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hallshoney

House Bee
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Very interesting piece on hygienic bees well worth a look
 
Very interesting piece on hygienic bees well worth a look


I knew this was going to be on, mainly about Rons bees and the viruses they have, which help them survive without treatments.
 
BBC iPlayer - Inside Out South West - 26/10/2015... about 9.25 minutes in.

Declan gives some insight into the Science behind the resistance Ron's bees have evolved against DWV... well worth watching.

Yeghes da
 
It does say the research will be published in the International Scientific Journal if that is of use .
 
Nah, they won't led me download it as I'm outside the UK. Thanks Pete.

Basically..
Ron does not treat his bees or uses any Varroa control.
Bees are showing resistance to a virus common in UK bees that has been called Deformed Wing Virus.... call it DWV "A"

Dr Declan Schroeder from the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth is a Viriologist ( Declan helped me to perfect Southern Blotting when I was working at the MBA researching into a marine virus infecting E.hux coccolithore and causing white tides)

Declan found that Ron's bee were infected by a very similar virus to DWV "A" which he called DWV "B"

Due to the high level of infection of DWV "B" the bees showed a resistance to DWV "A"

There was a short clip of people being immunised against smallpox virus, and a short explanation about how a similar virus to smallpox was used to inoculate the world population... followed by a statement that bee immune system is not the same as ours.

Also images of bees removing varroa mite infected larvae from cells, and talk about how the mites are found on the inspection board with signs of crushing and legs bitten off.

Wonder if one of our computer gurus could get the program onto youtube?

Mytten da
 
images of bees removing varroa mite infected larvae from cells, and talk about how the mites are found on the inspection board with signs of crushing and legs bitten off.

Thanks.

I was at the Indiana State Beekeepers Assoc. meeting this past weekend, giving a presentation. One of the other presenters was Greg Hunt from Purdue University. He and his tech, Krispin Given, are working on grooming behaviour. When they started a number of years ago, the % of chewed mites was very low. They now find 50% of the mites with legs chewed off and holes bitten in their carapace.

My old buddy O'Hanlon has been II their stock with his and is finding the % chewed to be higher. They are calling them ankle biters. He showed me a video taken of bees down on the bottom board within a hive...a SHB crawled across the board and an ankle biter went after that SHB like an arrow, and bit and chewed and stung that beetle like nothing I've ever seen. Very cool!

There are plenty of links to his work. The video below might be a good start, but I haven't watched it....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChiA5-J-sPo
 
Roger Dewhurst of West Cornwall is also researching the Varroa munching behavior of his Apis mellifera mellifera Cornish black bees.

I wonder if this is an across species trait?

However the viral load of honeybees is a subject that need money throwing at it big time to get some research underway.....
this shirley would be better value for money than licensing mid winter trickle acid??

Yeghes da
 
Nah, they won't led me download it as I'm outside the UK. Thanks Pete.
Ron Hoskins' site is here http://www.swindonhoneybeeconservation.org.uk/, there's a lot of reading for you.

The virologist mentioned in the clip is Dr Declan Schroeder. His research project is "Investigation into developing mitigation strategies to control DWV loads in honey bees. " Something about his research on this page, with a downloadable pdf http://www.mba.ac.uk/2015/10/27/a-n...-varroa-associated-honey-bee-colony-collapse/
 
Answer to Michael Palmer and others outside the UK

BBC programs are generally not available outside the UK and are usually only available within the UK for about 4 weeks.

However, someone has been kind enough to add the film clip on Face Book making it available all over the world using the link below.

The second link is the Declan Schroeder ISME paper.

https://www.facebook.com/beethechange.heathershoneybees/videos/641264936011359

http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ismej2015186a.html
 

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