Randy
>Bees, beekeepers, and beekeeping are all very much in the middle of an
evolutionary process as we adapt to this novel parasite.  The question to
ask oneself is whether one is actually doing something constructive, or
just managing to get along?<

I suspect that most bee keepers that are in it for profit or even most bee keepers are just managing to get along.  This includes myself.  The ones for pure profit are probably adding up the cost to benefit of most actions they take regaurdless of the bees and the reason they worry about the health is cause they make more money.  I know I am just trying to get along and seeing where most value is to be had for my actions.  If a big guy has his tactics down where it is easy to instruct his employees on what to do, there is not that much incentive to look for something different unless he sees trouble coming or sees more profit and this is expecially true if there is risk in trying it.  

I understand what you are saying about 30 to 40 percent loss but also think of why nucs were so important to michael palmer when he was doing apple contracts.  By his numbers, apple polination is hard on bees and he had about 600 hives under contract and was having to replace 150 of them with packages every year to meet his contracts.  That is about a 25 percent loss.  I know he does not do apples now but under that buisness modle, you had to do what you had to do to pull the profit from the contract and that was the motivating factor at the time, to come up with a profitable plan under the conditions where the money was put you.  It was about the bees but also about the contract.

I am starting my third year.  I know a guy that did good not treating for seven years and had built up to 60 hives and lost them all in one year.  I don't know what the future is for me.  I have heard many that lost nothing for two years and then lost 30 percent regular.  Richard Cryberg told me that was his experiance and I believe him.

Myself, I am just reading everything and watching my bees as they are and if they make me do something differrent, I will but am more trying to get what I can with what I am working with more then trying to create something that is not there.  I am reading everything though and so will have no excuse if it goes bad.  I do realize that a commercial could not do what a hobbiest like me that does not rely on the income can try.  I wouldn't if I was a commercial.  However, as long as it works, it can not be taken away that it worked.  I am not the only one that is getting by pretty fair (depending on what fair is to the person looking).

There are guys that buy packages and take the honey and shake the packages out and make a profit and that is not about helping bees but more about profit.  

I could actually see where if a guy got only a 30 percent loss that he may come up with a management system that he could be profitable and have no more labor or money in it compared to the profit he could pull out but that is not a goal of mine to try and prove that out.  My goal is more to see what happens with nothing so I can know the differrance when I start doing things.  Kind get what the base line looks like so I can see change for my actions when I take them.  I think I understand what you are doing and guys like me that so want to just get by, really need guys like you that do the work for use to steal parts from.  I could not have the time to do all the studies I have read that others have done and don't even have the time to read them all enough times to even get close to understanding them all.  I am glad they are there for me to try and get what my pea brain can understand from them.  I always liked mel dieselkoens saying "you only know what you know".

My pride wants me to get better at bee keeping not my need.  For what you are trying to do and where you are trying to do it, I think you are absolutly correct in having a very structured proceedure for measuring what you have actually done so you know how to proceed.

For guys like me that just want to use what might be there, even if out goal is not to improve it much but also maby not to make it worse by being too sloppy (I think more are like me then are like you) the avenue will be to try it and go from there.  I do believe there is enough antidotal evidence that there are places already for what ever reason, that small guys are having some success in doing this.  Mites arrived 30 years ago and the enviroment in some places may have reflected seeleys forrest more then it reflects where there is high beekeeper mass.  I don't say that I live in one of those places or even that seeleys bees have what it takes being managed like I manage.  I just say that so far my bees are alive and have not made me make any adjustments (which I will probably be willing to make)yet.

I don't know enough yet to know if I am helping in any way or hurting.  That is why I read every study and try to put them all together.  Someday I may know more.  I do see some flaws in logic put forward by some that try and pigion hole the opertunities down to too small of a hole but that could be my lack of knowlage and so I call some of it so that people can call me out if I am the wrong one and maybe I learn something by it.

I see what I am doing as working for today.  Tomorrow?  I will say the only bee keeper that I know a little is 1.3 miles from me and has been at it for 20 years and does not treat and so my impact should not be to bad on my surrounding area all things considerred.

It is my intention to let a few die before I really move in a differrent direction just so I can see with my own eyes how it goes and what it looks like.  It may be a bad goal to have but the hope is at some point it will help me keep more alive then I would have with out the look.  Just so you know, I am talking death by pms and not foul brood, yikes.

Nobody was born knowing everything and there is a lot out there to weed through and so my pace at picking it up will be what it is.
Please consider my participation in these threads as my way of learning and not that I am trying to know everything.  When I question or call out others ideals, it is my way of digging for more understanding.

Just so all know here, I am a highschool drop out that joined the army at 17 years old and so know that any thing I even think I know has just come from reading and not even formal reading.  I do my best with what I have.
Cheers
gww

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