Views on LASI Queens at the end of the season

[Finman]

If the bees are highly resistant to varroa, there will be very few varroa in the colony at any time of year.

I have followed mite resistant researching and discussions. I have not met such information, that "there will be few varroa in the hive".

At same time an Alaskan beekeeper had 10 Russian colonies, and he told that 7 of them died by varroa.

And at same time there was a test, where Danish university compared Russian bees and German Carniolan bees, how well they stand varroa.

The research was interrupted when varroa amout rose so high, that researchers wanter to save the colonies, because it was sure that otherwise they will die.

It is so easy to write: "if the bees are TRULY resistant". But where heck you have met such bees. Hobby beekeepers stories I do not believe because I have met them enough during 10 years.



And I have met those most famous natural beekeepers who tell lies like children. They abandon all researches, what are against their stories.

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[Finman]

Where do they say that?

Now I found the LASI text: Copy paste : How Hygienic are Open-Mated Queens?
Research at LASI has shown that open mated daughter queens of highly hygienic breeder colonies are highly hygienic. The average level of freeze-killed brood removal was 95.5% over 2 days.

If you compare to Australian Project results, after 12 y breeding, results are very different.

 

[B+.]

Research at LASI has shown that open mated daughter queens of highly hygienic breeder colonies are highly hygienic. The average level of freeze-killed brood removal was 95.5% over 2 days.

If you compare to Australian Project results, after 12 y breeding, results are very different.

It would depend on how isolated the mating site is Finman.
All of the island mating stations use open mating but they are so far off the coast that undesirable drones can't fly that far. I doubt that Sussex is so isolated that they can really claim this though. Also, heritability comes into play so the trait would not necessarily appear in all of the next generation.

 

[Finman]

It would depend on how isolated the mating site is Finman.
All of the island mating stations use open mating but they are so far off the coast that undesirable drones can't fly that far. I doubt that Sussex is so isolated that they can really claim this though. Also, heritability comes into play so the trait would not necessarily appear in all of the next generation.

Sure. over 90% of British beekeepers are two hive owners. No one of them have isolated mating stations which has highly hygienic droned over 50%.

You buy a hygienic virgin. Then it is mated on the area which has 100 mongrel colonies. And you wish that hyienic behaviours appers in future generation.


After all, it is nice that two hive owner has hygienic Lasi queen.

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[Finman]

ItAll of the island mating stations use open mating but they are so far off the coast .

It is clear that Lasi Project has organized it work on best way.
No doubt about it. But I just read their texts and I evaluate it with my skills.

I bet that the weathers on those isles are not very favourable to queen mating, when isle is surrounded by cold Atlantic ocean .

I have reared queens 50 years, I know quite much about them.
And I live in a sea isle.

 

[B+.]

You buy a hygienic virgin. Then it is mated on the area which has 100 mongrel colonies. And you wish that hyienic behaviours appers in future generation.


After all, it is nice that two hive owner has hygienic Lasi queen.

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I completely agree. The idea that you will automatically get hygienic behaviour from an open mated virgin (mated in England) is preposterous. You may see some improvement over the norm, but, it will quickly diminish over the generations without selective breeding.
Personally, I wouldn't buy LASI queens. There is too much uncertainty over their pedigree and, even using instrumental insemination, I couldn't be sure how much inbreeding would occur (without knowledge of the pedigree).
The post above was intended to show how stock is maintained by proper breeders. Open mated queens (produced in the UK) wouldn't even appear in my stockbook because their workers couldn't be guaranteed to be pure. I ony use island mated or instrumentally inseminated stock for this.

 

[B+.]

I bet that the weathers on those isles are not very favourable to queen mating, when isle is surrounded by cold Atlantic ocean .

The islands are very unfavourable, which is why they are used (https://youtu.be/kyzAS5eZ2xA?t=51m30s. Bees can only survive there for a couple of months of the year. In fact, I had to change my plan this year because the Dutch line to be mated on Vlieland had such poor results that I had to buy instrumentally inseminated queens instead. Later results were better but it was too windy even in June on Vlieland. The islands further around to the east (Wadden Sea) had better results though

 

[Finman]

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Why I am interested about this. I have wondered why our big gueen rearers do not make tests. They avoid the question they travel outboards and they know the reality.

Small scale beekeepers are interested, even eager to make their own bee stock..

But Australian reports tell, what is real breeding work

Our queen rearing season is very short, 1-1,5 months. Virgins are easy to get but then mating is in Lord's hand.

 

[B+.]

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Why I am interested about this. I have wondered why our big gueen rearers do not make tests. They avoid the question they travel outboards and they know the reality.

Small scale beekeepers are interested, even eager to make their own bee stock..

But Australian reports tell, what is real breeding work

Our queen rearing season is very short, 1-1,5 months. Virgins are easy to get but then mating is in Lord's hand.

It is the same everywhere, bee breeders select the very best queens for sale to queen rearers and for further propagation. The queen rearers produce many queens from a few selected queens. When people buy queens, it is usually from one of these queen rearers, not the breeder.

 

[Finman]

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Mating in my district last July

We had rainy July this year. I got 3 drone layers, and when I set up hives for winter feeding in September, what I saw was that hives had 2 boxes drone brood. Queens were killed by transportation to new pastures. 10% summer losses for these.

 

[Cussword]

How many colonies do you have Finnie?

 

[Finman]

How many colonies do you have Finnie?

Now 25

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[Madge]

Now I found the LASI text: Copy paste : How Hygienic are Open-Mated Queens?
Research at LASI has shown that open mated daughter queens of highly hygienic breeder colonies are highly hygienic. The average level of freeze-killed brood removal was 95.5% over 2 days.

If you compare to Australian Project results, after 12 y breeding, results are very different.

Thanks. I found the text. It's on their opening page under 'Benefits For Beekeepers'.

They're talking about their own open-mated queens - they're not talking about the virgin queens they're selling. So, no false promises there.

What they're saying is simply that if you buy and open-mated queen from them, you are likely to buy a queen that is highly hygienic - and they have tested that, as they say in that piece.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

their own[/B] open-mated queens - they're not talking about the virgin queens they're selling. So, no false promises there.

Different to what Prof Ratnieks said in his roadshow - where he catgegorically stated that 'hygienic' virgins sold from LASI and open mated at our apiaries would give us hygienic bees.

 

[B+.]

Different to what Prof Ratnieks said in his roadshow - where he catgegorically stated that 'hygienic' virgins sold from LASI and open mated at our apiaries would give us hygienic bees.

How did he justify this?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

How did he justify this?

Because he's a professor, and he knows I think were his words!!

 

[B+.]

Because he's a professor, and he knows I think were his words!!

I was hoping for a justification of the grounds that he thought open mated virgins might breed true.
If the area is already saturated with drones of that type, there are some grounds for saying this (although they are not completely reliable). In a heavily mongrelised area, you really can't be sure what the workers will be like. This is really basic stuff so I doubt his attitude will help sell many queens.

 

[Finman]

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Lets assume, that there are in English village 100 hives, and 20% out of hives show naturally hygienic behaviour, like Australian hives 15 years ago. It is then 20 hives.

Then you buy a £ 5000 highly hygienic mated queen. Do you think that the queen changes something in village's genepool.
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[B+.]

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Then you buy a £ 5000 highly hygienic mated queen. Do you think that the queen changes something in village's genepool.
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Now, if there were 50 drone producing colonies, like in the Thuringian forest (https://youtu.be/ZCcbj1Gv9UM?t=20m46s), it would make some sense

 

[Madge]

Different to what Prof Ratnieks said in his roadshow - where he catgegorically stated that 'hygienic' virgins sold from LASI and open mated at our apiaries would give us hygienic bees.

This is all he says on the website:

by mating with local drones the resulting workers will have a combination of local genes from the drones and hygienic genes from the queen.

He gave a talk to the SBA convention, and I can't recall him making mad promises. To me, personally, he didn't say anything like that either - simply, it will be a mixture, which is true.