I feel for Kirk's 80% hive loss. I have had those kind of losses before.

After his article in the May ABJ "A practical Plan for removing ALL
Treatments from Commercial Apiaries" ( part 2 of two parts). I hope Kirk
does a part three and explains what he thinks was the problem.

As a commercial beekeeper I give little thought when beekeepers trying to
keep bees without treatments (on permanent locations) try to imply
commercial beekeepers can keep thousands without treatments. Maybe in a
perfect world but today's bees in commercial operations are stressed to the
limit.

For years Richard Taylor said spending money for fumidil was a waste of
money. Of course his bees were not stressed like migratory bees are ( and
neither are Kirk's). Then came the Bee Culture article reporting Richard had
lost all his bees and the bee lab said nosema was the problem. Richard
earned my deepest respect by writing about his bee loss and what the lab
said caused the problem.

Now I have respect for both Richard (deceased) and Kirk and their opinions
and ideas but many beekeepers do not seem to understand the dollars involved
in commercial operations.

I will not tolerate sick bees. I will not tolerate what I call *dinks*. I
look at many operations bees and the beekeeper is glad to see me leave as if
I see sick bees I will say so. Telling a beekeeper his bees look like crap
is like saying bad things about his family. The best bees I see are always
in the large commercial operations. Always!

Again I hope Kirk will do a 3rd. article and explain he had troubles with
his methods.

To me his loss 80% was more than simply not feeding or the weather.

bob

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