# Pure VSH/SMR Queens from Glenn Apiaries



## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Glenn Apiaries has successfully incorperated the known VSH genes into their cordovan and carniolan lines as well. They told me that the mite resistance in these lines still isn't so high as the SMR X Russian but that it an improvement over the carnies and cordovans of the recent past.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I've bought several breeder queens from Glenn Apiaries. In 2004, I bought a VSHxVSH. Made some beautiful daughters...that ate you alive for dinner. 

But that happens. I've also bought some CarnixVSH queens. A little defensive, but winter with nice clusters here in the north. Good producers. Some have good VSH traits, and some die from Varroa their first winter from nucs.

You need to introduce the VSH trait into your drone population. Requeen drone colonies with daughters from your VSHxVSH queen. Then, use a VSHx Carni, or VSHxRussian breeder to raise your virgins. In time, the VSH content of those local bees you mention will increase, and enhanse the VSH of your own stock.

Read the article in BC for April. Steve Sheppard gives a report of an experiment done by Ibrahim, Spivak, and Reuter.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

mr williamson sezs:
I am looking at purchasing a pure VSH/SMR Breeder Queen from Glenn Apiaries

tecumseh replies:
well sometime great mind or small are thinking quite alike...

thanks for the 'done that' mr palmer. I for one would suspect the cross to be somewhat to very important.


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

In 2000 I purchased my first SMR x SMR from Tom & Suki Glenn and started raising queens from her. The following year I added a Carn. x SMR (2001). 
(2002) I added a Minn. Hyg. x SMR to the list and each year since (2003) I have used their Minn. Hyg X VSH and a Carn. X VSH as my queen mothers and included a VSH x VSH as a drone mother in my operation. 
I have found that I like the daughters from the Minn. Hyg X VSH in my hives in NC and I like the Carn. X VSH daughters in my hives in the VA Blue Ridge Mountains. Generally both queens turn out gentle. But every once in a while a queen can get mean. (just like people)
It has taken several years but slowly I have reduced the amount of treatments used to the point of nothing in the last 3 years. Losses have increased since the years of treatment but by changing management techniques I make up losses with overwintered nucs. Using sugar shake and tracking mite counts will keep you abreast of what is in the hives.
"Knowledge is Power", knowing what you are dealing with gives you the opportunity to respond with an appropriate tactic. 
I feel that the money spent on specialized breeders has saved me the expense in purchasing chemical treatments and from putting chemicals in my hives.
I wish more people would try to control the genetics in their hives, by using queens from producers that use these genetics. It would only increase the levels of Hyg. and VSh in the bees across the nation.
Will this ever create a "bee" that can survive with varroa? Hope So.
At this stage I see it helping to reduce treatments, and with changes in management styles eliminating treatments.

Dan, I would use the pure VSH breeder queen as a drone mother and select the very best queen that you feel you have as a queen mother. By using the breeder as a drone mother you increase the percentage of the favorable genetic trait that gets breed into your daughter queens. "Remember" the drones from the drone Mother (VSH) carry 100% of the trait from the mother. If you set up your outyard drone colonies you increase the changes of your queen daughters matiing with your "special Drones" (plural), and less with drones that carry no improved traits.
Good Luck
Frank Wyatt


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

*Thanks guys.*

Ok... here are my thoughts.

I was thinking of using the VSH queen from glenn as a breeder to requeen about 40 colonies this fall (and some additional to offer for sale). I will have about 60-70 colonies total.

These colonies will overwinter and then next spring I will take my best queen (NON-VSH probably NWC) and use many of my overwintered colonies as drone colonies. Most of my stock now is NWC, however as they are open mated I do get some Italian looking bees in the hives. 

Obviously this is not using the VSH as a drone colony but rather the queen side. My local stock would be the drone line. Maybe not such a good idea????? 

That is one option.

The other option is to get the Carni/VSH line and use it as a breeder to promote my Carni line and still get some VSH genetics in the system.

At this point I will be selling some queens but my primary goal is not to become some mass producer queen seller. My main goal will be to make my genetics better.

Some things I don't wanna lose:

I DO NOT wanna lose the rapid spring buildup that I need for pollination jobs that I get from the NWC.

I am not really interested in defensive bees. If necessary I'd rather have a breeder with less defense than more VSH. (just my personal preference) 

I need these 40 colonies that I was gonna requeen with a Daughter of the VSH breeder to be production Hives and Drone colonies next spring. I can't afford to give up the production and early season strength. 

So.. Based on this criteria would I be better off having a VSH/VSH or a Carni/VSH? Any additional thoughts? I'm not sure the way I was thinking of doing it would give me a very good VSH drone line. 

Thanks.


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Dan,
I understand wanting to maintain production hives. 
The only reason I was suggesting using a VSH drone mother was to increase the amount of VSh that is projected into your bees.
You can start off slow and use a VSH x Carn. Breeder and over the years you will slowly build up increase levels. Carnies need protein/pollen to build up early.
Remember, aggression in your hives is transfered by the drones genetics- so make sure you have gentle queens.
In every hive body I have 1 ea (one) frame of Drone comb for the queens in the hive to rear drones.
I keep it in the number 2 frame location.This allows the hive to rear drones when they want and if they don't they will fill it with honey.
Good luck
Frank Wyatt


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

It is no longer an either/or situation with the Glenn queens. After asking carefully about which line have the VSH trait I found that it was possible for me to get a Russian queen X Carn. drones. All of the drones she was mated to carry the VSH trait. The 'SMR' line may have other mechanisms of mite resistance, and I would point out that they are NOT gentle in my experience. If you like your NWC, then I would go with either a carn or a cordovan from Glenn apiaries mated to the same.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

WG Bee Farm said:


> Dan,
> I understand wanting to maintain production hives.
> The only reason I was suggesting using a VSH drone mother was to increase the amount of VSh that is projected into your bees.
> You can start off slow and use a VSH x Carn. Breeder and over the years you will slowly build up increase levels. Carnies need protein/pollen to build up early.
> ...


 


Thanks for the info and also to the other guys who expressed opinions.

My colonies are currently quite gentle and highly productive. Do you think I can maintain production with a VSH/My local Carni mix? I currently have great production in my hives and they will be the drone sources for these daughter queens. Would I be better off with a Carni/VSH from Glenn?

I love the Carni from a pollination standpoint. I do have to feed alot of pollen and syrup early but I can get boomer hives that run circles around some of the other hives I've seen that some other beekeepers have near me. 

Also... what is the likely hood of getting a pure VSH/VSH thru a northern winter? I understand that they are likely to dispatch of a larger than necessary amt of brood that would be overall detrimental to the colony.


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Decisions and choices- not always easy to make when they can impact your current management setup.

Opinion #1: Important Carnie background
get a Carnie x VSH- in the scheme of open mating some VSH will be impacked to your queens. Probably only approx. 10-15% but it is a beginning and you have injected better genetics into your hives that you can continue to do each year. Is this enough to impact varroa? Unlikely, but better than nothing and it is less likely to generate major changes in your current system. " I love the Carni from the pollination standpoint." This statement to me reflects your major focus and the above seems to fit into your current management system. If each year you get a new breeder and raise queens from her you will increas the amount of VSH, but over a longer periord of time. This generates the least amount of change in your system. IMO

Opinion #2: VSH x VSH
A pure VSH queen I do not try to overwinter. I have had them overwinter.
I use them for drone mothers to get more of the genetics into the mating area. If you wanted to rear queens from her Open Mated you should not have any problems. But, you are changing your current system greater than you would with opinion #1 and with change there is alway risk. IMO the risk is worth it, but I don't have to worry about losing your bees if they don't overwinter as well as what you are use too. 
An option is to try using the open mated daughters from this breeder in only one yard so you don't have "all your eggs in one basket"

Opinion #3- use her as a drone mother and raise your open mated queens from your best Carni queen from your own hives. This should install VSH traits and have less impact on your overal management than opinion #2.

In My Opinon the following is an order of least to most impact 
#1 least amount of impact and the system I used in my own yards- 2yrs before I started using pure VSH
#3
#2

Pure VSH x VSH do dispatch a larger amount of brood in the hive when the new worker daughters of the VSH queen start to emerge. 
Because-- they begin to recognize that certain brood cells have reproducing varroa mites in them. They uncapp these cell. What I have seen is they normally chew the heads and upper thorax off the bee pupa until they have opened all affected cells and then they remove the affected pupa and varroa, carrying them out of the hive. This brood removal does at first impact the pure VSH hive, but after the first couple of cycles of varroa being removed there is less reproducing mites and there is less brood being removed. This trend reduces and the hive begins to build population.

Good luck 
Frank


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Aspera said:


> It is no longer an either/or situation with the Glenn queens. After asking carefully about which line have the VSH trait I found that it was possible for me to get a Russian queen X Carn. drones. All of the drones she was mated to carry the VSH trait. The 'SMR' line may have other mechanisms of mite resistance, and I would point out that they are NOT gentle in my experience. If you like your NWC, then I would go with either a carn or a cordovan from Glenn apiaries mated to the same.


So if I have VSH daughters mated to my local drones these hives will potentially be "NOT gentle". I know that can happen with any hive I am thinking generally here.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Frank.... Thanks for your detailed response. I appreciate the thoroughness with which you described your opinion.

I guess I am hearing from some that these VSH traits maybe carry some less than gentle traits in general?


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Dan Williamson said:


> I know that can happen with any hive I am thinking generally here.


I agree it can happen with any hive. My point was that the USDA VSH/SMR line itself is aggressive. In my view, this is a fault as great as varroa susceptibility. Why bother with the USDA line at all if you can get gentle, 100% Carnies that carry the resistance genes? The analogy that i would use is that its as if you are buying a whole truck because you think the tires would look good on your other car.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

" Why bother with the USDA line at all if you can get gentle, 100% Carnies that carry the resistance genes? "

There is speculation that in order to keep the mite resistance genes, you will also have to keep some of the aggression, in other words the genes might be linked. I find in my own hives that the ones that are aggressive, also handle the mites better. My most aggressive hives are in your face bees, but not really attempting to sting. They just seem to like to headbutt, and get in your face. I will have to monitor these hives as the summer goes on, because most of the time when I was in the hives the field force wasn't flying, so it may have just been due to that .


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Aspera said:


> I agree it can happen with any hive. My point was that the USDA VSH/SMR line itself is aggressive. In my view, this is a fault as great as varroa susceptibility. Why bother with the USDA line at all if you can get gentle, 100% Carnies that carry the resistance genes? The analogy that i would use is that its as if you are buying a whole truck because you think the tires would look good on your other car.


 
How much of the VSH traits do their Carnies have though? On the phone she made it clear to me that their Carnies are NOT inseminated with VSH drones. (Maybe they'll do that for you!) They have just incorporated some VSH trait into the Carni line. How much she didn't say.


I'm torn. I've worked hard to remove aggressive genes from my stock even shaking one hive out in the cold for fear of the hyper aggressive genetics getting into my drone population as I was getting ready to rear some.

I want VSH but I hate working aggressive bees.


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## Jim Williamson (Feb 16, 2006)

Dan Williamson said:


> I hate working aggressive bees.


Must be a Williamson trait. Me, too.


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## Chrissy Shaw (Nov 21, 2006)

*I spoke with one breeder who thought...*

that defensive behavior and mite resistance/tollerance were related. It seemed to me that i had gone over this with Steve Taber before regarding another link on defensive bees. It was his strong contention that there was no relationship between defensive lines and mite resistance and that it would not be wise to allow the one hoping for the other in line testing for breeding stock.

Chrissy Shaw


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

u da' man frank...

well aspera i think it is an analogy a bit like that line from a country western song... 
one step forward and two steps back 
how can get anywhere like that.


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

I have been using the Glenn lines since 2000. 
I have not seen this "aggressive behavior" in the daughter queens from the 
breeders that I have purchased from Tom and Suki.
I normally use the following breeders: 
Minn. Hyg. X VSH/SMR
Carn. x VSH/SMR
The old breeders over wintered are used as drone mothers the following year.
I have added the VSH X VSH as a drone production hive the last two years.

The most aggressive colonies I have encountered have been from swarms collected and colonies I have purchased from other beeks. (these I requeen with my queens) Requeening normally takes about 6 weeks before all the old "aggressive bees" are gone from the hives.

In my personel opinion, daughter queens reared from the two breeders above make very good open mated queens:
As long as there are sufficent drones for mating.
Drones are of good quality
Drones come from not overly aggressive hives- (areas of africanized hives or hives moved from africanized areas) -the aggressive gene is transfered with the drones genetics.
I have not seen any relationship with aggression and mite resistance or honey production.

Mike Palmers post is a good way to get the VSH trait into your line.
All though I have not had his experience with the aggression.
Frank Wyatt


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Dan,

If we can get a few more people to voice an opinion here, I think we can
get you totally confused as to how to incorporate mite resistance into your hives.

Remember, What works for me, and several others may not be the right approach for you.
Don't make major changes in your operation, if what you are doing is working for you.
Start slow and let things change over a long period of time.
Frank


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

*Thanks all.*

This has been a very informative discussion for me. I appreciate all of your inputs. I am gonna take a slower approach I think. To date I haven't had a big issue with varroa. I just don't think it can hurt to incorporate some stock that has proven some restistance to it. 

However, I can't afford to have a big impact on this small business as I am just now picking up some key pollination customers and am ramping up to expand my nuc production to meet the demand for both spring 08.

I think I'm going to take the VSH/SMR and breed daughters for my drone colonies. Next spring I will probably get a Carnie/VSH breeder to graft from.

FWIW... When I called they did say that their VSH/SMR line is from Carnie Stock. I asked if they thought I might lose the rapid build up in the spring and she she said she couldn't see how as they are from Carni stock. Just repeating what she said. I don't know for a fact.


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Howdy,
I'd go with the Carni/VSH from Glenn over the VSH/VSH. Pure VSH is hard to manage--they don't perform well. Glenn recomends (as do I and others) that a 50-75% VSH is most optimum in a cross. If you're investing in a breeder from Glenn, go with the one that is closer to your goal already: the Carni/VSH.

We've been playing around with VSH/SMR lines since Harbo released them back in the late 90's. They combine well with other stocks; pure lines are not very good for production. We've got some very nice MnHyg X VSH lines and are planning to get into a Carni X VSH program soon. Glenn Apiaries is a class act! They are a pleasure to do bussiness with.

NOTE: if you do get a breeder, may I recomend that you use the push-in cage introduction method and that you make up a small nuc from several hives, and introduce your breeder, in the push-in cage, there.

Exciting!

Hello Frank and Michael!


Adam


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Hi Adam,
Haven't talked with you in a while.

My favorite is the Minn. Hyg. x VSH also. Even though I have been rearing the Carni x VSH longer. "Great Patterns"
Look for you at the July NC State Meeting.
Frank Wyatt

Moved from almost heaven West Virginia to Eden, NC '79


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## Beemeister (Jun 26, 2006)

Originally posted by WG BEE FARM:

I have found that I like the daughters from the Minn. Hyg X VSH in my hives in NC and I like the Carn. X VSH daughters in my hives in the VA Blue Ridge Mountains.

Frank,

What is it about these two lines of bees that makes one more suitable than the other at these two locations?

Thanks, 

Tim


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Beemeister,

I can answer that. It is tolerance to cold winter conditions and ability to build up rapidly in the spring. Minnesota Hygienics are basically an Italian bee selected for hygienic traits. They have all the good and bad traits found in Italians round the world. Wintering is not their strong point. Also, the nectar flows in the mountains would favor the Carniolans.

Darrel Jones


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## Beemeister (Jun 26, 2006)

Darrel,

Are the nectar flows in the mountains early? I live in the piedmont area and the main flow here is black locust, tulip poplar and other spring flowers. Once the tulip poplar flow has ended, there is not much surplus nectar being produced here until goldenrod and aster. Are the Carniolans better in this situation than the Minn. Hyg. in your experience?

Thanks

Tim


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