VSH Bees. The Future? or a False Dawn?

[Finman]

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Put into Google "varroa in cerana" and read yourself how mites are controlled by cerana.

 

[Beefriendly]

I just can't get past how fusion has managed a successful varroa breeding programme virtually by accident and maintained whatever genes control the process with just a handful of hives.

IIRC he is sufficiently isolated that he has control over most of the drones. Something we don't have in many parts of the UK.
From Fusion's posts it appears they may have picked the frequent swarming habit to cope with varroa,, as has been reported in several other instances. Which I think means that if he breeds for less swarminess they may well lose their varroa tolerance.
Interesting experiment.

 

[Fusion_power]

I have no way of avoiding my neighbours drones and I am in a very rural area but with a lot of small holders living the dream with bees.

I am fortunate to be in a rural area with relatively few beekeepers. The nearest to me are over 3 miles away as the crow flies. This limits breeding with outside stock. It also helps that several local beekeepers are "leave them alone" types who by accident picked up swarms from my stock over the years. As I have posted before, I deliberately pushed my bees to swarm heavily in 2006 and 2008 so the feral population in this area would be heavily slanted toward mite resistance. Why not in 2007? We had an atypical spring freeze that killed most spring flowers resulting in zero swarms for the year. So to get to your point, I don't think it can be done (going treatment free) until all the beekeepers in an area do the same. You can certainly bring in mite resistant stock and for a few years should be ok. Eventually genetic dilution would take a toll as the purchased queens are replaced.

How many do I cull or otherwise lose? My average losses run about 10% and usually are from a colony going queenless. I have not had a deadout from varroa in 10 years. I lost 3 colonies to hive beetles a few years ago. This was mostly because I moved the colonies in August which triggered the beetles to lay eggs.

For the post that Scutellata breeds true, this is not quite valid in my climate. Scutellata is adapted to the tropics. In a subtropical environment and particularly in a high rainfall climate, scutellata has to cross with a better adapted bee so they can get through winter. I have found the stinging traits very amenable to selection. I'm now 4 years from bringing in the queens from Beeweaver and am down to 2 out of 20 colonies that are still too hot for my liking.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I haven't seen anything about larvae committing suicide - have you got a link to that research?

Here’s one
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep27210

If you google A cerana larval apoptosis you’ll find more

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The nearest to me are over 3 miles away .

Three miles - nothing when it comes to queens, drones and DCA's
dipping into the realms of fantasy again I suspect.

 

[Lancs Lad]

Arista Bee Research are now looking how to get VSH bees distributed , it's happening in Europe as well as the States.

https://aristabeeresearch.org/category/blog-news/blog/arista-bee-research/

https://aristabeeresearch.org/varroa-resistance/

 

[Buzzlodge]

Here’s one
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep27210

If you google A cerana larval apoptosis you’ll find more

Heres a related paper and an interesting statement linking this to Hygenic Behaviour.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5817142/

"Our results support the idea of a causal link between infested brood degeneration [in A cerana] and the initiation of social immunity based on the detection of abnormal development signals. A similar mechanism seems to occur in A. mellifera populations that possess the ability to remove V. destructor infested brood cells (a trait named Varroa sensitive hygiene; Mondet et al., 2016; Nazzi & Le Conte, 2016; Schöning et al., 2012)."

If so, breeding for Hygiene might actually be breeding for infested worker brood death.... as it could be that its the death of the larva that initiates the hygenic behaviour.

 

[mazzamazda]

He sold some earlierhttps://www.buckfast-zucht.de/index.php?seite=berichte&la=en

I can't see anything related to 100% breeder queens?

 

[mazzamazda]

Arista Bee Research are now looking how to get VSH bees distributed , it's happening in Europe as well as the States.

https://aristabeeresearch.org/category/blog-news/blog/arista-bee-research/

https://aristabeeresearch.org/varroa-resistance/

Arista are really struggling to get a VSH queen with the other essential traits that we require. Part of the process of becoming high vsh is inbreeding. I am afraid if the scientists with access to funding, resources and big names in queen breeding haven't managed to get it right what hope does someone putting a couple of hives in their back garden and crossing their fingers....

 

[Walrus]

No, I don't treat with anything.

Edit to add that I don't do mite counts. There aren't enough in my bees to matter.

I don't mean to be rude, and wish you every success, but, in the words of a former Wimbledon champion, "you can't be serious?!". If you don't monitor your mite loads and don't treat, then you don't know what mite loads you have. I hope your bees are well, but this approach sounds risky to me.

 

[SDM]

I don't mean to be rude, and wish you every success, but, in the words of a former Wimbledon champion, "you can't be serious?!". If you don't monitor your mite loads and don't treat, then you don't know what mite loads you have. I hope your bees are well, but this approach sounds risky to me.

Scutellata and the Brazilian scutellata influenced bees often have similar mite loads to European subspecies, but don't suffer from the same disease outbreaks.

 

[Walrus]

Scutellata and the Brazilian scutellata influenced bees often have similar mite loads to European subspecies, but don't suffer from the same disease outbreaks.

Oh, Ok. Thanks for that.

 

[Fusion_power]

I hope your bees are well, but this approach sounds risky to me.

In your world in your conditions it would be very risky. You live in a paradigm where treating for varroa is essential to keep your bees alive. I no longer live in that paradigm. I've been a beekeeper for 50 years now and saw the first invasion of acarine followed by varroa followed by hive beetles. Each time I took steps to find resistant stock and continued to keep bees.

If you open a colony at this time of year (late fall, declining population) varroa will be apparent on many bees. There is no need to search for them, they will be there ready to see. I can open any colony and won't see a single varroa. If I do an alcohol wash, I might or might not wash out a single mite from a standard sample of bees. I don't do varroa counts because there are not enough mites in my bees to affect them economically. If I opened a colony and saw it infested with a huge mite population such as the bees you currently have, I would certainly have to do something. My bees simply don't have those numbers of mites. Why should I waste time and energy on something that is not a problem?


JBM, I'm convinced that you are a good beekeeper. Do some due diligence and you will find that 95% of queens mate within 3 miles of their hive. Factor in that the only beekeeper running commercial queens in this area is 15 miles away and you might guess that I get good mating success to drones with varroa resistance. You've been to Africa. What are beekeepers doing to control varroa in Africa?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You need to do some morre reading with regards DCA's and and queens - not just what suits your agenda - queens may very well mate within three miles (if that's the fact what suits you) but drones fly a lot further so, all of a sudden your catchment increases exponentally, most of the data is gathered in high bee population desity areas - just because they don't fly more than three miles to mate - doesn't mean they can't if needs be.
as for Africa, you know very well that it is a different matter, especially with the migratory/frequent swarming nature of scutellata, with work still ongoing on the dominance of DWV B in the Southern hemisphere and it's effent on varroa coexistence.
But, if it makes you happy that you alone have no varroa whilst the rest of the world struggles, so be it.

 

[Fusion_power]

if it makes you happy that you alone have no varroa whilst the rest of the world struggles, so be it.

It is the one thing about beekeeping that makes me feel bad. I have varroa, just not enough to cause problems for my bees. I would much prefer that beekeepers worldwide were using resistant genetics and getting off the treatment treadmill.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It is the one thing about beekeeping that makes me feel bad. I have varroa, just not enough to cause problems for my bees. I would much prefer that beekeepers worldwide were using resistant genetics and getting off the treatment treadmill.

It's been mentioned before, you, me and others
We are a tiny island with a large population and a gazillion beekeepers.
Last time I looked on the database there were 75 apiaries within a 10k radius of me and I am in rural Wales.
I do have neighbours who do not treat their bees but do not support any selection of the survivors, if any. My bees sometimes rob the failing hives out and I end up treating my neighbours' varroa as well as mine.
What hope for city dwellers.

 

[Finman]

. I would much prefer that beekeepers worldwide were using resistant genetics and getting off the treatment treadmill.

You have really much varroa resistant bees in USA, but you have the largest problems with varroa.

Biggest problems are in honey apiaries. Young beekeepers believe those nice stories about future

 

[Ian123]

But you also have ahb and that puts you in a completely different ball park to the rest of us not only did you buy in ahb queens you have a natural back ground population https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nZOoPSY1nsQ effectively you are dealing with a different bee. Do you suggest we populate Europe with ahb, extolling treatment free beekeeping when you have a bee with natural resilience is rather easy. It must also be said that most US beeks loose more hives than the average bbka member and that’s an achievement in itself!!!!

 

[Fusion_power]

extolling treatment free beekeeping when you have a bee with natural resilience is rather easy. It must also be said that most US beeks loose more hives than the average bbka member and that’s an achievement in itself!

Varroa resistance is present in Mellifera though admittedly at low frequency. My first queen that demonstrated resistance showed multiple A.M. Mellifera traits. Resistance is also present in Carnica as shown by current breeding programs. I did not bring in the Beeweaver queens until 2015 when hive beetles were starting to cause problems. Also, the swarms of AHB were found along the gulf coast which is about 300 miles from here. We will eventually have them here but for the time being they are not moving very far or very fast.

I won't try to address the issue of beekeepers losing too may colonies. There are multiple causes including use of mite susceptible genetics along with some novel disease issues.

I empathize with having too many beekeeping neighbors. It puts quite a drag on the process of stabilizing resistant stock.

 

[Ian123]

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/bees/ahb.htm Worth a read