Treatment and Chemical Free Beekeeping The Natural and Organic Wayby Marshall Dudley Foreword This book is not intended as a general, or comprehensive book on how to keep bees. There are plenty of those available already, and much better written than I could ever do. Instead this book is intended to be a handbook to fill a gap for those wanting to practice true organic and treatment free beekeeping. Over the years I have been disappointed to find every book I could find on organic or natural beekeeping, advocated putting chemicals in the hive, even if natural and/or feeding syrup and/or pollen substitute. The methods this book focus on are those espoused by Dee Lusby, a renowned beekeeper who has kept bees for over 50 years in all parts of the world. She and her late husband Ed are pioneers in the field of treatment free bees. Their group on Yahoo has almost 6000 members, and is the one place where accurate and highly useful information can be found. She definitely bucks the trend, fighting tooth and nail to bring methods of keeping bees naturally to light. We owe her, and her late husband a big thank you. Introduction Beekeeping has changed dramatically in the last few decades. When I first started keeping bees in the early 60's, you could drop bees in a hive, come back 5 years later, and they would still be there, using for the most part the comb they originally built.But due to an onslaught of various diseases and parasites, many chemicals were introduced over the years, until bees now have a more difficult time surviving treatments, than the original parasites they are used to control.The first significant threat was the tracheal mite which was first detected in the US in the mid 80's. These small mites would fill the tracheal tube until the bee suffocated. When it first appeared it presented a heavy toll on bees worldwide, and many hives were lost because of it.Shortly after that the varroa mite arrived. This mite not only attacked the adult bees, but the brood as well. On top of that it was a major vector for various bee viruses, such as deformed wing virus. The mite had been a co-existing parasite of Apis cerana (Asian honey bees), which are significantly larger than honey bees. Although the mite has existed alongside honey bees for millions of years, it had never made the jump to honey bees. Yet within the last 100 years it did so. What changed? We will find out just what it was that changed, and by knowing that, we have a major element that, if restored, alleviates the threats they present.Although when the first mites appeared, drugs and chemicals were necessary for the commercial beekeepers to survive, that fortunately is no longer the case. We now understand just what has to be done to reduce these parasites to a non-issue, and have the resistant stock and equipment to do it.Varroa mites are also vectors for a number of bee viruses. The most common is deformed wing virus. Once bees are regressed using local feral mite resistant stock, these should become rare. In fact I have never seen one in any of my hives. Be aware though that harsh treatment of sealed brood can also cause deformed wings. So if you accidentally drop a comb of sealed brood you might see a number of these bees even with no varroa present.The most recent threat is the small hive beetle. It is native to sub-Saharan Africa and first appeared in the US in Florida in 1998. Since then it has spread throughout the Americas. The adult beetle is not a threat to the bees, but the eggs they lay will hatch out into grubs which can devastate a hive by eating all the comb, brood, and causing the honey to ferment and drain out of the comb. Fortunately a strong hive which is bred and set up to not be bothered by mites also tends to not be susceptible to the beetles either.This book will address how to keep bees without the use of any chemicals or drugs, and as a result produce honey surpluses that many beekeepers no longer consider possible. The methods for the most part are those that are espoused by Dee Lusby, and Michael Bush. There are some slight philosophical differences between these two pioneers, as well as those espoused in this book, but they should all be minor Table of Contents - Genetics - Natural Cell Sizing - Unlimited Brood Nest - Drone Comb - No Chemicals or Drugs - Bottom Boards - Feeding with pure honey and pollen - Acquiring feral bees - Preventing Drifting - Water Sources - Apiary Placement - Orientation - Hive Placement - Skunks and Possums - Mean Bees - Smoking - Moving Hives - Resources Genetics When the varroa mite first appeared, it was thought that it would be impossible for honey bees to develop any resistance to them at all. USDA's Danka was quoted as saying “Trying to breed bees resistant to varroa mites is like trying to breed sheep resistant to wolves.” But over the next couple of decades, after most colonies including wild or feral colonies, had died, the feral population begun a slow but steady recovery. Now in many if not most parts of the country the feral population is back to or near the density they were before the mites appeared. This is of course what the survival of the fittest does over time when normal evolutionary factors are not messed up by man.Several traits have been found to be associated with varroa resistance. The first, and likely the most obvious is grooming. Just like monkeys that remove parasites from each other, bees can develop this trait. In some cases a bee can sense the mite, and do a special wiggle to tell the other bees that she needs grooming. These bees are easy to detect by using a sticky board, and looking for chewed mites, and mites missing legs.A second trait is the ability to sense when a capped brood cell has a mite in with the pupae by the odor. These bees will uncap the cell and pull out the pupae. Although the mite will escape, it will not reproduce. This trait is referred to as being hygienic.While bee researchers were working feverishly on developing bees with these or other mite resistant traits, such as the Minnesota hygienic lines, mother nature was doing the same throughout the world without any assistance.So the first step is to acquire a local stock with varroa resistance.But just as importantly, the bees must be acclimated to your area. This is the fly in the ointment so to speak when trying to acquire bees such as the Minnesota hygienic line, for places far from Minnesota. Bees acclimated to your area are imperative. They will be able to predict the flows, building up just before the major flow, and dropping their population during lulls in nectar flow. They will either raise brood throughout the winter to keep their numbers up in the southern parts of the US, or shrink to very small balls of bees in the winter, to explode in population just before the honey flow starts in the spring in the north. For the most part those which do well in the warmer regions can be differentiated from those that do well in the colder regions by observing their color. A dark bee is genetically optimized for cooler areas. The dark color absorbs sunlight warming the bee up early in the morning, and during cool weather, so she can work during those times. These bees generally come from mountainous areas of Europe, such as the Caucasians, Carniolan and Russians.The lighter bees, mostly Italian, and in South America with African genetics, reflect more sunlight, so they don't overheat in the heat of the day when they work. They are of course acclimated to the warmer areas. So in the Northern Hemisphere those bees acclimated to an area will go from yellow to brown and black as you move north, with intermediate shades in between.So, the question is where do you get this naturally resistant stock, which is genetically acclimated to the area? Ordering bees and queens for the most part is a losing proposition, as they will not be varroa resistant nor acclimated, and the mites will be bred for high reproduction rates. And introducing them to your area can do more harm than good. Now there are some places which sell treatment free bees. You will find a list of these sources at the end of this booklet.If you live near them, or in a climate which is very similar, then they might be fine for purchasing from. But if you are far north, southern bees simply will not be acclimated. You can check in your area for treatment free bees and queens, and that can be a good source if found. Where I live there are a number of apiaries which supply treatment free bees and queens.But even though I have local treatment free sources, I do not use them. Instead I acquire what is termed feral bees. Not only are they mite resistant, gentle, and fully acclimated to the area, but they are also free. Feral bees are usually easy to obtain in the spring, from May through July.See the chapter on "Acquiring Feral Bees" for more information at this.If your only source for bees is to order from far away, and they are unacclimated to your area, then after they have built up sufficiently during the summer, you will need to remove the queen and let them raise another one. An unacclimated queen from the south taken to the far north is highly unlikely to make it through the winter. But if you remove her, and let them raise a new queen, she will mate with 10 to 20 local, and hopefully acclimated drones, and produce a population that will be likely be sufficiently acclimated for the area to make it through the winter. Once you have hives that are acclimated to your area and good producers, then use splits of these superior hives to increase the number of hives. Natural Cell Sizing What we refer to here as natural cell sizing is referred to as small cell by many people. This implies that the standard size cells are the normal, and the small are a deviation from that. Nothing could be further from the truth. Well over 100 years ago upsizing begun. The idea was that a larger bee could carry a larger load, and with the bigger is better mentality, foundation for comb grew from a normal natural size of from 4.8 to 4.9 mm to 5.4 and sometimes as large as 5.6 mm.This is the change we referred to earlier, that allowed the varroa mite to jump to the honeybee after millions of years of living together. Since the mite was a parasite of the Asian bee which is significantly larger, the naturally sized bees were simply too small for them to proliferate. But with the upsizing of the bees, where workers became as large as naturally sized drones, they suddenly became compatible.Besides having the larger cell of the enlarged comb to reproduce, the larger bees had looser fitting exoskeletons, so the adult mite can easily suck the adults blood, whereas the smaller naturally sized bees have tight fitting tergits or exoskeletons, making it impossible or more difficult to suck any blood.Lastly, a varroa mite appears much larger to a bee which is not artificially enlarged, making sensing and grooming more efficient.Also, although tracheal mites are generally no longer much of a problem, the smaller air passages in a naturally sized bee are a good defense against this parasite as well.Letting unnaturally large bees, as you will often get if you purchase bees, regress to their natural size can easily take decades if simply allowed to build their own foundationless comb. Bees will only build comb .2 to .3 mm smaller than they are, so on the first iteration approximately 5.1 to 5.2 comb will be built by 5.4 mm bees. But regression to near natural size of 4.9 mm can be done in a couple of months to a year at most.The simplest method is when bees are acquired, put them either on drawn small cell comb, or foundation. For most swarms this works exceedingly well. And in a couple of months you will have naturally sized bees.But some large cell bees will simply refuse to draw naturally sized (Small cell, 4.9mm) foundation without completely messing it up. For these there is plastic comb, most notably Mann Lake PF100 and PF120. Although bees will often try to not use it, spraying with honey will usually get them to accept it. No wax combs should be present when introducing plastic comb, or the plastic comb will be totally ignored.The other method, the one I use, is to provide the swarm with foundationless frames. After they have built comb, which will typically be around 5.1 mm if they are 5.4 to start with, and a brood cycles has emerged, move the frames to the side, and place the 4.9 foundation in the center. Since the bees that will be building new comb will be the newly emerged bees, they will happily draw the 4.9 mm foundation perfectly. The larger 5.1 or so natural comb will then be used for pollen and honey storage, which is fine.One last problem that can be encountered when regressing oversized bees to 4.9 is that sometimes the queen is simply too fat to be able to lay in naturally sized cells. If this happens let them build some comb in foundationless frames. They will typically build 5.1 or so mm comb, and the queen will lay in it. Once there are eggs and young brood in the comb, then the queen can be removed and they will raise a new queen on the 5.1 comb that will not be too fat to lay in the 4.9. Unlimited Brood Nest This is essential to a strong productive hive. Many beekeepers give the bees one deep super for their brood. But if you want a strong hive, which can produce a bumper crop of honey, they need 3 deeps, or the equivalent of 6 mediums, for the brood nest. This is the bees' part of the hive, and only those supers put above the 3rd deep will contain surplus honey for the beekeeper, unless the brood nest becomes honey bound.Studies have shown that doubling the number of bees will generally give at least 4 times as much surplus honey. That is one hive of 60,000 bees will produce twice as much honey as 2 with 30,000. And for a hive of 120,000 bees, it will quadruple again, producing around 16 times as much honey as one with 30,000 bees. So giving the queen unlimited space to lay is essential to producing large surpluses.With an unlimited brood nest, you will generally have two frames of honey and pollen on each side of each super. This will provide them with good insulation, and be a buffer to temperature variations. So a hive with 3 deeps, and 4 frames of honey and pollen in each will have around 100 pounds of honey for the bees. This will be sufficient to take them through any lulls in the summer, as well as provide food for winter and spring build up in all but the harshish climates.Often the bees will fill these lower supers with honey during a flow, especially the top one. This will crowd the brood nest, a situation called being honey bound. In this case the beekeeper will need to either take those frames in the center, and extract them, or give them to another hive which is short of stores, or add another super, and move them up to the outside of that super, replacing them with empty comb, or foundation.An unlimited brood nest will not only allow the hive to become extra strong, but will also reduce the tendency to swarm. In fact an unlimited brood nest is the one best thing a beekeeper can do to prevent swarming. So preventing it from becoming honey bound is a top priority, especially in the spring when they are more inclined to swarm. Drone Comb Traditional beekeepers usually want no drone comb. To them a drone is a wasted resource. But in natural beekeeping you want about 10% of the brood comb to be drone. It should be toward the outside of the brood nest. Drones act as a magnet for parasites. The comb is located so that if a skunk or something gets to the brood, the drones will be the first to get eaten. And as we learned earlier, the varroa will reproduce in drone brood instead of worker brood if any is available. If any do end up reproducing, then it is the drones which end up with a short life, or viral diseases, not the workers, without any repercussions to the hive. Also workers go through many jobs inside the hive, from feeding the brood and queen, to housekeeping, guarding, producing wax and building comb. A worker will spend weeks inside the hive before becoming a forager so a mite that was on the worker when it emerged will have plenty of time to move to other bees and infect more brood. But a drone leaves the hive almost as soon as it emerges, and mites tend to fall off of flying bees, so many will be removed from the hive soon after emerging and before reproducing.If your bees are regressed so they will build natural sized comb of 4.9 or smaller, then simply letting them build comb using foundationless frames will result in them putting the proper amount of drone comb in the corners. Otherwise, when using foundation, you can cut the corners of the foundation out, leaving room for the drone comb to be built. No Chemicals or Drugs This sounds simple enough. When the methods in this book are applied to your bees, no chemicals or drugs are needed.Mites are a non-issue. You learn to not even think about them because they simply are not present, or in such low numbers they do not impact the hive. You will find that even dusting with sugar, as many beekeepers do, shortens the worker's lives much more than the few mites that may be killed.There are other chemicals often used in hives as well. When removing surplus honey, a fume board may be considered. But the natural way is to have an empty super next to the hive, and you simply remove each frame, brush the bees off, and place in the empty super. Covering it when not placing another frame in it will keep the robber bees away. Once you have transferred all the frames, then remove the empty super from the hive, and use it to place more frames the bees have been brushed from the next hive.It is imperative that if you are starting beekeeping to start chemical free, and with 4.9 foundation. Once you have drawn comb oversized or contaminated comb, then it will have to be disposed of if chemicals are EVER used, and of course large cell comb is of limited use, only for honey storage. Although this can be done, it makes things much more difficult for swapping frames between supers and hives, so it is best to work all large cell comb out of the hives as quickly as possible.It is a big plus to label your honey as drug and chemical free. But to do so requires no chemicals at all, not even a fume board.Lastly many beekeepers treat for nosema and foulbrood with drugs, such as fumidil. This drug will get into the wax and honey, and cause harm to the bees over time. Once again, when comb has been exposed to this drug, it will need to be removed and disposed of. One problem with any antibiotic, including fumidil is that it kills the beneficial bacteria in the bee's gut. When bacteria are removed the bee can have problems with digestion, conversion of nectar to honey, and degrading various poisons she is exposed to. Many beekeepers confuse diarrhea with nosema. When bees are cooped up for long periods of time during the winter, with no way to expel their waste, then the first nice day may cause them to leave and evacuate their intestines. The long period since they last did this can cause diarrhea like symptoms, but it is totally normal and nothing to be concerned about. Nosema can be caused by water condensation, and poor ventilation.
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