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#21
FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE / Re: Betty had a baby calf, vid...
Last post by Ben Framed - January 21, 2025, 09:37:46 PMQuote from: gww on January 21, 2025, 09:04:07 PM
Yep. Added to that, they changed the law just like on bees and you can no longer go in and get your own antibiotics with out a vet bill attached if you need it.
I don?t know but would suspect lobbyist succeeded for their clients . 🤷🏻♂️
We have always had access to antibiotics for farm animals and pets.
#22
FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE / Re: Betty had a baby calf, vid...
Last post by gww - January 21, 2025, 09:04:07 PMYep. Added to that, they changed the law just like on bees and you can no longer go in and get your own antibiotics with out a vet bill attached if you need it.
#23
GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Varroa is finally in my ar...
Last post by The15thMember - January 21, 2025, 08:56:08 PMI mean, it kind of depends on your goals and how many bees you are willing to lose. A novel pest like this will take out colonies no matter what, so I'd prepare myself for the fact that some losses will be inevitable.
There is an extreme end of the spectrum that says to just live and let die in a situation like this. Let colonies get infected and cull/requeen or simply let varroa take out the weak ones. It's natural selection, the strong survive, and the colonies that are left will be more resilient. The downside, of course, is you could lose everything. The other extreme end of the spectrum is to always treat, on a schedule or whenever colonies hit a predetermined threshold. The downside here is you are breeding bees that will always need to rely on the treatment.
Neither of these options are wrong, but I personally prefer a more middle of the road approach. Basically I'm at the point where I'm willing to have to treat with oxalic acid. It's cheap and easy to apply, so for the moment at least, I'm treating all the colonies with at least 1 round of OAV in the winter, as a little bit of an assist. If I have a colony the needs more help than that, they get requeened. I will treat a crashing colony with something powerful, like FormicPro, to keep a mite bomb from spreading, but that's all.
I'm also kind of off of the idea of treating based on a % infestation alone, because some strains of bees are resilient to mites, as opposed to resistant, meaning they can handle a high mite load without crashing. So I'm more inclined to eliminate a colony from reproduction based on symptoms of PMS or really high mites counts, like double digits. I'm less focused on keeping numbers down, and more on finding out which colonies are able to handle themselves on their own, because my goal is to use as little treatments as possible and someday, hopefully none.
There is an extreme end of the spectrum that says to just live and let die in a situation like this. Let colonies get infected and cull/requeen or simply let varroa take out the weak ones. It's natural selection, the strong survive, and the colonies that are left will be more resilient. The downside, of course, is you could lose everything. The other extreme end of the spectrum is to always treat, on a schedule or whenever colonies hit a predetermined threshold. The downside here is you are breeding bees that will always need to rely on the treatment.
Neither of these options are wrong, but I personally prefer a more middle of the road approach. Basically I'm at the point where I'm willing to have to treat with oxalic acid. It's cheap and easy to apply, so for the moment at least, I'm treating all the colonies with at least 1 round of OAV in the winter, as a little bit of an assist. If I have a colony the needs more help than that, they get requeened. I will treat a crashing colony with something powerful, like FormicPro, to keep a mite bomb from spreading, but that's all.
I'm also kind of off of the idea of treating based on a % infestation alone, because some strains of bees are resilient to mites, as opposed to resistant, meaning they can handle a high mite load without crashing. So I'm more inclined to eliminate a colony from reproduction based on symptoms of PMS or really high mites counts, like double digits. I'm less focused on keeping numbers down, and more on finding out which colonies are able to handle themselves on their own, because my goal is to use as little treatments as possible and someday, hopefully none.
#24
GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: BeeMaster slow and not res...
Last post by gww - January 21, 2025, 08:53:03 PMGood luck man.
#25
OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES FORUM / Re: Gold prospecting using a m...
Last post by Lesgold - January 21, 2025, 08:19:45 PMHaven?t had a chance to get out prospecting over the past few months so I decided to photograph 2024?s finds and lock it away. There were a couple of nice little chunks in the pile.
#26
EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Today I Made
Last post by Lesgold - January 21, 2025, 08:02:30 PMMade a bunch of sticky board mats to put into the screened bottom boards. With varroa in the area, I want to see what?s going on in the hives.
#27
GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Varroa is finally in my ar...
Last post by Lesgold - January 21, 2025, 07:57:07 PMPretty much the same treatments that you have. Treatment is recommended at 3% during peak population. From memory, API bioxal has also been approved. It?s windy today so I can?t get into the hives to perform a few washes.
#28
EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Two queen hive
Last post by Lesgold - January 21, 2025, 07:48:58 PMThanks guys. We move on and step up to challenges as they arrive.
#29
GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / BeeMaster slow and not respond...
Last post by BeeMaster2 - January 21, 2025, 07:39:17 PMAll,
We are well aware that BeeMaster members and guests are having problems getting on BeeMaster and very slow responses. I have been in contact with out IT almost every day. So much so that I feel bad just letting him know that we are experiencing problems again and again.
We have found out that we are not the only forum that is experiencing extremely high numbers of guests visiting their sites for the last month and are having the same problems.
If you look at the bottom of the BeeMaster page you can see the number of guests on today was and the max number ever noted. There you can see we are around a max today of 3000 at one point compared to a maximum of almost 22,000 on the fifteenth of this month. That doesn?t sound realistic. For the last few days it has remained very high, more than ten thousand. We are in the process of switching to a newer server that should fix this problem. Please bee patient, it is a very involved process and will bee a few more weeks before we can switch.
Jim Altmiller
We are well aware that BeeMaster members and guests are having problems getting on BeeMaster and very slow responses. I have been in contact with out IT almost every day. So much so that I feel bad just letting him know that we are experiencing problems again and again.
We have found out that we are not the only forum that is experiencing extremely high numbers of guests visiting their sites for the last month and are having the same problems.
If you look at the bottom of the BeeMaster page you can see the number of guests on today was and the max number ever noted. There you can see we are around a max today of 3000 at one point compared to a maximum of almost 22,000 on the fifteenth of this month. That doesn?t sound realistic. For the last few days it has remained very high, more than ten thousand. We are in the process of switching to a newer server that should fix this problem. Please bee patient, it is a very involved process and will bee a few more weeks before we can switch.
Jim Altmiller
#30
ADMINISTRATION FORUM / Trouble Accessing Beemaster Re...
Last post by The15thMember - January 21, 2025, 07:35:20 PMWe moderators just wanted to post this to keep everyone informed. Everyone has been experiencing very slow loading times and errors that prevent access to the forum recently. We are preparing for a move to a new server, so whenever that happens, the problems should be resolved. We're having a suspicious overload of guests right now that seems to be at least partially crawlers and spambots combing the site, and that should cease when we get the updated security of the new server. Our IT experts are working on the situation currently. Thanks for your patience, everyone.