Views on LASI Queens at the end of the season

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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.
 
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:

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.

I think that your genetic knowledge is not enough to undertsan the issue.
You have no facts what are you writing. You are going to get them, but your answers are already ready. It is like with Fusion Power.

Third generation ?

Vigin 50% original genes mated with 200 mongrel hives artound you.
1. generation 25%
2. gen .12%
3. 6%



An Australian Project says:

- These hygienic testingresults arequite promising forthe furthered development of hygienic stockin Australia.

However,
- it is essential to understand that only 50% of the drones need to be from hygienic colonies for the trait to be expressed in the next generation.
It is thereforen crucial to remain focused on other beekeeper desired traits such as disease resistance, honey production and gentleness By keeping exceptional colonies in the breeding program despite their hygienic test results.
 
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To saturate environment with hygienic drones

You have 25 hives. At the distance of 2 km you have perhaps 200 other hives.
If half of your drones have hygienic genes, they represent 5% in genepool flying in air.


And a virgin should get 50% of those genes. And that virgin has only half of its genes from hygienic.

These are only calculatiuons.

In third generation percents of hygienig genes are practically zero.
 
I think that your genetic knowledge is not enough to undertsan the issue.
You have no facts what are you writing. You are going to get them, but your answers are already ready. ...

Oh, for heaven's sake. Read my post. I made no claims about anything whatsoever.
 
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To saturate environment with hygienic drones

You have 25 hives. At the distance of 2 km you have perhaps 200 other hives.
...

Most unlikely. I live in rural Aberdeenshire. I know of only two other beekeepers within a few miles from me - one with one hive and the other with three. My 25 colonies are divided between three apiaries up to 15 miles apart with no other beekeepers near any of them (apart from the two beekeepers already mentioned).
 
Interesting to me the amount of arguing over this question when there is readily available research to show just how much genetic gain comes from using highly hygienic queens mated with local hygienic drones. Read the links on this page and see how much can be gleaned.

http://www.beelab.umn.edu/honey-bees/research/publications

This one discusses the requirements for percentage of drones carrying hygienic trait that must mate with a fully hygienic queen for hyg behavior to express very highly. http://www.beelab.umn.edu/sites/beelab.umn.edu/files/new-direction.pdf

This one discusses selection methods for hygienic behavior, it is a dozen years old and is pre-dated by other work such as that of Steve Taber. http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center...ntrolling-Honey-Bee-Diseases-and-Varroa-Mites

Hygienic behavior alone is insufficient to bring varroa under control. Another group of highly heritable behaviors has to be combined with hyg to reach that point. The trait being focused on quite a bit here in the U.S. is mite mauling which is often associated with allogrooming, defined as the behavior of bees grooming mites off other bees. Autogrooming is defined as a bee grooming itself to remove varroa. Allogrooming is much more valuable in this context and is the subject of various selection programs such as from Purdue University. Even then, it is an uneasy balance. If all colonies in an area are highly resistant to varroa, then varroa levels will drop to very low levels. For this reason, saturating your local region with hyg queens is a very positive step.
 
We're not talking about hygienic queens mating with hygienic drones (if there is such a thing) it's about bought in 'hygienic virgins delivered by post from nevernever land mating with the local mix of whatever's around
 
We're not talking about hygienic queens mating with hygienic drones (if there is such a thing)
Keep in mind that your population is local and may vary quite a bit from other areas. One of the articles in the above link documents that 1 or 2 percent of bee stocks are highly hygienic. This suggests up to 4% of the breeding population of drones carry the hyg trait. Mating a known hygienic virgin to these drones will still give some genetic gain, as documented in the above articles, but the benefit comes from the next generation where the hyg queen produces drones that mate in the local population. It took Spivak's cooperating breeders 4 years of queen rearing and selection to get to the point most of their colonies were highly hygienic. They were starting from highly selected hygienic stock.

For anyone who finds significantly lower mite levels in the first year after getting a LASI virgin queen, please wait to evaluate until the second year. The brood break effect of putting a new queen in a hive and letting her mate will significantly reduce varroa in that colony. The second year won't have that brood break.

JBM, may I suggest looking closely at your bees. A.m.m. tends to express grooming behavior much better than Italian or Carniolan stock.
 
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Minnesota letter says the same as do the Australian breeders. Hygienic virgin must have 50% hygienic drones. Otherwise the colony will not act as hygienic.

That is important to know when 2 hive owner buy virgins.

Vain to wait then that the colony start to kill mites.
 
We're not talking about hygienic queens mating with hygienic drones (if there is such a thing) it's about bought in 'hygienic virgins delivered by post from nevernever land mating with the local mix of whatever's around

We just started to talk about that. If you buy a hygienic virgin, and when it mates with local mongrels, you do not get hygienic colony.

So simple: Buy mated queens.

And when you take daughters from that hygienic hive, the daughters will not have hygienic workers.
The solution is, that buy a new hygienic mated queen.
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Keep in mind that your population is local and may vary quite a bit from other areas. One of the articles in the above link documents that 1 or 2 percent of bee stocks are highly hygienic. This suggests up to 4% of the breeding population of drones carry the hyg trait. Mating a known hygienic virgin to these drones will still give some genetic gain, as documented in the above articles, but the benefit comes from the next generation where the hyg queen produces drones that mate in the local population. It took Spivak's cooperating breeders 4 years of queen rearing and selection to get to the point most of their colonies were highly hygienic. They were starting from highly selected hygienic stock.

For anyone who finds significantly lower mite levels in the first year after getting a LASI virgin queen, please wait to evaluate until the second year. The brood break effect of putting a new queen in a hive and letting her mate will significantly reduce varroa in that colony. The second year won't have that brood break.

JBM, may I suggest looking closely at your bees. A.m.m. tends to express grooming behavior much better than Italian or Carniolan stock.

Fusion, your are not realistic. You say that 2-hive owner can change the villages 164 other hives to hygienic filling sir with drones. That I call false prophet..

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I make no such claim finman. Anyone who can get mated queens will have more benefit than from hygienic virgins. This would be a very good occasion for someone to set up an island mating station and start selling pure mated hygienic queens. My point was that even with random matings, that virgin is likely to produce at least 4% workers that express hygienic behavior and her drones will be 100% carriers of the trait. As noted in Spivak's papers, there is no "cost" to having hygienic bees. Are you complaining because someone bred bees that are inherently resistant to foulbrood and chalk?
 
I make no such claim finman. Anyone who can get mated queens will have more benefit than from hygienic virgins. This would be a very good occasion for someone to set up an island mating station and start selling pure mated hygienic queens. M
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I only say that buy a mated queen, not virgin.

And do not set up own mating station to island to get two queens.

Fusion. You do not understand, how much a queen seller needs colonies to avoid inbreeding and select best queens and drones.

Two hive breeding station onto cold sea isle. What next.

Would you read, how many breeding lines real bee breeders have?

Hygienic behaviour is not only feature what the colony must have.
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If you sell humbug, soon no one buy from you. I have seen it. Beeks tell to each other what the queens really are.
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If you are going to talk genetics, define your terms.

Tolerance - the ability of an organism to deal with the effects of a pest or a disease

Resistance - the ability of an organism to avoid or prevent infection or suppress a pest

Immunity - total resistance as in can't be infected or totally suppresses a pest.

Note that I used the word "resistance" above in "are inherently resistant to foulbrood and chalk". So where are you coming up with "immunity" as part of this discussion?
 
If you are going to talk genetics,.

Note that I used the word "resistance" above in "are inherently resistant to foulbrood and chalk". So where are you coming up with "immunity" as part of this discussion?



I have studied genetics and biology in university. I know the terms enough. You must work for yourself to understand things. I have already done. I recommend population genetic knowledge to you.

There are much immune bees strains against chalk. Mad idea to breed bees, which carry out quickly dead chalk larvae. It is real mistake.
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I have bred my bee stock immune to chalk brood, and I do it again, if needed.

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