LASI Hygienic Queens

[Neils]

So it looks like LASI are now in the business of selling queens:
http://www.lasiqueenbees.com/

Will be interesting to see how this progresses.

[Adam]

I wonder if the odd queen, scattered around the country will be very effective?

[madasafish]

I wonder if the odd queen, scattered around the country will be very effective?

I am sure it will be - as effective as BIBBA are..

[Neils]

I suppose in some respects it will depend on whether people buying the queens perceive them to live up to the claims. I know enough people who regularly buy in queens on the basis that they're better than the resulting open mated variety that they end up with after a season or two. If these are perceived as such then presumably they'll do ok with repeat custom.

[Jon]

I see the main problem here as one of supply and demand. Unless Lasi is churning out hundreds of queens there is likely to be a backlog very quickly. Virgin queens at £20 are overpriced.

[Neils]

All their queen options seem to be priced at a premium to me. Perhaps that is reflective of the current volumes that they'll have available in addition to the claims made of them.

[Adam]

If people buy the LASI queens as an alternative to their usual supplier, I suppose that over time some of the hygenic genes will spread - but would they fade away if beekeepers just treated with apiguard and oxalic acid as they had done in the years prior. A better idea might be to encourage local breeding groups to buy a bunch of queens and actively try to continue the hygenic trait.

Introducing virgins is not always successfull; I wonder what percentage will be accepted.

[Jon]

Introducing virgins is not always successfull; I wonder what percentage will be accepted.

Introducing a virgin with a scoop of wet bees in an apidea is near 100% successful but she still has to fly and mate which is very much weather dependent.
Selling virgin queens for a tenner would be great business as it is so easy to produce vast quantities of virgin queens through grafting. It's getting them mated properly with the right drones which is more of a challenge.

[busybeephilip]

Introducing a virgin with a scoop of wet bees in an apidea is near 100% successful but she still has to fly and mate which is very much weather dependent.
Selling virgin queens for a tenner would be great business as it is so easy to produce vast quantities of virgin queens through grafting. It's getting them mated properly with the right drones which is more of a challenge.

Lassi queens, from the blurb on the website, seem to be open mated. So I suppose there will be a pool of drones flying about in years to come carrying lassi varroa resistance - hardly a bad thing. Its also very easy to churn out hundreds of virgin queens. As Jon says a tenner or less will create a lot of interest

[fatshark]

I've commented elsewhere on this rather interesting business model ... most Universities charge commercial activities a minimum of 100% overheads. Irrespective of how good or bad the queens are, they're cheap as chips considering they're presumably being produced using university staff, facilities and time (that could be being used for something else ... including the eyewateringly good Professorial salaries academics enjoy, er not). Sussex are clearly aware of the activity as the queens are being sold via their website. This could all work out very well ... if Varroa 'resistance/tolerance' or whatever gets widely spread and this can be attributed to the LASI queens they'll have a great Impact case for the next research excellence framework (REF).

Good luck to them.

[prakel]

Something which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how well these bees blend in with the background population. It's fine sending virgins out to mate with the locals but if they aint compatible a lot of people are going to be very unhappy with their purchase.

[mbc]

Lassi queens, from the blurb on the website, seem to be open mated. So I suppose there will be a pool of drones flying about in years to come carrying lassi varroa resistance - hardly a bad thing. Its also very easy to churn out hundreds of virgin queens. As Jon says a tenner or less will create a lot of interest

Not sure dead brood cleaning hygiene extrapolates to varroa resistance.


Something which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is how well these bees blend in with the background population. It's fine sending virgins out to mate with the locals but if they aint compatible a lot of people are going to be very unhappy with their purchase.

This is why I think it's quite visionary to offer virgins, as Jon says, producing virgins is a dodle, and mating them in your air space will quickly show how compatible these bees are in your area.
I thought about ordering some, but again as Jon says, £20 for an unmated queen is a bit steep for me, but good luck to them and well done for starting from British stock.

[The Drone Ranger]

If people buy the LASI queens as an alternative to their usual supplier, I suppose that over time some of the hygenic genes will spread - but would they fade away if beekeepers just treated with apiguard and oxalic acid as they had done in the years prior. A better idea might be to encourage local breeding groups to buy a bunch of queens and actively try to continue the hygenic trait.

Introducing virgins is not always successfull; I wonder what percentage will be accepted.
Hi Adam
Hygenic traits won't be affected by thymol or oxalic treatment
They may disappear in subsequent generations due to open mating

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[prakel]

mating them in your air space will quickly show how compatible these bees are in your area.

lol.That it will.


I thought about ordering some, but again as Jon says, £20 for an unmated queen is a bit steep for me

In my opinion there's way too much talk on the net about these unmated queens when they're selling the mated version for £45 each. Virgins; fine if you're buying ten or more and then selecting from that initial pool but I'm seeing quite a few people talking about getting one to 'try them out'. Perhaps I'm way off track but in all honesty I doubt that I could be persuaded to part with £5 for one solitary unmated queen whereas I'd happily invest the £45 and then make a judgement call on whether I like their product.

[mbc]

. Perhaps I'm way off track but in all honesty I doubt that I could be persuaded to part with £5 for one solitary unmated queen whereas I'd happily invest the £45 and then make a judgement call on whether I like their product.

You're spot on, apart from having to wait for subsequent generations to asses compatibility, the most relevant attribute if you're trying to breed lines of good bees by open mating, I've given up on turning the whole drone gene pool on its head, settling for nudging it the right way these days.

[fatshark]

Hi Adam
Hygenic traits won't be affected by thymol or oxalic treatment
They may disappear in subsequent generations due to open mating

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I'm not entirely sure that's the case DR. If the hygienic trait only provided a benefit under selection i.e. the presence of high levels of Varroa, but was otherwise even mildly detrimental you might expect it to be lost if the selection pressure was removed by thymol/OA treatment. I suspect open mating would have a much bigger effect though ...

An interesting comparison is with Apistan resistance of mites. Evidence suggests that this is detrimental in the absence of selection i.e. if you stop using Apistan the deleterious mutation is mildly detrimental and is, over time (~3-4 years perhaps), lost from the mite population. In the absence of resistance Apistan is pretty effective ... perhaps its use should be banned for 3 years out of every 4?

[prakel]

The thing with assessing compatibility is that you need a lot of virgins on the wing to get a fair sample. Anyone can send out a single queen, get an unfortunate combination and then dismiss them as unsuitable (the converse is also true of course).


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If I remember correctly, these queens were being distributed to some of the beefarmers a couple of years ago (or, maybe it was just an idea which never took off). Any information on this -especially with regards to their performance in the field?

[The Drone Ranger]

I'm not entirely sure that's the case DR. If the hygienic trait only provided a benefit under selection i.e. the presence of high levels of Varroa, but was otherwise even mildly detrimental you might expect it to be lost if the selection pressure was removed by thymol/OA treatment. I suspect open mating would have a much bigger effect though ...

An interesting comparison is with Apistan resistance of mites. Evidence suggests that this is detrimental in the absence of selection i.e. if you stop using Apistan the deleterious mutation is mildly detrimental and is, over time (~3-4 years perhaps), lost from the mite population. In the absence of resistance Apistan is pretty effective ... perhaps its use should be banned for 3 years out of every 4?
Whitefly are immune to most garden sprays you get the blighters on various plants notably pelargoniums
Many years can pass without a sniff of permethrine and they are still immune

Some immunities seem to have a greater cost than benefit ratio for the organism and so once the threat disappears the resistance disappears as well

You and I are immune to measles a new born has no immunity usually
If we bred humans for immunity or resistance to measles a lot of them would die

On the other hand a controlled challenge to our immune system in the form of inoculation and we have the required resistance without any deaths

So I feel that the ever present threat of varroa treated or untreated is enough because at the end of the day the bees mostly are overcome by virus not bites

To put that another way a logical response to malaria might be to select for a really thick skin but because the immune system only sees the effect of the bite in the blood it ignores the source and true to fix the infection instead

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[The Drone Ranger]

Would the presence of chalkbrood indicate that your bees are not hygenic
Would replacing her with a lasi queen cure a chalkbrood infection stopping dead larva getting to the spore stage
That might be a better test of hygenic behaviour?

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