# Evolution.....



## beeware10

ted
I agree 100% but not sure if we will live long enough to see it happen. sure not like the old days when beekeeping was easy. at the time we did't realize how we had it made compared to today.


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## megank

Ted, you hit the nail square regarding varroa's parasitism. I think the mites will ultimately win with respect to a stable host/parasite relationship. Two things are going to occur in the process. The bees will become more tolerant, and the mites will become less virulent. When that ultimately happens will be anyone's guess. To be sure, varroa has hopped the species barrier and are here to stay.


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## heaflaw

So, if we migrate as soon as possible to bees that are mite tolerant, will that not speed up the process of establishing a stable host/parasite relationship?


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## Michael Palmer

megank said:


> Two things are going to occur in the process. The bees will become more tolerant, and the mites will become less virulent.


And maybe a third. The bees will become more resistant to the viruses that are killing them?


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## windfall

The problem is the feedback mechanisms that will reduce virulence in the mites (and viruses) will not come into play so long as host populations are continually renewed. Actually the opposite happens and you tend to select for greater virulence as long as their are "new" populations to infect. The mites and viruses never have to pay the "cost" of their virulence, and have no selective pressure to allow host survival.

I am not saying we should step away and let evolution run it's course, just that waiting for evolution to help out in a system that we artificially maintain is unlikely to yield results. 
Better to find other solutions such as breeding or treatments unless folks want to stop beekeeping for a few hundred years.


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## crofter

Extinction also seems part of the evolutionary mechanism; we cannot assume that bees are destined to survive if left to their own resources. Man's actions have thrown some huge wrenches into their natural defences; I dont think we can step back now. Like it or not man has himself become part of the evolutionary process. Scary thought, what with his shortsightedness. I think it is important to ensure that any action taken regarding the present problem of varroa does not irreparably affect the available options to fight off the next challenge that will appear. Unintended consequences can be very severe. Boiled down, I dont think we should put all our (bee) eggs into the one basket of not treating to narrowly achieve varroa resistance. This present one is not the last challenge bees will have to face.


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## megank

OK..I confess I need to backpedal a bit..What I meant to say is that if bees specifically apis millefera are to survive two things must occur....

As to the fight regarding treat vs not treating I believe the answer is save what little genome remains, There's a reason the likes of Drs. Cobey, Spiavak, et-al are now advocating for the importation of germplasm outside the US cuz they know the answer does not lie with domestic bees


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## WLC

Ted:

Honeybees can normally pass on favorable traits very quickly because of their high recombination rate (the greatest of the higher Eukaryotes) and polyandry.

I've looked at one indicator of evolutionary pressure (retrotransposition), and it's high.

Frankly, I would say that if this was any other organism, that it would have already succumbed to genotoxic effects and dysgenesis. It should have gone extinct.

I would wager (for the sake of discussion) that, in the long run, the pests and pathogens don't stand a chance against both the known, and the unknown, genetics of the Honeybee.

My feeling is that the Honeybee has already gone through some traumatic stresses in its evolutionary past that has given its genetics some truly remarkable characteistics.

It's genetics are already highly evolved, and the pests and pathogens are downright primitive in comparison.

So, I would say that the pests and pathogens cannot evolve fast enought to keep up with the Honeybee.

They're hopelessly outclassed.

PS: I've seen the evidence for 'active evolution' in my own bees. It's humbling.


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## megank

I disagree..The genetics of the hive is set when the queen of the hive begins to lay, the genetics of the mite is dynamic with each mating inside the cell.

The mites have the upper hand here


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## WLC

Well, perhaps the beekeeper is somehow defeating the Honeybee's adaptations?

For instance, swarming. It's bad for the beekeeper, but good for bees in an evolutionary sense.

I also think that since bees can become resistant to viruses, through acquired immunity (it may only be for the lifetime of the workers by the way), then it's plausible that swarming and short term acquired immunity may be enough for the bees to eventually get the upper hand.


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## Ted Kretschmann

All the conjecture is like the chicken or the egg scenerio when arguing what organism has the upper hand. I think the mites at the moment still have the upper hand. I hope the bees are holding the trump card. TED


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## WLC

There are plenty of bees out there that do well against mites. They just don't do what some beekeepers want them to do very well.

We can make a joke about that, 'Bees may be able to evolve to survive mites, but can they evolve to survive beekeepers?'


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## Solomon Parker

In my yards, the bees are winning. They win more each year, that's evolution.

Typical beekeepers are defeating the bees adaptation, as I've been saying for years. When one requeens a hive, one kills a queen possibly capable of surviving and carrying on her genetic evolution. Beekeepers have put so much value into honey production that they're stifling the survival mechanisms of the bees. Bees don't need to produce 200+ lbs. of honey each year, we're the ones who require that of them and we do it at the expense of additional generations of queens with each generation a lost opportunity for advancement.

In my yards, survival is job one. If you can do that, you can move on to bigger and better things. But you get no help if you can't survive. That's how I get bees who survive every year without treatments of any kind.


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## Ted Kretschmann

There are those people that keep bees for fun and then there are those people that keep bees to live...TED


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## Solomon Parker

How can you have fun if they don't live? That doesn't even make any sense.


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## Ted Kretschmann

The point being is that commercial beekeepers have to squeeze all the production they can from their bees for the beekeeper to live......And yes you are right, we have bred the bees to do that,produce copius amounts of honey. And we have bred them to become huge colonies in numbers of bees in the hive to produce that honey. And yes their are strains of bees that cope with mites very well and WLC is correct-they do not do what we want them to do-make that 200 pound crop. So who is winning the bees, who have been forced to "downsize" or the mites. The only loser in this fight just might be humanity. TED


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## Solomon Parker

Ted Kretschmann said:


> So who is winning the bees, who have been forced to "downsize" or the mites.


I don't see how returning to maintenance of natural concerns (taking care of disease and pestilence) is the same as "downsizing". The bees are winning, despite the beekeepers' best efforts to help them.




Ted Kretschmann said:


> The only loser in this fight just might be humanity.


Doom and gloom much?


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## WLC

We're making the observation that to survive pests and pathogens,
bees may be evolving away from domestication, which doesn't help beekeepers.

Perhaps we should consider the hive itself? I'm referring to the natural flora/fauna of the hive.

That's part of the reason why I'm interested in making test hives out of bioceramic materials. They may be able to harbor beneficial organism that can help the bees by inhibiting the pests and pathogens.


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## crofter

If we look at the statistics, mans technological moves against pestilence is not doing so well. More cases of drug resistance are cropping up faster than new drugs. We are trying to find cures for a lot of problems that nature used to take care of by geographical isolation barriers. Ever increasing trends to monocultures of both vegetable and animal species is playing entirely into the hand of the opportunistic species we consider pests to our dominion. I dont think we really know how mother nature will balance the books.

The present concensus amongst humans is that we treat ourselves and whatever we can control with antibiotics and quasi selective biocides. Short term it has had some amazing results but long term may prove to have been bad strategy. Bees are only one species that are symptomatic as it seems that there is a general trend of species extinction or endangerment. Are we too "bought in" to back away?


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## Ted Kretschmann

To answer Parkers question. The obvious is mankind keeps bees to produce honey. I do not know too many people that would keep them otherwise other than yourself with beehaver style managment. With out honey production, bees are not much more than in the same class as ordinary wasp and hornets. Interesting creatures, yes, but there is no incentive to keep them as domisticated. So as mite pressure is causing "downsizing" due to VSH genetics and honey crops decrease, the incentive to keep bees will be less. Commercial beekeepers will be less and with that pollination will be less due to the unavailabilty of bees. This we are already seeing. With smaller colonies in numbers of bees the benefits of pollination from the use of bees will be less. Thus all of humanity will suffer from the lack of pollination. Nobody keeps Apis Florea around for pollination-too small of colonies for the example. Yes, Parker, honeybees will survive in some form similar to Apis Florea but their use by mankind will not. TED


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## Fusion_power

Expand that statement to say that we keep bees for ALL the products of the hive, bees, honey, pollen, wax, royal jelly, etc and I think it would be more accurate. So long as we can keep bees and produce those products profitably, there will be beekeepers. I would like to stipulate that this is not a mutually exclusive proposition. We can have bees that are mite tolerant and those same bees can be very good honey producers. But that is a long term breeding proposition and not something that will happen without quite a few more years of work with varroa tolerance. Varroa Specific Hygiene is NOT the only trait relevant to mite tolerance. I have excellent reason to believe it is possible to combine mite tolerance with improved production.

Drones make excellent fish bait. I have harvested drones by the pound for a local commercial fisherman who used them to catch catfish. That makes drones a potential hive product, especially those hordes of drones in mid summer when they do little except eat.

DarJones


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## megank

I wonder how many of the "Live or Die" crowd get they're annual flu shot, or have the kids vaccinated, or get their tentnus booster every five years?

Just sayin...


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## Solomon Parker

Don't forget pollination. In monocultures like the almond orchards of California, bees cannot currently be kept there year 'round.

Believe it or not, there are also beekeepers (keepers, not have-ers) who keep their bees primarily just to have bees, or to look at them. If I couldn't keep bees for honey, I would still want to have an observation hive.

Before he passed, my great uncle was a beekeeper for many years. But he eventually got busy with other things (he was a rancher of sorts) and quit harvesting honey and eventually, he just had them out in the yard for the joy of having them. Interestingly enough, this was in the mid to late nineties just after populations had crashed. He had heard of the mites, but he didn't think he had them. He just knew that 90% of his 100 or so hives had died out one year. He thought it was a drought. He never treated, didn't know he was supposed to. He didn't use foundation either. Some of his bees survived the crash though. I wish I knew where they are now, he died a few years ago and he had saved quite a bit of money (he never spent anything and lived like a depression era dirt farmer) and his whole place was torn apart through familial strife.


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## Barry

megank said:


> Just sayin...


They're talking about bugs, you're talking about humans. Can you really compare the two as equals?


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## Solomon Parker

megank said:


> I wonder how many of the "Live or Die" crowd get they're annual flu shot, or have the kids vaccinated, or get their tentnus booster every five years?


Straw man argument. They're bees, not children.


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## Duboisi

megank said:


> I wonder how many of the "Live or Die" crowd get they're annual flu shot, or have the kids vaccinated, or get their tentnus booster every five years?


Are you suggesting that every single bee should be given vaccine-shots?


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## WLC

'I wonder how many of the "Live or Die" crowd get they're annual flu shot, or have the kids vaccinated, or get their tentnus booster every five years?'

But the 'treatment free' beekeepers are doing the Honeybee equivalent of vaccination!

I have bees that I've treated with essential oils only (and a grease patty or two, which I've stopped doing).

They're doing a bang up job of retrotransposing RNA by integrating it into their DNA (at a known site, of course).

We know because of Maori et al. that some of those integrated fragments can provide the bees with molecular immunity against pathogens via RNAi.

It's the Honeybee's version of an immune system. Instead of white blood cells and antibodies, they have retrotransposons and RNAi.

While no one can say for sure that this occurs at a higher rate in treatment free hives vs treated hives, I would guess that it's occurring at a faster rate in untreated hives simply because of the higher initial pest/pathogen load.

So, we know of one mechanism by which treatment free beekeepers are inducing molecular immunity in their bees.

However, it's going to be a while before there's evidence to show that this type of immunity is passed on to offspring. I'm not convinced of that and suspect that it's otherwise.

It's a molecular immune system that has evolved in the Honeybee. But, we can't say that it's causing the Honeybee to evolve at this point.

I do have a student working on finding that evidence.


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## megank

Barry said:


> . Can you really compare the two as equals?


Nope...You missed the point entirely. 

Point is that it is wise and prudent to protect ourselves against disease that we MIGHT contract in the same fashion that I believe it is wise and prudent to protect bees against disease that we KNOW will contract.

Just sayin


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## megank

WLC said:


> '.
> 
> It's a molecular immune system that has evolved in the Honeybee. But, we can't say that it's causing the Honeybee to evolve at this point.
> 
> .


In the meantime...It's wise a prident to save what genome (that has been reduced by three separate bottlenecks) remain.


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## Solomon Parker

What's the purpose of a bottleneck again?

When you lose 95% of the bees and continue what's left, it's done. Treating is only postponing the onset of the neck. my bottleneck is done for the most part. Now the fun is in expanding back up again. 

And while I can't blame commercial beekeepers for needing to maintain their status quo, hearing their criticism at every step does get a bit old. We're doing our best to allow the bees to evolve past the threat in the way we feel is best. Most are encouraging the evolution of bees dependent on humans. I don't believe that to be the best of the options.


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## beeware10

ok a number of people say they have treatment free bees. why aren't these on the market to save our bees. If this was a true fact we would not have anymore problems. don't you think commercial queen breeder would jump on this to corner the market?


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## WLC

Sol:

We don't know for a fact that the 'Bond Hypothesis' ('Live and Let Die') actually selects for new traits that makes the resulting bees more resistant. The Science just isn't there to back it up.

We don't know why or how they survived. It may even be something temporary/local.

So, I don't think that it can be called evolution by artificial selection.

It may not be an actual bottleneck. For instance, it could simply be that the right piece of RNA was retrotransposed into the RNAi system that I mentioned above in one hive. We don't know for a fact that it gets passed on to the next generation via classical genetics.

I think that the Queen Breeders would have gotten hold of these traits a long time ago if they really existed.


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## Solomon Parker

I sold two nucs this year. Michael Bush will be offering queens next year. Kirk Webster sells. Sam Comfort sells. One of the problems we have is that we're not interested in producing bees the way you are interested in buying them. We're interested in developing bees well adapted to our areas and to selling into those areas. I'm educated as an engineer, and while I wanted to be a commercial beek when I was younger, the drive is no longer there. I'm a firm hobbyist or sideliner.

Commercial breeders don't seem to believe it any more than you do. However, one's belief in something stands irrespective of its existence.


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## megank

Solomon Parker said:


> What's the purpose of a bottleneck again?.


It's doesn't have a purpose..it's a consequence that does not serve to increase genetic variability. In short, healthy and genetically viable populations strive to avoid the bottleneck effect.


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## megank

beeware10 said:


> ok a number of people say they have treatment free bees. why aren't these on the market to save our bees.


You've got to wonder....

I've asked that question on a local beekeeper forum and all I got was "We're not ready to sell bees or queens on the claim that they're consistantly viable at this point"


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## deknow

megank said:


> it's a consequence that does not serve to increase genetic variability.


Exactly. But it isn't _really_ genetic variability we are interested in...people don't want to import genetics because they want a broader base of genetics (if that were the case, the only criteria would be that they are different), they want to bring in genetics with specific traits.
To some extent colonies do need genetic variability (studies on queens II'd with variable numbers of father drones), but a bigger pool doesn't mean better bees...a bigger pool just means that the "desirable genetics" are fewer and further between.



> In short, healthy and genetically viable populations strive to avoid the bottleneck effect.


 ...and honeybee populations are so healthy and genetically viable that people are posting that they don't believe that untreated populations exist. Healthy and genetically viable populations don't bottleneck...it's when their environment changes and they are no longer viable that bottlenecks occur. It is how honeybees (and every other life on the planet until recent times) have adapted to changing environments, changing predators, prey, parasites and other organisms...it's the only thing that is actually demonstrated to work.
deknow


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## Ted Kretschmann

All the above maybe so, but too much of a bottleneck will just extinct the species. Wider genetic populations for any organism on the planet are a must. Bee are no exception. TED


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## megank

@ Deknow...per your first point. What the Do or Die crowd is accomplishing IMO, is selecting for a population that simply resist mites ans nothing else. OK fine, I can appreciate that, but will this new population be able to withstand the next selective pressure that comes down the road? Maybe...Maybe not. 

In the last 25 years we've seen what..nosema c, Hive beetles, Varroa and treachael mites. All this does is reduce the genetics of the entire population even further. Who knows what's next?...especially in a global climate where pathogens are easily introduced into succeptable populations.

Per your second point.

Bottleneck effects reduce genetic variability and at some point it very well can result is serious inbreeding issues, and possibly outright extinction.

Only time will tell, but it' my belief that we should strive to keep what's left in the population.


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## Ted Kretschmann

A wider gene pool means the desirable genetics are more available not less. Inbreeding of bees can only lead to more problems. That is what bottlenecks can cause. People complain now that queenbees sold today are to closely related to each other. The cause is too few lines the breeders use in grafting and how the queens are propagated in the commercial queen yard. Mites wiped out how many matriarchial lineages??? Deknow, since you are in the know please tell me how many are left? TED


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## deknow

This past summer I taught 14 beekeepers how to rear their own queens, how to graft, and how to breed their own stock. I provided about 200 queens to beekeepers in my area...most of the queens are virgins...I'm hoping to help other beekeepers improve their own stock (our virgins mating in their yards) rather than replacing their genetics wholesale (mated queens).

I don't think keeping bees without treatments is a problem you can simply throw money at (buying "magic queens"). I think more people breeding (and not just rearing) is part of the solution...but I think that this idea that we never want to lose any genetics....that all genetic traits are equally valuable has to be critiqued...the entire mechanism works to prevent this from happening.


deknow


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## deknow

Ted Kretschmann said:


> A wider gene pool means the desirable genetics are more available not less.


That is mathematically impossible...unless all "genes" are equally desirable (which they are not...we routinely end lines or crosses that are overly aggressive, susceptible to disease, poor producers, etc.). Things are much more complicated than "good genes" and "bad genes"...but if the goal is to have as diverse a gene pool as possible in a population of a given size, the "good genes" are displaced by the "diverse genes".....harder to find, less likely to be expressed overtly, most assuredly won't become "fixed" within the population....the mechanism that does the fixing (bottlenecks) have been prevented in the name of genetic diversity.


> Inbreeding of bees can only lead to more problems.


Inbreeding can lead to problems...but it can also solve problems...as it has in nature for a few years now.

deknow


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## deknow

megank said:


> @ Deknow...per your first point. What the Do or Die crowd is accomplishing IMO, is selecting for a population that simply resist mites ans nothing else.


So, a beekeeper that doesn't feed, doesn't treat for mites, doesn't treat for nosema, doesn't treat with antibiotics, essential oils, SHB traps, etc is only selecting for varroa resistance? Seems like there are a number of selective pressures at play here.



> In the last 25 years we've seen what..nosema c, Hive beetles, Varroa and treachael mites. All this does is reduce the genetics of the entire population even further. Who knows what's next?...especially in a global climate where pathogens are easily introduced into succeptable populations.


These pressures do reduce the gene pool...but also push the gene pool in directions that promote survival. I hardly know anyone that treats for tracheal mites anymore....most breeders eventually stopped treating for it...and poof. Almost a non issue for most these days. It isn't because someone decided that genetics that are susceptable to tracheal mites might be important in the future and kept them in the breeding population.


> Bottleneck effects reduce genetic variability and at some point it very well can result is serious inbreeding issues, and possibly outright extinction.


Would you like some stock that is very susceptable to AFB and tracheal mites to breed into your own stock? No? Then it is not variability that is needed.

deknow


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## Ted Kretschmann

Dean, you have gracefully avoided the question. Tell me how many matriarchial lines are left. There were over 400 known matriarchial lines before mites. So how many are left that mites did not kill out??? And something that maybe shocking, we do not requeen every hive of bees. WE do not wipe out our lineages in our outfit. We add new blood by scattering it out across the operation. Back in the heyday of Tracheal mites when those mites were wiping out operations including many hives of mine. We brought in Buckfast, ARC-1 and mountain gray caucasian genetics. Thus resistance was had by expanding the gene pool with genetics from resistant bees. Not inbreeding with the surviving stock. We would have bottlenecked out of business. TED


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## Lost Bee

If all your worried about is genetic variation. Cross every bee race 
you can get your hands on and your stock will be very variable.


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## megank

Lost Bee said:


> If all your worried about is genetic variation. Cross every bee race
> you can get your hands on and your stock will be very variable.


Which is exactly why the likes of Susan Cobey, Marla Spivak and the likes are pushing hard for importing germplasm from old world sources cuz they know they answer probably doesn't exist with domestic stock.


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## deknow

Ted Kretschmann said:


> Dean, you have gracefully avoided the question.


...I'm not trying to avoid anything...I'm doing my best to answer the questions I can in the time that I have. It would be commendable if anyone could answer every question posed them in a discussion like this.


> Tell me how many matriarchial lines are left. There were over 400 known matriarchial lines before mites. So how many are left that mites did not kill out???


I don't know...I also don't know what constitutes a matriarchial line, and I don't know how closely related to one another these 400 lines are/were....this seems at least as important as how many lines there are/were. 
Are you delineating lines via mitochondrial DNA? If so, how does this relate to the variability in the nuclear DNA?



> And something that maybe shocking, we do not requeen every hive of bees. WE do not wipe out our lineages in our outfit. We add new blood by scattering it out across the operation.


...that's the way when you are dealing with a relatively stable system.



> Back in the heyday of Tracheal mites when those mites were wiping out operations including many hives of mine. We brought in Buckfast, ARC-1 and mountain gray caucasian genetics.


I don't know what strain of Buckfast you are referring to...but presumably selected for TM resistance? ARC-1 I'm not familiar with...but the mountain grey is a fairly old and homogenous population isn't it (I don't know much about them either)? In all 3 cases, I suspect that you are bringing in genetics that show TM resistance? And how was that resistance bred into the population?

I've said several times that if you think your genetics suck you should bring in something better as a start...a roll of the dice before letting things settle out.



> Thus resistance was had by expanding the gene pool with genetics from resistant bees. Not inbreeding with the surviving stock. We would have bottlenecked out of business. TED


...and where did the resistant bees come from?

deknow


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## Solomon Parker

Ted Kretschmann said:


> Dean, you have gracefully avoided the question. Tell me how many matriarchial lines are left. There were over 400 known matriarchial lines before mites. So how many are left that mites did not kill out???


Come on Ted, the discussion isn't going the way you like, that much is obvious, but why demand that Dean spout information that you very regularly pull out yourself. You're not asking for an answer, you're demanding that he prove he knows what for some reason you think is important.

I don't recall how many base pairs the honeybee DNA has off hand but as a comparison, if you trace a human's ancestors back 36 generations, you will find that you have more direct ancestors than there are base pairs in your DNA. His shows two things, first that we're all inbred, and second that there's a certain point where it doesn't matter anymore. Bees move through more than an order of magnitude more generations than humans do in the same period of time. I don't see how useful tracing matriarchal lines is because you can't trace patriarchal lines. The numbers 400 and 35 are pretty much meaningless.


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## Ted Kretschmann

The buckfast years ago was aquired from Binford Weaver.....ARC-1 is the name for a strain of Yugoslavian Carniaolian developed by the Baton Rouge research lab in conjunction with scientist and bee breeders in Yugoslavia. It was a bee developed just for Trachial mite resistance and was released to the breeders of the USA for one purpose only-breed resistance into the genetics of honeybee population-thus increasing the gene pool. The Mnt Gray Caucasians are a very old race of bee located from Annapa Russia to Tblisis Georgia to isolated mountain valleys in the Anatolian mountains of Northern Turkey. What these bees ALL have in common that gives them a genetic advantage over tracheal mites---Tremendous amounts of body hair. The hair protects the airways of the bees in simple terms. But this body hair is not due to pressure from tracheal mite but from an adaptation for the COLD. Dean, according to Baton Rouge there are only about 36 matriarchial queen lineages left that breeders use in the USA. A queen lineage is a variation that has developed distinct characteristics with in the race. Each with some unique genetics that help diversify the species. Kind of like breeds of dogs. So whether beekeepers like it or not-honeybees are in a genetic bottleneck at the present time. TED


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## WLC

My opinion is that when you use the term 'matrilineage',
you are referring to specific breeds and strains that are obtained/produced by queen breeders.

Dean mentioned the use of DNA barcoding and mitichondrial DNA as a way to ID these matrilineages.

First of all, I don't think that it was done for the original 400+ matrilineages that Ted mentioned. DNA barcoding wasn't a mature technology at the time.

Secondly, I wouldn't recommend DNA barcoding as a way to distinguish between the different matrilineages for technical reasons.

The designation of matrilineages belongs in the realm of the Queen Breeder.

Finally, the 'Africanization' of Honeybees in the U.S. has been going on for some time.

It's not a matter of evolution, but it's more like the replacement of a population by another.


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## Ted Kretschmann

WLC you hit the nail on the head. Sadly the africanized bee is even more genetically bottlenecked than the population that is being replaced. And what is a bizzare train of thought....I foresee us going back to Africa to find the solution to the Africanized bee problem. Not all the bees in Africa that the races that provided these bees are the in your face types. And Varroa mite slowed the entry of AHB by six years, so the battle between mite and bee even occurs with AHB. TED


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## deknow

Ted Kretschmann said:


> Sadly the africanized bee is even more genetically bottlenecked than the population that is being replaced.


...hold on a second. The way this bottleneck is expressed is important. The temperment issue may have something to do with inbreeding...but we know for a fact that temperament often deteriorates with outbreeding as well.
These bees are, in the enviroument they are well adapted for, out compete virtually all other bees...to the point where beekeepers are told to requeen twice a year...feral and kept bees. They are reputed to be resistant to all diseases...new and old (yes, they were affected by mites like all other bees...but they bottlenecked some more and have rebounded.
They did what they were originally intended to do....turn around the beekeeping industry in Brazil...probably the most successful (and perhaps the only entirely successful) publicly funded beekeeping research project ever performed.
So, AHB is bad because it is "bottlenecked" stock? ...even though it outcompetes all of the products of intentional breeding programs?

I think you are making my point for me.



> And what is a bizzare train of thought....I foresee us going back to Africa to find the solution to the Africanized bee problem. Not all the bees in Africa that the races that provided these bees are the in your face types.


...nothign bizarre about it. This has been suggested for a long time...I know there is an article in the Spivak edited book on the subject.
...Not only are there other races in Africa with differing temperments...but even among the Scutts, there are lines that are much more manageable. Bringing in more Scutt genetics is probably a good idea.



> And Varroa mite slowed the entry of AHB by six years, so the battle between mite and bee even occurs with AHB. TED


..and you don't think that during those 6 years a "bottleneck" occured in the population....resulting in general tolerance of mites withing most if not all o fthe population?

deknow


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## WLC

AHBs have a reputation as being so mean, you need full body protection to work them.

They're mite resistant because they are as mean as they come. That's how they evolved in Africa.

Now how do you propose that we get rid of that kind of genetics?

I wouldn't be so quick to laud the accidental release (by shear negligence) of an invasive species of Honeybee that has harmed apiculture and native species in our hemisphere.

Kerr blew it. Forget A. m. scutelatta and find something less problematic.


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## deknow

WLC said:


> AHBs have a reputation as being so mean, you need full body protection to work them.


....yes they have that repuation. Have you read accounts (I've posted some of them several times) of the crosses the USDA performed _before_ AHB were imported (Kerr was on hand for some of this research as well)? So mean they couldn't be worked....double suites and all. There have always been mean bees....I'd venture a guess that you've never been in a large commercial yard working bees.



> They're mite resistant because they are as mean as they come. That's how they evolved in Africa.


There is a common mechanism between defensive behaviour against large external predators and and defense from parasitic mites? Really? Please share. Maybe the sting the mites and remove bears one hair at a time?
FWIW, we often hear from beekeepers that they have a really mean hive...but it produced better than all the others....at least in some cases, this is likely because the beekeeper opened the hive and messed with the bees less.


> Now how do you propose that we get rid of that kind of genetics?


Well, for the most part, aside from beekeepers that are using and breeding AHB stock, there is no selective pressure on the defensive nature of these bees. In areas where they are common, unmanaged colonies and swarms are often destroyed (or required to be requeened with "european stock")...there is no "reward" for being a gentle mix of AHB genetics. But as I said earlier, not all Scutts are as defensive as the lines that Kerr brought in...and there has long been talk of trying to dilute some of the defensive nature with more gentle scutt stock..


> I wouldn't be so quick to laud the accidental release (by shear negligence) of an invasive species of Honeybee that has harmed apiculture and native species in our hemisphere.
> Kerr blew it. Forget A. m. scutelatta and find something less problematic.


...if you were involved in beekeeping in Brazil, you would have a different attitude. To call these bees "invasive" with respect to the other bees that are already here might be technically correct....but they are essentially identical to what they are replacing....they occupy the same niches, they pollinate the same plants, they fertilize the same soil, they foster the same wax moth population....from every biological aspect, they are a better bee for the area where they thrive (almost by definition), and they are not like other invasive species that we worry about...they don't displace niches for other organisms (except for "kept bees" and poorly adapted feral bees).

deknow


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## WLC

'I'd venture a guess that you've never been in a large commercial yard working bees.'

I think that there's a big difference between AHB and EHB, no matter where you work them.

'There is a common mechanism between defensive behaviour against large external predators and and defense from parasitic mites? Really? Please share.'

My VSH like to bite on occassion. I'm bigger than a mite, but not as big as some bears I've seen. It worked on me, so I think they (AHB) can chew up mites, etc., pretty easily. 

'...but they are essentially identical to what they are replacing...'

AHB are known to kill unfortunate livestock and wildlife. There is a difference.

'...they don't displace niches for other organisms...'

Uh, what about people? I would keep well away from an established AHB hive.


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## Fusion_power

This conversation rapidly exposes the differences between the beekeepers who want to solve the varroa problem with genetics vs the beekeepers who are hanging onto yesterday's hospital bees. Granted they were not hospital bees 25 years ago, but they are today.

We already have highly aggressive african genetics in the southern tier of states from California to Florida. Bringing in more manageable scutellata genetics would be no loss and potentially a huge gain in those areas. Scutellata has a huge degree of diversity in native areas across africa, but there are also incredibly bad traits that should be carefully avoided with any importation. I can see more advantage to importing Monticola, Lamarckii, and Sahariensis to use in development work for non-africanized regions of the U.S.

Diversifying by bringing in more of the old world lineages would be a huge step in the right direction. However, as long as queen breeders continue to breed from limited numbers of matrilines, we will continue to produce our own bottleneck. At some point, we have to bite the bullet and start breeding for diversity as a primary goal. Ted is bringing in bees from New Zealand to improve diversity in his stock. That is a step in the right direction, but unless some of that diversity winds up in queen breeders hands, it is basically wasted effort. Let me state this clearly and with emphasis, mites are only one reason diversity has been reduced in the U.S. bee population, the other reason is Queen Breeders!

Diversity for the sake of diversity is a self-defeating objective. As Deknow has tried to point out, diversity as such includes disease and pest susceptibility in every possible combination, excessive swarming traits, colony development problems, environmentally unadapted bees, etc, etc, etc. The goal should instead be to maintain a high level of diversity consistent with being productive and manageable. That means we must LIMIT the diversity to specific domains.

Let me add one point to the discussion. 10 years ago, the magazines were full of ads for tracheal mite treatments. You could open to any page and find a handful of treatments from menthol to oils. Today there are almost no treatments for tracheal mites. If you have a mite problem, no problem, just breed from another queen that is naturally tolerant. I personally have NEVER treated for tracheal mites, even though I lost all but 1 colony in 1988. I just bought some Buckfast queens and started splitting and in 2 years I was back up to 25 colonies. 

That happened again in 1993/1994 when varroa mites hit. I lost almost all of my bees. I even wrote a couple of short articles that were published in Bee Culture talking about varroa tolerance traits that I saw in my bees. Today I have bees that have not been treated for varroa in 6 years. They are perfectly healthy and don't need any mite treatments of any sort.

In the long run, honeybees will be better served when we STOP treating for varroa and start using queens that are bred to be tolerant.

Consider that using tolerant queens today can reduce the need for varroa treatments dramatically. Even a little tolerance has a major impact on varroasis.

DarJones


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## Ted Kretschmann

Temperment and hoarding behavior are NOT on the same gene. You do not need overly aggressive bees when it come to honey production. Dean, do you even know what the mixture of races were in the second shipment of the bees Kerr brought in after the first shipment was destroyed by a Brazlian custom agent??? They were not all "Scutts". And yes Brazil may now have the bees that they wanted But getting there completely destroyed beekeeping in that country in the beginning of the process. The release of AHB was not accidental as told. But was a deliberate stock release consisting of many hundreds upon hundreds of queens. Twenty Six queens would not have been able to outcompete an established industry. And even in Brazil today, AHBs are not placed near people or animals. And it has taken 60 years, come on. We in the USA are only 20 odd years into the replacement process and some areas are just now affected. So in the year 2072, beekeeping might return to normal. Somebody please come and tap on my tombstone with a hammer and wake me up when it happens. TED


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## deknow

WLC said:


> I think that there's a big difference between AHB and EHB, no matter where you work them.


errr, yes....in some environments, one completely outcompetes the other...again to the point where beekeepers are advised to requeen twice a year, and prohibited from capturing unmanaged colonies without requeening....just so they can try to keep the weaker bees from being displaced?



> My VSH like to bite on occassion. I'm bigger than a mite, but not as big as some bears I've seen. It worked on me, so I think it they (AHB) can chew up mites, etc., pretty easily.


...there are so many holes in the logic you use here I'm not even going to try and unravel it. I suppose mean dogs don't tolerate fleas, and the aggressive bison don't have flies buzzing around them.



> AHB are known to kill unfortunate livestock and wildlife. There is a difference.


Yes...and the incidence of such things is so common that it makes the papers nationwide when it happens..and then it doesn't always turn out to be AHB. Note that most cases animals are confined. But people and animals were killed by bees before AHB...wolves, birds of prey, trains, cars, trucks, have much more of an impact on livestock and wildlife....and the biomass of birds killed by domestic cats in a single city probably equals the biomass of all the animals killed by AHB. Some reports from brazil are that such incidences are going down as the AHB (which is what beekeepers keep) has started to respond to selection for temperment.



> Uh, what about people? I would keep well away from an established AHB hive.


Stinging insects...even non-stinging insects tend to repel people.

deknow


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## WLC

I've read that AHB will relentlessly pursue hive pests as part of their defensive behavior. Perhaps I was misinformed.

Regardless, I'm not sure that AHB is the type of 'evolution' that I'm looking for.

I bought bees from a reputable producer, who got queens from a reputable breeder. I got exactly what I wanted. I'm very comfortable with the chain of transactions. 

I think that it's a mistake to get bees from a guy who knows a guy who says they're 'survivors' or Africanized etc. .

I can also see why someone running a business would have to follow a similar route because of due diligence. They gotta know.


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## deknow

WLC said:


> I've read that AHB will relentlessly pursue hive pests as part of their defensive behavior. Perhaps I was misinformed.


...this seems like just the kind of statement you would question. The same defensive behavioral traits are responsible for a mass of bees chasing a large predator _and_ picking mites off of one another...and trachael mites? 



> I think that it's a mistake to get bees from a guy who knows a guy who says they're 'survivors' or Africanized etc. .


You are certainly entitled to feel good that you feel you made a good horse trade with your queens. I'm not sure what special thing you think you are getting, but if you don't have experience with the other options, it's difficult to see much value in your opinion on the matter.



> I can also see why someone running a business would have to follow a similar route because of due diligence. They gotta know.


Any queen breeder that provides queens beyond their own state must be inspected and have a certificate to prove it. The best and the worst queens come from operations that are inspected and certified. Beyond that (which covers most liability issues as much as they can be covered), people buy queens based on reputation...and price. Those with a good reputation can't keep up with orders.

deknow


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## WLC

Well, I had no trouble finding that it is in fact hygienic behavior, grooming, and the lower attractiveness of the worker brood to Varroa that are key adaptations of AHB for Varroa resistance.

I think that it's safe to say that AHB has a lower response threshold (they react quicker than EHB) for these behaviors, and defensive recruitment (stinging attack) as well.

Threshold levels are important characteristics of many Honeybee behaviors (like hygienic).

I've had a great deal of experience in purchasing live invertebrates from many different suppliers over the years. I think it's safe to say that going with a proven operation is a good idea. Honeybees aren't the only invertebrates to be afflicted with a range of pests and pathogens.

My bees are definitely VSH. They can bite. Ouch! 

That's what I paid for.

What were you saying about evolution Dean?


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## megank

People....If the answer lies with these "Magic Bees" that can handle their own year after year own without treatment..(I've yet to actually see it in person, not saying they don't exist, just that I've yet to see it), then why do the likes of Spivak, Cobey and others who prolly know a lot more then you or I, are concerned with the recent bottleneck event such that they are importing germplasm from outside sources?

I say it's because they understand the answer does not lie with domestic bees and they understand the need to INCREASE genetic diversity.

If someone has a different opinion on this I'd be interested in discussing as to why.


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## Lost Bee

All I know is that in the old days they used to burn a witch when things got really bad. :lpf:

I bet if breeders had 5000 different races of honey bees to breed from today. 
That we would be all be in the same place as we are now in 20 years. 
Cause people only care about the *Honey* baby.

*Greed* wiped out the buffalo herds and passenger pigeon. 
Honey bees are next. Einstein said: we'll use rocks on the other side.

Say what you all want, I have yet to read, hear or see a beekeeper keeping bees for just the sakes of having bees.


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## WLC

I wouldn't argue with Spivak. She's officially a genius. Cobey does II. I think that they have done some excellent work in the field.

There's just one itsy, bitsy problem with getting in new genetics. I don't think that they're making it easy for anyone to bring it into the U.S. .


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## megank

That's fine WLC...But they fact they they are strongly advocating and pushing it speaks volumes FOR the need to increase genetic variation.

Agree or disagree?


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## WLC

I agree in principle.

But, I also know that importing genetics from abroad can also import new pathogens.

It can even occur in drone sperm of all things.

We need new genetics/stock, but we're scared to death of the next and newest pathogen.


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## sqkcrk

How would new pathogens occur in drone sperm?


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## WLC

Virus.

It doesn't even need to be a new virus, it just needs to be a new strain.


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## Solomon Parker

There is an interesting phenomenon with some viruses which attack bacteria. The virus (which is not a living thing but instead more or less just a piece of DNA) can insert itself into the RNA of the bacteria and when the bacteria reproduces itself, the virus will be copied into the new bacterial cell's RNA. The virus may not re-emerge for many generations and does not exist by itself in the meantime.

Whether or not this can happen in eukaryotes I am not sure, but it's an interesting idea.

By the way, I looked up honeybee DNA and found that it contains 236 million base pairs. That means it only takes 27 generations for there to be more direct ancestors than there are base pairs in the DNA genome of the honeybee. In a very real way, it doesn't matter what there was 20 years ago. The information simply cannot be contained within the available storage space.


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## sqkcrk

WLC said:


> Virus.
> 
> It doesn't even need to be a new virus, it just needs to be a new strain.


I wonder how much this was taken into account when Buckfast Bee sperm was imported to the US and when Weaver Buckfast were exported from the US to Canada via the sending of eggs in comb and semen for AI of queens raised from those eggs.


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## WLC

Don't forget the royal jelly from China.


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## deknow

i've given this discussion what i can...moving on to more productive things.

deknow


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## Solomon Parker

What's more productive than arguing with strangers late at night on the internet? :ws:


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## WLC

What's important about where all of the stock comes from, etc. , is that this is what really drives evolution.

It can be the kind of genetics you were hoping for to move things forward, or it could be an unwanted stressor that pushes things backwards/sideways.


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## deknow

...I don't mind arguing...arguing can actually be productive. It's hard to learn from someone that agrees with you. This, however, has stopped being productive.

deknow


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## Duboisi

Ted Kretschmann said:


> It was a bee developed just for Trachial mite resistance and was released to the breeders of the USA for one purpose only-breed resistance into the genetics of honeybee population-thus increasing the gene pool.


AFAIK - Breeding all bees to resist trachial mites are not really increasing the gene pool, it is to fixate the gene pool. The variations were bigger before all bees got resistant.

It is the same way with all kinds of bottlenecks, the genetic variations are taken away when it comes to one or a few features.

In due time, the variations will come back trough mutations - if the environment has changed enough so that the resulting bee will thrive.


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## WLC

Sol brought up the issue of lysogeny. Where a virus can hide in the DNA of an organism, and then pop out.

Something related that drives evolution has been found by Maori et al. in the Honeybee.

They found that there was a "reciprocal sequence exchange between non-retroviruses and Honeybees leading to the appearance of new host (Honeybee) phenoptypes".

In one case, the insert was a mix of IAPV and a Honeybee Kinase.

That's evolution in action in the Honeybee.

I think that it's the main mechanism by which 'treatment free' beekeepeers are getting their 'new phenotypes'.

I've found evidence that shows that individual Honeybees (workers), in the same hive, will show completely different insertions at a known R2 site.

That's an example of evolution at the level of the individual Honeybee worker.

I've yet to find solid evidence that insertions at this site are passed on in the germ line (by the queen and drones) though.

By the way, this site has been demonstrated to serve as a marker for CCD, Johnson et al. (2009).


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## deknow

WLC said:


> Well, I had no trouble finding that it is in fact hygienic behavior, grooming, and the lower attractiveness of the worker brood to Varroa that are key adaptations of AHB for Varroa resistance.


I'm sure you had not trouble finding these "facts"...but I ask that you do more than look for someone to "say" this...as people say all kinds of things.

Look at the actual research where AHB are actually tested for hygienic behavior...this is not measured by having bees bite your arm hair...it is very well defined (within some variation) by killing capped brood (pin prick or liquid nitrogen), and waiting some period of time (24-36 hours) to see what percentage are removed.

Here are a few studies that look at this...note that hygienic behavior is like defensive behavior...all colonies exhibit it to some extent, it's the degree that is in question. In all 3 of the studies cited (and linked) below, AHB was not found to be highly hygienic (usually considered above 94%?). 

...oh, and I did ask Marla about this specifically, her response was that AHB show a wide range of HYG within their population...like any population that is not being selected for HYG.

http://www.culturaapicola.com.ar/apuntes/revistaselectronicas/apidologie/32-3/aumeier.pdf
http://www.culturaapicola.com.ar/apuntes/revistaselectronicas/apidologie/27-4/07.pdf
http://www.geneticsmr.com/year2009/vol8-2/pdf/kerr041.pdf

...I'm only posting this to correct irresponsible misinformation that has been posted on this thread by those that should know how to do research better.

deknow


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## Ted Kretschmann

O.K. so that is how the bees are evolving to withstand pressures from the mites.....But the mites carry the viruses and basically puncture and inject the viruses into the bees through their dirty mouth parts while feeding. And the mites themselves are also evolving. When Varroa first hit, hives would not last through july without treatment. Now with treatment in large yards with high hive density populations and in the smaller hobbyist operation with smaller hive density, colony survival is slowly inching it way up. Were the most virulent strains wiped out because they were imperfect parasites? Did the treatments knock out the worst of the strains? Maybe the more virulent strain of mites is being replace by the less virulent strain of mite? Both are present in the USA. I know some of the treatment free boys will holler what happened twenty five years ago is not pertaninent to today. But for them, the people that did not live through the original die off. IF they do not understand the history of that event--we could very well repeat it. So what mechanisms are happening on the mite side of the battle that the bees just not have not been able to be rid of the pest......And they, the mites are still here.....TED


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## Solomon Parker

Ted Kretschmann said:


> When Varroa first hit, hives would not last through july without treatment.


Yours perhaps, but not all.


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## Ted Kretschmann

Parker, you were not even keeping bees then. Colonies did not make it when the virulent strain of varroa first hit. It was more like a death sentence. I am sorry, I lived through those dark times. I watched many, many commercial operations go under. Hobby beekeeping too, lost a lot of participants. You can ask other people also. Since you like to contact people, Contact Dr. Jim Tew and ask him. Ask Kim Flottum. Ask Dr. Danka. Ask anybody that has been around before the mites hit. Ask Edward Norman, who lost most of his operation due to Varroa. I survived because I TREATED! TED


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## Solomon Parker

Ted, as I mentioned before, my great uncle did not lose all his bees. So no, I don't believe that it was a death sentence. Not all bees died. Drop too many names and it quits helping your case.


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## honeyshack

Ted, you can not argue with an ideology. It is not possible. They will stick to their beliefs no matter what the cost. Some will even die for their beliefs, hopefully not beekeepers... 

Ted, the best we can hope for is to continue what we are doing, keep the mite numbers down and bring in diversity when requeening..even some of the treatment free queens. But to soley chose one trait over the other...even the honey production trait weakens the bees elsewhere. And it will be visible in the fall. 
There is no one right answer since beekeeping is regional to climate. Personally, i look at treating my bees for mites, like i treat my cows for parrasites...a necessary evil to increase production or rather increase weight gain on the same amount of food as a cow which is not treated, increase better conversion of feed to energy with less input of feed, better conditioning of the cows on less feed which is costly. It is the same for bees, treat for mites to increase production of the hive health, increase the feed to energy conversion on less feed. 
I see a trend on the site...increased feed left on for winter. Instead of two deeps, its two deeps and a medium for survival, or three deeps. Healthyor strong bees need less feed to convert to engery for winter survival. Weaker or weakened bees need more feed because they have a poorer conversion of energy from the relative feed.

For me it is what i need to do. For someone else, they will find flaws with it...that is the way with us as humans.

As to your original post, I think it is a draw at this point. In many years, not my lifetime, we will probably see the bees gain the upper hand. But at that time, something else will come along to sit us on our butts. It is the way of keeping livestock...
What's the saying
When you have livestock, you will have deadstock...it is the way.


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## Fusion_power

At the time varroa first hit, there were NO survivors in many apiaries. I read about a commercial operator who had one single colony that survived out of over 1000. That colony was Carniolan and had mild tolerance to the mites. I personally lost all of my Buckfast colonies in the winter of 1993/1994 but had one survivor colony of mutts that were mostly Apis Mellifera Mellifera. I built back up from that single colony and within 2 years had 20 colonies that were surviving because I treated for Varroa. I lost a LOT of colonies over the next 10 years as I gradually took them off of treatments until 2004/2005 when I stopped treating because I finally got some decent tolerance genetics. That tolerance came from two sources, one was a swarm that I caught that turned out to have several good traits including excellent varroa tolerance, high production, conservation of stores, and very high quality honey collected but one overriding flaw that they would sting at the drop of a hat and they would drop the hat. It has taken 6 years to get them down to normal which means they can be handled with minimum smoke and no veil. The other source was 10 queens I bought from Dan Purvis. They were not all highly tolerant, but from those 10, 2 lines have survived and thrived. They have been freely crossed and multiplied by moving queens among my 3 apiaries. The genetics are diverse enough that I can get reasonably pure matings at one of my apiaries and mostly good matings at the other two. Equally important is that I can get an average crop of over 100 pounds per colony and my best colony this past year produced over 200 pounds of honey.

DarJones


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## megank

Ted Kretschmann said:


> Were the most virulent strains wiped out because they were imperfect parasites? Did the treatments knock out the worst of the strains? Maybe the more virulent strain of mites is being replace by the less virulent strain of mite?


Ka-Ching! That's my guess...


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## deknow

WLC, one other data point for your project.

I did ask Marla if she thought that HYG behavior was metabolically expensive...she said she didn't think it was (which I disagree with)...and then followed by saying that she thought that VSH OTOH, was very expensive, and said that she didn't know what those working on VSH were thinking.

deknow


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## WLC

Dean:

It's a good thing that I specifically wanted VSH genetics to avoid productivity. I don't need excess honey, and I don't need swarms, etc. .

But, I do want a breed/strain that is useful in a treatment free setup. O.K., so I do use food grade treatments instead (peppermint candy is the most recent one I've used.).

I hope that Dr. Spivak does come up with some primers for those hygienic QTLs she mapped. It would be nice to start barcoding something else besides the usual stuff. I hope she finds the genes.

Why do you think that I'm looking at the R2 insertions sites? They make for projects with pizazz.

I can see several main lines for evolution in Honeybees:

Breeders/producers using standard practices.
Treatment Free approaches.
AHB ferals (not recommended).
And, 'instant molecular immunity' via RNAi/retrotransposition.

I'd put hygienic under breeders/producers.
You're under treatment free (duh).
AHB is occurring without control.
and it looks like Monsanto is going to control the last method.

I would have a hard time picking the method that is most likely to produce an evolutionary winner.


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## sqkcrk

Solomon Parker said:


> Yours perhaps, but not all.


 We have been over this and over this so many times.

"Don't treat any bees and in 25 or 30 years the bees that are still alive will be varroa mite resistant or tolerant." Dr. Steve Taber paraphrased.

What he may have said also was that we wouldn't have any commercial beekeepers for 30 years too.

My comment would be that if there are any truly mite resistant or mite tolerant bees out there, why isn't someone raising queens from that stock and making a killing selling queens? Because, where they available, even at a higher cost than what queens cost these days, commercial beekeepers would be buying them and saving money now spent on treatments. It's economics.


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## deknow

Hi Mark,

First, I'm not sure that everything is "portable"....for instance, my wife is the best. However, if she were married to someone else, it might not be so pretty. 

A combination of specific environment, genetics, inhive/inbee microflora, and management practices all come into play in determining if a specific bee or colony is "fit"...what works in my yard might not be exactly what works in your yard. If you have bees that you feed everytime there is a dearth and they thrive for you, they might starve in one of our yards because they don't cut back on broodrearing fast enough...their previous environment didn't require this of them.

I've certainly watched stock that was treatment free succesfully in other beekeeper's apiaries crash when we put them in our yard...curious, as none of the hives around these 2 colonies crashed from mites.

...but let's take your contention that mite resistant/tolerant bees don't exist as fact, just for the sake of argument. When I talk about Ramona and I making our livings selling most of the crops from two beekeepers that simply don't treat (therefore, helping them make their livings), what do you think? Do you think we are all conspiring and lying about the sources/practices? Do you think the beekeepers are "making chumps of us" and we are hapless dupes? I don't mean to be too confrontational, but where do you think the treatment free honey comes from?

I won't share other beekeeper's production figures...they vary from year to year like everthing...but in the cases of these two operations, the overhead is very low, and they are geting higher than commodity prices for honey in the barrel for an exceptional product.

So can any beekeeper just drop in a magic queen poof...no more mite troubles? No, genetics are not a treatment...it is a process that is tightly linked to environment and management. But to say that mite resistant/tolerant bees don't exist is simply not true.

deknow


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## Lost Bee

Here's the cure to all your bee problems.

Check the video in the first post.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...to-CCD-and-all-bee-issues&p=724668#post724668


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## sqkcrk

I don't understand your "portable" comments. Do they refer to something I wrote.

When you say that the honey you sell comes from colonies which haven't been treated I believe you. That doesn't meant that those hives continue to live any longer than anyone elses do.

Mite tolerant/resistant bees may well exist in America, logic dictates that the possibility exists, I just haven't seen them and haven't heard of anyone selling them. Is Michael Palmer producing and selling them? Who?


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## megank

sqkcrk said:


> Mite tolerant/resistant bees may well exist in America, logic dictates that the possibility exists, I just haven't seen them and haven't heard of anyone selling them. Is Michael Palmer producing and selling them? Who?


Nobody I know. There's a guy here in the Seattle area who claims to have had treatment free hives boiling over with bee for quite some time. Naturally, I inquired regarding the possibility of his "Magic Bees" and got the response "I'm not yet at the point of providing queens"

That told me all I needed to know.


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## Ted Kretschmann

Bees drift. Drones move everywhere, thus mites drift...When you moved your friends colonies into your yard, Dean. It is possible that the mites in your colonies were more viralent than the mites that were in your friends bees. Thus your friends bees could not tolerate the innoculation of those mites. Isolation genetics of species that are cut off from others of their species could explain the above scenerio. TED


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## WLC

From the consistent loss of resistance caused by moving reisistant hives into new locations, I think that the resistance is to the viruses that the local mites carry. If you introduce a new strain of viruses by newly introduced mites, or by moving the hive into a new area, then the 'mite resistance' seems to disappear.

There's only one known virus resistance mechanism that fits that type of short range resistance. It's the one described by Maori. RNAi by retrotransposition.


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## sqkcrk

Can there really be all that many varieties of viruses that whenever one moves their bees they expose their bees to a different virus?


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## Fusion_power

WLC, you do a lot of speculating with very few facts to back it up. Why don't you do a few controlled tests to prove what is happening.

sqkcrk, have you tried any of Purvis' queens?
http://web.mac.com/dannpurvis/Purvis_Brothers_Bees.com/Home.html

One major issue that seems to be missed is that you have to completely requeen an apiary with tolerant genetics to get the effect of mite suppression. In an apiary, if 10 colonies are mite susceptible and 10 are resistant, then the mite load in the susceptible colonies will eventually transfer to the resistant colonies and quite often will overwhelm the resistance mechanisms. That is why you have to get a minimum number of queens in an apiary that are mite tolerant.

DarJones


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## Ted Kretschmann

O.K. WLC, we should breed for virus resistance. But Mark has a point, how many viruses are Varroa mite carrying? And how do you explain that the two types of Varroa that we have in the USA have varying degrees of virulence. Is one carrying more of a viral load? We must not forget that these mites are quite able to do severe damage in the form of the physical even without the associated viruses. TED


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## WLC

FP:

Maori's findings aren't speculation. I've seen the evidence with my own eyes in the lab using treatment free bees. Molecular immunity in the Honeybee by retrotransposition and RNAi is very real. Why do you think that they created Beeologics/Remembee which was recently sold to Monsanto?

I couldn't believe how many uniquely different insertions, in individual bees, from the same hive, I was seeing at the R2 site. I was astonished.

Mark:

The RNA viruses involved are known for mutating quickly. It's almost a sure thing that you'll encounter sufficiently different strains of viruses if you move your hives that your bees won't be adapted to them. Just don't allow the mites to get so numerous that they can infect the bees with lethal doses of virus.

I wouldn't be surprised if different strains of varroa harbored different viruses,

SHB has been found to carry DWV.

Viruses that infect the Honeybee have been found in freshwater lakes for example.


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## Solomon Parker

sqkcrk said:


> I don't understand your "portable" comments. Do they refer to something I wrote.


I believe the 'portable' Dean is referring to is the idea that a solution works the same everywhere.


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## Ted Kretschmann

WLC, years ago we had varroa mite pretty well under control. I reckon we had their associated viruses also in balance. That all changed when the hive beetle in the 90's appeared. The beetle knocked the scale right out of balance. Mites started to kill colonies again. The beetles then moved in-slime!!!. It was later that we learned just how dirty a creature the beeltle was with its associated load of pathogens. The mites picked up some of those pathogens from the beetle. The poor bees could not take the increased pressure. TED


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## deknow

Ted Kretschmann said:


> ...When you moved your friends colonies into your yard, Dean. It is possible that the mites in your colonies were more viralent than the mites that were in your friends bees. Thus your friends bees could not tolerate the innoculation of those mites. Isolation genetics of species that are cut off from others of their species could explain the above scenerio. TED


I should say that this was rather dramatic....one day I pulled a frame of capped brood...the uncapping that the bees were doing was astounding...it looked like someone scraped course sandpaper across the cappings. The bees did clean out the mites, and they did seem to recover a bit, but did not make it through the winter (one of the two colonies made it into Feb).

To be clear, neither beekeeper is isolated...and distance between the two apiaries is a few hundred miles. Neither yard was treated for mites (for years), but I will say that the other beekeeper relies more on splitting/nucs than we do.

This was a level of infestation that I haven't seen in our yards ever (and we have lost hives to mites). Other colonies in the yard appeared unaffected.

My point to Mark is that success in this may not be portable. You may not be able to simply "buy" resistant bees....anymore than one can simply "buy" a successful beekeeping operation...someone will sell it to you, and it may be successful when you buy it...but from then on, it is no longer a "successful business", it is a work in progress....one step away from ruin...always needing adjusting and improvising, always adapting.

deknow


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## sqkcrk

Thank you Sol. I'll have to go back and read Deans' Post w/ that in mind.

WLC,
You seem to be suggesting that not moving bees at all is key to resistance to varroa and viruses. An interesting idea. Kinda hard for a migratory beekeeper to incorporate into management.


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## sqkcrk

Thanks Dean. That makes sense.


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## WLC

While retrotranspositon/RNAi provide for local resistance, it doesn't explain why it is local.
There's another form of RNAi at work in Honeybees called PIWI. It keeps those retrotransposed sequences, and thus resistance, from getting into the germ line.

It explains what treatment free beekeepers are seeing, and why investigators found that a very low 1% of the Honeybee genome contained retrotransposed sequences.

Since the Honeybee is using retrotransposition/RNAi as a functioning immune system, you don't want all of those sequences to accumulate in the genome. It would be disasterous with the Honeybee's high recombination rate.

So, treatment free beekeepers are seeing the results of evolution in the Honeybee. Unfortunately, the price seems to be that it is a limited form of resistance.


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## deknow

sqkcrk said:


> Kinda hard for a migratory beekeeper to incorporate into management.


I know at least one migratory beekeeper (Chris Baldwin) who stopped using mite treatments years ago.

deknow


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## Fusion_power

Just curiosity, but how many queens does Chris Baldwin purchase and where does he get them from? I'm guessing he replaces queens with his own stock.

DarJones


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## WLC

The question is: does he bring those bees back to his yard once they go out?

Does he treat at all? Essential oils maybe?

Without knowing more details, it's hard to say if his bees are showing anything more than local resistance.


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## sqkcrk

deknow said:


> I know at least one migratory beekeeper (Chris Baldwin) who stopped using mite treatments years ago.
> 
> deknow


What kind of numbers are we talking here? How many hives does he migrate w/? To where? How does he keep from succumbing to the problems we are discussing?

Sam Comfort migrates too, or has. But when I write about migratory beekeepers, I mean like me, not 25 TBHs.


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## Daniel Y

sqkcrk, why would the number or type of hives make a difference? That is a serious question.
I don't see any reason that the type of hive would make a difference in what the bees living in it would be exposed to. Is there anything about the type of hive that causes bees to be more or less susceptible?
As far as numbers I can only see that in greater numbers there is greater opportunity for instances. For example you will find more cases of influenze in a group of 1000 people than you will in a group of 100.


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## jim lyon

The number of hives makes a huge difference. Larger operations must pool their hives in holding yards on both ends to get the numbers needed pooled for a semi truck load. There is a co-mingling effect before the bees are scattered to smaller yards. The smaller yards are each exposed to their unique area which may well contain someone elses poorly maintained hives and those hives are eventually co-mingled in the next staging operation and on and on it goes. Throw in the stresses of moving and you begin to get the picture. So for someone to insinuate that because a certain migratory operation is treatment free that therefore it is possible to have a treatment free migratory operation dosent factor in the specifics or the scope of the operation.


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## Daniel Y

Ah so a little like taking 20 people from each state and placing them in a rail car, then wondering why every disease in the nation breaks out. I think I get it.


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## jim lyon

That would be carrying it to the nth degree but the concept is correct. No migratory beekeeper intentionally exposes their bees to others bees any more than they have to but the fact remains that the more hives you are moving the greater the exposure.


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## Foster

What I think needs to happen for mites to finally be taken down to a manageable number is, either beekeepers need to stop treating for mites so that all the non mite resistant bees will die and the resistant ones will survive. Or people need to stop killing every colony of bees living in a tree so that these, apparently mite resistant bees, will survive and send out mite resistant drones to mate with beekeepers' queens and swarms to populate beekeepers' hives with a more resistant type of bee.


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## Fusion_power

Take a look at this webpage. This is for the folks who keep complaining that it can't be done. As i guessed, Chris Baldwin does indeed produce all of his own queens.

http://southbeekota.com/RussianBees.html

I would like to challenge others to come up with sources for queens and nucs that have proven mite tolerance.

http://web.mac.com/dannpurvis/Purvis_Brothers_Bees.com/Breeding_Philosophy.html

http://ziaqueenbees.com/

DarJones


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## Solomon Parker

Fusion_power said:


> I would like to challenge others to come up with sources for queens and nucs that have proven mite tolerance.


Fantastic, I like it.

Some complain that Dixie Bee Supply (http://www.dixiebeesupply.com/) is not treatment-free, and perhaps we can ask Don himself and see exactly what he's doing these days, but I've purchased six nucs from him (he ships) and two of those (and their progeny) have survived untreated.

I purchased four queens from Zia Queenbees (ziaqueenbees.com) and the three that have survived robbing problems (growing pains on my part) will be tested over this winter.

Michael Bush (http://bushfarms.com/beesqueens.htm) is offering queens next year. I went to visit him for a week this summer and had a lot of fun touring his yards and helping him make splits and maintain equipment. I'm planning on purchasing from him next.


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## deknow

As far as I'm aware, Don has never claimed to be treatment free. When we bought some bees from him a few years ago, he was very proactive about making sure we understood his practices, and understood that he used FGMO, some essential oils sometimes, ...he also had (in his home nuc yard) open 55gal drums of dry sugar...in plain sight, nothing misleading.

We enjoyed meeting and talking with Don, and temperament of his bees is proof positive of what one can do by culling what you don't want out of the population.

deknow


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## Solomon Parker

From what I heard on a podcast this spring, he mentioned that he hadn't used FGMO in a while. I didn't care either way, my concern was getting small cell bees, and nucs at that.


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## Ted Kretschmann

Foster, if WLC is correct then 1% of bees are truly resistant genetically. And that resistance maybe adapted just for the area the bees have acclimated to. So if we let ALL the bees die, then it is a truly broken and bottlenecked species. Talk about a major silent spring. Talk about starvation for the masses due to lack of pollenation of crops.....1 percent would leave me with about 40 colonies that might be resistant either due to genetics or environmental factors. Either way, I Prefer to have living my other 1900 odd colonies of bees. What the treatment free folks have not realized because they were not around in the beginning at the start of the pestilences. Is that over time people like myself have been using softer and softer chemicals to control the mites. We started out using harsh chems such as mitacur. That was a strip form of amitraz. And of course Apistan, which had a good track record. Then there was Coumophous-check mite strips, which has a tendency to sterilize queens and drones. Now we are into rotation of Chems and the chems of choice are items like Apiguard-thymol, Wintergreen. Over a period of 25 years, with a lot of heart ache and pain, commercials like myself are slowly bringing entire populations forward, along with the matriarchial lines that bore them.We are Using less chems and only those that are enviromentally more friendly towards beekeeping as a whole. TED


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## sqkcrk

Foster said:


> Or people need to stop killing every colony of bees living in a tree so that these, apparently mite resistant bees, will survive and send out mite resistant drones to mate with beekeepers' queens and swarms to populate beekeepers' hives with a more resistant type of bee.


Welcome to beesource.com, Foster.

Your statement indicates a number of assumptions on your part. Who is out there killing "every colony of bees living in a tree"? What makes you think they are "apparently mite resistant bees"? I believe these assumptions are in error on your part.


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## Solomon Parker

Ted Kretschmann said:


> 1 percent would leave me with about 40 colonies ... other 1900 odd colonies of bees.


Could somebody check the math on this?


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## WLC

Ted:

I've never been a fan of the 'Bond Hypothesis', aka 'Live and Let Die'.

It's just not very scientific if you don't know how, or to what, you're bees have become resistant.

It's not just 1% of the bees that have molecular immunity by retransposition/RNAi. It's probably all of them (But, I can't possibly check every single hive).

There was no bottleneck. Just the wrong hypothesis and experimental design.

However, since RNAi seems to be involved in this type of immunity, it means that the bees that have immunity by RNAi/retrotransposition can spread it to others through honey and other similar secretions. The siRNA then gets naturally amplified and spread throughout the hive if the 'disease' is present.

Yup, it's possible that they didn't have to let so many hives die. They just had to shake in 'resistant' bees or put in a frame from a 'resistant hive' to spread the immunity. Even a frame of honey from a 'resistant' hive might have done the trick.

Sometimes 'evolution' has already provided for the answer. You just have to try and interpret the message.

By the way, my 'treatment free', VSH Italians just LOVE peppermint candy. It's like an elixir.


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## Fusion_power

Well, 1% of 1900 is 19, not 40, but Ted is not far from the mark IF you consider his statement to be relevant to bees as of the early 1990's. At that time, the best estimates were that between 1 and 4 percent of colonies showed some tolerance to varroa. Tolerance was and is still relatively rare in commercial lines which is why most commercial bees die if not treated. Since Ted still maintains bees with little tolerance and treats to control varroa, there will be very little tolerance in his colonies. He would very realistically be left with 1 or 2% survivors if he quit treating without taking other steps such as requeening with tolerant stock. For a commercial beekeeper, this would be an earthshaking disaster.

Where I would disagree is if you consider the more concentrated resistant lines available today. I am certain that my bees have survived just fine thank you for 6 years totally treatment free and that they are capable of excellent honey gathering performance. I checked 2 colonies today with 75 degrees, sunny and warm. There were a rough count of about 500 hive beetles per 2.5 story colony but very few varroa with a total of 3 found in 2 colonies, but I did NOT search the brood nest.


Ted, let me ask a question like this. Could you realistically set aside an apiary with up to 40 colonies and totally requeen with known mite tolerant genetics? If you did, could you run that group of colonies separate for at least 2 years just to see what the impact is on your operation? note that 40 colonies is 1% of your bees. It would give a valid demonstration whether mite tolerance is real or a will-o-the-wisp. As part of the test, if a colony showed high mite levels, you could pull that colony out of the group, move it elsewhere, and treat for the mites. That should keep losses to a minimum. Also, you could gauge production to see if mite tolerance brings a major hit on performance.

DarJones


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## wdcrkapry205

Once again this thread has regressed to " Treatment vs. no Treatment". I'm not going to say anything that hasn't already been said by someone. Personally I can see no down side to killing mites. You are not going to kill them all so the survivors and newcomers are still going to be biting and feeding on your bees; and transmitting viruses. As far as I know we do nothing to treat for the viruses our bees are aquiring, we can't even identify them all. If the host dies it has no chance to evolve or develope immunity or propogate it's genetic material.
If I kill mites hopefully I keep the "Virus Load" , not mite load, low enough that my bees survive the viruses they aquire and pass this on to the next generation. To me it's kind of like waiting on the human population to become immune to mosquito bites. This is impossible because mosquitos are here to stay and will continue to bite, we can however hope we will continue toward immunity from the viruses they infect us with; unless of course we all die then no one exist to evolve immunity. This is of course a hypothetical analogy. And of course I want bees that are hygenic and remove, bite and groom off all the mites that they can and I will continue to help them by killing all I can.
Different people keep bees for different reasons, personally I am not very interested in a smaller darker colored bee that swarms excessively and goes year after year and produces no surpluss honey.

OK that's all.Let the attacks begin,
Gary


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## Ted Kretschmann

Guys, I just traveled 8 hours by truck, hauled back 10 tons scrap sugar from north Alabama, so My brain is not working right. So Parker, I missed figured, O.K......WLC, in the past when we could get peppermint candy from Bob's candy cane factory in Georgia, we fed it by the hundreds of tons over the years. A lot can be said by systemic control of mites by feeding something that might make bees a little bit distasteful to those mites. Dar, if you got the resistant stock, we can put the bees through their paces. You might be surprised to learn that we do have some yards that still have some of the old VSH trait in them. So they do not get treated. Albeit these are small yards with any where from 3 to 12 colonies in them. Isolation and low colony density might be playing a factor in their survival also. AND YES, if there is any sign of trouble, in order to save the lineage, I will treat! I abhor losses of bees just to plain stupidy.There has been too much of that already over the years with bees....This thread was started to discuss what is the relationship between mites and bees and who is getting the upper hand. Much has been said about Retrotransposition by a pretty good geneticist as a reason for surviving stock. Others appear to be a die hard Bond Hypothesis supporters. I, myself, believe in bringing the population as a whole forward, treating to allow the bees time to catch up with the problem. Thus I do not loose valuable genetics that might be needed to combat the next plague. Mites too, are undergoing change. As they wipe out susceptable colonies, they wipe themselves out also. Thus the virulent strains decrease as time goes on. Annecdotaly, you see less hitchhiking mites taking rides on bees as they go about their chores. A hitchhiking mite usually ends up a dead mite. So now you see more mites in capped brood. So things change as the dynamics between bee and mite try to become more symbiotic. TED


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## amullins

Forgive me for not reading the entire thread, but I have found it fascinating. My two cents is that I think what we're seeing here isn't so much a case for bee resistance, but mite avirulence. 

http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/uploads/seeley_apidologie_2007(38)19-29.pdf

(All you have to read is the abstract)

you can take a "resistant" queen from one yard, put her in another hive in another yard and all of a sudden her stock will no longer have the resistant traits. The reason is not because of the bee genetics, it's the mite's. They are evolving at a much faster rate b/c of a much faster generation turnover. All social insects go the slow route when it comes to evolution. If you're tracking your bee genetics exclusively, you're missing the most important part of the puzzle.


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## Solomon Parker

The thing about bottlenecks is that without them, evolution is very slow. That's why we get amazing animals on islands. Good examples are giant tortoises, flightless parrots, and the giant moa (now extinct). With a broad and diverse population, evolution is painfully slow because any mutation is immediately watered down by successive generations. Bottlenecks are necessary to move forward quickly.


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## Fusion_power

Mites that are less virulent could explain some results, but not others. When you put a queen with known resistance into a heavily mite infested colony and within 6 weeks the mite count is negligible, that is something more than avirulence.

Brother Adam had something to say about tracheal mite tolerance to the effect that it does not matter what is the exact mechanism of tolerance, all that matters is that 100% of the survivors are tolerant. There is a similar effect with varroa but it takes longer to get it stabilized. You don't have to know exactly why the bees survive, all that matters is that they do. Since I like to know how things tick, this bothers me on a deep level but it is empirically true.

From some work I have done with corn:
If you have a phenotype based test, any test, that 100% positively identifies a genetic trait, then you are identifying the genotype and can use the phenotype to propagate the genetic trait. If you have more than one genotype that results in an identical phenotype, then you must either find a different phenotype to test or else start directly testing the DNA.

An example of the above would be for the sweet corn gene su which causes dried kernels to shrivel. You don't have to know the genotype of the kernel to be 100% sure that it is going to produce sweet corn and therefore has the su gene. The same can be said of any colony that eradicates a mite infestation. You don't have to know how it works or what the gene(s) involved are doing, all you have to do is find the colonies that eradicate mites and propagate from them. This is oversimplified and there are a lot of caveats, but the basic statement is valid.

DarJones


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## crofter

I think that bottlenecks can be seen to be the result of bouts of environmental competition and not 
construed to be a survival tactic to adopt in the face of pressure. Isolation can produce some amazing specimens in the sense that it produces a very specialized adaptation to unique pressures. Remove the isolation factors and most of these wonders of adaptation prove not to be very resilient. 

I will take a broad and diverse approach and slow adaption any day; sharp curves on charts is where the most pain is. We seem to be plotting a lot of them recently. Be careful with your wishes lest they be granted.


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## Ted Kretschmann

Thus bring the WHOLE population of bees forward, giving bees and the mites (unfortunately) time to adapt to each other. TED


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## megank

Solomon Parker said:


> The thing about bottlenecks is that without them, evolution is very slow. That's why we get amazing animals on islands. Good examples are giant tortoises, flightless parrots, and the giant moa (now extinct).


Totally disagree...Bottlenecks are most always detrimental to the species. You're confusing bottleneck effects with the founders effects and divergence....


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## Fusion_power

Whether bottlenecks are detrimental or not is a matter for discussion. The cheetah is a good example of a severely bottlenecked species. However, Solomon is correct that species changes are fastest in small populations.

DarJones


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## Ted Kretschmann

And the cheetah is having reproductive problems related to that bottleneck. They are TOO closely related to one another. TED


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## megank

Fusion_power said:


> Whether bottlenecks are detrimental or not is a matter for discussion. The cheetah is a good example of a severely bottlenecked species. However, Solomon is correct that species changes are fastest in small populations.
> 
> DarJones


Which is exactly my point.

Cheetah's are just a heart beat away from extinction, which is why the zoological societies are stepping in and PROMOTING genitic diversity...not allowing it to be lost with the live or let die mentality.

Ted is absolutely correct..bring the ENTIRE genome forward as bees acclimate towards maladies brought on by mites.


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## Solomon Parker

megank said:


> You're confusing bottleneck effects with the founders effects and divergence....


Perhaps, but it's closely related to bottlenecks and limited gene pool and loss of genetic variability that we're all talking about here. A bottleneck may cause a founder's effect but it only depends on the state of the original population. 

There are many cases to compare. For instance, cheetahs suffered a catastrophic loss in genetic variability leading scientists to believe that all cheetahs are descended from perhaps four individuals. As a result, they suffer from low fertility and birthrates. They are so closely related that skin grafts do not cause an immune response.

However, we're not working with cheetahs, we're working with honeybees whose population is still pretty large with more than two million queens (breeding individuals) in managed colonies in the US alone.



megank said:


> Bottlenecks are most always detrimental to the species.


 Often they are, but despite the protestations of some, honeybees are still very populous. Many still existing species have suffered severe bottlenecks many tens of thousands of years ago and yet are still around. Furthermore, the method of reproduction of honeybees is promotes far more variability than for instance species with dominant males as the norm. While a bison may father 50% of the calves in a herd, the daughters produced by one queen may have any number of fathers and she may produce many swarms in the wild in her lifetime.

We have an agricultural system today which depends on animals unable to survive in the wild. Thanksgiving turkeys are actually unable to breed naturally at all. However, those turkeys are isolated from the breeding population of wild turkeys. And while many colonies of bees seem to be totally reliant on human intervention for survival, they're still in the breeding population which has its effects.


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## Solomon Parker

I guess everybody posted about cheetahs at the same time.


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## Ted Kretschmann

Well if you go from over 450 matriarchial lineages that breeders were breeding from before the mite down to 36 what problems will you have......Well, everybody is griping about the quality of queens the get from us breeder of bees and how they do not seem to hold their fertility anymore. Thus the drones are not able to do a decent job....Sure sounds like the cheetah effect to me. Before the mites a colony of bees had 450+ plus potential combinations of sub families in the super family known as the hive. That is 450 potential different drone fathers for those subfamilies. While I know that not all those combinations were possible in one area, it goes to show that there was much more diversity back 25 years ago in our honeybees populations. Thus there was much more diversity that queen breeding operations had to work with. Now we have 36. How many matriarchial lines would the average bee breeding operation have to work with now? One, possible two, maybe three or four at the most. And the general beekeeping population in the USA wonders why queen quality is going down. TED


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## Ted Kretschmann

Parker mentions two million colonies with reproducing individuals. That is true BUT they are at the moment from 36 matriarchial lineages that are left from the degradations of the mites. Before mites, there were five million colonies of bees that were derived from 450 matriarchial lineages and there were no quality issues with queens in those days.....Sure sounds like the Cheetah effect is affecting us today...It helps to be an old crotchety "geezer" beekeeper that live and worked bees back in the glory days of beekeeping, before mites. TED


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## Solomon Parker

Now why would you put 'geezer' in quotes when what I actually said was "crotchety"?

You repeat these same things ad nauseum ad infinitum Ted, but what is your point? Where are we to go in the future with this information? If what you say is true and we are now limited to 36 matriarchal lines, what is the action? Not what is the effect, we've heard that plenty, but what is the action? What do we do? The loss of genetics is permanent and unavoidable.

Are you saying that treating is the solution to retaining these genetics? Are you saying that treating would have been the solution to preventing the loss of that which is now lost?

If I buy queens from a line and let some of them die, but some of them live, what's the big deal? Surely, the breeder sold to more persons than just me. Additionally, just because there are only 36 documented lines (as interbred as they may be) how many could there be undocumented?

You started this thread, so what's the point? Are you really asking the questions, or do you know the answers and are trying to lead others to them?


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## Ted Kretschmann

Solomon, I hope that there are many undocumented lines out there hidden in some mountain cove. I never said I knew the answers but it seems like the answers are right in front of all of us. We need to diversify and bring in more genetics from overseas. Sol, the ultimate goal of all us, treatment free and treatment beeks is one day to get back as close as we can to what beekeeping was before the problems hit. What the goal is-I hate to even mutter this knowing how much debate has gone on between the two camps of beekeepers-a resistant bee that requires treatment only in emergency. We were all treatment free beekeepers once upon a time back in fairy tale days. Broader genetics will help us get there with a stronger, more diverse honey bees. Sol, you really should not let bees die. You should have another yard set up at distance where those bees that do not make the grade in your breeding program are kept, treated. And then sold off once healthy to somebody else who does not mind treated bees. The reason being, you just might be letting die the bee that contains the genetic resistance to the next pestilence, such as T'Laps. The end result is the same, you have your resistant bees and some money in your pocket from the sale of unwanted bees. TED Thanks to all those that posted on this thread. Sol is right, we are now traveling around in thread circles.


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## WLC

I think that all it takes is the understanding that Honeybees have evolved at least one portable mechanism for fighting off pathogens (retrotransposition/RNAi).

You just need to know that it's possible to transfer this resistance (in the form of siRNA) from a healthy colony to a sick one by management, transfer some bees or frames from the healthy to the sick hive.

So, you can go treatment free, and you don't have to let colonies go under, losing those genetics.

Beekeepers can apply 'instant evolution' (retrotransposition/RNAi) too.


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## Kieck

I think a couple key points are being ignored/forgotten in this thread so far. 

In terms of evolutionary biology, the greater the evolutionary pressure (selective force), the faster evolution or extinction occurs. Think of that in terms of honey bees and mites.

Think, too, of "parasites" and their "perfection" just a little differently. As long as the host lives long enough that the parasite can reproduce and reach other potential hosts, that parasite has good evolutionary fitness. The insect clades are rife with parasitoids. Parasitoids are parasites that kill their hosts in the process. Neither hosts nor parasitoids seem to be in imminent danger of extinction or modification in the vast majority of those species.

And, consider that the greatest number of matrilines that would ever likely be present in a single honey bee hive would be equal to 1 (the queen) plus the number of her mates (the drones). Drift could bring a few extra in, but the number is still likely to be fewer than 30 in any given hive, regardless of the potential number of matrilines on the continent. The number of matrilines on the continent is significant to the total population of bees, not so much to the bees in a single given hive.


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