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  • From: Just Bee <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] VSH Bee Experience/Experiment
  • Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 18:34:06 -0400

Great update and follow up to earlier post.

I'll toss out a positive spin on your "non perfect" brood pattern. Maybe they
are just doing their job. The main concept of the VSH trait is to pull
infected cells. So in short a more spotty rid pattern is a good thing. :-)

Marty

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 21, 2014, at 3:15 PM, John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com> wrote:

> For those who might be interested in my ongoing experience with VSH bees.
>
> Today I did a second sugar shake on my weaker hive. The first sugar shake,
> done over 3 weeks ago, netted 5 mites. Today's shake netted only 2. The
> number is certainly going in an encouraging direction.
>
> This hive is weak because they got a later than expected start when I had
> to requeen the third week of June. When I requeened in June, I marked the
> queen since I still have difficulty spotting royalty. I thought marking
> would help. It didn't. Today is the first time that I've seen her since she
> assumed reproductive responsibilities in the hive. I was beginning to
> wonder whether she had been superseded, but thankfully she appears to be
> alive and well. So all of the bees in the colony come from VSH lineage
> rather than a diluted lineage supersedure queen.
>
> On August 15th I did a sugar shake on my stronger hive. That colony tested
> at zero mites.
>
> All in all I'm happy with the VSH bees. The nuc price was on par with
> non-VSH nucs. I have a sense that the queens might not be as robust as
> non-VSH queens. But as a first year beekeeper I'm really not in a good
> position to judge. The brood patterns aren't as tight as those that I see
> in the pretty pictures on the web. The cloud of lounging bees hanging about
> on the frames when I inspect the hives doesn't seem as dense as those shown
> in web pics or as I experienced first hand when helping some friends
> inspect their hives. But I can't complain about the varroa counts.
>
> My hands-on experience is limited to my last 3 months as a beekeeper. It
> would be interesting to have one of OCBA's experienced beekeepers take a
> look and compare overall colony health and vitality between VSH and non-VSH
> colonies.
>
>
> John Rintoul
> Mobile (919) 414-4071
> Home (919) 967-0674
>
> "The failure of one thing (is) repaired by the success of another." -
> Thomas Jefferson on gardening
>
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