Breeding varroa tolerant bees in Canada

[Finman]

-

A hobbiest goes to the tree and pick from it a tolerant colony, or at least from granpa's chimney.

But to professional that job is a little bit laborous and this is one story about it

google y 2011
[PDF] SBA NEWS LETTER ARTICLE: THE SASKATRAZ PROJECT

The aim of the Saskatraz project is to breed gentle productive honey bees with resistance to mites, viruses, microsporidia and brood diseases. We have made progress in selecting families with good productivity, wintering ability, resistance to tracheal mites and chalk brood, but only varying degrees of tolerance to varroa mites. In the last few years we have looked at the variability in susceptibility to viruses (Deformed Wing Virus (DWV), Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV), and Israeli Acute Paralytic Virus (IAPV)). In general, colonies which better suppress varroa population growth are less susceptible to virus infection. In 2010 we began screening our Saskatraz breeding lines for resistance and/or susceptibility to nosema infection.

....After seven years of using natural selection to select colonies for resistance to varroa, we have found colonies showing varying degrees of tolerance, but none which we would define with heritable varroa resistance.

In the last three years we have initiated progeny analyses of traits, such as grooming behaviour, thought to be associated with varroa tolerance.

.......................
Experiments with selected stock and treatment strategies with organic acids will be described. Another observation affecting honey bee tolerance to varroa has been noted. Colonies subjected to synthetic miticide treatments (Apivar) may be losing some degree of the defence mechanisms needed to resist the mite. This has led us to investigate the efficacy of using organic acids (formic and oxalic) in combination with Saskatraz breeding lines, selected for varroa tolerance.
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[Finman]

.
That is interesting. A lethal mixture to bees:

- However, the combined formic-oxalic treatment may have caused excessive stress to the colonies, adding to colony mortality.

- .We have found that the presence of 2 or more viruses (DWV + IAPV or KBV) and microsporidia (either and/or both species) causes high colony losses. High virus levels were always correlated with high varroa infestations.

- Case studies of bees having high Nosema spore counts of both apis and ceranae resulted in high colony mortality and continued colony dwindling in the spring.

 

[Russel]

A little nearer home Ron Hoskins

 

[Finman]

A little nearer home Ron Hoskins

Ron notices that ONE of hives 80 hives...........seems silver bullet

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[Chris Ibbo]

It's great to see our friends across the pond doing something for the bees. I think however our interest should be on people like Ron Hoskins as Russell said and Rodger Dewhurst.

Does anyone else think that the most likely way forward for kept bees to develope this resistance is for a healthy feral bee population to be established with these traits as well as maybe all associations having an apiary with only tolerant bees in to spread the genetics to hobbiest bee keepers?

 

[Finman]

NZ


Breakthrough in Varroa mite battle

Published: 7:20PM Sunday December 16, 2007 Source: ONE News

A breakthrough by New Zealand scientists could end the threat to the honey and fruit export industry from the Varroa mite.


( 5 years later news are not that positive
http://www.nelsonhoney.com/about-nelson-honey-and-marketing-ltd/queen-breeding-programme/)

 

[beeno]

It's great to see our friends across the pond doing something for the bees. I think however our interest should be on people like Ron Hoskins as Russell said and Rodger Dewhurst.

Does anyone else think that the most likely way forward for kept bees to develope this resistance is for a healthy feral bee population to be established with these traits as well as maybe all associations having an apiary with only tolerant bees in to spread the genetics to hobbiest bee keepers?

Hi Chris,
Certainly a unique selling point!

 

[rolande]

Does anyone else think that the most likely way forward for kept bees to develope this resistance is for a healthy feral bee population to be established with these traits

Any plans on how to establish such a population? Remembering also, if we're going to go down that road then the ferals had best have plenty of other good qualities apart from resistance because a resistant bee that wants to sting anything that moves, or one that simply has no 'drive' to store a harvestable surplus won't be much use to many beekeepers; and what if their resistance is heavily influenced by reliance on excessive swarming.....

Best to forget about wild pests being the 'silver bullet' and leave it to the people with the time, resources and inclination to try and create something worthwhile -while taking personal responsibility for our own colonies and zapping the mites.

 

[Little John]

Nature has, historically, had it's own cure for all diseases: isolation and elimination. But when species are intensified - usually as the result of actions by humans - then disease is able to be more easily propagated.

Varroa and the Foul Broods would not continue to spread from hive to hive if colonies were spaced apart far more widely (as perhaps nature 'intended').

Same story with the Plague, Aids, Foot and Mouth disease, Swine Fever - the list is a long one. Why should the diseases of Apis be any different ?

Colin
BBC

 

[gavin]

....After seven years of using natural selection to select colonies for resistance to varroa, we have found colonies showing varying degrees of tolerance, but none which we would define with heritable varroa resistance.

If they failed, either they weren't trying hard enough, or they didn't have the right bees in the first place. Heritable variation for Varroa resistance has been known for at leat 14 years.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/jee/1999/00000092/00000002/art00002

If you do read the paper, be aware that Suppression of Mite Reproduction became Varroa Sensitive Hygiene when they studied it more.

These VSH and also Primorski ('Russian') bees have been available in the US for years. They don't suit all beekeepers and are not the full answer (especially in high productivity systems in the US) but they most definitely show heritable mechanisms to control Varroa.

G.

 

[Finman]

If they failed, either they weren't trying hard enough, or they didn't have the right bees in the first place. Heritable variation for Varroa resistance has been known for at leat 14 years.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/jee/1999/00000092/00000002/art00002

If you do read the paper, be aware that Suppression of Mite Reproduction became Varroa Sensitive Hygiene when they studied it more.

These VSH and also Primorski ('Russian') bees have been available in the US for years. They don't suit all beekeepers and are not the full answer (especially in high productivity systems in the US) but they most definitely show heritable mechanisms to control Varroa.

G.

Good heavens...........and where are they then if they exist!!! Once upon a time ..... a frog kissed a princess...

First: Russian bee is not varroa tolerant, not now and not for years

Europe has better bee strains in that meaning than Russian bee.

http://www.beebehavior.com/russian_bees.php


"Resistant bee strains" have one big problem. They draw off contaminated pupae and the hive will have fewer foragers. If a hive has lost 20% of its brood, it cannot get surplus honey.

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[rolande]

http://www.ars.usda.gov/services/docs.htm?docid=2744&pf=1&cg_id=0#Russian

 

[gavin]

You want to know where they are Finman? Try looking at the map provided by Glen Apiaries below.

http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/smr.html

 

[Finman]

You want to know where they are Finman? Try looking at the map provided by Glen Apiaries below.

http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/smr.html

I know where they are.

It possible to by Russian bees from Finland too

http://www.saunalahti.fi/lunden/page3.html

The Bees


Our breeding stock is a mixture of Buckfast (from Sweden and Luxembourg), Finnish local bee, Primorsky (from Josef Koller in Germany), Elgon bees (trademark from Sweden) and South American bees from Colombia. The change from original Buckfast bees has been dramatic: At the moment when working my bees its sometimes impossible to do it without gloves. Sometimes you can open a hive without a veil, but for sure the bees will "buzz" around very lively. They land on your hand and may pull your hairs or just "snoop around". They gather on the hive entrance and search incoming bees carefully and sometimes violently. They groom other bees on the combs (glass hive observations) and the groomed bee folds her wings to help the grooming bee. The brood areas are full of holes, at least if there is a mite pressure from outside. The winter clusters are relatively small and the bees consume very little winterfeed (less than 10 kg).


.

 

[Chris B]

Varroa and the Foul Broods would not continue to spread from hive to hive if colonies were spaced apart far more widely (as perhaps nature 'intended').

They would be slower to spread for sure.

With regard to varroa I would have thought emergence of a less virulent mite would happen a bit quicker than a tolerant/resistant bee. Maybe everyone's looking in the wrong place?

 

[Finman]

Maybe everyone's looking in the wrong place?

I just put on sight what they are doing in Canada.

Then some from member got an idea to attack on me. I wonder what I have done to aborginals of UK that I earned that.

I know that it is famous "Br intellectual poking".

.

 

[bees4u]

I just put on sight what they are doing in Canada.

Then some from member got an idea to attack on me. I wonder what I have done to aborginals of UK that I earned that.

I know that it is famous "Br intellectual poking".

.

take no notice Finman, we love you really

 

[simoncav]

I wish more beekeepers had a basic understanding of bee genetics....

1/ Unless your bees live on an island or some other isolated environment, it is practically impossible to "breed" bees with any selected characteristics - Queens are not particularly fussy over the 10-15 drones that might eventually breed with them.

2/ The only way round that is to use artificial insemination using Queens (and more importantly drones) that all come from lines proven to have your chosen trait(s). That takes effort, skill and probably Government level funding to make it work at the scale you need.

3/ The instant a Queen from this line "gets out" and mates naturally, all bets are off and you start again.

4/ Dr. Marla Spivak from the University of Minnesota and others have discovered that you need to have at least 70-80% of the workers in a colony with the "hygienic" trait in order for there to be any major impact on Varroa levels. Workers don't complete tasks, they lose interest and wonder off to do something else, so unless a series of workers complete the process, nothing happens - thats why you need almost all the bees in the colony to have the chosen trait you want.

5/ The genetics inside a beehive are very diverse and need to be so, trying to change things for very specific traits is flying against millions of years of evolution - bees are not like mammals where you can easily control the breeding of one male with one female repeatedly over a relative short time to get what you want.

6/ In the scheme of things Varroa mites and European honey bees were never destined to meet. We did that and screwed things up. There is no inherent natural resistance to something these bees as a species have never encountered before. "Leaving things to nature" would probably have resulted in the wiping out of all European honey bees in a relatively short period of time biologically speaking.

7/ The fact that we can and have intervened as beekeepers has given the bees a short respite - but the core problem of a non-native parasite killing it's non-native hosts remains. In genetic terms thats fine for the Varroa, because they will still survive in Asia where they belong - Hard cheese to the European honey bee if it becomes extinct, but thats what happens when humans do stupid things....

8/ Current non-chemical treatments and active intervention by beekeepers helps, but we simply can't rely on bee breeding to get us out of this - not unless we can either flood the entire UK for decades with drones containing suitable genetics for the right characteristics, or come up with a means of properly wiping out the Varroa mite - something that a number of teams are working including those at Aberdeen University and elsewhere.

 

[bees4u]

I wish more beekeepers had a basic understanding of bee genetics....

1/ Unless your bees live on an island or some other isolated environment, it is practically impossible to "breed" bees with any selected characteristics - Queens are not particularly fussy over the 10-15 drones that might eventually breed with them.

2/ The only way round that is to use artificial insemination using Queens (and more importantly drones) that all come from lines proven to have your chosen trait(s). That takes effort, skill and probably Government level funding to make it work at the scale you need.

3/ The instant a Queen from this line "gets out" and mates naturally, all bets are off and you start again.

4/ Dr. Marla Spivak from the University of Minnesota and others have discovered that you need to have at least 70-80% of the workers in a colony with the "hygienic" trait in order for there to be any major impact on Varroa levels. Workers don't complete tasks, they lose interest and wonder off to do something else, so unless a series of workers complete the process, nothing happens - thats why you need almost all the bees in the colony to have the chosen trait you want.

5/ The genetics inside a beehive are very diverse and need to be so, trying to change things for very specific traits is flying against millions of years of evolution - bees are not like mammals where you can easily control the breeding of one male with one female repeatedly over a relative short time to get what you want.

6/ In the scheme of things Varroa mites and European honey bees were never destined to meet. We did that and screwed things up. There is no inherent natural resistance to something these bees as a species have never encountered before. "Leaving things to nature" would probably have resulted in the wiping out of all European honey bees in a relatively short period of time biologically speaking.

7/ The fact that we can and have intervened as beekeepers has given the bees a short respite - but the core problem of a non-native parasite killing it's non-native hosts remains. In genetic terms thats fine for the Varroa, because they will still survive in Asia where they belong - Hard cheese to the European honey bee if it becomes extinct, but thats what happens when humans do stupid things....

8/ Current non-chemical treatments and active intervention by beekeepers helps, but we simply can't rely on bee breeding to get us out of this - not unless we can either flood the entire UK for decades with drones containing suitable genetics for the right characteristics, or come up with a means of properly wiping out the Varroa mite - something that a number of teams are working including those at Aberdeen University and elsewhere.

some very good points here

 

[Finman]

.
And in bees, what ever breed you get/bye, it quickly returns to "average" by the surrounding genepool.

I can take one generation from byed new queens, but then in second generation the hive has only 1/4 of its original genes,
or you have bigger proportion, you may get inbreeding problems.

.

And if you have a style "nature knows best", then you have no breeding control to your bees.