LASI hygienic queens....open for business

[Erichalfbee]

http://onlineshop.sussex.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=144#catid144

And here a description

http://www.lasiqueenbees.com

 

[B+.]

http://onlineshop.sussex.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=144#catid144

And here a description

http://www.lasiqueenbees.com

What about their honey yield, aggressive tendencies, swarming, etc? I don't see any figures for these traits

 

[Cazza]

I've just ordered one for the fun of it.
Cazza

 

[bjosephd]

I've just ordered one for the fun of it.
Cazza

£500?

or £20?

or mid range £45?

Looks interesting.

Virgin queen great if we get a good 'mating season' when your queen arrives!

 

[bjosephd]

£20 virgin sounds tempting actually… just need to be sure I'll be doing an artificial swarm on or around the 20th of may. But who can predict that?!

Unless I make up a smaller nuc as a temporary home while she gets mated.

How much would a nuc increase who gets a virgin queen late may? And also, how long is this piece of string?

 

[B+.]

How much would a nuc increase who gets a virgin queen late may?

I have 6 unmated sisters of the Arista VSH line (https://aristabeeresearch.org/program/) being sent from The Netherlands on 10th May actually. My plan is to II them to drones from 6-172-15-2013-K. It's one of the requirements in BeeBreed that we test each others stock so it doesn't cost me anything

 

[Cazza]

£500?

or £20?

or mid range £45?

Looks interesting.

Virgin queen great if we get a good 'mating season' when your queen arrives!

Guess!!!
I'm not that loaded.
Cazza

 

[madasafish]

Guess!!!
I'm not that loaded.
Cazza

So that's £500

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Think I'll spend my money on something worthwhile - like beer

 

[Erichalfbee]

I guess you would have to re-queen from them every two years, then; a tad expensive

 

[Salamagundy]

Come and put your questions direct to the Professor!

Some info. Francis Ratnieks sent me in advance of his talk in Llangadog Community Centre next Saturday, 14th May, 10am - 1pm:

Honey bees have many pests and diseases. When I started in beekeeping, as a PhD student at Cornell University in New York State, the big concern was American foulbrood. For 2 years I worked with the New York State Apiary Inspection Service doing research and outreach on this disease. AFB has not gone away but has been joined by new problems, such as varroa mites and the virus diseases it spreads.
Beekeepers put time and effort into learning about and controlling honey bee diseases. It would be more convenient if bees took care of their own diseases. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. One natural defence, a form of colony public health, is hygienic behaviour. Hygienic workers uncap sealed cells containing a diseased or dead larva or pupa and remove the contents from the colony. In this way the disease is less likely to spread.
Hygienic behaviour is not something that worker bees learn. It is a genetically-controlled trait. Workers either do it or not, instinctively. No one knows why, but hygienic behaviour is not common even though it is a widespread natural trait and is found in British honey bees. In one study we checked 31 hives in Derbyshire. Only one was fully hygienic.
Although hygienic behaviour is not common, it is possible to increase it by breeding. That is, by rearing daughter queens from hygienic mother colonies. At LASI, we have been able to breed fully hygienic queens over a number of years using standard queen rearing methods.

Testing for hygienic behaviour
The key step in breeding for hygienic behaviour is determining which hives are hygienic. This is determined by the freeze-killed brood (FKB) removal test. We remove a frame of sealed brood from a hive, press 2 metal cylinders into it, and pour 300 ml of liquid nitrogen into each. This freezes, and so kills, the enclosed circles of brood. After a few minutes the liquid nitrogen has evaporated. The cylinders are then removed, a photograph is taken, and the frame replaced. Two days later the frame is removed again and a second photograph is taken. From the two photographs we determine the percentage of capped cells cleaned out.
We normally check each hive 3 or 4 times at intervals of 1-2 weeks. Colonies that remove 95% or more freeze-killed brood are considered fully hygienic. We now have colonies that that remove 100% of the dead brood within one day.
Results of LASI research on hygienic behaviour
Previous research done in the USA has shown that hygienic behaviour helps reduce American foulbrood, chalkbrood, and varroa, and that hygienic colonies produce as much honey. At LASI we have carried out further research on hygienic behaviour. Our results show that hygienic behaviour can play an important role in improving colony health and that it is practical to rear and use hygienic bees. Of most relevance to beekeepers are the following projects:
1. Hygienic colonies do not remove healthy brood by mistake. This gives beekeepers confidence that hygienic behaviour is not harmful to the colony.
2. Daughter queens reared from a fully-hygienic breeder queen and then allowed to open mate and lay eggs head colonies that average 95.5% FKB-removal. This shows that hygienic colonies can be produced using open-mated queens.
3. Over one year, varroa population growth within highly hygienic hives, >95% FKB-removal, was more than 50% lower than in less-hygienic colonies, <95% FKB-removal. In addition, colonies with medium to high levels of hygiene, >80% FKB-removal, had levels of deformed wing virus that were more than 1000 times lower than in less-hygienic colonies, <80% FKB-removal.
4. Hygienic behaviour can save the life of colonies with high levels of deformed wing virus. When colonies have high levels of deformed wing virus, worker bees with shrivelled wings are seen on the combs or crawling from the entrance. This symptom is a sign that the colony will likely die in the near future. We took 15 such colonies and divided them. Divisions requeened with a hygienic queen showed high survival, 11 of 15 colonies, over the next 15 months versus low survival, 2 of 15 in colonies requeened with a non-hygienic queen. Even intermediate levels of hygienic behaviour were of value in increasing colony survival

 

[Erichalfbee]

I shall be there. Looking forward to it.

 

[REDWOOD]

Every colony I have are hygienic


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bjosephd]

This is why I need to know the best/easiest/safest way to introduce a virgin queen to my modest apiary without starting a full queen breeding program and ordering a ton of mating nuc parts and frame building boxes and all sorts.

A £20 virgin would be an interesting project to see how well it does openly mated here and then heading one side or other of an AS.

WOuld be nice to have a mated queen by the time I need to AS… will my hives hold off until 20th of may??!

 

[BKF Admin]

Why are they not free ?

The department is funded by EU/UK grants.

 

[chrisb]

those funds are not a bottomless honey pot, they have there limits, sales of the bees would go back into said honey pot to try and ensure it dose not run out as if it did research would stop until the next funding became available.
even then to get the funding a lot of work would need to be done in order to show research was moving forward in order to stand a chance of gaining the funding

 

[bjosephd]

Why are they not free ?

The department is funded by EU/UK grants.

It's a fair point, maybe it's just to make sure they get a half decent home?

Like you should never give away kittens or puppies maybe? Even if you want rid of them.

A modicum of cost might ensure not any old numpty orders a queen?

BUT £500 ?!?! YIKES

That's the most expensive bee I've ever heard of!

Option of £20, £45, and £500.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Why are they not free ?

The department is funded by EU/UK grants.

Pity some of the funding is not used to subsidise things like cheaper mite treatments and restocking, etc, like in other EU countries.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Salamagundy

Thanks for the explanation fo the work at LASI. I have some queries that you may be able to answer;

1. Ron Hoskins at Swindon Bees describes his bees as hygienic in as much as they chew or otherwise damage phoretic mites - something like 85% of all dropped mites are chewed. He thought this was what was preventing his bees from succumbing to Varroa without chemical treatments, until the virologists from the MBA discovered the Type b DWV was apparently protecting his bees too. What is you view of this different form of hygienic behaviour and the viruses that accompany it in the Swindon Bees?
2. Has LASI done any work on viruses in its bees? In other words, do you know if your bees have have Type a, Type b or Type c DWV?
3. Do you know if the prices for LASI's queens are based on an analysis of cost or what the market will bear?

Regards

CVB

 

[bjosephd]

Some good questions there…

I don't know how much 'breeder queens' normally go for, but I understand it is still in the hundreds of pounds. I know if you were going to buy a prize winning bull for example, breeders would be paying crazy money…

I guess if you're a queen breeder, then £500 as a business expense is very different than to a hobby beekeeper like myself. There £45 for a mated queen seems only marginally above the general market price for a mated queen?

If I could be 'certain' that I could introduce a virgin queen to my apiary successfully then I'd certainly be more than happy to spend the £20.

I understand they are selling £20 virgins as they are keen to get these genetics out there'

I'm pretty sure I'll be making some sort of AS or nuc towards the end of the month, would be nice to be slightly ahead of the game as far as re-queening the queen less side goes.