Kind Folks World Wide:

I truly am grateful for your postings, all of you, on-and off-list, in
particular.  Thank you.  It was very thoughtful of you to ponder the
quagmire I am in.  Normally I would respond immediately, but I’ve been a-
thinking, chewing the wax.  About 95% of you have, so far, opted for pro-
life: save the bees at all cost; and the remaining 5%, pro-choice: be true
to yourself, and I am being the pregnant one in the middle, sweating.
Many of you convinced me in your rationalization, given your respective
paradigm.  They all make such a fine sense that I rejected many.  That the
95% pro-life, with a canned, government-standard, bee science (BS)
approach bothers me sleepless that I feel as if someone is pushing drugs
to me, having already given me the disease in the first place.

Of course, you did not mean any harm personally, yet that singular,
unanimous, almost unthinking, quick-fix response reminded me of the DL
controversy we are now coming out of: how difficult it is to see something
new when 95% of the people baptize the dance theory, *especially* when
their livelihood depends on it.  I can’t blame that entrenchment inside
the box, nevertheless, considering we believe only what we want to, a self-
fulfilling prophecy.  Remember under the Nazis, 99% of the Germans
believed in only one truth and that proved them right big time for a
while.  Whatever the truth is, however, it often refuses to be monopolized
by the majority or by minority for that matter.  The new paradigm, for me,
is “Feralization of Kept Honey Bees,” not Standardization of Treatment:
the current prescription of counting the drops or ether roll and bang with
strips.  Such thinking helps perpetuate sickly bees; in fact, we have been
at it for decades.  Ask Bob. The new paradigm has to be toward
Feralization.  Consider, for instance, Screened Bottom Boards that imitate
the wild condition in a cavity, small cells that imitate the feralized
cell-size, SMR’s that imitate AHB behavior, and the whole enchilada toward
soft-drugs that wants to imitate a natural state as closely as we think we
can.  Standardization is an anathema, like government regulations.

Yesterday I too felt compassionate about the creature under my care and
its predicament for which I have been responsible, just as we all probably
are.  Reflecting both sides, therefore, I blinked and went ahead and sugar-
dusted most of the infected yard; I was, again, compelled to do something,
from within and without.  That’s where I drew my line, though, for I think
I too am helping my bees by killing them.  What an oxymoron and what a
dreadful thought.  Upon close inspection, I could not tell if any of the
colonies was suffering from any major population loss, especially as they
are coming out of a long summer drought into a heavy fall flow: during the
fall flow, my bees have never shown as much vigor as they used to in the
spring.  Capped drone broods are milky white without any sign of mite
dots, bees are numerous and cover two deeps and sometimes more.  No
visible mites on bees, either.  Sure, I could be one sorry ass come next
spring.

My wishful thinking here is the equilibrium, the optimum armistice between
the two, the symbiotic harmony the bees and the mites must come to terms
with.  The girls go about business as usual—so much so that I heavily
dusted only three colonies (oldest) frame by frame, and the rest, on each
top bars, as the sun was setting.  I’ve got two Italian colonies that I
treated only once (2000) in the last decade; I was then peer-pressured
into CheckMite them, against my better judgment, when I brought my bees
down from Stillwater, OK.  I was then a new kid on the block, being
unfamiliar with the new local particularities.  They are doing fine.  I
have never requeened these two (Alpha and Beta colonies originally from a
Georgia breeder).  The rest of the yard consists of three-year old
colonies and many mite-free July splits on bottle, as most of my early
swarm captures have already graduated into another yard in the alfalfa
fields; I fed them until they drew about one deep, and then I moved and
gave them another deep of foundation, which is about half-filled now;
these feral bees are kicking, and they will winter on those two deeps,
loaded.  (Please recall I annually do my “swarm-chaser,” as meteorologists
around here do their “storm-chaser” during the tornado season, and capture
seven to fourteen no-man’s-land swarms, my perennial source for restocking
winter loss.)

When I hollered my water broke yesterday, I must have acted like an
alarmist: sitting down on the ground in front of the hive, I had been
finger-picking all the dying and the crawling into a jar.  Many cannot
sting you, being immature and weakened.  I then froze them overnight and
out of about thirty shriveled bees I found three mites.  For all these
years I have not seen one mite although my predecessors around my area had
seen them and gone belly up.  I hear Bob say, it's my turn now.  I was
shocked, nonetheless, with a sense of denial.

Yes.  I do have all of my bees on a modified screened bottoms, some no
bottom at all, as I recycle one conventional bottom into two SBB’s, and
the wire mesh measures only about 16’ x 17’ so my SBB’s are not all the
way clear.  I made it so to give my bees an ample landing area in front
and to cut down draft in the rear [no pun intended]; however, my SBB’s
does not allow anything under, such as a sticky board.  It sits flush to
the hollow rectangular stand.  Thinking I will never treat them, I really
did not see any benefit of counting mite drops although I do recognize its
immense value for others:  different strokes for different people.

No. I am just moseying along toward sidelining, shooting for one hundred
colonies, all never treated; thus, my bread and butter do not come from
beekeeping, but honey does, which goes nicely with the two when the dough
is piping-hot.


Yoon

p.s.  Robin, looking at your posting hours, you need to get some sleep.
No, contrary to what you may think, you are not responsible for running
the universe.

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