Madge
Drone Bee
- Joined
- May 17, 2010
- Messages
- 1,373
- Reaction score
- 72
- Location
- Aberdeenshire, Scotland
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 45
...
But biggest humbug is that queens are said to cure almist all diseases. There are no tests about diseases.
Hygienic bees is an old thing. Nothin odd in it. ...
LASI don't make any claims about 'curing almost all diseases'. They say hygienic bees 'control' various diseases.
Yes, they also say hygienic behaviour is an old trait - but that it is a genetic trait, not a learned trait.
The advantage of buying virgins, they say, is:
1) they are cheaper; 2) by mating with local drones the resulting workers will have a combination of local genes from the drones and hygienic genes from the queen.
As for me, I added a third reason: to add new blood lines to my colonies. I bought five virgins and all five got mated and survived to build up new colonies. I'll evaluate them next year, but I don't really have a varroa problem, so I can't judge them on that - but chalk brood, perhaps, and all the other usual things.