I guess I am more of an applied research person than a basic research
person. I must have a slightly different thought on how all this hangs together.
I believe that bees evolve to meet changing climatic conditions, pest
conditions , food conditions, etc. by the genes that are passed along. When we
treat, we perpetuate genes that may not be optimal and account for the weather
changes or pest changes, etc. Hence, we end up with a lot of colonies that
cannot live on their own. This is what I believe happen when some of you said
the feral bee genes are different than the domestic genes. We have done
this for what we say are economic $$ investment concerns, concerns about food
supply, etc. The further we go down this path the more it is going to cost us
in treatment, i.e. just keeping the colonies alive, and the more uncertain
the bees survival is....i.e. nature is better at figuring this out than man is.
In the wild, the colonies that cannot adapt dies off and the survivors
perpetuate.....this is the Darwinian outlook. Hence, the bees adapt to the
changing conditions. This is true of weather, pests, food, etc.
I am attaching an article, that I started and never published. The second
part of the article is where I analyzed the cost of treatment. This was done
two years ago and it shows the cost of treatment is more than the cost of
bees. As we discussed, this cost or savings can be looked at as an annuity. I
really believe it should be run out for 20 years and I say that since it
took 10-15 years to adapt to the tracheal mite and about 18 years (since about
1990) to adapt to the Varroa mite (it seems our feral colonies are on the
rebound). It is cheaper in the long run to let the colonies die and "graft "
off the survivors. Treatment catches up with you. Or use the feral colonies
as a gene pool.
In my own operation, I have one colony that I have not treated for anything
for 3 years. I plan to let the remaining colonies "go wild" I will be
looking for feral colonies to add to my stock. But I am a sideliner not dependent
on bees for a living.
Case Study
Consider the cost of treating hives in an outyard. Keep in mind the
greater the number of hives in the outyard the less cost per hive. A twenty hives
outyard will be used since this is the maximum number of hives one typically
wants to work in one yard.
Mileage cost = cost per mile * total number of miles
= $0.44/mile * 20 miles one way * 2
= $17.60
Medication cost = varroa treatment cost + foulbrood treatment cost + Nosema
treatment cost + small hive beetle treatment cost.
In this example I am going to treat for varroa,
Foulbrood will not be treated since I am monitoring the hives and
only treating as necessary
Nosema will not be treated since I live in the south and this is not
typically an issue
Small Hive Beetle will be treated not by medication but by moving
the hives every 2 months. Moving will break the Beetle
pupation cycle in the soil around the hive. There is an extra
labor and mileage cost.
Using Sucrocide to treat for Varroa we have:
Three times every 7-10 days 2. One pint treats approximately 29 hives and
cost $19.95 This is $19.95/29 hives or 0.69/hive. Each trip to the outyard
takes approximately 1 hour with another 1 hour for treatment or 120 minutes
(2.0 hours) total. For an $8/hour labor rate.
Total treatment cost is (this does not include overhead costs):
= 20 hives ($0.69 / hive) + ($0.44/mile * 20 miles one way * 2) 3 trips
+ (2 hours) $8.00/ hour labor rate
= $13.76 medication treatment cost + $52.8 mileage cost + $16 labor
= $82.56 to treat for Varroa
Using Mite-Away II for the second treatment we have:
Page 52 of the 2006 Dadant Catalog, use one pad per 6-20 frames of brood
500F to 790F . Cost is two 10 pack pails = $34.95 * 2 = $69.90; 20 frames *
2.25/frame = $45. Total for 20 hives = $69.90 + $45 = $114.90. Total treatment
cost is:
= $114.90 + ($0.44/mile * 20 miles one way * 2) 2 trips + (2 hours)
$8.00/hour labor rate
= $148.5
If we treat for Varroa twice a year using Sucrocide, this would be $165.12.
Using one Sucrocide treatment and one Mite-Away II treatment would be
$231.06. Note these numbers will vary depending on one’s bee operation. Large
operations with more outyards will incur a larger cost with back yard operations
only incurring the medication treatment cost and some labor.
Example Treatment Cost Per Pound
Assume the hives produce on average 50 lbs with only 17 of the 20 producing.
This means the outyard will yield:
50 lbs * 17 hives = 850 lbs of honey.
The total Sucrocide additional treatment cost will add :
$82.56 / 850 lb = $0.10/lb to the cost of honey.
This figure would be $0.20 / lb if we treat with Sucrocide twice a year
for Varroa.
For 100 lbs/hive, we would have 1700 lbs honey. This would be $165.12/1700
lbs= $0.10 added to a pound of honey for treating twice with Sucrocide and
$100lb/hive yield. Using 100 pound hive yield, and treating once with
Sucrocide and once with Mite-Away II would be $231.06 / 1700 = $0.14/pound
The actual cost may be more if we have to treat for Foulbrood, Nosema, or
Small Hive Beetle. Note, this also does not include the cost of moving hives
for Small Hive Beetle control. This figure does not cover the overhead cost
like accountants, extractor operations costs, honey house, woodenware cost,
bottling cost, marketing and distribution cost.
This is an additional $0.10 / lb to $0.20/ lb off the bottom line
profitability of the bee operation. This may mean the difference from making money or
losing money.
Resistant Stock Worth
If we can obtain bee stock (via requeening or buying packages) that are
resistant to varroa in this case, we should be willing to pay extra for those
bees. Requeening with resistant stock for existing hives is by far the cheaper
way to go. If we do this we should be able to save :
Mileage cost = cost per mile * total number of miles
Labor cost: 2 hour to requeen 20 hives + 1 hour travel time
Resistant queens are, $additional resistant queen cost, more than
standard queens
Savings = $165.12 – ($additional resistant queen cost * 20 queens +
($0.44/mile * 20 miles one way * 2) + 3 hour * $8/hour).
= $165.12 – ( $resistant additional queen cost * 20 + $17.6 + 24)
= ($165.12 – 41.5)/20 = resistant additional queen cost
= $6.17 = additional resistant queen cost treating twice with Sucrocide.
for: $231.06 treating once with Sucrocide and once with Mite-Away II would
be:
= $231.12 – ($additional resistant queen cost * 20 queens + ($0.44/mile * 20
miles * 2) + 3 * $8.00/hour)
= ($231.12 - 41.5)/20
= $9.48 additional resistant queen cost when treating with Sucrocide and
Mite-Away II
In this case we can pay up to $6.17 to $9.48 more for resistant queens over
nonresistant queens and still save money the first year. A savings will be
realized in following years also. Note this figure is based on an $0.44/mile
rate, 20 miles one way to the bee yard, a 20 hive bee yard, and an $8/hour
labor rate. If these figures change, this number will also change.
Conclusion
The cost of bees and chemicals in the hive, high gas prices, and labor rates
to name a few are quickly making the US uncompetitive with our costs; we
can only get so much for our honey due to world competition. Local honey is
different than the world honey. We should continue working toward using mite
resistance stock with expensive chemical treatment use only in dire
circumstances and then only until an untreated “survivor” queen can be obtained. In
the long run, for queen breeders, B Weaver has the right idea by not using
chemicals and grafting off the survivors. It is cheaper for the industry for the
queen breeders to graft off the survivors, and the producers requeen their
hives with the breeder survivors. It should be noted that in order to save
medication cost, the bees cannot require treatment, i.e. they are resistant not
tolerant. The short run will be painful but maybe not as financially
painful as the chemical route.
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