VSH Carnica

[Finman]

View attachment 13453

Here's part of an article from the 2009 American Bee Journal.
The question was "I have varroa resistant queens but how do I get others to use them?"
This appeared to be a "call to arms"
Seven years later are we any further forward?

I know a new breeder. He has bred 20 years his stock. Now his "product" is ready, but no on wants to buy them.

But the reason is that actually it is not so good as the breeder thinks.

And like Hivemaker has written, no professional keep mite tolerant bees. , Their honey production is so Low, that you cannot stand in competition with ordinary bees.

But in toy beekeeping, of course you do what you want. And you can save globe with your toy every day.

.

 

[Fusion_power]

I would relegate anyone with less than 100 colonies as a "toy" beekeeper finman. That includes me. You pursue large crops of honey with a few colonies of bees. A commercial beekeeper pursues income from multiple sources including pollination, honey, wax, queens, etc. In other words, a "serious" beekeeper considers honey to be one part but not the only part of his income stream. You are a "toy" beekeeper.

You state that no commercial beekeeper uses mite tolerant bees. Chris Baldwin is running 2000 colonies completely treatment free in South Dakota and Texas. Kirk Webster is running several hundred colonies treatment free in Vermont. BWeaver is running a queen production operation treatment free in Texas, admittedly with a large infusion of Africanized genetics, but they are treatment free. Europe is at least 10 years behind the curve in developing and adopting treatment free genetics. B+'s VSH Carniolans are a step in the direction of incorporating resistance into high quality commercial bee stocks. Just think finman, in a few years you can curl your nose at those beekeepers that don't do like you with high crops of honey from your mite tolerant bees!

I noted an item worth a comment in this thread. B+ stated the VSH queens are in very limited supply. I'm sure this is because they are being produced under very highly controlled conditions. So a few thoughts about this. The VSH breeding effort is just 3 years from start so has a LONG way to go to get to highly VSH bees meaning that 99% or more of the colonies express the trait. B+ may find that only one of his queens expresses the trait to a high level. The breeding program is leveraging knowledge from the U.S. development of VSH bees which means they can make very rapid progress. This suggests reasonably good queens will be widely available in about 2 more years.

My experience with VSH is that it is not a magic bullet for stopping varroa. It is a huge step in the right direction, but other traits are needed to get completely off the treatment bandwagon. I'd love to see some reports of efforts to select bees for grooming and mite mauling which eventually would be combined with the VSH selections.

 

[B+.]

In fact, the three queens I received were all tested and confirmed as high VSH before being sent. I hoped for 2but was amazed to get 3.
I am away for the next couple of weeks so I doubt if I will be online much. That doesn't mean that I will leave carp to go unchallenged though. So far, I have seen little that is actually relevant to my op.

 

[B+.]

I received 3 of the Arista Bee Research VSH carnica this afternoon (http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/album.php?albumid=751&pictureid=3761).

<snip>

More on this as work progresses.

I came back from holiday in Scotland to find that queen number 73 (55-2-73-2016) had not been accepted by the bees. I had left a queen excluder under the brood box while I went on holiday so I found her dead body on the bottom :-(
On the positive side, the other two are laying well and I have started feeding them up so they go into winter with lots of young bees.

 

[Cussword]

That's a shame, you were proper chuffed to get the three.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well done the other two though. Exciting times ahead. keep us all posted

 

[B+.]

Well done the other two though. Exciting times ahead. keep us all posted

ok.

I've been looking at the background of the other 2 queens I received from the Netherlands (55-9-89-2016 and 55-9-90-2016). These are instrumentally inseminated "Netherland line" queens (dam: 55-3-44-2014, sire: 18-26-7268-2013. See: http://www.beebreed.nl/NL-lijn.html) with breeding values:

........................ Dam Sire Progeny
Honey (%) ...... 124 125 124
Docility (%)...... 119 117 118
Stability (%)..... 117 115 116
Swarming (%)...118 119 118
Varroa (%) .......129 132 130
Chalkbrood (%) 104 118 111

The expected value for the progeny is a simple average of the dam and sire breeding values. So, if this turns out to be accurate, I am looking at queens with a varroa index 30% above the five year moving average. As you say: exciting times ahead!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

bit more structured and worthwhile than chucking a handful of off the shelf Buckies into an apiary of mediocre performing mongrels

 

[B+.]

bit more structured and worthwhile than chucking a handful of off the shelf Buckies into an apiary of mediocre performing mongrels

Testing is crucial.
You learn far more about the strengths and weaknesses of your colonies when
A) They're related (so they are comparable).
B) They're all treated in exactly the same way (no favourites!)
C) They're tested (so you have objective data upon which to base an assessment)
D) You only breed from the best (i.e. you are selecting the best for further propagation. Unacceptable performance means they don't get to reproduce)
E) Reproduction is controlled (It would be lunacy to put all of this effort into selection without exercising control over the genetic components of the next generation).
This seems obvious to me if you want to affect a change in the level of performance (I used to be a programme manager so change management is something I know a bit about).

 

[Truble]

This seems obvious to me if you want to affect a change in the level of performance (I used to be a programme manager so change management is something I know a bit about).

I'm curious as to where all this is leading to? Is it an exercise to see how far selective breeding can advance bees to under controlled breeding conditions?
Is the long term goal to make bees of this pedigree available to us "amateurs" at some point?

 

[B+.]

Is the long term goal to make bees of this pedigree available to us "amateurs" at some point.

Yes.
Prof Brascamp wrote a nice piece that describes the model. It is the same model used in animal breeding where breeders supply mass producers who supply beekeepers.

 

[Truble]

Where is the cut off point in development to make them available commercially?
They already sound pretty good to me.

 

[B+.]

Where is the cut off point in development to make them available commercially?
They already sound pretty good to me.

I don't have an answer to that. Its not as if there are any explicit barriers to it at any point.

I would rather see people learning to evaluate colonies properly. From what I have seen, that is rarely done here.

 

[Truble]

Without access to controlled breeding, assessing colonies is of little use if you want improve them IMHO. The subsequent breeding with random drones makes improvement hard work.
If these bees were commercially available they would come up against the same breeding problems many of us face that we can only breed one or two generations before the predominant local mongrel background takes over.
It would require a national strategy to succeed. Something I don't think will ever happen in the UK
Not trying to be negative about what is obviously a very interesting breeding program, just putting my practical hat on as to where it might lead.

 

[B+.]

It would require a national strategy to succeed. Something I don't think will ever happen in the UK

You may be right but, the way I look at it is, anything I can do others can do too.

 

[Truble]

I've read some of your other posts about what you do. Do you really think other beekeepers will even try to do the same? Or even want to?
On another thread I'm being denigrated for providing a link to an alternative Oxalic acid delivering device....apparently it's not suitable for the average beekeeper on this forum.
It speaks volumes, alas.
I shall go back to being a passive observer.

 

[madasafish]

I've read some of your other posts about what you do. Do you really think other beekeepers will even try to do the same? Or even want to?
On another thread I'm being denigrated for providing a link to an alternative Oxalic acid delivering device....apparently it's not suitable for the average beekeeper on this forum.
It speaks volumes, alas.
I shall go back to being a passive observer.

As an average beekeeper on this forum, I make up my own mind.. as I am sure do most others.

 

[Finman]

.
There are not many in the world, who go into such job like B+.
And he cannot even sell the queens. I bet that some one has ownership to sell those queens.

Merely to be one part of big testing apparattus in not my case.

 

[Finman]

You may be right but, the way I look at it is, anything I can do others can do too.

But that makes no sense.
That kind of breedig is nothing hobby thing. Too expencive to be a hobby . And 70 hives to test mites. Really expencive..

 

[B+.]

But that makes no sense.
That kind of breedig is nothing hobby thing. Too expencive to be a hobby . And 70 hives to test mites. Really expencive..

Finman, I think you know that my motivation for doing what I do is very personal. Money isn't everything.