>Any discussion of zero or limited treatment gets invaded by the
perfection-nazis and degenerates to do-so, do-not kind of discussion.

I also find these sort of ideal-driven criticisms to be nonproductive.  I
personally found that for me to move toward the goal of breeding
mite-resistant bees, that there were three key prerequisites:

1.  My operation had to remain profitable.
2.  The above required me to maintain enough live colonies.
3.  Those colonies must be strong enough to go to almonds, and to make
honey.

So I chicken out if mite levels rise very high, and use one of the natural
treatments to help insure the survival of my colonies.

> You and  Randy mentioned commercial operations which were surviving with
little or no treatments.

Bill, I know of no large (multi thousand colony) operations doing so.  But
have had a number of several-hundred to low thousand operations report
success to me.  The first question that I always ask them is what is their
approximate yearly colony mortality.  A number report that it is in the
20-30% range, which about the same as that of other operations that practice
chemotherapy.

I spent time last week with a Calif sideline beekeeper (Serge Labesque) who
keeps about 50 colonies.  He's used absolutely no treatments for quite a few
years.  He keeps detailed records.  His overwinter losses have been from
0-5% over the last several years.

On the other hand, I personally have yet to see such low losses in any
survival yards that I set up.

> I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - how do they do it?

They breed from survivors.  They generally keep smaller yards of colonies.

Randy Oliver

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