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Randy Oliver's Request

20K views 51 replies 16 participants last post by  BeeGhost 
#1 · (Edited)
Randy Oliver is requesting that Treatment Free Beekeepers monitor varroa mite levels in their hives monthly, taking the samples in his prescribed manner. Maybe some of you would like to participate. Jeanette has Posted the link below.
 
#8 ·
This is copied and pasted from http://home.ezezine.com/1636/ in regard to the request.

I like the idea but and will look into contacting him for starting collections in the spring. I don't do the sticky board thing mainly because I don't have a screened bottom board. I did pull drone larva this year though.

Thanks for bringing this to attention Mark.


Treatment Free Beekeepers – Help Collect Data

From Randy Oliver

Hi all treatment free beekeepers. How about helping me collect data on the actual mite levels in your hives over the course of the year?

Here's the simple protocol:
Alcohol wash is most accurate. Can do with only a level 1/3 cup of bees, which is slightly over 200 bees. Follow procedure at http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-11-mite-monitoring-methods/

The sample should be taken from the same place in the hive each time—He prefers the first non-brood frame adjacent to brood, since less chance of getting a queen.

Samples should be taken each month, at about the same time of month. All samples from the same hive(s), and kept track of for hive number. Two or more hives would be most desirable.

Such results would allow me to plot the mite population curve for the year in your hives, which would be of great interest for nontreated colonies that survive.

Record hive number(s), date, and mite count for each sample.

Send me the data and location after you have collected for a year. We'll make the data available to anybody interested on the web page, and let you know when it gets posted.

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
 
#10 ·
Mark, in fairness to Randy, you ought to go back and read his page again. He does not ask for a donation to cover his time reading emails...he asks for a donation to answer beekeeping questions. I'm not Randy's biggest fan, but his wording and intent on this matter is clear to anyone that takes the time to actually read what he wrote. Those that do not take the time to read should not be commenting on what they decided not to read.
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/contact-me/

Contact Me

I appreciate when readers notify me of glitches or typos on this site, or suggested improvements. I also appreciate discussion with experienced beekeepers and researchers on fine points, and will ask your permission to add comments which I feel add to the site.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to answer basic beginning beekeeper questions, as I am not funded by any agency. If email me with questions about beekeeping, please have the courtesy to donate to this site to cover my time. Thank you!

randy “at” randyoliver.com
 
#11 ·
perfect, thanks dan.

regarding a donation, i don't think it is required, but i send a small one each year. small price to pay for all the great info.

i bought the double jarred mite washer last year, but haven't used it yet.
 
#14 ·
First of all, many (if not most) treatment free beekeepers are treatment free, at least in part, "to help the bees". A request to such beekeepers to do monthly alcohol washes will be ignored by many (most?), simply because they don't want to kill 200 young adult bees from each hive each month....i certainly don't...and if I did, I'm perfectly capable of producing my own graph.

Secondly, it is hard to put treatment free beekeepers in a group. There is no consensus on what treatment free means, and Randy doesn't seem to have specified what he is specifically interested in ...except bees from beekeepers that claim to be treatment free. Heck, Randy has claimed that his own small cell treatment free bees survived because of the off gassing of HSC frames. If he really believes that, then a TF beekeeper with HSC in the hive would in fact, be using a chemical treatment in the hive....not treatment free....not helpful in a discussion or analysis of treatment free bees.

It's also worth noting (if you read Randy's report on his HSC experiment), that he has not done mite counts on his own small cell hives (at least as of the most recent update on his site).

deknow (who finds it offensively "unscientific" to delete one's own words in a public discussion)
 
#15 ·
Heck, Randy has claimed that his own small cell treatment free bees survived because of the off gassing of HSC frames.
He didn't have ANY statistical number of surviving hives from that study.

"Unfortunately, all but one of the control colonies perished at the onset of cold weather, and most of the HSC colonies followed suit in February."

"I had planned to continue with this trial through the next season, but the untimely collapse of the colonies unfortunately prevented further data collection."

He did recycle the HSC frames in with the rest of his colonies, and that is the subject of his 2010 update, but as it relates to the study, most perished for "unrelated reasons." I also do not believe that he attributed any "success" from off gassing. He merely suggested that it was one possibility.
 
#17 ·
I don't like killing bees either. Until there is a way of accurately assessing Varroa in a hive without killing bees, there isn't a lot of choice if treatment free beekeepers decide to participate in Randy's study. Now beekeepers are an independent lot, and there are some who will proudly say "study? I don't need no stinkin' study. My bees do ok"; my concern, and the reason I will be gathering data for the study, is that all too often there are only anecdotal reports of treatment free beekeeping results, causing folks looking for scientific information to equate Treatment Free Beekeepers with, I don't know, telephone callers to late night talk radio?

I see Randy's request as an opportunity for treatment free beekeeping to get honestly measured, and just maybe, go mainstream.
 
#20 ·
>Seems to me that no treatment beekeepers don't mind letting mites kill bees

I haven't had a problem with Varroa for a decade now. Mites aren't killing my bees. Of course we mind if our bees are dying. That doesn't mean that the best course of action is to do something even if it's wrong.

In reality our actions often have the opposite effect of what we expect. When people decided to poison the prairie dogs to get less prairie dogs, the results were quite the opposite. They poisoned some prairie dogs, to be sure, but the end result was less of all of their predators (black footed ferrets, burrowing owls, rattle snakes, hawks, eagles, coyotes...) resulting in a population explosion of prairie dogs. Many things, including treating for mites, are like this in that the result is not what you thought you were doing directly. The secondary effects come back to haunt you.
 
#22 ·
>What species would be affected if varroa were somehow eradicated?

Pests are NEVER eradicated. Only the balance of nature is. The unintended consequences of trying to eradicate mosquitoes is not due to losing mosquitoes. The unintended consequences of trying to eradicate prairie dogs is not due to losing prairie dogs.
 
#24 ·
OK then since the premise of your argument is that other species are affected. What other species would be affected if varroa treatments are simply used? BTW pests are occasionally eradicated (though I wouldnt expect that to be the case with varroa) but I think the term used in those cases is extinction.
 
#26 ·
Solomon, that is a bit harsh. We all benefit from seeing the thoughts and opinions of other beekeepers.

I personally don't object to killing a small sample of bees to get accurate varroa data. Queen breeders doing serious selection for varroa tolerance should be doing this. However, I don't have the time to put into a long term project such as collecting data for an entire year.

DarJones
 
#30 ·
Solomon, that is a bit harsh. We all benefit from seeing the thoughts and opinions of other beekeepers.
I'm not objecting thoughts and opinions. I'm objecting to the 'you all' attitude. There's no reason to make a false 'you' and 'us' separation. If one doesn't like what 'you all' are doing, then one's first option is to not participate. Such would be respectful of all points of view. Arguments about treatment-free beekeeping should take place in some other forum. This one is for discussing treatment-free beekeeping peaceably and agreeably among people who do it or who want to do it.


@Solomon - Is it in the interest of Treatment Free Beekeeping to provide measurable data to someone like Randy? Try as I can, I don't see a potential down side, once I get past the killing or sacrifice of roughly 200 bees for each test. If the Treatment Free Movement (not that I think there is a secret club, though we could have all sorts of fun imagining a clubhouse near Dee in Arizona) wants to be seen as serious, how does helping gather data for Randy's study hurt?

I have previously stated that I think TF works better is some places than in others - I'd love to see some evidence that I can be confident in regarding TF Beekeeping.
Andrew, you have some good questions and my answers do not fall firmly on either side. Will it be valuable to have mite counts? To someone it will. It's not worth my time, and I don't need to prove anything to anyone. Mite counts are typically used for diagnosis, something for which I have little use. A dead hive is a dead hive. The issue has resolved itself. On the other hand, I can see how someone might want evidence that something works. Treatment free beekeeping is ensconced in ideology. Many of its proponents are personally 'hands off' people, preferring to keep to themselves, do their own thing, self sufficiency etc. The fact that their hives are still alive after a certain number of years appears to them to be sufficient evidence for the effectiveness of the system. I have kept bees for nearly ten years now treatment free, never having lost all my hives and having grown to two dozen. Mite counts are irrelevant to me. Honey production is relevant as is the number of hives which come through the winter.

Gathering data for Randy won't hurt anything, but it almost seems to me like beekeepers unwilling to do the work themselves are trying to pry data out of a group of people who don't feel like collecting it in the first place.
 
#27 ·
@Solomon - Is it in the interest of Treatment Free Beekeeping to provide measurable data to someone like Randy? Try as I can, I don't see a potential down side, once I get past the killing or sacrifice of roughly 200 bees for each test. If the Treatment Free Movement (not that I think there is a secret club, though we could have all sorts of fun imagining a clubhouse near Dee in Arizona) wants to be seen as serious, how does helping gather data for Randy's study hurt?

I have previously stated that I think TF works better is some places than in others - I'd love to see some evidence that I can be confident in regarding TF Beekeeping.
 
#31 ·
>What other species would be affected if varroa treatments are simply used?

All 8,000 or more organisms that live in a bee colony. Every treatment you use kills some or many of them.

Organic acids will kill most of the 8,000 microorganisms in the colony as will essential oils such as thymol.

Organophosophates and fluvalinate will kill all of the insects and mites that live in the colony. There are 30 some mites and 30 some insects that normally live in a healthy colony. Some of those, such as psuedo scorpions eat Varroa.

But your assumption that Varroa can be eradicated is the first mistake.
 
#32 ·
But of course I never assumed varroa could be eradicated nor have I made the case that treating doesn't have some ramifications. What I asked is pretty simple so let me put it another way, In your analogy of the parallels of poisoning prairie dogs to treating hives. What species plays the role of the burrowing Owl and Black footed Ferret? Is it the pseudo scorpion? Just tell me what species I should be worried about.
 
#33 ·
Many years ago I had a fly problem. I bought a stable spray. It killed all the flys-Unfortunately it also killed all the anoles and spiders that were eating the flys. In six weeks the flys were back in record numbers. It took two years for the lizard and spider population to rebound.Since then I have been very careful with any chemical treatment. By cleaning stables more often and covering the manure pile with straw I handled the fly problem. The same goes for the bees.What are you affecting with your treatment? Better to breed for resistance than using toxic chemicals.
If you are concerned that you are losing a hive-do a series of sugar dustings, break the brood cycle , but avoid toxic chemicals as much as possible. Practice organic farming.
 
#34 ·
So, when switching to treatment free, simply bringing in a treatment free queen leaves you with 7,999 gene pools to go?
The gene pool in the gut of the attendants may be of as much value as the queen herself?
By extension a frame is a much more complete jump start than multiple queens?
 
#35 ·
What Mr. Bush is so correctly saying is that to work, the system needs its parts to be let alone. When things are as they should be, the system is naturally self correcting, self limiting, and self regulating. No one thing is the solution. A hive is not just a hive organism, it is a super organism, a mini ecosystem.
 
#37 ·
What Mr. Bush is so correctly saying is that to work, the system needs its parts to be let alone. When things are as they should be, the system is naturally self correcting, self limiting, and self regulating.
The introduction of varroa, or tracheal mites, or the soon to be new mite (tropollalaps) makes "keeping the parts alone" impossible. They are changing on their own.

A hive is not just a hive organism, it is a super organism, a mini ecosystem.
And that organism acquired the equivalent of cancer. No known cure. All treatments (some successful, others not) have unintended, and often very serious consequences (kemo . . . enough said). Does that mean the moment an individual acquires cancer you just tell them to "figure it out" or do you breed from non cancer infected individuals? Do you not treat the cancer patents, only because it has unintended consequences? Some cancer patents will rebound on their own. Most will not.
 
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