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Treatment Free Commercial Beekeepers?

144K views 845 replies 56 participants last post by  Tim Ives 
#1 ·
A few years ago Ted K and I entered into a wager, that within 15 years even commercial beekeepers would be treatment free. In light of some comments made on the "unwritten rules..." thread about the impact of treatments on queens, I was wondering:

Are any commercial beekeepers experimenting with an apiary or so the possibilities of going treatment free? I realize it is an economic impossibility to risk your whole operation, but is anyone testing the possibilities with a small portion of your operation?
Regards,
Steven
 
#2 ·
It is an interesting question. I have never heard of any. Off the top of my head I would doubt that a commercial operation would last very long on TF..... too much mixing in with the other guy.... just to name one thing.
 
#26 ·
The key might be defining commercial... I know lots of guys makeing a liveing on "treatment free" MB probably fits that... I know Dve burns and some others also... But large scale migratory or honey operations are different....
Sorry, but, sideliner maybe, but not a commercial beekeeper from what I can see. But, you are correct. Depends on the definition.
 
#4 ·
Off the top of my head....Dee lusby, Kirk Webster, Bob Brachmann, les crowder....Chris Baldwin is darn close (no varroa treatments). Sam comfort would probably qualify, but I'm not sure he would want to be considered a commercial anything.

Deknow
 
#7 ·
I don't know how many years its been since we had a variation of this conversation, and I asked because time has gone by. Then folks who went "treatment free" were considered nuts, to be kind (as "Crazy" Roland mentioned). But there have been more and more demonstrating that it can work and be cost effective. At least, as mentioned above, for the sedentary beekeepers. Obviously hobbiests and sideliners, with less invested and less to lose, have been more willing to try it. By less to lose I mean they won't starve or "lose the farm" if the bees fail, unlike commercials.

B. Weaver, for one, touts their queens as able to turn around a hive. Other breeders might be making the same claim for their "treatment free" bees, I don't know. Thus it is conceivable that a migratory operation with one of their apiaries treatment free could withstand the mite pressure from a nearby "treated" operation. But hey! If a nearby operation is treated for mites, wouldn't that lessen the pressure on treatment free bees? I mean, both are dealing with mites, right?

Perhaps I should have phrased my question focused on the migratory folks. But I imagine they'll be the last to test the theory in their operations, because of the perceived risk. And they may wait until some of their sedentary colleagues demonstrate honey harvest and winter survivability by using treatment free bees. Not being mercenary or anything, but believe me, I understand it all comes down to economics, and how the beekeeper will survive as a viable operation to make a living and support the family.
Regards,
Steven
 
#8 ·
When discussing treatment vs untreated we tend to focus on survival. While that is one essential measurement it doesn’t tell the entire story. What are the sublethal effects of varroa? Generally speaking, in my opinion, it could all be lumped into colony vigor. I’ve recently read a number of posts from experienced, commercial beekeepers lamenting the fact that flowering plants no longer seem to produce the same amounts of honey. Yards that were once high yielding that no longer seem productive. How much of these losses could actually be attributed to varroa parasitization? For the larger commercial beekeeper, even with stationary yards, the risks are much greater than the easily measurable annual colony losses.
Just to add another perspective to this thread.
 
#9 ·
I am pretty certain we will never see a migratory TF operation, but I think that a stationary TF operation could be profitable. People seem to be willing to pay a premium price for TF bees and I am sure Solomon is correct when he says people line up to buy his nucs.

I suspect that once you have established your TF bees that moving a different set of TF bees in with them or in close proximity could be a problem. In other words I wonder what would happen if I bought some Solomon nucs and some MB nucs and intermingled them in the same yard? Would they self-destruct? I hypothesize - yes..... unless of course Solomon's bees are derivatives of MB's, which I do not think they are....
 
#14 ·
People seem to be willing to pay a premium price for TF bees and I am sure Solomon is correct when he says people line up to buy his nucs.
The line is short, I will admit. There are relatively few within driving range.


unless of course Solomon's bees are derivatives of MB's, which I do not think they are....
They are unrelated for as far back as I am aware of.


When talking to some treatment free proponents, it appears to me that raising nucs to repopulate the dead outs is sometimes a major part of the survival strategy.
It is for some. See MDASplitter, etc. I have had one overwintering deadout in the last two winters. To me, the sorts of energy intensive manipulations like brood breaks and mass numbers of nucs are not evidence of a sustainable situation.


Unfortunately, in my experience, there are no commercials who have successfully, over several years, been able to be treatment free and not had major crashes.
Major crashes are usually part of the process in my experience. "Treatment-free" is not something that is simply tried. It takes several years in my experience.

I am personally dubious at least for the time being that treatment-free migratory bees are possible. Bees did not evolve with much moving in mind. It is very stressful on them. My worst loss in my ten years of beekeeping came after moving my bees from Oregon to Arkansas. This is my experience, I really can't speak to anything else.
 
#10 ·
Chris Baldwin is migratory. He gave up mite treatments several years ago (you should ask him directly for specifics) because "...it was the right thing to do." I believe he has had some EFB (perhaps "IADS ") and has used some TM at times. Again, for accurate specifics, ask him....he is migratory, and he does sometimes do almonds.

Deknow
 
#11 ·
There was a commercial operator at EAS that was talking about how he went queenless. I'd have to look at my notes to remember his name, but he operated in GA mainly, and sold queens as a side income. His main income was from pollination, although I don't know how migratory he went.

He was talking about how the first few years he had massive losses from going treatment free, but now he's at the national average, or slightly under, of hives lost each year. And he doesn't have to pay for the treatments.

I was surprised to hear this. I tried treatment free twice before, and lost all my hives. I even tried treatment free queens, and they collapsed from mites. At least personally, currently to me "treatment free"="no longer a beekeeper." I'm certain some commercial operators will figure it out, and then make it more financially viable to the rest of the beekeeping sectors, but until that large operator who has a large enough gene pool can choose to sacrifice colonies en masse to create a truly treatment free strain, then I don't really see it being successful and catching on. I hear others mention that it should start with the hobby beekeeper, as they have less to lose (i.e. not their livelihood), and I once agreed with them, but now I'm of the opinion that the hobby beekeeper doesn't have a large enough gene pool to truly select for DEPENDABLE resistance to varroa. As it's a multi gene effect, the true resistant strain should have hygienic traits, grooming traits, chewing traits, and resistance to virus traits, and the hobby beekeeper would only have access to one MAYBE two of these traits at best, while the commercial operator with 1,000 colonies has the best odds to hold colonies that possess three and maybe four of these traits, all be it in whatever random compilation. At least, all passing thoughts in my personal opinion.
 
#12 ·
A bee that would stand up treatment free to the rigors of the common model for commercial honey producers/pollinators in the US would be most welcome, of course, but no one to my knowledge so far has been able to consistently pull it off. Practically speaking from the commercial point of view, I would think to carry the badge "treatment free" the results should be scalable, verifiable and duplicatable within a certain time frame. Anyone can get lucky on a small scale over a particularly favorable winter; consistent survivability over several seasons is a bit more difficult.

When talking to some treatment free proponents, it appears to me that raising nucs to repopulate the dead outs is sometimes a major part of the survival strategy. I question if requeening and replacing the dead bees qualifies as "non treatment"? It might just be a matter of semantics, but we are really not all on the same page as to the definition. It is, as beemandan mentions, not just an issue of survivability, but a ratio of cost of treatment/ costs to replace dead bees/ loss of honey production etc. The perception of "right thing to do" is also a factor, but making a living to feed the kids is the right thing to do too.?

Unfortunately, in my experience, there are no commercials who have successfully, over several years, been able to be treatment free and not had major crashes.
Kudos top those working towards this goal. We all wish them luck.

Sheri
 
#13 ·
I think part of the issue is migratory bees are not affected by regionality as they're moved all over. They get exposed to a lot of biotypes of pathogens, not just ones isolated to certain areas. A lot of TF success that people tout is to get local bees/queens, which works for non-migratory operations unless they're set up near migratory yards, but when regionality no longer plays a role it becomes a little more difficult. I think it's doable, but it will raise your costs overall I would assume, even with cutting costs on treating which makes for poor economics in the long run.
 
#15 ·
What percentage of large, treatment free operations are located in the arid Southwest or south Texas? I ask because in my area varroa is not a major problem. Perhaps the climate gives operations like Dee Lusby's a boost?
 
#17 ·
Africanized bees tend to handle varroa. So…if you’re beekeeping in an area that is that is substantially Africanized, mites are less of a problem.
 
#20 ·
I would hope the goal of commercials would be to treat responsibly and for their product to be free of any detectable contaminant from any of their treatments. The goal of being treatment free by the Bee Source definition is no doubt of secondary importance to the commercial beekeepers that I know. It's a nice notion but I just don't see the incentive when there are so many good options for mite control.
 
#43 ·
It's a nice notion but I just don't see the incentive when there are so many good options for mite control.
I'm in total agreement with Jim.
I would add that after all these years of practice, if beekeepers don't have a handle on managing mite populations, they are REALLY SLOW LEARNERS!
As for selecting queens for mite resistance:
Many of us are worried that some queen producers may be going way down the wrong road by taking their eye off of the aspects that really count such as productivity and gentleness and focusing soley on mite proof bees.
Give me good queens that keep us all in business and I will take care of mites.
But to answer the OP's quesstion:
No. I do not know one single (successful) commercial beekeeper that does not do their job as a good beekeeper and address mite populations.
:)
 
#25 ·
Beemandan wrote:

I’ve recently read a number of posts from experienced, commercial beekeepers lamenting the fact that flowering plants no longer seem to produce the same amounts of honey. Yards that were once high yielding that no longer seem productive. How much of these losses could actually be attributed to varroa parasitization?

Guilty as charged. I have tested your theory, and do not believe it is true for me. Our bees still make honey, but not when and where they did in the past. Plants that never provided a flow in the past, have done so recently. Sweet clovers that never failed, have failed. If it was across the board, I would have to agree.

As for mites, the last inspector could not find any , but he did not look REAL hard. We strike drone brood, and see very little DWV or other tell tale signs.

The key to treatment free beekeeping will be a higher value to treatment free honey.

Crazy Roland
 
#30 ·
I have a warehouse full of honey that tests as clean as any "treatment free" honey. I have yet to find a buyer interested in those quantities that is willing to offer me a penny a pound more. So again, where is the incentive? What is the point?
 
#35 ·
i was wondering jim, when you finish pollination and get into the requeening phase, i'm guessing you double or more your number of colonies.

do you just keep increasing, combine them later for pollination, sell bees...?
 
#37 ·
Using your hypothetical yes I agree. That gets me back, though, to my basic point which is that if you can have good bees and honey that tests free of residues then what do I gain with the "mythical" title of being treatment free.
Let me be clear. I send lots of samples out to lots of buyers with an accompanying letter telling them what we do and asking that they feel free to test the samples for proof. They appreciate that, they tell me they love my honey and they bid pretty much exactly what they bid to everyone else.
 
#38 ·
Jim, I agree that for the commercial beekeeper, treatment free honey has no economic value over honey that comes from treated hives. The commercial beek is going to treat responsibly to avoid contaminating his honey and thus destroying his market if detected. My hypothesis is that the economic advantage that accrues to the commercial beekeeper is less cost involved in treatment free bees. No chemicals to buy, no additional equipment, no time and labor spent in treating.

Having kept bees as a hobbiest in the 1970's and '80s, and for the last 8 years, I see no difference in honey production between my Starline hybrids back then, and my B. Weaver or Purvis bees now. In fact, apples to apples (similar pasture, similar colony strength, my bees today seem to have a slight edge on the ones back then. Now the caveat, I do not do any intentional brood breaks. I do let the colonies requeen themselves if something happens to the queen.

My (limited) experience has been that the forage is not as good or widely available today compared to 30 years ago, and that has more impact on honey production than does my use of treatment free bees.

I appreciate the replies from the various commercial folks here. My purpose in the initial question was to see where the commercials were, and to faciltiate sharing of information, either success or failure.
Regards,
Steven
 
#46 ·
Nice post Steven. Of all the treatment free testimonials I read on Beesource I always find Stevens experiences among the most intriguing. Keep us posted on how your bees are doing.
 
#39 ·
We fill up the equipment we have and just keep making them bigger and bigger. If the bees come back from California as strong as I think they will I am not sure what we will do this year. Keep an eye on the for sale forum. :)
 
#40 · (Edited by Moderator)
It seems to me the key to going treatment free, especially for the commercial beekeeper, is not to reinvent the wheel, as it were. That could be very expensive and disastrous. The cheapest and easiest way to go treatment free is to requeen with treatment free queens in your regular requeening schedule, or use treatment free package bees when you replace losses with package bees.

So what bees are treatment free:
Minnesota Hygenic bees - I have tried them, and found them lacking. They did not produce acceptable honey surpluses, nor did they survive.
Russians - did not produce acceptable surpluses.
Purvis bees - I split from these, they survived well, and produced good surpluses. By splitting, I mean when I sought to expand my operation by splits, I did walk-away splits to increase colony numbers. Sometimes I would introduce a new queen to the split.
B. Weaver bees - I split from these also, they survived well, and produced good surpluses.
Feral swarms - I haven't had much luck from these, though I've not caught many.

When I have done my walk away splits, I have found that even third and fourth generation queens and their colonies still exhibit the same traits of honey production and survivability as the original queen.

There are others who advertise "treatment free" bees, but I've not used them. And the only "treatment" I use is a screened bottom board. That's it. Otherwise, I manage my colonies just as I did 30 years ago.

I may be crazy, but I still think some commercial beek is going to try one of these bees sooner or later in one of his yards, to see if it makes economic sense. We all know beekeeping is all about risk, and trying to balance the risk with the anticipated rewards.
Kindest regards,
Steven
 
#42 ·
It seems to me the key to going treatment free, especially for the commercial beekeeper, is not to reinvent the wheel, as it were.
With all do respect, I don't know if there is a wheel to reinvent. If you talk to 10 different, successful, long term treatment free beekeepers (and I'm talking more than one or two hives, as that doesn't denote an actual successful system in my book), you'll likely end up finding 9, or maybe even 10, different systems on how they do it.

Some use small cell
Some use large cell
Some use foundationless
Some rotate comb every 3 years
Some rotate comb every 5 years
Some don't rotate comb at all
Some promote the use of one particular queen
Some promote the use of another particular queen
Some promote the use of multiple different kinds of queens
Some promote the use of local (feral) queens
Some use screened bottom boards
Some use upper entrances
Some feed
Some don't feed
Some treat, softer and softer, until they claim they don't need to anymore
Some go cold turkey
Some have large losses
Some have complete losses
Some claim to never have noticed a difference in losses (although admittedly not many)
Some use brood breaks
Some use re-queening techniques
Some "just let bees be bees"
Some claim success based on genetics
Some claim success based on geographic location (isolation)
Some claim success based on techniques
Some don't claim success, and claim it's the bees doing what they do best
Some say you have to start with a treatment free hive
Some say you have to start with a treatment free nuc
Some say you have to start with a treatment free package
Some say you can place a treatment free queen in a mite ridden colony and they will survive
No-one appears to be the same

The list is not exclusive, of course, just meant to prove a point. I don't see a "right" way to go treatment free, or a "wrong" way (other than through treating, which has it's own definitional nightmare), or a "proven" way. Without having anything proven, how can we expect an industry to adopt it?
 
#41 ·
I think the experiment of going treatment free in commercial beekeepers has been done in the past. Unfortunately I do not think those guys are around to tell how they made out. As Jim pointed there is absolutely no incentive to go treatment free. There are so many risks and perils in this business, why would anybody even contemplate trying? The risks are huge, the benefit almost non existent. I for one will wait until I see others having success going treament free before I would even consider it on 10% of the outfit. We, the beekeeping industry is in a situation were even low levels of varroa mites are vectorin viruses that take out your hives. Point being the so called low levels of 15 years past does not cut it today.

Some have challenged Dee Lusby as to her "commercial" status. When pressed to give some generalities on her production she would not divulge. I doubt that it would be sustainable on a commercial level.

Jean-Marc
 
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