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  • From: Marty Hanks <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • To: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>, NaturalBeesinNC AT yahoogroups.com, dancingbeegardens AT hotmail.com
  • Subject: [ocba] Pavlov Bees?
  • Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:54:59 -0400

Hello everyone...Hey again Mr.Conrad,
 
I wanted to share an idea-thought i had yesterday while at Leslie's helping her get set up for her bee package today. I am hoping for some feedback or ideas or links to support this idea.
 
While talking w/ her about how to use Drone frames for varroa control I had a thought about if using drone frames as a regular maintenance aspect of your hive management.... could you actually "teach" the girls to be more hygienic? Now I know that is what "hygienic bees" are supposed to be doing...but what about all the other thousands of colonies that do not have that trait yet. We hope to get there by breeding and sharing good queens, but still knowing that bees have a short life cycle could we not influence the overall colonies behavior by having them "trained" to be more hygienic?  *(the use of "trained or "teach" is just used as a general term to quickly describe my point...i have no disillusionment of circus bees  )*
 
My thought followed this same line....as i have trained my chickens to come when i call or shake a cup of feed...they run across the yard super quick. I started that when they were chicks. We know Pavlov theory works in other animals and most of the time in humans .
 
If Pavlov's "trained response" theory holds true...and we value and recognize our bees as the intelligent species they are.....maybe his theory is onto something ...could we not rotate drawn DRONE comb in and out of a hive, freeze it, scrape just the cappings and make them pull the larvae and varroa out over and over. Over a series of cycles, yes years, could this not help to create faster hygienic traits in our bees all over the world??
 
This could be out ther already...just came to me last night. So any help would be great!
 
THOUGHTS?? 
 
Marty Hanks
Just Bee, Apiaries



  • [ocba] Pavlov Bees?, Marty Hanks, 03/21/2012

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