Breeding hygienic bees at Sussex Uni

[susbees]

I'm going Saturday....epic journey c/o the train. Hmm...anyone going Saturday?

 

[Appledown]

Reports?

Could anyone who attended outline the method/s taught?

One thing I'd like to know; what precautions are taken against chilling the rest of the brood? A warm still day is great, but how to make the test if the weather is against you?

Also; does anyone know if using crushed ice or plumber's freezing kit would work as well? Nitrogen seems hard to get hold of, expensive and tricky to handle.

Many thanks in advance,

Roger

 

[MrB]

Steve Taber was the man for this.

whether his work was carried on in the States or not I do not know but his book is a very good read, Breeding Super Bees.

PH

Just bought this on Amazon with a free voucher i was sent

 

[Chris B]

I was there.

Discovered that there is always a small percentage (10% if I remember right) of colonies that naturally exhibit a high degree of hygienic behaviour. However, this is all relative as different colonies will have some hygienic bees and some unhygienic depending on the drones the queen originally mated with.

Testing for hygienic behaviour: there are various tests possible. Preferred method at Sussex freezes a patch of worker brood using liquid nitrogen and then checks it 48 hours later. The comb is actually photographed, before and after, and the results assesed later. A hygienic colony will have removed a high percentage of dead pupae. It's important to test all colonies at the same time for a fair test as hygienic behaviour will vary throughout the season in every colony. They also recomended testing 3 or 4 times in the season and averaging out the results.

You need 30 to 50 colonies to give meaningful results i.e. to identify the hygienic 10%. I think they envisaged BKA's co-ordinating to include members hives to get to those numbers.

Liquid nitrogen isn't cheap. They handed out some info. and I estimated it would cost £500 per season to test a group of colonies, including rental of a proper container.

Breeding from hygienic queens: this will increase the incidence of hygienic behaviour. However, Sussex are also able to provide a screening service on daughter virgin queens - you want the ones with the same father as the workers that exhibit hygienic behaviour. A tiny snip of wing is sufficient to test.

What I found interesting and surprising was that hygienic behaviour is not entirely beneficial. Cleaning out dead pupae can actually spread other brood infections. This was glossed over a bit too much for me. It was also apparent that increasing hygienic behaviour in the gene pool would need to be an ongoing task to give results (against varroa). This is because without artificial human selection the gene pool would revert back to 10% hygienic behaviour. For me this was the showstopper. What's the point in spending so much time and money on a never ending task? At best it's "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

 

[Adam]

It was also apparent that increasing hygienic behaviour in the gene pool would need to be an ongoing task to give results (against varroa). This is because without artificial human selection the gene pool would revert back to 10% hygienic behaviour. For me this was the showstopper. What's the point in spending so much time and money on a never ending task? At best it's "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

The bit I thought was not clearly explained is that they haven't actually proven hygienic behaviour (as demonstrated), results in lower varroa. That is still hypothesis. The current work seems to be do give sufficient hygienic stocks, so they can be compared to a control group.

Adam

 

[Poly Hive]

Tabers work, if I remember rightly was on AFB resistance. How that transfers to Varroa baffles me.

PH

 

[Crg]

Tabers work, if I remember rightly was on AFB resistance. How that transfers to Varroa baffles me.

Detecting a cell has something wrong and needs cleaning up is pretty generic.

 

[Poly Hive]

Indeed it is.

However how does that transfer to varroa? To me it is completely different but then I may be missing something obvious here.

PH

 

[pbh4]

Liquid nitrogen isn't cheap.

It's about the same price as milk (if you buy enough).

 

[mbc]

Thanks for taking the time to report back Chris, very interesting ( especially the glossing over part ! )

 

[victor meldrew]

It's about the same price as milk (if you buy enough).

Just wondered if co2 would suffice ? I'm thinking of fire extinguishers here! I'm sure you could freeze a small patch of brood solid with a blast from one of them .

John Wikinson

 

[Crg]

Indeed it is.

However how does that transfer to varroa? To me it is completely different but then I may be missing something obvious here.

PH

It's speculated it might be fluids released from the varroa feeding on the pupae, or maybe odors given off by the varroa, but nobody seems to know for sure.

If they can detect changes in bees that have been killed from liquid nitrogen within a few hours they must be quite sensitive to changes in odor.

 

[johnnythefridge]

You are on the nail Poly Hive. Liquid nitrogen being the freezing agent of choice, and photographic records were taken immediatley after freezing, and 2 days hence. The %age of cells cleaned out in the mean time by the bees being the indicator of how hygenic the bees were. They chose liquid Nitrogen because it was deemed to be oudourless and provide no visual clues to the fact that the occupants of the circles were not sleeping but rather "bereft of life", in fact if they hadn't been nailed to the perch..........

 

[johnnythefridge]

CO² should work eventually, but because solid CO² from an extinguisher at -78°C isn't any where near as cold as liquid nitrogen at -210°C, it takes a lot more CO² to do the job. Why not give it a go and let us know how it turns out.

Regards,

 

[MuswellMetro]

Just wondered if co2 would suffice ? I'm thinking of fire extinguishers here! I'm sure you could freeze a small patch of brood solid with a blast from one of them .

John Wikinson

i asked that question at the lecture and got a reply "We are using liquid nitrogen HERE," with a slight wink,

like Chris i have reservations as to were it was going and unless you have got some method of checking the DNA of the queen without killing her then their seems little point in any open breeding that means it iwill be artificial insemination

Though how long Dr Ratneik bees ex Sheffield university black bees will fit BIBBA black bee standard with open mating i don't know but i would expect in Sussex not long

 

[Poly Hive]

What would the cost be of doing a DNA check?

PH

 

[MuswellMetro]

I was there.


.

proof not

 

[MuswellMetro]

a few more photo, not very hi tec, just freeze and take a photo and then anothr in 48 hours and compare, the containers the nitrogen is being poured in are baked been tins

 

[johnnythefridge]

There are a ruck of photos on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/50327759@N08/sets/72157626726851049/show/

 

[Crg]

like Chris i have reservations as to were it was going and unless you have got some method of checking the DNA of the queen without killing her then their seems little point in any open breeding that means it iwill be artificial insemination

Though how long Dr Ratneik bees ex Sheffield university black bees will fit BIBBA black bee standard with open mating i don't know but i would expect in Sussex not long

They do use some II.

I not sure they're that interesting in any "black bee standard", they're just sourcing mainly AMM type bees and breeding them for hygienic behaviour rather than some particular look.

You can DNA test queens without killing her by clipping a bit of the wing. This is something they do and then send the wing clippings off to Denmark to be analysed (for intra colony selection).