something to think about

[Rader Sidetrack]

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?

[squarepeg]

you just crack yourself up, don't you radar.

dying is dying, treated or not, i thought i made that clear enough.

[Rader Sidetrack]

dying is dying, treated or not, i thought i made that clear enough.

I'm glad to see that we share common ground. Apparently I'm kinda slow, so allow me to summarize;

It doesn't matter whether hives are treated or treatment-free, the real problem is robbing happening to a weak hive.

[lazy shooter]

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.

[Mr. C]

<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.

[squarepeg]

yep, most are agreed it's better not to let a hive get weak, and then robbed.


[QUOTE=Michael Bush;882563

>is it better to avoid letting colonies dwindle in the first place?

Of course.

[/QUOTE]

[squarepeg]

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?

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.

[mac]

Yah I think sustainable is the goal. How to get there is the question.

[Michael Bush]

>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.

[Mr. C]

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.

[JRG13]

I would assume breeding for gentleness lies within being able to effectively work a hive and for liability. Everyone would equate them to AHB if they're not gentle and we know how that tune goes.

[Mr. C]

I know why we do it, that's not the point. I was pointing out that selecting for gentleness is no different than selecting for any other trait. We select for traits that benefit us, gentleness being one of them, not because it helps the bees, but because it helps us. Saying that there is something inherently wrong with selecting for specific traits in and of itself is in my opinion misguided. It is quite likely that selecting for more and more gentle bees could be detrimental to the bees. I start to question when I hear we shouldn't be selecting for specific traits, especially when it's followed up by a list of traits to select for.

[JRG13]

I see what you're saying C, and I agree. The way I'm approaching it, is start with something you like and bring in traits you want. As far as evaluating, unless you're a true breeder with the resources to keep pure lines etc... it comes down to evaluating your hives, and selecting ones you like for production and breeders etc... In the end I think we're all selecting for healthy, productive and gentle bees. Open mating brings interesting problems though for most of us as far as maintaining lines but it's not impossible.

[Beelosopher]

I agree that it seems odd to say that you shouldn't select, then list what you should select for. But having heard Mr. Bush speak on this in November, I took away that we should select as few traits as possible so we allow as many traits as possible back into the system. This allows us, rather the bees, the opportunity to survive the next big obstacle.

In reality I think we would be hard pressed to get away without selecting anything.

[JRG13]

I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.

[Joel]

I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.

Exceptionally well said! Perhaps you and Michael should collaborate on the book he needs to write....I get frustrated at years of working on this while reamaining viable at the making a living stage. This kind of brief moment of clarity reminds me not to overcomplicate the many many facets - keep it simple. You have the gift of a writer and he the gift of knowledge and soft spoken guidance ... would be a good read on these long winter nights! Thanks

[virginiawolf]

Hi, I learned a bunch of what I know from the bee source members and I have followed the treatment free threads and discussed treating with my local mentors and such. I treated once only as a novelty and on a few hives with oxalic vapor just to try it. Other than that I haven’t treated but I made splits and reared queens and I have looked at dead outs under a microscope for indications of nosema and such to make sure there wasn’t a problem which there wasn’t.
I just wanted to say that with my little bit of experience and within the circles of the local beekeepers here that I think that a vast majority of us are doing a good responsible job of keeping bees from what I can tell.


The state inspector spoke at the last meeting of our bee club and I asked her if she had seen much AFB and I think she said only two cases last season which was down from like 70 10 years earlier or something. Some people treat for mites but I think after our former inspector/club president explained that he personally didn’t have much success with treating we all felt less inclined to do it. Unless the counts were very high.


I think this forum is great and I actually get teary eyed when the subject of loving the bees comes up because I really do love my bees. They are part of my internal makeup at this point. I can only imagine that after more time of doing it like many of you that my feeling and love for the bees will only magnify.


This communication on the forum has already bought me to greater understanding of bees but also has given me a better understanding of how to communicate with people through writing on the forum and such. Some of you have mentored me more than others but I consider you all to be very valuable and so that makes me as a newer beekeeper want to be as responsible a beekeeper as possible and surely try to manage my colonies well so that they are not spreading disease.


I can’t say that the awareness of the importance of managing colonies well will make all of the beekeepers that are exposed to it not slip up or have issues that can spread or anything but it has put me on my best behavior and I try to spread the word locally. I really think that the wisdom here has a great impact and it gives me optimism. Thank You all for sharing. It is greatly appreciated.
single bee 3.jpg

Here's a video of my bees on saturday. It was so good to be close to them and see how they were doing. They were psyched to be out It gave me bee fever

http://youtu.be/vdaOh8LpKbE

[squarepeg]

now that's something to think about, great post virginia.

i really enjoyed your video, especially the shot toward the end from the 'bee's eye view'.

[Michael Bush]

>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?

>I agree that it seems odd to say that you shouldn't select, then list what you should select for.

I'm not saying you shouldn't select. I'm saying be careful. First, selection always (by definition) limits the gene pool. Let's not limit it more than necessary. Second, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking some very specific trait is the only one that matters. It is not.

The difference is the same difference between looking at something in a microscope; and standing back and seeing the whole organism. In the case of bees, that is the whole colony. Rather than measuring things in minuet you don't "measure" you look at the overall picture. A booming, healthy, productive, gentle colony is not hard to recognize without measuring anything. I'm saying select for the big picture, not the details. Also, select for what is important. Is it important to you what the mite counts are, or is it important whether they thrive and produce? Is it important to you what color they are, or that they are gentle and healthy? Is it that important that they do or don't open a pin pricked cell or that they are healthy without any treatments? I think we often think something is important when it's not. The combination of things that makes a colony healthy may be beyond our ability to grasp. Combinations of traits work together, and combinational analysis shows that even as few as 16 traits that have two possibilities have 65,536 possible combinations. There are more traits involved than that, it it grows exponentially. But it's not hard for us to measure when they come together well, and breed from those. That's what successful breeding has been doing for thousand of years. Breeding failures always seem to result from bottlenecking the gene pool too much and particularly from breeding for very few very specific traits instead of general health and usefulness. So the other issue is don't needlessly limit the gene pool. Breed from ALL of the good lines in your beeyard, not just the one best. Select OUT the ones that are not up to par but be careful you don't breed out more than you need to.

>I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.

Exactly.

[Mr. C]

I guess I can say I agree for the most part. You should always be keeping overall fitness in mind which I believe I've mentioned, but I still feel that quantitative analysis of traits is useful information for breeding. Sure you can breed without doing it and make progress, but that does not mean it can't be a useful tool that can potentially speed up the selection process. You can use a handsaw to build bee boxes and do a good job at it. It's still faster to use a table saw, but there's more risk involved, and you need to be safety conscious. There have been plenty of breeders who have used these types of measurements to good effect.

Side Note: Honey Bees are also one of the easiest organisms to add diversity to simply because of their genetics and reproduction.