Wild/Feral Survivor-Thrivers: Naturally Selected Resistant Bees.

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This is for discussion of bees that have acquired the ability to cope with varroa without any help. The core assumption is that in the UK and Ireland this has occurred through natural selection for the fittest strain, and any subsequent selection has built on that. The idea is to learn from each-other, what works, and why, in the realm of no-treatment beekeeping. Testimonies, questions, explanations and links to relevant scientific studies are all welcome.

I'd like the thread to be a place where the mechanisms that wild populations employ to locate and maintain resistance can be explored, in the belief that that topic holds the key to understanding why no-treatment beekeeping works in some circumstances and not in others.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Just wondering.
If bees do develop a resistance, do varroa also develop to counter this resistance?
Asking for a friend

Yes; search this thread, or go outside for 'arms race'. or 'evolutionary arms race'.

 

[Beesnaturally]

An interesting thread (in part...) On evolution through Natural Selection, aka Dawinism (or Wallace-ism, who came up with the theory at the same time, but was pipped to publication by Darwin when he realised Wallace was on the same track), then yes, plenty of evidence that works. It works because organisms respond to selection pressure. Just remember though that keeping bees in a hive (irrespective of whether treated or not) is also exerting a selection pressure. So, bees evolving to cope in natural habitats with pathogens may not do so well in hives, and potentially vice versa.

A hive can be just a cavity. There really isn't that great a difference.

Its how you 'help' that matters. How your actions with your individuals impact on the local population.

But yes, there is scope for a discussion here, though personally I think leaving that for a little while might be a good thing.

Btw I think it is important to keep the focus on the population. Evolution can only play out in a population. It needs the birth/selective-reproduction cycle in which genes are repeadedly shared across a population (or dumped) to make any response to pressures.

 

[madasafish]

https://theapiarist.org/feral-facts-and-fallacies/

 

[Steve at Westerham Beeks]

that’s all fine and I broadly agree.

But 2 of likely many problems are 1) we are all subject in-part to what our neighbouring beeks are doing or not-doing, via their drones and also transfer of diseases through robbing etc.

And 2) Simply going treatment-free and accepting the losses would bankrupt many businesses or be prohibitive for self-sustaining hobbies.

I would LOVE to be treatment free, but of 2 hives, my losses are likely to be 100%. Meanwhile, all my neighbouring beeks are gonna regard my colonies as a disease risk.

It requires a country-wide or at least region-wide policy to be in-place. Good luck making THAT happen.

I’d be up for it, but I wonder how many people it requires to follow a different path before it renders the effort fruitless?

All good points. We work as a club. Initially across 7 apiaries from interested beekeepers. Over 5 years, that has grown to c30 apiaries involved and a 100 colonies going into this winter. There are other neighboring clubs getting going where we can share our learnings and lessons which is pretty easy to do via WhatsApp groups and Apiary workshops. And other clubs not neighboring us have nascent projects. It takes a lot of investment in education to understand the mechanisms that that bees are deploying, but I think that education will grow as the research of the likes of Prof Stephen Martin becomes more mainstream...... and put into practice.

You are high risk with only 2 colonies - not worth the risk unless you are clear about identifying the mechanisms to look for, or have access to swarms from long standing feral colonies or know some kind beekeeper who has been TF for some years (min 3).

At least you are taking an interest - well done. 50 miles to the west of you is the 2nd biggest block of varroa resistant colonies of Apis mellifera honeybees in the world - 500 colonies. Do you have any beekeeper chums in the Snowdonia region?

Good luck with your over wintering.

 

[JamezF]

https://theapiarist.org/feral-facts-and-fallacies/

Just read that myself. A very interesting piece (as is the "varroa as a biological control" one he links to).

I feel sure that David Evans and I must be of a similar age as I almost always seem to recognise his "cultural references" such as, in this article, Gerald the Gorilla.

James

 

[Steve at Westerham Beeks]

Yes; search this thread, or go outside for 'arms race'. or 'evolutionary arm

Just wondering.
If bees do develop a resistance, do varroa also develop to counter this resistance?
Asking for a friend

No Robin, it doesn't seem to be the case where there has been long standing resistance eg; Snowdonia in the UK (14 years) and or Cuba (20 years+) . And also true with its relationship with the original host Apis cerane in Asia. Can't always kill the host........

Understanding the mechanisms the bees are deploying is key to getting comfort as a beekeeper. But varroa are smart cookies as we've seen with their resistance to over used miticides.

 

[Steve at Westerham Beeks]

Indeed excellent news…..Will there be a press release proclaiming the finding of a new…new…eco type bee do you think and promises of DNA to follow.

Hopefully there will be lots to learn from observing bees in the wild.

 

[Beesnaturally]

https://theapiarist.org/feral-facts-and-fallacies/

Totally love how Apiarist totally ignores the contradictory evidence supplied by his own references, and by the citations therein. Just a two min scan turns up the following, and half a ton more in a similar vein:

Facts and figures my Aunt Fanny:

Natural Varroa mite-surviving Apis mellifera honeybee populations
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0412-8Discussion:
"Insights on apicultural management
Importantly, all the mite-resistant populations in this review have experienced a general lack of, or less intensified, apicultural management. The apicultural industry is drastically threatened by catastrophic colony losses due to the spread of honeybee diseases and parasites, especially the Varroa mite (Neumann and Carreck 2010; Ratnieks and Carreck 2010). Ironically, the spread of these diseases in apiculture is facilitated through intensified management practices (Fries and Camazine 2001).

Co-evolutionary processes such as natural selection that lead to a stable host-parasite relationship as seen with the Asian hive bee have been hindered for the European honeybee host since apicultural practices remove the mite and consequently the selective pressure required for such an adaptive process to occur. On top of that, pesticides administered to colonies by beekeepers to treat against mite infestation can actually cause more damage to bee health (Haarmann et al. 2002; Johnson et al. 2009; Locke et al. 2012a). Adaptations by the mite towards reduced virulence depend on the available transmission routes within the honeybee population, which can be altered by apiculture. Vertical transmission from mother to daughter leads to reduced virulence adaptations, while horizontal transmission between colonies leads to increased mite virulence (Schmid-Hempel 2011). Modern apicultural practices actually favor parasitic transmission routes that select for higher virulence, mainly by preventing swarming, crowding colonies in high-density apiaries, and by exchanging hive equipment between diseased or dead colonies (Fries and Camazine 2001; Seeley and Smith 2015).

These mite-resistant A. mellifera populations have all experienced natural mite infestation pressure and have been given the opportunity for natural adaptations without the influence of typical apicultural practices. Wild honeybees in Brazil and Africa experiencing natural mite infestation selection pressure may pass heritable adaptive resistance to managed colonies that contribute to the stability of the population. This constant selection pressure may be necessary even though the A. m. scutellata honey bees in Brazil and Africa have a somewhat genetic pre-disposition for mite resistance."

[19]
The populations reviewed here demonstrate that mite resistance is possible for A. mellifera honeybees around the world (Figure 1) and that there are multiple genetic adaptive routes to achieving a sustainable mite resistance (Table I). In all of the populations, there seems to be a variety of mite-resistant traits that additively contribute to reducing the mite population growth within the colony, as opposed to a single super trait."

======

Seems you can barely pick up a peer-reviewed paper nowadays without reading about naturally selected resistant populations, and the role of 'apiary practices' in wrecking them. Truth will out as they say.

 

[JamezF]

But varroa are smart cookies as we've seen with their resistance to over used miticides.

[I think I'm correct here, but doubtless someone will say so if I'm not ]

I'd suggest it might be better to describe them as "lucky cookies". The resistance comes about because a viable population happens to survive exposure to the miticide because of some random genetic variation. There's no intelligence involved. They can be as dumb as you like. It's all about chance.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

otally Love how Apiarist (I imagine this is Apiarist of univited fame)

No. This is Prof David Evans who has done work in DWV amongst others
https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/por...ns(4e457db5-826b-4db2-99b8-2368637a45ad).html

 

[JamezF]

No. This is Prof David Evans who has done work in DWV amongst others
https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/por...ns(4e457db5-826b-4db2-99b8-2368637a45ad).html

There's more about him here, too: The day job - The Apiarist

He definitely got one thing wrong in that piece though. He wrote that "Pedantic" was his middle name

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

There's more about him here, too: The day job - The Apiarist

He definitely got one thing wrong in that piece though. He wrote that "Pedantic" was his middle name

James

He used to be a forum member here too.

 

[JamezF]

Totally love how Apiarist (I imagine this is Apiarist of univited fame) totally ignores the contradictory evidence supplied by his own references, and by the citations therein.

I am at something of a loss to understand how the article you posted a link to and quoted from relates to his posting. As I read it, he's commenting on the standard of evidence required to ensure that feral/wild colonies are accounted for in a reliable way (in terms of whether it's a surviving colony or a new one) and what conclusions might be drawn from a survey that appears to meet that standard whilst comparing it with others that give different results.

The text you quoted doesn't appear to address that at all and instead talks about mites and mite resistance. I don't see an obvious connection?

James

 

[JamezF]

He used to be a forum member here too.

So I gather.

James

 

[user 20297]

https://theapiarist.org/feral-facts-and-fallacies/

The presumption that it is impossible for there to be any significant population of honey bees continuously surviving in the wild is something for which there appears to be less proof for than there is to show that there are or must be thriving, wild populations.

Considering how thorough some of the failed efforts have been in trying to eradicate some other insect species from the planet, it looks like the honey bee, for all its millions of years' unaided survival must have some sort of massive "Achilles heel" that prevents its unaided survival against its latest threat, which is not found in other insect species.

 

[Beesnaturally]

The text you quoted doesn't appear to address that at all and instead talks about mites and mite resistance. I don't see an obvious connection?

James

The entire piece is about the possibility of bees that are resistent to mites. Apiarist opines:

"Perhaps they’ve evolved to have some interesting and useful trait(s) that renders the colony resistant to or tolerant of the dreaded parasitic mites?

These are valuable bees.

They are an important genetic resource.

They must be protected at all costs."

I am at something of a loss to understand how the article you posted a link to and quoted from relates to his posting. As I read it, he's commenting on the standard of evidence required to ensure that feral/wild colonies are accounted for in a reliable way (in terms of whether it's a surviving colony or a new one) and what conclusions might be drawn from a survey that appears to meet that standard whilst comparing it with others that give different results.

Because the thrust, and the tone are so very different. 'Apiarist' seems determinedly skeptical of the notion of viable feral populations: while the (peer-reviewed) paper he cites selectively from is entirely confident of them.

Look at his concluding line:

In fact, with an ~90% attrition rate of feral colonies annually it’s very unlikely to be the same colony in successive years."

That I guess that comes from the German study, and relates to escaped beekeepers' now 'feral bees' and not an adapted 'wild' population? It is of course not relevant to an adapted population. And his selectively cited paper makes that abundantly clear.

The piece is entitled 'Feral facts and fallacies'. It strikes me, as somebody who has collected perhaps 200 swarms and cut-outs, built up a picture of the resistance profile of an extensive area, and watched those bees grow on, sputter and die or thrive, or all-but fail and come back shining.... that the fellow is theorising to conclusions in ways that simply don't reflect realities.

Furthermore its makework. If you want to _know_ what the bees are like in the church, put out a bait hive, or better still grab some eggs and test them.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Considering how thorough some of the failed efforts have been in trying to eradicate some other insect species from the planet, it looks like the honey bee, for all its millions of years' unaided survival must have some sort of massive "Achilles heel" that prevents its unaided survival against its latest threat, which is not found in other insect species.

(If I'm reading you correctly Beebe) Yes. Man. Of course.

In the shape of systematic treatments.

However, from the extract I gave:

"These mite-resistant A. mellifera populations have all experienced natural mite infestation pressure and have been given the opportunity for natural adaptations without the influence of typical apicultural practices. "

Get them free of 'apiary practices' and they are happy as Larry.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Or maybe he just has a better idea than someone who just ignores anything not suited to their agenda and chucks insults around?

 

[user 20297]

(If I'm reading you correctly Beebe) Yes. Man. Of course.

In the shape of systematic treatments.

However, from the extract I gave:

"These mite-resistant A. mellifera populations have all experienced natural mite infestation pressure and have been given the opportunity for natural adaptations without the influence of typical apicultural practices. "

Get them free of 'apiary practices' and they are happy as Larry.

Although I intended the comment to be ironic, I see what you mean.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Although I intended the comment to be ironic, I see what you mean.

Ah! Irony in print and me are not natural bedfellows!