Not to pollute the "cost of treatment" topic anymore, putting it here.....
Granted, large-scale commercial way is different from a small-scale hobby way and has different priorities and methods used accordingly - most of us get it and so just get this out of the way.
There are also intermediate cases and we also get it and let us just skip this diversion.
Did it occur to anyone that there is more than one way get your own bee products (better be "clean" if do make them for yourself), still have the producing bees annually, and yet not be following the commercial ways of doing so (which depend on recurring medication)?
So, the bee-die off is a part of my picture - I expect few colonies to die and I will appropriate their resources as I see fit.
The survivors will continue to be part of my hobby bee-selection process going forward.
The dead will have contributed to the human and bee nutrition programs.
Everything has purpose.
In the old time, people would have to kill few hives to get their honey.
Here and now, the current environment does the same easily.
In fact, I want few of my hives to die so I am not the one choosing who to rob and who to spare.
So, in fact, I would rather have 5-6 of my current 14 colonies die (preferably the largest colonies and preferably as quickly as possible so to leave behind most of the resources).
I would also prefer most of my small/medium colonies to survive and serve as the 2019 season start ups (cheaper to winter; likely healthier being late nucs; the spring development does not much matter of the fall colony size anyway).
As of the moment, I hardly harvested any honey (only few pounds for the kids).
The year has been bad.
However, just a couple of strong dead-outs (sounds weird, ah?) should easily provide more than enough honey and uncontaminated perga for our annual consumption and give-away in lieu of rent payments.
So here you have it, a "politically-incorrect", inconvenient, agitating statement - I want some of my bees die.
To be sure, I don't want ALL of my bees die, 50% survival would be fine with me and a good place to restart the next season.
Just letting the nature (including the mites) do the culling for me.
Hopefully, by Thanksgiving I get a few drop-offs - good riddance and some holiday crop for us.
Granted, large-scale commercial way is different from a small-scale hobby way and has different priorities and methods used accordingly - most of us get it and so just get this out of the way.
There are also intermediate cases and we also get it and let us just skip this diversion.
Did it occur to anyone that there is more than one way get your own bee products (better be "clean" if do make them for yourself), still have the producing bees annually, and yet not be following the commercial ways of doing so (which depend on recurring medication)?
So, the bee-die off is a part of my picture - I expect few colonies to die and I will appropriate their resources as I see fit.
The survivors will continue to be part of my hobby bee-selection process going forward.
The dead will have contributed to the human and bee nutrition programs.
Everything has purpose.
In the old time, people would have to kill few hives to get their honey.
Here and now, the current environment does the same easily.
In fact, I want few of my hives to die so I am not the one choosing who to rob and who to spare.
So, in fact, I would rather have 5-6 of my current 14 colonies die (preferably the largest colonies and preferably as quickly as possible so to leave behind most of the resources).
I would also prefer most of my small/medium colonies to survive and serve as the 2019 season start ups (cheaper to winter; likely healthier being late nucs; the spring development does not much matter of the fall colony size anyway).
As of the moment, I hardly harvested any honey (only few pounds for the kids).
The year has been bad.
However, just a couple of strong dead-outs (sounds weird, ah?) should easily provide more than enough honey and uncontaminated perga for our annual consumption and give-away in lieu of rent payments.
So here you have it, a "politically-incorrect", inconvenient, agitating statement - I want some of my bees die.
To be sure, I don't want ALL of my bees die, 50% survival would be fine with me and a good place to restart the next season.
Just letting the nature (including the mites) do the culling for me.
Hopefully, by Thanksgiving I get a few drop-offs - good riddance and some holiday crop for us.