# Interesting varroa theory



## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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I cannot understand the meaning of this. Even today beekeepers pay too much attention to "nurse" bees according mites. The honey yield is the goal of beekeeping, not "mitekeeping".

Mite makes no harm when you handle them. Just kill them. No small cells, natural cells, topbars, regressed bees, round hives, what ever you get in mind !

To save the globe is either the meening of beekeeping  )

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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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When hive becomes larger, swarming control becomes more difficult and swarming is bigger problem to yield than mites.
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## TwT (Aug 5, 2004)

I got to say just from me that site sounds like someone needed something to type and couldn't come up with hardly nothing,,,, just sounds stupid to me!!! give this author attention because he needs it!!!!!!!! not the poster, sorry, the one that wrote all that bull in the link!!!!!


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

I'll have to chew on this for a while.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Many of us are trying to figure out how the feral bees are surviving without treatments. The rest are still insisting that they aren't.









I find that dichotomy interesting.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

I really don't care. By definition, feral bees cannot be kept. If they are kept, then they are no longer feral.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Ted says,
"I got to say just from me that site sounds like someone needed something to type and couldn't come up with hardly nothing,...."

Must be a beesource member


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

I must say, I do beleive many beekeepers think just becuase they go do a cutout or find some swarm and think there are no standard hives within eye sight, that some collected swarm or bees, along with the application of the term "feral", means they have some strain of bee better than anthing else out there. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"Feral" is an overused, and misused. But like much in beekeeping, there will never be a clear consesus or agreement.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

Here's another reference to manipulating the orientation of the brood nest. The long, narrow structure of the nest as opposed to the ones we prefer for the management of the bees to our liking is intriguing. Anyone know whether this approach has been proved/disproved with field experiments? It's new to me, other than the top bar hives.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/nest_integrity.html



> The honey yield is the goal of beekeeping, not "mitekeeping".


Well, I have to respectfully disagree with Finman on this. I'm reminded of the first day of class in business school (so many years ago). The professor asked us what the goal of a business organization was. "Profit!" was the answer from the students. Wrong! The first priority was survival. Profit was secondary. I would think that if one asked the beekeepers who have lost thousands of hives whether they would prefer to have their colonies intact or a crop of honey, most would prefer to have the live colonies. There's always next year with a live colony. There's not much prospect of a crop the following year with an empty box.


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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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I visited in Jugoslavia 1983 and in Serbia. I visited in beekeeping shop and they sold me varro drug. It was smoke tuff whic was very carsinogenig. However they have had mites - I suppose - 30 years. 

Here is one new research on varroa defence in Serbia. Over 95% of hives had hygienic behaviour (Australia 10%) 34% showed grooming ((?))

http://www.vet.bg.ac.yu/~biolog/ljudi/zoranstanimirovicCVeng.htm

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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

The survivor feral nests here in PA tend to have massive nest structures. I have also noticed that the nests may have drone being reared several feet from the position of the broodnest, with queen traveling between the two patches to lay, and this would have an effect on varroa reproduction in worker brood.

Although, distance may play some part here, there is most certainly traits that are also associated with varroa resistance which allows these ferals to build such massive nest structures to begin with. These feral colonies that had large nests in the wild tend to do much better with varroa suppression when placed in bee hives. Therefore, I do not believe nest size is a significant factor in varroa suppression, and massive nest size basically the result of improved health because of highly developed varroa suppression traits.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

--I really don't care. By definition, feral bees cannot be kept. If they are kept, then they are no longer feral.--(A)

Well, I will continue to refer to my bees as ferals because the lines originated from the wild population of bees, and not from some commercial breeder mill. When placed in my hives they need no treatments witch further distinguishes them from commercial lines that require pampering. So in calling them ferals I am distinguishing them from the run of the mill commercial bees. 

PS. I am totally content that others will be grieved by the definition of feral for the rest of their lives OR until they die.


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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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xxxxxxxWell, I will continue to refer to my bees as ferals because the lines originated from the wild population of bees,xxxxx

I just read that there is no wild european mellifera bee. USA has only imported tame bees, unless you count Africanized bee original to America. 

It is same what is feral. It is like horse or cow. You cannot find any more original wild anchestors. Or home cats? Where cats come from? And wild cats.
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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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xxxxxxxWell, I will continue to refer to my bees as ferals because the lines originated from the wild population of bees,xxxxx

I just read that there is no wild european mellifera bee. USA has only imported tame bees, unless you count African bee original to America. 

It is same what is feral. It is like horse or cow. You cannot find any more original wild anchestors. Or home cats? Where cats come from? And wild cats.
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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

xxxxxxxWell, I will continue to refer to my bees as ferals because the lines originated from the wild population of bees,xxxxx

Sorry Finman,

A typo, I meant to write:

Well, I will continue to refer to my bees as ferals because the lines originated from the FERAL population of bees.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

"Where cats come from?"

New Orleans. They then spread to Chicago, Kansas City, and New York. Nothing like a N'awlens cat that knows his way around a saxophone.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Finman,
Wild is different than feral, at least in English. One could even make the argument that Apis mellifera hasn't yet been fully domesticated as we have only recently learned to control there breeding enough to select for desirable traits. Also, there are wild bovids, at least in the U.S. (Bison bison), and it is unclear if the cats of Syria and North Africa are wild or feral, but they definitely exist without human care.


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## db_land (Aug 29, 2003)

Kentucky has plenty of wildcats. A bobcat cross with a house cat will keep the dogs out of your yard!


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

Different theory, I'd say.

I wonder if the oblong brood nest on the vertical axis in a "feral" colony gives falling mites more opportunities to snag themselves as they drop?


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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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Hi gyes, I surely know what is ferals 

Many keep too noice about their ferals of wilds.
German black was he first mellifera in USA. Does it exist any more? In Finland varroa killed almost all colonies even if it was the most usual race here. It was quite a wild bee stock because selection was difficult among these devils.
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## Sasha (Feb 22, 2005)

Hello beekeepers,
that article is writen by Ian Rumsey. He is an English beekeeper not a Serbian one.
Here is link to his writings: http://www.beesource.com/bee-l/biobeefiles/ian/index.htm

Finman wrotte:
I visited in Jugoslavia 1983 and in Serbia. I visited in beekeeping shop and they sold me varro drug. It was smoke tuff whic was very carsinogenig. However they have had mites - I suppose - 30 years.

Here is one new research on varroa defence in Serbia. Over 95% of hives had hygienic behaviour (Australia 10%) 34% showed grooming ((?))
http://www.vet.bg.ac.yu/~biolog/ljudi/zoranstanimirovicCVeng.htm


....
I doubt we had mites for 30 years.
You should read better the sites you are reffering to.
Autor says: "Hygienic behaviour was expressed in a range from 95.12% to 99.50% in potent honey bee colonies with one-year old and two-year old queen"


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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

To Sasha

According this varroa have not found or searched 1976 in Yugoslavia. http://www.apimondiafoundation.org/foundation/files/1976/O.F.%20GROBOV.pdf

However around 1980 it was there.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN THEN , 95% from what?
"Hygienic behaviour was expressed in a range from 95.12% to 99.50% in potent honey bee colonies 

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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

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Now I found a list how varroa was found in countries. When we found it in Finland, it killed hives and it means that mite had been here at least 4 years.

Distribution
The varroa mite is now cosmopolitan, being found in Indonesia (Oudemans 1904), Singapore (Gunther 1951), and USSR (Breguetova 1953); it was found on Apis m. mellifera in Hong Kong (Delfinado 1963) and Philippines (Delfinado 1963). It quickly spread to the Peoples Republic of China (Ian Tzien-He 1965), India (Phadke et al. 1966), North Korea (Tian Zai Zai Soun 1967), Cambodia (Ehara 1968), Japan (Ehara 1968), Vietnam (Stephen 1968), Thialand (Laigo and Morse 1969), Czechoslovakia (Samsinak and Haragsim 1972), Bulgaria (Velitchkov and Natchev 1973), South Korea (Delfinado and Baker 1974), Paraguay (Orosi-Pal 1975), Taiwan (Akratanakul and Burgett 1975), Argentina (Montiel and Piola 1976), Poland (Koivulehto 1976) Romania (Orosi-Pal 1975), Urguay (Grobov 1976), Germany (Ruttner 1977), Bangladesh (Marin 1978), Brazil (Alves et al. 1975) Myanmar (Marin 1978), Hungary (Buza 1978), Tunisia (Hicheri 1978), Greece (Santas 1979), Iran (Crane 979), Libya (Crane 1979), Turkey (Crane 1979), Yugoslavia (Santas 1979), Lebanon (Popa 1980), and likely other countries. Again, the mite was first detected in the USA in 1987 and has spread to most of North America. A full description of varroa's introduction, spread and economic impact has recently been published (Sanford 2001). 
Description


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## Sasha (Feb 22, 2005)

With all due respect,I see you are an old beekeeper and I am a green novice,but it seems we have a language problem,English is a second language to both of us.
I have re-read the article on Serbian, and it is same as I understood it on English.
The STRONG colonies with one year queen have 95% of hygienic behavior.When you take all colonies including the weak and middle strength colonies and calculate the hygienic behavior you get the number of 35% which is the percent of hygienic behavior I think that most of strings of bees have,somewhat more or less.Am I right?
I was under the impression that you have meant that this scientist said that our bees are 95% hygienic?


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## Finman (Nov 5, 2004)

You are right. It is hard often to understand reseaches' text even if it is my own language. 

. Hygienic behaviour meanst that to bees it given a 10 cm round piece of brood. Pupae are killed with freezing or needles. 

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/hygienic.htm

If bees have tendency (genes) to hygienic behaviour, they clean killed pupae in certain time. Australians have found 6 genes which affect on behaviour.

Grooming means that bees have ability to scratch a mite away from her body. 
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/pdf/2001/01/m1107.pdf


It is normal to inform that how many out of hives hives have ability to do trick. HIve is full of different genes and different bees. No one can calculate internal rate to behaviour. 

But in article what means grooming, I don't know

"grooming behaviour was expressed only in potent honey bee colonies with one-year old queen at all 11 localities, where the number of damaged mites ranged from 36,05% to 39,61%. The damaged mites were separated into six categories."

http://www.doiserbia.nbs.bg.ac.yu/Article.aspx?ID=0567-83150501069S

In our country queen breeders do not test hygienic behaviour. 

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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

first finman sezs:
In our country queen breeders do not test hygienic behaviour. 

tecumseh replies:
here they commonly do, although most folks would have greater faith in testing done by independent and/or scientific bodies.

finman sezs:
HIve is full of different genes and different bees. No one can calculate internal rate to behaviour. 


tecumseh replies:
now I am not absolutely certain what this statement is suppose to mean finman??? but it definitely does not sound exactly correct to me. I would think measurement of genetic connection behaviorial traits would suggest geneotypic makeup... ie phenotypic behavior suggest genotypic makeup.

lastly it is my understanding that full blown hygenic behavior is connect to seven genes and not six (originally in the days of afb it was thought to be related to 2 genes)


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

VSH is related to two genes. Other genetics and factors such as colony size will affect dead brood removal. Although this is an area of fertile research, from a breeder's standpoint, the best test is still the liquid N2 freezing, and breeding of only those colonies that perform well. Hygienic behavior cannot yet be maintained by simple inbreeding in my opinion (unlike the SMR trait).


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