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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>
  • To: Just Bee <marty AT justbeenc.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Bee breeding
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:21:45 -0500

There's a great article in the Nov 12 ABJ about bee breeding. (pg
1059). It's an update from the russian bee breeders.

The keys to maintaining a "pure" russian gene pool is having a diverse
russian gene pool (they maintain 3 different population blocks) and
mating in areas where there are no non-russian drones. I think I saw
something like 60 drone colonies/1000 mating nucs
http://www.russianbreeder.org/history-and-organization.html

The thing to remember is that drones and virgin queens have different
flight paths to prevent inbreeding. One group travels out, the other
travels up I think... Lookup "drone congregation areas" for more
information.

Best,
Blair


On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 5:44 PM, Just Bee <marty AT justbeenc.com> wrote:
> This idea goes to a question I had back
> at the state bee meeting. Why don't folks
> who breed queues also try to increase the
> drone count. This can be done from colonies
> Who show the positive trait you are looking
> for.
>
> I wondered if you timed your early spring split of the
> good queens or maybe the introduction of a
> new VSH or Russian queen and started them off
> In a nuc with only "drone comb" ??
>
> Wondering if 2-3 "drone" nucs around a bee yard
> From different queens would not increase your
> percentage of drones over the average 10-20%.
> After they hatched move the frames to proper
> deeps and carry on.
>
> Just a thought!
>
> Mh
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 21, 2013, at 5:20 PM, Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com> wrote:
>
> Good point and one I failed to mention. It brings us full circle back to an
> isolated area with 50 plus colonies. Flooding that area with good drones is
> as important as having good queens to breed from.
>
>
>
> Trapping mites in drone cells and culling those drones is frequently used to
> reduce mite loads in colonies with high mite loads. Culling drones in a
> mite tolerant colony is shooting yourself in the foot. You are effectively
> removing tons of great genetic material from the environment. Yet another
> reason to monitor mites in untreated colonies. Place drone comb in
> untreated colonies with low mite loads. Don't cull them. They are the
> other half of the equation.
>
>
>
> Does anyone have a good reason to not carefully monitor mite load? I'd love
> to hear it.
>
>
>
> Lewis
>
>
> On January 21, 2013 at 4:53 PM Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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:
>
> 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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>
>
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>
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