> We're still trying to figure out why some have success and why that success does not seem to be reliably replicated.

A key point that is frequently left out of these discussions is: all the thousands of folks out there who went "no treatment", lost the bees, and gave up. They don't write, they don't call, they just fall off the map.

Now, I have been doing beekeeping for almost 40 years now, and if I lose all my bees this winter, I'll get more. I have the equipment and I was bitten by the bee bug long ago. But newcomers are not so driven.

Yesterday, I went through a yard of five hives owned by some friends. They had three top bar hives and three regular hives. One of the regular hives already went down, probably swarmed and went queenless.

One of the two remaining Langstroth was crashing with PMS symptoms readily apparent. No chance it will survive till Christmas. Two of the top bar hives were also nearly gone due to mites, PMS and the whole ball of wax.

One of the owners said: we followed all of the instructions: got top bar hives, mite resistant bees, but still they are dying from mites!

I suppose the no-treatment crowd will now blame the Langstroth hives for infesting the top bars, or some such nonsense. The problem is this: their approach works sometimes, due to luck or whatever it is. Other times, the bees just tank.

Hell, sometimes I have good luck, too. But I don't buy lottery tickets, and I put my money in a bank, not under the mattress. I want and want to recommend approaches that will work most of the time. Not only if I'm lucky, because sheer good luck has always avoided me.

PLB
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