5 out of 5 TF HIVES dead within a year. I give up on TF.

[van from Arkansas]

I paid $180 per nuc for these hives that the fella swears are true Treatment Free [TF] hives.  The fella has an impressive web page, 3rd generation bee keepers.  There are pics of the fella in short sleeves working his gentle bees.  He stresses gentle TF bees, so I paid premium $$$ as I want gentle TF bees.  These TF hives I acquired were the meanest bees I have ever dealt with.  Just walk by the hive and I would get stung.

I give up, every time I go TF my hives die.  Years past, I lost 90% of my hives in one year when mites hit me.  I did not want to treat.

Now I want to stress, I believe M. Bush is treatment free due to his small cell or etc.  I believe there are hives out there that can survive without treatment.  But I can?t seam to get my hands on a true TF hive and I am tired is shelling out $$$ only to find out I have been scammed.  I have bought queens, for years, oh yes, treatment free hygenic queens from California to Georgia I have purchased TF queens from across the US. So I am giving up and treating all my hives.  I had such high hopes for these TF hives.  I thought FINALLY!!!

My treated hives are doing just great and very gentle bees I might add.  So from now on, I am going to do what works for my bees.  If you can go TF and your bees survive, then Bless you and keep up the good work.  I cannot make it happen.

Cheers

[Kathyp]

I read an article and I don't remember where, but it was about how the treatment free movement was spreading disease in domestic hives.  It might have been on here or maybe someone remembers it.

I have never been a fan.  When we choose to keep a thing we need to care for it in the same way we do other things.  I worm my horses.  Horses in the wild are not wormed.  So what? 

[MikeyN.C.]

Kathyp, 
I agree , but i have wondered (feral) bee's in a tree , don't have upper ventilation. And tree being 2-3 inches thick?

[van from Arkansas]

Mr. Mickey, are you suggesting heat killed varroa in the tree.  I never thought of that, clever minded you are.

Ms. Kathy, thank you for support.

[MikeCinWV]

Kathy this may be the article are referring to.  https://thoughtscapism.com/2017/04/10/treatment-free-beekeepers-give-varroa-mite-free-rein/

[Ben Framed]

Goodness Mr Van. I bet your are tired of trying.

[TheHoneyPump]

Sorry to hear of your losses despite a commendable and determined effort. Your successes are guaranteed to improve going forward with a sustainable balanced approach which I simply put as:

  - Treat the need not the need to treat -

It is a fine balance between being reactive vs proactive. What that means is strive to leave the bees to bee the best they can bee, but accept and recognize that there will be times that they need some form of help. Monitor and know the health of the hive(s) so can see when they will be needing a helping hand and can decide on a treatment just before they reach thresholds. Do not treat to satisfy the keepers need to feel all is good because treatment was done. There has to be a problem present.

Probably could be worded it better.  I hope that makes sense in how it reads.

Imho

Hope that helps!

PS: Your results are going to be much better.  You will still lose some, just no where near as many.

[Michael Bush]

Blaming treatment free beekeepers when treating fails is just trying to solve cognitive dissonance without changing your world view.  I can't speak for California or Florida where bees die while bees are flying, but in any cold climate they die when there are no bees flying.  I was losing all of them to Varroa when I treated and when I didn't until I put them on natural cell.  But even then they died in early winter when bees weren't flying.  I haven't lost any to Varroa in a decade or more.  At least not where it was obviously Varroa.  I used to see thousands of dead Varroa on the bottom boards when they died.  I don't see more than a few now if they die over winter.  The only time they die when it's not winter is from pesticides and that has been only once in the last 15 years where it was obvious that pesticides were an issue, though I'm sure a few bees die all the time from them.

[gww]

Where I live, when I go to the bee club meetings, I see some people that have quite a few hives die and some that don't.  It has not seemed to be correlated to whether they are treating or not.  I am through my third winter of not treating and nothing dies.  Next year they may all die.  I have not been able to figure out why some have much more problems then others in keeping bees alive.  I do know that it is not always based on whether they are treating or not.  I figure you got to figure out what is working for you and do that. 

I do wonder at the effort to try and spend your way into treatment free.  Since I can't make myself throw money at bees cause of my cheapness, that is a path that I could never take either.  I do question the ideal that it was hives not treated that killed the treatment bees and don't see why it could not be the treated bees that killed the untreated bees.   Why would it have to be one direction having an effect in the other direction?  I do know on the forums that there are reports from all sides of people losing their bees, some times in high numbers.

I guess if I ever have a hive die, I will have to try and figure out what was going on.  You had both types and your treated hives did better this time.  I have seen post on here where treated bees died in big numbers also.  You may be like me in that nothing died yet but may someday.  My opinion is that if something is alive, it has the chance of dying.

If nature is explained as a continual arms race, then ebbs and flows should be expected.
Breaking it down to such a sureness of why something happened is hard with out all information and we don't always see everything going on even when looking.  I have heard of good beekeepers that treat losing 80 percent of their hives in one year and it not happening the next year or the year before.

I have heard of yards that continually do good with other yards always doing bad with bees being kept in the same way in both.

The good thing in all of this is that it is your money and effort that you get to decide on and so do what you want.   But drawing solid conclusions of why, might be correct or you might be missing something that is hard to see.
Cheers
gww

[Kathyp]

The good thing in all of this is that it is your money and effort that you get to decide on and so do what you want.   But drawing solid conclusions of why, might be correct or you might be missing something that is hard to see.

That's a fair observation but in his case he had something to compare.  I don't have a problem with people doing treatment free.  Folks should try whatever they want to try.
I live in an area with tons of berry farms and other stuff that has farmers hauling in bees.  There are also a number of beekeepers around me.  Since we are not all doing things the same way, we can't control what the bees in our hives might pick up as the mix with others.

Of course, my biggest problem has been yellowjackets so...

I only chimed in on this because I know there are some that will bash giving up treatment free and I wanted him to know that he's not alone!

[jimineycricket]

         Not all colony deaths are from varroa, so it behooves us to carefully analyze the forensic evidence--a hive autopsy if you will.   Also, standard monthly checkups give us invaluable information.  For example, one hive last year stayed almost clean of varroa, until first week of October when it came up 26% infected with varroa.  (Of course I treated and saved it.)  Pockets of varroa can be any place and re-infest a clean hive when we don't expect it.
         Good Luck.  We are all in this together!
         jimmy

[gww]

Kathy

I only chimed in on this because I know there are some that will bash giving up treatment free and I wanted him to know that he's not alone!

My view is when it is your money being sent down the rabbit hole, you get to decide.   No problem with that.  When it comes to blame of why a decision is made, it is not always clear of what is going on.   Some people have higher winter queen loss or bad queen return during mating flights.  When we start thinking about possible causes of such things, it is hard to know for sure the why.  Was it due to varroa stress or poorly mated queens or poorly made queens or many other possibilities.  Since all these things are not like, the queen fell off of the frame and I stepped on it, which could be seen as it happened,  conclusions can be hard to be sure of.

So if we do not contest that other people are keeping treatment free bees successfully, then the why of it not being able to be done by him is a muddy thing that might be hard to point a finger at true cause.  It is a big system that one small thing might be throwing off the working or it not working.    It is just like my area where it is working, One virus mutation and it might not work for a bit.  I see this with deer populations.  I do not believe there is any silver bullet or pill that makes everything work every time with live things.

So, I never question how somebody keeps their bees alive.  They are the ones spending the money and doing the work and so they need to do what ever they have to to get something back for what they put in.  I do not question it at all as long as I am not questioned on what I am doing and what I know is working with out guessing cause I see it.  To me it goes like this.  Get bees, watch them and respond to them till you have success with them.  Don't worry about all the things out of your control but more just watch how your bees are affected and respond.  When you have consistency with life, change only small things at a time so you can see what those small things do in the big picture.  When you get to where you are happy with what you have, repeat.  While repeating, watch for those changes that are out of your control and respond when needed.

If he keeps having good luck that he is happy with by treating, then he is happy no matter what I might think.   I might still think it is possible to keep bees in a different way but even I might not want to pay the price to do it if i was happy already. 

I am not bashing what he decides is good for him.  I do see around me that there are a whole bunch of ways to skin a cat and that they are all in the same place and doing things different from each other and some just seem to be good at it and some do not regardless of the how they try.   The ones that are doing real good treating, know they are doing real good.  The ones doing real good with out treating, know they are doing real good.  The proof is in the pudding.
Cheers
gww

[CoolBees]

Van, I feel your pain, and I'm sorry for your losses.

After loosing all 4 of my hives in the 2016/2017 winter season, I was pretty disheartened.

FWIW - I studied a lot for a year after that, and the entered back into bees in 2018 with a new plan:
1 - start with local survivor stock.
2 - monitor and treat each hive as needed. [Randy Oliver]
3 - raise more hives/queens than I need
4 - transition to foundationless and let the bees build what they think best. [Mr. Bush]
5 - raise queens from the most hygienic hives [Mr. Bush & Mr. Oliver & most others]
6 - hope like heck that I can someday get to TF status with this process.

I'll let you know how it works out ... ... in 10 or 20 years.

In the meantime, all 4 treated [oav] hives made it thru into the spring flow - a 1st for me. I don't think any of them would have made it without help, even though I've got local "totally treatment free" survivor stock this time. It must be something about my location.

When you are loosing ALL of them, it sure gets frustrating. Sorry man.

[Acebird]

Just saying Van, I have never read or heard of anyone being successful trying to do both.  I believe, and yes it is my belief, that you should do one or the other.  If you do treatment free there is no doubt that the hives will hit a point of stress from varroa.  If you have temporarily propped up some hives by treating they can add further stress to the non treated hives and that could break the camels back.  I also believe you should not invest in more than two hives until you get at least one of them to survive two years.  Use your own bees to propagate.  Don't buy them.  Save that money to go to beefest and learn all you need to know in 3 days.

[MikeyN.C.]

Van, wasn't saying heat in a feral tree hive kills mites, when man gets involved in keeping wild things, obviously things change (feed, water and conditions)  with bee's they still rely on nature. We can change (feed,water and conditions)  but with bee's we can't change what is their natural purpose IMHO i my be wrong.
In 4 years I've lost. 12 to 15 hives treatment free 1 yr. 2nd yr treated all purchased hives they died (human error more than likely)  2nd yr. set swarm traps (rural area) caught 1 swarm. Bought 2 nucs, treated purchased hives they died . swarm not treated lived. Swarm catch is going gang busters this yr. so far, going to split this feral hive and hope for the best. A lite bulb went off in reading this post . When i set up swarm trap 1 frame of drawn comb (5 fr. nuc) other 4 fr. starter strips so bee's made natural cell and still living no treatment.

[van from Arkansas]

Thanks everyone for the replies.  I still have 10 healthy treated hives and as a hobbyist my limit is 20.  So I will have issues trying to keep the hives down to 20 treated hives.
Blessings to you folks.
Van

[blackforest beekeeper]

Just saying Van, I have never read or heard of anyone being successful trying to do both.  I believe, and yes it is my belief, that you should do one or the other.  If you do treatment free there is no doubt that the hives will hit a point of stress from varroa.  If you have temporarily propped up some hives by treating they can add further stress to the non treated hives and that could break the camels back.  I also believe you should not invest in more than two hives until you get at least one of them to survive two years.  Use your own bees to propagate.  Don't buy them.  Save that money to go to beefest and learn all you need to know in 3 days.

Ace, to me there seems to be no logic in your post. Treated hives don`t give off Varroa and don?t spread them.

I lost - wouldn`t have thought that - 1 hive to Varroa (likely at least) during early winter. Two more came out of winter without queen. Two more queens lost in the weeks after. Two hives small. The rest - 75 hives - are going fine. Of the losses stated before (including queens and small hives) all but two were at ONE site, where I am pretty sure, Varroa was carried into the hives after my treatments (formic acid mostly). Luckily, the smallest of all bee-yards.