Please forgive me for not getting back to this sooner, I've a lot on my plate at the moment.

Charles Harper wrote:
>You Have NOW heard of such a beekeeper I do not treat for mites. 300 hives+ Visit www.russianbreeder.org and look at the members page ALL do not treat there Russian bees.

Hi Charles, I'm glad to hear that things are going well for you....but this was not quite the question I asked.  There are, I believe, a number of breeders that don't treat (Russian stock and otherwise), what I'm asking about is customers of those breeders.  

I brought this up because Peter commented that he was appalled that more people don't buy such stock.  There is a big difference between a breeder not treating, and a customer not treating (a breeder must cull or let nature cull their weak stock, whereas someone buying a queen expects her to perform).

With all that said, I'm aware that the russian breeding program requires that the members not treat the stock (or remove it from the program if they do) because I've read some of the USDA documentation.  I didn't find this on the Russian breeding program website, or your own for that matter (perhaps I missed something?).  If this is an important aspect of the program, then it is in fact a "marketing problem".  You can't expect people to assume that stock isn't treated unless you tell them so.

Can you clarify if it is only mite treatments that are not used, or is it treatments in general?  I ask this because of a recent conversation with a state bee inspector who kept insisting that a particular hive wasn't treated...when I asked "even fumidil", his reply was, "well.....fumidil....".  Treatments have become so commonplace that some don't even consider them treatments anymore.

If such lines are to become popular because they can be kept without treatments, one simply has to have a customer base that bears this out.  If it's only the breeders that don't treat, it doesn't give a potential customers much reassurance.

Of course management practices are key here.  I know of at least one treatment free russian outfit that does produce a crop every year...but requires 3 nucs to backup every production hive.  To me, this isn't terribly attractive, but I'd love to hear how others are doing it.

deknow


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