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Treat or not to treat

51K views 172 replies 40 participants last post by  sqkcrk 
#1 ·
Anyone ever have a high mite count and let it go and the hive was ok?
I have two nice healthy hives that have a high mite count and theres bee on the ground around the hive that have signs of DWV and i don't know if i should treat them with APIGARD or see if the the bee's can live with them . I have 17 hives right now and i'm sure some will make through winter. Any comments would be great i'm at across road TREAT OR NOT TO TREAT my hives seem healthy but this is only year 3 for me as a bee keeper and the first year was a floop.
We have a goldenrod flow about to kick in and the one hive with well over 50mites in 24hours has ahoney super one thats 2.3s filled and i don't want to treat with honey on the hive i'm not sure if i want t treat at all but i'd hate to had them die out . What would everyone do if you were me? Thank you.
 
#101 ·
Just to be a bit of a smarty pants (the cleaner version of what originally was in my brain)

Question is what are your intentions. The option most people picked is, "I would like my bees to be treatment free".

I'd like mine to be treatment free too, but that's not my intention. :)
 
#104 ·
....and Americans would all like to be rich....but those that try by selling Amway, buying lottery tickets, or Anthony Robbins videotapes don't get there. It isn't just what you want, it's what you do to get there that counts.

Deknow
 
#128 ·
When we commercial beekeepers are able to keep bees w/out mite treatments we will. Just as we did before 1984. Yes, Dean, some will still use fumidil and Tylosin or TM, but I haven't and don't think I will. Diseases I address w/ fire and young queens in strong colonies.
 
#142 ·
I'll confess I did not read this whole thread, and I came to it late.

A couple of comments:

1. If the OP does not want to treat, there is also an alternative to live and let die. Namely, kill the current queen, go back in a few days and tear out any queen cells they started, then give them a frame of eggs from a hive that has a low mite count. Presto, you just broke the brood cycle and got rid of some unfit genes and still kept the hive. I would add that, in this scenario, you could also use Hopguard to knock down the mite level, but that would be optional.

2. Somebody mentioned the idea of "invasive species such as Africanized honeybees." European bees are an invasive species, and so are the mites, and so are a large percentage of the plants the bees are visiting. Not sure that's particularly relevant to the meat of this thread, but it bears mentioning that our entire ecoystem at this point is a hodge-podge of invasive species.
 
#143 ·
I would add that if people choose not to treat, that is fine with me. However, I would encourage brand new beekeepers to treat and learn how to keep bees first. Dead bees don't teach you much, and you learn to keep bees by keeping bees. Reading only goes so far, at least in this context.

Also, there are treatments that are safe (for people anyway) and effective. Thymol products and Hopguard cannot possibly be dangerious to people. I put thyme in lots of stuff I cook, and that results in more thymol being in my stew than would ever be in my honey. I can't, after all, taste it in my honey, but I can taste it in my stew, which is the point, after all.

There are also treatments I would not recommend, particularly Checkmite.
 
#144 ·
Okay, so if someone taking Lisinopril and Simvastatan and a cpl of fishoil tabs per day is keeping his blood pressure and cholesteral in a good range lives to be 90 and someone who doesn't only lives to be 60, who had the better life? Maybe I didn't do anything wrong except have the wrong Grandparents. So for the sake of a drug free life I should stop the medications? Hmmm, no thanks.

And for the sake of maintaininhg live colonies I will continue their medications too. Except burning of AFB hives and not treating for nosema.
 
#148 ·
"Figuring that doing nothing is less a waste of money and labor than doing something I'm not sure of"

The above quote makes lots of sense to me. The first old crusty engineer that I worked for always demanded to know what the most likely outcome of any change would be. Sometimes the results of any process or operation are unexpected, but if one cannot derive an outcome before treating, then no treatment is better. Good on you Squeak Creek.
 
#150 ·
Marla Spivak spoke at EAS and said the thinking on nosema is changing. Spore counts don't matter as much as how many bees in a colony have it. If 10% have it then the queen can out lay it. At 50% the colony is under threat. She suggests not treating anyway.
 
#152 ·
That makes a sort of sense similar to what I was thinking. That if one samples a hive, w/ 50 bees in the sample, just a cpl of bees w/ 5 millions spores can make the spores per bee info look worse than it really is, if most of the rest don't have any or many nosema sporse at all.

So, Beltsville should be telling us how many bees in a sample were infested w/ Nosema and then the spores per bee average. Or is that mean that I mean?
 
#153 ·
Mark, seems a bit simpler (and faster) to run the samples yourself. I can't see a good reason to expect a bee lab to test 50 bees separately for each hive of each beekeeper that wants to know how many of the bees are infected...especially if the "treatment" is one that will eventually produce more spores in more bees. If you think you want to use fumidil, I'd suggest just using it on all your hives all the time. How much do you really think the govt should spend running 100 separate tests for a hobby beekeeper with 2 hives?...let alone a commercial beekeeper with hundreds of hives. Just get a microscope, some distilled water, and start smooshing bees.

deknow
 
#154 ·
Yes Dean, I suppose your are correct. But I'm not going to do that either. See my previous Post for reasons why.

I did not ask for anyone to Sample my hives and report the findings to me, it's something the USDA and NYS want to do. I guyess they have some money to spend so they will get the funds again next year, or something.

On another note. Which is the worst healthwise, taking the advice of my P.A. or following suggested directions from someone on the internet? Hmmmm, brainer or no brainer.

Thanks anyway.
 
#155 ·
On another note. Which is the worst healthwise, taking the advice of my P.A.
whats a P.A.? if you go back to Randy Olivers site, he usually post at some point the articles he has written. He went into great detail how to test I think it was 5 bees per hive and get the % of bees per hive that are infected. when N.Y. still had bee inspectors they wanted to test mine for nosema, said no back then, waste of money to test, if it exhist I'm sure my bees have it.
 
#158 ·
Originally Posted by deknow
2. The recent research seems to show that although fumidil will control nosema C., as the treatment wears off and the concentration in the hive diminishes, it actually stimulates spore production in the nosema...a true treadmill, once you start using it, you will tend to find you need to keep using it.
I've never used the stuff, and never will.
I would love to see this research. Can you point me to a link??
 
#160 ·
I have no idea if Deans assertion is right or wrong but I am beginning to believe more and more that Nosema is a fickle disease that is nearly as impossible to get a definitive diagnosis as it is to determine whether treatment is cost effective. I have treated a grand total of two years in my 40 years of managing a commercial operation. I couldn't tell the difference and I even invested in a microscope. A few years ago while talking to the SD state inspector about the results of the states nosema testing (mine was really low) he asked me what I was doing different than others. I told him I not only hadn't used any fumidil But that I had also decided that the only time I would even use HBH is to try to stimulate some early brood production in December and January. I would like to qualify this by saying that we don't winter up north and I know that brings a whole different dynamic into play.
 
#161 ·
the reason I'm interested is I started treating a couple of apiaries one year, the crawlers went down, the honey production went up(now I'll admit how do you know year to year with different flows different weather etc so its a judgement call), so I did a few more yard, and the honey production went up, until two years ago I was treating all yards except one, my control. now this hasn't been a really good year, but the one yard that is falling apart is the untreated yard, now how do you factor in that they leased the land out, they plowed under 150 acres of knapp weed, and all the golden rod in site:). the only down side I've seen is that my swarming rate went up the year after treating(the bees feel good?),
I also use my partner as a test case, he doesn't treat or I should say didn't treat. My average honey production went up so much, while his has been going down, he started treating all his nucs, or new hives last year, now this year isn't much of a test, but we will see when we get a "normal" year next year. and no I gave up counting through a microscope.
 
#163 ·
There Snowed{18in plus in two days} in right now but humming{i was up checking on them today} i have 14 hives right now .
We are going to have some cold temps this coming week but the bee's seem to be doing well.
can't wait till spring.:)
 
#165 ·
Yes they where the oldest hives and they swarmed i'm quessing 8 times i caught all 8 and they built fast .
My SPM was nil and i know nothing but i am going to pull the queens in mid APRIL this year and put them in nucs and make false swarms and a brood break but i have to figure whats better brood break in april or in july after the flow and if in july what should i do for SPM in spring.
Lots of choices i want to let all the hives requeen themselves plus the nucs i make with the false swarms .so i'll be busy .
Can't wait till spring.
What would you suggest i'm all ears eyes? you know.:)
 
#166 ·
:) hmm, i'm kind of in the same boat, and still weighing my options.

i now have enough drawn comb to checkerboard supers (per walt wright's recommendations) above several of my hives for swarm prevention.

i only had enough drawn comb last season to checkerboard one hive, and it was the only one (out of nine) that did not swarm. that hive ended up doing really good drawing out more comb and making honey.

i did an artificial swarm on one of those remaining eight hives, pretty much following michael bush's recommendations for a 'cut down split'. i took the queen, two frames of mixed brood, and one frame of stores to make a nuc. (this was done on march 18, just before our main flow started, and just before the other hives started swarming)

the parent colony was successful in requeening itself, built up nicely, and gave a good harvest.

the nuc surprised me. it filled one deep and two meduims and gave me 6 meduim frames of honey to harvest.

the hives that i don't checkerboard this year might be busted up into mating nucs, as i want to try and raise some queens. but if i have a really good hive in the early build-up, i'll probably go cut down split again.

what kind of set up are you using glock, double deeps for brood?
 
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