Sometimes you have to accept that the bees think they know best

[elainemary]

What's that, please?

It’s a device with 50 entomology pins spaced correctly so you push into a patch of sealed brood at approx purple eye stage. This kills the pupa. You use with a cut out rhomboid of 100 cells and mark the frame first with 4 dots at the corner of each rhomboid.

This then gives you a ‘control’ patch of 50 cells and 50 with the pins. You come back a few hours later and count how many brood cells have been removed. Some colonies will remove 95%+ and these are hygienic ie better at removing dead larva / more likely to have some disease resistance. The nurse bees can pick up if a larva is dead and will open the cell and remove. Other colonies might only remove say 50%. Gives you an idea which colonies are good at detecting disease.

So if that’s one of your selection criteria that queen could perhaps be a breeder queen in the future. It’s different to VSH (varroa sensitive hygiene) the pin test won’t tell you that.

I’m going to do it on all mine this year

 

[elainemary]

I just wondered how you decided a floor was clean if it was mesh?

Just by looking at it. Mine don’t tend to propolis the mesh. Last spring the majority had no debris at all, I was quite struck by it.

Just realised what you mean … OMF s in WBCs and some polyhives are smaller than standard nationals so they have quite a wide area of wood around, that the brood nest is on top. So I look at whether this part is clean as well.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It’s a device with 50 entomology pins spaced correctly so you push into a patch of sealed brood

and bleddy expensive if I recall, I was given a link to the Danish site that devised/sold then at the last 'Live' UBKA convention just before Covid

 

[Finman]

In my apiary I am the best.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

a legend in your own lunchtime

 

[Finman]

I found from google an innovative magical beekeeper.
.

 

[elainemary]

and bleddy expensive if I recall, I was given a link to the Danish site that devised/sold then at the last 'Live' UBKA convention just before Covid

Yes they are, I had to think about it for a while, gulp how much? Still I thought with a dozen colonies it would be less than a tenner in the first year of use to know for sure how hygienic each of them are and whether to rear queens from them, assuming their other characteristics ok. Also thought as proper entomology pins in a sealed device to protect the pins, it would do the right job and quickly rather than using a fine needle 50 x per colony…Made by hand too, so all considered I bit the bullet. Arrived in the post yesterday.

 

[pargyle]

Yes they are, I had to think about it for a while, gulp how much? Still I thought with a dozen colonies it would be less than a tenner in the first year of use to know for sure how hygienic each of them are and whether to rear queens from them, assuming their other characteristics ok. Also thought as proper entomology pins in a sealed device to protect the pins, it would do the right job and quickly rather than using a fine needle 50 x per colony…Made by hand too, so all considered I bit the bullet. Arrived in the post yesterday.

You get the same device in the abelo three in one varroa tester ... but that's only £15 and it gives you a really good bit if kit to do sugar rolls as well.

 

[elainemary]

You get the same device in the abelo three in one varroa tester ... but that's only £15 and it gives you a really good bit if kit to do sugar rolls as well.

Yes I have one of those but the plastic ‘pins’ are very thick in comparison and I really didn’t think it would work v well as a hygiene test, as would practically decimate the larva / pupa, so any colony would remove the mashed cells. I’m not even sure it’s designed for that…must read the box again (but think in Polish!!). This is much more subtle and very very fine pins, so a tiny puncture hole to test the ability of the nurse bees to detect the death of a pupa.