The problem as I see it is there are people who have been keeping bees for years who do not treat and who see low %s of deaths.  They also make very respectable honey yields.  They do it year after year.  They never buy new bees.  They have selected the swarming out of their bees to the point that they are not fighting constant swarms.  They often have mite counts that are what I would consider sky high and a dead hive that simply has not died yet.  The smart ones will tell you they have no idea why they are getting away with what they are doing.  The dumb ones will tell you it is simple and only a fool would waste time treating.  All you have to do is not treat and the bees evolve or get used to the mites or something.  They say those of us who treat are the problem.  At least one of the TF guys I consider smart lurks here.  So, if I have misstated your position please speak up Kevin.

What neither side (those who treat and those who do not treat) seem to fail to consider most of the time is that bee keeping is very different depending on where you live.  My bees will fly three or four days, if I am lucky, in the next 60 days.  Or zero if I am not lucky.  Some live where their bees fly every week or even nearly every day.  Some live where there is no winter at all.  They just have a long fall and spring.  What I have observed by listening to those who do not treat is if you live in the deep south you simply do not see the issues I see in OH with mites taking down hives.  Why is this so?  I have no clue.  Do the frequent high temps in the south inhibit or even kill mites?  Do those high temps allow bees to avoid the DWV damage, even in hives with very mild infections, seen in OH winters?  Is it something to do with humidity?  Or how about the shorter summer days and longer winter days in the south?  It does seem to have something to do with temperature as I have never had a single hive crash in May, June, July, August or September.  Maybe one or two in October.  A few in November then it gets bad and stays bad until sometime between March 15 to the end of April depending how cold it is here during that period.  That death pattern held when I was not treating and still holds.

We even have queen producers who sell TF queens.  Yet, I have seen zero evidence those queens are even a tiny a bit better in OH than any other queen suppliers queens.  I see zero evidence that any queens are better than anyone else's queens in northern OH.  Or any worse for that matter.  Such a difference would not surprise me in southern OH.  Entirely different climate 200 miles south.  So, different results could reasonably be expected.

I tried TF for four years.  I did not buy a single bee during that time other than one swarm from a TF guy in year one.  I could easy enough keep up my hive count and even grow it by splits and grafting a few queens.  But, I could not make honey.  My average production was about ten pounds/hive average.  Some did better and made 50 or 70 pounds.  Those hives died come winter every single time.  Those bees were also swarm crazy.  Very hard to build up to 15 frames of bees before they swarmed.  Lots would swarm at five frames of bees.  They would even swarm during the August dearth.  I could not see any sense in keeping junk like that.  So, I started treating and changed genetics.  I started to make honey immediately and swarming went way down.  Hive death rate also dropped like a rock.  In a good year it is 10%.  It was 30% last winter as I took really crappy care of my bees a year ago due to my knee being so sore I could not walk much.  Plus I was likely fighting three large mite bombs near by.  So that 30% was my fault due to my  poor management.

Probably 75% of the back yard bees in the US are in climates far closer to mine than the climate the successful TF folks live in.  Or is it more than 75%?  For sure they are a fairly small minority.  Yet some are very vocal about how easy it is.  I am totally confident they are telling the truth.  Some claim small cells are the key.  I see zero evidence that the unnatural small cells do a thing about mites or viruses.  I am not even so sure small cell bees exist.  After all,  just because you put small cell foundation in does not mean they make small cells.  I have seen more than a little drone comb drawn out beautifully on 5.2 mm plastic foundation.

So, what we have is both sides telling the other side they are nuts.  Neither side seems to pay any attention to the other side.  Neither side is nuts in my opinion.  Both are doing what works where they live.  The problem is newbies read both sides and all too often got into bees because they felt some idealistic obligation to save the bees.  Then they go buy a package and do not treat because some  guru told them it was bad to put chemicals in their hive and about the time they get six inches of snow on the ground their hives die and they say the package they bought was junk.  They are not even smart enough to realize those package bees were all dead by June and all they have after that is what was produced by the queen.  If they get that smart they say the queen was junk.  They never seem to realize that maybe they simply live in the wrong place.

Now if some back to nature type simply wants to keep bees and does not wish to treat I guess that is his business.  Lots of people refuse to get a yearly flu shot also.  And both the non treating bee keeper who makes mite bombs and the person refusing the flu shot harm society as a whole.  But, the laws in the US say both are ok.  I think we need to get used to the idea some are not going to treat even if their hives die every year.  Some are more than happy with swarm crazy bees as they do seem to survive mites better.  And if they get ten pounds of honey for the family they are happy.  Is that so different from me driving a Honda Fit, as I find that is all the car I need, while my brother in law drives a Hummer to his office job as he wants to have a big shot image?  In all these cases people make a decision based on their individual values and the fact you have different values is not going to change the other person.  There likely is nothing in the world harder to change than a persons values.  Go watch "You are what you were when" by Massey if you do not believe me.  So why even argue?  It would be a lot more productive to figure out why the TF folk manage to get decent results as maybe it could tell me how to get better results.  Or at least tell me why being TF is not going to work where I live.

Dick

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