# When to bring in new blood



## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

I live in a spot that seems to hold feral colonies and have been keeping bees TF for three seasons. How long can I continue increasing by just catching neighborhood swarms and making splits? Seems like I need to buy some queens at some point to prevent inbreeding. 

Last year I bought a pure Russian hive, so there are some new genes from that. I've only got three colonies in my yard plus two in an out yard. Most of my swarms come from a bee tree a little over a mile away.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Expand the area and collect swarms from a 10 mile radius or larger. This will reduce inbreeding to insignificance given the methods being used.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

That sounds very similar to my own situation. Oddly enough, I have seen quite a bit of variation between the swarms I've caught in the neighborhood. It always makes me wonder where they come from. As fusion power suggests, I am going to expand my bait trapping area to further reaches, focusing on more remote locations. I plan on learning some bee lining to help my quest, scout this Fall for Spring locations. Should be fun and hopefully a way to net some removed genetics. Good luck to you.


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## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

By just catching swarms, don't we miss out on the breeding work that is going on? I'm a little ambivalent about this. On one hand there is the benefit of spreading the genes of selectively bred, disease resistant lines. On the other hand, I want to be a good steward of the neighborhood feral strains that have obviously got a system that works for them. 

In the short term I'm leaning toward Do No Harm and just trying to learn how to manage the local strain to the best of my limited ability. I've seen mites on drone brood, but have not had any DWV. They seem to be coping somehow. 

Our area is rural and heavily wooded. Most of the agriculture is cattle, hay, and pine trees. Most of the tobacco is gone now. I doubt there are any crops here that use migratory pollination. 

Each year I expect to have my luck run out and get wiped out by mites, but it hasn't happened yet. Do you think that this area is just lucky and bred its own strain of resistant survivor stock?

Ten years ago I met a beek about 10 miles away who had been keeping bees since he got back from Europe after WWII. I think he told me that he had never given his bees anything other than white sugar. Hearing some people talk you would think that is impossible.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

If you have feral genetics, then there is gene flow, from and into your apiary. Feral hives nearby are interacting with colonies all around them so there would be a measure of gene flow within a region. I'm assuming there are other beekeepers in your area who probably bringing in bees all the time. Feral bees would be grabbing whatever is useful and spreading it around. So I think you could just sit on what you have. It wouldn't hurt to bring in new genetics, except that it could upset the apple cart a bit as new material is integrated and new solutions converged on. But the new material is probably useful. 

The risk of bringing in new bees is the introduction of new viral/pest variants that could also upset the apple cart.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

bentonkb said:


> Hearing some people talk you would think that is impossible.


I think that is what baffles me as well. I keep expecting the sky to fall nearly to the point of paranoia. So far, it hasn't. Your area sounds very similar to my own setting, and perhaps there is a trend involved as rural and wooded keep being brought up in terms of geographics. Would be interesting to make a map of success stories just to chart geographical data. I believe perhaps squarepeg or fusion power have hinted as much under squarepeg's treatment free sticky. I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

bentonkb said:


> Ten years ago I met a beek about 10 miles away who had been keeping bees since he got back from Europe after WWII. I think he told me that he had never given his bees anything other than white sugar.


I was thinking about this story, and it resembles experiences I've had locally, even within 5 miles of my general proximity. A fellow employee invited me to go look at what his wife's grandpa's hive of "German Black Bees," which obviously they were not. I asked how long he'd had his bees, he claimed they were the same bees his father had, again, obviously not. The hive was 2 deep brood chambers. I tried popping the inner cover, ended up breaking it (which I fixed) trying to pry it off it was so glued shut. He said he hadn't been in the hive in 3 seasons. The frames were basically welded into the super, so I decided to close it up and leave it alone. I asked the guy if he'd mind if I set up some bait hives around his place to catch a swarm or two, he eyed me suspiciously and kind of said he'd have to think about it. After getting the cold shoulder from him, and breaking his inner cover, I figured I'd leave well enough alone.

Point being, I seriously doubt this guy sat around reading forums on hive management, pest controls, genetic adaptation...good chance he's never even heard of a varroa mite. He basically had a box of bees that obviously had probably cast swarm upon swarm, and for whatever reason survived what most bees could not. I think guys like these have probably paved the way, through LACK of management, for our genetic survivors. It's the only explanation I have for the bees around here.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Nordak said:


> I think that is what baffles me as well.


“Life, uh, finds a way." Dr. Ian Malcolm


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Haha, that's certainly the simplest explanation, and the most correct.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Benton - every time you catch a swarm, split a nuc and let the queen open mate, you introduce new genes to the yard. I make in the yard splits - usually in the spring - and make up nucs from what survived the winter. every split divides the genes in the new queens. - now if you started with only hive and had no other bees in the area - that may be a concern for inbreeding - other than that - I would occupy my brain with other problems - and in central VA. I'm willing to bet there are bees all over your area


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

If I lived near either of you, I would try to get some of your genetics for my location. You guys are fortunate. Try to keep it going and hope a beekeeper who treats and has a lot of hives does not move nearby and spoil your genetics.


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