Collaborating

Everything goes so much easier if you can work together. You can ensure a good result so much better if you work together in an area when developing treatment-free/varroa-resistant bees.

When my 150 bee colonies were almost treatment-free, I concluded that it would go faster and better if there were a few more in the area where I had my bees that could spread good drones. I realized that it would be best if my neighbors had not only pretty good resistant bees but very good.

My closest neighbor who had 100 colonies got a breeding queen if he promised to breed some queens after it. That season he produced 53 mated queens to his colonies.

Another colleague close to me with 150 colonies I asked to help me raise queens. In return he could take almost as many laying queens as he needed, and hatching mature queen cells.

Also beginners in the beginners' courses got splits from good colonies and a newly mated queen. After a few years, most of us had almost all colonies treatment free. Today, more than 15 beekeepers in the area are completely treatment-free. We have about 800 bee colonies together.

Several of the beginners were able to set up apiaries with the newly acquired colonies and become treatment-free from the start.

We needed a forum where we could exchange experiences and show how to work treatment free. We started to have an annual conference in November. The beekeepers' district association in our county has now also become involved in the local bee club's efforts.

Members in the neighboring bee clubs are also starting to get their apiaries treatment free, with the help of beekeepers from our club.

We also welcome mini mating-nucs, to help getting own or purchased virgin queens get mated with desirable drones.

Some members of our local bee club have formed an economic association with the purpose to buy honey from beekeepers who work with treatment-free bees in our county Närke and sell the honey in that county.

There are many experiences and tips to be found on these websites.