# mite maulers?



## herbhome (Oct 18, 2015)

A friend of mine in Missouri is planning to try some in the spring so I'll know more than. I see this as the future of beekeeping.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Just a thing to consider if attempting to breed these, don't get too focussed on the bees mandibles, get focussed on the bees ability to detect varroa.

Why? Any bee can bite a varroa mite or can dispatch similar sized intruders to the hive in a second. But we see varroa mites walking around on the bees and think why don't that stupid bee bite it? Well it's because inside a hive is dark, and the varroa mite smells exactly like a bee. So the bees cannot tell it's there, they not going to bite it. To breed bees that bite mites, you are looking for a bee that can detect them.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Just a thing to consider if attempting to breed these, don't get too focussed on the bees mandibles, get focussed on the bees ability to detect varroa.


good point ot. did you happen to watch the 8 second video provided on the page i linked?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CdCaK7ZPMWQXhLaldhb2g0OE0/view


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes, good video.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

yep, maybe they are on to something there. the observation that virtually all of the mites collected in 24 hour drops had been chewed on suggests these bees are good at detection. perhaps that is what's really going on with them vs. having strong mandibles.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

When was the video taken? Where? That is a question that never is asked. I never thought of it either until someone said, it was taken before the organization ever started.

Also, I have heard concerns that bees that are being bred with vsh and maulers are starting to tear out workers in record numbers, affecting the total amount of foragers that they end up with and ultimately decreasing honey stores. But, they were trying to keep a good track of that trait and reign it in some.


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## lemmje (Feb 23, 2015)

squarepeg said:


> did you happen to watch the 8 second video provided on the page i linked?


That was pretty dang cool watching that worker attack the varroa with a vengeance.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

marketing 
The video is of a Purdue ankle biter according to the youtube/vemo versions of it 
further down the MSQ webpage it says 

_"a chewed mite is a dead mite. If you want to see the difference an ankle biter bee makes, watch this!
Here the ankle biter grabs the mite off the tool and immediately starts to chew on it. Eventually she flew off with the chewed mite and dropped it OUTSIDE the hive._"
and links to the video


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

It would be awesome if this works out


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Just a thing to consider if attempting to breed these, don't get too focussed on the bees mandibles, get focussed on the bees ability to detect varroa.
> 
> Why? Any bee can bite a varroa mite or can dispatch similar sized intruders to the hive in a second. But we see varroa mites walking around on the bees and think why don't that stupid bee bite it? Well it's because inside a hive is dark, and the varroa mite smells exactly like a bee. So the bees cannot tell it's there, they not going to bite it. To breed bees that bite mites, you are looking for a bee that can detect them.


In this clip you can see the pain and confusion a bee feels when parasites by mites. It grooms itself until it is able to maul the mite, minute 4...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGa9DKraGA

The others seem not to realize what happens. I read about bees which react to bees shaking themselves to get rid of the mites and starting to allogroom them.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

At 4.07 you see a bee doing a kind of bum wiggling thing. I see bees on the entrance of infected hives doing that and consider it diagnostic for a hive with heavy mite infestation.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> At 4.07 you see a bee doing a kind of bum wiggling thing. I see bees on the entrance of infected hives doing that and consider it diagnostic for a hive with heavy mite infestation.


Seeley speaks in his book "microcosmos of the hive" chapter 6.3.1 of the waggling and tremble dances, both performed by foragers, in one the bee is pursued by other foraging bees to get the information about the flow area, in the other it actively tries to animate bees to take nectar from her ( also in the entrance area plus on all combs).

So maybe one can assume that if the bees can not fly, that trembling is an indication of stress, as OT says?
This would be nice to know for monitoring.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

our bee club got some ankle biters and maulers last year, problem was the cages weren't marked so we don't know which were which, we are also scheduled to get some more this spring. They made plenty of honey, didn't see any sign of them pulling out brood at all, a couple of people have reported that they have lost some over the winter. I have lost one overwintered nuc with an AB from a different source. A couple people were checking for chewed mites, but haven't heard much back, I didn't check them last year, wanted to see if they were good queens first.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

That video is impressive. The ad copy sounds like so much marketing hype, though.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

So, we're really looking for bees with long flexible front legs?


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I tried a couple different Purdue ankle biter stocks, they all sucked. Tim Ives has an II Purdue queen, just about 0% survivability in the F1. Sometimes it's a numbers game in getting the right queens but a lot of people were saying they had similar experience, lot of hype but weren't living up to it. Bill Carpenter selects for mite mauling, his bees do ok, but again, they're not bullet proof and and a fair amount still don't make it, but they're better than the truly susceptible stuff.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

JRG13 said:


> Sometimes it's a numbers game in getting the right queens but a lot of people were saying they had similar experience, lot of hype but weren't living up to it.


hearing the same from a couple of folks who sent pm's.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

So that would be near zero survivability when they are in Tim's hives, or when they have been sold to some other part of the country?


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

JRG13 said:


> I tried a couple different Purdue ankle biter stocks, they all sucked. Tim Ives has an II Purdue queen, just about 0% survivability in the F1. Sometimes it's a numbers game in getting the right queens but a lot of people were saying they had similar experience, lot of hype but weren't living up to it. Bill Carpenter selects for mite mauling, his bees do ok, but again, they're not bullet proof and and a fair amount still don't make it, but they're better than the truly susceptible stuff.


Mr Carpenter is pushing 80 and looking to sell his operation. I certainly hope someone buys him out who will continue his breeding program or encorporate it into a similiar one. I am using his stock in a fairly isolated location with hopes of maintaining the line but am not in a position to do much else.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Me neither, I guess I better order some more queens from Bill this year. I do have at least one left, daughter of a 2016 queen, a breeder from Carpenter. I will be grafting from her at some point as they did fairly well, one of the better hives in the yard but they probably got more feed than anyone else too. I need to finish my hive tracking software and get my hives marked, starting to forget what is where especially after moving stuff around. I know I have a couple other of his queens floating around but I think the sharpie wore off where I was writing on the hives.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> Just a thing to consider if attempting to breed these, don't get too focussed on the bees mandibles, get focussed on the bees ability to detect varroa.


Yeah, that made me wonder. Hardly a universal effort by the workers to go after the mite. Would be a pretty hit or miss to raise a queen that would carry the trait. Turn the few workers with the trait into LW and artificially inseminate with those drones?
How closely related to just mean bee ? 

Was the mite from that hive? Would the reaction have been the same for a foreign bee?

(If your all lucky I might be done rambling for today.)


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## TinyFish (Mar 22, 2017)

Bought some (ankle. Others and more mailers) from Dan Hanlon last year, but we had a shipping mishap and a monster heat wave and lost most in transit. Dan is a super-nice guy and seems squeaky-clean honest. Would not accept any payment even for the queens that survived. Would have ordered again but he sold out very early.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> So that would be near zero survivability when they are in Tim's hives, or when they have been sold to some other part of the country?


Obtained 1 of the 99 2015 II Queens. Of the 99, 47 survived Winter. 
Requeened 40 colonies with F1 in late July of 2015. Lost all 40 Winter 15/16.
II Queen was maintained in 6frame nuc and took into basement in Winter. 
Winter 16/17 lost 29 of 30 F1. 

I declined to obtain another II past 2 year's. 

I'll stick to what I've been doing. 

Still treatment free, haven't fed a hive since 2006, or buying bees.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

rookie2531 said:


> When was the video taken? Where? That is a question that never is asked. I never thought of it either until someone said, it was taken before the organization ever started.
> 
> Also, I have heard concerns that bees that are being bred with vsh and maulers are starting to tear out workers in record numbers, affecting the total amount of foragers that they end up with and ultimately decreasing honey stores. But, they were trying to keep a good track of that trait and reign it in some.


Dan O'Hanlon showed that video at the 2015 Purdue Queen rearing Class. I believe he said someone from Ohio sent it to him couple weeks previous to the course.
There was another video floating around with it, of bees chasing SHB and grabbing by the legs and flying away. Which I shot that video in 2012. Several year's before being involved with any Queen rearing association.


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## IAmTheWaterbug (Jun 4, 2014)

JRG13 said:


> I tried a couple different Purdue ankle biter stocks, they all sucked. Tim Ives has an II Purdue queen, just about 0% survivability in the F1. Sometimes it's a numbers game in getting the right queens but a lot of people were saying they had similar experience, lot of hype but weren't living up to it. Bill Carpenter selects for mite mauling, his bees do ok, but again, they're not bullet proof and and a fair amount still don't make it, but they're better than the truly susceptible stuff.


This got me thinking--the entire colony doesn't need to be "mauler" stock; the colony just needs enough maulers to keep the hive clean. 

What if one carefully nurtured a "mauler" hive and then just donated a frame of eggs from that hive into your productive hives once every 2 months? 

Specialization of labor!


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I think a lot of such tinkering will mean the degradation of all hives involved. You need more beehives to spread the attention/abuse or an additional hobby to take some of the spare time off your hands.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Here's what I found from anything with Purdue stocks in them..... they were swarmy, but not like, they got packed and swarmed... they just wanted to swarm at some point. Secondly, they didn't requeen well or have very good acceptance rates... I split the ones that swarmed down into 3-4 splits from each parent hive and left the parent hive with a cell or two.... I think I got one mated queen out of the lot, the rest I had to re-introduce ripe cells too from other stocks which then emerged and mated just fine. Queen acceptance was below 50% when introducing the mated queens.


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