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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] Bee breeding
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:53:34 -0500

A key point that would-be bee breeders must fully appreciate is that the queen is only half of the equation. The incredibly difficult part is controlling who the daddy is. You may buy or somehow breed the most wonderful queen in the world, for whatever trait, but her virgin daughters are going to mate with whoever is in the neighborhood, knocking your genetics back to lousy. The only ways to have true control over the drone population are to 1) use instrumental insemination (not incredibly hard but the equipment is very expensive), 2) move to an otherwise bee-free environment (e.g. an island, or in Seeley's case, a remote forest), or 3) provide so many drone-mother colonies that you overwhelm the local population (an expensive and difficult exercise, and my guess is that it would be impractical in Orange County).

This is why is it easy to RAISE queens but difficult to truly BREED them, i.e. the way dog breeders can control mating in order to shape the characteristics of a breed. Most people don't observe this problem because they don't have anything to objectively judge the genetics of their bees with. I see it all the time though. I enjoy keeping Carniolan bees, which are a very pretty dark color, gentle and thrifty with winter stores. The queens are a brownish black. I bring them into my bee yard, and by three or so generations down the line, my pretty Carniolans look just like everybody else's yellow Italians. Even though I have several hives of them, they've been mostly mating with the local playboys. Breeding for varroa tolerance is not unlike breeding for color, but is especially challenging because many of the anti-varroa traits that bees possess are carried by the drone's genes. Plus we first must uncover bees with the traits we want to breed for, which isn't easy when we cannot readily see them.

This isn't meant as a discouragement -- I still keep trying with my Carniolans -- but it is a reality that must be understood.

Randall Austin

On 1/21/2013 3:11 PM, Lewis Cauble wrote:
1446350974.10183.1358799104307.JavaMail.vpopmail AT mail.hivebody.com" type="cite">

For those interested in breeding locally adapted mite tolerant bees, I found an article that might be very helpful.  I haven't finished reading it yet but it seems to fit very well in this discussion.  I'll just leave this here.

 

I will also add that Google Scholar is an awesome resource and encourage folks to mine it for information.  If you are planning an experiment, mine Google Scholar first as there is a good chance someone has already done it.  Interested in the latest IPM fad?  See what the egg heads discovered when they tried it.  If it didn't work for them and you still want to use the method you can use their work as a baseline. Add or subtract elements to/from the protocol described in their work. 

 

Lewis


On January 21, 2013 at 12:52 PM Catherine Adamson <cadamson AT alumni.unc.edu> wrote:

 Great info, Lewis! Having tried the Bond method I am also warning folks off it.

It's true that some colonies are weak and should not be fed and supported in that condition.  But the solution there is combining or requeening if early enough in the season.

The other point to keep in mind is that even if one could select well for mite resistance this way, bees are dealing with more than just mites around here.  I had a colony last year in third year without treatment which did not show mite amplification (unlike most of my test colonies). 

It handled mites like they were nothing.....and fell to the great shb plague of 2012.  The fact that colonies must handle multiple lethal threats at the same time makes breeding for mite resistance by Bond method implausible unless you have very deep pockets and tolerance for annual losses in excess of 80%.

Catherine
>
> On Jan 21, 2013 12:38 PM, "Lewis Cauble" <lewis AT hivebody.com> wrote:
>>
>> It absolutely is a warning to hobbyist trying to breed resistant bees using the Bond method.  It is not meant to discourage hobbyist from breeding resistant bees.  It is only warning you that the Bond method is not a suitable way to do it. 
>>
>>  
>>
>> Varroa resistance is a trait in our bees and studies indicate that between 3 and 10% of our bees have this trait.  If you have a group of 100 colonies you will likely find between 3 and 10 colonies with these good traits.  How do you identify these traits?  Monitor mite pressure in untreated colonies.  Those colonies that are keeping infestation levels below 10% without treatment should be bred from.  Those that are not should be requeened with genetic material from those that are.  Monitoring infestation levels is required.  This was the point I was trying to convey with the ABJ attachment the other day.  I have a strong untreated colony that had at the end of the summer 4 mites in a sugar shake of 300 bees.  This is my breeder for 2013.  Doesn't mean she is going to produce daughter queens that lead resistant colonies, but it's a start.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Tarpy's point was that watching colonies die from varroa infestation and replacing them with package bees is going to be a waste of resources.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Why not give your breeding program a boost by bringing in some VSH queens from a reputable breeder?
>>
>>  
>>
>> I believe Seely's experiment demonstrated the avirulence of mites in feral colonies.  In this setting, mites can ill afford to kill their host as the next host colony is quite a distance away.  He moved his feral queens into managed yards and they did not fare any better than other colonies in the yard.  The bees were the same in the managed and feral colonies.  The mites were different.  In a managed setting, it is no big deal if a colony of mites wipes out its host colony.  They simply hitch a ride to the colony next door and continue their no good ways. Here's a link to his study. 
>>
>>  
>>
>> Lewis
>>
>>
>> On January 21, 2013 at 10:59 AM Just Bee <marty AT justbeenc.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for the links. I especially like the  Bond article. I did not however see any reference to 50 hives in Seeley's work. Seems to be warning against hobbyist. Only point missing is if a community or group decided to do this then the size of the "kept" bees or number would not matter. Bees don't care if I think I own them of 10 of us do. So I disagree with the 50 hive threshold. Seems an easy way to discourage hobbyist or sideliners given how far bees fly and feral colony's there will always bee some genetic mixing. 
>>>  
>>> As to the "Monsanto" sponsored conference...NO Thanks! To have such a sale out as Hayes come and be apart of the joint conference speaks volumes to the massive disconnect in our bee groups and to a larger hold the big AG has over this industry. I fully understand this is just My view but for Monsanto to be allowed to placed a speaker at 3 different times within the conference to promote how they are gonna "help the bees" is not for me. 
>>>
>>> They make and sell products the kill and/or effect bees...any type of support of that by our State Bee groups is a disappointment. 
>>>  
>>> So no thanks.
>>> Marty
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On Jan 20, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Lewis Cauble < lewis AT hivebody.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>  
>>>>
>>>> Hello Beekeepers, 
>>>>
>>>> The Spring Ebuzz from NCSBA came out on Jan 9th and has a good article on the "Live and Let Die" method of dealing with mites.  We discussed this method at our summer field day.  Dr Tarpy makes a good case that it is not a viable method for folks with fewer than 50 colonies and urges us to monitor mite pressure.  I have attached it for folks who may not be members of NCSBA. 
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> Also in the EBuzz is the agenda for the joint SCSBA/NCSBA spring meeting in York.  The line up of guest speakers and workshops looks fantastic and I have also attached that document along with a registration form.  You may also register at the SCSBA website or simply register at the door.  Preregistration will save you 10 bucks.  
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> Lewis 
>>>>
>>>>    
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>> <EBuzz Mites.pdf>
>>>>
>>>> <SCSBA Meeting.pdf>
>>>>
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>>
>>  
>>
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