# Treatment free at all costs - the chronicle of a beekeeper from South Germany



## fieldsofnaturalhoney

Sorry, couldn't wait Look forward to reading about your journey.


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## 1102009

*THE LAW*

https://www.llh.hessen.de/downloads...k_2007-10_Grundwissen_fuer_Imker_11-01-01.pdf

This is a summary of what we have to heed when we keep bees.

If you are not able to read with a google translator here are some duties:
- you have to registrate your hives
- you have to pay tax if you have more than 25 hives because then you are a commercial
- you have to protect your neighbors from your bees
- you need a special health certificate to migrate with your bees
- you have to call the bee inspector if you see brood disease, especially AFB which means your hives are eliminated ( you may keep the bees to start new)
- swarms belong to the beekeeper they came from, they are not yours
- you are not allowed to feed your bees in the open field
.........


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## squarepeg

good morning sibylle! (actually it is late at night here)

thank you for your willingness to share your story. 

is it mandatory by your laws that all beekeepers are required to use mite treatments in their hives?


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## 1102009

It´s regarded as mandatory if you have a high downfall of mites ( more than 10 mites daily).
But it´s not controlled by the institutions per se.

It´s your own responsibility.


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## squarepeg

i see, i think i misunderstood about that. the translation is challenging sometimes. thank you for clarifying that for me.

and i may be mistaken about this too, but i thought that if a beekeeper wants to practice treatment free there you have to get special permission and allow for periodic inspection?


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## 1102009

*2014 - MY FIRST HIVE*

My husband watched me for years working with solitary bees. 
Doing a part time job as gardener in a wildlife park I built nesting places and planted for the bees.
My own garden is a solitary bee`s paradise.

He decided it was not a whim and presented me with a gift coupon to join a bee class.

The teacher was keeping bees in an organic way which meant natural comb, no queen excluder, no foreign queens introduced, treatments with formic and oxalic acids, multiplying via splits and artificial swarms.
The honey was completely taken and sold as organic, the bees were fed with sugar syrup.

We worked without protection clothes until one day we opened a hive with laying workers.
The result:
12 people stung and one in hospital with acute circulatory collapse.

Despite this the bees got me hooked and I acquired my first hive from him in July.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> i see, i think i misunderstood about that. the translation is challenging sometimes. thank you for clarifying that for me.
> 
> and i may be mistaken about this too, but i thought that if a beekeeper wants to practice treatment free there you have to get special permission and allow for periodic inspection?


You can registrate like this and work together with institutions for example. You will be supported with money working with institutions, but not always.
Maybe a time will come when I will try to get this permission. But I want to be independent.

As long as you have no dangerous brood disease and don´t let your hives die of mite infestation in summer you have no problems with the bee inspector.
So that´s one of our strategy to prevent this states with our bees.

Therefore we need to have a place which is our "hospital". Bee colonies, which are not resistant and dwindle are placed there and treated or the capped brood is taken out.
This hives will never again been used in our tf apiaries.


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## squarepeg

i think i now better understand your circumstances, motivation and strategy. thank you for answering. 



SiWolKe said:


> I will start this weekend with summaries of the last two years, so please wait with your comments until I reach the present time.


my apologies sibylle. please tell your story in your own way. i'll hold further comments and questions until you reach the present time.

guten nacht


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## 1102009

Thanks for helping and mentoring me here, squarepeg.

Please feel free to clarify my contributions with your questions.


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## 1102009

*THE FIRST COLLAPSE*

Two weeks after the purchase I realized that my colony was very sick in spite of having a health certificate.
My teacher told me what I saw was NORMAL!

I observed:
waxmoth larvae
chalkbrood
hygienic behavior
mites on bees
30 mites falling down onto the varroa board per day
DW- Virus present

He recommended another formic acid treatment so I went to our local bee equipment shop and bought formic acid 85%.

But when I opened the hive wearing rubber gloves and protection goggles I could not do it.
I just could not.

So I went to internet and googled until I found a tf forum:
www.resistantbees.com

I read about the sugar treatment and decided to try this.

I treated the hive 12 times. 10 times every 2 days in a row and 2 times again later.
This reduced the phoretic mites to 3-5 per day.
The bees tolerated this very well.

But there were still many mites in the brood and the virus present.
The bees were now in a stasis.

In october they suddenly throwed out all chalk brood mummies and much brood infested by varroa disease.
I had some hope because they were still having a good density of bees.
I fed 25l of sugar syrup and closed the hive for winter.


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## 1102009

*MY EDUCATION TIME 2014-2015*

I joined the forum and started my education going treatment free.

The method which is propagated there is oriented on Dee Lusby.

I purchased small cell foundations made of organic wax from a swedish company.
I read every text about tf I could find.
I started a scorecard record and was mentored by Stephan Braun, who is an experienced tf beekeeper.
Most important was that I learned about how tf bees handle their hives and what to look for.

I got some friends which were treatment free for 2 years.

End of january my hopes to overwinter my colony crashed.
We had a very cold spell and they had already started to breed but the bee density was not enough to keep them warm and they died.

I had found a mentor in the forum who offered me a tf hive.
But those were AMM, the queen coming from LaPalma, canary island.

Stephan warned me about them, they would be not easy to handle.

I was not willing to wait for another offer, so I was going to try them.
End of april we brought them home.
Before the transportation my mentor checked them to see if the queen was there.

This bees were different. Opening the hive they attacked, but my mentor and I were not stung because we kept calm.
My husband was not so lucky and got stung 5 times through his clothes.
I took them home that night with mixed feelings.
But they taught us how to handle them and now I´m fascinated by their feral ways.

In may my mentor asked me if I would want to have more colonies. He wanted to reduce his hive numbers or give up beekeeping because he lives in an area with much spraying.

These were 3 colonies of carnis and I was very happy to get them.
They were descendants from queens coming from Christian Wurm, who is a commercial tf beekeeper in Austria. One queen was an original pure bred queen.
I installed a second apiary on my property for them.

My mentor helped me to manage the hives and mentored me.
I learned much this year.

I splitted every hive, the AMM mother I splitted twice, the pure bred carni I did not split, because my mentor wanted me to have one honey production hive. I went into winter with 8 colonies.
Since my mentor had harvested I had to feed sugar syrup again.

Pictures of this work you can see on the 3 sites, but they are from 2015 and 2016:
http://www.vivabiene.de/g20-Arbeitsweise-SiWolKe.html


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## beepro

Cannot wait your suspense is killing me and my bees!
Hurry up! Hurry with your story here. I have many to contribute to yours.
So what's next?


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## 1102009

beepro said:


> Cannot wait your suspense is killing me and my bees!
> Hurry up! Hurry with your story here. I have many to contribute to yours.
> So what's next?


Mmmh....now I´m making breakfast.....take a nap....


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## 1102009

*2016 REFLECTIONS*

After my experiences 2015 I reflected about my way of proceeding.

Jealousies between my mentor and Stephan Braun made me leave the forum and go on alone.
The friends were loyal to me.

When I told my mentor that from now on I would not want to go for honey production but start an expansion model, he cancelled mentorship.

I was lost.
My husband saw this and filled in the blank.
He worked with me from now on.

I started to approach Michael Bush and Erik Österlund via e-mail. 
I needed their answers to help my self-assurance and to go on.
They were most helpful and I got many new informations and links to support my strategies.

All hives survived winter and surprised me with their strength in spring. It had been a warm winter and they had not made a brood brake.
They were able to fly for pollen in early march and had much stores left. 
In may I had one hive which had 16 brood combs dadant size and one with 12.
The average is 6-8.
I splitted again every hive except one AMM colony which had superseded their queen in september 2015.

Since I was not able to find my unmarked queens in the strongest hives I just splitted those two in half, careful to give both of them enough eggs.
Ten minutes later the sound of hive told me where I had put the queens.

My method so far was splitting in half, the queen`s split with mostly capped brood, the queenless with open brood.

Then came the first setbacks:
- The pure bred queen`s hive died of a local paralyze virus end of may.
- 3 out of 4 queens were lost on mating flight at my carni beeyard
- one of those had many laying workers and built no queen cells

I lost patience with the laying worker hive and tossed them into the grass.
They were accepted into the hive nearby.

One was very strong in density. 
My young friend from bavaria, with whom I started VivaBiene , offered me two elgon F1 queens, mated in his apiary ( crossover carni-elgon).
I splitted the queenless hive in two and introduced the elgon queens. Both were accepted but one colony I had to strengthen with a brood comb donation because the queen needed some time to start big brood areas.

One of the queenless hives lost their new queen again and once again raised a new one. They had been without a queen for two and a half months and the bees left were very old.
The new queen started to lay 5 combs Dadant in one day. When the brood was capped I saw the bees doing VSH, so I decided to donate to them a brood comb with capped brood from my strongest hive to try to help them to survive winter.

I closed up 14 hives for winter after feeding half of them a small amount of honey syrup.


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## 1102009

*WINTER 2016*

Last month one hive was dead. I found no sign of varroa disease, in fact, this was the hive which looked the most healthy when going into winter. No mite sassafras in the cells, no brood, no bees, a small dead queen, maybe unmated and a handful of dead bees left.
The reason could be queen failure or me killing her on my last check.
I stored 30kg of honey for spring needs.

Ah, I forgot: harvest in june was 40kg surplus from 3 queenless hives. 15kg of that I used to feed or donate.

And now I invite you to comment and ask your questions!


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## squarepeg

:applause:

please do not get mad at me sibylle because i am going to compliment you.

first, you did a very nice job telling your story so far, and i know that isn't easy when not using your first language.

second, it is clear that you studied very hard to learn everything possible about keeping bees in general and utilizing a tf approach in particular. this was time very well spent and i believe greatly increases your chances for success.

third, it's too bad that personalities got in the way with respect to the other mentors. the information that they can provide is the closest to home and usually the most meaningful. that you are able to rise above that says a lot about you.

fourth, i have more but i am sure there are others who want to comment so i'll save it for a later post. many thanks once again for taking the time to share your experience here.


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## 1102009

Many thanks for your kind words, squarepeg.
You are right, I live and breathe bees right now and my husband hopes we will talk about other things once again...

I want to thank those on Beesource too, who talked about their beekeeping and provided me with many new insights to managements.
You know, SP, how much I enjoyed your thread, even if I am not able to do the same approach to beekeeping.


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## 1102009

*PLANNING 2017*

If I have survivors:

- I want to do my own expansion model and stop at 25 hives because I don´t want to pay tax
- my expansion model will be: still to do strong splits but of another kind, more natural, imitating swarming. A change will be not to give all mites into the queen´s hive.
- no feeding with sugar
- no donating of brood comb ( except eggs for the queenless)
- mite monitoring
- breeding four new queen colonies in nucs from 2 of the best, the others will raise their own queens

I will go on with my workshops. The goal is to distribute tf drones as much as possible in our area.
http://www.vivabiene.de/g26-workshops.html


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## Nordak

You're off to a great start, Sibylle. Looking forward to more!


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> The goal is to distribute tf drones as much as possible in our area.


perfect. dar's story is similar in that he started with just one resistant colony from a swarm he caught only a few miles from where i live back in 2005, (please correct me if i'm wrong dar and fill in the blanks).

his strategy was to make splits from this one and then allow those to swarm for a season or two in order to populate the area with ferals. he also made colonies available to others in his area to help increase the genetic foot print of these resistant bees.

it appears that allowing bees to swarm in your area is prohibited by the regulations, so this may not be an option for you. your plan to bring in other beekeepers, propagate from the best of the survivors, sharing drone yards, ect. makes very good sense.

i was told that there are some beekeeping clubs here in the u.s. that are taking an approach like this, but i haven't yet been able to communicate with anyone personally about how it is working out.


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## Fusion_power

There may be a benefit in terms of mite resistance from using small cell, but I can't show it from my bees. They survive equally well on large or small cell combs. My bees may be mite resistant enough that small cell is not needed. That said, I still like the benefits of small cell in the spring buildup. The bees can cover more total brood area and tend to build up faster than bees on large cell combs. Combining small cell combs with narrow 32 mm frames adds up to about 20% faster spring buildup in this area. This is an advantage for the early fruit bloom flow, but it means the colonies reach swarming strength much sooner. What I am pointing out is that small cell has benefits even if there is no advantage for mite resistance. Also, that 32 mm frames may have advantages depending on local conditions.

The genetic background of my bees derive from a single queen that I caught in a swarm in 2004 that showed very good mite resistance. They survived the winter of 2004/2005 with less than 20 pounds of honey and the next spring were the strongest colony I had. The traits they displayed were strongly tilted toward the old German Black bees (A.M. Mellifera) that were present here until varroa decimated colonies in the early 1990's. They were more likely to sting, foraged in very cold conditions down to 40 degrees, overwintered with a cluster the size of a softball, and still blew away the other colonies in the spring buildup. At that time, Dann Purvis had selected bees that were highly resistant to varroa. He developed a "gold" line with traits more like Italian colonies. I purchased 10 queens from him and used them as drone source colonies with which to mate queens raised from my single mite resistant A.M.M. queen. The combination is highly mite resistant but has a significant swarming tendency.

Sibylle, I'd first like to ask a question about you. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Based on your posts, I suspect an introvert.

Does having neighbors who treat for varroa affect your bees? if so, how?

When are you coming to the U.S? I'd like to see what you think of bees on this side of the pond!


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## 1102009

Hey, I´m sticky!
Thanks, Barry!

After reading Dennis Murrell I believe the best possible arrangements in a hive are small cell central broodnest with 32mm spacing between frames, bigger cells around and above and all build naturally.
I will try this with one or two hives if I have enough survivors.
For now I´m happy they are still alive on their sc foundations.

After the wax scandal in germany I´m glad they have their own wax.

My experience is still limited enough to be ignorant about things like build up, overwintering and swarming. 



> Sibylle, I'd first like to ask a question about you. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Based on your posts, I suspect an introvert.


I´m introvert, but like to be social. I`m wicca but practicing without a community. So you are right, FP.



> Does having neighbors who treat for varroa affect your bees? if so, how?


I can´t say, really. My first treated hive robbed others. In 2014 a beekeeper had his nuc beeyard 400m near me but he is gone now. I´m isolated 3km (AMM), 2.5km (carni) except one or two hives.
My queens meet the drones. I can't tell you yet about the influence.



> When are you coming to the U.S? I'd like to see what you think of bees on this side of the pond!


Thank you! I would love to visit. For now I´m not able to leave my old mother in law and my old dogs. If you are inviting me to be an apprentice...mmh!!


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## Redhawk

[QUOTE=SiWolKe;1492569

I will start this weekend with summaries of the last two years, so please wait with your comments until I reach the present. 

opcorn: !!!!


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## JRG13

Hey Sibylle,

Are your bees urban or more out in the country?


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## 1102009

JRG13 said:


> Hey Sibylle,
> 
> Are your bees urban or more out in the country?


I´ve never been to the US but my husband often works there for his company. What he tells me it´s not possible to compare the landscapes or towns, cities with our circumstances.
So I would say, they are in the middle of being urban and country since all beekeepers I know including those the bees come from, are not living in big cities but near small towns.


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## 1102009

Redhawk said:


> SiWolKe;1492569
> I will start this weekend with summaries of the last two years said:
> 
> 
> 
> Hey what are you waiting for? I´m ready to answer your questions, red! Be welcome.
Click to expand...


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## beepro

My hives have the LWs (laying workers) too along with a mated laying queen.
I had once saved a LWs hive by caging the laying queen in an entire empty
drawn cells frame with the young nurse bees inside. I use #8 window wire screen to cover
the entire frame for this purpose. After awhile all the LWs are gone and the queen saved 
this LWs hive. Patience is the key here!
My question for the future is once you have reach 25 hives and not going to treat. 
What if some hives have the mites in them? Will you treat or just let them die or infected your
other hives as well? 
This season I did not treat any of my mite infested hives since late Jan. Their mite levels peaked in
July and August. All the virgin queens were mated and returned to the same mite infested hive. The
ones that did not show signs of the mite fighting ability I did not treat them either. Some queens did not
survive this ordeal. The ones that did continued to expand their brood nest despite the infestation until the present. We're in the middle of winter now. I posted 2 you tube links on the video gallery forum today of their orientation flights. I already spot another queen rearing operation here that their bees genetics might be compatible to mine. All mite resistant too!
So do you plan to keep all dark, gray color bees or have any interest to keep the lighter color bees also?


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## 1102009

> I had once saved a LWs hive by caging the laying queen in an entire empty
> drawn cells frame with the young nurse bees inside.


I didn´t find a queen but this is a good idea if the laying queen`s work is destroyed by LW.
...but how to distinguish between young nurse bees and laying workers....? Not easy for me.


> What if some hives have the mites in them? Will you treat or just let them die or infected your
> other hives as well?


My hives have had many mites for years now. So my difficulty is to know the level I have to act on. I never counted mites, but watched for virus damaged bees. If I see more than 5 of those crawling on the combs I will take the hive to my "hospital" place at home, far away from my apiaries and take out all capped brood. If I have more than one hive I take out the capped brood and combine the hives. I will do a sugar treatment then to shake down the phoretic mites. I have a neighbor with 10 hives treated bees near, I don´t want him to have my mites. Since I believe the worker bees genes and learned behaviors are a part of resistance, too, or a part of non-resistance in this case, I will change the queen and wait until there is a new generation if I ever put them back.

I had a discussion with Erik Österlund about that. He ( and I) believe the older resistant worker bees will teach the others the defense. So if the hive is infested, but not much, it is possible to change places and let the bees be teachers.
But in the end the genes are a part of the resistance so this is no solution without queen renewal. I want to observe each hive separately if it is resistant.



> So do you plan to keep all dark, gray color bees or have any interest to keep the lighter color bees also?


My bees are already hybrids except of the mother AMM. They are mixed with buckfast and elgon, one elgon queen is golden.
The color is not of interest to me. To have genetic diversity is more.


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## Redhawk

Great thread, Sybille!! Thanks for sharing. Having to rise above more than our every day world of tf & your strength to stay committed & focused says much about you desire to succeed at tf & renews the determination of newbees like me. So you've got it pegged (no offense,sp as letting the bees maintaining the mites levels. If I understand correctly, you no longer have neighbors with treated bees near you. Have you been able to determine where your queens are mating & the type of drones, as in tf or treated?


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## 1102009

> You're off to a great start, Sibylle. Looking forward to more!





> Great thread, Sybille!! Thanks for sharing.


Many thanks Nordak and Redhawk!

The neighbors with treated bees are not very far away. In my area beekeepers harvest their hives in June to July before using formic acid to treat. Often they do not feed immediately after this. This starts robbing.
I have to reduce entrances then, as I found out. I get an e-mail from the local bee club telling me when they treat and that´s the moment I reduce the entrance to 2 cm. 
My own bees do not rob, because all have good stores this time of year. I only take surplus and if some are without food I donate honeycomb.
I see robbers at my entrances but my bees defend their hives against foreign bees. ( I have one that let wasps in but no bees ).

All queens will maybe mate with foreign treated drones. If I split early there are not many of those drones around because the first drone frames are cut out by most beekeepers here. I hope my sc not treated drones are more agile and have better chances, but I don´t know.


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## JRG13

I dunno if you can say whether or not your bees rob or not, but I guess it's good to think of them in such high regard.


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## 1102009

JRG13 said:


> I dunno if you can say whether or not your bees rob or not, but I guess it's good to think of them in such high regard.



Hehe.
Do bees have a robber gene?
Why should they rob when they are content? It must be stupid to risk life for a glass of wine if you have a whole bottle at home


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## Redhawk

I learned a hard lesson when mine got robbed this summer. Didn't think it could happen being rather isolated here but..... Sybille, do you prepare for robbing in advance or better how & when do prepare for robbing?


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## 1102009

Seriously.
I prepare with stores left and small entrances.

There are many people telling me, italians for example are known for robbing. But has anyone ever tested if they do it if they are content with their stores?
And I don´t mean the stores in broodnest area! I mean the stores of capped honey on top!

The seasonal dynamics are like that: forage---brood---forage, brood, swarm---forage, brood--*stores*---forage, less brood-- stores if possible---brood---brake---brood---forage----brood---and so on.
We steal the *stores* left is just what they need to survive until autumn. Then we feed something they take out of need because they have no choice. They prefer the honey (of others).
How can they not be desperate?


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## squarepeg

i don't know for sure, but my guess is that it is the lack of nectar available in the field that has the foragers looking for robbing opportunities more so than the sense that they do not have enough in the hive. we sometimes hear about hives getting 'honey bound' meaning that even the cells in the brood area have gotten filled with stores. it seems that some colonies are never satisfied with 'having enough'.

it is commonly believed that some strains of bees are more prone towards robbing than others. i think that this is probably the case, and i believe the bees i am working with have a low propensity for robbing. i say this because i sometimes find hives queenless, broodless, and dwindled down while in times of dearth, and these would make easy targets for robbers yet they do not get robbed. 

i did have one colony this summer engage in what i believed was a robbing spree. we were in summer dearth, and this colony spent 2 days foraging from early morning to late evening, making a beeline in one direction, and coming home so fat they could hardly fly. the hive was already very heavy with honey prior to this, and it was the only colony out of 12 in the yard to exhibit this behavior.

not being prone to robbing would be adaptative for mite and disease resistance by reducing the chances of robbing foragers bringing problems home with them picked from the weakened colonies. selecting for low robbing propensity might make sense for this reason, but unfortunately as jrg points out it is a somewhat difficult trait to monitor.


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## 1102009

This is an interesting topic to me and thanks for your comment, SP.



> i say this because i sometimes find hives queenless, broodless, and dwindled down while in times of dearth, and these would make easy targets for robbers yet they do not get robbed.


My queenless carni hives were not robbed, too, even the small ones I had provided with honeycombs.

As I remember, my former mentor told me the carnis I have were bred for honey. This could be since I saw they always had much stores, even with our weather being rainy most of the time. The AMM had double brood and less stores, at the peak of breeding they had no capped honey, only open honey in broodnest area, but not much. The carnis always had capped honey.

To me, the balance between brood amount and honey stores is an important selection trait, which means, that maybe this goes against the traits others breed for ( calmness, honey harvest)
I want them to have stores always.

But let´s see. Virus tolerance, in my eyes, has much to do with food supply. Food stores, the whole year through, would provide healthy brood.
If this is true, the carnis must be better off than the AMM. But my gut feeling says it´s the other way around this year.

The bees will teach me.


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## beepro

I keep the commercial Italians now. They don't like to rob the neighbor hives.
Why, I don't know. All went through the yearly summer dearth here and I did not
feed any of them. Maybe that's why I don't see any robbing going on. Now bees are known
to be hoarders. I have yet to see a bee not like sugar or nectar. Their goal is to fill up the
empty cells with honey no matter where they got the nectar from including robbing. If bees don't
gather honey then we have no purpose in keeping them, right.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> The bees will teach me.


indeed, this is the best way to learn.


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## 1102009

*OUT OF MEDIA*

https://www.julius-kuehn.de/en/news/nachricht/news/new-jki-institute-for-bee-protection-starts-work/

Here you can see what is done for our bees.

To me it´s not enough because personally I see no difference between a lethal or a sublethal dose of chemicals. In the long term they are all lethal or shorten life.
This work is often influenced by lobbies ( industry lobbies).

As a farmer you are able to get financial output to farm with bee supporting plants. These are often directly near a sprayed field so it would be better to protect rural areas with wild plants and flowers in my eyes.
Our energy politics prevent this because the "green energy" needs much farming lands. Green energy is financially supported by government.
The last ten years I saw less and less wild vegetation areas. But we have natural kept forest parks. This is good.

I read yesterday in the bee journal that we have 30 locations in germany where feral bees are found. If they are ferals is checked now. they will publish a map. I hope there are some near me!
The authors want you to tell if you see bees which nest in trees or shacks. 
I don´t think I ever will do that because I want them to be left alone.


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## 1102009

I hope it never comes to this:
free the way for chemicals

https://www.pw.edu.pl/engpw/Researc...T-of-WUT/B-Droid-a-robot-that-s-busy-as-a-bee


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> I read yesterday in the bee journal that we have 30 locations in germany where feral bees are found. If they are ferals is checked now. they will publish a map. I hope there are some near me!


this may turn out to be very good news for your endeavor sibylle.


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## Redhawk

Keeping my fingers crossed!!


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## 1102009

Squarepeg said:


> we sometimes hear about hives getting 'honey bound' meaning that even the cells in the brood area have gotten filled with stores. it seems that some colonies are never satisfied with 'having enough'.


I would like to hear more of your thoughts about that.
To be "honey bound" seems to me a trait which is enforced by breeding.

I had not capped honey stores in the broodnest areas throughout the year. But the bees were not "honey bound". Since I´m using dadant, big frames, I believe they place more fuel for nursing and for heating bees between the cells.
This would be clever if a colder spell comes and they cluster around the brood combs to keep them warm.

You all have some experience with ferals. Without beekeepers management, would they be "honey bound" ? Maybe only in late spring before swarming.
It would be interesting to see how much they would forage after swarming without any limited space to stores and with a good flow.


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## 1102009

Squarepeg said:


> we sometimes hear about hives getting 'honey bound' meaning that even the cells in the brood area have gotten filled with stores. it seems that some colonies are never satisfied with 'having enough'.


I would like to hear more of your thoughts about that.
To be "honey bound" seems to me a trait which is enforced by breeding.

I had open honey stores in the broodnest areas throughout the year. But the bees were not "honey bound". Since I´m using dadant, big frames, I believe they place more fuel for nursing and for heating between the cells.
This would be clever if a colder spell comes and they cluster around the brood combs to keep them warm.

You all have some experience with ferals. Without beekeepers management, would they be "honey bound" ? Maybe only in late spring before swarming.
It would be interesting to see how much they would forage after swarming without any limited space to stores and with a good flow.


----------



## squarepeg

i have only experienced this a couple of times and it was after swarming and failure to get a new queen mated (resulting in queenlessness). since the flow is strong at swarming time the brood areas got completely full of honey.

sometimes first year beekeeepers are told to keep syrup on the hive until the bees don't take it anymore. we have had reports of queenright colonies taking the syrup and filling up the brood areas to the point of the queen has no place to lay.

this year i had several new colonies that were started just prior to the dearth that stayed very light on stores and eventually had to be given honey from the heavier hives. they did not engage in robbing, and as mentioned, the only hive that i observed doing some robbing was the heaviest and strongest one.

so overall, my observations don't support the idea that if a colony is good on stores that it has less incentive to engage in robbing.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> I read yesterday in the bee journal that we have 30 locations in germany where feral bees are found. If they are ferals is checked now. they will publish a map. I hope there are some near me!


i apologize if you have already spoken to this sibylle, but do your regulations prohibit the collecting of a feral colony from a tree or shack? (we call it doing a 'cut out' here)...

and is the placing of swarm traps near these feral bees prohibited?

doing these things is the way that david (riverderwent) was able to build up his treatment free apiary. (i think you know this already, but i post so that others following the threads can benefit)


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## Redhawk

SiWolKe said:


> I hope it never comes to this:
> free the way for chemicals
> 
> https://www.pw.edu.pl/engpw/Researc...T-of-WUT/B-Droid-a-robot-that-s-busy-as-a-bee


A scary thought indeed. Thing is we can't stop it. We will be part robotic as a species some day. But if this B-drone can save the food supply, great, but I can't see it competing with the bees for the wild.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> i apologize if you have already spoken to this sibylle, but do your regulations prohibit the collecting of a feral colony from a tree or shack? (we call it doing a 'cut out' here)...
> 
> and is the placing of swarm traps near these feral bees prohibited?
> 
> doing these things is the way that david (riverderwent) was able to build up his treatment free apiary. (i think you know this already, but i post so that others following the threads can benefit)


The law is you have to let the registrated "swarm catcher" do this. If people discover a swarm on their property they often are very scared or they believe them to be wasps. They call the fire brigade ( who calls the swarm catcher) or the police, but if they know about you being a beekeeper they call you.

So I distributed some flyers in my direct area about swarms being mine D) possibly and I would help them.
If you are called you may take the swarm. If the swarm is not followed by the former owner you may take it.

Our law says to not distribute brood sickness, mostly AFB. If AFB is found, they start a restricted area and all hives in this area are checked. So you are not allowed to bait bees or leave an open box with comb around.

But that´s the law.....what´s reality?

Where I have my AMM there is a natural habitat with a strict law not to take anything, flora or fauna. I have not discovered a swarm of ferals yet but this I would not take but call the ranchers.
Maybe my bees will be the first ferals locating there!


----------



## squarepeg

understood sibylle, and thank you for explaining that so well.

a swarm trap does not have to be placed in the restricted area, only near it...

and if empty comb is the problem with trapping it is not 100% necessary have to have comb in a trap for it to work. 

but if trapping is not allowed, or if you are not lucky enough to get called if a swarm is seen, then hopefully you can at least place your virgins near these locations that you might get some drone contribution.

are you still hearing 'music' in all of your hives?


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## JRG13

I didn't hear any music out of one of my hives the other day. It has a migratory top and there's a few plastic frames in there which always get attached to it. I crack the lid and start prying frames loose and well, lets just say the music started then and I wasn't a fan of the tune they were playing.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> understood sibylle, and thank you for explaining that so well.
> 
> a swarm trap does not have to be placed in the restricted area, only near it...
> 
> and if empty comb is the problem with trapping it is not 100% necessary have to have comb in a trap for it to work.
> 
> but if trapping is not allowed, or if you are not lucky enough to get called if a swarm is seen, then hopefully you can at least place your virgins near these locations that you might get some drone contribution.
> 
> are you still hearing 'music' in all of your hives?


I just realized that it could be entire possible that those swarms are not for me, coming from treated hives.
Same about my drones, I want them to stay at home and meet my own queens. Well they won´t do that and I have to put up with that. Spread some genes maybe.

My swarms I want for sure! Yes, the boxes must not look like bee hives.

I don´t know about the music, I will visit sunday. It is still very frosty and thick fog. Next week should be better and if they are still alive they will do a cleansing flight.

I dragged my boxes with honeycombs outside for the last 3 days to kill the wax moth eggs if there are any. Now inside again.

And I have painted 14 new beehives. Optimistic as I am


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## 1102009

JRG13 said:


> I didn't hear any music out of one of my hives the other day. It has a migratory top and there's a few plastic frames in there which always get attached to it. I crack the lid and start prying frames loose and well, lets just say the music started then and I wasn't a fan of the tune they were playing.


Makes you more beautiful, eh?
As long as they are alive.....


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## Nordak

squarepeg said:


> if empty comb is the problem with trapping it is not 100% necessary have to have comb in a trap for it to work.


This is very true, as I caught 3 for 3 my first year without comb. Had some used plywood I made swarm traps with and rubbed the inside with beeswax, basically coating it. LGO for attractant. I was pleasantly surprised to catch anything at all as I thought my chances were slim and none not knowing really what was in the area. Try it, you might get lucky.


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## 1102009

I remember last year when I still didn´t had any work space for myself and soldered my foundations into the frames ( my god, please tell me the right term for that!) in my living room.
Suddenly there were all those scouts flying around.....should have had a bait box then. Must be nice to have a bee hive as decoration, why use an observation hive?

If you want to play around a little bit try this:

http://www.homecrossing.de/beespace/?zo

See if you are isolated.


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## JRG13

SiWolKe said:


> Makes you more beautiful, eh?
> As long as they are alive.....


he he, I got away w/o a sting til I got in my car 20 minutes later and pressed a stinger that was imbedded in my sleeve into my arm. Luckily most of the venom was gone but it still hurt and swelled a little bit.


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## Fusion_power

Sibylle, there are two ways to attach foundation that are commonly used. One is with wooden wedges that are nailed to the top bar. The other is to apply hot wax in a grooved top bar and quickly press the foundation sheet into the groove so the hot wax solidifies around it. If done properly, it looks like it has been "soldered" into place. This is called "hot waxing" the foundation into place. This is not very original, but says what it does.


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## squarepeg

dar,

given the fact that sibylle and her friends are in 'expansion mode' with respect to building up their hive counts...

and given that they are in the early phase of selecting for survivor stock...

and if their hive bodies are similar to those large dadants that you have transitioned to...

would there be any merit in them considering the 2 queen set up that you are planning to implement?


----------



## Fusion_power

My reason for using a 2 queen setup is mostly tied around efficiency. If both queens in a hive survive over winter, I can pull one queen to sell and remove the divider joining the colonies so the combined hive makes a crop of honey. If only one makes it, I can remove the divider and voila, I still have a productive hive. With judicious management, this should totally eliminate non-productive colonies and generate a bit of early spring cash flow from queen sales.

This method is viable for Sibylle since it would give her more queens to select from and higher probability that resistant genetics could be stabilized. Care is needed since mating queens can easily wind up at the wrong entrance. I found a simple modification that resolves this problem by placing a large triangular block of wood on the entrance so that bees stay on the correct side. I also painted the front of the hives different colors on the left side and the right side to make it easier to tell which entrance is correct.

Here is the modification kit for standard 12 frame Dadant boxes. https://www.imkertechnik-wagner.de/...ied-mit-2-keilen-fuer-2er-ablegerbildung.html


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## squarepeg

that makes great sense dar. my thinking was having more queens would provide more options and some extra cushioning against losses, similar to overwintering nucs but with less equipment.


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## Redhawk

Makes great sense. Dar, this sounds very much like an option for attempting to get 1 or 2 weaker colonies through the winter, but what this sounds like is it works even better for 2 strong colonies. Does it work as well in a Lang 10 frame?


----------



## Fusion_power

It would not work very well in a Langstroth 10 frame box. The problem would be with the amount of honey (or lack thereof). However, by stacking 2 Langs in a 5 over 5 doubled setup, it would work fairly well. My setup has 7 Dadant depth frames on each side. This is the equivalent of 9 Langstroth frames. One of my frames full of honey weighs about 9 pounds. Give a colony 5 frames of honey and they have enough for winter. Further North, this would not be enough honey.

I don't really want to hijack Sibylle's thread, but there are some things she might like to know just in case this setup is appealing. This works best if queens are produced in nucs, then moved into the production hives in preparation for winter. I am setting up some nucs with Dadant depth frames so I can produce queens without disrupting the production colonies. My plan is to run in a cycle similar to this:

In spring, pull extra queens from the production hives and move them into nucs leaving the production colony with the bulk of the brood. This should leave the production colony with a huge population at the right time to produce a crop from the spring flow.

Start queen cells in a setup similar to using a Cloake board, but horizontally instead of vertically. Will need about 20 or 30 cells on this round so use at least 2 colonies to start them.

Give the nucs a week or two to stabilize and then sell the queen and replace with a mature queen cell. This gives the first round of queens that will mate and be laying steady by mid to late May.

Let the queens mature for 5 weeks, then split and raise another queen in the extra units. These queens should mate and start laying by early to mid July.

Sell any surplus current year queens by July freeing up the nucs for another round of mature cells.

Pull honey from the production colonies in July, re-install the dividers, and give them frames with queen from a nuc.

Continue producing queens in the nucs until all production colonies have 2 young queens and are prepared for winter. This means the old queens have to be completely replaced!

If I time this right and do the work required, I should wind up with the nucs empty by late August and all of the production colonies with 2 queens prepared for winter. Winter stores would be 5 frames of honey which will either come from the fall flow or from frames reserved from the spring flow.


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## 1102009

> I don't really want to hijack Sibylle's thread,


Never. I´m amazed about all the input. I´m honored. Please go on, all.

First: My foundation tool:








In broodnest area I want to try natural comb. That because of the wax which is produced by the bees using their own environmental provisions and so is pure local wax.
On top I want to try mediums ( half deep)with foundations. I want to leave one of those at all time and put a second on top for harvesting or exchange those two for harvesting.
MB recommended to use only the same frame size in a hive to be able to exchange all frames. 
But for now I want to keep my colonies on one deep = broodnest and one or two top mediums. This arrangement is just the right size for using splits in my climate and easier to work with.

Queen breeding:
This are the nucs I purchased:







Since I´m still a beginner my approach to queen breeding must be a slow one. With respect to the bees I want to do it step by step. A 2 queen hive will be too much for me right now.

I´ve got dividers like that, dar. Last year I wanted to use one deep to place two splits in. But I use a feeder as a lid, which was a great idea. I´m able to feed even in winter and this prevents a moisture problem.
Remember my climate which is around 0°C in winter, sometimes as long as 5 months, and very humid. 
As you see in the picts, the rim of the deep is the same as the frame top. With feeder on top I have space. If I would use the divider, I would have to use a cloth or another lid for each part.
But I need the space! The bee cluster must have the possibility to cross on top of the frames not to to be parted from the stores.


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## 1102009

I feel my thread a very good discussion platform for everyone new in beekeeping so I´m asking you, dar, and squarepeg and everybody, to go on with your suggestions and questions.

My climate does not allow me to proceed like you do, dar, but helps my reflections.
Queen matings happen late of May earliest. Winter starts in october. Flow is the whole season but depends strongly on weather.

They say, that tf queens are the best in their second year. Then you recognize the resistance traits. Therefore I will try to have second year hives as much as possible.

Please be patient with me if I sometimes have problems to follow. Just ask or explain again in simpler words.
Thanks.


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## beepro

Redhawk said:


> Does it work as well in a Lang 10 frame?


Yes it will! I made all my double nucs double queens set up during the late Autumn time. They have the advantage of
sharing in the heat during the cold winter time. This way they will not develop the chilled brood situation.
Just use 2 or more deeps with a divider in the middle to split the hive box(es) vertically. I use 2 deeps for this 
purpose. And put 5x5 on each side with a divider in between the frames separating the 2 queens side-by-side.
My plan is to grow 3 deeps before allowing them to combine. And then in early
Spring time use Palmer style supporting nuc hives for the production hive to
grow faster to collect honey and make QCs for the splits faster. In another word, put more cap broods in there to grow the colony a lot faster than your normal one queen hive. If the 3 months overwintered queen does not provide the QCs then I have to make my own grafts early on. This will allow me to produce some Spring queens earlier. By then taking 2-3 frame of broods from the production hives to make the splits should not be an issue considering they will have 2 queens and 15 frames on each side of the hive boxes. The other supporting nuc hives can also contribute broods to help the new mating nucs grow faster too. So tackling them from both direction is my expansion strategy while avoiding any swarms when possible.
Right now all queens selection has been completed. I already knew which resistant queen to use for the potential breeder queens next season. Resistant selection should begin from the beginning when I made the mite bee bomb when combining all the mite infested cap broods into one hive. The earlier you start your resistant queen selection for the next generation the more time you will have to evaluate her genetics further down the line with subsequent mated daughters. At the same time I will be sourcing resistant compatible lineage queens from the other tf operation. This will further complement my expansion operation with more resistant drones sending them to the local DCAs. Going to be a very busy bee season if all queens overwinter well!


Double sided double queen set up:


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## Redhawk

Thanks, Dar & Bee. Definitely going to set some up. Very good versatile system. And I can contribute more nucs to swarm traps!

Sybille, I like your idea of naturral wax on the brood frames.


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## 1102009

Beepro


> Resistant selection should begin from the beginning when I made the mite bee bomb when combining all the mite infested cap broods into one hive.


So you do it on purpose? Please explain further.
I don´t think mine would live even one season.

I saw in your pic that you are able to place food on the top. You have some space there. So, if you open the lid you open the two colonies both at the same time?
Will this be a problem when they are active?


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## beepro

Yes, on purpose just like giving them a brood break only this time all the cap broods got removed into
a resistant hive or testing for the resistant hive with a newly mated queen coming from the resistant stocks.
If you do this a 2nd time then all the mites are in the cap broods. If you use sugar powder to treat then I don't see
why you cannot use my mite bee bomb method. And since the resistant bee bomb hive can handle
the mites they will quickly get rid of them for a clean hive again. The bee bomb hive is still thriving despite all the mites with it before. Now they are clean the last time I check. Going to continue to monitor the mites through out this mild winter.
I also have bottom entrance so opening the top will not bother them at all. Besides, my bees are from the gentle commercial stocks that claimed they have the resistant built in already. My bees are active all year long in a mild winter environment here. You can cover one side of the colony with whatever breathable fabric or coffee bag you have without disturbing it much. Some hives I will use the fabric with small holes but some I did not. The fabric is good for an exploding colony but not have to for the weaker ones. Some colonies have fewer 2-4 mites while others have none on a new bee emergence cycle. I thought you are using similar method like mine, no?


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## 1102009

beepro said:


> And since the resistant bee bomb hive can handle
> the mites they will quickly get rid of them for a clean hive again. The bee bomb hive is still thriving despite all the mites with it before. Now they are clean the last time I check.
> 
> You can cover one side of the colony with whatever breathable fabric or coffee bag you have without disturbing it much. Some hives I will use the fabric with small holes but some I did not. The fabric is good for an exploding colony but not have to for the weaker ones. Some colonies have fewer 2-4 mites while others have none on a new bee emergence cycle. I thought you are using similar method like mine, no?


The "mite bomb" was an advise I got from my former mentor, too. He combined one time when a migrating beekeeper came near. That was when he had over 30 hives. Losses were one third. He expanded again and introduced the AMM queens in 10 of the descendants out of the ones he had bred. I have one queen from those and the survivor carnis are my stock. But I still don´t know if they are resistant in my location.
This winter is the test..they have mites..and we have a long winter. Too many damaged bees and they will not make it.
The mites are now concentrated in the small brood areas.

To place the "mite bomb" at my home would be the only option. But if they would not make it I would contaminate my neighbor beekeeper`s bees, since I´m not isolated there.
Do you keep the "mite bomb" at your bee yard?

Yes it would be a similar method so far as I want to give none or not much capped brood to the old queen when splitting. The mother hive will then be a "mite bomb" but will have a longer brood brake.


I have bottom entrances too, so I will try your two colony system. Depends on how many survive this winter but if losses are many I want to breed more queens if possible. 
And give some to my friends.
For that I can use my deeps divided vertically then. Thanks beepro.
Any more advise would be welcome.


----------



## beepro

You are correct that too many damaged bees and the hive will crashed for sure sometimes even before the
Spring arrives. 
That is why we need to get rid of the mites or reduced their damages as much as possible before winter so that
the queen will laid some new fresh eggs and allow the colony a chance to raised the big fat winter bees. Even in a mite bomb hive you need to give her a healthy start with a virgin queen to start. If too many mites are there the colony will have a very hard chance to build up during the following Spring time. After Jan. is when they're starting to build up. You need to time it so well that during the winter time the mite bomb hive will not fly that much at the same time stimulate the other clean hives to rear the winter bees before the snow is there. If sugar is cheap there, every year we have a sugar sale close to the holidays for .25 cents a pound, then you can line the bottom of the hive up with the loose sugar. This way when the mites fell off they cannot climb up to the bees anymore. My bees went down to the bottom board eating the loose sugar too. The isolated mite bomb hive you have to put it closer to home where you can sugar dust them when the young bees emerged in different time frame. You will need the drawn comb in order to exchange for the cap brood frames out. Even when you have the resistant you cannot really tell because of too many mites already in there. So rather than letting them die at this stage might as well help them along a bit until you can build up to 25 hives. Then the hive crash is not that painful if some are the survivors. We called this the crashed and rebuild stage!
You can arrange the hives vertically divided but if one side is mite clean while the other side is not then combining them in the Spring time will be a big disaster. The mites will multiply quickly damaging both sides of the colony. I will combine them only when both sides are mite free or near to. The high mite load colonies I will make splits out of them if some are still alive or give the cap broods frames to the mite bomb hive again in the early Spring expansion phase. So chances are that your neighbors bees also have the mites on them that overwintered. Sometime they can get it from the outside while foraging too. If there is a feral population then they will have the mites in the colony also. Don't be too worry about your neighbor's bees and only concentrate on keeping yours mite free as much as possible. Sugar dust them earlier in the Spring time so that they don't even have a chance to contaminate your neighbor's or your bees. An advice I got was for fewer than 50 colonies you can sugar dust once a month (maybe at bee emergence time) to get rid of some mites while allowing the bees to live. Combining this strategy with making a mite bomb should work for me here. Though this season I did not sugar dust or oav at all even when there are high mite counts inside all my hives as they are in the same bee yard too. I like to do little bee experiment through out the seasons, so this queen rearing season, the QCs were all capped inside a heavily infested hive and the emerged virgins also got mite on them even when after her mating flights that one mite was on the laying queen. So the mite pressure is high this time compared to my other years. Perhaps it was the mite pressure that got the bees to be used to the mites from the beginning. Or somehow they know how to handle the mites. I don't really know as the bee stocks was from the commercial bee operation. The coming season I would like to repeat this experiment again by finding the most heavily infested hive to make the QCs in. Maybe put the QCs inside the mite bomb hive would do. The most mite free hives I will make production hives out of them to collect honey. So think it through as to what plan you would like to take next season.


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## 1102009

I understand.

No, I will not combine the two colonies but shift the frames into a separate box when they fill their half.

As long as my colonies will not dwindle or show mite disease I´m not using any treatments ( sugar dusting is a treatment). If I don´t see the symptoms before winter I will not treat. They must survive on their own. 

But the "mite bombs" in summer I will sugar dust and change to a new queen. But only if I see they are not virus tolerant and dwindle.


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## beepro

If the mite population is not reduced during the winter time then a possibility might
arise in the early Spring time that is: 1) A colony is hard to build up because the mites
are constantly inside the cap broods. 2) The hive is dwindling because of not enough healthy adult
bee population for the critical Spring expansion mode. Facing a dwindling hive situation on many
of your overwintered colonies, what would you do to remedy this situation in Spring?


----------



## 1102009

beepro said:


> If the mite population is not reduced during the winter time then a possibility might
> arise in the early Spring time that is: 1) A colony is hard to build up because the mites
> are constantly inside the cap broods. 2) The hive is dwindling because of not enough healthy adult
> bee population for the critical Spring expansion mode. Facing a dwindling hive situation on many
> of your overwintered colonies, what would you do to remedy this situation in Spring?


Depends on how many are in this situation. I`ve read ( I don´t remember where, could be Dennis Murrell) about the first small patch of brood (after winter solstice) being so much contaminated because all surviving mites go into this first brood, that this brood dies with the mites and is thrown out. This reduces mites and the colony is able to build up if the winter bees are still living.
Maybe this is anecdotal but it has it´s own kind of logic.

If the problem is with all hives which survive, I will combine with the best queen and decide about taking out brood comb later in spring or summer. The just do the expansion without selection.

I just got a call from one of my friends. He thinks he will have 100% losses. I hope, I will have some survivors to be able to give a split to him.


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## 1102009

Dar, you are a member of VivaBiene. If you want to take part.


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## 1102009

Today we checked the hives.
It was a beautiful morning with 4°C minus and rime.
The AMM played their little bass guitars , they are all alive and cluster at the bottom of the deeps.







Driving to a visit with the Carnicas it started to rain and we had some difficulties to hear the sounds.
Those in one deep (Elgons and one Carni colony) were musical, one two deep hive we heard too, the others we are not sure about because the rain was much too loud.








4 weeks ago we had felled a tree to give them more sun in winter.

We checked if the entrances were free, because next week there will be a warmer spell perhaps. Maybe they will do a cleansing flight.
The dead bees we saw were not varroa diseased.


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## Nordak

I was just noticing your first picture. It looks like field fringe you see around here. It could have been taken in the field across my house it's so similar. Are you positive there aren't feral bees in your area?


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> The AMM played their little bass guitars , they are all alive and cluster at the bottom of the deeps.


nice! sounds like the others are likely doing well also, thanks for the report.


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> I was just noticing your first picture. It looks like field fringe you see around here. It could have been taken in the field across my house it's so similar. Are you positive there aren't feral bees in your area?


It´s the fringe of the wildlife park. On the other side there is a road and the natural area beginning. Yes, there may be ferals but I´ve never noticed any insects but wasps and hornets nesting. I will pay attention more and explore the location. I´ve only looked for other beekeepers so far but not as high as 4-5m into the trees  And I will watch the old bee shacks in the forest.
If there are any I`m happy about the drones they provide.

SP I saw this post from you:


> walt moved a shallow down to the bottom of the stack once the spring build up was well underway that become what he referred to as the 'pollen box'. this shallow at the bottom become full of pollen during the spring flow, and that stored pollen was later used to facilitate strong fall brooding and measurably better overwintering.


This is very interesting, because of our rainy weather which makes it hard for the bees to forage for weeks sometimes. With my big frames I probably don´t need to do this. But I will watch for the "pollen storing" behavior and mention pollen stores in my records. Always nice to learn more!


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## Redhawk

Sounds like your colonies are holding up Farley well, Sybille! Hope the rest sound like music!


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## 1102009

Redhawk said:


> Sounds like your colonies are holding up Farley well, Sybille! Hope the rest sound like music!


Well, they have 2 months to go. The saying is bees die in early spring. But thanks for the wishes, red!


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## 1102009

T*HE JOURNAL KEEPING*

If you are new to beekeeping or going treatment free or both the advise is to keep a journal about your hives.
The state the bee colonies are in changes very quickly and your estimation after only one check could lead you to the wrong decisions resistance concerned.

Here is an example of a record:



> Example:
> 
> Volk? Name or number of colony
> 
> Datum: date of checking
> Standort,Abstand: location and how far away other beekeepers are
> Königin: queen, when raised and her origin
> 
> Datum Ableger: date of split making
> Wetter: weather
> Tracht: flow
> 
> Aggression: do they defend their hive ( against you or other insects)
> Propolisqualität: quality of propolis, sticky and much propolis means defense again sickness
> Wabensitz: do they go on working while you have the frames pulled? gentleness
> Weiselzellen?: do they build swarm or supersedure cells?
> 
> 
> Brutwabenanzahl: how many brood combs?
> 
> Brutpause?: did they make a brood break?
> Brutqualität: quality of brood , meaning shotgun or not and how much brood on brood combs
> Futtersaft: how much royal jelly, very important because if they are swimming the nourishment is good
> Brut/Honiganteil: how much brood and honey on brood comb, a sign for natural behavior
> 
> 
> Eintrag: if they forage enough
> Bruthygiene Drohnen: VSH in drone brood, this is a sign they are regressed because they only do this if they are mite resistant
> Bruthygiene Arbeiter: same in worker brood, this all hives do sooner or later
> 
> Wabenbau 4.9: how small cells are build
> 
> Drohnen?: do they breed drones the whole year? Good trait, varroa trap
> Varroen auf Bienen: do you see many mites on bees, you can estimate the infestation
> Def. Bienen: defect bees present? DWV
> Zittern: trembling? CPV
> 
> Gefüttert: how much you had to feed
> Zargenanzahl: how many deeps and supers you use
> Verschiedenes: different things you noticed


This is one of mine, I do this on every check:


> Datum: 28.06.2016
> Standort,Abstand: Wildpark, 2km
> Königin: 3.Generation aus 86m
> 
> Datum Ableger: Mai 2016 aus Weiselzellen der 2. Generation
> Wetter: warm. sonnig
> Tracht: gut
> 
> Aggression: sehr mild
> Propolisqualität: viel, normal klebrig
> Wabensitz: sehr gut
> Weiselzellen?: nein
> 
> 
> Brutwabenanzahl: 4
> 
> Brutpause?: ja
> Brutqualität: sehr gut
> Futtersaft: sehr gut
> Brut/Honiganteil:eine Honigwabe aus 86ma/a gegeben
> 
> 
> Eintrag: wenig, hatte wenig Flugbienen
> Bruthygiene Drohnen: nein
> Bruthygiene Arbeiter: nein
> 
> Wabenbau 4.9:gut
> 
> Drohnen?: wenig Bau
> Varroen auf Bienen: nein
> Def. Bienen: nein
> Zittern: nein
> 
> Gefüttert: siehe oben
> Zargenanzahl: 1
> Verschiedenes


This helps you to see the mistakes you did as a newbie in the past and to see in future which are your best hives.
It helps you to learn how the local circumstances influence the bee colony´s state.


----------



## Redhawk

Keeping my journal. Some recommend a piece of duct tape on the inside of the outer cover & - sharpie. Sounds like a good idea but I'm not that large (lol) an operation yet. I can't see spending time writing all info on the inside of the lid when I should be getting in & getting out ASAP. When I've more experience & more colonies, yes.


----------



## gww

redhawkIf nothing else Michael palmer has inspection vidios that show his just using tape on the out side to write on and a brick that if he stands it on end he knows he has to take some kind of action and if it is flat he knows he is good.Cheersgww


----------



## Redhawk

I've seen that, gww. My luck I'd knock the brick over on my way out & it would rain before I returned & it would wash my notes out. I like the brick warning idea though. Thought about using surveyors tape/flagging instead. Easier to carry in my tool bag. I don't think a case of tape weighs one brick. My must "To Do" note on the inside & a loop or two flagging around my of weight & I'll feel safe.


----------



## 1102009

Thanks for taking part, gww.

I use a laminated chart list, writing with eddying, which is in my toolbox. No wind will take it and I can use it as a smoker base. I don´t care about propolis then. I can leave it in the rain.
At home I push the informations into PC and think about it some more. Then I erase the writing with alcohol so I can use it again. 
The hives lids are marked so I know which colony inhabits it.

Red, I started this with my first hive, when I had only one. Took pictures of comb, too, and enlarged them on PC. I used a brush to clear the bees from comb or tossed them off to look at the brood.
It did not make the bees very happy but I had to learn. And the bees showed my everything. Now it´s one look and i know what´s going on.
The appearance of brood will tell you everything about the conditions the bees are in. I look with the help of a magnifying glass.

This allows me today to do a thoroughly check of one hive in 20-30 minutes. I see eggs at once. Eggs and the amount of geleé royal are the most important parameters I look for. Formerly I needed one hour and checked once a week.
Now I check after watching the entrance boards and sporadic. As less as possible. More in spring.


----------



## Redhawk

Good advise, Sybille. I use a camera, too. I have a digital 35 that I have to practice setting up for hive inspects, too. I've been taught that over 30 minutes in the hive you've been in long enough. I don't waste time searching for the queen. If there's eggs & young larvae, she's there. If her pattern is good I'm checking for pest & disease. I caught wax moth before it got out of control. Had to freeze 4 frames with minor damage. But I cleaned the frames by hand first just so I would know what it felt like, not just what it looked like. 
I used a magnifying glass but got some jeweler's mag glasses. Wear them under the veil, hands free, with several magnification levels. They even have lights so if I'm at a bad angle or a cloud rolls in I've got an option. 
I would like to see your laminate chart setup. I have my colonies number as well, even though it totals 1.


----------



## 1102009

Sounds great, red.
Do you have a link? I would like to have those mag glasses.

This is the chart I made for myself:


----------



## Redhawk

I like that, Sybille. You can buy the glasses at amazon & other places. It won't copy & paste but here's a photo of the amazon page.


----------



## 1102009

Chill and heal:
I like the bees nesting with Jesus in this video which is a homage to the honeybees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puqBRyp6Ubs


----------



## Redhawk




----------



## Eduardo Gomes

"I want to keep bees tf and without special queens surrounded by treated bees and see if other facts like managements, comb, feed and such have any influence on resistance."

I transferred our conversation to here because it is the natural place. Do you have any plans to evaluate / control the impact of the variables you mentioned (managements, comb, feed,…) or do you think it is not necessary or executable?


----------



## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> "I want to keep bees tf and without special queens surrounded by treated bees and see if other facts like managements, comb, feed and such have any influence on resistance."
> 
> I transferred our conversation to here because it is the natural place. Do you have any plans to evaluate / control the impact of the variables you mentioned (managements, comb, feed,…) or do you think it is not necessary or executable?


By using trial and error. I have my own thoughts about beekeeping but my experience is still limited.
I´m just now reading all I can about the bee`s behaviors to adapt my managements to the bees and find a way to do justice to the bees but also be a keeper. 

As you can see I´m keeping records and I´m working with other tf and treating beekeepers. So more and more I want to exclude the managements which don´t work.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

I wish the best of luck to you. Networking in this and other forums is an opportunity that today offers us. I'm following your thread closely. 
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us.


----------



## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> I wish the best of luck to you. Networking in this and other forums is an opportunity that today offers us. I'm following your thread closely.
> Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us.


Oh! Many thanks for your kind words, Eduardo! And welcome to this thread! I look forward to your questions and comments.


----------



## beepro

What you called trial and error, I like to call it my little bee experiment.
During this process I've learned a lot about the bees from my own experiences. Somehow they are
still alive and thriving so maybe nothing has gone wrong that the bees cannot recover yet.


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## 1102009

You are a successful beekeeper then, beepro , and I wish you all the best for your future proceeding.

I hope I will not make too many mistakes myself. so I have some survivors always.


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## Redhawk

I took beekeeping is all about trial & error. What works great for one may or may not work for another. We've been led to believe that in our daily life if it works ok.....so now let's work on that "new & improved" version. When it comes to tf bees, it's a long time experiment.


----------



## 1102009

This sad day found me with my carni beeyard crashing.

Four more deadouts, one elgon F1, which froze on a honey bound comb.
The others: two varroa damages, one a "resistant" original queen and the other the hive which never defended against wasps ( queen 2015). Dead brood patches with pupae cells opened, not ready to hatch.
One I don´t know the reason why , the same as the first deadout. No mite sassafras, no damaged bees, a dead queen, almost no bees left.

My consolation today was the AMM bee yard with all colonies alive so far. 

I learned:
- never again overwinter on two deeps ( all dead ones except the elgons were on two deeps in this yard)
- never again make splits the way I did ( with queen and capped brood as a strong split)
- never again fear they would not have enough honey for winter ( found them full of stores, honey and pollen), rather watch if they have too much before closing up
- close up later, check once again late fall
- resistant queens are not automatically resistant at a new location
- the AMM are more resistant so far than the carnis

9 hives left


----------



## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> My consolation today was the AMM bee yard with all colonies alive so far.


very interesting sibylle...

researchers here have found surviving feral colonies out in the woods whose mitochondrial dna is amm, in other words these colonies can trace their queen lines back to a time before the italian and carnica bees were brought in here. the conclusion was that these amm bees were not completely wiped out when varroa invaded, and therefore they are showing some degree of natural resistance.

i submitted samples of my bees for mitochondrial dna testing a couple of years ago and the results came back 'c1', which means that my bees trace their queen lines back to the italian and carnica strains.

more sophisticated testing would have to be done to see if there are any amm genes mixed in with the hybridized feral strain that now populates my area. i hope to be able to get that done some day.

thank you for the report. our hope is that you end up with some strong survivor colonies to propagate from next season. my opinion is that you are better off making queens from your own proven stock bringing in more from elsewhere.


----------



## JWChesnut

Research has correlated resistance to DWV and mite assay counts with freeze-kill hygienic tests.
 
(note: I have edited my notes on this image)

The research is clear. Until FKR response (a proxy for hygienic behavior) exceeds 95% -- the behavior has virtually no effect on DWV and year-over-year increase in mite loading.

What happens in F1 daughters should be obvious -- any trait is expressed variably in this generation, but as a *mean* the response will revert towards the wild normative.

Daughters of highly selected queens are just a little bit better (on average) than the background. 

Being "just a little bit better" is no good at all --- the data in the graphic above shows that until the response is maximal- you don't get any survival benefit.

Small scale backyard "breeding" will by **mathematical necessity** always return towards the norm. And that means reaching the 95% percentile is a delusional goal.

Source: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3896/IBRA.1.53.5.10


----------



## Fusion_power

> Small scale backyard "breeding" will by **mathematical necessity** always return towards the norm. And that means reaching the 95% percentile is a delusional goal.


 Which is an incorrect conclusion. Change the norm. Now the genetics start to favor survival.

What you are pointing out correctly is that beekeepers maintaining susceptible colonies shift the genetics of resistant bees far enough to decouple the resistance effects. This also points out the mechanism to stable resistance. Requeen all the colonies in an area with resistant queens and now the norm is resistant and the trait will breed true most of the time.

As pointed out by SP in his thread, even with resistant bees, sometimes a susceptible queen will show up. Let the susceptible queens die and what is left will be resistant.

Sibylle, I had excellent success with A.M.M. Give your bees some time and split the survivors.


----------



## 1102009

Hi JWC thanks for chiming in.

So far I believe it´s my managements that are mostly wrong.
One step at a time. 
I´m more the practical kind, not very much a believer in such research and the artificial circumstances they are done with.

Funny is I had almost none of DWV symptoms and did not see any bees like that until end of september. Still Varroa was lethal in two hives.

SP: the AMM I have are not the AMM of my area, they are a line still alive on the canary islands. But they are bred for many years from survivors.
How the hybrids fare I will see. Maybe you and Nordak are right, there really are some feral drones near.
I will take your advise not bringing in foreign stock.

Hi Fusion, your posting was faster than mine.
I believe you are right and will surely follow your advise, too.


----------



## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> I will take your advise not bringing in foreign stock.


Except of course if you can secretly trap a swarm from surviving ferals.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Fusion_power said:


> Which is an incorrect conclusion.


Lets wait, it might well be the correct conclusion in Sibylles case. She cannot controll matings. (correct if I´m wrong)

Lets wait, she has had bees 2 whole years, 3 summers. My worst losses happend after 6 years of treatment free beekeeping. If a beekeeper is selling nucs or collecting swarms, the crash will be delayed even further.

Lets wait, the crash will come however slow (but steady) the growth in mite population is.


----------



## squarepeg

well stated dar and your experience is an excellent example of how with a little effort one can successfully influence a local gene pool.

i also think juhani makes a reasonable point here. we have examples both of apiaries managed successfully off treatments as well as those where every trick in the book was applied yet without success.

it gets to the reality that there is much variability from one location to the next and that there are factors over which we have little or no control. my view is that it is equally errant to take positions that success is absolutely possible or that it is impossible.

sibylle's situation is unique just like all of our situations are unique and as juhani points out only time will tell. it's no skin off anyone else's nose if someone wants to give it a shot.


----------



## 1102009

Thanks to all for the comments
I got what I wanted to have with the bees and truly I was expecting this.

But as always I´m fascinated by the decisions nature makes , I humbly accept nature`s decisions,and nothing will discourage me. This is no competition who is right and who is wrong! I´m not one for competitions.

Juhani, I do not fear setbacks. To me, it´s like marrying. Jump in and it works or not, but if it doesn´t work you will know your mistakes and start again.( be married works for me so far )
I followed your proceedings but, to be honest, I don´t want to comment.

When I was a member of resistant bees forum, I was discouraged all the time. I was called a newbie who is ignorant, as someone to have AMM and do not deserve them, as a woman beekeeper, as not being isolated, as not having the right stock, as not following my mentors orders, as not following a certain strategy, as being the person I am.....all this just makes me stronger.
Kindness is a strength to me, not a weakness.
Gloating is a weakness to me, discouragement not an advise.


----------



## Fusion_power

> all this just makes me stronger.


 So we should be hypercritical and treat you the roughest we can. You will become the strongest beekeeper in the world!

I think you are saying that you thrive on adversity. Hopefully your husband is a patient and understanding man.

When I was 16, I had a disagreement with my dad and as a result had to tear down an old and rather decrepit barn and use the wood to build a shed to store farm equipment. It took 6 weeks, but I had on a case of stubborn and pushed myself and my younger brother to keep going until it was done. This was all because my dad said it couldn't be done and I would never finish it. You don't know what you can do until someone says you can't.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> After reading Dennis Murrell I *believe *the best possible arrangements in a hive are small cell central broodnest with 32mm spacing between frames, bigger cells around and above and all build naturally.







SiWolKe said:


> I never counted mites, but watched for virus damaged bees.
> 
> I *will do a sugar treatment *then to shake down the phoretic mites.
> 
> I have a neighbor with 10 hives treated bees near, I don´t want him to have my mites.
> 
> Since I *believe* the worker bees genes and learned behaviors are a part of resistance, too, or a part of non-resistance in this case, I will change the queen and wait until there is a new generation if I ever put them back.
> 
> I had a discussion with Erik Österlund about that. *He ( and I) believe *the older resistant worker bees will teach the others the defense.








SiWolKe said:


> I´m more the practical kind,* not very much a believer in such research *and the artificial circumstances they are done with.


I believe in science, not much in other miracles.


----------



## 1102009

If science would work, there would be success already but the research starts all over again after ten or so years and you yourself, Juhani, use different stock and different methods after the next crash.
So you are a believer yourself in my eyes.

And how should beekeeping world be?

This is you writing:


> My thoughts have turned to the next step: How to move this material to other beekeepers? It’s going to be tough. If a beekeeper wants to stop treating, the only way is to change resistant queens in all hives. Because it’s quite a demanding and expensive task, very few will do that. Instead they buy one queen and have a look. If they are still treating, it’s ok, but if they stop treating, and for instance breed new queens from the purchased one, it’s going to end up with disaster. The new queens will mate with unsuitable drones and they do not have the wanted qualities.
> 
> In this breeding effort it has been hard, because it’s not enough, that you have one quarter of your hives resistant; you will end up losing them all it you are not skilful. If half of your hives are resistant, you have a good chance of surviving for some time, but only if you have control of mating of your new queens.>
> 
> 
> 
> Should we depend on some bee breeders who sell queens to us all the time?
> It´s done with farming, seed industry monopolizing the market.
> 
> Will Arista give away the queens for free? Will they distribute the drones everywhere?
> Then I will gladly donate money or support this "science" in any way.
Click to expand...


----------



## 1102009

double post


----------



## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> So we should be hypercritical and treat you the roughest we can. You will become the strongest beekeeper in the world!
> 
> I think you are saying that you thrive on adversity. Hopefully your husband is a patient and understanding man.
> 
> When I was 16, I had a disagreement with my dad and as a result had to tear down an old and rather decrepit barn and use the wood to build a shed to store farm equipment. It took 6 weeks, but I had on a case of stubborn and pushed myself and my younger brother to keep going until it was done. This was all because my dad said it couldn't be done and I would never finish it. You don't know what you can do until someone says you can't.


Dar you can treat me as rough as you want and some others here can do it too, because I appreciate your comments and success and most of all, your empathy and civil words.
But not those who just like to go against without any helpful advise.

Here is a question to you, dar: 
Why didn´t I find dead bees with the deadouts? Only 50 to 300 maybe? End of september the boxes were full of bees, since october weather is cold and bees did not fly often. No dead bees on the ground.


----------



## Fusion_power

When I have had bees that died of varroa, the colonies had very few bees left. I think the bees realized that their colony was doomed and they either flew out to die or they moved to another colony that was still thriving. I have had very few problems since 2005. The last time I saw mass die-off from varroa was in the winter of 1993/1994 when I lost about 25 colonies of Buckfast bees.

I'm in general agreement with Juhani that the best course of action is to change out all queens for those that are varroa resistant. Time and again beekeepers get one or two mite resistant queens and place them in an apiary with treated bees. The result is mite collapse and a beekeeper who complains bitterly that the bees are not resistant. Juhani has been at this for quite a few years now and has posted several times of the trials and difficulties in breeding for mite resistance.


----------



## Oldtimer

Fusion_power said:


> but I had on a case of stubborn


And still do .


----------



## Nordak

Much of the science (at least my take on it) for treatment free, survivor feral success regarding bees points to long term adaptation. Recent studies support this idea in regard to viral relationship and varying virulence of DWV, for example. Systems in constant flux will always struggle for stability, and are generally doomed for failure. The science points to resistance being a part of the sum, certainly, but in practice there appears to be a much broader set of issues facing many beekeepers for resistance alone to solve the equation.


----------



## Little boy blue

SiWolKe said:


> Thanks to all for the comments
> I got what I wanted to have with the bees and truly I was expecting this.
> 
> But as always I´m fascinated by the decisions nature makes , I humbly accept nature`s decisions,and nothing will discourage me. This is no competition who is right and who is wrong! I´m not one for competitions.
> 
> Juhani, I do not fear setbacks. To me, it´s like marrying. Jump in and it works or not, but if it doesn´t work you will know your mistakes and start again.( be married works for me so far )
> I followed your proceedings but, to be honest, I don´t want to comment.
> 
> When I was a member of resistant bees forum, I was discouraged all the time. I was called a newbie who is ignorant, as someone to have AMM and do not deserve them, as a woman beekeeper, as not being isolated, as not having the right stock, as not following my mentors orders, as not following a certain strategy, as being the person I am.....all this just makes me stronger.
> Kindness is a strength to me, not a weakness.
> Gloating is a weakness to me, discouragement not an advise.


I agree, kindness is a way of life, not an act.


----------



## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> I'm in general agreement with Juhani that the best course of action is to change out all queens for those that are varroa resistant. Time and again beekeepers get one or two mite resistant queens and place them in an apiary with treated bees. The result is mite collapse and a beekeeper who complains bitterly that the bees are not resistant. Juhani has been at this for quite a few years now and has posted several times of the trials and difficulties in breeding for mite resistance.


Bred from survivors of "nomal bees" and change all your queens in time, yes. I now see no difference in resistance from the original bred "resistant" queens and the descendants. 
But I see a big difference in health after splitting.

Fact is two Carniolan queens which came to me as "resistant" 2015 are now dead from varroa and paralyze virus.

I do not mix treated and untreated hives. The descendants are all from "resistant" mothers, the elgons seem to be resistant, the deadout was my mistake. 
My hives are all untreated for years, before I got them and after. 5 years for sure if my mentor spoke the truth.

So shall I buy "resistant" queens once a year or even twice a year? That´s not the kind of beekeeping I want to do.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> If science would work, there would be success already but the research starts all over again after ten or so years and you yourself, Juhani, use different stock and different methods after the next crash.
> So you are a believer yourself in my eyes.
> 
> And how should beekeeping world be?
> 
> This is you writing:
> 
> 
> 
> Should we depend on some bee breeders who sell queens to us all the time?
> It´s done with farming, seed industry monopolizing the market.
> 
> Will Arista give away the queens for free? Will they distribute the drones everywhere?
> Then I will gladly donate money or support this "science" in any way .
> 
> 
> 
> Your comment of me starting with new stock after each crash is untrue. I have always recovered with my own bees.
> 
> I think very highly of you Sibylle, don´t get me wrong. We need more beekeepers who want to start TF beekeeping, at all costs.
> 
> BUT.
> 
> TF beekeeping is not a religion, we need to accept facts as they are, and stop believing in folishness
> - you refuse to count mites and refuse to controll matings, and despite of these very basic elements you wait for success and ask me how to go further?
> 
> - you read a book and believe in something that science has proven not to be true
> 
> - you believe blindly in bees learning each other, which to my knowledge science has not proven to be true, at least it is not a major thing behind bees coping with mites ( genes are)
> 
> 
> My advise to go further: a TF beekeeper cannot ignore facts.
Click to expand...


----------



## Fusion_power

Juhani, have you tested your bees for hygienic behavior? Your notes re AFB seem to indicate that your bees are controlling AFB. If you tested a few for hygienic traits, there might be an additional selection criteria to help with both varroa and AFB.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> TF beekeeping is not a religion, we need to accept facts as they are, and stop believing in folishness
> - you refuse to count mites and refuse to controll matings, and despite of these very basic elements you wait for success and ask me how to go further?
> 
> - you read a book and believe in something that science has proven not to be true
> 
> - you believe blindly in bees learning each other, which to my knowledge science has not proven to be true, at least it is not a major thing behind bees coping with mites ( genes are)
> 
> 
> My advise to go further: a TF beekeeper cannot ignore facts.


You write about the races you brought in in your diary, if i got you wrong i apologize.
You don´t respect me, you think me foolish. This you made clear in former posts too.
I said I would count mites n future.
i said i would breed from my best queens.
I read books and visited speakings. The authors are scientific researchers. ( I don´t mean MB)
Bees learning from bees is not proven but not known to be untrue.
Facts are what I see not what people try to convince me of. You yourself tell in your diary that your stock is not resistant after all those years.

To me TF beekeeping is a quest. 
I will do it like those people do it. After 3 years they have the first success creating their own "ferals".
www.wolnepszczoly.org

This is my chronicle. I will not justify my beekeeping again.
I will tell about the ups and downs honestly but if this leads to such kind of discussions I don´t need this.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Juhani Lunden said:


> *I think very highly of you Sibylle, don´t get me wrong.* We need more beekeepers who want to start TF beekeeping, at all costs.





SiWolKe said:


> . You yourself tell in your diary that your stock is not resistant after all those years.


And that is why I try very hard to make your future easier. I have 12 hives left out of 150 (plus 22 minihives)




SiWolKe said:


> You don´t respect me, you think me foolish.


No, I do respect you. I said it is foolish not to believe facts. If you don´t believe as a fact that free mating washes away everything you try to accoplish or as JWChesnut put it "Small scale backyard "breeding" will by **mathematical necessity** always return towards the norm. And that means reaching the 95% percentile is a delusional goal.", that is going to bring you hard times. As we in Finland say "hitting ones head in stonewall", that is foolish. 

BUT: If you accept these as advise, your way to TF beekeeping will be easier. Your choise.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> To me TF beekeeping is a quest.
> I will do it like those people do it. After 3 years they have the first success creating their own "ferals".
> www.wolnepszczoly.org


http://wolnepszczoly.org/uber-uns/

Their "ferals" have some genes from my bees, I just noticed. Be aware 12/150...


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> http://wolnepszczoly.org/uber-uns/
> 
> Their "ferals" have some genes from my bees, I just noticed. Be aware 12/150...


Yes, I know, I translated for them and Bartek Pantruten I call a dear friend. You are even linked in my forum! 
But see, they have losses in spite of their resistant stock.

I´m not sure if you are aware of my starting workshops and spread tf beekeeping so we are able to distribute tf drones in my area in a few years.
Look up the public part "Bildergalerie".

Please don´t call me foolish in my own thread, ok? Let´s make peace and be civil.
Thanks.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Fusion_power said:


> Juhani, have you tested your bees for hygienic behavior? Your notes re AFB seem to indicate that your bees are controlling AFB. If you tested a few for hygienic traits, there might be an additional selection criteria to help with both varroa and AFB.


There are some tests done by other beekeepers, but the results were not particulary good. They were far from the best "cell openers".


----------



## BeesFromPoland

If I may join this discussion... 



Juhani Lunden said:


> TF beekeeping is not a religion, we need to accept facts as they are, and stop believing in folishness


And what are the facts? What is this science that one should believe? 

There are scientific research showing that all kinds of treatment is harmful for the bees and their ecosystem (so as I see it: we should not treat)
there are scientific research showing sugar is harmful to the bees (so we should not feed artificial food)
There is scientific resarch on epigenetics and gene expression showing that the more natural ways bees live, the better off they are (so we should minimalize management and disruptions)
There is scientific research showing that inbreeding is detrimental to health of the organisms (so we should avoid inbreeding or broad breeding programs which include lessening genetic diversity)
There are facts showed by many people - including on this forum (have no idea if there are research on them) that bees are better off with natural insemination of queens, swarming, with feral populations, with greater diversity, left alone etc etc

this is not religion. these are facts. at least facts I know of. 





Juhani Lunden said:


> - you refuse to count mites and refuse to controll matings, and despite of these very basic elements you wait for success and ask me how to go further?


As far as I know counting mites have never made any hive healthier. 
Control matings have rather made population inbred, than healthier. Feral populations in regions where bees survive have similar or greater genetic diversity - and the bees still survive. For me that means that genes are not the key to success (if they were the genetics of the population would be poor because only little percentage would survive and multiply). Other factors are at least equally important - and there are many research on that.




Juhani Lunden said:


> - you read a book and believe in something that science has proven not to be true


and that are? (maybe I missed something...)





Juhani Lunden said:


> - you believe blindly in bees learning each other, which to my knowledge science has not proven to be true, at least it is not a major thing behind bees coping with mites ( genes are)


As I wrote earlier genes are not the key in surviving feral population (I read the work about that - when I find it I will put it here). 

Some our Polish scientists (of coursce also saying that treating is unavoidable) say that when varroa came bees died in their fourth year since infestation (rarely in the third). Now mostly they die in the first and second year from the last treatment. These scientists also say that it the 80's bees died with varroa infestation of 7'000 - 11'000, now they die with infestation of 2'000 mites - rarely some more. 
What changed? Genetics became worse that much? Why if the queen breeders always choose (with many other traits) always queens from colonies with less mites than others? Even if the bees are not "resistant" they can still live for 4 years (at least they could 30 years ago). this means (statistically) surviving 80% of the stock, at least 2 - 3 years of honey, and 2 - 3 years of nucs/swarms for reproducing.





Juhani Lunden said:


> My advise to go further: a TF beekeeper cannot ignore facts.


facts that cannot be ignored are the health factors of the population, not only the "resistant genetics". You bring "varroa resistant genetics" and they die of nosema when fed sugar etc. 

I think that Sibylle - as myself - prefer beekeeping like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvJq06J3Tu8, and not beekeeping with artificial insemination and breeding programs (in which inbred bees still die). 





SiWolKe said:


> I will do it like those people do it. After 3 years they have the first success creating their own "ferals".
> www.wolnepszczoly.org


Well Sibylle... we're very far from success... Some of us just made it through the first collapse... But we're doing our best


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> http://wolnepszczoly.org/uber-uns/
> 
> Their "ferals" have some genes from my bees, I just noticed. Be aware 12/150...


No. not our "ferals". I have some stock, but bred only from one queen, that I got from Polish breeder that bought queens from You in 2014. My queen is from 2015 (she is still alive as far as I know - no treatments), I made 3 - 4 splits. 

We have some other bees too, You know


----------



## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> these are facts. at least facts I know of.


In fact (pun), 1/2 of your facts are not facts at all. They are your own dogma and are not supported by science.

Juhani said go with facts. And over the years I have watched him do exactly that, he has been absolutely honest in his reporting of his efforts at TF beekeeping. Why do you have a problem with that?

Why did you link that video? What is in it that you think Juhani does not already know? Nothing.

You boast that your hive is doing well and you made a few splits. But your genetics came from Juhani. 

SiWolKe I think you have not taken the words that Juhani said in the way he meant from his heart, there is maybe some language misunderstanding. He does respect you, and he gives good advice.

But why does it matter if somebody on the internet respect? I come here to learn, if the person has something good to say I will learn, I don't care if the person respect me that matters not. I will learn anyway, which is my benefit.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

no problem at all. I respect that.
just saying that there are different facts, different research.

could You just point out which facts are not facts?



> You boast that your hive is doing well and you made a few splits. But your genetics came from Juhani.


Yes. that one queen. As I wrote I have some more bees... 
I lost some of her daughters to sickness too. 
One collegue had 5 or 6 of these queens (not directly from Juhani - from the same source as mine) he stopped treating for the first time this year in the fall, and as far as I know he doesn't have bees now, because they died.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

edit: double posts...


----------



## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> could You just point out which facts are not facts?


No, because facts are facts, there are not facts which are not facts, your question is an oxymoron.

I think by your question you are asking me to point out what you *said* are facts, that are not facts. So since you asked, and to answer that, you have made several catagories of mistakes. Firstly being statements that are just plain wrong, secondly statements that are dubious, and thirdly statements that are true but misleading. Here is an example of each -



BeesFromPoland said:


> For me that means that genes are not the key to success


Science would disagree. Even you contradict yourself because you claimed inbreeding is harmful. 



BeesFromPoland said:


> there are scientific research showing sugar is harmful to the bees


A dubious statement. Where is this science? Is there no science showing sugar feeding, done correctly, is good for bees?



BeesFromPoland said:


> As far as I know counting mites have never made any hive healthier.


A true but misleading statement. Of course counting a hives mites has not made that hive healthier. But in the context of breeding from the best it does help a person to identify the best. It is therefore useful to someone attempting to improve their bees, and can be used to long term make bees healthier, the opposite of what you imply.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> If As I wrote earlier genes are not the key in surviving feral population (I read the work about that - when I find it I will put it here).


Wait for couple years, I´ll write a book. Maybe you believe me after reading it.


----------



## 1102009

The problem is, that you all, Juhani included, don´t now how my circumstances are. 
I mean the environmental circumstances.

I tell you, every scientifical approach will be in vain, except you are throwing money in all the time.
Here we have small beekeepers mostly who have a "Bienenkiste" or 2-4 hives. Nobody is interested in science. They want bees because it´s a trend but they are interested very much in tf beekeeping because they are interested in health. 
But they do jobs and have no time to count mites, just like me.

And therefore I will follow BfP ways even if OT, JL and all others give evidence of your statements.
It will need the 20-30 years of my lifetime left perhaps but I don´t care.

I studied behavior of animals at an academy in switzerland for 18 months.
The practical seminars included to write ethograms. They said: watch an animal for 24 hours and describe it`s every move. You will learn everything you need from their behavior. I´m very good at observing now.
But I´m still not emancipated from "experienced" beekeepers views.

And what I see with my bees has to do with my managements and the local influence not with the mites even if they die of mites in the end. 

We make the mistake to focus our observation on the mites and mite sickness and forget how bees act if left alone. They know how to fight mites but we disturb them and try to control the mite infestation with our own managements.

I have a neighbor with cattle kept in an organic way. For some years he bred them in the field with his own pure race bulls.
The he decided to breed for traits like more meat, blue tongue ( as a race trait) and he joint a club.
The results: two dead calves, problems with birthing, birthing no more possible outside and a bull which is not interested in the cows and had to be forced. Hoove problems and a barren cow.
But the breeding bull he purchased looked great with his blue tongue and heavy muscles and he wins every price.

The bees are still more natural and, in my eyes, absolutely able to survive in the wild if provided with nesting places. 
Why are wasps, hornets another insects law protected in germany but not wild honeybees?

This independence of honeybees could change very quickly with our bottleneck breeding, just like their dependance on the beekeeper began with treating many years ago.


----------



## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> I´m very good at observing now.


Well, that's science. Because science is really just observing something, and using the information gained to draw a conclusion. No need to be scared of science, done right, it's good.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> Why are wasps, hornets another insects law protected in germany but not wild honeybees?


Sibylle, what is the state of things about velutina hornet in Germany? I have an idea that this exotic beast has already entered in some parts of Germany. What plan do german authorities and german beekeepers have to deal with the invasion?


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> No, because facts are facts, there are not facts which are not facts, your question is an oxymoron.
> 
> I think by your question you are asking me to point out what you *said* are facts, that are not facts. So since you asked, and to answer that, you have made several catagories of mistakes. Firstly being statements that are just plain wrong, secondly statements that are dubious, and thirdly statements that are true but misleading. Here is an example of each -


ech... ok. I made thousands of mistakes in language-logic. Still I haven't heard which "statements I called facts" are not "facts". 
Please don't stop at examples - I want to learn. (truly and honest)





Oldtimer said:


> Science would disagree.


First thing - please, show me that science. 

Second thing:

If You mean genes are the key and most important in circumstances like:
- being locally adapted
- able to be expressed by thousands of environmental factors (like diet, management, back to instincts of self-healing etc etc)
- being able to be "medium" of biological information next to  epigenetic factors
- allowing organism to "live together" with other environmental factors (as pests, but also positive bacteria, fungus, other instincts, weather, climate, even the hive material etc, etc, etc)
then I agree completly - without that "good" genes the bees would not be able to survive.

If You mean genes :
- inbred for specific traits - like "resistance"
- taken out of their "natural" habitat (I mean by that the habitat to which they are adapted)
- taken to other habitat with only a queen herself and put to completly strange colony
- etc 
(example: Juhani's queen send to Poland)
than I say : they *may* show some positive traits which are beneficial to the whole project, but they don't guarantee anything - especially they don't guarantee surviving. That is why I got that queen, I have some elgons too. But now I'm just with what survives locally. in 2016 I doubled my apiary only with my queens - I didn't get any queen from the outside (and I don't plan that in the future - the only reason would be if my bees die) 




Oldtimer said:


> Even you contradict yourself because you claimed inbreeding is harmful.


I have no idea where I contradicted myself. Inbreeding is always harmful to organism. Inbreeding may be a tool to get a trait, but it is harmful in many ways. Please don't say that science would disagree.........




Oldtimer said:


> A dubious statement. Where is this science? Is there no science showing sugar feeding, done correctly, is good for bees?


http://www.sciencecodex.com/scienti...d_dont_eat_honey-137722#.U8kT21h01LM.facebook
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep05726
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/feeding-refined-sugar-to-honey-bees
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1847477/
http://www.redorbit.com/news/scienc...collapse-disorder-072114/#YPzeVWMbl7dPWuVl.99
http://www.resistantbees.com/fotos/estudio/feeding.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21335011
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202514/

is this enough science? Is this scientific enough?

It's about diet, influence of sugar, gene expression in connection to diet etc. You can draw Your own conclusions. 

"sugar feeding done correctly" is for me equal to "treatment done correctly" or "eating at Mac's done correctly". There are some things that simply are harmful. "doing them correctly" (and who says if sth is done correctly or not?) may only reduce their damaging effect - that's all. 




Oldtimer said:


> A true but misleading statement. Of course counting a hives mites has not made that hive healthier. But in the context of breeding from the best it does help a person to identify the best. It is therefore useful to someone attempting to improve their bees, and can be used to long term make bees healthier, the opposite of what you imply.


I gave examples of scientific data (it's in Polish, but I can send it here) which stated that 30 years ago bees could live with at least 3 times greater infestation than today. You may think they have now bad genetics. For me it's obvious that they are weaker becaus of chemicals people put to the hives, because of management methods (even the amateurs want to have their methods as comercials), because of narrowing the gene pule in inbreeding, and as well because of environmental factors (agriculture and industry destroys environment). 
Everybody can draw their own conclusions from the facts they know. I draw conclusion that genetics is important but it is only one piece of the puzzle (probably even not most important). 

bees won't became "healthier" by the fact they have less mites. My friends are counting mites and had "resistant" genetics. Their "resistant" bees died when they stopped treatment even when counting mites showed they had "only" couple hundred mites. And what scientists say bees died 30 years ago only when they had about 7000 mites or more. 





Juhani Lunden said:


> Wait for couple years, I´ll write a book. Maybe you believe me after reading it.


I'm waiting then.


----------



## Oldtimer

I'd love to answer all that stuff BfP but would take me all day or more to get all the info you would really need, I don't feel like writing a book today.

What I will say about the links you provided about sugar feeding, they are interesting but most of them very liteweight and just reporting on a report, the facebook one for example. While I agree with any properly drawn conclusions reached, the problem is what has been missed out. For example they don't actually quantify the practical negative effect on a hive, and I can tell you there isn't much. They constantly refer to CCD, even though there has not been any CCD reported in the US for several years, sugar is still being fed. But the main weakness is they ignored pollen. A bees diet is not just sugar it is also pollen. Your chosen linked referred to dietary deficiencies in sugar, and there is. Sugar is only sugar. But bees get everything else from pollen, the reports ignored this fact, majoring that sugar is incomplete. Course it is but that's obvious no need for a scientific report.
The things referred to that are in honey but not in sugar, are mostly in the trace amount of pollen that is in the honey.

I think our diferences about genetics are as much a language / communication thing as anything. But genetics do matter, if they didn't, inbreeding would not be a problem. In the USA there is a queenbreeder called Beeweaver who sell varroa resistant bees. These bees can have a few problems, such as aggression. But they do have the genetics to resist varroa. In their advertising they say requeen with our queens and you don't have to do varroa treatment. They don't say it will work in this area, but not in that area. Or they need small cells, or whatever. They just say the bees are resistant to varroa, period. That's cos it's about genetics, the most important thing.


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## BeesFromPoland

No, I don't want You to write book.

Please only write which of my statements are not facts. I want to learn. 

(maybe I'll learn more than from "facebook news" ... sorry for being nasty....)


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Well, that's science. Because science is really just observing something, and using the information gained to draw a conclusion. No need to be scared of science, done right, it's good.


:thumbsup:

BfP and I will breed our own genetics, don´t we? I love my own "science" just as much as others love theirs.
I´m not ignorant of science. But I´m a sceptic.
I like to question everything.
k:

I´m not using Facebook. Facebook destroys democracy and closes the mind to other opinions. Facebook is narcissistic.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> And what I see with my bees has to do with my managements and the local influence not with the mites even if they die of mites in the end.


If we had such a vote I would vote this sentance to be the Winner Meme of Beesource 2016.

But seriously:
I have visited Germany about dozen times, visited beekeepers and beekeeper meetings. German professors have been lecturing in Finland. There are more than 10 times more bees / square mile in Germany than in Finland. I know your circumstances pretty well.

I have only tried to help you in your demanding task. I can read between the lines of your writings and comments, that you kind of live in a bubble. Honestly, there are many who think the same, no hard feelings. I feel I need to say my sayings in a bit harder way that I actually wanted. To be heard, to wake you up. 

I actually thought that because I have done the same, TF at all costs, you would listen. I have had bees since 1977, and TF Project started 2001. I believe in science, you believe what you want, waching animals to know what they need, bees teaching each other to cope with mites, sugar being harmful, small cells as survivor factor etc., mentors who treat. 

I give up.


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> Please only write which of my statements are not facts. I want to learn.


Please see post #129 where I briefly outlined.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

I'm sure that inbreeding to get healty population would not win any awards... 

Health of the bees is more than inbred resistance trait, and then counting mites. Bees are living organisms - not "honey making machines" as many would want see them. I'm sure they can have all the instincts and needs other animals have (like need to rest, need to play, need to be lazy etc) - I'm sure that statement would be seen as superstition....

In my opinion it is better to try to breed healty population which is not "resistant" and bees die after 3 - 4 years because of infestation, and slowly develop resistance out of healty population. I'm sure that is not scientific enough - just superstition...





Oldtimer said:


> Please see post #129 where I briefly outlined.


You just made examples out of many of my statements.


----------



## 1102009

If you still want to put up with me and not burn me on a pyre 

OT, please tell me more about your knowledge:


> A true but misleading statement. Of course counting a hives mites has not made that hive healthier. But in the context of breeding from the best it does help a person to identify the best.


It has always been a doubt to me to compare the mite amount with resistance.
I rather watch the mite disease.
Is there some fact that the number of mites correlate with a hive`s crash? As I recall the asian and african honeybees have more mites but are still resistant?


----------



## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Sibylle, what is the state of things about velutina hornet in Germany? I have an idea that this exotic beast has already entered in some parts of Germany. What plan do german authorities and german beekeepers have to deal with the invasion?



They are seen and I heard the beekeepers kill them, since these hornets are not protected.
But since I don´t know for sure I will take some research first.


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes there is a correlation between mite numbers and health.

I know this because when I get sick hives with bad mite infestations I kill the mites and then watch the hives recover.

Sure people can argue over virus levels, virus types, what they claim happened 30 years ago and what they claim happens now. But it does not have to be that complicated. 

Oh, I don't count mites myself, perhaps i should but I'm lazy. I go purely by virus symptoms. But that's just because I've done enough mite counting and other work in the past to be able to look in a hive and get a fair idea what's happening.


----------



## 1102009

SiWolKe said:


> If you still want to put up with me and not burn me on a pyre
> 
> OT, please tell me more about your knowledge:
> 
> It has always been a doubt to me to compare the mite amount with resistance.
> I rather watch the mite disease.
> Is there some fact that the number of mites correlate with a hive`s crash? As I recall the asian and african honeybees have more mites but are still resistant?


What if we breed from the wrong hives, those which have less mites but no virus tolerance? Will we detect this tolerance early enough so we use the right colony in spring to breed from?

Oh, your post came first, sorry.


----------



## Oldtimer

Honestly, I do not know enough about virus tolerance to be able to answer that question. Virus tolerance in bees is a far more complex subject than you probably realise. At an individual level they have virtually no resistance to some viruses and nobody knows what to do about that. At a hive level they can flush the hive of viruses as old infested bees die off, long as the virus vector and source of infestation of new bees (ie the mites) is removed.

What I do know as a non scientist simple beekeeper, is that when there are thousands of little virus infested bugs walking around in a hive and injecting their viruses directly into the bees, you can expect problems.


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Yes there is a correlation between mite numbers and health.
> 
> I know this because when I get sick hives with bad mite infestations I kill the mites and then watch the hives recover.
> 
> Sure people can argue over virus levels, virus types, what they claim happened 30 years ago and what they claim happens now. But it does not have to be that complicated.
> 
> Oh, I don't count mites myself, perhaps i should but I'm lazy. I go purely by virus symptoms. But that's just because I've done enough mite counting and other work in the past to be able to look in a hive and get a fair idea what's happening.


That´s a very valuable post, thank you, OT.
So you see virus disease and reduce the mites, watch the hives recover.
Do those hives always have a high mite count or do you have hives with less mites, but sick in spite of it?


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Honestly, I do not know enough about virus tolerance to be able to answer that question. Virus tolerance in bees is a far more complex subject than you probably realise.


And that is the reason we should ignore that and count mites?????


----------



## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> So you see virus disease and reduce the mites, watch the hives recover.


Yes



SiWolKe said:


> Do those hives always have a high mite count or do you have hives with less mites, but sick in spite of it?


What specific sickness are you talking about? If mite vectored pathogens, the answer would be no.



BeesFromPoland said:


> And that is the reason we should ignore that and count mites?????


No


----------



## 1102009

Your faster than me in posting OT, you gave the answers.

How to select a hive for breeding seems to me very difficult. Varroa infestation shows it´s results in the second or even third year, as people tell me.( and I myself experience now)
So how to find out every year which is the best?
The harbo test is a test to estimate hygienic behavior, but not for VSH behavior. The trigger to VSH may be higher in a mite tolerant hive and express itself too late to use for the breeder.
The scientifically research often is too short a time to know for sure and done under artificial conditions.
Most breeders of resistant bees use a mite number level to sort out. Could it be that they sort out the best hives? The virus disease tolerant ones?


----------



## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> So how to find out every year which is the best?


Once I thought I knew most of the answer to that, but now I've learned enough to know that I don't. So cannot answer your question.

As to the rest of your post there are probably as many ways to assess mite resistance as there are breeders, although some methods are standardised and follow documented procedures such as cell opening to look at varroa families or family remains after uncapping and recapping and turning that into a percentage. However pretty much all methods have their faults or are at least incomplete in terms of getting sustainable results.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Once I thought I knew most of the answer to that, but now I've learned enough to know that I don't. So cannot answer your question.
> 
> As to the rest of your post there are probably as many ways to assess mite resistance as there are breeders, although some methods are standardised and follow documented procedures such as cell opening to look at varroa families or family remains after uncapping and recapping and turning that into a percentage. However pretty much all methods have their faults or are at least incomplete in terms of getting sustainable results.


So I presume that in Your opinion leaving apiary for natural selection is as at least as good as "scientific counting mites". Do I see it wrong?


----------



## Oldtimer

That is the simple answer, yes. Both ideas have their place. But there are a lot of other factors involved, which is why there are so many people who find one or other or both of these methods did not work for them.

But really, I am the wrong person to be asking these questions, I am no expert and my own effort at TF beekeeping was a failure. The only thing I did get right was being able to recognise that and know when to move on.


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## 1102009

You can´t do natural selection if you depend on the income.
It´s a privilege to have high losses for some time and high losses it will be.


----------



## Oldtimer

Agreed SiWolKe and if you are prepared to do that, good for you. But consider this. Every time your hive supersedes you lose 50% of the genetics. That is why Dee Lusby said in her opinion to breed a line of resistant bees it is necessary to have 600 hives as a self sustaining population.
If Dee is right, a person with less than 600 hives could do it, provided their neighbours have the same bees the person is trying to achieve. So it is nessecary to see what the neighbours are doing. There are some heartbreaking stories on Beesource of people steadily losing bees for years because they were trying to do it with a handful of hives, in the middle of other beekeepers who treated. Fact is, their task is impossible they will never succeed. Their options are requeen every year, or treat.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Agreed SiWolKe and if you are prepared to do that, good for you. But consider this. Every time your hive supersedes you lose 50% of the genetics. That is why Dee Lusby said in her opinion to breed a line of resistant bees it is necessary to have 600 hives as a self sustaining population.
> If Dee is right, a person with less than 600 hives could do it, provided their neighbours have the same bees the person is trying to achieve. So it is nessecary to see what the neighbours are doing. There are some heartbreaking stories on Beesource of people steadily losing bees for years because they were trying to do it with a handful of hives, in the middle of other beekeepers who treated. Fact is, their task is impossible they will never succeed. Their options are requeen every year, or treat.


And here we come back to the factor of genetics beeing responsible for all of this.

I have a lot of collegues that have "commercial bees" (I know: here is the factor of genetics), use "commercial management methods", stopped treating and failed. But there are very few stories I heard (maybe there were many - I know of a few) that people had "locally adapted mutts", tried to change their methods to "bees-friendly", and lost all their stock (some every year looses are normal - even with treating). 
I have copule of friends who try to change genetics to local, change methods to "bee friendly" (no migration, no feeding sugar, minimum disruptions, foundationless or even frameless beekeeping - etc etc) with less than 600 hives (some have 5, some have 10, some have about 50. I went into winter with 40). For now we don't loose every colony, we breed from survivers. We will see what will happen. 

I sometimes see that people want to have "resistant bees" and still do everything they did before. As a bee did not have any needs and requirements as a living organism. 
I'm sure You cannot connect being treatment free with beeing 100% commercial-methods-beekeeper. (I'm not saying to be 0% commercial, I'm saying we should respect more the needs of bees, not only the needs of beekeeper).


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> I sometimes see that people want to have "resistant bees" and still do everything they did before.


With BeeWeaver bees, you can. Other than commercial migratory who told me the Beeweavers got mites same as the other bees. But in a hobby situation they need no special attention to resist mites.

Why should TF bees be treated different than the person looked after his bees before? if he has to do stuff different in order to prop up the bees, is that not the same as treating?


----------



## BeesFromPoland

If You mean less disturbance to the bees, no foundation etc is a treatment, than for me it can be treatment - I don't care, it's all the same to me, it's just definition. But I wouldn't think beesource TF Forum defines less management as treatment...

Why should they be treated differently? Because treating them the same shows health problems and in effect they die. There are some factors that make organisms healthier - and being "left alone" in their natural habitat and leaving them choice to live their ways are those factors.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> there are scientific research showing sugar is harmful to the bees (so we should not feed artificial food)


Can you provide a link to a study?


----------



## BeesFromPoland

post 134 - several links


----------



## Hunajavelho

Why do YOU ignore facts that Juhani is telling you, he is one of the few who is telling the truth and actually has wirtten a "diary" about his losses, and the losses are big. There are not many in Europe who has done what he for so many years at a private expense. 

It is very easy to fall in a bubble nowadays (especially as new beekeeper), when you can read all the "good" things over the internet. A hive dies within six years left untreated - this is the truth. So you can try it and live in a bubble but at the end you will see that Juhani was right. There is no easy way, like collecting feral swarms. Swarms survive because they swarm, giving them a timeout nothing else. This does not mean they are resistant.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Hunajavelho said:


> Why do YOU ignore facts that Juhani is telling you, he is one of the few who is telling the truth and actually has wirtten a "diary" about his losses, and the losses are big. There are not many in Europe who has done what he for so many years at a private expense.


Who says we (I) ignore what Juhani is telling???
We (I) do not ignore that. I'm just saying that his bees still die in Poland (and in Finland as well). Why? Because local adaptation, management technigues, healty living conditions are equally important for health. 
Tell me then: Why do You ignore that???

I am telling the truth about my bees too. I have a blog (www.pantruten.blogspot.com - it's in Polish) in which I write for more than 2 years how bees die and how they survive. I know everything about big losses. In 2014 I lost all the apiary (23 colonies) - I have written that on my page. In 2015 I had to buy bees (including Juhani's queen) and today I have 40 colonies - I bought it for my money. I do it at my private expense, too. but I'm not selling my queens (which still die) to all over Europe saying "genetics is most important and my queens are good genetics". I'm saying: If You get queens from different places they may die because of different pests (like nosema, viruses) or because of bad adaptation (like bad wintering) even if they are "varroa resistant".
Again: why do You ignore that?




Hunajavelho said:


> It is very easy to fall in a bubble nowadays (especially as new beekeeper), when you can read all the "good" things over the internet. A hive dies within six years left untreated - this is the truth. So you can try it and live in a bubble but at the end you will see that Juhani was right. There is no easy way, like collecting feral swarms. Swarms survive because they swarm, giving them a timeout nothing else. This does not mean they are resistant.


I would be most happy if the hive liveed for six years untreated. Unfortunately today's "perfect queens" die mostly the first winter when left untreated (like Juhani's queens in my collegue's apiary. My one queen however lives... maybe she is good genetics).
If surviving means swarming - I'm ok with that. If swarming means 10 kg of honey instead of 30 - I'm ok with that. 
I don't care for "resistance" because it is only a wish or a dream of beekeepers. Bees are living organisms - and all organisms finally die. bees too. I care for surviving which may allow my amateur apiary to pay for itself, and I can have uncontaminated honey.


----------



## Fusion_power

> slowly develop resistance out of healthy population.


 This amounts to letting the susceptible colonies die leaving the resistant colonies to repopulate the area. This will be a very slow process in any area where beekeepers treat their colonies. The net effect is to just use the bees that are in your area and forget about using bees for pollination of food crops. Of all the things we humans do, the most important is breeding of animals and plants to our benefit. Your solution would starve people to death. IMO, it is far better to change the genetics gradually so that our food supply is not disrupted.


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## Eduardo Gomes

@BeesfromPoland
I greatly appreciate the work of those seeking to raise bees that are more resistant to diseases, particularly varroa mites.

That said, I treat my hives. Generally I have used the Apivar. I have already looked a lot on the net to find a credible study that has shown that dealing with Apivar according to the manufacturer's instructions increased the amitraz residues and their metabolites beyond 200 µg/kg (the MRL defined in Europe for amitraz & amitraz metabolites in honey). So far I have not found any. Can you show me this study?

Without that study I not therefore realize this statement from you: "I care for surviving which may allow my amateur apiary to pay for itself, *and I can have uncontaminated honey*."


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## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> post 134 - several links


There was only one real scientific study, in your list of several links, which was about sugars: the article of Nature.

The result of this study was: "Our results suggest that bees receive nutritional components from honey that are not provided by alternative food sources widely used in apiculture...These changes(in gene sxpression) *may *have toxicological relevance under natural conditions in contemporary agroecosystems, where bees are routinely exposed to toxins and pesticides."

This only real scientific study of Nature magazine was not a practical study. There were no results of sugar feeding having effects on honey bee length of life or diseases. Only the remark that "these changes may have toxicological relevance..."

If you cannot provide me any more studies of sugar feedings harmful effects I am really surprised.


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## 1102009

My dear friends!

Are we not able to respect each other`s different approaches?

You experienced ones, you started once yourself or changed your attitudes. Please let us make our own experiences.
I started this thread not to brag or attack anyone. I just wanted to tell about my approach. To tell you about my learning.

So please relax. Juhani, you are much respected, please leave others to their point of view. You started this tiring discussion. Start your own thread, people will love to learn from you.

It´s maybe a strange strategy to you but nobody so far does it like BfP or I will do in my area. Nobody knows what the bees will do if they are kept naturally.
All beekeepers, treating, tf, have losses. There are so many ways to keep bees. Why not read this diary with an open mind?

It may be that we fail. I will not treat but I don´t want my bees to die every year on me either. So maybe in the end I will use sugar dusting as a treatment because this I can tolerate.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> . but I'm not selling my queens (which still die) to all over Europe saying "genetics is most important and my queens are good genetics"
> .


Hello Sibylle! Sorry about not saying hello before. I have relatives living in Germany, but they might be HYBRID, crossings between German and Finnsih, freemated, so the Finnish genes have diluted the German politeness, sorry about that. Please forgive me! 


BfP: if you can give me e-mail address where to buy better bees, garanted no treatment for 8 years or longer, I´ll write and order rigth away, no matter what the price is, as you know, this is expensive.


----------



## crofter

SiWolKe said:


> My dear friends!
> 
> Are we not able to respect each other`s different approaches?


Sybylle; I think it is only with some difficulty. 

People really have very different inclinations about how they perceive and weigh reality as it presents itself. They often clash, but the net result is the amazing adaptability of our species. I think we all like to feel confirmation for our ideas and actions but the dependency on it varies person to person. 

I found the Meyers - Briggs personality analysis explains a lot about what makes people tick. I know the frustration of having to problem solve with a conflicting type rather than a complimentary type.

http://www.myersbriggs.org/type-use-for-everyday-life/mbti-type-at-work/


Making the ultimatum "I will not treat" would seem to make this just a bit less than a journey of discovery of what _is_ possible.

Best of luck,


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Hello Sibylle! Sorry about not saying hello before. I have relatives living in Germany, but they might be HYBRID, crossings between German and Finnsih, freemated, so the Finnish genes have diluted the German politeness, sorry about that. Please forgive me!
> 
> 
> BfP: if you can give me e-mail address where to buy better bees, garanted no treatment for 8 years or longer, I´ll write and order rigth away, no matter what the price is, as you know, this is expensive.


No offense taken. If you please remember the politeness?
I was once in finland as young girl, maybe I like to visit. beware! Eye to Eye I will tell you about your bees`conditions!

If BfP and I have our resistant stock you will get some queens for free. Promised.




> Making the ultimatum "I will not treat" would seem to make this just a bit less than a journey of discovery of what is possible.


I see treatments by others ( I work with them and we try to reduce treatments as much as possible) and I´m sorry once again to tell you I will never treat, if it´s not possible I will have no bees.
Thanks for the link, Frank. and for the wishes. I need luck for sure.

And since we are friends again, *civil* discussions are very welcome. There are no fools in the world except our governments ( or maybe some industries?)


----------



## 1102009

Oh the link is not working, Frank.


----------



## Oldtimer

Try this

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/


----------



## Oldtimer

Juhani Lunden said:


> There was only one real scientific study, in your list of several links, which was about sugars: the article of Nature.


I doubt that BfP even read the links before he posted them, because they were mostly a mix of opinion pieces and bad science. Some of the links had little to do with the subject, and one had nothing to do with the subject, I think he just googled a bunch of titles that looked good to him.

One of the links is a good example of bad science and should be exposed, at least in the context BfP is trying to use it. This link

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3202514/

BfP is saying this link shows sugar is bad for bees. But I don't think he read it properly, or maybe didn't read it at all. To read it, we see they got some groups of bees and held them at a certain temperature, and fed them 2 diets. One group got a complete diet of pollen and honey, and the other group got an incomplete diet of only sugar. Over time the numbers of dead bees were counted, and the group being fed only sugar had more deaths.

BrP thinks that proves sugar is bad for bees, but that it the kind of bad science I really don't like. Because using that method I could "prove" anything is bad. For example I could prove carrots are bad, by getting 2 groups of humans and feeding one group a balanced diet, and the other group only carrots. Over time, I am pretty sure that deaths in the carrot only group would start to get more, than deaths in the balanced diet group. According to the method used in that paper, I would have proved that carrots are bad.

We know bees need a balanced diet, and if bees are fed only sugar, they also need pollen. In fact if they are fed only honey, they also need pollen or the hive will dwindle away. Does this prove sugar, or honey, is bad? No, it proves bees need a balanced diet. 

So the links provided were a mix of opinion pieces such as the blogs and the facebook link, and other pieces that were off topic, or bad science.

Bottom line none of them said feeding sugar will cause bees to have varroa mite issues, I am still waiting for BfP to show me such a link. Which would need to be proper science not a facebook blog.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> BfP: if you can give me e-mail address where to buy better bees, garanted no treatment for 8 years or longer, I´ll write and order rigth away, no matter what the price is, as you know, this is expensive.


You don't understand what I'm writting, Juhani.
For You, probably the best are Your bees. Buying bees after 8 years of TF selection I would call unreasonable. Probably You will not find better for Yourself than Your bees.

If I can buy better from others? It is argueable if I find better. Maybe yes maybe not. 

If I can spend money better on bees than on Your queens? I have no doubt that I can. 

For Your one queen (which can die in transport, which can bee killed by bees, which can have problems laying eggs after stress of transport, which can die during the first winter etc etc etc), I can :
1. buy 6 - 8 hives or build myself 20 - 25
2. buy 15 nucs (or 25 from my friend who sells cheap)
3. buy about 10 queens from Erik Osterlund (if I'm not mistaken)
4. buy 6 - 10 wintered colonies
...

I don't want to be misunderstood. I think Your queens may have good (or even great) potential. Maybe even best potential I can find considering queens from other countries and places far from my local conditions.
I just don't believe that Your 8 years of guarantee_surviving_selection means my guarantee to have succesfull surviving population from one bought queen. Not because Your queens are bad. Because they are not adapted to my conditions. As I wrote before - my queen of Your stock lives, but 5 or 6 queens of my collegue's died left untreated. The guy I bought (as my collegue) that queen from as far as I know puts pesticides to the hives with Your queens... and I don't.

For now I just believe I have much bigger chances of success with what survives that winter in my apiary, than with any queen You may sell me.

Again: I don't want to be misunderstood. 
I didn't want to break in this discussion. I have much respect to You, and Your work. Even if I may find Your queens not perfect fitting for my project I respect even that You give example to others and show them it can be done in Europe. It is a big thing.
I, with my friends try to do the same in Poland - showing example and writting on our blogs how bees die, and how bees survive if left untreated. I have no idea if we have the same motivation, but we have the same goal.
I broke in this discussion, because You tried to downgrade what Sibylle wrote - just because she doesn't agree (as I don't) that inbreeding to get "resistance" is the best way. 
If I choose a person to be my mentor in beekeeping I'd rather read this on selection: http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswholebee.htm, instead of "scientific" breeding programs including artificial insemination and inbreeding population and counting mites. 
I just think differently about living organisms than You (and so does Sibylle). and You may think it's unscientific, but I agree with Michael Bush on that, and he wrote this:


> The appeal of selecting for very specific traits is that it seems so scientific. The problem is that it is not so scientific. Reality is that the genetic combinations that produce health, longevity, productivity etc. are not just one gene or one simple trait, they are a combination of many genes and many traits. The problem of breeding for specific traits is that you are not only missing the "forest for the trees" but you are missing the "forest for the" cells in the leaves on the trees. In other words you need to back up and get some perspective.


(sorry for long post...)


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> I doubt that BfP even read the links before he posted them (...)


I read them, however some time ago - I remembered they are on influence of diet and sugar on bees. 
I wrote in post 134:


> It's about diet, influence of sugar, gene expression in connection to diet etc


... I doubt that You even read what I have written, before You posted that.... 


but ok if You want. Sugar is perfect for bees (science did not prove otherwise). As inbreeding is..... (it's perfect for the health of population - science has proven that too, I guess....)


----------



## Oldtimer

Ok that's great you now seem to have admitted you cannot link any science that states sugar will cause bees to have a problem with varroa mites. Which is what I said in the first place before all this argument.



BeesFromPoland said:


> As inbreeding is..... (it's perfect for the health of population - science has proven that too, I guess....)


Where?


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Ok that's great you now seem to have admitted you cannot link any science that states sugar will cause bees to have a problem with varroa mites. Which is what I said in the first place before all this argument.


Did You read *any *of my words in this discussion?

I've written that feeding sugar may cause health deficiencies (as many other factors). and said that health problems may cause earlier death of bees from varroa problems even if they have less varroa....

ech... I love this internet discussions....


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes I know what you have written. I'm saying that just cos you wrote it, does not automatically make it to be true.

Actually to be fair BfP, I am not saying you are wrong about sugar, I am just saying you do not have scientific proof. Also my own practical experience is I can see no difference in health between my own hives not fed sugar, and the ones that are fed sugar. Long as they have enough of both sugar / honey, and pollen, all seems to go well. No pollen, things do not go well, regardless if they have sugar or honey.

Something else, you said this 
"If I choose a person to be my mentor in beekeeping I'd rather read this on selection: http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswholebee.htm "
Did you know your linked mentor M Bush will feed sugar?

In fact the don't feed sugar thing is an urban myth. Somebody somewhere said it one day, it's the kind of thing some people wanted to hear so they repeated it, and you know the story, repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> "If I choose a person to be my mentor in beekeeping I'd rather read this on selection: http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswholebee.htm "
> Did you know your linked mentor M Bush feeds sugar if needed?


Of course I know that. I feed sugar if needed too. I don't feed in summer (even if the bees don't have stores), but I do feed for winter if they don't have enough.
That doesn't mean MB thinks sugar is ok for bees. (the same with me)




Oldtimer said:


> In fact the don't feed sugar thing is an urban myth. Somebody somewhere said it one day, it's the kind of thing some people wanted to hear so they repeated it, and you know the story, repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth.


the same is with with "feed sugar urban myth". Somebody somewhere said it is ok, so everybody repeated it, and it became ok.... 
...Doesn't that work that way too?...


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> You don't understand what I'm writting, Juhani.
> For You, probably the best are Your bees. Buying bees after 8 years of TF selection I would call unreasonable. Probably You will not find better for Yourself than Your bees.
> 
> If I can buy better from others? It is argueable if I find better. Maybe yes maybe not.
> 
> If I can spend money better on bees than on Your queens? I have no doubt that I can.
> 
> For Your one queen (which can die in transport, which can bee killed by bees, which can have problems laying eggs after stress of transport, which can die during the first winter etc etc etc), I can :
> 1. buy 6 - 8 hives or build myself 20 - 25
> 2. buy 15 nucs (or 25 from my friend who sells cheap)
> 3. buy about 10 queens from Erik Osterlund (if I'm not mistaken)
> 4. buy 6 - 10 wintered colonies
> ...
> 
> I don't want to be misunderstood. I think Your queens may have good (or even great) potential. Maybe even best potential I can find considering queens from other countries and places far from my local conditions.
> I just don't believe that Your 8 years of guarantee_surviving_selection means my guarantee to have succesfull surviving population from one bought queen. Not because Your queens are bad. Because they are not adapted to my conditions. As I wrote before - my queen of Your stock lives, but 5 or 6 queens of my collegue's died left untreated. The guy I bought (as my collegue) that queen from as far as I know puts pesticides to the hives with Your queens... and I don't.
> 
> For now I just believe I have much bigger chances of success with what survives that winter in my apiary, than with any queen You may sell me.
> 
> Again: I don't want to be misunderstood.
> I didn't want to break in this discussion. I have much respect to You, and Your work. Even if I may find Your queens not perfect fitting for my project I respect even that You give example to others and show them it can be done in Europe. It is a big thing.
> I, with my friends try to do the same in Poland - showing example and writting on our blogs how bees die, and how bees survive if left untreated. I have no idea if we have the same motivation, but we have the same goal.
> I broke in this discussion, because You tried to downgrade what Sibylle wrote - just because she doesn't agree (as I don't) that inbreeding to get "resistance" is the best way.
> If I choose a person to be my mentor in beekeeping I'd rather read this on selection: http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswholebee.htm, instead of "scientific" breeding programs including artificial insemination and inbreeding population and counting mites.
> I just think differently about living organisms than You (and so does Sibylle). and You may think it's unscientific, but I agree with Michael Bush on that, and he wrote this:
> 
> 
> (sorry for long post...)


Ok, points understood.

Just for clarification: where on earth have you taken this idea that I ´m doing inbreeding?? Why would I ask you to tell me a beekeeper who can sell me 8 years untreated queens, if I would use inbreeding? No I want to use crossbreeding. Varroa resistance needs the maximum heterosis and that is not going to happen with inbreeding. I have never said I prefer inbreeding. That is strange you bring up this word inbreeding all the time, as it were the basic method used by me or other breeders. I cannot understand.

And one other thing: I don´t want anybody to buy my queens. If I wanted to sell queens, I would lower the price. Once more: I don´t want you to buy my queens. It is a bad idea. But we, you and I, need more resistant stocks, that is why I´m always interested in getting my hands on new untreated material. The new queens need to be tested first of course, in my circumstanses. If they are good, they are crossed. Often they get AFB and are no good for breeding. One queen tells nothing for sure, you need more. Sadly there are not many places where queens are for sale which are from 8 years or more untreated stock. Josef Koller, Hartmut Schneider and Jürgen Brausse, they are the only names to my knowledge, since Paul Jungels is not selling queens. But I suppose your and Sibylles minds are set in such a manner, that the idea of getting good bees from these guys to start with is not a good idea. It would make Sibylles life so much more easier. But I understand if she refuses my advise. I have never read anything scientific papers of La Palma bees resistance.


----------



## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> the same is with with "feed sugar urban myth". Somebody somewhere said it is ok, so everybody repeated it, and it became ok....
> ...Doesn't that work that way too?...


No it's not something that someone with 2 hives just said one day and people repeated it. It's something that myself and others do. 

Now you tell me you even feed sugar yourself? Sometimes I wonder why all these arguments?


----------



## aunt betty

Treatment free at all costs?

In my opinion, treatment free or otherwise, a successful beekeeper must know about queen rearing, splits, and have the ability to create more bees from the resources in the apiary. You will have to rise from the ashes annually. Maybe you should name your operation Phoenix Apiaries.


----------



## 1102009

aunt betty said:


> Treatment free at all costs?
> 
> In my opinion, treatment free or otherwise, a successful beekeeper must know about queen rearing, splits, and have the ability to create more bees from the resources in the apiary. You will have to rise from the ashes annually. Maybe you should name your operation Phoenix Apiaries.


I know many small phoenix apiaries then , not many tf because I have only 3 friends tf since 2012, but many treating. The basics of beekeeping I know but still have to learn much. But if I wanted to manipulate the profit out of bees I would surely have to learn much more than I maybe want to.



> But I suppose your and Sibylles minds are set in such a manner, that the idea of getting good bees from these guys to start with is not a good idea.


The LaPalma descendants and mother are all still alive, really a miracle, because I thought they would be the first to go. Let´s wait and see. The mother is survivor stock, not trait bred. Well maybe sc build trait bred.

I know of Josef Kollers Bees, but I wanted to try elgons on small cell and got them from my friend. This year. He has got one queen from Erik and one from Josef. Erik`s is the mother of mine.
The one which still lives. The death of the other was my fault, they were on one deep and filled this completely with honey, froze on honey filled brood comb. I should have checked late fall once again. Not varroa!
The elgons with my friend still live. This is the third winter.
He had a LaPalma AMM like me but in bavaria they do not overwinter well and he gave them away.

The carnis, their descendants, came from Christian Wurm, if my former mentor spoke the truth. CW has no website but he is active in "Apisnetz" forum, if you want to look him up.

*So, Juhani, your words are kind, but two years ago I started with good bees! Not local mutts, ok? I paid 200€ for each established hive which was tf for some years and I wrote about this several times in this thread if you want to remember! Sorry to be loud. i apologize!
Now this "good bees" show they are not good ( the carnis)! But maybe they are, since I made management mistakes!This management mistakes I did because I followed orders! But I am to blame not to use my brain!*

A mite biting queen from Alois Wallner cost 75€. Even he himself says he could not guarantee resistance in a new location!
An established hive of local mutts cost 50-80 €, an artificial swarm I could have for 20€ or for free.

Alois Wallners queen I would try though if I had to start new. Same climate.


----------



## GBF

SiWolKe said:


> How to select a hive for breeding seems to me very difficult. Varroa infestation shows it´s results in the second or even third year, as people tell me.( and I myself experience now)
> So how to find out every year which is the best?


To select a hive is the second step, to have one that it earned to be selected is more important thing. Usualy it has to be the hive with a queen that worked out for two seasons with no reduction at all. It must be a strong, healthy and a good honey producing colony. Then you don't need to count mites with such a hive, its productivity tells for itself..


----------



## GBF

BeesFromPoland said:


> .genetics is most important .


genetic is very important, because what you see with your eyes(phenotype
) is hidden in dna. But to understand and to work with genetic is not easy.


----------



## GBF

BeesFromPoland said:


> I would be most happy if the hive liveed for six years untreated. Unfortunately today's "perfect queens" die mostly the first winter when left untreated (like Juhani's queens in my collegue's apiary. My one queen however lives... maybe she is good genetics).


Usualy a queen productivity is standing for two years, then it fade out.. When a queen is choosen as the breeder than it has a sens to keep more than two years, but in other cases it needs to re-queen hives.


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## GBF

Oldtimer said:


> . proper science


Where is that proper science that tells us - don't treat honey bees?....


----------



## 1102009

GBF said:


> genetic is very important, because what you see with your eyes(phenotype
> ) is hidden in dna. But to understand and to work with genetic is not easy.


Yes. To work with survivors is much easier.


----------



## 1102009

GBF said:


> Usualy a queen productivity is standing for two years, then it fade out.. When a queen is choosen as the breeder than it has a sens to keep more than two years, but in other cases it needs to re-queen hives.


Please give the link to science which proves this.


----------



## 1102009

GBF said:


> Where is that proper science that tells us - don't treat honey bees?....



No science. Consciousness and love of nature.


----------



## GBF

BeesFromPoland said:


> . but 5 or 6 queens of my collegue's died left untreated.


 Here is one beek who in 2015 bought 4 queens daughters from Poland beek which declared that had (JL) resistant queen, so 3 queens died in december 2015, and 1 went winter alive but didn't develop and had AFB and he put her down in summer 2016...


----------



## GBF

Oldtimer said:


> .
> 
> In fact the don't feed sugar thing is an urban myth. Somebody somewhere said it one day, it's the kind of thing some people wanted to hear so they repeated it, and you know the story, repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth.


That is not Myth... But not popular thing... Here are some beeks that declared that don't feed with sugar but but they are a minority..


----------



## GBF

SiWolKe said:


> Please give the link to science which proves this.


I don't know if there is a science on such a thing, but telling this from my experience.. Treatment free stock is under pressure and don't need to wait from them phenomenal longevity..


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## Fusion_power

A cold winter day.

Something warm to drink.

A good topic to argue about with friends.

What more could a beekeeper ask for.

I'm in the camp that says feeding sugar should be done on a limited basis. I've kept bees with minimal sugar feeding until this year. In my efforts to expand number of colonies, I pushed my bees to the point they were not able to properly provision their hives for winter. A season long drought compounded the problems because there was very little fall nectar available. Why is feeding sugar bad? I don't see it causing anything other than a certain amount of stress on the bees. That stress can cause significant problems, especially if a large amount of sugar is fed late in the fall. Bees that work to mature syrup into winter stores do not live as long as bees that did not have that extra stress. Please note the key words here "large amount of sugar" and "late in the fall". I do one thing that appears to help quite a bit. I mix lower grade honey with the syrup which seems to make it easier for the bees to convert.

Sibylle, How will you avoid becoming depressed by the constant failure such as with the carni hives?


----------



## Oldtimer

Fusion_power said:


> Bees that work to mature syrup into winter stores do not live as long as bees that did not have that extra stress.


That's the story, and I've heard it before, maybe it's even true. But I don't know because I've never seen proof of it. Did someone connect with the converter bees and record how long they lived?

But let's say it's true. How would it compare with the wear and tear on bees collecting a similar amount of nectar?


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## Oldtimer

GBF said:


> Where is that proper science that tells us - don't treat honey bees?....


I give up? You tell me.


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## Redhawk

You people are just going bonkers here. Of course you treat honey bees. Period. Treat them with all the respect, love, & honor you treat people. We are no bigger gear in the machine of life than they are. And maybe treat them to a sweet Native American flute at bedtime. At the end of the day, we all end up in our own environments attempting to do what we believe will be the best for them in our place & time. There is no silver bullet. But you really should try my treatment method. It works. :lookout:


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## trishbookworm

Sybille, thank you for sharing in such detail your methods. You can see so many are learning to ask very important questions like how (and whether) to monitor mite levels, or to instead monitor expression of DWV... 

But I understand your skepticism for what a peer-reviewed paper can actually do for us. here's an example: a paper titled "Small-cell comb does not control Varroa mites in colonies of honeybees of European origin" . The author used 14 colonies, from packages, and only observed them for 3 months. All drone comb was cut before there was any brood, and so many other details are so different from how people ACTUALLY manage an apiary that the work is pretty useless. Does it answer the question about whether small celled comb helps a hive survive varroa mites? Only if you assume the measurements were really going to predict a colony that survived (or didn't) if allowed to go through the winter. We all know the bees constantly surprise us.

For the record, I have top bar hives, which means natural comb. This is my colonies' first winter (my second). went from one feral queen from a swarm that came from across the street somewhere in 2015, to 4 hives, thanks to more swarms this year. I chose top bar hives because I don't want to lift boxes and I don't want to buy frames. We'll see! 

But there are some really interesting papers, like this one Inegemar Fries: http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/abs/2006/05/m6039/m6039.html She has looked at survival of 150 colonies over 6 years with no treatment - or management. After the 4th year, the population was at 8 colonies. After that, 11 colonies. Sounds similar to Juhani's experience of starting with 120 hives... so resistance can appear, but it is costly if you are not starting with resistant ferals or bred queens...

So should people make sure there is a brood break, impose one if necessary, to succeed treatment free? No one has asked that question AND started with a population that wasn't a package or already heavily mite infested (I think - still searching...). That's the question I am asking myself, for my specific circumstances, and what I should measure so I can link a later outcome with an earlier clue about how to manage the bees so I get honey and survival. 

I am so thankful there are brave people like Sybille here (and squarepeg, and JWchestnut, and so many others...) who put their management down for all to see, and of course comment on! Us treatment free people are blazing trails, and info about dead ends (or good paths) are all incredibly valuable right now. 

Please do share specifics if you find useful published work... there's a nugget of gold in there somewhere... sometimes...


----------



## 1102009

Hi, trish, welcome and thanks for your kindness. Thanks for posting your records, please go on. I´m changing to natural comb next year and I´m very interested.

I´ve got those link you posted already and I´m translating the efforts and research into german to use on my forum right now. But thanks anyway, I´m grateful.

I think you do just right and wish you luck. Maybe you should read what Nordak posts, he is using top bar and natural comb and uses swarm bees and others. 
I always enjoy to talk to him.



> Sibylle, How will you avoid becoming depressed by the constant failure such as with the carni hives?


Dar, I`ve got the mind of a researcher myself ( in a more practical way, by using trail and error) and as long as I have some bees, tf, I will never be depressed. Even not starting again, but if a new start is my destiny I will jump into the cold water and buy 8-10 carni colonies of local adapted treated mutts and regress them.

This will really give me some knowledge about bees and mites. Why not? If the tf resistant bred bees I have now will not survive? Nothing to loose, much to gain, that´s my opinion.



> Treat them with all the respect, love, & honor you treat people.


Redhawk, as usual you are a healer to my soul. Thanks.


----------



## 1102009

I would like to share with you part of the last mail I got from the bee club. The apiary mentioned is kind of mentoring the club.


> www.bienenzuchtbedarf-seip.de
> 
> Liebe Imkerfreunde,
> 
> _Dear beekeeper friends,_
> 
> aufgrund der aktuellen Wetterlage sind wir der Meinung, dass jetzt der richtige Zeitpunkt gekommen ist die Winterbehandlung mit Oxalsäure durchzuführen.
> Vor einigen Wochen hatten wir leichten bis strengen Frost. Die Völker sollten deshalb jetzt brutfrei sein. Aktuell haben wir Temperaturen leicht über 0 Grad.
> Das heißt, die Bienen sitzen schön eng in der Wintertraube und die Varroabehandlung mit Oxalsäure kann optimal und mit größt möglichem Erfolg durchgeführt werden.
> 
> _because of our recent temperature we are convinced this is the right time to do our winter treatment with oxalic acid
> Some weeks ago we had frost. That means the colonies should be without brood. Now we have temperature slightly above 0°C
> This means a tight cluster and an optimal treatment with the best success against the mite._
> 
> Wir haben in unserer Imkerei in den letzten Tagen alle Völker kontrolliert und dabei mit erschrecken festgestellt, dass wir einige Stände rund um Ebersgöns haben, wo jetzt schon fast 40% der Völker tot sind.
> In dieser massiven Form kennen wir das nicht.
> Das hatten wir auch noch niemals in unserer Imkerei,
> dass wir zu diesem Zeitpunkt so viele tote Völker
> zu beklagen hatten.
> 
> _We checked our hives the last days and realizes with shock that we have some bee yards around E. where 40% of all hives are dead.
> We never experienced something like this before.
> We never had so much deadouts at this time of year._
> 
> Auf den Außenständen ist dagegen alles "normal". Da bewegen sich die Verluste im absolut
> normalen Rahmen.
> 
> _At the bee yards in the field everything is normal. Normal numbers of losses._
> 
> Wir können es aktuell überhaupt nicht erklären,
> woher diese Völkerverluste kommen.
> 
> _This day we are not able to explain these losses._
> 
> Unsere erste Idee war "VARROA":
> Aber das kann es eigentlich nicht sein, denn alle Völker wurden gleichzeitig und gleichmäßig behandelt.
> Darüber hinaus sehen die toten Völker nicht nach "Varroaschaden" aus.
> 
> _Our first idea was VARROA.
> But this can`t be because all hives were treated the same time and correctly.
> The deadouts don´t look like varroa damaged hives._
> 
> Winterfutter:
> Alle Völker wurden gleichmäßig aufgefüttert und haben das Futter gut abgenommen.
> Alle toten Völker haben genügend Wintervorrat in den Waben.
> 
> _All hives were fed correctly and were able to store it in a good way
> All dead colonies are well provided still._
> 
> Bienenwachs:
> Wir halten unsere Bienen ausschließlich auf BIO Waben oder pestizidarmen Waben.
> Das Bienenwachs ist 100% rein und garantiert nicht verfälscht.
> 
> _Beeswax. Our bees are on organic wax and not much contaminated by pesticides.
> The wax is 100% pure and not mixed ( we had that wax scandal, as you will remember)_
> 
> Andere Ursachen:
> Leider haben wir aktuell noch keine richtige Idee woher die Verluste kommen.
> Natürlich arbeiten wir daran und halten Sie unterrichtet wenn wir etwas
> wirklich verwertbares herausfinden sollten.
> 
> _Other cause:
> We are sorry to say we have no idea why those losses occurred.
> We will work on it and will inform you if we find out something useful_


They saw the same phenomena like I did. Empty hives, almost no brood or no brood, almost no dead bees, dead queen present, full of stores.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

GBF said:


> Usualy a queen productivity is standing for two years, then it fade out.. When a queen is choosen as the breeder than it has a sens to keep more than two years, but in other cases it needs to re-queen hives.


I don't look at bees as at productive machines. I don't care if the queen is productive or not (at least for now). If she survives - she deserves to live in my apiary - even if I won't have honey out of that hive at all. If she would live beeing "unproductive" for 3, 4 or 5 years this means she is worth keeping (even for drones) since she would manage to live for that long time treatment free. 
It's my present attitude, and I hope it won't change. 





Juhani Lunden said:


> Ok, points understood.
> 
> Just for clarification: where on earth have you taken this idea that I ´m doing inbreeding?? Why would I ask you to tell me a beekeeper who can sell me 8 years untreated queens, if I would use inbreeding? No I want to use crossbreeding. Varroa resistance needs the maximum heterosis and that is not going to happen with inbreeding. I have never said I prefer inbreeding. That is strange you bring up this word inbreeding all the time, as it were the basic method used by me or other breeders. I cannot understand.



.... really??? You don't know where on earth I have taken that from??

I have taken that from here http://www.saunalahti.fi/lunden/varroakertomus.html (I think it still is "on earth"?)

4.08.2013:


> I have had some fears, that inbreeding is slowly having an impact on our stock. But because the stock has changed its character and is making much smaller hives nowadays, and they all are taking out brood, it’s hard to say, when there is inbreeding in case. There is however one sign, which has made the alarm: this year there has been quite many hives, which have a free mated queen AND they are the best hives on their yards. This has not usually been the case previously.


(You made observation Yourself comparing isolated hives and free mated)

11.10.2014


> Same type of problems continue as previous years.* Hives develop very slowly and it is hard to make nucs because they are not strong enough. Nucs develop slowly and some more evidence of inbreeding has shown*.
> It seems that the fact we only make max one nuc out of one hive, has made life harder for the bees. Before 2013 we made 2 or even 3 nucs out of one strong hive.


25.09.2015


> Winterlosses were unbeliavable 70%.


besides quotes on insemination 
2006:


> Matings are done with two *isolation *apiaries. Isolation apiaries are tested to be very sure: mating hives are taken to these places without drones, there are no laying queens in 3-4 weeks. *There will be more instrumental insemination in the coming years*. This is because the risks are getting bigger: one wrong choice, *one drone-line that is not working as expected, would be a big hit back.*


2007


> his is a huge change in my beekeeping: For the last 13 years, in all my hives, I have had queens, which were mated in isolation apiaries or were inseminated. As a general rule free mated queens have not been tolerated: they were changed immediately. The matings in these isolation apiaries have been sk. “sistermatings” in most cases during 1995-2007. *The queens in drone hives have been sisters.*


2012


> I have also measured that they might have some higher mite numbers than others. *This is somewhat strange because this material is mainly my own.*


2014


> I have made up my mid to change the whole managing system in 2015. Details are still to be worked out, but the main thing *is that I give up using Haukkamaa isolation station as main component in our system *and start with natural matings and *more inseminations.*


This means for me that You are aware all the time that inbreeding takes place, that it makes Your stock weaker. You tell from 2008 that You have to change, but still keep up inseminating "by hand" or in isolated apiaries where only Your drones  are. Yes, You tell, that diversity is important, but You don't act in this direction (as far as Your blog is concerned), because You say all the time, that "isolating" Your population doesn't mix with genes. Every couple of Years You write that You see bad influence of inbreeding and You have to change that, and years later You write the same.

If You choose that path - it's ok with me. But You say that others' methods are bad, but still You have basic health problems in apiary - not connected to varroa, but to health problems connected to inbreeding. 
I don't know, maybe it is the good way to succes in TF in Europe. Maybe only way. - but surely it is not a way to healty population. 

I'm not saying You choose inbreeding as a tool. I'm saying that Your methods leed to inbreeding. it's just "apiary engeneering".
Don't misunderstand me: It's totally ok for me as long as it serves Your purpose. These are Your methods and they are not of my interest. I'm just writting this because You look down on Sibylle, and try to downgrade methods of others. (and now I'm just answering Your question where I have taken this from)


Another example from my apiary:
I had 2 cases of young queens that started to lay eggs without mating flight. The weather was ok, and they started to lay only a week after they have hatched (so they had a long more time to do flights). Yet they "choose" to start laying (of course drone eggs in worker cells). They were both daughters of Your-stock queen, and that didn't happen with any other bees in my beeyards (I would agree with the weather problems, but why didn't they wait?). It is a case only with these bees (Yes, I know : not scientific since only 2 cases). Knowing Your blog, and Your own thoughts I presume this is an effect of inbreeding problems (Yes I know: might have been 1000 of reasons for that. What I can tell only: they looked ok, they had wings, they moved on comb normally - one of them even flight away when I took her out of the hive and escaped me etc)





Juhani Lunden said:


> And one other thing: I don´t want anybody to buy my queens. If I wanted to sell queens, I would lower the price. Once more: I don´t want you to buy my queens. It is a bad idea. But we, you and I, need more resistant stocks, that is why I´m always interested in getting my hands on new untreated material. The new queens need to be tested first of course, in my circumstanses. If they are good, they are crossed. Often they get AFB and are no good for breeding. One queen tells nothing for sure, you need more. Sadly there are not many places where queens are for sale which are from 8 years or more untreated stock. Josef Koller, Hartmut Schneider and Jürgen Brausse, they are the only names to my knowledge, since Paul Jungels is not selling queens. But I suppose your and Sibylles minds are set in such a manner, that the idea of getting good bees from these guys to start with is not a good idea. It would make Sibylles life so much more easier. But I understand if she refuses my advise. I have never read anything scientific papers of La Palma bees resistance.


No Juhani, You still don't understand our approach. Our minds are "not set in such manner". For a start I bought queens from Erik Osterlund, and from Your stock (and some local mutts). Sibylle bought bees from TF apiary, she has elgons too. We do not "fear" these queens. I admitted that it is a good start. But start only. Not solution. The rest are *local* survivors (genetics) + methods (management) + natural conditions (clean wax, honey not sugar etc). Because her (or mine) local survivors now are much better than Your foreign genetics. If I have to buy bees again I would do the same as I did: finding some "resistant" queens for a start + local muts, and breed from survivors with free mating and natural selection. We believe that "apiary engeneering" doesn't meet the needs of living organisms for a longer time (maybe for a start it is good). 





Oldtimer said:


> Now you tell me you even feed sugar yourself? Sometimes I wonder why all these arguments?


Arguments are because You and Juhani try to discredit anything that is not pure-scientific-proven-genetics-developement-breeding-program. 
I have only written that genetics is important but there are more factors of health of organisms (including diet) - You started to ask all the time about science, like science had proven sugar is best for bees, and You can take any "resistant genetics" to any place on earth and they would survive...
This is why are these arguments...

(again sorry for long post...)


----------



## BeesFromPoland

GBF said:


> SiWolKe said:
> 
> 
> 
> They saw the same phenomena like I did. Empty hives, almost no brood or no brood, almost no dead bees, dead queen present, full of stores.
> 
> 
> 
> The same happened in my apiary in 2014 - all dead.
> In 2015 my friend lost about 50 out of 60 hives that way. Some had little varroa because it was "resistant stock" (e.g. from Alois Wallner). Yet they died off treatments.
> For me it's a good summary on "resistant" (but foreign) genetics...
Click to expand...


----------



## 1102009

BFP
He is really hardcore isn`t he? I´m a lamb besides him.


----------



## 1102009

BeesFromPoland said:


> The same happened in my apiary in 2014 - all dead.
> In 2015 my friend lost about 50 out of 60 hives that way. Some had little varroa because it was "resistant stock" (e.g. from Alois Wallner). Yet they died off treatments.
> For me it's a good summary on "resistant" (but foreign) genetics...



I believe it could be CCD, but I don´t know what CCD is. The bees know. They abscond because they are tired of being kept.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

SiWolKe said:


> BFP
> He is really hardcore isn`t he? I´m a lamb besides him.


I'm sure it is not a virtue... 




SiWolKe said:


> I believe it could be CCD, but I don´t know what CCD is. The bees know. They abscond because they are tired of being kept.


You can call that anything You want... They are just unadapted... Who knows what it is? nosema, varroa, other pests...?

In 2014 my friend lost that way all apiary (43 colonies). He treated them with amitraz. He gave dead bees to be examined - no particular reason for their death was found... (some nosema, some varroa - but small infestation of both).


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

"Our first idea was VARROA.
But this can`t be because all hives were treated the same time and correctly."

My experience tells me that in an apiary treated equally some hives remain heavily infested and others not after treatment. Control during and after treatment has helped me save most of the colonies where the treatment was less effective. So far my mortality rate this fall/winter by varroa is 0,5 %.

The most credible hypothesis I have to explain this scenario is that at the beginning of treatment the hives have different rates of parasitism by the varroa mite and some have more cap brood than others. These two internal beehive conditions apparently determine the success or failure of my treatments.


----------



## beepro

In a cold, snowing winter environment the carnis bees must have a decent size softball
colony without the mites to interfere with their new winter broods or big fat winter bees. Also the
new mated queen must be less than 6 months of age, 3 is even better. The reason being, in the winter
months the queen continue to lay in smaller patches of the new broods to replenish the hive population a little.
When the tf hives have a high mite level then the infestation rate is higher, therefore preventing the winter bees
from building up. As a result the cold will get to them since they're a smaller cluster now not able to generate enough
heat to keep them going until next Spring time. Also, in a 2 deeps winter set up as long as the queen continued to lay in
smaller patches the cluster will not move away from the broods. Without honey or sugar bricks at within reach the bees cannot
take up the calories needed to warm up themselves. How can they feed if it is cold, the broods at the lower deep and honey deep is
way high up not within reach? And you did not provide enough Lauri's sugar bricks on top of the brood nest for them either.
After knowing this now, my winter strategy because of the arctic chills going on now, is to provide sugar bricks on top along with 
high protein patty subs and loose sugar poured on the bottom 
board in a deep hive box only. This way all food sources are within reach top and bottom. Seeing them munching on the loose sugar at the bottom really give me a peace of mind. And I only overwinter in 4-5 frames of bees because having a large cluster will eat up the winter stores too fast while not able to fetch the honey from the top deep box. Keep them warm and cozy all compacted in a deep with food source close by not far far away from the cluster. The cluster should not travel but stay put where the food is at.
If our observation is true that the bees will learn the resistant traits from the older bees, then having only a resistant queen will not work. Perhaps buy the entire hive with resistant already built in as a complete hive. This way all the bees can learn from the other resistant bees. I've often thought about this issue but can never prove yet. Maybe one day I can buy the entire package along with the resistant queen from the mite biting suppliers. 
Now that the amm is the most survivor from the rest, your next available option is to see which hives will have the least DWVs in the Spring orientation flights. From this you can select the breeder to graft (a faster way to make queens) and make the resistant drones in your local area. Always select from the strongest build up hives in the Spring time with the least mites possible for the daughter queens. 
After the last cap brood frames manipulation I have many healthy bee hives now. The mites got pushed to one nuc hive to let the bees deal with them. At least this way many hives can survive to make the resistant selection better in the Spring time. How can the colony not survive when after all the mites got
removed with manipulation this way? Only time will tell if my method is correct! If not then back to the drawing board again, at least I still have bees to keep for another expanding year. Will keep you posted.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> This means for me that You are aware all the time that inbreeding takes place, that it makes Your stock weaker. You tell from 2008 that You have to change, but still keep up inseminating "by hand" or in isolated apiaries where only Your drones  are. Yes, You tell, that diversity is important, *but You don't act in this direction *(as far as Your blog is concerned), because You say all the time, that "isolating" Your population doesn't mix with genes. Every couple of Years You write that You see bad influence of inbreeding and You have to change that, and years later You write the same.
> 
> I'm not saying You choose inbreeding as a tool. I'm saying that Your methods leed to inbreeding. it's just "apiary engeneering".
> Don't misunderstand me: It's totally ok for me as long as it serves Your purpose.


 
I have taken every measure to combine two things:
- varroa resistance getting better by combining the best motherlines with the best fatherlines
- avoiding inbreeding

If you have read some breeding literature, you know that these two things go together. Combining the best with the best, to get the best advancing in the population, brings the possibility for inbreeding. 

Inbreeding is the worst nightmare to me as a breeder. Since I am so afraid of it, I look carefully if I can find proof of it. And tell others, so they should be alert too. Since my bees take out brood so much, it is very hard to say if spotty brood is a sign of inbreeding or is it a good sign of bees taking out larvae. It is definitely not a tool for me, even it is used as a tool in many other breeding programs. In fact it is a very effective tool, but does not suit in varroa resistance breeding.

What were my choises? How could I have done differently:

-* free mating *would dilute all varroa resistance away and choosing right breeder queens would be much more difficult or impossible. Free mating in beedensity of Germany (680 000 hives in an area just somewhat greater than Finland, we have 60 000 hives) as you propagate is making every breeding efford useless, unless you can have some control of drones. Despite this in 2008 I used free mating.

-* isolation mating* with sister queens is the best method as long as you have enough hives and unrelated material. And since there are so few treatment free beekeepers, new material is hard to get. An that is why I asked you if you know anyone!
This method was in some years changed so that we had several fartherlines in the mating yard. To avoid inbreeding. 

- *inseminations* are of course always done between unrelated bees, and does not raise inbreeding, on the contrary. In the last two years I have been forced to use inseminations because of the rainy summers during mating season.

My beestock is a combination of Italian bee, Finnish Black bee, Buckfast bees from Sweden and Luxembourg, Primorski bee, VSH bee from USA, Elgon bee, South American bee from Columbia. I have been doing something to avoid inbreeding. Do You have more diversity?

And although You have read my diary and then come to the conclusion that I have not taken measures to avoid inbreeding, I must conclude that a human reads and understands what they want.


----------



## 1102009

beepro said:


> Also the
> new mated queen must be less than 6 months of age, 3 is even better.
> 
> That´s my only surviving carni queen so far. Good to know.
> 
> When the tf hives have a high mite level then the infestation rate is higher, therefore preventing the winter bees
> from building up.
> 
> I saw no signs in fall, but could be the reason. I´m with you.
> 
> As a result the cold will get to them since they're a smaller cluster now not able to generate enough
> heat to keep them going until next Spring time.
> 
> Also, in a 2 deeps winter set up as long as the queen continued to lay in
> smaller patches the cluster will not move away from the broods. Without honey or sugar bricks at within reach the bees cannot
> take up the calories needed to warm up themselves. How can they feed if it is cold, the broods at the lower deep and honey deep is
> way high up not within reach?
> 
> They still had much honey on top of the bottom box , they were in the bottom box and the heat was in top box, not good. But I found not much frozen bees.
> 
> And you did not provide enough Lauri's sugar bricks on top of the brood nest for them either.
> 
> No need. 20-30kg of honey all around the cluster. The cluster will break every 2-3 weeks. The one deep hives I will check early spring, they had much honey on top in fall though.
> 
> 
> If our observation is true that the bees will learn the resistant traits from the older bees, then having only a resistant queen will not work. Perhaps buy the entire hive with resistant already built in as a complete hive. This way all the bees can learn from the other resistant bees. I've often thought about this issue but can never prove yet.
> 
> I bought only established hives with the carnis.
> 
> Now that the amm is the most survivor from the rest, your next available option is to see which hives will have the least DWVs in the Spring orientation flights. From this you can select the breeder to graft (a faster way to make queens) and make the resistant drones in your local area. Always select from the strongest build up hives in the Spring time with the least mites possible for the daughter queens.
> 
> Yes. Thanks for the good advise.
> 
> Will keep you posted.
> 
> Please do!


Thanks Eduardo. Very good comment. I will copy this into my forum if you allow.


----------



## 1102009

Sorry beepro, I have two carni queens surviving so far. The new one and one original 2015 marked queen.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> My beestock is a combination of Italian bee, Finnish Black bee, Buckfast bees from Sweden and Luxembourg, Primorski bee, VSH bee from USA, Elgon bee, South American bee from Columbia. I have been doing something to avoid inbreeding. Do You have more diversity?


Inbreeding has nothing to do with different lines of bees introduced to apiary. 
Inbreeding is about the numbers of gene versions (allels) in the population (or organism). 
You may have 100 bees on the start, but if You choose narrower and narrower gene pule every year, than in 10 - 15 years (Your project lasts for 15 as You say), the number of allels and gene combinations may be very reduced. So it doesn't matter if the bee is from Africa or Asia or USA - it matters if it mates with "brothers", "sisters", "uncles", "aunts" every next and next generation, and if their genes (that have the same origin) combine. I'm sure You know that. 

Do I have more lines of bees to start with? No, but I'm not in concern if my apiary is or may be inbred, because I don't reduce number of allels in the population by narrowing gene pule every generation. 




Juhani Lunden said:


> And although You have read my diary and then come to the conclusion that I have not taken measures to avoid inbreeding, I must conclude that a human reads and understands what they want.


I just read Your words, and draw my conclusions (maybe wrong conclusions), but these are Your concernes about weakening population on Your webpage.
Again You put Your words in my thoughts here. I didn't write that You have not taken measures. I've written that You Yourself have concerns that Your stock is weakening, and that "more evidence of inbreeding has shown".


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> but You don't act in this direction (as far as Your blog is concerned),





BeesFromPoland said:


> I didn't write that You have not taken measures.


??


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> Do I have more lines of bees to start with? No, but I'm not in concern if my apiary is or may be inbred, because I don't reduce number of allels in the population by narrowing gene pule every generation.


I´m eager to learn how your are going to accoplish breeding better varroa resistance without narrowing gene pool. No breeder has so far done it, at least without 600+ hives.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> but You don't act in this direction (as far as Your blog is concerned),
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't write that You have not taken measures.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> ??
Click to expand...

ok. I put it in wrong way.
You got some foreign genetics (that is taking measures), but in years You acted the same with this genetics - You narrowed it again, and didn't allow it to mix in the stock, but controlled it. so it may have helped for one or two generations.

Juhani I'm not Your enemy. I respect You. I try to defend different point of view, because Yours and others' have pros and cons. 





Juhani Lunden said:


> I´m eager to learn how your are going to accoplish breeding better varroa resistance without narrowing gene pool. No breeder has so far done it, at least without 600+ hives.


I thought I was pretty clear that I don't intend to accomplish breeding varroa resistance... 

I think "varroa resistance" is like Holy Grail, Fairy Tale, Dream, fantasy - call it whatever You want and like. 

Michael Bush wrote on different forum: 


> Some comedian, whose name I forget, was talking about his "water resistant" watch. He asked the salesperson what the difference was between water resistant and waterproof. The salesperson said water would ruin the water resistant watch but it would fight it all the way.


You cannot prevent organism from beeing weak, from dying, from getting sick. Beekeepers want to get healthy bees not for bees, but for honey crops... And I think one just could give them the best way to live their life. Pests are unavoidable. Fighting varroa with chemicals makes population vulnerable to dieseases. Commercial management techniques make them weak. breeding varroa resistance makes them inbred. 

You can either live the Dream, or You can make population bigger, adapted, and something like that "dream of resistance" will come to be in some manner. Just like "resistance" to other dieseases. Just like "resistance" of goats from wolves - because they cay outrun wolf in the rocks (but some are caught and eaten), just like "resistance" of gazelle from cheeatah, because she may be slower, but she is more "reflexive" (no idea if it is correct word) - but some are still eaten. And just how "resistance" of bees came to be against tracheal mite - but I'm sure that some weakened by health conditions still die of them. That is how nature works. By building healthy populations of organisms and eliminating the weakest on the way. 

summarizing (I probably will stop destroying Sibylles tread from now on): I want my bees to be as healthy as they can so that they can live normal live for 4, hopefully 5 years before they die of any sickness that will finally get them - maybe weakend by varroa. In these years I hope they will be "happy" and "free" and I intend to let them as I see it possible.

I know it is not scientific approach  So bee it! 
And I want to have as much fun keeping bees as possible


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> You narrowed it again, and didn't allow it to mix in the stock, but controlled it.


Every year the droneline was selected so, that inbreeding would be minimal. To do this all new material, which was tested good, got its way to the droneside in my mating yard(s). This way the new genes were part of all descendants of that years queens. So the new materials were mixed in the stock.


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## Hunajavelho

BeesFromPoland said:


> And I want to have as much fun keeping bees as possible


A hive in Europe at the time left untreated as I wrote will die within years or only a year.

Depending on how it goes down, but I can tell you there is nothing fun keeping bees suffering from a overload of Varroa and it's withcoming diseases. If this hive does not die in a year, wich happens rapidly - a hive beeing strong in autumn and dead by christmass. So if the hive survives the first winter iit will continue to suffer the next season and so on, at this point giving no surplus honey at all (not so fun in the long run). Eventually you will find the hive empty and dead only food storage left.

I have seen this happen and many more, this even happens if the treatments have failed and the varroa count has increased over a couple of years.


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## 1102009

Hunajavelho said:


> A hive in Europe at the time left untreated as I wrote will die within years or only a year.
> 
> Depending on how it goes down, but I can tell you there is nothing fun keeping bees suffering from a overload of Varroa and it's withcoming diseases. If this hive does not die in a year, wich happens rapidly - a hive beeing strong in autumn and dead by christmass. So if the hive survives the first winter iit will continue to suffer the next season and so on, at this point giving no surplus honey at all (not so fun in the long run). Eventually you will find the hive empty and dead only food storage left.
> 
> I have seen this happen and many more, this even happens if the treatments have failed and the varroa count has increased over a couple of years.


At least mine are dying after 3 years ( mentor time included).

How long do we have the mite?
And what is achieved by breeding resistance? Almost nothing. No resistant ferals anywhere, breeding programs isolated and done by elite science program. Nothing is achieved to help the average hobby beekeeper.

So I´m with BFP:


> I think "varroa resistance" is like Holy Grail, Fairy Tale, Dream, fantasy - call it whatever You want and like.


Ferals must be bred from survivors and those genes spread.


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## Hunajavelho

And the the rest of the hobby beekeepers are crying as their bees have turned aggressive, swarmy and the honey jar is empty. Due to some hobbyist's wanted to be treatment free.

I think best is to treat when needed and not over treat.


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## Fusion_power

So many viewpoints are presented in this thread that it is hard to follow the thoughts.

Sibylle and Bfp, Do you think your bees currently have measurable varroa resistance or tolerance mechanisms? If so, what are they?

Juhani, I read carefully through your description of breeding bees on your website. Inherently, breeding bees involves some form of inbreeding. Bees in a natural setting tend to stabilize with the maximum available number of sex alleles present in the population fairly equally distributed. The reason is that any one sex allele that becomes over-represented in the population leads to queens mated with drones carrying identical alleles. The resulting colonies are at a significant disadvantage from production of diploid drones. By the same mechanism, an under-represented allele is far more likely to get paired with drones carrying diverse alleles. The colonies have an advantage because no diploid drone eggs are produced. How would you change your breeding program to correspond more closely with what happens in nature? I'm asking because I am working through this for my own beekeeping. I have a limited population of colonies that have been maintained for multiple years with very little selection pressure except having zero tolerance for varroa related hive problems.

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/2/272.full


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## flamenco108

So You want to say, that untreated bees are "aggressive, swarmy and the honey" unproductive?


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## 1102009

Hunajavelho said:


> And the the rest of the hobby beekeepers are crying as their bees have turned aggressive, swarmy and the honey jar is empty. Due to some hobbyist's wanted to be treatment free.
> 
> I think best is to treat when needed and not over treat.


If you treat you must treat carefully or you start other problems.

The beekeepers are crying because they don´t know.They listen to prejudice. Ours are no africanized bees. You don´t have to be a flipflop beekeeper cuddling with your bees.
You respect hornets or wasps because you know they defend. Why not bees?

I had a hot AMM hive last year. The bees would not allow me to work above the entrance board and were getting excited when we were hectic. So I learned to be calm. I wear protection. If you just look at the entrance nothing bad happens.
If a watcher tests me I go away and look at the ground. They are provoked by seeing themselves mirrored in your eyes.

I thought about changing the queen in this hive I admit. But they solved the problem with supercedure. The next generation can be otherwise.

To me I rather have double number of tf hives to the same amount of honey.

Read squarepegs thread and you know what you can achieve with tf bees.


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## Hunajavelho

- SiWolKe

Believe it or not, I once had all the same ideas that you... but reality struck!


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## Juhani Lunden

Fusion_power said:


> Juhani, How would you change your breeding program to correspond more closely with what happens in nature?


I will most propaly start doing inseminations with sperm mix. And all hives (if possible) are divided to make nucs, queenless hives make their own queens, so that lots of variation from mothers side will go on, too. 

Sibylle this would be an idea for you too. No matter if you cannot do inseminations, there are lots of beekeepers doing inseminations as a service. All you need to do is to provide table, electricity, shelter for rain, and drones.


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## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Sibylle and Bfp, Do you think your bees currently have measurable varroa resistance or tolerance mechanisms? If so, what are they?


Sure. But not all. The defense and grooming at the entrance, defense, yes, grooming hard to say, I claim they did this but have to watch more.

VSH as you see in the "Bildergalerie" of my forum. They all do ( or did) VSH. But all bees will do that. It depends on the infestation level, if they smell the danger. The trigger is low with mine but I don´t know if sufficient enough.

They are virus tolerant to DWV compared with my first hive. Only a few crawlers were seen. One hive was susceptible to Paralyze Virus and died in spring.

They are more agile and when foraging keep attention to their surroundings. Kind of more sensitive to danger compared with my neighbors bees.

Some breed drones the whole year through, only one did the normal drone dynamics and had no drones after spring. The others bred drones and opened drone cells to look for mites.
The AMM are very good at this.


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## 1102009

Juhani, there is a mating place of the "toleranzzucht ag" nearby. 

I follow what they do. With a health certificate you can mate your carni queens there. Better than in the open perhaps.


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> Do I have more lines of bees to start with? No, but I'm not in concern if my apiary is or may be inbred, because I don't reduce number of allels in the population


How do you know that, you examine their alleles?



BeesFromPoland said:


> I just read Your words, and draw my conclusions (maybe wrong conclusions)


Reading the whole thing I would say the latter.


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## Fusion_power

> I will most probably start doing inseminations with sperm mix.


 What if you could pre-test your queens for their exact pair of sex alleles and therefore select drones with different alleles? It would be very easy under these conditions to establish mating stations with queens and drones having no duplicate sex alleles. AI would become a matter of matching the queen with drones to avoid homozygous sex alleles. Most important, you could select queens to preserve maximum sex allele diversity in your breeding population.


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## Juhani Lunden

Fusion_power said:


> What if you could pre-test your queens for their exact pair of sex alleles and therefore select drones with different alleles? It would be very easy under these conditions to establish mating stations with queens and drones having no duplicate sex alleles. AI would become a matter of matching the queen with drones to avoid homozygous sex alleles. Most important, you could select queens to preserve maximum sex allele diversity in your breeding population.


I don´t think that kind of tests would preserve alleles better than the system I described. Sperm mix from all hives, all hives make nucs and queens. 

Is there a resonably prised test available?


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Juhani, there is a mating place of the "toleranzzucht ag" nearby.
> 
> I follow what they do. With a health certificate you can mate your carni queens there. Better than in the open perhaps.


Hallo Sibylle! Now you are talking! Would you give me a promise ( to take some of your queens there to mate) for a Christmas present?


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## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Hallo Sibylle! Now you are talking! Would you give me a promise ( to take some of your queens there to mate) for a Christmas present?


If I have some Carnis left, maybe. But I have to check the breeders first. I heard they treat their drones too. But I know they breed for hygienic behavior, which probably is a good thing living with our local infestation.
It´s for carnica only. 

I sincerely hope the AMM will survive, they seem to be more hardy.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> VSH as you see in the "Bildergalerie" of my forum. They all do ( or did) VSH. But all bees will do that. It depends on the infestation level, if they smell the danger.


Hallo Sibylle, I looked at the picture in your Bildergallerie.


You say all bees do it. Well yes and no. I got some terrible chilly feelings seeing that picture. The bees in your picture, which as you put it "smelled danger", were propably having so serious mite problems, that they were near death. It may well be, that the hive in the picture had very very low VSH factor. But because there were mites all over, they finally smelled something. I had such colonies too in my first years , but looking back now, that was not VSH. Seeing something like that was a sure sign of serious troubles and death coming soon. 

VSH bees do it more neatly: they open infested cell, remove pupa and thats it. Cell is empty and capped brood looks spotty. In your picture the bees had opened cells but did not remove pupa. I had the same thing 2001-2002. This opening, which is not VSH, happend most often near the bottom of the frames.

In very heavy mite infestation all bees open cells, but that is not VSH. At least it is not that measurable quality of bees what usually is referred as VSH in beekeeping discussions.
All cell opening cannot and should not be called VSH.


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## BeesFromPoland

Hunajavelho said:


> A hive in Europe at the time left untreated as I wrote will die within years or only a year.
> 
> Depending on how it goes down, but I can tell you there is nothing fun keeping bees suffering from a overload of Varroa and it's withcoming diseases. If this hive does not die in a year, wich happens rapidly - a hive beeing strong in autumn and dead by christmass. So if the hive survives the first winter iit will continue to suffer the next season and so on, at this point giving no surplus honey at all (not so fun in the long run). Eventually you will find the hive empty and dead only food storage left.
> 
> I have seen this happen and many more, this even happens if the treatments have failed and the varroa count has increased over a couple of years.


I know all of this, I asure You  And my surplus honey is not the fun in beekeeping I'm looking for. 

I will tell You more: All of us, "treated" or "untreated", will get sick, will get healthy again (or not), and we will finally die... This is how it works in nature. That is why bees will finally die. For me successful beekeeping is when I will manage to have some bees out of them before they die (so: queen-line will survive), and if I would get honey in the way I would be most happy.
Beekeepers usually kill the queen after a year or two, but say that their colonies live all the time. It's not true. Everytime a queen dies, colony change - there is a new one. So probably TF colonies without killing the queen, live longer than "normal" treated colonies. 

of course TF beekeeping doesn't mean "not changing queens" - but for me it does - If she lives, she is worth keeping. If she swarms I hope she gets somewhere where sb won't change the queen and I can have some drones next year (I put some boxes to the trees in the near forest, too)




Fusion_power said:


> So many viewpoints are presented in this thread that it is hard to follow the thoughts.
> 
> Sibylle and Bfp, Do you think your bees currently have measurable varroa resistance or tolerance mechanisms? If so, what are they?


1. I don't bother to observe it, because I don't believe it is a key to survival - if I even checked and saw some measurable-mechanisms it wouldn't change my decisions of spliting every hive that survives (for now - because I just start the "project") eaqually (if the survival rate is high enough, maybe I will have some more factors for choosing the ones to split - of course leaving the rest to live, without changing queens). There may be 1000 of tolearance mechanisms we are not aware of, and choosing one or two that we know of, may diminish the effect of others. That is why just "survival" is the "key trait" for me.

2. probably they have since I got a queen from Juhani's stock, and E. Osterlund's stock. I had also one Primorski (not "pure") queen. 

3. I believe that all the bees have some tolerance mechanisms. But some "turn them on" when it is too late (that is why for me it is important to leave them with as little managing as possible - they have to turn on their natural genetic mechanisms for "hygienic", or any other behaviour they have). As far as I know every colony start to fight varroa (the way they can), but usually the process begins when the bees are weakend by viruses, bacteria, etc - and it is just to late - the "snowball is rolling" to death, then...




Oldtimer said:


> How do you know that, you examine their alleles?
> 
> Reading the whole thing I would say the latter.


I have a collague in Poland who believes he knows everything, too - as You do. He talks about science all the time - as You are. He believed he worked out a "system" for keeping TF bees. He believed in genetics (so he bought - among others - Juhani's queens). He always said to me (as You do in some manner) : that I have no idea about bees, and they die, because I know nothing of beekeeping. He keeps bees for 30 years or so...
This is the first year he skipped treatment in this Fall only. Up untill now he doesn't have bees as far as I know (including Juhani's stock). I write "as far as I know", because he "believed" he was offended in I think October (or begining of November) when he didn't have 50% of his bees and stopped writing on our Polish forum. Then he wrote only on different forums, but he writes there he lost more of them (suggesting "all").
I have another collegue who believes the same. But he left only a part of his apiary untreated (the "best" bees, the strongest, the ones he saw hygienic behaviour etc) - from 20 hives left off treatmens this fall up until begining of december lived only 5 of this "best" bee colonies.

That is as I see the "power" of bee-scientific-management and genetics in comparison to the power of nature and natural adaptation. 


answering Your question: I wouldn't even bother to think of examining bees allels....


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> I have a collague in Poland who believes he knows everything, too - as You do.


In fact unlike yourself, I have responded to several questions in this thread by being honest enough to say straight up that I don't know enough to answer. Check for example posts 145 and 150.

Clearly it is you who knows the answer to everything.


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## Eduardo Gomes

Juhani Lunden said:


> It may well be, that the hive in the picture had very very low VSH factor. But because there were mites all over, they finally smelled something. I had such colonies too in my first years , but looking back now, that was not VSH.
> All cell opening cannot and should not be called VSH.


Juhani I agree with you. VSH behavior has to be triggered when the infestation is still at low levels to be effective. 
Do you know what is this threshold below which VSH is effective = keep the number of varroas under control, and the colony remain reasonably healthy, and above which it is already late and the colony collapses?

Or do you think this is of no importance to the selection of VSH behavior. 

Sibylle sorry if I'm deflecting your thread of what you want. I treat but as I said I give much credit and I am very interested in this route.


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Clearly it is you who knows the answer to everything.


If You mean saying that we (as beekeepers, people) know too little to make decisions on genetics connected to survival, then yes, guilty as charged. I know everything about knowing nothing and leaving it to nature without breeding programs. 

Juhani wrote in this forum (I don't remember where): "Nature is the best breeder if goal is surviving" - I follow these words. Apparently others who follow "science of beekeeping breeding programs" and use instrumental insemitation have different goal than survival of bees (or are better then nature in that).


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## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> This is the first year he skipped treatment in this Fall only. Up untill now he doesn't have bees as far as I know (including Juhani's stock).


I want to check if I have understood right: 

A friend of yours has treatted his bees until this autumn. And despite the fact, that he only skipped treatment in autumn 2016, all hives (or nearly all) are dead now. 

Is that correct?


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## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> I want to check if I have understood right:
> 
> A friend of yours has treatted his bees until this autumn. And despite the fact, that he only skipped treatment in autumn 2016, all hives (or nearly all) are dead now.
> 
> Is that correct?


My colegue treated his bees for the last time in autumn 2015.
For the last I think 3 years he treated with (I think) essential oils with little dosage. 
He treated for the last time with amitraz from what I remember 3 or 4 years ago. 
During that time (3 years ago if I'm correct) he put small cell foundation. He observed hygienic behaviour, he counted varroa and as far as I know based on that he made his decisions of propagating and changing queens in the hive.
In 2015 he introduced some of Your stock (I think he said he bought 10 queens then from the person who bought from You, but half of them were not accepted or died during last winter in spite of treatment with essential oils). 
In 2015 and 2016 he introduced also some queens from other "resistant" breeding programs (from Alois Wallner I think, I may be mistaken but Paul Jungels too, and from J. Koller - he had elgons from Koller I think from 2014).
He didn't do any treatments in 2016 all year.
He had 20 - 25 colonies in September I think.

As far as I know he doesn't have bees now... 

(what happened was strange and odd for him, because he thought he was well prepared believing in "science", "hygienic behaviour", "varroa count" and "resistance")


EDIT:
I just found out - He didn't loose all the bees, but half of them (so 10 out of 20). Sorry for that - I was writting out of my knowlage (which I emphasized all the time), from what he implied. I sustain the rest of my knowlage written.
Anyway he lost them having what he believed "resistant stock", and only skipping one autumn treatment - and only untill december. Now he used oxalic acid on the rest that was alive and wrote there was lots of varroa in all except of one colony. So his TF adventure has finished...


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## Juhani Lunden

Wow, thank you very much for the information, even it is second hand.

Do you know how many colonies did your friend have totally in the first place and has he other beekeepers near by? 

If his treatments with essential oils have been minimal for 3-4 years, then mite populations may have been going up all that time, and domino effect collapsed whole apiaries. The daughters of my queens, how have they been mated? If their matings have happened with susceptible bees, it may have halved the original resistance. And the original resistance 2014 has been far from 100%, as I know today...


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## Fusion_power

> I don´t think that kind of tests would preserve alleles better than the system I described.


 Juhani, using mixed sperm will allow some alleles to disappear from a population given that the number of queens in the population is limited. About 250 queens would be required to maintain presence of 25 alleles using that method. Testing for alleles on the other hand would allow knowledge of the exact alleles and therefore breeding decisions could be made to increase presence of any allele that has low representation in the stock. Said another way, by testing and knowing exactly which sex differentiation alleles are present, a smaller population of queens can maintain diversity where using mixed sperm cannot.



> he thought he was well prepared believing in "science", "hygienic behaviour", "varroa count" and "resistance"


 The best way to counter your examples is with solid examples where "science" worked. The bee lab in Baton Rouge was the first to identify behavioral traits associated with varroa resistance. By selecting colonies that showed very low mite levels, they were able to leap ahead with breeding mite resistant bees.

Survival of the fittest is the basis of every successful program that has bred mite resistant bees so far. You can read about it under the names "mass selection" and "self performance selection". This is what Kefuss did in France and what BWeaver did here in the U.S. It is very difficult for a person with 25 or 30 colonies to select for mite resistance, especially when he is continually bringing in unrelated and unknown stock. My bees are highly mite resistant, but only because I do not tolerate even the smallest incursion of mites. If I can do it, there is no doubt other beekeepers can too.


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## Juhani Lunden

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Juhani I agree with you. VSH behavior has to be triggered when the infestation is still at low levels to be effective.
> Do you know what is this threshold below which VSH is effective = keep the number of varroas under control, and the colony remain reasonably healthy, and above which it is already late and the colony collapses?
> 
> Or do you think this is of no importance to the selection of VSH behavior.
> 
> Sibylle sorry if I'm deflecting your thread of what you want. I treat but as I said I give much credit and I am very interested in this route.


As fas as I know when a colony has 100% VSH factor, there are no mites with offspring to be found in the brood. They open every cell where mite is reproducing. So there are no thresholds.

(In the tests breeder open couple hundred cells, hives have been artifically insested with extra mites, so finding mites is made easier)


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## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> Wow, thank you very much for the information, even it is second hand.
> 
> Do you know how many colonies did your friend have totally in the first place and has he other beekeepers near by?
> 
> If his treatments with essential oils have been minimal for 3-4 years, then mite populations may have been going up all that time, and domino effect collapsed whole apiaries. The daughters of my queens, how have they been mated? If their matings have happened with susceptible bees, it may have halved the original resistance. And the original resistance 2014 has been far from 100%, as I know today...


I edited my previous post adding some new information.

I think he bought queens from Your stock inseminated on free mating flight. 
(mine was virgin, inseminated at my apiary). 

He has lots of beekeepers nearby - he is in a place where honeydew is, so lots of beekeepers migrate there.

I have no idea if Your stock is in the surviving part - I'll try to get to know and write You.


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## Juhani Lunden

Fusion_power said:


> Juhani, using mixed sperm will allow some alleles to disappear from a population given that the number of queens in the population is limited. About 250 queens would be required to maintain presence of 25 alleles using that method. Testing for alleles on the other hand would allow knowledge of the exact alleles and therefore breeding decisions could be made to increase presence of any allele that has low representation in the stock. Said another way, by testing and knowing exactly which sex differentiation alleles are present, a smaller population of queens can maintain diversity where using mixed sperm cannot.


If the test shows that my best hive represents an allele, which is already well represented and that I need to do a nuc out of a dink, then I have a problem. If I do a nuc out of the best hive, then that one allele will be even more over represented and the dink will propably die. And with that my least represented allele. 
And we have to think of money too. Is there a test and how much do they cost?


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## BeesFromPoland

Fusion_power said:


> Survival of the fittest is the basis of every successful program that has bred mite resistant bees so far. You can read about it under the names "mass selection" and "self performance selection". This is what Kefuss did in France and what BWeaver did here in the U.S. It is very difficult for a person with 25 or 30 colonies to select for mite resistance, especially when he is continually bringing in unrelated and unknown stock. My bees are highly mite resistant, but only because I do not tolerate even the smallest incursion of mites. If I can do it, there is no doubt other beekeepers can too.


Yes, I believe that is correct. But I presume You do Your selection only from Your stock which is already locally adapted. 
I'm just saying that the nature should do the work for me. 

and here is some more "facebook news" on adaptation of wild population (I believe no one did instrumental insemination there...)
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/08/some-honeybee-colonies-adapt-wake-deadly-mites
http://phys.org/news/2015-08-honey-bees-rapidly-evolve-disease.html


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## 1102009

I´m not filming when I work the hives but here they pull out the pupa.
http://www.vivabiene.de/g20-Arbeitsweise-SiWolKe-p2.html

And the previous side you see the pupa they throwed out, the damaged pupa is mostly drones.
This pictures are from 2015, even if they are named 2016, since I started the gallery 2016. The hives both still live.

*I would like to explain more my strategy.*

As you all know from my comments to squarepegs thread I´m fascinated by his doing.
That, because my thoughts are, if someone finds a way to be a commercial beekeeper *and* respect nature *and* be treatment free, it will show the world it´s possible with normal losses. To me normal losses are 15-30%.

He will have success, I´m sure but part of his success is his use of ferals. 
Dar, same with you.
Michael Bush too.

We europeans lack ferals. So we must create them. After creating feral survivor colonies, time comes to do like Dar and SP do. To start thinking of honey harvest and more gentleness, never forgetting the ability to survive.

You may think BFP crazy, but he and the association do just that. They create ferals. To the benefit of the beekeepers in future who will have more resistant genes in their surroundings and are able to use these swarms to improve their stock.
This is a doing which I regard with the utmost respect because it´s entirely without selfish thoughts.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> You may think BFP crazy.


Crazy, don't know. More, he has new beekeeper syndrome. Knowing everything, and constantly railing against science, are 2 red flags.

Will he succeed in his goals? That will be more about his neighbors, than anything he does.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> We europeans lack ferals. So we must create them.


Climate change getting worse all the time soon it will be possible for us too to have feral colonies here in Finland, too. Looking forward that. 
Are there any studies done about feral colonies in Europe? There must be some colonies in Central Europe. In our present climate swarms die usually in the first winter, but when mild winters happen, some manage even our "October-April no flying" ordeal.


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Will he succeed in his goals? That will be more about his neighbors, than anything he does.


I ask you to be patient with him, he is my very good friend and we often mail. 
His quest is a difficult path. To be tolerated by his neighbors, so far his apiaries are not burned ( or are they?).We need a macabre sense of humor in what we do.:roll eyes: And he always wants to protect me ()

BFP, I ask you to relax. OK? 

Juhani, there seem to be ferals, there are two guys who wrote in our bee journal we have 30 areas in germany where ferals are. They have no website and are not organized,I googled the names and found them. They are no beekeepers.
Maybe I will start a contact, but I´m waiting for the newest journal because they want to publish a map.

Tom Seeley writes in one of his books that the swarms die 75% the first year because they are not able to store enough food for winter after building comb and breeding.
I saw a colony like that nesting in the open in switzerland.


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## Fusion_power

> Tom Seeley writes ...... swarms die 75% the first year


 Tom is describing conditions in one of the northern states. Here where I live, it is common for ferals to survive 70% or more the first year from a swarm. More of the "beekeeper escape" swarms die of varroa than of winter stress.


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## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Climate change getting worse all the time soon it will be possible for us too to have feral colonies here in Finland, too. Looking forward that.
> Are there any studies done about feral colonies in Europe? There must be some colonies in Central Europe. In our present climate swarms die usually in the first winter, but when mild winters happen, some manage even our "October-April no flying" ordeal.


I find these studies the most valuable:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0412-8



> Vertical transmission from mother to daughter leads to reduced virulence adaptations, while horizontal transmission between colonies leads to increased mite virulence (Schmid-Hempel 2011). Modern apicultural practices actually favor parasitic transmission routes that select for higher virulence, mainly by preventing swarming, crowding colonies in high-density apiaries,





> These mite-resistant A. mellifera populations have all experienced natural mite infestation pressure and have been given the opportunity for natural adaptations without the influence of typical apicultural practices.





> However, these populations also emphasize the influence that apiculture has on the development of infections in honeybee colonies, and consequently, by example suggest that the most effective solution for sustainably improving honeybee health would come from adopting better management practices.


Many thanks to Nordak for sharing with me!


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Juhani, there seem to be ferals, there are two guys who wrote in our bee journal we have 30 areas in germany where ferals are. They have no website and are not organized,I googled the names and found them. They are no beekeepers.
> Maybe I will start a contact, but I´m waiting for the newest journal because they want to publish a map.


Which bee journal?
So at the moment you don´t have knowledge where those ferals are?


----------



## Nordak

Hey Sibylle, did they mention how long these colonies have been established?


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Crazy, don't know. More, he has new beekeeper syndrome. Knowing everything, and constantly railing against science, are 2 red flags.
> 
> Will he succeed in his goals? That will be more about his neighbors, than anything he does.


Oldtimer, That shows You don't read what I've written so far. 
I'm just saying:
1. Science has made enoguh mistakes so far - even in beekeeping (and we see that all the time in the world around), and our present knowlage on bees is still very short;
2. because of 1. we should trust nature more than science, but we should include science in our choices (that is how I do that - You may not believe that)
3. I don't know everything - because I see that 1. is true. I know for a fact, that nature will solve that problem if we let it happen - that is that "everything" I know, I'm sure of it, I know that for a fact, that is the obvious and basic knowlage for me.
4. breeding programs are very good tools (but not the best), but for that specific lolalistaion. When you take the bees to others localisations they may be not adapted there and die - so choosing the bees for other localities is not that easy, that You just choose "resistant".
5. breeding programs work only untlil You are in that breeding program. bees were on this planet for milions of years. They have problems only from the moments we started changing them in "honey collecting machines", and "helping them". (that is why I want them to reverse in this proces of becoming those machines)
6. "resistant" still die 

We may argue on the methods - I perfectly know myself my methods are not perfect. But they are based on what I have written above 1-6.
I'm not railing against science. But I have in my mind, that science solves particular problems. We learn the problem and learn the solution causing more problems. ONe of my favourite sayings are: "Science of XXI century civilisation helps in solving the problems of XXI century". 






SiWolKe said:


> BFP, I ask you to relax. OK?


Ok Sibylle. 
I'm relaxed


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Which bee journal?
> So at the moment you don´t have knowledge where those ferals are?


No. This is the journal:
http://www.bienenundnatur.de

Nordak,
You mean the ferals?
I don´t know. They want you to tell when you see a swarm nesting in a tree or shack and to take some bees for DNA test.
They probably will publish the location and the origin.
I hope it´s not a fake.


----------



## 1102009

This morning I sold my first honey in my hometown, 320ml glas for 4.99€ plus deposit. Very good price.
I got as much money as a nuc colony costs without box.

Still have much honey left after harvesting the deadouts. Stored many frames though, hoping to have bees left in spring and use for splits.


----------



## 1102009

Thanks for the links, B.:thumbsup:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...e-deadly-mites
http://phys.org/news/2015-08-honey-b...e-disease.html


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Juhani, infromation for You from my colegue's apiary:

- all "superbees" from Cyprus died (I have no idea how many there were)
- from 3 of Your stock 1 died, 2 live (I thought he had more now - must have died earlier then...). both living colonies had about 300 - 400 varroa mites infestation after oxalic acid treatment
- elgon lives, but had about 1000 mites after OA
- One bee which was more localised (f2 or f3 generation) - but I do not know which stock it originated from (he wrote "CW" - maybe Carnica from A. Wallner? - it is possible, because he had some "mutted" Carnicas from that source) had only 25 mites. 
(so answering Your previous question: maybe for me bees from Mr Wallner would be better than from You...? For now I have no bees from that source, and I don't intend to have - I stick with my survivors now... If there are any in the spring  )

That is what he wrote. I have no idea if that means that he has only 4 these colonies, or has 10 as he wrote earlier in other forum post. I have minimum contact with him, I only write what he puts on forum.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> Juhani, infromation for You from my colegue's apiary:
> 
> - all "superbees" from Cyprus died (I have no idea how many there were)
> - from 3 of Your stock 1 died, 2 live (I thought he had more now - must have died earlier then...). both living colonies had about 300 - 400 varroa mites infestation after oxalic acid treatment
> - elgon lives, but had about 1000 mites after OA
> - One bee which was more localised (f2 or f3 generation) - but I do not know which stock it originated from (he wrote "CW" - maybe Carnica from A. Wallner? - it is possible, because he had some "mutted" Carnicas from that source) had only 25 mites.
> (so answering Your previous question: maybe for me bees from Mr Wallner would be better than from You...? For now I have no bees from that source, and I don't intend to have - I stick with my survivors now... If there are any in the spring  )
> 
> That is what he wrote. I have no idea if that means that he has only 4 these colonies, or has 10 as he wrote earlier in other forum post. I have minimum contact with him, I only write what he puts on forum.


Thank you very much for the information!

Did he measure the mites from living bees (sugar/alcohol shake) after treatment or were the numbers you presented numbers with OA dropped mites ?


----------



## flamenco108

Juhani Lunden said:


> Thank you very much for the information!
> 
> Did he measure the mites from living bees (sugar/alcohol shake) after treatment or were the numbers you presented numbers with OA dropped mites ?


Juhani greedy for the data


----------



## Fusion_power

That "data" tells the story of a beekeeper who is making an effort to keep bees treatment free.

Having 1 colony with very low mite counts does not necessarily mean the colony is a good breeding candidate. Low mite counts can be a result of an extended period being queenless in summer. It is a good place to start checking. My bees came from just such a single colony.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BeesFromPoland said:


> - One bee which was more localised (f2 or f3 generation) - but I do not know which stock it originated from (he wrote "CW" - maybe Carnica from A. Wallner? - it is possible, because he had some "mutted" Carnicas from that source) had only 25 mites.
> (so answering Your previous question: maybe for me bees from Mr Wallner would be better than from You...?


From Alois Walner Internet page http://www.voralpenhonig.at/

Obwohl ich bereits Völker sechs Jahre ohne jede Entmilbung gehalten habe, muss betont werden, dass ich bei den Wirtschaftsvölkern zwei mal im Jahr eine Entmilbung mit Ameisensäure durchführe (früher war dies viermal notwendig). Ein weiterer Vorteil der natürlichen Varroaabwehr besteht darin, dass ich auf eine Schlussentmilbung im Herbst oder Winter verzichten kann. Diese führen die Bienen selbst durch, indem sie fleißig Milben töten und das ganzjährig. Selektion und Züchtung auf natürliche Varoaabwehr ist schwierig und mit vielen Problemen verbunden, allein schon die Vererbungsregeln lassen immer nur eine begrenzte Steigerung der erwünschten Eigenschaften zu, diese sind aber gegeben und messbar nachweisbar, darauf kommt es letztendlich an, der Weg ist das Ziel auch in der Züchtung auf natürliche Varroaabwehr. 

In English:

Despite I already have had hives six years without treatments, I must emphasize that the honey producing colonies are treated with formic acid two times a year (earlier four treatments were needed). Natural varroaresistance has the extra advantage that there is no need for last treatment in late autumn or winter. The bees take care of these ”treatments” themselves by actively killing mites all year round. 
Selection and breeding for varroaresistance is difficult and there are many problems involved, not least the laws of inheritance, which allow only a small but steady increase in the measured qualities. Natural varroa resistance and the road towards that is the final goal in our breeding.


----------



## BeesFromPoland

Juhani Lunden said:


> Thank you very much for the information!
> 
> Did he measure the mites from living bees (sugar/alcohol shake) after treatment or were the numbers you presented numbers with OA dropped mites ?


He did the treatment in warmer time in december. so he only counted dropped mites. In winter it would be bad for the bees to take samples of them to check on the number of mites.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> From Alois Walner Internet page http://www.voralpenhonig.at/
> In English:
> 
> Despite I already have had hives six years without treatments, I must emphasize that the honey producing colonies are treated with formic acid two times a year (earlier four treatments were needed). Natural varroaresistance has the extra advantage that there is no need for last treatment in late autumn or winter. The bees take care of these ”treatments” themselves by actively killing mites all year round.
> Selection and breeding for varroaresistance is difficult and there are many problems involved, not least the laws of inheritance, which allow only a small but steady increase in the measured qualities. Natural varroa resistance and the road towards that is the final goal in our breeding.


He is still on his way. He has a selection place, where he now keeps the best colonies without treating them. He has +- 300 hives and dominates the area.

http://www.voralpenhonig.at/default_en.htm push top news.

He started with 2 treatments formic acid in summer and one oxalic acid in winter yeas ago and culled out the drones in spring.
Now he does one formic acid, but only with his production hives. He needs the income.
He has now the first colonies with 100% mite biting, which means they bite faster than the mite breeds.
For some time now he culls no drones.

He is very organized and a real professional.
But what he is, too, is an old school beekeeper. He never tested a natural beekeeping.


----------



## squarepeg

this is a fascinating thread and i'm following with great interest. it's great to see the exchange of valuable information and differences of opinion being expressed in a respectful way. many thanks to all for contributing.

sibylle, i'll bet that the folks in your hometown were happy and appreciative for the opportunity to buy some of your honey. i hope you experienced the same sense of reward as i have, i.e. a satisfaction that goes beyond the making of sales, that comes with being able to bring this special product to your neighbors.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Now he does *one* formic acid, but only with his production hives.





Juhani Lunden said:


> From Alois Walner Internet page http://www.voralpenhonig.at/
> 
> Obwohl ich bereits Völker sechs Jahre ohne jede Entmilbung gehalten habe, muss betont werden, dass ich bei den Wirtschaftsvölkern *zwei* mal im Jahr eine Entmilbung mit Ameisensäure durchführe (früher war dies viermal notwendig). In English:
> 
> Despite I already have had hives six years without treatments, I must emphasize that the honey producing colonies are treated with formic acid *two* times a year (earlier four treatments were needed).



One or two, which one is right?


----------



## Nordak

SiWolKe said:


> Nordak,
> You mean the ferals?


Yes. Hopefully they'll provide more information in the future.

Congratulations on your honey sale! Very respectable price as well.


----------



## Fusion_power

Thank you for the link Sibylle. I found this statement particularly telling.



> election and breeding on natural varroa defense is very difficult and takes decades of hard work. One simple beekeeper cannot manage this work. The improvement of the natural varroa defense has very positively affected my beekeeping. Instead of four treatments, two are sufficient today; without cutting the drone brood.
> 
> In former times I had to treat the offshoots immediately, that became unnecessary, too. In former times I had to accomplish a last treatment in September, that is meanwhile unnecessary, too. The bees do it by themselves; by killing mites all year round, day and night. The treatment in spring is not necessary any more. The colony losses over the winter time are not higher than before the varroa invasion. I had only 1 percent winter losses in the previous year. Breeding on natural varroa defense was no utopia in my beekeeping.


I wonder what his bees would be like if they also had VSH traits?

http://www.voralpenhonig.at/default_en.htm

Here are more links if anyone is interested in reading about efforts to select varroa resistant bees.
http://www.toleranzzucht.de/home/
http://www.resistantbees.com
http://www.elgon.se
http://www.wolnepszczoly.org
https://aristabeeresearch.org


----------



## 1102009

I apologize, Juhani.

You are right, he treats his production hives two times with formic acid.
Formerly he treated them four times, so it´s a slight improvement.
I `m fascinated by his not cutting out drones, though. 

Squarepeg and Nordak, yes, even if I´m a little sad about my precious bees foraging for all that honey and then disappear, I enjoy this.
I took a number of glasses of honey to my company and after five minutes they were sold.
Seems my co- workers needed more christmas presents! A good time to sell honey.


----------



## 1102009

Hey dar, you read in my forum, nice!
Thanks for putting in the links.

It´s not a bad idea to concentrate on defense. The VSH is used only with mites, but a mite biting bee probably defends against all dangers like SHB, for example.
Hygienic behavior ( not VSH) and mite biting would make the bees real powerful.

I once had a discussion with a beekeeper who claims VSH is only the bees fighting the symptoms, mite biting is active prevention of virus contamination.


----------



## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> That "data" tells the story of a beekeeper who is making an effort to keep bees treatment free.
> 
> Having 1 colony with very low mite counts does not necessarily mean the colony is a good breeding candidate. Low mite counts can be a result of an extended period being queenless in summer. It is a good place to start checking. My bees came from just such a single colony.


They say ( I don´t know in what thread I read this) that a phoretic, hemolymphe sucking mite is able to live several months.

Dar, is it possible in your eyes those mites are still fertile? Do they breed like crazy in a hive which just starts? Or is a brood brake really diminishing the contamination?

I´m wondering if there is a kind of symbiosis between mites and bees in an established hive of resistant feral bees, because of the claim that mites will not kill their host.
But this is not correlating with the increase of mite disease pressures we observe in our hives. Is it because those are still not resistant?
Do feral bees swarm as a natural trait of resistance or do they only swarm to reproduce?
( just musings, philosophical kind )


----------



## BeesFromPoland

SiWolKe said:


> I´m wondering if there is a kind of symbiosis between mites and bees in an established hive of resistant feral bees, because of the claim that mites will not kill their host.


there is a long long way between "symbiosis" and "balanced parasite-host relationship"... 

However there is a case (I can't remember now what were the bacteria or other pests....) that presence of one diesease which was quite serious prevent from beeing sick from other which is even more dangerous. Who knows if that could be the role of varroa in the future?  (just joining this plisosophical thinking, but I don't believe that would be the case) 

however there was a study (scientific or "facebook" - don't remember  ) somewhere that there is another DWV "line" which is not deadly (Did Erik Osterlund write about it, or am I mistaken?), and there was a thought of introducing it to bee populations, because presence of that "line" of DWV which was harmless to bees and prevented form developement of the deadly one.


edit: 
here it is: https://www.mba.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Mordecai-2015-Press-release-FINAL.pdf


and here some more (I just skimmed it):
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892292/document



> The infestation rate of the VSB colonies,
> derived from mite fall on the bottom board,
> was especially low, three times lower, compared
> to control colonies. This suggests that
> VSB colonies have developed mechanisms to
> inhibit the growth of V. destructor populations.
> Thus, VSB colonies apparently have attained a
> host – parasite equilibrium which is not the result
> of beekeeper selection but due to natural
> selection.
> For the moment, we do not know the mechanisms
> or causes of the more balanced hostparasite
> relationship. There are preliminary indications,
> that VHB bees might be better able
> to recognize the mites (Martin et al., 2001),
> which could enhance mite removal by grooming
> (Peng et al., 1987), and that they might be
> better able to detect and remove mites from infested
> sealed cells





> In France, untreated and feral colonies of
> honey bees largely disappeared a few years
> after the arrival of Varroa in 1982. Varroa
> resistant strains of bees are of great interest
> for beekeeping to reduce the use of chemicals
> in honey bee colonies. One way to obtain
> resistant bees is to intensively select for
> single characters that decrease the growth of
> Varroa populations. This approach might force
> adaptations by the mite, limiting the genetic
> progress obtained by the breeder. Another possibility
> is to monitor natural selection in unmanaged
> populations. An advantage of natural
> selection is that it selects for a host-parasite
> equilibrium that may be more sustainable than
> human selection for a single characteristic. For
> this reason we chose this latter approach


----------



## Nordak

SiWolKe said:


> Do feral bees swarm as a natural trait of resistance or do they only swarm to reproduce?


My thinking is it probably relates to cavity space more than any other factor. However, if one looks to the past when varroa was introduced, the same limiting cavity factor would have been present, yet feral bees were decimated according to most reports. Never have understood how swarming alone can explain feral success, but many attribute it to this.


----------



## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> ...because of the claim that mites will not kill their host...
> 
> But this is not correlating with the increase of mite disease pressures we observe in our hives. Is it because those are still not resistant?
> 
> Do feral bees swarm as a natural trait of resistance or do they only swarm to reproduce?


i am not an expert in these matters but i will share my musings...

in natural settings feral colonies are much more spread out and there is less opportunity for highly virulent mites that kill their host to get spread to other colonies. in this case natural selection might favor less virulent mites that do not kill their host.

in managed settings we have multiple colonies in close proximity to each other so it is much easier after killing their host for mites to get transferred to a new host. in this case natural selection might even favor higher virulence.

all bees whether feral or managed are highly driven to reproduce at the colony level and therefore swarming is the most basic of natural traits. i believe the majority of managed colonies would swarm every year if measures were not taken to prevent it.


----------



## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> Ok Sibylle.
> I'm relaxed


I can tell  



flamenco108 said:


> greedy for the data


As a wise man once said, the thing with data is the more you torture it, the more you can make it say whatever you want to hear.


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## Nordak

Oldtimer said:


> As a wise man once said, the thing with data is the more you torture it, the more you can make it say whatever you want to hear.


That's a good one. ☺


----------



## flamenco108

SiWolKe said:


> I apologize, Juhani.
> 
> You are right, he treats his production hives two times with formic acid.
> Formerly he treated them four times, so it´s a slight improvement.
> I `m fascinated by his not cutting out drones, though.


I'd like to add, that AFAIK in Austria there is a ban for use of synthetic acaricides, so the main treatment is a formic acid. Also, as I don't know precisely, where are the apiaries of Alois Wallner, I just noticed, that closer to Vienna there are numbers of apiaries of perhaps one of the biggest apiculture company in Europe. And AFAIK they also treat twice a year by formic acid, equally for all of their 10K colonies. So it looks like the normal way of treatment in Austria.


----------



## Fusion_power

I think SP said this appropriately, but I will repeat since Sibylle directed a question to me. Bees swarm naturally and will almost always swarm at least once yearly unless the beekeeper intervenes. Swarming's effect on varroa population is just a beneficial side effect of something the bees do anyway.

There is a dutch study showing that two populations of bees under natural selection pressure developed different mechanisms for varroa resistance. If interested, I can dig it up. I've posted it a few times in the past. I will state that if beekeepers all stopped treating for varroa next year, within 3 years all bees exposed to varroa would be resistant. This would be very bad news for a lot of commercial beekeepers. Three years with little or no income would bankrupt them.

I have verified that my bees exhibit both VSH and allogrooming with mite mauling. At a genetic level, this is a huge number of traits. My bees have been totally untreated for 11 years now and are thriving. When I commented re AW's bees with VSH added, it was to direct conversation toward finding out why he has not attempted to incorporate VSH into his breeding work.


----------



## beepro

Haa, I'm missing the mite biting bees in my apiary.
Got the vsh and allogrooming traits already but still don't have 
the mite mauling bees here yet. Going to incorporate that into my bee operation
this coming season. Though they can still withstand the mites so that the colonies are not 
collapsing. Provided I did took out many frames of infected cap broods to give them a new
start with some big fat winter bees now. A simple hive manipulation that allow them to build up
this Spring without any treatment while selecting for the resistant traits in this process. The hives with the
least number of mites will be the winner of all. My goal is not to completely eliminated the mites from the hives instead to select
the most resistant bees that can live with the mites without collapsing the hives entirely. 


Some big fat winter bees at 99% mite free:


----------



## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Bees swarm naturally and will almost always swarm at least once yearly unless the beekeeper intervenes. Swarming's effect on varroa population is just a beneficial side effect of something the bees do anyway.
> 
> There is a dutch study showing that two populations of bees under natural selection pressure developed different mechanisms for varroa resistance. If interested, I can dig it up.


Interesting you said that Dar and SP. I`ve got limited experience in swarm behaviors of the bees having prevented that with splitting, but the beekeepers I know do no special interventions to swarming except giving space which is for honey storage mostly.
The bees seem to have bred against swarming, if it happens the keepers seem to be surprised. I have to talk about that with my co-beeks.

Please dig it up, Dar. The dutch study.

Nordak


> However, if one looks to the past when varroa was introduced, the same limiting cavity factor would have been present, yet feral bees were decimated


Good argument. 
"Sulz" once told me there are 3 kinds of swarms. The reproduction swarm, the disease escaping swarm and the starving escape swarm. He claims there is not such as a reproduction swarm because the bees are never healthy and strong enough to want to reproduce. But I don´t know. He had some strange ideas. In this case the bees would be in severe danger to be eliminated by nature.

The disease escaping swarm would be a kind of epigenetic behavior though.


----------



## 1102009

I would like to speak my thanks to all who take part here.

Your contributions are of high value to me and I look forward to you updating your own experience.

Happy christmas to you!


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## Hunajavelho

Fusion_power said:


> Bees swarm naturally and will almost always swarm at least once yearly unless the beekeeper intervenes.


Oh, European Buckfast will not swarm!


----------



## beepro

They are now since the U.S. genes are within the VSH buckfast after the
vsh experiment. Any healthy hive will swarm at the right time. It is in their genetics to do
so in order to expand their territory.


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## BeesFromPoland

beepro, You probably don't understand the "buckfast thing" in Europe 
It is believed to be perfect bee, and there are people who won't let a word diminishing that bee  .... Like "dunkin donuts" on the other side of the pond! (just kidding)
but about "buckfast thing" only "half-kidding"


----------



## Fusion_power

This article describes the different mechanisms two populations of bees used to resist varroa.

http://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/Na...arroa-mites-may-use-different-mechanisms-.htm

Yes, European Buckfast have a very low swarming tendency. How do you think that plays out in nature? If bees do not reproduce, they eventually die. Buckfast are artificially selected to strongly exhibit a series of traits that reduce swarming. They are not typical of most of the geographic races of honeybee.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Buckfast is not Buckfast.

What are the origins of Buckfast bees. Who of you knows?


----------



## Fusion_power

That is a tough question to answer Bernhard. We could state the description Brother Adam gave of starting with Italians crossed with native black/brown bees and then crossing with French, Greek, Anatolian, and Saharan to develop the relatively pure breeding bee known as Buckfast. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the bees sold today are not Buckfast, they have diverged too far from the original. If Brother Adam were alive today, his Buckfast would already be highly varroa resistant.


----------



## 1102009

http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/biogde.html

There is an association which claims to follow Bruder Adam:

http://www.buckfastimker.de

Willkommen in diesem Thema, Bernhard! ich habe schon viel von dir gehört und gelesen!

Thanks, Dar. I will translate this into Viva.


----------



## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> Willkommen in diesem Thema, Bernhard! ich habe schon viel von dir gehört und gelesen!


for our english speaking viewers:

"Welcome to this topic, Bernhard! I've heard and read a lot from you."


----------



## JRG13

I'd like to see this study then move the hives back into a non isolated setting and see how they do..


----------



## 1102009

JRG13 said:


> I'd like to see this study then move the hives back into a non isolated setting and see how they do..


That exactly is the problem with tf beekeeping in central europe.
And that´s why I don´t want to work with a forum anymore which recomments isolation. Not possible to most.

We have to create "ferals" and try other kinds of managements until we find out what will be successful. This means high losses and new beginnings.
This approach we must do while considering the situation of other beekeepers, especially the commercial ones.

SP thanks. Was I inpolite? I hope not.


----------



## squarepeg

no problem sibylle. i recognize the dilemma that you and others are having in central europe which is why i follow your progress with great interest. it is also why i once commented that you and the others in your group deserve much credit for trying. my hope is that many on this forum are sharing in my best wishes for your success. thanks again for chronicling your experiences here.


----------



## Redhawk

I agree with Sp. And, Sybille I owe you & all of the contributors hampered my humble apology. My earlier post #195 was intended to be tongue in check humor as the conversation was very heated but obviously not with mutual respect. I had been distracted during my writing the post & ended up posting before I made it known I was joking. I am so appreciative of your thread. The depth of knowledge, philosophies, & approaches to management technics of beekeepers from so many parts of the world is most impressive. It makes a new keep such as me feel like a college freshman sitting in a class of PHDs. This conversation is another great book,just as Sp's. I knew you could do it!!!!:applause:


----------



## 1102009

Everything is fine, sometimes we are desperate.

Today my AMM did a cleansing flight and enjoyed the sun, since we had a foen storm yesterday and temperature had risen to 7°C.
They cleaned the hives and carried away the dead. I saw some bees with short abdomen, not many, and 3 drones. I don´t know how many bees are damaged.
Four hives have strong sound, two are more silent but still alive.

The poor Carnis still sit in frosty fog. The two deep is very silent, not yet dead, but I have no hope.
The Elgon colony and the newest carni colony with autumn queen are still musical.

I was offered a new location today, a friend`s property, where I can put my failing hives! This is wonderful, because it´s near but far enough to be no threat to my AMM. Not much driving around, no jeopardizing others.
And it´s more isolated from t-beekeepers than my home.
There I can have my "hospital" or do some experimenting with bees which are not tf. I would like to learn more about the management methods which could support tf, but I want to do this in a practical way, not theoretical.

I have to see what will help and what will endanger the process. I have to see what are the best methods monitoring mites.Not only the phoretic ones.
I want to compare tf and t.

So far me having not enough experience in basic beekeeping still is the greatest danger but this will change next year. I know about my mistakes.


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## Redhawk

Sounds great, Sybille. I have to check out a location offered to me soon, too. Supposed to be non agricultural country so I'm excited about that. We were in the low 70s here yesterday & my girls were busy with cleansing flights & cleaning house. Even saw some down at our chicken coop so I know they were doing some foraging as well. I'm like you, I know I've learned a lot my 1st year but there's so much more to learn that only experience with the bees can give. I've been reading Brother Adam's accounts of his travels through Europe & Africa & his thoughts on the many different bee species. Are there still as many today or have they been compromised by the Italian bees? I know the Buckfast of today aren't the same as what he developed, as Dar had said, but I'm curious about the other many linds of bees that were so prevalent back in his time.


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## beepro

What are the best methods at monitoring the mites?

Well, today is the 2nd new bees emergence day. Lots of big fat adult bees and lots of
new both yellowish and dark brown mites emerged along with the sickly deformed new bees.
Caught about 10 of them to disposed off. For the mites about 60 maybe more per 1000 bees that
emerged. Got 40 of them under my small tweezers. They do pop that you can hear a small sound from squeezing
the small tweezers. Some hives got more mites than the others. Overall, the hives are still surviving some with more
and some with less adult bees. Also transferred one frame of the emerging bees with infested cap broods still to the mite
bomb hive. Surprisingly, the mite bomb bee hive still surviving with the constant infusion of the infested cap brood frames from
the other hives. Trying to keep tack of the number of mites and the newly 
emerged bees is labor intensive nevertheless an interesting method for 
not killing the valuable bees in the winter time. So get them when they are at the highest level at new bees emergence cycle.
This will allow you to learn more about the bees and mite cycles throughout the seasons. 
Have high hopes that all hives will survive for another year. Cannot wait for queen rearing days to transfer all the infected cap broods to the new mating nucs.


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## 1102009

beepro said:


> What are the best methods at monitoring the mites?


I don´t mean manipulating the mites, but monitoring them.
Most mites are in the capped brood. The winter brood is the most infested. 
What I need to know is:
- how many mites are in drone brood, how many in worker brood. Is it true, that most mites are in drone brood? So far it is, I opened cells from 2 hives to compare.
is it a mechanism to have more healthy worker brood? Do I use colonies with drone brood throughout the year as breeders?
To find out I have to open brood cells
- are many mites on the varroa floor a sign of grooming? I have to look if the mites are bitten
- is the time of bee development shorter with sc? I have to mark the cells on comb to find out
- I have to put mites on the entrance boards to see if the bees react

There is a big correlation between defense on entrance board ( against wasps , not the beekeeper) and defense against mites in my eyes.
This defense I did not see very much with my carnis. The AMM do it much more, I even saw them killing a hornet right before my eyes.
And what about the hive beetle? He will arrive the next years. Bees without a defense will have a real problem.


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## beepro

beepro said:


> What are the best methods at monitoring the mites?
> 
> Well, today is the 2nd new bees emergence day. Lots of big fat adult bees and lots of
> new both yellowish and dark brown mites emerged along with the sickly deformed new bees.
> Caught about 10 of them to disposed off. For the mites about 60 maybe more per 1000 bees that
> emerged...


This is how I count my mites with accuracy at the bees emergence cycle. You have to time it well in order
to find out how infested are your hives.


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## beepro

* I don´t mean manipulating the mites, but monitoring them.
By manipulating the mite frames on the cap broods, I also monitor them at the
exact mite and bee cycle.
* Most mites are in the capped brood. The winter brood is the most infested.
This is not always true. It is true that many mites are in side the cap broods. This is most noticeable at
bee emergence time because 1 female adult mite can produce 2-3 mites from a single cap cell. So the summer or the winter broods will be infected as well. The only difference is that on the summer bees the mites are mostly spread out because of the brood nest expansion phase. During the winter the brood nest is at the contraction phase so more mites are concentrated inside the cap broods. With less adult bees you can clearly see that the winter mites are more on each new bees emergence cycle. This I found out on a mite check on each hatch cycle. Without the cap broods manipulation I have no way of controlling the timing and which frames have the most mites inside. Now I know!
* What I need to know is: - how many mites are in drone brood, how many in worker brood. Is it true, that most mites are in drone brood? So far it is, I opened cells from 2 hives to compare. 
How many mites are inside the drone brood depends on how heavily infested are your hives. More mites more drone broods infected. Found out this 2 seasons ago on the hive crashed in late winter/early Spring time. In the worker brood, usually there will be 1 mom and 2-3 offsprings. But mostly it is 3 that I saw on each hatch cycle when the bees are still inside the cells trying to come out. I help them along with a small tweezers to uncap the wax a bit to released them to see any mites on them. 
Yes, most mites are inside the drone broods and on the drones as well when they first emerged from the cells. One one drone there can be up to 12-20 mites. I mostly saw 8 because at that time my hives are mostly infected coming out of winter on the Spring build up. By cutting out the drone broods majority of the adult mites can be clean up but not totally because some are still hiding inside the brood cells. 
* is it a mechanism to have more healthy worker brood? Do I use colonies with drone brood throughout the year as breeders?
No, this is not the decision of the colony. It is the mites that decided to infect the drone broods because they have more food resource to sustain themselves for a longer time because the drones require a longer gestation time more than any workers or queens. So the mites pick the drones to better multiply themselves not for the worker's sake. 
Because the mite and bee cycle goes up and down throughout the seasons, it is hard to decide which is the better breeder queen. Mainly, I will choose the colony that have the least mites after the removal to see how fast they can get rid of the remaining mites from the hive. If the reinfestation rate is high after the cap broods removal then I will not use this breeder. I'm trying to find the breeders that have the least mites to graft. So survey your hives on Spring build up to see which have the lowest mites as the breeder. After the first new bees emergence during the early Spring time you will know before they went into the 2nd cap broods cycle again.
* To find out I have to open brood cells
Not so, to find out I have to concentrate the mites on the cap broods first. Then at each hatch cycle go in for a hive check on each hive to find out which has the highest infestation rate. That means more deformed bees and more free running mites on the newly emerged young fuzzzy bees. This is the only way for an accurate count and queen evaluation for the resistant trait if any.
* - are many mites on the varroa floor a sign of grooming? I have to look if the mites are bitten
Yes and no. When the mite numbers are high you will see more on the floor. When the mite population is less you will fewer mites on the floor. Some bees will groom more than other species so it could possibly be that you will see more mites on the floor also. It is not an accurate check for the mite numbers to indicate their grooming behaviors. Grooming is a hygienic trait. Having mite resistant is another trait. To look for the bitten mites you have to use a microscope for that. Carpenter bees have the mite mauling built in. He will use a microscope for a week to find the most bitten mites from his colonies. Then he will select the breeders based on that. I had an email conversation with him last year. It will take a week to find the breeder after the microscope screening because our eyes just not that keen to see the bitten mites.
* - is the time of bee development shorter with sc? I have to mark the cells on comb to find out
According to study that I've read, yes, it is 2 days faster to emerge on the workers. But in reality I found out that my sc worker bees cannot prevent the infestation either. Either large or sc they must develop the mite fighting power in order to survive. Dee Lesby study said sc will have more workers emerged and with more numbers they can deal with the mites better by developing the resistance faster. Not sure if it is true until I can find out one day. So you don't have to mark the cells to find out. All you have to do is to put the sc drawn comb in there to see how the workers got infected. At emergence time you will find out how many workers will be. Today one sc cap broods also have high infestation level. So my conclustion is that large ro sc it does not matter to the mites. Surprisingly, the sc 3 mites on a newly emerged worker bee still alive without any deformity. Strange to me!
* - I have to put mites on the entrance boards to see if the bees react
The bees will not react to the mites because the mites can mask their scent just like the parasitic worms inside our intestines or in a fish's body. Only the bees with the most sensitivity can detect them. So focus on raising the extra sensitive bees. Amazingly the sensitive bees are the meaner bees just like humans will react to a sudden tapping on our shoulder-- the jumpy type.
* There is a big correlation between defense on entrance board ( against wasps , not the beekeeper) and defense against mites in my eyes.
They will defense against the bigger objects but not the smaller mites because the scent is the same as the bees. The bigger objects the bees will reconized and defend themselves from them.
* This defense I did not see very much with my carnis. The AMM do it much more, I even saw them killing a hornet right before my eyes. 
My Cordovan daughter queens also got the carnis genetics mixed in on the offsprings. So they are not aggressive bees at all. Most Cordovan will jump on the wasp but never kill them. They just chased the wasp away. Time to set up a wasp trap when their number is overwheling in Spring time.
* And what about the hive beetle? He will arrive the next years. Bees without a defense will have a real problem. 
We don't have beetles here only the deadly mites. When they come just build up stronger colonies to deal with them in a full sun location. Keep the hive over populated to keep the beetles in check. Also use beetle traps inside the hive to get rid of them somewhat. As in anything with life, deal with it when they come.


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## JRG13

Beepro, we have hive beetles here, we just don't see them in the numbers they do in the South and East.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Yes, SHB are in the Sacramento [California] area. This quote is from _another_ Sacramento area beekeeper ... ...



Honey-4-All said:


> Hive beetles have been in the Sacramento area for a lot longer than a year. Try at least 5 if not a year or two more. Putting sub on a hive which is way to weak to consume it all within a week or two is an invitation to a SHB birthing party. Be judicious about timing and quantity.


That is from this thread: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...overed-in-Pollen-Patties-in-California-Nevada
... from February 2016.


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## BernhardHeuvel

SiWolKe said:


> This defense I did not see very much with my carnis. The AMM do it much more, I even saw them killing a hornet right before my eyes.


I tried many Carnica breeders, they never showed much resistance to varroa. I got significant better mite resistance with those Elgon bees that got crossed with Buckfast bees. 

Try to get some more Elgons into your stock and make sure you get some buckfast queens from Josef Koller, South Germany. He has a good pragmatic way to breed for varroa resistance.


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## 1102009

Thanks Bernhard. 
I hope my Elgons F1 survive and my friend breeds more. He´s got Eriks and Josefs.
The AMM descendants are AMM -Buckfast hybrids, but not resistant Buckfast. 
If I ever purchase more resistant stock I will take your advise.


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## Oldtimer

BernhardHeuvel said:


> I tried many Carnica breeders, they never showed much resistance to varroa.


16 years ago and for a few years after that, batches of Carniolan semen from Germany were imported to my country because the breeders in Germany claimed they were highly varroa resistant, and a few guys decided we should introduce carniolans to NZ, the only bees we had up to then were British AMM, and Italian.
The semen had to be put into Italian bees, but by line breeding, and crossing the offspring with more batches of unrelated Carniolan semen, eventually a pretty pure carniolan bee was produced, completely black with bands of grey hair, looked and acted Carniolan. But the varroa resistance was no better than the existing Italians.

Here is a photo of one of those queens which I raised myself. She has not too long been mated, some of the attendant bees are not hers.

Hard working and very gentle bees, pretty to look at, but useless against varroa.


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## Fusion_power

One of those trivia items you pick up after several years is that the base level of varroa resistance increases over time. 25 years ago, there was near zero varroa resistance in any bees in this area. I lost about 24 colonies of Buckfast bees to varroa in the winter of 1993/1994. It was a very harsh lesson to learn. Today, the feral bees in this general area are moderately to highly resistant to varroa. We went 11 years with almost no feral bees. Then in 2004, I caught a single swarm that showed very strong A.M.M. traits. The swarm was moderately resistant to varroa. Now it is possible to catch feral swarms throughout this region and most of them will be varroa resistant. They have a bunch of undesirable traits such as strong swarming tendency and sometimes they are very defensive. There are several reasons why we have a population of ferals with strong resistance including that bees on combs are not legal to bring into Alabama.


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## 1102009

double


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## 1102009

The last day of 2016 two more hives are dead.
Tommorrow I will check why.
Now 7 left.

More and more it´s clear to me what is not working and why I have to find out myself because nobody prepared me for that. Only my gut feeling which I ignored.
The methods I learned with my education I cannot use. My orientation now is MB and the experience of beesource`s and sol`s forum members.

These failing methods are:
- to use only Dadant square deep boxes as system and exchange the frames. They will only work for summer, then harvest and put them off. Do it old-school, feeding then or put honey frames in the one box left.
My mentor wanted me to leave the honey filled deep on top, but no. This will only work in hot areas without winter. As I see it now, even a shallow will not work with a winter of 5 months so I have to rethink my ideas.
Either use another System ( no), or split if they fill one box ( yes) or use an excluder on top ( maybe)

- the kind of splitting. All the old queen hives ,except the queen which is the most resistant ( the canary queen AMM) are dead. These queens were not old but had the most mites after splitting, because they got the capped brood.
this system was propagated in the tf forum I was a member of last year. It´s only working if capped brood is taken out before the bees breed winter bees, to reduce the mite infestation. This I don´t want to do because it´s a 
treatment to me. The system is propagated because the queenless will have the foragers to nurse the open brood and raise queens. But it´s no problem to me to provide an old queen which starts new without brood with food frames.
Honey harvest is the least problem now for me.

- the strong colonies are the most jeopardized by mites. Too much brood and therefore too much mite breeding. Then less brood before winter which has all the mites. The dead were the strongest in summer and so on two deeps. It´s
not possible to have so strong a hive in my area. 

- to see not much mites on bees and no DWV is no guaranty. I was recommended not to open the hives starting october until spring so they would be able to rearrange their brood nests to syrup stores. 
but I have honey stores and I have to monitor the mites later in fall to see if I`m obliged to combine. I believe 2 of my losses to be queen failure and will see tomorrow if they are more.
I have to know about the mite situation more. 

Well, last year up, this year down. No learning without bad experience.

I wish you all the best, good luck and happy new year!


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> I wish you all the best, good luck and happy new year!


Happy New Year Sibylle!


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> - the strong colonies are the most jeopardized by mites. Too much brood and therefore too much mite breeding. Then less brood before winter which has all the mites. The dead were the strongest in summer and so on two deeps. It´s
> not possible to have so strong a hive in my area.


Are you thinking of Tom Seeley's small hives approach?
Happy new year!


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## squarepeg

when i first started with bees an old beekeeper told me that problems mostly happen when what we try to make the bees do things for us that are too different than what the bees want to do for themselves.

i could see that many of my first mistakes were for this reason and i admit being getting frustrated in the early years. at some point i decided to be happy for the mistakes and see them as learning opportunities. my attitude improved and the experience became much more enjoyable.

your outlook is already much better than mine was in the first years sibylle. i see that you are finding how the bees will teach you if you let them. the lessons you gain by your experience with your bees in your location is more valuable than any advice we can offer. 

thank you again for taking the time to share your story here, and all the best for you and yours in 2017!


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## 1102009

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Are you thinking of Tom Seeley's small hives approach?
> Happy new year!


Oh yes! Have I read the thread where Bernhard and Dar discuss the Dadant system I would have avoided many mistakes.

I rather have bees dying because of nature`s impact instead of my ignorance. But as the saying goes:

"Selbsterkenntnis ist der erste Weg zur Besserung" 

Thanks for the kind wishes and I hope you all keep me company next year again.


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## JWChesnut

Beekeeping is not about absolutes, but about "threading the needle".


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## 1102009

Today I took apart the dead to see what happened.

The first was the AMM which was the strongest at my bee yard. A queenless split from this spring, made with 6 brood combs and already with queen cells. Short brood break. 
After the new queen started breeding they expanded to 9 brood combs and reduced end of october to 6 again. The highest density of bees.
This was clearly a varroa kill. I found a small area brood, not hatched and opened and some bees with short abdomen in the dead. Many dead bees on the floor inside. Not many winter bees.
Many dead mites on dead bees to be seen.

The second deadout`s appearance was amazing.
It seems the bees were shock frosted in their activity. Small brood areas on 5 frames, small frozen clusters of bees on top. Many dead bees laddering to the top box honey storage, but still the bees were not separated from storage in the bottom box. Many bees to be seen, many on the floor, many frozen in cells.
No damaged bees in the dead, a queen, many thick winter bees, nothing hints to a varroa problem.
This Carni hive was the original queen I got and had 14 brood combs in april. I splitted with 5 combs of capped brood, and the hive expanded very fast to 12 brood combs again. Some I donated.
End of september they reduced to 5 brood combs. They were the hive with the most mites. No DWV.
This hive always had done VSH behavior and I saw what looked like grooming. 
Seems like the best hive I had died, being surprised by winter temperatures still with too much brood left. 

All I see supports what I want to change in management.

Now 50% loss and winter coming.


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## squarepeg

excellent reporting of your observations sibylle.

with the second hive, did you find much mite frass in the brood comb?

not seeing much frass does not necessarily rule out mites, as hygienic bees are able to clean the frass away until the colony is so dwindled it cannot do so anymore.

there is also the possibility that a high mite infestation could have weakened the colony not so much by spreading viral infection that can be obvious with the finding of dwv, stunted abdomens, liquified brood, ect.,

but rather by depleting the over-wintering bees of their vitellogenin stores and rendering them too weak to deal with the cold temperatures. it almost sounds like from your description that the bees were having trouble thermoregulating in the lower box and were attempting to relocate in the warmer uppermost part of the hive.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> excellent reporting of your observations sibylle.
> 
> with the second hive, did you find much mite frass in the brood comb?
> 
> not seeing much frass does not necessarily rule out mites, as hygienic bees are able to clean the frass away until the colony is so dwindled it cannot do so anymore.
> 
> there is also the possibility that a high mite infestation could have weakened the colony not so much by spreading viral infection that can be obvious with the finding of dwv, stunted abdomens, liquified brood, ect.,
> 
> but rather by depleting the over-wintering bees of their vitellogenin stores and rendering them too weak to deal with the cold temperatures. it almost sounds like from your description that the bees were having trouble thermoregulating in the lower box and were attempting to relocate in the warmer uppermost part of the hive.


No, no mite frass. I had the opportunity today to compare a hive killed by varroa with one killed by my wrong managements, which you describe perfectly in your last sentence.
This hive would have survived on one deep. 
It was almost full with healthy bees except they were dead. They did not want to leave the brood, i suppose.
DWV is not present very much in my bee yards, but maybe other virus I don´t know of. But not with this hive, too many fat winter bees. But dead. Frozen.


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## squarepeg

beyond mites and viruses, nosema is also on the list of possibilities along with previous pesticide exposure. these can leave a colony weakened and unable to generate enough heat despite adequate stores, and without any obvious signs post mortem.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> beyond mites and viruses, nosema is also on the list of possibilities along with previous pesticide exposure. these can leave a colony weakened and unable to generate enough heat despite adequate stores, and without any obvious signs post mortem.


Pesticides. I don´t know, could be they foraged a field in fall. Those I saw coming back had been to the https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drüsiges_Springkraut which is not sprayed I hope.
Some say you find bees on the ground in front of the hives then ( disoriented) or they are not coming back. The hive still had a high density, but if pollen was poisoned, this could be.

Nosema. In my climate they are able to do cleansing flights every 2-4 weeks. I saw no traces on the entrance boards, floors or boxes.
They are on their own honey, which is not melizitose honey but a mixture of different honey, some liquid, some crystallized, but it seems they had no problem eating this.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> This hive would have survived on one deep.
> It was almost full with healthy bees except they were dead. They did not want to leave the brood, i suppose.
> DWV is not present very much in my bee yards, but maybe other virus I don´t know of. But not with this hive, too many fat winter bees. But dead. Frozen.


Healthy bees don´t die like this. Bees don´t freeze to death.

Tiny clusters can overwinter in one Dadant Jumbo hive. 

What I see in your losses is that you thought they were your best hives. In fact they were not, They were just making a lot of brood and this way they fooled you. 

Varroa resistant bees make very often medium or small hives.


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## squarepeg

"The presence of dysentery is also a poor indicator, especially for N. ceranae, which does not appear to cause dysentery in any way."

"My current take on nosema is that it is an opportunistic pathogen, always there at a low level, but only becoming a problem when colonies are already stressed by chilling, viruses, poor nutrition, and perhaps environmental toxins."

from: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-seasonality-of-nosema-ceranae/

with respect to pesticides i was thinking more in terms of a small perhaps sublethal amount. obtaining lab tests might elucidate the cause(s) but not something i would do myself with an isolated case like this even though the nosema testing would be free.

we are only speculating here, but my guess is that it was most likely a combination of factors that this particular colony could not overcome.


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## squarepeg

if juhani's point is that having a lot of extra space in the hive shouldn't be a big factor than my experience agrees with this. i am overwintering with a hive volume equivalent of about 3 deeps and my winter cluster size is typically only 2 - 4 deep frames of bees.

of course the winters here are somewhat milder than those of you in the more northern latitudes experience.


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## Fusion_power

> Varroa resistant bees make very often medium or small hives.


I often see a large colony in spring for the main flow but only 2 frames of bees over winter. This used to bother me a great deal, but I'm used to seeing it in my bees now. The bees know what to do to succeed, I just have to let them do it.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drüsiges_Springkraut is Himalayan Balsam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_glandulifera It is a common fall pollen source in much of Europe.


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## lharder

I had one colony come out of winter with 2 seams of bees and build nicely in spring. They were in 3 medium boxes with lots of stores. As long as they don't have to go looking for food in some corner, they should be able to organize themselves and survive. 

Seems to me we shouldn't blame ourselves too much when a colony fails. As long as we don't get in the way and make thing too difficult. When we consider bottom up selection in nature, it is ruthless, it is dumb, guided only by survival and reproductive success. Its not about brains, but brawn. So if bees have enough food going into winter and they are in decent lodgings, you have done your job. The rest is up to the bees. They can overcome the minor mistakes we make. 

There is one measure I haven't adopted yet, but would if my losses were very high. That is an adoption of robbing screens in the late summer and fall. This would be to reduce horizontal mite transfer from dwindling to otherwise ok hives.


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## squarepeg

lharder said:


> There is one measure I haven't adopted yet, but would if my losses were very high. That is an adoption of robbing screens in the late summer and fall. This would be to reduce horizontal mite transfer from dwindling to otherwise ok hives.


:thumbsup:


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## Nordak

Looking at other's observations at cluster size going into winter seems to be in line with my own experiences as well. Does this have to do more with not feeding or genetics...both I'm guessing? Sibylle, did you feed the carni hive late?


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> Looking at other's observations at cluster size going into winter seems to be in line with my own experiences as well. Does this have to do more with not feeding or genetics...both I'm guessing? Sibylle, did you feed the carni hive late?


No I fed only those which are still alive a small amount of honey syrup in august.
From the others I took surplus but they always had their own honey provisions, 25-30kg of different honey kinds in hive.

@ SP thanks for the link.


> The best prevention of nosema problems appears to be to run resistant stock, keep young queens, minimize chilling, provide protein supplementation if necessary, and to isolate dwindling colonies. A number of companies are working to develop products to help treat nosemosis—perhaps I’ll test some later this year.


Minimize chilling!!! There was a high amount of pollen inside. Hives never dwindled until end of september until I closed up. Sound was strong until recently. We have night frost for weeks now. Days frosty often, too.

@ Juhani
Last year I overwintered most of my hives with two deep and they even had foundations on top not drawn. My mentor told me to do this if we would have a fall flow. We had 6 weeks winter, almost no frost. 
All beekeepers I know tell me to reduce space in winter.
You say one jumbo hive, this is true, but not two of those deep.
I don´t know what to believe now if you claim this.


> What I see in your losses is that you thought they were your best hives. In fact they were not, They were just making a lot of brood and this way they fooled you.


This is exactly true for all except the mother carni hive. There other criteria must be considered.

@ Iharder
I need to know what happens ,not to blame me or someone. I need this to learn how to avoid mistakes in future.
I have reduced entrances the whole year.


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## Oldtimer

Can you post a pic of the brood in the affected hives?


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## BeesFromPoland

I agree with Juhani in some way, here. 

What we can judge is just the amount of brood, size of cluster, amount of food etc. We cannot judge which colony is "best" (considering survival). 
Michael Bush suggests that the healthiest organisms are those that are the "medium", not "best". 
So it depands what do You define as "best". 

Most beekeepers I see as role model beekeepers or the ones that I cooperate with (as far as I know) don't change anything in the hive before winter, don't reduce space etc. They just leave the bees as they had before (if needed they only feed). I would not believe that bees die because they had much space. 
Yes, most of beekeepers reduce space in the hive, but most their methods is what I call apiary engeeneering - they just do everything for the bees or instead of the bees. In my opinion bees should have the freedom and possibility to arrange the hive for winter as they want.


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## 1102009

I´m not with you.
Sorry, I´m stubborn and see what I see. 
Our domesticated bees are forced into arrangements they probably are not able to live with. T. Seeley observed that bees use space between 40 and 100 l if offered. My arrangement was more. ( 150 l)
They could not handle this, I´m convinced.

The best colony is one which is infested but still survives and thrives in my eyes.
I claim I am able to recognize this condition now after three years.
And I claim to know now it is me who is the problem or the mites or the natural circumstances.

From MB website:


> Wintering
> 
> Winter is another time that just the right space is what you want. I know you'll hear all these people say "the bees don't heat the hive, they just heat the cluster" but I'll guarantee you will be warmer in a small room than a large room when they are cold and both the same temperature. I have spent a lot of my life working outside or semi-outside building houses and little things make a big difference when it comes to cold. I want my hives going into winter with the space they need, not a lot of extra space. Any extra space, if necessary, should be on the bottom. This is part of the concept of overwintering nucs. A small cluster of bees can get through the winter if the density of the bees is high enough.


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## BeesFromPoland

SiWolKe said:


> I´m not with you.
> Sorry, I´m stubborn and see what I see.
> Our domesticated bees are forced into arrangements they probably are not able to live with. T. Seeley observed that bees use space between 40 and 100 l if offered. My arrangement was more. ( 150 l)
> They could not handle this, I´m convinced.


Yes, our domesticated bees can't handle many things - they can't handle varroa too. What I'm trying to do is to bring back their instincts by natural selection, and minimum management. If that meas that the more "domesticated" have to go, than I'm not happy with it, but so be it. 
Do You think bees have had ever reduced space in logs, tree hollows etc? 





SiWolKe said:


> The best colony is one which is infested but still survives and thrives in my eyes.
> I claim I am able to recognize this condition now after three years.
> And I claim to know now it is me who is the problem or the mites or the natural circumstances.


Do You? 
Are You sure You made so many mistakes that "the best" did not cope with them? Of course it may have happened but I don't believe that leaving them more space was the factor that killed them.

My collegue said the same, and left 20 hives untreated this Fall. They were his best. 5 is alive now, 15 down.... He claims to bee good enough beekeeper not to make simple mistakes (he keeps bees for 6 or 7 years, he has about 80 hives - so he has some more practice than You or me).

It's just nature. It's not about "best" - it's about "best adapted". 





SiWolKe said:


> From MB website:
> 
> 
> 
> Wintering
> 
> Winter is another time that just the right space is what you want. I know you'll hear all these people say "the bees don't heat the hive, they just heat the cluster" but I'll guarantee you will be warmer in a small room than a large room when they are cold and both the same temperature. I have spent a lot of my life working outside or semi-outside building houses and little things make a big difference when it comes to cold. I want my hives going into winter with the space they need, not a lot of extra space. Any extra space, if necessary, should be on the bottom. *This is part of the concept of overwintering nucs.* A small cluster of bees can get through the winter if the density of the bees is high enough.
Click to expand...

Of course they may have warmer. But MB writes about wintering nucs. that is the completly different thing because (as MB writes himself) its about getting it through the winter the possible smallest nucs. I wouldn't think MB reduces the space in his "best colonies". What I rather remember from reading his book/website it's more taking the box with honey from the top, and leaving the rest as it was.


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## 1102009

Bees in natural habitat do not have gaps in their broodnest and no frames. They have no beekeeper who puts *on top* a deep with empty comb in august.
Big nests develop slowly with ferals. They adapt their nesting to the density of bees.

MB says the space should be on bottom. How would you feel if you cluster in the bottom and the heat would be on top with the honey? In a tree the bees go up slowly as you see on Davis Heafs site. They follow the heat.
They are not able to follow the heat if there are no empty cells to cluster in on top, only capped honey.

I did not say my best hive, and it was only one I think best dead now, was a resistant one. With all the non resistant I have it probably was the best.


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> Most beekeepers I see as role model beekeepers or the ones that I cooperate with (as far as I know) don't change anything in the hive before winter, don't reduce space etc. They just leave the bees as they had before (if needed they only feed). I would not believe that bees die because they had much space.


Just because the beekeepers you cooperate with do that, does not make it right. Thing with "leave it alone beekeeping", is we are not actually dealing with a wild hive that lives in a cavity and has progressed naturally through the season. We are dealing with hives that we have artificially manipulated and harvested honey from, and made bigger or smaller as we see fit. This alone has disrupted how the bees would have set the hive up if left to their own devices, and is the reason why it is quite legitimate for a beekeeper to manipulate the hive pre winter to ensure it is in best shape for the coming winter.

Last winter for the first time in my life and because I was short of storage I wintered a bunch of hives in 3 deeps instead of the usual 2. The top box had no honey it was just empty comb. Learned a couple things, one was that by mid spring those hives had used more stores, and the other was they tended to have more bees, not a good thing as next I had to control swarming.


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> Yes, our domesticated bees can't handle many things - they can't handle varroa too. What I'm trying to do is to bring back their instincts by natural selection, and minimum management.


Back to their natural instincts? Do you think bees used to handle varroa but now they can't?


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## BeesFromPoland

ok 
I understand more now.

But still they should know where to cluster. I have upper entrances, and the heat goes out of the hive. They should know where they have empty cells and capped honey, don't You think?


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## Oldtimer

Yes, part of a beekeepers skill would be to arrange the pre winter hive in the way the bees expect it to be, even though it could have been messed up from the bees perspective, by earlier honey harvesting and box removal. The bees alone may not be able to put all this to right in time, so a good beekeeper will ensure the hive is arranged properly in time for winter.


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Just because the beekeepers you cooperate with do that, does not make it right. Thing with "leave it alone beekeeping", is we are not actually dealing with a wild hive that lives in a cavity and has progressed naturally through the season. We are dealing with hives that we have artificially manipulated and harvested honey from, and made bigger or smaller as we see fit. This alone has disrupted how the bees would have set the hive up if left to their own devices, and is the reason why it is quite legitimate for a beekeeper to manipulate the hive pre winter to ensure it is in best shape for the coming winter.
> 
> Last winter for the first time in my life and because I was short of storage I wintered a bunch of hives in 3 deeps instead of the usual 2. The top box had no honey it was just empty comb. Learned a couple things, one was that by mid spring those hives had used more stores, and the other was they tended to have more bees, not a good thing as next I had to control swarming.


I don't know how You see animals.
I don't look at them as "producers" of what we need (honey in case of bees). They have their instincts and the less we manipulate, and the more choice we leave them the more "natural" they act - even if they are similar genetics. Why? I have no idea why. But they wake their instincts, that they did not have to use because of our manipulations (no matter if we're talking about cows, horses or bees). 
If You leave bees alone from july or early august they act differently than if you prepare the wintering nest for them in september. If You manipulate all year, they do not use their natural instincts, but just react on what You have done. 






Oldtimer said:


> Back to their natural instincts? Do you think bees used to handle varroa but now they can't?


that is not what I have said.


----------



## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> If You leave bees alone from july or early august they act differently than if you prepare the wintering nest for them in september. If You manipulate all year, they do not use their natural instincts, but just react on what You have done.


Disagree. They always use their natural instincts.

Trick for the beekeeper is to work in harmony with their natural instincts. it is not necessary to just leave them alone to do whatever, to achieve that. A good beekeeper will set the stage, so the bees doing what comes naturally, built on the foundation the beekeeper has laid for them, will give a good result for the bees and the beekeeper.

Simple example. We know the bees natural instinct is to store honey above the brood. Therefore we put empty combs above the brood where the bees will naturally store honey, and we can harvest it. There are many other ways we manipulate bees, but are in harmony with their natural instincts.

Likewise, dealing with varroa is not a natural thing for european honeybees, they are not a natural parasite of them.


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## BernhardHeuvel

BeesFromPoland said:


> I don't know how You see animals.


I don't know how you see bees and beekeepers. The trick is to realize that bees and beekeepers are one unity, the beekeeper is as kept by their bees as he keeps the bees. In German we call it Bien, and some say, the beekeeper is part of the Bien and have ever been. That is symbiosis which is much more prevalent in nature than "fighting each other for survival". 

Get yourself a log hive/bee tree hive/bee gum, so you can check what you are suggesting what's natural or not. You are lucky to live in Poland, where you can visit the bee trees and experience "nature" first hand. 

See a nice documentary of tree beekeeping. 
http://freethebees.ch/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Tree-beekeeping-in-Poland_History.pdf

Also see: http://tree-beekeeping.org/die-zeidlerei/zeidler-handwerk/

I mean, if you are really want to go natural as possible, get rid of unnatural bee hives. Especially with top entrances...

Do the real thing.


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## BeesFromPoland

BernhardHeuvel said:


> I don't know how you see bees and beekeepers. The trick is to realize that bees and beekeepers are one unity, the beekeeper is as kept by their bees as he keeps the bees. In German we call it Bien, and some say, the beekeeper is part of the Bien and have ever been. That is symbiosis which is much more prevalent in nature than "fighting each other for survival".


Well, I don't see that "symbiosis" in most bees-beekeeper relationships. 
I'm not saying it about what is happening here on this tf forum. I mean general. I follow different forums, I read articles in magazines and beekeeping books, and mostly I'm terrified with how bees (and other animals) are seen. 
WHat I see is more like parasitic relationship of beekeepers on bees, and probably much more harmful to the bees than varroa. 





BernhardHeuvel said:


> Get yourself a log hive/bee tree hive/bee gum, so you can check what you are suggesting what's natural or not. You are lucky to live in Poland, where you can visit the bee trees and experience "nature" first hand.
> 
> See a nice documentary of tree beekeeping.
> http://freethebees.ch/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Tree-beekeeping-in-Poland_History.pdf
> 
> Also see: http://tree-beekeeping.org/die-zeidlerei/zeidler-handwerk/


I have two log hives on my yard (one was alive when winter started) - here are some pictures: http://pantruten.blogspot.com/search?q=kłoda
(I have another to prepare for the next spring)
this is how they look now: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nTd4nSdc...2IkopqRtIoaHkGN4gCLcB/s1600/klody+i+budka.jpg
I have put some boxes on the trees in the nearby forrest - here are some pictures: http://pantruten.blogspot.com/search?q=sztuczna+barć
(i intend to put 5 more in the spring). 

I know a guy who does tree hive beekeeping in Poland. I'm trying to do the thing. I'm not saying you can't do more - I try to do my best. 

About that tree hives in Poland - in the spring one initiative like that was stopped because beekeepers were too scared of dieseases... this is that "symbiosis" of beekeepers and bees.





BernhardHeuvel said:


> I mean, if you are really want to go natural as possible, get rid of unnatural bee hives. Especially with top entrances...
> 
> Do the real thing.


Yes, I'm sure that top entrances are the biggest problem with getting close to nature...


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## Eduardo Gomes

In my country when varroa arrived in the mid 80's many beekeepers still did a traditional beekeeping, with cork boxes and / or tree trunks. BeeK did not put foundations. It was all run by the bees.

By the time the varroa arrived the vast majority of the bees installed theres died.

You can see here the pictures of these traditional boxes that we call "cortiços".


https://www.google.pt/search?q=cort...X&ved=0ahUKEwjumNeHxaPRAhVDXBQKHan3D5oQsAQIGw

From my perspective I'll be a good beekeeper when I'm truly a brother to my bees. When I am able to give them what they need, sometimes it will be distance other times it will be closeness.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> They are not able to follow the heat if there are no empty cells to cluster in on top, only capped honey.


i believe that this is the general consensus, but there are some who have a different opinion.

what i do when i make my last manipulation prior to winter is place a frame of empty comb in the center of the honey frames in the upper boxes. perhaps this allows for easier clustering above the 'gap'. i like that it consistently promotes upward expansion of the broodnest when the build up starts.


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## 1102009

@ SP very good advise.
If I would go on using two boxes this I would do.

@BFP
If I had used two boxes from the beginning in spring and never change this constellation they would have arranged their overwintering broodnest ( in the top box, I´m sure of that) with success.

I´m not sure the bees estimate some situations the wrong way and die even with natural instincts. 
And they will need some time, some years to go back to natural instincts because we bred to our own profit for a long time.
On this path we should help them along. Not just abandon domesticated bees to nature suddenly.

@ Bernhard


> the beekeeper is as kept by their bees as he keeps the bees.


 :thumbsup:

@ OT and Eduardo


> Trick for the beekeeper is to work in harmony with their natural instincts. it is not necessary to just leave them alone to do whatever, to achieve that. A good beekeeper will set the stage, so the bees doing what comes naturally, built on the foundation the beekeeper has laid for them, will give a good result for the bees and the beekeeper.





> From my perspective I'll be a good beekeeper when I'm truly a brother to my bees. When I am able to give them what they need, sometimes it will be distance other times it will be closeness.


Nicely said.
Bees will never live without beekeepers present. My hope is to have ferals again in europe but why not use bees in harmony with their instincts? This I´m trying to learn. You can use them for just joy or pollinating your crops, it´s not all about honey harvest.


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## 1102009

post by Bernhard:


> Wintering in one deep box is just fine, even in the coldest regions in Germany. Not a problem at all. As I already wrote, you can get a lot of winter stores into that deep. One frame holds up to 4 kg of winter food, which is about 9 pound. Usually you have four frames of brood with a honey dome above it, if you feed them well and all other frames hold food, 8 frames by 4 kg per frame = 32 kg of winter stores. That is 70 pounds. That is fairly enough for even very long winters.
> 
> Consumption with brood present = 4 kg per month; without brood = 1 kg per month. Count your winter months with and without brood, and this is what you need for winter stores.
> 
> Beespace above the frames plus a thick insulation on top is important (in all sorts of hives).


seems I had the wrong mentor....:scratch:...last year.


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## BernhardHeuvel

BeesFromPoland said:


> Well, I don't see that "symbiosis" in most bees-beekeeper relationships.


Maybe. But there would be a lot(!) less bees (close to extinction?) nowadays if there won't be those "bad bad beekeepers".

In fact, in landscapes like we have here in the West of Germany, with urbanization plus industrial farming nearby, I reckon' no feral bees would survive here on it's own. No, I know for sure, since I did a lot of leave alone survival tests and I additionally observe dozens of "wild nests" (tree cavities, house walls, ..) that are populated with swarms from time to time. Problem here is, you don't have enough nectar at one spot to feed a hive all year round. You need to move your bees or they'll starve. Some say, natural nest don't produce much of surplus nectar. Maybe. Maybe not. From what I know about bees, only prospering bees produce honey. A lot of honey. In the end it is not only survival that makes life worth living, it is thriving and good living. As a beekeeper I care for the bees and provide them a good place to live. (Without top entrances. ) The honey flows on it's own once you keep your bees right. 

I consider what Tom Seeley is teaching us by his observations and experiments. For example. Not many of us are able to provide hive spacing of 850 m/0.5 miles. But what I do is, for example, is using hive entrance marks to limit down drifting of bees in an apiary.










Sure it doesn't reduce drifting down to zero percent, as found in natural nests. But from my own observation it really helps a lot. I print those hive marks, laminate them and tack them at the hive entrance. Done. Low investment, high improvement.

You can download a PDF with those marks here: http://www.immenfreunde.de/docs/Fluglochmarkierung.pdf
I made those marks basing on scientific research on bee vision and what forms they can distinguish. 

Drone drifting in wild nests: 0 %
Drone drifting in an apiary setup: 43 %
Worker drifting wasn't tested, but should be very similar.

Other Seeley findings
Swarming reduces varroa counts in a wild nest during the season, so the population builds up less rapidly. In an apiary swarming doesn't contribute to varroa reduction – because of vertical transfer (=drifting) from hive to hive. What can you do as a beekeeper? The removal of all brood also reduces mites by 60-80 %. Artificial swarming does. If you do this on all of your hives, the vertical transfer doesn't matter much, since you remove all of those mites at a time. 

It was find that a reduced size of the nest helps with varroa. You either use smaller hives – or use a follower board to create the same effect. Also Seeley suspects that smaller hives trigger more swarming and creates a smaller population by the small hive, I reckon' this is all about warmth. Heat storage and costs doing so. A warm nest is no good for varroa. In a warm nest the reproduction rate per brood cycle is 1.6 while in cold conditions (and prolonged hatching times of the young bees) the reproduction rate is 2.5. Keep your bees snug and warm and get less problems with varroa. Also a smaller brood nest also means less comb to clean up, with less nurse bees needed to do so. Hive hygiene is better in smaller brood nests. A family can clean a normal sized house, while the same family can't keep up cleaning the house of the size of a luxury villa. Some maybe say, there will be more bees in a bigger hive. But one has to know that about 10,000 bees are used for housekeeping and the rest goes out foraging. 20,000 bees are needed minimum to produce honey. 10k bees keeping the house clean, 10k bees forage. 
In a population of 30,000 bees, well, 10k bees keep the house, 20k bees go out foraging. And so on. 40k bees: 10k nurse bees, 30k foragers. (Read C.L. Farrar and others on that topic.) 

So by using a smaller broodnest size you again mimic the natural example. 

Another survival factor according to Seeley seems to be propolis. What can we do as beekeepers to make use of it? Well, stimulate propolis collection. By using rough walls at the inside of the hives. Or tack propolis mesh to the walls. 

I repost the talk Seeley held recently. You can learn something from it, I think. 




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVj4A6F1D_s

At last I want to draw your attention of the surrounding of the bees. It is not only the bees that are in trouble. Lots of species are dying out, going extinct forever right now. There are a lot of studies showing that we have the sixth known mass extinction of species at the moment going on. On scale like the extinction of the dinosaurs. Everything goes down at the moment. 

Apart from studies I can report, that on a single hunting day ten years ago we shot about 200 rabbits, 50-100 hares, 100 ducks, 150 pheasants. That was the case for the last 20 years. Nowadays we have 35 creatures in total after a long hunting day. In total. 

All sorts of animals are going extinct. All sorts of animals get strange fungi or viral infections. Everything goes down. Researchers found the total mass of insects in Germany dropped about 60 %. What the heck is going on here?! I don't know, but what I see is alarming me and I have sleepless nights about it.

I think we should take all measures to keep the bees alive in a very unnatural surrounding and development. Leave alone in hard times is no option if you really love your bees. 

Bernhard


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## BeesFromPoland

Thanks for the link Bernhard. I'll watch it.

What I've heard about insects in Germany is somehow similar to what You say. We don't have perfect conditions, but I think it's better here in Poland. Drivers often say that when they drive from Germany to Poland, when they pass the border, the cars (windshields) are suddenly covered with insects...

I'm not saying to leave them alone (however I would say that in the long run it would help). I do a lot of work splitting, taking care of the apiary, making habitats. I just don't like when beekeepers kill the queens that don't give perfect crop or sting, and say that is "for the sake of the bees". For me it is hypocrisy. This "symbiosis" is only when bees gather big crops, and the health of population is of no interest of any. They have miticides or acids for that, don't they?...

I see You don't like to entrances  May I know why?


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## Nordak

Bernhard, very good post. I tend to manage in ways that keeps the bee to comb ratio proportionally thick with bees in any given space with the use of a follower board. Basically walking a fine line between bee population and swarming. I was thinking of removing follower boards this year as an experiment, not so sure about that now. Sibylle, I think there might be some ideas here for your own use.


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## BernhardHeuvel

The good thing of a follower board is, you adapt the broodnest size to the actual and exact potential of that hive. (Read: queen's potential) Adaptability wins over fixedness.


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## Nordak

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Adaptability wins over fixedness.


:thumbsup:


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> I see You don't like to entrances  May I know why?


To entrances? Do you mean top entrances? This can be learned from looking at wild hives, to see their preferred natural behaviour. They will adapt to any shape. But if they have a choice, they will build their nest above the entrance, with brood nearest to the entrance, and then honey above that.

If you do experiments in say, a top bar hive, the bees make the brood nest closest to the entrance. If you block that entrance and make another one further away, the bees will slowly move the brood nest to the new entrance.

Thus, a top entrance in a man made hive messes with the way the bees prefer to do things. They like brood bottom, honey top, but they also like brood near the entrance. A top entrance works against the way they like to do things.

In some places beekeepers winter with a top entrance, because a bottom entrance may get blocked with snow. In such circumstances a top entrance makes sense. But unless there is a good reason like that, wherever possible it is best to design the hive in tune with the way bees naturally like to work, a bottom entrance.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Oldtimer said:


> ...


:thumbsup:

I may add: natural tree cavities are not made by woodpeckers (those cavities are way too small) but by fungi. Usually a branch twists off the tree, the branch starts to rot = this is the entry for the fungi into the tree. From that hole the fungi works it's way up into the tree. This is because the tree's sap is going upwards, the fungi follows the sap stream. The natural tree cavity thus have an entrance at the bottom or let's better say, close to the bottom. (Because the bottom of that cavity starts rotting, too, but slower.)


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> Bernhard, very good post. I tend to manage in ways that keeps the bee to comb ratio proportionally thick with bees in any given space with the use of a follower board. Basically walking a fine line between bee population and swarming. I was thinking of removing follower boards this year as an experiment, not so sure about that now. Sibylle, I think there might be some ideas here for your own use.


Yes.
I have the same thoughts like Bernhard for some time now but was not able to free myself from other`s influences.
I will use the dadant like that in future.

What Bernhards tells us about the insects is mostly because they find no reproduction places anymore or no prey. The prey finds no breeding place. All find no feeding plants.
The last 12 years I observed that rural areas are not tolerated anymore and are destroyed by the green energy harvesting. Heavy machines compress the ground, forests are "harvested", every free area is planted with green energy plants which bring no diversity.

My experiments with wild bees in my garden at home show that even in a small area insects will build up a biotope if the earth is free for insects nesting, if you plant the right wild plants for them to feed on and if you provide nesting places in old wood or stems.

The gardens of today are "clean", stones and grasses, they are looking like living rooms. The sides of roads are mowed the whole year to have short gras. The flowers are seeded which are sterile. Trees are planted from foreign countries and barely kept alive.
The global industry distributed sickness, parasites so very fast, nature is not able to adapt.

We are only a little dust in the wind but everybody should try to make the world a little better if there´s something he can do.


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## Nordak

SiWolKe said:


> We are only a little dust in the wind but everybody should try to make the world a little better if there´s something he can do.


My idea of gardening is basically leaving fringe areas of my little 1.5 acre yard untouched. I'm amazed at how a little patch here and there will be covered with thousands of different types of arthropods. Lots of native plants and flowers started blooming that previously I never paid attention to before. Before I started keeping bees, I'd go out and weed whack anything above 3 inches tall. The way I see it, if I'm going to complain about the lack of diverse forage for insects, I need to contribute what I can to aid their cause. The neighbors probably don't like it, but I haven't had any major complaints. Honey keeps them pretty quiet.


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> My idea of gardening is basically leaving fringe areas of my little 1.5 acre yard untouched. I'm amazed at how a little patch here and there will be covered with thousands of different types of arthropods. Lots of native plants and flowers started blooming that previously I never paid attention to before. Before I started keeping bees, I'd go out and weed whack anything above 3 inches tall. The way I see it, if I'm going to complain about the lack of diverse forage for insects, I need to contribute what I can to aid their cause. The neighbors probably don't like it, but I haven't had any major complaints. Honey keeps them pretty quiet.


:thumbsup:

This night winter started in earnest and the first snow was falling.
The next days rain should be coming which is very good because it´s too dry.
Next week they announce deep frost. An ordeal for the bees.
I hope those left did not start breeding much and the clusters are strong enough. The next days will find me checking the bottom boards.


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## Juhani Lunden

Oldtimer said:


> In some places beekeepers winter with a top entrance, because a bottom entrance may get blocked with snow.


And even this reason to use top entrances is false. Make the bottom entrance bigger. 

If snow blogs the bottom entrance air will go through. Sometimes hard snow becomes ice, even then some corners will let air go through. If the bottom entrance is totally blocked with hard ice, air will come through inner cover, or the rising temperature of the hive melts away some hole for air to go through. It is very rare that bees die because of lack of air, but I believe it happens sometimes in styrofoam hives which usually have plastic on top. 



My entrances are only at bottom and I make them douple size for winter. Bees thank me for that, I have watched them long enough.


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> To entrances? Do you mean top entrances?


Yes I do 




Oldtimer said:


> This can be learned from looking at wild hives, to see their preferred natural behaviour. They will adapt to any shape. But if they have a choice, they will build their nest above the entrance, with brood nearest to the entrance, and then honey above that.


Are You sure that it would be their choice for 100%?

My friends always quarreled that "if bees had a choice" they would choose big hives like langstroth or dadant. And once a swarm came to a small hive of japanese type (30cm x 30 cm on the outside of the hive) while they had a choice of different - much bigger types nearby on the same apiary... 
(in japanese hives usually the entrances are in each box). 

Here are some other bees' choices (there are some pictures or films): http://forum.wolnepszczoly.org/showthread.php?tid=1048&highlight=dzikie+gniazda 
Would You say choosing a tyre for the nest is a good and logical choice? 





Oldtimer said:


> If you do experiments in say, a top bar hive, the bees make the brood nest closest to the entrance. If you block that entrance and make another one further away, the bees will slowly move the brood nest to the new entrance.


that would be logical. but this is horizontal hive, not vertical, and that has nothing to do with the problem we are discussing. What MB writes is that he has little entrances (6 - 9 cm?) in the corner (with vertical hives), and bees tend to have brood near that entrance too (near the wall close to that entrance). So that doesn't prove anything. 




Oldtimer said:


> Thus, a top entrance in a man made hive messes with the way the bees prefer to do things. They like brood bottom, honey top, but they also like brood near the entrance. A top entrance works against the way they like to do things.


Do they really like that? Are You sure top entrance works against the way they like to do things?

I have top entrances for 3 years now. I have some bottom entrances too (maybe 25 - 30% of the apiary?). I haven't notice any difference they act in that one or that. Honey is on top, brood is underneath. I would say even more - if You put a 2 or 3 box hive with bottom entrance they will start drawing in the upper box - so the furthest from the entrance (!). in the hive with top entrance, they start the same - from top. So if having brood near entrance is positive and natural for them, then maybe top entrance helps them when they are most sensitive as a young colony? Have You considered that? When the colony is "adult" I would say it matters much less, because they can do actively whatever they wish during summer - and in winter top entrance helps with good ventilation when the bees are not active. 

What I also observed during last winter is that bees with top entrance usually wintered better or the same than with bottom entrance. I have seen none (none really!) mould in any hive with top entrance (only with the one that died in cluster - the cluster was with mould, but no mould near cluster on comb). 

I'm also sure that usually bees "like" to have brood near bottom entrance, because they are made to have it like that (of course I'm sure that is for their sake  ) by excluder. If they liked to have the brood near bottom entrance I would say that excluder wouldn't be needed, don't You think? 





Oldtimer said:


> In some places beekeepers winter with a top entrance, because a bottom entrance may get blocked with snow. In such circumstances a top entrance makes sense. But unless there is a good reason like that, wherever possible it is best to design the hive in tune with the way bees naturally like to work, a bottom entrance.


That is of course Your opinion, and I would say that probably You haven't been a bee, have You? 





BernhardHeuvel said:


> :thumbsup:
> 
> I may add: natural tree cavities are not made by woodpeckers (those cavities are way too small) but by fungi. Usually a branch twists off the tree, the branch starts to rot = this is the entry for the fungi into the tree. From that hole the fungi works it's way up into the tree. This is because the tree's sap is going upwards, the fungi follows the sap stream. The natural tree cavity thus have an entrance at the bottom or let's better say, close to the bottom. (Because the bottom of that cavity starts rotting, too, but slower.)


Yes, but bees go into different cavieties.
Some hollows are pointed more down, because what rots goes down with moisture, where it composts, so fungi go up, but compost "destroys" the tree downwards. If some mice or squirrels go in that cavity they may throw some of that compost away, and so the cavity goes down, as well as it goes up. 

I have a collegue that does tree hive beekeeping (here: http://bartnictwo.com/en/) and as far as I know he does all the entrances 1/3 from the top - 2/3 from the bottom, because that are the most common tree hollows, and the tradition of tree hive beekeeping made that standard. 



What I'm trying to say is that You may be right with bottom entrances being more "natural", but I'm not convinced in any way by that reasoning. I'm also trying to say that I've tried that (have You?), and see that it works just fine. 
Bottom entrances are a standard that was made by human look on the problem. I have no idea what bees "like" or "dislike", because I haven't been a bee (so far  ). I may only argue that they are doing just as fine (or better) with top, as with bottom entrances.


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## 1102009

> I'm also sure that usually bees "like" to have brood near bottom entrance, because they are made to have it like that (of course I'm sure that is for their sake ) by excluder. If they liked to have the brood near bottom entrance I would say that excluder wouldn't be needed, don't You think?


In beeclass Dadant 10 frames was used with shallows on top, no queen excluders. Bottom entrance. 
The bees, carniolan mutts, build first the frames in the deep. They build their brood nests ( natural comb) and honey domes, pollen around brood. Drones at the sides or bottom corners.
Later they build the honey storage combs on top when they had filled the deep and needed more place. 
For one year I have not seen them using the top boxes as brood nests.

Bees will take whatever is available, if they have not 40l to 100l they take what`s there, no matter where the entrance is. Most moldy trees have more than one entrance.

If there is nothing available they build in the open and die in winter:


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## 1102009

After a very cold night, minus 10°C and snowfall we have a beautiful morning and I decided to check .
The 7 are alive and had pulled out some dead bees yesterday.
No pulling of boards to not disturb. Sounds are good.


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## BeesFromPoland

SiWolKe said:


> In beeclass Dadant 10 frames was used with shallows on top, no queen excluders. Bottom entrance.
> The bees, carniolan mutts, build first the frames in the deep. They build their brood nests ( natural comb) and honey domes, pollen around brood. Drones at the sides or bottom corners.
> Later they build the honey storage combs on top when they had filled the deep and needed more place.
> For one year I have not seen them using the top boxes as brood nests.
> 
> View attachment 29814


In my opinion that is different problem. It is because You give them first deep box, and if necessary You give super when they are already settled in the deep (is it a case like that? I'm just thinking). It is because of the bars of the frame. If queen doesn't have to, she doesn't go to the other box (she would have to cross one bar, space and the other bar). Of course she may do it, but she is not eager to. If you had smaller frames and boxes she would probably go to other boxes too. I have much smaller boxes, and sometimes queen stays in them - they'd rather swarm then go to other box (I had some cases like that) - it's because of the bars.
I'm sure that if you gave empty hive with 2 boxes (with comb, or with frames without comb in those boxes) they would start from the top.


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## Oldtimer

BFP the observations of SiWolke would be just as valid as your own. I suspect the reason you have a different opinion to everyone else is 1 because you have not done the experiment, and 2 you use tiny boxes compared to everyone else.

Also with just a few hives and only one winter, the sample size for your observations is very small. How many hives with bottom entrances only do you have, to compare? How did the honey harvest compare?


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> You've convinced me BFP, bees like the brood nest at the top, and not near the entrance, unless the entrance is at the top, which is better.
> 
> I'll forget everything I have observed in the thousands of hives I've worked on over the years, clearly i didn't see properly, because I am not a bee.


Very funny Oltimer 

Tell me rather:
- how many of these thousands of hives have You had (observed?) with top entrances only? (were there any like that?)
- do You use excluder keeping the bees where You think they like to be?


And I'm getting used to You not reading at all what I write... 
I'm not saying top is better. I'm saying I observe hives of both groups and top entrances don't seem to be worse at all, and bees don't choose to be close to entrance but they are going from the top. I had a lot of hives (not thousands I must say  ) with bottom entrances and bees liked to stay on top, and even sometimes they didn't want to go down (to be near entrance!) corssing the bars of the frames. 
I'm sorry, but Your irony doesn't convince me more then Your arguments from previous post. 

bottom entrances is just a beekeeping standard as many others. In my opinion it has nothing to do with bees' choices.


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## 1102009

If you read T. Seeley, I do just now, it tells you much about what the bees prefer.

For example they prefer the entrance which is best to defend than where it is placed, the smaller one.
They check the space to see if they have enough space for honey storage in winter.
They check for old comb to spare energy.

So who knows what is our interpretation and how the bees would laugh if they hear us. They have other priorities.


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## BeesFromPoland

SiWolKe said:


> So who knows what is our interpretation and how the bees would laugh if they hear us. They have other priorities.


exactly


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## flamenco108

Nordak said:


> My idea of gardening is basically leaving fringe areas of my little 1.5 acre yard untouched. I'm amazed at how a little patch here and there will be covered with thousands of different types of arthropods.


Fortunately, in Poland there are still lots of small areas with weeds. I live near the Warsaw's suburbs and most of fields here now are fallow lands, where weeds, birch and goldenrod compete with each other. Beekeepers in my region also actively plant melliferous plants in wild corners. Some of so called 'ecologists' are angry on them because of it. Rural areas with monocultures are also not so common in Poland, this is just beginning, though south of my town there are orchards, which are the bees desert (beekeepers keep their apiaries away from them). Though they seem not complaining on lack of pollination, they rather complain on low prices for fruits.
So, Bernhard lives in area that seems like mass extinction and I live near the biggest city in Poland, where mooses in families are crossing my way, boars frighten children on their way to school and pheasants are common like chickens sometime before. And beavers - just two weeks before tried to sink one of my beeyards.


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> Very funny Oltimer


Thank you .



BeesFromPoland said:


> What I also observed during last winter is that bees with top entrance usually wintered better or the same than with bottom entrance.





BeesFromPoland said:


> And I'm getting used to You not reading at all what I write...
> I'm not saying top is better. .


So are you saying top entrances bees did as good or better as per your first quote, or are you saying they are not better, as per your second quote? Is it me doesn't read what you write, or is it you?



BeesFromPoland said:


> Tell me rather:
> - how many of these thousands of hives have You had (observed?) with top entrances only? (were there any like that?)
> - do You use excluder keeping the bees where You think they like to be?


How many thousands? Why ask, straight up, I really don't know. As a bee and queen breeder, over the decades I have used many configurations of hives, nucs, baby nucs, and whatever. How many thousand? No idea. 

If you think how many thousand is important, how many you? 

Could your opinions be based on too small of a sample size, too few years, and that you use tiny boxes compared to the rest of us?


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> So are you saying top entrances bees did as good or better as per your first quote, or are you saying they are not better, as per your second quote? Is it me doesn't read what you write, or is it you?


ok. so now we pick on language issues on the one that doesn't have English as his mother tongue 

What I meant (if I happen to miss what I wanted to say) was:
1. my bees are as good or better on top entrances as the ones on bottom entrances
2. in general I have no idea which is better, but from what I have seen both groups are doing just as fine so I said: "I'm not saying top is better" (meaning: in general)

Did You understand me now? 





Oldtimer said:


> How many thousands? Why ask, straight up, I really don't know. As a bee and queen breeder, over the decades I have used many configurations of hives, nucs, baby nucs, and whatever. How many thousand? No idea.
> 
> If you think how many thousand is important, how many you?
> 
> Could your opinions be based on too small of a sample size, too few years, and that you use tiny boxes compared to the rest of us?


I don't think "thousands" are important, because I see bee colony as individual organism. You said You've observed thousands of hives, so I wondered how many of them were with top entrances. And I still don't know. From Your answer I'm not even sure if You had any hives with only top entrances or You just see on those thousands of examples that with bottom entrances bees are doing just fine 
Was it half? was it 1%? How many of them wintered with top entrance?

Yes, my opinions may be based on too small sample. (it was only few dozens for 3 years not thousands for decades).


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## Michael Palmer

Oldtimer said:


> In some places beekeepers winter with a top entrance, because a bottom entrance may get blocked with snow. In such circumstances a top entrance makes sense. But unless there is a good reason like that, wherever possible it is best to design the hive in tune with the way bees naturally like to work, a bottom entrance.


Places like here. I have top entrances for winter...but both top and bottom. The bottom entrances are usually closed all winter by snow and ice. So when a cleansing possibility arrives, the bees have an entrance. Come spring, the top entrances are closed and the bees resume using the bottom entrances. 

My objections to permanent top entrances? Brood too high in the hive during production season. Debris in bottom that the bees must drag up and out the top entrance. Now some here on BS say top entrances are better because the bees don't have to go through the debris. Well, bees wouldn't put up with debris on the bottom. Rather, they would drag it out the bottom entrance. With a top entrance only, much of that debris remains in the bottom...just like in a bee tree. Think wax moths and SHB, and a nasty pile of of yuck. 

So do what you want with your entrances, but solo top entrances, all season long, aren't helping your bees.


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## Oldtimer

BeesFromPoland said:


> in general I have no idea which is better, but from what I have seen both groups are doing just as fine so I said: "I'm not saying top is better" (meaning: in general)
> 
> Did You understand me now?


Always understood you. In general you have no idea. Problem solved. 

But hey, joking aside. There's a lot of guys here who are not really swayed by cleverly put arguments and cunning theories. They just worked bees and saw what the bees did, which means more than stuff out of a book or on the net.


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## BeesFromPoland

In most of my hives I have forrest cover on the bottoms (like the bees would have in natural habitats like tree hollows) - it was the idea of Phil Chandler from UK. So I don't care for wax debris at all. I find most of the organisms usefull to create healthy hive ecosystem (we don't have SHB here - if it comes, which I hope won't happen soon - maybe I would have to rethink that approach, but maybe not) and forest cover is helpful for them to find habitats in the hives like they used to live in natural cavieties with bees. I find wax moths not that harmful. In nature they were the organisms cleaning the hollows/cavieties for another colonies. I don't care if they are in the hives or not - they don't kill my bees. Varroa is the main problem for now and my opinion is that healthy hive ecosystem is advantageous for health of the bees. 

they look like that: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H0pdg3XQIZw/VWtxsMQZWqI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/6XlgqoXL3uU/s1600/PICT0001.JPG

... Yes, I know, I'm crazy


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> Always understood you. In general you have no idea. Problem solved.


Yes, I have no idea. Luckily You could show me what I should do for my bees to live off treatments. I'm all ears waiting for Your enlightened advice


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## Oldtimer

You can't teach a frog to fiddle.


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## BeesFromPoland

Oldtimer said:


> You can't teach a frog to fiddle.


Meaning You have no idea about what to do, so making it personal insult?


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## Oldtimer

Meaning there are some folks who will only ever do or see things the way they want to. Your invitation to me to share my "enlightened advice" with you must have been in jest because thus far you have made a point to disagree with anything and everything I said, you are confident you know more.

You are right though that I have not been able to keep bees alive off treatments long term, as you have discussed with me before. Best I can tell same goes for you.


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## Nordak

flamenco108 said:


> Fortunately, in Poland there are still lots of small areas with weeds. I live near the Warsaw's suburbs and most of fields here now are fallow lands, where weeds, birch and goldenrod compete with each other. Beekeepers in my region also actively plant melliferous plants in wild corners. Some of so called 'ecologists' are angry on them because of it. Rural areas with monocultures are also not so common in Poland, this is just beginning, though south of my town there are orchards, which are the bees desert (beekeepers keep their apiaries away from them). Though they seem not complaining on lack of pollination, they rather complain on low prices for fruits.
> So, Bernhard lives in area that seems like mass extinction and I live near the biggest city in Poland, where mooses in families are crossing my way, boars frighten children on their way to school and pheasants are common like chickens sometime before. And beavers - just two weeks before tried to sink one of my beeyards.


Sounds like a pretty diverse landscape there. Thanks for painting the picture. Hopefully the beavers apologized afterward.


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## Juhani Lunden

flamenco108 said:


> , where mooses in families are crossing my way,


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## 1102009

Michael Palmer said:


> My objections to permanent top entrances? Brood too high in the hive during production season. Debris in bottom that the bees must drag up and out the top entrance. Well, bees wouldn't put up with debris on the bottom. Rather, they would drag it out the bottom entrance. With a top entrance only, much of that debris remains in the bottom...just like in a bee tree. Think wax moths and SHB, and a nasty pile of of yuck.


Oh how I wold love to have that "yuck". My hives are too clean and I desperately want to have more debris (without varroa, for sure.)
The first two arguments are very good, though.


*Bartek and Oldtimer, could you please stop this unproductive quarreling?*


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## 1102009




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## clyderoad

SiWolKe said:


> *Bartek and Oldtimer, could you please stop this unproductive quarreling?*


quarreling? And I thought it an attempt to identify the double talk and meaningless babble to keep
the conversation productive. Silly me.


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## 1102009

Maybe I´m once again misunderstanding something.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> Maybe I´m once again misunderstanding something.


 no, you're not misunderstanding anything sibylle. my advice is to just let the boys be boys, and simply disregard and ignore the off handed comments.

barry will use his eraser if anyone gets seriously out of line.

i for one have very much appreciated the discussion in your thread thus far. the experiences and opinions from such a diverse international group continues to be very educational.

again, many thanks for taking the time to do this!


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## Michael Bush

>Michael Bush suggests that the healthiest organisms are those that are the "medium", not "best". 

I have brought up the topic from time to time. I'm not entirely sure that it is that simple, but the danger of breeding from the outliers has been pointed out by bee breeders for more than a century. My take is that the outliers are just big gamblers who won. The colony decided to build up population outside the norm and the flow hit at just the right time and so they made a bumper crop. Next year with the same behavior they are just as likely to starve. The danger is breeding bees with a "gambling problem". Miller mentions this, but discounts it:

"I am well aware that I will be told by some that I am choosing freak queens from which to rear; and that it would be much better to select a queen whose royal daughters showed uniform results only a little above the average. I don't know enough to know whether that is true or not, but I know that some excellent results have been obtained by breeders of other animals by breeding from sires or dams so exceptional in character that they might be called freaks.

"I know, too, that it is easier to decide which colony does best work than it is to decide which queen produces royal progeny the most nearly uniform in character. By the first way, too, a queen can be used a year sooner than by the second way, and a year in the life of a queen is a good deal. I may mention that a queen which has a fine record for two successive seasons is preferred to one with the same kind of a record for only one season."--C.C. Miller, Fifty Years Among the Bees

Brother Adam mentions it in one of his books. I don't have them handy right now... But Jay Smith points out that we may be mistaken on the reasons a colony is successful:

"In Indiana we had an outyard laid out in the form of a triangle as that was the shape of the plot on which we had our bees. During the sweet clover flow one colony produced three supers of honey while the others averaged about two supers. In the fall that colony produced two supers of honey from smartweed and asters while the rest produced a little less than one super. Surely that colony that so far outdistanced the others must have a queen that would make an excellent breeder.

"I thought I would take a look at her but alas, when I opened the hive, I found it not only had no queen but was fairly lousy with laying workers! Just why then the big yield? This colony was located at the point of the triangle to the west and the fields of nectar lay to the west. It was evident that the bees in returning from the fields-maybe the ones out for their first load-stopped at the first hive they came to and kept it packed with bees."--Jay Smith, Better Queens


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## BernhardHeuvel

Skep beekeepers in the German Heathlands also cull out the weakest and the strongest, keeping the medium sized colonies over winter. They do this at least since 1800. 

But isn't modern bee breeding using more sophisticated methods to cull out the "fantastic looking queen that wrecks later"? Especially Brother Adam had an interesting method to proof his choices.


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## Michael Palmer

SiWolKe said:


> Oh how I wold love to have that "yuck".


If it's so wonderful, why do the bees clean it out in the spring?


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## Fusion_power

I'm in the camp that uses bottom entrances year round but reduced in size during winter, and a top entrance that is only open during winter. The top entrance is important for two reasons. Moisture vents from the top entrance preventing condensation inside the hive. Also, if the bottom entrance is covered by snow or ice, the top entrance gives a way to fly on a sunny and warm winter day.


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## 1102009

Michael Palmer said:


> If it's so wonderful, why do the bees clean it out in the spring?


Because they need it in winter?


Michael Bush, I´m honored you take part here. Thanks and welcome.

Bernhard and Dar, do you use "warm ways" and "cold ways" in your Dadant boxes?
When I started beekeeping, this was the reason for me to use Dadant but later I thought the bees would maybe be stressed if I changed the direction of comb to the entrances.
Bernhard can you tell more about ventilation in your hives?
I mean if you arrange the supers 90%. Can you imagine what will happen in our climate if you use this and "Warmbau" together?


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> Because they need it in winter?


I don't think so, Sibylle.
In the coastal zone of my country my bees work a lot in the winter on eucalyptus.
The bees do not keep yuck in the winter.

>> Bernhard and Dar, do you use "warm ways" and "cold ways" in your Dadant boxes?
A good question. Maybe "warm ways" increases the humidity in the nest but I will wait to see the opinion of Bernhard and Dar.

I have square hives and it's a subject that interests me. I found a post from D. Cushman in this regard
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cwww.html


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## Oldtimer

Regarding litter on the bottom of a hive, the bees will clean it if they can. Which indicates they don't want it.

Litter under a hive is a human idea. Some folks assumed that litter is natural therefore it must be good. It can also harbor an assortment of bugs, bugs are natural, therefore they must be good. 

But watching what bees do shows what they really like is a clean house, they throw dirt away whenever possible. If it cannot be moved but it's near them they propolise it.


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## flamenco108

Oldtimer said:


> Litter under a hive is a human idea. Some folks assumed that litter is natural therefore it must be good. It can also harbor an assortment of bugs, bugs are natural, therefore they must be good.


In fact anything is a human idea. There is a tiny border between "natural" and "beneficial". One can assume, that if we would leave bees alone, they will do better. But then we will observe a massive extinction of bee colonies. So, does it mean, that left alone they do worse? Well, bees are not for our profit, they are part of a nature. They are supposed to do sometimes better and worse sometimes.

I think, Oldtimer, that your controversy with BeesFromPoland is about it. I think You still consider bees as farm herd. He argues of bees as a wild animals. If the only goal of beekeeping is exploitation, then anything you do to boost productivity of the hive is right. But if you pick the survivability of the bees as a primary goal, then it's not so simple, and even the litter on the bottom can be discussed.

In my opinion things went too far today. I've read the blog of Allen Dick, and all these fluvalinates, fumagilins, these imports bees from southern hemisphere to Canada, has nothing to beekeeping, it's just an industry like metallurgy. If such a creature like bee cannot survive without two or three sessions of chemiotherapy and constant feeding, it's ridiculous and scary at the same time. The bees are in my opinion wild animals, as they feed outside the farm and without insemination they are pretty out of control with breeding. We are supposed to somehow make a step back from these modern farming techniques.

My remark was not exactly about the litter on the bottom, but somehow it touches it.


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## 1102009

@Eduardo
thanks for that link! Very very good!
@ Dar and Bernhard
if you are here again please answer post 379#

To all taking part here:
There are some people reading here who thought of this thread as a journal like SP thread.
They are irritated by all the controversy and off topics which has nothing to do with my beekeeping.
They think some posters need the attention.
They want to read *what I do* in europe with tf and have to ignore too many unimportant posts ( it´s what they say).

Now OT and flamenco just start it again.

Some want it moderated. Well Barry told me to tell him what to delete so shall I? 

I just want it to be civilized, all opinions* to my beekeeping *welcome. Spring will come and with it more bee work and less boredom. Back to serious work then.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> Now OT and flamenco just start it again.


Not really, I agree with Flamenco on most of his post, we are not in disagreement. He did not disagree with me over litter but for some reason addressed the post to me, but mostly pointed out the problems bees have are due to the interferance of man, and he is correct, all the modern problems of bees are caused by man, had we never industrialised the keeping of them, plus altered their habitat, they would still now be as healthy as they have ever been and they would not have varroa mites, we caused that too.
He says that he and BFP see bees as a wild animal, and he is correct, bees are. He says I see bees as a farm animal, and he is correct, I do. It is not possible to keep bees commercially unless we apply the same methodology as for other animals we farm, therefore they are a farm animal. But they are also a wild animal, a fascinating thing.

BFP, well, he disagrees with everyone, not just me. All the same, may he continue the keeping of his bees, there are other beekeepers here used to be just like him, and we all learn more over time, and bees are adaptable to be kept in more than one kind of box.


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## Fusion_power

Sibylle, I don't know enough yet about the differences in management of square hives so my comment will be open ended.

Bees naturally tend to keep the brood nest near the entrance and honey storage above and behind the brood. This is well documented in Quinby's method of beekeeping with long hives. In a tree, bees move up into stored honey over winter, then move the brood nest back down in the spring with the honey flow. In a Quinby hive the bees move from the front to the rear into stored honey over winter, then move the brood nest back to the front with the spring honey flow. The brood nest is always between the entrance and the stored honey! I don't see a reason why this would work better if the frames were warm way vs cold way in a square Dadant hive.

I do not see an advantage of warm way vs cold way when it comes to robbing. If you want to control or prevent robbing, a small entrance combined with a robber screen is far more effective than arranging combs one way or another.

I don't see an advantage of warm way vs cold way for getting combs drawn all the way to the bottom bars. This is because I use Killion bottom boards. My climate requires good ventilation which the KBB provides. I get exceptionally well drawn combs with this hive configuration.

I don't see an advantage of warm way vs cold way for bees moving to honey during winter because I deliberately place the cluster in my colonies to one side of the hive, usually the south side, during winter. The bees move across the hive into honey naturally. Here is a pic of one of my colonies clustered near the southwest edge of the hive in February. http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/bees.2014.02.09.temp.46f.hires.1.jpg Given that I will be wintering in a 2 queen configuration, I will have to change this because both clusters will tend to move to the middle of the hive to share heat across the divider.

There is still a possibility that warm way would have some advantages I don't foresee at this time. The Jackson Horizontal Hive is arranged warm way, but is used in a climate that does not have winter. The primary reason for this arrangement has to do with the cluster staying near the front of the hive and honey storage at the rear away from the entrance. Harvesting honey is simplified because the brood nest does not have to be disturbed.


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## BeesFromPoland

Hi Sibylle (and others)

I thought the idea of this thread is to follow Your apiary's journal, and in the meanwhile discuss the beekeeping issues that come up while You put some information that may be controversial or worth discussing (I thought it is the idea of forum...?). There are always offtops on different forums in different threads - but I must say that I haven't seen offtops here that are not beekeeping issues. (e.g. top entrances topic came up here with Your opinion on problems with wintering bees in one hive - and Your opinion why one of Your colony had problems for me was, and still is, controversial).

but what You say here, and what I've read on tfb shows that that is seen as "trolling", "uncivilized", "unreadable" etc. And You (and some readers) rather want to keep journal.

So I'm sorry to everyone for my part of this "trolling". I don't intend to interrupt the journaling any more.


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## BernhardHeuvel

SiWolKe said:


> "warm ways" and "cold ways" in your Dadant boxes?


Cold ways, no reason to fiddle with warm way. I reckon' the better the bees access the brood comb, the better they brood on it. In warm ways the make a complete cover comb, that is pollen+honey only on the first comb. Broodnest won't develop so evenly in warm ways when working with the follower board. 

I have an open mesh floor during on season for moving the hives. Off season I insert a wooden sheet on the mesh, that covers almost all the floor except maybe 5-10 cm on the empty side of the follower board. You get some ventilation behind the follower board this way. That's it. So far this what I found worked best. If you don't move your hives, you can leave that floor cover in that hive all year round.


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## 1102009

Thanks Dar and Bernhard.
I understand now and best will be Bernhard`s way to do it.

BfP I´m sorry too. I rather like some controversial discussions if they are civilized. Please take part but don´t get worked up.
It´s only some persons who said this and there are many others who like following this journal.

We should all read SP`s thread again and see what´s respect about.


----------



## 1102009

www.bienenundnatur.de

Winter 2015/16 the STUA Aulendorf made a test and compared 6 hives overwintered in a cool house to 6 hives outside.

The reason was the fact, that 30 years of scientific research and prophylactic well organized treatments do not help much with massive losses and the mites still are a big problem.

The hives were placed indoor the 4.th of november until the 7.th of february with a temperature of 0°C.
The treatment was done at the end.

The hives outdoors were treated when they made brood break.

The indoors made a brood break starting 4th of november and started breeding 29 of december.
The outdoors started to breed with every warm spell and stopped again.
All hives started serious breeding in february, the ones kept dark and with 0°C too.
The brood break indoor was 5 weeks.

The outdoors had three times the brood cell number end of february. But end of march all hives had the same strength.

Discussion: broodbreaks help with varroa so they want to test this cold overwintering again. It helps too with nosema and the winter bees live longer because they keep their strength.
Today beekeepers migrate to warmer locations to overwinter. 
Future could be to use cold places.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Today beekeepers migrate to warmer locations to overwinter.
> Future could be to use cold places.


Good observation!

I have always said, and it is mostly ignored or denied, that the colder bees are kept in winter the better they are.

That is why my bottom entrances are open full length front and back in winter. Only front entrance is full length open in summer.


----------



## 1102009

How cold are your winters Juhani? Do you have wind protection?

Here beekeepers don´t close the floors in winter to force a brood break but I don´t know if this probably is the problem with chalk brood we have ( not me). 
Bees not resistant to chalk brood are maybe more susceptible if chilled. Then you loose much brood too.

We are not migrating to other countries like the US so migrating means you put the hives under a roof or in an open shack out of wind and close together.

Bee colonies should be able to climate inside their boxes but in a cold location they just wait their spring start. In the article they say that it will be sufficient to put them in shade or in a cold air pool area in a valley.
They say nothing about ventilation.


----------



## Fusion_power

Temperature extremes lead to nosema. I made the mistake of wintering bees in a frost pocket about 25 years ago and learned that it causes major problems. This does not mean an indoor wintering facility is a bad idea. A constant temperature between 0C and 5C is very effective as shown by beekeepers in Canada.


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## Juhani Lunden

-30or even -35C sometimes up to 2 weeks , usually somewhere between -15 and +5

Wind protection as in picture, black paper, but maximum draft in the bottom, sounds chilly, doesn´t it, but bees like it, I have watched them long enough 

You speak of closing floors... just what I meant, beekeepers don´t get the idea of incresing ventilation, below the bees, not above them or through the hive.




SiWolKe said:


> How cold are your winters Juhani? Do you have wind protection?
> 
> Here beekeepers don´t close the floors in winter ...


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

You don't do much Spring honey, do you? Spring canola?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

BernhardHeuvel said:


> You don't do much Spring honey, do you? Spring canola?


Me? How come? 

...

Here we go again, you don´t propably believe me but draft in the bottom has only positive effects on hives. Notice that there is no air going through the top, there is plastic and 5 cm polyurethan sheet.

Back entrance is closed after cleansing flight, end of March. First pollen is usually one month from that end of April. Spring conola end of May. 

Dry and cold wintering means bees make a rocket like boost when they start. 






(Sometimes I have forgotten to close the back entrance and it is hard to tell difference in these hives compared to hives with only front entrance.)


----------



## 1102009

Dar, do you mean nosema or dysentery?



> The outdoors had three times the brood cell number end of february. But end of march all hives had the same strength.


Bernhard, this would be ok for spring flow. Or not? But Juhani`s temperatures are much lower. When do you harvest the first honey, Juhani?
Sorry Juhani you were faster posting...already answered.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani and Bernhard,
what would you say to a humid and cold wintering?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Juhani and Bernhard,
> what would you say to a humid and cold wintering?


If You mean the Central Europe conditions, cold and humid, then air circulation it utmost important, it is the only way to keep bees calm, minimum brood(and mites) and no moisture buildup. But draft through the hive is not good.


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## 1102009

After my experience with too much space here is my new concept for the future.
The basic without honey super on top.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> do you mean nosema or dysentery?


there are two kinds of nosema, one is associated with dysentery while the other is not:

http://www.advancescience.com/bee-diseases/nosema


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> After my experience with too much space here is my new concept for the future.
> The basic without honey super on top.


How is water and moist air getting out in your new hive structure?

I see only tiny tiny entrance, way too small, in my opinion.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> How is water and moist air getting out in your new hive structure?
> 
> I see only tiny tiny entrance, way too small, in my opinion.


I trust the bees to climate but if they do not I have open floors ( mesh) and the entrance could be opened more.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> there are two kinds of nosema, one is associated with dysentery while the other is not:
> 
> http://www.advancescience.com/bee-diseases/nosema


Yes, nosema ceranae is new here and a problem. Thanks for the link, SP you are a big help to my beekeeping :thumbsup:
Very interesting. More and more I think the varroa is not the main problem. 
Nosema ceranae is kept at bay with cold wintering. SP do you know about the symptoms? I did not see anything but CCD as a result could be.

I read about that in our magazine and therefore put out all frames I cut out outside ( we have frost now for days) and all honey combs to feed so they would freeze. Nosema spores are killed this way.


----------



## squarepeg

i have no personal experience with nosema ceranae and only know what i have read about it.

the main problem as i understand it is that this parasite consumes the food in the bee gut leaving the bee malnutritioned, so it can appear as though the bees starved or froze even when there is food present in the hive.

here is an excerpt from the link above:

"Bees need to consume more food when they have Nosema, especially when affected with N. ceranae where there is a 50% increase in energy needed for the bee caused by the disease."

the difficulty is that there are no outward signs. we have free lab testing available in the u.s. to check for this, do you have anything similar in germany?


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Not for free.


----------



## 1102009

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Not for free.


No problem to me.
Where can I send it to next time I have a dead out?


----------



## squarepeg

the lab test basically involves squashing the guts and counting the spores under a microscope. you can find good instructions on how to do this in randy oliver's articles.

i've been thinking about getting a microscope, mostly for using to identify the various pollens that come into the hives.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> I trust the bees to climate but if they do not I have open floors ( mesh) and the entrance could be opened more.


Mesh floors are excellent for wintering purposes in cold and damp conditions. You use them?


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Mesh floors are excellent for wintering purposes in cold and damp conditions. You use them?


My mentor instructed me last year to have open floors until the first very cold spell in winter and then close up until march. I closed end of january, then they had much brood already.
When I opened in march the outer bottom combs were moldy, so the open floors did not help with ventilation or the advise was wrong because of the increasing warmth.
Bee density was high even in two deeps because there was no brood break.

This winter I closed the floors earlier. I will see what happens in the one deep. There are small gaps around the board to let in some air. 
I think I will not have open floors. I will drill some small holes into the board to have ventilation.

The open floors in summer have the disadvantage to attract robbers and they confuse the foragers. They stress the watchers.

My co- workers have open floors in winter at the same location. They have massive problems with chalk brood even in their production hives with high density.

I will modify my hives like this:
http://www.dheaf.plus.com/framebeekeeping/modified_einraumbeute.htm
only smaller for small colonies with high density. Like mini-Topbar hive.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> My mentor instructed me last year to have open floors until the first very cold spell in winter *and then close up until march.* I closed end of january, then they had much brood already.
> When I opened in march the outer bottom *combs were moldy*, so the open floors did not help with ventilation or the advise was wrong because of the increasing warmth.
> Bee density was high even in two deeps because *there was no brood break*.
> 
> This winter I closed the floors earlier. I will see what happens in the one deep. There are small gaps around the board to let in some air.
> I think I will not have open floors. I will drill some small holes into the board to have ventilation.
> 
> The open floors in summer have the disadvantage to attract robbers and they confuse the foragers. They stress the watchers.
> 
> My co- workers have open floors in winter at the same location. They have massive problems with chalk brood even in their production hives with high density.
> 
> I will modify my hives like this:
> http://www.dheaf.plus.com/framebeekeeping/modified_einraumbeute.htm
> only smaller for small colonies with high density. Like mini-Topbar hive.


Oh boy. 


My dear Sibylle, hope you take this as good criticism:
Mold is absolutely the best indicator that ventilation has not worked.

Mesh bottom are designed to be open at least in winter, the hardest winter is the most important part of year, mesh bottoms should absolutely be open.

Brood break is one advantage of a cold hive in winter.

In Finland and Sweden (Nacka kupa) styrofoam hives have mesh floor, which are open all winter. This type of hive is by far the most popular n Finland and Sweden. In spring they can be closed, and in summer too, but hardly any diffrence can be seen, if colonies are healthy. Chalk brood is highly hereditary, if your co-workers have chalk brood problems don´t blaim mesh floors, wihout them they would have even more problems. Mesh bottoms take away moisture, which is essential to control chalk brood. 


I used to have one breeder queen which daughters all had quite a bit chalk brood. No major problems today, of course some hives show it, as I said it is in the genes.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani,
you can´t compare your situation with mine.
Critize my mentor, not me. i´m trying my best to find out what will work.

I have to make my own experience with my type of hive. The open floors are no help but some ventilation openings at the right places will be fine. 
I´m not using open mesh floors anymore.

This topic is discussed so much on BS with different opinions I do not want to start this again.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Ok, that is fine with me, just trying to help, nothing else.


----------



## 1102009

Cold spell is over and the 7 left are still alive.
The next weeks temperature will stay around zero and the sounds I hear points to more breeding now.
They pulled out some dead bees but not many and those are not wet or damaged.

The hardest time comes now. Keeping warm the brood area and not be separated from honey. Hope there are enough bees left. 
Sounds are not bad though.

I started to put my new hive systems together. I will change to natural comb by and by using my best 4.9 combs as starters. Small frame spacing in broodnest area, bigger at the sides. My dadant square I will modify to a kind of smaller top bar hive, but with frames.
The colonies I will keep smaller, less brood frames but a high density is my aim. Could be I restrict space with the follower board or a divider. More space between the hive`s places, more like Tom Seeley propagates.

The hives will look like the one in the back on the picture. High floor, one brood chamber, feeder as lid. The shallows I maybe use on top will have more spacing between the frames. 10 frames. If I will use some this year. Depends on the colony strength.
The deeps will have 12 frames and a follower board.
The high floor ( I use a shallow for that) I will use to have more bee density and no early swarming. I need bees to multiply again. The bees may cluster in the free space when not working and will not disturb the queen while she lays by crowding the broodnest area. The height for working is good for our backs. With the high floors I hope to have more honey domes. I´m able to install a robber trap there or feed pollen comb.
If they build drone comb beneath the frames, no problem. I will leave that hoping for more drones. So far they did not if the frames are the same length.


----------



## lharder

As hive numbers increase, I say yes to a micro or a good stereoscope. I have a few suicidal bees that come out and die in the snow. I would like to check them out. I guess I could gather a few an put them in the freezer. With our temps, they should be well preserved.


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## 1102009

I have a micro but it´s not very good. I can see if mites are bitten but nothing more. 

I have some bees in the snow too, but as I watched a bee came out and carry a dead one away and let it fall down, returned to hive.
The dark entrance boards help much against chilling. They are warm and the bees are not falling into the snow with their loads. Most of the dead are still on the entrance boards , just pulled out.


----------



## 1102009

A snowstorm arrived and we fought our way to the bee yards to listen, the 7 are still there.
The next very cold spell is on the way . Spring is a long time away.

Today I once again sold some honey and I sold very old black comb to the metalworkers. They were so glad, their customers love the burned finish they do with the wax. Looks great! Maybe I will get more money for my old comb than for honey!  Good for the bees, keep their honey and build natural comb like they should!

The honey parts of comb I fed to our bears at wildlife park.


----------



## Nordak

SiWolKe said:


> A snowstorm arrived and we fought our way to the bee yards to listen, the 7 are still there.
> The next very cold spell is on the way . Spring is a long time away.
> 
> Today I once again sold some honey and I sold very old black comb to the metalworkers. They were so glad, their customers love the burned finish they do with the wax. Looks great! Maybe I will get more money for my old comb than for honey!  Good for the bees, keep their honey and build natural comb like they should!
> 
> The honey parts of comb I fed to our bears at wildlife park.
> View attachment 29991


:thumbsup:


----------



## lharder

SiWolKe said:


> A snowstorm arrived and we fought our way to the bee yards to listen, the 7 are still there.
> The next very cold spell is on the way . Spring is a long time away.
> 
> Today I once again sold some honey and I sold very old black comb to the metalworkers. They were so glad, their customers love the burned finish they do with the wax. Looks great! Maybe I will get more money for my old comb than for honey!  Good for the bees, keep their honey and build natural comb like they should!
> 
> The honey parts of comb I fed to our bears at wildlife park.
> View attachment 29991


I know someone who plays around with wood finishes. I'll mention what you said to her.


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## 1102009

lharder said:


> I know someone who plays around with wood finishes. I'll mention what you said to her.


They heat the sheet metal and rub the wax on, then polish. Dark comb is black finish, new comb is grey with yellow tinge. 
She should try to do the finish on wood with a hair dryer maybe and polish then.


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## Redhawk

Hmmmmm. I'm a woodworker as well as a keep, & ive used beeswax for lots of rubbed finishes. But wax from drawn comb? Not in my shop.


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## 1102009

I don´t know if it works with wood.

This is my first attempt to make a hand balm. I used the wax from the cappings of honeycomb, sunflower oil with marigold, this I prepared myself and a little alcohol.
Not bad! Feels good. A little sticky from the honey


----------



## Redhawk

:thumbsup:


----------



## 1102009

Today it was warm enough to take a look at the floor boards.
See for yourself. Still music, they started breeding.
When I saw the mites I was surprised they still live. ( But how long?) Two of them seem to have brood not hatched or are near death. On clusters at the side and one far from the entrance.


----------



## 1102009

two more


----------



## squarepeg

happy to hear that you still have music sibylle and thanks for sharing those photos. when does your snow typically melt and the first pollen start coming in?


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> happy to hear that you still have music sibylle and thanks for sharing those photos. when does your snow typically melt and the first pollen start coming in?


The last years we had almost no snow and winter time was january-february with a very cold spell of two to three weeks. 
Pollen came in when hasel and willows started to bloom which was from january on , whenever some warmer days interrupted winter. The bees were able to fly then and foraged.
Often in march there was again a colder spell with much snow, but 2 weeks short mostly.
Frosty nights can be until mid may.

This year winter started in october and will probably last until mid or end of february, with many frosty nights and cold spells. Snow too, but it can get very warm in spite of snow if the sun comes out. So far there were 2-3 times for cleansing flights. I´m living in an area with much fog so there is not much sun in winter.

As I see it the bees will have to wait until march to be able to forage for pollen. 
The weather this winter is very good to fight against varroa but hard on the bees. 
If I´m lucky I will be able to open the hives before march and check the stores.


----------



## 1102009

I´m excited!
I ordered this device to try it on the treated big cell colonies I will get in late spring.
http://www.varroa-sound.de

Thanks, erlaita, for posting this!

This could mean we would be able to regress our bees the soft bond without side effects if the device works! 

To be afraid of heavy losses will keep many people from going tf. Those who want to do it in earnest use the culling out of brood comb or treat those which are susceptible only.
But this means a great loss of energy and bees. Treatments are often in vain because of the weather.
Microfauna will be distroyed ( I don´t know if the device will kill those, let´s see what happens)

Surely I will not use this with my survivors.

If the threat of mite disease goes away people might consider their managements more because the losses will not be mite losses.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Snake oil alert.


----------



## 1102009

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Snake oil alert.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

First patent on a subsonic varroa killer was published in the year 1988: https://www.google.de/patents/DE3839601A1?cl=de

So it has been 29 years since that device is in use. Or not.

Second patent was published ten years later: 1998. 
https://www.google.de/patents/DE19800293A1?cl=de

Third patent was in 2001/2004: https://www.google.de/patents/DE1016...RrBwYQ6AEIHDAA

I would cancel the order and save your money. Or do you think a successful treatment could be hided during the last 29 years? :shhhh:


----------



## 1102009

BernhardHeuvel said:


> First patent on a subsonic varroa killer was published in the year 1988: https://www.google.de/patents/DE3839601A1?cl=de
> 
> So it has been 29 years since that device is in use. Or not.
> 
> Second patent was published ten years later: 1998.
> https://www.google.de/patents/DE19800293A1?cl=de
> 
> Third patent was in 2001/2004: https://www.google.de/patents/DE1016...RrBwYQ6AEIHDAA
> 
> I would cancel the order and save your money. Or do you think a successful treatment could be hided during the last 29 years? :shhhh:





> Datum	Code	Ereignis	Beschreibung
> 15. Juli 1999	OP8	Request for examination as to paragraph 44 patent law
> 19. Aug. 1999	8122	Nonbinding interest in granting licenses declared
> 8. Febr. 2001	*8139	Disposal/non-payment of the annual fee*


Yes, I am entirely convinced there could be some problems with the patent publishing.......
The last link is not working, bernhard.


----------



## Oldtimer

Hope it works, but suspect it will not.

Reason being that sound devices for various types of pest control have been getting sold here for many years. After complaints some years ago, a local TV program investigated by buying several models of them and placing in environments infested by mice, or ****roaches, two species that these devices claimed to get rid of. Over several weeks monitoring they had no effect at all, in fact one was being used by a mouse to build it's nest and raise it's young on, and in another location ****roaches continued to happily crawl over the device.

Some years later I was surprised to see them still being advertised. Thinking maybe it was a new type, I rang the company because we had mice coming into the house. But we had some pets including 2 cats and the children had pet mice, so I asked if the device would affect pets. "Oh no" she said, "it only affects pests". So I asked how it could affect the wild mice but not the pet mice. She said "the wild mice are different it will not bother the pet mice". I asked what is the difference between the wild mice and the pet mice, there was a long pause, then the phone was put down.

Despite that there is a lot of evidence these things are a waste of time, there are still enough people buying them to encourage the manufacturers to keep making them.


----------



## 1102009

:lpf:
Nice story, OT, thanks!

In my garden I have a device to scare off cats and one to get rid of voles. They work but after 3 months my neighbor`s cat was getting used to it.
But those animals are not damaged.

My husband and I both work with ultrasonic units in our industry jobs and we know this effects could be.
There is a peak in the ultrasonic sounds with the effect that you more and more are feeling unwell.

I will try this with those hives that are susceptible but could be used to introduce new more resistant queens, and I hope it works. 
The treatment and chemical industry will not like this.


----------



## Oldtimer

Oh that's interesting. Since you are in the industry may I have your honest opinion, are there ones on the market that can get rid of mice, ****roaches, and ants? These are the 3 main pests claimed by the people selling them here.


----------



## 1102009

We are in the industrial cleaning machines section.

For my garden I use this:
https://www.poetschke.de/Pflanzzube...ulwurf-und-Wuehlmausschreck.html?redirected=1
It works.
But it´s not near my bees because I believe different species act on different ultrasonic frequencies. I don´t know if the bees would be disturbed.

I don´t know of any ultrasonic device against ants and ****roaches.
If my new device works against ants i will tell you. This I´m able to try. We have no ****roaches though.


----------



## Oldtimer

Ha that's pretty funny!


----------



## 1102009

5 out of 14 still alive.
3 AMM/ Buckfast hybrids
1 Carniolan
1 Elgon / Carniolan hybrid

The next nights will be - 15°C cold. I hope they can stand this until the weekend when it will get warmer and I hopefully should be able to check the stores and provide them with honey/pollen comb if necessary.


----------



## squarepeg

fingers crossed for your remaining 5 sibylle. 

many thanks for keeping us updated!


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

SiWolKe said:


> The last link is not working, bernhard.


Right link: https://www.google.de/patents/DE101...ved=0ahUKEwjU7JG2-b7RAhVrG5oKHXRrBwYQ6AEIHDAA



SiWolKe said:


> My husband and I both work with ultrasonic units in our industry jobs


Is 14,500 Hz ultrasonic? As far as I know: no, it is not. But that's the frequency the seller uses in his devices. You can hear it with your plain ears. They tried to sell those "ultrasonic" devices at the commercial beekeeper roundup in Donaueschingen this year. Well, I looked at it and wasn't very convinced...


----------



## AvatarDad

Pretty good audio equipment will have a frequency range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, which is similar to the hearing range of a young human. As we get older and attend rock concerts, we lose those highest frequencies. I've heard of many middle-aged folks losing the 15K, 16K, or 17K range.

14,500 is about 2 octaves above the highest note on the piano, and would be in the highest octave any human can hear. I would imagine older beeks might not be able to hear the tone well at all. Should keep teenagers out of your apiary, however, if that is a goal.


----------



## 1102009

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Right link: https://www.google.de/patents/DE101...ved=0ahUKEwjU7JG2-b7RAhVrG5oKHXRrBwYQ6AEIHDAA
> 
> 
> 
> Is 14,500 Hz ultrasonic? As far as I know: no, it is not. But that's the frequency the seller uses in his devices. You can hear it with your plain ears. They tried to sell those "ultrasonic" devices at the commercial beekeeper roundup in Donaueschingen this year. Well, I looked at it and wasn't very convinced...


You are right, it´s infrasonic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

They tested it for 3 years so maybe it´s a possibility. I will tell you if I ever use it. If not I will send it to OT to use with his ants.


----------



## 1102009

I read in the news today that it was the coldest january we had for 30 years!

Funny how after some years of warm winters these are taken for granted and no precaution taken by most ( me too )
I´m glad that I was careful about the stores, one thing I need not be afraid about, except they should be isolated from those.

Well, the next days will show the storage and breeding situation and we beekeepers, treating or treatment free, will open the hives and hope for the best. Still 5 alive with me.

The next season will be very exciting for me. If those 5 really make it I´m blessed and will be able to have a nice tf bee yard again with good stock and nice genetics.

And I will have treated big cell bees to change to treatment free, a real challenge which I will start with enthusiasm and record here too in my thread.
I hope you are still interested and thanks again to those who support me, advise me and encourage me.


----------



## Stonefly7

Awesome news.... please stay warm, keep us posted as a thaw approaches. We are back in a cold snap. Are your hives wrapped or insulated? 

Stonefly7


----------



## squarepeg

still interested and following all your posts here and on viva. thanks again for sharing sibylle!


----------



## 1102009

Hi stone, welcome to my thread!
No they are not wrapped and are placed with distance. To force a brood brake and prevent drifting it´s better to keep them cold in winter, but not too much space on top.
The lids are insulated.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> still interested and following all your posts here and on viva. thanks again for sharing sibylle!



Thanks, squarepeg. I hope with your new job on BS you still have time to follow. It means much to me, as you know.


----------



## 1102009

6°C and sunny today,

so we wanted to clean out the dead. But....

they were resurrected! My god! Seems like we had been deaf or some micro clusters played hide and seek in those big boxes!

Well, all 5 did a cleansing flight and my losses decreased from 70% to 50%. These are the AMM and even the canary queen seems to be there.

Since they were actively crawling around in my feeder boxes we did not open but fed them honey onto the frames through the feeders.


----------



## squarepeg

nice!


----------



## lharder

SiWolKe said:


> 6°C and sunny today,
> 
> so we wanted to clean out the dead. But....
> 
> they were resurrected! My god! Seems like we had been deaf or some micro clusters played hide and seek in those big boxes!
> 
> Well, all 5 did a cleansing flight and my losses decreased from 70% to 50%. These are the AMM and even the canary queen seems to be there.
> 
> Since they were actively crawling around in my feeder boxes we did not open but fed them honey onto the frames through the feeders.
> 
> View attachment 30413
> 
> View attachment 30414
> 
> View attachment 30415


I've had a couple of good surprises like that. One small nuc I accidentally completely closed up early winter when I grouped them for winter. Discovered the mistake after a month or so, couldn't see any live bees under the cover, assumed they were dead but come spring, discovered a cluster deeper down. 

If they are very small, they can't produce brood in spring. Nurse bees can be shook in from stronger colonies.


----------



## 1102009

I don´t know yet how small they are, since I did not open.

I´m waiting until it´s a little bit warmer, so if they come out the chance will be bigger they are able to fly back.

I cleaned the floor boards so I can see what happens. Reading them and looking into the feeder box if there is condensation will tell me if they breed.

Two are breeding just now, they are of the three stronger ones.
I believe the bees do not breed constantly right now because it´s still too cold.

I don´t think I will give the small nurse bees because I don´t want to weaken the others.
March could be very cold again and to me it´s better to have 3 strong hives to split in early summer than 5 weak ones.


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## 1102009

Checked the others, still alive and good sound.
So 7 are still there.

They got some honey too just to make me feel better, I think stores are ok with all.

Now I hope the weak are not robbed until I´m able to open.

Willow started and they are able to forage from now on.


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## Nordak

:thumbsup:


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## 1102009

http://www.dummies.com/home-garden/...-to-raise-a-queen-bee-with-the-miller-method/

What do you think? Should I start my breeding attempt with this method?

Can one use a drawn comb, bottom cut? Should be faster to have eggs layed in.


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## Michael Bush

Here is Miller's version of the Miller method:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmillermethod.htm


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## 1102009

Thanks, Michael 

here is a nice method to strengthen a new queens colony with some bees from strong hives ( or change from mini nuc to bigger hive). Let the bees decide!

https://www.imkerei-perlenhardt.de/ableger-voelker/?mobile=1


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## 1102009

Today we checked the weight of the hives.
4°C, still no pollen

Elgon: 24kg +
Carniolan: 18kg +
both good sound, no wax and no mites on the varroa board

AMM mother, canary origin: 31kg + no wax, no mites, very weak, some dead bees pulled out
AMM - daughter of daughter: 23kg + wax, mites<one per day, good sound ( superseded in fall 2015)
AMM - daughter of above : 16.5 + wax, mites <one per day, very weak, two dead pulled out
AMM - daughter number two : 26.5kg +, wax, no mites, good sound
AMM - daughter of daughter number two: 22kg +, wax, mites <one per day, good sound

None was harvested 2016.
Varroa board cleaned 8 days ago.


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## Fusion_power

Interesting trivia item is that A.M.M. bees are showing up fairly often with mite grooming traits. I hope yours are showing this and will be able to keep your treatment free aspirations alive.

I walked by and looked at a few colonies today. There are a lot of dead bees showing up at the entrance. It is cold and wet with temperature about 8 to 9 C which is normal flying weather for my bees. They are hauling away dead bees. The Buckfast are not flying today. I usually don't see them out until temps are above 10C.


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## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Interesting trivia item is that A.M.M. bees are showing up fairly often with mite grooming traits. I hope yours are showing this and will be able to keep your treatment free aspirations alive.


Thanks, Dar.
I hope some survive. They showed VSH very nicely. I don´t know about grooming but will look at the mites in future if they are bitten. 
Entrance defense is very good.
They raise drones the whole year, too, and the small cell combs are well drawn.

My aspirations to tf will never lessen, though. To me it´s the only way to keep bees, no matter what race.


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## 1102009

Today the first commercial beekeeper registered in my forum. Makes me kind of nervous, I admit. He tries for 3 years now to be tf as I know him from the past but I don´t know his success.
He is an organic working beekeeper with an registered organic label and very experienced.

If I´m able to convince him to support us it will be a great future because he has some nice connections.
And he can provide us with new stock if our losses are too high. 
He treats ( maybe not all his bee yards, as I know he regressed some hives to small cell) but his stock is locally adapted and much better than any others.

I refreshed my contacts to Erik Österlund because of our success with the elgon bees. I want to exchange my experiences more with him and he is interested.

Two of my friends want to use them more in their bee yards, I myself lack some long time experience but what I saw so far was very positive.
The main trait we like is that they do not drift ( they defend their own against other bee races too, don´t let them in) and overwinter well. They show the same behaviors as my AMM do but are much more gentle to work with.

In our bee yards we mostly have daughters, only two original queens from Erik and one from Josef Koller still around.
The descendants are mutts mixed with AMM, Buckfast and Carniolans.


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## squarepeg

hopefully networking with the organic commercial beekeeper will bolster your efforts sibylle. 

in my opinion the more colonies that you and your group can establish the better your chances will be for propagating survivor stock. 

randy oliver's next article should be out any day now and perhaps he will present some practical measures in terms of transitioning colonies toward natural resistance. 

thanks again for starting this thread and for keeping us posted on your progress!


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> Today the first commercial beekeeper registered in my forum.


Is it BH?


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Is it BH?


Well I would be honored but I don´t think he needs us. He is not one for kindergarden 
But no.


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## 1102009

double


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## Oldtimer

Pity, he's a great guy thought it would have been of mutual benefit.


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## 1102009

Today the sun suddenly appeared ( 4°C ) and we hopped into the car to visit the bees.

All 7 hives are still alive and the AMM, which have the sunny place ( the others are still in fog) were doing a cleansing flight, pulling some dead bees out and fetched water.
In wildlife park the deep carp pond still is completely frozen.

The activity looks not too bad and if my original three year old queen is still alive in may I will breed once again from her.
The AMM are actively flying with a temperature of 8°C, the Carnis and Elgons start this with 10°C.
Still too cold to forage for pollen and no pollen available.


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## 1102009

Yesterday was the first warm spring day.

Coming near the AMM we heard a buzz 20m far which made us very happy. The bees of 5 hives, even the zombies, did housecleaning and orientation flights.
We took away the mouse gards so this will be easier for them to do.
It´s so nice to see, hear and greet them again. They landed on our clothes to warm themselves.

Some of the bees grabbed others coming from the inside and groomed them all over with energy. 
Seemed to me some were very happy not to be constipated anymore. 

Checking the boards the two near the varroa crash hive had some mites falling. Not much breeding so far. The mite bees seemed to have drifted into the colonies nearby in fall.

We did not open, only one hive is a little light but 6kg stores left. Wait a little longer. The temperature enables them to move around in the box and shift some honey.
Still no pollen available but since it will rain now this will change with the next warm days.
Dangers are not over but some hope rises.


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## squarepeg

nice report sibylle, thanks for sharing!


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## Stephenpbird

I live near Lahr, for the last three days we have had all hives bringing in pollen. I have seen them working Snow drops and winterling but there must be lots more, maybe some trees. It is so nice to see them fly.


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## Hunajavelho

No deformed winged bees crawling out? -if not, a very good sign.


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## 1102009

Stephenpbird said:


> I live near Lahr, for the last three days we have had all hives bringing in pollen. I have seen them working Snow drops and winterling but there must be lots more, maybe some trees. It is so nice to see them fly.


Hey great!
I live at the lake of constance, the most foggy area you can imagine but still, very beautiful.


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## Fusion_power

I went through 4 colonies out on my land today and found: 1 colony building but needs feed, 1 colony with 4 good frames of brood and building fast, but will likely need a bit of feed to get them through to fruit bloom, 1 colony that is building up but not as fast as I would like, and 1 colony that has a queen going down fast. She is laying about half fertile eggs and half drone eggs. She only has one frame of brood and no sign the bees are ready to supersede her. She was a good producer last year and is from a good line. The good news is that I found drones in 2 colonies which means I can mate queens in a few weeks. I will go back out there tomorrow weather permitting and put some feed on the three that will benefit. I may move a frame of brood from the strongest colony into the colony with the failing queen so they can make it a couple of weeks until I can give them a cell.


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## Nordak

Sounds promising, Sibylle. Looking forward to more updates.


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> Sounds promising, Sibylle. Looking forward to more updates.


I don´t know yet, Jeff. Could be just the opposite than your hives, which are wonderful.:thumbsup:
Mine are still in a winter mode and I have yet to see if they are virus infestated. The first bigger brood amount will tell.

One more week to go and I will check inside. Since they have no opportunity to forage for pollen right now, I don´t know about the queens.
Saturday I decided not to open and feed. My stored combs have much pollen and I don´t want to force big brood areas before weather is more certain.


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## 1102009

Dar, 
thanks for sharing and reporting.
And thanks for mentoring me via pm.

There is so much to learn from those posts you all send. I´m really grateful. I´m happy to have encouragement here.


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## Nordak

Sibylle, it's not from anything I've done, but thank you. Hunajavelho is right. If you're not seeing a lot of viral signs, that's a good indicator that things perhaps are going in the right direction. I bet they end up making it.


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> Hunajavelho is right. If you're not seeing a lot of viral signs, that's a good indicator that things perhaps are going in the right direction.


The problem is that at my beeyards the DWV was not very present last year, but it´s not the only virus. We´ll see.
The crashed hive had some defect wings in the deadfall.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> The crashed hive had some defect wings in the deadfall.


In a way I would not be sad with that. It shows the other hives must have been exposed, but for now anyway appear to have won the battle.


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## 1102009

It´s to early to evaluate the survivors, OT, I have to see about the queens, too. 
The moment I am able to check I will do an update here. I have some thoughts about what happened this winter but just now I don´t want to do an interpretation.

This evening we have to move two hives, the carni and elgon 10m to another place. Tree harvesting will be done next winter near us and I don´t want the big harvesting machines to cross 1m in front of my hives to reach the working area.
This will disturb the clusters.
So I decided to shift my whole bee yard a little, easy now with only 2 colonies present, to the advantage of placing the survivors and new colonies with more distance between them. This will be finally.
Tomorrow it will rain. We will do it the MB method which was confirmed to me by dar, I was a little nervous, never had hives to move such a short distance until now.


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## 1102009

The moving was a success.

Robbing frenzy at my AMM bee yard! One of the weak zombies was robbed by the strongest.
Too late to do something I fear.
I put grass into the entrance to close it and waited until the robbers gave up, the opened a small entrance one bee space. Some young dying bees came out.

I admit to my shame I was fascinated by the healthy looking robbers.
But tomorrow I will make the entrances of the others smaller and feed the robbers some honey.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> feed the robbers some honey.


That can encourage more robbing. Seems strange? The way it works is they do not understand the beekeeper giving them honey. To the bees, it seems like they have just found some honey, and if the hive has already been robbing they think there is honey around somewhere and they will go looking for it, ie, go robbing. If they are not in urgent need of food, leave the feeding till the robbing urge is totally over. For now, focus on protecting the vulnerable hives. Having said all that, feeding honey in the comb is a lot less likely to cause robbing, than feeding syrup.

If you just cannot keep robbers out of the very weak hive, swap it with the strong hive.


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## 1102009

Ah,thanks OT.
I would not feed syrup but honey into my top feeder box.
But i understand and will weigh again first.
I cannot open until friday or sunday because of weather.


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## Oldtimer

Oh I thought you meant you will give them honey in the comb. Giving honey into a feeder box to a hive that has already been robbing will certainly have the bees from that hive out looking for a hive to rob.


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## 1102009

:no::applause:
nice to have you to advise me. This is my first time with robbing and seems to me I evaluated in a most human fashion....


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## Oldtimer

Yes. Nobody ever understands robbing till it happens to them, nearly all beekeepers eventually get caught, and only start to understand afterwards.

And robbing is like a lot of things beekeeping, how to handle it is counter intuitive to humans. Like something people often do, is feed the hive that is getting robbed. Which is the absolute worst thing to do, yet to a human it can seem the natural thing to do, until they learn the hard way which is often the only way many people will learn these things.


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## 1102009

:update:

First check after winter finds me with 3 hives AMM still alive, two of them strong and one a little weaker but not threatening so.

Those gone are.
1. the canary queen, which was going into her third year. This was a queen failure sometimes in winter she died. I found a hatched queen cell. I did not find a virgin but the floor was covered with so much dead bees it was impossible.
This is not a surprise for me, she was used and splitted so many times ( with mentor and me) and did such big brood frames she was likely worn out. I would have liked this hive to supersede but they did not time this right so no mating was possible.
To me, this queen was never adapted to our climate. She was doing a brood brake only once in summer because of high mite infestation. The hive decided this on it´s own so I´m a little sad to have her gone, she was a good VSH and mite defense queen.

2. One of this year`s split which was so weak it was robbed yesterday. I stopped the robbing but it was too late and maybe of no use since I found no dead queen. Maybe a queen failure too.
In this hive too, not much evidence in regard of mites, one or two with short abdomen some pulled out pupae but not what I saw in the varroa crash hives.

So, three losses and three survivors in this bee yard, one of the losses was the varroa crash in december.

One of the stronger hives has zero mites on the board. Hope I could breed from them.

First pollen comes in it is green ( hazel?) and yellow ( willow tree?), but we will have bad weather once again so I donated each hive two of the pollen combs I stored. It´s something I don´t want to do in future if I have more colonies, but for now I´m glad I still have some bees left. They can build up now I watched the weather news and they say it will be no real cold spell coming in march.


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## 1102009

Today I opened the Carniolan and the Elgon hive to check the food situation and that was a good decision,because the elgons were very strong and had only 1kg of honey left.
The carnis were strong and alive, too, but had some food left.

I donated some honey and pollen combs.


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## 1102009

*Experience, learning and decisions so far.*

1. Hive type and space management:

The double deep dadant modified worked not this winter. The bees stayed in the bottom box and had a whole honey filled box on top. 
The gap between the boxes kept them from going up, so one hive, which had no honey domes anymore was isolated from food and starved.
This happens not often in my area, this winter was an exception since we had many weeks with frosty weather and no breaking of cluster in between.
Normally they are mobile every two weeks.

If the bees cluster was small and they did not move into the top box this could mean it´s to cold for them.

One Dadant modified deep as brood box is just right until splitting and is completely filled with brood, bees and stores until fall with enough stores for overwintering. 
If the flow is good I might expand with one or two shallows on top, which I could harvest or leave.
I have to propagate very good honey domes with capped honey before winter though.

The feeder as lid and isolation mat on top of the feeder works wonderful. No condensation water coming down on the bees. The small plastic 2l feeding box I installed into the feeder makes is possible to feed dry sugar or honey in winter and has some condensation water the bees are able to use when it´s too cold to fly.

2. Splitting

With my losses I have to go on splitting, I hope to be able to split every hive into three parts.
The splitting method I learned is not working.
This was : one part with queen and capped brood and one part with open brood and foragers.
This infests the queen´s part with too many mites. The survivors records tell me that brood breaks are important, so I will force breaks and will divide equally.
I need more queens as reserve. i have yet to see how to manage this multiplying with a small amount of colonies.
To reduce mite breeding there are more methods of splitting which I will decide spontaneously.

3. Mite monitoring and IPM

When I purchased the hives my mentor told me the bees were resistant, no need to monitor. He had them for two years.
Now i know this statement is not true. They were slightly better, you might say, they live one season longer and were able to take more mites. They did some VSH and virus impact was not very strong.
The time was much too short to believe this and with me they had to adapt to the area again.
The mites took their toll with 4 hives, 1 carni pure bred queen was susceptible to paralyze virus.
So I have to monitor and help those which are not resistant, shift the queens.

Winter 2015/16 was very warm and short so the hives did no brood brakes. End of march they were very strong and I had zero loss. This must alarm me in future to watch the mite situation and split accordingly.

4. queens and matings

The matings 2016 were a catastrophe. Many queens were falling prey to weather or predators.
I had not watched the flow situation while splitting, this could have been a serious mistake, since some queens which survived mating, failed in winter.


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## 1102009

double post


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## 1102009

Yesterday I found the weak hive has no queen so i combined the small cluster left with a stronger hive.
Thanks Dar:


> Be careful with combining bees this early, they will sometimes kill the queen in the colony they are added to. I've found that giving them a frame of brood to cluster around, then transferring that frame with bees into a queenright colony works pretty well. Spray the queenless bees with a small amount of syrup and they will be accepted. This obviously has to be done on a warm day.


I used a frame with a small patch of brood. I had to be very careful not to disturb the queen. Worked great, the bees were cleaned but not attacked. I hope they kept peace afterwards but saw no fighting bees coming out of the entrance. 
Well, not many bees in the queenless hive were left. Another queen failure.
The honey left in the empty box was cleaned out by the foragers then.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> I had not watched the flow situation while splitting.


I do not understand the meaning of this?

Is feeding sugar acceptable to you?


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> I do not understand the meaning of this?
> 
> Is feeding sugar acceptable to you?


No, I don´t want to feed sugar. 

We have a very good spring flow mostly ( march to april, depending on the weather) and the bees fill the combs.
so with splitting I have much food combs to donate. 

But to raise healthy queens the bees need fresh pollen ( I remember you talking about pollen importance, too?).

After the spring flow we have the fruit tree flow, but 2016 it was raining all the time, no flow. So the bees raised the queens on stores. I don´t know if this is a real disadvantage, well the stored pollen is fresh too.

I splitted too early. My mentor always spoke warnings about swarming and wanted me to cull queen cells. 
I don´t want to do this, so I splitted too early with not enough drones around and in a time it was raining so often, the mating flights were bad and not enough in numbers.
That was the main problem 2016. The new queens were not prolific enough if they survived the mating flights. The latest raised queen, mated in august, is still alive and seems to be strong.

This I will not do again. I will wait until the bee density is highest, expand the hives maybe, until a good weather period arrives which is end of may or beginning of june. This year it could be even later.
I have to watch the situation more.

Mite peak is end of june and this correlates very good with a late splitting management. I splitted too early last year, without many mites and the hives became too strong and bred to many mites.
When they reduced the brood nests before winter the mite impact on winterbee brood was too much. Hence the weak clusters.


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## Oldtimer

Thanks, good explanation.


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## JWChesnut

If I understand SiWolke explanation for her winter die-off, her logical chain is:
Split in before June > Hives grew too large in August > Bred too many mites > Colonies died from mites

She feels she should split later to have smaller, weaker colonies, and implies the smaller colonies will breed fewer mites and survive better, based on a single trial of an August queen.

Somehow I feel that managing for small, weak colonies is grasping at straws.

We are seeing this idea promoted in various forms frequently this year. Dr Tom Seeley has made a splash by hypothesizing that small colonies that are quick to swarm are "naturally" resistant. Other European observers have noted colonies stabilizing around smaller sizes, including Juhani on this forum.

Like most single criteria explanations, linking colony sustainability to an smaller colony size is highly reductionist. In a very abbreviated example, if severe winter weather occurs every "x" number of years, then larger colonies are more resilient to those effects every "x" years, and long term sustainability is a function of the recurrence interval balancing positive effect of size combined with the negative effect of mite breeding interacting with size. In other words, the calculus of sustainability is not driven by one single prescription.


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## squarepeg

JWChesnut said:


> In other words, the calculus of sustainability is not driven by one single prescription.


agreed, and well stated jwchestnut.


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## 1102009

> She feels she should split later to have smaller, weaker colonies, and implies the smaller colonies will breed fewer mites and survive better, based on a single trial of an August queen.


No JWC, that´s not my point really.

1. the smaller colonies will breed mites just like the bigger ones are doing, the difference between those, not dependent on size, is just the mite resistance which I have yet to develop.
But if I split later I will split when the number of mites is higher and so the splits have half with a brood brake later in year, the best would be if brood brakes were in July. Some cage the queen for this.
Fusion_power and squarepeg maybe have this effect in their drought time.

2. The august queen`s hive had a brood brake of 2.5 months because of loosing the first two raised virgins on mating flight. I donated two brood combs with mostly open brood. So they were almost without mites going into winter. 
So it´s not this colony`s size but the late brood brake before the breeding of winter bees.



> In other words, the calculus of sustainability is not driven by one single prescription.


I agree to that.


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## 1102009

Spring is here.
My first mason bee male hatched today and my neighbor`s bee enjoyed the pollen.

















My 4 survivors are breeding. If I´m lucky I will be able to do my first spring check next weekend if it`s warm enough.


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## squarepeg

and now the fun begins...


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## 1102009

I would like to quote Richard here because this comment makes clear the path:


> My point is simple. There is a heck of a lot more to bee keeping than simply mite control. Good overall cultural practices can take care of many of those problems and if taken care of the mites are frequently not all that awful a problem. If you are not doing regular inspections or do not know what to look for during an inspection and are not keeping some written records on each hive you have lost half the battle.* If you think you will ever find genetics that allows you to neglect your hives and they will still survive you are in a dream world.* One hundred years before varroa 30% hive deaths per year was viewed as normal by commercial bee keepers.


Resistance, as I realize now, is a castle in the air. It changes every year or every few years when conditions of the location change. To enforce better traits is never finished.


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## Oldtimer

"One hundred years before varroa 30% hive deaths per year was viewed as normal by commercial bee keepers". Where?


----------



## 1102009

*The second meeting with the tf group*

After the first workshop we had the second meeting among the tf interested.
Two people left the group after being informed of the losses. Selection of beekeepers it is! 

Those left are:
1.- One who treats but wants to reduce treatments to one oxalic in winter. He tries not to have losses because he sees money lost. Every hive is of value to him. Since one colony can be sold by 120€ ( mutts) he sees future profit.
He will try natural comb and narrow space between frames in the broodnest area.
Honey harvest is important to him.
He wants to test my varroa kill unit :applause: before treating in summer so my own hives are not jeopardized by such an experiment.

2.- One has 2 colonies left out of 15. He feels bad but will go on with hard bond. We will supply him with bees if possible or he will buy some more local colonies.
He will change some managements. His splits were too small for example.
His bee yards are infested by a virulent DWV Virus, half of his losses died in summer. This must be prevented because of the reputation we tf have as varroa distributors.

3.- One started tf with catching 4 swarms 2011. (domesticated escaped local mutts). The bees were slow to develop and robbed the neighbors at is bee yard until no colony was left.
He started new 2012. He has done some treatments but treated not all colonies ( +- 10) so has some survivors. He has local carni mutts. 
He multiplies with swarms, he sees this as a trait to fight the mites. He propagates swarming and catches his own swarms.
he uses Topbar, warré, DN, and "Bienenkiste", natural comb.
He has enough honey for his own use. He never feeds, not even the swarms. 
He will provide us with surplus swarms because he does not want more than 10 hives.

This contact is very interesting for me.

4.- and me.
Number 3 convinced me my losses are a success. 4 colonies left out of 14 are a success to him. 
He advised me to place my new hives I will get isolated from the survivors and check first if they are infested too much because this will be too much for my survivors. 
Erik Österlund gave the same advise once so I will follow and use my third location for them.


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## Nordak

> 3.- One started tf with catching 4 swarms 2011. (domesticated escaped local mutts). The bees were slow to develop and robbed the neighbors at is bee yard until no colony was left.
> He started new 2012. He has done some treatments but treated not all colonies ( +- 10) so has some survivors. He has local carni mutts.
> He multiplies with swarms, he sees this as a trait to fight the mites. He propagates swarming and catches his own swarms.
> he uses Topbar, warré, DN, and "Bienenkiste", natural comb.


Hey Sibylle, your meeting sounds interesting. Sounds like a good support system.

The member that catches his own swarms, does he have something set up like a bait hive or is he relying on the off-chance he'll be around when they swarm?


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> The member that catches his own swarms, does he have something set up like a bait hive or is he relying on the off-chance he'll be around when they swarm?


Bait hives are not allowed here. He is a registrated swarm catcher. People call him.


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## Nordak

Bird houses are allowed, right? 😄 If I lived in Germany, I'd just set up some extra large bird houses.


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## 1102009

Number 3 of my co-workers found a possibility to trap legally.

https://www.mellifera.de/blog/freibeuter/legale-schwarmlockkisten.html

The boxes must be new, you may put a smaller box inside which contains old comb pieces eaten by wax moths, as bait. This small box is made out of mesh so the bees can only smell it but not reach it. To put a brood comb inside is not legal.


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## 1102009

Temps are still winter modus.
The nights are frosty but day temperature allows pollen foraging and cleansing flights.
Still not much nectar available I hope they do not starve.

I believe status is they have the first bigger brood nests before capping. I see no defect bees crawling around but i see some dead are pulled out ( no defect ones).
Many old bees are still there.
Last year end of march they were on two deeps with big brood areas. This year they struggle to survive.


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## 1102009

Today I was able to check on two hives if they are queen right.

Carnica mutt has 2 frames with hand sized brood nests on both sides and enough honey left.
Most of the brood is open, young bees were hatching out of capped cells.
Bee number is two frames Dadant, foragers were not at home they were gone in direction of my big willow trees.
This is the weaker of the two, I reduced the entrance to two- bees space for two weeks, colder weather coming.

I love this queen, hope she is a survivor.









The elgon and ? hive greeted me with an attack and I got stung twice. Put some Wick vapoRub on, no smell of pheromones and no swelling!
They are the stronger, same broodnest areas but more bee numbers, one frame more.
Mostly open brood and much honey left.

This is her:


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## 1102009

Checked the AMM mutts today and what a surprise!

First one had 2.5 full frames of brood and 5 frames of bees.
This is the queen:









Second one is even stronger, 5.5 frames of brood already and 7 frames of bees.
I could not do a pic because she was laying and quickly the bees covered her.
This colony had no mites for weeks now on the board.

This location is much earlier in flow, two weeks and the bees are exposed to the sun the whole day long. 

Honey stores are ok, they were shifting the honey to the brood nests and pollen stores are very good.

Next visit will be after the next cold spell to put a shallow on bottom and a super on top.


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## Nordak

Good stuff, Sibylle. That queen is a beauty.


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## squarepeg

nice! your amm queen very much resembles the feral derivatives that i am working with.


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## tpope

Nice looking queen Sibylle!


Here's a look at one of the queens squarepeg raised...


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## 1102009

Hey folks I love the *Black* queen!
Ok , I love every queen which is able to lead a survivor`s hive. 

What´s happening in your bee yard, Nordak? The cold spell over? Now I think bees are much more tough than we believe them to be.

tpope, hi. Is this an italian queen? She looks slightly different than my elgon and the bees are much more yellow. I´m not sure of your stock....


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## tpope

Sorry for the confusion Sibylle. I uploaded and tried to post from my phone... I edited my post for clarity... The queen in my picture is one from the stock that squarepeg is working with. It is recent so all the bees are her offspring. I was admiring the newly laid eggs on the comb that I checker boarded with recently and saw the queen and decided to mark her.


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## Nordak

Saturday is going to be a busy day. Supposed to be in the 70's and I'm going to be making up mating nucs for whatever's left of the cells. My hope is they've finished all of them. I'm going to be getting some lang gear built for my 8 frame medium hive and am considering transferring frames out of my long hive to start another vertical lang as I'm considering using it for a compartmental set of mating nucs. I think that would be a better utilization for it.


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## 1102009

Tpope, thanks for clarifying! SP is kind of stingy with picts! 
The queens you have are tiger or look like my elgons. Interesting.

Nordak, please update, this is very good learning. I still cross fingers to your success. Good idea to use the lang like that.


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## 1102009

Hey Dar,
I just tried to send a pm to you but no space in your account left!
You really must be hardworking!


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## Fusion_power

I'm just getting a LOT of messages as I prepare to ship out several of the square Dadant hives. I erased several messages so they should go through now.


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## 1102009

Thanks, dar.


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## 1102009

I had a telephone date yesterday with my young friend in bavaria who is the administrator of VivaBiene.

The split he made for me is ready to be transported, my visit will be 8th of april, 4 hours to drive one way.
He introduced an elgon queen F1 last year but the colony superseded her and now has a carni mutt queen which seems to be very good, starting a strong hive now.

As I maybe told you before, he has tf and treated bees at the same location since 2013, when he regressed half of his big cell production hives to small cell ( using plastic combs) and narrow frame space and went cold turkey, but used some more resistant stock, elgon queens from Erik Österlund and Josef Koller and 2 AMM from the canary islands.
His attempt with AMM he stopped having been attacked by those too much.( Mine are not as defensiv, it seems).

His losses are moderate, the second year he lost 2 hives which froze being still on the plastic combs.
This year he lost 3 out of 11 of the tf and 4 out of the 9 treated ones, he tells me he sees no difference between tf and treated hives. He is not isolated.
He is very experienced and treats with formic acid in summer and oxalic acid in winter his treated production hives.
Seems like his tf bees can take a lot of mites from the neighbors but still survive, having the one or two defect bees around to be seen.

The tf he has are all splits and never harvested so far. The treated ones are harvested and fed with sugar syrup.

This year he wants to sell his treated hives and go on with the tf, changing more and more to production in 2018 after expanding again.
To those who have access to Viva here a link:
http://www.vivabiene.de/t145f26-Elgon-F-Nachzuchten.html
He did graft two times with success and multiplies the elgon descendants.

Having not much time he is not active in forum but I hope he will be. Much to learn from him.


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## 1102009

Wild cherry trees start blooming but only in one yard, the other will need two more weeks.

We have a warm spell and the bees use this to forage for pollen and propolis. The warm spell will be over at the weekend. At night we still have frost or very low temperature.

It amazes me to see how they adapt to the climate circumstances. The amount of brood is just what they are able to keep warm and to cover in the cold nights. Slowly expanding.
Late in the morning when it gets warm, they leave the hive to forage and the house bees move the honey and pollen into the center to arrange for more breeding.

Last year they bred through and exploded end of march, because we had no winter to speak of, now they are very careful raising numbers.

When I last checked there was no honey at the top of the combs in broodnest now they have honey domes.
There was some honey left but I exchanged one empty comb to one with capped honey. They use much more now and the cold weather still seem to continue.

I wanted to take home some samples of the mites which I expected to be on the boards to see if they are bitten, but I found no mites. Im looking again in one week.


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## Fusion_power

Sibylle, often there will be few mites dropping in early spring. Wait until there is sealed drone brood in the hive and check it to see what the mite population is in the hive.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> I wanted to take home some samples of the mites which I expected to be on the boards to see if they are bitten, but I found no mites. Im looking again in one week.





Fusion_power said:


> Sibylle, often there will be few mites dropping in early spring. Wait until there is sealed drone brood in the hive and check it to see what the mite population is in the hive.


it appears that the mite resistant bees i am working with are able to remove all if not most of the phoretic mites in the hives during the winter brood break here.

i very rarely if ever find a mite in the first rounds of drone brood, but do start finding a few mites in subsequent rounds drone brood, usually after the first mature drones are flying and foraging is well underway.

i assume the mites are finding their way into my hives via drifting drones and drifting foragers as well as by foragers picking them up from the blooms they visit.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> i assume the mites are finding their way into my hives via drifting drones and drifting foragers as well as by foragers picking them up from the blooms they visit.


One week ago there were some dead mother mites on the boards, not many and not with all hives, i should have taken those to look at them. Was kind of surprised there were none now.

Dar, yes, I will wait until they breed drones and open some scattered cells to see. That, because I want to promote drone breeding from the best of the hives, even having only two and three in the separate bee yards now.
This is something I can do routinely as a management, even having not enough hives to select queens from.

I want to use drone frames for that and feed with honey combs all the time. Hope mating will be better this year. 

SP, I don´t think a hive will ever be without mites, picking them up somewhere later in year? The individual mite will survive and start infestation again.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> SP, I don´t think a hive will ever be without mites, picking them up somewhere later in year? The individual mite will survive and start infestation again.


dar has tested his colonies and found zero mites with his tests.

i have only tested in the fall and find +/- 10% infestation which is high.

coming out of winter and during spring i look at drone brood. this year so far after inspecting almost 20 hives and looking carefully at many dozens of uncapped drone larve, i haven't seen any mites yet.

but you are right, there probably are some mites at this time, i just haven't found any so far. it shouldn't be long though before i'll start seeing a few here and there, and by the fall there will be no shortage of mites in the hives.


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## 1102009

There was a misunderstanding with my co-worker in bavaria,I´m sorry, here an update:

Big cell treated hives: 4 out of 8 survived, two died because mice got access.
These were treated 3 times in summer with formic acids, one time in winter with oxalic acids.

Small cell tf hives: 9 out of 15 survived, 2 weak but alive, the others strong.

http://www.vivabiene.de/t215f36-Was-war-heute-los-20.html#msg2621

I´m translating his post for you this evening. The informations are very good.


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## Oldtimer

How did that ultrasound thing work that is supposed to get rid of varroa?


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## lharder

squarepeg said:


> dar has tested his colonies and found zero mites with his tests.
> 
> i have only tested in the fall and find +/- 10% infestation which is high.
> 
> coming out of winter and during spring i look at drone brood. this year so far after inspecting almost 20 hives and looking carefully at many dozens of uncapped drone larve, i haven't seen any mites yet.
> 
> but you are right, there probably are some mites at this time, i just haven't found any so far. it shouldn't be long though before i'll start seeing a few here and there, and by the fall there will be no shortage of mites in the hives.


I'm curious about my own spring mite counts. I'll do one in May to correspond with last year's sampling. I think the fall figure may be deceptive and may wash out bees that shouldn't be washed out in the selection process. The bees may deal with mites at different thresholds and the 10 percent fall number may be actually be a better one in terms of survival and production. There may also be a compromise between survival and production as well. The more productive hives may allow a higher percentage of mites and experience higher mortality as a result. But in spring, a strong hive can produce more drones and swarms compared to another mite obsessive hive, so it balances out. Perhaps beekeepers need to keep this in mind and not obsessively focus on one aspect of the system. The extra production may offset a bit of extra mortality.


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## 1102009

@ OT 
not tested yet, a friend wants to test it in June before he treats with formic acid. Nice, so I don´t have to do it.

@ Iharder
This of balance is a nice idea.
My stronger hives died first though, breeding the mites until august, the concentrating the mites into a smaller number of winter bee brood combs. The smaller colonies with brood brakes after splitting are the survivors.

This strategy of no use to me not knowing how long the winter will be and having high mite drift from neighbors.


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## 1102009

> *Stefan Beekeeper since 2007, small cell beekeeper since 2012, Dee Lusby system, adapted to european circumstances, wrote:*
> 
> Von den 8 eingewinterten großzelligen Völkern haben (trotz Behandlung! mit 3 mal AS Schwammtuch und im Winter Oxalsäure) nur 4 überlebt.
> Davon gehen zwei Völker auf das Konto von Spitzmäusen, eine davon habe ich sogar tot im Kasten gefunden (offenbar sind die Kästen doch nicht so Mäuse sicher wie sie angepriesen werden).
> Zwei Weitere gehen auf das Konto der Varroa und vier großzellige Völker haben gut ausgewintert, zwei davon sogar sehr stark, diese beiden habe ich bereits verkauft.
> Die anderen Beiden großzeller werden einen schönen Kunstschwarm ergeben und den bekommt die Sibylle direkt auf ihre kleinzelligen Dadantwaben gesetzt.


Translation:
4 out of 8 big cell treated hives survived the winter, 2 were varroa crash, 2 were killed by shrews. 
4 survived, 2 were strong and I sold these.
We plan to do an artificial swarm into a dadant small cell drawn comb box for Sibylle out of the other two ( I will never again treat them with chemicals, they are an experiment , SiWolKe).




> Zu den Kleinzellern:
> 
> Eingewintert hatte ich 15 Völker davon konnte ich 9 Völker auswintern von diesen 9 sind zwei relativ schwach, haben aber genügend Brut und durch das umhängen von Futterwaben ans Brutnest werden sie sehr sicher wieder in die Höhe kommen.
> Die Anderen 7 Völkern stehen den großzellern die Behandelt wurden in stärke und vitalität in nix nach und übertreffen diese sogar (auch der Ablerger auf Dadant für Sibylle gehört dazu)
> Zwei dieser Völker konnten die untere der beiden Zanderzargen sogar problemlos behalten, bei zwei anderen kleinzellern musste das untere Magazin entfernt werden da es weitgehend bienenfrei war.


The sc bees:
15 colonies went into winter, 9 survived. 2 are weak but will make it with feeding honeycombs. 7 are as strong as any treated hive and some are even stronger, the split I made for Sibylle is one of these. ( I send him a dad ant sc box with my drawn comb last year to make this spit so I would have more genetic diversity, SiWolke).
Two of the sc stayed on 2 deeps Zander , the others are now on one deep the bottom now being empty of bees. ( That´s normal in bavaria`s colder winter, SiWolke)



> Im Moment werden die Völker einfach in Ruhe gelassen, das Futter ist überprüft und der Raum ist angepasst mehr kann und sollte man nicht machen bis das große Blühen losgeht und die ersten Erweiterungen fällig werden.


Food check is done , space accommodated, now I will not disturb them until the first main flow.



> Mein Fazit aus diesem Winter:
> 
> Man kann unbehandelte und ordentlich umgestellte kleinzellige Völker auch in unmittelbarer Nähe zu Großzellern überwintern, aber man tut ihnen damit keinen Gefallen insbesondere wenn die Großzeller z.b. intensiv mit Thymol behandelt oder gar nicht behandelt werden.
> Im Fall einer Thymol Behandlung triften die mit Milben befallenen Bienen massiv in die Nachbarvölker ab, da diese nicht "stinken"!
> Ich hatte das schon mal, als ein Nachbarimker mit Thymol behandelt hat, in diesem Jahr konnte ich mich vor Milben nicht mehr retten (damals hatte ich nur Großzeller)
> Ich denke der Abstand von 3km zu den Kleinzellern der empfohlen wird, ist nur als grober Richtwert zu sehen und man sollte sich nicht darauf fixieren, sondern lieber einen Stand suchen mit sauber arbeitenden Nachbarimkern und einer guten Nektar und Pollenversorgung.


Conclusion of this overwintering:
It´s possible to have treated and tf colonies together in a bee yard or near neighbors, but it will not work if thymol is used for treatment with the big cell hives. Or if the big cells are NOT treated.
If thymol is used there is too much drifting of bees with mites into "clean", thymol free hives. 
When I had only big cell bees this happened to me once because a neighbor treated with thymol. I had an enormous number of mites suddenly in my colonies.
To me it is more important to have neighbors who are as careful with treating like me and a good nectar and pollen situation than being isolated 3km.



> Die Kleinzeller schaffen es ohne Behandlung, man muss ihnen aber die Chance geben sich zu beweisen und nicht ständig mit Hilfestellungen den durchaus natürlichen Prozess einer Resistenzbildung zu nichte machen, klar gibt es Ausfälle wenn man so verfährt,
> aber es ist einfach ein tolles Gefühl zu wissen, dass die Völker die Jahr für Jahr übrig bleiben etwas ganz besonders sind und nach jeder Saison ein bisschen kräftiger und der Varroa gegenüber toleranter werden.
> Nachgezüchtet wird immer von den Völkern die ihren Totenfall im Frühjahr zügig und vor allem ohne Hilfe beseitigen und in der Entwicklung den Anderen voraus sind.


The small cell bees are surviving this situation if you leave them alone as much as possible without too many managements. 
It´s a wonderful feeling to see the amazing survivors every year which are getting stronger from season to season and getting more tolerant.
Naturally the breeding must be from those who are able to clean out their dead in spring themselves and are stronger than the others.


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## squarepeg

hi sibylle, i noticed you talking about making your own foundation, and that there is some process you use to clean out the contaminants from the wax, can you explain how you clean the wax please?


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## msl

Hi Siblylle
When I saw this I remembered the issues you were having with your splits and the mites over ruining the original queen 
Done this way it would seem most of the mites would stay with the capped brood and nurse bees in the hive that gets the brood break, giving the original queen a strong fresh start 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...it-Last-light-or-Midday&p=1168911#post1168911


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## 1102009

@ squarepeg
My combs are not contaminated, except perhaps by pesticides.
I´m re-using only light and newer comb, heat it in a pot in water bath until it melts, cool it down and scrape away the debris at the bottom. The cocons I skim off. Then I melt again and press the foundations.
I´m not heating above 70°C because this will change the wax. The bees don´t like cooked wax. They don´t like to draw this. And it´s not so brittle if used without paraffin as all companies do.
The dark comb I sell to the metalworkers.

@ msl,
many thanks for posting this link, I have not seen it yet ( and thanks to Lauri, too).
Yes, that´s exactly how I plan to do this in future.

Today my husband and I planted 64 trees and bushes at our property, early spring flow plants and late fall ones.
God, our backs are hurting ( older age showing, )

No starving bees from now on, the AMM have wild cherry, the others maple starting.


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## gww

SiW,,,,,
I planted 15 box store fruit trees two years ago in the hard july ground and it took me a week. Very hard work. Good luck with them.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW,,,,,
> I planted 15 box store fruit trees two years ago in the hard july ground and it took me a week. Very hard work. Good luck with them.
> Cheers
> gww


Thanks, gww! That must have been real hard work. We have no machines, use our hands with everything.

The environment there is mostly farming and fields and this could change every year, maybe not much flow some years or too much spraying. I wanted to give them an alternative.
A friend gifted me with a plastic barrel, food proved, as a bee water source. I installed this, too.

Hope the bees will appreciate the efforts.

Today, in a work brake, I watched the entrances of the two survivors and saw an elgon watcher stopping all foragers in the entrance before they could fly away. She groomed them thoroughly, so much they fell on the backs with hair ( or mite) pulling.
I wanted to look at the sacrifice if she had a mite on her abdomen but squatting right in front of the entrance without a veil is no good idea with my bees.


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## 1102009

I installed a bait hive today....:shhhh: at my AMMs.


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## Nordak

SiWolKe said:


> I installed a bait hive today....:shhhh: at my AMMs.


Welcome to the outlaw side of beekeeping. Hope you catch something.


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## 1102009

Nordak said:


> Welcome to the outlaw side of beekeeping. Hope you catch something.


Hehe, well, I used two dividers and some frames with start stripes and a nice 4.9 drawn comb, so i rather hope the hornets and wasps will refrain from using it.
Maybe my neighbor`s buckfast want to lodge in, I saw him putting a second deep on one hive....


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## 1102009

Ok, 
season started in earnest and this means much work and many busy weekends like this was.

We drove 600 miles to take home my new colony, which was bred last year by my friend in bavaria ( from him I got the elgon hybrid I have already, one survivor). He introduced an elgon queen F1 last year but they superseded and now this colony has a carni mutt queen mated with carni and elgon drones.
They are at my carni-elgon bee yard now and did an orientation flight today. 

View attachment 32107

View attachment 32108

View attachment 32109


Today I checked my two AMM survivors.

The strongest ( of all 4 left) was crowded. They had 8 broodframes dadant, the first drones emerged. Since I still have a shallow on bottom because of frames which are longer than mine, they used the space to build some drone comb there which is fine with me because they will be content with the 10% drone corners I have cut out on every frame and will not change worker cells to drone cells.

This comb I can use for my monitoring, nice, so I don´t have to distroy parts of the framed comb. And I want them to decide how much drones they need and propagate drones from this hive. They do that for me on their own
It was possible for me to leave the broodnest area be and not put in empty frames. No swarm cells to be seen.

Bee density was high. Without foragers ( which were busy) they covered 10 frames. So I put on a second deep, using 2 4.9 combs and 2 4.9 foundations interleaved in the middle and drawn comb, a little wonky, at the sides.
So if they breed to the top they use smaller comb hopefully.

The second colony looks almost the same but is a little behind. Every drone corner has capped brood, no swarm cells. 6 frames of brood, mostly emerging the next hours, i saw the queen ( very fat, not reduced to swarming diet) she was laying the empty cells again.
Since there was a little more empty cells I put a shallow under to make more space and put a shallow with foundations on top for them to build. So far I used only deeps so I have no drawn comb for honey storing purpose with these.

A main flow started some days ago and the bees use this for expanding brood areas. 5 and 4 kg of stores are left, I estimated. This will be enough for the cold spell coming next week and they can keep warm with all the bees and drones.
After that it will be main fruit tree flow and hopefully time to do my first splitting. If the weather holds.


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## Oldtimer

Are those pics at the bottom of your post, the ones you call your AMM's?


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## 1102009

Yes, because I don´t know how to call them, since they are hybrids now third generation.
They mixed with buckfast and I´m breeding locally now.

The mother colony was pure bred AMM from the canary island, where exists a special kind of haplotype. 

I have only mutts, but I still name my bee yards AMM bee yard and Carni-Elgon bee yard. Sorry guys, but that´s that.


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## Oldtimer

OK, thanks.


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## 1102009

My new hive was warm ways, which I changed yesterday to cold ways. 

I installed a shallow at the bottoms of the carni- elgon hives to make them build drone comb and have some space to cluster if they are crowded. The next warm spell they will need a super on top.

The closed bottom floors are to their advantage. It seems it´s easier for them to climate.


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Reading Squarepegs post has given me a thought why some TF bees may work in some areas but not others.
> 
> During times with no brood, mite mortality can be high. A demonstration of that could be from SP's mite counts he has said elsewhere that fall mite counts can be as high as 15%, but by spring he finds almost no mites in the hives.
> 
> So to my theory. SP's bees have a brood break winter, and mid summer. But after the summer break the mites are able to build up to quite a high level by fall. However this is dealt with during the broodless winter.
> 
> In other areas, bees don't have brood breaks. So if TF bees that "work", because mites are sorted during broodless periods, are sent to an area with not brood break, that could destroy the method they use to get rid of mites.
> 
> That's all theory of course, I have not done the experiment. But it might be part of the reason a bee will work in one area but not another. And it could be yet another reason why Italians don't work so well, they like raising brood at any opportunity.


Had the same thoughts today when I looked at my new hive. There was a pulled out damaged pupae on the entrance board and I found a wax moth larvae on the varroa board.

My own survivors had a long brood brake this winter and there are no virus effects seen at the moment. And: I tried to breed wax moth for a bait hive at my home in a dadant box, but no wax moth so far. Too cold at night.

The new bees come from bavaria where it is colder and the winter longer. Still they are infested and have wax moths. Why? Because they were kept in a bee house. Warm overwintering.


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## Oldtimer

What you going to do about that?


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> What you going to do about that?


I´m trusting the bees to know what to do.
My friend, where they come from, has no high losses. He sees wax moths and DWV every year in his hives since 2012. He sees DWV in his treated hives, too.

I hope with time and distributing many drones I will always have some survivors. Maybe the pulled out pupae is a sign of VSH. 

My place is colder and I have no bee house. I´m not using insulation except on top.

My interest lies in watching and learning. This will need some years and maybe some new starts. 
It´s fascinating to me. In the end what counts for me is to realize and take note which practical methods and arrangements are working and which not. 

What I see in my environment is that established beekeeping methods don´t work without treatments. So I have to experiment because nobody can tell me which methods will work. And what combinations of methods.


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## 1102009

Nature selects for sure.

Winter is here again, snow on the snowy blossoms....


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## Oldtimer

Very nice!

That is your house behind? Typical German house with high roof for getting rid of the snow!


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Very nice!
> 
> That is your house behind? Typical German house with high roof for getting rid of the snow!


No, it´s the neighbors. I was standing on our balcony to do the picture. This is ours where we live with my in laws.


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## Oldtimer

Very pretty.

Looks like a beekeepers garden .


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## 1102009

No flow, no pollination, no fruit.

http://www.suedkurier.de/region/Friedrichshafen~bilder/cme1359606,11461208


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## 1102009

All colonies survived the ordeal and are going for pollen and nectar like crazy.

The dandelions are not frozen, some late blooming apple trees are still used.

I prepared my " dummy" breeding frames to introduce into the brood nests. It´s to experiment with the technique mostly since I believe the survivors are "good bees" all and I`m no queen breeder yet.
Tomorrow I will remove the bottom wires.









My new hive breeds wax moths between varroa mesh and varroa board. This kind of floor is a big mess because the bees are not able to reach the wax moths and with open floors will not use the whole frames for breeding.


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## Oldtimer

Why remove the wires?


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Why remove the wires?


I fear the qc will be build around the wire and I will not be able to cut them out.

Drove 300 miles yesterday to visit my new mentor who lectured me about grafting. He build all his grafting tools and qc starters himself, fascinating!
Maybe I will try this too.


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## Oldtimer

Yes. Every serious beekeeper should learn that.


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## 1102009

We had fine weather the last two days but now it´s snowing again and 2°C.

Beekeepers here see the first drones killed and expelled from hives because of the food situation.

*My records from 2 days ago:*

24.4.2017 86ma/a AMM-buckfast-hybrid

colony exploded, the highest bee density, not much nectar, some capped food stores, eggs but saw no queen ( I´m not searching), no swarm cells, much drone brood 
8 brood combs frame completely filled with brood, some very small capped honey corners, 10% capped drone brood on every frame, honey on side frames but not much.
propolis sticky
dark and light mites on the board < 2 per day
saw approximately 10 opened cells with blueeyed pupae in worker brood area but did not brush off all combs

the honey super foundations were not drawn out so I changed the super to a deep with drawn comb and one old comb with a small honey dome in the middle, I hope they breed upwards


24.4,2017 86mb/1 AMM-buckfast-hybrid

same condition brood frames number as 2 weeks ago.
this were the robbers and they got all the mites from the varroa crash
still they expanded the broodnests on the frames but have shotgun brood areas
much capped drone brood
big honey domes, capped
not much fresh nectar
mites ( on board 2 per day, saw one on drone, one on worker)
high density of bees
many young bees emerging, saw no mites sitting on them

defensive, I had to smoke them, got stung once
no swarm cells
saw the queen laying

took home two samples of capped drone brood


EF1 Elgon-carni-hybrid

6 broodcombs, looking good, saw the queen laying
propolis sticky
some mites on the board but none on bees
some food stores, not much fresh nectar
high bee density
gentle but curious ( elgons like to smell you)
no swarm cells, queen very fat and slowly moving

took a sample of capped drone comb from burr comb under the frames


EF2 Elgon-carni- hybrid

new hive
7 broodcombs, saw queen laying, she is laying a very good pattern, one frame completely with eggs
every frame with 10% drone corner capped
propolis sticky
still stores of food but not much fresh nectar
small number of mites on board <1 per day
saw 5 worker cells opened with blue-eyed pupae, but did not brush off all frames
no swarm cells
no wax moths anymore ( in hive and on the board)
gentle bees



24.4.2014

2ba/b Carni-??hybrid

the only carni survivor
6 broodcombs, saw queen laying
much eggs and young larvae frames completely layed
not many drones, some stores, some nectar
propolis sticky

this colony lost their queen two times on mating flight last year.
I donated egg and young larvae comb three times, one time with supercedure cell
I donated one frame capped brood after observing VSH behaviour in september to help them survive winter
The new queen layed 5 frames eggs in one day at the beginning, three were nursed
I fed many honey frames to them last year.

This hive has no mites on bees and board so far.

*Some picts:*


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## 1102009

Checked my samples.

I saw no mites with the carnis but that was because they are here:
I opened 100 drone cells and found 50 mother mites.

The AMM had 14 in 50 drone cells.

I bet I would not have found anything with a shaker. Next time will be dark drone comb and worker cells.


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## 1102009

March was the warmest month for many years and april the coldest for over hundred.

Now we have two days when the bees are able to forage on the plants which are not destroyed by frost.
My colder bee yard has the advantage of apple trees just starting to bloom and the bees are 2 weeks behind with brood. Looks good.

At the warmer bee yard the bees are desperate and I`m not able to feed because they cluster and will not take anything. They expelled many drones and some chilled brood ( which looks a little like DWV), but darker. I hope it´s not virus.

All are still alive and seem to be strong in numbers. They are bringing pollen and water, but I don´t know about the energy food. 

I plan to super the colder bee yard, the others have a deep on top with drawn frame. I don´t believe they will draw even one cell...


----------



## squarepeg

crazy weather like that sure doesn't help matters sibylle. many thanks for keeping us posted and we are hoping all the best for you and your colonies.


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## Nordak

squarepeg said:


> crazy weather like that sure doesn't help matters sibylle. many thanks for keeping us posted and we are hoping all the best for you and your colonies.


:thumbsup:


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## 1102009

Thanks guys!

I will put up with anything if you are with me. 

Following your thread, SP, wonderful how you are doing!


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## 1102009

Today I splitted the AMM hybrids.

In one hive the queen was still laying but mostly drones and there were worker cells used as drone cells, splattered into the worker brood areas.
And : there was a supercedure cell, filled, big, but not yet capped.
I used this cell for the queenless split and gave eggs and young larvae to both splits.
Saw the queen, she will lay for a time still. Last year`s matings were a mess.

The second hive was very healthy and strong and good looking.
I did a small split with 3 brood combs mixed brood and the queen and left 5 brood combs with the queenless.
The queen looks very good. I hope she is, because she will be my new breeder queen in june with grafting or miller frames.
Flow is very good in june if the weather holds.

The food situation is getting better but I donated some honeycombs and reduced the queenless with dividers to 8 combs to invite new queen cell building.

I installed robber screens.


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## 1102009

Yesterday I changed my hives in the second yard to double deeps, giving them deeps on top with combs, brood combs from last year in the center.
I hope they expand up to 12-16 brood combs like last year.

The elgon and carni hybrids are filling one deep now and I want them to be the strongest to start my breeding experiments end of may. Good flow is starting right now there.
I hope they use it all for breeding.


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## 1102009

I checked the AMM hybrid splits today.

1-qeenless:
The superseding cell is capped and nursed. There were three more cells not looking good and capped too early,maybe there are drones inside.
2-queenless:
had 4 swarm or queen cells, big, filled half ( not many I think, maybe because of early splitting before swarm season? Swarm season is late this year.)

1- with queen:
I took out the dividers ( test was fine. I wanted to see if it works) and expanded with comb frames and foundations up to 12 frames.
2-with queen:
this are the robbers having the mites. After observing what you see in the pict I decided to do my first pest management and culled some drone brood.









I talked to a fruit farmer today who places hives from an acquaintance in his fruit yard when there is flow. He said, the bees forage but there is no nectar. The blossoms are dead, frozen. This is in the AMM area, my other bee yard has a flow because the fruit trees just now are starting ( apple trees).


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## 1102009

The warré hive of a group member throwed a swarm two days ago which he gave to another member who had high losses.

We all met yesterday to talk swarm multiplying, since he is the only one I know doing this, actually waiting until the bees swarm and catching the swarms. His bees are not swarmy per se but swarm if having not enough space.

He experiments with different types of hives. The bees thrive the most in warré. He treats once with thymol in late summer and once with OA in winter. He wants to be tf and starts this season.

He tries to do the Seeley way and places the hives with much space between.

Some picts:


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## 1102009

double


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## gww

SiW...
I just put a swarm in a warre yesterday.
Cheers gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW...
> I just put a swarm in a warre yesterday.
> Cheers gww


Yes, I follow your posts when I have time, I saw your posts in the warré forum.
Good luck, I think the bees will love that!
Do you have such a tool for nadiring?


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## gww

SiW...
I do not have a tool or windows and so I will be tipping the boxes at some time anyway to see when I might add more. I like the ideal of not splitting the brood nest but think it will happen some during build up and after the brood nest is built, it will be able to be cut down to maby once in spring to judge bee strength for adding the years extra boxes.

I am new but this is how I am going to start out approching it.
gww


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## 1102009

*First step to grafting.*

I want to try grafting this year if the bees help me to do this and bee density allows this.

So I constructed my tools. The frame will be expanded to 25 queen cells, the part with foundations will get queen cells too.


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## 1102009

Typical german landscape. 

Today bees came second....


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## Oldtimer

Very impressive 

Many years since I had a bike, looking at that made me feel like jumping on!

What is that yellow crop in the background? Looks good for bees?


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## gww

Oldtimer


> Many years since I had a bike, looking at that made me feel like jumping on!


Me too, when I was a young boy, I thought I would ride one forever but for the last ten years or so the closest I come is an atv.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> What is that yellow crop in the background? Looks good for bees?


It´s rape. It´s starting and this is a good thing for me because after spraying it most of the farmers call the beekeepers ( not cynical, that´s nice of them, they work together) to use the flow and to pollinate.
The neighbor beekeepers then will all migrate to the fields and I will be left behind ( no fields near me) with my drones to mate with my queens. I hope to start multiplying and breeding after the weekend, when there hopefully is not much rain.
So far not many days with nice weather.

gww I love atv. They are called quads here. So cool. My dogs could ride behind me. Maybe some time in my life...


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> It´s rape.


Thought it might be. Long time ago when I worked for a beekeeper in a different area, any time we saw a large rape crop we would move bees to it, gives an excellent early flow to really pump up the hives.


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## gww

SIW
My dog rides in front of me Which is bad because every little but of water we come to clean or dirty, she has to lay in it. The other day somebody ask if I had peed in my pants and I said no, worse, I spoiled my dog.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Bees today, AMM ( hybrids).

Last thursday I used organic sunflower oil to lubricate the paper on my varroa boards. Downfall is < 5 mites per day.

Today I checked the splits.

- 1 with queen has foragers now and they bring much pollen. They have to expand from 2 brood combs to 12 combs in the box so I left them with their work did not open.
- 2 with queen I suspected of supercedure or laying workers, but now looks normal, lesser drones and much pollen brought. Check in two weeks if they are queen right, now watch the entrance for drones. I opened and saw many workers so I expanded with a deep filled with drawn comb, I would like to use this for a second split if the queen is still there and prolific.

- 3 queenless, got the supercedure cell which was nursed. Very strong, so I expanded with a honey super with foundations. Check in one week if they have a new queen.
- 4 queenless made with mixed brood. Had 4 queen cells on may 5th, half filled, looked nice. Check in 2 weeks. Put a honey super on top filled with foundations.

We have a very good flow now, and weather is fine.


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## squarepeg

good work sibylle! many thanks for keeping us updated.


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## 1102009

Bees today, elgon F2 ( the new one) and carni 

elgon: 30% drone brood in the hive. No swarm cells, no supercedure cells, much brood emerging and new eggs.

32 mites on oil paper in 6 days means they are over my threshold ( 10 per day). But I count 10 days and take the average. So wait a little more and maybe cut out half of the drone brood from different areas. IPM.
Bees look good. The have some combs with nectar in the top and bottom box.

Carni: surprised me. The were the weakest hive after winter, 2 frames of bees. Now 9 combs of brood. No swarm or supercedure cells, brood looking fine. Bees crowding the bottom box and are up in numbers working too, foragers still not around.

They seem to use the entire bottom box as broodnest and filled the deep on top completely with nectar.
I decided to use them for queen cell starter probably. Very gentle are they too.
For drone brood they use the drone corners I cut out on every frame. 12 drone corners are used.
Nice to work with such a colony.

Mites are 8 in 6 days on oil paper The sample I made end of april showed 50 mother mites in 100 drone cells.


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## 1102009

I´m up to 9 hives now.
Splitted all except the one I want to use for grafting, if the bees will wait for me.

My last split was an artificial swarm with queen, using one brood comb to hold them in because of a new box. I used +- 3kg of mixed bees.
This is the new elgon hybrid colony which came to me mite infested. I culled out 40% of capped drone comb, too.

All queenless are very strong and have one honey super on top. Much nectar is coming in and dried.


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## 1102009

My head buzzing from all the informations, claims, theories, discussions and scientific research I now start my own research.

This night I got a colony made as an artificial swarm with formerly treated, big cell bees, the queen a 2016 local mutt mated with local treated drones but also with tf drones, mostly elgons, descendants of a queen coming from Erik Österlund.

The swarm , 8 pounds of bees, was put on a comb with brood which was culled out after being capped, so they are almost without mites now.

We shook them onto a 4.9 comb and empty frames. They got 4 frames of honey stores to start with ( no sugar). I installed a robber screen.

The colony is placed single at my home with other beekeepers around ( 10 hives I believe).
It´s an urban setting with a very good flow and not much spraying.

So this is the situation many new beekeepers must start with. I want to see what develops, what cell size they will draw and what happens with mites and virus.
I plan not to harvest, now, because of good flow, they are with one deep dadant, square, 12 frames and a follower board, and honey super on top, 13 frames, 4.9 foundations.

Space between frames is 33mm.

This is my education. After observing what will happen i will know much more about my special situation and will be able to manage my future bee colonies accordingly.


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## Oldtimer

SC foundation in the honey super? In a good flow you will have trouble getting them to draw it as small cell.


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> SC foundation in the honey super? In a good flow you will have trouble getting them to draw it as small cell.


I don´t need them to draw sc there but have only sc foundation available ( made by myself, I have my own press and wax).
I´m curious if they use the super to breed in. That´s what I want to know too, how much space a big swarm needs in one year for brood and if a dadant deep is sufficient. I have no queen excluder installed.

I thought about putting empty frames in the super, but honey comb on foundations should be easier to be extracted and the comb used again. I hope to have two supers filled with honey and to harvest one for myself.
If they produce no surplus ( here they need 40 pounds of stores to survive winter) I will not harvest.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> I have no queen excluder installed.


Oh I didn't know that, that could change what I said. For the middle frames anyway.



SiWolKe said:


> have only sc foundation available ( made by myself, I have my own press and wax).


Didn't know that either. You are full of surprises.


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## Fusion_power

Swap a couple of frames of foundation into the brood nest and move the drawn frames up. Repeat in 10 days so long as there is enough of a flow to keep the bees drawing wax. If there is no flow, you will have to feed to get them to draw the combs. With a bit of manipulation, you will wind up with 2 boxes of drawn combs.

The queen will lay anywhere she has room within some limits. I had a queen laying in both Dadant brood boxes but never producing more than 12 frames of brood in total. A queen excluder will keep all of the brood in the brood chamber. Why did I put two Dadant boxes on several hives? I need frames drawn too.


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## 1102009

Oh, Dar, reading your post I once again believe I have problems with the terms.:scratch:
Half a dadant must be a medium then, so it´s not possible to exchange frames.

In spring, when the colonies expand, I use a deep on top. The double deep allows me to take one of them to make my split. So I don´t have to carry around too much equipment and in early spring very good comb is build.

This year I had so much drawn comb from the deadouts, I don´t need any new , but in summer I will put some frames in the middle of broodnest to make them build more as reserve.

A split from last year produces 12 to 16 frames of brood sometimes, but not all hives. Average is 8-10 frames with a last years split, but I haven´t tested what would happen without splitting.

OT 
this was last years workshop of my group, we made 4.9 and 5.1 out of our own wax.
http://www.vivabiene.de/g26-workshops.html


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## Fusion_power

I was under the impression the hives had double deeps with foundation in the top box. Since it is a honey super, you will have to let the bees occupy it at their own pace.


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## 1102009

I started my first attempt with grafting, selecting my strongest hive, which is without mites, has a carni queen with AMM influence and has 13 deep frames of honey stored, 9 frames of brood.

I separated the two deeps they are on almost immediately found the queen in the bottom box and put a queen excluder on top.

Since the queen had no place to lay and I want to create my queenless starter after some honey frames are capped I took 2 brood combs and placed them into the top box, to hatch or being shifted down the moment I want a brood less starter.
Then I will take 3 frames of capped honey as harvest, 10 frames left for nourishing the breeder.

To make the queen go on laying I gave them an empty comb and a frame with starter stripe to have them occupied until weekend. Flow is extraordinary well, as is the weather.

I created a second top entrance for the drones to leave.

I have a question, maybe Dar or SP will answer.

The hive is located at the place my best drones ( elgons) are which I want to use for mating.
After grafting I plan to move my two parts ( queenless with grafting frame and queen right part) to my other bee yard, there to combine them after 24 hours to make a real strong finisher.
After the queen cells are capped I plan to make some nucs there and move the nucs to the first bee yard again so they would not loose any bees with drifting and the new queen would be mated with better genetics around.

Any ideas to make this an easier job or opinions to this management would be appreciated.


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## Fusion_power

Make splits with at least 2 frames of bees, brood, and honey. This means splitting an entire colony up to make 5 or 6 nucs. Be sure to reduce entrances on the nucs to prevent robbing.

As you wrote, move the nucs to a new yard either just after making them or by moving the colony and then splitting it into nucs as soon as it is in the new yard. If you are splitting the colony that made the queen cells, give each a queen cell as they are made up.

If you are pulling splits from a queenright hive, do not give queen cells as these nucs are made up. They will often destroy the cell. Wait 24 hours and they will accept it.


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## 1102009

Ok, thanks.

So I can use a qc immediately with the splits from the hive that made them even if they are queenright while raising the cells in the top box.

In foreign splits, can I cage the qc like that and if yes, how long?


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## 1102009

SiWolKe said:


> Today I splitted the AMM hybrids.
> 
> In one hive the queen was still laying but mostly drones and there were worker cells used as drone cells, splattered into the worker brood areas.
> And : there was a supercedure cell, filled, big, but not yet capped.
> I used this cell for the queenless split and gave eggs and young larvae to both splits.
> Saw the queen, she will lay for a time still. Last year`s matings were a mess.
> 
> The second hive was very healthy and strong and good looking.
> I did a small split with 3 brood combs mixed brood and the queen and left 5 brood combs with the queenless.
> The queen looks very good. I hope she is, because she will be my new breeder queen in june with grafting or miller frames.
> Flow is very good in june if the weather holds.
> 
> The food situation is getting better but I donated some honeycombs and reduced the queenless with dividers to 8 combs to invite new queen cell building.
> 
> I installed robber screens.


Happy day!
My two splits seem to have a laying queen, I did a quick check and saw some nice eggs in a good pattern, laid single in cells.

The mother queen which I thought not prolific is laying again in a good way. Drone brood is normal again, some corners. This hive is very strong and has much capped brood emerging, so maybe I will do another split in June.
The deep on top is empty of nectar so I will exchange it for a medium, I hope they build comb to store winter honey until my splitting.

The other mother hive, which was a weak split with 3 brood combs breeds like crazy, 2 frames standing eggs, and because of the good flow they even build a little comb. Saw the queen, she is very lively.
No breeding and splitting with this queen, too small a colony. They must get strong until end of summer.

Mite situation: < 5 a day. The robbers have less mites now after my drone brood culling.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> Happy day!


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## 1102009

I grafted today.

I separated the two parts and placed the queen with brood some distance away. I found the queen, caged her and brushed more nurse bees on my starter.
I put the cup frame in and placed capped brood combs left and right ( these had been above the excluder for 7 days).

A thunderstorm came. We crowded into the car where I grafted with the help of a flashlight and a magnifying lens. My husband was very patiently holding the comb.
I believe I used the right larva. I believe only a part of them died with shifting. My tool is very good.

I try everything once. If I have no joy I never do it twice.
I had no joy.
I will look tomorrow if they nurse more than one cup. If not I split.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> I put the cup frame in and placed capped brood combs left and right ( these had been above the excluder for 7 days).


Open brood frame, not capped, is needed beside the "cup -frame" ! Open brood draws like magnet all nursing bees into the vicinity of your grafted larvae.

Open brood and pollen, so there is some raw materials for them to make royal jelly.


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## 1102009

Oh there still were some open cells after 7 days and around the brood there is pollen.

Still, I´m a little depressed, don´t laugh. I have never made a split to be hopelessly queenless in such a short time and the panic sound made me realize how much I disturbed a great hive unit.
This hive has 11 brood combs, 13 honey filled combs, no mites on board for weeks now, a nice looking survivor queen hopefully not damaged now.
The two deeps were bursting with bees.


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## 1102009

Some picts of my efforts:

Yesterday I combined and now the hive is the finisher ( if there is something to finish, I am not able to estimate the situation yet with my humble experience).
But the bees build something around my cups and were very interested.
I´ve never had a hive so strong.There must be 80ooo bees inside the two boxes are bursting. They have 13food frames, I put a medium on top to give more space. The top entrance is for the drones still in the queenless part.


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## Oldtimer

Looks like it's going really well


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## 1102009

Well the bees showed me about my unnatural managements and wanted to supersede. Maybe my actions had killed the queen but I rather believe they already were in the mood. I did not open the broodnest last time I checked.

They had drawn and capped one cell in my frame which I used for a split, the colony bursting with bees. I found a frame with a partly drawn queen cell, filled with juice so I gave that too, but this part will receive an egg comb perhaps.
The two supercedure cells I used for the other part of the split. No queen present, no eggs and young larva. No swarm cells or swarming.

I harvested 3 deep frames of capped honey and distributed the other food frames and some foundations. I installed robber screens. The one with the foragers got a honey medium on top.









While working we heard an ominous sound.
For sure, my elgon mutt split which raised new queens swarmed right under our eyes and went into the apple tree.

My first swarm! What a nice show and I was able to catch them! They are now in my cellar until going back.
There must be a virgin queen with them, I created the colony 16. of may with egg comb. Seems to me a short time to have a mated queen but perhaps I overlooked a capped qc.
We will see.


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## gww

SiW...
Nice pictures. It is pretty exciting to house a swarm isn't it. I had one hive do that two days in a row and so if I was you, I would keep a close watch for a bit. I see you are still having fun. You got mite knock down naturally and the hive was heathy enough to swarm and so that seems good. Of course you won't get as much honey.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I checked the "observation" colony ( natural comb and small cell comb inside) today.

They built drone comb into the empty frames, 50% of the population are drones. The queen quit laying drone eggs now and the bees filled the cells with honey.
No swarm cells.

Almost 80 pounds of nectar inside, not much space to lay because of the nectar bound brood areas but the next two days 3 combs of worker bees will emerge. 

7 broodframes. ( Remember, it was an artificial swarm 4kg, made in april, now placed single in my garden, but not isolated from neighbors bees) 

No mites on the floor board and the bees are looking healthy, I did not check thoroughly for phoretic mites, but saw none on the drones, no virus effects seen.

The bees are a beekeepers dream, gentle, almost no propolis, bound on honey production, no burr comb.


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## 1102009

We moved the swarm back to the yard and filled the box with empty frames and two food combs.
Three days of rain coming and I don´t want to have them starve.

I wonder about the failure with my breeding attempt.. I still believe I did right.

One of the former breeder parts brings much pollen. Could be the queen is still there but had no place to lay.
Above the excluder I had found a cup with royal jelly and a half drawn queen cell. Then I thought it could be laying worker`s eggs.

Now I wonder if the queen passed the excluder and left some pheromones, so the finisher changed it´s mind.Then went back down. 

I already had a small cell queen last year which did that. Even the drones from this colony could pass.

This could explain why they had supercedure cells in the bottom box.
In a few days I will check the situation if the supercedure cells are destroyed or hatched.


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## 1102009

I checked my queenright elgon splits today.

One is still weak I probably made this too weak, maybe I have to donate a capped brood comb. For now I took away all empty frames and foundations and put in drawn comb, donated some food comb.
They have 3 brood combs now.

The other is very good, this elgon F1 I introduced last year. They are on 7 brood combs now with much food. I created this split 16 of may with 3 combs ( 2 mixed, one capped).
In this colony I put an empty frame with starter stripe to see if the would build small cell natural comb.
Oh yes they build the most wonderful comb with small cells and not too much drone cells.


----------



## 1102009

double


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## 1102009

I checked my AMM hybrids yesterday.

It´s the first season since I have them ( starting 2015) they have some stores and I could even take out a honey frame or two if I wanted.
This is the third generation mix with buckfast.

The new queens seem to be prolific and the small splits with queen are expanding well. 

The robber screens prevent much of the drifting in my eyes. The big splits made without queen, now with new brood and the first emerging, have some mites ( < 5 daily) but the queen right ones next to them have no mites. Not even one seen on the boards.
Bees hatch every day in all colonies now.

Not even the drones are drifting. They are still in the hives which bred them.

One of the AMM built comb in all empty spaces, meaning the even built bridges between my frames in the narrow spaces and everywhere. There are only some narrow pathways to make the bees cross.
Never seen something like that!
It´s almost impossible to pull the frames.

I´m wondering if I should search for the queen, put her over an excluder on fresh comb with one open brood comb and let the brood under the excluder emerge.
This time of year it will be no problem for the bees.
There are some very old combs inside and some frames not my system. I would like to have them on fresh comb or natural comb.

The empty frames I put into the broodnest areas and marked are built with small cell size natural comb.


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## 1102009

Today a member of Viva posted this:



> von meinem imkerverein bekam ich vergangene woche die warnung vor illegalen bienenverkäufen aus italien, wo sperrgebiet ist wegen beutenkäfern.
> 
> die völker werden entlang der autobahnen über den brenner bis berlin angeboten!





> _Illegal packages sold from italy, where is a restriction area because of the SHB, the packages are offered for sale at the motorway. The packages are sold from the border to Berlin._


So, Dar, we will have it in no time


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## 1102009

Bees are outdoors today, too hot to be crowded.


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## Oldtimer

Yikes! What is the temperature?


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## 1102009

We have a very warm spell 28-35°C, good flow clover.

They do this for 2 weeks now, but start to go outside in the early afternoon. In the morning they forage at the near clover fields. I see them rushing in this direction.
They stay like that sometimes the whole night until early morn, when they walk back in.

One week ago I opened and saw the medium filled with nectar near capping, I put a second medium with foundations between. 
The bees you see are 1/3 of the population.
They are the LC, maybe they are too hot on my narrow frame spaces. The SC beard too but not so strongly.

I see no fanning outside but hear them drying nectar. They are not foraging for water, they seem to use nectar humidity. ( I have a water source nearby).
Normal traffic.

It´s really nice to have this bees to observe in my garden. So much to learn about the behavior.


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## Fusion_power

That is why I use a Killion Bottom Board. It helps tremendously with cluster space and ventilation. If my bees were on a good flow and bearding like that, I would check space, add another super, and look for queen cells. That combination of bearding and flow is a trigger for swarm preparation.


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## dtrooster

That doesn't look like the normal bearding I've seen and would initially think that has swarming written all over it.


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## 1102009

Ok.
You made me nervous and I checked.

No swarm cells but the brood area was filled with too much nectar so the queen has had only three areas which are filled with eggs already. Two frames of brood emerging the next days, some larva.

With the two mediums filled with honey and nectar on top I estimated the honey to 80 pounds or more.

1/3 of the colony are drones, so I believe it was mostly drones being in the way of work which were the beard. I saw many outside then.
The hive looks great, no wonky comb, so the bees seem to have no problems to ventilate.

They have so much drones because when we created the swarm I used 2 empty frames. On the 4.9 comb they build big drone corners too and these are used again.
The worker brood patterns look good.

I decided to do some managements.

I harvested the outest three deep frames of capped honey and put into the brood area two comb frames with the best 4.9 cell build I have in store. The 13 th frame I exchanged for a follower board.
My experience was so far that they use the small space for clustering and have good access to the honey frames on top. I had never burr comb there.

The mediums I left because the honey is not capped entirely but it is in progress. In one week the bees had drawn the frames of the second medium with 13 frames and filled it with honey.

Flow is going on. My home location is extraordinary good for foraging because 500m far away the nature support organization planted a field for bees, three kinds of flowers.
As surplus there is a big cattle field with clover.

Summer weather will go on and next week we will have over 30°C again. But no rain coming. We had a thunderstorm yesterday but no rain.


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## 1102009

I´m euphoric today!

All my hives have a laying queen so I can say I´m up to 12 now.

The mite situation seems to be no threat this year, yes, I have problems to find mites so far except in two AMM descendants. Maybe I was right about my new splitting methods.
Mite reproduction peak is July so I will see.

The hives are bursting with honey, so I took some frames with surplus. Flow will go on, weather will stay fine the next week.

The survivor queen seems to be still there, bee maths done, I saw older larva and new eggs. Maybe she was so shocked about the actions, she stopped laying for a short time or there was too much honey stored.
If it´s a new one, there are the genes still present.

The elgons build small cell natural comb, all hives are building foundations or natural comb except the LC which built burr and wonky comb, I changed the frames to small cell comb well built to get them started on their way to be regressed.

My robber screens prevent drifting, I see the difference between the carnis and the elgons in the population. Colours stay ( will likely change the next generation).
Except the drones, which drift. The elgon drones are beautiful with their golden abdomen and one or two golden stripes. ( My elgon queens are yellow, now the new ones light).


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## Oldtimer

Gotta say, I'm impressed!


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## squarepeg

:applause:


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## 1102009

Elgon fever. I`m crazy in love.


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## Fusion_power

I like the burnt orange color of the queens. There are times I wish we could bring in Larmarckii, Saharensis, and Monticola for breeding work here in the U.S. Note the difference in the brood arrangement with honey right up to the edge of brood cells. Your main flow must be progressing very well for them to have that much open honey in the brood area.


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## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Your main flow must be progressing very well for them to have that much open honey in the brood area.


It´s almost too much, I have to expand all the time , or take away some combs to give them place for laying eggs.
Totally different from last year, so I was not prepared for that very well.

The queenless elgon split swarmed because of that after raising virgins.
So much to learn still


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## 1102009

To give the new queens more place to lay I took out 9 deep frames of capped honey from different hives the last few days and put in foundations or empty comb or frame depending on the situation ( wax production).
The honey on the left is for feeding in case of emergency, mixed with sugar syrup. 
I harvested the wax from the cappings separately for making a new batch of handbalm, using olive oil or marigold flower oil, wax and the propolis tincture I made.

To the sides I left enough capped food for the bees to be insulated, because temperature is 35°C to 40°C (today) at day and 25°C at night.

In my garden lavender started, I have whole fields of this and the bees from my single hive placed there are everywhere foraging.


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## lharder

I've had some trouble keeping queens in nuc boxes this year. So much of a nectar flow that new comb gets filled with nectar as it gets built. Lost maybe 4 so far this way. But I have lots of honey And I have lots of replacements so not the end of the world. 

The nectar flow is crazy this year. One hive with over 120 pounds already and if it was like last year that site has a nectar flow till the middle of August. Maybe I'll get another 120 pounds. Its funny, but when the inspector was there, she spotted that hive and remarked about how heavy they were coming in from foraging. And they had low mite counts. This from an overwintered nuc.


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## 1102009

Today I checked the AMM descendants.

One is having a mite crisis.
Very sticky propolis, brood reduced, drone pupa, damaged, pulled out.

One build big cells ( very big!) on my test frame! After being on small cells for years, that must be the buckfast drones.








One looks very good.








One I will open in a special good mood because I have to cut out burr comb, which stresses me.

All have stores, very good stores for the first time since I´ve got them.
But still no surplus.
Flow is 2 weeks earlier than at my other location, so the spring flow froze in this area.

All were gentle. All want to have only one deep and shut their broodnest to the top. All have big honey domes and 6 broodcombs. The rest is nectar and capped honey.
Looks like season is over for them  

Good night:


----------



## 1102009

Checked my "regression" colony today.

After some rainy days flow goes on and the bees are foraging.
This is the colony made as a swarm, formerly treated and with the use of a bait comb for the mites which was taken out after being capped to givee them a good start. 

Mite situation: no mites, no virus, nothing hinting at a mite problem.

The hive stopped breeding almost entirely in the midst of last month in preference to stores.

8 broodcombs, the 4.9 combs, exchanged for honey combs, are filled with brood in a great pattern. Brood is looking great.
Many Drones still there.

4 heavy food frames at the sides, filled with capped honey and dark blue pollen. These are the empty frames I gave them which were used for drone cell build. I shifted them to the sides some time ago and put in 4.9 combs.
Good honey domes, capped. 
All frames are filled up to the bars with brood or honey. Some place left to lay because brood is mixed and two frames will emerge.

First time the queen crossed my way. She is very dark ( Carni mutt with elgon genes from drones perhaps, but not likely).
High density.
Very gentle even being robbed by me. More propolis now.

Robbed them of 10 frames from the two mediums on top. No breeding in the mediums. Left the other frames, they are filled with honey all but only capped 2/3 %. Checkerboarded with foundation frames hoping they will draw more frames. Put both boxes back.

Seems it was a good idea to take out the 3 honey combs leaving 4 in broodnest area and giving space to lay. This she does nicely.


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## gww

SiW...
Where are you in your flow and do you only get two strong ones each year?
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Hey gww,
flow is unpredictable here.

It´s totally weather or agriculture dependent. You can have nice flow from january to november or you have none because it rains or is dry. No dearth normally.

If the farmers only plant energy plants I have no flow at my elgon beeyard. If they plant silage plants the bees are swimming in honey.

The AMM bee yard is in a natural habitat and so they store no surplus. I´m happy if don´t have to feed. Well those are still breeders, not normal nature oriented bees. They come from the south. Never purchase bees from southern regions, they don´t know how to hold house.

The swarm I describe above is in suburban environment and this is the best flow so far. There is a cattle meadow near with clover and a planted bee support field. And in town many plants for bees.

Since I´m not feeding sugar I always store honey combs for emergencies. 
I rather have more hives for my harvest than a small number exploited.

Today I sold some honey. I found a number of jars that were fermented in my basement ( last years honey), I wanted to sell the older honey for less price.
This honey was capped last year but it was in the hives after winter. The fall before i fed sugar syrup. It was the honey made of sugar syrup.

People who by my honey tell me my honey is different. It tastes "feral". We have immigrants from italy and spain who formerly kept bees. They strive for for my honey. They are my customers now.

The honey which is fermented will be used for baking. I already baked some cakes for my freezer.


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## gww

SiW...
If I ever make enough honey that my kids can't go through it, I will have to find a way to sell it. I am dreading that part and my way will probly be setting jars by the side of the road with a can for people to put money in. I was looking at the walmart type store prices that my daughter buys a lot and they were selling it for about $3.60 a pound if you bought the 5 pound size. 



> I rather have more hives for my harvest than a small number exploited.


Unless I am mixed up, I am pretty sure that was miller's view put forth in his book "50 years with the bees".

I intend to sorta agree with that view.

I still can't see or know our flows at my house yet. I did feed the small swarms and splits about a gal and a half but have stopped now that they have one medium of comb almost drawn out. Come winter I may feed more but the goal is to figure out how to keep the bees with out any feed. I am not that confident yet and I also did get 300 plus pounds of sugar given to me and I am using it.

I do believe we have two pretty distinct flows though and I am not sure of the stuff in between. Im pretty sure that I have more woods around me then fields over all. I looked at google map trying to look at land scape and that is how it seemed. I do have a very small about 300 people town that is 7/10th of a mile from me and I am sure some trees, gardens and shrubs there help because more people water their lawn.

Except for yard clovers (white) most of the fields around here have red clover which supposedly The bees tounges are not long enough for except maby during drought or after cut a few times when the bloom grows smaller.

The fields behind my house are mostly queen anns lace and red clover.

I am not going to fib to you, when you talk of queen lines you are running, I am compleetly lost and have did no study on what each brings to you. I am sorta taking what is around or what the bees make for queens and could not tell you what is predomidant here. My guess is when people are buying packages, most are italian. I am not sure of that though. I just think mutt when I think of bees. 

I do the same with eggs that you do with honey that is fermenting. If I start getting a stock pile and I think they are getting a little old, I will make bulk waffles and freeze them or an angel food cake and some cream puffs. These are my fall back items that use eggs by the dozen.

Thanks for explaining in depth on my question of your flows. 

As a side note, my dad has 180 acres and my brother has about 30 something backed up to dad and of that somewhere around 40/60 acres is bottom land put in crops. Most times it is soy bean. Sometimes a couple feilds will have milo and this year they planted corn. I notice in his hay fields or unused pasture that his fields are just loaded with golden rod and not nearly as much queen anns lace. I would say that means My dirt is a bit worse, dryer or something. The point of this is the fact that even in just a 12 mile differrance in distance the things that excel are much differrent. I have traped a couple of swarms on dads but have put no hives there. If I decide I am ever good enough at seeing how the bees are doing with fewer interventions, I may some day put a few hive there and compare. I doubt I want to get big enough to need to put some there but I am curious of what the bees would do with the forage differrence.

Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

Good morning gww 
thanks for painting this pictures about your surroundings and activities, I like this very much never been to the states.
It´s like a little visit.
Please feel free to go on. 



> I still can't see or know our flows at my house yet. I did feed the small swarms and splits about a gal and a half but have stopped now that they have one medium of comb almost drawn out. Come winter I may feed more but the goal is to figure out how to keep the bees with out any feed. I am not that confident yet and I also did get 300 plus pounds of sugar given to me and I am using it.


That´s what i do. I will feed hives that starve, because sometimes it will be because of my manipulations that they do. Use sugar if no honey comb is available.


> I do believe we have two pretty distinct flows though and I am not sure of the stuff in between. Im pretty sure that I have more woods around me then fields over all. I looked at google map trying to look at land scape and that is how it seemed. I do have a very small about 300 people town that is 7/10th of a mile from me and I am sure some trees, gardens and shrubs there help because more people water their lawn.


 It seems you are just like me! Since I have bees we look at the landscape counting "bee flow" plants and hives placed. Wood can be good because many trees are used for foraging.
Mine use maples for example. Brush is good too. Raspberries blackberries. I have a good harvest of small wild raspberries this year because my bees worked them good. I use these berries for aromating vinegar.



> Except for yard clovers (white) most of the fields around here have red clover which supposedly The bees tounges are not long enough


:lpf: Lovely! You believe this, too! I believed this but it is a fake. Bees use red clover. There are many different kinds and most planted red clover is the kind our honeybees use. Ever seen how long the tongue is? And if it is not long enough they cut a little hole into the floor of the flower with their mandibles and suck the nectar. This they do if they starve because it costs energy. But they do it.



> I am not going to fib to you, when you talk of queen lines you are running, I am compleetly lost and have did no study on what each brings to you. I am sorta taking what is around or what the bees make for queens and could not tell you what is predomidant here. My guess is when people are buying packages, most are italian. I am not sure of that though. I just think mutt when I think of bees.


It´s not the lines, it´s where they are bred. My AMM line is bred in a tropical climate. The lines adapt after some time. Call it 5 years.
You might say, an italian bee in ireland is not like one in my area after some time.
All bees are mutts after some time being bred in the open. We, as a group, plan to import elgon queens once in a while from Eric Österlund in Sweden. We realized they are more resistant. They come from the north. They are gentle and are good foragers, too. The drones we want to flood our areas with. 
My friend breeds from them already for 3 years now and he is very happy. Same losses as with those treated around him. They even survived when he had treated local mutts and non treated elgon hybrids in his yard.
He uses small cell foundation and their feed is honey.


> As a side note, my dad has 180 acres and my brother has about 30 something backed up to dad and of that somewhere around 40/60 acres is bottom land put in crops. Most times it is soy bean. Sometimes a couple feilds will have milo and this year they planted corn. I notice in his hay fields or unused pasture that his fields are just loaded with golden rod and not nearly as much queen anns lace. I would say that means My dirt is a bit worse, dryer or something. The point of this is the fact that even in just a 12 mile differrance in distance the things that excel are much differrent. I have traped a couple of swarms on dads but have put no hives there. If I decide I am ever good enough at seeing how the bees are doing with fewer interventions, I may some day put a few hive there and compare. I doubt I want to get big enough to need to put some there but I am curious of what the bees would do with the forage differrence.


What´s milo?
Golden rod grows here where it is dry. We have japanese touch-me-not in fall, a very good flow. The plants are called invasive and the law wants us to pull them. No beekeeper does. Sometimes it´s the only flow in fall if the farmers don´t fertilize with plants.
It´s good to have more than one location anyway. You can isolate infested hives or a new caught swarm. I have three locations now.


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## gww

Siw


> Please feel free to go on.


Remember you ask for it.

I will try and not take over your thread with this stuff but will abuse you one time cause you said it was ok.

Milo
http://www.mississippi-crops.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/SorghumField3.jpg

The field behind my house as it is now.









I decide what bees like by what I see them on and by the excitement and amount of bees on the said plant. Right now I see the bees on butterfly weed (the best but does not spread to big numbers on its own). Wish I had a whole field of it this time of year. I have never seen a bee on the black eyed susan or red clover. The white clover in my mowed yard will have bees on it pretty often and I fight with my wife on how often to mow. I have seen the bees work the heck out of queen anns lace (the white stuff) but not this year yet. 

We also have blackberry and rasberry which is done now.

This is my garden currently.









I have seen onsies and twosies on the cosmos and zenias. The bees love the zuccini and cucumber and any lettice, spinage or kelp that we let go to seed. We also have some bit mint I think is called perilla. I believe it would be very invasive out side the garden but the bees just love it and the korean bell flower. The bees also just tear up the pollen from sweet corn in the garden. I do find myself hoping that gardening is still popular around where I live cause going into this time of year, the bees really work some things in mine pretty hard. That is hopefully where having the little town close will help.

As far as spring trees, I have seen the bees on some that you could stand under and just hear the buzz and others you think would be just as good and it might have a few bees on it but you can see the differrance. I did not find all internet bee plants to really reflect what I see in real life though it does help in knowing what to look at and when. Red bud is an example of a tree that looks really good and I did see some bees on but the sweet gums in my back yard just buzz with activity.








I tried to find a picture that would show the general lay of the land at dads but this was as close as I could get. It shows the general hillyness but does not show the flat farmed parts that the wet weather creeks run though like below the dam of the lake. 

Any way, I am done and thanks for the queens you are working withs explinations.

Cheers
gww
Ps I have the touch me nots planted in the garden and the little flower patch but non grow wild that I have seen.


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## gww

Duplicate


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## 1102009

Please use my thread as you enjoy it. It´s rather boring to post without getting comments just views.

I trust Squarepeg to moderate us if it goes too far 

I wanted to do some bee work this evening but it´s 35°C again and a thunderstorm coming. So I will look up your plants and search my desktop for such. Great picts, thanks!

Is Milo a kind of maize? Looks like corn but different seeds. What´s it used for?
Those seeds look like amaranth, but I don´t know how amaranth plants look.


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## gww

While you are looking up plants, A late plant that also is pretty sparse but comes when not much is out there is called ironweed. It seems to bloom a bit before the golden rod and I do see bees on it.

Boy, last year I mowed 3 or 4 fields at dads of 6 to eight acres each that was just loaded (unbelievably so) with golden rod. I tried to have them all mowed before deer seson which is in nov. I don't have that kind of golden rod around me. I was thinking of how I was screwing the bees the whole while I was mowing. I need to put a hive or two there just to see but it is so easy just taking care of them in my back yard. I am such a hermit.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Now I learned something.
I believe milo is "Hirse", it´s growing here too in a smaller version. Do the bees use it? I would be able to sow it on my property.

Ironweed that is ? :
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echter_Steinsame

I´m not sure we have it. We have knotweed which look like that, but I´m no expert. I know many plants but did not study at an university.

I know about how you feel. I planted goldenrod to spread it. Everything is harvested or mowed here.

I´m a hermit myself. We inherited a property from my in laws. We are nor rich but the property made us kind of wealthy. So I try to keep it in order. Since my husband often works with his company in other countries I keep house at home. I love preparing and conserving my own food. I like pure food.

You garden is very nice. i can´t have a garden like that. On my property the deer and hares will eat everything and at home is too small a place.. Renting a piece of land is too expensive here, it is a tourist area.
So I try to have a small garden at home, some tomatoes and vegetables, topinambour and beans. Not much.
Home looks like bling bling. But I´m a farm girl in my heart.

But I have 4 chicken now! I look forward to them laying some eggs next spring.


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## 1102009

Some more picts of the outyard with elgons and carnis.
I feel like being on a nature propagating island there in the midst of agriculture.
So far not much spraying.
The clover fields used for cattle are manured, after 2 days the bees use them again. They are the source of my good flow.
But Richard Cryberg took away some of my fears concerning chemicals in our pm exchange ( even though I will never accept but only tolerate chemicals on fields )


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## gww

SiW...
This is what my iron weed looks like.

http://www.beetography.com/Honey-Bees/1-Western-Honey-Bees/aster-DSC8769/53737654_yC67p-M-7.jpg

I had to move away for four years cause my plant that I worked for closed and moving was how I made it to retirement. When I got back, I planted a fall garden. The deer got so used to owning the place that they were eating things I had never seen bothered before. That is why I have the fence on my garden. I had a garden for almost 16 years and never had much problim with out a fence till I moved back. I have had problims with my fruit trees. I was just loaded with asian pears this year and some peaches and plumbs. Everything is gone by animals.

I will probly have to deal with the animals sometime but it might be a couple of years before I get perturbed enough to take care of it.

I do not have my chickens penned up and so they go everywhere. My wife has a continual war with them and believe me, the chickens win. My wife is the gardener, not me. I am just a grunt that runs the equiptment. I would do as you with a couple of tomato plants that I would probly let the weed grow as high before I got any tomatos. I like the ideal of planting and seeing stuff come up but after that not so much. 

I really like the look of where you have your hives. I could pretend to be danial boone living in the wilderness there.

I saw the other pictures of your houses that you posted earlier.

I don't know if bees like milo. I was not paying attention to bees the last time that milo was planted on dads. I guess that will be my next internet search.

I also gethered some golden rod seed heads last year and then spred them in my field. I put about 6 pounds of yellow sweet clover seed also. I think I have seen two sweet clove plants this year, ha ha. I didn't disk or prepare the dirt but just spead some seed. When I first moved here, I limed and fertlized and disk and planted a whole bunch of lidino white clover. It came up one year and then died out. My neibor (who just died this week) cut my field for hay till about the last two years. I don't think he top dressed the ground more then maby three times and so my acrage is probly pretty bad. It did keep the tree sprouts from taking over my field though.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Seems to me ironweed is some kind of knapweed?

I planted many dyer`s broom but the bees don´t use it. No matter. The bumblebees love it. And they pollinate my berry bushes because they are not as lazy as bees which fly only with temperature more than 8°C.



> I could pretend to be danial boone living in the wilderness there.


We do. We purchased this property to get away from civilization. It was not in the heritage. We have a forest workers wagon there we can sleep in and watch the hares and deer eating my fruit trees.
The local forester and hunter stopped hunting there after shooting when we were watching. Nearly got us.

We own part of the forest too and cut our own trees. We have a canadian tool to chop wood by hand. We need no workout-studio.

The fields and cattle pastures of my neighbor farmer there are the main flow, white clover. On the field next to the hives we want to create a flower field, but likely the deer will eat that too.


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## gww

We had a big rain yesterday and my hives are active as heck today (Even my dead hive is active). I saw for the very first time a bee on a black eyed susan. I was pretty convince from watching that it was not really a bee plant. Still I only saw one though. My opinion, the deer like the clover better then any flower.



> We own part of the forest too and cut our own wood. We have a canadian tool to chop wood by hand. We need no workout-studio.


I built my sawmill with a weight lifting station. I figured this would be the only way it would ever be used.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

By the way the chicken got a brood sample today. It was from the AMM drone brood I cut out in spring and put in the fridge. Many mites.
They loved it. ( The mites too)


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## gww

I might be just a bee haver and not a bee keeper. I leave everything in the hive and am just waiting to see what kills them. I do try and make broodless splits if I am fourced to make splits where the bees have no brood or comb in the splits. I do this to have something left if the mites actually kill my big hives.

My chikens got watermelon today. I got lots of babies running around right now and they are fun to watch. I threw out some wax capping (two little balls) with the honey not drained. A couple chikens gave it a peck and are not interested. The bees will probly come rob the honey out of them. 

I very seldom get in the brood nest of my hives except when looking if a queen was mated or to add supers, cause I like to pull a brood frame up for bait and because they are usually straiter and make good comb guides.

Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Sometimes it may be better to be a bee haver.

From MB website:
"Everything works if you let it" 
--James "Big Boy" Medlin

The last 3 years I checked weekly, I wanted to learn about what happens in a hive and I learned much. I learned what not to do, just like you said.
I know everything about how a mite infested hive looks and how to promote mite breeding with managements.

Still, my experiments go on because i don´t know if my change of methods work. 
For that knowledge I have to check or I will not have any colonies left.

But with more experience I will open less and less. Just for multiplying, preventing swarming and maybe try queen breeding again or use resistant stock.

The best thing was not to have to feed. i hate feeding. To donate honey combs is so much easier.

This year weather holds me from checking. It´s so hot and humid I don´t want to be a disturbance while the bees climate. If it´s not hot it rains.
I will do a sample of each hive though before august. Counting mites and looking for bitten ones. I promised this to Erik Österlund since we use his stock.



> I built my sawmill with a weight lifting station.


Nice! You did your pavilion beams yourself, did you?


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## gww

SiW....


> Nice! You did your pavilion beams yourself, did you?


I did the 8 inch beams. I did not do the six beams in the middle because my saw mill does not cut more then 13 feet long logs. I could fix this and have the stuff but am too lazy and also my log quality is not usually good enough to get many logs longer then 13 feet and the equipment to handle them gets bigger also. The only other part of the pavilion that I did not cut is the 20 foot 2 by fours that are under the tin. Again due to lenght needed. 

I built this with all short boards by putting braces in the right place.



















Being able to do this is another reason I can not get the will power to make it cut longer logs.

I planed some boards yesterday to get ready for some more winter hive building. None of this is that easy and I get lots of waste board that are not good enough for hives but some still works for hive stands and such.

This is the sawmill. All the white and also all the cables and pullys and wheels it rides on came from the weight set.










As far as getting in the hive. I actaully did get in the hives about every five days. I didn't want to but still don't know my flows and so have issues with having a feel for how fast the bees use the space they have. I also had the virgin queens making me nervous on whether the made it from the mating flights. So, I don't usually go into the brood nest but did smoke them about every 5 days and look inside the top boxes to judge room and also to keep my comb going generaly strait. I hope to get a feel for when and how fast this stuff happens so that I can become even more of a bee haver than I am.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
thanks for those great pictures!
I wish we could do something like that...well we started to build things but maybe it will improve. 
Coming from academic families we are glad we are spared to inherit not being able to hang a painting on the wall 

Bees will surprise you on every check. I keep a record on every hive and when I want to confirm what I think they do they changed their attitude.
And since I have two outyards and only one hive at home I always miss some equipment.


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## gww

SiW...


> Bees will surprise you on every check. I keep a record on every hive and when I want to confirm what I think they do they changed their attitude.


I have no records except what I write on here. My memory is not good either.
Cheers
gww


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## Oldtimer

Nice work GWW, very impressive.

Do you have to get a permit to build something like that?


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## gww

Oldtimer
I am two miles from the county line of a county where I would need a permit but no not where I live. You don't get by with much though as the tax assessor has already noticed it and stopped by and looked. I told him that it didn't cost much and was from my trees and so it should not be assessd for much and that my basement leaked. He said he would try to get it to even out a bit. Time will tell.
It is just an old pole barn but I did do every bit of it but about half the tin (my brother helped) It took me 30 days or so working with the cheapest battery operated drill that walmart sells and it had one bad battery. I would work 30/40 miniutes and then take a three hour break.

I still plan on getting a better drill but am a procrastonator.

Cheers
gww

Ps Mom and dads tractor and loader did help me though.


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW...
> 
> 
> I have no records except what I write on here. My memory is not good either.
> Cheers
> gww


haha, I follow your posts and you remember all your managements and bee situations if someone wants to argue with you. You play dumb but you are really very intelligent in my eyes.

what´s a procrastonator? you mean procrastinator? Aren´t we all? Many plans but no time.


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## gww

SiW


> You play dumb but you are really very intelligent in my eyes.


I really ain't playing. I go through my hives and then afterwards while it is still fresh in my mind, I come in and try to get it down on here. Then I start remembering a couple of other things I saw that intrigue me and I can not even remember which hive I seen what I am remembering I saw.

I do have a funny kind of mind that sometimes gets perked up when I get pushed into a corner. So the arguing sometimes perks my memory to the good but I can not perk it up on my own very well. 

I guess the only real thing I can say is that you might have a differrent view of me if you knew how many times a day I get out of my chair to do something and end up just standing someplace cause I could not remember why I got up in the first place.

As far as the putting things off, You got what I was trying to say. I can not spell worth a hoot. Lots of times I go to a new page on my computer and start typing things and then let the auto correct pull up the word for me and then I do a search and come back to the post I am typing in and copy it. This way I don't look quite as illiterate and I really am. Some times I am too lazy and end up just leaving the bad spelling.

As far as remembering some of the bees stuff. I probly spend more time reading about bees then people who have real jobs can spend and that helps. Plus, I am really trying hard to remember and learn.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW
> 
> 
> I really ain't playing. I go through my hives and then afterwards while it is still fresh in my mind, I come in and try to get it down on here. Then I start remembering a couple of other things I saw that intrigue me and I can not even remember which hive I seen what I am remembering I saw.
> 
> _The Albert Einstein syndrome. You know the most intelligent are the most chaotic.Why not using Beesource as record i´m doing it too, thanks to people here who invited me._
> 
> I do have a funny kind of mind that sometimes gets perked up when I get pushed into a corner. So the arguing sometimes perks my memory to the good but I can not perk it up on my own very well.
> 
> _Very nice! This keeps your mind working! Embrace it!_
> 
> I guess the only real thing I can say is that you might have a differrent view of me if you knew how many times a day I get out of my chair to do something and end up just standing someplace cause I could not remember why I got up in the first place.
> 
> _Well now that you say it....I admit I do the same but don´t tell anybody. I still feel young....:shhhh:_
> 
> As far as the putting things off, You got what I was trying to say. I can not spell worth a hoot. Lots of times I go to a new page on my computer and start typing things and then let the auto correct pull up the word for me and then I do a search and come back to the post I am typing in and copy it. This way I don't look quite as illiterate and I really am. Some times I am too lazy and end up just leaving the bad spelling.
> _
> Now you get me really angry. You are not illiterate. I´m working my job with illiterate people so I know. You are not like that. They could not do like you. They only look at soaps and are really boring to listen to.
> The bad spelling is charming. Why not leave it ? Everybody understands you ( or can ask). C´mon you are living a good life as it seems. A life withe empathy and joy. Such people earn respect.
> _
> As far as remembering some of the bees stuff. I probly spend more time reading about bees then people who have real jobs can spend and that helps. Plus, I am really trying hard to remember and learn.
> Thanks
> gww


That´s wonderful and useful. Keep on doing this.


----------



## gww

SiW....


> That´s wonderful and useful. Keep on doing this.


You are very supportive, I hope I return that in some way.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW....
> 
> 
> You are very supportive, I hope I return that in some way.
> Cheers
> gww


Oh yes! Don´t fear.


----------



## 1102009

Every day I wait for the weather to be ok for checking. It would be a problem to have started a breeding attempt again.
It´s either to hot or thunderstormy ( I´m developing my own speech, gww) 

Yesterday the bees bearded ( 35°C in shade) and a hailstorm arrived. Hail stones were big as grapes. After the storm, they still bearded. How hardy they are! They just let the storm pass over them.


----------



## gww

SiW...


> It´s either to hot or thunderstormy ( I´m developing my own speech, gww)


Thats how I roll. Good job.

Last year we were ten degrees hotter than this years startingback at the beginning of june. I looked at the next ten day forcast (for whatever that is worth) and it is going to start the highs of 95 degrees ferinheight and some days a low of 75 degrees. It has up untill now been getting down to about 63 degrees for a low. I have been getting up at about six am. I usually wait till my window thermometer is between 70 and 74 degrees and as long as their is no fog or too many clouds, that is when I inspect. This is usually around 8 am. I am still soaking wet if I spend an hour messing with the hives. Being foundationless, messing during the real hot weather is hard on my comb and me.

I think that all those guys who say that the best time to inspect is between 10 am and 2 pm are in the back ground snickering at all us gullible newbees that don't know better and go out and get heat stroke.

I am so glad that it took till now this year to start getting into the 95 degrees. Last year was hard on me but the bees didn't seem to mind.

Good luck
gww


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## 1102009

Good morning gww, thanks for posting.

I´m only checking in the evenings now because robbery starts half an hour after opening a hive. All hives have lots of open nectar, neighbor hives of other beekeepers are harvested.
The bees start to fight right above the frames on the surface of the box.
I have no problem with the natural comb because the frames are wired or strengthened with sticks. I don´t turn them upside down though if they are not fastened at the sides.


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## 1102009

Checked my two carni colonies today, they are the survivors of my failed grafting try 

Well they surprised me very much!  I have not seen hives in such a healthy condition since starting beekeeping in 2014 with the infested treated first colony!

I wanted to take samples but decided to wait until next check. Saw no need with no mites for days on the boards, no shotgun brood nests, no mites seen on bees and no virus bees crawling around.
They were very calm even being robbed and managed.
Saw one queen while laying eggs she did not stop. Very black. This is always great to watch.

One hive had the two mediums filled and mostly capped, the other was still on one deep and needed stores because they had used much food the last rainy and stormy days.
So I reduced the one hive to one deep and one medium and supported the other with putting on one and distributing the honeycombs, filling the gaps with empty comb and 4 foundations.

Flow is still very, very good with white clover fields and one colony sheds wax so they will fill and cap it in no time.

The wasps are many but they have no chance with the robber screens. Best idea ever to use them always.

This is my arrangement for winter. I really hope my thick frame undersides will not prevent the cluster from going up, but as it seems, the honey around the broodnest area will be sufficient.


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## gww

SiW


> one colony sheds wax so they will fill and cap it in no time.


Could you pease explaing what you are saying here.
Thank you.
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW
> 
> Could you pease explaing what you are saying here.
> Thank you.
> gww


Hi gww, I don´t know if it is the right word for producing wax.

When I check i first look if a colony has this very transparent wax scales on the floor board, then i know they are in the wax producing modus and will likely build comb.
With natural comb it´s easy to see because the bees are hanging in clusters at the rims, but with foundations it´s harder to see.

if they are ready to build I have to evaluate the food stores and flow situation to make them go on.


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## gww

SiW
Thanks for the explination. I kinda thought that might be what you ment but thought I would ask.

On mine, I am still curious of the little wax flecking that I have found out side on the bottom board. I think robbing but then look in the hive and still see stores and so don't know what to make. I was wondering if on the very small hives I see this on if the bees are not just aborting the wax cause they don't have enough bees to cover well what they have.

Thanks for the answer
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
this is a robbed hive:


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## gww

Differrent subject.
Do you have a watering station for your bees or just a water source. Mine are hitting a plastic tub that I set up like a bird bath. I didn't really set it up for the bees but it has become thier favorite spot when the salt block in the mud dries up at the bottom of the field.

I watched the bees getting water and they can be pretty brutal landing near and knocking a differrent bee in the water. I saw something else though also.

I have seen robbing at a hive entrance where the bees drag each other around. At the water hole, I am seeing something differrent. I am seeing the bees do a lot of grooming on each other. One bee will stand still while another looks like it is cleaning the bees. 

What would you think they are doing? Maby picking of stuck pollen? I know that mites like to get in the joints for the bees but also that they jump off to nurse bees when given a chance. It does seem like a lot of the grooming is being done in the joints on the bees.

I am not worried or even needing to know what is going on but just found that so much of the grooming was interesting. I thought about taking a magnifying glass out to see better but then decided it was not that interesting.

Hope I am not filling your thread with stupid stuff by mentioning it at all.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I´ve never seen any grooming at the water source, I´ve got a food proved plastic tub with some sticks in it.
Yes, they knock others and sometimes fight, but no grooming.
Fascinating, i have to watch for this.
Maybe they take a bath and get soaped by others...

Mine at home have a little container too but they like to use the bird bath, which is farther way.
funny. Do you think they perhaps have bird mites on them and groom because of that?

Please look again, this is not stupid to me.


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## gww

SiW
I was busy on other things today. I didn't mention it untill I saw it a couple of days in a row. I have seen them bump each other or land behind and then give the one in front a push but had never seen the grooming before. No promise here cause I might wake up in a new day and not remember, plus my picture taking is hit or miss. Some times you can see what I took a picture of and some times not. I will try and get a couple pictures. Vidios are above my pay grade.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW
> I was busy on other things today. I didn't mention it untill I saw it a couple of days in a row. I have seen them bump each other or land behind and then give the one in front a push but had never seen the grooming before. No promise here cause I might wake up in a new day and not remember, plus my picture taking is hit or miss. Some times you can see what I took a picture of and some times not. I will try and get a couple pictures. Vidios are above my pay grade.
> Cheers
> gww


I trust you to tell the truth without any media.. Please update


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## gww

SiW
I did look at the water hole today.










I did not see the grooming today and as you can see I can get pretty close. I did knotice that the bees did pay attention to the top of the rock even though it was not wet and so maby they were just standing funny earlier but it sure did look like grooming. I am going to watch again for a couple of days and see what is up and then I will be incognito for the birth of another grand child for a day or two before I am back full time at the home front. If I see grooming again, I will let you know about it and if not will consider it as just a fluke or misunderstanding on my part.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww
good luck to you being a grandfather again!


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## 1102009

I checked my elgon F1 and the daughter`s hive yesterday.

The old queens colony was started may 16. with 3 brood combs, one empty frame, 6 combs with honey domes, two foundations.
A robber screen was installed.
June 19. they had 8 brood combs and a medium was put on top.

Now I found the brood box filled with honey and a brood brake in progress with not many eggs layed.
The brood, 6 frames, filled only half the frame, the rest was capped honey.
The medium was filled half with nectar, those combs were drawn.

I harvested two deep frames with capped honey, leaving those with pollen and put in two extracted combs next to the broodnest to give them space to lay. The box is full of bees and I don´t want them to swarm, but they probably do not want to, no swarm cells. The honey will be stored for those in need in fall.

The daughter had 5 brood combs and one nest was prepared on a comb. The queen was there she is almost totally yellow, so I believe the mother mated with my elgon drones. 
Since I use robber screens there is almost no drifting. the drones drift not much too. i have space between the hive placed. 
The carnis are black and the elgons very yellow, nice to see the difference.

Propolis of this hive was very sticky and I saw one comb with empty cells in the broodnest area, so I probably will do a sugar shake next time.

The medium on top is half drawn and filled. I left the hive at that.

Both colonies had no mites on the floor boards for days now and no mites seen on bees. Saw one or two bee lice. No defect wings or other virus expressions. 
Bees look healthy, are active and very gentle.


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## 1102009

Today I got into the elgon-carni-hybrid hives.

It was not a good idea. Wasps are a pest just now, we opened a honey comb patch while pulling the frames and pandemonium started. 
I cleaned the honey a little bit, we put the feeder on top and waited until the bees had taken the honey while checking the mother colony of the hybrids.

My husband got stung twice and it was no joy to work them.

But everything looks fine, brood, the queens, we saw both, no disease. Enough food to let it go at that. These two hives increased brood nests and had used much honey. Still, one of them built comb.


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## gww

SiW
It sounds like yesterdays (day before) inspection was better. Bees nice and gentle.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

nice report sibylle! sounds like all is going well so far this year. many thanks for keeping us updated.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> nice report sibylle! sounds like all is going well so far this year.


Well square I thought so too but today i found the swarm from the elgon queenless split was without brood.
Seems to me 4 weeks are too long a time to break brood then was my last check, they had 6 combs of mostly open brood then, so i put in a comb with two egg patches surrounded with hatching brood from the mother hive so they can nurse well. Pollen and honey they had in abundance.

I took this from the defensiv hive because the others have no surplus of brood just now, having preferred foraging.
Had some thoughts about the defensiveness but today they were gentler.


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## 1102009

Dar, your pm account is full so I answer here, hope this is ok with you, thanks for your message.


> I've had brood breaks up to 5 weeks long in mid-summer. My climate is very different from yours so don't expect your bees to be doing a brood break. I think something is wrong and it is worth investigating to find out what. Is the queen marked? Are nectar and pollen being brought into the hive?
> 
> The only way to tell for sure is to give them a small piece of comb with eggs and larvae and see if they start cell building.


To all, I found it strange that 4 weeks ago the hive was bursting with eggs, larva and young brood, now is completely without brood. If I had squished the queen they should have had no problem to raise a new one.
There was no cell.
Food was in abundance, not many empty cells to lay in but some patches. Much pollen. When I hived them I put in comb, empty frames and honey comb.
I don´t know if they still forage for pollen, since it´s an outyard and I visit in the evening. Nectar, yes and all bees are still present, no absconding or swarming.

First thought was theft, but the queen was not marked, all combs were in and my husband says he always makes a special kind of knot into the hive strap.

I put in the egg comb yesterday and will see.
Many thanks.


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## 1102009

I checked my AMM hybrids yesterday.

They did not use the flow situation for stores but continued breeding. Stores are just sufficient to survive this. I did not feed.

The one with mite crisis looks better, the new brood areas are not shotgun anymore and the old empty cells are used again.
But another has mites on the VB. Both colonies open brood cells with white eyed pupa.

Propolis is very sticky and the hive which looks better was attacking us, the first time I experienced bees trying to find their way into our clothes to sting.
Well, we showed them! Smoked them thoroughly and checked them anyhow. 
I believe it´s the wasps. We have wasp invasion.

I took some mite samples to microscope them today. i will update if I find bitten mites again.
I saw that the jeopardized hives had drone brood on every comb ( the drone corners, 10% were used).

Next sunday when we have our next meeting and my "brother in arms" comes we probably will do a sugar roll and take some brood samples.
Just out of curiosity, because in the end I will have to wait if I have winter survivors. 

My thoughts are that the "south bees" are still not adapted to the flow. They act like winter is only one or two month like where they come from. No preparations done.

Some picts that may be of interest:

The comb which was shotgun but now looks like this:









The hygienic behavior:









The arrangement of honey and brood, dar, this may be of interest to you. The bees did this themselves. The leaves are where brood frames start and end.


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## 1102009

Met an ex co-worker today 8 he left our group because " resistant bees bring no honey" and because of my losses ( a failure to him).

He asked: how about your mite bomb hives? 
I said: they are fine how about yours? Already treated? Harvested?

He said: no, I want more honey, I have to wait with treatments. ( His harvest so far: 240 pounds out of 4 hives).
I asked: and how are they doing?

He said: lost three hives this spring because of nosema. Chalkbrood in every hive. Mite? Like ever.
I asked: why don´t you use better queens ( there are local bred queens which are resistant to nosema and chalk brood) ?

He answered with a shake of shoulders..why? 
I asked: and do you multiply your hives?

He said: yes I did a split but it is queenless. I put in an egg comb but they are still without brood ( 3 weeks ago). I have to buy another queen. He keeps bees as long as I do.
......

These 12 hives he and his friend have are in range of drone mating. My neighbors 5 km. 
I think I have to move my AMM hives.


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## 1102009

Weather is not very forage friendly so if the exploiters  want to exploit treat and feed, they should hurry or the stores will be used. 

I took a long walk Saturday with my neighbors dog ( mine is too old) to scan the area around my AMM bee yard. 
When I started 2014 I was isolated 3km with probably 20 hives in this distance. Now they are up to 60 hives which means I will move my survivors, if I have any, to my other outyard.
I´m limited in this location to 6 hives because it´s not my property. 

I plan to flood the area of the elgon and carniolan bee yard with my drones. 

I´m not sure about how to use the AMM, because they are still not adapted. But still, they survive in such an environment and are not overly aggressive.
It might also be they produce surplus with better flow.

Maybe use elgon genetics for my future splits from them but allow some genes to improve diversity from their drones. 

I will place more boxes in the forest, I´m not limited there except through flow and so far flow was good the last years.



> I found it strange that 4 weeks ago the hive was bursting with eggs, larva and young brood, now is completely without brood. If I had squished the queen they should have had no problem to raise a new one.
> There was no cell.


I still cannot understand what made this hive go queenless without raising a cell on their own but now they raised 4 cels from the donated comb.


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## 1102009

My samples show some mite biting done ( AMM hybrids, 2. and 3. generation):


----------



## gww

SiW
I did see a bee grooming another at the water hole today. This one looked like it started near the head and then worked towards the tail. I didn't see any pollen and the bee did not stop at the joint but looked like it was sorta brushing the hair or something of the sort. I did try and take a picture but between trying to see for sure and knowing how to work the phone, it just didn't happen. It does have me curious. I see the leg biteing and wing pulling and stuff but this is differrent.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

My young friend offered me a queen from his grafting success.
She came in an apidea. She is Elgon F1 from his best hive.

So I splitted one strong hive again and we combined the split with the apidea via paper. We wetted the paper, made three small slits and put two drops of oil of clove on the paper.

I hope everything will be fine and the bees will accept her.


----------



## 1102009

Later in the evening we had a group meeting and made some barbecue.

We had a wonderful time bee talking and celebrating with the families.

Here a pict of some of the co-workers at my bee yard :


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## Oldtimer

Looks good SiWolKe, let's know how that combine turns out.


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## 1102009

:lpf:

Well, it would have worked if the bees in the mini nuc had not throwed a swarm or superseded.

Seems my friend did not check them small frames, only looked through the window to check for brood!

I fixed the mini frame under the broodnest and left the hive with over 20 queen cells under construction which were very juicy with royal jelly. Shame it is so late in year. 
The best will win and fingers crossed get mated.


----------



## 1102009

I harvested all mediums today and left the bees in one deep as the arrangement for winter. I want the deeps to burst with honey and the bees to fill honey domes.

All have stores in the deep, only one not much. This one I have to watch the weight. The have nectar and capped domes. it was the one queenless which throwed a swarm, if the swarm`s queen is not laying in two weeks I will combine the hives, so they have enough workers.

One hive was so strong of bees I put on a medium again with foundations. I will check once in a while if they build more comb, end of august the latest I want to take it off.

The honey was mostly capped, the open honey I will use to make syrup and freeze in bags to feed back if needed ( in fall or spring).

OT suggested in a pm to make holes into the comb as passways for the cluster because I have such thick frame bars and small bee space. This seems the most wonderful idea to me and I will do this in september.
The natural combs I let them built already have such holes, but I believe my foundations are too thick for breaking through for the bees.


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## 1102009

*
This is a special post dedicated to BernhardHeuvel and Oldtimer!*

I have two hives which are almost in the same condition, mites counted for 3 weeks --8 per day the average falling down.

Today I installed the Varroa-Kill-Unit on the top of one.

The other will be for comparison. 

I will count the mites on the boards every morning until end of month and update to what I see. When the ordeal is over I will check thoroughly with a sugar shake and brood sample.


----------



## 1102009

*The experience of B. a seasoned beekeeper on his path to become treatment free.*

One of my colonies ,the test hive, is placed in a bee shack directly beside a hive of the same construction. The other side is empty and places beside this is an inhabitated hive of another construction.

The colony was established may 17th 2016 to introduce a surplus queen.
J*uly 19th 2016* the queen was removed.

Because of the following broodbrake there were not many mites so as a test the colony went into winter without mite treatment.

The hive is a „Hinterbehandlungsbeute“ ( in former times used, frames can be taken out from the side), 9 combs, small drone comb, brood box insulated and 12 combs above for honey which are used for splits and surplus queens.

Because I heard that a small hive will have a positive influence to varroa development, I left this colony in this hive.

*April 2017* the colony expelled the drone brood. The living more developed drones showed virus sickness, workers I saw not many.

*May 4th 2017*: The colony occupies the brood chamber and half the honey chamber. Downfall of mites: 50 per day.

The colony directly at the side shows a mite downfall of 12 per day, no virus symptoms. For diagnosis I use a diagnosis plate 26cm.

*May 22. 2017*
60 mites on the plate . The hive thrives. Not enough space for the bees.

No virus effects seen any more. Drones are still expelled but carried away, so it´s hard to observe if they are damaged.
I never culled drones so I see more and more healthy drones around.

The blue Queen is an AMMmix Hüngler type ( I don´t know what this is, SiWolKe). These go into winter very weak and are not very strong in summer. They have not much honey, but are specialists for variable flow. Never need feeding. So far not much problems with varroa ( when treated once a year in winter, I did this because they were so weak last year because they were robbed, which started high mite infestation ). I treated once with oxalic acid, they barely survived and are just now starting to shift honey into the honey chamber. ( Remember. 9 broodframes only)

*May 30. 2017*
Test Hive 62 mites per day
Neighbor hive 28 mites

Partly the mites are damaged and bitten.


Update 
*June 16th 2017*
Test Hive: 102 mites per day, density lessened, broodbrake with drones
Neighbor beside: 29 mites
Neighbor with space between: 9 mites

*June 23. 2017*
Test Hive: 79 mites

*July 12 2017 *
Test Hive: 75 mites, bad weather, no flow, former density again
Neighbor beside: 28 mites
Neighbor with space between: 21 mites
No virus sickness observed
*
July 20 2017*
Test Hive: 45 mites
Neighbor beside: 42 mites
Neighbor with one hive space between: 16 mites

*July 29 2017*
Test Hive: 65 mites
Neighbor directly: 54 mites
Neighbor with space: 50 mites

*Amazing! They are still alive!*

Well, the Test Hive and the others seem to have the same level now and the Test Hive is the most resistant.
I will treat now and regress to small cell foundation next year the survivors, breed from the test hive.

It´s a fact, that the hives placed directly near get the mites. This can be positive because I found the mite biting behaviour now in the neighbor hive too.
But I don´t know if this is common behavoiur with them.
I never checked.

The colonies placed at distance of 5m or more are not influenced.

Perhaps it´s important that the queen is a descendant from a colony which never had a varroa problem being treatment free. But this colony was susceptible to chalkbrood and I suspect that the mite descendants died with the chalkbrood mummies.
This colony then superceded as often to loose chalkbrood susceptibility but then was not varroa resistant any more.

These kind of bees breed not many winter bees so now I will treat the Test Hive and neighbors with OAV to have them survive with the genetics still available.

Copyright B.


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## squarepeg

sibylle, i sure am enjoying following your progress, thanks again for keeping us updated here!


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## 1102009

Thanks, Squarepeg, it´s nice to be appreciated.  Thanks for your interest in VivaBiene too.

Today we plowed a field ( my dear husband did it) by hand and I sowed the flowers.
It´s raining so I hope the seeds will grow and my elgoncarnis have fall flow.


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## 1102009

My daily mite counts tell me that the two hives ( with unit and the one I compare with) are much more mite infested as I thought them to be.
Data follows end of trial.

Well, I have to admit *they must be dead.* But they still do their daily work and only one, the one with unit, has drone pupa carried outside. 
Yesterday I found a dead hornet in the robbersreen ( I had no camera with me) and today they washboarded in the entrance, this behavior I never saw so far. Pict shows this.
They are in a fighting modus.

The thresholds to start treating were fixed to 10 mites per day counting for 10 days by my mentor 2014. If this was lethal then it´s a wonder they still live.

I see no defect bees crawling around on the ground. Because of my experiment with the unit I have to wait with check for two more weeks.

Of he two hives near, one is 2 m near and has some mites but not threatening, the other , more than 10m far has almost no mites.

What I see is that there are not many dark mites on the boards. Half of the mites are light ones which must be the unmated daughter mites since males look differently.


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## Oldtimer

Is the hive with the unit better than the other one?


----------



## 1102009

The other one is more mite infested I saw later.

The mites look the same but it´s too early to speak of results. The mite downfall of the other hive is higher just now.

The hive with unit carries the drone pupae, but we had two very cold nights and days 10°C and this could mean the drone brood was chilled.


----------



## 1102009

The AMM hybrids are not dead but reached the threshold. I saw the first crippled worker.
But the hornets are dead. The robber screens seem to be a trap to them.

























My other bee yard, the elgon-carnis looks healthy so far.


----------



## 1102009

I checked my "commercial" colony today, which is placed single in my garden, not isolated, with robber screen and with a mutt carni queen.

They reduced the brood frames from 8 dadant to 6 and shifted some honey to the sides of the broodnest, using the top medium as source.
6 big frames are almost full of capped honey and pollen stores. Some place left for more.
The stores are arranged more to one side.

Saw the queen. Brood patterns are not shotgun. Found some mites on the floor boards but no defect bees or mites on bees, i looked for a good while at the fluffy youngsters.
Density is very high, all big frames covered now.
I took away the mediums to harvest the capped frames.


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## squarepeg

perfect for now. thanks for updating sibylle.


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## 1102009

You know what, squarepeg?
This practical observations you and me and some others like gww do is the "scientific" beekeeping in my eyes. Beekeeping is local, how can we not learn from our own experience?

Ah I forgot: this "commercial bred" colony suddenly has so much propolis we really had a hard time to work them after 5 weeks. 
This to breeding for less propolis. Makes me smile. :applause: I love them using propolis.

Saw in my elgon-carni bee yard this morning that they collect propolis too.

It´s not that I claim they will survive. But they will teach me what is happening! Listen to the bees and a time will come you know about them.


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## squarepeg




----------



## gww

Siw...
I may treat some day and I am not a purist by anymeans but you are correct in one way. I am planning on running the way I am now untill something makes me change. I am watching and trying to learn and do believe part of that learning may mean going over the edge just so I can see for myself. As far as sientific. I read but don't always understand or trust. What I see with my own eyes has more of a chance of making me a believer that just listening to others. I do want to know what others do because I do like to steal things to try for myself. 

I know I don't know but am going to atleast see something.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

at the risk of getting too philosophical here, beekeeping is similar to art, music, and homeopathic medicine...

sometimes less can be more.

with my bees i have found that the less i interfere with what they desire to do the better off they are.

my main exception to this is doing manipulations to prevent swarming during the period leading up to our main spring honey flow,

but even with that i try to do it in such a way as to help the colony more easily accomplish what it is trying to do at that time.


----------



## Oldtimer

If doing something to the hive makes it worse, then likely something that shouldn't have been done.

Not every time though, sometimes you do things with a good chance of success, but small chance it could go wrong. An example could be splitting a hive and requeening. A valid manipulation, but if it doesn't work the beekeeper might end up worse off. Which doesn't mean he shouldn't have tried it.


----------



## 1102009

gww, I don´t think you will treat because you say you are a lazy beekeeper  treating is the only action in beekeeping which is a totally negative experience for the beekeeper. I did it once, remember.

OT, I did and still do many things I regret with my bees but I hope to become wiser.


----------



## msl

SiWolKe said:


> treating is the only action in beekeeping which is a totally negative experience for the beekeeper. I did it once, remember.


I disagree, whole hearty. Taking 100% losses 3 years in a row was much worse for me then treating 1 once and geting 100% threw winter last year.
If treating was bad for the beekeeper it would not be a subject and all bees would be TF


----------



## 1102009

msl said:


> I disagree, whole hearty. Taking 100% losses 3 years in a row was much worse for me then treating 1 once and geting 100% threw winter last year.
> If treating was bad for the beekeeper it would not be a subject and all bees would be TF


This is not what I meant. You talk about the results for the bees or your success in fighting the mites, which in my eyes is justified as a treatment result.

I meant the treatment action in itself, protecting yourself against chemical fumes or watching the reaction of the bees which not always is nice to look at, mostly if you use formic acids. 
Later the fear you have lost the queen which happens often.

Here once is not enough. Those who treat must do it 2-3 times a year.

Thymol or OAV are probably better. But work it is, much work if you don´t treat prophylactically but monitor mite infestation.


----------



## gww

SiW.....
Well one thing is for sure, I haven't treated yet. I also don't go in the brood nest very much and am mostly consintrating on space management and doing my best to figure out my flows and how the bees react during flows and derths. And the speed at which they draw comb and build up or not during such times.

Msl
You didn't treat and your bees died first year. I didn't treat and the bees lived first year. I think is is going to be an interesting winter for me cause I could not fore guess how many hives I will have come spring. Me being me, I am thinking that not only might diseise and stuff effect me but I am also thinking about not pouring fall feed but to the very poor and not putting sugar bricks on but the very small and also maby trying a few with out as much insulation on top and a few with two inch insulation that is above the outer cover instead of under it.

I have no pre thought illussions that it is all going to work out but also have this gut feeling that I am generally a lucky guy and things that shouldn't do work out for me more then is reasonable. Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

> consintrating





> diseise


gww you make my days. 

Well I´m lucky that the first hive I ever called my own died in spite of treating so I consintrated on using another path. If this not had happened I would be treating nowadays because I would think it normal.


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## msl

> Msl You didn't treat and your bees died first year. I didn't treat and the bees lived first year. I think is is going to be an interesting winter for me cause I could not fore guess how many hives I will have come spring


My bees were fine the 1st year, I took my losses the 3rd,4th,5th spring, witch I attribute to the changing mite/virus loads in the neighborhood and then being sold poor stock


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## 1102009

msl said:


> My bees were fine the 1st year, I took my losses the 3rd,4th,5th spring, witch I attribute to the changing mite/virus loads in the neighborhood and then being sold poor stock


Three years in a row to have 100% losses is very tough.

Do you have a strategy for the future or are you lost to tf beekeeping?


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## gww

Msl


> My bees were fine the 1st year, I took my losses the 3rd,4th,5th spring, witch I attribute to the changing mite/virus loads in the neighborhood and then being sold poor stock


I have been known to repeat others mistakes and also guilty of reinventing the wheel. I look at SiW...'s first slash second year and so I don't pre-judge where I am heading only that I have to try it cause I also got bees from some one who does not treat and so it is in my mind that it is possible. Possible for me? time will tell.

SiW....


> gww you make my days.


And to think, this is my first language.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> Msl
> 
> I have been known to repeat others mistakes and also guilty of reinventing the wheel. I look at SiW...'s first slash second year and so I don't pre-judge where I am heading only that I have to try it cause I also got bees from some one who does not treat and so it is in my mind that it is possible. Possible for me? time will tell.
> 
> SiW....
> 
> 
> And to think, this is my first language.
> Cheers
> gww


Was the third year, gww, the second year my "resistant purchased stock" survived, it was the first winter for them, before I had a hive of local mutts.. But as long as I have survivors I´m content.
If not I plan to purchase some more bees and introduce queens from survivor hives or more resistant stock. Never will I give up, I´m kind of stubborn in my quest.

Thanks for making me smile again. You`re a great philosopher. It´s more easy to digest setbacks when you are back upped.


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## Fusion_power

gww has an idiosyncrasy of using grandiloquent histrionics to discountenance impecunious abecedarians.


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## gww

Fusion power


> gww has an idiosyncrasy of using grandiloquent histrionics to discountenance impecunious abecedarians.


I said english was my first language not that I was good at it, geeze :scratch:.
Cheers
gww

Ps Tell the truth, how many of those words have you been just waiting to use in a sentance?

Ps ps I do not use hyperbole to discount people who won't learn? :gh:


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## Fusion_power

> Tell the truth, how many of those words have you been just waiting to use in a sentance?


 All of them. Sadly, I have to admit that I actually know what they mean. Fortunately, I don't talk like that most of the time.


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## gww

Ha ha, I looked some of them up and still don't know the meaning as you used them in your sentance.
Cheers
gww


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## Fusion_power

idiosyncrasy - habit
grandiloquent - big or grand
histrionics - words
discountenance - upset
impecunious - poor or destitute
abecedarians - those who are learning, greenbeans or newbies

so it means having a habit of using big words to upset poor newbies. There is a deliberate mis-use of "impecunious" given that it means "lack of money" when the usage of "poor" can have other implications. I put it in to see if anyone would figure out that it was a tad contrived.

lets get back to bees if we can. I'm setting up a colony to raise a round of queens. Will do some feeding first to get them in the mood.


----------



## gww

Ok, back to bees. How late can you raise queens and how do you use them? I would think that in MO it would be getting close to being a losts cause. I do see brad bee is making splits now also.
Cheers
gww

Ps I worked a short time with a guy in the auto industery who's dad was working bees pretty hard that was from Alabama. A stray comment from him right before I retired put it in my mind.

He was a nice guy and used to give me rides on a cart to my work area. I called him the other day after a couple of years and told him my bees were his fault and also thanked him again for those rides.


----------



## Fusion_power

I have mated queens up to the end of October, but it is risky going that late. If I start a round of cells in early September, there is a good chance they will get mated so long as I make sure drones are available.


----------



## gww

Fusion.....
To replace queens in established hives or for some other purpose?
Last question from me on this in SiWs thread.
Thanks
gww


----------



## Fusion_power

To replace some queens that are a tad hotter than I like.


----------



## gww

Fusion......
Thanks, luckily I have not been blessed with hot bees I don't think. I have had them jump in my face but I am pretty sure that I caused it. I just back off and smoke for a min and things usually get good. Nothing like vidios I have seen. I did get stung four times when doing a teronov split, the bees didn't like getting shook on the board too well and a couple of swarms that I carried in a 5 gal bucket ended up being not that happy but on one I killed a bunch of them some how. 
I could go to the only guy I know that has bees and they would sting him four or five times and I would be standing beside him and not get stung. I must stink. 
Thanks for taking the time answering my question and SiW... Thanks for letting me abuse your thread as many times as I have. Hope I am not taking advantage of your good will.
gww


----------



## 1102009

Dar, this is very interesting and thanks you and gww for contributing here.

I saw in the sales forum that MB is raising queens too and he in Nebraska.

How could that work and how do you raise drones this time of year?

My bees still have some drones raised but will the number be enough? Latest time I had a queen mated was before 8th of august last year. This Carni queen is very prolific.


----------



## Fusion_power

My bees usually have a few drones most of the year. I raise from bees that produce a small number of drones on the fall flow. This encourages the trait and permits me to mate queens late in the year.


----------



## 1102009

SiWolKe said:


> Today found the swarm from the elgon queenless split was without brood.
> Seems to me 4 weeks are too long a time to break brood then was my last check, they had 6 combs of mostly open brood then, so i put in a comb with two egg patches surrounded with hatching brood from the mother hive so they can nurse well. Pollen and honey they had in abundance.
> 
> I took this from the defensiv hive because the others have no surplus of brood just now, having preferred foraging.
> Had some thoughts about the defensiveness but today they were gentler.


They have a new laying queen and the first capped brood.
They were good to work.
Now I have to watch the food situation, maybe I have to feed. We have nice flow still but they will need much to become strong for winter.

The hive in my garden I reduced to one brood box started washboarding immediately, a behavior I only saw once so far.

Doing my mite counts this morn I saw this: ferocious little ladies they are. Hope they work the mites like that!


----------



## Michael Bush

>I saw in the sales forum that MB is raising queens too and he in Nebraska.

I still have drones. Maybe not as many as in May, but plenty. We had a lull but no real dearth and they never kicked them out. The fall flow should be starting soon. Usually after that is when they throw out the drones. I am still raising queens and will start another batch tomorrow. When the bees lose interest I'll give up for the year.


----------



## 1102009

Thanks for commenting, Michael.


----------



## 1102009

Update on the varroa kill unit.

Until two days ago mite numbers on the floor board increased with both hives. Now mite number on the unit hive still increases and half of the mites are light ones.
The control hive`s mite numbers stay the same now and most mites are dark ones.
Both hives have virus symptoms, defect bees ( not many, mostly drones,) on the ground or pupa pulled out.

The other two hives in the bee yard: one had a small increase but now stays like that, the other one almost no mites. No virus with both. 

Two weeks to go. Fascinating!


----------



## 1102009

One of our more experienced group member introduced three elgon queens from Erik Österlund into three colonies.
They are very well accepted and laying in a wonderful pattern.

The group looks forward to use the genetics in our bee yards next year when overwintering is hopefully successful.


----------



## JonasDanielsson

Hi! 

New to beekeeping, new to beesource and a new fan of this wonderful thread. Found it as my plan is to go treatment free (or at the very least chemical free) and natural.

I have plowed through it from start to present since last night. Allthough I liked the drama created by the quarrelling between BfP and Oldtimer it is nice to see the tone has shifted to the better going into the productive season. 

I would just like to say keep it up to all of you, I have alot to learn and this thread is very interesting. 

I will not bore you with what I have or what my plan is in this thread as it is not mine.

Thank you and the best of luck in your endeavours.


----------



## 1102009

Many thanks Jonas and luck to you, too!
Welcome to Beesource!

This thread is not meant as a diary only but as a discussion platform also and I´m very glad about questions, comments or contributing with own experience.
So feel invited.
Squarepeg was not moderator when the quarreling was or I would have asked him to interfere.

We should respect each other even if we have different opinions, or some will not take part because they fear bashing.
But every post you can learn from. Even if you think: oh, never I will do that!


----------



## 1102009

Last night I decided to extract most of the honey frames I stored for some time now.
The hives gain weight and it seems we have a fall flow and nice weather.

I left some capped frames I have some to feed in case of emergency or will feed with honey syrup.

It was 30 capped medium frames and 4 half filled and capped. 
16 came from my garden carniolan hive which was not splitted ( the 4kg spring swarm), the rest from the carniolan and elgon hives. These I had harvested once in late spring.
The AMM had no surplus, but it is the first year I don´t have to feed them.

All in all I harvested + - 120 pounds of honey surplus this year out of my quennless splits. Most deep combs were donated to the splits and I left so much the donators always had + - 30 pounds.
Very good year!


----------



## 1102009

Just after posting here I heard the sound of bees swarming and rushed outside!

A big cloud of bees in front of my hive going in!

ROBBERS! ROBBERS! I hurried inside, wetted a towel and rushed out crawling through the weeds and bushes to the entrance. I even forgot my veil!

Bees all around me landing on me but I was not stung. When I reached the entrance I saw no fights or wax residues, I saw many bees bringing pollen and nectar and 10-15 watchers checking them in the robber screen.

GOD!

We had fine weather yesterday but then a storm came. Maybe they rushed home and went out that early in the morn to go on foraging. Or do they cluster outdoors?

Now traffic is normal. And my pulse too.


----------



## gww

SiW.....
Your pictures were making me hungry and I don't even eat much honey.

It does seem kinda wierd that your mass bee experiance happened at the same time you were taking stuff from you hives. I have had a few things like that and wondered, Hmmm?
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW.....
> Your pictures were making me hungry and I don't even eat much honey.
> 
> It does seem kinda wierd that your mass bee experiance happened at the same time you were taking stuff from you hives. I have had a few things like that and wondered, Hmmm?
> Cheers
> gww


GWW please explain your post, I don´t understand it. 
If you mean the unit, I´m not touching these two hives.


----------



## gww

SiW


> Just after posting here I heard the sound of bees swarming and rushed outside!
> 
> A big cloud of bees in front of my hive going in!
> 
> ROBBERS! ROBBERS! I hurried inside, wetted a towel and rushed out crawling through the weeds and bushes to the entrance. I even forgot my veil!
> 
> Bees all around me landing on me but I was not stung. When I reached the entrance I saw no fights or wax residues, I saw many bees bringing pollen and nectar and 10-15 watchers checking them in the robber screen.
> 
> GOD!
> 
> We had fine weather yesterday but then a storm came. Maybe they rushed home and went out that early in the morn to go on foraging. Or do they cluster outdoors?
> 
> Now traffic is normal. And my pulse too.


Your post before this one had pictures of your extraction which made me hungry. 

Your next post that I quoted said right after you posted (my assumption) the honey extraction post that you saw a lot of bees at your hives and thought robbing. I just jumped to the conclusion that it was the hives you were extracting from. 

Perhaps I missunderstood.
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

usurpation swarm perhaps? or maby a failed swarm going back in


----------



## 1102009

gww it was me who misunderstood your post. The hive was harvested 5 weeks ago  I´m sometimes taking out surplus and store this. If bad weather comes and the bees need it I give it back. Or I try to make them draw more comb taking some comb out. In this case they did not draw but backfilled.

msl it was 7 o´clock in the morn? mmh. What´s an usurpation swarm?


----------



## gww

SiW...


> What´s an usurpation swarm?


I am not msl and so hope I am getting this correct. I believe it is a swarm of bees from a differrent hive who take over the hive they swarm to.
gww


----------



## msl

Yes a take over, it is often considered a trait of AHB but Dr Magnum's work is showing it may be much more common in EHB then we think and is a plausibly expiation of some stocks late casting small late season swarms that would not be expectied to have time to build up to overwinter strength...
http://americanbeejournal.com/summer-swarms-far-frequent-bees-changing/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tsn84hEYZI


----------



## Oldtimer

Sometimes after some bad weather the bees all come out at once. Can make a heckuva noise.

Over here usurpation swarms don't happen, we don't have african genetics either.


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Sometimes after some bad weather the bees all come out at once. Can make a heckuva noise.


Must have been that.
No bees clustering anywhere, no crawling outside on the hive`s surface, no dead bees. The bees came from different directions like after foraging and just went in normally. It was only that the numbers were much higher.
This is my second strongest hive.


----------



## 1102009

The split which got the mini-nuc used an emergency cell of the brood combs and not the swarm cell out of the apidea, and so the queen started to lay some days ago.
I have never had a queen starting to lay so late in season, but the hive is strong in bees and has much pollen stores.
They had been given 8 frames ( 6 brood frames which hatched 10 days ago and are empty now) and 2 food combs.
The queen layed one frame, one side is with larva of different age, the other is completely layed with eggs.

To boost them I donated 2 frames of honey and 3 extracted wet combs. 
Could be I have to give a capped brood frame to them, but they are absolutely without mites so I hope they will make it without a donation.

It´s still summer and very warm, but nights are longer and the air is humid, fog rising in the mornings. 
The bees start to forage very early, we have a nice fall flow mostly from this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_glandulifera

This plant is seen as invasive here and fought against. 
Without this plant, which brings a wonderful honey for overwintering without digestion problems, we beekeepers here would all have starving bees in fall.


----------



## 1102009

Here comes the update to the* Varroa Kill Unit*:




> *Original queen*: 86m from canary island, open mated, local AMM race, 15 years tf
> 
> Hive with unit: *86maa*. daughter of daughter, AMM-Buckfast hybrid
> 
> Control Hive: *86maa/a* daughter of above
> 
> 86maa:
> Queen made via supercedure cell in september 2015.
> 
> 30.4.2017 :queenright split with two capped brood combs
> 26.6.2017: shotgun comb, not much young larva,VSH seen, crisis, 7 broodcombs dadant
> 20.7.2017: better condition, drone brood, very hot, 7 broodcombs
> 
> *4.8.2017 Varroa Kill Ultrasonic Unit installed*
> 
> 86maa/a:
> 30.4.2017 :queenless split with 5 broodcombs
> 27.5.2017: eggs
> 11.6.2017: 6 broodcombs, drone brood, hot
> 20.7.2017: 7 broodcombs, drone brood, many mites on varroa board, 1 def bee,VSH seen
> 
> Control hive to 86maa to compare the infestation process
> 
> Mite count on varroa board, observation on ground board in front of hives
> 
> Date 86maa 86maa/a
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> august 5 31 mites 45 mites
> 6 46 69 1 def drone
> 7 41 59
> 8 53 67
> 9 63 drone brood def 70 drone brood def
> 10 55 78
> 11 89 drone brood def 95
> 12 94 83
> 13 93 115
> 14 91 1 def worker, 1 def drone 63 1 drone pupa
> 15 92 1 def worker, pupa 70 drone pupa
> 16 116 drone pupa, weak bees 69 1 pupa
> 17 122 112 pupa, def workers
> 18 130 one third lighter mites 93 2 def workers, 1 def drone
> 19 145 1def worker 95 2 def workers
> 20 105 1 def worker 133
> 21 113 125 1 drone pupa, 2 def drones
> 22 126 3 def workers 142 1 def drone
> 23 114 3 def workers 69 2 def workers
> 24 146 3 def workers 136 2 def workers
> 25 164 2 def workers 111 2 def workers
> 26 138 4 def workers 143 1 def worker
> 27 162 123 2 def workers
> 28 151 3 weak workers 132 4 def workers
> 29 153 159 2 def workers
> 
> The mites on the board of the Unit Hive are mixed dark and light.
> The Control Hive has mostly dark ones.
> Both Hives have living and bitten mites on the floor boards.
> Both hives were not checked inside.
> 
> *Check control: 29.8.2017*


When I opened the hives today I was amazed.

*The "Unit" hive* has almost only new young brood in a very good pattern, around this the last bees hatch.
5 brood combs of larva, all ages and much jelly. Stores are 2 honeycombs, one pollen comb and some domes, not much for that season. They will need much for the breeding, so I may feed.
I saw one defect worker and one mite on a bee. Density is high.
If I had not remembered the counts I would say they are in spring mood.
No supercedure cell.









The *control hive* has the typical shotgun pattern of a mite diseased hive. Much more capped brood but in between the new eggs and larva. I saw 3 defect worker bees and 5 mites on bees.
Not much eggs layed. 
No supersedure cell. Density is high too,all farms are covered with bees.









I saw the queen in both hives and both colonies were gentle. Both have much sticky propolis, but the control hive was sticky in the extreme. Like chewing gum.

My personal belief is that the Unit could work. I will go on counting for two weeks.
But the action can be too late when the virus is already present.
Once in spring before main flow and once in late summer should be working, if I´m right.

I wanted to save the colonies but decided to leave the "Unit" Hive alone and put the Unit on top of the Control Hive tomorrow.
I did not cull out brood because it´s mostly open brood.
I did not do a roll, because I believe I know the conditions.


----------



## 1102009

You are probably shocked about my mite downfalls since I get no comments.
I looked forward to be called a mite distributor 

I have two more hives at that location of which one is directly at the threshold ( I believe it is 30 mites per day before virus is observed) and one with almost no mites.
To me this means that my bees are not much in drifting.

My ex co-worker told me yesterday that the beekeepers around me started treatments ( formic acid, one shock therapy with towel and liquid, then vaporizing 3 weeks) one week ago and that the varroa boards are black with falling mites.
So I believe my bees robbed some "mite bomb hives" of my neighbors in june/ july. This months were the best for harvesting so nobody treated early.

All those hives of my neighbors, mightily infested with chalk brood too, would be long dead if they had my mite numbers.

My ex co-worker is a member of bee club. I´m the only one around who ever monitors mites. All others treat prophylactically. All others except the one or two sideliners multiply from susceptible hives and never do any selection.

This weekend I will move my 2 healthy hives to a new location where I´m more isolated and it´s not so swampy. 
What I do with the others I will decide when I see what develops.


----------



## AR1

I am interested in your observation that hives with problems, disease or mites, make more and stickier propolis. I am seeing exactly that. I have one hive that is dragging out lots of sick, immature bees without wings. The propolis in amazing. Like orange sticky pine sap, and everything is coated with it. 

The hive otherwise appears fine. Lots of good brood, lots of active, energetic bees. I have been avoiding treatments, but this hive is needing help. I hate to pinch such a productive queen, but maybe for the best.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

august 5 31 mites 45 mites
6 46 69 1 def drone
7 41 59
8 53 67
9 63 drone brood def 70 drone brood def
10 55 78
11 89 drone brood def 95
12 94 83
13 93 115
14 91 1 def worker, 1 def drone 63 1 drone pupa
15 92 1 def worker, pupa 70 drone pupa
16 116 drone pupa, weak bees 69 1 pupa 
17 122 112 pupa, def workers
18 130 one third lighter mites 93 2 def workers, 1 def drone
19 145 1def worker 95 2 def workers
20 105 1 def worker 133 
21 113 125 1 drone pupa, 2 def drones
22 126 3 def workers 142 1 def drone
23 114 3 def workers 69 2 def workers
24 146 3 def workers 136 2 def workers
25 164 2 def workers 111 2 def workers
26 138 4 def workers 143 1 def worker
27 162 123 2 def workers
28 151 3 weak workers 132 4 def workers
29 153 159 2 def workers

Very nice.
If I understand these figures correctly, they are very much in line with studies made in Finland (normal treated bees) : doubling of mite infestation in 3 weeks.
And the figures are so near each other that ultra -sonic devise has no impact at all.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> And the figures are so near each other that ultra -sonic devise has no impact at all.


The manufacture explains exactly how it works, you might say it provokes a "mite brood brake".
What I see on the combs could be exactly that, so my monitoring will go on.

Before claiming something it would be nice if you would inform yourself. The Unit is not killing mites directly.


----------



## 1102009

AR1 said:


> I am interested in your observation that hives with problems, disease or mites, make more and stickier propolis. I am seeing exactly that. I have one hive that is dragging out lots of sick, immature bees without wings. The propolis in amazing. Like orange sticky pine sap, and everything is coated with it.
> 
> The hive otherwise appears fine. Lots of good brood, lots of active, energetic bees. I have been avoiding treatments, but this hive is needing help. I hate to pinch such a productive queen, but maybe for the best.


I have one colony which is bred for less propolis.
I have not disturbed the broodnest more than two times this year and never scraped away wax or propolis.
In spring they had no propolis and now they are sticky ( they have no mite or disease problem).

So I believe a natural beekeeping and propolis plants around propagates propolis use.

In my other hives I see the propolis changing whenever they have a crisis. For example a crisis being queenless. Much propolis they all have or they would be dead already.

Not all problems are queen problems. Drifting and robbing this time of year may overcome a hive.
In your case I would take out capped brood or treat. This time of year too many crippled bees will mean not enough healthy winter bees later.

Keep the queen now and after overwintering, if they survive, see how they do. 
If you believe it´s a queen issue, cull the drones which you don´t want in spring and shift the queen or split the other hive and after the new queen (s) are mated, kill the bad one.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Before claiming something it would be nice if you would inform yourself.


???? how

I was just looking at your numbers.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> ???? how
> 
> I was just looking at your numbers.


I mean inform yourself about the Unit.
It´s too early to speak about results, I just saw the different condition of this colony.
Now it depends how many mites are in the new brood if it hatches in 3 weeks.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

You reported that the contol hive had 27.5 only eggs.

Both hives were made on the same day, one with 2 brood frames, the other one with 5 brood frames.

These facts have impact on the brood cycle they would naturally be, without the Ultra sonic Unit.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> You reported that the contol hive had 27.5 only eggs.
> 
> Both hives were made on the same day, one with 2 brood frames, the other one with 5 brood frames.
> 
> These facts have impact on the brood cycle they would naturally be, without the Ultra sonic Unit.


Well, that was in spring and when I started the comparison they both were established strong splits and the effects of the brood brake was over. 
I´m not claiming my experiment is a scientific one ( even if the scientific ones I read about are not perfect in any way) .

Since my other 11 colonies have no mite problems right now I was glad to be able to have a control hive which end of july was in the same condition than my Unit hive.
Today I installed the Unit on the control hive. 

Juhani, I´m only trying to find a IPM without having to use chemicals or weakening a hive with culling brood.. I´m not trying to proof a machine`s value or will have a financial profit out of this.

You had those terrible crashes every few years, will you go on let the bees die?
You have so much stock reserve and queens bred this is probably no topic for you , making money out of the queens. 

But me, I try to find a way to have something left and slowly, but with all my energy and hope try to do better in having more resistant colonies out of the survivors.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Since my other 11 colonies have no mite problems right now I was glad to be able to have a control hive which end of july was in the same condition than my Unit hive.


That is actually pretty amazing, no mite problems in Central Europe conditions after several years of TF. Well done. How many mites the 11 have?



SiWolKe said:


> Today I installed the Unit on the control hive.


Why? Wasnt´t the idea to see how the machine works and keep it in the same hive well over 3 weeks?


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## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> That is actually pretty amazing, no mite problems in Central Europe conditions after several years of TF. Well done. How many mites the 11 have?
> Why? Wasnt´t the idea to see how the machine works and keep it in the same hive well over 3 weeks?


You can´t compare my beekeeping to what you do.
I´m splitting every hive and have no production hives. I still made many mistakes and lost control often. The bees took over then and showed me.

But you are right, I`m happy to still have some of my 2015 stock and the same number of hives again. But it´s not a long time, two seasons.

The 11 have no mites or some mites but not many. In my elgon-carniolan beeyard the DWV is not present like in the AMM-Buckfast location. This place I give up. There is something wrong with the place.

Because the bees took over managements I had long and late brood brakes in the healthy yard. One queenless split swarmed, for example. Still, some surplus honey from three hives. 2 Carni and 1 Elgon.
The Carniolan-Russian queen build brood like crazy and had the most stores. The most mites those have too, but nothing compared to the 2 AMM hybrids.

The manufacturer says 24-30 days twice a year. I did 25 days. I want to test the practical circumstances because an IPM management must well fit into seasonal beekeeping events. You can´t use the Unit in a flow and you can´t open the hive in that time to watch swarming or to split. The temperature it works is 10°C to 50°C, so not in a frosty winter.
So you can´t leave it on the hive always, it must be loaded after 25-30 days too. You can´t put a feeder on top.

It´s very easy to use though and I see that there is no queen issue. If the conditions of the next hive change too I will order a second one. This is the last try I have on this colony or it will crash so I must try it now.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> The 11 have no mites or some mites but not many.
> 
> The most mites those have too, but nothing compared to the 2 AMM hybrids..


You have some mite numbers but don´t want to tell them? 

If a colony is not having many mites (say over 5% infestation) in Central Europe conditions with lots of beekeepers around after two years TF beekeeping, that is pretty amazing and you truly have some survivor genes in your bees. To tell if they do, or if they don´t have that many mites you need to make a sugar roll or alcohol test.


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## 1102009

No, I have no exact mite numbers.
I look at the boards now and then. I look at the entrance.

The moment I see defect wings I start to monitor in earnest.
I claim to see on the combs the state the bees are in.

When I had the crashes last winter it was 4 mite crashes out of 14 hives. They were the strongest hives going into winter. 
The others were queen issues and isolation from food because I did not reduce the space.

IMPO the counting of mites via roll tell me nothing about virus susceptibility. If I counted I would probably treat all because in our group all hives are highly mite infested in the eyes of common opinion.
Threshold here is down to 1 mite a day over 10 days, a threshold which is much too low even when you treat.

I observed that the phoretic state of mites changes constantly in the colony. 
I observed that the phoretic mites are mostly on nurse bees near the action radius of the queen.
So, if the numbers should mean anything, rolls must be done constantly and with the right kind of bees. 
Since I have only small hives this would weaken them more than the mites do.

So as all beekeeping is local I´m still trying to eliminate the mistakes which have nothing to do with mite infestation, so to make the bees less susceptible.
When I have reached that goal the next step will be the better evaluation of queens. 

I remember that video about the english beekeeper who selected for years by checking the bitten mites and breeding from those hives which killed the mites in the highest numbers.
Then a scientist visited him and found out that the virus present in his beeyard is the one which suppressed the more dangerous virus. 

All this work in vain and if a migrating beekeeper comes near this situation can change drastically.


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## 1102009

AR1 said:


> I am interested in your observation that hives with problems, disease or mites, make more and stickier propolis. I am seeing exactly that. I have one hive that is dragging out lots of sick, immature bees without wings. The propolis in amazing. Like orange sticky pine sap, and everything is coated with it.
> 
> The hive otherwise appears fine. Lots of good brood, lots of active, energetic bees. I have been avoiding treatments, but this hive is needing help. I hate to pinch such a productive queen, but maybe for the best.


If I see something like that when opening i watch out:








This is a propolis clean hive. Beekeepers like working with such hives but not me. The use of propolis is an important trait to me.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> If I see something like that when opening i watch out:


Like what? Nasanov fanning?


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## gww

Oldtimer
I may be speaking out of turn but the quote she was highlighting before the picture makes me think the point is, If you assosiate propolus with disiese, the first picture shows a hive to watch out for due to all the propolis.
Cheers
gww


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## Fusion_power

> The use of propolis is an important trait to me.


Sibylle, I do not see an association in my bees between propolis collection and mite resistance. My bees collect plenty so there is no shortage in the hives. Just a guess on my part, but I think propolis collection is related more to general disease resistance and beetle resistance than to mite resistance.


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## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Sibylle, I do not see an association in my bees between propolis collection and mite resistance. My bees collect plenty so there is no shortage in the hives. Just a guess on my part, but I think propolis collection is related more to general disease resistance and beetle resistance than to mite resistance.


Yes, you are right, dar. But it may be a part of the resistance your bees show in that case. 
In my eyes propolis changes if something is wrong, no matter what. Could even be me going into the hive too often.
So if I see propolis changing to sticky or if the hive is hot suddenly I watch for queenlessness, shotgun comb, poisoning, things like that.


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## msl

> IMPO the counting of mites via roll tell me nothing about virus susceptibility. If I counted I would probably treat all because in our group all hives are highly mite infested in the eyes of common opinion.


Given the speed the virus are changing that would seem a poor plan.
TF often comes with emotional/belief system baggage, The more objectively you can measure your hive(s) the better. Waiting till your hive has a "bunch" of DWV, crawlers or what ever you are being subjective... Measuring a sample of 500 bees and saying 3% of the bees in the sample had deformed wings is a different story, but that's not what people are doing.
One of the simplest, easiest, and accurate metrics we can use is the alcohol roll/wash. Its objective and standardized, those are bolth thing we need for TF to advance, It alows us to compare our results with people who are to far away for us to visit and see what their hives "look" like to us.
I also disagree about counts not telling you anything about virus susceptibility as mites are the vector. How do you compare 2 hives unless you know the mite loads? The one that looks good with no DWV may just have less mites, The one that looks bad may have been true mite resistant bees with a higher tolerance for DWV and they just got over run with a mite bomb and are slowly fighting back...you won't know with out counts and records. There are plenty of study's linking the virus levels and symptoms to the mite levels. You just won't know ANYTHING about virus susceptibility unless you know your mite loads. 



> Threshold here is down to 1 mite a day over 10 days, a threshold which is much too low even when you treat.


Agreed, If I under stand you right thats a sticky board left in the hive for 10 days and has a total of 10 mite...
that's nuts, like 0.1% I am not sure that's even reasonably attainable post treatment, much less as a threshold

Good video on how the virus have changed, changing the treatment thresholds over time http://www.beeculture.com/dennis-vanengelsdorp-everything-varroa-part-3/


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> Agreed, If I under stand you right thats a sticky board left in the hive for 10 days and has a total of 10 mite...
> that's nuts, like 0.1% I am not sure that's even reasonably attainable post treatment,


We have exatly the same threshold in Finland: 1 mite / day to a sticky board

We have always wondered the very high thresholds you have in US...


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## msl

wow... thats seems insane compared to our standards, that's like 40 mites total in a 40k bee hive, at that point is there any reason to monitor? Just treat, no IPM at that threshold asumeing you get accurate sticky counts, witch is dubious at best


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## Juhani Lunden

msl said:


> wow... thats seems insane compared to our standards, that's like 40 mites total in a 40k bee hive, at that point is there any reason to monitor? Just treat, no IPM at that threshold asumeing you get accurate sticky counts, witch is dubious at best


Our way to count is:

1 mite /day = total 130 mites in the hive


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## msl

interesting, most studys here are with in the range of 10 mites a day = 1% or 1 mite a day = 20-40 in the hive


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## 1102009

msl said:


> Agreed, If I under stand you right thats a sticky board left in the hive for 10 days and has a total of 10 mite...


No, you count every day for 10 days at the same time of day and take the average.
That´s why I said there are sometimes no phoretic mites and sometimes many, emerging with the bees.
You see the wax residues on the board, most mother mites are falling with them.

Funny how a wash could lead you astray if you choose the moment of mites being hidden in the cells! You will believe your hive is mite free!
In my hives there are periods with almost all cells capped and sometimes almost all with open brood. Then, with open brood, your mite counts via wash show the reality! 
So I have to do the wash in an open brood situation if I want to know.
Difficult if I want to leave them alone as much as possible following T. Seeley.



> The one that looks bad may have been true mite resistant bees with a higher tolerance for DWV and they just got over run with a mite bomb and are slowly fighting back.


OK, msl, you convinced me to do a better monitoring next year counting the mites and comparing this with the "crawler" situation.

Problem is, what to do then? I´m not treating and if the ultrasonic Unit does not work, my only management can be culling capped brood or doing sugar shakes of the whole hive.

And what time of year do the managements and washes? Early summer when density of bees is at it´s best so not to weaken the hive? But then this is not the mite peak!

Spring after the first summer bees bred so knowing which queen to use?
What queen to use? In late summer you might know about the queens, how they fight the mites, but not in spring time when the bees want to multiply.

So you need two seasons and one overwintering to evaluate a queen?
Tell me a practical approach, msl!


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## 1102009

The friend I work with and who is very experienced never counts or does a wash or sugar roll.
He sees crawlers in his hives every year. (tf since 2012) 70% of his tf colonies survive winter. He has elgon-carniolan hybrids.
He breeds only from the strongest hives, means from those which are on three or four zander deeps in June ( two zander are one dadant)
30% losses he sees as normal, because with treatments the losses are 30-40% too in his area.


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## Oldtimer

gww said:


> Oldtimer
> I may be speaking out of turn but the quote she was highlighting before the picture makes me think the point is, If you assosiate propolus with disiese, the first picture shows a hive to watch out for due to all the propolis.
> Cheers
> gww


Yes that's what I thought she was implying, but looking at the pic it wasn't a lot of propolis, my own hives would have more propolis than that, all of them. They wouldn't be waxed up like that between the top bars though. Maybe they all sick LOL.


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## gww

Oldtimer
The only thing I know about propolis is that I like the sticky gluey stuff better then the brittle stuff that just pops lose all at once and sends a bunch of bees flying up in my face.
Cheers
gww


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## Oldtimer

Oh it's the gooey stuff I don't like, have to keep cleaning my fingernails all the time.


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## Fusion_power

Note to self, OT does not wear gloves to work his bees. Now that I think about it, neither do I.

Sibylle, I split colonies that make a crop of spring honey just after the honey is harvested in June. It is an arbitrary method, but gives plenty of extra colonies to make up for any losses. This area has a spring flow from the end of March to roughly the end of May and a fall flow from about the 1st of September to the end of October. This makes June splits reasonably successful.


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## msl

yes unless the queen has headed up a full sized hive for a year and has been handled the same as her peers you realy cant make to much of a judgment about her in any reguard
This year was about expansion for me so I made nucs of out overwintered nucs and more nucs out of those, trying to keep as much deveristy as I could, to that end I haven't kept counts on the nucs as they have been split and fussed with so much, They will just get treated and put up for the winter. Come spring a few from each line will grow out for evaluation and outhers used as brood factorys . 
I will make judgments on brood stock april 2018 based on the mite records of the 2017 full sized hives I do have that were started as nucs in 2016. 
For me that is all that matters now, but as FP points out once your bees are staying alive there are outher critiren to judge them by 

rolls don't impact a full sized hive much... 300 bees is a blink, sets a overwintered hive in spring expansion mode back about 1/2 a day of growth, if your realy worried use powdered sugar. I would shoot for once a month


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## gww

fusion....
Do you make your splits after the 21st of june? When in june is your honey usually capped?
Thanks
gww


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## Fusion_power

I can usually remove the spring honey crop by the first week of June but always wait until at least a week of dry weather. Sometimes this takes until July. I make splits based on having queen cells ready and on having a little nectar coming in.


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## gww

Fusion


> I make splits based on having queen cells ready and on having a little nectar coming in.


I could probly figure out how to get some queen cells started but I have a heck of a time telling when something is coming into the hive or not.
Thank you for answering my questions.
gww


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Yes that's what I thought she was implying, but looking at the pic it wasn't a lot of propolis,* my own hives would have more propolis than that, all of them.* They wouldn't be waxed up like that between the top bars though. Maybe they all sick LOL.


Sick of being treated  so they do their best to digest the treatments! 



> Sibylle, I split colonies that make a crop of spring honey just after the honey is harvested in June. It is an arbitrary method, but gives plenty of extra colonies to make up for any losses. This area has a spring flow from the end of March to roughly the end of May and a fall flow from about the 1st of September to the end of October. This makes June splits reasonably successful.


Yes Dar, I made the splits in the AMM bee yard much too early. My former mentor made me very much afraid of them swarming.

But I could do like you and SP, expanding with a deep in may and using the brood peak for taking the top deep for my split in june. Then put a medium on top for honey and hey presto! New queens are available from my friend then to introduce some more monticola genes. 
Flow is whole year if the weather is ok.

Hope I have some colonies left after winter to go on trying new methods.

RC yesterday reminded me that crawlers were observed before varroa, I forgot about that. Could be why my friend still has success. The elgons are not bad in doing VSH, are not drifting much, are no robbers and have a nice entrance defense.
I hope they will be the stock which can be used in my location.


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## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> Sick of being treated  so they do their best to digest the treatments!


LOL


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## 1102009

There is a series about darwinian beekeeping ( T. Seeley) in our bee magazine which I find very nice in my country where tf is not admitted in public because of the law that you are regarded as an alien from another world if you do it.

1. to propagate local genetic adaption
2. place hives with distance and not too many
3. how big a deep, 10 frames langstroth for broodnest ( with honey supers) 
4. to propagate propolis use
5. thick hive walls like in a tree
6. small round entrance
7. natural comb
8. no migration
9. no change of frames in broodnest area
10. rare disturbance of broodnest area
11. preventing the import of new disease and pest
12. variable pollen and nectar, location
13. no artificial pollen
14. to prevent environmental poisoning
15. no treatments with chemicals
16. natural selection for health and swarming behavior versus honey production
17. no crushing of honey combs, wax production is too costly
18. no artificial insemination, no grafting
19. queens should decide which drones to use for matings
20. no culling of drone brood, hives healthy enough to breed many drones should distribute their genetics

Nothing new but good to do some reflections. Go back to some basics and rethink one´s ideas before leaving a path.
Or to go back to such ideas.


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## Fusion_power

Tom Seeley's ideas are like a mandate for selecting mite resistant genetics. The only disparity is his insistence on small hives.

Sibylle, am I correct your frames are spaced closer than normal? It looks like 13 frames in a square Dadant hive in one of your pictures. The topbars and spacing pins were not modified to accommodate tighter spacing which causes burr comb between topbars. Compare with this picture.


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## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Tom Seeley's ideas are like a mandate for selecting mite resistant genetics. The only disparity is his insistence on small hives.
> 
> Sibylle, am I correct your frames are spaced closer than normal? It looks like 13 frames in a square Dadant hive in one of your pictures. The topbars and spacing pins were not modified to accommodate tighter spacing which causes burr comb between topbars. Compare with this picture.


I have 12 frames and a divider. When working the bees I take out the divider and work from left to right, vice versa. So I never roll queens and have not to place a comb outside. I have never lost a queen in the grass or bees crawling into my trousers.
I do not scrape off those. When I´m through working I smoke the bees down and move the frames together, closing the spaces.

That one of your hives? I love the frames, mine are just too thick on the bars to have 13 or 14 of them, the space between would be too small.

I rather like the burr wax ceilings, because condensation water is not dropping onto the bee cluster in winter.

Should I shave the frames? Advantage would be that I could leave a honey medium on top with stores and the cluster would have no problems to move up.


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## 1102009

Deleted double post


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## 1102009

After two very cold days, 10-13°C and heavy rains I moved the healthy AMM hives to my new location.
The treated stay at the old place for now not to be stressed anymore.

Checking the environment my gut feeling says it´s a good place. The bees are placed in a small oak grove at the north side of a hill, the south side are sheep´s meadows with many herbs growing, thyme and such. Very good flow and two fields planted with fertilization plants ( mustard). Those will bloom in one-two weeks and ivy too.

The grove is a mix of shade and sun, in winter more sunny and very good sheltered from winds.
The trees around can be used for bait hives, the north side is a small oak forest beside a highway which nobody uses. Some wilderness :applause:

There is a sideline beekeeper near who runs 8 hives. 19 less than before.

View attachment 35404

View attachment 35405

View attachment 35406


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## squarepeg

beautiful sibylle. the landscape resembles my area in some ways.


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## 1102009

Deleted double post


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## 1102009

I started my pre winter checks today before closing up.

The weakest come first because I have to decide if I feed them.
They are really nucs but I will boost them so all combs will be filled with either stores or brood. Still some time left until october. They don´t have to draw.

First was the Apidea failure hive which has a new queen also with russian genetics since she is totally black. A new carni-russian hive.
3 broodcombs and 4 foodcombs, so I have to feed along the flow. 
I saw no mite problem, but the brood was in patches. No crawlers.
My lack of experience means that I´m not able to tell if the queen is prolific or if this just correlates with the season. Maybe she just needs more time since she is just starting. 
High density of bees.

The other was the natural swarm out of the queenless split I made from my elgon descendant queen. This split was too strong and swarmed with virgin, suddenly after starting to breed she was gone. I put in a comb with eggs and larva from the original hive and now I´m happy.
The queen is light, looks like carni-elgon mix. My elgons are very yellow.
These have 3 brood combs too and are on natural comb, which is built small cell.
These combs and brood looks extremely beautiful and has the egg shape to make the cluster move without being blocked.
No mites observed. No crawlers.
Food is not much, 3 combs, so these I will boost with honey-sugar syrup until the hive is bursting. Every second day now 2 l of syrup and flow too.
High density too.
A hatching comb:

View attachment 35420


View attachment 35421


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## 1102009

Check went on today with the four elgon hives.
2 have zero mites and 2 < 5 per day. At one hive I saw the first and only damaged bee this season.

Seems like the bees reduced brood very much when we had 32°C and very good flow. 
Small brood areas still, it could be the pollen is rare because fields and pastures are mowed or eaten by the cattle so it will need some days to start flow again.
We had much rain and the bees were not able to forage much, but they started storing more nectar. and have capped honey from the warmer days.
So they went into the fall modus.

I have to feed only the two weakest and not much.

I´m so happy today because my goal to have huge honey domes and bigger stores on every frame was achieved by taking off the mediums early.
Mostly the frames are one third brood nests and honey domes over them, the side away from entrance is filled to the bottom.

On the big frames this could mean that the small patches bees rise in winter are not isolated from food as long as the bees cover them.

I made some small holes so the cluster shall be able to cross over inside the frames ( many thanks, OT, that was a great idea which makes me sleep better at night! )

I saw all queens, they were looking good, but the combs were so dark and light bad so I was not able to look for eggs.
All 4 are full of bees, two were bursting.


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## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Tom Seeley... The only disparity is his insistence on small hives.


I believe this depends on the locale.

Dar, the square dadant is just right with me as for using one brood box.

My splits ( one colony splitted in two) filled this and did not swarm except one which I reduced without intention.
The big swarm made in spring did not swarm, my friend expected this some weeks later.
T. Seeleys 40l would be too small for a natural first swarm in my area.

Your 14 frame box, does it not have thick honey cells on top or is it the bottom one of two brood boxes?
I miss the propolis, too.


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## 1102009

After one week the Ex-Unit-Hive has an average of mite fall of +- 30 mites a day, the Ex-Control-Hive, now with unit,+- 50 mites. 
Could be the mites are in the Ex-Unit-Hive`s capped brood now. I believe the control hive probably was able to eliminate a high mite number.
No more defect bees or pupa pulled out observed.
The bees kill hornets every day and are actively foraging nectar and pollen.

While checking I met a man who works at the place. He is a beekeeper too, runs 5 hives, treated. He told me he has a commercial beekeeper nearby who runs 600 hives and who is 80 years old and not able to move boxes, so he does not treat and just pulls off supers to harvest and he feeds. Never checks his brood chambers.

My acquaintance said the area ( 50km distance from mine) has an average of +-50 mites daily on the floor boards in spite of treating. He laughed tears about the threshold I gave him, 1 mite a day.
Still, the surviving rate is 60-70%.

Now I know where to get new bees when my yards crash. Those bees must be resistant.


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## gww

SiW.......


> He told me he has a commercial beekeeper nearby who runs 600 hives and who is 80 years old and not able to move boxes, so he does not treat and just pulls off supers to harvest and he feeds.


That guy might be my new hero. You need to convince him and all his neighbors to let you set up swarm traps. Then you could just spend your time making equiptment for all your new bees.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Good idea and catching a swarm will be without introducing AFB! 

Food check went on with the carnis.
Everything fine with the first one, a little low on stores but clouds of bees foraging, so I think it will be ok. Mites <5 a day.

One of them has a higher mite load than all others in this bee yard, > 10 a day. No crippled. I saw some mites on bees and many lice.
The hive is strong but has reduced brood very much.

For the first time in my beekeeping life I was able to watch grooming on comb.
A bee had a mite sucking at the underside of her abdomen and another was grooming her and took it off.

Here is a pict of the queen with russian genetics. She had a louse on her and the bees chased it off. It´s still sitting on a bee on top of the picture.









And here is a natural comb with "door" to the other side, like the bees do themselves but only with natural comb.


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## Oldtimer

What are the lice? Do you know the name of them?


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## 1102009

OT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braulidae

Some say you start to see them when microclimate is getting better. With treatments you do not see them but I don´t know. My treated hive had them too after I stopped treatments, two months later. They are not a problem, not even the larva. I have them in my hives since 2015, see them now and then.
You see them more when the bees are very actively nursing the queen so to me it´s rather a sign that the queen is well cared for. 

But we have only one species of braulidae in our hives ( the red one which is often taken for mite) and there are probably others which are a nuisance, using the stores and disturbing the queen when she lays. This I heard and I have seen pictures of queens being covered with "lice". Those are more yellow though. Never have seen those in my hives or a queen covered.


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## Oldtimer

Hmm very interesting, I have heard of those but never seen one we don't have them here.

I have wondered if even a small number of them could affect productivity of the hive. Because they hang around on the queen and literally take the food out of her mouth, they could reduce egg laying ability?

I have seen them described as relatively harmless, but the beekeeper wouldn't really know as no symptoms of disease would be seen, just, there would be less brood than otherwise and the hive may meet a lower potential.


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## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Hmm very interesting, I have heard of those but never seen one we don't have them here.
> 
> I have wondered if even a small number of them could affect productivity of the hive. Because they hang around on the queen and literally take the food out of her mouth, they could reduce egg laying ability?
> 
> I have seen them described as relatively harmless, but the beekeeper wouldn't really know as no symptoms of disease would be seen, just, there would be less brood than otherwise and the hive may meet a lower potential.


I´ve seen them more in strong hives which burst with stores and this would mean they are drawn to good provisions, I read they are distributed by waiting on flowers and hopping on the bees. Maybe they smell a strong hive.
Sometimes I think the stories about mites changing to others bees on flowers are anecdotal, could be these were "lice".

Could be they have some influence on the queen. But a healthy hive has no problems, I believe, just like with wax moths.
A colony which is not able to care for the queen is not a good colony in my eyes.
The egg laying capability is likely not a diseased queen in this case but the stress of being pestered by the fly.

I wonder if the small holes you see sometimes in wax cappings are from the larva of those coming out. I´ve never seen larva, they are so small.


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## Oldtimer

OK, well if that's your observation I will have to accept it.


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## Michael Palmer

SiWolKe said:


> Sometimes I think the stories about mites changing to others bees on flowers are anecdotal...


Cornell U has been testing this hypothesis. They place varroa on flowers and have recorded them jumping onto bees. Now, do they jump off the bee, onto a flower, and then onto a bee?


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## AR1

By the way, saw my first mite today, in some brood that I picked open. I knew they were there, and looked carefully, but had not seen one. I have a hive, swarm caught, that every day is pulling dying brood out the front door. Maybe they are hygenic, but sure as heck they have a bad case of virus.


----------



## 1102009

Michael Palmer said:


> Cornell U has been testing this hypothesis. They place varroa on flowers and have recorded them jumping onto bees. Now, do they jump off the bee, onto a flower, and then onto a bee?


That lacks some logic. They may ride around on bees. I don´t think they are so stupid risking to wait on a flower like a bus stop hoping a bee will come along. 
I compare them with ticks , the moment they suck they will not jump off so easily. The mite will just suck and wait until it is once again in front of an open brood cell smelling the wonderful pheromones. IMHO. Then leave the bee. Distribution goes by drifting into other hives or by robbing, when the mites leave the bees ( they leave a dead bee after 10 minutes, I tested this) or when they take them up off the floor. Ever seen what happens to a bee if it crawls on the varroa board covered with mites which fell through the screens? In seconds the mites are covering it and suck blood as long as the bee lives.

I´ve seen mites jumping around on the combs and bees the moment I pulled a frame, but even on a crowded comb I have never seen a mite moving to another bee once it sucks bee blood. Have you?
Well, I can be wrong.

AR1 isolate them as much as possible from other hives.


----------



## DaisyNJ

At next opportunity, I will record this but here is my recent observation. 

Found a dying bee at the entrance of a hive and upon close look, saw a mite on the bee. Curious, I picked up the bee, put it on a white paper (for better contrast). Then using a pushpin, I tried separating the mite from the bee. Its interesting to see the mite "gliding" on the bee, like a surfer on the wave. And its pretty fast. 

Managed to pick up the mite with pushpin. Next started to experiment if the mite would "jump" onto a bee and how close it need to be to perform this "jump". 

The mite did not "jump" until its actually within touching distance of the bee hair. It did adjust its head in the direction of bee when in very close proximity (again, at touching distance of bee hair). The mite was able to "glide up" onto the bee once it was touching the bee hair. 

Listening to "Ghosts In the Hive" presentation from National Honey Show, I assume mites go by smell rather than visual cues. So I dont think they strategize to the point of "going to flowers", then "waiting" and then "jumping" based on visual cues. 

I then left the mite on the pushpin in a ziplock bag for 12 hours. It was dead by morning. I felt sorry for it, almost.


----------



## Buzz-kill

The entire life cycle of the Varroa mite occurs within the honey bee colony. The life cycle does not involve an intermediate host. From an evolutionary biology point of view there is no reason for a mite to leave the hive on a bee, hop off on a flower, and hope that another bee will visit the flower before the mite dies or gets knocked off the flower. The only logical reason to do such a maneuver would be to transfer mites to a new hive. But hopping on a flower to accomplish such a transfer would be foolish because there is no guarantee that the next bee visiting the flower would be from a different hive. So in this case the mite would have chosen a highly risky maneuver to accomplish a joy ride to and from a flower. This highly dubious strategy might be plausible if there was no alternative way for mites to transfer among colonies. But they can easily and safely transfer on bees without jumping off when they swarm, drift, rob, or drones visit different hives. So if there are mites that engage in the “joy ride” strategy they will certainly be less successful than mites that do not and therefore they will be sharply selected against. Mites that only leave bees when they are in the colony should be more successful reproducing than mites that “joy ride”. I hope Cornell will answer the question with good empirical evidence. But in the absence of empirical data I find this whole concept highly dubious.


----------



## 1102009

Daisy,
I did the same test last year, I put a lively mite on piece of paper, I wanted to know if they actively move around looking for a bee. No, it just moved in circles and, if turned on back, was not able to turn around.
When I touched it with a toothpick, it jumped on and was most actively moving up.
So I come to the same conclusions.
I put one living mite into a small tupper box and it lived for 5 days without food.

So I assume that screened floors are a "treatment". Mites are not able to jump on bees once they are groomed off. And I`m often observing living mites on the boards under the screen.
I also watched ants "tasting" the mites but not carrying them away. So it´s possible the ants bite off some part of the mite by "tasting". 
This I want to watch more not to confuse this with mite biting behavior.


----------



## 1102009

double


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## 1102009

I´m so excited!
Erik Österlund invited me to work with him in his beeyards next summer for two weeks, do some grafting and watch him work, let me take part!
He will get me in contact with other breeders and beekeepers!
How much I will learn!


----------



## tpope

Congrats. I hope that it is everything that you want the experience to be and more.


----------



## squarepeg

:thumbsup:


----------



## gww

SiW.....


> I´m so excited!


Me too! You go learn all you can and then you can come back here and answer all my dumb questions for me.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

You will return home a much improved beekeeper. We learn by doing, more than talking. So make sure he let's you do everything, more than talk about it.


----------



## Michael Palmer

SiWolKe said:


> I´m so excited!
> Erik Österlund invited me to work with him in his beeyards next summer for two weeks,


Very nice guy. Good beekeeper. He spent a couple days and nights with me here in Vermont a number of years ago. Do say hi for me.


----------



## 1102009

Michael Palmer said:


> Very nice guy. Good beekeeper. He spent a couple days and nights with me here in Vermont a number of years ago. Do say hi for me.


Sure will. Thanks MP.
This makes me very happy. The first time I will have a real prof as mentor. 
Never had a chance so far to look at such tf combs and production colonies. He will teach me monitoring for mites and grafting.

OT, he looks forward to let me do all actions under his supervising. We always exchange mails and I actively take part on his blog. 
GWW Erik answered with my "dumb" question for a long time now so he knows me real good  makes me believe there are no dumb questions.

Believe me guys I will use this opportunity and work like a mule for him.


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## 1102009

double


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## 1102009

I had to move the other two AMM hives to my new location too.
A wasp spraying took place which meant that the many hornet colonies in the park only had my bees left to feed on.
Those hawked the whole day in front of the entrance to take a bee. The bees killed many but had too much losses and were not foraging. They just crowded and clustered behind the robber screens.
After moving them they started to bring pollen like crazy and are flying even in cold and windy weather. This means a lot of chilled bees.
I´m feeding .


----------



## gww

Siw......
I yesterday I saw a giant hornet at the water hole just hovering. Last year I had a hornets nest in the tree right beside the water place and right where me and the wife sit on the back porch. Come winter, I climbed a ladder and cut off that limb and threw the nest in the wood stove. I think mine are the big yellow japaneese hornets. They are big.
Always something hey.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

You mean this one?
Merde!


> V. mandarinia is the only species of social wasp known to apply a scent to direct its colony to a food source. The wasp secretes the chemical from the sixth sternal gland, also known as van der Vecht's gland. This behavior is observed during autumnal raids after the hornets begin hunting in groups instead of individually. The ability to apply scents may have arisen because the wasp relies heavily on honeybee colonies as its main food source. A single wasp is unable to take on an entire colony of bees because species such as Apis cerana have a well-organized defense mechanism. Honeybees swarm one wasp and flutter their wings to heat up the wasp and raise carbon dioxide to a lethal level. So, organized attacks are much more effective and easily devastate a colony of tens of thousands of honeybees.[18]


I´ve only watched the european kind which hunts single. In autumn they breed their queens and mate so they normally hunt the yellow jackets ( I believe you call them), which sit drunken on grapes and other fruit. Easy prey.
We have them everywhere and they are protected by law. 
Normally there is no problem, my single hive in garden is not molested even with the nest in my neighbors shack. They take the yellows of which we have masses too, nesting under the roof shingles.

But in wildlife park there are no yellow jackets anymore, all killed, and now the hornets are desperate. A big colony I saw in a willow tree nearby. Those breed 200 queens and many drones and need much protein.
Here is one more picture of two:


----------



## gww

No, I am guessing I am wrong on the japaneese thing because the internet says they live in the ground. I guess maby it is this one and probly the same as you are having issue with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_hornet
They sure are big though.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Met an ex- co worker today. 
He lost 2 of his 4 hives.
One because he made two parts of the queen with his hive tool while opening, the queen was under the ears of the top bar of the first frame.
This he had to combine now with one of his others.
The second because he culled all queen cells for three years in the production hive. The queen was not prolific anymore and the bees built a supercedure cell. 
No mating possible, too late in season. The bees here are in late fall modus. He has no nucs with queens and mated queens are not available here now.
He left them to their fate.
Maybe he should have stayed in our group to learn something about beekeeping.....?

My former Unit Hive is acting strange. Every day weather is fine there are clouds of bees doing orientation flights. They must be bursting with bees but m not checking anymore, they are closed up for winter and I´m feeding them.
They don´t like me opening the lid, it´s nice to have a feeder I can open without meeting them and be able to refill. They defend the syrup, they must have a whole armada of watchers right now.
Mite drop is reduced to one third of the former but still over thresholds watched here.

The AMM seem to like the new location. They forage on ivy and a mustard field. No clustering inside the robber screens anymore. No more danger waiting in front of the entrances. 

Weather is 8°C at night which means the bees have to cluster at night. Days are unpredictable. Flow is still fine and I`m seeing the "ghost bees" coming home loaded with nectar. Pollen is brought from morning to evening on the days the sun comes out.
The 3 hives I feed take it nicely. The hives are very wet though and it must be hard for the bees to dry the syrup. 

We had a terrible foen storm and I checked yesterday for fallen trees. I was lucky. Trees were down but not in my bee yards.

I spoke to Bartek( BeesOfPoland) today via mail and he said it was the worst season they ever had, climate concerned. He needed almost 600 pounds of sugar to feed his 40 hives to keep them from starving.


----------



## Oldtimer

That's only 15 pounds a hive, not a lot really.

Interesting about the bad season, last season was the worst beekeeping season in New Zealand, in living memory. Climate change maybe?


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> That's only 15 pounds a hive, not a lot really.


i shall tell him, he will be very happy. He has no harvest and still feeds.


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Interesting about the bad season, last season was the worst beekeeping season in New Zealand, in living memory. Climate change maybe?


Rather this influence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Niño


----------



## Oldtimer

We have El Ninos all the time, they cause good times in some areas and bad in others. The thing with last season was it was universally bad everywhere.


----------



## Fusion_power

> The thing with last season was it was universally bad everywhere.


 From July through September 2016 was the worst drought I've seen in this area.

Climate change is one of those polarized topics like religion and politics. It should not be. I can remember as a 14 year old going ice skating on a neighbor's pond. We have not had a freeze hard enough to ice his pond up since. That was 44 years ago. I remember frosts in September hard enough to kill back the grass and tree leaves. Now we have frost in late October and sometimes November. You can fool a lot of people about the climate changing, but it is hard to fool a farmer who works and lives in it every day. Same for a beekeeper.


----------



## 1102009

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-12-00034.1

We must be touched or indeed hurt by climate change to believe.

Actually there are many who look forward to plant tropic fruit in europe or need no heating system in their houses. ( They did not experience too high a temperature or a severe drought so far but will )


----------



## lharder

There is talk that the melting Greenland ice sheet may partially shut down the Gulf stream, in which case Europe may get very cold. At least until melt water subsides. 

The USDA has published an update of their growing zone map the in the last few years. A clear shift to warmer.


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## 1102009

deleted double post


----------



## 1102009

Two days ago I had to bear the criticism of my young friend and mentor because I feed too late in year and checked the hives in september.
This was once again my mistake because of inexperience. No year resembles the old season.
He believes checking must end in august, any disturbance of hive after this month a disturbance to resistance and welfare.




> Es ist nicht so, dass es mich nicht auch interessieren würde, aber ich werde dennoch auf gar keinen Fall eine solche Kontrolle machen um diese Zeit.
> Jede Kontrolle dieser Art gefährdet völlig unnötig eine wertvolle Königin und um diese Zeit gibt es kaum noch Hoffnung auf eine erfolgreiche Nachschaffung.
> Das Brutnest bleibt unangetastet so spät im Jahr, das gehört schon seit Jahren zu meinen Prinzipien und im Idealfall wird jetzt noch nicht mal mehr die Folie unterm Deckel abgenommen um die Verkittung nicht zu zerstören.
> 
> Wenn ein Volk noch mehrere Brutwaben hat, besteht noch ein Bedarf an Winterbienen, hat ein Volk nur noch wenig kann es gut sein, das bereits alles mehr oder weniger Winterfertig ist.
> Ein Ableger von diesem Jahr wird um diese Zeit wahrscheinlich noch mehr Brut haben als ein Altvolk mit alter Königin.


He said that a checking in september will jeopardize the queen nd it´s too late in year to have a success with supercedure.
His principle is not to disturb broodnest area now because of the closing up with propolis. Leave that be.
His answer to my curiosity about how many brood combs they still have was:
" if they still breed they need more winter bees. This will be the weak splits. The established hives with older queen will have less brood or no brood this time of year".

So he fed in august and fed up to 14-15kg into hives overwintering in one box Zander ( compare with langstroth)
20kg into those with two deeps. Those on 3 deeps have a deep full of honey on top. Most of his colonies need no feed.He only feeds up to this weight.
With this management there is some space left for fall flow.


----------



## gww

SiW....
I believe your mentors advice, it is not what I am going to do but I do believe it. Last year, I was pretty well done in and closed up by oct 1st. I figure my oct. is like your sept. I could be wrong but just reading your post it seems like that is when we reach as cold as you are earlier.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

I´m keeping bees for 4 years now and fall started differently each year.
Normally september has cold nights and warm days. Fall is earlier and earlier. 2015 november was the best forage month.

The only mistakes I never did were to let them starve. Some were isolated from food but i always had enough honey left to get them started.
So I listen to my mentors advise and will follow him.
As it was posted on BS listen to those who are successful and he is.

Now I fed back a third of my late summer honey harvest as syrup. We have a warm spell allowing the bees to forage for some hours a day on ivy, mustard and other plants still blooming.

Thanks, gww , for contributing here. It´s so nice to compare observations. All the theories won´t help you as much as practical observations do.


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## 1102009

deleted double post


----------



## 1102009

My friend, co worker, admin and mentor sent us a video of one of his bee yards today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsn40DpSqao&feature=youtu.be

His oldest sc tf hive is from 2012.
Until last year he had both tf and treated colonies in his yards. Now he sold all surplus treated bees and goes on only tf. Used two bc local commercial swarms he captured for introducing his purchased pure bred queens from Erik Österlund into and made three artificial swarms to introduce the queens he bred himself into and one for the third pure elgon. The introducings were all successful.

He feeds only in case of emergency, flow in his area is not very good. He leaves all honey they need and takes only surplus or nothing. It´s a quest to him.
So far losses are the same as with treated hives.


----------



## 1102009

4 kinds of pollen brought to the same hive 








Ghostbees:


----------



## Juhani Lunden

The beekeeper magazine "Der Buckfastimker " 3/17 came just out.

Dr. med. Uwe M. Lang from Dortmund writes about his project called "Standort-Beobachtungs-Projekt". The idea is keep eye on wild living bee colonies in Central Europe. The project is in its early phase, just 1 year behind, but it will be continued for several years. At the moment they have about 200 hives living in 150 different locations. Project is privatly funded and cooperation and help is wellcome.

Free living bee colonies found are divided into three groups:
- Swarms living near beekeepers sites
- Short time living colonies which are swarms from wild colonies
- Long living wild colonies

He describes some sites of the last group but ends his report that it is too early jet to say anything sure if they really exist. More observations are needed.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani, that´s wonderful! He was mentioned in our magazine but I lost contact.
Many thanks.
Do you have a link where i can find some information?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

He did not mention any Internet address, only these
Tel: 0231-409618
Mail: [email protected]


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## 1102009

Thanks again.
I will mail.
I´m nervous. I don´t want them to take tf bees away. With mail they will not know my location.


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## Oldtimer

Why worry. You are already world famous!


----------



## 1102009

Not famous enough to defend myself against the bee inspector who already contacted us because we imported swedish queens.
WWN informed him.
But he was happy about the health certificates.

OT why do you think I started IPM? The most important reason is to have bees left but one is to satisfy the law.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> ... we imported swedish queens.
> WWN informed him.
> But he was happy about the health certificates.



What is WWN?

(According to EU laws if you want to import or export bees you need to register as "Inner market agent" beforehand. It costs 98€ (at least here in Finland).

Then you need to inform the local veterinary, also beforehand, and have a place where you can keep the bees in garrantine so long the veterinary is able to check them.)


----------



## 1102009

World Wide Net.

Is this law for bee breeders or for all, customers and sellers? For queens moved or for whole colonies?
To move colonies we need a health certificate here which costs 10€. A visit from the vet and check included. Queens i don´t know about.

I have to educate myself about the queen movements. 
E.Ö. told me no problem in his case owning a health certificate so probably he is registered.

Thanks, Juhani, for giving this information.

I wrote to Dr. Lang. Let´s see what he answers.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Is this law for bee breeders or for all, customers and sellers? For queens moved or for whole colonies?


It concerns everybody importing or exporting "living animals, gametes or embryos" 

https://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/live_animals_en

https://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/traces_en

143 pages evening reading , to make it easier serach with word "bees"

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02010R0206-20130528&rid=4


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## 1102009

Thanks a lot, Juhani.
That´s really helpful!
Nice occupation on a rainy day.


----------



## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> OT why do you think I started IPM? The most important reason is to have bees left but one is to satisfy the law.


That would be the electric gadget? How are the results from that working out now?


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> That would be the electric gadget? How are the results from that working out now?


It reduced the mite drop 2/3 third on both hives, now the drop was an average of 37/ 42 a day for 3 weeks. But I don´t have evidence that it was the Unit, since these AMM hives are good mite fighters too.
I´m not counting anymore now because the time is when I refrain from disturbance. I watch the entrance though.
I will see if they survive winter and if not, if the dead hive is virus damaged.

Bee density is high and I see healthy orientation flights. Pollen is brought in, the new location seems to be much better.
No more defect bees, but I´m not visiting often, so I don´t really know.

The manufacturer is still working his bees in Sardinien so I have to wait for communication.
But what he tells on his website could be working.
There will be results of the professional testing which I will post here.


----------



## 1102009

double


----------



## 1102009

Three hives still want more winter bees 
Pict is one of the AMM descendants ( the one almost without mites).
Flow is ivy and field mustard.

View attachment 35860


View attachment 35861


----------



## gww

I have one plant of kale in my garden that the blooms look very close to that. I had always thought that mustard was an early blooming plant. I am not dissagreeing in any way just making conversation.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

I was always thinking it was rape fields but then informed myself that rape is early flow and mustard a late fertilizer here, they look almost the same to me if the field mustard is not the white one.
But I still could be wrong. :scratch:


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> The beekeeper magazine "Der Buckfastimker " 3/17 came just out.
> 
> Dr. med. Uwe M. Lang from Dortmund writes about his project called "Standort-Beobachtungs-Projekt". The idea is keep eye on wild living bee colonies in Central Europe. The project is in its early phase, just 1 year behind, but it will be continued for several years. At the moment they have about 200 hives living in 150 different locations. Project is privatly funded and cooperation and help is wellcome.
> 
> Free living bee colonies found are divided into three groups:
> - Swarms living near beekeepers sites
> - Short time living colonies which are swarms from wild colonies
> - Long living wild colonies
> 
> He describes some sites of the last group but ends his report that it is too early jet to say anything sure if they really exist. More observations are needed.


Juhani, thanks again. We are already mailing and he is very interested in our group. And the group in him.
This could mean a big step forward to do tf legally so I´m very very grateful to you.


----------



## squarepeg

:thumbsup:


----------



## 1102009

As Dr. Lang says there seem to be ferals in germany, some are even near me. Not near enough to use the drones though, but great news.
Whats common about them is that they use nesting places in stone walls very high from the ground.

The foundation will try to find out the DNA since the native black bees are extinct. he believes they are ferals from all kinds of races. Some have survived for years.

My group started a mind mapping about which circumstances will allow more health. This correlates extremely well with the work of Dr. Lang. I hope we can use our working together to publish what we will find out. Maybe he will do some speakings. 

This is what I wanted to start for 2 years now. I´m so very happy and excited!


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Great news, I´m so happy too! 


:thumbsup:


----------



## 1102009

Out of my e-mail exchange with Erik, whom I told about our new plans:


> I gave a friend beekeeper working in side the Elgon area having three wild colonies set up three years ago like this you describe. They haven’t been treated or manipulated for three years now, never been treated after they were made. One is a skep with only 20 liter of volume. One with three boxes of Lagstroth size, medium type (448x158 mm - frames). But foundationless, hey started from top and building long combs all the way down almost. Entrance is place on the middle of the second box. But bees clean the bottom anyway. The third is a warréhive. The warréhive is placed among 30 (!) other colonies. The skep is among 10 ordinary colonies. The Lang is on its own 2 km from other in the forest. They had only heather honey for winter last winter and had a har time because of that, but made it. I guess they will produce good drones as there has to be a lot epigenetic adaption rat has taken place that our vrigins can benefit from.
> 
> Exciting yes
> 
> Erik


Sorry about the language but we are no native speakers. You will understand, I believe.


----------



## gww

SiW.....
I understand it perfectly.
Thanks for posting.
gww


----------



## 1102009

double


----------



## 1102009

One of my co-worker has a colony in a hollow apple tree for two years now, never treated, not isolated from his tf and surrounding treated hives.
Entrance was very big ( a branch) but the bees closed it with a comb.
Now a woodpecker opened the tree top to bottom and he must close this or they will freeze.

For you members of VivaBiene here the pict. links:

http://www.vivabiene.de/g27p440-.html#viewport

http://www.vivabiene.de/g27p439-Wabe.html#viewport

http://www.vivabiene.de/g27p441-.html#viewport


----------



## 1102009

I got it yesterday as an e-mail. I was not able to load all.
Here they are, enjoy them.
Remember, such scenarios are very rare with us ...


----------



## 1102009

The Unit hive absconded and is a varroa crash.

The queen was left on the top bar, the rest of brood tried to hatch but died doing it and some hygienic behavior was in vain in the end. The cells are filled with white residues from mite poop and cocons.

They left 8 honey pollen combs and brood combs with honey domes and the other hives did not rob the honey. They use the flow ( mostly ivy).















Later we motorcycled to the small town with the wall where two years ago a honeybee colony lodged. The wall was renovated, so no bees anymore.

But we enjoyed a wonderful trip.


----------



## Oldtimer

Well sorry to hear about the hive.

But got to say, the third pict, of the landscape, is lovely. You live in a beautiful country .


----------



## gww

SiW....
I echo oldtimers post. Feel the same on both counts, sorry and lovely.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

double


----------



## 1102009

Today we visited the two places Dr. Lang told me about. There should be the ferals, and actually, they were present!
The middle age walls and beams seem to be a very good nesting place for them.
How exciting! Don´t laugh about me, I´ve never seen any ferals here. 

One colony was very yellow, near is a beeyard which throwed the swarm eventually.
The hole in the wall near the yellow flowers is the second place.

View attachment 36060


View attachment 36061


----------



## gww

SiW.....
I guess you see bees where you see them. I would never think to look in rocks.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww,
it´s actually a war tower built in the year 1200 out of rocks. Much space inside.


----------



## 1102009

The beautiful fall weather will go on until november but the nights and days are getting colder.

The landscape is 25km distance from me in the area the ferals are found. It´s an old volcanic area with many middle age buildings, castles and such. This area my husband and me plan to search for feral honeybees next spring.

In the mornings fog covers the landscape and rises at midday, so now the bees can use only 2-4 hours to fly.

Flow is still fine and in my garden the rosemary starts to bloom, this happens over winter for the last years now, I don´t know why. The older and ragged bees work it like crazy.
Ivy`s over but mustard fields available.


----------



## gww

We finaly got rain and have not had a frost yet though it is coming soon. There is nothing around me except very small patches of smart weed in yard edge areas. Believe me, even over 8000 acres there would not be much. I thought stuff would last till frost but guess that shows what I know.
Good for you.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Yesterday, chatting with Erik Österlund I asked him to find out what happened to Kirk Webster since I wanted to know.
Sure enough he promptly called him and permitted me to share the information:


> Hello Sibylle
> 
> I talked to Kirk today. He is doing well. This year was one of the two years since he started being treatment free that he couldn’t sell nucs in the spring but had to use all of them to climb back in numbers. He is back in numbers this autumn. And the bees look much better this autumn than last. Last season ended with a long and dry period that made the bees getting no pollen when preparing for winter. That made big problems for more than him.
> He is the mentor for 5 new beekeepers that are treatment free from the start as beekeepers. Two of them are making their living on bees for their families.
> This information is nothing to need hiding but can be shared. Tell the forum you want that you have got it from me. He has just come home from having lectures in Vancouver and he will soon go to an organic farming conference.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Erik


----------



## gww

SiW.....
Thanks for posting.
gww


----------



## 1102009

Last week of fall weather, too cold for flow even if the day temperature raises to 15-18°C.

All hives start some traffic when the sun warms up the hives, the AMM on their shady place are protected from humidity and wind much better than the others.
Seems they go for propolis.

The second mite infested treated AMM hive is alive but very weak.
The strongest traffic is at my single garden hive which is amazing because those have many neighbors and almost no survivor genetics. Hope these clouds are not robbers but they seem to be friendly and traffic normal.
But these have the best flow of all.

The pict is the strongest of my AMM flying at 8°C.









We have a new member in our forum who is an organic commercial beekeeper with a label certificate. He stopped treating completely. He has 20-40 hives. He plans a symposium in Vienna for all tf beekeepers in central europe.
Some very interesting people will speak, Sol Parker among them.
I believe we will learn much from this member. He is from Austria.


----------



## Oldtimer

Tell Sol you know me. That will get a reaction .


----------



## 1102009

If he comes.
I´m not better than you. 
I´m not submissive.


----------



## 1102009

If you see an evening sky looking like that you know it will be a frosty night.
So it is, -1 to -4°C at night, days are sunny with 12-18°C, the bees are able to use 2-4 hours a day to be active and still there is some pollen from the mustard fields, which withstand frost.
The dead bees I find are not many and not damaged. But I don´t know how strong the hives are. There is humming though.

This morning with 6°C we installed the mouse guards.


----------



## Stephenpbird

I installed mouse guards as well today. I also had a big scare, for some reason a few hives are very very lite considering they were fed syrup. I have some honey frames kept for late winter which I will add this weekend. I hope the winter is kind to you and your bees.


----------



## 1102009

Stephenpbird said:


> I installed mouse guards as well today. I also had a big scare, for some reason a few hives are very very lite considering they were fed syrup. I have some honey frames kept for late winter which I will add this weekend. I hope the winter is kind to you and your bees.


Thanks. Best wishes to you too 

I have not checked weight since september because we had a nice fall flow and good weather for many weeks. I hope it´s ok. 
I will not disturb the bees now because they sealed the hives with propolis. In case of an emergency I probably would or, if they would be light a sugar brick may be of help.

What does light mean to you? How strong were your colonies when you last checked and how much food stores do they have now?


----------



## Stephenpbird

SiWolKe said:


> What does light mean to you? How strong were your colonies when you last checked and how much food stores do they have now?


I aim for 12 kgs of stores in a single and 16 kgs in a double. Anything less than that is lite.
In this case the hives have less than half their target weight of stores. I think the very warm weather we are having at the moment has kept them brooding at a much higher rate than one would normally expect. Most hives are strong going into winter this year some have over five frames of brood. Since your not that far away from me I thought I would give you a heads up.


----------



## 1102009

> Stephenpbird said:
> 
> 
> 
> I aim for 12 kgs of stores in a single and 16 kgs in a double. Anything less than that is lite.
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, thats not much! Well depends on your system. I go for 15 kg minimum and an aim of 20-25kg max to have something left in a cold and rainy springtime.
> In my one box dadant this is 5 frames of capped honey min. and the domes.
> 
> 
> 
> In this case the hives have less than half their target weight of stores. I think the very warm weather we are having at the moment has kept them brooding at a much higher rate than one would normally expect.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Put in sugar bricks. There is not much foraging and nectar can´t be processed now.
> 
> 
> 
> Most hives are strong going into winter this year some have over five frames of brood. Since your not that far away from me I thought I would give you a heads up.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Mine are not as strong, 2-3 frames with brood but I don´t think they breed much because they bring not much pollen.
I hope they stay like that for the next 6 weeks until winter solstice is over. 

Yes you are near. If you want to visit, be welcome.  PM me.
Thanks for the head up!


----------



## 1102009

Today at 10 ° C and heavy rain we have again tested the slide boards.
Actually, I do not want to disturb, but I was not sure if the wax moths nest between the slider and the varroa floor.
Next year the bees will have closed, accessible floors.

Last exam of the slide was September 2nd-7th, or August 12th.

Stock map:
AMM:
86mb1: 4 half frame brood hatched, many dead mites moldy in dried moisture, no light wax. Hums.
86mb1a: 4 whole frames brood hatched, number of mites ok, guardian bee active, no light wax. Strong hive, humming.
86mbaa: treated hive, 5 whole rows of dark wax with a lot of mite drop, weak colony, but still alive. No light wax.
Elgon:
EF1: 4 half frames hatched brood, nest nest opposite entrance, few mites, little light wax, buzzes.
EF1a: 4 half-frames hatched brood, little mites, more light wax, buzzes.
EF2: hatched 4.5 half frame brood, little mites, no light wax, buzzes.
EF2a: hatched 4 half frame brood, mite drop higher, but acceptable, brood nest shifted to the left, much light wax, buzzes.
EF2Ca natural swarm: 4 half-frames hatched brood, few mites, much light wax remains, buzzes. 2 wax moth larvae under the slide.
Carnica:
2bab1: 3 whole frame brood hatched, many mites, little light wax, buzzes.
2bab2: little hatched brood (air traffic was strong, break time?), Little mites, no light wax, buzzes.
Apideavolk, later split: hatched 3 whole frames of brood, many mites, some light wax, hums.

Volk 1 (Carnica artificial swarm, single located,): 5 almost whole frame brood hatched (last test August 12), moderate mite case, no light wax, buzzes.

Bright wax residues mean for me a consumption of supplies.
I do not know when the bees hatched.
I don´t know the bee numbers.


----------



## trishbookworm

Sorry if I missed a post on SiWolKe using a dadant square hive - I would love to hear some details on how that hive works through the seasons, and for swarm control, and for adding honey supers. 

For example, details that I would like to hear - for overwintering - do you have the bees in only the dadant square hive, or is there a honey super on that too for additional stores?

Or we can move this to another thread.


----------



## 1102009

Hi Trish,
my reasons to use this box are
- just enough space for a one season established colony ( split or artificial swarm in spring until overwintering)
- no parted broodnest
- no moving around or shifting of brood boxes
- to be able to put a medium under for different reasons and a medium on top for honey, still work then without exchanging whole boxes

overwintering:
I don´t know yet. So far I overwintered with a two deep arrangement ( one deep brood, one honey) and some on one deep. The one deep seems to be better so this winter I reduced them on one deep space, as long as bee density was high I had exchanged the medium on top which was full of honey with one empty with foundations to give more space. They drew some frames but I took the medium off in august because I wanted to make them build higher honey domes in the deep for winter, which they did promptly. 
Still, this reduced broodspace so I hope they have enough winter bees.
I had a strong brood reducing in september, I don´t know why. Never saw this. It could mean a strong mite problem or just adapting to my location. Mite count differs, but no correlation to this.

I´m not planning swarm control, or, perhaps you might say I want them to swarm but want to control the time so I may be able to catch the swarm.
What I know is they will swarm if they do not get a second deep in spring. That´s when weather and flow is good and they have no mite problems.

With the dadant constellation you can do a very lazy beekeeping, putting a deep on top in spring and if they have more than 8 brood combs just take it off as a split.
If they are strong again put a medium on top which is harvested in summer if everything develops fine. The big broodnest will have enough stores so you must not feed and the bees are able to store again for winter.
So you have only taken surplus.

My difficulties were that once I made a small split with queen but used not enough bees so the queenless swarmed the moment they had the opportunity. Flow was very good and they had all the foragers. Never saw such big juicy queen cells. This hive was in this case, splitted twice and I had to feed.

So my plans are:
use one deep and two mediums, one under, one on top. 
The bottom ones for brood, medium for drone brood and pollen ( with empty frames), deep for all kind, mixing small cell foundations cut smaller with empty frames. I will post pictures of that later in year in this thread.
The top medium for honey, probably with using an excluder.
Taking of the top medium in summer to have the stores in broodnest area on the sides and domes. All stores for winter can be placed there (25kg) and still some space for brood ( 12 frames and divider), frames hold 3-5kg each, but, as said before I want to have higher domes, therefore the medium under.

I hope I made myself clear but if not, please be free to ask more informations in this thread. It´s nice to reflect ones managements.
Sibylle

Edit, one more:
I hope to not shift combs. I want to better evaluate the colonies. In my eyes this dadant system has the advantage to keep you from shifting frames because you use different sizes and to have the right space for just one colony.


----------



## Fusion_power

Trish, There are several threads discussing the square Dadant hive and how management is different. I'll add that the major advantage is not having two or more hive bodies stacked up for winter. One box is more than enough. There are a lot fewer frames to inspect when going through a colony. There are a few disadvantages such as weight when full of honey and being harder to blow bees out of deeper frames using a bee blower. Overall, I like them a lot and have no regrets for changing over from Langstroth equipment.


----------



## 1102009

For example this, started by Dar:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ntages-and-disadvantages&highlight=dadant+box


----------



## 1102009

One of my customers, who bought some bottles of my honey, wants to have my surplus, his family is totally excited, the grandfather was a beekeeper.

I learned about honey processing in the fall, but I did not like the fact that the honey is not exactly filled in the bottle as it flows out of the honeycomb, I like it cold-spun and not stirred.

I remembered that as a child, I loved honey that was very coarse-crystalline, that is, coarse crystals in sweet juice. I loved it eating spoonfuls, not on bread.

My little harvest differs very much among itself.
A few glasses are creamy without me stirring the honey or using a starter , a few glasses have remained liquid, some have very large sugar crystals.

Since I have always extracted only very small quantities, one can almost say, it is flow honey, but I will not let it check at a lab. Colours differ from almost white to dark brown.

Also I still have the honey from the brood areas of ​​my dead colonies, the comb which I did not need to feed or wanted to melt. I cut out the breeding areas before spinning (these honeycombs are sold to the locksmith, I am now well equipped and would like to have more natural comb drawn).

The brood area honey is full of pollen grains and now I sell it much more expensive, because it is so sought after in my small circle of customers.

There are many allergic persons because most people here live too hygienically. The honey strengthens their immune system and tastes a little bitter, which is liked here, thoughts are bitter means healthy. Well, it is!
A strong trend is purchasing local food which is a reason also.


----------



## Michael Bush

>thoughts are bitter means healthy.

Usually the strong honeys are dark honeys and the research has shown that dark honeys have a lot more anti oxidants.


----------



## 1102009

Yesterday, I spoke with a very experienced beekeeper, to whom I have expressed my reservations that in September my colonies had reduced the brood so much.
He said that was a good thing , but I did not quite understand the connections between these developments yet.
He said in the late autumn, only bees should be able to fly out who want to die. No foraging needs should be seen.

What I still have in mind is that usually the winter supplies are stored while the main flow is on from May to summer and then the breeding is done only by what´s available, the stores are taboo and the bees are based on this current small flow in their brood amount. Which behavior could be influenced by feeding small amounts of syrup.

He is of the opinion that the large fall feeding makes the bees short-lived. He is in favor of feeding small quantities over and over again, if the re is a draught.
He said that it is detrimental if the bees are late in storing flow, which did not exist in the past and have ivy and late blooming plants and work them, whether for breeding or storage.

In autumn, they should rest more and not attack their protein body, since they are no longer as long-lived by environmental influences as before (or by weakening by viruses, see varroa).

And he said, of the winter bee, which are already hatched from July on, should not be sent to forage by the colony bees in late fall, because then they are lost as winter bees .. And he said the Winter bees can not be distinguished by the appearance of the summer bees, that is imagination (that the fat look).

I am curious to what extent that is true, because I still have too little experience for such connections.
However, the collapse of my hive(s) confirmed this in fall.


----------



## 1102009

Yesterday, I realized once again how important it is to make friends with all kinds of beekeepers and not just join a single group, be it in social media or privately.

So far, our group has managed to accept and listen to the different opinions, even though everyone is going their own way at the end.
Only in this way can one get an overview of the bee scene and recognize one's own possibilities.

I can only advise to be open minded, but you need to be civilized and self-confident. Keep your dreams but get the informations.


----------



## gww

SiW


> He said in the late autumn, only bees should be able to fly out who want to die. No foraging needs should be seen.


Mine don'texactly seem to be going out in masses till the first few warm ups in feb. Every day that it gets warm enough though, I do see bees out gethering water.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww,
he meant pollen to be foraged en masse.


----------



## Fusion_power

> I can only advise to be open minded, but you need to be civilized and self-confident. Keep your dreams but get the informations.


 The most important thing for a beekeeper is to be adaptable. I could not keep bees today the way I kept them in 1969. Acting hard headed, stubborn, and inflexible is a sure way to become an ex-beekeeper.


----------



## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> The most important thing for a beekeeper is to be adaptable. I could not keep bees today the way I kept them in 1969. Acting hard headed, stubborn, and inflexible is a sure way to become an ex-beekeeper.


Well Dar, I´m stubborn when it comes to be chemical treatment free, hope you are too now and in future times. 
But not to hive managements and learning.
I saw that you are very occupied with hive equipments, very good. :applause:

By the way the new co-worker is a dadant beekeeper, I´m looking forward to see his colonies. Saw some of his honey combs, very good looking and tasty.
Was introduced to a new kind of tasting honey, dipping christmas cookies!


----------



## 1102009

update on the hives

craziest weather. from an arctic spell we now went to a tropical one, raise of temperature 18°C, around zero at night, days sunny.















I asked for a day`s holiday today and it was given so i went to the outyards to check on the hives.

One more AMM seems to be dead, I will open it on the weekend. Many mites on the boards of the living so the absconded bees could have begged in, but I rather believe mine robbed the neighbor because before moving them one hive was almost mite less. And this was the hive which robbed last spring one of my weak. 
This neighbor treats and took away three of his 12 hives last week, they seemed to be dead. That´s life, maybe mine killed one but now I´ve got the mites.

The boards look like that, some brood still hatches.








With the carni and elgons the boards look the same except one which has no debris but some mites and is silent. This I will take apart too. It´s the oldest carni queen so maybe a queen issue.
All others are living and active in some way, housecleaning, orientating or doing cleansing flights. Some have much traffic but not all, but I learned not to evaluate from this.

The debris with the elgons and carni descendants look the same as with the AMM except there are not many mites, only one hive has more mites dropping.
The elgon F1 once again clusters away from the entrance to the northwest like they did last winter, the others cluster to the southeast.

Every day is a happy day when bees are flying.


----------



## 1102009

We offered to Erik Österlund to tell our story now that we use his queens.
Here it is.

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


----------



## squarepeg

nice link! looking forward to reading through it later, many thanks sibylle.


----------



## 1102009

Checked my "dead" hives today and realized they are not dead, there is something still living inside those hives and the debris do not tell of robbery. I´ve never witnessed a brood brake of some weeks but who knows, it´s the time of year.

Since we have temperature around zero again I did not open and because of the wax bridges I could not see through my feeder if there is something clustering inside.
My husband says he hears something, I´m kinda deaf compared to him and the highway is near, drowning all sounds.

As MB says: if you don´t know what to do, do nothing. You will not create a problem then.


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## gww

SiW.....
That hive sounds like my tiny warre hive. I keep writing it off and it keeps showing signs of life at the entrance. I have a few other questionable hives, heck, all of them are questionable but the warre has been dead at least three/four times by my count. On my hive not yours, It may not be dead yet but it will be. I saw some dead bees on the ground around it and they looked to me to have short adobemeans though the wings seem to be ok. I never look too close though.

Yours sounds like good news to me and so good luck.
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

About this time last year we had a few warm days, I popped open a "dead" nuc that had not been flying the last few trips to the yard (when all outher haves had been flying) and want to see if there were any stores I could redistubute...They promptly chased me out of the yard as I wan't wearing any gear, and hadn't been gental about the opening, not dead, they had just proplized the entrance shut and were hanging out


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## 1102009

gww msl
it would be a miracle if they still live, some weeks ago mite drop was 150-200 a day and now only 3 mites in 2 weeks and a little wax debris, i really don´t know but if comes a warmer spell I will see.


----------



## tpope

I think that they are still there Si... I hope so anyways..


----------



## 1102009

Why thanks, tpope


----------



## Michael Bush

>As MB says: if you don´t know what to do, do nothing. You will not create a problem then.

I have to give that credit to Richard Taylor.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#donothing


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## 1102009

We will have some frosty nights and days so I moved + - 200 frames with used comb starter stripes and 2 deeps with capped honey stores outside to freeze the wax moths if there are any.

Checked the elgon/carni bee yard today, all hum even the weakest still hums. Interesting that the one colony is still alive with the low temp. Mite drop was far over my threshold of 30 a day in fall.


----------



## 1102009

I have two more losses.

The control hive to the ultrasonic unit treated hive is gone. I used the unit on this too. But on both it was too late, mite infestation was too high and it was too late in season or this works not.
Typical varroa crash. I pulled out some pupa to confirm the diagnosis. The pict looks like starving, but no. 

















The second is the colony with the old Carni-Russian- Hybrid Queen, the oldest queen at the yard. It was a queen failure. No brood and a dwindling hive. 
I should have taken care of them in fall probably, but in september she was still laying. I´m too new still to estimate some situations. Maybe I should have made a combine.

The three colonies which are gone are those above the 30 mites per day threshold ( in summer). So now I will see if I have to go back on the mite number threshold, if more crashes.. Good to have monitored and journaled.

Down to 10 hives and 30kg of honey combs stored for emergencies. And two queens for the alcohol bait liquid. The queen failure colony had no queen inside.


----------



## gww

Siw....Very sorry for your loss. Good luck in the rest of the year. Are all your hives nucs, maby you should try a few monster hives. I know what seeley says and also that you breed mites to get big hives also. I also know that when I mentioned split my first year that the guy I got the hive from said big and strong gives a better chance in his eyes. You know I don't know personally cause I am new but I figure to have some of both (big and small) as I go along and figure I am going to find out.
Good luck
gww
Ps of course big or small, a hive has to have a queen.


----------



## 1102009

Well, I´m still under the average treated or not.
My nucs are very strong, because I only splitted once. The losses are bond losses and the only thing that makes me angry is that the manufacturer now told me I used the Ultrasonic Unit in a wrong way. ( Was my IPM to keep bee numbers).
Why did he not tell me before? I sent him a picture of how I installed it in late summer. So he could have told me then. Makes me wonder....if he is really interested in positive results. He is still not contacting me personally but through his secretary.
But I installed it in the right way. It´s just that it may be it must be used the whole year through. Not for me. I should have taken out capped brood before winter breeding and feed. The lazy ways do not work!


----------



## gww

SiW....


> The lazy ways do not work!


The lazy way better work or I am toast.

I have no sience behind my feeling but my gut says about the frequency unit that it is like some one else said in this thread "snake oil". It is fine to be on the front range of trying new things but I would have to see it catching on with everybody and even then I would be skeptical. It is sorta like the things you put on front of your car that is supposed to help keep you from hitting deer. I am sure the deer don't like the sound but they also still have a pretty big incentive to cross a road. That does not mean that I want it to fail for you but more that I would have to see it to believe it.
Good luck
gww


----------



## 1102009

Today we had strong influence of foen storm, and the thermometer climbed to 14 ° C in the sun.
I start the new year with 10 living colonies.

At the 2 AMM I made the strange discovery that they did not have any debris on the Varroa board sometimes a week long, and then, when I wanted to open them, wax cappings were on the board again, so they are still there.
The wax debris is not hinting at robbery, looks like small amounts of brood hatching.

The Elgons and Carnica-Elgon-Primorskii hybrids are all still alive.

The colony in the garden sunbathed today on the box and single bees foraged on the winter jasmine, which flowers.
The AMM, which are placed in shade, were not particularly active, a few bees flew.
The Elgon hybrids were very active, clearing out the dead and being called back by their sisters, which fanned pheromones.

Actually it was the typical weather for robbing today, but luckily none took place.


----------



## squarepeg

great to hear sibylle, thanks for the update.


----------



## gww

It is supposed to be -5 degrees F. tommorrow morning and it looks now like no cleansing flight for what looks like it is going to be right on a month long though they change the long range forcast quite often. I see one 40 degree day with rain forcast over the next ten days. We had one inch of snow on x-mas that is still on the ground. It will be interresting what I will find the next flying day. Good for you SiW...
Cheers
gww


----------



## Michael Bush

-17 F here this morning...


----------



## gww

Luckily it is still seventy degrees where my lazy boy sits in the house.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Michael Bush said:


> -17 F here this morning...


Wow, hope your electricity still works and your aquarium heater is on. Or do your bee hives stand side by side to keep warm, isolated? How many nucs do you overwinter?
Still, you are posting so no smoke signs necessary 

Please update how your bees will do.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Wow, hope your electricity still works

Currently.

> and your aquarium heater is on.

I don't currently have any heaters on the bees.

> Or do your bee hives stand side by side to keep warm, isolated?

That is the plan.

> How many nucs do you overwinter?

Right now I have: 
19 nucs (2 eight frame medium boxes)
11 small hives (3 eight frame medium boxes)
14 full hives (4 eight frame medium boxes)

So I guess I would call that 19 nucs though 11 are in between...

> Still, you are posting so no smoke signs necessary 

I never learned how to do smoke signals... but no, not necessary. It's not a record cold. Just cold. I suppose for all you civilized people, -17 F is -27 C. It was that cold yesterday morning as well. At least the wind isn't blowing, which is unusual here.


----------



## 1102009

Michael,
do you have snow?


----------



## odfrank

Low of 51f this morning, we will hit 62f later, possible emergency queen born 12/20 in this mini mating nuc, drones coming and going 12/31. Dry, sunny, warm December, no rain, substantial eucalyptus flow in progress. Possible rain this week. Glad to live in California.


----------



## gww

Odfrank
I bet your temp feels cool to you. The next time our temps are like that it is going to feel really hot. In my area, 50 degrees in oct-nov feels cold but 50 degrees in feb feels like swimming wether. Nice picture.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

Michael Bush said:


> -17 F here this morning...


I've never been to such a low temperature. Do not get cold, Michael.

I think this lecture comes on purpose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pok9lAs-QR0


----------



## Michael Bush

>do you have snow?

There are a few inches on the ground right now. Not much. It's the first accumulation from about a week ago. Maybe four inches. Most winters we don't get much snow. Some winters we get a lot of snow. Maybe not by Michigan standards... but a lot more than usual happens every few years. With the wind that means getting really bad drifting sometimes.


----------



## 1102009

Please notice:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...e-quot-Treatment-free-beekeeping-quot-Austria

organized by Norbert Dorn and his wife.

Norbert is an experienced beekeeper himself and a member of our forum www.VivaBiene.de

We hope to see you in Austria!


----------



## Oldtimer

Don't know a whole lot about Austria, but when I was very young I learned a lot about bees from the writings of Karl Von Frisch, an Austrian.

Karl Von Frisch made huge advances in understanding bee behaviour, I read everything he wrote that I could get my hands on. He was persecuted under Hitler and that somehow made me think he was an old dead guy, I did not know that at the time he was still alive, if I had known that I would have loved to have corresponded with him.


----------



## 1102009

Oldtimer said:


> Don't know a whole lot about Austria, but when I was very young I learned a lot about bees from the writings of Karl Von Frisch, an Austrian.
> 
> Karl Von Frisch made huge advances in understanding bee behaviour, I read everything he wrote that I could get my hands on. He was persecuted under Hitler and that somehow made me think he was an old dead guy, I did not know that at the time he was still alive, if I had known that I would have loved to have corresponded with him.


He was a great guy.
Here is some poetry he wrote:

>Man in his thirst for knowledge
Minds and researches his life long,
Then to dispel:
Basically, he can not understand anything.<


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> He was a great guy.
> Here is some poetry he wrote:
> 
> >Man in his thirst for knowledge
> Minds and researches his life long,
> Then to dispel:
> Basically, he can not understand anything.<


Wow, I did not know he wrote poetry. I also read some of his bee books.
How does that poem go in German language?


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Wow, I did not know he wrote poetry. I also read some of his bee books.
> How does that poem go in German language?


>Der Mensch in seinem Wissensdrang
Sinniert und forscht sein Leben lang,
Um dann verzichtend einzusehn:
Im Grunde kann er nichts verstehn.<

His pupil was Martin Lindauer who went on with the research.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Beautiful. Thanks!

Do you know the old painting
it is worth looking 
with a beekeeper sitting by
and looking thoughtfully 
at this beehive made of straw
hand under his jaw? 

The poem of Fritz got my thoughts into that. It reminds me of you.


----------



## 1102009

A co-worker and I visited an environmental fair today.

https://www.naturschutztage.de/programm/samstag.html

That was very exciting. I met a guy who did a speaking about beekeeping, mostly he talked about Seeley, but what was great he offered me a place to use for my splits if I want to move them to another location.

We listened to some interesting and even scary lectures about what happens in agriculture and genetic science, speakers were professionals.
Some picts, the first is Prof. Jürgen Tautz.


----------



## 1102009

Newest stand of the conference:

http://naturwabenbau.de


----------



## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> http://naturwabenbau.de


from the link:

"Treatment Free Beekeeping has again become the norm in many countries. At this conference scientists and beekeepers will inform you about their successfull methods."

the conference has an impressive list of speakers scheduled. wish i could go!


----------



## lharder

Me too though my German is very poor.


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## 1102009

WeatherMan said winter will start, not as cold as last year ( or US  ) but frosty nights and some days below zero.

So today I checked by pulling the varroa board and I checked the entrances if they were blocked and my husband listened to the sounds.

Of the 2 AMM Hybrids one seems to be gone. I will check again in a few days and if the state is the same, open the hive.
The other, which had no debris for 2 weeks, now is resurrected. Alive but mite infested. It looks as if the cluster is not even very small!

The local big cell IPM mutts in my garden are alive but very, very weak. It was a strong hive in fall.

The elgon F1 and Elgon-Carni hybrids are all alive, the natural swarm cluster is the strongest in this bee yard. The F1 has almost no mites.

No entrance was blocked and the floor has not much dead bees. So now the hardest time will come when the clusters must be strong enough to keep warm the first small broodnest areas and move to stores.


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## gww

SiW...
I am pretty sure you have a good chance with those small clusters keeping warm enough. I know mine could still die but also that the small cluster made it through one strech of cold. Think positive. One of mine is real small when I shut them up for winter.

I never clean the bottom boards for my bees cause I never get in the hives from oct on but my bees are cleaning the heck out of their own hives and carrying a bunch of dead off.

If they do live, it will be neat to see what happens with the ones you noticed that are very mite infected. If they come out of it on thier own, it might be a big surprize for you. If they don't, you at least do know they are mite infected and so autopsy should not hold many surprizes. I am hopeing they come out of it.
Good luck and if you type it, I will read it even if I don't comment or if my comments are dumb.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW...
> I am pretty sure you have a good chance with those small clusters keeping warm enough. I know mine could still die but also that the small cluster made it through one strech of cold. Think positive. One of mine is real small when I shut them up for winter.
> 
> I never clean the bottom boards for my bees cause I never get in the hives from oct on but my bees are cleaning the heck out of their own hives and carrying a bunch of dead off.
> 
> If they do live, it will be neat to see what happens with the ones you noticed that are very mite infected. If they come out of it on thier own, it might be a big surprize for you. If they don't, you at least do know they are mite infected and so autopsy should not hold many surprizes. I am hopeing they come out of it.
> Good luck and if you type it, I will read it even if I don't comment or if my comments are dumb.
> Cheers
> gww


Think positive :thumbsup:

I´m not cleaning the floors too, I only check the entrance. Because I have closed floors now, the bees will suffocate if the small entrance is blocked. But to me this would be a bad sign, the bees too weak to die outside or the house bees too weak to pull them out. Our cold spells are not very long so every one or two weeks some action should be possible.

This my beekeeping methods still is a kind of research.
Closed floors? Good or bad? So far so good. It´s the first year I did this.
Locations? I never thought this would be so important, but it is. Much difference. Mostly because of drifting between hives of nearby bee yards.
Bee race? It looks as if there is no chance for weak lines ( mutts or race) which are not regressed, selected ( live or die, or beekeeper) or bred to have some resistance. 
Last year I posted that our local mutts, multiplied from treated hives and evaluated for honey harvest and gentleness for many years, must be kept for 2 or 3 seasons using IPM, and even this will not be of much help. 
These colonies can´t stand one season without help of treatments. Seems to be true.
In spring, when I see what survives, I will reflect a little more on this and update. I will tell what happens in the yards of my co-workers too, if they tell me.
It´s hard on some people to admit to failures. 
But in my eyes without making public failures or success or mistakes you do there is no learning.

gww,
I´m happy for you to comment. Your comments are never dumb, rather they are a big help.


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## 1102009

I saw yesterday that my neighbor farmer cut some trees which usually means to change from silage grassland to corn, so to make space for bigger machines.

So I called him this morning and prepared to virtually fall on my knees and beg him not to use chemicals or to time spraying to bee daywork.

But I did not have to humble myself as I came to know, his son took over the farming and he was the most kind and friendly guy, who was aware of the problems our bees have today!

So my elgon hybrids will not be exposed to necotinoides much and he will spray in the evening if he must.

Sometimes a girl can be lucky :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:, nice I have some honey bottles left to make a gift to him. We will meet soon.


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## 1102009

Today was big deadout day, I arrived at 50% loss.

All Carniolans are dead ( the descendants of the "so-called" resistant breed and the one local mutt), which is the colony in the garden too, with the good start as an artificial swarm and the culling of the first bait comb, the queen does not seem to have laid for a long time. Only the natural swarm of Elgon-Carniolan-Hybrids still lives, but has mites. If it survives, it will be turned over to Elgon probably.

Of the AMM lives only the colony that I did not open most of the year because of burr comb, it flew today and does not seem to be too weak.

The diagnosis is: 1 typical varroa damage, 3 queens problems, one of them was probably due to virus, a long time waning, the local mutts in my garden, what amazed me there was a lot of very small bees I call summer bees, and no winter bees, or the winter bees had no protein. But much stores left, pollen also.

All elgons live and seem to be in good condition.
To feel better, I filled the feeders with moistened sugar. They also came straight to the show.

All hives still had a lot of honey in it. The varroa crash had small brood areas with bees trying to hatch on which small clusters sat dead on three frames, the clusters were isolated from food.
One queen problem hive had all bees remaining spread single on all combs. Looked weird.

I don´t feel good taking all that honey, but, quoting MB, they still were alive when that honey was made. I rather have honey from living colonies but I´m grateful they left something to use as food combs and for me.


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## squarepeg

thank you for the update sibylle. it sounds like the elgons are showing the most promise. aren't those what erik is working with?

i brought in 4 more dead out hives myself this weekend. This puts me at 33% loss for this winter which is somewhat higher than it has been. i'll update my thread once i've had a chance to go through them.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> thank you for the update sibylle. it sounds like the elgons are showing the most promise. aren't those what erik is working with?
> 
> i brought in 4 more dead out hives myself this weekend. This puts me at 33% loss for this winter which is somewhat higher than it has been. i'll update my thread once i've had a chance to go through them.


Yes it´s the combination breed he created:


> But it wasn't easy to go to Africa either and make a new combination breed.
> Anyway here I am with what I call Elgon bees.





> From these pure monticola queens, a new generation pure monticola queens were reared and inseminated with Swedish drone semen from gentle Italian and gentle Buckfast colonies, giving progeny with 50% monticola inheritance. Also, Swedish queens, Italian and Buckfast, were inseminated with the original monticola semen in order to get the reciprocal mating. F1-queens were then reared and inseminated with Swedish drone semen, gentle Italian and Buckfast, producing progeny with a theoretical 25% monticola inheritance.





> Even if the monticola bees never have any great influence on the strains of bees in Sweden, there is one important and outstanding impression for the future. The monticola and its combinations with good representatives of Italians and Buckfast bees can in no way be compared to the highly defensive AHB.


I will take some pure bred queens home with me after my visit with Erik. They are spreading in europe, some good experience seems to be made.
But my bees are F1 and hybrids. They still have to go through the hardest time, a cold spell after starting brood areas. This will be in 2 weeks.

We have the first pollen from hazel. Not much nectar.

Yes please update in your thread SP. This is important for learning. Thanks.


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## 1102009

Today the elgon hybrids made a cleansing flight, it was good to see some living bees in action. It was 8°C and sunny, a cold wind. They were active as long as the hives were not in shade.

I extracted 25kg of honey out of the deadouts and sorted out some black comb to sell and some not so black comb built wonky to melt.
I cut out the brood of the varroa crash and did an alcohol wash on the dead colonies bees left ( yesterday) to see how many mites are on the bees. Not many in the brood less ones compared to the other.

I reflected on what was good 2017 and what was bad:
Good was:
My changed splitting method. All made with this method are still alive. 
My use of a more resistant bee line and to see these are really better in many ways, even if the hardest time of year is still coming and I don´t know their success. It will be the second winter for the mother hive.
No nosema, no chalkbrood, no sacbrood, no EFB, no AFB, no paralyze virus to be seen.
The use of the closed floors. The deadouts had no mold and no condensation water dropping down. The moisture of one deadout came from nectar not dried but dripped down the outer combs.
The mite counting which correlates exactly with the varroa crashes.
The one deep broodnest arrangement going into winter, taking off the supers in late july.

Bad was:
The underestimation of the low counts in early summer. I have to take action when the brood comb numbers are reduced. I had a bad gut feeling when this happened but could not bring myself to monitor and cull combs.
Not to have reserve queens.
Not to have made more small splits out of the queenless parts in spring or not to split again in early summer.
Not to save my AMM hives taking them away earlier from a bad location and trying a new IPM machine on them which did not work, instead of culling capped brood combs.


----------



## Oldtimer

SiWolKe said:


> I will take some pure bred queens home with me after my visit with Erik.


Sorry I haven't followed everything in the thread, but this is the guy with the treatment free bees, right? If so, very exciting SiWolKe!


----------



## gww

Siw
I am not sure about your bad and good list. I do wonder how you will feel about the whole package after you spend two weeks of working a lot of bees with somebody who handles lots of bees. It could change your whole outlook if actually working bees hard for two weeks is the plan. My view is you are going to see things in a differrent light.

I can't wait for those reports not that these updates are bad. I am just excited to see if there will be an evolution of sorts.
Cheers
gww


----------



## johno

I wonder about these Monticola crosses, at the time Brother Adam visited the slopes of Kilamanjaro some of the folks with him were not too happy about the Monticola being pure breds as there were many yellow bees in their colonies and felt there was cross breeding with Scuttelata. I suppose time will tell.
Johno


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## 1102009

OT,
he is doing IPM ( treating with thymol if over 3% infestation quote and shifting the queens) but does not treat many of his colonies anymore. What I want to learn mostly is the evaluation. I want to see how tf healthy hives look. I have never seen a thriving tf colony but he has them and good harvest too. I left behind all thoughts of trying to go "live and die". This works if you can build up an equilibrium of feral survivors and domestic stock. No ferals here, so I must go my own path.
Thanks for following and posting here 


gww,
it will educate me. But after my experience with what happens in my bee yards I feel more and more sure I can do tf with the right managements and a better stock. These methods will differ from all methods done by bee club members here so I need the time to develop them.

Johno


> We returned to Sweden March 19, 1989. The pieces of combs with eggs were put into colonies that had been carefully prepared for this and fed diluted honey and pollen substitute. The weather conditions were very unfavorable, frost in the nights and + 2°C [+36°F] in the days. We were happy, however, to secure a couple of queens. When mature, they were inseminated by Dr. THRYBOM with the pure monticola semen we brought from Mt. Elgon.
> 
> A necessity for the success of the insemination with this semen was a new diluent developed by Dr. THRYBOM that vitalizes the semen after such a long and unfavorable storage. It is a composition of amino acids, carbohydrates and electrolytes that correspond to that of the bee semen.(12)
> 
> From these pure monticola queens, a new generation pure monticola queens were reared and inseminated with Swedish drone semen from gentle Italian and gentle Buckfast colonies, giving progeny with 50% monticola inheritance. Also, Swedish queens, Italian and Buckfast, were inseminated with the original monticola semen in order to get the reciprocal mating. F1-queens were then reared and inseminated with Swedish drone semen, gentle Italian and Buckfast, producing progeny with a theoretical 25% monticola inheritance.


My elgon hybrids are very yellow. But behavior is gentle, not like the AMM from the canary islands which will not make it in my environment being a tropic race. Probably not a bad thing.


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## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> OT,
> he is doing IPM ( treating with thymol if over 3% infestation quote and shifting the queens) but does not treat many of his colonies anymore.


Erik Österlund writes in his blog:
"I would treat early in the season of 2016 to give the new queens a fresh start and the buyers mite free colonies. It happened to be about 15% of all my colonies after about 10% winter losses." 

"The three apiaries furthest from “Elgon land” with neighboring apiaries of other beekeepers are not included in giving the positive figures above concerning very few colonies with DWV-bees. Those apiaries gave such signs I decided to treat almost all of the colonies in those 2016, about 7 colonies in each. 

I treated very few colonies in total in 2016 compared to earlier years."


Treating about one sixth of colonies ( and more earlier years), makes it a 6 year TF apiary. If I´m not mistaken I may have said in this very thread that my first biggest troubles began after six years of TF beekeeping.


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## 1102009

johno said:


> I wonder about these Monticola crosses, at the time Brother Adam visited the slopes of Kilamanjaro some of the folks with him were not too happy about the Monticola being pure breds as there were many yellow bees in their colonies and felt there was cross breeding with Scuttelata. I suppose time will tell.
> Johno


The yellow color at the start came from the sahariensis as I found out. But I don´t think this genetics are still present. The bees act like carniolans.



> In Sweden, the Monticola was bred together with the Sahariensis and Buckfast; A new bee was created called Elgon Bee. Since then, working in Scandinavia on and with the Elgon bee. The aim is to create a varroaresistant bee, usable by both amateur and professional beekeepers, without the use of chemicals.


source: http://www.nordbiene.de/home/88.html?task=view


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## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> If I´m not mistaken I may have said in this very thread that my first biggest troubles began after six years of TF beekeeping.


Do you think this happens in every tf bee yard? I think about fusion_power for example, who is tf much longer. I remember you saying it will be 6 years. In my case it was 2 years.
I think it depends on local circumstances, selection skills and breeding conditions.

I believe everyone is aware of the influence of reinfestation from outside bee yards or that all beekeeping is local meaning the resistance could be expressed differently.
This is discussed on BS all the time.


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## 1102009

gww said:


> Siw
> I am not sure about your bad and good list. I do wonder how you will feel about the whole package after you spend two weeks of working a lot of bees with somebody who handles lots of bees. It could change your whole outlook if actually working bees hard for two weeks is the plan. My view is you are going to see things in a differrent light.
> 
> I can't wait for those reports not that these updates are bad. I am just excited to see if there will be an evolution of sorts.
> Cheers
> gww


Evolution of my skills it will be the next years.... I will do IPM, but not chemical ones, not even with organic treatments. I just can´t bring myself to use this. /E accepts this.
If I have to do something I imagine myself as a bear eating the larva. 

Please elaborate on my list, I always look forward to your comments.


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## gww

SiW...
I can't expand on my feelings on your list except to say that you have differrent goals and process, some of which is furture advanced then my asperations and so your list doesn't have the same meaning to me that it would to you.
I am letting hives make queens and so queen banking is much further advanced then how I do it and so is out of my knowlage base for now. I don't go for special queens and so really only look at individual hives that are ready to swarm as my thinking they must be doing good enough. So, I don't track my queens like you are.

I don't count mites and and have not had my (your second year that hurt so much) second year to convince me I need to do more.

So when I say things like, I don't know about your list, it is because my area and bee having (instead of bee keeping) tendancies have not prepared me to put a value on what you are putting value on because I don't have the experiance in those avenues cause I have not been forced to experment yet. So what I mean is I don't know. I just read and see how things hit me while I do the reading.

You are trying to strengthen bees and I am trying to get as much out of my bees at whatever strength they are already at with out ever buying anything. Some processes will be interchangable and some won't mean as much depending on what you are starting with and what you want to do.

I guess I am more of a taker, in that I look at what you are doing incase I like something that I can make work for what I am doing but am not really able to add that much to what you are doing cause things are going good enough for me that I haven't learnt enough to give much except from reading alot but not from the bees themselves yet. 

I am not being critical of what you list as important when I wrote "I am not sure about your good and bad list". I was more meaning, I am not sure as it relates to me and my knowlage at this point and if I put the same importance to the list with my experiance so far as your experiance does put the importance to the list for you.

To the evolution part, I think a person who works with some one else who has put a lot of effort in raising bees can not help but pick up some differrent perspectives and see things they like worse and better compared to what they are doing on thier own.

I don't do things like the guy I got my bees from but when watching him, I reconize the things he is better at when handling bees then I am and also the things I am going to do my way anyway. I know he is better at it over all then me but I have a few things that I like better and so try to emulate his best and try and get better at it all. I am the guy that still has to do the work on mine.
Sorry for the over kill of words used when trying to say something that would probly be easy to say with one sentance.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Well gww,
you don´t have my problems, if you have any problems at all. Lucky guy!  Experimenting all the time but still all survive!


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## gww

Siw
No problims here yet but the key word is "yet".. That could change any day and so I don't prejudge what will happen. That is what keeps me reading what every one else is doing. The knowlage that change is always possible. In your case that change could add up to much better. Only time will tell.
Cheers
gww
Ps I have always been lucky. Not smart, but definatly lucky.


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## 1102009

Update on the bee conference in Austria and a new interesting meeting in the netherlands for all beekeepers open to new methods:

Austria:

www.naturwabenbau.de 

"Learning from the bees“ Netherlands:

https://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/conference

click on the picts show who they are, click on "more" show who will be present.


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## 1102009

Now the bees which survived so far have brood going into a cold spell.
The camp sugar was not taken so I hope they do not burn all stores or get isolated from stores. The cold spell will last until end of february they say and it will be cold enough they can´t break cluster.

I find it interesting that my forum is attracting seasoned beekeepers now who will use their retirement to try treatment free beekeeping, we have nice chats via pm because they are a little shy posting their former commercial doings in the threads.
It´s starting to be a nice group which wants to improve beekeeping ( treating or not, but most still treat) by using the mind map we created. I hope the activity will be more, we are only 51 members so far, but we don´t post in public ( you know we have the strict law about treating).

I´m planning my new hive constellation which will be the shifting to natural comb in broodnest area. Plus, if my losses will be too high, I have a source of local bee colonies now, to use for my queens out of the resistance breeding, which will be introduced in summer after the apprenticeship, fingers crossed.

With my small local co-worker group I´m very lucky. We are all enthusiasts and we plan to work all our bees together to learn more.

The friend I moved my AMM hive to offered me a second location near, owned by his uncle, so this could be a second area of me setting off drones in future. I plan to spread my future colonies as much as possible, placing only two to four hives at one location to avoid any domino effect and to do some hobbyists research on environmental circumstances.

I miss my bees and I´m looking forward to the next season. I can´t wait to work my garden! To sit at home in front of the oven warming my feet is not for me. Thanks to my three hens which are very productive and the rooster which starts calling to the neighborhood in the dark every morning I´m still orientated to the outdoors.

4-6 weeks to go.


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## squarepeg

nice report sibylle, many thanks. the weather here will soon be turning the corner. the early tree pollens and nectars are available when the temperature is warm enough for foraging. like many in the u.s. are reporting we also have had a longer colder winter this year compared to the previous several years. we too are anxious to perform the first inspections!


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## gww

SiW....
You mention gardening and bees. I always find april to be pretty rushed due to wanting to do bees but needing to do gardening. throw in mushroom season middle/end april and it is a good thing we get spring fever and the energy that comes with that. I am hoping all my time is not spent hiveing swarms that issued from my hives this april. We will see if any of those instructions I got from squarepeg can be put to use this year to change some of that.

Keep the reports comming cause I have a feeling they are about to be comeing closer together and be very interresting from now till summer.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

So now one more hive is silent and I decided to order 4 packages of buckfast bees from a commercial breeder who takes care of VSH trait to have more colony numbers in late spring.
To manage them I asked a friend who is a seasoned buckfast beekeeper to assist me and maybe treat them, whatever I choose for treatment. ( Not worker brood culling in this case)

I could have had some carniolans for free but with weak genetics and chalk brood diseased. I wanted a health certificate from a serious breeder not to introduce EFB or AFB.
Could not get a swarm from anyone, only queens available or established nucs, but I will hang some bait hives too. Hope never dies.

What will happen in summer I see after watching the developments.

A friend offered me capped queen cells of his native black bee hybrids, but his bees are a bit defensive. He keeps them not far away.
But attractive. He has 30 hives and about 10% losses every year ( keeps them for 5 years now). His neighbor has the same hybrids and did not treat for over ten years.
And one more person I know has them and never treats. 
Honey harvest is small though.

Well let´s see. I have 4 locations now and will not mix the races (hybrids) to evaluate them and use them as I see fit, perhaps shifting the queens the next years to have better mite and virus tolerance.
Two of the locations are near each other. My precious elgon bee yard is the most isolated from other beekeeper´s hives. 
Hope some will make it since the silent one is the daughter of the F1 and was the strongest elgon colony ( again one of the strongest).

Still winter here and will be for some weeks:


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## Buzz-kill

SiWolKe said:


> So now one more hive is silent and I decided to order 4 packages of buckfast bees from a commercial breeder who takes care of VSH trait to have more colony numbers in late spring.
> To manage them I asked a friend who is a seasoned buckfast beekeeper to assist me and maybe treat them, whatever I choose for treatment. ( Not worker brood culling in this case)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 37595


Perhaps the title of this thread should be changed from "Treatment free at all costs - the chronicle of a beekeeper from South Germany"

to something like "Treatment free perhaps - the chronicle of a beekeeper from South Germany transitioning to treatments"


----------



## msl

> "A friend offered me capped queen cells of his native black bee hybrids, but his bees are a bit defensive. He keeps them not far away.
> But attractive. He has 30 hives and about 10% losses every year ( keeps them for 5 years now). His neighbor has the same hybrids and did not treat for over ten years.
> And one more person I know has them and never treats"


if I under stand this you are being offered access to local TF stock that has matained its TF status being exported to other yards in the area? 
Take the Free carniolans and use the resources to make mating nucs for the TF black cells. Why is this not plan A , I would think you would be very exited over this prospect.


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## 1102009

Buzz-kill


> to something like "Treatment free perhaps - the chronicle of a beekeeper from South Germany transitioning to treatments"


No. I just don´t want to kill-buzz  my tf hives, so I plan IPM but not for all hives. I plan to treat the non - tf bees before they get a tf queen though.
But you are right, "at all cost" once meant "live and let die". Only those without IPM will still be "live and let die". These are 5 hives right now. All which are left, since I have never done IPM so far.
Without the better stock it would be start from zero now ( and can be still). The IPM will be used as nurse colonies for the non-IPM splits.

msl
I´m taking the buckfast to make nucs for the elgons and for the black cells. The buckfast queens I plan to sell in late summer if everything works out.
After formic acid treatments my neighbors are desperate to get queens for their now queenless colonies so I will get a good price.
I don´t want for free treated but diseased carniolans which live half a year in my yards.


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## 1102009

I think I will follow Ruth with the IPM actions:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?333480-Treatment-free-Bees&p=1507956#post1507956

#53


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## 1102009

arctic outbreak for two weeks.
Temperatures in the double-digit minus range.


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## squarepeg

dang. your colonies will be challenged by that if they brooding as you pointed out in your prior posts. fingers crossed for your bees sibylle!


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## 1102009

Thanks Squarepeg. 

Met a guy yesterday (treater) who told me he already lost 90%. 
I´m glad I ordered 4 packages because I will not be without bees this season if they freeze or are isolated from stores... The spell will last until next weekend. Too long to have much hope. 

My co-worker M. had shown me a script he received from Josef Koller. 
In this script Josef describes a way to develop resistance by using two beeyards, one to treat, one treatment free and how to have tf resistant stock in 3-5 years, even with being a small beekeeper and having weak stock in the beginning. This may need more years but can still be done in his opinion. And to go on with this managements will sustain the tf apiary.

It´s amazingly simple except you have to monitor the mites, so I will start this year doing this method, mite counting I already did but I will purchase a CO 2 unit. I still have ethic problems with killing the bees. 
Josef Koller is convinced this will work for everyone. It resembles my ideas how to proceed.

It´s not only about queen breeding, it´s about adaptation to mites too. And he says that you need diversity so breeding only from one survivor colony will not work.
A mix of races will work better to find out which descendants or hybrids are better doing as most of us will live with a mix of races in the environment anyway.


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## 1102009

The sun can be seen again at the moment, so we checked the bees, just came back.

There are still 5 colonies living, 4 elgons and the one AMM colony that I did not open all summer and fall and never manipulated.

The temperature is just like minus 2 ° C, single bees came out to die and in the snow.

We have a strong east wind, but the hives are sheltered from the wind. Nevertheless, tomorrow I will wrap a plant fleece around the boxes before the temperature drops below 10 ° C minus.

My husband and I intoned "staying alive" from the BeeGees in the car, because some have to survive!


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## gww

SiW...


> My husband and I intoned "staying alive" from the BeeGees in the car, because some have to survive!



Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

glad to here some are staying alive


> In this script


Any chance of a translation for the IMP to TF thread? 



> I will purchase a CO 2 unit. I still have ethic problems with killing the bees.


I find this interesting as you have used worker brood culling in the past and a wash only kills 1/30th of a deep frames worth of bees.


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## 1102009

msl,
the script is copyright but I think I can tell some of it in my own words:


Here some parts of Kollers text ( I don´t know if it is a speech):

>>>Colonies to be used „live and let die“ must:
- be strong enough to make a split before main flow (One 10 frame box dadant and one honey medium filled with bees).
- must be gentle ( defense against humans is a stress symptom)
- the varroa infestation must be under 2.5% ( first check in april), no mites on bees, no defect wings
- in july the count of mites is not above 2 mites on 100 bees ( alcohol shake or other shake)

10 but no more are placed in an apiary which is tf completely. The survivors are managed exactly like the bees in the other apiaries ( except treatments), monitored like above. 
Queens are raised from the best and given to to those which do not fulfill the categories.

Spring splits: Each one brood comb ( with young larva) with bees sitting on, bees of a honey frame added. One honey/Pollen frame and 2 foundations. Feeding necessary.

After july check, these colonies are splitted in two splits (half). The queen is placed in the same yard, the queenless raise their own queens. The splits get one more foundation and are fed.

If a hive does not fulfill the criterias above it is moved into the treatment apiary and the queen is shifted. The hive is treated. Hives in the treated apiary which fulfill the criterias starting spring are moved to the tf apiary.

Colonies that supersede themselve are not used in tf apiary. He sees supercedure as a stress symptom.<<<

I had a hard time killing brood but it´s even harder doing this to the bees which are actively taking care of the hive. Sounds crazy, I know. The pupa have their use then, they are food for my chicken. My chicken do not eat adult bees preserved in alcohol or sugar. They do not eat all living adult bees, I think they know they could sting.


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## 1102009

:update: on the conference in Austria:


Day program "Bee conference" Hotel Wende, Neusiedl am See
Friday, April 6, 2018
19:00 conference bar
Getting to know each other and discussions in advance of the conference. As several participants arrive the day before, we want to use the time for an exchange. Of course, everyone is invited.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
8:30 Registration 9:30 Opening
• Heidi Herrmann (England): Prologue
Jürgen Küppers (Germany): Beekeeping today and future prospects
Coffee break
Juhani Lunden (Finland): Best Bees Without Treatment 
Lunch Break
• John Kefuss (France): Selection for Varroa Black Holes
• Erik Österlund (Sweden): Erik's Journey to TreatmentFree Beekeeping
coffe break
• Markus Bärmann (Germany): Beeswax from cradle to grave. The importance of beeswax in a successful treatment-free apiary
Wolfgang Wimmer (Austria): Hyperthermia: Full year plan for healthy bees with Varroa controller and duplex pocket 
Presentation end at 6:00 pm
7:30 pm Conference bar Discussions on the first conference day
Sunday, 8 April 20189: 00 Interim report by Jürgen Küppers
• André Wermelinger (Switzerland): Honeybee: intensive livestock farming
Heidi Herrmann (England): The Bien - In Memoriam 
coffee break
Antonio Gurliaccio and Moses M. Mrohs (Germany): We turn the block hive on its head. We improve / revolutionize the log hive "Zeidler Art" according to scientific criteria so that it achieves the functionality of a "real / natural" tree hollow.
lunch break
• Torben Schiffer (Germany): The ecosystem in the hive; why modern hive systems make the honeybee sick and minimize its likelihood of survival
coffe break
Piotr Pilasiewicz (Poland): Protection of Local Bee Species in Poland
Bartek Maleta (Poland): Natural Selection: Project "Fort Knox"
17:00 Jürgen Küppers: Presentation of the consensus paper Tombola Raffle of the products / vouchers provided by selected companies; Main prize: 1 pair of Waldviertler "beekeeper shoes" (www.gea.at) all company logos on the event page www.naturwabenbau.de


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## 1102009

Today I heaved a sigh of relieve, all 5 colonies survived the ordeal and were able to move to the stores and have brood. 

This means 10% more surviving than last winter, if they all have a laying queen.

The difference in temperature made the hives vey wet inside so they need not bring water. Tomorrow I will feed crystallized honey because we have no nectar available for over a week and I don´t want them to starve now.
It´s still too cold to check the stores. 

I took away the mouse guards and installed robber screens, because it will probably be warm tomorrow or monday so cleansing flights may occur.

I moved the dead hive ( dead before the cold spell) to my home.It was the worst deadout I ever had. Varroa disease, small clusters isolated from stores, frames contaminated with specks looking like nosema.
I never had nosema so far, so I´m rather glad this hive died. I did not make a daughter of them, so the susceptible genetics are extinct.

The combs I will not reuse, sell them. The honey I extract for ourselves and the materials I will clean with cooking water.


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## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> Today I heaved a sigh of relieve, all 5 colonies survived the ordeal and were able to move to the stores and have brood.


excellent. 4 of erik's elgons and 1 amm i believe. 

hopefully you can make many more from these this year sibylle!


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## Clayton Huestis

Sibylle are you able to get more Elgon queens?


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## 1102009

Clayton Huestis said:


> Sibylle are you able to get more Elgon queens?


Hi Clay, yes, in summer I go to sweden to work with Erik Österlund and hopefully bring back some queens or order later to use for my splits.

I´m planning to have an elgon bee yard and a location with AMM and one with buckfast descendants. 

Josef Koller uses Elgons too he is a source.


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## Clayton Huestis

Just thinking if Elgon stock is your best success, good idea to work with that stock. Haven't heard too much from Erik in a number of years hope he is doing well.


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## Clayton Huestis

Elgon is buckfast x monticola if I remember correctly?


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## 1102009

Clayton Huestis said:


> Just thinking if Elgon stock is your best success, good idea to work with that stock. Haven't heard too much from Erik in a number of years hope he is doing well.


Yes he is doing well.
He updated his website:
http://elgon.es/resistancebreeding.html
And you are right, use the best stock available, and I now see the elgons ( and AMM,but those are not easy to handle) as the best stock. They are more tolerant against pest and disease, just like the native AMM, but they are not as defensive against the beekeeper and they bring honey.
They do not use much stores in winter too and they are gentle, but not as gentle as the gentle bred carniolans.. They are beautiful and it´s a joy to handle them.
I only own a F1 and her descendants so far and I don´t know how the descendants of those will do but the comparison will be one of my hobbyists research observations.


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## 1102009

Surprise today...the elgons did a cleansing and orientation flight at 8°C but sunny. They collected water and used us to sunbathe on. One looks weaker let´s see. Flight could have been over. I hope they have a queen.


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## 1102009

All colonies flew today and brought pollen.

The traffic at the Elgon hybrids seem to differ very much but that's the entrance assessment, I have not opened yet. The natural swarm and the daughter of F1 had the strongest traffic.
Pollen is collected in the hazel. The hazel bushes buzz loudly.

I fed honey, the strong hives took all, the others gradually. The weaker probably have more stores.
I'm a little bit scared that the weaker ones will be robbed despite the robber shields.

800m distance to my AMM place I got a new place. Around the area there are about 35 hives, 20 are in the immediate vicinity.
The AMM colony left has survived this influence for 2 years now. Before it was moves to it´s place near the new place, it was already in that area of ​​influence, it's a hybrid of AMM and Buckfast.

It was created in 2016 and 2017 was made a 3 honeycomb split with queen. The colony is robbing other bees, it robbed a hive of me 2017 in February.
So it gets mites from others. There were always very few mites on the varroa slide, in late autumn more, now about 1/2 per day.

I hope that other beekeepers will finally come up with the idea of ​​using robber shields so that the mites are not distributed in this way.

The colony did not breed for several weeks in winter, I thought it was dead.

I did not open it the last year from June onwards, the whole box, including the bottom medium, is full of burr comb because of a medium put under. I did this because the original frames are longer than mine. They stuck comb under the frame bars and built natural comb in the bottom medium. A typical beginners mistake. After a time I could not pull the frames so I left the colony on it´s own, seems, this made them resistant  

Since the colony is not too defensive with respect to folks, I plan to let them throw swarms, hang up a bait hive on the new site, and hope it breeds many drones mating the neighbor queens. I will count the mites, otherwise I will leave it alone and treat it like a feral colony.

This is one of the experiments I really love to do.  Hope they will make it for some time.


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## squarepeg

excellent report sibylle, many thanks for keeping us updated.

in my experience robbing is very rare in the spring when there is field nectar available.

in you see robbing this time of year it might be signaling that the colony is queenless/broodless and should be inspected.

here's wishing you and your colonies much success in 2018!


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> excellent report sibylle, many thanks for keeping us updated.
> 
> in my experience robbing is very rare in the spring when there is field nectar available.
> 
> in you see robbing this time of year it might be signaling that the colony is queenless/broodless and should be inspected.
> 
> here's wishing you and your colonies much success in 2018!


There is no nectar available and the robbed I've had last year was with queen, the robbers killed her, but there was only a very small cluster.
I fear robbing but so far I do not see it. I hope with my feeding they don´t need to rob 

Thanks for the good wishes! It was nice to see the bee`s traffic even if they wanted to nail me when I cleaned the gras of dead bees in front.  I must get used to them after winter and they to me. 
I rather like the entrance defense.


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## gww

I started a little robbing of a dead out. My little warre that died and had a very small amount of capped honey had been closed up. I opened it yesterday and just let the bees at it cause I wanted to put some lemon grass oil and let it sit incase of a swarm deciding it liked it. I am always nervous about that kind of thing cause I am afraid it will get all the hives in a frenzy to where they start checking each other when they have striped the warre. I did do it anyway though.

I also worry a little about disease cause the warre did not build up all year. I think it was cause it was always being robbed the whole time or at least hope that.

One thing about all the traffic of robbers, it should keep the mice away for a few days anyway. I like the langs 3/8th entrance higth better then the warre set up. At least on a lang with solid bottom boards, you can see where a mouse chews enough to make the entrance a little bigger and so it is easy to catch. I know this from some traps, have not had issue with hives except the warre when it sit empty for a year.

I do say that in an empty hive, robbing looks like normal foraging and so believe it would be hard to tell for sure that a hive is alive just by activity at the entrance.

I hope I have not opened pandoras box by letting the bees at the warre.
Cheers
gww

Ps SiW.... The one hive I saw with all the bur comb like you mention was last spring and the guy was using foundation. All the comb between the hives was just packed with drone comb and exposed larva were everywhere when we tipped the brood boxes.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
I wanted to let them take the honey of my last deadout too, but I decided against this because there was a case of dysentery. I don´t know if it is nosema, but I´m not exposing any bees to brood disease or nosema. 

If a new hive will be placed there in late spring I would leave it empty until the next generation of forage bees because the foragers would probably remember the source and stress the new colony.

I had a last look june 2017 at the burr comb, because I wanted to treat them like a cutout, arrange new. But the burr comb was filled with worker brood and build small cell so I decided against weakening them.
This must be filled with pollen now. Not much drone cell comb it was.


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## 1102009

"Life is rough so you gotta be tough"
>Johnny Cash<

















today`s spring morning in south germany


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## squarepeg

"heavens to murgatroyd!"
>snagglepuss<

i lived in the the northern u.s. during my childhood in the state of wisconsin.

one the the traditions observed on easter sunday here is that the parents hide painted eggs for the children to find. i remember several easters when there was snow on the ground for the easter egg hunt. it made finding the painted eggs much easier! 

hopefully your peoples (colonies) are doing a good job getting 'tough'.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> "heavens to murgatroyd!"
> >snagglepuss<
> 
> i lived in the the northern u.s. during my childhood in the state of wisconsin.
> 
> one the the traditions observed on easter sunday here is that the parents hide painted eggs for the children to find. i remember several easters when there was snow on the ground for the easter egg hunt. it made finding the painted eggs much easier!
> 
> hopefully your peoples (colonies) are doing a good job getting 'tough'.


Yes, " heavens to Betsy" ( had to google this  )
About the easter eggs, we have them hidden in snow often, but it´s not cold then, snow melting the next day. This cold spell -5 to +1°C is very late in year and will last until friday.

I hope they filled the stomachs when I fed honey back the last two weeks and did not use the stores much. They had 3 days of foraging. Buzz is loud so they breed. The toughest will survive!


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## mgolden

If you are really concerned about carbs, implement Mountain Camp feeding. One version that works well to get some immediate carbs, is a sheet of newspaper and dampened sugar placed on it.

Last spring, there was some new beekeepers who installed packages on blank foundation and we had a week of snow and cold temps, where syrup from frame feeders was too cold. Damp sugar on newspaper was enough to have them survive.


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## 1102009

I´m not feeding syrup, I feed moist sugar or crystallized honey in my feeder system which works great in winter because the cluster warmth provides condensation water which will not drop onto the bees but on the sugar.
The moment they breed I always see some bees taking nourishment and I can open without letting out warmth or be in contact with bees flying out and chilling.

Here some picts, page 1 and the following pages ( click on top):

http://www.vivabiene.de/g20-Arbeitsweise-SiWolKe.html


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## 1102009

This picts are better, the first was taken in january 2017, the second in march 2016 when I fed after checking for the first time:


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## gww

SiW.....


> "Life is rough so you gotta be tough"
> >Johnny Cash<


How do you do, my name is sue and now I'm going to kill you. 
Then he called me son and I called him my paw.
And If I ever have a son, I'm going to call him.........

Brings back memories.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

After posting we went to feed the bees again. It´s -2°C and three colonies were starving and happy to eat. One, the weaker, was not interested. They have stores.

I never had to feed in spring. They always had enough stores to breed up. Now there is nothing to be had at the outdoors, the stores are burned, and I have to try to keep them alive, they have 4 frames of brood.

In three days I will feed again. There was much action inside, you can feel the brood warmth touching the bottom of the feeder. The ice in the entrance is melted by the warmth.

A pict:


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## 1102009

Yesterday food and varroa floor board check.
4°C, very cold wind.

They took 1/2 kg of honey in 3 days. Buzz is loud. Mite free boards, no ants, it´s still too cold for ants to be present and take the mites.

Entrances are free. Not much deads outside, I found one or two fat bees with mites on them in front of the entrance. Hope they took out the mites in a suicide attempt.

When pulling he boards and manipulating the entrance the F1 send an armada of watchers to chase the "animal" which disturbs the peace. Thanks to the robber screens this 200-300 bees did not fly but clustered behind the screens. The attacking would have been their death because of the chilling wind. They would never had found back.

So the robber screens have once again shown a different positive effect. Slowly the bees went back inside when they realized the cold weather. 

I hope I can check soon and hang a honey comb to feed them. Nectar flow is 2 weeks away.


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## gww

SiW....
Is your first nector flow, dandilion and fruit trees or something else?
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

In this seasonal order:
nectar ( and pollen):
in the village Krokus, snowdrops, hyacinths, winter-blooming snowball ( normally now but it froze)
later: blackthorn, wild cherry, plum, cowslip, anemone, violet, evergreen
in swarm season: dandelion, apple, pear, cherry, hawthorn, except the agricultural plants such as clover, rapeseed.
Pollen: hazel
willow as first flow, this is hardy and blooms now, willow will be this weekend. 

But weatherman says it will rain next week for one whole week  what a darn bad spring for bees this year. 

Well, if they survive the ordeal they will explode in may.


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## gww

SiW,,,
My wether man says the same thing. Only 60 percent chance today and bees will be flying. 48 degree fairinhieght right now. Monday and tuesday is supposed to be over two inches of rain. That is a lot of rain. Then a two day break and rain again. The temps however are going to at least be high enough for bees to come out in the breaks between the rains. 55 degree average I think.
Thanks for the list. 
Cheers
gww
Ps I got the forcast right but the amounts of rain has been lowered but still no real clear warm days and lots of rain.


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## 1102009

oh gww,
I forgot the cornus mas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_mas

A very good flow plant in early spring!


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## gww

SiW.....
One thing about it. My rain forcast has gotton even worse over the next ten days. It might scare me into adding some sugar into my bigger hives. When it does warm up and the sun does shine, we should have one heck of a bloom cause the ground will have plenty of moister now to support it. We had had a late fall winter drought but that is over.
Fingers crossed for both of us to do well.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Today I made the first spring check at the Elgons.

One colony was short of food, 1 had 3 brood combs, 2 had 4 brood combs, I did not disturb the brood nest, I'm careful to check from the sides. The breeding areas are large.

One of these 3 strong colonies (bees occupy 6 honeycombs, strong with the ordeal they went through) had a high death drop rate down, moldy and full of wax residue, we have taken the entire deep off briefly and swept the floor.
The others have had no problems with cleanliness. The strongest colony is the natural swarm on natural comb.
All brought pollen.

I took out poorly built empty honeycombs and replaced them with better brood combs with huge domes of honey on it that I hung on the nestsides.

The fourth colony is a dink, on three honeycomb small brood patches, a few small starved and moldy mini-clusters on several frames but in the center of three honeycomb the main small cluster sat alive.
Have taken out on the side the empty honeycombs and 4 honeycombs in Zandermaß too, they have honey but a lot of mold.
For this they got attached 2 beautiful heavy honeycombs and a fresh empty drawn comb and I limited to 6 frames. Swept the floor.

I do nothing else, do not amplify and do not put out the bees. They still covered the brood frames.
I want to know what happens and what they will do. I´m not sure there is still a queen in spite of the small brood patches which are worker brood, capped. I did not search for eggs not to chill them too much.


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## gww

I would think it would be hard for them not to have a queen with brood in the hive.
I did not look in mine as deep but your mention of mold makes me wonder. I have not ever noticed mold in a hive yet but then again, I may tomorrow cause now I might be looking harder.
I looked down my frames and did not see brood but then did see the brood carried out. Still, I think your hives might be further along on brood rearing then mine. If it ever gets above 60 degrees F. I will have to look and compare. Not as a compitition but as a learning experiance.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

if the dink is bringing in pollen i would take that as a sign that there is most likely a laying queen and the colony has enough bees to take care of brood plus send out foragers.

it has amazed me how small a colony can get and still keep going. i usually give these tiny ones some extra nurse bees so they will become productive in time our main nectar flow;

but i'm convinced that these small ones would eventually bounce back on their own and in my opinion being able to recover from the brink like that makes them the epitome of 'survivors'.


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## 1102009

gww,
I do not see our comparisons as competition, and I hope that my descriptions will not be seen that way, either in the negative or in the positive sense.
I hope for comments that will make me learn something or that will discourage me from imagining something which is not the truth.

What is interesting is that the most moldy strong hive is the one which got the most wind and moisture from weather and it was one of the stronger 2 going into winter. 
This high numbers of bees and big brood patches in early spring seem to promote condensation. One of the 2 colonies died of this, being weakened also by varroa and the other had a case of dysentery but is healthy again.
That a dink is moldy is just normal, they cannot climate. It´s the first winter I have moldy comb with living colonies.

squarepeg,
it is fascinating to see how the amount of brood is adapted to the environmental conditions by the bees and also, if this bees have their difficulties, perhaps need to be treated or have the queen shifted because it can not be splitted, I want to see if the differences between colonies remain or drift changes this.
And I want to watch the mite situation.

In the end, it is only through these differences in development (with the same handling of the hives) that it is evaluated the genetics that is the better, or better, the genetics that are able to adapt to my difficult conditions.


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## lharder

I have mixed feelings about dinks. I like to see at least a competent looking cluster for the 2 year survivors. But its sort of hard to project with nucs. I've had very strong nucs right next to little dinks coming out of winter, but the dinks the next year are quite strong. That strong nuc though is gangbusters again filling 2 boxes with bees already. And we have just had pollen for about 5 days.


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## 1102009

lharder said:


> I have mixed feelings about dinks. I like to see at least a competent looking cluster for the 2 year survivors. But its sort of hard to project with nucs. I've had very strong nucs right next to little dinks coming out of winter, but the dinks the next year are quite strong. That strong nuc though is gangbusters again filling 2 boxes with bees already. And we have just had pollen for about 5 days.


Hi Leroy, I appreciate your comment.
I´ve never had a dink, it´s a new experience. I was shocked! I always had deadouts or thriving hives. In my situation, having 5 bond survivors this spring, this is fascinating. I´ve never seen a colony in this state, barely escaping death and probably it´s my humane feeling to watch what happens. I want to know why they are in this state and if it´s a result of my methods.
These are the "leftovers" of my failed grafting attempt and the hive that throwed a swarm, they are what was left. Actually they are the most local right now the others are more the introduced genetics.

Pollen is brought now, the willow provides. 
My husband visited the AMM and they brought pollen in abundance. I`m still not sure how to proceed with them, some people tell me to multiply the survivor genetics, some say no because they are too defensive.


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## squarepeg

lharder said:


> I have mixed feelings about dinks...


i have observed the same here, it's not always the queen's fault.


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## 1102009

The last 2 days I was very busy to prepare my stuff for the upcoming season.

I hope to expand to at least 20 colonies with addition of the package bees that will be used for the resistant bred queens I will get. Same stock I already have.

I have enough boxes and half frames and lots of frames.

25 full capped honeycombs for the splits and packages, 12 extracted combs, 40 frames with small cell foundations of my own wax, 6 medium supers with half frames for honey with extracted combs and 7 medium supers with foundations.
If possible I would like to go into the winter with full honey supers on top of the deeps, maybe feeding all in summer until they are full.

In addition, I have pressed a stack of foundations sc of my own wax and will have wax again for it, since I will melt out crystallized honey.
After the winter I have again a honey harvest of about 15kg of supplies that the bees no longer need and out of cut out honeycomb.


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## 1102009

For two days the bees were able to forage, clean and do orientation flights.
Now it´s raining and colder.

It was hard on them, it´s windy, still cold ( 5-13°C) and they are restricted to the hives so much, they are desperate to go outside.

In the warmer sunny parts of the country the willows started to bloom.

Mite counts from the boards are not easy to interpret right now. The swarm had some dropping but this time of year it is good to see mites of different colors dropping, a sign of purging.
I have to check more often, once in a week does not say much and the ants started to be active, collecting the dropped down pollen from the boards.

I ordered a CO 2 shaker and I have a sugar shaker to monitor the moment it gets warmer and the serious breeding starts.


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## 1102009

https://peerj.com/articles/4602/

I have taken up contact with Benjamin Rutschmann at the Bee conference who is co-author of this article and works with this group:

http://www.hobos.de/mit-hobos-forschen/projekte/beetrees/


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## squarepeg

excellent links sibylle! with connections like these i am even more optimistic for you and your friends.


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## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> excellent links sibylle! with connections like these i am even more optimistic for you and your friends.


Thanks, SP  It would be nice to know what is around in the forests but even the nearest is too far away and they will probably protect it from beekeepers some time coming.
It would be nice to know what races and lines survived.

But what makes me really enthusiastic is the connections will protect me from law.:applause:

Second we will start the "Fort Knox" strategy, I will start this with two seasoned beekeepers.
http://wolnepszczoly.org/about-us/

One guy will breed with my F1, inseminating after grafting with different survivor drones. I checked her today she already expands hive and has the first drone brood capped. A good sign since I still have no wild cherry blooming there and nights are cold. She survived 2 winters and brood pattern is good. No mites just now, I check again after the 4 capped brood frames hatch so I will know if there is infestation.


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## 1102009

Today we have sown our 2 blooming fields with pollen and nectar plants. I want more variety of pollen near.
Next week I will put on the honey mediums on the three strong Elgon colonies to start the next overwintering food stores. The mediums all have comb and I hope they fill more than their own so I have a super on top of every hive in fall. I have many more medium combs but try to get some medium foundations drawn too.


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## 1102009

Today we set up the Buckfast site we are allowed to use, the lease, 3kg of honey, is already paid and the owner is keen to have bees there, he does not want to be a beekeeper himself, he is afraid of stings.

Maybe he gets money, because the landscape protection is active there and the area is a dry meadow to the south with many flowering herbs, thyme, Dost, and surrounded by blackthorn, hawthorn, blackberries, wild cherries u.a.
Sprays do not reach the bees, but there are also rapeseed fields nearby.

The AMM are 800m away, the survival colony ( which seemed to be strong yesterday and was flying, no mites on the varroa board for one week and the ants not reaching it) , the other hives of the neighbors who treat about 600m as the crow flies. The road is in between.
The Buckfast will probably be IPM colonies, I will do sugar shakings, as Torben Schiffer has shown us at the conference and possibly broodculling in the summer. Then perhaps shift to Elgon queens, depending on infestation or do splits, depending on strength of colonies, but I don´t have any experience with a package, how it develops, so I have to see. They will get comb and be fed though.

I hope I get them soon, but first drones are bred only recently and season here starts 4 weeks later than last year.


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## 1102009

Today i fixed my first swarm bait box to a tree. Hope to catch the "feral" AMM`s swarm if they swarm.


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## AvatarDad

Sibylle, you are serious and do not fool around! My bait hives are "two rungs up a kitchen step-ladder" high; I can touch them standing on my toes. Yours must be 8 meters up. Wow.

Be sure to take a friend with you when you take that one down. 

Seriously, I'm excited for you. I hope you have great success and tell us all about it.

Mike


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## 1102009

Many thanks Mike!

I installed a hand pulley block, so I just have to climb on a ladder, take away the roping and close the entrance then take it down from standing on the the ground!


I worked a gardeners job cutting animals out of 5m high evergreen plants in a park, so I´m used to height.


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## 1102009

The beekeeping meeting was a complete success.

The unconvinced co-workers had already left the group before and we are now participating in a community of seriously working.

We found out that we are already automatically a "Fort Knox" group (referring to the Polish initiative "Fort Knox" see Bee conferencing thread) as we are ready to share our stock with the others for free to keep no one without bees, but so far we all still have survivors.

http://wolnepszczoly.org/about-us/

So I hope the initiative takes us as a kind of "chapter", we want to build multiple "nucs  ) for the system and share with our Polish colleagues the theories and ideas.

A new co-worker has been free of treatment with local mutts for 15 years, although he is not isolated, I met him at the conference.

My other colleague yesterday took my best hive home to breed with ( two winters surviving queen), he will use my drones and his survival drones ... he's using the service of a professional mobile mating station (artificial), which he ordered.
The future may enable us to find a common mating ground. We had an idea for that now trying to establish this by a co-worker. All are willing to drive up to 400km to set up the bond splits there for the mating and thus get the greatest possible diversity of tf genes.

In the photo you can see that you can work without protection on the Elgon bees, only the people who are slightly allergic like me, use protective clothing. We look into the "breeding colony" if the queen lays and everything is healthy, my beekeeper friend was very satisfied.
We also wanted to microscope mites, but that proved difficult, as we only found 2 mites in the 4 hives, one of which had bitten legs.

The colony that developed out of the natural swarm last year was so strong that we put on a honey medium. No swarm urge yet, the queens expand brood nests. The dink has bigger broodnest areas.


----------



## lharder

Nice to see the tf initiative gathering momentum.


----------



## 1102009

Main spring flow started, all fruit trees now blooming at the same time, over 23-24°C for days, fields of dandelion.

Two hives and the hive I lent have honey mediums on top now, they are very strong. No drones flying yet. Bees are heavy with nectar and pollen. 

There was some rain yesterday, the plants needed it. My sowed fields sprouted and grow.


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## tpope

You and your bees have it going now. I hope that the momentum increases for you.


----------



## 1102009

After two days of light rain and a cold spell we started to shift the lid system to what we constructed.
The warm humid air goes through the floor of the feeder into the material and condensates on the bottom of the lid, where some bars glued inside makes it run down and drop to the ground opposite of entrance.
I hope it works because water was pooling onto the varroa board in one hive, the bees breeding and storing open nectar at the same time.
I can still use the 2l feeder box.















The first drones are visible, so it´s high time to check for queen cells. I fixed another swarm bait box to a tree ( it´s the other bee yard, the outyard).









Mites on bottom board. 2 in one week on one hive, none on the other, the ferals one in 2 weeks.
The dink is exploding. One drone with crippled wings was pulled out of a cell and expelled but it may have been the cold. Of the first drone brood I always saw pupa pulled out this time of year.


----------



## 1102009

Check today at the elgon bee yard.

I wanted it and I got it, swarm cells! Such a blessing! 

The natural swarm colony of last year decided to swarm despite expansion, the box was bursting of bees.

3 splits created, one with queen, 2 with each swarm cells, the hive without foragers bees slightly restricted, but I left space for drawing wax and storing nectar.
One is in the old place and has the foragers, so it got the honey super back.

The next hive had 8 brood combs, some space left, and I will multiply in a week if there is some more open brood. Before that, I will count the mites when the present capped brood has hatched. Too much capped brood to evaluate the mite infestation.

The dink has a new queen, the old dark must have been superseded in late autumn, the current one is yellow. That was my suspicion, because of the weakess in winter and that could be a reason for the small cluster.
Now they have 3 brood frames of beautiful brood.

Well I´m up to 7 hives again, folks! If the ladies decide to stay and get mated.


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## squarepeg

:applause:


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## 1102009

Thanks, SP.
Never never I had a healthy hive with the swarm urge being tf in such an environment! And those are survivor stock, bond tested!
And what is even better: all my neighbors moved to the rape fields and I´m isolated for a short time. 
Fingers crossed my queens mate with tf drones.
Seems I have the stock which I can use. Thanks to Erik! All his work done...not in vain.


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## 1102009

I visited my co-worker who has my F1 to breed from her.

Well, she disappeared after queen cups were layed. He did not find her. Created 3 splits, 2 draw emergency cells. No queen and fresh eggs in the third. He checked last one week ago, could not have squashed her.
Big problem, he needs freshly hatched eggs in three days. He hanged a comb with freshly hatched eggs into the third split to see if the bees draw cells.
I´m sure she is in there. Broodnest is honey bound. In old small cells eggs are hard to see and there could be only a small patch. 
Hive did not swarm, full of bees.

If she is lost I will get 4 split colonies with daughters back. If they get mated.

Picts:
His self made migrating cabin wagon with 8 treated






hives and the two year treatment free hive with splits with the drones to inseminate with.








He starts soft bond test this year. Has + -20 hives.


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## gww

You will know if they swarmed if you get no eggs in the new comb. There can be lots of bees in a swarmed hive. I had one last year that swarmed, I split once and it still had two after swarms and still had lots of bees left in the hive.

Still, getting four for one is not too bad for loaning out a hive. Thanks for the report and good luck.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

thanks, gww.
I don´t think they swarmed, my co-worker is at home right now, being retired and caring for the puppies his dog had. He would have noticed.
But no matter.
I told him to breed from his tf carniolan queen and use my drones to inseminate.
One of the nucs ( or two) will go to my co-worker near home who has only one tf hive. Starting out Project, supplying out group and distributing tf colonies.


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## tpope

I hope that your queen is still there for you. If not, you will have some lemonade queens too.

I wish you all the best on your TF project.


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## 1102009

Thanks tpope 

While I was at my day job my husband, who had a day of holiday tested the new lids, pict. #997.

Before starting he placed an insulation lid above the shavings to see if the two strongest hive would beard and they did. 30°C today.
The queenless colony dries much nectar and the other queen right one is crowded and will be split in a few days.

Then he took of the plate and IT WORKED! Without draft of air the hot humid air went out and the bees crawled in again after ten minutes.
Picts follow.


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## 1102009

Today I wanted to split the daughter of the F1 into three parts but I did two splits first, maybe split again later.

The hive was bursting with bees but was now nectar and drone bound, I found only two small patches of eggs and very young larvae, so I will see how many queen cells are nursed.

Found the queen and made a split with one capped broodcomb and 4 frames of bees, giving two empty frames at the side of broodnest and foundations to the outer side with the hope that they do not draw big cells on the 4.9 foundations, because I always need worker broodcomb small cell. A little wonky is ok.

The drone brood stayed with the queenless part , there was +- 30% of drone brood, probably hiding all the mites, so they will have a good brood break or the bees will sacrifice a part of the drones.

She looked as if she was very glad now to have more empty cells. She had already moved to the honey medium and layed some brood ( I don´t use excluders) which will hatch or be expelled by the queenless colony now.  No swarm preparation in this hive.
They had the medium filled and nearly capped, this means some honey to harvest in a few days.

The queenright hive I splitted last saturday did an interesting thing:
having no foragers they decided to purge and expel sick drones and drone brood. 
Had some time for housecleaning and rearranging their broodnest.


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## 1102009

This morning my husband made a motorcycle trip to visit the escaped swarms, now ferals, at their location.
Both colonies nest in old walls and can´t be cut out.

He saw that they survived their second winter despite not being isolated from other hives, actually the one with entrance between wall and wooden beam escaped from a yard 200m distance.
I don´t think it´s a new swarm because the beekeeper is gone to migrate.

Much traffic.
Last year we found some bees on the ground with defect wings.
I wonder how this can be? What factors keep them alive?


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## gww

SiW......

Keep posting the pictures. 
Cheers
gww


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## lharder

SiWolKe said:


> This morning my husband made a motorcycle trip to visit the escaped swarms, now ferals, at their location.
> Both colonies nest in old walls and can´t be cut out.
> 
> He saw that they survived their second winter despite not being isolated from other hives, actually the one with entrance between wall and wooden beam escaped from a yard 200m distance.
> I don´t think it´s a new swarm because the beekeeper is gone to migrate.
> 
> Much traffic.
> Last year we found some bees on the ground with defect wings.
> I wonder how this can be? What factors keep them alive?
> 
> View attachment 40075
> View attachment 40077
> 
> 
> View attachment 40079


I've seen hives with a bit of dwv that were ok the following spring.


----------



## msl

> Last year we found some bees on the ground with defect wings.
> I wonder how this can be? What factors keep them alive?


as Michael Palmer likes to point out there is a difference between surviving and thriving.


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## 1102009

msl said:


> as Michael Palmer likes to point out there is a difference between surviving and thriving.


 well I´m happy they survived perhaps they thrive?

For sure they won´t give any beekeeper a honey harvest 

Bet Michael Palmer would be interested in that genetics though. I would send the queens to him if possible.


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## 1102009

> We are born only to be a bee in the beehive, and for a second to unite our little power with the other forces; we can not explain the necessity of our life except that nature needed a laborer to do her work to promote. Any other explanation is haughty and wrong. Our own existences serve only to prepare the general life of the future. No happiness is conceivable unless we seek it in the common happiness of eternal, shared work.
> Emile Zola


A swarm waited for us today to have them lodged in. 
We could just pluck them and take them. 2 m high.
It was kind of a religious feeling, they were so calm. I feel blessed.


----------



## squarepeg

nice one sibylle!


----------



## tpope

That is a sweet swarm. It will require a large box to house them. Congrats.


----------



## 1102009

tpope said:


> That is a sweet swarm. It will require a large box to house them. Congrats.


Many thanks. 
I´m still a newbie enough to be excited about the natural behaviors of bee colonies 

We put out wheelbarrow under them, placed a square dadant deep under the branch, shook them in and put the box into the yard. I hope they stay.

I had only some empty frames and foundations with me so we rushed home to fetch more in the hope they will not build comb under the lid.
Opended again and they chained under the feeder to the empty frames. Provided with two drawn brood comb frames, extracted, and one honey nectar frame from stores.
The next hour they fanned pheromones on the outside of the box and the stragglers came and went in.









I don´t know which hive throwed the swarm but bee math say it could be the splitted hive which had swarm cells. 
I would be very surprised if it was the former dink. Have to check the next days the queen right colonies.

The splitted hive from last week was checked, it has some emergency cells. I´m not sure if those are filled with drone pupa, we will see. They are built where I saw 3 days old eggs in worker cells but at the outer rims of foundation, since many drones were bred this year out of worker cells I will have to watch out.


----------



## gww

Exciting stuff.
gww


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## 1102009

Yesterday, my neighbor Co-worker and I visited our colleague, who keeps 14 bees free of treatment for 14 (not 15 as I said before) years, without being isolated.
His losses were in this time at + - 30% so just as high, or low as most of the beekeepers here.
*Except for the winter two years ago, when he moved to another place, about 80km away to live there.
In the winter after the move, the loss was 80%.*
Now it is being rebuilt.

So much for local adaptation to the location.

We also talked about our next steps. Unfortunately, the mating ground on the training area proved to be not sufficient with respect to isolation, only 3 km.
We continue searching.

W. was of the opinion that we would just have to wait for the treatment system to collapse. It was close to that, how he heard in the beekeeping circles. Beekeepers are frustrated by the ever increasing number and duration of treatments.
They are frustrated by the many queen losses caused by formic acid.
They are frustrated by the uncertainty of how and if the colonies were still responding to the treatments and of having no alternatives for the future.
Many would consider a stop to beekeeping.

W. told us his tf colonies are smaller and bring not as much honey. His solution is to keep more hives and harvest only once. For him this means less work, because once he had to harvest each hive twice or more.
The costs are balanced because he builds his hives himself and they last very long because he has his own saw to make thick boards.
That he has more hive numbers does not matter much since he is not migrating. He has different locations to place his hives.


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## gww

SiW...
Sounds like your friend sorta adds up cost and labor like I do and for close to the same reasons I use, IE; make my own boards and don't need to move around.
Cheers
gww


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## lharder

So his operation is sustainable. With 30 percent losses it is something that can be worked with if you can spatially concentrate your genetics nearby. I don't think absolute purity is something that can be achieved and there are negatives about it. A little out crossing is a good thing.

I make hokey home made equipment myself. Cuts the cost way down and allows for my experiment.


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## 1102009

gww,
yes he reminded me of you but you are much more organized..:applause: you said you are lazy but you are not. I saw the picts of your work.

The colleague said we bred the mites for survivability for over 30 years but not the bees. The bees are bred for susceptibility via prophylactic treatments and multiplying without selection.
Some mites always survive the treatments and mutate to be even stronger pests.

So today concentration of formic acid is 85% this means much work with separating the queen while treatments are done. 
When work gets too much and profit lessens beekeepers, mostly sideliners, give up.

He also said there are many tf beekeepers in germany, small hobbyists. Because of the law and denunciation they work by themselves or in private networks.
Science and research is not interested. There is no profit source for them.

Today I mailed to a former co-worker who went back to treatments. He told me multiplying is done by artificial swarms now and this promoted by bee club, because this gives the bees a better start and therefore survivability, plus treatments done.
The moment honey production will decline people change their attitude. The future will show: tf doing bond test, selection through thresholds, or abandon beekeeping.


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## 1102009

Saturdays article in our local newspaper:

https://www.suedkurier.de/nachricht...e-Hobby-Imker-zu-wenige-Bienen;art416,9742901


> The beekeeping trade is becoming increasingly popular. Almost 130,000 beekeepers are said to be active according to the German Beekeeping Association. But beekeeping as a major occupation is becoming increasingly rare. Less than one percent of the apiaries operates commercially. This corresponds to 500 professional beekeepers. Especially urbanites discover beekeeping as a hobby. "It's nice that so many young people are currently interested in beekeeping. But they do not keep enough bee colonies, "says Peter Maske, President of the German Beekeeping Association.


 Don´t want to pay tax maybe.



> About 870,000 bee colonies are kept in Germany. Every colony counts between 40,000 and 60,000 bees in summer. But more than 80 percent of bee colonies are kept by hobbyists.





> The new leisure activity rated Maske skeptical. Due to a lack of training knowledge, hobby beekeepers are unable to identify and treat bee diseases such as the Varroa mite.


 



> "Many amateur beekeepers do not want to harvest honey, but leave everything to the bees," explains Maske.






> According to the German Beekeeping Association, German beekeepers produced 26,000 tons of bee honey last year. That corresponds to less than a quarter of the total German honey supply. The rest has to be imported.





> According to a study by the University of Hohenheim, the economic output of beekeeping in Germany is around 1.7 billion euros annually. In agriculture, too, the small insect is indispensable. "
> 
> , Maske also sees the farmers as their duty: "On the edge of the field, more flowers and plants, such as camelina and
> Buckwheat is flourishing so that bees can find enough food despite monocultures. "


:applause:



> According to President Klaus Schmieder, 9700 beekeepers with 74,000 bee colonies are organized in the regional association Badischer Beekeepers. Currently, the local beekeepers are particularly concerned about the welfare of their animals. Health is threatened by agricultural weed and pest killers.


Well if they want more commercials this kind of beekeeping must be attractive. :scratch:


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## lharder

Giving it back to the hobbyists is probably good for bee health in the long run. Especially if they can be engaged to make their own queens, and use natural selection.


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## 1102009

Hive check.
We had to leave the location in a hurry two times because of thunderstorms.
It´s as hot as sometimes in summer. 29°C. Very good flow, raspberry. I have fields and they bees work them like crazy. Right before their entrance 

I harvested 13 frames medium capped honey out of two queenless splits, which was half of the surplus. I left open nectar frames. Put in extracted frames, but I think they need the nectar now because I have new queens!
A pict of one coming out of a swarm cell:









I started a thread about the "dink". If someone likes to comment? 
It´s acting strange and I don´t know if they do VSH.
SP answered, does anyone confirm? Thanks.


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## squarepeg

i have a couple of colonies that struggled with supercedure coming out of winter and these look like dinks compared to the others. they are not really dinks but rather just colonies that had their spring build up interupted.

the good news is these won't swarm. the other news is that they won't be as productive. these would be good ones to split into nucs if i was grafting at this time. with brand new queens that won't rear too many more bees this year these will likely be the most productive colonies next spring.


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## gww

Siw....
I can't confirm that you have a drone laying queen cause I have never seen that before in person. I guess I will get to learn from responces to you. The queen looks good.

Over three gal of honey and half left sounds good. I am having a hard time wanting to extract in small amounts due to the work involved. On the one hand, if I put wet frames back, I can probibly get more honey but if I make them build comb, I get less honey but more comb and less times of cleaning everything. I do switch back and forth on how to handle it. I think I am sitting on just about the same amount of capped honey in my hives as your extracted part and so your bees must be bringing it in about twice as fast as mine. Good for you.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww, 
I forgot to place the link. SP gives very good comment and advise.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-happening-in-this-hive&p=1637911#post1637911

I extract when I have 3 deep frames or 6 shallow ones. I clean the extractor with hot water afterwards. I don´t know if I will get more so it may be in the end all is crystallized.
We have a wax moth plague right now and I want to put as much frames back into hives as I can. My freezer is full of frames with stores I want to use for the packages.

Most of my honey comes from deadouts. Not this, so it will be treated with respect!


----------



## 1102009

Today a friend came by with his girlfriend and we extracted our honey frames.
He got 50kg ( 4 production hives) and I 12kg ( surplus 2 hives). The honey tastes great!


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## tpope

A sweet taste to show that your efforts are worthwhile...
:thumbsup:


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## gww

Nice, pretty, clean white cappings. Thanks for posting the pictures. They take a little of the dread I have for the hard work of extracting.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

hmm hmm good!!


----------



## 1102009

The very extreme thunderstorms and floods in Germany have spared us so far. There has been a thunderstorm today and the much-anticipated rain, I hope there was no hail in the orchard, but if so, so be it.
Before the thunderstorm, I have brought in my hay, it is intended for the laying nests of chickens.
In the pictures you can see my two blooming fields, the rapeseed starts to bloom, the phacelia and the honey clover follow. Mixed culture.
That's just right, because at the moment only a little white clover is blooming in a nearby field and the colonies are evolving from the splits to full fledged organisms..

I was very happy to see my linden coming to bloom for the first time since we planted it some years ago.


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## gww

I see you are getting your hay the hard way. We could use some rain here but like you, don't need damage to come with it. I watched the eric video you posted elsewhere. I had a little hard time putting together what was being said on the breeding due to just not having good sound on my computer and being a little slow on the uptake brain wise. Your pictures sure showed what looked like a very pretty day.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> I watched the eric video you posted elsewhere. I had a little hard time putting together what was being said on the breeding due to just not having good sound on my computer and being a little slow on the uptake brain wise.
> Cheers
> gww


Erik mostly says cull the worst hives and shift the queens to better ones to increase resistance. He is not a hard bond test defender, he needs his income. His losses are low.
He talks much about Brother Adam, who in his eyes was interested much in the habits of different races.
He describes the hybrids of carniolans or swedish black native bees as not much fun to work with. 

It´s not easy to have a discussion if both are not native speakers, but I think they do fine in the interview.


----------



## gww

SiW....



> It´s not easy to have a discussion if both are not native speakers, but I think they do fine in the interview.


I spent a year in korea and all I learned was the cuss words. My wife can speak and read and write in both languages. I know who the dummy is in all this and my hat is off to those that can do more then one thing, even if it is harder.

I thought that is what he was saying was to take out only the worst and also to not narrow the best down to just one. I just was not sure that was what he was saying.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW....
> 
> 
> I spent a year in korea and all I learned was the cuss words. My wife can speak and read and write in both languages. I know who the dummy is in all this and my hat is off to those that can do more then one thing, even if it is harder.
> 
> I thought that is what he was saying was to take out only the worst and also to not narrow the best down to just one. I just was not sure that was what he was saying.
> Cheers
> gww



Respect to your wife! I´m a dummy too if it comes to language, I have to work hard for this.
Well, you understood alright!


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## 1102009

t:

but I´m happy to present our new dog, Airedale lady "Perle". She moved in.


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## gww

If I ever lose my dog, I am hoping that another one never moves in. I have found dogs to be very bossy. Mine is always trying to get me to do what she wants and does not worry much about what I want.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
Perle is 8 weeks but she will be a tough one. That´s why she was given to ME! ( Breeder said he selected her for me especially) I have to start to tame her right from the very start, i seems. 
I feel for you!


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## 1102009

Today I made the first step into the public and was at the meeting of the new association of our village, this association offers projects.

I offer lectures on different natural kinds of beekeeping and on the project "educational path wild bee breeding nests" (which will be built then by a group) and garden advice for insects.

This is a very good platform, because it is neutral and I do not have to speak in front of the beekeepers association, so I come first to interest, not defense!
In addition, there is money, so that I can invite speakers.

Haha, of course, I immediately met the mother of a beekeeper, who told how exactly her son takes on fighting the varroa! 
Me too, right?


----------



## 1102009

We have hot and humid weather for weaks and every day a thunderstorm in the evening with a lot of rain, thank god no hail, so everything nature looks fine.

Some days ago we checked the newest queenless and had to close up after 2 Minutes being attacked by a hot hive. We wanted to rob some honey maybe but not like that.

Today we checked them again and some other 3 hives. Perle, our new puppy is conditioned to the smell of beekeeping and waited patiently in her kennel in the car not whining. 

The hot are not hot anymore but content. The sound was good and I found a small patch of eggs. Check again in a few days if there really is a new queen but I think yes, they bring pollen and kill some drones.
No honey to be robbed, the need it for new brood.

The swarm cell queen got a honey medium, I hope for some comb drawing. They are strong and we have good flow.

The left behing small colony from the last swarming looks fine and expands broodnests. Capped brood and larvae and eggs all kinds. 

The swarm from the bush had drawn 3 empty frames and started on one more but the combs are not fixed at the sides so I did not pull them.
The other frames are foundations or older comb donated, this we could pull.
Very good broodnests filling the frames, mostly capped. Much eggs layed in good pattern.
I decided to not pull the new wax combs until spring. I can check the sides for brood and the state they are in. 

The photo is how it looks if fresh comb is drawn on all frames in the hive:


----------



## gww

Does your photo show the making of wax with no place to put it?
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> Does your photo show the making of wax with no place to put it?
> Cheers
> gww


No, it´s the surplus falling down when a hive is in the comb building urge.
Right now they draw empty frames and finish older comb and draw some foundations.
I feel it´s a comb drawing year, all do it to some extent.


----------



## 1102009

Visited the ferals today.
This is how the floor board looks. Same was two times in the past, weeks between, but more wax debris and in different areas, brood or honey area.
Traffic is normal, there was an orientation flight going on.
There are drones and pollen is brought. No fights, no dead bees except those the spiders around the lid eat.

Interpretation? I first thought there is robbing going on. A robbed hive`s floor looks like that. But there are fresh wax flakes mixed in.
Is silent robbing looking like an orientation flight?
Do they renew comb?
I see no wax moths. No honey dropping down. Parts of comb frames are 6 years old or more.
Sound is good and loud.

My neighbor is not yet back from migration but some hives are around. Good flow, linden mostly.


----------



## squarepeg

is your floor board below a screen sibylle?

that's a lot of debris and in my experience a strong healthy colony would clean that out and not let it build up like that.

perhaps an inspection is in order?


----------



## Jadeguppy

I'm wondering what types of loses the op saw moving to treatment free. How many hives should I expect to lose? I am seeing vsh in that they are opening some cells.


----------



## 1102009

> is your floor board below a screen sibylle?


Yes. They can´t clean it. It´s my only reading of this hive besides the entrance since i left them alone for one year now. I do not plan to inspect as long as I see life in there.
Some parts of the floor are wooden boards so if they would not clean the entrance might be plugged now.



> I'm wondering what types of loses the op saw moving to treatment free. How many hives should I expect to lose?


I expected 90-100% losses because of my locale.
Highest loss so far was 10 out of 14, 2016/17.
I run 12 hives totally tf and bond test for 4 years, no IPM done yet except splitting. All are the descendants, I introduced Erik Österlunds queen line 2016, the pure carniolans and all AMM except the feral managed hive died.
My survivors are the elgon-carniolan mixtures.

Losses IMHO are one third varroa, one third locale and one third my humble beekeeping.


----------



## squarepeg

understood sibylle. many thanks for keeping us posted!


----------



## squarepeg

Jadeguppy said:


> How many hives should I expect to lose?


with all of the variables in play it's really hard to say. the best answer to that question is only time will tell.

generally speaking if you are working with stock that didn't come with a history of surviving off treatments the chances for success are lower.

since you are aggressively splitting you may be staying ahead of the mites to some degree.

i would consider sampling for mites using the alcohol wash method and paying close attention to brood health especially as we get toward the end of the season.

i would also consider robber screens on all of your hives to decrease the chances of spreading mites to other nearby colonies in the event of a varroa collapse.


----------



## Jadeguppy

Thanks for the feedback


----------



## Robbin

Jadeguppy said:


> I'm wondering what types of loses the op saw moving to treatment free. How many hives should I expect to lose? I am seeing vsh in that they are opening some cells.


I lost 50%, but any losses whey you have a couple of hives are hard to take. Difficult to rebuild if you don't have a lot of resources to play with.
When I switched to OAV my losses fell to around 10%. Last year I was unable to treat or even tend my hives due to 
medical problems, I lost 5 out of 14 this winter. My worst losses in a long time. I haven't treated yet as I'm going 
to try TF again. My VSH breeder queen is due any day now. I may decide to treat before I requeen in mass so the 
new stock will have a fighting chance. I intend to requeen everything 14 hives and 15 nucs before going into fall. 
Good luck


----------



## Robbin

SiWolKe said:


> one third locale and one third my humble beekeeping.


I'm betting that number is a little small for MY humble beekeeping...


----------



## 1102009

I´m talking about last and this year, still much to learn. But I don´t fear to go on because the losses of treated hives here are 30-40% which in my eyes is not an example to start treating.

We started a group which provides each other with bee colonies if losses are too high. For free. Give and take. This, until our beeyards stabilize more.
Also we are looking for a mating place, yesterday one of my forum members posted that it may be possible to mate next year on an island where he has his tf bees, it´s an official mating place used by the local bee club and it may be possible to use this if they are interested. They seem to be, he said.
It´s far away but we will organize a bus trip taking all our unmated nucs in that case to have them all mated with treatments free survivor colonies`drones.

View attachment Bee Connected Project PDF.pdf


----------



## 1102009

Yesterday we brought the F1 and her "lemonade" daughters home.
Two my co-worker placed at his location.
One colony should be hot, let's see if we have to shift the queen.

We had a wonderful experience before driving there:
we played with "Perle" in the meadow and heard something that sounded like a bee swarm in the tree, but there was no swarm to see.

We tried to find the cause and then we saw it:
A queen bee at the mating 8m above us!
Incredible!
It was a small flock of about 300 drones and bees and it rose like a spiral into the sky!

I have to remember this place. The next beehives are located about 1km as the crow flies.


----------



## tpope

Wow, I can only imagine finding a drone congregation area. That would make my day too.


----------



## 1102009

I checked today the colonies I got back from the failed artificial insemination try.

It´s the F1 which is in the box I´m so happy I have her back and can try to overwinter her again.
She is weak, 4 brood combs, but the brood looks very good and she still lays a good pattern. The co-worker used many egg frames for the splits and for himself.

The daughter I saw not ( I looked for eggs and strengh only, I search for queens when I split, other moments it´s just by chance) but 4 broodcombs and eggs.
Ok.

What I saw was that they starve compared to my weak splits and small colonies. He has no flow and should have fed them, the only honey in is what I provided them with when moving the boxes there.
I provided honey comb then, comb and empty frames, but there is not much wax drawn.

My local hives:
- the queen split daughter of the F1 fills the square dadant and looks good. I supered with a medium, comb, foundations, some nectar in this. I did not pull frames.
- the daughter of this hive has the first capped brood, lays eggs and has good storage. This hive had not much space to lay but I left it to the bees to work on this. They used the pollen frames and expanded broodnests now.
- the former dink is now the strengh of a production hive and fills one square box and one medium on top with bees. I did not split. I did not check for swarm cells because they bring much pollen. I expanded with a second medium on top. If they swarm the next weeks so be it. I will check all colonies again mid of july after holiday because now I have to harvest my berry garden.

I wanted to take some samples of mites dropped down for microskoping but there were no mites on the boards. Good or bad omen?

All colonies were very gentle and did not want smoking. The bad temper went away, it may be because of the wonderfullest summer weather we now have.


----------



## Jadeguppy

That is great to hear. I'm constantly amazed at how their attitude varies depending on what is going on. A happy bee is a working bee. A bored bee is not to be messed with.


----------



## 1102009

Jadeguppy said:


> That is great to hear. I'm constantly amazed at how their attitude varies depending on what is going on. A happy bee is a working bee. A bored bee is not to be messed with.


I´m not sure. This queen was a little hot always and spitted the "beeyard watchers" which followed you after working them.
Now they are gentle, funny, but let´s see next time.

The daughter was extremely hot but I think it was because she did not finish mating that time and we had thunderstormy weather for weeks. Must have been the stress. Now she is ok.
But I have to watch out with this line.


----------



## 1102009

Hi all,
I need some help.

I will have package bees 1.5kg each.
How many dadant deep frames will I give them for the start?

I have comb, honey comb and empty frames. I prepared boxes: 2 honey comb, 2 empty, rest comb. 10 frames. Follower board.
Is it too much? The queens are mated.

Thanks.


----------



## Fusion_power

They can cover about 7 Dadant combs. I would give them maximum 8 combs presuming your spring flow is tapering off into summer dearth.


----------



## 1102009

Today my co-worker Christian has filled the package bees into the boxes, I must admit I would have been completely overwhelmed.

The queens were on top of it in the cage with a few accompanying bees, ok, open entrance, sugar plug was still there, hang between the frames.

But in the cage, the artificial queens were trapped between the feeding bowl and the bees, but unfortunately there was a pheromone part in the cage and we could not pull it. Christian then cut open the cage with the pair of scissors and laboriously maneuvered the piece out before it disappearing into the swarm. That would have been really a problem, because we put the cage in a lower empty deep box and put a deep with 8 frames on top of it until tomorrow, so that the bees go out themselves.
We could have shaken it out, but there was another problem, I hope that it does not lead to robbery, there was already some killing between bees involved in the handling.

One of the swarms did not have pierced the feeding container and it was starving, they came out of the cage in full attack on me and stabbed in the glove, which I was fortunately wearing.
They are now a danger there, I hope they notice that they also have 3 honeycombs in the box.
The food jar, about 300ml was completely empty in the other.

That was an experience, the bees had pure stress.
I do not think I would like to repeat that and I am curious what tomorrow will look like.

In addition, the swarm bees looked like Carnika and the queens were clearly Buckfast.
This is difficult for the bees to accept a queen of different race.

My thanks go to Dar for the advise on the number of frames and to Christian who knew just what could go wrong from his own experience, loosing the artificial queen in the weeds....
He was acting professional today.









I feel like a newbie today, it feels strange! It´s so much easier to use splits or nucs and to introduce a queen.


----------



## gww

Siw...
How is your nose, did you smell the alarm pheromone?
gww


----------



## msl

> I feel like a newbie today, it feels strange!


lol... every time I get a little too big for my britches the bees knock me down a few pegs and remind me I am but a student


----------



## 1102009

gww,
no, but I heard the sound.... 

msl,
makes one humble, doesn´ it?
The owner of the property was there he loves bees but got stung once and does not want to work the bees himself. He ran away when the cloud came out, thank god there is a distance to the public pathway...


----------



## 1102009

My little trip to the commercial beekeeping (the packages) shocked me. The next day when we removed the bottom box and took out the cage (the queens were not yet free, but it looked good), I looked at the deadfall bees and saw many short abdomen bees crawling and black tiny hairless bees with intact wings.
So looks like mass-produced, used for breeder queens.

I can only hope that they are still able to feed the first brood well.
The bees have been treated with oxalic acid, I have seen after formic acid treatment already so black, dying bees, but do not know whether oxalic acid also acts like this.
Probably and hopefully because of the treatment, as many mites fall off at the moment.

And such a "colony" now has a health certificate, this experience repeats itself, my first hive with Varroose, wax moth and chalkbrood had a health certificate too.
Apparently it's just about foul brood, which is now excluded since the honey domes were controlled.
Makes no sense, without brood. :scratch:

Seems to me I made a mistake, but no matter. I started journalling this "colonies" to compare them with my tf hives for the use in a speaking. If they die in spite of treatment it´s rather a good argument for tf beekeeping and I need not fear for my survivors because there are 18km between them. ( The feral hive excluded but those bees will kill all knocking at the entrance).


----------



## squarepeg

sibylle writes today:

"Hey SP,
It's nearly a week and I can't believe what a Professional beek Erik Österlund made of me already.

We work from 9 in the Morning to 8 in the evening and I already grafted 2 Frames of Cells for him, did some Alkohol washes and once worked his mini nuc mating beeyard, Taking Out hatched Cells, Looking for eggs and considering the Food Situation, while before took part as a watcher when queens were caught, clipped and marked, put in Cage with nurse Bees to be shipped.

This a Great responsibility, since he used the informations for Telling his customers the Dates they will receive their Orders.

Again we visited his numerous beeyards, Looking for queenlessness and to decide the mite and food situation, whether to put a box on or take off.
What I Found interesting was he Sees a spotty-less broodnest area combined with low mite counts the sign for Résistance where I believed 
a spotty broodnest a sign of VSH, a good sign. My hope to see some healthy tf hives so to Compare with mine came true.

Many more useful informations I geht from him plus being fed and Most Kindly treated By him and his wife.

Of you want to you may copy this pm into BS and Tell hi, I am not able to post there because I can' install Firefox here.

Yours, Sibylle"


----------



## gww

Hey squarepeg, thanks for posting. I can't wait for siw... to post cause I have been dying to ask if her mushroom growing worked out. I don't like spotty brood myself but get quite a bit of it. Sometimes I will get both a good brood pattern and a few frames and then a few in the same hive that are spotty. It seems like my queens take some breaks based on flow (I am guessing) and that it happens for very short periods here and there and not just during a long summer derth. But I might be blind also.

I sure hope that work she is doing from nine morning to eight pm is not under the same conditions as here where the heat index has been 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Thanks
gww


----------



## msl

thank's for posting SP. Sounds like she is getting a heck of an education, it will be inserting to see what she does with it.


----------



## squarepeg

another post forwarded from sibylle:

"Ok, here I am again!

What I learned until today:

To graft: It was a sucess, 15 queencells drawn on my frames.
Harvest: use bee escapes, take off Supers, take off Bees with beeblower.
How to prepare shipping cages with a Special kind of sugar dough I prepared myself.
To Check the Food Situation and Feed Candy to enforce stronger hives for better wintering or give honey comb for keeping strengh.
To look at the entrance and on the clusters after opening and considering whether the bees are queenless, have laying workers or starve or are content with a laying Queen, this before pulling frames.
How to introduce Queens, mated or not, with hives prepared or not.
How to expand or reduce hives, dependant on Season and State the bees are in.
When and how to treat with Thymol.
Alkohol wash ,Used to find out the threshold, when to treat.

Not bad, isn't it? 
Now I have to practise more.
Thank you, Erik, many thanks! I cannot imagine a better and kinder teacher.
Sibylle

We still find some Time to bathe in the swedish lake where our Cabin is."


----------



## squarepeg

one last forward from sibylle before she returns to us in person:


"Hi all,

Today Erik gave me resonsibility to check some 50 mini matingnucs for egg laying Queens, I did it on my own the second time, so the first time he must have been satisfied with the results.

Remember, I'm not obliged to do all this work, I wanted it and Erik is so kind to suggest many coffee breaks, but I want really to be of help and not only be with him for Education.

So my husband wanted us to extract all honey which is already harvested and wie started after lunch, did 90 kg and afterwards I helped Erik to bottle some and pack it to be sold in stores. He has a nice machine for bottling.
More extracting tomorrow after getting up early to move a colony to a Test Location.

Erik meanwhile went around his apiaries to check varroa levels, put on bee escapes and take home honey supers.

I'm a little allergic to bee poison and do not want to sit with a swelling face on Eriks table, so I use veil, jacket, gloves here.
He is a big friendly teaser but never made fun of me because of that. I appreciate this very much.

I refused to clip and mark queens here because I want to practise with drones at home.
If I had asked, he would have let me, kind aus he is.

Eriks queens are too precious to me. His friend Radim, who talks to the bees, does this mostly for him and I looked on.
They have a sort of cage to hold the queens in and a Glass Bell to catch them from the comb. I have to purchase or Build myself this, the cage was homemade. Great Tools, easy work.
This I must do without gloves to have feel for it.
Sibylle"


----------



## JWChesnut

squarepeg said:


> another post forwarded from sibylle:
> 
> 
> When and how to treat with Thymol.
> Alkohol wash ,Used to find out the threshold, when to treat.


Finally some rationality and appropriate perspective in this endless thread. I hope this lesson is learned and learned well.


----------



## 1102009

JWChesnut said:


> Finally some rationality and appropriate perspective in this endless thread. I hope this lesson is learned and learned well.


There is a difference between educating yourself and "lessons learned". 

Erik was not very keen on teaching me about treatments but I asked him to. I like to get an overall view to convince my co-workers not to treat prophylactically. And what he told me about why he prefers thymol over oxalic or formic acids confirmed my opinions. He is not "giving lessons", he shares. 

So it might be that after an alcohol wash I treat my commercial mite ridden packages with thymol before introducing them to treatment free beekeeping, giving the VSH queens a better startup.

JWC I´m rather blessed you follow my "endless" thread and I´m honoured you find some perspective sharing with me in my talking about thresholds!
What´s yours and how do you do your mite monitoring and resistance breeding?

Squarepeg,
I´m back, happy and tired, sad not to go on helping Erik though. Many thanks for forwarding my messages to this forum.

gww,
my fungi logs are a little dry after 2 weeks of hot weather without someone caring for them, but I have hopes. I will see this fall.


----------



## gww

Siw
Thanks for the follow up on the mushrooms as well as the bee goings on. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

I introduced the swedish queens into two splits of a hive who was the former spring dink and now had 11 broodcombs, 60kg of honey, one deep and two mediums, all bursting with bees.
No swarm cells.

The splits were made with 3 capped brood frames and one food frame, much nectar in the cells. No space to lay so I gave them two more frames with foundation and starter strip and restricted to the smallest space possible, providing laying space ( one comb hatching in each), food and hopefully some drawing of wax. Brushed one medium bees on and placed them distance, but in the same yard.
Hanged the cage between two frames.
Made them queenless for two hours and then gave the cages. The sound changed quickly to relaxed humming so I hope the queens will be accepted.

The old queen with 5 frames of mixed brood and the foragers are at the old place.

Took 40kg of capped honey to my home. After all inspection I will extract them if no hive needs foodcombs.

Late in the evening I installed robber screens on all hives which still missed them.

The package buckfast bees all have a laying queen and first capped brood.

So here I am with 16 colonies, 4 commercials , treated, going tf and 12 treatment free since 2015.


----------



## squarepeg

great report! many thanks for keeping us posted sibylle.


----------



## 1102009

The new mated queens have been accepted, :applause: next week I want to check the laying pattern, this will be when most capped brood has hatched and I see pollen coming in.

All my established colonies have too much nectar stored in broodnest area, so I provided with mediums on top.
Some have capped domes already so it can be they get lazy and keep in the present state. That´s ok, strong enough.

Since I have only foundations or starter strip frames left I plan to extract the mediums and the one or two deep frames to give a boost to bee numbers before winter bee breeding, if needed.
Hang the extracted comb next to broodnest.

Mid of august I check again and see how my wintering managements will be. 

I plan to boost the weak to a 10-12 frame deep with high honey domes, feeding them if needed.

The strong will have a medium, filled, on top and will be on 10 frames deep, the outer frames the dummy kind to isolate, as I had seen in Erik`s hives.
The weaker might get dummies too, depends on bee numbers and honey stores.

Erik gifted me with 5 virgins and 5 Apidea mini-nucs.
I gave 3 of each to a good friend who has severe cancer and therefore no money, spending all on medication.
2 I took home and after filling the nucs with bees and hanging in the caged virgins I placed them on my balcony at home to be mated.

Tonight I saw I had used too many bees and the surplus has to live clustered outside. Well they are under my roof so they will be ok.
If the mating goes well I give these queens to a co-worker of the project.

For now the mite situation seems to be not dangerous. One colony has some, but always had. Still thriving. No crippled bees around. The ferals are very strong.
No colony dwindles. 
Flow goes on. White clover and sunflower fields coming. It will rain at the weekend, they say.


----------



## squarepeg

excellent report sibylle and very good progress! many thanks for keeping us updated here.


----------



## navy bee

Nordak said:


> You're off to a great start, Sibylle. Looking forward to more!


:applause:i am looking forward for more, keep up the good work.


----------



## 1102009

Thank you guys


----------



## gww

SiW....
Glad to have you back in person rather then second hand.
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww,


I can´t use safari anymore because I can´t post. I see a grey field.
I got this field and said no.



> Welcome to BeeSource.com
> Can we continue to use your data to tailor ads for you?
> Our partners will collect data and use cookies for ad personalization and measurement.
> Learn how BeeSource.com and our 11 partners collect and use data
> Yes
> No
> You can change your choice at any time in our privacy center.


So I said yes using firefox and allowed myself to be used for data. 
I don´t like that but I understand it. The administration must be financed somehow. 
I would like to know who profits from this though since the forum is financed by advertisements.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> When and how to treat with Thymol.
> Alkohol wash ,Used to find out the threshold, when to treat.




Hi Sibylle,
Are you going to follow Eriks advice about testing and treating?


I have lost track of what you have been doing so far, the ultrasonic device I remember but any other?



SiWolKe said:


> OT why do you think I started IPM? The most important reason is to have bees left but one is to satisfy the law.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Hi Sibylle,
> Are you going to follow Eriks advice about testing and treating?
> 
> 
> I have lost track of what you have been doing so far, the ultrasonic device I remember but any other?


Hi Juhani,

it´s not exactly advise coming from Erik. He shares what he does but accepts my decisions.

I have not done anything until now because there is no sign of a problem. The colonies thrive. 

Yes, I will test. For now I consider the state the colonies are in by counting the floor board mites and watch for virus bees. It seems it´s not a "mite Year" but I will do some alcohol washes anyway not to be surprised.
These I will do next week or weekend because most of the now capped brood will be hatched and mites should be phoretic. 

Until end of july I will take out capped brood combs if I find a colony mite ridden. Later in august I will treat the infested with thymol. I brought some thymol pads back, which will hold a while.


----------



## 1102009

Here is my experience:

View attachment Two weeks at the ELGON center PDF.pdf


----------



## squarepeg

excellent presentation sibylle! thank you for taking the time to prepare an english version and tell wolfgang excellent job on the photos!

other than the alcohol wash, what other signs did erik teach you to watch for and what will be the tipping point for you to intervene with mite control.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> excellent presentation sibylle! thank you for taking the time to prepare an english version and tell wolfgang excellent job on the photos!
> 
> other than the alcohol wash, what other signs did erik teach you to watch for and what will be the tipping point for you to intervene with mite control.


First we looked at the boards on the ground ( there is a board in front of every entrance) and at the entrance traffic.
Is the board clean or are there some crawlers, how about the drone situation? Are they killed? This either means they have a laying queen ( after given a cell) or it´s just that time of year or there is a drought.
The drones take more mites, so when they are gone it´s more dangerous, the mites might start to use the worker brood.
Actually, it´s time to do the second monitoring then. The first is in early spring.
The tipping point is dead or crippled worker bees on the board, but sometimes Erik tests a special line prophylactically he is not sure of yet.

A healthy traffic and a good entrance defense? If a colony starts to get weak and stressed by mites, there is a bad entrance defense.
A struggling colony is a target for robbers too, so it´s time to look at the entrance first thing in the morning if robbers are trying to get in.

Erik has reduced all his entrances for good and might install robber screens on each one, as I have at home.
That because these struggling colonies are spreading mites by being robbed. It´s hard to evaluate the others then.

Second tipping point, the more important, is the thriving of a colony.
He has colonies that thrive very good despite having mites. This must be considered, because these are the mite fighters which can bear a reinfestation. The best stock maybe. 
With those he tests two times, only two or four weeks in between. If the mite numbers go down come midsummer, the hive is resistant.

As you need much experience with his because of the special circumstances of your location, he evaluated this himself. I could not take part in this.
As you said in your thread, squarepeg, the bees stop breeding when there is no nectar and pollen available. So this standstill or reduction of brood frames starts in early spring and goes through the frugal season when there is food coming in.
Erik never breeds from such colonies.

In my case I have yet to study my colonies more. This year they prefered drone breeding and foraging to breeding a high number of worker bees.
What that means to the overwintering and mite situation I don´t know yet.
Perhaps this is normal and a sign of adaptation, since the broodnest areas look good. I don´t know how much brood my colonies need, formerly those that had much broodframes were the first to have problems.
And this year I needed much comb drawn, which probably went to the disadvantage of making more brood.

In Eriks case the brood patterns of the resistant are not spotty. They had left behind this first strategy of hygienic behaviour. 
I asked what they do now to hold mites at bay but he don´t know. He does not use a microscope to check for mite biting.
If he sees a spotty broodnest in his hives he knows they have problems. Then he keeps them in mind to see what will happen and acts accordingly.
If such a colony has a spotless broodnest midsummer, they had overcome the problems and are on their way to become resistant.
But he waits a season more before using them as breeders.


----------



## squarepeg

SiWolKe said:


> First we looked at the boards on the ground...


i have old carpet down in front of my hives and also pay attention for crawlers and dwv. does erik get concerned if he sees an occasional one or two of these or only when there are many?




SiWolKe said:


> A healthy traffic and a good entrance defense? If a colony starts to get weak and stressed by mites, there is a bad entrance defense.
> A struggling colony is a target for robbers too, so it´s time to look at the entrance first thing in the morning if robbers are trying to get in.
> 
> Erik has reduced all his entrances for good and might install robber screens on each one, as I have at home.
> That because these struggling colonies are spreading mites by being robbed. It´s hard to evaluate the others then.


i haven't used robber screens yet but in hindsight they may have prevented a mite bomb situation at my outyard last year. it seems to be a trait of my bees that they neither rob very much nor do they allow robbing. i have only seen robbing a few times; these were during times of dearth and usually only after the colony went queenless and dwindled down to almost no bees.




SiWolKe said:


> Second tipping point, the more important, is the thriving of a colony.
> He has colonies that thrive very good despite having mites. This must be considered, because these are the mite fighters which can bear a reinfestation. The best stock maybe.


this sounds like what i see with my colonies in that they thrive and are productive even with mite counts higher than what would be considered sustainable.




SiWolKe said:


> As you need much experience with his because of the special circumstances of your location, he evaluated this himself. I could not take part in this.
> As you said in your thread, squarepeg, the bees stop breeding when there is no nectar and pollen available. So this standstill or reduction of brood frames starts in early spring and goes through the frugal season when there is food coming in.
> Erik never breeds from such colonies.


do you mean that erik doesn't breed from colonies that take a brood break during times of dearth?




SiWolKe said:


> In Eriks case the brood patterns of the resistant are not spotty.


it's the same here. the only time i see a spotty pattern is with a failing queen.


----------



## 1102009

squarepeg said:


> i have old carpet down in front of my hives and also pay attention for crawlers and dwv. does erik get concerned if he sees an occasional one or two of these or only when there are many?
> 
> 
> 
> He gets concerned with one or two and watches them.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> i haven't used robber screens yet but in hindsight they may have prevented a mite bomb situation at my outyard last year. it seems to be a trait of my bees that they neither rob very much nor do they allow robbing. i have only seen robbing a few times; these were during times of dearth and usually only after the colony went queenless and dwindled down to almost no bees.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> You don´t see silent robbing. This must not be a big problem, but can be.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> this sounds like what i see with my colonies in that they thrive and are productive even with mite counts higher than what would be considered sustainable.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes exactly. The mite counts say nothing about virus susceptibility.
> A hive with low mite count and many defect bees and no productivity is not resistant.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> do you mean that erik doesn't breed from colonies that take a brood break during times of dearth?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> So far he had no dearth. But no, I did not explain good. If he evaluates a breeder he monitors while the colony developes in spring and again when the mite multiplying should be at it´s height, in summer before winter bee breeding.
> So when the mite numbers are lower in summer than in spring and no virus seen this is a breeder.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it's the same here. the only time i see a spotty pattern is with a failing queen.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes, you can compare this with your own situation.
> Your bees are actually a step further. Your threshold is much higher, I believe. Erik now goes for 5 % instead of 3 %. If he has 3% he waits what happens and monitors again. Sometimes it goes up and down.
> If they are under 3% and no virus effects to be seen it´s a good sign.
> Still he has a lower threshold for the breeders and wants them to proove resistance for some seasons.
> 
> And I was impressed that his only broodbrake is in winter. Because he uses queen cells for his splits he has not much of a broodbrake through splitting.
> But he has a good splitting management placing the splits at another beeyard some 3 km far so they will not loose too much bees important for mite fighting. No weak splits.
> The splits I saw were already established, mostly filling the space of my square dadant hive.
Click to expand...


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Your threshold is much higher, I believe. Erik now goes for 5 % instead of 3 %.


Oh, has he made a change this summer?

In Austria he spoke about 3%. 


The higher threshold is needed to be able to see those true fighters, as you write.




SiWolKe said:


> In Eriks case the brood patterns of the resistant are not spotty. They had left behind this first strategy of hygienic behaviour.
> I asked what they do now to hold mites at bay but he don´t know. He does not use a microscope to check for mite biting.
> If he sees a spotty broodnest in his hives he knows they have problems. Then he keeps them in mind to see what will happen and acts accordingly.
> If such a colony has a spotless broodnest midsummer, they had overcome the problems and are on their way to become resistant.
> But he waits a season more before using them as breeders.


Spotty broodnest is only a, fairly good, proof of mites, but does not necessary mean the bees are inferior, they might just have be been attacked by mite invasion form neighboring hives.
Good brood nest a nice to see, but the reason for it may be something in the colony history, not resistance. In Eriks case it may be more effective result of treatment.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Oh, has he made a change this summer?
> 
> In Austria he spoke about 3%.
> 
> 
> 
> He gives them a little more time to go back to under 3% but 3% is still his threshold.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The higher threshold is needed to be able to see those true fighters, as you write.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes I think Erik sees this too. But in his case, as a honey producer, not only queen producer, you must be careful not to infest your own beeyards. And he has mostly production colonies, not many splits and not 1000 mating nucs
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Spotty broodnest is only a, fairly good, proof of mites, but does not necessary mean the bees are inferior, they might just have be been attacked by mite invasion form neighboring hives.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes, he has those too. He is very aware of the situation at the border of elgonland where reinfestation is higher.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Good brood nest a nice to see, but the reason for it may be something in the colony history, not resistance. In Eriks case it may be more effective result of treatment.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> No. Because those I saw with spotless broodnests have mite numbers under 1.5% and were not treated for 3 years. He does not treat many, his stock is mostly tf.
> He does not treat constantly those he treats, he shifts the queens and stops treatments.
> 
> Colony history: in this case, yes. And those are tested at the borders and he has some who are resistant despite mite infestations from outside.
> 
> We group have spotty broodnests. Our colonies fight much more because they are not resistant bred yet.
Click to expand...


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> He does not treat constantly those he treats, he shifts the queens and stops treatments.


In Austria he said that he has treated 50% of his hives in the last two years. 


The thread title should be changed, IMO. We are way of "tf at all costs" situation.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> In Austria he said that he has treated 50% of his hives in the last two years.
> 
> 
> 
> He does? Interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The thread title should be changed, IMO. We are way of "tf at all costs" situation.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Why? I´m still hard bond you know. Even if I consider IPM with the susceptibles. Perhaps you should follow my own posts not those of my trolls.
> 
> And I find it interesting that you talk so much about treatments on BS and give advise about them. Thought you a hard core tf queen breeder.
Click to expand...


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Juhani Lunden said:
> 
> 
> 
> And I find it interesting that you talk so much about treatments on BS and give advise about them. Thought you a hard core tf queen breeder.
> 
> 
> 
> Am I not allowed to talk in about treatments in BS? We have freedom of speech (and press) in Finland.
> 
> https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com...-trump-putin-summit-billboards-freedom-press/
Click to expand...


----------



## Fusion_power

I think she is alluding to this being the treatment free forum which has special rules that discussion of treatments is only allowed if it is part of a protocol to get to treatment free.

Just an opinion, but if he is treating 50% of his hives, he is not winning the battle to stay off treatments.


----------



## msl

> And I find it interesting that you talk so much about treatments on BS and give advise about them. Thought you a hard core tf queen breeder.


now now now
John kefuss runs 4,000 treated hives, 300 TF hives, most consider him a hard core TF queen breeder, yes? 



> Perhaps you should follow my own posts not those of my trolls.


I think you have been chased by your trolls(real and imagined) to the point you can't tell friend from foe any more.
"Woe is me, the persecuted TF beekeeper" is another bit of the culture I don't enjoy... 



> I think she is alluding to this being the treatment free forum which has special rules that discussion of treatments is only allowed if it is part of a protocol to get to treatment free


I don't see JL talking much about treatments here, he has been in several dissustions with me out side the tf forum bubble on the myth of oav being far superior to oad....
to me she is seeing trolls and "fighting back"

we do better here with a healthily dose of mutual respect, going after JL's TF honor, low blow in my book,and on called for
you din't like what he said, but rather then defend your position you lashed out.. no one wins then...
don't confuse one of us challenging your postilion or ideals with disrespect
defend you position at an intellectual level, or complicate... mud slinging doesn't advance the TF cause

needed discalmer... I respect you, your work, and your opinions... but that doesn't mean I won't debate you


----------



## 1102009

Fusion_power said:


> Just an opinion, but if he is treating 50% of his hives, he is not winning the battle to stay off treatments.


Why not? He breeds only from treatment free colonies. He treats those which are susceptible because they will be the mite bombs.

You should all be happy about this because on BS every year when the mites are on their peak the talk of mite bombs starts again happily blaming the neighbors for one owns failing strategies.
So he is a careful person in my eyes. Not that I will follow but it´s a clever strategie without having losses.

And there are many elgon bees now in europe which are much more vital han the locals. 
There is no "battle". There is only a strategie and having joy in more resistant stock.

And yes Juhani I talk about treatments too. The dangers of treatments. Because I work with beekeepers who treat and we discuss this all the time. 
We know exactly how the desperate european situation came about.


----------



## 1102009

msl said:


> John kefuss runs 4,000 treated hives, 300 TF hives, most consider him a hard core TF queen breeder, yes?
> 
> 
> 
> But Juhani says he cancelled treatments. But I do not see he propagates to be tf. A business model?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think you have been chased by your trolls(real and imagined) to the point you can't tell friend from foe any more.
> "Woe is me, the persecuted TF beekeeper" is another bit of the culture I don't enjoy...
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> And I´m tired nobody reads my text but only the subsciptions. And then comments telling me I´m not scientific. Even if I talk about treatments in the treaters forums I get bashed because I talk about chemical free treatments.
> Shall I leave and let the sellers of chemical gadgets take over?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> we do better here with a healthily dose of mutual respect, going after JL's TF honor, low blow in my book,and on called for
> you din't like what he said, but rather then defend your position you lashed out.. no one wins then...
> don't confuse one of us challenging your postilion or ideals with disrespect
> defend you position at an intellectual level, or complicate... mud slinging doesn't advance the TF cause
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> What respect you give me?
> I don´t see your point except you don´t like being contradicted.
Click to expand...


----------



## msl

> What respect you give me?


really? 
and I qoate


> needed discalmer... I respect you, your work, and your opinions... but that doesn't mean I won't debate you
> Last edited by msl; Today at 11:36 PM.


when Greg moved over and took a shot at you here...who stood up for you? I don't see him posting in TF any more 
I have gone up against Johno/snl and the vape heads, .but this is by far the worst insult I have received on this forum, coming form a TF member...ouch 
The only further possibly sign of respect I can give, its to bow out of of your thread,
to that effect, good night, and good luck, I will check back in with you in 2 years. An I honestly hope your hives are thriving and spreading good genetics in your area when I swing back by....
8/5/2020...see ya then:gh:


----------



## 1102009

Hello all.

*This thread is closed.*

I´m fine myself and with my bees and see a great future coming.

Best to you and good luck.


----------



## tpope

Wow,
Did not see this coming...


----------



## 1102009

tpope said:


> Wow,
> Did not see this coming...


*One word. *

At the invitation of SP, I shared my experiences here.
I've told every detail, kept nothing secret, never lied, or portrayed my work better than I could afford.

I was a beginner and gave word freely about how much work and costs I had until I gained experience.
Now I see myself as experienced and demand the respect for it.

I've never shunned the work and costs, I've always been there for those who are interested, I even endangered my colonies to provide them for breeding.

I now know that it is possible to keep bees treatment-free in Europe.

I know that it is good to import resistance breeding genetics, because then you have a run before everything collapses. With this better genetics, you have a greater chance of epigenetic adaptation before everything collapses.

This genetics can only be created by breeding the queens from the best colonies with no or less treatment, whereby the production hives can be treated, as they are exposed to completely unnatural husbandry methods.

It is an illusion to believe that the world is suddenly managing without treatments. But you can make the best of it and only treat it if necessary and thus promote resistance.
At the same time, support projects that support wild honey beekeeping to preserve survival genetics.

Nevertheless, I would be happy, there would be more courage in the beekeepers to switch to completely treatment-free beekeeping, especially with hobbyists and sideliners.

I am convinced that natural beekeeping helps to promote resistance or starts resistance if no fear of losses is involved.

In this sense,
Goodbye and good bye.

I feel good and bad about leaving BS. I feel good because I never wanted to be contradicted in my own thread having to justify my actions and my person and I´m now glad to be able to use my energy for further promotion of tf beekeeping. 
There are sufficient threads for discussions so no need to do this in a personal thread. 
I feel bad because of my friends and followers who were interested.
To you I give all my best wishes.


----------



## mischief

Hi Sibylle,
I'm sad to see you go.
I have been watching and learning from you and also have high hopes that I can have fully treatment free healthy bees.

I wish you werent leaving and I feel guilty for not posting my thanks earlier on your thread.
All the best to you


----------



## 1102009

Why thanks, mischief 

Well msl already promised to bow out of this thread with his endless debates of how one must follow the scientific data despite observing this data will not mean anything to the real situations, and if I could get rid of Juhani Lunden disciplining me all the time ( ooups... he calls it teaching and helping; the chasing away of my guests ) and givin his prophesies how I will fail, or JWChesnut feeling superior in commenting my actions not even interested in the slightest in my quest just doing it to feel better himself.

Still I might feel better sometime, sentitive person as I am, if I won´t come back. Grass grows. Missing BS and hurt will go away. And I see with my own forum how civilized it can be to work with all kinds of beekeepers, commercial, hobbyist, treater, bonder and whoever.


----------



## mischief

Civilised???
You have a civilised forum?
hehe, are they all German?
Where is this wonderous place?


----------



## JWPalmer

Sibylle, sorry to see you go. While not personally TF, I believe the work you are doing and the experiences you have been sharing have been helpful to all beekeepers. Best of luck to you.


----------



## 1102009

mischief said:


> Civilised???
> You have a civilised forum?
> hehe, are they all German?
> Where is this wonderous place?


We are only 50 members, some 10-12 logged in dayly and we discuss mostly not public. 
That because we all come from forums where we were banned because we had "strange" ideas or because we left because the discussions were uncivilized or without results.
My friend the admin consequently bans all disrespectful members. 

Remember our situation. We have to work seriously if we want to have results. 

I really don´t know why I still post here now. I must be a psycho and addicted. Why do I feel responsible? 
# 1100 should have been my last.
Shall I stay? I don´t know. I feel responsible. Darn. I´m a weak person.

Thanks for the positive feedback, anyway.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> and if I could get rid of Juhani Lunden disciplining me all the time ( ooups... he calls it teaching and helping; the chasing away of my guests ) and givin his prophesies how I will fail,


I remember saying "lets wait" meaning "lets wait" what will happen with your TF experience. If you consider it a prophesy of failing, then it is one. But to me it means "lets wait". You now leaving this thread we actually will never know. 
To me you are a beginner. I have had bees for 41 years. 



SiWolKe said:


> He does not treat constantly those he treats, he shifts the queens and stops treatments.





Juhani Lunden said:


> In Austria he said that he has treated 50% of his hives in the last two years.





SiWolKe said:


> He does? Interesting.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4a1bvrVyHI

Time 5:25


----------



## ruthiesbees

Sibylle, I hope you decide to stick around Beesource. You lend a very strong voice to being TF and how you are doing that. It is very important that others can read about the successful beekeepers who are doing it, and doing it well.


----------



## clyderoad

SiWolKe:


One does not demand respect, one earns respect.


----------



## mischief

Well, I hope you stay.
Maybe take a little holiday. It can be hard when you feel like all you are getting are idiots.
I promise to post more if you do decide to stay.


----------



## 1102009

mischief said:


> Well, I hope you stay.
> Maybe take a little holiday. It can be hard when you feel like all you are getting are idiots.
> I promise to post more if you do decide to stay.



Oh yes this could change my attitude!
Thank you so much!


----------



## 1102009

ruthiesbees said:


> Sibylle, I hope you decide to stick around Beesource. You lend a very strong voice to being TF and how you are doing that. It is very important that others can read about the successful beekeepers who are doing it, and doing it well.


I´m not seeing myself as sucessful yet. 
Juhani Lunden had his crashs every 6 years and I´m 4 years. I already had a crash but survivors. I expect to have more crashes but hope not 100%. That´s where my group is for, to start again in this case and sustain tf stock.

Ruth, you had been a great help in the past and I copied your methods into my forum.
Thank you for the appreciation.


----------



## 1102009

clyderoad said:


> SiWolKe:
> 
> 
> One does not demand respect, one earns respect.


Reading the feedback it seems there is some respect earned. I hope so.

When I started this thread I had hope the newbies would post more and we could start an enthusiastic communication about our possibilities and the difference of locations.

But BS is not a good place for this, the ones who failed to be tf and those conservative beekeepers behind their walls, they prevented this, chasing away some and made the others too shy to post.
And those who do hard bond but can´t because under their circumstances all bees die, they are not open to different ways too.
So I felt crushed.

I was raised not to ignore people if they speak to me. My parents found it unpolite. It was not tolerated.

But I need such a trait here. It´s hard for me to ignore members. It´s hard for me to ban them from my profile area. It goes against my character.
I banned Richard Cryberg. He once posted me a pm he likes tf beekeepers because they all let their bees die and then they are his customers bying new bees.
I don´t like a cynical view like that.

But, who knows, the tf queen breeders, perhaps they don´t want us hobbyists to have no sucess too? 

In Austria I had many contacts to research and scientists. 
When I was back, I tried to keep contact. I offered my colonies for observations.
They got the data but now don´t answer my mails. 
I don´t believe anyone in the professional scene is really interested in having a world of tf bees. Too much money and profits involved with treatments and breeding queens.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> To me you are a beginner. I have had bees for 41 years.


I respect and admire Michael Bush who said every beekeeper, even a most experienced one, can learn new things. 
I see with my co-workers, that the ones who had bees for many years have to change some managements drastically to have tf bees. 
I´m very grateful I never heard from them those words you say, Juhani.

Yes Erik treated about 50% in 2016 and 2017 it was at the border of his elgon area when a new beekeeper came and did not want to use his elgon bees despite he offered them.
I asked Erik after your accusation because I did not see him treat so many colonies, I only saw two or three treated.
The neighbor has only one colony left now. He was an immigrant and absent most of the time. So no need to treat so much 2018.

Erik still has about 120 production colonies. So the status last year was about 60 not treated. Much less this year. All in all he has losses around 10% every year, which I find very inspiring.
He has colonies with so low a mite infestation, 0.5-1.5% he uses for breeding. And those are not all the ones isolated.

We europeans need to have a strategy if reinfestation comes. There are many and thymol treating is only one of them. It´s mostly done if you need a honey harvest.
There are other methods if you don´t want to use chemicals or oils.


----------



## clyderoad

SiWolKe said:


> Reading the feedback it seems there is some respect earned. I hope so.
> 
> When I started this thread I had hope the newbies would post more and we could start an enthusiastic communication about our possibilities and the difference of locations.
> 
> But BS is not a good place for this, the ones who failed to be tf and those conservative beekeepers behind their walls, they prevented this, chasing away some and made the others too shy to post.
> And those who do hard bond but can´t because under their circumstances all bees die, they are not open to different ways too.
> So I felt crushed.
> 
> I was raised not to ignore people if they speak to me. My parents found it unpolite. It was not tolerated.
> 
> But I need such a trait here. It´s hard for me to ignore members. It´s hard for me to ban them from my profile area. It goes against my character.
> I banned Richard Cryberg. He once posted me a pm he likes tf beekeepers because they all let their bees die and then they are his customers bying new bees.
> I don´t like a cynical view like that.
> 
> But, who knows, the tf queen breeders, perhaps they don´t want us hobbyists to have no sucess too?
> 
> In Austria I had many contacts to research and scientists.
> When I was back, I tried to keep contact. I offered my colonies for observations.
> They got the data but now don´t answer my mails.
> I don´t believe anyone in the professional scene is really interested in having a world of tf bees. Too much money and profits involved with treatments and breeding queens.


An open forum where people are free to contribute their view point and everyone can question and critique the views of others is not the right venue
when you want to control the narrative and eliminate from the conversation anyone with a view that differs from your own. Maybe it is time to move on and find a less open venue where the conversation is strictly monitored and censored.

Have you gone back and read the posts in this thread, especially your own, and tried to figure out what role you may be playing in how
others respond? Rarely is one party solely to blame. Some self reflection and self critique may be helpful, now and going forward.


Again I say to you that one does not demand respect, one earns respect.

Take care.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

SiWolKe said:


> Yes Erik treated about 50% in 2016 and 2017 it was at the border of his elgon area when a new beekeeper came and did not want to use his elgon bees despite he offered them.
> I asked Erik after your accusation ...


My accusation?? What was my accusation?

Accusation
Definition of accusation
1 : a charge of wrongdoing

I simply corrected misleading facts. Facts which we both heard in Austria sitting in the same conference room.


----------



## 1102009

Juhani Lunden said:


> Accusation


Maybe the wrong word, I´m sorry.

There is no secret about Erik treating the susceptibles, everyone can read it on his blog.

So I don´t understand why this is so important to you that it´s mentioned all the time, as a main fact for example in the article you wrote for the finnish magazine, as if he has no resistant breeding project.
Just like fusion_power posted that to him this is not a success.
I don´t understand this. The situation in europe needs a strategy that differs from bond. It must be soft bond or nobody will follow.

When we met in Austria I had the impression you accepted this as a strategy, as an IPM strategy under difficult circumstances. As it is done by many queen breeders. 

I have co-workers who have some tf hives and most of the others treated. Are the tf no tf colonies because of the percentage? 

You wrote this to me in an e-mail:



> I see a lot progress on Beesource. Today there is more less talk about small cells or regression and much more talk about the role of drones and IPM methods.


So you must see this IPM as a progress!



> My bees are having difficult times, that is why I at the moment really cannot stand information twisted in favour of someone treating his bees when necessary.


I don´t understand this. I did not twist information, I was ignorant about it. And what happens to you?
My eastern friends tell me:
Finnish beekeepers treat with thymol in late summer, with OA in winter, formic acid in spring or early summer or thymol again. They import italiens and carniolans which need a forth treatment.
But here in forum you tell people the finnish bekeepers treat with thymol in summer. What about the many other treatments they do?

The situation of reinfestation cannot be avoided. What will you do if it happens?


----------



## 1102009

clyderoad said:


> An open forum where people are free to contribute their view point and everyone can question and critique the views of others is not the right venue
> when you want to control the narrative and eliminate from the conversation anyone with a view that differs from your own.
> 
> 
> 
> You did not understand. It´s not the content of a post, it´s the way it is said. It´s not me that looks for that kind of content control, it´s people like you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Have you gone back and read the posts in this thread, especially your own, and tried to figure out what role you may be playing in how
> others respond? Rarely is one party solely to blame. Some self reflection and self critique may be helpful, now and going forward.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> You are right about that.
> But it was me who apologized if I was wrong. And it was a mistake. Apologize and you seem weak. A target.
> I do not understand that I should be the only one who can never share the opinions and ideas I have. What´s wrong abou opinions and ideas anyway?
> Because most of the uncivilized posts and pm I got were opinions or prejudices by others.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again I say to you that one does not demand respect, one earns respect.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I demand respect to my person and to my work.
Click to expand...


----------



## clyderoad

SiWolKe said:


> You did not understand. It´s not the content of a post, it´s the way it is said. It´s not me that looks for that kind of content control, it´s people like you.
> 
> 
> 
> You are right about that.
> But it was me who apologized if I was wrong. And it was a mistake. Apologize and you seem weak. A target.
> I do not understand that I should be the only one who can never share the opinions and ideas I have. What´s wrong abou opinions and ideas anyway?
> Because most of the uncivilized posts and pm I got were opinions or prejudices by others.
> 
> 
> 
> I demand respect to my person and to my work.


This post is exactly what I am talking about- it ends conversations and does not promote them.
My patience with this is exhausted.
Goodbye.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

clyderoad said:


> My patience with this is exhausted.
> Goodbye.


Same here.
Goodbye.


----------



## 1102009

I hopefully have cleared the path to some more tf beginners or seasoned beekeepers to take the courage to share their tf experience here on BS.

There has been some talk that John Kefuss son now has become a treater after taking over his father`s enterprise.
I like to go to the source to confirm so I sent an e-mail.
This is the answer:

>>>
Am 11.08.2018 um 19:57 schrieb John Kefuss <jkefussbees......fr>:

Dear Sibylle,

The beekeeping operations of my son Cyril and I are independent of each other. That way we don’t have any conflicts as each is his own boss and responsible for his own errors. He does not rear queens, but I do. He treats but I don’t. Later on this month he will be running a “ Soft Bond Test” which implies treatment of all hives except the breeders ( from which I will make his 2019 queens). This is the method that I recommend to beekeepers who don’t wish to use the “Bond test” (no treatments). We will measure his honey production for each colony and also take bee and brood samples for analysis later on this Fall ( when I have the time ) to get some hard data to work with. That way we can compare the economics of using Band and Soft Bond tests. 

Yours,

John
<<<

Data and experience done like that and shared in a few years is what I call progress.


----------



## 1102009

Beekeeping in sweden.

A sideliner. 100+ - colonies, elgon stock, tf.

View attachment Radim story pdf.pdf


I started mite monitoring.
Some things with respect to correlations between mite biting, count numbers and alcohol wash surprise me very much.
I will update but need 10 more days.

Two colonies I thought of having paralyze but they are healthy again. It must have been the spraying they had taken when I lent them to a co-worker for breeding.


----------



## 1102009

I decided to give it a break and take a little holiday like mischief suggested, starting now.
This was confirmed today while reading the forums.
The endless debates about strategies go on and on never leading to any results or are of any help to new beekeepers. I mean the debates of right or wrong, not the contents of good advise.
It´s practical work made public and the journaling of unique situations which helps and makes the newcomers aware of dangers or possibilities.
In my case, as I said in the very beginning, I´m not journaling to convince anyone of tf beekeeping but to make people aware of the situations and struggles this could lead to, but hopefully develop some strategies to be able to keep on since constant treatments are not what I or some others see as the future of beekeeping.

Beekeeping today is a battle against disease. It´s not fun. I, and my group, want it to be fun again. We don´t see treatment free beekeeping as a battle to be won or lost. We don´t see it as static.
Losses come and go just like circumstances change. We accept the different opinion commercial beekeepers might have but still hope they jump on the tf train some time in future.


So for now I want to repeat once again what was my education the last 4 years and what my conclusions are:



> At the invitation of SP, I shared my experiences here.
> I've told every detail, kept nothing secret, never lied, or portrayed my work better than I could afford.
> 
> I was a beginner and gave word freely about how much work and costs I had until I gained experience.
> Now I see myself as experienced and demand the respect for it.
> 
> I've never shunned the work and costs, I've always been there for those who are interested, I even endangered my surviving colonies to provide them for breeding.
> 
> I now know that it is possible to keep bees treatment-free in Europe.
> 
> I know that it is good to import resistance breeding genetics, because then you have a run before everything collapses. With this better genetics, you have a greater chance of epigenetic adaptation before everything collapses.
> 
> This genetics can only be created by breeding the queens from the best colonies with no or less treatment, whereby the production hives can be treated, as they are exposed to completely unnatural husbandry methods.
> 
> It is an illusion to believe that the world is suddenly managing without treatments. But you can make the best of it and only treat it if necessary and thus promote resistance.
> At the same time, support projects that support wild honey beekeeping to preserve survival genetics.
> 
> Nevertheless, I would be happy, there would be more courage in the beekeepers to switch to completely treatment-free beekeeping, especially with hobbyists and sideliners.
> 
> I am convinced that natural beekeeping helps to promote resistance or starts resistance if no fear of losses is involved.


----------



## 1102009

I finished my counting.
I did not do an alcohol wash but may do it soon. I want to count longer time.
Here are the results:
The numbers are the average a day from counting ten days.

View attachment Mite Monitoring 2018 2.pdf
View attachment Milbenmonitoring 2018.pdf
View attachment Platzierung Elgon.pdf


A pict of the opened cells my new pure bred queen initiated:


----------



## 1102009

The numbers of mite drop go down right now.

Where are the mites? The bees start to reduce the brood so it can be the mites are on the bees. Danger!!

I´m a little exhausted by the seasonal work I must do ( not all beekeeping) but I will try some alcohol washes the next days if the rain stops.
The rains mean we will have a fall flow. So this honey mixes with my sugar honey. Very good.

I´m feeding the storeless ones. They take 2l of sugar water a day and I will go on until they are satisfied. The new queen´s splits draw comb to store.

I reflected about VSH today. Michael Palmer has VSH bees but still is not trusting treatment free. What are the missing factors?
The discussions about MelD. I have a feeling that only with an established hive the bees are able to hold the mites at bay. So the risk of losses will stay with me, but I don´t really care.

I´m invited to hold a speech in late fall or winter about treatment free beekeeping. I think I will talk about my swedish experience. This strategy could be offered to those who fear bond.


----------



## 1102009

Mite drop stays the same, with 2 colonies goes down with one new colony rises. Much brood hatched. This new bees will breed the winter bees. 
No defect wings, strong orientation flights.
I´m still feeding some.

I was contacted by some who want to share the discussions here in my thread but fear to be attacked and become outcasts. Sad.
After getting a mail from a very respected long time sucessful tf beekeeper to stay in touch I will go on posting here and again welcome all interested members, especially the newcomers and small beekeppers and hobbyists.

Perhaps it still will be possible to discuss in a civilized way and not to be negatively commented just for entertainments sake.
That does not mean not to be commented at all.
But I´m not listening anymore to members who want to question my work without offering an alternative and who tried to drive me away.


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## mischief

Hi SiW,
Well.... that was a short holiday,hehe.

I, for one love reading how, what and why you are doing what you do.
There are a couple of main reasons for this, the first is that we are both in areas that do not have viable/any(?) feral populations and two that we where we both live, it is expected that bees must be treated.
I admire your courage in going treatment free straight off. Unfortunately, I do not have that same courage and so have chosen a softer path which I hope will take us to the same point, eventually.
My approach to achieving my goal of happy healthy non treated bees, is different from yours.
I have started with starter strips, foundationless, and probably a little too late in the season last summer, added plastic small cell frames, but with the shoulders not shaved down.
I cant import new genetics, for one thing, I am content to have my just one hive for now, although, this year I have put my name down on the swarm list and may be lucky enough to be given a swarm that somebody else has caught- I'll need to collect this.

This year, here in New Zealand, we are just entering spring.
With my exisitng hive, I need to change out, bit by bit, to all shaved down small cell frames, at least in the brood nest.
I am still in my second year and know I have made too many mistakes, but my bees have survived so far in spite of these, so, there is a lot of hope for the future.


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## 1102009

Welcome back mischief  and thank you.

I have no problem with different approaches and look forward to you updating.
I don´t know if I have happy bees but hope so. Could be I have to change my path a little bit to treating the "mite bombs" with thymol but so far I let them.
They are stiil at my threshold, not over, except two of them which I will watch the next days and decide then. I still have to do the alcohol wash but work and weather prevented me.

To your consolation: my ferals are bursting with activity and despite surrounded by commercial migrating beekeepers they go into their third winter.
I hope they will survive but if not, they have spread some genetics in my area.


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## mischief

Last year all I did was fog with FGMO but come mid spring, I had a severe case of DWV.
This year, I have changed things.
Over winter, I left the Apilife-var wafers on the sticky board- I forgot to put them ontop of the frames and so put them on the sticky board instead. I was told it wouldnt do any good and so thought that if that was the case, it would not hurt to just leave them there.
This originally happened because the bees were so hostile on one inspection, that I forgot to put the wafers on the tops of the frames. I was so frightened by them that I didnt want to go back in to do that, so these same essential oil wafers have been on the sticky board since late summer. I have a bad sense of smell but they are still smelly to me.

I decided that FGMO even with wintergreen oil added, was not achieving the desired result at this time of year, so didnt do it. 
I did not want to put new stinky essential oil treatments in just in case it made the bees think they did not have a good Queen- with no drones and only just building up it was not a good idea to use this.
This year, I have done two OA vapour treatments instead.
I was told I should be doing this every 5 days by one person and every 3 days by another. I havent, I just did them about a week apart-due to weather and work commitments.

I am fortunate that if I rush home after work, I am in time to watch the hive during the early afternoon and get to see the numbers of both the foragers as well as those doing their orientation flight.
So far I am pleased to see that these are increasing in numbers.
The numbers of the bees taking out undesirable DWV babies appears to have leveled at three over the four hour period that I am watching the entrance- yes, I obviously have way to much time on my hands.


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## 1102009

mischief said:


> Last year all I did was fog with FGMO but come mid spring, I had a severe case of DWV.
> 
> 
> 
> If you see the DWV bees in spring purified ( bees and pupae expelled) this means the bees know exactly what they do. Probably better not to influence this with treatments.
> If you fear for them, take the drone brood capped to freeze. Some have tf bees just doing that and nothing else. Numbers of mites go down a little bit. But do it early and after that let them raise new drones to attract the mites to drone brood.
> 
> In winter time the virus which before has been more prolific in the mites went into the long life winter bees in late summer and damages them.
> In spring and early summer this virus damage is prevented more by the generation change. So, if the colonies infested barely survive they can be healthy again after taking care of that situation themselves.
> The overwhelming by mites and virus disease happens mostly in a two years turnus, wheras the colonies either overcome the danger or succumb. The danger starts when your location threshold of mite numbers is reached by late summer or early fall.
> 
> This threshold you have to find out. You have to count the fallen mites and compare this number to the appearance of DVW bees.
> With not selected stock this threshold is very low, so be careful. The moment you see a DVW bee just before winter breeding, take immediate action, except you have more than 10 hives so you can hope to have something left to breed from.
> In spring you can wait a little longer if you have no need of a production hive. If the bees are not made to ignore the danger and therefore take action themselves the adaptation happens much faster.
> In spring they have a chance to renew themselves or you help them with splitting.
> My best experience was splitting with old queen and 2 combs, one open, one capped, and brushed on nurse bees. If this split has no foragers for a time, they do housecleaning.
> You have to give them much food though, best is pollen and honey comb.
> The rest must have the foragers and raise their own cells so to have a big broodbrake.
> If you want to introduce a mated queen, wait this broodbrake too! Consider the days they would have needed to raise one and then put her in. It´s still not laying worker danger then.
> When they raise their own cells ou can let them swarm or split again after the cells are capped. In this way you will have good food comb for splitting because the queenless forage like crazy, and you have expansion. Do it when it´s swarm season, that´s the time bees want to multiply and you can prevent swarming if you want to.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This originally happened because the bees were so hostile on one inspection, that I forgot to put the wafers on the tops of the frames. I was so frightened by them that I didnt want to go back in to do that, so these same essential oil wafers have been on the sticky board since late summer. I have a bad sense of smell but they are still smelly to me.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Hostile bees, if they are not hostile as in the genes, always means you have a problem. Hunger or mites. If you smoke them wait one good minute then work slowly. Smoke carefully, not too much but sufficient.Don´t panic. If the attack, go away some meters and wait until they get back on the top ofthe box. Give them some more smoke from above or take a towel and cover the outer frames while pulling the broodframes. The nurse bees will not attack you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I did not want to put new stinky essential oil treatments in just in case it made the bees think they did not have a good Queen- with no drones and only just building up it was not a good idea to use this.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This year, I have done two OA vapour treatments instead.
> I was told I should be doing this every 5 days by one person and every 3 days by another. I havent, I just did them about a week apart-due to weather and work commitments.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes, this is a problem with essential oils, I agree with you. Rather use OAV fumes (or sugar shakes) but take care not to breathe them or get them on your skin. You have to catch the newly hatched brood so try to wait until not much capped brood or treat again after 5 days.
> If you treat take out some food comb with pollen if possible and give it back after. You saved some microorganisms this way and vaccinate the hive again. Mostly it´s fungi which is important.
Click to expand...


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## mischief

Thanks for that.
I think they were hostile that one time because I went in too early after they replaced their Queen. The next time I inspected, they were back to their quite calm selves.

Next week, I am going to open the hive for the first time this 'new season'.
I am going to take out most of the small cell frames that are on the honey side-well away from the brood nest/cluster.
I am going to shave the shoulders of these frames down and put them back in the hive, replacing the large cell frames that are closer to the brood nest.
the large cell frames are going in the freezer until they are needed as honey stores.

I have been told that going the small cell route my not give me the results I am looking for, but the one person I asked, who did not have good results, said that they did not shave the shoulders down to the 32mm. 
I think this one point will make a difference. We will see soon.

I intend to expand to three hives this year. Hopefully one of the new ones will be from a swarm,(I have my name down on the swarm wanted list), and for the other, I intend to do a Taranov split.

So far I am pleased with their progress.
Today was nice and warm, if a little windy and I am seeing an ever increasing number of foragers going out as well as more doing their orientation flight.
Only two DWV being taken out of the hive, so I am not worrying about them too much.


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## 1102009

Thanks for the update and for sharing your plans. 

It´s good to change to small cell and shave down, but remember, the small cell build is not good when the bees start their first drones. 
Perhaps you can try to give them a 10% drone corner on each frame if you don´t want to take out drone brood ( you can do this anyway giving them an starter strip frame on the side) and if you don´t have plastik. But I would cut the plastic corner too.

Small cell is best drawn in summer if you put in one after another, the next when the earlier is drawn out. Hang it next to broodnest after the first drones are expelled. Don´t hang it into the honey area.


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## mischief

haha...too late.
I have small cell right through the hive because I had to. 
They do have frames they built out from starter strips and a few foundationless.
I dont have a Queen excluder and just wont use them. The Queen laid throughout the hive. I am happy with that.
I had heaps of brawny drones last year and was thrilled with them all.
I dont care where the Queen lays...its her hive.

The shaved down ones are going on the brood nest side. I have two original large cell frames that the bees arrived in that do have to come out and two wooden frames that have self made large cell comb in the brood nest, that also have to come out.
After that, I will assess and act accordingly. 
I definitely will give them every opportunity to create as many drones as they want.


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## 1102009

No problem!
Many years with high numbers of tf colonies coming!


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## 1102009

Sad day.
I had to treat a hive with thymol.
Mite numbers rose dayly.
Hive is still strong but I saw a short abdomen bee and some problems with defense against wasps.
It´s too early in season to let them die. I sat and considered this a very long time, but I have to protect the others. 
My recent locations are all occupied so I don´t have a "hospital" to let nature take her way.

Plus, the supercedure of the one pure bred queen did not have sucess. The brood is drones only. Must have been a drone layer.
Only a handful of old bees left and drones, I decided to toss them into the gras 20m far and let them beg into other hives. This happened in a nice kind of way without fighting and the bees were made welcome in different hives so I hope I have not jeopardized a queen.

The other hives look well and some go into winter with a medium of capped honey on top, some in one deep.
I will feed the second pure bred queen from sweden a little bit more, I restricted the colony to 10 frames for winter. They are on 3 broodframes and have sufficient food, but I hope they draw the combs more on the frames.
Could happen, because 2 frames brood will hatch the next hours and days.

All colonie were very gentle. No robbing done, not even the drone layer was robbed.
I changed some empty medium frames to extracted honey frames and filled honey frames into the mediums, but no bee was very interested. They are content with the stores.

I watched a small hornet`s nest in a bird box which I hung in a tree some years ago.
The many wasps are more a pest to my bees than the hornets. I saw the hornets on the blackberry bush hunting wasps. They just plucked off the wasps which sucked the berry juice.
Many dead wasps on the ground in front of the colonies. Spiders built their nets right in front of the entrances.
I took them away and set them free in a distance. Beautiful big spiders.

Treatment free at all costs does not have the meaning let them die. The cost meant is managements I don´t want to do but have to.


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## 1102009

My tf colonies mite drop stayed the same the last days or went down.

Exception was the treated hive, drop suddenly rose to 350 today which is a result of the thymol treatment.
I watched the bees purifying the hive and pulling out living short abdomen bees.
I got the advise from Erik to feed ( despite them being heavy with capped stores) so they can raise a new batch of winter bees. This I did today and will continue a few days if temperature is still high.
I will treat again in a week.
In march, if they still are alive, I will place them single at my home to care for them until I have a new mated queen and then get rid of the old. I don´t want them to have drones in my apiary.

There is some pollen and nectar coming in.


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## mischief

I did my first inspection today with the man who did my AFB check last year.
....It was bad and we wound up having to put an Apivar strip in to keep them alive.
I did think that they were doing well because the numbers at the entrance Had been increasing, but perhaps I should have taken into account that the debris on the sticky board had not increased as well.
I did feel better when he said that he lost his first hive also in its second year for the same reason.


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## Oldtimer

Was that Dansar?


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## 1102009

Hi OT, nice to see you.

mischief:
fingers crossed they will make it. Watch the food situation to boost new brood.
Take your time to consider your situation. If you expand hive numbers you will sleep better in a crisis. Don´t rush tf.


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## mischief

Hi OT, yes it was.

He put the frame feeder in right next to the comb they were on with the 1:1 syrup in even though they did have alot of capped and uncapped honey.

I put the follower board in to disconnect them from the majority of the frames, so I could go in with out disturbing them and shave the ends down, so they were ready for stage two.
yep, all fingers and toes are crossed.

I have my name down on the swarm wanted list, he did say this might be early due to the nice weather we are having.
I have to hurry up and make up the nuc box I bought and get the other two hives ready and set up on their sites.
I'm not putting them together, but around 6-10 metres away from the existing one and each other.


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## 1102009

Thanks for the report, MC.
Your mentor seems to know what to do.


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## Oldtimer

All the best with it Mischief.


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## lharder

Oldtimer said:


> All the best with it Mischief.


Say OT, are you keeping your ear to the ground and keeping tabs on other TF keepers in New Zealand? Any progress?

When reading New Zealand topics I forget its spring. So hearing about DWV at this time of year doesn't sound good. I sometimes see a bit mid summer with a few hives having problems by fall. Others with higher mite counts this time of year are showing no signs of it.


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## Oldtimer

There are still people trying over here, Mischief for example, but it almost invariable ends in tears.

We have a couple of problems here that really became apparent to me a few years ago when I tried TF.

Which are first, that we have a much more narrow genetic diversity here than you do in the USA. Most if not all of your bees that have developed strategies to co exist with mites are descended from bee strains that were never imported to New Zealand.

The second problem is we are an island country about the size of one American state. But we have around a million beehives. What this meant in practise when I was trying to breed resistant stock, is it was just not possible to find an isolated mating site. Even though I did identify some hives that performed much better against mites than average, this was lost in the next generation or two, I was not able to "fix" the trait.


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## mischief

...and we have had a very bad habit of treating drones as useless eaters to be done away with, lessening the gene pool even further; treating feral hives as things that need to be put in a proper box or if not, destroyed, cos 'they are diseased'.
And still I have hope.


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## 1102009

mischief said:


> ...and we have had a very bad habit of treating drones as useless eaters to be done away with, lessening the gene pool even further; treating feral hives as things that need to be put in a proper box or if not, destroyed, cos 'they are diseased'.
> And still I have hope.


Same here. Bet the beekeepers in NZ treated and treat prohylactically too.
I have one colony third generation from a F1 elgon queen open mated from last year which has low mite counts. 

The F1 is still alive and now has zero mites for days, going into her third winter never treated.
We as a group made some small splits from her. My split has low mite numbers.

The F0 I brought back from sweden has zero mites now for days also after being installed on comb from a high mite number donator hive.

Let´s see what happens. I have some hope too!
But if a crash comes we now have good reserve among us and if this should happen I was offered treatment free colonies to go on with.


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## Fusion_power

As oldtimer notes, mite resistance seems to occur much more often in high percentage mellifera colonies. Next highest is Carniolans. Reading the literature, it looks like most colonies in Africa are now resistant to varroa.

It is worth reiterating the mechanisms of resistance that we know about.

Varroa sensitive hygiene - this is arguably the best known of the varroa resistance mechanisms. Colonies expressing VSH detect varroa, open the cell, and drag the affected pupa out which prevents reproduction.

Allogrooming - bees will groom mites off themselves and sometimes off other bees. The mites are usually mauled which kills them.

Breaks in brood rearing - This is especially effective in areas with both spring and fall flows with a relatively long dearth in summer. Shutdown of brood rearing prevents mite reproduction in the critical time prior to preparation for winter.

Reduced days to maturity - Reducing worker maturity by just one day significantly reduces the number of mature mites that a foundress mite can produce. Some bees mature in 19 days which is a significant advantage.

Mite entombment - This is when the pupal cocoons are shed in such a way that the mite is trapped and dies.


There are 3 or 4 other minor effects that have been documented.


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## 1102009

> As oldtimer notes, mite resistance seems to occur much more often in high percentage mellifera colonies. Next highest is Carniolans. Reading the literature, it looks like most colonies in Africa are now resistant to varroa.


Interesting, Dar. My carniolans were susceptible. Even the "resistant" breeds. In our group we mostly have tf AMM, elgon bees now.



> It is worth reiterating the mechanisms of resistance that we know about.
> 
> Varroa sensitive hygiene - this is arguably the best known of the varroa resistance mechanisms. Colonies expressing VSH detect varroa, open the cell, and drag the affected pupa out which prevents reproduction.


Yes, we see it done in some colonies, The trigger might be too high though.



> Allogrooming - bees will groom mites off themselves and sometimes off other bees. The mites are usually mauled which kills them.


I suspect my colonies do this to a high extent. IMO treatments prevent this because the communication inside the hive is done by chemicals.
IMO bees communicate with chemicals and actions if they are stressed and start the grooming. Similar to Cerana but not as highly expressed.



> Breaks in brood rearing - This is especially effective in areas with both spring and fall flows with a relatively long dearth in summer. Shutdown of brood rearing prevents mite reproduction in the critical time prior to preparation for winter.


We are not so lucky. No broodbrakes in summer and not always a break in winter or too short a break.
Only starving colonies shut down which are packages installed after main flow. But they should not be left to starve.




> Reduced days to maturity - Reducing worker maturity by just one day significantly reduces the number of mature mites that a foundress mite can produce. Some bees mature in 19 days which is a significant advantage.


That´s what the elgon bees are known for and small cell and narrow frame space seem to help with. Some races can´t build small cells.
I found many light mites this year on the floor board. Could be they are not prolific or groomed off.



> Mite entombment - This is when the pupal cocoons are shed in such a way that the mite is trapped and dies.


I see much propolis coming in when the bees are in a crisis. The treated mite ridden hive is full of sticky propolis between frames and on top, broodnests are heavily propolised.
I don´t know if they entomb mites. 
Research says propolis comes in to climate a hive going into winter. I see that this is not the entire truth. It must have some other functions.

There are races or colonies which have no or not much propolis. It´s a trait that was bred.. They don´t last long here if not treated.. They die the first season before they go into the first winter.


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## 1102009

Today we checked the weights.
All are good prepared for winter.
The pure bred elgon is a little light, but she is a nuc with only ten frames. Plus is 15kg. 

Yesterday I put a second treatment into the IPM hive. They had propolised the former pads entirely, so I know what they feel about them.

The "ferals" AMM at the other locationare so strong! No mites on floor board, but I don´t check often and there is too much debris to see exactly. No defect bees on the ground or pupa expelled.
While we looked at the entrance we were attacked ferociously by some watchers. The hive protects the honey stores. The neighbor 200m far just came back from migrating to the dark honey. He treated and now feeds. So his bees try to rob the stores but mine will not let them. Good I have robber sreens on every hive. 

400m near are my Buckfasts which have more problems with defense as I saw. They are bred for gentleness and you can touch the screens- no reaction. But they defend against wasps.

We have a good flow starting and some more warm days to come. days are short though and nights getting cold. 
The elgons have more shade and are able to use 5-6 hours a day. Flow plants are 50m far.
The others have more sun, some more hours to forage. Flow is 100m far.

Some picts, the first two are the buckfast place and the flow, it´s rape and ivy, not very good for overwintering, but they have syrup.
The third is the flow field near the elgons, which is very good nectar. I hope the take some more.
I fed only the late split and the treated hive, the others had taken care of their stores themselves. I harvested some surplus after main flow late spring.


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## 1102009

If the bees have access to the space between the screen varroa mesh and the bottom floor they pick up the living mites from the mite drop.

Old bees, some robbers or disoriented bees can be in this small space if the board is not pushed in entirely.

I neglected the placement two days apart and had 3 bees caught in this space. They were covered with living mites but still able to fly. So I had to kill them.

If grooming is the cause of the mites still living this will bring back the mites into the colony. If they are still prolific they will breed again.

In a tree or with an open floor the other insects or the microorganisms would have taken care of them.

This is a disadvantage of the varroa boards. It´s important to check often if mite drops are high, for example after treatment. Treatments don´t kill all mites. If not, these mites are the strongest and healthiest.
Not good to have them back.


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## 1102009

I have a second hive with high mite numbers,not as high, but no DWV Bees to be seen. I decided against treatment. 

Treating can change your personal inhibition level very fast as was my feeling the last days! I reflected about it and I saw that I don´t want this, I still prefer bond and leave the fighting to the bees.

Treat 50% of the colonies and you treat more and more because you don´t have tf survivors left. 

I decided to have as my threshold the comparison of two times counting with some weeks in between ( mite numbers could change very suddenly) and to act on Virus Bees even if mite count is low in this colonies.


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## 1102009

Seasons over.
I´m glad all have their stores and capped too, they had some warm days after feeding ( I fed 6 colonies) to process the syrup.
Nights are cold, this night 3°C. 
There will still be times to forage but this is surplus then.

There is an end to mite monitoring now. I´m not pulling the floor board when the bees cluster, I´m only disturbing when there is traffic.

Too late for treating, the high mite number hives have to make it on their own. 
The thymol treatments worked, the drop goes down. I estimate the mites killed at 3000 at all. They still have high mite numbers but not as high as before. I hope if they crash it will be in winter.

Here is the last monitoring tablet:

View attachment Milbenzahlen 2018 bis Herbst.pdf


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## mischief

I oil my boards quite heavily so if any live ones fall on it they get stuck and/or drown in it.


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## 1102009

I oiled mine last year but found the oils evaporating in the summer heat and influencing the hive climate negatively.
Also I want to check the mites themselves, microscope them and see how many are living and how many are bitten.
I cannot check oiled mites. 

I´m not using the boards as mite traps, they are a monitoring tool.

With my data I see that the colonies differ very much with respect to mites and that is is possible to evaluate them without disturbing the broodnest. The elaborate counting and microscoping by the floor board is a good tool. I have no queen excluders so I have to look for the queens before I can do an alcohol wash. IMO an alcohol wash must be done with nurse bees. 
The checking by counting the board can be done for a long time if I do not shun the work. It can be done by rain, storm or whatever, without going into the hive.

Still, there are many facts to consider: are the colonies with low mite counts tolerant? Are those with high counts susceptible or is it a number they can bear to have?

In the end it´s still bond and all about surviving. I have to take the risk if I want to be tf but I´m glad to be able to avoid any "mite bombs" created in my own apiary in near future and hope to be able to improve my methods still.

In my case I will start the monitoring in spring before multiplying and then decide how to breed. Then go on monitoring so I see whether the mite numbers stay the same or rise. Watch out for Virus Bees too.
How I do my multiplying I don´t know yet. I would like to test some colonies without splitting but those which want to swarm I will split. 
It all depends on the survivors if I have any. The rate of survivors I compare with my mite data.

Under my circumstances I´m far from risking "accelerated bond" by my own managements. This is for tf beekeepers who keep bees in more isolated locations or who can distribute their own genetics in their location or are able to artificial inseminate, which will not influence the reinfestation from outside though and has nothing to do with the situation a "normal" beekeepers founds himself in, as much as it prevents a normal natural selection because this methods could never cover the different factors which work on the abilities of bee colonies to survive.


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## 1102009

Nights are cold but days still warm.
A good flow started, fields with mustard, phacelia knotweeds and sunflowers all around.

The bees are bringing blue and yellow pollen and are heavy with nectar. Today we spend a whole day in the fruit orchard to harvest the last apples, so I could see very well what goes on with the swedish stock.
Mite numbers went down but one hive had a wingless bee on the grass. It´s the hive which always had the most brood and survived one winter with the highest infestation level I ever had. Same queen.

The treated hive still has the highest drop from all, the thymol still works.

As the day passed every colony did an orientation or cleansing flight. The bees looked good, fat and lively.. defense is very good, many dead yellow jackets on the ground.
No chilled brood taken out so the strengh must be ok for warming the brood patches.


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## squarepeg

good report sibylle, many thanks for the update.


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