Keith Malone asked the make of the worker brood that I use.

I use a combination of Pierco and Dadant wired wax in the brood chamber. When Pierco is fully drawn it is beautiful but in early spring before a major nectar flow I much prefer the wired wax.

I am not a purest and have in the past used mite treatments but have not gone through the teramysene treatment for several years. When I did treat it was only in the fall as I was buying breeder queens and building the purity of my Russian bees. I did last fall, use one scoop of apiguard on a couple of my yards but I can, this spring tell no difference in those that got a scoop of apiguard and those that did not. Differences in cluster size this spring depends more on location than anything else. Where there was a good fall pollen flow last fall the clusters are much larger. 

My winter loss this spring is about 2%. My neighbor beekeepers have lost more than half of their bees. They are good beekeepers who treat their bees as recommended. The only difference between my bees and theirs is that mine are Russian and not treated. There must be something out there that kills their bees and not mine. I am convinced that the only reason for one with Russian bees to ever use any treatment is because they are near other bees.

I have a big advantage in that I have been using a pure Russian breeder queen for the past 9 years, raise my own queens and sell 100+ splits to other beekeepers each spring. These cultural activies also reduce mite levels.

Members of the new Russian Breeders Association are pledged to use no medication or treatments in their breeding program.

Carl Webb

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