Treatment Free?

Background: My first year keeping bees started off great! Package install went smooth other than some anxiety and nervous jitter. Both queens successfully released, the girls slurped down the syrup, and they built out some beautiful come. I had a great spot that provided water, pollen and a bounty of nectar. I followed all of the books and advice, and both hives were dead before Christmas…I was confused and sad. After asking my mentor and others the consensus was mite…

History: “Better Living Through Chemicals” is the way we like to do things in the US. When Varroa first hit the scene, the immediate answer was to study mites and look for chemicals that would kill the mites while only doing minimal damage to the bees…and we did a great job at finding things. The only issue with going this route was the overuse of the chemicals, because if a little is good, MOAR is betterar! Soon the quick fix stopped working and we were on the pesticide carousel. Even today Amitraz after the longest run yet is on the ropes with mites showing pretty hard resistance.

IRPM: I have so far done what I think is a good job with IRPM. I’ve rotated chemicals, done the washed, made splits, drone frames, all the things to keep my mites in check and to manage healthy colonies.

Treatment Free: It’s a very polarizing set of two words…. say those words in a beek meeting and prepare for the gloves to come off. Fortunately, this hasn’t been in the past few years and there are more people are experimenting and finding success. There are entire countries that for one reason or another took the very hard losses up front and then bred from the surviving stock resulting in bees that had adapted to this new pest and just shrugged it off.

My next post will walk through how I’m planning to move towards not treating my colonies.