Not treating varroa

[Finman]

I am too dumb to know it can't be done so I bred varroa resistant honeybees anyway.

You are blessed. A resistant queen came to you.

 

[Fusion_power]

I dont suppose the arrival of AHB helped a little!!!

AFB did not help with varroa resistance. That came from an A.M.m. colony in 2004. AHB did help significantly with beetle resistance, as in a daylight and dark difference. I still have beetles, but they don't demolish colonies the way they did 4 years ago. AHB is just a source of genetics. In my climate, they are at a disadvantage due to rapid swarming and poor wintering. Crossing with AHB and selecting carefully from the offspring brought some very useful traits to light. Their rate of brooding up in spring is incredible.

 

[Finman]

Their rate of brooding up in spring is incredible.

At least I know that a small colony cannot brood more than the size of cluster. A big cluster does always more brood than a little. It may be incredible, but that is only in your mind.

Wintering problems in Atlanta sound incredible to me.

 

[Fusion_power]

With a combination of 32 mm frame spacing and 5.1 mm cell size on Dadant combs, a small cluster can easily cover 4 frames and produce approximately 32,000 adult bees in a brood cycle. All it takes is 8 weeks for a colony to reach maximum size of about 80,000 adult bees.

I agree, your climate is much more challenging. I still think varroa resistant bees will be viable in your climate. After all, Juhani Lunden is succeeding.

 

[Finman]

With a combination of 32 mm frame spacing and 5.1 mm cell size on Dadant combs, a small cluster can easily cover 4 frames and produce approximately 32,000 adult bees in a brood cycle. All it takes is 8 weeks for a colony to reach maximum size of about 80,000 adult bees.

I agree, your climate is much more challenging. I still think varroa resistant bees will be viable in your climate. After all, Juhani Lunden is succeeding.

I do not believe to your space calculations not a bit. Lunden has his style to keep bees and I have mine.

And Fusion has his own. Your yields do not support your calculations about fast build up.

Just now I have here a weather week, that if a hive has larvae, they will die, because bees do not get drinking water from outside. I start later patty feeding. Willows start blooming after 2 weeks.



.

 

[Ian123]

Strange you say ahb did not help with varroa resistance, I thought it widely known ahb was far more tolerant they also have the smaller cell size you are using. I have seen many feral ahb colonies in areas with varroa that reproduce with vigour. So much so there is a good side line for Beeks in the removal of colonies and swarms

 

[Ian123]

My point is not that you don’t have a level of tolerance as you claim but you have rather a different playing field to us and a distinct advantage that we do not share. You also say in a previous post that you are breeding from your best as BA suggests to reduce ahb aggressive nature, can I point you to the storey of the original introduction of ahb to South America and the fact that 30 odd queens have spread their genes to south, central and North American with little reduction in its aggressive nature.

 

[Finman]

, a small cluster can easily cover 4 frames and produce approximately 32,000 adult bees in a brood cycle.

You say that 4 frames of bees may fill 2 langstroth boxes with bees after 4 weeks, when the colony started brood rearing after winter.
32 000 bees fill two boxes. 4 kg of swarm has 32000 bees and it draws 2 langstroth boxes foundations.

My experience is that after one generation 4 frames colony has 8 frames of bees. First emerging bees compensate those wintered 4 frames of bees. They all die quickly when the new emerge. It is end of May then or beginning of June. My experience is that next after 6 weeks the colony has one box of brood and in July it starts to grow at normal speed. Brood consumes the food what small gang of foragers can gather. The colony is perhaps ready to gather surplus but our yield season is over at the end of July.

 

[Finman]

, a small cluster can easily cover 4 frames and produce approximately 32,000 adult bees in a brood cycle.

You say that 4 frames of bees may fill 2 langstroth boxes with bees
after 4 weeks 32 000 bees will fill two boxes. That will never happen.

My experience is that after one generation 4 frames colony has 8 frames of bees. First emerging bees compensate those wintered 4 frames of bees. They all die quickly when the new emerge. It is end of May then or beginning of June. My experience is that next after 6 weeks the colony has one box of brood and in July it starts to grow at normal speed. Brood consumes the food what small gang of foragers can gather. The colony is perhaps ready to gather surplus but our yield season is over at the end of July.

 

[Fusion_power]

Finman, I am piecing together what you are saying and fitting it to bee behavior. The slow reproduction you describe is typical of Italian lineage bees on 35 mm frame spacing. That is why I use 32 mm frame spacing combined with 5.1 mm cells. The advantage works out to about 30% increase in spring buildup. This means my bees can go from no brood at all to maximum brood size in about 8 weeks or just a tad less. This can NOT be done with standard Langstroth equipment. Dadant proposed 38 mm frame spacing because it reduces swarming. He was correct, it does reduce swarming, but he did not figure out why it reduces swarming. The reason is because the wider comb spacing forces the bees to cover less comb in early spring which slows down the spring buildup. Langstroth spacing at 35mm is a compromise between the beekeepers who proposed 31 mm spacing based on Italian bees and the 38 mm promoted by Dadant.


Ian123, yes, AHB tends to spread. Note that the region they spread over is tropical with high rainfall. They are less well adapted above 30 degrees latitude and significantly at a disadvantage in a climate that forces winter clustering. The bees I am working with are hybrids that exhibit AHB traits in much reduced form. I have colonies that are as gentle as good quality Italians yet with excellent varroa resistance and good resistance to hive beetles. I also have colonies that are too defensive to work without a suit and veil. Over time, I will requeen the defensive colonies and keep the bees that are easy to work.

Cell size of 5.1 mm is normal for European bees. I tried 4.9 mm cells size for about 10 years and determined that my bees are totally unhappy with it. That is why I used 5.1 mm cell size foundation when I converted to Square Dadant equipment in 2016. The entire brouhaha about 5.3 mm cell size came about because beekeepers over 100 years ago were too smart for themselves. They figured that 5.3 mm cells would result in larger bees that carry more nectar thereby producing more honey. This caused problems with spring buildup because the larger cells mucked up the brood nest architecture.

I can see that you are skeptical of varroa resistance in pure European bees. I have not treated my bees at all with any varroacide since the winter of 2004/2005. I did not introduce AHB genetics until 2015 when I brought in 3 queens from BWeaver. There was no discernible difference in varroa resistance between my bees and the BWeaver bees. There was a very obvious difference in hive beetle resistance. I kept one of the BWeaver queens for breeding and replaced the other two. You can guess that I kept the one that was most manageable. Just to reiterate, I had colonies prior to 2015 that were extremely defensive. These colonies exhibited significant A.M.m. traits. I had to replace queens for defensiveness for the last 14 years.

Here is a good description of one of my colonies which I sold to another beekeeper to get him started. I helped him remove honey from his bees in 2012. We were using a bee blower and wearing only veils. I opened the colony with typical use of smoke to calm them. The instant I used the blower on a super, a cloud of very aggressive bees surrounded us. I took about 100 stings on my arms before getting the 3 supers of honey off of that colony. Needless to say, we requeened a few weeks later wearing full suits. This was a colony prior to purchasing the BWeaver queens. There were no africanized bees in this area at that time. To reiterate, I've had problems with defensiveness and had to breed from gentle queens for the last 14 years. The best of my gentle colonies right now can be opened with only a puff of smoke and worked from one end of the brood nest to the other. That is the type colony I want to breed from.

 

[Finman]

Fusion, I start to feed my hives with pollen patty 3 weeks before willow blooming. Then I put a terrarium heater on the floor. Brooding accelerates 200% in big hives.

In 4 frame colonies feeding doest not help. They are just small. When I take 1-2 frames of emerging brood from those big hives, the colony grows in a week 100% and it is then normal size one box colony, which brings normal 60-80 kg yield.


.

 

[For want of a better word]

Fusion, I start to feed my hives with pollen patty 3 weeks before willow blooming. Then I put a terrarium heater on the floor. Brooding accelerates 200% in big hives.

In 4 frame colonies feeding doest not help. They are just small. When I take 1-2 frames of emerging brood from those big hives, the colony grows in a week 100% and it is then normal size one box colony, which brings normal 60-80 kg yield.


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How many puffs of smoke do you have to use Finnie?

 

[justsmith]

On a side note what's the best treatments/methods for varroa when honey supers are on the hive?

 

[JEP]

On a side note what's the best treatments/methods for varroa when honey supers are on the hive?

Formic acid i.e. MAQS are the best solution if you need to treat when supers are on.

 

[For want of a better word]

Formic acid i.e. MAQS are the best solution if you need to treat when supers are on.

In UK ?????


In Poland I understand that no treatments are allowed when honey supers are on the colony.... however there have been marvelous reports concerning the use of rhubarb leaves that keep varroa levels low!

 

[Finman]

Formiq acid makes gas into the hive. Amount of the acid depends on the volume of the hive.

The idea is not to gasify the honey yield. It gives aroma into the honey.
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