Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

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
 
#228 ·
I bought them and made up nucs with them. They just recently started breeding for commercial sale, I wanted to support their project. But because of our limiting climate, the queens raised were too late for our spring split so I used them in my nucs. This season I will see their true nature during the entire season. They will be run beside some of my own queens and some Cali queens.
 
#229 ·
understood ian, very cool. it will be interesting how they stack up on benchmarks to your existing stock.

sorry i haven't had a chance to read the linked material yet, been in the beeyard the past couple of days and i'm behind on my reading. :)
 
#231 ·
My goodness, I leave town for a few days for the Dadant celebration, and look what happens to the thread I started! :gh:

Ok, what I've gleaned so far, which pretty much was what I expected, there are only one or two commercial beekeepers "testing the waters" with treatment free bees. You have to tease that out of their postings, but it's there. They seem to be using tf bees, as a means to move from the hard chemical miticides to softer treatments. As we all know, it is a great risk to them.

Randy Oliver did a nice presentation on mites at the Dadant celebration. He talked about how his goal is not to kill all the mites, because then they breed for resistance to the treatment. Instead he seeks a 50% knock down, which enables the colony to apparently thrive (my words), without breeding a resistant mite. In the first part he talked about how treatment free bees make this job easier, but in his experience they still need help. He concluded this section with the Warner Bros. cartoon graphic "That's All Folks!" The next 20 or so minutes dealt with treatments. So in his scheme of things, treatment free bees are a help, but not the solution.

I was fortunate to be able to ask him a question: "There are several, a few, major producers and sellers of Treatment Free or Resistant bees. Have you used them in your operation, and what has been your experience?" His answer, paraphrased - Yes. Several producers and beekeepers regularly offer me bees or queens or to buy such for me to test. I've used a few. But my operation in California tied in with Almond pollination is that they're not successful. They all need some sort of help in my area. Which is not to say that they don't work in other areas, just not in mine.

Unfortunately I was not able to ask a follow up question, which would have been: "So to achieve success with a treatment free bee you need to acclimate it to your particular locale?" As I think about it, my successful treatment free bees have come from Texas and Kentucky, similar areas to where I am now. In my "migratory" operation (my 20 hive trailer! :lpf:) I do not leave my county when I haul them from what clover there is, to soybeans. So my bees are acclimated to my particular locale, and they were raised in the south/midwest south.

Perhaps that is what mitigates against, at this point, successful treatment free commercial operations, hauling them from your home yard to Almonds, and elsewhere for pollination purposes. They never really have an opportunity to acclimate to a particular locale.
Regards,
Steven
 
#232 ·
They never really have an opportunity to acclimate to a particular locale.
Or is it the stress of moving itself, stress from exposure to new and varied diseases and maladies, varying temperatures and conditions, or something I haven't thought of?

Can this stress, no matter its source, be eventually overcome?

What is it exactly to which the bees acclimate, I guess is my question. I know from my own experience that if you move treatment-free hives, most of them die within two years. It's like starting the process all over again. However, buying queens from somewhere else doesn't seem to cause the same problems. It's one of the reasons why I don't ship nucs. I can't vouch for what they'll do somewhere else.
 
#234 ·
>No mites observed doesn't mean no mites present or zero mites.

I certainly DO have Varroa mites. The point is the level of mites. Someone asked me to uncap a few drones. I was just showing that someone else had already done so on my hives for the last decade and what those results were.
 
#235 ·
Way back in post 189(I have been busy), Sol wrote:

Are there any treatment-free commercials? No.

We have over 400 hives, and use only mechanical methods to treat mites. Why do you not consider me not be commercial and treatment free? And what about Ron Householder?

Crazy Roland
 
#236 · (Edited)
I know a guy who runs 1200 honey producing hives and uses drone brood for part of his mite control program. Also uses organic acids to help knock the mites down,
but then he tests his disease pressures frequently and will use a chemical treatment if his mite populations get too high.

I guess with a treatment free operation, he would let the bees die off naturally
 
#242 ·
Roland, the answer is in your post. You treat for mites. No disrespect, it's right in there.

In my book, no means no and free means free. No treatments equals treatment free. That's no indictment against anyone. It just is.
Symantics. Roland does treat for mites in the true sense of the word, he manages his mites through a manual control method. Or does treatment free mean "does nothing" to manage mites? Because, if so, then Honey Householders method would be treating to and he doesn't use chemicals.
 
#245 ·
The definition of 'semantics' is taking the individual meanings of words rather than the meaning of the overall passage. So no, Mark, not semantics. The meaning of the passage is: he treats. He said he does.

Honey Householder doesn't count because he doesn't fit the definition of 'keeping bees' in my view. There's no sustainability there. Keeping bees would involve keeping them all the time. He seems to regularly throw them away. As far as I understand, keeping is the opposite of throwing away.

I also haven't heard that he migrates.
 
#247 ·
Honey Householder doesn't count because he doesn't fit the definition of 'keeping bees' in my view. There's no sustainability there. Keeping bees would involve keeping them all the time. He seems to regularly throw them away. As far as I understand, keeping is the opposite of throwing away.
Therefore.... Householder is a TF Beehaver.... not Beekeeper - Semantics???
 
#250 ·
I can't speak for Dean, but considering the way he markets his honey, I doubt it. I can't think of anyone concerned about how their honey is made would buy honey from somebody who kills all their bees every year.

And yes, 'beehaver' is semantics. But I didn't say it, you did! Not my style.
 
#253 ·
I can't think of anyone concerned about how their honey is made would buy honey from somebody who kills all their bees every year.
Not that it really matters, but I believe Householder no longer kills his bees every year. Instead he sells them as one big mass of package bees to buyers usually from the deep south.
 
#251 ·
....except that Dean's customers expect some degree of "sustainability" however you want to define it.
The main advantage of running our own business is that we don't have to subscribe to or market based on someone else's criteria.
Touting ron's approach as "treatment free beekeeping" is like touting the maintenance department of a car rental agency for the high quality and reliability of their fleet. The fact that the cars are new and are replaced when they exhibit problems makes the claim that they are "well maintained" rather meaningless.

Deknow
 
#257 ·
And one other thing to consider when using Ron Householder as an example……what do you suppose he does with his comb between seasons?
I'm thinkin' that it's a safe bet that there's a chemical involved.
 
#264 ·
I was leaving comb on the stack but SHB just showed up this year. Now I'm afraid to leave any extra space, at least until I figure out a strategy. But up in Householders area, the population contains many brass monkeys and bare-breasted witches. I'm not sure he needs to worry much about wax moth.
 
#266 ·
I'm not sure he needs to worry much about wax moth.
You believe he'd risk his entire operation to chance?
I don't know him personally but it appears that he's been doing his method successfully for a while. Success in this business doesn't come with the roll of the dice....which may explain the paucity of tf commercials.
 
#265 ·
By using excluders we are able to keep our extracting comb free of brood and pollen and see little if any moth damage in them even when stored in the heat of summer. Any dark brood comb stays on the bees until October. We rarely fumigate with anything. Any product requiring each individual comb to be treated is never going to be used much commercially.
 
#273 ·
WoW guys. My ears are burning.
After shaking the bees out in the fall I just stack the brood boxes up in the bee yards until all the brood hatches. Mid Nov. I start clean up. By the first of the year I start spraying HFCS into the frames an reseting the yards.

I would have commented before this, but I had packages that had to be put into the hive. One load down and one to go.:wiener:

Sorry still chemical free.

Don't claim to be a beekeeper, just a honey producer. 1000 hives and shooting for 100 tons of honey this year, and yes still a 1/2 ton pickup does the job. I did add a fork lift in the warehouse to load all that honey. Not getting any younger.

TF HONEY PRODUCER:thumbsup: Really who is counting.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top