>There is a lot of area in the U.S. that is not affected by migratory beekeeping

It is not just migratory commercial beekeeping that transfers diseases and pests around the country.  Hobby beekeepers are well known to casually import bees from out of country and move bees across state, province and even international boundaries and between continents without mentioning it to authorities.  I have personal knowledge of a number such events.  They are extremely common.  

Not only that, beekeepers who decry migratory beekeeping think little of buying package bees or queens or swapping stock with other beekeepers of the same persuasion.

>I have been keeping bees in my county since about 1998 ...  My hive numbers have fluctuated between twenty down to three and I'm now back up to nineteen.

That is interesting.  Was that deliberate?

>I have plans in motion to make multiple splits after I have taken off my honey crop with the intention of increasing my hive numbers to double or triple the number I'm now running. My success in running "treatment free" may be entirely due to luck and not repeatable elsewhere, but where I now am, it's working.

That sounds rather similar to my trajectory immediately before the train wreck. I was using minimal treatments.  

Do you monitor pests like mites?

> There are no migratory operations in my area since Alabama does not allow the transport of bees on comb into the state.  There are no big beekeeping operations near me

Sounds similar to my situation.

>I think there is opportunity for small beekeeping operations to develop a treatment free operation

> Most beekeeping is not local? I think a lot of beekeeping is local.

I think that everyone understands that.  It seems, though that different people interpret it differently.  It seems also that there is a local aspect and a non-local aspect, or am I to belive that you have no mites, no foulbrood, no nosema, and no chalkbrood?  Am I to understand that you do not and never have bought bees from more than a few miles away?  Or,  as I suspect, you do have all those afflictions and also have ordered in bees from outside your immediate area?

> Never argue with an idiot

I think I'll ignore that advice, this once.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm