# Chosen my breeder



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi, All!


Hunting through my small bee yard and found this big beautiful queen bee today. She's a young 5 months old vsh laying queen fast at our early Spring expansion mode. Already from a small 4 framers to almost 8 frames without the mites to interfere. This is the result of the mite cap brood frames removal experiment. A lot of foragers are collecting nectar and pollen today with the many trees and early Spring flowers. Was a bit surprised to find a rather large queen this early on. Our official Spring day is just around the corner. With such a yellow beauty wouldn't you want to take some grafts from? What is your ideal breeder queen for this year then?


Big and healthy breeder queen:


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Hey beepro, 
how do you evaluate a queen in spring when she is only 5 months old?
Expanding the broodnest as fast it´s too early to see how the mite`s impact is, I believe. Or not?

She seems to be a good breeder, looking at the brood area but do you know if the colony has the vsh behavior? Do you see opened cells already? Or did they do it in fall?

Your bees seem to be good at grooming, they groomed away your marking..is that a mite on the bee on top, third picture?


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

In a yard where I have high losses, I have a couple of clusters who were strong last year, and survived their second winter without treatment and are strong this spring. The site and harsh winter may have contributed so these are strong bees!

At home I have a queen that has survived her 3rd winter without treatment. Also strong and productive. She puts on weight in the fall like no other. I will take about 50% of new queens from these queens, and 50 % from strong colonies that have survived their first winter without treatment. I have a few lines with mothers who perished at that one site, but had good hygienic behaviour.


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## mathesonequip (Jul 9, 2012)

great, but what are the drones like within a few miles. this is something to think about.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

mathesonequip said:


> great, but what are the drones like within a few miles. this is something to think about.


Long term planning is to put into place drone mothers that will mate with the best queens.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

beepro said:


> What is your ideal breeder queen for this year then?


My ideal breeder for grafting in 2017. She was raised in mid to late summer 2015, then wintered in the colony where she emerged and mated, probably a nuc. Moved into full size gear in 2016 she raised a colony that made 3 boxes of honey, then wintered well again and is now once again building up a colony. Over this time there has been no sign of chalk brood or nosema in the colony. Bonus points if that colony has never stung me, and more bonus points if the varroa counts were low in the fall.

I dont have a queen that meets all of the above, but I have one that meets most of them. I dont think her color will affect the decision process at all.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

All queens are in comparison to each other at the same beeyard since last Oct. when I made the mite bee bomb nuc hive. So it has been a long time for choosing a breeder queen this Spring. During this process all queens have been evaluated against the mites. Now is to test their build up ability after the winter. It is not how old the queen is but how fast she can build up the colony without a mite crashed hive like 2 years ago. Without the resistant traits all of my colonies will eventually failed on early Spring build up. Old queens or young queen it is all the same outcome. There are the docile bees that made lots of honey though they can only survive with treatment only. When you find a survival colony don't wait too long to get some grafts because waiting too long might lost the good genetics should something negative happens to this queen. A simple squish on a hive check is all it takes. Any colony that can build up fast for our early Spring flow is on my top grafting list. A hive scummb to the mites will not make it to build up time. Though this is still a young queen she has overwintered well and carry her colony with full speed on the Spring expansion mode compared to other hives. Yes, there are some mites in there still and that is my intention to keep some in there. If nothing else just for the bees to practice removing some of them from the cap broods. As long as the mites are under control however the bees do it without interfering with the build up, it is good enough for me. This hive is gentle at the same time made lots of nectar frames already. This is our early Spring flow now. She is a strong queen with a small head, big thorax and long fat abdomen. Yes, they will uncap the mite infected broods too. Just the other day sitting next to this hive watching the foragers carry in nectar and pollen, I saw a housekeeping bee drop to the ground to carry the dead on the ground away from the hive. The hive box is almost 2 feet off the ground. After this incident I've made my decision. Sometimes wonder what kind of bees are in there? Super hygienic bees? The dead falling to the ground was not enough that she had to carry them far far away. So it is a continuous removal of the infected and dead bees from the hive. With a nice brood pattern it means that this hive is clean enough. With an ugly Spring build up brood pattern this hive cannot meet my standard yet. 
Some daughter queens will be open mated with the local drones and some will be going through the I.I. process with the mite biting drones and vsh drones combine with the Cordovan trait. This way I can distinguish the bee color to control my breeding program. In the end I hope to produce some queens without the need to a yearly treatment schedule. This coming summer I will be testing them further with a 2 frame per daughter queen nuc set up. How many nucs can you make?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Aha :scratch:
This explanations question all my thoughts, but since you are the prof I will follow your experience with an open mind.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, we have many thoughts within our bee limitation and knowledge. Having done so many little bee experiments over the years (to learn) I have accumulated much bee knowledge to know what will enable my hives to stay alive locally. I want lots of honey this year. So will be making
hive increase after the flow. And on my plant list are purple tansy, Nygers and clovers to name a few. Because beekeeping is all local, you have to devise a plan to keep them thriving.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

On a hive check today, with all the new bees emerging, this hive has grown to 16 frame of bees now. It is going to be a
big production hive by April. There are lots of cap brood frames inside. I tried to find some mites on the newly 
emerged bees but cannot find any. It is now over 95% mite free. And the poor queen having a hard time keeping up with all the empty cell frames though she is a strong queen. If things keep up I might be able to do an early split too along with other nuc hives to support. I am happy with the result so far!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

lharder said:


> Long term planning is to put into place drone mothers that will mate with the best queens.


Iharder have you analyzed the characteristics of these queens which lasted 3 seasons without treatment ? While the rest perished,


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Beepro, house bees carrying dead bees out of the hive isn't a good test in determining those heighten vsh and hygienic mite suppression characteristics

Does 95% mite free mean 5% infestation?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Beepro , do a few easy tests on that queen hive. Get a fine needle, puncture a pattern of brood , come back in 24 hrs and see if it has been cleaned out. Lay a 5" by 5" newspapers cut out uptop the brood frame bars, see if they immediately act on removing it. Using a screened bottom board, collect the mites and analysis the physical condition of those mites under a microscope. 
If you see positive action, report back.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Ian said:


> Does 95% mite free mean 5% infestation?


On occasion I would uncap a drone or 2 to see if any mite is in there. This time I only found 2 mites per cap drone and the rest all mite free. So I will stop killing drones for awhile as we need more vsh drones going to the local DCAs. Spring day is in full swing now.
The 5% is only an estimate since I cannot find any mite on the newly emerged bees. Even on the big fat young nurse bees it is hard to find a single free running mites. I will reassess the mite population on the next bee emergence day in 2 more weeks. So it is true that a late mated after the solstice young queen coming out of winter can out run the mites during the early Spring expansion mode. No hive crash for me this year. Perhaps it is the 16 frame of bees that dispersed the mites through out. Or the bees really got the mite level down now. There are zero DWVs on the newly emerged bees this time. They all are as healthy as can be. Of all the years of beekeeping so far, this year is my happiest of all. Very low mite levels through out including the mite bee bomb nuc hive which is still thriving, surprisingly. It too have very low mite level. I will skip all the bee testing now to let them grow some more for an early splits. No need to do further mite testing to prove my points to save me some time and killing the bees more. Glad that I did not treat to get rid of the mites afraid that I don't have anymore mites to do my little bee experiments. Don't know what to do without the mites to carry out my experiments later on. Two years in the testing has proven that my mite removal method and monitoring worked. Mite fighting or hygienic enough will be proven later on in the season. I still have a lot of experiments that I want to try them out. When the I.I. process is online later on I will be solely selecting for vsh and mite fighting ability from the drones pool. By that time I will report back my findings. For now all focus is on growing this hive stronger. The more drawn combs I put in the more eggs the queen will laid. Found 4 frames of new eggs today all will be mite free on emergence day because of the low mite level now. Even with full frames of pollen and nectar I still give them my homemade patty subs as they like it so much. Made another batch of it last night to give them some today. Hope they don't swarm on me this early on.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

So in other words you have no idea the mite infestation. Looking for mites on the bees is not a very sound metric. 
Do you ever shake?
What is the 2years of mite removal and monitoring techniques that worked?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You are right, Ian, that I have no idea what is the mite infestation level now. Majority of the cells are
cap now. The only way to get an accurate count is to do a random sampling with a small tweezers on the newly
emerged bees on the next hatch cycle. So I don't shake or dust at all. Here is a short version of my post on the mite removal at
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?332871-Constant-mite-removal-management
Three years ago it was horrible on a mite crashed hives on early Spring build up around this time with nice warm weather. 
This year it is quite different. Without treatment I can manage the mites or should I say the bees do the other half too. While going through this process I manage to capture a few good traits of the queen bees chosen for my breeders from all the hives in this yard. Somehow through this process I have interrupted the mites at a level that they cannot rebuild fast enough. Not even sure if they even have a chance to get mated. Combine this with the vsh traits to further interrupted the mite cycles. At another angle, you can say what else is there after you have removed all the cap brood frames infected with the mites to another hive. Start clean again for the queen to lay in the empty drawn comb. For sure should I remove these 16 cap brood frames to the mite bee bomb nuc hive then there will be less than 1% of the mites in this hive. However, I want to see what is the infestation level on the next emergence cycle to further prove my points. That removing the infested frames will work for a clean hive without the need to treat. This will allow the queen to lay another round of clean broods within a few days.
To gauge the mite level on each hatch cycle I have to do a random sampling with a small tweezers on 150 bees. This will give me an idea of how many bees got infected. At the same time the DWVs on the newly emerged bees will give me an idea too. Without the mites there will be minimal DWVs. So what would you do when you see a high infestation rate on the next new bee cycle without going for the chemical treatment?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Apivar , Oxalic


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Many queen producers here are gradually transitioning into survivor and treatment free production. They are using the I.I. process to make their selection quicker. As always I'm in the on going process to source these genetics into my own apiary. There will be many hives evaluation before I can truly say which hive is the most desirable fighting the mites. Right now I can only tell which hive is thriving without the high mite levels to interfere with this early Spring build up. A hive that cannot withstand the mites will be fast reinfected within 2 brood cycles. A hive that can get rid of them or keep the mite levels in check will be the survivor one. As this is a gradual time consuming and meticulous process, in the end it is worth it to produce some quality healthy queens. Other countries have been using the I.I. process for a long time now. Here I have not seen that many or maybe the beekeepers do not advertise it.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I've got I've got it,
You've got what??
I've got a feeling


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I got them, I got them!
Some mite fighting bees.
What have you got?!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

>>What have you got?!<<

I sent a few queens away to participate in a genome sequence project. Measuring many characteristics, the queens sent measured high in their hygienic categories.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

BeePro
On one of your brood frames take a fine needle and pierce a pattern in your capped brood nest. See how long it takes to remove that pattern 
Kinda of a poor mans Nitro test


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Ian said:


> Iharder have you analyzed the characteristics of these queens which lasted 3 seasons without treatment ? While the rest perished,


Funny you should ask. My second summer I spent most of my energies starting colonies from the Saskatraz queens. Since my local queen wasn't of TF or any resistant breeding program, I didn't make any nucs from her. I suggested they include her in the program, but they liked the overall consistency of starting with overwintered nucs, so she was left out. So it was only last year that I took her seriously when she came out of winter stronger than any other 2nd year hive and made some nucs from her. We did do a hygienic test on her for fun the first sampling session and she had very mediocre results, so that isn't the source of her strength. I don't even have any mite counts for her. 

This year I will be doing some more sampling, and if the planned, long term study takes off as hoped, there will be ongoing data coming out not only of my bees, but bees in the region. Not only of what my bees do (bee genetics), but the viral and bacterial communities associated with them.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Those Saskatraz queens genetics is purely a survival project, running for at least 10-15 years. Discounting those genetics is basically discounting everything that has been put into survival projects. 
Perhaps this whole genetic selection process gets lost in theory and hype, when actual ability and limited circumstance is really the benchmark. 
Just keep nudging that benchmark,


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I am not going to poke my bees with a needle because I already knew they have the vsh traits built in.
I've seen the bee in this hive dragged out the dead infected pupa with a dead developing mite on it. On occasion some
cap broods got their head chewed off trying to get rid of the mite and the unhealthy pupae. Seeing all these will let
me know that they are the hygienic bees. Also, as the new bees emerged today I took some bee sample
count and did not find many mites. Only saw 2 mites on the young bees as many don't have the mites on them. 
I am happy with my hives now and don't seem to like the idea of killing more cap broods when the bees are capable of handling this issue themselves. 
If they can uncap one infected brood then they can do it all for 100s. On purpose I have set up a mite 
bee bomb nuc hive trying to keep these mites for my future bee experiment. Afraid now that these mites will not stand a chance on last month hive inspection because the grafted daughter also carry this vsh traits mated with the local drones late last year. Now our local drones will have the yellow and gray vsh genetics built in. What more can I ask for except all the Cordovan will have it too. This will be another bee project for another day. Already large and small bee operations are going this route. If you don't have the bees that are able to keep the mites in check then where is your competitive advantage? Developing them small to grow them big!


Uncapped and got head chewed off:


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