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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
 
#319 ·
Well folks I am a busy guy and tapping this out on my phone isn't very handy. Just wanted to let you know that there is a treatment free commercial beekeeper. I run my bees like most. Honey up north in South Dakota. Winter in Texas. Bees to California. Sell nucs, brood, and cells in Texas. All queen replacement is done March and April. As to my 30% loss about half is queen failure during Summer, the other Fall collapse. Again all nucs and queens are done in Texas in the Spring.
I learned how to raise cells forty years ago and other than breeders have not purchased 100 queens in that time. I have NEVER had to by brood or bees from outside sources to keep my numbers. I started leaving some yards untreated when I wintered bees in Nebraska. Got some to live but not thrive. Then I tried some Russians and they gave me a real leg up on resistance but (sorry, Tom Rinderer) some Russian lines were terrible. So now I am back to grafting from whatever does well for me under my style of management.(without treatment ) And progress has been slow but my bees are better each year. I am thrilled how good they look now.
I simply quit treating, built back from survivors selecting the best. Have I taken a hit? You bet. But I believe that this is the ultimate long term answer. How much time and resources do some of you spend on mite monitoring and control? I just keep bees. True, I wonder what six months will bring but so far things keep improving.
Sooooo.....
Well I have work to do. Please accept I am not going to jump in here every five minutes. I would be more than happy to visit on the phone to answer specific questions. But don't know if giving out phone numbers here is cool. Go Southbeekota home page. You can find my number and more. One more thing- I really cringe when people call my bees Russians. I am quite removed from that program. What I have are bees that live and do well. Got to go.
 
#323 ·
One more thing- I really cringe when people call my bees Russians. I am quite removed from that program. What I have are bees that live and do well. Got to go.
but your web page says such,

just to tap into your management style,

out of the 1800 honey producers, how many go to texas for the split down?
 
#324 ·
Ron is a bit busy this week I belive .... Just a guess but I am betting it will be tuesday before he can even consider a response.
I looked at ohio country boys site... which video?
I was at Rons a cpl weeks back, fantastic operation and a really smart honey producer. whole family is part of it. when he says he makes over 100 lbs a hive. hes not kidding. and its not syrup... He does have an advatage, he is near a really large alfalfa pellet mill, so lots of forage in his neck of the woods...
 
#325 ·
Just to be clear, saying "I don't know how you do it" does not equal "You can't do it." I also don't view either of those statements as saying someone is a "liar" is "lying" or anything to that extent. Maybe that was not what those comments were referring to, I don't know.

For most here, a healthy set of criticism is good for the business. Let's say that person A doesn't treat a colony, and it dies from mites. Person A hopefully learns that not treating will result in an unfortunate situation for them. Now lets say that person B steps forward and they say they are not treating for mites, but their bees are still alive. Person A has a different personal experience, so is obviously skeptical. In order for person B's experiences to outweigh person A's experiences, to person A at least, a strong case would need to be presented on how it was done and why it was different than person A's trial. Now, if you ask person B how they did it, and what they did differently, and they respond "I don't know," well, there's a problem. Person A doesn't have enough evidence to persuade him that if he doesn't treat anything other than what he experienced first hand will happen. Person B not knowing what they did, or why they succeeded while others didn't, doesn't help their position that "others can do it too." Frankly, they don't know that. Furthermore, saying "it can be done" or "I have done it" or "trust me" or "have faith" adds nothing to the conversation.

If you can take 1+1 and make it equal 3, congrats to you. But unless you can tell me how to do it, how I can do it, when I keep getting 2, I'm going to be skeptical.
 
#331 ·
For most here, a healthy set of criticism is good for the business.
Exactly right Specialkayme.

Chris, I would love to know a what level your bees keep the mites down to. There has been a tremendous amount of attention towards mite tolerance and I have yet to hear of someone who can claim complete success. There has to be a secondary mechanism at work in your apiary.
Because which ever way you cut it, mite growth compounds itself, and unless the hives can keep the mite levels below 1% at all times, the hive will fail to mite load infections. I have yet to hear of a bee that can maintain a mite load below 1% throughout the year.

Let me read between the lines a bit, tell me if Im off course at any time,
you manage 1800 honey producers, take them all to Cali, and Id suspect shake them in January? if not then, March?
move the hives down to Texas, and split them down, how many times? 4 or 5 times? Do you sell some of those splits off?
You bring 1800 back up to the Dakotas.

I know how nucing works, it breaks the mite cycle, I also take advantage of this in my own operation, but there is a point of time in operation when those nuced hives need to be cleansed of their mite loads. Oxalic or what ever.

Perhaps your hives show tolerance to the mite, and keep the levels downish, perhaps its your other operations during the year that help cleanse the hive of mites also?
 
#327 ·
Perhaps I should retract my statement that some Russian lines were terrible. And say they did not fit my management. Although our web page says Russian Bees I try to be clear as to what I am doing. I am not a Russian cooperator. I am not bringing in new Russian stock. I am pursuing resistance that the Russians gave me while selecting top performers under my management. So I do cringe a little. What do I have? I don't know.
I am not Randy Oliver's Taliban. I am not trying to push my bees on anybody. What I do desire is an open mind that mite resistance is real. And given time and dedication that mite resistance can be advanced through proper pressure and selection in ANY strain of bees. And that's not painless. But it is doable. And I believe the ultimate answer.
For those still wondering, I let lots of bees die to get where I am. Now you could not pay me to treat for mites. Why step back? I said earlier I am just one guy. I am nothing special. Anyone that can rear queens could follow the same course. What if a bunch of people were doing this? How much more could be accomplished? That's what gets me down. Won't anybody go for it? Remember your not taking anything with you when you go. But you are supposed to leave the world a better place when you leave.
 
#328 ·
Chris,

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on someone else getting to the point you are at today, but still having some type of treatment regiment?

You had heavy losses when you didn't treat, as most do when they head down that route. The loser colonies die out because (at least according to those who do the bond method) their genes don't need to be further spread.

It is, however, theoretically possible to move in that direction without forcing colonies to die along the way. Instead, simply breed from your most resistant stock, while treating the colonies that wouldn't survive without treatments, then requeening them with your most resistant stock. It may (and likely would) take significantly longer to accomplish the same goal, as more "inferior" genetics are still floating around, at least for a number of years. But eventually you could get to the same goal, without having massive losses. At least, that's what I believe Mike Palmer was working towards. And also this is what I theoretically assume.

Your thoughts on that Chris?
 
#335 ·
Berry, I do my feeding in the frames. You can feed with supers on the hive, if you know how to manage them. You feed enough to make bees, not fill supers. All my hives have supers on them right know. It takes about 30,000 lb of HFCS to feed 1000 2 lb packages to production. That would be like filling a 1 gallon feed, filled 3 times to build them up for production. By putting the feed into the frames I can start my bees 3-4 weeks ahead of most (one brood cycle). Just think if you had one more month for your bees to build up, what kind of crop your hives could make.;)

Jim, I'm shoot for 200 APH, but only the weather will tell that story. Where did you fine the national APH. The real question is how many report there REAL APH.:scratch:
 
#336 ·
Jim, I'm shoot for 200 APH, but only the weather will tell that story. Where did you fine the national APH. The real question is how many report there REAL APH.:scratch:
http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/Hone/Hone-03-18-2013.pdf
A 200 lb.average for our outfit is pretty much a dream. We will occassionally have a yard do that but it's not like the "old days". We have found a "well timed" nuc is by far the most dependable and productive unit. We quit packages years ago because our buildup is so erratic and I always figured it took the first medium just to pay for the package. 8 frames of brood by the third week in May is where we expect them to be.
 
#337 ·
Got to hang out with Sam Comfort at NEOBA's Big Bee Buzz this past weekend. While he no longer migrates his bees, he's about as commercial as you can get. And he has essentially come to do what I suggested a treatment-free commercial would have to. He has become stationary, though he now has bees in seven states. And he sells honey for amazing prices, as much as three times what I sell it.

He also runs mostly non-Lang hives, topbar hives, and now Warre-ish box hives.

Great guy to hang out with.
 
#338 ·
And he sells honey for amazing prices, as much as three times what I sell it.

He also runs mostly non-Lang hives, topbar hives, and now Warre-ish box hives.

Great guy to hang out with.
Do you happen to know the states (any of them) that Sam keeps bees in?

Is he retailing his honey? Maybe a special contract with Whole Foods... or something like that? Is honey the majority of his Gross? If honey was all I did... my gross would be more than cut in half, but then again... I am not in an amazing honey yield area. I wonder how much of his gross is speaking engagements... maybe nothing... but he is very popular.

I have no argument that he is commercial... just curious about how he does it.... guess I should have gone....(NEOBA) LOL :)
 
#339 ·
I think he has hives in Florida, New York, Hawaii, and maybe New Jersey, maybe Vermont, I don't remember them all.

I'm not sure the exact routes of his sales, but he does refer to it as hustling, hard work. He also sells nucs, queens, and shook swarms.

Speakers (in the beekeeping world) don't get paid as much as you might think. It isn't politics.
 
#344 ·
Well, i'm not a commercial, just a sideliner. This winter I've had heavy losses in my nucs, which I have never treated. Sent some bees to Beltsville and they came back with 8.8 varroa/100 bees and 9.2/100 bees. No nosema or tracheal. I suspect they also have a bad virus load but I never saw DWV. Last winter not treating those nucs. Lesson learned. Going to treat the survivors this week.
 
#351 ·
Its the reason why we buy queens from Cali and Hawaii, its all about timing. We need our queens beginning to mid May, our local stock is ready by June. Everything happens at the same time here.

Because they are mated on an isolated island does not mean anything in terms of genetic progress. These outfits bring drone semen into the ops. I think if you would talk to some of these commercial queen breeders, youd be impressed. Im told that Olivarez Honey Bees has a hygienic queen avaliable that is very impressive.
The obvious advantage to mating in an isolated environment is it provides more control on mating
 
#353 ·
I took some time to think about it yesterday after I posted that and came up with the conclusion that you'd want queens available in the middle of winter that don't know how not to brood constantly. Mites won't be a problem for a while anyway.

The whole thing is totally antithetical to the way I think and do things. The long term goals are all wrong. The selection pressures aren't there.
 
#355 ·
I dont want queens that will not brood up constantly. We have so little time to execute on the prairies that we need every week.

We both hold different philosophys towards beekeeping, which is fine. Your reliance on bees are different than mine, my acceptance of industrialized agriculture is different than yours.

Bees are not natural here in my area, nor is agriculture, nor is the way we keep the bees. How long will it take to breed a bee that natually adapts to our un natural setting? and then throw mites and diseases into the equation !
 
#367 ·
I dont want queens that will not brood up constantly. We have so little time to execute on the prairies that we need every week.


Bees are not natural here in my area, nor is agriculture, nor is the way we keep the bees. How long will it take to breed a bee that natually adapts to our un natural setting? and then throw mites and diseases into the equation !
Ian.... if you can get Kona Queens in Manitoba..... wonder why I can not cross the border with a load to bees to sample that prairie nectar? I assure you - you would be welcome to come on down try some southern swamp honey..... Once upon a time I understood the border ban.... these days I don't see the sense in it.... unless it is just pure protectionist politics... on both sides.

BTW... isn't grass a naturally occurring thing on those prairie.... (never seen a prairie... but would love to)
 
#357 ·
Puts me in mind of that Arizona treatment free beekeeper who continues to propagate those excessively defensive, year-round broody, swarmy, absconding, usurping, nonproductive….mite tolerant bees. Now that’s long term thinking!
 
#360 ·
Errr, I've worked with those bees...actually visited them 7 times over the last 6 years, and there are 3-4 colonies in the operation that are particularly "enthusiastic"...and the honey they non-produce generates a large part of my income. Last month I had the chance to do a few inspections while Dee rested in the truck...I used smoke the way I would with any unknown bees, and they were entirely manageable.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion....not every opinion is actually informed or accurate.

deknow
 
#361 ·
It's worth noting that my post (number 4 in a thread with over 360 posts):
Off the top of my head....Dee lusby, Kirk Webster, Bob Brachmann, les crowder....Chris Baldwin is darn close (no varroa treatments). Sam comfort would probably qualify, but I'm not sure he would want to be considered a commercial anything.
It took quite a while to get to any of these....the fact that no one really seems curious indicates to me that no one really wants to know.

deknow
 
#362 · (Edited)
the fact that no one really seems curious indicates to me that no one really wants to know.
It seems to me no one wants to admit or allow for. There has been a pretty strong effort to discount each case for one reason or another.

But that's okay. Like you said, Sam isn't hung up on it. Mike Bush would really like to be working bees full time, but he can't right now. Dee doesn't give a flying rip what this group thinks or she'd be here too. Kirk is his own person doing his own thing. Nobody who does it is all that bothered how they look in this forum's eyes.

What does this all mean? If you want to do treatment-free, look somewhere else. Commercial beekeepers for the most part aren't interested in treatment-free, especially the ones who use Beesource.
 
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