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And of course the more you help your individuals the more you weaken your local population.... (Just in case it works) Resistance-conferring genes are what bees need to simply return to their independent state. The basis of treatment-free beekeeping is helping that happen. Anything you do that...

Fair enough, I suppose I hijacked it first. Apple cider (hard or otherwise) doesn't interest me. Its a treatment, in the treatment free section, and should be in the health section as you suggest. In an ideal world the thread might be split and moved/relabelled...

Yes, but we've wandered. The bulk of the thread is now about treatment free beekeeping.

When I write to forums I write to anybody who might want to learn something from me. That's probably not you. Being 'aware' of natural selection etc is not the same thing as knowing much about it. Whether or not the natural world is different from 'hobbyist beekeeping' depends entirely...

What is the 'it' that is complicated? What is the complication that we need to know in order to do what bees do all on their own? What is the complication that was faced by bee farmers in Ancient Egypt, or is faced by uneducated subsistence farmers in Africa? As John Kefuss says: When you...

Last I spoke to him he was leaving the forums, heartily sick of the nonsense he and other 'unorthodox' beekeepers had to put up with. Lets try to get an update before judging; but also remember that he may have been perfectly right in everything he said about bees and beekeeping, but chosen...

Not at all. Its not getting distracted by, lost in, unnecessary details. Its the fundamentals that matter: and the fundamental is that natural selection is operating at all levels - as described. Many many beasties and plants have weird and wonderful *** lives. What works works. ALL have...

Perhaps your idea of 'debate' is different to mine! :)

There are several things to consider: first queenside and droneside, second competitive mating, third good old fashioned weeding out. Before those: evolution. Evolution made the bee, just as it made you and I and every other living thing on the planet. And the basic fundamental is: if and...

He appears to be around still https://parkerbees.square.site/

It's not a debate. It's not about debating definitions. It's about the informing of people who are unaware, or only vaguely aware, of the facts of nature, of the essentials of husbandry. About the consequences of beekeepers actions, and the possibilities that a return to genetic husbandry...

Ok, so why are you here in the treatment free section? Just to give us your definition of beekeeping? 'Husbandry' has two meanings. The first is the 'husbandry' of the genes down through the generations. It refers to the age-old and essential practice of choosing only the best individuals to...

It doesn't have to be. Many people are choosing to work with nature instead of frustrating her.

Why. We can simply give them a nice nesting site and then leave them to their own devices. You have, beekeeping at large has, commercial beekeeping has. Me, I do what I can to let nature work the bees problems out. Its much much better at that than I am. The most effective at what? At...

I was thinking of perhaps (heritable) sensitivities to things like to specific odours, sounds or vibrations. I'd regard those things as enabled by 'special equipment' (until somebody convinces me they are not). Doesn't a behaviour originate in specific proteins that equip the organism with a...

I think its worth taking into account the co-evolutionary dynamics that are a standing feature of predator/prey relationships. There is an evolutionary 'arms race' constantly playing out, particularly in parasitic settings. I think this is seen in the hive strategies that tend to lower mite...

A few thoughts: Americans call apple juice cider, and fermented apple juice hard cider. That's the extent of my knowledge on that topic. Aromatic herbs have evolved because the oil-based aromatic compounds disrupt predatory organisms. When sheep graze my field they scoff the grass, but won't...

Marvellous, thank you Buffon

Hmmm. If we want to stop the constant corrosion of wild honeybees by unresistant commercial genes, then we do. If we want to restore to our local ecologies the services that belong there, then we do. I suppose in theory that everywhere local wild bees are messed up, treatment-addicted bees...

The best way of not treating (in fact the only way that makes semantic sense) is to.... not treat. ('Treat' here means any and every action designed to help the individual colony). Just bait for feral swarms or locate queens from successful non-treaters (my sense above); then do nothing while...