# Another mite resistant bee breeding project



## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Friend of mine is trying for his own bee breeding project.
Just about 30-40 miles away from this keyboard.

Unsure where it will end up in the planned 3-5 year run, but might as well keep track of it as it just started.
I might provide some inputs too when I have some excess queens and such.

Here it is:
https://lowtechinstitute.org/2019/09/04/where-have-we-been-writing-a-bee-grant-proposal/


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I wish them success, however they are just doing the same thing that already thousands of beekeepers have done, some succeeding, some failing. What they will do is not new, only difference, they want to be paid for it.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I have seen worse proposals. The use of the term colony collapse disorder is a bad omen. I would not want a live and let die bee operation anywhere near me. An apiary with 70 to 90 percent mortality is not a healthy place to bee. Using the Gotlund experiment through to the present situation is not much of a recommendation to how complete their reality checks are. If survival is the only criteria it leaves out a lot of other characteristics a successful bee would need to have.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

crofter said:


> I have seen worse proposals. The use of the term colony collapse disorder is a bad omen.


Re that, the whole thing is full of buzzwords and buzz lingo, and they seem to have pre determined the result in terms of how long it will take to reach each stage of the journey. I'm pretty sure they are new or inexperienced beekeepers with a few hives who have read some TF internet literature where a neat little formula has been promoted where you don't treat and first year lose x percent of the bees, second year lose x-1 percent, and about year 3 or 4, bingo, you have treatment free survivors.

This has worked for some, but not others. It may work for them. Pretty much it will succeed or fail not on what they do, but what the surrounding bees are.

They say they will go on to educate the rest of the world about their success. Lots of people have been trying to do that. Where it has fallen down and why there are a lot less TF beekeepers than there used to be, is because other beekeepers have judged them not on what they say, but on their results. 

Something I have noticed is that other TF beekeepers who have been doing it many years have been saying for years that they will arrive at a treatment free bee. But best I can tell, they are still losing just as many bees as they always have.

Kirk Webster for example has had another massive crash losing something around 90% of his bees this last season. Kirk has been practising bond for quite a few years but it does not seem to have produced any improvement.

Having said all that, best of luck to them, they may get lucky. But i think their real purpose is to build their business, while having someone else pay them to do it.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> ..I'm pretty sure they are new or inexperienced beekeepers ....


Some additional context.

The project leader bought his first package of bees (and only ever) 5 years ago; some Italians.
Still runs this exact line after 5 years - of course with about normal attrition for a TF yard (this year it is 1 survivor out of 4, I believe - 25%).
Bees are really a part of the homestead consumption.
Has pretty good isolation.

I shared with them the exact survival records of my own that I posted publicly here and, hopefully, affected some expectation.

PS: he has PhD in archeological field with a couple of books published based on their research and is capable enough in that regard;
not an amateur in the research, however not a biologist by training;
currently running this project - https://lowtechinstitute.org/;
so - I am a fan and a collaborator in some of the homesteading projects, not just the bees.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well good luck to him, please update the thread in due course.


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

So, I’m pretty uneducated when it comes to TF beekeeping. I’ve been keeping bees awhile now and have read quite a bit about general beekeeping. I pay attention when I hear things about TF, but haven’t done much specific research. I heard about the Gotlund experiment and read Seeley’s latest book where he says the feral bees in the Arnot Forest adapted to mites relatively quickly. 
So, my understanding was that the largest challenge to developing treatment free bees was the lack of isolation. I thought that the major problem was getting true selection with the promiscuity of queens and the inability for anything resembling isolation in queen breeding. I always thought the sheer dominance of commercial bees was the hurdle to meaningful selection of locally adapted or TF bees. If that’s the case, something like this project would have the potential for success. Apparently some of the previous posters are saying that’s not the case. What am I missing? 

Also, it seems like it would be helpful to start this project with the ‘best’ genetics possible from lines that have been showing promise as TF or mite tolerant to increase the chance that the gene pool even contains traits to be selected for and to speed the selection process.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

There has been some criticism that the Gotlund bees resistance is very delicate and that too much in the way of productivity is given up. The problem of immediate dilution by their essential breeding system seems to be a strong deterrent to solidifying some of the essential traits that are not strongly dominant.

The arnot forest bees resistance may come from their small colonies and multiple swarminess. Are the tradeoffs worth it. If it wont sell or if it takes perpetual balancing to maintain, like a unicycle, it is going to be hard to bring to dominance.

Starting out with the premise that *it will happen* if only your faith and determination is strong enough, is motivation for some people to engage, but for others it is a dead put off.

Oldtimers appraisal of the proposition checked off a lot of boxes. The thread "a few giggles" refers to a similar concept by someone imbued with its certainty but it just wont fly for him.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Toadman, 
Gotland eventually faild and they had to be treated, were highly agressive. When stock was tryed in outher locations f-1 out crosses had restiance, f-2 didn't
The Arnot Forest bees fail when managed in full sized equipment and or if they don't swarm
both stocks are useless for bee keeping and have not been propagated... outher wize seeley would be a top queen breeder 

while endlessly talked about on the net, "split what lives" doesn't see anywhere near the level of success people say it "should" have do to too many "just good enuf to live 1 winter" hives being propagated and passing along poor gentnics that flood out the good ones.. as they say on project web site "Breeding bees is not as easy as, say, cows, where a single bull can be put into a breeding pen with the desired cows." the problem with split programs like this is you puting ALL of you bulls and ALL of you cows in the same pen... 
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...ay-to-keep-(have-)-bees&p=1768979#post1768979
Greg's thread is a great read on what happens to many(almost all) who go down that path

now this project may have the isolation needed,(but their hive count is tiny ) the issue is IF they succeed the is a very high probilty that when moved the stock will lose its resistance, like most/almost all of the attempts before... 
If it was as simple as putting 60 hives isolation and spliting what lives we would have been done with this issues decades ago.
It feels like these people don't have the experience to run a program of this size and I see it problematic as thier site is tied to a pollination contract 
if they take thier 70-90% projected loses, how are they going to pollinate? if there are just 6 hives come spring is the land owner going to feel they are getting thier 3k$ worth?
best of luck to them....but


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

Thanks, I was aware that the resistance was fragile and it seemed most traits were recessive and hard to maintain, which is why I thought isolation was the challenge. Even a bit of contamination would bring down the whole project. Granted, this might not produce viable bees outside the system, but shouldn’t it still allow a closed system to survive? 

I was also aware of the other downsides to this, such as low productivity and aggressiveness, which I think the intent was to deal with later via selection for other traits once survivability was established. Again, I realize this might be useless for widespread use or any commercial keepers, but if your only goal was to have bees that survive ... ?

And sure, if the trait that was selected for in the Arnot Forest was small hives and swarminess, that wouldn’t be particularly useful, even if it is a trait that leads to TF bees, since it can’t easily translate to bees in the management people want. If the process for selecting is using langstroth hives of normal size, it would discourage this as the mechanism that is selected for and at least select for a mechanism that works in managed hives (if such a mechanism exists)

I’ll have to read the link more closely, but it seems counterintuitive that 50% losses wouldn’t be enough to shift the genetic makeup over time in a closed system. Granted there are a lot of factors, but losses that high should make a difference. I realize that bee genetics and breeding are very different from mammals, but even with random breeding, if I culled the 50% smallest dogs, it wouldn’t take long before the average size increased. I’m guessing that, because of all the factors involved in overwintering success, the problem is that overwintering isn’t efficiently selecting for anything specific and heritable?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

I find this PDF of interest in terms of "breeding bees on a small scale" which is applicable here.

The ref is courtesy of little_john:
http://bibba.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Breeding-honeybees-on-a-small-scale-Dorian-Pritchard.pdf


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> I’ll have to read the link more closely, but it seems counterintuitive that 50% losses wouldn’t be enough to shift the genetic makeup over time in a closed system.


loaded question that may help you... In a stable population of wild honey bees what is the survival rate?



> if I culled the 50% smallest dogs, it wouldn’t take long before the average size increased.


corect
but thats a change in pressure, providing stronger and stronger human section pressure, akin to next year only grafting off hive that lived 2 years, after a few years later only grafting of hives that lived 3 years

The winter survival is akin to culling all dogs under 12 inches(the selection pressure dosent change) when you want to breed 48"... you may get a few but when they cross with the smaller dogs in open mating you lose height 

a "proper" program would be culling all dogs under 12" (winter kill or removed form the program and treated) and breeding the few big ones and implanting their embryos in anything under 45" (re queening survived but poorly performing hives based on objective metrics...using mite counts as your ruler)


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Deleted.
Something is screwed up.


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

So, I expect a wide range of survival rates among wild honeybees. It also depends how you measure survival rates. Seeley’s showed that there are significantly different rates for established hives and 1st year hives. But basically, survival rates will equal reproduction rates in a stable population. Otherwise the population would either increase or decline. Wild survival rates, however, are depressed by lack of forage, habitat, etc. until the stable population equals the carrying capacity of the landscape regardless of the fitness of individual hives. Theoretically all hives would be capable of surviving if they found the right accommodations. Competition for resources is the limiting factor, which leads to evolution of ways to out compete with others. Managed honeybees can bypass some of these restrictions by having nesting sites and food provided to them by the beekeeper. In this system, the bees are being selected for survivability in our hives rather than competitive advantage vs other bees, because our management removed many losses due to insufficient locations, food, etc (while likely introducing new hardships)

I like you’re analogy, but why are we selecting for 48” dogs by culling 12” dogs? If our selection criteria and desired outcome are the same (survivability), isn’t that more akin to selecting for dogs over 12” by only allowing dogs over 12” to breed? As you suggest, once we have bees living through one winter, it would make sense to select even more specifically to hives that have survived multiple winters. 

Again, I’m guessing the problem here is that ‘survivability’ is too nebulous a criteria to select for when too many non-genetic factors play an important a role? Even using your analogy, selecting for bees that survive 2 winters, is not really a continuation of surviving one year in the way that a 36” dog is just bigger than 12”. Which, of course, is why selecting for specific measures such as mite levels can be achieved more quickly. The problem then becomes identifying which of those measurable traits actually translates to better survivability and not losing any other important traits in the selection process. For me the appeal to ‘natural selection’ is that it is selecting for survivability as a whole. This would leave the specific mechanism for survival open and would have less risk of losing other important traits. 

I should say that I am not a treatment free beekeeper, and while TF sounds ideal, I would be happy with highly survivable bees that required modest treatments. The idea of having an isolated location to select for my favorite bees, sound very appealing, though. Over time the bees would slowly move towards everything I like about bees 

I suppose the question is whether traits actually exist in bees to cope with mites in a manner that is consistent with our desired management techniques. If they do, we should be able to select for them. If not, no amount of selection (whether natural or unnatural) will be able to produce the desired outcome.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

T0ADMAN said:


> <SNIP.>
> 
> I suppose the question is whether traits actually exist in bees to cope with mites in a manner that is consistent with our desired management techniques. If they do, we should be able to select for them. If not, no amount of selection (whether natural or unnatural) will be able to produce the desired outcome.


Now that is reducing things to the basics! :thumbsup:

I wish that I had authored those words.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

Sadly, the environment most of us are in does not include isolation, so if someone somewhere succeeds in breeding bees that survive in isolation, that doesn't help us. We need bees that survive when the neighbors include commercial apiaries that send colonies to Cali every year and then drag home every new virus out there, and the most aggressive and fecund mites. 

I suspect that today's bees are better at fighting mites than the bees of 40 years ago, but the mites and viruses are evolving too. As long as we have migratory beekeeping, TF is a long shot. I am trying, but success has been low. Goal for this year is to make a lot of splits and have 50% survive next winter. That's 'sustainable'.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> But basically, survival rates will equal reproduction rates in a stable population.


ding...
and given most wild hives will issue a swam + a cast or 2 in the spring + another swarm later in the year we can see "wild losses" are 75+% 



> I like you’re analogy, but why are we selecting for 48” dogs by culling 12” dogs? If our selection criteria and desired outcome are the same (survivability), isn’t that more akin to selecting for dogs over 12” by only allowing dogs over 12” to breed?


yes but if you want 48" dogs why are you allowing 13" dogs to breed with your bigger dogs? 
its a fairly easy mater (in the over all scope of things) to get a TF hive threw one winter, happens all the time... getting it threw the 2nd-3rd-4th is a way different matter.. 
after year one it needs to return to its baseline mite level to live...
example numbers only!!! you start a swarm in may and it has say 200 mites, june its 400, july 800, aug 1600, sept 3200 at 40k bees thats a 8% mite load, not great but surivabul for some stocks so you lose some and some live 
say the winter brood break kills off 90% of those mites, great right? 
nope 
brooding starts in april with 320... may its 640 mites, june 1280, july 2560, aug 5120, sept 10240 25% mite load and a dead hive.

but it lived a year, so you split it 3 ways
each states with 1/3 of the mites 
April 106, may 213, june 426, july 853, aug 1706, sept 3413 ... a few make it a bunch don't but you have more hives so it must be working right?

the problem is all these unless genetics that can't get bigenuf to make honey or be effective pollinators with out crashing are throwing drones, and your propagating thier queens witch throw more drones.. this causes you to flood your mating area with poor genetics and mite bomb gentinic that would have outer wise lived. 

the simple answer is alive doesn't make breeding stock... d 

you have to rember how the bell curve and standard devasiton works. 
I wrote this for the local club and it is bit over simplfided 

ets just say we use "alive" as our traite 
average loss is 50% 
below average performance is 75% loss 
well below average is performance 90% loss
above average is performance 25% loss
and well about average performance is 10%

on the curve 68% of the hives are “average” at the start, so at 50% losses 68% of what lived isn’t any better then 68% of what died. So to improve local stocks.. Yes, we need to stop importing a whole bunch of queens, but we also need to be making queens from at a minimum the top 32% that overwintered, and realy it should be closer to the top 2-5%. Then with those queens make your increase/replacements AND requeen the bottom 68% of what lived so those hives throw improved drones..

if you make queens form every thing that lives (or mate with those drones) you get 68% of average bees (50% will die the 1st winter) 16% crap bees, and 16% that are above average 
out of 100 you get (68*.5)+(16*.75)+(16*.25) (34+12+4)=50... 50% losses 

but if you propagate form the above average overwintered stock(queens and drones) 
you get 14% well above average, 68% above average, 14% average, 2% below average. you have shifted the bell curve 
out of the 100 you get (14*.9) +(68*.75)+(14*.5)+(2*.25) (12.6+51+7+.5)= 29% loses
you have shifted the bell curve to the right. 

This is why people graft and requeen with there best, then the hives are casting better drones for your better queens to mate with..


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Msl; I am thinking that continuing deselection of the lesser desireable traits would always have to be maintained, as well as the positive selection, even after a satisfactory target was attained. Would inbreeding depression start to occur in this scenario without bringing in external genetics? Maybe in other words, could a stable population of desirable bees come to exist by then just letting said bees, bee bees?


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

AR1 said:


> Sadly, the environment most of us are in does not include isolation, so if someone somewhere succeeds in breeding bees that survive in isolation, that doesn't help us. We need bees that survive when the neighbors include commercial apiaries that send colonies to Cali every year and then drag home every new virus out there, and the most aggressive and fecund mites.
> 
> I suspect that today's bees are better at fighting mites than the bees of 40 years ago, but the mites and viruses are evolving too. As long as we have migratory beekeeping, TF is a long shot. I am trying, but success has been low. Goal for this year is to make a lot of splits and have 50% survive next winter. That's 'sustainable'.


Yeah, like I said, just because it might be successful in this isolated location, if the traits are recessive, it might not be any benefit to anyone else, or to the beekeeping community at large. But, might still be nice for that beekeeper and location.


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

First, thanks for the discussion. I hope I am not seeming confrontational, I am enjoying the learning and back and forth. 



msl said:


> yes but if you want 48" dogs why are you allowing 13" dogs to breed with your bigger dogs?


I don't need 48" dogs. I only need 13" dogs. If I needed 48" dogs, I would use that as the cutoff for breeding. That is my point. The criteria for selection also meets the desired outcome. Of course, If I only needed 13" dogs, but still only bred 48" dogs I would exceed 13" much more quickly. So, yes, harsher selection will move the needle much more quickly and allow less backsliding. My worry, however, is that we are looking for 13" dogs but only breeding dogs that weigh more than 30#. Sure, there is some correlation, but we aren't actually precisely selecting for the desired outcome. 



msl said:


> its a fairly easy mater (in the over all scope of things) to get a TF hive threw one winter, happens all the time... getting it threw the 2nd-3rd-4th is a way different matter..
> after year one it needs to return to its baseline mite level to live...


You make a good point, but why do we assume the original swarm starts with lower mites? Did these bees get treated, or why are they lower than future generations? Obviously, your example is simplified and slightly flawed, as the total number of mites is irrelevant; the mites per bee is what is important. Your point, of course, is still valid. But, it assumes that there is some mechanism reducing the number of mites for the first year and for subsequent splits. Brood breaks would be logical explanation for this and would be backed up by research such as Seeley's suggesting high swarm tendencies are adaptive for tolerating mites. It also explains why models such as GregV, who split intensely are able to maintain a 'stable' apiary year after year without treating. They are mimicking the brood breaks of Seeley's wild bees, without making progress genetically (no isolation for actual selection)




msl said:


> you have to rember how the bell curve and standard devasiton works.
> I wrote this for the local club and it is bit over simplfided ...
> 
> … on the curve 68% of the hives are “average” at the start, so at 50% losses 68% of what lived isn’t any better then 68% of what died.


Why do you assume that they are no better? Just because they fall into the same labeling range as the 'average producers' that died does not mean they were truly the same. Theoretically the lower half of the average survivors died while the better half survived. Even if they are all the same, the population now pairs those average bees with the above average performers, while the below average have been eliminated. Also, not everything that survives is equal. The stronger the hive is when it survives, the more splits that can be made from it, increasing it's genetic representation in the population. Surely this type of selection will have an impact over time. Even just removing the bottom 10% repeatedly would move the needle over time in a closed system. Granted, we are probably too impatient for this slow selection. So, yeah, the intensity of selection must be sufficient to meet our timeline for progress. Or am I missing something here? 

Of course this all assumes the availability of necessary traits. And it might all fall apart if you have hives that are surviving based on different mechanisms. Once they start crossbreeding in subsequent years, they might cancel out their advantages and end up undoing all the work the original selection has done. Of course, you also have the possibility of magnifying their advantage by combining different mechanisms (if they can work together). 

Hmm, the more we discuss this, the more I wonder if survivability might just be too complex with too many non-genetic factors for a small breeding project to be successful. I wonder if the limited genetic diversity found in commercially available bees has what it takes. Even if it does, it seems there may be high risk of inbreeding with the likely high mortality during initial selection. Of course starting with a strain that has undergone specific selection would help.
Anyway, I think it is an interesting experiment and I look forward to seeing what happens. Maybe if it doesn't work, the isolated setup can be used for working on a strain of treated bees or something. It just seems like a really good setup to do some interesting work.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> I am thinking that continuing deselection of the lesser desireable traits would always have to be maintained, as well as the positive selection, even after a satisfactory target was attained


correct, that's SOP with bees, you have to maintain the stock, think breed standards in other live stock. If you let up on selection pressure you lose ground, and with bees genetic recombination and mating habits it can happen fast. This is said to be what happen to John Kefuss' stock when his son took over the honey operation, let up on the selective breeding, wham mites wiped him out and he(the son) had to turn to treatments to attempt to rebuild.. 



> Would inbreeding depression start to occur in this scenario without bringing in external genetics?


I was waiting for some to to grab this low hanging fruit...
if they have the isolation they think they have and take the loses they think they will it would certainly seem to be a problem..
getting all hives from a single source and expecting to come into spring with 16 or less hives doesn't seem like a wide enough genetic base. 

50 queens is often given as the minimum needed for a closed population, Honestly I haven dug muck in to it as I am unlikely to have drone control over the mating of production queens in the near future.



> could a stable population of desirable bees come to exist by then just letting said bees, bee bees


everything is possibly with bees... probability is a different matter...
we haven't seen it happen yet.... not in Gotland, not in Avignon, not in Le Mans, not in the Arnot Forest

the flip side is we have repeatably seen human directed selective breeding create commercially viably mite resistant stocks...



> I wonder if the limited genetic diversity found in commercially available bees has what it takes


US commercial bees are much more deverce then feral bees, or the native subspecies the were originally derived from do to all the moving, mixing and crossing. 



> Even just removing the bottom 10% repeatedly would move the needle over time in a closed system.


the US is a closed system with no (ok very little) new genetics in, in this system the "bottom" 40% are removed yearly, are we making breeding progress? are the losses getting less every year? 



> Theoretically the lower half of the average survivors died while the better half survived.


At this distribution survival is chance, flip a coin. There performance is statistical the same, small sample size you will have outliers do to resulistion issues that smoothout with larger numbers.









What it takes to shift/maintain a trait in bees is well known and well documented. Just because mites have shown up doesn't change the rules


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

GregV said:


> I find this PDF of interest in terms of "breeding bees on a small scale" which is applicable here.
> 
> The ref is courtesy of little_john:
> http://bibba.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Breeding-honeybees-on-a-small-scale-Dorian-Pritchard.pdf


The paper starts:


> According to Ruttner, you need a minimum of 40 colonies to breed bees successfully.
> However, with an open mating system I find you can manage with a tenth of that number, just *four*........


A very good read as for me.
I already am interested in trying wing morphometry to identify the make up of my survivor bees - been reading up.
Seems a doable project at home.
The paper also refers to wing morphometry as one of the tools used for the backyard bee selection.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Careful with the wing morphometry. Because it has been used as an identifier, there is some evidence that people have been breeding for wing morphometry, which in the great genetic melting pot of the modern honeybee, has less and less to do with the rest of the bee, as it once did in pure strains.

Wing morphometry was once used as an identifier of africanised bees but has become increasingly unreliable.


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

I read somewhere recently that due to commercial breeders supplying the majority of queens, we’ve lost like 80% of genetic diversity over the last 20 years. I’ll have to try to find it again. 

I guess I don’t have any proof, but I would say that our bees have been evolving and changing due to selection pressure. It’s just a question of what is being selected for. Since the bulk of bees are bred by grafting in huge quantities for commercial beekeepers, the selection pressure is whatever they choose to proliferate. The bees are ‘evolving’ to fit the beekeeping practices of these beekeepers, which might not fit the goals of small, stationary, northern beekeepers.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> Careful with the wing morphometry....


Understanding that. 
Really, more interested in the patterns on hand (whatever they are) vs. trying to link to some subspecies.
Here and now trying to find some underlying ancestry is useless, pretty much.

Practically speaking I may not have time (wish was retired!).
Theoretically I want to check it out (got a scanner and the software to do it).


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

T0ADMAN said:


> ....small, stationary, northern beekeepers.


I have a very strong hunch - "small, stationary, northern beekeepers" are interested in bees like mine.
Hobbyists get tired of buying bees annually.
Too bad, I don't have enough of them to sell.
Need to figure out how raise more of these!


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## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

GregV said:


> I have a very strong hunch - "small, stationary, northern beekeepers" are interested in bees like mine.
> Hobbyists get tired of buying bees annually.
> Too bad, I don't have enough of them to sell.
> Need to figure out how raise more of these!


I thought you only had 1 of your 14 hives survive winter?

Raising lots of bees is easy if you have survival. I made 8 nucs from one overwintered hive last weekend.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

thats the easy part. when you get around a hundred similar colonies and control over 2-3+ square miles you might start getting somewhere (dependant on location). and even then when you move them hard to say what happens. stock from some pretty well known names as stated above have crashed horribly on a regular basis within their own operation and even worse when taken to other locales. from about '99 to maybe '07 think the michigan project had inseminated something in neighborhood of 60 crosses of survivor stock. in the end there were just under 20 untreated best of the best breeders left. theres some reasons usda only kept 3 of those to add to the mix for release to public


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> I have a very strong hunch - "small, stationary, northern beekeepers" are interested in bees like mine


I think you are overestimating the quality of you lone survivor that hasn't made a 2nd winter 
compare that to my breeder this year... 
Started the hive as a swarm in 2016 (meaning they been local sense at least 2015). I have never re queened it but I am sure they took care of things(I didn't used to mark).. Survives just fine on a split and 2 OA treatments a year . Genital, calm on the comb, productive

kind a "tale of 2 beekeepers" as we both went into winter with about 20... 



> I read somewhere recently that due to commercial breeders supplying the majority of queens, we’ve lost like 80% of genetic diversity over the last 20 years.


HARPUR etal (2012) "We found that managed honey bees actually have higher levels of genetic diversity compared with their progenitors in East and West Europe, providing an unusual example whereby human management increases genetic diversity by promoting admixture."
https://www.researchgate.net/public...genetic_diversity_of_honey_bees_via_admixture



> I find you can manage with a tenth of that number, just four


The writer is out there...
you can't "breed" unless you control the drone stock and queen stock https://gsejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12711-019-0518-y
You can practice stock selection and change you hives traits, a little any way
my old yellow and back bees example..
say I like back queens as I feel there colonlys are more winter hardy.. its a simple thing to just pinch every yellow virgin and I have nothing but black queens in my hives. I have accomplished my goal threw stock selection, but I haven't bred anything and will likely keep seeing yellow virgins emerge in mating nucs 

If I II black virgins to black drones, or have a Iso yard where I only alow black drones, now I am breeding 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8-9DgXcrfI


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

msl said:


> I think you are overestimating the quality of you lone survivor that hasn't made a 2nd winter
> compare that to my breeder this year...
> Started the hive as a swarm in 2016 (meaning they been local sense at least 2015). I have never re queened it but I am sure they took care of things(I didn't used to mark).. Survives just fine on a split and 2 OA treatments a year . Genital, calm on the comb, productive..


So you really don't know how old was your oldest queen.


Really, the multi-year surviving queen is not necessary (*nice *to have for sure, but not necessary).
Most anyone of the experts recommend new queens replacements every year anyway.

While a lone, per-annually surviving queen is nice to have (to breed from for as long as possible), it is the lines and the populations where the useful traits survive.
So, essentially I sacrificed my old queens by clumsy drone generation.
I have been pushing drones out for 3 seasons now.
(will try to save the old queen this season, not kill by the drone program again).

As far as people wanting the bees - I tell like it is and not drawing pretty pictures.
You will want PPE with these bees, NOT Italians by any means.
Honey productivity was very good for my needs (not like "meat producing" zombie bees last year - what a nightmare that was).
People have asked me since there is interest in such things. 
Too bad I have nothing to sell - hence the modifications I want to try - grade the units based on mite-counts (instead of flying blind) and re-queen captured swarms without even "testing" them (since I know by now what will be the likely testing outcome - dead).


----------



## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

T0ADMAN said:


> I thought you only had 1 of your 14 hives survive winter?
> 
> Raising lots of bees is easy if you have survival. I made 8 nucs from one overwintered hive last weekend.


Only one.
Making the bees has not been a problem.
Reliably having the bees to over-winter was.


----------



## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

> > I find you can manage with a tenth of that number, just four
> 
> 
> The writer is out there...


Well, this published scientist in genetics must know something.
No?


----------



## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

msl said:


> I think you are overestimating the quality of you lone survivor that hasn't made a 2nd winter


I would tend to agree. 1 out of 14 isn't really anything special. Seems more lucky than consistent.

Most hobbyists don't actually mind treating with things like formic, thymol and oxalic, if it means their bees will live. I had been very consistently overwintering over 80% of my hives with minimal treatments (based on testing), and sold plenty of nucs. People just want bees that will survive under management conditions that can be explained to them, even if it includes the 'soft' treatments. Unfortunately, my survival has plummeted in the last couple years, which I am working on correcting (I think one factor was my genetics became 'watered down' as I open mated my queens generation after generation)


In regards to the genetic diversity: 
Interesting. I'll have to read more about that. There are, of course, a number of different things to compare and figure out which are meaningful.


----------



## T0ADMAN (Aug 5, 2011)

GregV said:


> Only one.
> Making the bees has not been a problem.
> Reliably having the bees to over-winter was.


Exactly my point. Once you have surviving bees, making nucs is easy.
Survivability is also probably what interests people in your bees. I assume you can't/wouldn't want to compete on price with pkgs and commercial nucs (some of which are cheaper than packages this year), so the reason people are interested in your bees is that they expect they will overwinter better. If you can't show them that you are capable of overwintering bees better than average, they won't really expect they will be able to. I suspect they will be less enthralled to get your bees, especially if their other traits are bad (mean). If my bees are going to die, I'd much rather have pleasant bees for a summer than mean ones. 
So, yeah, I think everyone is chasing the good 'ol days when 90% of bees survived winter without any work. Some people are attempting to do that without any treatments. Others are trying to do that with minimal treatments. Others are willing to dump as many chemicals in the hive as it takes. At the bottom of it is that people just want to be able to enjoy beekeeping without watching their bees die every winter and shelling out hundreds of dollars each spring to start over. If you can plausibly provide that to people, they are willing to pay.


----------



## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

T0ADMAN said:


> I would tend to agree. 1 out of 14 isn't really anything special. Seems more lucky than consistent.
> ...


Have you seen my report on the three year survivability?
Maybe not.
This is about a particular line that survived three years off treatments (in package bee infested suburbia - zero isolation) - not just lucky.

Here: https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...ay-to-keep-(have-)-bees&p=1794743#post1794743


----------



## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> This is about a particular line that survived three years off treatments


That's some creative accounting given we are talking about a single colony that is less the a year old and the so called "line" of a few hives has been out crossed in


> package bee infested suburbia


mabey you should look into a carrier in marketing 

quick back of the napkin sketch, come this spring after all the out crossing the genetics will be from almost all "package bee infested suburbia" 
odds are that one hive...doesn't have it...

its likely out there in the yard of the guy who has a few thousand hives .. who bought $500 TF breeder queens to infuse their stock with resistance.
or its there with the people out there with 3,4,5 year old TF queens they are grafting off.. TF operations(VP/Latshaw, lunden etc) who's sold breeder queens to other outfits that are pumping 10s of thousands of daughters in to the system. 

but some how that one hive you have left is some sort of gold mine and people want it's genetics cause it's alive 10 months TF? 
your fooling your self my friend


----------



## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

msl said:


> Gotland eventually faild and they had to be treated, w


Where does this information come from?


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

For example:

Richard Odemer, Reproductive capacity of varroa destructor in four different honey bee subspecies, Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 247-250, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2019.09.002

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319562X19301640?via=ihub

Quote: "For the F2 generation of the surviving population from Gotland however, we had expected a different outcome. The Gotland bees have developed an apparent reduced mite reproductive success trait that is either inheritable from paternal, maternal or both sides in the F1 generation (Locke, 2016b). Our results provide evidence that this trait seems to fade out by further generational change, once more making the colonies susceptible to Varroosis."


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

The survival of the Gotland population was likely to be at least partly genetically determined. Indeed, colonies originating in Gotland that were translocated to Germany still showed lower colony sizes and lower infestation levels than the local A. m. carnica colonies (Schnell, 2007), despite the different environment. The Gotland population comprised 20 to 30 colonies in 2015 (Locke, 2016). It is still monitored for research purposes, although it is not used commercially. Due to the increasing density of non- resistant colonies in the surrounding environment, the experimental population recently experienced increasing infestation levels and, from 2017 onwards, it was treated as a precautionary measure in order to decrease the risk of losing a stock of such scientific importance (Dietemann and Locke, 2019). Although it is not known whether this population would have perished without these treatments, the unusual increase in infestation rates raises a question concerning the long-term resilience of populations that have been through such a severe bottleneck.

Three decades of selecting honey bees that survive infestations by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor: outcomes, limitations and strategy
Guichard Matthieua1, Dietemann Vincenta, Neuditschko Markusa, Dainat Benjamin
https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0044.v1


----------



## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> The survival of the Gotland population was likely to be at least partly genetically determined. Indeed, colonies originating in Gotland that were translocated to Germany still showed lower colony sizes and lower infestation levels than the local A. m. carnica colonies (Schnell, 2007), despite the different environment. The Gotland population comprised 20 to 30 colonies in 2015 (Locke, 2016). It is still monitored for research purposes, although it is not used commercially. Due to the increasing density of non- resistant colonies in the surrounding environment, the experimental population recently experienced increasing infestation levels and, from 2017 onwards, it was treated as a precautionary measure in order to decrease the risk of losing a stock of such scientific importance (Dietemann and Locke, 2019). Although it is not known whether this population would have perished without these treatments, the unusual increase in infestation rates raises a question concerning the long-term resilience of populations that have been through such a severe bottleneck.
> 
> Three decades of selecting honey bees that survive infestations by the parasitic mite Varroa destructor: outcomes, limitations and strategy
> Guichard Matthieua1, Dietemann Vincenta, Neuditschko Markusa, Dainat Benjamin
> https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0044.v1


Thanks!
This is what I like about BeeSource, preprints one month old and here it is!

So, 

Kefuss treats, Gotland bees are treated,

getting lonely...


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Oh, there are some more...

Abstract
[…] Here, we studied the specifics of the seasonal variation of female V. destructor mites, obtained from honey bees, by the morphological characters of mites belonging to the summer and winter generations, and their differences were established. Using the methods of multivariate statistics, we found significant differences between the summer (June–July) and winter (October–November) morphotypes of V. destructor mites. There are differences between the seasonal samples by 12 morphological characters of the parasite, namely the width of dorsal shield, width of dorsoventral shield, number of pores on sternal shield, length of tarsus and macrochaeta IV, and distances between setae of gnathosoma. Processing the seasonal samples of mites with discriminant analysis resulted in differences by 11 morphological characters including the length of dorsal shield, number of lancet setae, length and width of genitoventral shield, width of anal shield, number of setae and pores on sternal shield and distance between setae of gnathosoma. In general, the summer females are smaller and elongated compared to winter females, with larger genitoventral shield and shorter legs. The mites ofsummer and winter generations are adapted to different seasons: the summer mites to the reproductive period, the winter gener-ation to overwintering on bees. The ratio of morphotypes in female V. destructor mites is observed to change during the year, from 20.2% winter morphotype in summer generation to 20.7% summer morphotype in winter mites. Studying the influence of acaricides on the distinguished morphotypes is a promising approach to improve pest control measures against varroosis of honey bees.

Morphological variation of Varroa destructor (Parasitiformes, Varroidae) in different seasons
V. O. Yevstafieva, L. M. Zaloznaya, O. S. Nazarenko, V. V. Melnychuk, A. G. Sobolta
Biosystems Diversity. Vol 28 No 1 (2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15421/012003


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

And this preprint:

Mondet, F.; Beaurepaire, A.; McAfee, A.; Locke, B.; Alaux, C.; Blanchard, S.; Danka, B.; Le Conte, Y. Honey Bee Survival Mechanisms Against the Parasite Varroa destructor: A Systematic Review of Phenotypic and Genomic Research Efforts. Preprints 2020, 2020040138 
doi: 10.20944/preprints202004.0138.v1

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0138/v1#


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Re Keyfuss treating, I'm not quite up with the play on that, but my understanding was that it was not the original Keyfuss, but the son took over, did things a bit different to his Dad, and then found he had to treat?


----------



## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Re Keyfuss treating, I'm not quite up with the play on that, but my understanding was that it was not the original Keyfuss, but the son took over, did things a bit different to his Dad, and then found he had to treat?


Got me on that one. 

I haven't contacted John since we went there but the situation then was as you described.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD06vfxvqdU took 70% losses 2012 going from 240 to 70 (Kinda of funny the Keffuss 2015 paper fails to mention this https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2016.1160709) 
According to his FB page spring 2016 he had still yet to recover his numbers and had 104.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Got me on that one.
> 
> I haven't contacted John since we went there but the situation then was as you described.


https://naturebees.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/visit-to-john-kefuss/


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Interesting read!

His bottom boards are the same as mine.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

msl said:


> ... the simple answer is alive doesn't make breeding stock...


GregV:

Thank you for this post- and I apologize that I have just now had the time to sit down and read / absorb everything that has been shared thus far.

I noted that Dr. Johnson makes note that his initial stock will come from a Mr. Paul Zelenski (http://hometownhives.com/) who I see is on the Dane County Beekeepers Association board and is noted for having good survival- have you had the opportunity to speak with him and exchange information / genetics?

I also thought I would add a thought to this thread for the purposes of discussion (with the caveat that I am no expert on this topic)- specifically the concept of 'population resistance'.

While everything I read suggests there is much left to be learned about the specific mechanisms which confer resistance, there does seem to be some consensus that it is a multi-factorial response (at least within European Honeybees). Further, it seems that we learn more with each passing year of the importance of genetic diversity within a population of honeybees, even down to the colony level, where individual sister groups possibly provide specialization in tasks based on their genetic make-up.

So, while I have taken MSL's admonition above to heart in my own apiary I sometimes wonder if we unwittingly 'put too fine a point' on our selection efforts and this may inadvertently seek to counteract the primary goal of honeybee reproduction- namely survival.

I don't want to go too far out on a limb here, and I take nothing away from the merits of focused selection efforts- I just wonder sometimes if it might be prudent to keep one eye on the foundational paradigms of natural selection while being focused on the specific goals of artificial selection.

Anecdotally, if a particular colony had no particular traits that one might select for (i.e. swarmy, ill-tempered, minimal surplus... and even throw middling mite drop numbers in there for good measure) but it manages to survive year-over-year, is it possible that this colony has something in its genetic make-up that is worth having around for the benefit of the more 'desirable' colonies?

When thinking about this concept, I always come around to Brother Andrew's primary goal of breeding for 'vitality'- this idea of colonies which are possessed with life- and even he seems to struggle to provide a precise definition for this concept or to articulate the specific variables which constitute it- but to borrow Justice Potter Smith- _"... we know it when we see it."_

So, while I have no confident answers nor solutions to the treatment-free paradox, my personal focus is to ultimately:

1. Adhere to my own approach to the 'Bond Method' which allows me the grace to intervene if I have made a mistake that has put a colony in a disadvantage or they have caught a bad break. This means that while I will likely not propagate a colony with mite drop numbers that are above the apiary average, if they continue to survive, they get to hang around. 

2. Use MSL's advice to only select from the colonies which show the most promise in terms of objective variables that can be measured and/or reasonably defined.

Who knows if this is even a reasonable approach, but I just cannot shake the notion that 'bees know best'- so I don't want to completely remove the tools of selection from them.

Again, a good thread- I enjoyed and appreciated everyone's input.

Russ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> GregV:
> 
> Thank you for this post- ........
> 
> Russ


Russ, I just decided to drop out of this particular discussion.
<deleted>
Might as well go away and quietly do to my own thing.


Indeed, while the overused "Albert Einstein's definition of insanity" is probably often correct (very likely so in the controlled environments) - it is not always (if ever?) relevant in uncontrolled and chaotic contexts.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Indeed, while the Albert Einstein's definition of insanity is probably often correct (very likely so in the controlled environments) - it is not always (if ever?) relevant in uncontrolled and chaotic contexts.


well put
some gamblers count cards, some bet it all on black, some just sit there and keep pulling the slot lever. Witch one is more likely to make a steady month to month income, witch one is likely to lose any gains, but likly feel good about the "wins" they had ?

but at the BYBK scale with 2 hives catching swarms does it matter if the odds a 200/1 or 500/1 that the swarm is "the real thing"? maby not, they are going to fail either way, even if they find it(some one has to), its lost in a few out crossing, but they do feel good about that "win" 


any way, Bee well doing your own thing, can't wait to hear about you exploits this year as you grow back 



> I just cannot shake the notion that 'bees know best'


 They do know whats best for bees! its fairly clear the honey bee, as a species is not in any danger. beekeepers on the other hand


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Bees are superorganisms.

But bees are not invincible, immortal superheroes. They are living creatures and as prone to die out as all the other life species are. More than 99 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. 

Since the world of insects is experiencing a massive die out rate at the moment, why shall the honeybees as insects be less susceptible than all the other insects? 

We lost 75 % of the insect mass in Germany, that study was confirmed by two universities and also by a university in Denmark (if I remember right). We lost those insects in just decades. 

To think that honeybees are superheroes with superpowers, that can outbeat the other loosers on their own, is not understandable from a biological point of view.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Very true Bernhard. I read recently that there has been a great reduction in bee numbers generally in just the last decade, and around 10% of bee species are threatened with extinction. Very sad.

As a teenager when I drove out of town at night, the windscreen would get pasted with squished insects, and the oil in their bodies meant we had to put a detergent in the water that was squirted onto the windscreen to wipe it all off with the windscreen wipers. Now, night driving not a problem at all. Other than a very occasional bug, nothing. I suspect that those night time flying insects have been reduced by a factor of thousands to one, if not tens of thousands to one.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a small butterfly with beautiful blue coloring on the wings. I realised this was a butterfly that was a common every day sight when I was a child, but this one was the first time I have seen one in years. Made me think about some other butterflies that used to be common but I have not seen in years, perhaps they are extinct and nobody even noticed.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> To think that honeybees are superheroes with superpowers, that can outbeat the other loosers on their own, is not understandable from a biological point of view.


Well said 
while the natural selection types make a lot of noise over "predator prey balance in nature"...the importation of house cats has led to 63 species going extinct, no balance there. 99.9 of all species that ever lived have gone extinct, that is the way of nature

North America had a native honey bee, Apis Nearctica and it went extinct, "nature" made its choice



> As a teenager when I drove out of town at night, the windscreen would get pasted with squished insects,


yep, family roadtrips every gas stop some one would grab the squeegee from the bucket next to the pump and wash the windshield


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> Now, night driving not a problem at all. Other than a very occasional bug, nothing. I suspect that those night time flying insects have been reduced by a factor of thousands to one, if not tens of thousands to one.
> 
> A couple of weeks ago I saw a small butterfly with beautiful blue coloring on the wings. I realised this was a butterfly that was a common every day sight when I was a child, but this one was the first time I have seen one in years. Made me think about some other butterflies that used to be common but I have not seen in years, perhaps they are extinct and nobody even noticed.


Is that due in significant part to the use of agricultural pesticides?


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Whatever the cause the reduction in the insect population bumps on up the food chain. Amphibians and reptiles and birds are seeing a corresponding decline. Used to be I couldn't walk anywhere in the grass with out frogs constantly jumping all over. Green garden snakes would be seen two or three a day at least. Now it is a special treat to see them. Last summer I think I only spotted two or three all season.

For every action an equal reaction; _ Forgive them for they know not what they do?_ Anh anh, mother nature is taking notes!


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregV said:


> I find this PDF of interest in terms of "breeding bees on a small scale" which is applicable here.
> 
> The ref is courtesy of little_john:
> http://bibba.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Breeding-honeybees-on-a-small-scale-Dorian-Pritchard.pdf


GregV:

I FINALLY had the opportunity to read this paper, and in my humble opinion there were a lot of good principles presented- but as they say (and thinking about your specific situation) I am reminded that, ‘the devil’s in the details.’

Specifically, Dr. Pritchard summarizes Part 1 by noting that, _‘… if you want to create a stock of honeybees superior to all others available and capable of surviving indefinitely, you should start off with bees that are already a long way along the path you want to take and as mating partners you should use only similar bees.’_

And yet, he summarizes Part 2 by cautioning, _‘Few beekeepers seem to care how their actions may affect their neighbours' bees, but in my opinion it is grossly irresponsible to bring in foreign queens, unless you take steps to prevent them producing drones. The foreign drones produced in a single apiary can cause genetic havoc in all other colonies within a radius of several miles and in one season utterly ruin the life's work of many beekeeping neighbours.’_

So I take this to mean that the overarching assumption is that there are suitable genetics available in our respective ‘village’ and maybe our most important task is to find and propagate them. 

He follows by observing, _‘You may find selection within your own stock never turns up some desired aspect of quality or behaviour because the relevant allele simply does not exist in the bees of your area. To remedy this you could send a virgin queen away to be mated elsewhere. "Elsewhere" should not be too far away (e.g.<50 miles) and bees at that apiary should be of excellent native stock and strong in the character yours lack. You then assess the performance of the new colony, but don't allow it to raise daughter queens unless and until that colony proves capable of performing well in your apiary. This prevents the drones of daughter queens disseminating exotic alleles; you should not allow daughter queens to arise until you are quite sure how they perform in your own locality.’_

So I may be missing the forest for the proverbial trees but it seems that this approach may not fully take into account a regional bee population which is inundated by ‘foreign’ imports on an annual basis.

It seems that he alludes to controlled mating when describing his goals and challenges when he states, _‘My current aim is to combine their best features into a single uniform stock while retaining sufficient genetic heterogeneity to maintain vigour. My major obstacles in this endeavour are my own deficiencies as a beekeeper, uncontrolled matings and the summer weather.’_

It is hard for me to argue with these goals and I can certainly identify with his challenges. 

As I think through his approach and bee biology as I understand it I am reminded that fundamentally we are either assuming that our local population is suitable for propagation and fits our goals, or we have to engage in a fairly substantial method of controlled matings to develop and maintain an ‘island’ population in a ‘sea’ of unsuitable genetics.

I do look forward to reading about your approach to selection and hope that your early season expansion efforts are successful.

Russ

p.s. While not directly applicable to this discussion, I came across this website today, and I thought you might be interested. It seems similar to the ethos of Dr. Johnson's work and this quarter’s article talks about growing citrus in Russia- very interesting:

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/


----------



## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

We don't have the options that Dr Pritcher had. All of the bees locally are completely mixed with purchased bees from other states. Where I live I strongly doubt there is any long-standing feral population or any type of 'local' bee.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Looks like they had a ruff start and ended up doing a profilac antibiotic treatment to the entire project...








Helping Everyone Breed Chemical-Free Bees: An Update on Blooming Prairie Foundation–Funded Project


Scott working hives (image from John Hart, Wisconsin State Journal) Bees are facing more than one challenge right now in North America. In addition to changing habitats and climates, as well as the…




lowtechinstitute.org





Greg do you have any insider info on mite losses so far?


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

msl said:


> Looks like they had a ruff start and ended up doing a profilac antibiotic treatment to the entire project...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the post, MSL.

That is certainly a rough start- to be dealing with AFB right out of the gate.

Kind of sobering too- I have bought used equipment a few times already and have had good success so far- but I won't lie that it is always in the back of my mind that I might regret it later...


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

msl said:


> Greg do you have any insider info on mite losses so far?


Mike,
Don't know.
I should ask Scott.
Just in September we harvested some apples together, but it was all apple talk (we are much into apples).
The bee talk kinda went sideways...
However, he never mentioned anything about doing the counts (which I understand - he is way too busy with his homestead as is).
I think they will do just "hard bond' this season and regroup in spring.
Will ask anyway as I am invested too a little bit.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> That is certainly a rough start- to be dealing with AFB right out of the gate.
> 
> Kind of sobering too- I have bought used equipment a few times already and have had good success so far- but I won't lie that it is always in the back of my mind that I might regret it later...


Yah.
I helped with one inspection session on the said project (we needed to find and evaluate the queens).
Subsequently, I put the hive tool I used into a separate bag and mean to scorch it (IF I find it again in my mess!).

So, I have been lucky I never had the issues with the used equipment so far.
BUT.... (and I explained this to Scott also - that was his mistake - getting very old used equipment). They got some really, really old equipment from some source.

You don't want used equipment that came from the *era of AFB* (meaning old equipment originating from about 40-50 years ago or older).
You want used equipment from the era of Varroa (very likely safe equipment of recent origin; available due to the issues with Varroa).

See what I mean?

Avoid the old used equipment.
Get the recent used equipment (ideal - if the Varroa-related failures are obvious or documented).
This being said, maybe I am done with used equipment. No longer need any.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregV said:


> You don't want used equipment that came from the *era of AFB* (meaning old equipment originating from about 40-50 years ago or older). You want used equipment from the era of Varroa (very likely safe equipment of recent origin; available due to the issues with Varroa).


Makes sense to me, GregV. If nothing else, newer equipment has at least had less opportunity to become a spore host. Regardless, I completely understand why some folks swear off used bee gear... it's a little like gambling.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I have done a lot of used stuff, mostly failed hobbyists who failed to manage their mites, cleaned out one abandoned commercial yard. every thing gets it own iso yard for a year... The 2 EFB out brakes I have had in 2 different yards both started in KTBHs that I made and had never been moved.... so it can come form any ware....

If your just starting with a few packages, no big thing... little risk... but as you gather bees and equipment the $$ risk of putting used gear in an active yard does grow as it could take out a whole yards worth of bees.... and woodwear .. a point Old timer made to me once... and I took notice 

Dealt with another EFB out break in a clubs yard as well 

My rules, and what I suggest to the local clubs... No outside hive tools or other gear besides suits, disposable nitrile gloves. All my sites have there own hive tools on top of a hive cover held down by a brick..between that inner and outer cover is the pair of nitrile I have been using in that yard, replaced as they take holes.
Something looks suspicious and its a fresh pair of gloves and the hive tool gets hit with propane torch before moving on to the next hive.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

msl said:


> My rules, and what I suggest to the local clubs... No outside hive tools or other gear besides suits, disposable nitrile gloves. All my sites have there own hive tools on top of a hive cover held down by a brick..between that inner and outer cover is the pair of nitrile I have been using in that yard, replaced as they take holes.
> Something looks suspicious and its a fresh pair of gloves and the hive tool gets hit with propane torch before moving on to the next hive.


MSL:

That's great advice- makes good sense to me.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Per the latest:
............The treatment free experiment at Agrecol had almost complete losses, .......... will be getting some new bees to repopulate...........


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Sad....


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

msl said:


> Sad....


I btw shared my 5-year survival numbers with them - the 15%.
I also stated I will be looking into the IPM model with OA as an option (pretty much I posted in my thread what I want to do).

But they want to continue as-is.
Well, technically they are to continue the program as the grant was written and funded, I imagine.


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## LarryBud (Jul 19, 2020)

This just seems like they kill a whole lot of bees-what the point?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

LarryBud said:


> This just seems like they kill a whole lot of bees-what the point?


Read here and make your judgements.








Where Have We Been? Writing a Bee Grant Proposal


In addition to getting together our solar panel system, plans, and permits, we’ve been working on a grant proposal to greatly expand our bee breeding program. This application was written for…




lowtechinstitute.org


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

GregB said:


> I btw shared my 5-year survival numbers with them - the 15%.
> I also stated I will be looking into the IPM model with OA as an option (pretty much I posted in my thread what I want to do).
> 
> *But they want to continue as-is.*
> Well, technically they are to continue the program as the grant was written and funded, I imagine.


Remembered of this project and checked.

Looks like they have no bees left to "continue as-is".
Pretty sure they have used up all the grant money as well - at least I am not aware of any new bee acquisitions for this.
But I also don't stay involved closely and don't get regular reports.
I don't know of any other additional information, other than the website.

I guess they did state they are trying again - whatever that means:


> To test this hypothesis, we are running the test again. If we get 100 percent die off again, we will have to rethink our entire model.


(PS: one thing is rather obvious - before you start your games with the mites, be sure to have the trivial ABCs covered first - like the mice control/prevention).

*



Winter Die-Off

Click to expand...

*


> Last year, beekeepers saw an average 44 percent die-off of their hives. *We had 100 percent.........
> 
> This is unsustainable*...........











Bee-Breeding Project — Lab Note 3.02


For the last two years, we’ve been trying to breed mite-tolerant bees out of regular packages here in southern Wisconsin. Read more about our theory and methods in our grant application. Our …




lowtechinstitute.org


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

GregB said:


> (PS: one thing is rather obvious - before you start your games with the mites, be sure to have the trivial ABCs covered first - like the mice control/prevention).


Ouch- this is painful to read. At least they decided to add mouse guards this winter.

Another thing I wonder about is the increase approach. While I don't see it in a lot of the TF101 discussions, it is interesting to read how researchers who study bee population dynamics in the face of significant mite pressure recognize that our method and timing for division can have deleterious impacts on the bee/mite population paradigm and can leave one or more sides of the split ill-provisioned to build enough mass to overwinter successfully. 

Reminds me that the first rule in beekeeping (and much of life is): '_Primum non nocere'._


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Litsinger said:


> '_Primum non nocere'._


Yah.
Kind of obvious - make sure the food is IN and the mice are OUT.
Then we can talk about the crazy stuff.

These kinds of ABCs should be covered without saying by any serious project.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregB said:


> Read here and make your judgements.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


couple of telling paragraphs: 55 hives to start BTW the other 15 died as well 100% loss

This is unsustainable. Since our goal is a sustainable apiary system, this does not bode well. We have two working hypotheses. One is that this rural setting has significantly more mouse pressure than we expected. If the *mice killed 40 of our hives*, this has nothing to do with mites. To combat this, we have added mouse guards to all hives.

Hypothesis two is* systemic and scary*: commercially available bees do not have a wide enough pool of genetics to have mite-tolerant traits. This random sample of packages might just not have the genes we are trying to isolate. Although this worked in Sweden, Wales, and Africa, they do not have commercial-industrial beekeeping like we do here. To test this hypothesis, we are running the test again. *If we get 100 percent die off again, we will have to rethink our entire model*.

seriously who gives money to folks like this, kindly sent me their address.

Greg go help these poor folks.

GG


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

LarryBud said:


> This just seems like they kill a whole lot of bees-what the point?


$$$$$$$ and then we need more $$$$ this is serious.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Gray Goose said:


> Greg go help these poor folks.


I am too poor to help (especially to be tossing my few pennies into this "breeding effort").
I did go once and helped finding and marking the queens for them.

But also, this good friend who runs the project has a PhD and has written few books - he should know better to keep the d6mn mice out. 🤪
I need to call him up anyway and chit-chat about life and such.
Long time no see. Pretty short drive away too.

The guy is all about the sustainability.
So am I (and I have been learning some).


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## LarryBud (Jul 19, 2020)

Gray Goose said:


> $$$$$$$ and then we need more $$$$ this is serious.
> 
> GG


Where do I sign up to get a piece of this? I think if I go TF, I too, could kill a lot of bees. maybe not...


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

I mean, we did have conversations where I had my doubts about the isolation.
He thought he had good isolation because he is pretty rural and one county over from our messed up suburban $h!thole.
He even managed 3-4 hives the TF-way for a couple years until they croaked.

OK, fine, not my money or my time.
I got enough trouble of my own and hopefully found a better and sustainable recipe.

Reading his write-up and chuckling at my keyboard here:


> First, the methods we use to select for mite-tolerant bees will be written up in publications aimed at small-, medium-, and large-scale beekeepers, allowing them to replicate our project (Result 3). This information will also be shared through presentations to interested groups, media, and an online network. Second, *after three to five years,* we will have a large, stabilized genetic population and may begin to sell extra colonies of bees, which will spread mite-tolerant bees in the region.











Where Have We Been? Writing a Bee Grant Proposal


In addition to getting together our solar panel system, plans, and permits, we’ve been working on a grant proposal to greatly expand our bee breeding program. This application was written for…




lowtechinstitute.org


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Gray Goose said:


> If the *mice killed 40 of our hives*, this has nothing to do with mites.


This reminds me of some years back when 70% of Beesourcers were new, and TF, and losing bees hand over fist.

It was never mites. The excuses were - wax moths killed the hive, the neighbors sprayed their lawn and it killed the bees, mice did it, It was too cold for them to reach the honey, a cellphone tower is pointed right at them, etc.

Mites? Never.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregB said:


> I mean, we did have conversations where I had my doubts about the isolation.
> He thought he had good isolation because he is pretty rural and one county over from our messed up suburban $h!thole.
> He even managed 3-4 hives the TF-way for a couple years until they croaked.
> 
> ...


always need a goal....
now just if I had a way to get there.

to be fair 2 of my mentees came to me after 2 winters of 100% loss.
Mites are not forgiving to the untrained.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Spoke to the guy today (we did a workshop together).
Winter #2 of the trial is over.
100% dead.
45 units down.


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