VSH Bees

[Michael Palmer]

Ooops ... someone taking your name in vain Mike !!

Yes, they like to do that, don't they.

 

[Tom Bick]

That's very true and when you try your foundationless frames this year you will see for you self and very noticeable. Also they produce plenty of drone comb. I have a theory as the bees look at the drones as dispensable they are more inclined to remove the drone larvae if they think something is wrong and we know varroa prefer drones. I have seen more gaps in drone comb over worker comb. Just my observations but think healthy drone population goes some way to helping the bees coexist with varroa and minimal treatments.

 

[B+.]

Not to my knowledge.

Groups like Arista (https://aristabeeresearch.org/varroa-resistance/) are working on VSH in Carniolan and Buckfast lines.

 

[mbc]

Groups like Arista (https://aristabeeresearch.org/varroa-resistance/) are working on VSH in Carniolan and Buckfast lines.

Thanks for the link, interesting group, hardly "our" bee labs working on vsh with "our" bees though.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Ron Hoskin's bees....for example.... nothing to do with small cells.
(If I lived near Swindon I'd be banging on his door for a few queens)

Erica

If you look on Ron's website, you will see that he is selling his queens at an amazingly low price - see http://www.swindonhoneybeeconservation.org.uk/for-sale/ - about £30 incl postage.

Worth a punt?

CVB

 

[mbc]

Erica

If you look on Ron's website, you will see that he is selling his queens at an amazingly low price - see http://www.swindonhoneybeeconservation.org.uk/for-sale/ - about £30 incl postage.

Worth a punt?

CVB

They are selling an empty modified kieler for £30, i couldnt see a price for queens.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Erica

If you look on Ron's website, you will see that he is selling his queens at an amazingly low price - see http://www.swindonhoneybeeconservation.org.uk/for-sale/ - about £30 incl postage.

Worth a punt?

CVB

Already on it. I'm a little away from Swindon and I think he is concentrating on getting his bees to local beekeepers. I live in hope though.

 

[Fusion_power]

In the bologna arena, I'd like to challenge beekeepers here - including Michael Palmer - to post how much they spend on mite treatments per hive per year. Figure out exactly what the real cost of maintaining bees on the treatment bandwagon really is.

1. Cost of nostrums, apivar, etc.

2. Time cost of using the treatments, surely your time is worth some real world $

3. number of colonies lost in spite of heroic efforts with the nostrums, what was their value

4. How much productivity is lost as a result of mites that instead could have been making honey

5. anything else you can think of that adds to the real cost of using treatments to keep mites under control


If you are not part of the solution, you ARE the problem.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Fusion_power;525080 In the bologna arena, I'd like to challenge beekeepers here - including Michael Palmer - to post how much they spend on mite treatments per hive per year. Figure out exactly what the real cost of maintaining bees on the treatment bandwagon really is.

1. Cost of nostrums, apivar, etc.

$1250 to treat 750 production colonies and 450 nucleus colonies.

2. Time cost of using the treatments, surely your time is worth some real world $

Treatment goes in when supers are removed, so really not any extra time.

3. number of colonies lost in spite of heroic efforts with the nostrums, what was their value

Heroic efforts? Oh please. 10% winter loss last winter. Coldest winter in years. Unknown this winter...still in winter.

4. How much productivity is lost as a result of mites that instead could have been making honey

27 tons of honey produced, 1200 queens raised, 400 nucs made. How much did you make, and how productive were your TF apiaries??

5. anything else you can think of that adds to the real cost of using treatments to keep mites under control

What are you talking about here?


>>If you are not part of the solution, you ARE the problem.

Yeah right, I treat so I'm part of the problem. This comment of yours is obviously aimed at me. My Vermont apiaries rolled .4 mites per 150 bees, 11 months after I treated. My New York apiaries rolled 0-2 mites per 300 bees, 11 months after treatment. My nosema levels are undetectable in most apiaries and very low in the rest. New York inspectors are wondering why my nosema counts are so low...I don't use fumagillin. And I'M the problem. Whatever.

Don't direct your dogmatic loaded questions at me until you know what I do and you've seen my bees.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

They are selling an empty modified kieler for £30, i couldnt see a price for queens.

Apologies - I have re-read the website and I must have let my enthusiam get the better of me :

‘SWINDON F1 QUEENS’ VARROA TOLERANT HONEYBEES
The Queen and accompanying bees, now being supplied in a Kieler Mini-nuke, will have been bred from bees showing a very high degree of hygienic behaviour, i.e. “Bees which groom adult varroa mites off each other and also uncapping, removing and discarding young bee pupae from the cells where varroa are actively breeding”

and further down there were the prices, which on careful reading refer only to the mini-nukes - pity!

CVB

 

[mbc]

Had to look up "nostrums".
I treat with home made thymol bodges and oxalic acid, havent used anything else for over a decade and have periodically gone treatment free as sampling suggested i might get away with it.
nostrum = " a medicine prepared by an unqualified person, especially one that is not considered effective."
Thymol and oxalic acid are very effective, and when I've gone treatment free I always regret it and end up back on the "treatment treadmill".
Its a bit disappointing as, like all beekeepers, I'd rather not use chemicals in my hives, even the organic ones I use, but without them even after breeding from survivors and the bees which have responded best to my periodical light handed treatment all this century, I still get crashes. The cost of treatment is naught compared to the cost of loosing colonies and the heartache of seeing good marked out breeding stock crash with the rest through no real fault of their own. Its my opinion that in my area virus and varroa come in waves and every false dawn of apparent varroa resistance has cost me dear further down the line. I wish it were not so, but for now I've decided to treat with organic varroacides, and a light touch at that, and keep breeding from the bees that appear to respond best to this approach. I'm buggered if I'm going to keep watching some of my best stock fall in waves as another epidemic sweeps through the population and they get overloaded with incoming mites and virus, at least until the mortgage is paid anyway.
"Part of the problem", get a grip!

 

[pargyle]

Its a bit disappointing as, like all beekeepers, I'd rather not use chemicals in my hives, even the organic ones I use, but without them even after breeding from survivors and the bees which have responded best to my periodical light handed treatment all this century, I still get crashes. ......

.... Its my opinion that in my area virus and varroa come in waves and every false dawn of apparent varroa resistance has cost me dear further down the line. I wish it were not so, but for now I've decided to treat with organic varroacides, and a light touch at that, and keep breeding from the bees that appear to respond best to this approach.

I would never criticise this as a way forward .. the location appears to me to be all part of the mix ..indeed, some colonies survive - some crash for no apparent reason other than just bad luck. I (and others) keep saying that there is more to the problem of varroa and vectored viruses than we know .. yet ..

Perhaps, in time, we will discover what the mix is that allows some colonies to live alongside varroa and others that just cannot tolerate what the mites bring to the colony.

In the meantime, light touch with your preferred treatment when you observe the colony needs assistance seems to me to be the way that all beekeepers should be going ... and if you can remain treatment free and have your bees survive then these colonies are the beacons and hope for the future.

 

[Fusion_power]

Yeah right, I treat so I'm part of the problem. This comment of yours is obviously aimed at me.

No, it was not aimed at you. It was intended as a very broad challenge to beekeepers to think outside the box. It goes back to a statement by Randy Oliver which can be dug out if anyone cares to look.

Repeated statements that treatment free is impossible with various implorings to the round lord and master Bologna do not take away the fact that I have not treated for varroa for 11 years and that my average wintering losses are no worse than yours. Nor does it reduce the 4 beekeepers in this area who are using treatment free stock to non-existence. Your scale is far larger than mine in terms of number of colonies. I don't want to get anywhere near that large. It would turn a pleasant hobby into a daily job.

 

[Michael Palmer]

No, it was not aimed at you. It was intended as a very broad challenge to beekeepers to think outside the box. It goes back to a statement by Randy Oliver which can be dug out if anyone cares to look.

Repeated statements that treatment free is impossible with various implorings to the round lord and master Bologna do not take away the fact that I have not treated for varroa for 11 years and that my average wintering losses are no worse than yours. Nor does it reduce the 4 beekeepers in this area who are using treatment free stock to non-existence. Your scale is far larger than mine in terms of number of colonies. I don't want to get anywhere near that large. It would turn a pleasant hobby into a daily job.

So say you, and yet you used my name. You most certainly were aiming at me. Find anything I have ever said, in any post, on any forum, that says anything negative about treatment free beekeepers or treatment free beekeeping. The post was about small cell beekeeping, and I have most certainly had something about small cell beekeeping. I happen to be good friends with the scientists that did the studies that found no beneficial results from using small cell for varroa control. For example, Mr. Bush, on BeeSource has called them out as non-believers, which has led to their negative results in the studies they did. That to me is outrageous, as they are both very good scientists. But have I ever said anything about treatment free beekeeping or about you or about your bees? Of course not, and I wouldn't. As a queen breeder I would never say anything about another beekeeper's work in bee improvement. Nor would I dis anyone's work or use that to elevate my own work in improving my own stock. So why would you do that in a thread that was talking about using vsh, which IS an attempt at using genetics to improve our stocks in the fight against varroa mites.

I hope you understand what I am saying, and why my hackles are up when you use my name, when you know nothing about my work, or my bees, or my philosophy.

 

[Fusion_power]

Then we misunderstand each other which both of us can change if we choose. On another forum you specifically challenged all TF beekeepers to post results. That was not couched in terms of small cell beekeepers, it was a general broadside against any TF beekeeper. I could not reconcile that post with your efforts described in this thread to integrate VSH and allogrooming into your stock. On the one hand, all TF beekeepers were discounted, on the other, genetics that enable Treatment Free beekeeping are your goal.

I can't explain why my bees survive and produce honey sans treatments. I know for a fact that they have extremely low mite counts at any time of year. As I have posted elsewhere, they have one major weakness in swarming regularly and repeatedly. I am interrupting swarming to keep them productive, but there is a toll of labor expended that would not be acceptable in a commercial operation.

I can describe why small cell is beneficial, not in terms of some "true-believer" philosophy, but as a real world example of bee behavior. Spring buildup is enhanced with small cell combs. The cells are closer together which allows the cluster to cover more total cells enabling the queen to lay more eggs in a given brood cycle. This advantage can be calculated at 20% positive benefit in spring buildup in each brood cycle. When combined with 31.75 mm frames, they reach swarming strength 2 weeks earlier which is about a month prior to start of the main flow in this area. I like the earlier buildup, but don't really want the extra work of pulling nucs to prevent swarming. Small cell is not necessary to keep bees treatment free. I have a few colonies on large cell combs that are handling mites just as easily as the small cell colonies beside them.

 

[Michael Palmer]

On another forum you specifically challenged all TF beekeepers to post results.

Yes, true, I want numbers. Asking for numbers is not dissing TF beekeeping. Asking for numbers is merely asking for what is happening in the colonies of TF beekeepers. I think it totally fair to ask TF beekeepers like Bush to give their winter loss numbers, and numbers relating to how productive their apiaries are. You see, I know several of the premier TF beekeepers on BS, they have stayed with me at my house, and saying they have survivor bees when 90% die in the winter is misleading. I've seen Mr. Bush's bees and, in my opinion, they were rubbish. I want numbers not propaganda. Convince me FP.

 

[Michael Palmer]

I can describe why small cell is beneficial, not in terms of some "true-believer" philosophy, but as a real world example of bee behavior. Spring buildup is enhanced with small cell combs. The cells are closer together which allows the cluster to cover more total cells enabling the queen to lay more eggs in a given brood cycle.

Explain to me, if you can, why Seeley and Berry, et. al. have found that colonies with small cell comb actually have an increased numbers of varroa mites in their colonies. I'm not discounting your work with your strain of bee, but only asking questions so I can understand what is happening in your bees. To me, and my understanding, more cells equals more possibilities for varroa mite reproduction.

 

[Fusion_power]

I can't explain the disparity between small cell proponents and the serious research using small cell that found it was ineffective. My experience is only with the bees I have and the results they have given over the past 11 years. As I stated, I cannot show any correlation between survival of my bees and use of small cell. They do just fine on small cell, they do just as well on large cell. The only difference I see is that they build up faster in spring on small cell. I have 3 colonies ready to build swarm cells as of today which is at least 6 weeks ahead of the main flow. We have not yet seen fruit bloom!

The dialogue I've seen from small cell proponents is usually along the line that multiple years are required for it to be effective at suppressing mites. Published research has been from one year of evaluation at most. This is claimed to be a major factor in the results of the studies. I would suggest that if it takes more than one year to be effective, then something else is at work, most likely genetics.

I have natural built comb in 5.2 and 5.4 from swarms that I caught and let build a primary comb to measure. I have not taken any bee measurements to verify this, but just on visual observation, most of my bees are a tad larger than the Italians I kept 30 years ago. This is likely a result of the A. M. Mellifera background that my bees carry.

Re M. Bush's bees, is the problem with the bees? or with the management? I've seen some junky looking bees that still put up a good bit of honey and some great looking colonies that barely keep themselves fed.

The only beekeeper I know of in the area who treats is roughly 2 miles east. I suspect my bees pick up phoretic mites when they forage in that direction. This is the likely source of many of the mites I see dead on the bottom board during summer, there are never many, but always just a few. I consider this isolation to be a major factor in my bees survival.

In the interest of maintaining this conversation, here are my results from 2015. This is repeated from beesource. Also, please note that with the 4 beekeepers in this area who have my stock, there are a total of about 50 managed treatment free colonies.

14 colonies
5 dinks
9 productive
35 gallons of honey, all sold at $15/quart or else given away to family, last of it was sold this week.
1 spring swarm got away at an outyard
3 small late swarms of which 2 got away
no treatments since 2004, went treatment free in 2005
I lost one colony this winter 2015/2016 from queen failure

 

[Michael Palmer]

I have 3 colonies ready to build swarm cells as of today which is at least 6 weeks ahead of the main flow.

14 colonies
5 dinks
9 productive
35 gallons of honey, all sold at $15/quart or else given away to family, last of it was sold this week.
1 spring swarm got away at an outyard
3 small late swarms of which 2 got away
no treatments since 2004, went treatment free in 2005
I lost one colony this winter 2015/2016 from queen failure

I appreciate your honesty in including your numbers. Personally, I have tried to reduce my bees' propensity to swarm. You seem to have increased their propensity to swarm. Do you believe that this may be a key trait in the low varroa counts you are seeing?

You're honey producers are averaging less than 50 lb. per colony. Add in the dinks, and your apiary is averaging less than 30 lb. per colony. Now, I realize that you're probably not trying to raise a profitable amount of honey, but do you really think that a 30 lb. average is acceptable? At that rate, I would go bankrupt, and my 4 employees would be out of a job.

 

[Fusion_power]

What is not included in those numbers is that several of the dinks were because I pulled a split early in the year. I can't pull a spring split and let them raise a queen and get a crop of honey from the split. Most of the time, the parent colony will make a crop. There just is not enough time between first pollen and the main nectar flow for the split to also make a crop.

Swarming tendency is manageable. If I put in young queens yearly and made a decent effort to improve the stock, I'm certain that it could be brought down. I am reasonably sure that swarming tendency is not part of the mite tolerance because I prevent most of my colonies from swarming.

One reason why I've been getting other beekeepers started is to widen the genetics out a bit. I brought in 3 Carpenter queens in 2012 to get a bit of diversity and incorporate allogrooming traits. The combination is working out very well so far. If you look at some of my other posts, you will see that I often sell a colony with a carpenter queen, either raised by me or purchased direct from Bill Carpenter. When I raise the queens and mate them to my line drones, the resulting colony gains production and mite tolerance.