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Going Treatment Free - step 1

116K views 571 replies 41 participants last post by  jim lyon 
#1 · (Edited)
Full disclosure - I'm not treatment free, but I applaud anyone and everyone who has established a successful treatment free apiary. Seriously I do.

But, I would suspect that everyone who has done it would agree with a few principles:

  • Treatment free does not mean doing nothing and hoping for the best.
  • Treatment free requires at least as much understanding of bee keeping as any other philosophy - so educate yourself.
  • If you start out with a couple of generic packages from Georgia, and don't check and don't prepare for any contingencies you probably will not be successful as a treatment free bee keeper.
  • If you replace your dead outs with generic packages from Georgia every spring you probably won't ever become successful as a treatment free bee keeper.

Maybe I am wrong about some of these - and I welcome constructive input. The reason I am even bringing it up is that I get quite a few contacts via our local bee keepers association from new bee keepers who of course want to be treatment free - of course they want that, who wouldn't? But they don't understand these basic points of the pursuit. That is on them of course, it should be obvious that everyone needs to educate themselves about their chosen path. But for some reason a common take away from the treatment free internet community is that all you have to do is not treat and all your dreams will come true.

I just wish that all of the proponents would make it painfully true that at least at first - treatment free is not easy.

Or am I wrong?

Again - not hacking on the whole treatment free thing. I'll probably give it a go myself one day when I think I have achieved a sufficient state of Zen.

I almost forgot - Step 1 to becoming a treatment free bee keeper - learn to be a bee keeper.
 
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#512 ·
" Honey Bees do a finite number of task, beekeepers do a infinite number of things to their bees. The better you understand the finite tasks bees do, the more infinite your beekeeping shall become" - Tim Ives
 
#520 ·
Oh, brother!

Tim:

I just put on a 3rd deep on one of my newly installed hives, even though the second deep isn't completely drawn out.

My own feeling is that they'll draw out new frames vertically before they'll do so horizontally.

So, the second and third deeps won't be completely drawn, but the bees will expand the broodnest vertically as the side frames of the lower deeps fills with pollen and nectar.

Am I wrong? Is this a correct 'limitless brood' nest assumption?
 
#524 ·
Your correct on that assumption. When adding s 3rd, I take a brood frame out of both deeps and move up to the 3rd. Place new undrawn where brood was taken from. Place new frame between top 2 brood frames. Line up all new frames vertical in the middle. 10-14 days check progress, do it again.

Note: make sure the middle frames get drawn. I have lost a couple hives in winter due to bees getting stuck on oneside. But that was also before I started wrapping hives.
 
#522 ·
You're a poet, and I didn't know it.

Tim: Do you think that providing top entrances is important in 'pulling up' the bees and expanding both the broodnest and honey stores vertically?

I could always just offset a top super and find out, but I want to hear your thoughts on this.
 
#526 ·
Top entrance is definitely critical in winter for several reasons. A lot of bees breathing. I'm in the lake effect snow belt of lake Michigan, nothing to get 2' of snow (luckily not much past couple years).

Spring/summer they'll use all entrances provided. A lot of bees coming/going.
 
#525 ·
WLC, by giving the bees undrawn in the middle this will help deplete wax builders on strong hives. If the hive seems slow to build thenadd drawn in the middle. I use undrawn to slow a hive down. Drawn to speed a hive up.
 
#528 ·
They'll take to the drawn frames first before drawing new. I've tried just putting 2-4 in middle the rest ne. Doesn't seem to work ad well as checker boarding supers.
I color code supers, yellow drawn, tan new and gray borrowed (which I lose half the honey out of 200 to the guy with bobcat). But get to use his honey house till I get mine up and running(another project in my free time..lol).
 
#531 ·
Looks like we got us some instigators here.

First Dean accuses me of calling Tim a liar, which never occurred, and then this.

By the way, I do have 3 deeps working on one hive, and I'm ready to pull up some more drawn medium frames into the supers to make 7 supers on top.

The other hive just got a new queen and had some issues.
 
#532 ·
For those more interested in bees than personal argument, it is mid winter here, and I have set up some hives according to the Tim Ives method. My hives winter in 2 deeps, but I've found some very strong ones and given them another box. Done maybe 8 or nine hives. They will be managed this season the Tim Ives way.

Not saying anything silly like I'm a convert, our flow patterns are different and don't know if the method will fit here. But I'll try anything once.

I presume you'll be doing the same raldridge?
 
#534 ·
When I spoke in NJ. There was a beekeeper Ed Vaeth that had several 3 deep hives(100% survival). He was pretty much doing what I was, pre 09' pulling a split dropping the 3 rd down then supering. This year he supered up earlier what he could then split the rest. Get on FB, follow what's going on there in NENJ...
 
#539 ·
"...everything I said came from Tim himself, from Randy Oliver..."

You're using the guy with the ladder and the 'beewasher' as references?

Regardless, non of it has anything to do with treatment free beekeeping. So Tim caught some swarms. The rest is a common beekeeping practice in that neck of the woods.

No 'fat bees' required.
 
#540 ·
Common practice??? 10% of michiana beekeepers members, the other 90% are MDA candyland junkies... Might want to look at who makes the candy blocks for Mel.

Fat bees ARE required !!!!!!!!
 
#541 ·
See what I mean?

I don't disagree with honey being better for bees than sugar. However, there are financial and practical reasons for feeding syrup.

Tower hives are old news. Someone does it in the local community garden every year. It works once in a while.

The vg/fat bees requirement is hypothetical.

Have either you or Randy every extracted and quantified vg proteins at any time?

However, we're still far away from treatment free beekeeping issues. No, this wouldn't be a 'good' first step either.
 
#542 ·
Vg is hypothethical to you, I can quantify......

Far away from treatment free??? Maybe you are. I've been treatment free since started in 02'. Sugar free since 2006.

Not a good first step? NOBODY has proven me wrong...
 
#543 ·
Guys I think we all need to chill.

The thread played itself out weeks ago. Then, today, weeks later, someone with a chip on his shoulder gets his internet access back and jumps in, spitting venom, trying to make it look like it's actually others that have the problem, and attempting to rile everybody up. If we give him the air time he will succeed.

To Tim. Never heard of you till this thread. Then I hear claims of world record crops, huge hives, etc, being told all this from a guy with no bee knowledge. So of course, I had my doubts. Anybody would. Specially when we get told you are doing all this AND working full time as a carpenter. All sounded too good to be true. And turned out it was, once you showed up personally and debunked the more extreme unbelievable stuff, I started to think, well, maybe.

I will look you up on FB, now I know what that is. :). But as to this thread, it is so full of vitriol and anger, that personally, I think more justice could be done to your methods by starting a new thread on it. Then people don't have to wade through 27 pages to get to anything sensible. Me, I'll look you up on FB but really I don't like FB I'd rather see it with all the other bee stuff on Beesource.

I am using your methods on some hives, some input from you along the way would be a great thing.

I'll start the thread for you if you want that.
 
#544 ·
Guys I think we all need to chill.

The thread played itself out weeks ago. Then, today, weeks later, someone with a chip on his shoulder gets his internet access back and jumps in, spitting venom and attempting to rile everybody up, and if we give him the air time he will succeed.

To Tim. Never heard of you till this thread. Then I hear claims of world record crops, huge hives, etc, all from a guy with no bee knowledge. So of course, I had my doubts. Anybody would. Specially when we get told you are doing all this AND working full time as a carpenter. All sounded too good to be true. And turned out it was, once you showed up personally and debunked the more extreme unbelievable stuff, I started to think, well, maybe.

I will look you up on FB, now I know what that is. :). But as to this thread, it is so full of vitriol and anger, that personally, I think more justice could be done to your methods by starting a new thread on it. Then people don't have to wade through 27 pages to get to anything sensible. Me, I'll look you up on FB but really I don't like FB I'd rather see it with all the other bee stuff on Beesource.

I'll start the thread for you if you want that.
Can't put pictures/videos on here to easily. Android is linked to FB, pics are uploaded in seconds. My FB page has several 100 beekeeper friends.
 
#552 ·
I third that!

I would like to see a thread just on Tim Ive's methods. I have cut and paste what he has shared so far because I would like to go treatment free and want to set up a number of hives this way next year. I would also like to set up at least one Perone hive - the concepts seem similar - huge feral/swarm colonies, lots of stores left so they don't have to be fed syrup, no treatment, etc... In fact, the Perone MkI looks just like Tim's setup, though I am sure there are lots of differences....

Whose going to start the thread?
 
#549 ·
Of course, he feeds his bees honey. Saying he doesn't feed is semantics.
Tim still has to show his official world record. Yada. yada, yada...

Since others are building tower hives without being treatment free, or feeding honey only, I don't see the treatment free issue here.
 
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