a couple of Paul Hosticka snips followed by > my comments..

1) There is no line! Treatment free = neglect. Treatment free beekeeping is not beekeeping it is bee having, and you won't be having bees long. Some arguments that TF's use. 

2) They are promoting development of resistant strains. Wrong.

3) They don't want to use "CHEMICALS". We live in a chemical world.

4) When we talk about treatment free it usually means varroa treatment.

>It does seems to me that for some of the 'no treatment' crowd (but typically short on beekeeping experience) that what the term means is pretty fuzzy.  Certainly some who attempt this in a purely hands off manner seem to have poor results.  This does not mean that all 'no treatment' beekeepers are totally hands off or in the jargon 'wanna bee' beekeepers.  Matter of fact to do this successfully it requires more effort than most folks who use chemicals to address the problem of varroa.  The very nature of how varroa treatment has bee historically address (just drop those strips in and walk away...right?) should raise the question as to who exactly is the lazy or 'wannabee' beekeeper?

>#1 and #4 seem to be in total disagreement...

>All chemicals (see #3) are not created equal at least as far as the short and long term effect on a colony of honeybees. To equate the use of powder sugar with he use of a systemic neurotoxin seems a bit unreasonable to me. 

>A counter argument might be that with a known history of a long list of 'possible' problems associated with managing honeybees that the treatment crowd see ALL potential problem with honeybees as varroa.  Quite often I would suggest confusing symptom with cause.

>Some of us do rear bee to increase resistance and to decrease the potential negative impact of some pretty nasty chemical in a hive. Some of us even raise no treatment bees which are then use for scientific purposes.

>Painting with a bit broader brush ethic and morality are often confuse by those that have never taken a basic class in philosophy. Consequently what I read here as a question of ethics is really a question of morality.

>The more thorny question is whether you ask the question about decreasing stressors on bees in the short or long term?  Or as might be composed as a business decision associated with this time line... are you willing to accept the long term cost in the pursuit of short term advantage?  Or pay me now or pay me later?

>There is a long list of things that a beekeeper can do to hedge their bets in the pursuit of some form of 'no treatment' success. I seem to recall that Randy O, in at least a couple of his articles, has suggest what SOME of these items are for those willing to take that chance.

>just to set the record straight I did not begin pursuing a 'no treatment' path to beekeeper for idealistic reasons. As a matter of record I have advise others (younger and with stated commercial goals in mind) that the purist of a purist 'no treatment' path is something they should NOT consider.  


Gene... hanging out on the left coast....

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