced less than the local ecotype of bees (a.m. iberiensis).


Do you have untreated Kefuss bees?
What are the mite levels?
Did you do inseminations/controlled matings to get more pure "Kefuss"?


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## msl

I am bummed to here that 

One more case for IMP I suppose. The message of "buy better stock next time" is a little emty, hard to think of a better starting point the Kefuss' stock....

but that bring us to this weeks study  _The Pan-European Genotype-Environment-Interactions Experiment_
http://www.coloss.org/the-gei-experiment/

621 hives, 16 strains of bees (commercial stock), 21 locations in 11 countrys, all kept TF to see what would happen. There is a lot of content here, so here are some cliff notes
84.3% losses in 2.5 years 
only 38.4% were from mites
The strain local to the area lasted an advrage of 83 days longer despite being at statistical the same mite infestations 
location matters, the hives placed at Avignon lived an advrage of 711 days, outher places didn't fair any were near as well. as a note for SiWolKe the German sites didn't fair to bad either, Kirchhain 597 days, Mönchgut 661 days Schenkenturm 413 days.


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## Oldtimer

I could not access the article proper because the Journal of Apicultural Research is behind a paywall. I would be interested to discover why less than 1/2 the colony deaths were mite related. Over here anyway, the only thing that kills colonies that is not really the beekeepers fault is if the queen dies mid winter and the replacement has no drones to mate with. Anything else that kills hives such as starvation, etc, can be mitigated by the beekeeper if the hive is being properly cared for.
I'm also not sure how they can give cut and dried figures as to x percentage died from mites and x percentage died from something else. Because my experience is the line is blurred. Often when a hive dies of something that was not mites, it was mites that weakened the hive and was the major factor in bringing about the other thing that killed the hive. So a hive that died for example of attack by wasps, may have done so because it was weakened by mites, and would not have done so if it never had any mites.


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## msl

copy paste the title of the individual peer reiviewed studys of the program in to goggle and you can find free access sites
ie put in 
The influence of genetic origin and its interaction with environmental effects on the survival of Apis mellifera L. colonies in Europe
and this is you 2nd hit 
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3896/IBRA.1.53.2.03
They biased the mite losses on mouthy mite counts...I too felt the number was low


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## 1102009

Coloss.org is Peter Neumann, agroscope liebefeld.

A quote out of an interview:


> Where are we currently facing the problem of Varroa mite, which has swept away countless bee colonies?
> In Switzerland, all honey bee colonies are infected with it. It is a vector, a gateway for viruses, much like certain mosquitoes transmit the malaria parasite. For a quarter of a century, unsuccessful attempts have been made to breed bees that are tolerant to this pathogen. Something is wrong. By natural selection, however, there are colonies who can cope with the pathogen and survive. The Asian honey bee has also learned to live with it. We need to research the traits for this resistance. Bee dying is often the result of several factors: the bees do not find good food, have a diarrhea, and then the beekeeper may go on vacation at the wrong time.


So now they actually start the research to find out what really happens.


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## Eduardo Gomes

Juhani Lunden said:


> Do you have untreated Kefuss bees?


Not now, given the results I reported.


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## lharder

Oldtimer said:


> I'm also not sure how they can give cut and dried figures as to x percentage died from mites and x percentage died from something else. Because my experience is the line is blurred. Often when a hive dies of something that was not mites, it was mites that weakened the hive and was the major factor in bringing about the other thing that killed the hive. So a hive that died for example of attack by wasps, may have done so because it was weakened by mites, and would not have done so if it never had any mites.


I'm not sure how cut and dried figures could be arrived at either. But to me it seems it could be a 2 way street. Mites might weaken hives so it succumbs to other factors, or other factors may weaken hives so it succumbs to mites. For instance, how much energy would a small hive under extreme robbing pressure have to combat mites as well? There is only so much energy to go around and stress of one sort or another would start to add up.


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## lharder

The case for sweeping viruses under the rug as of little concern is very premature. We have only a poor resolution understanding of them. 

The example of tf bees having troubles in new environments means something is different and a good candidate is that the pathogen environment is different from the old one. Since viruses and mites are tied together at the hip, it makes sense that a sudden loss of mite resistance may not be do to mite resistance but viral. 

I mentioned before that I talked to a sheep ranger. She told me that they would bring in some new genetics every so often. The animals were in wonderful shape when they arrived, but would soon degrade. But they made sure they got lambs out of them, and the lambs would do much better. She thought that they were used to a different nutritional regime and couldn't adapt. When she had to buy feed, they had to be careful of its source (non irrigated preferred) as the sheep would start to suffer otherwise. Bees are likely to have similar issues. You can get around it by creating bees that are indiscriminate with queens that lay lots of eggs regardless and focus solely on honey production. But you have to treat. The other route is to stay with locally adapted bees, so they have most of the bases covered and have the energy to deal with mites without treatment.


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## gww

Iharder


> The example of tf bees having troubles in new environments means something is different and a good candidate is that the pathogen environment is different from the old one. Since viruses and mites are tied together at the hip, it makes sense that a sudden loss of mite resistance may not be do to mite resistance but viral.


I just watched a trees for bees vidio today where the guy made simular cases for trees. That maples grow good in michigan and florada but a florada maple would not do good in michigan and vice versa even though they were the same tree.

I would swear that he said the same about a differrent tree that when planted would die almost every time but then suckers from it would do better. I think he was talking redbud on that tree.

I don't even know if this fits your point but it came to my head cause I seen it just today.

One other comment that I can't remember who to attribute it to was that even before mites, long term beekeepers would have big ebs and flows of hive deaths with some years being almost catastrophic. I have read several life lines of virouses that get hot and then run thier course and kinda die off. I don't think having virusses pop up is that much of an out of line thing to happen and for them to fade into the back ground also happens. On a differrent thread they are talking they parilize virus that is worse then the stuff that usually does not kill a hive and I saw randy oliver refer to it also today on a vidio and for now it seems to be something that will have to run its course and there is expectation that it probly will. I do not see how mite vectored virus would be differrent though I know they can go either way, IE get worse and die out or just get worse.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

> 4.3 Breeding for mite resistance
> Breeding Varroa-resistant bees is considered to be the only real long-term solution to the Varroa mite problem in contrast to the short-term Varroa chemical treatments. For this reason, many different tried by bee researchers and bee breeders in the beekeeping industry have attempted to produce mite- resistant lines of European honey bees for commercial use (Buchler et al., 2010; Rinderer et al., 2010). A well-known attempt for selecting mite resistance was the introduction to the United States and subsequent selective breeding of ‘Russian bees’ that apparently, by natural selection, developed mite tolerance or resistance in Eastern Russia where the natural boundaries between A. cerana and A. mellifera meet (Rinderer et al., 2001). Hygienic behavior and Varroa-sensitive hygienic behavior are other well-known traits involved in selective breeding programs in the United States (Spivak, 1996; Boecking & Spivak, 1999; Harbo & Harris, 2001, 2005; Spivak & Reuter, 2001; Ibrahim & Spivak, 2006). Various reports have confirmed at least partial tolerance and a slower increase of the Varroa mite population in these different breeding programs with Russian bees (De Guzman et al., 2007; Tarpy et al., 2007; de Guzman et al., 2008), hygienic bees (Ibrahim et al., 2007) and Varroa-sensitive hygienic bees (Harris et al., 2003).* However, none of these breeding programs offer sustainable long-term solutions and they still require regular mite population monitoring and periodic mite control treatment* (Tarpy et al., 2007; Rosenkranz et al., 2010).
> *In Europe, breeding strategies take a different direction with more emphasis placed on maintaining the local genetic diversity in bee races that have adapted to the different environments and selection for mite resistance is based on low natural mite infestation rates produced through natural selection rather than selecting for specific traits* (Buchler et al., 2010). Investigating the breeding potential of a naturally evolved mite-resistant trait was the objective of Paper III.
> Selective breeding programs often involve simultaneous selection for a variety of traits such as increased honey production and gentleness, which may reduce the efficacy of specific selection for disease resistance. Natural selection acting on both the bees and the mites is a process towards co- adaptation in the host-parasite system and is therefore likely to produce more sustainable results.


Source: Barbara Locke, block marking by me.


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## lharder

gww said:


> Iharder
> 
> 
> I just watched a trees for bees vidio today where the guy made simular cases for trees. That maples grow good in michigan and florada but a florada maple would not do good in michigan and vice versa even though they were the same tree.
> 
> I would swear that he said the same about a differrent tree that when planted would die almost every time but then suckers from it would do better. I think he was talking redbud on that tree.
> 
> I don't even know if this fits your point but it came to my head cause I seen it just today.
> 
> One other comment that I can't remember who to attribute it to was that even before mites, long term beekeepers would have big ebs and flows of hive deaths with some years being almost catastrophic. I have read several life lines of virouses that get hot and then run thier course and kinda die off. I don't think having virusses pop up is that much of an out of line thing to happen and for them to fade into the back ground also happens. On a differrent thread they are talking they parilize virus that is worse then the stuff that usually does not kill a hive and I saw randy oliver refer to it also today on a vidio and for now it seems to be something that will have to run its course and there is expectation that it probly will. I do not see how mite vectored virus would be differrent though I know they can go either way, IE get worse and die out or just get worse.
> Cheers
> gww


In theory the suckers should be the same genetically as the parent tree. There could be responses to the environment that the parent tree wasn't able to make, but the suckers could for some reason. But just to add to the complexity of this, I did a large paper on ectomycorrhizae fungi, that basically explored how phylogenetic (many groups of unrelated or maybe distantly related fungi) diversity expanded the ability of trees to cope with different environments within a given habitat. I came away from researching this that a tree was not just a tree, but a tree had to be considered in context of its associates. Moving a tree from one context where one set of associates is useful to another where other associates are needed is a possible reason as well. 

So when Michael Bush talked about the potential effects of treatment on colony ecosystems, it made sense to me that this could be so as every living thing basically lives with its associates. So we are not only interested in the evolution of bees and mites, but of systems. Systems that are successful propagate and reproduce. The complexity of these relationships are respected when a black box approach is taken. It is also helpful to understand the limitations. The introduction of varroa was probably a game changer in that moving bees long distances became more fraught with peril. It looks like some stability is possible in some circumstances, but not all.


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## msl

msl said:


> The Virus argument is a hollow one often used by bonders.


It seems I need to correct my view! bond may put higher virus loads.... A study of high mite load colony showed higher virus loads in the wax and colonys started on combs from a dead out were significantly impacted in honey production. I will start a thread for it, but felt I need to correct my stance in this thread.


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## lharder

msl said:


> It seems I need to correct my view! bond may put higher virus loads.... A study of high mite load colony showed higher virus loads in the wax and colonys started on combs from a dead out were significantly impacted in honey production. I will start a thread for it, but felt I need to correct my stance in this thread.


I heard a presentation by the person who did the research (name forgotten). An interesting development. I believe more detailed work is in the works.


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## Michael Bush

>I came away from researching this that a tree was not just a tree, but a tree had to be considered in context of its associates. Moving a tree from one context where one set of associates is useful to another where other associates are needed is a possible reason as well. 

The full context of a living organism is both how it fits into the ecology around it and the current circumstances. A bee colony in the winter in Nebraska is not the same as a bee colony in the summer in Nebraska. A bee colony in the winter in Nebraska is not the same as a bee colony in winter in Los Angeles, CA. Even a bee colony at night and a bee colony in the daytime are not the same. A bee colony that has mobilized to deal with a threat is different than one that has not recognized that threat yet.

"...a rose is not necessarily and unqualifiedly a rose... it is a very different biochemical system at noon and at midnight."--Colin Pittendrigh, 1965.


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## Virgil

Nice thread.

What is the end game of TF?

I've seen some suggest that a varroa resistance managed honey bee would benefit the wild or feral populations. 

Given that wild and feral populations already have phenotypes that can co-exist with varroa I think this is rather fanciful - feral and wild populations of bees already persist, they don't need our help with varroa. 

When you take bees out of those environments and put them in hives in a yard with another hive you're fundamentally changing the environment in which that population of bees successfully cope with varroa. 

If those bees then die a common reaction is 'they had the wrong genetics' - I always wonder how they know the genetics of the bees that have died? I doubt most beekeepers have an $800k benchtop tool to do this. The assumption that swarms are from feral 'survivor' stock also would seem a huge leap. How do people not know if 75% winter loses isn't the performance of these feral populations in a wild enviroment anyway?

90%+ of my hives normally survive, 100% (so far this year) that's an entirely artificially maintained level of performance. 

Survivor stock suffers from expectancy bias the idea that feral or wild colony have survival rates equivalent to those of managed, treated, bees - when they don't. Beekeepers would be well served if they stopped thinking along the lines of genetics and starting view bees in the context of their pheonotypes. 

At least then this would a more honest and nuanced conversation. TF beekeeper is about developing bees that can live in a managed environment with no varroa treatments, not about wild populations. 

It is about as valid to say TF beekeepers are helping conserve wild/feral populations of bees as Seaworld claiming breeding dolphins in tanks converses and supports wild populations. 

If you feed, insulate the hives, put on mouse guards, robbing screens, bear fences, beetle traps, splits or use any of the other techniques used to give our bees an unfair survival advantage you're treating. I saw a piece recently from an avid 'let them die' proponent demonstrating how to feed their hives white sugar in spring to stop them dying - the hive even has extra insullation. How honest is a beekeeping method that is ok letting bees die from varroa infestation but not starvation? 

If you keep bees in a box next to other bees in a box they are in a managed environment and as far as I can tell the most pragmatic TF people I've seen acknowledge that.

I think it is laudable that some beekeepers want to raise a bee with phenotypes that can be kept in a box without treatments. I hope they succeed I'll be in the queue for their bees.

But, given these are bees purposefully kept in boxes if you are just letting them die from varroa because you think the next swarm is going to have some sort of supergene that lets them thrive unaided in one of your boxes - you're in for a long wait with a lot of dead bees.


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## Virgil

--- double post ---


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## 1102009

> TF beekeeper is about developing bees that can live in a managed environment with no varroa treatments, not about wild populations.


Was this not the reason msl started this thread? Promoting IPM?



> Here’s the take home
> Monitor your mites, Mite Bombing is bad beekeeping, and can have a large negative impact on the development of TF bees in you apiary and in the wild.


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## msl

the 2017 results of Ross Conrad's Sare grant are up
https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fne16-840/
I don't get his langue... 
his "control" is strict TF
his "TF" is non chemical IMP (SBB, pulling the queen and leting them raize there own, drone culling, comb rotation)
and his TFQ appears to be something like a fly back split in stead of pulling the queen and then the same mangment as the TF

Any way its a good read given it not only tracks survival, but also mite counts, spring brood levels, *and* honey production.
there are some good take home points here.


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## msl

Dupe


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Source: Barbara Locke, block marking by me.
> 
> [...]
> 
> In Europe, breeding strategies take a different direction with more emphasis placed on maintaining the local genetic diversity in bee races that have adapted to the different environments and selection for mite resistance is based on low natural mite infestation rates produced through natural selection rather than selecting for specific traits (Buchler et al., 2010). Investigating the breeding potential of a naturally evolved mite-resistant trait was the objective of Paper III.
> 
> Selective breeding programs often involve simultaneous selection for a variety of traits such as increased honey production and gentleness, which may reduce the efficacy of specific selection for disease resistance. Natural selection acting on both the bees and the mites is a process towards co- adaptation in the host-parasite system and is therefore likely to produce more sustainable results.


My guess is that's what works for me. My (feral) bees have mites. They don't seem unduly troubled. I suspect mine are low fecundity mites, and if I put one of my hives among commercial hives they'd succumb to the high-fecundity mites. I haven't tried it. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Michael Bush said:


> The full context of a living organism is both how it fits into the ecology around it and the current circumstances. A bee colony in the winter in Nebraska is not the same as a bee colony in the summer in Nebraska. A bee colony in the winter in Nebraska is not the same as a bee colony in winter in Los Angeles, CA. Even a bee colony at night and a bee colony in the daytime are not the same. A bee colony that has mobilized to deal with a threat is different than one that has not recognized that threat yet.
> 
> "...a rose is not necessarily and unqualifiedly a rose... it is a very different biochemical system at noon and at midnight."--Colin Pittendrigh, 1965.


I read an interesting piece someplace lately about how many wildflowers have changed to flowering through the winter now that (here in the UK) we have milder winters - a marked change over just 30 years or so. It didn't happen to begin with, but has accelerated exponentially year on year, despite the temperatures being steadily just a few degrees higher throughout the period. 

If you think about it, that's the predictable outcome. As the strains that can flower through the winter do so, and seed, those strains become more populous. Elegant natural selection in action. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Virgil said:


> I've seen some suggest that a varroa resistance managed honey bee would benefit the wild or feral populations.
> 
> Given that wild and feral populations already have phenotypes that can co-exist with varroa I think this is rather fanciful - feral and wild populations of bees already persist, they don't need our help with varroa.
> TF beekeeper is about developing bees that can live in a managed environment with no varroa treatments, not about wild populations.
> 
> It is about as valid to say TF beekeepers are helping conserve wild/feral populations of bees as Seaworld claiming breeding dolphins in tanks converses and supports wild populations.
> 
> If you feed, insulate the hives, put on mouse guards, robbing screens, bear fences, beetle traps, splits or use any of the other techniques used to give our bees an unfair survival advantage you're treating. I saw a piece recently from an avid 'let them die' proponent demonstrating how to feed their hives white sugar in spring to stop them dying - the hive even has extra insullation. How honest is a beekeeping method that is ok letting bees die from varroa infestation but not starvation?
> 
> If you keep bees in a box next to other bees in a box they are in a managed environment and as far as I can tell the most pragmatic TF people I've seen acknowledge that.
> 
> I think it is laudable that some beekeepers want to raise a bee with phenotypes that can be kept in a box without treatments. I hope they succeed I'll be in the queue for their bees.
> 
> But, given these are bees purposefully kept in boxes if you are just letting them die from varroa because you think the next swarm is going to have some sort of supergene that lets them thrive unaided in one of your boxes - you're in for a long wait with a lot of dead bees.


I have about 100 feral-sourced hives that live next to other hives in boxes. The sum of my management is to put boxes together and put bees in them, or let them fly in. They do fine. (I also feed them: that _is_ about it) 

Its very important to me to avoid doing anything that would be at all harmful to the surrounding feral bees - which live in pretty much the same way. I think they are really important, to my bees, and, more importantly, to the local ecology. That's my idea of responsible beekeeping. 

At the very top of my list of things not to do is: don't help them be healthy. The best way to do that is ... 'manage' them like I do; i.e. don't manage them. 

Mike (UK)


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> the 2017 results of Ross Conrad's Sare grant are up
> https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fne16-840/
> I don't get his langue...
> his "control" is strict TF
> his "TF" is non chemical IMP (SBB, pulling the queen and leting them raize there own, drone culling, comb rotation)
> and his TFQ appears to be something like a fly back split in stead of pulling the queen and then the same mangment as the TF
> 
> Any way its a good read given it not only tracks survival, but also mite counts, spring brood levels, *and* honey production.
> there are some good take home points here.


I don´t understand his report at all.

First he starts by saying that there are 45 hives in 3 groups, 15 hives each:
"We proposed to split forty-five nucleus colonies into three groups of fifteen hives each. A test group that receives the above mentioned management techniques (TF or Treatment-Free), a treatment group that will receive a commercial mite treatment (Mite Away Quick Strip or QS), and a control group (Control or C). "


So far I follow.

Then he writes:
"Overall survival of each group of colonies by September 2017 (8 hives alive-TF, 7 hives-QS, 6 hives-TFQ, 5 hives-C) indicates NO statistically significant differences between groups."


So now he has 4 groups. 

If the TF and TFQ group were made from the originally 15 TF hives group, then he has 14 (8 +6) from that group alive. 
BUT: he says there are no statistical differences, so it cannot be that way.


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## msl

bottom of the page
_"An addition was made to the original design of this project by creating a fourth apiary composed of the bees and queens removed from the treatment-free (TF) yard. This fourth apiary location is about 15 miles from the other yards and makes up the Treatment-Free with Queen (TFQ) Group. These bees will be treated the same as the treatment-free apiary (TF) except, rather than removing bees, brood and the queen as is being done with the TF group at Elgin Springs, the queen will stay with the colony when bees and brood are removed to interrupt brood rearing"
_


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> bottom of the page
> _"An addition was made to the original design of this project by creating a fourth apiary composed of the bees and queens removed from the treatment-free (TF) yard. This fourth apiary location is about 15 miles from the other yards and makes up the Treatment-Free with Queen (TFQ) Group. These bees will be treated the same as the treatment-free apiary (TF) except, rather than removing bees, brood and the queen as is being done with the TF group at Elgin Springs, the queen will stay with the colony when bees and brood are removed to interrupt brood rearing"
> _


Right :thumbsup: (I better get my eyesight checked)

In order not to remove bees and mites from the system he should/could have a fifth group made from the brood taken from these TF groups.

If I take bees brood and queen from a hive, I don´t expect much honey to be gathered.


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## Vance G

Do TF people expect honey?


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## mike bispham

Vance G said:


> Do TF people expect honey?


Yes. 

Mike (UK)


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## msl

Given a night to sleep on it, the study has many problems 
and seems to be structured to minimize the effectiveness of chemicals 

_“Another group of fifteen hives will be the treatment group and will receive a *single* commercial mite control product in accordance with the product label {Mite Away Quick Strip (MAQS)}”
_
the lable reads 
_“monitor phoretic mite levels monthly during periods of brood rearing and treat when local thresholds are reached Treat during the colony population increase phase to protect the bees going into the honey flow. Treat during the colony decrease phase to protect the bees that will make up the winter cluster. In warmer climates additional treatments may be necessary due to longer brood rearing time. Missed treatments can lead to excessive varroa loads and may require more than one treatment” _

given they are only using a late fall TX and not treating by thresholds they are not following the labile, the next door state of NY suggests a ≥ 2 mites/100 bees in a sugar roll as the threshold..
There wasn’t a hive in the group below threshold 
_“Mite Away Quick Strip (QS) Group: Initial mite levels in May 2017 ranged from a low of 3 mites per 300 bees to a high of 9 mites per 300 bees. The average number of mite per 300 bees was 5.0 for QS group”_

Uggg he did noncem IMP to manage the mites in the TF study group while the MAQS group got nothing… and then in Sept proclaimed there was no difference in the mite loads, then aplyed the MAQS... inch: 

looking back at the time line he in fact was taking mite counts in may after the brood break and then in the fall after the SBB, drone culling, and brood comb removal (what happens when you shake bees off a comb over a SBB…yep mites fall off) and comparing the number to the MAQS colonies that had no mite intervention for a YEAR! 

The mite counts needed to be done pre split, and post sept MAQS on all hives with the pre split numbers being important as to survive long term the mite management needs to needs to return the load to at, or below its yearly starting point. 

The structure of the “study” Is so skewed it laughable, and I am embraced I didn’t catch it the 1st year. I can’t believe someone payed him to buy bees from himself and do this...

The only thing this shows is that ineffectual appulaction of chemicals doesn't do much good... we know that, 
and relay September? let the mites almost max out, then do something.... ya that has no effect on overwinter suravail


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## gww

Msl
From your last comments, it seems it was like the hives were all treatment free due to bad aplication. One take home might be that for 45 treatment free hives, it was a pretty low death rate over the period of the study.
Cheers
gww


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## Michael Bush

I'm afraid a lot of studies suffer from details that shift the results more than the topic of the study does... One thing poorly done compared to a different thing well done. Or one thing under less than optimal conditions compared to another under better conditions... The devil is in the details...


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## msl

no GWW, because the MAQS knock back the mites going in to the winter 
what we don't have is the pre split mite numbers, and or a mite count when they are broodless

so tobreak threw the haze lets look at sprng numbers as a beekeeper looking to expand
conroal you have 5 to split
QS you have 10 to split
TF you have 8 to split
and TFQ you have 7 to split

Agreed MB, But with seeley as an adviser on the project I had hoped for a better desinge 
the one nice thing is it seems to aproxmate the losses seen in the real world


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> so tobreak threw the haze lets look at sprng numbers as a beekeeper looking to expand
> conroal you have 5 to split
> QS you have 10 to split
> TF you have 8 to split
> and TFQ you have 7 to split


Sensible management decisions based upon [_appropriate_] information. 

Mike Bispham after Randy Oliver 

May I observe: this seems to me to be a distraction for people coming here wanting to learn tf beekeeping. Why not just let people who can do it explain how to do it? Again.


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## msl

Mike this is for BYBKs who want to learn treatment free BEEKEEPING (and a different path then the failure of bond) not just putting them in a box a pretending every thing will be ok, because for most, it has not been and will not be. Dogma got run over by karma as Michael Palmer put it 

The distraction is the old guard with that failed message aimed at a different target audience. Bond has failed to create repeatable and exportable results. As reported 1st hand in this thread, move Kefuss great stock, and it collapses and needs TX... all those years of breeding dose the BYBK nothing. 

In this "study" we see in the data 3 different ways to manage bees TF ... (Well chemical free, I see Sol has now switched over to “managment is a treatment”... IE splits drone culling, etc... IIRR you and I have discussed this at length. and agree they are... but he also says they may be needed at the start)

so even tossing out the TX data we have the author of Natural beekeeping showing what happens if you don't manage your hives, even with resistant stock, and what happens if you do some mapuations. Even Sam Comfort states his bees likly would not make it with out a swarm or a induced brood break.

I can't imagine this information not being of any instrest to any TF keep except the strait bonder keeping warre style 
if some one with great sucess is willing to teach, please do..... 

But just being a motivational speaker saying “buy resistance stock (LOL from were?) make a bunch of splits (Back yards often have strict colony limits) and some how the bees will magically adapt in you backyard” is just that... a motivational talk, no substance, just a pseudoscience pick me up about the ways of nature. 

People pop up with "bond not mite counts" forgetting the grandfathers of bond used mite counts and hygiene tests to select stock, Meanwhile Danny Weaver and John Kefuss have moved on to DNA tests for stock selection... so much for natural section, it never was. It was beekeeper section from the start, and not dead just narrowing the field the bee keeper looked at. 
its time to get with the times, the art of the mite wash has come in to its own and its not some huge aruguish task 

We need to break down what works, what doesn't work, and why.
I see TF like fishing.... Some lakes are better then others...but we all know that one guy who does geat.... you can sit next to him with the same bait and he pulls in fish after fish while you and everyone else around don't even get a nibble. He is doing something different than you, and you (and maby even him) don't know what that is. 
likle wize some lakes have next to nothing, and its not worth your time to fish there. some one with a great skill set may do OK.


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## 1102009

I´m very grateful to be permitted to talk about IPM here on this forum as a management to have any success of being treatment free in future without loosing most of my bees again and again.
That´s not abandoning tf or a transition to treatments as I was accused of recently.



> Iharder wrote:
> There may be place for IPM, in areas where bees cannot survive to the extent where losses can't be replaced. But I wouldn't do this at the beginning, rather start doing if genetics in the area are shown not to be able to survive. But bond should be part of the process regardless to obtain proper information about what is actually working (re selection proxies).


Genetics in my area show just that. Still, there is bond added by nature even if IPM are done.


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## Eastwood

I'm a nerd that prepared my bees for being treatment free before varroa arrived, african breeding material and small cell size. It failed. My B-plan was to use some treatment if I saw my tool to put food on the table go down the drain. The best for me and the bees I found was thymol. If I knew what I know today I had arrived quicker to being TF. Havn't posted for very long on this forum. I respect you all and your different ways and approaches. I expect the same from you. Just want you to know what I've finally found works. Monitor mite levels at least twice per season with a Bee shaker (alcohol wash), quick and easy. When varroa level is above 3% - 9 mites per 1 deciliter (300 bees) treat as soon as possible with thymol pads twice during three weeks in total. Replace the least good queens as soon as possible with daughters from some of the other hives (mature queen cell) and let the virgins mate in the apiary. Preferably have your apiary at least 1.5 mile from other bees. Even better 2 miles, or 3…the quicker progress. My latest post on my blog give my latest thoughts, the mite level in resistant bee colonies. My bees are "africanized" and SC. http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=1121


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## mike bispham

Lets review the big picture.

Many people are able to keep bees without any treatments at all. Their bees simply thrive as bees are meant to.

That is because they have mite resistant, or tolerant strains, and they are able to keep their strains that way.

This is achieved in the main by:

A) getting feral survivor bees or their descendants 

B) staying clear of commercial (shorthand for non-resistant) stock

C) managing their stock in ways that don't interfere with the _population's_ natural selection process, and even (very carefully) support it.

That's the recipe for treatment free. 

Notice how I _emphasised_ the _population_. That is the hidden variable that is the secret to treatment free beekeeping. Your genetics are as good as the genes that will come in. 

To do this you need a spot, or spots, that give you a measure of insulation from commercial genetics, and enough hives to lose some, and to overpower the aforementioned commercial genetics.

Most people who have succeeded have, its my guess, been swarm collectors and cut-out and bait-hive merchants. That's how you get your resistant strains and learn where the best places are - knowledge that you can use for bait hives and mating.

Now, in your insulated spot your bees are cool. Take them out and put them near commercial hives however and they'll likely fail. That's because at home they are among co-evolved mites, and they can't handle infestations of commercial mites.

That's the big picture of what works and why. And that is basic, background information that every aspiring beekeeper ought to be aware of, because whatever else you do, that outlines the deep ocean currents and tides that will carry you regardless of the winds and storms and sunshine that goes on at the surface, as it were.

My worry is that all this endless fascination with mite counts and other forms of manipulation drowns out this core, foundational picture. That newcomers will think that tf beekeeping is all about minute examinations of single hives - that that is the best way forward. It isn't. Understanding the deep currents of nature, and working with her grain is the best way forward. 

For those who, in your words... 

" want to learn treatment free BEEKEEPING (and a different path then the failure of bond) not just putting them in a box a pretending every thing will be ok, because for most, it has not been and will not be. "

...this picture contains the outlines of the essential reasons why such exercises fail. (And give the lie to your assertion, the false premise that underlies the entire approach you preach, that bond fails. It works fine, it just has to be done properly) 

And this picture points the way forward...

... It _is_ all in the genes. Getting the right genes and keeping them strong is what the art of husbandry is all about. Fail that and you _will_ fail. 

To set up the best bond conditions you can (according to the fundamentals above), and then let bond play out, works. Natural selection, as many of the researchers have commented, is much better at finding combinations that work than beekeepers. 

Mike


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> This is achieved in the main by:
> 
> A) getting feral survivor bees or their descendants
> 
> B) staying clear of commercial (shorthand for non-resistant) stock
> 
> C) managing their stock in ways that don't interfere with the _population's_ natural selection process, and even (very carefully) support it.
> 
> 
> To set up the best bond conditions you can (according to the fundamentals above), and then let bond play out, works. Natural selection, as many of the researchers have commented, is much better at finding combinations that work than beekeepers.
> 
> Mike


I have to tell that to my co-workers who try for years to follow such advise and still start new every other year. The first and second point cannot be followed.
The third point is what we worked on for years and still do because it´s not the silver bullet alone.

Still we want to have tf bees and don´t want to give up.
So IPM will give us a chance.


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## 1102009

Eastwood said:


> If I knew what I know today I had arrived quicker to being TF. Havn't posted for very long on this forum. I respect you all and your different ways and approaches. I expect the same from you. Just want you to know what I've finally found works. http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=1121


Welcome back to Beesource Erik.


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## squarepeg

many thanks for posting erik! i'll be reading your blog this weekend and if it is alright i may ask you some questions about it here.


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> A) getting feral survivor bees or their descendants
> 
> B) staying clear of commercial (shorthand for non-resistant) stock
> 
> C) managing their stock in ways that don't interfere with the _population's_ natural selection process, and even (very carefully) support it.
> 
> That's the recipe for treatment free.


that's pretty much my story. and in the meantime i've been able to learn effective swarm prevention and get honey crops competitive with others in my area who utilize more conventional management.


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## Eastwood

squarepeg said:


> many thanks for posting erik! i'll be reading your blog this weekend and if it is alright i may ask you some questions about it here.


Thanks yourself!
Feel free! Maybe I'll be able to answer.


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## msl

Honored to have you join us Eric

Mike 
how is the person who is the subject of this thread, a BYBK with 2-4 hives going to follow your advice? Answer they can’t… wrong message, wrong target market.
I am not saying you way doesn’t work for you in your area, It however doesn’t work in mine, and mine represents a large number of beekeeper instrestred in TF (chemical free) beekeeping. 
Your ways failed me and many others posting in this thread,many of us don’t have the isolation needed for bond, many of us don’t live in an area where TF has a susscfull track record. For us a different path in needed. Also keep in mind the scope and scale of bee movement in my country, that shorts out natural slection in a hurry... 

If gentinics were the answer we could just buy bees from you or outher successful TF keeper and be done with it, You Michael bush, Sam Comfort , Kirk Webster etc would all be millionaire queen producers.

I see it this way… 
A back yard bee keeper has 2 hives and one hive swarms and fails to requeen… 
do you #1 tell them “well you don’t want swarmy bees, so let the hive die”? 
or do you #2tell them "move a frame of eggs over form the other hive ?

I would tell them #2, most beekeepers would say #1 bad advice My argument about mites is the same… 

if they have one hive full of mites and one hive doing well
do you 1 tell them to let the infested hive die?
or do you 2 have them pinch the queen, crush the cells and then move over a frame of eggs form the more restiacant hive and see where they end up after the brood break and better gentinics? 
I would tell them #2, and if they weren’t 100% apposed give it a shot of OA while broodless to give the new queen a clean slate or at least cull the 1st frame layed to remove some more mites 

You position is #1, which makes no sense to me, the infested hive colaspices, mite bombs the good hive, and the rest of the nehorbohood. Our hive denistys our higher and or space between apiarys is much lower then rural beekeeping allowing mite bombs to domino. there a increasing pathogen issue here that you don't experience in your isolation 

Next year there is an inflow of commercial genticinics with all the replacement packages, shorting out any “natural” selection chapping to local adaption and resistance in the area.

You are thinking what can be done in your yard… I am talking what can be done on a landscape level with in the scope of the topic

You want restiance/TF to grow in the scope of this topic… teaching IPM to both camps is how to get there.

now what happens if we teach people how to keep their bees alive…. We stop the influx of commarginal genetics to an area (again talking urban/suburban).. where we have a much higher denenisty of feral bees in the urban areas 2.7 per KM2(Morse 1990) compared to rural 1.06 (seeley) 

Teach the reviver of a new package to do drone comb culling, not just for mites, but to castrate the colony, and then crush the queen towards the middle of the flow and pull a nuc when they draw cells… not just for the brood break, but to get 2 fresh queens mated with local drones, TX or not end of the summer, and they go in to the winter with 2 and have a fighting chance of not having to buy bees come spring... If enuff people did this there would local nucs for sale at a grass roots level (crags list etc) to cover local losses. 

enuff people do it we allow local adaption/natural selection to move forward, but it won’t intill we stem the flow of outside gentinicks (both bee and pathogen).

I don’t have a bought bee, there isn’t a line in my yard that wasn’t caught with in flight range of it I believe the ferals are out there in force and like SP I am relying the traits of the back ground. I firmly believe I could keep them off chemicals (at this point I now have to OAD 1X a year) if I wasn’t sounded by collapsing hives of well-meaning but miss informed backyard beekeepers and there commercial package bees, and if those same keepers were taught to control there genetic leakage the land scape would improve. Like wize one of the best things they could do is give that package a shot of OA to knock down those foren mites.


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## 1102009

msl
+1
for those who can´t be bond (yet, or not always, or after reinfestation) and those who treat with a schedule, IPM after monitoring must become common practise.


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## Oldtimer

msl said:


> I firmly believe I could keep them off chemicals (I have to OAD 1X a year) if I wasn’t sounded by collapsing hives of well-meaning but miss informed beekeepers and there commercial package bees, like wize if those same keepers were taught to control there genetic leakage the land scape would improve. Like wize one of the best things they could do is give that package a shot of OA to knock down those foren mites.


MSL speaks the truth, this does actually happen, even to me.

OK I treat, and the previous fall when I was doing my treatment round most hives were showing a few mites but still in good shape. Till I got to one yard and woah, serious problems, every hive totally overun by mites, virtually all brood dead, and the handful of bees in each hive listless and pretty much waiting to die.

How could things have got that bad, that fast?

In the distance could be seen a large commercial apiary where the guy had dumped a large quantity of "leftover dinks", bees too poor to go to the manuka feilds. On a hunch I drove over and took a look. Didn't open any hives, but some hives appeared dead, most others very poorly with mite infested crawlers walking all over the ground. Robbing in progress.

I am sure that's what happened to my bees. They collected big quantities of mites from the other site. It took all my skills, and the addition of bees from another yard down the road, to keep my hives alive, they did make it though.

Later I discussed this with the head beekeeper in charge of the other site, he admitted they were under time constraint and focussed on getting the good hives working well, and pretty much abandoned the dink yard to it's fate. They have got their act together a bit better since then though, after their boss got bawled out by a govt. administrator I complained to.


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## squarepeg

Oldtimer said:


> Later I discussed this with the head beekeeper in charge of the other site, he admitted they were under time constraint and focussed on getting the good hives working well, and pretty much abandoned the dink yard to it's fate. They have got their act together a bit better since then though, after their boss got bawled out by a govt. administrator I complained to.


:thumbsup:


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## 1102009

OT,
this happened to my first treated hive too, they robbed the abandoned nucs you see in the picture, I´m sure of this. The bee inspector took the nucs away and closed the place for this beekeeper.
My solution is to use robber screens on every hive and hope this will be prevented. And give some for free to my neighbors asking them to use this too.


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## Oldtimer

Yup, can happen to anyone.


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## msl

And now after 11 mounths we come back to the OG premise of the thread. In a BYBK setting allowing you hives to mite bomb is poor beekeeping and counter productive to your TF efforts, and that of others. It is irresponsible to damage the hives of others
From FP today 


Fusion_power said:


> One of the causes of failure when trying to select mite resistance appears to be mite bomb colonies in the area that collapse then get robbed out which overwhelms the colony doing the robbing with a huge load of mites. Randy mentioned this with a comment that maybe he is selecting for bees that do not rob..


http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-survivable-mite-loads!&p=1605882#post1605882 for full context

and Randys Jan/Feb artcials hit both the points home 


> Reinvasive drift of DWV-infected mites from other apiaries is a curse to beekeepers in a number of urban and suburban localities





> If you don’t deal with mite-infested colonies early, when they inevitably then collapse later in the season they may overwhelm any truly varroa-resistant hives with an influx of mites. A quote from the Cookeville Beekeepers perhaps says it best: Treatment Free beekeeping and just hoping for the best while doing nothing are NOT the same thing.


All beekeeping is local and the urban and suburban environment is very different then rural, It is nontraditional location It may require a nontraditional TF path


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## 1102009

I seem to be the only one trying to find a solution to this problem istead of blaming others. Or after blaming others try to change things! Cooperate!

What are your ideas to prevent a mite bomb?

The mite bombs come from treated ( in vain) or from tf ( neglected) hives. Or from your own apiary if you don´t monitor hives and IPM the susceptibles. Kill them or move them! Tf or not.

We have to live with our neighbors. What can we do? Reasonable ideas, please!

Sibylle


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## clyderoad

SiWolKe said:


> I seem to be the only one trying to find a solution to this problem istead of blaming others. Or after blaming others try to change things! Cooperate!
> 
> What are your ideas to prevent a mite bomb?
> 
> The mite bombs come from treated ( in vain) or from tf ( neglected) hives. Or from your own apiary if you don´t monitor hives and IPM the susceptibles. Kill them or move them! Tf or not.
> 
> We have to live with our neighbors. What can we do? Reasonable ideas, please!
> 
> Sibylle


"I seem to be the only one trying to find a solution......", "Reasonable ideas, please!"

OMG Are you serious?


----------



## msl

The answer of coarse is to promote IPM to both sides of the fence, neither bond or blind/poor timed TX is the way forward. Mite bombs are EVERYONE'S problem in BYBK land, regardless of your views on TX. 
In Randys Jan edition he talks about a the standard yard mangment TX taking out 90% of the mites in a bomb hive, and it still bouncing back bombing out. To effectively deal with the bomb you have to know its a bomb and give it extra attention. 

The long and short of it is at the BYBK level there is to much faith in "nature" and to much faith in "TX/cems" while many don't lisstion to there bees

There is way too much fake news from both camps and you need to fact check with your bees by way of a mite count, let them tell you what is working and what is not, they are the experts after all


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## 1102009

msl said:


> There is way too much fake news from both camps and you need to fact check with your bees by way of a mite count, let them tell you what is working and what is not, they are the experts after all


you are my brother :applause:


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> There is way too much fake news from both camps


There's no fake news from here. I'm doing it. I'm not the only one

If you can't get away from commercials you won't keep their mites out of your hives, and you won't stop their drones impregnating your queens. You are in the 'dead zone' as far as tf beekeeping is concerned. You will have to give your bees as much help on an ongoing basis as effectively constitutes treating. You may as well give up trying to be treatment free.

_There is no 'path' to tf, because tf where you are is unsustainable_.

If you want to be tf, you will have to look for a better place. 

These are basic, predictable facts.

Your thread topic is misconceived.

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> You may as well give up trying to be treatment free.
> Mike (UK)


This is not directed to me but I want to say that I and all of my friends must give up too in your opinion. No isolation anywhere.

We are in the same situation, being surrounded by small sideliners. But I´m not so sure it will not work with tf and IPM t mixed because I still have survivors doing bond until now and today I saw that my survivor rate is even higher than last winter, 10% higher. I have tf bees now for 3 years going into my forth and I still made mistakes in beekeeping, so why is that? The bees must know something we don´t know.

Sure, it will never be a constant situation, work will never end. But I´m not giving up and rather like the fascinating work.

I´m so glad Erik Österlund, whom I call mentor, never said to me : give up. He did not even try to tell me to get a better place! He is just interested what happens leaves the decision to me. 
Maybe I will find out a tf strategy to help the bees more than I do now.

Some will test their tf bees with keeping them in a production management like SP, some test them in a difficult location. But we all test them somehow and endanger them every season.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> This is not directed to me but I want to say that I and all of my friends must give up too in your opinion. No isolation anywhere.
> 
> We are in the same situation, being surrounded by small sideliners.


If you can outnumber them with lots of colonies and/or like-minded friends that might be a way to go. I'd also think about trying to find a good mating site - you can pick out your most promising mothers and mate their offspring elsewhere that could work for you. If enough colonies are doing that systematically you might quickly find the 'mite bombs' aren't bothering you. 

Of course making friends with the other sideliners and asking them please to control their mites would help... although that's a double edged sword - in the long run you want those lousy genetics gone, so those doing bond are also helping you.

You might also think about setting up unattended small hives here and there - to encourage a feral population in which natural selection will be at work. I find 6 frame nucs are large enough to attract swarms, and small enough that they reproduce quickly. You need larger ones too - or you may be selecting for dash and go genetics. Big unlimited brood nest hives are what really do the work. 

I'm just trying to suggest better ways forward than trying to swim against a tide that will always swamp you - if you truly are in that sort of tide. Fiddling about with 3 or 4 hives among a sea of commercials will never get you anywhere. Fiddling about with 10 or 15 hives AND a good mating site - even if its 100 miles away - is a different thing entirely. 

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

Eastwood said:


> Thanks yourself!
> Feel free! Maybe I'll be able to answer.


hi erik. excellent job on updating your website! :applause:

i've only just begun to to catch up on the more recent posts, but i have a couple of questions so far:

1. i see that you are using 3% mite infestation as a treatment threshold and criterion for requeening. can you tell us approximately what percentage of your colonies require this action?

2. i read this in your january 2018 blog:

"– Resistance to viruses, for example in the form of good production of suitable peptides (short amino acid strings) which “eat” viruses is important."

from: http://www.elgon.es/diary/?m=201801

i've found a couple of studies on this using google search and will look them over, but are their any studies in particular that you found particularly informative on this topic?


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## Eastwood

squarepeg said:


> hi erik. excellent job on updating your website! :applause:
> 
> 
> 1. i see that you are using 3% mite infestation as a treatment threshold and criterion for requeening. can you tell us approximately what percentage of your colonies require this action?
> 
> 2. i read this in your january 2018 blog:
> 
> "– Resistance to viruses, for example in the form of good production of suitable peptides (short amino acid strings) which “eat” viruses is important."
> 
> from: http://www.elgon.es/diary/?m=201801
> 
> i've found a couple of studies on this using google search and will look them over, but are their any studies in particular that you found particularly informative on this topic?


Thanks squarepeg

1. I have used this 3% threshold using the bee shaker (Easycheck that Dadant sells works fine) in 5 apiaries for a couple of years.
One apiary is placed at least 3 km (2 miles) from other bees and the last two years no colonies have been treated. The mite levels have been 0-1.5%.
Four apiaries have other beekeepers apiaries and my own (all with the same kind of bees as mine) on different distances 0.5-2 km (1/3-1.5 miles). 25-30% were treated last season.
In none of these apiaries were any signs of viruses seen
The other apiaries I treated a colony when seeing more than two DWV-bees (crippled winged bees), I made bee shaker test when seeing one DWV-bee, and I treated in spring those colonies that somewhat later would have their queens replaced as they had too many mites the year before. In those apiaries I treated 30-40% of the colonies.
In some apiaries that were fare from the center of ”my” area of bees and close to some apiaries of other beekeepers with susceptible bees or not very controlled concerning mites I treated almost all colonies.

2. The knowledge about peptides in the context of bees I’ve got from personal information from scientists. This is a quite new area of research.


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## squarepeg

understood erik. i appreciate your reply and thank you once more for taking the time to contribute here.

it will be interesting to see if the percentage of hives requiring treatment decreases year by year. i look forward to following the updates in your blog.

here is a review article that i found yesterday that contains several references about natural immuntity:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214574515000863

(i haven't had a chance to read it all yet)


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## Eastwood

squarepeg said:


> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214574515000863


Thanks for the link. An interesting article, a reference to peptides.


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## msl

Erik thanks for post 441..
If I understand it right, same stock, same management and the need to TX hives changes from 0 to 100% depending on location, and you feel that difference is caused by 
the area's higher mite loads caused by increasing apiary proximity, and how well those apiary's mites are manged has direct effect on your hives ?


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## Eastwood

msl said:


> Erik thanks for post 441..
> If I understand it right, same stock, same management and the need to TX hives changes from 0 to 100% depending on location, and you feel that difference is caused by
> the area's higher mite loads caused by increasing apiary proximity, and how well those apiary's mites are manged has direct effect on your hives ?





msl said:


> Erik thanks for post 441..
> If I understand it right, same stock, same management and the need to TX hives changes from 0 to 100% depending on location, and you feel that difference is caused by
> the area's higher mite loads caused by increasing apiary proximity, and how well those apiary's mites are manged has direct effect on your hives ?


Hi msl
My feeling I havn’t revealed. But it’s no misinterpreatation of the experiences that different mite loads in different areas have an impact on percentage of number of hives in an apiary that are affected quite a lot. 
But in the some of the apiaries closest to other more susceptible types of bees, the colonies have queens that are mated in that apiary, also some superceded and thus another generation with probable influence of other drones. So the genetics in some of those apiaries are not ”same stock” as my other apiaries. Why do I then have apiaries there? It’s because it’s difficult to get an average below 50 kg (110 lb).
In some apiaries, even if the stock is mine, it’s not updated in all colonies with queens from the latest most resistant breeders.
In apiaries (not the ”totally” isolated one) I have used the bee shaker and treated all above 3% mite level, the distribution of mite levels have been quite big. That’s interesting and kind of promising as this means it’s probably possible to improve the genetics through selection. I interpret the higher mite loads in some of the colonies there as the result of silent robbery as the increase in mite loads was quite quick and differed quite a lot from the others, from a similar earlier monitoring result with those colonies having a much lower mite load in the later monitoring.
In the most isolated apiary the varroa level actually decreased from the first TF year compared to the later (from 0-1.5% to 0-0.9%) which points to the possibility that a selection has taken place also here when I have replaced queens with the highest mite loads even if they all were well below 3%.
To summarize – It seems possible to select for better resistance using monitoring mite levels both in totally TF apiaries, and partially. It’s important to decrease the tendency to rob in resistant stock, so that resistant queens of such stock can deal with neighbours with high mite loads. I hope this system will help doing this.


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## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> In the most isolated apiary the varroa level actually decreased from the first TF year compared to the later (from 0-1.5% to 0-0.9%)


Hi Erik,

Nice to get similar results. I have also noticed that in TF stock infestation levels go down sometimes.

Do you move hives to (or from) this most isolated apiary ?


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## 1102009

Eastwood said:


> I interpret the higher mite loads in some of the colonies there as the result of silent robbery as the increase in mite loads was quite quick and differed quite a lot from the others, from a similar earlier monitoring result with those colonies having a much lower mite load in the later monitoring.


When in season did you see this? Was it after drones were expelled?


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> Hi Erik,
> 
> Nice to get similar results. I have also noticed that in TF stock infestation levels go down sometimes.
> 
> Do you move hives to (or from) this most isolated apiary ?


Hi Juhanni,
I don't move hives to and from this apiary as it is a part of a project. If I had done that I would have an uncertainity factor that may disturb what's going on in the apiary, other mites with other infestation levels of viruses, other infestation levels of mites, etc (etc may consist of things unknown).
Also to remember is that these low varroa levels are difficult to monitor correctly. There may not be so big differences relatively between the two years. We'll see what tis coming season will tell.


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## Eastwood

SiWolKe said:


> When in season did you see this? Was it after drones were expelled?


I'm thinking especially of one apiary which in May had varroa levels for all colonies below 1%, as well during the whole season of 2016. During 2016 an apiary of another beekeeper was established 1 km (2/3 miles) from this apiary of mine. During August nest measurement was done. Drones were no longer reared, but not expelled, at least totally. But nectar flow was gone. The best colony (concerning honey crop), which I had not taken any split from showed in August 1.7% varroa level. The next best colony, the mother colony of this one, neither gave any split, had 6.9%. A week before it had 3%. Why I made another monitoring a week later on some of the colonies was because some had 3% a week before so when I came with thymol to treat one colony, I monitored those that had had 3% to be sure. When I saw this big increase in just a week in some of the colonies I also monitored a few others of special interest, for example the 1.7% one that had had 1.4% a week earlier, which may well in reality have been the same level (or almost) due to uncertainty in the test method showing up because of the low varroa level.


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## 1102009

Thanks, Erik.

It´s hard to evaluate such situations, but I think well of you confirming the invasion with a second check before you treat.

In this thread Martin Dettli talks about resistant colonies "purging" themselves by altruistic behavior of infested bees leaving the hives. They colonies are weakened but do not die like our deadouts which are not as much regressed.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-existence-between-mites-and-bee-colony/page2

I wonder how much the drones play a part in this. Dee Lusby advises to have 10% drone comb on every frame as a mite trap and try to propagate hives which have drone brood throughout the year.

In my colonies I observed that drone cells were used again by the queens to lay eggs into when mite numbers rose. This was the case in fall after the drones were expelled. It was an interesting behavior even if it was not leading to the results I had hoped for, it was not sufficient in the end.

If the mites are directed into the drone cells before winter bees are bred and the drone pupa exterminated later ...hygienic behavior....nice thought.
Sibylle


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## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> ... for example the 1.7% one that had had 1.4% a week earlier, which may well in reality have been the same level (or almost) due to uncertainty in the test method showing up because of the low varroa level.


Yep;was just thinking about those weak points of IPM mehod and made a update to my blog.
https://naturebees.wordpress.com/


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## Eastwood

Eastwood said:


> Hi Juhanni,
> I don't move hives to and from this apiary as it is a part of a project....


This is the norm, but it has happend once I've taken a colony out of the apiary. That's because we decided in the prohejt group that the area had so low nectar resources in this forested area that we didn't want to go above a certain number of hives. We try every year to make one split from as many hives as possible and let them stay in the apiary. Splits from the best half of colonies are allowed to rear their own queen. The others get a mature queen cell. That's the goal. But reality and the bad years make us realize we must help sometimes with mature queen cells and sometimes laying queens (late in the season if the new queens have failed).


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## Eastwood

SiWolKe said:


> In this thread Martin Dettli talks about resistant colonies "purging" themselves by altruistic behavior of infested bees leaving the hives. They colonies are weakened but do not die like our deadouts which are not as much regressed.


Hi Sibylle
We don't know all traits and behaviours of the bees which they can use for their different needs. That's why I like more to monitor mite levels instead of selecting for one specific trait. You can miss some good behaviours that way too, so finally when varroa levels are generally low and just one odd hive will turn up with high levels or one odd DWV-bee even, when the rest keep the apiary healthy I think it will be time to stop also monitoring. But I'm not there yet.


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> Yep;was just thinking about those weak points of IPM mehod and made a update to my blog.
> https://naturebees.wordpress.com/


Even if the monitoring figures are less and less exact when the varroa levels decrease, I find them good enough to help me make decisions which to treat and which to not to treat when threshold is 3%. Even if will make some wrong decosions, they are few enough to make the bee stock go forward in resistance. That's what the figures tell me so far. For example in all apiaries which I have monitored all the colonies with the bee shaker and treated when varroa level is above 3% I have seen no signs of viruses. Also 3% threshold fits well with varroa levels in African and Africanized bees, as finallly the Italian bees on Fernando de Norhona, of 1-2.5%. When no susceptible bees are in the neighborhood. But these 1-2.5% are averages, so some odd hives have up to 4.5%. Also the levels can be higher when less resistant bees are in the same apiaries, but as no chemicals have been used, virus levels are low. So it seems when keeping the 3% threshold virus levels will decrease as well in our apiaries where chemicals of different kinds are around.


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## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> the area had so low nectar resources in this forested area that we didn't want to go above a certain number of hives.
> We try every year to make one split from as many hives as possible and let them stay in the apiary.


So there has been quite big losses in this isolated not treated yard?

(I understood you want to keep certain limited amount of hives there, all hives make one split, which stay in the yard. )


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## msl

Instering blog post JL 
my counter
#1 Yes mite counts are vairbuil, but you’re not making a breeding dissistion based on one count, you looking at a trend, for me this coming years breeder counts were 0,1,3,2,14(broodless) its nearest sister was 0, 2,6,2,32(broodless) to my eye I didn’t see a diffrance between the hives, the counts say other wise.. Given my location and pattern in my counts I may well be selecting for low robing traits.
The counts were the end of May,June,July, Aug and Oct drop in mites between the july and aug count is likely due to our july brood break from a dearth 

#2 equal management. In you example of 50% being TXed-Why would someone keep those queens, much less breed from them? In a bond program those hives die(depends on your thresholds I guess) and are replaced with splits no equalty there either.
There is no equal management between year classes (sister groups) , only the same class. Swam/superseadure also resets the clock as dose a split being pulled out.


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> So there has been quite big losses in this isolated not treated yard?
> 
> (I understood you want to keep certain limited amount of hives there, all hives make one split, which stay in the yard. )


Don't see the logic behind that question. But the question is legitimate. The project started in autumn 2014 three colonies. None of them were treated during 2014 and they were taken from different apiaries of mine. No wingless bees were observed. No losses that winter. 
2015: One of the colonies was too weak to make a split from so two splits were made. One of the original colonies tried to supersede but failed to get a laying queen. It got a mature queen cell. That one failed too. So it got a laying queen late in the season. It was wintered weak with quite some old bees and of course didn't make it. 5 colonies were wintered (including the splits). Of these 4 were treated with thymol. To better safe than sorry the weak one was treated somewhat in spring and later got a new queen cell which gave the coloy a new laying queen. The other three colonies showed in June some DWV-bees. These colonies showed varroa levels of 2, 3 and 7%. They were all treated as the additional threshold is more than two wingless bees, which the 2% one had.(By the way this colony was a daughter of a colony that had a VSH percentage of 80, that is very good VSH. I got good feedback of daughters of that VSH80 colony but in my apiaries they were among the first to show DWV-bees. I suspect when you concentrate too much on one trait you may end up also getting an unwanted trait strengthened, in this case virus susceptibility.) So the winter 2015-2016 one weak colony with old bees didn't make it. The others did.
2016:Also this season was a bad one. Three splits were made, but one failed to give a laying queen and was too weak to try to save, thus 6 wintered. But as we had decisded not to keep not more than 5 in the apiary, the sixth was moved to another apiary. That one had a varroa level of 1.7%. The beekeeper that got it was curious and gave it short treatment with formic acid to test the varroa population that way. 10 mites fell. The others had 0-1.5%. During winter a log harvester drove by the strongest colony with a few meter. Of course it didn't make it, but come out of the winter with dysenteri. The other 4 was ok.
2017: 2017 was again a bad year and you can say that one split was made kind of. One of the colonies had a failing queen from the previous year, thus badly mated. In May as soon in spring as I deared and hoped there would be mature drone around when the bees would have produced a new queen, I shiffted place with the strongest colony, took away the failing queen and gave this coloy a comb with both hatching brood and eggs and young larvae. It went well and these two colonies are the strongest now. I checked them a few days ago. They are fine so far, a low humming with a few dead bees outside. It has been quite a long period now with well below freezing. But I expect above freezing in a week or so. 
Looking forward for a new season, as always!


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> ...weak points of IPM mehod and made a update to my blog.
> https://naturebees.wordpress.com/


Hi Juhani,
I thought I may well give an example how I reason when deciding which to breed from and which queen I replace, or want to replace if I got all the time I want.
In your blog you give an example of three colonies with varroa levels of 2% (Col.1), 2.7% (Col.2) and 3.3% (Col.3). This is not enough for my basis for decisions. I want to consider at least the honey crop as another parameter. Let's say the honeycrop for these colonies were 20 kg, 40 kg and 30 kg. Let us also say that these three colonies are the only three in the apiary and that the distance to other bees are 3 km (2 miles). 
Coming season I would monitor the varroa levels again in beginning/Middle of May (or end of May) depending on climate, weather and season (latitude and longitude, etc). The bees should have had a couple of rounds of brood, at least. Let's say the monitoring gives the same relationship between the colonies (if it differ another decision may be taken). Let's also say that all colonies are strong enough to make splits from. 
I would breed queens from Col. 2. I also want to increase my number of hives so I will make splits from all three colonies. 
I would the queens in Col. 1 and in Col. 3. The new queens will mate in the apiary.
I do this choice in this situation with only three colonies to keep the genetic variation.
If so I will use three mature queen cells, one in each split. I will also put some in sall mating nucs if any of the virgins in the splits will fail.


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## 1102009

Eastwood said:


> Hi Sibylle
> We don't know all traits and behaviours of the bees which they can use for their different needs. That's why I like more to monitor mite levels instead of selecting for one specific trait. You can miss some good behaviours that way too, so finally when varroa levels are generally low and just one odd hive will turn up with high levels or one odd DWV-bee even, when the rest keep the apiary healthy I think it will be time to stop also monitoring. But I'm not there yet.


I´m with you there. There is a big difference between trying to evolve a queen line to sell the queens or just trying to keep alive bees which need no treatment.
The first can be done by artificial insemination to have a trait, the second considers the location more. I would prefer to buy the second because many different traits are considered. The location,that´s why I believe everyone has his own threshold and must test every queen line.
In my case the monitoring and deciding when to use IPM will never stop because I lack isolation. But I find no fault in this.


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## Eastwood

SiWolKe said:


> .....
> In my case the monitoring and deciding when to use IPM will never stop because I lack isolation. But I find no fault in this.


You never know. From what I've taken part of from your apiaries your bees are doing surprisingly well, even after superseding and new generations mating in your apiaries, considering your neighbour bees are not far away. Maybe some kind of drone advantage for your drones? And your bees may be able to keep out bees from your neighbouring hives. It will be interesting to follow what happens coming seasons.


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## 1102009

Why, many thanks Erik! 

That I´m going into the fifth year with tf bees, and bonded they are, is a myth to me. Still, losses I accept are 30% and this can only be using IPM. ( or be a better beekeeper).

And yes, I used the robber screens, and the elgons ( hybrids) and AMM (hybrids) have a nice entrance defense and do not drift much. The Carniolans are all gone.


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## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> The project started in autumn 2014 three colonies.





Eastwood said:


> 2015: 5 colonies were wintered (including the splits). Of these 4 were treated with thymol. To better safe than sorry the weak one was treated somewhat in spring...
> These colonies showed varroa levels of 2, 3 and 7%. They were all treated as the additional threshold is more than two wingless bees, which the 2% one had.





Eastwood said:


> 2017: 2017 was again a bad year and you can say that one split was made kind of.



Now I understand. You started with 3 colonies. They have been TF since 2015 and you have not been able to do splits 2017.


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> I In you example of 50% being TXed-Why would someone keep those queens, much less breed from them? In a bond program those hives die(depends on your thresholds I guess) and are replaced with splits no equalty there either.
> There is no equal management between year classes (sister groups) , only the same class. Swam/superseadure also resets the clock as dose a split being pulled out.


Yes you are right, but my point (in my blog https://naturebees.wordpress.com/) was that unless rigorous mite monitoring is done, every two weeks at least, there is good change ending up making very uncertain breeding decisions.

I don´t know any beekeeper who has done IPM as the major breeding system and who would be TF today.


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> .....You started with 3 colonies. They have been TF since 2015 and you have not been able to do splits 2017.


Yes, in the isolated project apiary which is situated in an unfavorable place for honeybees. The spring 2017 was cold and long. Many colonies with many other beekeepers perished during spring, even in favorable places. In total I run about 120 colonies and am trying to come down to 100. You can see how this apiary looked like 1 Dec 2017 here: http://www.elgon.es/resistancebreeding.html Strategy A, almost at the bottom of the page.


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> .....
> I don´t know any beekeeper who has done IPM as the major breeding system and who would be TF today.


I'm glad for every beekeeper that focus on TF beekeeping. The beekeeping world needs this. Both Bond and IPM have the same goal. we are not enemies, but friends.
For the full picture in would be interesting to know how many TF beekeepers today have less than 10% annual losses and a good average honey crop based on the number of hives wintered the previous autumn. That's the economical average.


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## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> I don´t know any beekeeper who has done IPM as the major breeding system and who would be TF today.


But you have done that too or is not the introducing of better stock IPM too? Is not queen breeding as you do it, inseminating, and shifting to better queens IPM too?

:scratch: I do not understand this IPM thing. I feel I´m a treatment free beekeeper using managements to have bee numbers, but the moment those bees get a tf queen they are treatment free or are they not?

One bond bee yard to have the best genetics and one to have bee numbers is exactly my IPM management in future except I will measure the mite threshold for the placing in bond yard one season later.

Out of the german part of your website, translated google:



> The current working model
> (the current way of working)
> 
> In Varroa resistance breeding, my mode of operation developed in two directions:
> - in the major colonies, a varoa treatment is performed once a year with an oxalic acid drop treatment (3%) after mid-October. This is because you can estimate the number of Varoen in the peoples with a minimum amount of work. In the big colonies also the other production characteristics are considered for the breeding. The amount of oxalic acid is reduced by 5 ml per year.
> The so-called small colonies are set up only for the clarification of the Varoaresistenz, they are not medicated. And from the best of the winter, the queens are bred for the next generation colonies. These are crossed on special breeding stations with varoaresistenten drones. The Varoanumber in the small hives are not measured, only the survival decides.


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## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> I'm glad for every beekeeper that focus on TF beekeeping. The beekeeping world needs this. Both Bond and IPM have the same goal. we are not enemies, but friends.


I think there is a difficulty here in that 'IPM' means anything anyone wants it to. 

I think what you mean Erik is 'IPM geared to resistance raising') or something of that kind. But to know what that entails needs a lot of further definition. 

By contrast 'isolated hard bond' is clear and easily understood. Its known to work, and the variables - degree of isolation vs number (= degree of mating influence), starting stock - are few and simple to understand. The rest is optional extras - things like monitoring for resistance levels and other selection criteria may help things along, but given good starting stock and natural selection things will work out anyway.

I'm cautions when people talk about tf and IPM in the same sentence. Its too easy to fool yourself - and others.

I'd no less uncomfortable having a lot of IPM hives near my bees than I am having a lot of simple treated commercial hives - without knowing a lot more about them. Basically, if they are not self-sufficient I don't want them near, period. Whether they are thriving or struggling is a secondary concern. The idea of 'mite bombs' doesn't worry me.

Mike


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> But you have done that too or is not the introducing of better stock IPM too? Is not queen breeding as you do it, inseminating, and shifting to better queens IPM too?
> 
> :scratch: I do not understand this IPM thing. I feel I´m a treatment free beekeeper using managements to have bee numbers, but the moment those bees get a tf queen they are treatment free or are they not?
> 
> One bond bee yard to have the best genetics and one to have bee numbers is exactly my IPM management in future except I will measure the mite threshold for the placing in bond yard one season later.
> 
> Out of the german part of your website, translated google:


IPM = Integrated Pest Management 

IPM is for instance compulsory today (in EU) for all farmers. They have to monitor their crops for weeds and pests, and consider all possible methods to get the wanted result. Only after doing this they are allowed to use chemicals. 

I would not consider inseminating, changing queen or introducing new stock as IPM tools. They are normal beekeeping methods used by all beekeepers. With or without pests.


The german part of my web side is maybe the one translated by Jürgen Kueppers for his book. What you took and translated with google back to English was my system 2001-2008, 10 years ago.


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## 1102009

> If you pursue treatment-free beekeeping without close attention to your colonies, then you will create a situation in your apiary in which natural selection is favoring virulent Varroa mites, not Varroa-resistant bees. To help natural selection favor Varroa-resistant bees, you will need to monitor closely the mite levels in all your colonies and kill those whose mite populations are skyrocketing long before these colonies can collapse. By preemptively killing your Varroa-susceptible colonies, you will accomplish two important things: 1) you will eliminate your colonies that lack Varroa resistance and 2) you will prevent the "mite bomb" phenomenon of mites spreading en masse to your other colonies. If you don't perform these preemptive killings, then even your most resistant colonies could become overrun with mites and die, which means that there will be no natural selection for mite resistance in your apiary. Failure to perform preemptive killings can also spread virulent mites to your neighbors' colonies and even to the wild colonies in your area that are slowly evolving resistance on their own. If you are not willing to kill your mite-susceptible colonies, then you will need to treat them and requeen them with a queen of mite-resistant stock-Tom Seeley


That´s what msl quoted. And that´s what I believe IPM is.Or is for me.

Last year I splitted the mated queens with one or two brood frames and saw this as IPM. Why? Because the bigger splits, half-half bred too many mites. This queen colonies have all survived this winter, one survived two winters. 
These new colonies were almost mite free in fall. The bigger mother hives were mite infested in spite of the brood brake. Only the two parts of one of this colonies survived because they throwed a swarm. All others are gone.

Now you say that this colonies are "resistant"? I believe in resistance the moment an established production hive is resistant not a queen breeding project.

Mike, do you mean me?


> I'm cautions when people talk about tf and IPM in the same sentence. Its too easy to fool yourself - and others.


I´m surrounded by mite infested treated colonies from my neighbors, why should I care about IPM hives near? Mine are not near my tf hives. 
I was a fool to ever to think hard bond will work forever in my area. Not a fool speaking about the path.

Funny first to be told hard bond will never work and then critized because of trying another approach which will not kill as many colonies. BS


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## msl

IMP is pest management, most certainly bringing in resistance stock is part of that 
IPM is not a breeding program, neither is bond. 
In breeding bolth are simply a filter to limit the number of hives a beekeeper needs to evacuate as breeding stock, both find you hives that haven't been TXed and are still alive. From that point you aply what ever parameters you have set up for your program. 


> I don´t know any beekeeper who has done IPM as the major breeding system and who would be TF today.


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2016.1160709?af=R


> requeening with queen cells and virgin queens from the best 1–5 colonies in each group throughout the field test. *Low mite levels *and general colony performance such as the ability to rear high-quality queens and honey production determined selection of the breeding


Kefuss, the grandfather of bond, used mite counts to slect his breeding stock



> requeening non-selected mite infested bees from other beekeepers with open-mated daughters from selected survivor queens.


Kefuss, the grandfather of bond brought in TXed stock to get his numbers up 
Kefuss used FBA, mite rolls, and counting mites under capping, now he is looking at DNA there were years he bread from a single queen and re queened lots of hives, exerting powerful selection on the test population, selection pressure far exceeding "nature" 

I see no reason not to TX and save you own stock for resource use and select by mite counts even if your "bond".... why buy TXed bees when you can make your own....lol

Be it Bond or IMP the bigist issue is a complete misunderstanding by beekeepers. in Kefuss' work it was not "nature" who selected the bees, it was Kefuss, bond just saved him from wasting his time doing rolls on hives that weren't going to make the grade, nothing more, no magic "nature"!
Me, I have more time then money hives so its worth the 20min or so my time pre hive year to keep tabs on my mites, even at $30 an hour if I stop 1 in 12 from dieing its break even on what a replacement is worth (and I can't buy as good as I have), and a mite bomb could be costly. How I manage my 20 is different than how I manged 3, and it will likly change again as I grow, the message need to be scaled to the aduance 

Any way we digress the BYBK as defined in this thread isn't going to do any sort of breeding,however they can do some level of stock selection. They have 3 hives how do they chose for resistance? Mite counts were good enuff for Keffuss, I suggest they are good enuff for them.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> IMP is pest management, most certainly bringing in resistance stock is part of that
> IPM is not a breeding program, neither is bond.


Bear in mind, these are your personal definitions.

Bond certainly is a breeding program. The more vulnerable are deselected and the most resistant genes go forward in the greatest number. It's 'breeding' in a qualified sense only - natural selection is not normally thought of as 'breeding' - yet the decision to adopt it is a breeding decision. 



msl said:


> ... in Kefuss' work it was not "nature" who selected the bees, it was Kefuss, bond just saved him from wasting his time doing rolls on hives that weren't going to make the grade, nothing more, no magic "nature"!


Kefuss travelled a long way to find naturally resistant bees, and succeeded. He, with a growing number of researchers, testifies to the efficacy of nature over human selection in this respect. 

A great many small outfits like mine have got their survival numbers up quickly and effectively by finding naturally resistant feral stocks. That understanding is pretty basic to the tf community - at least that part of it who are succeeding. 

Its pretty backward to be dismissing the very real near-miracle of natural selection for the fittest strains. It shows a fundamental ignorance of nature and of husbandry. 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

> I see no reason not to TX and save you own stock for resource use and select by mite counts even if your "bond".... why buy TXed bees when you can make your own....lol


:thumbsup:


> A great many small outfits like mine have got their survival numbers up quickly and effectively by finding naturally resistant feral stocks. That understanding is pretty basic to the tf community - at least that part of it who are succeeding.


nice to have feral swarms available...send me some! Yes, no problem to succeed, catch more swarms if you have losses. 


> Its pretty backward to be dismissing the very real near-miracle of natural selection for the fittest strains. It shows a fundamental ignorance of nature and of husbandry.


Natural selection in an industrial and agricultural environment? 
:lpf: sorry


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> nice to have feral swarms available...send me some! Yes, no problem to succeed, catch more swarms if you have losses.
> 
> Natural selection in an industrial and agricultural environment?


If its allowed and practicable I'll happily sell you some of mine. 

As I've indicated recently, if you are in a 'commercial environment', beewise, nothing you can do will enable you to become tf. You are fighting a losing battle.

Mike


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> As I've indicated recently, if you are in a 'commercial environment', beewise, nothing you can do will enable you to become tf. You are fighting a losing battle.
> Mike


You know this is the argument which prevented beekeepers to try treatment free. Every treater uses this argument. Thanks, Mike, for promoting this.

I´m 5 years tf , I´m not becoming tf, and I still have tf bees and survivors and I don´t need a commercial setting. So the *tf-IPM* path is good for me and I do not fear your prophesy.


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## msl

> A great many small outfits like mine


Your "small" is massive compared to the subject at hand, we are not talking about you, we are talking about them. 
As I said before If you wish to debate resistance selection for the sideliner, start a thread and I will meet you there. 



> It shows a fundamental ignorance of nature and of husbandry.


The failing is putting the success of Keffus on nature, not his husbandry, and passing that erroneous message forward.




mike bispham said:


> You may as well give up trying to be treatment free.





mike bispham said:


> As I've indicated recently, if you are in a 'commercial environment', beewise, nothing you can do will enable you to become tf. You are fighting a losing battle.


Your own posts state these BYBK have ZERO chance of being TF with your methods, yet you argue against any different path.:scratch: :lpf:

I compleatly agree with you, they have no chance with your methods, and that was the reason whole for this thread.


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## Eastwood

Eastwood said:


> ....
> For the full picture in would be interesting to know how many TF beekeepers today have less than 10% annual losses and a good average honey crop ...


I know of at least two, the two beekeepers on the island Fernando de Norhona outside the coast of Brazil on 22° latitude. They have been tf with varroa since 1984, with Italian bees, but intitially the bees (not queens and drones) were africanized with their comb (natural african) and microfauna. And first the varroa level was 50%, finaly today it's 1-2%. No virus problems ever. That's the answer. And very little of chemicals on that island that could help the viruses. If we restrict ourselves to non-african bees. 
The scenario of Seeley is true today with our bees because bees and mites are so virus filled AND we have more than one hive per apiary and apiaries are much closer than in average than 800 meter (feral apiaries) AND chemicals are abundant in and close to colonies lowering immune system with bees and thus promoting virus growth.
There are admirable and struggling tf beekeepers helping all of us getting more knowledge. It seems it's also possible to loose less bees and increase varroa resistance in an IPM strategy. And anywhere someone would like to go tf it must be better to start with more resistant bees than less.


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> Kefuss, the grandfather of bond, used mite counts to slect his breeding stock


Mite counting is not prohibited in bond method, I do it, I think everybody should do it.

Question is would Kefuss have achieved what he has without bond?


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## msl

I can't see why not, once you come to terms with it was the beekeeper advancing the stock, not magic nature, I see little difrance between TX the ones that would die and requening/selling/moveing to a new yard/etc and leting them die... net genetic effect is the same your going to be selecting from stock that has kept its mites down the best without out TX and those who did not have had there genetic line ended. 

if I have 100 hives, come spring I am going to propagate from the top 2-4 or so that didn't need TX and had the lowest mite counts for the year and what ever other traits I am looking for become the tie breaker... 
It doesn't matted if I go bond and lose 80 of the outher hives or TX them and lose 30, my selection remains the same and picks the same hives. The fate of the hives not selected is immaterial to the select stock. 

the threshold for TX for max honey is very different then if the gole is merely to head off death, and thats maby were peolple get hung up.. A TXed hive is such a program is done, it has been TX merely to head off a mite bomb and provide resources to raise select stock. 
It is dead, but has been put on life support as its an organ donor, and we need to keep it fresh till we can set up to harvest it 

But that's not the question, the question at hand is can a BYBK be successful with bond, and form most sources that seem to be a no 
That leaves us with IMP (and the hope they will be able to maintain with non chemical methods) as the only reasonable option to offer them


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> I can't see why not, once you come to terms with it was the beekeeper advancing the stock, not magic nature, I see little difrance between TX the ones that would die and requening/selling/moveing to a new yard/etc and leting them die... net genetic effect is the same your going to be selecting from stock that has kept its mites down the best without out TX and those who did not have had there genetic line ended.
> 
> if I have 100 hives, come spring I am going to propagate from the top 2-4 or so that didn't need TX and had the lowest mite counts for the year and what ever other traits I am looking for become the tie breaker...
> It doesn't matted if I go bond and lose 80 of the outher hives or TX them and lose 30, my selection remains the same and picks the same hives. The fate of the hives not selected is immaterial to the select stock.
> 
> the threshold for TX for max honey is very different then if the gole is merely to head off death, and thats maby were peolple get hung up.. A TXed hive is such a program is done, it has been TX merely to head off a mite bomb and provide resources to raise select stock.
> It is dead, but has been put on life support as its an organ donor, and we need to keep it fresh till we can set up to harvest it
> 
> But that's not the question, the question at hand is can a BYBK be successful with bond, and form most sources that seem to be a no
> That leaves us with IMP (and the hope they will be able to maintain with non chemical methods) as the only reasonable option to offer them


What is TX ? What is the X for?
(I get your reasoning, but these endless one-two -three letter shortenings of words makes text incredibly difficult to read.)


One back yard beekeeper can do absolutely nothing, no matter what method is used.

Lets imagine an environment of a lot of back yard beekeepers, say hundreds in small area, each 10 hives.

Half of them will go bond half go IPM. 

If some results will some day come, I´m pretty sure the one who gets results is one using bond. Why? Because of mite counting errors and threshold has been set in a wrong level.


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## Juhani Lunden

Varroa resistance is about fighting back. As Erik wrote, I´ve seen it too, there are hives in which mite infestation goes down. It is this ability to fight back which is very likely missed in IPM.
The ability to withstand big mite numbers (virus resistance) is equally missed in IPM. This ability is crucial when we finally have a situation when the great majority is willing to consider being TF, they buy queens and set them in their back yard hives. It is then the ability to withstand high mite infestation becomes crucial.


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## gww

juhani


> What is TX ? What is the X for?
> (I get your reasoning, but these endless one-two -three letter shortenings of words makes text incredibly difficult to read.)


I don't see much differrance in the TX in this and the TF in this.



> This ability is crucial when we finally have a situation when the great majority is willing to consider being TF,


If you know what is being ment, it is easier to type. Don't take my criticisim too hard cause I personaly agree with your hard bond and I go even furthure, I want open mating with all bees around me and don't want to stack the deck right off the bat. I don't pretend to know what parts the bees will use. Now that being said, I have not lost a lot of hives yet or been at it long. So I doubt that I change my mind on my belief at this point of what I think would work best or fastest but if the price is too high, I doubt I care enough to be the one to prove it. I do believe it reading everything I can though. The one thing that sticks in my mind are the few test that were run with commercial treated bees and run in close proximaty of them. A whole bunch died but some did well and thier ofspring got better and to me, this means it was more the presure on them from mites then it was pure genetics. There may be a genetic resessed gene that comes to the fore front but It could be some plant used more and some learned behavior also added in. So I agree with the not knowing exactly what to chose but more let the bees find what works. I believe this till I lose to many and then I still believe it even if I decide not to act on that belief.

I still think those others may improve thier lot on the route they take, I personally don't think it would happen as fast picking a threshold but it might be cheeper. 
Cheers
gww


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## Juhani Lunden

gww said:


> juhani
> 
> 
> I don't see much differrance in the TX in this and the TF in this.


TF has been used in Beesource ever since, it is easy to figure out where it comes from, this is treatment free forum.

On the other hand for some reason I have never seen this TX used before. I may be mistaken.


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## gww

juhani


> On the other hand for some reason I have never seen this TX used before. I may be mistaken.


Still, after you saw it the first time and figured out what it ment, the second time you saw it from the same poster, it was probably pretty easy to figure out. Many times I see people pick on my sentance structure and spelling rather then take on my content.

Still, I have followed your blog. I know you did threshold, ipm type bee keeping for many years and then switched to hard bond and are seeing some improvement. I do agree more with your route and also am thankful for your reporting over the last almost ten years.
I understand msl's position in this thread that small bee keepers can have no success. I have seen that related from the others participating in this thread also. I do say that my position is that a person with a few hives that wants to try it should. He should know when he does that he may lose all his hives. I have just seen too many small scale people that say they have just not treated and thier bees are alive and so, my view is not that it is so impossible though there are others that tried it that it was immpossible for. 

Of course, I just read a guy that treats that lost 80 percent of his hives also. His view was something bad came through. 

I think there are places and bee keepers that can keep bees TR for production and not lose them all. I think they can do it with out an IPM regimate. I don't say I will be one but so far so good. I only say there is one way to find out. Know the risk and try it. If it works, it is defanatly faster then trying other ways. If you can't take the pain, then other ways are all that are left and ipm is one way to keep trying.

If it is working, I don't think you are hurting the bees as bad as moving a bunch in and treating them. It is working good enough for some small guys.

I am firmly convinced that it is maxamam pressure from the mites that moves those bees that can be moved with out dieing.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Juhani Lunden

gww said:


> I know you did threshold, ipm type bee keeping for many years and then switched to hard bond and are seeing some improvement.


You have misunderstood.

IPM is a method where treatment decisions are based on mite numbers.

Before I started using bond, I did diminish treatments, but all hives got the same amount of oxalic acid in that period. That is not IPM. 

If I would have given a) 15 ml to hive A because it had moderate number of mites b) 30 ml to a hive which had much more mites c) 0 ml to a hive with very few mites, that would have been IPM. But I did not do so. 

Take for instance year 2008. I gave all hives 3 ml of oxalic acid, no matter how many mites they had.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> By the way this colony was a daughter of a colony that had a VSH percentage of 80, that is very good VSH. I got good feedback of daughters of that VSH80 colony but in my apiaries they were among the first to show DWV-bees. I suspect when you concentrate too much on one trait you may end up also getting an unwanted trait strengthened, in this case virus susceptibility.


This is actually very interesting news, because I got two VSH queens from Central Europe two years ago. One died during first winter, may have been because of too weak nuc, but the one surviving was showing virus symptoms and even mites in a very early stage. That made me think about the possibilities of VSH breeding as it is so much done today. 
How do you see the possibilities of VSH breeding? Arista research is doing a lot of one drone inseminations.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> It is this ability to fight back which is very likely missed in IPM.
> This ability is crucial when we finally have a situation when the great majority is willing to consider being TF, they buy queens and set them in their back yard hives.


Why is it missed? :scratch:
I haven´t met anyone who can afford your queens 500€, me included, so to spread good genetics we as a group have to raise our own queens. I´m grateful I can afford queens from another source and breed the descendants though.

https://www.apimondia.com/congresse...ce selection for beekeepers - KEFUSS John.pdf
Here Kefuss says:
...before...
...then run the bond test
-graft from the "bond test" queens with lowest amount of varroa
-monitor varroa levels in brood before treating hives in "bond test"
-stop chemical treatments when brood varroa infestations are less then 5%

Instead of buying queens every second year from tf breeders everyone can do this, even the small beekeeper. And my dream is the treaters to start something like this too.
They will do it only if they have losses compared to their treating managements, and they will only follow such a path if they are given an example.



> If some results will some day come, I´m pretty sure the one who gets results is one using bond. Why? Because of mite counting errors and threshold has been set in a wrong level.


Yes, it´s a difficult decision about the mite levels, because it is set locally. In the end one must be bond. Josef Koller advises to have two separate bee yards and to use one for IPM and the other for bond.
I find this a very good idea. The considered mite threshold can be changed anytime.


----------



## msl

TX is medical short hand for "treatment" such as "RX" is for recipe aka a prescription. 
Arguably it would be more presice that TX would be better used for non cem intervention and RX for cems, but that would confuse more people then I already did 

Eric How did you test for VSH?


----------



## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> Varroa resistance is about fighting back. As Erik wrote, I´ve seen it too, there are hives in which mite infestation goes down. It is this ability to fight back which is very likely missed in IPM.


I understand fighting back as bees cleaning brood with mites and grooming. I agree this is very important. I can't understand why this would be missed in IPM. Havn't seen any experiences from anyone indicating that. Fighting ability is also keeping the hive clean from bees from other hives. Low incliniation for robbing is also important



Juhani Lunden said:


> ...
> The ability to withstand big mite numbers (virus resistance) is equally missed in IPM. This ability is crucial when we finally have a situation when the great majority is willing to consider being TF, they buy queens and set them in their back yard hives. It is then the ability to withstand high mite infestation becomes crucial.


Virus resistance is important too I agree. This was allowed to work in my selection when I had as threshold seeing more than two crippled winged bees, not counting mites at all. Also for selecting breeders, a breeder should have been a big hive with this queen going maximum without DWV-bees the year before she would have a chance to be selected as a breeder. When next spring came she should develop well and have no wingless bees. Then a split with the queen would be brought to the breeders apiary.
The group of colonies in which I would have the chance to find breeders grew. But the total numbers of hives that showed DWV-bees anough to need thymol decreased very slowly. It was 80-90% of the hives for quite some years and I came to the conclusion I had to change strategy. (Thymol was used as soon as possible affter DWV-bees had been observed regardless when in season and number of supers on the hives. It is very effective to take down number of mites and residues in honey goes down quickly in honey as it's highly volatile. In wax it takes somewhat longer as it is fat soluble.) Winter losses were less then 10%. 30% of the survivors were dinks

It was after I changed strategy and began monitoring varroa levels and treat when varroa level is above 3%, in a group of apiaries. Plus in the other apiaries monitoring when seeing just one DWV-bee. Plus treating those hives already in spring which I decided the previous autumn would have their queens replaced. 
With this stricter regime the percentage of treated colonies decreased to 40-60%. In the apiaries where monitoring take place in all colonies and the threshold 3% is used 0-30%. And no virus signs are seen in the apiaries in which monitoring is done in all colonies and threshold for treating is 3%.
In those apiaries with apiaries of other beekeepers are close with bees with higher mite loads, 90-100% were treated. (But colonies in those apiaries have queens that probably are not pure my stock but mated more or less to susceptible drones from neighbouring apiaries.
Now still winter losses are below 10%. But dinks have decreased to 15% of the survivors.

For the full picture. African bees and Italians on Fernando de Norhona didn't evolve resistance through high virus loads. Viruses were not present at all or to a very very low degree (Fernando de Norhona surprisingly). From 50% varroa level down to 1-2%.


----------



## 1102009

msl said:


> Eric How did you test for VSH?


Here is an entry from 2013, I don´t know if Erik updated.
http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=146


----------



## Eastwood

SiWolKe said:


> Here is an entry from 2013, I don´t know if Erik updated.
> http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=146


Here you have a checking list:
http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=716
(You can click on the picture of the piece of comb in the blogpost to get a better view of it.)
But I havn't used it since then because the mite levels in colonies that are candidates for breeders are too low. To be able to check VSH in those you have to have an apiary at least 2 km from your bees, preferably 3 km, in which you keep susceptible bees, which you don't treat a lot, with first and maybe only treatment late in spring. Before the treatment you should be able to find combs with capped brood with a lot of mites. You take one such comb and give to a breeder candidate and check for VSH after a certain time.
But when I got breeders with high VSH, daughters of such breeders were the first among my bees to show DWV-bees, even down to 2% mite level. It seems, that when you focus very much on one trait it's a risk you will get some or one unwanted trait bundled with it. I have also tried VSH queens from other sources and the same result in my apiaries. Maybe I had higher virus loads than others in my apiaries as daughters of high VSH queens from me with other beekeepers gave low mite loads without signs of viruses.
I have taken swarms from feral colonies within my area of bees. In both cases (I have taken two so far), those swarms had VSH 50%, which means considerable amount of VSH, but not the highest degree. My conclusion is that probably feral bees have developed a mix of different traits to become resistant. So the goal maybe should be VSH 50% and not VSH 100% if you look for this trait.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> https://www.apimondia.com/congresse...ce selection for beekeepers - KEFUSS John.pdf
> Here Kefuss says:
> ...before...
> ...then run the bond test
> -graft from the "bond test" queens with lowest amount of varroa
> -monitor varroa levels in brood before treating hives in "bond test"
> -stop chemical treatments when brood varroa infestations are less then 5%


Kefuss had to find something softer, because he discoverd that his idea is too radical to an average beekeeper.

From the presentation you linked (Picture 20/27):
"Find a technic acceptable to beekeepers:
- simple
- cheap
- few risks
- *But above all: "Emotianally comforting" *"

Notice that he in this "emotionally comforting system for terrified beekeepers" suggests 5% as a threshold, not to be used himself, but for those other beekeepers which had to get something "emotianally comforting".


(I´m not selling queens to you, we have discussed this before, if I´d like to sell queens to hobby beekeepers, I would have lowered the price a long time ago. Our price is peanuts for large commercial operators who can place value in a breeding material which suits their needs. )


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> to spread good genetics we as a group have to raise our own queens. I´m grateful I can afford queens from another source and breed the descendants though.


They won't spread if you are in a commercial environment. Its like putting a drop of clean pure spring water in a muddy river. Its gone.

They won't come down to your own nucs either very much (unless you go in for artificial insemination). I believe stability of resistance traits is thought to vary, but on the whole each new generation will have lost, say, half of its resistance. 

Worse than this though is the mite counting. My hive have mites - but they are low-fecundity mites. My bees have made them that way. That co-evolution is one of, if not _the_ main trick that bees use to develop resistance and tolerance.

Every time you treat for mites its as likely that you are knocking out the good ones - _which you need_ - you want to cultivate. Because they are the best defence your bees have against incoming high-fecundity mites from commercial sources. (your mites will breed low fecundity into those mites)



SiWolKe said:


> https://www.apimondia.com/congresse...ce selection for beekeepers - KEFUSS John.pdf
> Here Kefuss says:
> ...before...
> ...then run the bond test
> -graft from the "bond test" queens with lowest amount of varroa
> -monitor varroa levels in brood before treating hives in "bond test"
> -stop chemical treatments when brood varroa infestations are less then 5%
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These notes are from the _Soft Bond_ test to be used by larger outfits who have a good measure control over their dronespace. It won't work where you are surrounded by commercial hives and have just a handful of your own. (The clean water is swamped by the far greater amount of muddy water...)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SiWolKe said:
> 
> 
> 
> Instead of buying queens every second year from tf breeders everyone can do this, even the small beekeeper. And my dream is the treaters to start something like this too.
> They will do it only if they have losses compared to their treating managements, and they will only follow such a path if they are given an example.
> 
> 
> 
> No. Sorry to disappoint you, but truth is truth. The IPM method does not lead toward the development of resistance in commercial environments. As such, in my view, it is not a proper subject of advocacy here.
> 
> If you are not in commercial environment you likely only need to catch feral swarms or even just make nucs that mate with feral drones.
> 
> 
> 
> SiWolKe said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, it´s a difficult decision about the mite levels, because it is set locally. In the end one must be bond. Josef Koller advises to have two separate bee yards and to use one for IPM and the other for bond. I find this a very good idea. The considered mite threshold can be changed anytime.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> You just need to understand the principles of breeding and natural selection for the fittest strains (I mean properly, not just have heard of them) and apply them to the special reproductive mechanisms of honey bees intelligently... and what will likely happen in any situation will be obvious. This is borne out by plentiful evidence.
> 
> To get involved in endless detail about mite counts is to look at the trees when you need to be looking at the forest. Its all futile. Its all beside the point.
> 
> If you are surrounded by commercials there _may_ be ways forward.  Mite counting a small handful of hives isn't one of them.
> 
> Mike (UK)
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> Virus resistance is important too I agree. This was allowed to work in my selection when I had as threshold seeing more than two crippled winged bees, not counting mites at all. ... But the total numbers of hives that showed DWV-bees anough to need thymol decreased very slowly. It was 80-90% of the hives for quite some years and I came to the conclusion I had to change strategy. Winter losses were less then 10%. 30% of the survivors were dinks
> 
> 
> It was after I changed strategy and began monitoring varroa levels and treat when varroa level is above 3%, in a group of apiaries. Plus in the other apiaries monitoring when seeing just one DWV-bee. Plus treating those hives already in spring which I decided the previous autumn would have their queens replaced.
> With this stricter regime the percentage of treated colonies decreased to 40-60%. In the apiaries where monitoring take place in all colonies and the threshold 3% is used 0-30%. And no virus signs are seen in the apiaries in which monitoring is done in all colonies and threshold for treating is 3%.
> 
> Now still winter losses are below 10%. But dinks have decreased to 15% of the survivors.


So there has been two strategies:

1. strategy of " treat when more than two crippled wing bees is seen, no mite counting" Result: had to treat 80-90%, less than 10% winter losses, 30% of the survivors were dinks 

2. strategy of "treat when one crippled wing bee is seen + 3% threshold, mites counted" Result: had to treat 40-60% of hives, less than 10% winterlosses, dinks down to 15% of the survivors

Erik, have I understood you right?


----------



## Michael Bush

In Medicine:
Dx = Diagnosis
TX = Texas
Tx = Treatment or Transplant or Transfer depending on the context
Hx = History
Sx = Symptoms or Surgery depending on the context
Fx = Family or Fracture depending on the context
Cx = Culture
BCx = Blood Culture
UCx= Urine Culture
Ix = Investigation
Mx = Management
Bx = Biopsy
Ex = Example
Qx = OK
Px = Physical or Procedure or prognosis depending on the context
Lx = Lymph nodes or lymphatic

The second letter is always lower case unless adding it together e.g. BCx etc. or if you mean Texas.

Many times in the past some of these were typeset or written as a ligature (one letter that is made up of two run together) so Rx was ℞ which leads to the theory that at one time it was actually P x but when done as a ligature it ran together and to look like ℞ which was misread as Rx. No one seems to actually know for sure.


----------



## msl

We are agreed and the BYBK has no chance with bond. So were is the harm in exploring noncemical ways they can keep bees? You are constataitil saying bond won't work for BYBKs out of one side of you mouth and Bond is the only way for them out the outher side
Surly thats better then telling them to leave the TF fourm and go by a jar of OA or not to beekeep? 

What is *your *purposed alternative, we are talking about the bulk of TF keepers in the US here, what do you tell them? 
Right now more and more are hopping on the TX wagon, 5 years ago 64% of the 50 and under hive club was TF now its 26%

The group seems to be foucsed on subjects the BYBK cant do, so I ask what CAN they do.




> Every time you treat for mites its as likely that you are knocking out the good ones - _which you need_ - you want to cultivate


If you working in a IMP to TF program your Txing hives that will outer wise die, killing off virulent strains of mites that would other wise spread
the whole point of a IMP program is so you don't havet to TX (as defined by this fourms rules) you stack on enough management to avoid it, or at least minimize it 
mite counts and cems is not IPM..... IPM is a pyramid, yes the nuclear cem option is at the top and still on the table, but people are forgeting the entire foundation of the program.

In many areas if you spring split, run SBB, cull some drone, have or induce a late summer brood break and toss the first comb of sealed brood you may do ok, especially if your in a northern area. whats wrong with that? 

Going back to JL's example
The bond group takes massive loses( more then people with isloation as mite bombs roll across the neighborhoods year after year, hives that live this year bomb out the next) and get on the package bee treadmill constainlty pumping in outside (and mostly poor) geneticists (bolth bee and mite) as replacement, this short cirucits any progress, this is what is happing now....

The IMP group keeps there bees alive and has enuff to sell to those who had a ruffer year when the make there spring split for mite control(think of craigs list adds full of local nucs ), this stops the infulx of outside geneticists and alows for local adaption and resistance to take hold.. this is what could be happing with a shift in message

The 1st step towards true mainstream TF keeping is local sustainability and genetics. When people talk bond its about the effect on there stock, when I am talking IMP to TF I am talking about the efect on the landscape if all the backyard bonders changed there ways


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> What is *your *purposed alternative, we are talking about the bulk of TF keepers in the US here, what do you tell them?
> Right now more and more are hopping on the TX wagon, 5 years ago 64% of the 50 and under hive club was TF now its 26%
> 
> The group seems to be foucsed on subjects the BYBK cant do, so I ask what CAN they do.



Task is nearly impossible for a BYBK, at least in an environment with lots of other beekeepers and hives. 

BUT, as you put the question "what CAN they do" I would say that if someone is determined enough and prepared for 10-20 years work, maybe in vain, then I would suggest
something like Kefuss suggested, a bit modified:

- mite monitoring first 2 years to find out the best possible beematerial (buying some Russian, VSH, etc. if that suits the beekeepers ideology, otherwise own local bees)
- soft bond the next 2-5 years, threshold to treat 8-10%
- hard bond thereafter

Another option(nobody has tried this, but crazy ideas are needed for an nearly impossible task):
- inadequate treatment from the beginning, 
- what is inadequate depends on local circumstances, here with long winters I have suggested one time OAD (see I have become used to these shortened words!) 15 ml, which kills about 50% of mites
- I´m not sure if this method will work at all (probably not in long summer climates)
- idea is not to do any monitoring, just killing some mites, sort of new option of soft bond
- the ideology behind this method is that as we now have created ever increasing mite problems by killing them AS WELL AS WE CAN, maybe the opposite way, killing as few mites as one can afford/dare would get into the other direction, decreasing mite problems


----------



## 1102009

Juhani
it´s a wonderful thing to have tf beekeeping as "emotional comforting". I feel comforted by seeing my bees alive.
Mike
A tf beekeeper like you who started with feral stock, uses feral stock, has a sustainable apiary because of catching feral stock, is isolated, in my eyes has not tested his bees for resistance.
msl


> The 1st step towards true mainstream TF keeping is local sustainability and genetics. When people talk bond its about the effect on there stock, when I am talking IMP to TF I am talking about the efect on the landscape if all the backyard bonders changed there ways


:thumbsup:

To all:
I have a co-worker who uses native swiss black bees. They are mite resistant. Losses 10% every winter. They are defensiv, they bring a small harvest, they are swarmy. 
I don´t think this is what will spread tf beekeeping. Nobody wants this bees.

Sometimes I think you, mike, and you juhani, you don´t want others ( small beekeepers) to go tf. You want to be special. You want to sell your special bees or Mike, you want to feel a special person. There is no help and no ideas to keep us going. No offense meant but I´m tired of your negative outlooks on hobbyists.

Thanks to the others posting here, I feel blessed by getting the informations.


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Sometimes I think you, mike, and you juhani, you don´t want others ( small beekeepers) to go tf. You want to be special. You want to sell your special bees or Mike, you want to feel a special person. There is no help and no ideas to keep us going. No offense meant but I´m tired of your negative outlooks on hobbyists.


I want the truth to be known. msn has often told us how he was given bad advice early on and had several years of expensive wasted time. That's wrong. I want it to be clear to anyone who is trying to raise resistance what the conditions are for that to work. 



SiWolKe said:


> Mike
> A tf beekeeper like you who started with feral stock, uses feral stock, has a sustainable apiary because of catching feral stock, is isolated, in my eyes has not tested his bees for resistance.


I don't think the sort of hyper-powerful resistance you are wanting is even possible. I keep bee and take honey from a strain that has emerged locally which manages mites alone. Part of that management is to tame the mites. That's resistance enough for nature, and its good enough for me. 

I've put pretty much eight years of my life into achieving what I have, and despite being motivated only to help others by contributing here I've taken a hell of a lot of of stick for it. So you give me a little more, for telling you what is real, that's fine.



SiWolKe said:


> To all:
> I have a co-worker who uses native swiss black bees. They are mite resistant. Losses 10% every winter. They are defensiv, they bring a small harvest, they are swarmy.
> I don´t think this is what will spread tf beekeeping. Nobody wants this bees.


Its my suspicion that the sorts of yields gained by modern commercial beekeepers are only possible at the cost of destroying the ferals around them - one way or another. That's not the sort of beekeeping I want to be part of. I'll settle for smaller crops and bees that know how to defend themselves.


----------



## mike bispham

msl said:


> We are agreed and the BYBK has no chance with bond. So were is the harm in exploring noncemical ways they can keep bees? You are constataitil saying bond won't work for BYBKs out of one side of you mouth and Bond is the only way for them out the outher side


You are putting words into my mouth. I'm simply trying to clarify what will work and what won't.

Keeping bees in non-chemical ways is fine, but unless you are doing it as part of a realistic effort go treatment free discussion about it here is wrong, because it makes it unclear what is and isn't tf beekeeping. That's confusing.



msl said:


> Surly thats better then telling them to leave the TF fourm and go by a jar of OA or not to beekeep?


Again with the words: its not my place to tell anyone to leave the forum. I can offer views as to whether I think you are breaking the forum rules.



msl said:


> What is *your *purposed alternative, we are talking about the bulk of TF keepers in the US here, what do you tell them?
> 
> The group seems to be foucsed on subjects the BYBK cant do, so I ask what CAN they do.


I've already told you. Find feral stock, and find mating areas and use them - always. You won't hold, never mind raise resistance while your resistant genes are being removed at each generation. Get as far as you can from commercial hives, and have as many hives as you can. Encourage ferals in your own area. Don't destroy good mites. Why don't you print that out and keep it?



msl said:


> If you working in a IMP to TF program your Txing hives that will outer wise die, killing off virulent strains of mites that would other wise spread
> the whole point of a IMP program is so you don't havet to TX (as defined by this fourms rules) you stack on enough management to avoid it, or at least minimize it
> mite counts and cems is not IPM..... IPM is a pyramid, yes the nuclear cem option is at the top and still on the table, but people are forgeting the entire foundation of the program.


Try to improve your English. I'm not going to work to decode you



msl said:


> In many areas if you spring split, run SBB, cull some drone, have or induce a late summer brood break and toss the first comb of sealed brood you may do ok, especially if your in a northern area. whats wrong with that?


(I don't know what SBB is, but...) what is wrong is that you are helping the bees, thus keeping alive genes that should perish. The idea is to get rid of the alleles that you don't want. If you don't understand that - I mean really understand it - look it up and do some study. You have to knock out unwanted alleles and bring in those you need - and keep them there by selecting, male and female, in every generation. 



msl said:


> Going back to JL's example
> The bond group takes massive loses( more then people with isloation as mite bombs roll across the neighborhoods year after year, hives that live this year bomb out the next) and get on the package bee treadmill constainlty pumping in outside (and mostly poor) geneticists (bolth bee and mite) as replacement, this short cirucits any progress, this is what is happing now....


That's all a bit dramatic, but the solution is the same _get out of the area_. You can't do bond in a commercial environment. You probably can't even keep the most resistant bees going in a commercial environment (because of the hyper-fecund commercial mites)



msl said:


> The 1st step towards true mainstream TF keeping is local sustainability and genetics. When people talk bond its about the effect on there stock, when I am talking IMP to TF I am talking about the efect on the landscape if all the backyard bonders changed there ways


If you want to try to change your landscape (instead of moving out) you need to be talking to your neighbours about a joint program on a scale that well outnumbers the commercial hives. Make that breeding group, or move out: those are your options. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## 1102009

Mike, 
I don´t think you listen to people. I think you like to hear yourself speak.
The world is not as you want it to be. The people cannot expect the world to accommodate to them. The people have to adapt to what can be done.

So please, please please leave us to our serious work and do not destroy this thread.


----------



## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> So there has been two strategies:
> 
> 1. strategy of " treat when more than two crippled wing bees is seen, no mite counting" Result: had to treat 80-90%, less than 10% winter losses, 30% of the survivors were dinks
> 
> 2. strategy of "treat when one crippled wing bee is seen + 3% threshold, mites counted" Result: had to treat 40-60% of hives, less than 10% winterlosses, dinks down to 15% of the survivors
> 
> Erik, have I understood you right?


1. Strategy 1 for quite some years.
2. A couple of years now – In 5 apiaries all colonies are monitored (goal twice a year), above 3% treat during 3 weeks with thymolpads (10 gr twice with 10 days in between). One of those apiaries is the isolated one. 
– The rest of the apiaries almost like 1. , but if one crippled bee seen, monitor with bee shaker (alcohol wash 300/1 dl bees) and treat if that give more than 3%) plus those colonies that previous autumn was decided to get their queens replaced coming season, in May got thymol pads to reduce mite pressure as these were bad colonies, and give the new queen a fair start. The 40-60% is the range in which the averages for all colonies lay during the later years. These aaverages consists of some groups with differing averages, the isolated apiary with zero, The other 4 in which all colonies are monitored with about 30%. The apiaries closest to other beekeeper's bees which are not of my stock, 90-100%. And the rest in between.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> BUT, as you put the question "what CAN they do" I would say that if someone is determined enough and prepared for 10-20 years work, maybe in vain, then I would suggest
> something like Kefuss suggested, a bit modified:
> 
> - mite monitoring first 2 years to find out the best possible beematerial (buying some Russian, VSH, etc. if that suits the beekeepers ideology, otherwise own local bees)
> - soft bond the next 2-5 years, threshold to treat 8-10%
> - hard bond thereafter
> 
> Another option(nobody has tried this, but crazy ideas are needed for an nearly impossible task):
> - inadequate treatment from the beginning,
> - what is inadequate depends on local circumstances, here with long winters I have suggested one time OAD (see I have become used to these shortened words!) 15 ml, which kills about 50% of mites
> - I´m not sure if this method will work at all (probably not in long summer climates)
> - idea is not to do any monitoring, just killing some mites, sort of new option of soft bond
> - the ideology behind this method is that as we now have created ever increasing mite problems by killing them AS WELL AS WE CAN, maybe the opposite way, killing as few mites as one can afford/dare would get into the other direction, decreasing mite problems


:thumbsup:


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Mike,
> I don´t think you listen to people. I think you like to hear yourself speak.


That's ad hominem, and inaccurate. the trick is to listen to the right people. 



SiWolKe said:


> The world is not as you want it to be. The people cannot expect the world to accommodate to them. The people have to adapt to what can be done.


If you think my facts or arguments are wrong, say so. 

Nature is not what you want it to be. You can't fight it. 



SiWolKe said:


> So please, please please leave us to our serious work and do not destroy this thread.


I don't think its serious work. Its a game, a delusion, and a distraction. Its harmful in that it gives others the idea that something is possible when it isn't. It brings tf into disrepute. There are people doing it. There are people failing, because they have got things wrong. Its our job to help them understand what it is they have wrong. 

You are trying to do soft bond - call it what it is. That is possible. But only when you can strongly influence mating. 

The thing that serves us all is to be carefully truthful about nature, and about our facts, to ourselves first and then to others. 

Mike (UK)


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## clyderoad

SiWolke>>


You are attributing "the only thing you have to fear is fear itself" to J.Kefuss ?
:scratch:


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## msl

I never thought I would need to defend trying to go TF in a TF forum... Much less have a bunch of TF types tell me TF is impossibly and that I should not try.... times have changed :ws:


clyderoad its from page 27 of the link she posted in #486 Kuffas uses the qoate with out attributing it, I am going to guess given the war when it was said by Churchill it may not be as common in German usage as it is in ours.


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## Buzz-kill

msl said:


> I never thought I would need to defend going TF in a TF forum... Much less have a bunch of TF types tell me TF is impossibly and that I should not try.... times have changed
> 
> clyderoad its from page 27 of the link she posted in #486 Kuffas uses the qoate with out attributing it, I am going to guess given the climate when it was said by Churchill it may not be as common in German usage as it is in ours


Really!? Churchill!? How about FDR's first inaugural speech. 

This has to be one of the dumbest threads on BS and why it is pinned in the TF forum defies all logic.


----------



## msl

nope your right ,FDR
Churchill is the mandell effect,


----------



## clyderoad

Buzz-kill said:


> Really!? Churchill!? How about FDR's first inaugural speech.
> 
> This has to be one of the dumbest threads on BS and why it is pinned in the TF forum defies all logic.


Glad the 'fear' thing is cleared up, now please clear up all the dumbness in the thread so it's logical. 
Give us your take on thread topic. Looking forward to your contribution.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> 1. Strategy 1 for quite some years.
> 2. A couple of years now – In 5 apiaries all colonies are monitored (goal twice a year), above 3% treat during 3 weeks with thymolpads (10 gr twice with 10 days in between). One of those apiaries is the isolated one.
> – The rest of the apiaries almost like 1. , but if one crippled bee seen, monitor with bee shaker (alcohol wash 300/1 dl bees) and treat if that give more than 3%) plus those colonies that previous autumn was decided to get their queens replaced coming season, in May got thymol pads to reduce mite pressure as these were bad colonies, and give the new queen a fair start. The 40-60% is the range in which the averages for all colonies lay during the later years. These aaverages consists of some groups with differing averages, the isolated apiary with zero, The other 4 in which all colonies are monitored with about 30%. The apiaries closest to other beekeeper's bees which are not of my stock, 90-100%. And the rest in between.


 :thumbsup: More accurate measuring of mites lead to less treatment. This is the true meaning of IPM, reduce the use of chemicals.


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## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> :thumbsup: More accurate measuring of mites lead to less treatment. This is the true meaning of IPM, reduce the use of chemicals.


:thumbsup: :thumbsup: and to tf, bond or whatever. Hopefully to change the attitude of treaters to the use of less chemicals and to start selecting for mite resistance too.

Mike Bispham and buzz-kill,
why don´t you start a "hard bond" thread?


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## Richinbama

I'm confused here. Mike, you said make a more friendly mite??? How do you do this?


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## Richinbama

I'm New beek, and I've read allot of this thread. Seems confusing. You can't change mother nature, and to treat or not to treat is a personal choice. I think allot of the post here seems to want to take the bee out of the Bee? Nobody is going to get rid of mites, or beetles, or change the bees to any degree of revelance. A bee is a bee, and to try to make genetic changes , only may work in any particular environment is a short sighted thing. Nature always prevails. Isn't this a scientific fact. The only way it doesn't prevail, is man's trying to change it or , eliminate it, and start all over.. just observation.. enlighten me please, as I'm not sure of the real purpose here... im trying to figure you guys ideas out here is all. No puns intended. I just want to learn wht you guys are really trying to do? Thanks for any help on this.


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## 1102009

Hi Richard,
Bee keeping and breeding have made the honeybee vulnerable because the attention was not on mite disease. People thought first they were able to eliminate the mites totally by using chemicals, later they thought they could hold the mites at bay. But now it is realized this will not work forever.

Only native bees are still able to defend themselves against diseases and pests but most do not have the traits beekeepers want being swarmy and defensive, no big harvest.

We try to undo this development to more treatments without completely losing the bees ( with bond). IMHO. Go back to be without treatments. And keep some traits which will allow beekeepers to have profit too.
We do not want to get rid of pests, this will not work.
But we do not want to breed more virulent mites. Co-existence you might call it.


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## Richinbama

Curious though I. The mite is a disease. It a predator or parasite. I can see changing the management of the Bee might help, but still doesn't retrain the mite to not be a parasite. Kinda like the deer tick to the deer. You can never cause the tick to quit feeding of blood from the deer.and probably never kill all the ticks. Just thinking there. 
I do see the merits to what some are trying to do. But it really seems that all this should somehow start at the core of this hobby, both the commercial side and the hobbyists, and the researchers togather. Seems that all this should be more open to both, at the same time. I'm not sure if the push one way or the other segregates one or both sides of this. I do know that's why im reading here as well as all other on beesource. Ive got an open mind, and pursue a goal of keeping bees alive and healthy as long as i can from the beginning. Actually getting my first bees in april 20. So my fun begins !!! Thanks for understanding, im not against anything on this platform, i would like to learn from it though. So my questions arent negative, even if they seem that way. Just looking for answers from yoj guys on both sides is great way to learn for me. Thanks , Richard


----------



## Richinbama

Also, im.not sure what bond is. Can you explain this to me a bit, as some terms are not familiar. Or in layman's terms to me or some others following. 
Thanks


----------



## 1102009

You hit the point Richard.
It is even a pity that there must be a separate forum for the TF way, because everyone insists on his opinion and can not think of different situations.
And now there is some dispute within this forum, though the goal is the same for everyone.
We are all becoming autocrats!
You say you want healthy and living bees, there are lots of opinions in all forums, for example the fact that one achieves health only through chemical treatments, the other side sees health impaired by treatments.
I wish you much joy and happiness for your start as a beekeeper, no matter what you decide for!


----------



## 1102009

Richinbama said:


> Also, im.not sure what bond is. Can you explain this to me a bit, as some terms are not familiar. Or in layman's terms to me or some others following.
> Thanks


Bond is "live and let die" beekeeping. 
Soft bond is IPM beekeeping.


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## Richinbama

I'll keep my eye here as im interested in the process, and wish to learn more.
Thanks, siwolke I'm sure I'll pester you with lots of questions in my pursuit of keeping bees, And so fourth. 
Thanks, Richard


----------



## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> .....
> How do you see the possibilities of VSH breeding? Arista research is doing a lot of one drone inseminations.


First we have to ask the bees how they do it, breeding and mating, and adapting. Then we may do otherwise for a while to achieve something, but we must never forget how the bees (nature) are doing things, otherwise we will fail. Work with the bees not against them.
The honeybee is one of the creatures formed to avoid inbreeding as much as possible. Brother Adam knew this and writes about it in his book on breeding. That after you have done something in breeding, for example to combine different stocks of bees to get a new trait or a better amount of it in your combination, your goal must be to as soon as possible adjust your ways of doing things to be as similar as possible to how nature works. 

One drone insemination is the most powerful tool to inbreed. An inbred colony have a small genetic variation, not what nature wants the honeybee to have. But inbreeding is also a powerful to achieve what you want, if the colonies used have the traits you want. So when you've got what you want you have to set up a natural way for mating with the possibility for the bees to increase the genetic variation. 

If Arista finally gets some colonies with differing heritage that have VSH 100, or 80-100. They can put these in a quite isolated place and let daughters mate naturally there, that would be a solution that may work to would create a VSH stock for every beekeeper. But the big risk is that there would be some unwanted traits that will have been stronger too. These willl have to be eliminated or diminished in coming generation through selection. Arista will finally show us their results.


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## Richinbama

Thanks for the bond answer. 
Ouch, that live and let die could be expensive. Which approach do you follow?


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## 1102009

Richinbama said:


> Thanks for the bond answer.
> Ouch, that live and let die could be expensive. Which approach do you follow?


If you mean me you are invited to read my diary:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...e-chronicle-of-a-beekeeper-from-South-Germany
you will see why I now, in my 5th year, start IPM. Not a transition to treatments or an abandoning of bond, but a parallel chemical free IPM management to keep up my bee numbers.


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## Richinbama

Sure will read diaries. That kewl. From s. Germany, that where my family is from. My grandma, Side. Been wanting to go back there for years, to visit. I was in Frankfurt, and others in mid late 80s. Beautiful place.


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## Richinbama

Unterkessach, and obrigheim areas


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> I never thought I would need to defend trying to go TF in a TF forum... Much less have a bunch of TF types tell me TF is impossibly and that I should not try.... times have changed :ws:


That is clearly wrong, and senseless. We (I anyway) am trying to clarify the impact of the environmental limits people encounter, in order to help them find ways around those limits.

Times have indeed changed. We've learned, lots.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Buzz-kill said:


> This has to be one of the dumbest threads on BS and why it is pinned in the TF forum defies all logic.


That's what bothers me. The whole premise is, it has emerged, misconceived. 

If it's going to be here then it must be open to criticism.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> More accurate measuring of mites lead to less treatment. This is the true meaning of IPM, reduce the use of chemicals.


Without necessarily making any progress toward developing resistance. As we know well, anything that helps the bees is in effect a treatment. It maintains varroa vulnerability. If that is part of an effort to raise healthy self sufficient bees, fine. 

But that can't happen in a commercial environment. We know that too. 

So discussion of ipm in the tf section should be restricted to talk about ipm is a holding role while arrangements are made to be able to shift to tf. 

Otherwise the tf section becomes overrun with people talking about the minutiae of treating. That is senseless, as well as highly confusing for newcomers.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Richinbama said:


> I'm confused here. Mike, you said make a more friendly mite??? How do you do this?


This is my take. 

One of the more important strategies bees use to control mites is to take out those mite strains that have lots of offspring (the fecund strains). It is these strains that really cause trouble, because mites that can blow up their populations fast, thus taking out the hive. 

By contrast a hive full of females that can only raise a couple of offspring at a time are easy for the bees to manage - given they have other tools, like grooming and broad resistance to infection to do so. 

So you still have mites, but they are relatively small in number, and remain so - and so are harmless.

Low fecundity verses high fecundity mite strains.

Commercial hives, by treating, tend to press the mite strains toward high fecundity - those strains that can reproduce fast are advantaged. Non-chemical treatments do the same. Both, in Darwin-speak remove the pressure for low fecundity in the parasite.

In feral and true TF settings the bee-mite combinations that do best are those where the bee-mite relationship is agreeable. 

So:

The question for would be tf beekeepers who have commercial hives nearby is: how do I stop commercial mites breeding in my hives?

The answer is to have plenty of low-fecundity mites in your hives. When a few commercial mites drift in they mate with the good mites, and their fecundity is reduced - more in each generation.

Neat, huh?

That's how I think I can know its real. Nature is neater than you can imagine. Its often a struggle to find it, but its there. Evolution is like mathematics, or other sciences: there is an understanding; follow the beauty, because, the Truth is Beautiful. 

Mike (UK)


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## Richinbama

What exactly is Ipm


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Bond is "live and let die" beekeeping.
> Soft bond is IPM beekeeping.


Wrong. Soft bond is the process by which a bee population can be made resistant without high losses. A version of IMP is used to that end.

IPM can be used for beekeeping where there is no intention to raise resistance. Its about pest (or parasite) management, nothing more. 

Mike (UK)


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## Richinbama

With your method of bee keeping mike, what are your current losses over a set period of time now ? vs. When you were treating your bees for the same period of time prior to starting this bond method?


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## Richinbama

Also, id like to know if your honey or hive production were better before or after implementing this study?


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## mike bispham

Richinbama said:


> With your method of bee keeping mike, what are your current losses over a set period of time now ? vs. When you were treating your bees for the same period of time prior to starting this bond method?


See my thread at 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?309877-Natural-Selection-Management

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Richinbama said:


> With your method of bee keeping mike, what are your current losses over a set period of time now ? vs. When you were treating your bees for the same period of time prior to starting this bond method?


I never had a treated apiary before I started collecting swarms and cut-outs and leaving them to live or die. About half died - but swarms often do and I was a poor beekeeper. Now my losses are about 10 or 15% - again many being due to my being a poor beekeeper, i.e. starvation, too-small nucs going into winter, badgers, mice...

A good question might be: how much dwv do I see now compared to earlier. The answer, rapid improvement, very little nowadays, and it usually peters out once the bees get humming in late spring.



Richinbama said:


> Also, id like to know if your honey or hive production were better before or after implementing this study?


Not answerable is it? A lot of things affect production - how much wax building is going on, do you take off splits, how much feeding do you do? I'm finding the more I'm skilful and free with the syrup the more I get big hives. But I have no past experience to compare. 

Read that thread before asking any more questions will you? I'm a busy chap just now 

Mike (UK)


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## Richinbama

What is dwv mike. Sorry, im trying to figure out all abbreviations on here.


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## Richinbama

Ok mike, no ill not read 20 some odd pages to ask you a simple question. I find it rude to even say that, as it was you putting up the arguments for your ideas. I was simply trying to understand some principle you are trying to sell onto me and others. Sorry to bother you. Ill ask others that really have internet time to find answers. Also, if your trying to sell ideals and principles to someone, Youve got to sell it in a way people xan relate to it. And be willing to explain it to them .


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## mike bispham

Richinbama said:


> What is dwv mike. Sorry, im trying to figure out all abbreviations on here.


You will have to get the hang of google Rich. I can point you toward the understanding you want, but I can't do your homework for you. I'm not trying to sell anything except nucs and honey and (paid) tuition. if you want to pay me maybe we can come to an arrangement.

I will however give you guidance for free. On my terms.

I think you'll find that if you skim my thread you'll find answers to your questions, and ones you haven't thought of, by just closely reading the bits that seem to offer what you want.

To learn you must first become a good student.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> So discussion of ipm in the tf section should be restricted to talk about ipm is a holding role while arrangements are made to be able to shift to tf.


yes mike, and this is provided for in the 'unique forum rules', that are located in a sticky thread in this subforum. 

the title and premise of this thread:

"A shift in message? The case for IPM instead of bond *as the path to TF* for new ba" ckard beekeepers _sic_ 

(bold mine)




mike bispham said:


> One of the more important strategies bees use to control mites is to take out those mite strains that have lots of offspring (the fecund strains). It is these strains that really cause trouble, because mites that can blow up their populations fast, thus taking out the hive.


i believe there may be some merit in that. 

in my case it is very rare for a colony to collapse and get robbed out in the fall. most losses occur during very cold spells through the winter when there is no flying. this basically results in a genetic dead end to the susceptible bees as well as the colony collapsing mites...

a win/win in terms of selecting for more resistant bees and less virulent mites; and hopefully moving host/parasite equilibrium in the right direction.

if true, i think it's fair to point out the trade off between hard and soft bond here. since there are no treatments that are 100% effective those remaining highly fecund mites are able to have another go which is the price paid for minimizing economic losses.

i am also becoming more confident that the strain of bee i am working with has a lower than average propensity for robbing. i say this because robbing is rare for me even though i'll find weak colonies at times as well as locate small starter nucs among very large production hives who are prime candidates for getting robbed.

so for now i'm leaning toward believing that it is the combination of dead outs happening in the cold months along with a decreased propensity to rob are two of the more important factors allowing me to have continued success off treatments.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> so for now i'm leaning toward believing that it is the combination of dead outs happening in the cold months along with a decreased propensity to rob are two of the more important factors allowing me to have continued success off treatments.


I'm not sure how I feel about robbing. I'm not sure I want to interfere, or if I could anyway. I sometimes suspect that my biggest hives are simply the best robbers. I'm sure tons of it goes on, and that the general micro-biological (good and 'bad') and parasitic environment gets shared.

I would think there are evolutionary trade-off to propensity to rob. You may pick up plentiful stores (very good) and create new nest sites (very good), but you might also pick up a nasty infection. The propensity will shift as the environment shifts. 

I'm also aware that big wild animals bully and take from smaller animals. They're simply not well mannered. Its a jungle out there as they say. Sneaky wild animals and animals that work together ditto. That probably why we became the dominant species!

I'm making a new nursery for nucs away from production hives this year, because too many seemingly promising colonies don't seem to be able to hold onto their stores. That's bad for my pocket, but it might also be a pressure toward defensiveness. that might be foreign bee defensiveness (good) or general defensiveness (good as far as mice and badgers are concerned, bad as far as me and my tuition clients are concerned).

Its all so complicated, isn't it? Trade-off after trade-off times trade-off. A miracle it works at all.

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> A miracle it works at all.


indeed mick, but at least it gives us something to rattle on about here.


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## Richinbama

Sorry mike, I was just trying to get a definition of.your terms and understand your reasoning. I'll not ask anything else from you. Really sorry


----------



## mike bispham

Richinbama said:


> Sorry mike, I was just trying to get a definition of.your terms and understand your reasoning. I'll not ask anything else from you. Really sorry


Don't beat yourself up Rich 

Mike (UK)


----------



## 1102009

Richinbama said:


> Unterkessach, and obrigheim areas


Nice! Visit when you are in germany


----------



## Richinbama

Will do siwolke, thanks for help last night. Very informative. Helped allot. 
Thanks richard


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## Richinbama

Has there been any university or otherwise, study on Igr's relating to mite specific treatments? (Insect growth regulators)


----------



## 1102009

This is not exactly about varroa destructor but I find it a very good link if it comes to explaining IPM or "softer" approaches.
https://utahpests.usu.edu/slideshows/ppt/06sh-pesticides-mite-controls.pdf
Rich, this is not an answer to your question which is directed to varroa mites regulators, I believe.


----------



## Richinbama

Thanks sibylle, I'll read up !!!


----------



## msl

> "Nature always prevails. Isn't this a scientific fact. The only way it doesn't prevail, is man's trying to change it or , eliminate it, and start all over.. just observation"


Not a fact species went extinct long before man, and to be clear man IS nature, a super preder/invasive species crafted by nature that many outher species failed to adapt the balanced relation ship often talked about


Sol Parker often uses the predator prey relationship of a cheata and gazelle as an example of how balance works... while true, balance isn't always the out come . 
Feral cats have caused 63 extinctions in the last 500 years. That's an advrage of one every 8 years! no balanced pred prey there. 

To distill the currant debate of this this thread there are 2 camps here
Those with the resources and locations to try to create/propagate a better bee(such as mike with his 100 hives, isolation, and resistant base stock) and those who don't but simply wish to keep bees with out chemicals if they can. 

I am advocation for the 2nd group a way to stack the deck in there favor as the odds ARE against them. The intention is to popularize a set of beekeeper skills to maximize there success, minimize thier emotional and finical losses, and have them keep bees in a way that does not damage other beekeepers in the area. Is it possibly that noncem methods will fail them and they need to Tx a hive... yep, likly even. But I feel if they follow the out line they have as good as chance as any at becoming TF , either way we are headgeing the bets they successfully over winter bees, and that new F-1 queen open mated with local stock is a far cry better then a new one form out of state if we are try to get local stock up and running in an area.



> Ouch, that live and let die could be expensive


yep, winter 16-17 watched my nehobor lose all 20 , when BeeWeaver did the 1st round of bond with 1,000 hive they lost over 900 in the 1st 9 mounths and in the end found only 5 with slight mite restiance... not euff for a breading program so they bonded another 1,000 hives... got to be impressed with there moxie

My argument is we don't need to let them die, We have Keffus and outhers who have done it and gotten the answer for us.
DRRC put it well


Richard Cryberg said:


> If you combine the Kefuss results with results from others on mite migration from hive to hive I think you can start to think about optimum management methods that could speed your progress towards a better bee.
> To answer the question Kefuss had you really do need to use a bond approach. Once you have the answer to that question bond makes no sense to me at all. Lets just say you are Mike and have about 100 colonies in the spring. If you monitor mite counts in those colonies and keep records in a while you are going to see the counts for some colonies going up fast and you hope that other colonies are going up in counts a lot slower.
> *snip*
> It seems to me he should want to protect his best colonies from the risk of getting flooded with mites from poorer performers. He could simply move high mite colonies to an out yard. He could simply kill the bad colonies. Give them calcium cyanide for instance so he does not damage the comb and honey. Or he could requeen them with a queen he hoped would be better and toss on an apivar strip to knock the mite count low enough the colony has a decent restarting point and also does not pose a risk to his good colonies.
> *snip*
> If you simply eliminated the 10% of your colonies that are the very worst a couple of times a year the result just might be to speed up progress significantly. You would be eliminating colonies that were going to die anyhow, they just did not know it yet.
> *snip*
> In the Kerfuss paper the big question was are we looking for resistance or tolerance. Once you know the answer to that question you have alternatives that may make more sense than simply following the same route
> .


full context here http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...e-of-Resistance-Raising&p=1545177#post1545177

We are not discounting Keffuss' great work, we are taking it to its next logical step and scaleing it for the BYBK

say your like me, I did counts on 4 production/fullsized hives (everthing elce I have is nucs) and I am surrounded by colasping package bees all hives spent 1 year with out cems
If you look at the attachment hive 3 seems to be the clear winner, the Fly Back Split may have impacted it as well but such is the life of small scale.

the opponents would say my best bet is to leave them all untreated and see what I have come spring. given I know my area has a large mount of fall mite bombs I went differently

I argue the best plan was be to hit the lot with a broodless shot of OAD (I could see robbing going on in the nehobores clasping hives) and use hive 3 as a breeder to requeen the other 4.. The same effect geneticly as if the other 4 died over winter (witch arguably they would have) and I was starting with the "survivor" #3 and making splits... except I have much more resources to work with. 
at the moment all of the full sized hives have lived and my only losses have been failure to thrive 3 nucs 
I have no dought I would have seen 60-80%+ losses with out intervention and would be short on resources to propagate hive 3, witch most likly could have come threw winter just fine without intervention and hopfully will have heratibull traites


----------



## mike bispham

msl said:


> To distill the currant debate of this this thread there are 2 camps here
> 
> Those with the resources and locations to try to create/propagate a better bee(such as mike with his 100 hives, isolation, and resistant base stock) and those who don't but simply wish to keep bees with out chemicals if they can.
> 
> I am advocation for the 2nd group a way to stack the deck in there favor as the odds ARE against them. The intention is to popularize a set of beekeeper skills to maximize there success, minimize thier emotional and finical losses, and have them keep bees in a way that does not damage other beekeepers in the area.


Kind of ok. However, unless you artificially inseminate or use resistant mating areas you will never make progress with resistance. The 3 hive you requeen will have daughters that are returning to the environmental average - the commercial norm.

Can you take that on board? 

With that, what exactly are you achieving? I understand there are ways of keeping bees without chemical treatments - thorough sugar shakes, drone trapping, varroa boars etc. 

At least you are thinking about raising resistance I guess. 



msl said:


> We are not discounting Keffuss' great work, we are taking it to its next logical step and scaleing it for the BYBK


If there was a way your BYBK, in a commercial environment, could raise resistance, and thus contribute to tf beekeeping, I'm pretty sure John Kefuss would have told us about it. Or some of the other big hitters.



msl said:


> say your like me, I did counts on 4 production/fullsized hives (everthing elce I have is nucs) and I am surrounded by colasping package bees all hives spent 1 year with out cems
> 
> If you look at the attachment hive 3 seems to be the clear winner, the Fly Back Split may have impacted it as well but such is the life of small scale.
> 
> I argue the best plan was be to hit the lot with a broodless shot of OAD (I could see robbing going on in the nehobores clasping hives) and use hive 3 as a breeder to requeen the other 4.. The same effect geneticly as if the other 4 died over winter (witch arguably they would have) and I was starting with the "survivor" #3 and making splits... except I have much more resources to work with.
> 
> hopfully will have heratibull traites


Three problems:

1) While hive 3 may have useful heritable traits... unless you can keep them its not much use. Mating in a commercial environment will reduce them, probably to nil within a couple of generations.

2) Your mite counts may be affected by incoming bees - your 'mite bombs' for that reason your most resistant hive may actually have the largest mite count.

3) You have not taken on board the issue of good vs bad mites. You may well be killing good mites.

I'm sorry msm, but this plan is shot through with holes. 

What is your present environment - how sure are you that there are no ferals, and how can you know that? 

Mike 

PS please write 'chems' and not 'cems' - its taken me days to figure that one out.


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## 1102009

Eastwood said:


> First we have to ask the bees how they do it, breeding and mating, and adapting. Then we may do otherwise for a while to achieve something, but we must never forget how the bees (nature) are doing things, otherwise we will fail. Work with the bees not against them.


Before even thinking about any bond approach I believe we must consider this.

Having no ferals around and no native stock to use the livestock bees must first be regressed to live in a more natural way. IMO. In this time IPM can be used to have bee numbers left. Selection for a smaller mite number for example, or for no mite number increase in season. Selection for more virus tolerance ( no DWV), for grooming, entrance defense. 
If the survivability is better ( I mean this for the treated hives too, they need less treatments)) one may be able to have more success with bond.
If the success is + - 30% survivor rate after regression ( here in my area the common rate of all beekeeper`s hives is 30-40%) bond may be done. If the survivability increases, a more commercial management can be started.
Or, if the location is a difficult one, the goal may be reached by step 2. A small hobbyist is not interested in commercial beekeeping. He might stay with small more tolerant tf hives and sort out the susceptibles.


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## 1102009

msl said:


> I am advocation for the 2nd group a way to stack the deck in there favor as the odds ARE against them. The intention is to popularize a set of beekeeper skills to maximize there success, minimize thier emotional and finical losses, and have them keep bees in a way that does not damage other beekeepers in the area. Is it possibly that noncem methods will fail them and they need to Tx a hive... yep, likly even. But I feel if they follow the out line they have as good as chance as any at becoming TF , either way we are headgeing the bets they successfully over winter bees, and that new F-1 queen open mated with local stock is a far cry better then a new one form out of state if we are try to get local stock up and running in an area.


I think not to damage other beekeepers hive or the rest of the same apiary this is a serious argument. Preventing "mite bombs".


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## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> .........However, unless you artificially inseminate or use resistant mating areas you will never make progress with resistance. ........
> If there was a way your BYBK, in a commercial environment, could raise resistance, and thus contribute to tf beekeeping, I'm pretty sure John Kefuss would have told us about it. Or some of the other big hitters.
> .........
> 1) While hive 3 may have useful heritable traits... unless you can keep them its not much use. Mating in a commercial environment will reduce them, probably to nil within a couple of generations.
> 2) Your mite counts may be affected by incoming bees - your 'mite bombs' for that reason your most resistant hive may actually have the largest mite count.
> 3) You have not taken on board the issue of good vs bad mites. You may well be killing good mites.
> I'm sorry msm, but this plan is shot through with holes.
> What is your present environment - how sure are you that there are no ferals, and how can you know that?


While you may be right Mike, and many of my experiences tells me you may be, you are depressing to read. No hope, give up, surrender...
You theorize in your posts (based though on experiences of course). What I miss is data or experiences backing up your predictions that it's no use for small scale beekeepers to try to become TF or to be able to increase resistance in their very small stock of their apiary. I expect them to exist, yes. 
There are though experiences by small scale beekeepers at big expences that at least show some positive results that would be able to build upon and give food for thought.
While I am in a similar situation like you and making progress, I would never surrender to the mites if I was in a worse situation. 
I'd rather live in a dream world and enjoy life looking forward for my coffe break (tea maybe) and figuring out the strategy for next season.

It's many times clever fanatics that never give up that accomplish great steps forward. We must be humble enough to realize we don't know everything there is to know, about the life of honeybees for example.

Instead of insemination you could use so called moonlight matings, open up excluders for the entrances for drones and virgin queens at 4-5 PM for mating when all other drones have returned to their hives. This must be done well ahead of matings will take place to ensure no other drones will make these selected hives their home, and also the drones in the hives must have opportunites to go to the bathroom every day. Some kind of work involved, as usual.

With colonies that defend their entrance and don't rob you will have help against reinvason. It was interesting to read Squarepeg had the same experience as I that robbing ıncidents have gone down when the bees have become more resistant. My bees are less interested in the ventilation holes (netted) from the extracting room now when my stock has improved. You will have that included in your selection if you use alcohol washes (mite counts).

For me all mites are more or less bad. They are kept under control preeferably by the bees through for example cleaning out invaded brood and grooming. 

Behaviour of the bees are not only inherited through genes. It is also obtained through adaption through epigenetical processes where no change is necessarily made through shift of gene variants, but through genes being shut off and/or turned on. This is happening when environment changes, chemical environment. So of course these changes can't be made fully when disturbing chemicals are messing up the close environment in the hive too much (What too much is we don't know).
Behaviour of the bees is also passed on from one bee to another in a learning process. In this case the genetics need only be good enough to learn this beviour, not to find it out from the beginning. So it's an advantage here to have colonies of bees that don't die out completely, but adjust to the precense of the mites over seasons.

Also, when a daughter from a more resistant colony is mating in a difficult area, it may well be that it only has to mate to a few of the 20 drones she will mate with. Only a few of all the sistergroups are usually necessary for a special task. But I agree it's better to have more around 10 colonies in the apairy then than just 2. So you can weed out those colonies where the new queens has missed even the few good drones. Especially for the coming generations.

Also, though it will take time, your drones will make an impact, though small, on the matings of the new queens in you neighbours apiaries.

Maybe it's possible to increase the possiblity for your drones to win the race for virgins. Smaller drones fly better. Naturally built drone comb in small cell hives will be smaller in size and give smaller drones.

I like to give light in the darkness.

Now I will have a cup of coffee before I bottle some honey from last year.

Have a nice day!


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## Eastwood

Here's another tip
As Africanzied bees have an outcompeting trait when comes to mating where both AHB and EHB live, why not import some AHB good tempered resistant queens from Puerto Rico, propagate them and sell them to small backyard wanna-be TF beekeepers, seriously. On Puerto Rico the AHB population of bees have changed to good tempered, still resistant, probably due to killing the bad tempered ones. Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean. Probably some adaptation to our climate will take some generations.


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## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> What I miss is data or experiences backing up your predictions that it's no use for small scale beekeepers to try to become TF or to be able to increase resistance in their very small stock of their apiary. I expect them to exist, yes.
> 
> Behaviour of the bees is also passed on from one bee to another in a learning process. In this case the genetics need only be good enough to learn this beviour, not to find it out from the beginning. So it's an advantage here to have colonies of bees that don't die out completely, but adjust to the precense of the mites over seasons.


Are there some studies backing up this " bees learning TF" ?


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## gww

juhani
There is this and that at least shows in my mind the possibility of learned behavior against parrasites.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/scienc...bees-can-learn-to-solve-tasks-from-other-bees
Cheers
gww


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## msl

Eastwood said:


> While you may be right Mike, and many of my experiences tells me you may be,


Agreed, Mike lays out the realty of the small time bee keeper quite well, they are consumers of genetic stock not creators, that is the premise this thread starts with, and why bond will fail them as beekeepers
The problem is the same weather your bond or your IMP (maby I need to come up with a snappy name for cem free IMP to TF) if you don't have a background pop with resistance your not going to be TF long term with out re queening, the stock WILL drift towards the background average 
So give the BYBK the best TF stock available and after a few out crossings is will lose its resistance in most cases/places.

In bond world that will lead to catastrophic colaspe of the yard and them starting over, but they are told thats ok as there "selecting" for stronger bees etc... witch I think most of us here can agree is not the case, so then were is the utility in letting them die? Collapse and recovery only works large scale and in isolation.

In a IPM program they have been taught to monitor the health of there hives so they can see restiance is being lost and when their bees are no longer TF stock, they have been shown how to save the resources and thats its "ok" to do so... Come spring they have live hives and can buy a queen from the original source and put her in a strong nuc then pull her and use the cells to re-queen the hives. Much more sustainable. Maby they find they have to do it every 1-2 years to stay TF..... still much better then buying replacements, still much better then mite bombing the neighborhood. 

Once you get past the illusion that your breeding for resistance with 4 hives, bond losses makes no sense. 

stock section is a whole other animal, and mite counts seem to help with that.

Side note at the same time I took my final counts I was able to sample one my neighbors hives of year one package bees(he took 100% losses last year). ... I lost count in the high 40s... it was likly in the high 50s or more.. That tells me I am doing something or other right 


"moonlight mateing" ...very interesting


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## 1102009

http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/2/5/199.full.pdf



> Changes in the environment that affect endocrine functions are probably mediated through neurosecretory cells in the brain, as these cells are known to control the activity of the corpora allata in other insects
> 
> 
> There is no doubt that a worker honey bee learns much about her environment during her 35- to 60-day adult life.
> 
> Finally, bees are capable of forming
> memories linked to time of day. For example, they can learn an association between time of day and sites at which foraging will be rewarded
> 
> 
> Past and present studies of the honey bee have maintained distinctions between "learning" (what bees do when presented with a conditioned stimulus/unconditioned stimulus pair under controlled conditions) and the "behavioral maturation" that supports age polyethism. Although behavioral maturation is clearly not a synonym for learning, behavioral maturation is the context in which the learning of the bee (kin recognition, nest site location, improvement in skill at getting resources from flowers) naturally occurs. It is clear that laboratory studies of bee learning have been designed to reflect the abilities of bees in their ecological niche as social, fixed-site nest dwellers that forage as individuals but return home to share resources (Menzel 1985). This synthesis of laboratory and field studies can now be taken one step further. Our purpose in writing this review has been to highlight the plasticity inherent in honey bee maturation, to recognize the convergence of separate lines of research on the mushroom bodies, and to suggest that the three processes of learning, behavioral maturation, and developmental plasticity share common brain mechanisms in the honey bee.


Why should bees not learn from stress factors like mite infestations?
Idea is to shift hives from one place to another using a resistant hive`s place as Teacher. Would this work if the foragers and watchers learned the defense? Probably they would learn the grooming.


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## Eastwood

gww said:


> juhani
> There is this and that at least shows in my mind the possibility of learned behavior against parrasites.
> https://www.pbs.org/newshour/scienc...bees-can-learn-to-solve-tasks-from-other-bees
> Cheers
> gww


Thanks gww for the link!
Terje Reinhertsen, one of the TF beekeepers in Norway, the one which worked together with the scientists to produce their report on these bees, holds the position that social learning of his bees is one of the explanations for the resistance of his bees.
The friend of Terje which have cooperated with him for many years, Hans-Otto Johnsen, has done several investigations which are unpublished. Some of them concerning social learning TF. He introduced virgin queens from susceptible stock into nucs from his resistant bees. As big colonies next year they were as resistant as his other colonies. The nucs were distributed in his apiaries being then a small part of the colonies in each apiary. He counted on that the colonies would exchange bees in each apiary through drifting. Late next year the bees from his resistant bees that were the populations of the original nucs were of course worn out and dead.
Some of these nucs were placed in an apiary of their own. At the end of next year these colonies lost their resistance abilities. So the wroker bees from these susceptible stock were not able to maintain the resistance when there would be no drifters from resistant colonies close to them. They had to low quality of their genetic resistance setup apparently, their learning ability for resistance was not good enough it seemed.


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## msl

Eastwood said:


> . Maybe it's possible to increase the possiblity for your drones to win the race for virgins. Smaller drones fly better.


I have herd that said often by small cell permoters, but have seen nothing to back it up, It feels like they are just dulding them self's as to there chances of contoralying there genetics 
are you aware any studys? there seems a land slide edviance to the contrary 
The long and short of it seems to be is there is extreme competition among drones as such the drones the mate are the"right" size, if there was a advantage to smaller drones, bees would drawing smaller drone cells
If speed or range was the key, drones would be built more like workers, who have a lot more of bolth, but thats not what has been selected for.
drones do however do pack about 2x the kentinic energy of a worker, likly an advantage in an aerial shoving match to get to the queen, and the possabul reason the studys out there show smaller drones have poorer mating success


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## AR Beekeeper

"Body size and reproductive success of drones" by S. Berg, N. Koeniger, S. Koeniger, S. Fuch. Large drones have the edge in mating success. Apidologie, 1997.


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## gww

msl


> Once you get past the illusion that your breeding for resistance with 4 hives, bond losses makes no sense.


Of couse I have made this point before, but I am not convinced of this. First, it depends on all this loss you are talking about. If I lose 30 percent treatment free and you lose 20 percent treating, I don't see that as a big hump to climb. If you lose all, then yes, you have nothing. I also am not sold on small amount of genetic make up of not having a big impact in a big pool if that genetic advantage has a benifit to the bees. I had heard it put this way. You have 14 differrent daddies. If only a couple of them are in a hive, you have a chance of passing it on or it going away. It would seem to me that the healthyest bees in the hive might be the best to keep propagating even if a bunch of the hive is sick as heck. It is a natural advantage of the bees breeding mechinism.

So it might take longer but the question might be which helps most for a long term goal. You might not be getting the full picture of what is possible by knocking back mites at all. You may have to if the cost is not manageble but when I look at the published numbers, bond almost seems possible in most places though the cost may be more.

I keep hearing that it is impossible but then also hearing that even the bees having success, it is not really understood how they are doing it. There are theories based on best common sense like seeley puts fourth but nobody has really cracked everything the bees are using.

I don't see why a guy that only wanted 4 hives could not be treatment free if his loss was less then 50 percent and in the end there was hope over time that that 50 percent might get better. 

I keep remembering the one study I saw where they took 20 commercial hives and set them to the side and after a bit of die off first year, the set aside hives seemed to be holding their own and were in a close proximaty to a comercial setting and so the breeding pool was not separate. I think it was a usda study but don't hold me to it. 

I do agree there are places that it is probly impossible now but wonder if there are not more places out there where it is possible small scale to get a close success rate to those treating. Only one way to know and that is to try. There are places where even treating, the people still have big big loses. 

Weak hives dieing is a normal thing and if managable, maybe even a good thing. When I look at the published numbers, it seems like hives that no products were used on are only about an 8 to 12 percent differant death rate then treated hives. You would think a person could come up with management mechinisms to counter those percents if they run true.
The question then becomes, does allowing 10 percent more bees die actually make the bees stronger and in the end that 10 percent extra will go down?

Does losing that extra ten percent help all bees?
Cheers
gww


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> If speed or range was the key, drones would be built more like workers, who have a lot more of bolth, but thats not what has been selected for. drones do however do pack about 2x the kentinic energy of a worker, likly an advantage in an aerial shoving match to get to the queen, and the possabul reason the studys out there show smaller drones have poorer mating success


In all male competition things like strength, agility, endurance, good eyesight, fast reaction time and so on are what wins. Physical competition selects for good health - drones in poor health are unlikely to win. Its a marvellous, near perfect selection mechanism.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

gww said:


> I also am not sold on small amount of genetic make up of not having a big impact in a big pool if that genetic advantage has a benifit to the bees.


The trouble is it doesn't gww. It doesn't get a chance in a commercial environment. Its impossible to overemphasise this: treatment perpetuates the need to treat because it remove the adaptive pressure to maintain and increase the resistant alleles. Commercial drones are flying death to resistant alleles. Too many of them is the drop of clean water in a muddy river - they are simply washed away, constantly. 

Of course the further you can get from that sort of environment the less its true - then the introduction of resistant genes might help - but if you are far away enough for that to happen there will almost certainly be feral bees around already that will be several steps ahead.

It can't hurt to bring in resistant or feral stock, but you should be aware that unless you can put up a serious proportion of the local drones it will probably have little positive effect. 



gww said:


> You may have to if the cost is not manageble but when I look at the published numbers, bond almost seems possible in most places though the cost may be more.


To the degree that your drones can compete. Four hives in a dronespace containing 100 non-resisted hives won't make a dent. My guess - and its only a guess - is that you'd want to have about 30% of the colonies in say a 2 mile radius, and be encouraging them to make tons of drone on a self selecting basis - that is, give them all lots of brood room and lots of food and let the best get biggest and make the most drones. That's why I run unlimited brood nests - the big ones make loads of drones, which is exactly how it should be. That pushes the health of my apiary up constantly, and maximises the area where my drones can have an impact



gww said:


> I keep hearing that it is impossible but then also hearing that even the bees having success, it is not really understood how they are doing it. There are theories based on best common sense like seeley puts fourth but nobody has really cracked everything the bees are using.


As Kefuss insists: it doesn't matter that you don't know how they are doing it; all that matters is that you know they can do it. 



gww said:


> I don't see why a guy that only wanted 4 hives could not be treatment free if his loss was less then 50 percent and in the end there was hope over time that that 50 percent might get better.


Just follow the rulebook. Make lots of splits and mate them someplace where they'll pick up resistant genes. Keep as many colonies as you can. Work with others to build a resistant area. Do your best to stay as clear as you can of commercial bees. 

You can't keep 1 or 10 or 20 resistant hives in the middle of an apiary of 100 commercial hives - even if you were not invaded by mites. The commercial drones will clobber you. 

You could get away with keeping 10 commercial hives in the middle of your 100 resistant hives. 

Its a numbers game. Get away from them and flood the area: make it so your splits get lots of matings from your hives - or feral colonies, or both. Just keep the commercial genes out. If you can't do that no amount of twiddling will ever increase or maintain resistance through the genrations. 




gww said:


> Weak hives dieing is a normal thing and if managable, maybe even a good thing. When I look at the published numbers, it seems like hives that no products were used on are only about an 8 to 12 percent differant death rate then treated hives. You would think a person could come up with management mechinisms to counter those percents if they run true.
> 
> The question then becomes, does allowing 10 percent more bees die actually make the bees stronger and in the end that 10 percent extra will go down?
> Does losing that extra ten percent help all bees?


Not unless you are controlling - at least influencing to a strong degree - the genetic input. If you are, then yes, absolutely. That's natural selection, which, in the form of selective breeding is the very foundation of husbandry. Selection of the strongest in each generation to make the most of the next generation is the big trick that raises health and productivity. Normally in husbandry you fully and rigorously control male and female inputs. That's why a single bull can be worth millions of pounds (dollars, whatever) With bees you have to jump through hoops to influence the male side. 

Think of treated commercial drones as genetic poison to the tf beekeeper. That's how it is. Outnumber them or you'll fail, as night follows day. 

Mike (UK)


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## gww

Mike
I probly live in a pretty isolated area. However, people around me do buy packages. There will never be a control of that and it is something to be lived with. At least one around me has kept bees for 20 years and doesn't treat but just takes whatever hits come his way. 

I understand what your are saying but don't know if you are reading what might be the situation correctly. You probly are right in lots of places but america is big and not all areas are commercial areas but all probly get most of their bees from packages.

My view is that now is not like 30 years ago when the mites first arived. I don't think it is a good thing that it is a given that a small guy should not try cause it is impossible. I did nothing special to get my bees. I bought one hive and caught a couple of swarms in traps. They could be package or feral and I would not know. I am only going in my third year and the hives might all die this year. Three year period is what I hear the buildup causes most problims. So far so good but time will tell.

I am not sure what the background pressure has brought many areas around in america. The published hive loss data seems to indicate that most are not losing all in almost all states and it seems to be about a 10 percent differrance in hive loss in almost all places. That leads me to believe that there is some background adjustment over those 30 years from when the mites first came and that it is pretty wide spread. 

I have seen a number of people claiming to have kept bees all over for 3 to 7 years with out treating with chemicals and haveing decent success. Seen some bad ones too. And so the question still comes down to if your losses are managable are you helping the background that is already exposed to presure or hurting it. If you throw in learned behavior and enviromental oppertunity, I have to believe if you can live with your loss rate and find ways around it that it should help more then hurt and as more decide to do that, more success may be seen. I do not believe the incentive is there for big comercials to make that switch (They know what they have now) and my observations so far are that the ones doing it are the smaller hobby guys and sometimes cause they just don't know better and it works before they find out better. 

So If I do it and the five guys around me don't, it might be harder but if 3 of those five decide why not, it gets better.

The biggest thing is that looking over the last ten years at published data, 10 percent is not much extra loss and the ones with the kind of presure that is causeing ten percent extra loss is probly putting the kind of presure on the bees that will generate some kind of adaptive responce from them.

What you say on the numbers where breading is concerned may have merit but for it to have merit you have to be sure of the part of the breaders that you don't know about wether it be ferals or other poeple keeping bees and not treating either. I don't think you can easily know the outside bees influince with out bonding to see what it does to you. If you bond and your loss rates are close, that would seem to say that you have as much chance of helping the pool as the treater has of hurting it.

Maby it is a losing battle where a commercial sets 1000 hives but just out there in the world, it is not proving that it doesn't work every time. Some times it seems to be working.

It doesn't have to be faith based. The surest way to get an ideal of what is around you is to go bond. If you go bond and are only ten percent off of the guy treating, then the pool should be a a point that the presure of bond even small scale should have some impact or at least add to the pool rather then weaken it more.

The published numbers seem to indicate that it is a bit better 30 years after mites then it was at their arrival. If the presure is there then the responce should be there and it is a matter of how fast or how slow adaptation happens based on starting point of where you are. In those areas where you lose most or all your hives, you have to do what you have to do but saying all areas just cause some have some package bees there makes it not work automatically is not proven to me. This thread is based around that most small bee keepers are in an impossible area and they should not try unless they do it ipm. I say that I am not convince that most areas are impossible and you don't know unless it is tested. I do agree that some areas are probly impossible. One thing in my mind is that if there are areas that are not impossible and we move bee to them and start treating, they could become impossible and those on the edge that not treating is added to could tip the balance the non treatment way.

In the end big or small, hard or easy, bees have no need to adjust with out having presure to instigate it.

I am counting on background genetics helping more then hurting in my area but know that some buy packages around here.

Not counting the long threads like square peg. I did see four people join last year that had bees in differrent places, had bees for 3 to 4 years and had not treated and still had bees.

The bee informed numbers seem to reflect this also.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Mike
Am I reading this wrong in coming to the conclution that the gene in these bees are kind of dominate and so it is coming to the fore front even when the breeding pool is watered down.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0403-9
This is sorta how I took it even though I know I am talking about a differrent thing then just breeding a single queen. It still seems to be saying that it is a dominate gene that comes to the forfront even when trying to water it down.

It is things like this that give me the thought that if a trait is usefull, it may still come to the forefront in a pool with out such a gene. I do get your point that it would not need to come to the fore front with treated bees because there would not be the need. However, the need for it in the beginning may have been such that it comes to the forfront even if not needed due to being needed once so badly.

It only takes a drone or two with the trait to make it to a queen for the possibility of it expanding.

I could be all wet but it just seems possible to me and expesially since most places are going to have at least some unmanaged bees no matter where you are.

Cheers
gww


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## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> He counted on that the colonies would exchange bees in each apiary through drifting.





Eastwood said:


> Some of these nucs were placed in an apiary of their own. At the end of next year these colonies lost their resistance abilities. So the wroker bees from these susceptible stock were not able to maintain the resistance when there would be no drifters from resistant colonies close to them. They had to low quality of their genetic resistance setup apparently, their learning ability for resistance was not good enough it seemed.


If learning how to be TF, not drifting, was part of the process, I would assume that it would be passed on to the next generation for ever.


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## 1102009

gww


> If you bond and your loss rates are close, that would seem to say that you have as much chance of helping the pool as the treater has of hurting it.


I think you are right. One or two of my co-workers are in a situation like that. I hope I will be some time in future.

The treaters around me take out their drone comb as IPM or not to have them eat honey, so there are not many drones around. Swarm cells are culled to create production hives, that means queens are lost often in late summer.
The queens are lost often too after formic acid treatments.

As most of their hives expel the drones that time, they purchase mated queens. And this is a state I want to use in future, spread queen cells from my colonies best queens which they can have for free after once again I split the colonies in summer, like Josef Koller describes. Then I have queen cells the right time of year, give them to my neighbors and mate the neighbors`new queens near me.. For that I need more colonies though.

They are not interested in drones but I am. So far I have survivors which breed small numbers of drones until fall if they are not harvested.
I already have some influence in respect to my drones mating the supercedure queens from my neighbors ( many hives supersede in late summer after swarm cell culling in spring).

My drones are smaller but I don´t think they are more healthy, the drones of treated hives probably are more healthy because they are bred between organic treatments. 
I hope they do not give much virus to foreign queens but I believe the weak have no chance to mate.


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## Eastwood

AR Beekeeper said:


> "Body size and reproductive success of drones" by S. Berg, N. Koeniger, S. Koeniger, S. Fuch. Large drones have the edge in mating success. Apidologie, 1997.


The study, with possibility to download the whole article as pdf: https://www.apidologie.org/articles...1/Apidologie_0044-8435_1997_28_6_ART0011.html

This study compares drones born in wroker cells and drones born in drone cells, not drones born in small and large drone cells. Drones born in wroker cells are not what bees prefer, but avoid. So this is not really a valid study in this context.


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## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> If learning how to be TF, not drifting, was part of the process, I would assume that it would be passed on to the next generation for ever.


Apparently not. At least not always. Some degree of suitable genetics probably is needed.


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## Eastwood

msl said:


> I have herd that said often by small cell permoters, but have seen nothing to back it up, It feels like they are just dulding them self's as to there chances of contoralying there genetics
> are you aware any studys? there seems a land slide edviance to the contrary
> .........


..land slide of studies on small and large drones..?

Africanized bees are small cell, so their drones are smaller. There is an agreement among the scientific community as far as I have seen that AHB drones compete better than EHB (European Honey Bees) drones. 
To eliminate the possibility that this depends on the size of the drones reared in small drone cells (not compared to drones reared in worker cells) there needs to be studies in which small cell EHB drones compete with AHB drones for mating with EHB and AHB virgin queens in an isolated place.


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> .......
> Make lots of splits and mate them someplace where they'll pick up resistant genes. Keep as many colonies as you can. Work with others to build a resistant area. Do your best to stay as clear as you can of commercial bees.
> ........
> You could get away with keeping 10 commercial hives in the middle of your 100 resistant hives.
> .......


Agree with that!




mike bispham said:


> .......
> You can't keep 1 or 10 or 20 resistant hives in the middle of an apiary of 100 commercial hives - even if you were not invaded by mites. The commercial drones will clobber you.
> .......


Maybe not, but you don't know until you've tried. To know if it's possible, and not create mite bombs that poison your neighbourhood, you need to monitor the mite levels in your wanna be TF hives, but take action when mite levels are rising too high. If anyone wants to try let them, but teach them how to avoid creating mite bombs.
It seems you don't like monitoring mite levels and you don't want to treat under any circumstance. I can respect that. But also a Back Yard Bee Keeper (BYBK, I figured it out) that hates chemicals and want to promote bees and want their own honey can keep bees without creating mite bombs.


----------



## mike bispham

gww said:


> You probly are right in lots of places but america is big and not all areas are commercial areas but all probly get most of their bees from packages.


That is very much the wrong way to go about becoming tf! Unless you can requeen with resistent queens, or mate in a resistant zone feral bees are a must. There is far too far to go with commercial bees. 



gww said:


> My view is that now is not like 30 years ago when the mites first arived.


That will be absolutely right where ferals have had a chance to adapt.

But in commercial enviroments there is _zero_ pressure to adapt, and there has been no adaptation. This is the problem, end of story. 



gww said:


> I don't think it is a good thing that it is a given that a small guy should not try cause it is impossible. I did nothing special to get my bees. I bought one hive and caught a couple of swarms in traps. They could be package or feral and I would not know. I am only going in my third year and the hives might all die this year. Three year period is what I hear the buildup causes most problims. So far so good but time will tell.


I agree, and good luck to you, and keep up with bond! And make lots of nucs!

IFF (that means 'if and only if') you are are a zone (let's give it its proper name, a 'deme' = 'a mating population') where ferals (and/or BYBKs have raised rsisitance, the work has been done for you. All you have to do is practice good husbandry: breed only from the best (as far as you can.

That means strict bond; because _the moment you start helping the bees you lose the data that tells you which are the best_.



gww said:


> I am not sure what the background pressure has brought many areas around in america.


It will vary. In between the commercials will be pockets of ferals. The better the bee country (including nesting sites and being left alone) the more there'll be.

In breeding terms the area around a commercial apiary shades away from completely toxic to benign with distance. Of course scattered BYBK have a similar effect. But I doubt ferals are far away from most places with reasonable forage by now. 

Msl and Siwolke adopted the premise: we can't not treat because we are surrounded by commercials. All I'm really doing is pointing out that resistance is a process, and it can't be carried out in a dead zone. I'm insisting: you have to get the mating away, get feral starting stock. Don't focus on mites; focus on the process of breeding resistance in. Because its only when you can do that that you are tf. Its only when you are doing that that you are moving toward tf. 

The best way to find ferals is to let the authorities know you are a swarm collecter, and perhaps better still, are willing to do cut-outs. Get in touch with pest controllers. Talk with these people. After a while you'll know where there are clusters of free-living colonies. That information is gold.



gww said:


> In the end big or small, hard or easy, bees have no need to adjust with out having presure to instigate it.


Nature applies the appropriate pressures. You have to not get in the way. 



gww said:


> I am counting on background genetics helping more then hurting in my area but know that some buy packages around here.
> 
> Not counting the long threads like square peg. I did see four people join last year that had bees in differrent places, had bees for 3 to 4 years and had not treated and still had bees.
> 
> The bee informed numbers seem to reflect this also.


Yes, its perfectly doable - but you might have to keep bees, at least to start with, at some distance from where you live. I suspect that's the bit some people don't want to take on board!

Mike (UK)


----------



## Hunajavelho

Eastwood said:


> ..land slide of studies on small and large drones..?
> 
> Africanized bees are small cell, so their drones are smaller. There is an agreement among the scientific community as far as I have seen that AHB drones compete better than EHB (European Honey Bees) drones.
> To eliminate the possibility that this depends on the size of the drones reared in small drone cells (not compared to drones reared in worker cells) there needs to be studies in which small cell EHB drones compete with AHB drones for mating with EHB and AHB virgin queens in an isolated place.


Or might it be due to wingpower?


----------



## Eastwood

SiWolKe said:


> http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/2/5/199.full.pdf
> Why should bees not learn from stress factors like mite infestations?
> Idea is to shift hives from one place to another using a resistant hive`s place as Teacher. Would this work if the foragers and watchers learned the defense? Probably they would learn the grooming.


This is another test Hans-Otto Johnsen in Norway made. He shifted place between a susceptible colony and a resistant in the same apiary. The result was that both colonies became resistant.


----------



## Eastwood

Hunajavelho said:


> Or might it be due to wingpower?


..that AHB drones have greater mating success than EHB drones..

If wingpower plays a role, which it probably does, it is due to something. One thing can be genetics. Another a better ratio between wing area and body volume (creating the air resistance) – bigger wings in comparison to smaller body volume. According to Roy Grout in 1937, bigger cell size resulted in bigger body volume. Body weight and wing area didn't grow accordingly, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...e=additional&usg=AOvVaw1DMmC0nXj0_vCwy_7L19Rw

But to know for sure that size of drones have no effect there need to be tests where small cell EHB and small cell AHB drones are compared in mating EHB and AHB virgin queens.


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> This is another test Hans-Otto Johnsen in Norway made. He shifted place between a susceptible colony and a resistant in the same apiary. The result was that both colonies became resistant.


Can you supply a link to this test Erik?

Si, that study does not relate to grooming or other varroa resistance behaviours. While bees obviously can learn some things, this paper does not support the thesis that they can learn grooming. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> Can you supply a link to this test Erik?
> 
> Si, that study does not relate to grooming or other varroa resistance behaviours. While bees obviously can learn some things, this paper does not support the thesis that they can learn grooming.
> 
> Mike (UK)


It's not published. Personal communication from him. He is runnning several hundreds of colonies and hasn't treated for soon 15 years. He has similar types of bees as Terje Reinhertsen, which guy's bees is reasearched. 

Take it as an idea to set up a test. It's not difficult to do.

If it doesn't relate to learning resistance behaviours, do you have a better suggestion?


----------



## 1102009

Mike


> Msl and *Siwolke adopted the premise: we can't not treat* because we are surrounded by commercials. All I'm really doing is pointing out that resistance is a process, and it can't be carried out in a dead zone. I'm insisting: you have to get the mating away, get feral starting stock. Don't focus on mites; focus on the process of breeding resistance in. Because its only when you can do that that you are tf. Its only when you are doing that that you are moving toward tf.


I´m really getting tired to explain to you my path because you focus on my IPM which will only be used to have bee numbers in a separate location. 
I´m still bond in the other places and stay bond. The queens are the factors which matter to me.

No the paper just says bees learn. A time ago beekeepers did not even believe bees could feel pain or are able to think like they do.
And no beekeeper knows what really happens in communication. Why can they not learn grooming?
In an epigenetic way? I believe we hinder much learning by chemicals ( smell communication) or wired foundation (vibration communication).


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> If it doesn't relate to learning resistance behaviours, do you have a better suggestion?


Yes Erik, top: the input of less aggressive mites, then, the benefits of an improved microbiology (for the same reasons), drifting in and out of resistant workers...

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> I´m really getting tired to explain to you my path because you focus on my IPM which will only be used to have bee numbers in a separate location.
> I´m still bond in the other places and stay bond. The queens are the factors which matter to me.


Si, I don't think you have. I've only returned to this thread in the last week or so, after an absence of about a year. perhaps you could outline your setting, management and goals for me?



SiWolKe said:


> No the paper just says bees learn. A time ago beekeepers did not even believe bees could feel pain or are able to think like they do.
> And no beekeeper knows what really happens in communication. Why can they not learn grooming?


Why is the moon not made of cheese (at least that part we haven't visited)? 

I can learn things. I can't learn to memorise a telephone directory. Just because you can learn some things doesn't mean you can learn anything.

You can posit any number of things. Unless you have evidence its just speculation. in this case I would have thought the question would have been asked scientifically by now?



SiWolKe said:


> In an epigenetic way? I believe we hinder much learning by chemicals ( smell communication) or wired foundation (vibration communication).



We can all believe what we want. I like to accumulate _knowledge_ So I make a strong distinction between things that might be and things tht are known to be. I also take note of how well-founded that 'known to be' is.

BTW we still don't know that bees can feel pain. They certainly can't think 'like we do'.

Mike (UK)


----------



## 1102009

> Si, I don't think you have. I've only returned to this thread in the last week or so, after an absence of about a year. perhaps you could outline your setting, management and goals for me?


Thank god for small mercies and in this case for your openness, I had in mind to leave BS as an active poster because of your depressing comments. I need all my energy for my project and don´t want to justify all the time.
So far this thread and others opinions helped me much and I would be very sad to leave in frustration not to be accepted.

It´s all in my thread. I was a fanatic bonder once ( I even remember asking you to be my mentor but you declined). I´m still a bonder but I need bees for my survivor splits which I will have via IPM, compare it to catching ferals.



> Why is the moon not made of cheese (at least that part we haven't visited)?


:shhhh:


> I can learn things. I can't learn to memorise a telephone directory. Just because you can learn some things doesn't mean you can learn anything.


No, but as long as scientists still find new facts about bee behavior I´m not one who says they can´t learn simple things like grooming. 



> You can posit any number of things. Unless you have evidence its just speculation. in this case I would have thought the question would have been asked scientifically by now?


And what about evidence they are not able to learn this? Human interpretation is no evidence to me.



> We can all believe what we want. I like to accumulate _knowledge_ So I make a strong distinction between things that might be and things tht are known to be. I also take note of how well-founded that 'known to be' is.


As well founded as coffee is bad for your health and spinach has iron. False data. Now coffee is good and spinach is just a normal veggie.
My own observations I believe in but I will say that they are IMO here, being aware of what people want to hear.



> BTW we still don't know that bees can feel pain. They certainly can't think 'like we do'.


No, they are insects. They think like insects do. But there is no evidence they can´t feel pain. Even plants have a reaction when eaten or killed, perhaps it´s the definition of what we belief pain is, which differs.


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> Yes Erik, top: the input of less aggressive mites, then, the benefits of an improved microbiology (for the same reasons), drifting in and out of resistant workers...
> 
> Mike (UK)


well, less aggressive mites can be ruled out as the colonies were placed also originally in the same apiary. The small drifiting that had been going on before the shift of places of the colonies was not enough

The improved microbiology should then come from the big influx of field bees from the resistant colony. In what way would that help? What changed was the mite population didn't reach dangerous high levels.

"Drifiting in and out of resistant workers". There was a big influx of resistant field bees to begin with when the hives changed place. So at that time this could explain positive benefits for the suceptible colony. The question is if could explain also the mite population at the very end of the season.

Anyway, I would like to see a good designed test made with an enough number of colonies.


----------



## 1102009

In addition to my last post:
some honeybee species express allogrooming so why cannot different mellifera learn to do this too as an evolutionary process or in a selection process? 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2016.1196016?journalCode=tjar20

What starts this? Do beekeeping methods hinder this? Do bee colonies need higher triggers?


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> :shhhh:
> 
> No, but as long as scientists still find new facts about bee behavior I´m not one who says they can´t learn simple things like grooming.


Science proceeds on the basis of what _is_ known, not what may be. 



SiWolKe said:


> As well founded as coffee is bad for your health and spinach has iron. False data.


How do you know that? From scientific studies I hope. 

Now you know it you can say: this is spinach, therefore it contains no more iron than any other veg. That's human interpretation.




SiWolKe said:


> No, they are insects. They think like insects do. But there is no evidence they can´t feel pain. Even plants have a reaction when eaten or killed, perhaps it´s the definition of what we belief pain is, which differs.


Perhaps perhaps.... we could go on like that till the end of time, and still be no wiser.

I'm still not much wiser about your set-up Si. Is your bond yard isolated from commercial drones? What is the origin or the stock? How is it going? 

Mike


----------



## Eastwood

Eastwood said:


> well, less aggressive mites can be ruled out as the colonies were placed also originally in the same apiary. The small drifiting that had been going on before the shift of places of the colonies was not enough
> 
> The improved microbiology should then come from the big influx of field bees from the resistant colony. In what way would that help? What changed was the mite population didn't reach dangerous high levels.
> 
> "Drifiting in and out of resistant workers". There was a big influx of resistant field bees to begin with when the hives changed place. So at that time this could explain positive benefits for the suceptible colony. The question is if could explain also the mite population at the very end of the season.
> 
> Anyway, I would like to see a good designed test made with an enough number of colonies.


Mike,
I have thought about these two colonies that shifted place. It's interesting in that the field bees could take care of the colony against the mites. But this is not so good test for testing learning, I agree.

The other tests Hans-Otto made are better. There he used a group of about ten nucs from resistant colonies into which he introduced virgin susceptible queens which then were mated in his apiaries. So they became maybe 50% resistant in genes. That is many times not enough for resistance. Those colonies were distributed in a number of his apiaries so they were fewer that 50%. They appeared resistant both the first year, but also the second. Some drifting would occur, as usual.
Some of the nucs were placed in an apiary with only such nucs isolated from his other apiaries (and others as well). Those colonies did not show resistance the second year.


----------



## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> I'm still not much wiser about your set-up Si. Is your bond yard isolated from commercial drones? What is the origin or the stock? How is it going?
> Mike


In short words:
I keep so called "resistant" stock in two locations 20km apart since 2015 ( started with a treated hive 2014 which died) and had one local mutt hive in my garden, 2017. The 2015 stock was Carniolans and AMM from long time tf breeders. 2016 I got an elgon F1 queen and bred from her. 

My Carni-Elgon bee yard is isolated 2.5km but two hives of primorskij bees are near, 500m. The AMM are not isolated, 35 or more hives near, nearest 20 hives in 300m.

The hives around me are hobbyists and small sideliners. Part of them migrate to black forest. 

First winter: no losses, second winter 4 survivors out of 14, I had to sustain with original stock from the friend who bred the F1 Elgon for me. This winter 5 out of 11 hives. Bond. 

This spring: 4 out of 5 elgon hybrids survived, one out of 5 AMM hybrids survived, the local mutt swarm colony died. The AMM is a two years queen and an established colony which was very mite infested but still lives. I kept it like a feral colony, did not manage it after creating the split. The elgons are descendants of the F1, which is still alive. Three of them are out of one colony which throwed a natural swarm after splitting. The F1 splits did not swarm.

Plans: to do spring splits and once again split in summer before winter bee breeding. I ordered 4 packages of buckfast bees from a breeder who cares for VSH. This colonies will be placed separately and maybe splitted in summer.
The queenless splits will get Elgon queens from my source and will go into the elgon beeyard or be distributed among the locations. The buckfast queens colonies will be kept on my home balcony and observed if they need treatments. All depends on how the colonies develop. I have drawn comb en masse and much honey comb and will feed all the time.

This is the expansion model. I will see what comes next if this works out for me. I can only have 25 hives not to pay tax.
Sibylle


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> well, less aggressive mites can be ruled out as the colonies were placed also originally in the same apiary. The small drifiting that had been going on before the shift of places of the colonies was not enough


I don't follow Erik??



Eastwood said:


> The improved microbiology should then come from the big influx of field bees from the resistant colony. In what way would that help?
> 
> What changed was the mite population didn't reach dangerous high levels.


I don't know the answer to that. We'd need the microbiology man, Deknow. But I do believe that its an important area. A good microfauna helps, and I doubt oxalic acid or other chemicals help with that.

I think the effect of the dilution of the commercial mite strains with less fecund strains would work in the new hives' favour quite quickly. 



Eastwood said:


> "Drifiting in and out of resistant workers". There was a big influx of resistant field bees to begin with when the hives changed place. So at that time this could explain positive benefits for the suceptible colony. The question is if could explain also the mite population at the very end of the season.


Well, I've offered my thoughts...



Eastwood said:


> Anyway, I would like to see a good designed test made with an enough number of colonies.


Yes, it would be interesting and valuable

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> In short words:
> I keep so called "resistant" stock in two locations 20km apart since 2015 ( started with a treated hive 2014 which died) and had one local mutt hive in my garden, 2017. The 2015 stock was Carniolans and AMM from long time tf breeders. 2016 I got an elgon F1 queen and bred from her.


I get the broad picture Si, but its hard to form a detailed view. Could you strip it down to tables showing location, year, number of hives treated within say 3 miles, colony numbers, with survival numbers. 

Don't worry about what they are where they come from unless they are ferals. I think its fair to assume anything else has no resistance, despite sellars claims. Especially Amm and Buckfast sellers claims. 

Let me see your essentials.

Mike (UK)


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## clyderoad

mike bispham>> same old, same old from you.


----------



## squarepeg

clyderoad said:


> mike bispham>> same old, same old from you.





clyderoad said:


> Give us your take on thread topic. Looking forward to your contribution.


we don't need snarky here. do you have a take on this thread topic clyde?


----------



## mike bispham

clyderoad said:


> mike bispham>> same old, same old from you.


Yeah, but I have 100 tf hives and a livelihood now to back it up Clyde 

Mike


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Let me see your essentials.


mike, sibylle has a sticky thread detailing her essentials. when you were asked by another poster for details on your experience you pointed him to your thread. is it not reasonable to expect you to do the same?


----------



## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> I get the broad picture Si, but its hard to form a detailed view. Could you strip it down to tables showing location, year, number of hives treated within say 3 miles, colony numbers, with survival numbers.
> 
> Don't worry about what they are/where they come from unless they are ferals. I think its fair to assume anything else has no resistance, despite sellars claims. Especially Amm and Buckfast sellers claims.
> 
> Let me see your essentials.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Join www.VivaBiene.de, we have a thread for english speaking members, or read my thread and you will know the essentials. Or pm me. I conduct a scorecard in my forum. I don´t want to hijack this thread. 

Since I can´t use ferals ( when will you ever acknowledge this ) I use the best stock available. Just now it´s the elgons. They like to groom my body hairs so I hope they will learn to groom off the mites too if I manage them in the right way. And they are so beautiful and nice to work, not too gentle but not hot. They are good foragers too. Loved that swarm experience.

The AMM are amazing also but they are too hot. Ferals I have to create myself.

Mike, I keep bees now for 5 years and I´m still learning. This year will be the first I feel sure about my managements. Before I ever think about doing some professional selection I want to know that it´s not my beekeeping that kills them.
As to location and mite invasion this could change every season. My future bees have to put up with this or not. They will put up with this, I trust them.

I know where you live, I visited your area once. It´s not to be compared to my environmental circumstances. I don´t take advise from people anymore who have different environment except if they are empathic.


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## 1102009

sorry square my post crossed yours


----------



## clyderoad

squarepeg said:


> we don't need snarky here. do you have a take on this thread topic clyde?


same old, same old is snarky? go back and read the posts made in this thread nearly a year ago and the posts made in other threads a year ago.
compare them to now. see any difference? I don't.

sure I have a take on it, trying to figure out how I can present it under the unique forum rules and frankly, wonder if alternative views have a place in this forum.


----------



## 1102009

clyderoad said:


> sure I have a take on it, trying to figure out how I can present it under the unique forum rules and frankly, wonder if alternative views have a place in this forum.


:scratch:


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> mike, sibylle has a sticky thread detailing her essentials. when you were asked by another poster for details on your experience you pointed him to your thread. is it not reasonable to expect you to do the same?


I was trying to help sp, but I'll stop. When I want help I expect to do the work, when I'm offering help I don't.

Mike (UK)


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## Richinbama

Hi hi folks, I did read the thread. I at most points understood most, but I did get lost in so much info that isn't in layman's terms, that's why I asked. I didn't understand, or something to me was left out or confused on. Yes, im new. Also opposing views should be discussed in any forum or conversation. It's called diplomacy, and arrogance should be left out of any conversation. All members aren't up to some folks level, so how do you get them there without questions and good answers in terms new folks with interest need to progress. Just thinking. 
Thanks rich


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> I was trying to help sp, but I'll stop. When I want help I expect to do the work, when I'm offering help I don't.
> 
> Mike (UK)


I humbly appreciate the good intentions and thank you for that. Still I´m convinced Im experienced and emancipated enough to ask for help if I need it. Otherwise BS offers great advise and helps and educates us in a neutral manner.


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## Richinbama

Beesource is a great place to learn siwolke. Thanks a million to all that are helping me and others on the path !!! 😊


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> ......
> I don't know the answer to that. We'd need the microbiology man, Deknow. But I do believe that its an important area. A good microfauna helps, and I doubt oxalic acid or other chemicals help with that.
> 
> I think the effect of the dilution of the commercial mite strains with less fecund strains would work in the new hives' favour quite quickly.
> 
> 
> Well, I've offered my thoughts...
> 
> (UK)


To begin with I've never seen any evidence for that there actually exist differences in what is called virulence of mites. Virulens I understand when we talk about pathogens, like nosema and viruses. And I've never seen actually a report that mites have killed colonies, even if they make them weaker, but viruses do, and nosema. Mites may well help viruses to do their job, but what makes the real difference for AHB for example is the lack of viruses.
But I've seen speculations many times in papers that there might be differences in virulence between different mite strains, in an effort to explain some results. Mites are extremely inbred. That's one of their characteristics. Prof Fries in Sweden once made a test to find out eventual differences between mite stocks, in mites among the Bond bees on island Gotland in the Baltic and in mites in susceptible bees on the mainland. He found none. That's actually the only test I know of in this field.
But if there can be differences in mite virulence, I can't see there would be any difference among mites in a single apiary. So in the case where two hives shifted place in the same apiary I don't see there will be any mix of different mite stocks.

Microbiology is important. Destroy it more or less with chemicals means you will get negative results with the bees. But today many times it's like choosing between pest and cholera for many. But as Dean also knows you can buy packages of treated bees and begin the way back to help bees to be stronger in different ways, for example getting a healthier microfauna.
I'm actually convinced that if chemicals never had been used to begin with against the varroa mite we hadn't been in this situation where it's getting worse and worse where you only see the solution in new chemicals. It's the chemicals that to begin with weakend the immune system of the bees and made it easier for the viruses. But today treated susceptible bees, and mites, are so full of viruses, that if you just stop treataing such bees you will loose most of the bees, if not all.

I'm glad for all TF beekeepers around the globe. They are an important resource for all others.


----------



## 1102009

Eastwood said:


> But today treated susceptible bees, and mites, are so full of viruses, that if you just stop treataing such bees you will loose most of the bees, if not all.


I made a test this year to find out the weakness of my local treated mutts, because many advise to use the local bees since they would be adapted.
I created a 4.5kg swarm with mated queen out of treated colonies and set them on small cell comb and empty frames. The first capped brood was culled to have them started without mites almost.
They were placed single, a robber screen was installed and they could breed drones as they wanted. 
I monitored mites and drop stayed low the whole season. They did not swarm. In summer mite drop was < 1 a day, the other hives had 10-30 a day.
No DWV bees observed, the colony seemed to be very strong. They stored 50kg of honey, I harvested 20kg.

I late summer they reduced brood combs to half. Mite drop stayed low. In december they were dead, varroa crash. I realize that 30 years of prophylactic treatments made the local mutts not bear half a mite a day ( and their virus disease) dropping onto the board as the more resistant bred queen´s colonies are still able to bear a threshold of 30 mites dropping down a day.


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> To begin with I've never seen any evidence for that there actually exist differences in what is called virulence of mites.
> [...]
> But I've seen speculations many times in papers that there might be differences in virulence between different mite strains, in an effort to explain some results.


Erik,

Try http://articles.extension.org/pages/65450/varroa-mite-reproductive-biology 

That's just the top result of a google search for "varroa mite fecundity"

There is variability to some degree in all species. That's why selective breeding works (although in some cases you are trying to reduce variability to force a trait to be permanent, by eliminating alternative alleles). 

I confess the idea that vsh effectively breeds low fecundity bees is my own theory. Are you suggesting btw that because mites are highly interbred they would be resistant to any such 'breeding'? 

I'm not sure virulence and fecundity are really the same thing. I suspect the notion of virulence is actually not useful in the context of resistant bees. There's an interaction going on, as the bees keep mite numbers down (somehow, anyhow). Those same mites that would be virulent in a commercial hive are not virulent in a tf hive - so you cannot define their virulence independently. 

I suppose the same is true for fecundity, if something the bees are doing is affecting it. At least it is describing the actual mechanism under study.

Perhaps you'd like to look at that paper Erik, and talk some more about this?




Eastwood said:


> But if there can be differences in mite virulence, I can't see there would be any difference among mites in a single apiary. So in the case where two hives shifted place in the same apiary I don't see there will be any mix of different mite stocks.


I thought your scenario was one in which outside hives were bought in? Was it just new queens?



Eastwood said:


> Microbiology is important. Destroy it more or less with chemicals means you will get negative results with the bees. But today many times it's like choosing between pest and cholera for many. But as Dean also knows you can buy packages of treated bees and begin the way back to help bees to be stronger in different ways, for example getting a healthier microfauna.


So do you agree that in theory at least inoculation from tf bees may help package bees thrive?



Eastwood said:


> I'm actually convinced that if chemicals never had been used to begin with against the varroa mite we hadn't been in this situation where it's getting worse and worse where you only see the solution in new chemicals.


That's absolutely true of varroa (and the mix of harmful micro-organisms it allows to thrive) I don't think are any researchers with biology backgrounds who don't understand now that it is treating that perpetuates the need to treat; and if we'd just let varroa rip it wouldn't be a problem anymore. But they couldn't be sure of that at the time, and honeybee services were essential, and the chemical companies were on the case and know that by far the most profitable lines are the addictive ones... 



Eastwood said:


> It's the chemicals that to begin with weakend the immune system of the bees and made it easier for the viruses. But today treated susceptible bees, and mites, are so full of viruses, that if you just stop treataing such bees you will loose most of the bees, if not all.
> 
> Perhaps they played a part but varroa is the primary agent. it is the mite opening wounds to feed, allowing micro-organisms entry, that is the reason virus became seen to be a problem. Actually they are just the straw that breaks the camel's back. remove varroa (better still, letthe bees remov varroa) and the virus go away.
> 
> But yes, I wouldn't put any chemicals in my hives for all the tea in China.
> 
> 
> 
> Eastwood said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm glad for all TF beekeepers around the globe. They are an important resource for all others.
> 
> 
> 
> Me too. The ones who understand more of why they are succeeding are the best resource though. They are not all equal.
> 
> Mike (UK)
Click to expand...


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> Terje Reinhertsen, one of the TF beekeepers in Norway, the one which worked together with the scientists to produce their report on these bees, ...
> The friend of Terje which have cooperated with him for many years, Hans-Otto Johnsen,


I have understood, that Terje and Hans-Otto have pretty much the same bee material as you do. Is that correct?
They also have small cells as you do. 

Two mysterious beekeepers doing years and years *successfull profesional scale TF beekeeping* (this is what we have been told, weather it is true I have no clue) and yet nobody knows much about them. So mysterious we had difficulties finding who they were, as the next clips from another thread reveal:

From Beesource 17.10.2017


SiWolKe said:


> I sent the link to Erik and he wants to contact Hans-Otto and will give me the true story when he has spoken to him.
> His reaction was that there was something seriously wrong with that study.
> I will update.


After Eriks blog writing dated 18.10.2017, and Siwolke sending a link to it, I wrote on Beesource 19.10.2017




Juhani Lunden said:


> So Erik is sure the beekeeper of the study is Hans-Otto Johnsen, although there is contradictory information (about the TF years)?
> 
> I don´t understand this sentance in Eriks writing: "This has also not been a defensive campaign for its bees for many years."
> 
> Does he mean that there has been some sort of campaign against his bees or not?


Eriks blog writing was changed afterwards we found out he is Terje Reinertsen.


As we came to conclusion, that learning from other bees cannot be the explanation to varroa resistance (because it would, once started, continue for ever), what do you think is the explanation that they in similar Nordic climate conditions are successfully totally TF and you are not?


To me here is something which does not add up.


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> Erik,
> 
> Try http://articles.extension.org/pages/65450/varroa-mite-reproductive-biology
> ..........
> 
> I thought your scenario was one in which outside hives were bought in? Was it just new queens?
> .............
> 
> So do you agree that in theory at least inoculation from tf bees may help package bees thrive?
> 
> .........


The study is interesting but doesn't deal with differences in fecunduty between different strains of mites, but what affects the fecundity of mites in general. And those things are differneces with the bees. And that's what I stress, it's differences with the bees that are the clue for resistance. Trying to breed mites I don't know how to do and I consider it a dead end.

The scenario with the Norwegian was two different ones dealing with the influence of resistant worker bees on susceptible genetics of other bee stock. I have described the differences in my posts. The one you didn't think the results were due to learning was the one where Hans-Otto had shifted the place of two colonies in the same apiary. And I finally agreed that it wasn't a good enough test to show learning was involved . The other test I refer to a quite recent post.

The learning subjects is about that inoculation of bees from resistant colonies to help susceptible bees to behave resistant. I refer again to one of my latest posts above describing the test where he made nucs from resistant colonies and introduced virgin queens from suceptible source.


----------



## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> I have understood, that Terje and Hans-Otto have pretty much the same bee material as you do. Is that correct?
> They also have small cells as you do.
> Two mysterious beekeepers ...
> ......
> Eriks blog writing was changed afterwards we found out he is Terje Reinertsen.
> ........
> what do you think is the explanation that they in similar Nordic climate conditions are successfully totally TF and you are not?


Hans-Otto bought a lot of splits from me in the beginning of this century. Terje used some of this material in his breeding. He used also other stock. And Hans-Otto has used material from Terje. Hans-Otto is probably the one which has bees that most resemble my bees.
None of them are mysterious in Norway. Hans-Otto produces a lot of the wax foundation that is used in Norway, different cell sizes. I don't think he is that mysetrious internationally either. 
http://beesource.com/point-of-view/hans-otto-johnsen/survival-of-a-commercial-beekeeper-in-norway/
http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=880
http://www.elgon.es/norwegian_celltest.html

In what way was my blog changed? I may have missed the number of years Hans-Otto has been TF, so to be sure I think I reduced the number of years with one. But that mistake, if it is a mistake, is gone by years keeping on ticking.... Anything else?

I didn't dear in 2008-9 to risk to get 90-100% (that's how it looked like) of my hives gone when the mite hit so I used thymol, and saved 50% of my almost 200 hives. I didn't want to lose my Monticola/Buckfast combination and to lose means of getting food on table. So you can call me a failure if you want to.


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> The study is interesting but doesn't deal with differences in fecunduty between different strains of mites, but what affects the fecundity of mites in general. And those things are differneces with the bees. And that's what I stress, it's differences with the bees that are the clue for resistance. Trying to breed mites I don't know how to do and I consider it a dead end.


My thesis is that the bees do it, by taking out the most fecund females and their offspring. That's what vsh/smr traits do. The bees are more able to detect more mite populated capped cells, and so tend on average to take out more fecund strains of mites. The result is that the mites are effectively bred toward low fecundity.

The only thing the beekeeper has to do is not interfere with the process by killing off the low fecundity mites!

In an apiary full of such mites, a commercial colony would have a better chance of survival untreated than in a apiary where the mites can blow up their populations quickly. 

In the reverse case, a colony that can thrive untreated with low fecundity mites will struggle once significant numbers of fast breeding mites drift in.

Does that make sense? Does it offer an improved explanation to the things we find?



Eastwood said:


> The learning subjects is about that inoculation of bees from resistant colonies to help susceptible bees to behave resistant. I refer again to one of my latest posts above describing the test where he made nucs from resistant colonies and introduced virgin queens from suceptible source.


What was the result Erik?

Mike (UK)


----------



## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> My thesis is that the bees do it, by taking out the most fecund females and their offspring. That's what vsh/smr traits do. The bees are more able to detect more mite populated capped cells, and so tend on average to take out more fecund strains of mites. The result is that the mites are effectively bred toward low fecundity.
> 
> The only thing the beekeeper has to do is not interfere with the process by killing off the low fecundity mites
> Mike (UK)


What about fecundity factors like earlier hatching of brood, longer phoretic state of mites and longer nursing time ( drone) ?
I would like to have a scientific link to your thesis, Mike.


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> What about fecundity factors like earlier hatching of brood, longer phoretic state of mites and longer nursing time ( drone) ?


I'm not sure any of those are strictly fecundity matters Si but regardless: I'm not ruling any other knowledge or thinking out, just thinking I can add to it 



SiWolKe said:


> I would like to have a scientific link to your thesis, Mike.


That will have to wait till I've written it and had it published in an appropriate scientific journal! Holding of breath inadvisable!

Mike


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> In what way was my blog changed? I may have missed the number of years Hans-Otto has been TF, so to be sure I think I reduced the number of years with one. But that mistake, if it is a mistake, is gone by years keeping on ticking.... Anything else?



I started the thread about TF bees in Norway, Melissa Oddies study. We did not know who was the beekeeper. Siwolke asked you who he is. You suggested (to Siwolke) that the beekeeper must be Hans-Otto. I said (to Siwolke on Beesource) it cannot be because the years of TF do not match. Siwolke linked your blog writing,there you wrote: "This has also not been a defensive campaign for its bees for many years." That sentence for instance is not in the linked blog any more. 

From what Siwolke wrote, I got the feeling you did not know it was Terjes bees in the study. To me it was very surprising. Now even more because you said that Hans-Otto and Terje are not unknown in Norway.

Maybe it was Siwolke who changed the link to a different blog writing?




SiWolKe said:


> I asked Erik to clarify. Update is coming.





SiWolKe said:


> Erik corrected the blog post.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> I didn't dear in 2008-9 to risk to get 90-100% (that's how it looked like) of my hives gone when the mite hit so I used thymol, and saved 50% of my almost 200 hives. I didn't want to lose my Monticola/Buckfast combination and to lose means of getting food on table. So you can call me a failure if you want to.


No absolutely no failure, it was the right thing to do.

But to the subject of the thread ( although you three are no BYBKs): bond worked, IPM did not.

Are there many beekeepers in Norway working with Han-Ottos ja Terjes TF bees? I would imagine they have huge demand for queens and there should be many, many other beekeepers who can testify for them, in public. Has here been writings in the Norwegian beekeeping Magazine about their TF bees?


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> My thesis is that the bees do it, by taking out the most fecund females and their offspring. That's what vsh/smr traits do. ....
> ......
> What was the result Erik?


VSH is of course a good trait. But it's not the only one. There are more traits they use. 
If VSH is well representad in a commercial beekeepers stock, can he stop treating? If VSH is above 50%, mite level is low enough and the apiary is quite isolated (no reinfestation) it may well work. (I've got these ideas from John Harbo and the guy in Sweden working with VSH, Berth Thrybom.

It's in a post earlier. But the nucs/colonies distributed among resistant colonies did fine (resistant behaviour) the first year, and also the coming year. Those nucs/colonies placed in apiary of their own in an isolated place did fine the first year, but had lost their resistant behvaiour the next. An explanation is that in the first case the resistant workers started up doing the resistant behaviour and also learning the other workers with a more susceptible genten set up a kind of basic receptivity for a continuing teaching from the much fewer drifting in of resistant worker bees next year. This makes the whole apiary a super super organism working together. This is good news for starting up tf beekeping, that not all colonies need to be totally resistant when going tf, only enough many (whatever that is). Also I interpret the result also that it's more beneficial for the overall resistans in an apiary if nucs and splits are made from the most resistant colonies, wheter they get mature queen cells from the most resistant breeders, or if the splits are allowed to make their own queens.


----------



## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> .... You suggested (to Siwolke) that the beekeeper must be Hans-Otto. I said (to Siwolke on Beesource) ..... Siwolke linked your blog writing,there you wrote: "This has also not been a defensive campaign for its bees for many years." That sentence for instance is not in the linked blog any more.
> 
> From what Siwolke wrote, I got the feeling you did not know it was Terjes bees in the study. To me it was very surprising. Now even more because you said that Hans-Otto and Terje are not unknown in Norway.
> .........


I did not suggest to anyone that Hans-Otto was the beekeeper in the study. You probably misunderstood siwolke. I knew too that it was Terje. Because Hans-Otto had told me Terje was involved in a study. So when the paper cam I knew it was Terje. But I didn't want to say I knew as I wanted the scientists to come forward and apologize kind of and tell us who it was, as it's common procedure to include the beekeeper in such a study among the authors. They didn't, and that's actually a shame, unless of course Terje had told them he didn't want to be included there. That I don't know.

You have to give me the link to blogppost where this sentence have appeard: "This has also not been a defensive campaign for its bees for many years." The sentence is rubbish, saying nothing, and that's may be the cause why it's deleted. Sometimes that happens when I use Google translate, which I sometimes do when publishing a blogpost both in Swedish and in English. One time I write first in Swedish and another time in English first. I might well have written it first in Swedish. Google translate sometimes comes up with very weird and funny translations.

Your'e a picky teacher.


----------



## Eastwood

Juhani Lunden said:


> ..Has here been writings in the Norwegian beekeeping Magazine about their TF bees?


Yes.


----------



## 1102009

> You probably misunderstood siwolke.


It was Juhanis interpretation.



> You have to give me the link to blogppost where this sentence have appeard: "This has also not been a defensive campaign for its bees for many years." The sentence is rubbish, saying nothing, and that's may be the cause why it's deleted. Sometimes that happens when I use Google translate, which I sometimes do when publishing a blogpost both in Swedish and in English. One time I write first in Swedish and another time in English first. I might well have written it first in Swedish. Google translate sometimes comes up with very weird and funny translations.


I saw the entry on Eriks blog and directed his attention on this because it would be misunderstood. He changed it then.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Eastwood said:


> I did not suggest to anyone that Hans-Otto was the beekeeper in the study. You probably misunderstood siwolke. I knew too that it was Terje. Because Hans-Otto had told me Terje was involved in a study. So when the paper cam I knew it was Terje. But I didn't want to say I knew as I wanted the scientists to come forward and apologize kind of and tell us who it was, as it's common procedure to include the beekeeper in such a study among the authors. They didn't, and that's actually a shame, unless of course Terje had told them he didn't want to be included there. That I don't know.
> 
> You have to give me the link to blogppost where this sentence have appeard: "This has also not been a defensive campaign for its bees for many years." The sentence is rubbish, saying nothing, and that's may be the cause why it's deleted. Sometimes that happens when I use Google translate, which I sometimes do when publishing a blogpost both in Swedish and in English. One time I write first in Swedish and another time in English first. I might well have written it first in Swedish. Google translate sometimes comes up with very weird and funny translations.
> 
> Your'e a picky teacher.


Thats what I thought, you knew it was Terje, but did not want to say it. This explains everything.  It tasted like coverup. 

Terje said to me that he had said to researchers that it is up to them to publish his name or not. They decided not to publish and I could not agree more that it is a shame on them.

The sentence was copy pasted by my from your blog (1. one, it was about Hans-Otto, before the update) it was obviously written in a hurry, with mistakes, that is why I asked for clarification , Siwolke said you would do that soon, as you did.


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> [...] Also I interpret the result also that it's more beneficial for the overall resistans in an apiary if nucs and splits are made from the most resistant colonies, wheter they get mature queen cells from the most resistant breeders, or if the splits are allowed to make their own queens.


(I struggled to follow the part above. It doesn't seem to address my thought that low fecundity mites, 'bred' by the vsh/smr bees, might supply an explanation for the results you have instanced.)

I agree that the whole apiary (and any surrounding ferals) should be viewed as a single organism. That organism is kept healthy by allowing proper natural selection, and avoiding poor unnatural selection. 

Yes, of course its best if each generation is made from the most resistant. Good selection would generally be thought to be much better than simple splits. (Why would you reproduce a poor colony?) That works male side too. Your strongest hives should be given space to get as big as they can, and thus make more drones than weaker colonies. 

That rules out things like balancing up - all must be left to grow as big as they can on their resources. I exclude feed from that - as long as all are fed, or all not, that's just like a good forage - all get the same opportunity. Allowing your best genes to come in through your drones in a natural way is the in my view the strongest form of resistance raising. 

All this is just the application of standard population husbandry applied to bees, with special recognition of their particular needs.

The key is: don't interfere, let nature do its work; just very carefully help it along only when you are sure that is what you are actually doing. You have to work alongside natural selection; and the mechanisms are extraordinarily sensitive to interference.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> (I struggled to follow the part above. It doesn't seem to address my thought that low fecundity mites, 'bred' by the vsh/smr bees, might supply an explanation for the results you have instanced.)
> 
> I agree that the whole apiary (and any surrounding ferals) should be viewed as a single organism. That organism is kept healthy by allowing proper natural selection, and avoiding poor unnatural selection.
> 
> Yes, of course its best if each generation is made from the most resistant. Good selection would generally be thought to be much better than simple splits. (Why would you reproduce a poor colony?) That works male side too. Your strongest hives should be given space to get as big as they can, and thus make more drones than weaker colonies.
> 
> That rules out things like balancing up - all must be left to grow as big as they can on their resources. I exclude feed from that - as long as all are fed, or all not, that's just like a good forage - all get the same opportunity. Allowing your best genes to come in through your drones in a natural way is the in my view the strongest form of resistance raising.
> 
> All this is just the application of standard population husbandry applied to bees, with special recognition of their particular needs.
> 
> The key is: don't interfere, let nature do its work; just very carefully help it along only when you are sure that is what you are actually doing. You have to work alongside natural selection; and the mechanisms are extraordinarily sensitive to interference.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Why you had difficults following me above is because I think if there are any differences in fecundity in mites, or what we can interpret as such depends on the behaviour of the bees, for example VSH.

The rest of your post above I agree with.

I use mature queen cells where splits fail to make a queen of their own and where I have decided to replace a queen in a bad colony. If that fails also or for any other reason the season is late such a split/colony gets a laying new queen.


----------



## Eastwood

Eastwood said:


> ....I think if there are any differences in fecundity in mites, or what we can interpret as such depends on the behaviour of the bees, for example VSH.


Also of some other traits with the bees. I vaguely recall something I read about composition of chemicals of larvae or food for them that made mites slower in reproduction. I have to find that......


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> Why you had difficults following me above is because I think if there are any differences in fecundity in mites, or what we can interpret as such depends on the behaviour of the bees, for example VSH.


An apiary populated with vsh/smr colonies will develop less fecund mites - that will be happening alongside more direct actions like grooming.

A non-resistant colony placed in such an apiary and left untreated will become 'infected' by those mites, and will consequently have a better chance of surviving than if it had not been placed there.

Does that help? 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Juhani Lunden

mike bispham said:


> An apiary populated with vsh/smr colonies will develop less fecund mites - that will be happening alongside more direct actions like grooming.





Eastwood said:


> Prof Fries in Sweden once made a test to find out eventual differences between mite stocks, in mites among the Bond bees on island Gotland in the Baltic and in mites in susceptible bees on the mainland. He found none.


So there is evidence that mites don´t change. What evidence there is that mites change, Mike? Studies, please.


----------



## msl

swinging back around 

Eric I feel the leap it takes to pin AHB mateing success on small cell is huge one, and seems to be unsupported by any study's... 
If it worked that way we would see small cell drone foundation being the standard in AHB areas to level the playing field

But, like many things with bees mateing it looks to be a number game... AHB produces more drones on a continual basis, the older ones are kicked out and set up shop in EHB hives.... EHB hives regulate there drone numbers so they scale back on producing EHB drones while caring for AHB drones. In an area with 1/2 AHB 1/2 EHB over 90% of the drones can be AHB 
_DIFFERENTIAL DRONE PRODUCTION BY AFRICANIZED AND EUROPEAN HONEY BEE COLONIES. Apidologie, Springer Verlag, 1987 _

Never mind the DCA saturation with AHB drones
Never mind EHB queens will preferentially use AHB seamen. 
Never mind AHB queens will often hatch 1st and are better fighters 

It MUST the small cell size not the genetics. LOL
I just watched a Sol Parker video were he was claiming he could control the genetics of the 12 hives he has left while surrounded by commercial operations 
because his small cell drones would out compeat the commercial stock.. never mind the fact that if they out competed the commercial drones to mate with the commercial queens there would be none of his drones left to mate with his queens:scratch:

Bees adapt fast, if making a slightly smaller or larger drone cell led to an advantage bees would have, or all readly did change cell size... drones are the size they are because thats what has worked the best the last few years 





> I don't see why a guy that only wanted 4 hives could not be treatment free if his loss was less then 50 percent and in the end there was hope over time that that 50 percent might get better.


kinda the whole point of this thread, to get there yes?
The key is a 50% maxumim loss, not average….
The problem is small populations losses are widely variable do to the size… The guy with 4 could lose 0,4,1,3 and still be at a 50% average, and still be buying bees every few years.. 
any way the rub here is the definition of TF... I am talking TF as defined by the forum rules, others are are taking a stricter view with a management free approach. 

More and more it is seeming your location is the deciding factor, followed by your management, most cant adjust their location so the whole point is to talk about the "tools" we have at our disposal to stay TF (or try to make progress toward) in less than ideal situations, to overcome the problems with animal hunsbdry 
some people such as you self don’t need the extra steps but that dosen’t mean a large amount don’t.


----------



## 1102009

> An apiary populated with vsh/smr colonies will develop less fecund mites - that will be happening alongside more direct actions like grooming.


I don´t believe in that. It´s so much against a host-parasite symbiosis. It´s against all natural rules. Bees breeding mites not dangerous! That´s absurd.
I rather believe in improvement of the immune system, the results are the same!

Drone cells are smaller ( and maybe drones are) because of the frame spacings. And this smallness might not be an advantage. Drone cells in small cell hives are natural cells just as queen cells. The health depends on nourishment and mite virus impact, not on cell size per se. It´s different with the worker cells which likely hatch earlier, stopping mite multiplication.

In my eyes it would be much better to have big drones and big drone cells hatching very late so the mites are not changed to use worker cells.

Combine that to a good grooming behavior, a good entrance defense against reinvasion, drone brood until late fall and hey presto! Resistance!
Symptom fighting behavior like VSH will only work with a low trigger.


> More and more it is seeming your location is the deciding factor, followed by your management, most cant adjust their location so the whole point is to talk about the "tools" we have at our disposal to stay TF (or try to make progress toward) in less than ideal situations, to overcome the problems with animal hunsbdry


Exactly. We have to learn much more from observing bee behavior instead of forcing our own interpretations on the bees.


----------



## gww

msl


> some people such as you self don’t need the extra steps but that dosen’t mean a large amount don’t.


I don't know if this is true yet, it is only true up to now.

I have had the discussion on definition also. I have heard some say that treatment free is only if you keep them like seeleys bees and let them swarm and don't feed them but that is kinda besides the point if the ideal is to have bees you can manage for production and that is the gaol.

So for me what works best is open breeding with plenty of variation and picking the cream that comes to the top. That does not mean that there are not levels of helping. So you got to do what you got to do. I will adjust my methods if I have no choice but also say that adjusting in the beginning doesn't really tell you that much and may not allow the bees the need to use everything in their tool chest to combat the presure. When I adjust it will be for pure selfish reasons like losing money and not cause I think it will work best over all for the bees. So I think telling people in the beginning not to try it cause it is impossible should more be, if you end goal is treatment free, try that first and then adjust as your bees tell you you must.

I have seen alternate studies on small cell and about every other thing with mostly best guesses of why the results of what can be measured is happening.

I do think that mike did say one thing that I agree with whole heartedly, It doesn't matter why something works if you know it is working. Even in the old days when huber and lanstroth noticed things by looking hard and later study disproved what their views of why it was happening, it did not change that their observations were good only thier reasoning on the why.

In a good discussion, it is always nice to see more added on the why but that may not change the base obseravtion of the core thing. Take small cell, maby the thought on its effect on mite breeding by some might be questioned during a study but then you add that there is more brood in a smaller space and less bees to keep them warm and yada yada yada. I am not making a claim that those things are the reason but just saying that a study that picks one thing out of a big picture and looks at that one thing, may prove that one thing but may not prove what is really happening and those other things may add up to actually disproving the study if it was all done together. Of course it is so easy to miss something as humans cause there is just so much going on it would be easy to miss stuff even trying. 

I think this is where I would put the LOL.
I don't know the answers and so just take what I know and come up with what I think while trying and then experment and see what happens. The guys with skin in the game get some credit even while I argue, cause it is the only way I know to add to my picture that I am seeing.

I will say that I may come to a differrent (and probly wrong) veiw then you but will also say that all the links and studies you have posted have helped me a little more. It is funny but I don't always understand even what I read or what I need to do and then all of a sudden a light bulb will go off in my head and I will know what to do and more times than not, those times work out. But even then, it is only a guess from me of why. 

All these guys in this tread have skin in the game and even if comeing to it from differrent directions, it is well worth this discussion for what might be picked and usable from each.
Cheers
gww


----------



## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> So there is evidence that mites don´t change. What evidence there is that mites change, Mike? Studies, please.


No studies that I know of. As I said, its my own theory. Its also fully in accordance with bio-evolutionary understanding, and to me, something that can be learned at the university of the blooming obvious. But I could be wrong.

Could one of you provide a citation or, better, link to prof Fries test?

Mike (UK)


----------



## gww

juhani


> So there is evidence that mites don´t change. What evidence there is that mites change, Mike? Studies, please.


Every study I read says mites might change. Gotland (or however it is spelled) reduces the mite breeding though they don't know if it is the mite or bee causing it, parisite/host studys point out that it is a arms race. In gotland they did genetics on the mite compared to others and did not find a differrance.

I guess it depends when reading the studies what it means to you. Maby the mite is not changing but the atmostphere is or maby it is the mite. There is not question that the virus the mites vector change. However, if one population has 40 percent mite invasion and another is keeping it down to 2 percent, something is happening and so far it is just guesses of what.
Cheers
gww

Ps I even read one study that hypothisis that maby the bee virus was affecting mite breeding, of course another said mite do better with dwv virus.


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> I don´t believe in that. It´s so much against a host-parasite symbiosis. It´s against all natural rules.


Its a perfect example of host-parasite co-evolution. Over-fecund mite populations kill their hosts, and often die with them. Its to their advantage not to do that - to find ways of living together. 

From the bee side, the mites under normal circumstance can never provide an advantage to bees, so there is no element of symbiosis. However, in the presence of over-fecund mite strains the low fecundity strains can may be a better option than no mites (for reasons I've illustrated) 

Your last sentences (Bees breeding mites not dangerous! That´s absurd.) don't make sense to me. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> juhani
> 
> 
> Every study I read says mites might change. Gotland (or however it is spelled) reduces the mite breeding though they don't know if it is the mite or bee causing it, parisite/host studys point out that it is a arms race. In gotland they did genetics on the mite compared to others and did not find a differrance.
> 
> I guess it depends when reading the studies what it means to you. Maby the mite is not changing but the atmostphere is or maby it is the mite. There is not question that the virus the mites vector change. However, if one population has 40 percent mite invasion and another is keeping it down to 2 percent, something is happening and so far it is just guesses of what.
> Cheers
> gww
> 
> Ps I even read one study that hypothisis that maby the bee virus was affecting mite breeding, of course another said mite do better with dwv virus.


It´s the kind of multiplication vertical vers. horizontal that does it. Imho.


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> Its a perfect example of host-parasite co-evolution. Over-fecund mite populations kill their hosts, and often die with them. Its to their advantage not to do that - to find ways of living together.
> 
> From the bee side, the mites under normal circumstance can never provide an advantage to bees, so there is no element of symbiosis. However, in the presence of over-fecund mite strains the low fecundity strains can may be a better option than no mites (for reasons I've illustrated)
> 
> Your last sentences (Bees breeding mites not dangerous! That´s absurd.) don't make sense to me.
> 
> Mike (UK)


In a symbiotic arrangement there are always triggers. First the mites ( better virus) getting more virulent triggers a bee´s reaction to act against this dangers. In the evolutionary process the surviving bees develop a behavior which holds the mites ( virus) at bay. Next the mites find a new way how to be fecund, for example hide in the cells more than being phoretic. And so the pendulum always goes to one side or the other taking with it losses from both sides. There is never a standstill and a static base of symbiosis. Watch your garden insects and you can see that every year.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> In a symbiotic arrangement there are always triggers. First the mites ( better virus) getting more virulent triggers a bee´s reaction to act against this dangers. In the evolutionary process the surviving bees develop a behavior which holds the mites ( virus) at bay. Next the mites find a new way how to be fecund, for example hide in the cells more than being phoretic. And so the pendulum always goes to one side or the other taking with it losses from both sides. There is never a standstill and a static base of symbiosis. Watch your garden insects and you can see that every year.


Yes, sure (In a way). Its an arms race. But the host-parasite relation is not (normally) symbiotic (where both species benefit); it is parasitical - one species benefits and the other suffers to a greater or lesser extent. It is a predator-prey relationship. That describes the varroa-bee relationship.

In the 'arms race' the predator seeks maximisation of its resource; the prey seeks to escape the predator altogether. 

Given time (and freedom from interference) it will be expected that the bee will throw off the mite altogether. In its 20 odd million year existence, the species must have thrown off hundreds of thousands of parasites. 

It may be that there will come an advantage to keeping mites, in which case the two (if the mite has survived) will be in a symbiotic relationship.

Mike (UK)


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## gww

Not really in detail but does agree with the view of mite change.
https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/full_html/2010/03/m09176/m09176.html


> (Cornuet et al., 2006). Co-evolution of the host and the parasite is driven by mutations of both the mite and the bee, which can lead to a more or less stable equilibrium. Heritable behavioral and physiological traits can be involved in _Varroa tolerance (see Büchler et a_


Why is it easy to believe a mite can become resistant to treatments but not change in any other way? Or can change host but not change in other ways?
Cheers
gww


----------



## mike bispham

gww said:


> "Co-evolution of the host and the parasite is driven by mutations of both the mite and the bee, which can lead to a more or less stable equilibrium"


So, my thesis is that the change in mite fecundity is driven by the reproductive advantage bees gain from reducing it - by taking out the more fecund mite individuals. Take out the fast breeding genes, and you are left with... slow breeding genes.

This may be due to mite mutations, but it is my contention that that is not necessary; the bees can effectively breed simply making use of existing natural variation in mite fecundity. 

That can safely be predicted to happen as a result of vsh, if... there is some variation in fecundity in the mite population. 

Mike (UK)


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## gww

Mike
The bees could heat the brood up a degree or two and take out the mite but not the brood. They may have a bunch of tools to use if they need them. I don't think we can count out much cause in all the stable populations studied now, the bees are not all doing it the same way.

I am not sure of the possibilities but know more then one has been found to help. Just need the right combination. My view is that in certain situations, we are going to lose hives due to mites even with the best of bees. The question is will we be able to lose less bees then those on the treatment treadmill? Bees have lived a long time and still get fooled and lay brood only to lose it to a cold spell. There is probly no silver bullet when dealing with live things but the differrance in loss now with treatment being matched or beaten by not treating seems possible.
Just my uneducated opinion.
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

> Its a perfect example of host-parasite co-evolution. Over-fecund mite populations kill their hosts, and often die with them. Its to their advantage not to do that





> Why is it easy to believe a mite can become resistant to treatments but not change in any other way? Or can change host but not change in other ways


Humans are short circuiting the co-evolution 
In a beeyard or any area when bees are kept at unnaturaly high dencinistys (and anything killed is replaced in the spring), it IS to the mites/viruses advantage to be more agressive. The perfect path is to cause the host colony to weaken to the point it will be robed out, spreading the strain to multpul other hives. Once there, next spring they out breed less fecundity strains and bomb out again. It dosen't matter to them that they killed a whole bunch of hives last fall, humans have replaced them by the time it comes to make the next big host jump and spread. 
Whats bad for mite is to kill a hive while its too cold to rob and thus end thier line, but modern beekeeping makes it a good thing for them to kill faster (before winter). 
DWV is more virulent, losses are up, months a hive will live with out intervention are down, and we see domino mite bombing. 
The mite and the associated viruses have changed, and it has not been in the direction of balance with the host.

Yes they are scary at adaptation... the mites in the UK, the US, and continental Europe all used a different genetic adaption to become resistance to tau-fluvalinate. 

The mites will adapt to what is best for them, right now in most places that's create mite bombs and spread, and that's unlikely to change. 
The way it would shift was if hives were out of robbing range the point robing drifting was not an effective means of spreading, Then the best way for mites to spread was moving with a swarm and then they would need to keep a hive alive...

so it seems we would be much better to focus on bee adaption


----------



## gww

Msl
From what I understand, the bees complexity compared to the mites simplicity, does give the bee the advantage of being easier to work with. It has more tools in the arms race.

But there is an island that has a small number of hives kept like we do and living with a 40 percent mite population. (I have heard the view that it is a ticking time bomb though)

When mites first arived, there were people with 20 percent populations that did not take out the hives, now after treating for 30 years, it could be 1 percent is a death penalty. So the even with what you are saying, the bees them selves have gotten weaker and the virus stronger. There are very many out there that are looking at the relationship of parisite host that say even keeping bees like we do, had we never treated, we would be in a differrent place now even keeping bees like we do. I know you have seen this statement from sceintific papers. So even with what you say as being bad, it is levels of bad and with the proper presure and with the parisite/host hitting equalization, the discusion is still, what happens to the bees. If what you say is how it works in total, no reason not to treat. If however, pressure causes equalization then the above is just part of it but will still be advanced upon with the presure it provides.

I understand the advantage the mite has of finding new host making it easier to not be so careful but it does not change that that presure still has to be applied for a responce to be needed to counter it. But most do agree like you say that the bee has the tool advantage. The mites have been adjusting to those tools of the bees. Nothing is ever clear cut. I read the other day that mite gavitate to old comb but read a differrent study that says mites don't have as much success being firtalized when in old comb. It sounds like a wash but also that there are causes and effects that can go on together in a hive to make little changes here and there. The one change that does not seem to be working is bees with no presure are not getting stronger or putting back presure on the mite that might change it.

So knowing all those things gives something to think about and maby little tools to experment with but the answer and what has worked in a way that can be measured is all where no mite knock down has happenned. So in one way, Small mite knock down might avance you small wise more then a big knock down would. I don't know. I do say that prioritization of pocket book compared to strong bees is something that has to be talked about.

Where I don't know what is best is you saving your work force with treatment and requeening giving you more numbers to work with is as good as not setting a threshold on mite growth even if it kills you. My inclination is that more is better even if it kills you as long as it does not cause extinction. All I can say to that is, thank god bees breed like rabbits.
It seems that the discussion could have merit with almost any path taken with what is known today.

The guys like square peg know what is happening to them and so there is that in places. In other places, starting from scratch and only controling what you control with lots of outside stuff that can't be controled, nobody has the answer yet.

On the guy with 4 hives losing all one year being part of the average, Its true but still may add up to close to what it would if treating in the big picture if the averages are close. I have read lots of guys with few hives and sometimes many that treated and lost all. That is the nature of the beast when you have very few hives and if the averages are close, then they are close. 
Cheers
gww


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## gww

msl
Quote from me


> The one change that does not seem to be working is bees with no presure are not getting stronger or putting back presure on the mite that might change it.


I should maby change this to treatment is putting too much presure on the mite makeing it adjust faster then the bee cans adjust.
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

> But there is an island that has a small number of hives kept like we do and living with a 40 percent mite population


Fernando de Noronha, the key to there survival is a non virulent DWV strain. when moved and and exposed to other strains by drifting they colaspe very quickly form DWV.. hence the time bomb, no bees have been imported sense 1984, if that were to happen they would likly colaspaps and more virulent strains took hold



> the honey bee population in Fernando de Noronha has thus far evaded the catastrophic consequences of DWV and Varroa because the incredibly small and isolated population size (ca. 20–40 colonies) has meant that there hasn’t yet been sufficient time for a virulent variant to have become established in a colony. The estimated mite populations in the colonies would no-doubt result in the rapid death of the colonies if a virulent genotype of DWV was to emerge, since up to 42% of the worker brood can be infested by Varroa, levels never observed in healthy hives of European honey bees. Moreover it is just a matter of time before an overt outbreak of a virulent variant appears that has the capability to spell disaster for the bees of Fernando de Noronha. It also explains why when in 1997 six queens were transferred from Fernando de Noronha to Germany to head colonies and study whether heritable hygienic behaviour is responsible for their Varroa tolerance31. Although no difference in hygienic abilities compared to the local population were found indicating no genetic basis for the tolerance is present. These colonies all died during the winter or early spring (Peter Rosenkranz, personal communication) since the bees and mites would for the first time be exposed to the virulent DWV strains5,32 circulating in the local bee population.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385554/

the long and short is the bees got there and were cut of from the world before DWV changed, at that time people didn't treat there hives till they could see mites cralwing on the bees it was a different time, and a much different TX threshold 

.


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## gww

msl
Yes, I read this yesterday and also before. It is why I failed history class in school. I could remember generalities but not dates and names. That is also why you are sort of my hero. You can find things back that you want and only remembering generalities, I can never find stuff but by accident.

It does leave one to wonder about the, "it is a differrent time and place statement" I understand location and being by itsself. I understand that something new and too fast could destroy it. But, what is the differrance there that bad virus strains have not developed but they have else where. Maybe it is due to the pace and constant pressure that has kept it constant and any change happens so slow that the bee is still able to beat it. Or it is like the bees in britton (I think) Where the bees have a type B dwv and it innoculates them from type A.

It is a special situation but does, Maybe, give some clue of what is possible. I do relieze that there are just some flukes in the world though.

It does show that hives in close proximity don't nessasarily have an arms race by that fact of being close, or, knock on wood, have not yet had the arms race as fast.
Cheers
gww
Ps I do think even strong hives can be stressed if they get too hungry or other type things can happen and so it does not surprize me when bees are moved to new places with differrent stresses, that they have a hard time adjusting even if they do pretty good where they know. I have heard it taking up to three generations for southern bees to be moved north for them to adjust well enough to take advantage of new forage/terrain and too much could be too much all at once.


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## msl

> what is the differrance there that bad virus strains have not developed but they have else where


luck of the draw, like all things bees its a number game. The virulent strains didn't develop everywere elce, they developed some were, and then spread. Its the lack of isolation that's the problem, with modern transportation geographically barriers are down. 
the issue is not the mite or viruse might do "blank" in your yard, its that it will do it in some ones yard, maby 2k miles away and spread as bees are trucked coast to coast 

If I spend winter alone writeing a book in a cabin in the woods my chance of catching the flu is much less then if I am a TSA agent at JFK in NYC... but that does not mean my flu resistance is gentnick


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## gww

msl
Yes that definatly speeds up the process and makes things happen much faster.
Cheers
gww


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## Juhani Lunden

mike bispham said:


> No studies that I know of. As I said, its my own theory. Its also fully in accordance with bio-evolutionary understanding, and to me, something that can be learned at the university of the blooming obvious. But I could be wrong.
> 
> Could one of you provide a citation or, better, link to prof Fries test?





mike bispham said:


> An apiary populated with vsh/smr colonies will develop less fecund mites - that will be happening alongside more direct actions like grooming.


Maybe this one
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892291/document

Even though mite fecundity is not changing, mite virulence might.

Quote:
"Furthermore,
the results clearly show that the
main reasons for this development are due
to the bees and not with the mites. This
contradicts the only two studies investigating
colonies that have survived mite infestations
in Europe or North America (Milani et al., 1999; Seeley, 2007). Both studies concluded
that less virulent mites were of major
importance. The study by Seeley (2007)
demonstrated that colonies with queens from a
feral population of bees, that now re-colonized
the Arnot forest in Northeastern USA, indeed
have a similar mite population growth compared
to colonies with commercial Carniolan
bees. The conclusion was that survival of the
feral population most likely was dependent
on avirulent mites (Seeley, 2007)"


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## msl

Yes... Its sounds good and fits with theroys and predictions 

however it was based on the fact the ferals showed no resistance when tested in full sized langs and Seeley floated 3 possibly mechanisms. Over the next 10 years study after study he walks it back till 2017 when Seeley dismisses its probability 
_ "One possible explanation for the absence of change in the life-history traits is that the strains of V. destructor (and/or the viruses vectored by them) in the wild colonies were not virulent, so these colonies did not need costly defenses against the mites and viruses. It is clear, however, that many of the simulated wild colonies had virulent mites. Every established colony that did not change its queen (by swarming?) over summer developed a fatally high mite population by September (see data for Gibson Place, Tree House, Kendal Garden, MacDaniels Grove, and Day Lilies, Figure 3). Moreover, every colony with a 100+ mite-drop count died (Figure 4), which suggests that the strains of the deformed wing virus (DWV) in the colonies were highly virulent, since it is high virus titers that kill colonies (Martin et al. 2012.) A recent paper (Mordecai et al. 2015) reports, however, that an avirulent variant of DWV exists in some locations in the UK, so perhaps an avirulent variant of DWV also exists in some of the wild colonies near Ithaca, NY. These colonies are widely spaced (Seeley et al. 2015), so the spread of V. destructor and DWV between colonies may occur more by vertical transmission (from parent colony to offspring colony, by swarming) than by horizontal transmission (among unrelated colonies; by drifting, robbing, and foraging; see Peck et al. 2016). If so, then perhaps the mites and viruses in these wild colonies are evolving avirulence (Ewald 1994; Fries and Camazine 2001), but it seems clear that they are not there yet.

The most likely explanation for the absence of change in life-history traits between 1970s and 2010s is that the wild colonies possess effective, but low-cost, defenses against V. destructor and associated viruses. We know that colonies living in the wild occupy small nest cavities and swarm frequently, and that these traits of wild colonies provide them with resistance to Varroa (Loftus et al. 2016). We also know that the leave-alone-and-let-die experiment on Gotland in Sweden (Fries et al. 2003) produced survivor colonies that were much smaller (and more inclined to swarm?) than the original colonies (Locke and Fries 2011; Locke 2016). Furthermore, the present study found that colonies that had a queen change (probably by swarming) ended the summer with much lower mite-drop counts than colonies that lacked a queen change (average 23 vs. 122 mites/48 h). The mechanisms whereby smaller and swarmier colonies have greater resistance to V. destructor are not understood fully, but it is likely that having relatively few brood, especially drone brood, helps control the mites. It is also likely that frequent swarming helps control the mites because a swarming event exports about 35% of a colony’s mites; a colony’s workers carry about 50% of the adult mites (Fuchs 1985) and about 70% of a colony’s workers leave in the prime swarm (Rangel and Seeley 2012). Furthermore, swarming temporarily deprives the mites of pupal brood, and their absence disrupts the mites’ reproduction and boosts their exposure to mite-biting bees (Hunt et al. 2016).

It may be, therefore, that certain features of the biology of honey bee colonies living in the wild—such as small colony size and frequent swarming—endow them with good defenses against V. destructor, so they have not needed to evolve costly, new defenses against the mites and associated viruses. It may also be, however, that wild colonies have needed to evolve some new defenses against V. destructor—including hygienic behavior and grooming behavior—but that these new defenses are not costly. Our next goal is to identify the suite of colony defenses that is enabling this population of wild colonies to persist, for doing so will reveal a natural, non-treatment solution to the problem of V. destructor."_
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-017-0519-1

Further more if we look at Brazil witch had the less virulent J type mites at the start (got to love there inland isolation development), it was quickly over run with the more virulent mainland K types when they were introduced. 
beekeeping favors virulence.... 

hey I got a great idea... lets go debate all this in Mikes natural selection management thread? cause its got almost no application in IMP, TF, or beekeeping for that matter..


----------



## 1102009

Thanks for the link, Juhani.



> The analysis of the distribution of mites among brood cells and among adult bees demonstrated that the mites were differentially distributed in Bond colonies compared to the Control colonies. During the last three sam- pling occasions, a larger proportion of the mites were present on adult bees in the Bond colonies compared to control colonies


And what does that mean to fecundity of mites?




> Together with the cur- rent study, we now have independent studies suggesting that adaptations that lead to host- parasite co-existence can occur both in the bee and probably also in the mite populations.


And how is this influenced by beekeeping methods?



> The reduced mite population growth in Bond colonies was found irrespective of mite source, suggesting that traits associated with the bees and not with the mites were responsible for this reduced growth rate. The reduced mite population growth may partly be explained by a lower total production of worker and drone brood in the Bond colonies.


Beekeeping today is to create big hives to have more honey harvest.
It´s swarm prevention, so an unnatural horizontal multiplying. 
It´s the prevention of letting the bees have their own queen raised.
It´s the reuse of wax by using foundation which are likely contaminated with residues of environmental chemicals, concentrating in the wax.


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## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> Maybe this one
> https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892291/document
> 
> Even though mite fecundity is not changing, mite virulence might.


Thanks Juhani, everyone.

The literature seems inconclusive, so I don't think my theory is ruled out. As we know, there are several mechanisms the bees draw on, and different populations develop different ones. Perhaps that leads to contradictory results

I'm looking for accounts of how vsh works, which details the way that the bees are more easily able to detect large mite populations in the capped cells that smaller ones. Can any of you paperwork geniuses help out with that?

Mike (UK)


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## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> An apiary populated with vsh/smr colonies will develop less fecund mites - that will be happening alongside more direct actions like grooming.
> 
> A non-resistant colony placed in such an apiary and left untreated will become 'infected' by those mites, and will consequently have a better chance of surviving than if it had not been placed there.
> 
> Does that help?
> 
> Mike (UK)


An alternative explanation in the light of the experiences of experiment of Johnsen is that drifting worker bees from the resistant colonies help keeping the non-resistant colony resistant.


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## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> No studies that I know of. As I said, its my own theory. Its also fully in accordance with bio-evolutionary understanding, and to me, something that can be learned at the university of the blooming obvious. But I could be wrong.
> 
> Could one of you provide a citation or, better, link to prof Fries test?
> 
> Mike (UK)



https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892291/document

Ah, saw now that Juhanni had already provided the link. Good.


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## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> An alternative explanation in the light of the experiences of experiment of Johnsen is that drifting worker bees from the resistant colonies help keeping the non-resistant colony resistant.


Yes, there are several possibles, and its likely in my view that all of them contributed to the effects seen. Positing learning as a singular, or dominant cause doesn't hold up.

Mike

PS thanks for the link


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## 1102009

An interesting link about drifting:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/dd0c/7126cb66390aea4e221c0276ac3ec7762f1f.pdf

compares the commercial setting to feral colony placing


----------



## Eastwood

msl said:


> Fernando de Noronha, the key to there survival is a non virulent DWV strain. when moved and and exposed to other strains by drifting they colaspe very quickly form DWV.. hence the time bomb, no bees have been imported sense 1984, if that were to happen they would likly colaspaps and more virulent strains took hold
> 
> 
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385554/
> 
> the long and short is the bees got there and were cut of from the world before DWV changed, at that time people didn't treat there hives till they could see mites cralwing on the bees it was a different time, and a much different TX threshold
> 
> .


Concerning Fernando de Norhona,, if that's the island gww was referring to you find agood summary from 1984 to 2016 here:
http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=1121
The DWV-strain is not showed being less virulent than any other as it is not tested in such a way. What is said is that the amount of DWV in this latest paper by Martin was very small, like in bees before varroa mite came on the scene. If this low amount of DWV had been there all the time since 1984 no one knows (there may after all exist someone who brings a queen in the pocket during all these years). (In AHB they havn't found any DWV). I don't think the DWV on Fernando de Norhona is a ticking bomb. There is no evidence following the speculation by Martin. All experiences up till now points to the opposite direction. What MArtin found when he monitored the varroa levels was now that it was 1-2%. In 1984 three colonies showed 50% varroa level. Then it has steadily decreased. Not as fast as in AHB areas (about 5 years there) but anyhow now down to the same levels as in AHB-areas.

What is the explanation is most probably that no chemicals have been used to control the mite ever. The immune and defense system of the bees have not been degraded by these chemicals. Also in both AHB areas and on this oísland there is not relatively the huge amount of agro chemicals.

The bee population on this island is consisting of 30-50 managed colonies by two beekeepers and a big amount of feral colonies.


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## Eastwood

msl said:


> Yes... Its sounds good and fits with theroys and predictions
> 
> however it was based on the fact the ferals showed no resistance when tested in full sized langs and Seeley floated 3 possibly mechanisms. Over the next 10 years study after study he walks it back till 2017 when Seeley dismisses its probability
> .....
> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-017-0519-1


Just want to point out a common mistake that many scientists have made through the years concerning tests with honeybees, putting controls and test colonies in the same apiary, getting drifting around the hives, especially silent robbing when varroa level rises in some colonies. (Sigh) We have to read how the tests are designed and performed to find out the probability how valid they are. In this case I don't know. This is just a general comment.


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## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> What is the explanation is most probably that no chemicals have been used to control the mite ever. The immune and defense system of the bees have not been degraded by these chemicals. Also in both AHB areas and on this oísland there is not relatively the huge amount of agro chemicals.


It isn't chemicals degrading bee's immune systems Erik that is the problem. Its systematic failure to select for resistance. They just don't bother at all, and so their bees fall over as soon as you stop treating. DWV is little more than a symptom of varroa. 

Mike


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## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> It isn't chemicals degrading bee's immune systems Erik that is the problem. Its systematic failure to select for resistance. They just don't bother at all, and so their bees fall over as soon as you stop treating. DWV is little more than a symptom of varroa.
> 
> Mike


Then you have an unusual position concerning chemicals and health. Scientist often speak about sublethal effects. What they mean is effects on the health of the individuals. The center of healt care in individuals are the immune system.


----------



## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> Then you have an unusual position concerning chemicals and health. Scientist often speak about sublethal effects. What they mean is effects on the health of the individuals. The center of healt care in individuals are the immune system.


Do you think that analysis of the genetic cause of failure to develop resistance is wrong Erik?

I'm not saying chemicals are harmless to bees. I'm saying that even if you control mites without chemicals, unless you have an effective way of raising resistance, all the time you are doing some they will not develop resistance because you have removed the pressure that would cause them to do so. 

Chemicals are not the primary problem: lack of resistance is.

Damaged immune systems is not the primary cause of dwv and other infections; broken skin is.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Eastwood

mike bispham said:


> Do you think that analysis of the genetic cause of failure to develop resistance is wrong Erik?
> 
> I'm not saying chemicals are harmless to bees. I'm saying that even if you control mites without chemicals, unless you have an effective way of raising resistance, all the time you are doing some they will not develop resistance because you have removed the pressure that would cause them to do so.
> 
> Chemicals are not the primary problem: lack of resistance is.
> 
> Damaged immune systems is not the primary cause of dwv and other infections; broken skin is.
> 
> Mike (UK)


I agree that chemicals, if not used selectively, but generally on all colonies at the same time, are diminishing possibilities to make selection. Not totally, counting mites in down fall may tell something.

It may actually be so that chemicals are the primary problem, as it is not the mites that kill, but viruses. If viruses always start being a big problem as soon as mites are reaching a higher population, why then did the big populations of mites not create big die offs due to virus problem when mites first came to Sweden, or anywhere. When mites were discovered in 1987, they were crawling on the hands of the guy who was up to grafting larvae for making queens. And colonies held at least 10,000 mites, with seemingly no problems. Then they started using chemicals and a few years later after using formic acid one colony showed up with 500 mites and almost all the bees were pedestrians (DWV-bees). 

And as DWV was indentified on Fernando de Norhona, but in very small amounts, it would have had the chance to do its damaging work in 1991 when some colonies had 50% varroa level. But no Damaged bees, and no colony losses.


----------



## gww

SiW...
Unless I can't read (which is possible), from you link, it seems that the mighty mite bomb was not proved out by this study. It seemed that it was saying that it was the hives with mites were accepting drifters and not the other way around. It also did not seem to be making too hard of a case that it was the hives being close together causeing all the drift. I found it interesting that some of the drifters were not part of the test hives but came from outside.
Cheers
gww


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## mike bispham

Eastwood said:


> I agree that chemicals, if not used selectively, but generally on all colonies at the same time, are diminishing possibilities to make selection. Not totally, counting mites in down fall may tell something.


The worst thing is to only treat the colonies that need it. Do you agree



Eastwood said:


> It may actually be so that chemicals are the primary problem, as it is not the mites that kill, but viruses. If viruses always start being a big problem as soon as mites are reaching a higher population, why then did the big populations of mites not create big die offs due to virus problem when mites first came to Sweden, or anywhere.


An interesting theory, though I think there may be competing, or complementary explanations. 

Perhaps it took time for the dw viruses to build up out of the broad mix of microorganisms. 

I think its possible that damaging the micro-fauna wit chemical could also boost the dw viruses. 

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

mike, you have to give your posts a little more time to process, i.e. avoid repeat clicks to send. let me fix this one.


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW...
> Unless I can't read (which is possible), from you link, it seems that the mighty mite bomb was not proved out by this study. It seemed that it was saying that it was the hives with mites were accepting drifters and not the other way around. It also did not seem to be making too hard of a case that it was the hives being close together causeing all the drift. I found it interesting that some of the drifters were not part of the test hives but came from outside.
> Cheers
> gww


Respect! I saw it too and have my thoughts about that. It was not the closeness of hives but the directions of entrance which changed drifting. And yes, drifters from other apiaries! Very interesting.
I had a whole foragers armada once drifting into a carniolan hive to work for them for three weeks. They came from my neighbor 400m distance. Russian bees are known to do that I heard.


----------



## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> The worst thing is to only treat the colonies that need it. Do you agree
> 
> 
> 
> This is not directed at me, but my thoughts are: no.
> My co-worker has treated and tf colonies in his bee yards since 2013 and he did not mix the management. It is not IPM, he uses the treated for honey production. Big cell.
> The tf are mostly elgon descendants on small cell, he creates established hives and grafts queens. He is a very skilled and seasoned beekeeper.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps it took time for the dw viruses to build up out of the broad mix of microorganisms.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I do not understand this, please elaborate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think its possible that damaging the micro-fauna wit chemical could also boost the dw viruses.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Exactly my thought, the wax is contaminated and the bees are weakened by chemicals.
Click to expand...


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> The worst thing is to only treat the colonies that need it...


i think the idea is to treat those likely to collapse, pinch the queen, and then requeen with more promising genetics.

makes sense from the bee side, perhaps not as much from the mite side, but a more palatable approach for many and a step toward preventing horizontal transmission via robbing to intra- and extra-apiary colonies.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> i think the idea is to treat those likely to collapse, pinch the queen, and then requeen with more promising genetics.
> 
> makes sense from the bee side, perhaps not as much from the mite side, but a more palatable approach for many and a step toward preventing horizontal transmission via robbing to intra- and extra-apiary colonies.



Yes squarepeg. my co-worker never treated the tf bees, he introduced better queens or combined with better queen and the still present susceptibles died in winter. It´s hard to evaluate exactly the susceptibles and he never counted mites. He evaluates by thriving of hive.


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## msl

> i think the idea is to treat those likely to collapse, pinch the queen, and then requeen with more promising genetics


.

yes, but only if non chem intervention fails 1st, or is likely to fail.. 
Mike would argue that non chem intervention is TX.... thats a whole nother can of worms 

I don't see why he is so resistance to the idea, it seems to fit in well with his methods
from his thread 

_I boost that by increasing the selection to support the strongest_. Post 207

_The breeder casts off all but the best (for breeding purposes at least). 
In a farm husbandry setting that means castration and/market.
in my setting it means letting them go (by natural means) or getting it together to make it worthwhile moving/protecting and marking them for requeening - iff... I think they've signalled weakness_. Post 167

_As long as he doesn't let the saved ones reproduce at least he's not frustrating evolution, and that's good breeding (I think that works!)_ post 171

_So I now have a record of the individual colony states at this time. It makes a slightly wobbly bell curve showing me the apiaries' character as a whole; and I can identify all the strongest and weakest hives. With that its time to make a plan to maximise the beneficial actions I can take, while minimising the distorting effects they might make on future assays. I haven't really been here before, so I'm giving a lot of thought to how best to use my time over the coming months.

Among the immediate priorities is sorting out the poor performers, pushing middlings upward, and getting the big ones making honey. I want income and I want growth. I need combbuilding and storage.

I'm going to push large incoming swarms to build comb, since they're set up for that job.
I'm going to take honey off the most productive, give them back wet comb to fill again, and (if they have the required history) take eggs from them (by the Millar method) 
I'm going to use these requeen those slow ones that have had a chance to come good and failed.
That leaves struggling splits and swarms from last year. These I'm wondering: should I give them a boost and see if they come right, or just re-queen them?
Given that I think I can supply genetics shown to work, I reckon the second way is best. I don't need to allow every queen a chance on the basis she might have some magical quality if I let her come right anymore._ –post 195

While he pushes a "natural selection" theme, the above shows a remarkably similar program to the suggested IMP path
Once you have your bell curve and start re queening the bottom you have taken "nature" out of it, the previous genetics of those hives becomes a moot point, as does their TF/TX heritage... it matters not if they needed a shot of OA last fall to get by, or they just squeaked by on there own. It now a new hive and a new start.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> i think the idea is to treat those likely to collapse, pinch the queen, and then requeen with more promising genetics.


Yes, that's fine. As long as you do! 



squarepeg said:


> makes sense from the bee side, perhaps not as much from the mite side, but a more palatable approach for many and a step toward preventing horizontal transmission via robbing to intra- and extra-apiary colonies.


Its just essential genetic husbandry. The last thing you want to do is keep the _more defective_ stock alive to reproduce. 

All this applies of course only to those trying to raise resistance. If you are going to carry on treating, well none of it matters much. 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

> To identify the strongest and the weakest hives


In my case this is a hard thing to do. 
The best are those that are made in spring, survive one season and thrive, survive one winter and are strong enough to be splitted again in next spring, This without interfering. 
These would probably be sacrificed in my setting by feeding them to produce drones ( and more mites). 
So I´m in a dilemma to use them this way or to make more splits.



> sorting out the poor performers,


Once more I will give them some time to see how they will do until swarm season.
To sort them out I have to move them to another place because first I need queens to introduce. I have no reserve queens except queen cells in spring, so the timing is difficult.
I think I will move them, castrate them ( drones) sugar shake them and shift the queens the moment I`ve better queens available, preferable in summer before winter bee breeding, because then I can cull capped comb if the threshold rises.

Except of feeding, which will be needed because of bad weather, late flows or my managements I plan not to interfere, so I can evaluate in a better way.
When I feed I feed all. Just now the strong need it, the weak still have stores and do not take it. 
To be sparse with stores is a good trait though, so once again I need to see what will happen once flow starts.

Well, this year expansion will be my priority. Since I have only bond survivors all are good enough to be splitted and multiplied.


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> In my case this is a hard thing to do. (identify the strongest and the weakest hives)
> 
> So I´m in a dilemma to use them this way or to make more splits.


I'm in lots of dilemmas Si. I think its the nature of the game. Do I push them for honey/income or split for more hives? If I take splits will that reduce my drone influence - which I consider my most important feature? 

I spend a _lot_ of time thinking and planning, and then the wind changes and I have to start over!



SiWolKe said:


> Once more I will give them some time to see how they will do until swarm season.


It sounds to me like your priority is to raise numbers. 



SiWolKe said:


> Except of feeding, which will be needed because of bad weather, late flows or my managements I plan not to interfere, so I can evaluate in a better way.
> When I feed I feed all. Just now the strong need it, the weak still have stores and do not take it.


I've always tried to keep all fed. I was late on checks earlier this year and lost 2 big hives to starvation - just blew up and cleaned out the pantry. Quite a few of my nucs have failed to hold stores and starved out during a recent very cold spell despite having candy and inch above them. I think there's a lot of robbing going on in mild spells, and its something I'll have to attend to. 



SiWolKe said:


> To be sparse with stores is a good trait though, so once again I need to see what will happen once flow starts.


Unless, like me, you want lots of bees for early pollination fees, and a fast-building population for early splits (and early honey to keep the wolf from the door. Then you want them to set to turning honey into brood starting New Year's day!

I've found that the vast majority that get going in the spring - even if not till the late spring - build up and become useful hives through the summer. I don't sweat over evaluations any more. They are all untreated, and I let them all live an do their best. I go to those that get tall for eggs, and trust my drone population is doing the work of bringing the best genes forward. 



SiWolKe said:


> Well, this year expansion will be my priority. Since I have only bond survivors all are good enough to be splitted and multiplied.


Sounds good but do try to get good male input... I'm trying to go for big hives (for drones and honey) making small splits which I'll nurse through their first winter.

Sorry to offer unasked for advice. I suspect I can't help it!

PS I has a fly-in swarm overwinter last year in a nuc, which I neglected, but I left an empty nuc nearby and it filled up. So I put two more nucs out and both filled up! I think I got 6 or 7 new colonies this way. Unfortunately they didn't all mate well, and I've ended up with 3 or 4 now - but it shows what can be done!


----------



## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> Sorry to offer unasked for advice. I suspect I can't help it!


This is the IPM topic and useful advice is certainly welcome.

Unless you try to proselytize or misunderstand our situation, there are no problems.

You must understand that uncivilized criticism can hurt very much if you are desperate to keep alive your bees.


----------



## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> This is the IPM topic and useful advice is certainly welcome.
> 
> Unless you try to proselytize or misunderstand our situation, there are no problems.
> 
> You must understand that uncivilized criticism can hurt very much if you are desperate to keep alive your bees.


Proselytizing is my thing! Uncivilized criticism... - tell me about it!

I'm sorry. Really. I'm just trying to help - but... some background...

I have always had this idea that my audience here isn't just the person I'm talking to. If that were the case I'd have shut down long ago. My responsibility is to tell the truth as I know it, so that everyone who comes along can see it. 

Its been rough here sometimes, and I got used to scrapping, long ago, with guys who didn't pull punches and didn't play by the rules. I tried to just put my head down, keep on telling my truth through the noise, so that those who could hear me got a chance to hear me. That got me to the point where you were impressed enough to ask me to be your mentor. 

That was all really good training - it made me think hard about just what my reasons for doing things were, and what the best ways of explaining them might be. As a result I kept gaining insights about my own topic. 

I don't shut up unless I want to, or if I'm asked to by a moderator. 

The last few days I've been having some tough arguments on three different forums at once; and some of the passion from others might have inappropriately leaked onto this one. If so, again, I'm sorry

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

I don´t feel this to be a chat room between you and me Mike so I will refrain from posting here from now on.

I pmed you to explain myself.


----------



## msl

> Since I have only bond survivors all are good enough to be splitted and multiplied


I dissagree, that's is the miss-message of the internet's popular version of bond, and that's not how Kefuss and others got ahead. 
You likely only have one queen (if that) worth propagating from
Look at the soft bond directions.... before even bonding the queens, re-queen a maximum of your hives from the top 4% of your queens! that's one in 25.
looking at a bell curve 84% of the stock is "average" or below








average queens and drones give you average stock, if you want to improve your stock you need to propagate (breeding is dubious for the little guy) from the best.... the rest you don't want.. you don't want those queens, and you most certainly don't want those drones. 

This is not 100% accurate but a good illustration of the consecpt
Scale it for bond TF take the curve and say 50% loses are the average.. right down the middle so the 34% becomes 68% of whats alive come spring... propagate from that 68% and you maintain the 50% losses rate, propagate from the average you get more average 

start propagating from the top 2.1% (4.2% left alive) and you make much more queens in the top 16% performance range, this shifts the loss back towards 16% from 50% as the performance of your stock increases... if on average 4% of your hives survive 2 winters, those are the ones to propagate, not all the 1 year olds you have..

Constantly splitting to get your numbers up, and letting them raise their own queen because that's what is easy , is a trap for the small scale TF keeper where its easy to create a loop where your reinforcing your losses, and the losses cause you to split

I chose to use manipulations/chems to break this cycle, there are outher ways as well... Sam Comfort wintered his stock in FL to increase his splits per year and get his numbers up

I now have queens who have survived 2 winters to select from, production hives to make me honey but more importantly test the next rounds of queens in full sized hives, and a fleet of overwintered nucs to go into full sized hives, fuel expansion, and provide resources for queen rearing of select stock.

I have a target of mating out 30+ queens from my top one and providing queen cells to my neighbors. Today I am setting up a 3rd yard to run a different line.. 2 mouths or so ago I found a colony while picking threw a commercial yard that had been abandoned for 5 years, they are coming in to spring strong and the plan is to winter 5 from this line at the new site... I salvaged 4 other (empty) hives and super set ups at the site as well, everything is going to the new yard for bio-security reason so as not to risk the main yard. Resistant? don't know, and wont till till after they have headed a full size hive for a season... so fall I will know about her, 2020 we shale see about the daughters 
all this is something I couldn't do if I had to spend my time, and more importantly my resources, getting my numbers back up.


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## 1102009

msl,
I left the forum as an active poster.
I will contact you via pm. You are one of my best sources. Please answer to the questions directed to you there. 
Thanks, 
Sibylle


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> if you want to improve your stock you need to propagate (breeding is dubious for the little guy) from the best.... the rest you don't want.. you don't want those queens, and you most certainly don't want those drones.
> 
> This is not 100% accurate but a good illustration of the consecpt
> Scale it for bond TF take the curve and say 50% loses are the average.. right down the middle so the 34% becomes 68% of whats alive come spring... propagate from that 68% and you maintain the 50% losses rate, propagate from the average you get more average


One easy way for a BYBK to maintain stock is to use insemination service. Readily available, at least in Europe.

http://www.theabk.com.au/articles/2016/8/4/queen-insemination-in-germany

http://www.buckfastnrw.de/dokumentation-frau-christa-winkler/

https://www.koelnerbienen.net/single-post/2016/06/10/Besamungstag-in-Gut-Leidenhausen


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## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> One easy way for a BYBK to maintain stock is to use insemination service. Readily available, at least in Europe.
> 
> http://www.theabk.com.au/articles/2016/8/4/queen-insemination-in-germany
> 
> http://www.buckfastnrw.de/dokumentation-frau-christa-winkler/
> 
> https://www.koelnerbienen.net/single-post/2016/06/10/Besamungstag-in-Gut-Leidenhausen


That's ok if you believe that method is a good way to locate the best drones. Personally I wouldn't go there unless here really was no alternative. Given my experience in the UK, in a busy fruit growing area, I would expect there to be pockets of ferals all over well forested Europe. 

Mike (UK)


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## flamenco108

mike bispham said:


> I would expect there to be pockets of ferals all over well forested Europe.


Where are these well forested Europas, that you expect to be pocketed with ferals? North of the northern border of AMM's natural range of occurence? 
There are more forests in Long Island, than on any region in Europe today.


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## mike bispham

flamenco108 said:


> Where are these well forested Europas, that you expect to be pocketed with ferals? North of the northern border of AMM's natural range of occurence?
> There are more forests in Long Island, than on any region in Europe today.



UK (Mike) 12%
Germany (SiWolKe) 32%

https://gabrielhemery.com/european-countries-and-their-forest-cover/

How does this compare with long island? 

Mike (UK)


----------



## flamenco108

mike bispham said:


> UK (Mike) 12%
> Germany (SiWolKe) 32%
> 
> https://gabrielhemery.com/european-countries-and-their-forest-cover/
> How does this compare with long island?


Poland 29% (?)

Thanks for the link. It was allegory, probably unsuccesful. 

The most of beekeepers I know, claim firmly, that there are no feral or wild bees in Europe. I think, if they exist somewhere, they are not numerous. And they are in the, as you said, pockets.

In fact there is a huge project beginning of installation of 1000 log hives in the forests of Klodzko Valley - if it works, there will be a good proof, whether there are any feral or wild bees or not. In next several years.


----------



## mike bispham

flamenco108 said:


> Poland 29% (?)
> 
> Thanks for the link. It was allegory, probably unsuccesful.
> 
> The most of beekeepers I know, claim firmly, that there are no feral or wild bees in Europe. I think, if they exist somewhere, they are not numerous. And they are in the, as you said, pockets.
> 
> In fact there is a huge project beginning of installation of 1000 log hives in the forests of Klodzko Valley - if it works, there will be a good proof, whether there are any feral or wild bees or not. In next several years.


Allegory eh? 

That's what they say. But when you speak to people like me all over you find the (predictable) truth - that wherever there is freedom from treating beekeepers (and pest controllers) there they are, surviving, and now thriving. Natural selection has done its (predictable) work. As time goes by the more there are.

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

mike, our commercial and treating beekeeping friends are prevented from making pejorative comments about treatment free beekeeping under the unique forum rules in this particular subforum.

these rules were put in place to facilitate meaningful discussion and avoid deterioration of the dialogue into tit for tat criticisms over methods of operation.

let us please reciprocate the same respect for and refrain from making derogatory comments about those on the other side of the approach.


----------



## squarepeg

mike, here is a more appropriate thread/forum to express your opinions with respect to treating vs. not treating:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ting-vs-not-treating-for-mites-opinion-thread


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> mike, our commercial and treating beekeeping friends are prevented from making pejorative comments about treatment free beekeeping under the unique forum rules in this particular subforum.
> 
> these rules were put in place to facilitate meaningful discussion and avoid deterioration of the dialogue into tit for tat criticisms over methods of operation.
> 
> let us please reciprocate the same respect for and refrain from making derogatory comments about those on the other side of the approach.


Was that pejorative Sp? I thought is was factual these days? Can factual be pejorative - or derogatory for that matter? 

If you are going to censor the realities about genetic husbandry you'll be doing your aspiring tf beekeepers a huge disservice.

Mike


----------



## squarepeg

the unique rules associated with this subforum were established long before i joined beesource. i disagreed with them at first and lobbied for their removal; but i have come to see why they were put in place and now believe they serve a useful purpose.

i was reluctant to accept the role of moderator here, and i'll humbly admit that i am only human and may not always call it perfectly.

short of profanity, incivility, or personal attacks; you will not be censored for expressing your views with respect to beekeeping methods that are different than yours in the thread i linked in post #667.

i started that thread purposely in the general beekeeping forum out of fairness to all regardless of which side of the approach one finds themself on. the sharing of diverse opinions is not encumbered there by unique forum rules like it is here in the treatment free subforum.


----------



## msl

Interesting resource Juhani, but to the point if they cant chose good queen mother stock they likly cant chose good drone stock


> Where are these well forested Europas, that you expect to be pocketed with ferals?


Its a mistake to assume (at least in the US), forest=prime habitat for ferals, Morse (1990) found the Ferals almost 5.5x as dense in the city of Oswego NY then Seeley (1982) did in the Arnot Forest (2.7 per km2 vs 0.5) and Baum (2005) found 12.5 per km2 on the prairys 

Given the above, and the extra pathogen pressures urban areas put on bees http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142031 its reasnabul to expect to find good hunting for resistant feral in non forested setting


----------



## mike bispham

msl said:


> Its a mistake to assume (at least in the US), forest=prime habitat for ferals, Morse (1990) found the Ferals almost 5.5x as dense in the city of Oswego NY then Seeley (1982) did in the Arnot Forest (2.7 per km2 vs 0.5) and Baum (2005) found 12.5 per km2 on the prairys
> 
> Given the above, and the extra pathogen pressures urban areas put on bees http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142031 its reasnabul to expect to find good hunting for resistant feral in non forested setting


This are small sample, and there are lots of variables - some forest areas may have very limited forage - but I agree some cities and towns may well have stronger feral populations than some forests. I think these is due to more variable pasture in built up areas, but especially no shortage of dry nesting sites - heated ones even! And less exposure to that of which we must not speak! 

My own experience is that towns are better - but swarms obviously get reported more there. 

interesting abstract to the paper. My emboldening:

Abstract

"_Given the role of infectious disease in global pollinator decline, there is a need to understand factors that shape pathogen susceptibility and transmission in bees. Here we ask how urbanization affects the immune response and pathogen load of feral and managed colonies of honey bees (Apis mellifera Linnaeus), the predominant economically important pollinator worldwide. 

Using quantitative real-time PCR, we measured expression of 4 immune genes and relative abundance of 10 honey bee pathogens. We also measured worker survival in a laboratory bioassay. We found that pathogen pressure on honey bees increased with urbanization and management, and the probability of worker survival declined 3-fold along our urbanization gradient. The effect of management on pathogens appears to be mediated by immunity, with feral bees expressing immune genes at nearly twice the levels of managed bees following an immune challenge. The effect of urbanization, however, was not linked with immunity; instead, urbanization may favor viability and transmission of some disease agents.

*Feral colonies, with lower disease burdens and stronger immune responses, may illuminate ways to improve honey bee management*. The previously unexamined effects of urbanization on honey-bee disease are concerning, suggesting that urban areas may favor problematic diseases of pollinators_."

So ferals do better in cities than managed bees. Well well!

Also from the same paper:

"_Feral honey bee populations—historically or recently escaped from management and living without human intervention—also crashed in the wake of Varroa introductions [11, 12]. A growing number of reports, however, document feral populations coexisting stably with Varroa or N. ceranae in the absence miticide treatments or other management [21–24]. Feral colonies capable of overwintering without beekeeper support may exhibit immune traits that enable them to combat or tolerate pathogens. Detecting such patterns and, ultimately, identifying their genetic or environmental mechanisms would be key steps toward sustainable pollination services_."

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> the unique rules associated with this subforum were established long before i joined beesource. i disagreed with them at first and lobbied for their removal; but i have come to see why they were put in place and now believe they serve a useful purpose.
> 
> i was reluctant to accept the role of moderator here, and i'll humbly admit that i am only human and may not always call it perfectly.
> 
> short of profanity, incivility, or personal attacks; you will not be censored for expressing your views with respect to beekeeping methods that are different than yours in the thread i linked in post #667.
> 
> i started that thread purposely in the general beekeeping forum out of fairness to all regardless of which side of the approach one finds themself on. the sharing of diverse opinions is not encumbered there by unique forum rules like it is here in the treatment free subforum.


The topic you object to is not a 'diverse opinion'. It is something that is absolutely central to treatment free beekeeping - in fact all beekeeping.

When you want to improve your stock you have to establish a measure of control over mating. That is fundamental to all husbandry. Its inarguable.

Is beekeeping not husbandry? 

I thought the TF section was established precisely to give us a place where we could talk about how to improve our stock to reduce dependence on treatments? 

And that was bought about because we couldn't do that on the general forum. 

This matter needs to be open here. There is no question in my mind. I've never been censured for doing it before - and I've been a lot tougher about it in the past.

You know all this Sp. I'd be grateful if you'd back me up. 

In any case, could I ask you to direct me to the specific rule you feel I've transgressed? 

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

sorry mike, the comments i felt were derogatory have been deleted into oblivion. in my opinion they were negative enough and directed specifically at a group whose approach differs from yours and mine.

if you read through the unique forum rules you'll get a sense for the spirit behind them. we'll have to leave it at that for here and allow this thread to get back on topic. send me a pm if you want/need to discuss this further.


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## msl

Found this on Bee-l 


> I spent time with some missionary friends of mine who lived in the mountains of Nepal a few years ago. We worked with the locals and the local bees-apis cerana. These bees are supposed to be the native host of varroa and are supposed to be resistant. Most of the hives are small, compared to the monster, non swarming hives we manage. Due to the nature of the monsoon and nectar flows, there was no swarming in the village hives that summer. These people live for swarms-cultural thing. The hives normally make 2KG of honey per year. We witnessed hives crashing with PMS from high varroa loads, just like most of ours will when left untreated. The beekeeper treated with apistan to try to salvage his hives. The commercial beekeepers normally kill the queens after the honey harvest , let them raise a new one and add a piece of artemesia plant (related to wormwood-has essential oils that repel and kill mites). Hence a broodless period, and a soft mite treatment. .


http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1803&L=BEE-L&P=4364
. 
Koeniger, 1976 and outhers have put them at 2 swarming events a year with 8-10 swarms issued , Jensen 2007 (India) put small scale manged 2 year survival at 10 % 

small, swarmy, unproductive, loose the brood break and they crash- Very Seeley indeed 
Once again it seems HOW you keep bees matters, and when manged for high production the pressure can be too much, even with milions of years of co evolution. 

The above quote seem to indicate 2 brood breaks are needed in addition to a winter one


any way moving on to some light reading today Control of Varroa: A Guide for New Zealand Beekeepers-page 58 http://freethebees.ch/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/control-of-varroa-guide.pdf

_This method of varroa control using hive splitting was developed by Dutch researchers, and is based on both the theoretical model of varroa population growth and techniques for biotechnical control of varroa that originated in Vietnam (see 12.6). The method should be used during swarm control in the late spring/early summer, or when making autumn’ splits in the late summer while the honey flow is still on.
Step 1
• Choose two colonies.
• Place a comb with empty drone cells in the centre of the brood nest of one colony
(colony A).
Step 2 (one week later)
• In colony A, shake all the bees off the combs with brood except the drone comb,
and put the brood in the other colony (B), after first checking for AFB.
• Put a second, empty drone comb in the centre of the brood nest of colony A.
• Put the queen in colony B above a queen excluder in a further super with empty
combs.
Colony A now only has a single frame of uncapped drone larvae and an empty drone brood comb, while colony B has a two super brood nest plus a third super containing the queen.
Step 3 (one week later)
• Remove the comb that now has capped drone brood (and mites) from colony A (the comb that contained uncapped drone larvae the week before). The comb can be uncapped with a knife or cappings scratcher and the drone pupae can be removed from the comb in a small hand extractor, washed out with a hand spray nozzle attached to a garden hose, or simply shaken out on the ground. Drone pupae make excellent chicken feed.
• Put this cleaned comb (or another clean drone comb) into the centre of the broodnest of colony A.
• Shake all the bees off the new brood that has been produced above the excluder in colony B. The brood is all too young to contain any mites. Move the brood to
colony A, after first checking for AFB.
• Take the bees and queen from the excluded box in colony B and make a broodless split (colony C). Shake all the bees off the second drone comb in colony A (now containing uncapped larvae), and put it in the centre of the super of colony C.
• Put a protected queen cell in colony B.
Step 4 (one week later)
• Shake the bees from the drone comb containing uncapped drone larvae from colony A, and place it in the centre of the brood nest of colony B.
• Remove the comb that now has capped drone brood (and mites) from colony C and destroy the pupae (see Step 3).
Step 5 (one week later)
• Remove the comb that now has capped drone brood (and mites) from colony B and destroy the pupae (see Step 3).
• Check colony B for a new laying queen.

According to the field trials carried out by the Dutch researchers, on average this method is 83.4 to 93.4% effective in removing mites from all three colonies (depending on the amount of drone brood available for trapping). The researchers have managed 70 colonies using this method for 5 years in Holland without using any additional, chemical control._

Makes my head hurt LOL
But would seem a TF/non chem to save a hive that is failing


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## AR Beekeeper

The Dutch method sounds more complicated than it actually is in practice. Add a powdered sugar dusting or two, it works well in addition to the drone brood trapping.


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## msl

Have you found the original study ? I can't seem to. Odd that they went in to such great detail and then didn't site the source, I can find the therotricl model study they mention, but not the drone trapping field work


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## AR Beekeeper

I have not found the work done by Calis in Europe, but Calderone did the study in the U. S. at Cornell, his work shows that drone trapping can control varroa when used as they did at Wageningen, in the Netherlands.


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## msl

37. A side-by-side comparison of honey bee management systems

_Robyn Underwood1, Dennis vanEngelsdorp2, Brenna Traver3, Kristine Nichols4.

1Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA. 2Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. 3Department of Biology, Penn State Schuylkill, Schuylkill Haven, PA, USA. 4Rodale Institute, Kutztown, PA, USA.

Colony losses are the result of a combination of stressors affecting honey bee health such as pesticide exposure, poor nutrition, parasites, pathogens, and diseases. In response, management for the minimization of beekeeper-associated stressors is a direct way that beekeepers can positively impact colony health. We conducted a side-by-side comparison of organic and conventional management systems to determine whether either management system results in healthier, less stressed bees. *Organic practices involve using cultural control techniques as a first line of defense against hive pests and diseases and avoiding non-organic in-hive chemicals. In addition, these practices avoid the use of antibiotics, provide treatment for varroa mites only on an as-needed basis, and allow bees to build their own comb (see Figure 19) rather than giving them a comb foundation that could potentially be contaminated with pesticides (Mullin et al., 2010. PLoS One 5:e9754)*. Approximately 98% of beeswax in the United States is contaminated with pesticides that beekeepers, themselves, added to the hive to control varroa mite parasites.

We quantified honey bee health in colonies managed using organic and conventional management practices by measuring honey bee population growth, honey and wax production, overwintering success, varroa mite population growth, and Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae levels. Because half of the colonies were kept using conventional management and the other half using organic management, we conducted a direct comparison of the impacts of simple management practices as means to keep colonies healthy and both parasite and pest levels low. *The results indicate that neither system resulted in a robust, healthy honey bee population.*_ Proceedings of the 2018 American Bee Research Conference https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0005772X.2018.1450208


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## tpope

Thanks for the link MSL... 
Begs to ask what conventional practices were used since both organic and conventional management practices did not result in a robust, healthy population...

If neither system works, how does a researcher keep their bees alive???


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## mike bispham

Looks like they were using commercial bees. What did they expect would happen?

Mike UK


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## 1102009

Here an example of "organic " beekeeping , label, in germany.

treatments, no selection, multiplying from treated hives. Even worse than conventional beekeeping in my eyes, because conventional beekeeping started to breed for mite resistance ( VSH).

A hive that is treated ( no matter what is used) is not healthy or it would not need treatments. It´s not healthy after treatments. Disease is only suppressed . Only a tf hive that is thriving is healthy.

https://www.apimondia.com/symposia/...ND INSPECTION SYStTEM - Berthold Schrimpf.pdf


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## lharder

mike bispham said:


> Looks like they were using commercial bees. What did they expect would happen?
> 
> Mike UK


Exactly, no sense of system dynamics at all. Reporting mean results is probably pointless as well. Looking at the range of response gives you an idea of what's possible with that particular population of bees.


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## msl

The studys results seem to be an ink blot test 
The establishment sees organic management failing to improve bee heath
The organic types see what thier doing as just as good as the establishment. 
To me I see just go the cheapest easyist route 

Right now I am going threw the videos from the European treatment free beekeeping conference in Austria 
I loved the John Kefuss' lecture 
shows how far the internet version of "bond" has drifted from intent 

He had an EFB problem down south, he went threw over 480 hives to select 14 breeder queens with the most hygienic traits and re queened the rest of the stock with there offspring
This is not the hand of nature this is the hand of the beekeeper

then there is his estimation of 220 hours of labor to select for 20 mite resistance breeder queens 
This is not the hand of nature, this is the hand of the beekeeper

his soft bond, take the 20 best out of 500 and requeen as many of the 500 as you can with them
This is not the hand of nature this is the hand of the beekeeper

"There is no point in having a varroa resistant bee if you can’t make money for it " John Kefuss
This is not the hand of nature this is the hand of the beekeeper 

This is not splitting what ever is left come spring (internet bond), this is mass propagation of the best of whats left and re-queening an the rest with it on top of increase . This is not the hand of nature this is the hand of the beekeeper.

The future of beekeeping is in the hands of beekeepers, not nature, always has been always will be. That's the differenc between beekeeping and honey hunting


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## 1102009

That was the message of the bee conference:
every beekeeping is accepted and promoted as long as it produces treatment-free bees.
After all, everyone has different demands.


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## flamenco108

msl said:


> The future of beekeeping is in the hands of beekeepers, not nature, always has been always will be. That's the differenc between beekeeping and honey hunting


There is no beekeeping without beekeepers, isn't it obvious???


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> This is not the hand of nature this is the hand of the beekeeper
> 
> The future of beekeeping is in the hands of beekeepers, not nature, always has been always will be. That's the differenc between beekeeping and honey hunting



Husbandry has always been about doing the selecting so that nature doesn't do it for you (the hard way).

Husbandry breeds only from the best. That's what farming is, what it was from the beginning. What defines husbandry is taking care of the parentage, the lineage, making sure each generation is made only from the strongest of the last generation. It is the bloodline that is 'husbanded', not individuals.

There are times when husbandry is done so poorly that nature starts doing the selecting. The stock sickens, the weakest are crippled and removed from the reproductive process. Given a free hand natural selection will strengthen the bloodlines. That's how life works. 

Do you disagree with any of that?

Mike (UK)


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## msl

> Do you disagree with any of that


Most actually.
Husbandry is not needed if strong healthy stock living wild in its natural environment with natural losses is all that was wanted, nature dose a great job at that as it is. 

Husbandry is about breeding a stock with traits suitably for humans, every trait has cost, often the cost is the ability to survive in the wild with out human care

So then husbandry is also about how to mange the stocks so they stay alive and produce what we want out of them. IE the point of this thread, sence the small guy can't expect to breed anything or keep a bought line true, what non chemical husbandry can we use to keep bees alive.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> Husbandry is about breeding a stock with traits suitably for humans, every trait has cost, often the cost is the ability to survive in the wild with out human care


I think you know what I think about that. Don't forget I'm in the uk where damaging (native) wild honeybee populations is, in my view, not on. 



msl said:


> So then husbandry is also about how to mange the stocks so they stay alive and produce what we want out of them.


And drawing the bloodlines toward a healthy future. Always. Just medicating (or generally mollycoddling) and doing nothing else will, in an open breeding population, perpetuate dependency on the 'help' 



msl said:


> IE the point of this thread, sence the small guy can't expect to breed anything or keep a bought line true, what non chemical husbandry can we use to keep bees alive.


If you don't know by now I don't think there is anything I can say that will help you. I do wonder though, with that attitude why you choose to talk about it on the treatment free forum? 

Mike UK


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## 1102009

I have a new co-worker who is treatment free for 15 years with local mutts, just multiplying the strongest, he is not isolated.

He gave us a lecture on how the beekeeping fathers worked and what changed and why we should go back to that beekeeping as hobbyists and sideliners.

He gave us too a lecture about what happens in natural selection and that it is totally unnatural to try for zero losses.

In his eyes a beekeeper can work like a wild honeybee swarm needs and still let nature select while keeping. 

He said the first thing a novice learns today is that one can´t keep bees without constant treatment, not telling that there once was a time when nobody treated and hives were multiplied out of swarm urge.

Sure, those bees were exploited too but it was a totally different kind of beekeeping, a honey hunt. Once he gave beekeeping lectures but quit because he was attacked and laughed at.


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## msl

> I do wonder though, with that attitude why you choose to talk about it on the treatment free forum?


Because despite your personal views, its in accordance with the rules and definitions of this subfoum
Because for many locations such as the one defined in this thread it may be the only sustainable TF option. 
Because its not wrong to speak the truth about bees, and what you qoated me on IS the truth. 



> In his eyes a beekeeper can work like a wild honeybee swarm needs and still let nature select while keepingHe said the first thing a novice learns today is that one can´t keep bees without constant treatment, not telling that there once was a time when nobody treated and hives were multiplied out of swarm urge.


Old style skept bee keeping would likely fair well in the face of varroa. but the killing of 1/2-2/3 of your hives doesn't sit well with most, nor does the amount of time needed to sit at you hives waiting for swarms. Despite many claimes, it wasn't natural selection, it was the beekeeper, the weak and those with negtive trait's were harvested. those who were strong and had positive traits were propagated (swarming several cycles with mutpul swarms per cycle, and those swarms offen issued several swarms ) and animal husbandry was used to give those swarms above natural survival rates (well till the late swarms were just harvested) 
I see no issue just harvesting a infested colony before it becomes a mite bomb and taking what you can from it, very Seeley indeed.. on that note Kefuss believes in mite bombs :shhhh:

The low number of feral bees in your situation should tell you right away that natural section is likely not the path forward. 

John Kefuss has layed out a good path... Stop treating (I argue that is not needed now that he answered the question of what the mite counts of a TF hive should be, and a hive need not die as breader selection is based on counts and unless its top performer its going to get requeend anyway), sold records keeping, mite counts, hygienic tests, mass propagation from select breeder queens that are the top 4% of your hives and re queening the majority of your stock with them to shift your drones rinse and repeat
This is not the hand of nature, this is the hand of the beekeeper

Why is it most stop at removing treatments and just sit there expecting something to happen while calling themself bond? That not the bond method. 

As is shown in soft bond, the key is not removing treatments or letting hives die, its strong negative and positive selection pressure made by the beekeeper. Letting hives die by removing treatments just gives you less hives to run tests on so you spend less time on mite counts and hygienic tests. 
Kefuss put it at about 26 min a year per hive to run the tests.. Run the numbers your self about the $ value of a colony vs the $ value of 1/2 hour of your time and make you own mind up on the value of having less hives to test.


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## 1102009

> The low number of feral bees in your situation should tell you right away that natural section is likely not the path forward.


We might create our own ferals.


> Why is it most stop at removing treatments and just sit there expecting something to happen while calling themself bond? That not the bond method.


Yes it is. If a swarm coming off your hive lodges in a tree and survives it is bond test. It´s even bond test without ferals around. And it´s bond test in every nesting place they choose.
After some time it´s natural selection.

But why to be so desperate? 
In our lifetime we have to accept all kinds of approaches to tf beekeeping or beekeeping per se. So do soft bond and feel comfortable ( Kefuss). Some do bond test and are comfortable. Some even do accelerated test by exchanging brood combs, never knowing they do accelerated bond test  that but often with big surprises following  *Be comfortable which whatever you decide.*


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## 1102009

msl



> Old style skept bee keeping would likely fair well in the face of varroa. but the killing of 1/2-2/3 of your hives doesn't sit well with most,


He is not running skeps. His actions are: he never disturbed the broodnest by shifting and moving combs. He never feeds pollen substitute. He places brood boxes under, not on top, except honey boxes.
He has a hive system without condensation water running down.
He starts multiplying when swarm urge comes ( just before it´s not possible to stop the urge, when backfilling is done and the queen getting leaner.

Why do you claim he has so much loss? I did not say. He knows that losses are natural, but his losses are not higher than his neighbors.

There is only one difference between him and his neighbors:
he says "hi" when he meets them and they say "did you treat already and is it working?" 

He says if he will live more than 20 years from now on he will see them all crash. Treatments are already done constantly the whole year through and the time is not far away there is no possibility for more treatments in between.


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## GBF

msl said:


> This is not the hand of nature this is the hand of the beekeeper


This is the way of nature with a little help of the beekeeper..


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## msl

> Why do you claim he has so much loss


I didn't, I was refering to swarm/skept bee keeping, were there are enuff swarms and the hives live so short they may be harvested before the mites kill them.
I bleave I mistook your meaning, thinking he was making replacements by catching swarms ie the "old" ways spoken about.



> If a swarm coming off your hive lodges in a tree and survives it is bond test. It´s even bond test without ferals around. And it´s bond test in every nesting place they choose.
> After some time it´s natural selection.


That's a wild survival test
And yet despite a large sample size, natural selection has not created a bee population in your area that is any were near thriving, wild hives being a rarity to the point people think there are none. In fact natural selection is selecting for an environment devoid of bees, in an area they were once native. Extinction is a function of natural selection as well.

Your not square peg who is in an area with a well documented thriveing feral pop
Your not Mike B bringing in 30+ swarms of fresh genetics every year as replacements for hives whos traits are fading f2/f3

As I always say, listen to what the bees are telling you, and the silence of the ferals in your area is screaming a message. 

Look at what the majority of successful large TF keepers have done, cell builders and mass propagation from select stock is a common theam.. 
Look at those that have poor results do.... split and propagate from the majority of their hives 

sure there are outliers... there always will be, but the trend is there

The way you shift resistance is the same way you shift or matain any trait in bees, it dosen't change just because there are mites. Hopes/dreams/well wishes/ beleaveing in all powerful mother nature doesn't shift your stock, actively re queening from the top few percent, so you shift bolth your queens AND your drone stock does.

TF would advance a lot more if the majorly got off the hokey "nature" kick and got down to the brass tacks about the realty of bees


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> This is not the hand of nature, this is the hand of the beekeeper


Its the hand of he husbandryman imitating, and carefully assisting nature.

Natural selection... beekeeper selection.... parallel process.

Where feral populations can thrive is where natural selection is able to work (because treatments are not recycling mite-vulnerable genes back in each generation) Such bees are resistant, and nature made them that way.

Where beekeepers are able to find resistant bees they can work to raise the level of resistance, by going large and adopting either a natural selection routine (which has more features than just live and let die btw), and or by a 'soft bond' routine. They will need to be largely free from the influence of commercial bees. That 'largely free is an uncertain and varying proposition. Queens and drones can fly a long way to mate. But hard bond and long term record keeping coupled with focussed requeening _may_ go some way even in difficult conditions. 

Its almost impossible to say what will work where. But its fairly safe to say 2 or 3 hives surrounded by systematically treated hives won't work. You ae just swimming against the tide.

That's my understanding, and experience. I have plenty to learn, but it has worked for me so far, as an experimental bee farmer.

Mike (UK)
Those are the facts of


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> The way you shift resistance is the same way you shift or matain any trait in bees, it dosen't change just because there are mites. Hopes/dreams/well wishes/ beleaveing in all powerful mother nature doesn't shift your stock, actively re queening from the top few percent, so you shift bolth your queens AND your drone stock does.


It depends what you believe about mother nature! If you have a good understanding of natural selection you have an essential tool in your armoury! Its pretty much the same understanding that husbandrymen have had ever since man became a farmer. If you have neither an understanding of natural selection, or of selective breeding, you can work by simple rule of thumb: 'Put only best to best'. You just have to work out how to do that.

I think the rest of what you say is what we've all been saying all along. You do need quite a few hives, you do to know for sure which are actually resistant (and hard bond is the quickest way to find them). Having too many treated bees around will make the process much harder and perhaps impossible.



msl said:


> TF would advance a lot more if the majorly got off the hokey "nature" kick and got down to the brass tacks about the realty of bees


A good understanding of natural selection is not hokey. Natural selection is a reality, and highly relevant to the art of tf beekeeping and husbandry more broadly. The sooner you get that into your head the sooner you'll start to understand why some people are succeeding at tf and others aren't.

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> Its almost impossible to say what will work where. But its fairly safe to say 2 or 3 hives surrounded by systematically treated hives won't work. You ae just swimming against the tide.
> Those are the facts of


I disagree.

You contradict yourself.

There are no facts, only opinions because nobody tested this long term.

I´m now convinced it works somehow, IMHO. But in a commercial treaters environment the tf colonies must be kept differently, much more natural. You can only do conventional tf beekeeping in a more natural environment with feral genetics around.

The matings must have diversity of a tf genpool and be isolated if possible. But there are already some who have their tf queens mated by bad genetics and still have success without loosing all.
For that situation this is a very good success to have 50% survivors or more after some years! Don´t think like a commercial treater going for zero!

It´s good to work with a group go different locations because you leave behind all prejudice and opinions.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> The matings must have diversity of a tf genpool and be isolated if possible. But there are already some who have their tf queens mated by bad genetics and still have success without loosing all.


Perhaps there are more resistant ferals around than you have realised, perhaps by making lots of splits and/or encouraging swarms you can stay in front. But the hard fact is that commercial bees are not resistant and that their genetic input will be a constant downward pressure. 



SiWolKe said:


> For that situation this is a very good success to have 50% survivors or more after some years! Don´t think like a commercial treater going for zero!


Is that long term survivors or just two year olds? That's the test. Many swarms can overwinter and produce a big colony in their second year, far fewer are still thriving the next year. And the new queen in the swarmed hive? The same story.

Yes, you may be able to limp along with fast stock turnover, and if that is success for you that's fine. Whether it is part of a process of raising resistance is another matter. 

BTW I agree with you about being 'more natural'. The natural features I think are important to protect (as well as hard bond) are freecelling in the brood nest and unlimited brood nests.

Mike (UK)

It´s good to work with a group go different locations because you leave behind all prejudice and opinions.[/QUOTE]


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## 1102009

Imagine a world without beekeepers.

A swarm nests in a hollow tree and thrives. Other honeybees are at least 1km far away cause bees are territorial.
The next year they swarm and the swarm leaves the area.
The mother colony raises it´s own queen.

No this process goes on. Genetics are staying and leaving, spreading.
After some time the mother is not able to exist because of different factors ( mating goes wrong, weather, predators,tree fells down or whatever). 
The tree colony is no more.
That´s nature. It´s not normal that 20 years later it´s the same bees and genetics in that area. It´s diversity coming because maybe another swarm lodges from different location.

Now a beekeeper will say: I should have treated and introduce queens so they will be still there after 20 years? Yes, that´s what a beekeeper does.
To be a natural beekeeper we have to consider this.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Other honeybees are at least 1km far away cause bees are territorial.


This is a widespread factoid. Bees are not territorial in the least, and can live at extremely high densities. The limitations are simply available forage and nesting sites.

It isn't out of order to imagine a thousand colonies in a square mile. 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> Is that long term survivors or just two year olds? That's the test. Many swarms can overwinter and produce a big colony in their second year, far fewer are still thriving the next year. And the new queen in the swarmed hive? The same story.
> 
> Yes, you may be able to limp along with fast stock turnover, and if that is success for you that's fine.


Well I feel a 15 years tf success is long time ( + - 40 hives he has) and a 5 years too. Mine are 4 years. I feel my two 2 winter surviving queens tested too.

You know, in my eyes the treaters are much more limping along today if all is about keeping alive bees with constant treatments and feel crashes coming all the time, having immune system problems like foul brood and contaminating the honey with antibiotics.  

I saw with my hives that I have to do many improvements still with respect to moisture, for example and other things. Varroa seems not to be the main problem.


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> This is a widespread factoid. Bees are not territorial in the least, and can live at extremely high densities. The limitations are simply available forage and nesting sites.
> 
> It isn't out of order to imagine a thousand colonies in a square mile.
> 
> Mike (UK)


I´ve never had information that there is such a density of ferals in europe even with very good flow around, but maybe I´m wrong.
I only saw this once in a video with tropic bees living outdoors, but different species they were.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> I´ve never had information that there is such a density of ferals in europe even with very good flow around, but maybe I´m wrong.
> I only saw this once in a video with tropic bees living outdoors, but different species they were.


I was snatching a figure out of the air there - that would be a colony on every point of a 50 yard grid. But in ideal conditions I think very high densities are possible. Can we imagine 10 100 hive apiaries in a square mile, given really ideal foraging conditions? 

In a wild setting they wouldn't all be thriving at once, and I think the larger and more aggressive colonies would be taking out perhaps 3/4 of all new swarms in their first winter, and a good few of the weaker colonies. (And I guess that comes close to territoriality.) There would probably be pressure from predators. 

The conditions I can imagine would provide the highest densities would see lots of hollow trees and perhaps caves, perhaps man-made structures, few predators (perhaps man keeping them down so he can harvest sustainably). Obviously fantastic foraging conditions, good water supplies. 

I would think such conditions would support as many bees as beekeepers can arrange - and as I say I don't think 10 * 100/sq mile hives is unsustainable, though it probably couldn't be extended forever. Disease rates would probably become the limiting factor, as closer densities promote faster and more intense spread of pathogens.

Its all speculation. I just wanted to challenge the idea that bees are territorial. They are competitive, and defensive, and do seek relatively unoccupied territory. But I know of 3 long term colonies within 6 feet of each other in a house wall, and other surprisingly high density spots. That sort of budding off to an adjacent site isn't unusual - how any of us have seen an empty hive alongside full ones suddenly occupied? I've seen pictures of hillsides covered in hives in China - how many I don't know, but lots! It would be interesting to explore the question: what are highest possible stocking rates under ideal conditions. Wjat sorts of territory and forage supply the most calories, and pollen at crucial times, to sustain maximum density? 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

I found something on the hobos site:

It seems that in an area not far from me where research was done bees searched for nesting places in a distance of 500m mostly.

https://www.hobos.de/was-ist-hobos/infos/aktuelles/artikeldetail/wo-honigbienen-zu-hause-sind-1003/

There are territorials with individuals and species, so it seems to be that the honeybee as a species has no territorial defense but competitive behavior like you said and it too depends on nourishment provided.
But it seems that there is a territorium, the hive itself:

quote:
>>Individualized and anonymous associations

In the societies in which the animals know each other individually, in addition to ranking societies, brood care communities are also included. Well-known individuals are welcomed, unknown individuals are chased away. It was even observed assistance in closed associations. These groups have a rich repertoire of behavior.
In anonymous associations, the animals only contact acoustically, optically or chemically.
A dense swarm makes it harder for the prey hunter to focus on a single specimen, and thus the association grants its members increased protection. Joint action can be one or more individuals.

insect colonies
A special kind of the anonymous groups represent the insect states, which are formed on the one hand by the termites, on the other hand by representatives of the Hymenoptera (ants, wasps, bees). In principle, a colony is a single family, as there is usually only one sexually mature "queen". Within the framework of a division of labor, all individuals work in the service of the whole (workers, drones, soldiers). Social signals and pheromones convey information.<<<

An interesting topic, not much considered with beekeeping. Yes there is migration to main flow but what impact has the home location ( pollen) to health?
And what happens if we change the territorial feelings of the bee organism all the time with our management ( splitting, shifting brood combs)? Will epigenetic behavior then change the defense to less?


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## msl

> its fairly safe to say 2 or 3 hives surrounded by systematically treated hives won't work. You are just swimming against the tide.


I agree it will not work with your methods, a different path is needed, again thats the point of this thread, bond fails these beekeepers, and in the US these beekeepers make of the majority of the TF want to bees. 

We have a choice... 
We can recomend bond as the one size that fits all glove, let natural selection remove these beekepers and turn them in to bitter failures who have abandoned the hobby, or turn to treatment regimes as has happend to the untold masses before them. 

We can tell them TF won't work for them and they should treat or not keep bees.... That message dosen't go well with TF types, they are too used the hearing it and will ignore it 

Or we can plot a different path. regardless of sucess or failure to keep bees compleatly off treatments, it at least lowers area mite pressures and helps to stem the flow of forren genetics in to an area, things that will help beekeepers on bolth sides of the spectrum. 

The flip side is bond for this same group of people just hurts others in the area. Mite bombs do damage and the constant replacements wipe out any advances. The negative selection is not the issue, its a good thing to remove weak geans, the problem is the lack of positive selection, instead replacements are made with imports. So there isn't a single positive effect of these people going bond even if they find sucess for a year or 2 , its wiped away in the outcross.


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## gww

Msl


> The negative selection is not the issue, its a good thing to remove weak geans, the problem is the lack of positive selection, instead replacements are made with imports. So there isn't a single positive effect of these people going bond even if they find sucess for a year or 2 , its wiped away in the outcross.


This is only true if the positive is truely wiped out everytime. Just because there are numbers out there that breed more then the one, if the one has the fastest drone it can still beat the odds. I understand the presures of the numbers game but am not convince that it works that way every time. Expecially in bees that have 14 drone fathers instead of one. Even in a hive, you don't need the whole hive to have the trait but only the fastest drone.

I keep thinking of the long beaked bird. There are a whole bunch of long beaked birds that origionally had short beaks. At one point in time there had to have only been one long beaked bird. Because it was of some advantage, then there were two and then there were many. I don't say that traits can't be lost or gained and that numbers don't make a differrence but more, when something is bennifitial, the numbers don't always win.

Maby this arguement is for the birds. Still, if it did not work where there was only one at some point in time, the alternative would be the only change that has ever happenned was either due to a giant die off or a giant migration to make the change. I think they have measured changes from frozen bees genetics to some of todays genetics and I just don't believe every change or differrance was due to a giant die with whats left living being ones with change off or giant migration over loading and causeing change. I think there have been some change even on islands where no importation has happened for long times in a row.
Cheers
gww

Ps To your point though, if you were betting on a fight, you might want to not bet on the 90 lbs weakling against the 250 lbs stong man.


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## 1102009

msl said:


> Or we can plot a different path. regardless of sucess or failure to keep bees compleatly off treatments, it at least lowers area mite pressures and helps to stem the flow of forren genetics in to an area, things that will help beekeepers on bolth sides of the spectrum.
> 
> The flip side is bond for this same group of people just hurts others in the area. Mite bombs do damage and the constant replacements wipe out any advances. The negative selection is not the issue, its a good thing to remove weak geans, the problem is the lack of positive selection, instead replacements are made with imports. So there isn't a single positive effect of these people going bond even if they find sucess for a year or 2 , its wiped away in the outcross.


Yes, good argument, to improve genetics.

I don´t have that problem of ethics in my area.
I don´t believe in mite bombs anymore.

Imports? All honeybees in central europe are imports, so what? Better imported honeybees than no honeybees. To have them adapt better, use northern stock.

A time will come when constant treatments are too costly and too much work, this will change the attitude.
Honey is not as attractive anymore because of the sugar debate. maybe it goes to pollination and then no big production hives are necessary.

The pendulum always swings back. I might not be involved, but no matter.


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## msl

> All honeybees in central europe are imports, so what?


scope and scale 
Its 4000km for bees coming off the almonds to be shook in packages made in to nucs etc and end up in Vermont...
that's the equivalent of you getting your bees from Kuwait. For adaption and restiance to take hold you have to stop making making replacements with outside stock and make it with local stock. Holds true in a large sized bee yard, holds threw in a whole state/geographic area 



> I don´t believe in mite bombs anymore.


And so ends a debate faith based beekeeping gets no one anywhere. I would have thought John Keuffs siteing Randy Olivier on how mite bombs happen would be eunff for most....lol



> The pendulum always swings back


plenty of extinction species to refute that view, it doesn't always swing back


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## gww

Quote from SiWolke


> I don´t believe in mite bombs anymore.


My view on this is more that they probly exsist no matter what you do and it is the bee keepers weakness to blame thier failure on the fact that they exsist rather then thinking that no matter what you do, in the big picture, you will have little impact on the fact that they exsist. So, better to have bees that resist mite bombs or even better are made stronger due to them then to fail continually cause they are out there. It doesn't matter that mite bombs might be true, it only matters that they are not a excuse for failing as a bee keeper since the bee keeper can not control what is around him unless he lives on a island by his self. If you create one or two yourself, it will probly not have any more impact then those that are already around you and so why worry about things that are not going to be controlled no matter what you do. They might as well not exsist cause wether they exsist or not changes nothing that is already going on anyway.

Having bees that you can figure out how to keep alive with out needing to control all those around you to get success would be more productive in my view.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

> My view on this is more that they probly exsist no matter what you do and it is the bee keepers weakness to blame thier failure on the fact that they exsist rather then thinking that no matter what you do, in the big picture, you will have little impact on the fact that they exsist


I disagree, like AFB, its a highly contagious pathogen that spreads by robing, it needs your cultural controls and of those around you . Robbing screens or entrance reducers can make a huge impact, as will proper management of the stock. 

Shrugging your shoulders and saying "oh well" is a poor excuse for poor behavior when it comes to communal dezizes... expicaly when we know mite bombs are slecting for more vurient viruses. So even if you develop resistance to mites, as JK says you can't select for what you don't have and you risk giving or receiving a new virus that can set you or your nehobores back to square one.


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## 1102009

Touch your own nose gentlemen,

mite bombs are coming from your own not selected bee yards and they do not kill other hives, they kill the original colony because in this colony the mites have no threshold set by the super organism.. As long as you have colonies passing away in winter: no mite bombs.
The mite bombs are your own not selected stock which is not fighting, breeds his own mite problem and commits suicide in season.

Do you really believe the mite bombs are your neighbors who treat? 
No. They only distribute the bad genetics but this is the serious problem which should be eliminated.

What´s important are the genetics and the set back of more virulent virus by selecting backwards. Don´t ever treat prophylactically, don´t!!!


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> we know mite bombs are slecting for more vurient viruses.


We do? 

Has it ever occurred to you that 'mite bombs' (inasmuch as they might exist) would come in different sizes, and the effects be varied accordingly?



msl said:


> So even if you develop resistance to mites, as JK says you can't select for what you don't have and you risk giving or receiving a new virus that can set you or your nehobores back to square one.


Viruses and bees are in a constant 'arms race'. The only way to 'manage' that is to let them get on with it. 

Mike (UK)


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## gww

msl
On the opposite side of that arguement, having bees that are putting up with mites might breed a more beinign mite and those mites being in compitition with the more viral ones might win out and make for less viral mites. What is your experiance in the real world of all these people getting along and doing the same things to help each other? This does not even take into count the swarms out there.

Another thing, every body out there is losing hives and it does not matter if they treat or don't. Some have treated and lost 80 percent one year but that does not happen every year and they figure something bad came through and probly died with the bees. Still, you can lose hives treating or not treating and not have all the bees die and so it makes it pretty hard to say that mite bombs only killed ten percent. I don't denigh that there might be small levels of helping or hurting at times but kinda think that a bunch of bee keepers seem to be able to thrive while others seem to not even though they live in the same proximity. That puts a pretty big dent in the arguement that it was somebody elses stuff that caused the problim for the ones with problims.

You could want to be the leader with all the answers but my experiance is that people very seldom follow and so better to reconize and maby immulate those that are successful in those situations rather then trying to find blame of why success is impossible. I don't buy into the impact of mite bombs even though in special cases, maybe?, it might have an impact that you personally have to reconize. It is a good excuse to not have to take any blame for your own actions (not you personally but as a thought pattern).

I looked at all the charts that supposedly show it but then look at what really happens and how many other things could be in play and just don't buy the high priority that is given to this one thing.
Cheers
gww


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## lharder

mike bispham said:


> I was snatching a figure out of the air there - that would be a colony on every point of a 50 yard grid. But in ideal conditions I think very high densities are possible. Can we imagine 10 100 hive apiaries in a square mile, given really ideal foraging conditions?
> 
> In a wild setting they wouldn't all be thriving at once, and I think the larger and more aggressive colonies would be taking out perhaps 3/4 of all new swarms in their first winter, and a good few of the weaker colonies. (And I guess that comes close to territoriality.) There would probably be pressure from predators.
> 
> The conditions I can imagine would provide the highest densities would see lots of hollow trees and perhaps caves, perhaps man-made structures, few predators (perhaps man keeping them down so he can harvest sustainably). Obviously fantastic foraging conditions, good water supplies.
> 
> I would think such conditions would support as many bees as beekeepers can arrange - and as I say I don't think 10 * 100/sq mile hives is unsustainable, though it probably couldn't be extended forever. Disease rates would probably become the limiting factor, as closer densities promote faster and more intense spread of pathogens.
> 
> Its all speculation. I just wanted to challenge the idea that bees are territorial. They are competitive, and defensive, and do seek relatively unoccupied territory. But I know of 3 long term colonies within 6 feet of each other in a house wall, and other surprisingly high density spots. That sort of budding off to an adjacent site isn't unusual - how any of us have seen an empty hive alongside full ones suddenly occupied? I've seen pictures of hillsides covered in hives in China - how many I don't know, but lots! It would be interesting to explore the question: what are highest possible stocking rates under ideal conditions. Wjat sorts of territory and forage supply the most calories, and pollen at crucial times, to sustain maximum density?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Yes, I watch JPthebeeman for fun. You get a sense of how diverse bees are in their habits when you watch him. Including multiple nests in close proximity. It should be noted that diseased trees (leading to hollows for bees) are not distributed randomly across the landscape. There are disease centers where many trees with the same problem are in association with each other. Hence I wouldn't expect bees, since they are limited by the need for hollow spaces, would be distributed randomly either.


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## mike bispham

lharder said:


> . It should be noted that diseased trees (leading to hollows for bees) are not distributed randomly across the landscape. There are disease centers where many trees with the same problem are in association with each other. Hence I wouldn't expect bees, since they are limited by the need for hollow spaces, would be distributed randomly either.


I think hollows develop in healthy trees too, as lower branches are overgrown, shaded and die back, and the dead branch rots into the tree. In natural forest fallen and standing but broken trees develop hollows too. 

The strongest collection of natural bees I've seen (on tv) lived in clusters on a cliffside, building vast combs that were harvested into baskets by (unprotected!) guys dangling on ropes. In Africa or Asia I should think. Not all that many colonies, but lots of bees!

Mike (UK)


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## lharder

Yes that happens too. As an arborist I've always recommended against pruning large branches unless absolutely necessary because of the danger of rot setting in. But in terms of scale and disease pocket in a forest will constantly churn out dead and dying trees for critters to work their magic in. This over the scale of hundreds of years or more in some cases. The added benefit is that it keeps things opened up on the forest floor allowing herbaceous flowering plants to thrive with better light conditions. Probably good for bees.


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## msl

So going back to the subject of bond vs IPM
If Kefuss, the so called father of bond can run 10X more treated hives then TF... what is wrong with a BYBK using a TX or 2 or noncem IPM to get by while the work or restiance? 

_In Chile we stopped treatments only on the breeder hives because we need 4500 hives for our pollination and pollen collection business. _http://www.psychochickenecofarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2005-bee_culture-kefuss.pdf 

You can see him sidestep this with grace in the Austria TF Conference around 1:52:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeXOAxnUcPs paraphrasing- "Chile is a different economic situation so most of the varroa slection has been done in France" 

If the "father" of bond can treat hives to protect finances while working toward resistance, why can't the BYBK IPM to portect there investment while doing the same?


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## gww

Msl
I see your questions as two fold. One is protecting finances and one is how to best get resistant bees. If I had a need to protect my finances, that would come first. It would not change that I think bond would get me to where I want to go quicker. I could think it is quicker but may decide I don't want fast if it would bankrupt me. I get your point and agree with it. I do say though that this thread about what a new guy with few hives should do or is best for him. I think it takes bond in the beginning to see what you are starting with (knowing you might lose all) and any adjustment should come after that first test. I also do not think that picking a number of mites is the only thing to look at when making a decission on what to do. In the end, you have to do what you have to do but in the beginning, you don't know if you have to do anything unless you try nothing. If in a case like me, nothing seems to be working, I think I could screw it up by doing IPM. I think that is the one position differrence in our over all views.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

msl said:


> what is wrong with a BYBK using a TX or 2 or noncem IPM to get by while the work or restiance?
> If the "father" of bond can treat hives to protect finances while working toward resistance, why can't the BYBK IPM to portect there investment while doing the same?


I can´t see your point?
You are permitted to do soft bond, you are even permitted to post about it and argue in the treatment free forum in every thread available, so what´s your problem?
What do you want to proof?


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## 1102009

msl said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeXOAxnUcPs paraphrasing- "Chile is a different economic situation so most of the varroa slection has been done in France"


As I understood his comment it was that Chile was too isolated and France had the disease to use for resistance breeding, coming from the surrounding beekeepers.


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## Virgil

msl said:


> If the "father" of bond can treat hives to protect finances while working toward resistance, why can't the BYBK IPM to portect there investment while doing the same?


Randy Oliver has provided the most pragmatic, and I'd suggest, practical way to breed mite resistant bees without endless colonies dying. Why you'd resort to just letting them die I've no idea - seems wasteful and pointless.


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## msl

I just had a great post dissaper in a fourm glitchinch:
short verstion

While its natural when faced with an uncomfortable or inconvenient, truth rather then becoming aggressive about what ever my "problem" is

Think of the expected hard bond responce to what I wrote that should be arivering shortly from Mike, Leroy or one of the others. Something like "13+ years of Chile failing to create TF stock is proof of the failings of soft bond"
that brings us to the question and discussion of is it selection, or location and management..and if Kefuss couldn't do it... Will TF migratory beekeeping ever be a sold thing, or are the stresses too much
so then one of us posts Eric's writings about Chris Balwin's "TF" 1500 hive migratory operation and see he has done it... and with soft bond no less.... but wait to protect his mite resistant stock he has to prophylacticly treat his cell builders for EFB, a case of treating for restiance...
funny... the weavers had EFB issues with resistant stock as well what does that mean
or it driffs to a subject you have been on a bit.... losses and the need to expect and alow form them... Chris is taking 60% over advrage and still making a $$ go at it... so we get some chatter going on the need to expect to take more losses then treaters as a yearly cost of TF just like cemicals are a yearly cost to treaters

or in counter point to virgil it loops back to while being held up as an IMP hero, Randy Olvers soft bond program has more or less been a complete failure... Then some one like me notes he has had BYBK have good luck keeping his stock off TX when its kept away from the high mite denistys of commercial beekeeping... Is it the selection method, commercial pollination, or size and denisty of the yards thats the problem 

thats a week or 2 of posts keeping TF in peoples mind To keep on the forefront you need to feed the machine
say what you want about my posts, I am good a stimulating content and driveling the sharing of information and keeping TF at the top of the new posts list. Many of the debates I could have in the normal forum, I tend to drag them back here so the sub form get the post count boost.


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## 1102009

Oh come on msl,
you know you are respected and we are grateful of you providing very good information.
Don´t be personally offended, but I wonder why these discussions?

There is no golden nugget so just relax and follow your path.
Nobody´s perfect. 
You are not the only one who tried and perhaps go back ( or stay) with treatments used.

I, for my part, use the information from all sides and kinds of beekeepers to decide what I will do. It might change but for now I will go back to the roots of bee behavior and bee welfare not to he technique of beekeeping or some statistics.
Kefuss had no problem to discuss with me and BeesOfPoland the approach to beekeeping, our paths not the same. It was just friendly exchange, much to learn, and I appreciated this very much.
Erik takes me as I am, bond, soft bond or whatever, I´m blessed he is interested in me.

One step at a time. My path is my own and will differ, probably it will not be seen as success. But who cares in the end will be me, nobody else.


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## lharder

msl said:


> I just had a great post dissaper in a fourm glitchinch:
> short verstion
> 
> While its natural when faced with an uncomfortable or inconvenient, truth rather then becoming aggressive about what ever my "problem" is
> 
> Think of the expected hard bond responce to what I wrote that should be arivering shortly from Mike, Leroy or one of the others. Something like "13+ years of Chile failing to create TF stock is proof of the failings of soft bond"
> that brings us to the question and discussion of is it selection, or location and management..and if Kefuss couldn't do it... Will TF migratory beekeeping ever be a sold thing, or are the stresses too much
> so then one of us posts Eric's writings about Chris Balwin's "TF" 1500 hive migratory operation and see he has done it... and with soft bond no less.... but wait to protect his mite resistant stock he has to prophylacticly treat his cell builders for EFB, a case of treating for restiance...
> funny... the weavers had EFB issues with resistant stock as well what does that mean
> or it driffs to a subject you have been on a bit.... losses and the need to expect and alow form them... Chris is taking 60% over advrage and still making a $$ go at it... so we get some chatter going on the need to expect to take more losses then treaters as a yearly cost of TF just like cemicals are a yearly cost to treaters
> 
> or in counter point to virgil it loops back to while being held up as an IMP hero, Randy Olvers soft bond program has more or less been a complete failure... Then some one like me notes he has had BYBK have good luck keeping his stock off TX when its kept away from the high mite denistys of commercial beekeeping... Is it the selection method, commercial pollination, or size and denisty of the yards thats the problem
> 
> thats a week or 2 of posts keeping TF in peoples mind To keep on the forefront you need to feed the machine
> say what you want about my posts, I am good a stimulating content and driveling the sharing of information and keeping TF at the top of the new posts list. Many of the debates I could have in the normal forum, I tend to drag them back here so the sub form get the post count boost.


I think there is a limit to the adaptation process. Large commercial migratory operations are really too much for any breeding program, IPM or TF. The results of good work get muddied by putting bees in a terrible position. This year in BC, blueberry growers are having trouble getting bees as some of the bigger outfits are starting to question the health of their bees coming off of pollination. So now the scramble is on to get to the root of the problem. Some are blaming chemicals, some poor nutrition, but I think the exposure to an environment of different pathogens, different bees must surely must be part of the problem. 

As part of my approach to "ecological" beekeeping, I limit bee movement to the local environment and don't bring in masses of bees from far off places. This to reduce the impact of new pathogens that my bees haven't experienced before. 

It also doesn't mean I don't do mite counts. I'm getting set up to do my first round of the year. 2 winter survivors with good production, competent spring clusters with good build up and low counts will have more queens raised from them. And if I encounter a completely mite ridden hive, I would euthanize them as well. So far I've encountered 12% numbers as a max if memory serves me correctly with spring numbers at the end of May up to 1.5% with many below.


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## gww

Msl
Even though you use lots of LOLs to show when you think somebody is stupid, I have really benifited from our discussions. I wish I had the trait of finding back for referance all of the things I have read. You have provided so many things that I had not seen before, I should have to pay you. In the end, I just say what I believe at the time (when I am not thinking myself in circles) as honestly as I know how and then see what you come up with. I have very much enjoyed all of these discussions.
Cheers
gww
Ps I hate glitches that throw away all my work and feel for you.


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## 1102009

msl,
I still don´t see the points. What means it to your personal beekeeping? Your practical beekeeping? What of all the informations do you use for yourself in your unique situation?


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## mike bispham

Msl writes:

>Think of the expected hard bond responce to what I wrote that should be arivering shortly from Mike<

I'm not writing. I no longer care what you think. I think what I think, do what I do, and share my thoughts and experiences with those who want to hear them.

Sometimes that's you, but not with this stuff. I think you are just writing now to get a rise out of us. That's trolling in my book.

Mike (UK)


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## msl

Mike if you read the whole post you will see the reasoning as to why I felt the expected response from you or another was moving the conversion forward and getting to permanent points.. It was not a shot or bait at you at all, just illustration of a likly path to end up with good information and discussion. 
We learn nothing positing in an echo chamber 
lharder's response was in top form and the conversion moves forward... shorting out all hypthical posts in the middle I listed...but it moves on


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## 1102009

One of the problems to overlook the situation is not to know the real losses because beekeepers are shy to talk about it as you can see in the statistics done in sweden after varroa was fighted.
http://elgon.es/varroa.html
And there is no reliable research on the chemical "****tails" which influence bee health, by environment and treating. Research trends to know the threshold of one chemical.
As Chris Baldwin puts it: the poisoning of the earth.


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## lharder

SiWolKe said:


> One of the problems to overlook the situation is not to know the real losses because beekeepers are shy to talk about it as you can see in the statistics done in sweden after varroa was fighted.
> http://elgon.es/varroa.html
> And there is no reliable research on the chemical "****tails" which influence bee health, by environment and treating. Research trends to know the threshold of one chemical.
> As Chris Baldwin puts it: the poisoning of the earth.


That was a cool graphic showing the bee movement around the world. I may use that one in the future.


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## msl

Hive CF01, an IPM story

2016 May 12 Caught as a swarm, moved to an out yard with a rabbit brush flow mid sept, nothing to harvest, Nov brood less dribble

2017 7/25 rolled 19 per 300, 8/4 pulled 15#(not bad at all for a top bar in my area) and started a 3x weekly dribble. Followed by a 12/13 brood less dribble. 

2018 plan was to split up and requeen to get numbers up in this out yard , but my resistant bees are jerks, and the landowners house was close and my queen rearing was off to a slow start (bees were 3-4 weeks behind last year) and given I was gong to requeen most of the main yard with the queen that had the lowest mite count, I didn't have queen to spare
so on 5/7 I did a fly away split fly away split, the brood side was split 4 ways after cells were drawn, 7/10 they had drawn and filled the hive and I pulled 13#,  8/1 rolled 3 per 300.

yes it’s a small sample but the trend is there
last year I ran 3 overwintered sister queens side by side
One I pulled the queen to create a brood break at main flow, one I let swarm , one was fly back split… late July the FBS had ½ the mites of the swarmed hive, and 1/3 of the brood break hive. Every 100 mites you deal with in May, is 1600 you (or the bees) don’t have to deal with in sept.

I dought this line will ever be compleatly chemical free, its not in there nature, But maybe the jerks in the main yard can be, to that end I did post flow FBS on some, have to see what the counts look like come late fall compared the same hives count last year

I should have done a roll pre split, I saw mites entering cells on the nucs when the queens started laying. But the trend is that vast majority of the mites stay with the QL side of the split giving you a powerful non cem tool


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## gww

msl
Off topic, did you post a thread about a study that said when left to their own devices, the bees often pick a cell that is least representative of the genetics in a hive to make queens from? I thought it was you that posted it and I have not found search to be very helpful in locating it. If it was not you, then it just shows how bad my memory is.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

test


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## msl

SP 5x5

gww not sure I posted it, but I recall something on it.. queens lines were being raized by under represented family's in the hive or somthing, what I don't recall is if it was swarm cells were the queen is contoral , or E cells where its the bees... I think the point was some drone lines were more attractive then others 
A quick look at the body of work sujests the bees pick the best fed larva in E-cells out side of famly lines, but the ones that make it to the end have the popular suport, especially in fighting it out...

I raised a lot of queens this year(for me any way) 60+ or so because I pinched a bunch too (fighting efb/chalk in the main yard...some expatiation this year, but it was more about stabilization) so I got to see a bunch of variability in the same line.. 
wile the study you seek is interesting.. I suggest a more practical and grounded approach... 
whle it has been floated a few times, the fact that Ecell queens are of less quality then grafted cells is somthing the TF world should look at(don't get me started about 2 frame pauper split left to raize a queen, ala soloman)... IMO TF needs every edge they can get and the fact that grafted or true swarm cells result in 50% better queens is worth looking at, beyond my bell curve soap box on shifting genetics with slection, we are talking significant quality differences on HOW those genetics are raised 
not just grafting but OTS(my bees ignore the notches:scratch: ) cell punch, cut strip, nicot, or any method were the beekeeper forces the bees to start on very young larva would seem to be helpful..
here is tarpy onthe subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yxrawVF0Oc

the message of propagating threw natural swarm cells,while inconvenient timing to the beekeeper some times, rings true , asumeing the blue lagoon effect...ie they swarmed do to normal expected triggers.. (you don't leave a pair of teens naked on a desert inland for years and not expect procreation) its a good path forward .. ie a full sized KTBH 1/2 full that swarmed... nope cull the cells, a packed out nuc, diffrent story.


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## gww

Msl
doolittle thought that swarm cells made good queens and that superceedure cells were also well fed because both were planned for by the bees. I was actually looking for the study just because it popped into my head while reading a discussion on beeL. Even reading it the first time, I am not sure that my intellect grasp what it was trying to say. Just was looking for it to read it again for the heck of it.
Thanks for the response.
gww


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## 1102009

An IPM story:

Made an artificial swarm out of some treated hives 2017, 4.5kg with an one year old queen locally adapted, carniolan mutt treated ( oxalic and formic acid 2016/17)
Set on small cell comb, culled the first capped brood with the mites.
Placed them single but not isolated. Robber screen.
Counted mites almost every day on the varroa board. Until late fall almost no mites, thriving colony, much honey. No feeding, they kept their own honey. Went into winter strong. 
No spotty broodnests, no defect bees.

In december they were dead. varroa crash.

Conclusion: IMO: weak genetics. Virus susceptibility, bees leaving the hive late fall unobserved , to die. Drone management of the bees: drones killed in summer, a typical carniolan trait, made the mites go into the winter bee brood, winter bees bred in small number, a typical carniolan trait too, to overwinter in a small cluster. Two traits that are dangerous.
Plus: a sprayed area. contaminated pollen probably leadind to short life of winter bees.

A high counting of mites on the boards could be grooming. A case of monitoring with microscope or do an alcohol wash to find out.


----------



## msl

I am not sure of the point of your post.. (and I know you well enough that you have a good one) please enplane 
were I was going here was how you make your artificial swarm maters, perhaps greatly 


> A high counting of mites on the boards could be grooming. A case of monitoring with microscope or do an alcohol wash to find out.


agreed with how your find that answer,, but you are likely to fine high mite drops = high mite levels, if the bees are "grooming" or other wise (VSH, mite mailing, etc) the drops will be low, do them keeping the mite lealves low... (out side of mite bomb infulx) 
IE A high level of uncapped cells do to VSH is not a good sign, rather a bad one showing that what is going on is not working and the levels are climbing and the hive may fail 
In short if you doing some sort of "treatment" and you see an increase in drop that may be a good sign... if your not and see a lot of drop its a bad one, suggesting other wise its faith based beekeeping "look my bees are fighting a heavy mite load,"the odds don't play out on that. 
Rolling it around in my head, I can't think of a single time a high drop on a board would be a good sign in a Cem/TF hive


----------



## 1102009

I tested this because I want to know how much the genetics influence the resistance and how much small cell do, and how much natural beekeeping does.

The local input of genetics can be so bad IME that it´s not possible to go bond with local adapted stock, mutts in this case, no matter how free they are of mites and no matter how good a microclimate you give them.

They are too susceptible to virus so 5 mites, not bitten, dropping down in one week will kill them.

So regression to tf is needed or better genetics, in this case imported genetics ( hopefully from the north) which will be adapted the next generation but have to be bond survivors one winter at least.

How long this genetics are present, or how to proceed I have yet to find out.

The AMM colony I let go feral ( imported resistant stock from the south, second generation descendant) , they had a drop of over 200 mites a day for months in 2017, many mites were bitten. They are still strong and seem to have the same queen when I read the boards right.
No brood brake in summer ( maybe a supercedure) but a long one in winter, a much longer one than my other colonies did.

I did not check them for 16 months now and believe they have a prime mikrofauna. Never fed and never harvested. No DWV. 
I wanted to install an endoscope camera but so far they do not let me. Entrance defense is extreme, but they do not molest you when you stand beside and look on.

IMO good genetics, good microfauna and a natural kind of keeping without any chemicals and oils as treatments will do it. This must correlate with the beekeepers`needs somehow. How this can be we are developing and testing.


----------



## msl

Ok got ya..

I draw different conulstion from your details 
possabilty #1 is the mite drops were flawed, carryed off by ants, etc.. but #2 is were I put my $$$ It has all the classic hallmarks of a late season (re) infestation aka they caught a mite bomb
as you report, the virus levels wernt at a point to impact them(not enuff cycles), and they were looking great, and wern't droping mites.. but.. do the the scale back of brood reareing, and the impact that has on mite drops its likly the numbers climbed (in ful likely there were eunff mites feeding on the fat bodies to shorten the life span of the bees and they didn't make it to the next round of brood rearing over the winter. Vitellogenin in the fat bodys is what makes winter bees long lived (sense they don't deplete it working a nurses), but its (as we now know) also what the mites feed on.. If they are pariistized as brood or adults= less Vitellogenin=shorter life span.



> The colonies at the HBD apiary started with an average mite infestation on adult bees of 0.2% and reached a final bee infestation of 18.0% +- 3.7% 3 mo later. The brood infestation rate of this group revealed an extreme increase from 0.7% in July to 50.8 10.5% in October


 FREY,ROSENKRANZ 2104 Autumn Invasion Rates of Varroa destructor (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) Into Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colonies and the Resulting Increase in Mite Populations

Square Peg how does this fit with your experience last year ?


----------



## 1102009

> It has all the classic hallmarks of a late season (re) infestation aka they caught a mite bomb


I follow you.
They had migrating beekeepers near. So had my "ferals".
So why the drop differs between 200+- and 3-5 in a week between the two colonies? The genetics.

Both have robber screens all year. The "ferals" are robbers and could have robbed the commercials and taken those mites. But they had this drop for months!
The carniolans could have robbed too if they were so declined but I saw no mite numbers raising. It´s not possible to overlook any infestation if you look at the board every morning.

I don´t believe in mite bombs killing hives. I believe the bees create their own mite bombs in the interior by reducing brood too much before winter ( or breed too much before) and are not able to overcome this because they have not learned fighting because treatments prevented this. They lack epigenetic adaptations.
And a not fighting hive has a small drop until it´s too late. This is my OPINION.


----------



## msl

> It´s not possible to overlook any infestation if you look at the board every morning.


my thought was it depends on when it hits.. ie toward the end of brood rearing it going to skew the drop results.
the other option is rather then a had full of mites as shown by the drop, some how killing the hive at a much lowered then normal threshold, perhaps you miss dignoised what killed the hive. 



> I believe the bees create their own mite bombs in the interior by reducing brood too much before winter ( or breed too much before) and are not able to overcome this because they have not learned fighting because treatments prevented this. They lack epigenetic adaptations.


thats a perfect example of a mite bomb
and then when the hive is weak they get robbed and export the mites. If this didn't happen, nature would be selecting for mites that didn't crash hives as crashing a hive would end there genetic line. 
This follows the same horzonational transmission pattern of other bee pathogens ie fowl brood, tracheal mites, chalk brood, etc so it shouldn't realy come as a suprize..
this is why thresholds keep getting lower, the keeping of bees creates conditions favring killing the host and spreading from robbing.


----------



## gww

msl


> This follows the same horzonational transmission pattern of other bee pathogens ie fowl brood, tracheal mites, chalk brood, etc so it shouldn't realy come as a suprize..
> this is why thresholds keep getting lower, the keeping of bees creates conditions favring killing the host and spreading from robbing.


If it follows the same path as tracheal mites and chalk brood then that gives hope that the bees will handle it with genetics like they seemed to handle the rest or those problems and the only intervention needed will be a queen change.
There is at least proof with those other diseases that the bees did adjust rather then the disease just got worse.
Hard to say with certainty which way it will go.
Cheers
gww


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## msl

> did you post a thread about a study that said when left to their own devices, the bees often pick a cell that is least representative of the genetics in a hive to make queens from?


here you go GWW 
https://www.beeculture.com/catch-th...ilies-not-as-previously-suspect-supersisters/
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199124


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## gww

Msl
I did search hard for this link on my own with no success. You are the man.
Cheers
gww


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## JWPalmer

Wouldn't that research tend to counter the idea that emergency queen cells are somehow inferior to supercedure cells, given that only in emergency cells do the workers have a choice in the matter? Makes me want to run out and make a hive queenless for a few days.


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## gww

JW
I can not quite figure out the impact of the bees doing this during these times.
Not sure how it would fit in the big picture. 
I have read it a couple of times and still am not sure what it is meaning. I was thinking before reading this that grafting would be like an emergency cell rather then superceedure or swarm cell but this study throws a wrench in that.

I still think the queens from swarm or superceedure will be better queens due to being planned for by the bees from the very beginning but it does make you wonder why the workers pick different when they are the ones that have no choice but to make a queen.

Why?

Also, what use can this be to a bee keeper who knows this bee trait? Keeping a breeder queen closer to first generation?
Cheers
gww


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## msl

grumble this post has been lost 2x...buggy internetinch:

Gww -the big pitures is with E cells the bees chose rair genetics that unlikely representative of the hives performance witch might bugger selection 



> Wouldn't that research tend to counter the idea that emergency queen cells are somehow inferior to supercedure cells,


Tarpy's other work shows swarm/grafted queens are 50% better then E queens, they have a program were you can submit your queens to have them tested for about $25 and see were you stand, but he says for the little guy, the best proxy is thorax width, 4.6MM+ is a superior queen and a "advrage" commercial queen is 4.47
here is one of JSL's reports(they were a bit under weight do to banking)








taken form https://www.beeculture.com/net-gain-cell-building-system/

_I know that the very best queens can be reared only direct from the egg, but here the ideal must give way to practical considerations, at any rate where the rearing is done on a large scale. The smallest number
of queen cells reared in a batch is 200, so grafting is unavoidable ; if we tried to use eggs we should never obtain the necessary number of the same age. 
We avoid the chief difficulty in grafting larvae by using only those which are 12 hours old or less. It is true that the acceptance of these very small larvae is not so high as of those up to two days old, but this is a secondary consideration.
_
Brother Adam (1954) Bee Breeding, Bee World, 35:3, 44-49, DOI:

Tarpy and BA agree, The sooner the larva gets feed royal jelly the better the queen, the better the queen the better the hive.

I have harped on the need for cell building for genetic reasons in this thread, now we have a quality reason as well
for the little guy a nicot, or cut comb strips of eggs might be a good start if they don't want to graft.. you may have to place early or cage to avoid the age difrences in the eggs wreaking your builder 
TF is hard, its going to be harder if you don't make the best queens you can

You can dive into tarpy's papers if you wish, But I find this a good down to earth summary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yxrawVF0Oc


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## mischief

mike bispham said:


> Husbandry has always been about doing the selecting so that nature doesn't do it for you (the hard way).
> 
> Husbandry breeds only from the best. That's what farming is, what it was from the beginning. What defines husbandry is taking care of the parentage, the lineage, making sure each generation is made only from the strongest of the last generation. It is the bloodline that is 'husbanded', not individuals.
> 
> There are times when husbandry is done so poorly that nature starts doing the selecting. The stock sickens, the weakest are crippled and removed from the reproductive process. Given a free hand natural selection will strengthen the bloodlines. That's how life works.
> 
> Do you disagree with any of that?
> 
> Mike (UK)


I have struggle reading through this thread.
I came to this post and thought....You have got to be kidding!!!

Mankind has a disastrous record when it comes to husbandry/breeding of other life forms.
We breed for what we think we want irregardless of the future consequences ....Alsatian dogs= every line has major problems with hip displacement.
Bulldogs=cant give birth properly and need C sections, Dairy cows =milk pumping machines who used to have a life expectancy of 20 years, now its down to 3-5 if your lucky (in NZ). Vegetables dont grow as well as wild plants, Thoroughbred horses arent allowed to mate without human attendants in case they hurt each other.
I dont even want to think of the genetic state of what we call chickens, be they for meat or egg production.

We DO NOT breed other life forms with their best interest in mind nor do we actually know what is in their best interest, although we think we do.

What absolute arrogance.

Bottom line is bees are in trouble due to human mismanagement and as I, in my very limited experience see it, our best option is to keep them alive as best we can whilst lessening our grip on them.

You may have treatment free bees, but from what I have read, others are having a hard time following your example.
So, it is not as simple and straight forward as you having being saying it is, otherwise we would all be simply being beekeepers rather than mite destroyers.

Self righteous..... has no place in a race to save a species, and this race has gone on for way too long.


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## GregB

> Husbandry breeds only from the best.


Define - "best" and do so in long-term sustainable and environmentally-responsible context.
I need to see one example yet.
Enough said. 

Responsible management and harvest of the wild animals does work, however (including the bees).


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## 1102009

For a *tf AND t *beekeeper the best is honey harvest, winter survivability, gentleness and disease/ pest resistance.

For a *t* beekeeper it´s honey harvest, gentleness, winter survivability, resistance in this sequence.

For a *tf* beekeeper it´s resistance, winter survivability, honey harvest, gentleness in sequence.

For a disease researcher or anthroposophic beekeeper it´s gentleness, resistance, winter survivabilty and honey harvest just like that.

So all the important traits will still be there somewhere. Bees still can live without the beekeepers and survive if we let them, no matter how bred they are.

Jürgen Tautz, who is aware of the european situation which had made extinct wild living honeybees for fear of mite bombs, once said in a speaking:
"as long as there are beekeepers there are bees". Yes. And as long as there are beekeepers there is the possibility to create ferals again, which is more and more done with projects to save the species.


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## mischief

Um.... I might have been alittle bombastic in my last post.
I did go over and have a read again of Mikes thread to make sure I understood where he was coming from.

So, toning it down a bit, here's what I think based on my own personal R&D.
While gene do determine what lifeform we are, what colour we are, whether we have skin,feathers, scales or fur, we are all made of the same four genes- C,T,A and G.
Strangely enough, every lifeform on this planet is made up of those four and even stranger, they only go together in pairs-C with G and T with A.

While it is true that we can be genetically predisposed to illness and/or disease, genes may not in fact be the cause of this.
life is not a static- it is ever changing and evolving.
The environment that a lifeform finds itself in also impacts on genes.
One example, it has been found that Scottish people have a gene for alcholism, not sure if they are the only one, but as someone of Scottish descent, I had to ask....which came first, the gene or the whisky.
I say...the Whisky and that the genes acted or reacted to this environmental change.

While it is reasonable to think that we can breed for better performance, I think there are factors that have not fully been taken into account.

The first is the immune system. 
If this is compromised or in the case of some human type Auto Immune disorders-confused, we have ill health.
The only person I have come across who has mentioned the possibility that the bees immune system has been compromised was Dennis Murrell. Not to say there are not others, I just havent come across them.

The second is the sheer volume of artificial herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers that have been poured into the environment over the last 60 years.

The third is that 90% of our work force live beneath our feet in the soil in the form of things like worms and bacteria, fungi, yeasts and molds that have a place in an healthy eco system.
These are also directly affected by all those -icides we have been pouring into the environment
They also directly interact with the plants/food forage sources that grow in this soil and in alot of cases, play an important role in nutrient up take of these plants.
This interaction has been interrupted by our artificial additives.

Lastly is our endless need to breed bigger and better- both in plant and animal.
We breed for what we find attractive/cost effective/commercially viable- the reasons are as variable as the breeders.
We do not know the long term effects of our efforts, we can look at the results of what has gone before and hopefully learn from these.

I DO think that we are all here on this forum because we are passionate about our bees , are concerned with the troubles they are experiencing and only want what is best for them.

That being the case, we also need to become equally passionate and caring about the environment we put them in.
You can probably breed a better bee, but if they are constantly assaulted by chemical overloads, your efforts may very well be in vain until these other factors are corrected.


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## Oldtimer

mischief said:


> we are all made of the same four genes- C,T,A and G.
> Strangely enough, every lifeform on this planet is made up of those four and even stranger, they only go together in pairs-C with G and T with A.


Mischief I have never heard of this and would like to understand better. Can you provide a link to a page that explains this in more detail?


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## Rocky Mt High

Oldtimer, here's a quick and dirty summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_pair

RMH


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## 1102009

mischief, that´s a very good post, a very good one.
Thanks.


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## mischief

Hi Oldtimer,
No sorry, I have a very eclectic self education and dont take note of when or where I learn things from.
Up until recently, my genetic education has been in regards to plants and soil microbiology, simply because this is what I am mainly interested in- growing my own healthy fruit and vegies, although , having friends and family members with auto immune disorders made it necessary to study up up these too. 

(Sarah Ballantyne's book on auto immune disorders- almost an encyclopedia was a godsend. I found mine at the Book depository UK.
Now some people would say, studying about human disorders has nothing to do with studying about bee disorders. I say, not so. Understanding about self can also help understanding about others. If you let go of preconceived ideas, you get to see correlations as well as the differences.)

Because of this, I became aware of Permaculture and due to this also became aware of the need to either keep or create a healthy eco system.
Some key names are Rudolf Steiner, Sir Albert Howard, Eva Crane and David Holgren.
While they may seem to have more to do with plants and eco systems, honey bee depend on healthy flowers, which I believe that you only get when you have a healthy living soil.


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## Oldtimer

Thanks Rocky and Mischief, with my ageing brain I do prefer the quick and dirty summaries, but hey, if that was the quick and dirty one I would hate to have to read the full version LOL. 

But anyhow, I did manage to get my head around some of it.


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## 1102009

Hey mischief you forgot Sepp Holzer.
He is a beekeeper also among many activities. 

https://www.seppholzer.at/cms/index.php?id=69


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## mischief

I have one of his books!! I didnt know he was a beek. 
I have been trying to find his book in English on....arrrrhhh! cant remember the name of it now. It had to do with how to mix different plants based on their structure/the way they grow, a completely different type of companion planting method.

Oldtimer,rolling eyes.Old?? time to get over yourself


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## msl

Swinging back to the inferior E cell issue, here is Sam comfort's take on it
https://youtu.be/Xh4A_WtTLEg?t=2580

https://youtu.be/Xh4A_WtTLEg?t=1546

Instering that he suggesting "pauper" spits (his "recipe") as many would say they would make poor queens, but he has Taryps' reports to back up what he is seeing the field. Key seems to be to let the bees cull


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## msl

msl said:


> Hive CF01, an IPM story
> 
> 2016 May 12 Caught as a swarm, moved to an out yard with a rabbit brush flow mid sept, nothing to harvest, Nov brood less dribble
> 
> 2017 7/25 rolled 19 per 300, 8/4 pulled 15#(not bad at all for a top bar in my area) and started a 3x weekly dribble. Followed by a 12/13 brood less dribble.
> 
> 2018 plan was to split up and requeen to get numbers up in this out yard , but my resistant bees are jerks, and the landowners house was close and my queen rearing was off to a slow start (bees were 3-4 weeks behind last year) and given I was gong to requeen most of the main yard with the queen that had the lowest mite count, I didn't have queen to spare
> so on 5/7 I did a fly away split fly away split, the brood side was split 4 ways after cells were drawn, 7/10 they had drawn and filled the hive and I pulled 13#,  8/1 rolled 3 per 300.


As an update 11/10 they rolled 21 per 300 –broodles, 

Ok, Rember thresholds commonly talked about are set biased with brood on. We take a sample of nurce bees off brood comb as it’s the most reaibul on a sample to sample basis, but that doesn’t mean it’s indicative of then number of mites on bees threw out the hive, it’s just a number. 
But if we double the number we get form a wash, we get the total infestation in the hive.
This is one reason the wash has become the gold standard for research.

So 21 divided by 3 gives us a 7% infestation, divide by 2 to give us what it would be brood on, that’s = to 3.5/100 wash.

Not to shabby for almost a year between chemical treatments for what its history has shown is nonresistant stock. 
A simple change in management cut the yearly use of cems by 75%, the implication is with a slight bit of resistance it could be zero


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> As an update 11/10 they rolled 21 per 300 –broodles,
> 
> Ok, Rember thresholds commonly talked about are set biased with brood on. We take a sample of nurce bees off brood comb as it’s the most reaibul on a sample to sample basis, but that doesn’t mean it’s indicative of then number of mites on bees threw out the hive, it’s just a number.
> But if we double the number we get form a wash, we get the total infestation in the hive.
> This is one reason the wash has become the gold standard for research.
> 
> So 21 divided by 3 gives us a 7% infestation, divide by 2 to give us what it would be brood on, that’s = to 3.5/100 wash.
> 
> Not to shabby for almost a year between chemical treatments for what its history has shown is nonresistant stock.
> A simple change in management cut the yearly use of cems by 75%, the implication is with a slight bit of resistance it could be zero


After 4 OA dribbles from August to December, one without brood, the mite count could have been near 0. 

Making nucs helps bees to survive longer periods without treatments, especially if there is a serious knock down of mites to start with, and with a slight bit of resistance this kind of beekeeping can go on pretty long. This is in fact one misleading thing getting beekeepers in the illusion of managing TF beekeeping.


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## msl

it should have been near 0 the year before as well as it got a winter brood less dribble after starting as a swarm. 

I agree (and often argue that) there are people who confuse the effects of managements with slecting for genetic resistance. They have the illusion of making head way not relizing they are propping up poor stocks with splits, witch this little experiment shows can have a quite strong effect. Likely with a 2nd split post harvest, let them build up on the rabbit brush flow, and this hive would likly over winter. They may have made it on there own as well, but as they will never be TF stock there was little point in trying and they got a broodless OAD on the day of the mite wash.

You can see it as a noncem IMP management tool, or you can see it as a treatment that props up the bees. It all depends on your view.. With in the socpe of this thread it matter not as the BYBK isn't breeding anthing.... but I see them keeping a hive alive as prefabul to buying bees come spring.

If your taking counts and tracking the build up over the season so you can slect a breeder it matter little, just manage all the same
If your doing natural selection for survival, ya its going to skew things... but so does almost any beekeeper action


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## GregB

Juhani Lunden said:


> .....
> *Making nucs helps bees to survive longer periods without treatments,* especially if there is a serious knock down of mites to start with, *and with a slight bit of resistance this kind of beekeeping can go on pretty long*. This is in fact one misleading thing getting beekeepers in the illusion of managing TF beekeeping.


This brings me to this comment/question - am I correct that Sam Comfort mostly (or even entirely?) is in nuc/queen production?
And if yes, is that is a significant part of his claimed TF success??
For sure, I do not see Sam selling honey in his videos.

Whatever it is, those multiple Sam Comfort videos about raising bees in tiny boxes using grilling spindles made such impression upon me.
Making TF nucs and selling TF queens seems like a good TF model to be in (with, pretty much any average bee on hand). 


To be sure, my own "alternative" way is based on splitting/trapping too.
I am not punting on anyone here, just trying to learn something.


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## msl

the Conrad/Seeley TF study has been updated
sadly nothing new...
the hives left bond all died with out magical developing restiance, the hives treated did ok, the hives split to keep the mites down made little honey.. non cem IMP worked for them, but there was a large cost


> C Group –
> 
> 2016 – an average of 1.5 supers of honey was harvested from each hive in September 2016 representing approximately 30 pounds per hive.
> 
> 2017 – An average of 2.4 supers of honey was harvested from each hive in September 2017 representing approximately 48 pounds per hive.
> 
> 2018 – No honey was harvested in 2018 due to total colony loss in this apiary.
> 
> QS Group –
> 
> 2016 – An average of 1.18 supers of honey was harvested from each hive in this group representing 23.5 pounds per hive.
> 
> 2017 – An average of 3.625 supers of honey were harvested from each hive in September 2017 representing approximately 72.5 pounds per hive.
> 
> 2018 – An average of 2.917 supers of honey were harvested from each hive in September 2018 representing approximately 58.34 pounds per hive.
> 
> TF Group –
> 
> 2016 – No honey was harvested from any of the hives in the TF group in the first year.
> 
> 2017 – One super of honey was harvested from the TF group in September 2017 representing an average of .125 supers per hive and approximately 2.5 pounds per hive.
> 
> 2018 – 3.5 supers of honey were harvested from the TF group in September 2018 representing an average of .5 supers of honey per hive and approximately 10 pounds per hive.
> 
> TFQ Group –
> 
> 2016 – An average of .1 super of honey was harvested from each hive in September 2016 representing 2 pounds of honey per hive.
> 
> 2017 – An average of 1.67 supers of honey were harvested from each hive in September 2017 representing an average of 33.33 pounds of honey per hive.
> 
> 2018 – An average of .625 supers of honey were harvested from each hive in September 2018 representing an average of 12.5 pounds of honey per hive.


https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fne16-840/


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## Gray Goose

Riverderwent said:


> Why those areas? Is it genetics, flow and dearth cycles, business models, beekeeping techniques, some combination of factors, or something else altogether?


Riverderwent old thread but new to me. I some cases not sure how many, if the losses are 20% or less and they can split their way back to 100%, the investment of time and Funds to treat is not going to happen. IF I were down there I may just winter 120 hives if I need a 100 and not spend the time , effort and funds to "treat". At 80% loss treating is maybe a better option. But as stated here some that treat have similar losses to some that don't
If you look at a 10 year plan then the non treat route is going to save a lot over the time horizon , and some will want "untreated" on their products.


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## Gray Goose

Eastwood said:


> This is another test Hans-Otto Johnsen in Norway made. He shifted place between a susceptible colony and a resistant in the same apiary. The result was that both colonies became resistant.


Could be more to this interesting observation. Learned behavior? other microbes/Bugs that raise resistance? something else. Interesting test,, merge / join two colonys a susceptible and a resistant, then in a month split them back apart. Microbes/ habits or the unknown would mix and perhaps help a BYBK. One of Michael Bush's lectures he describes 800 organisms in a hive. Maybe it is something like Human gut bacteria, some good some bad . Is it learned or is there a bug that preys on the mite that get a start in the hive. I have had better luck with NUCs than Packages. there is the obvious reasons and the maybe less obvious. Maybe they swap spit or something 
GG


----------



## Gray Goose

mischief said:


> I have struggle reading through this thread.
> I came to this post and thought....You have got to be kidding!!!
> 
> Mankind has a disastrous record when it comes to husbandry/breeding of other life forms.
> We breed for what we think we want irregardless of the future consequences ....Alsatian dogs= every line has major problems with hip displacement.
> Bulldogs=cant give birth properly and need C sections, Dairy cows =milk pumping machines who used to have a life expectancy of 20 years, now its down to 3-5 if your lucky (in NZ). Vegetables dont grow as well as wild plants, Thoroughbred horses arent allowed to mate without human attendants in case they hurt each other.
> I dont even want to think of the genetic state of what we call chickens, be they for meat or egg production.
> 
> We DO NOT breed other life forms with their best interest in mind nor do we actually know what is in their best interest, although we think we do.
> 
> What absolute arrogance.
> 
> Bottom line is bees are in trouble due to human mismanagement and as I, in my very limited experience see it, our best option is to keep them alive as best we can whilst lessening our grip on them.
> 
> You may have treatment free bees, but from what I have read, others are having a hard time following your example.
> So, it is not as simple and straight forward as you having being saying it is, otherwise we would all be simply being beekeepers rather than mite destroyers.
> 
> Self righteous..... has no place in a race to save a species, and this race has gone on for way too long.


+1:thumbsup::applause: Nice comment. I cannot be convinced that "man" can pick a better egg or larvae that the bees can. the study mentioned above IF main stream would have queen breeders send in "their best" and see I am ranked at this spot or that spot. Not not mention the time it takes for ovaries to fully develop and the shut down start up caused by shipping etc. I am convinced some people are "good" at grafting. However the big queen shippers , hire help do the helpers have the same care, etc? the best queens are swarm queens for a reason, man was mostly out of the picture. IMO that is why the so called feral s have better genetics, 2 or 3 generations of queens were done by the bees. Read "Keeping bees with a smile" by Dr Leo seems a sane approach. Man will "manage" bees into extinction if allowed.
thanks for the sprinkle of common sense.
GG

for the BYBK look into the Miller and the Alley methods of Queen rearing. order thru the mail only as a last resort.


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## AR Beekeeper

It is obvious that you fellows have never owned a Buff Orpington chicken, a Border Collie dog, or a Buckfast Honey Bee.


----------



## Gray Goose

AR Beekeeper said:


> It is obvious that you fellows have never owned a Buff Orpington chicken, a Border Collie dog, or a Buckfast Honey Bee.


Well actually you are very correct. I've Had Rode Island reds, and a Golden Lab.. I have looked for the Buckfast but have yet to find a close source. Do you have Buckfast bees for sale as NUCs? would they bee able to handle the Winters in the UP of Michigan? I would be willing to give them a try.
GG


----------



## AHudd

Gray Goose said:


> Well actually you are very correct. I've Had Rode Island reds, and a Golden Lab.. I have looked for the Buckfast but have yet to find a close source. Do you have Buckfast bees for sale as NUCs? would they bee able to handle the Winters in the UP of Michigan? I would be willing to give them a try.
> GG


Wouldn't the ones raised in Ontario fit the bill?

Alex


----------



## John Davis

MSL
I would respectfully suggest that your math assumption of 3.5/100 is incorrect.
21 count /300 =7% would be correct.
Most research in hive mite total population shows that 75-80% are in the brood so you should divide 7% by either 4 for 75% or 5 for 80%.


----------



## Gray Goose

AHudd said:


> Wouldn't the ones raised in Ontario fit the bill?
> 
> Alex


Actually I did check on shipping in Queens from Ontario. They need to go into some sort of Quarantine for 48 Hours and be inspected, and Have some sort of Import license. If any one knows the process I would be interested to get links to it. State to state is not bad , Canada to USA has a few more hoops to jump thru. Life any thing thru customs and immigration is not an easy trail. If I find anything I will post. Good idea, not sure of the logistics.
GG


----------



## msl

> Man will "manage" bees into extinction if allowed.


Name one economically important species of domesticate live stock that has been allowed to go extinct 



> Most research in hive mite total population shows that 75-80% are in the brood



You have to rember a wash gives you the percentage of mites to bees in the brood nest. But its not telling you the advrage mites poric mites in the whole hive (with out more math) the brood nest is a much higher number, and its used as its the most stable and repeatable. 

as such its just a number, that the bean counters then correlated with the effect on the hive, then backed it up to come up with thresholds that are predictive of pending economic impacts on the hive.
Research has shown that if you X it by 1.8 you have a number representative of the total infestation when brooded up see Lee Et Al (2010), https://articles.extension.org/medi...s_for_Varroa_destructor_in_Apis_mellifera.pdf 
Most just 2x it for simplicity

look at it this way… shooting spitball numbers- A bee lives for about 6 weeks and is a nurse for about 1 week, so most of the phoric mites are on 1/6 of the bees 

so if you roll 6% on nurse bees that really means something like 2% phoric and 10.8%(6x1.8) overall infestation(if you have brood). That’s 81.48% in the brood. Not bad for spitball numbers ! So if you roll 6% with no brood its about 1/2 the over all infestation then if there was brood

While I am back on this thread, Here is the Tarpy lab report card for Sam Comforts 1 comb splits







very good queens indeed! Sam states "All queens are well above national averages, better than most anything ever grafted at #anarchyapiaries"


----------



## Michael Bush

>...we are all made of the same four genes- C,T,A and G.

These are not genes. DNA is made up of them and Genes are made up of DNA.


----------



## GregB

Michael Bush said:


> >...we are all made of the same four genes- C,T,A and G.
> 
> These are not genes. DNA is made up of them and Genes are made up of DNA.


Genes are *not *made up of DNA either.

Genes are specific *sections *of the DNA molecule that are responsible for generation of specific proteins.
The DNA is a mega-molecule that consists of a dual-chain of amino-acids stuck together in pair (specifically *four *amino-acids denoted as - C, T, A, and G for brevity).

Added: 
right, I did not want to get too deep into this - RNA, etc, etc.... 
Just the most basic semantics still should be correct.


----------



## JRG13

Well lets not get too confused over semantics...

Genes are sequences of DNA that are translated into mRNA which actually codes for the proteins. Cytosine, Thymine, Adenine, and Guanine are nucleic acids (nucleotides). Thymine is substituted with Uracil in RNA. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of proteins and are coded for by sequences of 3 nucleotides.


----------



## Fusion_power

This always gets sticky when describing DNA as a molecule, and especially when there are sections of DNA that do not code for proteins but instead act as regulators for cell functions.

A chromosome is a molecule of DNA made of ATCG and folded up somewhat like a rope coiled into a bucket. Transcribing the DNA requires regulatory inputs as well as specialized enzymes to uncoil the chromosome, transcribe the required "gene", then re-coil the chromosome and put it back in storage. Yes, I know this is simplified. Yes, I know there are exceptions, yes I know RNA is kind of like the runner who goes around and does what the DNA tells it to do.


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## mischief

Thank you for pointing out the flaws in my statement in an even handed pragmatic manner.....unlike Richard Cryberg who saw fit to send me two toxic PM's on this subject. I told him to post it on the boards......


----------



## mischief

WeLLL! Thats one way to kill a thread. Sorry.


----------



## msl

This, so much this!
In my view this is how you shift and an area to resistant genetics. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvv9lqhxYf0


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## Gray Goose

msl said:


> This, so much this!
> In my view this is how you shift and an area to resistant genetics.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvv9lqhxYf0


Wow in the above Youtube at 55 min or so they are saying up to 18 miles to have queens fly still end up well mated.
Brings up whole new concepts for open mating and TF. Not really your drones doing the mating, unless you have a fairly big area covered with hives.
GG


----------



## lharder

It will be interesting to see some data coming out of Iain Glass's work. Hopefully I will be getting a couple of his queens early this spring. They will be part of a study that will get off the ground this year. Over time I hope to have good genetic information about what is going on re mixing and genetic dilution etc. 

Ultimately, the key to improving herd resistance, is to persuade keepers that selection for resistance is important. I hear very little about this from those that are supposedly in charge of provincial bee health. It would be helpful if they started talking about it.


----------



## squarepeg

msl said:


> In my view this is how you shift and an area to resistant genetics.


interesting link msl, many thanks. troubled colonies get treated, their genetics are dead ended and subsequently shifted to bond tested breeding stock, similar to what randy oliver is doing. noteworthy is that level of cooperation among beekeepers has been achieved.



lharder said:


> It will be interesting to see some data coming out of Iain Glass's work. Hopefully I will be getting a couple of his queens early this spring. They will be part of a study that will get off the ground this year. Over time I hope to have good genetic information about what is going on re mixing and genetic dilution etc.


excellent. sounds like a bit more than _a little_ scientific involvement. way to go. 



lharder said:


> Ultimately, the key to improving herd resistance, is to persuade keepers that selection for resistance is important. I hear very little about this from those that are supposedly in charge of provincial bee health. It would be helpful if they started talking about it.


sounds like iain has managed to get a fair number of folks interested if they are willing to engage their combined 1000 colonies with the process. perhaps the provincial officials will eventually take notice.


----------



## Litsinger

msl said:


> This, so much this!
> In my view this is how you shift and an area to resistant genetics.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvv9lqhxYf0


MSL:

Just finished listening to this podcast- thank you for sharing. Very interesting stuff...


----------



## squarepeg

in the podcast iain talks about keeping drones from leaving susceptible colonies by placing a queen excluder on the bottom of the stack. i'm wondering how they keep the excluder from getting clogged up with dead drones.


----------



## Gray Goose

Gray Goose said:


> Actually I did check on shipping in Queens from Ontario. They need to go into some sort of Quarantine for 48 Hours and be inspected, and Have some sort of Import license. If any one knows the process I would be interested to get links to it. State to state is not bad , Canada to USA has a few more hoops to jump thru. Life any thing thru customs and immigration is not an easy trail. If I find anything I will post. Good idea, not sure of the logistics.
> GG


I did get a reply if anyone is interested:
Sorry for the delay. Packaged bees and queens can be imported to the US from Canada. The supplier in Ontario will need to get an export certificate (Zoosanitary Certificate) from their local Canadian Food Inspection Agency officer. This certificate must accompany the bee shipment. In addition to the certificate the USDA must be notified 10 days prior to the bees arriving at the border. This notification can be emailed to me or to [email protected]ov.

Here is the formal language of the regulation. There are no fees involved.

§322.6 Export certificate.
Each shipment of bees and honeybee germ plasm arriving in the United States from an approved region must be accompanied by an export certificate issued by the appropriate regulatory agency of the national government of the exporting region.
(a) Adult honeybees. (1) For adult honeybees, the export certificate must:
(i) Certify that the hives from which the honeybees in the shipment were derived were individually inspected by an official of the regulatory agency no more than 10 days prior to export;
(ii) Identify any diseases, parasites, or undesirable species or subspecies of honeybee found in the hive during that preexport inspection; and
(iii) Certify that the bees in the shipment were produced in the exporting region and are the offspring of bees or semen also produced in the exporting region.
(2) If the export certificate identifies a bee disease or parasite of concern to the United States, including, but not limited to, Thai sacbrood virus, Tropilaelaps clareae, and Euvarroa sinhai, or an undesirable species or subspecies of honeybee, including, but not limited to, the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) and the Oriental honeybee (Apis cerana), as occurring in the hive from which the shipment was derived, we will refuse the shipment's entry into the United States.
(b) Honeybee germ plasm. (1) For honeybee germ plasm, the export certificate must:
(i) Certify that the hives from which the germ plasm in each shipment was derived were individually inspected by an official of the regulatory agency no more than 10 days prior to export;
(ii) Identify any diseases, parasites, or undesirable species or subspecies of honeybee found in the hive during that preexport inspection; and
(iii) Certify that the bees in the hives from which the shipment was derived were produced in the exporting region and are the offspring of bees or semen also produced in the exporting region.
(2) If the export certificate identifies a bee disease or parasite of concern to the United States, including, but not limited to, Thai sacbrood virus, Tropilaelaps clareae, and Euvarroa sinhai, or an undesirable species or subspecies of honeybee, including, but not limited to, the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) and the Oriental honeybee (Apis cerana), as occurring in the hive from which the shipment was derived, we will refuse the shipment's entry into the United States.
(c) Bees other than honeybees. For bees other than honeybees, the export certificate must certify that the bees in the shipment were produced in the exporting region and are the offspring of bees or semen also produced in the exporting region.
(Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control number 0579-0207) 
Back to Top
§322.7 Notice of arrival.
(a) At least 10 business days prior to the arrival in the United States of any shipment of bees or honeybee germ plasm imported into the United States under this subpart, you must notify APHIS of the impending arrival. Your notification must include the following information:
(1) Your name, address, and telephone number;
(2) The name and address of the receiving apiary;
(3) The name, address, and telephone number of the producer;
(4) The U.S. port where you expect the shipment to arrive. The port must be staffed by an APHIS inspector (see §322.11);
(5) The date you expect the shipment to arrive at that U.S. port;
(6) The scientific name(s) of the organisms in the shipment;
(7) A description of the shipment (i.e., package bees, queen bees, nest boxes, etc.); and
(8) The total number of organisms you expect to receive.
(b) You must provide the notification to APHIS through one of the following means:
(1) By mail to the Permit Unit, PPQ, APHIS, 4700 River Road Unit 133, Riverdale, MD 20737-1236; or
(2) By facsimile at (301) 734-8700; or
(3) By electronic mail to [email protected], or
(4) Using a U.S. Government electronic information exchange system or other authorized method.

Start with Email to :

To: APHIS-Pest Permits <[email protected]>

GG


----------



## Varroa Apiary

mike bispham said:


> Given a free hand natural selection will strengthen the bloodlines. That's how life works.
> 
> Do you disagree with any of that?
> 
> Mike (UK)


I disagree. Natural selection is not survival of the stronger blood organism. It is not even survival of the fittest like evolutionist Wallace, Spencer and Darwin agree with this in XIX century. It is only survival of the fit enough in very specific short time (when we talking about life) moment in environment.


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## msl

This is the best TF/Chemical Free IPM Presentation I have seen. Realistic and exportabul, coming from a well educated researcher that has walked the walk (as apposed to seeleys "hey you all should try this and see if it works" ) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJlgzcQWAg
his other 3 are good to


----------



## GregB

msl said:


> This is the best TF/Chemical Free IPM Presentation I have seen. Realistic and exportabul, coming from a well educated researcher that has walked the walk (as apposed to seeleys "hey you all should try this and see if it works" )
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJlgzcQWAg
> his other 3 are good to


Petrov, 1983.
Pages 180-185.

What he is talking about they have been doing in practice on a large industrial scale in 1970's yet in USSR with good results.
Amounts to nothing but deliberate brood movements around the apiary.
But who even knows/remembers that now.


----------



## Litsinger

msl said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJlgzcQWAg


I agree this is a great presentation, MSL. I thought the rationale behind not doing Winter mite treatments was particularly astute and could certainly have big implications for positively impacting one's local genetics if adhered to on a regional scale.


----------



## Gray Goose

msl said:


> This is the best TF/Chemical Free IPM Presentation I have seen. Realistic and exportabul, coming from a well educated researcher that has walked the walk (as apposed to seeleys "hey you all should try this and see if it works" )
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJlgzcQWAg
> his other 3 are good to


Thanks for the post MSL gives one a lot to think about.
GG


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> This is the best TF/Chemical Free IPM Presentation I have seen. Realistic and exportabul, coming from a well educated researcher that has walked the walk (as apposed to seeleys "hey you all should try this and see if it works" )
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJlgzcQWAg
> his other 3 are good to


What are his results? How far has he come with TF stock? Or is he not breeding for resistance at all, just chemical free?


----------



## AR1

Juhani Lunden said:


> What are his results? How far has he come with TF stock? Or is he not breeding for resistance at all, just chemical free?


He talks about resistance here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwuR3uMkMF0


----------



## Juhani Lunden

AR1 said:


> He talks about resistance here:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwuR3uMkMF0


From the table (40min35s) can be seen that in after six years of work (2013-2018) they have about 10 colonies( or even less?) which are above 75% SMR. That is important because they survive without treatments. 

10 colonies out of 363 makes 2,7% of their test population.


----------



## Hunajavelho

I have watched them all and all 4 lectures are really worth watching from beginning to end. 

When you make a complete brood removal 1-2 weeks before the main honey flow you don't loose honey yield and you get strong hives going to winter. By the complete brood removal you don't need to treat in winter, only if there is reinvasion (but you can measure). 
Ralph talks about *not treating* in winter and the colonies then have a higher mite load in the next mating season and that this is a very good natural selection on the drones for Varroa resistance. They have even tested this on the Norderney island, drones from hives with bigger mite loads do not make it (the drone hives are not treated for a year).

This management along with varroa counts and the Pin-test (counting also opened cells not just fully cleaned) you can breed for a better Varroa tolerance without heavy losses. A good thing is more associations and beekeepers are seriously trying to find mite tolerance over more treatments.


----------



## msl

> How far has he come with TF stock? Or is he not breeding for resistance at all, just chemical free?


JL I think it All depends on your TF/CF/Management Free prism and views.. IE Seeley 2107 shows a significant increase in TF swarm survival when hived in a lang vs natural cavity and kept TF.. is that treatment, or just management.. or chemical free IPM .. 
enough info in the you tubes to goggle scholar the peer reviewed studies and make your own judgments (I believe you have a 2nd connection to 1 or 2 of them...Oddie (2018) "Melissa Oddie and Ralph Büchler contributed equally to this work". )

My thought is he has made a proven of gains in TF management(or at least showing whats all ready out there and working), less in the genetic end(despite having an island mating station at his disposal.. that is hard core food for thought) .. my 2 cents is that management matters A LOT more to the typical backyard keeper that wants to keep bees TF.. your hard pressed to get them to buy resistant stock, pick up the grafting needle(much less a II rig) so management is all that is all that is realistically left (point of this thread).. I feel the advice given is a heck of a lot better then put them in a box and watch them die. 

I found the pin test recommendation surprising. I had seen it said it was a poor substitute in for FBA, and FBA was linked to hygienic behavior, But not VSH or mite resistance (Kefuss 2015)
. He sites Hoffmann S. (1996) (in German so no idea ). Either he is working without dated info(that is an old study), or more likely we in the states are missing something. 
US version http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/breeding.html
EU version https://www.researchgate.net/public...earing_and_selection_of_Apis_mellifera_queens page 18 
regardless hygienic behavior is a good trait, we have a lot more problems then just mites. 


> Ralph talks about not treating in winter and the colonies then have a higher mite load in the next mating season and that this is a very good natural selection on the drones for Varroa resistance


and on a landscape scale that would be great. But its a hard sell to tell people not to kill mites at the cheapest and easiest time of year. 

My take home is with out isolation unless TF people are doing something to insure there drones are healthy they are not being competitive at the DCAs with most of there hives. Death nail in the "My drones arn't treated so they are stronger/faster/better" argument.


----------



## crofter

msl said:


> Snip<My take home is with out isolation unless TF people are doing something to insure there drones are healthy they are not being competitive at the DCAs with most of there hives. Death nail in the "My drones arn't treated so they are stronger/faster/better" argument.>


Seems like this would be hard to deny.


----------



## Gray Goose

crofter said:


> Seems like this would be hard to deny.


During the presentation, he stated, about drones from hives with a lot of mites a) sick hives raise far fewer drones, b) likely would not win the race to the queen, Imagine running a race when you are sick, AND when dissected the Spermatheka, had less amount of seman from sick drones, vrs healthy ones,, so the untreated , sick, Hives would have less representation in the off spring than the treated, or healthy ones. So could be really healthy non treated, OR well treated none VRH type drones in the DCA. Bottom line hives that do not handle mites well do not get good representation in offspring.
which I agree seems somewhat intuitive.
GG


----------



## msl

> Bottom line hives that do not handle mites well do not get good representation in offspring


in BUBALO (2004) the 2 year old TF hives lost 90% of their drones on the 1st orientation flight.. only 1.3% of the ones marked were recovered at the DCA vs 13.41 % for the treated, low mite hives...

For many, a 2 year old TF hive would be "breeder stock", but you would need 10 of those to match the DCA impact of one treated and healthy hive. 

I would say the bottom line is otherwise good TF hives are poorly performing at DCAs. Do to the mites preference for drone brood it doesn't take that many to start impacting the drones.


----------



## AR1

The way he describes his breeding stock it sounds like he has a very narrow genetic base. Not good when looking for new traits.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> I would say the bottom line is otherwise good TF hives are poorly performing at DCAs.


I have personal experience of this. When heavily infested, drones are hard to raise, and queens needed much more time to mate in my isolation apiary.

And poor mating results (drone layers in the next summer) was one reason to start inseminating all queens.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Good reason MSL to question the usefulness of pin tests.

Did he show a diagram how had the SMR% developed during the years? The SMR trait (VSH) is, like he said, the one which matters.

He did show a diagram how the cell recapping tendency developed.

I got the idea that they did not make the pin tests in the usual way: if I heard right he said that they do not kill the larvae. They just make a hole. Anyone heard better? 








(I´m getting serious trouble with my hearing...)


----------



## Hunajavelho

Juhani Lunden said:


> Good reason MSL to question the usefulness of pin tests.
> 
> Did he show a diagram how had the SMR% developed during the years? The SMR trait (VSH) is, like he said, the one which matters.
> 
> He did show a diagram how the cell recapping tendency developed.
> 
> I got the idea that they did not make the pin tests in the usual way: if I heard right he said that they do not kill the larvae. They just make a hole. Anyone heard better?


You heard right.
In the Carnica breeding they use the size 2 insect needle and they gently pierce the cell (not all the way to bottom.). But there is no mention about doing it differently than they have done it before.
In the Carnica breeding program they use the pin test to find those worth testing for VSH. There is according to them those with good pin test results are those that show VSH, if they do not score good in pin test then they do not show any VSH. Same goes for the recapping.

The results speak for them self, if one reads the results in BeeBreed (Carnica breeding Germany, Neatherlands and Belgium)


----------



## squarepeg

Juhani Lunden said:


> I got the idea that they did not make the pin tests in the usual way: if I heard right he said that they do not kill the larvae. They just make a hole. Anyone heard better?


i understood him to say that a small pin is used and the larvae are pierced just enough to cause injury buy not enough to kill it, which supposedly results in the release of an odor that the nurse bees can smell and cause them to remove the injured larvae.


----------



## squarepeg

Hunajavelho said:


> The results speak for them self, if one reads the results in BeeBreed (Carnica breeding Germany, Neatherlands and Belgium)


"More than one hundred beekeepers are now actively running the selection program in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. Almost 700 colonies were prepared, infested with mites and assessed on their resistance level. 189 colonies were identified as highly resistant (≥50% of reproducing mites removed from the brood). Of these, a third of the colonies removed all of the mites and are considered 100% resistant."

from: https://aristabeeresearch.org/category/blog-news/blog/arista-bee-research/


----------



## msl

> i understood him to say that a small pin is used and the larvae are pierced just enough to cause injury buy not enough to kill it, which supposedly results in the release of an odor that the nurse bees can smell and cause them to remove the injured larvae.


 I didn't hear him say that at all, but that was the thought in the back of my head as to what the effect may be, must have registered sub consciously! I will have to watch it again 
however in his other works(such as the link in post 806) he definitely refrers to it as "pin-killed brood assay" 

but "The highest discriminatory power of the test is reached when all of the test colonies remove an average of 50% of the pupae within the time interval. Therefore, the time interval between piercing the cells and checking should be adapted to the average removal response of the test population. If the average removal rate is much lower than 50%, the time interval should be prolonged to yield higher differences between colonies with high and low hygienic behaviour. If the average removal is much higher than 50%, a shorter time interval should be realized in further test repetitions. " 
perhaps the time fexabuuility and not waiting for the brood to warm back up, etc has an effect 

I realy WANT to believe, such a simple test for a small operation could be a huge benfict ... but given it all seems to be based on a 1996 study that I can't find replicates of... I have my doughts... what we know about mites has changed a lot sence the 90s


----------



## squarepeg

part 1, timestamp 26:15


----------



## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> "More than one hundred beekeepers are now actively running the selection program in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. Almost 700 colonies were prepared, infested with mites and assessed on their resistance level. 189 colonies were identified as highly resistant (≥50% of reproducing mites removed from the brood). Of these, a third of the colonies removed all of the mites and are considered 100% resistant."
> 
> from: https://aristabeeresearch.org/category/blog-news/blog/arista-bee-research/



Ralph Büchler is talking in these videos about his own work in Kirchhain Institute. He might be somewhat involved in Arista too, but for exaple the protocol they use to find resistance is totally different in Arista. 

https://llh.hessen.de/bildung/biene...onen/verbundprojekt-smr-selektion-bei-bienen/


----------



## squarepeg

ah, thanks for the clarification juhani.


----------



## msl

Thanks SP, I totally fell a sleep during part 1, looks like I soaked up the info despite it


----------



## squarepeg

i appreciate you having brought the videos to our attention msl.

like with their advances in the understanding and management of efb, it appears that the europeans are making a more organized effort with respect to breeding for mite resistance than we are here in the u.s.

juhani, forgive me if you have already posted about it but are you doing any collaborating with either the arista or the kirchhain groups? i thought i heard finland mentioned in one of dr. buchler's videos.


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## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> juhani, forgive me if you have already posted about it but are you doing any collaborating with either the arista or the kirchhain groups? i


No I´m not. 

Kirchhain group is for carnica breeders only.

Arista is doing this VSH breeding with one-drone-insemination system and artificial contamination of nucs. I have a timetable problem with our short summer. 

Arista group beekeepers are mostly all treating, and they hope that the high enough VSH%(SMR%) bees will be all right without treatments when released to public use and mite pressure form outside. I would not be so sure, but anyhow, it is good that there are many approaches to varroa resistance breeding, the more the better: every different breeding approach will come up with a different surviving strategy of bees, good for the future in terms of inbreeding and versatility.


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## SeaCucumber

So far, I got 3 packages in the spring (2019) and installed them with stores. I did the same OAV (oxalic) treatments on all of them. I did 1 OAV 3 weeks after install. They replaced their queens 1 month later. I did 3 rounds of 4 OAV treatments starting in late summer, then 1 round of 2 treatments (on 12/23, 12/24). 

I did a heavy open feeding + sugar bricks in late fall. They started winter with 4 mediums. The top mediums were added late with empty comb and frames. I This winter, the low was around 0 degrees F. They always fly above 45 F with no rain. Last week, I did my 1 winter check. They look as big as in the fall. They ate the bricks. I'm adding 4 lb bricks around 2/28. I ordered 2 TF queens from Troy Hall (nhbeekeeper.com). I will multiply the Hall queens. Excluders should help to keep the package drones from mating. I should have all good queens by Fall 2020. Then, I'm going to treat 1/3 of my hives.


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## squarepeg

interesting. thanks for the update dave.


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## msl

Juhani Lunden said:


> Good reason MSL to question the usefulness of pin tests.


It would seem support for the pin kill test being a reasonable way to test is growing.
Spivak, Danka (2020) Perspectives on hygienic behavior in Apis mellifera and other social insects


> In sum, the freeze-killed and pin-killed brood assays for hygienic behavior are useful screening tools to find colonies that may remove diseased and mite-infested brood upon subsequent challenge. For _Varroa_ in particular, selecting bees based on these assays will yield colonies with lower mite loads relative to unselected colonies





> The most hygienic colonies, those that uncapped pin-killed brood (see section on “Assays” below), also tended to uncap cells and cannibalize the chalkbrood-infected brood before the brood was consumed by fungal mycelia and became infectious “mummies.”





> Researchers in Germany have used the pin-killed brood assay in breeding programs to successfully reduce mite loads





> Hygienic colonies, determined based on the pin-killed brood assay, tended to remove worker pupae infected with DWV (Schöning et al. 2012).


I had discounted the pin test in the past(even though I really wanted it to be a thing), seems to be an american gadget obsession leading to favoritism toward LN2 in a lot of the writings, but the evidence seems to be strong that it works and its my favorite flavor, free. Feels like the pin test is sort of the sugar shake of hygienic testing, good enuff for most
I attached a printable template for those interested

I find the last quote very interesting as it shows a way for virus resistance, virus tolerance is a likely dead end do to the shifting landscape, but removal of the vectors is different ie mites in general, and specifically targeting those with high virus levels might stand the test of time.and it hold the hives virus levels back

This year I started walking the path this thread layed out
I got a F-2 off a VP queens (TF operation) II VSH Carniolan breeder, her mother (F-1) survived 2 winters TF in up state NY.. (this was a fall back/windfall that appeared after my supplier for a Purder MBB breeder went squirrely a few mouths after agreeing to sell me one when they were ready , blamed covid, and then more than doubled the agreed price.. so I walked)

I sold 75+ queens locally, did a queen rearing class for a local club, handed out a bunch of 48 hour cells as a beta test to try and generate local interest for next year.

The $$ from the queens payed to get me on plane last weekend and learn some new skills(It will be at least another year to pay for the new gear😝)


























Now I just need to talk Juhani in to sending me some germplasm 😁

This winter I am working with the same club to build equipment so that everyone has a nuc box or 2 and to use at there (curantly 4 hive) club apiary for queen rearing with the goal of getting the club to point were they are self sustainable and using club produced queens/cells/48 hour cells members that had a good year can make swarm control splits and sell to those who didn't have a good year, turning off the puppy mill genetics package treadmill and replacing it with selected, locally adapted gentinics and nucs.
small scale, yes but you got to proof of concept somewhere and small scale is better then not doing anything.

otherwise.. crap year, little crop, late spring killing frost to extreme drought to the point they just closed access to NFS lands do to fire danger (they can't fight any more)


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## Litsinger

msl said:


> This year I started walking the path this thread layed out
> ...
> 
> I sold 75+ queens locally, did a queen rearing class for a local club, handed out a bunch of 48 hour cells as a beta test to try and generate local interest for next year.
> ...
> 
> This winter I am working with the same club to build equipment so that everyone has a nuc box or 2 and to use at there (curantly 4 hive) club apiary for queen rearing with the goal of getting the club to point were they are self sustainable and using club produced queens/cells/48 hour cells members that had a good year can make swarm control splits and sell to those who didn't have a good year, turning off the puppy mill genetics package treadmill and replacing it with selected, locally adapted gentinics and nucs.
> small scale, yes but you got to proof of concept somewhere and small scale is better then not doing anything.


MSL:

Great post- I apologize for the delay in responding as I have been on the road for work.

I respect the fact that you developed a goal and proceeded to work the plan- I expect that your project might yield good benefits, both for your local club and also as a template for others to emulate.

Did you end up doing some I.I. this year with your own stock after learning the ropes?

I will sincerely look forward to how this initiative progresses for you- thank you for posting the update.

Russ


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## msl

Litsinger said:


> I respect the fact that you developed a goal and proceeded to work the plan


I really wish that's what happened.
I was frustrated by what I saw as bad advice and faith based beekeeping and set out to chalegen it... As I worked to change other people to a local sustainable way of beekeeping, I found reason to change my ways, including buying better genetics



> Did you end up doing some I.I. this year with your own stock after learning the ropes?


Class was this weeked, drought shut down my queen rearing, mid july grafts stopped taking so no.


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## sparkyApis

msl, your reference to Spivak et al at #825 is a mine of information. I only came across this thread today and have not had time to read more than that paper but the references look equally promising. There are a couple of quotes which I would like to share.
"resistance does not depend solely on hygienic behavior but likely involves a combination of other physiological factors"
Well yes. That is basic resistance breeding biology. Resistance based on a single obvious factor is very fragile. To pursue that path is to become a pathogen breeder.
And the oher:
"The freeze-killed and pin-killed brood assays for hygienic behavior are useful screening tools .....; however, these field assays should not be used as sole tests or indicators of pathogen or _Varroa_ resistance. Selection using these assays for hygienic behavior has not resulted in populations resistant to mites; that is, populations that do not require treatment to survive."
So, what that says is that the pin test is not a magic bullet. Nevertheless it is useful as a selection tool to move populations towards resistance. I do not see any evidence that populations with good pin test scores do worse than the average for resistance so selection for this one trait will move the population in the desired direction.
The bees and the pathogens have been waging a war for millenia, if there was a genetically simple solution the bees would have found it and the pathogen would not be a problem or, the pathogen would have found it and the bees would not be. In reality they have fought each other to a standstill and we are attempting to alter the balance at the margins so that, in the artificial environment we create, the bees have a clear advantage.
The solution will come from the combination of a lot of tiny improvements and anyone who says that X is the answer is kidding themselves.


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## msl

sparkyApis said:


> The bees and the pathogens have been waging a war for millenia, if there was a genetically simple solution the bees would have found it and the pathogen would not be a problem or, the pathogen would have found it and the bees would not be.


More to the point the pathogen is not an issue in wild type environment
The bees have found a solution, a balance has been stuck

large die offs leavening a resticant pop to rebound quickly as nesting sites are the carrying compacity limit. Once the pathogen burns out do to lack of hosts it collapses and with a few years the resistance to it is lost as it no longer provides a reproductive edge and likely is a negative.
new pathogen or the same one returning, rinse and repeat... cull down to reissuance and rebuild... balance

Wild type boom and bust cycles don't work well for agriculture, and they don't work well in unnatural pop denceys as you can drive the pressure up beyond the capability of genetics to over come it.



sparkyApis said:


> I do not see any evidence that populations with good pin test scores do worse than the average for resistance so selection for this one trait will move the population in the desired direction.


Not realty... the pin test is there becuses more then just varroa effects bees... once you have your 5 or so top varroa queens (lowest build up) you need to pay attention to other traits... honey yield, temperament, hygienic behavior, etc 

Brood dieses can cause low varroa loads.. The dyeing larva taking the mites with them 
So its important to keep selecting for other resistant traits... IE I would rather treat all my hives with organics 3 times a year then 15% of my hives with antibiotics once a year.


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