# Natural Annual Brood Cycle



## Oldtimer

It's a trait of certain bees such as AMM and Carniolan, in their pure form, shut down if there is a dearth. So if your observations are correct you probably have a spring and autumn flow & midsummer dearth, plus a bee strain that shuts down in dearths.
If you had Italians they don't shut down for mid summer dearths.


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## beepro

Yep, OT is right. 
I'm interested in the AMM too but we don't have them here.  I keep Italians to know their brood cycle and general
bee behavior. Mine do not shut down during the dearth but brooding in small batches instead. I got around that by
feeding them patty and sugar/honey syrup so that they do not shut down completely until the Fall flow started again.
Without the feeding I think they will shut down completely. Perhaps you can feed them during the dearth also. Or planting bee
forage for them to get over the dearth too.



Planting early Fall Borage blooming:


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> My question is, how normal is this?


my bees do it too mike, except that i notice the brooding up or down precedes the flows or dearths by a few weeks to a month. it's as if the bees can 'anticipate' their workforce needs one month in advance.



mike bispham said:


> is there any hard evidence that they behave differently from domesticated bees in this respect?


don't know of any evidence, but i would guess that supplemental feeding during dearth would tend to mask the trait if present.


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## Juhani Lunden

mike bispham said:


> My bees surprised me again this year by shutting down brooding from sometime in early July right round till mid September.


Natural brood break for 2,5 months in England? I don´t believe it.


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## BernhardHeuvel

As Oldtimer said, they go hungry. => A good beekeeper doesn't let his bees starve. That's the problem with harvesting honey without feeding back a replacement. No good start into the winter.


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> My question is, how normal is this?


Sounds more like you maybe had swarms and there was a brood break while the colonies requeened.
Queens do not ever stop laying for 2 months under UK conditions.

I keep Amm and I find a queen can stop laying for a couple of weeks, usually in August if it is raining.
At the moment my colonies are very full of bees and brood and they are working hard on the ivy bringing in both pollen and nectar.

Incidentally, I was at the Bibba Conference in N Wales 2 weeks ago and Kate Thompson did a presentation of her work looking at UK ferals. She found that there was no difference in the genetic makeup of ferals and the genetic makeup of the background bee population, suggesting that most ferals are recently escaped swarms. This was based on microsatellite markers. There is nothing special about UK feral colonies.


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## Rolande

jonathan said:


> This was based on microsatellite markers. There is nothing special about UK feral colonies.


I expect that she tested the _wrong_ ferals


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## Rolande

I reckon that Bernhard has summed it up correctly. 

Me, if I had a queen that stopped laying in early July during a season like we've just had, she'd be gone.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> I reckon that Bernhard has summed it up correctly.
> 
> Me, if I had a queen that stopped laying in early July during a season like we've just had, she'd be gone.


I'm just reporting here. I didn't go over all my hives - just the strongest - I was looking for eggs/larvae for grafting. The hives were strong, so I don't think they'd swarmed. 

There are some and some, but lots do seem to have two main brooding periods: a spring build up followed by gardual dwindling, then a September flush for winter bees. That does, I reckon, reflect flows. 

I'm interested in getting them acclimatised to their local environment, so I'm doing my best not to interfere with stimulative feeds. I'm going to try to let it play out more in future years - but it looks like I'll have to raise queens earlier than planned. I'd wanted to leave it late to give late summer varroa build up a chance to show.

It seems to me to be obvious that this sort of behaviour is likely to be much better for managing varroa than more or less continuous brooding. Its likely that feral populations will have shifted toward it for that reason. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Incidentally, I was at the Bibba Conference in N Wales 2 weeks ago and Kate Thompson did a presentation of her work looking at UK ferals. She found that there was no difference in the genetic makeup of ferals and the genetic makeup of the background bee population, suggesting that most ferals are recently escaped swarms. This was based on microsatellite markers. There is nothing special about UK feral colonies.


Just because they share the same sources of dna (and I take it Kate Thompson found both purish races reflecting imports and Buckfast mixes and mongrels...?) doesn't mean 'There is nothing special about UK feral colonies' Jonathan.

In both 'pure' race populations ('communities' might be a better term) and mixed race settings there is genetic diversity. Obviously more in the latter. That diversity allows for different traits and behaviours. In any community those traits that supply advantages will flourish over traits (dna) that don't.

Feral populations, subjected to natural selection, locate those aspects of genetic diversity that help them manage varroa.

I expect Kate Thompson knows this. I'm surprised she didn't spell it out for you. Its important stuff for husbandryman to know. Pretty much all the conversations among treatment free/varroa resistant bee breeders contain the assertion that using feral stock as part of the mix is a very useful step.

Mike


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> I reckon that Bernhard has summed it up correctly.
> 
> Me, if I had a queen that stopped laying in early July during a season like we've just had, she'd be gone.


No offence Rolande, but its that kind of thinking that leads to whole countries having bee stock that cannot survive without treatments and manipulations. Then they complain 'there's something wrong with the bees', and look around for places to lay blame. 

If you want bees that can thrive alone then you have to give them space to talk to you, and listen, and act upon what they say. 

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

Seems to be a bad case of anti-husbandry and continued sickness. The bees may survive varroa, but certainly not your anti-husbandry. :lookout: 

We are awaiting your reports after the next winter. Bees as living things cannot take continious punches from you all the time. One day they simply die. Hope you feel guilty then.


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> I'm doing my best not to interfere with stimulative feeds.


does this represent a shift in your paradigm mike?


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> Pretty much all the conversations among treatment free/varroa resistant bee breeders contain the assertion that using feral stock as part of the mix is a very useful step.
> Mike


Maybe so in some places but Kate demonstrated that most UK ferals are recently escaped swarms. Some so called long standing colonies even had marked queens! She found it very difficult to find feral colonies and a lot died out over winter. She spent 3 years at this and travelled all over GB.

On a related matter, she also compared wing venation patterns with microsatellite markers specific to different honeybee subspecies and found no correlation there at all with regard to predicting purity of bee race. Went down like a lead balloon to a room full of Bibba members.
Sometimes what people want to believe is not grounded in reality.


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## JWChesnut

If honeybees alleles shifted in 2-3 generations as Bispham maintains, then the genus would be made up of hundreds of separate, mutually incompatible species. Each species would have its origin in some small island or isolated breeding population, the plethora of species would be mind-numbing broad (much like the "inordinate fondness of beetles").

You do not see this pattern -- Apis mellifera is singularly resistant to sub-speciation. It has an entirely different mode of adaptation, based in its social organization.


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## Slow Drone

mike bispham said:


> No offence Rolande, but its that kind of thinking that leads to whole countries having bee stock that cannot survive without treatments and manipulations. Then they complain 'there's something wrong with the bees', and look around for places to lay blame.
> 
> If you want bees that can thrive alone then you have to give them space to talk to you, and listen, and act upon what they say.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Being in the top 5 for honey production worldwide our weak bees seem to be not near as weak as in other countries.


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## Oldtimer

jonathan said:


> Sometimes what people want to believe is not grounded in reality.


That one simple sentence explains a large number of issues humanity cannot deal with.


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## Oldtimer

JWChesnut said:


> If honeybees alleles shifted in 2-3 generations as Bispham maintains, then the genus would be made up of hundreds of separate, mutually incompatible species.....
> 
> You do not see this pattern.


Herein another Beesource phenomenon. The frequent claims that a persons bees have adapted to whatever issue the beekeeper claims and made major evolutionary strides, in what must be one or two generations.

My own experience is kind of opposite, I select carefully for certain traits and try to maintain them, but there is constant pressure for the bees to revert to normal.


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> No offence Rolande, but its that kind of thinking that leads to whole countries having bee stock that cannot survive without treatments and manipulations. Then they complain 'there's something wrong with the bees', and look around for places to lay blame.
> 
> If you want bees that can thrive alone then you have to give them space to talk to you, and listen, and act upon what they say.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Mike, no offence taken. However, I wonder how it is that I manage to maintain such robust colonies in modified dadant and also double brood 13 frame bs hives with very low losses; how I manage to overwinter very small mating nucs in boxes made from half inch OSB3 (orientated strandboard) with exceptionally low losses? 

My bees are very fit, thank you, and one of the reasons that they're fit is that I select for strong colonies, you won't catch me complaining that there's something wrong with them because I'm far too good a beekeeper to let them reach that state 

There's only so much we can select for, my choice is over all vitality, good temper and honey gathering ability.


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> The hives were strong, so I don't think they'd swarmed.


All the beginners who lose swarms say that. It is a mixture of inexperience at estimating colony strength and a failure to mark and then identify queens on each colony inspection.
When I hear this, usually expressed as 'my bees could not have swarmed as the hive is still full of bees', I ask them if they can tell the difference between a hive with 25,000 bees and a hive with 35,000 bees as that could be the difference between losing a swarm or not.
For any type of bee breeding/selection it is important to keep track of the queens.
Bottom line is if you do not mark, clip or somehow identify individual queens you cannot be sure.


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## mike bispham

squarepeg said:


> does this represent a shift in your paradigm mike?


Yes and no Squarepeg. My preference is very much 'leave alone'. 'The shift in my paradigm' was the act of stimulative feeding last spring in order to boost numbers for reproductive purposes and to build comb. I won't have to do that again, but... Most of my bees will be pollinating early fruit blossom, and I'll need decent numbers for that purpose. So it'll happen again next spring.

In future years I'll have two distinct apiaries of about 60 hives each, one of which will be working (early fruit) and the other will be left alone. Breeding and propagation will occur at the left-alone site. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Maybe so in some places but Kate demonstrated that most UK ferals are recently escaped swarms. Some so called long standing colonies even had marked queens! She found it very difficult to find feral colonies and a lot died out over winter. She spent 3 years at this and travelled all over GB.


If she'd spent a summer with me I could have shown her about 8 longstanding colonies and three times as many swarms of likely feral origin. She could have tested my own bees which seem to do just ine without any treatments. 

She might well have found that mine were a mix of the same genetic range as many apiary bees. That doesn't make them identical. Mine have that special tiny fraction of genes supplying mite managment behaviours. Apiary bees tend not to.



jonathan said:


> On a related matter, she also compared wing venation patterns with microsatellite markers specific to different honeybee subspecies and found no correlation there at all with regard to predicting purity of bee race. Went down like a lead balloon to a room full of Bibba members.
> Sometimes what people want to believe is not grounded in reality.


I was telling you, among others, that 3 or 4 years ago on the Irish Beekeepers Forum. Went down like a lead balloon there too. I can remember you giving me some bs about genetic clumping (that wasn't how you put it). 

This point is, as you say, related, though not perhaps in the way you think. The fact that you were able to breed bees with a particular wing pattern and of a particular colour (and other markers), which were, in fact, just ordinary common mongrels with ... a particular wing pattern and of a particular colour... shows how genetically similar bees can be given particular traits. 

In ferals, natural selection 'breeds' resistance (of various sorts) to varroa, as well as general strength and productivity. The best strains come to the top. That doesn't make them any different 'genetically' - although they _are_ different in that tiny fraction of genes governing key traits.

So Kate Thomson can find that ferals are no different 'genetically'; while they are in fact very different ... in those tiny key aspects. Just like your 'black bees'.

Do you get it Jonathan?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> If honeybees alleles shifted in 2-3 generations as Bispham maintains, then the genus would be made up of hundreds of separate, mutually incompatible species. Each species would have its origin in some small island or isolated breeding population, the plethora of species would be mind-numbing broad (much like the "inordinate fondness of beetles").


Honeybee allelles 'shift' in every generation. Just as they do in every other sexually reproducing organism. Natural selections captures those shifts that promotes success.

That doesn't mean they speciate rapidly. It just means they fine-tune to their environments while maintaining the ability to attune to different environments. 



JWChesnut said:


> You do not see this pattern -- Apis mellifera is singularly resistant to sub-speciation. It has an entirely different mode of adaptation, based in its social organization.


Wherever you go you find locally distinct honeybee populations attuned to their specific environments. the main racial labels capture larger differences, but fail to capture the smaller distinctions and gradations between them. 

None of which has much bearing on the fact of day-to-day adaptation to parasites within species and sub species. All successful species have within their genetic diversity the means to cope with new, and past, predators. 

All very basic evolutionary understanding. Stop trying theorise against it.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Slow Drone said:


> Being in the top 5 for honey production worldwide our weak bees seem to be not near as weak as in other countries.


Does that have anything at all to do with having the largest continental landmass?

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

understood mike, thanks.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Mike, no offence taken. However, I wonder how it is that I manage to maintain such robust colonies in modified dadant and also double brood 13 frame bs hives with very low losses; how I manage to overwinter very small mating nucs in boxes made from half inch OSB3 (orientated strandboard) with exceptionally low losses?
> 
> My bees are very fit, thank you, and one of the reasons that they're fit is that I select for strong colonies, you won't catch me complaining that there's something wrong with them because I'm far too good a beekeeper to let them reach that state
> 
> There's only so much we can select for, my choice is over all vitality, good temper and honey gathering ability.


Roland,

All without any treating or manipulation against varroa? Then you've got it right. You're a good example of what I advocate - thorough ongoing selection for inherent fitness. 

But I would still be cautious about breeding away from brood breaking bees. It might just be that they need that. Then again it might be that you're forcing them to locate other means of controlling varroa, that will as good. Not a precise science is it? I just tend, as default, to let them do what they want to do. And I probably do get a reduced late crop as a result. I think this is a minor difference between us.

Mike (UK)


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> Do you get it Jonathan?
> Mike (UK)


Yep I get haplodiploid genetics but you cannot provide evidence that your 'feral' colonies are long standing as opposed to recently escaped swarms.
Wishful thinking is not evidence.
Kate Thompson found that most of the 'long standing' colonies were in fact repeatedly colonised.

A swarm which takes up residence somewhere is 2013 is not a varroa tolerant colony in 2014.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> All the beginners who lose swarms say that.


You do know I've been keeping bees for 20 years on and off don't you?

What makes me think they hadn't swarmed is the memory of having to fight to reassemble a large hive that took offence at about the mamimum state of dismemberment! There was no shortage of bees on that occasion. And there were no signs of swarming inside. And this scenario repeats all summer: I go to try to find eggs, and struggle, in busy hives, to locate a miserly patch if anything. 



jonathan said:


> For any type of bee breeding/selection it is important to keep track of the queens.


There's more than one way to skin a cat, and 'breeding' can mean lots of different things. I prefer to think of what I do as 'husbandry' where the thing I'm 'husbanding' is the healthiest genes. And all that needs is strictly no help of any sort, and routine making increase and replacement queens from the strongest few hives. Unlimited brood nests, allowing larger (fitter) hives to raise more drones helps. 

This doesn't require any finding of or marking of queens. It doesn't require constant examination for swarm cells. Giving them room/making them make wax tends to reduce swarming sufficiently. Bait boxes get many of the old queens and recover bees and energy otherwise lost. 

It must look like a very rough, arms length sort of 'breeding' to you, and it is. But mechanisms locating the strongest and eliminating the weakest are very much present. It works. And it probably works as well as or better than any other way. 

Put your bees and mine out to fend for themselves: I'll be collecting honey at the end of the season: you'll be collecting empty/dying hives. 

Who has the more effecting breeding system? 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Yep I get haplodiploid genetics


It doesn't matter what the specific genetic detals are. What matters is that selection occurs. Don't confuse knowing something with knowing something relevant.



jonathan said:


> but you cannot provide evidence that your 'feral' colonies are long standing as opposed to recently escaped swarms.


In some cases I could supply testimony from the landowner. I've had two swarms in consecutive years from a lady who tolerates bees low in an apple tree not 20 yards from her back door. She keeps a nice garden, with the help of a gardener. She tells me, under close questioning, that the tree has been continuously occupied for '7 or 8 years'. She takes an interest - the combs are visible through the opening. She watches for them in the spring, sees their numbers grow, watches them bearding, sees them swarm. She doesn't give me the impression of being a lair, or of telling me what I want to hear. I haven't contacted her gardener to question him closely. In my estimation, these bees are likely to be more self sufficient than any I could buy from a beekeeper or bee breeder. That's as much as I can tell you. If you know of anyone interested in testing them you can have them contact me.



jonathan said:


> Wishful thinking is not evidence.
> Kate Thompson found that most of the 'long standing' colonies were in fact repeatedly colonised.


How did she establish that fact? 



jonathan said:


> A swarm which takes up residence somewhere is 2013 is not a varroa tolerant colony in 2014.


Of course. But a swarm that's still around and filling boxes three years later without having had any help is, even if its swarmed or replaced its queen, more interesting to me than any hive that will start dying just as soon as you stop treating it. Simple as that.

Mike (UK)


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> How did she establish that fact?


There were no bees there when she checked in the winter in spite of the fact that most of the people she dealt with swore that the colonies had been there for 20 years etc.

A cavity which has been previously occupied is hugely attractive to scout bees in swarm season and will not remain unoccupied for long.
Scout bees checking out a possible nest site can run to several hundred.
I have had bait boxes with so much activity you would swear a swarm was in residence but if you check at night the box is empty.


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## BernhardHeuvel

mike bispham said:


> You do know I've been keeping bees for 20 years on and off don't you?


From what you wrote so far I reckon' most of the time it was off, wasn't it?



mike bispham said:


> I'll be collecting honey at the end of the season: you'll be collecting empty/dying hives.


So how many honey did you collect in total from your 60 hives this year 2014? In tons? How was the melting of your honey harvest doing? 

Lots of food for thought in this study: _The present study provides evidence that, in honey bees, queen reproductive potential affects several factors of her colony’s phenotype. As such, we show that a honey bee colony may be seen as the ‘expanded phenotype’ of its queen._
*The effects of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) queen reproductive potential on colony growth*
http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00040-012-0267-1

Extrapolate this on how you treat/manipulate your bees.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> There were no bees there when she checked in the winter in spite of the fact that most of the people she dealt with swore that the colonies had been there for 20 years etc.



Lets take this a step at a time:

a) (Jonathan): "Kate Thompson found that most of the 'long standing' colonies were in fact repeatedly colonised."

b) (Mike): "How did she establish that fact? "

c) (Jonathan):"There were no bees there when she checked in the winter "

So, looking at a cavity in the winter (presumably checking inside) shows that "most of the 'long standing' colonies were in fact repeatedly colonised" ??

Can you attach numbers here? How large was the sample? What proportion that were occupied in the summer had 'died' when she checked in 'winter? What proportion were present next summer? In subsequent years?

Does that proportion differ from any established norm - how many swarms in natural settings don't make it through their first winter?

Did she in fact check inside in every case? 

How does she reason from her evidence to the conclusion you report? 

Have you seen (read) her research? 



jonathan said:


> A cavity which has been previously occupied is hugely attractive to scout bees in swarm season and will not remain unoccupied for long.


My sister has an abondoned nest in a cherry tree now unoccupied through its second summer. There are plently of bees around, and it was cased well this year. There are no other colonies in the immediate vicinity (which some people think acts to dissuade swarms) 



jonathan said:


> Scout bees checking out a possible nest site can run to several hundred.
> I have had bait boxes with so much activity you would swear a swarm was in residence but if you check at night the box is empty.


Me too. I watch for pollen going in. How does any of this impact on our discussion (which is, I think, about whether or not there are any self sufficient feral bees around in the uk)

Mike (UK)


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## Rader Sidetrack

> Being in the top 5 for honey production worldwide our weak bees seem to be not near as weak as in other countries.



mike bispham said:


> Does that have anything at all to do with having the largest continental landmass?


That is simply not true!  :lpf:

The USA is the *4th *largest country by landmass, behind Russia, Canada and China.


And 3 of the 4 the countries that produce more honey than the USA are considerably smaller in landmass than the USA, being Turkey, Argentina and Ukraine.

:gh:


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## mike bispham

You're not called sidetrack for nothing are you.


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## Rader Sidetrack

Gee, Mike, if you can't get your '_facts_' right, you really should reconsider trying to use them to support your position in the first place. No one forced you to respond to _Slow Drone_'s comment in the manner that *you *chose to.


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## jonathan

Mike, I suggest you contact Kate yourself and she will be glad to answer your questions.
Her work has ruffled a lot of feathers. You are just the latest.

Occupied in summer followed by not occupied in winter followed by occupied the next summer = repeatedly colonised.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Mike, I suggest you contact Kate yourself and she will be glad to answer your questions.
> Her work has ruffled a lot of feathers. You are just the latest.


We have corresponded briefly, and she sent me the link to the resultant paper:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0105164

Abstract

Feral honey bee populations have been reported to be in decline due to the spread of Varroa destructor, an ectoparasitic mite that when left uncontrolled leads to virus build-up and colony death. While pests and diseases are known causes of large-scale managed honey bee colony losses, no studies to date have considered the wider pathogen burden in feral colonies, primarily due to the difficulty in locating and sampling colonies, which often nest in inaccessible locations such as church spires and tree tops. In addition, little is known about the provenance of feral colonies and whether they represent a reservoir of Varroa tolerant material that could be used in apiculture. Samples of forager bees were collected from paired feral and managed honey bee colonies and screened for the presence of ten honey bee pathogens and pests using qPCR. Prevalence and quantity was similar between the two groups for the majority of pathogens, however feral honey bees contained a significantly higher level of deformed wing virus than managed honey bee colonies. An assessment of the honey bee race was completed for each colony using three measures of wing venation. There were no apparent differences in wing morphometry between feral and managed colonies, suggesting feral colonies could simply be escapees from the managed population. Interestingly, managed honey bee colonies not treated for Varroa showed similar, potentially lethal levels of deformed wing virus to that of feral colonies. The potential for such findings to explain the large fall in the feral population and the wider context of the importance of feral colonies as potential pathogen reservoirs is discussed.


From the conclusion:
"Given the novel observations that (i) feral colonies contain crippling high levels of DWV; (ii) managed and feral populations appear similar using three different measures of wing morphometry and (iii) feral and pathogen populations share even recently emerged parasites, it seems likely that the invasion of the Varroa mite and the increase in prevalence of its concomitant viruses may indeed explain the loss of feral honey bee colonies. Despite showing high levels of DWV in feral colonies, we cannot categorically link this to an increase in feral colony mortality. "

i) doesn't agree with my findings at all. I saw barely any DWV this year, in 30 odd overwintered colonies, ranging from 1 to 4 years old. (Only a tiny proportion of my (weakest) hives exhibit shotgun brood.) There is no treatment whatsoever.

ii) says only that they share common genetic grounds. It says nothing at all about differences in resistance alleles.

iii) utterly predictable. To the research question: have apiary-derived problems with varroa and associated viruses been responsible for the loss of feral bees? Doh! 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> But I would still be cautious about breeding away from brood breaking bees.
> Mike (UK)


Thing with that Mike, do you get much honey? What have your sales been over the last 5 years?


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Thing with that Mike, do you get much honey? What have your sales been over the last 5 years?


Bear in mind: 

1) I came through winter with 28 colonies, of varying quality

2) About half were on a full national deep box of comb; the rest in 6 frame nucs. So all had to build all their storage comb and half had to build half a nest worth of brood comb too.

3) I took about 20 full frames of brood from some of my strongest hives to make nucs, and another 50 or so combs of (deep) stores.

4) Some of the strongest hives were broken up to make 3 or 4 nucs.

My nucs, plus about 20 swarms and cut outs made numbers up to a maximum of nearly 80. But poor mating and/or lost queens/being united have bought numbers down to around 65 now.

So your asking for a honey figure from 60 hives is well off the mark. I've had about 15 'production' hives which have had to make their own comb (without any foundation), and from which critical bits have been taken from time to time. I haven't had time to do anything more than get boxes on ahead of when they needed it. And I've let most take down a good deal of honey for the winter.

On the other side it was a great summer for nectar. 

I've packed 500 1/2lb jars/cut comb packets and about 100 1lb jars, and sold one 40lb bucket wholesale. That's about 400 lbs; and I reckon I have about the same left. 800lbs-ish from about 15 comb-building left-alone, occasionally robbed of brood and comb hives, with some winter honey left... so an 'average' of just over 50lbs.

A few of these hives ended up with a deep and three shallow boxes full of honey. All made on starter strips. I'd say probably 4 or 5 hives supplied nearly half my crop. 

This is my first year selling honey.

As a commercial concern its barely taken root. As the beginnings of a long term project, its underway - fingers crossed. No treatment, no funny business. I haven't bought a single bee yet. 

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Well sounds encouraging Mike, thanks for the honesty and glad you got something.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Well sounds encouraging Mike, thanks for the honesty and glad you got something.


Thanks for the encouragement OT

Mike (UK)


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## BernhardHeuvel

So you have 15 full colonies and 50 6-frame nucs now. 

5 hives produced 200 lbs = 40 lbs per hive.
10 hives produced the other 200 lbs = 20 lbs per hive.

That is 26.6 lbs per hive average. 

I would be more realistically and do not speak of 20 years of beekeeping (on and off). And not speaking of 60 hives while there are 50 nucs (of varying quality). 

That would sound more serious. 

Bernhard


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## mike bispham

Still misrepresenting me Bernhard? You have no idea how many of my colonies are now in nucs and how many nats (or how many in between). You've invented a picture that suits your purposes and presented it as fact.

Read my outline again and straighten up your as-normal pathetically jaundiced views. 

Don't expect any more replies from me for some time. Next time I open one of your posts I'll expect a fair hearing - or you'll be in the dog house for another six months.

Mike (UK)


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## Juhani Lunden

Friedrich Ruttner writes in "Naturgeschichte der Honigbienen" p. 208 that in northern Africa overwintering becomes over-summering because of total absence of flowers for four up to five months. 

In page 158 there is a picture of the brood rhythms of various races, including _A.m. intermissa _, the local bee of that region. In that picture the total absence of brood in _A.m.intermissa _lasts one month.

Mike Bispham writes that his bees in rainy England have a brood brake for several months, makes me wonder...


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## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> Mike Bispham writes that his bees in rainy England have a brood brake for several months, makes me wonder...


What does it make you wonder Juhani? Spell it out man


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## BernhardHeuvel

There was a term in German born recently, that roughly translates into: _sublethal bee management_. As the analogous term to _sublethal poisoning_, just for beekeepers and their glorious beekeeping methods.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Mike, I do not want to bowl you out, nor do I want to discourage you. You do your way, I am sure, but under a lot of unnecessary pain. _Learning by pain_ is one way to learn, yes, but sure there are better ways to learn. And it sure helps if you do not state things like: "_I have been a beekeeper for twenty years_". Even if you relativise it in the second sentence by the addition of "_on/off_", it sure doesn't do your credibility any good. Let's not exaggerate. That's all.


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> Roland,
> 
> All without any treating or manipulation against varroa? Then you've got it right. You're a good example of what I advocate - thorough ongoing selection for inherent fitness.


No, not at all Mike. I treat when I see the need, healthy bees are what I want, if varroa gives them trouble that's fine -we can worry about that next year; so long as they're still alive. 

I've used thymol on occasion in the past although it's something I choose not to use now. OA has also been an excellent tool and remains so. 



mike bispham said:


> But I would still be cautious about breeding away from brood breaking bees.


Actually, I don't have a major issue with natural brood breaks, but was responding specifically to 'early July' as I see that as jumping the gun, and as for 2+months, I reckon that would ruin my colonies (from my perspective). Your area may of course be drastically different but our main flow is in July so we'd soon see colonies working themselves out and I really don't believe that we'd get them back in shape before the winter, they might possibly look OK by the end of a mild Autumn but I'm certain that we'd see a lack of form the following Spring in comparison to our colonies as presently managed. 

--------------------------------------​
Anyway, my bees don't need to be able to survive on their own anymore than the cattle, when we worked them, were expected to.

I see this as an interesting issue, the idea that bees are being expected to survive on their own against an exotic pest when in general we don't place the same burden on other stock.


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## JWChesnut

Rolande said:


> Anyway, my bees don't need to be able to survive on their own anymore than the cattle, when we worked them, were expected to.
> 
> I see this as an interesting issue, the idea that bees are being expected to survive on their own against an exotic pest when in general we don't place the same burden on other stock.


I feel for Mike, as he about 25% correct on his big idea, "Breeding for resistance requires challenge for survival".

Positive examples abound: consider Brucellosis in Buffalo in Yellowstone NP. In about a century of challenge, Buffalo have adapted to coexist with Brucellosis (reduced population density, immune response, genetic shifts). Domestic cattle which interact (outside the park) with Buffalo remain highly susceptible. There is a continuing controversy as ranchers kill Buffalo as "diseased". The management response has been to propose vaccinating the Buffalo --- which of course defeats the trajectory of their naturally evolved response. 

Unfortunately, the genetics of an outcrossing insect are not the same as a herd ungulate with a dominate bull breeding system. But it is nearly impossible to get Mike to appreciate the subtlety of that point. He remains stubbornly unwilling to appreciate distinctions.


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## Oldtimer

BernhardHeuvel said:


> There was a term in German born recently, that roughly translates into: _sublethal bee management_. As the analogous term to _sublethal poisoning_, just for beekeepers and their glorious beekeeping methods.


Sublethal bee management, ha, I like it!

There is quite a bit of that done around my part of the world also, you can tell the practitioners, the hives the owner doesn't open are the ones that do the best.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> No, not at all Mike. I treat when I see the need, healthy bees are what I want, if varroa gives them trouble that's fine -we can worry about that next year; so long as they're still alive.
> 
> [...] OA has also been an excellent tool and remains so.


Roland,

You do realise this is the treatment free section don't you? Set up for people to talk about ways of becoming, and staying, treatment free? 



Rolande said:


> Anyway, my bees don't need to be able to survive on their own anymore than the cattle, when we worked them, were expected to.
> 
> I see this as an interesting issue, the idea that bees are being expected to survive on their own against an exotic pest when in general we don't place the same burden on other stock.


We don't place that burden on other stock because they are genetically contained in closed breeding pools. We can manage their underlying health through selection of parents. Perhaps the most effective part of this strategy is the elimination (from the breeding pool) of the vast majority of the weaker/less healthy males. But in most stock propagation a good proportion of weaker females are eliminated too.

Added to this fundamental 'husbandry' of health-giving genes, it is often the case that male genetic material is soured entirely from a small selection of the healthiest and strongest males that can be found. 

This elimination (and positive selection of males especially) that exhibit prime qualities is strict and systematic. Every generation is raised only from the best of the last.

All this is made possible by the possibility of closed breeding pools.

Honeybees aren't normally kept as closed breeding pools. And so when you treat a weakness you tend to pass that same weakness along to the next generation.

That's the difference. Widespread genetic 'management' of bees on the 'veterinary model' used by i.e. mammalian stock is inappropriate because it _ensures_ continued weakness. Its a built in health management flaw. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> Unfortunately, the genetics of an outcrossing insect are not the same as a herd ungulate with a dominate bull breeding system. But it is nearly impossible to get Mike to appreciate the subtlety of that point. He remains stubbornly unwilling to appreciate distinctions.


That's because the underlying principle is the same. If you systematically reduce the most vulnerable segment of the population, and promote the strongest, then, ceteris paribus, the health of the population is protected from the ever-evolving predator organisms. _That's universal for all living things_.

Do you understand that word John? 

That's what natural selection does. 

Obstruct that process (as you've described with US domesticated cattle) and the problem remains - at best. 

With honeybees (and their more complex sex life) exactly the same thing happens. Remove the most vulnerable segment of the population (or stop them putting forward their genetic material by some other means), or pay the price of worsening health as predator organisms rapidly evolve within a prey population that has had its response mechaism crippled.

Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> Roland,
> 
> You do realise this is the treatment free section don't you? Set up for people to talk about ways of becoming, and staying, treatment free?


I certainly do Mike, but without saying what I actually do (not recommending) it would have been hard to correct your mis-interpretation of what I'd previously written. 

My selective use of OA to keep colonies going which would otherwise suffer does not in any way detract from my interest in treatment free beekeeping. 

I copied a lot of information and passed it on to you in the past so you have an advantage on everyone else here of actually knowing that my interest is genuine. 

I've had a full-on go at it myself in the past and even reached the point where I had some TF colonies for five full seasons before they crashed. My situation now, with a greater number of colonies is that I personally couldn't sit out the same percentage loss. Just couldn't do it financially. That doesn't mean that I'm not happy to learn from others who one way or another are in a better position to push on than I am -but to do that I need to ask questions which, ideally, means being allowed to participate in this section of the forum.


----------



## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> My bees surprised me again this year by shutting down brooding from sometime in early July right round till mid September. Then they had another big flush and then packed up again. It seems there's a big run from early spring to early summer, then nothing till the 'replacement program' begins in early autumn. During this time the population obviously slides. My question is, how normal is this?


So, assuming that the last of the brood emerged by or at the beginning of August your hives were broodless for six weeks till mid Sept, then you had another three weeks before the new bees were emerging, that would suggest to me that your colonies were populated solely by +/- 9 week old bees at the start of October. Is that correct?

What size were these colonies when the queens shut down in July?

What size were they immediately prior to the first brood emerging at the start of October?

What size are they now?


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> So, assuming that the last of the brood emerged by or at the beginning of August your hives were broodless for six weeks till mid Sept, then you had another three weeks before the new bees were emerging, that would suggest to me that your colonies were populated solely by +/- 9 week old bees at the start of October. Is that correct?
> 
> What size were these colonies when the queens shut down in July?
> 
> What size were they immediately prior to the first brood emerging at the start of October?
> 
> What size are they now?


Roland,

First, its a bit less precise than that - not all queens shut down - I was able to find eggs, just not in the hives I wanted material from. Secondly, I don't look inside my hives all the time so I'm not that clear on exactly what went on in which ones and when. All that happened was that when, in late July I went to my selected hives for eggs, I couldn't find any. 

To answer your questions: The colonies at that time were of a healthy size. They were the ones that met the criteria of having been with me for two years or more and flourishing. They were among the taller hives at that point - my quick evaluation system. Their populations were strong, but shrunk considerably during August. And they are smallish (and some still raising brood) now.

I realise this is all pretty vague. Perhaps the best thing to do is write it off as an observation, and try to watch more closely next year. I'll be making increase earlier. Mostly because of these factors I left it late this year and it wasn't a great success. 

Mike


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> I certainly do Mike, but without saying what I actually do (not recommending) it would have been hard to correct your mis-interpretation of what I'd previously written.
> 
> My selective use of OA to keep colonies going which would otherwise suffer does not in any way detract from my interest in treatment free beekeeping.
> 
> I copied a lot of information and passed it on to you in the past so you have an advantage on everyone else here of actually knowing that my interest is genuine.


I know that Roland, but I was struggling to square that with:



Rolande said:


> "Anyway, my bees don't need to be able to survive on their own anymore than the cattle, when we worked them, were expected to.
> 
> I see this as an interesting issue, the idea that bees are being expected to survive on their own against an exotic pest when in general we don't place the same burden on other stock."


See what I mean? 



Rolande said:


> That doesn't mean that I'm not happy to learn from others who one way or another are in a better position to push on than I am -but to do that I need to ask questions which, ideally, means being allowed to participate in this section of the forum.


Sure. I think you're a liitle conflicted, and because of that sending out mixed messages?

Mike


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I was able to find eggs, just not in the hives I wanted material from. Mike


They swarmed.


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## jonathan

That's what it sounded like to me from the information given. UK queens do not 'shut down' for 6-8 weeks other than mid winter. 2 weeks is quite possible in a spell of poor weather.
I mark and clip all my queens so I know what is going on. If you are breeding bees for whatever purpose, that is critical. I removed an unmarked virgin from a colony today and replaced it with a mated queen from an Apidea. A supersedure attempt in late October in the UK is sure to produce a drone laying queen next Spring. The marked queen was not present and there was just a little sealed brood left in the colony so she was probably bumped off a couple of weeks ago. The last mated queen I had this season started laying 4th October and that is quite late for UK/Ireland conditions.


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## mbc

I find myself in the unusual position of largely agreeing with Mike on this thread, my bees seem to lay in waves, and sometimes the ones with the largest crops have virtually given up laying by mid July as their wave peaked earlier than others and hit a trough in laying rate often extending all the way up to the ivy flow. As the main flow goes over, usually in the second half of July, I'd say most of my colonies slow right down.

Sub lethal bee management! Lol! I think I could be accused of that sometimes, Darwin has to be given a chance to do his work.


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## jonathan

Dodgy Welsh bees MBC!
August is when I see a bit of a slow down or stoppage in some colonies.
I guess it is all about local conditions. Mike is in Kent.
I would never see a queen shut down for 6-8 weeks though.


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## mbc

Agreed 6-8 weeks is excessive, but by his own admission he's not sure about this as he doesn't look in that often.
Yeah, location, location, location, golden rule! My flow can hit a brick wall once the brambles go over and nowt come in until a little later with the willow herb in early August, things do seem to be changing with the spread of balsom though, and every season is different, thank the lords the last two summer's have featured high pressures and good temps to get the clover flowing.


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## mike bispham

mbc said:


> I find myself in the unusual position of largely agreeing with Mike on this thread, my bees seem to lay in waves, and sometimes the ones with the largest crops have virtually given up laying by mid July as their wave peaked earlier than others and hit a trough in laying rate often extending all the way up to the ivy flow. As the main flow goes over, usually in the second half of July, I'd say most of my colonies slow right down.


That's a good description for what the colonies I consider best breeding material appear to be doing. And it fits well with an explanation for thriving despite the presence of varroa. The 'pulsed' brood raising prevents a build up, any adult mites present having largely died (and/or been dealt with) during the dips. 

I don't think its the only explanation for thriving without treatments, but it may be part of a better natural response to varroa than the swarm-and-die strategy reported at first. 

My bees seem to build a large population through the spring very rapidly, which is sufficient to get in a good early crop, and to continue slowly building a crop during the 'June gap' and through July and August. At this time they'll all be foraging - since there's no brood raising to be done. 

I suspect its a 'strategy' that has been located by the recent ancestors of my feral bees. 

What I'm trying to figure out is how to work with it. Don't try to make increase/queens in late July and on for one! I also want to be sure I'm not stimulating inappropriate brood raising through the summer; so taking off too much of an early crop and having to feed syrup if the weather turns dull might be a bad plan. If that does happen (rape/canola is a factor some years), feed candy or thick syrup. Does anything else spring to mind out there?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Mike is in Kent. I would never see a queen shut down for 6-8 weeks though.


I don't really know that it is that long Jonathan. Its really just an impression of a hard shutdown, for a prolonged period, through the high summer. I've heard other non-treatment folk report the same thing. That's about all I've got. I think it might be interesting, and important. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> That's what it sounded like to me from the information given. UK queens do not 'shut down' for 6-8 weeks other than mid winter. .


Jonathan was responding to the suggestion that they swarmed.

So: can a colony that starts the year in a single brood box, then builds comb and fills another brood box and two or three more shallows, and ends the season (early September) with that lot full of honey... be reasonably thought to have been likely to have swarmed that year? 

Surely the cost of swarming would have knocked them back, at least enough to not be among my outstanding producers? 

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg

mike bispham said:


> Surely the cost of swarming would have knocked them back, at least enough to not be among my outstanding producers?


yes, i get much less and sometimes no harvest from swarmed colonies mike.


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> can a colony that starts the year in a single brood box, then builds comb and fills another brood box and two or three more shallows, and ends the season (early September) with that lot full of honey... be reasonably thought to have been likely to have swarmed that year?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Rather than expect us to answer that for you, it would pay to observe your bees and find out personally a little more about what they do.

To be unable to know something as basic as whether a hive in your care has swarmed illustrates a profound ignorance of basic beekeeping and an extremely simplistic understanding of bee husbandry. Astonishing from someone who wanted to critique my beekeeping, and has hundreds of posts on Beesource.

I wonder what it is you have been learning over your 40 years of beekeeping experience.


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## Rader Sidetrack

But ... but ... but ... but ....


mike bispham said:


> You do know I've been keeping bees for 20 years on and off don't you?



:gh:


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## Oldtimer

Just goes to show I have been correct in my belief that lot's of years "keeping" bees does not automatically mean somebody knows more than somebody else with only a few years. Some people gel with bees and learn quickly, some people learn slowly, and some don't learn at all.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> Rather than expect us to answer that for you, it would pay to observe your bees and find out personally a little more about what they do.


It was a rhetorical question. Instead of using it to insult my intelligenece, try following the reasoning. I just ruled out swarming as an explanation for lack of brood during July. That leaves supercedure as a possibility.

Why don't you at least credit me with having made an observation - that's good even in your book right - and agree that following it up with questions is the right thing to do?

Why not just let those who want to explore what might be an interesting and enlightening possibility discuss it? Because any disagreement with the great Old Timer by a mere amateur is not acceptable? 

You're going back in the dog house matey. Try again in 6 months.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I just ruled out swarming as an explanation for lack of brood during July.
> 
> Mike (UK)


How do you think you ruled that out? 

Because you claimed they made 3 shallows of honey? 

If that is what you think you need to understand more about locality. Where I am for example, a hive could swarm and go on to make a 3 deep harvest plus enough for their winter stores.

Saying they couldn't have swarmed because they made 3 shallows of honey is way to simplistic I'm astonished you think that. You tell if they swarmed by looking in the hive and understanding it.



mike bispham said:


> Why don't you at least credit me with having made an observation


 What observation?
Thing is Mike, we cannot tell you from across the world whether your hive swarmed based on your honey production claims. What is normal in your location is something YOU have to discover.


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## mike bispham

Oldtimer said:


> How do you think you ruled that out?


If you can't figure that out based on what I've just told you you're even denser than I thought. Bark away alistair, I'm not wasting any more time on your stupid, ignorant, offensive and jaudiced posts.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Wow...I find this really offensive and disturbing.


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## mbc

I sometimes come across swarmed hives which have stalled in their honey gathering but have a good population of bees remaining, these will often fill their empty boxes once the virgin gets mated despite their unswarmed neighbours not finding a lot. Another example of bees behaving in waves.

This naughty step rubbish is really poor foruming imo Mike, not really part of most adult conversations.


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> If you can't figure that out based on what I've just told you you're even denser than I thought.


Nobody with enough knowledge to consider all things properly, would be able to leap to a properly reasoned conclusion based on the simplistic little bit of info you have provided.

If you think me not leaping to a conclusion based on your paucity of relevant information makes me Dense, Stupid, Ignorant, Offensive, and Jaundiced, well, that just shows the gap that exists between the two of us I guess.

Don't worry though Mike I am not offended by your abuse. You have thrown that and worse at myself and others when unable to present a useful argument I am totally accustomed to your behaviour. Something like that from a better person would have had me seriously disturbed though.



mike bispham said:


> Because any disagreement with the great Old Timer by a mere amateur is not acceptable?
> Mike (UK)


LOL. Any disagreement with the great Mike Bispham by a mere human is not acceptable? 

Someone questioning the great Mike Bispham is fully deserving of name calling, put downs, and abuse, till they realise their inferiority and crawl back to their proper place?


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## jonathan

Marking queens and keeping records of when they are seen during routine colony inspections would settle the matter. If queens are unmarked it is all speculation. A colony without brood to feed is quite capable of piling in stores if there is a nectar flow. Whether the lack of brood is due to swarming, supersedure, or a queen taking a brood break cannot be answered 100% from information available but swarming is quite likely in my opinion. Marking queens and keeping accurate records re origins or parentage of queens would be very useful. Not sure why anyone interested in bee improvement would not be doing this as standard practice.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Clipping wings is also a good way of keeping, and keeping track of queens.


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## jonathan

Yep. A queen can never grow back a wing tip so finding an unclipped queen in a box lets you know there has been a change, most likely due to swarming or supersedure. Apparently a swarm of africanized bees will sometimes usurp a colony but we don't have that problem in the UK.
I have spoken to people who have a box full of sealed queen cells and no queen present who deny that the colony swarmed arguing that as it is still packed full of bees so could not have swarmed.

There is a good document here which helps you to read the colony and determine if it is about to swarm, has already swarmed and how long ago it swarmed. You can work this out from the condition of the brood nest especially focusing on the age of the youngest larvae present. 
One of the main issues is that a colony which swarmed a week ago has had about 10,000 bees emerge since the old queen departed and looks very full.
Clipping a queen also gives you a second chance of preventing the loss of a swarm.


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> I don't really know that it is that long


Location; here on the jurassic coast I no doubt have milder winters than you but...

over the last handful of years I've randomly selected a few colonies each year and then inspected them through the winter. I've yet to find a colony that totally shuts down brood rearing for more than three weeks (in January). This kind of echos the research findings of Bernherd Mobus in the rather colder Scottish climate (I don't have any online links), it also tallies with the recommendation from Sussex University last winter (which caused so much controversy at the time) to go through the hives destroying the (expected) sealed brood before applying an OA treatment. Hence my interest in this thread as it initially suggested a behaviour which I couldn't reconcile with my own experience of observing bees through a full twelve month cycle.


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## Rolande

jonathan said:


> Yep. A queen can never grow back a wing tip so finding an unclipped queen in a box lets you know there has been a change, most likely due to swarming or supersedure. Apparently a swarm of africanized bees will sometimes usurp a colony but *we don't have that problem in the UK*.


Jon, we might not have africanized bees but Willie Robson (Reflections on Beekeeping) claims the opposite with regard to usurpation.


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> I think you're a liitle conflicted, and because of that sending out mixed messages?


lol Mike, with regard to bees and TF, my attitudes have shifted over the years from an all-or-nothing approach. I retain a very real interest in the subject but I know from experience that to get to where I'm going I need to keep my stock healthy. I also feel something of a moral obligation to keep my bees in good condition, I know, they're only insects, but, if I'm going to use them for my own profit then they deserve to be kept alive. 

In the meantime I'm still looking at all alternative routes including bringing in queens from a guy who's certainly on the right road already; proven track record. 

Mike, you've mentioned in the past that your beekeeping is subject to well defined financial constraints, I'm not interested in the details of that but do find it surprising that you believe that you'll be able to sustain your already cash-strapped business once you do start loosing stock as you surely will.


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## jonathan

Rolande said:


> Jon, we might not have africanized bees but Willie Robson (Reflections on Beekeeping) claims the opposite with regard to usurpation.


Wasn't aware of that. Interesting.

This is the link to stuff about Mobus and winter broodrearing.

Ben Harden discussed this material by Mobus in his recent presentation on the dynamics of the winter cluster at the Bibba Conference in N Wales.


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## Juhani Lunden

Rolande said:


> In the meantime I'm still looking at all alternative routes including bringing in queens from a guy who's certainly on the right road already; proven track record.


Who is he?


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## Rolande

Juhani Lunden said:


> Who is he?


Without meaning any disrespect to other forum members I'll pm you -as I believe that you may well know the man, but I don't really wish to go throwing other peoples names around the internet -at least, not until I have the queens in my boxes.


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## mike bispham

mbc said:


> This naughty step rubbish is really poor foruming imo Mike, not really part of most adult conversations.


There's a lot goes on here that doesn't belong in adult conversations. It systematically wrecks what could be useful discussions, and that's just completely unfair and out of order. I don't know how else to deal with it. 

Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

jonathan said:


> Wasn't aware of that. Interesting.
> 
> This is the link to stuff about Mobus and winter broodrearing.
> 
> Ben Harden discussed this material by Mobus in his recent presentation on the dynamics of the winter cluster at the Bibba Conference in N Wales.


Thanks for the link, PH seems to have updated his site since I last looked at it. Will transcripts of the BIBBA Conference lectures be made available in the future?


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Marking queens and keeping records of when they are seen during routine colony inspections would settle the matter. [...] Marking queens and keeping accurate records re origins or parentage of queens would be very useful. Not sure why anyone interested in bee improvement would not be doing this as standard practice.


Its a fine idea. The problem is the time it takes. I've been running around like mad just keeping ahead with boxes and frames; then with getting honey off and packed, setting up the gear to do so on the fly. All the time keeping the wolf from the door by working part time.

And its my belief that rule-of-thumb operations can function almost as well. Its a craft approach rather than a cold scientific one, but if you can locate the stronger material by approximate means and act on it you're achieving the same thing. Sometimes precision isn't as useful as you might think.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> There is a good document here which helps you to read the colony and determine if it is about to swarm, has already swarmed and how long ago it swarmed. You can work this out from the condition of the brood nest especially focusing on the age of the youngest larvae present.


Thanks for that - filed for future reference

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Mike, you've mentioned in the past that your beekeeping is subject to well defined financial constraints, I'm not interested in the details of that but do find it surprising that you believe that you'll be able to sustain your already cash-strapped business once you do start loosing stock as you surely will.


I can live on next to nothing Roland, and can earn that in a day a week given help from some honey sales. 

I'm planning to make many more bees than I need to replace losses. And if I can make good varroa resistant bees I think I'll be able to sell a few nucs to help out. Don't go worrying about my business plans! 



Rolande said:


> I also feel something of a moral obligation to keep my bees in good condition, I know, they're only insects, but, if I'm going to use them for my own profit then they deserve to be kept alive.


I feel a moral responsibility too: but it's the traditional husbandryman's responsibility for the future wellbeing of the population. Individuals are expendable. 

There is a further dimension added in that treatment amounting to domestication tends to condemn the feral population. Given that the honeybee is an integral part of our natural ecology I think that's reprehensible. 

Its also short sighted. We benefit from the genetic diversity of wild/feral honeybees, and more so from the work natural selection does with them. 

Mike (UK)


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## jonathan

Rolande said:


> Will transcripts of the BIBBA Conference lectures be made available in the future?


Apparently not. I already asked. And there was quite a bit of stuff relevant to ferals and breeding for resistance.


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## Juhani Lunden

mike bispham said:


> I'm planning to make many more bees than I need to replace losses. And if I can make good varroa resistant bees I think I'll be able to sell a few nucs to help out. Don't go worrying about my business plans!


Have you sold any queens to Italy? I have.
Have you sold any queens to Germany? I have.
Have you sold any queens to France? I have.
Have you sold any queens to Mexico? I have
Have you sold any queens to Poland I have ...etc.

Let me know when you have, I want to buy too.


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> I'm planning to make many more bees than I need to replace losses. And if I can make good varroa resistant bees I think I'll be able to sell a few nucs to help out.


Good luck, but, If that was my plan I'd already be building future credibility by keeping detailed records.


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## Rolande

jonathan said:


> Apparently not. I already asked. And there was quite a bit of stuff relevant to ferals and breeding for resistance.


That's a shame but perhaps not too much of a shock.


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## mbc

jonathan said:


> . Re: Natural Annual Brood Cycle
> Quote Originally Posted by Rolande ;
> "Jon, we might not have africanized bees but Willie Robson (Reflections on Beekeeping) claims the opposite with regard to usurpation."
> Wasn't aware of that. Interesting.


Murray McGregor also notes this reversion over generations to a more Amm bee, backs up some assumptions about native drones being more successful than interlopers in marginal mating situations.


----------



## jonathan

Usurping is where a swarm takes over a colony and kills the incumbent queen.
I think bees in the uk are quite likely to revert to an Amm type if left to their own devices. Some of the results presented at the Bibba conference showed that Amm genetics predominated in most of the mutts throughout the Uk. From memory it was usually around 40-60% To the north and the west that percentage would be much higher.


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## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> Have you sold any queens to Italy? I have.
> Have you sold any queens to Germany? I have.
> Have you sold any queens to France? I have.
> Have you sold any queens to Mexico? I have
> Have you sold any queens to Poland I have ...etc.
> 
> Let me know when you have, I want to buy too.


Well good for you Juhani! (Although some might object to sending bees hither and thither - bad things can happen...) Not sure what point you're trying to make though. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## mbc

jonathan said:


> Usurping is where a swarm takes over a colony and kills the incumbent queen.
> .


Odd behaviour, I've never come across it.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

mike bispham said:


> Not sure what point you're trying to make though.


My point is if there is even one beekeeper who can testify, preferably with some data, that your queens are something special, I´m willing to order and pay. 
I guess you have not sold one queen.


----------



## jonathan

mbc said:


> Odd behaviour, I've never come across it.


Me neither, but I have read bits and pieces about it. It is a trait associated with africanized genetics.


----------



## Oldtimer

jonathan said:


> Marking queens and keeping accurate records re origins or parentage of queens would be very useful. Not sure why anyone interested in bee improvement would not be doing this as standard practice.





mike bispham said:


> Its a fine idea. The problem is the time it takes.
> 
> Mike (UK)


The time it takes? This is where working with an experienced beekeeper and learning how to get things done would be of great benefit to you.

I keep records of all my queens lineage in production hives, recorded at the time the cell is planted. Considering they mostly live for 2 years it takes a tiny amount of time. If I did not do that how could I breed anything knowing what I am doing?

Admittedly I only have a few hundred hives but queen record keeping is how I was trained as a beginner when working with 4,000 hives. You have a claimed 28. There is time.


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## jonathan

Mike.
Re record keeping.
Mark your queens in April. Colonies are small and queens are easy to find and mark.
The downside of this is you could have missed a supersedure situation in August or September.
My breeder queens are all marked and clipped.
If you collect a swarm in a bait hive, mark the queen as soon as she starts to lay.
A lot of prime swarms supersede within a month or two.

I'll give you an example of why this is important and it is related to haplodiploid genetics.
In my case I breed Amm queens. If I start with a pure race Amm queen, all her daughters I graft will produce pure Amm drones irrespective of what they might have mated with. I can use this knowledge to set up drone producing colonies with 100% certainty.
However, if a queen has been superseded without my knowledge, the drones produced will be genetically dependent upon the drones the daughter mated with, ie, I have lost control. This same principle applies to any inherited traits. You need to keep careful records. Some colonies will supersede twice in a single season and by all accounts this is becoming more common than it used to be. Virus vectored by varroa is one of the main suspects.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I requeened a colony on Monday. This one had a queen disappear in June and I introduced another. This one was superseded in October. Without record keeping you just are not aware that this sort of stuff is going on.

Edit. Yes Oldtimer quite agree. Marking queens only takes a minute or two.


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## sqkcrk

Maybe marking does, but finding doesn't.


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## jonathan

You should be able to find queens pretty quickly when you get used to it although I do know people who can never find queens even in a small colony.
If I don't see the queen in a colony on a weekly inspection I would make a note of that as I expect to see the queen as a matter of routine. If all looks well and there are eggs and no queen cells I don't lose any sleep over it but I would expect to see the queen on the next visit to the colony to confirm that all is in order.


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## sqkcrk

I'm used to looking for queens. That doesn't mean I am always successful at finding them. I had 40 nucs one time and I went to mark the queens in them, just for kicks. After the 5th or 6th one, since it was taking so long, I gave up. It wasn't that important to me.


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## JWChesnut

From the Marin County Ca "Beek-News"
http://marinbees.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/BEEK-NEWS-Mar-2014.pdf

*Marin Broodless / Survivor stock Study Update *
This spring, Bonnie Bee & Company, will begin a data collection intensive study to try to understand how “survivorstock” bees are making it here in Marin. Grant funds for this project are being collected by SuperOrganism. 

The bees to be used for the study have come from stock collected over the past two years that *have reportedly gone through prolonged broodless periods during unanticipated times.* Mite numbers, hive weights, brood status and more will be collected at regular intervals. In 2014, it is anticipated that the hives will be visited a minimum of 20 times each. With the added need to clean monitoring boards 24 hours before each inspection, it will require a total of at least 40 visits to that apiary this year. The goal is to include twenty colonies for the study. 

Thanks to the enthusiastic support of many associated with the Romberg center for Environmental Studies and particularly John Hafernik, interim director, final sites for the bees have recently received approval. Depending on the success of the first year, the possibility has been offered to use the site for continued study past 2014. Assistance is still needed for fundraising to make this study a reality. Fully funded, the project will cost $13,500 for twenty colonies for a one year study. Fundraising ideas are welcome.

Ideally, we will be able to observe broodless periods and collect information on how they affect mite %’s as well as length of time for these cycles. In the absence of these periods, there is still much to learn from the data to be collected over 12 months from untreated colonies.

===
The April Newsletter has a pix of 6 colonies set up at their study site. No further updates in any of the newsletters after April (as far as I can determine).
===

My own observation is that virus loads cause queen to fail and supercede chronically. Rather than an adaption to strategic broodlessness, Brood free periods are simply queen supersedure. and represents a symptom of a terribly diseased hive.

That said, I would be pickled to have $13.5K laid on me to study 20 diseased hives for a year. I do 10 to 15 all on my own each year and all gratis. Guess its my own fault for not asking for the high dollar pay.


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## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> My point is if there is even one beekeeper who can testify, preferably with some data, that your queens are something special, I´m willing to order and pay.
> I guess you have not sold one queen.


OK. Its best to be explicit first time. I won't be offering queens for sale unless and until I'm confident they will stand a very good chance of performing well without treatments. I expect I'll make that evaluation when my own apiary is performing well as a whole and has done for 2 or 3 years. Then they'll be offered for sale on that basis.

Nucs are a different matter. It was nucs, not queens, I spoke of.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Mike.
> Re record keeping.
> Mark your queens in April. Colonies are small and queens are easy to find and mark.


I'll bear all this in mind Jonathan, thanks. I think I'll get to a stage where I'll want to get into it - but for now the priority is to establish lots of colonies, and that entails lots of time and energy. I'll be making increase from my best 10% or so as shown by productivity and age. Yes, some will be less than best. 

But don't forget: I'm not treating or otherwise helping them with varroa or anything else. Those I don't want are deselecting themselves pretty quick. That leaves bees of the sort I most want, and drones of the sort I want. That does 3/4 of the work I want done. The rest is just the icing on the cake. 

That's the plan anyway.

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> You should be able to find queens pretty quickly when you get used to it although I do know people who can never find queens even in a small colony.
> If I don't see the queen in a colony on a weekly inspection I would make a note of that as I expect to see the queen as a matter of routine. If all looks well and there are eggs and no queen cells I don't lose any sleep over it but I would expect to see the queen on the next visit to the colony to confirm that all is in order.


How many hives do you maintain on your own Jonathan?

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Thanks John - nice to see someone working on the issue. I may contact them to chat about it.



JWChesnut said:


> My own observation is that virus loads cause queen to fail and supercede chronically. Rather than an adaption to strategic broodlessness, Brood free periods are simply queen supersedure. and represents a symptom of a terribly diseased hive.
> 
> That said, I would be pickled to have $13.5K laid on me to study 20 diseased hives for a year. I do 10 to 15 all on my own each year and all gratis. Guess its my own fault for not asking for the high dollar pay.


'Terribly diseased hives' wouldn't be expected to outperform all others at the same site. That's what I'm reporting here. My best hives are those that seem to be taking a hard midsummer brood break - and the theory is that there's a connection. Characterising such hives as 'terribly diseased' is getting off on the wrong foot entirely.

Mike (UK)


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> How many hives do you maintain on your own Jonathan?
> 
> Mike (UK)


I usually work with about 20.
At the moment I have about 20 colonies and 20 nucs overwintering and I run 100 Apideas over the summer.
Might scale up a bit if time permits. The queen rearing takes a lot of time.

This device, a turn and mark cage, allows you to mark and clip queens very easily.
I marked several hundred in one of these over the summer.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> I usually work with about 20.


There you go. You have time for all this. Your strategy is precision. Mine is natural (de)selection and numbers. 

Mike (UK)


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## mbc

The thing with my record keeping is that it is never perfect, it's always a compromise, its often dropped altogether at hectic times and sometimes it's a bit cryptic when the mania sets in, but it is storing information, and reviewing this information leads to being more informed. 
I like to mark all my queens on the first round of inspections in the spring, some slip through the net but I'm not too fussed and usually get them on a subsequent round. Lately I've been clipping too, keeps a lot more bees in the boxes if you hang on to old queens as I do. The thing is, marking queens and keeping records all help to build an overall picture of my apiary in my mind, and I believe this helps me make more informed decisions when it comes to breeding.


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> There you go. You have time for all this. Your strategy is precision. Mine is natural (de)selection and numbers.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Mike, to be fair, you forgot to quote the '20 nucs and 100 apideas' part of Jons post as well as the fact that he's marked several hundred queens this year.

On top of that, although he never mentioned it he's also managed to start building a good reputation as a queen supplier.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Mike, to be fair, you forgot to quote the '20 nucs and 100 apideas' part of Jons post as well as the fact that he's marked several hundred queens this year and he's managed to start building a good reputation as a queen supplier.


Yes. My point is; they're very different endeavours, and what suits one well doesn't suit the other. Just now. One is fly fishing, the other's trawling. 

With 100 hives in good country I don't suppose I'll have time to work closely with queens until and unless I have a trained up employee. But I do agree; if I'm to know more about this business of brood break I have to find ways of knowing more about what is going on. I think the document Jonathan posted a link to about reading the brood nest will be the main tool, rather than queen marking.

I do keep records of colony origins and performances, although my current system needs improving (its a spreadsheet geared mostly to organising priority work, and some data gets overwritten by new data). Its a time consuming chore...

Mike


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## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> There you go. You have time for all this. Your strategy is precision. Mine is natural (de)selection and numbers.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Running 20 colonies and keeping records is no big deal.
The time consuming part is rearing queens and managing the Apideas.
100 Apideas at 10 minutes each per week. That's over 15 hours for a start.
There are another 100+ Apideas in the queen rearing group I run and I do most of the grafting for that and look after the cell raiser colonies at the association apiary.
If you are interested in selling queens at some point in the future you will need to work out an efficient way of producing them in numbers.
It is a time consuming business which involves a lot of planning and coordination.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> If you are interested in selling queens at some point in the future you will need to work out an efficient way of producing them in numbers. It is a time consuming business which involves a lot of planning and coordination.


Not so much, but you never know. Nucs, yes, but not in a huge way. I'd like to attain a smooth part time operation, not a full time job. 

Yep, the whole business needs plenty of organisation. I probably spend and average 2 hours each morning on the computer trying to figure the best way to go about the day (and getting distracted by this malarky!). 

Mike (UK) 


T 30 
Load Eye stuff
Load syrup
Load guitar etc
INYLSB for phil

Weatherboard to Trevor

Duncan
M&J : Ply

Unload & stow nucs
Roofs
Uniteds to nats? 

Trailer back (fri collect cedar)
BLUES


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## sqkcrk

Apideas? Is that a British term for what Americans might call by a different name? Mating nucs perhaps?


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> I probably spend and average 2 hours each morning on the computer trying to figure the best way to go about the day (and getting distracted by this malarky!).


I've noticed over the years (at least on UK bee forums) that a lot of the most prolific posters do so during usual office hours but make few appearances on weekends


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## jonathan

sqkcrk said:


> Apideas? Is that a British term for what Americans might call by a different name? Mating nucs perhaps?


Yep. They are made by a Swiss company and work with a cupful of bees.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mark, apidea seems to be a brand of mating nuc. http://www.thorne.co.uk/queen/mating-hives


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## sqkcrk

Thanks guys.


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> With 100 hives in good country I don't suppose I'll have time to work closely with queens until and unless I have a trained up employee.


Wow.

The very best investment you could make right now with your time would be find a commercial beekeeper you could work with for a few days.

What you need most of all if your "business" will ever make you a profit is some real world experience how to get things done.

Look at it this way. You've been in bees for claimed amounts varying from 20 to 40 years. You spend a lot of time on it. But after all this you are still in a loss position, and have 28 hives. With commercial experience you would find out how to work efficiently, and if 100 hives is the goal, how to achieve that, in one season.
What is holding you back is lack of knowledge and experience

How do I know? When I was a schoollboy I had some hives I had no training. Took me all day to work a handful of hives. Then I worked for a commercial firm, luckily a good one. The first few days were a total shock.


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## Juhani Lunden

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Mark, apidea seems to be a brand of mating nuc. http://www.thorne.co.uk/queen/mating-hives


Her is one in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boK7I0Z-ppk&list=UUx4KBmolNYQdo1Xqx_9v3Gg


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## JWChesnut

mike bispham said:


> 'Terribly diseased hives' wouldn't be expected to outperform all others at the same site....


When you have kept more than a handful of hives, you will learn that pattern is exactly what transcends.
The big boomer hives in May and June, your pride and joys, succumb. This can easily be explained as the mite population expands in the unlimited brood of the really big hive. As soon as the population expansion deflates even a bit from any cause: swarm, dearth, or natural fall reduction -- the mites concentrate on the remaining population, and the "economic threshold" is breached. The virus diseases become entrenched. The hive goes into terminal decline. 

The poor performers, the queens that scarcely fill a nuc all summer long, don't build up associated mite populations, and become "survivors"

The genetic selection that is going on (in so far as an obligate, free-flying insect can ever be selected by a backyard keeper) is for little, inconsequential hives and incompetent queens.

The primary adaptation we see in my county in feral hives -- the bees swarm constantly, live in small nests with multiple queens, and because the small nests are on constant threat -- are meaner than junkyard dogs. Its an ugly future out there, for the "survivors".


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## squarepeg

jwc, i have seen examples of boomers and laggards that follow the trends you describe but also examples of many that do not, although i'm not sure i have had enough hives for enough years to make my observations meaningful.


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## sqkcrk

Juhani Lunden said:


> Her is one in action:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boK7I0Z-ppk&list=UUx4KBmolNYQdo1Xqx_9v3Gg


How neat. Looks like a good system.


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## Juhani Lunden

JWChesnut said:


> The big boomer hives in May and June, your pride and joys, succumb.
> The poor performers, the queens that scarcely fill a nuc all summer long, don't build up associated mite populations, and become "survivors"
> 
> The primary adaptation we see in my county in feral hives -- the bees swarm constantly, live in small nests with multiple queens, and because the small nests are on constant threat -- are meaner than junkyard dogs. Its an ugly future out there, for the "survivors".


Very soon in this kind of breeding work, there are no boomer any more. They are the first to go.

The most interesting ones are from the middle, hives which produce surplus, but have very very tight control of their brood areas. 

This results (at least by me) to a bee with a lot smaller brood nest and lower honey production because of that. They have become only slightly meaner.

The ugly future outlook is that big losses will not stop for good, but instead every now and then there will be big losses after some better years.


----------



## Rolande

Juhani Lunden said:


> This results (at least by me) to a bee with a lot smaller brood nest and lower honey production because of that.


May I ask how your colony average compares to that of treated colonies in the same/comparable region of your country?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Rolande said:


> May I ask how your colony average compares to that of treated colonies in the same/comparable region of your country?


Roughly half.


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## Rolande

Juhani Lunden said:


> Roughly half.


Thankyou. Of course, with increased stability of your own bees I imagine that there may be real potential for you to narrow those results in future years.


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## Juhani Lunden

Maybe, but inbreeding troubles come sooner than expected...if new material is not available, new resistant


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## jonathan

What is your average number of colonies Juhani?
Inbreeding rarely becomes a problem unless you are in a really isolated area or breed from a single queen.


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## Juhani Lunden

I started (this project 2001) with 150 and 70 nucs, now only 80 plus 25 nucs.

In 2013 I started to make no more than one nuc out of any strong colony, which has put clearly much more pressure on my hives. This change in practise has turned the hive numbers in slight downward slide.

Inbreeding is problem if you are making something like this what I do: very hard selection and isolation matings.

Even if you breed from several queens (about 8% of my hives are used as breeder, long time average) inbreeding becomes serious problem, if you have not noticed it, you have not done it long enough, or you have been able to get new material. 

Getting new tested resistant material is a big challenge.


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## Tyson Kaiser

Oldtimer said:


> If you had Italians they don't shut down for mid summer dearths.


They do _slow_ down however. Hive strength is rebounding here in So. Cal., leading up the Fall. Small peak then hive depopulation in November.


----------



## beepro

Yes, the Italians tend to slow down during the summer dearth.
However, a little syrup and patty will stimulate them to
keep on going. On early Fall the after the solstice queens
will repopulate the hive up fast until the first frost in mid-Nov.
The Fall flow will keep the hive population up while the mite
population is really low. Combine this with some hygienic bees
then you will have a winner. But be careful of the Fall flow that
the bees will surely packed up the hive. Now the eager young queen has no place to lay. 
A few empty comb frames will help to keep the queen laying again into the early winter month. 
Spring is another challenge to keep them from swarming.


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## mike bispham

JWChesnut said:


> The big boomer hives in May and June, your pride and joys, succumb. This can easily be explained as the mite population expands in the unlimited brood of the really big hive. As soon as the population expansion deflates even a bit from any cause: swarm, dearth, or natural fall reduction -- the mites concentrate on the remaining population, and the "economic threshold" is breached. The virus diseases become entrenched. The hive goes into terminal decline.


With non resistant hives this is a good explantation for how and why the bigger hives fail as they do. (Although it deosn't seem to me to account well for bees that die in the field, taking their attached mites with them) 

And its exactly the failure to follow this pattern that marks out the more resistant. The population still falls rapidly through the late summer - because the queen stopped laying in mid July or thereabouts, and spring bees are exhausted. But the shrinking population remains healthy, well packed with honey, and because its small, not consuming large amounts through dearth periods. The following spring it blows up again like mad, and repeats the process. 

When hives have done this for two or three years in a row, you start to think they might be a good bet.

Contrast that with the miserables - who never build much, or build then die. 



JWChesnut said:


> The poor performers, the queens that scarcely fill a nuc all summer long, don't build up associated mite populations, and become "survivors".


I'm sure that's true for some colonies and/or strains. But they wouldn't be of interest to me. 



JWChesnut said:


> The genetic selection that is going on (in so far as an obligate, free-flying insect can ever be selected by a backyard keeper) is for little, inconsequential hives and incompetent queens.


Not here it isn't. It for hives that thrive multi-year despite no treatments. 



JWChesnut said:


> The primary adaptation we see in my county in feral hives -- the bees swarm constantly, live in small nests with multiple queens, and because the small nests are on constant threat -- are meaner than junkyard dogs. Its an ugly future out there, for the "survivors".


I think you just make this stuff up John. You cherry pick stories that support your own theories as to what happens. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

> The primary adaptation we see in my county in feral hives -- the bees swarm constantly, live in small nests with multiple queens, and because the small nests are on constant threat -- are meaner than junkyard dogs. Its an ugly future out there, for the "survivors".



mike bispham said:


> I think you just make this stuff up John. You cherry pick stories that support your own theories as to what happens.


Uhhh, Mike, maybe you should _THINK_ a little more before you respond with _silly _comments like that. Have you not heard of the "_africanized honeybee_" situation in parts of the USA? Here is the situation in California as of 2011 ...







Photo Credit

And what of AHB characteristics? The University of Florida Entomology Dept says this ...


> Another behavioral difference between African and European bees concerns colony level reproduction and nest abandonment. African honey bees swarm and abscond in greater frequencies than their European counterparts. Swarming, bee reproduction at the colony level, occurs when a single colony splits into two colonies, thus helping to ensuring survival of the species. European colonies commonly swarm one to three times per year. African colonies may swarm more than 10 times per year. African swarms tend to be smaller than European ones, but the swarming bees are docile in both races. Regardless, African colonies reproduce in greater numbers than European colonies, quickly saturating an area with African bees. Further, African bees abscond frequently (completely abandon the nest) during times of dearth or repeated nest disturbance while this behavior is atypical in European bees.
> 
> 
> http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/bees/ahb.htm


Are you going to accuse _me _of "*cherry picking*" also? :scratch: :lpf:


:gh:


----------



## mbc

I keep trying to go treatment free but have always folded as soon as the nests start to look raggedy. I find it hard to believe anyone who truly likes bees can leave them to suffer once it becomes obvious they're on the way out without some intervention, I'm also aware I may be setting my long term ambitions back each time I rid my bees of mites, but I suppose what I'm going to end up with is a compromise of bees who can still thrive despite some sub lethal beekeeping. Hopefully, in years to come I will be able to benefit from the breeding work of braver beekeepers than I.


----------



## Rolande

mbc said:


> Hopefully, in years to come I will be able to benefit from the breeding work of braver beekeepers than I.


Have you come across anyone in the UK who's making continued verifiable progress with TF?


----------



## jonathan

'verifiable' is the key word there.
What is important here is rigour and record keeping as opposed to projection of your own beekeeping aspirations on to your own stock.
If UK ferals are surviving long term, you need provide proper evidence for that as opposed to hearsay.
Kate Thompson who dedicated 3 years of research to this including microsatellite DNA work claims that they are virtually all recently escaped swarms, ie, they have no special mite tolerant properties. Some of the queens in 'feral' colonies had even been marked.
If your queens are taking an extended brood break, record the state of the colony at weekly intervals and demonstrate that the queen at the end of the sampling period is the same queen that started the sampling period. Marking and clipping would be enough there as opposed to DNA verification.


----------



## Rolande

jonathan said:


> 'verifiable' is the key word there.
> What is important here is rigour and record keeping as opposed to projection of your own beekeeping aspirations on to your own stock.
> If UK ferals are surviving long term, you need provide proper evidence for that as opposed to hearsay.


I've contacted various people who are TF in the UK over the years and, with one exception, generally been left rather underwhelmed. The exception knew his stuff, but even he (at least at the time) was working with a very small population and had, dare I suggest, received rather more press exposure than his project was ready for...

As for UK ferals.... I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the results of any breeding project that sees them as a central component; but I will be the first to hold my hands up and congratulate anyone that does pull it off.


----------



## mbc

Rolande said:


> Have you come across anyone in the UK who's making continued verifiable progress with TF?


By some accounts the entire beekeeping community on the lleyn peninsula to the north of me have been largely treatment free for years and I have had it verified by plausible witnesses that their colonies are thriving, no one I know has successfully transplanted queens from there and kept them treatment free though.


----------



## jonathan

mbc said:


> no one I know has successfully transplanted queens from there and kept them treatment free though.


Assuming the treatment free claim is true, why would the queens fail to thrive elsewhere. This has been reported in various places not just Wales.

What sort of stock are they working with?


----------



## mbc

jonathan said:


> Assuming the treatment free claim is true, why would the queens fail to thrive elsewhere. This has been reported in various places not just Wales.
> 
> What sort of stock are they working with?


Stable isolated populations of bees and varroa plus pathogens.
Primarily amm but the usual introgression of foreign material providing a bit of mongrelisation.


----------



## beepro

mbc, what foreign material are you referring to?
Are they the different amm from the other country or
are they the carni or Russian bees? Definitely not the
Italians as that will turn your amm yellow.


----------



## mbc

beepro said:


> mbc, what foreign material are you referring to?
> Are they the different amm from the other country or
> are they the carni or Russian bees? Definitely not the
> Italians as that will turn your amm yellow.


The usual, in Britain this is any bees that can arrive in the post, buckfasts, italians, carnies and more recently ceprocia crosses arriving from Cyprus, I'm not saying these are all in the mix on the lleyn, it is a relatively small area, but certainly historically some of these genetics would have been tried and more recently the trend for antisocial incomers who don't wish to interact with the local beekeepers is to buy bees at the click of a mouse. I didn't say that these bees don't have some yellow banding. As far as I'm aware beepro, we have no Russian bees in the UK.


----------



## mbc

Juhani Lunden said:


> The ugly future outlook is that big losses will not stop for good, but instead every now and then there will be big losses after some better years.


This prophecy of doom has been playing in my mind as it has the inevitable ring of truth about it, but isn't it describing the natural course of events in any population dynamics?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Maybe, but the outlook is that in TF populations these from time to time happening bigger losses are more severe than in treated apiaries. 

This is how I see it today, but on the other hand severe losses because of mites and viruses, and what ever, among treating beekeepers are becoming more and more common too? Or is it just hearsay?


----------



## Rolande

mbc said:


> The usual, in Britain this is any bees that can arrive in the post, buckfasts, italians, carnies and more recently ceprocia crosses arriving from Cyprus, I'm not saying these are all in the mix on the lleyn, it is a relatively small area, but certainly historically some of these genetics would have been tried and more recently the trend for antisocial incomers who don't wish to interact with the local beekeepers is to buy bees at the click of a mouse. I didn't say that these bees don't have some yellow banding. As far as I'm aware beepro, we have no Russian bees in the UK.


Might greater diversity not be more likely to produce results or do you think that there's an equally high chance of successfully selecting from within the available amm genetics? Mike B has questioned the movement of queens as well so he's also trying to work with a limited herd -at least in the sense that he's limited to whatever bees escape from managed apiaries to form feral colonies.


----------



## jonathan

Various researchers have pointed out that all bee subspecies include an element of hygienic behaviour so it should be possible to select and breed for desired characteristics within any given bee race. Marla Spivak and Harbo and Harris pointed this out. Using a mix of different subspecies is not a prerequisite for developing a varroa tolerant bee and is detrimental from a conservation point of view in an area where there is a long standing native bee population. Some of these desired behaviours have been linked to specific gene loci so one approach is to survey a population and identify the individuals with the genetics you want. The problem is that this is not simple as many bee behaviours are polygenic. Even stuff which you might imagine to be under simple genetic control such as abdomen colour is actually controlled by a series of dominant and recessive genes as well as a set of modifier genes. (work by Jerzy Woyke)

I think Juhani is right when he implies boom and bust in TF populations as things stand at the moment, and having read his blog over the years he has been working on this long enough to have a realistic view.


----------



## Rolande

jonathan said:


> Using a mix of different subspecies is not a prerequisite for developing a varroa tolerant bee


Of course not, but a lot must depend on how robust and widespread the initial population is, as Juhani has mentioned with regards to TF, there's an ever present danger of inbreeding if it's not possible to bring in new stock (that has preferably already been worked on). There may be a subtle difference between 100% TF and 'tolerant'.


----------



## jonathan

Our project to develop varroa tolerant Amm in Ireland has finally got underway after a couple of false starts with regard to funding.
There is a Phd student working out of NUIG collating standardised mite count data which project participants will be able to access.
Bee samples are taken from each colony for genetic analysis.
There is another separate project working out of Limerick University which is sampling colonies all over Ireland and looking at microsatellite markers associated with Amm and other subspecies.
It will be really useful to get individual feedback about my own stock.
If enough of us get working on this we can exchange stock from time to time to avoid potential inbreeding issues.


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Kate Thompson who dedicated 3 years of research to this including microsatellite DNA work claims that they are virtually all recently escaped swarms, ie, they have no special mite tolerant properties.


That's your own 'i.e' there Jonathan, and as I've tried to explain to you on a couple of occasions, your premise does not entail your conclusion.

Even two colonies of pure-bred Italian bees have different qualities, just as two people within the same family are different. The only geneticially identical individuals are identical twins. 

Its the breeders task (and that of natural selection) to locate the difference-making genes within the genetic variation of any population, and increase them in the next generation.

That's the most fundamental descrition of what breeding is!

Why oh why does this have to be repeatedly explained to someone who 'breeds' bees by the hundred!!! 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rolande

Jon:

Glad to hear that things are underway, I remember this being discussed on another forum some time back. Sounds like a positive initial approach. Is the forward breeding going to be based on specific traits or a catch-all approach?


----------



## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> Even two colonies of pure-bred Italian bees have different qualities, just as two people within the same family are different. The only geneticially identical individuals are identical twins.


Back to the safe ground of schoolboy genetics again!
The point is that ferals in the UK do not have special properties. They are recently escaped swarms. The properties they have are no better or no worse than you will get from collecting swarms in bait hives which is essentially what you seem to be doing.


----------



## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> There may be a subtle difference between 100% TF and 'tolerant'.


Not so much a subtle difference, as a spectrum in terms of outcome, bought about by a complex and ever-shifting combination of resistance factors.

The best way to capture the sort of combination which works the best is to... make increase from those colonies that work best. Good old fashioned traditional beekeeping, universal husbandry.

Of course if you mollycoddle and treat your bees you'll never know which are best, and will furthermore spread the weaker genes. A recipe for disaster and treatment addiction. Whoops, who's been doing what for 30 years?


----------



## Rolande

As your post was tied to a quote from one of my posts.



mike bispham said:


> Whoops, who's been doing what for 30 years?


I don't understand the meaning of this line. Would you like to spell it out for me?


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> The point is that ferals in the UK do not have special properties. They are recently escaped swarms. The properties they have are no better or no worse than you will get from collecting swarms in bait hives which is essentially what you seem to be doing.


The point is that arguments have to be vaild, or else they are just meaningless mush!

Your reasoning is failing largely I think because you are over-generalising. _Some_'ferals' are undoubtedly escaped domesticated bees. Some are undoubtedly 'feral' in its true sense - members of a self-sustaining escaped population. 

They will share common genetic factors. They won't, can _never be,_ identical. 

Try this Jonathan; do you know of any siblings - the _closest possible genetic relationship_ short of identical twins - who are identical? Think of the siblings you know who are most alike. How far from identical are they? 

Now tell me what on earth makes you think bees are any different? 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

Mike how much of this have you verified by experiment, and how much do you just make up as you chat?


----------



## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> I don't understand the meaning of this line. Would you like to spell it out for me?


Modern beekeeping has for 30 or so years adopted an aspect the veterinary model of 'husbandry'. That is: if its sick, treat it. 

The problem is it hasn't adopted simultaniously the (traditional) reproductive aspect of husbandry - strict selective propagation - that allows that approach to work in mammals. 

The 'husbandry' entailing 'treating it if its sick' and 'just propagate it regardless of whether it displays best resistance to sickness' has resulted - predictably - in an ever-sick state. Beekeeping thus perpetuates its greatest problem.

That's been happening in beekeeping, in the UK for 30 years or so. Its now considered normal, correct. All the time its happening, the vulnerability to the problem (varroa) is maintained.

I know you know all this Roland. I don't know why you're asking me to repeat it for the nth time.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> I know you know all this Roland. I don't know why you're asking me to repeat it for the nth time.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Hi Mike, as I said, your post was tied to a quote from one of my previous posts, so I wasn't sure whether the molly-coddling/breeding weak bees paragraph was actually aimed at me directly  Thanks for the clarification.


----------



## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Hi Mike, as I said, your post was tied to a quote from one of my previous posts, so I wasn't sure whether the molly-coddling/breeding weak bees paragraph was actually aimed at me directly  Thanks for the clarification.


Sorry for any confusion Roland!

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Jon:
> 
> Glad to hear that things are underway, I remember this being discussed on another forum some time back. Sounds like a positive initial approach. Is the forward breeding going to be based on specific traits or a catch-all approach?


Is the 'breeding' going to be done who've learned from their past mistakes (in assuming that repeatedly propagating bees of dark appearance would eventually generate Amm); and by people capable of, and prepared to use, informed and logically sound reasoning in every thing they do?

People who think that similar genetic ancestry equates to genetically identical 'non-individuals' are not going to be a part of this I hope. 

Ditto people who haven't grasped the basic principles of evolution, of natural selection, of how selective propagation works with the genetic diversity available in populations to locate to bring forward the best-suited individuals? 

People perhaps who are capable of entertaining the idea that their understanding of the fundamentals of breeding might just be a little lacking?

Despite having raised hundreds of queens?

BIBBA has long been famous for being a bunch of amateurs engaged in fruitless activity. For goodness sake get a proper expert on board Jonathan. Use him or her to gain a decent working understanding of population change through reproductive selection.

Mike (UK)


----------



## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> _Some_ Some are undoubtedly 'feral' in its true sense - members of a self-sustaining escaped population.


Evidence?


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Evidence?


The attestations I've recieved over 4 years collecting that some colonies have been present multi year without winter breaks

Those hives I have that have not just survived but thrived multi-year without treatments. (Some of which originated in just such places) 

The multiple attestations of people like Joe Waggle who has been collecting and working with feral bees in the US for many years.

The basic standpoint of respected beekeepers like Randy Oliver:

"I've been encouraged in recent rears by the number of beekeepers who appear 
to be successfully keeping locally-adapted stocks of bees without treatment 
for varroa. I am a strong supporter of their efforts, and see them as the 
wave of the future."
QUEENS FOR PENNIES
American Bee Journal, March 2014, 273-277 

The simple and widely understood (at an academic level) expectation that feral adaptation due to natural selection is entirely predictable. Populations adapt to new predators.

The studies of European feral populations i.e. Bulcher et al [1]

Studies of US Feral populations, i.e. Delaney: 
http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Dis...ney_070108.pdf

Wider theortical studies, i.e. Allsop [2]

(There are other pertinent studies, including one examining different strategies for colony management of varroa developed in different European populations, that I can't dredge up just now)

I've addressed your point Jonathan. How about your addressing one or two of mine? Ignoring points made against your arguments doesn't negate them. 

How different are the most similar siblings you know? What makes you think bees are any different?

Do you understand yet how selection operates with the genetic diversity within narrow populations? (Not that we have a narrow population!)

Do you understand yet that conflating similar genetic origins with similar varroa response - as you have several times now - is ridiculous?

Mike (UK)

[1]
Breeding for resistance to Varroa destructor in Europe*
Sélection d’abeilles résistantes à Varroa destructor en Europe
Auslese auf Widerstandsfähigkeit gegen Varroa destructor in Europa
Ralph Büchler1, Stefan Berg2 and Yves Le Conte3
http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/full_html/2010/03/m09147/m09147.html

Abstract
The rich variety of native honeybee subspecies and ecotypes in Europe offers a good genetic resource for selection towards Varroa resistance. There are some examples of mite resistance that have developed as a consequence of natural selection in wild and managed European populations. However, most colonies are influenced by selective breeding and are intensively managed, including the regular use of miticides. We describe all characters used in European breeding programs to test for Varroaresistance. Some of them (e.g., mite population growth, hygienic behavior) have been implemented in large-scale selection programs and significant selection effects have been achieved. Survival tests of pre-selected breeder colonies and drone selection under infestation pressure are new attempts to strengthen effects of natural selection within selective breeding programs. Some perspectives for future breeding activities are discussed.

[2]
The existence of naturally occurring varroa tolerant honeybee populations around the world makes a mockery of these claims, and I would argue that this methodology, albeit seductive, would be ineffective, as has been the case with bee breeding in general. Captive breeding programmes and especially gene selection programmes can never adequately keep up with the changing environment, certainly not to the extent that a “live-and-let-die” approach can. Allowing natural selection to determine who the winners are, will always be the most sensible strategy. This may not sit well with generations of bee-masters and bee scientists, but the dominance of unmanaged bees takes some explaining away. The success of A.m.scutellata in the Americas and the failure of bee diseases in Africa, are two examples that support this approach.

ANALYSIS OF VARROA DESTRUCTOR INFESTATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN HONEYBEE POPULATIONS
MIKE ALLSOPP June 2006


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Uhh, Mike, what do the comments of _American _researchers you quoted above have to do with whether the bees in *your locale* in the United Kingdom "_are undoubtedly 'feral' in its true sense_"? :scratch: :s



Swarms escaped from established apiary hives are now "_undoubtedly 'feral' in its true sense_" in your way of thinking? :lpf:


:gh:


----------



## jonathan

You beat me to it Radar Sidekick. Mike is fast on the draw with Google.



> I've addressed your point Jonathan. How about your addressing one or two of mine?


Any bee population has huge variation within it. I think most people know that. You are asking me to accept something that I never denied - for reasons known only to yourself. I don't understand where you are coming from here. The Jensen and Pederson paper I have drawn your attention to a number of times highlights this point about the great variation within Amm populations.
The main issue here is that if your local ferals are recently escaped swarms which keep recolonising the same nest sites they are no better or no worse than any random bees you might chose to start with. Actually they might be worse as swarminess is in part a genetic trait so you are selecting for swarming. I like to rear queens from colonies which do not swarm.



> The attestations I've recieved over 4 years collecting that some colonies have been present multi year without winter breaks


Kate Thompson travelled all over the place in the UK for 3 years surveying colonies which locals claimed to be 'long standing' and found they were anything but. She busted this myth. You said you had been in touch with her so you know that anyway.


----------



## mbc

mike bispham said:


> BIBBA has long been famous for being a bunch of amateurs engaged in fruitless activity. For goodness sake get a proper expert on board Jonathan.
> Mike (UK)


This is a little unfair Mike, I recently met Jon at the bibba annual conference and I can honestly say I was blown away by the quality and scope of the lecture programme, packed with internationally renowned experts in their field and plenty of practical down to earth beekeepers who walk the walk, I think Jon is already pro active in getting the best information available to hand  ( and the long held view of bibba being largely ineffectual will vanish if they continue to organise events of this quality, I'm surprised you weren't there as you profess to have such an interest in bee breeding, husbandry and improvement.)


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Kate Thompson travelled all over the place in the UK for 3 years surveying colonies which locals claimed to be 'long standing' and found they were anything but. She busted this myth. You said you had been in touch with her so you know that anyway.


I don't think that's what she found. She found that feral colonies had similar genetics to apiary hives (of course they would - apiararies are probably the source of 95% of the genetic material around - depending on where you are some native bee remnants will be higher).

But - now read carefully... that doesn't tell you anything whatsoever about the state of resistance of any colony. 

It may be that most of her colonies were escapees, and/or so influenced by apiary material that they were not self sufficient. It might be that those that were more self sufficient lacked witnesses. This is for sure: _the genetic tests she had done did not address these issues_. It seems she pretty much took the common beekeeper's lore for granted - 'all ferals are escapees, and they only last a year or two.... people see bees every summer, but they are replacements.'

Contrast this poor methodolgy with that in the papers I've supplied. Note the opposition in findings.

Don't just take a side note possibility, contradicted by several more experienced researchers, built on the anecdotes of invested amateurs, and represent it as a scientific finding. Its nothing of the sort. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

mbc said:


> This is a little unfair Mike, I recently met Jon at the bibba annual conference and I can honestly say I was blown away by the quality and scope of the lecture programme, packed with internationally renowned experts in their field and plenty of practical down to earth beekeepers who walk the walk, I think Jon is already pro active in getting the best information available to hand  ( and the long held view of bibba being largely ineffectual will vanish if they continue to organise events of this quality, I'm surprised you weren't there as you profess to have such an interest in bee breeding, husbandry and improvement.)


I agree they're improving. But when members like Jonathon can display such astonishing ignorance of the mechanics of evolution and basic population husbandry I have to wonder. When he's able to hold to opposing views simultaniously, and profess an application premised on one that is in direct opposition to the other, you have to ask whether there shouldn't be an entrance exam.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> ... able to hold to opposing views simultaniously, and profess an application premised on one that is in direct opposition to the other, you have to ask whether there shouldn't be an entrance exam.


Ahh, Mike .... and what of the _blatant contradictions_ you post? 

For instance ....
First off, a perfectly reasonable statement from Daniel Y ...


Daniel Y said:


> It is even possible that natural selection will cause the extinction of the honey bee.


And Mike foolishly comes back with this fine bit of puffery ... 


mike bispham said:


> That's plain nonsense Daniel, born of a poor understanding of natural selection. *Its so wrong I don't know what to say.


And then after seemingly endless posturing by Mike, this ...


mike bispham said:


> Of course natural selection can result in extinction.



:lpf: inch::waiting: :ws:


.... "_Its so wrong I don't know what to say_" ... :gh: ... "entrance exam":banana: ...

(click the blue arrow in the quote boxes to see the original posts/threads)


----------



## mike bispham

A major flaw in Thompson's research is the way she represents what is undoubtedly a complex situation as a binary choice: 

"If found to be coping with varroosis in the absence of active management, feral honey bee colonies could act as important genetic stocks from which to improve breeding efforts for mite tolerant managed honey bees [5], [19]. Alternatively, feral nests could simply represent escaped swarms from managed colonies that could present a risk to the managed population by harbouring disease agents and re-infecting managed stocks [20], [21]."

It isn't a case of either/or. What would be expected is a spectrum of resistance. Some non-apiary colonies will be simple 1st year escapees, with no resistance, and likely to die in the first year. Some will be hardier; some thriving.

I don't think Jonathan has actually read the paper. If he has its through BIBBA blinkers ('only Amm can survive unaided in the UK climate'). Look at her finishing remarks:

"Given the novel observations that (i) feral colonies contain crippling high levels of DWV; (ii) managed and feral populations appear similar using three different measures of wing morphometry and (iii) feral and pathogen populations share even recently emerged parasites, it seems likely that the invasion of the Varroa mite and the increase in prevalence of its concomitant viruses may indeed explain the loss of feral honey bee colonies." 

My observations don't agre with her findings re 'crippling high levels of DWV', and her conclusion was a bit obvious from the off, but, but otherwise, yep. 

"Despite showing high levels of DWV in feral colonies, we cannot categorically link this to an increase in feral colony mortality."

No, but it would be utterly astonishing if that hadn't happened

"Future studies could concentrate on understanding whether our observations of high DWV titre result in colony mortality or whether feral populations have behavioural adaptations, such as increased swarming, to tolerate levels of DWV that would be detrimental to a managed colony."

What that says Jonathan is: 

_We don't know if they are surviving unaided, and need more work to find out: a( if they are, b) how they are_!!!!

It doesn't say:

"_Kate Thompson travelled all over the place in the UK for 3 years surveying colonies which locals claimed to be 'long standing' and found they were anything but. She busted this myth_."

You've completely misrepresented her, in order to buttress your own hidden assumption: 'only Amm can survive in the UK unaided'. 

"Finally, future work could use microsatellite markers to categorically explore the relatedness of feral and managed honey bee populations."

Whatever. Its of no real consequence. There's a huge range of genetic input, and most are high-degree mongrels. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Juhani Lunden

You could stop this pointless arguing. Results only matter. 

Take part, competition is on: http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-291645.html


----------



## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> You could stop this pointless arguing.


Argument is one of the most constructive and powerful tools known to mankind Juhani. Arguing with ourselves first and with each other second is how we make sense of the world. 

This argument has revealed the truth about the relation between Jonathan's claims and what Kate Thompson has discovered, and states. 

That's very valuable to a whole lot of people who might otherwise have taken his claim at face value, and made poor decisions as a result. 

That's not pointless. Don't diss argument. It'll come back and bite you on the bum.

Mike (UK)


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## Oldtimer

Comes a point though in this and all the similar threads when the argument contains a lot of theory not tested by the arguer.

I'd have more respect if you knew more about bees.

While a person can learn a lot from Beesource, once a certain level of intellectual but not practical understanding is reached I don't think we learn a whole lot about bees by arguing / lecturing. The people I know who have in depth understanding of bees have learned it by working with bees. Arguing on chat sites makes one an expert at arguing on chat sites.


----------



## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> This argument has revealed the truth about the relation between Jonathan's claims and what Kate Thompson has discovered, and states.


I don't believe you were at her presentation in N Wales.


----------



## Rolande

Oldtimer said:


> Arguing on chat sites makes one an expert at arguing on chat sites.


The greater cost is the lack of time that it's left for record keeping...


----------



## Oldtimer

Records? I see Mike talk about records, but I do not believe there are any. 

It was stated that his hives went broodless, as a mite control measure, for 6 weeks. Under questioning, it turned out it was "some" hives, and he didn't know if it was 6 weeks, could have been anything.
Didn't know if the hives were preparing to swarm or if they had swarmed, what the queen was, nothing. No records of any value, or no records at all.

This the guy telling us all about our quote - "astonishing ignorance".


----------



## mbc

Oldtimer said:


> Arguing on chat sites makes one an expert on chat sites.


I agree, it's a good thread


----------



## Juhani Lunden

mike bispham said:


> . It'll come back and bite you on the bum.


If I were Mike I would not have the courage to write one post. So obvious is his inexperience.

I have many times wondered if he actually has any hives. Can somebody here in the Forum verify he has?


----------



## mike bispham

Juhani Lunden said:


> If I were Mike I would not have the courage to write one post. So obvious is his inexperience.
> 
> I have many times wondered if he actually has any hives. Can somebody here in the Forum verify he has?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> members like (I have deleted the name he used) can display such astonishing ignorance
> 
> Mike (UK)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem


----------



## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> I agree they're improving. But when members like Jonathon can display such astonishing ignorance of the mechanics of evolution and basic population husbandry I have to wonder. When he's able to hold to opposing views simultaniously, and profess an application premised on one that is in direct opposition to the other, you have to ask whether there shouldn't be an entrance exam.
> Mike (UK)


Yes OT. That does look suspiciously like ad hominem. And while we are on the subject of breeding experience, the mechanics of evolution and an entrance exam.



mike bispham said:


> And drones supply only 1/3rd of the genetic material. That gives me direct control over 2/3rds. That is ample for the level of influence I need.


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Yes OT. That does look suspiciously like ad hominem.


That's a summary comment on the conclusion that follows from the ludicrous statements you made - that similarity of genetic race is equivant to, or entails, similarity of resistance.

Have you got that straight yet btw, or will you carry on blithely asserting that because Kate Thompson found that a number of feral hives had similar wing vein patterns to apiary bees, it follows that they're all escapees, and proves that there are no survivor ferals in the UK? That the 'myth is busted'? 



jonathan said:


> And while we are on the subject of breeding experience, the mechanics of evolution and an entrance exam.


A person can learn how to raise queens, and be highly proficient at it. It doesn't mean they know much about evolution or (population) husbandry. As you've amply demonstrated.

Being able to drive a car doesn't mean you can fix it when it won't go.

Mike (UK)


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> I don't believe you were at her presentation in N Wales.


Are you saying she said something different in her presentation to what she said in her paper? What did she say? 

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> It doesn't mean they know much about evolution or (population) husbandry. *As you've amply demonstrated*.
> 
> Mike (UK)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem


----------



## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> That's a summary comment on the conclusion that follows from the ludicrous statements you made - that similarity of genetic race is equivant to, or entails, similarity of resistance.
> 
> Have you got that straight yet btw, or will you carry on blithely asserting that because Kate Thompson found that a number of feral hives had similar wing vein patterns to apiary bees, it follows that they're all escapees, and proves that there are no survivor ferals in the UK? That the 'myth is busted'?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Unless you can prove otherwise, and so far, you haven't.

Have you heard of Primorsky?

Just re-stating the same old stuff over and over but never proving it, does not make it true. Abusing and name calling of non believers does not make it true either.


----------



## jonathan

mike bispham said:


> Are you saying she said something different in her presentation to what she said in her paper? What did she say?
> Mike (UK)


Among other things: Ferals are full of disease, there is little or no evidence that feral colonies are surviving any length of time, most are recently escaped swarms. That the general public who report 'attest' as you call it, to long standing colonies are usually mistaken.
One way to 'attest' if a colony is long standing is to stick a probe into it in winter. If it is dead you have your answer. She did that.
And curiously there was no difference between disease levels in ferals and disease levels in untreated colonies kept in hives.

As I said before, Kate is very helpful. If you contact her directly I am sure she will answer your queries in a polite and courteous manner.

She had to put up with similar reactions to yours from some of the Bibba people who believe that wing morphometry is accurate and useful in bee breeding. She is clear that it is not helpful except to distinguish between pure race populations.
She also took flack because in the same way you want to believe that there are long standing ferals, the bibba folk wanted to believe that there were long standing feral colonies of Amm bees. She did not find that either.

As I said in an earlier post, unfortunately sometimes what you really really want to believe does not correspond to reality.
What sorts out the sheep from the goats with regard to scientific approach is who goes with the evidence. Lots of people have an attachment to an idea which they hold on to irrespective of the accumulation of evidence. With regard to ferals the situation is very different in the Americas because of the scutellata genetics.

You have provided no evidence at all for long standing feral colonies in your area. Just claims from the general public. Check out those ferals in late winter and look for signs of life.


----------



## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Among other things: Ferals are full of disease, there is little or no evidence that feral colonies are surviving any length of time, most are recently escaped swarms.


How could she know most (what percentage exactly is 'most?) are 'recently escaped swarms'? 

At what point do they become 'not recently escaped swarms'?

What does 'full of disease' mean? How full? 1/2 full? 3/4 full? 100% full? How do you decide whether a colony is 'full of disease?'

What does 'little or no evidence' mean? No-one has made a study of feral colony longevity? 



jonathan said:


> And curiously there was no difference between disease levels in ferals and disease levels in untreated colonies kept in hives.


So colonies in hives are also 'full of disease'? Equally so? Is that right? Despite the ferals having had no treatment? How could that be? 



jonathan said:


> That the general public who report 'attest' as you call it, to long standing colonies are usually mistaken.


'Usually'? Can you put a percentage figure to that? is it 51% of the time? How did she know? How did she quantify?



jonathan said:


> One way to 'attest' if a colony is long standing is to stick a probe into it in winter. If it is dead you have your answer. She did that.


That's not 'attesting'. [1] That's 'testing'. How many did she test? How many were still alive? How longstanding were they in each case? 

I ask these things, not in hope of getting any further information from you, but to demonstarte that the terms in which you represent her scientific findings is a million miles from how science work. Science quantifies; it says _this many_ did this; _this many_ did that; and then reasons on the grounds thus provided. What you've offered are vague terms. They are as useless in scientific thought as they are in law. 



jonathan said:


> She had to put up with similar reactions to yours...


My 'reaction' is responses to the nonsense you make of what you report as her findings. (Again ...ferals and hives share common ancestry, so they must be similarly rated in resistance)



jonathan said:


> ... from some of the Bibba people who believe that wing morphometry is accurate and useful in bee breeding. She is clear that it is not helpful except to distinguish between pure race populations...


Yep. As I was telling you 4 years ago. I can probably find your replies, along the lines: 'you're obviously a complete novice as you've clearly never heard of genetic clumping' or some such... 



jonathan said:


> She also took flack because in the same way you want to believe that there are long standing ferals, the bibba folk wanted to believe that there were long standing feral colonies of Amm bees. She did not find that either.


One of the things I've found from collecting swarms and cutouts and simply hiving - and not treating them - results in a varied outcome, ranging from dead before winter to still going strong after 3 years. 



jonathan said:


> As I said in an earlier post, unfortunately sometimes what you really really want to believe does not correspond to reality.


What I believe corresponds to my experience. Unlike her I keep mine multi year, and record what happens. 



jonathan said:


> Lots of people have an attachment to an idea which they hold on to irrespective of the accumulation of evidence.


Undeniably. But you're mistaken if you think I'm one of them.



jonathan said:


> With regard to ferals the situation is very different in the Americas because of the scutellata genetics.


That's your own theory. It's likely scutellata genetics has had just that influence. But its by no means clear that its necessary. See he work of Dr. Delany posted here by me a short time ago. 



jonathan said:


> You have provided no evidence at all for long standing feral colonies in your area. Just claims from the general public. Check out those ferals in late winter and look for signs of life.


What I do is put them in a box and look for sign of life in the new year. Unless a whole lot are sneakily swarming over xmas, most simply come through. 29/33, of various ages and sources last winter.

When you say 'evidence' what you mean is 'a study done by a qualified researcher' isn't it? And we both know that hasn't been done.

Mike (UK)

[1] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/attest


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## jonathan

Like I said, put your questions to Kate and she will give you helpful answers.


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## mike bispham

jonathan said:


> Like I said, put your questions to Kate and she will give you helpful answers.


I don't think I have any burning questions to ask of her. I'm happy to continue to gather data directly from my own sources, to run my own experiment. And to share my results - including the curios like strong summer brood breaks - with whoever is interested.


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## Rader Sidetrack

mike bispham said:


> I'm happy to continue to gather data directly from my own sources, to run my own experiment. And to share my results - including the curios like strong summer brood breaks - with whoever is interested.


The problem is, Mike, that your analysis cannot be trusted to be _accurate_! :no:

For instance, how about this _flagrant misrepresentation_ from your own website ...


> It can be seen that [HIGHLIGHT]modern beekeeping practice is the sole cause [/HIGHLIGHT]of the crisis affecting both wild and domestic bees. The solution lies in the hands of beekeepers and their regulators. Not only should stocks that need to be medicated in order to stay alive not be used for breeding, they should not either be allowed to send their sickly genes into the wild, where they undermine the process of natural selection that would otherwise allow feral bees recover their health.
> 
> http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/


"*Sole Cause*"? :kn: You have acknowledged here on Beesource that landowner/farmer applied pesticides, and lack of forage availability, both contribute to the "crisis", and yet you are still trumpeting that "_sole cause_" falsehood on your website.

:ws:


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## Oldtimer

mike bispham said:


> I don't think I have any burning questions to ask of her.


But you asked them here, and made much ado about it.

If you had been there, you might have learned.

It is still not too late to catch up. Or, you actually don't want the answers? Facts might be threatening to some great sounding theories.


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## mbc

mike bispham said:


> I'm happy to continue to gather data directly from my own sources, to run my own experiment. And to share my results - including the curios like strong summer brood breaks - with whoever is interested.


I am interested in brood breaks and natural cycles, I'm sure they define how beekeeping goes some seasons in marginal areas and have a major influence on the following seasons showing a surprisingly long lag effect. For instance, the poor nutrition during June 12 caused a brood break which affected dwindling in the extended cold spring of May 13 as many of the bees were getting ancient by then. The converse is true, the ideal conditions of July 13 helped the bees power through the changeable weather during April and May this year.


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## Rolande

Natural breaks are fine, we see it to some extent with our carnica type bees some summers, but of course, two and a half months (which I appreciate may have been a misinterpretation of data) isn't natural in the UK. As I wrote earlier, little chance of getting such a colony back in condition before the winter; we used to say in the road building game, get it right in the bottom or it'll cost money in the top


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## mike bispham

mbc said:


> I am interested in brood breaks and natural cycles, I'm sure they define how beekeeping goes some seasons in marginal areas and have a major influence on the following seasons showing a surprisingly long lag effect. For instance, the poor nutrition during June 12 caused a brood break which affected dwindling in the extended cold spring of May 13 as many of the bees were getting ancient by then. The converse is true, the ideal conditions of July 13 helped the bees power through the changeable weather during April and May this year.


MBC,

It would be fair to expect variations in local climate and forage to be somehow 'learned' by bees. Perhaps what you are seeing is aspects of mechanisms of local adaptation to the annual forage cycle?

I think what I've been seeing relates to varroa control. But it could be that both are aspects of local adaptation through population control.

One of the things I find really clever about Honey Bees is the trick of blowing up a huge population to meet the energy availablity of the spring and summer, then shrinking it right back to conserve energy through the dearth months. 

I read a book a couple of years ago that showed how energy is the 'primary object under contention' in an ecosystem - that the ability to turn available energy into viable offspring is the final measure of suitability. Those species and strains within species that do this most efficiently are the winners in the competition for the locality and its energy sources.

Of course energy has to be stored to maintain life through the cold months, and effectively hidden or defended against thieves. 

Honey Bees are fabulous exemplars of this primary natural driver. Once you start thinking about the drive to collect, store, and defend energy, and turn it into viable offspring, everything bees do can be seen as a part of the deepest essential competition. 

Those strains that can best collect the energy that presents itself in trickles and flows through the warmer months, and turn that into energy into the maximum number of viable offspring, are the winners; their genes will supply the larger share of future generations.

Defending themselves against pests and diseases is important, but ultimately secondary to this aim.

I'm not sure how, but I think this all adds to the picture of what is happening in the 'altered' brood rates we see. Thanks for reminding me!

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Natural breaks are fine, we see it to some extent with our carnica type bees some summers, but of course, two and a half months (which I appreciate may have been a misinterpretation of data) isn't natural in the UK. As I wrote earlier, little chance of getting such a colony back in condition before the winter; we used to say in the road building game, get it right in the bottom or it'll cost money in the top


Roland,

I think 'what is natural in the UK' is far from clear. Certainly we should expect some variation. And we should expect that variation to translate into advantages for some alleles that direct particular behaviours in this respect. When tight brood breaks supply a pest control advantage we should see that behaviour increase, and should find it in those colonies that do best (in a natural setting). 

I've been surprised by how tiny colonies can overwinter, and blow up fast into full size colonies through the spring - given comb to work on. Perhaps we have a habit of wanting colonies to go into winter larger than nature might choose. A colony in a defensible nest site needs only to be as large as necessary to prevent robbing. Otherwise smallness is all good - lower energy consumption = more energy saved to be turned into brood in late winter and early spring. That translates to a good position to make early swarms - which we know to have a much better chance of establishing. 

Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

Hi Mike, I over winter very small mating nucs with the last queen of the season every year so I'm well aware of how a healthy well made unit can go through winter and drive forward the following spring but that's not what I'm visualizing here. 

My contention remains that a colony which has had a two and a half month brood break, ending in mid September, falls outside of a healthy 'winter' colony. What I see is a colony which is struggling through an imbalance brought about by having an aged and dying population responsible for rearing the winter bees basically at the last minute. I can't believe that such a colony won't be susceptible to a late/poor spring.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> My contention remains that a colony which has had a two and a half month brood break, ending in mid September, falls outside of a healthy 'winter' colony. What I see is a colony which is struggling through an imbalance brought about by having an aged and dying population responsible for rearing the winter bees basically at the last minute. I can't believe that such a colony won't be susceptible to a late/poor spring.


I think a better description for what I've seen than a 'two and a half month brood break' is something like ' a tendency to shut down for six weeks or so through the high summer.' That does give plenty of time for some brood rearing maybe late August, through September and if the weather is ok, October (which roughly matches my observations). And as you've observed, low level brood rearing might go on right through. 

Don't forget a winter population doesn't need aged foraging bees. Perhaps our idea of 'a balanced colony' needs to change for the winter months? 

Mike (UK)


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## mbc

mike bispham said:


> It would be fair to expect variations in local climate and forage to be somehow 'learned' by bees. Perhaps what you are seeing is aspects of mechanisms of local adaptation to the annual forage cycle?
> 
> My point above was that they react to varying conditions rather than some sort of set annual forage cycle.
> 
> I think what I've been seeing relates to varroa control. But it could be that both are aspects of local adaptation through population control.


I'm not so sure that most bee colonies are aware that they have varroa, maybe that's what we're aiming for, bees that are aware of, and do something about varroa on a colony level.


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## jonathan

mbc said:


> I'm not so sure that most bee colonies are aware that they have varroa, maybe that's what we're aiming for, bees that are aware of, and do something about varroa on a colony level.


If every bee with a mite on it did a Captain Oates and flew out and never came back that would sure keep varroa under control.
A colony in mid summer has tens of thousands of flying bees and probably only a few hundred phoretic mites at any given time.
A colony with the genetics for that behaviour would be strongly selected for, yet as far as I am aware it is not a varroa control strategy.
This sacrificial behaviour would hit the mite population far harder than the bee population given that there are a lot more bees than mites.


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## Rolande

mbc said:


> I'm not so sure that most bee colonies are aware that they have varroa


This is an excellent explanation of why:


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## mike bispham

mbc said:


> I'm not so sure that most bee colonies are aware that they have varroa, maybe that's what we're aiming for, bees that are aware of, and do something about varroa on a colony level.


I'm not sure that putting things in terms of 'awareness' works for me. What I meant was 'learned' in the analogical Darwinian sense - those that handle varroa well reproduce at the expense of those that don't, so the population 'learns' to handle varroa. I suppose we nowadays should include the possibility of 'learning' via epigenetic responses. 

Mike (UK)


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> This is an excellent explanation of why:


Its a rather long explanation Roland - any chance of a summary?

Mike (UK)


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## Rolande

mike bispham said:


> Its a rather long explanation Roland - any chance of a summary?
> 
> Mike (UK)


Apologies but no, this country boy couldn't possibly do justice to what Ricarda Kather explains so eloquently.


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## mike bispham

Rolande said:


> Apologies but no, this country boy couldn't possibly do justice to what Ricarda Kather explains so eloquently.


It seems there's a sophisticated odour recognition system used by bees to recognise outsiders and differently aged bees within their own colonies (i.e forager or nurse bee). Varroa mites are very good at taking and covering themselves in the correct odour quickly. (Like, I think, robber bees do). So bees don't become aware of them. (Sorry mbc, I know what you mean by 'aware' now)

Some bees do become aware of something wrong - uncapping (and removal) behaviours are an example. And yes, what we want are more bees that can do those sorts of things.

I tend to wrap up the details (known and unkown) in 'mite managing'. And, following John Kefuss, all I need to know is how to recognise that that do it well - and make more of those. Knowing how they do it is only useful as and when it heps me tell which hives can do that. But actually, thriving for a couple of years without help is the best tell - as long as you can afford to do that.

Mike (UK)


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## mbc

Juhani makes some fascinating comments on the "more tf mite counts" thread about resistance mechanisms kicking in at a threshold percentage of mite infestation, "awareness"?


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## mbc

Rolande said:


> This is an excellent explanation of why:


Found time to watch it, thanks for sharing


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## jonathan

Spotted Michael Palmer had sneaked into the audience.


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## beekuk

jonathan said:


> Spotted Michael Palmer had sneaked into the audience.


 Michael was also doing his own talks there.


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## jonathan

Were you there Pete?


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## beekuk

jonathan said:


> Were you there Pete?


 No, i just dropped Mike off to his hotel near there.


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## mbc

Rolande said:


> what Ricarda Kather explains so eloquently.


She also makes a nod towards small cell with regard to varroa not breeding in worker cells of apis ceranae due to the cells plus larvae being too tight for varroa to hide in there.


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## AR Beekeeper

I remember reading that the Korean type of the Varroa mite, the type we have here in the U.S., also infests and breed in the worker cells of apis ceranae. The type of varroa that originally infested that type of bee did not.


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