# VSH question



## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

If I buy a vsh queen, just a regular queen that was open breed. Would her queen daughters be vsh?


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## johns bees (Jan 25, 2009)

only if she was open bred with VSH drones then her daughters would i believe be VSH.


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## Broke-T (Jul 9, 2008)

I produce open mated queens from II pure VSH breeder queens. If the drones they mate with have no VSH trait they will be 50% VSH. Since I have been using VSH a cpl years my drone mothers are 50% VSH so the open mated queens I produce are could be from 50% to 75% VSH.
USDA says 50% is enough to be helpful in mite resistance.

If you buy one of these open mated queens and use her as breeder her daughtes will only be 25% to 37.5% VSH. Not enough to be helpful.

Johnny


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I don't know the details about the VSH genetics, but I'm thinking, it depends on if the VSH trait is dominant or recessive.
If it is a _recessive_ trait, the open mated queen would carry the genes, but her female offspring would not exhibit them, as they would be suppressed by the drones dominant non-vsh genes.

If daughter queens raised by this queen's eggs were mated to VSH drones would only have a percentage of offspring that would exhibit the trait.

If VSH is a _Dominant _trait, yes, a percentage would exhibit the trait -first generation.

Not sure if this is what you were asking. Not quite as simple as that, but a quick answer in a nutshell

Daughter queens might be considered VSH because they carry the gene, but if they don't exhibit the trait it doesn't do you any good.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

I was told VSH was a recessive gene. As a result, I was told both the mother had to carry the VSH gene, AND the drone had to carry the VSH gene in order for the worker to have the VSH gene. If the queen was open mated, and she mated with 10 drones, six of which carried the VSH gene, 60% (roughly) of the hive would be VSH. She could still create VSH drones though.

That was my understanding though. I could very well be wrong.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

VSH is recessive, so it's a short-lived gene in your apiary without rigorous mating controls. VSH queens open-mated without an experienced breeder managing VSH drone colonies at appropriate densities might be more properly (or perhaps, charitably) called "VSH cross", and would display depressed VSH in comparison.


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## jeff123fish (Jul 3, 2007)

daughter queens will not be 100% vsh but the drones should be


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A standard "Mendelian" recessive trait that has been introduced to the population and allowed to reach it's natural saturation and has an even chance of survival (in other words it neither contributes nor detracts from survival) will reach a saturation of 25% of the population showing that trait and half the population carrying it. Since VSH supposedly contributes to survival it supposedly would reach slightly higher levels.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

Part of the difficulty with VSH from a natural selection standpoint is its very nature. To paraphrase Diana Sammataro from a lecture out our way: "The great thing about VSH is that they really do remove brood. The bad thing about VSH is that they really do remove brood." Meaning that while removing brood reduces disease loads, it also depletes future adult bees that, while affected by disease, still would have contributed to colony activities even if in a reduced capacity. So it's a bit of a trade-off. From a drone-rearing perspective, it's even more complicated since drones are preferentially targeted by _varroa_. Meaning drone larvae are also preferentially killed and removed by strongly hygenic workers. So in a less-actively-managed mating situation (and especially in a non-managed one), VSH would have a reducing manifestation in the open-mating gene pool in addition to its recessive genetic component which would further depress its presence over time.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

There are more than a half dozen gene loci that have been identified by linkage mapping to be associated with VSH. 

To makes things more complicated, some of them appear to regulate 'thresholds' for VSH behavior.

There's almost certainly a significant presence of those VSH recessive traits in your local drone population.

In plain English, that means that you'll get a 'bell curve' of VSH % from daughter queens made from the original VSH queens.

The VSH % is typically measured by frozen brood removal % over 48 hrs.

But, you could probably eyeball brood pattern to see which daughter queens have the most 'VSH' trait.

So, you can select for what level of VSH trait you desire in your resulting colonies.

That being said, it's far easier to buy VSH queens towards the end of the season to replace your current ones just as it's easier to replace the VSH queens at the beginning of the season with more productive ones.

My opinion is that you should let the queen breeder do the 'blending' for you.

That bell curve can make you nuts.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Thanks WLC, i was going to ask the question if it was single locus or multigenic.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

You might want to hold on to this reference:

http://home.euphonynet.be/archief_bijen/gezondheid/varroa/hygienic.pdf

It describes 6 QTLs.

However, there seem to be other possibles as well according to other investigators.

One day, they'll nail down the genes responsible for VSH, etc. .


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Is frozen brood removal % and VSH the same?

It was my understanding that a frozen brood removal % was more a measure of hygienic behavior, and not necessarily Varroa Sensitive Hygienic behavior. After all, removing a dead larvae from the hive is not the same thing as removing a still alive yet varroa infected larvae from a hive. 

But not having/raising/researching VSH I don't know how they test for the levels.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

VSH is largely metric-ed by frozen-brood removal.


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