As one of the few (at least one of the few who is prepared to stick his head above the parapet !) treatment free beekeepers on here I have no objection to anyone wishing to follow a treatment free regime - my issue with Hugh's plan is the element of swarming - I still think it is unnecessary and counter productive if the desire is to find strains of bees that are resistant to varroa. Better to keep those bees and grow the stock in a managed but low interference way - measure the success by perfoming sugar rolls on the survivor colonies. Although, in an area that is as remote as he describes, I'm not sure whether this is just an esoteric exercise ... if the area is only populated by feral bees it will be unlikely that any firm conclusions can be drawn. Better, like me, keep bees in an area that has a recognised varroa problem and see how the 'experiment' develops.
I've been treatment free since day 1 of my beekeeping and I haven't lost any significant numbers of colonies over the years and within those few losses I have not been able to identify any that have been the result of varroa or the diseases vectored by the parasite.
My regime has been well documented on here .. Nothing goes into the hive unless the bees bring it in .. they build their own comb without foundation, they are fed, if they need it, with syrup (invertbee) going into winter but they are left with as much of their own honey in the brood box as they choose to store there. They live in highly insulated hives and my inspections are limited to looking for signs of swarming during the critical months of the swarm season and for disease. I sugar roll to check for varroa although, these days, having proved to my satisfaction that signs of infestation can often be a spike and a return to low levels follows, I check less than I used to. Having seen really heavily infested hives, the infestation is usually accompanied by other signs in the colony and from my experience, by that point, it is probably too late. Indeed, those colonies (despite best efforts to treat them) are often those colonies that will fail - or will become infested again - treatment and re-treatment may keep them going but I wonder whether nature should be allowed to take its course. There appears to be a susceptibility to varroa, in some colonies, in some localities. in some circumstances, although the actual reason for their susceptibility is not altogether clear. Whilst ever these bees are treated we are not going to know whether a change in regime could have a beneficial effect on the varroa population in the colony - yes, there is a risk and I recognise that bees are a valuable asset (not a commodity as Hugh would suggest) but ... Darwinian theory suggests that all species evolve in the face of change.
I don't think that feral colonies are any different to untreated managed colonies - some survive some don't, but it's almost impossible to determine why a feral colony survives or doesn't - indeed, the re-use of bee-favoured sites that have been vacated is very common and this may lead to a misconception that there are survivor colonies around when the reality it is re-colonisation by a new colony.
I wish I had been fortunate to have a mentor when I started out that shared my principles .. I found only resistance from other beekeepers and if I was told once that my bees would die I was told a hundred times - occasionally (less frequently now) I am told my bees are 'varroa bombs' and I am a threat to 'responsible beekeepers'. I have always checked for varroa and if I thought a colony was infested to the point where they were beyond the point they could manage the load I would have taken appropriate action. I had very few people to follow (a few on here were a guiding light - often by PM only - and I received some small encouragement at times) - but much of the time it was and remains trial and error. I've read a lot of the 'science' and I regret that most of it is subjective analysis with little or no veracity except, like me, a conviction that bees can survive without being treated for varroa.
My home apiary is in the centre of an area where there are large numbers of beekeepers - some treat, some don't, I live near the centre of town but within bee distance of farmland, allotments, parks, railway bankings and floral planting, there is a wide variety of forage for virtually 10 months of the year in the micro climate we enjoy in this locality. I do sometimes wonder whether this contributes to the success of a no-treatment regime. There are very few real brood breaks in my locaion to naturally curtail the varroa cycle - perhaps just December and January - as I said, we have a fortunate micro climate where there is very little in the way of extreme cold for any length of time.
There are many factors that contribute to bees who manage the varroa mite .. again, nobody really knows what the principal reasons are why some colonies survive with varroa and others fail.
Whether the lack of treatment with varroacides is one of them I don't know but if I treated my bees I would no longer be able to continue to test the various other aspects that may contribute to bees surviving and thriving alongside the varroa mite. In recent years alongside my local mongrels I have bought in native queens from other areas to compare their performance - It's early days but the smaller black bees seem to have lesser varroa loads than those that are derived from wider and much interbred stock - they both survive but the mite load appears to be consistently lower in the small black bees - I hesitate to use the word native because even these bees must have been mongralised at some point.
I welcome the OP's foray into the dark side ... I think, at present, the simplistic path encouraged by some of his readings and viewings may not, altogether, yield the results he appears to hope for. I certainly don't feel that simply releasing bees as swarms to become feral bees has any veracity in any sort of beekeeping.
As always, I would add the caveat - don't follow me along this path unless you are committed to it .. it's a hard ride and it's not just a case of stopping treatment.
