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Treatment Free: It's a path, not a solution

41K views 253 replies 40 participants last post by  drummerboy 
#1 ·
I have been treatment free for about 15 months now. I mean that in the "truest" sense - no manipulations or additions of any kind for the purpose of combating mites. The bees have struggled, and one could say that the treatment free approach I'm using is "not working" very well. So I have been considering my alternatives. And I find myself wondering if it's really fair to ask treatment free to "work". Isn't it really just choosing a different way to approach beekeeping - one with a certain set of challenges that must be overcome? One could say that it's "living with mites", but then again, that is what everyone does. I feel like it's often just about living with mites, and not fighting them directly.

I quit treating last April, and entered last winter with 11 hives. Came out with 8. Lost two or three through the spring and early summer and have built back up through cut-outs and swarms to 18 at this point. I have just set up nucs for the year. 10 of my number are those nucs.

Over the last few years I have done a lot of study; reading everything I could find on ways of dealing with varroa, working with the bees - and in the end, I feel that for me personally, it just make the most sense not to interfere with the mite.

At the end of the day, I've come to believe that keeping bees without treatments (for the most part) really just amounts to managing bees with mites. Sure, you can graft from your best and work toward a more resistant bee, but with most of us living in areas where there are plenty of other, treated bees around, your progress could be slow.

Many people who are treatment free talk about making increase from "catching swarms" and "feral survivors", but I believe that most of those bees are just swarms from other people's treated bees, so all that collecting just amounts to replacing lost bees with new bees. The only difference really is that you worked for them, rather than paid for them, and in many cases, you can at least count the fact that if they came early enough in the season, the queen probably wintered at least once in your locality.

There are so many challenges that face bees (pesticides, pests, disease, weather) and beekeepers (economics, pests, disease, weather, insanity) that the death or poor performance of a colony could be the result of any combination of things. Mites are one, albeit a major one.

If you look at treatment free in the broadest sense; across all the people who take that approach, it really isn't about some genetic secret. It isn't about small cell. It isn't about not feeding sugar syrup, pollen sub or using three deeps or all mediums. There really isn't "a solution" in terms of some remedy that will rid the bees of mites.

It's about not treating.

So from what I can see, it really boils down to not fighting mites, and then managing day-to-day, month-to-month around the results. It's about deciding that you don't want to artificially combat mites and then replacing the work of doing so with other work.

Isn't it?

Adam
 
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#38 · (Edited)
Solomon...

People have the right to disagree, but what is it with beekeeping where "I disagree" means other person is wrong. Someone can disagree with my belief that the worldis round all they want, it doesn't mean they are right. Clearly there are know problems with current "management" practices, yet people cling to them though they are failing. A dead hive of bees is not always a beekeepers fault. When a feral colony dies is it a beekeepers fault? Nope.

Beekeepers think that bees cannot overcome, but that is just an indication of human hubris. We have been TRYING to kill cockroaches, weeds, and bacterial infections with poisons for a long time, yet they adapt and survive despite our efforts to the contrary. This is done throu selective pressures. Allowing hives that cannot make it to expire leaves you with breeding stock that CAN survive. Dead hive management is working here in Indiana. since I have gone to IT I have had much better overwintering of bees. If a hive cant make it on their own they aren't going to make honey for me. Why would I want to keep them alive on chemical life support. THE treating crowd can just keep right on telling me I'm wrong. I will keep expanding.....

I would contest that continuing the failed management practices of the last 20 years is the ultimate example of putting ones HEAD IN THE SAND.
 
#39 ·
I will keep expanding.....
I wish I could. I've already had to quit building some things, no time. A population of 25 is about what I can handle at this point. I'm going to have to let a few more die this winter so I can get back to my goal number. Hmm, think of all the comb that could free up. I could finally get all my hives to the 4-5 deep equivalent goal size. I'd probably be doing better on that front if I weren't selling dozens of frames of drawn comb in nucs every year. It all depends what your goals are.

I would contest that continuing the failed management practices of the last 20 years is the ultimate example of putting ones HEAD IN THE SAND.
I wouldn't call them failed. Break an ankle and not be able to keep your bees for a year, and then you'll see the fail. Michael Bush was out of town for like three years and he still had a whole bunch of hives that were doing just fine. I had to leave mine in Oregon for 2.5 years and didn't lose all that many. I like Michael Bush's Lazy Beekeeping. This is much easier than all those treatments and inspections they require, put the stuff in, take it out, for crying out loud don't touch it or breathe it. How much stress is derived from being worried about getting that stuff done or your bees will die? No fun.
 
#44 ·
Beeman: if I'm not treating my bees, what good does it do to count mites? They aren't going anywhere, so bees are going to have to find a way to coexist with them. If untreated bees DO find a way to live with mites it makes counting mites irrelevant. If I'm not going to treat I figure out if varroa killed my hive post mortem. At that point my bees are dead, but so are the mites at killed those bees.

My head isn't in the sand. Whenever there are paradigm shifts in any discipline the initial challenges to established practices are ridiculed. People practicing treatment free shouldn't be belittled. If you don't believe that bees can make it on their own there are other forum sections to read.

I am here telling of things that are Working in my operation as I believe others are. Why would anyone get on here and lie about success they are having with treatment free practices?
 
#56 ·
First Solomon, I don't think you can say that treatment free beekeepers consistently have lower loss rates that treated.

Solomon…I really didn’t want to get caught up in all of this but….
In my opinion, you can compare your survival rates with another beekeeper who has a different treatment philosophy and still not gain anything without comparing many other variables. You know that.

Mostly in spring I get calls or emails, and see many posts on beesource by new beekeepers lamenting hive failures. All too often it appears that mites were the cause of the collapse. And, I contend that in practically every failure varroa are part of the equation. If you haven’t taken an objective measurement….you don’t know. Mites are a tax on your colony. They impact your bees’ ability to contend with every other parasite and pest. They weaken our bees and impact productivity. There are so many consequences.

I only want people, especially new beekeepers to understand the significance of this parasite. And if they truly understand the pest and choose a treatment free path…I say fine.
 
#52 ·
Let us remember that while we Americans call it the "Bond Method," the original term from John Kefuss' publication is "Bond TEST." It is the ultimate test, and the only one that matters. Who cares if our method of testing doesn't fit what someone else wants us to do. We're not trying to do what they're trying to do.
 
#57 ·
Dan, I could care less about other beekeepers and their philosophies. I want you to square your presuppositions with the evidence of my bees. If a bunch of hives aren't dying, it only follows that there isn't a problem. That is the test. You know I speak from experience. Explain my experience.

Why do you think beekeepers in the Treatment-Free Beekeeping Forum do not understand what they're doing and have not chosen that path? Why is it your duty to provide the disclaimers?


You have no requirement to get caught up in this. I'll be awaiting your inevitable "final word" and then eventual return to the argument. It's a bit transparent.
 
#60 ·
Dan, I could care less about other beekeepers and their philosophies.
And that is your right, it is also a source of failure for many others. There are those who take the ultimate test without themselves or their bees being ready for the test. ARBeekeepers rules are a good self exam to take before taking the plunge.

It is not your job to pave the way for others to make it to the promised land of TF. You have spent many hours simply repeating that it exists to many who will never believe. Thank you for that.

There are those who recognize that they or their bees are not capable of taking the test yet. They are not wrong, at least for themselves, here they do not seem to be welcome to speak of anything less than complete devotion to TF.

My way or the highway is your right, just not as helpful. I congratulate you that you were able to breed from your survivors. For those with less skill or dead bees a slightly longer path to TF really might be a responsible choice.

Keep the faith, forgive the sinners.
 
#58 ·
Sol - I think much depends on the credibility of the observations. I have read your posts long enough to conclude that you are knowledgeable and truthful. Other folks who report results on line don't have that credibility (at least with me, yet) and I need them to confirm their observations with a properly done test for me to ascribe competence to their posts. If someone doesn't care what I think and doesn't want to test, that's fine with me.
 
#62 ·
Saltybee, I would appreciate no grandstanding on a sentence that has nothing to do with what you're saying. There's a name, and that name isn't your name, therefore the post isn't for you. If you're going to treat your bees and advocate others to the same, you're going to get some friction in the Treatment-Free Beekeeping Forum.
 
#63 ·
I do not at all advocate treating my bees, I do confess to it. The only bee I want is a TF bee. That is just not the bees I have yet. Or the dead bees I had. It is the bee I will have before I am broke. (I hope).
Stratling the fence as I am now is a short term solution at best. That I know.
 
#66 ·
Yes that happens a lot.

However just read my last post and didn't want to sound offensive to those among treatment free beekeepers who are good friends.

So want to add as an adjunct to the post that I know (or at least assume), that there are treatment free beekeepers who are financially sustainable.

The point I tried to make is that simply to say a hive survived, is not to say that mites did not have an effect on it. IE, survival alone is not the ultimate test to see if mites are still a problem.

Really, there likely is no ultimate test as there are variables. Mite counting tells something but not everything. Running treated hives alongside non treated could also be revealing. But a definitive answer nobody would argue with would be hard to come by.
 
#67 ·
Now we're debating the definition of "loss?" :rolleyes: Really?

How exactly are we supposed to compare yearly losses? The reason why overwintering rate is used is because of the fluid nature of hive numbers throughout the year. Is a lost hive while I have 25 more valuable than one lost while I have 50? Do you want me to count the ones that I've sold that die too? What about mating nucs? Does it have to have a mated queen? What if the queen gets eaten by a dragon fly? What if the hive gets knocked over by a rogue trampoline?

No, thanks.
 
#69 ·
even though your treated and untreated were not side by side oldtimer, i think it would be fair to assume that most of the variables were somewhat controlled for, i.e. same beekeeper, same weather, same forage, ect.

you report 100% loss of the tf colonies, what about your treated ones?
 
#71 ·
you report 100% loss of the tf colonies, what about your treated ones?
Of the treated hives losses are low, but if I speak in terms of specifics I can get accused of lying etc..

However my main point was just that if a hive survives, that does not necessarily mean that mites are not affecting it at all. It's possible, but cannot be used as the ultimate measuring stick.
 
#70 ·
I am not debating anything. Management style determines when your losses occur and how you count them. Comparing overwintering losses from different management styles is not a valid method of determining viability of one style over another.

I would imagine a rogue tramploline is a viable loss for treatment fee. Those bees Should have been able to withstand it, or been prepared for it, or smart enough to not build next to it. They weren't, so they failed the survivor test.

Treatment free is great, and I hope everyone eventually gets to that point, but there are a lot of dead bees between here and there, some treated, some not.

Cheers,
 
#73 ·
It's been done. ;)

But yes, it would be interesting for hives of someone like say, Solomon or Michael Bush to be run against some treated commercial hives. I suspect I already know what the result would be, but doubt it would be accepted on some grounds or another.

But please just take that as a statement of what I think would happen. It does not mean I do not support the treatment free movement, I do.
 
#79 · (Edited)
Oldtimer, I agree with you. Adam just said that he accepts getting less honey and money in exchange for being treatment free and I am sure I would get more honey if I treated. Mites are effecting our hives negatively-there is no doubt about it, for most of us anyway. Our treatment free beekeeping is based on the faith and logic that beekeeeping will eventually be sustainable and profitable without treatments. We also believe that by continuing to remain treatment free that each of us will be a part of that solution.
I think that is the basis of what people like Marla Spivak are doing: developing mite resistant strains and encouraging beekeepers to use them.

I also completely agree that someone should not be labeled all in or all out. I think we have made it seem that way by too much arguing. In the end it all comes down to what "works" anyway.
 
#81 ·
"And, I contend that in practically every failure varroa are part of the equation.
If you haven’t taken an objective measurement….you don’t know."

This ranks right up there with thinking that one can't know if he has a mite problem if he is not doing mite counts.

There are other objective measures than mite counts t to determine if one has a mite problem.

Productive hive counts are an example of such objective measures.

I've been keeping hives treatment free for years now. Not many years, but years.

The hives are consistently productive and have a higher than normal survival rate.

That, friend, is what I call Not A Mite Problem
 
#82 ·
I don't "count" mites, but I am keenly aware of them.

By that I mean that I am admittedly monitoring mites, just without counting specifically. When mites are high, you know it. You can see the dropped mites, you can see the damaged bees, and you can see phoretic mites. You can see the strain when their numbers are getting up.

But I'd argue that you have to learn to become sensitive to the signs.

People who say that they don't count mites, are "counting" them in other ways. The most basic might be through the simple counting of dead hives. The actual tests for mite levels in numerical values really only matter if you're treating, and looking for particular thresholds. If you're not, then you are more concerned with "measuring" mites in how you see them affecting your colonies, and you're reacting and adjusting to the changing situation, just like anyone.

Even if your hives are thriving and you're not counting numerically, you're still measuring; taking stock of the mite situation, and happily recognizing that you don't have a measurable mite problem.

No matter how you approach it, you're still measuring. We all are.


Adam
 
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