Swindon Honeybee Conservation Group

[Ed Woods]

There was an interesting article in the latest Smallholder magazine about the Swindon Honeybee Conservation Group and their hygenic bees - able to groom off the Varroa mite and remove larvae with Varroa mites on them.

http://www.swindonhoneybeeconservation.org.uk/

Looks like the future in controlling the Varroa.

 

[RoofTops]

I wish Ron well in his work but this has been endlessly discussed here. In a perfect world, if all bees were bred according to strict controls then his method might be applicable. But with something like half the beekeepers in the UK not even being members of a beekeeping association instilling the sort of discipline required is simply a non-starter. It would be nice to think a critical mass of hygienic bees could be created for them to dominate but that is pie in the sky I am afraid. I fear honey bees are just too promiscuous - as Gregor Mendel discovered.

The politics on the website are new - the dig at what I presume is Sussex University is not edifying. Who knows which team is going to hit gold?

I fear if honey bees do have the potential ability to live with varroa then it will take a timescale far longer than my life span for them to achieve it. Where varroa came from Apis ceranae has had probably the odd few hundred thousand years if not millions to adopt a strategy for coping with varroa - but their strategy does not make them useful as collectors of honey for humans.

And of course there is always the question - are they selecting for bees with a specific behavioural trait or are they selecting their varroa?

 

[Chris Luck]

There seems to be an almost complete mental block with most members of this forum with accepting that honey bees do in fact live perfectly well with the presence of varroa mites despite the fact that not only do my bees survive year after year after year without treatment BUT also the INRA long term study I have posted many times before also backs this up. Honey bees can and do live with the mite without problems in France.

Personally I suspect there is a huge gravy train rolling on the back of supposed serious problems that threaten honey bees.

Chris

 

[oliver90owner]

Chris,

You have to realise that 'everyone' is coersed into treating with oxalic acid every winter and then changing the queens on a regular basis - either every year or every other year.

That, you can imagine, gives no chance at all of sorting out the 'varroa resistant' strains.

Hence the continuing cycle of supply of queens which may show no exceptional varroa resistance, or do not get the chance to demonstrate their resistance traits, to the beek.

Quiet docile bees are the order of the day, and a prospect of a honey crop, are about the only traits that the average UK hobby beek looks for.

You also need to remember that many bees are situated very close to neighbours of some sort - either next door, or the adjacent allotments.

It all adds up to 'don't know', 'don't care', or 'needs must'.

Commercial beeks have a different agenda - maximum yield. That likely fails to allow time/space/effort/etc to develop such strains.

Regards, RAB

 

[Chris Luck]

Yes RAB, I know the problems only too well. Here the "Black bees" are still held in high esteem by many bee keepers regardless of them being a bit feisty and less productive.

Chris

 

[Luminos]

Quote: "honey bees do in fact live perfectly well with the presence of varroa mites"

...mine didn't...

 

[Chris Luck]

We don't know what happened to your bees Luminos, all we have is some speculative guess work, could have been all manner of things including lost or damaged queen.

Apart from the INRA evidence I speak from years of personal experience.

Good luck.
Chris

 

[The Cumbrian]

I speak from years of personal experience.


Chris

Am I understanding this correctly. You can raise bees that have varroa do no treatments to control the varroa and they survive and prosper.

I do hope that is the case, but it does seem to contradict what most people feel/experience/believe.

 

[RoofTops]

CL described his approach very well in another thread. It was "let them swarm whenever they want" or words to that effect. This is not a new idea. The break in brood rearing when they swarm does help control the varroa numbers.

In the long term I fear the bees will succumb to a build up of viruses but it should be OK for 4 or 5 years or so. Then when the coloney dies another swarm takes up residence and so it goes on.

I'll stick with the OA and summer thymol. RAB will stick with whatever system he uses - whatever that it is.

 

[The Cumbrian]

"let them swarm whenever they want"

I thought letting bees swarm was classed as a bit anti social in the current climate.

 

[Chris Luck]

Swarming "when they want" in my case is April / May, this is what they do year after year, regular as clockwork, I think it's the natural time....

...equally there is nothing anti social about allowing bees to swarm in the countryside, especially if you make your self available during that period to capture as many as possible, the rest simply take up residency else where, they are a natural native wild species after all.

In the long term I fear the bees will succumb to a build up of viruses but it should be OK for 4 or 5 years or so.

Again the monitored evidence in France is that some colonies are still going strong after 18 years with no treatments.

Chris

 

[Arfermo]

I'll stick with the OA and summer thymol. RAB will stick with whatever system he uses - whatever that it is.

But perhaps RAB should tell us his secret - or has he already done so?

 

[Hivemaker.]

But perhaps RAB should tell us his secret - or has he already done so?

Yes he has,several times, its just that he does not follow the rest of the.....[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sJYa8epIII&feature=related[/ame]

 

[Chris Luck]

Heresy, heresy...people thinking for them selves, what ever next? The entire edifice will crumble and people will loose MONEY.

Chris

 

[Luminos]

We don't know what happened to your bees Luminos, all we have is some speculative guess work, could have been all manner of things including lost or damaged queen.

Apart from the INRA evidence I speak from years of personal experience.

Good luck.
Chris

My queen is in my freezer, so she did not get lost, or damaged.
And an experienced beek of 30 years+ examined the remains of my colony, and so we do indeed know what caused their demise - it was Varroa mites. Lots of them.

If I'd was a newbie just joined the forum, I know whose advice I'd be taking.

 

[RoofTops]

In the beginning no one treated for varroa and some beekeepers lost so many bees they gave up beekeeping.

Over time techniques have been developed for coping with the threat. Some of these techniques are easy to understand and easy for beekeepers to adopt. One of the best known is thymol in late summer followed by an OA trickle. Do that and your bees will have a good chance of surviving.

By all means try other methods once you have learned how to keep on top of varroa but my worry is there will be beginnners reading discussions like this and they are going to end up very dissapointed if they follow the wrong lead and don't have the skills to recognize problems before they get too advanced.

The "leave well alone" method has been well tried - of the 50 or so colonies left on an island in the Baltic some indeed were still alive after 5 years but nothing came of the strain of bees - or was it a strain of varroa - which this method may have isolated.

What works in the wilds of France is probably not applicable to surburban Surrey.

 

[Luminos]

In the beginning no one treated for varroa and some beekeepers lost so many bees they gave up beekeeping.

Over time techniques have been developed for coping with the threat. Some of these techniques are easy to understand and easy for beekeepers to adopt. One of the best known is thymol in late summer followed by an OA trickle. Do that and your bees will have a good chance of surviving.

By all means try other methods once you have learned how to keep on top of varroa but my worry is there will be beginnners reading discussions like this and they are going to end up very dissapointed if they follow the wrong lead and don't have the skills to recognize problems before they get too advanced.

The "leave well alone" method has been well tried - of the 50 or so colonies left on an island in the Baltic some indeed were still alive after 5 years but nothing came of the strain of bees - or was it a strain of varroa - which this method may have isolated.

What works in the wilds of France is probably not applicable to surburban Surrey.

except for the last line - it doesn't necessarily work in the wilds of France - otherwise my association wouldn't be selling all manner of anti varroa treatments.
Don't think that beekeepers in France don't have an IPM system, because they do.
The responsible ones, anyway.

 

[Chris Luck]

If I'd was a newbie just joined the forum, I know whose advice I'd be taking.

Well, not mine because I don't give advice other than suggest people find all the available information they can and then use their own brain - for those that can. Crass statements about colonies not surviving long term without treatment need challenging.

What works in the wilds of France is probably not applicable to surburban Surrey.

Should go without saying, but then we are back to people using their brains to think for themselves. Having said that, this is a huge honey producing region, almost impossible to drive anywhere without seeing rows or clusters of hives. Feral colonies are everywhere - mercifully.

I fully understand people being concerned when they only have a small number of colonies, I would worry as well, but here in France most keepers have a reasonable number of colonies and 10% losses have been traditionally considered acceptable and just as well otherwise we would be buried in bees. Part of the natural world is that the weak die and the strong survive and create a better, (stronger), gene pool.

Chris

 

[Chris Luck]

Don't think that beekeepers in France don't have an IPM system, because they do.
The responsible ones, anyway

For someone that had one colony for a few months and lost it you really do think a lot of your self - and once again you need to get all your facts into one basket.

Chris

 

[Luminos]

For someone that had one colony for a few months and lost it you really do think a lot of your self - and once again you need to get all your facts into one basket.

Chris

I'm not taking the bait, Chris.
I know comparatively little about bees, and would be the first to admit it; however, I do know beekeepers who do.
I don't think there are many on this forum who advocate leaving their bees to their own devices.
I quote Hooper:
"Carried to an extreme, the extensive method (of beekeeping) produces the "leave alone" beekeeper....who takes any crop he is lucky enough to find at the end of the year. This is antisocial behaviour on the part of the beekeeper, as he runs the risk of retaining disease in his colonies for unnecessarily long periods, and makes his colonies a possible source of danger to his fellow beekeepers, as well as spraying the neighbourhood with stray swarms, which are a nuisance to everyone. It is impossible to cal this "owner of bees" a beekeeper".

As for your comment For someone that had one colony for a few months and lost it you really do think a lot of your self well, all I can say is, kick the ball, not the player.