Recent content by PBee

Practical beekeeping requires colonies to stay alive as viable honey production units where possible. What would be credible would be a claim that your bees have reasonable/good average honey production with minimal treatment (LASI e.g). You herald your record keeping so it would be more...

I think to have any credibility you need to give better detail on actual losses, including those not commercially viable, out of total hive numbers. To achieve the averages you post you must be excluding losses or non viable colonies. The island mated carnica from Celle are far from varroa...

Your claim not to have treated for varroa since the mid 1990’s is incredible – particularly in the light of the high average honey yields posted.

This paper looks like it may vindicate the simple maternal selection/culling method in the context of local cooperation or some degree of isolation. Starting point was very aggressive AHB, 12 years later (with just the selection pressure of destruction of nests) a gentle AHB that retained its...

The one reasonable shot of a frame suggests the colony was killed by varroa some time ago. http://globegazette.com/news/iowa/fundraiser-nets-honey-for-iowa-bee-business-destroyed-by-vandals/article_d1727855-55be-5a5d-9c7e-e93e68fb6424.html

For Carnica/Mellifera (or reciprocal) crosses Ruttner states the outcome for F1 to be 30% increase in honey production but temper and stability will be much worse. For Ligustica/Carnica good yields in F1 but again very poor temper and stability, and for the reciprocal cross temper OK but yields...

Thanks for that. I wouldn’t be too worried about internal drifting as I can monitor/control the level of varroa in my own. You can't prevent your colonies robbing out collapsing outside colonies but if entrance defence against non apiary bees is as significant a vector as the study seems to...

The pointed waist is ok but the head is all wrong.

I think it is simply an assisted natural selection to select for resistance without reducing fitness so much as to jeopardise the whole program or lose other desirable traits. The alternative being the ‘nuclear winter’ scenario, as Kefuss and others used, where no treatment is applied and the...

I inadvertently do this when I forget to close the honey shed door (about 100m from the home apiary). Robbing will probably only be an issue if you have weak colonies/new nucs in the area. As an observation it might be an idea to site an open feeder over 80/100m away from the hives where...

There seems to be a definite statement indicating a restricted routine of treatment aimed at the getting the most resistant, which indicates resistance has not been achieved.

There was a good article published in Bee world at the end of 2016 summarising progress in the selection of resistance in German honeybees by Ralph Büchler & Aleksandar Uzunov of the Kirchhain institute . They do not mention any lines of self sustaining bees and refer to varroa treatment where...

Anecdotal information without qualification should be graded on where it lies within the norm and any interests that might be involved. The average honey yields in the research above compare reasonably well with FAOSTAT(2010) figures for Finland (46kg) and they are among the highest in Europe...

It was published in 2006 and seems to be a review of 12 years breeding effort. It’s core point is also reflected to an extent in current work regarding immunocompetence and selection. On the drone flooding - It is a valid technique but it does probably depend, at least partially, on the...

It’s possible that LASI are proceeding in the correct manner for the progression of viability and they do seem to have a large body of research in support of their methods. There is a paper published by Celle which seems to indicate a questioning of their own methods...