“What you just described is hive manipulation; “treatment free” is no chemicals“"
"There is a big TF group that calls that treatment. "




During the course of obtaining my  entomology degree, hive manipulation would have  fallen under the category of cultural control  or cultural treatment (manipulating the population's environment -hive- or hive+habitat).


I'm using the term population deliberately, since each superorganism colony has attributes of a closely related population.  An apiary usually consists of several of these colonies or colony populations situated in the context of agro-ecosystems.  The apiary location may also be part of natural ecosystems, such as apiaries set into croplands adjacent to riparian zones, rangelands,   For many backyard beekeepers, their bees are part of an urban ecosystem.


Treatment free seems to be a term coined far more recently.  


From correspondence that I've received from some members of the TF group, many seem to think that all problems with honey bees are due to the wrong-headed attitudes of old timers like myself.  We are the problem.  And to emphasize the we are the problem, many like to address me by  you F****r, you and your kind F****d it all up.  I'm not sure that there is a corollary between being  a TF'er who writes me to tell  me how I and our courses are the problem, and foul language, or if I'm just lucky in terms of those who like to write to me or address me on Facebook.


They've seen the light, and it is to renounce anything done before, many reverting to a revisionist history of hive development, bee management, etc.  Many reject science-based practices, or re-interpret it.  Few recognize the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning.  


But, who can blame them when the History Channel persists in running shows that repeat over and over the mantra of Ancient Alien Theorists - confounding both the forms of reasoning (Ancient Alien Theorists aren't following the Scientific Method, they just think that they are because they repeat every few minutes the mantra Theorists).   They fail to recognize that all they have is a bunch of unproven hypotheses, rather than theories that are based on well-established explanations based on repeatable observations and experimentation.  From a science perspective, they've lots of starting points for investigation (hypotheses) but  no theory of explanations acquired through the scientific method.  






Similarly, what many of the TF group do not seem to even recognize, what they aspire to do would be better covered by the term Integrated Pest Management - which includes the full array of biological, chemical controls, and cultural control, including habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and uses of resistant or tolerant varieties of bees.   Somehow, TF truncates the list of options.


Ironically, Integrated Pest Management, which attempted to replace calendar-based spraying, and other 'old fashioned' practices, now apparently is  considered old fashioned by many TF'ers.  Call me doubly old-fashioned, but I think what most TF folks actually want to practice IPM, but they don't seem to know about IPM - so they created the term TF, but forgot about the Integrated part of pest and disease management.


I try to follow IPM monitoring, sanitation, and treatment, avoiding  chemicals where possible, but using when needed.  I haven't succeeded in avoiding colony loss from varroa by not treating when mite levels increase above certain thresholds - and actually, I don't believe much in mite thresholds - I'm more worried about mite population trajectory and rate of upward trajectory.


Taken to the extreme, TF would consist of quitting beekeeping and reverting to only having feral honeybee colonies - the simple act of putting colonies of bees in a box voids the TF concept.


Labels:
If anyone hasn't noticed, I really dislike the term Treatment Free.  I put the zealots of TF in the same category as the Ancient Alien Theorists.  One doesn't have to make up or re-define terms in order to produce labels for rejection of practical, science-based knowledge.  Since I'm on a roll - 12 years of parochial schooling also didn't stick as a label.  But I'm not an atheist.  It's not that I don't believe in any god, I'm an agnostic - I don't know if any gods exist or not.  Life would be easier if my early training had stuck - but I found too many inconsistencies.


Whereas I'm on the fence about gods - and if any exist, which one is the true one- I do believe in aliens.  There's just too much in the cosmos to assume that we're alone, but if we've ever been visited by aliens, I'd like to see some hard evidence like temples built of exotic materials or old space ships or ask why they haven't stopped to say howdy or blow us off the face of the earth.  Why sneak around?




















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