Do you have VSH Queens

[oxnatbees]

Varroa resistance is pretty established in British bees. Any swarm I take from a free living (unmanaged) colony does fine, and I hear the same from all over the UK. They appear to use a mix of traits not just VSH but the key difference is management, I think. If you run bees for maximum honey etc they don't have the time to propolise, they don't have brood breaks etc - lots of small factors adding up rather than one unstable selected trait.

The naysayers here are, I suspect, queen sellers with their own product to promote, essentially highly refined racehorses compared to the tough things I use. Their bees are selected for traits useful to commercial beekeepers, where I'm interested in survivor bees. Different tools for different applications. If it weren't that they open mate, we wouldn't care what our neighbours used and we'd all be a lot more polite.

Just to reiterate a Testable Fact: any swarm I take from sn unmanaged colony has no varroa problems. So in effect, OP, there already is a breeding program in the UK.

 

[Finman]

. Look at other groups and see how many people think we should still be adding top ventilation

And you compare antivarroa bee breeding to the top ventilation. In top ventilation you only drill a hole to the upper part of the hive. You do not need £ 100 000 funding to the project.

It is nothing opinion issue, do you want breed or buy VSH queens. It is more "do you use your brain" issue. Are you able to understand, what they are writing in internet.

 

[Finman]

Varroa resistance is pretty established in British bees. Any swarm I take from a free living (unmanaged) colony does fine, and I hear the same from all over the UK.

That is new information. UK is like Isle of Gotland.

Why managed colonies have mites and unmanaged not?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just to reiterate a Testable Fact: any swarm I take from sn unmanaged colony has no varroa problems. So in effect, OP, there already is a breeding program in the UK.

But you also state that your colonies all die out after four to five years, but conveniently ignore the reasons for this.

 

[Bazzer]

Varroa resistance is pretty established in British bees. Any swarm I take from a free living (unmanaged) colony does fine, and I hear the same from all over the UK. They appear to use a mix of traits not just VSH but the key difference is management, I think. If you run bees for maximum honey etc they don't have the time to propolise, they don't have brood breaks etc - lots of small factors adding up rather than one unstable selected trait.

The naysayers here are, I suspect, queen sellers with their own product to promote, essentially highly refined racehorses compared to the tough things I use. Their bees are selected for traits useful to commercial beekeepers, where I'm interested in survivor bees. Different tools for different applications. If it weren't that they open mate, we wouldn't care what our neighbours used and we'd all be a lot more polite.

Just to reiterate a Testable Fact: any swarm I take from sn unmanaged colony has no varroa problems. So in effect, OP, there already is a breeding program in the UK.

I do agree with your first point but am interested to know how you you can be so sure about where your swarms are coming from?

 

[Bazzer]

But you also state that your colonies all die out after four to five years, but conveniently ignore the reasons for this.

If a colony were to produce three prime swarms over 4 to 5 years and then have a failed queen mating and whither away has that colony died out or has it multiplied and relocated?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If a colony were to produce three prime swarms over 4 to 5 years and then have a failed queen mating and whither away has that colony died out or has it multiplied and relocated?

and what proof it didn't die from varroosis?

 

[Finman]

If the hive produces 5 prime swarm, it has changed its queen 5 times. It is special, that after matings varroa tolerancy has been inherited 5 times in open mating. It is a miracle.

 

[oxnatbees]

I live in a semi isolated area. The other beeks in the area are no-treatment too. I can generally tell where the swarms come from, like a roof colony we local beeks have been monitoring for many years. Currently my only colony from a suspicious source is one I think absconded (late August) where the nearest colonies seem to be back garden hives, so I am monitoring it closely lest it collapse and mite-bomb the others.

I think my colonies "only" live 4-5 years because there are too few drones as it's generally queen failure that they die from. Note though I do not requeen. In a previous discussion, Jenkins, you said your colonies survive ~8 yrs without requeening and I admit I am terribly impressed by that. I suspect you have a much higher colony density and also of course many years more experience, which counts. Any tips to pass on on this subject?

When I do look at mites on baseboards there are very few, there may be 50-150 after winter so that's 1-3 a day. It's probably significant that this is non zero: a doctor friend mentioned imune systems need constant low level challenges to prevent atrophy.

Another factor that may be significant is, my bees are a real mix, you can see it in their colours. Recent work showed colonies are more resilient to all kinds of stresses when they have a wide range of fathers. So I've made an effort in 2020 to get swarms from further away to ensure there is a wide pool of genes here, but still from non treatment sources. Whether this will make a difference to colony survival will become evident over the next few years.

Note this is not targeted breeding for a particular characteristic, and it's not overly obsessive about very local genotypes. Hopefully it will generate some useful data, and if I come to conclusions I wil share these honestly, and that may include null results - "don't do this" 8) We may be a grumpy, fractious community of curmudgeons, but we are all looking over each others' shoulders and learning rom each other. Any data is useful and a variety of approaches in parallel yields results faster.

 

[Bazzer]

and what proof it didn't die from varroosis?

None withour checking - but that is now the fourth different queen and here I agree with Finman - open mating in many places in the UK means it is difficult to retain a particular trait. Which goes back to the OP - the more folk who have bees from varroa resistant stock the easier it will become

 

[Wilco]

Varroa resistance is pretty established in British bees. Any swarm I take from a free living (unmanaged) colony does fine, and I hear the same from all over the UK. They appear to use a mix of traits not just VSH but the key difference is management, I think. If you run bees for maximum honey etc they don't have the time to propolise, they don't have brood breaks etc - lots of small factors adding up rather than one unstable selected trait.

The naysayers here are, I suspect, queen sellers with their own product to promote, essentially highly refined racehorses compared to the tough things I use. Their bees are selected for traits useful to commercial beekeepers, where I'm interested in survivor bees. Different tools for different applications. If it weren't that they open mate, we wouldn't care what our neighbours used and we'd all be a lot more polite.

Just to reiterate a Testable Fact: any swarm I take from sn unmanaged colony has no varroa problems. So in effect, OP, there already is a breeding program in the UK.

I've had a mixed bag from wild swarms to be honest. Suspect over time there will be some adaptation to survive but not seeing it consistently in my experience.

 

[Finman]

- the more folk who have bees from varroa resistant stock the easier it will become

Do you know a country where that has happened?

 

[madasafish]

Varroa resistance is pretty established in British bees. Any swarm I take from a free living (unmanaged) colony does fine, and I hear the same from all over the UK. They appear to use a mix of traits not just VSH but the key difference is management, I think. If you run bees for maximum honey etc they don't have the time to propolise, they don't have brood breaks etc - lots of small factors adding up rather than one unstable selected trait.

The naysayers here are, I suspect, queen sellers with their own product to promote, essentially highly refined racehorses compared to the tough things I use. Their bees are selected for traits useful to commercial beekeepers, where I'm interested in survivor bees. Different tools for different applications. If it weren't that they open mate, we wouldn't care what our neighbours used and we'd all be a lot more polite.

I try to maximise honey yields.
My bees get brood breaks - enforced by the weather and not by me.

You appear to be making assumptions about weather and how bees operate which suggest climatic conditions are similar across the UK. They are not.

You are also making assumptions about why people disagree with you. I raise queens . I sell a few. I would not call them "refined racehorses" but rather mongrels. I disagree with you when you make assumptions about what I and my bees and local weather do or don't do. You cannot. And you then make sweeping statements about what happens in the UK!

I rarely am rude but when confronted with your assumptions I am tempted.. Sorely

 

[Ian123]

What those who think they can pull resistant bees out of trees forget is we are way behind in this country. Our bees have been in contact with varroa for a very short period. The Americans have tried with primorsky queens many years ago with poor field results. We’ve had Elgon survivors and many more examples. None have proved the silver bullet, or this utopian balance of bees and varroa. oxnatbees stated earlier this year bibba members had tolerant bees but we have yet to see this webinar or any independent research that alone should give people a clue as to its validity. Rather like the Hoskins bees/claims when independent researchers arrive claims are not backed up, or other factors like management or lack of or as in the Hoskins case weaker virus strains. There are vsh bees and we can look to those like B+ who are doing serious work. Don’t think he climbs trees though.

 

[oxnatbees]

Do you know a country where that has happened?

South Africa. Their equivalent of the BBKA realised many rural beeks could not afford miticides, so they just let natural selection take its course. Took 7 years and their bees now have no varroa issues.

 

[Bazzer]

Do you know a country where that has happened?

It will be a long time for the UK but maybe this will be the only Brexit benefit? There are already some areas where everyone has agreed not to treat their bees - with time the survivors in these areas will dominate the genetics and they will then start to spread.

 

[Finman]

South Africa. Their equivalent of the BBKA realised many rural beeks could not afford miticides, so they just let natural selection take its course. Took 7 years and their bees now have no varroa issues.

And there are many orher countties in Africa and in tropical America
They could not do anything in their jungles. That is shy that they lifted hands up.
Apis scutellata has ability in genes to handle mites

Africanized bees are same scutellatas in America. Scutellata has its own strategy to escape. When mites are too much in thr hive they Bandon their hive with brood.

Nothing to learn from scutellatas.

 

[Bazzer]

What those who think they can pull resistant bees out of trees forget is we are way behind in this country. Our bees have been in contact with varroa for a very short period. The Americans have tried with primorsky queens many years ago with poor field results. We’ve had Elgon survivors and many more examples. None have proved the silver bullet, or this utopian balance of bees and varroa. oxnatbees stated earlier this year bibba members had tolerant bees but we have yet to see this webinar or any independent research that alone should give people a clue as to its validity. Rather like the Hoskins bees/claims when independent researchers arrive claims are not backed up, or other factors like management or lack of or as in the Hoskins case weaker virus strains. There are vsh bees and we can look to those like B+ who are doing serious work. Don’t think he climbs trees though.

As a scientist and someone who is aiming to build up my colonies of varroa resistant bees to >50 next year I am interested to know what research you think will provide a "clue to their validity"?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

South Africa. Their equivalent of the BBKA realised many rural beeks could not afford miticides, so they just let natural selection take its course. Took 7 years and their bees now have no varroa issues.

Africa is a totally different kettle of fish scutellata (adansonii) work totally different to our bees and if you followed Steve Martin's work you will also see that DWV type B is endemic out there which may explain the coexistence. they have never had a 'problem' as we have will varroa even back in 2014 when I was working in Lesotho, there was barely a mention of varroa, either in any SA farming periodicals or in meetings I had with senior Agricutlural department Bee officers
Trying to compare Southern African bees to the UK is really clutching at straws

 

[Repwoc]

https://rr-africa.oie.int/wp-content/uploads/2000/11/38_allsopp.pdf