# Sticky  Natural Selection Management



## mike bispham

Spring has finally arrived here, the prunus is flowering, and all my hives are nicely regimented in the large and varied orchards that will - all being well - be their home for the future. I currently have 53 building, out of about 70 that went into winter. These are mostly 2014 swarms and nucs, but there are 10 that originated (as swarms or nucs) in 2013, and 2 from 2012. But queens may have been superceded in any of these - I don't track them. Some are my own bait-box fly-ins - that is, probably older queens from my own apiary.

All these bees originated as collected swarms and cut-outs, in many cases from well attested longstanding nests. None have ever been treated against mites in any way. They are survivors - so far anyway.

My plan for the coming year is to raise numbers strongly, drawing genes from what I think are the best of these. On the female side I'll use my version of scorecards. On the male side my plan is to run unlimited brood nests and let those that want to and can raise as many drones as they like. I'm dominating the area, although there are treated bees nearby.

I may also buy in some bred tf queens, and will continue to collect swarms and cut outs. But mostly the plan is to model nature pretty closely, let natural selection do its thing, and do my best to interfere only very carefully. 

Mike (UK)


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## mbc

Good luck.
Two things though, your scorecards will be largely meaningless without keeping track of the queens your scoring, and I have hundreds of hives in a sparsely populated area of the UK and I wouldn't begin to dream that my drones are "dominating" the area. I have followed Galtee's thinking with a "Dun Aonghusa" system of concentric apiaries surrounding my main breeding apiary and yet the foreign drones still get at my virgins. 50 colonies won't scratch the surface of the local drone population in anything like a good area imho.


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## rwurster

"Natural Selection Management" :s is an oxymoron


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## mike bispham

mbc said:


> Good luck.
> Two things though, your scorecards will be largely meaningless without keeping track of the queens your scoring, and I have hundreds of hives in a sparsely populated area of the UK and I wouldn't begin to dream that my drones are "dominating" the area. I have followed Galtee's thinking with a "Dun Aonghusa" system of concentric apiaries surrounding my main breeding apiary and yet the foreign drones still get at my virgins. 50 colonies won't scratch the surface of the local drone population in anything like a good area imho.


Thanks for the good wishes mbc. 

I think your point about drones feeds in with the 'natural selection management' characterisation, which as rwurster points out is, on the surface anyway, something of an oxymoron.

The way I'm looking at things, natural selection and breeding are closely allied processes. Just how close depends on how 'closely' you breed. At one end of the spectrum is carefully selected pairs mated under II; at the other is unaided hives under a program of selected increase, with an effort to influence the drones input. 

At the first end control is tight; and the other end loose - but still present. (The power of the ability to convert all hives to half-sisters shouldn't be under-estimated - even without drone input biasing)

Having a reasonable number of hives in one place is a start: letting the strongest raise as many drones as they like pushes things further in your favour. Yes, having outlying hives will help still more; getting rid of the treating hives nearby more still. 

The point is to do what you can to speed up and help along the natural processes - allowing weak hives to perish, forcing the rest to deal with varroa; repeating the process without end. It's not fully controlled breeding, but its much more than not breeding at all. 

As to marking queens, yes. But I think using the time that would take to do other things is my best plan just now. I'll probably regret it later. I will try to mark all new queens as they come out of mating nucs.

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

24.3% overwintering loss is not bad at all mike. you have probably detailed your scorecard here before, but do you mind sharing it again?


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## Fusion_power

IMO, actively selecting colonies that have the most mites and requeening them from the colonies that have least will result in significantly faster genetic gain. Bringing in some known mite tolerant genetics is also a good strategy.


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## AHudd

mbc said:


> Good luck.
> Two things though, your scorecards will be largely meaningless without keeping track of the queens your scoring, and I have hundreds of hives in a sparsely populated area of the UK and I wouldn't begin to dream that my drones are "dominating" the area. I have followed Galtee's thinking with a "Dun Aonghusa" system of concentric apiaries surrounding my main breeding apiary and yet the foreign drones still get at my virgins. 50 colonies won't scratch the surface of the local drone population in anything like a good area imho.


 I was amazed how many male dogs were in the neighborhood when my dog went into heat.


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Having a reasonable number of hives in one place is a start: letting the strongest raise as many drones as they like pushes things further in your favour. Yes, having outlying hives will help still more; [HIGHLIGHT]getting rid of the treating hives nearby more still. [/HIGHLIGHT]


How are you planning to implement the '_getting rid of the treating hives nearby_' part of your plan, Mike? :scratch:

Buy out the neighboring beekeepers, perhaps? Move your apiary somewhere else? Or perhaps some ... uhh ... _midnight activity_?


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> How are you planning to implement the 'getting rid of treating hives nearby' part of your plan, Mike? :scratch:
> 
> Buy out the neighboring beekeepers, perhaps? Move your apiary somewhere else? Or perhaps some ... uhh ... _midnight activity_?


No, I can ease the most significant one out by being more effective at pollination - I came in because I undertook to work at being more effective. The only significant other beekeeper I'm hoping to convert to tf. I'll outnumber him significantly anyway - factor of 3-4.


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> 24.3% overwintering loss is not bad at all mike. you have probably detailed your scorecard here before, but do you mind sharing it again?


SP,

I think all I did was post a kind of thinkpiece, with this (from a spreadsheet - imagine the figures line up nicely..):

Queen Selection 

Age	*2	1*
Yield	3	3
Origin	2	2
12	6


Age	2	2
Yield	*3	2*
Origin	2	2
12	8


Age	2	2
Yield	2	2
Origin	*2.5	1.5*
10	6



*Age	2	1
Yield	3	2
Origin	2.5	1.5
15	3*

That shows a few illustrative variations on results (bold). Then I've have to decide on an arithmetic scheme that draws out the right sorts of conclusions. 

I'll probably add present performance (honey crop) to the past performance figures. As I say, these are just thoughts toward a system. In fact its more likely to be: gosh, this one's doing well, look its three years old and it did well last year too - lets go. Then there are decisions about how many to go with, in what sorts of proportions... I expect it'll become pretty obvious by late May. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Fusion_power said:


> IMO, actively selecting colonies that have the most mites and requeening them from the colonies that have least will result in significantly faster genetic gain. Bringing in some known mite tolerant genetics is also a good strategy.


I'll probably requeen some duffers, though I don't suppose I'll have time for mitecounts.


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## Beregondo

Two hives that have survived three
winters is not a bad start at all toward a sustainable Bisham ethic/Bond method apairy.

The pudding may prove to be as good as you have so persistently declared it to be in the past!

Heartfelt congrats, Mike.


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## Dragiša-Peđa Ranković

Age	2	1
Yield	3	3
Origin	2	2
12	6


Age	2	2
Yield	3	2
Origin	2	2
12	8


Age	2	2
Yield	2	2
Origin	2.5	1.5
10	6



Age	2	1
Yield	3	2
Origin	2.5	1.5
15	3


What are the second digits, Mike.

If you run natural selection management, do you feed bees, when and how much?

Do you manage brood size by expanding space for egg laying during spring?

Your link don´t work. http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/ or http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk


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## Rader Sidetrack

> Your link don´t work. http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/ or http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk


Oops! 

A domain name _Whois _lookup shows:



> Expiry date: 21-Feb-2015
> Last updated: 23-Feb-2015
> 
> Registration status: Renewal required.
> *** This registration has been SUSPENDED. ***


Time to _pay the piper_ or lose the domain registration! 

.


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## mike bispham

Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1249946 said:


> Age	2	1
> Yield	3	3
> Origin	2	2
> 12	6
> 
> 
> What are the second digits, Mike.


Sorry, each little group is a comparison, the compound of which is supposed to be a final figure I can use. So above I changed the Age factor by one year, keeping the rest the same, and the result is that I get a rating of 12 instead of 6. In the next two groups I've changed one of the other factors, while keeping Age the same. 

The last group shows I think an ideal sort of contrast - what happens when a hive supplies the right data for all three factors. 15 against 3 is pretty dramatic, and that's the sort of thing I was looking for. 



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1249946 said:


> If you run natural selection management, do you feed bees, when and how much?


Yes I do. If I haven't left enough honey they get fed syrup in the autumn. If they're small and getting robbed they get fed more. Then I put fondant on so can largely forget about them over the winter. At the moment I'm feeding stimulative syrup to try to get them to build faster (and they had sub in february). I need them to build fast because I want to make rapid increase early in the year (before the queen takes her summer break) and because they're on spring pollination duties.



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1249946 said:


> Do you manage brood size by expanding space for egg laying during spring?


I give them unlimited space. Sometimes I'll expand the brood nest by inserting an empty frame or two. But on the whole while I'm certainly interfering on the feeding side, I like to not interfere with nest management. I want my yield figures to reflect the bees own ability to respond to my regime, and my thinking is I'm going to get that best by treating all equally. 



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1249946 said:


> Your link don´t work. http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/ or http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk


I know, its offline for now.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Oops!
> 
> A domain name _Whois _lookup shows:
> 
> 
> 
> Time to _pay the piper_ or lose the domain registration!
> 
> .


I broke a finger badly in February (while making guess what?) and have been largely out of action on the income side. This was one of many casualties. On the plus side I've learned to play (3-fingured) banjo, and my singing has improved.


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## Dragiša-Peđa Ranković

Age	2	1
Yield	3	2
Origin	2.5	1.5
15	3

Is the origin changed with new queen?

And back to topic,...

http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/1998/01/Apidologie_0044-8435_1998_29_1-2_ART0002.pdf

Little contribution.


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## mike bispham

Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1250208 said:


> 2 1 Age
> 3 2 Yield
> 2.5 1.5 Origin
> 15 3
> 
> [I've turned the table around to try to get it a bit clearer - MB]
> 
> Is the origin changed with new queen?


Yes, as and when known. At present the emphasis is on number building, not close tracking. I'm counting hives that have thrived multiyear as successful, regardless of whether they might have changed queen - and that will obviously supply some wrong results. But I think the chances are on my side that the new queen will carry sufficient of her mother to be worth trying again.

As I've said, the emphasis here is on general non-interference (in the sphere of genetic transmission) rather than close control. I think that imiating a natural selection setting in which (the genes that make for) sick individuals constantly disappear, and the strongest make the highest contribution to increase, will get me to where I want to be. It won't be neat and tidy. But with luck a bit neater and tidier than nature.



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1250208 said:


> And back to topic,...
> 
> http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/1998/01/Apidologie_0044-8435_1998_29_1-2_ART0002.pdf
> 
> Little contribution.


I didn't read it all, and can't really see what this contributes. In my way of thinking its about tiny details in the toothing of a clock gear. What I'm focused on is the workings of the clock as a whole. Do you see what I mean?

As John Kefus says: you don't need to know _how_ it works. You do need to know _that_ it works.

Mike (UK)


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## Dragiša-Peđa Ranković

It contribute to your story and all about bees (natural) selection. That is story in every single hive.

If there is a enviromental pressure by various factors such as varoa, disease or what ever pressure is, better survivors in the hive select by percent of them which larva get more rojal jelly and more attention.

That is how ˝non-management˝ (natural selection) select better survivor.

If you know that it´s ok to tell all the others.

Do you agree with that?


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## mike bispham

Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1250250 said:


> It contribute to your story and all about bees (natural) selection. That is story in every single hive.


Well, yes, but you can say that about many other things, some of them unmanageably complex to ordinary folk. In general terms, looking at the details can easily make it harder to see the big picture (we have a saying: 'can't see the wood for the trees')



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1250250 said:


> If there is a enviromental pressure by various factors such as varoa, disease or what ever pressure is, better survivors in the hive select by percent of them which larva get more rojal jelly and more attention.
> 
> That is how ˝non-management˝ (natural selection) select better survivor.


It may be one of many many sub-mechanisms by which natural selection presses forward the fittest genes. If you can tell me how I can use it as a practical aid to what I want to do, I'm very interested. Otherwise, as I say, its a detail that doesn't help enormously. 

It does sound like, if its true, some ways of queen rearing might well be better than others (natural supercedure rather than external rearing for example) Is that the case?



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1250250 said:


> If you know that it´s ok to tell all the others.
> 
> Do you agree with that?


I don't follow you there. Can you try again Dragisa? (I hope that's the right form of address?)

Mike (UK)


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## Dragiša-Peđa Ranković

I see nothing to argue about.

You use it already.


I am sorry for the post.


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## mike bispham

Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1250307 said:


> I see nothing to argue about.
> 
> You use it already.
> 
> 
> I am sorry for the post.


Please don't feel you have to apologise Dragisa! I'm trying to find out what it is you find interesting about this paper, and my method is to argue - in the hope that will be constructive. Arguing in my book is a good thing!

Thanks for bringing the paper to our attention,

Best

Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> I currently have 53 building, out of about 70 that went into winter. These are mostly 2014 swarms and nucs, but there are 10 that originated (as swarms or nucs) in 2013, and 2 from 2012.


Hi Mike, do you have stats on the ages of the colonies which were lost through the winter? I'm wondering whether there's a common trend in the losses or whether it was an even loss across-the-board. 

Nice to hear that you're considering bringing in tf queens from outside.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Hi Mike, do you have stats on the ages of the colonies which were lost through the winter? I'm wondering whether there's a common trend in the losses or whether it was an even loss across-the-board.
> 
> Hi Roland,
> 
> No - I've just been deleting them from my spreadsheet system when I find them dead, releasing the hive number for a replacement. It has occurred to me lately that this is short sighted! I have a really great tracking system now - I could track and manage 1000 hives easy peasy - but that bit needs adding in. I'll start keeping each record (which is just a line of cells on a spreadsheet) on a separate sheet together with death date, instead of deleting - thanks for the prompt!
> 
> 
> 
> Rolande said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nice to hear that you're considering bringing in tf queens from outside.
> 
> 
> 
> How have you got on with your bought queens Roland?
> 
> Mike (UK)
Click to expand...


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## Rolande

Negotiations are still in progress but all's looking good.


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## Oldtimer

Rolande said:


> Hi Mike, do you have stats on the ages of the colonies which were lost through the winter? I'm wondering whether there's a common trend in the losses or whether it was an even loss across-the-board.
> 
> Hi Roland,





mike bispham said:


> Hi Roland,
> 
> No - I've just been deleting them from my spreadsheet system when I find them dead, releasing the hive number for a replacement. It has occurred to me lately that this is short sighted!
> 
> Mike (UK)


Mike it has occurred to me that if you know enough about your bees to know that of the 53 hives, 31 are from last year, 10 are 2 years old and 2 are 3 years old (as stated in post 1), then you must have enough knowledge of them, to piece together stats on which ones and ages died through winter. IE, if you did not know which ones died through winter, you would not know which ones were left. But you did give that information, so you must know.

It will just be a case of using or extrapolating, the data you have, but have not processed, in an orderly, or interpretable, manner.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Mike it has occurred to me that if you know enough about your bees to know that of the 53 hives, 31 are from last year, 10 are 2 years old and 2 are 3 years old (as stated in post 1), then you must have enough knowledge of them, to piece together stats on which ones and ages died through winter. IE, if you did not know which ones died through winter, you would not know which ones were left. But you did give that information, so you must know.
> 
> It will just be a case of using or extrapolating, the data you have, but have not processed, in an orderly, or interpretable, manner.


The records were deleted when the bees died Alistair. The spreadsheet contains only information about living bees.

I may have some old copies of the spreadsheet on the back of a clipboard from which I could use to flesh out some sort of analysis, but looking at that data to hand, it seems to me they are mostly dying after a year or two. (If they weren't I'd have more 2 and 3 year olds). I'm not really that curious - I've buried the dead and am working with the living. 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

No worries, not overly important if you are not concerned with it. Just, it occurred to me that based on the info you gave, the data could be extrapolated, even though the dead hives records have been discarded. IE, last year you knew what you had in hive numbers, and the ages of those hives, and I think you published it here at various points in time. This year you know what you have. So the difference can be extrapolated.

No need to bother with it on my account though LOL. Without looking up the figures you gave last year myself, my guess, based on the large number of young hives you have, would be that most of the deaths were the older hives.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> [...] my guess, based on the large number of young hives you have, would be that most of the deaths were the older hives.


Yes. As predicted, probably most are dying from accumulating varroa numbers that they're managing well enough to last a year or two, then succumbing. Some may be simply old queens/succession failure. I think a lot fall to robbing, but they were probably weak for a reason.

As long as I can make enough from what I have to build numbers, and continue to trial them that doesn't bother me unduly. Most seem to thrive well enough in the time they get to give me some honey. I'll be happier when they're lasting longer of course!

We'd all love hives that live for ever and supply a large and uniform amount of honey, and a lot of effort goes into trying to achieve that. But I think all too often that effort is part of our problem. We need to dial back to something sustainable, accepting the lower yield for the sake of a healthy process.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Well it's early in the season, if you have 53 thriving hives now, no reason not to get to your planned 100 by seasons end.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Well it's early in the season, if you have 53 thriving hives now, no reason not to get to your planned 100 by seasons end.


I have 52 (likely 51) living hives, in various states of thrive... but yes, in theory 100 or more is doable. 

Soon up will be questions about the best way to do it while trying to minimise honey loss. Can you offer me any advice on that score Alistair? I 've been looking at Wilson's method, with minor adjustments. http://www.northantsbees.org.uk/wilson_queen.html

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Well best I can tell you are getting 30 or 40 hives per year via swarms and cutouts, so add in a little incidental increase from the existing hives your target of 100 by years end will be achieved almost automatically.

My advice you would not agree with for ethical reasons, I think within the ethical regime and restrictions you have set yourself, you are probably already doing as well as you can, in fact better than I could. I tried it and failed.


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## mike bispham

Below, hopefully, a photo of the underside of a felt roof to which feral combs were attached. The spacing appears to be a pretty regular. 7 intervals over 10" is I reckon very close to 1 7/16", or 36mm C-C. A smidgen over Hoffman pitch - so close as to make no odds. 

The felt was angled at 45 degrees, meaning the tied-in comb will be at 45 degrees to its intended angle. Will this make the brood giddy?









Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> The felt was angled at 45 degrees, meaning the tied-in comb will be at 45 degrees to its intended angle. Will this make the brood giddy?


Why not rest the bottom (square?) edge on the bottom bar rather than fixing to the topbar? Apart from anything else, they'll get to filling in the space between topbar and comb far quicker than they'd draw it from the bottom of the comb to the bottom bar.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Why not rest the bottom (square?) edge on the bottom bar rather than fixing to the topbar? Apart from anything else, they'll get to filling in the space between topbar and comb far quicker than they'd draw it from the bottom of the comb to the bottom bar.


Not with you Roland. Anyway its all done - I do it straight away as I cut it out - straight into a nuc. I wasn't really serious about them getting giddy - though I did wonder if somebody would say it doesn't work.

I'm not sure I agree about the speed top/bottom business. I often strap in (I use rubber bands) comb only for it to slide down and they take for ever to fill in the top gap. I suspect they're not really in comb-building mode at this stage.

I collected another small swarm this morning, from a church colony I've known about for a year. Either a small prime swarm - their cavity might be small - or a first cast I reckon. I've two bait boxes fill too - though probably from my own hives.

Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> *I'm not sure I agree* about the speed top/bottom business. I often strap in (I use rubber bands) comb only for it to slide down and they take for ever to fill in the top gap. I suspect they're not really in comb-building mode at this stage.


I'd be surprised if you did  Plenty of comparisons over the years have convinced me that there's more of an 'urgency' to infill a gap between top of comb and the 'roof' than there is to start extending the comb.


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I suspect they're not really in comb-building mode at this stage.


Give them some sugar syrup. It's not a treatment, it's a management technique to have them build comb to fill the gaps.

Obviously you would do this after they have had a week or so to settle and are in a position to defend against robbing attempts.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Give them some sugar syrup. It's not a treatment, it's a management technique to have them build comb to fill the gaps.
> 
> Obviously you would do this after they have had a week or so to settle and are in a position to defend against robbing attempts.


Yes, I've done this. They are a reasonable size, and I tend to work with minimal entrances to minimise robbing as a matter of course. Swarms especially are great comb builders, and I try to take advantage of that.


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## mike bispham

On the topic of minimal entrances, I've known this one for 2 years...








I know of another multi-year tree colony that lives in a wide-open fissure. 

On the other side this week's cut out had a few two tiny entrances - about 1/4" by 1/2". The cavity was about a lift in volume, and filled with comb.

I took a large swarm from the 3-colonies in a hung tile elevation yesterday (that I spoke of earlier).

All these are within a few miles radius.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> I'd be surprised if you did  Plenty of comparisons over the years have convinced me that there's more of an 'urgency' to infill a gap between top of comb and the 'roof' than there is to start extending the comb.


I'll look more closely Roland. The last cut-out was another of those from a 4" building cavity, all lovely and regular, and just the right size to pop into shallow frames. The only drawback is... they're in shallow frames!


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## Oldtimer

I don't save burr comb, but if I did, I would have hung those combs from the top bars of deep frames then let them build the rest down. The bees would feel better after having been squished into a 4 inch space.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> I don't save burr comb, but if I did, I would have hung those combs from the top bars of deep frames then let them build the rest down. The bees would feel better after having been squished into a 4 inch space.


Good plan but I've only just yesterday discovered a way to make rubber bands support comb from sliding down. I don't call this burr comb - it was lovely perfect cell-size-for-these-bees comb stuffed with eggs, brood, sealed brood, nectar and pollen. It took about 5 minutes to trim and strap all the good stuff in, minimising chilling. They'll have space in few days when I've collected a shallow and some deep frames and swapped things about. 

Mike (UK)


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## CathyC

Mike
On your numbers. I don't know what they mean.
I'm just beginning. Please explain.

so - what would the pattern below mean?

Age 2 1
Yeild 3 2
Origin 2.5 1.5
15 3

Cathy


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## mike bispham

CathyC said:


> Mike
> On your numbers. I don't know what they mean.
> I'm just beginning. Please explain.
> 
> so - what would the pattern below mean?
> 
> Age 2 1
> Yield 3 2
> Origin 2.5 1.5
> 15 3
> 
> Cathy


(From http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...al-Selection-Management&p=1249848#post1249848)

Hi Cathy,

Sorry, it isn't clear at all. (If you're just beginning I wouldn't worry about this at all - but I'll explain anyway.) 

First, imagine the columns line up, and the totals at the bottom are derived from each of the three scores above, multiplied. So, first column: 2*3*2.5 = 15 points. When the colony is two years old, the yield was '3' (points out of 3) and the origin was '2.5' (points out of 3) - meaning I had good reason to think it came from a feral colony, but couldn't be sure. (I don't have any bought bred-resistant queens - they'd earn the full 3 points.)...

... That combination earns 15 points.

The second column has different scores, and you can see that while each score is not all that different, the effect of multiplying them out makes the total markedly different. And that's what I was aiming at - a way to score colonies that would show quickly and dramatically which were the best bet for reproductive purposes; from data that I had on record.

The next 3 groupings show the effects of different kinds of score changes.

In the event I tweaked the calculator for actual use a few weeks ago because I didn't like the results. Gut feeling said: nope, that one is better; fix the system to make it so. I'm still not happy that its producing the best result, but its fit for purpose, and I think its probably one of those things where being perpetually unhappy about it is the right place to be. It gave me this score column (the 15 highest scoring hives):

100
80
80

64
60
48
40
40

32
32

20
18
16
16
16


Perhaps the main difference is each score is now made out of 5, giving a best of 125 points. 

(Being a spreadsheet its great for a quick bar chart! Really helps you see what's what!)

The top ones are getting the most reproduction, the bottoms ones maybe one split. Most of the resulting queens will be used for re-queening my weakest 1/3rd.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Deleted, duplicate


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> (In the event I tweaked the calculator for actual use a few weeks ago because I didn't like the results. Gut feeling said: nope, that one is better; fix the system to make it so.


Ha ha what you say is the truth. At last we find one thing we agree on. 

At times I've thought I should be methodical and have a point scoring system so that breeder selection is an exact science. But I have never been able to get one that reliably selects the breeders I really think I should be using.

Sometimes I go with my gut. 

And getting it wrong sometimes may actually be a good thing. Who am I to absolutely impose my ideals on the genetic make up of thousands of beehives.


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## bucksbees

Could you take the bottom amount of hives that are on the low end by your numbers and set them up to force them to swarm next spring? Would it increase your feral gens in the area and produce a higher rate of your desired gens in the DCA?


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## Oldtimer

I'm thinking the worst third of his performers will not swarm and probably not even survive. Mike is trying to make some money now so any hive that's doing well he's probably hanging onto those bees rather then let them swarm.

Mike is actually removing bees from the surrounding environment into his own care rather than restocking it. In my opinion in such a situation, allowing bees to swarm is wasteful of resources because you don't know if the swarm will survive. If the intent is to re stock the surrounds with particular genetics, my plan would be to take advantage of the fact that from one queen you can breed hundreds, in a controlled manner, rather than random swarming.

However I don't know what Mike plans to do but suspect he would be on the same page with me.


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## mike bispham

bucksbees said:


> Could you take the bottom amount of hives that are on the low end by your numbers and set them up to force them to swarm next spring? Would it increase your feral gens in the area and produce a higher rate of your desired gens in the DCA?


I think its best for me to regard these colonies as weak because they don't have whatever it takes, genetically, to be strong. (I'll be wrong in some cases, but its a rule of thumb thing) I'd expect most to die over the winter. On that basis the last thing I'd want to do is press them to reproduce. 

The only good thing I can see to do with them is turn them into fresh colonies headed by new queens made from my best hives. That's pretty standard traditional apiary practice. It tends to raise the strength and productivity average. 

I think my apiary will support feral health through high mite-tolerant drone numbers and escaped swarms. I suspect the biggest limitation around here to feral population growth is lack of suitable nesting sites. Till recently it has been treatment-dependent drones, but I should be lifting that problem. My bigger unlimited nest hives are making a great many drones. I really do think this is a critical part of the solution to raising tolerance. 

I am worried though that some of them may be 1st-year wonders, and are actually damaging prospects. I'm thinking about limiting 1st-year brood nests next year in an effort to improve this factor.

BTW I don't do anything to stop swarming except maintain unlimited brood nests, give them room and encourage them to build comb continuously. Thus far I've lost one prime swarm that I know of, and another I suspect; but I think I caught the first in a bait hive. 

Numbers are back (from a low of 48) to 67. This mostly by incoming swarms - most with excellent known feral origins. 

Mike (UK)


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## bucksbees

Thank you, to the both of you. I can see the logic in it now. Will you ever consider your work a success if you are able to have hives above a score of 100 year over year? What is your baseline to move your stock to the open market?


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## CathyC

Hi Mike
Thank you!
We can only have 4 here. But it could help compare across the members hives.
Cathy


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## mike bispham

bucksbees said:


> Thank you, to the both of you. I can see the logic in it now. Will you ever consider your work a success if you are able to have hives above a score of 100 year over year? What is your baseline to move your stock to the open market?


I consider it a success already! So many experts insisted for so long that it would quickly end in tears! Instead its exceeded my expectations - so far! I'll sell nucs just as some as I think I can spare some and am offered a reasonable price. But I'll be careful about the claims I make for them. At the moment they are just bees that see to be workable to me, and might well stand a good chance of having a sensible measure of mite resistance. 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

EDIT


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> I consider it a success already!


So how is your success doing, Mikey? Is it still ongoing?


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> So how is your success doing, Mikey? Is it still ongoing?


I'm hoping to go into winter with about 80 colonies Bernhard, up from just under 50. I was held up by personal stuff this year, and didn't get nucs made and splits done in good time, but if... we get some fine weather the late splits I've just done might take me up up another 10 or 20. About half a ton of honey, despite the bees having to build most of their comb. Only a very few outright failures, but too high a proportion of deadwood. I've made a few splits from my best producers, and as the honey has come off split them up into 3 or 4 nucs, as a systematic way of making 'best from best'. 

Ongoing: yes. With luck I'll be able to get into more some serious breeding next year, and perhaps start selling a few nucs. 

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

Good on ya, Mike. I see progress and wish you a good portion of luck. Plus honey by the tons for the next season. You'll love it. :thumbsup:


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## mike bispham

Update: I've come through with about 69/80 colonies, which I'm very pleased with. Of the 'winnowed' about 4 were lost to mice (my fault), another 4 to starvation (some my fault, some through bee stupidity) and some just went small and died of cold . They might have been long-lasting queenless hives.

About 30 are nucs, so the most immediate job is to give them room to expand. They're all in mixed orchards and, weather permitting, will have plenty of bloom to build with. If the weather is cold I'll continue with standby candy, and if warmer but not sunny will stimulate growth further with light syrup. 

I'm planning to continue the 'natural' management based on allowing the local population to develop strength, largely through unlimited brood nests allowing those with go to raise large numbers of drones. 

I'm planning to make 40 or so nucs for replacement/building/sale, and will be taking care to use only proven queens (or their offspring - I don't track supercedure, only performance) for mothers. 

I'm also anticipating collecting 30 or 40 swarms again. I'll hope to go into winter with 120-140 colonies

As always there'll be one or two inspections for serious disease, otherwise just popped covers if I feel the need. There'll be no treatment and no mollycoddling, no swapping brood in, swapping hives ... I'll want to know that the winners won without any help from me.

For those who don't know my story: these are all the survivors of a now 6 year bond test regime, all collected swarms or their offspring, many from known long lasting feral sites and cluster sites. 

Hope you're on track with your plans,

All the best,

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Well that's a lot more hives than you have ever brought through winter before, so this might be a big year for you.
Did you get much of a harvest last fall? How did the honey melter go?


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## mike bispham

Yes, its a better rate. Harvest report #55 above. Melting idea abandoned.


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## squarepeg

great report mike, wishing you continuing success with your efforts. sounds like your going be pretty busy.


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## JohnBruceLeonard

Congratulations on strong overwintered numbers, Mr. Bispham. If I may, I had a few questions about your plans for the coming year... 

1.) When do you usually make your splits for new nucs? 

2.) As regards drones, do you cull the drones in unpromising hives, even as you permit strong hives to produce high drone populations, or do you leave well enough alone on both sides? 

3.) Do you get so many swarms from swarm traps? If so, what kind of traps do you use?

Thanks, and best wishes for the coming year,

John Bruce Leonard


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## mike bispham

Hi John,

I have until now generally made nucs too late! This is because I've been kept busy in the early part of the year making boxes and frames! This year I'm going to try to be more organized with nuc rearing - but that's an aspiration! If the honey is building, and my phone keeps ringing with swarms to collect and (paid) cutouts to do, I'll probably get behind again.

I haven't culled anything. I don't have time to fiddle about, and I've seen many weakly hives suddenly burst into life - probably due to supercedure - so I let them all take their chances. If I'm dominating the area with sound drones they'll mostly come good eventually. 

I leave empty boxes about to catch swarms, and last year got probably 5 or 6 fly-ins, mostly from my own hives I expect. They should be in place now really - they'll often get checked out for a while before anything happens. I have just one at a location where I know there's a feral cluster, but its probably too small - just a 6 frame nuc.

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty hands-off - I do my best to leave them alone and let nature take its course, and the bonus is; I don't have to do anything except put boxes on and take them off again. The unlimited brood nest strategy combined with strict die-if-you-want-to-I'm-not-helping-you-out approach results in an increasingly healthy population. In theory some people might say... Yes, but its a very very good theory... 

I hope you too have a great year!

Mike (UK)


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## JohnBruceLeonard

Many thanks for your response, Mr. Bispham; it was of great interest, and I much appreciate your time. An incidental curiosity - are the boxes and frames that you've built in past years of standard dimensions, or are they of custom sizes?

I'll be most curious to hear how things come out for you this year, and, as stated - all my best wishes!

John Bruce Leonard


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## mike bispham

I use English National pattern hives John.


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## JohnBruceLeonard

mike bispham said:


> I use English National pattern hives John.


And again - many thanks!


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## lharder

Nice to see the positive direction of your results Mike. From my point of view entirely predictable based on principles of selection. The road may be bumpy, but nature has been doing this for a long long time.


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## mike bispham

I've been leaving a few empty boxes around my (100ish strong) apiary to catch swarms, and yesterday saw one fly into a 6 frame nuc. I thought there were two interesting things about this. First, the nuc was on a stand with 3 other occupied hives, in a line of about 40 hives. So there was no impulse in this swarm to go anyplace remote from other bees. And this chimes with my own belief that bees are quite happy to live in high concentrations. Given the habit of robbing it probably doesn't make much difference.

Secondly, there were much larger cavities available in the shape of an almost empty National brood box and an old long-empty WBC complete with two lift. Perhaps the nuc was chosen because it contained (good) comb, and maybe the small defendable entrance also swung it a bit.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Surprised at that. I have tried leaving swarm traps in bee yards and have never caught a swarm in one yet. Even a swarm moving into a nuc is surprising, that they would choose something so small.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Surprised at that. I have tried leaving swarm traps in bee yards and have never caught a swarm in one yet. Even a swarm moving into a nuc is surprising, that they would choose something so small.


Yes I forgot to write - a couple of days later they'd moved out again! But I do, often, have swarms moving into empty boxes. 3 that I know of this year. All, oddly, into nucs, in one case an empty nuc, annoyingly. They filled it with comb but usefully didn't attach it to the sides, and I've half sorted it and split it again while I was at it.


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## Michael Bush

On four or five occasions I've had swarms move into a stack of six eight frame mediums or so. Often full of wax moth webbed comb. On one of those occasions it was a stack on top of a stand with no bottom and a top that was blocked. Their entrance was through the grass to the open bottom of the bottom box. This last one was through a gap from boxes that had shifted and left a gap at the front. I've also had them move into just a couple of eight frame boxes on several occasions.


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## Oldtimer

Sounds more typical.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Empty boxes standing around...indeed sounds typical.


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## Oldtimer

Deadouts are good swarm traps.


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## 1102009

> As always there'll be one or two inspections for serious disease, otherwise just popped covers if I feel the need. There'll be no treatment and no mollycoddling, no swapping brood in, swapping hives ... I'll want to know that the winners won without any help from me.


Mike,
how many hives do you need to start a management like that?


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Mike,
> how many hives do you need to start a management like that?


I don't think there's an answer to that SiWolKe. The more hives you have, the more resistant/tolerant they are, the more locally adapted ferals there are around, and the fewer propped up treated bees... the sooner you can get your genes moving the way you want them.

I've been bringing in 10-20 colonies each year from swarms and cut-outs, and I'd guess more than half have been established ferals. I'm at the stage where losses are around the 10-15% mark, but productivity doesn't seem great. That might be the bees, poor weather this year, pesticides on the fruit, and/or the fact that I've been taking bees to make increase and 'directing' them to make comb.

Next year I'm thinking of focusing on requeening the bottom third or so, and making nucs from the middle third. Try to raise productivity and health levels across the apiary. 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

Thanks for answering.



> I'm at the stage where losses are around the 10-15% mark, but productivity doesn't seem great. That might be the bees, poor weather this year, pesticides on the fruit, and/or the fact that I've been taking bees to make increase and 'directing' them to make comb.


Same here.

My limit to the number of colonies at each of my bee yards is 10-12, I believe, because of food supply. They are in an area where there is not much farming and I don´t want to feed. 
Maybe it`s not possible to do it like you do but I will see.

Loss around 10-15% is great! Congratulations!


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> I'm at the stage where losses are around the 10-15% mark,


So, that is in absolute numbers? Winter losses? Or summer losses? (Oh yes, there are no summer losses, I know...)


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> So, that is in absolute numbers? Winter losses? Or summer losses? (Oh yes, there are no summer losses, I know...)


Good point. Winter losses. Because swarms and cutouts and splits are building numbers steadily I don't think about summer losses. Yes, the odd hive falls empty from time to time through the rest of the year. But mostly talk of 'losses' is about winter failures isn't it?

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

Loss for me is a non-productive hive, since I calculate profit per hive. 

What about the absolute numbers of hives that made it so far? How many are populated by now?


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## lharder

Typical summer losses can be a bit nebulous. How many supercedures did I cause by accidentally injuring a queen? Failed supercedures or failed requeening after swarming don't really count do they? I'm sure there are some due to disease pressure but that can be hard to put in one category or another. I've had to get into the bees often to get brood and I take a chance of doing some damage every time I go into a hive. Being relatively new I'm sure my technique/management could be much better. 

There are some failures/absconds/pesticide/disease collapses related that could be "not my fault". But these are not common so far with my bees.


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## mike bispham

BernhardHeuvel said:


> What about the absolute numbers of hives that made it so far? How many are populated by now?


As it stands that is either unanswerable, or the answer wouldn't tell you anything! I'm not sure which!

But (from memory) my 'overwintered' numbers have gone something like 1:3 (2012-13), 12:20 (2013-14), 40:60 (2014-15), 65:80 (2015-16).

Factor in: I currently have aged hive as follows:

2012 1 No.
2013 3 No. 
2014 21 No.
2015 31 No.

That sums to 55, which would mean I lost 10 through spring and summer (since my 'overwinter' count about March). So my losses are higher than I had estimated.

I've no idea at all what has been going on inside these hives in terms of supercedure/swarming. I just know they've been constantly occupied.

Does that give you data to address your questions Bernard?

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

Thanks, Mike. Yes, now I can figure it.


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## mike bispham

We have what I suspect is an unusually heavy Ivy flow going. Which is really handy, as the cold spring and dry summer hadn't given me much honey at all. I understand Ivy honey crystalises fast; does anyone have experience of it?

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

That`s what a member of my forum wrote, he is from ireland:

>hi sibylle,
nun efeuhonig gibt es hier praktisch jeden herbst,einmal weniger und andere jahre auch viel.es gab gute jahre,wo ich nie zufuettern musste.somit stand den bienen vorallem efeuhonig zur verfuegung.
das mir voelker desswegen eingegangen sind,habe ich nie feststellen koennen.
in deinem falle solltest du keine bedenken haben.deine voelker haben ja reserven,auf die sie zurueckgreifen koennen und frueher oder spaeter wird dann auch der efeuhonig aufgebraucht.
LG.
hans<

Translation:
Ivy honey we have every fall, sometimes less, sometimes much, some years I fed not so the bees had this honey only.
I´ve never seen a hive dying because of this. ( he is an experienced beekeeper). 
Don`t fear, first they use the others stores but they take the ivy honey in the end, too.
( We have ivy honey, too, so I asked him).


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## squarepeg

an interesting presentation by daniel weaver entitled "selecting and propagating varroa resistant honey bees":

http://www.beeweaver.com/beeweaver-videos

play the one that says 'thanks to stan gore, honking goose media' just underneath it.


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## bucksbees

With another winter in the books, how did you fare Mike?


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## mike bispham

bucksbees said:


> With another winter in the books, how did you fare Mike?


Looks ok. I haven't totted them up lately, but I must have lost 10 to 15 through the winter - a cluster recently. That gives me 85-90, most of which are coming up steadily - though I'm impatient - I get paid for pollination by hive sizes!

I think these late losses are due to robbery - the small ones getting beaten up. Its mostly nucs. I'm not sure how to react. Part of me says: you had your chance - getting strong and staying strong is the job description. Part of me says protect them more but mark them for new queens. But I'm reluctant. Getting established is, I think the hardest part of becoming a colony from a swarm. According to some sources most swarms fail. They have to get their act together from the get go - pref early in the year. Do I really want to take out that part of the Great Test of Fitness? It might be that they were on their way out for reasons besides robbery. This is something I'm pondering a lot just now, and I'd be grateful for other's thoughts.

Mike UK


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## gww

Mike
I am brand new and know nothing. I did read miller and lanstroths old book and it seemed to be thier view to use the dinks to build the strong even stronger and then make adjustments with the stong at a later time.
Just thought I would throw that out. Maby the money for a bigger hive would add up to more then a quanity of smaller ones.
Good luck
gww


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## bucksbees

mike bispham said:


> Do I really want to take out that part of the Great Test of Fitness? Mike UK


If all other things being equal, I think keeping them in the Great Test of Fitness, would be the way to go. However depending on time of year of hiving the swarm, being later in the year, I would balance resources from a strong hive to it for the winter, and then, in the following spring put it in the program.

I performed a late season cut last year in September, the 5th if memory serves me right. I balanced one frame of larva and brood to anchor, along with 5 frames worth of honey and pollen. During January this year the colony was reduced to 3 frames, and I was not sure how they were going to make it. This past weekend, she has grown the hive to 12 frames, producing new wax, and honey is starting to be capped. She is the best layer in my yard. Mite count is 1 per 300, and is the basis for my TF program.

I am a slow leaner, once I figured out that TF is not the same as management free, I been able to take my cut outs down the TF path.


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## mike bispham

gww said:


> .. use the dinks to build the strong even stronger and then make adjustments with the stong at a later time.


I suspect they do this on their own!

Mike 
UK


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## mike bispham

I think if I can get the hang of making _lots_ of small nucs with mated queens, quite early, and give them what they need to build up through the year - just maybe three frames of comb and food during dearths - equivalent to a good nest find and a happy year for nectar - I've done quite enough and given myself enough to lose any that can't hack that easy challenge. 

I think the way the slow builders are consumed by the fast ones is an important part of the mechanism. But I have to admit there are so many natural variables I'm short circuiting - they all get to find a nest site with a single nice tiny entrance for example... I'm determined to try to not make it too easy for them. IMO its a critically important test. 

Mike

UK
UK


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## bucksbees

mike bispham said:


> I think if I can get the hang of making _lots_ of small nucs with mated queens, quite early, and give them what they need to build up through the year - just maybe three frames of comb and food during dearths - equivalent to a good nest find and a happy year for nectar - I've done quite enough and given myself enough to lose any that can't hack that easy challenge.
> 
> I think the way the slow builders are consumed by the fast ones is an important part of the mechanism. But I have to admit there are so many natural variables I'm short circuiting - they all get to find a nest site with a single nice tiny entrance for example... I'm determined to try to not make it too easy for them. IMO its a critically important test.
> 
> Mike
> 
> UK
> UK


:thumbsup:


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## 1102009

mike bispham said:


> I think these late losses are due to robbery - the small ones getting beaten up. Its mostly nucs. I'm not sure how to react. Part of me says: you had your chance - getting strong and staying strong is the job description. from the get Do I really want to take out that part of the Great Test of Fitness? It might be that they were on their way out for reasons besides robbery. This is something I'm pondering a lot just now, and I'd be grateful for other's thoughts.
> 
> Mike UK


Mmmh. In nature the swarms use a new territory and you will not find feral colonies in crowded bee yards. So to me every colony has it´s own status. A small cluster in winter and slow expansion with shifting temperatures could be an advantage to survivability. One, or even two years of productivity and mite tolerance must be observed.
So, with our unnatural circumstances I would rather protect them a little bit from robbery and starvation.
One question also is: how many hives in your location? They must be sustained by flow.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> In nature the swarms use a new territory and you will not find feral colonies in crowded bee yards.


I think bees often fly to the nearest available port. If good defensible sites are in short supply they'll choose the empty hive next door. After all a whole load of ready made comb is a huge asset. I'm not sure feral swarms will positively avoid apiaries. I've seen them happily bud off in adjacent rafter spaces - I've known three colonies within 6 feet.



SiWolKe said:


> So, with our unnatural circumstances I would rather protect them a little bit from robbery and starvation.


Well, what I'm trying to do here is 'manage' them on as natural a basis as I can. Nature can do this better than me. I want bees that can take steps to avoid robbery and starvation themselves. That's the key aim of my 'Natural Selection Management.' In nature about 1 in 4 make it through the first winter. That kind of rate really hones the genes, and I don't want to reduce that any more than I have to. 



SiWolKe said:


> One question also is: how many hives in your location?


About 85 within a mile radius. With (sigh) 40 treated colonies alongside 



SiWolKe said:


> They must be sustained by flow.


Not sure what you mean by that Si?

Mike 

UK


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## Oldtimer

No bees can defend against robbing if they are weak and the hive is indefensable. No properly housed hive will get robbed if it is healthy, and the beekeeper has not made some mistake like take too long to inspect them while they are being robbed.

In a breeding program the fewer traits you are selecting for, the more chance you have to achieve them. For me anyway, robbing resistance is not one of the things I'm selecting for, bees have already been getting selected for that for millenia how would I expect to improve that in my lifetime? 

Things bees have not been getting selected for over the centuries are areas where there might be room for improvement and I may be able to make a difference. These would include gentleness, storing big honey crops, low swarming propensity, that kind of thing. For TF folks it would include mite resistance, and since bees have only recently been exposed to varroa and have not been getting naturally selected against them for the last few thousand years, there should be room to make good improvements, or refinements, to the trait in a relatively short period of time.

Things like AFB, well, bees have been getting naturally selected against that for thousands of years so it would be less likely any one beekeeper could make big improvements against that in a short time.


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## Michael Palmer

Oldtimer said:


> For me anyway, robbing resistance is not one of the things I'm selecting for, bees have already been getting selected for that for millenia how would I expect to improve that in my lifetime?


Nothing I would want to do, but Bro Adam selected for a good sense of smell by selecting from colonies that were good robbers.


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## Oldtimer

Ha, never knew that!


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## 1102009

> Well, what I'm trying to do here is 'manage' them on as natural a basis as I can. Nature can do this better than me. I want bees that can take steps to avoid robbery and starvation themselves. That's the key aim of my 'Natural Selection Management.' In nature about 1 in 4 make it through the first winter. That kind of rate really hones the genes, and I don't want to reduce that any more than I have to.


Yes, but even with a robber screen you can see if they defend and if they do, use them to requeen or do not breed from them. The worker bees are not lost to u as a resource.



> About 85 within a mile radius. With (sigh) 40 treated colonies alongside


That´s tough. Good luck. Even tougher than my situation 



> Not sure what you mean by that Si?


Sorry.
When I was in bee class my teacher had 8 hives in a location where there was no flow except a spring flow.
So I asked him: why do you keep bees in an area where they will starve? And they did! Later my mentor had the same situation. Both fed sugar syrup the whole year through but what´s the sense in that?
Starving bees and sugar honey?

In my case I will watch the correlation between honey stores and brood. Having more than 10-12 hives likely is not possible in my location without migrating.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> No bees can defend against robbing if they are weak and the hive is indefensible. No properly housed hive will get robbed if it is healthy, and the beekeeper has not made some mistake like take too long to inspect them while they are being robbed.


With respect, I think you are missing the point here Oldtimer. Some are, all else being equal, less able to defend themselves, often because they've fallen behind in the race to be among the bigger and stronger. In nature these are killed and their stores and comb taken, and are thus prevented from contributing their weaker genes to future generations. If I help weak bees limp through - bees that didn't have what it takes to take advantage of autumn feeding and grow lots of winter bees, and get up and at it in good time - then, again, all else being equal, I'll be undermining the ability of the next generation to overwinter strongly. Of course I could always requeen them. But there isn't really much lost by doing nothing. The workers mostly go to the other 'winning' colonies, and help them build fast. Nature is doing her stuff and my main job is to not interfere with her processes. 



Oldtimer said:


> For me anyway, robbing resistance is not one of the things I'm selecting for, bees have already been getting selected for that for millenia how would I expect to improve that in my lifetime?


If and where beekeepers have not been selecting for 'robbing resistance' (to put it another way, mollycoddling) there will likely be room for rapid gains. 



Oldtimer said:


> Things bees have not been getting selected for over the centuries are areas where there might be room for improvement and I may be able to make a difference. These would include gentleness, storing big honey crops, low swarming propensity, that kind of thing.


Those things _have_ been selected for for thousands of years. But still there will likely be room for improvement. 



Oldtimer said:


> For TF folks it would include mite resistance, and since bees have only recently been exposed to varroa and have not been getting naturally selected against them for the last few thousand years, there should be room to make good improvements, or refinements, to the trait in a relatively short period of time.


I'm not sure that can be assumed, but it does seem to be the case. I think bees have a flexible range of tools that can manage a range of parasites, that just need bringing forward in the population.



Oldtimer said:


> Things like AFB, well, bees have been getting naturally selected against that for thousands of years so it would be less likely any one beekeeper could make big improvements against that in a short time.


As with all these things one could make sure to terminate any lines that are susceptible.

Mike 

UK


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> Yes, but even with a robber screen you can see if they defend and if they do, use them to requeen or do not breed from them. The worker bees are not lost to u as a resource.


Don't forget their drones will be flying... They might build strong, and have thousands of drones passing on their I-can't-be-bothered attitude to overwintering... 

For me 'management' is about standing back and letting the cream come to the top. I'm guided by Ruttner here:

""Breeding is by no means a human invention. Nature, which in millions of years
has bought forth this immense diversity of wonderfully adapted creatures, is the
greatest breeder. It is from her that the present day breeder learnt how it must
be done, excessive production and then ruthless selection, permitting only the
most suitable to survive and eliminating the inferior." 
Friedrich Ruttner,
Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee, pg 45

As long as I can expand my numbers by raising lots of nucs I can afford to follow that guidance with minimum effort - freeing my time to do other things that expand the apiary. Yes, I could protect them, mark them and requeen them, that that seems to me to be a lot more work than letting nature take its course and making lots of new ones in an industrial fashion. I figure its best use of time for someone like me. 

Mike 

UK


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> As with all these things one could make sure to terminate any lines that are susceptible.


No need. As per what I said, nature has already been doing that for thousands of years.


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> No need. As per what I said, nature has already been doing that for thousands of years.


Not thousands but 30 million or so years! And a long while before that in precursor species.

But beekeepers have been undoing that work to a profound degree, accelerating through the 20th Century, and especially in the last 20 years. I want to be sure I'm doing all I can to undo the consequent damage.

There is in my view very much a need to stop mollycoddling, in order to raise bees that can thrive without help from a beekeeper. If and where that's not the case (i.e. almost everywhere) the wild/feral bees that are, here, a fundamental, critical part of the natural ecosystem, suffer due to genetic 'poisoning'. 

Evolution, adaptation, occurs in every generation. Its my job to allow that to happen in my apiary. As well as many other reasons I want to raise bees that I can sell to natural conservation bodies on the basis that they need these bees - because any other will do more harm than good. 

Mike UK


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> With respect, I think you are missing the point here Oldtimer. Some are, all else being equal, less able to defend themselves, often because they've fallen behind in the race to be among the bigger and stronger.


With respect, not seeing things exactly as you do, is not missing the point. My point was that a healthy and properly housed hive will not get robbed unless the beekeeper has made some mistake. So when you say " often because they've fallen behind in the race to be among the bigger and stronger", you are just reiterating what I already said. The diseased bees that are rob prone are the ones that have fallen behind in the race to be bigger and stronger. No?
But you still miss the main point. Wild bees live in all sorts of situations, some more exposed and rob prone than others and that is more determinant of wether they will get robbed, than how "resistant" as you say, they are to robbing. In simple language, there are much more factors that cause a hive to get robbed than how "resistant" they are.

I also do not think you have any show of producing a rob resistant bee, or recognising such a hive when you see one. I'm sure you think you do, but you don't.

But in any case, I will congratulate you on the success you are having, I didn't think you would get to 100 hives, but it does seem you are pretty close, so well done on that score.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Not thousands but 30 million or so years! And a long while before that in precursor species.
> 
> But beekeepers have been undoing that work to a profound degree, accelerating through the 20th Century, and especially in the last 20 years.


Again you miss the point. The last 20 years is a mere blip in the many thousands of years that bees have been selecting for survival. The open mating of bees has ensured that their good points live on and have not been undone to a "profound degree".
One of the urban myths that has been flying around since the internet, is that modern beekeeping has somehow weakened the honeybee. It has not.


----------



## JWChesnut

The claim that "honeybees" are 30 million of years old is not supported by science.

Analysis of the genome shows that the modern Apis mellifera evolved from Asian species of the A. dorsata type 300,000-200,000 years ago. The "root" honeybee is nearest to the Madagascar bee. 

Yes, the lineage of eusocial, nectar gathering bees is ancient, but this guild has undergone expansion and contraction and speciation in its struggle for survival. The European honey bee is relatively recent.


----------



## squarepeg

i believe it is also worth considering that at points along the way during that 300,000-200,000 years it's likely that the bees have had to deal with parasites similar to varroa and developed compensatory traits to do so.

i.e. it's more likely the behaviors of hygienic brood removal, ankle biting, ect. are not due to recent mutations, but rather traits encoded in the genome that are now being selected for increased expression.

jmho.


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> My point was that a healthy and properly housed hive will not get robbed unless the beekeeper has made some mistake.


On the surface I accept that, but it is problematic for my mangement approach...

If I have some vulnerable nucs (vulnerable simply because they are small) among some big hives, then to even have a chance of progressing I must close their entrances down to a one-bee passage. Even better move them elsewhere, away from big colonies, and perhaps better hidden. Feed carefully and so on 

Otherwise I've made a 'mistake' and these 'healthy' bees are at risk. That's what you are saying isn't it?

My probem is, that whole approach leads to weakening of the ability of bees to be independently strong. That colony in my view, may have been healthy, but it wasn't _fit_ in adaptive terms. Its peers grew bigger, stronger, faster, and were more defensive, and better robbers. 

So I'm not just looking for heath I'm looking for 'fitness' in those terms. 

The colony might not be a runt - it might just be an individual geared to a later development strategy. But that's not the strategy that's going to work well here. To be 'fitted' to my environment it has to overwinter strong and build up fast, and guard the door aggressively.

So 'healthy' and 'properly housed' are both items that come under scrutiny as useful desirables. I'd rather breed bees in which the properties they need to make it alone are present. If I do anything less I'm neglecting to take good care of my feral population. Can you see that?



Oldtimer said:


> So when you say " often because they've fallen behind in the race to be among the bigger and stronger", you are just reiterating what I already said. The diseased bees that are rob prone are the ones that have fallen behind in the race to be bigger and stronger. No?


It may be that they are diseased, or just more vulnerable to varroa, or, as I've said, just have a late development strategy. I don't care which it is - if they can't make it alone under the conditions others make it, then they don't qualify to contribute to the next generation. Its my job not to interfere with that. 



Oldtimer said:


> But you still miss the main point. Wild bees live in all sorts of situations, some more exposed and rob prone than others and that is more determinant of wether they will get robbed, than how "resistant" as you say, they are to robbing. In simple language, there are much more factors that cause a hive to get robbed than how "resistant" they are.


Sure. But you factor these things in by _assuming_ an all-else-is-equal (ceteris paribus) posture. That is, you adopt a position that says; these things average out. On the whole, those bees that are skilled in locating the best nest sites, in judging their swarming frequency, in taking advantage of available forage... of finding and robbing weaker colonies, of knowing not to rob diseased colonies... and probably much more... those are the winners. 

What I see when a nuc gets robbed out while its peers didn't is the weaker going to the wall - on average. And that's something I'm happy to see. 



Oldtimer said:


> I also do not think you have any show of producing a rob resistant bee, or recognising such a hive when you see one. I'm sure you think you do, but you don't.


I think those of any generation that don't get robbed out are more 'rob resistant' that those that did! That's all I'm after. 



Oldtimer said:


> But in any case, I will congratulate you on the success you are having, I didn't think you would get to 100 hives, but it does seem you are pretty close, so well done on that score.


Thanks! 200 is the new target! It'll probably take a couple of years to get there. 

Mike 

UK


----------



## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> The claim that "honeybees" are 30 million of years old is not supported by science.
> 
> Analysis of the genome shows that the modern Apis mellifera evolved from Asian species of the A. dorsata type 300,000-200,000 years ago. The "root" honeybee is nearest to the Madagascar bee.
> 
> Yes, the lineage of eusocial, nectar gathering bees is ancient, but this guild has undergone expansion and contraction and speciation in its struggle for survival. The European honey bee is relatively recent.


See Honeybee Ecology: A Study of Adaptation in Social Life by Thomas D. Seeley, page 9. The evidence suggests an age of 30 million years in close to present form, with local adaptations, yes relatively recently, leading to the modern races. I think my statement stands; but I'm grateful for the detail. 

Mike 

UK


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> i believe it is also worth considering that at points along the way during that 300,000-200,000 years it's likely that the bees have had to deal with parasites similar to varroa and developed compensatory traits to do so.
> 
> i.e. it's more likely the behaviors of hygienic brood removal, ankle biting, ect. are not due to recent mutations, but rather traits encoded in the genome that are now being selected for increased expression.
> 
> jmho.


I agree (its my understanding that very unlikely that _any_ are due to recent mutations, but I can't offer any support for that view); but...

... I think that period of entraining against parasites includes the whole 30 million years, perhaps much longer. Of course any particular strategy might have originated at any time, and some previous strategies may have died out. 

Mike 

UK


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## squarepeg

sure. it's just my counter to the view expressed that mite resistance cannot evolve 'in our lifetime'. over and again we see examples of traits being amplified in just a handful of generations, and there's no reason to believe it can't be so with mite resistance. indeed we already have many examples of it. it's not so much that it can't be done, but more the finding of a practical way to move the industry in that direction.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> sure. it's just my counter to the view expressed that mite resistance cannot evolve 'in our lifetime'. over and again we see examples of traits being amplified in just a handful of generations, and there's no reason to believe it can't be so with mite resistance. indeed we already have many examples of it. it's not so much that it can't be done, but more the finding of a practical way to move the industry in that direction.


I suspect the incentives will remain in the wrong direction. We can't shift the economics, and there won't be any regulation, and that's that. Its unfixable. But there should be room to create a niche. 

Mike 

UK


----------



## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> ...But there should be room to create a niche.


yep. there is already room in many places but not all.

the regulations in germany for example are geared toward preventing that niche.

in the u.s. economics get in the way of making room, but there is some forward thinking taking place thanks to efforts of folks like randy oliver and others.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> See Honeybee Ecology: A Study of Adaptation in Social Life by Thomas D. Seeley, page 9. The evidence suggests an age of 30 million years in close to present form, with local adaptations, yes relatively recently, leading to the modern races. I think my statement stands; but I'm grateful for the detail.


Seeley is talking about the *social organization* of Apis colonies.
https://books.google.com/books?id=V...ial Life by Thomas D. Seeley, page 9.&f=false
[sub](page 10. in this copy of the book, the link should go to that page)[/sub]

Here is the snippet ...


> This pattern suggests, assuming that honeybee social behavior and worker morphology have evolved in tandem, that _the *social organization* found today in the genus Apis has a history of some 30 million years._
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=V...ial Life by Thomas D. Seeley, page 9.&f=false


----------



## 1102009

Yes, no niche is possible here.
If you could have 200 hives in one big area to spread your drones this could be a niche, Alois Wallner breeds his mite biting bees like that.
But mostly the beekeepers are crowded and have no interest in tf. If they have 200 hives their interest is honey production.



> So 'healthy' and 'properly housed' are both items that come under scrutiny as useful desirables. I'd rather breed bees in which the properties they need to make it alone are present. If I do anything less I'm neglecting to take good care of my feral population. Can you see that?


This is a good point if there is a feral population and not an escaped domestic population every year. In our global world conditions change so fast , how can it be possible to establish a state? Beekeepers import new queens, migrate to other locations, plants are genetically changed or sterile, pests are imported and spread....

But nice if you are successful, Mike, I very much like the approach and reflections.


----------



## lharder

squarepeg said:


> sure. it's just my counter to the view expressed that mite resistance cannot evolve 'in our lifetime'. over and again we see examples of traits being amplified in just a handful of generations, and there's no reason to believe it can't be so with mite resistance. indeed we already have many examples of it. it's not so much that it can't be done, but more the finding of a practical way to move the industry in that direction.


Yes, I think there are plenty of examples with the speed of insect populations acquiring insecticide resistance. The basic chemical pathways are in place in the general population (probably as a result of a long history of dealing with plant toxins) and they are selected for and amplified. There are other mechanisms that we don't understand well that allows for quick and amplified adaptation.


----------



## lharder

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Seeley is talking about the *social organization* of Apis colonies.
> https://books.google.com/books?id=V...ial Life by Thomas D. Seeley, page 9.&f=false
> [sub](page 10. in this copy of the book, the link should go to that page)[/sub]
> 
> Here is the snippet ...



Yet generally, we carry information from distant evolutionary history. So a honeybee doesn't just have 200,000 years of traits to draw from. I imagine eusocial insects living in close proximity to each other, must have a set of mechanisms in place to make it possible to deal with pests and pathogens compared to more solitary critters.


----------



## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Seeley is talking about the *social organization* of Apis colonies.
> [...] Here is the snippet ...


Note: "..._and worker morphology _"

Here's a little more of the quote giving fuller context:

"Assuming that the genus _Apis_ arose from an _Electrapis_ species, and given that given that all fossil and living _Apis_ closely resemble each other, it appears that the evolutionary history of honeybees comprises an intial period of rapid morphological change which lasted some 10 million years from the late Eocene to the late Oligocene, followed by an approximately 30 million year period of relative stasis in morphological evolution, from the Miocene to the present. This pattern suggests... " (Graham's quote, http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...al-Selection-Management&p=1532358#post1532358)


I take this to read neither the physical form of the honeybee nor its social structure and organisation have changed much for ... 30 million years.

The page number - you nailed it.

Mike 

UK


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## mike bispham

lharder said:


> Yet generally, we carry information from distant evolutionary history. So a honeybee doesn't just have 200,000 years of traits to draw from. I imagine eusocial insects living in close proximity to each other, must have a set of mechanisms in place to make it possible to deal with pests and pathogens compared to more solitary critters.


Note that both John Chesnut and Graham seem to be mistaken, and that 30 million years is the correct period to consider. As you say, skills acquired in precursor species shouldn't be discounted either. 

Mike


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> This is a good point if there is a feral population and not an escaped domestic population every year.


Well I lose a few swarms every year, and my bees thrive unaided, so if they're finding a home and getting established... there's a feral population...



SiWolKe said:


> But nice if you are successful, Mike, I very much like the approach and reflections.


Thanks!

Mike 

UK


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## gww

I am lost trying to keep up with this thread, my problim not yours.

All I know is that no matter how long something lived, it sure didn't seem to take long for the mite to switch host or it took a long long time but not long for it to allow all mites to use it once it did happen. Seems like when something happens, it can happen fast.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Looks ok. I haven't totted them up lately, but I must have lost 10 to 15 through the winter - a cluster recently. That gives me 85-90, most of which are coming up steadily...


:thumbsup:


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> Note that both John Chesnut and Graham seem to be mistaken ...


How am I mistaken? :s :scratch: 
All I did was provide an *exact* quote of the same passage/reference that YOU claimed supported your theory. :lpf:



Let us also note that Seeley himself used the word "_assuming_" in that passage. 



> "*Assuming* that the genus Apis arose from an Electrapis species, and given that given that all fossil and living Apis closely resemble each other, it *appears* that the evolutionary history of honeybees comprises an intial period of rapid morphological ...


----------



## squarepeg

"civility is strength"

sibylle, germany bw


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## Oldtimer

gww said:


> I am lost trying to keep up with this thread, my problim not yours.


Very easy to get lost among the circuitous arguments, hair splitting and point scoring that have been going on.



squarepeg said:


> sure. it's just my counter to the view expressed that mite resistance cannot evolve 'in our lifetime'.


Who said that? Please refer to my post #95 where I said mite resistance is a trait that in my view, could be improved in a short period of time, and I gave the reasons I believe that.


----------



## squarepeg

yep. i'm for more meat and potatoes and less garnish.


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## Oldtimer

Good one.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> On the surface I accept that, but it is problematic for my mangement approach...


no doubt.



mike bispham said:


> Otherwise I've made a 'mistake' and these 'healthy' bees are at risk. That's what you are saying isn't it?


Yes.

To get away from endless theorising and use a real life example, see what happened the last time Solomon Parker made 30 nucs. He has a similar gung ho approach to your own, bees have to deal with everything, he takes pride in not "babying" them (his word). So in typical fashion he did not properly house or prepare the nucs, then later explained his losses by saying that they got robbed to death, like it was just bad luck. Every single last one of them according to him.

Explain how that advances anything, or shows any modicom of sensible bee man ship?


----------



## mike bispham

I'm not really interested in speaking about Solomon's experience. If it happened the way you say then it sounds like a 'learning experience'. Some of us get lots of those, often because we are inveterate experimenters.

I've outlined my own experience, and methods, and the reasoning behind them. You don't appear to be grasping the keys, and that's fine. Others have expressed understanding and appreciation.

Some people value, and can benefit from applied 'theory'. But if its not your cup of tea you are unlikely to find much of interest here. My management is entirely based on the 'theory' of natural selection for the fittest strains, and that is what this thread addresses. The thread is called: 'Natural Selection Management'

Mike

UK


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## mike bispham

Rader Sidetrack said:


> How am I mistaken?


In believing that Seeley's statement concerned social organization only. That how you are wrong

It didn't; it concerned morphology too. What he is saying is that the essential form of honeybees hasn't changed for 30 million years, and it seems likely for that, and other reasons, that their social organization hasn't changed either. In other words both form and organisation are 30 million years old. So when you said 'he was talking about social organisation', and used that to infer he was not talking about form, as I had stated, you were wrong.

Think about it and study the text Graham for heaven's sake.

Mike 

UK


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## Oldtimer

Mike you are missing my meaning AGAIN! Is this deliberate? I am not some moron unable to understand the concept of theory. It's just that I go further than that and say theory is OK long as it is consistant with reality.

You came out with a bunch of your theories about how you are going to produce rob resistant bees. You appear to have a problem with my idea of properly housing the bees so they can defend against robbing, and rejected my claim that honeybees have already been getting selected for thousands of years to be resistant to robbing. So to inject a real life example of what you seem to intend to do, I related what happened to Sol. Reality. Didn't fit your theory so you say you do not want to discuss it. 

Also, you expressed the view that if a hive gets robbed, another nearby does not, the one that did not must be more rob resistant. This view is way too oversimplistic and if that is what you think, your plan to breed a rob resistant bee is doomed to failure. Even if you had a much better understanding I still do not believe you will do it. I would even be prepared to put a large sum of money on that, but of course with you on the other side of the world your claims could not be verified.


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## bucksbees

@gww, I agree, but when two people, that are titian's in their respective way of beekeeping, have an honest and open discussion, people like myself, can but sit and learn and reread each post and learn more. 

There is more then one way to skin a cat, and so I am the better for learning from these two.


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## Riverderwent

> Do I really want to take out that part of the Great Test of Fitness?


If a situation is unnatural, one off, or unlikely to occur in the ordinary course of keeping hives, I would be inclined to buffer the natural consequences a little. If, however, the situation is something that occurs regularly and that I want and expect the bees to handle themselves going forward then I'd drop 'em in the deep end and see if they swim. 

(There is a bit of a caveat to that dealing with the scale of the operation and the number and novelty of the challenges that the bees are having to adapt to at one time. I don't want to eliminate a genotype that may be particularly fit for certain challenges because the bees don't happen to also yet have other genetic tools to address a novel, but potentially recurring problem. I'm not sure how clear that is, but you may follow my point.)


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## 1102009

A hive, which is strong and now splitted can loose it´s defense in a sec.

that´s why most beekeepers have one location for the nucs and one for established hives.

Seems to me a good arrangement and Mike´s natural selection can be done separately in those locations among those hives.


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## Oldtimer

Exactly right. Robbing is almost always caused by something the beekeeper did, or failed to do. Anyhow once Mike has bred his rob resistant bees I'll be very interested to hear about it LOL.


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> You came out with a bunch of your theories about how you are going to produce rob resistant bees.


I said absolutely nothing of the kind. Please read my posts again.

Mike 

UK


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## mike bispham

Riverderwent said:


> If a situation is unnatural, one off, or unlikely to occur in the ordinary course of keeping hives, I would be inclined to buffer the natural consequences a little. If, however, the situation is something that occurs regularly and that I want and expect the bees to handle themselves going forward then I'd drop 'em in the deep end and see if they swim.


My regime is pretty much live and let die on an ongoing basis, with special arrangements to try to allow natural selection to flourish. In the wild most offspring will die in their first winter. I'm not really happy with that! But its a hard test of fitness and I'm not inclined to eliminate it altogether.



Riverderwent said:


> (There is a bit of a caveat to that dealing with the scale of the operation and the number and novelty of the challenges that the bees are having to adapt to at one time. I don't want to eliminate a genotype that may be particularly fit for certain challenges because the bees don't happen to also yet have other genetic tools to address a novel, but potentially recurring problem. I'm not sure how clear that is, but you may follow my point.)


Yes and no! I think you are saying protect some individuals because they may be carrying some special quality that will be useful in the future. Personally I think that's a mistake, although I can understand the temptation. Those that can win today's fight are the best fitted to the future on average. Let the averages play out.

Mike 

UK


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> A hive, which is strong and now splitted can loose it´s defense in a sec.
> 
> that´s why most beekeepers have one location for the nucs and one for established hives.
> 
> Seems to me a good arrangement and Mike´s natural selection can be done separately in those locations among those hives.


Yes, I suspect that's the way I'm going to go. 

Mike


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Exactly right. Robbing is almost always caused by something the beekeeper did, or failed to do. Anyhow once Mike has bred his rob resistant bees I'll be very interested to hear about it LOL.


Sigh


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I said absolutely nothing of the kind. Please read my posts again.


You said nothing of the kind? Here, you said it is the "key aim" of what you call your "natural selection management".



mike bispham said:


> I want bees that can take steps to avoid robbery and starvation themselves. That's the key aim of my 'Natural Selection Management.'


So seems you did say something of the kind. Then after that, you spent a couple pages arguing with everything I said and promoting more theories about producing non rob prone bees, by your "natural selection management". 

Hardly saying "nothing of the kind", was it now.

My point was that natural selection has already been in play for thousands of years anyway, and frankly, I don't see why you had such a problem with that. I think it's a pretty valid view. Stunned I had to spend 2 pages arguing over such a simple concept being constantly misrepresented. Remarkable also that you can take a post I write and methodically, sentence by sentence, argue with every, single, last, thing I said. Surely I cannot be wrong 100% of the time?


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> You said nothing of the kind? Here, you said it is the "key aim" of what you call your "natural selection management".


Yes, ok. You're right; but we're still talking at cross purposes. 

I want to produce strong bees that have all the attributes needed to thrive alone. 

Now: I'm not sure that amounts to wanting to breed 'rob resistant bees' as you put it. 

Lets try to put this in a form we can agree on. 

The weaker colonies at any time will tend to be robbed and killed. We have choices:

a1) protect them and save them to be used or sold

a2) protect them and save them and requeen them later (because we don't want to breed from colonies that seem naturally unsuited - and that is what has been revealed) 

b) let them die.

Would you like to add other options, or comment on those?



Oldtimer said:


> My point was that natural selection has already been in play for thousands of years anyway, and frankly, I don't see why you had such a problem with that. I think it's a pretty valid view.


My problem with it is this: just because natural selection has been in play for thousands (actually millions as we've learned) of years doesn't mean its a good idea to take it out now! Far from it: breeding is in essence artificial natural selection! 

So, when what you seemed to be saying is abandon any scruples about saving them all because that would be bad beekeeping, my response was: hey, this thread is about trying to stay close to the principles of natural selection; to incorporate all the useful natural mechanisms that maintain health in populations. To work with the grain of nature. 

So my choice would be a2) or b). Either would work, but a1) would not. And given my personal time and effort prioritisation arrangements at this time, b) would probably be the best option.

My initial thought was to simply produce more nucs so I could afford to let the weakest be taken.

Another step might be to reduce the pressure by keeping the nucs in a less aggressive environment, as SiWolKe usefully suggests. 

In my view this isn't the sort of thing where there's a right/wrong binary option. Its more complex, and only working through the problem will produce the understanding I need to see what sort of way to go. I'm grateful to those here who are helping me do that.

Mike 

UK


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## 1102009

We all have our definitions of "wild". 

In my area the carniolans are "wilder" than any other race, being bred "naturally" by most beekeepers for a long time, you might say, they are "native" now. The real native honeybees are extinct mostly.

Desperately trying to reduce treatments beekeepers now import different races ( me included) and disturb the balance and progress of adaption thoroughly.

A co-worker in ireland, who still has native black bees now imported buck fast bees to have more gentleness and honey production. He destroys the feral population.

So I think, in europe we are going backwards.


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Yes, ok. You're right;


I know.



mike bispham said:


> Lets try to put this in a form we can agree on.


Yes the rest of what you say is very reasonable, except for where you argue the toss over thousands or millions of years. By "thousands of years" I just meant a very long time and express that in common language that is not offensive to anyone. Since the exact time frame does not change the point being made, argument over that is needless and hair splitting, in this instance. Additionally, the current understanding is that modern European honeybees have been in existance for considerably less than 30 million years, and in fact not even one million years, just thousands of years. None of that is critically important we just have to know there has been a long period of natural selection.

You and Squarepeg did make a good point that at some time in the past the ancestors of our bees might have had to deal with some kind of mite, might have defeated them, and might have some genetic remnants that could be brought into play. However the theory is not new, if you search hard enough you will find I already proposed the idea on Beesource some years ago.


----------



## Riverderwent

mike bispham said:


> Yes and no! I think you are saying protect some individuals because they may be carrying some special quality that will be useful in the future. Personally I think that's a mistake, although I can understand the temptation. Those that can win today's fight are the best fitted to the future on average. Let the averages play out.


We might or might not disagree about this if I took the time and was able to communicate adequately. For me it's the law of large numbers and not the law of averages. That's why I said, "There is a bit of a caveat to that dealing with the _scale of the operation_ ... ." For example, if I had a single hive with significant, known resistance to varroa, but another undesirable trait affecting survivability, depending on the circumstances, I might try to increase the number of hives with the positive trait before letting nature or myself tinker with the other. But this is about a theory on a theory and is interesting (to me) to discuss, but likely a distinction without a difference.

Where we do disagree perhaps are two areas. First, I would be hard pressed to try to make other beekeepers, large scale commercial, small scale treatment free, or otherwise, keep bees a certain way. I still think y'all made a mistake taxing our tea. 

The other area we may disagree is that, like Oldtimer, I think that bees quite generally have the instincts needed to prevent robbing in the absence of poor beemanship. I haven't seen a robbing event of a live hive since three years ago when I stopped feeding and reduced production hive entrances to ⅜" by 13". (I do occasionally put a frame of honey or bee bread in a hive such as a new cutout or a "dry" or lethargic swarm that has no stores.)


----------



## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Yes the rest of what you say is very reasonable...


Thank you. The discussion with yourself and others here has helped my clarify my understanding of the constraints in play and my options.



Oldtimer said:


> .. except for where you argue the toss over thousands or millions of years. By "thousands of years" I just meant a very long time and express that in common language that is not offensive to anyone.


With respect to your beliefs: I'm sorry if anyone finds the scientific worldview offensive, but I'm not going to tiptoe around religious notions. That's the European way and I'm a European. We fought wars for the best part of a thousand years for things like freedom of speech against religious constrictions. 



Oldtimer said:


> Since the exact time frame does not change the point being made, argument over that is needless and hair splitting, in this instance


I believe to the contrary, a proper time framework is absolutely necessary to conceive the magic of evolution and the awesome fabrics that result. Without those things one is fundamentally hobbled in the ability to comprehend the nature of the materials at hand, or apply the facts to the art of husbandry. Darwin learned from (pigeon) breeders. His extraordinary theorising supplies us with the tools to understand how to breed, and, especially, how not to fight nature. 



Oldtimer said:


> Additionally, the current understanding is that modern European honeybees have been in existance for considerably less than 30 million years, and in fact not even one million years, just thousands of years.


I'd like to see your sources for that statement. 



Oldtimer said:


> None of that is critically important we just have to know there has been a long period of natural selection.


Facts matter to me. Trying to alter realities leads to miscomprehension of the nature of the world, the loss of important theoretical constructs to work with it, and loss of faith in the best tool we have for determining truth in the world. I'm honour-bound to defend that tool. 

I'm impressed Old Timer that you have the guts to state your convictions against what you must know is a huge consensus against you; and I'm grateful to you for doing so. 

Mike

UK


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## mike bispham

Riverderwent said:


> Where we do disagree perhaps are two areas. First, I would be hard pressed to try to make other beekeepers, large scale commercial, small scale treatment free, or otherwise, keep bees a certain way. I still think y'all made a mistake taxing our tea.


Yeah, well, we all make mistakes sometimes 

I don't think I try to press for large scale adoption of treatment free nowadays. I'm resigned to the fact that actions will follow the economics, and they favour such delights as treatment-addicted bees and systematic feeding of antibiotics to mammal stock. I just want to make my own strain of tf bees, sell them to anyone who wants them, and be able to explain well why I think they are a good thing. 



Riverderwent said:


> The other area we may disagree is that, like Oldtimer, I think that bees quite generally have the instincts needed to prevent robbing in the absence of poor beemanship. I haven't seen a robbing event of a live hive since three years ago when I stopped feeding and reduced production hive entrances to ⅜" by 13". (I do occasionally put a frame of honey or bee bread in a hive such as a new cutout or a "dry" or lethargic swarm that has no stores.)


That seems somehow tautologous. What you are saying is:

'Identify the circumstances under which robbing is entirely forstalled, and call that 'good beemanship.' '

Then you can say: "anyone who keeps bees properly will not suffer robbing."

Well, yes, sure.

My argument is: that's highly unnatural, and will tend to input undesirable genes into the next generation. 

I'm interested though that your recipe hinges on reduced feeding. What do you do if a nuc is light going into winter or starving in January?

It may be that many, or most of my supposed 'robbed outs' are actually queen failures first, and I'm fussing about nothing. I'd rather assumed the smallest were catching it just because they were easy prey. 

Mike

UK


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## squarepeg

ah, just like old times. ot and mike are like peas and carrots again. 

thanks for keeping it civil gents, and for sharing your spirited debate with us. again, this is beesource at its best!


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## Michael Bush

> it's just my counter to the view expressed that mite resistance cannot evolve 'in our lifetime'.

I think the mistake is thinking of Varroa mite resistance as "evolving". Here is my counter: When the Black Plague hit Europe in one generation humans were selected for resistance to Black Plague. It did not take millions of years and it was not evolution. It was simple selection and it happened very quickly, much less time than one generation. Subsequent outbreaks were never anywhere near the original outbreak in percent of people who died. The first outbreak was probably about 50% who died. The next was only about 10%. Now it's not even an issue. Humans did not "evolve" resistance to the plague. Half of them already had it. The other half died.


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## mike bispham

Michael Bush said:


> I think the mistake is thinking of Varroa mite resistance as "evolving".


I was thinking this today:

The term 'evolution' operates to designate that process by which species come to exist through natural selection for the fittest.

It also designates a process by which a population acquires resistance to pathogens through natural selection for the fittest strain.

(It also designates a process of improvement through trial and error - for example the car, software etc evolves) 

There are probably more ways you can use the word. But in respect of living things, most people think of the first sense, and many think of that as a slow process. 

But the second sense is just as valid a use. 

Both senses apply more or less implicitly to natural processes - processes bought about by natural 'selection'. 

Any process that leads to changes due to 'selection' of something over something else, is 'evolution'.

In this view bee _populations_ do indeed evolve resistance to varroa. That doesn't involve mutations, or the creation of new species; just the de-selection from the reproductive pool of non-fit individuals - or more accurately, of their genes. It's not big species-creating 'evolution' just everyday health-sustaining strongest-goes-forward 'evolution'. 

And its a very commonplace feature of life: a shift in the environment - most often a new pathogen - takes out a large proportion of the population; and the population rebuilds, often with amazing rapidity from the more-immune survivors. The populations adapts to the pathogen. Its still an evolved response, because it was an evolutionary process that bought it about.

I think we often get confused by the range of the term. Does that challenge your thinking Michael?



Michael Bush said:


> Humans did not "evolve" resistance to the plague. Half of them already had it. The other half died.


A second response to pathogens is immune system entraining... 

Wouldn't the explanation that the surviving plague population developed antibodies work just as well Michael?

Mike 

UK


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> With respect to your beliefs: I'm sorry if anyone finds the scientific worldview offensive, but I'm not going to tiptoe around religious notions.


So you are sorry, but you are not sorry?

You assume to much about my religious beliefs. I said you were hair splitting about how long bees have been here, and I said that because you were. It was irrelevant to the particular point I had made, you could not argue with my point, so instead argued about the time frame. Your old habit of when loosing, throw in a red herring. Then you leap to conclusions about my religious beliefs and write a 1/2 page post on that. Again, irrelevant. While I certainly have religious beliefs, you will be dissapointed to discover that a fixed idea about how many years old the earth is or how long bees have been here, is not one of them. 

About freedom of speech. Like most people brought up in our western culture I support it. And like most people brought up in our western culture I do not feel the need to go out of my way to offend others unnecessarily, and most especially their religious beliefs. Several years of reading you has shown that you do not feel bound by similar constraints and are in fact at the far end of the bell curve in that regard. I do not see that as something to be proud of, but rather a weakness. 



Michael Bush said:


> I think the mistake is thinking of Varroa mite resistance as "evolving".


Same. 

If, and it's just an if, at some time past honeybees were exposed to some kind of parasitic mite and eventually defeated them, we could assume evolution took place, possibly over a long time frame. But Mike Bispham keeps talking about his belief, that the genetics for mite resistance are already in bees, and we just have to bring them to the fore by a quick selective breeding program that can be completed in a very short time. So short in fact that coming from (i think) just 3 beehives 4 years ago, Mike believes he has already achieved resistant bees. If so it is not evolution, it is breeding.
Over periods of time, genetic mutations occur at set intervals. Other genetic "accidents" happen also. Almost all of these mutations are bad for the organism. But occasionally one happens that bestows some benefit. The theory is that the individual with the bad mutation is more likely to die, and the individual with the beneficial mutation is more likely to do well and reproduce. The time period needed for this to occur so many times that the species changes to something else is nessecarily very long, and is called evolution. Reorganising some already existing genetics via a human run breeding program is called just that, breeding. So, a person may select several different colored cats and run a breeding program to eventually produce a cat of the color she wants, using genetics that were already present. That is called breeding not evolution.


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## Riverderwent

> Yeah, well, we all make mistakes sometimes


Cheers, mate, bygones and all that.



> That seems somehow tautologous.


Shucks, thank you.



> My argument is: that's highly unnatural, and will tend to input undesirable genes into the next generation.


What's unnatural, a five square inch opening or not feeding sugar water in a bucket to bees.



> I'm interested though that your recipe hinges on reduced feeding. What do you do if a nuc is light going into winter or starving in January?


My bees tend to be frugal. At the fall harvest, I leave quite a bit of honey and even out stores some among the hives. I haven't fed over winter or early spring, but I would move some capped honey from another hive or from my freezer if I had a starving hive and was aware of it. I lift the back of the hives occasionally over winter to check them. I don't intend to starve a hive due to my mistake or unusual weather conditions. 



> It may be that many, or most of my supposed 'robbed outs' are actually queen failures first, and I'm fussing about nothing. I'd rather assumed the smallest were catching it just because they were easy prey.


If you're not feeding, I'd be surprised if they were robbed out before failing. But I'm judging based on the way my feral mutts behave. I'm told that some purebred Italian bees can be quite larcenous.


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## squarepeg

several of us here on the forum working with feral derivatives are noticing a decreased propensity for them to engage in robbing. 

i often have small colonies side by side in my yards with very large colonies. even under the extreme dearth conditions we experienced during the exceptional drought last year robbing did not occur except in hives that had gone queenless and only after the colonies dwindled down to a mere handful of bees.

in terms of selection for mite resistance it appears that it is adaptive to have a low propensity for robbing. the benefit is the avoidance of bringing back home a 'bomb' of mites while in the process of robbing out a collapsing hive.

taking this cue from the feral derivatives one might consider the deselection of colonies that engage in robbing. when it's clear to me that one of mine is robbing they are marked off of my list of potential breeders.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> You assume to much about my religious beliefs.


Sorry, yes I did assume to much. 



Oldtimer said:


> Mike Bispham keeps talking about his belief, that the genetics for mite resistance are already in bees, and we just have to bring them to the fore by a quick selective breeding program that can be completed in a very short time.


That fits all the known facts. 



Oldtimer said:


> So short in fact that coming from (i think) just 3 beehives 4 years ago, Mike believes he has already achieved resistant bees.


I've bought in, at a guess, 100 swarms and cut outs over the last 7 years. Many have been from known long-standing colonies - in trees, chimneys, roofs. many have been from small areas where I repeatedly collect swarms and/or make cut outs. I've had 4 or 5 swarms in a single year from a longstanding cluster of 3 nests not 6 feet apart.

This rather different from the picture you paint. 



Oldtimer said:


> If so...


Not so....



Oldtimer said:


> ... it is not evolution, it is breeding.


Its some and some. I've collected some resistant ferals, let them be, recorded them, made increase from the long lived high producers, kept unlimited nests so the big ones send out lots of drones... pretty much standard stuff. So far it seems to be working.



Oldtimer said:


> Over periods of time, genetic mutations occur at set intervals. Other genetic "accidents" happen also. Almost all of these mutations are bad for the organism. But occasionally one happens that bestows some benefit. The theory is that the individual with the bad mutation is more likely to die, and the individual with the beneficial mutation is more likely to do well and reproduce. The time period needed for this to occur so many times that the species changes to something else is nessecarily very long, and is called evolution.


See my response to Michael an hour ago... 'evolution' is a processes. It happens on both long and short timescales, using both mutations and allelles (already existing alternative genetic clusters). It constantly fine tunes populations to their environments, and can result in new species budding off existing ones. 'Evolution' is bigger, more exciting, and more beautiful than you think. 



Oldtimer said:


> Reorganising some already existing genetics via a human run breeding program is called just that, breeding.


Yes. And it mirrors what happens in the wild, _on a similar timescale_. There the alleles are 'naturally selected' making this too a form of evolution. (Its not breeding is it? But it is change and adaptation as a result of natural selection. What else then is it?)

Its not the evolution of a new species, or even a new race, but it is the evolution of a new strain. 

Breeding is human selection. Evolution is "natural 'selection' "

They are very similar processes. 

Good discussion guys

Mike

UK


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## Oldtimer

squarepeg said:


> several of us here on the forum working with feral derivatives are noticing a decreased propensity for them to engage in robbing.


My own theory on that is bees with a low robbing urge must have had some evolutionary advantage for not robbing. It almost certainly had something to do with disease transmission. IE, in a wild situation where there is AFB about, a hive that would not rob would have been totally safe, thus, an evolutionary advantage.

This behavior would also be an advantage in the modern world where a host of nasties can be picked up if hives are out doing a lot of robbing, so it could be expected that where a TF situation is being maintained by a beekeeper, non rob prone hives will have an advantage.

My own bees will rob at the drop of a hat. So since I'm also making splits and in other ways opening hives up to be potential victims I have to have robbing in the back of my mind all the time and ensure each unit has what it needs to defend itself. Have considered attempting to breed towards a lower rob prone bee, but I would lose much that I want, it's a compromise.


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## squarepeg

that makes really good sense ot, especially given that most of the nasties bees may have to contend with are exacerbated by horizontal transmission.

my experience is limited to the bees i have and to the experiences of a handful of folks around here i communicate with that are using pretty much the same bees. robbing is not unheard of, but very rare.

so when i read the accounts posted here on the forum by other contributors discussing the robbing problems they encounter it really does make me think that there can be big differences among 'strains' in how the trait of robbing is expressed.

if it's true that the italian bred bees are more prone to rob, and if it's also true that the italian bred bees are more prone to indiscriminate brooding regardless of field conditions or time of year, then those of type bees would appear to me to have two strikes against them with respect to traits likely to be beneficial for mite resistance.


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## Riverderwent

Oldtimer, there was so much significant matter within your post #149 with which I agree. But, far more importantly, I spotted an insignificant point with which I could quibble, and not only with you but also with Mr. Bush. Now don't get me wrong. Just as, "[t]he safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato", treatment free beekeeping can be fairly regarded as a series of footnotes to Kirk Webster. But I cannot deny my debt to Michael Bush. Anyway, "He'd be the first to tell you, 'Bob Wills is still the king'", so to speak. 

But, to my small point. To me, biological evolution is pretty much "any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next." It includes but is not limited to changes due to inherited genetic mutations. It also includes changes in the frequency of alleles due to genetic recombination from sexual reproduction followed by genetic drift, bottlenecks, or good ol' natural selection. In other words, the relatively short time frame changes in the frequency of alleles in the gene pool due to adaptation to varroa (or the plague for that matter) are biological evolution. You're welcome. Now, you have seen folks on Beesource using "evolution" to describe only inherited changes due to genetic mutation. So I must be wrong. Not so much.


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## squarepeg

squarepeg said:


> definitions are a pain in the toe...


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## Riverderwent

squarepeg said:


>


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## Oldtimer

If you say so Riverdewent, I'll accept that. To be honest I left school and started beekeeping aged 16 so didn't get a whole lot of formal education by todays standards, have always been fascinated by science though. But my understanding of evolution is pretty much what the teacher told me in high school so I will have to defer on that. Question though. Working with various animals not only bees, I have been able to breed towards something I want, in just a few generations. To my mind, I selected parents I felt contained the genetics I wanted, and the breeding program was aimed at combining those genes I wanted, into one individual, or at least I assumed that must be how it worked. So is there a difference between that and evolution, or was my breeding program really evolution?



squarepeg said:


> if it's true that the italian bred bees are more prone to rob, and if it's also true that the italian bred bees are more prone to indiscriminate brooding regardless of field conditions or time of year, then those of type bees would appear to me to have two strikes against them with respect to traits likely to be beneficial for mite resistance.


Yes, and might be one of the reasons many TF folks do not have much success with italians.


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## squarepeg

Oldtimer said:


> Yes, and might be one of the reasons many TF folks do not have much success with italians.


perhaps. the other trait that may be playing a role is the greater or lesser acceptance of drifting bees into the hive. there was a discussion on bee-l not long ago about a paper that showed some colonies are more accepting of drifting bees than others, and as it turned out the ones more accepting of drifting bees had higher mite infestation rates.

i don't believe the study made any comparison as to whether or not certain 'strains' of bees were more accepting of drifting bees than others, but if the italian bred bees are of that persuasion as well then that might be another strike against them.


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## gww

Oldtimer
I quit school and joined the army at 17.
I am still lost in understanding most of what is discussed here just like I was ten post ago.
Cheers
gww


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## Riverderwent

Oldtimer said:


> To my mind, I selected parents I felt contained the genetics I wanted, and the breeding program was aimed at combining those genes I wanted, into one individual, or at least I assumed that must be how it worked.


Abbot Mendel did what you did (well maybe a little more) and some folks call him the father of genetics.



> was my breeding program really evolution?


I think so.


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## Riverderwent

gww said:


> Oldtimer
> I quit school and joined the army at 17.


Stop it, you two. Have you seen what higher education looks like these days. When someone with age and significant experience starts explaining how ignert they are, I find it's best to try to keep my wits about me and keep a tight grip on my billfold.


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## gww

river


> Stop it, you two. Have you seen what higher education looks like these days. When someone with age and significant experience starts explaining how ignert they are, I find it's best to try to keep my wits about me and keep a tight grip on my billfold.


I agree, I think oldtimer has a lot of experience and needs watching.
Cheers
gww


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## Riverderwent

gww said:


> river
> 
> 
> I agree, I think oldtimer has a lot of experience and needs watching.
> Cheers
> gww


 It's not just about experience raising bees. It's remarkable to me that someone so ignert can make something as elegant and functional as the foundationless frames that you made.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> My own theory on that is bees with a low robbing urge must have had some evolutionary advantage for not robbing. It almost certainly had something to do with disease transmission. IE, in a wild situation where there is AFB about, a hive that would not rob would have been totally safe, thus, an evolutionary advantage.


All makes sense Oldtimer, but your language is a bit difficult. By 'rob prone hives' you mean here hives that are disposed toward robbing others? I'd have thought that would mean hives that were prone to being robbed...

A thought: there will be a high selective advantage during times when disease abounds, but at other times there's a high selective advantage in being good robbers! That'll mean colonies that are good robbers will also (at such times) be advantaged by living close by others who can be robbed. 

I keep all my entrances small. I suspect there's a connection between being prone to being robbed and the location of the nest. Nucs that build toward the back, away from the entrance, seem disadvantaged in defensive terms. 

But I also think its mostly about getting away fast, so you're not the smallest. In the jungle the smallest get beaten up (unless you have friends, and bees don't do friends as far as I know) 

I suspect too that all bees rob as much as they can except those bees that have had the impulse bred down, and they're probably at a distinct disadvantage any place there are normal bees about. 

I think too, while looking at the natural picture, rather than from the beekeepers point of view, that there is a population advantage in robbing. If assets are continuously transferred to the strongest cousins, at least there are some very strong cousins about to carry forward the family genes.

Mike


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## mike bispham

Riverderwent said:


> . But I cannot deny my debt to Michael Bush. Anyway, "He'd be the first to tell you, 'Bob Wills is still the king'", so to speak.


"We stand on the shoulders of giants" is a quote with considerable history!



Riverderwent said:


> To me, biological evolution is pretty much "any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next." It includes but is not limited to changes due to inherited genetic mutations. It also includes changes in the frequency of alleles due to genetic recombination from sexual reproduction followed by genetic drift, bottlenecks, or good ol' natural selection.


That's what I would have said if I'd known how to say it. I might want to suggest the note: natural selection is a constant feature. each _individual_ is a new shuffle of the cards - but, all else being equal, one with the 2s and 3s taken out and some extra kings and the odd ace bunged in. 

Each new generation is therefore attuned anew to what-works-best-here-and-now as a result of loaded allele-shuffling. It has to be this way because.... the predators are happily constantly evolving to overwhelm your defences! (The 'arms race' analogy)



Riverderwent said:


> In other words, the relatively short time frame changes in the frequency of alleles in the gene pool due to adaptation to varroa (or the plague for that matter) are biological evolution.


Riverderwent you are my honorary Giant of the Day!

Mike


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Working with various animals not only bees, I have been able to breed towards something I want, in just a few generations. To my mind, I selected parents I felt contained the genetics I wanted, and the breeding program was aimed at combining those genes I wanted, into one individual, or at least I assumed that must be how it worked. So is there a difference between that and evolution, or was my breeding program really evolution?


In a sense, but breeders would reserve the term 'evoltion' for talking about natural change (by "natural 'selection' " _so they can have clear conversations_ about the distinct, but very similar process of 'artifical evolution' - change by human selection aka breeding.) 

You have to work up your own specialised language sometimes so that you can clearly discuss your interests. In the world of husbandry you'd be careful not to muddle the two causes - natural and artificial, by using the term evolution to describe breeding. 

This is a Dr. in the life sciences speaking about this relation:

""Breeding is by no means a human invention. Nature, which in millions of years
has bought forth this immense diversity of wonderfully adapted creatures, is the
greatest breeder. It is from her that the present day breeder learnt how it must
be done, excessive production and then ruthless selection, permitting only the
most suitable to survive and eliminating the inferior." 
Friedrich Ruttner,
Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee, pg 45"

Note he didn't even use the term. He didn't need to - his readership knows exactly what he's talking about.

Note too that 'excessive' production. The breeder casts off all but the best (for breeding purposes at least). 

In a farm husbandry setting that means castration and/market.

In my setting it means letting them go (by natural means) or getting it together to make it worthwhile moving/protecting and marking them for requeening - iff... I think they've signalled weakness.

Or I could save them and sell them. But that wouldn't seem to accord with what I'm trying to do here...

I'm sprawling a bit here, but I'm just trying to get the science lined up with practices a bit. 

Mike 
UK


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> perhaps. the other trait that may be playing a role is the greater or lesser acceptance of drifting bees into the hive. there was a discussion on bee-l not long ago about a paper that showed some colonies are more accepting of drifting bees than others, and as it turned out the ones more accepting of drifting bees had higher mite infestation rates.


Again, a disadvantage at times is a distinct advantage at others. Given how much energy it costs to raise them, co-opting outside workers successfully might make a huge difference to a colony. 

Maybe some robbers are turned into residents? All that non-fatal argy bargy that goes on at the entrance - is that some form of negotiation? 

Mike


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## Oldtimer

So what you are saying is if a beekeeper selected a queen to breed from and hives to make the desired drones to get the kind of bee he wants to end up with he is breeding them. But if he let his bees die from supposed natural causes and bred from the survivors, he would be evolving his bees not breeding them?

Where that would get murky is a skilled beekeeper would know certain hives would die if he did not intervene, and that others he has would not. So would select to breed from the ones he knows would not have died, even though he opts to intervene and keep the other ones alive anyway. In which case he is breeding his bees, but if he allowed the other ones to die he would be evolving them, but the end result is the same.


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## 1102009

> , permitting only the
> most suitable to survive and eliminating the inferior."
> Friedrich Ruttner,


Sometimes the inferior survive hundreds or millions of years in a niche ( insects, fish, birds, natives...) until civilization meets them suddenly.

Robbing correlates with bee density in my eyes more than with big or small.
A small hive with high density can use more watchers. 

I´m not very experienced, but making my splits I watch the priorities change very fast. Brood comes first, foraging next and watching least.
The more density, the more watchers.

My elgons do not drift. So far. The russian bees my neighbor has, drifted into one of my carni hives. All of his foragers for some weeks. His own hives starved. Mine had the honey. The russians took part with watching against their own.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> So what you are saying is if a beekeeper selected a queen to breed from and hives to make the desired drones to get the kind of bee he wants to end up with he is breeding them. But if he let his bees die from supposed natural causes and bred from the survivors, he would be evolving his bees not breeding them?


Almost. I'm trying to let nature do most of my 'genetic work' for me. In as much as I'm 'hands off' evolution is occurring. In as much as I guide and interfere, 'breeding' is happening.

I'm calling what I do 'Natural Selection Management' to try to indicate that sort of thing. In reality I'm trying to help evolution along a bit, and always scared I'll do more harm than good every time I interfere.



Oldtimer said:


> Where that would get murky is a skilled beekeeper would know certain hives would die if he did not intervene, and that others he has would not. So would select to breed from the ones he knows would not have died, even though he opts to intervene and keep the other ones alive anyway. In which case he is breeding his bees, but if he allowed the other ones to die he would be evolving them, but the end result is the same.


Yeah. Tricky isn't it! As long as he doesn't let the saved ones reproduce at least he's not frustrating evolution, and that's good breeding. (I think that works!)

Mike UK


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## Oldtimer

So is the answer to the first part of my question breeding or evolution. I would be interested to hear how Riverderwent would call it also.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> So is the answer to the first part of my question breeding or evolution. I would be interested to hear how Riverderwent would call it also.


(Your question):



Oldtimer said:


> So what you are saying is if a beekeeper selected a queen to breed from and hives to make the desired drones to get the kind of bee he wants to end up with he is breeding them.


Yes



Oldtimer said:


> But if he let his bees die from supposed natural causes and bred from the survivors, he would be evolving his bees not breeding them?


No, I think he's breeding. Evolution is something that happens naturally - and this isn't happening naturally - not the second stage anyway.

Neither term quite suffices. 'Live and let die; then breed on' would be a description.

When humans are making decisions it isn't evolution. When humans are letting nature get on with it it is.

What I do is a mix of both. I've called it 'Natural Selection Management' in an effort to describe it in a singe short phrase. I'm managing a process of evolution by natural selection. But it can't be described as 'evolution' alone because I'm managing it - its not 100% natural. 

I could also say: Its a form of 'traditional husbandry applied to bees'.

By traditional husbandry I mean taking proper care of your _population_ by reproducing only from the best; and stating that thriving under unaided conditions is one of my leading criteria for my definition of 'best'. 

That's my best shot.

Mike 

UK


----------



## Richard Cryberg

There is a distinction between breeding and evolution. They are definitely not the same.

Breeding is when selection takes place such that some favored alleles are concentrated or unfavored alleles are eliminated from a stock. Everyone on this board is doing either queen reproduction or breeding. If they have records and a plan and make measurements they may be breeding. If not they are reproducing. Hard bond is reproduction.

Evolution is when changes happen to the DNA giving a changed DNA unlike any that has ever existed before. Such changes rarely result in a novel phenotype never seen before and even more rarely a phenotype that is advantagous. The majority of such changes do nothing at all and are simply added noise in the DNA. Those DNA changes can be exceedingly stable or exceedingly unstable. The few that result in some phenotypical change may, or may not happen within a protein coding gene. The vast majority do not happen in what those on this forum probably consider a gene. No one on this forum is doing any evolution whatsoever. There are scientists who are doing evolution. They are the guys involved in putting DNA directly into organisms in labs. This is commonly called GMO. Of course every living human, including anyone reading this, is a brand new GMO experiment unlike any that have ever happened before in humans and performed by nature. These are undistinguisable from lab done GMO unless the lab guy purposely puts in markers such as coding his name in the DNA he implants. A fair % of us will die as a result of those experiments done by nature. Unlike lab guys nature is not a bit careful about her experiments. About the best you can expect is one favorable DNA change in a few million queens during a breeding operation so by no stretch of the imagination can breeding be considered part of evolution. They are two different topics.


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## mike bispham

Richard Cryberg said:


> Breeding is when selection takes place such that some favored alleles are concentrated or unfavored alleles are eliminated from a stock.


When a change is made through concentration of alleles, like the rise of resistance to varroa in a wild population, you can't call that breeding Richard. Breeding is a human activity. 

In my view it qualifies for the description an evolutionary process. Its not evolution in the principle sense of the word, the rise of distinct species to the point where they can no longer interbreed; but it is an evolutionary process. 

Whether you can go from there and call that 'evolution... until I'm given a good reason and an authoritive reference; I going to stick with yes. 

Question: could changes in a divided population by concentration of alleles, including the elimination of some, lead to not just distinct races but actual non-interbreeding species? 

(And is my definition of species accurate? What is the point of divergence? Isn't there a known weakness at the heart of the idea of species - that there can be grey areas between them?)

Is it possible there isn't a definitive answer to this question? It depends who you are talking to and how they cash out their terms?

Mike 

UK


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## squarepeg

i believe we can accept dr. cryberg's (phd) explanation as how someone with an academic/professional background in genetics would describe what we are doing.

when i said that "definitions are a pain in the toe" what i was trying to communicate is that we all know what we are talking about doing here and that's what really matters.

now i don't begrudge anyone who wants to parse words and definitions for enjoyment's sake, so go for it. it's just seems we too easily get hung up on questions like:

what's a treatment?
what's a chemical?
what's natural?
what's organic?
what's evolution? 
and so on.

personally i don't care what we call any of it but rather i'm focused on what all of your results and outcomes might mean with respect to the overall scheme of things.

"and that's all i have to say about that" forrest, forrest gump


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## gww

You guys look like you need a break from definitions and so I am going to mix this thread up a bit. I got to the hive today and this was sitting here.










It sit for a little while and then casually walked into the hive. A little later it came out with a bee hanging on its butt. Then it crawled around to the other side where most of the bees were going in the hive and kept rearing up and looked like it was trying to grab bees as they came in. I finally smashed it. Since you are breeding or evalooting against robbers, make the bees bigger so they can slap this thing around.
Buy the way, I still can't keep up with what is being talked about but I am reading it anyway.
Good luck guys
gww


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## Oldtimer

Can you zoom in on that thing a little?

Squarepeg, good post probably needed, spoken like a man who is "for more meat and potatoes and less garnish". 

The way I understood it is pretty much how Richard Cryberg describes it also, other than to my simple understanding the word "gene" embraces just about all that stuff of life inside the cell because of my limited schoolboy language.

SP is it possible to allow Riverderwent one last post on this? I'd just like his input also, not taking issue with RC at all he's a professional in the feild so obviously the ultimate authority around here.


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## gww

Oldtimer


> Can you zoom in on that thing a little?


I thought I was when I was taking the picture:doh:.
It is a bright orange wasp.
Carry on.
gww


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## Oldtimer

Oh I see it now. Looks like one of those spider wrestling ones? If so, awesome to watch!


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## squarepeg

my hope is that david and everyone else will continue to express themselves as they wish. my intent was not to stifle participation, but rather to make an observation and add my 2 cents. it's all good.


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## Oldtimer

Hear ya go, found a you tube of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4C2xhMymdc


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## gww

Oldtimer
Neat vidio, Well now we know a bee might work for the wasp if there is no spider. The way it sit there on it's back legs trying to grab the bees was interesting but it still had to die.
Cheers
gww


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## JRG13

You can't say I'm not defining the base meaning of evolution then define the meaning of evolution to meet your argument. Concentrating favorable alleles is not evolution, natural selection is not evolution either but such pressures on a population of species can lead to true evolutionary changes. Breeding is taking a population or multiple populations and combining favorable/desired alleles which represent a breeding standard or concept to be tested that may or may not exist naturally. Natural selection is just letting a population equilibrate with the ecological pressures that are represented in that geographical location. I don't see why there has to be this huge bloated argument about what method this topic encompasses, the fundamentals are nothing new or groundbreaking and I would even say short sighted to some degree but can be quite effective at creating an adapted local population. And thus, this is what we kind of see with a lot of "TF" bees, they don't work very well outside that local adaptation.


----------



## Riverderwent

Oldtimer said:


> SP is it possible to allow Riverderwent one last post on this? I'd just like his input also, not taking issue with RC at all he's a professional in the feild so obviously the ultimate authority around here.


Alright, Oldtimer, I'm doing this for you. I’m hesitant to write this because it will bring nothing of value and potential annoyance to me. But I genuinely care for you and the faceless (to me) posters in this thread. And I do want them to be able to engage in dinner conversations of exceeding interest to others. So with great trepidation I say that, to me, the word “evolution” may be defined variously among and even within different fields. (There is a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution dealing generally with the scale — in terms of such things as time, the size of the group of organisms being affected, and the degree of change —, that I don’t really want to chase here.) 

To me, for these general purposes, biological evolution is more or less any variation in the frequency of alleles within a population. These variations can be brought about through at least four mechanisms. Those four mechanisms are (1) mutation, (2) selection (natural or artificial), (3) genetic drift, and (4) gene flow. The second mechanism, selection, includes both natural selection and artificial (I prefer the term “cultural”, but that’s another story) selection. Biological evolution resulting from artificial selection refers to man driven changes in the frequency of alleles due to breeding. Practically (manifestly may be a better word) speaking, biological evolution resulting from selection may include the cumulative effect of both natural selection and artificial selection occurring simultaneously. Bees are probably a particularly good potential example of this cumulative effect of natural and artificial selection.

I don’t care if others agree with this; You don’t have to. That doesn’t make it more or less correct, and as Squarepeg well observed, it matters not anyway. I just wanted it to be of record, so to speak, and I will do my best to communicate within moderated norms, however “artificial” they may be. And yes, I do realize that this is hardly even garnish, let alone meat and potatoes, but it is mildly interesting (not so much as to outweigh annoyance), and it may avoid someone saying, “Don’t go on Beesource. Those folks don’t even know what biological evolution is.” You know how people can be. Now, I’ll go see if I can find Acebird somewhere.


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## squarepeg

:lpf: excellent post david, many thanks.


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> it's just seems we too easily get hung up on questions like:
> 
> what's a treatment?
> what's a chemical?
> what's natural?
> what's organic?
> what's evolution?
> and so on.


Au contraire, I think asking ourselves close questions about the boundaries of these words helps us refine our understand of the concepts they designate. I've been thoroughly stimulated by the discussion about evolution/not-evolution-but-nothing-I-can-name-because-there-isn't-a-word-because-people-use-'evolution'-for-that-thing' 

Mike


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## mike bispham

JRG13 said:


> You can't say I'm not defining the base meaning of evolution then define the meaning of evolution to meet your argument.


Am I the 'you' here JRG13?



JRG13 said:


> Concentrating favorable alleles is not evolution, natural selection is not evolution either but such pressures on a population of species can lead to true evolutionary changes.


Will somebody please acknowledge the fact that there are primary and secondary meanings to the word evolution. 

How would you define 'true evolutionary changes'?



JRG13 said:


> Breeding is taking a population or multiple populations and combining favorable/desired alleles which represent a breeding standard or concept to be tested that may or may not exist naturally.


'Breeding' is a human activity involving parental selection resulting in genetic shifts. It too has a secondary, weaker, meaning. To simply reproduce stock without a care toward changes or even health. 

In philosophy it is recognised that there is often a need to 'precise the terms'. That is, the words that are being used are not functioning adequately for the purposes of the close conversation. Words that work fine in everyday use prove problematic as you try to get closer to the concepts you describe.

Most of the time anything that develops in a generational way, with improvements added along the way can be described as 'evolved'. Software evolves, cars have evolved, culture evolves.

This can been seen in the dictionaries:

noun 
1. 
any process of formation or growth; development: 
the evolution of a language; the evolution of the airplane. 
2. 
a product of such development; something evolved : 
The exploration of space is the evolution of decades of research. 
3. 
Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. 
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/evolution

early 17th century: from Latin evolutio(n- ) ‘unrolling’, from the verb evolvere (see evolve). Early senses related to movement, first recorded in describing a ‘wheeling’ manoeuvre in the realignment of troops or ships. Current senses stem from a notion of ‘opening out’, giving rise to the sense ‘development’.

The problem comes when, in the life sciences, you want to clearly distinguish what is here above senses 1 and 2 from a particular aspect of sense 3 - changes resulting in new species. Note that as sense 3 is laid out above, big E Evolution would seem to include changes of the sort we have discussed. 



JRG13 said:


> Natural selection is just letting a population equilibrate with the ecological pressures that are represented in that geographical location. I don't see why there has to be this huge bloated argument about what method this topic encompasses...


The 'huge bloated argument' as you call it is a constructive attempt to learn more about the concepts at hand and the best ways to talk about them. Some of us find that sort of thing useful - enjoyable even. You don't have to read it.



JRG13 said:


> ... the fundamentals are nothing new or groundbreaking and I would even say short sighted to some degree but can be quite effective at creating an adapted local population.


The methods - indeed the whole concept of breeding - is new to many beekeepers, especially beginners. Similarly many here have had little exposure to the concepts of evolution. Some may have been primed to disregard it. 

If left entirely (hypothetic setting; all beekeeping is banned), the whole series of 'local populations' will adapt, the problem will be over. 



JRG13 said:


> And thus, this is what we kind of see with a lot of "TF" bees, they don't work very well outside that local adaptation.


I think the evidence for that is thin, and the causes often poorly understood. 

Mike 

UK


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## Oldtimer

Hey thanks for sharing that Riverderwent, even in the knowledge that having said it, someone might come gunning for you! 

Anyhow all this has clarified my understanding of the difference between the defintion of the words breeding, and evolution. I cannot summarise Dr. Crybergs statement it says so much so briefly it cannot be summarised. But what my simple mind will remember from it are these sentences. "Breeding is when selection takes place such that some favored alleles are concentrated or unfavored alleles are eliminated from a stock. Everyone on this board is doing either queen reproduction or breeding. If they have records and a plan and make measurements they may be breeding. If not they are reproducing. Hard bond is reproduction". And "Evolution is when changes happen to the DNA giving a changed DNA unlike any that has ever existed before".

From that I would take it that any mite resistant bees that have come about by whatever means over the last few decades, can only be considered the result of evolution if they can be shown to have "a changed DNA unlike any that has ever existed before". Most, or all, recently produced TF bees are more likely to be a re hash of already existing DNA. That's also assuming a definition of the word evolution, as used by an industry professional.

Anyhow, I managed to tear myself away from the internet today long enough to spend time doing some badly needed work with some bees. This helped clear my head as I pondered the wonderful definitions and big important words such as "tautologous", that I have learned. All this will definately help my beekeeping.

I kinda realised. There is a difference between the commercial forum, the treatment free forum, and the general forum. In the commercial forum, guys come and say, hey I got this problem, what to do? Someone else comes and says, well you could do it this way, here's what I do about that.
The treatment free forum is seen by some folks as a stage for a debate. Someone will propose a theory, others will join up and debate it. Of course for a proper debate, wording is very important, and definitions of words. Teams are also formed, and the purpose of the debate is to win, which is just as much a showcase for debating skills, as to wether the winning team was actually correct.
The general bee forum is somewhere between the commercial forum and the TF forum in tone, with theories promoted and debates occuring from time to time, and very practical exchanges also.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> The treatment free forum is seen by some folks as a stage for a debate. Someone will propose a theory, others will join up and debate it. Of course for a proper debate, wording is very important, and definitions of words. Teams are also formed, and the purpose of the debate is to win, which is just as much a showcase for debating skills, as to wether the winning team was actually correct.


A bit, but more. Science itself is, if you like, one big debate. It refers to previously gained evidence, and to newly (properly) gained evidence in support of the argument: this has to be the right way of looking at things. Once a 'fact' is 'established' everyone works hard to de-establish it, and the argument takes a new course. 

And what we debaters do here is try to work with accredited theories and accredited evidence, match our understanding to our experience, and use the science to inform our craft. When we argue it is in pursuit of truth, and better beekeeping. Yeah, winning is fun - but trying to make truth win over falsehood is where the thrill lies. Even when we fail dismally most of us learn something useful.

Some people would describe constructive debate in terms of 'Socratic Dialogue'. And, as Riverderwent noted, philosophical history (and science is a mere Johnny-come-lately offspring of a small branch of philosophy...) is a series of footnotes to Socrates most famous pupil. 

Mike

UK


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## Oldtimer

Interesting thoughts. Perhaps we should debate them...


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Interesting thoughts. Perhaps we should debate them...


Start a thread, I'll be there


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## Oldtimer

There would be nothing surer.


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## Oldtimer

And as per your request to take it away from your thread I have started a new one here is the link

_link removed to allow the other thread to not be continually reborn_


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## mike bispham

OK: I've just surveyed the apiary for the purposes of invoicing the farmer for pollination services. 65 eligible hives have been graded 1-5 in terms of size, and charged according to an agreed scheme.

So I now have a record of the individual colony states at this time. It makes a slightly wobbly bell curve showing me the apiaries' character as a whole; and I can identify all the strongest and weakest hives. With that its time to make a plan to maximise the beneficial actions I can take, while minimising the distorting effects they might make on future assays. I haven't really been here before, so I'm giving a lot of thought to how best to use my time over the coming months.

Among the immediate priorities is sorting out the poor performers, pushing middlings upward, and getting the big ones making honey. I want income and I want growth. I need combbuilding and storage.

I'm going to push large incoming swarms to build comb, since they're set up for that job.

I'm going to take honey off the most productive, give them back wet comb to fill again, and (if they have the required history) take eggs from them (by the Millar method) 

I'm going to use these requeen those slow ones that have had a chance to come good and failed.

That leaves struggling splits and swarms from last year. These I'm wondering: should I give them a boost and see if they come right, or just re-queen them? 

Given that I think I can supply genetics shown to work, I reckon the second way is best. I don't need to allow every queen a chance on the basis she might have some magical quality if I let her come right anymore. 

Does anyone have any thoughts about that plan? Any tweaks? Is there a better way to achieve my goals?

Mike (UK)


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## bucksbees

I agree Mike, if you can pinch an under performer, and bring in better genes, then go for it. 

Are you going to rake drone cells from the under performers as well to keep those genes chance of propagating to a low % chance?


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## mike bispham

bucksbees said:


> Are you going to rake drone cells from the under performers as well to keep those genes chance of propagating to a low % chance?


I wasn't planning to Bucksbees. I don't think they'll raise many in proportion to the big healthy hives, which on natural comb in unlimited brood nests raise tons. I figure many they do raise will be weakened. Letting the goers have their head with drones is the main paternal strategy.

Mike


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## lharder

My first two years were all out expansion, but this year the pace of growth has slowed proportionally. But my attention is shifting to the laggards and those producing lots of chalk brood (I couldn't get rid of them last year as they were part of a study). The ones with chalk brood will have the queen killed and combined with a new nuc split. 

So I am introducing another hive type. A side by side square dadant. The laggards will be paired with new splits and they will share honey supers for the honey flow. These will have to show some brood production soon (8 medium frames) or they will be requeened. Otherwise they will be given another chance and will overwinter in this side by side configuration.


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## Oldtimer

Good to see you have records Mike and will be able to use them. With that and the other things you mentioned your approach is becoming far more professional.


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## mike bispham

I've been surveying and looking at records with a view to identifying my breeder material. Tall hives with a good history - long-lived and marked out for genetic material in previous years - is what has located them. Now I find I face a dilemma.

Traditional bee husbandry says: take out and preserve those queens in a nuc. Safeguard them, and limit their egg laying to maximise future availability of their genes. However...

Those tall hives contain tons of drones, and I think its critically important that good quality drone production continues.

Would the best solution be to contain the queens in mid-sized hives and give them large cell foundation in the hope they'll raise plentiful drones? 

Or, give them their run, take eggs while I can, give back starter strip to discourage swarming, and keep plenty of traps about, hoping I catch any absconding? The main drawback to this option; I probably won't know its them...

Can anyone suggest anything else?

Mike UK


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## clyderoad

Oldtimer said:


> Good to see you have records Mike and will be able to use them. With that and the other things you mentioned your approach is becoming far more professional.


Yeah. Maybe, just maybe, all the dreaded professional junk queen breeders have rearing methods and the junk bee commercial beekeepers have routine methods that could be utilized by those determined to reinvent the wheel at every turn. Reinvent everything until the grand paper ideas run into the proverbial practical bumps in the road, then scramble to find and use some tried and true methods. Hilarious.


----------



## bucksbees

How about a medium hive, with drone comb, and rotate that over to a bigger hive once capped or almost capped. Then run 2 cycles of worked brood, then drone comb again. This should in my mind balance the bees need for your medium hive, with out over population, allow your drones to be taken care of by the bigger hives and help keep your DCA full with the chance of getting the genes you want.

As for swarm trapping. You can white dot + yellow dot to act as your branding, and if seen in a swarm trap, it will confirm they are yours.

Just some ideas.


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## lharder

mike bispham said:


> I've been surveying and looking at records with a view to identifying my breeder material. Tall hives with a good history - long-lived and marked out for genetic material in previous years - is what has located them. Now I find I face a dilemma.
> 
> Traditional bee husbandry says: take out and preserve those queens in a nuc. Safeguard them, and limit their egg laying to maximise future availability of their genes. However...
> 
> Those tall hives contain tons of drones, and I think its critically important that good quality drone production continues.
> 
> Would the best solution be to contain the queens in mid-sized hives and give them large cell foundation in the hope they'll raise plentiful drones?
> 
> Or, give them their run, take eggs while I can, give back starter strip to discourage swarming, and keep plenty of traps about, hoping I catch any absconding? The main drawback to this option; I probably won't know its them...
> 
> Can anyone suggest anything else?
> 
> Mike UK


In some ways, it may be better to continually test a queen. What if she is productive for 3,4 or even 5 years? Put a good 2 yr old queen in a artificial situation and you lose information about her going forward. I have a queen that has survived 3 winters and is still going gangbusters. So if a productive queen is long lived, and you take daughters from her each year, then she will eventually make a outsized contribution to an apiary's genetics compared to 2 year old stock that fades quickly.

It was interesting because I had an inspector visit my hives a couple of days ago. We were looking at one of the weaker hives. The queen actually looked pretty good and the brood pattern was ok as well. But I stated my intention of requeening all the weak hives as my spring nucs come on line. The inspector thought she deserved more of a chance, but I pointed at the boomers and middle performers in the yard all from overwintered nucs. We've had decent enough weather that the colony should be taking off, but it isn't. The weak hives are just on the poor end of the bell curve and will be replaced with daughters from hives that are strong coming out of winter.

As for record keeping. I can see who is strong or not by how many boxes they have. At this point I'm going to start attaching hives numbers and tracking queen lines better. But basic principles of making increase from strong survivors is breeding in its most basic form. Nature does it as well. Weak colonies are under the gun just waiting to be overrun by ants, raided by a strong colony, not having the strength to put out drones and swarms. Nature is a ruthless breeder.


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## Oldtimer

What if you are constantly splitting, like Mike? 

Re the drone comb Mike, you use some foundation and some natural comb so the bees will have all the drone comb they want already.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> What if you are constantly splitting, like Mike?


I'm not constantly splitting. About half my replacements are swarms, the rest are nucs raised by the simms method from middling hives.



Oldtimer said:


> Re the drone comb Mike, you use some foundation and some natural comb so the bees will have all the drone comb they want already.


I use all natural comb in brood boxes and the first lift. The point is if I 'safehouse' the queen in, say, a single broodbox, she won't have either the space nor the resources to raise the sort of drone numbers I want from her. Unless I force her to raise more drone - and I don't know how likely that is. 

I'm loath to meddle with nature like this... I think maybe a snap batch of plenty of daughters is the best thing, and hope that they and she (through her drones) make a good contribution to the future.

Mike UK


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## dtrooster

> I'm not constantly splitting.


 but in reality you are. Not managing against swarming and catching those swarms is exactly that. The shame of it all, propping up weak stock


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## mike bispham

dtrooster said:


> but in reality you are. Not managing against swarming and catching those swarms is exactly that. The shame of it all, propping up weak stock


I didn't say they were all my swarms - far from it. Of mine, how often does that happen? Not often enough to say 'constantly'. My guess is 10-15% a year - though that's just a gut feeling. 

And its less than would occur naturally - most ferals are in limited cavities that all but compel frequent swarming.

Mine is, as much as is possible, 'natural selection' 'management'. The bees are given an opportunity to thrive and spread their genes, or fail and not. I boost that by increasing the selection to support the strongest. 

This is, don't forget, a completely non-treated, non meddled-with apiary. Those that succeed are those equipped to manage mites. That's the name of the game. That's hardly 'propping up weak stock'. 

Not sure what your complaint is dtrooster, and can only think you misunderstand my methods.

Mike


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## dtrooster

No complaint, no skin off me whatsoever. My hypocrisy as with others, knows no bounds. Glad you're off the chemicals no matter how you do it, and I do mean that


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## squarepeg

mike, i am using mostly plastic foundation (standard cell size) but slip in a foundationless frame from time to time. most of those foundationless frames get drawn out to almost completely drone cells. 

over time i've acquired enough of those drone frames to make sure each hive has one and most have two.

like yours all of my colonies are survivor stock so i'm happy to get drones from all or any of them. the genetics i don't want are nice enough to die off during the winter months.

by the way congrats on your successes and keep up the good work. many thanks for keeping us posted.


----------



## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> mike, i am using mostly plastic foundation (standard cell size) but slip in a foundationless frame from time to time. most of those foundationless frames get drawn out to almost completely drone cells.


Some of mine have pockets of drone all over SP. Its a nuisance if I want to take an early crop, but it doesn't seem to lower productivity, and I love the idea of all those drones flying around. My neighbour limits his, and does drone removal as a mite control, so I think I'm quids in male-side.



squarepeg said:


> like yours all of my colonies are survivor stock so i'm happy to get drones from all or any of them. the genetics i don't want are nice enough to die off during the winter months.


I'm in love with the elegance of 'bigger hive = more drones = more bigger hives'!



squarepeg said:


> by the way congrats on your successes and keep up the good work. many thanks for keeping us posted.


Thanks, and you too. 

Mike UK


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> Would the best solution be to contain the queens in mid-sized hives and give them large cell foundation in the hope they'll raise plentiful drones?


What do you call large cell foundation? As opposed to small cell foundation, or drone sized foundation?




mike bispham said:


> I use all natural comb in brood boxes and the first lift.


Well then the bees will already have exactly how much drone comb they want.



mike bispham said:


> The point is if I 'safehouse' the queen in, say, a single broodbox, she won't have either the space nor the resources to raise the sort of drone numbers I want from her. Unless I force her to raise more drone - and I don't know how likely that is.


I don't think you can "force" them to raise more drones than they choose in a natural comb hive. Once they hit the number they want they just don't raise any more, and will not be forced.



mike bispham said:


> Some of mine have pockets of drone all over SP. Its a nuisance


To solve that do as Squarepeg suggests, which incidentally is the same thing I do. (Strangely enough, I've noticed a lot of things Squarepeg does is the same as what I do). In my drone production hives I give them frames of drone only comb and so am able to control the maximum number of drones each hive can make as the other combs are worker. I do allow some drone comb on all the other frames though as I believe a mix is natural, but am able to greatly restrict drone production on hives I don't want putting drones out for mating.



mike bispham said:


> I'm loath to meddle with nature like this...


Your fears are unfounded.


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## mike bispham

Its been 10 months since I last reported on progress. Things got very hectic last summer. As well as a difficult personal life, heading up toward a hundred hives kept me busy in all sorts of ways, and I also devoted time to improving my sales arrangements. Here are some of my thoughts and developments in no particular order.

I went into this winter with a little over 110 hives, and losses have amounted to about 15 so far. But we've just had a severe cold snap, 3 of those losses were to badgers, and I'll expect more to go that way. Of the other losses, some small nucs didn't have enough bulk to stay warm and reach their fondant, and I've lost three big hives to starvation - just blew up more than I expected and being a week late with my checks was fatal. These ones really pee me off. But one learns. No more tiny nucs going into winter, no more light summer roofs through winter (the badgers left the properly roofed ones alone) and no more letting check dates slide in the spring or being tight fisted with the candy!

That's the bad news. The better news is the bees did well last year. I fed them through dearths to keep them busy, and got lots of nice new comb as a result. A number of empty hives were filled as if by magic, and an inspection of the lot by my regional bee inspector bought murmurs of admiration and just one case of European foul brood - she'd expected a lot more as its endemic locally. The pollination work the bees did was incredible - they steamed through 60 or so acres of topfruit, pollinating just about every single blossom.

My low number count in late spring had been just under 70. Numbers came up from a combination of bait hives in good known localities, from cramping small colonies with adjacent bait hives, and with deliberate splits from some of the best. I stopped keeping records, relying on memory and the physical size of hives to tell me which are good for genetic material - but I'm confident that my big drone population is doing a great deal of that work for me. 

I ran unlimited nests but tried some cheap queen excluder, and I like the resultant clean comb. Cut comb is developing into a good seller, so this year I'm going to try BB+super nests and exclude thereafter. I'll expect a bit more swarming so I'll leave more bait hives around.

Even more good news is the business is now a business - it supports me - just - with funds left over to invest in growth. 

As ever the operation is strict bond. I feel my greatest asset now is my deme - the area in which I have a good measure of influence over mating. This will enable me to take breeding a little further, and expand nuc production for my own expansion and replacement, and for sales.

This year will be busy with moving house, and I'll have to make myself much more organised and systematic. For example I'm going to industrialise syrup making and transport. I'm focussed now on becoming a better bee and honey farmer. I'm aiming to double my sales again (after trebling them last year). 

When 80 or so hives came through strong last spring I thought: Wow! It worked! Then I thought: Now what am I going to do with it. Then I thought: What _could_ I do with it?

I made an analogy: the operation is like an engine that I've built. She's started up, after all this work, she runs, a bit unevenly, and clatters a lot; but she runs. Now, I thought, I need to think about what sort of vehicle I can build to put her in. And also, where might I drive her, and why?

At the moment the vehicle I'm trying to build is one that enables me to have a good income and a satisfying lifestyle, and hope of a bright future where I can do what I love doing while having time and energy to enjoy my life, and prospects for a pension. The vehicle I'm working on is: a smooth well-ordered operation, in which my philosophy of treatment free is drawn upon as an asset.

Fingers crossed for not too many more losses... 

Mike (UK)


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## Eduardo Gomes

mike bispham said:


> Fingers crossed for not too many more losses... Mike (UK)


I hope everything goes well with your project. Good to hear from you again.


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## gww

Sounds pretty good and good luck in the future.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

:thumbsup:


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## 1102009

Best to you, Mike!


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## msl

Mike what is your take on this from your natural breeding perspective 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7610474_Rare_royal_families_in_honeybees_Apis_mellifera

As I read it, splits may cause bees to rear queens from drone lines not common in the workers so that if you had a work force with positive anti mite/virus traits, you may by doing the split cause the bees to raize queens with different parentage and traits then the colony is expressing. 
That would suggest that propagation by grafting or swarm cells has a higher likelihood of creating a queen with traits closer to the mother hive then a split in witch hives are allowed to raise there own queen.


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## gww

So Msl, is it your take that inbreeding is prefered in a superceedure type situation as opposed to an emergency situation where the rest of the workers who may have not related drone daddies have better opertunity to be the ones picked?

Is this saying there is an effort to make queens with related mommies and daddies if given the time to plan?
Cheers
gww


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## Oldtimer

Well I'll tip my hat to you Mike, I doubted you for a long time but it does look like you have cracked it.

My belief was helped by seeing a video about some genuinely treatment free bees in Wales. I thought if they can do it, presumably Mike can too.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> Mike what is your take on this from your natural breeding perspective
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7610474_Rare_royal_families_in_honeybees_Apis_mellifera
> 
> As I read it, splits may cause bees to rear queens from drone lines not common in the workers so that if you had a work force with positive anti mite/virus traits, you may by doing the split cause the bees to raize queens with different parentage and traits then the colony is expressing.
> That would suggest that propagation by grafting or swarm cells has a higher likelihood of creating a queen with traits closer to the mother hive then a split in witch hives are allowed to raise there own queen.


Thanks for this msl, I'll have a look when I get a moment.

My all-time favourite way of making increase is to capture my own swarms. There are drawbacks - I'd like swarms from my best hives, which means losing both crop and diminishing the drone output from them.

I can cramp nucs made from splits from my best, and hope the genetics follow through well, and that my own drone input adds usefully to the genetics.

I'm planning to try cell starter hives using my best hives, splitting them for just a few days, then moving to a finisher. If I don't break any cell walls that may give them the opportunity to select their own eggs more naturally, at least partly overcoming your problem? 

I use the Simms method to get bees for increase (the idea is that you get an appropriate balance of old and young bees, and that is important). 

I could also re-queen swarms from cramped hives using those queens.

Do you thinks those measures would be at least a part work-around?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Well I'll tip my hat to you Mike, I doubted you for a long time but it does look like you have cracked it.
> 
> My belief was helped by seeing a video about some genuinely treatment free bees in Wales. I thought if they can do it, presumably Mike can too.


I'm not sure I've cracked it yet old Timer, but I do have the parts in place to have a go! 

Getting on top of making increase without overly impacting honey production is the next step. I'd like a nuc from maybe 60% of my hives (in numbers terms)

Then overwintering more reliably...

All without impacting the 'breeding' (husbandry) aims unduly... 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I'd like a nuc from maybe 60% of my hives (in numbers terms)


Well making and selling nucs is what I do. Usually we can't make something out of nothing, so to make any increase there is a cost, but if you only want one nuc per hive the most economic way would be do it at swarming time, as a swarm prevention tool. Done right those nucs will build up and get you a crop, and you'll likely end up getting more honey all up, than if you hadn't made the nucs. 

But if getting the maximum honey crop is the goal, the trick is to not take a nuc from any hives that cannot afford it.

For me, I want many nucs per hive, so in some ways my job is turning sugar into bees. Which is cheaper than honey. Pollen is not a problem in my area there is almost always enough.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Well making and selling nucs is what I do. Usually we can't make something out of nothing, so to make any increase there is a cost, but if you only want one nuc per hive the most economic way would be do it at swarming time, as a swarm prevention tool. Done right those nucs will build up and get you a crop, and you'll likely end up getting more honey all up, than if you hadn't made the nucs.
> 
> But if getting the maximum honey crop is the goal, the trick is to not take a nuc from any hives that cannot afford it.
> 
> For me, I want many nucs per hive, so in some ways my job is turning sugar into bees. Which is cheaper than honey. Pollen is not a problem in my area there is almost always enough.


All sounds good! Do you always go for making larger nucs to help with the crop? How about aiming for the smallest nucs, to be nurtured on and perhaps boosted into winter to get more nucs overall, foregoing the nuc honey crop?

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

They are for sale and people want 4 or 5 frame nucs. But it's a waste starting out with that big of a nuc to put the queen cell into so they start out as 3 framers, being a comb of honey, comb of brood, an empty comb, and a queen cell. Once the queen is laying they get boosted with more bees and brood to the desired size, and sold.

Yes your idea of making small ones and letting them grow just into a winterable size with no honey crop can work also. However there is a kind of critical mass, if they are too small they can struggle to get to the point of fast growth, a little more initial investment can more than repay. To me, the minimum size to hit the fast growth mass is 2 good frames of brood plus a good healthy adult bee population. They can explode if the bees are motivated and the beekeeper sees they have what they need.

But what works here may not work somewhere else, your flow patterns and weather will be different, something entirely different to what I do may work better for you.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> They are for sale and people want 4 or 5 frame nucs. But it's a waste starting out with that big of a nuc to put the queen cell into so they start out as 3 framers, being a comb of honey, comb of brood, an empty comb, and a queen cell. Once the queen is laying they get boosted with more bees and brood to the desired size, and sold.
> 
> Yes your idea of making small ones and letting them grow just into a winterable size with no honey crop can work also. However there is a kind of critical mass, if they are too small they can struggle to get to the point of fast growth, a little more initial investment can more than repay. To me, the minimum size to hit the fast growth mass is 2 good frames of brood plus a good healthy adult bee population. They can explode if the bees are motivated and the beekeeper sees they have what they need.
> 
> But what works here may not work somewhere else, your flow patterns and weather will be different, something entirely different to what I do may work better for you.


Thanks OT that's really useful

Mike (UK)


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## msl

Research says critical mass is about 4 frames of bees, from that point on the cluster expands at about 2 frames a week regardless of size till it tops out. local conditions and stock apply
But, from there you can run the numbers to get what you want... 
ie you need 8 frames of bees for your pollination contract in a 3 weeks, if you made 4 frame splits with laying queens you should be heading in with more then you need and will have a bit extra to move to the poor performers ( assuming they bees have everything they need to grow) . 

like wize you can figger how early and how large to make splits as to max the number of production hives ready for when the flow starts. 

very quickly you will see the utility of having queens in mating nucs ready to place as a way to speed growth to meet deadlines and max the number of viability hives 
placing a queen instead of a cell gives you about a 2 week jump on the season, thats 4 frames of bees...or more or less another split. 
and waiting 2 weeks for the queens to be ready can alow you to get an extra split out of the hive, and by the time that mating nucs you took the queens from have another queen ready your nuc with have grown to the point you can pull a split off them 

Its no wonder the miny nucs stocked with a cup and 1/2 of bees (900) and some sugar syrup are popular, they can pay big dividends in one use.
as you say, think about it -That's 9 or so mating nucs from the bee equivalent of one deep frame of brood...


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## Oldtimer

Very good points MSL.


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## lharder

Some very nice rule of thumbs. Thanks MSL.


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> Its no wonder the miny nucs stocked with a cup and 1/2 of bees (900) and some sugar syrup are popular, they can pay big dividends in one use.
> as you say, think about it -That's 9 or so mating nucs from the bee equivalent of one deep frame of brood...


Echoed, good rule of thumb, thanks msl. 

I've tried mini mating nucs (called apideas here) and have yet to get the hang of them. I build some racks to have a large hive draw the comb (that worked well) and tried a batch of 7 or 8 with queen cells. I saw most of the queens as hatched virgins, but none turned into mated queens. I'll probably try again soon, but I expect Ill go for a mixture of walk-away splits and simms nucs as the main push for increase. These will be divided six-frame nucs with two entrances, making a double mating nuc.

Its cell starters and (queen-right) cell finishing I want get going. Does anyone have experience of caging queen cells on the comb? I get more success with the broken-cell approach than with grafting, meaning my queens hatch unevenly, so to have them caged from the start would be good. (In the main I'll try to get them into mating nucs as sealed cells).

Any other thoughts about queen raising and making increase generally would be very welcome. I'd love to get really organised on the queen raising side, perhaps with a rack system in an incubator. Maybe one of the (grafted) movable cup systems is the way to go? 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

So you start horizontal multiplying instead of vertical? And propagating a honey production trait?
Interesting!
I have yet to understand this is considered natural selection management :scratch:


> In other words, natural selection does not simply state that "survivors survive" or "reproducers reproduce"; rather, it states that "survivors survive, reproduce and therefore propagate any heritable characters which have affected their survival and reproductive success"


 Wikipedia

And it´s done by the beekeeper and his managements? Speed it up? But how? Feeding and breeding managements just support weak genetics.


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## mike bispham

SiWolKe said:


> So you start horizontal multiplying instead of vertical? And propagating a honey production trait?
> Interesting!
> I have yet to understand this is considered natural selection management :scratch:


I have to balance my methods against my goals: 

The first is for a self-sufficient and productive strain. So, no treating or other fiddling against varroa or anything else. They do it themselves or perish. Encouragement of high drone numbers from the larger colonies (as in nature) is the primary means of genetic propagation. 

The second is for a sufficient income to enable me to continue and develop. This means I help the apiary to be productive without, as much as possible, compromising the first goal.

The need is for a good honey crop (for income and evidence of productivity for genetic sales) and for enough nucs to: 

* maintain numbers

* enter into pollination agreements in the sure knowledge I can provide bees

* expand the apiary and the business so that I can really start to make a difference by supplying English self-sufficient queens and nucs.

To those dual and potentially conflicting ends I try to navigate a course.

For increase: I don't cut out swarm cells, but I to try to limit the swarming urge by providing plenty of room and wax work. All my empty hives are currently functioning as bait hives for my own swarms and for swarms from known useful districts. 

Additionally I want to find the best possible way to improve my strain without compromising my goals. That means a little human-selective breeding. 

So lets say: my management is modelled as close to natural selection as possible while achieving the goal of moving toward commercial success.

I can only hope it works. If it does I'll be able to offer you and everyone in your district resistant and productive European bees that won't degrade your own feral populations. 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

Ok.
It´s a better strategy than all I see in my locale except bond which may be in vain.


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## msl

> I have yet to understand this is considered natural selection management


 I don't see it as natural, and one of the reasons I rail against people who call it such as the misconseption of the forces art work cause many to end up fudding are round with no progress..

The suggestion that beekeepers should use vertical propagation instead of horizontal is sillyness written by people with no understanding of bees... The tree branches out too quickly and traits are diluted out fast.
Kefuss agrees http://www.psychochickenecofarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2005-bee_culture-kefuss.pdf 
_"HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR BEES RESISTANT?
Your best breeder queens are not going to survive very long. In fact much shorter than you think. *If you do not produce daughters from them immediately, you will waste all your breeding efforts and a lot of genetic material. This is a point we cannot over emphasize!* Once their daughters are in your bee yards the mother queen is not so important. *So the first thing to do, is to change out queens in as many of your bee yards as possible, with daughters from each of your resistant breeder queens*. The more different groups of daughters at the same yard, the better. Here their drones and future virgin queens will have a maximum impact on the local gene pool and allow new genetic mixing to take place! This mixing can help your bees evolve in their resistance to future changes in the varroa population_



> I have to balance my methods against my goals


very true ....
Kefuss works with about 10X the number of treated bees as he does TF :lookout::s
The Chile operation is treated for $$ reasons. My guess is a 4500 hive migratory pollination operation has very different mite pressures then and 300 or so stay at home honey operation with yards of 20-30 hives spread across a wide area... 

Walk away splits are the worst you can do, they cost you time and production, you are a better beekeeper then that. 
At a minimum you should be at fly back or snelgrove splits so you can turn the QL side in to 3 or so nucs and still get a crop... 

I would say its time to roll up your sleeves and fine tune your grafting.. 
A kefuss type cloak board (nuc over 10 over 10) would waist little resources at all 
https://youtu.be/yeXOAxnUcPs?t=26m34s 
you can see something very similar here with research that back John's statement it makes hevery queens
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...hive-model-that-facilitates-queen-rearing.pdf


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> I would say its time to roll up your sleeves and fine tune your grafting..
> A kefuss type cloak board (nuc over 10 over 10) would waist little resources at all
> https://youtu.be/yeXOAxnUcPs?t=26m34s
> you can see something very similar here with research that back John's statement it makes hevery queens
> https://www.researchgate.net/profil...hive-model-that-facilitates-queen-rearing.pdf


The section starting here:

https://youtu.be/yeXOAxnUcPs?t=1674

...using what sounds like 'metal plate' seems different to what is shown in your second link, which is using a queen excluder to take off bees and brood to make up a balanced nuc (what I know as the Simms method). 

The first seems to be about making the colonies queenless; the second about drawing off nucs...?

Can you clarify what is going on msl?

Mike (UK)


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## msl

in the 2nd link is Brazilian the nuc box stays put and cells are raized above the excluder while the main entrace is block to force all the feild bee threw the nuc box a keeping it well suplyed 

kefuss took the Brazilian system and added a cloake board and 2nd deep to it and runs 20 cells per . As he is not one for extra work/gatgets one assumes it was needed to the make the system work well with EHB vs the AHB of braizal 
as I under stand it
The nuc sits on board that sits on a queen excluder and the gap in front used as an entrance is the "back" of the hive stand... the entrance of the bottemboard faces the outher way and plugged and the bees come and go threw the nuc, threw the exculder and in to the main hive... 
like you Simms method, frames of brood are shaken off and placed above the exculder to bait up the nurse bees and insure the queen is below.
then the grafts (or cut strips/cell punch/frame of larva and egges) are placed and the board/metal plate is slid in and the entrace of the bottom board
is opended..
This not only causes the nuc to be come queenless , but packed with all the forgers as well as they leave threw the bottom board and return to the nuc entrance they are orientated on . Kefuss says he is using the nuc as is crams the same amount of forgers in to 1/2 the space... 
My guess this is triggering swarm responce on top of queenlesness
2 days later the metal sheet is removed and the bottom board entrance plugged and the nuc goes form a queenless starter to a queen right finisher
all resources stay with the hive and are not wasited, unlike a queen less starter
My thought was it would be a easy waist free way to practice while you move forward with your normal methods... start grafting every few days till you take is good... that's what I am doing now, flyaway splits were grate to get my numbers up, and cut comb strips were fine when more of the hives were natural comb.. with the aggression and EFB I am seeing its time to get more slective, so grafting... but every bad batch weighs on my mind that I am burning resources in the queen less starter finisher so I started looking towards other methods As I figger the starter fisher costs me at least one nuc if not 2 worth of resorces to run and the cloke board plased on a resource hive would be kicking out 2-3 nucs + a mouth of resources...
better use of equipment and resources


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> in the 2nd link is Brazilian the nuc box stays put and cells are raized above the excluder while the main entrace is block to force all the feild bee threw the nuc box a keeping it well suplyed


Yes, I'd kind of got there, though my explanation would be different. I think this is what I might try:

I think the idea is to train the colony to use the top entrance (perhaps they routinely have top entrances) then do the Simms trick of bringing up shaken frames of eggs and brood from below. Its optional whether to graft to get all the queens hatching close, or break down cell walls of 2 day grubs in an effort to do the same. The shaking removes all chance of bringing up the queen. Alternatively, eggs from a different hive can be loaded on. 

The next day (or maybe straightaway) the top entrance to the hive below is closed, but a bottom exit opened. Now flying bees leave the hive and return to their usual entrance, and can only get in the nuc. That is then packed with bees, and is a functioning cell starter.

After 2-3 days the top entrance to the hive below can be opened, and most foragers will return below. That will leave the less packed nuc operating as a cell finisher.

How does that sound?

Mike (UK)


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## msl

yep. more or less...
like anything there are different twists and variations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDowikmL1Ms


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## mike bispham

msl said:


> yep. more or less...
> like anything there are different twists and variations
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDowikmL1Ms


Yes, its coming together in my head anyway! I'll report in due course!

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Question: Do you need young bees around when starting cells?

Or can the nuc on top just be empty?

(this leads on from: how do you easily maintain room below while using the hive - can you have an empty-ish lift between the brood nest and nuc. If I were doing Simms I'd want them in close contact to make sure the nurse bees came up quickly) 

Mike (UK)


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## gww

Mike


> (this leads on from: how do you easily maintain room below while using the hive - can you have an empty-ish lift between the brood nest and nuc. If I were doing Simms I'd want them in close contact to make sure the nurse bees came up quickly)


Doolittle used to put shaken brood frames over a differrent (rescource) hive over a queen excluder. He would leave it one hour to let it fill with nurse bees and then move it and add a queen. If he wanted it to make queen cells, he would leave it for a week. 

As far as empty space, I have heard of others doing the same as doolittle but adding an empty super between the brood box with the queen and the added brood on the ideal that the extra seperation of the empty super increased the chance of queen cells being drawn.
Cheers
gww


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## lharder

I use a snelgrove board. I encourage brooding up with a top entrance during the spring. Then when I want to make queens, I shake the bees onto empty comb in the bottom 2 boxes. I look quickly for the queen on each frame and if I find her (often happens) I place her in the bottom box. While I'm shaking I separate the comb into brood and food(empty) Place a queen excluder on, then 2 boxes with comb/food, then the brood on top 2 boxes. If they are using their bottom entrance I close it or shift it to the back. Most of the foragers should be entering the top entrance where the brood is. If I have to shake, then I leave the set up for a day so the nurse bees can migrate to the brood, then put on a snelgrove board below the brood. I set up the entrances so all the resources go to the brood. It gets packed with bees. Once the queen cells are capped, then the foragers get diverted back down into the original hive and a new entrance opened for the top boxes. You can either distribute all the queen cells to nucs or leave a couple in the top box to mate as well. I usually get good success with the left ones though they can get nectar bound. After mating you can either remove the top queen or replace the snelgrove board with an excluder and run a 2 queen system for a while.


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## squarepeg

randy oliver made a somewhat profound statement today on bee-l:

"And evolutionary change may be invisible to us--for example, I'm not sure
that the apparent change towards resistance to tracheal mite has been fully
elucidated."

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=BEE-L;dbcc8b6c.1806


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## gww

Squarepeg
How many studies have been posted where they have studied bees that seem to be living with varroa but say they are not sure of the way the bees are doing it. I think the last one was on reducing mite reproduction and knowing it was happening but not knowing how the bees were doing it.

I saw what randy posted today but have also seen the trend over all on things I have read.
Cheers
gww


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## mike bispham

I'd say its most often invisible - by far when you think about wildlife. 

And as John Kefuss says: "You need to know _that_ it works, you don't need to know _how_ it works." 

Mike (UK)


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## 1102009

His (Randy Oliver) talking about the niche...
Our domestic bees are exposed to just the opposite. Global impact. A wonder they are still there.


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## lharder

squarepeg said:


> randy oliver made a somewhat profound statement today on bee-l:
> 
> "And evolutionary change may be invisible to us--for example, I'm not sure
> that the apparent change towards resistance to tracheal mite has been fully
> elucidated."
> 
> http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=BEE-L;dbcc8b6c.1806


Yes of course, even in breeding programs it is working away in the background if it is allowed to. Of course we like to take all the credit.


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## mike bispham

lharder said:


> Yes of course, even in breeding programs it is working away in the background if it is allowed to. Of course we like to take all the credit.


... for not getting in the way, mostly, which is what many beekeepers do most of the time...

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Does anyone have any advice for discouraging the bees from filling the broodnest with nectar during a flow? I suppose plenty of empty comb right above would go some way, instead of making them climb 4 or four lifts... This is for my selected breeders, where it is getting hard to find eggs... 

I suppose I could also whip the queens out into small hives, the better to control them, but I'd rather have them laying hard in their big hives, supplying drones as well.


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> I'm hopeful that my experience of EFB has given me a much needed whole new sense of direction.


would like to hear about that new sense of direction when you have time mike.


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## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> Yeah, I guess I got bored with this a while ago. I just successfully keep productive bees without anything except my 'natural selection management'. Every now and then I drop to say 'its still working' and to read you guys saying 'it isn't possible'.


That is just plain wrong, i have not said that TF beekeeping isn't possible.

Some people are genuinely doing it, i would class genuinely doing it, as being self sustaining. Others like yourself Mike are TF, but not self sustaining, ie, have to collect swarms to maintain numbers. Your statement should have been <<I just successfully keep productive bees without anything except my 'natural selection management' *and collecting large numbers of swarms and doing cutouts*.>>


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## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> That is just plain wrong, i have not said that TF beekeeping isn't possible.
> 
> Some people are genuinely doing it, i would class genuinely doing it, as being self sustaining. Others like yourself Mike are TF, but not self sustaining, ie, have to collect swarms to maintain numbers. Your statement should have been <<I just successfully keep productive bees without anything except my 'natural selection management' *and collecting large numbers of swarms and doing cutouts*.>>


Its a fair point. However, a few rallies: 

A) most of the swarms I 'collect' are probably either my own swarms or descendants from swarms that have left my apiaries at some time in the past and survived/thrived ferally. I've put that 'collect' in brackets because they come to my bait hives. 

B) I've not yet mastered the art of producing lots of new colonies to replace losses without lowering my honey yield - or rather I find letting them do their own thing is as good a way as any to go, given my limitations on time and a dicky back that doesn't like too much heavy lifting. Since I rely entirely on my honey yield for my livelihood+expansion funds that seems the best way to go. 

C) I'm not a great beekeeper so I tend to have more losses than most. That is at least partially deliberate - for reasons of genetic flow I like to give my queens their full run, which means I likely lose quite a few to old queens cacking out/failure to supercede. And in general, 'natural selection management' means 'taking your losses'. 

If/when I do master the art of making lots of new colonies (without undue honey yield loss) will that actually make that significant a difference? Must I conform to some kind of standard model in order to qualify as a 'TF beekeeper'?

Mike (UK)


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Hi Mike
"B) I've not yet mastered the art of producing lots of new colonies to replace losses without lowering my honey yield - or rather I find letting them do their own thing is as good a way as any to go, given my limitations on time and a dicky back that doesn't like too much heavy lifting. Since I rely entirely on my honey yield for my livelihood+expansion funds that seems the best way to go."

seems the place to focus is on Increase. In general, if I do a split I get two hives getting 2 supers each rather than 1 hive getting 4. Or if I pull a NUC I get 3 supers rather than 4 and a NUC that gets large enough to make the winter. Is splitting a "treatment" ? If you inspect regularly in the mid to late spring, post Dandelion here, you will find a hive or 2 that is getting ready to swarm. Often you can split this hive 4 ways , the old queen and 3 cells separated into 3 splits. Seems for me if I had 60 hives I would split the best 10, 4 ways into 40 every year for increase. Also if you track the queen age and watch the 3 year old queen somewhat carefully, "when" you see a supercedure cell pull it for split. I read in a older book that a keeper in Russia, would take the supercedure cell out and the hive would re try, he was getting 5 or 6 cells prior to the queen failing. I had one hive I really liked this year and I took 7 splits from it, all are approaching fall in a deep and a medium, the size I feel is winter able. I does take some time but the numbers can be made to work. Cutouts IMO are not worth the time. Is there room in your TF plans to manage some increase or is that not something you want to try?
GG


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Hi Grey Goose,

I'm _extremely_ cautious about interfering with what I regard as the natural flow of genes. My thinking is rooted in the idea that the best queens must be allowed to do their thing - make lots of stores and lots of drones, and swarm away if they want to. And they must be able to go on doing that year on year. I take the mantra: Put Best to Best very seriously. Those that do well, all alone, are what I want going forward in the largest numbers, males and female side.

I don't track queens, period, and I'm not going to start. My back won't take all that lifting and fiddling. My back is a very limiting factor. But I wouldn't want to anyway. Under my system those that flourish fee of human interference win through. That's all that's needed. 

I will take genetic material from proven hives to make new nucs, but only a frame or two each year, and perhaps a few strips of eggs/larvae. I won't slow down best hives more than a fraction. That would, to my mind, be among the silliest things I could do.

This year I had a great early (bait) swarm season, and was able to split a good number of swarms 3 ways. That filled up my available nucs and another 20 or so that I made during the season. Will they be good queens/ I don't know - but most bait swarms I think come from my hives, they'll have mated with a good number of drones from my best hives. They take me back up to around 100 colonies.

My focus is on perfecting and expanding colony raising, in a way that is consistent with and supportive of natural selection. I have plans, and really just need time to get things lined up well - and stop my sales director demanding more honey! The way I think this is to be finessed is to make lots of small colonies in the early summer and feed them like mad to build wax (I've lost a lot of wax as well as 20 odd colonies to EFB this year) I'd like to end with about a stable 100 production colonies with 50 nucs raised each year to replace failures, and/or sell or expand. That's about as much as I'll cope with.

I think that given my chosen, and not chosen constraints its going ok. I'm getting a better crop year on year, selling more honey and getting better money for it. I'm in the game. I'm TF, whether OT thinks counts me so or not.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Mike, sounds like you have a plan. 
about this statement
"This year I had a great early (bait) swarm season, and was able to split a good number of swarms 3 ways. That filled up my available nucs and another 20 or so that I made during the season. Will they be good queens/ I don't know - but most bait swarms I think come from my hives, they'll have mated with a good number of drones from my best hives. They take me back up to around 100 colonies."

IF a swarm comes from your hive and you are willing to split it, in my mind splitting the swarm post merge or pre merge is not really all that different.
Also the strongest hives are the ones that swarm so splitting them is also not a huge deviation from "your best plans"

I get the back thing I am there as well, I really liked playing with NUCs this year, I made 5 setups to use and all were going good prior to putting them into 10 frame gear a few weeks ago. I plan to get 5 more this winter. I also have shifted some hives to 8 frame and some to mediums only so Working on the back thing from a couple different angles.

On your "rules" you have arrayed around your self. IMO self limiting rules do not "always" help produce the result we want. I have no rules, I will split when I see Nice cells if I have the wooden ware to pull it off. if the bees are mostly your stock and open mated in your yard then , Math is your salvation, make 20 NUCs and see how many make the winter. Also really, some record keeping, is essential. My Queens raised this summer are going to first get "winter tested" the ones that make the winter cut, are then put into production next summer. the top 1/3 to 1/2 are marked, normally a brick on the lid, not complicated, really. then they get a second "winter test" the ones with the brick making the second winter are "not supered" In 3-5 weeks they have swarm cells and are split from here to tin buck 2, using NUCs and dead outs frames and wooden ware. post mating , the new queens are evaluated, some are culled and some fail to mate, these resources are combined with the better queens and they roll on to fall, to do it all over again. I also get a better crop every year and better survival. to me your path is random. Splitting from the best, has been the way for increase a couple 100 years, Not sure I would rule it out. Not sure of your weather but for me the winter is the selector , so 2 winters and a good crop is all i need to use for selection. So have fun, best of luck to you. 
GG


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Gray Goose said:


> to me your path is random. Splitting from the best, has been the way for increase a couple 100 years, Not sure I would rule it out.


My problem with it is it reduces the drone output from that best queen. I take my drones very seriously. I run unlimited brood nests (like nature does) and some of my big hives make masses and masses of her drones. That's exactly what I want.

If I split all my best hives, that would leave my second-line hives to supply most the drones. I don't want that.

The thing is: I think this business of natural selection is delicate. It works beautifully, but only if you _let_ it work. 

Its main trick is: make the most of each generation from the best of the last.

Splitting the best obstructs that by lowering the drone quality.

I know people have done it for a while. But, 2 points:

a) in days past we had the benefit of a large feral population constantly sorting out the men from the boys, as it were,

b) our bees have never been weaker. The great majority are utterly dependent on us. 

What has been done for the last 100 years might well be taken as a model for how not to do things in the future. 

What I do isn't random at all . Its deeply thought through.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> If/when I do master the art of making lots of new colonies (without undue honey yield loss) will that actually make that significant a difference?


yes, a huge one.



mike bispham said:


> Must I conform to some kind of standard model in order to qualify as a 'TF beekeeper'?


No. You don't treat, and are therefore a TF beekeeper.

I would suggest a 2 point plan to properly work towards achieving genuine survivor bees. And at the same time, get you past the 60 to 100 hive roadblock you are in, which is all you can maintain by relying on replacement by swarms. A while back you said your goal for 2019 was 200 hives. But your current methods are not getting you there. So first, read some Brother Adam. The man was a master bee breeder and you need those skills.

Second, after you have achieved ability to reproduce colonies in good numbers, stop collecting swarms and cutouts. Just, don't. Because it is maintaining your bee numbers and fooling you that you have survivor bees. 

Instead, apply your breeding skills and only breed from your own, existing bees. That way, if you have any genuine survivor genetics, you can propogate and improve that.

In my view, this may cause a short term hit in terms of hive numbers and honey production. However it will set you on the path towards a sustainable TF apiary, allow you to plan and achieve whatever hive numbers you want, and the longer term benefits of that.

Once you can maintain numbers in a TF apiary without bringing in large numbers of replacement swarms and cutouts annually, you will be a _sustainable_ TF beekeeper, with demonstrable survivor bees. 

I'll also add as an ex bee breeder myself, that once you become skilled at breeding bees, you will find it is so much easier to breed and increase from your own bees, that collecting swarms is just a time wasting nuisance. Not to mention constantly introducing random possibly undesireable genetics.

My 2 cents.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> My problem with it is it reduces the drone output from that best queen. I take my drones very seriously. I run unlimited brood nests (like nature does) and some of my big hives make masses and masses of her drones. That's exactly what I want.
> 
> If I split all my best hives, that would leave my second-line hives to supply most the drones. I don't want that.
> 
> The thing is: I think this business of natural selection is delicate. It works beautifully, but only if you _let_ it work.
> 
> Its main trick is: make the most of each generation from the best of the last.
> 
> Splitting the best obstructs that by lowering the drone quality.
> 
> I know people have done it for a while. But, 2 points:
> 
> a) in days past we had the benefit of a large feral population constantly sorting out the men from the boys, as it were,
> 
> b) our bees have never been weaker. The great majority are utterly dependent on us.
> 
> What has been done for the last 100 years might well be taken as a model for how not to do things in the future.
> 
> What I do isn't random at all . Its deeply thought through.
> 
> Mike (UK)


If I split all my best hives, that would leave my second-line hives to supply most the drones. I don't want that.

Ok so I will talk one point, each you make are "Assumptions" IMO So keep your best hive or 2 for drones, give them drone frames if you want. take your second and 3rd to 10th best for the eggs to make queens from. if you have 40 that wintered I am talking about the best 1/3 so 13 if you wish a firm number.
Let them drone up if that is part of your goal. then split and make queens, the point is that waiting for 1 swarm that you maybe or maybe don't catch is a lot slower than making 6 queens from the good hive in a year, and maybe 3 from the first F1 if you wish. On a Island Seeley has shown that queens are well mated up to 15 miles from the drone Congregation Area. Your virgins fly out low for 2 miles or so then pop up to be mated, they self regulate mating with their brothers, in this manner. unless you have your 40 hives split into banks of 8 over 5 square miles you are likely providing for other breeders queen to be mated, yours are finding DCAs 2 to 4 miles away, so make all the drones you want but your queens unless you have several yards over a really big area are not mating with them. also you state you think the swarms you catch are yours, and the cutouts, but are they really??,so you are bringing in "unknown" stock on a regular basis. Do you really think in 20 years the bees will be different in your county? I knew an old guy near my dads house that had 50-100 hives a year for 40 years. Always wining about loosing swarms, likely 10 a year for 40 years 400 or so . So now he has passed been gone for 8 years. In that area, I put out a frame with honey for 2 days 1 weekend not 1 bee came to it, we used to find bees trees starting that way. Long story short after 40 years and 400 swarms let go in 8 years not any bees remain, in that 4 mile square. I am all for you doing it your way, be aware it would not necessary be the only way. good luck, and have fun.
GG


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## Juhani Lunden

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> If I split all my best hives, that would leave my second-line hives to supply most the drones. I don't want that.


Drone nursing colonies are easy to make, drone frames, bees, capped brood and pollen. Just let the strong ones make their drone frames and move them to a drone nursing colony.


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## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

.
Agreed. For my own drone production i run frames like this in my selected drone production hives. 2,500 or so drones per cycle per frame, decent hive will maintain 3 such frames in season.


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## Litsinger

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> ... stop collecting swarms and cutouts. Just, don't.





Gray Goose said:


> ...so you are bringing in "unknown" stock on a regular basis.


Oldtimer and Gray Goose:

I have enjoyed reading this discussion and I wonder if you might humor me by expounding on your thoughts cautioning against introducing swarms and cut-outs into your apiaries? I respect your knowledge and experience, so I hope to better understand where you are coming from on this.

Specifically, I think I understand and can appreciate the admonition not to unnecessarily introduce unknown genetics into your yard and possibly vector in disease along with it. 

That said (and acknowledging the prospect of I.I. and isolated breeding yards) it seems that the best one can do in an open-mated arrangement is exert some control over the maternal line of the equation and by design we are introducing some level of unknown genetics every time we have a virgin queen in need of mating?

While I have very little experience of my own in this area, it seems that the common denominators in the documented successful TF apiaries are generally:

1. A semi-stable local un-managed population of bees that demonstrate some modicum for resistance.

2. Relative isolation from an influx of non-resistant stock.

3. (Possibly) allowing the colonies to have access to more brood breaks than typical in managed operations (i.e. forced and/or swarming).

Taking these tenants as a working hypothesis, would it not follow that one would be better served (at least from a resistance standpoint) to tap-into as many expressions of this local adaptation as possible though the collection of local swarms and cut-outs (as examples). In other words, a stable influx of new genetics demonstrating some resistance might help the apiary as a whole?

I am thinking along the same lines as periodically bringing in outside queens in more traditionally-managed operations.

I will submit that I may be 'missing the forest for the trees' so I welcome you steering me out of the ditch.

Thank you both for your insights here- I think I speak for many when I say I've learned a lot from you both.

Russ


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## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Excellent question Litsinger.

First a disclaimer, I am not a TF beekeeper so cannot talk with any authority on the matter. I tried and failed to establish a treatment free apiary, just isn't possible here, nobody in my country has been able to do it. However I am an ex commercial breeder and had to breed in certain traits on request so have some understanding of bee breeding in general.

Re bringing in swarms, different queens, etc, there are good arguments each way. Now, i just have some run of the mill mutt queened hives as a retirement hobby, and if I find a swarm, I'll hive it. But that's because I'm not running any particular breeding program, just fooling with a few hives for a bit of honey.

My comments about not collecting swarms etc were specifically what I think Mike needs to do, not general advice to everyone. Because his situation, he is trying to breed a varroa resistant bee, and my reading indicates that in his area, this is posssible. However it is clear that Mike has not achieved it, based on numbers he has given, his average hive lasts 2 years. That's based on how many he got through winter, compared against how many new swarms etc he is bringing in every year.

My comments about reading Bro Adam and learning a bit about breeding, was because Mike does not keep any records and to be successful he needs to do that, it's a part of breeding. 

I think that if Mike stopped bringing in large numbers of swarms, plus learned enough about breeding to keep records, he could ID any potential survivor hives and breed from them. Long term, if survivor bees are possible in his area, this method may work. His numbers clearly show that right now, he does not have bees that survive long term untreated.

Not meaning to be harsh, just some advice that would be pretty common to any proper breeding program, and could bring Mike the results he wants.


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## Juhani Lunden

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*








I usually just put in one and have no idea how many rounds they make in a queen right colony, but when moved to queen less nursing nuc, the advantage is that inseminations are much easier when all drones are the right age


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## msl

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



> Drone nursing colonies are easy to make, drone frames, bees, capped brood and pollen


are you using a caged virgin as Larry Connor suggests?
http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2003-12.pdf



> If I split all my best hives, that would leave my second-line hives to supply most the drones. I don't want that.


then don't split....


> The strongest tool that a beekeeper has for controlling colony genetics is the grafting needle


. Lusby 1989 https://beesource.com/point-of-view...ng-for-queens-with-shorter-development-times/ 
The endless talk about DCAs and what not has little bearing if your not willing to re queened your bottom 80% with your top 5% . Sub par drones are part of the problem... those 2nd line hives need to be castrated by culling drone comb till they have been requeend by 1st line stock. 

beekeeping is a numbers game.. you can bet it all on red, or you can count cards. 
Yes, some one wins the lottery every week ... but the card counters and tell readers win week after week after week
I can't think of a single success full TF program (5 year advrage that exports, expands , sells bees vs bringing in swarms etc ) that does so with out grafting, if they are out there, they are the exception, not the rule.


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## gww

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

I agree with oldtimer on it being easier to split and make increase then it is to capture swarms. I do say though that I would not have bees treatment free or otherwise if not for trapping over a 30 mile radius. This is because I am too cheap to buy bees just to have them. I would like more then I catch now but would not like to put more traps in more locations. As I get more bees, I pay less attention to my trap set up and slowly drop all but the ones that don't really have to be checked and that are in places that I already frequent often with no special trips.

I have no ideal of where the swarms I caught came from. Could have come from someones spring package. I am not dealing with the type of numbers of hives mike is trying to deal with and don't catch enough swarms at one time to change the background noise that is already made up in my location. So relying on that background noise to keep things in check makes me think that any swarm that I do add is only a plus rather then a detraction. 

Keeping bees like I do would not work (apparently) if I did not live where I did. I look at any swarm that I bring into my apiary as a plus that may add something that might make my bees even better for me and rely on the background to weed out the bad parts. 

I am hard bond till it bites me so bad that I have no choice but to change and so far the swarms, even if caught 15 miles away, are responding like the ones I caught in my back yard.

My area is not that great cause my neighbors and some in the bee club have lost all their bees. I might lose a bunch this year, tell you in spring?

I am here to tell you that they don't all die though, cause as of yet mine have not, knock on wood.

Mine have not made me tons of honey though. Some of that could be management cause a guy with a few hives 1.5 miles from me has made at least the MO average of 50 lbs and doubled that last year with untreated bees.

I have only been at this for four years and have no experience but my own and so don't have a good bases to judge what is good or bad except through reading.

I don't doubt the situation being different for someone who is in the position that they are trying to change what is around them rather then being able to work with what is already there. Common sense (?) tells me that bringing a swarm or two into my background is not going to over load what is already there cause those around me (maybe not always in flying distance of me but for sure of the swarms I have caught) do bring in new bees every year.

I do not dis-believe others experiences but also find it hard to discount what I actually see here and know that I am not smart enough to know the real why of any difference.

My opinion is swarms don't hurt and are a plus till I start seeing some kind of pattern that I can recognize showing an ill effect. My instinct tells me that they may even help add something if not brought in in numbers big enough to change the background all in one shot. I believe this especially in a hard bond situation where the weak can have a chance of being taken out.
Just my thoughts on how I am proceeding till I change my mind.
Cheers
gww


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## Juhani Lunden

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



msl said:


> are you using a caged virgin as Larry Connor suggests?
> http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2003-12.pdf


No, so far I have left it queenless and given it a ripe cell later in summer. From that point it takes couple weeks for the new queen to lay, and then the inseminations are mainly done.


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## AR1

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



gww said:


> I have only been at this for four years and have no experience but my own and so don't have a good bases to judge what is good or bad except through reading.
> 
> 
> My opinion is swarms don't hurt and are a plus till I start seeing some kind of pattern that I can recognize showing an ill effect. My instinct tells me that they may even help add something if not brought in in numbers big enough to change the background all in one shot. I believe this especially in a hard bond situation where the weak can have a chance of being taken out.
> Just my thoughts on how I am proceeding till I change my mind.
> Cheers
> gww


gww, we are in much the same ballpark, I started just a few years ago. I bought two hives from a relative and those were great bees. I never saw a mite on them for two years. I also caught a few swarms and those bees were terrible. No mite resistance at all, and within a few months of catching the swarms I started seeing bad larvae being dragged out, then dying wingless bees. It was terrible and treating didn't help (too late). The sad thing is I parked those bad bees next to my good bees. I lost the good hives too. 

I am pretty sure my strong bees could have survived if I had not placed a mitebomb next door.


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## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Gray Goose said:


> IMO So keep your best hive or 2 for drones, give them drone frames if you want. take your second and 3rd to 10th best for the eggs to make queens from.


Again, I want all my strong hives to be making as many drones as _they choose to_. its not my business to interfere. Doing so may be upsetting a balance that I'm unaware of. 

As things stand I have 20 or 30 ongoing outperforming hives that are putting up large numbers of their drones. My dronespace is dominated by these hives. That is not just important but _critical_. I have both health and diversity going forward in the male line every time a queen mates. 

I know this is unfamiliar to you, but this is how nature works, and it works. And the moment you start messing with it - promoting drones from one or two particular hives, or systematically restricting drone production - just using excluders is enough - the health of the _population_ starts dropping off. 

OT I have perhaps 20 or 30 hives that are multi-year high producers, under natural conditions. Some poor producers suddenly come good after a year or two of dawdling.

All this may well be almost entirely due to 'failure' to supercede quickly enough. If I were tracking queens I could fix it, and have all high production hives. My crop would probably double.

But as soon as I do this I lose that incredible valuable information: which hives are doing well year after year after year - that is: meeting all the pest and disease threats, superceding nicely 

If... I take eggs from a range of _those_ hives while letting them have control of their own drone production (not boosting, not lowering), most of my new queens will be made from them in the best possible proportions. And that system - nature's system - is sustainable. 

To do that I can take bees from pretty much anywhere else and combine them with my resulting (best) genetic lines. Its simple. 

For practical reasons (money) I need to maximise that process while minimising honey loss.

And I need to do those things as efficiently as possible, because I have lots of other calls on my time - running 100 hives is running 100 hives....

That's what I've been working on and what I need to keep working on. 

Thanks for the advice guys. One day you'll be able to see things through my eyes, and you'll understand this is one way to do 'natural selection management' - and it works.

A proper drone population is essential. Information about the long-term prospects of your queens the same. Everything else follows on.

BTW OT if I hadn't lost 20 or so hives to EFB this spring my year on year losses would have been around 10%. And that is without forcing out old queens. Or treating. It doesn't get much better than that.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> Again, I want all my strong hives to be making as many drones as _they choose to_. its not my business to interfere. Doing so may be upsetting a balance that I'm unaware of.


How so? As soon as you start transporting cutouts and swarms, keeping large numbers of hives in one place, all that type of thing, you are already upsetting some balance. Been there done that, so you may as well encourage drone production from hives you would like to include in your breeding program. Have you not often said <breed best to best> ?



mike bispham said:


> If I were tracking queens I could fix it, and have all high production hives. My crop would probably double.


There you go! You can see the value that keeping records would give you.



mike bispham said:


> And the moment you start messing with it - promoting drones from one or two particular hives, or systematically restricting drone production - just using excluders is enough - the health of the _population_ starts dropping off.


I disagree. This is not what any of the successful USA bee breeding programs would tell you.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> How so? As soon as you start transporting cutouts and swarms, keeping large numbers of hives in one place, all that type of thing, you are already upsetting some balance.


OK, so lets clarify: 

First: I haven't done a cut out for about 4 years. I've collected only a handful of swarms each year - though as I point out earlier my own hives often swarm into my baits. 

Second: bees often live in large concentrations, and have successfully been kept that way for many centuries (with help from naturally selecting feral populations and beekeepers who understood the principles of genetic husbandry and who didn't meddle unnecessarily) . 

Third: 100 hives over an area of about two square miles is not that great a concentration. But as its fairly isolated it does give me that one thing that all past bee breeders have stated to be necessary: relative dominance of the dronespace.



Oldtimer said:


> Been there done that, so you may as well encourage drone production from hives you would like to include in your breeding program. Have you not often said <breed best to best> ?


Well, I'm not sure you have been quite there or you'd understand what it is I'm doing more easily. Yes, Best to Best. That is simple in the case of mammals, but not nearly as precise in the case of open mating insects - but you can do your best, and that is, especially given the huge power you have queenside, sufficient to raise self-sufficient and thriving bees. 

That, as I understand it, is not something you've succeeded in doing..? 

Last point: there is more than one way to skin a cat. As long as you understand the principles you can take different paths. Mine is cognisant of the principles, and suits my needs and my situation. And my trump card: it works. The last piece for me to get into place is raising large numbers of nucs... _without doing anything to upset the system_

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> Well, I'm not sure you have been quite there or you'd understand what it is I'm doing more easily.


I didn't mean i'd been there, i meant you'd been there. In terms of shifting bees around and messing with things. The point being that doing all that, little point not producing drones cos you think it's messing with things.



mike bispham said:


> Yes, Best to Best. That is simple in the case of mammals, but not nearly as precise in the case of open mating insects


LOL, that's what i think every time you say it . It is a very simplistic generalisation.



mike bispham said:


> That, as I understand it, is not something you've succeeded in doing..?


Assuming you mean i failed at achieving a self sustaining TF apiary. Correct, i failed at that. But my attempt at survivor bees was an honest one. After establishing the initial population, with a wide genetic base i wanted to select from, I did not bring in large numbers of new bees each year, or in fact any new bees. I wanted to whittle them down to the survivors, only problem being that in the end, there weren't any. But had i brought as many new swarms as in other threads you have said you do, I would have been just as successful as you, because my results could have been about the same as yours, i could certainly have kept a similar number of hives TF, with a similar input of regular new bees. But i wanted a genuine survivor bee, not a population constantly propped up.

But hey. I offered my thoughts, you prefer to carry on the same, your call, no worries far as i'm concerned.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> I didn't mean i'd been there, i meant you'd been there. In terms of shifting bees around and messing with things.


There are three features to setting up a tf breeding operation. 

1) get your bees (local feral survivors by far preferably)

2) run a live and let die routine

3) repeat as necessary; and make increase from the best without compromising the natural selection process that is playing out. 

You run those stages until you feel that the drawbacks to bringing in new stock outweigh the benefits. In practice that tends to mean you have enough stocks, and you become more discerning, and don't go as far for them as time goes by. You don't need them any more.

(Capturing your own swarms is a different matter...) 



Oldtimer said:


> [Put Best to Best] LOL, that's what i think every time you say it . It is a very simplistic generalisation.


The principle is simple and sound. we seem to agree that much. It takes a lot of thought (and a bit of scale, and a bit of isolation) to get it working well in bee breeding. I think we agree that too.

I've done the thought, the scale, and the isolation. And its worked. What do you want from me? It seems to me you will never be happy till I fail and you can explain why....



Oldtimer said:


> No i haven't. [Succeeded] I did not bring in large numbers of new bees each year, or in fact any new bees. Had i brought as many new swarms as in other threads you have said you do, I would have been just as successful as you, my results could have been about the same as yours, i could certainly have kept a similar number of hives.


Yes. Don't forget the isolation....

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> There are three features to setting up a tf breeding operation.
> 
> 1) get your bees (local feral survivors by far preferably)
> 
> 2) run a live and let die routine
> 
> 3) repeat as necessary; and make increase from the best without compromising the natural selection process that is playing out.


Too oversimplistic for conditions in my country Mike.
First, there are no feral survivors here.
To the rest (live and let die routine), i did that, they all died.

You might be correct about isolation. My country has the densest honeybee population of any country in the world, with around a million hives in an area the size of one US state. Where i am, it is totally impossible to get away from hordes of drones from other hives. I did in fact find some hives with a good measure of varroa tolerance and breed from those, but the trait would be lost in the next generation or two. 

It was actually pretty interesting to me at the time, seeing how even though i was producing large numbers of drones, the great majority of my queens matings were with other drones. 

II can be and is used here to maintain reasonably varroa tolerant lines. But in the real world we cannot II all the queens in production hives, so i tried it without going that route, to see if it could be done.

I kept records and approached the whole thing properly, and i know exactly what happened, and why. I did the best could be done, which is why each time you mention that I failed at TF, doesn't bother me at all. I know what i did, and I know what you are doing.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

you didn't fail ot, you succeeded in proving that given your circumstances achieving natural mite resistance is not doable.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> Too oversimplistic for conditions in my country Mike.
> First, there are no feral survivors here.
> To the rest (live and let die routine), i did that, they all died.


Its not simplistic. Its just that you can't meet the starting conditions.



Oldtimer said:


> You might be correct about isolation. My country has the densest honeybee population of any country in the world, with around a million hives in an area the size of one US state. Where i am, it is totally impossible to get away from hordes of drones from other hives. I did in fact find some hives with a good measure of varroa tolerance and breed from those, but the trait would be lost in the next generation or two.


There is no room for doubt. You can't maintain traits unless you can control the breeding inputs.



Oldtimer said:


> It was actually pretty interesting to me at the time, seeing how even though i was producing large numbers of drones, the great majority of my queens matings were with other drones.


How did you tell? It is a problem - they go a long way. But high numbers will pay off. Not all mating have to be with your own bees. Of course, again, if you have ferals you are laughing.



Oldtimer said:


> I kept records and approached the whole thing properly, and i know exactly what happened, and why. I did the best could be done, which is why each time you mention that I failed at TF, doesn't bother me at all. I know what i did, and I know what you are doing.


Both 'properly' and 'know' are what are called 'vague nouns'. Their meaning is fundamentally imprecise. 

But yes, you're getting the hang of it slowly  Its a shame you can't participate in something you'd clearly like to have a proper (!) crack at.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> BTW OT if I hadn't lost 20 or so hives to EFB this spring my year on year losses would have been around 10%. And that is without forcing out old queens. Or treating. It doesn't get much better than that.


mike, we would like to hear more about how you dealt with the efb outbreak and how it all played out, perhaps moving the discussion to your 'natural selection management' thread. many thanks.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Litsinger said:


> Oldtimer and Gray Goose:
> 
> I have enjoyed reading this discussion and I wonder if you might humor me by expounding on your thoughts cautioning against introducing swarms and cut-outs into your apiaries? I respect your knowledge and experience, so I hope to better understand where you are coming from on this.
> 
> Specifically, I think I understand and can appreciate the admonition not to unnecessarily introduce unknown genetics into your yard and possibly vector in disease along with it.
> 
> That said (and acknowledging the prospect of I.I. and isolated breeding yards) it seems that the best one can do in an open-mated arrangement is exert some control over the maternal line of the equation and by design we are introducing some level of unknown genetics every time we have a virgin queen in need of mating?
> 
> While I have very little experience of my own in this area, it seems that the common denominators in the documented successful TF apiaries are generally:
> 
> 1. A semi-stable local un-managed population of bees that demonstrate some modicum for resistance.
> 
> 2. Relative isolation from an influx of non-resistant stock.
> 
> 3. (Possibly) allowing the colonies to have access to more brood breaks than typical in managed operations (i.e. forced and/or swarming).
> 
> Taking these tenants as a working hypothesis, would it not follow that one would be better served (at least from a resistance standpoint) to tap-into as many expressions of this local adaptation as possible though the collection of local swarms and cut-outs (as examples). In other words, a stable influx of new genetics demonstrating some resistance might help the apiary as a whole?
> 
> Russ


Russ, I'll try to expound on my thoughts.
1. A semi-stable local un-managed population of bees that demonstrate some modicum for resistance. Once they are in a hive they are "managed" by unmanaged did you mean untreated? he is trying for honey production and ocationally taking Splits IE creating NUCs, again managing.

2. Relative isolation from an influx of non-resistant stock. Ok so to me if you are in relative Isolation, where did the stock come from? If isolation and getting cuttouts for a start then ok I'll buy that.

3. (Possibly) allowing the colonies to have access to more brood breaks than typical in managed operations (i.e. forced and/or swarming). He states he has "appx 100 coloneys" at that point if he is managing for production which I gleaned, he should only have 1/3 swarm, so that is 2/3 not having a brood break, so for him the brood break is a maybe each year, not a standard.

So Russ IMO none of these 3 things are really there.

At 100 hive to gain ground on "selection" One could let the bees do it, which is what I feel Mike is doing. Or have a breeding program, which Many other do. Mike Will let the random "good" queen live as long as she wants to and contribute only her fair share to the gene pool. maybe 3 or 4 daughters. With a breeding program when a good queen is identified, the breeder would graft 100 queen from her to "add more matter to the gene pool" there by faster getting the best to reproduce and whittle the poor out. It seems Mike feels that would be a "Non- natural" over representation. 
However relating to the records, Mike stated he had some EFB and lost 10 or so hives, with records One could determine that these were F2 daughters from line XYZ, Take all the XYZ F1s and requeen with another line and "prune" this limb or line from the future results. As Mike is live and let live, these drones may have crossed several of his lines and next year there may be another 10 to get EFB. The spore is "out there" so when the susceptible gene meets the spore , wamo you have an outbreak. So not just the split from the best, you also want to prune the worst. with out records it is somewhat impossible. MABYE one of the cutouts or swarms had the EFB susceptibility gene or EFB, maybe not . these bumps in the road come for all Husbandry a genetic expression in the herd that can bite you. So IMO at 50 or so hives we shift from collection of stock to "bettering" the stock we have. By Adding in an unknown or 2 each year you remove the rudder from the ship and give it to the "unknown new stock, Hence my comment about unknown stock. Be a better choice IMO to buy 3 or 4 queen from another TF person to add those "known" genes to your genes. If you were raising horses and cought some wild stock, in 3 generations of "owners, the humans" you had some good race horses, you would shift to breeding from a stud with know history, rather go catch some more wild horses. So that is the method many breeders employ. To Me Mike wants to do it his way, which is to mimic nature. So again with keepers ask 5 how to do something and get 5 different answers. Also 1 more thing you would need absolute faith in the "wild stock" as you are catching and "propagating" this stock. What if the "TF bee" is not in the stock to begin with? We in the US cannot think this way as Honey bees are not native to the US, they were brought here and escaped, so there is no old natural stock here, So IMO this also affects my opinion, and the fact that there was local stock in Europe can affect Mikes. I try to understand the way others Keep bees to better the way I do it. Some times I find a nugget to use sometimes I am confused.  It seems you are open to ideas and that is good. do study the old writings from the 1850-1940 or so. IMO very little new has been learned about bees since then, the "new data is noise" Go back in time to study the song.
GG


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> How did you tell?


At the outset i messaged around friends and brought in queens from around the country, representing all the breeds and as many of the strains that we have here as I could get. Not sure how familiar you are with different breeds Mike, but i was able to tell how the queens mated by looking at the offspring.

As per Squarepeg, I'll be interested to hear how you dealt with your EFB outbreak. Did you have it properly diagnosed? Please answer in the other thread.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Gray Goose said:


> I try to understand the way other Keep bees to better the way I do it. Some time I find a nugget to use sometimes I am confused.  [...] Go back to study the song.
> GG


There is an analogy from nature used to convey the notion that letting things play out in a competitive environment is often a good way to go. It speaks, in various ways, of throwing a handful of seeds into the soil and seeing what comes up.

What comes up will be viable seed that is suited to the conditions. That's a good start.

A closely related analogy speaks of the next stage: "let them all grow and see which ones win out."

The story is real, not an analogy, when applied to gardening, horticulture, forestry. And it plays with some of the fundamentals of nature, of living things, and they way they arose, were shaped, and how the maintain and regain health. 

One of the primary principles of nature is that of over overproduction followed by ruthless competitive selection. Living things make far more offspring - and far more of the ingredients for offspring - than are needed simply to maintain a population in the absence of predation and limitations of nutrients. Think of mammalian sperm. One ejaculation throws millions and millions of sperm into a race to fertilise an egg. All else being equal, the single winner will have as much strength and vigour as any other. It will be among the very best. that is nature's way of locating the strongest. 

If you interfere with that mechanism, on a generation by generation basis, you risk the health of the population under your management. And there is not just one such competitive health-seeking mechanism: mating is the same, and living and prospering unaided another.

The 'song' is Natural Selection for the Fittest Strains, and husbandry has to set up conditions that allow it to be sung. 

To the extant that happens the charges can prosper. To the extent that it doesn't the population will sicken.

To be a husbandryman you have to know the words and hear the music. You have to set the bandstand, then stand back and watch it play.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> As per Squarepeg, I'll be interested to hear how you dealt with your EFB outbreak. Did you have it properly diagnosed?


There's not much to say. It is endemic about 3 miles away, and came in. It is notifiable, the bee inspector took samples, they were tested and found to be the local strain; the colonies were killed and the frames and comb burned. The worst affected were close packed and lined up. 

I know of hives that recover locally, the ferals in the endemic area live with it. Adjacent robbing of weakened colonies is probably the main form of transmission.

I'm now marking supers to apiaries, cycling out old comb, especially brood comb, not baiting with old comb, minimising drifting, combining weakening nucs... 
just sensible things to try to minimise the problem in the future. 

Mike


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> My comments about not collecting swarms etc were specifically what I think Mike needs to do, not general advice to everyone.


Oldtimer:

Thank you for your detailed and helpful reply and for clarifying that your feedback was specific to Mike's situation.

That said, it has been helpful to read through the exchange here and consider the implications of various propagation approaches and try to envision how they might apply to one's own situation.

Thank you again for the response. I sincerely appreciate it.

Russ


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> There is an analogy from nature used to convey the notion that letting things play out in a competitive environment is often a good way to go. It speaks, in various ways, of throwing a handful of seeds into the soil and seeing what comes up.
> 
> What comes up will be viable seed that is suited to the conditions. That's a good start.
> 
> A closely related analogy speaks of the next stage: "let them all grow and see which ones win out."
> 
> The story is real, not an analogy, when applied to gardening, horticulture, forestry. And it plays with some of the fundamentals of nature, of living things, and they way they arose, were shaped, and how the maintain and regain health.
> 
> One of the primary principles of nature is that of over overproduction followed by ruthless competitive selection. Living things make far more offspring - and far more of the ingredients for offspring - than are needed simply to maintain a population in the absence of predation and limitations of nutrients. Think of mammalian sperm. One ejaculation throws millions and millions of sperm into a race to fertilise an egg. All else being equal, the single winner will have as much strength and vigour as any other. It will be among the very best. that is nature's way of locating the strongest.
> 
> If you interfere with that mechanism, on a generation by generation basis, you risk the health of the population under your management. And there is not just one such competitive health-seeking mechanism: mating is the same, and living and prospering unaided another.
> 
> The 'song' is Natural Selection for the Fittest Strains, and husbandry has to set up conditions that allow it to be sung.
> 
> To the extant that happens the charges can prosper. To the extent that it doesn't the population will sicken.
> 
> To be a husbandryman you have to know the words and hear the music. You have to set the bandstand, then stand back and watch it play.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Understood and I agree.

BTW Mike who is in line to "take over" when you no longer can? Do you have a succession plan? I am working on mine , just curious.
GG


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Thanks Mike, sounds like you took and are taking, a thorough approach.

In the close packed ones, did you feel there were some hives that would have been exposed but did not get the disease?


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Gray Goose said:


> Understood and I agree.
> 
> BTW Mike who is in line to "take over" when you no longer can? Do you have a succession plan? I am working on mine , just curious.
> GG


Not looking that far (I hope!) ahead!  If I can make an asset that will help my retirement/save my kids the grim task of looking after me I'll be more than happy!

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Oldtimer said:


> Thanks Mike, sounds like you took and are taking, a thorough approach.
> 
> In the close packed ones, did you feel there were some hives that would have been exposed but did not get the disease?


Absolutely! 

Difficult to know quite what to do with them: they are probably infected, and therefore 'carriers'. Taking (clean) genetic material from them - if there is any such thing - might be a way to get both clean and resistant lines. At the moment my main strategy is to make increase from those thriving in the centre of the storm, and keep them there to see what happens, while maintaining the higher levels of care I outlined above elsewhere.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Gray Goose said:


> One could let the bees do it, which is what I feel Mike is doing. Or have a breeding program, which Many other do.
> 
> So not just the split from the best, you also want to prune the worst.


Gray Goose:

Excellent reply- I had to go back an read it several times to make sure I absorbed everything.

I do not know enough to really weigh-in either way but it seems to me that the fundamental question might be how much control does the beekeeper have in their specific polyandrous, open-mated environment?

Maybe I am missing the mark, but it seems that one's propagation approach (at least as regards genetics) is largely driven upon how confident one feels:

1. About the background genetic make-up (i.e. the cumulative sum of the feral and managed stocks). 

2. That they can control the genetic output. 

On the basis of these two factors alone, I can see how many divergent approaches to propagation could emerge (as I believe you are alluding to). 

Thank you again for your helpful input- I am taking seriously your advice to read the old writings... it just takes awhile!

Have a great day.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



mike bispham said:


> I'm now marking supers to apiaries, cycling out old comb, especially brood comb, not baiting with old comb, minimising drifting, combining weakening nucs...
> just sensible things to try to minimise the problem in the future.


understood mike, and thanks for the reply.

just so all you good folks don't get lost i'll be moving these last posts to mike's thread.


----------



## gww

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Gray goose


> We in the US cannot think this way as Honey bees are not native to the US, they were brought here and escaped, so there is no old natural stock here, So IMO this also affects my opinion, and the fact that there was local stock in Europe can affect Mikes.


This ideal always kind of throws me. I understand that our genetics may not be as wide as other places due to relying on only what was brought here. I would point out that in america, the plants are not native either. From the moment that ships landed on the shore, plants were being transferred along with bees. So the bees may not be native to the environment but the environment has sure been changed more to relate to the bees then it was originally. 

I do recall Michael palmer, in an interview, pointing out that the plants in his area have responded to the density of bees in his area with it changing to being more bee friendly due to plant reaction to lots of bees.

How long before it is native?
Just a talking point from an admitted uneducated person. I don't claim I "know" anything.
Cheers
gww

ps to AR1 I read a comment that randy oliver made on beel about your experience as far as mite bombs are concerned. In his comment he mentioned the effect of mite bombs on normal hives compared to mite bombs affecting a long time treatment free beekeeper. He basically said that a big influx of mites in the treatment free beekeepers hives just seemed to disappear with out bad effect on those bees. So I can see how both effects (yours and mine) could be experienced.


----------



## Gray Goose

mike bispham said:


> I'm not constantly splitting. About half my replacements are swarms, the rest are nucs raised by the simms method from middling hives.
> 
> 
> 
> I use all natural comb in brood boxes and the first lift. The point is if I 'safehouse' the queen in, say, a single broodbox, she won't have either the space nor the resources to raise the sort of drone numbers I want from her. Unless I force her to raise more drone - and I don't know how likely that is.
> 
> I'm loath to meddle with nature like this... I think maybe a snap batch of plenty of daughters is the best thing, and hope that they and she (through her drones) make a good contribution to the future.
> 
> Mike UK


Hi Mike the thread is dated and this may not work for this year.

For the queen I pull out to make increase, I will place her over a "weak hive" double excluder and newspaper combine.
In a couple weeks it all is 1 hive:
1) you can pinch the old weak hive queen.
2) reverse queens give the one you like the brood nest and put the one you do not like in a NUC
3) walk away split, set the top box with queen you like on the bottom board, add comb, and all the supers , take the old queen away.

All of the above serve to put the queen you want back into a brood nest from a queen you do not want. then you can have more drones, more brood etc.
Basically make a 2 queen set up then tear it down in the fashion to meet your needs.

I often put the queen i do not want in a NUC and add back a cell from the ones i just created to get a "forced" supercedure, so the nest goes to the Mother, the NUC gets a F1 cell, you have culled the bottom hive, gave the nest to the drone making queen and requeened the NUC with an F1.
It involves some play time with the bees but often when going in to check for cells I see a nice big one, some would scratch it to prevent swarming, I simply place it into a hive that is a laggard.
Also gets the pulled queen back up in population faster.
GG


----------



## mike bispham

Deleted, accidental repeat


----------



## mike bispham

Gray Goose said:


> Also gets the pulled queen back up in population faster.
> GG


Hi Grey Goose, yeah, I kinda know all this stuff, but for the reasons I've just outlined I don't go in for it. 

This year has been about swarms flying into baits left around my apiaries BIG TIME. One apiary started the year with 2 hives (I'd taken the rest to pollination, these were too weak to go)

By late June I had about 25 and were adding second nuc brood boxes. By mid June I was splitting lots of them two or three ways. I now have about 40. Of course their parentage and disease qualities are unknown, and so I'll be keeping an eye out for EFB. Those that get through the winter will be built up to make make nucs using queen cells from best production hives - 30 miles away. They'll be mated there too, and so this year's crop of swarms at this apiary will come to be headed by queens from my line. 

That's opportunistic beekeeping I guess, but I get to where I want to be in the end.

Cheers,

Mike (UK)


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



gww said:


> Gray goose
> 
> 
> This ideal always kind of throws me. I understand that our genetics may not be as wide as other places due to relying on only what was brought here. I would point out that in america, the plants are not native either. From the moment that ships landed on the shore, plants were being transferred along with bees. So the bees may not be native to the environment but the environment has sure been changed more to relate to the bees then it was originally.
> 
> I do recall Michael palmer, in an interview, pointing out that the plants in his area have responded to the density of bees in his area with it changing to being more bee friendly due to plant reaction to lots of bees.
> 
> How long before it is native?
> Just a talking point from an admitted uneducated person. I don't claim I "know" anything.
> Cheers
> gww
> 
> ps to AR1 I read a comment that randy oliver made on beel about your experience as far as mite bombs are concerned. In his comment he mentioned the effect of mite bombs on normal hives compared to mite bombs affecting a long time treatment free beekeeper. He basically said that a big influx of mites in the treatment free beekeepers hives just seemed to disappear with out bad effect on those bees. So I can see how both effects (yours and mine) could be experienced.


gww,
My point is the gene pool in Europe is 100,000 years old. The gene pool in the US is 200 years old (from transplanted Euro genes) In areas where the bees do well they have "adapted" However we have breeders making 10000 queens a year and shipping them all over, so the gene pool in the US has pockets of "over representation" So in Europe the bees were there and we captured some and cultivated them, One could surmise that initially we did not affect the native gene pool much, not until carting bees from other areas came to popularity. In the US the opposite is true the feral are escaped bees from the ones we brought here. Initially the fearals would have been impacted buy the managed bees. think the first 3 swarms to hit the woods in the US would have mated back to the parent Apairy. and in Europe the first 3 swarms captured and placed in logs would have mated back to the fearals. So in Europe we slowly pulled away from the local stock, in the US we created and to this day still add to it every year, the fearal stock. As to the plants sure if the plant has gain from the bees and the bees "promote" it the the bees and the bee plants are sustaining each other. Slowley over time the bees we manage are more and more affecting the "local" fearal type , where they originally existed. Where we transplanted them they are the sum total of all the escapees, here in the US a true melting pot.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



gww said:


> Gray goose
> 
> 
> This ideal always kind of throws me. I understand that our genetics may not be as wide as other places due to relying on only what was brought here. I would point out that in america, the plants are not native either. From the moment that ships landed on the shore, plants were being transferred along with bees. So the bees may not be native to the environment but the environment has sure been changed more to relate to the bees then it was originally.
> 
> I do recall Michael palmer, in an interview, pointing out that the plants in his area have responded to the density of bees in his area with it changing to being more bee friendly due to plant reaction to lots of bees.
> 
> How long before it is native?
> Just a talking point from an admitted uneducated person. I don't claim I "know" anything.
> Cheers
> gww
> 
> ps to AR1 I read a comment that randy oliver made on beel about your experience as far as mite bombs are concerned. In his comment he mentioned the effect of mite bombs on normal hives compared to mite bombs affecting a long time treatment free beekeeper. He basically said that a big influx of mites in the treatment free beekeepers hives just seemed to disappear with out bad effect on those bees. So I can see how both effects (yours and mine) could be experienced.


gww,
My point is the gene pool in Europe is 100,000 years old. The gene pool in the US is 200 years old (from transplanted Euro genes) In areas where the bees do well they have "adapted" However we have breeders making 10000 queens a year and shipping them all over, so the gene pool in the US has pockets of "over representation" So in Europe the bees were there and we captured some and cultivated them, One could surmise that initially we did not affect the native gene pool much, not until carting bees from other areas came to popularity. In the US the opposite is true the feral are escaped bees from the ones we brought here. Initially the fearals would have been impacted buy the managed bees. think the first 3 swarms to hit the woods in the US would have mated back to the parent Apairy. and in Europe the first 3 swarms captured and placed in logs would have mated back to the fearals. So in Europe we slowly pulled away from the local stock, in the US we created and to this day still add to it every year, the fearal stock. As to the plants sure if the plant has gain from the bees and the bees "promote" it the the bees and the bee plants are sustaining each other. Slowley over time the bees we manage are more and more affecting the "local" fearal type , where they originally existed. Where we transplanted them they are the sum total of all the escapees, here in the US a true melting pot.


----------



## gww

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

gray goose
The melting pot part is why I like the ideal of throwing in a swarm every so often into the background area. Depending on purpose of adding would depend on how many new bees to add at one time.

Even though queen breeders make lots of queens, one study I read did show that managed bees had more genetic alleles then feral. Who knows how close imports and mixing of many types of bees has narrowed the difference from the thousand years bees?

That same study seemed to show that bees under pressure of mites with a smaller number of alleles did better then bees not under pressure with more alleles and bees with even more alleles and also under pressure did best.

This subject on bees and the ideal that nature breeds to average always leads me to the question of things like the long beaked birds, at some point in time there had to only be one long beaked bird? If long beaks was some kind of advantage, even breading to average might not stamp out a long beak and so it becomes a matter of time and what or how many was started with.

This is not questioning your post, but more just thinking on it and not knowing the for sure answer myself of true cause and effect. My old man used to tell me that at some point in time you had to make some kind of decision on a path to take, right or wrong, and adjust from there as you went along.

I like your communication style and have never noticed you being overly arbitrary or judgmental. Thanks for the conversation.
Cheers
gww

PS I must say that mikes statement "That's opportunistic beekeeping I guess, but I get to where I want to be in the end." Is the most important statement in my mind when it comes to keeping bees. Everyone keeps them for a reason of their own.


----------



## msl

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



> point is the gene pool in Europe is 100,000 years old. The gene pool in the US is 200 years old (from transplanted Euro genes) In areas where the bees do well they have "adapted" However we have breeders making 10000 queens a year and shipping them all over, so the gene pool in the US has pockets of "over representation"


the US commercial gene pool is more deverce then the native populations in Europe, the opsict of what one would expect.
"We found that managed honey bees actually have higher levels of genetic diversity compared with their progenitors in East and West Europe, providingan unusual example whereby human management increases genetic diversity" Harper Et Al 2012 https://www.researchgate.net/public...genetic_diversity_of_honey_bees_via_admixture


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## GregB

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



msl said:


> the US commercial gene pool is more deverce then the native populations in Europe, the opsict of what one would expect.
> "We found that managed honey bees actually have higher levels of genetic diversity compared with their progenitors in East and West Europe, providingan unusual example whereby human management increases genetic diversity" Harper Et Al 2012 https://www.researchgate.net/public...genetic_diversity_of_honey_bees_via_admixture


Just like people.
Here you go - the melting pot.
NOT shallow pool at all.
The other way around, in fact.


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## Gray Goose

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Hmmm so the US brought them in from more sources than in Europe, well mabe in Europe you go to the neighbor for a split, here you went to the Sears catalog Bigger mix may or may not help we will need to hang on for a few years and see.
GG


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## GregB

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



Gray Goose said:


> Hmmm so the US brought them in from more sources than in Europe, well mabe in Europe you go to the neighbor for a split, here you went to the Sears catalog Bigger mix may or may not help we will need to hang on for a few years and see.
> GG


Put it this way - when I was a kid in my remote European village and Gypsies came along (very rarely) - they were a curiosity (dark looking people, you know, unlike the local village people - very northern European).
Sometimes in summer, temporary workers from Armenia would come for 2-3 months - also a curiosity (and few dark looking children mysteriously were born in the village too).

Living in the US for long time now, I would care less about Gypsy-looking or Armenian-looking people. 
My good colleague a cube over is rather Jewish looking.
Melting pot and diversity from across the globe - this is the USA.

Same for the bees.
Pretty obvious to me.


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## Litsinger

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*



gww said:


> I like your communication style and have never noticed you being overly arbitrary or judgmental.


GWW:

And I think the same could be said for you- I appreciate your helpful attitude and approach.


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## gww

*Re: a little scientific involvement with TF bees.*

Russ
I don't know if I deserve that but thank you.
gww


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## mike bispham

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



little_john said:


> ... it's always prudent to bear this in mind when dealing with complex issues, especially those involving 'cause and effect'.
> LJ


The complexity and invisibility of natural selection - particularly with honey bees - makes it hard for many to approach. But its there. If you getting working for you it can bring the results you want. Nothing else will, and if you ignore it, or misunderstand or misapply it you will crash.

Mike UK


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## little_john

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



mike bispham said:


> The complexity and invisibility of natural selection - particularly with honey bees - makes it hard for many to approach. But its there. If you getting working for you it can bring the results you want. Nothing else will, and if you ignore it, or misunderstand or misapply it you will crash.
> 
> Mike UK


Do you realise what you're saying ? "natural selection" and "the results you want" - together they represent an oxymoron.
LJ


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## mike bispham

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



little_john said:


> Do you realise what you're saying ? "natural selection" and "the results you want" - together they represent an oxymoron.
> LJ


Well, yes and no. The trick is to see how to work with the flow, the 'methods', and the grain of natural selection - to let natural selection do its work and very carefully help it. 

Breeders mimic natural selection (the term 'selection' comes from them - from 'selective breeding')

Choosing his words carefully and adding 'natural' Darwin carefully considered deploying "Natural 'selection' " to describe the process, but in the end went with the phrase we use today. And it works very well; Nature, through various mechanisms 'selects' the best parents to produce offspring best fitted to the environment in each generation. Of course there is no intentionality in such 'selection': nature is blind and purposeless. But the magic works; and to the extent that you interfere with it you risk the health of your population. 

Its not always easy to speak in terms that convey the live and let die AND breed methods easily. You have use the term natural selection. And you have to use the term breed to do it justice, to convey your meaning. You are doing both.

Does that make more sense to you?

Mike (UK)


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## little_john

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*

Do bear in mind that Darwin's Theory is just that - a theory. It's a lot better than any of the other 'stuff' that's on offer - but it still remains a theory. Charles Darwin's theory, for which we have his grandfather Erasmus to thank of course, has so many holes in it - with the development of wings being perhaps one of the most controversial. But that aside ...

We humans have taken what we understand to be key principles of the theory, and are now employing these as if human influence can be taken completely out of the equation - and that our objectives are exactly the same as those which would result without our interference. We are engaged in *Human* Selection, and not the *Natural* Selection which Darwin described and explained.

But - with the same supreme human arrogance which once saw our Earth as being at the very centre of the Cosmos, the Creation of which was claimed to have been caused by some quasi-human god-like force which could be influenced by sacrifice or more lately, by prayer - we now manipulate the Earth's environment and the creatures upon it as if we have both the right to do this - and are in possession of the necessary wisdom to successfully pull it off.

I don't have that much of a problem with this sort of human behaviour, except when it is done whilst marching behind the 'Natural' banner. There's nothing remotely natural about *anything* related to beekeeping - beginning with the keeping of bees itself; the numbers of colonies per acre; the importation/ exportation of bees into novel areas; the artificial propagation of queens - and then mailing them long distances - the list could become a very long one. And for most of us, not even the environment in which we keep bees could ever be described as anywhere near 'natural'. But 'natural' is one of the really great 'buzz-words', second only perhaps to 'freedom'. 

As 'natural' has such good baggage attached to it, it's a word freely used to gain moral advantage - but please let's not be seduced by such misuse ...



> Of course there is no intentionality in such 'selection': *nature is blind and purposeless*. But the magic works; and to the extent that you interfere with it you risk the health of your population.


Nature is purposeless - whereas Humans have an agenda. In the Origin of Species Darwin was describing events which had not been subjected to any kind of human influence - so to continue to use the same terminology is inappropriate, if not dishonest.
LJ


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## mike bispham

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*

Hi All!

I was looking through Beesource for info about melting very obstinate crystallised honey, and thought I'd pop my head round the corner and say Hi!

Just to say: I'm still here, still not treating or fiddling against varroa (or anything else) in any way other than selecting mother hives.

Currently holding about 80 colonies, and finally learning how to be a better honey and bee farmer - without messing up the natural selection process I hope!

Hope you're all well,

Allbest

Mike (UK)

PS latest thinking: after repeatedly seeing hives falling and dying over winter, and turning worker-layer far too often, it has struck me that beekeepers have probably bred a large degree of supercedure capability out of bees by constantly replacing queens.

Anyone see that?


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## Oldtimer

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*

What size containers are you wanting to melt?


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## BernhardHeuvel

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



mike bispham said:


> Anyone see that?


Can't see this. 

How many colonies have a queen from a breeding program? Controlled mated queens? About 0,01 % of all hives maybe. So there is actually a lack of breeding instead of the propagated overbreeding. 

Strong hives have a perfectly ability to supercedure. The problem for most bee observers is, to actually get hives strong and keep'em strong.

As a side note:
I do not replace queens only because of the age. I have dozens of colonies that went with 5 year old queens into the canola/rape seed honey crop this year – and they made a good harvest, comparable to younger queens. Also they filled the broodnest pretty good and had no swarming issues either. If you know how to use the adaptable broodnest, even old queens perform well enough for the commercial beekeeping operation.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> What size containers are you wanting to melt?


5 gallon. They are from early 2018, probably partly oilseed rape (canola). I can melt them by going to 60 deg C. for 48 hours, but there is still filter- clogging crystal in there, and the honey has started to become caramelized. I'm concerned the small crystal coming through the filter will soon cause hardening again, even if I blend with new. Perhaps a candidate for set honey. As well as clearing this batch I'm trying to learn what is possible storage wise for future reference.

I'm going to try cooler/longer. 

Any thoughts welcome.


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## mike bispham

Bernard, you write: " how many colonies have a queen from a breeding program? "


First, there is 'fully controlled' as in a closed selective breeding system (none) then there is 'partly controlled' as in a mother selection process (and how hard that is run); then there is 'naturally controlled' as in a wild setting - which we wouldn't generally describe as being controlled at all.

'Control' lies on a spectrum. It's not a binary on-off matter.

My 'breeding program' is shifting from natural selection, or live and let die, toward a loose scheme that makes new colonies from the best 20% or so. Arriving at 'best' involves longevity times productivity.

Thus far I've allowed colonies to sputtered on till they perish. Thus those that genes that do supersede successfully have come through, while those that done, haven't.

That should give you an idea of how I manage to run 80 or so colonies with no medication and no mollycoddling of any sort whatsoever, with winter losses lower than the national average.

My proposition concerning supercedure is pretty straightforward. If there is pressure on a population to supersede individuals will maintain a capability to do so. If that pressure is removed, there is a very good chance that capability will recede.

The pressure is lightened in places where queen-changing beekeepers are more prominent, and the longer that has been so the greater the likely effect.

We don't need to complicate matters any more than that.


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> 5 gallon. They are from early 2018, probably partly oilseed rape (canola). I can melt them by going to 60 deg C. for 48 hours, but there is still filter- clogging crystal in there, and the honey has started to become caramelized. I'm concerned the small crystal coming through the filter will soon cause hardening again, even if I blend with new. Perhaps a candidate for set honey. As well as clearing this batch I'm trying to learn what is possible storage wise for future reference.
> 
> I'm going to try cooler/longer.
> 
> Any thoughts welcome.


This is what you need. https://www.powerblanket.com/products/bee-blanket/

As an aside, 60C is way too hot and will damage the honey. You should not go over 42C, and even that, just for a very short time.

I sell a lot of honey in 20 liter (4 point something gallons) and a lot of people want it liquid, the bee blanket does a good job BUT, as the honey melts the crystals fall to the bottom and don't dissolve. For that I have to put a pet blanket under the bucket. With the pet planket under the blanket plus the bee blanket, you have an effective bucket melter that will deal with the most difficult honey types in 3 days, and most honey types in 2 days. The bee blanket heats the honey to 35C which is enough, with a pet blanket underneath. 

Always happy to be of service Mike.


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## Oldtimer

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



mike bispham said:


> latest thinking: after repeatedly seeing hives falling and dying over winter, and turning worker-layer far too often, it has struck me that beekeepers have probably bred a large degree of supercedure capability out of bees by constantly replacing queens.
> 
> Anyone see that?


No. The issue is mites. 

When I started beekeeping which was pre varroa, it was incredibly rare to lose a queen through winter. Without varroa, ie, bees natural un interfered with state, the bees were totally capable of detecting a queen nearing her end and superseding her in time. So capable in fact, that the first outfit I worked for had around 4,000 hives, and you could count winter queen losses on the fingers of one hand. 
In these post varroa times, many beekeepers simply would not believe that because it is outside their post varroa experience. But, that is the way things used to be.

My theory is that varroa and associated viruses, often speed up the demise of the queen, and the bees get caught unawares. Best I can tell, average rates of going hopelessly queenless in winter now, in my country, is around 5%.

Re breeding out supersedure, have not seen it here. Now I am retired and just running 320 hives as a retirement hobby, I am running them by rather minimalist labor methods, and not doing any requeening at all, other than if there is an aggressive hive or some other undesireable trait that needs eliminating, I am leaving the bees to their own devises and finding they are mostly all superseding as required just fine.

Rather an odd position for someone to take who was once a full time queen breeder. Honey production is probably a bit lower than if I requeened religiously, as there is the odd hive with an old queen and poor production. However from an economic perspective there is a cost to requeening, either money if you buy them, or time if you make them. I'm pretty sure that in my outfit anyway, the cost of requeening would be more than the lost production by not requeening. The greatest number of hives have nice productive queens, and natural supersedure queens are normally big, fat, top quality queens. I still have around 5% queen loss through winter, which is around the same as everyone else.


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## mike bispham

Interesting, thanks D. I pop my buckets in a fridge heated by a lightbulb, controlled by stat. 40 deg C is about my norm for filtering, but this old batch can go 3 or 4 days and still the grains clog the filter instantly.

I could, and should, filter from the settling tank, but... I retail my honey, and don't want it looking grotty in the jars on shop shelves. 

I can get by and use this batch up. But I kind of had in mind long term storage to be covered for a bad year or two. So I need to find out how to make this work. I think the answer will be a bit of this and a bit of that - slow melting, blending, a few other things I have in mind.


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## Oldtimer

Did you not see my post on it?


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## mike bispham

"Re. breeding out supersedure, have not seen it here. "

If you have that many hives, and are not systematically requesting, that would be expected, within my speculation.

I think you may well be right about mites, though I very rarely see them. It wouldn't have to be either/or. Both causes might be working together, in differing proportions according to circumstances.

I think I've been losing a lot to old comb. I've only just started rotating out systematically, and many of my failed hives were pretty ugly. I want to raise survival and strong early build up but I'm trying to avoid doing things that might interfere with my natural selection process. It's a tricky one.


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## Oldtimer

Old comb? I only throw it when it is so old that cocoons have built on the cell bottom to such an extent that they can't use it for brood any more because of the now close proximity to the other comb, cannot accomadate the length of a larva. I do know I'm of the minority in this view.

But when I asked if you saw my post, I meant the bee blanket one.


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## mike bispham

Yes I saw your pet blanket post D, I thanked you for it 🙂


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## Oldtimer

Oh OK. I did not know I was referred to as D. :scratch:

Thankyou F.


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## msl

> latest thinking: after repeatedly seeing hives falling and dying over winter, and turning worker-layer far too often, it has struck me that beekeepers have probably bred a large degree of supercedure capability out of bees by constantly replacing queens.


hard to re queen when there arn't drones or mateing flight weather

maybe the heart of the matter is the currant problems queen longevity

there is the argument that prophylactic replacement of queens led us down this road, eliminating positive selection for longevity.
fipside is Seeley's work shows wild queens have a short life and high turnover.. (90% don't see a 2nd spring) so it may not be a direct of human (active) selection and my just be a sign of the times (pests, ag cems, what ever)


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## Oldtimer

msl said:


> there is the argument that prophylactic replacement of queens led us down this road, eliminating positive selection for longevity.


I don't think many in the business would buy into that argument, although there will be a few.

In the main, breeder queens are at least one season old and often two, they have to be that old to assess their performance. Queens just good for a year are not going to make selection.

The exception might be breeders produced by II, which might be recently inseminated and have been selected on the merits of their parents. However the original parentage will have been selected on normal criterion, and would generally have to be good for at least two years.

I have heard this argument before, that we are selecting for shorter lifespan, but in my view the reverse is the case, if the queens have been raised by reputable bee breeders using normal selection criterion. The other thing, is that despite "prophylactic requeening", most hives are not "prophylactically requeened", not once a year, anyway.



msl said:


> fipside is Seeley's work shows wild queens have a short life and high turnover.. (90% don't see a 2nd spring) so it may not be a direct of human (active) selection and my just be a sign of the times (pests, ag cems, what ever)


That, emphasis pests.


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## mike bispham

Sorry F, don't know where D came from, M 🙂


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## mike bispham

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



little_john said:


> Nature is purposeless - whereas Humans have an agenda. In the Origin of Species Darwin was describing events which had not been subjected to any kind of human influence - so to continue to use the same terminology is inappropriate, if not dishonest.
> LJ


Little John,

Where humans are not interfering what is happening is natural. To the extent that humans interfere what is happening becomes less natural.

You can take an extreme position and say 'man has changed everything, and therefore there is no natural'

Or, you take take the opposite view and say: if men don't interfere what unfolds will, by definition, unfold naturally.'

I suspect you take the first, me the second, and that is causing misunderstanding.

My position is to interfere a little as possible allows natural solutions, if they are available, to work through.

In bee management we have a choice. We can interfere on all sorts of levels, making for very unnatural developments.

Or we can interfere as little as possible, and allow natural selection to 'make the decisions' on the all-important issue of which individuals make each new generation.

That is what I do, and what others (i.e. John Kefus of 'Live and Let Die' fame) have done. 

My 'management' consists, as much as is possible, of allowing natural selection to 'make the breeding decisions.'

Does that make sense?


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## Oldtimer

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



mike bispham said:


> and what others (i.e. John Kefus of 'Live and Let Die' fame) have done.


How did that work out?


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*



Oldtimer said:


> How did that work out?


Pretty well as far as I know, but the last I heard not compatible with present day large-scale commercial beekeeping.

If we could do one thing at a time OT - I'm trying to agree language with Little John here so we can avoid misunderstanding each other.


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## msl

*Re: Riverderwent Survival Treatment Free 2017*

Agreed OT 
However my breeder this year comes from a swarm I caught in 2016 and I have never re queened (they have on their own). You don't find genetics like that if you re queen on a schedule, just like you don't find mite resistance if you treat on a schedule with out counts . However you likely make more money if you do both.


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