"difrnt strokes for difrnt folks"
Nothing in my hives that wasn't put there by bees 8-) except sugar.............as needed.
Good luck to all!
That's right. I like the idea of resistant stock. The trouble is finding them. I've read that you have to be willing to lose a lot of bees. I'm not sure that I have enough time to allow nature to sort it all out. I'm sitting on the fence right now and looking for natural methods.
On that thought, on another forum, I've read about using HBH 4X drench for varroa control. Anyone tried that?
Agreed; Personally I feel the responsibility belongs to us all to develop resistant bees in our own particular regions. I also feel that these regions should ban bees from other regions and visa verse, but that is for another thread.
It certainly takes takes more than 'one' season to build resistant stock, particularly if starting with 'treated' bees, along with a firm commitment to developing and maintaining your own resistant, regional bees. I've been treatment free since 2007 and am still not completely satisfied with the overall results, but am contending with all the other environmental issues just like everyone else. Regardless I remain committed to treatment free bees as a personal beekeeping philosophy.
Treatment free bees as a package are available but admittedly pricey, right now. However, "if" more beeks start demanding treatment free packages it will help bring the price down.
As "treatment free" beekeeping catches on, and I'm not alone in believing it must, and more beeks begin depending on their own survivor bees and/or provided by reputable "regional" beekeepers (a growing movement already, small regional NUC Producers) and demanding treatment free from package producers........
Well, what would be wrong about that? We already know what would be right, right?