Bees with resistance to varroa mites

[Jon]

Some of us in the Native bee group have been discussing possible longer term projects. One of the ideas on the table is to try and identify colonies which deal with mites better than others - and selectively breed from these.
Marla Spivak reckons that favourable genes helping to deal with mites are to be found within the population of any race of bee.
The two most obvious beneficial traits are grooming off and biting mites as well as uncapping the cells with a mite infested pupa. The latter behaviour is known as Varroa sensitive hygiene. (VSH)

I see some the main issues as:

-deciding what to record and how to record it
-involving as many beekeepers as possible
-keeping it simple

Anyone got any experience in this area or any bright ideas for what is likely to work or fail?

The cold turkey approach advocated by many of the 'natural' beekeepers is not an option as no-one is going to sign up to a project where the most likely outcome is the loss of most of your bees. (see Ingemar Fries 'Bond' experiment)

The non treatment option was once described by Dan Basterfield as akin to dropping babies off a bridge with regard to selection technique.
Ideally we would be looking for something where progress could be made in incremental steps.
Queens could be grafted and propagated from any promising stock.

[Neils]

The work being done by Ron Hoskins (Swindon bee) might be a place to start as he's pretty adamant that "anyone" can copy his technique. I'm sure I've got some info from him somewhere which I can dig out if you like.

LASI is also doing work around hygienic or VSH behaviour in native AMM type bees and perhaps some of their techniques could be modified or adopted into a more amateur (in the best meaning of the word) programme.

[Jon]

They have done a bit of work in the Galtee group counting mites on trays and counting the percentage of mites with missing legs which have been groomed off. The mites are examined under a microscope. This might be similar to Ron Hoskins work as I know he got a grant to buy a load of microscopes.
Any info you have will be gratefully received.

The VSH stuff might be more difficult to measure as the standard technique involves killing a circle of brood with liquid nitrogen and counting the percentage of cells cleared in 24 hours.

We need to look at something which the rank and file can get involved with.

[The Drone Ranger]

The work being done by Ron Hoskins (Swindon bee) might be a place to start as he's pretty adamant that "anyone" can copy his technique. I'm sure I've got some info from him somewhere which I can dig out if you like.

LASI is also doing work around hygienic or VSH behaviour in native AMM type bees and perhaps some of their techniques could be modified or adopted into a more amateur (in the best meaning of the word) programme.

BBC springwatch http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hhdrw

[Neils]

They have done a bit of work in the Galtee group counting mites on trays and counting the percentage of mites with missing legs which have been groomed off. The mites are examined under a microscope. This might be similar to Ron Hoskins work as I know he got a grant to buy a load of microscopes.
Any info you have will be gratefully received.

The VSH stuff might be more difficult to measure as the standard technique involves killing a circle of brood with liquid nitrogen and counting the percentage of cells cleared in 24 hours.

We need to look at something which the rank and file can get involved with.

There is an alternative to liquid nitrogen but I'd agree that it's far more intensive and perhaps not as suitable for an amateur group to persue. I'll see what I've got floating around from Ron, but it sounds like you're already doing the basics of what he suggests.

[Jon]

DR's clip above shows that antennae on the bottom board is an indicator of VSH.
That would be an easy indicator to count.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
About the middle of this article is a pin prick test
Doesn't destroy many larva
http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/breeding.html

This page suggests two genes involved in hygenic behaviour are recessive
http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/genetics.html#anchor177465

[prakel]

A nice iwf video 'Selection of Honeybees for Vitality'.


http://youtu.be/NdFjqVwwyIk

[prakel]

I posted this one previously on another thread but it's well worth another look.


http://youtu.be/fyGAYFxwnME

[mbc]

IIRC the liquid nitrogen or pinprick tests are to determine hygienic bees rather than for specific varroa sensitive hygiene.
I think the easiest and most sound criteria for breeding bees is to select those with a very clean brood nest - solid brood pattern. This indicates a high degree of resistance to all sorts of maladies that may affect bees and can be measured at a glance.

[fatshark]

I'm with mbc on this one. VSH and hygienic bees are not the same. I seem to remember Jeff Harris (Baton Rouge, VSH) saying that VSH bees do not uncap nitrogen frozen pupae and/or vice versa (or at least are no better than normal bees). His view is that VSH bees detect something volatile given off by Varroa damaged pupae.

One thing that worries me about Varroa resistance is the selection of less pathogenic mites, rather than 'better' bees. Has Ron Hoskins ever exposed his bees to a Varroa-infested hive from outside his area?

What about coordinated Varroa treatment? If everyone in an area treated all colonies simultaneously - for a full month with Apiguard or similar in the autumn and with OA in winter - it should leave the mites with nowhere to hide. It would have to be simultaneous and every colony because phoretic mites on drones or drifting workers mean that Varroa-free colonies are infested within days or at best weeks.

Not Varroa resistance I know, but I'm not sure that such a thing exists.

[gavin]

Not Varroa resistance I know, but I'm not sure that such a thing exists.

Ha! We may have an argument there. Or perhaps if you mean that there is only Varroa tolerance maybe we'll agree after all. Yes, VSH is a kind of super-hygiene whereas the pin-killing or freeze-killing test just determines plain hygienic (which is useful for AFB and a little bit useful for Varroa).

I've spent time with a beekeeper in Stirlingshire who went cold turkey (threw his babies off bridges if you like) and they bounced. He was getting long-term survival despite no treatment for 3-5 years. The bees did interesting things - VSH-type behaviour, grooming and biting (witnessed in an observation hive) and maybe other things too. We had Dennis Anderson visit one summers day and had a picnic at John's apiary. I had some of his stocks and was working up to test them by inserting frames of infested brood raised in another colony but the 2009 foulbrood epidemic caused me to treat to reduce the stress on the bees. I'll get back to it sometime.

[prakel]

Some of us in the Native bee group have been discussing possible longer term projects. One of the ideas on the table is to try and identify colonies which deal with mites better than others - and selectively breed from these.

I think this is the important phrase. Varoa tolerant/survivor strains don't necessarily express notable VSH qualities; at least, that seems to be the current thinking if we trawl what's been written.

There's a whole package of possibilities (without ever going down the cold turkey route) to investigate so I think this thread has a few miles left in it and I'd certainly be interested to see where the Irish Bee Society takes their study if it gets off the ground.

One point about the pin prick test, there's been a lot of cautionary comments (but I can't find any of them in a quick search now!) as to it's value due to the physical perforation of the capping unlike the freezer and liquid nitrogen methods.

[Jon]

Hi Jon
About the middle of this article is a pin prick test


Jerry Bromenshenk (http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1305&L=BEE-L&F=&S=&X=7DD3E77A91BA3657D9&Y=jjgetty%40fsmail.net&P=14546) reckons the pin prick method is not reliable.



I invented the liquid nitrogen freeze method while working on a project for
EPA. I found that neither the pin prick nor Steve Tabor's - cut and
freeze in freezer- produced consistent results. The problem is that physical
damage (pricking, cutting out bits of comb) can induce a repair behavior.
Hygenic behavior is supposedly controlled by two genes, each with a bit
different behavior. Also, removal of paper is probably not a good test -
its just part of a two step process.

As per area of brood - the larger the area you kill, the more certain you
will be to see bees take action - that's again not simply hygienic
behavior, but a response to a damage 'crisis'.

What most have forgotten - our data showed that several small patches over
more than on brood frame provided the most reliable test.

[prakel]

re: post #14.

That's a more accurate explanation!

[Jon]

In prakel's IWF video about 6.30 it mentions that bees with parasites often leave the hive this minimising the varroa load.
I wonder if this is a significant behaviour and has anyone measured it?
It has been known for a long time that sick bees do the decent thing aka a 'Captain Oates.' (possibly more accurately describes as altruistic suicide!)

[gavin]

LOL! We've had the Bond Experiment and now we can have Captain Oates Behaviour. The aforementioned John was sure that his bees were Doing The Right Thing a la Captain Oates - from both watching (in an observation hive) groomers gathering up mites, and seeing that a spring surge of deaths in the snow were all carrying mites.

Altruistic suicide (and possibly simply cleaning up by carrying pests outside where no doubt they may select a hot wall or a branch over a cold pond where they can pick them off and jetison their load).

This kind of thing may explain the anomalous floor count data we sometimes see. The mites may never get a chance to drop there.

[The Drone Ranger]

If you mosey around the glenn apiaries site you will find lots of links to explore
In principle there are two separate strains of thought
No1- is very hygienic bees rip out varroa infested larva
No2-is varroa mites ability to breed in certain colonies is suppressed
Ron Hoskins is route 1

Personally I doubt it can be done
You find insects develop resistance to static threats (ie insecticides)
Varroa are more capable of adaptation than bees are (moving target)
Faster reproduction rate inbreeding you name it lots of mother varroa etc

Past experiments in breeding resistance to foulbrood etc had initial success then stalled
Subsequent breeding from survivor colonies didn't make any further progress

You will have noticed Ron Hoskins is using AI presumably then he can't fix the necessary traits in open mating
There have been claims of Varroa resistant bees since the 90's but only AI line bred

I wish anybody well that want's to tackle the task maybe the £200,000 from Scottish Gov might be best spent on this

Let's not elevate the nut cases who go "cold Turkey" to hero status I don't want them anywhere near me they are a menace

[gavin]

Apis cerana managed it, why not Apis mellifera?

No 1, without biting and grooming, can leave the mite exhausted and probably running out of sperm, but it is a slow process.
No 2 was a figment of the researchers' imaginations (until they realised). Keep turfing out the breeding mites and you are left with only the old spinsters in sealed cells. Open them up and you see non-breeding mites - just a trick (see no 1).

Ron Hoskins, Alois Wallner (http://griffes.tripod.com/VRbook.html), John Dews, John McLean, they were/are all focused on biting and grooming.

For the non-believers amongst us, try this. (Sorry Jon, I seem to be regurgitating our recent correspondence).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGa9DKraGA

Somewhere near the middle there's a bee doing it all on its ownsome. It ends up on three legs while the other three are grappling with a Braula in this case, trying to get it near its mouthparts so that it can give it a sharp nip. Remarkable footage. Elsewhere in the video there are bees trying to do the same to Varroa.

[prakel]

You will have noticed Ron Hoskins is using AI presumably then he can't fix the necessary traits in open mating.

There have been claims of Varroa resistant bees since the 90's but only AI line bred

Regards Ron Hoskins, I believe that he's working with a statistically very small population (I may be wrong on this) which perhaps necessitates AI.

In the US there are plenty of reports of lower VSH expression being maintained in populations by open mating. The AI simply seems to be the most efficient tool to maintain lines with high VSH expression which can then be outcrossed in the field. Sure the research has been ongoing for some time but there now (recent years) seems to be a greater drive/interest from practical beekeepers so I think that in this sense it's still very 'new'.

[The Drone Ranger]

Have you fellas been on biobees forum or something ?

[prakel]

Have you fellas been on biobees forum or something ?

lol.

No (well, yes, actually!).

[Dark Bee]

Have you fellas been on biobees forum or something ?

I think it more likely they got a poteen still running, must have finally managed to wind a length of copper pipe into a worm.

[The Drone Ranger]

I think it more likely they got a poteen still running, must have finally managed to wind a length of copper pipe into a worm.
Lucky them mine's still wound round the telegraph pole

[Jon]

Have you fellas been on biobees forum or something ?

I do look in on biobees quite often but that is definitely not where I would start from re. breeding bees which are better able to cope with varroa. The chatter there is worthy but nothing more than that - and their losses are heavy.
I think that if you can get enough people working together you can make some progress.
The Primorski bees have coexisted with varroa for 150 years and tolerate the mites much better than other strains of Apis mellifera.
I don't believe there is a magic bullet but it should be possible to make some progress.
meanwhile I will continue to use Apiguard and Oxalic acid.


lol.

No (well, yes, actually!).

Own up. I saw you there!

[The Drone Ranger]

When the talk of breeding for resistance appears
Biobees claim they haven't done it for years
If I was in charge I would burn with delight
The hives of anyone not treating for mites

[Jon]

Those collapsing colonies with thousands of mites are capable of transferring a significant number of the mites elsewhere as they get robbed out in their death throes.

Irresponsible behaviour I would call it.

[Jon]

One thing that worries me about Varroa resistance is the selection of less pathogenic mites, rather than 'better' bees. Has Ron Hoskins ever exposed his bees to a Varroa-infested hive from outside his area?

lest we forget, about 200 colonies of NZ Carniolans were brought in to a Co-op farm about 10 miles away from Ron Hoskins' project.
I can only imagine how that must have complicated his work with additional variables and it would explain why the only route open to him is II.

[prakel]

Cold Turkey.

We've had this conversation before, on that other thread. I can't see how cold turkey beekeeping could ever, responsibly, be carried out in Britain but that's not to say that I can't respect the sheer determination and strength of conviction shown by people like Kefuss and Danny Weaver. They're not fools OR bad beekeepers.

[Jon]

And they definitely did not get where they are today (paraphrasing Reggie Perrin) by starting with just a couple of colonies.

You have to get a significant number of people on board in a given area to make it work

[prakel]

Own up. I saw you there!

I've still got the headache.

[prakel]

You have to get a significant number of people on board in a given area to make it work

Which may prove to be an advantage for a society such as yours. You already have people loosley united by one common interest.

[fatshark]

Personally I doubt it can be done
You find insects develop resistance to static threats (ie insecticides)
Varroa are more capable of adaptation than bees are (moving target)


I'm pretty sure that Varroa exhibit very little genetic diversity as a result of male haploidy and full-sib mating behaviour. See this (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/11/602) article. The final section of results is relevant.

This would suggest that adaptation by Varroa is perhaps less likely ... like DR I still remain sceptical it can be done (resistance that is).

A. cerana has resistance due to dramatically shortened development cycles. We're not going to select that any time soon.

[gavin]

I beg to differ. Nearly had a rant about a UK scientist who has apparently given the line for years that Apis mellifera can't adapt but I've never heard it directly from him so I'll not name him. What did disappoint was being at a bee conference some years ago and meeting the same attitude from some leading European scientists. I asked them what they thought of John Harbo and Jeff Harris' work (the main trait they described was later termed VSH) and they hadn't seemed to have heard of it despite it being in the refereed literature for a few years. John Kefuss was in the audience (and actively propagating Varroa-tolerant lines at the time in two continents) and when I asked him what he thought of the opinions on display he just shrugged. Oh dear, did have a rant after all ..... right, Apis cerana ....

Shortened life cycles are one of many mechanisms displayed by Apis cerana which impact on Varroa and probably not an important one. A. cerana seems particularly good at hygienic behaviour, grooming, and even entombing infested drone pupae (a trick I've never heard that mellifera has in its arsenal). I thought I read somewhere that drone brood uncapping happens too but I can't find it. Apis cerana has Varroa so well under control that only the spring drone raising season allows it to multiply effectively.

Boecking and Spivak
Behavioral defenses of honey bees against Varroa jacobsoni Oud. (http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/abs/1999/02/Apidologie_0044-8435_1999_30_2-3_ART0005/Apidologie_0044-8435_1999_30_2-3_ART0005.html)

Abstract - Two behaviors of honey bees, hygienic behavior and grooming, are mechanisms of defense against brood diseases and parasitic mites. Studies have shown that Apis mellifera colonies remove worker brood infested with Varroa jacobsoni mites from the nest (hygienic behavior), and groom the mites off other adult bees, but to a limited extent compared to the original host of V. jacobsoni, A. cerana. Research is reviewed on hygienic and grooming behaviors with respect to their potential as mechanisms of resistance to V. jacobsoni. Studies related to hygienic behavior include the removal of experimentally infested and naturally infested brood, measurements of heritability, the uncapping and recapping of cells containing infested pupae, and the detection of infested brood. Studies on grooming include the process by which a groomer detects and damages a mite found on itself or on another adult bee, how the behavior is quantified, and problems with these methods of quantification. Finally, unresolved questions concerning grooming and the effects of hygienic and non-hygienic behaviors on limiting the population growth of V. jacobsoni are discussed.

Rath
Co-adaptation of Apis cerana Fabr. and Varroa jacobsoni Oud (http://http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/pdf/1999/02/Apidologie_0044-8435_1999_30_2-3_ART0002.pdf)

Abstract - The research on bee and mite biology over the past 20 years has uncovered numerous details of the A. cerana-V. jacobsoni co-adaptation which are systematically summarized here. A. cerana acquired a high degree of hygienic efficiency with a differentiated set of behavioural traits that we describe in this review in a broad sense to include grooming of mites by adult bees, uncapping and removal of infested brood and entombing of infested brood. Approximately 20 % of the reproducing mite population can be eliminated by entombing of lethally parasitized drone pupae. In their equally effective infesting behaviour the parasites explore the most suitable adult and larval host individuals for safe phoretic positions, the favourable caste and suitable age. A. cerana compel V. jacobsoni to reproduce exclusively on drone brood hosts. This limited reproduction, in combination with characteristics of the population dynamics of the host, are key factors which limit mite populations to tolerable levels.

[The Drone Ranger]

Apis cerana managed it, why not Apis mellifera?

No 1, without biting and grooming, can leave the mite exhausted and probably running out of sperm, but it is a slow process.
No 2 was a figment of the researchers' imaginations (until they realised). Keep turfing out the breeding mites and you are left with only the old spinsters in sealed cells. Open them up and you see non-breeding mites - just a trick (see no 1).

Ron Hoskins, Klaus Wallner, John Dews, John McLean, they were/are all focused on biting and grooming.



Gavin I don't think Cerana learned to cope with varroa
Varroa are adapted to co-exist with the shorter development time of cerana larva
Mink are not a problem in frozen climates they are adapted
Mink in UK are a wildlife disaster

[Jon]

IIRC the liquid nitrogen or pinprick tests are to determine hygienic bees rather than for specific varroa sensitive hygiene.


I'm with mbc on this one. VSH and hygienic bees are not the same. I seem to remember Jeff Harris (Baton Rouge, VSH) saying that VSH bees do not uncap nitrogen frozen pupae and/or vice versa (or at least are no better than normal bees). His view is that VSH bees detect something volatile given off by Varroa damaged pupae.

I hadn’t realised that.
This recent paper by Harris and others backs that up as well.

Varying congruence of hygienic responses to Varroa destructor and freeze-killed brood among different types of honey bees (http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=285812)

Authors
Danka, Robert
Harris, Jeffrey
Villa, Joseph
Dodds, Garrett


Honey bees use a hygienic behavior to remove dead and diseased brood from sealed cells. Bees selected for fast hygienic response to freeze-killed brood (FKB hygienic bees, such as Minnesota hygienic stock) have good resistance to some diseases and moderate resistance to varroa mites. Bees with varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH bees) have been selected for response against varroa mites and have good resistance against this dangerous parasite. A simple, standard test can be used to measure the FKB hygienic response but measuring VSH behavior is much more technically difficult. It has been suggested that the ability of a colony to remove FKB and remove varroa mites may be highly related, so that FKB removal might be used as a simple way to select for enhanced VSH. We measured responses to both FKB and varroa mites in four types of bees that have had different selection histories. All four types removed large amounts of FKB but the removal of mites was much more variable. VSH bees effectively removed FKB and varroa mites, but FKB hygienic bees removed FKB at much greater frequencies than they removed mites. Control bees (with little selection for FKB hygiene) removed the least amount of FKB and almost no varroa mites. Outcrossed VSH bees (i.e., colonies from VSH queens mated to unselected drones) removed intermediate amounts of FKB and varroa mites. Overall, the results suggest that there is not necessarily a strong relationship between hygiene against FKB and hygiene against varroa. VSH bees appear to respond to varroa-related stimuli that are probably are in addition to stimuli that regulate a more generalized response of honey bees to dead brood.

[gavin]

I understand that otters can bully mink when they come back into the landscape in a big way. The wildlife adapts and the checks and balances come into play.

I corrected myself earlier with the wrong Wallner name. Read about what he was up to here (http://griffes.tripod.com/VRbook.html). This bit suggests that Alois Wallner may have been the first to spot the possibility that bees might simply carry mites away as well as take bites out of them and disrupt their reproduction cycle and, in the case of Apis cerana, seal them in with their hosts. Who knows, if they really do carry mites out of the colony, they may decide to go and drop them off bridges!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN IMPORTANT OBSERVATION (p.26)

In the first week of May 1989 I made a very interesting observation while working with my colonies. On controlling (inspecting) one colony I had removed the honey super and put aside. Between the two frames I found some drone brood comb. This is not unusual. By moving the frames this construction became torn and several pupae of drones were exposed. There was one Varroa mite on one pupa. The mite moved forth and back on the pupa. While I observed this mite, something special happened. I almost could not believe what I saw. There was a bee a few centimeters away from the pupa. Suddenly this bee ran wildly toward the pupa. I thought that the bee wanted to remove the uncovered pupa, but the bee grasped the mite with her mouth organ. I noticed that the bee caught the mite with her mandible in a horizontal way from the front. One third of the hind part of the mite was still visible in front of the mandible. Then, with the mite in her mouth, the bee took off. This was an unique observationthat I have not made again.

Illustr. p.26: Varroa mite with bitten off legs.

[Jon]

That is a very interesting observation. If a bee can remove a mite by (a) flying away with it after grabbing it or (b) removing it via altruistic suicide, this has implications for estimating the mite levels in a colony via counting those which fall through the mesh floor.

[The Drone Ranger]

I hope anyone following this thread and planning to breed for resistance is ready to adapt to having no bees

[Jon]

I hope anyone following this thread and planning to breed for resistance is ready to adapt to having no bees

Sorting that out is the point of the thread.
people will not participate if they are expected to lose colonies for the good of science.
The aim of a project would be to make step by step progress, treating when necessary.
That may well be the normal annual level of treatment, but meanwhile the search is on for the colonies which can keep mite numbers lower through some behaviour or other.

[The Drone Ranger]

Jon
There are some crazy ideas around and breeding for resistance is one of them
I wish you every success
If you are looking for the promised land I would be careful who programs the sat nav

[Jon]

Jon
There are some crazy ideas around and breeding for resistance is one of them

Breeding for total resistance to varroa is nonsense but some colonies tolerate the mites better than others.
How do you explain the tolerance the Primorsky bees have acquired by coexisting with the mites?

[chris]

[QUOTE=Jon;18081]One of the ideas on the table is to try and identify colonies which deal with mites better than others - and selectively breed from these.QUOTE]

Hi Jon. Will you be assuming that bees with certain traits deal better with mites, and then looking for these traits? Or will you see which bees deal better, and then look for any particular behaviour they may have?

[QUOTE=Jon;18081]Ideally we would be looking for something where progress could be made in incremental steps.
QUOTE]

After how long would you assume that the bees were surviving, or *leaning towards survival*?

[prakel]

Hi Jon. Will you be assuming that bees with certain traits deal better with mites, and then looking for these traits? Or will you see which bees deal better, and then look for any particular behaviour they may have

Not Jon but, I'd personally think that anyone attempting to look for tolerance in their bees would be foolish to look for specific traits for fear of missing something else.

I'd also seriously be interested in your personal take on this subject.

[mbc]

I have a friend keeping bees on the Lleyn peninsular, some 50 miles from me as the bee flies across cardigan bay, who swears that he never treats and neither do any of his beekeeping neighbours. This has been going on for a decade now and his theory is that the varroa, associated virus' and bees have reached an equilibrium and are no longer fatal to the bees. He says he often sees cases of DWV in the Spring, but that they clear up naturally during the season. Queens from the area dont cope very well when parachuted into areas with different varroa and other pathogens eg. mine. While I take his tales with a pinch of salt, I've seen his bees and they seem to do fine on this no treatment regime.
I'd imagine if we all stopped treating and moving bees about a similar position would develop in many areas, especially those with a fair degree of geographic isolation.

[The Drone Ranger]

Breeding for total resistance to varroa is nonsense but some colonies tolerate the mites better than others.
How do you explain the tolerance the Primorsky bees have acquired by coexisting with the mites?

http://www.queenbees.co.nz/view4.shtml
"the data showed that the best carnica were as varroa tolerant as the average Russian, but the Russians had some serious problems. They were far more nervous and nasty than carnica, much like our mellifera crosses here, and they produced little honey, but their worst trait was their swarming. Without exception the Primorsky bees started trying to swarm early, and they kept trying through until late summer."

You can't believe everything you read but for those who do perhaps a few imported carnie queens will fix varroa

[Jon]

Hi Jon. Will you be assuming that bees with certain traits deal better with mites, and then looking for these traits? Or will you see which bees deal better, and then look for any particular behaviour they may have?
QUOTE]

After how long would you assume that the bees were surviving, or *leaning towards survival*?

Chris. We have only started to discuss the idea generally. There have been several posts in this thread already have given food for thought. The work that has already been done, mites were collected from the bottom board and examined under a microscope. Some colonies have a far higher percentage of damaged mites than others. I don't have any detail about the methodology so I can't really pass any comment on the accuracy of any findings so far.

My gut feeling would be that any project has to be accessible for the majority of beekeepers and should not require a special skill set or a huge investment time wise.

As MBC commented above, if we stop moving bees around all the time it might be easier to get some stability.

DR - you have got to be joking given the amount of Carnica already introduced into Scotland.

[gavin]

I have a friend keeping bees on the Lleyn peninsula ..

One of the contributors on the Irish Beekeeping List (sadly a list much less active than before - getting a bit BBKA-ish one might say) may be your friend or one of his friends. I'll copy a couple of exchanges below. They've been successfully throwing them off bridges in Lleyn for years as mbc said (perhaps it is the Promised Land) - just as John McL did in Stirlingshire. Pete H's commented in other posts on the geographic specificity and that seemed to fit with John's bees too. He isn't convinced that the effect is coming largely from the bees, but my hunch is that it is a major factor.

G.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12 Mar 2012

My losses 15 milesish from David [Heaf] are 3 out of 60, 5%, mostly in Nationals with a few 16"x10"s, mostly natural comb as I like to have lots of drones to flood the area with my genetic material, both bees and mites. All bar one building up very strongly now. I`d put it down 100% to local bee genetics.
I would say 45-50% of beeks in Meirionydd and Lleyn are no longer treating, some going back 5 plus years.


Pete H

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19 May 2011

I really don`t know Gavin. My own personal view is that it`s at least equally down to the mites themselves. Tim`s brood pattern at my last inspection was absolutely perfect, as it also was when previously inspected in the company of John Verran, our former RBI a few years back.
Looking at one of my few remaining untreated stocks today there were plenty of visible phoretic mites but an excellent brood pattern with very few misses and no deformed wings, a huge healthy population covering 22 brood frames plus two shallows, from which I took three frames of emerging brood with plenty of stores and some bees to make a nuc. It seemed to me that the mites had laid off breeding at a point well below the damage threshold and were mostly on the bees. If it were the bees doing the controlling I would expect to see virtually no phoretic mites but damage such as DWV paticularly showing, and a plie of deformed corpses below the entrance.
This seems to be the general pattern I`m seeing once bees/mites have settled into an "equillibrium" the brood pattern is generally very good indeed, and very little or no damage, but if a queen starts to fail, or something like last winters sudden drop in temperature upsets the equillibrium, then damage sometimes does start to show, though it isn`t always terminal, and I have seen one colony make a complete recovery over two summer months, when both I and it`s owner had written it off as a dead loss, with a steady procession of DWV victims walking away from the hive.
There are lots of colonies which chuck out infested pupae, probably most I would say, but I don`t think it`s any more than clearing the way for the queen to re-lay the comb. They similarly chuck out slugs and other insects and beasties which wander in, and many can also be periodically seen grooming. I don`t feel either are hugely significant, though I could be wrong.
I think the strategies of AMM types compared to the US mainly more Italian bees seem, at least anecdotaly, to be a bit different, though ultimately achieving the same end result, but the US bees are just a few years ahead, as you might expect, in terms of results, and seem a bit more "hygenic", but their brood patterns don`t look quite so good generally as what I`m seeing.
Most of Meirionydd BKA and other beeks in that area seem to be managing without treatment and I would say Llyn and Eifionydd are heading that way, especially the younger ones, but last winter`s sudden cold snap was a setback for some of those with larger apiaries, on the Lleyn particularly. That said, looking at my own, once the colonies have pulled away the mites seem to be stabilising once again and there`s nothing remotely like the mite buildup we used to see five or six years ago. Keeping smaller apiaries seems to be of primary importance at this stage, though I this week heard of one person not treating varroa who has an apiary of around 15 hives, albeit in one of the areas most favoured spots, but most successful non-treaters have only one, two or occasionally three hives on a site.

Pete H

From: Gavin Ramsay <xxx@xxx.co.uk>
To: irishbeekeeping@yahoogroups.co.uk
Sent: Thursday, 19 May 2011, 21:28
Subject: Re: [IBNewList] Re: Bees thriving as never before???

>Have you seen this yourself?

Hi Chris and All

Thanks Pete. Do you think Tim's bees control mites mostly by grooming or are
they strongly hygienic too?

I have watched bees in the observation hive of someone with Varroa-tolerant bees
in central Scotland, and seen these bouts of active grooming. My ordinary bees
do it too. I haven't witnessed a bee grabbing and damaging the mites but I do
have in a box somewhere samples of the mites dropping in his colonies and he
assures me that he has seen it happening himself. Some of his colonies leave
mites undamaged but some leave mites with nicks in the idiosoma, and antennae
and legs neatly sheared off. The dents vary - some look bee-made, others could
be developmental defects.

That talk last week relied heavily on videos. This one (which I've posted here
before) leaves no doubt that bees will grapple with parasites. The bee around 4
min knocks a Braula off its back and stands on three legs while the other three
grapple with the critter, apparently trying to manouvre it towards its
mouthparts. There are bees elsewhere in the video having a go at Varroa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGa9DKraGA

Bees grooming:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsQx3rbc-98

Also try Ron Hoskins' pictures here:

http://www.moraybeedinosaurs.co.uk/stanton_park.html

There are dimples seen on Varroa which are not due to bees:

http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/ref/2009/02/m08083/m08083.html

but amputations at least are clearly the work of bees.

best wishes

Gavin

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[gavin]

DR - you have got to be joking given the amount of Carnica already introduced into Scotland.

DR is just about always joking! In case anyone is interested, John's bees were a mix of local native Amm types (more Amm-looking than many I've seen) and a Buckfast type with no sign of carnie-ness. The Buckfast seemed fairly strongly VSH, the Amms and the hybrids less so but still keeping on top of Varroa.

[gavin]

If you haven't already done so it may be worth checking out the experiences of the Cornish breeding group. They were full of enthusiasm and ideas but have been rather quiet lately. James Kilty and Rodger Dewhurst.

http://www.jameskilty.co.uk/beekeeping/improvement/VarroaToleranceProject.pdf
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Rodger-Dewhurst/1384425144
http://www.cbibbg.co.uk/
http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_make_a_difference/wildlife/649951/photo_gallery_breeding_bees_resistant_to_the_varro a_mite.html

[Jon]

Thanks for the links Gav. I had a quick look. There are some very good photos of uncapping debris.
I wonder where this work has gone and are there any results written up at this point.
The links are several years old.

[The Drone Ranger]

Is it fair on neighbours to breed for resistance by not treating for varroa ?
If so is it fair to ask them to respect your breeding programs?

personally I'm going to carry on killing the Bstards
If the bees want to join in and kill a few as well that's fine by me

[Jon]

DR. You are the only guy talking about not treating!

[mbc]

One of the contributors on the Irish Beekeeping List (sadly a list much less active than before - getting a bit BBKA-ish one might say) may be your friend or one of his friends.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for that Gavin, I believe Pete H is the bee inspector of my contact over there. There's certainly something interesting going on over on the Llyn, and I wonder if we'll see some parallel evolution, similar to how fluvalinate resistant varroa sprung up in many places at once.

[The Drone Ranger]

DR. You are the only guy talking about not treating!

Well that's true, and the reason for that is people popping into the forum and finding respected beekeepers discussing breeding for resistance, may leave with the impression that it is a virtuous endeavor, which they should be involved in
The masses of supporting evidence proving it can be done by beekeeping heroes prepared to take the pain etc

The link I posted shows there are other people who believe not in Primorski but in Carniolan resistance to varroa
It all depends what you selectively read
No-one sells bees as far as I know claiming they are varroa tolerant probably because of the trade descriptions act
Anyway I'm going to butt out and let the discussion continue on a more consensual basis

[fatshark]

DR. You are the only guy talking about not treating!

Actually, in fairness to DR, quite a lot of the quotes about the Lleyn group stated that 50% or more no longer treat. Which in itself is interesting ... did they stop treating to enhance the selection of tolerant/resistant/hygienic colonies or did they stop treating only once the latter had been achieved.

Would 'selection' of whatever form be more effective in the absence of treatment as this reduces Varroa levels sufficiently to make the signal/noise ratio too low. This might be a Catch-22 situation.

Thanks for the links Gavin. What was the justification for observing or acquiring the trait better in smaller apiaries? Like breeding Amm it's looking as though isolationism is a good thing. Thanks also to Jon for the Jeff Harris publication re. VSH/hygienic congruence or lack of it. I'd discussed this with Jeff but missed the publication.

This discussion sure beats anything on the N word :)

[Jon]

According to Marla Spivak any bee race has the potential to improve its ability to live with varroa.
She didn't say whether it would take 10 years or 100 years though!

DR. I am as skeptical as you are about a lot of stuff like this but there will be a few interesting observations worth chasing up amongst all the bull and over hyped claims.

[Jon]

Actually, in fairness to DR, quite a lot of the quotes about the Lleyn group stated that 50% or more no longer treat.

I think you would be surprised how many of the non treaters will eventually admit to treating 'just the once' or 'under exceptional circumstances.' or just a bit of icing sugar.
It must be hard to stand by with your arms folded and watch a colony die.
looking after livestock in a humane way seems to be normal practice elsewhere.
The get out clause for a lot of folk on biobees seems to be that something you made yourself such as thymol strings or sugar dusting is ok as long as no corporate sales or profit were involved. The evil empire of Vita and Apiguard.

[chris]

I'd also seriously be interested in your personal take on this subject.

If that's for me, I'm one of D.R.'s nutcases.
I think Jon is in a difficult position. He is a very sensible beekeeper, and so for him, not treating is a non option. But that means that certain resisting traits have been decided upon and are to be encouraged.If this were not the case, then treatment could interfere with an unconsidered characteristic. And so ,as you point out, other traits may be missed.I don't believe (yep, believe) that partial, logical steps towards resistance are possible.
I think what MBC said is very important, i.e. the environment, its isolation, and the bees' adaptation to it. I also think, that maybe the bees' survival with varroa is a multifactorial situation, and the less the bees are stressed, the more they can develop the different positive elements. I haven't read much of the scientific literature, nor the dreamsheets, so all this is just my hunch based on what I've been doing (which is very little,and even less known by me). I have 10 colonies that have just survived their 3rd winter (never been treated) and 8 of them are very strong. I DON'T recommend anybody to NOT TREAT.Each to their own.
I guess I'm just lucky not to have anyone near enough to me to want to burn my hives.

[Jon]

If that's for me, I'm one of D.R.'s nutcases.
I think Jon is in a difficult position. He is a very sensible beekeeper,

On occasion I am sensible and at other times somewhat less so.

My aim here would be to look for a potential way to improve varroa tolerance without inducing the highly probable major losses at the start as was documented in the 'Bond' experiment carried out by Ingemar Fries.
But as Chris notes above, that may not even be possible.

I do think though that even though an annual treatment is taking place, a colony with a naturally lower mite count for whatever reason (grooming, VSH) will still be at a selective advantage and is more likely to survive.

And lest we forget, some colonies treated for varroa still die over winter anyway.

But why should anyone be expected to go cold turkey when there is a treatment alternative?
I don't think it is fair to try and browbeat the ordinary beekeeper into that - which is where the Mike Bispham approach was doomed to failure.
It would be great to identify a less stressful way forward.

[drumgerry]

I'm with Jon on this. I treat and whilst I'd love to select from my colonies which do best with varroa I'm not willing to take the pain of losing them from something I can prevent. So I'll never get to find out which would have been the varroa "resistant" colony(ies). I think for most beekeepers stopping treatment would be a sure way to lose their bees. I don't think we'd all be as lucky as Chris although one or two of us would be. I'm envious of the old-timers who kept bees pre-varroa and how carefree their lives must have been but sadly those halcyon days are long gone. Right now the biggest challenge my bees are facing is this bloody weather - hardly a varroa mite to be seen on the floor inserts thanks I suspect to the joys of Apivar and Oxalic.

[chris]

But why should anyone be expected to go cold turkey when there is a treatment alternative?
QUOTE]

Pigheadedness?

[QUOTE=Jon;18156]
It would be great to identify a less stressful way forward.

When I first lost all my bees through non treatment, I had already noticed that they were not that good, even in the years when I did some *light* wintergreen oil treatments.They were bees that came from down in the Var dept. and never seemed to adapt well to the mountain climate.
The first thing I decided afterwards was to go for local bees, and in fact I populated my hives with feral swarms. I still do this. They are well adapted to the locality.One little step. Forwards or backwards ?

[Jon]

No argument with me re. the benefits of local bees Chris!
It seems quite clear to me that constantly introducing fresh genetics from other regions is going to be unhelpful with regards to a population developing more varroa tolerance.

Have you any idea about the genetic makeup of your own bees?

[mbc]

It would be great to identify a less stressful way forward.

I think we may be missing the obvious, which is that low impact selection occurs quite naturally as no breeder worth their salt breeds from bees which show more infection or damage than the others following the same treatment regime.
No treatment is 100% effective and its easy enough to eliminate those colonies which have a faster buildup of varroa post treatment from any breeding program, in fact I imagine everybody is quite glad to get those susceptible colonies out of the system. The only downside is that we may be eliminating some of the best genetics as its always the queens with good strong pheromones which attract stragglers from collapsing colonies, probably carrying in more mites and skewing what we observe.

[Neils]

I still hold on to the view that the varroa themselves play a part in this.

I've heard numerous views that treatments, when they were effective, such as apistan 'encouraged' aggressive varroa. I.e. it was in the mites interest to collapse the colony and hence get robbers in before treatments were applied.

What strikes me at the moment is that many of the people who succeed with non treatment are either isolated or, like Ron Hoskins, creating a 'bubble' of bees (and Varroa?) that are tolerant. What I've not seen from Ron's work is how his queens do on the periphery of his 'bubble'. What seems to happen with lots of supposed resistant bees is that once you put them into a general population they collapse as regularly as any other colony that isn't treated.

I realise that I'm putting myself in Biobees territory here but I still firmly believe that concentrating solely on the bees and ignoring the mites is daft.

[madasafish]

Our local BBKA chairman - also a doctor - suggests that areas have bubbles of disease. So in some areas, varroa resistant bees may only be areas with low amounts of disease in the local general bee population. So mite bites are less likely to spread disease. (Or there are few bees around in the area to spread disease).

Which would help to explain why varroa resistant bees may be confined to certain areas...

[Jon]

I still hold on to the view that the varroa themselves play a part in this.

But that's unlikely to be the more aggressive less aggressive mite scenario.

Fatshark's post 33 in the thread, and the link in it, highlight that there is not a great deal of genetic variation between mite populations because of haploidy and the sibling crosses.
Aggressive mites also have a get out of jail card as a collapsing colony gets robbed out and they can start again in the robbing colonies.

[chris]

That paper is from 2010. The same year, published in

Apidologie
Volume 41, Number 3, May-June 2010
Honey bee health

Yves Le Conte, Marion Ellis and Wolfgang Ritter

it states:

V. destructor is a pseudo-haplo-diploid parasite species (Martin et al., 1997; Harris and Harbo, 1999) reproducing mainly through brother-sister matings, a system which largely favors the fixation of new mutations (Cornuet et al., 2006). Co-evolution of the host and the parasite is driven by mutations of both the mite and the bee, which can lead to a more or less stable equilibrium.

I is confused

[Jon]

Chris.


Apidologie
Volume 41, Number 3, May-June 2010
Honey bee health

Yves Le Conte, Marion Ellis and Wolfgang Ritter

I think this link (http://entomology.unl.edu/faculty/ellispubs/Varroa.pdf) gives access to the entire paper

having read the paper now, I think the comment you highlighted is more related to haplodiploid genetics, ie the comment about fixing new mutations is because lethal recessive genes have nowhere to hide in a haploid organism.

It is not saying that mutations are necessarily common.

fatshark or Gavin can explain!

[gavin]

fatshark or Gavin can explain!

OK, to take just that point .... Varroa inbreeds strongly whereas honeybee outbreed strongly. The female Varroa has all of its gene variants (alleles) 'exposed' as one effect of inbreeding is generally to have only one variant of each gene. Males mites are different, they carry only one copy of each gene, but never mind. If you've got two copies of each gene you can 'carry' less effective variants (which might come in useful one day to some of your descendents).

There is some variation in Varroa populations but it seems to be sparse compared to the variation found in outbreeding insects. Work on the pyrethroid resistance genes shows that Varroa is capable of accumulating some genetic variation (when pushed!), but not probably not much. However honeybees are very different. They have mechanisms (csd gene, multiple open-air matings, long-distance relationships(!)) to promote lots of outbreeding and so there is a lot of genetic variation carried by populations (as well as individual queens).

Mites carry little variation but selection can move quickly on that variation (within the limits of the existing variation).

Honeybees carry lots of genetic variation but their breeding systems make it difficult to quickly shift the genetics of the population.

On the question of why Varroa tolerance appears in some places but doesn't seem to be as effective when transplanted (not sure how extensive the evidence is for that tbh) ... rather than genetic changes in the mite I'd favour a theory that involved pathogens of the mite having a role in controlling mite populations. As well as the honeybees learning new tricks of course (at least partially through genetic change).

I'd be delighted if FS wishes to add to or correct that! (or Samsalar, GreenGumbo, Jimbo ..... )

[chris]

Jon, Gavin, thanks for clarifying that for me. So, to put it at my level, mites have few mutations, but those that they do have they fix fairly easily.
Now I can get back to my general rather than specific state of confusion.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi chris
This is about bees not the varroa but quite good read
http://zayedlab.apps01.yorku.ca/wordpress/?p=650

[Jon]

Thanks DR. Anyone got a link to the full paper.
I have read a few things by Amro Zayed and he has published some good papers, especially about inbreeding risks and loss of genetic variation.

Post 19 in this thread (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?301-Yet-another-puzzle&p=2043&viewfull=1#post2043) for another paper of his.

[The Drone Ranger]

here's a cheery link from Yes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDigs6UMVjY

[Jon]

Listening to prog rock should remove the mites all right. Apparently Jethro Tull works better than Oxalic.

[The Drone Ranger]

Listening to prog rock should remove the mites all right. Apparently Jethro Tull works better than Oxalic.
Eurovision what a let down
2008 was a vintage year check these fab entries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t36CC9eNuVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkIFRPw17PQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8tdnN6VrTQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHLqfkU_0xA

[Jon]

Way over the LD50 if you apply Eurovision.

[The Drone Ranger]

Its not resistance to varroa mites you need its resistance to virus
You only need to be bitten by one vampire
nosferatu, dracula, elvira same outcome

[prakel]

Some of us in the Native bee group have been discussing possible longer term projects. One of the ideas on the table is to try and identify colonies which deal with mites better than others - and selectively breed from these.

Jon, has your group had chance yet to look further into this avenue of research? It would be interesting to hear of any project that you're able to get up and running, maybe as an independent thread or stand alone blog.

[Jon]

Jon, has your group had chance yet to look further into this avenue of research? It would be interesting to hear of any project that you're able to get up and running, maybe as an independent thread or stand alone blog.

Hi prakel. Thanks for reviving the thread.

We have moved on quite a bit.

There is a page up on the NIHBS website (http://nihbs.org/?page_id=739) with a lot of info if you follow the links to the sampling instructions and the video.

We had the head of zoology from the University of Galway at the last committee meeting and all the data collected will be heading there.
Mite levels are going to be estimated once a year between 15 August and 15 September using the sugar shake method on a sample of 300 bees.
At the same time a separate sample of 100 bees is taken from the colony.
The data and the bee samples will all end up in the University of Galway and at some point the DNA of the samples will be looked at so that mite levels can be compared with AMM microsatellite markers amongst other things.
NIHBS bought 100 shaker sample jars from Germany which were distributed a couple of weeks ago.
This first year is just a pilot as a lot of people had already started treating by the time we got the sampling equipment and mite levels have to be recorded before treatment starts.

[prakel]

Nice to hear that you're getting the project running I hope that we'll hear a lot more of it over the coming years. I've not had chance yet to follow all of the links on the NIHBS page but will do so this evening.... is there a prescribed treatment regime for all participants to follow or are they allowed some freedom as to if/how/when they treat? As you point out results will obviously have the potential to be affected by when and how a colony was last treated.

[Jon]

All the colonies in a given apiary have to get the same treatment at the same time.
That could be none at all or whatever treatment you chose to apply.

[The Drone Ranger]

This is a blog by Peter Kemble with some views on varroa control without treating
http://kemblebees.wordpress.com/
Might fit your management plan if NUC's are being produced

[Poly Hive]

I have skimmed tbh through this thread and am surprised no one has mentioned Steve Taber. Although he was not aiming at Varroa, rather AFB, the methodology may well cross over neatly.

PH

[Jon]

There is a link between hygienic behaviour and the ability of a colony to deal with mites, foulbrood or chalkbrood.

There are a couple of old Bee World articles which discuss this:

Spivak M, Gilliam M. Hygienic behaviour of honey bees and its application for control of brood diseases and varroa. Part I: Hygienic behaviour and resistance to American foulbrood. Bee World 79(3): 124–134. 1998. Part 2: Studies on hygienic behaviour since the Rothenbuhler era. Bee World 79(4): 169–186. 1998

I took this photo of tray debris at lunchtime today.
It seems to me that the bees have been uncapping some cells to remove pupae and mites.
There are lots of white bits of pupae visible on the tray along with a mite or two.

1855

[mbc]

That number of varroa would have me worried going into winter, my bees have only had a waft of thymol and arent showing anything like that. Over how many days is that drop Jon ?

[mbc]

This is a blog by Peter Kemble with some views on varroa control without treating
http://kemblebees.wordpress.com/
Might fit your management plan if NUC's are being produced

"These nucs can be repositioned in the same yard because queen-less bees readily mark their new position in a way that queen-right bees simply don’t. There is virtually no drifting from these nucs"

I've read this before but have found in practice that the flyers still want to go home and any nuc on the original site of a split up stack will have a massive population of older bees compared to the others.
I still like the system, I use something similar myself, but with much less effort. I simply use native bees and let the Welsh weather induce the colonies into a broodless period without having to split them.

[Jon]

That number of varroa would have me worried going into winter, my bees have only had a waft of thymol and arent showing anything like that. Over how many days is that drop Jon ?

That is a two day drop. It's a full size colony I have in my garden which started as a swarm which arrived with a virgin queen in June, origin unknown.
I treated with Oxalic a few days later and was amazed to see that it only dropped about 10 mites.
I skipped the thymol treatment and may have to rethink that idea!
I requeened it about 5 weeks ago with a grafted queen from an Apidea.
The mite drop seems to have come out of nowhere as I had been monitoring on and off all summer. I will treat it with oxalic as soon as it is broodless.
Possibly picked up mites from a failing colony somewhere.

[Jon]

I have skimmed tbh through this thread and am surprised no one has mentioned Steve Taber. Although he was not aiming at Varroa, rather AFB, the methodology may well cross over neatly.

PH

Steve Tabor was mentioned in post 14 (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1303-Bees-with-resistance-to-varroa-mites&p=18097&viewfull=1#post18097) of the thread.

[Jon]

That number of varroa would have me worried going into winter, my bees have only had a waft of thymol and arent showing anything like that. Over how many days is that drop Jon ?

Hmm.
I did an Oxalic trickle on that colony on Thursday last week.
200 mites on Friday
300 Saturday and another 250 today.

That's the biggest mite drop I have had for about 4 years.
Wonder how they picked up so many since I treated in June.

1860 1862 1861

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-y577u2BGL0i6zBwwnKxfLAHwT0sl3v29seJjfeVMCQ/edit?authkey=CP2F0pIK&authkey=CP2F0pIK
Thats a link to a graph stored on Google drive
You need to zoom up 200% to see clearly
But the hives that showed next to no drop still produced similar drop under treatment as others
The colour bars all represent individual hives and you can see them grow and shrink over the period
These are hives which had been given a 6 week apistan treatment prior to doing these oxalic treatments
Hope that's not too boring it just shows how deceptive counts can be

[Jon]

I am a skeptic about counting naturally dropped mites as well.
This one surprised me as I treated when broodless mid June with Oxalic and there was next to no mite load yet it has picked up a stack from somewhere in between.

[The Drone Ranger]

Quick question

Bearing in mind varroa damage is at its worst on the poor old drones
Should queen breeders trying to control drones in an area try breeding for resistance as well ?
Would that not bee(sic) shooting themselves in the foot

(Not the big operations with II queens etc)

[Rosie]

In doubt if any queen breeders are selecting drones from colonies that are showing poor varroa tolerance. Whether or not they are actively seeking out the most varroa tolerant depends on their time and skills.

[Jon]

DR. I don't really understand your question. The thing about varroa tolerance is that at a colony level there are strategies such as uncapping varroa infested cells, biting and damaging mites or grooming mites off bees in the colony. Given that a drone can't even feed itself I don't think there is any point in looking for these traits in a drone.

[The Drone Ranger]

Sorry chaps
What I mean is lets say a breeding group parked under a local DCA or whatever want to bias the queen mating toward their type of bees
The often stated means is to get plenty drones in the air
I sometimes read the term "swamp the area" with the chosen drones

Most people in a breeding group won't have special drone raising colonies so the hope is that everybody's hives will contribute some of the right type of drones to the cause in the local area

Now only the strongest and best drones will get a chance to mate, they will be flying out several times a day every afternoon and coming back to refuel in between.
So assuming that there will be lot's of other hives around all putting drones out into the DCA and those drones will have the best chance of mating if they are healthy strong specimens.
Would the bees who have the absolute lowest number of varroa in the hive have the strongest drones
Or would bees which have some varroa tolerance but clearly much higher mite loads be fielding teir best players

My feeling is that breeding for resistance in any open mating situation will automatically be torpedoed by the varying levels of damage to the untreated/undertreated bees(drones)

Certainly if I was next door with my big fat well fed varroa free drones the virgin queens might come back and produce some nice hybrids

[Jon]

The first thing is to look for stock which is better than average at dealing with mites.
Second thing, monitor and measure mite levels and treat when necessary.
Letting the mite count rise to a damaging level is not sensible.


Most people in a breeding group won't have special drone raising colonies

If they are taking it seriously, they should have a couple of drone combs in the brood box.

Outside of an II programme the only real options are isolated mating apiaries or drone swamping.

In addition, I would expect that beekeepers who are interested enough to belong to a bee breeding group are likely keeping a closer eye on bee health than your average beekeeper.

[The Drone Ranger]

I guess you will be right Jon, I can't say I know much, but how do the drones in hives that contain higher levels of mites avoid being weakened as the varroa feed off them ?
Does it not become even more important to protect them by killing every single varroa that can be killed ?

[Rosie]

Even in an infested hive only a small proportion of the drones will be affected. The hives that have the characteristics the breeder likes, including varroa tolerance (or intolerance as some prefer to call it) will be given drone comb.

[Jon]

There is a threshold beyond which the mites become a problem and the biggest part of the problem is the viruses which they vector.
If you have a couple of hundred mites in a good size colony at peak drone rearing times, that is unlikely to be a problem as there should be several thousand drone cells and over 20,000 worker cells.
Any drone cell with a mite in it is not going to produce a super-fit drone which mates with a virgin queen but it is a small percentage of the drones which are affected.
In the early part of the season, April and May, when you want maximum drone production, the mite levels should be very low after the winter brood break and maybe even an oxalic treatment.
I intend to treat all my colonies with Oxalic next month. I skipped thymol treatment in one apiary after measuring mite levels at the start of September so it will be interesting to see the drop I get.

Edit. Posted same time as Steve. I have about 50 drawn drone combs which I put into my colonies as early as is feasible, usually some time in April.
At the moment they are in storage in the shed.

[The Drone Ranger]

I was thinking about doing the stacked bar graph thing again
It shows the whole apiary as a sort of single entity

[Jon]

This year was a low mite count year for a lot of beekeepers I know, probably due to the exceptionally long brood break last winter and spring.
My bees were rearing brood until the end of October this year and some likely still have a bit of brood so mite levels will have risen a lot since September.
That drop of 800 mites shocked me as this was a colony which had a negligible mite load when I treated in June.
I suppose 100 mites early September could have grown to a population of 800 after 3 generations of brood up to November

[The Drone Ranger]

here's a link http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=161315
These guys were trying to measure effect of crossing with Russian bees
A difference of 58% in capped cells to 48% in capped cells it seems ?

[prakel]

NIHBS bought 100 shaker sample jars from Germany which were distributed a couple of weeks ago.
This first year is just a pilot as a lot of people had already started treating by the time we got the sampling equipment and mite levels have to be recorded before treatment starts.

This thread just came to mind while reading Erik Osterlund's latest blog. I'm going to link it as there's a great diy shaker jar tutorial for those who like to play around in the workshop:

http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=660

[Jon]

Whateverway you do it, using a shaker with a measured amount of bees is the only accurate way to get a mite count.
Fera is still promoting the counting of mites which drop through the mesh floor.

[prakel]

Whateverway you do it, using a shaker with a measured amount of bees is the only accurate way to get a mite count.
Fera is still promoting the counting of mites which drop through the mesh floor.

They struggle to get through our solid floors so that's not much use here!


----------------------------------------------

Any news on the project Jon?

[Jon]

The project is underway. I had a letter from the PHD student doing the work last week.
I hope to get an update on the NIHBS site soon.
Still very early days.

[prakel]

Not seen the actual paper yet but this news feed looks quite interesting:

http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=5fd2b1aa990e63193af2a573d&id=693b2f10c5&e=57f94334d8


“The study is a unique and powerful contribution to understanding how honeybees have been impacted by the introduction of Varroa destructor, and how, if left alone, they can evolve resistance to this deadly parasite,” said Thomas Seeley, the Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell and the paper’s senior author. Sasha Mikheyev ’00, an assistant professor of ecology and evolution at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan, is the paper’s first author.


edit: this is the link to the paper (link added after busybeephillip's post #109):

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150806/ncomms8991/full/ncomms8991.html

[busybeephilip]

I wonder how they take account of bees breeding with the like of sue cobeys varroa resistant strains since they only seem to be looking at mito DNA and not genomic

[The Drone Ranger]

Not sure about the "if left alone ......resistance" bit
That's not what I felt they were trying to say
More a loss of genetic diversity among survivors
I thought all the CCD losses were made up by package bees probably from a few sources
Possibly Australian ?
They have tried to eliminate other reasons in fairness but with bees that's not easy

[prakel]

Not sure about the "if left alone ......resistance" bit
That's not what I felt they were trying to say

That's a quote attributed to Seeley who's also one of the authors of the paper.

[The Drone Ranger]

I just watched this and found it very interesting
I would say it probably puts to bed the notion that the bees will over time learn to deal with mites
Only one project but an impressive one


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fE4emUMyOWs

[The Drone Ranger]

I'm with mbc on this one. VSH and hygienic bees are not the same. I seem to remember Jeff Harris (Baton Rouge, VSH) saying that VSH bees do not uncap nitrogen frozen pupae and/or vice versa (or at least are no better than normal bees). His view is that VSH bees detect something volatile given off by Varroa damaged pupae.

One thing that worries me about Varroa resistance is the selection of less pathogenic mites, rather than 'better' bees. Has Ron Hoskins ever exposed his bees to a Varroa-infested hive from outside his area?

What about coordinated Varroa treatment? If everyone in an area treated all colonies simultaneously - for a full month with Apiguard or similar in the autumn and with OA in winter - it should leave the mites with nowhere to hide. It would have to be simultaneous and every colony because phoretic mites on drones or drifting workers mean that Varroa-free colonies are infested within days or at best weeks.

Not Varroa resistance I know, but I'm not sure that such a thing exists.

Hi Fatshark
Your predictions for Ron Hoskins work were prophetic
(although its his virus load that is less lethal not his mites)
Jeff Harris on the other hand is wrong ?
(American sites don't go there lol!)
"
I cant seem to get this video embeded in the post so here goes another try without the "help" of Tapatalk


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE4emUMyOWs

[fatshark]

Suffering with a heavy cold and feeling miserable, so will watch the vid this afternoon with a hot toddy. Or two.

Interesting to look back through this thread and refs to Hoskins's bees and biting/grooming when the recent Schroeder paper describes them having an apathogenic strain of DWV 'blocking' replication (or perhaps infection?) by the virulent strain(s) of the virus. This process termed superinfection exclusion (SIE). The apathogenic strain is actually what was originally called VDV I think. Largely descriptive and requires testing, but it's another thing to consider. I worry about the 'stability' of isolated or closed populations and whether they have relevance in more apiary-saturated regions.

[gavin]

Viruses - who'd have 'em! I wonder if the SBA meeting passed some round, have one myself now. Thinking of ginger, lemon and honey.

Wouldn't it be ironic (or just neat) if the biting and grooming of the bee helps propagate the non-pathogenic virus in Varroa? OK, I can see the issues with that now. Maybe not. But it does seem possible that both the biting/grooming and the viral change interact somehow.

[Black Comb]

I missed the NHS 2013. That was an interesting lecture.
In 2014 Prof. Koeniger gave a lecture on the "varroa gate", a device to "scrub" off phoretic mites from bees from other colonies entering the hive. Perhaps he is onto something.
Caveat. His research was sponsored by Bayer.

[The Drone Ranger]

The Ghost in the hive is a long video but well worth watching
I think afterwards you will agree there is no biting or grooming of varroa going on
If there are any larva being removed its because the bees sense the larva is distressed or dying not that varroa is present

The immature mites and mite bits that are found on boards are almost always just part of the normal varroa cycle

The Ghost part of the title refers to the fact that the varroa are invisible to the bees whether on adult or larva
Hence the bees do nothing about them

Sorry to hear you are under the weather Gavin and Fatshark

[Pete L]

Sorry to hear you are under the weather Gavin and Fatshark

Likewise, hope you both get well soon.

[prakel]

The Ghost part of the title refers to the fact that the varroa are invisible to the bees whether on adult or larva
Hence the bees do nothing about them

It's still one of my favourite Honey Show videos to date so thanks for reminding me to watch it again.

There is of course a window when the mites are visible to their host:


Our results confirmed the findings reported in Nation et al. (1992) that chemical mimicry of V. destructor changes as the parasite switches hosts. Varroa destructor is the first case, known to us, in which a parasite frequently switches its camouflage as it moves between host stages. Because groups of individuals within an A. mellifera colony can vary in their CHC profile, due to life stage (Falcón et al. 2014; Kather et al. 2011), a passive chemical camouflage is likely to be the best strategy to facilitate a quick adjustment in the parasite’s camouflage to match the new host with minimal energetic cost. The mite also has a number of appendages, such as suckers, hairs, and its crab-like carapace (Rosenkranz et al. 2010) that allow it to hold onto the host during the transition time of mimicking one host stage to mimicking that of a new one. This way, these appendages likely buy the mite the few hours needed for it to blend in fully with the host’s CHC profile.

Evidence for Passive Chemical Camouflage in the Parasitic Mite Varroa destructor by Ricara Kather et al

http://www.wnklba.co.uk/app/download/5800779331/2015+02+02+Kather+et+al+JCE+Varroa.pdf

[gavin]

I think afterwards you will agree there is no biting or grooming of varroa going on
If there are any larva being removed its because the bees sense the larva is distressed or dying not that varroa is present


Au contraire DR, biting and grooming have been demonstrated for around 28 years. I don't know why the Sheffield researchers were reluctant to include it in the range of responses of bees to Varroa.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=varroa+grooming&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

Hygienic behaviour is, as you say, bees sniffing out distressed larvae and removing them. Varroa Sensitive Hygiene is when bees are particularly good at doing it for Varroa-infested cells.

Grooming and biting is different. Dr Kather's research demonstrates nicely that Varroa is capable of shifting to stealth mode in terms of odour but bees still can find and damage them. That link above gives you 10 papers that discuss this.

Here is a bee very much aware of the mite on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfn4jwqUqvI

And another that successfully gets one off.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElYyCmOMmac


Thanks for the concern folks. Just a winter virus, lots of folk have it just now.

[gavin]

Stuart Roweth's bee gym being put to good use by groomers and biters, though the latter is hard to see. It was clearer in a video in this thread some time back.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUCiZI2vcJU

The best evidence is mites with pruned legs and cuts in the shell (idiosoma).

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
When you have time to watch Ghosts in the hive you will probably change your mind

[gavin]

Watched it, DR. It is worth bearing in mind that all scientists are wrong some of the time. Some are wrong much of the time but Dr Kather isn't in that category. ;)

The work does take things forward. The odour stealth mode is part of the story. How about a mother mite freshly exposed by hygienic behaviour takes a wee while to start smelling like the appropriate bee, a worker out and about. In that time it is particularly vulnerable to the (absolutely uncontestably demonstrated to my mind) grooming and biting, but even after that period when it smells right they can still physically irritate bees and trigger grooming that way.

Please do click that Google Scholar link.

I've looked at fallen mites myself. You get a proportion with legs pruned off, pedipalps, bits of the armour, and also large deep dents one side or the other of the middle of the mite. Those scientists who have invested in the 'they don't bite and groom' idea like to dismiss the dents are due to drying but they usually really don't look like that (though some do). Scientists working on the topic usually have ways of preventing any other artifact, such as other critters taking a chunk out of the mite later, by using sticky boards and carefully looking at mites on their backs.

Give it a try yourself if you have a microscope. (Not lying on your back on a sticky board but looking at mites ... )

Another edit: I wonder if those mites clamped down between segments on bees on the comb are trying to hide while they adjust their odour? That could mean that the combination of hygienic behaviour and grooming/biting is a powerful one - get those pupae-smelling mites quickly out on the comb and they're particularly vulnerable.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Prakel
It's a short window of 3 hours for a complete makeover though and only 20 minutes for a shampoo and set




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[The Drone Ranger]

QUOTE=gavin;33309]Watched it, DR. It is worth bearing in mind that all scientists are wrong some of the time. Some are wrong much of the time but Dr Kather isn't in that category. ;)
.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

Hi Gavin
I am working my way through the links it will take a while starting with the most recent
I read somewhere the dents in carapaces were found to be a genetic defect in the mite ?
I try to keep an open mind rather than allow faith to deny reason
(Imagines Zoroastrians arguing with Scientologists about religion while homeopaths and faith healers duel to the death with ducking stools)
I have looked at quite a lot of varroa under the microscope checking oxalic crystals on the hairy bodies and feet
Up late cleaning some copper boards for PCB's

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[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
Quite a lot of the links you gave me are saying that varroa are not being removed by grooming

Good for balance though
"ummary — We observed social grooming behavior in the Carniolan bee, Apis mellifera carnica. Bouts
of grooming lasted up to 45 s, and were directed to the wing axis (44.6%), the petiolus (18%) and the ster-
nite regions of abdomen (2.8%) of the receiving bee (41 bees). During grooming, the receiving bees held
their wings perpendicular to the body axis. Groomer bees most often cleaned those body parts which could
not be reached during self-cleaning by receiving bees. During 18% of the grooming time, groomer bees
cleaned their own mouth parts and antennae. The grooming behavior removed dust and pollen from the
wing bases and petiolus and realigned the body hairs. No attempts to remove Varroa mites were
observed during self-cleaning or social grooming behavior."

Bit dry though I like the video presentations
Still working on them

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[gavin]

Bit dry though I like the video presentations
Still working on them


That's the way with science :).

Just like hygienic behaviour (opening dodgy cells) sometimes it is targeted against Varroa, sometimes not. Can I point you back to this video? There are things happening all through it including bees 'asking' for grooming with that side to side flick. Good examples of bees grabbing and biting a parasite (I think Braula but they are trying to get Varroa too) from 4 min 19 s and 6 minutes:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1303-Bees-with-resistance-to-varroa-mites&p=18103&viewfull=1#post18103

[prakel]

Bit dry though I like the video presentations
Still working on them


That's the way with science :)

Good juncture to drift off topic a little :). Mark Winston's blog of 28/09/15:

'From There to Here'

http://winstonhive.com/?p=542

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
The first victim was a poor old innocent braula caught up in the bees equivalent of a bombing campaign
The second one was a varroa though so point taken :)
The filming was in daylight ? would that be the difference in allowing them to be spotted
The website given on the video for the poster was a dead end and got some cheeky suggestions from Google
When GCHQ send the boys round I'll be blaming you :)

Thanks prakel for the link thats been put in the bookmarks for later reading in depth :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNkOOuVYYdI
Pan pipes a blessing or a curse ?
I had to turn the sound off on the video but for those (tone deaf) masochists among you heres a short medley

[gavin]

A curse, definitely, in that context. Chris Slade just posted this on the BBKA Facebook page from the deep south. His bees are whiling away the late November days by cleaning up.



https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-1/c17.0.100.100/p100x100/1622866_10152351075816754_619148422_n.jpg?oh=b15ff d060e6b6dd375aae17160216464&oe=56E9495E&__gda__=1457074429_7ef297d1a585bde47be70c3d46f8abc 8 (https://www.facebook.com/christopher.slade.714)



Christopher Slade (https://www.facebook.com/christopher.slade.714)


29 November at 13:31










Looking at a varroa floor this morning while the bees were flying busily as if summer at 52F, I saw lots of mites, many of which were short of limbs. I saw 2 headless bees that had somehow got through the mesh and both had several mites. As I watched, 2 bees dragged a white pupa through the entrance and one flew off with it for a few feet. Are they hygienic?

[prakel]

Looking at a varroa floor this morning while the bees were flying busily as if summer

Must be talking about his inland colonies. I can assure you that there were no bees flying on the 'rock' this morning -unless they were clinging to the hive as that took off!

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi chaps
Snow here today so no flying or anything like that
When it comes to varroa collection trays, any that have gaps will let all sorts of clean up insects in
Some folk thinking there was no natural drop were surprised to find lots of varroa when they treated
The headless bees are being eaten and probably got there while finding tasty items themselves
Likewise any dead varroa are going the same way
If I saw live varroa with some missing bits it would be more convincing than a legless corpse :)


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[The Drone Ranger]

I might be guilty of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
But I try to not to bee (sic)



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[Jon]

Just noticed this clip elsewhere about Ron Hoskins' work and super infection exclusion


http://treatmentfreebeekeepers.co.uk/index.php/ron-hoskins-swindon-honeybee-conservation-group/

[busybeephilip]

Yep - I mentioned super infection exclusion for DMV a while back. So no more varroa treatment with OA then, better start selecting for VSH !


:)

[prakel]

Just noticed this clip elsewhere about Ron Hoskins' work and super infection exclusion


http://treatmentfreebeekeepers.co.uk/index.php/ron-hoskins-swindon-honeybee-conservation-group/

Some dubious comments on other pages of that website. The sort of stuff that's likely to lead to beginners of a certain persuasion ending up feeling very sorry for themselves. Generally an odd mix of useful stuff such as a take-off of the sustainable apiary philosophy tempered with a gung-ho live or let die approach.

Another Kent beekeeper called Mike with interesting views; must be something in the honey.

As for:


The next stage seems to me to require dissemination of his bees amongst other treatment free beekeepers to see how they perform away from his carefully controlled conditions.

Probably quite right but I wouldn't hold my breath as there seems to be a long waiting list.

[brothermoo]

You wouldn't actually need any of rons queens ...just some sort of way to inoculate your hive with his dwv strain... I have heard of human fecal transplant what about honeybee hive detritus transplant? Or a varroa swap? Lol


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[The Drone Ranger]

You wouldn't actually need any of rons queens ...just some sort of way to inoculate your hive with his dwv strain... I have heard of human fecal transplant what about honeybee hive detritus transplant? Or a varroa swap? Lol


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You might be thinking of Yakult brothermoo that contains poo extract (yum)

I'm still in "the only good varroa is a dead varroa camp" but I can see that DWV which doesn't deform wings might be good

Harmless Deformed Wing Virus -- is that an oxymoron ?
I will be a minor miracle if it is :)

[fatshark]

Harmless Deformed Wing Virus -- is that an oxymoron ?


Varroa-free bees - have detectable DWV but rare (if any) deformed wing disease. This has been reported a number of times. The virus was also first identified in UK bees before Varroa was introduced to the UK. In the absence of the mite DWV isn't a problem for bees. Sure, a very few might get sick, perhaps because they have defective immune responses or whatever, but the large-scale carnage seen by uncontrolled mite transmission is absent.

More recently Schroeder and Martin have reported a 'harmless' strain which appears almost the same as the original Varroa Destructor Virus type 1 first published back in 2004 by Monique van Oers.

[Jon]

The Martin paper re the arrival of mites on some of the Hawaiian islands (http://www.thecre.com/forum2/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/CCD-Science-Martin.pdf) is a good read re DWV variants.

[The Drone Ranger]

Varroa-free bees - have detectable DWV but rare (if any) deformed wing disease.
More recently Schroeder and Martin have reported a 'harmless' strain which appears almost the same as the original Varroa Destructor Virus type 1 first published back in 2004 by Monique van Oers.

Ron Hoskins bees are not free of varroa by all accounts they have plenty of them and its the DWV that is a non lethal variety
Les Bailey made the point that virus,fungi and bacteria etc are always present at some low level in the colony
Its when another factor causes illness or stress in the bees, and/or creates favorable conditions for growth or transmission then it all goes pear shaped

So fatshark like you I think varroa are proven as that other factor and I am prepared to
"kill kill and kill again until that menace is wiped from the face of the planet"
(copyright - Justin Welby ABC --"My Struggle")

[brothermoo]

Les Bailey made the point that virus,fungi and bacteria etc are always present at some low level in the colony


I am prepared to
"kill kill and kill again until that menace is wiped from the face of the planet"


The viruses, bacteria and fungi present, by the accounts of those who have bees coping with varroa, are important. Therefore if we kill our varroa we should keep the colony microflora in mind when choosing a method by which to kill, kill and kill again


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[fatshark]

So fatshark like you I think varroa are proven as that other factor and I am prepared to
"kill kill and kill again until that menace is wiped from the face of the planet"
(copyright - Justin Welby ABC --"My Struggle")

I agree ... The only good mite is a dead mite (c) fatshark ;)

[prakel]

You wouldn't actually need any of rons queens ...just some sort of way to inoculate your hive with his dwv strain...

I was under impression that the Swindon group still claim bee behaviour as having an important part to play in the equation. I don't think that they agree that it's all about the dwv.

[brothermoo]

I don't know what they claim but I saw that piece on the beeb and from what research I have been recently been reading about the importance of our own gut microbes it resonated with me that we may be putting stress on the bees by ignoring a major part of the colony... Not a caste of the bee but other organisms living in symbiosis with them


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[Mike Cox]

Some dubious comments on other pages of that website. The sort of stuff that's likely to lead to beginners of a certain persuasion ending up feeling very sorry for themselves. Generally an odd mix of useful stuff such as a take-off of the sustainable apiary philosophy tempered with a gung-ho live or let die approach.


Well, I got noticed at least. I really wasn't expecting that article go so far, so quickly. As far as my philosophy goes, you are right - I've been heavily influenced by the Sustainable Apiary approach as advocated by Mike Palmer, and in a similar line the Expansion Model advocated by Solomon Parker. I have done the conventional treatment approach for many years, and still suffered all the disappointments of lost hives, bees over-run with varroa, unexplained collapses etc... I'm totally convinced that breeding bees to survive on their own is not only possible, but is preferable to treatment regimens.

I've been expanding the site, and will continue to do so. One thing I'm very aware of is the experiences of novices as they start beekeeping. I've mentored a fair few and experienced with them their highs and lows. Most of my friends I've been beekeeping with have started out by first doing a beginners course, which seems to prepare them very poorly for the experience they get of losses. One of my friends came to me after three year with just one hive, annual losses and never having had a honey harvest. He was pretty much ready to throw in the towel.

Most novices will be advised to "start small with one colony". Colonies in the hands of novices, even those who treat and do everything properly, still have high loss rates of around 30% (national average published by the BBKA). People who do not treat, but breed and select for bees seem to experiences losses of around 50%. Not all that much in it really. I advise novices to start a bit larger - perhaps 2 hives, with two nucs to overwinter. It is much more versatile and greatly increases the chances that they will still have bees in the spring. If they lose a queen they have far more resilience, as they can immediately requeen from their own stock. Losses from over wintering can be immediately replaced in the spring from their own nucs. In my experience, novices love handling nucs - they are less busy, you have greater chances of finding the queen, you can learn a huge amount from them. They are also cheap - much cheaper in terms of equipment than more full sized hives would be - and if you invest in the polynuc styles the bees over winter in them absolutely fine.

If you consider that for most people total losses are what are hardest to cope with, then the following sums help back up the idea of not treating, but also using nucs.

By the crude figures above, calculating the chance of total loss in a given year:
1 hive, treated with 30% loss rate = 0.3
4 colonies, untreated with 50% loss rate = 0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5 = 0.0625
6 colonies, untreated with 50% loss rate = 0.5^6 = 0.0156

My standard setup that I would advise for novice has a MUCH higher chance of them still having bees in the spring than the standard approach of having one hive, or even two, and blasting them with miticides.

Yesterday I wrote up an article on dealing with hive losses which might be of interest:

http://treatmentfreebeekeepers.co.uk/index.php/death-of-a-hive/

[Mike Cox]

Ron specified when I saw him that the physical harm caused by large numbers of mites feeding on bees was alone sufficient to weaken colonies so that they do not thrive. I got the impression, though I didn't ask him this directly, that he thought that viral load was usually what finished off these hives. This also goes some way to explain why hives that have been treated still collapse. You can remove the mites but the viruses are still in all the bees.

[Mike Cox]

Ron Hoskins bees are not free of varroa by all accounts they have plenty of them and its the DWV that is a non lethal variety
Les Bailey made the point that virus,fungi and bacteria etc are always present at some low level in the colony
Its when another factor causes illness or stress in the bees, and/or creates favorable conditions for growth or transmission then it all goes pear shaped


Ron's bees are not varroa free, and he has never claimed that they are. He instead would describe them as "varroa tolerant". They have reached an equilibrium with the mites and viruses as whole system so that they can basically get on business as usual. Ron said when I met him that he was asked for a sample of mites from his apiary recently for a viral analysis. He was unable to provide mites as he couldn't actually find any live mites using a sugar roll.

Ron's bees without the TypeB DWV would still die occasionally, and other bees with the TypeB but not the varroa controlling behaviour would struggle due to mite load. The combination of factors is what makes his bees so impressive.

I discussed with him about how you might go about introducing TypeB from his hives to others. The best suggestion he has is to combine a colony of his with a colony of yours, although this needs to be confirmed in field trials. He was considering making mini-nucs, complete with a laying queen, allowing them to build for a few weeks, then doing a newspaper combine.

[prakel]

Well, I got noticed at least. I really wasn't expecting that article go so far, so quickly. As far as my philosophy goes, you are right - I've been heavily influenced by the Sustainable Apiary approach as advocated by Mike Palmer

Mike, nice to see you posting here. As a longterm follower of Kirk Webster's writings I'm not deaf to what you're saying although I think the model used by the like of Erik Osterlund is much better; select for bees which don't need treatment but treat those which do and then requeen them with daughters from ones which are surviving better (for whatever reason).

A gamekeeper friend of mine says 'you got livestock, you've got dead stock'. This will always be the nature of the game so I reckon that it pays to start from a position of doing everything possible to keep the work force alive rather than working towards an expected loss because one thing for sure, some will die no matter what. If the varroa, viruses, bacteria, floods, badger or fox doesn't get them the beekeeper will.

[Mike Cox]

Mike, nice to see you posting here. As a longterm follower of Kirk Webster's writings I'm not deaf to what you're saying although I think the model used by the like of Erik Osterlund is much better; select for bees which don't need treatment but treat those which do and then requeen them with daughters from ones which are surviving better (for whatever reason).


I've wrestled with this myself and have come down to the decision that letting them die actually leads to better selection. There are traits beyond simple varroa control that are worth having in a hive, that you cannot select for except by exposing them to that pressure:
Supercedure - I really want my bees to be good at superceding. If every struggling hive is requeened then there is no pressure applied to them to encourage supercedure.
Use of stores - how often do you inspect a deadout and find them starved and yet still have stores in the hive nearby that they didn't find? I don't really want that trait either.

That said, I'm not against the idea of requeening per se. If I have an out-and-out winner of a queen; one who shows all the traits of VSH, grooming etc that I'm looking for then I will likely rapidly requeen other hives from her. But I will do so knowing that the queens I killed never got a fair shot at survival on their own.



A gamekeeper friend of mine says 'you got livestock, you've got dead stock'. This will always be the nature of the game so I reckon that it pays to start from a position of doing everything possible to keep the work force alive rather than working towards an expected loss because one thing for sure, some will die no matter what. If the varroa, viruses, bacteria, floods, badger or fox doesn't get them the beekeeper will.
Except that not all livestock is equal. If you breed for survival characteristics you can have sheep that thrive in harsh winter conditions on the hills. Take some pansy lowland sheep up to your hills and they'll most likely die off. I'm breeding for hardy bees, not treating weaklings. Short term losses, long term gain.

[The Drone Ranger]

Thanks for your response to my post Mike
I have never spoken to Ron Hoskins but I was pretty sure that what I said about his bees having a high mite count and non lethal Virus is exactly what you said ?

Best of luck with your non treatment plan
I don't see any advantage to having a high mite count since a low count is just as likely to produce a response from the bees

If you are talking about only having survivor colonies thats a different issue
I think that is poor advice to give new beekeepers

Regards sheep I think you will find farmers do treat for ticks, worms, foot rot and any number of other ailments
They don't just nip up the hills and bring down a hardy variety :)

[prakel]

Regards sheep I think you will find farmers do treat for ticks, worms, foot rot and any number of other ailments
They don't just nip up the hills and bring down a hardy variety :)

Nor would it be acceptable for them to leave half the flock to die in the selection process. Aside from any moral objections, it seems like an amazing waste of resources to me.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi prakel
on a lighter note heres the reason for some people losses last year
Oxalic Acid = 0 deaths
Stings = 4 deaths
drowning
in bath = 18 deaths

So if you can negotiate taking a bath, and avoid being stung to death, you should be safe enough to use oxalic acid :)

[Mike Cox]

Thanks for your response to my post Mike
I have never spoken to Ron Hoskins but I was pretty sure that what I said about his bees having a high mite count and non lethal Virus is exactly what you said ?

His bees do not have a high mite count. His breeding programme had been progressing for 10 years with low hive losses (10% or so annually) before the TypeB virus came on the scene in their apiary. He actually has very low mite counts for the most part, and no hives that would meet the usual recommended treatment thresholds for varroa. However, low mite counts are not the same as not having mites at all, and is again not the same as having high mite counts which is what your comment was suggesting.


Best of luck with your non treatment plan
I don't see any advantage to having a high mite count since a low count is just as likely to produce a response from the bees
If you are talking about only having survivor colonies thats a different issue

I don't see an advantage to having high mite counts per se, except that if I want to select for bees that can control mite numbers themselves then they need to be exposed to that pressure. By treating I would obscure the expression of the very trait(s) I'm trying to select for. I can directly observe some of the traits in the hive (for example evidence of VSH on the drop board) but there are likely other factors, as yet unrecognised, that could also be contributing to the bigger picture or varroa tolerance. There was a study I read about colonies in isolation that developed tolerance independently, each using different mechanisms.

Survivor colonies may be a step in the right direction in some cases, but around here the population of treating beekeepers is so great that they have not had a chance to breed in isolation in a way that would lead to strong VSH traits for example. Locally I'm not aware of any "survivor" colony that has been active continuously for more than 2 years - although sites frequently get re-colonised by swarms year after year.


I think that is poor advice to give new beekeepers
Which advice are you referring to here?


Regards sheep I think you will find farmers do treat for ticks, worms, foot rot and any number of other ailments
They don't just nip up the hills and bring down a hardy variety :)

Yes they do, and the problems associated routinely treating for all ailments are coming to light, just as they have with antibiotic resistant superbugs in humans, and with miticide tolerant varroa mites in bees.

http://www.wormboss.com.au/programs/slopes-plains/breeding-wormresistant-sheep.php
"Genetic selection can be used to increase a sheep’s resistance and resilience to worms."

https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/genetics-selection/sheep-worms-%E2%80%93-breeding-worm-resistant-sheep
"Lost productivity due to drench resistance in sheep worms has been recognised as a widespread problem in Western Australia (WA) since the 1980s."

http://www.bsas.org.uk/animal_bytes/it-is-possible-to-breed-sheep-for-footrot-resistance/
“The aim of our study was to determine the heritability and repeatability of resistance to footrot in Scottish Blackface and mule sheep at different ages, and to assess if breeding for resistance to footrot is a credible option for British sheep breeders.”

http://genomealberta.ca/livestock/drought-tolerant-sheep-and-tick-resistant-cattle-two-items-on-genomic-researchers-agendas.aspx
"Researchers are focusing on Nguni cattle, which are indigenous to South Africa. The breed is a favourite with South African ranchers because of its fertility, tolerance to tick-borne diseases, and ability to withstand harsh conditions."

The above brief list was found with 2 minutes of googling.

Research into adaptation and developing disease resistance is taking place in all areas of agriculture. It is a top priority in many cases, as existing medications are becoming less and less effective. Personally I find it bizarre that beekeepers are not more receptive to this approach. Many seem to view the varroa-bee-virus dynamic as something special and unique, whereas the epidemiological pattern is repeated countless times through nature (and agriculture!) and very well understood.

Parasites and their hosts, when not interfered with by humans reach and equilibrium - parasites become less virulent, hosts become more tolerant. Eventually they reach a balance where hosts stop dying and business can get back to normal. Treating perpetually tips that balance away from equilibrium by selecting for less hardy hosts and more virulent parasites (so they can reproduce faster and spread the infection further before the treatment kicks in). This dynamic is well understood, and has even been seen before in bees.

Isle of Wight disease decimated beekeeping in the UK in around 1910. A new parasite swept through killing colonies. As many as 90% of hives died in a few years. The survivors were used to restock and now the disease is essentially unheard of - the equilibrium has been reached. The tracheal mites are not so virulent that they collapse hives, the bees are adapted to cope with them.

Had we let the bees die from varroa when it first hit the UK, then only requeened from survivors for 10 years or so, we would most likely not be now having this conversation. The problem would have sorted itself out.

[Mike Cox]

Nor would it be acceptable for them to leave half the flock to die in the selection process. Aside from any moral objections, it seems like an amazing waste of resources to me.

With most livestock you get to eat the mistakes in your breeding programme. You have a sickly sheep who is always getting footrot? Easy solution is not to breed from them and come the autumn have them butchered. But if you prophylactic-ally treat everysheep, regardless of need, how will you know which ones need it? How will you know which ones to breed from?

With bees we don't eat the livestock themselves, but we do get to eat the honey. Even a failed hive can produce a surplus of honey and wax.

[prakel]

With bees we don't eat the livestock themselves, but we do get to eat the honey. Even a failed hive can produce a surplus of honey and wax.

But they don't produce much the following summer unfortunately.

Mind, if we take nucs off them before they do fail we may actually buy them enough time to get honey next year.

[Mike Cox]

Mind, if we take nucs off them before they do fail we may actually buy them enough time to get honey next year.

And THAT is where the magic happens. If you already have your nucs ready and waiting then the loss is meaningless. I didn't actually lose any colonies this year, but had I lost them I would have simply transferred one of my nucs into the box taking over where the previous occupants left off. Why do I care about the survival of one failing colony if I already have a nuc booming with bees, with a young queen from my best breeder hive ready and waiting? Where else would I put that nice strong nuc but in an empty box?

[prakel]

On a different note, to date, how many years have your bees been treatment free?

[Mike Cox]

So far only one season - I don't consider them to be resistant yet, so I was surprised by the low loss rate. I've come back to beekeeping after an enforced gap (bee venom allergy - now treated), and second time round I'm taking a totally different approach.

Last year was about building up numbers, this year is about building further (I'll have about 10 full size colonies and about 20 nucs) and selecting my first round of breeder queens.

[The Drone Ranger]

In fairness Mike my first bees were treatment free for a year because I mistakenly thought I was in a Varroa free area
I then saw a varroa on a bee but waited till the Thornes sale to buy Apistan that Autumn (skinflint)
3 out of the 4 disappeared the following Spring -- had to buy some more --ouch!!

I'm always learning new things again on this forum

Apologies for the short post I am very lazy :)

[mbc]

Had we let the bees die from varroa when it first hit the UK, then only requeened from survivors for 10 years or so, we would most likely not be now having this conversation. The problem would have sorted itself out.

Maybe if we'd kept isolated from imports, but with imports the bees would probably still be crashing in waves with each new type of flu coming in that the mites vector.

[Jon]

Most novices will be advised to "start small with one colony". Colonies in the hands of novices, even those who treat and do everything properly, still have high loss rates of around 30% (national average published by the BBKA).

It might have been 30% on one occasion but that is not the average loss put out by the BBKA.
The annual loss has been under 20% a couple of times recently and that includes a load of people who don't really know what they are doing.
I think a lot of beekeepers would find losses between 10% and 20% acceptable depending upon other background factors such as weather.

[drumgerry]

Had we let the bees die from varroa when it first hit the UK, then only requeened from survivors for 10 years or so, we would most likely not be now having this conversation. The problem would have sorted itself out.
Agree with mbc on the imports issue. And it's difficult to requeen a colony that's dead don't you think? I think you probably mean propagate the survivor stock. It would have taken a Herculean national (UK) wide effort to coordinate something like that - something that was never ever going to happen. The reality is that beekeepers would have lost all or nearly all of their colonies without treatment.

After a year of treatment free beekeeping I might be keeping my thoughts on the subject to myself until I had been at it a bit longer

[drumgerry]

It might have been 30% on one occasion but that is not the average loss put out by the BBKA.
The annual loss has been under 20% a couple of times recently and that includes a load of people who don't really know what they are doing.
I think a lot of beekeepers would find losses between 10% and 20% acceptable depending upon other background factors such as weather.

I'd be horrified with a loss rate of 30%. 10% or less in most years would be more like it.

[Mike Cox]

Agree with mbc on the imports issue. And it's difficult to requeen a colony that's dead don't you think? I think you probably mean propagate the survivor stock. It would have taken a Herculean national (UK) wide effort to coordinate something like that - something that was never ever going to happen. The reality is that beekeepers would have lost all or nearly all of their colonies without treatment.


(I did mean "restock" rather than "requeen")

This is exactly what did happen with Isle of Wight disease. Tracheal Mites wiped out an estimated 90% of colonies across the UK over a period of about 5 years. In "Beekeeping at Buckfast" Brother Adam recounts the efforts they went to to propagate their survivor bees and to distribute them around the country to replace lost colonies. Within a few decades the tracheal mite became almost a non-issue as it reached equilibrium with its better adapted bee host. I'm not suggesting that modern beekeepers would tolerate that kind of loss regarding varroa, but that our situation now - a few decades later - might look very very different if they had, or if miticides had simply been unavailable as they were at the time of Isle of Wight disease.

The efforts of Ron Hoskins, and other individuals, show that resistance to varroa is quite attainable by selecting from the lines of bees we already have available. I have to then ask why do we NOT select from those bees when it is possible?

Bees that manage their own mite loads are healthier throughout the year - not just when the mite levels are low immediately after treating. Lower year round mite predation increases life expectancy of the forager bees. I've yet to see figures on it, but I'd expect honey harvests in varroa tolerant colonies to be higher than in non-tolerant but treated hives. Long term honey yields pre-dating varroa were around 40lbs per colony. Since varroa they are around 20lbs per colony in the UK. Last year the average was 16lbs per colony. More colonies may be surviving with treatments, but they are clearly not thriving as well adapted bees should be.

http://www.bbka.org.uk/files/pressreleases/bbka_honey_survey_2015_30_oct_2015_1446192509.pdf

[Mike Cox]

It might have been 30% on one occasion but that is not the average loss put out by the BBKA.
The annual loss has been under 20% a couple of times recently and that includes a load of people who don't really know what they are doing.
I think a lot of beekeepers would find losses between 10% and 20% acceptable depending upon other background factors such as weather.

My mistake, I hadn't seen the 13/14 and 14/15 figures.
http://www.bbka.org.uk/files/pressreleases/bbka_winter_survival_report_25_june_2015_143517287 0.pdf

The 30% which I saw published rang true with my own previous experiences and expectations so I didn't double check for more recent results. My general point still holds; losses happen regardless if you treat or not. Novices are especially vulnerable to losses for various reasons and so experience much higher loss rates than more established beekeepers will.

In my own apiary I plan/allow for 50% losses of my colonies by always running an appropriate number of splits/nucs in reserve. A lost colony is simply no loss to me because I already have bees lined up waiting to go in boxes. I'm not paying for those bees, and I'm selecting from my own survivor queens for bees with strong varroa tolerance traits. Do I hope for such high losses? No, of course not. But I also don't care if they happen. Making your own splits in the year before is a lot cheaper than buying bees. I don't claim this as a strategy suitable only for going treatment free, as obviously it is viable for anyone who treats as well. It certainly makes giving up the medication much more palatable, however.

I do expect to have marginally higher losses than a beekeeper who treats for a few years while develop my own lines,

[prakel]

This is exactly what did happen with Isle of Wight disease. Tracheal Mites wiped out an estimated 90% of colonies across the UK over a period of about 5 years. In "Beekeeping at Buckfast" Brother Adam recounts the efforts they went to to propagate their survivor bees and to distribute them around the country to replace lost colonies.

Tiny drop in the ocean compared to the massive imports from the continent at that time to help restock after the losses.

[drumgerry]

In my own apiary I plan/allow for 50% losses of my colonies by always running an appropriate number of splits/nucs in reserve. A lost colony is simply no loss to me because I already have bees lined up waiting to go in boxes. I'm not paying for those bees, and I'm selecting from my own survivor queens for bees with strong varroa tolerance traits. Do I hope for such high losses? No, of course not. But I also don't care if they happen. Making your own splits in the year before is a lot cheaper than buying bees. I don't claim this as a strategy suitable only for going treatment free, as obviously it is viable for anyone who treats as well. It certainly makes giving up the medication much more palatable, however.

Am I missing something? Why would your splits in reserve be less likely to succumb to varroa than your main colonies? Are you taking something from them having had breaks in brood rearing? Or the genetics of queens you'll be grafting from? And I'm not sure where in the world you are but the success of overwintered nucs in my part of the world is not guaranteed in every winter. You also said I think that you have 10 colonies at the moment - are you buying queens in that you believe have traits of varroa tolerance or are you maintaining your selection from within those 10 colonies? How will you ensure subsequent generations breed true? II/isolation?

And is all this what you're planning to do rather than stuff you've actually experienced?

Apologies for the list of questions! Hope you can find the time to answer...

I applaud the aspiration although I'm sceptical of the outcome. If you could get this to work I'd be tempted to join you.

[Emma]

A lost colony is simply no loss to me because I already have bees lined up waiting to go in boxes. I'm not paying for those bees, and I'm selecting from my own survivor queens for bees with strong varroa tolerance traits. Do I hope for such high losses? No, of course not. But I also don't care if they happen.
Hi Mike,
Is that really what you mean? Is a colony really only worth money to you? You don't feel any distress when you find one has died?
Emma

[prakel]

Am I missing something? Why would your splits in reserve be less likely to succumb to varroa than your main colonies? Are you taking something from them having had breaks in brood rearing?

My point in post 156. Artificially propping up the production colonies in the short term by taking splits from them (and then saying that they're untreated) isn't a new idea.

[Mike Cox]

Am I missing something? Why would your splits in reserve be less likely to succumb to varroa than your main colonies? Are you taking something from them having had breaks in brood rearing? Or the genetics of queens you'll be grafting from? And I'm not sure where in the world you are but the success of overwintered nucs in my part of the world is not guaranteed in every winter.


I'm not assuming in nucs will survive necessarily. I'm assuming the losses will be distributed across the nucs and production hives.

I make my nucs early enough in the year that they have time to build but strongly, and I ensure they have their own honey as far as possible. I'm using both polyhives and polyucs from swienty. The extra insulation of the poly in the nucs seems to give them about double the potential brood rearing area as the queen will lay right to the outside brood sheet. A 6 frame Lang nuc ends up pretty strong before winter.



You also said I think that you have 10 colonies at the moment - are you buying queens in that you believe have traits of varroa tolerance or are you maintaining your selection from within those 10 colonies? How will you ensure subsequent generations breed true? II/isolation?


My current hives are a mix of caught swarms and purchased nucs. The swarms are much stronger than the bought nucs. I'm not considering any of them as tolerant or survivors, although I suspect that at least one of the swarms was from a feral colony.

Regarding my plans for this year, I have negotiated a limited supply of queens of excellent VSH/grooming lineage. When they come I will be breeding from those.

As far as breeding true over generations there will inevitably be some initial watering down as queens mate with local drones. I'll be manually selecting for subsequent generations of breeder queens similar to the methods used successfully by Ron Hoskins. I'll be writing up my methods in detail at some point. My clumpy fingers are struggling on my phone at this point!



And is all this what you're planning to do rather than stuff you've actually experienced?

Let's say I've done enough to be confident of my methods, if not yet confident of my finished results. I've got 10 years with bees under my belt, but the breeding aspect is under development.

In my second recent incarnation of beekeeping I find myself far less interested I harvesting honey, than in a fascinating breeding project. Challenges are what makes life fun after all.

[drumgerry]

So....in effect having lots of split colonies and being "happy" to lose X%? Unless there's a genetic end in mind it's a bit like zero hours contracts and the "low" unemployment figures con. And of course production colonies will cease to be such with however many splits taken off them.

[drumgerry]

Regarding my plans for this year, I have negotiated a limited supply of queens of excellent VSH/grooming lineage. When they come I will be breeding from those.

As far as breeding true over generations there will inevitably be some initial watering down as queens mate with local drones. I'll be manually selecting for subsequent generations of breeder queens similar to the methods used successfully by Ron Hoskins. I'll be writing up my methods in detail at some point. My clumpy fingers are struggling on my phone at this point!

I'll be interested to read of those methods. To be honest I can't see anything other than continual rather than initial watering down happening unless you have II or isolation. From the Ron Hoskins/Countryfile video earlier in this thread it looks like II is his way of breeding true.

[The Drone Ranger]

It's easy to imagine survival of the fittest

The reality is that in most disease outbreaks the survivors are anything but fit

So if the drones being nibbled to sterility isn't enough, the viral infections will make pretty sure that there won't be many happy healthy drones distributing those resistant genes

Hence the instrumental insemination I assume

I can't afford the equipment and the training for that mularky :)

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[SDM]

Am I the only one that thinks promoting infection with the type B DWV is simply asking for a potentially devestating mutation ?
I also find Mike's use of figures to be deceptive he compared novice Beekeepers rates of loss to those of the treatment free gods. Ditto for honey production. Try comparing to the very best of treating Beekeepers for a dose of reality. Also allowing colonies to fail and assuming their genetics are useless reduces the very real chance of an epigenetic solution developing.

[Greengage]

It's easy to imagine survival of the fittest

The reality is that in most disease outbreaks the survivors are anything but fit

So if the drones being nibbled to sterility isn't enough, the viral infections will make pretty sure that there won't be many happy healthy drones distributing those resistant genes

Hence the instrumental insemination I assume

I can't afford the equipment and the training for that mularky :)

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It is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. it was not Darwin who said that but Leon C. Megginson who attributed it to Darwin.

[prakel]

Locally I'm not aware of any "survivor" colony that has been active continuously for more than 2 years - although sites frequently get re-colonised by swarms year after year.


The swarms are much stronger than the bought nucs. I'm not considering any of them as tolerant or survivors, although I suspect that at least one of the swarms was from a feral colony.

Sadly that doesn't sound like much of a reference.

However to be fair Mike Bispham, another tf beekeeper based in Kent, does claim a freestanding population of feral colonies.


----------------------------------------

I'd be particularly interested if you could offer more information regarding the tf breeder queens which you've secured for the coming season.

[Mike Cox]

Hi Mike,
Is that really what you mean? Is a colony really only worth money to you? You don't feel any distress when you find one has died?
Emma

Feeling loss over bees is a tricky area. Every bee I ever keep will die. Most of them only live a few short months. When a colony dies we really have a failure to produce the next generation of bees... the old bees were dying anyway. That doesn't mean I'm not a bit disappointed when it happens, but I try not to get emotionally attached to each one.

I find a similar issue with requeening. If you remove/kill an old queen and replace her with a younger one you colony hasn't really survived - it is a new colony with a new mother. The old queens genetic line is gone and is usually lost.

So while I don't view bees as a purely financial cost, I also try not get too emotionally attached to my colonies. I feel this helps me to make better, more balanced decisions about their management.

[Mike Cox]

My point in post 156. Artificially propping up the production colonies in the short term by taking splits from them (and then saying that they're untreated) isn't a new idea.

For the most part I will not be taking splits from my production colonies, because as you say you can either make more bees or make honey. My production colonies will be evaluated for their varroa tolerance and used to raise queens. Splits get made from my nucs - the nucs need weakening periodically anyway to prevent swarming and I usually do this by removing a frame of capped brood and giving them a frame to draw out and fill. Last year I pulled on average 4 frames from each nuc over the summer. It takes 3 frames to make a new split so for every 3 nucs I keep in reserve I can make 4 new nucs without ever touching my production hives.

Replying to another comment elsewhere; my nucs are not on "zero-hours" they work hard to support other aspects of my apiary. They draw worker comb for me, they raise queens and let me keep them in reserve, they provide resources for making more splits up, I can give multiple frames of capped brood to production colonies to give them a massive boost of young bees - either for honey production or for queen cell rearing. Note that nothing in my policy on nucs says that they need to be treatment free. I think more beekeepers should be doing this as it adds so much versatility to an apiary.

[Mike Cox]

I'll be interested to read of those methods. To be honest I can't see anything other than continual rather than initial watering down happening unless you have II or isolation. From the Ron Hoskins/Countryfile video earlier in this thread it looks like II is his way of breeding true.

I asked Ron directly about his use of II. He told me that he has used it in the past, but it is not a routine part of his queen rearing or selection process, and he didn't put much weight on it's importance to his success.

Ron selects his queens for breeding very carefully by monitoring aspects of mite and trash fall on his bottom boards. He can score each queen for strength of the VSH and grooming traits and uses those scores, along with other factors such as temperament and honey production, to select his breeders. His virgin queens are placed in mating nucs with queen excluders over the entrance to restrict when the virgin queens can take their mating flights.

In his other hives he controls when the drones will fly. He places drone comb above a queen excluder, so that the drones are trapped above after they hatch. He has adapted his equipment so that these boxes have an entrance immediately above the excluder, and another immediately below the excluder, which he can open and close.

He has observed that normally drones and virgins will fly out around 11am and return to their colonies by about 1pm. He releases his drones by opening the upper entrance at about 12.30pm and closing the lower one. At about 12.45pm he released his virgin queens from their mating nucs.

When the queens reach the drone congregation areas they find them flooded with resistant drones from his own treatment free apiaries, and few of the drones from other hives.

In this way he regains some measure of control over the drones that his queens mate with, while still getting the benefits of open mating - selection for vigorous drones, multiple mating, plentiful semen so queens with a longer productive life expectancy etc...

I would say that it is the combination of strategies, especially his monitoring and selection of breeders, than makes the difference in his case.

[The Drone Ranger]

Am I the only one that thinks promoting infection with the type B DWV is simply asking for a potentially devestating mutation ?
I also find Mike's use of figures to be deceptive he compared novice Beekeepers rates of loss to those of the treatment free gods. Ditto for honey production. Try comparing to the very best of treating Beekeepers for a dose of reality. Also allowing colonies to fail and assuming their genetics are useless reduces the very real chance of an epigenetic solution developing.
You are not the only one SDM what you say makes good sense to me :)

I like the way Mike argues his case but I am not convinced


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[prakel]

For the most part I will not be taking splits from my production colonies,

With you. But it's easy to see how I was confused, having read the information from your earlier link:


At its simplest Expansion Model (EM) beekeeping means taking multiple splits and swarms from your hives each year......

...There are many, many ways to get bees living in your nuc boxes. You can catch swarms from your own, or other peoples bees. You can make splits from your own hives. You can do artificial swarms or any mix of the above. Making splits is likely the fastest and easiest, and is one of the simplest ways to ensure you are breeding from your best queens....

...Nuc getting too strong/too many bees

Take a frame of capped brood, shake the bees off and give it to a full sized hive. The extra bees will help boost honey production.
Take stores out and give them to another hive, or freeze them and store for winter feeding.

[Jon]

He has observed that normally drones and virgins will fly out around 11am and return to their colonies by about 1pm.

Virgin queens often take short orientation flights around 11am but they don't ever leave on mating flights at this time under uk conditions.
Mating flights usually take place from about 12.30 onwards up to around 6pm if conditions are right.
Drones fly all afternoon if it is warm enough.
Mating flights are relatively brief, minutes rather than hours.
Woyke did loads of work on this but the references are hard to find on the internet.

Orientation flights will take place with a temperature as low as 10c-12c but you wont see mating flights at this temperature.

[Mike Cox]

Am I the only one that thinks promoting infection with the type B DWV is simply asking for a potentially devestating mutation ?
All bees carry viruses all of the time. How do you perceive the risk of mutation being higher in bees with TypeB than with the virulent, lethal TypeA? Why would you consider a mutation of TypeB (which is already a symptomless mutation of TypeA!) to have greater devastation potential than a mutation of TypeA. Epidemiologically the evidence is clear that, over time, diseases like virus that are lethal to their hosts are selected against when compared to variants of the same disease which are comparatively benign. Diseases tend to become less lethal over time rather than more lethal.

Varroa disrupted the viral landscape in bees by introducing a new mechanism for viral spread from bee to bee. TypeB appears to be one route through which a new equilibrium is forming.



I also find Mike's use of figures to be deceptive he compared novice Beekeepers rates of loss to those of the treatment free gods. Ditto for honey production.
I'm not intending to be deceptive, and I'm very open to being pointed to new figures. I've sadly not seen any meaningful data comparing honey production between TF and treated bees. It is certainly a promising potential line of enquiry, but it would be a difficult trial to control. The catch is that TF is a management practice, where-as varroa tolerant stock are a strain of bee which those who are following TF practices are hoping to select for.

If you put normal commercial stock in a TF apiary, and follow your normal practices without treatments you would expect those colonies to struggle. To make the trial meaningful you would need treated stock, under a treatment regimen, along side tolerant stock with no treatment. You are not able to adequately control like with like. Most trials would be setup with, for example, sister queens in all colonies and then varying the management protocol. Or the queens would be of different lines, but they would both have the same management applied to them.

That is not to say that such a trial would be impossible, but that it would need a very (ie 200+) large number of hives to get a meaningful result.



Try comparing to the very best of treating Beekeepers for a dose of reality. Also allowing colonies to fail and assuming their genetics are useless reduces the very real chance of an epigenetic solution developing.

Has an epigenetic solution been forthcoming in colonies where the bees are supported by medication? I've not seen evidence to suggest it has despite decades of bees surviving with varroa through treatments. If it isn't emerging in treated colonies what makes you think it would develop in untreated ones? Also, when selecting for varroa tolerance there are genetic mechanisms that we can select for which have been shown to be effective - bees already have the tolerance in their gene-pool if we select for it. VSH and grooming behaviours are the low hanging fruit here that can be selected for, hoping for a spontaneous epigenetic solution looks like chasing chimeras in comparison.

[Mike Cox]

Virgin queens often take short orientation flights around 11am but they don't ever leave on mating flights at this time under uk conditions.
Mating flights usually take place from about 12.30 onwards up to around 6pm if conditions are right.
Drones fly all afternoon if it is warm enough.
Mating flights are relatively brief, minutes rather than hours.
Woyke did loads of work on this but the references are hard to find on the internet.

Orientation flights will take place with a temperature as low as 10c-12c but you wont see mating flights at this temperature.

Thanks Jon, that is really interesting. The conversation with Ron was the first I'd heard of being able to manipulate queen mating in this way. I've yet to see any corroboration for it, so if you have links to that material by Woyke I'd be really keen to see it.

If, as you are suggesting, Ron's drone timing is redundant then it suggests that the prime factor driving his success is the careful queen selection he is doing. One less item to control/worry about in the selection/breeding process is a good thing in my book.

[prakel]

Thanks Jon, that is really interesting. The conversation with Ron was the first I'd heard of being able to manipulate queen mating in this way.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?1519-Horner-method-for-controlled-mating&highlight=webster

[Mike Cox]

Sadly that doesn't sound like much of a reference.

However to be fair Mike Bispham, another tf beekeeper based in Kent, does claim a freestanding population of feral colonies.


----------------------------------------

I'd be particularly interested if you could offer more information regarding the tf breeder queens which you've secured for the coming season.

Yes, although I have not claimed to have developed an apiary of tolerant bees yet, merely that I am following practices which I believe will allow me to do so. I don't think I'm overstating my case on that front. As far as Mike Bispham's local feral population - I can't speak for him, as I don't know his circumstances - it is reasonable to expect his drones, and occasional lost swarms from his hives, to contribute to any local ferals. Bees that have genetic contributions for varroa tolerant bees are more likely to survive in the wild than escapees from treated colonies without those traits. It is probable that Mike's own work in selecting for resistant/tolerant strains of bees is directly contributing to the vigour of his local ferals.

Regarding my source of queens for this year; it is tentative at present and the numbers are strictly limited. I hope you don't mind if I keep my source to myself until I have my own bees in hand! I can say that they are top quality for the traits I am looking for.

[SDM]

All bees carry viruses all of the time. How do you perceive the risk of mutation being higher in bees with TypeB than with the virulent, lethal TypeA? Why would you consider a mutation of TypeB (which is already a symptomless mutation of TypeA!) to have greater devastation potential than a mutation of TypeA. Epidemiologically the evidence is clear that, over time, diseases like virus that are lethal to their hosts are selected against when compared to variants of the same disease which are comparatively benign. Diseases tend to become less lethal over time rather than more lethal.

Varroa disrupted the viral landscape in bees by introducing a new mechanism for viral spread from bee to bee. TypeB appears to be one route through which a new equilibrium is forming.


I'm not intending to be deceptive, and I'm very open to being pointed to new figures. I've sadly not seen any meaningful data comparing honey production between TF and treated bees. It is certainly a promising potential line of enquiry, but it would be a difficult trial to control. The catch is that TF is a management practice, where-as varroa tolerant stock are a strain of bee which those who are following TF practices are hoping to select for.

If you put normal commercial stock in a TF apiary, and follow your normal practices without treatments you would expect those colonies to struggle. To make the trial meaningful you would need treated stock, under a treatment regimen, along side tolerant stock with no treatment. You are not able to adequately control like with like. Most trials would be setup with, for example, sister queens in all colonies and then varying the management protocol. Or the queens would be of different lines, but they would both have the same management applied to them.

That is not to say that such a trial would be impossible, but that it would need a very (ie 200+) large number of hives to get a meaningful result.




Has an epigenetic solution been forthcoming in colonies where the bees are supported by medication? I've not seen evidence to suggest it has despite decades of bees surviving with varroa through treatments. If it isn't emerging in treated colonies what makes you think it would develop in untreated ones? Also, when selecting for varroa tolerance there are genetic mechanisms that we can select for which have been shown to be effective - bees already have the tolerance in their gene-pool if we select for it. VSH and grooming behaviours are the low hanging fruit here that can be selected for, hoping for a spontaneous epigenetic solution looks like chasing chimeras in comparison.

The risk of mutation in the B is higher because its asymptomatic and therefore bees go on to live full lives whereas with other strains the bees are rejected from the hive or die reducing the timeline for mutation. Also you are leaving the means of spreading the virus in the hives whereas no Colony of mine has had even 1/10th of the " treatment level" of mites because of my treatments. You are also suggesting deliberate infection of entire Colo ies as a means of inoculation. Which means you are promoting many thousands of extra cases per hive and extending the duration of opportunity to mutate. Mutations incidentally are equally likely to produce more or less virulent strains, what I assume you are referring to is the perceived advantage that less virulent strains have because the host lives. The source of infection is unaffected by a more virulent strain ( the mite) so even if the bee dies in hours the source of infection will persist. So That won't be a factor of concern if all the bees are dead the fate of the virus is irrelevant.
In short , insanity !

A simple solution to the statistics issue would be to ask any of the respected queen breeders here if they are experiencing average losses of 30% , you'll find its much closer to 3% I imagine. Taking average figures from Beekeepers who may or may not be treating and also from new Beekeepers who regularly obtain bees with zero knowledge of their care and comparing them to the best of tf Beekeepers is deceiving yourself. Simply try comparing the best of treatment free with the best of treating beeks. The difference between 3% and 50% is rather more significant, no ?
Do you imagine every variation of genetics has already been conceived to rule out an epigenetic response.
How is it do you think that some bees have adapted to varroa. Was the start point pure chance or did they respond to a new threat ? Do you select for strength of epigenetic response ? Or did you simply allow the bees who together with your own could have achieved it, to die ?
The drone holding technique would appear to be redundant in affecting controlled mating and most would agree AI or isolation are the only truly effective ways to achieve it and since controlled breedinv would be the only conceivable advantage to letting colonies fail, you have allowed colonies to die for nothing other than inflicting disease and infestation on others as your failing colonies are robbed out.
Can you guess I'm an advocate for compulsory treatment ?

[fatshark]

Am I the only one that thinks promoting infection with the type B DWV is simply asking for a potentially devestating mutation ?


No ... it's also not clear why Type B predominates in the Hoskins bees and not elsewhere. Geographic isolation, instrumental insemination ?? What is the fate of these bees when moved elsewhere ... ?

There's a disconnect between the presence of the Type B virus and the importance or otherwise of the mite fall/mite nibbling/VSH hygiene RH has been working on for years ... which is it? Are the bees hygienic and able to rid themselves of mites, or is this irrelevant because the Type B virus is present ... ?

Or does the Type B virus cause the bees to exhibit hygienic traits <-- don't go there please.

[SDM]

Or does the Type B virus cause the bees to exhibit hygienic traits <-- don't go there please.

Aren't typeB infected bees immunised from other types ? So presumably they'd manage fine out of area.

Sorry , but you brought it up
Other infections promkte a hygenic response ie. Cell Clearing.
You could be on to something.

[SDM]

This goes some way to explaining tolerance of mite mediated immune suppression

http://www.saskatraz.com/files/Frontiers%20%20%20Identification%20of%20developmen tally-specific%20kinotypes%20and%20mechanisms%20of%20Var roa%20mite%20resistance%20through%20whole-organism,%20kinome%20analysis%20of%20honeybee%20%2 0%20Systems%20Biology(2).htm

[Mike Cox]

No ... it's also not clear why Type B predominates in the Hoskins bees and not elsewhere. Geographic isolation, instrumental insemination ?? What is the fate of these bees when moved elsewhere ... ?

This is something that Ron is in the process of investigating. One thing that is certain is that it does not depend on isolation; Ron estimates that there are around 100 beekeepers within 10 miles of him. Instrumental insemination is not a factor either; his queens are open mated. Ron argues along the lines that, through his strategy he is selecting for fitter bees, but is also simultaneously selecting for less virulent mites, and less virulent viruses. He believes that this new equilibrium is a natural product of a system that is allowed to stabilise without interference. This is a line supported by theories of epidemiology (of which I am no expert).

Some trials that are on the cards:
- newspaper combining two colonies, one with DWV TypeA and one with TypeB. Test to see which viral type wins.
- transfering colonies with TypeB to a treatment regimen with a varroa intolerant queen.

While Ron thinks the TypeB virus has been in his colonies for around 10 years he was not aware of its significance until recently, and had no means of verifying what he had until last year when the paper on his bees was published. The whole study of TypeB is very, very new.



There's a disconnect between the presence of the Type B virus and the importance or otherwise of the mite fall/mite nibbling/VSH hygiene RH has been working on for years ... which is it? Are the bees hygienic and able to rid themselves of mites, or is this irrelevant because the Type B virus is present ... ?


There is no disconnect at all here. TypeB provides another mechanism through which his bees are able to survive. However Ron is adamant that TypeB alone would not be sufficient to prevent colony losses due to varroa. The physical damage to both adult and larval bees caused by mites feeding on their haemolymph in a colony with unrestricted varroa reproduction is sufficient in itself to cause a colony to collapse. The hygienic behaviour of his bees suppresses the varroa levels to the equivalent of treated hives, and the added bonus of the TypeB reduces his winter losses even further.

He claims to have not lost a hive due to a varroa/viral related problem in 10 years.

Just as there is no one direct cause of colony loss, more a multitude of factors to do with mites, virus and general pressures on colonies, there are multiple factors that can work to protect colonies. The synergy of mites and virulent virus contributed to very high losses when varroa arrived. The synergy of VSH/grooming traits and TypeB virus is contributing to very low losses in Ron's hives. There is no one magic bullet that will protect hives, but stacking the desk in their favour through multiple factors can.

[fatshark]

Aren't typeB infected bees immunised from other types ? So presumably they'd manage fine out of area.

Presumably. Surely this is known?


You could be on to something.

I'm not ;)

[SDM]

Presumably. Surely this is known?




It is

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://usir.salford.ac.uk/36907/1/ismej%2520SEI%25202015.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwi3sMe-jrbLAhWDvxQKHdRIDK4QFggsMAI&usg=AFQjCNEEPsZoaw6NrwnvcFWyGVkVWCfw6w&sig2=9luR41bxSjOadGvLvb2d3Q

[Mike Cox]

The immunisation theory has been tested and so far seems to hold, but there is not yet enough evidence from its deployment in the field to know how well it holds up.

Issues with using it as a "treatment" of sorts are problematic as it is not clear exactly how it is vectored from bee to bee. Possible routes:

The queen lays eggs which already have the virus. The larvae develop already immunised. This would be ideal as you could simply requeen colonies to get the TypeB

The larvae are inoculated when they are fed by infected nurse bees. Making splits then becomes the best way to propagate, dividing the existing population of nurse bees to maintain the viral transfer to the next generation. Making up mini-colonies might be a way to stretch this using mating nucs, so that you can get more colonies from one parent hive. It may be possible to spread the virus by then combining the small colony with the larger one. This combine approach is as yet unverified.

The adult bees or larvae are only infected when they are bitten by a mite. This would be challenging as it becomes harder to transfer from colony to colony, especially at low mite levels. I suspect that this is not the only path for viral infection however, as in Ron's hive with very low mite levels he still has successful transfer of TypeB to all bees in the hive. If mites are the primary mechanism for transferring the TypeB the you could potentially harvest mites from a colony and deliberately transfer them to another.

I have another question - how do we know that this TypeB is confined to Ron's hives? Ron is super-vigilant in his hive monitoring, which is how he managed to progress his breeding so far. Is it not reasonable to speculate that this typeB might actually be out there, unrecognised in the wider bee population? Would it even be recognised in most hives, or would low incidence of DWV be merely put down to a "successful treatment regimen"?

All of these are interesting potential lines of research.

[SDM]

I can save him some time the newspaper type A,B uniting is a waste of time. B wins.

[SDM]

The queen lays eggs which already have the virus. The larvae develop already immunised. This would be ideal as you could simply requeen colonies to get the TypeB

.
Immunised against type A but infected with B and therefore a mutation factory with wings. This is not a vaccination where the bees immune system learns to combat the virus it's simply already infected and can't catch it again.

[Mike Cox]

I can save him some time the newspaper type A,B uniting is a waste of time. B wins.

"Has done a few times in the past" might be a better way of putting it. I don't think it is shown it will ALWAYS work. In particular, will it work if you combine a very small colony (ie a mini-mating nuc) over a larger one? If so there is a potentially resource cheap mechanism to use, rather than merging, for example, full sized nucs.

[Mike Cox]

Immunised against type A but infected with B and therefore a mutation factory with wings

I'm really not convinced by this argument. Are you proposing that your bees which do not display the most grotesque external signs of DWV are actually totally virus free? I'm fairly certain it has been shown that all bees carry viruses all the time, pretty much as we do. A virally "empty" bee is a niche waiting to be filled - I really don't see how it can be possible.

If you have evidence for claiming that TypeB is more likely to cause mutations I'd like to see that, as I'd also like to see evidence that your bees have NO viruses present.

[fatshark]

I can save him some time the newspaper type A,B uniting is a waste of time. B wins.

Eh ... ? If this were the case, Type B should predominate globally. I don't think the ISME J. paper describes taking a type B colony (colonies) and parking them in a region with a 'normal' distribution of Type A and C (and D - Z?), and the varroa that transmit them, and seeing what happens.

[Mike Cox]

Eh ... ? If this were the case, Type B should predominate globally. I don't think the ISME J. paper describes taking a type B colony (colonies) and parking them in a region with a 'normal' distribution of Type A and C (and D - Z?), and the varroa that transmit them, and seeing what happens.

One question which I felt was not really addressed in that article was whether the Superposition works the other way. If TypeB protects against TypeA, does TypeA also protect against TypeB? My suspicion is that if the viral load of TypeA was sufficiently high for the protection to work then the colony would already be on the point of collapse.

[SDM]

I'm really not convinced by this argument. Are you proposing that your bees which do not display the most grotesque external signs of DWV are actually totally virus free? I'm fairly certain it has been shown that all bees carry viruses all the time, pretty much as we do. A virally "empty" bee is a niche waiting to be filled - I really don't see how it can be possible.

If you have evidence for claiming that TypeB is more likely to cause mutations I'd like to see that, as I'd also like to see evidence that your bees have NO viruses present.

DWV is one of the fastest evolving groups , any variety is likely to mutate. It most certainly does not exist in all bees. I believe the figure is that it's found in 80% of colonies but absolutely not in all bees within infected colonies.
It has been demonstrated by injecting multiple strains of virus into individual bees that one strain , type B in the case of dwv always wins.

[Jon]

If anyone posting on the thread has not read the Martin Hawaii paper, 2012 yet, it provides really useful background to all this.


Stephen J. Martin
Global Honey Bee Viral Landscape Altered by a Parasitic Mite (http://www.thecre.com/forum2/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/CCD-Science-Martin.pdf)


European DWV variants were already present
in honey bee populations before the arrival of
the mites. Studies in the United Kingdom
and New Zealand) have found that DWV
infections and colony collapse did not coincide
with the arrival and establishment of
Varroa ,but
there was with a 1- to 3-year time lag, which we
also observed on Hawaii. This lag appears to be
the time required for the selection of virus var-
iants adapted to mite transmission

DWV exists in bee populations which have never been exposed to mites.
There are several variants of DWV.
After the bee population is exposed to varroa this facilitates the reproduction and dominance of one of the variants which happens to be the variant which is most problematic for honeybees.
If you monitor DWV virus before and then after the arrival of varroa mites, there is a reduction in the number of variants of the virus and the lethal variant will have taken over.
Not sure what mechanism is in play with Ron Hoskins bees.

Fatshark, do you still see that Martin paper as very relevant to all this or have things moved on apace since it was published?

[Mike Cox]

Not sure what mechanism is in play with Ron Hoskins bees.


This paper
http://usir.salford.ac.uk/36907/1/ismej%20SEI%202015.pdf
(posted by someone else earlier) grew out of a collaboration between Ron and the researcher. Ron provided the bees and mite samples used. He is mentioned in the acknowledgements.

[SDM]

Hardly a collaboration, where else would they get type B from.

[Jon]

This paper
http://usir.salford.ac.uk/36907/1/ismej%20SEI%202015.pdf
(posted by someone else earlier) grew out of a collaboration between Ron and the researcher. Ron provided the bees and mite samples used. He is mentioned in the acknowledgements.

Yes, but the paper itself has a series of 'more work needed' 'mechanism still unclear' type comments in the discussion and that it the bit we are all interested in.

In addition the paper's assertion that Ron Hoskins works with a 'closed population' is clearly wrong. Andrew Abrahams on Colonsay works with a closed population but Ron Hoskins bees are exposed to every drone for miles around including all the NZ Carnica drones which were in the area for a while. Whatever way this works, it's not because Ron Hoskins has a closed population.

[Greengage]

I read too much and I forget where I read it but did I not read somewhere lately that bees were picking up virus from pollen and pollen was also being transfered from bee to bee in the hive as they did not pack all the pollen they collected in their pollen baskets.
Tell me I did,nt read that two posts back, I think I need a break from all this reading about bees.

[SDM]

I read too much and I forget where I read it but did I not read somewhere lately that bees were picking up virus from pollen and pollen was also being transfered from bee to bee in the hive as they did not pack all the pollen they collected in their pollen baskets.
Tell me I did,nt read that two posts back, I think I need a break from all this reading about bees.
DWV has been found in pollen

[SDM]

There's also some tobacco virus that's made the jump to bees, it's thought that Varroa suppressed immune systems made it possible.

[SDM]

Well all be wearing face masks to inspect our bees soon, so as not to give them a cold.

[fatshark]

Fatshark, do you still see that Martin paper as very relevant to all this or have things moved on apace since it was published?

Yes and yes.

The paper from Steve Martin set the scene at a landscape level. There are additional studies since which clearly demonstrate the same thing at the individual bee level - one thing will lead to the other. Brenda Ball first isolated DWV pre-Varroa (by which I mean before it got to the UK, not before DWV evolved ... just in case Brenda reads this ;) ). It's found where there's no Varroa (including Australia, for example in the recent paper in Nature from the Exeter group) and - if your assays are sensitive enough - in every bee you care to drop into liquid nitrogen, grind into a fine powder and extract the nucleic acid from.

[Emma]

Feeling loss over bees is a tricky area. Every bee I ever keep will die. Most of them only live a few short months. When a colony dies we really have a failure to produce the next generation of bees... the old bees were dying anyway. That doesn't mean I'm not a bit disappointed when it happens, but I try not to get emotionally attached to each one.

I find a similar issue with requeening. If you remove/kill an old queen and replace her with a younger one you colony hasn't really survived - it is a new colony with a new mother. The old queens genetic line is gone and is usually lost.

So while I don't view bees as a purely financial cost, I also try not get too emotionally attached to my colonies. I feel this helps me to make better, more balanced decisions about their management.

Bees at the colony level are a different creature to bees individually. An individual bee dying is a different matter to the silence of a deadout, or to the distress of bees dying en masse with no hope of colony survival. It's partly about length of life, partly about what is passed on to the future, partly about quality of life while it lasts. You know all that!

I agree that changing a queen - especially to one from a different line - can mean the end of that colony. But I've also seen the change in mood in a collection of bees when they cease to be a dwindling sisterhood making doomed drone-pupa queen cells, and instead become part of a queenright colony. Got one in my apiary that's still got a 'zing' to it months after that happening.

I'm afraid that I get a bit impatient with people claiming that their management decisions are better because they're not too emotional. All our decisions, ultimately, come to down to motivations which are emotional in nature. Our fundamental reasons for keeping bees and for the decisions we make about them, are to do with our emotions, same as our reasons for anything else we do. The driving force could be anything from gaining comfort and companionship from the bees' presence, to experiencing them simply as a challenging opportunity to demonstrate our skills and mastery. What you'd said made me curious as to where you were on that spectrum.

Cheers :)

[mbc]

I'm also uncomfortable with the idea of bees being a fungible commodity, each colony is so much more than merely a collection of bees and a queen, once established they have a history and arguably a memory and a common purpose going forward, the idea that they are pre-programmed robots responding automatically to stimuli might be correct to a research scientist but misses the point for this beekeeper.

[Calluna4u]

DWV was seen here intermittently, and not fatally, for many many years before varroa arrived on the scene. It was most noticeable, indeed almost exclusively seen, in drones. Whole patches would hatch with deformed wings. In the days before we read much outside our observations we assumed it to be linked to mild chilling or the slower development of the drones. It was common. Only post varroa did we read much about it and find out the cause.


To the point by Jon about the NZ carnica drones in the Swindon area? Well apparently we destroyed the whole project in one move (according to some posters) yet were several miles away at closest point, and the number of colonies we put in was substantially less than the number of Hawaiian derived crosses that were in situ before.

[fatshark]

C4U ... I've heard the reports of chilling producing similar symptoms to DWV before. How similar were the symptoms? Did they include the abdominal 'stunting' that's sometimes seen as well as the characteristic wing atrophy?

[Calluna4u]

C4U ... I've heard the reports of chilling producing similar symptoms to DWV before. How similar were the symptoms? Did they include the abdominal 'stunting' that's sometimes seen as well as the characteristic wing atrophy?

For the most part the drones looked normal apart from the withered wings. However in some cases they did show stunted and imperfect growth. Didn't think anything of it till I saw my first real DWV cases and realised I had seen the exact same symptoms in the past, read more about it, and it all joined up. Would still suspect that the majority of the shrivelled wing drones were linked to a developmental problem, with temperature a prime cause. Some otherwise strong colonies would barely raise a sound drone, and those that were there might well have been drifting incomers.

[mbc]

Virgin queens are prone to stunted wings if cells have been messed about with at inappropriate times, almost certainly not linked to dwv but very similar to peripheral drones sometimes chilling.

[Kate Atchley]

Virgin queens are prone to stunted wings if cells have been messed about with at inappropriate times, almost certainly not linked to dwv but very similar to peripheral drones sometimes chilling.

The only time I've seen deformed wings was after I had "messed about" with bees. I trickled OA through a newly-created nuc with frames from two barely-infested colonies, including some brood, and later saw a few young workers and drones with deformed wings. It seemed the brood had been affected. I assumed that this was the OA doing damage, not the effects of DWV as the mite levels were negligible.

[The Drone Ranger]

I don't think that's a side effect of treatment Kate

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[Kate Atchley]

I don't think that's a side effect of treatment Kate

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John, it was the year varroa was first found here and levels were very low and the infestation new. Could this have been full-blown DWV? I saw only a few young bees effected and none later or since.

What do folk reckon was the cause?

[mbc]

I think it probably was dwv.
Viral epidemics dont need much to trigger off and thhe arrival of varroa is a sure fire way of greatly increasing the spread of dwv among a colony of bees.

[Jon]

...and only a small percentage of bees with DWV actually have visibly deformed wings.

[The Drone Ranger]

The first time I saw a varroa Kate it was on a bee
It was a new experience and I just assumed that it was a low level

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[Kate Atchley]

The first time I saw a varroa Kate it was on a bee
It was a new experience and I just assumed that it was a low level

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I'd kept varroa-infested bees for years before I came here so I knew about the pest. We'd been keeping a close watch on drop etc – samples to SASA each Spring – and there really was a very low level of infestation only found by sugar rolling. Couldn't even find it on the drone brood.

But really interested in the DWV issue. Perhaps, because varroa had arrived recently, the bees were more susceptible a new form of DWV rather the wing damage indicating the massive increase in the disease which happens when infestation is heavy?

[The Drone Ranger]

When I saw my first one Kate I was a bit green because the chap who did all our beekeeping training was in the lucky position of not having any varroa
The consequence was that I looked up a map of the infested area and found I was still outside it
Well, that was an example of how maps often are out of date before they even get published
The really good chap who I got the bees from had them inspected at the end of the previous season and they were clear
Needless to say a year later 3 out of 4 had perished thanks to varroa
Had to buy some more , another 2 hives
Now the chap who sold me those, again could not have been nicer, he had never seen a varroa and didn't want to either !!
After I got them settled and had a first look I found neither had any brood worth mentioning but loads of bees
Being a bit wiser after the last time though, I took the precaution of sticking in some Apistan strips (that being the only approved treatment at the time)
Enough varroa dropped out of the two that I could half fill a small Tupperware container
Some people might say those bees must have had some resistance, and maybe they would be right, but if I hadn't treated them I think they would have disappeared like the others
One thing they didn't have was much DWV because with that level of infestation it would probably have been very obvious
There must still be a bit of those bees in my present mongrels but probably not much
The one thing I learned across the years since then, is that even when there is no evidence of varroa you can still get a nasty shock if you treat them, and can find hundreds of varroa drop out
Oxalic evaporation is a better treatment than the Apistan strips were but thank goodness for Vita and their products which saved many a hive


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