SMR/REC protocol

[SDM]

Varroa destructor wasn't classified until the year 2000 if I'm not mistaken, so any paper before that would have used jacobsoni
There are other more recent papers also citing male mite mortality., such as this one
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22270116

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00892176/document

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0412-8

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...WMAV6BAgHEAE&usg=AOvVaw1l4KOZDZ5104e9LaZ8B_fI

Several others if you care to look further, I'm a bit surprised that you seem to have been unaware of the issue of male mite mortality.

 

[B+.]

Several others if you care to look further, I'm a bit surprised that you seem to have been unaware of the issue of male mite mortality.

Of course I'm not unaware of it. Non-reproductive mites are counted as part of the VSH test. However, the topic was SMR/REC so it was off topic.

Sometimes, I play devils advocate to see what people really know. It's one thing to cite old papers and something completely different to use that information and investigate yourself. I want people to test their colonies - not cite old papers. There are too many academic beekeepers on here and not enough real testing.

Non-reproductive varroa occur infrequently in most colonies. So, it would be foolish to rely on this to reduce the mite population.The VSH test, as I have said many times, is quite time-consuming so you need to select those colonies you are going to investigate carefully. That is why I use high expression of general hygiene. If they don't have that, they are unlikely to express VSH.

Let me ask this: do you test your colonies? No. Wait. I know the answer already (https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=684957&postcount=36 ). So, this is yet more nonsense - exactly as I thought!

 

[SDM]

Lol old paper the last ones I gave are 2006-2016

If you are deliberately making false statements from time to time , it's going to be very difficult for people to know when to take you seriously.
Sorry, I didn't realise commenting on this post was reserved for members of your group.

 

[B+.]

Lol old paper the last ones I gave are 2006-2016

If you are deliberately making false statements from time to time , it's going to be very difficult for people to know when to take you seriously.
Sorry, I didn't realise commenting on this post was reserved for members of your group.

Not at all. I'd just rather you kept to the topic (SMR/CAP) otherwise, what's the point of having a topic for the thread?

It's encouraging that you cited more recent research, although some of them were still focussed on africanized bees - something we don't have here - but, I'll let that pass. The important thing is that it obviously spurred you on to dig deeper. I count that as a win! The next thing is that you start to use that knowledge so you know the state of your own colonies.
I'm not against academic papers - far from it, but, you must recognise that these studies are usually small-scale (usually a dozen, or so, colonies). They should inform your investigation, not replace it! This isn't the beginners forum so you should expect to question everything.

I used to be a graduate tutor at University (under-grads and post-grads). I found they usually had answers to the questions that had been raised in class. I had to play devils advocate and pose questions they hadn't thought of (even to the extent of arguing against my own belief) to get them to dig deeper. As you have just demonstrated, it works. You might feel aggrieved if I say something contrary to your understanding, but, in digging deeper, you learn more.

 

[SDM]

There was me thinking I was trawling through studies I'd already read for your benefit

 

[B+.]

There was me thinking I was trawling through studies I'd already read for your benefit

It isn't "play school" Stuart.
If I said something outrageous in class and wasn't challenged, I knew my students hadn't prepared so I sent them away to find evidence to rebut my assertion. I wanted my students to think independently, particularly at a post-grad level. You will often find contradictory evidence in research papers. That's part of the process. That's why I said you have to use it to inform your own investigation, not take it as though it was written on tablets of stone handed down from above.
I want people to test their colonies. That is the only way we will know the truth.
If you saw my recent post, I used an Arista Bee Research data collection form. One of the columns identified which foundress mites reproduced, or did not reproduce. I had to repeat that test a number of times (and the hygiene test) because one of the fundamental principles is that an experiment should be repeatable. I know that Prof Brascamp wouldn't accept a single investigation as proof of something. I did both the hygiene test and the VSH test 3 times. The only flaw was that the second test was only a few days apart so I was testing the same generation of workers. Even then, I found different results from frames near the centre of the brood nest to those on the periphery. What does this mean? Does it mean the expression varies throughout the brood nest? Does it mean the test isn't an accurate reflection of the true state in the colony? - Read what John Harbo says about measuring VSH
I found lots of dead foundress mites in the cells I investigated (5-8% of infested cells). Why did they die?
There are more questions than answers. That's why we should test our colonies.

 

[Beefriendly]

I'm interested in how you (the group etc) would go about expanding these VSH bees (or genes) to every colony in the country.
Should that be the ultimate aim?

 

[B+.]

I'm interested in how you (the group etc) would go about expanding these VSH bees (or genes) to every colony in the country.
Should that be the ultimate aim?

I think I've already answered this several times already.
It's not my, or the groups, role to provide queens to every beekeeper in the country (remember: I belong to the Dutch group so I am riding on their shirt tails). If beekeepers want queens that express hygiene, or VSH, qualities, they should be asking their "usual channels" to provide them...but think...they are both expressed as percentages. A 10% queen is hygienic, just as a 90% queen is. You have to be specific about what you want...or...guess what the seller will send you.
The other thing you need to consider is heritability. A mass market queen rearer isn't going to test every queen they make (more likely, they'll buy in a tested queen). If you're lucky, they may test a few and raise lots of daughters in the cheapest way possible. Some daughters may inherit the trait. Others may not, even under controlled mating conditions.
I've been "lucky" (except I've tested colonies for quite a few years so is it really luck?) to test some of the best queens in Europe. Even the German breeders want to send their virgin queens to Vlieland because the breeding values of the drone mothers/grandmother is so high. I only get a handful of these each year to test but I buy queens from other breeders to test alongside my own II queens.

Doesn't anyone want to talk about SMR/RECapping?

 

[SDM]

No it isn't play school and you didnt say something outrageous, you claimed something I knew to happen was outrageous. What part of me mentioning male mite mortality and it's seasonally variable occurrence led you to believe I needed to prove to myself it exists ?

 

[B+.]

No it isn't play school and you didnt say something outrageous

We've moved on from that. I explained myself as much as I intend to. You've hijacked the thread long enough. If nobody wants to talk about the topic I raised at the beginning, I'll ask the moderators to close the thread to prevent further off-topic posts

 

[Beefriendly]

I think I've already answered this several times already.
It's not my, or the groups, role to provide queens to every beekeeper in the country

That's not what I'm asking or implying B+.
I'm asking you how you would do it at a country or even county level.
Bit like putting a student in a hypothetical situation to see how they respond. "Not my job" is not an acceptable answer.
You need to work out how a multi trait non dominant set of characteristics could be integrated and made to be the normal population.

 

[B+.]

That's not what I'm asking or implying B+.
I'm asking you how you would do it at a country or even county level.
Bit like putting a student in a hypothetical situation to see how they respond. "Not my job" is not an acceptable answer.
You need to work out how a multi trait non dominant set of characteristics could be integrated and made to be the normal population.

OK.
Within BeeBreed, breeders are free to pursue their own avenues of research within the broad outline that you should aim to populate ~ 1/3 of your test colonies with queens from other breeders.
Most breeders pour over the breeding values which are announced mid-February each year looking, not only for the best/nearest stock, but what offers the greatest potential to increase in the breeding values of their own stock. Varroa management carries a 40% weighting so, by default, there is a lot of breeding for varroa tolerance (although you can change the system defaults to look at your own specific breeding goals).
If the results are positive, a breeder can expect interest from other breeders. Of course, being selected as a 2a (maternal mother) or a 4a (paternal grandmother) on an island mating station offers the biggest chance of influencing the progeny of a large number of queens (many thousand).
Queens which are not selected for mass propagation stay with the breeder/tester and can be used in their own breeding programmes. So, to answer your question truthfully, I have to say; it depends on the breeding values they achieve when all related stocks performance is considered. If they are not required for incorporation into large scale breeding projects, I will offer daughters to members of my local breeding group, then (depending on available numbers) to other carnica breeders (possibly even by posting micro-pipettes of drone sperm for II work). I also offer open mated daughters, which are sisters of the same queens I use in my own breeding as production queens/1b drone mothers. As open mated queens, I don't recommend these as 2a (mothers of queens) but I know some people do precisely that to improve their local bees.
The emphasis on the use of control-mated queens will always be on committed carnica breeders as this represents the best use of the "asset".
I have provided queens for large-scale queen producers to evaluate (e.g. ITLD) and the feedback is generally good. I can't be more specific than that as I don't disclose who takes my queens unless they do so first.

I should add that I'm not forcing my choice on anyone so I can't "make it normal in the population". Beekeepers must choose whether they support the approach enough to adopt the queens for use in their own apiaries. There will always be "early adopters" who see the value of stock improvement, just as there will always be followers and those who are left behind with whatever nature throws at them. I can encourage people to do what I do, but, I can't force them to.

 

[Beefriendly]

B+ you need to read the question, that answer doesn't address it.

It's a theoretical exercise that you are in the best place to answer and the logical outcome for all this hard work on VSH queens.

Assume your latest queen at 100% VSH and others like her breed true.
How would you set about ensuring these where the dominant genes expressed in a country/county?
You are allowed to think out of the box for this. remember it's only a theoretical exercise at this point.
I can think of at least two ways this could be done.

 

[B+.]

B+ you need to read the question, that answer doesn't address it.

It's a theoretical exercise that you are in the best place to answer and the logical outcome for all this hard work on VSH queens.

Assume your latest queen at 100% VSH and others like her breed true.
How would you set about ensuring these where the dominant genes expressed in a country/county?
You are allowed to think out of the box for this. remember it's only a theoretical exercise at this point.
I can think of at least two ways this could be done.

I don't accept your scenario as a breeding goal. To do so would be seen as intrusive/draconian by some beekeepers. Can you imagine the response from Amm (or Buckfast, etc) enthusiasts if I said they should adopt Amc simply because they offered the possibility of hygiene/VSH? It just wouldn't work.
The only way to ensure life-long adoption is for people to see the benefits for themselves. I can facilitate this but I can't/don't want to mandate it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’ve deleted a few posts that have slipped into personal attacks.
Now I’m closing it as the original topic seems to have been exhausted