In message <[log in to unmask]>, Bill Truesdell
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Take this to its logical conclusion and it says to do away with all
>medicine and return to primitive conditions so only the strong survive.
>Just let nature take its course.
I find it hard to let this one pass. The requirement on anyone not
accepting the prevailing wisdom is to improve health by every means
possible.
>We do not have a cure for Aids, but we treat anyway, nor cancer, nor....
Aids may well be man-made via the attempt to eradicate smallpox and the
method of producing the vaccine. Cancer may well be a result of long
term medication and denial of natural healthy processes. Ask a
homoeopath about the different model they use and about the effects of
repeatedly using antiopathic approaches accumulating over a lifetime.
>All medication is intermediate and necessarily stop gap and not a
>solution. But to not use the tools given us and just let bees die seems
>a bit foolish.
I agree with this. I consider helping the bees survive and selecting for
survivability is the way forward, with just sufficient support for this
to be worked at long term with the least toxic approach available. For
me this year means using Apiguard (thymol based) and treating only
colonies getting near threshold levels (taken to be 2500 mites in a
normal sized colony for this country).
>Just like not letting your child have antibiotics and see if they
>survive on their own. You can go to jail for that.
Mine does, with 2 exceptions only, when we were actually tardy in
contacting our homoeopath. Previously all conditions were worked through
without medical intervention successfully including one that seemed
serious enough to go to the doc's urgently, only to find the light
sensitivity and temperature gone within 20' of the remedy. I demand the
freedom to make my own decision based on reading all the evidence I can
muster. Informed choice. There is enormous pressure to conform and no
recognition of there being different models. We have a publication in
the UK called What Doctors Don't tell You and its web site
http://www.wddty.co.uk (I think). It's worth a read. Also how about a
look at your own http://www.glycoscience.com.

My problem is to apply the principles to bees and beekeeping. FWIW I
have gathered a small gang of willing souls to attempt to select and
breed for varroa tolerance throughout the peninsula I live on selecting
for grooming damage and low mite numbers with the support and
encouragement o Jack Griffes and John Dews. John has almost got to the
magic figure of 60% damage found by Wallner of Austria with Carnican
bees with his own melliferan bees. We don't have SHB and almost no AFB.
EFB is rare and it seems possible to get on top of it even in our
erratic conditions. I am hopeful our breeding programme might either
circumvent virus susceptibility by breeding for low varroa numbers or
include resistance as a worthy trait. We'll see what a bunch of amateurs
can do. At least we are trying.
--
James Kilty