Man made v natural breeding and selection

[Newbeeneil]

Yes sorry. I seem to have all threads on watch as a moderator so can unwatch them
All you need to do is not read the thread. Surely if it comes up in your notifications you can just ignore it?

Of course we can not read any post but if you do that it stays in bold in your new posts list and its sooooooooo frustrating and tempting to click on!
I've taken to clicking on the thread to open it and then straight away clicking on the next just to get if off the list but its starting to get to me.

 

[Arfermo]

Yes sorry. I seem to have all threads on watch as a moderator so can unwatch them
All you need to do is not read the thread. Surely if it comes up in your notifications you can just ignore it?

Lucky you. So the only way to ignore a thread is not to open it - despite the temptation to open everything in the 'What's new' list? Not at all helpful.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Lucky you. So the only way to ignore a thread is not to open it - despite the temptation to open everything in the 'What's new' list? Not at all helpful.

no different to how the forum has operated from day one then

 

[Erichalfbee]

Lucky you. So the only way to ignore a thread is not to open it - despite the temptation to open everything in the 'What's new' list? Not at all helpful.

Well I certainly don’t want to to be responsible for raising your blood pressure so I’ll ask the management

 

[Monbees]

Lucky you. So the only way to ignore a thread is not to open it - despite the temptation to open everything in the 'What's new' list? Not at all helpful.

I agree, it would be helpful to be able to ignore threads - ( 'to keep you amused' springs immediately to mind, with no prospect of that one ever ending). However, I do find that threads I am not interested in, or haven't opened in a while, have often morphed into something else by the time I do open them, which does interest me. By the time a thread has reached a certain number of posts, excluding 'to keep you amused', of course, it can often bear little reference to the original title.

 

[Arfermo]

Well I certainly don’t want to to be responsible for raising your blood pressure so I’ll ask the management

No offence intended so keep your hat on. Hope 'management' are amenable to the small? improvement as I think it could be quite useful to the members of this forum - especially if I can get rid of the 'Wordle' bragging thread for one.

 

[Swarm]

There is a 'mark forum read' button.
When you read all the threads that you are interested in, hit this button and it cancels the bold type on any remaining live threads.

 

[Boston Bees]

Lucky you. So the only way to ignore a thread is not to open it - despite the temptation to open everything in the 'What's new' list? Not at all helpful.

You must find the internet a very difficult place, if you're unable to resist clicking on any link presented to you?

 

[Finman]

Deadly to it's host, easily spread, Treatments work but are controversial, some have natural resistance, etc.

In Finland babies get nowadays 13 vaccinations under age of 1 year. No idea to mix this to natural selection.

 

[Arfermo]

You must find the internet a very difficult place, if you're unable to resist clicking on any link presented to you?

Sad 'ennit. Comes with dementia and age. You may get there one day if you try hard enough.

 

[user 20297]

You must find the internet a very difficult place, if you're unable to resist clicking on any link presented to you?

....especially on ones which you anticipate are going to annoy you.

 

[Sanntos]

In Finland babies get nowadays 13 vaccinations under age of 1 year. No idea to mix this to natural selection.

I suppose it is in one shot, like in Sweden. Otherwise it is torture

 

[Beesnaturally]

Right... I'd probably not compare two structurally different viruses to a multicellular organism like varroa. An individual can develop immunity to a virus in their lifetime but as far as we know, a bee cannot do the same for varroa so unless you're talking at a population level for the metaphor as well, I'd be cautious.

Likewise in people, treatment allowed many to develop immunity and they have more genes than just those related to covid so it helps species genetic diversity that you don't lose them because of a single weakness. 'Fitness' is not about a single trait. You also seem to conflate an anamnestic immune response with individuals with an immune system more resistant to covid and comparing to genetic resistance in bees... Not quite as simple as that really.

As for commercial producers... I think not having the cost and time cost of treatment for varroa, nor the cost of losses from it, would be commercially advantageous so I'm not sure your stance there is entirely logical.

Covid is a single stranded RNA virus. This means mutations do not get corrected like in organisms which have double stranded genetic material. As a result there are many many variants in a short time. A lot die, some persist.

Flu has building blocks of which the virus genome is composed and where multiple strains occur in an individual cell they can recombine. This does not cause new genetic material.

Variation and mutation in viruses is very different to that in multicellular organisms and even to that in bacteria. Novel mutations are usually corrected due to various mechanisms and if they are not, they need to be in the germ cells to be conferred to offspring, assuming they're not terminal to the cell involved (or like in cancer, the organism).

Most resistance traits we see developing are not novel genetics but the consequence of selection pressures increasing the prevalence or upregulating expression of pre-existing genes. It is entirely possible that certain behaviours in bees exist for another purpose but also confer advantage against varroa thus may be seen more.

Rabbits and myxomatosis... Not really. Again, caution comparing viruses and parasites. With rabbits, they get infected, many die, those that are left have immunity so aren't reinfected and the virus starts to die out as R number drops. New generations occur and have not been exposed so have no immunity, population density increases to the point R number goes up, virus spreads again and wipes out a lot of the population. And so it cycles.

The 'three choices' look to me like they have been said in hindsight. At the time it started, options one and two would be indistinguishable.

I'm not saying you don't have a point/are wrong (still mulling it over, particularly the concept of varroa becoming host adapted... Intriguing), but I am challenging the suitability of your metaphors.

I couldn't think of any more suitable. I'm just trying to put across a simple picture - because that is what it. Natural selection, within, yes of course a population, is the whole nine yards. But adding in the arms race part is I think useful. Unfortunately that only makes sense to those who have grip on natural selection first.

I try not to get sidetracked by technical details. The simple core ideas, and how they relate to beekeeping are what are needed. Then more detail can be added to the basic frame.

Can you come up with a simple and clear explanation, with or without analogies for those folks struggling to make sense of it?

 

[Beesnaturally]

Is beekeeping your sole source of income with the 100 or 60 hives you keep?

About 60 at the present time. As it happens, yes.

I assume that's a set-up question. I have already said as much in this thread.

 

[Beesnaturally]

What absolute nonsense

Marla Spivak, scientist and bee breeding specialist.
John Kefus, same.
Randy Oliver, the highly experienced and well connected 'bee science' man.
Several beekeepers here.
Several authors of papers I have posted links to here.
Probably 100 scientific authors of papers I could supply links to.
And thousands of careful and intelligent beekeepers worldwide....
...Disagree with you.

Keeping on saying it won't make it true.

Natural selection for the fittest strains is a real thing. It has been at work in bee populations for millions of years, and had operated as expected in wild and and feral populations from the moment varroa hit.

Not that it's any of my business, but are you a creationist by any chance?

 

[rolande]

Read Manley on mating.

Totally worthless due to the time it was written. Seem to remember he even dismissed the idea of what later became known as drone congregation areas.

Don't get me wrong, I like Manleys stuff - but nowhere near as much as I used to.

 

[Fusion_power]

We mammals have evolved highly complex immune systems to cope.

No, just no. Mammals have a "reactive" immune system. Crocodilians have a "proactive" immune system. Our immune system is utterly incompetent compared to the average crocodile's.

Much of the older beekeeping literature is inaccurate or downright wrong. Much also is still valid and relevant today. Dadant's writing in particular shows a lot of thought with regard to his hives and how effective they are at limiting swarming and increasing honey production. Doolittle's queen rearing still is relevant, but he had a lot of things wrong about queen mating behavior. Brother Adam had to correct a few mistakes in understanding as he states in his book on beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey. He still missed several nuances about the way hive design affects colony behavior.

On a positive note, there is quite a bit of relevant discussion in this thread but it keeps getting off the path into the weeds along the way. I'd like to pose a question: Is there a scientific consensus that genetic resistance to varroa exists in the honeybee genome? If so, why are beekeepers not doing more to take advantage of it?

 

[Beesnaturally]

Firstly your comments regarding Brazil clearly show YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT……….I also have to ask, why do a disproportionate amount of those who discover varroa tolerant bees appear to be conspiracy theorists with a hate for big pharma and commercial beekeepers. Time for foil hats and a decent alien probing I think!

Are they? I'm not. You couldn't be more wrong there! I spend most of my internet time trying to reason with them.

Btw, just because anti-vaxers have a bee in their bonnets, that doesn't mean big pharma has a clean record!

Tell me about Brazil. I'm happy to be wrong. I plucked it out of the air because of the president's well known antipathy to vaccination or protective measures.

 

[Beesnaturally]

First:
New Zealand, with a decisive leader in this virus crisis, has now 60 dead, Sweden, a comparable country in size and development, has over 16 000 deaths.

Second:
Brazil, with Bolsonaro, who refused to understand the nature of the "flu" as he always call it, has half a million, that is 500 000 people, dead from the "flu"

Every equation has to include these costs, otherwise it's flawed.

Yes. That's about what I thought. But my assumption was that while NZ needed isolation and vaccine to maintain its course, Brazil opted for live and let die. Many as you say died, but the population will have gained much immunity by that means.

 

[Beesnaturally]

No, just no. Mammals have a "reactive" immune system. Crocodilians have a "proactive" immune system. Our immune system is utterly incompetent compared to the average crocodile's.

On a positive note, there is quite a bit of relevant discussion in this thread but it keeps getting off the path into the weeds along the way. I'd like to pose a question: Is there a scientific consensus that genetic resistance to varroa exists in the honeybee genome? If so, why are beekeepers not doing more to take advantage of it?

Just, yes. We are still learning about it. It's as active as it needs to be given our needs. If we lost modern medicine and knowledge of hygiene we'd soon have positively crocodilian immune systems. Those left of course.