# Resistant stock characteristics



## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

I've noticed that resistant stocks seem to have some common characteristics that haven't been addressed in advance.

They've got some decidedly un-domestic characteristics.

I've seen it in the Dee Lusby, and Tim Ives videos. I've heard it being reported by those who have feral derived colonies. And, I've seen it first hand with my own 'store bought' bees.

MG, we weren't given a complete description.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

I don't think you have seen it in the Tim Ives videos. I asked him once about the temperament of his bees. In his normal cryptic way he did not answer directly, didn't even use words. His answer was to post a pic of him with no veil, wearing a t shirt, working a hive.

My best guess is his meaning was his bees are calm.

Mike Gillmore, I've been there too, replicated every detail touted by the TF experts religiously. Didn't work for me. I'm still selling small cell nucs till it's all gone.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

I know feral characteristics when I see them.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

You and everybody.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

MikeG, the thing is, its not just MB, I believe Joe Clemens has said he has no varroa issues, and there are others here that claim success with similar tactics and virtually no varroa pressure. But no question, they are in the absolute minority. As you say, there could very well be some other obscure component present that is a common denominator with that minority of TF beeks. I keep thinking if I go the same route they are, like you did, what are my chances of success after doing an overhaul of my whole operation, and if I'm not successful, then what? It's certainly a scary thought.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

Scary, indeed. There is nothing more heart wrenching than going through a yard in late November and finding every colony dead. 

If I remember correctly, I seem to recall reading posts from some regular cell beekeepers who are also successfully TF. Adds another twist to the tale if that can be confirmed.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

Well, the way I look at it, it won't be the end of the world if it turns out I have to treat to keep bees. But my thinking is that starting out TF, with foundationless combs, and as many other positive factors as I can manage is more likely to lead to success without treatment than treating and then trying to wean my bees off treatments later. No one really seems to be able to quantify the negative effects of treatment, but most reasonable folks agree that there must be some. Whatever effects there are, they probably linger even after treatment is stopped, so I think those who treat and then go treatment free have a tougher road to travel than those who start out treatment free.

Besides, as an ignorant beginner, I can blame my initial losses on being an ignorant beginner.

Win!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*



WLC said:


> I know feral characteristics when I see them.


You do? How would you characterize feral characteristics, comparing those characteristics to nonferal characteristics.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

My own opinion is that we're not being given enough relevant information on which hives should be used for TF beekeeping.

They'll have characteristics that I would call feral or non-domestic.

If they're runny, or flighty, or vibration/sound sensitive, or if they boil out through frames or entrances, chances are that colony is a candidate for TF beekeeping. (We'll just requeen the overly defensive/aggressive ones.)

You don't want to simply stop treating domestic stocks.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

WLC, actually I agree with what you're saying, because I have seen it with some of my own colonies that exhibit most of the characteristics you mentioned. The overly defensive hives that I have had in just the last couple years appear to me to maintain stronger populations and hold on quite a bit longer before they finally succumb to varroa. But then again, I'm not doing anything, not yet anyways, like MB and others are doing with their TF bees, such as natural cell or small cell, narrow frames, keeping contaminated wax out of the hives etc. If I were to change over to most of those practices and using those same bees that I spoke about, quite possibly I could see a longer term survival rate, instead of the current 8 month to 1 yr. that I am experiencing with the majority of my bees.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

jmgi: If you do indeed have resistant feral colonies in the area, since research seems to indicate that their drones mate earlier than domestic stocks, you might want to do a few early splits. They might be good candidates for going TF.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*



WLC said:


> If they're runny, or flighty, or vibration/sound sensitive, or if they boil out through frames or entrances, chances are that colony is a candidate for TF beekeeping. (We'll just requeen the overly defensive/aggressive ones.)


Interesting.

Do Dee's bees act this way? Michael Bush's? Solomon Parker's?


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*



sqkcrk said:


> Interesting.
> 
> Do Dee's bees act this way? Michael Bush's? Solomon Parker's?


I've seen Dee's bees look runny (among other things) in a video. I've also seen Tim Ive's bees boil up through the frames when he opened his hive in one of his videos.

I haven't seen a video from the other TF guys. At least not one where I could easily observe any of the behaviors mentioned.

However, I've read posts from other TFers that match the 'feral' description.

Perhaps the feral characteristics are dominant and inseparable from resistant stocks.

That could explain why, after so many years, they're not making money hand over fist selling resistant queens/bees and loading up trucks with their resistant bees to do pollination work.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

>Do Dee's bees act this way? Michael Bush's? Solomon Parker's? 

Some of Dee's are runny. I wouldn't say all of them. I occasionally see some runny bees, but most of mine are not. I've never seen Sol's.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*



Michael Bush said:


> >Do Dee's bees act this way? Michael Bush's? Solomon Parker's?
> Some of Dee's are runny. I wouldn't say all of them. I occasionally see some runny bees, but most of mine are not. I've never seen Sol's.


Well, I would ask, "Do your resistant stock have any of the characteristics associated with ferals?"

I've noticed a smaller morphotype in my own hives. Since my queens were open mated, I have a larger morphotype, resembling the parent stock, and a smaller morphotype, which likely came from the local hybrid swarm.

So, I would say smaller bees is one characteristic. I would also suggest that it's the reason why they take so well to small cell.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*



WLC said:


> I've noticed a smaller morphotype in my own hives.


Likely the ones that got chewed by varroa. Same happens in my hives when mite numbers are up.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

Smaller bees are characteristic of AHB/ferals.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*



Oldtimer said:


> Likely the ones that got chewed by varroa. Same happens in my hives when mite numbers are up.


True, I have seen those pathetic little ones too.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

My smaller bees are anything but pathetic. I refer to them as 'spitfires'. Different color, size, and behavior.

No, they're not Varroa victims. They're a deliberate result of open mating by the breeder.

It's sort of like getting 50% VSH bees. Except that the 50% are the local hybrids.


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## justin (Jun 16, 2007)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

are you saying i can't take a big gentle italian bee that was bred for honey production for the last 200 years, and had all the wild bred out of it, put it on small cell, maybe breed it locally once or twice to my other fat italians and expect it to fight off varroa? i felt like the feral part of micheal bush's stock was an important part of his success, and he includes that in his explanation for his success. i have been adding vsh queens to my mix hoping that selective breeding for other things would create a tougher bee. people went to great lengths for a long time to create the gentle bees we keep today, it should take a lot of work to turn them back into survivors.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

MB doesn't know about his local genetics. He attributes his success to small cell.

You can get VSH Italians and go treatment free. Just get them at least 50% VSH and requeen yearly.

However, U.S. Italians are mostly hybridized by now and not really actual Italians.


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## Birdman (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

where does the feral bee come from. I do cut outs and catch swarms and I do get some with a marked queen. What does a feral bee look like, I thought they were all domestic that swarmed.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

*Re: Why not use Oxalic Acid?*

In some parts of the country, actual resistant ferals are relatively common.

Maybe you could ask Tim Ives where he got his?

It's not so much what they look like, it's that they have some obvious un-domestic characteristics.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

WLC said:


> I've noticed that resistant stocks seem to have some common characteristics that haven't been addressed in advance.


Since you have noticed this, could you give us some kind of idea of how many colonies you have experience with. How many 'domestic' and how many 'feral'?
There have been at least a few studies through the years (Spivak in the past, Ashley Mortenson's work in FL and some work in GA that you have referenced a few times) that try to corrolate AHB behavior with AHB genetics. Invariably, it turns out that the expert is not able to reliably identify AHB or EHB based on colony behavior.
The difference between AHB and EHB should be more stark than 'domestic vs feral'...at least it is a distinction that can be objectively considered.
I question that you (or any of us) have done a comparison between observed behavior and any kind of definition of 'feral' that could lend any kind of credibility to your claims.

deknow


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## justin (Jun 16, 2007)

"Here's another thing that I don't see a downside to. If you breed from your survivors you'll get bees that are surviving where you are against what they face there. They will mate with the local ferals who are also surviving. The propaganda that you can't raise queens that are as good or better than commercially available queens is just that - propaganda. The same with the need to requeen early in the Spring. Early queens are often not well mated and often not well fed. Assuming you don't treat, you don't requeen regularly and you use your most successful survivors, your queens are more likely to be better because of the following:

They are locally adapted.
They are bred from survivors.
You can raise them at optimum times to have plenty of nutrition and plenty of drones.
They are probably never caged and go from laying in the mating nuc to the hive they are put in with no break. This develops better ovarioles and that makes better pheromones. This results in them be more long lived, laying better patterns, swarming less and being accepted better.
You save a lot of work. If you keep queens longer and mate from those that succeed at superseding at appropriate times you have bees that can requeen themselves. This will save you a lot of labor in finding queens and introducing queens as the bees will take care of this.
Even on the hives you requeen, you can save labor by requeening with cells and not bothering to find the old queen. The new queen will typically be accepted and you didn't have to spend the day looking for the old one.
You save a lot of money. Open mated production queens go for from $15 to $40 and breeders go for much more.
You can easily keep spares in nucs and have queens whenever you need them."

from the bush farms website, there are other references throughout his posts and his writings.


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## justin (Jun 16, 2007)

"You can get VSH Italians and go treatment free. Just get them at least 50% VSH and requeen yearly.

However, U.S. Italians are mostly hybridized by now and not really actual Italians. "

i wasn't looking for management advise, i was pointing out that the small cell crowd also advocate for better genetics as part of the reason for success. i agree with you that feral surviving bees are better suited to survive TF, i just don't see the cover-up.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

"I question that you (or any of us) have done a comparison between observed behavior and any kind of definition of 'feral' that could lend any kind of credibility to your claims."

Dean, we know that AHB characteristics can be dominant and difficult to breed out.

The same can be said for Amm.

As for objective, peer reviewed studies, we know what they usually say about TF or small cell. No evidence.

My own observations, the videos, and posts related to TF behaviors/bees, are objective.

PS-Both you and Ramona took the video of Dee's bees. I know what I saw.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I didn't think so.

deknow


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

deknow said:


> Since you have noticed this, could you give us some kind of idea of how many colonies you have experience with. How many 'domestic' and how many 'feral'?


He considers the queens that he buys from TX from Weaver's feral queens. How we as beekeepers have not come to a consensus on the definition of feral, and some other terms, is beyond me.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Well, I would ask, "Do your resistant stock have any of the characteristics associated with ferals?"

I have never seen a definitive list of “characteristics associated with ferals”. I suppose I could come up with my own. They tend to be smaller. They are inconsistent in their runniness and propolis production. Meaning SOME of them make a lot of propolis, while some of them don’t. SOME of them are runny and some are not. They tend to keep more drones over the winter than Italians. They tend to overwinter in smaller clusters than either Italians or Carniolans. Then tend to be winter hardy and frugal. But all of these are only tendencies and not anything you can count on.

>are you saying i can't take a big gentle italian bee that was bred for honey production for the last 200 years, and had all the wild bred out of it, put it on small cell, maybe breed it locally once or twice to my other fat italians and expect it to fight off varroa?

Possibly. The harder things to breed for are winter hardiness and frugalness in an Italian.

>MB doesn't know about his local genetics. 

Since I have pretty much nothing but local genetics, I’m not clear what this is supposed to mean. While I’m sure there is much I don’t know, I probably know more about the local genetics than most people locally…

>He attributes his success to small cell.

For Varroa? That was the tipping point, yes. For hardy, healthy bees that survive the winter here? That’s mostly genetics from local feral survivors.

>it should take a lot of work to turn them back into survivors.

Selective breeding can work quite quickly. If you stop propping them up so you only have the survivors, it’s surprising how quickly you can breed bees that can survive without treatments.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

WLC said:


> My own observations, the videos, and posts related to TF behaviors/bees, are objective.


If I look at two hives, one of which I buried a cat under, I can make all kinds of objective observations about the differences between the two hives.
It is when I start to draw general conclusions based upon observations of a single dead cat buried under a single hive (and compared with another single hive) that I've gone over the edge.
deknow


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Mark, I've said that BeeWeaver open mates their Italian/Buckfast stock. I've never referred to their queens as 'feral'.

MB, thanks for describing some of the characteristics you're seeing.

Dean, the reason why we should put together a list of the characteristics of resistant stock is that many feral characteristics are dominant. They'll be useful to know for someone considering going the TF route.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Hmm.. While that might "work", the result over time would be that people would be selecting for those characteristics rather than proven resistance. And some of those characteristics are not desirable.

As resistant bees appear now to exist even though not totally bullet proof, in my opinion the emphasis should be on improving their characteristics. All the normal old fashioned things like gentleness, lack of swarming, honey production, etc.

I still wonder why the commercial sector has not adopted beeweaver queens wholesale. When I asked I was told they got mites and died just like all the other bees. But I also suspect it may be down to undesirable characteristics making life harder in a commercial context. Sorting that, could be part of what's needed.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

WLC said:


> Mark, I've said that BeeWeaver open mates their Italian/Buckfast stock. I've never referred to their queens as 'feral'.


Sorry. Thought you did. So, where have you observed these feral characteristics if not in your own hives? Videos?


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Yes to both Mark. As well as in posts.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

More confused now. So you have observed feral characteristics in your own colonies, which are from from Weaver's, but aren't ferals?


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Mark, they're open mated, so you'll get some workers that resemble the parent stock, and some that resemble the local hybrids.

It's one way of getting resistant bees.

I've also referred to how early 'feral' drones fly, and how that is reflected in when a queen is mated.

I have an April and a June queen.

Try to remember that this is a spin off thread from 'When not to use OA'.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

How do you know what is "feral?" For that matter, what does "feral" mean when you are talking about bees? (These are not rhetorical questions -- I don't understand this conversation.)

I catch swarms every year, and they are consistently inconsistent in all kinds of ways. Also, most of the time I have no real idea where they came from. I don't know how I would label any particular swarm as feral.

Oddly enough, the rankest bunch of bees I caught last year (which I suppose I would have labeled as "feral") came out of guy's managed hive. Not sure why he was keeping those sorts of zinger bees in a neighborhood. When I caught that swarm I gave the property owner and his wife the speech about swarms being gentle, and when I touched that swarm it turned into a stingfest that involved the homeowner and really, really, really involved me.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

WLC said:


> Try to remember that this is a spin off thread from 'When not to use OA'.


How does that affect a discussion of 'resistant stock characteristics' or feral / non-feral bees? :scratch:


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Neil:

When I refer to 'feral' characteristics, it's relative to the characteristics of commercial/domestic stock.

While I'm not referring to aggressive or overly defensive bees, since they're not suitable, I am talking about some other characteristics that aren't desirable.

Runny, flighty, drippy, sound/vibration sensitive...

We could probably spend time compiling a longer list, but I'm making a specific point.

If you're getting resistance genetics from survivors/ferals, they will most likely include some undesirable, DOMINANT, feral characteristics as well.

What I'm saying is that it comes with the territory.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> How does that affect a discussion of 'resistant stock characteristics' or feral / non-feral bees? :scratch:


If you had to pick a colony to start going TF, those characteristics should indicate that they would be a good candidate.


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