# VSH mite resistant bees



## razoo (Jul 7, 2015)

Has anyone found a source for VSH queens that are truly mite resistant. I bought a VSH Italian from a reputable dealer, but didn't see any difference in the mite counts between that colony and my other hives. If the queen wasn't any different, then I am not sure if I can trust any company claiming to sell hygenic or resistant bees. 

Are there any truly hygenic or mite resistant queens available yet, or is this still a goal and not yet reality?


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

razoo said:


> Are there any truly hygenic or mite resistant queens available yet, or is this still a goal and not yet reality?


You may have just opened Pandora's Box.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Try BWeaver. I've heard some reports of aggressive bees, but I didn't experience any issues in that regard. Very aggressive toward pests like SHB. More headbutting perhaps, but no more stinging than homegrown. I'd describe them as very active bees. Can be runny on comb. It's clear to me that they are indeed a different breed of bee. I liked them, but lost my original queen and daughters to the trees this year. I'd say in terms of resistance, the original queen by all observations passed the survival test, which was overwintered 2 years without treatment before swarming. YMMV.

I should read more closely. VSH specific. Scratch my post.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

If you order pure Russians from a member of the Russian Queen Breeders Assn, you will probably get the real deal. Most everyone else sells 'hybrid' queens. They buy an instrumentally inseminated breeder queen (Russian, VSH...whatever) and the queens grafted from those II mothers are then open mated in areas where the genetics aren't controlled. The result is likely to be a mixed bag.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

http://www.ontariobee.com/ORHBS

Here is a link to Hygenic Bee Breeders Association in Ontario. Information on assessment methods and selection for resistance. Should be something similar in US.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

The problem with most mite resistant queens is they run smaller colonies, swarm more and produce less honey. If they are Russians they are mean and the outcrosses when they supercede are mean as hell. If you can get true gold survivors the stock seems to quickly dilute in the genetic ocean of your area when they may have been fine in the local they were developed in. It is a thorny situation. I am getting more of Bill Carpenters queens to add to my isolated yard where I am making the attempt to get to a bee that will require LESS chemical intervention while producing a large crop of honey. The only reason I bother is that I have some survivors in a fairly isolated location. It is going to be a hard uphill struggle to get to a population of honey bees that can tolerate the Varroa mite and be meaningfully productive.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Nordak said:


> I should read more closely. VSH specific. Scratch my post.


You are good. The op asked about any genuine sources of hygienic or resistant bees.
Not everyone will necessarily agree on whether or not BWeaver's meet that criteria...but then there isn't much that we all agree on anyway.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

beemandan said:


> but then there isn't much that we all agree on anyway.


How boring would that be?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

My experience is that VSH alone is not enough to enable bees to survive sans treatments. Combining grooming, mite mauling, and VSH is enough to go treatment free. Where do you find such bees? Good question.


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## J.Lee (Jan 19, 2014)

Johnny Thompson at Broke T Queens. Phone number is 1-601-562-0701. 2017 will be my sixth year treatment free and I have not lost a hive to varroa yet. I am very blessed with a great location that is isolated from other beekeepers. I know that this is a part of my success as well. I also run nothing but VSH bees and some possible ferals that I have captured in swarms. Johnny has V.P. Queens (Spartan-Carni and Allegro-Italian), Dr. Harbo Queens, and Jeff Harris Queens. The V.P. Queens Allegros work best for me (In my location) in the long run. V.P.Queens and Dr. Harbo both have websites that you can look at for more information. Johnny is taking orders for queens right now in the spring. Hope this helps and good luck.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

> 2017 will be my sixth year treatment free and I have not lost a hive to varroa yet.


Yes, but how much honey do your hives make? I, too, was VERY successful with VSH queens being treatment free. However over a period of 4 years I went from an average of 75-100lbs per hive to 2 PINTS.

JMO

Rusty


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Rusty Hills Farm said:


> However over a period of 4 years I went from an average of 75-100lbs per hive to 2 PINTS.


averaging 2 pints is, well, pathetic. was swarming a big problem with those vsh bees rusty, or were they just downright not interested in putting up honey?


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## woodyard (Apr 12, 2005)

I have been using VSH breeder queens from John Harbo for the past three or four years. The queens I raise , I have what I consider good success with. I haven't treated for mites in probably 5 years and I produce a good honey crop for my area. This year I averaged pulling off about 48 lbs per hive and left plenty to where I wouldn't have to fall feed. We were in a drought this fall and most of my hives will have more than enough to go through the winter. I think our state average is about 60 lbs in a good year.

I try to flood my area with drones from VSH and NWC colonies to mate with the queens. They are not that defensive as compared to any other bees I have had over the last 19 years. I probably lose a few colonies to varroa every year because of my open mating ,but not many. My overall loses have been under the state average for the last several years.

I wouldn't give up on the VSH trait if I were you guys, I would just keep trying to find the right breeders. Also you have to remember that the trait is going to dilute quickly with successive generations. So with a supercedure or a swarm you are not going to have the same percent of trait when they mate with your neighbors drones.


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## Bee Nut (Oct 10, 2015)

opcorn:


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## frustrateddrone (Jan 31, 2015)

I have had bad success with VHS queens in a shipment I got in May. In mid August the 3 queens were doing a horrible job laying and the population in all 3 hives crashed. My 3 stack bee hive went down to 4 frames of bees. I didn't have a mite problem either. The queens were not laying was the problem. I got new queens and all was fine by winter time. I lost all my honey surplus though and that IRK'D me as I was thinking at minimum a box of honey to extract for my 2nd year. 
Mite count was a few so I did have great results. I had zero mites coming with treatment into spring after treatment in 2016. We will see this spring what happens. Guarding is 1 thing that they are very good at. I had robbing from ferrell bees and they made kills.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

squarepeg said:


> averaging 2 pints is, well, pathetic. was swarming a big problem with those vsh bees rusty, or were they just downright not interested in putting up honey?



Not particularly swarmy but honey production was terrible--hardly even enough for themselves by the end there. It was becoming a vicious circle of low/no honey so the brood started getting scanty and pretty soon the population started falling off in a couple of hives until they didn't have enough bees to produce enough honey to sustain themselves. In the others there was good population and enough production to sustain themselves but never enough to harvest--just self-sustaining without any growth. Meantime my Italian hives keep rolling right along making bees and honey and growing BUT them I have to treat. So I've decided I'd rather have honey and treat for mites than have no mites and no honey either. So this year I am on my way back to all Italians. I just figure nothing ventured, nothing gained. It was a great experiment and I learned a lot.

Rusty


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

One of the problems that is happening we buy a VSH Queen then put it in a mite infested hive then expect the colony to do well? Not if the bees have too rip out half of the brood.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

Mike Gillmore said:


> You may have just opened Pandora's Box.


Very good choice of words. If you word it incorrectly, seems to be a pile on you more ferocious than the mites themselves. But, I have said a couple years back and will say again. If I don't want wet feet, I don't buy water resistant boots, I buy waterproof boots. So, I will give the testers my cash if they ever get there, but not until then.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

Dan the bee guy said:


> One of the problems that is happening we buy a VSH Queen then put it in a mite infested hive then expect the colony to do well? Not if the bees have too rip out half of the brood.


This is a valid observation on a hive the first year it has a VSH queen. But what about the 4th year? I have hives in my yard that have been VSH for 4 years. Before they were VSH they made honey. The first year they were VSH, they didn't (perhaps because they were busy fighting mites?) The second year they did, just not as much as they did before they were VSH. The 3rd year instead of increasing, they either stayed the same or decreased. Ditto this last year. From the start of going VSH I did not see a mite in those hives with F1 queens. None showed up in my testing. By this last year with still no mites when I treated with OAD and still no honey, I finally had to face up to the idea that my assumptions about VSH are somehow wrong. That decreasing the mite pressures and virus pressures and brood disease pressures did NOT make these hives more productive.

To me that is totally upside down! 

I have a 2nd yard and that yard is plain ol' Italian commercial bees. If I did not treat those hives, they'd be dead in a season. Treated, they made honey. They had frames and frames of brood. They expanded and I had to watch carefully and make splits to keep them out of the trees. In short they acted like bees normally act.

Why is the mite-less VSH yard failing and the mite-infested commercial yard booming?

I am just a little guy and I'm not expecting to answer the big questions or make any startling discoveries in my little hobby yards. I'm just trying to enjoy my bees and make enough from my honey to support my hobby, which is why I have decided to requeen those VSH hives with queens from my Italian yard and eventually combine the 2 yards into one again. But I do scratch my head over this puzzle and I do wonder if others are having the same experiences?


Rusty


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Hi Rusty the problem of the VSH trait just might be over selection for the single trait and none for productivity. Not enough genetic diversity in the bees maybe. I think more of the smaller beeks should be raising their own queens useing a VSH breeder. If we raise more queens ourselves we will have more chances of finding the queens that might be great.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

A question that occurs to me: what would happen with an over/under 2queen setup with VSH on bottom and honey producers on top? Or with a vertical excluder and VSH on one side and honey producers on top? That would be a very interesting test for Rusty's operation to contrast against his experience with VSH queen introduction.

It would be fun to try. Bernhard Heuvel on the two queen operation thread in the commercial section had some interesting comments and observations.

[addendum for clarification: With excluder only separating the two colonies, keeping the queens apart, the workers have free access everywhere. I understand VSH as the workers removing varroa-infested pupae. This might function to reduce the need for chemical treatments, especially if coordinated with IPM measures. The population boost of both colonies active in one box/stack would seem likely to be beneficial, which is one of the things that Bernhard Heuvel mentions in general 2-queen colony comments. Possibly this would help for cases as mentioned above in which honey crop crashed after the bees were swapped over to a VSH strain by re-queening. It does involve a significant complication in operation, but it is possible that once the beekeeper gets re-organized, it is not a great deal more work. I have not tried this yet, but that may not remain the case for long.]

Michael


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

VSH isn't a silver bullet. It's another IPM aid. 

I began introducing VSH stock from Tom and Suki Glenn, into my operation in 2004, and introduced a number of breeder queens over the last 16 years. That first autumn, those colonies crashed at the same rate as any other. Over time, I believe VSH has helped. I used to see DWV crawling bees by mid-summer. It was a race to get the honey crop off in August so the colonies could be treated. Now I don't see any early issues, and don't need to rush with harvest. To me, that has been the biggest advantage. Can I prove that the change is due to VSH? No.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

Sometimes I forget what an amazing resource this forum really is! Case in point is this thread. It has made me stop and think about a bunch of stuff--like why I got involved in VSH in the first place. I had a line of Italian queens that I really, really liked and thought adding some VSH would enhance the line. But then I got all involved in the VSH productivity issues and never went forward with my original plans. After awhile I decided those plans would not have worked anyhow and I made a new plan. But I never got to find out if the new plan would have worked because in the middle of all this I got sick. 

So now I'm back in the thick of things and starting to rebuild and I have been mulling over those unproductive VSH hives sitting out in the yard. And along comes Michael Palmer and in one simple sentence clarifies everything from why I got started with them to what to do next.



> It's another IPM aid.


And THAT, folks, is what I had totally forgotten. I never intended to raise VSH bees. I wanted to raise my OWN bees to have some VSH characteristics! But I got SOOO embroiled in the productivity issues I was having with them that I never did do what I set out to do!

Now, please understand I really am a small potatoes hobbyist. In September I had 12 VSH hives in a yard by the house and 12 Italian hives in another yard on the far side of my farm. I consolidated the VSH hives down to 5 strong hives to overwinter and left the 12 strong Italian hives (properly prepared for winter) right where they were on the other side of the farm.

So now I am thinking to move the Italian hives back here to the yard where I can better manage them. I'm thinking of keeping the 2 strongest VSH hives with the best F1 queens I have and using them for drone mothers and requeening the rest with my Italian queens. My thinking is that this will give my Italians some VSH genetics (via the drones) without overwhelming them with the VSH hives' lousy production. I do expect it WILL impact their production somewhat but not nearly enough to make them as nonproductive as those straight VSH hives have been. I can live with a 10-12 lb reduction per hive. The improvement in mite control and disease control would be worth the small reduction in production. And I will mentally shift gears to think of the 2 VSH hives as the _IPM aid_ that they are and stop expecting any production from them.

So, now...am I finally understanding the way to use those VSH genetics?


Rusty


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## John Davis (Apr 29, 2014)

+1 on MP and Rusty's comments. VSH breeding is evolving but it's not the silver bullet. More F1 daughters from good breeder queens = better chance of extending the the positive effects that are diluted in open mating (increasing the level of drone saturation).


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

2017 is going to be a great year for bees!

Regarding VSH and using mite-resistant honey bees:

VSH does decrease mite population growth. There is plenty of scientific data to show this. There is also industry data. We sell more breeders every year; some of our customers are the largest beekeeping operations in the USA and world. Plenty of main-stream queen producers use VSH stock off and on. Obviously, there is a benefit.

*We haven't used a miticide in our bees for 18 years.*

(we use oxytetracycline in our first cell builders' feed for BQCV: it works). Other then that, no treatment for disease. We maintain a population for breeding mite resistant breeder queens--that's our business and we work really hard at it.


So, if you buy a "VSH" queen from somebody, why might it not do well under mite load?

1. A poorly made queen.
2. Queen producer who says they have "VSH" has not used VSH breeding stock in many years and has no active selection program.
3. Your beekeeping: you need more years under your belt (colony might do poorly no matter what queen was put into it).
4. Bad Weather: leading to bad year. This is agriculture and weather is a huge factor.
5. Not a VSH queen at all: there's lot's of this out there folks: not all people are honest about the queens they sell.
6. There's so much "information" available from "experts" that makes things confusing, thus making things more complicated for people who want to learn about
IPM and mite-monitoring. (See some of the posts on here about measuring mite loads).

A mantra that works well with beekeeping, and appropriately, queen producers, is this one:

"Follow the consistencies".

Year in, year out, over the long haul, who has the best bees and who does well. Those operators are the ones to ask about queens, queen production and operational management. Often, _they are too busy with their bees _to communicate, let alone appear on the 'net. However, if you're persistent, you can get some time with them that will certainly be worth the effort.

Another huge point: 
Heredity is based on the probability of assortment. Genetically, some queens are great, some good, some fair and some poor; all else being equal.
Any animal or plant breeder will inform you of this fact. Selecting the animals that are desirable takes time, skill and experience.

If you buy 1 or 2 queens, the probability is much less that you are going to get a great one, then if you buy 20 queens.
Keep this in mind. This is a great reason to work with others when exploring queen choices.


The quality of the stock we see is really something. Getting it to beekeepers with only a few hives is work in progress. 
But, things are progressing.

Best wishes for 2017!

Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Rusty Hills Farm said:


> And THAT, folks, is what I had totally forgotten. I never intended to raise VSH bees. I wanted to raise my OWN bees to have some VSH characteristics!
> Rusty



Rusty, that's the whole concept with the suite of VSH traits. Incorporate them using selective breeding into what you already have that is desirable.

"VSH" isn't a breed. "VSH" is a suite of heritable traits one may select for.



Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

I buy my queens from BWeavers and generally have good success with them, but they still get mites, they just handle it better instead of swarming off into the wild blue yonder. However, i have a definitely NON VSH survivor hive that was a bit aggressive on robbing and I lost my VSH hives to swarming and robbing, including 3 purchased queens, I just couldn't get a tough enough startup for the survivor hive not to run them off. 

So this will be my first spring without a Bweaver queen in a while. I am treating the big survivor hive with OAV because while they have no DWV or other virus signs, the sticky board showed one heck of a mite load. Which may mean they are resisting and pulling them off. Will unseal and check the sticky after my next OAV treatment.

I think the best VSH traits are a combination of a good purchased queen and tough local stock, and that is what I am betting on. The current survivor queen probably got VSH from my Bweaver drones before they all gave up fighting for their honey. Probably.... My best bees are always heavy on the propolis (the survivor colony is, and they were a March 2015 swarm pickup) and they are excellent honey producers and foragers. they were treated with OAV in winter 2015, and yes mites on bottom board again, so if they are VSH they are outnumbered?

the Bweavers produce a smaller winter cluster and certainly have fewer mites. They are hotter but manageable

Hope this helps.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I have to agree with the recent postings on VSH. I haven't seen it as a magic bullet, but this year I've seen some improvements. My experience kind of mirrors what MP was saying. Even in the short span of my beekeeping career I've noticed the truly susceptible hives seem to be miting out quicker each year. Basically, the first deadouts are showing up September 1 which would mean they should've been treated in June/July where as the more tolerant lines can now get into fall after pulling harvest and still be salvaged. I've also tried VP breeders for a few years now and some of the F1 daughters have done and are doing quite well. My first set of Pol Line F1 are overwintering well, unfortunately the breeder got superceded only a few weeks in but the few daughters I produced remained untreated and looking quite good. I also had Adam's Italian X Pure VSH breeder for 3 seasons that produced some very good daughters and did quite well in a brood freezing assay performed by the Bee Informed guys. She too was a casualty of 2016 but being a 2014 queen I was not too surprised. I'm also overwintering his Carni breeder which is the second one I've tried. The first I wasn't able to get daughters off due to moving all my bees and time constraints of a new job but this one I received last year in 2016 and is overwintering well untreated and I did get a daughter queen off as a last ditch attempt to save a queenless nuc late in the year. If anything, any F1 daughters are still very valuable as drone mother's as all their drones should be purely VP/VSH genetics. I've also got a new order in to replace the Italian and Pol Line queens as well a custom breeder. This year will be are large expansion year so I'm hoping to get quite a few daughters off each to evaluate in 2018 once they've overwintered. I can't say much on the honey production side since I don't get much anyways, but from what I've seen I'm pretty sure Adam just doesn't purely breed for VSH traits.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

Adam I was wondering what was the smallest beekeepers you have sold breeders to? I'm thinking of getting a breeder to share with some of the small beekeepers I know.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

adamf said:


> *We haven't used a miticide in our bees for 18 years.*


I for one sure would like to hear more of your methods. So you are a commercial TF beekeeper, so much seached after on this Forum!


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Dan the bee guy said:


> Adam I was wondering what was the smallest beekeepers you have sold breeders to? I'm thinking of getting a breeder to share with some of the small beekeepers I know.


Hi Dan,

We make breeder queens for anyone--we don't have a size per-requisite. As an indicator of the VSH trait's merit, large outfits were mentioned in my last post: if a large outfit wants to use a specific stock for making queens for splits and replacements, they choose queen producers who breed productive stock that may be referenced.

I usually chat with a prospective customer and determine if they are able to use a breeder queen in their queen rearing operation. If an AI breeder fits their needs, we do business. Sometimes though, I refer them to quality queen producers I know who have a quality track record, to make them open-mated queens.

A few folks over the years have insisted on re-queening a single hive with an AI breeder queen. I've been successful in working with them to get what they need. (Not an AI breeder queen!)

Quite a few of our customers work in groups, sharing the breeder queen's daughters, and their production. Everyone wins in that scenario!

Adam

http://vpqueenbees.com


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Juhani Lunden said:


> I for one sure would like to hear more of your methods. So you are a commercial TF beekeeper, so much seached after on this Forum!


Hi
Yeah, we are commercial. However, since we're producing breeding stock, we have the luxury to experiment with stock and if we lose some along the way, that's
not going to cause us to have a bad year.

We have about 250 colonies when we're in full swing; each containing some form of breeding material. I try to run between 20-30 new outside test queens each year to evaluate them and their potential. If I lose them it's okay.

If I were a large commercial 100 times bigger, I'd have 25,000 colonies and I'd be experimenting with 2000-3000 colonies. Potentially losing that many would not be good for bussiness! So, we're commercial, but not very big compared to most commercials.

We don't lose many anymore. Mike Palmer mentioned that he sees less loss due to the crash associated with DWV. I see that in our operation. Using stock without mite treatments is a sure way to select for hardy bees, in general. Colonies that are less susceptible to virus might carry a unique genetic anti-virus trait-combination or they might be holding the viral vector down partly due to the colony's ability to keep mite population growth low employing VSH behaviors.

I see our bees bite and chew mites. I see our bees chew the insides of hives and associated wooden ware. I see our bees make lots of propolis. I have seen our bees pick up and carry live hive-beetles away from the colony.

All of these observations come from a population that is not being masked by mite-treatment. 

I'm certainly not condoning poor management (we monitor mite populations throughout the season) or complete abstinence from mite treatment even in a high crash emergency, but I do condone this (eg. in our operation) being extremely active in monitoring and observing what our bees are doing throughout the year, while keeping our population consistently high in the expression of VSH as part of each colony's phenotype.

Eventually, through selection, one will have more hardy colonies. Two important points to consider: 

1. population size: the larger one has to draw from for breeding candidates, the higher the probability there will be some gems to use as breeders. Breeding from 25 colonies is only going to get you so far. 

2. Working with others really helps in this area. There have been quite a few regional breeding efforts springing up in the last few years: bravo and kudos to you folks. Keep at it.

Bee pundits past and present talk about the importance of breeding programs, small and large. The raw material is there: you just have to figure out out ways to measure it, and then select for it.

In any agricultural example, heredity is one of the primary foundations for quality and production. Certainly so with our friends the honey bees!

Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

I posted this awhile back, but it pretty much sums up my experience with VSH bees. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?322215-What-I-expect-from-my-VSH-bees


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## Broke-T (Jul 9, 2008)

I have ben running VSH for 5 years now and other hygienic bees before that. We are up to 600 hives this winter and plan to split to 900 this spring. I started with breeders from Tom glen then Adam at VP Queens. I also buy breeders from Dr. Harbo and Dr. Jeff Harris. We have been treatment free this entire time. This winter we vaporized OA into every hive in mid December for first time. Even though our losses are manageable we felt this would help get it even lower. Production hasn't been a problem as we average over 100 lbs per hive yearly.

While VSH may not be the silver bullet we would like it will work to lower your mite loads.

Johnny


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I'm starting to think of VSH queens as a tool to be added during late Spring when the mite population needs to be checked (VSH queens introduced into hives that have mite counts go from 0-1 up to 2 or more). 

If I cut out the first batch of drone brood two days before they hatch, AND re-queen with a fresh VSH queen, I _*should*_ have a low mite population going in to late summer, but it HAS TO BE MONITORED.

At some point, I have to re-queen again with the queen I want to take in to Winter. I do that by combining an increaser nuc' with the colonies right after National IPM* HARSH* Treatment Day, August 15th.

So, I'm using the VSH queens only to pinch the mites a bit while I'm not really making a lot of honey anyways, right while the mites start to increase. After treating on August 15th, the VSH bees _*should*_ go to work making honey, but time will tell, and they're pretty well gone in 5 or 6 weeks anyways if the nuc' queen is non-VSH.

FWIW, mite mauling seems to me to be a far better trait than VSH, but I think Michael Palmer probably has it just about dialed in - it helps in the long run if you do it right.

Admittedly, I'm not after tons of honey, just a routine that sees bees survive with reasonable increase. I've been surviving a 5-year drought, and increase and honey are scarce.

Just to illustrate...
1978 ended a 7-year drought which saw Lake Casitas down to about 60% capacity. 2016 was the 5th year of a drought which saw Lake Casitas down to about 35% capacity, perhaps due to a whole lot more people sucking it dry. I have not had significant sage nor buckwheat honey since 2010.

Fortunately, just after those blooms (usually May and June here, but earlier during the drought), I have had some sumac honey some years. As always, timing and reading the year's weather before it happens is the key.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

I'm not understanding what's to be gained by re-queening in succession. Perhaps it's only a mite population reduction that's being considered. It seems to me that an integrated pest management practice would do what you target. I was very interested in Mel Disselkoen's description of his OTS queen rearing and IPM practices. I'm neither queen breeder nor experienced. Searching and watching....

Michael


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Well, I had one more thought. You appear to be in a perfect position to test what Bernhard says about two-queen colonies in this thread, posts 5 & 6:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ning-two-queen-colonies&p=1202508#post1202508
His observation is that by running a vertical queen excluder to separate two independent colonies left/right in a common box (dual deeps, I think) that he gets enough population boost from the laying of two queens to really boost honey production to top-of-class levels with respect to his single-colony setups.

If you were to take your two least impressive VSH colonies and house them in a single stack as described, it might be extremely interesting. Bernhard says that housing great queens in dual queen hives would be a waste, but that as single queen colonies his lowest producers would not produce much beyond colony needs. As two-queen systems, they produce on par or more than his best single colonies.

It's not clear that you have anything to lose in doing such a test, and you might have much to gain.

Michael


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Yes, Bernard is my de-facto mentor from across the pond, as I am am converting over to Modified Square Jumbo Dadant hives (similar to his "Brother Adam hive"), and Bernard has 13 years with them under his belt, and has ever-so-kindly posted his routine for us newbie "Big Box Beekeepers".

*********************

Regarding re-queening in succession, my strongest Italian queens will carry the large production hives over Winter. I'll rearrange them into pollination nuc' size in January (So Cal can be pleasant in January). After the almonds and avocados, I'll pull those queens and place them in to increaser nuc's, replacing their role in the big hives with VSH queens in order to prevent the varroa from increasing. (VSH bees being "used" as an IPM control during the mite population's main buildup). About this time, I also cut out the drone brood.

Large production hives that had low mite wash counts (0 to 1) in the early could use either kind of queen, whichever I have excess of, or just keep their own momma queen if she's still good. 

Large production hives with mite counts above 2 mites per 300 bee wash will get VSH queens until mid-August, just to continue beating down those naughty mites. You can bet those hives will be getting a lot of my attention. Like Bernard, I will be placing those weaker colonies in 2-queen systems. VSH bees being "used" during the mite buld-up part of the season, then rotated out for the beginning of Winter build-up in mid-August, right after a single harsh IPM treatment, such as formic acid.

I am starting all over with a different hive design, and likely moving from here, so I won't have much to say about how things "should be" for some time now. The above is merely a plan for if I stay in this area and build a number of MSJD hives. Actual practices after 2 or 3 years experience may vary


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Kilocharlie: Do you have any suspicion about what might happen if co-housing VSH and other queens in a colony with free travel for workers in both queens' areas? That was what I thought might be very useful in the O.P.'s case: perhaps the VSH workers would police both sides. The second thought was that dual VSH colonies might actually produce as much as Rusty's single colony high-producers. Would there remain any reason to go back to non-VSH queen if she were not as good a producer as a dual-VSH colony?

Rusty? Does a dual-queen box or two (for 2 or 4 of your remaining VSH queens) look like a worthwhile test for you? As a one or two box test, it may be interesting even if it were to be complicated. I've had a very interesting side conversation with another poster touching on how much complexity is added by Bernhard Heuvel's two-queen colony description. I can't tell how complicated it is in real life, but Bernhard's description seems not too hairy/scary. Perhaps the brood removal for swarm suppression would be too great a risk for queen loss. Time will tell.... I hope to try it this summer.

Michael


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

One problem with VSH-related traits seems to be getting too much of it. They remove too much brood, and the colony strength suffers, as do honey stores. 

That's why I am thinking of trying VSH queens as a temporary "time window" or "slot" control for the mites - really just after first queen rearing cycle has made nuc's, about the time you really have to watch for that 2nd mite in the wash, when the mite populations start sneaking up, about the time I *STOP* getting nectar flow! That's when VSH seems it would be most helpful. 

Then, right after the harsh treatment in mid-August (formic acid is very rough on queens - they often get superceded right after treatment) the Italian queens & nuc's get recombined with their production colonies in time to build up for Winter on California pepper trees, rosemary, sumac, rabbitbrush, etc.

It's not a solid plan yet, just something I'll be playing with.


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## Broke-T (Jul 9, 2008)

My bees are high in VSH and removing too much brood is not a problem. They have great brood patterns and build up to huge colonies. It was a problem in past but not now.

Johnny


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

kilocharlie said:


> One problem with VSH-related traits seems to be getting too much of it. They remove too much brood, and the colony strength suffers, as do honey stores.


This is very old information. That certainly was the case when VSH was first introduced through Glenn. Most of the early released VSH was not ready to serve as production hives, but instead was raw material for further breeding. Fortunately, many dedicated breeders have been working hard to improve the total package and now good VSH bees can perform equal to non-resistant bees. I have not seen "too much VSH" in over 6 years. 

I think the much bigger problem is too little VSH. Queen producers producing "VSH" bees without actually testing for the trait. This does a huge disservice to the cause.

I think a much better plan than what you laid out is to treat the non-resistant colonies (verify results), make any splits and then requeen with quality VSH queeens. Nucs the old queens and build them up for comparison if you want.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Astro, what do you think the best method of testing for VSH is? I've seen studies where mites are introduced to recently capped brood in known cells, then placed back in the hive for the caps to be resealed then transferred to the testing hive to see how well they remove the known infested cells, but this seems very tedious to me. I had a breeder tested via frozen brood method but that's more for your standard hygenics than anything and not specifically VSH.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

AstroBee, do you sell your VSH queen cells/virgins? I think we should do a test in our area if you do.


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

AstroBee said:


> This is very old information. That certainly was the case when VSH was first introduced through Glenn. Most of the early released VSH was not ready to serve as production hives, but instead was raw material for further breeding. Fortunately, many dedicated breeders have been working hard to improve the total package and now good VSH bees can perform equal to non-resistant bees. I have not seen "too much VSH" in over 6 years.
> 
> I think the much bigger problem is too little VSH. Queen producers producing "VSH" bees without actually testing for the trait. This does a huge disservice to the cause.
> 
> I think a much better plan than what you laid out is to treat the non-resistant colonies (verify results), make any splits and then requeen with quality VSH queeens. Nucs the old queens and build them up for comparison if you want.


Agreed!

Agree with Johnny too.

The phenotype of heavy brood removal could be from heavy selection in too small a population producing colonies with very similar genetic backgrounds (genetic load).
This can be a symptom of selection in too small a grouping with animals sensitive to genetic similarity ( honey bees ).

Queens expressing VSH from queen producers selecting for hardiness and maintaining a breeding program do not have this issue.



Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

JRG13,

This link has all the VSH selection methods.

http://www.extension.org/pages/30984/selecting-for-varroa-sensitive-hygiene#.VHhy7kSweJs



We use the non-reproductive assay (Infertility) coupled with accurate Alcohol wash tests. 

http://vpqueenbees.com/vp-breeding-program/vp-alcohol-wash-assay



Others who are selecting for VSH behavior also use these tests.

Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I guess monitoring mite levels makes sense. I was more thinking if there were methods of really testing the uncapping rates and percentages of properly uncapped cells other than just scoring uncapping in general, but now that I think about it, it would be tough to set up unless you had some kind of comb or frame designed to see into the cells through the back for mites. Maybe it's something I'll look into, a clear onesided frame.. I guess for me, I'll just rely on running side by side comparisons with known susceptible lines, fortunately those are easy to get... LOL


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

JRG13 said:


> I guess monitoring mite levels makes sense. I was more thinking if there were methods of really testing the uncapping rates and percentages of properly uncapped cells other than just scoring uncapping in general, but now that I think about it, it would be tough to set up unless you had some kind of comb or frame designed to see into the cells through the back for mites. Maybe it's something I'll look into, a clear onesided frame.. I guess for me, I'll just rely on running side by side comparisons with known susceptible lines, fortunately those are easy to get... LOL


JRG13,
http://www.extension.org/pages/30984/selecting-for-varroa-sensitive-hygiene#.VHhy7kSweJs

Take a look at the link: the non-reproductive assay has nothing to do with capping/re-capping.

If your population is robust, side by side works until you break down and spend some time doing an assay. :thumbsup:
Adam


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Thanks Adam,

Looking at it again, that infertility scoring doesn't look too difficult. What's the time frame for best results, about day 19 from egg?


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

JRG13 said:


> Astro, what do you think the best method of testing for VSH is?


I like the references that Adam posted. All this involves a reasonably significant investment in time. For someone not making their living breeding VSH bees, I think conventional varroa population monitoring is pretty good. It doesn't tell the whole story, but provides credible evidence. It becomes very clear when monitoring varroa population which colonies are resistant and which are not. Alcohol wash and even PS rolls provide reasonable measures. 



JRG13 said:


> I had a breeder tested via frozen brood method but that's more for your standard hygenics than anything and not specifically VSH.


Yes, that's correct. VSH and standard hygienic bees cannot be differentiated using Freeze-killed brood assay.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

ruthiesbees said:


> AstroBee, do you sell your VSH queen cells/virgins? I think we should do a test in our area if you do.


Yes, I do sell cells and mated queens. I will sometimes sell virgins, but I prefer not to. I sell locally only. No shipping.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

adamf said:


> JRG13,
> 
> This link has all the VSH selection methods.
> 
> ...


Thanks for this. My TF bees have been tested for hygienic behavior, but not varroa specific. A new thing to take into consideration when developing a sampling protocol for mite resistance.


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

JRG13 said:


> Thanks Adam,
> 
> Looking at it again, that infertility scoring doesn't look too difficult. What's the time frame for best results, about day 19 from egg?


It's not difficult, just tedious.


***The non-reproductive assay should be done when the pupa are purple-eyed. That can range from day 16-18. I think 19 is too far along: there could be an adult daughter mite at 19, and you'd have to determine if the female mite was the Mom (foundress) or the daughter by looking for a shed skin.


FYI, on the page http://articles.extension.org/pages/30984/selecting-for-varroa-sensitive-hygiene,

"Stage 3" pupae has purple eyes, white body
"Stage 4" pupae has purple eyes, with tanned joints of legs and/or antenna
"Stage 5" pupae has purple eyes with tanned body and white wing pads

"Stage 6" pupae has purple eyes with grey wing pads (~ 19 days old)
"Stage 7" pupae is black-headed
"Stage 8" is a teneral adult



Selection assays and evaluating stock are tedious if you have a large population. We're going to be looking at 300-400 colonies next week
that made the final cut in a selection program. We might have to alcohol wash all of them. That will be tedious and we'll have some long days, even with a good crew.

What we end up with will be a group of robust breeding queens that hopefully will contain a few "gems"!

Adam
http://vpqueenbees.com

** *Dr. Bob Danka @ USDA Baton Rouge gave me his input on the pupal stages (his lab wrote up the VSH selection procedures on extension.org).


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I will post some results later this year then, thanks for this Adam. I don't find it too tedious except it seems like I uncapped a lot at times but when I actually look at the frame or area I was working on, it doesn't seem like I did a whole lot... This is when I'll look for mites in a deadout under capped brood that's still fresh.


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