Bee Patties

So something I didn't know about bees is how susceptible they are to many parasites and diseases. Every major and most minor beekeepers use a lot of pesticides and chemicals to keep disease down. These chemicals are so nasty it is actually illegal to collect honey for sale while some of them are being used. We are going to attempt to keep disease down in our bees without using anything toxic. Our neighbor uses this philosophy and his bees are very healthy. Many beekeepers would say this is crazy, but we are going to try. Hopefully we aren't just being idealistic, but it seems excessive to be constantly medicating them if you keep them healthy.
Tonight I made some bee patties made from Crisco, livestock salt, sugar and honey. The bees eat the patties and in the process they get greased up. This keeps both tracheal and varroa mites down because they can't get a good grip on the bee. We have a screen and sticky paper at the bottom of the hive to catch all the mites that fall off the slippery bees. A suspected benefit to this greasing is increased longevity in the bees - about a week. Soon we will also dust the bees with powdered sugar - this promotes grooming and again prevents the varroa mites from getting a good grip. They fall down on to the sticky paper and die.