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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
 
#630 ·
I've seen AFB in Dee's operation, and posted about it here on beesource many times (this is a problem with the search function...it won't look for 3 letter words like AFB or VSH).
It is the characterization that it is a "problem" that I'm calling you on.

What I've seen (and I've been through everything in her operation more than once, most of it 6-7 times in the last 6 years) is something between 1-2% AFB (never seen more than one in a year).

No antibiotics. No differentiation between brood and honey frames. Boxes and combs move from yard to yard as part of the harvest.

Less than 6 cells of scale on a comb and it stays where it is...with the bees. More infection than that gets culled/burned....but tossed in the back of the truck like everything else (this made Sam Comfort visibly, "unComfotable").

No burning hives.

If AFB were a problem in this situation, her bees would all be dead.

So, what is the "problem" we are supposed to have heard about?

deknow
 
#633 ·
Less than 6 cells of scale on a comb and it stays where it is...with the bees. More infection than that gets culled/burned....but tossed in the back of the truck like everything else (this made Sam Comfort visibly, "unComfotable").

No burning hives.

If AFB were a problem in this situation, her bees would all be dead.

deknow
yes, I have also read her talk about handling AFB in this manner on another site,
AFB is a taboo topic so thought it would be best not to discuss it,

seems to me she has picked a threshold level, where as 6 scales or more , the comb is out. How did she come up with that criteria ?
Very interesting indeed, Id say she is a bold woman, but like deknow mentioned, her hives are still thriving
 
#635 ·
Not only is it taboo (I've been criticized for talking about this before), but to characterize someone as having an AFB "problem" is a serious allegation. When it turns out that, like Mike's glass of wine being characterized as a "drinking problem", that there is no "problem", it is the accuser that looks silly.

I daresay the majority of commercial beekeepers in the US would love to have a 1-2% AFB "problem" that doesn't grow, and doesn't require antibiotics and detective work (to find "the source") and hive burning to control.

deknow
 
#638 ·
i guess im willing to take on some hard ships for a greater outcome. its to easy to sit there and say ya that wont work. it seems that is the biggest difference in all of the conversations is some people want to play it safe and do what works and some people want to venture out experiment and see if there is another way.
 
#639 ·
I should also add that we do use Dee's honey to feed our bees if/when we feed them (we had a barrel of honey damaged in shipment, and was able to convince the insurance company to let us keep it for bee feed rather than them tossing it into a dumpster)...we also have scraps and such from every barrel...so, not just one batch has been fed to our bees.

We have never had a case of AFB. The state apiarist knows that we do this, has inspected our bees, and sees no problem...his conclusion is that the honey is "clean"...whatever that means.

deknow
 
#640 ·
>>>i guess im willing to take on some hard ships for a greater outcome

that doesnt answer the question on how Chris is managing his bees treatment free,
if that is the model to follow, how is he able to achieve a sustainable 1800 hive commercial pollination and honey operation? While everyone elses ops SEEM to be falling apart,.?
 
#643 ·
New Zealand was smarter about antibiotics than the US (they didn't allow them), so there may be some cultural differances at play...but in the US (someone back me up here), 1-2% is fairly normal in a large operation that does treat with antibiotics and does burn infected hives.
No one here would consider what Dee has as a "problem".

deknow
 
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#653 · (Edited by Moderator)
...there are no nearby beekeepers to infest her, and I'd hazard a guess there are almost no feral hives.
Not true for most (if not all) of her yards. There are migratory commercials in the area, well within flying distance.
There are plenty of feral hives in the area as well.

There is no reason at all why she could not wipe her AFB out in 2 years and be done with it.
...see above.

An argument against that is she may want her bees to be immune. But bees have been living in balance with AFB for millennia, and have not overcome it.
So it is doubtful that in one human lifetime we could expect our bees to evolve resistance. I can hardly think of an easier outfit to clean up than Dees she has every advantage.
It's worth noting that Dee has the advantages she has because she didn't do what every expert told her she had to do.



deknow
 
#644 ·
im not trying to fight here. im just saying what he said. keep and open mind. ill let you know in 30 years. he said he does not buy bees he does not buy queens, anymore, and his out fit is a continuous living organism. so that is my model and plan for the future. self sustaining. and bees that live and thrive with no treatments. i believe him. why cant you.
 
#649 ·
do you know any farmers? by the sounds of it, not
we keep over 2000 acres worth of seed every year, cleaned from our best crop,
we cant how ever breed from seed that has been developed as Hybrids, for the many reason we all know about, AND because I signed a paper saying that I would not rip off another business tech,
 
#651 ·
What I have been trying to get at from starting within the center point of this topic was what outside influences on these treatment free operations is allowing these treatment free operation to survive? Not all treatment free operations follow the same management , there are the common threads which tie each operation together, but on their own they do not provide success,

So Dee manages much differently than Chris, because Dee is stationary and in a desert and Chris is migratory and a pollinator. Looking at each op, what outside factors in their management program influence their results?
 
#652 ·
If you make a list of priorities, and being "treatment free" is down below all of your other priorities, you will never get to it...no matter what your approach.

There will always be something to treat for in the short term.

deknow
 
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#654 ·
I currently use nucs as a strategy in my operation to sustain my numbers, nucs exploit an advantage to keeping ahead of the mite cycle, I believe its practice that treatment free are using,.? Except Dee, which is puzzling me. How can an operation sustain or build back heavy losses with walk away splits.
The difference might be she beekeeps in a desert type environment, which Im not familiar with. About how many times would she take a split off a hive through out the year? For my operation it is no more than one, then into the honey flow. That is why I build up nucs during the spring.
 
#658 ·
> At what point do you become a treatment free beekeeper?

When you stop treating.

>Do you have to not treat from day one?

You have to pick when day one occurs, but sooner or later, if you're going to be treatment free, you need to stop treating.

> I believe Mike Bush used to treat.

I'm not sure I would characterize it as "used to treat" I got desperate enough when Varroa killed them all and everyone was saying it was impossible to keep them alive without treating for Varroa and I had found NO ONE who said it was possible. So for a few years I tried some things for Varroa until I discovered Dee and regression.

> At what point after he stopped did he become "treatment free"? As soon as he didn't use treatments.

I guess that depends on the purpose of using the term. From the point of view of honey, I think it's that there are no chemical inputs that would end up in the honey, but from the point of view of having a stable, balanced, healthy ecosystem in the hive, that may take a few years to stabilize.

>I dont know what personal information is being asked, being a commercial beekeeping forum, the comments on maintaining a solvent operation is a real thing.

How about medical information, or speculation on other people's profits and productivity. I understand that profit and productivity are important, but I don't think most people want everyone else to know how much money they do or do not make.
 
#661 ·
>>and it's not a "badge of honor" to be so far in debt that every decision needs to be run by the banker.

I agree, but its the reality of farming today, debt is a real thing.

that is where beekeeping is interesting, because a fellow does not need the huge reserve of capital to start up, build and sustain a beekeeping operation. Most of it is will,
grain and cattle farming is pretty much an inherited game now a days
 
#665 ·
>> I believe Mike Bush used to treat.

>I'm not sure I would characterize it as "used to treat" ...

I lost my train of thought... Before I treated for Varroa, out of desperation, I had been treatment free for 25 years... if I had it to do over, I would never have treated at all.
 
#668 ·
here I am, a large grain and cattle producer, who keeps bees. I am very familiar with the chemical world and would have to say I have a good perspective on the issue in general.

Then I watch a YouTube vid of Michael Bush talking about treatment free beekeeping and most everything that he said in his talk made sense, (wish we could get you up here some time Michael ! )

Just how the heck do I make that transition to achieve the sustainable non chemical way to manage bee? I simply cant make that connection right now, because of obvious reasons stated within the last 34 pages of this topic. But it does not mean Im not listening. I would hope to think the other side of the conversation would have a similar perspective on the issue,
 
#669 ·
cheers to that ian. cheers to that! let the record show last summer i started with 200 new hives new queens and treated in may and treated in augst. as soon as the honey was off. and i still went down to 70 live hives as of march first this year. so for me its all about finding a way the bees can fix their problems because i cant do it i guess.....

so when chris baldwin said keeps bees like the old days... thats what caught me. ive heard nothing but great stories of how easy it used to be before mites.

i plan to go visit with him while im down here in tx.
 
#673 · (Edited)
>>>cheers to that ian. cheers to that! <<<

I love to be cheered on! ha ha ha


so when chris baldwin said keeps bees like the old days... thats what caught me. ive heard nothing but great stories of how easy it used to be before mites.
ya, but, these are not pre mite days,
mnbeekeeper, what were you mite levels before your treatments? Nosema?
do you think a beekeeper pre mite days even acknowledged viral infections within the bees?

how do you know your losses had anything to do with pest pressures ?
 
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