Do you have VSH Queens

[Finman]

Forum member B+ have taught us, what means To kelp varroa tolerant bee stock.

It doest not meant, that you buy 5 mite tolerant queen. Their genome will change back to original bee in couple of years. Hybrids do not have ability To kill varroa, even if breeders say so.

If mite tolerancy would be easy To get, quite many would have such queens.

It is not senior beekeepers' fault, if things are not in real life lile you wish them to be. You cannot get mite tolerant queen with hoping or with positive thinking.

 

[sipa]

VSH is a valuable trait that we should exploit as part of overall management of varroa. At the moment not a panacea, but further on no doubt it will have a more profound impact.
Maintaining the trait over generations isn't easy and requires a lot of work, hence we charge a lot more for the queens with this trait.

Is it worth it ? Well I would say so, but others may differ in that opinion.

 

[Finman]

If you want to breed your own bee stock , you shoud have about 100 colonies, insemination toold and isolated mating place. And you should have quite a big farm to keep all that stuff.

You can compare the breeding work to the New Zealand breeding work in the year 2007. 1 million dollar project money and when money was consumed, the project stopped after some years.

Many in New Zealand are trying to breed mite tolerant queens.

Like Sipa said, is is worth to do to an ordinary beekeeper? Why guys have not done It, if It is so easy?

Every guy in this Forum is an adult person. Every one just go and buy to themselves VSH queens and stop blaming others, why they do not have anti varroa queens.

It is like Electric cars. Every one should have and Electric car to save our globe. But from where I get £ 40 000 money to that project?

 

[Markthebuilder]

Thank you, for the very supportive post. I trust you won’t get any negative response and at risk of going off on a tangent .
I have seen very little support for vsh on the forum though intend to dig deeper into B+ posts. I was surprised by Finmans initial responses but I note he has subsequently stated

Every guy in this Forum is an adult person. Every one just go and buy to themselves VSH queens and stop blaming others, why they do not have anti varroa queens.

Which I think supports my position.

I would prefer if some of the v experienced Beeks were a little more forthcoming in their rational but then my grandad often just grunted and I had a prity good idea of where he was coming from

I will say though Mods in my view have 2 personalities,,, their role as a mod to keep the forum tidy and remove offensive material etc. I would add that in private messages With them I have found them open and helpful.
Then there is their other personality which is often expressed in their posts ….it is just that .. . it is Their personality their opinion, The fact they are mods makes no difference …. (One at least realises they should ban themselves for their input on occasion.)
Their experience and qualification in beekeeping maters isn’t however for me to comment on.. I do recommend leaving that to others with a sharper pen than mine.

Regarding

Pupae

I do understand your sentiment) but i think spelling is one of her things? as an individual I personally appreciated it …. apparently bad spelling is the first requirement of a troll so maybe she was acting as a mod??

Maybee I will rethink the question without expressing an opinion and see how that goes… I still haven’t seen an answer to my question.
Thanks again for the expressed support

 

[BaconWizard]

Ok, I am WELL out of my wheelhouse commenting on this thread, but I saw some advice on the subject elsewhere that kinda sounded good, but I want to know what people think:

It goes something like this, paraphrasing:

----
If you buy a VSH queen, your own colony and any outgoing swarms become genetically dilute from local drones, over and over again. It's like dropping a little food-colouring into the ocean. It simply dissipates into nothing.

These queens are going to hybridize with local bees with unpredictable results that are not limited to just their VSH behaviour, and may anyway come with other undesirable traits; tetchy, swarmy etc

Therefore, if you want to do this with any efficacy, rather than buying queens, one should work from local stock and actively select those bees that do well, and euthanize those that don't, for years.

If you have enough colonies, and keep doing it, you might create exert some pressure on the local population with some shared desirable traits. Others out of the area should not buy your queens either, but do the same for themselves. Ideally, all across the country (as impractical as that is) (although I assume that WITHIN the same locality, getting a VSH queen from a neighbour might be a good thing)
----

It that good sense, or not how it works? Is there any point in ANYONE who isn't working on a grand scale, doing this kind of thing?

 

[Hachi]

Didnt Richard Noel buy vhs queens and found little difference, if any, between them and his own queens wrt mite load? There are plenty of peer reviewed research and data regard varroa and its effects on bee's. Surely its better to understand the issue before concluding world hunger has been resolved.

 

[Swarm]

Didnt Richard Noel buy vhs queens and found little difference, if any, between them and his own queens wrt mite load? There are plenty of peer reviewed research and data regard varroa and its effects on bee's. Surely its better to understand the issue before concluding world hunger has been resolved.

IIRC from the three new queens tested it was the worst.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Dani - of all things, you sit tight and then take umbrage at spelling (“pupi”/”pupae”), when I thought this place was a ‘broader church’ than that, and lots of spelling and grammatical errors are (rightly, nowadays) permitted to flow ... I don't see you asking who (other Mark) Curly Green is fingering, as his name suggests ??

Sense of humour loss. Mark didn’t seem to mind?
Curly is dyslexic and deserves respect from me for the words he does post.
Anything else?

 

[Markthebuilder]

For the purpose of debate and not because I know , because I only know what I don’t know and some would say all that really matters is that I don’t know what I don’t know.. but I digress
It is a numbers game… in the natural state all basic bees without vsh and not treated would die out and then the vsh bees would be in the majority .
( I contend that those non treaters who are successful with their own strain may have bees with a naturally high vsh trate)
If the majority of beeks raise and protect bees by treating non vsh bees then the evolutionary development can’t occur …because VQs are more likely to mate with non vsh drones. only if more people use vsh queens than don’t will there be an impact on the general population.

Given how long it took the consensus on mactchstics to change etc it will I think take a long time for many to even consider such humbug ideas particularly when treating mites is easy and cheep.
Add to that the amm group will need someone to start not only raising amm pure but vsh amm pure.
If however vsh queens were shown by hobby keepers willing to be as productive etc as their other hives then slowly very slowly things might change????

 

[Finman]

For the purpose of debate and not because I know , because I only know what I don’t know and some would say all that really matters is that I don’t know what I don’t know.. but I digress
It is a numbers game… in the natural state all basic bees without vsh and not treated would die out and then the vsh bees would be in the majority .
( I contend that those non treaters who are successful with their own strain may have bees with a naturally high vsh trate)
If the majority of beeks raise and protect bees by treating non vsh bees then the evolutionary development can’t occur …because VQs are more likely to mate with non vsh drones. only if more people use vsh queens than don’t will there be an impact on the general population.

Given how long it took the consensus on mactchstics to change etc it will I think take a long time for many to even consider such humbug ideas particularly when treating mites is easy and cheep.
Add to that the amm group will need someone to start not only raising amm pure but vsh amm pure.
If however vsh queens were shown by hobby keepers willing to be as productive etc as their other hives then slowly very slowly things might change????

Please, save us from further details

 

[Apiarist]

Oversimplification but...
my understanding is that one needs a consistent 75% + hygienic result (VSH) throughout the year for there to be no need for treatments (bit of a generalization, but you get my point..)

This is why many people tend to dismiss VSH, it's difficult to obtain this high VSH characteristic...

With that said, now lets deal with the elephant in the room;

to see the results of VSH you need to buy (or breed yourself at no small expense) Queens specifically reared with a high VSH, these are expensive, and (here's the elephant) they are mainly (in Europe) A. m. carnica's or Buckfasts, (there are also A. m. ligustica's available)... you see the missing sub-specie, ... yeh, A. m. mellifera .... that means whenever one advocates VSH Queen (breeding) it is often perceived as anti-A. m. mellifera, I on one occasion had someone scream (yes scream) at me when I suggested we should be breeding for VSH, my statement was (mis)understood as importing non-"native" bees...​

 

[Curly green finger's]

It's a tall order I have respect for thoughs that rear from vsh and example would be B+ with carnicia type.
I know there are a few more in the UK maybe @Markthebuilder it might be worth also speaking to them for advice and convo?
You've sparked a thought in my mind with your thread but imo working from and perhaps selecting from your local bees long term is the answer.
And even then you move those bees to a different area, higher pesticides different topigraph higher concentration of colonys with desease and varroa..
I don't know that much about genetics of bee's but I am writing down what my observations are to do with varroa counts and mite loads desease etc.

If VHS queen's were say a collective trail?
I know beefarmer will buy in 50 odd queen's to trial, Is or has there been trials on a big scale in this country with Vsh queen's?..
Apologies if this above question has been answered already.
Thanks Mark for sparking the imagination

 

[Curly green finger's]

Oversimplification but...
my understanding is that one needs a consistent 75% + hygienic result (VSH) throughout the year for there to be no need for treatments (bit of a generalization, but you get my point..)

This is why many people tend to dismiss VSH, it's difficult to obtain this high VSH characteristic...

With that said, now lets deal with the elephant in the room;

to see the results of VSH you need to buy (or breed yourself at no small expense) Queens specifically reared with a high VSH, these are expensive, and (here's the elephant) they are mainly (in Europe) A. m. carnica's or Buckfasts, (there are also A. m. ligustica's available)... you see the missing sub-specie, ... yeh, A. m. mellifera .... that means whenever one advocates VSH Queen (breeding) it is often perceived as anti-A. m. mellifera, I on one occasion had someone scream (yes scream) at me when I suggested we should be breeding for VSH, my statement was (mis)understood as importing non-"native" bees...​

Is there data to support Amm as being less or have less traits of vsh, in comparison to carnicia or any subspecies for that matter?

 

[mbc]

Oversimplification but...
my understanding is that one needs a consistent 75% + hygienic result (VSH) throughout the year for there to be no need for treatments (bit of a generalization, but you get my point..)

This is why many people tend to dismiss VSH, it's difficult to obtain this high VSH characteristic...

With that said, now lets deal with the elephant in the room;

to see the results of VSH you need to buy (or breed yourself at no small expense) Queens specifically reared with a high VSH, these are expensive, and (here's the elephant) they are mainly (in Europe) A. m. carnica's or Buckfasts, (there are also A. m. ligustica's available)... you see the missing sub-specie, ... yeh, A. m. mellifera .... that means whenever one advocates VSH Queen (breeding) it is often perceived as anti-A. m. mellifera, I on one occasion had someone scream (yes scream) at me when I suggested we should be breeding for VSH, my statement was (mis)understood as importing non-"native" bees...​

Strange you should say that, the only institutionally sponsored vhs breeding programme I've heard of in the UK was Ratnieks using Amm as the basis.
I think the major issue most thinking beekeepers have with vhs is the vast resources poured into it with fleeting results of dubious value
Hygienic behaviour has always been kind of attractive to academics because of it's quantative nature, kill brood, put back in, measure how long/much is cleared by the bees, unlike so much else involving bees which are clouded by so many uncontrollable variables measurements can lose meaning.
Personally I think hygienic behaviour, varroa sensitive or the old type- which could be selected for so strongly bees would clean out brood frames riddled with afb- is selected for automatically by anyone choosing queen mothers who keep a clean nest, but too much focus on test results and singling out this one behaviour tends to throw out the baby with the bath water and so the resulting bees are deficient in other ways and no good really for general beekeeping.
Any notion that varroa pressure on untreated populations results in vhs bees is pure fantasy, as born out by every study I've read anyway.
Beekeepers often say we must work with the bees/nature rather than control it and yet vhs programmes are definitely trying to create a frankenstine bee that nature would soon confine to history without manual intervention.
I'd be happy to be proved wrong but I don't think so somehow.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Can you answer Mark, why USA has 50% dead rate of hives annually, even if they have huge amount of VSH queen sellers in the country. And the biggest reason to the losses is varroa?

Finman, you don’t know what you’re talking about. A huge amount VSH queen sellers doesn’t equate to a huge amount of VSH colonies. Colonies that express high enough VSH to matter. Most of these supposed sellers don’t test for %VSH. Most are blowing smoke to increase sales. Also the vast bulk of bees and queens sold in the US have absolutely nothing to do with VSH. Absolutely nothing

 

[Finman]

Finman, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

How could I know? I can only read papers what US researchers write, and the test reports are few. I have met two such.

I think that It is not university researchers' duty to spoil somebody's good queen business.


It is same with Russian bee. I cannot find testing results, how well Russian bee manage with mites.

 

[sipa]

And don't forget there is a huge difference between VSH (varroa sensitive hygene) where bees detect and remove infected larva thus disrupting the mite life cycle , and Varroa Resistance where bees will groom each other to remove mites or even chew or maul the mites.

 

[Into the lions den]

I work with breeders that do all the testing and it is a useful trait...but probably destined for the sidelines in much of the UK due to our individualism and the deeply held belief that all local bees are special and to be protected at all costs. Its largely a myth but probably 50% or more...including the most vociferous....repeat it so often that it has become a 'fact by repetition'. Thus achieving the concentration of VSH genetics to make difference nationally is highly unlikely.

Shame. They are good..sometimes even great... bees, but as Apiarist says in his own way...they step on too many sacred cows.

The constant input of non VSH into open matings from non VSH 'local' stock dilutes the trait a lot almost to the point where it is of little value.

To get anywhere you MUST get breeders from proven VSH breeders who can cite statistics...a few unrelataed lines...and breed in isolated spots a\way from the 'local' stock.

As related earlier by others.....a lot of the so called VSH queens being sold here are actually the open mated daughters of queens raised from a VSH mother quieen...sometimes even another generation down the line......the trait can be very dilute by then and barely noticeable.

 

[Markthebuilder]

programmes are definitely trying to create a frankenstine bee that nature would soon confine to history without manual intervention.

Unfortunatly it is this misunderstanding of what vsh is that puts a lot of beeks off.
VSH is a naturally occurring trait that we can select for when raising queens it is the same as selecting queens for calmness or productivity or low swarming, we don’t see those traits as frankinstine .

this may be because backyard beeks can readily see how well a hive is doing honey wise and select to breed from that queen . but it’s a bit harder assessing how hygienic a queen is .
And even harder to test for vsh

It took the scientists a while to work out what was going on and from what I gather the consensus’s changed a couple of times but I think they have it sorted and are now vsh queens are being made availabel a rose a number of strains

 

[Finman]

t I think they have it sorted and are now vsh queens are being made availabel a rose a number of strains

You can look from a map, how much VSH sellers are in the USA. They are all located in the southern parts of the country. They are hundreds.

First in Finland we must have a colony, which stay alive in our climate. Cold is not only factor, the colony must react to the end of summer and the beginning of spring.