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Offline nepenthes

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No treatment
« on: May 14, 2007, 12:29:24 am »
Would it be bad to NOT treat mites in an apiary, find hives that dont fail prevail and move on? How could you compare the gradual immunity to tracheal mites in europe to varroa mites now a days?? How long could it take to raise a hive able to stand mite levels in a hive? I know TWT's father (or friend i dont rember) has a hive he never does any thing but extract honey from. hes had it for years i beleive, I know allot of this COULD be geographical but what if its not? How hard would it be to get something like this going, I dont want to mess with pesticides, and powdered sugar is another option but I want them to fight mights with out intervention.
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Offline Understudy

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2007, 12:38:44 am »
If the varroa get a strong hold they will destroy a hive within 2 years.
However if you manage the hive properly it shouldn't be a problem.
If you don't want chemicals do a powdered sugar treatment.
Many users (myself included) are fans of the bee that looks like it has a cocaine problem. ;)

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Offline TwT

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2007, 01:12:16 am »
it was my father and he has a hive that is 15 years old and 3 that are 12 and never treated, I am going on 4 years and never treated a hive with anything, I haven't ever even done a mite count but I know my bee's have them, wright when it started getting warm this year I went out to my hives and the bee's were dragging drones out by the hundreds (not in a single hive but all 11 hives) and I looked at the drones and they had mites on them, I looked at the landing board and saw drones but no mites and the gals let them enter the hive, I watched this for about a hour because I never seen this before.... all hives going strong, I have only lost one hive since I started and it was because of queen failure, the reason I know this is because I saw the virgin queen and it was so early in the year there were no drones so she became a drone layer, I combined a swarm with this hive....


Now im not saying not to treat your hives because people lose them all the time, I went after ferals and that might be how I am doing good. going with untreated hives is your chioce but I am not going to treat mine.
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline Finsky

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2007, 04:01:39 am »
it was my father and he has a hive that is 15 years old and 3 that are 12 and never treated, I am going on 4 years and never treated a hive

Varroa kills hive 2-4 years after contamination. In Nez Zealand it takes only couple onf months.

How long it takes to adapt bees to varroa: 15 years is not enough to breeders. Famous research centres make huge work to breed mite tolerant bee stocks.  -  To hobbiest it is somehow easier. They succeed at once. They have not even knowledge and they succeed. Something mysterious.

TwT says that he has mite tolerant bees.  If you have, it doen not mean that others have.

Allways look inside your own hives what is going there. You cannot nurse bees what is happening in others' hive in Alaska or in Florida.

You should know that US brought 10 years ago mite tolerant bees from East Russia. And you should know that they often die in hives after 10 years' breeding work.

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Offline Mici

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2007, 05:05:00 am »
it was my father and he has a hive that is 15 years old and 3 that are 12 and never treated, I am going on 4 years and never treated a hive

Varroa kills hive 2-4 years after contamination. In Nez Zealand it takes only couple onf months.

How long it takes to adapt bees to varroa: 15 years is not enough to breeders. Famous research centres make huge work to breed mite tolerant bee stocks.  -  To hobbiest it is somehow easier. They succeed at once. They have not even knowledge and they succeed. Something mysterious.

TwT says that he has mite tolerant bees.  If you have, it doen not mean that others have.

Allways look inside your own hives what is going there. You cannot nurse bees what is happening in others' hive in Alaska or in Florida.

You should know that US brought 10 years ago mite tolerant bees from East Russia. And you should know that they often die in hives after 10 years' breeding work.

********

One thing what I am not worried about is mad cows disease, when I eate steak. It does not harm me  because men are piggs.


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hehehehe, finsky, now this is a good one!

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2007, 08:18:41 am »
I haven't treated some of them for six years now.  They are on natural and small cell comb.  They are still doing fine.  The inspector comes every spring and doesn't find any varroa at all.  I find them later in the year, but only in small numbers.

Whenever I had large cell bees on large cell combs and didn't treat they never made it two years.
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Offline Finsky

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2007, 09:47:19 am »
  The inspector comes every spring and doesn't find any varroa at all.  I find them later in the year, but only in small numbers.


Yes, that is a miracle. Professionals and university professionals work hard and try to solve varroa problem. They have done it 15 years.
You have many bee universities in USA. That is bigger mystery than CCD. And biological research is best in the world in USA.

Offline Cindi

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2007, 11:14:37 am »
Finsky, ooh you make me wanna laugh, I get quite the kick out of what you say in some of your posts.  I like your style.  Have the beautiful day, great life, great health.  Cindi
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Offline Jerrymac

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2007, 11:37:40 am »
How long it takes to adapt bees to varroa: 15 years is not enough to breeders. Famous research centres make huge work to breed mite tolerant bee stocks.  -  To hobbiest it is somehow easier. They succeed at once. They have not even knowledge and they succeed. Something mysterious.

Perhaps they never went back to the natural cell size. What is so mysterious about nature? You just let nature weed out the bad and keep the good.
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Offline Finsky

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2007, 11:50:58 am »

Perhaps they never went back to the natural cell size. What is so mysterious about nature? You just let nature weed out the bad and keep the good.

Problem is that I have only bad ones.

Offline TwT

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2007, 11:47:13 pm »
just one question that I always wondered about and if it can be answered MB should be able to answer it, were is the proof they made bee's larger and is it scientific proof?   , I just always wondered
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline Finsky

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2007, 12:33:09 am »
, were is the proof they made bee's larger and is it scientific proof?   , I just always wondered

Scientific proof is not basic of life. But when you have many beekeeping universities, why don't they clear out, how bees avoid mite harms.

They get earnings from that job. Why don't they do it. Why don't they visit to TwT and Mr. Bush.   My friend has regressed Elgon bees in Finland and he has smal cell. He send to Susan W. Cobey bee sperm. Have you send sperm to Cobey?

Offline TwT

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2007, 07:23:37 pm »
, were is the proof they made bee's larger and is it scientific proof?   , I just always wondered


   My friend has regressed Elgon bees in Finland and he has smal cell. He send to Susan W. Cobey bee sperm. Have you send sperm to Cobey?

nobody in the states can send that kind of sperm to Sue Colby because there are no Elgon bee's here in the states, and since we cant get bee's from Europe they has to order sperm. 

my bee's aren't regressed, they just live, I haven't treated with anything and my bee's do fine, they did fine before I removed them from the buildings or homes, and some was on old comb and had been there years. who knows, but i'm not the only one in America that has bee's that accidentally live with out chemicals, I'm just glad to have them....

and I am invited to the UGA Honeybee Program next month, they dont need my bee's, the hives they are working with is going on 4 years with no treatments, there are people and Universities all over that are having success without chemicals. UGA also have started a small cell study also this year!

« Last Edit: May 16, 2007, 10:04:35 pm by TwT »
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2007, 10:43:39 am »
>I always wondered about and if it can be answered MB should be able to answer it, were is the proof they made bee's larger and is it scientific proof?   , I just always wondered

It's well documented.  There are multiple articles from the bee journals through the years of them enlarging comb and getting bigger bees.  Many of these are posted on Beesource:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/celldata.htm

Find ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture books and look under "Cell Size".  There is much about enlarging bees etc.

Here's some quotes from them:

ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture 38th Edition Copyright 1980 page 134

    "If the average beekeeper were asked how many cells, worker and drone comb, there were to the inch, he would undoubtedly answer five and four, respectively. Indeed some text books on bees carry that ratio. Approximately it is correct, enough for the bees, particularly the queen. The dimensions must be exact or there is a protest. In 1876 when A.I. Root, the original author of this book, built his first roll comb foundation mill, he had the die faces cut for five worker cells to the inch. While the bees built beautiful combs from this foundation, and the queen laid in the cells, yet, if given a chance they appeared to prefer their own natural comb not built from comb foundation. Suspecting the reason, Mr. Root then began measuring up many pieces of natural comb when he discovered that the initial cells, five to the inch, from his first machine were slightly too small. The result of his measurements of natural comb showed slightly over 19 worker cells to four inches linear measurement, or 4.83 cells to one inch."

Roughly this same information is in the 1974 version of ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture on page 136; the 1945 version on page 125; the 1877 version, on page 147 says:

    "The best specimens of true worker-comb, generally contain 5 cells within the space of an inch, and therefore this measure has been adopted for the comb foundation."

This is followed in all but the 1877 version, by the way, with a section on "will larger cells develop a larger bee" and info on Baudoux's research on enlarging bees.

So let's do the math:

Five cells to an inch, the standard size for foundation in the 1800s and the commonly accepted measurement from that era, is five cells to 25.4mm which is ten cells to 50.8 mm. This is 3.2 mm smaller than standard foundation is now.

A.I. Root's measurement of 4.83 cells to an inch is 5.25 mm which is 1.5 mm smaller than standard foundation. Of course if you measure comb much you'll find a lot of variance in cell size, which makes it very difficult to say exactly what size natural comb is. But I have measured (and photographed) 4.7 mm comb from commercial Carniolans and I have photographs of comb from bees Pennsylvania that are 4.4mm. Typically there is a lot of variance with the core of the brood nest the smallest and the edges the largest. You can find a lot of comb from 4.8 mm to 5.2 mm with most of the 4.8 mm in the center and the 4.9 mm, 5.0 mm and 5.1 mm moving out from there and the 5.2 mm at the very edges of the brood nest. There is also variation by how you space the frames, or variation on how THEY space the combs. 38 mm (1 ½") will result in larger cells than 35 mm (1 3/8") which will be larger than 32 mm (1 ¼"). In naturally spaced comb the bees will sometimes crowd the combs down to 30 mm in places with 32 mm more common in just brood comb and 35mm more common where there is drone on the comb.
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Offline Finsky

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2007, 04:32:50 pm »
.
One thing more.........

If you get earning from some industry, it is not possible that you develope your system with total production is all the time a big laboratory. No one can do this except hobbiest which have not real production. All is just many kind on trying and mistaking. In production industry this is not possible.

If you mix development and production, your customers will call your rising innovations as bad quality mistakes and they pay nothing to you.

Your teaching means that whole nation should be a big evolution laboratory. - Why -

Development is used to do in minor scale and when new system works, it is taking in vast production.

My system is that I let researchers do their work and I pick only results.  I have in my life much more to do than play decades with some mites. :-D
If I do not get enough honey (money), I burn all my hives.





 

Offline Jerrymac

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Re: No treatment
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2007, 04:45:12 pm »
These guys had a huge laboratory;

"While the brothers' bicycle business paid the bills, it was Wilbur's abiding dream of building a full-size flying machine that inspired their work. For many years, he once said, he had been "afflicted with the belief that flight is possible." The reality of that obsession was a lonely quest for the brothers in the workroom behind their bike shop, plotting to defy gravity and conquer the wind. Yet that obsessive kind of world-changing belief is a force that drives you to solve a problem, to find the breakthrough--a force that drives you to bet everything on a fragile wing or a new idea. It was a force that led the Wright brothers to invent, single-handedly, each of the technologies they needed to pursue their dream."

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/wright.html
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