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benign beekeeping?

32K views 162 replies 25 participants last post by  Tyson Kaiser 
#1 · (Edited)
consider these frequently touted 'isms:

well, the bees have been taking care of themselves for millions of years......

or,

look at the feral colonies, they are getting by just fine without any intervention......

or,

i'm just letting them sort things out on their own.....

ect., ect.


these points of view are usually offered up as part of the (groan) treatment vs. (groan again) no treatment discussion.

i am interested in your opinion as to how much or how little man keeping bees in a hive affects the colony.

when compared to a feral colony (assume living in a tree), a kept colony (assume the hive gets inspected ocassionally and honey is harvested):

1. has a less insulated space to deal with
2. is torn apart from time to time
3. might have comb, brood, and/or resources taken from it
4. might have increased competition from more hives nearby
5. might have increased exposure to diseases and pests from more hives nearby
6. might have less than optimal nutrition if it is fed
7. might be moved from time to time
8. you get the idea

any thoughts?
 
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#50 ·
is there any way to establish the presence of mites other than a mite count? i shook out a dink last week that was down to a few hundred bees. an alcohol wash revealed more than one mite per bee! but there were none with deformed wings, and none seen on the bottom board.
 
#56 ·
but there were none with deformed wings, and none seen on the bottom board.
An alcohol wash is as good as it gets, in my opinion.
A lack of DWV is not a vindication of mite infestation. You can, and apparently did, have a serious mite load. The mites may, or may not carry the virus. Also, this time of year, if you have a 'dink' it probably has stopped brood production. Since the bees displaying DWV typically only survive a short time, you may have had some during active brooding but they have since died.
Dead mites on the bottom board of a failing hive disappear pretty quickly. Scavengers of all sorts collect them. In our part of the country ants and yellow jackets make short work of them.
 
#69 ·
looks like sol had to run, hopefully he will share his methods of determining the presence or absence of mites later.

jb, i'm pretty new at this, so this is not from experience, but....

what i think i will do if i encounter that situation, and i probably will, is....

pinch that queen, wait for the brood to emerge, treat for the mites, and requeen from a stronger more resistant colony or bring in a queen bred for resistance.
 
#73 ·
Tom: If you have a full box of bees in a fairly tight cluster I would say you have a pretty strong hive anything more than that would be a bonus. I would think if they have ample stores and reasonable protection from the elements that they would be a lock to make it through an Ohio winter. I am assuming varroa levels to be fairly low to have come into winter with a cluster that size.
 
#76 ·
>>look at the feral colonies, they are getting by just fine without any intervention......

and related to the point of the topic,
those ferals had to meet certain targeted strengths and targeted disease control on their own accord. If they didnt measure up in anyway, the good old arm of mother nature would kill them off. Those hives would starve inches away from honey also, but it wasnt starvation that killed them. Thats the only point I was trying to make
 
#79 ·
>>look at the feral colonies, they are getting by just fine without any intervention......

Show me the studys. Show me the data. Show me the books. I think there are a lot of assumptions about feral colonies amongst beekeepers. I think it is safe to say that feral colonys exist w/out beekeeper intervention, but to say they exist, or survive, "just fine" w/out intervention may be a stretch. Unless you consider how long a colony continually occupys a cavity in a live state.

What is "just fine'?
 
#77 ·
Sorry to leave you hanging there boys. I went to see a movie.

I don't have any solid proof that those hives didn't die of mites or problems related to mites. That wasn't the point. Nor did I ever say if anyone had been paying attention that I have no mites. The point was that where they were they were fine and when they were moved they died. The isolation argument is irrelevant because they are more isolated here not less. The small cluster argument is irrelevant because they weren't small clusters. But they did die and as far as my methods go, the only response is move on with the living.
 
#87 ·
i'm not into playing games sol. the point wasn't 'gotcha'. the point is you have contradicted yourself in your responses to those suggesting other factors were involved in your colonies collapsing.

your were adamant that moving hives kills bees, and you insist that mites did not kill yours, but you have not provided satisfactory answers to the reasonable questions that have been asked of you.

and you don't have to sol. it's not a trial, it's just a forum. :)
 
#88 ·
I will repeat myself again for your benefit. I have mites, everybody does. I don't believe those hives died due to mites because none of the evidence fits, nor do y'all's theories. No, I don't have any evidence other than what I saw.

If those aren't satisfactory answers, whether you like them or not, that's your issue, not mine. I have been open and honest and will continue to be so.

I would love to see some evidence for the assertions that bees can't die of cold. I guess nobody told the Africanized bees.
 
#93 ·
what 'evidence' do you have that mites weren't involved if you don't have mite counts?
Read the thread. It's all there. If there's something you are unclear about, then you can ask questions. I'm done with wasting my time retyping exactly the same things I typed yesterday and the day before. Just admit you don't accept what I have to say. It would save all our time.

Here, I'll say it for you. "'I don't accept your visual inspections as evidence.' - Squarepeg" - Sol

Can we move on now?
 
#90 · (Edited)
16 years living in Kansas, not that far or that different than Arkansas. And 35 years living in Nevada. I can tell you I know both. and it is a huge difference in winter cold. Kansas is bitter in comparison. From what I know about Oregon I don't think humidity would be a lot different. I can't say about Arkansas. no self respecting Jayhawker would step foot there. :)

And Square Peg, You can't prove a negative. as in you can't prove you don't have mites. You can't prove something didn't happen. at most you could prove that they did die of something else.
 
#91 ·
If you are suggesting your bees may have been Africanized then you have just made your first good argument on this issue. If not, then perhaps you should just admit that you don't know why your bees died and take the word of many folks with far more experience in wintering bees in cold climates than you. It's no disgrace to admit you may have been in error and to learn from it which would make you like everyone else in the world including me. The nice thing about a forum like this is it forces you to look at things from a perspective that you probably never would have on your own. There are a lot of smart folks on here and a few....well I better leave it at that. :) Come on Sol, just don't get all bent out of shape about it, its just a little learning experience and no, there have been no insults or name calling, just me having a little fun and Dan using the word chuckle (heaven forbid). Time to move on?
 
#92 ·
>>I think it is safe to say that feral colonys exist w/out beekeeper intervention, but to say they exist, or survive, "just fine" w/out intervention may be a stretch.

Who measures the success of the feral colony performance, the feral bees or out side looking beekeepers. There are feral bees out there, surviving and reproducing, and according to the laws of nature, they are meeting their minimum requirements and surviving just fine.

But there is one thing I do not understand, about this whole naturalist management system
Why is it that there are some beekeepers who think we can manage bees in a non management sence,.?
We as beekeeper control behaviour through out the year to maximize the hive potential to which we make a living. We step aside from the harshness of nature to increase survival and honey production by manipulating growth, feeding during derths, providing comb, and controling diseases. To manage bees we must cover all conditions. If a beekeeper follows all the management steps to achieve their hives maximum honey potential but insists on not following through with disease control, .... whats the point?
You will spend all your time building and working these hives, and then just let mother nature take them before you can pull any benefit off them.
I kind of understand why you guys dont like chemicals and such but look at the other options out there.

If you want to go treatment free, you will have to be more in tuned with the colonies disease pressures. You still have to manage disease pressures! otherwise nature will just kill them off anyway
 
#104 ·
>>I think it is safe to say that feral colonys exist w/out beekeeper intervention, but to say they exist, or survive, "just fine" w/out intervention may be a stretch.

Who measures the success of the feral colony performance, the feral bees or out side looking beekeepers. There are feral bees out there, surviving and reproducing, and according to the laws of nature, they are meeting their minimum requirements and surviving just fine.
This is a point I wanted to make from the beginning. Except I won't go as far as to say they're meeting their minimum requirements. Many researchers believe they are dying off and succumbing to mites in alarming numbers as well.
So when naturalist use the bee tree as their holy grail of beekeeping, well I don't think that's the answer in and of itself. I do however think there is still room for optimization in hive management by looking at how bees naturally want to live.
 
#94 ·
ok, you said it. or rather you said it for me, saying it for you.

i'm kinda dense sometimes sol. :)

does anybody accept visual inspections as evidence for the presence or absence of mites?

i'm not into attacking anybody, i'm just trying to learn.
 
#97 ·
You can walk into a yard, open your tops and look in at a hive. By that you can not tell if you have mites. You can look further, like on the bottom board or entrance, and there you will start seeing signs of viral infections usually directly related to mites. You can look further and pull some frames of brood, there you will see further evidence of viral infections of the young bees emerging, directly related to mites. But if your seeing all that stuff your hive has already crashed.
You need to know your mite levels, and need to know your thresholds. I dont care what you use your thresholds for, whether its for treatment action or anyother type of action. The point is action has to be taken or that hive WILL die if mite levels are over the threshold.

I wash my bees in alcohol, few bees per hive, and count my % infestation. Spring time threshold is 1% and 3% in fall for my operation
 
#98 ·
Square Peg, I think you first attempt went crosswise in asking this question. Not that I see that as your fault. But no I don't consider inspections adequate to even discover mites. That from an over curious first year beekeeper that probably had mite problems since June or so and didn't find them until August. In hind sight I can see that a lowering of honey production in my hive may have been the result of an increase in mites. I was at a loss and not certain it was normal. I realize one of my worst deficits right now is recognizing symptoms in a beehive. Those I do believe exist. But visually seeing a mite is not one of them. I never did see a mite on a bee. I found them on drone brood that I pulled from their cells. Pulling drones pupa will now be a standard part of my hive inspections. I do not have screen bottom boards or stick paper yet. but will have them by spring. I actually want to make bottom boards for may hives that serve multiple functions. Mite counts being just one.
 
#99 · (Edited)
Through the summer I just do ether rolls by taking a few bees from about 10 different hives in a yard, a really easy way is to open up some drone brood or even a small patch of worker brood and tap it out on a white surface. If it looks like someone has just been there with a pepper grinder then there is trouble brewing. The only caveat being that if the patch of brood you are using is about the only brood left in the hive it most likely will contain a pretty good number of mites as it is "the only show in town". Having a lot of hives your decision is whether to treat the whole yard or not and not to make individual hive assessments. If I only had a few hives I would monitor each hive via sticky board natural mite drops and use drone brood removal and analysis of that brood or sugar shakes to decide what to do with each hive individually.No need to treat hives that are doing fine on their own.
Visual inspections (just looking closely at bees) mean nothing to me. If I see them there is most likely a BIG problem as my eyes just aren't that sharp and most mites hide on the bee anyway.
A quick "poor mans sticky board" that I have used on occasion is a bunch of Crisco smeared on some freezer paper and placed on the bottom board. It's only good for about one day though as the bees will begin to clean it off pretty quickly. It's also a good idea to look closely if there are any unattended obscure corners of a bottom board that the bees aren't cleaning. Dead mites can occasionally be found there and can be an indication of bigger problems.
 
#100 ·
>>Visual inspections (just looking closely at bees) mean nothing to me.

I doubt that, I bet you will use visual inspections to diagnosis a death problem

>>ether rolls

The thing I like about counting mites in an alcohol wash is that it gives parameters to work in. If the testing falls within a certain reading, you have high limits and low limits to base treatments on or alternative actions on.
 
#107 ·
Yeah you got me there Ian. The point at which I can easily visually diagnose a problem is pretty much the point at which it's game over for the hive.
With varroa I like to use the old analogy of how you can be a millionaire by doubling a penny each day for a month. You really don't have much money if you quit after 20 days (a shorter season in varroa terms) its the late summer surge that can do you in and it's always right after the "they looked awesome the last time I checked them" inspection that's so fresh in your mind.
 
#101 ·
good replies all.

i tend to agree with jim, in the case of sol's hives there's not reliable way to 'know' why they didn't make it.

and to the larger question, and the point of the thread,

my view is that if one assumes that the colony is challenged by the impact of the beekeeper, then the beekeeper is obligated to be 'hands on' in helping the bees out if they get in trouble.

if the colony has dwindled to the point of no return, and if it is because it is from the lack of traits that enable resistance, and if that colony is unlikely to pass it's genetics on anyway....

there's really no point in letting it die. my approach would be to help it out, and change the genetics.

hobbiests and sideliners are in a better position to micromanage colonies in this way. it may not be feasable for those with hundreds or thousands of hives.
 
#102 ·
>>hobbiests and sideliners are in a better position to micromanage colonies in this way. it may not be feasable for those with hundreds or thousands of hives.

especially with beekeepers with hundreds or thousands, infact they are already doing such. In my op any hive that doesnt meet my specs will get a new queen, bred from the finest suppliers in the country.
Do not get the impression that commercial operators do not open their hives, we do, and we do it often. Just on a larger scale, and probably not as intensively as sideliners. But a good beekeeper can tell whats happening in the colony by observing all the outside conditions of hte hive, and making a quick hive inspection
 
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