Hello Joe & All,

Joe said about the Russian bees:
> but they were not suited for my location, queens tending to shut down
everytime a cloud passed over.

I personaly never such shuting down( cloud passing over) . However the
queens do shut down quickly in my experience to weather changes & floral
changes.

They seem to respond poorly to pollen patties and stimulate feeding but I
only tested Russians from four sources and has been awhile. Also there were
exceptions to the rule.

Joe said:
>This is where you make the mistake of others and assume more than I am
saying.  Small cell, collecting ferals and breeding are key for my
dropping treatments. But diseases, when they occasionally occur are
handled by using NON chemical methods.

NON chemical methods?
I guess you mean burning for AFB? What about EFB? What about  nosema ? ( I
treated another yard yesterday to clear up a presistant nosema). Are
antibiotics OK? Or simply not needed once you are on small cell?

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND BEEKEEPERS WHICH ARE SEEING NOSEMA IN THE U S TO RECHECK
AFTER THE TREATMENT PERIOD TO MAKE SURE THE FUMIDL CLEARED THE NOSEMA.
I guess I am going to have to send a nosema sample to Beltsville to see if
nosema ceranae.

Those beekeepers which never check or treat or even give nosema a second
thought go back to sleep!

When I was doing survivor research  (zero treatments) I lost a *huge* number
of hives.

 I simply moved hives *over ver  threshold* to a yard to basically *die*.

So many needed to be removed that I started removing from the experiment and
then taking to a hospital treat yard to see if the effects of high ver load
could be reversed ( chemical treatments )and then the hive moved into a
production yard.

Why?

Because watching hives started from brood I could have sold or used in
production hives ( several frames of brood and a high priced queen) die let
alone not produce a honey crop or even be used in pollination is an
expensive experiment.

Leaving hives over ver  threshold in a yard of survivors greatly reduces the
other hives chances for survival because of robbing and reinfestation from
drifting workers and drones.

Moving a weak hive with a high ver  load into a strong yard of *chemical
strip protected from ver* hives would surely result in the strongest hives
robbing out survivor colonies (learned the hard way even with a reduced
entrance in some cases).

What percent of your untreated method hives get culled or simply crash in a
year?

I am very familiar with the search for a ver tolerant bee. I have written
articles for both Bee Culture and the American Bee Journal on the subject
( can post the issues if members are interested).

My search BEFORE the introduction of the Russian bee was mostly a big waste
of resources. With the addition of the Russian lines survivor bees became a
reality . HOWEVER success was only judged by the hive being able to stay
alive without treatment for ver. in the early days I actually gave a few
survivor hives (removed from buildings) frames of honey so they would still
be around in spring.

All of the above about my personal search for survivor bees is documented in
the BEE-L archives.

Bob



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