Koss Russian bee setup

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Hello everyone. I have completed the instrumental insemination program for this season. Completed the insemination of queens for the VSH project. Now only test, test and test... In the photo, the queen is still under anesthesia in the machine. The circled circles in the photo are suckers with which bees can move on a smooth vertical surface. It happens that bees, when they do not accept the queen well, gnaw these suckers, and then they try to change the queen. Although she looks absolutely normal.

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

I want to show the equipment for the apiary. Honey is not the main product for me, but a nice bonus)) Recently finished pumping honey. The honey pot is an ordinary radial with 14 frames. I like the honeydew drive - it's programmable, but you can also use it in manual mode. One of the functions is to adjust the pumping speed and time. and movement to the right and left. Power supply is 12 volts, from the battery. the engine - from the stove of a passenger truck - if it breaks down, you can buy it at any car store. Now pumping out honey has become more pleasant, compared to when I turned it manually.

 

[Anaru]

if you are interested, I can tell you about my beekeeping.
I have a multi-body system for 1/2 dadan. 8 frames in 1 case.
I keep a buckfast bee and a carnic.
Every bee has its drawbacks, and buckfast has such a bad reception of larvae
for education. ( compared to other breeds I've worked with) I am working with the starter application.
For grafting, I use a homemade 0.8 mm wide spatula and a microscope. The real quality begins with a larva that is less than 12 hours old
I give the load to the colony - educator of 16 larvae.
This year I have mastered artificial insemination. The percentage of those who died was about 10%, the remaining ones feel well and work hard. This year I inseminated about 10 queens, but using different dosages of sperm and the multiplicity of insemination, I mastered the technology.

Looks an interesting setup

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

today I did an inspection of the colonies. And I took a photo. This is a clear example of good hygiene in the colony. There is a wax moth hunt going on here. Of course, the main purpose of identifying hygienic behavior is the detection and timely destruction of a sick brood in the early stages of the disease, and not arranging a moth safari))) This is for me an indirect sign that bees have this characteristic.

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Hi everybody. There was more free time and I decided to write a post. In the fall of 2022, I finally completed testing some colonies for the ability to resist the varoa tick. One colony showed very good results, despite the fact that it was not treated during the season and was additionally infected with varoa ticks. And I decided that I would be engaged in breeding varoa-resistant bees. This is just the beginning of the road, there is a lot of work to be done, ups and downs, but it really works. And I was convinced by my own experience . In the photo, a form with dolls, so as not to lose count.

 

[LQB Apiary]

I like your locking box system. Very clever

I like the handhold aspect, an easier lift. Could experiment with cutting a Langstroth down to create the corners. Not going to the shed right now though...
Working smart not hard for now. Interesting thread

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Spring. The installation time of the building frame for the drone. I prefer them to build the honeycombs themselves.
I would like to ask a question. Do queen breeders pay attention to the cultivation of drones in New Zealand?

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Some photos of the 2023 season. Last year I focused on VSH. The main part of the apiary has VSH genetics, and a control group without this trait. The difference between them is strongly felt.
For myself, I consider it a success that the colonies were left without treatment for a whole year. Only in November I underwent treatment with amitraz. (end of season)
The photographs show the process of collecting ticks to infect test colonies

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

An interesting fact from the biology of tick reproduction. The founder female produces a fecal spot in the cell. (highlighted in red oval) If she does it on the wall of the cell, then the reproduction process is happening correctly and offspring will be produced. (in the top photo, the mite reproduction process occurred correctly, until the bees felt that the cell was infected, opened it, and ate the bee pupa, thereby disrupting the mite’s reproduction cycle)
Another option is when, for some reason, the founding female makes a fecal spot on the pupa itself. In this case, the cell with the mite will not have reproductive success...

 

[Alastair]

Do queen breeders pay attention to the cultivation of drones in New Zealand?

Most do not. Part of the reason for this is the last few years we have had a very dense hive population in this country and there are normally enough drones in an area for the number of queens that will be mating. However there is anecdotal evidence of some breeders selling queens with a high incidence of them going drone layer within a year or so, and these guys may be mating thousands of queens in one area with no attention to drone production.

 

[Mummzie]

Another option is when, for some reason, the founding female makes a fecal spot on the pupa itself. In this case, the cell with the mite will not have reproductive success...

do you know any reason why that should affect the reproduction of the Varroa mite?

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

do you know any reason why that should affect the reproduction of the Varroa mite?

It is an opinion that this site is used by mites as a mating bed for reproduction. The larva and then the pupa of the bee moves into the cell as it develops, which appears to interfere with the mite's reproductive cycle

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Winter this season is quite difficult - large temperature changes. A week of frost down to -10°C, the next week up to +11°C. The average temperature is, of course, -1/+3 °C. Today I watched the bees, the clubs disbanded, they even flew around. There is still a month of winter and can make an audit and evaluate the winter hardiness of the colonies. Looking forward to an active season

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

Spring has finally arrived! Colonies are actively developing. Plum, peach, dandelion and other plants bloomed. I hope the weather will continue to be good)

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

A start has been made!) The most tedious thing about AI is collecting the semen.

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

I will continue the topic on sacbrood.
I will write in this topic, because some points in my practice will most likely be harmful to ordinary beekeepers.
As you know, I am breeding bees resistant to varroa. And before creating a topic about sacbrood, I specially isolated queen bees so that they would be mite donors. The bulk of the mite is in the brood, and this method is used to infect the test colonies.
Therefore, my experiments did not look entirely logical, after your advice it will go away on its own. And I’m used to the colonies being healthy.

As in the present study, I ended up with three groups.
Group 1 - control. A colony that has not been treated and I will observe how long it will take for this disease to disappear and will it disappear?
2. Group - the queen bees are caught in a cage and the colony is insulated and reduced.
I'm waiting for the open brood to be sealed. I will provide stimulating feeding with an antiviral drug so that adult bees do not transfer the virus back to the larva.
Group 3 - the queen bee is caught in a cage, but the colony is not reduced. And it will be without therapeutic feeding.
The cause of sacbrood.
The first reason that was pointed out was the varroa mite. Two years ago, towards the end of the season, regular bees had this behavior where the brood cell was opened at various stages of the bee's development. From larva to pupa. But in those colonies there was a lot of ticks. This behavior shows that the colony is in agony. And winter losses were more than 50%. This was at the initial stages of work and I lacked knowledge.
Now the bees in my apiary have been living without treatment for 7 months.One could assume that the reason was a tick. During the spring, the tick population should have increased. I shook the entire colony into a bucket and shook it with powdered sugar. In the end, I was only able to find 8 mites in one colony and 4 mites in another colony. And this despite the fact that almost all of the printed brood was born. This is a colony that does not have pronounced vsh characteristics.
My guess is that the colonies do not become infected from each other due to wandering drones and bees. This is why the tick population is not growing exponentially.
On the one hand, I'm glad that vsh works, but where can I get a tick for experiments?))
In general, the queens from the second group are released back into the hive. And the colonies were given an antiviral drug of plant origin.
Now we just have to wait for the brood to be sealed and watch.

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

This is the second year I have been using anatomical dots.
They are fabric based and very thin. Fits perfectly on the queen bee's chest. On such a small thing there is a letter code of the breeder and numbering up to 999.

 

[Alastair]

Very nice!

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

One of the mechanisms of resistance to the varroa mite is cell resealing. Recapping.
Bees sense a mite in the cell, open the cell, which leads to disruption of the development of the mite's reproduction cycle. The founder female leaves the opened cell and tries to reproduce in another cell. It happens that it remains in the old cell.
Unlike the vsh sign, when the bees eat the pupa, during recapping the pupa continues its normal development.
In the photo, pay attention to the nature of the closed cells. And the number of such cells.
Of course, accurate data can only be obtained by opening the brood under a microscope. Perhaps it was not a tick, but a moth.

 

[Alastair]

Yes, we have that trait here in NZ also, just, not enough. It's only fairly recently it has become talked about as opposed to normal VSH where the larva is destroyed.