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something to think about

51K views 163 replies 33 participants last post by  squarepeg 
#1 ·
a concern from pro-treatment beekeepers i have seen a few times on this board was that if you try to be treatment free anywhere near other beekeepers or close to the city limits, you will be spreading disease to other people's beehives and this could end with forcing them to use more treatments than before and worst case scenario their bee colonies will die.

to me this sounds like a kind of unfair disadvantage to rebel beekeepers should someone successfully raise treatment free colonies. it means that even if your bees are treatment free and thriving, people would still want you to spray to prevent spreading bee diseases, meaning your own stock will be weakened and eventually no more resistant than anyone else's. does that sound right?
 
#116 ·
<Interesting, I had not yet heard that powdered sugar was a 100% effective treatment, or that it was effective at all. Survey says no.>

It's not 100% effective, especially not as an in hive treatment. It is fairly effective at dislodging phoretic mites (think powdered sugar roll) though. Which if you have done a shook swarm and all of your bees are in a wired cage can be used to kill the majority of the mites by mechanically dislodging them. There are other ways that can be used that either kill or dislodge phoretic mites, that can be used this way as well. I was simply pointing out that you can indeed kill select mites.

<No, it is not. You may be able to breed for certain traits, for which there are test methods. But I find no usefulness in breeding for bees able to chew out frozen brood because mites don't often freeze brood in my neighborhood. Wild hives have broadly varying mixtures of traits (some of which are certainly still undiscovered) which can only be utilized by pressures applied by actual mites.>

Frozen brood is one way to test for hygenic behavior, which has been demonstrated to correlate to removing infected/diseased/parasitized brood etc. I think Jim has already made my point for me on mite pressure. No treatment is 100% effective there are always mites around, thus always mite pressure.


<Originally Posted by Mr. C

Telling people that letting their bees die (if that is what you are advocating by "keeping the pressure on") is the only way to select for better stock is downright misleading.

Who is misleading? I did not say that.>

Reread, I never said you did. I said IF that is what you were advocating since you just got done saying there was no way to selectively kill mites and the only way to kill them is let them kill themselves. If you imply something other than letting the bees die as a method for letting the virulent mites die I would be happy to hear it. I couldn't figure out any way, which is why I assumed that is what you meant. I tried to point out the fact that I was assuming by the clarifying statement "if that is what you mean" hoping that if I got it wrong you could explain or clarify.

<It doesn't take that long, but for some reason, no one wants to listen to the people who have actually done it.>

It's going to take a different amount of time in different areas depending on a gazillion factors. It's the unknown time period for a given area that is the problem. Not everyone can afford to wait. It's not that people don't pay attention to those that have done it, some people also look at those that have tried and either have failed or not yet succeeded as well. I tried buying treatment free raised bees a couple of times. They did not work in my area and some were downright viscous to boot. I'm trying out new stock this year, haven't given up just being pragmatic.
 
#118 ·
It's not 100% effective
Exactly. Not even a dead hive is 100% effective.


Frozen brood is one way to test for hygenic behavior, which has been demonstrated to correlate to removing infected/diseased/parasitized brood etc. I think Jim has already made my point for me on mite pressure. No treatment is 100% effective there are always mites around, thus always mite pressure.
Thus the solution has to be something other than treating because it is not effective.

Reread, I never said you did.
I AM advocating people let their bees die. It's not the parenthetical part or the part preceding it I'm taking issue with. It's the last part, the "only" part. Insert "best" or "most effective" or "quickest" or all three and you'd have a good solid statement.
 
#117 ·
>You can't choose which mites to kill.

sure you can sol. by identifying a colony collapsing under mites, dislodging those mites, and requeening, you stop those mites virulent enough to collapse a colony from passing on their genetics, as well as culling the bees that lack the traits to be resistant on their own.

>The only logical way to do it (the same way nature does) is to let over-virulent parasites kill themselves.

this only happens when the parasite is so virulent that it kills its host. the problem is that our kept bee colonies are located much closer together than they would be in nature. this provides an almost limitless suppy of host. so our practices get in the way of the over-virulent parasite killing themselves, and we instead promote over-virulence.

>also assuming apiaries like bweaver and russels arent lying, a balanced relationship between mite and bee already exists

a lot of progress is being made nada, but the experts that i pay attention to would say that we are not there yet.
 
#119 ·
So we get back to the definition of what you mean by treatment free. If you're hard line requeening could be a treatment, or any manipulation done. If your treatment free because you don't want any chemicals in the hive (which I believe a large portion of the treatment free community is and the reason I try to avoid treatments, but maybe I'm wrong here). Then dusting bees not in a hive with powdered sugar should not in any way affect any residue left in the hive or in the honey, wax, or propolis they produce. If you draw the line elsewhere that's a difference of opinion on a sliding scale, the bottom being somewhere around wild honey gathering without any smoke I guess.


<I would say the opposite. It is IMpossible to treat and still selectively breed for mite resistance. No one knows the complex set of characteristics that provide mite resistance. Breeding for any one trait in my observation of human breeding programs, has almost always failed in the long run.>

I never said breed for one trait, I'm sorry if that was implied. But if your breeding chickens there's nothing wrong with breeding from the hens that produce the most eggs, it doesn't mean ignore all other factors. If you did it the "natural way" that would mean breeding all the chickens and the population changing by the ones that raised the most chicks. That might improve your hens some, but not as fast as if you select the healthiest chickens that have the best of a set of characteristics.

>I would say it's illogical to do it the same way nature does it because the whole point of any agricultural enterprise is to alter nature to better suit our needs.

Yes, and that is a philosophy that often backfires.

Everything backfires sometimes, but I'd say overall we're doing pretty well and are certainly (ok in my opinion) better off than when we were hunting and gathering only and in constant danger of starvation and predation.

As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already? Unless South Africa never had varroa and all the bees were descended from European stock, I don't know the region.
 
#121 ·
>As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already?

South African, when Varroa arrived, had a mixture of breeds of bees including European and African stock of various kinds (Scutella, Adonsii etc.). The beekeepers decided do approach the problem as a group, and as a group, decided to not treat. They have heavy losses for a couple of years and they dropped off every since.

"As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already?" -- http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08082007-153050/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf
 
#124 · (Edited)
>
South African, when Varroa arrived, had a mixture of breeds of bees including European and African stock of various kinds (Scutella, Adonsii etc.). The beekeepers decided do approach the problem as a group, and as a group, decided to not treat. They have heavy losses for a couple of years and they dropped off every since.

"As to South Africa, I'm not terribly familiar, but doesn't Africa already have a large population of resistant bees to draw from that have spent many many years in contact with varroa already?" -- http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08082007-153050/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf
I can say this is great news, but hardly the same situation. I didn't even make it past the first paragraph before I read this.
<Some colony losses did occur at the front of the varroa spread, and all colonies were found to be deleteriously affected by the mite which developed populations of 50,000 and more in some colonies. Colonies exhibited all the same varroa effects witnessed in other parts of the world, with the exception that the majority of colonies did not die as a result of infestation> (emphasis added by me)

So they got varroa, but the majority of colonies weren't dying from it. No treatments should be the goal, but a choice between mostly or all dead bees (my result so far) and a few dead bees without treatment is definately not the same thing. Do you think all of the beekeepers would have agreed not to treat if their colonies had actually been dying?
It looks like some great reading though it will take me a while to make it through all 90 pages. In particular the analysis of how the cape bee managed complete tolerance in just three years looks fascinating, but there again if it was a 3year process with our bees it would be over and done with.
 
#122 ·
My bad I read them, but don't have them memorized. I guess I disagree with them, but I can abide by them and not mention mecahnically removing mites with powedered sugar again.

You may be off the opinion that letting your bees die is the best method, but I'll be honest I can't afford that method, and yes I get free bees from swarms and cutouts, and minimize costs by building all of my own equipment. After three years of no honey and dead bees I've changed my tune. If you can afford it great for you, but it's good for people to know there are alternatives out there even if it takes longer to breed better bees.
 
#123 ·
>So we get back to the definition of what you mean by treatment free.

it is true that there is no generally accepted definition.

>My bad I read them, but don't have them memorized. I guess I disagree with them.

as do many level headed and noteworthy contributors on beesource.

my understanding is that the rules were put in place at an earlier time because the 'debates' on this subforum became frought with personal attacks and incivility.

that is clearly not the case anymore, and the new moderator has been gracious to allow meaningful discussions here that sometimes involve the 'mention' of methods previously banned by the old rules.
 
#125 ·
If a person has lost every bee, each year, for 3 years, that's long enough to know he should change something.

I think you've come to the right conclusions Mr C, and will achieve your goals.

In my country we have a varroa resistance breeding program running that is now, after some years, producing some pretty varroa tolerant bees. Treatments have been used, but have not affected their methods of evaluation. Pin pricks and freezing have not been used, too simplistic and don't even relate to varroa.
 
#126 ·
In regard to mite pressure. What pressure do you consider would be necessary to see colonies actually improve in regard to mite resistance? With pressure being defined as the percentage of bees that show adequate improvement? I suppose in regard to treatment free this would be the percentage of hive that survive regardless if mite infestation without treatments.

Quoted from Michael above.
"Breeding for any one trait in my observation of human breeding programs, has almost always failed in the long run."

Are you saying this in regard to bees or breeding of animals as a whole? I agree that breeding of bees has not produced the same results as other animals.
 
#127 ·
Quite often trying to selectively breed for one positive trait also unintentionally selects for an undesirable trait. You can see this in purebred dogs. Hip dysplasia in some breeds, breathing, skin issues, etc in others. The same is true in birds; blue budgies are prone to tumours that the native green type are not. Genetic modification is the only real way to isolate and emphasize a single trait without emphasizing or suppressing others.
 
#133 ·
hmm obviously selected for one trait only to the exclusion of others is a bad idea, but most of the examples you see of this are most pronounced in show animals, where the primary concern is looks. I believe breeders do this fairly often to good effect over a short period in order to cement a valuable trait into the population that might otherwise get lost in random breeding. I got caught oversimplifying a few posts back when talking about distinct traits. Yes there is an overall interaction of many different traits that leads to varroa resistance/tolerance or any other characteristics. But if you recognize that there are some measureable traits that contribute to this overall fitness, then these individual traits can be selected for and added to a population to improve that stocks resistance. If you are still measuring ovrall fitness of the bees and outcrossing for diversity when needed you should be able to do so without losing the other traits that also are important. That's not any different from selecting for low swarming tendancy or honey production etc. If I wanted bees that were straight up ferals with no modification I would not likely ever get much in the way of honey since the ferals goal should be to store up enough to last the winter then swarm (which doesn't leave extra for the hungy beeker). That does not mean that there are not good genetics out there in the feral population, but I'm selfish and want productive bees and am willing to sacrifice some other traits to get that.
 
#134 ·
So if all your bees are being treated for mites and nosema and anything else, and the person next door doesn’t treat and their bees crash, if your treating why should it matter. And then if your bees crash why is it their fault? You’re treating???
 
#136 ·
Treating doesn't wipe out every mite, disease, or whatever. If you have bees that are properly treated next to crashing hives that are dying of mites, they will get robbed out and transfer those mites to the treated colonies after the treatment is over reinfesting them to a level that can kill the colony. Even if it is caught in time additional treatment would then be necessary which can have deliterious effects on the bees and lead to quicker resistance etc.

Essentially that argument analogous to yard work in the suburbs. If you clean up all the leaves in your yard and I live next door and don't it shouldn't matter that my leaves blow into my yard because you already cleaned all of your leaves. In reality you have the choice of putting up a fence or cleaning up leaves every week till the snow flies if you want a clean yard (only in this case cleaning the leaves costs you not only time, but money also and may kill your grass if you don't spend it).
 
#135 ·
mac, i don't want to treat, but i will do what it takes to keep my colonies healthy, and i will take responsible measures to keep my colonies from collapsing, getting robbed, and spreading disease.

very few contributors on this forum think it's a good idea to expose their bees to as much pressure as possible with hopes of ending up with superbees.

i also have a concern for feral colonies, and wouldn't want them unnecessarly exposed.

the reason hive registration and removable frames are required in most if not all localities is because beekeepers are held responsible for keeping their bees healthy, and are supposed to eliminate problems that can threaten other bees.
 
#137 · (Edited)
Beekeeping is animal husbandry just like dairy farming is. If we are keeping more than one or two hives in a yard we are overpopulating nature and the natural result is control through disease, starvation or parasite. In 1992 beekeeping was as easy as checking your hives in march and feeding (treatment for starvation), putting supers on in May and pulling honey in September. Since then we saw varroa( (1996 in our area, a new issue,) devestate hives all over the world to the tune of millions upon millions of hives lost, then it was a foul brood outbreak in the early part of the millenium in upstate new york with thousand of hives burned, Hive beetles, trachael mites, deformed wing virus, Israeli Virus and the list goes on. These are not sypmtoms of beekeepers who treat, they are symptoms of overpoulation and travel by bees in areas which would not be normal in nature that allow disease and pests to spread quickly. We have worked for 20 years on breeding, better bees, refreshing our stocks with the best queens through testing queens from from 15 or more suppliers and then only buying from 3 or 4, using ever developing integrated pest management and testing more natural treatments. Nothing I do or see in our operation makes me believe I will overcome millions of years of natural population controls if I'm keeping any stock in a population larger than would normally be seen in nature.

I hope, especially newbees, consider treatment free as a goal to be achieved at levels that should start with reaching chemical free and with the knowledge it requires a great deal of self education, a dedication to time with your bees and the acceptance that that road will mean more losses.

As to non-treating neighbors - the unfortunate truth is when we start out and too often as hobbyist in a busy life or with little education we don't recognize a problem like American Foulbrood until a hive is collapsing and studies show extensively (new zealand study AFB) that within as little as 3 weeks of being exposed to one hive with a minimal outbreak we have infected every hive in our yard and likely in an area. How many cells of AFB are present before you recognize it, do you look for scale when you inspect, do you know what K-wing means, do you inspect for Trachael mites, what type of varroa inspection do you use and how often to you do indepth inpsection? When are you as my neighbor qualifed to keep treatment free bees that won't infect my hives. We all have a responsibility to be a good stewards as beekeepers as bees are facing ever increasing pressures and their place in agriculture is unreplaceable at this time.
 
#138 ·
When are you as my neighbor qualifed to keep treatment free bees that won't infect my hives.
Your hives by the very nature of beekeeping in this country are already infected. There is no 'yours' and 'mine' in that sense. Bees travel where they will. Maybe they come back to their own hive, maybe they don't. You can either treat your bees to temporarily get rid of whatever it is you don't like in there, or you can keep bees who do it themselves. This forum is about bees who do it themselves.
 
#140 ·
>there are many here who have this paranoia about the treatment free person's bees being contagious to the bees that are treated....

not paranoid here.

but there can be no disputing the fact that a dying hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals.

i'm not sure why this always gets turned around to treatment vs. treatment free. it's more about preventing the unecessary spreading of a problem.

i'm lucky to have bees that have a fourteen year history of surviving mites without any treatments. i really don't want to have to do anything to save a colony from mite collapse. but before i let a hive crash and become a threat to my other hives, my neighbor's hives, or nearby ferals i will do what it takes.

my bees have proven natural mite resistance, but that is no guarentee that they might rob out another hive and bring in a boat load of mites all at once. even the most mite resistant bees must have some upper limit on what they can handle.

there's not much i can do if a feral hive near me crashes and my bees rob it. but i can do my best to make sure my bees don't become a source for someone else's problems. fortunately, the other beekeepers near me feel the same way.

i'll say it again, i don't care if you treat or don't treat, but i do care if you let your hives crash and get robbed out. unless of course you keep bees that can do 'that' for themselves.
 
#141 ·
but there can be no disputing the fact that a dying hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals.
That is very profound, so let us repeat that, with a slight twist:

"but there can be no disputing the fact that a treated hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals."

Anyone have any objections to that statement? :lpf:
 
#144 ·
We have a saying in West Texas, it is "we are beating a dead horse." I think most of us are considerate of others, and whether you are a treatment free or a chemical guy, we work toward bettering bees and beekeeping, period. This thread has turned into a conundrum without a clear answer. I'm not reading any more posts on this "dead horse" issue.
 
#145 ·
<Your hives by the very nature of beekeeping in this country are already infected. There is no 'yours' and 'mine' in that sense. Bees travel where they will. Maybe they come back to their own hive, maybe they don't. You can either treat your bees to temporarily get rid of whatever it is you don't like in there, or you can keep bees who do it themselves. This forum is about bees who do it themselves. >

Really? So if I run into a case of AFB I can dump my crashing hives next door then and you won't mind... don't worry thus far they are completely treatment free. FWIW a crashing hive is a crashing hive, whether it's treatment free or not, there is a good chance it is dying from something that can be spread. It's about being a good neighbor. It's fine if you want to let your hives die, I could care less. I only care when it impacts me, If your hives are in a location that are not likely to impact someone else (because despite us all being infected with everything aparently, bees only fly so far), do whatever you want. No one here (that I have seen) is advocating that you should be treating your hives. What some people are asking is that if there is a risk that you could spread problems to someone else you should do something about it (again that doesn't mean treating unless isolating, combining, or euthanizing a hive is also considered a treatment, but after rereading the forum rules it doesn't appear to.)


<That is very profound, so let us repeat that, with a slight twist:

"but there can be no disputing the fact that a treated hive can be a reservoir of diseases and pests, and unless responsible measures are taken to prevent robbing, that hive poses a risk to other colonies whether they be in the same yard, a nearby yard, or nearby ferals."

Anyone have any objections to that statement?>

I have to agree with squarepeg here, exchange treatment with "any" and I'm fine with it. Not every crashing hive is necessarily dangerous, it could be starvation, queenlessness, mouse problems etc, etc. But then again it could be mites, AFB, virus load, etc etc, which are dangerous.
 
#147 ·
We have a saying in West Texas, it is "we are beating a dead horse." I think most of us are considerate of others, and whether you are a treatment free or a chemical guy, we work toward bettering bees and beekeeping, period. This thread has turned into a conundrum without a clear answer. I'm not reading any more posts on this "dead horse" issue.
lazy, i tend to agree with you that most of us are considerate of others.

nada's original post set the stage once again for this hashing out of the different approaches to 'bettering bees and beekeeping'.

we'll get there. randy oliver credits the pursuit of alternative methods as the way toward 'sustainable' beekeeping.
 
#149 ·
>If a person has lost every bee, each year, for 3 years

Dont that.

> that's long enough to know he should change something.

And I did...

>Are you saying this in regard to bees or breeding of animals as a whole?

Both.

> I agree that breeding of bees has not produced the same results as other animals.

In some ways it has when people look at the "whole bee". If you breed for just color, as some have, it's another matter. But it's the same when you just bree for hygiene or any other trait you think will help. You're "straining at the gnat". In my opinion, you need to be looking at the whole picture of healthy instead of counting cells that have been uncapped and mite counts.

>Quite often trying to selectively breed for one positive trait also unintentionally selects for an undesirable trait. You can see this in purebred dogs. Hip dysplasia in some breeds, breathing, skin issues, etc in others. The same is true in birds; blue budgies are prone to tumours that the native green type are not.

Exactly.

>hmm obviously selected for one trait only to the exclusion of others is a bad idea, but most of the examples you see of this are most pronounced in show animals, where the primary concern is looks.

Not really. Maybe that is the root, but some breeds of cattle have suffered because of some of the same narrow thinking. Herefords were a very hardy breed of cattle capable of surviving pretty well on their own until they decided to breed them to be more compact. The thinking was that the cattle were spending energy growing things they didn't need that much, like longer legs, which did not translate into salable beef. So they bred them to have short legs and compact bodies and the result was calving issues. Finally someone looked closer at the relationship between leg length and calving issues and discovered that long legged cattle had less calving issues. But by then they had bred out all the long legged herefords.

It's true a lot of problems are because of shows (probalby compactness was also a show trait, but one they picked because they thought it would translate into effecient conversion of feed to meat). They certainly ruined a lot of good work horse breeds by breeding them for show. They should have been breeding them to be healthy.

We need to breed bees that are gentle, healthy and productive. Anything else that we select for could easily backfire and by breeding for those things you're breeding for the combination of things that cause that. As soon as you get caught up in the microcosm, you lose sight of the big picture and in breeding, I don't think you can afford to do that.
 
#150 ·
Michael I can agree with you in that we always need to breed for healthy bees. Above your example of cattle, it seems to me they weren't monitoring other aspects of health very well. You say we need to breed for healthy, gentle, productive bees. How is breeding for gentle or productive bees any different than breeding for any other trait? It is entirely possible that breeding gentle bees leaves them more susceptable to pathogens or parasites. Of my hives a couple years ago the only bees that survived treatment free were viscous. I think the fact of the matter is it's fine to breed for anything, as long as you are taking into account the overall health of the bees. How is breeding for hygenic behavior (again assuming that you are taking overall health into account) any different than breeding for honey production or gentleness? If there's something I'm missing here please let me know. We want bees that are best suited for our purposes. We will always be selecting for things that could potentially be detrimental to the survival/propagation of bees themselves to suit our purposes.
 
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