Why treatment free for us

When we first thought about getting bees, I read every recommended book and paper I could get my hands on. When we got our first hives my wife and I had every intention of treating for mites because that is what we where told to do. So, we got our hives up and running and checked for mites and our counts where 0 to1 so we had no need to treat our first couple of months. About 6 months into our first year my wife had some major medical issues which caused us to rethink how we handled everything in our lives. We decided to change our lifestyles and how we took care of ourselves, and the things around us in the way of how we cared for are animals and how we grew our own food. With that we had a long discussion about the bees and couldn’t bring ourselves to put chemicals in the hive to propagate that dispersion possibly into the honey and wax and what it would do to the bees themselves. I began to research not treating the bees and there were a few people with info that I found like Kirk Webster and Michael Bush and read everything on there websites and actually have reread all their info several times. After this research we decided to follow the treatment free approach with info, we have learned form all these other sources. We have started to develop our own plan for keeping our bees in our area the process won’t be easy and expect losses until we can develop and rear a bee up in the northland that can survive the mites and the cold. We believe this endeavor is worth the effort for the bee’s overall health and surviveability, and to supply chemical free products to our customers for years to come.