Treatment Free

[Erichalfbee]

I understand very little in bee or any other genetics so please explain something to me. The queen mates with many drones coming from many colonies. If these colonies have bees of different sizes to one another, won't the mated queen then lay workers of various sizes. And if cell size is caused by bee size wouldn't this cause different cell sizes in the hive? I'm getting very confused.

I share your confusion. Perhaps bee size has nothing to do with genes and is solely dependent on cell size ? Do you get long thin drones with small cell?

 

[fiat500bee]

I understand very little in bee or any other genetics so please explain something to me. The queen mates with many drones coming from many colonies. If these colonies have bees of different sizes to one another, won't the mated queen then lay workers of various sizes. And if cell size is caused by bee size wouldn't this cause different cell sizes in the hive? I'm getting very confused.

From what I read recently by Michael Bush, it's the other way round; if the bees make smaller cells then you get smaller pupae The smaller pupae require slightly less time (maybe as much as a day) to metamorphose into smaller adult bees. This gives the verroa mite less time to do their thing inside the cell and fewer verroa are successfully mated. But don't trust me, I'm just a beginner and speed reader skimmer and I'm bound to have picked up something wrong.

 

[Erichalfbee]

From what I read recently by Michael Bush, it's the other way round; if the bees make smaller cells then you get smaller pupae The smaller pupae require slightly less time (maybe as much as a day) to metamorphose into smaller adult bees. This gives the verroa mite less time to do their thing inside the cell and fewer verroa are successfully mated. But don't trust me, I'm just a beginner and speed reader skimmer and I'm bound to have picked up something wrong.

Wouldn’t this be evened out by the increase in the number of cells?

 

[amandaj57]

Wouldn’t this be evened out by the increase in the number of cells?

With my maths hat on, yes I see what you mean about more small cells evening out the number of mites but the percentage of mites to bees would be lower.

 

[Madge]

I share your confusion. Perhaps bee size has nothing to do with genes and is solely dependent on cell size ? Do you get long thin drones with small cell?

The bound feet of the honey-bee world?

 

[Beesnaturally]

Seems to me that anybody who relies solely on bees for an income would be totally potty to even attempt treatment free beekeeping. Will only ever end in tears in my opinion.

Unless you had a project to raise treatment free bees from the start and were prepared to tolerate large losses and no income for a number of years.

Then you might find yourself in the position of having 100 or so colonies of bees that are perfectly capable of looking after themselves, and give a fair average crop. And, given that you are in a position to live very cheaply, that supplies your whole income.

The question is would that count as 'commercial?

 

[madasafish]

By "commercial" it is someone who draws a wage from their business and makes a profit.

"Uncommercial" means draws no wage or draws a wage and makes a loss...

And Minimum Wage applies...!

All the rest are playing.

 

[john w]

I share your confusion. Perhaps bee size has nothing to do with genes and is solely dependent on cell size ? Do you get long thin drones with small cell?

It is fairly straight forward. Small bees create small cell sizes. Larger bees create larger cell sizes. It is independent of the genetics/drones/locality/species of bee. There were some theories about smaller bees eg Apis Cerana that have a smaller capped stage of their development and therefore Shorter opportunity time for varroa to breed (they do this during the capped phase). I think that expert view (Oddie, Steve Martin etc) are moving away from the shorter capped phase which occurs with smaller bees, towards the growing understanding about the recapping phenomena that occurs in lots of small bees and some larger ones.

For info - the drones are just as large as regular size drones but queens bred in small cell colonies are a bit smaller - not too small to be able to get through a queen excluder - yet!

I hope that is clearer than mud!

john

 

[Gardeners Beehive Guy]

You've picked up a random post in reply to another ...

I don't treat my bees for varroa - however, I'm not particularly selective and I don't worry unduly about proliferating bees that can't withstand varroa - my view to some extent is that bee genetics at local level with open mating are almost impossible to control. I like to keep queens that produce strong healthy colonies and I have a mix of home bred and bought in queens. The only thing I won't tolerate is agressive colonies and they (the couple that I've had over the years) do get re-queened. My colonies produce large numbers of drones and I let them ... if they want drones they can have drones - with over 100 apiaries within a 3km radius of my apiary it's going to be a very varied mix of drones. A queen will want to mate with the highest flying, fastest flying drones and by definition these will be the healthiest - and those are obviously the drones I would want my queens to mate with.

Hello everyone
Just a quick story.
so a few years ago there was a larg EFB out break in Essex. I was asked by the Essex bee inspector to help with a number of GARDENERS BEEHIVES. The previous week they had burnt almost all the conventional hives on this farm. A note at this time is my system is not an apery system but some hives where in eye shot of the commercial apery s.
So we started testing and testing. Nothing!! No efb. No fab. No verroa. And the verdict at the end of the days work of inspecting.
You are lucky.
Well I’m sorry. But after 40 years of natural beekeeping. It’s a little more than luck.
my hives are not treatment free. I just don’t administer the treatment. I give the bees the tools to help themselves.
Just thought you would like to know.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hello everyone
Just a quick story.
so a few years ago there was a larg EFB out break in Essex. I was asked by the Essex bee inspector to help with a number of GARDENERS BEEHIVES. The previous week they had burnt almost all the conventional hives on this farm. A note at this time is my system is not an apery system but some hives where in eye shot of the commercial apery s.
So we started testing and testing. Nothing!! No efb. No fab. No verroa. And the verdict at the end of the days work of inspecting.
You are lucky.
Well I’m sorry. But after 40 years of natural beekeeping. It’s a little more than luck.
my hives are not treatment free. I just don’t administer the treatment. I give the bees the tools to help themselves.
Just thought you would like to know.

Are you Kevin by any chance?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Hello everyone
Just a quick story.
so a few years ago there was a larg EFB out break in Essex. I was asked by the Essex bee inspector to help with a number of GARDENERS BEEHIVES. The previous week they had burnt almost all the conventional hives on this farm. A note at this time is my system is not an apery system but some hives where in eye shot of the commercial apery s.
So we started testing and testing. Nothing!! No efb. No fab. No verroa.

Thing is with foulbrood, you can find hives next to each other in an apiary, one riddled and the other clean - proves nothing.
And if they had no varroa - why wasn't it in the press? because it would have been the only varroa free colony in the UK.

 

[madasafish]

deleted.. made no sense - error

 

[madasafish]

"It seems to relate to their propensity to recap cells ie they detect varroa presence within cells and then they bore a small hole in the cell capping, disrupting the equilibrium of temp and humidity. "

"seems"..

Holes in cappings are a WELL KNOWN sign of excess varroa irrespective of cell size.

If you are suggesting they are associated only with bees in small cells . I would love to see your evidence. A link to the appropriate scientific paper will suffice - no need to quote from it..

My bees do not appear to be small cell.. last time I measure my TBHs after 5 years of them the size was 5.4 mm and my Langs appear the same. Both colony types appeared to show holes in cappings associated with excess varroa.. And visible mites and DWV appear to confirm this.
Our Association apiary is the same as are other hives I mentor for others.


I would welcome your link as above to show I am just wrong.

 

[happyculteur]

I hope that is clearer than mud!

It will be if you explain the following to me:1) half sisters are often of different sizes. So ,according to what you say, this is not genetic, ??
2) these different sized half sisters will build different sized cells ?? So,
3) In the same hive we will find several sizes of worker cell depending on who built them ?
4) If several half sisters are working on a cell together, who decides what the size is going to be ?

Sorry if this seems like being awkward, but it takes me time to understand things.

 

[charentejohn]

Couple of points raised, I think they build the cell size they want rather than a set size. I read that bees were bred larger once as they thought they would make more honey. Left alone they revert to smaller cell size as their environment requires ? Most animals regress to what is best wherever they are.
I did like the re-capping info above, I passed it on to others as intriguing

On the TF commercial enterprises I will link again to the 'go to' guy on doing this. He has been doing this for 35yrs and just never started using treatments.
He has lots of info for those doing this, especially how to boost 'stock' which is not my side of things. Just 2 hives but he is very informative and when people say commercial TF can't be done I usually just point them to Scot. Beekeeping From Scratch

 

[bingevader]

I think they build the cell size they want rather than a set size.

Totally anecdotally, as I have taken no measurements, but the bees in the Warre hives seem to do just this.
When I look through, there are predominantly smaller cells, but then also patches of larger cells for the drones.
It's interesting to watch the new bees appear at the entrance, significantly smaller than the adults, there is obviously still some growth after hatching too.

 

[Finman]

It jää been prive in University researches, that small cells do not help in varroa.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I know a local commercial tomato grower who plays classical music to his tomato plants - swears that they grow faster, have less disease and give better crops as a result...perhaps the bees know something we have not yet cottoned on to ? Perhaps piped music into my hives will be my next experiment ...

Suitable suggestions about what may be appropriate would be appreciated ....

Anything by ac/dc?

 

[fiat500bee]

Anything by ac/dc?

.....or maybe "Hive Talking" by The Gee Bees

 

[charentejohn]

Totally anecdotally, as I have taken no measurements, but the bees in the Warre hives seem to do just this.
When I look through, there are predominantly smaller cells, but then also patches of larger cells for the drones.
It's interesting to watch the new bees appear at the entrance, significantly smaller than the adults, there is obviously still some growth after hatching too.

My hive has the same, again can't measure cell size but they do drone cells in random clumps. Smaller cells means less time for varroa to grow but may make no difference, either way they will do what they think is best. The uncapping / recapping thing is interesting though. Rapid parallel evolution overcomes global honey bee parasite So much to learn so little time......