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WHERE are the real treatment free beekeepers?

43K views 392 replies 50 participants last post by  Cloverdale 
#1 · (Edited)
Sorry if I missed one of the 1,650 different topics under this forum but I can’t help but see so many people confounded about treatment free beekeeping. I rarely see anyone using methods by those individuals who are easy to find and have excellent documented success not treating in anyway to include artificially feeding your bees.

If you aren’t regressing your bees to bring them back to a natural size found in the wild then there isn’t even a reason for you to go treatment free.

• Regressing your bees to at least true 4.9mm foundation or smaller.

• Use Housel positioning of frames

• Give them an insulated hive just like your boy L. L. Langstroth told you to do. He also said, “Such is the passion of the American people for cheapness in the first cost of an article, even at the evident expense of dearness in the end, that many, I doubt not, will continue to lodge their bees in thin hives in spite of their conviction of the folly of doing..."

• Or just go horizontal hives. It doesn’t get any cheaper than a tbh! If you aren’t a commercial beek and don’t plan on moving your hives then there really is no point. Most commercial beeks don’t over winter their hives anyways as they are always on the move when fall comes to some place warmer ready to pollinate something. Even dumping them to sell and never making it back home. Even if you do plan on moving hives you could still go horizontal. Wayatt Mangum (top bar hive master bar none and professor of biology and statistics at University of Mary Washington) owns over 200 tbh and moves them by himself with a small pickup truck easier then anyone could with a regular Lang. He offers pollination services and doesn’t use any tool or machinery outside of a small pickup with no trailer to move a thing.

The concept of success to a commercial beek is dollar signs. Requeeing ever year to every two years, varroa treatments, pollination services, contaminated honey & wax extractions, selling of contaminated honey and wax, selling artificially sized bees and queens living in a pesticide filled home ready for you to buy = weaker immune system and shorter life span. This has been proven.

There is a reason why the cosmetic industry only gets their wax from Africa. They are all about the money too and they obviously know something about contaminated wax and the chemicals used in treatments. Being about the money they will avoid any attempts of a lawsuit from someone applying lipstick then having an allergic reaction to some bug spray chemical used to kill mites.

When the varroa came to Africa they had a meeting on what to do. They looked at the rest of the world treating and said, “If we don’t do anything the issue will solve itself in a year or two.” They don’t use foundation and their bees aren’t artificially huge. They have no problems.

The scientific mentality that humans can consume small amounts of poisons (examples: fluoride, pesticides, aluminum, etc) and they will do no harm should not be the same mentality towards your bees. They obviously do harm no matter the amount. It’s all about the effects. If they show no effects then it does no harm but surely long term effects aren’t ever studied beyond a few years.

Spain, nearly the size of Texas has such an epidemic with varroa that they have become resistant to all treatments except checkmite. That’s a sad story.

So then why is it that with 30 years of resistant bee breeding we still haven’t got anywhere yet those who truely have success in treatment free beekeeing never went the route of mixing genetic stock to get some VSH behaviored stock bees?

It’s all in the small cell sizes. Smaller cells are more compact which naturally keeps the brood warmer. Which causes less work for the bees to fluctuate the temperature.

Is is proven that varroa naturally seek the larger drone brood due to the longer incubation period and their ability to mate prolifically with such a longer incubation time is what leads to a hive being over run. Therefore when you are using jumbo sized foundation or foundation less but your bees are making jumbo foundation because that’s all they've ever known, every single cell becomes a drone cell to the varroa.

Small cells shorten the incubation period for worker brood by a full day which ruins the varroas day.

Then you have VSH behavior. Why? It’s not because of genetic breeding for resistance because feral swarms aren’t artificially inseminated yet exist and are also smaller and build smaller cell sizes. Also, so many people are quick to requeen their hives when they see checkerboard brood. They assume, because they’ve been told, that the queen isn’t a prolific layer and needs to be replaced. If you have VSH behavior in your hive then you will have that checkerboard effect. Do not kill your queen. Just leave your queens be. Your hive will replace her and kill her themselves when it’s time.

VSH has to do with more bees for the same amount of work. Contrary to what anyone may think I’ve seen one hive clean out deformed wing virus brood which triggered every hive in the apiary to do the exact same thing. In a week it was over and it looked like a gravesite outside each hive and every hive is fine and thriving. It would appear as if the bees have the ability to learn the behavior from each other regardless of genetic makeup.

• Small cells warmer compact brood nest

• smaller bees proven to live longer by weeks

• 7000 large cells on regular Lang frame vs 8600 small cells.

• smaller bees are able to reach more flowers

• larger population

• more bees for the same amount of work = VSH

It’s strength in numbers not strength in bee size and the more numbers the better.

100 years ago a man decided bigger bees means more honey and farther flights. Then came the new standardization of large foundation. That was fine and dandy but now we have varroa and we’d have to look at why certain people and certain places in the world aren’t having trouble. It comes down to cell size.




Dee Lusby, Michael Bush, more than enough European scientist and plenty of European beeks have done enough of their own research with their own experiences to make sure you don’t have to go through what they did to get where they are today. It’s much easier because you have all the answers on what they did. With the exception of the first paragraph and these last two, none of these words are mine. They are from those who have had the most success and came forth about it and to them I say thank you for all your hard work and to let you know there are beeks who truely take what you say and apply it.

You may never completely get rid of varroa, you may have losses in the beginning but overall the amount of stress to your bees will be greatly reduced and it would appear as if nothing can stop them. I digress and apologize if any of you take offense. The majority of beeks who learned everything from looking through the eyes of a commercial beek laugh at treatment free beekeeping. So prove them wrong, study and apply. These people aren’t just lucky. They all use the same methods. I leave you with the most, in my opinion, informative video jam packed with reused information from Michael Bush and Dee Lusby from an Austrian beek. We are lucky to have someone kind enough to voice it over in English. It may seem slow and its an old video which should be a testament to how long its been working for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTFs7wv4F2s&app=desktop&persist_app=1
 
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#83 ·
>The attached screen shot is part of a long thread discussing MB's losses in 2018.

Interesting how other people always seem to know more about my bees than I do... I was not part of that discussion and was unaware of it. My losses last winter were the same as the average for Nebraska, which was a rough winter (-30 F for a while). They were doing very well in July when I got hit by pesticides. I did not lose all my bees, but in the one yard (my main yard) that got hit I lost 80%. I was doing queen rearing so we were in all those hives on Sunday July 15th and they were thriving. The following Friday (the 20th) when we were going through them again, there were half as many bees in all the living colonies and some had completely died. The aerial spraying was still taking place that Friday. At the time that yard had 50 full size Langstroth hives, 3 top bar hives, 2 AZ hives, 1 Huber hive, 1 box hive and 145 mating nucs. The weak remaining hives continued to die until losses reached 80%. Very depressing. My other two yards were not affected. If only we could breed insecticide resistant bees... well, probably we are, whether we like it or not.
 
#84 ·
Sorry to hear it Michael, and thanks for the explanation. What are you doing with the still alive ones?

Some of my own bees got poisoned maybe 6 months ago, and were reduced to maybe a couple frames of bees or so. They have struggled on since then with very spotty brood and no increase in bee numbers, and I think it's because there was still poison in the hives, reaching young larvae, and killing them. However at last these hives have worked their way through it and are are coming right, brood patterns good and increasing bee population. They will not give me a harvest this time, but will make good wintering condition.

As an aside, I didn't know you had 145 mating nucs, so clearly you are selling more than a handful of queens. How are your bees performing longer term against mites in different areas and climate types to your own? And how are they doing in LC hives?
 
#86 ·
Her bees show thelytoky, so there is definately an african influence there, but seperate from "normal" africanised bees which are from scutelata, as scutelata do not show thelytoky. However there may also be a scutelata influence as well, who knows.
 
#87 ·
> It very well may be that she does indeed have AHB stock. Actually surprised that it took so long for someone to bring it up.

It was brought up probably at least ten years ago. From your first post #1 you have demonstrated you are ten years behind on Dee Lusby etc. treatment free discussions.
 
#88 ·
LOL some truth to that. Reading FreeBee is like reading some of the earnest TF'ers that were posting ten years ago, but they and their bees are now gone.

No offense FreeBee, but you do sound like that.

But it's obvious you are an avid researcher, plus you are still here and participating, all good. When do you plan to get the first bees? :)
 
#101 ·
LOL some truth to that. Reading FreeBee is like reading some of the earnest TF'ers that were posting ten years ago, but they and their bees are now gone.

No offense FreeBee, but you do sound like that.
I think FreeBee is somebody that's been reading here for a decade or so, recently signed up with a new username just to stir the pot very deeply, and it's worked very well.
 
#90 ·
>What are you doing with the still alive ones?

I'm hoping they will make it through the winter. I wonder how much the stores have insecticide in them and how much that will shorten their lives. We have a long winter here...

>How are your bees performing longer term against mites in different areas and climate types to your own?

I get good reports from people. I haven't had any negative reports.

>And how are they doing in LC hives?

I'm not sure how often they are in LC hives, but I'm sure they are doing better than the California or Georgia commercial queens. I haven't had any complaints.
 
#96 ·
Was it spray drift or were they actively working the soybeans? I’ve only seen this one time in one yard here in South Dakota in recent years though the loss wasn’t as extensive as you describe, brought back memories of foliage spray losses back in “the day”. This yard spent the rest of the summer recovering and most were back to full strength by late fall. Of course these were headed by “commercial queens”. :D
 
#102 ·
Hmm, could be true. What he says is so scripted and "textbook", that I doubt he has had bees long if at all, or there would be more real world knowledge expressed.

I would like to see FreeBee, whoever he is, do well, and grow as a beekeeper. Would be great FreeBee, if instead of coming here to teach everyone, you could also say a little about yourself, if you are planning to get bees, or already have some, etc.

If you do that you will find a lot of help here, if you don't do that you are just a kind of unknown "voice from above" telling people what to do, that will not be taken seriously.
 
#103 ·
it's been a good thread so far.

again, many thanks everyone for making my job easy. :)

when it comes that the half dozen or so of us in my area keeping bees off treatments with nominal losses and decent productivity,

we still really don't know by what mechanism(s) this is taking place.

i've had a visit from a university entomology professor and shared my journaled experiences with him. unfortunately at this point in time there aren't any resources available for taking a scientific look at what is happening here.
 
#104 ·
Michael, have you registered your hives with Fieldwatch? The Beecheck site maps hives so that sprayers are aware that beehives are present in the area. NE participates and hundreds of locations are already mapped.
 
#107 ·
This post demonstrates the predelection of some less experienced beekeepers to fail to understand that their experience, in their area, may not apply exactly the same to all other beekeepers in the world.

To put it simply, i totally belive your experience Susan, but get that beekeeping is local. Even the famous Solomon Parker learned that one the hard way when he ignored advice, and did not adapt his methods to new locations.
 
#110 ·
it does
I had been looking for a post Sol made talking about the video at the lusby yard (a year + before posting the video). just bumped in to it looking in to susans posts

BTW, Susan I am not trolling you, just trying to see why what your doing is working, love to here more
 
#112 ·
Sir Oldtimer--you have no idea what I "understand" ---I am remarking on the convoluted, overly massaged theorizing of "FreeBee" insisting that certain heavy management is "the" answer to "real" beekeeping. As you are stating your opinions, I am stating mine, based on the "less experienced" category you place me into---a rather superficial rating on your part.
 
#113 · (Edited)
Oh I get you now Susan, you are correct, I totally misunderstood your meaning.

I will say though, the meaning you just explained, was not clear in your first post, it did look more like the old < i got TF bees so everybody else is talking hogwash > type comment.

Inexperienced is I guess, relative. You claim 10 years beekeeping so consider yourself experienced. I took your post to imply you are inexperienced, in one aspect. Which is, you appeared to be indicating that because something works for you, anyone else who can't replicate it is doing something wrong, and your blah blah type wording and abruptness appeared to reinforce what looked like a dismissive attitude.

I now know that is not what you were meaning.

To me, understanding locational effects on bees properly comes with the experience of working bees in different locations, and people without that experience so often don't get that, and can make that kind of post.

But anyhow, now I get what you meant and so hopefully do others.

And, you are better than me, cos you got TF bees, and I don't. ;)
 
#114 ·
Solomon said - "and Dee took us to the worst bees the first day, she said she couldn't get into the deep stuff with so many people so had to get rid of some"

LOL there was deep stuff? :) Not sure how deep I would have wanted to go down that road ha ha! :D
 
#122 ·
Well put Greg!

guys there is no reason to run "what is a treatment" in to the ground
The forum has a deffention to guide the conversation, agree with it or not it helps simpulfie things for the sake of dissustion.
 
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