# Varroa & Resistance



## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

The various options for control for varroa work for a while and then no longer, as the mites develop resistance. And in using them you prevent your bees developing their own natural resistance. You keep weak bees alive and allow them to send their defective genetic material into the local environment, undermining any resistance there.

It is far better to adopt the preventative approach used by all other kinds of stockholder - by bringing in or delevoping resistant bees, and keeping them resistant by multiplying from the best and eliminating the weakest.

Genetic hygiene is a permant solution to varroa, and other pests and diseases. It is the way nature keeps species strong - the only truly 'natural' way.

The treatments bring benefits only to treatment manufacturers, their supply chanis and advertisers. They invest a great deal of money selling their products by telling you that treating is the 'proper' way to fix the problem, and making up stories about how the great 'cure' is just around the next corner. 

These are not beekeepers, but the worst parasite of all. They don't care about healthy bees, they care about their profits, period. 

Fight back on behalf of bees and beekeepers by learning the simple techniques of clean beekeeping. And spead the word - these people have budgets of millions of dollars - but we have the internet...

Mike 

PS See the selected links on my website for more details.


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## PerryBee (Dec 3, 2007)

Hi Mike

While I agree with much of what you have written I cannot help but feel that you are viewing things in black and white only with no shades of gray. How could commercial beekeepers survive what you are recommending? The loss of their livelihood could be the result of the wholesale changes you suggest. While not wanting to seem to defend treatment manufacturers, surely many of them are responding to requests for help by the industry and are not all "parasites" themselves.
If the solution to all of the problems beekeepers are facing today was as simple as "learning the simple techniques of clean beekeeping", do you not feel that the vast majority of us would be doing so by now? Surely no one wants the added headaches and expenses of the chemical treadmill.
I believe you are on the right track with your arguements however it is not always that cut and dry for everyone.

Respectfully

Perry


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

PerryBee said:


> Hi Mike
> 
> While I agree with much of what you have written I cannot help but feel that you are viewing things in black and white only with no shades of gray. How could commercial beekeepers survive what you are recommending? The loss of their livelihood could be the result of the wholesale changes you suggest.


Hi Perry,

The general idea is that any beekeeper of whatever size can move away from a treatment based health regime toward a selection-based health regime, with no losses or drawbacks of any kind. The trick is to simply to discover which are your most resistant bees, and start multiplying from them, and, at the same time, find out which are the least resistant, and start replacing/requeening them. There there is no question of economic disadvantage - and in just a season or two a very distinct economic advantages. 




PerryBee said:


> While not wanting to seem to defend treatment manufacturers, surely many of them are responding to requests for help by the industry and are not all "parasites" themselves.


Well, perhaps. I tend toward the view that the biggest problem current challenging bees is so many people are trying to make a living from 'helping' them. Actually they are doing nothing of the kind. They are simply people trying to make a living - or, in the case of multinational companies, trying to increse the wealth of their shareholders - who neither know about, and probably usually don't much care about, the effects of their actions. 

Taking a harder view: the chemical industries are expert at 'medicalising' health problems in a way that creates an 'addiction' of one kind or another. That supplies them with an endless market, and an endless profit stream. Since profit making is their whole motivation, they are certainly not going to do anything that might undermine that stream. Educating people about ways of managing animal health without medication is not high on their list of important things to do.




PerryBee said:


> If the solution to all of the problems beekeepers are facing today was as simple as "learning the simple techniques of clean beekeeping", do you not feel that the vast majority of us would be doing so by now? Surely no one wants the added headaches and expenses of the chemical treadmill.


We've been panicked into this way of thinking by ignorance and greed. We've fallen for the lie that 'adaptation will take thousands of years'. It hasn't been well understood that species regularly suffer population crashes when new diseases and predators come along, and bounce back surprisingly rapidly. The situation now however is that while many people understand the larger picure, the purveyors of treatments have the stage, and provide the narratives that suit them. 



PerryBee said:


> I believe you are on the right track with your arguements however it is not always that cut and dry for everyone.


I agree completely. But the way out can be seen, and the message is going around fast, thanks to the internet. There's good clear light at the end of the tunnel.

Respectfully 

Mike


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

And in using them you prevent your bees developing their own natural resistance.

I use 100% VSH breeder queens that are instrumentaly inseminated.
I flood the DC, drone congregation, areas with my selected breeder queens that are VSH. Yes, you can buy a VSH breeder queen that is instrumentaly inseminated.

The _Varroa_ can cause major physical damage to the bees.
it is not the feeding damage that kills the bee.
It's what the _Varroa_ is carry as a vector which is like deer ticks and Lyme disease.
Regards,
Ernie


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## olddrown (Oct 28, 2009)

Tell me some more about the VSH bees.Are the bees resistant to the mites?


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## PerryBee (Dec 3, 2007)

Hi Mike:

I like the idea of chemical free beekeeping and can only imagine how things must have been prior to Varroa showing up. I am probably one of those who has believed that a complete change of ideoligy regarding my beekeeping efforts will ultimately result in disaster. If in fact the changes you suggest could be accomplished in a season or two I could possibly be persuaded to give it a go with one of my yards.
Do you use any form of Varroa control, such as oxalic or formic or are you hard core natural?

Respectfully

Perry


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

olddrown said:


> Tell me some more about the VSH bees.Are the bees resistant to the mites?


Yes. The bees cope with the mites through a number of known mechanisms and very likely others that are not understood. If you follow the links from my website you will find guidance to the methods of raising such bees from your own, or feral stock. If you are in the US you can buy resistant nucs and queens - I haven't heard of any available in Europe yet, though I expect they are thee, and I have no doubt they will be soon. 

Raising your own takes no more than multiplying from your most resistant hives and requeening or otherwise eliminating the weakest. It works best if you know exactly what to look for - the 'criteria for selection'. And its important to understand this must be done on an ongoing basis - every year you fine-tune a little. Natural selection never stops, and neither must the husbandryman. All pests and diseases - indeed every kind of weakness - can be controlled this way. And of course the traits you want as a beekeeper bought forward at the same time. 

Mike


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

PerryBee said:


> Hi Mike:
> 
> I like the idea of chemical free beekeeping and can only imagine how things must have been prior to Varroa showing up. I am probably one of those who has believed that a complete change of ideoligy regarding my beekeeping efforts will ultimately result in disaster. If in fact the changes you suggest could be accomplished in a season or two I could possibly be persuaded to give it a go with one of my yards.
> Do you use any form of Varroa control, such as oxalic or formic or are you hard core natural?
> ...


Hi Perry,

Sadly I'm much more a theoretical bee man than a keeper - something I hope to change very soon. So all I can offer is direction to those who do make this stuff work (via my web pages) and do some theoretical infilling.

I hope you'll give it a try. My advice, if you are commercial, is to do quite a bit of reading and planning, and get some guidance from people who are in the game. You could try contacting some of the suppliers of VSH nucs and queens listed at Glenne Apiaries website (bottom of my links page). Do work down the top 6 or 8 pages from my links page - that should convince you that you are on the right track, and give you a very good idea of what is ahead. (Don't worry about the rest of the site unless you want to go deep into the biology - you don't need to.)

If you think I might be able to clarify anything, do ask.

Good luck, 

Mike


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

So let me get this straight.

You do not have bee hives, now or ever?

You are an authority on this HOW?

Maybe before you pass judgement on methods of beekeeping, you should become one and put into practice what you "preach". Then get back to us


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Some folks insist on hands-on experience for everthing, other accept that a bit of book learning can supply useful information too. I kept half a dozen hives for about 6 years back in the late 80's and early 90's, experimented a lot, kept observations hives and so on. (So you are wrong on that 'ever' part) 

I was taught then by an old fella who knew very little book learning, but kept bees, maintained a truly extraordinarily large garden - on his own, and supplied fruit and veg for 6. He'd learned about nature and beekeeping from his father, and he passed some of that on to me. 

I stopped keeping bees when varroa made it impossible to continue (as I thought back then). 

So my beekeeping expreience is thin of late, but I'm not entirely ignorant. And I've spent a lot of time in the intervening 20 years thinking, reading, learning, and talking about it - with beekeepers, researchers, biologists and husbandrymen in many other fields. 

What I try to do now is show folks that what I've learned is... other beekeepers have shown conclusively that these methods work, and that biology allows to understand exactly how. 

It also allows us to understand that with bees treating individuals _always_ downgrades the local genetics. the more you treat, the more you need to treat.

But if you want to reject any and all of what I say that's fine. There is room for all views here. I'm just offereing to show those who don't know about nature's method of maintaining health how to find out about it, that there definately is an alternative to endless chemicals, manipulations and treatments, and that in the longer term you have a much better chance of healthy and reliable bees if you pay attention to genetics. Some people, as you can see, are glad to hear of that, and are open minded enough to want to learn more.

Mike


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

honeyshack writes:
So let me get this straight.

You do not have bee hives, now or ever?

You are an authority on this HOW?

tecumseh:
after a while the dust in the air begins to settle and everything looks perfectly clear.

beekeeping is largely an application driven endeavor.... this or that theory may prove useful but will only prove to be of value if it has some application.


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## rkr (Oct 30, 2008)

honeyshack said:


> So let me get this straight.
> 
> You do not have bee hives, now or ever?


Now, Now, Now Honeyshack....tisk tisk

Mike B has one hive of bees that he got last spring from a swarm. IF they make it through this winter he can have the title of a *Successful* first year beekeeper!!

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=443314#post443314 post #55 

P.s. I have had this discussion before with him.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

My policy at the moment is to jump ship when the nits arrive - there's no known remedy for unreason. 

If anyone would like to talk sensibly about these things you can reach me privately, and we can copy posts back here for others to read.

All best,

Mike


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## rkr (Oct 30, 2008)

So we are "nits"
Is that nitwits or lice nits or nit pickers?


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

There is no need for getting into a verbal fistfight. Whether one currently has hives or not is no indicator of one's ability to think reasonably and discuss beekeeping. In fact, if you have to resort to using that as your defense (attack another who has no hives or is just starting), you've lost credibility in my book.


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

Well, arrogance invites irritation. If Mr Bispham was raising resistant bees he would have alot more credibility on this forum.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

That's my point, Tom. The words anyone speaks about beekeeping do not become credible simply because they are keeping some beehives. You ought to be able to point out and argue any of Mike's claims or statements without resorting to "you don't have any bees." You do keep bees so use your experience and knowledge to refute statements you feel are not true or out of line with what you see in your experiences.


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## cow pollinater (Dec 5, 2007)

tecumseh said:


> this or that theory may prove useful but will only prove to be of value if it has some application.


I have a problem with the actual application of what has been suggested. Bees are my hobby before they are my business so I get to play alot and that has led me to trying just about everything that Glenns (and just about everyone else) has to offer.
Yes, my VSH daughters are indeed much more mite resistant than the carnis or the cordovans. Yes, the russians do really well with the mites even when mated to other drones. (Russians with heavy VSH influence do REALLY well against the mites BTW)
BUT... both the VSH and Russians use brood rearing as a defense. VSH bees actively remove brood that is infested and part of the russians resistance is the hard shutdown of brood-rearing at the first hint of cool weather...
Pollination is what feeds the world. Pollination requires strong colonies. Strong colonies are made with LOTS of BROOD. Therefore, pollination is not done with bees that don't produce wall to wall brood.
Yes, my russians and VSH daughters are coping with the mites, but the cordovan and carni bees that I killed the mites on are the ones that will be ready for the almonds this spring.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Tom G. Laury said:


> Well, arrogance invites irritation. If Mr Bispham was raising resistant bees he would have alot more credibility on this forum.


I raise resistant bees and I agree completely with what Mike says. I keep between 15-20 hives and haven't treated with anything in about 4 years. I lose about 10-15% each year which is the average before varroa arrived. My bees are not VSH or Russian but localized Italians. I just got tired of spending the time and money treating them when I didn't need to. I let the ones that could not handle varroa die off and requeened from the survivors. It was not difficult to do. I lost maybe half of my normal honey harvest for one year, but from a monetary view, I've already saved more than the value of that honey by not purchasing apistan, menthol, terramycin, etc.


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## hoodswoods (May 15, 2009)

So we're back what Tecumseh threads 

"beekeeping is largely an application driven endeavor.... this or that theory may prove useful but will only prove to be of value if it has some application."

We hang on to Ross's and Michael's experience for direction, but even after 50+ (?) years of experience, we still wonder, and find things to be different (as they would expect as well).

Bailing on controversy doesn't cut it here on beesource - even if it gets nasty (4.9 for example) - we just apologize and move on.

I'm sure that all of us appreciate your input, and many of us subscribe to it, but your theory has been tested and the results are not in - as with everyone elses - we're just still trying to find IT.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Cowpollinator,

You make an excellent argument and you are more knowlegeable and experienced than I and most of the people on this site. So, these are questions and not arguments:

1. Could it be that if your VSH and/or Russians were away from the drifting in of bees with varroa from your other hives (or neighbors or ferals) that they would not have to do as much brood removal and would become effective pollinators?

2. Do any of the commercial beekeepers use VSH or Russians successfully as pollinators?


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## cow pollinater (Dec 5, 2007)

> You make an excellent argument


Thank you.


> and you are more knowlegeable and experienced than I and most of the people on this site.


:lpf: Not even close. Thank you kindly but I'm not even close. I'm just a dummy who like to watch bees when he gets home from work. 


> Could it be that if your VSH and/or Russians were away from the drifting in of bees with varroa from your other hives (or neighbors or ferals) that they would not have to do as much brood removal and would become effective pollinators?


Yes, it could very well be. The russians, not so much as they just flat shut down and almonds are about the first thing to bloom here... Hard to build them up... VSH, Here in central CA, I can raise brood pretty much year round, which means I can raise mites year round. To get a level of genetic mite resistance to keep mites under a level that doesn't harm my ability to have bees strong enough to pollinate I have to kill a few on my own. I DO HAVE some VSH/Myn Hygenic queens bred to drones from who knows what that have kind of held their own with drone brood removal in the early spring.


> 2. Do any of the commercial beekeepers use VSH or Russians successfully as pollinators?


I have no idea. I don't speak to enough of them to get a real feel for the industry. I just comment on what I see in my own bees.


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## sylus p (Mar 16, 2008)

So I have this vinyl tubing in my honey house that i use to siphon amitraz, fluvalinate, coumophous, oxcalic (you get the picture) with. I also use this tube when i extract honey to pump the honey from tank to tank with. I sort of rinse it out with water between uses. 

I don't have the answers. Varroa mites really do take colonies apart, they are humbling little buggers. They don't take every colony apart though. And I like that.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Question:
Could it be that if your VSH and/or Russians were away from the drifting in of bees with varroa from your other hives (or neighbors or ferals) that they would not have to do as much brood removal and would become effective pollinators? 

Answer:
Yes, it could very well be. The russians, not so much as they just flat shut down and almonds are about the first thing to bloom here... Hard to build them up... VSH, Here in central CA, I can raise brood pretty much year round, which means I can raise mites year round. To get a level of genetic mite resistance to keep mites under a level that doesn't harm my ability to have bees strong enough to pollinate I have to kill a few on my own. I DO HAVE some VSH/Myn Hygenic queens bred to drones from who knows what that have kind of held their own with drone brood removal in the early spring.

Question:
So, if we could get to the point where no one treats and mites are not continually being spread back & forth, would the bees be able to keep the mites well under control and be as effective pollinators as are the current treated bees? Ending treatments completely may be far in the future. The guys who make a living beekeeping cannot just stop cold turkey(for obvious economical reasons). But as the evidence mounts that CCD was partly caused by accumulations of mite pesticides in comb, and as organic methods become more appreciated, and as the scientists keep breeding better resistant bees, it just looks like that is the direction we are headed. 10 years from now the battle in beekeeping may be between the hobbyists who don't treat and the professionals who do. The hobbyists will be mad because the professionals are speading varroa to our hives.


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## Hambone (Mar 17, 2008)

heaflaw said:


> 2. Do any of the commercial beekeepers use VSH or Russians successfully as pollinators?


4th post.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

cow pollinater said:


> BUT... both the VSH and Russians use brood rearing as a defense. VSH bees actively remove brood that is infested and part of the russians resistance is the hard shutdown of brood-rearing at the first hint of cool weather...
> Pollination is what feeds the world. Pollination requires strong colonies. Strong colonies are made with LOTS of BROOD. Therefore, pollination is not done with bees that don't produce wall to wall brood.


Hi Cow pollinater,

My take on these sorts of complaints is that we're just starting out, and the main job right now is to breed in resistance and what I call self-sufficiency - really just rude health, strength, all-round survival value. 

However at the same time we can select for other traits. The old guy who taught me had, with his pals, spent a lifetime fine-tuning our local bees. I reckon he aimed at strength and vitality first, and only then for things like productivity and ease of handling. (He was also in charge of a very large garden , and has lots of opportunity to get the right sorts of things growing at the right sorts of times - which I reckon helped a lot)

You define strength as large colonies - but is that really the case? Might not say two smaller colonies that do the work of one large one, and are more reliable, actually be preferable? 

I don't think it will take you long - if you have a good measure of control over who your queens mate with - to raise a local strain that is perfect for your needs. You'll never be happy with it of course - what true artist is every happy with his work - and some years you'll know you've gone backwards. 

There are any number of mechanisms that contribute to mite resistance - and resistance to other problems too. We may know the major ones now, but we'll probably never know them all. Some combinations will work better than others. I think the current VSH offerings are might turn out to be just crude beginnings, something to get you started. I can see in a few years time we'll have learned how to build bees we'd die for right now - and how to keep them simply and reliably. The best artists will flourish then, way way ahead of those who maintain a lego-brick approach. Bees are a beautiful complex life-form, one of the wonders of nature, and we're in a position now to truly begin to appreciate just how incredible nature is through them, and to handle them as competently as they've ever bee handled. 

Good luck (and apologies for waxing lyrical there),

Mike

PS thanks moderator and others for support back there. It makes all the difference.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Tom G. Laury said:


> Well, arrogance invites irritation. If Mr Bispham was raising resistant bees he would have alot more credibility on this forum.


Tom, a lot of beekeepers start and stop and start again for a multitude of reasons. In my case I decided to go again last year, when it seemed clear to me that things were improving and raising resistant bees from scratch was a possibility, and I had located a good patch to keep them on. I'm now waiting for planning permission to put up a compound and keep a storage caravan onsite, and hopefully in spring I'll be getting underway.

I agree I'd have more credibility if I'd been doing it for some years already. But 25 years of bee-caring is not to be sneezed at, and book-learning ain't always a bad thing. If you look at my website you'll see I've done some homework. 

If I come across as arrogant at times the feeling is often mutual! To think you know all there is about bees because you've managed keep a couple of nucs on their feet with the help of treatments for a year or two seems pretty arrogant to me! But I apologise. I value the huge range of experience on hand in the forums enormously. 

Mike


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

heaflaw said:


> [...] The guys who make a living beekeeping cannot just stop cold turkey(for obvious economical reasons).


Hi Heaflaw

Its my understanding that any operation can shift gradually from treatment-based regimes to selection-based regimes without even temporary economic loss. I don't think there is any need for anyone to go cold turkey - just systematically multiplying the best and requeening the worst, while going as light-touch as you can with treatments gets you there. The more ill-adapted the current stock is the longer it will take, but that's all. 




heaflaw said:


> But as the evidence mounts that CCD was partly caused by accumulations of mite pesticides in comb, and as organic methods become more appreciated, and as the scientists keep breeding better resistant bees, it just looks like that is the direction we are headed.


I think the breeding will come more in all sorts of common apiaries than in labs. As more and more people cotton on, and some become nerdish about it (and they will) we'll have superb bees coming out of very ordinary locations. Its just such a joyful thing to do that more and more sharp, interested and motivated people will make improvements in leaps and bounds. 



heaflaw said:


> 10 years from now the battle in beekeeping may be between the hobbyists who don't treat and the professionals who do. The hobbyists will be mad because the professionals are speading varroa to our hives.


I reckon the slowest of the professionals will be offering the rest good money to come and show them how its done within a year or two!

Mike


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## cow pollinater (Dec 5, 2007)

> You define strength as large colonies - but is that really the case?


Yes.



> Might not say two smaller colonies that do the work of one large one, and are more reliable, actually be preferable? .


No.
That's not how it works. Weak colonies never have a strong field force and therefore produce less per bee than a strong colony. An eight frame hive will collect something like three or four times the amount of pollen that a four framer will. All of the extra bees are foragers whereas with a dink half the bees are tied up with housekeeping chores. You are better off to have to few strong hives for the job than to have twice as many weaklings.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

...but here's the problem.

different populations of bees display all kinds of different kinds of behaviors. "hygenic behavior" and vsh are among them, and they are found in various degrees.

hygenic behavior will, if at a very high level (i think 94% or above) have an impact on mites, and on afb (and probably other microbial diseases). this is a threshold, not a continuum (ie, 89% doesn't demonstrate somewhat mite/afb resistance).

if, however, one looks at feral populations of bees that show resistance to mites and afb, one finds that they show a wide range of hygenic behavior...and i'm fairly certain that no feral population shows anything like the 94% needed to be effective. these populations use other mechanisms...ones that are less metabolically "expensive" than such a high level of brood removal.

an analogy: you are staffing your honey house. in order to best meet the health codes and provide your customers with a top quality product, you decide that you want employees that wash their hands regularly so they do not spread disease. this is all as it should be.

but here is where it all goes wrong...you decide to screen applicants, and pick those that wash their hands the most...if handwashing is good, then the most handwashing is the best...except that it's not. you end up with a shop full of OCD handwashers who don't get too much work done (they are always washing their hands), and they might even end up with fungal infections from overwashing (and killing off the bacteria that naturally live on the skin and prevent fungal infections). a sanitary and healthy habit of handwashing becomes a distraction and health hazard when taken to the extreme.

if one is agressively selecting for hygenic behavior to achieve some level of mite resistance, one is also selecting against stable and more efficient traits.

to breed for resistance, one must breed for survival first...and nature is the only one qualified to make the culling decisions.

deknow


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Mites have been here for 25 years(almost) now. Another 100 yrs we should have them licked eh!


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

deknow said:


> if one is agressively selecting for hygenic behavior to achieve some level of mite resistance, one is also selecting against stable and more efficient traits.
> 
> to breed for resistance, one must breed for survival first...and nature is the only one qualified to make the culling decisions.
> 
> deknow


I've read before that you are successful without any treatments. So, are you recommending that we obtain bees from feral colonies or just manage as though they were ferals and not try to incorporate VSH, Russians, etc?


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

cow pollinator writes:
I have a problem with the actual application of what has been suggested. snip.

tecumseh:
nothing theoritical nor stuff just scribble down in a book huh cow pollinator? as the old show use to say 'just the facts mam'. dang it too bad all that don't count for some folks.

may I guess you did not PURPOSEFULLY make up or breed any of these bees from sick bees either? which is what some here seem to want to suggest.

so just between me you and the gate post cow pollinator... when you read this or that advice in this forum does experience count for nothing? or perhaps asked in a different manner.. does well polished or slick rhetoric make your bees do better (however measured).

one point in which I would somewhat disagree with ya' cow pollinator is.... I would suggest to ya' that folks do keep bees for a variety of purpose and maximizing the brood and bees is not the ultimate mark of success in beekeeping for everyone (although if I was strickly a pollinator that would work just fine for me without a doubt). also mraz (huh, here I mention that old fellow twice in one night) suggested that without a lot of added 'human' resources those queens that did maximize brood rearing quickly weaned themselves from the population (essentially because they brooded themselves beyond their resources). some what like cattle (or just about any population you might wish to consider) the most resilent and efficient stock is stuck right in the middle of a population. the basic genetic idea/concept of 'reversion to the mean' suggest this quite directly.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

heaflaw said:


> I've read before that you are successful without any treatments. So, are you recommending that we obtain bees from feral colonies or just manage as though they were ferals and not try to incorporate VSH, Russians, etc?


well, first, let's make sure we are talking about all the same things.

1. success: well, we've got colonies alive after 3 years of no treatments, we tend not to feed in a dearth, and when we do feed, we feed honey. our efforts are towards breeding (and refining management practices) at this point, and not towards honey production....it will be, but a stable population si the first step.

2. russian bees and vsh are totally different concepts. russian bees are a "race"...from a population of bees that adapted to their local conditions and stabilized into a recognizable set of characteristics.

"hygienic" is one set of traits (measured by freezing a small area of capped brood and seeing what percentage the bees remove in 24 or 48 hours), and "varroa sensitive hygienic" is another set of traits (measured by the percentage of varroa infested cells the bees chew open i believe).

there are two issues wrt "incorporating" either russian bees, vsh, or hygienic bees into one's operation.

first, there is what i talked about in the previous post...these behaviors are always present to some degree. they help the bees in some ways, but they also cost the bees. only in a system where people are measuring and selecting for high levels (high cost) of these behaviors do they appear at such high levels...they are too expensive to sustain without intervention, their payoff isn't worth the cost. 

there are however, population of bees that are varroa resistant (or tolerant), both in feral situations, and kept bees. these bees have been selected for survival, and these bees do not tend to be overly hygienic. by making this the primary selection factor, we short circuit the bee's ability to find the best way(s) to combat disease, and impose one that doesn't work as well.

secondly, there is the approach to breeding (on both small and large scales), of bringing in a little of everything and mixing it all together. i don't think this is a good approach (it certainly isn't how races generally mix in nature). starting with whatever you have (with untreated locally adapted stock as the ideal) and letting the population settle into something somewhat uniform is, i think, a better approach.

although the proponents of hygienic and vsh see them as something to incorporate and select for, the head of the russian breeders association will tell you to only keep pure russian bees...that hybrids need to be treated whereas pure russian stock isolated can be kept treatment free.

the problem is that all of these approaches are looking at an easily measurable artificial metric (mite count, dead brood removed, number frames of brood, etc), and pretend that what they are measuring is equal to survival or productivity. survival is survival, and productivity is productivity.

deknow


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow;475231 but here is where it all goes wrong...you decide to screen applicants said:


> I can't agree with this one Dean. Selection isn't about only 1 trait at a time. If you're selecting for survival...as you say...and you have several colonies survive, would you not use the colony that survived but also showed the other traits that you want in your bees?
> 
> And if selection of good workers in your factory only focused on hand washers, then you would get good hand washers. But, if selection focused on hand washing AND work ethic...and you selected out (fired) the trash, then you would have workers with a good work ethic that washed their hands properly. Yes?
> 
> ...


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

michael, i don't disagree with anything you say here...but here's the difference (i'll quote you from another thread).



> Chalkbrood...I like to keep close track of Chalkbrood as an indication of hygienic bees.


i would phrase that differently...i would say that "i keep close track of chalkbrood as an indication of the susceptibility to chalkbrood"

the method that i'm speaking out against is not what you said, but would be the opposite:
"i freeze brood to measure the removal rate as an indication of the susceptibility to chalkbrood"

wrt the handwashing analogy, yes, you want workers with a good work ethic...but do you need workers that wash their hands more often than necessary (ie, more often than when they touch something unsanitary)? someone who washes their hands every 10 minutes regardless (and spends 5 minutes washing them) can well have a good work ethic, but simply can't perform on the job the way that someone who only washes their hands when necessary can (all other things being equal). 

we've established the reasons/circumstances where it's important to wash one's hands, and following such established procedures prevents disease from spreading. someone who has a compulsion to wash their hands if they say a dirty word isn't any more sanitary for having done so. handwashing takes time and has benefits (i recently went to a restaurant and saw a kitchen worker leave the bathroom without washing his hands...i won't go back...in this case, not washing cost the restaurant business), but more benefits are not accumulated if hands are washed more than necessary.



Michael Palmer said:


> Selecting for survival alone won't help. It's only the first line in your criteria. What good are the bees in a production apiary that don't produce. They might as well be dead...so you save all the maintenance costs. We have to look at the whole ball of wax.


many people have productive bees that survive within a given treatment regimine. given that, how do you stop the treatments? you will lose a good number of your productive hives if you stop (and you've already done all the work to select for productive bees with the treatments).

it seems to me a lot easier, faster, and more effiicent to start by selecting for survivors with the basic management practices that one wants to use in the end. once you have survivors, breed for productivity. the other way around (breed for productivity and then try to find those that will survive without the treatments) seems like a lot more work, and big losses are almost assured after you have built up you population...seems like the wrong way around to me.

deknow


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Interesting stuff...

One point worth making perhaps is the idea that all this is a continuous, ongoing process. The art of beekeeping has to be one that involves continuous selection. And it might be worth saying as well, as things get better and local wild populations become more influential, two things will happen. A) the selection criteria will shift, as self-sufficiency in health becomes a non-issue, and other desirable traits will be more actively pursued; B) unless you are in a position to fight back hard, whatever nature decides is the right sort of bee for your locality is what you will have to work with. 

In other words there are perennial rules and guides, and different strategies for different contexts. 

These things are not applicable to the same degree in every place, or to every keeper. For example, a good habitat that can support a healthy wild population is a very different beast to a thin habitat where the keeper is pretty much on his or her own. The rules of nature apply in both places, but different strategies will be needed.

I think too, sadly, some operations will always want lego-brick operations, and will always medicate to maximise their gains - and the rest of us will have to try to ameliorate the damage that does. That doesn't mean we have to like it - or that we have to stop arguing that there are better ways of achieving the same ends.

Mike


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

mike writes:
One point worth making perhaps is the idea that all this is a continuous, ongoing process. 

tecumseh:
well at least we can agree here. there is nothing static (never has been as far as I can tell) in regards to rearing bees... the ultimate results of this is that even if grand daddy did beekeeping absolutely correctly, things have changed enough that you likely will not want to keep bees in the exact same way.


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## steffes (Feb 12, 2008)

What do you thoughtful guys think of Larry Connor's article in ABJ challenging clubs to make a concerted effort at breeding for mite/disease resistance?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Mites have been here for 25 years(almost) now. Another 100 yrs we should have them licked eh! 

Not as long as we keep treating. But if we stopped it we could to it in four years or less.


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## Stonefly7 (Nov 3, 2005)

Mike Bispham, thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts. There are alot of lurkers here who will appreciate and gleen from information you shared. 
Some folks can apply organic type keeping, some can't or won't. Paradigm's are hard to change. 

I can only speak for myself. Started bees in NY in early 80's, moved them to the midwest, moved them to the south, then moved them to the high plains about three years ago. No chemicals of any sort, ever. Same bees from same stock, breeding strong queens from strong colonys. Kept only what I could manage at any one time, most being 28. Least being 4. Mentored by an old beek who is 88 now and still manages 80 hives.

I enjoy Mr. Palmer's site and have gleened some of his idea's that have been sucessful for him. I enjoyed reading Mr. Conrad's study and results of his experience. Mr. Tecumseh has had some interesting points that he has shared as well. My point is, there is a buch of interesting techniques out there that folks are willing to share, and I for one appreciate it. If someone puts out, what I think will not work for my application, I just don't use it. I don't slam him for being different than myself. 

Sorry, some of the earlier post got my grey beard shaking. For the first time, next spring my job will allow me to expand at a faster rate than my splits will allow. I will be purchasing some nucs from a TX beek for faster expansion. I will let you know how it goes with the new stock, and share the results. Im sure the strong will survive and the weak will pass.

Thanks for listening.


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

I think deknow is way overthinking this... You are going to wait for your populations to be stable? Man, they are never going to be stable! Keeping bees is like patching the holes of a leaky ship all the time. This is husbandry, not math! There is always another curve ball around the corner. Palmer knows what he is doing...(I am not so sold on his "wintering nucs" idea, but he still brought in 50T last year)...All this "planning for the future" will glean you nothing. The time to make honey is now. You build your foundation every season and then build up as high as you can. There is no prize for 3 years without treatments. Honey is the prize, buddy! Golden sweet honey! I gives me pleasure to fart around with my bees on a nice spring day and work them, but that is only part of it. Good management is a good thing to do, but not a thing in itself.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

mythomane said:


> I am not so sold on his "wintering nucs" idea...


Well, your in Texas.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

mythomane said:


> Keeping bees is like patching the holes of a leaky ship all the time. This is husbandry, not math!


All other fields of husbandry involve securing the future health of the stock through selective breeding. That is the foundation of organic husbandry. (And actually, genetics is very much math!) Husbandry is only like 'patching the holes of a leaky ship all the time' when you are going about it an amaturish way. The idea of husbandry is to take as much of that out as you can by having the strongest stock you can get your hands on.



mythomane said:


> All this "planning for the future" will glean you nothing. The time to make honey is now. You build your foundation every season and then build up as high as you can. There is no prize for 3 years without treatments. Honey is the prize, buddy! Golden sweet honey!


A lot of fine beekeepers would take a great deal of satisfaction from managing to go three years without treatments. There is a good deal to be said for 'make hay while the sun shines'; but there is more - life is not all about the gold you can amass - there are deeper satisfactions. Playing your part in securing the health of future generations is something many people find worthwhile.

(BTW, Did you ever have the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper read to you when you were small?)

Best wishes,

Mike


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## John Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

A 2nd year keeper, so I don't have the depth of experience and info others do. I read these exchanges with great interest and all I wanted to add is that I appreciate the debate, the point - counter point exchanges. Reading these exchanges really helps round out for me as a new keeper the knowledge I am building and gives me options to consider and implement. Appreciate it.


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

As far as saving the bee for "future generations" -- bees have been around millions of years without our "help" and I have faith they will continue on. I realize there are "deeper satisfactions" but if bees did not provide us with the basic benefits of pollination, honey, wax and income I strongly doubt that many people would keep them. It would be like owning an ant farm. Genetics may be complicated, but it is not math just because it is analytical in nature. As far as 3 years being impressive, I do not really think so, especially if you look at the number of hives we are dealing with here and when they were acquired. You think a short time span like that says much about his stock? Nope. You could have bought nucs from any major supplier and still have results like that with a little luck. Though I believe in selective breeding, half a lifetime with these girls tell me that a "firm foundation" is illusory. I know keepers with 40+ years of experience that woke up one morning and lost most of their (thousands) of hives. It has always been so, and it is not because these men do not know what they are doing. Nature is going to take her toll with any pandemic. Mites, CCD, Foulbrood, etc. You ready for Tropilaelaps? I would like to see a strain resistant to that.

Your parents ever read you The Journal of a Plague Year as a child?


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

mythomane said:


> As far as saving the bee for "future generations" -- bees have been around millions of years without our "help" and I have faith they will continue on.


I agree. However it is clear that at the moment the community of beekeepers is not making things as easy as they could. While we are certainly protecting the bee from the worst of modern agriculture, we are also - mostly inadvertantly - undermining the health of future generations by all too often ignoring the factor of genetic inheritance. 

We have, I think, a responsiblity to stop acting in such ways. The animal in our care should be taken care of - both for its own sake and for the sake of future beekeepers and those future generations that will benefit from the presence of health bees, or suffer from their lack. Beekeepers should be encouraged in the art of true husbandry, not simply shown how to 'work' bees for short-term gain.



mythomane said:


> I realize there are "deeper satisfactions" but if bees did not provide us with the basic benefits of pollination, honey, wax and income I strongly doubt that many people would keep them. It would be like owning an ant farm.


I think I disagree. I think many people keep bees these days for mostly the fascination of doing so. How many hobbyists actually turn a profit once all costs - including labour - are taken into account? The odd few jars of honey are a bonus for most, not a primary reason for keeping bees. And such hobbyists outnumber commercial beekeepers by orders of hundreds (at least here in the UK they do - I haven't seen figures for other parts of the world). For the great majority of beekeepers it is a hobby, an interest, not a business; and what interests us is, in good part, learning about the wonderous complex inter-relatedness of nature, and her magical mechanisms. 



mythomane said:


> As far as 3 years being impressive, I do not really think so, especially if you look at the number of hives we are dealing with here and when they were acquired. You think a short time span like that says much about his stock? Nope. You could have bought nucs from any major supplier and still have results like that with a little luck.


Ok 3 years is not long - but the points are still good. Such things depend almost entirely on where you are - and what the local genetics are like. And that... depends in turn almost entirely on what the local beekeepers have been up to in recent years. In the UK, where in most places wild bees that are varroa-tolerant to any significant degree are in very short supply, and there are no suppliers of resistant nucs or queens, any beekeepers managing to maintain say 10 hives for 5 years would I reckon have cause to be pleased. In parts of the US, where the wild bees supply healthy genes, that would be a piece of cake.



mythomane said:


> Though I believe in selective breeding, half a lifetime with these girls tell me that a "firm foundation" is illusory. I know keepers with 40+ years of experience that woke up one morning and lost most of their (thousands) of hives. It has always been so, and it is not because these men do not know what they are doing. Nature is going to take her toll with any pandemic. Mites, CCD, Foulbrood, etc.


You are right that the next outbreak is always just around the corner, and it will take its toll. As long as people are allowed to transport bees willy-nilly this is likely to be an ongoing problem. But it takes nothing away from the idea that well-bred stock will outperform badly bred stock a lot of the time, and that selective breeding must occur continuously just to prevent stock becoming ever-weaker. We must attend to the genetics in order to simply maintain the health and resistance of our stock; and that means understanding the way treatments fatally undermine the process. 

Those beekeepers who do nothing to improve the resistance of their stock will always be more vulnerable that those who do. This is where your idea of 'this is not maths' comes in... we can't calculate the future precisely, but we can certainly shift the odds in our favour with the 'firmest foundation' we can arrange.

Mike


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

Well, I appreciate a thoughtful rejoinder...
Why are mite-resistant bees in short supply? You cannot import queens or semen into the UK?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

mike bispham said:


> The various options for control for varroa work for a while and then no longer, as the mites develop resistance. And in using them you prevent your bees developing their own natural resistance. You keep weak bees alive and allow them to send their defective genetic material into the local environment, undermining any resistance there.
> Mike


Steve Taber basically stated this idea some 22 years ago. To paraphrase him, since I don't know the exact quote, "The best thing to do to defeat varroa is to not use any miticides in our hives. And in about 35 or 50 years we will have bees that are naturally resistant to varroa. We won't have any Commercial Beekeepers, but we will have mite resistant bees."

Some have tried it. Many have failed. But I'm sure that it can be done on a small beekeeping scale.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

mythomane said:


> Well, I appreciate a thoughtful rejoinder...
> Why are mite-resistant bees in short supply? You cannot import queens or semen into the UK?


I appreciate hearing your side too! To be honest I haven't looked into the situation properly yet. I've been optimistic about about finding local wild bees to try to work with, thinking that i important for a variety of reasons. But that might require perhaps more patience than I have, so I'm starting to think about buying in. If I take that decision I'll be looking harder in the spring. As far as I know, nobody in the UK supplies varroa resistant nucs or queens - but I could easily be wrong. I haven't really thought about importing at all, and if it turns out to be possible I'd have to give it a lot of thought. In general terms I like the idea of trying to restore our historical stock. 

Mike


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> [...] Some have tried it. Many have failed. But I'm sure that it can be done on a small beekeeping scale.


If you explore from the links page on my website Mark you'll see the effort is well advanced, and highly successful - although it works best on a larger scale. It is now clear that we could all move away from health regimes based on reactive treatments to health regimes based on selection - and that until that happens we ourselves will continue to perpetuate the problem of ill-health in bees. 

Best,

Mike


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

mr palmer writes:
Well, your in Texas.

tecumseh:
I is too....

following your suggestion I will be 'overwintering' various sizes of nucs (baby nucs, 5 frame mediums and 5 frame deeps) which I made up this past season. I am doing this with the hope that it will make the spring season a bit less frienzied. I will let you know how it goes.

at this time I think this little experience has educated me as to when I might expect the drone population to fall off enough to make rearing new queens fuitless.


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## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

End up overwintering all kinds of stuff due to chance down here. Especially this season with nothing but rain. I am still getting swarm calls. They get thrown in a nuc box with gallons of feed over their heads. I checked the weather reports from the past ten years, and it looks like there are 10-15 days each month Dec-Jan that they can break cluster easily and get to it. Hopefully I can nurse some of these weak ones through. My attempt at intentionally splitting up into nucs a la Palmer was a disaster as they were robbed out almost immediately. I know, I know, I should have put them in an outyard...I am toying with the idea of just jump starting early with australian package or florida nucs. This last year I started a lot of hives small and late and they never got off the ground. These are the perils of fresh clean comb, but hopefully it will pay off later. Following in others footsteps I scrapped my old operation and started over fresh a few years ago. All new everything, no chemicals, etc. Anybody read E.W. Alexander? He uses this great phrase: "Start Right." and then follows with "Do not move slowly." Well, I have to boil up some more syrup. Good ol Wal-Mart had the 1.50/4 lbs sugar sale last week. Did you know you can fill one of those shopping carts up to 500 lbs no problem?


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Mike:

Once you get some bees, I wish you as much success with them as your apparent web page success. Experience has shown me that success with a webpage does not necessarily translate into success with the bees out in the field. My bees are not too computer savvy but when it comes to nectar look out!!!

Jean-Marc


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## JonEdangerousli (May 8, 2007)

mythomane said:


> Did you know you can fill one of those shopping carts up to 500 lbs no problem?


Those riding ones hold even more, if you count the rider...


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