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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] VSH colony
  • Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:04:47 -0400 (EDT)

I believe Extension.org does a pretty good job of explaining VSH.  For me, I believe it is best to consider VSH as a strong part of an IPM program.  It is not the silver bullet in the battle against mites and the viruses but can be an important weapon in the arsenal.  The other trick, which John has already mentioned, is verifying and maintaining the trait.  Simply purchasing a queen that was advertised as VSH does not guarantee that you actually received a VSH queen.  A queen event in your colony (swarming or supercedure) will certainly dilute or erase the trait.  As I understand it, the VSH trait is linked to 2 recessive traits.  1 trait is uncapping, the other trait is removing.  In order to score a VSH queen, your workers need to inherit both of those recessive traits, which can be a challenge.  Recent research indicates that there may in fact be 7 different genes involved.  As always, it's complicated.  Monitoring is still required, but hopefully the time between treatments can be extended.  I am doubtful that treatments can be entirely eliminated, but the monitoring will let you know if and when you reach that point.
 
It should also be noted that the Extension.org article indicates that VSH bees are much less hygienic when it comes to drone brood.  The cells that you scraped from the bottom of your frame were likely exclusively drone cells, which are of course preferred by the mites.
 
Lastly, Thank you John for paying attention to the mites.  I believe dealing with varroa is the most important aspect of maintaining a healthy colony.  I hope everyone will spend some time with this paper entitled Biology and Control of Varroa by Peter Rosenkranz.  It should be required reading for every beekeeper.  KNOW YOUR ENEMY!
 
Lewis
 

On July 15, 2014 at 1:24 PM "Starks, Walter" <Walter.Starks AT facilities.unc.edu> wrote:
> John
> I don't know if you've ever seen Don Hopkin's presentation on Verroa. One of his main points is that Verroa population will increase exponentially over time as each adult female Verroa lays several female eggs. So that by the time you start to notice their effects on the hive they may have already reached a point where they completely overcome the bees. That's what makes the sugar shakes and a good multi pronged IPM program so important. By doing constant monitoring you can establish a baseline that will hopefully show you if you have a problem when you still have time to do something about it. Hopefully with your VSH bees you will be able to avoid the need for pesticide treatments that the Verroa will probably develop a resistance to eventually anyway.
>
> Don does a much better job of describing the IPM concept than I do, but hopefully you get the gist of it. If you get the chance to see his presentation of hive pests you should make it a point to attend. I know I really got a lot out of it.
>
> ______
>
> Walter
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Jul 15, 2014, at 12:45 PM, "John Rintoul" <beecd AT icloud.com> wrote:
> >
> > Carol,
> > Thanks for your reply. I was under the mistaken impression that VSH bees cleaned out varroa infected larvae. Apparently they only clean out varroa infected pupae. So the fact that I did not find varroa in the cells with pupae is encouraging. Still it seems like a lot of varroa get to feed for free while the larva grows to the pupal stage. But I guess over time, the numbers of varroa should drop even among the sealed brood. Of course, that depends on whether the VSH queen survived her release into the hive.
> >
> > When I picked up my nucs, the VSH vendor cautioned me that I should do regular sugar shake tests just to be sure that all was going as hoped for. So regular testing is certainly in my plan. But if the varroa in the hive are only in capped brood a sugar shake will not reveal a problem.
> >
> > So VSH bees seem to be bred to keep the active, working colony virtually varroa free while accepting what to me appears to be significant losses in their prepupal and pupal population. Not the best use of biological resources, but they do apparently eat the infected pupa so the resources aren't a total loss.
> >
> > 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 Jul 15, 2014, at 10:35 AM, "flatriverfarm AT netzero.net" <flatriverfarm AT netzero.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> John,
> >> I am by no means an expert but I don't believe that just because your colony is "VSH" they won't have varroa. It just means that they have the inclination to clean up more and keep them out but that being said the amount you counted seems high so I would suggest treating at the earliest possibility.
> >>
> >>
> >> Carol Carter
> >> Flat River Farm
> >> Hurdle Mills, NC
> >>
> >>
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