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Something needs to change - looking for suggestions

103K views 469 replies 49 participants last post by  mike bispham 
#1 ·
OK, so I've been treatment free for a while and its becoming apparent that something needs to change. Most of my hives get through the first year, but in the second year they die out. Example - I had six hives this year. Two of them were survivors from last year and four of them are new this year. This fall the two year old hives collapsed. One week they are full of bees and looking healthy a week or two later they are gone, with very few dead in the hive. (This happened in late October in Oregon where the temps have been freezing at night)

Both of the two year old hives were from "survivor" stock. One was a nuk purchased at Old Sol and the other was a split from a local hive that has been around for a number of years. I simply cannot get a hive into year three, no matter how what I do. The hives had excellent stores and I even fed pollen patties (from Mann Lake) just to help out. (first time I have done that)

I have no doubt the bees are leaving because of high mite loads but since I don't treat with chemicals I'm not sure what I can do. My hives are made up of a mixture of small cell boards and foundationless frames.

Open to suggestions as I'm very near going back to treating my bees with a miticide.
 
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#84 ·
Rhaldridge,
No one is disputing that migratory beekeeping to the Almonds from South Dakota via Florida is lethal on bees. In some ways, it would be cheaper to sulfur the bugs and start over each year--much like the medieval skep to heathland model, except for the fact that Almonds bloom at an entirely awkward month.

The rationalization "We, TF naturalists, do no worse than the dregs of industrial agriculture." isn't really convincing. And the statistics are suspect: I observe loss at >>75%. Stationary hives with attention to conditions, and appropriate intervention, survive far better than truckloads of boxes thrown hither and yon. The unspoken assessment of some (and apologies in advance to the others) participating in the Almond circus: "These bugs are expendable and we'll treat them as such, we can't afford to be sentimental about the insects." One extreme example would be the gypsy's that bring in wild-trapped Arizona AHB, and actually want them to disappear ('cause who wants to work an AHB colony --after it has filled its second deep and is feeling their oats).

The bespoke, sideline, or backyard keeper should be able to keep his charges healthier. I maintain if you set up side-by-side experiments, you will discover on any metric; caring for your bees through appropriate medication, they will be more productive, economical and sustaining than those in adherence to some half-baked Darwinian myth. The myth that bees can be selected like wild mustangs and some heroic cowboy will ride a champion to the rail ignores the core facts of bee biology.

I have no idea how in a world of >6 billion people (and internet, and instant shipment) how you decentralize industrial agriculture and its discontents. The Jeffersonian agrarian ideal is long past, the Maoist self-sufficiency campaign was a tragedy of starvation, the beekeeper of the famous "New Alchemists" community is now one of the most caustic skeptics of the "dreamkeepers". The best we may do is ethically husband our own wildlife and livestock for survival and increase.
 
#214 · (Edited)
I'm playing catch-up on this thread, and trying not to return to passed discussions, but I couldn't let this one go:

I maintain if you set up side-by-side experiments, you will discover on any metric; caring for your bees through appropriate medication, they will be more productive, economical and sustaining than those in adherence to some half-baked Darwinian myth.
1) 'Appropriate'.
Who is the judge of 'appropriate' here? Is a medicating regime that tends to strongly suppress emerging resistance in nearby populations - domestic and feral - appropriate? Not in my view it isn't.

2) 'Sustaining'
They won't be _self_-sustaining. The business itself will obviously be more sustainable - that's precisely the attraction. But the local bees will be unable to sustain themselves, and nearby tf beekeepers will find it harder to sustain their genetics. I wish people would identify, when they use this term, just what it is that is more or less sustainable.

3) 'productive, economic'
Yes of course - that's why it happens. But at what cost? The cost of allowing the return of self sustaining bee populations. For everybody.

4) half-baked Darwinian myth
Straightforward logical breeding/adaptive arguments are no myth. They as scientifically based as it gets. Organisms adapt. Remove the pressure to adapt in a particular way and they don't adapt/adapt to the new situation. To fix the varroa problem bees need to adapt to varroa. They can't in the face of constant removal of adaptive pressure by treating. Period. Simple. Scientific.

The myth that bees can be selected like wild mustangs and some heroic cowboy will ride a champion to the rail ignores the core facts of bee biology.
Wild mustangs are recognised as a source of vigourous and robust stock, and used for breeding for that reason. The same goes for New Forest, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh mountain ponies, heft sheep. Natural selection locates, on a competitive basis, the most robust genetic combinations. Fact. There are equivalent 'survivor' bee populations (scientific fact) and they do represent one of the best hopes for tf beekeepers (scientific fact, widely acknowledged by a great many bee breeders). No myth here.


I have no idea how in a world of >6 billion people (and internet, and instant shipment) how you decentralize industrial agriculture and its discontents.
By using fields to grow food crops only is probably the best start - between a quarter and a half the tilled acreage is presently used for energy crops.

By reducing the amount that is wastefully fed to animals to make animal products - at about 20% efficiency in the case of larger mammals

By reducing the amount of overeating that happens

By reducing the amount of food waste that occurs between field and mouth - probably near half.

By reducing the amount of wasteful transport that occurs. A true horror story

By encouraging home and community production - very healthy on many levels

By using well tested low carbon impact/low energy combined growing systems

I'm not advocating a return to some bucolic ideal here - just a systematic attack on the wastefulness that has been bred into the system by failure to prevent the present monopolisitic and oligistic giants who own the means of production, set the regulatory environment, and establish the myths (we have to feed the world - and this is the only way to do it) that appear to entrance even apparently intelligent people.

The best we may do is ethically husband our own wildlife and livestock for survival and increase.
Ethically huh? Who establishes the 'ethical' guides and imperatives? How is genetically poisoning wild bee populations ethically husbanding wildlife? Why must we increase our livestock?

Just who is basing their thinking on myths here?

Mike (UK)
 
#86 ·
Maybe not the most diplomatic way to put it, but it meshes perfectly with my more limited experience and observation. Use of even the softest of soft treatments at just the right times reduces hive loss dramatically. And gives beginners a chance to gain some experience.
 
#87 ·
>Beginners who don't use treatments usually lose all of their bees and give up beekeeping

According to the BeeInformed survey, the ones treating are losing just as many bees as the ones not treating. Reality is beginners lose hives. So do experienced beekeepers although probably at a lower rate. The ones treating lose hives. The ones not treating lose hives. Some of those people get frustrated and quit.

There are plenty of beekeepers not treating and succeeding.
 
#88 ·
According to the BeeInformed survey, the ones treating are losing just as many bees as the ones not treating.
I haven't looked closely at the data, but that statement is contridictory to what Dennis vanEngelsdorp told beekeepers at the VA State meeting in the spring of 2013. Actually he made an impassioned plea to treat your bees. His whole presentation was about the BeeInformed survey and what were the current trends.
 
#90 · (Edited)
I recall that in the MDA splitter method, you need two operations. One set of hives is for production, and the other set (nucs/splits) is for next year's production. I think that some of the numbers being used are a bit too high. A 1/2 dozen hives should do it.

http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf

However, if you have actual resistant Honeybees, it's a moot point.

I do remember a study by DvE where they found that 75% VSH was enough to keep mites below the 5% level so that treatments weren't necessary.

So, if that's the case with whatever resistant stock you have, treatments aren't really needed.
 
#94 ·
Studies are a messy bunch of data. Sometimes(always) comparing apples to oranges. You can not tease out head-to-head comparison data from a survey that didn't do a head-to-head trial. It's just not there.

Here is your proof

Divide a yard in 1/2. Work the hives the same except....treat one side when the mites get high. Don't ever treat the other half for mites.

It's simple, easy, and cheap. No skill involved. Definite results. Local relevance.
 
#98 ·
I think this might be a good trial for those who believe in the efficacy of mite treatment, as well as those who don't, but I don't see many of those who have faith in treatments risking half their bees just to prove they're right. Same would probably be true for most who have succeeded without treatment.

Actually, I don't think it would be as simple and clear as that. In my yard, there are 6 different lines of bees. How would I pick which ones to treat, and which to leave untreated? Talk about apples and oranges. Plus, in a small yard, so many other factors come into play-- supercedure, swarming, nectar management-- apart from the variation in genetics that you'd get from even two hives, unless each queen was artificially inseminated and genetically identical.

The survey collected data from southern beekeepers who treated, and from those who did not, and found no significant difference in winter survival rates between the two management practices. I'm just not seeing the apples and oranges here.

I'm trying to put this in context. I've been warned hundreds of times in the last year here on BeeSource, that if I don't treat, all my bees will die. If I don't treat, I'm a naive fool, a self-deluded hipster, a fuzzy-minded follower of moronic mythology. I've read articles in respected bee journals that told me that if I did not treat, I was a bee abuser, and did not deserve to keep bees.

And then I read a survey of hundreds of beekeepers that informs me that it didn't make any difference, at least for southern beekeepers.

Imagine my annoyance.
 
#95 ·
Yes like all statistics, it's all about how they are massaged. People who have an opinion and don't want it messed up by reality, massage statistics by choosing a particular study from a particular year that best fits their views, or focussing on a particular group that best fits their views rather than the whole group. Southern beekeepers for example.

The truth, is that even going by the survey, treatment free beekeepers are losing 30% more hives than beekeepers who treat. Factor in that most of the treatment free beekeepers run just a few hives in a permanent location, which is far more ideal for the bees than the stresses they are put under in a commercial migratory operation, it is amazing that these hives still outperform the treatment free hives by a large margin, despite the abuses they suffer as commercial hives. Put some hobby treatment free hives in this situation and see what would happen!!

I have been seeing this process going on in some threads over the last months or maybe a year, people trying to present the statistics in a way that is deceptive, and eventually convincing a lot of people that everybody is losing around 30% of their hives treatment free or not. The truth is far from that, and we have been subjected to dishonesty. I have not drawn attention to this as I saw it happening because I always seem to be taking a stand treatment free beekeepers don't want to hear, so just watched and let it go. But since the subject has been raised, based on the survey, a bees survival odds are way worse if it is not treated, that's the facts.

Not what a lot of folks want to hear, but hey, if it wasn't the case, why would anyone treat if there was no advantage? Treatment free folks need not be discouraged about this, you are trying to achieve something against the odds, and do not have to make a living out of it. You should be encouraged to persevere.
 
#97 ·
Did no one not tell you that this happens being treatment free? It always seems that people trying treatment free are surprised to have hives succumb to mites and it's not so simple to just re-stock high losses every year starting out. That being said, you're going to lose hives every year no matter what, it is a part of nature whether or not you're treatment free or treating. I'm all for doing what you want to do in this regard, I don't have any notions of finding the miracle bee as a hobbyist, especially in my area. There are things you can do if you don't want put chemicals in the hive, mainly brood breaks and sugar dusting with proper monitoring to ensure good mite drop. I used to be on the fence about sugar dusting, it doesn't work for everyone but I think if you can dust and get good mite drops, it's effective, you just need to do it constantly during heavy brooding and make sure you're getting good mite drops from it.
 
#99 ·
Here is your proof

Divide a yard in 1/2. Work the hives the same except....treat one side when the mites get high. Don't ever treat the other half for mites.

It's simple, easy, and cheap. No skill involved. Definite results. Local relevance.
This would not work. When one group of colonies becomes overwhelmed with mites, they will dwindle, then the healthy bees will rob out the dying colonies and in the process bring huge loads of mites home. The end result is a whole yard dead. If you want to do this, you will have to separate the bees far enough to avoid robbing.
 
#101 ·
It could work if you monitored fastidiously and treated any hive that became excessively infested before it was too weakened - and of course moving them into the treatment group at least until they were requeened with TF genetics. Using robber screens on all hives would also help. And you would want to use TF genetics in all hives as well I think.
 
#102 ·
Losses higher or lower , experiments fair or unfair, really does not matter. That is not why people choose to try or be TF. If every person who tried TF was required to sign a statement saying they understood their losses would triple and their production would be nil that probably would not change the course of events. Branding aside, it really is freedom of choice, independence, and not much more.

Oldtimer hit it right on the head, encouraged to persevere. The whistle has not blown, game not over. Science is all about experientation. We are arguing about who is ahead right now. I'm rooting for the underdog, not all in with my money, but if they win we all win.
 
#108 · (Edited)
SS1, my feral crosses definitely have more spunk than regular bees, but they also produce more. Can't speak for bees from other areas. I can see how mine would not be ideal for large scale industrialized beekeepng where time is money, and the bees get tossed around a lot. They don't take it very well. However, out of all my hives it seems mostly the domestic ones have issues. I do not recall any of my wildish bees hives I have ever lost to mites or mite related issues (IBDS). I have lost purely domestic hives, such as my Italians. I have only ever bought three packages, and those were eaten by bears. Bears are a bigger concern to me than mites currently. Don't plan on buying any more. Like I said, I really like my current bees, with the exception of a few domestic colonies I picked from other beeks that seem to be a bit on the slow side.

I do have one totally wild swarm that moved into an empty hive that is pretty defensive. They will definitely get a new queen next year, but the others are totally managable, my Italians being far more misbehaved. This is after several years of selection though. Hopefully I can keep them that way.
 
#109 ·
Ha Ha good comment Paul.

I've worked with some mean bees in my day. But commercially, you have your head on a beehive all day, every day (in season). Working with nasty bees is just too unpleasant, wears you out. One of my main selection criterion for breeding stock is gentleness. Thing is, if the work is pleasant, you actually do a better job of the hive. When you are getting the crap stung out of you the temptation is to rush through & get that hive slammed back together so you can get out of there.
 
#110 ·
It's a survey of beekeepers perception of what happened, not an independent measurement. Voluntary instead of being done at random. It's apples to oranges. It has value. But it is a very blunt tool. You want a very specific answer to, your bees, your location, your skills, your goals.

31% loss??? It all depends on how, where, and WHY you keep bees.
 
#112 ·
It's a survey of beekeepers perception of what happened, not an independent measurement. Voluntary instead of being done at random. It's apples to oranges. It has value. But it is a very blunt tool.
Good comment, there are so many things skew these types of survey. One such I read today and it's a common theme on Beesource. New beekeeper, doesn't want to treat. But eventually his hive gets sick enough and he accepts it's about to die of mites so he bites the bullet and treats it. But, too late, the hive is beyond saving. Next time he looks the hive is dead.

But if he does the survey, he would say the hive was treated, but died. So the results are inaccurate because they do not account for operator skill, and no doubt many other factors. I've seen this scenario play out on Beesource so often I'm certain it happens enough to skew the results, the hive was actually killed by lack of timely treatment, but is recorded as a treated hive that died.
 
#111 ·
Fighting bees is definitely wearing on you. I have spent 8 hr days fighting those little wild girls when I was doing it full time (when I thought I was going to retire), before I scaled my operation back a bit and limited myself to strictly sideline type stuff on a very small local scale. The most tiring part is having to pace yourself not to make them angry and fly at you, while still trying to get things done. Very hard when you are by your self. I have help now, and nicer bees, and can get more done. But still not enough time to really get my queen raising going as I should.

Time management is the bane of beekeeping.
 
#113 ·
I find it interesting enough to note that it's not enough to simply get hold of resistant stock. You'll have to do the work of artificial selection to end up with the type of resistant bees that you want to work with.

So, it will take quite a few seasons to accomplish your goals.
 
#116 ·
Agreed.. Difficulty is added because of TIME as you keep track of every hive with notes so you know HOW resistant it is each time you test it.. As much of a pain as that can be, the greater difficulty is giving TIME for the bees to react to the mites, and knowing when the line has been crossed so you CAN treat/re queen, or leave them alone longer. Knowing if they are going to crash, or rebound.. treat/re queen too soon you may be wasting a queen that would have been better than anything you have. DONT treat and you may very well lose the hive when they fail to rebound.
 
#115 ·
very good points made. the bee informed survey wasn't set up to answer the question of whether treated colonies fair better than untreated ones. the survey serves only to guide the way to more specific studies in which scientific rigor can be applied. with all due respect to those who have made the claim, to suggest that there are no differences in losses between treated and untreated based on the survey is a stretch.
 
#117 ·
Certainly any statement that is black or white (as most surveys are and most "scientific" studies are) especially when they are broad general statements (such as "treat" or "don't treat") are prone to erroneous conclusions, yet they are constantly thrown around and used to describe things in black and white terms.

"unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise it isn't really a distinction."--Jacques Derrida (1991) Afterword: Toward An Ethic of Discussion, published in the English translation of Limited Inc., pp.123-4, 126

In order to discuss something precisely, one must define it precisely and in order to experiment accurately one must have cases that are precisely differentiated and only draw conclusions that are warranted and conclusions that are narrowly defined to match the limitations of those cases tested.

Unfortunately things are seldom discussed or tested in precise terms...

This imprecision leads to other fallacies such as "we tried that once and it didn't work". I've even had people tell me that when I was quite precise and further questioning reveals that what they "tried once" in no way resembled what I had just described...
 
#120 ·
In order to discuss something precisely, one must define it precisely and in order to experiment accurately one must have cases that are precisely differentiated and only draw conclusions that are warranted and conclusions that are narrowly defined to match the limitations of those cases tested.

Unfortunately things are seldom discussed or tested in precise terms...
exactly michael. i believe this makes it challenging for beginners like whaler when it comes to deciding on a management strategy.

So far so good, but I fully expect my hives to start collapsing left and right, and I may end up wishing I'd done things differently.
on the other hand ray you might end up with mite resistant bees, which is a worthy goal and an accomplishment to be proud of.

in my opinion this last round of comments have been the most pragmatic on the subject that i have seen thus far.

in my first post to whaler i pointed out that it is up to him or her to weigh cost/benefit as best one can and proceed according to whichever goals or priorities are most important.

there is room in the universe of beekeepers for all kinds of approaches, and i submit that it wouldn't anywhere near as interesting if all of us did it exactly the same way.

so whaler, have you decided on how to proceed?
 
#119 ·
Just make splits and either let the old pass on, or shake it out. Your on the right track. Normally, if you make splits in time, and have resistant stock, the dead-out is a non-issue at least for me. That is how the MDASplitter method works. You can always re-combine them after a brood break.
 
#121 ·
Wow, was not my intent to initiate such a discussion but its been great to read and look at all the input. Sooooooooooo

It appears that I can sum up the steps I need to take by splitting my hives and requeening with improved genetic stock. This I can do and it makes perfect sense. There were comments about requeening in the fall but I can think of a lot of complications with that. At least short term, I might consider a fall soft treatment of some kind, but this I would need to think about. Someday I will learn to raise my own queens. If I could get my own stock going, raise queens from it and then split and requeen it seems I might have better success than I am right now.

If someone want to add anything to this please sound off as come spring this is going to be my approach.

Thank you again for all the feedback.
 
#122 ·
Read up on how this guy operates. He uses splits for the same results. It's all in the timing for your area. I follow the basic principles of his methods, but modified for my own area. You are basically raising next years bees, during the current season. The production hives are recycled after a couple of seasons.

http://www.mdasplitter.com/
 
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