Truth and faith in varroa resistancy

[Finman]

Sorry if you thought I was questioning your credentials. Sorry if my post gave you that impression. I was merely pointing out my observations based on experience. I am very thankfull you are engaging me in my interpretation of these facts. Hope no offence is taken.

Now I become sorry...

 

[Fusion_power]

I've lost one hive so far this year and it was because they did not have enough winter stores. They were a late split that did not build up very well and with the extreme drought in the area did not get a fall flow to store for winter. I fed them a gallon of syrup but it was not enough. My other colonies are looking very good for January.

there are least varroa in treated hives.

There are least varroa in mite resistant colonies. Just after treatment, there are few varroa in the treated colony. Untreated colonies that are not mite resistant are dead within 2 years. The source of untreated colonies that are not mite resistant is from treated colones that are not mite resistant.

Mite resistance genes are slowly accumulating into commercial stocks of bees. This is shown by the number of queen breeders advertising VSH genetics.

 

[Finman]

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Fusion has such winter that weathers are from 8C to 15C.

. Sounds May in my conditions, or September.

In London UK forecast is from 0 to +13C.

 

[B+.]

I treat my bees so just playing devils advocate. Treatment must therefore hinder the process of natural selection. Especially heavy treatment routines. If an area stopped treating surely the process of natural selection would tackle the problem. Again I know very little about this just seems like common sense. And I like common sense.

The only VSH bees I have were instrumentally inseminated so the question of natural selection doesn't occur. These bees have been selectively bred as part of a breeding programme.
They are not treated for varroa.

 

[Finman]

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No we get into virtual world to reality.

Here is a new report about "Comparison of Russian and Italian Honey Bees". Feb 2016 New York University.
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/comparison-of-russian-and-italian-honey-bees



- Russian bees had been exposed to varroa mites for approximately 150 years, much longer than other Apis mellifera strains had, and the researchers surmised that the Russian bees could have developed a resistance to the mites. Indeed, subsequent research has shown that these Russian bees are more than twice as resistant to varroa mites than other honey bees. Moreover, they are highly resistant to tracheal mites, the other mortal enemy of bees. Russian bees also tend to produce as much honey as standard bee stocks, if not more.

- A number of American queen breeders now produce Russian queens for sale. These breeders are located all across the country, but most are concentrated in the South and in California. Many of the Russian queens on the market are hybrid daughters of a breeder queen openly mated to any drone, which may come from a variety of stocks within two miles of a particular mating yard. The resulting colonies are genetic hybrids. Recent research has suggested the hybrids are only partially resistant to mites, but studies at North Carolina State University show that partial resistance is statistically significant when the hybrids are compared to Italian bees.

 

[Finman]

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So, in the molgrel reality like in UK, the features do not stay long when you buy a new laying queen. VHS daughters need VHS drones, that they keep their features. Mite resistant virgins need mite resistant drones.

When in normal beekeeping hives swarm every year, after couple of years the hive has lost its mite resistancy. Original genes have dropped to 1/4.

Everyone insist, that they do not loose their hives, but from where then comes -40% annual losses in USA. If some does not loose any hives, some other must loose almost every hive annually that we get average -40%.

You may loose all hives on backyard, but during summer most of hives are again occupied with swarms.


Even if USA has lost during 10 years huge amount of hives, amount of hives has remained same during those disappearing years.

 

[Finman]

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Loss trend is going up First -30%, then at the level of -40%.

It seems that our American forum members do not agree official researching.

We would imagine that resistant bee strains should do their job in 10 years but... that we are talking about.

 

[Finman]

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Canada beehives. +20% growth in last 10 years.
In Canada 80% out of beekeepers are professional

 

[Finman]

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[Finman]

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Research of the year 2007


J Econ Entomol. 2007 Apr;100(2):258-66.

Comparison of parasitic mites in Russian-hybrid and Italian honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) colonies across three different locations in North Carolina.


It is said here that, it is difficult to make comparision, because most of Russian hives are hybrids.

They found statistical diffence in their study that "such that Russian-hybrid colonies tended to have lower total numbers of mites than Italian colonies. These findings suggest that beekeepers may benefit by incorporating commercially purchased mite-tolerant stocks into their existing integrated pest management programs.".

 

[domino]

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A view from Wales hills...

Which will win? I bet the lamb. Winter and wind 68 miles/hour will kill the lion.

This made me chuckle for a good ten minutes.

 

[B+.]

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So, in the molgrel reality like in UK, the features do not stay long when you buy a new laying queen. VHS daughters need VHS drones, that they keep their features. Mite resistant virgins need mite resistant drones.
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This is true. If people truly want hygienic and VSH behaviour they're going to have to make some decisions about the way they keep bees. Otherwise they can keep on applying treatments that disguise the very traits they say they want.
A VSH queen will produce drones which inherit some of her characteristics (subject to the heritability of the trait). They will pass these on to the progeny of queens they mate with so the traits become more common in the local environment. Of course this depends on the number of drones carrying the trait and how successful they are at mating with virgin queens in an area.
There is a lot of talk on this forum but very little evidence of any action. Why is it so hard to understand? The only way things will change is if more people test for VSH and breed selectively. This requires effort. It doesn't come free.

 

[Finman]

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That is true. It is best to test your drone hives before move them to mating station.

IT is not necessary to carry the whole hive there. It is enough when you take a full drone frame there and cluster of drones from bottom frames.
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[B+.]

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That is true. It is best to test your drone hives before move them to mating station.

IT is not necessary to carry the whole hive there. It is enough when you take a full drone frame there and cluster of drones from bottom frames.
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Even better... we have a system in BeeBreed where drone frames are divided in 2 or 3. These are distributed to other colonies (above a queen excluder) which have all their own drone brood removed. These colonies nurture the drones in the same way a queenless cell starter nurtures queen cells. When they are mature, they are harvested for instrumental insemination work.
As for taking drone colonies to an official mating station....you can't. The only drones permitted anywhere near a mating station are selected for the purpose. In the case of BeeBreed, we finalise the choice at the spring meeting but the decision on which queen(s) to use for drone production (4a) was really made the previous year when the breeding values are published (February). These are the only drones allowed at the mating station.

 

[Finman]

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This text outght be here, but I wrote it into native bee stall.

One thing more about those Russian bees

IT is said that Russian bee had small winter clusters. Usual size is 4 frames.
That kind of colony is Impossible in Finland, because it does not grow so fast that it could get yield in our 6 weeks flow period. .

.Russian bee has a habit. When mite load rises over certain level, it draws all brood away from hive. When mites accumulate in autumn into last brood, bees kill all brood, which ought to be winter bees.

If I want a good yield from raspberry, i must have one box of brood after 2 weeks when willow starts to bloom. 4 frame colony cannot make 8 frames brood. It takes one month, that it grows to one box size. When Russian bee has one box bees, raspberry already starts blooming.

Now, in UK conditions this is more important. Do you get yield from winter rape, if winter cluster is 4 frames?
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And when the colony starts with 4 frames, how much it has at the end of winter. 2-3 frames.
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