For 5 year I did No-treatment beekeeping.

Each year I drove to my house the best (honey production wise)
colonies. And then leave them by their own. No nothing. No treatment
no feeding no harvesting. Only some spliting and swarm catching. For
the first three years everything seem ok. I grew from the 20 or so
original "best" hives that I had taken to the house to almost 90
colonies. They where full of honey, On the fourth year the losses
started. I saw and learned a lot about bees and diseases. Lots of
unexplained things I saw. By the 5th year only 12 colonies were left.
And this spring, only 6 are left, basically because I decided that is
was enough of "natural selection" and I treated varroa with
fluvalinate past autumn.

Out of the 12, I treated only 6. (the two groups are well apart) and
yes, the 5 of the 6 treated are the surviving one and only 1 of the 6
not treated.

I will do the  higienic test (pin pirick) now  and select the best
ones to graft from.

Out of the other 2400 colonies, some 300 were lost during the winter.
The other ones are in great shape in spite of the dreadfull condition
most of my chilean colleagues are facing this season.

End of  brief southern report ! back to bees and school taxi driving

chao

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