LUS Bees?

[BKF Admin]

LUS

Small black bees similar to Carniolans or Italians in production and temperament but have mite resistance and have the ability of a laying worker to raise a new queen. This ability is called Thelytoky.



Michael Bush talks about Lus bees on his website,have any updates been released regards the LUS strain of bees?

 

[Finman]

.
Apis mellifera capensis has that ability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apis_mellifera_capensis

Here is something more
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/thelytoky.html

How many queenless hives we have had and how many have made a new queen from worker egg?
.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Sounds bad,like cape bee's.

 

[jim]

The bees that Micheal Bush talks about belong to Dee Lusby and are said to be Varroa resistant, they are also on 4.9 mm cell. Some say allegedly that they also have African genes which Dee refutes.

 

[Bcrazy]

For members who don't know or understand Thelytoky, it is the origin of females from unfertilised eggs.
As mentioned the Cape Bee Apis mellifera capensis is well known for the ability of its workers to parthenogenetically produce diploid workers and queens as well as haploid drones.
Apparently following meiosis, the egg pronucleus fuses with one of the egg polar bodies and forms a diploid nucleus.
To understand this phenomonen you need to understand how breeding takes place and how the genetics of bees is passed on by generations.
The need to understanf the elements of genetics will be helpfull to you should any of you wish to try to rear bees that are resistant to varroa.


Regards;

 

[BKF Admin]

The bees that Micheal Bush talks about belong to Dee Lusby and are said to be Varroa resistant, they are also on 4.9 mm cell. Some say allegedly that they also have African genes which Dee refutes.

The Lusby brothers live in the deep south (The ones I have read about on usa forums)so I would be suprised if the bees have no African genes in them.

 

[Finman]

.
To me it is strange that no university mention those "resistant Arizona bees".
Other beekeeprs prefer to get resistant bee stock from Eastern Siberia than from Arizona.

No one has explanied how these bees survive against varroa.
Another question is how they resist Africanized bee stock. It use to concure Apis mellifera hives .
Because Africanized bee emerge 3 days earlier, the queen will be soon real Africans, as it has been reported.

There are many things which do not match together unless those bees are not tame Africanized stock.



.

 

[jim]

Finman
I think you are right about Africanised bees, there is a video of Dee working those bees and they are certainly not bees I would work with. She claims they have not recieved any treatments for more than ten years.

 

[BKF Admin]

Do you have a link please Jim?

 

[jim]

Admin

The link you asked for, http://www.beeuntoothers.com/
There are two videos of Dee's bees half way down this page. Some of the other videos are quiet good ,others a bit boring.

 

[jim]

Bcrazy

I have a question for you, as I have not studied Thelytoky, you have an advantage over me.

As mentioned the Cape Bee Apis mellifera capensis is well known for the ability of its workers to parthenogenetically produce diploid workers and queens as well as haploid drones.

Would the Drones not also be diploid, as it would be difficult for the workers to reverse the gene fusion selectively?

 

[Bcrazy]

Genetics the mind boggles.

Hi Jim,

I have not studied this phenomonen in any depth but have read many scientific papers concerning this which have been written by eminent people.

My basic understanding is as follows;
In most cases policing by workers stops or reduces ordinary workers from becoming laying workers. As we now know the workers of Apis m. capensis can and do lay eggs which without fertilisation become females.

These workers have evolved to become parasites in thelytokously reproducing Cape honeybees. These workers then proceed to become dominant in colonies of Apis m. scutellata and kill the original queen then release a pheromone (not sure what pheromone it is) which suppresses queen rearing and overy development in the workers. It takes a couple of days before the parasitic workers begin to lay eggs.

The question of drones is I believe they do produce drones parthenogenetically (arrhenotoky) in the normal order of genetic makeup.

There is something at the back of my mind which says this is due to a single gene having a recessive allele which is only found in the Cape honey bee.
Forgot to add this; http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/thelytoky.html


Regards;

 

[BKF Admin]

Do Cape honeybees have a Queen heading the colony?

 

[Finman]

.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6868/full/415163a.html

Relocation of the Cape honeybee, Apis mellifera capensis, by bee-keepers from southern to northern South Africa in 1990 has caused widespread death of managed African honeybee, A. m. scutellata, colonies1. Apis mellifera capensis worker bees are able to lay diploid, female eggs without mating by means of automictic thelytoky2 (meiosis followed by fusion of two meiotic products to restore egg diploidy), whereas workers of other honeybee subspecies are able to lay only haploid, male eggs. The A. m. capensis workers, which are parasitizing and killing A. m. scutellata colonies in northern South Africa, are the asexual offspring of a single, original worker in which the small amount of genetic variation observed is due to crossing over during meiosis3 (P. Kryger, personal communication). Here we elucidate two principal mechanisms underlying this parasitism. Parasitic A. m. capensis workers activate their ovaries in host colonies that have a queen present (queenright colonies), and they lay eggs that evade being killed by other workers (worker policing)?the normal fate of worker-laid eggs in colonies with a queen4, 5, 6, 7, 8. This unique parasitism by workers is an instance in which a society is unable to control the selfish actions of its members.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Surely it is not only the the cape bee which has recessive genes,with to much inbreeding all creatures have recessive genes,harmful,and fatal recessive genes.

 

[Finman]

.
Here is more long story
http://nebraskabeekeepers.org/thelytoky.htm
Abstract

A strain of U.S. domestic honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) with the ability to rear workers and queens using the eggs of laying workers has been isolated.

Previously, thelytoky was assumed to occur rarely in honey bees with the exception of the South African Cape bee (A. mellifera capensis).

Our thelytokous line, hereafter referred to as LUS, was developed from commercial stocks of European honey bees.
Comparisons of worker behavior and ovarian development were made among queenless colonies of LUS and two arrhenotokous lines hereafter referred to as CP and cd. LUS had a significantly lower percentage of workers with developed ovaries at the time when eggs from laying workers first appeared in cells than either CP or cd. All three lines constructed queen ceils and deposited laying worker eggs in them, but viable queens emerged only from LUS. The CP line did not rear larvae in the queen cells but in some instances the cd line did. However, the cd bees destroyed the queen cells either prior to or soon after capping them. Comparisons between behaviors of queenless LUS colonies and those reported to occur in queenless Cape bee colonies also are discussed.

 

[Mike Bispham]

.
To me it is strange that no university mention those "resistant Arizona bees".
Other beekeeprs prefer to get resistant bee stock from Eastern Siberia than from Arizona.

No one has explanied how these bees survive against varroa.

Wild bees everywhere are becoming tolerant of varroa due to natural selection. This can be taken advantage of, and selection for resistance can be practiced in apiaries in most localities, resulting in resistant stock.

Some people appear to not want you to know about this...

Mike

 

[Salkeela]

I have been told (by my beekeeping mentor) that there are NO surviving wild colonies of bees in the UK or Ireland. I'm told there are none that survive year in year out & that this is due to varroa.

This shocked me.

Perhaps that should have been 'very few' or 'almost none' rather than an absolute 'none'. Presumably the very few resistant colonies could make a come back over time?

On the other hand perhaps varroa has wiped out wild/feral native bees in the UK?

 

[Mike Bispham]

Wild Bee Comeback

On the other hand perhaps varroa has wiped out wild/feral native bees in the UK?

The boards and discussion lists are full of reports that wild bees are making a big comeback, in both the UK and US. Its great news, and we should be doing what we can to support a happy development.

Mike (The Forbidden) Bispham
http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/

 

[jezd]

There is a vocal group within the beekeeping community that blame feral bees for the worlds ills, I have sat through many meetings with people insisting that wild bees hold all the disease pools and that it is their fault beekeepers have problems – I am sure some would love to see wild bees gone (no kidding). I for one love the idea of feral colonies thriving against the odds and even better if they are able to sort pests and diseases out themselves.

Jez


I was tempted not to comment simply because I

The boards and discussion lists are full of reports that wild bees are making a big comeback, in both the UK and US. Its great news, and we should be doing what we can to support a happy development.

Mike (The Forbidden) Bispham
http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/